van, run about and watch the chattering monkeys. Indeed he need envy no one as he sits down, and finds perhaps the post has brought in homeletters, full of love and affection; while he feels, with a thankful heart, that that morning's work will help to send water where it never went before-that the jungle will go down before the water comes, the natives will leave off wandering and cattle-stealing, and become industrious, steady husbandmen. The missionary and the teacher have, doubtless, higher spheres. It is nobler to instruct than to feed. But one is at least as needful as the other; and the canal engineer has no reason to com looking, may require all to be done again, and may force him to close his canal when the subsistence of thousands of poor natives depends on his sending water to their parched fields. Nor are his duties to be envied when the rains suddenly cease, and a flood in the river has choked the head of his canal with gravel, and he has only a little water at his command to satisfy crowds of clamorous peasants, each insist-plough and the corn will rise-and so sure as the ing that he will be ruined if his fields are not immediately irrigated. Nor need the gentlemen that stay at home at ease envy him as he starts to ride twenty miles in the teeth of the roaring hot wind blowing like a furnace blast in his face, while he is half blinded with the glare of light on the hot ground before him; or as he picks his way through the close-plain of the work he has to do-a work of which the smelling, steaming rice marshes, feeling that he is inhaling miasma, and that he must have a good pull at his quinine bottle when he gets home to keep off fever. While the object of his long ride is only to settle a weary dispute regarding the right to a watercourse between two parties, each supporting his case by a string of lies, and probably each having bribed the native officials, who could, if they liked, explain exactly how the matter stands, but from whom it will be hopeless to look for an impartial story. These are not pleasant duties. But, as a rule, his active, open-air life, keeps him in good health. And is he not to be envied, as he turns out at early dawn on one of those fresh, bracing mornings which he can always count on in North India during the winter months: the ground just touched with hoar frost, the black partridges singing out their cheery notes in the grass, and the young ring-doves cooing, and the flocks of green parrots screaming in all the trees? Has he not a pleasant ride through the fields of fresh young wheat, while the western breeze blows fragrant with the scent of the sugar? And is it not exhilarating to see the look of peace and plenty in the villages, where at every corner the sweet juice is being pressed out in rude mills worked by slow, white oxen; while old, grey-haired men, wrapped up in their cotton quilts, look on and chat over their hookahs; and every fat little urchin has a piece of sugar-cane in his cheek; and the young men and women-a good-looking, wellto-do set, with cheery, laughing faces--bring in the loaded carts from the surrounding fields? direct fruits are so soon apparent. I have restricted myself to a description of the only irrigation system with which I am personally acquainted, namely, that pursued on the four principal canals of the Punjab and north-west provinces; and I shall say nothing of the great works in Madras, which have been attended with such wonderful success. Nor shall I enter into the question of how far canals are financially profitable, except to say that while there is no doubt that indirectly they pay to almost any extent, and that therefore it will always be profitable for Government to push on the work till every great river in India has been made to contribute, it is more questionable how far they will yield a fair return to private capital. I believe that in the long-run irrigation companies will succeed; but the shareholder must wait with patience." The present Government, more liberal than its predecessor, is yielding every encouragement to irrigation, and we must pray and hope that such a fearful calamity as the Orissa famine may never again visit our Eastern empire. I have done; and if my reader thinks I have written too much, he must excuse the enthusiasm of one who can at least plead that his heart is in his work. He will not then wonder that, much as I enjoy the sweet society of dear friends, and all the delights of home, I look forward with little misgiving or reluctance to the day when furlough ended, I shall again sail eastward, in the hope that I may find good work to be done awaiting me there, and that I, too, may be privileged to be of use in that great land, so wonderfully entrusted to our nation. C. C. SCOTT MONCRIEFF. Does he not feel cheery as, his work done, he rides into his camp, where the camels are being unladen and the white tents pitched? Thrice cheery if he finds his wife waiting for him at the breakfast-table * The experience in North Italy, where irrigation has under the big banyan; while his rosy children, who been brought to great perfection, is against canals as a have come the morning march in the spring bullock-purely financial speculation. BESIDE the window I sit