Will smiled resignedly.

"Charitable people are so slow. If everybody were to agree with you, the world would not be worth living in. Depend upon it, Adam and Eve were dreadfully tired of each other before Eve conceived the brilliant idea of eating the apple."

"Do you know you would shock any one who did not know you as well as I do?"

"Kate's name always rankles. I believe I hate that woman; she is sheer humbug, and Lat believes in her. So you like my lady, eh?"

"She has been very good-natured to me. Dym rather dislikes her, I believe."

"Bravo, Miss Dym! Well, Latimer being off duty half the year, it is quite indispensable to have a good resident curate, who can take charge of the parish in the vicar's absence. The work is light, the pay good as such things gotwo hundred and fifty-and lodgings found, I believe Latimer said."

"Indeed! Is it usual in these northern parishes for the squire to add another hundred to the curate's stipend ?" Mr. Chichester looked disconcerted.

"A hundred and fifty being nearer the mark."

"What makes you so sharp to-night? I sharp to-night? I suppose I may do as I like in my own parish?"

"Indeed! Are you the lay-rector?"

No, I am not, Mr. Elliott; but Birstwith belongs to me, and I do not choose the curate of my church, which my father built, to be paid less well than my butler or head gardener."

"I think you are right," returned Will, sadly, hanging his head.

"If you will undertake this charge, the two hundred and fifty a year will be yours; if you refuse, it will go to another

man.

"I trust you will find one to your liking," replied Will, gently.

"What! you decline?"

"I fear I must do so."

"You call me your friend, and refuse the first favour I have ever asked you! Do you know I have set my heart upon this?"

"It grieves me to be obliged to disappoint you, but I cannot leave St. Luke's."

"Tut, man! your reasons?"

"I have given them."

"None that I recognize as such. Do be reasonable, Elliott, and look at this in a sober matter-of-fact way. Does not common sense tell you you are not the man for a dense overpopulated parish like that?"

"I am not much to look at, certainly," returned Will, with a faint smile; "but I am young to be superannuated and set down to do nothing in a country village. Hitherto my strength has been like the widow's cruse-it has never failed

"Don't boast: it may give way to-morrow. Do I not know what work at St. Luke's means? I hate to think of you in

those close squalid streets."

"Such as it is, it is the very breath of my life. Take me away from St. Luke's and I am nothing."

"You used not to say so."

"No; six months ago I should have thought differently. I have learned to know myself and St. Luke's better now. Don't ask me to leave my people."

Mr. Chichester walked up and down the room hurriedly.

"Such Quixotic nonsense! such a lamentable want of common sense!" he muttered. "I have set my heart on this. We want you near us. It would have pleased Honor-I know it would. She always says our drowsy parish wants waking up. You are just the one to rouse us.'

"You are very good, but I am not what you think me," murmured poor Will.

"What do you care what we think of you?" returned Guy, testily. "Just when I want to make every one as happy as I am not that that is possible," he added, hastily. "I always thought it was your wish to provide a home for your sister; but, now the opportunity has come, you shrink from it."

"You tempt me sorely," returned Will, in an agitated voice. "If it were for her good-but no; I cannot reconcile it to my sense of duty. Mr. Benedict is getting old. I have become almost like a son to him. He has just stinted himself to add another fifty pounds to my salary. You are wrong

when you pity me. I have more than a sufficiency for my

needs."

"But your sister," interrupted Mr. Chichester. "Why don't you include her in your list of duties, past, present, and

to come?"

"Do you think I have forgotten her? Poor little Dym! No; I am not quite so selfish as that. It is partly for her sake that I refuse."

"Your reasons?" again demanded Guy.

"Pardon me if I keep some of them to myself," returned Will, with a look of pain. His friend's generous persistence distressed him beyond measure. "Probably if you had offered me this last spring, when Dym was with me, I should have accepted it joyfully. I think now that it is better that she should continue independent of me."

"Why so? Her brother is her natural protector. I do not yet know Honor's wishes, but if she leaves us would you turn her on the world again?"

“No, no. Ah, how you harass my resolution! It is hard enough to do one's duty; but if there be a doubt which is one's duty! Give me a few days to think over this. I will speak to Dym herself."

