precision. "There was naught of meth- | example of what you would have me attain unto ?" od in it. He did but utter forth his ideas as they came to him. His reasoning was like unto Peggy's wools, naught but a maze and a tangle." "And yet his outward man was comely," pleaded Dolly, who had seated herself on her father's knee, and was braiding together the curls of his periwig. "He reminded me of Sir Charles Grandison in the romance. "Then, as Shakspeare puts it," suggested the Governor, "the new curate, 'should I anatomize him to thee as he is...... Alas, he is too young: yet he looks successfully.'" It was surprising how soon the Rev. Mr. Honeyman gained the good opinion of the Governor's family. While the young ladies unanimously depreciated his talent, they found him possessed of certain unselfish qualities agreeable in a brother, or, as Patty said, in a brotherin-law. Patty had hit upon exactly the right term. None of the girls was sufficiently interested in the young curate to regard him as her own possible future, but each had confessed to herself that it would be very pleasant to have him connected with the family as the husband of her favorite sister. Patty alone stood aloof, a disinterested spectator, serenely munching pickled limes and rock-candy. PART II.-FINISHING THE MINISTER. The girls had also decided to supply what was lacking in the young minister's education by giving him private lessons each in her own particular specialty. Peggy began by beseeching him to make his sermons more "artistical." "Will you please enlighten me as to your meaning?" replied Mr. Honeyman. "I am minded soon to preach a series of discourses on St. Paul. Can I make them artistical?" "Right easily. St. Paul journeyed to all those treasuries of art-Ephesus, Corinth, Athens. You can thus most appropriately expound to us the architecture and mythology of those cities. I will lend you for your furtherance in this matter a new German work by Winckelmann." "But, Mistress Peggy, I am not skilled in German, or in any other outlandish tongue, save only Latin and a smattering of Greek. Could you not advance me still further in this undertaking by yourself writing out an artistical sermon as an "That will I do most heartily, upon one condition-that you will deliver to your hearers these sermons in such guise as I shall indite them." Mr. Honeyman, with some little demur, assented to this condition, and shortly after this he heard one day, as he passed the village church, some one singing so clearly sweet that he was forced to enter. It was Pen, accompanying herself upon the organ, while a negro servitor worked the bellows. "You have a marvellous fine voice, Mistress Pen," he said. "If I could read with the same expression that you sing, it would give a new power to my ministry." ""Tis but an acquired accomplishment. You should take lessons." "Will you be my teacher, Mistress Pen?" "Gladly. Give me the prayer-book, and let me, standing there by the altar rail, show you how I think the Creed ought to be read." There was something awe-inspiring in her very presence before she began her reading. A clinging black velvet dress draped her figure in simple folds, while a white lace scarf fell in two long white lines, with exactly the effect of a stole, down the front of her gown. Her face was pale and deeply serious, her measured walk added to the impression of dignity, and when she did speak, the words assumed an importance, a grandeur, which he had never before attached to them. There were no flourishes of elocution, no evident attempts at impressiveness. Her manner was very simple, but she gave him the impression of one supremely in earnest. "You mind me of one of the early confessors," he said. "I can imagine that the young Bishop Timothy resembled you, or Chrysostom of the golden mouth. Where did you receive this inspiration ?" "From Shakspeare. I feel a drawing to his stately parts. Portia as a Doctor of Laws, and Cardinal Wolsey." The Rev. Mr. Honeyman experienced a pang. She had seemed so rapt, so absorbed, as she uttered the Credo, that he had not realized that this was only acting. Nevertheless, he allowed her to continue the lesson toward its close; a mocking laugh rang though the building. Looking upward through the open sash of one of the windows, they saw the hoydenish | mirth-provoking and frivolous tales; will Patty peering at them from the branches you not, sir, have some serious converse of a cherry-tree just outside. with her?" Pen fascinated the Rev. Mr. Honeyman strangely. He could not understand her, but he yielded to the glamour, and it was in hopes of seeing her that he accepted the Governor's invitation to dine upon the next Sabbath. But Pen had gone to St. John with Dolly for a short visit, and he found himself after dinner remanded to a tête-à-tête with Debby. Patty sat in the window watching him with eyes that apparently saw not, while she munched filberts and raisins, with which she had filled her pockets at dessert. He turned his back upon her with a shudder of unconquerable disgust. Debby sat smoothing her "laylack" satin gown. "I have a book which I would like to lend you, Mr. Honeyman, which I will bring you presently," she said, rising and leaving the room. Mr. Honeyman mastered his aversion, and turning to Patty, began, "In regard to the instruction in elocution-" "Oh! I know what you have it on your mind to say," interrupted the provoking child. "I have no malevolence. I