board next Wednesday; for I have secured my berth and paid my passage money.'

My mother shook her head sorrowfully, but maintained her position: her lodger needed medical advice, and medical advice he must have.

"I am in God's hands; and I can trust myself with him," said the gentleman.

"That is no reason why we should not use the means within our reach, Mr. Merton," said she.

66

66

Very true, Mrs. Arliss; but if the means are not within our reach?" said he, with another strange smile. Why then we must do the best we can without them, certainly," responded my mother, humouring her lodger's strange mood, as she might have done that of a wayward child; "but why suppose them beyond our reach ?"

66

Will you kindly unlock my desk, Mrs. Arliss?" He pointed to a small desk on the dressing table, and handed her a key.

My mother obeyed.

"There is a purse-oh, you have found it. Will you be kind enough to count its contents?"

My mother acceded to this also. The money did not take long to count. It amounted only to two or three pounds: and this she told Mr. Merton.

“That is all the money I have, Mrs. Arliss. Take from it what is already due to you for this week's board and lodging, and how much shall I have left ?"

My mother put back the money into the purse, replaced the purse in the desk, and locked the desk, returning the key to its owner. Then she spoke :

"I must leave you for a short time, Mr. Merton; don't be angry with me, if you can help it-unless you think it will do you good; but I am going for a doctor." And before he could reply, she was gone.

She was absent about an hour, and when she re-entered our lodger's room, a doctor followed her. She introduced him; and then left him and the patient together.

Presently Mr. Farmer, the doctor, came down stairs into my mother's sitting room. He was an old friend, and had attended my father through his last long illness with much kind solicitude. There was a shade on his

countenance now.

"Your lodger is very ill, Mrs. Arliss," were his first words.

"I thought so, I feared it was so," said my mother. "Fever of a bad type," continued the doctor;

and

I hesitate to say it, only I think it right you should. know"

Mr. Farmer hesitated so long, that my mother had to fill up the blank:

"You mean that the fever is infectious?" I have no doubt that my dear mother's countenance showed some agitation as she said this. Her mind was relieved, however, when the doctor hastily replied

66

'No, not infectious: that is, not infectious at present; though what it may be I will not venture to say.” "You are quite sure, doctor-I rely on you as a friend to tell me the worst," said my mother. "I ask, not for my own sake, but for Mary's," she added.

"You may depend on me, Mrs. Arliss: there is no danger of infection at present; and if we can get the patient safely removed within a few hours, you need have no fear whatever."

"I was not thinking of Mr. Merton's removal," rejoined my mother: "I was thinking only of the necessity of my daughter's being kept clear of infection; and since you so distinctly assure me that no danger has been incurred hitherto, I am satisfied."

66

'I very sincerely assure you of this," the doctor reasserted: "but-excuse my asking-why should your daughter be troubled about it? it is only to get your lodger instantly removed, and all fear of danger is over."

"That is the very thing that cannot be done, doctor," said my mother. "Mr. Merton is a stranger in London; he has no home and no friends."

66

Well, so he tells me ; He is terribly poor, it

Yes, sir; there is no doubt of that."

"Then the best thing we can do is to get him into a hospital at once. As to his going on board his ship next week, that is out of the question; and his passage money must be forfeited, I suppose. But there will be time enough to think of that if he should recover. The first thing is to rid you of the encumbrance; and the hospital is the thing."

Now, whether justly or not, my dear mother had a great horror of hospitals. It may be she was prejudiced; but when women have prejudices they are generally very strong, and hard to be removed. It was so in this case; and nothing Mr. Farmer could say in the least altered my mother's opinion that it would be inhospitable, cruel, and unchristian to turn her lodger out of doors, as she said, in the extremity of his distress, and doom him to the cold charity of strangers. "If Mr. Merton were to die in the hospital," she said, shuddering, "I should never forgive myself. And besides," she added, "I have a son in a strange land; and who can tell but he may be wanting the same kindness shown to him ?"

66

Ah, I see you are resolved; so I will not argue with you any longer," said the doctor; "and the best thing I can do is to get our patient on his legs again as soon as I So, I will send some medicines presently, and look in again to-morrow."

can.

