ing himself after the servants who bore away Horace, when his daughter stopped him by moving right in his way, at the same time following her young brother who was close in the train of his friend, with eyes flashing indignation. "What is all this, sir?” she said, addressing her father: “nothing I see has happened to you personally; but who is that youth whom they are carrying up stairs; and how is it that Jocelyn is brought home. Surely, sir, if there is any trouble, the child would be best out of the way -he can be of no use. You are ruining the boy."

"I say, Nancy," returned the justice, "let me pass; and be it understood by you and Rokeby, that Jocelyn never sets his foot again in that, nor any other, school in this island, nor elsewhere." Thus saying, he passed on, leaving his daughter and her husband to meditate at leisure on what he had last said, knowing that although they had reason in general to think their father an easy man, yet that he could occasionally, or in other words, when he did not give way to their suggestions, be what they called, “ as obstinate as a mule."

Ah! poor human nature! how faint is the struggle when it finds itself in a condition where duty seems to be opposed to selfinterest. Such was the case of Mr. and Mrs. Rokeby as it regarded their brother and themselves—the helpless and the weakminded being who stood between them and a rich inheritance; and it is only the Divine Spirit who can make it clear to the mind of any creature that duty never is, and never can be, at variance with a man's real interest.

Every thing which kindness first, and medical skill afterwards, could do to restore Horace, was used, and with so much success, that he soon recovered from his faintness, or rather the state of insensibility into which he had fallen when the heavy log, propelled by Buller, had struck him down. As he had, however, been somewhat profusely bled, he was not permitted to rise from his bed that day; but it was then suspected that some internal injury on the chest, which did not at first appear, would soon bring him back to that bed, never to leave it again alive.

After the bleeding, and when all needful attentions had been paid, the youth was left to sleep, with no other person in the room but Jocelyn. The poor child had received a promise from his father that he should never be sent back to school, but should

be left with master Langford as long as he desired to have him with him; and that, thought Jocelyn, will be always—as long as he is ill, that I may nurse him, and when he is well, that I may be his fag.

The little boy climbed on the bed when every body else was gone, and placed himself on the bolster on the edge of the frame, his mind, of narrow capacity, having fully received one sweet idea on which it seemed to find more rest than ever it had found before; and this was the idea-" he loves me-Horace loves me —he would have died for me if he could not have saved me in any other way. I am a fool, but Horace loves me. I can never do him any good, but he loves me. I have cost him a great deal of money-sixpences and shillings and half-pence, but he loves me. Oh! I should like to live with him always-always! always!-because he loves me."

Our narrative will lead us shortly back to the consideration of the pure and simple influences wrought on the mind of this weak child by the sense which was inspired within hím of being loved by one whom he looked up to, and felt that he could depend upon. It was probably this idea which, under the teaching of the Divine Spirit, suggested to the mind of Horace a clearer view of the disinterested and exhaustless love of God, as exhibited in the Holy Scriptures, than he might otherwise have formed. For though he often read his Bible and felt an undefined reverence for it, and a deep sense of its truth and value, it was not until after this illustration of undeserved affection, that he appeared to realize anything of "the love that passeth knowledge," as applicable to himself. He was in fact led to make use of this type in assisting him to form some conception of the changeless and enduring loving-kindness of his heavenly Father.

Before his sleep, Horace had scarcely known where he was, or what all the persons about him were doing with him. When he again opened his eyes, he was quite himself. He was then able to look round on the large, low, oak-pannelled chamber, and to see the summits of tall trees gently waving before the windows, whilst the red rays of the setting sun shed a golden glory on the many tinted leaves, and he could see that the wainscoting was hung round with hard old portraits in oils, set in white wooden carved frames-that the hangings of his bed were of fine though

faded needlework; and the furniture, as old fashioned and heavy as any he had ever seen at Craddock Court. Horace was aware too of the same sort of low whistling, moaning murmur of the wind in the chimney as he remembered in his nursery at the court, but he did not see a living creature about him, till by turning his head he found poor Jocelyn in a very sound, sweet sleep, lying where he had placed himself, on the very edge of the frame work of the bed.

