The Rev. Herbert Drury sat in his study chair deep in thought. His writing table was strewn with letters answered, and unanswered, for he had been trying to make up arrears in his correspondence that morning. At his elbow lay his well-worn Bible, open, for very few of his letters were written without consulting that; but the case under consideration, just now, needed personal help rather than clerical advice.

His dark hair, already thickly streaked with grey, although he was less than forty-five, was crisply cut, and an iron-grey moustache gave him a decidedly military appearance. His keen, dark eyes could, on occasion, flash a scrutinising glance, and delinquents felt he must be reading their very thoughts, but their habitual expression was one of kindly sympathy. Mr. Drury had only been Vicar of St. Paul's, Osmington, for a couple of years, but he had won the love and respect of all his clerical brothers in the neighbourhood, although their doctrinal opinions widely differed; his was such a singularly attractive personality. His church-workers felt no work was tedious or uphill, for was not their vicar interested in every detail, aiding personally every scheme that was set on foot for the evangelising of the very poverty-stricken part of the town which comprised his parish. Of money, he had by no means a superabundance, for the living was a poor one, and he was a younger son; but, like St. Peter of old, he could say with truth: "Such as I have, give I thee."

And if the vicar was beloved, his wife was no less so: she was, in every sense, a true help-meet. He was thinking of her now, as he considered the sad case which had just been brought to his notice by a note from one of the district-visitors, and he decided to ask her advice. He strode across the study, and opening the door, called "Nora" in a resonant voice, which was calculated, if necessary, to penetrate to the topmost story of the roomy vicarage.

"One minute, dear," was the brisk reply, from the dim recesses of a store-cupboard at the extreme end of the hall, and in less than that time Mrs. Drury appeared upon the scene. She was a plump little woman, with soft brown eyes and hair which waved a trifle, but otherwise was combed smoothly back from her broad white brow. Her blue serge dress was enveloped in a large holland apron, for she was on housekeeping work intent that morning; indeed, her hands bore traces of some floury substance which she was emptying when the vicar called her. Her bright face, still young enough to possess a dimple in the chin, was flushed with the exercise of trotting back and forth between store-cupboard and kitchen, and to her husband she made a sweet, homely picture as she entered his study, ready to help him in whatever way he needed.

"Sit down a minute, Nora," he said, as he pushed an arm-chair forward, "there is a very sad case here." And the vicar unburdened his mind.

For a few minutes they chatted over the sad details of the case in point, and as the vicar had expected, Mrs. Drury's woman's wit saw a way of helping, quicker than he had done.

"Well, I will call there first thing this afternoon," he said, as his wife returned to her interrupted duties.

As she arranged her stores, she contrasted the sad state of the little blind girl for whom they had just been planning, with the happy lot of her own little daughter. "Thank God my precious Amethyst has her eyesight," she murmured; and then, as a deep-toned clock struck the hour, she added: "Why, it is striking one! She will be home directly; I must hurry."

In a few minutes the stores were all put away, the apron removed, and Mrs. Drury was standing in the large bay window of the dining-room watching for her little daughter to return from school, while the housemaid laid the table for dinner. Very soon she descried a trim little figure, clad in scarlet, hastening along the pavement, swinging her lesson books by their strap, and waving her hand gaily in response to her mother's smile, and in a moment more she was in Mrs. Drury's arms.

"Oh! mumsie darling," she cried, breathlessly, "I'm moved up!"

"Are you, my pet? I'm so glad." And her mother pressed loving kisses upon the upturned face, all quivering with the excitement of telling her news. "Then you are in the Upper School now?"

"Yes, mumsie, the Fourth Form. And Olive and Elsa Franklyn, and Gipsy Monroe and a lot of others have been moved up too. And oh! mumsie, there's a new----"

Here she paused from sheer want of breath, and Mrs. Drury interposed saying: "You shall tell me your news presently, darling, but now you must run and make yourself tidy for dinner, for there is the gong."

A winsome little lassie was Amethyst Drury; at least, so her fond parents thought. She looked less than her fourteen years, because she was so very slight, and the pretty fair hair, simply tied back with a scarlet ribbon, and falling loose about her neck, accentuated the appearance of fragility. Her scarlet frock was almost hidden by the white overall pinafore which her mother sensibly insisted upon her wearing indoors, and which really added to the charm of her appearance. Amethyst was not specially good-looking, but her soft complexion and sparkling grey eyes made up for any little defects in her mouth and nose, the former being a trifle too large, and the latter too retroussé, to be termed strictly pretty.

"Well, girlie," said her father, as grace having been said he began to carve the joint of roast beef; "how did you get on the first day of term?"

"Pretty well, I think, thank you, father, although the lessons seem harder now than they did with Miss Hemming; I've brought home a lot for to-morrow," and Amethyst looked somewhat ruefully at the lesson books lying on the table in the window.

