pleasure, for we hurried by watching the thunderstorm disporting itself in the mountains we had just left. We passed also by many graves-through the midst of them. And seeing so many on what appeared an uninhabited plain among the mountains I thought to myself 'This has been some famous battlefield,' then seeing quite grand graves to our right and presently a large town-large for Yunnan, that is—and which, curiously enough, we were passing by without ever approaching, realised that these poor souls had but fallen on life's battlefield on which we all have to make our little stand, and wished very much it could have been a better one for all those I love. But yet how hard it has been! With how many difficulties all those I know best have been surrounded from the outset, difficulties and dangers of which one knows nothing as one sets out so light-heartedly, so fearlessly! Would it have been possible to have been warned? When considering the wrecks with which my own path has been strewed, I think, surely it must be possible to warn others! But in avoiding Scylla would they not be whirled into Charybdis? Yet it is terrible to think of the young souls faring forth so ignorantly, as we once sailed forth, colours flying, and expecting to come home in triumph.

The last day it was all hurrying to do a whole thirty milesYunnan miles, too-before nightfall. The rain poured and it seemed as if everything were against us. We caught one little sight of the great lake from the heights, but never could see the city till near at hand. There were fine graves and a canal, made long ago, with trees on either hand and pleasant paths beneath them; then a young man lying dead by the roadway, unburied. It was just the same entering Chentu, the grand capital of Szechuan, only then it was a beggar who looked beautiful in death, his limbs. gracefully composed and a deep peace upon the young face, at rest at last from hunger, cold, and suffering. About this young man there was nothing beautiful. He had apparently been trying to reach the capital and fallen there on life's battlefield, a beaten man. Our proud train swept on and fell to quarrelling about the right way. It seemed we were wandering all round the city. The dead man could not enlighten us. Finally we entered the capital of Yunnan, passing under and by several buildings that seemed to speak a great antiquity, but also passing by such squalid muddy ways, the recollection of them deprived me of all wish to go out again when once we had reached the British Consulate's hospitable doors, on June 12, forty-two days out from

Chentu, our starting-point, and very weary with what I think the hardest as well as the longest land journey I have yet taken. One of our servants had had to be sent home from Suifu, not strong enough for the journey, another had fallen ill and had to be left behind half way. The remaining servant now took to his bed, while for ourselves we were very glad to rest.

The French railway from Tonquin is really being built and the station here begun. All honour to French enterprise! May it be crowned with success !

AN EASTER OFFERING

I.

THE view from the dining-room in the vicarage of Cottington was of the type that would be called idyllic. The sunny little lawn; the pretty borders gay with the first polyanthus and daffodils; the green stretch of field; the glimpse of the lych-gate beyond, of the old church tower-grey and square amidst the great elms, yellow with budding leaf. The village which you saw in the distance might not be picturesque on nearer view, nor the country round remarkable for beauty, but the little vicarage and its surroundings made a pretty enough picture to make the passer-by stop a moment to admire. If he were a town parson he would regard it a little wistfully; if a busy layman he would smile, perhaps, at the peaceful, easy lot of the country vicar.

The vicar's wife sat gazing out of the window dreamily, with the dreaminess that proceeds not from content but from listlessness. Her face was young still, and in its refined, gentle, timid way, pretty still, but the consciousness and coquetry of beauty had vanished before the necessities of things, and its expression when, as now,' off duty,' suggested that the burden of life was too heavy.

'Mamma,' cried little Basil, in whom the attractiveness of the garden was destructive of any intelligent interest in arithmetic, when 5 and 5 makes 10, do I put down the "ought" and carry the one, or carry the "ought " and put down the one?'

'You always carry the figure on the left-hand side, dear.' Mamma's voice was as patient and as apathetic as her face. 'When we took the note to Mrs. Beazley,' went on Basil, 'Mr. Porson was there.' Apathy and patience gave place to a flush and a wince. 'D'you know, he said to Mrs. Beazley that there was a lion in this parish,' and Basil proceeded to draw something with a mane and a tail beneath the neglected addition sum. 'I think he thought I should be afraid, for he didn't say it very loud.'

