themselves. If it takes two most
emphatically to make a quarrel, it needs two to make a friendship. Do
your best to make it ideal.

I have known such a friendship; I know that it is possible; and I know
that it is one of the most perfect experiences our life can give us.

You do not need to live exceptional lives in order to love, sympathise,
and help. Experience is the best teacher, and gives lessons to all. Use
that intelligently as a means of moral, mental, spiritual progress,
remembering that it does not come to you by chance, but rather as the
work of

"The hands
Which reach through Nature, moulding men."

(_To be continued._)

MERLE'S CRUSADE.

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY, Author of "Aunt Diana," "For Lilias," etc.

CHAPTER II.

AN UNPREACHED SERMON.

Such an odd thing happened a few minutes afterwards. I was sitting quite
quietly in my corner, turning over in my mind all the arguments with
which I had assailed Aunt Agatha that Sunday afternoon, and watching the
pink glow of the firelight in contrast to the whiteness of the snow
outside, when the door bell rang, and almost the next moment Uncle Keith
came into the room.

I suppose he must have overlooked me entirely, for he went up to Aunt
Agatha and sat down beside her.

"Sweetheart," he said, taking her hand, and I should hardly have
recognised his voice, "I have been thinking about you all the way home,
and what a pleasant sight my wife's face would be after my long walk
through the snow and----" But here Aunt Agatha must have given him a
warning look, for he stopped rather abruptly, and said, "Hir-rumph"
twice over, and Aunt Agatha blushed just as though she were a girl.

I could not help laughing a little to myself as I went out of the room
to tell Patience to bring in the tea, and yet that sentence of Uncle
Keith touched me somehow. Were middle-aged people capable of that sort
of love? Did youth linger so long in them? I had imagined those two such
a staid, matter-of-fact couple; they had come together so late in life,
that one never dreamt of any possible romance in such a courtship, and
yet he could call Aunt Agatha "Sweetheart" in a voice that was not the
least drawling. At that moment one would not have called him so plain
and insignificant with that kind look on his face. I suppose he keeps
that look for Aunt Agatha, for I remember she once told me that she had
never seen such a good face as Uncle