her yield to the better nature that he knew was in her. Her restless eyes grew fixed to his bowed head, and slowly they drooped in the stillness and darkness and in the presence of prayer. She dare not cry nor break the spell that seemed there. He got up and said not a word for a moment; then he knelt again, and with sudden impulse she knelt too. His voice rose, low and earnest; it seemed strange to have another praying for one like that. It was different to the church prayers, for this was for her and her only, and it was in church too, solemn and quiet. Madge grew stiller and stiller; at first in wonderment, then slowly she found herself not listening only, praying also. He asked God to spare Will Henderson; there was nothing about submission to His will, that must come later; she was only fit to give vent to her cravings; he asked God to comfort her, he said nought about her sins; she was only fit for soothing, and penitence is born of mercy.

Her head fell on her hands, and the tears trickled through her fingers-when he got up she did too. She took his hand in both hers, but could not speak. want her to try-he did not

He knew she could not, he did not say a word, and they left their place and went out the good clergyman locked the door and stood by his wife's grave a moment. His hand leant on the head-stone, and

the other held his hat, while the wind blew in his white hair.

"Thy will be done," he said, reading the text beneath the name, as he had done times out of number. May be it was that reading had kept his heart so true, that in the beauty of real submission he could submit not only for himself but for others. He knew it was almost impossible for the missing boats to live the storm, and he said, "Thy will be done " for poor Madge and for all the other sorrowing women-with his hand on his wife's tombstone he said it, and then went away.

Sunday night grew on, and the storm got fiercer and fiercer, and the night blacker and blacker. It wrung one's soul, thinking of the missing boats; the mother wept, and, sleepless, shuddered at each blast; the little children woke up and would not be quieted, and the quaint old fishing village was one great breaking heart.

The pastor knelt in his solitary room, and cried "Thy will be done." At last the dawn broke, and the light spread over the sky, the candle waned in the coming day, and the clergyman, pacing the floor, paused to put it out. The window-panes were not rattling so much, the wind did not whistle so shrilly round the corners of the house.

"O God! is it a calm ?" and he covered his face as he thought of the people he loved, what tumultuous hope might not now be growing, only to be wrenched from their very hearts! It was long before he raised his eyes, for he prayed for strength to comfort

them. It was full morning now, and from the east came not only the light but the sunlight; uncertain, watery, flickering. Yet, still it was the sun, and some of its rays fell on the pastor's white hair as he looked out, and he said, "Thanks be to God!"

He took his hat and went on to the cliff. With shawls strained round them, or may be none at all, their hair loose and blown aside by the wind, and their scanty gowns fluttering, stood the women who had gone to church last night to pray for those at sea. Here was one with a baby in her arms, and perhaps another pulling at her skirts, while another rocked herself to and fro, and cried.

Madge was there with a handherchief tied over her head, standing alone with a look of dumb agony on her face-so white, so set, her attitude such despair that the clergyman's pity was terrible for her; so young for such intense misery; tears and sorrow she might have known, but not this.

that?"

Madge," he said, "God is very merciful; have you thought of
She turned her eyes to him.

"Go to them-not to me." He went, for he could not bear her agony in its awful blankness, and he knew he could not help her; the prayers of last night had done something, but not all. God only could help a soul so tortured with passionate love, fierce self-condemnation, and the anxiety which was thrilling through every nerve and making her tremble. The crying of the others he could soothe and still; he sent some of them back for their shawls, he sent for bread for the children; but when he looked at Madge he felt he dare not speak to her.

He was gazing across the sea, flecked here and there with a patch of sunlight, or sullenly shadowed by some heavy cloud, when he felt a hand on his arm. Madge could not speak; through her parted lips came only gasps for breath; the handkerchief had fallen off her hair, her eyes flashed with excitement, and the blood had rushed to her cheeks-she pointed to as far as one could see.

"A boat-a boat!" cried some of the women. Who could advise or exhort at such a moment; the good old clergyman could not, for every pulse within him throbbed as did theirs.

Madge shrank apart again, and the blood coursed back from her cheeks, and the gleam died out of her eyes. One boat only, and so many had set sail, the women were crazed with suspense there was a lingering conviction of bereavement, and a lingering hope that theirs were spared. It was humanity wrought to a pitch of intense suffering; each moment came and went, sharpening the terror on each face, adding to the frenzy of the wringing hands and the passionate tears.

