you can't help wanting to do everything for him, and be everything to him. I suppose it is because I love him so very much.”

"Is it?" replied Aileen doubtfully. "I don't know. If you loved him more, perhaps you would think only of him, and not have room to think of yourself at all."

"Do you mean to say you love him more than I do?" cried Rose, turning on her with flashing eyes and curling lip. Aileen was silent.

Rose sprang to her feet, red with anger. "I, who am his own niece! Why don't you speak, Aileen? Do you dare to think you love him better than I do?"

"Dear Rose, I never thought of thinking about it. I was only silent because your question took me by surprise. I never thought of thinking which of us loved him most."

"Nor I," replied Rose proudly; "because it is a matter of course that I must-I who am his own niece. It is nonsense to suppose that you could, Aileen. Say that it is. Say that you know I love him best."

Again Aileen was silent, and Rose's temper got the better of her. She felt miserable and angry, and (for the moment) as if she quite disliked Aileen. You see, if you give way to one fault even without knowing that it is a fault at all, it is sure to lead you into others besides itself. Rose's imperious jealousy when Uncle Archie was concerned, which had grown with her growth and strengthened with her strength, and which she never felt was wrong, had brought about when temptation came this open display of temper and these secret unkind feelings towards Aileen.

She now turned passionately to Aileen, repeating, "You shall say it! I won't permit you not. Say I love him best."

"I don't know anything about it," replied Aileen. "I can't say what I don't know. We both love him as much as ever we can. And what does it matter which loves him best? I believe comparing is a very bad plan, Rose, and it is so useless, and worse than useless; for see how it is bringing something bitter even into what is the dearest thing we have."

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"I am his own niece," said Rose, drawing her. self proudly up, and not condescending to attend to Aileen's sensible words. "Of course I love him best."

"I don't see that, though," replied Aileen. "Relations don't always love each other. One of the girls at school has an aunt she really dislikes." "An aunt: yes, very likely; but not an Uncle Archie, an own Uncle Archie."

"Of course you love him with your whole heart.

And so do I with mine. May we not be content with knowing that?”

"You won't say I love him best?”

"Dear Rose, please don't mind about it; I think it is quite silly. How can i tell? Do let us both love him in peace."

"How can we love him in peace when you are so very, very aggravating? Nothing can make you his niece, which I am-his own niece."

"Then be satisfied with that. I have not a word to say against it. Settle the question so. Do not let us be as silly as when we were children."

"I'm not silly; it's you-and worse than silly. I'm not a bit unreasonable. I would be perfectly satisfied if you would say that because I am his niece I must love him best. You have no right to love him as well as his niece does."

"I have a right to love him with my whole heart, and with every bit of love that is in me. If he is your uncle, he is my benefactor. He took you because you were his niece, and he loved your father, and so loved you before he saw you; he took me out of pure benevolence. How can I be grateful enough to him?”

"I feel gratitude too," half sobbed Rose; "I have ever so much reason to be grateful.”

"We both have, but I have most. The very thing that makes you think that, as his niece, you must love him most makes my gratitude, as not his niece, so immense. For what has he not done for me, who am not his niece?"

Then Rose tossed her head up into the air, a look of triumph came into her eyes, and she said in an exulting voice, "He loves me best, because I am his niece! "

Then she glanced under her eyelashes at Aileen, to see how she would take this announcement.

Aileen bent her head meekly, making a striking contrast to the other girl, who stood erect, her head flung back, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes flashing with excitement.

“Of course he does. I never thought about that, and I never shall think about it. I love him, and he is very, very kind to me."

Two tears formed slowly in her eyes as she spoke, and welling out, hung on their lashes, but she brushed them away with her hand.

Rose drooped her proud head, ashamed. She felt how ungenerous her last speech had been, and how very sweetly Aileen had received it. And the anger she had allowed to master her died away. She did not conquer it, it had conquered her; but the Bible contains no truer words than that " a soft answer turneth away wrath," and now the anger was gone she felt tired and sorry, her

tears flowed freely, she threw her arms round Aileen's neck, and kissed her.

