manner, or an inconsiderate act; but so long as the behaviour of the guests under their master's roof was unmarked by anything positively offensive, the trouble they occasioned went for nothing, and especially the trouble of children. The little Stanleys were such charming little cherubs to them, too, that they scarcely could offend, for they all had the chubby cheeks, and plump limbs, the pink and white complexions, and rich curling hair, which, to admirers of a certain class, are perfectly irresistible. Thus the servants at the rectory were contemplating a grand treat in the tossing and tumbling of a host of little fat good-natured romping children, only they must get as much work done as they possibly could, beforehand, for their hands would be full enough after the visitors came, everybody knew.

Ella had called once or twice at the rectory to ask when the master and mistress were expected home, and had witnessed the joyful anticipations of the servants, who were scrubbing away in most glorious dishabille, enjoying what would seem to be the greatest luxury in life to them-a thorough cleaning, with their master and mistress away. Ella wondered why she was not as pleased and as happy as those servants, when they told her that on the following Saturday the whole party would arrive about tea time, and to a very early tea too, they believed, "for there would be all the children to settle, and get to bed, let alone master's sermon.'

"Perhaps Mr. Stanley will take his duty for him," Ella suggested.

"I dare say he will," replied the servants, "only I have heard how the good gentleman is not in health, and that he is coming here in the hope that the air may do him good, as I am sure it will, for you know ma'am, it is the best air in the world."

The woman's own looks afforded good evidence of the truth of her assertion, for a well-ripened summer apple could not present a cheek of richer bloom than her's.

"Every body seems alike happy within the precincts of this place," said Ella, to herself, as she sauntered along one of the

CHAPTER LVII.

A MONTH'S absence from home was all which the Cawthornes had intended, or indeed could reconcile to their ideas of duty, and beyond that pleasure had no charms for them. A month had brought a slight verging to the hues of autumn upon field, and flower, and waving wood, and distant prospect. Already the brightest and liveliest greens were sobering into tints of darker shade, and others were deepening into brown. You could not say that the world looked less beautiful, but it certainly looked less gay. The gardens, too, were stripped of their pomp of roses, although the white lily was still standing on its stately stem. The hay harvest was ended, but the great gathering of golden grain had not yet begun.

Such was the aspect of the outer world, when preparations commenced for making the interior of the rectory ready for the return of its accustomed occupants, and with them their old friends Mr. and Mrs. Stanley, with a troop of little Stanleys, almost too numerous for calculation. It is not always that servants, of their own accord, and ont of their own genuine good-will, have a welcome ready for such a troop; but the rectory servants were in the habit of taking the tone of their master and mistress's partialities; and thus of whomsoever they spoke with respect, affection, or esteem, those individuals possessed a kind of sacredness with the domestics which placed them beyond the pale of criticism or complaint; unless, indeed, their own private habits should in the course of time give rise to other feelings and impressions of an opposite nature. We will not pretend that the servants at the rectory, any more than elsewhere, would not have been quick to feel a contemptuous

ing them again; and now so soon as that meeting must be too. She wished it could be delayed, if only a fortnight, or a week. She wished the trial could have been got over before they came. She wished a thousand impossible things, for she was neither happy, nor at ease in her own mind, and she blamed a host of things and circumstances for making her uncomfortable; but she never once thought of blaming only herself. Ah! what a blessed dispensation of a benign Providence is that which attaches to a wrong course of action, or even of thought, a sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction, of itself almost sufficient to deter all those from pursuing the same course-who read it depicted on the countenance, or hear it echoed in the language of the heart.

If Ella did not allow herself to believe that she was wrong, she was still far indeed from any internal conviction that she was right. She told herself, day after day, and hour after hour, that she meant well, and kindly; she enumerated for her own satisfaction all sorts of laudable and praiseworthy motives by which she was influenced. Nor was she altogether wrong in her calculations here, for it is one thing to act upon amiable or generous motives-it is often a widely different thing to act with strict and paramount regard to simple right and wrongto the restrictions of God's holy law, and to the approval of his all-seeing eye. Nothing, in fact, is clearer to an observer of human life, than that some of the greatest errors ever committed, have been, to those who were most deeply implicated, sanctioned by the plea of right motive. Ella believed her motives were right in harbouring Mrs. Lorrimer beneath her roof; she also believed, in the first instance, that her motives were right while espousing the cause of a stranger whose fancy was charmed by her beauty, and who happened to be in peculiar need of her assistance.

