grove to his house, one of those pretentious, white, two-story and a half dwellings which betoken an owner whose worldly affairs are prosperous. His family were Mrs. Rowler, large, black-eyed, with glossy black hair, and a quizzing expression which seemed to demand your secrets at once; Miss Alice, a daughter of sixteen, bewitchingly beautiful in her budding womanhood, with luxuriant auburn curls, blue eyes like her father's, and brimful of girlish merriment; and Master Fred, who had recently come in possession of his first pair of skates. There was one more-Dowzer, an immense Newfoundland dog, who had the freedom of the reception-room, and, when strangers were present, had the habit of resting his under-jaw in Alice's lap, and rolling his yellow eyes from her to them, say ing, in canine pantomime, “If you should dare harm her, I'd make the finest kind of mincemeat of you." Dowzer made himself understood on this point to the comprehension of the young clergyman..

The Rev. Ashley Mulgrove had been introduced to the family on his previous visit, and greeted them warmly. Mrs. Rowler surveyed him with her habitual quiz; Alice inquired if her practice on the piano would disturb him in his study up-stairs; Fred asked if he could skate; and Dowzer again signified his ability to craunch him in a certain contingency. After dinner he was shown to the room assigned him, and began unpacking his clothes and books. Here he took out Hester's picture, and gazed upon the sweet, tranquil face. He kissed it with a lover's fervor, and then looked around to see if any one was watching him. There was no one near, and it was only the memory of Mrs. Rowler's eyes which affected him disagreeably. Under their glance, he fancied himself very thin and transparent.

The next day was the Sabbath, and all that evening he read over his sermon. On the morrow, the second day of the new year, he preached the opening discourse of his first pastorate. To speak in a secular way, the result was a

success. The Rev. Ashley Mulgrove had in him one prime essential of a powerful preacher - spiritual earnestness. To this he added a poetic imagination and a thorough culture. There was a kind of magnetism in the man, which electrified all who came within the range of his pulpit. His fine, massive head with the thick brown locks and heavy beard; his dark eyes that dilated wide when inspired by his theme; the passionate, impressive gestures, the ringing voice now sweet and sad, or anon like the bugle-blast in its fiery vehemence; the strong, compact figure that paced to and fro past the desk-all helped make up the consummate pulpit-orator. He recalled the scriptural statement, "The word was with power." It is not wonderful that he delighted the exccutive fancy of Deacon Rowler.

His second, third, and fourth sermons were as excellent as his first, and on each successive Sabbath he surpassed himself. His congregation was soon the largest in the village, and the Rev. Cleanthus Bibbins, rector of Holy Trin ity Church, who had a hankering after ritualism, spoke of him as a sensation preacher who sought by clap-trap to attract the "vulgar" rabble. preached the theology of an orthodox sect, and with telling effect. In the first six months of his ministry, over forty converts were added to his church, and it was a noticeable fact that a large percentage of them were young ladies.

He

But let us analyze more closely the pastoral duties of our young clergyman at this period of his life. He preached two sermons every day, morning and evening; heard a Bible-class after the first service; presided at prayer-meetings on Wednesday and Friday evenings; attended covenant meetings monthly; officiated at weddings and funerals; made pastoral calls; was scrupulous in visiting the sick of the parish, and was expected to take the lead in conducting the missionary and charitable enterprises of his society. These trifling duties he performed in those days for $500 a-year and a

"donation." Summer vacations to ministers were then unknown out of the city, and such a waste of time would have been regarded as a clerical crime. Ashley Mulgrove had not yet learned to escape the exhausting pressure of his brain-labor by relapsing into the common-place routine of the hackneyed exhorter. He was yet too young, ambitious, and enthusiastic. Every week he wrote two fresh sermons, and committed them to memory. In addition to this labor, he reviewed his theological lectures, kept brushed up in Greek and Hebrew, read the papers and the current literature of the day to glean illustrations and keep in sympathy with the times.

It must be apparent to the reader that this zealous overwork in a few months began to tell both on his mind and body. But how could he avoid it? He was only going through with the established formula of a country clergyman's duty. Deacon Rowler was, as before stated, a working Christian, and he expected his pastor to set the highest example in laboring for Christ.

