And thus passed our Sabbath evening away. I found it a profitable one, and retired early, to give an hour to solitude and my diary. The last items subjoined, after it had been closed for the day, I shall copy verbatim:

"Felt much delighted with the society of Mr. Cripps. Had the gratification of hearing him express a similar opinion concerning myself, accompanied by a wish that our newly-formed friendship might ever be on the advance. It shall be no fault of mine if it be not so. "N.B. Crayford improves rapidly in my opinion-seems a sensible fellow-a little vain, but his heart is a trump.

“P.S.—11 P.M.—Has considerably risen in my estimation within the last ten minutes. Really, to deal justly by him, and nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice,' he is a very worthy soul. Has just knocked at my door in his dishabille, to shake hands with me again, and tell me that he wished he was as manly-looking and sedate as I am. What an absurdity!-(Mem.) Sitting too long in the society of the decanters has evidently opened his heart.

"Nonsense, Crayford!' said I, as in duty bound (for the reader is doubtless aware that vanity is not my besetting sin).

"No, Bobbin, it's not nonsense. Fanny Cooke said that, were I like you, notwithstanding all your modesty, she'd ask me to marry her at once.'

I

"It was very stupid of him to talk such idle stuff. But men will open their minds and confess truths when they have indulged rather freely in wine. I felt annoyed, of course-what modest man would not?-but gave him the warmest shake of the hand he had ever received from me as I bade him go to his bedroom and catch no cold. In fact, I went as far as his door with him, and then he said that she was an angel. I desired him not to be so monstrously absurd! but he averred that he could not help it that he felt perfectly jealous of me when he heard her speaking of nothing but sea-voyages, and telescopes, and bashful, sensible youths and mountain scenery, and Benjamin Bobbins, and so forth. I shook hands with him again, and have this moment returned from his room. I do not feel at all sleepy. Well! well! how strange!-how perfectly preposterous! Here have I been spoiling a whole page of my diary by drawing female profiles upon it, and endeavouring to write the initials F. B. in an angular hand, without at all separating the letters or taking the pen from the paper. Fanny Bobbin! What an idea! what a name! Heigh ho! I'm off by express to the land of Nod."

HOW I GREW INTO AN OLD MAID.

I.

We were three of us at home-I, Lucy, and little Mary. Mary was, by many years, the younger, for three, two brothers and a sister, had died between her and Lucy. Only one brother was left to us, and he was the eldest, two years older than I. My mother's income was sufficient for comfort, though we had to practise much economy while Alfred was at college.

He came home to us to pass the last vacation before taking orders, but not alone. We had walked into the village to meet the stage-coach, and when it came and he jumped down, a gentleman about his own age followed him. "My friend, George Archer," he said; "you have heard me speak of him. And you, George," he added, "have heard of my sisters. These are two of them, Hester aud Lucy."

What a handsome man he was, this stranger! Tall, fair, gentlemanly; with a low, sweet voice, and a winning manner. He is often in my mind's eye even now as he looked that day, though so many, many years have gone by.

We must all of us, I believe, have our romance in life, and mine had come for me before those holidays were over. A woman, to love entirely, must be able to look up to the object of her affections, and none can know with what reverence I regarded him. Had one demanded of me, Did perfection lie in mortal man? I should have pointed to George Archer. The tricks that our fond imaginations play us! But do not think I loved him unsought. No, no. He asked for me of my mother, and we began to talk about our plans.

She had no objection to give me to him. He had won all our hearts, and hers amongst the rest. He was indeed one of the most attractive of men. I thought so then, and now that I can judge dispassionately, I think so still. But she said we might have long to wait. I had my five hundred pounds, but he had nothing save a prospect of a curacy, and he was not yet in orders.

