"Maybe he's clever, and maybe he isn't," said I. "As for that I don't know: but I do know he loves his mother, and I hope I shan't live till the day when he leaves off caring about me."

"Come, come, you needn't go to make out as I don't love my mother, for I do," said Harry. "She's the kindest-hearted old soul as ever breathed."

"And she's praying for you," said I. "She'll never stop that, Harry. She'll pray you yet into being a good man."

Harry looked a bit uneasy, as if he wasn't quite sure about wanting that, for he knew I meant that I hoped he would become a real Christian. While we were speaking I saw my husband coming through the garden gate, and I knew in a moment that something wasn't quite right. He had such a strong quick walk of his own, commonly, and now he seemed dragging one foot after the other; and when he came near, the ruddy look was all gone out of his face, and it looked drawn as if he was in bad pain, and Willie had a sort of uncomfortable manner, following

close behind him.

"What has happened, Phil?" said I.

"I want a cup of tea," said he, sitting down.

"Yes, but what has happened?" said I. "You haven't had a fall, have you?"

"Oh dear no," says he cheerfully. "Onlywell, only a bit of a blow. Just turned me rather sicky-like, but a cup of tea will take that off."

I didn't like his face, but I made the tea as quick as I could, trying to keep down my impatience to know more. He drank the tea, and said it was just as he liked it, but he couldn't eat.

"Where was it, Phil?" said I.

"Down at the corner of the lane behind Pearson's," said he. "Willie and I we'd stopped a moment to look at the house they've begun to run up there. And somebody came hurrying round the corner, with a heavy parcel in his arms, and banged right against me. It was an uncommon hard edge the parcel had, and it caught me just in the back. Don't look fidgety, Sue; no ribs are

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broken. It only turned me a bit queer. I'll be all right after a good night."

I did not feel so sure, but I only said, "We'll see presently what can be done. Is the pain much ?"

"I've got a back-ache," says he cheerfully enough, but I didn't need to ask again if it was bad. The way he seemed afraid to move showed that.

Clumsy fellow, not to look where he was going!" Harry said.

"He might have seen," says Willie very low. "Father was standing stock-still,and not close to the corner neither. He might have seen." 'Stuff and nonsense," says my husband. "Who was the man ?" I asked.

"Never you mind," said he. "It's done, and what's done can't be undone."

But it came into my head to say, "Was Gilpin the man?" and Willie gave a sort of little nod.

"Gilpin or any other might do such a thing by accident," said my husband. "Mind, Sue and Will, I don't want talk made about it; and I would scorn to accuse an innocent man of ill intentions, if it was all sheer accident."

But the very saying of so much made me feel the more sure that my husband didn't really think it was all sheer accident. I couldn't but doubt. I knew what Gilpin's temper was; and though I dare say he would not mean to do any real harm, still he was just of that revengeful sullen sort of humour, that he wouldn't be unlikely in a moment's temptation to give a shove or a blow to any one he was angry with.

IIe couldn't forgive my husband for being so liked by Mr. Conner, and respected by every one. And above all he couldn't forgive him for having been made foreman. I don't know whether Gilpin had hoped for that for himself: but any way he couldn't easily submit to see my husband set over him, and he hated his ways as foreman. My husband never would wink at evil, to please anybody, and Gilpin hated any manner of restraint. He liked to be allowed to go along his own way, without a word; and a bad way it often was.

VIOLET."-A USEFUL MESSENGER. THE LOST

SHEEP.

OW can a dog understand without understanding? asked Dr. Lardner; and the question remains unanswered. In our strivings to exalt "the man" we some times do injustice to the "lower animal;"-to Trusty or Tear'emwho has not in this respect, as he has in others, the power of self-defence. The nature of the dog has its higher developments, unchanging fidelity, depth of insight, and bravery in the moment of danger. Did you never observe how your Trusty scans a stranger-how acutely he measures him, and takes up his likes or likes? What will he not do for a friend? What has he not done even for a hard master?

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Here is "Old Oscar," for instance: long and fondly will his memory be cherished. Never was there a more kindly, a nobler member of the canine family. All his days had been spent at the farm of Heathside, and seldom had he been beyond the boundaries of one of the rudest parishes in the north of Scotland. Thoroughly used to country customs and rural quietude, any time he did go to town, as his old master used to say, "he was never like himsel' ere he gat oot the road again."

Oscar was above the average size, and never can we forget his portly bearing; the black shaggy hair, those dangling ears, the long bushy tail, and that white spot on his broad chest, running up in triangular form right under his massive head.

"Old Oscar"-for to us he was always old -had little of the warrior in him. He had nothing of the offensive or quarrelsome; and often did he submit to the grossest indignities

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ART STUDIES FROM LANDSE ER," etc. without retaliation; not in a cowardly cringing spirit, but with a calmness and dignity which one could not but admire. He was decidedly averse to fighting-one would have thought on philosophic principles; and the only stroke in the way he ever did was quite in keeping with his general character.

In his morning walks, which were taken with constitutional regularity, Oscar had to pass the mansion of a neighbouring squire. As sure as he reached the garden gate, out came my lady's lap-dog, with its ugly red eyes and its sharp teeth; and not contented with yelping, as most curs are, it would follow a few yards industriously biting the heels of its big brother. For months did Oscar trot along, regardless of the pain and annoyance, except now and then a significant growl or a wag of that huge tail of his. One morning the little tormentor was busy at its old work, picking and scratching, in its own provoking way, at the irritated and festered heels of our long-suffering friend. Oscar stopped suddenly; something was wrong; had that quiet spirit at last been disturbed? Turning round, he seized his tormentor by the neck, as a cat would her kitten, and walked back to a small stream close by. Wading in some distance, he put his victim beneath the water, and, deeming reform hopeless, planted his foot firmly upon it. In a few minutes he turned round again, and trotted along to his morning haunt as if nothing had occurred. The body of poor "Violet was buried in the garden, and flowers were planted on its grave.

