battle with this man's attack of paralysis and that woman's symptoms of
typhoid, even though his ears were ringing with clamorous questions
which no one else could hear or answer. How was he to pay up the
liabilities of his bank shares from his dwindling practice? What about
inexperienced young girls driven out to make their own way in the world,
and the gentlewoman (in every sense of the word) whom he had loved and
cherished for four-and-twenty years, soon to be left a desolate, all but
unprovided for widow? But better a thousand times to be dragged in
different directions than to be sitting like Russell, locked in his
room, his little children and their young mother shut out, holding
between his hands the erect head of a soldier who had come out of many a
hard battle, but none so hard as this ambuscade which had been sprung
upon him after he had been invalided a dozen years before, and returned
home to spend his declining years in peace. Better than to have to write
sermons and read prayers, like the Rector, and pause between every
sentence to take himself sternly to task. Was it common forethought and
prudence, with the necessity of providing for the wants of a household,
which even the apostle Paul had commended, or was it worldly-mindedness
and greed which had brought him, a beneficed clergyman, a priest in holy
orders, the vowed servant of a King whose kingdom was not of this world,
to this lamentable pass? Yes; he would be dishonoured in the eyes of
men, a debtor who could not pay his debts, and even with the support of
his bishop would be scarcely able to weather the storm, while he must
make up his mind, as he was an honest man, that he and his should endure
the pinch of poverty for the rest of his days.

Annie and Dora had been out on a shopping expedition, and were coming in
talking and laughing as usual, when they were startled by the apparition
of their mother standing in the doorway of her room, and motioning to
them to come in directly and speak with her. The poor lady really looked
like a ghost, as she stood there with her fine colour gone, beckoning to
her daughters with her hand, as if the power of speech had suddenly
forsaken her.

"What is it, mother?" cried the alarmed girls in one breath, hurrying
towards her. "Has anything happened? Is anybody ill?"

"Hush! hush, my dears," said Mrs. Millar in a low tone, carefully
shutting the door of her room behind the girls, as if she were ready to
guard her