Our good old rector, Mr. Coomes, had promised to take my brother as curate. He was getting feeble and required one, and we were delighted at the prospect of having Alfred near us. I don't know who first hinted that this plan might be changed-I did not: but it came to be whispered that instead of Alfred Halliwell's becoming curate of Seaford it would be George Archer. My mother spoke to me. She did not like it she had set her heart on having Alfred settled with us. My brother, light-hearted, good-natured, was ready to sacrifice anything for his friend and favourite sister. My mother said very little: I believe she thought she could not, consistently with the courtesy and good manners due to a guest. I might, but I would not! Selfish! selfish!

:

The time came, and they were ordained together. The Reverend

Alfred Halliwell was appointed to a curacy in a remote district of North Wales, and the Reverend George Archer to Seaford.

Hè came. He read himself in on the last Sunday in Lent, the Sunday preceding Passion week. Seaford church, standing midway between the village and the gates of Seaford Park, was a small, unpretending edifice, with only one monument inside it, and one handsome pew, and they pertained to the Earls of Seaford. As we walked into church that morning I could not look up, but I saw, by intuition, that he was in the reading-desk, and the rector in his pew. Mr. Coomes, that day, was but one of the congregation.

He began the service, and we stood up. It is one of the few remembered moments of agitation in my life: my breath came fast, I saw nothing, and my face was white as the snow outside-for it was a very early Easter that year, and snow lay on the ground. In my foolish fancy, I thought every one must be looking at me-as if the congregation, in their curiosity to listen to him, could think of me! It was a persuasive voice, low and silvery, and though it did not tremble, I saw, in the first glance I stole at him, that he was nervous in his new position, for his bright colour went and came.

When I gathered courage to look around, I, for the moment, forgot him, and everything else, in astonishment. Against the wall, under the one monument, facing the side of the pulpit, was the pew of the Earls of Seaford, with its brass rods and crimson curtains. During the time we had lived at Seaford (four years it was, then, ever since my father's death) that pew had always been empty, and now it was occupied! Standing at the top was a young lady, just budding into womanhood, very beautiful; at the end, next us, was a man of fifty, short, but of noble presence, with a wrinkled brow and grey hair; and, standing between these two, were four lads, of various ages, from ten to sixteen or seventeen. Her eyes were fixed on his face, George Archer's, and I could not take mine from hers. It was the sweetest face I had ever seen, with its exquisite features, its delicate bloom, and its dark, spirituallooking eyes it is the sweetest face that ever rises to my memory. I glanced round at the large pew at the back, near the door; it was filled with male and female servants, some of them in the Seaford livery, and I knew then that that was the Earl of Seaford, his sons, and his daughter, the Lady Georgina.

The prayers and communion were over, the clerk gave out the psalm, and Mr. Archer went into the vestry. He came out in his new black gown, his sermon in his hand. Tall and noble he looked; but he was certainly nervous, else what made him tread upon his gown, and stumble, as he went up the pulpit steps? I was not superstitious then, in my careless inexperience, else I might have looked upon that stumble as a bad omen. After he had knelt down and risen up again, he moved the cushion before him, a little to the right, towards the earl's pew; not so as to turn even his side to the congregation, but that all present might, so far as possible, be brought face to face with him. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That text, his, that first day, stands out, on my memory, distinct and alone; not, I greatly fear, so much from its divine words of inexpressible conso

lation, as from its association with him. Oh the need, the need we all have of pardon, for the earthly follies and vanities our hearts are wont to indulge in!

My mother had invited him to dinner that day, and we thought-I did that he would walk home from church with us. But we had been in half an hour, and the dinner was waiting to be served, when he came. Lord Seaford had detained him in the vestry.

"I was surprised to see them," remarked my mother. "I thought they were not in England."

"They have been abroad three years, the earl told me," said Mr. Archer. "He invited me to the castle, said Lady Seaford would be glad to see me, but she was a great invalid."

"A very fine family," resumed my mother.

tiful."

"Is she ?" said Mr. Archer.

"Did you not think so?"

"The daughter is beau

"To tell you the truth," he said, smiling, "I was thinking more about myself, and the impression I made, than taking in any impression likely to be made upon me. My thoughts were running on whether I pleased Mr. Coomes and the congregation."

