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that with all possible alleviations there was to be much sorrow in store for her. She never hid that from herself, and sometimes she shrank and shivered; the first and easiest lesson is to endure the Father's will, but the best and last is to take it into the heart and love it. Once in old times, Leslie had said laughingly something about "Aunt Hester being so dreadfully wise," and the compliment had not been altogether disclaimed. Hester had said musingly, "Am I wise? Yes, I believe I am, even as the beggar is rich who asks and receives many coins." And Leslie had remembered the words, If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." So even then Leslie had begun to ask and to receive, and was not upbraided. She had not asked often enough or largely enough, as who does? but some of that heavenly wisdom was coming into light and action now.

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It was one of Leslie's wise resolves at this time not to punish other people because of

her sorrows, but to strive to be more kindly, interested. and accessible than before. It would have been a luxury to Leslie to have sat quite still in her corner of the railway carriage, with closed eyes pondering many things; she had counted on it; but opposite to her was an elderly, deformed, kindly-looking, conversational gentleman. He was struck by that face, which indeed he decided to be the most interesting he had ever seen, and began to pay her various kindly railway attentions. So Leslie roused herself, and replied so sweetly and gently that he was quite charmed, though he noticed that always the sorrowful lines of the mouth settled down, calmer and older than her At last he offered her a newspaper. years. She took it, and then her face flashed out in its old glow, and beauty of expression and colouring, for her eye caught Philip Gower's name. It was mentioned with all the honour which she had always felt he was destined to receive. The mail had come in; he was safe, though there had been a train of almost

unprecedented hardships. There was a cheerful, hopeful letter from him, giving a modest account of newly-discovered lands and routes, and there was a commentary upon it; this man whom, when he returned, they said his country would delight to honour-this brave pioneer of the truth of God. So they called him, and much more. It was all so natural,-Leslie North reading of Philip Gower's praise and fame, and rejoicing in it to her heart's core ; for though few women care for fame for themselves, there is scarcely one who does not covet it for her best-beloved; she forgot everything else. Happiness seems so natural to some part of our being that when a gleam of it comes, we forget all past and all coming sorrow. It was not till Leslie had read that glorious paragraph three times, that she remembered she had no right to this exceeding happiness of pride and sympathy. It was an agony. Still she could smile to the worn face and hollow eyes that had been watching her changeful countenance wonderingly. Just then he got out at his own station, and

went away; he came back, however, urged by one of those mysterious but not rare attractions, to say gently, "God bless you!" It did her good, and she had done him good. A kindlier, happier interest had come that day into the desolate old man's dreary life. Their lives had only just touched, and they would never meet again till the day when all flesh. shall meet once-in the presence of the Lord.

Leslie thought that her Manchester home. looked very dreary, that dark, rainy December afternoon; the canopy of smoke was surely thicker than it had ever been before, and though her uncle lived in a suburban villa, yet the leafless trees and blackened grass, and stunted shrubs, did not add much rural beauty. In times of mental and physical health and strength, Leslie could fully appreciate that "mart of nations"—that city of merchant princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth-that nucleus of power, and strength, and work, and gold; but now she could only see its smoke and forget its grandeur; she could only think of

its concentrated evils, and forget its widespreading blessings. Her uncle's rapturous greeting was a choice bit of comfort for her. To feel that we may be blessings to others, even were there none to be blessings to us, is as a warm light in the midst of a cold fog.

Leslie thought that her aunt for the first time was looking really ill, quite thin and yellow, greatly to her own discomfiture, for Mrs. North was one who liked all the privileges and immunities of illness without any of its penalties. She liked to keep everybody around her in anxiety and worry about her health, but never thought of taking care of it, except when it suited herself, and did not suit anybody else, and then it was wonderful how careful she became. She had had for years a succession of extraordinary aches and ailments which quite puzzled the Faculty, though her husband ruefully persisted in attributing them to the "doctor's books," which she was constantly studying. Now, however, there was no doubt of it, she was really ill.

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