the Barber Sand. She was discovered at daybreak with no signs of life unless a huddledup dark spot at the foot of the mizen might be a human being still alive. The small life-boat, the Godsend, was launched and taken as near as was safe to the edge of the sand, now a shallow mass of seething foam. Over went two or three of the beachmen and fought their way through the surf to the wreck; they found the sole survivor lashed to the foot of the mizen and insensible. He was cut loose, and half carried, half dragged, back to the boat and to the shed, where a little rum, friction, and heat gradually restored him.

The writer hopes that from this article the reader may have gained a tolerably correct idea of the general build and appearance of

the lifeboats of all three types, and perhaps a keener appreciation of the heroism of the lifeboat-men and the value of their service, and if, when sitting by a cosy fire enjoying your creature comforts, the sound of the howling wind outside should turn the reader's thoughts to the raging sea, and the scenes of peril and rescue that may at that moment be taking place round our coasts, may it also have the effect of turning a portion of the stream of his or her charity towards John Street, Adelphi, Strand, London, the offices of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, where it will be thankfully received by the courteous secretary Mr. Charles Dibdin, whose very name seems to carry with it a smack of the sea and sea songs.

CHARLES J. STANILAND, R.I.

CHAPTER XIII.

ZRA walked home and sat there alone until evening. His housekeeper routed him from his armchair for dinner and tea, and at each meal he made a feeble pretence of eating and drinking, and having been scolded for his poor appetite, went back to his old place. He sat there till the room was dark, scarcely moving, but wearing no very noticeable sign of pain or trouble. The story was so old, and the misfortune it related was so long past mending! He had been grey himself these many years, and the things which surrounded him and touched him had long since shared all his own want of colour.

There was no relighting these old ashes. And yet in defiance of that avowed impossibility they seemed now and again to glow. They warmed him and lighted him back to a perception of lost odour and dead colour. They stung him into some remembrance of the pain of years ago. And then again they were altogether cold and lifeless.

He said vaguely in a half-whisper that it was a pity; and the phrase rose to his lips a hundred times, oftener than not an utterance purely mechanical, and expressing neither regret for Rachel nor for himself, nor sorrow for their division. When he was not thinking of her or of himself, he murmured that this was how it had come to pass, and did not seem to care or feel at all.

When the gloom was deepening in Ezra's ill-lit chamber, though the light of the summer evening still lingered outside, the housekeeper came in and drew the blinds, and left behind her a single candle, which left the room as dusky as before. Shortly after this Reuben came in, and Ezra, nodding, signed him to a chair. The young man took a seat in silence.

"Well, lad," said his uncle, when to the young man the continued stillness had grown almost ponderous. The seconds had seemed to drop one by one upon him from the audible ticking of the old clock in the next room, each with an increasing weight of embarrassed sympathy.

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"Well, uncle?" returned Reuben, trying to speak in his ordinary way, and only succeeding in sounding shamefully flippant and unsympathetic to his own ears.

"I've a mind to have a talk with you," said Ezra. "Is the door shut?"

Reuben rose to see, and murmuring that it was closed, resumed his seat. He waited a while in expectation that his uncle was about to confide in him.

"When beest going to make up your mind to pluck up a courage and speak to Ruth?" the old man asked.

"To Ruth, sir?" returned Reuben. The question staggered him a little. "To Ruth," said Ezra.

"I have spoken," answered Reuben. are going to be married."

"We

"That's well," the old man said, mildly. "But I looked to be told of any such thing happening. Thee and me, lad, are all as is left o' th' old stock i' this part o' the world."

"Don't think I should have kept you ignorant of it," said Reuben. "I only knew this morning. I have not seen you since till now."

"Well, lad, well," said Ezra, "I wish thee happy. But I'm sure you know that without need of any word o' mine. I asked because I meant to give out a bit of a warning agen the danger of delay. Theer's not alone the danger of it, but sometimes the cruelty of it. It's hard for a young woman as has been encouraged to set her heart upon a man to be kept waitin' on the young man's pleasure. You see, lad, they'm tongue-tied. Perhaps"-he offered this supposition with perfect gravity-" perhaps it's the having been tongue tied afore marriage as makes

some on 'em so lively and onruled in speech when marriage has set 'em free.”

