day at Lambswold. Catherine thought it was a cruel fate which prevented their meeting. It was more likely a sensible precaution. Doors, stairs, conventionalisms, had been piled in a great heap between them, and there is nothing so hard to pass as these simple impediments. The stairs are carpeted and easy to climb, the doors are on the latch, with nice china handles to open them, there is nothing to prevent, and yet prison bars have been burst open, burning deserts crossed, icy passes and steep mountains scaled and surmounted more easily than these simple obstacles.

There was a train to Paris, Madame de Tracy heard on landing, and she determined to go on. Catherine cared not. The night seemed to her like a sort of summary or epilogue to the little slice of a life which had belonged to her hitherto. She sat watching the black ghosts of trees, and walls, and wayside inns, flying past the windows, the single lights here and there in the dark plain, and listening to the voices at the little stations, sounding melancholy and sudden as voices always do in the dark. Her protectress peacefully dreamt through the long hours that Catherine watched and wondered. What would the day be like that had not yet dawned, the new world which awaited her? thought the girl, with her wide open shining eyes. Catherine George somehow expected that the sun would never rise, that the land would be always dark, and strange, and desolate to her; that she would find herself utterly alone, and wandering here and there in the gloom..

She forgot in how great a measure one's future is made up of one's past - how we see and understand things by all those which have preceded them how it is yesterday which makes to-morrow. The future is never so strange as we picture it to our selves. A hundred golden threads bind us to it already. It is all one's whole past life which claims the future and draws it into itself. The lesson given long, long ago by the love which foresaw, teaches in afteryears when the occasion has come. One thing recalls another, as one thing forebodes another, and sometimes the two together make a full chord of happiness, or may be, of sadness, so grateful and so sweet, that it seems as if it must be happiness.

out, a barking of dogs, some one to help her up the steps, as with cheerful confusion and noise and jingle, they start through the bright light streets and cross the fertile plains of Normandy.

They had all finished dinner at Tracy, and were sitting about in the great drawingroom. The muffled piano stood in the middle of the room; the lamps were placed here and there; the polished floors were only covered by little square carpets, sprinkled sparsely about. Two rows of pinkstriped chairs stood in lines from the fireplace, over which the Tracys had erected a tall and elaborately-carved chimney-piece. The furniture of the castle corresponded in date to the mahogany reign of terror in England, but in France at that period all was harmony and fitness, and you need dread no four-post beds at Tracy, no fierce side-boards, no glowering washstands and looming wardrobes.

The old clock over the chimney was ticking nine o'clock, the windows were open upon a sea of moonlight in the garden. There were glasses and bottles upon a sidetable, where Marthe de Coetlogon, Ernestine's sister, was playing dominoes with the curé, who had been asked to dinner. sieur de Tracy and Monsieur Fontaine, who had also had the honour of being invited, were smoking in the moonlit alleys of the garden.

Mon

Mademoiselle de Coëtlogon had a sweet: placid face, over which a smile would break. now and then, not very often. She sat there in her long white dress, with her soft hair tied up simply with a blue ribbon, and the light of the lamp falling upon her face and the old curé's bald head. It seemed incongruous, somehow, that she should be playing dominoes, with that Madonna-like head - still and tender at once. She had been vowed to the Virgin by her father from the day she was born. Her life had been saved by a miracle, it was said, and Marthe grew up strong and well, but never like other people. She had a vocation from her earliest youth; never changed her mind or faltered for one minute. She was fourand-twenty now. In a year she would be of an age, according to the French law, to decide for herself. No one could influence her: not Jean, who could not bear the subject named before him; not her mother, a widow, who, wistful, half-timid, half-angry, scolded, entreated, cried, and implored and forbade in vain. Ernestine, her sister, was the only one of them who did not really object; on the contrary, such devotion seemed to reflect a certain credit on the

family. But all the same Madame de Tracy,| at her mother's desire, did her best to distract her sister from her intentions, by taking Marthe all one year into the world. Madame de Coetlogon, too, accompanied her daughter. Toilettes, partis, music, gaieties of every description, poor Marthe endured in patience; but all these well-meant distractions had a very different effect to that which the poor mother hoped and longed for. It seems strange to us commonplace, common-sense Protestant people, in these days of commonplace and common sense, living in the rough and ready world of iron, of progress, of matter-of-fact, to hear of passionate revival and romance and abstract speculation, to be told of the different experiences of living beings now existing together. While the still women go gliding along their convent passages to the sound of the prayer-bells, with their long veils hanging between them and the coarse, hard world of every day, the vulgar, careworn toilers, the charwomen and factory hands of life are at their unceasing toil, amid squalor and grime and oaths and cruel denseness; the hard-worked mothers of sickly children are slaving, day after day, in common lodging-houses, feeding on hard fare, scraps and ends from the butchers' shops, or refuse and broken victuals from some rich neighbour's kitchen; while others, again, warmed and fed in the body, weary and starving mentally, are struggling through passionate sorrow and privation.

