newness. The town itself (for in a new country everything in excess of a post-office is called a town) was wrapped in Sabbath stillness. The little church was well filled, for a bright Sunday in a country village draws the inhabitants from their homes as infallibly as bees from their hives. Workers and drones they were all there, bowed together under the sense of a common need, and of faith in a common Helper, which alone makes men free and equal. Like a light in a dark place gleamed the bright head of Rose Macleod in the farthest corner of the family pew. A vagrant sunbeam, like a golden arrow, pierced the gloom about her, but to the disappointment of _one_ interested observer, it failed to reach the rich coils, so nearly resembling it in colour. This observer presently reminded himself that he had come there to worship the divine, as revealed in holy writ, not in human beauty; nevertheless he could not forbear sending another stealthy glance, which, more accurately aimed than the sunbeam, rested fully and lingeringly upon the shadowy recess, where a glowing amber-golden head bloomed richly forth against the frigid back-ground of a bare wooden wall. The dainty little lady, enveloped in the antique richness of a stiff brocade, should have been made aware by some mysteriously occult means of a strange thrill at the heart, caused by the protracted gaze of a handsome fellow-worshipper, but to tell the truth her thoughts were piously intent upon the enormity of her own sins, and the necessity of reclaiming her brother from the very literal wildness of his ways. Service was over; the still air seemed vibrant with the notes of the last hymn, and tender with the just-uttered words of the benediction, as this stately little damsel, with the peculiar air of distinction which set so charmingly upon her doll-like personality, passed down the aisle and out into the sunshine. She had looked on him--she had been conscious of his existence; but it was seemingly in the same way that she had noticed the wooden pews against which her rich little robe was trailing, and the floor which felt the pressure of her dainty feet. Allan Dunlop standing among the outcoming worshippers, whose greetings he mechanically responded to, silently anathematized the soulless edict of society, which forbids a man to stand and gaze after a vanishing vision in feminine form. The receding figure was not wholly unconscious, however, of the mute homage of which she had been the recipient. A few hours later this lovely possessor of all the graces and virtues, according to the newly-awakened imagination of her unknown admirer, reclined in her shell-pink apartment, in which the breezes blowing through the lattice sounded like the _andante_ of the sea, and sighed for the forbidden fruit of a half-finished novel. But the sigh perished with the breath that gave it birth. The next moment she sternly doubled a very diminutive fist, and demanded of herself whether that was the best use that could be made of her time and opportunities. Then she looked about for some missionary work. It was not far to seek, for the children, weary of purposeless drifting on