THE LAST DAY OF DECEMBER.

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CHAPTER V.

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things broodling slept

The quiet sense of something lost.-TENNYSON,

THE setting sun shone fairly upon the last day of December; and as his disk sank lower and lower behind the city, chimneys and dormant windows, and now and then a towering story, glowed in the clear red light with singular brightness. The sadder for that. So very fair, and yet the end!-the end of the day, the end of the year. The last time the sun might shine upon 1812 !— Cold and still the night set in; and the quiet stars in whose watch the new year should begin its reign, looked down with brihgt eyes upon the subsiding city and its kindling lights.

Rosalie stood watching it all,-watching the people as they hurried home, the parlour windows lit up, the bright doorways that appeared and vanished, the happy groups gathering at tea. She could see them across the way, those fair shadows, young and old, moving about in the bright glow. And in the next house-and the next,-up and down as far as she could see;-it was one line of telegraphing. Nor did the few windows where only firelight shone, flickering like the joy of human life, look less cheerful. She remembered the long talks, the sweet counsel given in that dusky light,-the eyes that had looked down upon her like heaven's own stars; but now the room was not darker than her heart.

It was not the first time she had stood there watching for her brother, she had looked till each frequenter of that street was perfectly well known. It was not the first time she had watched in sadness. But she remembered that there had been a time when she was never suffered to watch there long-when a gentle hand would be passed round her waist, and she be drawn away from the window, with

"We may not overrule these things, daughter-we must not be children in whom is no faith. Come and let us talk of the time when God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes."

Pressing her hand upon her heart, Rosalie turned hastily from the window.

The fire gleamed faintly upon Hulda's little face and figure, stretched upon the sofa in the perfect rest of childhood; and above that one bright spot in the room, hung a picture that gave depth to all the shadows. Rosalie ventured but one glance at it, and kneeling down at her mother's chair, she laid her face on the cushion with a bitter weariness of heart that found poor relief in tears. Yet they were a relief; and after awhile her mind lay quiet upon those words, " God is our refuge and strength: a very present help in trouble."

A soft touch on her neck aroused her, and with an almost bewildered start Rosalie looked up; but it was "neither angel nor spirit"-it was only little Hulda. "Are you sick, Alie ?" asked the child.

No, love. Are you awake?"

"Oh yes," said Hulda, laughing and wrapping her arms round Rosalie's neck,-" don't that feel awake? Aren't we going to have tea, Alie ?"

"I shall wait for Thornton, but you shall have yours, dear;" and getting up with the child in her arms, Rosalie carried her into the tea-room, and fell back into her own quiet performance of duties.

Hulda was in quite high spirits for her, and eat her supper on Rosalie's lap with great relish,—a relish partly derived from returning health, and partly from this first coming down-stairs.

"I wonder if Thornton hasn't gone to buy me a present!" she said. "You know it's New-year's eve, Rosalie, and you must hang up my stocking."

"There is no fear of my forgetting that," said her sister. "No, for you never forget anything. But I wonder

what'll be in it! Well, we'll see.'

"Yes, we shall see. So put your arms round my neck, Hulda, and I will carry you up-stairs. It is pleasanter there than here to-night."

NEW-YEAR'S EVE.

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But the musing fit was strong upon her; and later in the evening, when her little charge was asleep, Rosalie's mind could do nothing but wander in a wilderness of recollections. Not a wilderness in one sense,-how fresh, how dear, they were!—and yet too much like a sweet land breeze from the coast that one has left.

Rosalie took out the stocking as Hulda had desired, and put together on a chair at the head of the bed all the various trifles that were to fill it; but when she had placed herself on a low seat before them, the stocking hung unregarded from her hand, and her thoughts flew away. There seemed a long vista opened before her; and furthest of all its objects-yet clear, distinct, even more so than those near by-she saw herself as a little child; before her eye had learned to know the evil that is in the world, or her heart had grown up to feel it. What a stream of sunshine lay there!"

