course, turned out failures, and some were fair enough: by Christmas, the walls of the village school-room were appropriately embellished with them, and Edith finished off two, quite elaborately, for the Vicar. She sent them to him a few days before Christmas, and on ChristmasEve a Bible and Prayer Book, the companion to those he had given Lancy, arrived for her acceptance on Christmas morning. An almost daily growth in earnest goodness might be discerned in Edith, though it was really hard fighting. Such habits of indulged self-serving,-long rooted prejudices-licensed speeches, that savoured not of charity, were steadily conquered. Her's was indeed a pure, true character. Her sisters looked up to her with a good deal of awe, for from her they won no countenance for aught wrong; and moreover, she was blessed above most of them with a diversity of gifts: she was just the girl for the lot that fell to her, was the remark of indifferent people, who jumped at conclusions in a morning visit, or a second-hand report. Edith had fallen in the way of many additional advantages of late. Mr. Dudley's. interest once aroused, and her heart once probed, paved the way to many a happy bettering of thought and spirit under his teaching. Twice a week his pony-chair came down for her and it was no small pleasure to her to mount as charioteer to the good Vicar. While he talked and drew her out of herself, until she sometimes tried to persuade herself it was Lancy grown venerable and experienced, giving her advice; and at home, with her mother lying in that strange, fearful state of apathy, her father growing grave as one stricken with incurable grief,-her sisters rising fast into womanhood, and undeniably taking advantage of their altered position, against all that she had to confront, there grew up a bright and steady joy to Edith Malford. She was seeing her duty; learning that how earnest and devoted soever we may be, there must come thwartings and crosses, and sometimes we must see that our ways are wrong, and our work unsatisfactory. Her example profitless, her intentions misunderstood or not appreciated, were such to her; but still they led to habits of self-control. Not that in point of outward bearing she and Mildred had come nearer than they were on the night Edith ventured to demand her first kiss, but the idea they had formed of each other's character was mutual, so far as it was founded on respect. Mildred was gentle and considerate; it was impossible to fathom the amount of knowledge she possessed: she seemed to have none for display, but as each new subject came forth for study, she was at home and ready. She taught well, better than mamma, if the comparison were made; and it was always with the quiet leading of an older sister that she went through the day's work with them. So much for lessons. Out of school hours Mildred shone most essentially in Edith's eyes. At first she had thought it worth while to see what she was made of, for Lancy's sake; but she soon did it for her own. Her placidity which they had once misnamed pride and reserve, soon grew to be a charm. The Auleys' governess was always complaining of want of consideration: her post was neutral: she was not good enough for this, and not to be thought of in that. "Very well at lessons," Charlotte Auley used to say; "but out of school-" she shrugged her shoulders, and whispered in complete young lady fashion, "bore." The Jamesons governess was always whining and pining about her relations and friends at the Antipodes ; and the Locktons' madame was a prim, precise, finished woman of a certain age, who kept the girls on their backs most of the day, and hunted assiduously for feet or figures out of position when in the drawing-room with her charge. With these three sole specimens of the class, the Malford girls might be excused the undisguised horror with which they had anticipated such an importation. But their prejudices were not deep; and the little being who had come among them without the least prepossession, found herself before New Year's Day the centre of their kindest thoughts, the spur to all their meritorious actions. Edith never spoke of her, either to the others or to strangers. She felt that she was loving her; and looking up to her, imitating at a humble distance the unassuming fascination of her character, for the old pride lived as fixed as ever in Edith's heart; either Mildred Lyte must be no ordinary governess, or else one must know how heartily she held her superior. One day, when they were calling at the Jamesons', among other subjects in casual conversation, Mrs. Jameson asked abruptly, "By the by, my dear Edith, how does your governess get on with you and your sisters? she looks very young for such a charge." The vexatious colour dyed Edith's cheek: "She gets on very well, thank you, considering she was not brought up to anything of the kind." Mind your own business' would have been almost more polite; and she added mentally, 'Now, my good friend, ask me no further.' If the others had asked her why she spoke thus, she would have said, "Mrs. Lyte is too good to be canvassed in every idle gossip," and so saying, would have believed it the right solution; but Edith's pride, not Mildred's excellence, was the real stop. Of relations, connections, even of friends, except the De Lancys, no one ever heard her speak. She received few letters, and wrote still fewer; and Edith's curiosity never outweighed her high-mindedness, and sent her to the letter-box to spy out directions. The current of Mildred's daily life flowed on in a smooth, still course: example, rather than precept, was made moral teaching; but Edith tried very perseveringly to find out something more about her; some glimmering of the past, not quite smouldered into oblivion: some probability in the future, to which, surely she must be yearning. Her speculations in letters to Lancy were infinitely varied, and she always introduced the subject. : One time it would be-" Your madame is the best nurse in the world to see her handle pillows, and make arrowroot, might convince anybody that she was fresh from the Nurse's Home." Another-"Oh, Lance! what a sore plague your mysterious Bianca is to me; she won't tell me anything, and she is as learned as the Seven Sages, and as good as the whole canonry of Saints." But say what she would, in praise or dispraise, the imperturbable Lancy responded not. So Edith, you must wait to learn. THE GLOAMING HOUR. "The thoughts of my heart were very grievous unto me." "With supplicative lowly plaints, each day at morn and even, It was a gala gathering-the vain and idle throng, A chord was touch'd-a nerve was thrill'd-yet 'twas no dulcet strain Awoke the spell old strains can weave-dim memories of pain- come The whisper came as surely-"I am weary-take me home." The vision changed;-I stood within a dear familiar room, I gaze upon the stage of life-I know its tinsel glare No morning sun doth last the day-the gloaming hour doth come ;- Our pleading prayer at morning-through the trials of the day, THE BISHOP OF CAPETOWN'S VISIT TO TRISTAN D'ACUNHA. OUR readers are already, we trust, interested in Mr. Taylor, the earnest and self-denying missionary who, some eight years ago, left all and followed our LORD's call to labour in the small island of Tristan D'Acunha. The population has now grown too large for the island, and the Bishop of Capetown has visited them and made arrangements for their removal. The following account of his visit is from his last published journal : I Bishop's Court, April 5th, 1856. "MY DEAR You will be glad to receive some account of a visit which I have recently paid to Tristan d'Acunha. sit down, therefore, to give you a brief history of it, which you can, if not too late, publish with my Journal lately sent home to the Society, as it may be interesting to others. I made an effort on my first voyage to the Cape, just eight years ago, to visit the island, feeling much for the spiritual condition of its inhabitants. I was not, however, able to carry my wish into effect. Since the arrival of its devoted minister, I have been still more desirous to take any opportunity that might present itself of fulfilling my original intention, that I might strengthen Mr. Taylor's hands, and comfort him in a work which has ever seemed to me as full of trial and privation as any in whatever part of the world. His own repeated entreaties, which reached me through various channels, -that I would, if possible, pay him a visit, and a desire to make his little flock partakers of the full ministrations of the Church, led me to feel that I ought not to omit any opportunity of becoming a fellow-helper in his work. Eight years have passed away without there being the least opening for any communication with him. At length, however, rumours having reached me from different quarters that the islanders were already suffering partially from want of food, and were likely soon, through their increasing numbers, to outgrow the narrow dimensions of their "Three Months' Visitation by the Bishop of Capetown, in the Autumn of 1855: with an account of his voyage to the Island of Tristan D'Acunha, in March, 1856." London; Bell and Daldy. |