CHAPTER VII.

TOO PARTICULAR.

"Sometimes the best gain is to lose."

Geo. Herbert.

GWEN GRIFFITHS lived till the second week in the new year. The day before her death, Margaret Clevedon met John Wynter at her bedside, and, with the poor weeping mother, received that blessed rite by which we commemorate Christ's dying, though deathless, love to us.

It was a blessed time to all there present. Margaret found it a rest in the midst of turmoil and difficulty. The dying girl, waiting only for her summons to the Golden City, seemed to catch a sight of her Saviour with her mortal eyes, and to rejoice with a joy unspeakable. The mother, feeling about feebly for what she saw was a reality in her child, put out the trembling hand of faith, and found that hand firmly grasped by Him who is "waiting to be gracious," who—

"Loves the meanest sheep,

Who weeps with them that weep,
Who'll not neglect to keep

All who believe."

As Mr. Wynter walked up the town and into the High Street, by the side of Margaret, he told her that he fully believed that, by God's blessing, her instruction had been the means of showing drunken Bill's wife the "Shadow of the Great Rock in a weary land."

"Do you really think so, Mr. Wynter?" said she, with tears in her eyes. "How good God is to allow me such a pleasure-such a privilege; but you must often enjoy it."

"I?" said John, sadly; "no, I don't know that I have ever been the means of saving one soul; it is worth a life's work, that I do know.”

"Oh! Mr. Wynter, do not say so; perhaps you only do not know of it. The good we do may be kept from us to make us humble, lest we should take some of the glory of it ourselves."

know it once.

"Yes, that is a comfort; But I

"Thank you," said he. but it is a great privilege to

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must say good-bye to you," continued he, holding out his hand, or I shall be too late for a committee I have to attend."

Margaret put her hand into his, while she looked. up earnestly, saying

H

"You have helped me, Mr. Wynter, to find the Shadow. God bless you ever for that."

As she turned away she thought, "What a good, great, humble man he is. I am sure there are fifty in this very town who owe all the good there is in them to him."

Mr. Wynter looked after the little figure that was making its way up the Castle Hill, and this verse came to his mind

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

In the morning-a bright sunny morning, with the white hoarfrost thick on the ground, Gwen Griffiths laid aside her mortal robe, and entered into the presence of the King. Her mother's grief was hushed in the presence of her new-found faith, which brought her peace in the midst of earthly trial. Gwen's father for once stayed at home from the alehouse, and the neighbours in Paradise Row trod softly as they passed the closed door.

Mrs. Griffiths sent up a child to the Castle, to tell Margaret, and the young lady returned a box of white camellias, with her love, to lay on the cold breast.

That afternoon, not feeling in spirits enough to go out, Margaret lay on her sofa in her room reading, Mrs. Stuart had driven out to return some calls, and Augustus was over at the barracks. She had fallen asleep, when some one talking aroused her: the door

of the ante-room was open, and she distinctly heard Jane say to Eliza Davies,—

"What can be the matter with Miss Clevedon, lately? she have looked so pale, and James says she don't eat enough to keep a mouse!"

"How should I know?" said Eliza; "perhaps 'tis the cold."

"The cold!" said Jane, contemptuously; "it is all along of you, Miss Davies, and you knows it is." "Of me?" said Eliza, innocently; "what can you mean?"

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Yes, of you," repeated the pertinacious Jane; "it is too bad of you going on the way you do with Captain Stuart. I would not if I were a young lady, How you can do it, and he only laughing at you, I can't think ?"

I knows that.

"What makes you say that, Jane ?" said Eliza. “Oh, I know, for all the stupid you thinks me: I has eyes as well as my neighbours!"

"Just you hold your tongue, Jane," said Eliza, "and mind your own business; and leave mine alone, or you sha'n't stay in this house; and so I warn you."

Jane left the room hurriedly, and banged the door after her, as she said: "Well, you'll see in the end who's right."

Now the fact was, Miss Eliza Davies had begun to think it would be a very fine thing if she could manage to persuade Captain Stuart to take her back

to India with him. She knew well enough the state of affairs between the cousins, and she thought that she was quite equal to playing the lady out there in case Captain Stuart could only be won once; so she laid herself out on every possible occasion, and in every possible way, to attract that worthy officer. In order to do this more effectually she had run into debt at several shops in the town for new and becoming dresses and ornaments.

She had so far gained her object, that Captain Stuart found plenty of amusement in playing with her vanity and ambition; and although he made love to her on the sly, in passages and on staircases, seeing she was only too ready for it, yet he had not the remotest idea of marrying Eliza Davies, or of getting himself into such a position that she could even say the subject had been once named between them. Still Eliza did not know this, and she fondly hoped she might catch him if she was very cunning.

All this, of course, the fair Margaret, half asleep on her sofa, did not know; she heard the words of the two young women, and she made up her mind that, cost her what it would, her engagement ought to be broken off.

Augustus dined out that evening, and did not get home till between two and three in the morning. Margaret heard him come in and go up to his room, and, by the confusion and repeated steps of old

James (who had sat up for him) past the door, she