The Christian Home. T HE months spent at Eastwick before the return of Harry Dunlop to his Canadian home produced no more striking change in any of the characters here described than in his own. He was one of those youths who seem to spring at once into manhood; and in his case this effect was heightened by a more than common amount of health and strength, as well as vigour of action, and beauty and symmetry of person,—such beauty, at least, as is generally associated with capability in manly undertakings, frankness of expression, uprightness, and undaunted bravery. Up to this time Harry had imagined himself brave enough to set off without a tear or a sigh to any distant quarter of the globe; and he had especially gloried in the prospect of returning home. But now that the prospect of parting with his friends came nearer, it grew less pleasant. He began sometimes to feel a dim apprehension that this parting might be for ever; and, quite unconsciously to himself, the mingling of many grave thoughts with this subject had the effect of making him at once more affectionate in his manner towards the friends he was about to leave, and more serious and earnest in his communications with them. Such, however, was the instinctive dislike in Harry's mind to all assumption or pretence, especially to the pretence of feeling more than was real, true, and deep, that his conversation seldom did him justice in this respect. His conduct, too, though always THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND," ETC. upright, not unfrequently placed him at a great disadvantage in the estimation of those whose good opinion rested chiefly upon social propriety as the test of worth. His best friends could not but observe with regret how often he spoiled the good he might have done by impatience in not waiting for the best opportunity for doing it; and how, from the very eagerness of his purpose in carrying out what his heart was set upon, he paid little regard to the opinion likely to be formed of him by people in general. Little indeed did Harry care for what the Andersons, and persons of their class, thought of him. But he did care a good deal about the opinion of their niece Margaret; and when she told him frankly how it pained her to hear their frequent comments upon him, Harry began, almost for the first time in his life, to see that carelessness in word and conduct may be really a selfish indulgence, because, while simply aiming to please ourselves, we may cause inexpressible pain to those who love us. Margaret herself was, to a certain extent, independent; but she was also considerate, which Harry was not. For a girl she was rather remarkably brave in doing right; but while she dared, she suffered, and that sometimes acutely. Even under the narrow and often erroneous views of her uncle and aunt, she suffered from their displeasure chiefly because she was so deeply indebted to them for personal kindness and protection. It so happened that the head master in Dr. Lambert's school was a relative of the Andersons, and from him there had come сс that he was so impetuous and hasty—acting, as they said, "from good motives in a wrong manner." And indeed it was a pity, Margaret said to herself, that he was so careless about appearances. Why did he bring such remarks upon himself? Why did he make it so difficult for any one to defend him ?-so painful for any one to love him? a somewhat exaggerated description of the | regretted sometimes, in speaking of Harry, conduct which led to Harry Dunlop's expulsion. To have been expelled at all was enough for them. The fact appeared to their minds to be one demanding an open manifestation of their disapproval; and although the Godwins never mentioned the subject, it was loudly proclaimed, and bitterly inveighed against, by the Andersons. They even went so far as to lay restrictions upon Margaret in her intercourse with one whose character was stamped with this public disgrace. Against this she remonstrated; for how was she to associate with the Godwins without meeting Harry? Then she was not to speak to him; but how could she be guilty of so great a breach of good manners? At last she was not to make herself agreeable to him-never to be free or cordial in her manner towards him, and absolutely never to be seen with him alone, or on any terms of intimacy. But from Margaret they could extort no promise. Nay, she had defended Harry by maintaining that he had done nothing wrong; and if the whole truth had come to light, it would probably have been found that if she did not actually believe in him the more, she certainly liked him the better, and held by him more firmly, because of the unjust condemnation which he had so thoughtlessly brought upon himself. She felt, however, very painfully the vexation she was causing her relatives by not seeing as they did, or by not submitting her actions entirely to their idea of what was right. Margaret had much to consider in this way, for she was growing into a woman now, with her own responsibilities to answer for. On the one hand, she owed much to her relatives as such; but on the other, she thought she owed something to Harry Dunlop as a friend. A friend she persisted in