in arms. You hear my will, and that is enough!" he said in an elevated tone, which reached other ears besides those of Holdich; "what is to hinder you, or any one else, from doing my pleasure for once on that day which I usually permit you to keep according to your own?"

God's commandment," replied Robert Holdich. "Answer me this," cried the baronet, scarcely repressing the anger which was beginning to inflame his proud heart, "if my castle, or your own cottage, were on fire upon Sunday, would you not work to put out the flames ?"

"I certainly should, sir; it would be a work of necessity," the steward replied.

"And to do my will is a work of necessity for any one who would continue in my service!" said the baronet, whose eyes flashed with angry fire.

Holdich made no reply.

"Am I to understand," said Sir Digby, whose passions like an impetuous torrent were wont to sweep all before them, but now chafed and boiled round the obstacle presented by one man's passive resistance; am I to understand that you dare to refuse to obey the command of your master?"

Holdich was very pale, but his eye never blenched, nor his accents faltered; "I could not serve you faithfully, sir," he replied, "if I were false to a higher Master."

"Out on your puritanical cant!" exclaimed the

baronet with a burst of passion; you have made your choice, and must abide the consequences. After your month is completed I shall have no more occasion for your services. I shall look out for a steward who can not only serve but obey." And turning on his heel, the baronet walked with long rapid strides towards the Walhalla.

Holdich remained motionless for some seconds, realizing the fact that he was now indeed a ruined man. He then slowly raised his hand to his temples and pressed them, to deaden the sense of pain which, almost for the first time in his life, showed him that the strongest frame must at length be affected by mental distress. The future, with all its trials, rose before the mind's eye of the steward, and he did not turn away from the view. He must in a few weeks leave his dwelling, but he could not quit the neighbourhood of Axe till his son's trial-that blackest of clouds had discharged its burden of miseries upon him. How could Holdich maintain his family through what might be a long period of suspense? how procure for his son the legal assistance without which his condemnation appeared to be certain? Mr. Eardley, himself almost a stranger, had done all that he could for the family,-far more than he could have been expected to do. Holdich knew no other friend in Axe; at the Castle all were enemies! He who had hitherto scrupulously obeyed the command, Owe no man anything, had no prospect before him of avoid

ing heavy debts, which might hang round his neck like a millstone for years, dragging him down to lower depths of poverty than those from which in his youth he had struggled. Holdich was in the position of a traveller in the vast desert, who, with the sun burning above, the sand scorching beneath, has delayed to the last to open his only jar of water, that its scanty supply may preserve him and his from perishing of thirst ere a distant well can be reached; and who sees that jar overturned and broken, and its contents, precious as life's blood, sucked in by the barren sand!

And yet Holdich was not wretched, as he had been when he had sat before his dying fire on the night of his son's arrest, wrestling with a rebellious spirit, and gloomy doubts of the goodness of God. It is for Him that I suffer," was a thought that sustained the steward under his trial, as it has sustained martyrs and confessors from the earliest ages of the Church. To him, as to them, came the word with power, Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. Holdich knew that no man can be really a loser by whatever he may give up for Him who disposeth at His pleasure of all the treasures of earth and heaven.

"These will be sorry tidings for my poor wife," thought Holdich, as he slowly turned towards his cottage. "Would that I could bear her share of the cross as well as my own! He who stands alone in

the world presents small front to misfortune,—our sharpest pangs are those which we suffer through those whom we love."

Holdich, on his unexpected entrance, found Rebekah crying over a letter which she was writing. She started at the sound of his step, hastily dried her eyes, and tried to look up with a smile.

I was only answering one which I received from my father this morning," she said, in a voice which quivered from the attempt to be cheerful.

"How is your poor father?" asked Holdich. The question again made the tears well up in the eyes of Rebekah.

Of course he feels-his own position-and Ned's," she replied; "I try to comfort him as well as I can—but—” she stopped, and the drops coursed fast down her cheeks.

Holdich laid his hand upon his wife's; he could not at that moment tell her that they were ruined, that they soon would be homeless.

"It is so wrong to give way!" cried Rebekah, “I have been trying so hard to feel that exiles in Babylon must be taught by troubles that their home is not here, and that sorrow is sent to make us turn with more longing desire to our Jerusalem which is above."

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All tears will be wiped away there," said Holdich, seating himself at her side. There was a subdued sadness in his tone which struck the sensitive ear of his wife..

Oh, Robert any new misfortune?" she nervously inquired, clasping her hands as she spoke. "I have offended Sir Digby," he replied.

Rebekah looked aghast at the words. Every earthly prop seemed to be breaking away beneath her; she could scarcely murmur the inquiry,

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Better let her know the worst at once," thought Holdich, and in a few sentences he told his wife of his dismissal and its cause.

"Oh!" cried Rebekah in the first burst of her anguish, "could you not have spoken him fair?"

The exclamation sounded like a reproach, Holdich was cut to the soul, and a flush rose to his sunburnt cheek and brow. But he would not have recalled the past, he would not have retraced the step which seemed to have plunged him over a chasm; he had deliberately chosen his lot with the people of God, and bore firmly, with other trials, the reproach of her whom he loved best upon earth.

“Oh, how could I speak thus!" cried Rebekah with instant remorse, clasping her arms round her husband's neck, and sobbing upon his bosom. "Forgive me, Robert, forgive me! You have done what was right-you have done what was wise—I am more proud of you now in your disgrace than ever I was in happier days. I would not for worlds have had you give up your conscience to win the favour of man."