"Altogether lovely!" broke in a rapturous whisper from her pale lips. Then the dawn was clouded forever. The gentle breath had ceased in one faint sob. Desire was gone home.

Many people thought it strange the next Sunday afternoon to find a coffin set before the pulpit, and the minister's family grouped about it as mourners. It was not adorned with plaited ornaments or stainless flowers, or open for curious eyes to inspect the chrysalis that its risen inmate had left behind; but on the simple pall lay wreaths of glittering oak leaves and bunches of wild sweet fern that sent a wholesome breath of perfume abroad through the church.

Mr. Styles preached from the well-worn text, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path;" but instead of recording the testimony of the ages to the authenticity of the Bible, or vindicating its verbal inspiration, or extolling its literary merits, he discoursed only of its common sense and its vast capacity to be a guide and a help in all the daily wants of human life and in the dark and lonely hour of death, and he wound up his sermon in these words:

"My brethren, the saint whose mortal relics lie before our eyes to-day was a living example of these truths. Simple, ignorant, poor and friendless, she came years ago into my house as a servant, and was, far more abundantly than any of us whom she there ministered to, a servant of the Lord. That I am to-day a Christian man, able to minister to other men with acceptance of God, I owe, under God, to her unconscious influence. Her single talent was used daily and hourly, and the increase was twentyfold. She lived with the Bible in her heart and on her lips; she taught it to me and mine as a living truth to live by, and she died to us with its speech for her latest accents.

"She has entered into her reward and rest, and left here a fragrant and gracious memory that few of earth's shining ones have ever given to their survivors. Bible says' was her rule, her comfort, her strength; and her obedience, her cheer, her faithful labour, interpreted to all who knew her what that Bible could be when received with a child's simplicity and faith.

"There are some of you here, dearly beloved, who think you owe your entrance into the new life to the help of my ministrations. I want to say to you now, in presence of the dead, who cannot shrink from the praise she would not have understood while living, that whatever good you gather from my utterances as a preacher I achieved long before you knew me, and received slowly and ungraciously, as a rock receives the sun and rain, which at last disintegrates and makes it fruitful, from the hourly and unconscious ministry of Desire Flint, whose body lies before you, to whose burial as her kindred in the Lord I invite you, and to whose life I recommend you as to the 'living epistle' which has preached the eternal Gospel of Christ better than my own lips or my own living. Having been utterly faithful over a few things, she has ceased to be a stranger and gone home."

Two sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat
Like pulses in the Church's brow and breast;
And by them, we find rest in our unrest,
And heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat
God's fellowship, as if on heavenly seat.
The first is Jesus wept,-whereon is prest
Full many a sobbing face that drops its best
And sweetest waters on the record sweet.

And one is, where the Christ, denied and scorned,
Looked upon Peter. Oh, to render plain,
By help of having loved a little and mourned,
That look of sovran love and sovran pain

Which He, who could not sin yet suffered, turned
On him who could reject but not sustain.

THE LOOK.

The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word,
No gesture of reproach. The heavens serene,
Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean
Their thunders that way. The forsaken Lord

Looked only, on the traitor. None record

What that look was, none guess; for those who have seen
Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen,
Or pale-cheeked martyrs smiling on a sword,
Have missed Jehovah at the judgment-call.
And Peter, from the height of blasphemy—
"I never knew this man"-did quail and fall,
As knowing straight that God, and turnèd free
And went out speechless from the face of all,
And filled the silence, weeping bitterly.

THE MEANING OF THE LOOK.

I think that look of Christ might seem to say—
"Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone
Which I at last must break my heart upon,
For all God's charge to His high angels may
Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday
Wash thy feet, My beloved, that they should run
Quick to deny Me 'neath the morning sun?
And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray?
The cock crows coldly,-go, and manifest
A late contrition, but no bootless fear;

For when thy final need is dreariest,
Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here-
My voice, to God and angels, shall attest,
Because I know this man, let him be clear."

* These, we think, are three of the noblest sonnets in the English language. -ED.

SPINDLES AND OARS.

BY ANNIE E. HOLDSWORTH.

CHAPTER XVII.-THE MINISTER'S LEDDY.

IN the far corner of the abbey yard there is a place where the wall is overgrown with green, in the which at the spring you may often find maybe one nest, may be mair. The wall is rarely old and crumbled, as may be seen where the green is cut away round a stane that the minister had a great fancy for. It is carvit quaint-like wi' sincan uncanny things as skulls and crassbanes that are moulderin' awa' and fallin' to pieces. But Time hasna set his finger on the words that rin on the tap o' the stane: "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord."

The letters at the fit o' the stane hae crumbled awa', and but ane word o' the text is left-Heaven. Mr. Grahame was used to say he saw a meaning in the chance; for the salvation for which the dead wait they will best find in heaven.

It is beneath this stane that the minister is buried; and you can tell where he lies by the flowers that are aye on his grave.

There is naething else to mark the spat; but it is never forgotten by ony member o' the kirk; and still on a Sabbath eve-though years and years have gone since first he was laid there-mony will stroll into the abbey yard and stand by his grave, and speak of his beautiful life, and the strange way of his death in the totum kirkie.

And the bairns still weave their croons o' gowans and berries to put on the minister's grave, as their forbears did before them. Mr. Grahame had been laid to his rest but three months when Miss Isobel left Skyrle, and went to stay in the south with an auld leddy that had sent for her whenever she heard that her father was dead. I doot it was an awfu'-like place for a young lassie, the leddy being ane o' thae spinster creatures that are like to the dry apples at the grocer's, wi' all the juice pressed oot o' them. By all accounts she was just a piece o' leather: nae guid but to lash folk into rebellion, yet the lassie agreed weel with her.

