them to Madeleine and presented them to her. "Thank you, Noel," she said, gratefully; "they are the last I shall ever receive, and it is meet they should come from you. How sweet is their fragrance! to me it is like the odour of sinless souls when they come from Communion. Well I remember it on Sundays, on the first Sunday of the month especially, or on a great festival of the Church, such as Christmas-day, or Pentecost, or Corpus Christi. Oh, Corpus Christi! what a shower of God's grace rains down on us in the morning of that day, when the world goes on making money as if nothing extraordinary was happening! To-day is the day of my last Communion, and I feel as I felt on my first, and as if all between was a useless dream, excepting the Communions I have during the strange interval made. To know God in Communion," she whispered, as if the approach of death made it certain to her, "is not allowed to every one, for it is the Mystery of Purity. I hope I shall not die before He comes!" she exclaimed, in a louder voice, and with an eager anxiety which proved that this was the greatest matter in the world to her, as in real truth it was, though there was a day when it was not. "Hush!" her eyes brightened some one was approaching whom she knew; "I hear a step upon the stairs. He is coming to me. Oh, He is coming to me, and I shall have no pain, because of the sweetness He will give me

U

my

Even while

A step was Mary went to

before I go! I have no fears now, and no trouble is on mind: He has absorbed them all. Hush!" Those present in the room listened attentively, and every one there knew Who was coming. He was yet on the stairs they felt Him. heard upon the landing-place outside. the door, opened it, peered out, and straightway knelt down upon the floor, with a smile upon her face which had nothing of earth in it. The stalwart form of a stately young priest entered the room. That dashing figure, so powerfully knit and so graceful, was familiar to those in the room, and his hair was still flowing back as though the winds were blowing against it. Yes, it was Tom Middleton, the daring, careless sailor once-a priest of the Most High now and for ever, and for ever. No one greeted him, though to each one he was so well known, for he was bearing with him, concealed from the savage gaze of the unbelieving spirit in the streets abroad, the true, the real Ruler of Europe, of the World-the Emperor of emperors. These are no idle words.

The young priest paid no attention to the persons present, but went directly up to Madeleine where she lay in bed, and, stooping down, refreshed her with a Divine look upon his face, and then he spoke to her for a few minutes, in a voice unheard by the rest, nor listened to by them. He gave her the Viaticum, while those around the bed-His earthly courtiers—

attended upon their King. With a smile and the faintest bloom beautifying her delicate face, she received Him within the palace of her pure bosom, and held out her hand to D'Auvergne. He clasped it in his own. The fragrance of the primroses upon, and the fragrance of the Blessed Sacrament within her breast, mingled, and through the air in the room floated the perfume of the Host.

Consummatum est! Her earthly sorrows are over; her human heart is satisfied; the soul is lost to itself in union with its God. Overpowered by the sweetness of her last Communion, she sinks into the depthless abyss of Eternal Love. She is gone with her glory to add to the glory of Heaven, and her angelguardian need tremble for her no more.

"Patience and sorrow strove

Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better day. Those happy smiles,
That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief, sorrow
Would be a rarity most beloved, if all

Could so become it."

SHAKSPEARE.

THE small-pox, although it did not send O'Malley

Oranmore into his grave, still left behind it ravaging traces of its fearful malignity, and annihilated his claims to the right of being called henceforth a good-looking man. In the keen and jealous eyes of that world he flattered and fawned upon, the loss of his beauty lowered him. He recovered, and was able to walk idly about again. Many a familiar acquaintance who greeted him, and offered hollow congratulations upon his fortunate recovery, scarcely

concealed his surprise at the alteration which severe sickness had effected in that dreadfully pitted countenance. He could not stand it long; the public compassion proved too much for him, and at length hunted him from the city to the country, from the country to the Continent. What charming heiress would take him now for better or worse? He left Dublin, irritated by the ill-concealed remarks passed behind his back regarding his personal appearance. He fled from Ireland. He crossed to the Continent, and lost his income-all of it!—at a gambling-table in Homburg one evening, when sullenly heated by wine. The world dealt with him harshly henceforth. He spent a twelvemonth in a debtor's prison-the peer, at his ease upon his ancestral estate, refusing to credit the broken-down brother's story that his little property was so suddenly lost. The noble lord would not have been embarrassed by the deprivation of the sum required to set O'Malley once more at liberty, but of old he had had sufficient experience of his brother's veracity, and somehow distrusted the piteously described account of his unexpected poverty. Moreover, he was not by any means filled with regret because of the stroke of ill-luck which had overtaken this clever younger brother, who, in spite of his cleverness, was so unfortunate on his way through life. To Lord Summervale it was a desirable turn in the tide of affairs that O'Malley should be compelled to retire