"Oh ! dear mamma, do take me to see that lovely young bride, I'm sure I shall like her so much."

"I dare say we shall call at Stourton Hall before long, Katie."

Mr.

"I noticed another of your congregation, Gurling. Do you know the builder, Mr. Wilford? He positively looks as if he'd been spell-bound in that very spot near the pillar, ever since I was last at Eastown church, years ago! He wears the very same wig, and has the same solemn expression in his countenance-oh! did you notice his singing?"

"I can't say I did particularly last Sunday, but Mr. Wilford is always earnest in whatever he does," replies Mr. Gurling, who seems considerably puzzled with the "schoolgirl."

"I wish you had noticed him," continues Katie, laughing merrily. "He was 'giving out' to the full extent of his voice in a cracked treble, and there came a high note in the tune, quite out of his compass. I was wondering how he would 'take it' when he growled out a deep bass note, so unexpectedly, that I quite started. Why doesn't somebody teach him singing, I wonder?"

"I remember the tune to which you allude, Miss Thwaites," says Mr. Gurling, somewhat formally. Then he. turns to her mother,

"We were singing one of James Montgomery's hymns." "I don't think many hymns equal his,"replies Mrs. Thwaites. "I quite agree with you. Had I power to catch the tone and tune of any other man's mind, and blend it with my own, that Scottish minister's son should be my choice."

"And a very good choice too. Few can equal James Montgomery in deep feeling and genuine unsectarian piety. I wish we could all catch a little more of the tone of his mind," replies Mrs. Thwaites.

Katie, finding the conversation taken out of her hands, subsides into sudden silence.

Mr. Gurling rises soon after. "Shall I find Mr. Thwaites

in the study?

"I think so.

He has not gone out into the parish yet.” When the door is shut Mrs. Thwaites looks at her

daughter,

"Katie, my dear! you must beware-"

"Now I'm in for a lecture for flirting with the curate,' muses Katie, with quick school-girl's thought, and she turns to ask, with a slight blush on her cheek,—

"Beware of what, mamma ?”

"Beware of trying to be smart at the expense of good taste and good feeling. Never, my dear child, turn any one's worship of God into ridicule! Praise, given from the heart, however untrained and weak it may be, is more acceptable to Him than the most perfect melody could be if it only came from the lip."

"Surely, mamma, you would not call such odious singing as Jacob Wilford's 'praise?'"

Mrs. Thwaites replies gravely, as she detects a smile of ridicule still lingering on Katie's lips,

"Our best service must be only poor, tuneless, and weak in God's ears, yet He never turns away from those who give Him the earnest devotion of a trusting heart. Jacob Wilford is a worthy, humble-minded man, and gives his best, Katie. Never talk slightly of anything sacred, my child! I would not on any account have my daughter mount, even in jest, the dangerous 'seat of the scornful.'

"Oh, mamma dear! you take too serious a view of my foolish remark. I only talked on so to astonish Mr. Gurling."

"Why did you want to astonish him, Katie ?”

"Because he gazed at me in such a scrutinizing way through his goggles, like a benevolent owl peering through an ivy bush. He evidently considers me a creature of some unknown species, and has not made up his mind whether I'm tame or wild."

Mrs. Thwaites takes Mr. Gurling's part then, and says quietly,

"Mr. Gurling is never the one to ridicule any person. · He would never make the slightest remark that could savour of irreverence, or that might hurt any one's feelings. He has excellent musical taste himself, but I'm quite certain he never laughs at those who have not.”

Katie gives an invisible shrug of her shoulders, then sets herself to finish the sketch she is doing for Lenny.

When the boy comes back to the room to examine it, he finds Katie has placed an extraordinary-looking owl on the top of a ruined tower, with a pair of gigantic spectacles dexterously poised on its beak.

“Oh, Katie! what a funny bird; and I declare it puts me a little in mind of, of—”

"Puts you in mind of what?" asks his sister, laughing merrily.

"Why it looks a little like Mr. Gurling, doesn't it, Harry?"

Phlegmatic Harry comes over, and gazes at it scornfully. "How can a bird be like a man, stupid?"

Mrs. Thwaites takes the paper in her hand, despite Katie's laughing endeavours; and there the likeness is, cleverly done and unmistakable.

"Oh, Katie, Katie !"

"Don't be angry with me, dear mamma; it was only a passing fancy that I could not resist, not meant in the least for disrespect. But I wish he wouldn't look at me as though I was a mere overgrown baby. Now, Lenny, I'll paint you a better picture than that. Imagine the owl has flapped his wings and flown away," adds Katie, as she tears up the offending sketch in a dozen pieces.

Time passes on.

The pleasant summer days speed rapidly over. Autumn-with its russet and scarlet, its faded and rustling leaves, with its colder days and keener winds-comes on.

Katie sometimes grows impatient at the dull, prosaic routine of daily life in her father's house.

She longs for more excitement, for a wider circle of acquaintance, for more visiting, and for at least a few pleasant parties.

All the books in the house have been examined, she tires a little of playing with the children, her mind goes hither and thither, seeking for some interest to fill up the intense yearning for action that, though she knows it not, is a strong element in her nature.

The ceaseless monotony of the home-life wearies her. "Anything rather than this tameness," thinks she. No uncommon feeling, this. It attacks most of us ere we have found out the real duties of life; ere we fit in," as it were, into the distinct groove Providence has prepared for our special occupation.

Mr. Thwaites sees this restlessness of his daughter, and thinks he understands the cause. Her keen, clever mind, like a rich, luxurious soil that has not been well planted, is sending forth an unhealthy growth of "leaves," only "leaves"; and he longs to see the right seed cast there, knowing God can, in His own good time, give the "increase."

So he proposes daily readings with her, the subject to be one of which she seems most forgetful and sadly ignorant -namely, the teachings of the Bible.

Katie gladly agrees to this because her father wishes it, and gradually the subject becomes one of intense interest to her; she feels it is the grandest, deepest, the most sublime she has ever entered on.

She likes to ask her father questions, and hear his opinion; she can grasp all he tells her in theory, but not yet has she learned the deeper lessons that reading is designed to give. Her father watches, and waits, and prays the Holy Spirit will ere long come to her with His guidance and light.

N

M

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ALICE AND KATIE.

R. and Mrs. Thwaites take their daughter with them when they call at Stourton Hall, and Alice, sitting all alone in her great drawing-room-looking cold, isolated, and nervous--tries to entertain them graciously.

But there is an evident restraint in her manner, as though she is not quite her own mistress, and hardly knows how far to extend her welcomes.

"Stanley is somewhere in the grounds, I believe. He was here only a few minutes ago. Shall I send out, and try to find him ?”

"Oh, pray don't disturb him!" exclaims Leonard, who strongly suspects his being out of the way just then may not be altogether accidental.

"We have not long to stay, for we are going back to Eastown by the road," adds Gertrude. "I hope your

friends at Grey Towers are well ? "

66

'Quite well, thank you; but I'm sorry to say I seldom see them now."

"Indeed! I should have fancied the stroll over there through the fields would have been very pleasant."

"Oh, yes, very nice! But it is not a question of distance that prevents my seeing my friends. Philip still comes here sometimes."