would not divulge a secret concerning her, for she has promised to fetch me a box of Smyrna fig paste from St. John. I never gossip about my sisters. Peggy has a secret now. She locks herself in the room, and stops the key-hole with cotton. I shall find out what she is doing some time, though I never pry. So farewell; trust your secret to me. But if you should chance on any liquorice or chewing-gum-" She was gone, and Mistress Debby stood in her place, her arms filled with books. She handed him one bound in shabby leather, saying: "This is a most precious volume, the Instructiones Pastorum. Here is another on Antinomianism, and one on Original Sin. If you would oblige me by taking them home with you and reading the passages I have marked, they would, methinks, be a mighty help to you in the setting forth of your discourses." It was impossible for him to take of fense, she was so evidently well-meaning. "And now, Mr. Honeyman," she continued, "one request more. Dolly is a most lovable child, but carried away by To this Mr. Honeyman agreed, and, with inward weariness, took his departure. As he left the door, Peggy appeared, and slipped into his hand a roll of MSS.-the lectures on St. Paul. He read them in his study, with increasing surprise and delight. "She is the gifted one of the family," he thought. "What would not I give to write like that?" He gave the lectures in regular course on the evenings of the following Sabbaths, receiving many compliments in regard to them from his congregation. Even the Bishop was compared with him, much to that prelate's disadvantage. One afternoon Mr. Honeyman met an old Indian woman selling spruce gum and maple sugar, wrapped in birch bark decorated with porcupine quill work. He bought several packages, and carried the sordid bribes to the Government House. He found Patty in the park describing a circle, with a plum-tree for a centre. Gum!" she exclaimed, with delight. "How heavenly! But keep the maple sugar; it is without doubt half sand. And I have lately had a surfeit of sweets, for Peggy has given me a jar of honey. I did but piece together the scraps in her wastepaper basket." And striking a heroic attitude, the plague rehearsed: "Pallas Athena's diamond eyes flashed angrily through the gloom of the Parthenon, lighting the ivory pallor of her face, as she heard from the neighboring hill of Mars the voice of a stranger proclaiming a faith which—'" 64 Patty! Patty! not so loud. Wherefore did Peggy give you the honey, if not to insure your silence ?" "She gave it to me for the bits of paper; there was naught in the compact touching keeping silence. Nevertheless, if you so desire, you have but to suggest. Whither so fast, Mr. Honeyman? And pray, when you come again, fetch some lemons or other fruit of an agreeable acidity. Pickled walnuts or olives would likewise be ticklish dainties to my presently pampered appetite." If anything could have deepened the consciousness of meanness in which Mr. Honeyman had grovelled since giving the lectures on St. Paul, it was the complicity in guilt which seemed to be established between himself and Patty. Mistress Debby attacked him, at their | to confess that he understood Mistress Pen next meeting, with, "Methinks, Mr. Hon- less and less, and that he loved her more eyman, that the lectures on St. Paul should and more. In this state of mind he wrote be more doctrinal. This is a very delicate the letter which many years after I found matter. Of course you would not borrow framed above the little mantel, and copied from another." for this story. Having written it, he inclosed it in a suitable wrapper, directed in a bold hand to Mistress Penelope Tarleton, and sealing it with a blotch of wax as red as his own heart's blood, committed it to the public post. Mr. Honeyman shivered. Was it possible that she suspected that Peggy had written the lectures? "I desire not to offend you," continued Mistress Debby, "but I have here written out an exegesis of what I consider the doctrinal views of St. Paul, with which I would be honored if you would serve yourself." Mr. Honeyman's astonishment was at first too profound to admit of words. Here was the strictly scrupulous, almost pharisaical, Miss Deborah committing the very act for which he had so dreaded her condemnation. PART III.-MR. HONEYMAN'S LOVE LETTER. The next morning from his study window he saw Mistress Pen pace slowly through the grave-yard to the little church. He hurried to meet her, entering by the door at the rear. She held his letter in her hand. "It is all a mistake, my friend, a grievous mistake," she said, sadly. "You fancy that you love me, but it is not so. It is my sister Peggy who should have received this letter. Perchance my words seem but cruel to you now; but keep the letter until the smart has abated; then send it to her, if indeed you are worthy of her affection. As for me, remember me kindly when I am gone.' He had stood silent, crushed by her words, until this last one "gone" roused him to a keener anguish. "You are going!" he cried. "Why is this?" "To England. I can not live here. I can not endure this solitude. I long for the gayety and populosity of a great city. I should become mad if I tarried here lon And so the next Sabbath Mr. Honeyman announced that, having terminated his consideration of the æsthetic education of St. Paul as afforded by his travels amongst all that was artistical in ancient Greece, he would proceed to a disquisition