270 SALUTARY.

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doing it is. I always warned her of it. Algernon
is right about women after all. They just like to
amuse themselves with us, and then throw us over.

“Well, I’ve burnt my fingers, but I shall take
are never to go near the fire again. Upon my
word, I believe I know now how people come to
put an end to themselves. I won’t, though! Why
should I care for her more than she cares for me?
No, ll show her that I don’t care—not a pin. I
used to have scruples because of her, but now I
shall have none. Hurrah for a free and jolly life !”
But all the time he was most miserable, and he
knew it in his heart of hearts. At last, after
several hours’ wanderings, he returned to the
Manor, too tired with the excitement of mind and
body to care to spend this evening at Mr. Alger-
non Smith’s, and only fit to throw himself upon his
bed and sleep.

Long after he was asleep, however, Colonel
Armyn was pacing his room in troubled meditation.
Escott was the subject of his thoughts, and he
was none the happier fora certain misgiving which
had begun to attack him, that his system of
management of his son had been radically wrong,
and that all his theories had been falsified by
practice. “ Poor fellow! I wish I had not brought
Winifred’s name into the discussion,” he said to
himself. ‘ Suppose that his love for her is more
than a boy’s first fancy, may not this make him
more reckless than he is? Let us only hope that
it did not go very deep.” And then the father
began to turn over all manner of hopes and plans
for his son’s reformation, and finally knelt down
before the uncurtained window, through which the
frosty stars were shining, and prayed “for him
who never prayed for himself,” as old Bishop
Ken’s prayer words it. He little thought that
hardly a stone’s throw off, the girl whom he looked
upon as a mere merry frivolous child, lay sobbing
out her unspoken prayer for Escott too. “I
always knew our love would be unhappy if it
came to any thing,” she said to herself, looking
back with that strange retrospective glance whieh
so often deceives us, making us think that our
present knowledge was always latent before the
fact occurred which gave it to us.

“Oh, I hope he won’t be angry with me! JT
couldn’t help telling when Aunt Hermy asked me.
I couldn’t deceive her!” she thought, as she went
over the occurrences of the day. , “If only I could
do any thing for him.” Then Winny began to
think of stories she had heard about the power of
will—whether, if she willed sufficiently strongly,
she might have influence enough over Escott to
save him, though absent from him. And then,
poor child, she remembered the words— The
prayer of a righteous man avyaileth much,” and
thought she would try harder than ever to be

good, if so, or any how, her prayers might avail
for poor Escott. The dread that he might fulfil
his threat, and “ go to the bad,” as he said, if they
were separated, was stronger upon her than the
grief for her ill-starred love. There was just one
hope—the day of the wedding, when she must
see him and hear what he thought of it all, and
whether he was angry.

So the girl tossed about, while the stars looked
down upon her like the eyes of friends out of the
frosty sky. The grey dreary weather was passing,
and the sky seemed clearing up for winter cold,
Perhaps all her troubles would pass in like maanei,
So at last she fell asleep a little comforted.

Ah, Winny, you do not yet know that it is the
“bitter wind clear from the north, that blows the
mist aside,” and the name of it is a name that
strong men shrink and blench from. But if you
dare to face it, you may yet gain your heart’s
desire.

(Zo be continued.)

SALUTARY.

A sTORM-WIND swept the sky,—
The rent trees moan’d and cower’d
That late so proudly tower’d.

The boughs droop’d drearily.

IL cried, ‘“‘O cruel breeze,
That sparéd not the pride
Of foliage spreading wide,

That pitied not my trees !”

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Yet was the gale’s work good,—
A poisonous progeny
Of blighting insects die,

Dislodged from leaf and wood.

It pass’d, a cleansing power,
O storm, did yonder tree
Know half it owes to thee,

*T would rather bless thine hour.

Through my heart shot a pain
Biting as eastern wind ;
All my youth’s joys behind
Lay in its passage slain.

Were there no wasted lives,
No aimless negatives,

I cried, “O cruel pain !
That thy shaft might have slain ?”

Yet was that pain the breeze,
Cleansing and heaven-sent.
Thy joys? What if they meant
The blight upon the trees ?
Aice Horton.

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