"The sunshine and the merriment,

The unsought, evergreen content,
Of that never cold time,

The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went
Through and through the old time!"

And even in later times, where the shadow of life had begun to fall, the picture seemed hardly less fair. For about both, the child and the half-grown girl, had been wrapped the same atmosphere of love and guidance,through which sweet medium all the breaths of sorrow and pain came softened. Even when they came from bitter causes her father's death, her brother's gradual estrangement from home-his voluntary withdrawing from the hand in hand intercourse in which they had grown up, even then there was sunshine at her mother's side-sunshine for her, she had never failed to find it. But it reached not to the dark foreground; where scorched flowers and blackened stumps showed that Time had claimed the land, and had cleared it.

But little more than one year ago, Rosalie was nerving herself for the bitter future. It had come, and she had met it, had lived through those first few months of grief not to be told nor thought of. But though her

heart was quieter now, there were times which seemed to surpass all she had ever known for intensity of sorrow,— when her very life seemed to die within her, and desire to live and power to do could not be found,-when her mind dwelt with intense longing on the words, "I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me." Yet even then God had not forgotten his child, and in the breaking light her mind rested submissively upon this other text"All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come." And as the last storm-clouds roll away and are gilt with the western light, so upon all her sorrow fell this assurance-" Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord: they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

"I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of the covenant between me and the earth!"

Rosalie had dwelt long upon the words, till all thought for herself was lost in joy for her mother's safety and assured blessedness, far from the weariness that pressed upon her own heart; and though the remembrance brought back one or two tears, they were quickly wiped away, and her whole soul was poured out in the prayer that she might one day "go to her,"—and not only she, but the two dear ones yet left to her on earth. The desire could not be spoken-it was the very uplifting of the heart, for them, for herself: and that she might faithfully perform the work that was put into her hands.

With a look where sorrow and submission, and earnest purpose and endeavour, were like the pencilling upon a flower of most delicate growth and substance, Rosalie raised her head, and saw Thornton before her: leaning against the bedpost with his arms folded, and eyeing her gravely and considerately.

"What are you thinking of me for, Rosalie ?" he said. "Cannot you do enough of that work in the daytime, that you must spend half the night upon it ??' "Are you sure that I have ?"

"If I had not been sure of it I should have claimed your attention when I first came in."

"And it would have been gladly given."

"Yes, I dare say," said Thornton, "but one may as well

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

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What

take the benefit of all that good angels are amind to do I am almost sorry I did not though. have you got there? stockings to darn ?"

for one.

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Only Hulda's stocking to fill with presents-you know it is New-year's eve.'

"Give me credit for remembering something once in the course of my life. I did recollect that there was a stocking to fill, and have brought home my quota."

"I am so very glad!" said his sister, with a look of great pleasure. "Hulda would have been disappointed if you had forgotten her."

"She don't owe me many thanks," said Thornton, as he watched the fingers that were busy disposing of the presents and the face that bent over them. I believe she might have escaped my memory if her sweet guardian could have gone with her. But Hulda's presents were to pass through your hands-No-don't kiss me,—I tell you I don't deserve it. When you looked up a little

while ago, I felt as if you were up in the sky, and I-I don't quite know where so I'll wait till we both get back to terra-firma again."

"Do you call me her guardian?" said Rosalie with one look at him.

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Yes, and mine too. Why didn't you have tea tonight? Well-you look,-Want to know how I found it out?—because the table was untouched. Why didn't you ?"

"Oh-I thought I would wait for you," said she brightly.

"But why did you, after all? Don't you know I'm not worth the trouble ?"

"O Thornton!" she said.

"What ?"

"I was not going to say anything."

"Your saying nothing usually tells all one wants to know, and a little more. Come, finish your work, I shall play guardian to-night, and make you go down and eat as many oysters as an angel can reasonably be supposed to want. So make haste, for it is time such particular little bodies as you were in bed."