A QUESTION OF TIME.

E mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one,

Yet the light of a whole world dies.

When love is done."

-Bourdillon.

There was no doubt about it, things were in a very bad way; even tale four-year-old Elsie realized this, and her big, serious, en ens grew bigger and yet more serious as she listened to her 2000ers sary of the existing state of affairs. She held his and ven tight, for whatever trouble might be impending, he Love you was their helper and protector; besides he needed all ber gym uchi, and even a little four-year-old knows when her brother a sek g with a up in his throat, and is winking hard to keep Axis ars e was only nine years old himself, this helper and www. der Hubert was quite alive to his responsibilities; he was two years older than Reggie and five years older than Elsie, exer de wisdom of his added years must be used for their "se"." he said, "has killed my last rabbit, the grey Nire ears we called Togo; she is making soup or serving of it now; I'm sure I won't have any of it," and two Ng ces overdewed in spite of all his hard winking.

De A" the others, too, I wonder?"

" worn to disappear awfully sudden," said Reggie; "I

༄༄ ་ ་།་

Muse we did and we ate them," said Hubert tragically. Tort de Nord" sed Reggie.

Net Opica borrid," echoed Elsie.

Met sady, "She isn't really horrid, and she Mos C ́t have ceret it she hadn't been obliged. She is quite sorry er of fact"

mprosyred Fisie.

copied the boy, "that the butcher won't bring Axe Pere's no money to pay for it, now father is

'Why can't she get us some fish then," interrupted Reggie; ".it would do as well as rabbit."

"There's no money to pay for fish, either, and I heard the milkman say that he wouldn't bring us any more milk after this week, the farmer won't let him, and there's no more coals for father's fireand he must have a fire-in fact, there's no money for anything, and father is no better; he is going to die soon, and we shall have to be beggar-children and beg scraps at people's back doors, and sleep under the hedges. And it's only six weeks till Christmas!"

"What shall we do, Hubert?" Reggie had grown very white, and Elsie, thoroughly awed by the look on her brothers' faces, began to cry softly, clinging to Hubert.

"Don't cry, Elsie," said the boy gently; "it will only make us more miserable. Come, I will take you to Priscilla; we will go and ask her how father is to-day-the doctor has just been to see him."

The trio marched slowly off to the kitchen,-it was bright and warm there, and they were all rather thankful for the comfort of Priscilla's presence, after their doleful council.

"How's father now, Priscilla?" asked Hubert.

"Ther, don't ee ask I," answered Priscilla, a hale, rosy-cheeked old Dorsetshire woman, as she wiped Elsie's eyes with her apron; who's bin vexin' of my little maid? What have thee bin doin' to she?"

Nothing, Priscilla; please tell us about father "

She kissed Elsie's damp little face and lifted her on to her knee. Zeemin to I, Master Hubert, he be mortal bad, he be, an' doctor, he can't do no more fur un. Gie un plenty of milk wi' brandy in it." says ee. 'Lard love ee, Doctor,' says I, we ain't got no brandy. 'Well, well,' zays ee, 'if he's got any vriends you better. zend fur 'em, fur it be only a question of time,' ee zays."

What did he mean by that, Priscilla?"

"Ther, Master Hubert, I never axed he," and the woman gave him a significant look, as she stroked Elsie's brown curls with a loving touch.

"We have no friends," said Hubert miserably, "so we can't send for them; we have no uncles and aunts, like other children. I have heard father say so often. Oh, why did he go and get three children like us if he meant to die and leave us all alone! Couldn't another doctor make him better, or somebody? What can we do, Priscilla?" "Do?" echoed Priscilla; "you can't do nothin', you can't-poor

little forlorn zouls, that's what you be; zeemin' to I, ther's nothin' left fur ee but to call on the Lard to zend ee help, as Christians should (though I don't know if I can call ee Christians), you should go down on your bended knees, I tell ee, an' zeek fur a vriend in the Almighty."

'Why, God, of course; thee don't go fur to tell I thee doesn't know who He be?"

"I never heard of Him," said the boy simply; "but do you really think He would help us if we asked Him?"

"Yes, he'd help thee, zure enough."

"You don't think father would object, do you? He's rather particular about these things, and I don't think he knows Him," said Hubert.

"Can't zay," answered Priscilla dryly; "but the Lard He knoweth he as He knoweth aäl; zheep an' lambs we be, an' aäl God's children."

"Well, we'll ask Him anyway. I only wish we had known about Him before; Reggie and me will go and see Him."

"Thee can't see He, bless ee; He be in Heaven, He be, t'other zide of the zdars."

"But how can we ask Him if we can't see Him?"

"The Lard He heareth aäl as call upon Him, so thee must tell He what thee wants; thee must pray to He wi aäl thee heart”—and Priscilla rose hastily and stirred her soup and ran off to answer her master's bell, which had just rung.