"Do so, by all means," returned Guy, joyfully, who took this hesitation for victory. "I have not a doubt of what Miss Elliott will say."

"After all, she is my first duty," muttered Will, passing his hand weariedly over his brow. His manner startled Mr. Chichester, and he looked at him more keenly than he had done yet.

"I wish I could sound all your reasons," he said, abruptly. "There is something behind all this. Well, I suppose it would be no use if I talked till cock-crowing.'

"It will be that soon," replied Will, with a strange smile. "Ah, well, you were too happy and I was too thoughtful to sleep. Good-night, Chichester. You won't bear me malice if my conscience falls foul of your wishes?"

"Confound all consciences!" was the somewhat gruff answer. "The worst is, the more a man plagues you and tramples on your pet prejudices, the better you are sure to like him."

"And you will forgive me if I disappoint you?" asked

How white and fragile it

Will, holding out his thin hand. looked beside Guy's strong brown one!

"I can forgive you anything but being such a saint,' returned Mr. Chichester, in his whimsical way.

There, God bless you, old fellow! I am happy enough to forgive the whole world, and even myself."

CHAPTER XXI.

SUNSHINE AND SHADOW.

THE two friends parted, but not to sleep. Guy's happiness kept him restless. He would have liked to sit till morning descanting on the manifold perfections of his betrothed; he had kept Will a full hour after the last "good-night" had been said, listening to his animated plans for the future; but the worn weary look on Will's face at last warned him to desist, and to tax no longer his sympathizing patience.

Strong excitement always stimulated Guy Chichester like new wine. Sleep would not come at his bidding. Honor's sweet looks, her words, her few precious caresses, haunted the happy lover; and, though his waking dreams at last terminated in a brief nap, he sprang up long before it was light, and, summoning his faithful companion Kelpie, set out for one of his interminable walks over hill and dale.

Will, on the contrary, lay open-eyed and anxious long after the darkness had passed into twilight, and twilight into the gray dawning of another day.

Such nights were not new to him. Often and often he had risen from his couch and trimmed the midnight lamp, to relieve bodily uneasiness and induce slumber by hard mental labour. In the darkest hours of his pain, such wisdom and strength would come to him that they who saw his pale face radiant with some secret joy would marvel at the triumph of the soul over so frail a body.

While others slept, none saw him kneeling, sometimes for

hours, before his open Bible; none knew of the strong cries for help that went up to heaven-of the bitter conflicts that were fought by one poor priest, whom men pitied; none knew the loneliness of the great heart which was learning every day to know its own weakness more-a heart that had chosen for itself poverty, and the company of Christ's poor, that asked nothing for itself but to spend and be spent in its Lord's

service.

And yet there were times when William Elliott reproached himself for unfaithfulness, when his soul was torn by a sense of unfitness and neglect of duty, when his measure of strength seemed small, when he looked for help and found none. Great souls have these crises: it is the refined metal that goes down into the furnace.

Sometimes in our greatest need the sun goes down, and to us there is no Gibeon, no valley of Ajalon; our hosts are fighting rank against rank, good against evil, but it is in utter darkness. What false charges we make! what losses! what bloodshed! our reserve forces are of no avail; our advance, our rearguard, are wounded; where are the standards? which side sends forth the note of victory? Light! light! is all we ask; and shall that be denied?

Could we ourselves feel the force of the temptation that precedes a fall, I think there would be an end to harsh judgment. Many a one fights valiantly for a time, who at the last is overborne to the ground by a sudden charge. Happy those who, though mortally wounded, can rise and fight on!

A terrible anxiety was racking the heart and brain of William Elliott when the gray morning broke and found him watching.

Now and then the steady flow of argument was broken by disconnected recollections.

"Just like him," he thought, "to remember others in the first hour of his happiness; another man would have wrapped himself in pardonable egotism at such a time. What a grand whimsical nature it is!-generous, yet as simple as a child. Was it wrong of me to warn him? A man cannot quite outlive his passions; and she-all women are so sensitive. Why, even I, though I love him dearly, I think we should be better friends apart. His will is so strong that it would almost constrain people to sacrifice their conscience, at least in trifles."