round again,
and the calm forcible words visited him, 'Beware of trying to frustrate
God's purpose.'

At last he called to his sister Edith, who was busy at some housework
in the kitchen, across a little passage.

'Come here; I want to ask you a question. Do you think that I am crippled
as a punishment for my misdeeds, idleness, etcetera?'

'Indeed, I do not,' she answered with surprise. 'What put such a thought
into your head?'

'Holt said something like it. He thinks this axe-cut of mine is
discipline--perhaps like the breaking-in which a wild colt requires; and
as you and he are of the same opinion in religious matters, I was
curious to know if you held this dogma also.'

She looked down for a moment. 'Not quite as you have represented it,'
she said. 'But I do think that when the Lord sends peculiar outward
circumstances, He intends them to awake the soul from indifference, and
bring it to see the intense reality of invisible things. Oh, Reginald,'
she added, with a sudden impulse of earnestness, 'I wish you felt that
your soul is the most precious thing on earth.'

He was moved more than he would have cared to confess, by those tearful
eyes and clasped hands; he knew that she went away to pray for him,
while about her daily business. More serious thoughts than he had ever
experienced were his that afternoon: Jay could not avoid remarking--in
private--on his unusual quietude. Next morning he found a Bible beside
his bed, laid there by Edith, he had no doubt; but for a long time she
could not discover whether he ever looked into it.

When Mr. Holt left the country, he gave Robert Wynn charge of the
patient mentally as well as corporeally. He knew that Robert's own piety
would grow more robust for giving a helping hand to another.

Somehow, the Yankee storekeeper was very often hanging about Daisy Burn
that winter. Captain Armytage and he were great friends. That gallant
officer was, in Zack's parlance, 'the Colonel,' which brevet-rank I
suppose was flattering, as it was never seriously disclaimed. He was
king of his company in the tavern bar at the 'Corner;' and few days
passed on which he did not enjoy that bad eminence, while compounding
'brandy-smash,' 'rum-salad,' 'whisky-skin,' or some other of the various
synonyms under which the demon of drink ruins people in Canada.

But where did the captain find cash for this? The fact is, he never paid
in ready money; for that was unknown to his pockets, and very