see if we can't get her better before your father comes home. If you are ready to go back, I'll just put on my curtain bonnet, and go as far as Dr. Ashley's with you.'

This settled all my visions of seeing the glory of the shops; but as my aunt was evidently too perturbed from her usual calm to think of bestowing the usual shilling on me, I silently got up and prepared to return. A dull aching but undefined fear had entered my heart at her words, but I drove it forth, and would not even attempt to think about it. And yet the terror hung over me like a cloud all the while. My aunt hastily put on her ordinary outdoor dress, and hurried me off to the doctor's house on the other side of the market-place. She left me at the door while she had a brief interview with the doctor, coming out and telling me that he would be sure to see my mother in the afternoon, and bidding me go home quickly like a good child, and not loiter on the way. She saw me fairly out of the town, and then left me. What a different journey home I had to what I had expected! And I was then young enough, and sufficiently selfish to feel the disappointment acutely; and even the newly roused vague misgivings regarding my mother could not entirely put aside my fretful repinings over the lost pleasure. I hurriedly retraced my

steps along the banks of the river, scarcely deigning to cast a glance on any of the passing craft, and even turning a contemptuous look on the primroses I had thought so gay in the morning.

When I arrived at home, I found my mother leaning back in her chair in the garden, looking pale and exhausted, but still cheerful, and very de

My mother smiled

lighted to welcome me back. I gave my aunt's message, but instinctively did not then repeat the remark my aunt had made. faintly at the mention of the doctor; and when I told her he was actually coming that afternoon, she did not seem so excited or surprised as I had imagined, and indeed hoped.

'It is very kind and thoughtful of Aunt Greenwood,' said she, and it will be a satisfaction to your father, Thusie. But he can't do me any good, I know.'

'How can you say so, mother?' replied I, half crying; he might give you something to make you stronger. And what with that and the warm weather, you might be well again before father comes home.'

My mother sighed and shook her head, and said no more; and seeing that she seemed very faint and exhausted, I got her in, and propped her well up with pillows in her old chair by the fire. In a short

time the doctor arrived; but, to my great indignation, my mother desired to see him alone, and sent me out of the room. Swelling with mortification, I went out into the garden, and paced moodily up and down, firmly resolved to catch him outside and catechise him fully. But it was to be a day of misfortunes, for by some unlucky chance I only just spied him mounting his horse, and did not reach the gate in time to speak to him.

I found my mother leaning back, looking perfectly ghastly, and so breathless that I could only give her a cordial, and got her up to bed as speedily as possible. When I had at last arranged her as comfortably as I could, and given her some tea, I sat down by the window to watch the weather; for the treacherous sunshine of the morning had long been closed over by lowering clouds, and now the wind had arisen with a wild, ominous sound, and the sea was sullenly rolling in with huge foam-crested billows, that broke on the beach with a loud, angry sound. The evening closed in earlier and more rapidly than usual, and with the gathering darkness down came the rain like a deluge. I sat moodily by the window, pondering sadly over my mother's illness, and wondering how it was that it had seemed to come so suddenly. My mother had dropped into an uneasy sleep, propped up as she was by pillows; but

although I often looked at her, she did not arouse enough to speak. And by and by the wind had risen to a gale: the rain abated, but the low mutterings of a thunder-storm were to be heard in the distance. Still I sat by the window, tired by my unusual journey, and yet too excited to sleep, while my anxiety for my mother, though only so lately roused, was now painfully acute. I knew there was a storm coming, and sat watching it with intense interest, dreading every moment that my poor, sick mother would awake with all her terror of a storm. And thus time passed on almost unheeded, so that it must have been midnight when the first great crash of the tempest broke directly over our heads, as I stood pressing my face to the window, and eagerly watching the clouds. A vivid flash of forked lightning seemed to glance across the sea, and sear my very eyes in their sockets, while it lighted up the room with an unearthly blue light. During the momentary interval, before the heavy peal of thunder had rolled awfully above us, I was by my mother's bed, in an agony of fear for her. But the next rapid flash lit up her pale face,-very calm, quite awake, and looking at me; and, as the light died fitfully away, her feeble hand sought mine, and I heard her weak voice saying, 'Do not fear for me, Thusie; weak terrors seem to have all passed away. I

my

know and understand better now that the mighty waters are in the hollow of His hand, and that the wind blows only when He sends it!'

Hastily I struck a light, and would have closed the shutters and curtains, but that she desired me not to do so. I half feared that she was wandering in her mind, for she was so unlike herself; and I was but an inexperienced child, after all. And with real awe upon me, such as I had never felt before, I sat down by her bedside, clinging to her hand, and shuddering as every heavy roll of thunder swept over us. And now in her feeble voice, broken at intervals, and spoken slowly and painfully, she rambled on, mingling solemn counsels to me with tender messages to my father, till, in an agony of grief, I sobbed out, 'But you will not die, mother; you must live to see my father again!'

No, Thusie, it is all for the best. I shall never see him again, but you must be a good girl to him, and make up for all I could not be. I have been a weak, repining, cowardly woman; but I see things more clearly now, and I am going to the land where there is no more sea. Oh that terrible, hungry, restless sea, it has fretted away my life with its restless waves; but there will be no sea there!'

Talking at intervals, and occasionally dozing off, to be aroused again by a fresh break-out of the wind,