But still if the motives themselves were right, and such they seemed, as well as most generous, self-denying, and praiseworthy, there was little satisfaction, and no peace, in the carrying of those motives out. Ella thought it hard, that while

she lived so much for others, gave so much, and did so much, she reaped so little real happiness; and here were her friends at the rectory always happy, always contented and cheerful, although not absolutely draining their purses as she was, to supply the wants of others. "Perhaps, if I were more selfish," said Ella to herself, as she pursued these reflections, "if I were more calculating, less generous, less prone to relieve suffering and distress at any cost to myself, I should fare better, and be really more happy. But no; I would rather perish than stint one iota of my liberality, and my kindness." There were other consequences, without exactly perishing, to which Ella might have looked, but she liked to behold only the extremes of things; and to share her last loaf of bread with a fellowcreature, to beg, or to perish, were, in the pictures of her imagination, things far more endurable to contemplate, than the practice of a consistent and common-place economy-than the getting rid of beggars and dependents who had no just claim upon her bounty.

Some of Ella's troubles, which harassed her just now, were of a very vulgar character, for they were pure money troubles-applications for pecuniary aid, which it was quite beyond her power to gratify. Under these circumstances, a wiser woman would have weighed the justice of their claims, and meted out the gift or the loan accordingly. It was a great shock to Ella's feelings, to find her own mother upon this list of claimants; and happy indeed would she have been to render a favourable and instantaneous response, but that three hundred pounds, as we have already said, had just been thrown into the Grange trial, and one hundred more had been promised.

What could Ella do? Her mother's necessities had arisen entirely out of her imprudent marriage. Ella had from the first foreseen how it would be. The demand was not very urgent. In all probability, any funds which might be supplied in that quarter, would be appropriated to the use of a family which was little less than hateful to Ella in all its branches. It was really better, she thought, that her mother should have a

slight experience of the inevitable consequences of so absurd and disgusting an union. Besides which, letting alone the wholesome discipline, not the most becoming for a daughter to administer, Ella really had not the money at her command which her mother had meekly solicited as a loan, in order to make a few necessary purchases for herself. There were tones and touches of sadness throughout the whole letter which sent a sharp pang through Ella's frame, as she read it. Indeed, so truly painful were her sensations, that she crushed the letter in her hand, and speedily committed it to the flames, in order to prevent, she told herself, "the chance of any curious eye penetrating into her mother's melancholy secrets." More than once, Ella's conscience whispered to her-" and you are maintaining comparative strangers, while your own mother asks for money to purchase some of the common comforts of life." The thought was a bitter thought-the condemnation by which it was accompanied peculiarly severe; but she intended only to wait the issue of the trial, and then Mrs. Lorrimer should be dismissed, and her whole establishment remodelled on a different, and less expensive plan. Perhaps Alice might be sent away too-placed in some advantageous situation. She certainly wanted discipline. Ella did not like her way of going on at all-sitting up so late at night-coming down so idle and listless in the morning; leaning, as Ella perceived that she did, more to Mrs. Lorrimer than herself for advice and sympathy. There was another thing, too, which Ella did not like in the conduct and character of the poor girl. It was her manner towards Arthur Grahame, which was a little too pointed-a little too evidently partial. The girl sadly wanted tact. Why could she not admire him at a greater distance, and without permitting him to see that she did so?

Yes, Ella had plenty of causes of dissatisfaction, when she chose to look into them; plenty of little cares, crosses, and vexations, to throw into the scale of discontent; and scarcely one atom to cast into the opposite scale. In real satisfaction, she was never poorer in her life, but already there was some