should show "pluck," and prove that he was thoroughly a man. Perhaps, too, he did not greatly dread a fatal accident. A fling from a wild horse, or a wandering grave under the salt waves, was not so far from his mind. The past had been so full of the rush of a strong happy life, and the future now began to fill him with such dark presentiments of failure, that he would not unwillingly find an honourable end to life. And really he had already lived a long life in twenty-eight years. How little of all this did Boutell guess as they made the Alpine solitudes merry with their laughter last autumn; how little of it all could any one in Hamerton yet guess. And so we all mingle together, and think each other very understandable, and perhaps commonplace, while each life is a mystery, and perhaps a tragedy.

Armstrong passed down the old High Street towards the new part of the town. High Street pleased him much better than its wide, fashionable continuation, Broad Street, with houses all alike, with stucco fronts, and shops glittering with plate-glass, the route leading near to his

church, and on to the railway-station. High Street was old and picturesque. There were one or two gabled fronts in it; the low first-floors of two or three of the old houses projected over the narrow pavement, and were supported on wooden columns. The houses were of all sorts and sizes, and some were set at inconvenient angles. Several houses of gentry and of professional men put in their quiet appearance, with dainty bits of garden, between old-fashioned houses of business. 'Twas more pleasant to Armstrong's eyes than the modern style of keeping all things in batches of monotonous similarity; batches of shops, with tradespeople all cast in one moderately excellent commercial mould; batches of semi-detached villas, inhabited by the same class of clerks; and batches of detached villas, by the same class of rising or retired traders. Armstrong was ready enough to allow the advantages of these and various other improvements of our prosperous civilization; but there was something in it that displeased him nevertheless, and so he had chosen his lodgings down a side street in the old part of the town, just where the fields began.

As he passed the handsome new-built premises of the old Hamerton Bank, and turned down towards his street, Alfred Boutell stepped out, and quietly slipped his arm through Armstrong's.

"You are going in? May I come with you ? I want to see your friend's painting, which you said had arrived on Saturday."

"I shall be most glad, my dear fellow. I want to know if you can endorse my opinion of Harvey's work. How do you get on with the essay ?"

"Oh, pretty well; they were astonished at home that I should give a public lecture, and to a lot of workmen. The governor did not half like it; thought it was lowering one's-self; but he says, if it's to oblige you, he don't mind. By the bye, do you know you compel the governor to spend an extra hour in office on Saturdays ?" "No; I can't guess your riddle."

"Why, he used to do a lot of his calculations, so he says, on Sunday nights; but since you have been preaching, he can only employ so profitably the mornings."

It was pleasant to hear Boutell's merry laugh,

and Armstrong would have been more than mortal if he had not felt some gratification. "But," thought he, "what's the use of my tickling old Boutell's ears, if I can't stir his heart?" But then he remembered his influence over the fine young fellow at his side, and not without some sense of awe reflected that he had saved him probably from a life of vicious extravagance.

The room into which Armstrong ushered his friend was a little remarkable. Three of the walls were hidden with well-filled book-shelves, except where a door let through into the bedroom. This one large room served Armstrong for library, and reception-room, and studio. An easel stood in one corner, but it held a finished painting in oils, partially covered up, not Armstrong's; he had no time for painting, except a little in water-colours, about which he only knew enough to appreciate the difficulties of making flat canvas flush with the colour and life of nature, and perhaps enough to know good painting when he saw it. In one of the windows stood a stand of flowers. The centre window had been enlarged, and led with doors into a

garden. The doors were usually open night and day. Between the windows were several oilpaintings, without frames.

Armstrong, with a touch of reverence, removed the covering from the new painting.

Boutell broke the silence. "By Jove, what a face! What concentrated force of endurance and scorn! Look at the passion in that clenched hand; the iron links can't tame it. And what fire in the eyes! Yes, Prometheus looked just so. But there was something of the devil in the artist when he painted that, or "

"Something of God," quietly said Armstrong. "Every good gift is from the Father of lights, and my friend's gift is good, and very wonderful. God's light-the fire of goodness-should burn into every heart that feels the power of this painting. Does not the Scripture say that Beza-leel and Aboliab were filled with the Spirit of God, to devise cunning work in gold and silver, and to carve in wood? Surely as much are our artists inspired now, seeing that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

Perhaps neither Armstrong's thought was rest