There was a definite sense in Reuben's mind that the old man was not saying what he wished to say, and this sense was strengthened when Ezra, after moving once or twice in his seat, cleared his throat and began to walk up and down the room.

"Had you read that letter as you brought to me this morning, lad?" he asked, coughing behind his hand, and trying to speak as if the thing were a commonplace trifle.

"I read it, because I thought that it must be addressed to me," said Reuben. "I had written to Ruth, and she told me to look in Manzini for her answer. I found nothing but that letter in the book."

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'Why how was that?" asked Ezra, without turning towards him.

"Her own note had been taken away before I got the book." Reuben felt himself on dangerous ground. It was unpleasant to have to talk of these things, and it looked impossible to reveal Rachel's eccentricity to Ezra, knowing what he knew.

up

"Ah!" said Ezra, absent-mindedly. "You read the letter then!" He went on pacing and down. "You understood it?" "I-seemed to understand it," said Reuben. Ezra came back to his chair and seated himself with a look of half resolve.

"Reuben," he began, in a voice pathetically ill-disguised, "it was something of a cruelty as that letter should ha' been found at all after such a lapse o' time. The rights of the case was these. As a younger man than now I was six-an'-thirty at the time -I wrote to-I wrote an offer of myself in marriage to a person as was then resident i' this parish. The day but one after I wrote I had to go up to London to see to some affairs as was in the lawyer's hands, relating to thy grandfather's property. He'd been dead a year or more, and the thing was only just got straight. Whilst theer, I heard Paganini, and I've told you, more than once, I never cared to touch a bow theerafter. I found Manzini on the music stand and closed the pages. He was open theer as I had left him, for I was a bit particular about my things, and mother used to pretend as her durstn't lay a hand upon 'em. waited and waited for th' answer. I met the person as I had wrote to once, and bowed to her. I've remembered often and often the start her gave, as if I'd done her some sort of insult. I could never understand how nor why. I did not know as I had gi'en her any right to treat me thus contemptuous. I thought her set a value

I

upon herself beyond my deservin's, and I abode to bear it. In the course of a twothree weeks she left the parish, and I made up my mind as her'd left despising me. I won't pretend as I might not ha' found her letter if her had been less prideful and disdainous, for in the course of a little while I might ha' gone back to the music, if things had gone happier with me. But it would ha' been kinder not to know the truth at all than find it out so late."

He had spoken throughout in what was meant for his customary tone of dry gravity, but it failed him often, though for a word only. At such times he would pause and cough behind his wasted hand, and these frequent breaks in the narrative made its quiet tones more touching to the hearer than any declamation or any profession of profound regret, however eloquently expressed, could possibly have been.

"Have you explained to her, since you received the letter?" asked Reuben. "Don't you think, uncle, that, she ought to know?"

Ezra looked at him in a faint surprise. He supposed he had guarded himself from any suspicion of betraying his old sweetheart's personality.

"Yes," he said, still bent upon this reservation. "It happens as the person I speak of came back to Heydon Hay some time ago, and was within the parish this very day. I went to make a call upon her, and to show how Providence had seen fit to deal with both of us, but her refused to exchange speech with me. You see, Reuben," he went on, coughing with a dry mildness of demeanour, "it's doubtless been upon her mind for a many years as I was making a sort of cruel and unmanly game of her. Seeing her that offstanding it seemed to me her valued me so lowly as to take my letter for a kind of offence. It seems now as it was me and not her as was too prideful."

They were both silent for a time, but Reuben was the first to speak again.

She ought to know, uncle. She should be told. Perhaps Ruth could tell her." My lad, my lad!" said Ezra mournfully reproving him. "How could I tell another

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of a thing like this?"

"Well, sir," Reuben answered, "I know now how the idea came into her mind, though I was puzzled at first. But she is strongly opposed to my being engaged to Ruth, and came down to tell Mr. Fuller this morning that I was a villain. I am thinking of her own lonely life, and I am sure that if Ruth and I are married she will never speak again to the only relatives she has unless this is

explained. For her own sake, uncle, as well as yours, I think she ought to know the truth."

