e he sat writing in what was to be the library. Presently they ran
to him. "Oh, papa! Mamma is out here!"

"Oh, no, my dears! Mamma is not there," he replied.

"But she is; indeed she is," they persisted. "She is at the end of the
long passage. We saw her; but she would not let us go on. She waved us
back."

To satisfy the children he must go with them. They led him to a long,
dark corridor leading to back premises. "Ah, she is gone!" they cried in
great disappointment. "Quite gone! But she _was_ there, papa. She would
not let us go on. Come, let us look for her."

"No, children; you wait here," he cried, moved by some sudden, cautious
instinct. He went into the dusky passage, and, after a few steps,
discovered that a trap-door leading to a deep cellar had been left open.
Had the children run along here their destruction would have been almost
certain.

Again, a tale of the late Bishop Wilberforce. So many tales of him have
been current, but I do not believe that this has ever before gone
abroad.

In early days he had a close friend, a school chum, a college companion;
but about the time young Wilberforce took orders these two had a bitter
and hopeless falling out. They never got over the disunion, and fell
utterly apart. The chum became an extensive landowner, and was master of
a charming house in the South of England.

Time passed on, and he grew elderly. He thought of making his will.
Being a great man, not only his solicitor but the solicitor's son
arrived on the scene for the event. All three gentlemen were assembled
in the library, a long room, with many windows running down almost to
the ground. Suddenly the young man present saw a gentleman go by the
first of these windows. The elder lawyer raised his head as the figure
went by the second opening. Last of all the master of the house looked
up.

"Why, that is Wilberforce," he exclaimed. "How many years it is since we
fell out, and I dared him ever again to seek me out."

So saying, he ran to the hall-door to welcome his guest, towards whom no
bitter feeling now remained in his mind. Strange to say, the Bishop was
not at the door, nor could he be found within the grounds. At the moment
of his appearance he had fallen from his horse in this neighbourhood and
had been instantly killed.

ENLIGHTENMENT.

It was not in the lovely morning time
When dew lies bright on silent meadow-ways;
It was not in the splendid noon's high prime,