even a respectable upper servant generally is, for she sat in the most comfortable easy-chair in the room-Mrs. Howard's own chair-with her feet on a very pretty footstool embroidered by Eleanor in tiger-lilies on a soft, mossy ground, with a little velvet table by her side, on which was a silver tray, bearing strawberries, cake, creams, wine and delicately-cut sandwiches.

May felt a good deal surprised when she saw all this, and was still more surprised when Mrs. Howard said to her gently, "Come here, my dear; this lady wants to speak to you."

Of course she obeyea directly. May was an obedient child, and a thorough little lady. The idea of hanging back in an awkward manner would never have occurred to her; so she walked up at once to the table and stood before the old housekeeper, otherwise the cat, otherwise "this lady."

"Take off your hat," said that person, abruptly.

But though May would do anything Mrs. Howard told her, she did not feel as if she were called on to obey this stranger, especially on such a very personal matter as

May took it off then, and her pretty, soft brown hair hung in curls about her face and shoulders.

The old woman looked at her for a long time in a fixed, odd sort of way. "So you are May Cunningham ?" she said, at last.

May blushed a little at being so stared at, but she did not mind it much. She had a confiding disposition, and was not afraid of her fellow-creatures; so she nodded her head in a friendly manner, smiled, and replied, "Yes, I am May Cunningham."

"And do you know who I am?" said the old woman, very sharply.

It was now May's turn to look at her, and she looked rather as if she expected to see her turn into the cat before her eyes. But as she remained sitting quietly in her chair, and no change of any kind appeared about her, either gradual or sudden, May replied, with a slight hesitation of manner, "I think you are the-person-who kindly brought me in the carriage to Fairfield."

"Oh! I am-the-person-am I ?" cried the old woman, with such an excellent imitation of May's manner that Mrs. Howard could not control a momentary laugh, and May, electrified at seeing herself reproduced in her own presence, exclaimed, involuntarily, “Oh, do do that again!" But the old woman remained as grave and composed as ever, and May wondered very much indeed if she had ever smiled or laughed in her life, if she could smile or laugh at all. Had she ever laughed as a baby-as a child Had she spent a life without laughter? and would she, old as she was, die, and in all that whole life have never once laughed at all? The thought of this seized hold of May and oppressed her, and her fair young face grew grave as she looked at the old, laughterless

even?

woman.

"Now I will tell you who I am," said the old woman, all of a sudden breaking the silence. "I am your greatgrandmother."

was a Pierson, and I am Mrs. Pierson of Pierson Hall,” The old housekeeper-the cat-her great-grandmother, and Mrs. Pierson of Pierson Hall! Wonders would never cease. And what would mamma say ?

"Shall I run and tell mamma ?" she cried, with blushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, very much excited.

'Certainly not," said Mrs. Pierson of Pierson Hall. "What they have never mentioned my name to you, have not they ?"

"No, never," replied truthful May.

"I am very rich," said the old woman, "and I live in a beautiful big house, with grand furniture and pictures and statues, and I have more servants than this room would hold, and I have carriages and horses, and gardens and hot-houses with as much fruit in them as would feed a multitude, and as many flowers as would decorate a whole town; and I am Mrs. Pierson of Pierson Hall, and your great-grandmother."

May listened, with eyes fixed upon her and lips slightly apart, but she said nothing. How could she say anything in answer to such an astonishing speech as this?

Then, child as she was, her rapid thoughts could not help comparing this picture of grandeur and riches, which the old woman's words had so graphically painted, with the poverty and want of her own home.

What would not her papa have given for the flowers and fruits she spoke of when her mamma was so ill, and what good a drive in one of the carriages would have done that dear mamma! Was it not poverty and breathing the close air of the town that had made her ill! and how could her own grandmother be so rich and happy, and not help her grandchild?

Then came the memory of the silks and laces May had found in the press; of the strange things her mamma bad said to her when she found them; how she had broken down and cried, and not been able to explain, and May had begged her never to speak about it again.

“Mamma was rich once," she said, scarcely conscious that she had spoken the words till they were uttered. "Oh, mamma was rich once !" echoed the old woman,

"And what shall I call you ?" she asked. "Shall I call

you 'great-granny'?"

told you that, has she? though she has never mentioned

"But

"You shall call me 'ma'am,'" she answered, stiffly, "as little girls ought to call their elders and betters."

Mrs. Howard interposed here.

"You have not been taught to dislike me, then," said Mrs. Pierson, doubtfully.

"My-great-grandmother-mamma's grandmother!" repeated May, so amazed that she really did not take in the meaning of the words she repeated.

