shoulder.

Duty First.

A STORY OF PHILADELPHIA,

OTTIE was glad to find Michael Michelson in the tidy kitchen when she stole in in the dusk: next to George and dead Jan she loved him best. With an anxious glance to see that Aunt Patience was out of hearing she crept up to the stalwart old man, and laid her head against his

Michael, wilt thou hear my secret?' she asked coaxingly. 'Ay, my maid, if thou hast one,' said the old man cheerily: 'is it anght I can give thee, or do for thee?'

Nay, it is nothing I want, but something I have,' said Lottie, her voice sinking to a troubled whisper. See thee, dear Michael, I love my cousin English George, and I have promised to marry him some day. He is not a Friend, he is of the world, and I fear to tell my Aunt Patience.'

Michael gave a long low whistle.

Maidens will ever be in mischief,' he said, smoothing the bit of bright hair which shone beneath the girl's close cap: there will be trouble here, my child.'

'Nay, do not say so!' pleaded poor Lottie. 'I trust thee so, Michael, to make it all right. Aunt Patience dwells so on what thou sayest.'

'But what can I say?' urged Michael, half smiling; 'what has English George to say? Will his blue eyes or his soft speeches keep thee and give thee a home? for he has little else, I gather, to share

with thee.'

'But he will work, hard and well,' said Lottie anxiously; 'even now he hath a plan by which to make a good living. And see thee, Michael,' she added, smiling, Friends should not look for riches. Holy Writ speaketh disparagingly of the rich man.'

Go to, little preacher!' said Michael; 'we shall have thee moved to speak at meeting next.'

No, never!' said Lottie, shaking her head solemnly. 'George liketh not for women to speak in the churches, but to thee, Michael, I can say anything.' And she caressed the grizzled head of the old man till he was fain to promise he would do his best for her with Aunt Patience.

And thou wilt tell her to-night,' said Lottie anxiously: 'while I take my knitting and sit with sick Adah Holmes?'

That night poor Lottie crept back into Mistress Nichol's house with trembling feet. Michael was gone, and her aunt was sitting before the fire, looking stern and harsh in the dim light.

Neither spoke for a minute. Then Mistress Nichol raised her head, and said with decision:

Charlotte Thurston, Michael Michelsen hath told me of thy wish to marry George Merivale; at first it sorely angered me, but I have I prayed and considered the matter, and while I can never consent to thy joining thyself to a worldling and a reprobate, I will be gentle with thee, and endeavour to feel the same for thee as before this matter, if thou will give him up. Dost thou hear, child?' she repeated sharply, as Lottie stood still and immovable before her. Lottie had heard; she was only thinking in what words to answer

her aunt.

Then they came.

as the old woman:

Duty First.

The girl spoke gently, but as decidedly

'Aunt Patience, thou hast been good and kind to me, and meanest well for me, body and soul: but I am not like thee, I cannot be good by thy pattern; I cannot give up George; he is not wicked, he is not a worldling, albeit the Friends thinks so. Ask Michael.'

'I shall ask none,' said Mistress Nichol, sternly. I can judge for myself. Choose, girl, between him and me!'

She rose from her chair with difficulty, tottered to her bedroom, and firmly locked the door behind her.

It had been Lottie's custom to help to undress her aunt, and make her comfortable for the night, since her infirmities had increased upon her, but she was evidently to be shut out from this office to-night. It was the first serious difference she had had with her aunt, and it grieved her. for Mistress Nichol to her had meant home, and shelter, and woman's care for many a long year.

'And now I seem so ungrateful,' sobbed poor Lottie; but I could not give up George. I should only be always thinking of him. And, besides, I know she wants me to marry Master Green, or Silas Vanderblum, and I never, never could. Oh, dear! was ever any one so miserable or so much tried before?'

Yes, poor Lottie, many a one; and it would dry your tears and freeze you into calmness if you only knew that before very long you, too, would look back to this evening as upon a child weeping over a cut finger or a broken doll, so much heavier afflictions being heaped upon you. But the strength is given with the day, so that none need despair.

Lottie sobbed herself to sleep, her only consolation being that Michael was her friend. And yet he, good fellow, thought it unwise of the girl to promise to marry the young cousin, who had no settled business, and who, though he might mean well, had hitherto been associated in his mind with the idle scum on the surface of the city world, that floated hither and thither with every breeze from Heaven.

'She deserves better than that,' said the old man. 'If her aunt casts her off, as she may do, for Mistress Patience is stern, I must look to her.'

But Patience Nichol did not cast off her young relative; they went on day by day pretty much as of old, only avoiding all mention of the disputed matter. Lottie never, however, quite regained her post of waiting-maid on her aunt; whether the old lady had strength of body granted her to back up her strength of mind is uncertain, but Lottie was kept at arm's length for some time, and altogether shut out of her aunt's room at night.

George's name was never mentioned between them, save that once or twice on a Sunday Lottie had stayed her steps in the doorway for an instant, to say painfully,

thee.'

Aunt, I shall see George to-day; I could not go without telling

Mistress Nichol never answered those speeches. She often had long talks with Michael Michelsen, Lottie knew, but the old man had nothing reassuring to tell her of them.

