was a little garden upon one side, beautifully kept, and full of flowers; and there were beehives, whose humming inhabitants drew from these flowers honey, as beauteous, pure, and sweet, as ever flowed from Hybla.

The little boy thought this place a perfect fairy-land. He was never tired of wandering among the bowers of sweet-peas, bushes of lavateras, and hedges of larkspurs; of watching two little tame gulls, that ran about among the flower-beds, or the bees at their work upon a sunny afternoon.

The little loaf, the pure delicate honey, his own little cup, saucer, and plate-was anything ever so delightful?

He loved that old lady, so mild and so kind, with her snow-white hair rolled up under her widow's cap; her plain black gown and white handkerchief pinned so quaintly over her bosom.

Mr. Prior used to leave him with her while he went out for about an hour; but he was never tired of being with her.

She used to talk to him in a simple, pious way, and turn his little thoughts to duty and

to God. The seeds which Calantha had planted sprung up to bear good fruit under this gentle teaching.

The old lady was grave and melancholy, it is true; but what cared he? children do not dislike gravity, and even melancholy, in those so much older than themselves; it is ill-humour, querulousness, and complaint, that weary and alienate them.

Prior was gone during these absences to visit his unhappy sister, who lived under the care of a stout, kind-hearted woman, in a cottage yet more secluded than his mother's, about a mile higher up the vale. It was a matter of great expense and difficulty to keep her in this private way; but every sacrifice was made to the sacred insane-the stricken in the core.

He looked upon her with a compassion, the intensity of which could be only equalled by its justice. He insisted upon a treatment of the greatest tenderness and kindness; he felt that we know not what vague torturing wants and wishes, ill understood by those around, and impossible for the suffering to explain, might

be lurking under the apparent caprices of these unhappy ones, and goading them to those exhibitions of violence, or sulkiness of temper, which render them, alas! so troublesome and unamiable.

The poor thing was all this; but by him she was never thought either troublesome or unamiable. He had an inexhaustible well of pity and compassion ever springing up within his heart for her.

He used to come home from these expeditions looking grave and sorrowing, and his mother would meet him looking grave and sorrowing too; then they would exchange mournful looks; then he would kiss his mother; and then they would sit down to tea together, cheered by the presence of this little child, who was become so dear to both.

Thus did the influences of goodness, tenderness, and love, display themselves in this humble condition.

CHAPTER XI.

"How e'er it be, it seems to me

'Tis only noble to be good;

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

And simple faith than Norman blood."

TENNYSON.

I HAVE lingered longer than I intended upon this picture.

It has been to me most pleasant to reflect upon all the wide, diffused influences of a thoroughly good and able man, exercised, as I have said, in so humble a station.

The earth, in its obscure corners, holds many, many such.

Blessed spirits! following the steps of their Divine Master, "who went about doing good."

Calantha received her little boy, when his

half-year's absence had expired, with a beating heart.

He found her much paler and thinner than he had left her; but she was astonished and delighted at the improvement which had taken place in him.

They had been separated for five months, during which he had seen neither Calantha nor Alice. She, poor thing! had been in London for advice, and thence to the sea; and had but just returned to Mordaunt Hall, when the little boy came home for the holidays.

She returned exhausted by suffering, and by the various remedies which had in vain been tried by the most skilful in the profession, in the fruitless attempt to cure this obscure complaint. Wearied with the ineffectual struggle, sick of hopes so often cheated, she had returned home, resigning herself in patient sweetness to the will of Him who had appointed her crosssubmitting in faith to His appointments, and substituting the better and unseen hopes for those flattering visions of earthly happiness which it is so hard for youth altogether to sur