"What on earth does she mean by that, Reggie?" asked Hubert. "Don't know," said Reggie; let us go down on the shore now, till dinner time, and find some shells for Elsie." Silent and thoughtful the children took their hats and went out.

Upstairs, in a room flooded with mellow winter sunshine, which streamed in through the wide open casement, lay the stricken father, whose illness had plunged the little trio into such dire straits. Philip Maitland was very ill-too ill and weak to care what happened to him, and he lay passive and apathetic on his bed, waiting for the end. That it was to be the end in every sense of the word he had no doubt; the fact, as he deemed it, was as certain as the end itself, and the thought of a possible "hereafter" had never exercised his mind through his long hours of sickness, to cheer or depress him. He was about forty-five years of age, and the best years of his life so far had

been spent in the cause of atheism, in vigorous protest, by word and pen, against the belief in the existence of a God, and in the immortality of the soul. In his youth he had been devoted to the study of science, and in his university days he found his mest congenial companions in the set that declared itself for free thinking and agnosticism. He drank deeply at the poisoned wells of false philosophies; with Haeckel he early solved "The Riddle of the Universe," or he thought it as good a solution as he was ever likely to get. He sat at the feet of Huxley and Darwin, and on the specious theory of evolution he imagined he had breasted the high tidal wave of scientific knowledge which had landed him high and dry on the lofty heights of pure reason, far above the demoralizing influences of religions and the din of petty creeds. Here Socialism found him, and saw in him a man ready primed for the work of her dire mission. To some she sends prophets and to some apostles, but the man who has served his time in the laboratory, who has dabbled in chemistry and physics and kindred subjects, who has laid hold of a false science, not the handmaid of religion, but a but a heathen deity; that man she sends to the press, that writing he may deliver the tenets of her creed to the reading public, as a leaven to work its way into the mass of society. And truly he had served her well with his pen; and in his own special work as teacher of chemistry in a London College, he had not been unmindful of her interests; as a lecturer, too, he was well known and greatly in request.

These were his palmy days, his best days, when life held many good things for him; when enjoying in a full measure the blessings of a beneficent Creator, he said in his heart "there is no God," and taught his wife and little ones the doctrines of atheism. In his wife, however, he had had a disappointing pupil; she was never more than half convinced at any time, and before her death she had plunged back into the abyss of superstition, in spite of all he could say. Poor Mary! The want of logic in the feminine mind is always a thing to be reckoned with. He was thinking of poor Mary now, as his weakening mind wandered back over the past, and he remembered how, with her last breath, she had commended her children to God. She might have known that he would never allow his children to learn any of the pernicious doctrines of any religion; he had made himself almost their only companion in order that he might keep their minds free and uninfluenced, and he had been, so far, their only teacher; now-Perhaps when they heard of his death, some

of his old friends would look after his children and bring them up in the right way. Anyway, it was the duty of the State to look after them, but his heart grew sore as he thought of them, with their bright intelligence and their quaint grown-up way of talking. It seemed to him now that the loss of their mother had been the beginning of all his troubles. She died when Elsie was two years old, and soon after that ill health came upon him, beginning with a bad attack of influenza. He had pneumonia, and then some trouble in his throat which became chronic and obliged him to give up his mastership in the college. At last his doctor began to throw out hints about phthisis he might develop tubercular laryngitis, so he advised him to betake himself into purer air and warmer sunshine, to get into the country and live out of doors as much as possible. He left London immediately, and after a little seeking he obtained a post of assistant master in a small market town on the south coast; and about three miles distant, in a fair and smiling country, where the green pastoral lands of Dorset merge into the richer and more verdant fields of Devon, within sound and sight of the blue waters of the channel, he found an old-fashioned cottage and made it his home. For a time all had gone well, his health improved wonderfully and he spent many happy hours with his children, showing them, little town mice that they were, the wonders of the country. What brought on the attack of pleurisy that laid him low he never rightly knew, but it was a very bad attack, and complicated, after a time, with other troubles. It was many weeks before the dangerous symptoms had subsided, and long before that his salary from the school had stopped. A few pounds owing to him for literary work were spent almost as soon as received, so that when, with good nursing and unlimited nourishment he might have been shortly declared convalescent, he sank into a state of such extreme debility that his case became very grave. Now the last sovereign was gone, and the rent was long overdue; there was hardly the most ordinary food for the household, and nothing for the invalid of any nutritive value, no stimulant to feed the vital flame which burned so feebly within him. He was hoping now that he might die before they were turned out of their home to take refuge in the stony arms of the neighboring union-but there! What did it matter after all; there was only misery for him, misery and suffering wherever he was until the end!

A fit of coughing had disturbed his musing, and he had sum