action, incisive in speech, loved yet feared. Clarissa continued her quiet round of domestic duties and social intercourse she loved, sympathised, yielded; the gentle Alice went back and forth to school, slim and tall in her mourning dress, giving heed to her studies, thoughtful for everyone, clinging with fondest love to both her parents; the servants in the family still served. But Bertie! his merry laugh and noisy sports, his careless, boyish ways had ceased from the deserted nursery, the parlour, toolhouse, and garden; and in the quiet of St. Paul's Churchyard, so near the home, was found one more little grave, covered by a small stone bearing Bertie's name.

It was in the summer of the preceding year, while his father was absent on his accustomed sojourn in the States, and, happily, Alice also, on a brief visit to a friend, that Bertie's fatal illness came.

There had been no epidemic in Kingsport for a considerable time; so that Clarissa, anxious mother though she was, felt no alarm when, one morning, Bertie complained of sore-throat and headache. But as the day advanced, and when she found that he was unable to take his dinner-an almost unknown occurrence with Bertie-her fears were aroused, and she sent immediately for the medical man who, if need were, always attended the family. Clarissa thought the doctor looked grave as he examined his little patient. After he left the room, unaware that Alice was already away from home, he advised that for a few days the children should be kept apart. There might be no necessity whatever for such precaution, but it was better to err on the safe side. Had there been scarlet fever in the district he should certainly have feared these were commencing symptoms; but there was, he believed, no case in the town, nor had been for a long time, nor yet within a very considerable radius. Still, the infection was so subtle, there were so many possible ways by which it might be conveyed from a distance, that there could be no absolute security anywhere or at any time. He would send some medicine, and call again early to-morrow, and he fully hoped he should find his patient better.

But such hope was not to be realised. In the course of the next day the illness was pronounced to be, without doubt, scarlet fever, the symptoms indicating a severe attack. Great as was the mother's grief and anxiety, and intense as was her sympathy with her suffering child, she was far too unselfish to listen with indifference to the doctor's warning that upon her cantion and attention to directions it might depend whether this should prove a solitary case, or whether the pain and dread which had come to her own home, should invade other homes also round about her.

So Clarissa isolated herself with her sick child and a nurse, sent

by the doctor. And then followed days and nights of anxious watching; of bodily weariness yet almost unfelt, agonies of dread and of sympathy repressed, that she might be unhindered in her ministrations; fluctuations of hope and fear, hope sinking into despair, and despair passing into dreadful certainty; then the last awful moment, and after that, the utter blank-hours hopeless, fearless, aimless! a mere void of dark desolation; and then a cruel awakening to keener agony amid all the painfulness of the hastened funeral.

And after that came the confusion in the house, jarring on the feelings as most unmeet, which yet had to be, before Alice could be permitted to return or social intercourse be resumed; and then the sadness of the sister's coming back, to miss every hour of every day the brother she had delighted in, watched over, and yielded to. But far more dreaded, whilst yet longed for, was another return; that of the father, who was sailing homewards, gladly, all unprepared for the intelligence which awaited him, for Bertie's illness had commenced so near to the time of his leaving that any communication respecting it, if sent, could not have been received before the day of sailing.

The writing of the letter to be forwarded to the Liverpool Hotel was to Clarissa scarcely less painful than had been those last hopeless hours in the sick room, and when the letter was written and posted, and she knew that the vessel was due, over and over continually she imagined her husband to be at that very moment opening and reading it; and then it seemed to her as if she, too, were becoming suddenly aware, for the first time, of their dreadful bereavement.

The Niagara reached port in the evening, two days after time. Edward Weatherill was standing in the dining-room of the hotel, when letters were put into his hand, and he instantly selected that from home. Clarissa had not used a mourning envelope. He opened it where he stood, without any misgiving. After reading the first few lines he hurriedly refolded the sheet, went to his private room and locked the door. A short time only before the starting of the night express, by which he could most rapidly reach Kingsport, he re-entered the public-room.

"Are you ill, sir?" asked a gentleman, shocked by his changed

appearance.

"No," Edward answered, calmly, "I thank you;" but his voice sounded strange and hollow.

The stranger guessed that there had been received ill news, and, being a man of generous sympathy, felt almost grieved all the more, because to him, also returned after long absence, had come only tidings of good.

In the morning Clarissa received a telegram, dated from an intermediate station where a change occurred-" Landed last night. Letter received. Do not meet me." And well she understood that direction.

With no one near save Alice, the husband and wife met; and after awhile even Alice was sent to bear to her au nts the tidings of her father's return, and alone together they spent the first hours of communion in their bitter grief. Then, quite alone, the father stole into the room in which his son had died, expecting to see the familiar chamber where, the night before his departure, he had looked upon his boy in the sweet abandonment of childish sleep; but he turned away at once at sight of the alien cheerfulness of fresh whitewash and papering.

"This is as it should be," he said, knowing it right. "Not for the world would I that the contagion had spread. How came the contagion here?"

This was a question which, since the first day of uncertainty as to the nature of the malady, had scarcely crossed Clarissa's thoughts, nor did it take strong possession of Edward's mind as yet in these first hours of astonished grief.

