lay bright laughing Désirée Blanc, the prettiest, merriest girl in the village last spring. Who would have thought of death for her? And her look the last time I saw her, a few days before her death, which had haunted me for days, but had then caused me no deep thought-only tears -recurred to me.

I said something about her being better when the warm spring weather came. She did not answer; but, oh, the look in those bright, mournful eyes, so infinitely sad and wistful! I tried again to cheer her, but she said, in her low, gasping voice:

:

my father at déjeuner, and remained the whole day. They were literary men, and I knew my father would too thoroughly enjoy so unwonted a pleasure to allow them to depart, while there was a possibility of detaining them. For a time I worked in the garden, then took a book, and tried to read; but vainly. The new deep thoughts that had been so suddenly aroused that morning were still filling my mind. I could not rest, and at last I went out; first to my mother's grave, where I lingered long; then far away through the wood-paths, and up the steep mountain side-the same teeming freshness and beauty of life around me-the same turmoil of unrest and uncertainty

“No, Mademoiselle-I am dying. I know it within. The golden rays of the setting sun were I feel it. And I do not know where I am going;it is all so dark,—so dark ;" and she shuddered. "Cannot Father Fontaine help you?" I asked. "No," she said; "no, no, he does not help me. He says all will be well at last, if I have the last rites of the Church. But I want to know; and it is all dark,-oh, so dark!"

Her mother entered and I left, bearing with me the haunting gaze of those pleading eyes. I looked at her grave and thought of this. She knew now. And how soon might not I know? Oh, for the secret which brought such light to my mother's last hours! Oh, for the book in which she said she found it! And suddenly I resolved to ask my father about it. Sometimes, now, that long unspoken name was mentioned between us. I would ask him that very day. He must know; and the hunger of my heart was too great to brook delay, even at the cost of displeasing or paining him ;-I must ask. And with And with these solemn thoughts in my heart, I spent the bright hours of that birthday.

CHAPTER IV.

MY MOTHER'S LEGACY.

Ir was a rare thing for the monotony of our quiet household to be broken in upon by visitors; yet that day, when I longed with feverish restlessness of impatience to be alone with my father, to make the plunge I longed but dreaded to make, two strange gentlemen from Besançon arrived before the hour at which I used to join

bathing the young fresh foliage of the woods, the dark walls of the ruined castle, the grim gray towers of the stately old château, the lowly homes of the village, with living light, when I returned but the churchyard lay in shadow. And the shadows deepened round my heart.

Finding the visitors still in my father's study, I went, led by the same strong impulse that had so strangely influenced me all day, into my mother's boudoir. Since her death, it had been unused and rarely entered; everything remained exactly as she had left it, except the book-shelves, several of which were quite empty-others held only a few volumes. As I raised the jalousies, and the golden sunset light poured into the room, the faded hangings and dust-covered furniture were brought into strange contrast with its freshness and purity. And they brought, too, my mother's last words,-"Light out of darkness." Around me the mute tokens of the past, the silent recorders of my mother's daily life-of what it had been, rather,―lay telling of decay and death. But from above, through the high narrow window, over the lower part of which a dense mass of tangled jessamine had fallen, came that beautiful light. Earth and Heaven contrasted. And as I looked up into the deep blue patch of sky visible through the clear upper panes, and watched a light fleecy cloud glide slowly past, tinted richly with the amber radiance that pervaded everything, from my soul's depths went up a dumb prayer for light, a voiceless cry for help.

I think I felt that day as a child might feel when he discovers that the narrow but sunny

From the leaves of a book I took up with listless fingers and unseeing eyes, fluttered a tiny sheet of paper. I stooped and picked it up. It was yellow with age; and in the tremulous, faded characters, I recognised the tracings of my mother's feeble hand. The words were new and strange to me. I knew nothing of their inspired source, yet my soul thrilled and quailed before their power. Written in uneven letters, telling all too plainly of weakness and suffering, the liv-edged sword," quick and powerful, pierced my ing words searched into my soul like fire. I have heart, burning into it "like fire;" breaking it

asunder “like a hammer that breaketh the strong rock in pieces."