"He does love you, though—you know he does," she sobbed out. She could not say he loved Aileen as much as herself, for she knew he did not, but she was very unhappy that she had taunted Aileen with the fact, and felt the meanness and unkindness of having done so, wondering at herself for conduct of which she would not have believed herself capable.

Aileen cried a little too, kissed Rose, and freely forgave her, but she did not feel as happy as before they had thus talked; her simple, earnest, unselfish love for her benefactor had received a jar, and it would require some self-discipline and some prayers, such as she had been taught to offer, before it could resume its serenity free from petty cares or comparisons.

Aileen was of rather a reserved nature, and did not often speak of her own most precious or sacred feelings to any one, and Rose's way of behaving to her, the dash of superiority that pervaded her feelings towards Aileen, and therefore could not but pervade her conduct also, prevented the possibility of Aileen confiding much in her friend, however dearly she loved her. The usual thing was for Rose to talk to Aileen about her thoughts and feelings, and for Aileen to listen to Rose and sympathise with her.

But the barrier seemed broken down now for a few minutes, and Aileen, remembering what Rose had said to the stranger on the pier, whispered, "Do you know that I think my father is alive?"

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None," was the reply, and Aileen shook her head, but she did not speak sorrowfully; "only I feel that mamma is dead and I never feel that he is. I think he will come home some day."

Before Rose could give the reply that she found it very difficult to frame to what appeared to her almost as a delusion, the doctor made his appearance again, and after a tiptoe visit to his patient's room, assured the two girls that he was sleeping quite naturally, and he thought would be himself in a day or two.

"May I sit up with him to-night?" asked Rose, with breathless eagerness. "I think it would be the most delightful thing in the world to sit up with Uncle Archie."

"Not the least occasion for it," replied the doctor, smiling kindly at her excited face, "not the least. There is a very respectable man will sleep in the next room, and do anything he wants, if he wants anything; but I expect he will have a sound night's sleep, and wake all right in the morning."

The

The doctor's expectations proved correct. accident was much less serious than had been feared at first, and Mr. Burke was soon well again. But he did not get strong all at once, and his head sometimes ached a good deal. He therefore gave up the tour that had been projected, and he and his two companions remained at Rathmullen, contenting themselves by taking drives and walks in the neighbourhood, which they all three of them considered as remarkably pretty. They walked down to Macamish, a fort some two miles below Rathmullen, and where the sea view is yet more charming than at Rathmullen itself; and the children filled their baskets with the prettiest little shells covering the sands that ever were seen. They drove to the top of Lough Salt, where a lake lies, with only the last rugged bit of the mountain rising over it; and standing above its limpid surface, they beheld the wonderful beauties of the county of Donegal stretched like a map beneath them. By water they visited the Seven Arches, sailing for some hours down the Lough, and landing amid those strange and weird Seven Arches that stand all twisted together; and then they scrambled up through them to the cliff, and walked back to the one grand arch at Karrablagh, which beats all the seven in beauty.

"Why does not everybody come to Lough Swilly?" cried Rose, as, having climbed up some of the fantastic rocks, her eyes fastened on the grand opposite coast, where Errith and Dunnath were catching in almost incredibly beautiful lights and shadows the glories of the setting sun. "There seems to be everything here that anybody can want-sea, sand, rocks, and cliffs, and caves; all unlike what one can see anywhere else."

"There are no railways, and few houses; and so few people either come or stay," explained her uncle.

"But there are roads and cars," answered Rose, quite indignantly, "and houses too. Why, even here, where we seem to have left the world, far away from the grandeur and loveliness-look, just above you, a little way up the cliff-is a dear wee basin of a valley, and you will see quite a charming house, that seems as if it had been put there by the fairies, and not built by mortals at al!.

