It is Never Too Late to Mend. Charles Reade Reade

struggle, could not help going to Grassmere church. At least he would see her face. He had seated himself where he could see her. She took her old place by the pillar; nobody was near her. The light from a side window streamed full upon her. She was pale, and the languor of sorrow was upon every part of her face, but she was lovely as ever.

      Meadows watched her, and noticed that more than once without any visible reason her eyes filled with tears, but she shed none. He saw how hard she tried to give her whole soul to the services of the church and to the word of the preacher; he saw her succeed for a few minutes at a time, and then with a lover's keen eye he saw her heart fly away in a moment from prayer and praise and consolation, and follow and overtake the ship that was carrying her George farther and farther away from her across the sea; and then her lips quivered with earthly sorrow even as she repeated words that came from Heaven, and tried to bind to her heavy heart the prayers for succor in every mortal ill, the promises of help in every mortal woe, with which holy Church and holier Writ comfort her and all the pure of heart in every age.

      Then Meadows, who up to this moment had been pitying himself, had a better thought and pitied Susan. He even went so far as to feel that he ought to pity George, but he did not do it; he could not, he envied him too much; but he pitied Susan, and he longed to say something kind and friendly to her, even though there should not be a word or a look of love in it.

      Susan went out by one of the church doors, Meadows by another, intending to meet her casually upon the road home. Susan saw his intention and took another path, so that he could not come up with her without following her.

      Meadows turned upon his heel and went home with his heart full of bitterness.

      “She hates the sight of me,” was his interpretation.

      Poor Susan, she hated nobody, she only hated to have to speak to a stranger, and to listen to a stranger; and in her present grief all were strangers to her except him she had lost and her father. She avoided Meadows not because he was Meadows, but because she wanted to be alone.

      Meadows rode home despondently, then he fell to abusing his folly, and vowed he would think of her no more.

      The next day, finding himself, at six o'clock in the evening, seated by the fire in a reverie, he suddenly started fiercely up, saddled his horse, and rode into Newborough, and, putting up his horse, strolled about the streets and tried to amuse himself looking at the shops before they closed.

      Now it so happened that, stopping before a bookseller's shop, he saw advertised a work upon “The Australian Colonies.”

      “Confound Australia!” said Meadows to himself, and turned on his heel, but the next moment, with a sudden change of mind, he returned and bought the book. He did more, he gave the tradesman an order for every approved work on Australia that was to be had.

      The bookseller, as it happened, was going up to London next day, so that in the evening Meadows had some dozen volumes in his house, and a tolerably correct map of certain Australian districts.

      “Let me see,” said Meadows, “what chance that chap has of making a thousand pounds out there.” This was no doubt the beginning of it, but it did not end there. The intelligent Meadows had not read a hundred pages before he found out what a wonderful country this Australia is, how worthy a money-getter's attention or any thoughtful man's.

      It seemed as if his rival drew Meadows after him wherever he went, so fascinated was he with this subject. And now all the evening he sucked the books like a leech.

      Men observed, about this time, an irritable manner in Mr. Meadows which he had never shown before, and an eternal restlessness; they little divined the cause, or dreamed what a vow he had made, and what it cost him every day to keep it. So strong was the struggle within him, that there were moments when he feared he should go mad; and then it was that he learned the value of his mother's presence in the house.

      There was no explanation between them, there could be no sympathy; had he opened his heart to her he knew she would have denounced his love for Susan Merton as a damnable crime. Once she invited his confidence. “What ails you, John?” said the old woman. “You had better tell me; you would feel easier, I'm thinking.”

      But he turned it off a little fretfully, and she never returned to the charge. But though there could be no direct sympathy, yet there was a soothing influence in this quaint old woman's presence. She moved quietly about, protecting his habits, not disturbing them; she seemed very thoughtful, too, and cast many a secret glance of inquiry and interest at him when he was not looking at her.

      This had gone on some weeks when, one afternoon, Meadows, who had been silent as death for a full half hour, started from his chair and said with sudden resolution:

      “Mother, I must leave this part of the country for a while.”

      “That is news, John.”

      “Yes. I shall go into the mining district for six months or a year, perhaps.”

      “Well! go, John! you want a change. I think you can't do better than go.”

      “I will, and no later than to-morrow.”

      “That is sudden.”

      “If I was to give myself time to think, I should never go at all.”

      He went out briskly with the energy of this determination.

      The same evening, about seven o'clock, as he sat reading by the fire, an unexpected visitor was announced—Mr. Merton.

      He came cordially in and scolded Meadows for never having been to see him.

      “I know you are a busy man,” said the old farmer, “but you might have given us a look in coming home from market; it is only a mile out of the way, and you are pretty well mounted in a general way.”

      Then the old man, a gossip, took up one of Meadows' books. “Australia! ah!” grunted Merton, and dropped it like a hot potato; he tried another, “Why, this is Australia, too; why, they are all Australia, as I am a living sinner.” And he looked with a rueful curiosity into Meadows' face.

      Meadows colored, but soon recovered his external composure.

      “I have friends there,” said he hastily, “who tell me there are capital investments in that country, and they say no more than the truth.”

      “Do you think he will do any good out there?” asked the old man, lowering his voice.

      “I can't say,” answered Meadows dryly.

      “Tell us something about that country, John,” said Merton; “and if you was to ask me to take a glass of your home-brewed ale I don't think I should gainsay you.”

      The ale was sent for, and over it Meadows, whose powers of acquisition extended to facts as well as money, and who was full of this new subject, poured the agricultural contents of a dozen volumes into Mr. Merton.

      The old farmer sat open-mouthed, transfixed with interest, listening to his friend's clear, intelligent and masterly descriptions of this wonderful land. At last the clock struck nine; he started up in astonishment.

      “I shall get a scolding if I stay later,” said he, and off he went to Grassmere.

      “Have you nothing else to say to me?” asked Meadows, as the farmer put his foot in the stirrup.

      “Not that I know of,” replied the other, and cantered away.

      “Confound him!” muttered Meadows; “he comes and stops here three hours, drinks my ale, gets my knowledge without the trouble of digging for't, and goes away, and not a word from Susan, or even a word about her—one word would have paid me for all this loss of time—but no, I was not to have it. I will be in Devonshire this time to-morrow—no, to-morrow is market day—but the day after I will go. I cannot live here and not see her, nor speak to her—'twill drive me mad.”

      The next morning, as Meadows mounted his horse to ride to market, a carter's boy came up to him, and taking off his hat and pulling his head down by the front lock by