smoothed little Cecily's fair hair. She had got his big silver watch in both her hands, and was listening to its ticking and to what Willie said about it.

The children on the hearth were forming wishes for the coming year.

'And I wish,' said one, gravely and clearly, 'that I was big, and very useful.'

The others were quiet for a moment, and then they laughed, and their laughter rang musically through the old kitchen.

Willie smiled at the little speaker, and went on with what he was saying to Cecily.

'And you see, Cecily, how the busy hands keep on and on, always doing their work. Look how quickly the long one gets on. It goes round ever so many times faster than the short one, and yet that is doing its work too all the time-doing its very best. But you could not expect the short hand to do as much, or in the world the little short legs to be quite as useful as the long ones.' 'The long ones like yours;' and Cecily held out

a short bare leg of her own and looked at it.

'Yes, the long ones like mine;' said Willie. 'They have made many journeys, little Cecily.'

'Willie,' she asked, opening her eyes, 'how many

times has the long hand gone round since you was a little boy?'

He shook his head gravely. The days of his years were past Willie's counting.

'Will you tell us all about it?' said the little maiden who had wished to be very useful.

Then all the others jumped up and echoed the petition. 'Tell us your story. Because it is New Year's Eve, Willie.

the Old Year.'

Because it is the last day of

Lois came and sat down beside him and begged too, and Roger leant over her chair.

'Do tell us about your life, dear old friend. We have so often wished to know.'

Willie still shook his head, but somehow the chord of memory had been touched to-night, and it was vibrating still. Perhaps because, as the children said, it was the last day of the Old Year.

He looked out of the window at the coming darkness, and then back upon the young listening faces in the firelight.

And he told them his story. It was a very simple one.

PART I.

We spend our years as a tale that is told

Look, it is evening, quite evening at last. See how the light has faded, and the shadows have fallen over the hills. The day is over, the twilight is gathering.

Just so it is with me. My day has long been over; the hours of work are spent, the twilight seems long, very long, but the night is at hand.

I am glad that it should be so. To the old weary eyes this dim light is welcome; to the tired frame, 'the night in which no man can work,' looks full of rest as it draws near.

You ask me how it was with me in the morning. It is so long ago I can scarcely remember now. In the morning, when I was young?

Let me look back through the shadowy years.

Ah yes ! It comes slowly to me-the wild morning freshness, the flower-scented air. The dawn has broken; it is all wonderfully bright; there seem

to be no clouds; the sun rises in golden radiance, and the earth is flooded with glory.

And as my eyes-dazzled at first-grow more used to the splendour of the young day, robed and crowned with light, I see an old gateway grim and grey, facing the west. It lies in shadow still, but a child pushes open the heavy wooden door, and suddenly a stream of sunlight pours through, and he stands there with the morning light behind him.

How often there may be two meanings in our simplest words. I was standing truly, on the threshold of life, even as my childish feet rested on the grey worn stone, and far before me lay the mists and the shadows, the hopes and the sorrows of my future. Only from behind my home lay in there behind from there the sunshine had never

failed me yet.

My hand, a small soft round one, rested against the arched gateway, among the stonecrop and the yellow lichen. I remember that I tried to loosen one of the old stones, but I could not. It was still as strong and immovable as when, ages ago, it had been fitted into its place. I daresay it is just as firm now, though the little busy hand is so withered and feeble.

It was the gateway of a ruined castle, grand and very beautiful in its ruin. I have heard people say that they wished they could put all things back, and see it as it once was; but I always wondered at them. I would not have changed one stone.

I suppose that all places may look sad at timesbeneath the grey sky of winter, or when autumn winds are blowing; but on a summer's day no place has ever seemed to me so bright with sunshine as our ruins.

It was as if old age had come upon them lightly, bringing with it no burden of sadness, and that their days of work long over, they were content to lie idle in the kind warm sun, and to tell stories of the past.

The birds built their nests in the traceried windows, and sang and loved each other, and skimmed about at their own wild will above the flowery turf.

Ivy, the child of old age, had wound itself round the broken towers, half clinging to them, half supporting them.

It was one of my mother's quaint sayings that the soft mossy grass, which grew luxuriantly everywhere, reminded her of charity, for that though Time had stolen much away, all its thefts were