YING PRO! OR, THE "THE iSSING SS CHAPTER I. StilibrookeMill_never--looks--pieas- *anter than on a hot summer after- noon, when the pavod streets of Cleeve reflect: a blinding sun-glare, and the brick house-fronts give out the heat they have been slowly ac- cumulating all the long sunny day. Its position at the end of the town gives it a singular charm; it is like an unexpected gleam of romance in & prosaic, toil-worn life. Turning loud with building of gray stonc, with . tiled gabled roofs and diamond paned casements. This is the old gram- mar-school, which rises above the flimsy, fleeting ugliness of the mod- ern street, a silent and beautiful witness of a past and prophecy of a future. Thence the road falls steep- ly to a piece of emerald-green still 'water, beyond which the transfucent golden greens of a grove climbing the epposite hill are even fresher and more liquid .than the tints of the polished mili-stream, while the glow- ing of sun-steeped turf through the tree-trunks, and the soft massing of bright foliage against the pure blue eky, form a most restful contrast to the arid strects whence they can be seen A little way back from the road, on_the.town-side-of-the bridged ex- panso into which the stream widens at the bottom of the hill, there stood, many years ago, a stone-built mill and: house; an undershot wheel turned drowsily to a drowsy music in the stillness, the brown roof-tiles Were mellowed, the gray walls whit- ened, the trees in the garden and those by the roadside slightly pow- dered by a drifting mist 'of floating meal. There_was about Stilibrooke Mill a genial publicity which opened onoc's eart to it. The fact of the high road having been carried straight through its ground and over its broadened stream, in some measure accounted for its openness and ab- sence of walls, but only in part, for there was no reason why, though the stream was open for the conven- fence of the town water-caris and all the cows in the neighborhood, the wide space in front of the mill, where the fowls walked at their ease and the pigeons fluttered down from the dove-cot above to dispute the grain with them, and the mealy wagons stood for loading and un- loading, should have opened unwall- ed upon the highroad as it did. All must yield to the inexorable logic of facts, but Stillbrooke Mill yielded gracefully, and opposed no further barrier between itself and the public oad than a large broad-leaved Planc-trec, beneath which was a bench, where many weighty subjects Nad been discussed by the present miller, Matthew Menda, and his fore- runners. A carved stone let' into the wall above the second story bore fn antique figures the date 1650, which made it nearly two centuries old on this summer afternoon. It was very hot. The sturdy horses at- tached to the wagon which was be- ing laden with sacks of flour, winked their eyes, dropped their heads, and slept peacefully; the men attaching the sacks to the crane above had discarded their waistcoats and were thinking of the amber charms of a lage of ale; Matthew Meade pushed is cap far back upon his grizzled head and stood-in the most draugh- t: ot he could find, with his siceves rolled up and his shirt open on his chest, while directing the work; one of thd sleek mill cats alept. in a tight coil on the low stone parapet between the yard and the water; the housedog had left his kennel and stretched himself with hunging tongue and exhausted mien on the coolest assessible stone; the mill-wheel scemed half-asleep as_ it turned to its lulling music; the sun- shine slept on tho garden and house, it steeped the fowers and grass in a trance.like stillness, and dissolved itself in golden languors among the broad leaves of the gpreading plane- tree, the depths of the pale blue sky peemed clouded with excess of sleep- ing light; the delicate drooping boughs of the mighty willow which grew on the further bank of the stream in the mendow, scarcely stir- red their pale feathery leaves in the charmed stillness. At. the foot of the great willow, where the sunshine poured full upon bim ard clothed the grass about him with glory, a sturdy boy of ninc. lay nad basked, his great dark-gray eyes gazing into the infinite blue aky-depths above him, holding a ripe crimson ae into which his sharp pearls of teeth bit Jazily. His brown face bore traces of recent fighting, and the brown hand he stretched out to reach another quar- render from tho heap on the grass, looked as if it had been used in bat- Near at hand a little girl of three, faa peghc? frock and sun-bonset, was playing with flowers and cooing hap- to areal, her golden curls shin- in the sunlight, as she turned baby gestures and polled stillness and