"Ah!" said Grace, while a faint smile played about her features, "you were telling me just now that one brother was, most likely, safe; because these storms were far away from him. How is it, Catherine, that you fear for the other, who must, by this time, be still more distant?" "It is not," said Catherine, "that these particular storms can frighten me on Seymour's account, only by association. But I always fear for poor Seymour-always shrink for him-because I know him to be of so shrinking and sensitive a nature himself. It was SO in our childhood. Much as I loved this precious brother, I early learned to feel him a source of constant anxiety, owing to the suffering which his peculiar nature seemed destined to endure. And then, to think how he has been situated!" As Catherine said these words, which were more expressive of deep feeling than she thought, a moment afterwards, ought to be spoken in that secluded chamber, she bent down her head, to hide the involuntary tears that glistened in her eyes; and then, endeavouring to busy herself with some work which she held in her hand, she tried to speak on other subjects. But it would not do all her attempts proved fruitless; and the two friends soon found themselves returning to the same theme. "I think," said Grace, after a short pause in the conversation, "that Seymour should have been the one in your family to devote himself to the church. He would have made an excellent clergyman." "Yes," said Catherine: "in that congenial sphere of interest he might have been a good and a happy man." "Surely," said her friend, "he may be a good man anywhere. God is equally present with him, you know, dear Catherine, in one situation as in another." "I know it," said Catherine; "and I feel no doubt that Seymour knows it too; but when I look at my brothers now, and recal what they were in early life-and then when I think what they might have been, I cannot escape from the painful conviction that Seymour should have been in Philip's place, and Philip in Seymour's." us blame any one, or entertain hard thoughts when these convictions come upon us." 66 'No, Grace, I think I can answer you clearly on that point now. Once, I confess, I did think hardly of my parents, and especially of my poor mother, for persisting in this great mistake." "But it was all well meant, Catherine." "Yes, it was all well meant, and whatever was done in the disposal of her children, was done with the very kindest intentions towards all." "All of us, you know, Catherine, have been guilty of great mistakes in one way or another; myself, perhaps, more so than any of you: but I blame no one for this, perhaps I scarcely blame myself." "Why should you?" "Why should I? except as a matter of worldly prudence, - there, indeed, I was wrong; but otherwise, I see so much good that is likely, by God's blessing, to grow out of my mistake, that I could scarcely wish the past back again, even if I could have it so, in order that I might act more wisely for myself. You see, Catherine, I was not very fit for this world, if I had remained in it. I should most likely have been vain and selfish, and too much disposed to rest in the externals of religion, without any deep experience of its heart-searching influence upon the thoughts and the actions of daily life. No, Catherine, even your kind, loving heart will have nothing to regret, if, through what has passed, you should some time find me amongst those who have come out of much suffering, and who stand beside the throne, having washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. I can see it all now, Catherine,-all the wisdom, all the mercy; and I can bless the hand by which the chastisement was inflicted." "And my brothers, Grace - my poor brothers!" "God is all-merciful- Christ all-sufficient. I know no other argument to bring against your fears; I have found no other consolation." "I wish you could impart more of this blessed consolation to me, dear Grace." "Ah! it will come to you with more clearness and more force when I am gone, "Yes, Catherine, I see it so now, though I once thought differently; but don't let | Catherine." However fanciful this flight may be, it so happened that, either at the precise time, or about the period, when the two friends talked together as already described, Seymour Clifton was passing through a crisis of his history, most important in its own nature, as well as in its consequences. Whether from the long hidden conflict of his own feelings, or whether from outward circumstances, of which, from the very intensity of these feelings, he had taken no notice at the time, his health, from the period of leaving his native shore, had been considerably af "Because when I am near you, I feel all you say with double force, seeing the reality exemplified every moment of your life. Yes, dear Grace, weak as you aretrembling and delicate as you seem to me, like some flower of spring, which the rude winds assail; yet here, upon your sickbed, you are to me like a tower of strength. Nay, do not smile; it is all quite true, dear Grace; and if you question your own strength, remember what you have just told me, that God is all-fected by symptoms which, although of no merciful-Christ all-sufficient; and do very critical nature in themselves, gave you not think our gracious heavenly reason to apprehend that the general tone Father may sometimes, according to his of his constitution was becoming rapidly own good pleasure, select the weakest enfeebled from some cause which baffled of his children to be the support of the medical skill to account for. strong? "Weakest indeed!" said Grace, "weakest indeed!" she repeated, as with clasped hands she sank completely exhausted upon her pillow. The effect of sustaining any lengthened conversation was now becoming too much for her rapidly-decreasing strength; and after speaking on any subject which, like the present, interested her feelings deeply, she would remain for some time speechless and motionless, except that often, when too weak to give any other expression to her feelings, her lips might be seen to move with the silent language of prayer, while her eyes would be raised with such a sudden flash of intelligence, and such an intensity of love and joy, that to the beholder it seemed almost as if heaven was opening to her view, with all the blessedness of its inhabitants, and all their peace and happiness made manifest. And now, conveyed by the telegraphic influence of mind on mind, we will leave for awhile the sick chamber, with its solemn silence unbroken, and pursue the chain, which had been touched with so much feeling, far across the mighty ocean -far away to distant regions of the globe, where the skies that smiled were, indeed, unlike the dark scowling of that wintry season, which had awakened in the hearts of the two friends the