yet!" exclaimed her visitor, stopping short inside the door and eyeing the drowsy form before her with a disappointed expression.

"If I am not up, what am I?" she retorted, yawning audibly.

"I mean, you are not dressed yet."

"Have you come up here for the express purpose of giving me that undeniable piece of information?"

"Oh no," answered the other, quickly, as suddenly she bethought herself again of her pleasant news, and with recovered cheerfulness came close to her sister. "Uncle is going to take us with aunty to spend all to-day at Rathfelder's Hotel!—won't that be charming?—and all night, too, returning home to-morrow morning! Oh, isn't that nice?"

"Well, I don't see anything so particularly nice or charming in it," answered Charlotte in a wet-blanket sort of tone that very considerably quenched the light in the sweet, bright face before her.

"Don't you, Lotty? why not?"

"Oh, you will find out fast enough for yourself when there; do not tease me about it now, but go and send Susan here at once; I have been wanting her this last half hour or more."

"Last half hour? Why didn't you ring for her?"

"There! don't ask any more questions, Mechie, you are such a tiresome girl at that!" exclaimed Charlotte, impatiently; "go—do—and tell Susan to come to me; if you delay any longer it will be your fault if I'm late, and I shall get a scolding in consequence." So away went the young girl, wearing a very different aspect from that she presented when first we introduced her amidst sunbeams and smiles on the stairs.

In a pleasant room, the folding windows of which allowed egress upon the vine-covered stoop—and which windows were now wide open, admitting the fresh breeze from the in-coming ocean tide, the waters of the great Pacific, whose sparkling waves were tumbling and leaping toward the base of the Windburg far beneath—three persons sat at breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter, middle-aged and of benevolent aspect, and our little friend Maria Marlow, or Mechie, as that name is given by the Dutch. Uncle and, aunt were mere nominal appellations, adopted by the two girls according to the wish of their kind benefactors, Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter, but no relationship existed between them.

Major Marlow quitted the army and India to become a settler in Cape Colony, and with his young wife and children—Charlotte and Maria—arrived in Cape Town during what was to him the inclement season of winter. Unhappily, his constitution, already injured by long service in hot climates, gave way before the sudden change, and in one month he died of inflammation of the lungs. His equally delicate wife, who loved him tenderly, sank under her severe loss, and in a few months followed him to the grave, but not before she had, through the goodness of God, found true Christian friends in Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter, to whom she trustfully consigned the possession and care of her little girls, then two and four years of age. Being themselves childless, they willingly accepted the charge, and in time loved the poor orphans as dearly as though they were their own by birth.

Though reared with equal care and love, the two children, as they advanced in years, displayed characters and dispositions of such opposite tendencies that their noble-hearted benefactors might have experienced as much vexation and disappointment in the apparent failure of their hopes on the one hand as gratification with their success on the other, had they not based their judgment of human nature upon the unerring word of God, which tells of the strange inconsistencies, singular varieties, perversities and inborn depravity of the souls of men. Happily, however, for all those under the influence and control of these excellent, right-thinking people, they had great faith in the influence of Christian training and the power of divine grace. They remembered the promises attached to patient and prayerful sowing the seed, the fruit of which would appear in God's right time. So they kept the ancient precept: "These words shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children; and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest, down, and when thou risest up." In such a home were Charlotte and Maria Marlow reared.

But having introduced my readers thus far to Fern Bank and its inhabitants, I will withdraw, and allow Maria Marlow to continue this little history in her own simple way.

CHAPTER II.

Circumstances had prevented my going to Rathfelder's Hotel (my young readers will understand it is Maria Marlow who now speaks) when, on a former occasion, Charlotte had been taken there, and I was gleefully chatting away to uncle and aunt of the anticipated pleasure as the former at last made her appearance.

"Oh, Lotty, Lotty, my child, how comes it about that you are again so late for breakfast?" aunty said, more in a tone of kindness than reproof, as she raised her face to receive the customary kiss which we always bestowed upon both our guardians when first greeting them in the morning; "you promised that for the future you would endeavour to be earlier."

"Yes, and it's all Susan's fault that I have not kept my promise this morning, aunty. I was out of bed, waiting for her to come and get me my bath, for nearly—" Here Charlotte, meeting uncle's eyes, suddenly checked herself, remembering how greatly he and aunt disapproved of an exaggerated style of speaking. The real truth was, as Susan had told me, that about eight or ten minutes had elapsed between the time of my looking into the bed-room to see if Lotty was up, which she was not, and my sending her there; and even that time need not have been wasted had Charlotte taken the trouble to ring her bell. "For a long while, at any rate," she continued. "Mechie came and found me sitting on the bedside—didn't you, Mechie?—and stared at me as though I had been a ghost," she concluded, sinking indolently into her chair.

I was glad to take refuge in a light laugh instead of further answer, knowing how little the case admitted of any reply likely to prove satisfactory to Charlotte. To my relief, also, uncle covered my silence by saying gently:

"Do not forget your grace, my dear girl. Let us always bear in mind from whose gracious hand it is we receive every blessing we enjoy, and be grateful with our hearts and thankful with our lips."

Charlotte directly stood up, and silently bent her fair head for a few seconds, and again resumed her seat. Aunt Rossiter did not at that time farther press the point on the subject of late rising. She detected, by our manner, that something was wrong, but, as was her custom on like occasions—that is, whenever the matter in hand seemed taking a zigzag course instead of the straight road of truth—she delayed speaking until such time as more favourable circumstances or a better state of feeling in the delinquent rendered it judicious to do so.

The breakfast was nearly concluded as Charlotte came in, and soon after Uncle Rossiter rose to quit the room. In passing her chair he affectionately laid his hand on her head, saying, gravely, "In being down so late, my child, mark, what are the consequences: first and principally, you have missed the prayer and chapter in the Bible; secondly, the meal is nearly over, therefore all is cold and comfortless; thirdly, you have vexed your good, kind aunt, to say nothing of