"I only trust Alfred will succeed as well," returned my mother, with tears in her eyes. "Was it your own sermon ?"

"It was indeed," he said, earnestly. "I have written many. I used to write them for practice at college.'

Oh those Sundays!-for my mother often invited him-their peaceful happiness will never be erased from my memory. The intense, ecstatic sense of joy they reflected on my heart, is a thing to be remembered in silence now, as it was borne then.

We went to church that evening, and I attended better than in the morning more courage had come to me. The family from the castle were not there. After service he overtook us in the churchyard, and drew my arm within his. I think my mother expected him to walk with her, for she was quite of the old school, and very particular with us. However, she walked on with Lucy, and we followed, he pressing my hand in the dark night.

"Hester, dearest," he whispered, “shall I do ?"

"Do ?" I repeated, scarcely heeding what he meant, in my weight of happiness. For it was the first time I had walked thus familiarly with him.

"Shall I do for a clergyman, think you? Shall I read and preach well enough for them ?"

He knew he would, there was conscious triumph in his voice as he spoke what need to give him my assurance? Yet I tried to speak a timid word of congratulation.

He clasped me closer to him, he held my hand with a deeper pressure, he halted in the narrow path, and, raising my face to his, kissed it lovingly. "Oh Hester, my dearest, how happy we are in each other!" he murmured, "how bright will be our future !"

Just then, my mother called out to us. Perhaps she missed the echo of our footsteps, perhaps she thought we were lingering too far behind.

"Mr. Archer, are you and Hester not walking slowly? It is very cold." So he raised his face from mine, and we went on, close to my mother and Lucy.

Oh, let me believe that he did indeed love me! I am an old woman now, and have struggled through a lonely life, carrying with me a bruised heart. But let me still believe that my dream was real, that, during its brief lasting, George Archer's love for me was pure and true!

My brother fell ill in June. He had been ailing ever since he went down to Wales. The weather, when he travelled, was severe, the place bleak, and he wrote us word that the cold seemed, from the first, to have struck on his chest, and settled there. In June he grew worse, and wanted my mother to go down.

"I shall send you instead, Hester," she said, after considering over his letter. "I cannot go and leave you children here alone."

I looked up to remonstrate, feeling the hot colour flush into my face. What! send me away from him, miles and miles, where I could never see him, hear his voice, listen for his step? But a better feeling came over me, and the hasty words died on my lips: how could I refuse to comfort my sick brother?

"Hester is thinking of Mr. Archer," laughed Lucy. "Now, Hester, don't deny it, I can see it in your face. Look at it, mamma. She is indignant that any one should be so unfeeling as to banish her from

Seaford."

"Hester must remember that she is, in a remote degree, the cause of this illness of Alfred's. Had he been curate here, his indisposition would have been well attended to at first, and cured before now. It is only neglect that has suffered it to get ahead."

Her tone was mild, but conscience smote me. Lucy saw my downcast look.

"Mamma," she said, "let me go to Alfred instead of Hester." My mother shook her head. "It is not only that Hester is older than you, Lucy, but she has a steadiness of character and manner which you want. I can trust her to travel alone; you are too giddy."

Why you know we always said Hester was cut out for an old maid, with her starched notions and sober ways," retorted Lucy, who was feeling angry. "I'm sure it is a mistake her being married."

"A very good mistake," said my mother.

George Archer spoke much with me, of his prospects, before I left. He was all buoyancy and hope, as youth is sure to be. He was indulging a chimera-though neither of us thought it one, then-that the Earl of Seaford, who had been remarkably friendly with him, during his fortnight's stay, might perhaps give him a living. The family had gone to town, after Easter, for the season, and for Lady Georgina's presentation. And we heard that she bore away the palm of beauty at the drawing-room, that George the Fourth, sated though he was with ladies' charms, had spoken publicly of her exceeding loveliness.

I found Alfred very ill. But it was as my mother thought-what he chiefly wanted was care-he called it "coddling." It has pleased God, in His infinite wisdom, to allot to us all some especial talent of usefulness,