sanctity around them as they go,--if there are two such, why not more? If God casts such seeds of goodness into our nook, how do we know but that he is sowing the whole earth with it? I will believe it henceforth. "You will wonder, as I have wondered many a time within the last six weeks, what is to become of us when we lose these strangers. I can only say, `God help us!' But that time is far off. They came for several months, and no one hints at their departure yet. They are the most unlearned creatures about country life that you can conceive, with a surpassing genius for country pleasures. Only imagine the charm of our excursions! They are never so happy as when in the fields or on the river; and we all feel ourselves only too blest in being able to indulge them. Our mornings are all activity and despatch, that our afternoons may be all mirth, and our evenings repose. I am afraid this will make you sigh with mingled envy and sympathy; but whatever is that can be told, you may rely upon it that I shall tell you, trusting to your feeling both pleasure and pain in virtuous moderation. "I have done my story; and now I am going to look what o'clock it is-- a thing I have refrained from, in my impulse to tell you all. The house is quite still, and I heard the church clock strike something very long just now; but I would not count. It is so. It was midnight that the clock struck. I shall seal this up directly. I dare not trust my morning--my broad daylight mood with it. Now, as soon as you have got thus far, just take up your pen, and answer me, telling me as copiously of your affairs as I have written of ours. Heaven bless you. "Yours ever, "Edward Hope." It was not only Mr Hope's broad daylight mood which was not to be trusted with this letter. In this hour of midnight a misgiving seized upon him that it was extravagant. He became aware, when he laid down his pen, that he was agitated. The door of his room opened into the garden. He thought he would look out upon the night. It was the night of the full moon. As he stood in the doorway, the festoons of creepers that dangled from his little porch waved in the night breeze; long shadows from the shrubs lay on the grass; and in the depth of one of these shadows glimmered the green spark of a glow-worm. It was deliciously cool and serene. Mr Hope stood leaning against the door-post, with his arms folded, and was not long in settling the question whether the letter should go.