When, or for what purpose, my mother had written these searching words, why she had placed them in that book, I shall never know on earth; but I believe that I shall "know hereafter," when the secret workings of God's gracious plans for bringing his people to himself, when still "blind," “by ways that they know not," shall be revealed. Then I think it will be shown that He who sees the end from the beginning, guided that feeble hand, and prompted that trembling heart, to trace the living words that should be the means of rousing the child she so fondly loved, for whom, I doubt not, she prayed so much, from the sleep of sin, of deadly error and ignorance.

Little did Father Lefêvre think, when he so carefully carried away every trace of my mother's "heresy," that a tiny paper, in one of those harmless, ordinary books, would frustrate all his schemes.

And then, that solemn judgment-seat, with the terrible form of an angry Christ enthroned upon it, lightnings in his hand, and thick thunderclouds around him—as I had once seen it depicted in a dark old picture-rose before me. The solemn question, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" awoke with fresh power that awful monotone "Eternity," that had been resounding through my heart's secret chambers all day.

But those last words, in some indefinable way, brought a gleam of hope. They told of a way that might be found. Others had found it, and might not I? They spoke of one Name in which there was salvation, one Sacrifice for sins, and of one Mediator between God and men. There was salvation, then-there was a sacrifice-there was some thing, some one, to come between my shrinking soul and its God. This kept me from despair. One day I might find the meaning of this. I have found it now. "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."

How long I stood there I cannot tell. I heard sounds that betokened the departure of the guests, as one hears voices in a dream; but I did not

move.

But at last I caught my father's voice calling my name, wonderingly, a little impatiently. Then I started, and found the red glow of evening had faded; and as I looked up, I met the bright, pure gleam of the first star. I had loved to watch it, but now it appeared to me like a calm, pure, clear eye, looking down from heaven into my very soul; and hastily folding the paper, and concealing it in my bosom, I went at once to my father.

Holding the paper in my hand, I stood as spell-bound. But what a tempest was at work in my soul, doing in a few brief moments what years often fail to do! It brought me, a poor, naked, helpless, shivering sinner, into the awful, searching, actual presence of the living God! A God, the terrible beams of whose ineffable, unapproachable light, blazed full into the very inmost recesses of my heart, the hidden depths of my being; and yet a God of such immaculate purity, such awful holiness, that no spot or stain, no shadow of defilement, could possibly be tolerated by him! A God, too, from whose presence there could be no escape, from the cradle to the grave -no, nor beyond! By night and by day-sleepBy night and by day-sleeping and waking-thinking or speaking-behind, before, around, above, beneath-an awful, actual, living, abiding Presence! It was around me then. I felt it. It had been around me since I had drawn the first breath of life-unfelt, unacknow--tidings of disquiet and unrest, mutterings of a ledged, unknown.

Yes; and unworshipped, unserved. For with one mighty sweep of an invisible hand, the veil that covered my sight was withdrawn, and I saw how hollow, how empty, how meaningless had been the vain forms and childish rites I had looked upon as worship. More; what mockery, what More; what mockery, what insult, they had been to Him who claims to be worshipped "in spirit and in truth."

I found him weary and chafed and sad. The strangers had brought tidings from the outer world, which rarely reached us in that quiet spot, and then only as dim echoes of long-past things

coming storm. They spoke of a corrupt administration, a tottering throne, a neglected and ignorant and discontented people, an idle and disorganized soldiery. They told of rumours of war, of a leap into the dark to sink or save a falling dynasty: a war, too, that would be specially bitter to us personally-a war with the great German people, and we half Germans ourselves. My father was French, but the fresh years of his

MEMORY.*

of the Propaganda to the students from the Celestial Empire.

Of Dr. John Leyden, the distinguished Orientalist, many mnemonic feats are recorded. Amongst others, it is mentioned that after he had gone to Bombay a case occurred where a great deal turned on the exact wording of an Act of Parliament, of which, however, a copy could not be found in the presidency. Leyden, who before leaving home had had occasion to read over the Act, undertook to supply it from memory; and so accurate was his transcript that when, nearly a year after, a printed copy was obtained from England, it was found to be identical with what Leyden had dictated.

