hand in hand, but she need not therefore be ignorant or commonplace. Now for the plan of which I wished to speak, and which will, I trust, largely benefit both Millicent and her contemporaries. My desire is to have you join my nieces in the most ennobling of all studies, that of GOD's inspired Word, but I forewarn you that it will call into exercise your highest spiritual and imaginative faculties, perchance even some latent poetry."

The Vicar laid playful stress on the last words, but it was not remarked by his attentive listener, who exclaimed delightedly, "A Bible class under your teaching, with Miss Gordon and her sister as companions! O, Mr. Harland! you have made me very happy, how shall I ever find words to thank you ?"

You consent then ?" asked the Vicar, with a kind smile, "and you will not withhold from us all the great pleasure of your society ?"

"Not in that manner, certainly; I know that we are one in CHRIST, and equals in the highest sense, but I could never forget social differences, and must therefore intreat that our intercourse may be kept within proper limits."

“Please let me judge of the proprieties," said Mr. Harland, lightly. Now I have a great favour to ask: will you allow my little May Bird to share your cup of tea occasionally, if it be not an intrusion? The child needs more variety than our home-life here can afford her, and an hour thus spent with you would be a real refreshment."

"It would be almost too much happiness," Miss Lane said with emotion, "those lonely evenings are at times nearly beyond endurance: they unfit me often for exertion on the morrow."

"You may be always sure of a warm welcome at our fireside," said Mr. Harland, cordially. "Come with me now into the drawing-room; tea is in readiness, and after it we can arrange a plan of our purposed researches. Much will be needed in the way of illustration, so we must seek to combine all our resources. We shall require maps of Palestine and other Bible lands; prints of the Holy Places, and a longer list of references than I can name. My nieces have compiled a store of MSS. from various sources, including extracts from the works of travellers ancient and modern. They are both very impatient to begin an outline of our future studies."

Many thanks, but indeed I beg you to excuse me now; I will come very shortly." Miss Lane's timidity was such that Mr. Harland could not press the matter further, so he took leave of his visitor with many

words of kindness, and a promise to send Mabel to her the ensuing afternoon.

CHAPTER V.

“MILLY, love, do come in out of that chilling air! the sun has set, and you are still without a hat under the trees; trying to get another fever, I suppose ?"

Millicent raised her head, revealing one of the most lovely childish faces to be seen even in Scilly, which is nevertheless famed for the extreme beauty of its inhabitants.

"I scarcely like being well, mother," she replied with candour. "Miss Mabel comes so seldom now, to see me, and before I left my room she was here several times a week telling me stories about Martyrdom, or reading poems from her book of Sacred Legends."

"Then I wish Miss Mabel would be good enough to come to Holy Vale and tend your flowers, and feed the poultry, and sort over those winter apples in the store-room," was the slightly sharp rejoinder. “There is no use in expecting anything from you, since she has filled your head with every kind of nonsense that was ever written."

You said, mother, you would excuse all but my lessons for the school, whilst I am still so weak," observed Millicent in a tone somewhat reproachful.

"Now, child, you know quite well I would do everything about the house and garden with my own hands, rather than risk your being overworked. But Dr. Graham says it is like medicine, to busy oneself about common tasks, and give the brain a little chance for rest."

"What do you wish me to do, mother?" inquired Milly. "I was studying some verses which the governess gave me to learn."

"Come in to tea, directly, child, for it is six o'clock. Go to bed early, for you look as white still as you did a month ago, and then tomorrow when you rise refreshed set about turning over a new leaf, in earnest."

With this vague exhortation the young day-dreamer was left to her reflections, which no doubt were fruitful in resolves equally definite. The kind-hearted though bustling mistress of the farm, might have done honour to the Scottish Highlands in her sturdy frame and clear practical sense. Her life seemed a perpetual reproof to all lazy, or inefficient neighbours, and the general impression was, that never were

seen mother and daughter more unlike than excellent Mrs. Lacy, and Millicent.

Perhaps Mabel's teachings really had been injudicious; certain it is that discontent and unreality had latterly taken deep root in Milly's character. The child was far from happy in her favoured lot: she shrank from the companionship of those near her own age, feeling, as she expressed it, that they could not understand her. The duties in which she had felt such pride when they were first committed to her charge, were now distasteful, and above all she had grown strangely insensible to the indulgent fondness of her parents. The sole employment of her thoughts was castle building, and the structures thus upreared, more transient than the cloudlets of a summer sky, melted away into thin air, without having distilled one drop of dew on the parched earth. Millicent longed to make somebody very happy: there was poor little lame Edwin at Blue Cam, to whom an occasional playmate was the greatest of delights, but it was wearisome to entertain him, and besides, he was an object of such general compassion. Milly would much have preferred going to comfort Nek, that hapless outcast from all human sympathy and love. She and Miss Mabel seemed his only friends, and he could never know how much they felt for him. Might people pray for Water Spirits? She could find no suitable devotions in the Prayer Book, and with a child's reserve, pondered the cause of the omission.