The maist of her time was passed in washing and tending a fat doggie who was too fat to wait on himsel', but no too fat to quarrel wi' Skye. And this minded Miss Isobel o' fowk that never grow too frail to be spiteful. For the doggie was the picture of his mistress in mony ways.

But, however, the lassie made the best of her life, writing to Skyrle gey cheerful letters and having her laugh whiles at the doggie and whiles at the auld leddy, whose kindness was like the fruit grown in foreign parts that aye has a thorn set inside it. But although she laughed, Miss Isobel grat often at the pathos o' the puir, barren life.

And she kenned the story efterward; how her father had been

to merry wi' the auld leddy in days gone by; how she had keppit single for his sake; and at his deith had sent to make a hame for the bairn o' the woman that had pairted her fra her luver. And that was surely noble of her; and it is a proof of the kindliness living in mony a heart that seems to be withered and sour on the ootside.

I'm no to say Miss Isobel took weel wi' the life. It was a sair thing to be parted fra her father's grave, and the sea and the cliffs and the abbey and the common; and in ilka letter she wrote, she mentioned her wish to return, and telled how she wearied for her freends at Skyrle. But gin she wearied for them, it wasna mair than they did for her; and at the diets of worship the manse pew would bring tears to the een o' mony. It was a sair thing to want her bonny face; but it was a waefu' thing to see nae less than nine towsie heids crammit ilka Sabbath inte the manse pew. And Kirsty said it was a judgment on Widdy Rafe, who hadna done justice to Miss Isobel, that the manse carpets were overrun with bairns; and that the kirk was aye being called on for now a new cot and now a new cradle to accommodate them as they cam. Kirsty had a deal to say aboot it; and ilka Sabbath the talk ootside the kirk was no' o' the minister's sermon, but o' the minister's bairns, and the marvel it was that siccan a godly man should be sae sairly chastened in his family.

And it was edifying to see the members wagging their heads, and seeking oot the uses of adversity that didna touch them.. William Rafe couldna thole the manse withoot Miss Isobel; but,. being steward, he did his duty, and went aboot it. And presently he was extraordinar' agreeable to the minister's leddy, for she telled him that noo and again she had a letter fra Miss Grahame.. It was efter that that Widdy Rafe had occasion to murmur at William for the new furnishings he pit intae the manse.

But the laddie gave her leave to murmur while he sat by the manse bearth, and let the bairns work their will with him saelang as their mither would talk o' Miss Isobel.

And mair than once the bairns fell sick through eating o' the Skyrle rock he gave them to quieten them while their mither crackit.

She was a thin, eager woman, whose nose went before the rest of her face; and she wasna ower weel likit efter Miss Isobelespecially as she took ill wi' the manse, and was aye complaining o' the things that werena intil't.

Geordie Mackay had it to say that she aye had a letter fra Miss Isobel when there was anything needed for the hoose. But Geordie was ane that had questioned human nature sae lang that he couldna see it wi'oot a crook in it. However, the remark struck baith at the leddy and at William, for by this time a' kenned his liking for Miss Isobel, and blamed him for being ruled by his mither, and for no askin' the lassie in mcrriage.

In particular, Kirsty gave him some plain words that made William fleig of having muckle tae dae wi' women-fowk; and.

made him mair content to bide a bachelor than he had been syne he gave his word to his mither.

Sae the time went on to twa years; and ane nicht William went ben the manse and fand the minister's leddy sairly pit a boot. She had been at the Free Kirk manse, and the new ways there had made her discontent wi' what had served twa or mair generations o' ministers at the totum kirkie.

"Oh, Mr. Rafe," said she, "I wanted to see you. I have a message for you from Miss Grahame. Her letter contains remarkable intelligence."

She had been so used to putting copies in the bairns' writing books that she had gotten fine way of framing her talk.

"Have you, indeed?" said William, striving to seem at his ease; and he sat down vera sudden on the cat, who punished him weel till he thocht to rise and release her.

When the puss had ceased spitting, and William's face was growing cooler, the leddy began: "My husband and I have come to the conclusion, though I am not certain that we coincide

แ

She stappit and looked at him vague-like.

Ou ay," said William, shifting ane fit ower the ither and back

again, so as to look comfortable, though he felt far from it.

66

We were thinking you ought to be made acquainted"With Miss Isobel's affairs?" William interrupted.

"No, oh dear no! Though you will doubtless be interested to hear that she

She paused a whilie. William's heart was in his een, and he daredna gaze at aught but the magenta roses on the carpet. (Bonnie were they, and had cost a sicht o' siller in their time.) However, the minister's leddy was sae lang o' speaking that he was obleeged to raise his face fra the floor.

"You were saying that she—” said he.

"No; the observation I wished to make was this

"Yes?" said William, when she halted again; and he stroked his moustache as gin he was nane sae eager.

"I think I hear baby crying. You must excuse me," said she. And she rose and went fra the room, remaining oot sae lang that William was like to eat his fingers wi' impatience for her return. He was sae wishful to hear the news aboot the lassie that he made ready a half-dozen questions to put to the minister's leddy.

Yet when she came back, he sat there like a gowk while she talked of her needs. And he promised curtains for the doordid any sensible body ever hear the like?—and wee cuppies that couldna quench the thirst, though you drank all day, and siccan extravagances not known in Wesley's time, while he bided to hear the news she had gotten o' Miss Isobel.

And when he had rin the kirk into an awfu' responsibility to meet the expense, the leddy took a sleepy turn and yawned mair than once.

There was nae langer an excuse for him to wait, and he rose, twisting his hat roond aboot on his hands that were damp wi'

nervousness.