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NOBLY BORN. By Emma Jane Worboise.
XXXI. A Gentleman of Family, 12
XXXII. I take Counsel with my Friends, 21

XXXIII. Snakes in the Grass, 26

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Quiet Life, A. By E. D. Rice, 711

Requiem. A, 233

Samson's Riddle Solved: the Lion Cup versus
the Lion Cub, 680

Song of the Night, A. By Merner Manton, 72
Sunny South, The, 865, 937

Sunday. By the Rev. J. G. Rogers, B.A., 416.

Thoughts on War and the Present Crisis, 146
Week Evening Services. By the late Rev.

Thos. T. Lynch, 666
Why the Leaves Fall. By E. J. E. G., 785
Wonders of Plant Life. By Harland Coultas,
late Botanical Lecturer at Charing-cross
Hospital, 229

Words of Remembrance. By Lucinda Bow-
ser, 286

Written at Windermere. By Dr. Spencer
Hall ("The Sherwood Forester "), 628

THE

CHRISTIAN WORLD MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1871.

THE CHORISTER OF ST. BEDE'S.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "RACHEL'S SECRET," "DIARY OF A NOVELIST," &c.

THAT was an important day in the Widow Brooke's household, when, with careful mother hands, she dressed her little Paul in his Sunday best, and put round his neck the crimped frill which the St. Bede's chorister boys wore, and sent him forth, with her kiss upon his forehead, under charge of old John Kisby, the bellowsblower, to sing for the first time in the Cathedral choir. She would fain have gone with him herself; her eyes followed him from the doorway till he and John were out of sight, and her heart went with him all the way, but she must needs stay at home to-day. Leah, her cripple daughter, was worse just now, moaning with pain upon her little bed, and there was no one who knew like the mother how to lift and move her so as to ease the aching limbs.

And so little Paul had to make his first terrible plunge alone. Even his friend the bellows-blower could go with him no further than the low arched door of what had once been a saint's chapel in the Cathedral, but where now the choristers' surplices were kept, and where Paul found half-a-dozen of the younger boys already putting on their robes, and making ready to join in the procession which, by-and-by, with the Dean and Canon Morton and the vicars choral at its head, would file through the great bronze gate beneath the organ into the choir. How fast the boy's heart beat when he found himself at last sitting in his little white surplice among the other choristers, with the book that he was to sing from open on the desk before him, and the gruff choir-master, with his terrible eye, just in front of him, and the great people filling the crimson

B

pews, and over and around them all the grey magnificence of that solemn old minster, with its dim mystery of beauty, its fretted vault, and carven canopies, and lofty clustered columns, over which wandered now gleams of myriad-tinted light from the stained windows in the clerestory! He trembled with excitement and with fear when the organ pealed forth the opening voluntary, and the rustling of Prayer-book leaves warned him that service was about to begin. He had practised his part before in the vestry with the other boys and Mr. Bartram, the choir-master, and had got through well enough; but it was different altogether singing here in the minster, before the whole congregation. If he were to break down now, or make a false note, or draw upon him the choir-master's reproving eye, Paul felt sure that he could not keep from bursting into tears at such disgrace. The Dean would see him and be angry with him, perhaps he would lose his place, and the free schooling, and the ten pounds a year which he had been so proud at the thought of earning for his mother. Oh, if she were here now, that he might just hold her hand while he sang! It was so terrible being alone among all these strange people! And the child's full heart began to brim over into his eyes, and he stooped his head over his book, and then looked up, struggling against the tears that were so nearly coming.

The sight of it felt

The tears went

The sun was shining softly through the stained windows opposite, and looking down upon him from its storied splendour Paul saw a face, tender and loving as that of his mother herself when she had given him that last kiss before he left her. like the touch of her lips again upon his forehead. back from his eyes. It seemed to comfort him only to have that sweet, still countenance looking down upon him. And then the vicar-choral began to repeat the Sentences, and with a fluttering heart Paul heard his own voice among those of the other choristers intoning the Confession.

When he stood up again there was a beautiful young girl, the Dean's daughter, as Paul found out afterwards, looking across to him from an opposite stall. She had a dark violet dress and golden hair, like the figure in the window, and just such tender eyes and sweet, fair face; and as the first notes of the Venite were chanted forth, and again, with trembling, the little chorister essayed his voice among the rest, she sent across to him a look of brightness and encouragement, as much as to say, "Don't be afraid, little one; you can do well if you try."

