"Please let me stay here. I feel best here," pleaded Lee, laying her cheek down on the soft, withered hand.

"Well, as it pleases thee. I really want to talk with thee this afternoon. Lee, does thee know that that wretched Allingham girl is back again in the town?"

"Back again!" Lee sat up, intent.

'Yes; in great distress, they say. She was with us so many years, thee knows. I've been thinking about her all day, how she used to look, flitting about with her pink cheeks. She was more Martha's choice than mine. A plump, pert chit, who thought more of what she put on her back than of anything else. It surprised me in Martha, who never had any pink cheeks herself, nor any leaning to furbelows, so far as I know. But it was a dreadful shock to us all. With her innocent ways! Child, the depth of deception in the hussy! Does n't thee think so? Eh, Lee?"

“I think—in her—I should hardly call it deception," answered Lee, somewhat faintly, and stitching rapidly away. "Was there not weakness enough to account for it, and vanity, and love of excitement ? "

"Weakness could never lead a girl so astray, to my mind," said the old lady, stiffly.

She settled back into the depths of her chair, her strong profile outlined against the light. But presently she turned again to Lee. "Does thee judge of her guilt in the same fashion?" "Dear Mrs. Marston, do not let us speak of that," said Lee, almost imploringly. "What do I know about it? Who am I, that I should judge any one or any thing?"

"I merely want to know what thee thinks." The girl laid her work down from her trembling hands.

"If I must, I will. For I have thought much about it in these two years since Maggie Allingham - went away. And, dear Mrs. Marston, I cannot think of her as you do. I wish I could. It frightens me that I cannot," went on the girl in a wild way. 66 For I know I am not like other people. What do I know of my father? or even of my poor mother? What evil may not be in me from my very birth, making me think lightly of sin? But for all, I must be honest, must I not? I must think as I do think. And Maggie was so thoughtless, so heedless, I have wondered whether she was really more of a castaway-oh, not from society, but from God!—than many a sinner whom the world-easily forgives."

For one moment Mrs. Marston was moved by the impassioned voice. But when she spoke, it was the more sternly for the weakness.

"Your doctrine has the merit of originality,

The sunlight stole across the carpet and was gone. It was a relief to the two in the quiet room when heavy steps were heard in the porch and Doctor Dobbs burst in.

-

"I'm in trouble again, Mrs. Marston! It's got to that eh, Lee?—that the whole countryside just throws itself at you. It's that Allingham woman," said the doctor, dropping with a sigh into a chair. "I told you how she looked. Well, to-night she's the sickest woman I've seen in one while. Typhoid fever, a wretched, low case. And she 's stark alone, and there 's not a soul will go near her."

Lee Mason slowly folded her work and laid it in the old lady's lap. Then she stood up. "I will go, Doctor Dobbs."

"You? Why, nonsense! Sit down, child. Why, you 're too young. You 're not strong enough," remonstrated Doctor Dobbs, more excited than he liked to show. "Why, here's old Mrs. Marston here can't spare you. Ask her. She won't let you go away.'

"What is that?" cried Miss Martha, coming in with a lamp. "Lee going away? What is the matter? What has happened? Mother, tell Lee she must not go!"

Old Mrs. Marston's cap-strings quivered beneath her chin; but she spoke calmly.

"Must not, daughter, is not the word for me to speak, thee knows. I advise Lee not to go. This is no call for her. I will provide for this wretched woman; and I will let thee go, Martha, if Doctor Dobbs really cannot find any one else. But Lee ought not to go. She is not strong enough, and then I fear it would be dangerous for her reputation."

The girl lifted her white face. As the lamplight fell upon it her expression silenced them all.

"Reputation? What is my reputation worth? Who would be surprised at the worst that I could do? Who would not expect it from the child of my mother? I have nothing to lose. In all Flemington there is no soul—not one

so free as I. And only I can feel for Maggie Allingham. Am I not akin to her? More akin to her than to the good Christian people of this town? O God! may we not have the same taint in our blood? We belong together. I am called - I am free — I will go."

In the same silence they saw her take her hat and cloak. Then, indeed, Miss Martha fell crying into her arms. But she put her gently aside, bent once above Mrs. Marston's hand, and went out with the doctor.

