the shady foliage of a young orange-tree deep
in our duties.

It was quite the end of the hot season, that
I was compelled to leave my plantation and
journey across the country to the opposite
coast of the Indian peninsula, in search of
Malabar labourers to secure the coming crop.
I was absent nearly four months, and found
myself, one cool pleasant day in September,
riding homewards across the broad open
prairie-lands adjoining Malwattie. The
rich foliage of the jungle and the gardens
shone as brightly as ever in the afternoon
sun. The hill-streams rippled as pleasantly
down their stony courses. Yet the village
was no longer the spot I once knew it;
brawling and angry words were easily met
with; its old patriarchal peace and simplicity
had departed from it. I rode on musingly,
and at length pulled up in front of Dochie's
little garden; I started in my saddle at
observing that it also was changed, and so sadly
changed. The friendly orange-tree, with its
yellow fruit and its pleasant shade, was not
there. The oleanders were drooping to the
ground; some of the fence was torn down,
and a vile black bullock, that I could have
massacred on the spot, was cruelly browsing
over the flower-beds. The door was closed;
the shutters were fastened. I imagined all
sorts of calamities to have happened,
everything, in short, but what was actually the
case. I made one brief inspection of the
now neglected place; then mounted my
pony, and rode homewards, fearing lest
some villager should break to me the tale
of sorrow.

It was nearly evening when I rode up the
winding path leading to my bungalow,
oppressed with a feeling of I know not what.
The old building stood, as it ever had done,
quietly and humbly in the midst of the coffee-
fields, but I saw at once there were some
changes. I could scarcely believe my eyes,
when I saw, in the centre of the little grass-
plot, facing my front verandah, some small
flowering shrubs, and an orange-tree, so like
the one I had missed from Dochie's garden,
that I began to fancy I was still down in the
village, and that the little flower-girl was
peeping at me from behind some of the coffee-
bushes.

As I stood looking at the orange-tree, my
servant placed in my hand a letter, traced in
true native style on a dry leaf in Cingalese
characters. It was from my pupil herself,
and told me in a few simple sentences all that
had occurred. I breathed more freely to find
her alive. She was married, she said, to a
young and rich Cingalese trader, a Christian
and inhabitant of Colombo. She hoped
shortly to be admitted a member of our
church, and thanked me deeply for what I
had done for her. The old blind man, her
grandfather, was with them, and they were
all happy. They trusted I should always
be so. In my garden, she said, she had
caused to be planted the orange-tree I had so
often admired and sat under, with a few
flowers from her garden. She prayed that,
for many years to come, the tree would
yield me plentiful crops of cool, refreshing
fruit.

The reader will perhaps smile when I say
that, after reading this note, I shed many
tears, tears of real sorrow and pain. Heaven
knows I wished the poor girl well and happy;
but though I never could have looked on her
other than as a gentle, innocent acquaintance,
loveable for her simple purity, I felt her
departure keenly. To the many dwellers
in the thronged cities of the west, the loss of
such a companion of my wild, lonely, jungle-
life, may appear trivial enough; yet to me it
was an event.

My servant told me what the little note
had omitted. Dochie had been wooed and
won with true Cingalese brevity, by the same
young low-countryman who had been so
kindly sheltered and tended by her, when
robbed and beaten, as I have before told.
He had been successful in trade, and had now
a large store in Colombo.

It was long before I ventured again near
Malwattie. To me it was no more a " garden
of flowers," and least of all did I care to pass
by the green fence and gate, where Dochie's
pretty, smiling face had so often welcomed
me. At last I persuaded the old Korale to
set some of the villagers to work, and open a
new path for me nearer his own bungalow, by
which means I ever after avoided a spot, the
sight of which served but to fill me with vain,
regrets. The place and the people were so
changed that I soon became a stranger in
the land.

THE PATH OF FAITH.

PERCHANCE thou deemest it is hard
To have no foresight of thy life,
Unwarned, thy doubtful feet to guard
From wandering in the paths of strife;
But though thou hast no prescient sense
Thou hast a watching Providence.

With trustful labour weave the web
Of high emprise and noble deed;
Heedless if life should flow or ebb,
Let bravely doing be thy creed;
That Faith will make thee happier far
Than if thou read'st each glistening star.

Should stormy fortune lurk behind
Thy curtain'd Fate, and darkly loom—
Thank God thou canst not feel the wind,
Nor hear the distant thunder boom;
The tempest, with soft breezes blent,
May, ere it reaches thee, be spent.

Should brilliant sunshine bursting there
Upon thee, sudden and sublime,
Instant reflection of its glare
Might haply blind thee for the time,
By pouring on thy dazzled sight
Rays of intolerable light;