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"Yes, I saw it announced here," pointing to the open paper which lay on the table. And, Ronald," she added, quite firmly, though very low, "I will not make your duty harder for you by my weakness. I know you must go, and I will not seek to hold you back. I fear I was very wrong at first when I read it; it was a shock, an awful shock, Ronald; and I do not know what you will think of me, dear, for I felt tempted to implore you to give it up, and fix on some other regiment; but I soon remembered you could not in honour do such a thing. And then I recalled our conversation of only yesterday; and I knew that the time had now come for me to prove that my words were not mere words—a vain boast and nothing else." He clasped her in his arms, whispering: "Well done, my Blanche ! you are the right stuff for a soldier's wife." And the strong man felt that his delicate, timid wife had been nobler and stronger than he ; though, perhaps, the temporary weakness of the one and the unusual strength of the other came from the same source: that one great power, stronger than all ambition, yet overcoming the weakest woman's fears-love. "Love strong as death, love which casts out self."

The harrowing details of the parting must be passed over. I fear many a wife has such details only too fresh upon her mind.

It came

all too soon, that parting-for in these days momentous orders are flashed over the world by telegram. Blanche held up bravely to the last, her parting words to her husband being in answer to what she knew were his unspoken fears.

"Ronald, please God, I will try my very utmost to live, for your sake."

But when, a few minutes later, Doctor Spencer came in, as he promised Captain Douglas to do, he found her stretched senseless on the floor.

Neither will the details of that campaign be told here, and indeed it needs it not; for who does not know, almost by heart each stirring scene in the sad history?

Ronald Douglas was in Stewart's column, and fought under him in the tiny square at Abu Klea, where 1,500 of our men routed 10,000 of the enemy; and again at Metemmeh, where the gallant commander fell, pierced with what proved to be his death wound-fell, like a worthy follower of him they were seeking to save, in the performance of an act of thoughtful kindness and consideration for those fighting under him. And then Douglas was among the little band who went on with Sir Charles Wilson to the very gates of Khartoum, to find they had arrived, alas, too late.

All was over. Deprived of the steamers, which it had been the last crowning act of Gordon's unselfish life to send away from him, for the sake of others, in his sorest need, he had fallen by wicked treachery; and, while this world should last, the eye of mortal man would never look on Gordon again!

we knew it not.

But for many days Hope lingered in all hearts, only to be dispelled. And at length the truth forced itself on us all, that surely and truly, though we may never know for certain how, or by whose hand, that gallant man had fallen, and alone. With none of his own race or faith near him, the martyr-hero had gone to meet his God.

Time passed. Not so very long subsequent to that tragedy, Captain Douglas was wounded in the arm; not dangerously, but enough to disable him from taking any further present share in the campaign. An attack of fever supervened, sufficiently grave to

cause the doctors to order him home as soon as he should be fit to travel.

During all this while he had received many letters both of and from his wife. At first from her; letters written in a strain of cheerful, loving hope. Then came a day he never forgot, when a telegram arrived for him, from Dr. Spencer, and at the sight he, who could face the enemy's fiercest fire steadily and unmoved, trembled like a weak woman.

It proved, however, to contain these words: "All well over; no cause for alarm."

This was followed by one or two more, all to the same cheering effect; and, in due course, by a letter from Mrs. Deane, the Colonel's wife, telling Ronald about his little son, and that Mrs. Douglas was far better than could have been expected. Though very weak, she was bearing up well, was brave and hopeful. Almost before it was quite prudent, Dr. Spencer sanctioned the departure of Mrs. Douglas for England. He was anxious to get her away from that enervating climate; and she was anxious to travel under the escort of an officer who was going home on leave with his wife. The voyage did her no harm, and they arrived in safety.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon of a day in this present year, that a fly stopped before the door of a house in a healthy seaside resort in old England.

The occupant, a young man with one arm in a sling, but otherwise healthy-looking, for he had picked up wonderfully during his homecoming, leaped out of the fly and knocked at the door; asking as soon as it was opened for Mrs. Douglas.

"This way, sir," said the servant; and, leading him through the hall, she opened the door of a drawing-room, and left him in it with his wife and child.

Blanche was standing with her baby in her arms, dressed in white, a soft lace cap with a pale blue ribbon-trimming on her pretty, golden brown hair. She was painfully thin, though her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks, for the moment at least, were lit up as by a bright, crimson rose. In one bound he crossed the room.

"Blanche !"

"Ronald!

And in those words, spoken together, each seemed to tell the story of what these months of separation and anxiety had been; and in that moment Blanche felt repaid a thousand-fold for her noble sacrifice and for all her suffering, as she held their child up for its father's first kiss. It was indeed one of those moments when this earth seems lit by a ray from Eden, by a foretaste of paradise! But, oh, may a merciful Heaven help those wives of our Soudan heroes, Burnaby, Earle, Eyre, Stewart, and others, for whom such a meeting

never came.

"You had him christened before you started, Blanche," observed Ronald, as they were at length soberly sitting down.

