they did in the frankness and familiarity of intimate acquaintanceship, the approach of the day that was to take Philip away on that long exploratory expedition was the first thing that made them understand each other. Philip proposed for Leslie to her guardian, Mr. North. Indignant at the idea of his charming niece throwing herself away on "a humbug of a doctoring fellow," he refused his consent. Many painful scenes passed. Mrs. North endeavoured to make as much mischief as she could, and it ended in Philip and Leslie being debarred from seeing each other before he set sail, while, till her majority, she was forbidden to correspond with him. Leslie had once given him a small hair-chain, and in her answer to his farewell letter she had said, "I shall keep my trust in you so long as you keep the little chain." In the tent, and on the march, and up the lonely rivers, and among savage men, the thought and the love of Leslie had ever been true and warm in Philip's heart.

He used to write to Aunt Hester, and he knew that that was almost the same as writing to Leslie, and he loved to think that the details of his journeyings were thus known to Leslie, although from an over-sensitiveness on the part of both, each had pledged themselves to keep secret their tacit engagement. Communication became more difficult, his work harder, his health weaker, and he wrote less frequently. Many of his and of Hester's letters, moreover, had been lost; some of them, indeed, only appearing after his return. One day, on his arrival in a more civilized region, a home-letter greeted his eyes; to his surprise it was from Mrs. North; a long, kind letter, written after their return from the southern tour in company with the Castle Mordaunt party; in it she informed him of the brilliant prospect there was for Leslie, dwelling not only on the exalted position of the man who had won her affections, but on his worthiness of her. Philip read and believed. A safe opportunity of taking a letter to a postal destination unfortunately presenting itself,

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Philip enclosed the little chain, bitterly remembering, and re-reading, and tearing into pieces Leslie's farewell note, which had hitherto been his inseparable companion. Many times, in hours of silent thought, after Philip had laid his sorrow and his burden where he knew it would be cared for, did he repent this rash step. It is not true; she would have trusted me," he said, remorsefully. At last his pride gave way. He wrote to Leslie, enclosing it to her guardian. By his wife's persuasion, Mr. North had never forwarded it to her, but it was burned unread. Then came the time of danger, and illness, and starvation, and intense anxiety for the brave men who had gone forth with him. But, by "the good hand of his God upon him," Philip Gower and his noble band returned to their own land in safety, after perils of waters," and "perils in the wilderness."

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Utterly worn out in body, and in feverish suspense of mind, Philip hurried down at once to Hester Morris, before making any

"Will

public appearance or official announcement. The rest Leslie knew or might guess. you forgive me, Leslie ?" he concluded with. It was a question that needed little answer, and indeed I do not know that it got any, for Leslie, woman-like, could not bear him she loved to take blame to himself, and found out that it was equally wrong of her to have given him up so easily; she felt that she ought to have hoped against hope, to have trusted him in spite of himself.

"But oh, Philip," she said with unconscious pathos, "if I was wrong to give too easy credence, I was sorely punished for it; if you knew what it was when the old, longtrusted Philip sank down, and down, and down, and in his stead rose a new, hard Philip, that I had no faith in; it was dreadful!" and she shrank and shivered.

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To think that my Leslie should have suffered so much for me!" answered Philip, much touched, and something, that was very like a teardrop glittered in those eyes that strangers often called hard and stern, as they shone

out in their dark light from under the rugged brow and massive, intellectual head.

"It was very good for me, Philip; don't you remember our favourite old distich

'Reader, if thou an oft-told tale will trust,

Thou 'lt gladly do, and suffer what thou must.'

Well, I began to try to be glad without you, and to live on contentedly without your trust. You won't grudge me the lesson, dearest Philip," and she said it softly.

"No, love, I dare not grudge it; it was the right lesson for her who is to be the wife of such a one as I. I can woo you to no easy life, Leslie, to no pleasant homestead,—only to toil, and care, and fatigue, and privation, often to be separated in life, and, perhaps, early to be parted by death; but you are not afraid ?"

"No, I am NOT afraid. Not now." It was not till after a thoughtful pause that she added, "Philip! if I had gone with you that time when we both so wished it, I think that it would have been only because my heart clung to you, and then I might have failed