the convent, if I had behaved so, the good
sisters would have given me the discipline.
There, let me hear no more of this ungrateful
and designing serpent. She will be hungry
enough tomorrow morning, I will warrant."

What dreadful crime had Lily committed that
she could turn to such rancorous severity a
nature which she had hitherto found soft, and
yielding, and tender? Alas, her sin was
unpardonable: it was the sin against pride and
haughtiness. Madame de Kergolay could
have excused her almost everything; but she could
not forgive her for being human.

Lily scarcely slept a wink that night—the
last she was resolved to pass in the place which
had been a home, and a happy home to her.
She did not undress, but lay on the bed, tossing
and tumbling restlessly. She rose, so soon as
it was daylight, almost in a fever. She was
full of pulses. Her blood beat the drum in
her temples, her eyes, her ears, her wrists, her
very gums, and the root of her hot tongue. She
drank a long draught of cold water, which only
seemed to render her more thirsty, and laved her
hands and face in the fluid which still failed to
cool her. Looking at herself in the glass she
was terrified to see how swollen and inflamed
her eyes looked, how sunken were her cheeks,
with a hectic spot on each bone. She wanted
rest, consolation, nourishment, or bleeding, it
might be; but she could stay for none of these.
A hundred clanging voices kept shouting out
to her that there was no other way but this,
and that she must run away.

The wretched little woman had made up her
mind to fly. With her childhood, her girlhood,
she seemed to have done for ever. She was a
grown-up Pariah and outcast now—an adult
vagabond and wanderer upon the face of the
earth. God help her; but there was no one
else to render a hand of succour to her. She
was afraid to put up any linen, any change of
dress, or even so much as an additional shawl.
She went forth in her usual walking-dress and
simple bonnet, and nought else, save her beauty
and her innocence—for though she was
constrained to sell that locket she was innocent—to
cover her.

But before she went away she knelt down,
and prayed Heaven earnestly and tearfully to
bless the woman—her and her household—who
had had mercy upon her, a solitary and
helpless wayfarer. She prayed for the good
clergy-man who had brought her hither, at once the
cause of her great happiness and her greater
sorrow. And, finally, she prayed to be forgiven
the deed she was about to do.

Then she rose up, and hastily thrust beneath
the wings of her bonnet the masses of soft brown
hair she had been wont to arrange each morning
with such dainty neatness. Then, sitting down
at the little table where, with joy and contentment,
she had been used to study, she penned a
few hasty lines to Madame de Kergolay. She
said that she would return no more, and that it
was useless to seek for her; that she was not
so wicked as to meditate suicide, and that she
trusted in God to watch over and protect her.
She confessed that she had been foolish, that she
had been ungrateful, that she had been mad, in
daring to love a certain person, but with
passionate disclaimers she denied having been
treacherous or hypocritical. And, finally, she
implored Madame de Kergolay to forgive her, and
to think of her not as she was, but as she had been.

It was a glorious summer morning, and the
sun was literally pouring into the room, drenching
every object with gold. Lily thought of
that sunny morning she had sat on the carpet at
Rhododendron House, and said " I won't," to
Miss Barbara Bunnycastle. Ah! how long ago
that was. She was quite a little child then,
though so unhappy. And now she was a woman,
and unhappier than ever.

Brighter shone the sun, promising a glorious
day. It was the twenty-seventh of July.

THE POOR MAN HIS OWN MASTER.

THE course of the poor-law of late years,
judging by its circular letters and alterations,
has been, on the whole, in favour of those who
receive relief; so let us hope that in good time
a reform may be carried out, which, while
retaining everything serviceable, would rid the system
of some faults. One fault is assuredly its action
as an obstacle to the development of life
assurance societies suited to the requirements of the
farm labourer.

The principle that a person must be destitute
before eligible for relief although distress is
comparative and often is most trying among
thousands who are not destitute—is harsh and
repugnant to the present social condition of the
peasantry. The case was very different upwards
of thirty years ago, when the poor-rate, though
administered on a good principle, had been so
flagrantly abused that it had become little better
than supplementary to wages. One sees,
however, a return to it with good results in the
relief at present given in the cotton districts;
and the efficient services of relieving-officers of
districts give opportunity for gentler and more
considerate treatment of the poor. In former
days food was dear, and the farm labourer sullen
discontented and mischievous, so that neither
stack-yard nor machinery, then slowly establishing
itself on the farm, was safe. The poor-law
has not produced the great change we see, but
is in its way a part of it. We have no wish
to underrate the advantages of a system (though
we have mortal quarrels with its administration
sometimes) which scoured the country of many
abuses, saved the ratepayers a great deal of
money, and at the same time enabled the hungry,
naked, and houseless to keep body and soul
together, and sleep with a roof over them; though all
was done with official austerity, and under conditions
which made paupers and criminals wonderfully
like each other, with a large balance to the
credit of the jail-bird, in the matter of food, lodging,
and dress. But times are again changed, and