He was looking downwards as he spoke, and did not see the questioning air with which Ezra regarded him.

"You know who it was then as wrote this letter!"

"Yes," said Reuben, looking up at him. "Ruth knew the handwriting."

"Reuben!" cried the old man, sternly. He rose with more open signs of agitation than Reuben had yet seen in him, and walked hurriedly to and fro. "Reuben! Reuben!" he repeated, in a voice of keen reproach. "Ah! When was ever youth and folly separate! I never thought thee wast the lad to cry thine uncle's trouble i' the market-place!

"No, uncle, no! Don't think that of me," cried his nephew. "I did not know what to do. I asked Ruth's advice. I could not be certain that the note was meant for you. And guessing what I thought I guessed I was afraid to bring it."

"Well, well! Well, well!" said Ezra. "It's been too sad an' mournful all along for me to go about to make a new quarrel on it. Let it pass. I make no doubt you acted for the best. Art too good a lad to tek pleasure in prying into the pain of an old man-as-loves thee. Leave it alone, lad.

Let's think a while, and turn it over and see what may be done."

He went back to his armchair, and Reuben watched him in sympathetic silence.

"I know her to be bitter hard upon me in her thoughts," said Ezra, after a time. "The kind of scorn her bears for me is good for nobody, not even if it happens to be grounded i' the right. It might be a blow to her at first, but it ud be a blow as ud carry healing with it i' the long run. Let the wench tek the letter. It'll be easier for her to get it at a woman's hands."

He drew the cracked and faded letter from his waistcoat pocket, and held it out towards Reuben without looking at him.

"I think that will be the best and kindest course, sir," said Reuben, accepting the letter and placing it in his pocket-book.

"It may

not be easy for Ruth to speak to her just at first, for she is very angry with her for having engaged herself to me."

"I have heard word of her opposing it," answered Ezra. "Theer are them in Heydon Hay as elsewheer-folks, without being aythur coarse-hearted or hard-minded, as talk of their neighbours' affairs, and love to tell you whatever there is to be heard as is un

pleasing. I have been told as her describes me as a villin, and speaks in the same terms of you, Reuben. And that's why I advised you to speak out, before there should be time to make mischief, if by any chance mischief might be made. And I've seen enough to know as theer's no staple so easy to mannyfacture as ill-will, even betwixt them as thinks well of each other. But, Reuben, even the best of women are talkers, and I look for it to be made a point on between Ruth and you, that no word of this is breathed except between your two selves." "You may trust Ruth as much as you trust me, uncle," said Reuben.

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No, no," answered Reuben. "I will tell her what you say. You may trust us both.” "Let me know how things go," said the old man. "And good-night, Reuben."

A tender twilight still reigned outside, and Reuben, walking along the village street, could see the softened mass of roofs and chimneys and the dark green bulk of trees outlined clearly against the sky. The air was soft and still, and something in the quiet and the dimness of the hour seemed to bear a hint of memory or continuation of the scene which had just closed. He was going to see Ruth at once, and she was naturally in his mind, and presented herself as vividly there as if he had been in her presence. The old man's trouble was so much more real to a lover than it could have been to another man! If it were he and Ruth who were thus parted! There lay a whole heart-ache. He loved Ezra, and yet it did not seem possible to feel his grief half so well save by seeing it as his own. Such a lonely terror lay in the thought of parting from Ruth and living for ever without her, that it awoke in him an actual pang of pain for his uncle's trouble.

"But," said Reuben, as he strode along, "that is what was. He felt it, no doubt, and felt it for many a dreary month. But it's over now, for the most part. I could have cried for him this morning, and again to-night, but it was more pity for the past than for the present."

Ezra had been a sad man always, since Reuben could remember him, and yet not altogether an unhappy one. The sunshine of his life had seemed veiled, but not extinguished. And could love do so little at its most unfortunate and hapless ending? For some, maybe, but surely not for Reuben!

