greater part of my life's way, who knows how I have become what others only see I am, who understands the bitter experience by which I have bought some of my decided views; who sympathises with the pain buried beneath the sharp tones which ring sometimes in my voice."

Occasionally, such friends are far separated from each other. Often as time passes on, the petty daily interests of each life are not common interests. The dear friend's very name, the tender bonds which fasten it to the heart; the depths of experience or sympathy, in which it is safely held, may never be touched by any to whom we say a daily "How do you do?" and with whom we go to market or to church. But, somehow, dearly as such friends would treasure constant intercourse, their friendship does not seem to require it. "In the world of soul, where love is, there is no separation." Each knows the principles of the other's life, and so keeps a hold on the life itself, however much its conditions may change. We have known such friendships, where the separation, even the silence, of years has been borne, with so much comprehending faith and love, and in such perfect unity, that when the day of joyful meeting came, all the years of parting were at once annulled, and each looked in the other's eye, and said, despite whitening hair and altered surroundings:

"Surely we parted but yesterday!"

Such friendships as these reveal something of the life behind the veil of death, and whisper sweet secrets of what eternity is keeping for us!

James Smetham, the thoughtful, gentle artist, cried in glad praise: "Thank God for friends!" adding wisely: "Only Supreme Wisdom can pick us out our friends, and then they are made as slowly as geologic formations, or, if not, with the same mighty powers of central fire and upheaval."

But it is not only the great friendships of life which Time makes precious. The kindly acquaintance or neighbour, who remembers our father's house before it was pulled down; or who shared with us the ministrations of the old preacher, who is dead for so many years; the old school-fellow, though he was not in our class, even the very stranger who happens to have been present at some of the far-off festivals. of our childhood, or who accidentally looked into the church on our wedding-day-how interesting they all become to us!

There is a reverse to this pleasantness. What must it be to encounter the partners of sins and follies, which we have forsaken? to come across those who are possibly still floundering in the bog where we may have helped to lead them? How many a repentance, how many a returning to paths of righteousness, is for ever saddened by the consciousness that those who shared the downward path have not joined the upward struggle! One who had sorely sullied the days of his youth, said sadly-"I dare not think about the past. I have no 'pleasures of memory.'

And yet, of course, he was always conscious of the skeleton chest, though he tried to keep it out of sight; while the waters of Lethe with which he vainly strove to overwhelm it, drowned

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rather the few brighter remnants of his early days those times of harmless merriment, and those innocent associations, which he dared not cherish, because of the dark remembrances with which they were inextricably mingled.

The old writer Feltham quaintly says "In all that belongs to man you cannot find a greater wonder than memory. What a treasury

of all things! . . . As if nature, because she would have man cirer inspect, had furnished him with an account book to carry always with him. Yet it neither burthens nor takes up room."

Now, if the worst use of an account book is to fill it up with the record of extravagances which should never have been indulged in, or with blunders which have to be erased and rectified, then the next bad use is to leave it blank! Nobody can make memories out of a merely frivolous, empty life. Just as beautiful tapestry or faithfully woven linen may be stored. for years, while machine-made "chiffon turn only into distasteful and perishable rags, so frothy pleasures, and the aimless " amusements" of idlers will not make noble memories to cheer and uphold the solitude of age. Worthy friendship, innocent affection and resolutelydone duty are the only lasting materials for that manufacture.

will

It was a foreseeing mind which decided in the days of youth to secure its share in every wider interest, every progressive step, every historic spectacle, even every quaint custom which came within range. "I am providing for my old age," she explained playfully. "I want to make myself so that I shall be interesting to the young."

Now, everybody tells us that we should strive to store some provision for our days of weakness and decay, but few remember the equal duty of making our old age entertaining and delightful. And to do the latter as to do the former, it is sound advice that "we can never begin too young." Even those whose whole lives must be passed in humble ways, and in quiet places, need not think that the fulfilment of this duty is impossible for them. Wherever a few human beings are, there is plenty of material for observation and interest. Bishop Jeremy Taylor has told us that the physician can gain experience in nearly all diseases by practice in a small number of families, and some of the greatest works of genius prove that the widest knowledge of human nature may be gained within narrowest limits. Again, an unflinching devotion to duty is sure to bring us to those spiritual struggles and discipline, which after all make the true biography -the "reminiscences" of a soul.

Probably, life has no greater pleasure than the mutual reviewing of it, when they meet who have worthily trodden its varied ways. And this is a pleasure distinctly reserved for those later years, which a modern singer, with delightful variation from the usual rhapsodies over youth, calls

"Blessed Age, beyond the fire and feverPast the delight that shatters, hope that stings, And cager flutt'ring of Life's ignorant wings."