alone, FAMILY MUSIC. And I watch as the stars come out, Lucy looks just like an early rose (Somebody will not say me no), And she sings like a bird whose heart is bless'd (And Somebody thinks of building a nest!) And now she chooses another tune, One that was often sung by me :- Lucy, you sing like a silver bell, Your face is fresh as a morning flower- I'm grey and grave, and 'tis quite time too,— I know the words that Somebody says: There is a grave that you do not know, A love in my heart that is always green: ISABELLA FYVIE A RELEASED PRISONER. THE gaol in the ancient city of is a dark, f coarse, brown coverlet closer round his gaunt, massive old building that has remained unchanged attenuated frame. The outline of his massive limbs, among all the modern improvements which have produced our model prisons and new convict establishments. A portentous wall, thick and high enough to stand a siege, surrounds it on all sides, leaving only a portion of the roof visible to the outer world. Through this wall a huge black door, guarded on either side by two enormous cannons, leads into an enclosure which is mournfully ornamented by a few sickly plants languishing in the perpetual shadow. Here the gaol itself stands-a great mass of gloomy stone, pierced at rare intervals by little oblong windows, closely barred and not more than a foot in height. Another black door, as menacing as the first, gives entrance into a stone hall, the walls of which are decorated with handcuffs and various other formidable-looking instruments. From this centre, iron-clad doors, turning on a pivot, lead into those portions of the building where the treadmill, shot drill, and oakum-picking are going on all day, while a steep stone staircase ascends to the upper regions, where the inconceivably gloomy little cells are placed, which are only rather better than the black hole destined for the improvement of refractory prisoners. Altogether it would not be easy to imagine a more forbidding place of incarceration for offenders against the majesty of the law. One morning in the early part of the year, when earth, and air, and sky were all filled with the inexpressible sweetness and beauty of returning spring, a prisoner lay upon his narrow bed, in a cell at the very top of this old gaol. Very dark and cold was the cell, while the glorious sunshine was lavishing its light and warmth on the free air without, and the convict shivered as he drew the now shrunk and wasted, was plainly seen through the scanty covering, and showed that he had beena tall powerful man of great physical strength; whil the strongly-marked features of the wan, thin face were even yet expressive of the energy and deter mination which he was never more to exercise for good or evil-for the man was sick unto death. He had entered almost the last stage of lingering decline. His thick black hair was matted with the heavy dews which drained his strength every night. His broad chest, where the bones seemed almost starting through the skin, was shaken continually by his hacking cough, and the large muscular hands that lay on the coverlet were powerless as those of a child. Only his eyes, dark and keen, retained some of their former fire, and shone with feverish brilliancy under the bushy black eyebrows which overhung them. It was sad to see the wreck of so much physical power, but sadder still to note the expression of hopeless misery on the sullen face, which told of a soul wasting under far more deadly evils than those which were consuming his worn frame. A jug of water stood on a chair by his side, with which he tried from time to time to cool his parched lips; but it was a fiercer thirst which made him look up continually with such an eager, longing gaze to the dismal little window, and then turn, sighing impatiently, to bury his face on the pillow. Meanwhile the governor of the prison, a grave, somewhat stern-looking man, was standing in his own sitting-room below, talking to a lady who had just come in. She was a habitual visitor at the gaol, and had permission to see the female prisoners whenever she chose; but she was only allowed to visit the men when serious sickness detained them in their separate cells. It happened, however, that she had been absent since the prisoner we have been describing had been so ill as to be confined to bed, and she had hitherto known nothing of his case. "I have been hoping you would come, Miss M," said the governor; 66 we have got a sick man just now whom the chaplain can make nothing of, and I do not like to think of his going out of the world like a dumb beast, as he seems to be doing." "Is he dying, then ?" "Dying as certainly as ever man was. The doctor says he cannot live till his term of imprisonment is over, and that is in a month from this time. He is consumptive." "Who is he?" said Miss M "That is more than any of us can tell you," replied the governor. "He calls himself John Hill, but he owns that is not his real name. He will not say where his native place is, or where his friends are, because he is afraid we should let them know of his hopeless illness, and he says he has been such a disgrace to them all, they would wish nothing better than that he should die and be buried in some distant