made himself disagreeable, and they walked on for a few minutes in silence, broken at last by his stopping to pick a wild pansy and offer it to Eleanor, observing with a smile, "Will you add this pansy to your store, Miss Ansley? You see I know its name." She accepted it, quoting playfully, "Pansies, that's for thoughts. I am sure we have both been absorbed in thought for the last few minutes." He assented, adding, "The pansy is a highly honoured flower, being mentioned by our great English poet; but I never could see the connection between it and thoughts." "Its derivation from the old French pensées, I suppose. Yes, it is rather a favourite flower of the poets. Do you not remember in 'Comus' the shepherds throwing wreaths into the stream of 'pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils ?'” "Yes, and Spenser speaks of the pretty 'paunce.' Drayton also mentions it, if I remember rightly." the "I do not wonder, there is something especially charming about pansy, or stepmother, as we call it in Yorkshire." Stepmother? that is a curious name." Yes, and I never knew the reason for it until the other day, when a friend who was staying here told me the Russians give it the same title, because—see here," and she took the pansy out of her basket, "the calyx has not sufficient pieces for each single petal, one must do without its support, and that they say is the stepmother pushing a child out of its seat to make room for her own little one." Indeed; and you think this formation is the reason for the name being given ?" "I should fancy so, also for the old name 'three faces under one hood." " "Has the pansy any more names besides heart's-ease ?" Only Herb Trinity, and that we seldom hear now." "No indeed, I did not even know it." "I have been told that in some of the southern counties they call it 'Jack behind the garden gate,' and I dare say it has other provincial names which I am not acquainted with." "No, you would scarcely care to learn those." "I am not so sure of that, provincial names for flowers are often their original terms in old English; besides, many of them are prettily poetical." "Indeed ?" "Yes; do you not think golden-cups a much prettier name than crow-foot, for instance ?" "Much prettier; I should not have given Yorkshire people credit for so poetical a title." "And pray why not ?" "Because they have generally the character of being shrewd and sensible rather than poetical," he returned, smiling at her warmth, "but I may be wronging them." "I think you are; there is a great deal of poetry to be found in the North, if you can only get at it." "Then you are not one of those who believe the lower class in England to be destitute of all sense of poetry ?" No indeed. I think people who imagine that can have had very little experience of the lower classes. I am sure that in Yorkshire at least they have a great deal of poetry in them, in their daily lives, in the old traditions they cling to, their keen perception of the beautiful and refined, nay, their very way of narrating the history of their own lives, is often poetical in its pathos, and then one feels sure the poetry of the poor is real." "Yes, it is certainly preserved from the absence of simplicity and straining after applause too often to be found in the upper ranks of life; I cannot help feeling that fame does detract somewhat from worth." "I suppose it depends on whether the merit preceded and attracted the fame, or the work was undertaken with the thought of gaining it." "You are right. But to return to our subject, do you not think the daily life of the poor, the want of appreciation and sympathy they meet with, likely to crush out the poetry or talent they possess ?" tr How can a gift be crushed out? contending against adverse circumstances will only make it stronger and purer when it does at last overcome them, as a stream runs more clearly and vigorously for the very stones which seem to impede its course." "That is a pretty simile of yours," said Edmund, smiling at her earnestness, "you look upon difficulties as tests between the true and the false, sterling coin and counterfeit the latter could not survive them." "No, but the former would, and its real worth be thus tested." "Yes, I suppose it is so," said Edmund, musingly, "fighting ought to strengthen our muscles, difficulty to arouse our determination; even our talents should be elevated when the shadow of the Cross falls upon them," he added in a half aside. Yes, and do you not think that real talent which pushes its way upwards in spite of adverse circumstances, is sure to have a far higher worth than even the most cultivated ?" "It is so. Just as when a man sets himself to write a prize poem, he may take the greatest pains with it, and finish it off carefully, yet ten to one it lacks the fire and vigour of some little thing dashed off in a spare moment because it came unbidden