that I shall have abundance of work to occupy me," he presently resumed; "work, too, of a kind more congenial than forcing Christianity on the unwilling inhabitants of the London slums. I fear there is a great want of benevolence and width of sympathy in me, Archdeacon-I cannot bring myself to find the happiness the happiness in mission-work that I should, as the minister of God. To come into contact, day after day, with coarse, illiterate, turbulent natures, seems to me like a perpetual mental skinning, a laying bare of all the nerves and fibres of the mind. It is so hard to recognise the degraded drunkard as a man and brother, or to feel any enthusiasm for humanity when seen under such repulsive forms. Distasteful, too, to have to drive our holy religion, that most sacred and priceless Bread of Life, down the throats of those who are unwilling to receive it."

"Ah! your long delicacy, and the constant companionship of refined, cultivated minds, has unfitted you a little, I fear, for battling with the rough world. But you are not going to desert your new parish already, are you? Give it a fair trial, and I think you will find that gradually a sincere affection will grow up within you for the poor starving souls you are sent to feed."

"You do not know, then, what my new work is to be?" said Daubeny, surprised. Why, Archdeacon, I am to have three

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orphanages under my jurisdiction. Yes, it seems a serious undertaking for one so unbusinesslike as I am said to be, but yet it will be one of absorbing interest."

"Three orphanages! Where are they? and how have you obtained a post of such responsibility ?"

"In this way. My dear friend is desirous of paying back into God's treasury the entire revenue of the years during which he deprived the orphan of her inheritance. The sum amounts, at a rough estimate, to about three hundred and fifty thousands, and is gradually to be paid over to build and endow these orphanages. The mother-house is to be in London, its branches in different parts of the country. You will understand that, hampered by the repayment of this great debt, my poor children will not boast large means for the next eight or nine years, but we have taken a good-sized house in one of the old Bloomsbury squares, and there we shall live in strict privacy. The Duchess of Naseby, who has only just returned from the East, most kindly volunteered to take charge of the children, and defray the expenses of their education. She is a generous-minded woman, and does not shrink from the scandal of giving open protection to a convict's family; perhaps she knows the world too well to set a very high value on its good opinion. But their father knew that in the Duchess's household the contrast

between their natural rank and the disgrace that had fallen on the family would be more painfully apparent to them, so he preferred that they should be brought up in quiet seclusion, out of reach of that Society which to the fallen is so unmerciful, and possesses such cruel powers of torture."

"He could not have decided better. I am thankful that they are to be under your care,' said the Archdeacon, with fervour. "Society in the present day is so interpenetrated with mean ideas of every kind, that they will gain as much in refinement by keeping apart from it, as in comfort by having for their guardian one who has always been a second father to them."

"Do you remember Josceline Murray-Carr, the funny boy, who was always doing himself injustice by propounding preposterous opinions on social and religious questions ?" "Perfectly, and a very good fellow he was too! spite of the nonsense he talked."

"I should like to tell you of the kind manly way in which he came forward a few weeks ago to ask Lettice's hand-that shows the good stuff there is in him! Lord Rotherhame will not at present hear of it, for his father's sake, to whom, as he said, the connection would be hardly creditable. My idea is, however, that the Bishop's scruples, if he has any, would be very easily overcome. He is a warm-hearted man, and he is one of those who has fallen a complete victim to the

un

fascination which Lord Rotherhame doubtedly exercises over not a few of his fellow-creatures."

Daubeny said this proudly, as if he rejoiced to come between the friend he loved and the stones flung at him by a scornful world.

The train came in, and as Daubeny hurried along the platform searching for his charges, he saw the Judge standing before the door of a first-class carriage, from which, with grave, pitying politeness, he was helping two fair little girls in mourning to alight, the children of the man whom he had that day sentenced to penal servitude.

Lord Rotherhame's daughters were closely veiled, yet even so they seemed to shrink nervously from recognition, and hurried after Mr. Daubeny to the protection of the shabby vehicle which awaited them outside the station. At the first sight of the Archdeacon, they drew back shyly, but, long before they reached the "White Leopard," where they were to put him down, his warm fatherly manner had reassured them, and the scared silent children had come to feel that they might rely on him for sympathy and protection.

CHAPTER XXV.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough hew them as we will.

The black minute's at end!

SHAKESPEARE.

And the element's rage, the fiend voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,—

Shall change, shall become, first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O, thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE blinding sleet was falling fast, and the shrill night-wind blew fiercely, when a few minutes later the porter of St. Dunstan's Gaol carefully unbarred his iron-studded doors, and admitted Mr. Daubeny and his charge within their guarded precincts. The party were expected, and the porter cast but a formal glance at the order for their admission, signed by the Secretary of State.

Little Edward, as he passed for the first time beneath the gateway where the gallows had so often been erected, could not repress a shudder, and clung tightly to Lettice's hand. A warder came forward and led them up a broad gravel walk, on either side of which stunted-looking shrubs had been. planted, and grass sown, which grew up in rank coarse patches above the nameless unloved graves in which the bodies of the executed were mouldering, forgotten. On the