A DARK NIGHT'S WORK,

BY THE AUTHORESS OF "MARY BARTON."

CHAPTER XII.

THERE are some people who imperceptibly
float away from their youth into middle age, and
from thence pass into declining life with the soft
and gentle motion of happy years. There are
others who are whirled, in spite of themselves,
down dizzy rapids of agony away from their
youth at one great bound, into old age with
another sudden shock; and thence into the vast
calm ocean where there are no shore-marks to
tell of time.

This last, it seemed, was to be Ellinor's lot.
Her youth had gone in a single night, fifteen
years ago, and now she appeared to have become
an elderly woman; very still and hopeless in look
and movement, but as sweet and gentle in speech
and smile as ever she had been in her happiest
days. All young people, when they came to know
her, loved her dearly, though at first they might
call her dull, and heavy to get on with; and as
for children and old people, her ready watchful
sympathy in their joys as well as their sorrows
was an unfailing passage to their hearts. After
the first great shock of Mr. Corbet's marriage
was over, she seemed to pass into a greater peace
than she had known for years; the last faint
hope of happiness was gone; it would, perhaps,
be more accurate to say, of the bright happiness
she had planned for herself in her early youth.
Unconsciously, she was being weaned from self-
seeking in any shape, and her daily life became,
if possible, more innocent and pure and holy.
One of the canons used to laugh at her for her
constant attendance at all the services, and for
her devotion to good works, and call her always
the reverend sister. Miss Monro was a little
annoyed at this faint clerical joke; Ellinor smiled
quietly. Miss Monro disapproved of Ellinor's
grave ways and sober severe style of dress.

"You may be as good as you like, my dear,
and yet go dressed in some pretty colour, instead
of those perpetual blacks and greys, and then
there would be no need for me to be perpetually
telling people you are only four-and-thirty (and
they don't believe me, though I tell them so till
I am black in the face). Or, if you would but wear
a decent-shaped bonnet, instead of always wearing
them of the poky shape in fashion when you were
seventeen."

The old canon died, and some one was to be
appointed in his stead. These clerical preferments
and appointments were the all-important
interests to the inhabitants of the Close, and the
discussion of probabilities came up invariably if
any two met together, in street or house, or even
in the very cathedral itself. At length it was
settled and announced by the higher powers. An
energetic, hard-working clergyman from a distant
part of the diocese, Livingstone by name, was to
have the vacant canonry.

Miss Monro said that the name was somehow
familiar to her, and by degrees she recollected the
young curate, who had come to inquire after
Ellinor in that dreadful illness she had had at
Hamley in the year 1829. Ellinor knew nothing
of that visit; no more than Miss Monro did of
what had passed between the two before that
anxious night. Ellinor just thought it possible
it might be the same Mr. Livingstone, and would
rather it were not, because she did not feel as if
she could bear the frequent though not intimate
intercourse she must needs have, if such were the
case, with one so closely associated with that
great time of terror which she was striving to
bury out of her sight by every effort in her power.
Miss Monro, on the contrary, was busy weaving
a romance for her pupil; she thought of the passionate
interest displayed by the fair young clergyman
fifteen years ago, and believed that occasionally
men could be constant, and hoped that,
if Mr. Livingstone were the new canon, he might
prove the rara avis which exists but once in a
century. He came, and it was the same. He
looked a little stouter, a little older, but had still
the gait and aspect of a young man. His smooth
fair face was scarcely lined at all with any marks
of care; the blue eyes looked so kindly and
peaceful, that Miss Monro could scarcely fancy
that they were the same which she had seen fast
filling with tears; the bland calm look of the
whole man needed the ennoblement of his evident
devoutness to be raised into the type of holy
innocence which some of the Romanists call the
"sacerdotal face." His whole soul was in his
work, and he looked as little likely to step forth
in the character of either a hero of romance or a
faithful lover as could be imagined. Still Miss
Monro was not discouraged; she remembered
the warm passionate feeling she had once seen