what the ancients mean by it, but it is certainly not what is meant by a Providence. But no matter; I'm not quite 'so sure after all. If I had not remembered yesterday that you were a relative of mine, living here somewhere, I should not have come to you; if father had not told me of it, I should not have known it at all; and if you hadn't been born you wouldn't have been a relative. Is that what you mean? It is true my being born was not the result either of your friendship or your surmises, and it is also true that if the Hazzlehursts had been here still I might not have come here to-day, but then that didn't make you my relative."

"True, true boy-but perhaps I did wrong in perplexing you with matters that belong only to the elect. Come, fetch your things, and we will talk matters over.

Once in the streets, Giles turned over the curious problem anew, and set his brain working at it with such eagerness that he forgot he was now in a busy thoroughfare and ran plump against a fishwoman, who fetched him a slap with a fresh mackerel across the cheek, and gave him what is called

a tongue-banging as well, that lasted half the length of the street. Giles did not deign to do more than apologize very courteously. "I suppose my good friend would call that predestination. I call it my own fault for puzzling my head with a problem that hinders me from seeing what I am about, and which if solved in the end would only make me take every whim for a divine decree and every folly of my own for a divinely-appointed and unalterable event. Here's for fact then for the future-I'm not fore-ordained to be fish-wived. I'll mend my pace, or I shall predestine myself not to get my letter done in time for the mail."

On his return the conversation was held. It was copious, discursive, even argumentative. In the end the letter was written home, and the answer was waited for with considerable anxiety by both parties. In the meanwhile Giles laboured hard and seemed to see a clue to the whereabouts of the Hazzlehursts, and was only hindered from putting it into immediate execution by the arrival of the following:

"My beloved boy,

"Carlton Grange,

"You'd better remain with Mr. Lathwell, if you feel satisfied. You've done enough fighting for the present. My wounds are better, but my health is feeble. Deborah, Elijah, and Keturah are well. You can come and be with us a brief while as you please, before you settle in your new duties. Think always kindly of your new friend: he has a good heart. Abide in simplicity, honesty, Vex not your mind with crudities; Christ said 'whosoever will,' not whosoever I have willed.' Believe him and so live.

and God.

"Your loving and true Father."

105

CHAPTER VI.

MEETING AND PARTING.

every

If

PATIENCE is one of those virtues that one feels called upon to praise, but very few ever think of cultivating for themselves. in the golden age plenty begot pleasure, and pleasure singing, and singing poetry, and poetry pleasure again, surely in the Christian one patience should beget peace, and peace love, and love faith, and faith patience again. Little difficulties are magnified into great ones when we are impatient, and great ones rounded off into small matters when we are sublimely patient, and as a consequence calm and cheerful. Yet it is sometimes very hard to be patient, to suffer in silence, work in silence, and wait in silence.

And so Giles found it. A battle-field was nothing to the solitude of an anxious expec

tancy in which there seemed so little that he could do that appeared to bear on the matter uppermost in his mind. Still he worked hard with his new companion at his new duties, and fell into the round of business with singular ease and aptitude.

Mr. Lathwell, as we have seen, was a severe man. His great aim in life appeared to be exactness. He was a very planet for punctuality. There he was always wheeling round in the right place and at the right moment, as if heaven and earth would come together were he the least bit out, or behind time. He was a man who environed himself with as definite a body of laws as any solar system. He always rose at the same hour in the morning, coming down stairs as the clock struck seven, and there was a tradition at his death, and one I should not like to disturb, to the effect, that he was often known to stand with his watch in one hand and the other on the latch of his bedroom door for at least five minutes, in order not to be before his hour, which with him was as great a sin as to be behind it. There was reading and prayer, breakfast, business, and