Scott, too, and Felicia Hemans," she continued, never noticing how his eyes were looking down into her upturned face, admiringly. No straight bonnet disfigured the fair hair now, which, in spite of Quaker training, would take its own way in little waves and curls like the tendrils of a vine, especially about the smooth brow, and round the small, delicate ear. The soft, round cheek was coloured with crimson, and the dark fringe of lashes and pencilled eyebrows would have made the child beautiful, even had the other features been irregular. But Nature had done its utmost for little Winifred Pennington. Her nose was straight and finely chiselled, while the small mobile mouth expressed every varying emotion. Winifred was beautiful, even though she had no ornament; and when Time had softened the lines of her now angular figure, and rounded them into grace, she would be like that "phantom of delight" of whom the poet sang. Winifred Pennington, as Chrystie Mansfield saw her then, leaning against the gnarled trunk of the old apple-tree, came back to him in after years with a keen sense of a lost vision, when he had learned, too, that the soul, shining out from those clear eyes, separated her from all women in her truth and steadfastness, in her purity and simplicity, for ever!

CHAPTER II.

ON THE HILL-TOPS.

"On the left, the sheep are cropping
The slant grass and daisies pale ;
And five apple-trees stand, dropping
Separate shadows toward the vale-

Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their 'all hail.""
E. B. BROWNING.

"WE must come in for reading now!" Winifred said. "Sarah Day is calling me."

"Reading!" Chrystie exclaimed. "What? Wordsworth or Felicia Hemans ?"

"No," said Winifred, gravely," the Scriptures. Now рара is away, and mother, too, Richard reads the chapter. Art thou coming ?"

Chrystie Mansfield followed Winifred into the diningroom, where preparations for an abundant meal were visible.

Richard advanced to greet his guest in the repressed manner so peculiar to his people, and Sarah Day hoped Christopher Mansfield had rested comfortably. The young man saw he was expected to take a chair by his host, and then the servants came in, one by one, and seated themselves, demurely, in a goodly row.

After a silence that seemed to the stranger interminable, Richard gave out the chapter, and read, in a low,

subdued voice, with a sort of chanting intonation, a few verses; then closed the Book and, after another silence, moved back his chair, as a signal that the reading was

over.

Chrystie Mansfield gave a sigh of intense relief, and getting up, quietly walked over to the fire-place to examine a very fine print of "The Battle of the Boyne' which hung there.

"

"So you keep this defeat of one of your favourite Stuarts in constant sight," he said to Winifred.

But Richard interposed. "That engraving and several others were left to my father by a distant relation. It is a horrid scene, and if it were not such a fine line engraving, my father would not keep it in that place."

"Oh! I understand I know Qua-Friends do not approve of the tug of war!"

Richard smiled; and then they turned to the table, when another silence, instead of what we call "grace," followed. The composure of the three Friends at the table was unruffled, even though their guest, unmindful of their customs, became suddenly conscious that he was making himself remarkable by sipping his coffee and tapping the shell of his egg.

Winifred was the first to rise from the table, gravely going through her silent grace by herself before she did so, and taking a pile of books from a what-not in the corner, by the side-board.

"Can't you have a holiday to-day ?" Chrystie Mansfield said. "I thought you were to be my guide through

Birkdal ?" "Oh! I don't know," Sarah Day said, nervously. "Anna Pennington is very particular about Winifred's lessons. What dost thou say, Richard ?" for the child's eyes were turned beseechingly to her brother.

"Oh ! she had better go to her lessons this morning with Katherine Masters. She is in the study by this time, but if Chrystie Mansfield is so kind as to wish for Winifred's company, she may be excused her afternoon lessons. Dost not thou think so, Sarah Day?"

"It is just as thou thinkest best, Richard Pennington," was the reply, as the good alert little housekeeper departed to her duties.

"I am afraid I must go into the Bank now-we don't open till ten, but Henry Stackhouse expects to find all the letters ready on the Bank parlour table, and in my father's absence this devolves on me."

"Ah! I shall do very well, thanks," was the young man's reply. "I am going to explore the town and the church, and-"

"We dine at Kirk Lodge this evening-thou wilt not forget that engagement; and we shall have our own midday meal at one o'clock."

4

"All right," was the answer, "and afterwards I hope I may have that nice little sister of yours to show me something of the neighbourhood."

Certainly," said Richard, “and I hope I may be at leisure also, but Third day is one of the heaviest in the Bank."

Chrystie Mansfield did not respond very heartily to Richard's hope, and inwardly thought a mile race, or a game of football would do the young muff no end of good.

Young and strong, fresh from the influence and teaching of one of the greatest masters who ever lived, full of energy and zeal in everything he undertook, this quiet placid life of the Quakers opened to him so unexpectedly seemed unendurable to contemplate, as the chronic condition, that it evidently was to Richard Pennington, and doubtless to many others who formed the Society

in Birkdal. But placid streams can be suddenly disturbed, and the wind passing over the still surface of the lonely mere, may raise on its placid breast surging and tumultuous waves, such as those who knew it only in its hours of tranquillity would never dream.

So with the quietest and most uneventful phase of human life. A sudden change comes, and emotions unsuspected and feelings unthought of, arise to startle and arrest us with the sharp sense of contrast with what has gone before.

Winifred Pennington had with difficulty got through her lessons that morning. The idle, volatile child of the Friends' doctor, little Priscilla Evans, who shared the daily governess with her, registered a great many more marks for her French and Italian that morning. This child was Winifred's companion, but never her friend. She looked upon her as something to be gone through every day; but all her idle chatter-more idle and more foolish than Anna Pennington ever thought-made no impression upon her, and woke no response. To-day, when Miss Masters was gone, Priscilla lingered, hoping that she might be invited to stay to dinner as was sometimes the case.

66

Papa was at Kirk Lodge this morning early. Elsie Stackhouse is not well; she had an accident last evening, and was nearly killed."

"Nearly killed, Priscilla ! what an exaggeration. She was thrown out of the pony-carriage, but she was not hurt." "Wasn't she? I know a great deal more about it than thee do," said Priscilla; "when papa attends Kirk Lodge

Winifred turned her large eyes upon the little chattering gossip, with a look that Priscilla always called, "Winifred's solemn look," and said,—