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he never heard that without remembering the old tradition, which tells us that it was sung by three holy men while they walked unharmed through the fiery furnace, praising God.

"Try to imagine that while you sing," he said, "and it will put praise in your voices."

And when he had selected an anthem, he told them the history of the man who had set its sublime words to music, and then he played it through upon the organ, with loving lingering touch, asking them if they could not detect in the notes the experience of the composer's soul.

The sexton's little son, who blew the organ, went home that night and told his mother it was as good as a story to hear the new man talk. And so the choir thought, also; but when Sunday came, his words were only half remembered.

Service being over, the girls lingered a little, while the congregation passed out below. Mrs. Marlowe looked up at them with a cordial little nod, and Mr. Siebert, when he rose at last from the organ and closed his score-book, said:

"You have done fairly well, my children, and now we will always try to do our best, and to make that best better."

CHAPTER II.

"COME home to dinner with me," said Jean Argyle to Clementina, as they descended the narrow stairs from the choirloft; "then you will see Aunt Drew. She came last night and took us all by surprise."

"Aunt Drew! I haven't seen her since I was a child," said Clementina, "and then she gave me a great gold locket. Lives in St. Louis, don't she? I have always had a fancy that she would come to our rescue sometime, like Cinderella's godmother. We're eighteen, Jean; it's time for some thing to happen to us."

Jean was silent. She was thinking how Aunt Drew had hinted pretty plainly that she should like to take some one young and bright home with her to pass the winter. Jean wished that she could go. Aunt Drew-St. Lonis! the mere words seemed to stand for gayety, and luxury, and so much that was inviting.

Aunt Drew was a childless widow, with

ample fortune, who much preferred living in the city, in which her most brilliant days had been spent, to returning to the little town where all her relatives were. Therefore, she made them only rare brief visits. In society she took a leading place among the worldly and fashionable, while in private life she was so full of whims and caprices that scarcely any one had patience to bear with her. She was Jean's own aunt, and had married Clementina's uncle, which was why the girls playfully called themselves cousins.

"I never know quite how to get along with Ann," said Mrs. Argyle, referring to her sister. "She always used to order me about when we were children, and I am afraid of her even yet."

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"I'm sure I can't understand how Jane," said Mrs. Drew, referring to Mrs. Argyle, can possibly go on living such a vapid colorless life, and be such a washed-out faded woman! I want to take her and give her a shaking!"

And to the girl Jean, full of visions and longing for a change, home-life did seem a little tiresome and colorless, while her Aunt Drew, with her splendid silks, and jewels, and wonderful descriptions of gay city life, appeared to her inexperienced eyes like one whose cup held the richest wine of life. Jean, like too many young girls, had not yet learned to appreciate the tender beauty of her mother's worn face, and the pathos of her tired eyes and gentle smile. It seemed to her that life would be a great deal easier and pleasanter where the children could not come fretting and disturbing her, and where she would not always be called off to some bit of hard work just as she was composing herself for a quiet hour of reading, or just as she was making great resolutions about a noble future. For Jean was really groping about for a clue to the higher ends of existence, and she thought she could make her life like a knight's life, noble, loyal and devoted to grand purposes, if she only were not always interrupted by something disagreeable just as she was beginning.

"And in Aunt Drew's beautiful house," she thought, "I could have so much quiet and leisure, with nothing to jar. I could be refined and gentle, and see the world, and have a good influence. O, I do hope she will take me home with her!"'

Aunt Drew called the two girls up to her

room when she heard them coming in from church that Sunday noon. She was dressing for dinner, and her trunk was half unpacked, its contents lying strewn over the bed and chairs. Clem's quick eye did not fail to notice the dainty texture of the laces, the stiff richness of the silks, the subdued gorgeousness of the India shawl, and the pretty French caps, handkerchiefs and ornaments, that lay about in full sight. Aunt Drew smiled inwardly as she noted the effect.

"Two remarkably pretty girls my nieces are," she thought to herself. "I must certainly take one of them and bring her out." And then she said, aloud, "Here, girls, do help me, or I shall be late. Clementina, will you pour some eau de heliotrope on this lace handkerchief? And, Jean, I want you to arrange my hair a little; these puffs on the side, I mean."

Jean had just taken the tortoise-shell comb in her hand, when her mother's voice called at the foot of the stairs:

"Jean dear, I want you a minute."

"I must go," said Jean, a little regretfully. "Maybe I can come back in a minute, auntie; but if I can't, Clemmie can arrange the puffs."

