I can." She held out her hand, looking up
to him with glad tearful eyes. Mr. Langley
pressed the hand warmly, as if the
thanks-giving look had gone to his heart.

"Nobody need thank me, Heaven knows,
except the people of Farley. What would
they be without Mr. Mackworth? I believe
the rectory is in pretty good repair, and the
garden well kept up; but Mr. Mackworth
and I must go over it together."

"It is perfect," said Mary, as a vision of
the pleasant roomy house and bowery garden
rose before her. "Thank you, thank
you! You may think I care a great deal
about money, but it is not that. It is such
pain to see one's own dear people wanting
anything, and not to be able to give it to
them."

"You will, at all events, be freed from
your slavery now, I hope," said Mr. Langley.

Mary looked surprised.

"I have nothing to complain of, though
it will be nice to be at home of course,
nicer than anything."

"A fine lad your brother is. Does he think
of the church?"

"No, he wishes for the army, but lately
he has been thinking of going into Mr.
Bagshawe's office. He hated the idea, but
he wouldn't trouble papa with making
difficulties, He is so unselfish," said the sister,
proudly. "But there will be no trouble
about the army now, thanks to you."

Mr. Langley was touched by this simple
girl's great idea of the capabilities of their
new income.

"How should I feel?" he thought, "if I
were obliged to live on nine hundred a
year! Well; this lad's commission may
be a means of paying my five hundred
pounds."

"You will let me come to-morrow?" he
said aloud: "I must see your father, and go
over the rectory with him; and I shall see
you too, shall I not?"

"Certainly," said Mary; "I don't go back
to London until the 20th."

"And then only to say good-bye to it, I
hope. A new dance is beginning, will you
come?"

As Mary rose, she could not help saying,
"I seem to have been talking of nothing but
my home concerns."

"You could not have given me greater
pleasure," was the answer. "Miss
Mackworth, I must say it. Whatever happens
hereafter, I shall never forget what I owe
to that brown-paper parcel."

At night, when all the guests were
gone, Mr. Langley, pacing the deserted
conservatory with a cigar, mused much as
follows.

"She is too grateful to me—by far too
grateful. When she looked up at me with
those innocent thankful eyes, I could hardly
help speaking then and there: but I must
wait till she forgets that I am something
of a benefactor, and only remembers me as
a friend. Please God, the best friend she
will ever have! O blessings on the fog, and
on the snow, and on the brown-paper parcel,
and on the hansom, and on everything else.
And blessings on old Lowther, wherever he
is now, for going off at the convenient
moment! Well, to-morrow I shall see her
again—those clear eyes that went straight
to my heart in the cold and dark that day;
and the sweet smile, and the earnest quiet
mouth, worth all her sister's beauty, twenty
thousand times! If her heart is not too
full of father and mother, and sister and
brothers, to leave one corner for me! Well,
I must hope and try, and I shall see her again
to-morrow."

And at the same hour, Mary, who kept
her precious secret for the morrow to
disclose, lying wakeful beside her sleeping sister,
poured out her earnest thanksgivings
for troubles over, and peace beginning.

"How kind he is!" she thought with
tears. "How nicely he spoke of Harry!
How he listened when I talked so much!
How could I talk so much to a stranger?
But somehow, I don't feel as if he were a
stranger; I feel as if he must belong to us
some day. Is that prophetic, I wonder!
Is he to be the knight I have always
dreamed of, who was to come and carry
off my Cilla? May be. And yet, I don't
know. There are some people in the world
who seem too good for any one—even for
Cilla."

MR. CHARLES DICKENS'S FAREWELL
READINGS.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read on Wednesday,
March 31, at Sheffield; Thursday, April 1, and Friday,
April 2, Birmingham; Monday, April 5, Tuesday,
April 6, Thursday, April 8, and Friday, April 9, Liverpool;
Tuesdays, April 13, 27, May 11, and 25, St.
James's Hall, London.
All communications to be addressed to MESSRS.
CHAPPELL AND Co., 50, New Bond-street, London, W.