place, where they could never hear of him again." "Poor fellow!" said Miss M——. "Ah, but you ought to know he has been a very bad fellow, too. He has had twelve months here for burglary, and the only thing we really know of him is, that he has been in several gaols before. We traced him back six or seven years, and the most of that time he has spent in prison for different offences, and his conduct in here has not been such as to let me show him much indulgence, even since he has been ill. I wish you to see him because the man is dying, and I am bound to do what I can for the good of his soul; but you must not suppose I expect you to be able to move him one way or other; he is as sullen and dogged with the chaplain and the rest of us as ever he can be. He is past reformation; you may depend upon it he will die the villain he has always been." "Well, I shall be glad to go to him," said Miss M—, and the governor called the head turnkey to show her to Hill's cell. This turnkey, a gaunt, powerful man, was a corporal on half-pay, a good honest fellow as ever breathed, and he entertained quite a romantic friendship for the lady who, as he expressed it, "took such a wonderful deal of trouble with this precious lot of blackguards." "You'll have a stiff job with this here chap, maʼam, if you are going to try to make a Christian of him," he said, as they toiled up the steep stone staircase together. "You should just hear him swear!" "Well, I think I would rather not," she answered, with a smile; "but perhaps there is a little good in him somewhere, Perry, which you have not discovered yet." "If there is, ma'am, you'll be the one to find it out, I know very well; but I will say this, bad as he is, I am sorry for the poor devil-excuse the word, ma'am, it slipped out unawares he do pine and groan so for his time to be up that he may go out from here, and it is certain sure he'll never go out but in his coffin. I'll just run on and see if he is ready for you." He hurried up the remaining steps, and as he unlocked the door and went into the cell, she heard him say to the prisoner, "Here's a lady come to see you, Hill, so sec that you mind your manners, and don't turn your back on her as you do on the parson." He held the door open for her till she past in, and then went out, closing it after him, and saying that he would remain within call till she was ready to leave the cell. Miss M- sat down beside the prisoner, who was now lying with his hands clasped above his head, gazing up at the window, and he turned his eyes upon her, as she took her place, with a half indifferent look of surprise and curiosity, but without the slightest change in the expression of dogged hopelessness which was the marked characteristic of his face. As she looked on the guilty, despairing man before her, dying in ghastly defiance of all those who might have given him hope in his death, her heart went out to him, in a compassionate tenderness, which shone in her eyes and thrilled in her voice, as she addressed him in the gentlest of accents. She told him how she grieved to see him so ill, how very hard it must be for him to lie there suffering day and night, and how much she felt for him in all he had to endure. Not a word did she attempt of religious teaching; not the slightest allusion did she make to his position as a criminal. She spoke to him as she might have done to her own brother had he lain there suffering before her, and the look of surprise in the prisoner's eyes deepened as he listened to her. The hopeless gloom of his face did not lighten, however, as he said— "I be mortal bad, sure enough; but I shall never be better till I get out of this awful place.” "It must, indeed, be dreadful for you to be here," she answered. "I pity you so much, for I know how you must long for the fresh air and the green fields." "Ah, that I do!" he said, with a gasping sigh. "The night is your worst time, is it not ?" said Miss M-. "I always think the long, dark hours must be terrible here; you are locked up so soon, it must make the time seem as if it would never end." "And that's true enough," he answered. "I've been like to hang myself many times o' nights." "I am glad you have one of the men to stay with you now you are so ill. hope he is attentive to you ?" "He is little enough good to me, ma'am, for he sleeps like a blessed 'un all night. It most drives me wild to see him, for I can't sleep; this cruel cough keeps me waking, sure enough." "Poor fellow," she said, compassionately. "The chaplain comes to see you in the daytime, does he not? That must make a little change for you." "Yes," he said, sullenly; "he comes to tell me about hell, and I don't want to hear him; I shall taste it soon enough!" and he shuddered. She looked at him sorrowfully for a moment, and then by a sudden impulse exclaimed "Oh, Hill, you do not know how sorry I am for you; do tell me if there is anything in the world I can do for you; I should be so glad if I could help you." He turned round and stared at her in utter amazement. "Oh, that I should!" he said, earnestly. "Then I will leave you now, that you may have them as soon as possible; and, evidently to his great surprise, shaking hands with him, she left the cell. Perry was