against the prowling troops that haunt our homes and hearths."

"Christian, up and smite them! Counting gain but loss; Smite them by the merit

Of the Holy Cross."

The guests were beginning to retire when Mr. Nares, coming up to Sophie, inquired if she were going to make some little stay at Playborough.

"I may be here a day or two longer," she replied, "but not more.

Then he told her how grievously he should miss her when she left, and how, in his solitude, he should look long for her return, as through the dreary winter we long for the coming of the Bong-birds. "If only," added he, "I might Look forward to making you a sharer in all my oys, and labours, and aspirations, even the gloom which hangs over Woodside Villas would disperse in a moment."

For one instant he waited, half anticipating a direct refusal. But it came not; so, encouraged by the silence, he continued: "This fond hope as been clinging to me-I am afraid to say how ong. Tell me, Miss Duval, am I too aspiring,

"A brilliant career is all very well in its way," eplied the musician; "but it is not always the appiest."

No," said Alfred, warmly, "it is not so, deed; and I promise you all the happiness at I can command for you in my little cottage, phie; while yet you need not, for aught I now, be lost to the musical world. My dreams ill be very sweet to-night-full of bright hopes r our future."

"Perhaps I shall not care to play any longer r the public ear," replied Sophie, who, unlike stella, loved her art solely for its own sake, ad not in any degree for the renown that it Fought her.

"That shall be as you will," answered Alfred. I am wondering whether it would be fair to prive the public of such remarkable talent. owever, this will do for an after-thought. I ust away."

The last "good-night" was uttered, and ophie was left to her own reflections. A dream at she had kept secret for the last four yearsdream of daily and almost hourly recurrencead been brought, on this eventful night, to its appy issue; for he who had now given himself

to her was the very ideal of all that was good and noble.

Happy Sophie Duval !

But, while she thought on these things, a shadow crossed her path. For was she not in honour bound to let Alfred know that she was heir to a drunkard's name? And to whom would this confession give so terrible a shock!

CHAPTER XVI.

AFTER AN INTERVAL.

FOURTEEN years have come and gone since the conclusion of our last chapter; and we naturally ask what traces they have left upon the characters with whom we have become familiar.

Let us walk down into that wretched locality which retains its old name of "Crow Lane." There, in a cottage whose doorstep is always clean and white, and whose windows are the clearest in the row, we notice a pretty collection of window-plants, evidently well tended, for they always look fresh and blooming, see them when we will. We tap at the door, and are answered by a good-tempered voice, and bidden. to come in and take a seat. Busily engaged with some useful work stands Mrs. Bailey, while her husband, who by chance has a spare afternoon, is reading aloud to her. He looks, of course, years older than when we saw him last, but ever so much better. The thick, sallow complexion has become clear, and the halfbesotted eyes have now a manly cast, which tells its tale of self-respect. Thus far all is cheering; but

Ah! there is a dark side even to this pleasing picture; and we must not shrink from gazing upon it. But before we do so, let us take a peep at Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Nares. They have been married about twelve years, and five little children have made their villa-residence all too small for them. Alfred has risen long since to a senior clerkship, and can afford to rent a larger house. But one necessary result of his rise was a residence at a foreign part for a couple of years on mercantile business. After a great deal of consideration, it was resolved that his wife and the two youngest children should accompany him, the other three being put to school.

For Sophie, this arrangement had a peculiar charm; for she had often wished to revisit the land in which much of her childhood had been passed. But somehow, England by this time completely engrossed her heart, though she did not know it till she found herself rejoicing when the term of banishment drew to its close.

HE has lured him from me with her fair face, but he shall never call her wife-never!"

Blanche De Leon was standing outside the house in the perfect beauty of a peaceful summer night. The shrubbery, growing in wild beauty all around, concealed her from the two that she was watching-two who, all unconscious that her dark eyes were fixed upon them, were standing in the shadows scarce twenty feet away.

"It will be desolation for me when you are gone, Cecil. There is no other here that I care to call friend."

No other? You forget. There is Blanche De Leon ? "

"No. She hates me; she would be glad if I were in my grave."

"You speak strangely, Edith. What mean you?"

"I will tell you; but come, it is growing

late."

The two turned away. She heard no more. "So she suspects all. Well, my fair Edith, you were more watchful than I thought; but little do you dream that your own words have hastened the—I must not think of this now."

Hours rolled on. Blanche De Leon had entered her room, and was walking restlessly to and fro; at times her hand pressed to her fair brow as if a fever burned there. She crossed the room, and went to the open window. How calm and peaceful the world looked! And she! Ah, pitying Heaven! what a tumult was raging in her soul.