As he walked restlessly through the house and into the vacant garden it seemed incredible, impossible, that Bertie's robust form and rosy face, his shout and laugh, should be known there no more. Had it been Alice, the grief would have been as great, but scarcely the wonder, the sense of incongruity-Alice, the gentle, thoughtful child, for whose yearning tenderness and shrinking purity the ways of this world seemed all too rough! But Bertie! so full of health and spirits, ceaseless activity and careless glee, enjoying his young life with eager, fearless zest-Bertie ! laid in the stillness of death, passed to the solemnities of the unseen world! It could not -could not be !

"Clarissa, is it true?" he asked, as he awaked next morning from a heavy sleep into which at last he had fallen. "Is it true or a dream ?"

As the weeks grew into months the first strangeness and fierce anguish of necessity lessened, and life went on within the home externally nearly as it had done before the bereavement came; but such a sorrow can scarcely be passed through, leaving no trace on the character of those by whom it has been endured.

Edward Weatherell's stern nature had grown sterner under the pressure of this trouble, borne in proad silence-a trouble which had brought not only grief but sore disappointment; for Bertie had been the centre of many hopes and purposes. Business prosperity had been valued largely, because it would enable him to start his

son in life under favourable auspices. And in a yet greater degree plans and hopes rested on his boy in respect to matters of public concernment. He should be early taught the principles of right government, of sound political and social economy; should early be made to feel that the duties of good citizenship and philanthropy must take precedence of private interests. His son should fight in the cause of liberty, of temperance, of progressive reform, and he would live long enough to see and to share the triumphs which must come, though not, perhaps, in his own day! Now these hopes were destroyed. He had been cruelly robbed of the son who should. have taken his place. Then all the more must he give his own time and strength, without stint, to this struggle with wrong. And in pursuance of such resolve his much-occupied time became yet more engaged, and the evenings spent in quiet, loving intercourse with his wife and remaining child yet more and more infrequent.

"Cruelly robbed of the child," were words which he felt the most fitting to describe his loss. How came the contagion here ? " was a question he had not long allowed to rest; and unhappily— for the knowledge brought only increased bitterness-an answer could be not uncertainly given. By persistent endeavour the medical man had succeeded in tracing to its source the fatal mischief, and though he had not voluntarily communicated the discovery made, neither did he feel at liberty to withhold it when straitly questioned by the father.

As the circumstances convey a warning they shall be narrated here.

In the High Street of Kingsport lived a family of the name of Hammond, carrying on business as confectioners. A little girl belonging to this family had returned from a visit to a distant town sooner than was intended, because scarlet fever had broken out in the immediate vicinity of the house where she was visiting. A few days after her arrival at home she had become indisposed, but so slightly that her parents thought it impossible she could be affected by that dreaded malady, and when a friend of greater experience, happening to call, assured them that it certainly was scarlet fever, although in a mild form, it was agreed that, as the child was already better, there was no necessity either to call in a medical man or to interfere with business and social convenience by saying anything as to the nature of the illness. "What harm could come," they said, "from such a slight attack of scarlatina ?" Acting on this determination the matter was kept an entire secret, and the familylinen was sent, without precaution or warning, to the laundry.

The laundress employed by the Hammonds was also employed by the Weatherills; happily by only one other family, wherein were no children; the bundle received from High Street was

placed in close contact with a basket ready to be delivered at Snow Hill. No further explanation was needed. Little Bertie had fallen a victim to ignorance and selfishness.

Bitter, unrelenting, was Edward's resentment. He had not dared to say directly to God, "I do well to be angry for my child," but his soul had not been quieted by any true submission; the spirit of rebellion was there, and he experienced a sort of bitter satisfaction in indulging a sense of injury. Brooding over his disappointment, cherishing his anger, his thoughts, when diverted from his private griefs, mostly occupied with public evils and wrongs, his efforts for their removal hindered and embittered by jarring contentions with his co-workers; no wonder was it if his brow became more constantly clouded, and that to his lips and eyes came more rarely the pleasant smile.

To no one did Clarissa acknowledge any perception of this change, scarcely, indeed, to herself; or, if the consciousness forced itself sometimes upon her she said, "Poor Edward, it is so natural ! " For on Clarissa the sorrow had wrought differently. Not wholly for good, perhaps, for she had become yet more anxious-minded, more timid, more fearful of incurring the displeasure of any one; more nervously solicitous to fulfil every wish of the dear ones who were left. But anger and rebellion she had not experienced.

She was willing to believe that the Hammonds had acted as they did through ignorance alone; at the worst, through thoughtlessness, and in no deliberate disregard of the health and life of others. She had listened with acquiescence to the words of comfort spoken by the clergyman who visited her in the time of trouble, and she had not disputed that the trial, severe as it was, must have been sent in wisdom and in love. Religion had not been for Clarissa the guiding, ruling principle of her life, nor did it become so now; yet since her child's death feelings had been awakened to which before she had been a stranger. The services of the Lord's Day ceased to be entirely a form; she was glad when the hymns sung were about heaven, and when from the belfry of the Roman Catholic convent and schools, situate on Snow Hill, the bells chimed the tune set to the child's hymn:

:

"There is a happy land,
Far, far away,”-

she always thought of Bertie, and hoped she should see him again. There was one effect somewhat peculiar produced on Clarissa's mind by Bertie's loss. It seemed to her that a part of the love she had lavished on him had passed to Irene; that she loved her with a certain appropriating affection, unfelt before. She had two children still, though one by adoption only. And in the autumn of the year of her loss this feeling was strengthened by much