considering him; and this persistence was supported by the opinion of the Godwins. Under their guidance, in this respect, Margaret endeavoured to place herself impartially. She believed herself willing to give Harry up entirely, if they who knew him so well and so intimately advised her to do so. But they said nothing to this effect, only This last question was asked mentally, and in perfect simplicity. In this respect the unconscious girl was ignorant of any change, in consequence of her growth into womanhood. She had liked Harry from the first, and she liked him still. Beyond this, she believed in him that he would never do a mean thing, nor knowingly commit a wicked act. She might not have been able to give any distinct reason for this faith; but there was a reason existing in full force, which she felt almost instinctively, as women sometimes do; and it was thisthat on no occasion, in all her intercourse with Harry, whether playful or serious, whether passionate or calm, had his expressions or his turn of feeling leaned favourably towards what was wrong, or unfavourably towards what was right. In this Margaret felt secure, that he would never lead her away from the path of rectitude and peace; but rather, if her own foot should slip, if she should step ever so slightly aside, that he would be the first to snatch her back again-the most earnest and sincere to warn her of the danger incurred. But there was, joined to this, another ground of dependence and trust. It was that Harry, the thoughtless, and, as some called him, selfwilled and hairbrained boy, had deep and earnest thoughts, shared almost exclusively with her, on all those subjects in which his parents had so carefully instructed him in early youth; that few could read more reverently the page of sacred truth, and perhaps none desire more ardently to be taught aright. The near prospect of a long separation, as already stated, had the effect of making Harry Dunlop at once more thoughtful and more earnest, especially in his intercourse with his brother Archy; and it now made him more serious about himself, and his prospects for the future. His habit was to avoid this kind of looking onward, and to take things just as they came; at least he professed to do so; but now he began to want a friend to confide in more than he had ever done before-a friend who could enter into his views, and look at life from the same point of view with himself-in fact, a friend who could understand him. Nobody, he thought, had ever understood him as Margaret did; and although she would sometimes tell him home-truths about himself, which were by no means gratifying to his self-love, yet, somehow or other, he liked the truth from her, even when not very flattering, better than he liked the praises of others. He liked above all things to talk about himself to Margaret, and to hear his character, his actions, and even his appearance, discussed by her-an indulgence not very safe where two young people intend to remain only friends. The fact was, neither Harry nor Margaret had any intention at all about the matter. They met as children, and like children told each to the other almost everything which most intimately concerned them in their joys and sorrows: only there was this difference of late-that, unconsciously to themselves, their joys and sorrows, and all which concerned them most intimately, were beginning to be such as belong to a stage beyond childhood, so that what they had to tell in their mutual confidences was often calculated to call forth the sympathy of hearts overflowing with feelings more matured, and deeper than those of very early life. It happened one day-the last before Margaret returned to school-that the two friends met by accident on the seashore. At any rate the meeting was accidental to Margaret, and knowing that she could answer clearly on this point to her aunt, she thought no harm in wandering on with Harry for awhile, especially as it was for the last time. So the two friends went on and on together, as they would have done in the days of their early intimacy, only that their thoughts and feelings led them into more earnest conversation, chiefly upon what might lie before them in the untried future, and the right which they hoped they should be able to maintain, and the wrong which they were equally hopeful to avoid. From looking dimly and vaguely into the future, and wondering what would be their share in it, the two friends came very naturally to wishing that they could help one another; and then to boyish and girlish promises to think of one another on stated occasions, such as summer evenings and autumn days, and winter nights by the glowing fire, and many, many times besides-so many, that a question might have arisen as to when they would not think of one another. And then, as their hearts opened, and they felt more solemnly that they two were standing there alone beneath the watchful eye of their Father in Heaven they spoke out of their full hearts of holier things,—of trust in Him, and love and faith in His beloved Son, and of needful and happy prayer, in which, as children of one household, they would each remember the other when far away, and so perhaps help to strengthen