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sinning and turned saint, proposing me to himself as a devotee-but I thought his last estate worse than his first. I used to try to provoke him by showing my lack of faith in the genuineness of his conversion, and he bore with me very philosophically. Cousin Delia would say he had got a changed heart—I don't know; it always gave me an uncomfortable feeling to see him trying to circumvent his old master— Rachel, am I growing profane? Ah, my dear, I was much worse at twenty-heaven forgive me! Draw the curtains-now I'll go to sleep."

Her last words and to the last characteristic.

III.

Mrs. Sara Grandage had not misled her goddaughter as to the provision made for her in her will. Besides the cottage at Claymire, she had bequeathed to her absolutely five thousand pounds, and charged upon the Prior's Bank property was an annuity of two hundred a year for her life.

Rachel missed her dear old friend, and mourned for her sincerely. They had lived together fifteen years. She stayed at Prior's Bank until the end of March, and oh! how still the house seemed of nights with the east wind blowing, and the spring rain

coming down drip, drip, drip upon the gravel! She could not realize it at first, this life of hers quite alone, but she knew by experience that she should wear to it by-and-by. The days slipt over her one by one as beads are slipt down a string; the trees budded, the days lengthened, the birds were heard in the woods, and all nature was reviving.

Dear old Bittersweet! what capital company she used to be! Sometimes Rachel could have fancied she heard her voice speaking out of her familiar place in the twilight, and saying, “Rachel, come and talk," but when she looked round the chair was empty, and its occupant passed away to her quiet lying in the beautiful churchyard on the slope of the fell.

When she left Prior's Bank finally, Rachel stayed a fortnight with her brother John and his family; then she went to London to Carrie Martin for a few days, and at last to Claymire, where she arrived about the middle of April. Clip and Hanson went with her, and a niece of Hanson's as cook, and they formed her household when she made her third new start in life.

"I hope, please God, it may be the last!" said she as she laid her head down on her pillow for the first time under a roof of her own. "I hope, please God, it may be the last."

Probably it would. She had passed the date when

changes are likely to occur, and she was secure of fortune. There was nothing apparent before her but to make herself contented, to do good, and to grow old; and happily for herself, Rachel Withers was one of those women who can grow old gracefully.

END OF THE THIRD PART.

PART FOURTH.

SEEKING.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

ALICE'S LOVERS.

Auld Robin Gray cam a-courting to me.-Scotch Song.

I.

RACHEL WITHERS had lived too long with Mrs. Sara Grandage to alter her ways when she went to Claymire, but she was hardly likely to escape the well-meaning endeavours of the worthy ladies at Brookfall to convert her to their own when she was left unsupported within reach of their powers of persuasion. She enjoyed meandering through a long, slow evening with them when they would let her alone, but sometimes they were persistently prosy. It is really marvellous how little good people shrink

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