'Certainly, money held in trust, even in such a little way as this, ought to be as much out of your reach as if you had not a farthing in your hands. But I think I can trust you quite enough to know that you broke through the strict rule for some good reason; I am sure of that, my dear!' He spoke with greater tenderness than ever.

'Papa, darling, how good you are!' said Annie, fairly crying now with the relief of knowing that the confession was over, and the wrong-as far as it could be undone. 'It was a dreadfully strong reason; I'll tell you, if you like, what it was, only I would rather you wouldn't ask me ; if you don't mind not hearing, Papa.'

'I can trust you, my dear child,' was the answer to the entreating question; we will forget all about it now.'

Annie thought she had never been so light-hearted before, as at this moment. Her mother saved from the grief of hearing of the difficulty; Arthur unpunished; and herself, at the very time she had proved herself most unworthy, trusted by her father as much as ever!

Her spirits rose to their old height; and the evening in her mother's room, when purse and account-books had been safely locked up, was a delightful time; with Arthur laughing and joking as merrily as he used to, and the invalid enjoying his boyish stories.

It was too pleasant to be spoiled even by Aunt Catherine's croaking voice, 'Dear me! what can you children find to make such a noise about? I declare that boy's laugh goes through my head; you forget how weak your Mamma is very weak indeed to-day!'

And Arthur-Annie too, possibly-took refuge in the children's oftenrepeated declaration of independence, 'Who cares for what she says?' (To be continued.)

THE STONE-CARVER OF BAYEUX.

BY GEORGE W. BOSANQUET.

THE country whence our Norman ancestors came so many hundred years ago is very beautiful.

Far inland from the rock-fenced coast stretch winding valleys formed by the gentle slopes of hills which meet at the bottom, where there generally runs a still clear stream, marked by a long line of waving poplars. Sometimes the hills are covered with corn and orchards; but most frequently they are shaded by woods of walnut, elm, and beech, mingled with hazel thickets, which stretch down to the bank of the stream, and bend their heads over it as if they wished to touch their own reflections, or to give a hand to their brethren on the other side. The stream itself flows deep and still-not a noisy or a turbulent stream, by any means. It has something to do in the world; for under the

projecting roots of trees it has to scoop here and there a deep hole where the great trout may lie and be sheltered from the heat; and further on to feed a mill, the only mill for miles round; and what not besides! So it flows quietly, and leaves brawling and chattering for streams that have less to do.

How strange an old Norman town-for instance, the cathedral town of Bayeux-seems to a traveller when first he passes through its quiet streets! Few people are moving about, few carts or wagons passing; he may perhaps think that he has reached the town on a day when the people are all attracted by some festivity to a single place. But no! Such quietness is the normal condition of the town. Only a little patch of blue sky shines down on the street between the projecting upper stories of the houses, which last have broad deep eaves, where many swallows build, and gabled roofs of tiles, often stained green and crimson and gold by brilliant moss and lichen. Perhaps, too, the wooden fronts of the houses are carved with rude half-defaced images of saints, each of which is supported by a pedestal, rough hewn, with many a quaint device, and sheltered by a curiously wrought canopy to keep off the trickling rain. The street is gloomy and winding; but suddenly it opens into a square, where the tall houses and the taller elms, encircled by myriads of cawing rooks, are dwarfed into insignificance by the solemn majesty of the giant cathedral. There it stands, strong and firm as on the day when the builders ceased working at it; and there it will stand for ages, a memorial of the zeal, the art, and the devotion of a generation long since passed away.

It is evening now, a bright July evening, and through the great rose window of the cathedral the western rays stream vividly and clear. They fall on the snowy floor in a mist of changeful colour, play in crimson on the white folds of many a Norman cap whose wearer is kneeling at the Vesper service, light with a lurid glow the diaper patterns on the walls of the nave, kindle to a flame on the brazen lectern, and die in sparks of fiery light on the railings of the high choir-screen.

