A Mason's Story.

A MASON'S STORY .

( Continued from page 272 . ) WHEN the family assembled at Mr . Morton ' s breakfast table next morning that every-day event in everybody ' s life was a very dull affair . Outside , the snow lay white over the fields in front of the house , and the distant jiark showed uumistakeable signs that the dreariest of all seasons , winter , was favouring them with its presence . The leafless treeswith their pure white

, covering , did indeed look dismal , as they rocked ancl swayed in the breeze , bringing clown with that selfsame movement a shower of snow ; as if there were not already enough of that under foot to satisfy the most mischievous urchin who ever went snowballing . The old church , too , looked unhappy enough . There was a goodly covering on roof and gables , ancl the windows were snowed up in every crevice and chink . Whew ! but old winter must

have been busy last night , to have transformed the fairy scene of but a few hours previous , when the moonbeams shed their lustrous li ght on all around , into the cold but picturesque vision that now presented itself . Even the old , quaint , extinguisher-like tower had come in for a share of the metamorphosis which had passed over the land , and as to seeing the cardinal points of the octogenarian weathercock , why you couldn't do it .

I dare say a painter would have revelled in such a scene , but we who look at the hard matter-of-fact , common-place side of things , see nothing very lovely in such like pieces of nature ' s handiwork . We confess that we mi ght be struck with the beauties of a snowy landscape were it possible to view it without the usual concomitants of chilblains ancl a freezing atmosphere . Inside Mr . Morton ' s there was a very comfortable air . A briht fire

g burned in the grate , and a bountifully spread breakfast was on the table . Mr . Morton sat arrayed in gorgeous dressing gown ancl slippers , eating buttered toast , ancl toasting his feet . The tawdry coloured morning garments that he wore pleased him , poor man , as such little things do often please those minds whose capacity is just large enough to be pleased by them . He did not look very happyhowever . He was perusing the Orthodox Punishment

, Gazette ; ancl an account of the doings of the " Conditional Immortalists , " aud " Universalists , " ancl all other w icked people whose views did not agree with his own , seemed to him to be an excellent opportunity for holding himself forth as the divine mouthpiece whereby these sons of Belial were to be anathematized ; ancl his denunciations of them were both loud ancl deep .

Mrs . Morton sat fidgetting over the tea ancl coffee , saying nothing , lest thereby she should draw on herself the battery of her liege lord ancl master , which at any time was bad to bide . Of all the party there assembled perhaps Mary looked the most miserable . My young lady readers will doubtless feel for her , because they will understand her feelings better than we of the sterner sex . At any rate , the good thing's lay untouched ou her plate , that being , I take it , a bona-fide token that

she was out of sorts . Need we wonder at it ? Cut off from the company of the man she loved above all else on earth , and almost adored above heaven , by the decree of an arbitrary father , ancl all for a paltry matter of religion , which , take it whatever way you will , could never have influenced their married life one iota . There are two kinds of religion . One is that pure and noble and unselfish religion , whicli attaches itself to some things , either animate or inanimate , ancl which loves that object to which it attaches itself better than everything else , simply because the thing or person loved is to a great degree superior to the thing or person loving ; therefore the one can look up to the