"O yes, let me!" said Clem, quickly. "I know just how you want them, aunt." And having really a great knack at hairdressing, she went to work like a French maid, while Aunt Drew surveyed her own head in the mirror with satisfaction.

“You have done it beautifully, child," she said at last; "and there is the dinnerbell this minute. You may lay that shawl over my shoulders, and we will go down together."

After dinner Aunt Drew took the girls up into her room again with her, and goodnaturedly allowed them to examine her trinkets, bestowing a ring upon Jean, and a pretty pin upon Clementina. Meanwhile she questioned them about their home and school life, their likes and dislikes, their hopes and wishes, and the girls chatted away with perfect unreserve.

All at once the clear sound of the church bell was heard, and Jean started.

"O, it is time to go to Sunday school!"' she exclaimed. "We shall have to hurry, Clemmie."

"Sunday school!" said Aunt Drew, shrugging her shoulders. "But I have a very different plan from that, my dears.

Sit down here by me till you have finished your pretty stories about yourselves, and then, as I have a little headache, I will lie down on that comfortable lounge, while you, Jean, shall read me to sleep as you did last night. Never mind Sunday school to-day. Indeed, you are too old to go."

"O auntie, I'll read to you when I come back!" said Jean, eagerly. "But this is our Bible-class that Dr. Rawley has just formed, and he is very anxious for us all to be there. You don't know how good he is."

"Much better than I am, I don't doubt," said her aunt, coldly. "Very well, Jean, take your choice."

"O auntie, it isn't like a choice!" exclaimed poor Jean, reddening and speaking rapidly; "but we promised him we would be there, and he spoke so beautifully to us about it, I feel as if I wouldn't break my promise for the world.. And I will be back in two hours, and read to you all the rest of the day."

"I am not so exacting," said Aunt Drew. "Go, by all means, Jean. How is it with you, Clementina? Are you, too, so very pious that you cannot spare a little time to your poor old aunt ?"

"O, I'd just as soon stay here with you as not," answered Clementina, quickly. "I don't mind missing Bible-class just for once."

So she nestled down comfortably on an ottoman by Aunt Drew's side, while Jean, feeling embarrassed and almost hurt, hurriedly put on her things, seized her Bible, and started.

"She might know I would like to stay with her," thought Jean, tearfully, as she sped along; "but I couldn't bear to disappoint dear old Dr. Rawley, when he talks so kindly to me, too, and is helping me to try to be good."

The Sunday school was so large that Dr. Rawley had been obliged to take his class into the robing-room. Jean arrived just at the last moment before the introductory service, and lent her sweet clear voice to the singing of the hymns. Then came the lesson, the sacred beatitudes, and the good old rector dwelt with fervor on the promised blessings.

"I wonder what he will say about the meek,' thought Jean. "I can understand a little about the other blessings, but I never could see how the meek are to 'in

herit the earth,' unless it is after the end of the world."

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Dr. Rawley spoke of the beauty of meekness, and how pleasing it is in the sight of God. And then he rememembered a passage which had delighted him once in one of old Isaac Walton's books. Walton said that in his quiet morning walk to the river each day, he was accustomed to pass through the garden, park and woodland of a wealthy neighbor. He told with what intense enjoyment he heard, as he walked, the singing of the birds, the whispering of the leaves, the plash of the brook; how he lingered where the sunshine sifted down through the treetops and made pretty dappled carpets of the moss; how he caught the gleam of the dew on the grass-blades, and the wholesome smell of the fresh earth. He had no vaulting ambition nor sordid cares to fret his soul; he felt no enmity towards anynothing came between him and these beautiful works of God. The owner of park and woodland, a man burdened with wealth and ambition, was in the city, in Parliament, now here, now there, and rarely spent more than a few days each year on this estate. Thinking of these things, it occurred to Walton that he himself, a humble quiet man, was more in possession of these beautiful grounds than their proud owner, and so there dawned on him the comprehension of one way, at least, in which the meek may inherit the earth.

"How lovely!" thought Jean. “I can really catch a little idea out of that to live by. It makes me feel almost rich."

She sped homeward after the class separated, feeling bright and happy, and richly repaid for going. Mr. Siebert walked with her for a few rods.

"It was beautiful," he said; "it was like a pastoral symphony."

Jean's first thought on reaching home was to read to Aunt Drew; but that lady told her Clementina had entertained her so well that she did not care to hear reading just then, and as she was rather tired she believed she would take a nap, so the girls might draw the curtains and leave her. "And remember, Clementina," she said, as they were going, "tell your mother I will come to her house to-morrow and finish my visit with her, for I shall return to St. Louis on Tuesday."