Hark to the Vesper hymn! How the music mounts from earth heavenwards, and faints and reverberates in the distant aisles, and sinks and swells again, till it expires under the far uplifted roof in murmurs like the rustle of an archangel's wings.

At last all is silence. Vespers are over!

Now the congregation issues out of the two side doors, (for the great door is only opened at High Mass,) and then begins such a Babel of voices! Marie must ask after Antoinette's youngest boy, and prescribe an infallible remedy for his whooping-cough. Victorine and Mélanie call to Lisa, and the three begin to conjecture what that strange person in a straw hat can have been doing, who has been sitting all day on a stool just opposite the cathedral front, with something like a large square book in his hand.

Lisa, a practically-minded young woman, says, 'Why don't you ask him?'

'Where has he gone to?' returns Victorine. 'I don't see him now.' 'Look just behind you, my dear. He has been there all the time you have been speaking, I believe, and has heard every word.'

Victorine cast a glance over her shoulder, and then with a little shriek ran off, accompanied by the others, and never stopped till she had turned the corner of the street.

'He is an Englishman, I'm sure, by his queer dress,' she said, when they all stopped for breath. 'Oh dear! how wicked of him to come up so quietly.'

'Perhaps he did not understand,' suggested Mélanie consolingly.

And in truth the Englishman, as Victorine had rightly guessed that he was, had been so wrapped in deep thought and remembrance, that he had hardly noticed the sentences which he had heard. To him, that evening, the past seemed as real as the present. Around him thronged, as in a dream, the Freemasons and the architects, the priests and the soldiers, of the middle ages. He saw the young knights holding their vigil at the altar by their unproved arms; and saw, too, the mitred abbot ride harnessed to battle, vowing in event of victory to build a cathedral in honour of God and his patron saint. He saw the builders and carvers again at their work, and wished that he too might have lived in those days, and have carved with the deepest thought of his heart, and the greatest skill of his hand, even one stone, to set as a memorial and thank-offering in some grand old church.

As the traveller walked down the street which leads to the right from the cathedral door, his meditations were interrupted by a little boy, who in eager pursuit of his hoop ran against him, and in consequence tumbled down, and began to cry most piteously. The traveller picked him up in an instant, and the little fellow was more frightened than hurt; so he soon smiled through his tears, and in answer to the traveller's question, 'Where do you live, little one?' poured forth a flood of Norman patois, which quite bewildered that gentleman. Out of the whole speech he could only understand two words, namely, 'papa,' and 'boutique.' The last, by special good luck, came at the end of the sentence, so the traveller caught its meaning.

'Hm,' he soliloquised; father keeps a shop, of course he does— somewhat vague information, though-for there are more than a few shops in Bayeux. What-' Here he was relieved from his perplexity by a man dressed in the blue blouse which all French workmen and many shop-keepers wear. The man, on reaching them, expressed with great volubility a sense of his profound obligation to Monsieur, and then turning to the child, launched out with a smiling countenance into threats of desperate vengeance against the little runaway, and ended by taking him up bodily in his arms, and hugging him heartily.

They all walked on together for a few yards; then, as the workman

stopped at the entrance to a small shed, the traveller exclaimed, 'Oh! I see by the tools and things in there that you are a carver in stone. Will you let me sit and watch you work for half an hour or so? the art is one I am so fond of.'

'Willingly, Monsieur,' was the man's reply.

Martin, run and fetch a chair for the gentleman who picked thee up out of the gutter.'

Then the stone-carver took a bit of white Caen stone, and began to fashion it into an inkstand for a school,' he said.

'How soft the stone is to the chisel,' said the traveller. 'Is that the material of which the cathedral is built?'

'No; the outside is of a much harder stone,' was the reply; 'but the carvings and the sculptures inside are wrought in this Caen stone. Ah, Monsieur, those carvings-have you attentively regarded them? are they not adorable?'

'They appear to be indeed most beautiful,' answered the traveller; 'but I have not as yet spent much time over them.'

'Come then for a minute with me, Monsieur,' said the workman, and I will show you something superb.'