one another for the great battle of life, which they knew to be before them in the common lot. Thus hand in hand they walked together, holding that sweet communion which belongs to trusting and affectionate youth, but which is never so sweet, either in enjoyment or remembrance, as when hallowed by the simplicity and trustfulness of children who look up to their Father in Heaven. So the two friends walked together, neither of them conscious of the actual lapse of time; nor was there a word spoken by either calculated to arouse the slighest apprehension that they might be treading upon dangerous ground. So they went on, until the white surf came sweeping up around their fe, and they saw that they must hasten home to escape the rising tide. In both households their friends were busy preparing for the morrow's journey, and it so happened, happily for Margaret, that no searching inquiries were made about the length or the cause of her absence. When the morning came, they said farewell as others did; but their farewell had been on the seashore, and they neither of them afterwards forgot that walk, or lost the impression which it left upon their characters. Margaret and Agnes were now entering upon their last school session. They would neither of them have remained so long, but from the circumstance of one being an orphan without any legitimate home, and the other the one daughter in a household to which pupils were admitted. Throughout their school experience they had always been friends, bound together, not only by home associations, but by as tender an affection as could well exist between characters so differently constituted. Indeed, it would have been almost impossible not to love Agnes Godwin, she was so lovely, gentle, and caressing; and it was equally impossible not to respect Margaret, or to feel indifferent to the help and comfort which she was both efficient and prompt in affording. All the weak characters in the school seemed to rely upon Margaret when they wanted either soothing or assistance and here she seldom failed them; but they rebelled against her interference when they wanted to do wrong, for that they knew they could never, by any charm of coaxing, induce her to countenance. There was nothing for them in such cases but to avoid or deceive her; and when they did so to any extent, there was almost sure to be some little penitent one, who would come back confessing, and wanting to be admitted to the same affectionate protection again. But while these feelings prevailed amongst the younger portion of the community, there were sometimes older pupils of a higher grade in the school who set up an influence of their own very different in its moral tendency from Margaret's. Such cases occurred chiefly with girls who came to Miss Clare after long residence in schools where the teachers and the taught were regarded as two distinct, and even opposing, parties. Such girls would begin upon the same plan with Miss Clare, assuming a courteous and even submissive manner in her presence; but secretly regarding it as great fun to break the rules, and subvert the order of the establishment. At first they would do this, but seldom for any great length of time, except when the class of new comers was numerous, or when even one girl of this class happened to be particularly stylish in dress and manner, prepossessing in person, or in some other way attractive and popular. This was the "grand fight," as Miss Clare would sometimes call it, which she found the hardest in all her school experience-not a battle with bad passions, or the actual evil propensities of human nature, but with long habit, sustained by the customs of society, and popular modes of thinking and acting. "How to get such girls to believe in me as their friend, or to be honest and true and upright with me, even in oppositionto regard it as mean and low, rather than clever and much to be admired, to work in an underhand manner,-is the most difficult perplexity, and the hardest labour of my life," said Miss Clare to Margaret in one of their confidential interviews. For she liked to talk with Margaret as a friend,—and very pleasant to the orphan girl, and very strengthening to her character, were these conversations. "You observe," Miss Clare added, "there is this great barrier against me-the pupils themselves must not tell, and I must not encourage them to tell, unless indeed the case should be very desperate. They would lose their character for honour if they did, at least in the opinion of their companions, and I should lose mine." "But you ought to know," said Margaret, "as a parent ought to know, what is going on beneath your roof, so far as regards any serious right or wrong." "I ought to know," replied Miss Clare; "and if a higher moral system was steadily maintained, the girls themselves, even the most perverse and rebellious amongst them, would take care that I should know. I do not say that under such a system all would be good,-to be consistently good belongs to a higher order of motives and influences: but I do say that they would cease to be mean, deceptive, tricky, and doublefaced, because the popular feeling in the school would be against such conduct, not |