Uncle Archie looked and admired.

"Wise fairies," he said, "to build a house in such a nook as that."

her uncle for saying that there were not houses enough: "when you find them where nobody could

these wooded hills, itself standing high above the level of the unseen, yet not distant, sea, was a large, low, white house, half covered with creepers, the pretty blue smoke that proceeds from turf fires rising from its chimneys, a flower-garden a blaze of brilliant colours on the one side, shrubbery walks on the other, a miniature lake in front; and in the near distance, beyond the woods and beyond the house on the side of a farther-off hill, a few cottages with thatched or slated roofs scattered about, and in the midst of these a small white church with a bell-turret, deftly

expect a house to be," as Rose said. They had by this time driven a mile or two up the lake from Rathmullen, and then left the car to take a walk over the hills and moors. All around them was wild and bare or if not bare, covered only by wild heather, with a grandeur of its own, but of an unhumanlike and barren grandeur-when suddenly ascending the top of a mountain, they looked down on a lovely and secluded valley. The sides of the hills of it were thickly wooded below them, and in the midst of this valley, surrounded by

carved and pointing to the sky-a church such as might be seen in a dream.

The children both cried out with delight, and Rose clapped her hands.

"Now, are there few houses, you bad uncle?" she cried. "Did you ever see such a house as that? Is

it not perfect-quite perfect? You must grow very, very rich, Uncle Archie, and give up work, and come to live in county Donegal. I must have a house just like that. Is it not shocking to be living in a street when there is country? and such country as this! I cannot understand why people live in towns, when they might live in the country."

"I never could understand any one building a town," Aileen remarked thoughtfully; "it always seems to me wrong; and I shall think so more

E

must not talk to the "Man at the Wheel," we are told, and sometimes we ask, "Why not?" The answer is because he is steering the ship- by the aid of what is called the mariner's compass

W

and must not be disturbed on any account. Let me try to explain the compass, and how it is made useful.

You have all heard, no doubt, that there is a needle in the compass, and this needle points to the north, or very nearly north, for it varies in different places. The needle is a "magnetic" needle, that is, it has been rubbed with a magnet or loadstone. This loadstone is a natural production. It is found in Sweden in some quantities, and in Eastern Europe, as well as other places. It is called a "magnet," and has been known for hundreds of years, so we must go back a long way in the history of the world, and begin speaking of the magnet in the old way, "Once upon a time."

The origin of the mariners' compass is not any more to be decided than the actual discovery of the magnet. It is certain, however, that the magnet was known 600 years before the Christian era; and to the Chinese has been usually awarded the palm for the discovery of the compass. At any rate, it is in Chinese chronicles which were written in the second century before the Christian era that we find the mention of the compass, which 600 years before that time had been attached to cars to enable some ambassadors to find their way home. So it was on land, and not at sea, that the compass was first used. The Chinese compass points south and north. The Chinese look upon the south as the proper pole; and when you come to read about magnetism you will learn that opposite poles or ends of a magnet attract each other, and the same poles repulse each other. Thus if you have a toy swan in a basin he will follow one end of your little magnet, but he will turn away from the other. So the north pole of the needle ought to point to the south, and not north, as we say in England. Other nations say the south pole or point of the needle goes in the northerly direction.

Once upon a time-so the story goes-there was a shepherd boy upon Mount Ida whose name was Magnes, and one day when he was tending his flocks, and carrying his crook like Bo-peep, he found that it, being of iron, was attracted to a certain stone in the mountain. This stone is the loadstone; and iron, steel, and many other substances besides are affected by it. When we rub a needle on a loadstone, the needle will point (of will hang when suspended freely), north and south. There is no doubt about the loadstone, though some writers say it was discovered in the province of Magnesia, in Asia Minor. So much for the magnet.

