carve their own path in life, parents come almost by instinct to choose acquaintances for their possible future or present usefulness; and a man of millions has vast possibilities of usefulness. Fred's value came in as a dancing, and talking, and extremely presentable young man; and he knew it. He was not expected to fall in love with either of the three daughters; and he knew that too. He laughed when he pictured the surprised reception those prudent friends of his would give to the announcement of his engagement, and the upward bound he would take in their esteem; and then he sighed to remember that there were many other dancing, and talking, and presentable young men to be met at their receptions, who might possibly be even more dangerous to his peace than the writing fraternity Mrs Popham had desired to honour. When Tilly got to the little house at Fulham, she was no longer allowed to forget her engagement. It was thrust at her-almost flung at her-by Jessie, who spoke of it with a passionate scorn which shook her slender frame. 'Why have you come back?" she said, when her cousin looked in on her radiantly. "Have you come to taunt me, to fling your prosperity in my face? I never sought you out or desired to know you. Why do you obtrude your life upon mine? Is it to make the contrast between it and yours the sharper?" "Jessie! Jessie!" said Tilly, with pain in her voice. She stood near the door, where she had been arrested by these thunderbolts, without self-possession enough to advance. Jessie had struggled up to a sitting posture on the old sofa where she had been lying; one hand feverishly clasped the back, and with the other she waved the visitor away. word; but now, of a sudden, she found her heart melting. All at once, as in a flash, little unnoticed scenes came back and made a continuous picture, in which Jessie's poor pitiful story was plainly outlined. She remembered the unfailing bitterness with which she had spoken of Fred; her questions about him; her persistent return to his name. It was love which was half hate in the intensity of its hopelessness, and in the shame that it had come unbidden and unprized. It takes a very sound and sweet nature to rejoice in another's prosperty, even when that prosperity does not infringe on any right of our own, or leave us the poorer; but to be glad when some good, for which we have longed, however hopelessly, is appropriated by another, takes a measure of mental and moral healthfulness which few of us can claim. Tilly, who had a strongly-developed sense of justice, would doubtless have remembered this, even if she had been without that illuminating glimpse into the secret places of Jessie's soul; she would have told herself, too, that, in that mysterious union of mind and body, the one cannot be sick without the other suffering; but all these justifications were forgotten in the largeness of her pity. She hung her head; she was ashamed; she felt as if she, who had everything, had coveted and possessed herself of another's poor store of joy. She had not a word to say. "Ab," said Jessie, mistaking these signs, "you may well hang your head; you have befooled an honester man than Fred Temple-your lover-with your smiles and your words. I suppose it pleases you to steal hearts, and then throw them away when you tire of them. What do I know about it? I know that you have brought nothing but sorrow and trouble to this house. Go away and marry Go, go," she said; "I can't bear the Fred; he will not make a good husband. sight of you. Isn't it enough for you to I have known him all his life. He will be rich and beautiful, while I am poor, not beat you," she laughed with a mirthless and ugly, and sickly. Must you come bitterness that made Tilly thrill and quiver, to triumph over me in your love too?"but he will neglect you; he will tire of Couldn't you have spared me even that? Must you take everything-everything Her voice sank into a wail. "Jessie" Tilly began again; but at the last murmured words her burning, consuming sense of indignation and disgust died out in an amazed pity. She had been wrapping her soul in haughty reserve. She had meant to go; to leave without a you; he is marrying you for your money, and not for your pretty face, and your gracious ways. Perhaps he doesn't tell you that, but I tell you. He is deep in debt; he has been dunned for months. For awhile he had to disappear; to go into hiding, because he was afraid of being disgraced. Do you know what that means—you, who have always been rich? I daresay he would tell you that he had gone on a plea sant trip abroad; John knew where he was hiding-you can ask him. John gave him half our year's income-our handsome income which could be so easily halved-to tide him over till he could arrange a compromise with his creditors. Perhaps he will repay us when he marries you. I daresay he will pay everybody then. Think what it must have been to him to meet with a rich heiress, quite ready to marry him, just when everything was at its blackest; when he was glad to come to us, to this poor little house which he has always despised! "Oh, it is a great thing for him! He will spend your money splendidly; it will suit him well; but he will neglect you, and he will despise your uncle who made him rich. There; now you know what the lover you came to taunt me with is. There are other things-but what do you and I know of them? I have told you enough." She fell back on her cushions exhausted; the flush of passion faded from her cheeks and left a deadly pallor; her eyes closed, as if she would shut out Tilly for evermore from her consciousness. Every one of the short, breathless