It went through Paul like a thrill of sunshine. It warmed his poor little chilled heart, and filled it with a sudden bravery. That touch of sympathy had been just what he wanted to save him from feeling alone and desolate amid that wilderness of strange faces.

His fears vanished.

He felt at ease now that he had found a friend. And she looked so good, so kind; he was sure that she would be glad if he did well this first time of trying.

And Paul did do well. He had a good voice, clear, and sweet, and full, and an ear as true as a bird's; and now, as he gathered courage and began to feel at home in his new position, he began to feel something of its excitement too. That practising .n the vestry these cold winter mornings had been dull enough sometimes, and the choir-master so cross and so quick to pounce upon a blunder, and the other boys had stumbled and put him out so often. But now all went easily, as in a dream. The choiring voices seemed to carry his own along with them, the great organ tones, like a flood of harmony, to roll beneath. It was Paul's baptism into the life of music. He could no more help singing than the bird can help singing when the trees are blossoming, and the May sun shining down upon it. The colour came into his little pale cheek, his eye grew brighter, and his bosom heaved with a joy that was stretched almost to pain as again and again he joined the chanted psalms, and felt the waves of melody rise and fall around him. And always, if he looked up in the pauses of the antiphon, there were those sweet sheltering eyes upon him, and Paul felt certain that the beautiful lady was glad he had done just as well before all those strange people as if there had been no one to hear but his poor mother and Leah; poor Leah! who was so fond of listening to him as she lay upon her little bed, and who used to say sometimes that nothing made her forget her pain like hearing him sing or play on that old violin, which had been their father's, and on which already he could manage quite well to make out any tune that he heard.

At last all was over. Paul had got through triumphantly. Even the gruff choir-master had nodded to him approvingly, and he had doffed his surplice, and was coming out of the side aisle that led to the choristers' vestry, when he felt a hand laid lightly on his shoulder, and a fragrant presence near him.

It was the Dean's daughter, Evelyn Vaughan, Paul's lady, as already in his thoughts he called her, who had stopped to speak to the little chorister.

"And so you are the little boy who sang so well this morning," she said, in a soft sweet voice.

Paul was too shy and glad to speak, but his face flushed and brightened in the wonder of his joy. Such a small, pale face it was, pure as a flower that has blossomed in the shade.

"And this is the first time that you have sung in the choir?" "Yes, ma'am," replied Paul, while the Dean, who stood near, patted the boy's curly head, and inquired his name.

"Paul Brooke, sir," answered Paul, with a bow.

"And what is your father?"

"My father is dead, sir. He died a long time ago. He was a musician."

"Poor child, poor child!" said the Dean: but Evelyn looked at him with bright, tender eyes.

"And you mean to be a musician too?"

"I mean to try, ma'am, all I can," said Paul, with a sudden passion in his tones.

“Then you will be one some day; I am sure you will," she said wth a smile; "perhaps a great musician that St. Bede's will be proud of."

Paul could not smile back into the young girl's face. His lip was quivering, and his eyes bright with tears, strange, happy tears, that came from the fulness of an over-glad heart. It was like a dream, only more beautiful than any dream had ever been. And like a dream her voice sounded in his ears as she turned away with the Dean, and left him standing there alone;

"Good bye, little Paul; I shall listen for you again."

Happy Paul! Already in his young life he had lifted the cup of happiness brimming to his lips; and to-morrow, and the next day, and the next, he should drink of it again!

After that, Paul sang for seven years in the Cathedral choir. Child though he was, he had the true passion for his art-his inheritance from the dead father, who had left him nothing beside, save the old violin, which had been the bread-winner of the family. And now, under the training of the choir-master, who was as skilful as he was severe, his genius began to break through its chrysalis folds, and preen and plume its wings, and flutter out sometimes into such flights of pure and perfect song as caused others besides Evelyn Vaughan to prophecy that the little chorister would one day make himself a name in the world.

But Paul never sang so well as when the Dean's daughter was there to listen to him. Then the young choiring voice would mount and swell as if unseen wings were bearing it aloft right up to heaven's gate; or, if the strain were one of sadness, it would take on it a tenderness taught it by no memory of sadness or of pain. None can fathom the mystery of a child's heart. Side by side with his love for music Paul laid this deeper and sweeter love for the beautiful lady, whose smile, as he had learned to look for it when, trembling but triumphant, he had accomplished some aria or alto passage that had tried all his powers, was the richest reward that he could know. She was his inspiration. He worshipped her as, long centuries ago, if he had been one of the kneeling throng, he might have worshipped the Maiden Mother, whose face looked

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