BECKTHORPE-CUM-OAKLEIGH.

YRIE Eleison" thrilled the mournful

"KY

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tralto voices, "Kyrie Eleison" joined in the clear tenors, "Kyrie Eleison" rolled the deep bass notes, "Kyrie Eleison" was the mighty wail of the full orchestra, "Kyrie Eleison" shivered my sad heart, for indeed I was very sad, and well I knew that so were others around me.

Not that the apparent surroundings were sorrowful, for if I describe them you will say they were pleasant enough. On the evening of which I write I was listening to the performance of Mozart's Twelfth Mass, conducted by Edouard Carré, and all who love music will say I should have been happy then. Besides, Mamma was there, and Papa, Maude and little Ethel even; I was hearing grand music, which I loved better than any earthly thing, with those around me whom I loved better than any earthly beings.

Why then should I be sad? why should they be sad?

We loved music, all of us, deeply and passionately; still more though we loved each other. Now for

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the last time, before we should be parted for the first time, we were hearing it together.

Till twelve months before this January evening we had been wealthy people, not nouveaux riches, for my father's family was an old one, a merchant family it is true, but old and honourable, bearing a proud Flemish name. Misfortunes had come on the great house of Courtray, and my father's strict honour made him willing to give up everything rather than that others should suffer.

Thus in the autumn of 18- we who had lived a bright life on our own beautiful estate in Herefordshire, found ourselves still living a bright life, (for were we not all together?) though in a small villa in Streatham.

We girls grieved sadly in our hearts to leave the handsome old baronial Hall, that had been so long in our family, bought by our great Flemish ancestor, from an impoverished English nobleman, generations before. In the rich autumn afternoon we made farewell visits to our favourite haunts. First to the rookery behind the chapel, where the wise old rooks had so often joined in our morning and evensong. Ankle deep in russet leaves, we went up the avenue in the wood, whose trees made arches over our heads, where Maude always would sing "The Sounding Aisles of the Greenwood," as she went so perseveringly to draw the bridge by the ruined Keep. How well I remember her first attempt, a feeble, shaky pencil sketch it was; and her pride when she brought mamma a florid and very verdant crayon drawing of it. How we laughed one summer morning when

Papa read from our local newspaper at breakfast, "Miss Courtray's beautiful water-colour, Our Own Old Bridge" is a lovely little painting, one of the charms of the exhibition. She is very young, but we have to thank her for a piece of autumn colouring that would not disgrace the pencil of a mature artist. The narrow lane to the right makes you long to see where it leads to, while the sere leaves which lie so thick on the pathways leading through the wood, tempt you to brush amongst them; you can fancy you hear their crisp rustle. The drawing too is so excellent, that we feel inclined to leave to other critics the discovery of faults."

We laughed with the pleasure, but tears sprang to our eyes; Maude's brimmed over, indeed, when Papa, kissing her, drew out and showed us the feeble pencil sketch, which he had kept in his pocket-book many a day.

We had to walk for the last time along the cloisters which led to the chapel from the Hall, to sing, for the last time there, the grand old Latin hymns, that we two girls used to sing many an evening as we paced those arches.

Once more we trod the Terrace where, on soft summer evenings, Maude and I had loitered for hours, I pouring out to my sister the thoughts, grave or gay, that filled my mind. For as Maude expressed her ideas by painting, so I, in my confused and girlish fashion, tried to fix mine by writing. But I had not Maude's power, still less had I her quiet perseverance in conquering difficulties. What a crowd of thoughts used to float through my brain!

Some with soft grey pinions, misty and undefined, waving round me; sometimes drawing so near that I could perceive gleams of golden beauty and passionate purple. Stretching out eager hands to seize them, they would glide from my grasp ere I could secure them. The deep purple would die into grey mistiness, the gleams of golden thought fade from my view, leaving only their light on my spirit. "Not for me, I would say, (never very sadly,) and as they passed away, the eager hands turned them once more to their woman's work; cheerily thankful I was that God had given me so many gifts by which I could help to make our happy home still happier.

Bravely we managed to look on our pretty rooms for the last time; on Maude's real studio, on the paintings which had given us such ever fresh delight. We kept for Mamma one sunny Cuyp which she loved. Unknown to Maude, we kept for her a beautiful Rossetti; had she known our purpose, she would have prevented us, but she could not prevent the flush of gladness which rose on her sweet face when she found it hung in her little room at Streatham.

We fairly broke down when we went into the chapel, in which, as long as we could remember, we had met morning and evening for prayer.

We sat down thinking of the time when we were wee children, before Ethel was born, and we used to sit on the two little chairs, which were still in the chapel, and Papa used to play the hymns on the wheezy old organ. I remembered how I used to think that I could hear the angels joining in our hymn, until

one morning I suddenly found out that it was Mamma's voice, I had mistaken all the time. Oh me, the happy times were gone! I should never again play the tunes while the others joined in the glad hymns of praise!

"Just play the Evening Hymn for the last time, Alice," whispered Maude; "it will do us good to sing it now."

How drearily the notes rose from the old organ! Ghostly and wailing they sounded through the empty chapel. But we sang on till we came to the last

verse ;

"Come near and bless us when we wake,

Ere through the world our way we take."

"Oh,Maude! I can't, I can't leave our dear old home." Jumping up, I flung myself down before Mamma's chair, burying my head in the cushions; for the first time in any one's presence, I shed a shower of tears. Maude's voice tried to comfort, but it would not do; the words quivered into silence; kneeling down before the little altar, she too wept bitterly.

Of course, she first grew calm, and spoke soothing words to me.

"Alice, darling, you have been so bright and brave, and have borne us all up so strongly; now is my turn to help."

"Oh, Maude! I always give way just when I ought to be strongest, while you keep your tender strength throughout. Don't let Papa and Mamma know, I want them to think we mind but little."

"But, Alice, I do not think they can ever be made to think that, only I know it must be a comfort that