It is vain to try to answer such questions, but it is difficult not to wonder and speculate, as every day one sees stranger and subtler contrasts and forms of life. There is the good mother of the family useful, busy, happy, bright-eyed and light-hearted, approaching her home, of which the shimmer seems to cheer and warm her as she sees it gleaming from a distance. There is the forlorn little traveller from Jerusalem, whose wounds have been bound up with wine and oil, coming in her charge to the inn.

On the sofa, like a little lady out of Watteau, eating bonbons, sits young Madame de Tracy, occasionally smiling at the good old curé's compliments. She is a graceful young woman, with bright blue eyes, with a plaintive expression; and as she really has everything in the world she wishes for, no wonder she is dissatisfied. Her life lies before her quite smooth, flat, uninteresting, all sunshine, and not a bit of shade anywhere, except what she can make for herself by raising an occasional storm, and, fortunately, her temper is easily upset.

Ernestine dressed charmingly, in white and lilac and pink; she left blue ribbons to Marthe. She was very graceful in all her movements, even when she was angry. Her husband was a plain, goodnatured-looking man, with a ribbon in his button-hole, and a hooked eyeglass. He was very rich, and gave her everything she liked, and attended very patiently to all her reproaches. Ernestine liked him, and was proud of his abilities and indignant at his want of ambition. She was very proud also of her blue eyes, which she inherited from her mother; and as she did not bury her talents in a napkin, they were very much admired in the world at Paris, where she had an apartment, all full of great vases and cabinets, in which she spent her winters. In the spring and the summer she came down to her mother-in

Madame Jean de Tracy was just popping a chocolate bonbon into her mouth when her husband and M. Fontaine came in from the garden.

"Madame, we have just seen a carriage turn into the long avenue," said M. Fontaine, hastening to tell the news; mise that it may be madame votre bellemère returning."

66 we sur

"It is certain to be her," cried Ernestine; "she told us not to expect her; and it is so late too."

"It is no use going to meet her, she will be here directly," said Jean, walking to the door in his deliberate way.

Almost directly there was a sound of

voices, of exclamations- the cook, the valet-de-chambre, Sidonie, Madame Jean's maid, appeared to announce the safe arrival of the travellers. A couple of dogs came in barking-even the children's bonne came rushing down from upstairs; the game of dominoes was interrupted; Jean embraced his mother very affectionately as she entered the room; Fontaine hovered about, deeply interested in the meeting, and hastened to relieve Madame de Tracy of her parasol; parcels were wildly handed about like buckets at a conflagration; then came more embraces, explanations, and exclamations. "You never came to meet me. I forgot to post my letter. Casimir brought us up in his little carriage." "Unfortunately we have dined. There is sure to be something. Bon jour, Barbe, here you are returned from England!" "We nearly did not get home at all; old Chrétien ran his cart up against us. He was quite tipsy. Oh, I am sure of it. Give us something to eat, for I am famished." All this in a crescendo, which was brought to a climax by a sudden shriek from Madame Jean.

"Who is that in the window?" she cried, pointing. "Look, there is somebody ;" and she seized her husband's arm.

"I am really too forgetful. Come here, my dear child," cried Madame de Tracy. "Here is my dear young friend, Miss George, Ernestine; I have persuaded her to come back with me."

At this incantation the little apparition who had been standing clasping her great warm shawl, and childishly absorbed in the scene, wondering who each person could be, advanced blushing, with ruffled hair, and trailing her long draperies. She looked up into their faces with that confiding way she had. Madame Jean made her a little inclination; Jean came up and good naturedly shook hands, a l'Anglaise; Monsieur Fontaine, parasol in hand, bowed profoundly. Tired as she was, hungry, preoccupied by her return home, an idea flashed through Madame de Tracy's fertile mind at that instant, which, alas! unlike many of her ideas, she was destined to put into execu

only the abbé did not belong to them. The quiet little old man, sitting in the corner, caused a thrill to this stern Protestant of which he was happily unconscious.

Catherine and her protectress supped in the great dining-room -a long and lofty room, with a fine ceiling, and many tall windows, barred and shuttered. The one lamp only lighted the table, where cold meat and cream cheese, and a melon and grapes, were spread. Jean accompanied them, and so did Ernestine, who flung a pretty white hood over her head, and sat watching them at their meal.

"And your grandmother, how is she?" asked Madame de Tracy of her son.

"She is as usual," said Jean; "she has heard of your return, and Baptiste has just come down to ask for a little supper for her from your table. Miss George, you do not eat. You must get a good appetite at Tracy. I hope you are going to stay with us for some time."