But our compass needle is considered to point to the north, and we accept the fact. So when we have got our needle and suspended it in a compass box, in such a way that the rolling of the vessel will not upset the compass or shake the needle off its balance, we find it fixed to a card upon which there are thirty-two points in the form of a star, and each of these points has some letter or letters attached. When you can repeat all these letters in rotation forwards and backwards, you may be said to be able to "box the compass." You will see that the points go in certain steps from N., S., E., and W., and when you know the "points" from N. to E. you can easily learn them from N. to W., only putting west for east, and so on.

In our days the needle and its box are enclosed in a glass case called the binnacle, and this is in front of the man at the wheel who is steering. A line is drawn across the compass to tell the steersmen which way the ship's head is to be kept, and they must take care that this line and the ship's direction from end to end are the samethat is, they must keep the line pointing to the head of the ship. Then if the needle point to the right the ship's course may be north-west, for the line may run from N. W. to S. E. or from any other

point. As the vessel goes the needle will vary, and if the captain did not know how much it turned from the north he would be puzzled. The iron in the ship attracts the needle very much, so before a vessel goes to sea the compasses are "adjusted," and the ship is swung round so as to find out how much from N. the needle will move. Then when this has been discovered, and the compass is passed as correct, the ship goes to sea with her crew, and makes her way across the pathless ocean, held to her proper course by the "Man at the Wheel."

Then said Hilary— "Where the rainbow strikes the ground

Shall a crock of gold be found."

"Do you believe it?" asked her twin-sister Christine.

"Why not? Yes, I think I do, if one could only get to the exact spot; we might try and find it." "I could find it," answered Christine. "It is just by the brook where that lamb is standing." Their little brother Silvy opened his eyes wide; he did not understand what his sisters were talking about; but then Silvy was only three, and Hilary and Christine were certainly five and a half. when he found they were going into the field where the lamb was he was much pleased. He would like to stroke it.

But

The children scrambled over the palings, tearing their frocks and tumbling into the long grass on the other side.

"Oh!" cried Christine.

"What is the matter?" asked Hilary.

"The dearest little rabbit-I thought I had it; but it's gone, and I've scratched my fingers." "Oh!" said Silvy. 66 Silvy's shoe off."

Hilary dived into the grass for it, and she, too, exclaimed "Oh!" for the nettles she had not seen had stung her sharply. She rubbed her hand with some cool dock-leaves to take away the prickly pain.

"A swallow, a swallow, Let us follow,"

suddenly said Hilary, forgetting the sting. And the swallow darted towards the brook, skimming lightly on the surface of the water as it went.

"Perhaps he knows about the crock," half whispered Christine, "for he has just come from among the clouds, and must have been close to the rainbow."

"Perhaps," answered Hilary, thoughtfully. "All things tell something, only we don't know what it is."

"Hop, hop, how quickly he runs. Oh! the beauty! what a bushy tail!"

"A squirrel! a squirrel!" cried Silvy, clapping his hands.

"He's going towards the brook, too; he knows about hollow trees and holes; perhaps he can say something about the crock of gold," said Christine.

Patter! patter! patter! down fell the shining rain with the sunlight on it.

"And we have no hats on," said Hilary; "we must get under the hedgerow till it is over."

So the children crouched under the hedge, little Silvy being put in the middle to keep him from getting wet.

"The rain certainly knows about the rainbow, and perhaps about the crock of gold," began Hilary. Then she stopped suddenly. "Oh, dear! oh, dear!" she continued, "the rainbow has gone! the rain has washed it away, and the sky is dark."

Then all at once the rain ceased as suddenly as it had begun, the sun shone out, and another rainbow, brighter and clearer than the last, appeared; but it was farther off, and the bow did not fall in the same place.

"The crock must be farther off," said Hilary, wisely. "The rainbow is trying to show us where it is."

"We must make haste," returned Christine; "it is two fields off now, and Silvy will be tired."

"Silvy not tired; me go away if you say so," said the little boy, who was now so delighted with the grass, and the flowers, and the birds.