of the metaphysical character of his mind and the dogma of the Christian faith as formulated by him for the early Church. The Bishop happened to be at Fredericton at the preaching of this discourse. It met with his entire approval, and he complimented Mr. Honeyman upon it at the Governor's dinner table, much to the curate's discomfort, and to that of Mistress Debby, who gave the Bishop chocolate instead of the black coffee which she knew he preferred. The two sisters had return-ger. ed from St. John, and after the dinner Debby managed to send him into the garden with Dolly. He knew that he was expected to hold serious converse with her, but instead he allowed Dolly to prattle about Pen. "I know not what affects her," she said. "She is most distraught and strange: one might fancy her in love. She had an exceeding genteel gown made in St. John-white satin, garnished with ermine and she caused her necklace of emeralds that was mamma's to be remounted as a crown. I woke with a start to see her last night, arrayed thus fantastically, in my room, talking to herself in the long slim mirror, with the candles lit in all the sconces." Mr. Honeyman was much disturbed by what he had heard. He pondered over it in the still hours of night, but was obliged I pine for London fog and the wax lights of a well-filled drawing-room." "You break my heart." "Nay, friend, not so broken but my sister Peggy shall bind; and so farewell." It was long before Mr. Honeyman could trust himself to visit Government House. He might perhaps have never gone again had not a package come to him at Christmas-time-a cloth for the altar, embroidered with a passion vine by Mistress Peggy. After that it would have been ungracious to stay away, and he visited the house frequently, taking a melancholy pleasure in the pain it caused him. One afternoon, toward spring, he saw the church door ajar, and entering, heard a sound of sobbing. It was Dolly at the organ, and he was at her side in a moment, asking, "What grieveth so my little friend?" Dolly was at first reluctant to tell, but | trimmed was somewhat frayed, she shook forth the pillow, folded the case, and deposited it in her work-basket, without perceiving the letter. That evening she found it there, and the little flutter of excitement experienced by a maiden of thirty-two in reading her first love-letter caused her to forget when she had placed the pillow-case in the basket. Without doubt Mr. Honeyman had himself left it there for her! at length she confided to him the fact that they had just received a letter from her aunt in London, with the heavy news that Pen, forgetful of her high station, had become a "play-actress," so far demeaning herself as to act the part of Shakspeare's queens. She had shown some consideration for the feelings of her relatives in that she had not allowed her real name to become known. How strange it was that this revelation should cure him of his infatuation! Here was the key to the girl's strange inconsistencies of character: she was an actress! The mere mention of the word had such an unholy sound that his feeling of sadness gave place to one of thankfulness for so great an escape. He comforted little Dolly as tenderly as he could, and the young curate's gifts in the way of consolation were not small. That night he took from his desk the letter that six months before he had sent to Pen, and re-read it. Would Pen have doubted his worthiness of Peggy's affection, and have spoken as she did, had she not been sure that he already possessed it? If Mistress Peggy loved him, she should not suffer from unrequited affection as he had done; and then what a convenience to have a wife who could write such remarkable sermons! He inclosed the letter in another envelope, directed to Mistress Peggy Tarleton. The letter was handed to Peggy as she sat in the south parlor. Though no one else was in the room, after reading the first line, Peggy slipped the letter in a book which lay upon the table, and read on, holding the book so that any one entering would not see that she was reading a letter. Some one did enter, and called her away, just as she finished it. She left the letter in the book, intending to return for it soon; but Dolly came in as she left; the book happened to be her organ exercises, and taking it up, the letter fell out. She read it innocently, thinking that by "Mistress Tarleton" Mr. Honeyman meant herself; and how charming in him to slip it into her book, instead of sending it to her by the post! Dolly hastened to her room, and pinning the letter carefully to her pillow-case, reversed the pillow, that she might have it beneath her cheek as she slept. Mr. Honeyman's dismay in being rejected by one Mistress Tarleton was as nothing to that experienced by being simultaneously accepted by three of them. He was not a brave man. The little courage that he had failed him altogether, and he fled from Fredericton ignominiously and without explanation, leaving only a letter to the Bishop tendering his resignation, and saying that family matters of great importance demanded his presence in England. He arrived in London in time to attend the marriage of Mistress Pen to a certain noble lord whose acquaintance she had made behind the scenes. She was married under her true name. None of his relatives and very few of her own ever knew of the theatrical episode in her life. Afterward a letter reached him from New Brunswick; it contained only his