Again Catherine blushed up, and looked from her host to the little lady with the bright eyes, "I thought I hoped," she stammered

"We have got her safe," interrupted Madame de Tracy, flurriedly, carving away at a cold chicken. "We are not going to part from her." Poor lady, her courage was failing her somewhat. She did not like the looks Madame Jean was casting at her little protégée. She made haste to send Catherine to bed as soon as she had done her supper. Baptiste, with a candle, and Barbe, were both deputed to show Miss George the way up the broad stone stairs, with curiously-scrolled iron railings, along a great stone passage, dark with shadows, and with windows at intervals looking on the moonlit courtyard. Their footsteps echoed, and their moon-shadows flitted along with them. Catherine looked out once, and saw a figure crossing the court. The iron gates opened to let it out, and she recognized the tall dark gentleman they had called Monsieur Fontaine. "I imagined he was Monsieur de Tracy when I first came in," Catherine thought. They were both very kind."

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"What is that distant noise?" she asked Barbe, as she followed her up more stairs and passages.

"That is the sound of the sea, mademoiselle," said Barbe. "We hear it very well from here when the wind blows in this direction."

Catherine dreamt of the sea that night, of her journey, of the abbé and Monsieur Fontaine, of Beamish, playing his marches and

sonatas in Dick's studio. She dreamt that she heard the music even, and then, somehow, she herself was playing, and they were all listening to her; but the notes would not strike, in vain she tried, she could bring forth no sound; and the sea came nearer and nearer all the time, and the waves flowed in tune. It was a horrible dream, though when she awoke there was nothing much in

it.

CHAPTER VIII.

REINE.

THE tide which sways between the two great shores of England and of France sometimes beats against our chalk cliffs, which spread in long low lines gleaming tranquilly in the sun, while the great wavearmies roll up with thundering might to attack them; sometimes it rushes over the vast sand-plains and sand-hills, the dunes and the marshes of France, spreading and spreading until its fury of approach is spent, and then perhaps, as the sun begins to set, and the sky to clear, suddenly the water stills and brightens, and the fishingboats puts out to sea with the retiring tide. Some people living on the shores listen to the distant moan of the waters as they roll and roll away; some are so used by long custom that they scarcely heed the sad echoing. But others are never accustomed. One woman has told me that for years after she first came to live in her husband's house by the sea, the consciousness of its moan never left her. She never could grow used to it. It haunted her in her sleep, in her talk, in her daily occupations. She thought at one time she should go mad if the sound did not cease; it would die away into the distance, and then come rolling nearer and and louder, with passionate sobs and sudden moans, and the wild startling discordant cries of the water-birds. She had a foolish superstition that she should be happy when she ceased to hear the moan of the sea.

What is this strange voice of Nature that says with one utterance so many unlike things? Is it that we only hear the voice of our own hearts in the sound of the waves, in the sad cries of birds as they fly, of animals, the shivering of trees, the creaking and starting of the daily familiar things all about their homes?

This echo of the sea which to some was a complaint and a reproach, was to Reine Chrétien like the voice of a friend and teacher of a religion almost. There are

images so natural and simple that they become more than mere images and symbols; and to her, when she looked at the gleaming immensity, it was almost actually and in truth to her the great sea, upon the shores of which we say we are as children playing with the pebbles. It was her formula. Her prayers went out unconsciously towards the horizon, as some pray looking towards heaven, in. the words which their fathers have used; and some pray by the pains they suffer; and some by the love which is in them; and some, again, without many words, pray in their lives and their daily work, but do not often put into actual phrases and periphrases the story of their labours and weariness and effort. The other children on the shore are sometimes at variance with these latter in their play; for while they are all heaping up their stores of pebbles, and stones, and shells, and building strange fantastic piles, and drawing intricate figures upon the sand, and busily digging foundations which the morning tides come and sweep away, suddenly they seem to grow angry, and they wrathfully pick up the pebbles and fling them at one another, wounding, and cutting, and bruising with the sharp edges.

How long ago is it since the children at their play were striking the flints together to make fires to burn the impious ones who dared to point to the advancing tides and say, See, they come to wash away your boundaries. The advancing tides, thanks be to God, have in their turn put out those cruel fires; but sharp stones still go flying through the air, and handfuls of sand, and pebbles, and long straggling bunches of seaweed that do no great harm, perhaps, but which sting and draggle where they fall.

Reine, on her sea-shore, picked up her stones with the rest of us, and carefully treasured the relics which she inherited from her mother, the good Catholic, since whose death her life would have been a sad one if it had not been so full of small concerns of unintermitting work. She, too, like the other woman of whom I have been writing, heard the sound of the sea as she went about her daily occupations, but to Reine it seemed like the supplement and encouragement of her lonely life. She listened to it as she went her rounds from the great kitchen to the outer boundaries of the farm, across the orchards and fields to the garden a mile off where her beans were growing, or sometimes sitting, resting by the blazing hearth, where the wood was heaped and the dry colza grass flaring.

Reine's religion was that in which she