does the world allow itself to be miserable when such simple things can afford enjoyment?

They passed through villages with quaint castles on heights, and walls and fosses constructed in the Middle Ages. The road-side was lined with rich fruit-trees, walnut, apple, pear, and cherry, the laden boughs upheld by props. Sometimes a huge pole was reared in the centre of the tree, and the heavy branches were attached to it by cords. They passed large fissures on the mountain side, where vegetation wholly ceased, and bare blocks of rock lay in rude confusion, as if the quarry workers in the old world, fashioning column and cornice, had suddenly withdrawn, leaving their grand unfinished tasks behind them. They passed labourers returning to and from their work on the dusty highway and little children who had been labouring in the fields, and who spoke their 'Guten Tag,' as they went by. Suddenly the road takes a turn, and the mighty panorama of

Lindelfels burst upon them. 'How beautiful!' was uttered almost involuntarily by all. In the foreground, isolated from the rest, rose the height of Lindelfels, crowned by its old tower and ruined fortress, and all around it, as far as the eye could reach, alternated valley and hill, clothed with dark pines or green beech, or here and there betraying some huge fissure or some granite eminence. Far, far in the misty distance the sun was shining on the peaks of ridges, giving a sense of infinity to the scene, and increasing the effect of its grand solitude. Every moment some fresh beauty burst upon them; the children saw butterflies and moths not known in their own small valley and curious ferns and gay flowers, and Gerty and Ernie clapped their hands with delight; they sat on a plank in the waggon in front of Nesta and their father; Dick and Alice sitting on one in front of them and next the driver.

It was very pleasant to all, great children and small ones, when they reached the

ruined castle and unpacked the hampers, and though one bottle of cider had been. broken and some small damage had been done to sandwiches and jam tarts, they were too hungry and too happy to be fastidious, and the fruit and the cream and the cakes were all pronounced perfect.

Then the children went to play and to catch deluded butterflies in rose-coloured nets, and Mr. Stanley sat down to sketch a view, that could no more be transmitted to paper than the light on an angel's wing, and Nesta wandered down the hill towards the little Roman Catholic Church that lay half way up it. There was nothing very beautiful or very attractive to be seen in it. A few coloured pictures that owed something for their toleration to the dim light in which they were exhibited, the tapers were burning on the altar, and there were some vases on it filled with flowers. Nesta saw at once that there was service going on, and creeping on tip-toe up the side aisle, she knelt among the rest. There was a curious little side altar in front of her, with a border

of tawdry lace all round it, and above it was a feeble delineation in plaster of the Virgin rising upon gilt clouds; it was a rude piece of art, if art it could be called.

What

There were several villagers at their devotions, and Nesta, as she rose from her knees, looked at them with interest. were the various needs that had brought them from their various tasks to offer their petitions here? Were their wants the same as hers? Undefined, perhaps, or earthly, the cry of the Human going up to the Infinite, that God would bless him. The wording of the cry might be different, the address less direct, and yet Nesta felt that their prayers and hers were alike heard. Suddenly a ray of light flickered through the half open doorway, and falling across the little church, touched the heads of the kneeling figures. One face, more upraised than the rest, caught the light upon it, and Nesta started. It was Rosa's. It looked a little paler and a little sadder than usual; and as Nesta groped her way to a seat behind her, she wondered

what had brought the poor girl there, and what was to be the sequel of her sad story.

Poor Rosa! she would gladly have done any penance, if the priest could have absolved her heart from its weary burden. She felt that he could not, and yet passing by the church, and halting at the open door, arrested by the sound of music and prayer within, she had instinctively entered. And kneeling there, and uttering her prayer direct to Him who alone can heal the broken spirit, she was conscious of a kind of relief, and when she rose from her knees and walked towards the door, Nesta thought her face looked lightened of its woe.

6

She was just leaving the church when Nesta laid her hand on her shoulder. What has brought you here?' she said.

'I came because I could not help it; I could bear it no longer. I ran away and I have walked miles and miles since then, till I got too footsore and weary, and wanted rest.'

And so you came in here?'

Yes, the door was open; I don't know