And that is all we need say about it for the present; for at ten o'clock of the morning Seth Micklethwaite met Dr. Blandford by the river, Leila Hetherington opened her sleepy blue eyes beneath the slanting walls of the children's room in the attic, and there met their bewildered gaze the bright, bird-like glance of a younger brother and sister, who had climbed upon her bed and were sitting each side of her.

"So you've been out," said Leila, discontentedly, seeing her sister in hood and tippet, 66 Whatever time is it?"

"Why, Leila, it's ten. But, oh, we've got to a beautiful place. We'll be able to do as we like here, and not have to be dressed every time we go out, as we were in Highchester."

"Only," said Miriam, shaking her head at the remembrance of a grave consideration which must keep in check this liberty-"only papa says that the people here are so very good, they'll be quite shocked if they see ministers' children play."

"But did he mean it, really?" asked Leila. "Was it a true fact? I always look at pa's eyebrow to see if he really means a thing. There's a little twitch in it, and it goes down when he's making fun."

"I don't know," said Miriam, to whom such signs were not yet readable, "but Charlie and me were out before breakfast, and an old man walking with two sticks met us as we rode pillion on the gate and pretended it was a horse. He kissed us both and called us 'Joy and Honey.' Oh, he was so kind, just like a grandpa. He asked us if ma felt done up' this morning, and he would make us go to see his place, that's his house. There was a parlour there, but we didn't go into it. He took us into the kitchen, and everyone that came in stared at us because we were the minister's children."

“And there was a big fire right on the hearth," said Charlie and a round thing with holes swinging over, and they gave us some hot cakes made with potatoes and some butter-milk, and we'd breakfast there."

How nice!" said Leila, "and if you'd called me I should have gone with you. It was not kind. Besides, whatever will mamma say to me for being so late?"

"Ma was quite astonished that we woke so early. Grandma says she's been jolted to death and ma aches all over. She gave orders that no one was to call you. You were to sleep as long as ever you liked.” Leila yawned wearifully. "I wish I'd woke up of myself," she said; "I should have liked to have been out with you, and I could have done something for ma.'

To feel that she was put aside, or that her small services could be dispensed with, was a keen mortification to Leila.

Yet she did not look as if she could do much

that day, and her voice had the petulant accents of an over-tired child, as she sent away her younger brother, telling him that she supposed it was time now to get up, though of course she might have slept on until midnight, and asking him if he thought she could dress with him in the room.

Brought to an immediate sense of the proprieties, and in consternation at being rebuked for his obliviousness, Master Charlie Hetherington let himself down from his post at the foot of the bed to the floor, and proceeded to the stairs by way of the store-room. A goodly show of apples that had been left for the new minister, however, arrested his movements, but only for so long as was necessary to bestow one in either of the pockets beneath his tiny blouse. Then, with his hands in them and his little mouth up whistling, he went below, looking as virtuous as if he had been learning the Catechism, or as if he were "got up" in illustration of the lines that Grandmamma so often quoted in his hearing:

Simple, ignorant of ill,

Innocent and happy still." But the apples had not yet been proscribed, and it was only when "the commandment came, sin revived and I died." Nevertheless, a prohibition was amongst those possibilities which Charlie foresaw too well, to hasten by any impolitic reference to the objects of it, or display of his readiness to profit by them in the meantime.

Other of Mr. Hetherington's olive-branches await an introduction to the reader, but that can be deferred. It may be said of the whole family that they are a complete contrast to the children of the district. The union of soul and body, in their case, seems unequal. The stronger and more active mind tyrannises over its frail mate; and well may it be for the strong, if the weak does not, in time, show a disposition to retaliate. Now-a-days, doctors say to parents, "Keep these large brains quiet."

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Mr. Hetherington had more of the student about him than comported with the vulgar reality of saddlebags and the utterance of homely truths, as an itinerant preacher among homely farmers and husbandmen. But he had been glad when the Conference appointed him to Ripplethorpe, from a hope that not only his own health might be benefited by the change, but that his delicate wife and little ones might be set up," as it were, for life. Mr. Hetherington was about five-and-thirty years of age. He was tall and slender, had fine classical features; large grey eyes, which, with their cold light, betokened a luminous intellect; with a nervous contraction of the nostril and play of the finely-curved upper lip. His brow was large and smooth, telling of high, unworldly thought; and the light locks that shaded his forehead disposed themselves too carelessly to be approved by Puritanic

eyes.