'Mistress Nichol means well by thee, child,' he would say,' and thou must have patience; the world is yet young for thee.'

Duty First.

The young, however, fight more against obstacles to their happiness than those who are quieted by years, and so Lottie and George beat their wings often against the barrier between them and their love.

'You won't let it hinder our marriage, directly I have a home for you?' asked George, almost fiercely.

And then Lottie could only repeat Michael's Be patient.'

Lottie tried to be good in those days, good in the highest sense in which she understood the word. It was not that she attended meeting more strictly, and would not jest with George over the eccentricities of various Friends who stood as shining lights in Aunt Patience's estimation, though she did this too, but she strove earnestly to do her duty by her aunt, bearing disagreeable allusions, and even taunts, with meekness, and striving to allay the irritability which daily gained on her protectress. Then she was careful to prudishness, George thought, over her own behaviour; would see him only in the face of day, sit by him only in the church, and grant him only one hour's walk on the Lord's day evening.

'I am thine, thou knowest,' she would say, caressingly; therefore lend me awhile to Aunt Patience.'

Meantime the business in which George Merivale had engaged progressed to an extent that exceeded both his own and Lottie's most sanguine expectations. He was the worker in the business, but had little or nothing to do with the management of it; therefore his surprise and pleasure were great when at the close of the first year he received, in addition to his large salary, a bonus from his masters, as his two associates in reality were, though to give him importance, as they said, he was considered a partner in the store.

The salary alone would provide a humble home for two. Flushed with his riches George urged immediate marriage to Lottie, but the girl drew back.

Not yet, dear,' she said; wait awhile, I cannot leave Aunt Patience.'

And again, when further pressed, she was still more resolute. 'It wouldn't be my duty, George; something tells me so. Thou knowest thy Catechism in mother's red book, about doing thy duty in that state of life to which God calls thee. Now, I don't feel as if He called me to be married just now, but to look after Aunt Patience; she has been so ill lately. Don't be vexed with me, dear; it makes it so much harder,' she added, with tears in her eyes.

But I want you,' said George, with something of arrogance in his tone. I, who am almost your husband; can't you think that is a call from God?'

Lottie shook her head and smiled.

'No, that is pleasure, not duty,' she said. 'Go on, dear one, and make our little home ready-that is thy work-and leave me to mind Aunt Patience. I can't explain myself, but, as Friend Joshua says, "I have a call that I see this thing aright."

George was too vexed to notice Lottie's unconscious adoption of the old Quaker's pompous voice, and Lottie could hardly get a smile or a pleasant word from him throughout the rest of the interview: yet she no more cried herself to sleep; she only prayed for George and herself, for patience for both, and then slept calmly.

Duty First.

Many another such scene had she to go through in the next few months. Business prospered yet more and more. George worked hard, but he owned that he was surprised at the amount of money realised by the firm.

'Thou didst wrong to mistrust them at first,' said simple Lottie; they have done well by thee: though I, too, disliked their faces the only time I saw them. Now tell me again about the little house thou wilt build for me, and remember the verandah and the vines.'

And with such talk she would while her promised husband away from the vexed subject of immediate marriage.

A grave obstacle to it soon intervened. Mistress Nichol had a stroke; her long irritability, her increasing feebleness, culminated in paralysis for days she lay helpless on the kitchen-floor, where a mattress had been hastily laid for her. Lottie waited on her day and night, thankful she had never thought of leaving her. Neighbours came in and out, but any one remaining long soon found in the increased restlessness of the sick woman that she could only tolerate Lottie near her, and the poor girl was worn to a shadow.

George was very busy just then, assisting to form a branch store at a town at some little distance, and a fortnight elapsed before he heard of the occurrence. Then he hurried to the house, knocking softly at the outer door. Lottie answered it, and the two held a short and hurried conversation. They were interrupted by a voice as from the dead. 'Is that George Merivale ? Let him come to me.'

Yes, it was the half-unconscious invalid that spoke.

"Go to her,' said Lottie, gently drawing George into the house, and closing the door.

And George went in, politely doffing his hat as he stepped over the threshold.

The old woman looked at him with a bewildered gaze.

'She will have none but thee-a worldling,' she said at last; 'she may be blinded, but God hath not forsaken her. Remember that, it is my testimony. She hath stood by me, a widow in affliction, for long, and she shall have peace, ay, joy, in the end.'

George stood silent and awe-struck by the solemnity of the tone, but Lottie, reared amidst the traditions of second sight and light from above, general among the Quakers, was even more impressed, and the words stood her good stead in the troublous days that were coming for her.

When Aunt Patience had spoken, she sighed and tossed restlessly on her bed.

Lottie hastily kissed George, and thrust him out at the door. 'Go now, dear,' she said, 'and take this as a good omen that all will yet be bright for us.'

Poor, hopeful Lottie! there are many and dark clouds yet between you and the sun. Yet those nursing-days were a rest for her mind if a toil for her body. Mistress Nichol, in all the fretfulness of her trying malady, never again said a slighting word of Lottie's English lover; nay, she even encouraged his visits to the house, and one day, having exhibited an unconquerable desire to be moved into a room upstairs, for the sake of fresher air, and Michael not being near to assist in carrying her, she, to Lottic's great surprise, said, ' Call George.'