He led the way into the cathedral, which was yet illumined by the last rays of the sun. Not a word was spoken by either man till they had passed the north transept, and were behind the choir-screen.

There the workman stopped, pointed to the wall, and said, 'Now look at that vine-leaf scroll, Monsieur. I have carved vine-leaves, mille fois-I can even finish them more highly than those are finished; but the spring and elasticity of the plant I cannot render; there is about those leaves a je ne sais quoi which baffles me-they are, as it were, alive.'

The scroll he referred to was carved in sharp relief on the back of the choir-screen, and ran in undulations all round it, ending over the crypt door in a festoon mingled of stem and tendril, of leaf and fruit, alike natural and graceful.

After an instant's silence the workman spoke again. 'No, Monsieur, I cannot approach that; I am sure the man who carved it loved the vine dearly. Perhaps he came from Gascony or Auvergne in the sunny south, where he had watched the vine climb over his house year by year, and stretch out its little hands to clasp one after another the bars of his window, through which it would look in upon him in the bright morning gemmed with early dew. Maybe, under its shade he had courted the girl whom he loved first and most fondly, while the nightingales sang in the thickets hard by. So when in after years he wandered here, sad perhaps at the loss of dear friends, and the failure of sweet hopes long and fondly cherished, he may, for a remembrance of happy old times, have carved here the portrait of a few sprays of the vine which grew over his cottage in the south. And so, of course, he loved every leaf and tendril which he carved, and enjoyed every touch of the chisel which carved them; that is, I think, the reason it is so beautiful. But

I weary Monsieur, and the sun has set; let me show you the way out. Behold how the massive grey shadows come marching up the nave as the light fails more and more!'

As the two passed out of the west door, the workman did not forget to cross himself, nor to bend his knee before the altar. When they were fairly in the street, he spoke again.

'I once only have seen anyone who gave promise to execute work like that which I showed you there, and that was one of my own sons.'

"The youth whom I saw in your shop?' asked the traveller.

'Oh no, Monsieur. Pierre is a good lad; but I speak of his elder brother he was a youth of great promise, only eighteen, and already such knowledge, such skill-best of all, such love for every plant and animal he could see. You would ask whether he is yet alive, Monsieur,' continued he, anticipating the traveller's question. Ma foi, Monsieur, I cannot tell. Six years ago the price of bread was very high here, and trade was dull-in truth, one could hardly get anything to do. So Henri said to me one day, "My father, there is little to do here now, and many months to feed. Pierre will soon be able to help you; for me, had I not better go away, and take my chance in the world? Perhaps I may be able to push my way." Well, what was I to say? About the scarcity of work Henri had spoken truly, as I knew only too well; but I did not like to give up my son. But after much thought and prayer, and after taking advice from M. le Curé, we determined to let Henri go away for a time, at least, only stipulating that he was to come home if he could not get on. Eh bien, Henri started one fine April morning on the Paris road, in his blue blouse, with a flower from his pet geranium pinned in front. He had his tools in his bundle, and ten francs in his pocket. I walked with him to the tenth kilomètre stone from the town, and there we embraced and parted. And, Monsieur,' said the poor workman, passing his sleeve across his eyes, 'since that day I have neither seen nor heard of him. And he so good and affectionate, the light of his mother's eyes, the staff of our declining years! Soon after he left us, the cholera passed through France, and I am pretty sure that it must have carried him off, or he would have let us hear of him years ago. Ah, how the cholera scourged Bayeux! My wife and I both had it; but le bon Dieu was merciful, and we recovered. Will you come into my house, Monsieur, and see my little ménage? It is not grand, like what you are accustomed to; but just now there is as much work as Pierre and I can do, so we are very comfortable for poor folk. Also, I should like to show you Henri's great white geranium, which he coveted so long, and bought with his first earnings. It is still a grand plant, and since he went away the children have insensibly taken to calling it Henri. Permit me that I show you the way.'

They passed through a narrow passage, and entered a tolerable sized room, where crockery ranged in shining order on the shelves, plants in