He went to London, studied under his father's old college friend, John Wetherell, the well-known Queen's Counsel, and in five years was making fair headway in the courts as a barrister. And the strange part of it was that the choleric old Squire--who has a good heart underneath his rough exterior--seeing his son's name in the papers from time to time, felt his paternal pride rising within him despite his stubborn resentment. Perhaps, too, he felt lonely in his old age. At all events, he went over to the farm one day, and asked to see Mary. "I shall fight against it no longer, my dear," he said, holding out his hand. "The lad has proved his grit, and the woman who can call forth such steady love in a man is more than worthy of being mistress of the Hall. I am an old man, and have no time left for bitternesses. Forgive me, and you will find me as staunch in friendship as you have found me frank in enmity." Mary is now Mary Leigh, of Leigh Hall, and a sweeter, gentler, more winsome mistress you could not find in the whole land. You may often see the old Squire leaning upon her shoulder--a bent, white-haired figure--as they walk in the grounds. * * * * * Among all the seasons of the year, I think there is none that Roger Pettingdale loves so well as the time of harvest. You may see him standing at the gateway, looking in meditation down the long shimmer and sheen of the golden wheat-field as the wind ripples over it. "I love to gaze at fields white with corn," he said to me once. "They seem to breathe rich promises of that full fruition to which our own lives shall come if we live them well and uprightly." At the last harvest thanksgiving service in the village church I was present for the sake of old times, and from my place behind Roger Pettingdale I saw him lost in meditation, with eyes fixed upon the chancel window. And when he stood up to sing he was still rapt in thought; but suddenly he joined in the sweet old hymn so lustily and with such a full heart that it did me good to hear him. "The valleys stand so thick with corn That even they are singing." THE ART OF READING. By the Ven. Archdeacon Diggle, M.A.