quivered under the suspense and anxiety of the past few hours, and with the scream, the result of overwrought feeling, unconsciousness had come. It was many

minutes before the restoratives Grace used would take effect. At last the eyelids trembled, the lips parted, and Grannie sighed herself back to life. For one moment she glanced around, as if trying to collect her thoughts, the next she seized Grace's hand, which rested on the bed. "Child, pray," she whispered, "pray-my words, not yours."

Grace knelt, and Grannie, still in a whisper, dictated the prayer Grace spoke aloud,—

"Lord God, my own good Father in Heaven, hear an old woman's prayer to-night. Lord, Thou knowest how the little one lies at death's door, and the mother's heart is breaking. Lord, O, spare its life! Lord, let the young thing live, and take Grannie instead. Death is hovering over this house, Heavenly Father, just tell it to take the old one and leave the babe. I'm ready, Lord, Thou knowest, and O! but I'm so longing to come. If it be Thy will, call me soon. Spare, O! spare the child, and let its heart be early given to Thee; may it seek and serve Thee more faithfully than Grannie has ever done (though it hasn't been for lack of longing), and bless all the dear ones, and give them a place in Heaven for Jesus' sake. Amen."

Grannie's voice had faltered at first, but it gained great firmness as she went on. Like one in a dream,

Grace did as she was bid, praying with all her heart Grannie's strange prayer.

When Grannie ceased, Grace still knelt on. The solemnity of the moment quite overcame her. She wept silently. She would have prayed could she have done so, prayed right within her own heart, not in outspoken words; but her thoughts took more the form of meditation than prayer. She seemed to stand between life and death, away from the world, away from all surroundings-there high lifted up out of her individual self, one amid a vast multitude watching in silence the meeting of two rivers, Life coming along in rushing activity, Death slow and stately, yet advancing, until one mingled with the other.

How long Grace so knelt she never knew, a cry aroused her, not the sharp wild cry of pain which had summoned her to Grannie's side, but the feeble wailing cry of an infant. Grace rose from her knees as one awoke from a dream, and as she did so, caught the parting smile of Grannie, who in that cry read the answer to her prayer, and with the answer the long wished for homeward call. No words of farewell, but a look intense with love, and joy, and peace, and Grannie was in Heaven.

Mrs Harvey's shutters were up the following morning, and the neighbours shook their heads and said, "Poor thing, so she's lost her baby," but Mrs Harvey's baby was nestling safely in its mother's

bosom, while in Grannie's room there was the silence of death-people treading softly, and whispering low, "How strange she should have passed away like that! None with her but Miss Grace! and just when the child seemed to come back again to life!" Was it quite as strange as they imagined?

CHAPTER III.

SYMPATHY.

"Father of Light and Life, Thou Good Supreme,

O teach me what is good, teach me Thyself;
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,

From every low pursuit, and feed my soul

With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtues pure,
Sacred, substantial, never fading bliss."

THOMSON.

MAY PERCIVAL and Miss Sutton were the only occupants of the Hall family pew, on the following Sunday morning, the Squire having slightly sprained his ankle the day before, in dismounting from his horse. 'Nothing much the matter," Dr Andrews had said, "but perfect rest would be better for a day or two."

Mr St George preached from the text, "But He knoweth the way that I take, and when He hath tried me I shall come forth as gold," (Job xxxiii. 10).

Beginning with a description of Job's peculiar trials and difficulties, the sharp test of sudden loss and continued suffering, which had so beautifully developed and intensified his faith, enabling him in the

darkest hour to say calmly, "He knoweth the way that I take," to recognise that way as a means of purifying, while assured that in time he should come forth from the fires of affliction refined as gold, Mr St George applied the text personally to all true believers, spoke of the certainty, to them, of God's knowledge of "the way that they took," however dark, or mysterious that way, and of the ultimate good of present doubts and trials.

May Percival thought once or twice Mr St George must have known the secret musings of her own heart, he seemed if not to answer, at least to deal with the solemn questions that had so perplexed her lately. "How comforting it would be," she thought to herself, "if I could but be sure that God knew all about my longings; it would help me to think He would make everything all straight some day, so that I could feel as I want to feel."

As they were leaving the church at the close of the service, May was seized with an intense desire to have half an hour's talk with Grace Sullivan. "I am sure she would help me," mused May, "if I could only summon up courage enough to talk freely with her."

May Percival and Grace Sullivan had always known each other, but no very great intimacy had existed between them, owing partly to the four years difference in age-Grace being in her 22d year-and partly to the fact of Grace devoting so much time

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