"She came here to see your cousin Piers, and she was pleased with your kindness when some rude boy ran against her in the town, and she asked me who you were, and from what she said I knew it must be you, and when I told her she'

"Thank you, Mrs. Howard," cried the old woman sharply, interrupting her, "I can introduce myself to my own great-granddaughter without your help. Much obliged to you all the same."

What an extraordinary person this great-grandmother is! May taught to dislike her or anybody by the dear and mamma whose teaching was all love and charity! Some expressions in her face, some pure depth in her blue eyes, answered the question without a word, and the old woman's glance fell before that of the child.

"Now, May Cunningham, listen to me," said Mrs. Pierson. "You are a good girl; you behaved well to me in the street. I always reward the good and I always punish the bad. Never forget that-I always punish the bad. But I will ask you to pay a visit at Pierson Hall, because you picked up my parcels and helped me. I am going to take your cousin Piers home with me, and I will take you too. Tell your mamma that I leave this at ten o'clock to-morrow morning; that you are to be ready to go with me, and that you are to stay with me for one month, when

"You would find it difficult to be alive yourself if you

greatest care of you while you are with me. mamma iust that, and not one word more."

Tell your

May turned quite pale with the force of all the emotions that she felt. Go away with this old woman! Stay from her own home and her own papa and mamma for a month! Oh, of course, it was impossible. She need not feel in the least frightened-her dear papa and mamma would Dever think of allowing it for an instant.

'They will not let me," she said, smiling slightly, and shaking her head.

The old woman rose from her chair and stood upright before May. She looked very small and fragile, and her dress was just the shabby black one that made May take her for a servant; but her whole person had a wonderful amount of dignity in it, her face was full of animation, and her eyes shone and flashed like black diamonds. She stamped her foot slightly on the floor.

"You do as you are told," she cried in a loud shrill voice. "Who asked your opinion? Little girls should be seen and not heard. Take my message to your mother. Go!"

She waved her hand with a commanding air, then sat down again, leant her head against the back of the chair in a perfectly upright position, and closed her eyes, as if it were all over and she had nothing more to do with it. May turned appealing glances toward Mrs. Howard, who signed to her to leave the room, and on her at once obeying, followed her quietly.

She held the handle of the door still in her hand, though she had closed it, and she spoke in a hurried whisper, though there was nobody to hear what she said.

"Go to your mamma and papa, my dear," was what she whispered to May, "and tell them as well as you can just what has happened, and give the old lady's message, word for word, and say to mamma that I will slip in for half an hour's chat this evening if I am able, and that I hope she will let you go."

"Oh, you can't hope that; she never will!" cried poor May. "I couldn't leave mamma. I have never left her

for a day in all my life.”

Mrs. Howard kissed her.

"But you must do just what I have said," she repeated, "and don't lose a minute. Run away home."

Obedient May did as she was told.

She went home at once, and found her father and mother sitting together as she had left them. But though May was so young, she was a thoughtful and affectionate child, and she knew that she ought not to startle her mamma, and that any strong sudden emotion might be bad for her in her state of health. May, perhaps, was thoughtful beyond her years; partly because she was of a very loving nature, and partly because she had been accustomed to consider her mother first in everything, and knew that she had to be so considered, which prevented her life from being as easy and careless as the lives of children generally are.

Therefore when she entered the room where her parents sat, and they both greeted her with a smiling, "Well, May ?" she kissed her mamma, and said, softly:

66

Mamma, may I take papa away for a few minutes, and tell him a great secret ?"

Mrs. Cunningham laughed.

"Yes, darling, you certainly may," she replied.

"I am highly honored by the preference shown me in considering me worthy of a confidence from which my wife is excluded," Mr. Cunningham said, rising with alacrity, and making May two or three of his grand bows. "Allow me to conduct the young lady who distinguishes me in such a flattering manner into another apartment." He held out his hand to his little daughter as he spoke, and taking hold of the tips of her fingers, kept her at

arm's length while he walked out of the room with her, stepping on his toes, and bending his body about in an absurd way.

But when they were alone together in the dining-room May dropped his hand, and faced him with a distressed, eager countenance.

"Oh, pipa !" she cried, "it is no joke. It is very, very serious !"

"My dear little May," cried he, astonished, "what can it be that is very, very serious, and that you are looking so unhappy about? Is anything the matter with Eleanor ?" “Eleanor !" exclaimed May, in accents that seemed to say she had almost forgotten Eleanor's existence. “Ah, no! it is nothing about her; it is the old woman. Papa, she is my great-grandmother, she is mamma's grandmother. Piers is her relation. She is Mrs. Pierson of Pierson Hall, and she says I behaved well to her in the street, and that she always rewards the good and punishes the bad, and that I am to go back with her to her grand home because I picked up her parcels. She is going to take Piers, and she wants to take me too. She said I was to tell mamma that I was to go with her at ten o'clock to-morrow and stay one month, when she will send me home, and take the greatest care of me; but I am sure mamma won't let me go-I am sure you and mamma won't let me go, papa; oh, I am quite sure you won't. I could not bear to go away from you for a whole month, or a day even!"

