you. Be patient; it is the only virtue in your power to practice now.'

'Am I dying?' asked the sick girl, abruptly, for at last she had found courage to put the awful question into words.

'Not dying, I trust, dear; but in great danger; still, by God's mercy, you may yet be spared for a while to repent, and lead a better life.'

'What shall I do?' cried the girl, imploringly. What can I do? O God of

Mercy, give me life! let me once again see the flowers, and the sun, and the world! I cannot-will not-die!'

'Rhoda, listen to me,' said Helen, solemnly; 'the will of God must be done, and to fight against it is worse than useless. Be still, and listen to what I have to say.'

And then, with the words of Revelation in her hands and on her lips, she prayed with the despairing sinner, speaking to her warningly yet hopefully. Rhoda after a while listened patiently and attentively; nor was Helen with

out a hope that the Holy Words had sunk into her heart. But when her fears subsided, and hope dawned once more, then the girl refused to believe that the path to 'dusty death' was opened wide before her, and that her return to enjoy existence again among her fellows was a doubtful thing.

But Rhoda did return for a season, and (her fears and her anguish evidently forgotten) made her re-appearance on horseback in the Park, within a fortnight of the time when Helen had wiped what seemed the dews of death from off her brow.

Mrs. Vaughan felt more grieved than astonished when, crossing the Park in her carriage, she saw a girl with a hectic colour in her cheeks, with teeth of dazzling whiteness, and clustered masses of golden hair, ride gaily among the idle and the dissipated in the crowded Row.' She kissed her hand lightly to Mrs. Vaughan, as the latter passed her, and Helen, as the girl turned her horse's head again towards Kensington, caught the

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careless laugh of the party as they cantered off. It was a melancholy spectacle; for the fiat had gone forth, and Death's bony hand was already outstretched towards the curtain that would hide the fair daughter of Sin from the eyes of men for ever. Helen followed her

sadly in her thoughts.

'Can this be the same being,' she asked

herself, who so lately, in her abject terror, clung to me, and cried to her God for mercy? Surely the world is for some made too pleasant; for who, on a day so bright as this, with admiring eyes turned upon her, and with all the excitement of prosperous vice at her command, but would forget that there is such a prison as the narrow coffin, and such a dress as the cerements of the grave?'

In Rhoda's sick-room, when the worst symptoms of her disorder were past, and she was approaching towards temporary convalescence, Mrs. Vaughan had made acquaintance with one, who from motives of compassion and from a desire (as she expressed

it) to keep up her heart,' had come to visit her sick friend. And very useful for the purpose was the joyous Irish girl, the darkeyed, sunny-faced Katie Reilly, who brought sickly smiles to the lip of the feeble Rhoda, as she lay hovering between life and death.

'Ah! the nasty stuff,' said Katie, one day, as she put her ripe, red lips to Rhoda's medicine glass; sure, why do they give you such things? a ride out now would do you all the good in life; come and take the shine out of the little Arab, and send all the pill-boxes to the deuce.'

'I should like a ride,' said poor Rhoda, sighing; and she would have enlarged on the misery of confinement and the anticipated pleasure of her restoration to health, had not Mrs. Vaughan's step been at that moment heard ascending the stairs.

'Now, Katie dear, do try to talk and look respectable,' said Rhoda, pleadingly.

Indeed and I won't,' said Katie, stoutly;

'I hate respectability. But you'll be so good as just to name me to the lady when she comes in.'

Rhoda assented, and on Mrs. Vaughan's entrance introduced the pretty Irish girl as one of her best and kindest friends. Helen shook hands with her new acquaintance cordially, and Katie was more pleased thereat than she would have cared to own.

The two met often in Rhoda's little lodging, and grew to be intimate; for Helen saw good in the cheery Hibernian, saucy little sinner though she was; and Katie herself was devoted heart and soul to her new friend, who stood so high in the estimation of her class, and at whose disposal were so many of the things that make life agreeable.

One day, shortly before Rhoda Mason was pronounced convalescent, Mrs. Vaughan, who took every opportunity of innocently amusing her, brought as a present a large book, full of engraved portraits. Katie chanced to be in the room, and together the girls turned over