the floor. The "Fury" was the vessel of which Gordon was captain, and of that for the first time the poor

woman was aware.

She lifted Effie in her arms, and with the help of the old man carried her to her little attic room, from the window of which years before she had stood and dreamed waking dreams of her lover.

Even after consciousness had returned, the powers of life seemed to have come to a standstill, and only one dim vague feeling of misery was left her. Never again would a breath of the south wind come to stir the dead leaves fallen on her heart's spring. The old man could not comfort her, he could only struggle with hard gasping sobs, crying, "The Lord help me, a puir desolate auld man, for I needna mourn for Davie, he's won hame afore us a"."

The neighbours came to sympathise with the bereaved family, and very soothing and heartfelt was their sympathy. Miss Ramsay wept with the bereaved girl, and the minister and his wife lost no time in visiting the desolate cottage, the minister entering with the words of the grand old psalm on his lips, "Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." It needed such a word to raise the mind above the broken cisterns of this world; but oh! the hope that had been wrenched suddenly away, the long labour and waiting, and the unchang

ing force that had held them true to each other,— true, though that fevered passion had calmed down into pure tender friendship—a friendship deeper, and stronger, and truer than anything on earth beside a friendship patient, and holy, such as can only be between man and woman.

Effie's sole answer to all the words of sympathy was, "Everybody's kind to me, far kinder than I deserve." But this daughter of the old Dissenter at Grey Craigs never thought of self-indulgence, she had been trained in the school of affliction to endure hardship like a good soldier of Jesus Christ; and so she lifted her head quietly after the stroke that had turned her joy into mourning, and meekly took up the sorrow which had fallen upon her path, and went to God with it.

And it was well for her that thus it was, and it is well for those whom stern principle or necessity call forth from the selfish gratification of grief to the common prosaic business of life, the brown but wholesome bread of the poor, which the pampered appetite of the rich refuses, while it nourishes to its heart the languid, sickly banquet of indulged sorrow.

The sight of her uncomplaining grief awed the neighbours around, for they saw how nobly and bravely she bore her burden-she with the prospect of a long life before her, and to whom the young sailor had been so much.

And so Effie grew into that character rarely seen except amidst the Scottish, with their Calvinism and deep theological training, or where the New England air comes loaded with a Puritan flavour; slow of growth, perhaps, but surely growing; walking sternly over self-grumbling, never complaining though the thorns in their path pierce and wound their feet; and so all the more lovingly looking forward to a life hereafter. They, and they more than others, can sing

"Not here! not here! not where the sparkling waters
Fade into mocking sands as we draw near,
Where in the wilderness each footstep falters,
'I shall be satisfied;' but oh, not here!

"Not here! where all the dreams of bliss deceive us,
Where the worn spirit never gains its goal;
Where haunted ever by the thoughts that grieve us,
Across us floods of bitter memory roll.

"There is a land where every pulse is thrilling

With raptures earth's sojourners may not know;
Where Heaven's repose the weary heart is stilling,
And peacefully life's time-tossed currents flow.

"Far out of sight, while sorrows still unfold us,
Lies the fair country where our hearts abide,
And of its bliss is nought more wondrous told us
Than these few words, 'I shall be satisfied.'

"I shall be satisfied,' the spirit's yearning

For sweet companionship with kindred minds;
The silent love that here meets no returning;
The inspiration which no language finds.

"Shall they be satisfied?' the soul's vague longings,
The aching void which nothing earthly fills?
Oh! what desires upon my heart are thronging,
As I look upward to the heavenly hills.

"Thither my weak and weary steps are tending;
Saviour and Lord! with Thy frail child abide ;
Guide me to home, where, all my wanderings ended,
I shall Thee see, and ‘shall be satisfied.””

By and by a calm came on the excitement, and the loss of the "Fury" turned to be a matter of history, for no tidings reached them of how the illfated ship went down, as no one was left to tell the tale.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"But say to what pledge of memory's hoard
Is the wealth of that mystic wine-cup poured?
Is it time? to his ever onward track

And his tireless step that hath ne'er turned back.

To his glass? with whose dim sands ceaseless flow,
Beauty and strength and glory go.

And his scythe ?-which the nation's might hath mown.
Let us drink to these,-but not these alone."

-F. BROWNE.

Y tale again passes over a good many years.
More than five since the sad tidings came

M

of the loss of the "Fury," and more then ten since Davie Gordon was taken from his home-ten years with the sunshine coming and going. Day after day, and month after month, how noiselessly they glided past, each one so like the other that people forgot to count them or to remember that they were growing old; and the everyday current of a common living bore them along; and through the web of life the shuttle was quietly weaving our story, a simple one it may be, with the Heavenly Weaver superintending His work.

Ten years, and Effie had turned her back upon