Though there was coldness in his face, it was not of the kind which bespeaks an absence of the affections or a normal heartlessness. Mr. Hetherington's face resembled that of a Grecian marble, which affects you by its purity and calm; wherein the absence of emotion is not suggested, but its subordination to thought and reason, and spiritual meditation. He had, withal, a keen sense of humour; and, theologian and true poet though he was, he noted the whims and oddities of poor human nature as keenly as ever they were noted by Dickens or Thackeray.

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With weary steps and an aching frame, Mrs. Hetherington went over her new quarters, and made her arrangements: any reference to the newly-installed master thereof being met by the request to do as she liked," to "settle it her own way," and, with the assurance that "in pleasing herself she would please him." To a woman of a more spirited cast of mind these concessions would have been highly satisfactory; but they often left Mrs. Hetherington in dismay and entanglement, from which she knew not how to extricate herself without the assistance of another mind.

There was one point on which Mr. Hetherington could decide without any one questioning his decision. He could decide which room was to be the study without throwing the burden of selection on another. This time, the little square room which had been used for seclusion by his predecessor was also his choice; and so, as the bookshelves were in readiness, he began, with nervous haste to unpack the two boxes which held his scanty stock of books. More leisurely, Mrs. Hetherington began to fill the chests of drawers. The fine weather, and the breath of perfumed air which came through the windows, sensibly did her good; and ever and anon, she went into her mother's room, to ask the counsel of her it was in vain to look for elsewhere.

No wonder that grandmamma declared she had been jolted to death, for, owing to bad management, the last stage of their journey had to be performed over rough roads, in a carrier's covered cart. Leila had amused herself, by looking through the rents in the canvas at glimpses of the country and of the stars; but she never could forget how straight grandmamma had sat before her, in a kind of grim endurance, and how anxiously her over-tired mother had repeatedly said to her,

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How are you bearing it now, grandma ?How do you feel by this time?" The old lady and the younger had been gently born, and gently reared; but these were not the days of softness and of needless self-indulgence. People, when married, took the lines of life as they fell to them, and thought it too much to hope that they should always fall in pleasant places.

Mid-day found Mr. Hetherington still busy

with the orderly arrangement of his books on the shelves, when Leila came to tell him that there was "such a funny man in the sittingroom; and you had better come and see him, as he would not send any message, but said that he must see the minister." Mr. Hetherington at once responded to the summons, and found his visitor one whom he concluded, at once, was from the southern part of the West Riding.

"Ah's so pleased to see you, sir," was Seth's hearty greeting; "an' ah hev'n't call'd on ye to waste yer teyme, for ah knaw it's varry precious. Ower mester- that's Tom Brighouse, ower theear-said ah was to offer ye his horse tomorrow for Middleton. Mebbe ye knaw that th' little pooany 't belongs to t' preachers got laamed last week, and so ye'll be welcome to t' mester's horse to-morrow. He'll send somebody on a nag along wi' ye to shaw ye t' rooad. Mester wad hev cum along to ye hissen; but he's varry thrang. Missis, ah reckon, will step on, when she thinks 'at yeawr missis is getten settled."

"Then I hope she'll come soon," said Mr. Hetherington; "and, please thank Mr. Brighouse for his kind offer. I shall gladly avail myself both of horse and attendant; for I'm rather slow in getting to know new places."

"Are ye, really?" said Micklethwaite, incredulously. dulously. "Bud, I hooap ye'll leyke theeas pairts when ye git to knaw 'em; an' ah hooap we'll hev grand teymes i' t' little plaace on t' hilltop, and that the faame thereof 'll be heerd on through aw t' region rahnd abaht for meyles. Ah nobbut wish ah could git them to hear ye, as weeant accept t' testimony o' them 'at's poor i' this world's goods, but rich i' the faith and heirs o't' promise. They might happen mak a good haul when t' nett was letten dahn, maister; happen they'd be follerin' Gospel pleugh efter, an' aw Treddlethorpe wad shaht for joy."

Leila's eyes danced.

"What people are you specially referring to, my friend?" said the superintendent-for he suspected some personal grievance.

"Ah mean formal professors, and fooak 'at think their fig-leaves are good eniff to sit dahn to t' marriage feast in. Theer's them 'at think they may believe t' wun hauf o't' Beyble, an' leave t'other hauf shut up."

"Such people here! I should not have thought it," said Mr. Hetherington, reflectively.

"Wad ye hev believed it?" asked Seth, innocently, "ah wuz fairly fleured wi' wun on 'em this varry mornin'! We got agait talking o't' sweyne' at th' divvels drave into t' seea, an' ah telled him 'at divvels meean to drive men into a worse plaace when they get into 'em."

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That was plain-dealing," said the minister. Ay, but he brought meh up sharp, by axin' meh how I knew theer was any watter for t'