It was very remarkable how Mattie would use the name of God, never certainly with irreverence, but with a freedom that seemed to indicate that to her he was chiefly, if not solely, an object of metaphysical speculation, or possibly of investigation; while she hardly ever uttered the name of the Saviour, but spoke of him as Somebody. And I find that I must yet further interrupt the child herself to tell an anecdote about her which will perhaps help my reader to account for the fact I am about to finish telling. She was not three years old when she asked her mother, a sweet, thoughtful woman, in many ways superior to her husband, though not intellectually his equal, Who made the tree in Wood-street? Her mother answered of course, "God made it, my pet;" for by instinct, she never spoke of her God without using some term of endearment to her child. Mattie answered: "I would like it better if a man made it”—a cry after the humanity of God-a longing in the heart of the three years' child for the Messiah of God. Her mother did

not know well enough to tell her that a man, yes, the man did make them-" for by Him all things were made;"--but Mattie may have had some undefined glimmering of the fact, for, as I have said, she always substituted Somebody for any name of the Lord. I cannot help wishing that certain religious people of my acquaintance would, I do not say follow queer little Mattie's example, but take a lesson from queer little Mattie.

"He read about somebody saying you shouldn't ask your friends and neighbours who could do the same for you again, but you should ask them that couldn't, because they hadn't a house to ask you to, like Poppie there."

Lucy looked round and saw the most tattered little scarecrow-useless even as such in the streets of London, where there are only dusty little sparrows and an occasional raven-staring at I cannot call it a group-well, it was a group vertically, if not laterally—and not knowing or caring what to make of it, only to look at Lucy, and satisfy her undefined and undefinable

love by the beholding of its object.

She loved what was lovely without in the least knowing that it was lovely, or what lovely meant. And while Lucy gazed at Poppie, with a vague impression that she had seen the child before, she could not help thinking of the contrast between the magnificent abode of the Morgensterns-for magnificent it was even in London-and the lip of the nest from which the strange child preached down into the world the words "friends and neighbours."

But she could say nothing more to Mattie till she had told, word for word, the whole story to Mrs. Morgenstern, who, she knew, would heartily enjoy the humour of it. Nor was Lucy,

who loved her Lord very truly,

even more than

she knew, though she was no theologian like Thomas, in the least deterred from speaking of Somebody, by the fact that Mrs. Morgenstern did not receive him as the Messiah of her nation. If he did not hesitate to show himself where he knew he would not be accepted, why should she hesitate to speak his name? And

why should his name not be mentioned to those who, although they had often been persecuted in his name by those who did not understand his mind, might well be proud that the man who was conquering the world by his strong beautiful will, was a Jew.

But from the rather severe indisposition of her grandmother, she was unable to tell the story to Mrs. Morgenstern till the very morning of the gathering.

CHAPTER XV.

A Comparison.

AN I hope to move my readers to any pitiful sympathy with Mrs. Worboise,

the whole fabric of whose desires was thus gliding into an abyss? That she is not an interesting woman, I admit; but at the same time, I venture to express a doubt whether our use of the word uninteresting really expresses anything more than our own ignorance. If we could look into the movements of any heart, I doubt very much whether that heart would be any longer uninteresting to us. Come with me, reader, while I endeavour, with some misgiving, I confess, to open a peep into the heart of this mother, which I have tried hard, though with scarcely satisfactory success, to understand.

Her

Her chief faculty lay in negations. whole life was a kind of negation-a negation of