L

ANGDALE sat brooding over the fire, for the

air was suddenly cold that morning, and he was always chilly. He was suffering keenly from physical depression as well as mental anguish, in the absence of accustomed stimulant; and he began to feel the irksome pressure of confinement and want of exercise. But what lay beyond?

"Must I give thee up, Ephraim?"

He looked round for Alcie, and not seeing her, stepped out of the window, afraid lest she might be getting cold outside. She was not there, but the fresh air, and the pacing ground, narrow though it was, tempted him to linger. He walked backwards and forwards, looking down on the river below-grey, now, under the cloudy skyand looking back along his stream of life, from its glad upspringing to its tainted, poisoned outflow.

He was the only child of a rich man. His mother had died when he was ten years old-he knew, now, from excessive drinking, but that was hidden from him then. His father broke up the household, and the boy was sent to the care of a maiden aunt, his father's sister. Within three years, his father was married again, to a widow lady with two daughters. Claude paid them short visits in the holidays, but his home was still with his aunt at Kensington, and his greatest delight were the long summer journeys with her, whon his passion for nature and art grew, and was fostered by her ardent sympathy.

He went to Harrow, and came out with credit, though not with distinction, both in games and lessons; but he was always drawing, to the delight of his companions; and when he passed on to Oxford, after a longer stay than common in his father's house, it was so evident that his heart was in the artist life that a don of exceptional sense wrote to the father, and urged him to let the lad have his way. The elder Langdale consented, rather pleased to be told that his son was an extraordinary genius, and Claude joyfully turned his back on the schools, and set out on his

travels to study and sketch. For ten years he was a wanderer, returning to London at intervals. During this time, both his aunt and his father died. The aunt, expecting him to be a rich man, left most of her little property to others; but when, shortly afterwards, he lost his father, it was found that Mr. Langdale had been living beyond his income, and when the large jointure secured to his wife and legacies to her daughters were paid, and all claims settled, not more than three or four hundred a year remained for his

son.

And Claude had been brought up in all the fastidious and expensive habits of wealth.

But he had life before him, and a beloved art. Already his pictures began to be talked of. He worked on, with a glorious disdain of pot-boilers, believing in his star; and it rose rapidly. When

in town, he became a familiar figure in great men's parties, sought for his personal fascination even more than for his rising fame. His instincts led him always to whatever was highest, purest, and most refined. Anything fast or low was abhorrent to him; and only the people with whom he lodged knew that at the end of almost every London stay, this preux chevalier would be for days together a slave to intoxicating drink.

He did not know himself how it first began. The first time the craving mastered him altogether was during that long visit to his father's house, when the customs of the family led him to take much more wine at meals than he had previously been used to do. With mistaken mercy, he had never been told of his inheritance: he did not know that more than a common danger lurked behind the secret wish he had often felt to take a little more, when his companions took for granted that every one had had enough. Pride would never let him ask for it. Pride stayed him from open excess at his father's table, but the mania was being nourished all the time, and suddenly it broke out. He took brandy to his room, and drank till he was helpless. The servants screened him, and the family never knew; but it came to the ears of the coachman, who had been groom in his mother's day, and he was faithful enough to give the warning which might have saved his young master if it had come five years before. It might have saved him then, if he had had the courage to abstain altogether; but he had not. His step-mother and her daughters-now brilliant girls, a little older than himself-w -were fond of hinting that the maiden aunt had done her best to bring him up for a milksop, and the sensitive lad of eighteen could not endure to do what, in their eyes, might betoken that she had succeeded.

"a

He left for Oxford very soon after the breakdown, which was supposed to come from " sudden chill," and his conduct there was irreproachable; but the curse, when once it has shown itself, fails not to dog its victim's steps, as long as any particle of alcohol taken into the system gives it a means of access. He fell again, in his aunt's lifetime, while her home was his; but as before, the mania gave a kind of warning. There was an interval when, by strong effort, he could control himself until he got away out of sight, and she never knew it.

From the time of that second fall, he began to know that he was a marked man: he walked the earth with a brand, not on his forehead-hidden in the secret of his soul. He forgot it oftenoften he disbelieved in it--and then another breakdown would force conviction back on him again. His friends began to note a change in him-an undercurrent of sadness that would stir and rise occasionally to the surface, through all his gay good-fellowship. He was blessed in one

thing; he had no friends who would wish to lead him downwards. All his intimates had been chosen well-by the natural choice of a highminded lad, trained in religious habits, and deeply reverent, who all his life had been winning enough to have what friends he chose. Yet possibly, had they been of lower type they might have hurt him less. He must have broken from them or gone headlong to ruin; in a case of kill or cure, he might have chosen cure. As it was,

he did as others did, and went to his doom in that slow way which fearfully increases the range of "the fatal decree, whereby every crime is made to be the agony of many innocent persons, as well as of the single guilty one." So many trusted him: so many loved him, besides the one who loved him more than, as it were, her own soul.

