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A CRISIS.
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ing the lad as he climbed the hill and entered the little field that intervened between that spot and the school.

Here he was met by another boy, and after a salutation and pugilistic frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on his way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight.

The boy came to the door, and a note for Mr. Maybold was brought in.

He knew the writing. Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he read the subjoined words:

'Dear Mr. Maybold,—I have been thinking seriously and sadly through the whole of the night of the question you put to me last evening; and of my answer. That answer, as an honest woman, I had no right to give.

'It is my nature—perhaps all women's

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