into his head and he could not resist setting it down on paper. It is strange too how little spirit there is in most of the prize poems, even when really clever men undertake them." "And I suppose," continued Eleanor, half interrogatively, "people studying now lack the depth and concentration possessed in the days of 'painful scholarship ?' ' Certainly, just as at the present time when we have so many scribblers, we find little of the raciness and originality which marked the writings of two centuries ago. Rarity enhances value, difficulty in attainment exalts the prize, and the competitors for it are reduced to the really deserving. Everything is made too easy now-a-days, and the consequence is mediocrity and conventionality.. If I had to educate a boy I should prefer his striking out his own peculiar path in study, and pursuing it unassisted; for I should then feel sure his taste was a real one, not a mere passing fancy; and he would probably understand his subject better and love it more heartily from having had to puzzle it out alone." "Yet you do not underrate the effects of cultivation ?" 'Certainly not, any more than I would despise the artificial soil of a garden so useful in imparting to flowers their fragrance and variety of colour. I only maintain the law of compensation is sure to come in here as elsewhere, so much there is of the more, so much of the less." "Yes, I see, just as garden flowers may be superior in size and colour, and yet will lack somewhat of the free grace of their wild relation. And exotics the most highly cultivated are the stiffest of all." "No inapt type of the high pressure cramming system of the present day. . . . And so having begun our conversation with flowers we end with them," said Edmund, smiling, as he unlatched the parsonage gate. "I have found out one of your special tastes at last, Miss Ansley; am I not right ?" "Yes, I suppose I am fonder of flowers than most people." "And after quoting Milton and Shakespeare you must never tell me again that you are not fond of poetry." "Oh, but I never meant that kind; it is modern poetry I do not care about. And then I have no real taste for it, like Hetta and Maud." "What can have possessed me to talk in that manner to a girl?" mused Edmund Lindsaye to himself, whilst preparing for supper. He was so habitually reserved that he rarely went below the surface in conversation, and was startled to find how he had done so that day. He was almost annoyed, and yet with a strange inconsistency felt as if he should have liked to have prolonged the conversation. Eleanor meanwhile as she stood in the tenantless schoolroom arranging in a large bowl with a lightness and taste peculiar to herself the flowers she had gathered that afternoon, merely thought in her straightforward simplicity that she had had a pleasant walk and interesting conversation. S. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS. SEPT. 29. "I have heard from learned teachers about my God, about the Angels, their different companies, about the glory and blessedness of the Heavenly Country, about the peace and joy unspeakable of its Heavenly inhabitants. O ye Cherubim and Seraphim, with what sweetness and grace, what fervour, with what excellency do ye sing those glad hymns before your God without fatigue, without weariness, without ceasing in everlasting bliss. ."-The Valley of Lilies. THOMAS A KEMPIS. BEFORE Thee-King of Angels-One and Trine- They come from the eternal depths of Heaven, And when to each appointed work is given, With loving zeal and missioned speed they fly. Unweariedly they cleave through boundless space, Beside our daily path and restful bed, Are lovely Guardian Angels watching near; Receives a sword, keen-edged, and tempered rare ; Th' avenging Angel sheaths the glancing sword. Bright Angels watch our conflicts here below; C. A. M. W. Reviews and Notices. Greek and Gothic: Progress and Decay in the Three Arts of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, by the Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitt, formerly Student and Rhetoric Reader, Christ Church, Oxford, (Walter Smith, London.) We are late in the notice of this very considerable volume, but it is really one that deserves high commendation at our hands. Mr. Tyrwhitt is a critic by profession, and his writings are well known to readers of magazines,—in which indeed a large portion of the present volume originally appeared. Here, however, we have his matured and completed view on Art, in its two great developments, "Greek and Gothic." As regards general principles, Mr. Tyrwhitt, we conceive, would be quite content to call himself a follower of Mr. Ruskin ; but in the application of those principles he takes a line of his own, by which he is prepared to stand or fall. The latter part of the volume opinion is by no means equal to the former; and though, speaking in our |