Leonard himself was most hospitably and kindly received in the house of a Russian noble, who seemed determined that at least the prisoners should bear away a good report of their treatment in the land of the enemy. Leonard soon ingratiated himself with the family, and found himself quickly liked and popular. It was a matter of no small joy to him that he procured leave for Dennis to be in the same house with himself.

The person in whose house Leonard was quartered, was a person of high position and influence. The hold which the young prisoner gained over his hosts was such as to interest them strongly in his favour, and after a time his host undertook to attempt his liberation and to gain permission for his return. The first hope which was raised of this kindled at once in Leonard's mind the most ardent desire for its fulfilment. He of course heard nothing from home, and the letters he did attempt to smuggle through the ordinary channels to England, were intercepted by the vigilance of Russian police, and never reached their destination. The desire to reach home increased with his prolonged absence, to an intensity which became deeply painful. A thousand anxious thoughts and surmises occupied his mind, and he imagined troubles and sorrows at home for which he had no ground or warrant.

Had he known that the news of his death had reached Brandon owing to the impression in his regiment that that was the case, and had he been aware of the sad consequences of the receipt of the intelligence, his hours of captivity would have been saddened indeed. Distance from an object we are interested in seems to bring that

object to our mind in only one aspect: the possible sorrows and troubles which may be passing their shadows across it, until at length we hope or conceive no other possible condition for it, and make its woeful and sadder condition the necessary attribute of its existence. Week after week passed by as Leonard's kind friends were using influence at court to gain the wished-for permission. The fluctuations of hope and despair were continual and long, and dreary captivity seemed opening out before our heroes, when one morning his host entered Leonard's room, holding the letter in his hand which he had received from head-quarters granting the permission to Leonard and Dennis to return to England. The joy of such moments is better imagined than described, nor is the imagination very possible for those who have never occupied the position. One feature is striking on such occasions. Every wish and desire is absorbed in the one of liberty and return; those at home think that there will be a lingering interest in the war, a fond attachment for its scenes, a realization of the feelings of the prisoner of Chillon, that "even I regain my freedom with a sigh;" that there will be so great a halo of romantic glory about the scene of danger and interest, that even home will be a little pallid and a little dull. But all such passes away before the reality; every feeling, wish, and thought blends into the one delight of "going home."

Despite the passport and permission our friends found it no easy matter to reach and cross the frontier. Several times they were conscious of being closely watched, and that persons who appeared to be merely ordinary

fellow-travellers, or attendants, were in fact spies upon their movements and conversations.

But they crossed the frontier and made their way with all speed to England. With anxious feelings and hesitating steps Leonard approached his old home. The events which had crowded into the interval made the time appear threefold. It was approaching evening when he entered Brandon; the quiet church-tower was the first object which greeted his eye from the gate which brought him into the village, and the first sound which welcomed him was the sound of its wellknown chime. Jessy-Cicely-Maxwell, where were they all? He paused, and gazed upon the quiet tower; he feared to go, and yet he longed. Some way in the trees the Parsonage nestled and the tower rose over it, speaking out its chimes, as if it would tell Leonard that they all were there whom he loved. Yet its calm monotony told no more, no chance or change of human life; gazing as it did alike at Jessy in her quiet room and Leonard by the gate. Two little children came along the road, and gazed up at the young soldier, and Leonard realised in a moment the new importance with which he had become invested. This little incident turned the current of his thoughts, and speaking to the children he pursued his course along the winding lane, and under the hedge-row towards the church. Partly from the strong sense of gratitude to GOD, and that he should repair first to His House to thank Him for His mercies, and partly from the nervous fear of answering the anxious question, "What has happened since I went away?" he entered the church, as we already

know; and the first object which met his eye was the tomb sculptured with his own name! Strange vicissitudes of life! Strange paradoxes of war; a tomb erected for the living, and for the countless dead scarcely a grave. Mourners by hearth and altar for one whose footsteps are already sounding on his native beach, and for the grim forms in the vast chambers of death and the besieged city, no murmur at all; a village weeping for one only imagined dead, and 50,000 dead with scarce a funeral tear. A nation's holocaust to the demands of lust.

CHAPTER XL.

REST.

CICELY too came home. Her work had been one of duty and love, not of ostentation. The only difference about her nature and Leonard's was that it was perfectly unexcited. She had been out several weeks, and had become intimately acquainted with the working of the hospital system there, and with many of those excellent women who were so nobly doing the work of GOD. She disappointed grievously all those who connected her mission with any very high-flown ideas of self-devotion or a great future. She had given a vent to her sense of duty and felt the happier for it. Her family were prepared for her return: "My dearest father, I shall be at Brandon Station by the train arriving at 3.35. from London. How happy I shall

be to be with you all again. How much we shall have to say to each other."

Such was the whole excitement got up by Cicely on her return. But her work was done. She had found a safety-valve for her yearning, the yearning of practical duty.

Poor Jessy, well had it been for her if she had found the same. Long, very long were the hours of anxiety which hung over the watchers by Jessy's couch. Whether life or death was to be the end of that sad interval, it was hard to say.

For many hours she lay unconscious of all passing events, and memory only seemed to resume its seat ever and anon to recall some floating unconnected accident of the past. But whatever she spoke of, she never spoke of Leonard. Maxwell she often spoke of and by his name, though hitherto she had always called him "Leonard." She often began to speak of some past incident of the war which remained in vivid colours upon her mind; of Alma or Inkermann, or the horrors of war, or the landing of the troops. But they were ever floating units, separate and disconnected, flickering flares of light which curled off into empty air without even the consolidation of a flame.

Mrs. Thorburn was constantly with her, and her voice seemed to be most powerful and effective in recalling Jessy to herself. But at first it was ever to talk of Ruth or of Rizpah, or some sadder tale of human suffering and woe which found a sympathy in her mind. Leonard came daily and sat through livelong hours with Mr. Seymour, and listened to catch some sound