one paltry frock, when she wanted it as much as any of my poor pensioners needed a winter garment! What a mockery it must have seemed to her to sit sewing at those flannel petticoats for old Becky and Aggie and the others, when she was herself shivering for want of clothes, poor child! How shall I make her know me, as I really am? How shall I teach her to love and not to fear me? But oh! perhaps she will never come back to me. She is very ill, worse than I thought, and I can see that Dr. Clayton is not very hopeful. Rose says I am unselfish; I fear she is mistaken; here am I thinking of my own disappointment while the child herself is on the brink of the grave.'

Christmas came and went, and still Hilda lay on her bed, now a little better and now worse; now dully conscious of what passed about her, and now again delirious, and nearly always racked with pain. She could not do. the least thing for herself, she could not even lift her hand, or turn upon her pillow; all began to fear that in spite of the sound constitution and excellent physique on which the doctor founded all his hopes, the disease would be too much for her. At last came an access of pain and fever, which might be the turning point, and for several days the struggle went on, till the patient's strength was so far exhausted that only the worst results could be anticipated.

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Night and day her aunts and her uncle and her cousins watched her, and Dr. Clayton was in and out of the house continually. "What do think of her now?" was the frequent question; and as he marked the anxious gaze and tearful eyes of those who looked into his face, as though dreading his reply, he could only answer gravely, "She is in God's hands-He can raise her up." And so matters went on till the new year was in its second week, and then one evening the doctor called Mrs. Arnison aside, and told her that there was some slight improvement, but he doubted whether nature was not too much exhausted to make the necessary effort. If she lived a few hours longer, he should have strong hopes; but the spark of life was now such a feeble little flicker, that the greatest care, the most devoted watchfulness, must be exercised if it were to be fanned once more into a flame.

From that evening, however, there was a decided change -the malady seemed to have worn itself out. The symptoms most to be dreaded were excessive weakness and difficulty in swallowing; but these the loving nurses trusted they could combat. Never was princess of the blood more closely watched and tended than was Hilda Capel while the awful crisis lasted, and her spirit seemed to touch the boundary of either world. It passed, and left her weak as a new-born child, but perfectly conscious, and without fever in her veins.

"How long have I been here?" she asked, one January afternoon of her aunt Rose, who had laid down her work in the failing light.

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"More than a month, dear," replied Mrs. Arnison. 'You did not think you were going to pay us so long a visit, did you?

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No, indeed; but I am quite happy to be here, only I must have given you no end of trouble."

"Our only trouble was on your account, dear child; do you know you are so much better, that Dr. Clayton thinks you may be lifted on to the sofa by Sunday, if tinue to improve?

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"Am I really better? Am I going to get well again, Aunt Rose?"

"I believe so, if we take great care of you, and if you are prudent yourself, and content to do as you are told. We have only now to feed you up, and keep you very warm and comfortable, and you must sleep as much as you can, and take all the kitchen physic that is given you."

Then there was a pause, the firelight shadows danced upon the wall, and the church clock tolled the second quarter of the hour. Outside, the grey dusk was falling fast on the cold, white fells and moors, and on the meadow-lands about the town. It had thawed and frozen again twice since the evening of the skating party, but Hilda had known nothing of changes of weather in the warm, even temperature of her sick chamber. At last she said "Auntie dear, have I not been very near death?"

"Very near, Hilda ! So near, that I think God has

some special work for you to do before He takes you from this world. Had you any perception of your own danger ?"

"Oh, yes, frequently. It seems to me now like a long, painful dream ever since I felt the ice giving way under me; but there were times when I was quite sensible, and could think clearly, though I felt too ill to say a word; and then I thought I must be dying. I did not know it was so easy to die."

