"Oh! I can't understand that at all," Katharine said. "And I must make haste back to the Vicarage, or Cicely will wonder what has become of me. So good-bye to you, Paul."

"Stay, Katharine, stay!" Paul exclaimed. "Do not mistake me. Do not

But those fleet footsteps, quickened from a fast walk to a run, soon left Paul far behind, who pursued his lonely way, sad at heart.

“Oh that I could win her to God!" he exclaimed. "Oh that grace would touch her heart! Oh that I dare make known my love, and, taking her for my wife, lead her in the right way! But I dare not. I must not yoke myself to an unbeliever."

Poor Paul! He had defeated his own end by many words. He would never succeed in winning Katharine's heart by disparaging her friend.

Katharine had loved Cicely with all the ardour of their early friendship, and she had become tenfold dearer to her during the last few days.

For the romance of her marriage had exalted Cicely Rollestone to a higher pedestal in Katharine's heart than Cicely Whinfield had ever held.

CHAPTER IX.

TWO EVENINGS IN THE COTTAGE.

"Sometimes a light surprises

The Christian while he sings,
It is the Sun, who rises

With healing in His wings."

IT was late one December evening when Drusilla Alien was seated by the dying embers of the fire in her roomy cottage, with her hands folded, and her attitude one of deep thought.

The bobbins were all still; labour was over for the day. Little Nell and the sickly Grannie were asleep upstairs, and the sounds in the village grew fewer and fainter. For the weather was dull and gloomy, and a mist was coming up from the Ouse, and lying upon the low country like a face-cloth.

Drusilla's figure was in shadow, but the glow of the embers brought out the beauty of her face clearly and distinctly. The eyes beneath that broad white forehead and the delicately-pencilled eyebrows were dim with tears, which fell, one by one, down the pale cheeks, apparently unwitnessed as they were

unbidden, for they were not wiped away by the long, shapely hands which were clasped upon her knee.

Presently the old eight-day clock gave a hoarse gasp, which warned for eight, and Drusilla started as from a dream, whilst at the same moment there was a low tap at the door. "Susan come home from Farmer Cray's," was Drusilla's thought, as she rose and crossed the floor to the door and opened it.

It was not Susan standing there, but the figure of a woman enveloped in a long cloak, the hood tightly drawn over her head.

Drusilla paused for a moment, uncertain whether to admit the stranger.

"Don't you know me?" asked a voice.

you know Cicely Rollestone?"

"Aye, dear heart! Come in.

But it is

"Don't

But it is very late.

What has brought you from Weston at this time in the evening?"

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Drusilla," said Cicely passionately, and letting her hood fall back, 'you said if I wanted you in the future I was to come to you. I do want you. I am not happy. I am miserable. And I make him miserable too. Drusilla, I can't be good! Tell me how to be good."

"Come and sit down, dear child," Drusilla said, taking the little cold hands in hers, and drawing her to the fire. "I am all alone here. No one will disturb us. Let me unfasten your cloak. There! sit in mother's chair, and lean back and rest. You look tired and worn."

"And you? Why, you have been crying too!" Cicely said. "What a sad world it is! Oh dear, I wish I'd done with it! Do you know, Drusilla, yesterday, when I was walking by the river, it looked so calm and quiet, I thought it would be nice to lie down and forget it all-all the trouble and the sorrow."

"Hush, hush, dear! Do not talk like that. It is sinful-it is wrong. What is it that pains you? You, with a loving husband; you

"It is that-that which pains me. I am not one bit fit to do all I promised. I can't do the work. And, oh! Drusilla, I hate it. To get up early, before it is light, and milk the cows, with Betty, tires me out. See, I have got chilblains on my fingers! And my hands are spoiled. Then churning makes my back ache, and I have ruined pounds of butter. Cuthbert does not scold me. I wish he did; I wish he would! He only looks grave and sighs, and this morning he said: 'Don't try to do any more in the dairy. It is no use!' No use! And I thought I should be of such great use. Drusilla, you don't know what it is to feel as I do. You are always calm and good and religious, while I am full of longings and repentings and wishes-vain wishes. This evening, as I sat alone, for Cuthbert is gone to the Bedford Market, while Betty was singing hymns in the kitchen, and I was trying to spin in the little parlour he made so nice for me, I thought I could not be the same girl who tossed the hay for fun only

last June. Only six months have passed-only six months and I am a poor farmer's wife, and not mistress of Coltswood Manor, with the gentry visiting me, and everything I like at my beck and call. Then I think all this comes of Cuthbert being so religious, and that if he had not made that fuss on our wedding-day it would have been so different. And yet-yet I would not be without Cuthbert. I love him. Oh, I love him so dearly! Only I can't be good, like him."

"Dear," Drusilla said, "you have begun wrong, and you will go on getting more wrong and more bewildered till you see what is right-till you follow the light, the light which shineth in the darkest places. You have begun by thinking you could bear and do everything; instead of this you should have begun by feeling you, of yourself, could do nothing. You are like a little child who needs a hand to guide its faltering steps, and yet will not take it when offered, and presently it falls and gets a bad hurt. And all the time the outstretched hand would have saved it, and the ready arm guarded it from falling. Do I say that you are like this child? Dear, we are all like wayward children till the Father seeks and saves His own."

"You were never like me, Drusilla. You were never like me."

"We cannot judge one by another, dear heart. The circumstances may be different, but the needs are alike."