In the meanwhile the Rev. Ashley Mulgrove grew pale, haggard, and melancholy, though his enthusiasm in the pulpit did not cool, but flamed out the brighter like an expiring taper. He kept a promise made to Hester, to kneel every night at ten o'clock, and remember her especially in his prayer; but he broke it in not quitting his studies till long after midnight. The two weekly sermons must be produced. In his contract with his church, this was the pound of flesh "nominated in the bond." When he extinguished his lamp, and threw himself upon the bed, he was often too tired to sleep. Still there was the inexorable tyrant of his existence, Two a-week! two a-week!

At last he became abstracted and restless in manner, and was unknowingly groping on the very verge of insanity. In this condition of mind, the only relief he found was in the company Alice, who was so young, fresh, and healthful, that the buoyancy of her spirits seemed for the time to give

of

strength to his own. She could sing and play charmingly, and there was a vivacity in her conversation which was a better tonic to his mind than more gravity or depth. He usually talked to her as an elder brother, and with no affectation of the clerical character. He occasionally walked to church with Alice, and sometimes took a stroll with her to the outskirts of the village. The gossips said that the young clergyman was courting Deacon Rowler's daughter. The Widow Skeals, who had two daughters whose marriageable age was well established, had said, on several occasions, "that the minister was following up that little flirt of an Alice Rowler, just as if he was dead in love with her." She would usually add, “I don't see what he can find to admire in such a young thing, for my part. She is no more fit to be a minister's wife than she is to be queen of Spain !"

But the wind bloweth where it listeth, and no man can tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. It is much the same with love.

"Forgive a mother's solicitude, Mr. Mulgrove," said Mrs. Rowler one morning to the minister. "Alice is nearly seventeen, and has not yet united with the church. I was a communicant at fourteen."

"Mrs. Rowler, Alice is an attentive listener at church, and I had hoped that soon she would be drawn to the Cross. There is a great difference in persons," continued her pastor, regaining his composure. "Some rush frantically, some approach reluctantly, others obstinately, and there are a blessed few who seem gently drawn as if to a sweet refuge from the unrest of the world."

He said this with a touching sadness and sincerity, which would have allayed the suspicion of even old Dowzer, had he been any thing but a dog.

"But it pains me," added the mother, "to see so many other young girls bearing the Cross, and Alice not among them. Mr. Mulgrove, I shall never know a happy moment until I see you baptize Alice. I shall never—”

At this juncture the door-bell rang,

and Mr. Mulgrove was called for, to visit the sick son of a member of his church. He was not expected to live, and the minister was requested to come at once. Leaving his unfinished sermon, and hastily putting Hester's last letter into his Bible as he noticed it lying near his manuscript, he broke away from the clerical Moloch, Two a-week.

His last action did not escape the quick eye of Mrs. Rowler, and in a moment after he went out she returned to his study. He was hardly out of sight, when she locked the door on the inside, went straight to the table, opened the Bible, and took out the letter. Her face colored as she held it in her hand, for she was not without a sense of shame at the meanness of the act. She paused, and then whispered, "What's the harm? I want to know the enemy I have to deal with. I must measure my daughter's rival.”

The letter came out of the envelope, and Mrs. Rowler perused it carefully. She read this sentence aloud:

"You say, dear Ashley, that little Alice is the sprightliest, sweetest, prettiest young girl in the village, and that her songs, laughter, and merry talk are your only recreation from the fatiguing duties of your position. I envy Alice her nearness to you, and rejoice to think that, in a few months, I can relieve her from the pleasant task of confidential companion to the Rev. Ashley Mulgrove."

“Ah, hah! jealousy already," said Mrs. Rowler, with a look of fiendish satisfaction. "My daughter will relieve you, Hester Mason, for I can wind you and your lover round my little finger!" As the heroine of the purloined letter uttered these words, she flourished her hand in air in a style that would have done honor to Lady Macbeth.

"Yes," she continued, "my Alice shall be Mrs. Mulgrove, the wife of the popular preacher; and you Hester Mason may be Mrs. Anybody or Mrs. Nobody, as you like. My plan will work! If he takes a special interest in her soui, he will soon feel one in her heart. Her beauty already bewitches

him, and that and her mother's headwork will win the day."