longed to be a on the rene grass, until her eye was. Ca' a swan sailing majestically toward the grassy bank. The languid grace of the snow- white swan pleased the children. Slowly the beautiful creature glided over the still, jewel-like water, her proudly arching neck and erected Saillike wings repeated with such bright accuracy beneath her that the motion of her black oar-like feet was completely. hidden, and she seemed to move like a thought in obedience solely to her will. The boy. becken- ed and she approached him with wayward dignity, pausing in majestic indecision, and then consenting to be coaxed onward again until she reached the brink and bowed her head coquettishly to the bread in his extended hand, having taken which, she moved dream-like away, and brooding pensively over water, li a quict heart, stone piers of the bridge, the arches of which shadowed and = en- gulphed her. Philip's eyes piper her thither and then turned to the blue heaven into which tke silvery "wiles leaves pierced, while his thought followed the gliding swan and his senses 'Were charmed by the brooding 'warmth of the. sunshine and the ripe sweetness of the apples. Under the bridge that white swan was floating, nant the miller's garden on the opposite side of the highway, past an old farm-house of mellow-red brick, 'past an orchard and a meadow; perhaps the swan went no farther,-but Phil- ip's heart expanded with a sort of passion to think how far she might float, had she but oars and sails in place of wings and feet, beginning upon the sea-ward current of the lit- tle familiar Lynn. There he thought of the origin of Lynn, a little pool a few miles hence of diamond-clear water, no broader than the length of his arm, so still that it scemed solid, but with so vivid a sparkle above its white pebbles that it seem- ed alive. From this clear and liquid sparkle, which lived on, never failing through summer and winer, in some, to him, mysterious manner arose the Lipna, a deep trench, flow- ing stilly through lush pasture and edged with meadow-sweet and loose- strife, sometimes reflecting the sweet gaze of forget-me-nots, broadening in musical remonstrance over the rough pebbles of a highway, where it bathed the passing feet of cattle and Pah narrowing again through mea- dow turning-mills, througti a village, and then flowing through a chain of willowedged mill- ponds, singing its tranquil way to Philip and the swan, thence reaching the wharves and the quay where an- other stream joined it, and the two currents rolled on together bearing vessels upon their united wave to the great gray, mysterious sea. <A few miles, he could count them on his fingers, brought the doubled stream to the sea, and once' there one might girdle the great globe. His heart died at this thought; tho vast, vast world seemed within his grasp as he lay there in the sunny man. The willows swayed gently above his eager face, their trembling shad- ows shot across -- it; e sun was passing westward, but how slowly. Some pigeons sailed above him, he followed their flight with longing eyes; swallows glided by steeped in sunlight, the mill hummed on, the child prattled to herself, the scent of mignonette came wafted from a garden; the floating swan was stately ship, bearing Philip to the world's end; they seemed to be sail- ing on and on forever, bound' to some, far, unknown Happy Islands; crimson fruits sent their spicy frag- tance over the mystic waves, thin melted vaguely one into the other; Sinbad, the Roc, the Valley of Dia- monds, blended with the swan ship and vanished. Philip was fast asleep, unconscious alike of his ac- tual blessedness and of that he dreamed in the future. The willow wrapped him wholly in its gentle shade and spread its coolness uffon the water, while he slept on with even, long-drawn breath, until at last a plercing sound penctrated the balmy mazes of his dreams and he awoke. It was the piteous wail of the lit- tle girl, accompanied by the splash of her body in the water, that had broken his charmed dream. Seeing Philip feed the swan from his pe a thing forbidden to her, she wished to do likewise, and sceing her broth- er's eyes shut, she crept gradually nearer, to the edge of the water, lookin#, like a baby Narcissus, into the clear green water, where her flower-wreathed gold aureoled face was clearly mirrowed. "Pity Jessie! pitty dirl !" cooed the tiny daughter of Eve, with com- placent smiles at her own. reflection. But the swan, which in the mean- time had turned back and shot the bridge, eo es sight of the little fig- ure an teered toward it with a swift, en gliding motion. looked, up, with a cry of joy; Swan swam back and tered beautiful .curves of its