Richard Porson had a remarkable memory. On one occasion when some friends were assembled in Dr. Burney's house at Hammersmith, in examining some old newspapers which detailed the execution of Charles I., they came on sundry particulars which they fancied had been overlooked by Rapin and Hume; but Porson instantly repeated a long passage from Rapin in which these circumstances were all recounted. Once, when in the shop of Priestley the bookseller, a gentleman came in and asked for a certain edition of Demosthenes. Priestley did not possess it, and as the gentleman seemed a good deal disappointed, Porson inquired whether he wished to consult any particular passage. The stranger mentioned a quotation of which he was in search, when Porson opened the Aldine edition of Demosthenes, and, after turning over a few leaves, put his finger on the passage. On another occasion, calling on a friend, he found him reading Thucydides. His acquaintance asked him the meaning of some word, when Porson immediately repeated the context. "But how do you know that it was this passage I was reading?" asked his friend. "Because," replied Porson, "the word occurs only twice in Thucydides; once on the right hand page-in the edition which you are using-and once on the left. I observed on which side you looked, and accordingly I knew to which passage you referred."

Within the range of our own experience most of our readers must have encountered examples of ready or retentive memory. The last time that the writer visited a college contemporary distinguished for his scholarship, he found him with a Greek Testament in his hand. On asking him if he had not got it all by heart, he replied that he scarcely thought he had, but he believed that if any phrase were given he could tell the chapter and verse where it occurred, and repeat the context. We tried him with passages till we were wearied, but it was impossible to puzzle James Halley; and we believe that the trial might have been extended to the Greek tragedians and Homer with scarcely inferior success. A gentleman who used to attend our church once offered to repeat verbatim any sermon, on the following day, without taking a single note; the only stipulation which he made was that he should be warned beforehand, so as to keep his attention fixed at the time. Frequently these powerful memories are filled with matters of ques

tionable value. An appraiser, who lately lived at Hampstead, could enumerate all the shops from Temple Bar to the Pump in Aldgate; and from being able to tell all about every corner house in London, who lived in it, and what business was carried on in it, he went by the sobriquet "Memory Corner Thompson." Mr. Paxton Hood knew a man in London who could repeat the whole of Josephus; and William Lyon,, an itinerant actor well known in Edinburgh a hundred years ago, used to gain wagers by committing to memory overnight the Daily Advertiser, and repeating it word for word next morning.

One of the most curious branches of geological science originated with that sagacious and accomplished man, Dr. Henry Duncan of Ruthwell. In 1828 he observed in certain sandstones the footprints of tortoises, and, fol|lowing up the cue thus furnished to a suggestive mind, the Dumfries-shire discovery has expanded into a sepa rate little science called Ichnology. It amounts to this: Myriads or millions of years ago the tide was out, and the beach was smooth, and soft, and flat, and there fell a shower of rain, and pitted the surface in a particular way; or it was hail, which made its own particular mark. Then came a little salt-water lizard, or a crab sidling along, or frog the size of a well-fed pig, leaping and waddling by turns, and on the micaceous mud each inscribed the whole history of that day's proceedings -a little autobiography or Pilgrim's Progress in the genuine reptilian or batrachian handwriting; and there it remained till the tide gently rose, and with fine sand or clay filled up the impressions. And now that the whole is converted into rock, there comes some exploring Miller or Mantell, and turns over the stony leaves, and reads the record as plain as if it had been printed yesterday.

Many psychologists maintain that if an impression is once made upon the mind, it remains for ever. And there are certain seasons of life or certain circumstances when-if we may use the metaphor-the receiving surface is peculiarly susceptible, and when the impressions made are deep, and sharp, and definite. So is it in childhood and youth. The objects then familiar, and the texts, the hymns, the languages then mastered, become a life-long heritage, and, like the footprints of the cheirotherium in the sandstone of Saxony, it may have been a pulpy tablet on which they were first projected, but in the interval it has petrified, and they are now engraven in the rock for ever. We might go further, and add that, on the whole, people remember the things in which they are really interested, or the things which it is very much for their interest to remember. In the one case, like the fine mixture of argillaceous sand left by the retiring tide, and ready to take in and retain the minutest traces-the mental tablet or mnemonic organ is in a state of spontaneous receptivity, and without any trouble on your part the interesting object will make its own mark, and will survive for days, for years, perchance through all existence. In the other case, you