He

Oscar was useful in his way. He could go to the shop and bring home a pound of sugar or an ounce of tea; and often have we seen him jogging along with a neat little wicker suspended from his bright brass collar. could do this without even the assistance of a slip of paper, strange as this may seem to outsiders. Those country shopkeepers, dealing in all things from beer to broadcloth, are not like shopkeepers in your great cities. When they see your money or jar, with an instinct which baffles every "theory," and

which only experience can understand, they give you exactly what you want. Oscar got his threepence or fivepence ha'penny tied into the corner of his basket, and that was enough: he brought home what was wanted. Never was he known to go wrong or to be turned aside from his course: such is instinct, so called.

Heathside, the quiet and secluded home of Oscar and his friends, was well-nigh four miles distant from the district post-office, and only one day in the week were the letters and papers conveyed to and from that humble hostelry on the highway side. True to his duty, as regularly as Friday came round, Oscar was astir by times, and by noon he might have been seen depositing the contents of his basket on the hearthstone; the weekly newspaper to start on its round of thirty readers, a few letters for the farmer and his neighbours, and a stray broad-sheet from a brother who had long since settled in the far West.

One stormy evening, such as only the dwellers in the land of mist can understand, the farmer had gathered home his flock of sheep, and enclosed them for protection. He had just entered his own comfortable apartment, when Oscar-who had been missing for some time-was observed to enter in an excited state, rush round the room, and disappear. After a prolonged absence, which had not awakened surprise, he again entered in a still more excited manner, jumping upon

his master and endeavouring to arrest his attention. Again he left the house, and again he returned with wailing importunities. The farmer was impressed with the thought that something must be wrong, and followed his dog out into the fields and through the snowdrifts for more than a mile, the dog leading the way, and anxiously watching the steps of his master. Near a bridge which crossed a small stream on the farm, Oscar stood still, and leaping over the parapet, began to tear away the snow with all his might. After a diligent search, it was found that one of the sheep had gone over, sunk in the snow which covered the stream, and then, in its vain efforts to escape, had forced its way under the bridge. It was found also that during the hours that had passed Oscar had not been idle; he had been industriously clearing away the snow from the opposite side of the bridge, in order to let it pass through and escape an untimely end. The sufferer was delivered, and the dog and his master went home rejoicing with the lost one.

"If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine and go off into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? and if so be that he find it, verily, I say unto you, he rejoiceth more over that sheep than over the ninety and nine which went not astray."

HEN Easter comes the sun begins to shine more brightly. One of our Easter hymns begins with the words:

'Bright sunbeams deck the joyful sky."

A little girl had heard some one say, in the language of poetry, that the sun danced on Easter morning, when his rays fell upon the surface of the water. She thought she would go and see the sun dance.

There was the water, all sparkling with the sunlight which shone on it; but the sun

did not dance! At first she was greatly dis. appointed, but, like a sensible child, as she certainly was, she said, "If the sun does not dance on Easter morning, I will make somebody's heart dance, and that will be better still!"

So she ran upstairs, got her very best picture-book, and stole quietly into her sick cousin's room, and laid it on the pillow, without disturbing her. "Now," said the little girl, "her heart will dance when she wakes up; and our Saviour will like that better than if the sun danced, in honour of His rising !"

HETHER for ourselves, or for those we love, we need fear no evil, if only Christ be ours. Death has yet to come, and we do not know in what shape it will come; it may be quite near, or it may still be far away.

"Thou inevitable day!

When a voice to me shall say, Thou must rise and come away; Art thou distant, art thou near, Wilt thou seem more dark or clear, Day with more of hope or fear?" * Anyhow, we will not dwell too much on it. Instead of looking down into the open. grave, we will look up for the glorious appearing. We know of a happy country across the dark river; we have heard of the shining ones who will lead us up the hill. It is no new temptation, but one that is common to man. He who has helped others through it will help us through it. Those gone before us, who have got it over, found Him near them. He who was faithful to them will be faithful to us and to those whom we leave behind.

Do we, however, sometimes ask, in the secret of our own thoughts, Which of us will go first? Banish them as we will, do not sad fears sometimes force themselves on us, as we think of the whitening hair, or the thinned hands, or the pale cheeks, or the tottering footsteps of those we love? Well; they may go first, but the interval between them and us in the balance of eternity is but as the single tick of a pendulum. Weeping may endure for a

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night, but joy cometh in the morning (Ps. xxx. 5). The bed of death is the presence-chamber of Jesus. We who stand by cannot see with our mortal eyes what is vouchsafed to those who are putting on immortality; but if we cannot know, we may at least conjecture: and the radiant joy that sometimes lights up the wan countenance of a dying Christian tells of an Invisible Presence that is shining there. It is a solemn moment as the soul passes away; yet for us only is it a time of sadness. They, if they could speak, would say, Weep not for me; but sing with me, "O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?" (1 Cor. xv. 55.)

And He who goes with them stays with us. For He is in paradise with those that sleep in Him. He is on earth with those that wait for Him. He can think of the living as well as of the dying; of those who have still to grapple with the last struggle as well as of those who sing the conqueror's song.

So we pass out of the sight of our dead, wondering at our own calmness. Thankfulness for the glorious change passed on them absorbs all selfish thought of the grief come on us. We too feel that, if we have lost much, we have gained much, earth is beneath us; we have stood on the very threshold of heaven, and the love of Christ is more real than ever. On the morrow, when we go out of our chamber to do our work, to meet our friends, to feel our loss, He who was with us in the quiet night meets us in the glare of the morning; we remember the promise, "thy brother shall rise again" (John xi. 23).