the burden of her grief. "Yes, mother, it is your Jennie, your poor, lost Jennie. Don't you know me? There's Willie's picture, and that's Charlie's," she said, pointing to some photographs on the wall. "I am your Jennie. Oh, forgive me, mother, forgive me." With this cry for pardon she fell sobbing at her mother's feet.

When mother and daughter sat side by side on the sofa, the black tresses of the daughter resting on the silver-white locks of the mother, and tears were rolling down both faces. After a prayer we left. The fighter said, as we reached the street, "Two doses of this kind of biz would fix me sure. I'd have to git religion if I starved. I think if I did I'd be one of them what do yer call 'em,-Eve angelists? I'd hold meetins in de te-a-ters an' git in all de boys and-toughs like me. See? I might jine yer yit. Anyhow I hain't got nothin' agin yer. Good night."

The call next day at Jennie's home was one of many pleasant visits that finally led her to Jesus, and both mother and daughter joined a little church just started, and became followers and workers for the "Mighty to save."

ABIDE WITH US.

BY ANNIE CLARKE.

ABIDE with us, the sombre shadows gather,
The light fades to the past;

The chilling gloom of doubt is all around us,
And night has come, at last!

We need Thee in life's day-time, when the sunlight

Gilds everything we see ;

For joy is only joy as Thou art with us,

All gladness comes from Thee.

But oh! we need Thee sorely when the darkness
Droops downward like a pall;

When joy has spread her wings, her nest forsaken,
And tears like raindrops fall.

When by the grave of our dead hopes we linger,
And silence meets our cry

We look to heaven, but only see the storm-clouds ;
No stars are in the sky.

Abide with us! then darkness has no terror,
And doubt and fear shall cease;

Our deepest griefs shall all be soothed to silence,
Lulled to Thy perfect peace.

VICTORIA, B. C.

SPINDLES AND OARS.

BY ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH.

CHAPTER IV.-A CHILD OF THE SEA.

"I'M FOR THE BIG WATTER, DAD."

I MIND of Mr. Grahame telling in the first sermon he ever preached in the totum kirkie how man grows from less to greater, putting out fresh powers and gaining new faculties till he is fully what God means him to be.

And I can remember how Kirsty took ill with the sermon. She dandered into kirk that day in a braw new gown, and couldna sit for seeing Elspeth Mackay, in the pew before her, wearing the fellow to it. But, however, she was awful bitter on the sermon afterwards; for, being servant at the manse, she aye made the most of her right to criticise the minister in the pulpit.

"Na, na," said she; "he had no call to give oot that a man can be built up frae the puir life that floats in the jelly-fish we see whiles doon at the shore."

And, indeed, it takes a deal of faith for a woman with a tongue like Kirsty's to believe that she has grown from the dumb things that keep a silence more sorrowful-like than any other creature's cries. But David McNaughten stood by her. He wouldna be so bold as to disagree with the minister; but he had a man's wish to believe that Eve was taken out of Adam's ribs. It was the one argument he dare venture when he wrestled with Kirsty, who was for thinking woman the better man; and he was fain to hope man had had the start of the woman in life, and that they were no developed together, from lower forms.

But how should it be difficult to take humanity that way, seeing life rises everywhere, from the small to the great, from the seed to the flower and tree?

And it is the same with places.

We have in the town's library histories of Skyrle-braw

books telling about the Abbey and the old monks; but there is none of them can carry us back to the beginning of Skyrle when the fishers' cottages fringed the burn, and the life of the place was the life of the sea. And it is from this that the town has risen-stepping over the burn and climbing the brae, and at last throwing itself down on the common, its chimneys and mills like great limbs flung into the air as it lies in the sun.

And, though Kirsty was severe with the minister's sermon, there was one in the kirk that day who would value it all the more because there was the sound of the sea in it.

He sat in the corner; a small man, shy and strange and silent; with eyes brown and clear like seaweed, and a strong face with gentle lines about the mouth.

Mr. Grahame noticed him, and heard from William Rafe afterwards that he was Sandy Nicholls; a fine man, but close, living a lonely life and caring for naught but the sea.

And, indeed, it was a strange thing and mysterious, how all his life he had had no friend but the sea; even as a bairn finding companionship in the waves that ever seemed speaking to him. It was for all the world like the soul in the burn that hears the sea calling to it. And none could wonder it was so when Sandy's story was known.

Margot, his mother, was a twelve-months wife when her man won away to the herring-fishing, from which he didna come back with his mates. And there's many in Skyrle can mind of her walking the shore with her eyes set-looking out over the sea for Davie; while her heart trembled thinking of what was coming to her over a wider sea.

The babe came home; and none had the heart to tell her how Davie had been washed overboard within sight of Skyrle harbour on the very night his wee son was born.

She knew it all too soon, poor body; and they tell the tale in the town to this day-how one morning saw an awsome sight on the shore. The waves had given her back her man; and he lay close by the rocks, his dead face pressed into the sand by the dead face of the wife who had gone for to meet him.

The weed left by the tide was curled about them, and the babe's tiny fingers were tangled in it. He lay smiling and happy in the sun-the little orphan bairn-and the sight brought tears to the eyes of the man who had found them.