As she concluded this exulting statement, she looked at her plump, wellrounded figure in the mirror over the wash-stand, and, with a glow of feminine vanity, thus addressed her reflected image: "Don't I understand these men, ministers and all? I rather think I do, Mrs. Rowler!"

Having soliloquized her intentions, she put the letter back carefully, and returned below-stairs.

It was not long before the plan of the ambitious mother began to be realized. A few evenings after Mrs. Rowler's confidential visit to the study, the young clergyman walked out with Alice, in one of the last nights of summer. They sat down on a great rock, close by the stream as it murmured through a little glen just beyond. There was a dam which elevated the water for one of Deacon Rowler's mills, and in this pool Mr. Mulgrove had performed many baptisms. They were silent for some moments, looking at the bridge of moonlight that lay like a silver shaft across the placid pond. The time and place were auspicious, and the young clergyman waited for an opportunity to turn the conversation naturally into a more serious channel.

"What is more beautiful than a star, Mr. Mulgrove?" asked Alice, with a slight touch of girlish sentiment, as she pointed to Venus, its red light glowing like a torch in the dusky horizon.

Here was a chance for a lover's compliment, but the ardent minister restrained the human impulse, and spoke as the man of God.

"That which a star first symbolized Jesus of Bethlehem," he quickly answered.

Alice's eyes fell upon the ground and filled with tears. The talk which followed was too pure, tender, and sacred to be transcribed. It was there that the newness of life began to dawn in the soul of this young girl, like the first struggling beams of the morning. He presented the Saviour to her, with the munificence of His love, sympathy, and

sacrifice. He spoke with a sad, sweet earnestness more eloquent to her than all his fiery appeals from the pulpit.

In three weeks from this time he stood side by side with her in the bright pool, on which the moonbeams had rested so lovingly on that memorable night. Alice, dressed in a robe of spotless white, was fair as an angel. Mr. Mulgrove, in his black robe, and pale, earnest face, never looked so full of the Christian life. The crowd upon the bank was hushed in breathless stillness by the solemnity of the spectacle. The look of pride on Mrs. Rowler's face even softened into one of reverent awe.

"My sister, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!" There was a plash of the water simultaneously with the word "Amen;" the sun came out suddenly from a cloud and shone brightly on the scene, and as Alice rose again, Undine springing from the wave was not more beautiful to the enraptured eye.

Let us follow the Rev. Ashley Mulgrove to his study after the arduous labor of the Sabbath on which he performed the baptism just described. His evening discourse had been preached with great fervor, and he felt utterly exhausted and unstrung. Two a-week was fast consigning him to the list of Christian martyrs. The heat that was within him he thought was without, and he threw off his clothes, and sat in an easy-chair, with only his dressing-gown on, by an open window, in one of the chilly nights of early autumn. "What a weak restraint is piety on some of the passions of human nature!" he mused to himself. "What if all my thoughts had blossomed into deeds-where would I stand to-night? Well were we taught to pray, 'Lead us not into temptation.' There is in all human hearts the germ of every possible sin. I thank God, my father early taught me manliness. My manhood revolts at a base act. But where has the strength of my manhood fown these many weeks? I love Alice, I am engaged to Hester, yet my love for her does not depart. She has been true, I have been false. I have not

confessed my passion to Alice, but I've been on the very point of doing it a dozen times. I was tempted to place myself before her Saviour. Oh, horrible thought! What shall I do! I will do what I have meditated for the past week I will abandon both these human loves, and only love my Saviour, and toil for Him to the end of my days

they will not be many. This evening I preached from the text, 'Set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth;' henceforth I will practise as I preach. I will write the letter I have resolved upon-tell Hester that I cannot be her husband, that I desire no other bride than the Church. I must, I will write her this! She will forgive me when I wish to do my highest duty. Alice shall be to me only like any other lamb I have called into my Master's fold. Let me know sacrifice, let me slay my affections, as Abraham would have slain Isaac. Lord, let me be greater than he; nerve me to strike the fatal blow, and not withhold my arm!"