overlooking the work of one of the pri soners who was cleaning the passage, and the man was one whom Miss M- had known when he was ill; so she stopped to speak to him while the turnkey went to lock the door of the cell she had left. As he did so, she heard Hill say to him "If you please, sir, would you tell me if that lady is paid for coming here the same as the chaplain is?" "Paid! bless your stupid brains, whatever makes you fancy such a thing as that? Paid! I should think not, indeed. She's got money of her own that she gives to them as needs; and sadly she's imposed upon, poor lady. But the notion of the like of her being paid! Just you take care I never hear you say such a word again." "I meant no offence," said Hill, humbly. "Do “I do not think the water is fresh," said Miss you think, sir, she will come again to see me?” M-, as she looked at it. "No, it's bad, like everything else in this wretched place." "And you are so thirsty," she said, with genuine sympathy. "I think, however, I could get you something to drink which would be more refreshing than this plain water. Do you know what lemonade is ?" "Is that something with lemons and cold water, and just a little sharp to the taste ?" he asked eagerly. 'I had some on it at a fair once. Oh, I should like some of that, ma'am. Could you get it for me?" "I think I could," she answered. "You know it is against rule for me to give you anything myself; but the doctor would, I am sure, order you to have whatever you required; so I will ask the governor to let you have some at once, and I will get it for you immediately." "Oh, ma'am, I shall be so much obliged to you. I do seem so parched, and you wouldn't believe what a fever I be in at times." "I can well understand it," she said. "Your head is very hot now, is it not?" And she laid her hand gently on his forehead. As he felt the cool, soft touch, he closed his eyes with a sort of sigh of contentment, murmuring, "That is beautiful!" His head was burning; and, that he might have more permanent relief than her hand could afford, she dipped her handkerchief in cold water, and laid it on his forehead. He looked up at her gratefully. "I am sure I am very much obliged to you, ma'am; but do you think," he added, with a halftimid, wistful eagerness, "that I shall be having some of that stuff soon as you spoke of to quench my thirst?" "You shall have it almost instantly," she said, smiling. "I will go at once, and make it at my houso; and I will bring it back myself, and give it to the turnkey to bring to you, so that you may have it without delay; and I will send you some oranges, 100; you would like them, would you not ?" "Sure to; she is always here two or three times a week, and she is certain to come up to you." The turnkey came out as he spoke, and locked the door behind him; and as Miss M- followed him through the long passages, she felt more than ever saddened at the condition of the poor prisoner she had left. It was so evident from what he had said to Perry that the possibility of kindness which was not compulsory or the result of self-interest had never before been made known to him in the dark. struggling, wretched life he had led. With some little difficulty, she persuaded the governor that lemonade and oranges came within the definition of the doctor's order-that Hill was to have whatever was requisite, and he promised that they should be faithfully conveyed to the prisoner as soon as she sent them. When Miss M- - next visited the gaol, somewhat sooner than usual, as she felt anxious to see the poor man again, the turnkey told her that Hill had never ceased asking when she would be likely to come, and his pleased, respectful greeting as she went in was so different from the gloomy indifference he had manifested on her first visit, that she was quite surprised. She soon saw, however, that it was owing simply to the discovery he had made that she was not, as he expressed it, paid for coming, but that it was genuine interest in himself which brought her. After having told her eagerly how much relief he had derived from the fruit and other things she had sent him, he said. looking at her earnestly "It is wonderful goodness in you to come and sit in this here cell with a poor wretch like me. I do think it is wonderful." 66 'Indeed, Hill, I assure you it is the greatest plea sure to me to come to you, because I hope so much that I may be able to comfort you." "And you wish to comfort me?" he asked, with a wistful inquiring look that was very touching. "With my whole heart," she answered warmly. "I am so grieved at all you have to suffer that there is nothing I would not do to relieve you if I knew how." A sudden fit of coughing checked him as he was going to answer, and when it was over he lay back exhausted, while she bathed his face and hands with a gentle touch which seemed to calm him strangely. When he could speak again, he yielded to the natural craving for human sympathy from which he seemed to have believed himself altogether shut out before, and began to tell her of all his many physical sufferings in complete detail, finding apparently real pleasure in the mere sound of her voice as she answered him with words of earnest compassion. He was dwelling on the