unfortunate love-letter returned him with the compliments of Mistresses Debby, Peggy, and Dolly Tarleton. How the explosion had come he never knew. Years passed, and he read one day that Governor Tarleton and his youngest daughter were residing at Brompton Row. The name brought up very vividly the galaxy of beautiful girls he had known at Fredericton. He looked again at the crumpled love-letter which had been read by each of them in turn, and which even now he had not the courage to destroy, and thrust it absently into his pocket. Then taking his hat and stick, he set out, drawn by an unaccountable impulse to call on his old friend the Governor, wondering if he could explain the strange dilemma in which he had found himself. He reflected that he might see Patty, that horrible child with the omnivorous appetite, and he purchased some candies at the confectioner's, hoping thus to appease her. The Governor was out, and Patty met him. Mistress Debby passed through the room He hardly recognized her, grown a wonot long after, and observing that the fag-man, with a hint of Pen's beauty, Debby's goting with which the pillow-case was purity, and Peggy's intelligence, while a smile that reminded him of Dolly played | of years of absence will not falter during those of around her rather large but pleasant wedded life, I accept your proposal, assuring you mouth. They talked of the sisters. that I find the motto papers of my candies, especialPegly the original one, vastly to my taste. gy resided in Florence, a successful artist; Dolly had married Josiah Saltonstall, an old lover, and was living in the States, much to the Governor's disgust; Debby was still at Fredericton. "Unmarried?" "Oh dear no! she accepted the Bishop the summer after you left. His sermons are far more doctrinal than formerly." And so no hearts were broken, not even his own. Mr. Honeyman fumbled in an embarrassed way with the package of bonbons, and broke the paper in endeavoring to extract it from his pocket, pouring the contents at length upon the table in a disorderly heap. "Some motto candies," he explained. "I trust you will find them to your taste." The next day the following letter was read by the petrified Mr. Honeyman: "DEAR SIR,—It is with gratitude equalling my surprise that I comprehend that the esteem which I have long entertained for you is mutual; and that my personal and mental qualities made an impression upon your sensibilities so long ago as during our acquaintance in New Brunswick. Feeling confi dent that an affection which has sustained the test "Yours, with the assurance of an increasing rePATTY TARLETON." gard, "P.S.-Could you kindly inform us whether we can find anywhere in London American sweetmeats, and especially pickles ?" Mr. Honeyman entered no protest to the happiness thus thrust upon him. He lived ever afterward in the little town where first I heard of him, his wife the most proficient housekeeper, and his table the goodliest of any in the country round. Indeed, so satisfied with his lot was he that on one occasion he assured his wife, with literal truth but implied falsehood, that the letter to which she had replied was the only love-letter he had ever written. "I believe you, my dear," Mrs. Honeyman had replied with a kiss; then turning the page that he might see the indorsement, "Returned with the compliments of Mistress Debby," etc., she added, "and I will never question the meaning of these mysterious lines; only I must have the best fruit-room, and the most fully furnished withal, of any woman in England." And Mrs. Honeyman had it. WHITE WINGS: A YACHTING ROMANCE. CHAPTER XXIX. THE LAIRD'S PLANS. is a certain conscious elation on starting on a voyage, especially on a beautiful morning; but there also may be some HO is first up to thrust aside those vague and dim apprehension. The be W delusive yellow blinds that suggest ginning is here; but the end? Angus walked about with Captain John, and was shown all that had been done to the yacht, and listened in silence. But the rest were noisy enough, calling for this and that, handing things down the companion, and generally getting in the way of the steward. sunshine whether the morning be fair or foul? But the first glance through the panes removes all apprehensions: the ruffled bay, the fluttering ensign, the shining white wings of the White Dove, are all a summons to the slumbering house. And the mistress of Castle Osprey, as soon as she is dressed, is up stairs and down stairs "Well, Fred," says our facetious Laird, like a furred flash of lightning. Her cry "have ye hung up all the game that Mr. and potent command-a reminiscence of Smith brought back from the moor yescertain transatlantic experiences-is, "All terday ?" and Master Fred was so much aboard for Dan'l's!" She will not have tickled by this profound joke that he had so fine a sailing morning wasted, especial- to go down into the forecastle to hide his ly when Dr. Angus Sutherland is with us. grinning delight, and went covertly smilStrangely enough, when at last we standing about his work for the next quarter of on the white decks, and look round on the shining brass and varnished wood, and help to stow away the various articles needed for our cruise, he is the least excited of all those chattering people. There an hour. Then the hubbub gradually ceased; for the boats had been swung to the davits, and the White Dove was gently slipping away from her moorings. A fine north |