Mabel would indeed have been startled, had she realized the hold her legendary lore had gained upon this budding intellect. Her own imagination was in no respect inferior to Milly's, but her vigorous health, and the enlightened training which she had received from infancy, enabled her to keep its vagaries more under control. Then until her removal to Scillonia, Mabel had known nothing of solitude except the name. However often she might lose herself in Dreamland, it was always in the first instance by a conscious effort, and it was not long ere something happened to recall her to the actualities of life. With Milly the case was far otherwise. Her faculties once unstrung and overwrought by fever, had no power to define the boundary between the supernatural and the real, but this Mabel was too inexperienced to see and remedy. She mistook Milly's changeful mood of tears and smiles, for an intense appreciation of the poetry and beauty of the legends, it did not occur to her these last could be regarded as historic facts. Such was however undeniably the case. The spirit harpist of

the Swedish waters was no myth, but a neglected persecuted member of a race whose claims on missionary enterprise were at least fully equal to those of the London Arabs in their crowded courts. Everything in the child's life became gradually tinged with this ærial colouring of romance, until the clear broad line of truth was lost in the enchanted forest of Imagination.

Could Milly have retained the meek simplicity best suited to her years, she might have found a large share of enjoyment in the station which she had been called to occupy. Her home was in the centre of S. Mary's, in a little sunny basin overhung by trees, and rich with the luxuriant verdure for which portions of the Scilly Isles are famed. Many rare plants belonging to a southern latitude adorned the gardens of the three old-fashioned farm houses composing the small settlement of Holy Vale. In front of Farmer Lacy's door, flourished a giant aloe, which had during the past year, borne token of the mildness of the climate by a burst of gorgeous bloom, worthy its native habit within the tropics. August was melting now into September, and although a wealth of flowers basked in the glowing sunset, there was something beyond freshness in the bracing air which swept over the moors, and down into the leafy nest that lay hidden among them. Its breath seemed laden with salt spray, rather than with the scent of clustering roses. The bright season was not indeed ended, there might still be sultry days in summer's treasury, and yet on entering the clean farm kitchen, one seemed to expand into renewed vigour beneath the warmth and comfort of the blazing fire-light. The table spread invitingly for tea, stood in a corner of the ample hearth. Nourishing home-baked bread and scalded cream composed the evening meal, together with some orange marmalade, sent from the Vicarage by Lilian, with a friendly message to the little convalescent.

“I have been thinking, wife,” began the farmer as he wheeled his easy chair close to the fire, "that our Milly would be all the better if she had more play and fewer books. Now I should like her to miss school to-morrow, just for once, and spend the day at Longstone, that is if you are willing to allow it."

“O! yes, quite,” was the answer, “only she must be here again by five o'clock. “The doctor tells me she should never stay out late now that the evenings are so sharp."

“Please do not make me go,” said Milly, pleadingly, “I get so tired of playing with Susie and Bess. They care for nothing except racing

with their great dog Rover, who is always sure to roll us over on the grass."

"Then you had better keep away indeed, child, for you will tear your clothes, and I have enough mending already!" cried the thrifty housewife. "She can be just as quiet as she likes," rejoined the farmer, “and besides, they will be busy gathering in their apples. I forgot to say that is the reason she is so especially asked for to-morrow."

This annual fruit harvest at Longstone had for several years been one of Milly's favourite amusements, but it seemed now to have lost its zest, for she replied with listlessness verging upon ingratitude,

cr

'Why cannot people let one rest in peace? I do not care for holidays, and on a Wednesday too, Miss Mabel's morning for the gallery lesson."

“Well, dear,” said the indulgent father, "I will call at the school and take you up to Longstone when your tasks are done; does that content you?"

"No," replied Millicent almost perversely, "for Miss Mabel has asked me to walk with her at three o'clock. She says a rare plant called the Flowering Fern, is found in Scilly, and I have promised to show her where it grows."

"You, child? why you know nothing of the matter," remarked Mrs. Lacy. "How shall you tell it from among a hundred green things of the kind?"

"That does not signify," rejoined Milly composedly, "Miss Mabel will forget about the Ferns long before we are half way through the marsh. I want her, not the specimens, so I shall never bring them to her memory."

"Then, is Miss Mabel such a giddy creature ?" asked the farmer as he lifted Milly to his knee. "I thought you looked upon her as a choice piece of perfection."

"So I do, she is all the nicer because tiresome duties slip out of her head. Miss Lilian calls her 'May Bird,' and I think it must be because she never is long steady, but keeps always flitting like a bird from one thing to another."

The farmer and his wife exchanged admiring glances at this proof of Millicent's discrimination. It has been said that we unwittingly exhibit various phases of character to different people, and volatility was the idea associated with poor Mabel by this worthy pair, neither of whom did justice to her nobler qualities. Perhaps on Mrs. Lacy's