sentences flung at Tilly had struck her like the blow of a hammer. Her thoughts were a chaos. One moment she recoiled in quivering disgust-the next she was overwhelmed with a black pall of shame. It was mostly shame-deep, shocked, shrinking shame before this pitiable picture of a love which, being unreturned, perhaps smilingly and amusedly spurned, had fed itself at the poisonous fountains of hate, ar d thus took its poor revenge. It was no moment for words, protestations, justifications. These fell far short of the need, and were wholly inadequate; indeed, in the physical prostration which was the reaction after that burst of excited passion, Jessie probably would not have heard them. minded. Perhaps she repelled them the more eagerly because she felt that the indignant love which would have scorned to lend an ear had failed. She had listened; she was listening now. Over and over again she heard those angry sentences barbed with gall. "He is marrying you for your money. He will neglect you; he will despise the man who made him rich." Again and again she recognised with a dull, pained wonder that they had not lost their power to wound, though she had refused them her belief. And with them came other remembered phrases, which she resisted with an eagerness which unconsciously quickened her steps. She would not give them audience; she thrust them from her; but, when she refused to listen to them, they seemed to write themselves in letters of fire before her. Whose heart had she wounded? whose peace had she destroyed? "It is not true; it is not true." That was her answer to both accusations. "It is not true." She repeated it till the refrain became as monotonous as the tread of her hastening feet on the pavement, and its very repetition seemed to lend it force. But when faith needs so much propping to make it stand upright, we may guess pretty shrewdly that the inletting of doubt is not far off. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. NOVEMBER. NOVEMBER obtains its name through having been the ninth month of the Romans, and originally consisted of thirty days. Julius Cæsar added an additional day, which, however, was afterwards taken away by Augustus. The Saxons called the month Blot Monath-blood month Tilly turned silently away. For a few—either because of the number of cattle moments her limbs shook, and she moved unsteadily; but when she reached the outer air she recovered strength and walked away quickly. She walked all the way home, un conscious of the curious looks turned upon her as she went steadily and swiftly, but with no outward vision for the life and bustle of the streets. She was seeing inwardly, living over again every moment of that shameful scene. She did not believe those dark accusations against her lover; she was too young, too generous, too fair slaughtered at this season for their winter store, or for the purpose of sacrificing to their deities. They also called it Wint Monath, or wind month, from the blustering winds which prevail during the month. The Romans dedicated the month to Diana, keeping the "Banquet of Jupiter," and solemnising the Circensian Games upon the first day of November. This day was likewise a grand thanksgiving, or day of rest, among the Druids, corresponding to their high solar festival on May Day. The precious stone devoted to this month was the topaz, and searchers after make merry with on this night. Their the curious are told that Who first comes to this world below, The unlucky days are spread all over the month, beginning with the fifth and ending with the twenty-ninth. In addition to these, there are the sixth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and twenty-eighth. Coming to weather lore we find that 'Tween Martinmas and Yule If there's ice in November that will bear a duck, There'll be nothing at Christmas but sludge and muck. If the wind is in the south-west at Martinmas Expect St. Martin's Summer, halcyon days. Right through the month of November we have a long series of saints' days and festivals, some associated with solemnity and others with pleasure. The first of these and the first day of the month is All Saints' Day. This was designed to be held in honour of all those saints who had not particular days appointed for them. It does not appear at any time to have been marked by very particular ceremonies in the Catholic Church, though there is very good grounds for believing that it took the place of a Pagan feast. On the coasts of the Baltic, fishermen never use their nets between All Saints' Day and St. Martin's Day, because they believe that if they did, they would have miserable catches all the year afterwards. Amongst customs observed in England on this day may be mentioned that connected with the Lordship of Apse, in Surrey. The Lord of the Manor had to give away, by the terms of his tenure, a cask of ale on All Saints' Day, "for the soul of the King and his ancestors!" The day following (November the second) was known to our ancestors, as it is known to us, as All Souls' Day, which was a very solemn festival of the Romish Church. There are still performed masses and ceremonies for the repose of the souls of the dead. It was formerly the custom on this day to eat a peculiar kind of cake. The custom originated with our Catholic ancestors, with whom it was a custom to bake on All Hallow E'en, a cake for every soul in the house, which cakes were eaten on All Souls' Day. The poor people used to go round begging for some cakes or anything to petition consisted in singing a doggerel sort of rhyme: In Cheshire on this night they once had a custom called " Hob Nob," which