"You must expect to pay the penalty of honour," remarked the vicar, who had, of course, been immediately informed of the change of class. "You cannot hope to be so high in this form as you were in the other, Amethyst, because many of these girls will be older than you, I presume."

"Yes, father, some of them are, but they can't be very sharp or they would not have been left behind. I am going to try hard to get near the top of this class by the time the reports come out," said Amethyst, a ring of determination in her young voice, as she began to attack her dinner with a school-girl's appetite.

Her parents exchanged glances. "My girlie mustn't be too confident of her own powers," said Mrs. Drury gently, but firmly; "father and I want you to do your very best to learn well, and grow up to be a clever woman, but you must not expect to take all the honours, Amethyst."

"Oh! of course, mumsie, I only meant I was going to do my lessons as well as I possibly could," and the clear grey eyes met her mother's unfalteringly. "There are several girls who are really clever, in my form now, who find it quite easy to learn difficult things. I wish I did," she added with a little sigh.

"You must remember the hare and the tortoise, girlie," said the vicar, with a smile. "If you have more trouble to learn than they do, you may depend upon it you will remember better. Are there any new girls?"

"Only one in our form, father, and she comes from Mydenham. Her name is Monica Beauchamp. I don't think I like her very much," added Amethyst meditatively.

"Don't judge hastily, darling," said her mother; "she may be a very nice girl, when you know her."

"I am sure you wouldn't like her, mumsie," said her little daughter, positively, "she seems so off-hand; and once or twice she was quite rude to Miss Churchill. Why, she actually said----"

"Hush! dear, no tale-telling. You know, girlie, I only want to hear nice things about your school companions. Perhaps it would be wiser not to make a close friend of this Monica, just at present, but always be kind and courteous. I daresay she feels strange among you all, especially if she is not accustomed to school. How old is she?"

"Fifteen; but she is such a big girl, mumsie, quite as tall as some of the girls in the Fifth. She went in the school door as I did this morning, and some elderly person was with her. I thought perhaps it was her mother or aunt, although she didn't look a very kind one; but Monica said: 'That will do, Barnes, you need not come any farther,' in such a commanding tone, so I suppose she was a servant."

"I expect the young lady in question is a granddaughter of Mrs. Beauchamp, of Carson Rise," remarked Mr. Drury. "I have heard she has one living with her."

"Yes, she is, father," said Amethyst, eager to show off her knowledge. "Olive and Elsa knew her by sight. They said she had had four daily governesses, and she wouldn't obey one of them. That's why her grandmother has sent her to school." Amethyst's face wore an awe-struck expression; such a terrible state of affairs seemed incredible to her.

"I am surprised at the Franklyns for repeating such a thing. At any rate we will not discuss this Monica's misdeeds, Amethyst, we have plenty of faults of our own." Mrs. Drury spoke sternly, and then she changed the subject.

Her little daughter looked very abashed, and was quite quiet for a few minutes; her mother seldom spoke in so severe a tone, her rule was rather one of love. But she had a great aversion to tittle-tattling, and endeavoured to check every indication of it in Amethyst's school-girl talk.

The cheerful midday meal concluded, the vicar prepared for an afternoon's parochial visiting. Mrs. Drury got out her work-basket in order to finish a garment she was making for a poor old woman, who used to attend her mothers' meeting. Amethyst amused herself with alternately talking to the canary, whose cage hung in one of the sunny windows, and playing with a beautiful black and white cat, who stretched himself lazily on the hearthrug, and blinked his eyes and purred in appreciation of his little mistress's fondling.

"Shall I get out my lessons now, mumsie; they will take me a good long time to-day?" she asked, when she was tired of amusing herself.

"No, dear, I think you shall leave them until after tea," said Mrs. Drury, as she sewed on the last button, and folded up her work. "I am going to take this to old Mrs. Robbins, and you may go with me."

"Oh, lovely!" cried Amethyst excitedly, as she jumped up with alacrity. "I like going to see your dear little old women, mumsie. I don't think I know Mrs. Robbins."

"I hardly think you do, dear. But come, let us get ready, and go at once."

Although St. Paul's Vicarage was situated in a by no means grand locality, a very few minutes brisk walking brought Mrs. Drury and Amethyst into widely different surroundings. Long rows of tenement houses looking on to the ugly brick buildings which comprised the iron foundry where most of the husbands and sons earned their daily bread, were traversed before they paused at an almost paintless door, bearing the number 75, but guiltless of a knocker.

Applying the handle of her umbrella briskly, Mrs. Drury waited for some one to admit her. But instead of the door being opened, a feeble voice was heard saying: "Please come in." And bidding Amethyst follow her, she turned the rickety handle and entered the squalid-looking house. For a moment it was so dark after the bright sunlight outside, that she could scarcely see her way, but she soon descried another door on her left, and pushing that open, a certain amount of light illumined the dark passage.