"And how did death seem to you ? "

"I hardly know; but I thought of 'pardon and peace,' and I wondered if I were indeed near home! I thought, too, of all my wasted, careless life; I felt I had nothing to offer of my own-nothing to plead, only Christ's great love and mercy to poor sinners. And then I suppose I fell into a sort of stupor or half-sleep, for I dreamed, or seemed to dream; and I thought the Lord Himself stood by my bed and said to me, 'Daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee!' And then I awoke, and I felt that in that dream God had spoken to my soul, and 'pardon and peace' were no longer only words to me-I knew what they meant, for they were mine; and, auntie, I think I am sure they are mine now! And I understand the meaning of that 'no condemnation' in the eighth chapter of Romans, though it was such a mystery when I first heard it read at the Grey House one Sunday evening."

"But you must have heard it before, my dear."

Oh, yes, with my outward ears the words were tolerably familiar, of course; but I attached no meaning to them, nor did I care in the least about their meaning. But everything is changed."

"That is how it is; when the heart is first turned to God, the soul has risen from death to life, old things have passed away, all things have become new, the least as well as the greatest. God has been very good to you, my

child!"

"So good that I could cry for gratitude. It seems to me now the strangest thing that I never loved the Lord Jesus Christ before. And yet I think I had begun to love Him a little, though only a little. I could never forget those words uncle spoke that first Sunday afternoon,

'pardon and peace!' !' And then I heard them again, as I stood outside the little Methodist chapel, and they haunted me, till I felt I should never be at rest till I had them in my own soul-till I knew that every night I was a 'day's march nearer Home.'"

"So you think you love me, do you?
Well, it may be so;

But there are many ways of loving
I have learnt to know.

Many ways, and but one true way,
Which is very rare;

And the counterfeits look brightest,
Though they will not wear."

FROM that day Hilda slowly but surely progressed, though it was a long time, and the days had lengthened out considerably, and the pale primroses were showing in the woods among last year's fallen leaves, before she was pronounced sufficiently recovered to return to the Grey House. And already the Arnisons were beginning to prepare for Alice's wedding, which was fixed for the second week in June. Hilda had made the acquaintance of John Goodman, Alice's future husband, and liked him very much —which was not wonderful, inasmuch as the young doctor was a universal favourite. Of her boy-cousin, Theodore, she had seen little, her illness being at its worst when he was at home for his Christmas holidays, and now he was again expected at the Blue House for the Easter vacation. "How long have I been here?" asked Hilda, one bright morning in early April, as she sat, with her three elder cousins, busily stitching away at some article of Alice's

trousseau. "I have been calculating, and it seems to me that it must be almost, if not quite, four months since I left Aunt Dorothy. I expect every day I shall be summoned to the Grey House."

"You cannot go yet," said Alice, "for we cannot spare you. And I do not see why you should go at all. Why not stay here in my place?

"I could not fill your place, dear; besides, Aunt Dorothy expects me to return. My only wonder is that she has not ordered me back before. I was thinking, perhaps, I ought to go, or at least propose going of my own accord."

"There can be no 'ought' about it," said Flossie, and the others chimed in; they were quite as willing to keep Hilda with them as she was content to stay. She thought with much dismay of resuming the dull, monotonous life of the Grey House, and yet she was beginning to feel that duty called her thither; it was gradually dawning upon her that she owed a good deal to Aunt Dorothy, who had given her a home, and who stood to her in the place of a parent. By degrees Hilda was finding out that she had certain responsibilities, which, as a Christian woman, she could not and would not ignore; and one of them-the chief probably-was to fill worthily the place in which the hand of Providence had undoubtedly placed her.

"At any rate, you must not go till after Easter," said Irene. "John Goodman will be here for a day or two, if his patients will be so kind as to spare him, and Theodore comes home next week. Then we shall be complete; it would never do for you, who are quite one of us, to be away."

At that moment they heard manly steps on the landing outside; the girls were sitting in the morning-room upstairs-a room which was never used as a breakfast-room, and supposed to be entirely devoted to the occupation of the elder daughters of the family.

"There's Louis! cried Flossie. "What can bring him here at this time of day? He does not enter this room once a month. He must be coming to see you, Hilda."

"He has something to tell us, I dare say," replied Hilda, colouring as she spoke. Of all her cousins,