consisted of a man carrying a dead horse's head covered with a sheet to frighten people. This head, carried by the Soulers, is typical of St. Martin, who is always represented on a horse, the emblem in Christian Art of courage and generosity. Brady tells us that Odillon, Abbot of Cluny, in the ninth century, first enjoined the ceremony of praying for the dead on this day in his own monastery; and the like practice was partially adopted by other religious houses until the year 998, when it was established as a general festival throughout the Western Churches. To mark the pre-eminent importance of this festival, if it happened on a Sunday it was not postponed to the Monday, as was the case with other such solemnities; but kept on the Saturday, in order that the Church might the sooner aid the suffering souls; and, that the dead might have every benefit from the pious exertions of the living, the remembrance of this ordinance was kept up by persons dressed in black, who went round the different towns ringing a loud and dismal-toned bell at the corner of each street every Sunday evening during the month, and calling upon the inhabitants to remember the deceased suffering the expiatory flames of purgatory and to join in prayer for the repose of their souls. One of the most romantic stories of that romantic country, Wales, and one which finds its counterpart in almost every country in the world, is the story of Saint Winifred and her well. It is a story of licentious love and crime, and the story of the miraculous power of a holy man. Tradition rather than history has handed down the fact that Winifred, a transcendently beautiful maiden, was the daughter of Temice ap Elwedd. On a certain day in the year 630 A.D., her parents went to church to hear Saint Beuno preach, leaving their In the daughter at home by herself. meantime Prince Caradoc, a bold bad man, and ruler of North Wales, came along, and seeing Winifred, became enamoured with her. She, to escape him, ran with all her speed towards the church. Caradoc followed, and succeeded in overtaking the maiden, whose head he struck from her shoulders with the sword he carried. The trunkless head rolled down the hill, right into the church, to the consternation of the people assembled. The good Bishop Beuno jumped out of the pulpit, picked up the head, and running to the trunk fastened the head on it again, when Winifred became as right as ever. At the place where the head ceased rolling a little pool of blood was left; but from some miraculous agency this was transformed into a stream of sparkling water, which exists at the present day under the name of Saint Winifred's Well, and is noted for the remarkable cures which in times past have been wrought there. Caradoc, tradition asserts, died on the very spot where he had committed the foul crime, and his body was borne away by the Evil One. Winifred, on the other hand, was so rejoiced at the miracle wrought on her behalf, that she took the veil and ultimately became Abbess of Gwythern, Denbighshire, and died in the odour of sanctity. Subsequently she was canonized by the reigning Pope, and the third of November was appointed as the day on which to commemorate her virtues. The spring is undoubtedly one of the finest in Wales, and will throw up twenty-one tons of water per minute. It never freezes, and is always the same in quantity, whether in rain or drought. Many have been the pious pilgrimages made to this well by devout Catholics, and indeed, until the suppression of convents and monasteries, it was always thronged with crowds of devotees anxious to have a dip in the mysterious well. Reverting back to the saint herself, it is said that, on the occasion of her second death, she was buried in the convent; but in the reign of King Stephen, some monkish body-snatchers managed, by a little finessing, and not a little fibbing, to get possession of her remains and to carry them to Shrewsbury, where the bones are still supposed to lie, near the high altar of the Abbey. It is also recorded by tradition, that wherever the body rested on the journey wells bubbled up, and one is instanced at Woolston, near Westfelton, between Oswestry and Shrewsbury, said to be dedicated to Saint Winifred, the waters of which were deemed to be good for sore eyes. Reverting back to the well, we are told by a local guide that on the eleventh of June, 1731, a wager was laid to decide the flow, and the parson of the parish appears to have acted as umpire. The record of this, copied from an old pamphlet, is as follows: "By the gauge the basin will hold about two hundred and forty tons of water, which, when emptied, is filled again in two minutes. The experiment was tried to decide a wager, in the presence of Mr. Price, Rector of Holywell, Mr. Williams, Mr. Wynne, Dr. Taylor, and others, when, to the surprise of the company, the well filled in less than two minutes, which proves that St. Winifred's Spring rises more than one hundred tons of water a minute." The Llangollen Parish Magazine," says "the spring is a subterranean stream, which some geologists say has its origin in the rocks which lie at the back of Eglwyseg, beyond the World's End, and which makes its private way by a short cut through the natural clefts of the limestone rocks to the estuary of the river, instead of mingling its holy waters with the sacred Dee in its tortuous windings around Chester. Thus the holy well is, perhaps, more closely connected with Llangollen than we might at first thoughts be inclined to allow." James the Second, it is recorded, once touched for the King's Evil on the steps of the well; but the success which