The next day all Flemington knew of it; knew of it with so many variations that before night the girl's best friends were asking anxiously, under their breath, "What is this about

still waiting when, after Maggie Allingham's death, she found employment in one of the factories. Certainly her expression was not inviting in those days. It made an atmosphere about her into which few cared to break. Then they began to call her queer. Fatal word! So she walked their streets apart. So she sat apart in their church. And it was the old story of Sunday-school days over again-of the disreputable little figure in the big chair.

She found new friends.

Was a girl looked at askance? Did her heart fail her? Did she shudder back from ruin, cry out for help? Here was one who also stood apart; but with what compassion in her eyes, what help in the clasp of her hand! Was the street cold? Were earth and sky pitiless? In the house with the cross was a leaping fire. All night long the door stood on the latch. And how a wanderer was welcomed!-welcomed, when charity was weary and outraged; forgiven, if only forgiveness was wanted, ninety times and nine; and loved always, unconditionally, forever, as our Father in Heaven loves.

One stormy winter night there came a sharp ring at the door-bell of the Reverend Egbert Carr. A messenger from Miss Mason. There was a girl dying at the house with the cross who wanted to see him.

"Egbert!" cried Mrs. Carr, running out in curl-papers, "you surely won't go-to that wretched place-on such a night-with your cold-and I so miserable!" whimpered poor little Mrs. Carr, peevish tears trickling down over the cheeks where the roses had faded. Plainly the trials of life at first hand had not proved favorable to her sainthood.

"I must, Cynthia," called back her husband, patiently.

He plunged fiercely through the drifting snow. There was help in the storm. Had it been a night of spring, when the dreams of a young man's heart arise in moonlight; had it been a summer afternoon, and flowers in this garden-this desolate garden, with its tangled skeleton things rattling in the wind. Summer would come again for it. But for him

Lee Mason opened the door. "Ellen is al

He followed her into a pleasant room. Two girls by the fire turned and went shyly away. A figure on the bed started partly up and fell back with a groan. "Mr. Carr, don't you remember me Ellen Day?"

"Why, my dear girl!" he exclaimed, shocked beyond control. "You were in my Bible-class when I first came to Flemington. I thought you had left the town."

"Seven years ago," cried the creature on the bed. "Seven awful years! And they are gone, and I 've not a day left, the doctor says; perhaps not an hour. Quick! Tell me one thing! I left Him. I refused Him. Now I've got to go to Him just as I am. Don't tell me I can change. I can't, and I won't be fooled into thinking I can. Tell me what He will say?" "My child, He comes here to you. He says, with all love, with all forgiveness, 'Go in peace, and sin no more.''

"Yes, but I would, though!" she screamed, exhausting herself dreadfully in the effort. "This angel here, Miss Mason, has said that to me, oh, time and time again. And I've gone every time and sinned. And so I would again, if I were off this bed. I know it, and He knows it!" Her voice went up in a shriek.

"Ellen, listen," said Lee Mason, on the other side of the bed. She folded the poor hands together. Her eyes held those wild ones. The dying girl lay still.

"Ellen, He takes the hands you hold up into His own strong hands, so. He looks down into your eyes, into your heart, and sees all the weakness, all the wickedness, better than you can tell Him. But you look up into His dear eyes— so loving, Ellen. You have never seen such

and look

"She is gone," said Lee Mason, laying the hands tenderly down-it might have been a mother with her babe. "Did you see her smile? Thank God for death! Life was too hard."

"Too hard!" Egbert Carr threw up his arms in a gesture as despairing as the dead girl's had been. "Flung into it with our tendencies, our weaknesses; taught only by our ruin! What am I, what are most of the people whom I-I-counsel, but wrecks of what we might have been, as truly, if not as shamefully, as this girl? O Lee, Lee! And I had the world's secret within my grasp!"

"Mr. Carr." Her touch upon his shoulder roused him. "God who made us knows us — tendencies, weakness, all. Go home to your wife, to your lovely little children, to your work-and thank him for everything."

"And you?" He lingered, his greedy eyes devouring the deepened beauty of her face, her slight figure, her toil-worn hands. He would have every detail to carry with him down the years.

"Would you be glad to know that I am happy? I am." Her eyes were sweet, as from some inner well of delight. "It sometimes seems almost wrong," said Lee Mason, thinking her way, "to be so happy in a world where there are others so miserable. But, Mr. Carr, while I live- and work-and grow-indeed, I cannot help it."

She lighted him to the door. "Good night," she said. Their hands met.

At the gate he turned. She stood holding the light. It shone downward on her face and upward to the cross above her head.

Florence Watters Snedeker.

I

Anne C. L. Botta.