expression of anxious solicitude on the part of one-of faith, and trust, and even hopeful confidence on the part of the other. It In this condition, Seymour, for a considerable time, bore up with a resolution, and an energy, for which his friends at home would scarcely have given him credit. But illness of body was not one of the trials which Seymour regarded as most calamitous. Those who have become early and long habituated to mental suffering, seldom regard the afflictions of the body with any very deep distress. was thus with Seymour; but lightly as he treated this change in his circumstances, it was impossible to conceal it from others; and the manner in which he treated it, the manly, uncomplaining way in which he faced his duties, and the hardships which they necessarily entailed upon him, served in a great degree to re-establish his character, and to endear him to his more intimate friends. It was these friends, or rather acquaintances for Seymour could scarcely be said to have made any friends, who watched his fading colour, and who, in the frequent momentary flush of his hollow cheek, first detected the fact, that he was taxing his strength too much. At last, the fact became apparent to all; and Seymour was fairly placed upon the sick list, as being incapable of further duty. The question then occurred, what was next to be done? Above all other things, Seymour pined to be away from the ship, and all its associations. He had never loved them, and now he wanted his native woods and fields, in the calm of some silent shore, where he could hear the singing of birds, and see the cattle grazing in green pastures. A slow fever was wasting his strength away, and there were moments when he scarcely could restrain the excitement which the beloved recollections of such rural scenery awakened. At such times he went back to the days of his childhood. He revisited those haunts of his early years which had been his favourite resort; above all, he sat beneath the shadow of those stately trees which had been so often the sole companions of his hours of solitary, and often melancholy thought. Whatever amount of aberration of mind there might be in these recollections, and in the gentle wanderings of thought and word which they called forth, they were so pleasant in themselves that the fever days were almost more agreeable to Seymour than the after weakness, oppressed as he then felt with the reality of the hot sun above him in a burning clime, the wide monotonous ocean all around, the narrow precincts of that prison ship, the flapping of dull sails, and the never-ceasing tramp of busy feet that trod the deck, unconscious of the weariness of that poor head which every sound and movement seemed to lacerate with pain. In his more collected moments, Seymour had assisted those who took an interest in his fate, to devise plans for his benefit; and he had recollected that his father had a friend residing in the neighbourhood of Sydney, to whom he had been furnished with letters of introduction. It was a serious thing to throw himself, ill as he was, upon the hands of any one, and especially of one who was personally a stranger; and Seymour positively refused to place himself in so unwelcome a situation. But as the vessel was now approaching this coast, something must be done for him, and it was at last decided that he should be conveyed to the hospital at Sydney, while one of his friends volunteered to be the bearer of the letters, hoping by such means to obtain for him the friendly oversight of some influential family in the neighbourhood; so that in case of his being left behind, he would not be entirely desolate, and unfriended. Before reaching the shore, Seymour had become so entirely helpless and incapable of thinking and acting for himself, that it would have been easy to dispose of him in any way which his friends thought best; but his own wishes having been previously expressed, he was conveyed at once to an hospital, and there committed to the best care which such an institution could afford. What transpired within those walls Seymour never knew, nor whether he was treated with care or consigned to neglect. Days and weeks passed over him in a state of utter unconsciousness. He might have raved, he might have uttered beloved names, and told the dearest secrets of his inmost heart; but there was no one near him to take cognizance of these facts, to remember any hint he might betray of interest more than usually intense, or to regard him in any other light than as a common patient who was struggling under a disease from which it was not likely that he would ever be restored. And such was the situation of the delicate and sensitive Seymour Clifton, of one who was all nerve and feeling, so apt to be wounded by a rude touch, and offended by a coarse word, that the routine of life which left others unmoved, could scarcely be endured by him without shrinking, or pain. Happy was it, as regards this tendency to suffer, that Seymour knew nothing of the circumstances of his present condition, nothing of his fellow - sufferers who surrounded him, nothing of the nurses who performed towards him their daily offices of kindness or of unkindness. His spirit wandered unfettered through the realms of air, or sea, or fire, as the momentary phrenzy of the brain directed; sometimes conversing with imaginary beings, but far more frequently with those who were as real as they were lovely, and beloved. No wonder that the electric chain of mind as it operates on mind should have been stirred betwixt these two extremes of feeling,-the poor patient raving in that far-off hospital tended by strange hands and watched by unloving eyes, and those gentle sister spirits who held sweet converse together beneath the shelter of an English home, while surrounded by all the choicest comforts which such a home can afford. Materials.-1 oz. of W. Evans and Co.'s knitting-cotton No. 24, with hook No. 18. BEGIN by doing the crown, which is in the form of a horse-shoe. Make a chain of 38 stitches. 1st Row. Miss 2, 3 Dc in the next, 1 Ch, 12 times. End with miss 2, 3 De in the last chain. 2nd Row.-Turn the work. 2 Ch, +1 Sc under 1 Ch, 3 Ch, + repeat to the end. Finish with a Sc stitch on the first of 2 missed, at the beginning of the last For the Front.-Sc on the original chain, before the last 3 Dc of first row. +3 Ch, Sc under the stitch in which 3 De are worked, repeat all round the crown except the original chain which forms the neck, turn 3 Ch, + Sc on centre of 3 Ch, 3 Ch, + to the end of the row, repeat between the stars. * Then Having the work now on the wrong side, repeat the 3rd and 2nd rows of the crown until fourteen of each are done. three rows completely round the cap, like the first part of the front. Open hem.-1 De under chain, +2 Ch, 1 De under next chain, + repeat all round. |