no, it must have been simply, as Mrs. Mossingford had said, because she felt that only Lorisse's influence could save her son from unworthily ruining his life. And in all Lorisse's perplexity there was at least this source of comfort, that her influence these two years had elevated Ronald, and had proved a magic attraction which kept his aims pointing to honour, with perhaps no deflections. Only even this source of gratification was not unmixed, for it made some of her anticipations of a different future appear hopelessly futile.

It is wonderful to watch the moving light and shade in the ever-changing sky, or to study the liquid play of melting form and colour on the restless ocean; but how much more wonderful the delicate movements in the human heart, where sunshine and calm can give place by such imperceptible degrees to darkening shades of the wildest storms!

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CHAPTER XII.

"I confess the awful mystery of life, and the perplexity which hangs around the question-what it is, and what it all means. Nevertheless I am persuaded—as persuaded as I can be of anything in this world—that the meaning is good, and not evil,—good, I trust, to the individual as well as to the whole. ... Do not tremble at difficulties and shoreless expanses of truth, if you feel drifting into them. God's truth must be boundless."-The Rev. F. W. Robertson: Life.

ONE new fashion had set in since the Mossingfords had left Hamerton-a fashion that doubtless was quite local-of attending Divine service on Sunday evening. Magney had persistently declined preaching in the morning, though the rector often desired him, except, indeed, when Mr. Clayton was away or unwell from weakness. So those who wished to hear him were compelled to attend in the evening. On no account would

Armstrong take any course that might give the least pain to the rector.

It would be a not uninteresting study could we discover the various motives that attract people to a "popular preacher." Perhaps very many who went to hear Magney went simply because he was popular. They could have given no other account of their being there. But the having even such a small motive as this was doubtless a not inconsiderable addition to the meagre stock of what they charitably called "their reasons" for things. For those who would tumble off the world into fathomless blank, if it were not for the protection of the ruts in which they always move, are often happily preserved to the world by the formation of these customs, which enable them to know what to do with themselves on the empty Sundays of their existence, in which, but for the rut, they might be compelled to think for themselves, and meet with the sad catastrophe mentioned.

Then some attended to see the best, and the best-looking, people in the place; others, to see their clothes, and studied the congregation as

they would a book of the fashions of the seasons. Some, like Captain Jermyn, went because it was really an agreeable excitement to listen to Armstrong's fine oratory. Others, like old Boutell, for the pleasure of the bold original thinking, which was, in his experience, quite a novelty in pulpit ministrations. Others, like young Boutell, very much from a personal regard for Armstrong, and a hope of catching more of his enthusiasm; or, again, like Tam Jannings, to enjoy the week's chiefest delight, who felt his whole spiritual nature flooded with power and light. Then there were people, like Mrs. Jannings, who received strong religious influences without understanding much of the drift of the discourses, or their allusions to all sorts of subjects, theological and other, but who nevertheless always went home with quickened resolves to try to live a Christian life.

It was the second Sunday after his arrival that Ronald consented to accompany the family to their old pew in the evening. It was the fashion that had influenced him also in this decision, for Lorisse had not expressed any wish in the

matter, and, indeed, had abstained from all but the most commonplace allusions to the young clergyman. The girls always went, and Mrs. Mossingford and Arthur generally. Flora was not quite so devout in manner as her sister, but understood a good deal of what Mr. Magney intended, and often felt an elevation of spirit under the sway of his great thoughts and rich utterance. "Not a fairy prince, but an angel in disguise," said she once to her cousin Lorisse; "a strong angel, like the one he read of in the lesson last Sunday, who stood by the threshingfloor of Araunah the Jebusite; not one of the poor namby-pamby drawing-room angels, such as they put in the paintings."

This Sunday evening, as Ronald slowly walked down the sloping lane from the Hall, the fair Italian leaning on his arm, his attention was arrested at the sight of a woman clad in black, who appeared to be making her way on to church from the street in which "The Pansies" stood, and the end of which they passed going from the Hall. She carried a child in her arms, and was accompanied, apparently, by a tall, broad