Rose Hardy's Home.

CHAPTER IX.

AND SO Miles Welch went away, far from quiet Hinton Mill, over the great sea to Australia, and left Rose Hardy behind him by her own choice; and as the old man told her, she did not regret it. I do not mean that she did not sometimes weary for the sound of Miles' cheery voice, and a sight of his kindly face, and find life very dull without him. Patience is a hard virtue for young blood; but few people have a better model before their eyes than Rose had. But I think even when her heart was most yearning and longing, if Miles had stood before her with his pleading face and voice, she would still have decided the same, and always when the old master spoke of Miles, which was very often, she would say, "but I'm glad I stayed with the Master and the dear old home."

One day, when she spoke thus, he said, "Ah, deary, I used to think a terrible deal of the old mill. Ah! and so I do now, only maybe not so much. I mind once when there was a talk of our leaving it and taking another farm, I felt as though it would nearly break my heart, it seemed as if it were just home and nowhere else could be; but since the old missus went, it has seemed different, somehow; it seems as if I was just biding here a little, 'strangers and sojourners,' as it says, and was just waiting to go home. There's a place for me up there in my Father's house, and my heart and treasure are there already, and it's light in the home there, deary, always light."

And so time passed on in the quiet mill till it was no longer yesterday, or last week, or last month, or even last year that Miles went away. They heard once or twice, and Rose replied, but they were neither of them good at writing, and Miles was very busy, so that after a time no letters came to or left the mill, but "what does it matter, as long as we're true?" Rose said. She did not mope or pine for her lover, but went cheerfully about her work like a brave-hearted girl as she was, and work passed the time, which might have crushed her with its weight if she had sat with folded hands. She tended the old man with constant watchful care, and he needed it more and more, for every month seemed to take something from his failing strength and bring him nearer the home he was seeking. The management of the farm had fallen almost entirely into Joe Hawthorne's hands, though he came in most days and told Master Hawthorne what was being done.

Then as time still passed on the old man's place at church was empty on Sunday, and at first it was only that the weather was bad, or Master Hawthorne had taken a cold; but as Sunday after Sunday passed and Rose took her place there alone, she felt that she should never again hear his voice joining in the prayers, or see his head bent so reverently, and that the time would not be long before he would no longer take part in the feeble praises of the Church militant here on earth, but would be joining in the glorious 'Hallelujahs' of the Church triumphant in heaven.

*

*

*

*

*

Christmas Day again, fourteen years since my story began, and little Rose Hardy found her home in the old farm, ten years since the old mistress "crossed the flood," nearly six years since Miles came, and five since he went away.

"A happy Christmas to you, Master," Rose said as she opened his bedroom door. He was still able to get up and dress himself without help, and he was standing by the window waiting for her, for she always came to lead him downstairs. She rarely left him at all now, for he was very feeble and dependent on her for everything.

"It's fourteen years since you brought me here first. Do you mind the day? How cold and frosty it was, wasn't it? and what a poor little half-starved creature I was when you led me in. Do you mind it all, Master?"

"Ay, ay!" he answered, "fourteen years ago, and it seems but the other day."

As they sat at their breakfast, they talked of old times, and of that first Christmas, and the farmer went back to Christmases long ago before there was a Rose Hardy in the world.

"You and me must have service to ourselves, Master." Rose said as she began clearing away the things.

'No, deary, I won't keep you from Church. I'm a deal better to-day, and then if you set things handy for me I shall do well enough till you come home, and I know the service pretty near by heart. Eighty-five Christmas days have taught it me. Never fear, Rosey, but I shall do comfortable, and maybe I shall doze a bit now and then, and pass the time thinking of old times, for my life is as good as a story, deary, and I'll read it to myself."

She did not like leaving him, but he grew so worried by her staying that she agreed to go, doing all in her power to make him comfortable till her return, setting his armchair out of the draught, and making up a bright fire.

Then she went and put on her bonnet. As she came down stairs, she heard his voice speaking softly to himself, "Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us; to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.'

"Master," she said, "the bells are ringing, do you hear?"

Open the door, deary; my hearing's not so good as it has been. Ay! sure, there they are, glad tidings of great joy.

"Goodbye," she said from the door, "I'll not be long."

"Goodbye, Rosey. Don't forget I'm waiting for you at home." And she closed the door and went. Her mind was full of him as she crossed the meadow, and she thought of all his gentleness and patience, and of all his great goodness to her. She was so taken up with her thoughts that she climbed the stile and went up the little lane without noticing a figure standing on the bridge, who had been watching her all the way from the mill.

"Where are you going, Miss Rose, in such a hurry, that you have left your eyes and your thoughts behind you, and can't even say 'good morning' to a friend you've not seen for years

?"

Who was it that was standing there looking at her? Who took both her hands in his and kept them in his grasp? Her heart seemed to stand still, for it was Miles Welch, his very self, who stood there in the very place where she had seen him last, five years

Rose Ilardy's IIome.

before; and his voice was sounding with the Christmas bells in her happy ears.

What they said in those first minutes Rose could not recall, she remembered only that she made a movement as if she would have turned back to the mill, but Miles drew her hand under his arm and said, "Not yet, you and I, Rosey, will go to Church together, and then go and tell the old master."

