that her capabilities were greater than her work. She was a Power in Carlingford, and she knew it; but still there is little good in the existence of a Power unless it can be made use of for some worthy end.

She was coming up Grange Lane rather late one evening, pondering upon these things—thinking within herself compassionately of poor Mr Cavendish, a little in the same way as he had been thinking of her, but from the opposite point of view. For Lucilla could not but see the antithesis of their position, and how he was the foolish apprentice who had chosen his own way and was coming to a bad end, while she was the steady one about to ride by in her Lord Mayor's coach. And Miss Marjoribanks was thinking at the same time of the other candidate, whose canvass was going on so successfully; and that, after the election and all the excitement was over, she would feel a blank. There could be no doubt she would feel a blank-and Lucilla did not see how the blank was to be filled up as she looked into the future; for, as has been said, parish work was not much in her way, and for a woman who feels that she is a Power, there are so few other outlets. She was a little disheartened as she thought it all over. Gleams of possibility, it is true, crossed her mind, such as that of marrying the member for Carlingford, for instance, and thus beginning a new and more important career; but she was too

experienced a woman not to be aware by this time, that possibilities which did not depend upon herself alone had better not be calculated upon. And there did occur to her, among other things, the idea of making a great Experiment which could be carried out only by a woman of genius-of marrying a poor man, and affording to Carlingford and England an example which might influence unborn generations. Such were the thoughts that were passing through her mind when, to her great surprise, she came up to her father, walking up Grange Lane over the dirty remains of the snow—for there was a great deal of snow that year. It was so strange a sight to see Dr Marjoribanks walking that at the first glance Lucilla was startled, and thought something was the matter; but, of course, it all arose from a perfectly natural and explainable cause.

"I have been down to see Mrs Chiley," said the Doctor; "she has her rheumatism very bad again; and the horse has been so long out that I thought I would walk home. I think the old lady is a little upset about Cavendish, Lucilla. He was always a

pet of hers."

"Dear Mrs Chiley! she is not very bad, I hope?" said Miss Marjoribanks.

"Oh no, she is not very bad," said the Doctor, in a dreary tone. "The poor old machine is just about

breaking up, that is all. We can cobble it this once, but next time perhaps――"

"Don't talk in such a disheartening way, papa," said Lucilla. "I am sure she is not so very old."

"We're all pretty old, for that matter," said the Doctor; "we can't run on for ever, you know. If you had been a boy like that stupid fellow Tom, you might have carried on my practice, Lucilla-and even extended it, I shouldn't wonder," Dr Marjoribanks added, with a little grunt, as who should say that is the way of the world.

"But I am not a boy," said Lucilla, mildy; "and even if I had been, you know, I might have chosen another profession. Tom never had any turn for medicine that I ever heard of—”

I

"I hope you know pretty well about all the turns he ever had with that old-woman," said the Doctor, pulling himself up sharply, "always at your ear. suppose she never talks of anything else. But I hope you have too much sense for that sort of thing, Lucilla. Tom will never be anything but a poor man if he were to live a hundred years.'

'Perhaps not, papa," said Lucilla, with a little sigh. The Doctor knew nothing about the great social experiment which it had entered into Miss Marjoribanks's mind to make for the regeneration of her contemporaries and the good of society, or possibly he might

not have distinguished Tom by that particular title. Was it he, perhaps, who was destined to be the hero of a domestic drama embodying the best principles of that Moral Philosophy which Lucilla had studied with such success at Mount Pleasant? She did not ask herself the question, for things had not as yet come to that point, but it gleamed upon her mind as by a side-light.

I don't know how you would get on if you were poor," said the Doctor. "I don't think that would suit you. You would make somebody a capital wife, I can say that for you, Lucilla, that had plenty of money and a liberal disposition like yourself. But poverty is another sort of thing, I can tell you. Luckily you're old enough to have got over all the love-in-a-cottage ideas-if you ever had them," Dr Marjoribanks added. He was a worldly man himself, and he thought his daughter a worldly woman; and yet, though he thoroughly approved of it, he still despised Lucilla a little for her prudence, which is a paradoxical state of mind not very unusual in the world.

"I don't think I ever had them," said Lucilla-"not that kind of poverty. I know what a cottage means; it means a wretched man, always about the house with his feet in slippers, you know-what poor dear Mr Cavendish would come to if he was poor

The Doctor laughed, though he had not seemed up to this moment much disposed for laughing. "So that is all your opinion of Cavendish," he said; "and I don't think you are far wrong either; and yet that was a young fellow that might have done better," Dr Marjoribanks said reflectively, perhaps not without a slight prick of conscience that he had forsaken an old friend.

"Yes," said Lucilla, with a certain solemnity-" but you know, papa, if a man will not when he may And she sighed, though the Doctor, who had not been thinking of Mr Cavendish's prospects in that light, laughed once more; but it was a sharp sort of sudden laugh without much heart in it. He had most likely other things of more importance in his mind.

"Well, there have been a great many off and on since that time," he said, smiling rather grimly. "It is time you were thinking about it seriously, Lucilla. I am not so sure about some things as I once was, and I'd rather like to see you well settled before- It's a kind of prejudice a man has," the Doctor said abruptly, which, whatever he might mean by it, was a dismal sort of speech to make.

"Before what, papa?" asked Lucilla, with a little alarm.

"Tut-before long, to be sure," he said, impatiently. "Ashburton would not be at all amiss if he liked it