As he uttered these words he stood up, with his arms lifted high, and his eyes had in them the fire of madness. The self-righteous egotism into which he had relapsed, settled the type of his insanity. "I will write the letter!" he exclaimed. He lighted a lamp, and drawing his chair to the table, arranged. his writing materials and sat down. For a moment he was calmer, and, covering his face with his hands, almost moaned : “My head-oh, my head! I've not slept for five nights. I must wait till morning."

He extinguished the lamp, and threw himself on the bed with the cry, half anguish and half prayer, "O God, bring me sleep, or bring me death!"

The completeness of his exhaustion gave him a few hours of enforced slumber; but sleep came not as "tired nature's sweet restorer." He awoke with the consciousness of intense bodily and mental suffering. His hands and feet were like ice, his temples throbbed as if the blood was driven through his veins by a forcing pump of forty-horse power. His tongue was swollen with

thirst, and his throat felt like the heated flue of a furnace. He gasped for breath, and, getting up, groped for the waterpitcher. Ashley Mulgrove recognized his old enemy, the brain-fever, but in that lucid moment, all his past life was clear to him. Reeling, he caught at the darkness for support, and in his helplessness cried out," Oh, Hester, come to me!" and fell heavily upon the floor.

III. THE MYSTERY.

Monday morning the breakfast-bell rang twice, as usual, in Deacon Rowler's house, but the clerical boarder did not appear.

"He has overslept himself," suggested Mrs. Rowler.

"He may be ill," said Alice, anxiously. "I never knew him late before,” remarked the Deacon.

"Perhaps he's out for a walk,” theorized Fred.

Alice related nervously that she heard something jar the house about four o'clock in the morning. She added, "It sounded like something falling in Mr. Mulgrove's room, and after that I couldn't get to sleep. My head soon began to ache, and I concluded that the noise must have been in my dream."

Bridget was told to go and rap at his door, and see if he was coming down. She did so. Tap! tap! on the door. No answer. Tap! tap! tap! She knocked harder. Still silent. She listened, but could hear no sound. Should she open the door? Raising the latch, she pushed the door gently open, for it was not locked. A loud, piercing scream was the result. She ran downstairs almost wild with fright.

it hot. Then he put his hand over the heart, and felt it beat. Respiration was going on, but with great difficulty.

Deacon Rowler lifted the body on to the bed, and sent his son for the family. physician. He came promptly, and pronounced the case brain-fever of the most malignant type, and said delirium and paroxysms might soon be expected. The prediction was speedily verified. In an hour the suspended vitality of the patient returned with tenfold power. That night it took four strong men to hold him upon the bed, for his ravings were like those of a fierce maniac.

But it is not necessary to dwell longer on this picture of excruciating suffering of mind and body.

In the afternoon of the next day, at about five o'clock, and shortly after the arrival of the train from the north, a young lady stood at the door of Deacon Rowler's residence, with her hand upon the bell-knob. As the servant was engaged, Mrs. Rowler answered the call.

"Is Mr. Mulgrove boarding at this house, madam?" asked the stranger. "He is," was the reply. "How is he?"

"A very sick man.'

"I am Hester Mason. I wish to sec him."

The black eyes of the Deacon's wife flashed fire, and, if Miss Mason had not got fairly into the hall, she looked as if she would have slammed the door in her face. "You cannot see him, Miss. He is too sick and excited. It is against the doctor's orders!"

At this moment the agonizing cry of the frenzied patient was heard from above. Hester was near the foot of the

Alice fainted, and was taken to her room by her mother. Deacon Rowler rushed up-stairs. He saw the body of the young clergyman outstretched upon the floor, apparently lifeless. A dark stain of blood was on the carpet, which came from a wound on his forehead, which in the fall had struck the stovehearth. He bent over the prostrate form. He touched the face, and found

ahead of her, she bounded up them so quickly that her pursuer lost her breath at the very thought of overtaking her. She found Ashley on the bed, with Deacon Rowler, the physician, and two other men, endeavoring to hold him down in one of his fiercest paroxysms. She said, quietly, "Let me speak to him, gentlemen;" and, taking one of his hands in hers, smoothed his forehead with the other, and spoke softly, but