Here poor May, excited, astonished, and even frightened by all the wonderful things that had happened to her, melted into tears, and cried quietly for a few minutes.

CHAPTER XII. BRAVE MAY.

MR. CUNNINGHAM put his hand on her head with tender touch, smoothing the curly hair, and then stooping down, dropped a kiss where his kind hand had rested. "My dear May, my little May," he said, slowly, and in a sort of dreamy way in which May had never heard him speak before, "these are very wonderful things that you are telling me."

May dried her tears as quietly as she had shed them. She had always, all through her life-at least, through all that part of her life during which she had been capable of conscious reflection-tried to be a help to her parents and not a trouble, and she never thought now of giving way to her own feelings when theirs were of so much more consequence than hers.

"Yes, papa," she replied, solemnly, "they are very wonderful indeed; they are so wonderful that I did not like to tell them to mamma in a hurry. Doctor Evans said nobody was to startle her, and she might have been startled. It was best to tell you alone, first, was it not, papa ?"

She said this a little anxiously, for to have a secret from her mamma, even for a few minutes, was an unknown experience in May's life.

"Much best, dear," replied her papa, thoughtfully; " and I will tell her about it quietly myself; but there is no time to be lost. How strangely things are brought about! To think that we should have come to Fairfield for this! Go and take a run in the garden, May; gather some flowers and fruit for mamma this evening, and I will call you through the window when she is ready to talk to you."

"Yes, papa; and is it not strange that it now seems quite common to step in from a garden through a window?

and it was such a delicious new thing only a little while ago."

"True, May," replied he; "there is nothing like habit. We become accustomed to everything. We were quite accustomed to never knowing anything of the grandmother, and I suppose we shall soon be accustomed to this new turn in our affairs, but just at the present moment it is very startling and puzzling."

"Are you startled and puzzled, papa ?" cried May; "then indeed I am glad that I did not tell mamma."

"However, mamma must be told," replied her father; "and it is just how to tell her, and what she will say, and what she will wish to do, that is puzzling me."

"I am sure she won't wish to send me away to Pierson Hall for a month," smiled May, with pleased confidence; "but perhaps, papa, she will go to the Parsonage, and give her grandmamma a kiss, and they will be happy ever

He returned to the

So May and her papa separated. drawing-room, and she fetched her basket and garden scissors, and ran across the lawn to cut flowers and gather fruit for her mamma.

She picked the flowers slowly enough, enjoying herself, and then she stood still before a Marshal Niel rose-bush. It had one large magnificent bud on it, which bud May had watched for more than a week with the most loving interest; the pinky-maize or maizy-pink color was shining beautifully through the green calyx, which was bursting in all directions to make room for the fresh brilliant petals within it. May had seen this bud form itself with a great joy in her heart, and had visited it morning and evening, and sometimes at other hours of the day, to mark what progress it made, counting the days off on her fingers till that one on which she thought it would be sufficiently blown to gather and give to her mamma. This long

"Yes, darling; only two people must consent to that must they not, May? And suppose the grandmother should not like it ?"

"As if anybody would not like one of mamma's kisses!" cried May, indignantly.

"And mamma will be wondering at our secret being such a long one," murmured her father. "Well, there is never any use in procrastination. If a thing must be done, it is best to do it at once. If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.""

"Oh, yes, papa: that's what you were reading to mamma in 'Macbeth,'" cried May. "It seems to me that Shakespeare has something to say about everything; whatever happens, you can find a line of his about it."

"Not at all a bad criticism on Shakespeare, little May; and now, out with you into the garden, and I will go tell our secret to mamma, with 'what appetite I may '; and there is another quotation for you from Shakespeare.'

VOL. X. No. 5.-36.

"Not to-morrow," she said softly to herself, "or even the next day. I can't hope for it by the day after to-morrow, though it is growing so large and so pink-but the day after that! I do think that by the day after the day after to-morrow it might be open enough to be pretty, and the rest of its opening it could do in water, you know. Let me see: to-day is Tuesday. It won't be beautiful enough to gather on Wednesday, or even on Thursday, but by Friday I do think it might quite. I long for Friday. I wish Friday were come, and that I were just going to pick you, you dear thing, and take you in to my mamma.'

Tap, tap, tap sounded on the window of the drawingroom as May spoke to the rose, and turning round, she saw her papa standing inside the open window beckoning to her to come to him.

She ran hastily across the lawn, with her lovely freight of flowers in her hands.

"You are very quick, papa; I have not had time to pick the fruit yet. Oh, mamma, do you know I really think