It was after an outbreak worse than common had led him to leave all his friends and wander about alone, sketching, for months, that he might not "have" to taste intoxicating drinks, that he came to Carstowe. Mrs. Morison kept the village post office. Langdale was buying stamps there when a strange dog rushed in, and rudely chased. her leautiful cat into the back regions. Away went Langdale and the widow after them, to separate the combatants; and thus he discovered that from her back-garden he could command exactly the point of view he wanted for a picture he had set his heart upon, and speedily gained her permission to set up his easel there, and paint. Once admitted, instead of only taking sketches, he painted two full pictures from different points, one in the morning light, one in the afternoon, revelling in the rare opportunity of finishing on the spot; and by way of relaxation, he painted the widow and her cat, and all her little nephews and nieces who came to peep, and Alice, of course, over and over again in different groups. It troubled him a little that

he could not possibly offer them payment, either for sitting or for the delicious tea and tea-cakes which Mrs. Morison regularly brought out to him in the afternoons; but he counted on sending her back some large and useful present when he returned to town, and to Alice, books which he was always re-selecting in his mind, as he learned more of her tastes. He sent for books of his own on purpose to lend them to her, and her enjoyment in them delighted him. They became comrades unawares. He had once asked her opinion on a doubtful point in a picture, simply out of sociability. To his surprise, he received in answer a valuable hint, given in perfect innocence. From that time, he asked her advice continually they had a consultation when each picture came out, and when it was put away. Alice knew nothing of the rules of art, but she knew perfectly whether his painting made her feel as the fair reality did; and to the artist, half-carried away by the necessary details of progress, that quality in a critic is inestimable.

Yet all the time she was so simple, her innate dignity was so pure and perfect, and their life together so true a comradeship, without one shade of coquetry on one side, or compliment on

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the other-there was nothing to suggest to him. that courtship could be possible. Langdale was intensely proud. If any one had suggested that a village beauty could endanger his heart, he would have utterly scorned the idea. He never paused to analyse what made each day so sweet that to wake to it was bliss. Were not the summer beauty and his delightsome art cause enough? and the joy of seeing the beauty grow into his canvas with a less imperfect transference than he had ever known before.

The summer drifted on. The two pictures were all but finished, and Langdale was finding out how many more could be made out of the scenes in that one garden, when one day, just outside the village, he met Alice's uncle, a rough specimen of a small farmer, and was asked abruptly what he meant by hanging about a widow's house, and taking away a poor girl's good name, if nothing worse came of it.

Indignant to the last degree, Langdale told the man that he ought to know that his niece's name was above suspicion; and as for himself, he was but following his art.

He walked slowly on to the accustomed spot, much disturbed. Mrs. Morison was busy in the shop. Alice came to help him place his picture. She felt instantly that there was a difference in him, and it embarrassed her. Claude felt that, and said something about having soon to go, now that his work was so nearly done. The words, and the dreadful pang they gave her, were equally a surprise to her. Somehow, in that unwritten language that betrays secrets, he read what his going would mean to her, and it was all over with him: he knew that he would leave all the world behind him unless he took her with him when he went away.

A great many customers came in, and kept Mrs. Morison busy for a long time. Before she came out into the garden, Claude and Alice had plighted their troth to one another.

The rapture was so sudden, so new to him, he could scarcely believe that it was not a dream; but it lasted, and grew more and more entrancing through happy weeks; and then he tore himself away, and went to tell the news to his friends, who were expecting him to retrieve his fortunes by marrying an heiress, and naturally received it with dismay. The whole family of cousins who had been his chief companions in boyhood, and really loved him, tore their own hair; the stepmother and her daughters (now married) who loved him not, did what was equivalent to tearing his. All his friends reasoned and lamented, and it was useless to show them Alice's portrait: they only thought the more that he was fooled by a face. He was immoveable, but very miserable to stand well with the correct, refined world was a necessity of life to him. At last a certain Cousin Jane, of the generation above him -an old lady of distinction-had the spirit to put on her bonnet, and without saying a word to any of the rest, travel down to Carstowe and see the girl for herself.

A few days afterwards, Langdale sat fretting and fuming in the studio he shared with a brother artist, when his cousin Fanny burst in, a