It was John Gouck, a big, idle, tender-hearted lad, who never had had the wit to get him a wife. He stood biting his thumb, and looking down sair puzzled how to handle the babe.

Syne he got a hold of it; and carrying it as gin it was a drowned kitten, he bore it home to his sister Maggie, put it ben the room to her; then hastened away down the lane, keeking round to see what would happen the bairn.

He kenned fine Maggie would na be very weel pleased at what he had done; for she was no athegither a young lass; and, having never been asked in marriage, had a kind of grudge against the innocent weans. And fine and angered she was to see the

bit bairn laid within the door. She rose full of wrath against John, and cried that she would take the babe to the poor's house that very minute.

But when she lifted him in her arms that had never held a babe, and felt his wee head on her bosom, the woman in her woke; and she sat down holding him close, and greeting.

John watched a long hour to see her come out; and when he slunk ben the house to his diet, he was wae, expecting a thrawn and vengeful woman. It made another man of him to see Maggie cheery and smiling, and the babe asleep in the basket on the hearth. And from that day Sandy never wanted father or mother.

All Skyrle lads love the sea. But John was never so taken up with it as some; and liked better to wander in the Abbey, watching the jackdaws, than on the cliffs of a summer's night. And, indeed, it was beautiful at the sunset to walk among the graves in the Abbey, with the shadows lying on the grass like a sleep, and the singing of the birds sounding clear in the silence, and the peace of the dead hushing the strife of the living.

But just so soon as wee Sandy could toddle John had to cease his walks in the Abbey; for it was aye the sea with the bairn. And "I'm for the big watter, dad," he'd say, tugging at John's breeks to lead him to the shore. It was pretty to see how the bairn could do as he would with big John Gouck that was more obstinate than Maggie his sister, and worse canna be said of any man.

It was always the sea with Sandy; and gin he couldna be found, Maggie reached down the tawse and won to the shore. And there, sure enough, he would be, playing in the boats or helping the fishermen dry their nets or bait their lines.

He was a seaman born; and when John Gouck died and Maggie put the laddie to work in Rafe's mill there was a great controversy in the town about it.

And to see the wee white facie of him, as he turned his back on the sea, and went through the mill doors, was enough to melt the heart of any but a self-willed woman.

But Maggie had never forgiven herself for being so soon conquered by the bairn; and, though he was the apple of her eye, she was aye thwarting him to prove to herself and the neighbours that she was no so daft over the boy as John.

It was cruel to her to think of his going to the sea that had been the death of father and mother; but she didna say so. She made as though she sought but her own way in sending the laddie to the mill, and nothing the folk said could move her. And none, not even Sandy, guessed it was her love for him that made her cross him in the wish of his heart.

But she wouldna have found it so easy to bend his will to hers, if the laddie had not just then become a member of the totum kirkie. He had been newly gathered by the minister-a young lad who, being a great man for the sea, preached some awful grand sermons on it when he first came to the charge.

Sandy heard them every one; and when it came to the sermon on Deep calleth unto deep, there was that in his heart which answered to the call.

He went from the kirk into the manse; and the next week ilka body kenned that he had joined the minister's class.

And it was this that made him obey her who had been a mother to him, though it broke his spirit to be taken from the fishers' life.

After that it was pitiful to see him on summer nights, not playing on the common with the other laddies, but wandering on the shore, seeking company among the crabs and buckies and sea-flowers and such like.

So he came to man's years, a douce lad that was respected in the mill and in the church; though, to be sure, he was no ower muckle use in the totum kirkie, not being ready with his tongue or with his siller as a good Methodist should be.

But though he was canny with the bawbies in public, the fisher-wife knew where to turn when help was wanted. And gin he was a silent man, he was no deaf to the voice of distress.

It didna astonish any Skyrle body that he should go a-wooing to a fisher-lassie; though the fisher-folk will wed but among themselves. It was to be expected that Katie Cargill should say him nay; but it came as a blow to the young lad; and from that day he was more dour-like than ever.

And it was a sair thing that the lassie should say to him:

"I like you weel, laddie, and gin you had been a fisher-laddie I would surely hae thocht on't."

He had an awful white face on him that night; which made Maggie more than usual hard to him, she being afraid of greeting, through sympathy with his trouble.

For weeks after that the sound of the sea was terrible to him, and he was no more on the cliffs or by the shore. And when the looms stopped working, and the roar of the waves could be heard in the mill, a great sadness would come into his eyes, and he would set his face hard and turn again to his labour, as gin he would silence the voice that called to him.

By-and-bye Kate was wedded to a sailor lad; and by degrees the old ways came back to Sandy, and he would seek his pleasure on the shore-a lonely man and silent, scarcely smiling but when among the bairns in the school. or seeking shells for them on the sands. So he settled down into a douce bachelor, a good son to Maggie, and a great stand-by in the totum kirkie.

And fine and

The Goucks had aye been great Methodists. proud was Maggie to tell how her grandmother had outwitted the folk on the occasion of Wesley's coming in 1770. Her man had opened his mill for the meetings, and had gone off with Mr. Wesley while his wife stayed with the folk who were no for leaving the meeting so soon.

It was well kenned that the miller's wife had the gift of tongues; and whenever the minister was away she took up the Word, and began telling how her Church was the true Church,