my steps away, and entered the quaint old marketplace, where my aunt's house stood. She opened the door herself, and recognised me with the utmost amazement, for she was well aware how rarely I left home, and never hitherto alone.

'Bless me, child,' said she, 'what on earth is the matter? What brings you so far from home all by yourself? How's your mother, and has your father written lately?'

'No,' I answered, 'we haven't had a letter from father for a long while, and mother's very poorly. But she has sent you a letter, aunt, and here it is,' said I, diving deep into the recesses of my oldfashioned deep dimity pocket, and producing the missive. My aunt was one of those quiet practical people who always proceed calmly and sensibly first to the matter in hand, and then travel placidly on to the next. She was one of the most unruffled women I ever met with, and to her, even the sea had less terrors than to most seamen's wives. When the wind blew high, and the sea was a sheet of angry foam, my aunt would quietly remark, that we must have this weather sometimes, and sailors were used to it, and she saw no good in meeting troubles halfway, by fancying her David in danger, before she was well acquainted with the fact. I don't think she was really a hard-hearted woman; in fact, I know she

was not; but she was of a very settled sort of phlegmatic temperament, and could not be easily roused by mere hasty surmises of danger,—a striking contrast to my poor frail mother, who I am sure must have died the proverbial coward's death' at every storm.

In the present instance, though utterly amazed at my sudden appearance, she first of all took me into the best kitchen, cut me a good hunch of plum-cake, and gave me a glass of cowslip wine, inquiring how I had come, and so on, until she had seen me thoroughly absorbed in the discussion of those unusual luxuries. She then walked off to the kitchen, where no doubt, to judge from the somewhat noisy sounds, some domestic arrangement was under full weigh, and settled everything there to her entire satisfaction before she returned to the parlour and took up my mother's unopened epistle. To tell the truth, I had managed to get through all my block of cake, and drink all the wine long before there were any signs of her return. I dared not be so familiar as to run out to her, and so sat chafing and fretting over the time that was wasting, until she came in again. The best kitchen, as it was called, was not the liveliest room in the world, for it looked out on a back yard of narrow extent; and though furnished in a homely fashion well enough, it was but a gloomy place for a child. The huge settle with a high back,

near the great fire-place, looked blank and dreary, and the shining old mahogany table in the middle of the room was chilly, and so bright, that I even collected my crumbs of cake in my pocket-handkerchief, lest they should show themselves there. A couple of little dark glazed cupboards, full of old-fashioned beer glasses on stems, and squat quaint Dutch spirit bottles, were the only ornaments of the walls, except the queer antique mirror over the mantleshelf, and a vivid but imaginative likeness of my uncle's vessel, the 'Brackley Lass,' which hung over the dark polished side-table. The floor of stone, though as clean as hands could make it, was only covered by sand, which had been brushed in waving lines over it.

In this somewhat gloomy room I sat until my aunt reappeared.

'Well, child,' said she, 'have you eaten all your cake yet? Let me give you a slice more, for I daresay you are hungry after your walk. I am very busy just now with getting the house straight, for I expect your uncle this afternoon; I've had word that the

Lass" is lying to at the mouth of the river, and she will be up in an hour or two. Won't you have any more cake, child? Bless me, what a poor appetite you've got! When I was your age, I should have thought nothing of eating three such slices. But I suppose you take after your mother, and she

was always a poor ailing body. But townsfolk do have such queer fashions and notions! But let's see what she have got to say; only I must find my glasses first, for I'm no great scholar, and my sight isn't as strong as it were.'

She rummaged out her old, heavy, silver-mounted spectacles, and set herself, in a sort of half-despairing, resolute way, to decipher my mother's epistle. For the first minute or two she evidently kept a half watchful ear and eye on the kitchen proceedings as well as on her study; but presently she became more engrossed, and perching her glasses more firmly on her nose, she grasped the letter in both hands, and became deeply absorbed in its contents. In fact, I had left off watching her, and was engaged in spelling out the queerly formed words on an ancient worked sampler, which hung framed and glazed before me, when I was startled by her voice, in its deepest and harshest tones, asking:

'How long has your mother been so ill, child?' 'Well,' replied I, feeling almost as if I were taken to task for making her worse, 'I don't think this bitter cold winter did her any good, for she's had a bad cough ever since Christmas. But she seemed better to-day, and I think the warm summer weather will soon do her good and make her well.'

'What shall I do?' said my aunt, appealing

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with an injured face to the old mirror.

'Here's my David coming back, after a three months' voyage; and here's this poor soul dying, perhaps !'

'If you mean my mother,' said I indignantly, 'she's doing nothing of the kind, Aunt Greenwood. She's better to-day, and I left her quite cheerful. It's only her cough; indeed, indeed it is,' said I, shaking all over, and getting into a regular agony.

My aunt looked at me sharply for a moment, and then evidently paused to consider. But she was not a woman who ever gave way under any circumstances; and so, her strong sense coming to her aid, she resolved at once on her course.

'Look here, my child,' said she, very kindly taking my hand, 'I daresay you do your best for your mother, but she tells me in her letter that her complaint is worsting. I never heard of it before, so I couldn't have known, or I should have looked after her sooner, 'specially as your father be from home. But to-day your uncle is coming back, and he'll go crazy if I'm away. So you shall go back, my dear, and tell her I'm coming to-morrow; but as I shall feel oneasy about her, I shall send the doctor to her to-day. You tell her, I say, she ought to have seen him before, and she's not to worrit now, for I'll tell your father I sent him, and settle it with him. And I'll come myself to-morrow morning, and then we'll