neck, gliding broadside motion | which the with a t bythe snowy--gleam----of} prattling. the : This incident was very pretty watch, as it was watched from the road on the other side of the pond a boy of twelve sitting on a brown cob in the plane-tree shade, he lustily echoed the cry, sprang from his horse, ran along & wall by the water close to the mill-race, which he leapt. and landed in the meadow just in time to see Philip pull the child out of the water and to beat off tho angry swan, which refused to let go of the skirts it had clutched, until the new- comer plied his riding-whip. '"'Naughty girl !" cried Philip, sct- ting her down at a safe distance from the edge, and wringing the water from her clothes. "Straight to bed you go, miss, and a good whipping you 'deserve,"' "Take her in, you young dufler, and have her stripped and dried. What's the good of jawing a kid like that?" remonstrated the other boy. Taking one of the little girl's hands and bidding the stranger boy tare the other, Philip trotted her tween them over the grass ana through a court-yard to the kitchen door, faster than her little stumbl- ing feet.could carry Having delivered her into hands of a maid servant, Philip made off before he had time to re- ceive the scolding he shrewdly sus- pected to be due, and having reach- ed the planestree, put his hands in his pockets and whistled with a fine affectation of indifference; he was more slowly followed by the stran- ger, whose~services he acknowledged by a brief: 'Thank ye "T say, you fellow,' " said the lat- ter on coming up and observing his blackened eyes, "what havo you been up to besides letting the baby fall into the pond : "Nothing," replied Philip, loftily ; "TY had to thrash a fellow this morn- ing, that's all." "Had you? I dare say. What other poor child have you been bully ing?"' 'He Was a little bigger than you," said Philip, with a scornful glance over him. "TI like that. As if any fellow of my size wouldn't scorn to touch a kid like you. Go indoors, my dear, and ask your mamme for vinegar and brown paper. With such amiable and polite servations, the lads made a long acquaintances. like dogs, they each other with contemptuous sniffs and growls, and after one or two trials snaps and a display' of teeth, come cither to a pitched bat- tle or gracious tail-wagging. In this case, luckily for Philip, tail-wagging was the result. He was esha ietoage to the brown cob and al- to mount it, the stranger tak- re Philip's boat and sculling about the pound. Knives were produced and compared, at which stage Philip deemed it time to say, '"'Who are you. and what's your father ?"' "I'm Claude Medway, and father's Sir Arthur Medway,"' Plied the lad. '"'Are you the ler'S son? What's your name ?"' Philip colored before roplying. Only that morning in school at catechism he had given his name as "Philip Randal," and been dumb when point- edly and repeatedly told to givo only the Christian name. ntil that moment, it had not struck him as strange that Randal was his, baptis- mal and surname in one. After school there was no fight~in the playground in consequence of the frequent repetition of the usher's words, "But Randal is your sury- name,' It was considered a good fight, and traditions of it still linger in Cleeve Grammar School. Blood was shed on both = sides. and how it would have fared with Philip against his older and stronger adversary, but or the untimely appearance of the head-master upon the scene and the consequent hasty flight of both con- tending parties, it is impossible to the ob- life- ay. Perhaps Pdilip was not very sorry for the interruption, when he walked home with the comfortable con- sciousness of having given "that great brute Brown" a good thrash- ing, befure he was himsclf pounded nto a jelly. A secret conviction that the-affair might now honorably be considered at an end, together with a strong suspicion that Brown would think differently, mada him very glad to reach the mill, whither Brown 'would not dare to follow him. "My name's Philip Randal, and Mr. Monde, the miller, is my fath- er,"' he replied defiantly to Claude's question. Tow much ?'° asked Claude, thinking that all three names be- onged to him. 'Well, you're a queer little beggar, names and all. How far are you in Latin? Do they fag at your school? I suppose' they aré ali cauds at this." "What's a cad ?" nsked Philip. "Oh! Why, a day-boy that. lives in the town." "Then we are all 'cads, Philip, cheerfully, + of Delectus yet. I Way.' a returned y, lend us hued Jessic knife, jdifferently, going up to the windo ted for. I took him ane bred him for @uffer 1"' mutter- i at Philip's ignor- a re- mil Philip, in the meantime, ab- sorbed in cutting -his altials 5 on og frame, and, the windows being o heard the--well-known voice of Matt. hew M familiar heard without hearkening until oie thing was said which interested h "The boy is mine, Sir Arthur, snid Mr. Meade's voice. 