'Basil, you are silly,' corrected his elder sister of eight. 'He said "liar," not "lion," and he didn't speak loud, because he was

talking about some one and was afraid you'd hear. Grown-up people often do that.'

Children,' said Mrs. Philips, with a bright colour in her face. and a tremor in her voice, 'never listen to what Mr. Porson says; he's not a nice man.'

'But, mamma, he carries the plate in church, and goes into the vestry with papa,' cried Dora.

'Yes, dear, but

Go on with your sums.'

But this reflection on the character of the awe-inspiring, welldressed Mr. Porson was too full of interest to be put aside lightly. 'Is he like Judas?' suggested Basil, in tones of joyful anticipation of horrors to come. 'Will he hang himself and be found in

the brook?'

'Don't ask so many questions, dear. I don't think that's very likely. I don't like Mr. Porson very much, that's all.'

'Mamma, Basil has asked at least ten questions since we began sums, and I've not asked one. May I just ask one? It's not silly; it's about Easter.'

'Very well, just one.' Mrs. Philips looked reassured.

'What's an Easter offering?'

Mrs. Philips flushed. 'Oh,' she said, 'it's when the collections on Easter Day are given to the vicar.'

'Oh, how nice that will be! Will papa have it? And shall we be able to go to the seaside?

'I think there would hardly be enough for that.' turned away her eyes, for they were full of tears. don't think we shall have one.'

The mother 'Besides, I

'Oh,' cried Dora eagerly, but Mrs. Beazley said: "So this new Bishop says we're to have an Easter offering." We heard her, didn't we, Basil, when we were waiting in the hall? Won't the Bishop be angry if we don't have one?'

'Yes,' chimed in Basil, and Mr. Porson said he might get ten shillings. I wondered who it was. And ten shillings is a lot of money; it's gold.'

'I don't think he sounded quite sure about it,' said Dora cautiously; he said he might.'

Why, there is Mr. Porson talking to papa at the church gate.' Basil leaped to the window. 'P'r'aps he's telling him about it. Will ten shillings buy me a pony

?'

'Children,' said Mrs. Philips, picking up the needlework she had laid down upon her knee, and bending a very harassed face

over it, 'don't say anything more about this; papa would not like it. And don't talk too much at dinner; papa is often busy on Tuesdays, and it worries him. You needn't do any more lessons; you can play in the garden till dinner-time. Take little Cyril with you, only see that he doesn't climb on the rockery. Not such a noise, Basil; put the books away quietly. And, Dora, ask nurse for the 40 cotton, and if baby goes on crying she can bring him down to me.'

The children were shouting in the garden; the baby lay asleep on Mrs. Philips's knee. She watched her husband coming across the field towards the house. Her face wore no longer an expression of passive melancholy, but of the anxiety which looks helplessly at a definite trouble in the near future.

Her mind recurred to a morning two years before, when she had walked with him along that very field. It was six months after they had come to Cottington. She could hear his angry, eloquent voice as if it had been yesterday: The insolence of the man! Would you believe it? He has actually taken advantage of my absence to put down a square of linoleum in the vestry without asking my permission. Linoleum, and a horrid thing at that! I wouldn't have it in my kitchen! I shall make my mind perfectly clear to Porson on the subject.'

She had not thought the linoleum offensive herself, but she had said though she did not remember that-that it was very, very trying, a most provoking thing, most tiresome of him; but at the same time perhaps it would be a pity if it led to a quarrel; she thought-speaking as one entitled to be hypercritical on the subject that Mr. Porson had not a very good temper, and that he evidently had great influence in the village.

Whereon Mr. Philips had said that he should not buy the favour of the village by truckling to Porson-that the only way to have peace was by showing a firm hand at the outset. Give way in this and he would soon not be allowed to preach in his own pulpit. The linoleum had seemed a small thing at the moment, but the vicar had spoken his mind, and was treated with rudeness. Then there had been the retaliation of the new lamp put in the church without consultation with the churchwardens; the dispute with the schoolmaster, who was Porson's friend; the eloquent sermon preached at Porson; the strike of the choir originating in the vicar's remonstrance with the leading bass, who was in Porson's employ; the coolness of his own warden, who was under pecuniary obliga