d
fingers were gently unclasped, was found to contain the poor lady's last
will and testament, dated a year previously, and duly signed and
witnessed.

[Sidenote: Miss Harley's Will]

In it she left the Ivy House and the whole of her, property to her "dear
niece, Edith Harley, who," said the grateful testatrix, "has borne with
me, a lonely and difficult old woman; has lived my narrow life for my
sake, and, as I have reason to believe, at a great sacrifice of her own
inclinations and without a thought of gain, and who richly deserves the
reward herein bequeathed to her."

* * * * *

There could be no happier home found than that of Edith Hallett and her
husband in the Ivy House at Silchester. Nor did they forget how that
happiness came about.

[Illustration: "AS HE KISSED THEIR FIRSTBORN UNDER THE MISTLETOE."]

"We owe all to your patience," said Dr. Hallett to Edith, as he kissed
their firstborn under the mistletoe at the second Christmastide of their
wedded life.

[Sidenote: A story, founded on fact, of true love, of changed lives, and
of loving service.]

The Tasmanian Sisters

BY

E. B. MOORE

The evening shadows were settling down over Mount Wellington in
Tasmania. The distant city was already bathed in the rosy after-glow.

It was near one of the many lakes which abound amongst the mountains
round Hobart that our short tale begins.

It was in the middle of January--midsummer in Tasmania. It had been a
hot day, but the heat was of a dry sort, and therefore bearable, and of
course to those born and bred in that favoured land, it was in no way
trying.

On the verandah of a pretty wooden house of the chalet description,
stood a lady, shading her eyes from the setting sun, a tall, graceful
woman; but as the sun's rays fell on her hair, it revealed silver
threads, and the sweet, rather worn face, with a few lines on the
forehead, was that of a woman of over forty; and yet she was a woman to
whom life's romance had only just come.

She was gazing round her with a lingering, loving glance; the gaze of
one who looks on a loved scene for the last time. On the morrow Eva
Chadleigh, for so she was called, was leaving her childhood's home,
where she had lived all her life, and going to cross the water to the
old--though to her new--country.

Sprinkled all down the mountain sides were fair white villas, or wooden
chalet-like houses, with their terraces and gardens, an