attended the exhibition of this piece of superstition is not stated. November the fifth was formerly a day of thanksgiving all over England; but the custom long ago ceased. The only remnant of observance of the day is found in the lighting of bonfires and the firing of squibs, Roman candles, and the like. In Yorkshire it is customary to prepare a peculiarly indigestible oatmeal gingerbread, which is termed "Parkin Cake," and which is eaten on the anniversary of this memorable day. It may be seen in the shop windows exposed for sale, previous to the fifth of November, in the shape of massive loaves, substantial cakes, or bannocks. This evidently appears to be another form of rejoicing, and the "Parkin Bread is considered the correct thing on which to expend some of the funds collected by juveniles throughout the day by exhibiting the usual caricatures of old Guy Fawkes and some of his associates. The Day of Saint Martin, November eleventh, was once greatly observed, but is now only associated with a quarter-day in the North of England and Scotland, called Martinmas. The Sheriffs of England and Wales are nominated on the morrow of Saint Martin. Saint Martin was Bishop of Tours in the fourth century, and was accounted a very holy man. He died in the year 397 A.D. On the Continent, the wines of the season were formerly first tasted on this day; the animals required to be salted for the winter's provisions were slaughtered; and the day was generally spent in conviviality. In England too, at this time, it was once customary to kill fat stock, the reason apparently being the lack of food for their consumption during the winter. The few fine days which sometimes occur about the beginning of November have been denominated "Saint Martin's little summer." Shakespeare thus alludes to it in King Henry the Fourth, where Prince Henry says to Falstaff, "Farewell, thou latter spring! Farewell, all Hallowe Summer!" The twentieth of November is dedicated to Saint Edmund, "King and Martyr." This was the brother and predecessor of Alfred, and he succeeded to the throne of East Anglia in 856. In 870 he was taken prisoner by the Danes, and, being a Christian, was executed. The body, shorn of its head, and pierced with arrows, was thrown into a wood, where it was afterwards found and decently buried in a wooden church at Haglisdun. The head was subsequently discovered unmutilated between the paws of a wolf, which, as Lydgate, the Monk of Bury, says, was "an unkouth thyng, and strange ageyn nature." The head, when placed in its proper position on the trunk, united so perfectly, that the separation could hardly be traced. Such a miracle could not fail to attract attention, and the body of the King-Martyr was removed to Bury, where a church was erected, and a monastery founded. Many miracles are reputed to have been worked by the dead body of this Saint, for Edmund was duly canonized by one of the Popes. The town of Bury St. Edmunds is so named, from the place being the repository of the King's remains. November the twenty-third was greatly observed once as commemorating the life and death of Saint Clement, a fellowworker of Saint Paul, who suffered martyrdom by being cast into the sea with an anchor fastened round his neck. In the "good old days," boys and men went round begging for drink, with which they regaled themselves at night. Saint Clement is the patron saint of blacksmiths, though it is long since the sons of the hammer and anvil kept up the day, as the shoemakers used to do Saint Crispin. Saint Catherine, whose day is November the twenty-fifth, is another of the saints who takes under her special care forlorn and love-stricken maidens who desire husbands, and wish to see them in the spirit before the flesh. Probably some reason for this partiality is due to the fact that the name, taken from "Katharos," signifies pure, and the saint was remarkable for the purity of her life. She died a virgin and a martyr, for which she was duly canonized by the Church of Rome. On the anniversary of her death the young women of Abbotsbury-a small town in the county of Dorset were in the habit of repairing to the saint's well, near Saint Catherine's Chapel, Milton Abbey, where they made use of the following invocation : A husband, Saint Catherine; A handsome one, Saint Catherine; In order to dream of her sweetheart, the young lady had then only to put a piece of wedding cake under her pillow and her wish was certain to be gratified, providing the piece of weddingcake had previously been passed through a wedding-ring. If in doubt as to which of two lovers to accept, the maiden was to get a friend to write their names on the paper in which the cake was wrapped, and then for three nights the cake and wrapper had to be placed under the young lady's pillow for her. Should she happen to dream of one of the persons, that one was certain to become her husband at no distant date. Another charm-worker says: "On Saint Catherine's Day let any number of young women-not exceeding seven nor less than three-assemble in a room where they are safe to be free from interlopers. Just as the clock strikes eleven each must take from her bosom a sprig of myrtle, which has been worn all day; fold it up in a bit of tissue-paper; then light up a small chafing dish of charcoal, and on it each maiden must throw nine hairs from her head and a paring of each of her toe and finger nails. Each must next sprinkle a small quantity of myrtle and frankincense in the charcoal, and, while the odoriferous vapour rises, fumigate the packets of myrtlewhich plant is dedicated to Venus-in it. Go to bed while the clock is striking the 1 |