"There is a time when this earth is a heaven, and that time the hour when we are clasped in the arms of the one we worship. In the days that are to come, she will look back to this night and wonder if it were not all a dream. Never again shall she stand with Cecil Winthrop as she has stood to-night!"

Blanche De Leon had been favoured of the gods-wealth, beauty, both were hers; but love, for which she so hungered, was denied her.

Handsome, dark-faced Cecil Winthrop cared not for her!

"Cecil Winthrop returns to-day. Think what

his feelings will be when he learns that five weeks ago the grave closed over you!"

Blanche De Leon stood before the girl she hated, her dark eyes fixed upon her.

Edith Westbrook made no reply.

"I know my power," Blanche continued. "Ere a month has passed this idol of yours will be far more in love with me than he ever was with you."

"Never! He will scorn your passion. You need never, for one instant, think that he will link his fair name with yours, even if he never looks upon my face again!"

A laugh, low and bitter, fell from Blanche De Leon's lips.

"We will see," she said. "The hour will come when

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What means this?"

The words were spoken, but not by Edith. A man's tone, deep and hurried, fell upon the ears of the two fair women. Both looked instantly, and a glad cry burst from Edith. In the now open doorway, a man, dark and handsome, was standing.

Blanche De Leon, her face ashen, stood frozen with the awfulness of the surprise. In an instant she realised all; and what an all it meant for her! For a moment she stood silent, gazing into the dark face of him she worshipped; then, in a voice strangely, awfully calm, she spoke :

"It means, that I have done more than most women would ever dream of. If you had loved me we could have been happier than the angels; and to win you there is nothing that I would not have done. But I have failed; and now, that you know me as I am, you will scorn, hate, and despise me. 'A woman's love is a strange thing, isn't it, Cecil Winthrop ?" Then she

smiled; but such a smile! "For love of you I have done all this-risked all this," she went on, in that awfully calm voice; "and now I shall die. Cecil, farewell—and for ever!”

She stood motionless for half a minute after the words had left her lips, her dark eyes still fixed upon him. It was a look such as a lost soul might give when glancing for the last time on all that could have made earth a heaven, and yet knowing that all was lost for ever. Then the hand of the wretched woman went to her bosom,

she looked; and, if the two had lived a thousand years, that scene they could never have forgotten! Blanche! Poor Blanche !

Years have passed.

Cecil Winthrop and his fair wife live on tasting life's choicest sweets.

Often their memory wanders back to the time when Edith had been the prisoner of her whose wild, passionate life had ended so tragically in her victim's prison-dark-eyed, beautiful Blanche De Leon.

PAGES FOR

CHAPTER VII.

"BENEDICITE."

"Oh, ye sun and moon! bless ye the Lord; praise Him, and magnify Him for ever."

E spoke a little last time of the sun, but it is a subject on which volumes and volumes might be written, and still more be left to be said. Year after year new discoveries are being made by learned men, who love to think over these things, and each fresh thing which they find out fills them with more and more wonder.

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was

All light did not, in the first beginning of things, come from the sun, because we are told that God said, "Let there be light, and there was light" three days before the sun created. "Whence," says a French writer, "did the light come before the creation of the sun? Why, it is easy to see that light can exist without the sun. When, at night you walk about in the streets, and when you go into the handsome shops, brilliantly lighted up by gas, what is it that lights them? Is it the sun? No, the sun has long set behind the hills. God has, then, sources of light other than the sun, and up to the fourth day of creation that light was floating through space, but that fourth day He gathered it into that great globe "-we suppose it is nothing new to our young readers to be told that the earth goes round the sun, and not the sun round the earth-" round which our earth

has never ceased to turn ever since-and which became our great lamp."

Perhaps you

What causes the sun to shine? never thought of that you have always s taken for granted that the sun does shine, and gives us all our light and heat, that you have never troubled yourself to think what caused the shining. God, as I have just told you, gathered together on the fourth day the light that was before floating through space, and put it into the sun; or rather, I should say, round the sun, for you will be surprised when I tell you that it is not the sun itself which gives DS light, but the garment of bright vapours or mists in which it is wrapped. You will be stil more astonished when I tell you that we never see the sun itself-all that meets our eyes being that bright garment of vapours. All that we see of the sun itself is a little peep here and there given us by what are called its spots You may have seen those spots if ever you have tried for some time to look hard at the sun. until at last the dazzle has seemed to go off, and the sun has looked to you as a round ball without rays.

