Between the two,

misinterpreted his motives.

he was driven to a sudden unresolved action of

appeal.

"Miss Burton," he said, "for God's sake, do not misunderstand me, and attribute to mercenary motives the offer I make only in the confi. dence that you will not do me such an injustice."

Lucy was greatly distressed. Her colour went and came for a few moments, and then she spoke.

"Mr. Sargent, I am just as anxious that you should understand me; but I am in a great difficulty, and have to throw myself on your generosity."

She paused again, astonished to find herself making a speech. But she did not pause long.

"I refuse your kindness," she said, "only because I am not free to lay myself under such obligation to you.-Do not ask me to say more," she added, finding that he made no reply.

But if she had looked in his face, she would have seen that he understood her perfectly. Honest disappointment and manly suffering were visible enough on his countenance. But he did

not grow ashy pale, as some lovers would at such an utterance. He would never have made, under any circumstances, a passionate lover, though an honest and true one; for he was one of those balanced natures which are never all in one thing at once. Hence the very moment he received a shock was the moment in which he began to struggle for victory. Something called to him, as Una to the Red-Cross Knight when face to face with the serpent Error

"Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee."

Before Lucy's eyes and his met, he had mastered his countenance at least.

"I understand you, Miss Burton," he said, in a calm voice which only trembled a little—and it was then that Lucy ventured to look at him"and I thank you. Please to remember that if you ever need a friend, I am at your service."

Without another word, he lifted his hat and went away.

Lucy hastened home full of distress at the thought of her grandmother's grief, and thinking

all the way how she could convey the news with least of a shock; but when she entered the room, she found her already in tears, and Mr. Stopper seated by her side comforting her with commonplaces.

CHAPTER IX.

Of useful Odds and Ends.

URING all this time, when his visits to
Lucy were so much interrupted by her

attendance upon Mattie, Thomas had not been
doing well. In fact, he had been doing gradu-
ally worse.
His mother had, of course, been at
home for a long time now, and Mr. Simon's
visits had been resumed. But neither of these
circumstances tended to draw him homewards.

Mrs. Worboise's health was so much improved by her sojourn at Folkestone, that she now meditated more energetic measures for the conversion of her son. What these measures should be, however, she could not for some time determine. At length she resolved that, as he had been a good scholar when at school-proved in her eyes by his having brought home prizes

every year-she would ask him to bring his Greek Testament to her room, and help her to read through St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans with the fresh light which his scholarship would cast upon the page. It was not that she was in the least difficulty about the Apostle's meaning.. She knew that as well at least as the Apostle himself; but she would invent an innocent trap to catch a soul with, and, if so it might be, put it in a safe cage, whose strong wires of exclusion should be wadded with the pleasant cotton of safety. Alas for St. Paul, his mighty soul, and his labouring speech, in the hands of two such! The very idea of such to read him, might have scared him from his epistle-if such readers there could have been in a time when the wild beasts of the amphitheatre kept the Christianity pure.

"Thomas," she said, one evening, "I want you to bring your Greek Testament, and help me out with something.”

"O, mother, I can't. I have forgotten all about Greek. What is it you want to know?”