haps a gintleman like yersilf wouldn't care for the ball, but ye c'u'd buy the whole four iv the tickets for yer frinds. 'Tw'u'd help poor Phelan along, an' you'd niver feel it." She laid four tickets down on his desk as she spoke. "But I don't believe in raffles," the rector managed to say when she paused a moment for breath. But 'Squire Barber himsilf will conduct it,-a man that's niver been accused iv annything crooked. An' the bed! Oh! it's a foine bed entirely! Sure, the bist bed they had in the house an' but little used. Take two tickets, thin, if ye don't want the four iv thim. It's great merit that ye'll make, an' as foine a bed as there is in the town!" "You don't understand me; I don't think a raffle is right." "But don't I say to ye, that the poor man was sick these four month past? He's got his eye hurted that bad he can't work." She did not mention the fact that the eye had been injured in an argument over the relative merits of two rival beneficial societies, and that the society for which Phelan had so valiantly done battle had gone into bankruptcy only a week after he had been wounded, leaving him without benefits from the lodge. "But I don't like raffling. It's gambling. I don't think it is right." "Is it gamblin' ye say? Sure there won't be a card in the house, at laste not outside the bar-room. 'Twill all be done by 'Squire Barber, blindfolded as fair as ye plaze, an' drawin' the numbers out iv his hat. Be sides the man has five wake childer, an' what c'u'd he do, if his frinds didn't give him this binefit? Say ye'll take this wan ticket annyhow? I'll wait till afther the nixt pay for the money. 'Tis but a dollar, an' ye'd have the same chanst as annywan ilse to win a foine feather bed." She stood a moment longer till the housekeeper, who had been summoned, led her away. As she went down the hall he heard the story of the five weak children repeated. The housekeeper, being a woman, quickly disposed of her by turning her over to the cabman who had come to take the rector to a funeral; while the cabman, having no one to call to his assistance, or being hopeful of winning the fine feather bed, purchased one of the tickets which Mr. Warne had refused. "I smiled to think God's greatness Flowed round our incompleteness, Round our restlessness His rest." -E. B. BROWNING. WAR VI AN EXTIRPATED HERESY ARNE'S first funeral was that of Mrs. Breece, whose husband had been indulging in payday festivities on the night of the rector's first round of his parish. During the week which followed the rector's arrival in Coalton Mrs. Breece had quietly passed out of life into the peace of God. The little four-roomed company house in which the services were held seemed so pitifully bare and the circumstances of her death so sad that the rector was profoundly moved as he performed the offices of the church. While his own heart found comfort in the thought of the dead woman's undoubted piety, his whole delicate nature revolted at the barren unloveliness of the funeral arrangements. On the way to the grave, he had put aside his own feelings and tried to console the husband and children who rode in the same carriage with him; but on the return from the cemetery he had given himself over to his own sad meditations, feeling also that perhaps his companions would prefer silence. He was therefore somewhat disturbed when Breece began speaking of a certain Mike McCarty, a well known character of the town, who had caused trouble |