left us a hundred a year, or fifty pounds a year, what a comfort it would have been. Nay, had she only bequeathed us enough money to keep a second servant to help poor Sarah, the drudge, or even given us a few pounds to buy the children warm winter clothes and new shoes, I should have been so thankful. Leonard won't feel the disappointment as I do. He has none of the miserable, carping, fretful cares that come so heavily into a woman's lot. He has never to sit among the children as I must, listening to their peevishness, correcting their faults, and striving to satisfy their wants. Why a single month of that sort of thing would make him as weary as I am sometimes.

"He won't even have time to fret about being disinherited. What with his books and writing, his classes and parochial visiting, his lectures and sermons, his meetings and vestries, he has never a minute to sit down and repine and fret.

"Then, I don't believe Leonard really cares about money; he is the most unworldly man I ever met with. I have no patience with him sometimes; even now I verily believe his spirit of resignation will shine out all the more brightly from having had this wretched disappointment about Aunt Hetty's will. Oh, I wish more of Leonard's spirit was mine."

Here Gertrude's train of thought is brought to a sudden stop, for a louder clamour than usual bursts forth from the boys that calls for immediate maternal interference.

"Lenny, Lenny, stop that noise! Your shrill voice goes through my ears like a rasp," exclaims she, turning quickly towards the window where the delinquents are still arguing noisily.

"Mamma, it's all Harry's fault; he's spoiling the Punch's show and hurting my puppets. If he'd only have patience I'd soon show him how to pull the strings properly."

"You are both tired of the game, so give it up. Harry, clear away that rubbish on the floor, and Lenny come

here and hold Maud for a few minutes while I go down and see what Sarah is doing; I'm sure it must be nearly teatime."

But baby Maud has no notion of being disposed of in that summary manner; she sets up a loud shriek the moment her brother touches her, while Lotty clings to her mamma's skirts like a little burr.

"Tiresome children, all of you!" exclaims Mrs. Thwaites, with unwonted impatience, as she sets herself to soothe Maud into quietness again.

With the news of the unjust will still ringing in her ears, disturbing the current of her thoughts and vexing her heart; the nursery worries press on her with increased weight, and she murmurs wearily to herself,

"Even Leonard would lose his patience among these children."

Yet nothing can be more tender than her soothing of the fractious little one, or softer than her voice as she coaxes and hushes it to bring its wails to silence. Some words she has lately met with rush into her memory at the moment: she repeats them, half aloud, as though they had been a nursery rhythm, and they bring calmness to the child by the low music of her voice, and quiet to herself by the deep earnestness of their teaching,

“O earth, so full of dreary noises !

O men, with wailing in your voices !
O delved gold, the wailer's heap!
O strife, O curse that o'er it fall!
God makes a silence through you all,
And giveth His beloved sleep."

Presently Sarah taps briskly at the door. She has put on a clean white apron, fresh in its folds, and pure as country washing can make it; her face is polished to its utmost shining power, and she smiles knowingly as she lays a letter on the table.

"From Miss Katie, ma'am. Don't I know the dear

young lady's handwriting as well as my own?

Please,

ma'am, all my work's done except just getting the tea ready and making the master's slice of toast."

"Then I'll manage that, Sarah, while you stay here with the children. I'll call you all down to tea presently. Maudie's a good, quiet little pet now, and won't cry any more."

"I'll take care she don't cry, ma'am; she's always satisfied when she's with me-the dear, precious, little duck of diamonds."

The nursery term of endearment-whatever it may mean - seems to pacify Maud, who lets her mamma depart now without a murmur.

CHAPTER II.

IN THE STUDY.

ERTRUDE puts the letter from her eldest daughter into her pocket unopened. The reading of Katie's letters is always a pleasant employment, so she reserves its perusal as a special treat for Leonard and herself when they are once more alone together.

Then Mrs. Thwaites sets herself about the duties proposed. Under her nimble, well-trained fingers the dining-room table speedily shows forth preparations for the children's meal-mugs of sops for the little ones, milk and water, and thick slices of bread, with a thin coating of butter, for the big boys.

Next she lays out a small tray that just holds a dainty tea-set, azure, and white, and gold-one of the few remaining, long-ago marriage presents given her when she became the curate's bride. The tray holds also a plated rack of cold toast, and a pat of butter, enough for her husband's and her own frugal meal.

As she moves nimbly about her occupations, one might observe her face has resumed its usual hopeful look, her clear brown eyes are bright and pleasant as ever. Mrs. Thwaites is a busy, active little woman, with a genial face and trim figure, a well-shaped head, and glossy dark brown hair. She possesses a great deal of that useful gift the Americans call "faculty," for she can put her hands to most

things, and is not ashamed to confess it. From training the church choir at the harmonium to making her children's clothes, or cooking her husband's dinner, nothing seems to come amiss to her; she is equal to any duty in parlour, study, or kitchen. Gertrude's is an industrious, helpful, many-sided experience. Not often is she so depressed as we have seen her on her first appearance on the scene; but then, as she says herself, "Aunt Hetty's odious will was enough to put any one out of patience."

Mrs. Thwaites fancies her husband has felt no disappointment as she has done; but here she is mistaken, and proves the truth of the saying that we never really know our dearest friends. There are heights and depths in Leonard's character that she, with all her clear-sightedness, with all her love and reverence for him, has never been able to understand and fathom.

The tidings have strangely unsettled the curate. When his wife leaves the study that afternoon, he returns at once to his books of reference. He looks up and down the pages to hunt out the testimony of learned men who have left their ideas on the very question he is endeavouring to decide; but, somehow, he finds the thread of his research is tangled and confused. His ideas have been disturbed, and he cannot settle them down again. More than once he finds himself leaning on the table with his face buried in his hands. Glimpses, and scenes, and echoes from the past flash into his memory with a vividness he cannot repress. In imagination he is once more at Grey Towers with Aunt Hetty, Tom Burges, and Ralph.

Tom is a very black sheep indeed amongst them in those days; he is nobody's favourite-least of all, Aunt Hetty's.

His grasping, avaricious, mean ways are all well known to both Leonard and his aunt. Tom does many things for money's sake that a more scrupulous man would shrink from with horror. Ever planning, ever trying to accomplish his own ends, he cares little who comes to the ground in the