"Come in, ma'am, do 'ee come in," cried a quavering old voice from the interior of the room, and Mrs. Drury led Amethyst, who was somewhat shy of strangers, into the tidy but comfortless apartment, and shut the door.

"Well, Mrs. Robbins, how are you to-day?" she enquired sympathetically, as she gently shook the poor old hand, badly crippled with rheumatism.

"Only very middlin', ma'am, very middlin'," said the poor old soul, as she begged her visitors to be seated. Mrs. Drury drew the only available chair up to the side of the poor miserable bed, and Amethyst found a little wooden footstool, upon which she perched herself as best she could. The old woman's dim eyes lit up as she saw the bright face and hair of her little visitor.

"La, bless me, ma'am, she's just for all the world like a fairy," she said, and she struggled to raise her poor old body the better to feast her eyes on the pretty picture, but a low moan of pain escaped her lips. "'Tis these screwmatics," she explained, as Mrs. Drury bent over her tenderly, "my back and legs is awful to-day."

"Have you had any medicine lately, and who looks after you, Mrs. Robbins?" said the lady, sympathetically.

"My darter-in-law looks in most days, and her little gal runs of arrants for me; they live at No. 68, just below. No, ma'am, I haven't had any medicine for a good bit now, it don't seem much use like. But there, ma'am, the Almighty is wonderful good to me. I have never been without a bite or a sup yet, and there's a many can't say as much as that, poor things of 'em."

"Perhaps they don't look to Him for succour as you do," was Mrs. Drury's gentle reply, as she stroked the poor knotted fingers.

"Ah, ma'am, that's true, more's the pity of it. I mind when I was young, like little missy there, my father used to say to me: 'Now, Jemima, my gal, never you do nothing as'll make you shamed for God Almighty to see, and you may depend upon it, He'll look to it that you never want.' Sometimes, when I was young and foolish, I used ter think as there was a many things I wanted, and never got, but now I'm growing old, and the Golden City is very near, I seem quite content-like."

"Shall I just read a few words to you?" said Mrs. Drury, as she opened her little pocket Bible at the book of the Revelation.

"Aye, please do, ma'am," and the dear old soul lay placidly listening to the beautiful description given by St. John of the New Jerusalem, where there shall be no more pain, hunger, or tears, for those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.

"Beautiful, beautiful words," murmured old Mrs. Robbins, as she drank in the comforting promises; "we'll not remember the trials and troubles of this life when we are up yonder."

"Now, Amethyst, dear, before we go, just sing a nice hymn for Mrs. Robbins," said Mrs. Drury, to her little daughter, who had been a silent spectator so far.

"What might little missy's name be, ma'am?" enquired the old woman, with some curiosity.

"Amethyst," replied Mrs. Drury, with a smile. "An unusual one, isn't it? but her father and I chose it for a special reason."

"'Tis one of the precious stones in the Bible, surely," said Mrs. Robbins; "one of all they long-named things as is going to be in the walls of the golden city."

"Yes, it is a Bible name, and has a special meaning, signifying an abhorrence of the drink which is such a curse to our land. We want our little daughter to grow up to be a true Amethyst. Now, dearie, sing your hymn."

"Shall it be 'There is a city bright,' mumsie? Would Mrs. Robbins like that?"

"Yes, dear, I am sure she would. Come and stand close by me, and sing very clearly, girlie," and Mrs. Drury took one of the white-gloved hands in her own, and held it lovingly while her little daughter's clear, childish treble filled the bare room.

"There is a city bright

Closed are its gates to sin,

Naught that defileth,

Can ever enter in.

"Saviour, I come to Thee!

Oh, Lamb of God, I pray,--

Cleanse me and save me,

Wash all my sins away.

"Lord, make me, from this hour,

Thy loving child to be,

Kept by Thy power,

From all that grieveth Thee.

"Till in the snowy dress

Of Thy redeemed I stand;

Faultless and stainless,

Safe in that happy land."

"Thank you, my dearie, thank you," said the old woman gratefully, as the last word died away. "And thank you kindly, ma'am, for coming to cheer an old body up."

"I will come again when I can, Mrs. Robbins; meanwhile here is a comfortable loose gown for you to use, either when you sit up again, or in bed, just as you like, and a trifle to buy a few little extras with."

The poor old cripple's dim eyes filled with tears as she saw the nice grey woollen wrapper, and felt the half-crown pressed into her wrinkled palm.

"God bless you, dear lady! God Almighty bless and reward you!" was all she could say.

And, quite understanding, Mrs. Drury gently bade Amethyst open the door, and in a moment more their footsteps resounded along the uneven pavement.

Chapter 3 I'M MOVED UP!

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