I was from home, attending to my pupils when all this happened; but on my return, early on that Saturday afternoon, my mother gave me the outlines of the conversation,-outlines which Mr. Farmer afterwards filled in, with a few additional embellishments perhaps. By this time, our lodger had been persuaded to take the medicine which had been sent,

"And now, Mary," said my mother, " you must banish yourself from home for a little while."

"Banish myself, mother?"

"For the sake of your scholars, my dear. If Mr. Merton's illness should prove to be serious-you understand, Mary."

Yes, I understood; and I saw the propriety of the precaution. That afternoon our arrangements were made. The parents of my pupils were kind and loving friends as well as employers; and they had often asked me to make their house my home-not as a servant, but as a valued visitor, as they were kind enough to say. I went to them, therefore, and told them how the case stood with me and my mother; and that same evening I was cordially received into their family: it being understood that I was to remain there until all fear of the (at present, hypothetical) infection was over; and that, in the mean time, I should receive daily bulletins from my mother.

A NIGHT SCENE.

"THERE never was such affliction as mine," said a poor sufferer, restlessly tossing in her bed in one of the wards of our hospital. "I don't think there ever was such rack

ing pain."

66

Once," was faintly uttered from the next bed.

The first speaker paused for a moment; and then, in a still more impatient tone, resumed her complaint. "Nobody knows what I pass through. Nobody ever suffered more pain."

66

One," was again whispered from the same direction. "I take it you mean yourself, poor soul! but"

66

Oh, not myself; not me," exclaimed the other; and her pale face flushed up to the very temples, as if some wrong had been offered, not to herself, but to another.

She spoke with such earnestness that her restless companion lay still for several seconds, and gazed intently on her face. It was a young face, scarcely more than nineteen; and, not very long ago, it had been round and ruddy. But the cheeks were now wan and sunken, and the parched lips were drawn back from the mouth, as if by pain, Yet there dwelt an extraordinary sweetness in the clear grey eyes, and a refinement on the placid brow, such as can only be imparted by a heart-acquaintance with Him who is "full of grace and truth."

"Oh, not myself; not me !" she repeated, deprecatingly. There was a short pause; and then the following words, uttered in the same low key, slowly and solemnly broke the midnight silence of the place.

"And when they had platted a crown of thorns they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. And when

they were come to a place called Golgotha, they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall. And they crucified him. . . . And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'

...

The voice ceased; and for several minutes not a syllable was spoken. The night nurse rose from her chair by the fire, and mechanically handed a cup of barley-water,

flavoured with lemon-juice and sugar, to the lips of both sufferers.

“Thank you, nurse," said the last speaker.

They

gave him gall for his meat; and in his thirst they gave him vinegar to drink."

66

She is talking about Jesus Christ," said the other woman, already beginning to toss less restlessly from side to side. "But" (added she) "talking about his sufferings can't mend ours--at least not mine."

"But it lightens her's," said the nurse.

"I wonder how."

"Hush!"

And the gentle voice again took up the strain :—

666

rows.

'Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorHe was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.'

"Healed! That's a blessed word. I wish I were healed," sighed the restless invalid.

The two fellow-sufferers of whom we are speaking had never met till they found themselves side by side in the infirmary. Barbara, the elder, had been a servant in a wealthy family, where she had no spiritual advantages, and few aspirations beyond "the life that now is." She was bound to her employers by no bond except good service on the one side, and liberal wages on the other. So that, when her health gave way beneath a disabling and painful malady, it was no wonder that her place was soon filled by a more profitable servant, and that Barbara was consigned to the refuge for the sick poor.

Lucy Fletcher, the younger of the two, had become its inmate in consequence of a fall down the trap-door of a warehouse, left carelessly insecure. She knew that her injuries were considered hopeless; and that, if she ever left the friendly walls of the hospital, it would be as a lifelong cripple. She had been brought up in the country, in one of the green dales of Derbyshire; and when she first came to the crowded city, her rosy cheeks were a sort of marvel in the factory where she worked-a sight quite pleasant for the eye to rest upon, amidst the dust and gloom of the cotton mill. The wages she earned seemed absolute wealth to the frugal country girl, until she found that life in ill-ventilated rooms requires a diet far more nourishing and costly than amidst the pure breezes of the