courage to try to do any good in it, else it might be right.

"I hope you have begun to visit your poor people; I should have thought they had the first claim on a clergyman's wife. GOD bless you, dear.

"Ever your own,

"MELISE."

CHAPTER III.

COMMENCEMENT OF HER ILLNESS, 1855-REMOVAL TO TORQUAY-LETTERS TO A FRIEND ON RELIGION-PARTIAL RECOVERY-CORRESPONDENCE-CHANGE IN ESTIMATION OF AMUSEMENT, ETC.

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'My sheep hear My Voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

"He shall feed me in a green pasture; and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort."

"He shall convert my soul: and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake."

MELISE had never been otherwise than delicate from her earliest years. She had great difficulty in recovering from the ordinary diseases of childhood, and throughout her life was constantly liable to take cold, and when this was the case her recovery was often very tedious. The severe illness she had in 1852, though it seemed at first to clear her constitution, left behind, especially in her back, traces of the shock it had given to her whole system. She was not well in the summer of 1855 at Bournemouth, and on her return to Wilmslow, attention

was called to her health from her being unable for a time to stand or walk upright. Shrinking from giving her parents pain and anxiety, led her to conceal or make light of illness as long as she was able, but she has since acknowledged that she felt certain that this weakness was the precursor of the illness that would carry her to the grave. At first it merely prevented her taking her favourite exercise of riding, and this not until the end of October. It was thought that with great care she might be able to remain at home during the winter, but towards the beginning of 1856, her cough increased suddenly without any apparent cause, and the state of her lungs was such that her medical adviser thought it dangerous for her to encounter the March winds in the North of England. Accordingly, about the middle of February, my mother took her down to Torquay, whither I accompanied them for a time.

The following account of the way in which Melise usually spent the day about this time, given by a friend, who spent a few days with her before her removal to Torquay, may be interesting to the reader. Her friend writes: "During my visit to Wilmslow, last January year, my mornings till dinner time were passed usually with Melise in her room, so that I knew and saw what her occupations at that time chiefly were, though no doubt my visit rather interrupted her usual routine. The books she was regularly using lay on her little table by the sofa, and I believe she had an appointed time for reading each.

Her Bible, with marks in the places she was reading, Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of CHRIST, Milner's Church History, and S. Augustine's Confessions, all which, I believe, she was reading regularly through. She also frequently turned to some favourite passage from another little book by Thomas à Kempis, called 'The Valley of Lilies,' of which she was particularly fond, or read aloud to me one of the hymns she liked best in 'Select Hymns for Missions, &c.' The two I most distinctly remember her reading were, Hymn 20, which she also had in a different metre,1 and the last one beginning, 'I was wandering and weary ;' she seemed especially to enter into the last hymn, reading it with the greatest feeling, and having an evident difficulty in controlling her voice sufficiently to read it steadily to the end,-a very unusual thing in her. I forget what other books she was reading at that time, but I know that there were several other religious books on her table. She told me that she read them very slowly, not being anxious to finish them, but to gain subjects for prayer and meditation from them, and that her plan was to read only a very few pages at a time, turning it into prayer if possible as she went on, and then to lay aside the book, and think over what she had read, and what she had learnt from it. Of course she did not give much time to reading while we were together, but she told me what her plans were when she was alone. After lunch, we usually

1 Given page 45.

took a walk; when alone, she frequently visited the poor people at that time, she seemed to think it the greatest privilege to be allowed to do any work for GOD. When she came in, she was always obliged to spend the rest of the afternoon on the sofa, lying in a very uncomfortable position, without even a pillow for her head, and yet she always managed to employ herself till it was too dark to see. Her first occupation was to chant the Psalms for the day all through in a low voice, enjoying particularly the Psalms of praise, which seemed peculiarly suited to express her joy and thankfulness in everything. Afterwards, she often wrote letters, still lying down; and when it grew dusk, instead of lighting the candles, I came to sit by her, and we generally had long and very interesting conversations on serious subjects till the dressing hour obliged us to separate. I wish I could remember any of her remarks, they were so original and earnest, and she seemed to feel the truth of everything she said so thoroughly for herself. I think the absence of human teaching helped to make her what she was. Her love to CHRIST, and her extreme earnestness in His service, seemed to me the most prominent features in her religious life, as her strength of mind, and independence were in her natural character."

A former schoolfellow of my sister's, at a considerable sacrifice of her own feelings, which she felt ought not to be preferred to the glory of GOD and the benefit of others, has kindly furnished me