expectations were thwarted the courtship had gone on too long to be meddled with, even if he had been disposed to put an end to it, which he was not.

But Tom Carey, if not a smuggler outright, was connected with contraband trade, and deeply mixed up with smugglers ; and he must have been very deceitful had he managed to keep the knowledge of this disreputable fact from his betrothed bride and her father.

Dear madam, or sir, Tom did not conceal the fact from any one-not even from the exciseman. Mary very well knew all about the matter. In the earlier days of their courtship she had laughed with Tom over the stories of his hairbreadth escapes, while she had trembled to think of the risks he ran in his occasional midnight daring deeds, when, in company with a score or more of big fellows like himself, gathered from the country round, he assisted in unloading the smuggling sloop in Which which Bay, or, mounted on a strong horse, heavily packed with smuggled goods, was galloping across the country inland, over hedges and ditches, at a break-neck pace, with custom-house officers behind him in full chase. Yes, Mary knew all this, and admired what she would have called Tom's courage more than the disapproved of his lawlessness. Samuel Austin knew it too, and had not a word to say against it, beyond a monitory humph, and "I say, Tom, my boy, this won't do, you know, when you are married. All the while you are single it doesn't so much matter; and 'tis good fun, as you say; I know that because I have had my share of it when I was a young chap like you; but you must give it up when you're married, Tom."

The truth is, that at the time and in the district of which we are writing (if not on every coast of Great Britain) the sympathies: of the people in general were all on the side of the law-breakers, and opposed to the law-makers, so far at least as smuggling was

concerned. They fancied that there could be no real guilt in honestly purchasing goods in France or Holland, and honestly selling the same at a fair profit in England, to customers who were willing and ready to buy; and that the crime, if it were one, was man-made, not heaven-made. Also that if the law forbade a man to do that which he not only had a natural right to do, but that which was an excellent and praiseworthy thing to be done, the law was the greater criminal. Therefore, as French

Hollands gin, were

silks and gloves, and laces and jewelry, and all greatly desired, and were yet forbidden to English people by force of law, which thus made the desire more strong and hearty, there was nothing better to be done than to connive at and encourage those who had boldness or cunning enough to evade the law, and to bring the desired commodities to their doors. So the people argued.

Now it is not to be supposed that Mary Austin was wiser than her compeers. She knew, or might have known, that the wives and daughters of the neighbouring gentry made no scruple of decking themselves out in smuggled finery; that magistrates almost openly connived at smuggling itself, and regaled themselves with smuggled brandies and gin; that grave and reputedly religious men shared in the risks and profits of the contraband trade; in short, that all classes and almost all people around her were, to use a forcible expression, "tarred with the same brush." Was it to be expected, then, that her lover's incidental connection with smuggling gave her much uneasiness, apart from the natural feminine dread that Tom was running himself into danger, and mixing himself up with society that could do him no good?

This last, indeed, was a source of much secret sorrow to Mary Austin, especially after the day of her conversion, and when, gradually, the mournful conviction was brought home to her mind that, dearly as she loved Tom Carey, and dearly as she

was beloved by him, there was one great barrier which, unless removed, must prove fatal to their happiness in married life, if it did not prevent their union-for "can two walk together, except they be agreed ?"

With much simple earnestness and honest truthfulness Mary told Tom of the great change which had been produced in her through the preaching of the gospel; and Tom replied lightly that he was glad to hear it, and that he should love her all the more for being religious. But when she entreated him to think for himself of the things of eternity, he laughingly rejoined that he should trust to his darling Mary for having religion enough for them both. According to his own confession, he did not take kindly to religion, as far as he himself was concerned; and he was too honest to pretend to what he did not feel.

It is needless to speculate on what might have been the ultimate result of this altered state of things had Mary Austin lived. Certainly, neither on her part nor on Tom Carey's had there been any diminution of love, nor had their mutual relationship undergone any apparent change, when the disease, which we have seen proved eventually fatal, made its first inroads on Mary Austin's constitution. Through her whole illness, indeed, she evinced the tenderest solicitude for her lover; and when all hope of recovery was given up she would not give up hope that God, who had been so gracious to her soul, would some day answer her prayers for that of her "poor dear husband," as she called Tom, in melting tenderness. In her last interview with him—it was on the morning of the day to which our story has reached, and she had begged to be left for a little while with only Tom by her bedside-she drew from under her pillow the Bible which had been her soul's support in all her affliction, and placed it in his trembling hands.

"Keep it for my sake, dear Tom," she whispered: "I have nothing else to leave you but this, and the remembrance of my

dear love. I shall never want it again, Tom," she presently added; "never again. I am going where Bibles are not wanted, Tom; for God Himself" Here her small remaining strength failed for a time, but presently she rallied a little. "Kiss me

once more, Tom, if you don't mind," she said, with a smile on her pallid lips; "and you'll meet me there by-and-by. I am almost sure you will.”

This was their final parting. Poor Tom!

"Poor Tom!" sobbed Mrs. Gower, as she stood in the carpenter's yard, pouring out her unsophisticated grief into the sympathizing heart of old Mark. "Poor Tom!"

"How does he bear it ?" asked Mark.

“Like a man, as he is; but it will go nigh to break his heart, if it isn't broke a'ready," said Mrs. Gower. "But I must go back again to the poor souls, and do what I can to cheer them up. It won't do for me to break down at such a time as this; for sister Austin is pretty near beside herself, and no wonder. So I just came out to have a good cry: I should have suffocated if I hadn't; and now I must go in again. But there's something else to do first; and I had a'most forgotten it," she added, with a sudden start. "I must go into the garden, Mark, and tell the bees."

"The lives, you mean. You needn't trouble, dame. I looked round this morning and counted them; I always do; and they are all right: there's none of them been stole or meddled with," said the old wheelwright.

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No, no; it isn't the hives, and 'tisn't counting I mean," said Mrs. Gower. "But they do say that if the bees as belong to a house isn't told when there's a death in the family" (here she broke into a fresh cry of sorrow) "they'll desert their--their hives, and go clean away when the summer comes."*

"You don't believe that, do you dame?"

* A common belief and practice in the South of England.