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to the opening and listened, and the conversa tion already alluded to fell upon his ears. As, steadying himself, by grasping with his left hand a stout young elm that had found lodg ment for its roots in a cleft in the rock, he heard the scream given by Marian upon the ap pearance of Allan Bayne; then, craning his neck forward and upward, looking out from the rock if in any way he might see without being seen, two dark bodies suddenly appeared, fall ing from above, and the one nearest to him was a woman. He leaned still farther forward, as he did so tightening the grip of his left hand and reaching out his right, made a sweeping catch which drew Marian obliquely toward him. Though his muscles seemed to crack with the sudden jar, he retained his hold as tightly as would have done the grim death he was com- ' batting, and with a wave of strength swung Ma rian from danger into the niche. Presently the ■ girl knew that she was saved from the fall. She looked her thanks, though the look was mingled j with suspicion. Parson’s outward ensemble was I not reassuring. He resembled more an outlaw j than the outlaws themselves. A word or two reassured her. “I’m an honest trapper, gal, empl’yed by Uncle Sam looking’ arter the reds az is on the rampage. I reckon you’ve made a double *- cape, and ef ye kin lay low a bit, I’ll pilot ye in to the nearest fort, where I’m bound for. Be easy an’ jest make up yer mind it’s all right. I’ll continue to explore. Ther’s som’at goin’ on up thar as I want to get the endin’ on.” Without waiting for the thanks, which his diffidence with the female sex rendered rather embarrassing, the trapper turned and took up his old position. He knew another had fallen; but he knew something of that other, and hear ing no sound from below, and believing him to be dead, he felt in no hurry about viewing his mangled remains. The words of Captain Ronald and the rest floated down distinctly to his ears, and he shook his head uneasily at the sound of that voice. “Not any of you in mine, ef this party knows hisself, which it thinks she does. Mout be recognized ez an individooal thet fout sartin runnygade outlaws at Don Kamon’s ranche on Mexican s’ile t’other side the Beeo Grandy. Same coon I draw’d a bead on and dropped. That was in the line o’ business; but it moutn’t be comfortable rememberin’in case o’ re-cognis in’. Wonder how he got clear o’ the greaser. Them boss soldiers was jist stringin’ him up when I left." In some such strains as this his thoughts wandered along as he listened. What he heard was sufficiently strange to give him some sur prise. “ ’Pears to me there’s another gal in the case, as hez a objec’ in her head. She’s still as death about what the crazy loony has been doin’. Must watch out a leetle. Suthin’ to pick up hyar.” From his eyrie, Parsons heard the men de part; heard Ellen running down from the rocks, and saw her bending over Ray Moulden’s pros trate form. His acute ears caught most of the conversation; and when Ellen went lightly away, he gave a start at finding, as he turned, that Marian was at his side, and had evidently been listening also. “ Go help that man,” she said, when she once saw that he was aware of her presence. “He must not be left there to die alone, or be mur dered by those prairie rovers.” “Sartin’; though I don’t go much on him. He’s so wirthless lie’s ornary, if he does wear shoulder-straps. I know the cuss.” Still Marian’s eyes said go; and without fur ther delay, he went. Ray Moulden was recovering fast. He was in a sitting posture now; and when Parsons sud denly and silently dropped beside him, he turned with a resolute air, as if he expected danger, and was prepared to face it. “Bad hurt, are ye Cap. Any bones broke?” The scout on the instant was partially recog nized. Moulden felt easier. He answered, still feebly, but with a voice that seemed to be mo mentarily strengthening: “ Only bad cuts and scratches, and a heavy fall. Have you a flask ?” Parsons produced a small flask, and placed it to the lips of the officer, who drank heartily of the fiery liquid it contained. As the former saw the color returning to Moulden’s face, he smiled encouragingly. “Nothin’ like the spiritooal fur the bed o’ lan- guishment. Made a new man on ye o’ready. Next thing, you’d better git.” “ True; but how?” “Kin ye walk?” “ A little, but not far.” “Where are yer men ?” “ 1 cannot imagine. They should not be more than a mile or so away, though I can scarcely tell the exact distance. I left the main body, taking with me a couple of men, at the same time that Bob Blake, the scout, left in almost the opposite direction. The men with me, who certainly must have heard something of what was going on, should have come to my assistance, or borne word to the rest.” “ Puttin’ on a blue jacket don’t allers make a scallywag reliable. Guess they heard too much and kerwammused. We’ll hav to run some risks—wait a bit.” Parsons hastened back up the gulch to obtain his horse. Some risks would have to be run, he knew. The girl and himself would have to walk for a time, whilst Moulden rode. Perhaps the latter would gain strength as he went along. Somehow the camp of the soldiers was to be reached. The horse of Parsons’ seemed glad at his ap proach. It held its head up in the air and snuffed the wind that came drifting up the canon, and pranced the ground lightly, but im patiently. Leading it out, he motioned Moulden to arise, and helped him gently into the saddle. Then in a low tone he called to Marian; “Ho, up