thing better would be given them. faith was a lesson to me, Margaret."

Their quiet, simple

"Is the old gentleman, whom Gilbert saved, very rich?" Probably he is rich, but about the 'very' I cannot give an opinion. You are thinking he may do something for Gilbert? I have thought the same myself, and sincerely hope it may be so; Gilbert deserves all liberality at his hands. But we know nothing of the gentleman's circumstances; he may have many children and even grandchildren, and in such circumstances men are not free to dispose of their own as they otherwise might."

"But, mamma, I think he owes Gilbert some return. Think! Gilbert risked his own life for him-for him, a stranger. I shall hate him if he only give his deliverer bare thanks; of all things I detest ingratitude."

"And yet, my child, are you not sometimes very ungrateful?"

"I, mamma! I could do anything for anybody who had done something for me. All my heart goes out to people who try to do me good and make me happy. Oh, mamma! I do not like to think that you count me ungrateful. I know I do not always seek to please you as I ought; for I owe everything in the world to your love and papa's; but I mean to try, henceforth, to study your wishes better. I had set myself against going to school; but now, if papa and you think it best, I am willing to go, and I will work as hard and patiently as ever I can."

"That is my own brave Margaret! But, dearest, I was not, even in my inmost thoughts, accusing you of ingratitude to your father or to myself. There are some things we would like to see corrected, as you know right well; but you are on the whole an obedient, loving child, and we do not complain. Margaret, my love, you think the gentleman who was saved last night owes much to Gilbert, because he risked his life for him?"

"Who would not, mamma ?—and a stranger, too!" But I knew now to what the conversation tended. I saw what mamma meant.

Mamma went on :- "There was One who did more than risk His life; He laid it down not for friends, not for strangers merely, but for foes,-for those who were in rebellion against Him! That life was forfeited for you, Margaret; what return have you made?"

I could only hang down my head, and wipe away my fast rising tears. I knew that as yet I had not made the only return which my Heavenly Friend would approve and accept-I had not given Him my heart, my love! I had not presented myself a living sacrifice, as my reasonable service unto the Lord. I was not sure that I even wished to give myself up entirely to Him who was at once my King and Saviour, and I knew that the offering, to be pleasing in His eyes, must be voluntary and entire; and yet, but a few hours before, I had been on the brink of another world, and my life had been spared, while others were sleeping the sleep of death underneath those very sparkling waves on which my eyes now rested! Was my heart not hard indeed that I refused,—that I hesitated to consecrate to the merciful Sparer the life which had been snatched from a watery grave?

A little while afterwards papa came back with little Miriam in his arms. The sweet childish face was white and swollen with tears, and papa told us at another opportunity, when he and mamma and I were alone together, how she had flung herself on her dead mother's neck, and kissed the cold lips frantically, and poured out a torrent of passionate lament and farewell in French; and then how she had knelt by the sofa, as it seemed in an agony of prayer, and then how she had risen up very pale and sad, but quite calm, and even with a light shining out from her deep violet eyes,-a light of stedfast hope and perfect trust, and quiet, patient waiting,—a light that seemed to tell how the link between her and the still form upon the sofa was not broken, only loosed-for a little while.

Several days more, and we laid Mrs. Downing to rest in the peaceful churchyard of North Combe. Around her were the green hills and the breezy heights, and the solemn,

ever-changing sea, that chanted day and night its grand Te Deums to its Lord and King. And flowers bloomed upon the soft and fragrant turf, and the honey-bee hummed about the grey headstones, and the old church bells chimed out their Sabbath welcome; but she, we knew, was where there "is no more sea," and one eternal day of rest. And Miriam became to my father and mother as another daughter; and sometimes, but not always, I felt that she was my sister.

CHAPTER VII.

A ROOT OF BITTERNESS.

THAT eventful summer quickly faded into autumn. The terrible storm which had wrecked the ill-fated "Hirondelle," and which had given to the winds and waves many a gallant ship besides, seemed to have broken up the weather. For, though we had many fine days afterwards, many pleasant hours of sunny calm and still and fragrant airs, there was not one entire week in many when it did not either blow or rain, or both. The great tempest had disturbed the weather, people said, and we should have no more settled summer for that year.