And there they were, on their way to Church, with her hand resting on Miles' arm. She could not speak for something that rose in her throat that was very near a sob, and her eyes were more than once misty and dim. Miles, too, was silent, and only smiled and nodded to the groups of people who had a welcome to say to him or a Christmas greeting.

As they passed in at the churchyard gate Miles stooped and looked into Rose's downcast face, "And you haven't even said you're glad to see me, Rose."

And she made no answer, but looked up at him with damp eyes and quivering lips, and they passed in and knelt down side by side in the old seat. "What does it matter so long as we are true?" And they had been true, and the five years of waiting seemed to them but a few days for the love they bore one another.

After the service was over Miles found that he could not get away so easily from the neighbours, who pressed round him to bid him welcome or ask news of his return; but when at last he had made his way through them, and was clear, he turned to Rose and said, "Now, Rosey, for the old master."

And they set out at a quick pace for the farm. As they went their tongues were no longer silent, and he told her how he had got on slowly but steadily in Australia, where he found that fortunes were no more to be made in a day than they are in England. His uncle took a great fancy to him, and treated him as if he had been his own son; but as time passed on, the day when he could come home to fetch Rose seemed to come no nearer, and he was beginning to feel almost in despair, for "I couldn't quite forget you, Rosey, do what I would." Then not quite a year ago his uncle died and left him everything. "I might have been no end of a rich man if I had stopped and kept on with the sheep farm; but I found with my uncle's money I could get a snug little farm in old England, and so I sold everything and thought I'd come and see if there was still a blue-eyed girl at Hinton Mill. And you mustn't be so hard on a chap as you were five years ago, when you sent him off to the other end of the world, and did not mind a bit."

"Not a bit, Miles, not a bit." And she laughed with tears in her blue eyes, a laugh that was so pleasant in his ears that nothing he had heard in those five years came near to it in sweetness.

"And though you treated me so badly, I've been thinking and thinking to please you, and I'm thinking there might be room for me in the mill, and that maybe the master would let me take on the farm instead of him, so as we should all be together. What say you, Rosey?"

How short the way was. How soon they reached the mill. They seemed only this minute to have left the church, and here they were going up the garden path.

"It's not a bit changed," Miles said;""it's all just the same; it might be only yesterday when I left; and there's the white pigeons and the old dog and all."

As she unlocked the door she stopped and motioned him to be quiet.

"I will go in and tell him," she said. "Oh! he will be so pleased."

So Miles stopped in the porch, and she went in alone.

The fire was burning brightly, and the old man lay back in his elbow chair dozing, she thought, with one hand stretched out on the Bible, which he liked placed within his reach, though he could not read it.

"Master," she said, "Master, I've some news for you."

He did not answer, and she came nearer, and then she uttered a cry of terror, "Oh, Miles, Miles, come!" For like the poor

The Close of the Year.

shepherds on that first Christmas, a great light had shone from heaven for the old man sitting in darkness, and he had gone to keep Christmas with the old mistress in the light. "The city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of the Lord doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. For there shall be no night there."

Years have passed since then, and Rose and Miles still live in Hinton Mill. Their life is a very happy one, with many blessings and few sorrows. There are little children growing up round them, and life has much sunshine for them. But Rose never forgets the dear old master and mistress, and she often recalls the master's last words, "Don't forget that I'm waiting for you at home," and she remembers, that pleasant as the old mill is, that it is not our rest, but that her Home lies beyond the dark valley, where the old master is waiting for her.

The Close of the Year.

ANOTHER year! another year!
The unceasing rush of time sweeps on;
Whelmed in its surges, disappear
Man's hopes and fears, for ever gone!
O, no! forbear that idle tale!

The hour demands another strain, Demands high thoughts that cannot quail,

And strength to conquer and retain. 'Tis midnight-from the dark-blue sky, The stars, which now look down on earth,

Have seen ten thousand centuries fly,
And given to countless changes birth
And when the pyramids shall fall,
And, mouldering, mix as dust in air,
The dwellers on this altered ball
May still behold them glorious there.

Shine on shine on! with you I tread
The march of ages, orbs of light!
A last eclipse o'er you may spread,
To me, to me, there comes no night.
O! what concerns it him, whose way
Lies upward to th' immortal dead,
That a few hairs are turning gray,

Or one more year of life has fled!
Swift years! but teach me how to bear,
To feel and act with strength and
skill,

To reason wisely, nobly dare,

And speed your courses as ye will. When life's meridian toils are done, How calm, how rich the twilight glow;

The morning twilight of a sun

Which shines not here on things below.

Press onward through each varying hour;
Let no weak fears thy course delay;
Immortal being! feel thy power,
Pursue thy bright and endless way.

A Copper Mine.

ANDREWS NORTON.

HE copper mines in the south-west of England, where a few narrow pits all open about the same level, are very different from the well-ventilated coal-pits, through which air moves constantly.

On a fine, warm, breezy, bright, sunny day, with the sweet breath of fields and heather hills in his nostrils, a pedestrian in search of information comes to a trap-door and a hole like a draw-well. Odours, as of bilge water and rotten eggs, rise when the trap is lifted, and contrast abominably with the delicate perfumes of beans and hedge rows.

There is no rattle, no din, no movement here. A dull, sleepy,