'He left by his own fiesh oval beoencag and _S) hen4 -- "my own."" *-No doubt you are attached to the child, Meade, and of, course it would be a hard pull to give him up----"' "I can't give him up,' the miller broke in, with Eat agitated 'the's mine, he's 'all I've got. bred him up ad far, and he's to me--I tell "eo I can't give up, Sir Arthur," "If you are indecd attached to the child----"' "I am, I am,". Meade interposed. "You surely would not stand his light," continued Sir gravely, 'consider the you refuse for him." "I hev considered them, Sir Ar- thur," replied the miller, wiping his hot brow, "but money isn't every- thing, sir. he boy looks to me as a father, I've taught him so, and somehow--lI've done that much for him, I've saved afid scraped for him --aye, and -I meanto save. .and scrape for him, and I'll bring him up to be a gentleman, please God----"' he could say no more in the fullness of his heart. Sir Arthur smiled, and looked sil- ently at the rough man in his floury miller's clothes, whose chest . was heaving with strong feeling; while the words broke gaspingly from him. 'Better than my own blood, better better.' "These feelings do you credit, Meade," he said, after some wonder as to how the miller proposed to breed up a genticman. '"'But you would, I am sure, deeply regret that your affection for the boy should spoil his chances in life." "It won't, it can't be," Mende, earnestly. care for him, sir? You've got yourn, there's Master Claude and the rest of them, and mine would be nobody, a poor stray bird among them all What's money beside a father's heart? And a mother's, too ?"' Again Sir Arthur gazed silently and thoughtfully upon the miller's earnest face, and when he saw him draw the back of his brown hand hastily across his eyes, his own be- came dim. . "I will say ifo mbre at present,' he observed at last, rising and tuk ing his hat; "we are both of us con- vinced of the child's identity, though T am not sure that we could prove it ina court of law. You will think over what I have said at your leisure, and weigh the pros and cons of it till we meet againa' 'Yes, Sir Arthur,"' replied Meade, awed in spite of himsclf by the im- posing presence of the baronet, whose head only just escaped th heavy beams of the old-fashioned parlor, a man in the prime of life, with' a gracious smile and winning air. The listener voice; I've more him in Arthur, advantages returned in the meantime, sereened the myrtle grow- ing about. the window, was pale as death, the knifo falling from his nerveless hand. What should all this mean? Was the school-boy taunt but the bure truth, or how ? When Sir Arthur came out of the porch with Mr, Meade, Philip had pulled himself together, and was able to come forward calmly at his father's call. "So this is the boy," said Sir Arthur, iaying his strong, slender hand with gentle firmness upon Philip's head, pusning back the tum- bled hair and turni the face up- ward for the ae scrutiny. he ave it. long glance he bent upon Philip' 5 flushing: face, kind though stern, and with a mingling of sorrow, compunction, and yearn- ing which vaguely touched the boy's self-stecled heart and gradually sub- dued the bold detiance of his upward gaze, "You are tall and strong for your, sa he said, removing his 'never missuse your strength; be gentle, loyal, and _ al- ways think of others. = Then, calling his son, he went out thre® oaeh the garden gute, first pres- sing * into Philip's astonished hand a solid golden sovereign, the like of which he was first afraid to keep lest it should have been given by mistake, und mounted the beautiful bay horse while Claude sprang upon the brown cob, and they rode away. Matthew and Philip stood beneath the plane-tree and watcaed them clatter over the bridge' and vanish up the hill, each with a tumultuous stir of feeling. The miller had taken the child's hand in his powerful grasp, and clutched it so firmly that the small fingcrs were all white and cramped together and aching; but Philip was unconscious of any phy- sical sensation In the whirl of feeling with which he gazed upon the splen- did steeds and their gallant riders, and especially upon Sir Arthur, who inspired him with mingled admira- tion and repulsion. It was as if all the glory of the world opened upon his spiritual vision through this n't. out /|Man. He looked up at his foster-fathcr's weather-beaten face, whi drawn with anxiety and gray care, at his striped colarless f he