into his mind. It was to write orders, which each man presenting at our mill should receive a certain amount of flour. "Do you think your father would agree?"

"I think he would."

"Yes," John added, pondering. "I am sure he would. And besides, if he does not give some, he may lose all. But he would not do it for fear of that. No, he is a just man I am not afraid. Give me some paper, Jael."

He sat down as composedly as if he had been alone in the counting house, and wrote. I looked over his shoulder, admiring his clear, firm handwriting, the precision, concentrativeness, and quickness with which he first seemed to arrange and then execute his ideas. He possessed to the full that "business" faculty so frequently despised, but which, out of very ordinary material, often makes a clever man, and without which the cleverest man alive can never be altogether a great

man.

When about to sign the orders, John suddenly stopped. "No; I had better not."

"Why so?"

"I have no right; your father might think it presumption." "Presumption? after to-night!"

"Oh, that's nothing! Take the pen. It is your part to sign them, Phineas.”

I obeyed.

"Isn't that better than hanging?" said John to the men, when he had distributed the little bits of paper-precious as pound notes-and made them all fully understand the same. "Why, there isn't another gentleman in Norton Bury who, if you had come to burn his house down, would not have had the constables or the soldiers, have shot down one half of you like mad dogs, and sent the other half to the county jail. Now, for all your misdoings, we let you go quietly home, well fed, and with food for children too. Why, think you?"

"I doan't know," said Jacob Baines, humbly.

"I'll tell you. Because Abel Fletcher is a Quaker and a Christian.”

"Hurrah for Abel Fletcher! hurrah for the Quakers!" shouted they, waking up the echoes down Norton Bury streets, which, of a surety, had never echoed that shout before. And so the riot was over.

John Halifax closed the hall door and came in, unsteadily,

chair for him, worthy
—
He sat down, shivering,

all but staggering. Jael placed a soul! she was wiping her old eyes. speechless. I put my hand on his shoulder; he took it, and pressed it hard.

"Oh! Phineas, lad, I'm glad; glad it's safe over."

"Yes, thank God !"

"Ay, indeed; thank God!"

He covered his eyes for a minute or two, and then rose up pale, but quite himself again.

"Now let us go and fetch your father home."

We found him on John's bed, still asleep. But as we entered he woke. The daylight shone on his face; it looked ten years older since yesterday. He stared, bewildered and angry, at John Halifax.

66

Eh, young man -oh! I remember. Where is my sonwhere's my Phineas?"

I fell on his neck as if I had been a child. And almost as if it had been a child's feeble head, mechanically he smoothed and patted mine.

"Thee art not hurt? Nor any one?"

"No," John answered; "nor is either the house or the tanyard injured."

He looked amazed. "How has that been?"

"Phineas will tell you. Or, stay, better wait till you are at home.

But my father insisted on hearing. I told the whole, without any comments on John's behavior; he would not have liked it, and, besides, the facts spoke for themselves. I told the simple, plain story-nothing more.

Abel Fletcher listened at first in silence. As I proceeded, he felt about for his hat, put it on, and drew its broad brim close down over his eyes. Not even when I told him of the flour we had promised in his name, the giving of which would, as we had calculated, cost him considerable loss, did he utter a word or move a muscle.

John at length asked him if he were satisfied. "Quite satisfied."

But having said this, he sat so long, his hands locked together on his knees, and his hat drawn down, hiding all the face except the rigid mouth and chin sat so long, so motionless, that we became uneasy.

John spoke to him gently, almost as a son would have spoken.

"Are you very lame still? Could I help you to walk home?"

My father looked up, and slowly held out his hand.

"Thee hast been a good lad, and a kind lad to us. I thank thee."

LADY MOON, Lady Moon, where are you roving?

"Over the sea."

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?
"All that love me."

Are you not tired with rolling, and never
Resting to sleep?

Why look so pale and so sad, as forever
Wishing to weep?

"Ask me not this, little child, if you love me;
You are too bold;

I must obey my dear Father above me,
And do as I'm told."

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?

"Over the sea."

Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?
"All that love me."

SAVED FROM THE QUICKSANDS.1

BY GRANT ALLEN.

(From "Kalee's Shrine.") '

[CHARLES GRANT BLAIRFINDIE ALLEN, better known as Grant Allen: A Canadian author; born in Kingston, Canada, February 24, 1848. He was graduated from Merton College, Oxford, in 1871; obtained a professorship in Quebec College, Jamaica, in 1873, and subsequently resided in London, where he became known as the "St. Paul of Darwinism" from his expositions of Darwin's theories. He is a voluminous and versatile writer, his subjects including science, poetry, and fiction. He is perhaps best known as a writer of novels. Among his scientific works are: "Color Sense," "Flowers and their Pedigree" (1884), "Physiological Esthetics," "A Theory of Dynamics," and "The Story of the Plants" (1895). Among his novels may be noted: "Philistia" (1884), "In All Shades" (1887), "This Mortal Coil" (1888), "The Tents of Shem" (1889), "The Great Taboo" (1891), "Blood Royal" (1892), "The Scallywag" (1893), “The British Barbarians" (1895), “The Desire of the Eyes” (1897), and "An African Millionaire" (1897).]

MEANWHILE, where were Harry Bickersteth and Alan

Tennant?

Up the river in the "Indian Princess," they had had an easy voyage, lazily paddling for the first hour or two. The mud banks of the Thore, ugly as they seem at first sight, have nevertheless a singular and unwonted interest of their own; the interest derived from pure weirdness, and melancholy, and loneliness a strange contrast to the bustling life and gayety of the bright little watering place whose church tower rises conspicuously visible over the dikes beyond them. On the vast soft ooze flats, solemn gulls stalk soberly, upheld by their broad, web feet from sinking, while among the numberless torrents, caused by the ebbing tide, tall, long-legged herons stand with arched necks and eager eyes, keenly intent on the quick pursuit of the elusive elves in the stream below. The grass wrack waves dark in the current underneath, and the pretty sea lavender purples the muddy islets in the side channels with its scentless bloom. Altogether a strange, quaint, desolate spot, that Thore estuary, bounded on either side by marshy saltings, where long-horned black cattle wander unrestrained, and high embankments keep out the encroaching sea at floods and spring tides. Not a house or a cottage lies anywhere in sight. Miles upon miles of slush in the inundated channels By permission of Mr. J. W. Arrowsmith. (8vo., cloth, price 18. 6d.)