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CHAPTER XVII.

GOOD NEWS FOR KETURAH.

MONTHS have passed. The whole of the Newbury family are now comfortably settled in the old roomy house at Carlton. Emily's arm is strong again, and her health fully restored; Maggie is regaining somewhat of her pristine buoyancy; Nathaniel is getting quite a big boy, and loves to range the fields with the shepherd dog as his father used to do; little Richard is a happy, interesting fellow; Priscilla, the baby, a plump, merryeyed favourite; and even Giles forgets the saddening influences of the past, and lives joyously in the future of his children. Elijah is stalwart and blunt as hitherto, a very centre of resistance to all religious encroachments in the neighbourhood, and working

nobly for the promulgation of the World's Good Tidings. Keturah is pensive, yet not melancholy, for her life has many stars in its quiet depths, and many avenues for its gentle ministrations; and Deborah and her sister, Mrs. Hazzlehurst, are both looking forward to another re-union, of which the present one has been but a type and a shadow, and both feel that it cannot be long. Poor Old Midge has gone to his everlasting reward, grey-headed and happy, and Parson Williams is scarcely ever seen out of doors now except upon Sundays, is somewhat meeker than heretofore, although occasionally flaming forth in all sorts of religious and political denunciations, which prove very harmless indeed, from his old-fashioned pulpit in the damp old church.

The winter has passed. Fierce valorous March has charged his last winter-charge in vain, and blown his battle-blasts, and kinder April, with her weeping skies, has blessed the thirsty land. Meek-eyed flowers peep from beneath dead leaves, tender blades shoot through the softened glebe, massive buds sway and swell upon the pendulous

boughs, dappled hedgerows breathe sweet odours, and soft-throated birds sing the earth's Resurrection song. The whole earth is radiant with Life, and eloquent with Love. Carlton is once more a glad and sunny village. The fields are tempting, and the lanes are sweet. The old brick-house, with its high gables, its Elizabethan windows, its mossy sides, its solid, comfortable aspect, stands out picturesquely in the warm sunshine. Birds gabble about it, and swallows twitter under its eaves. The bright milktins glimmer on the side wall, the breath of kine floats into the spacious kitchen, the bleat of lambs steals gently from the fold, and tricksome sunbeams even dance in the oak-pannelled parlour through the rustling leaves, and bring out into bold relief the armour of the old gospeller, hanging in the same spot where we saw it first on the eventful eve ere he went forth to fight for the Parliament, for Truth, and for God.

One morning Giles received a note from London, which made him pensive. And yet he was not sad, for there was a deep brooding joy about his heart. His past and his

future life blended with the present, and he felt as if he could scarcely seize the fleeting emotions that played within him. He read the letter in private, and each time he read it his eyes brightened. He felt a selfish joy in its contents, and that not because he alone was concerned in it, but because through it he had power to make others partakers of it also. And yet he would not do it hastily or thoughtlessly. There was some knowledge to be gained in one direction ere his joy or his power could be said to be complete. He must gain that at once.

Keturah," he said, "let us walk out a bit in the sunshine-'twill do you good. There's an alchemy in sunshine that even touches the lonely and the sorrowing with its own tints. Let us go."

In a very few minutes she had put on her bonnet, and they went out, as many a time they had wandered ere the solemn scenes of life had opened around them both. Was it fancy, instinct, or association, that drew their feet in the same direction as they took when Keturah had told him her little story? There was the same brook, babbling and

bounding over its mossy stones and between its green banks, and a strange subtle sense of the past, such as almost every one has experienced at some time or other, transfused itself over Keturah's mind, and gave a weird witchery to all about her. Even the sky and the clouds seemed instinct with something like memory.

66 I was so young then," she thought. "I did not know myself, and yet "

Had her her brother, then, divined her thoughts? Was he, too, caught up in this same mysterious resurrection of feeling? He had often asked her to go out before, but he had talked then, and was silent now. Yes, he must have read her thoughts, for even inarticulate nature seemed to guess them, to give her them back again.

They were going the old path by the garden wall, whither she had not been for months, and whither she felt now as if being passively led, without the power to refuse or resist. Ah! there were the old lines. But how fresh and newly-written they seemed, as if she saw them now for the first time, and was only herself somewhat changed.