the money down with a weary smile, "why you

give this to me."

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Don't you?"

'No, not at all.” She looked up at Elizabeth standing by the window in the moonlight, with two tiny pairs of shoes slung by the straps over her arm.

"Don't you think I have seen through you, Maggie?" said she; "don't you think I've seen you push away your food when I knew you liked it most, and turn red and pale all the same minute? and don't you think I've seen you snatch at every bit of work you could get hold of? I've cured of one disease, and now I want to cure you of another by showing you how you can be more gain than loss to me. Maggie, I know well enough what is the matter with you-you are suffering from a proud stomach. Ah laws, this world!"

you

The convalescent rose slowly from her chair and went to the window, and Elizabeth, from a

feeling no more sentimental than the wish of the strong to uphold the weak, put her arm round her.

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Elizabeth," said Margaret, faintly, "you will show me how to earn the bread I eat with you; but, for the comfort you have brought to my poor broken heart, what words, what acts of mine can ever reward you?"

"Few words and one act would do it," answered Elizabeth.

"Let the words be, 'I will stay with

you,' and the act, staying."

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'But my story; let me tell it now."

Not to-night; you are whiter than usual." "Well, then, to-morrow."

Margaret leant upon her shoulder and wept quietly.

The moon was out and shone over the sea, and had smiled almost every wrinkle out of its grey face. It lay so calm and lovely, one could scarce look at it and not feel at peace.

Elizabeth Vandereck stood looking out at it, and by her moist, bright eyes and quivering smile, the pale girl at her side knew she was thinking of one who had perished there, and then she too thought of one whom she believed to be at the mercy of those fitful waves.

Margaret leant her head on the young widow's shoulder, and the peace of the night and the low hush, hush" of the sea brought a strange quiet into her soul.

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She sighed as Elizabeth raised her arm to let down the patched blue cotton curtain.

"This night might be in heaven as well as earth," said Margaret, "and so might this sea."

"Ay,” replied Elizabeth Vandereck, holding back the curtain with a proud and tender gesture. "I wonder, Maggie, what empress on this earth could point to anything more grand than that and say, It is my husband's tomb ?"

CHAPTER III.

MARGARET'S STORY.

WHEN the little ones had been turned out on the beach in charge of an old man who acted as netmender to the fishermen, linen-minder to some laundresses, as well as nurse, the two women soon had the floor of the small room covered with the blue flannel and serge on which they were at

work.

Elizabeth stood at the table "cutting out" with her huge scissors. Margaret sat near the window stitching. Her cheeks had a faint pink flush, and her eyes were bright and strained-looking. She had been smiling at her friend's jokes about some village gossip, but Elizabeth could see she only did so half absently, and that best part of her mind and heart were full of other thoughts.

"She won't keep it in long now," said Elizabeth

to herself, as she pinned Margaret's seams for her. "I can see it by that pursed-up little mouth, and the hard pull o' the needle."

"Don't draw your thread so tight, child,” she said aloud.

Margaret started, and looked up with wet, excited eyes.

"It's no use, Mrs Vandereck," she began, shaking her head. "I can't work any more till I've told you. It's all very well for you to trust me, and for me to dare you to distrust me in the way I have done, but'

"But what?" asked Elizabeth, who had gone to pin a sleeve in the garment Margaret was at

work upon.

Margaret watched her without replying instantly, her little hands locked wearily in each other.

Suddenly Elizabeth felt that her eyes were raised to her face with a searching and piteous gaze.