and hindered you. Now, I go for my Lord, as well as with you, and so no harm can come to us."

"No harm! for we have our Eternal Home to go to, but we must not wear a starless crown' there, Leslie," and he repeated, in his rich, low voice, those exquisite lines, suited alike to the messengers in distant lands and isles, to those who do Christ's mission in their safe, home kingdom, to those who wear the public name of His servants, and to those whose service will perhaps first be acknowledged in heaven.

"If grief in Heaven might find a place,
And shame the worshipper bow down,
Who meets the Saviour face to face,

'T would be to wear a 'starless crown.'

"Nor find in all that countless host

We meet before the eternal throne,
Who once like us were sinners lost,
Any to say we led them home.

"Shall we who know Christ's wondrous love,
While here below sit idly down?
Ah! then, if we reach heaven above,
'T will be to wear astarless crown.'

"Oh, may it ne'er of me be said,

No soul that's saved by grace Divine,
Has called for blessings on my head,

Or linked its destinies with mine."

A happy, yet a solemn day that was for the united trio. It seemed as if Hester had renewed her youth, and it was beautiful to see the fulness of content with which she listened to the scarcely audible whisper, "I have found my Trust, Aunt Hester; it has arisen!" or watched the proud humility of Leslie's bearing, as she moved about that day, and many days, with trust beaming bright and calm from every feature, trust that was in heaven as well as on earth.

It was longer than it ought to have been. before Leslie remembered to congratulate and question Aunt Hester about the improvement in her health; the truth was, nothing that was pleasant seemed very marvellous to Leslie at this time.

"Was Philip the new doctor you wrote. about, Aunt Hester?"

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"O no; not quite such a romance as that,"

answered she, laughing. "It was only good old Dr. Jacobs, who said that a complaint like mine often arrives at a stage when exertion is good for it, and he recommended much exercise, and a new tonic, and, by the blessing of God, I can now walk up and down stairs, and round the garden quite easily. Oh, Leslie, isn't it a blessing!"

Unselfish and heartfelt were Leslie's tearful and almost silent congratulations.

"And then when Philip came the very day after I wrote to you," Hester went on to say, "oh, I did think my cup of blessing full!" Leslie did not wonder at Aunt Hester's gratitude.

Dr. Brown came in as usual that evening, after a long professional round, and most tender and cordial were his congratulations, if not exactly expressed like those of other people. To see his beloved niece united to that

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prince of a man," as he often called Philip, was the height of his ambition for her, though with him, as with Hester and all who loved Leslie, there loomed in the distance the dark, sad shadow of long separating years.

'But what's the other uncle to say to it, I would like to know ?" was one of his earliest inquiries, for Philip Gower had told him more than even Leslie knew, of unpleasant scenes with Mr. North, and mischief made by his capricious wife.

"Poor dear Uncle Charlie! but I always told him what I meant to do when I was oneand-twenty, and that's past more than a year," said Leslie. Philip and I are both going to write to him to-night."

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"Well, well; you can tell him, at least, that you won't starve, for I'll treble your own mite of a tocher in the meantime; and, when the old uncle's dead and gone, you two will have it all. I made my will yesterday."

Earnest words of thanks were attempted to be spoken, but the Doctor hated gratitude as much as he hated beggars.

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There, there; that's enough. It will all be thrown away upon black Africans, and cannibals, and ourang-outangs, and anthropophagi, but there's sure to be some interest

for it laid up in the bank of Heaven ;—only you had best take care of yourself, Master Philip, and of my bonnie Leslie too, for you 're both as thin and worn as a couple of old thread-papers."

Happiness did a great deal for both in a short time, and after Philip had rested at the Corner House-and what happy days of resting and communion these were !-and after he had gone up to London to give in his official report, and to receive the thanks of a nation, he and Leslie went to Manchester by the pressing invitation of her guardian and his wife. The high public standing of Philip, and Dr. Brown's generous arrangement, had made a difference in a worldly point of view, while his own increase of domestic happiness made the separation from Leslie less formidable to her uncle; they were thankful too, to be free from the scarcely acknowledged remorse which both husband and wife had recently felt as to the part they had taken, though neither had liked to confess it to her. From Manchester, Philip took Leslie down

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