'Yes, dear. I should like to have waited for you; but I could not bring him away without it."

"Of course not. What have you named him?"

"I have named him," she answered, smiling, "after my two greatest heroes: the names I thought worthiest to go together-' Ronald Gordon.'"

He smiled. "My child, you attach more honour to me than I deserve. But I am glad you have called the boy after that good and brave man."

"Oh, Ronald, if you could have brought him back!" she exclaimed. "It seems so piteous, his dying all alone, and being buried we know not where ! I used to like to picture with what enthusiasm he would be received in England-what honours his Queen and country would lavish on him!"

"True, my love," answered Ronald, gravely, "it is most sad, most piteous. But for our comfort let us remember that he was one who hated and shrank from all earthly honours, and we cannot doubt that ere now he has been amply rewarded for his 'faithfulness unto death;' and that, though his body lies we know not where in the lonely desert, yet that his grand, unselfish soul is resting after his untiring toil."

"Where loyal hearts and true stand ever in the light,

All rapture through and through, in God's most holy sight,'"

breathed Mrs. Douglas.

There was silence between them for a few minutes, and then Ronald spoke in a lighter tone.

"If our child had been a girl, Blanche, and you had called it Blanche Gordon, I think it would have been a worthier coupling of names than the other is."

She blushed with mingled pleasure and humility.

"Ronald, for shame! How can you compare me, your foolish little wife, to General Gordon! Why I am afraid of everything, from a big dog to a black beetle."

"I compare you for this reason, Blanche: that, as I take it, the key note to all Gordon's heroism was his complete self-abnegation ;

and I think I saw a worthy imitation of that spirit a few months ago, when my wife, in her hour of utmost weakness and need of me, was the one to send me from her to my duty."

"Ah, Ronald, you never knew then how I wavered, how I came into your presence that night in so miserable a state of indecision, that one word from you would have led me to fall from what I felt to be my duty. And if I had done so, I do not think I should ever have known an hour's happiness again."

"And now," he added, kissing her fondly and reverently, "let me thank you, my own true wife and help-meet, for having helped, not hindered me in duty's path. I hope, and think, that by your example and influence, we may lead our boy to follow in the footsteps of him for whom all England mourns; for it is to mothers like you, Blanche, brave through their perfect unselfishness, that we must look, to train up for us sons like Gordon."

MARY DOVETON HODGES.

REMEMBRANCE.
(Words for MUSIC.)

WAKE not, ah, wake not, voices of my playtime,
Echoes that slumber, music that is gone
Blossom and bud not, branches of the May-time
Changes that change not, as the years run on !

Vain, ah, in vain! While forward pressing ever,
Fain would I close the past that lies behind,
Candid and cold, the Spring-time lights discover
Buds on old boughs, old tones upon the wind.

Eyes, ah, sad eyes, strain on into the distance,

Turn not to gaze o'er the fair scene outspread;
Ears, though ye catch the old sweet sound's insistance,
Heed not the dead past singing o'er its dead!

There are glad eyes for every bud's new setting,
Ears fain to hear gay Fancy's voice beguile.

Ah, give me but a rest and a forgetting,
Till I can face Remembrance with a smile.

G. B. STUart.

THA

ON THE SUPERNATURAL.*

HAT in the face of so many well authenticated facts respecting supernatural agency, anyone can be found to doubt its existence, seems surprising. But the fear of being ridiculed as weak-minded doubtless prevents many people from acknowledging what in their heart of hearts they really believe.

The subject of apparitions, of unaccountable noises, and the like, which has lately occupied more than usual attention, is one which must always remain a mystery, while we are in this state of existence. That the departed have appeared to the living we have an authentic proof, handed down to us from St. Matthew's account of our Lord's crucifixion, when "The graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." In other passages of Scripture spiritual appearances are spoken of notably that of Samuel, raised by the witch of Endor.

That it is not given to all people-indeed, but to very few, speaking comparatively to see or hear the supernatural, is a fact not to be disputed. But those to whom the gift (can it be called so ?) is given, could relate experiences which have occurred to them at different times throughout their lives.

In the winter of 186-, business called me to London from the West of England. The weather was anything but inviting: dark, dismal days, dense fogs, and drizzling rain. I hoped to combine some little pleasure with business, by paying a few visits to friends.

The first days of my stay in town were to be spent in Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square.

A rising medical man and his wife had just moved from a house in that same street to one higher up, in which every thing had still to be arranged, but they begged me to go to them all the same.

Upon my arrival in London in the afternoon, I had to go straight to a lawyer's office, and was there two hours; so that on reaching Wimpole Street I was tired and weary. But when my good host and his wife came forward with their warm welcome, and I saw the cheerful fires and bright lights in the still unsettled rooms, and presently sat down to the well-served dinner, I forgot all my fatigue and felt fully renovated. We had much to chat about, mutually recalling past associations and imparting later news; and it was midnight ere we retired to rest.

I must confess that my first impressions of the house were not favourable. To me there seemed to be an indescribable gloom

The Author vouches for the absolute truth and correctness of the facts recorded in this paper.