For him, if love should die, what could there be but clouds and darkness for ever and always! But the old take things tranquilly, and to the young it seems that they must always have been tranquil. Uncle Ezra a lover? A possible fancy. But Ezra loving as he loved? An impossible fancy. And even six-and-thirty looked old to Reuben's eyes, for he stood a whole decade under it.

"I will go at once," said Ruth, so soon as she knew what was required of her. "I'll just tell father, and then I'll put on my hat and be ready in a minute. Will you"with an exquisite demureness and simplicity "will you go with me, Reuben?"

"Goo and see Aunt Rachel?" cried old Fuller, when the girl had told him her intention. "Well, why not?" Ruth ran up stairs, and Fuller waddled into the room where Reuben waited. "Ruth talks about bringin' th' ode wench back to rayson," he said, with a fat chuckle, "but that's a road Miss Blythe 'l niver travel again, I reckon. Her said good-bye to rayson, and shook hands a many hears ago. It's a bit too late i' life to patch up the quarrel betwigst 'em now.'

The old man's paces were so leisurely and heavy and Ruth's so quick and light that she was in the room before he had formulated this opinion, and stood at the looking glass, regarding Reuben's reflection in its dimly illumined depths as she patted and smoothed the ribbons beneath her chin.

"Let us hope not, father," she said; and then turning upon Reuben, "I am ready."

He offered her his arm and she took it. It was the simple fashion of the time and place. No engaged lovers took an airing of a dozen yards without that outward sign of the tie between them. They walked along in the soft summer evening, pitying Ezra and Rachel in gentle whispers.

"I was thinking just now if you and I should part, dear--if their case were ours!" "Oh, Reuben!"

And so the grief of the old was a part of the joy of the young, tender-hearted as they were. They played round the mournful old history.

"But you would speak, Reuben? You would never let me go without a word?”

"And if I didn't speak, dear? If something held me back from speaking?”

"But you wouldn't let it hold you back." "Not now, darling. But I might have done yesterday. Before I knew."

Before he knew! He must have always known! But of that she would say nothing.

In front of the one village shop in which the pair of window candles still glimmered,

they paused, whilst Reuben searched his pocket-book for the note, and then went on again, in perfumed darkness, until they reached the gate of Rachel's cottage.

"Be brave, darling," Reuben whispered here. "Don't let her repulse you easily.”

Ruth entered at the gate, stole on tiptoe along the gravelled path, knocked and listened. The whole front of the little house was in darkness, but by and by even Reuben from his post behind the hedge heard the faint noise made by slippered feet in the oil-clothed hall.

"Who's there?" said a voice from within. "Dear aunt," Ruth answered, “let me in. Do please let me in. I want to speak to you."

Reuben, listening, heard the sound of the jarring chain, and the door was opened. He peeped through the interstices of the hedge, and saw Miss Blythe smiling in the light of the candle she carried in her left hand. "Dear niece," said Rachel, with an unusually fine and finicking accent. "Enter, you are welcome."

Ruth entered, the door was closed, and Reuben sat down on the bank outside to await his sweetheart's return.

"You are

"I understand," said Rachel. welcome, my child. I detest rancour in families. I can forgive and forget." As she spoke thus she led the way into her small sitting-room. To Ruth the poor creature's unconsciousness seemed terrible. She laid her arms about Aunt Rachel's withered figure, and cried a little as she leaned upon her shoulder. "There, there," said Aunt Rachel, with a note of patronage in her voice, "compose yourself, dear child. yourself. I am glad to see you. own time, dear child, your own time."

Compose

Take your

At this Ruth cried afresh. It was evident that Aunt Rachel supposed her here to perform an office of penitence; and it was all so pitiful to the girl's heart, which, tender enough by nature, had been made softer and more tender still by her recent talk with Reuben in the lane.

"Don't talk so. Don't speak so," she said brokenly. "Dear aunt, read this, and then you will know why I am here."

"Ah!" sighed Aunt Rachel with a world of meaning. "What did I tell you, my dear?" She took the letter from her niece's hand, kissed the charming bearer of it casu ally, as if in certainty that she would soon be comforted, and began to search for her glasses.

Ruth, understanding the old lady's error, was moved still more by it, but emotion and tender interest were at war, and she sat in