too jacket, and for the first timo. took his outward measure and | Lmother. - enet Meade, and con! maby chin with Sir Arthur's: care fully shaven, Snely moulded . Just then Meade looked at him = the boy's heart melted. "How would you like me ee ride little horse like Philip if And go arin Wes ate ye, and books to read, and plenty of money ?"' thé miller asked. "vy tome " he faltered. crushing the child's d tighter. rie for the world," he replied, crying, and they turned, both . too mitch moved to speak, and went . in. Why did Sir Arthur want What interest could he possibly h in the miller's adopted child 7 Philip wondered. Mr. Meade said nothing more on me subject to Philip that night, arrying hig questions and bidding hint wait. But when tke children were gone to bed, he sat long by 4 light of the single candle in parlor, amoking his short clay Bre and talking to his wife. "Why ever hadn't you come, Martha ?"? he asked, testily; "Sir Arthur said himself you had as much right-over the boy as I tad my- self.'* . "Me come ? What, and me right in the middle of the plum jam? And arah no more. fit so much as tq dtir' "a -- spoon when your eye's off her;!' "'féturned Mrs Mende, scopes the stocking dhe was me looking -reproachfully across the ae dle's dim pyramid of flame at her fusband. "There, Meade, I will say this for ye, of all the menfolk [I ever came across you're the very worst for putting any understanding into. Not but you've your . good points, and havo been a middliag--~ husband, as husbands go."' 'Well, there, Martha, I can't say what sort of a wife you've a been, for I haven't had a many wives to try you agen," the tailler replied, "but I wish "| oe a fly off with your jam Anybody med rin think the eas. ievandaat upon your "What do you |Jam." "The whole world may depend up- on my jam," retorted Mrs. eade. "Any lady in the land might walk into my kitchen to-morrow morning and throw all the jam I've got across the room, if she'd a mind to; it's jellied thet -solid." Matthew .Meade cid not stop. to doubt the probability of high-born ladies wishing to throw jam across Mrs. Meade's kitchen, but went on to explain the importance of Sir Arthur's mission, to tell of the fer- ies of clues by which he had . traced Philip's identity, and of hia great desire to take into his own care and bring him up. 'The merits of Mra. Meade's jam were now as nothing to her; ¥ n the thought of losing Philip, which penetrated but slowly into her brain, did at last reach it, sho put away her work and 'cried at the thought. ""The many we've buried, Meade," she sobbed, "and it did seem as though the Lord had sent us this one to make-up.'"' "And the Lorh did send him,' cried Meade, smiting his fist on the table so that the candle jumped and the flame flickered. "'You mind what I said, when I brought him home seven years ago, Martha. A voice seemed to whisper 'plain to me 'The same hand that made you childless, made this boy an orphan; save him from the workhouse, and he'll bring a bight on the hearth you take him t 8 en, Meade, and he did bring a blessing," interposed Martha, drying er kind eyes; "there was little Jes- sie sent us in our old e--"' '"'Ay, the little maid was bless her !"' "And such a boy as he was, sure, and no trouble with him. 1 mind that night when vou came home from Chichester, 'Here's a present for ye, mother," you says, and it was long since you'd a called me mother; for it always made ma sorrowful, thinking of them' that_was gone. and so I felt all a tremble, And I thought to mesceif, 'I do hore Meade haven't been spending his money on nonsense to pleasure me,' though my best bonnet was that shabbed I didn't like to go to church of a fine Sunuay. 'It's alive, moth- er,' you says, sort of excited. And I thought 'sure it must be some prize poultry, he've got. Then 1 went out to the cart in the dark and heard a little child crowing to it- self,and I began to cry thinking ol them we'd lost. And you told me to look pleasant and not frighten the little boy. 'or,' you says. * Lord has sent os an orphan Martha.' And we brought him in and he cuddled up in my arms, and laid his little head again my and went off to slepp like a anget."' sent, to be arm little (To be Continued.) es Hardup : 'I'm very sorry, but { can't pay you to-day. You see, they grocer has just been here, and----"' Butcher (interrupting) : "Yes, I just met him, and he said you put him off because you had to pay me. Sa™ here's the bil!. eel Stups: "How well you're lookiing this mornin', one !" Boone: "'Yes--I never looked better in my: life. I'm looking for a man who was owes me $5 , Many put the zero into the colleo 'tion, and then complain that th church Foxe cold. id