How lovely were the thoughts-how healthy and refreshing were the impulses of that Living Rill which had entered into the breast of Horace through his various reading, but especially his perusal of the Bible, and the ministry of his humble nurse, and which now welled up within him, as he lay leaning on his elbow, and gazing on the sleeping boy. He loves me; or rather, is sensible of my love for him; he has felt that he can trust me, or else would he have remained with me all alone? Nay more; would he have fallen asleep on my bed? He is capable of confidence, without which there is no pure love. He may be deficient in many things, but there is a feeling in his breast which may be taken hold of; and yet could I always be with him to lead him by this feeling, what could I do more for him in my own strength?"But" said he, checking himself at this point, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. I can at all events tell him, in the confidence that his affection will win for me a sincere, and honest, and trustful, and child-like hearing, how God so loved the world as to give up his only begotten Son-bow Jesus came down to live and work, and suffer and die, as an example and a sacrifice; and how the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ, and shews them unto us. “And this," said he, betrayed by his earnestness to speak his thoughts aloud;—“and this I will do at once, for I know not how soon I may be forced to leave him! I may die before him; I may die soon!" and he heaved a deep breath, for he was aware of a weight on his chest which reminded him of the dangerous illness through which Mabel had nursed him the year before. And then, as he told it afterwards, the hidden spring—the life from above-the well of living waters, leaped as it were within him; and he thought it would be well, perhaps, to teach the truths he had referred to by illustrations at once striking and

familiar to use, for example, the type of his own friendship for Jocelyn, and of his own boldness in defending him at the peril of his life, in order to lead him to the apprehension of that redeeming love, before whose glorious brightness the strongest glow of natural love fades as the beams of the moon in the effulgence of the noon-day sun.

Horace had, in fact, come to the conclusion, ere yet he was disturbed, that if left for any, the shortest time to cultivate the affection, and enjoy the presence of the poor despised Jocelyn, he would endeavor to lead his mind right forward, without other consideration, to the apprehension of the knowledge of the Redeemer.

Before we satisfy our readers respecting what Horace was enabled to do with the poor simple one, it is needful to sum up succinctly all the remaining history of the highly favored son of Mrs. Langford, to whom might he aptly applied that passage which, although of no authority, is yet full of beauty, occurring in the Apocryphal book of the Wisdom of Solomon, "For honorable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years. He pleased God, so that living among sinners he was translated-He being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time."

The friend of poor Jocelyn, for some days after he was brought to Barwell Hall, continued to rally, and was for a time so well as to be able to be present at some of the family meals, and to take one or two airings in the park in a pony carriage with his little companion, who never would leave him for a moment when he could help it. The sweetness and courtesy of his manners were such as to win more and more upon the heart of the justice. The kind old gentleman was prepared from the first to love him, though he by no means understood the finer parts of his character. He however hesitated not to pass his word to him, that Jocelyn should never again, with his consent, be subjected to severe treatment.

Mr. and Mrs. Rokeby also treated Horace with great politeness, and probably not the less so from finding that he was the heir of a man of large property, and already it began to be talked of that Horace when he returned to Craddock Court, which it was thought he would soon be able to do, was to take Jocelyn

with him, when he was seized with a complaint on the chest, with a great soreness precisely where the heavy piece of wood had struck him, which seizure first cut short his airings in the park, and next his visits to the family sitting room. One circumstance connected with the last of these airings must not however be omitted. As the little carriage was bowling along one of the avenues cut in the trees, they overtook, near the edge of the pool, one of the servants of the hall who was about to drown a young mastiff which had met with the misfortune of breaking its leg, and was never likely to be of any manner of use. Jocelyn cried and begged for its life, for the poor creature trembled whilst the man was fastening a stone to its neck, and Horace having added his entreaties to those of his young friend, the dog was given up to his deliverers, and they brought him home, and Horace bound up his broken leg; and from that time he remained always with them, having received from them the name of Cæsar—and truly it might appear that the creature knew what he owed to them, so profound was the affection which he showed to them, and so deep was his dejection when one of them was taken from him by death.

It was before the green buds appeared on the trees, nay before the mezereon and the snow drop began to open their blossoms, that the remains of the pious and once beautiful youth, Horace Langford, had been added to those of his many ancestors in the vault of the Craddocks, and his sorrowing uncle, and bereaved nurse who had been sent for to Barwell Hall when the danger became imminent, were returned to their homes—the one to endeavor to banish thought as well as he might do with such poor assistance as his old habits could render, and the other to indulge the memories of her beloved and lovely one, as one of the sweetest consolations she could experience.

Mabel South, in such memories of her son by adoption, loved most of all to dwell on those scriptural tests of his having been chosen as a vessel and depository of the living waters which flow from the wells of salvation. It was through her, though of course not directly from that good woman herself, that manyof the circumstances attendant on the last days of Horace reached the knowledge of the writer of this series of simple narratives; and probably the reader, who assumes that there is no evidence