me to suffer for him," I returned, "if he had
been on this side of the grave."

"No, that he would not," replied
Stephen.

I felt from Stephen's manner that there
was yet some disclosure which his nerve was
scarcely equal to make. Painful or not, I
again conjured him to tell me all. After
much entreaty I learned from him the dreadful
truth that my wife had married again.
It was many minutes before I recovered
from the shock. My lost home stood before
me, and I was an outcast wanderer on the
wide earth.

"They have been married about a twelve-
month," continued Stephen, "and, although I
can only feel what kind of a man he is, I
don't think they are happy."

"Is he kind to the child?" I inquired,
almost sternly.

"I don't think he is positively unkind;
but he is very strict. He was a member of
the chapel that your good lady used to
go to, and he tries to mould little
Margaret after his own heart. I fear they are
not happy. Your good lady is less reserved
before me as I am blind, and I feel sometimes
that when she is reading she is thinking of
you."

"Stephen," I replied, sadly and firmly, "I
have only one more request to make of you
before I leave the country again for ever.
Keep my secret, and let me for one minute
see Esther and the child."

"I will," returned Stephen, weeping bitterly,
"that I will; and may Heaven sustain
you in your trouble."

He threw the old wooden shutter back,
which was not fastened on the inside, and
exposed the long, deep, narrow recess, closed
in at the end with red curtains glowing with
the fire and light within.

"I will now go into the room," he said,
"and deliver my keys; and, while there, I will
contrive to hook back the curtain."

I thanked him with a silent pressure of
the hand, and he went. Just then the deep
church bell struck nine, and every stroke
sounded like a knell upon my beating
heart. I watched—O how intensely I
watched!—grasping the window-sill with my
hands. At length the curtain was drawn
back, and the vision of my lost home stood
before me. They were engaged in evening
prayer. My child—my dear lost child—
now grown tall and graceful, was kneeling
at a chair: her long golden hair falling in
clusters over her slender, folded hands.
Esther was also kneeling with her face
towards me. It looked more aged and
careworn than I expected to see it, but it was
still the old pale, statue-like face that I
had cherished in my dreams, and that had
nestled on my shoulder in the days gone
by.

He who now stood in my place as the
guardian of my lost home was kneeling where
I could not see his face; but I heard his voice
faintly muttering the words of prayer. Did
anyone in all that supplicating group think
of the poor, wrecked, convict outcast?
God alone knows. The curtain closed, and
shut out my Lost Home from my dimmed
sight for evermore.

HARD ROADS.

MONSIEUR GOBEMOUCHE, in his interesting
work upon Japan—which ought to be in the
hands of at least every one who can read—has
an important chapter on Japanese roads.
The substance of it was communicated,
as he states, by the Père Canardeur, a worthy
Jesuit, who penetrated into the island of
Niphon in the character of a ship-wrecked
Chinaman, and passed three years there,
partly in the service of an attorney at
Jeddo, and partly in the situation of clerk to
a landsurveyor at Meaco.

It appears that the good father, whose
talents as a traveller were soon recognised,
was much employed in affairs in different
parts of the island. On his first expedition
into the interior, he was much surprised
at the system of road-management, so different
from anything he had seen or heard
of in any European country, and he
determined to investigate it fully, an object
for which his occupations gave him peculiar
facilities. Hence the chapter of M.
Gobemouche.

The traveller in Japan, we are told, no
sooner attempts to leave a town than he is
met by what the Père Cauardeur calls a
barrier, and which he describes as a high and
strong fence of timber, reaching across the
road, with a gate at one side, through which
passengers, whether in palanquins or on
horseback, are slowly filtered. By the side
of the gate stands a man, generally of the
lowest or Cooly class, whose business it is
to receive from each passing vehicle or
horseman certain small coins, equivalent to
the cash and candareen of China. On his
first expedition the Père took it for granted
that this was a kind of Custom House, though
he was much struck, he tells us, by the
unofficial appearance of the personage to whom
the Imperial Government had delegated the
ticklish business of collecting the duties.
However, as he had nothing which by any
possibility could be considered contraband,
he proceeded with a fearless mien to undergo
the ordeal. To his surprise, no search was
made, no questions were asked, except a
demand for money, with which his
companion at once complied. The reverend
Père, who seems at first to have considered
the whole proceeding little better than highway
robbery, was informed that it was not
his baggage, but himself and his horse that
were contraband, and could not pass without
paying duty. Moralising on the inconvenience
of the thing, but comforting himself