to procure it, I advise you by all means to do so."

"And if not, doctor?"

"If not, the probability is that your life will be shortened in consequence."

"You hear what Dr. H- says," pleaded my mother.

"Yes, I hear, niece."

"If you will not heed," said the doctor, "it cannot be helped. I have told you the plain truth."

What with the wine and the good nursing, Uncle Jabez soon recovered sufficiently for my mother to be able to leave him, and return pale and wearied to her neglected home. He had never once offered her a drop of that wine which she had been the means of procuring, and which, humanly speaking, had helped to prolong his life. He never even thanked her when she went away. The consciousness of having performed her duty was her only reward. I have since learned that this is all-sufficient.

Mrs. Blake was a kind-hearted old woman, and she did her best; but there was much to be done and undone before we once more fell back into our old, quiet, orderly ways. The last

to be brought into subjection was little Charley, who had been quite spoiled during her absence. But all came right at last-all except my dear mother herself; and it was long before she recovered her usual health and spirits.

"A penny for your thoughts," said my father one night, in his cheerful way, as she sat silently bending over her work.

My mother started, and looked with a bewildered gaze, like one awakening from a dream. "I was thinking of Uncle Jabez.”

"And was it that which made you look so sad?"

"I was thinking," continued my mother, "as I have many times of late, that I am afraid I did not do my duty by him as I ought."

"Not do your duty, Mary? Did you not nurse him day and night?"

"Yes, I was careful for his body; but his soul, William-his immortal soul. As you say, I was with him day and night. I may never again have the opportunities that I had then."

"But surely you did try to improve them a little?"

"Not half as much as I might have done; and I feel it when it is too late."

E

"You are very good friends now. Why not go and see him to-morrow?"

"I might go a hundred times and never be able to find the opportunities that I had then." "In that case you must make opportunities." "Oh, William, you know Uncle Jabez. But there were moments during his illness when his heart appeared to soften."

"When you gave him your mother's Bible, for instance. Did you never offer to read to him?"

"Yes, several times, but he could not bear it, he said. And once I began to repeat a little hymn which my dear mother had taught me years ago and then I saw his poor face working; but he stopped me in the middle-perhaps he had heard it too when a child."

"After all," said my father, "it appears to me as if you had done what you could."

"I cannot feel that, William. I have thought since of so many things that I might have said, and did not."

"We are all apt to think thus at times," said my father; "and it ought to make us very careful never to suffer an opportunity to pass of speaking a word for Christ."

My mother had a tender conscience, and blamed herself, it may be, in this matter, more than any one who knew all the circumstances of the case would have had the heart to blame her. The above conversation made a deep impression on me at the time, and was never afterwards forgotten: it was a lesson to me for life. It is a happy thing to be permitted to profit by the experience of others. I have known those who had to work it out for themselves with bitter weeping and lamentation. There is nothing that the Christian traveller looks back upon with such deep and unavailing regret as lost opportunities.

CHAPTER VI.

EARLY REMINISCENCES.

THE peasants of Brittany call January "the white month," but it was a very black month for us that year. The cold was intense, and the exposed situation in which we lived made us feel it all the more. We could have done with a larger fire too, but my mother never seemed to care about it until just before my father came home, when she always managed to have a cheerful blaze. If we complained, which was not often the case-for we soon guessed how matters stood-she used to tell us to run about and keep ourselves warm.

William was now old enough to be sent on errands, and sometimes, when my mother was not able to leave home, he went to see Uncle Jabez. He did not much like going there, and I do not think that she liked sending him, but it could not be helped. He was, as I have before said, a strong, active boy, and very