remember, that the will you hold in your hand
leaves not a single farthing to yourself. Go. We
part for ever. If you write, I burn the letters
unopened. Go."

The young man stood for a moment as soldiers
are sometimes said to do when a bullet has
pierced their hearts. His face was the face of
a corpse, but no tears came. The blood was
frozen at its source. Then he stooped forward,
kissed the old man on the forehead, and rushed
from the house.

In five minutes afterwards the door softly
opened, and Letty entered. The doctor took
her hand. They knelt.

"Let us pray for him," he said, solemnly.
"Letty, his fault you shall never know, but you
must henceforward consider him as dead. Those
who love me will never mention his name. Let
us pray for him, my child, and may God's spirit
soften that hard and rebellious heart, for nothing
else will. My hope and joy is gone. There is
nothing left me now but to prepare myself
humbly for death; Come, Letty, let us pray,
for prayer availeth much."

"My dear old friend," said the rector, as one
spring morning, many months after, they sat
together, "I am glad to see that deep heart-wound
of yours yielding somewhat to time's balsam."

He took the white thin hands of his friend as
he spoke.

"Pshaw! Buller," said the doctor, looking up
sorrowfully; "don't try to comfort me. Death
has the only anodyne for that wound; but Letty
cheers me, dear girl, and if I live to see her
happy and married well, I shall die content."

The doctor had made an idol of that
ungrateful son; and the idol had, for a time,
blotted out his view of heaven. The idol
removed, he saw where his trust should have
been; he remembered God in the days of his
sorrow, and bowed beneath the rod.

VII.

One July afternoon, thirteen years later, a
handsome burly black-bearded man, in a fur cap
and rough Australian coat, drove up to the door
of the King's Arms, seated beside an older man,
even burlier and more bearded than himself.
He alighted and ordered lunch; as he lunched,
he talked to the waiter about Crossford and
old times. He had once known Crossford, he
said.

"Has Travers not got this house now?"

"No, sir, he died three years ago, and his
widow became bankrupt."

'Where's Jones, the veterinary surgeon?"

"Dead, sir—died in a fit four years ago."

"Is Harris, the fat saddler, to the fore?"

"No, sir; died last year of dropsy, and his
son's dead too."

The stranger sighed, and drank down a glass
of ale at a gulp.

"Waiter, get me some brandy, hot." He
hesitated for a moment, then he said, fiercely,

"Is old Mrs. Thatcher still alive?"

"What, old Mrs. Thatcher at the Lawn?
Oh, she died seven years ago, and left all her
money to her brother, the doctor. There was
an adopted son who would have had it, but he
turned out a scamp."

"Oh, indeed! This is shocking bad brandy.
And the old doctor is he still alive?"

"Oh, Lord, no, sir. Dead six years since.
Why, sir, you seem to remember the people
well."

The stranger rested his head on his hand, and
thought for a moment; then he said:

"And Miss Paget, Mrs. Thatcher's niece, is
she living—married, I suppose?"

"Living, yes, sir. Look, sir; why, there is her
carriage standing at the bank door opposite;
wait, and you'll see her come out. She married
a Lieutenant Price, of the Bombay army."

At that moment, as the stranger looked out of
the window, a lady stepped into the carriage;
three pretty children—two boys and a girl—
leaped in, laughing, after her. It was Letty,
still beautiful even as a matron, her face wearing
the old sweet amiable expression. The
skittish ponies rebelled, but darted off amicably
at a touch of their mistress's whip.

"What, in the dumps, old chum?" said the
second stranger, going up to his friend, who still
stood with his face fixed to the window.
"Come, more liquor—I'll shout this time; it's
our last day in old England."

"Curse old England, and all that are in it!"
said the other man, turning round fiercely.
"Come, let's catch the 11.20, and get back to
Liverpool. If I once get to the old tracks in
Australia—once on the back of a buck-jumper
and after the kangaroos, I'll never set foot
again in the old country. Here's your money,
waiter. Come, Murray, let's be off."

Was that man's heart changed then? No.
Yet it was changed before his death a year
after, but through what purgatories of suffering
had it not to traverse before it found peace?

DOUBTFULLY DIVINE MISSIONS.

ALL the popular delusions and religious
impostures of which we have any record, from the
earliest times down to the present era of so-
called Spiritualism, have had features in common.
Their claim to credence has been founded upon
the world-wide acceptance of the divine mission
of Christ, his supernatural birth, his divine life,
his marvellous works, his miraculous rising
from the dead; and while all, in their main
features, are copies of the Christian mystery, they
bear, in many respects, a close resemblance to
each other.

At the present time, when you assail the
pretensions of the Spiritualists, you are told that
many persons of high intellectual attainments,
men of learning, professors well versed in the
sciences, pious divines, and others, are disciples
of the new revelation. Who are you, that you
should dare to scoff at what these eminent men
believe? But Dr. Samuel Johnson was an
eminent man, intellectual, learned, pious, and