long sleepless nights of feverish restlessness, and she said "Perhaps if you should grow worse, they will think it necessary that you should have a regular sick nurse to sit up with you, and if they do, I will ask the governor to let me come. I am a very good nurse," she added smiling. He opened his eyes in astonishment. "You, ma'am, to come and sit up all night in this cold cell with me!" "Yes, why not?" she said. "I could never have believed it!" he exclaimed, as if speaking more to himself than to her; then his eyes turned involuntarily to the window which his gaze was ever seeking. "Ah!" he said, "I am safe to get worse if I stay in this dreadful place much longer. I believe it would be the death of me if I had not the chance of getting out soon; but, after all, if it were not that they say it will be worse for such as I am in kingdom come, I might as well die as live, for I'm a poor forsaken wretch without ever a friend in the world." "Don't say that," exclaimed Miss M, taking the bony wasted hand in both of hers. "You must never feel lonely or forsaken any more, for you have got me for your friend now, and I will be a true one to you as long as you live." "You my friend!" he said slowly, turning round to look at her. "A lady like you my friend! You never mean it surely." "Do you think I would deceive you?" she said very softly, bending over him, and meeting the gaze of his wondering wistful eyes. "You don't look like one as would." 'No, indeed, I would not. I really mean what I say when I tell you that I want you to take me as your own true friend who will never fail you; and you must speak to me of all your troubles as you would to your mother or sister, and tell me everything you would like me to do for you." "A friend! my friend!" he said, repeating the words as if he could not bring himself to realise their meaning. He was silent for a moment, then suddenly grasping her hand almost convulsively, he said "Ma'am, when I came into this wretched place I thought it was all over with me, and that there wasn't a chance of any good ever coming to me in the world again. When I took my trial there was not a soul to say a word for me, and all as ever knew me before would have been glad enough I should rot and die in the gaol and be buried like a dog. I knew that right well, and I did not believe any one would ever look at me again, except to curse me for a vagabond, and now I've got a friend! a friend!" And as he lay holding her hand in his, tears gathered slowly in his dark sunken eyes and rolled over his cheeks. How long was it since the blessed dew of tears had come to soften the arid desolation of that poor hopeless soul, like waters from heaven falling on the burning sand of a desert waste! As Miss M- watched him weeping quietly, and almost unconsciously, his lips still forming the word that had had such power to move him, a bright hope rose in her heart for him, that those poor wandering feet might even yet attain to the eternal shore, and the weary, sin-stained man lie down to rest for ever in the everlasting Arms, for the heart that had been touched by the divine fire of love, when seen through human agency alone, faint and feebly, would surely open wide to receive the glorious fulness of that eternal Tenderness which is the charity that never faileth, and life for evermore. But she could do no more that day. The turnkey came to tell her it was time to lock up the prisoners for the night, and she was obliged to loosen her hand gently from Hill's grasp, and, with a few kind words, leave him to his solitude. It was very pleasant to Miss M next day, to see the genuine delight with which the prisoner welcomed her: he was now quite at his ease with her, though perfectly respectful in his manner, and he began to tell her very freely all he had been feeling and thinking since the day before. He had had a better night in every way, he said, and he had dreamt of his mother for the first time for many years; she had died when he was quite a youngster, but he thought he saw her standing by his bedside as plain as ever in his life, and she had laid her hand on his head just as Miss M- - had done, and had spoken kindly to him, and he seemed so happy in his dream. Then he went on to speak of his childhood and early years, and how he had learnt to read and write, and had good schooling, only he had made a bad use of it, worse luck! As he rambled on, Miss M-saw with satisfaction that in trying to draw this man out of the darkness of his evil life, to the light and hope which follows true repentance, she should not have to combat the almost insurmountable difficulty of that unreasoning scepticism which pervades the lower classes to a much greater extent than is generally supposed. It never seemed to have occurred to John Hill to doubt the truth of that religion which he had learnt in his youth sufficiently well to make him now feel it to be his condemnation. As he spoke of his first lapses into evil doings, and then touched in general terms on the later years of his life, which he described as having been literally steeped in wickedness, it was evident that he looked upon himself as irretrievably lost, and that it needed only the conviction of approaching death, which had |