CHAPTER III.

AUNT DREW went to Clementina's early Monday, but in the evening they both came round to the Argyles to say good-by, Clementina as radiant as the sun, for her aunt had invited her to go to St. Louis with her to pass the winter.

"O, it's splendid!" she whispered to Jean. "And she has given me a lovely Roman sash, and she is going to take me just as I am, and get new dresses for me in St. Louis. We are going to-morrow morning early in the train."

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Yes," said Aunt Drew, speaking to Mrs. Argyle; "you know I said I wanted some bright young person with me this winter, and Clementina is just the one to suit me perfectly. I want some one I can depend upon to be with me at all times whenever I wish." And here she threw a meaning look at Jean.

Jean's heart sank. Such a great chance to have come so near, and she to have missed it! But she controlled her voice to its usual pleasant tones as she congratulated Clem, and wished them both a happy winter.

"Have you done anything to displease your aunt, Jean ?" asked Mrs. Argyle, when their visitors had gone. And then Jean told her mother of what had passed Sunday afternoon.

"I am sorry for you, dear, but. never mind," said her mother, with a little sigh. "I should have liked you to have the change, and to see more of life; but it is all for the best, no doubt, and we could hardly have spared you. Hark! there's Robbie crying up stairs. Can you go to him, dear?"

Jean went up rather slowly. It was hard to stay at home to quiet the children instead of spending the winter in St. Louis. She found Robbie awake in his little bed, and crying because he was afraid of the dark. She sat down by him to soothe him, but her mind wandered, and Robbie detected it with indignation.

"You aint half good, Jeanie!" he said, restlessly. "I'm 'fraid of you, too."

Jean laughed, and some of her old lightheartedness came back with the laugh. She took the child in her arms to the window.

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"O Robbie," she said, "how could you feel lonesome or think it was dark when you had such bright company up in the

sky? See how all the stars are winking at you. There's a great hunter up there looking at you."

"What's his name?" demanded Robbie. "His name is Orion. See those three stars in a row; they are his belt, and the little cluster at one end is his sword. He has gone out to hunt a great wild bull."

"How big a bull ?"

"He weighs seven thousand tons. See that pretty triangle of stars; they are the bull's head. And following after Orion is his faithful dog; there he is right back of Orion's feet, and his name is Big Canis. And the dog had a little brother dog that he left at home named Little Canis; but Little Canis wanted to go to the hunt, too, so he called the horse out of the stable and jumped on his back, and there they go as fast as they can after all the rest. Lullaby! lullaby! Why, Rob, you're asleep!"

She laid the little fellow back in his warm bed, and then went to the window again, for there was comfort there for her, too. The bright, white, steadfast stars seemed to look down into her very soul.

"How peace-compelling they are!" she thought, almost wishing it could be forever starlight. But to-morrow would come with its cares, and the children who looked so sweet, and rosy, and innocent now on their pillows, would be having no end of childish troubles, and the chimney would smoke, and it would be ironing-day, and while she was getting hot and tired, there would be Clementina, all in her Sunday best, speeding away in the cars with Aunt Drew to St. Louis.

"He telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names."

Jean thought of this as she still stood looking up into the sky, and with it she remembered that other passage wherein we are told that "He heedeth even the sparrow's fall."

"I feel like a poor little sparrow myself," she said, with half a smile and half a sigh, as she turned to go down stairs.

Aunt Drew and Clementina went as agreed upon. The days and weeks slipped quietly along into the very heart of winter. Jean found herself very busy with home duties, and one or two studies she was trying to keep up. "This is mere drilling," she said to herself, not knowing she was already in the edge of the battle. Her treats were rehearsal nights and Sundays.

Clementina's going had left a vacancy in the choir which Mrs. Marlowe now filled with her well-trained voice, saying, pleasantly, that her day was almost over, but they might have the gleanings of it, till some fresh young prima donna was found to delight them. She followed Mr. Siebert's lead zealously, and knew so many beautiful anthems and rare old compositions in sacred music, fragments of which she would give them sometimes after rehearsal, Mr. Siebert accompanying her with the organ, that the rest were roused to enthusiasm, too, and it was noticed that the singing at St. James constantly improved.

"What do you hear from Miss Clementina?" Charlie Thrale asked Jean one evening.

"I haven't heard for some time, but she is having a very gay winter, I believe," said Jean. "What does she write to you about it, Orrin ?"