Or if you have ever looked through a telescope, you will have seen the spots. Now those spots are just openings in the glowing garment of the sun, allowing us to see here and there its dark body. But what makes the gar ment so bright? and why does it never lose its brightness, but keep on shining as gloriously as when it first appeared to Adam and Eve?

It is thought (indeed, I may say, known, for clever men have managed to make such wonderfully strong telescopes, that though the sun is

ninety-three million of miles from the earth, they can make pictures of it as easily as a photorapher can take your likeness),—it is thought hat the sun's body is full of fire, which from ime to time comes bursting out as it does from he burning mountains on our earth, Vesuvius, Etna, Hecla, and the rest. But the heat in the un is far, far greater than that of any of the olcanoes or burning mountains of this world. So great is that heat as to melt the metals which re also in the sun-the iron, the zinc, the copper, nd it is these melted metals which make the right covering round the sun. Just think of ow bright a mist made of all these melted metals ust be, and then you will be the less surprised at the mist-robe of the sun should be such a nining garment. The mist and fogs we see er our earth are not by any means bright, for ey contain water, but just think how brilliant elted copper, zinc and iron, must make the

pours.

Would you think it possible that violent storms ould sweep across the sun? It is so, however— ful storms, worse than any we have in our orld. Ah, it is only in that happy country, yond the stars, that there is everlasting rest d peace! But it would be a fine sight, if any e were there to see it, to watch the bright pours swept about by the wind during those mpests. I have seen some dissolving views in ich this wonderful thing is shown; and the pours, driven about, and tossed by the great ds, had almost the look of soft masses of autiful feathers. It is these storms which use the spots in the sun of which I have eady told you; the vapours being driven out by the great winds, leave ball spaces upon body of the sun, which look like dark patches a light object, while, in reality, they are used by the bright covering being here and re pushed aside from a dark one. The sun elf is probably smaller than it appears, as the ght vapour-garment is like a loose dress which esn't quite fit, being a little too large for the

rer.

Sometimes the sun has what is called its atbursts," that is, the fires within it burst out throw up the metals within. You have, haps, heard of "meteoric stones," or as some ple call them, "thunderbolts"-large masses of at looks like partly-burnt metal, which fall wn from the sky sometimes, when there is nder in the air. These are thrown from the or some of the neighbouring stars, which -you know, also seen during an "outburst". presents from the sun to the earth, are they and presents which are sent a pretty long 7. when we consider that they have (when they come from the sun) to travel a distance of ety-three millions of miles.

You may remember that in the Acts of the

Apostles, when St. Paul went to Ephesus, he found the people worshipping a heathen goddess, called Diana, and an image of her which the people declared to have come down from heaven, from Zeus or Jupiter, their god. There is great reason to suppose that that image was really a meteoric stone, which fell from the sun or some star in an "outburst," and, being very large, was afterwards shaped by the hand of man into a sort of rude statue of a woman. As it came down from the sky, the ignorant people of Ephesus thought that it came down from the heaven where they supposed their gods lived. But the sun sends down something better than meteoric stones. What should we do without its light, and how we should starve without its heat! As the poem sometimes taught to very little children, says,—

"When he shines, our hearts revive, And all the plants rejoice and thrive."

There is such great heat in the sun that it is said twelve thousand millions of millions of coals would have to be burnt to produce such heat. There would be a bonfire-twelve thousand millions of millions of coals, would there not?

And here we come to rather a puzzling thing. It is that so many of the sun's rays seem wasted. Not that anything God made is really wasted. He has His own use for all the works of His hands; but it is calculated that only one ray in two hundred and thirty millions reaches our earth, so what becomes of all the others? Perhaps they give light and warmth to the dwellers in other worlds than ours, for we cannot believe that ours is the only inhabited one. Sir John Herschel, a most learned man in those matters, thought the sun itself was inhabited; but since his time, much has been found out as to the great inward heat of the sun which has shown it to be impossible (as far as we can judge) for anyone to live there.

One cannot wonder that the ignorant heathen, knowing nothing of the true God, worshipped the sun. Under many names has he been worshipped in different countries-in countries no doubt copying from others, only giving different names to their gods of the sun as Krishna in India; as Phoebus Apollo in Greece; as Baal in Syria; and other countries round the Holy Land; as Balder among the northern people, we are ourselves descended from; and by other names in various old tales that were first, perhaps, merely, little parables, has our beautiful lamp, our useful and cheering fire, been worshipped, at least honoured. I dare say it seems to you very foolish to think of worshipping a thing, such as the sun, however beautiful and usefulmore foolish even than it would have been to