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club; he hopes to call upon you before he leaves town."

"Very well, James," said Miss Winton, and the colour rose to her cheeks, which fact was duly chronicled by James, who spoke of it in a mysterious whisper in the kitchen, and said, "he felt sure it meant something, and he shouldn't mind for his part, as he'd took rather a fancy to the Captain, though he did go on rather queer in rushing down stairs in that mad fashion, and sobbing like a child, as he helped him on with his great coat; if he hadn't refused wine at dinner, he'd have thought him a bit sprung," which remark was severely reproved by Mrs Grantly, who said, "Young men should not use such loose language," whereupon, James suggested "he didn't mind substituting the word tight for sprung, seeing Mrs Grantly preferred it." Mrs Grantly's indignation rose higher, and war would undoubtedly have ensued, but that the drawingroom bell rang at this moment, and James had to withdraw. Nevertheless, Mrs Grantly did wonder whether James's surmise was correct, namely, that "there was something in it," and that night, before she went to bed, she had "composed some lovely verses (as she told Betsey the next morning), which she should, if it turned out that it meant anything, present to her mistress on her wedding day; they ran thus:

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"Too good to live alone, 'tis well
Another comes to claim you now,
To lead you to the altar where
Together you as one will bow.

"O! Lady, beautiful and kind,
We wish you well in your new life,
We know that you will be to him
A faithful, true, and loving wife.

"We only ask you'll not forget,

The old friends who love you so true,
Our prayers are that the greatest peace,
And joy may ever follow you.

"Farewell, dear madam, fare thee well,
Our hearts are full of tears to-day,
But when the bells proclaim you wed,

Sweet joy shall chase our grief away."

Miss Winton watched for her brother's promised call, with some little eagerness, but he never came; she would scarcely have expected him, could she, on the night succeeding the dinner party, have witnessed a scene in a lodging-house, not half an hour's walk from York Terrace. An eager group of men and women were gathered round a table, in the general kitchen. Some one (who would not have been unknown to Miss Winton, although he no longer wore the long moustache, and beard), was playing the part of auctioneer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I now have to offer you," he was saying, imitating the nasal twang of the

cheap jacks, with all the dignity and importance of auctioneers of a better degree. "Ladies and gentlemen, I now have to offer you an article, purchased only four days ago, at one of the first tailors in this great city. Its sleeves and tails, will explain to your intellectual minds, at once, that the article in question is none other than a coat,-who will bid for this well-made and highly fashioned habit? You sir? one and six-one and six-two shillings-two and three-four, five-two and sixpence-magnificent bid! but really it is worth another shilling. sir? three shillings-three and six-three and nine, well done! another three pence,-four shillings— going, going, going for four shillings, gone!" and down came the hand on the table, as the last bidder stepped forward eagerly for his bargain.

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A few minutes later, and Captain Murdonti withdrew from that lodging house kitchen, his hat drawn over his eyes, his hands in his pockets-he was on his way to a gin palace in the Tottenham Court Road.

While Florence and Maud Winton were chatting and laughing over their worsted work, in their aunt's pretty drawing-room at York Terrace, their father, "grievously vexed with a devil," was yielding to the cravings of drink, and sinking deeper and deeper into the terrible mire of wretchedness and sin.

CHAPTER XIV.

OLD JONATHAN.

"What is prayer? Talking to God."

A life of prayer is a life of power."

66 The more we speak to God, the more we shall be likely to speak of Him, and for Him."

MAY PERCIVAL's eighteenth birthday! How quickly the year had flown. Once more she stood in the bow window of her sanctum, but her musing was a little different from that of twelve months ago; then she had mourned over an aimless life, and her heart, in its awakened consciousness of the possession of new powers and feelings, had given utterance to a cry for something scarcely then definable; now she was thinking over God's love and goodness to her in the past, and her musing took more the form of prayerful meditation.

May's heart and life were changed-more changed than she realized-in the year that had gone. Into that heart had come a joy which the world cannot give, into that life an object that ennobled and enriched it. May was growing, her heart was ex

panding under the influence of the Divine teaching, and her life became proportionately useful and happy. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another." May recognized the test of love, and, in her daily life, sought to live up to it. She learnt by degrees that it is not in any outside life that we are especially called upon to show our discipleship, but in the hourly intercourse with one another at home-forgetting self in little things, and seeking in all we do or say the happiness and welfare of others. It did not all come at once; bit by bit it seemed to be unfolded to her. Sometimes for May had her trials and her hours of darkness, as who has not?-she would feel disheartened at her attempts to be what she called "good," and would even think of giving up all effort to become so, and just float with the stream, as so many of her young friends did, or seemed to do; but these moods never lasted long-a fit of weeping and a half-uttered prayer for forgiveness would leave her humbled and subdued at her Saviour's feet—and out of the death of seeming failure and sadness she would rise to a new life of struggle and hope, and so go on from strength to strength.

May did not stay long in her bow window to-night. The day had been very oppressive, and a visit to a cottage she had planned for the afternoon had been postponed until now. Her father was out, and would not be back until eight o'clock to dinner, so there

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