"O, Clem never writes to me at all," said Orrin, bluntly. "Mother had a letter last week, and she said she was well and enjoying herself. Jean, it's raining, and you haven't any umbrella. I'll take you home under mine, if you like."

"I'm going to start off myself pretty soon," remarked Orrin, in his brusk way, as they walked along. "It's time I was getting into business somewhere. I want to be an engineer or a mechanic."

"I suppose you're destined for something of that sort," said Jean, laughing. "Don't you remember when we were children, you were always making little miniature sawmills, and cog-wheels, and tiny steamboats?"

"Yes; and I should like to be an inventor, too."

"Then you don't feel any desire for a profession?" asked Jean, half wonderingly.

"No; I'm just the fellow for hard work, with muscle as well as brain. I feel at home among workmen and machinery more than anywhere else. And I've been talking with Dr. Rawley; maybe you'll wonder at that, Jean, but he is good old man, and he made me feel as if I ought to be out in the world doing my part."

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you, Orrin, for your company, and goodnight."

Very shortly after that Orrin went out into the busy world to seek his fortune, and so another vacancy was made in the choir, which Mr. Siebert supplied with one of his own countrymen, a stolid-looking German basso, who sang as naturally as he breathed.

"This is a real pleasant winter, after all," said Jean, as she stood one day at the table fluting the ruffles on her baby sister's dress. "I know I shall always love to remember it, it has been so peaceful and satisfying. I wonder if life will keep going on the same way?"

"I never knew it to," said Mrs. Argyle. It did not then. When Mr. Argyle came home that evening, he brought the tidings of Aunt Drew's death. She had died suddenly at her home in St. Louis, from the effects, it was supposed, of an over-dose of opium, self-administered during severe neuralgia pain. Her body was to be brought among her relatives for burial, and would probably arrive the next day, Clementina coming also. This news was a shock to them all. Mrs. Argyle wept for the sister who had loved her but little, and Jean went soberly about the house, realizing, for almost the first time in her life, how near death may be to every one of us. "I wonder if your sister left a will?" said Mr. Argyle to his wife that night.

"I don't know," she replied, a little anxiously. "Ann was very eccentric, you know, and may have made some strange disposition of her property."

Mr. Argyle relapsed into grave thought. He was a poor bookkeeper, with a small salary, working day in and day out, and it is not to be wondered at if it occurred to him what a help some of Aunt Drew's wealth would be.

CHAPTER IV.

AUNT DREW's will? Yes, she had made a will, and its contents made quite a commotion. It was dated within a week after her return to St Louis.

First, she had directed that her plate and clothing should be divided between her sister and sister-in-law. Then she left a large bequest to a widow's home. There were legacies of more or less value to various friends, and finally she bequeathed to

Clementina Drew, her "beloved niece," fifty thousand dollars, without condition, and the house she owned in St. Louis. Then followed this singular clause:

"To my niece Jean Argyle I do not leave any property in her own right, but, as I have reason to believe this will please her. more, I give to her in trust the sum of fifty thousand dollars, to be expended by her exclusively for church purposes, this expenditure to be complete within the term of three years from the time of her entering upon said trust."

When Jean heard this portion of the will her heart thrilled with a fine excitement, for here at last was a high duty to perform, a lofty mission to fulfil. But glancing around she noticed her mother's sad patient face, and the disappointment in her father's eyes, and slowly the latent malice in Aunt Drew's legacy smote upon her.

"I think it is downright shameful!" whispered Clem, sympathetically.

How Jean could have relieved her careburdened father, her self-denying mother; how she could have educated Robbie and set him up in business; what advantages she could have given her little sisters, if that money had only been bestowed upon her free of condition, to dispose of as she pleased! But instead here was this onerous burden laid upon her, and all because she had not stayed at home with Aunt Drew that Sunday afternoon.

There was a decided discontent among the Argyles, and no wonder. Clem and her mother were well enough satisfied, for their parts, and departed at once for St. Louis, there to make their permanent residence. The terms of the will became generally known, and there was a great deal of gossip all through the town about Jean Argyle and her "estate in trust."

As for Jean, she sought good old Dr. Rawley for sympathy and advice. What was she to do? What steps should she take, and where should she bestow the money? She felt impulsively that it would be better to have done with it at once, and to settle quietly down into the old home routine again, forgetting as far as possible Aunt Drew's legacy.

But Dr. Rawley did not counsel haste. He reminded Jean that, whatever the circumstances that had apparently brought this burden upon her, there was a divine power behind and above it all, shaping a

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