thar! Kin ye kirm down, er d’ye need help ? It’s time to light out.” For an answer came the sound of a single rifle-shot, pealing out in the distance beyond. Both lifted their heads and gazed in the direc tion. Then came the rattle and roar of firearms, and the faintly-heard sounds of shouts and yells. A battle of some kind was in progress. The form of Moulden seemed to dilate, his eyes flashed, his nostrils were expanded. “ Trapper, I am needed. Lay low here till you hear from me, if you cannot see your way to join us.” "Without further word, or moment’s pause to see how his intention would be received, Moul den struck the horse’s sides fiercely with his heels and dashed out and away across the plain, leaving Parsons standing amazed and bursting with wrath at the summary manner in which he had been left to shift for himself, and gazing ruefully at his feminine charge, who stood re vealed on the ledge above, anxiously scanning the far-off horizon. (TO BE CONTINUED.) SWEETHEART OF MOBILE. BY COUNT FAIRFAX. Sweetheart—I call you sweetheart still As in your window’s laced recess, When both our eyes were wont to fill. One year ago. with tenderness. I call you sweetheart by the law Which gives me higher right to feel. Though I be here in Malaga, And you in far Mobile. I mind me when, along the bay The moon-beams slanted all "the night; When on my breast your dark locks lay, And in my hand, your hand so white; This scene "the summer night-time saw. And my soul took its warm anneal And bore it here to Malaga From beautiful Mobile. The still acd white magnolia grove Brought winged odors to your cheek, Where my lips seared the burning love They could not frame the words to speak; Sweetheart, you were not ice to thaw; Your breast was neither stone nor steel; I count to-night, at Malaga, Its throbbings, at Mobile. What matter if you bid me now To go my way for others’ sake? Was not my love-seal on your brow For death, and not for days to break ? Sweetheart, our trothing holds no flaw; There was no crime and no conceal, I clasp you here in Malaga As erst in sweet Mobile. 1 see the bay-road, white with shells, I hear the beach make low refrain, The stars lie flecked like asphodels Upon the green, wide water-plain— These silent things as magnets draw, * They bear me hence^vith rushing keel A thousand miles from Malaga To matchless, fair Mobile. Sweetheart, there is no sea so wide. No time in life, nor tide to flow, Can rob my breast of that one bride It held so close a year ago— I see agai n the bay we saw— I hear again your sigh’s reveal, I keep the faith at Malaga I plighted at Mobile. “Don’t takeaway your head, darling, leave you in a little while.” I must “ Anything that I can.” “Then wear " “Suppose my hair all comes down; I cannot | on her finger, fix it up again. ” 1 Not even with your silver arrow ? Some day • what will never be—and I ask no more.” lual A CHU . I believe you are right Pity, though, that so : this trifle still,” slipping it again rarelj’-constant love should ha\ e een ^o was ec. . “You see 1 don't wish to be “It was not wasted: ‘Love though love may : quite forgotten. Now one kiss for the sake of— be given in vain, is yet lovely, am ' - -- - that is. it seems to me—a love worth the name. j you must tell me its story, as you promised.” “You ought to guess it from the motto, “ Fi- | dele a mort.” “ A very noble one. But the trait it proclaims ! I is not your leading one.” “Why?” with a swift start. “Am I unfaith- j , ful?” “ What a bungler I am to be sure,” kissing her i twice, thrice. “No, sweet, I only meant that j you were truth itself—and truth is better than j j fidelity.” “Oh! please don’t say that!” she cries, LLttl » ill Uc>CI UtJ—ft Li 11 X HSK UU LLIurc. ^ , i q /valid nn Again he holds her close, close, kissing fore- even though it were what tne wor i head, eyes, lips, not with the exultant strength of happy love, or the mad energy of baffled pas sion, but tenderly, reverently, as one might some dear dead thing, about to be forever laid away from sight. Lyt is strangely calm. The soft tears that fell so plenteonsly over the wreck of Aylett Inge’s hope seem frozen at their source. This grief is too deep to spend itself in such summer showers. Her pain is scarce less than that of the man before her, who has just seen fade and wrenching herself sharply from his hold and J wither the hope of his life. A ROUNDABOUT ROMANCE. BT S. M. A. c. “Prophesy, 0, son of man.” In the spirit of this injunction a son of man predicts that next winter, the fashion at Washington will be Repub lican simplicity; that diamonds will be vulgar; that cabinet officers and the bon-ton will go to re ceptions in cabs; and that ladies, instead of help ing to make scandal, will only talk scandal in the good old tea-drinking fashion before so many peo ple were found out. ‘When is a thief like a seamstress? When he and runs.” And when he is caught and he’s still like a seamstress. CHAPTER XXIX. “TRUTH IS BETTER THAN FIDELITY.” Night, the twenty-second of February, silvern, stirless, starlit, with an air so soft it might have been stolen from the heart of the coming spring time. It is a grand gala night in M , for re viving patriotism renews the old-time festival in honor of Washington’s birth-day. From roof to basement the capitol is alight. Wreaths, flags, flowers, transform the hall into a royal-looking ball-room. The band, safe-hid in leafy covert, keeps the soft air quivering with delicious mu sic, and up, down, across, athwart the splendid rooms, the arched aisles, the massive