The boat was coming nearer, struggling as if in its death throes,

for it bore an exhausted freight. They saw it beneath them some way from the shore; some laughed madly, and waved a handkerchief or apron; some hugged their babies, and sobbed "Daddy's coming!"

Then, a wild, disordered band, they tore down a narrow path to the sands-screaming, crying, beside themselves. Madge sank, an inert heap, upon the wet heather on the cliff. The pastor could not leave her so.

'Madge, come with me to the beach."

She brushed her hair off her forehead, and her eyes were vacant; the mental torture flaring up for an instant at the sight of the boat had worn itself out, and she was barely capable of thought or deed. He gently raised her, and repeated, "Come with me." She rose, staggered, and blindly followed him.

The boat was very near now; on the top of a wave you could almost discern the faces-now lost again in the trough-nearer -nearer the keel grated on the shingle. You lost it all again, and only saw the women you had seen on the cliff, for they closed round it and hid it. Some wild cries, and one after another they broke away, widowed-childless!

'Madge, come with me." The girl leant against a boulder, as if not understanding anything; but she knew her pastor's voice and mechanically obeyed him.

"She don't take on," said one woman.

"She jilted

"An' what for should she?" muttered another. the chap, an' I'll be bound don't want to see him agen."

Fixed, stony, she followed the clergyman.

"Thank God for His mercies!" he said, as she stooped over Will Henderson, lying on the sand. She stooped, and knelt, and raised his head in her arms. A glory swept over her face; careless of every bystander, she passionately kissed him, laid her cheek to his, and he woke――

"Don't," he said, feebly; "I'd as soon die."

That triumphant happiness was killed in an instant; the clergyman was kneeling over the prostrate man, loosening his things, and chafing his hands; and he saw Madge, not in rigid despair as before, but cowering as if death had come.

"A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise,'" he murmured, ceasing his tending, and turning away to minister to some one else.

Madge's tears fell on Will's cheek; and she took his hand, trembling. His consciousness was returning, and he said, "Is it thee, Madge?"

She had heard him say that before, in the sunny courting days, when she had perhaps come upon him unawares, and he

would whisper-what matter if an extra flush rose to his tanned face?" Is it thee?"

She knew the old sweet words, and bowed her head," Aye, Will-it's me."

When that day closed the evening sun shone on the headstone of the grave under the church window; the window where the spray dashed sometimes, the headstone on which the salt rain trickled sometimes. The pastor leant on the stone as he had leant last night, had thought of all that happened since then; he thought of the souls that had gone to God, and he thought of the weeping at home; he thought of the sorrowful sea, and he thought of Madge's bitter passion; he thought of the calm that had come, and of the glory he had seen in her face; and then he conned over the text on the tombstone, so fair in the setting sun.

"Beautiful-but God's will is always beautiful, though the sun is not always shining on it. For the sun never goes away; it is only hidden sometimes, and will come out again if we only wait."

Madge had not had long to wait, but he-he thought of his wife in Heaven. "Thy will be done," and he went slowly home.

GAMBRINUS.

A MAY-DAY LEGEND.

Gambrinus est un roi mythique dont l'existence remonte à plus de 1700 ans avant Jesus-Christ. Il était fils du roi allemand Marcus, et, outre qu'il a inventé la bière, il a fondé Hambourg (en latin Gambrivium) et Cambrai, où jadis on le promenait sous la figure d'un géant. Selon la tradition franconienne, Gambrinus assiste au banquet fantastique que les rois de l'ancienne France ou Franconie donnent chaque année, le 1er mai, à minuit, au Teufelstisch (table du diable), près de Græfenberg.

CHARLES Deulin

(In the Constitutionnel of April 1, 1875.)

GAMBRINUS, teetotallers' foeman,
To spirits convivial most dear!
Thou jolly old Bacchus of barley!
Thou patron of drinkers of beer!

Long ages before Dionysos

Extracted the juice from the vine,
Gambrinus had malted his barley,
And brewed it in beer superfine.

And in the old Frankish tradition,
His fête was the kalends of May.
Disciples-Hibernicé-gathered

At midnight, and drank till next da y.

They circled the table Satanic,

Their tutelar monarch to sing.

Look up, then, ye publicans, brewers,
And drinkers; your patron's a king:

The old Flemish King who built Hamburg,
Where now they brew wine-rather queer.
Before such peculiar potations

Give me old Gambrinus's beer.

Then fill me a frothing tankard,

And so, as I moisten my clay,
I'll toss off a toast to Gambrinus,
The beer-drinking King of May-day!

MAURICE DAVIES.