nurse's voice saying, 'And if you ever tell a lie or bear false witness against any one, and no one else find you out, this stone will. You can hide nothing from it.'

The locket dropped from Nellie's hands, and she sank helplessly into a chair. Her consternation and dismay were unbounded. What! were her plans which had succeeded so far, and had brought no unpleasant results (she forgot her uncomfortable thoughts all day), not to be prosperous in the end? Everything had gone well, and was a stone to turn against her? And not a common stone, but her own beloved emerald!

More and more clearly her behaviour rose before her; contempt for her own action, then repentance for it, stole into her soul, and one by one penitent tears rolled down her cheeks. At last she broke down into a storm of tears.

What was that-that sound that broke on Nellie's ear? It could never be the factory bell that called the workmen to their daily labour, and sounded through the streets of Beuley just half an hour before a similar but less noisy peal summoned Mrs. Straytelace's young ladies to rise! Was that the sun peeping in at the window, and filling the room with golden light, glinting upon Gwen's little white bed, and playing on her rosy sleep-flushed face? Had Nellie only been dreaming a

dreadful dream? Was this terrible accusation against

her cousin no reality?

Yes, surely it was a dream.

asleep when she sat down last

She must have fallen

night full of thoughts

of the coming examination, else how came it that she now found herself outside the bed, instead of being comfortably ensconced among the clothes?

Quick as a shot Nellie jumped up and rushed to her jewel-box. There, just as she had left it, lay her precious locket, the emerald shining in all its splendid green.

Softly the little girl crept up to Gwen's bed to see if that hard, suffering look were written on her face. There was not a trace of it.

At this moment Gwen moved, and showed signs of awakening.

'Gwen,' said Nellie softly, 'dear Gwen, I want to say something to you. I have had a bad dream-at least I hope it was a dream. See how I have been crying! I fancied I had been very wicked to you, Gwen, about the examination. Have I?'

'Oh no,

'Wicked to me?' asked Gwen sleepily. Nellie, I am sure you've not. How can you think such stupid things?'

'Oh, then it was only a dream!' cried Nellie joyfully. 'But, dear Gwen, I've thought very naughty thoughts,

and so I want to say to you that, as the chance of the prize seems to lie between us two, I do hope we shall neither of us bear the other any ill-will, however the matter may turn out, and I want you to forgive me all my naughty thoughts, Gwen. I'm afraid I've often been very ungrateful and unkind.'

'Indeed you've not!' cried dear little Gwen, folding her in her arms and kissing her; 'indeed you've not.' And Gwen, when she spoke, meant what she said, for her sweet nature never brooded over the remembrance of any slight or unkindness. 'You've always been the best and dearest of cousins to me, and I hope, whoever of us wins the prize, it will make no difference to the unsuccessful one. Indeed, Nellie, if you very much wish it, I am willing to tell Mrs. Straytelace that I will give up trying.'

'Oh no, no; I do not wish that. Oh, I'm so glad it was all a dream, Gwen, and that you forgive me.' Gwen smiled.

'I do not know what I have to forgive,' she said, and Nellie really had not the courage to tell her the dreadful dream; for as it was only a dream, she did hope most sincerely that she was not quite so wicked in her waking hours.

Gwen Owen carried off the first prize, and Nellie had

to content herself with taking a second place in the contest; but she thought of her dream, and was so unutterably glad and happy to think it was not true, that her disappointment was completely submerged in thankfulness.

June.

'WHO BEARETH ME SHALL OVERCOME:

AN aged woman bent over a huge cauldron; and

there was with her in the chamber a man, fierce

visaged and young, and he hung upon her movements enrapt. She chanted as she stirred the pot's contents, throwing in strange objects as she sang→

'One, two, three,

Good spirits flee,

Bad spirits hither,

And listen to me:

Listen to the incantation,

And behold my machination;

Fire, water; water, fire;

How it bubbles ever higher!

Throw in this and throw in that,

Now a frog, and now a cat,

Here a herb and here a flower,

Take, O Agate, take the power,
That invincible may be

E'er whoever carries thee.

Spirits wicked, lend your aid,

Then the thing will soon be made.'

'Behold, my son,' she cried, 'the enchantment is