may be certain your kind master will not neglect you!

There seems some danger of it, nevertheless, this evening. Lewis is unusually absent. He is walking up and down, slowly and sadly. The flowers do not exercise their ordinary power to comfort him. He does not even notice that the tendrils of the jessamine have come unfastened from the wall over the window, nor stoop to pluck the few dead leaves from his favourite myrtle, nor look to see how richly it is coming into flower. Something has ruffled his temper, and he cannot smooth down the angry spirit which is swelling and chafing within him.

Many circumstances in that house constantly arise to cross his humour; and he is by nature passionate. In general, he has acquired great command over his temper, but it is purchased by severe struggles. If he were more faultless, if he did not so very deeply deplore the taint of sin in his own nature, he would not tolerate the revolting selfishness of his brother.

Even now, when he is pausing in his customary pleasant labours, the thoughts return which he has striven vainly to chase away. His young brow is darkened and clouded with ireful emotion. He walks hurriedly to and fro; not looking at the flowers-not seeing the bright sunset. Churlish words, unwarrantable insinuations, are rankling at his heart. Shall he go in at once, and say to his brother; "I have borne with you too long already. Seek out another minister for your wretched, uncaredfor people, who will do his hard labour for the penurious wages you must accord him,-not from love, as I have done. All is at an end between us?"

His brother had sinned against him deeply. There could be no doubt about it. Most people would have said, it showed a poor spirit in Lewis to forgive him as often as he had done; but, at the moment when, with angry resolves in his mind, he advanced towards the door, and prepared to go in and tell him that the

measure of his endurance was brimful and overflowing,-a voice seemed to say in his ear, "Thou shalt not be implacable! Not seven times, but seventy times seven, thou, a minister of the Gospel, must forgive him; and try to turn him and his household back from their

evil ways.

He almost feared that some dreadful doom would fall upon the old house, if he, the only one who honoured God beneath its roof, were to take up his staff, shake off the dust from his feet, and leave it. He stepped back a few paces, and looked up attentively at the dark building. Its high fantastic peaks and gables rose up in irregular but picturesque outlines, throwing deep shadows over the garden. The sweet white jessamine, in a perfect shower of snowy blossoms, gleamed out from the sheltered recesses of the antique windows. The climbing roses mounted to the very tops of the great stacks of chimneys. The martins, whose coming he had welcomed as a signal of good

luck, were teaching their young brood to fly from the nest they had inhabited since the beginning of the summer, above the niche where stood the barrel to catch the rain water from the pipes, and an old pump which saved him the inconvenience of fetching water for his flowers.

As he watched the young family trying their wings, with the parents encouraging their flight, luring them by short stages from bush to bush, and finally allowing them to roost, for one night more, in the nest which, now, closely as they were packed together, could scarcely contain them, Lewis remembered hist own father and mother, at present resting in the burial-yard of the little church, where, Sunday after Sunday, he officiated. They had been good, homely sort of people, who lived in a plain way, and did not seek to rise above respectability of station. Roger was very jealous of his younger brother's being sent to college, while he stayed at home and assisted

in the management of the farm. Their dispositions were very different, and, every year, the dissimilarity encreased. While the one brother profited by each opportunity to elevate himself in the ranks of learning, the other doggedly refused to improve his faculties in any way; and grew up as clownish as, and more illiberal than, any labourer on his father's land.

The old people sighed over the contrast, and wished the lads were more alike. Lewis came home a little too much of the gentleman and scholar to suit them; but even parental affection and the want of cultivation in their own minds, did not blind them to the fact that Roger was, as his father said, "plaguy rough." Mrs. Derwent, a woman of strong sense, appreciated her younger nephew, and made him spend most of his time at the Hall. All parties looked upon him as provided for; and his brother never heard the bells of Maydwell Church ringing, without a feeling of jealousy at Lewis's approaching independence.