But autumn came in warm, and fair, and glowing. Once more the blue waters slept under a cloudless sky, and the tide-waves broke in innocent little sprinkles of spray upon the rocks, or danced in shallow curves, like rippling smiles, upon the yellow sand. Every evening the sun went down in royal pomp, turning all the sea to liquid gold and burning crimson, that died away when the great day-god sank beneath the flushing waters into pearly amethystine levels. And now I went to school in St. Eldred's, and Miriam with me. We left home every morning at nine o'clock, and came back by half-past one to our early dinner. The afternoon classes we did not attend. The Misses Everett were very superior governesses for that day. They did not

profess to teach us practical geometry, or any of the ologies; but they taught us very thoroughly all they knew themselves, and were especially well versed in geography and ancient history, and they were perfect dragons at English grammar, and certainly understood their own language to admiration.

I at once took a high place in the school: for I had learnt much from intercourse with my father; and if the limits of my mother's teaching had been rather narrow, all she had imparted had been sound and thorough, so far as it went, and complete in its kind. Thoroughness, rather than range or brilliancy, was the principle of my education both at home and at school; and now in middle life I feel that I cannot be too grateful to those who gave me in all their strength and purity the elements of all I know, or ever shall know in this world. My Latin, too, stood me in good stead with Miss Henrietta, for, of course, I had learned to parse sensibly, and not in the haphazard fashion of many young ladies, who know for the most part a noun, or an adjective, or a verb, but flounder awfully in the matter of mood, and tense, and voice, and have no more real comprehension of syntax than syntax has of them.

Miriam, on the contrary, knew nothing about parts of speech, much less of concords and relative agreements; her geography was limited; her history not much to boast of; and she always came to grief about her sums, figures being to her little more than hieroglyphics. She was nervous, too, and very timid, and very often, from sheer embarrassment, gave a wrong answer when she really knew the right one, or paused so long, blushing and trembling all the time, that she was passed over, and marked down as a defaulter. But her French first delighted and then alarmed her governesses; for she read "Telemaque" as a story-book-the interesting parts at least; and got on into the concluding chapters, "just to see the end of it," she said-where nobody in St. Eldred's had ever been before. Everybody who studied French began "Telemaque," as surely as a person learning the rules of arithmetic went through long division; but no one ever thought of going far into the

book, or finding out what became of the son of Ulysses after a certain period.

And yet Miriam, though she cut but a very poor figure in the classes, was soon a very great favourite in the school, and I was not. The truth was, I had had my own way a great deal, simply because there was no one at home to contest it with me, and, being accustomed to be first, I could not bear in any way to be second, much less to be lowly rated, or even to be last. It was very good for me, this going to school; for Miriam naturally bent to the older girl and the stronger will, or, perhaps it would be more truthful to say, the more selfish temper: but the young ladies at Hawthorn House took Margaret Torrington precisely as she was, and sneered at her for her untidiness and hoyden ways, and even laughed unkindly at her plain and somewhat shabby dress; and when she was proud and grand, and held her head aloft, they held theirs in the same disdainful mood, and passed remarks about her in her presence that were not complimentary. So Margaret Torrington, in the first weeks of her pupilage, learnt something that she was not taught by book or in class: she learnt sundry painful but salutary lessons; she began to understand that she was held to. be uppish and ill-tempered by her companions; that she was not considered any grander or better than other girls; that her judgment was so far from infallible that very little weight was attached to it; that her friendship was not particularly sought by any one; and that, if she would be popular or even comfortable in the school, she must make herself agreeable, refrain from satire generally, and curb her jealous tendencies; lessons even more essential than history or grammar, but far more difficult to learn, and, being learned, far harder to digest. But Miriam everybody loved; even her governesses, though they grieved over her poor capacity, as they deemed it to be, spoke kindly of the child, and even petted her. I told myself that it was very unfair: it was not because she deserved it that she was made so much of, but because of her blue eyes, and golden ringlets, and delicate complexion;