stairways, the gayest of gay throngs stream. The affair is gotten up by the first gentlemen of the city, and all that is best, brightest and bravest in the State has here fit representation, for the cards of invitation went far and wide, and summoned hither an assemblage whose like has not been since the happy halcyon days before the war. Colonel "Windsor says this to himself, as he looks proudly at Lyt: “Ah ! do your best,” he thinks: “ bring together from far and near your highest and loveliest, still she is a star that no rival brilliance can dim.” Certainly she is un surpassed, and to-night seems fairly unsurpass able. She is all in white; not fleecy, vapor ous, floating white, but some rich stuff, that falls in plain, heavy, shroud-like folds about her straight, elegant figure, with a glow of vivid geraniums at her throat and in her hair, and cheeks whose deep, variable color, almost match ing their tint, betrays some excitement stronger than that of time and place. Her eyes dilate and darken momently, and her voice when she speaks has a hall-dreamy sound, as of one raptly listening for an echo that never comes. He holds her truth-plighted, he believes, and trusts her as truth itself. Still, looking back upon these past weeks, he sees they have not brought him perfect happiness. Even in the most bliss ful minutes there has somehow been a strange alloy, though through no fault of hers, he could swear, for she is in most things marvelously submissive—more so, indeed, than he likes her to be. She never repels him, and her lips smile always at his coming, but—maybe he is hyper critical—her eyes do not, but are oftenest deco rously downcast, and her face does not wear the shadowy, tender glory he used to fancy it would put on in the presence of one she loved. It is all so new yet, maybe, in time, the fullness of his dream may come, and he falls to planning the life that shall be theirs—happy wanderidgs in far old countries, whence they shall bring back richly-rare adornings for the home which her presence shall make, to him, little less than Paradise. How he rejoices in the diligent youth and laborious manhood that have given him power to keep her, as she deserves, with the careful tenderness, the dainty luxury, that shall make her forget even the semblance of sorrow. Presently he crosses to where she stands, say ing: “You look uncomfortably warm, Miss Can- more. It is more pleasant in the hall.” “I protest against that,” says Harry Bate. “ You want to spirit Miss Lyt away, so I will lose the dance she has promised me.” “ And I insist that it be done,” says Mr. Inge, for I- believe in equal and exact justice to all women, and she occupies far more than her due proportion of the eyes and thoughts of this as sembly.” Then, in a low, rapid aside, “Don’t you see she is fevered with dancing already ?” Lyt smiles just a little. “After that, I would not go for anything— only I want to he fresh for our dance. Remem ber, Mr. Bate, the last quadrille, and find me, even if you have to employ the police in the search.” The next minute Colonel "Windsor has led her across the wide, cool hall, through the cosy ante chamber, into the large room of the library, where few of the pleasure-throng think to stray. “Sit down,” he says, pulling forward a read ing chair. “ Indeed ! I am not tired,” she says. “ That music seems to give one wings.” “ Have you thought of what time it is ?” “No ! about one, is it not?” “There,” showing his watch. “And an hour from now I must leave M—— for a month’s ab sence.” “I shall he at home before you come hack.” Is it purely his fancy, or is there relief in her tone? “And I shall follow there as soon as possible.” Then, after a little silence which she seems disin clined to break: “Lyt, darling, I am going I away for a long time—to me.” j “Well!” Only this monosyllable, but her set than it is when still holding her hand he walking with quick, uneven steps up and down | the long room. Alter a minute he follows her, and holding her hands in a hard clasp against his breast, i says: “ Lyt, you ai;e above caprice, I know; tell me ! what this means.” “ I am trying to think how I may best do it,” | in a low, hard voicp; then, after a short, intense silence: “When we first met last j thought—no matter how, or why—that you had [ no right to treat me as—as you did, and think ing that you meant either to trifle with me, or be treacherous to—to—some one else, I deter- | mined to punish you by making you love me as I felt you could love, for I was very angry at the part I thought you were playing, and sojvindic- tive that I wanted yoq to be cruelly hurt by the scorn I would heap upon you. It was very wrong, I know, but I held to my purpose stead ily; and it was not until Mr. Inge told me all the truth, and—and what you had given up for me, that I thought once how wicked I was. What I felt then I cannot tell you. The world grew chaos for a while. Then I persuaded myself that I ought to right the wrong I had unwit tingly done you, at any cost, and—and—your name and fortune were great temptations to my i ambitious pride; and so, between all, I gave you a lying promise. But if you could know how all your kindness has cut me to the heart, how I wretched I have been in knowing myself so un- j worthy of your tender love, you would not j quite hate me, in spite of it all, though I have I hated myselt sometimes.” It comes to the Colonel with the shock of a I sudden awaking, but he meets it bravely. “ Is that all tne treason, Tender Conscience?” he asks, again drawing her to him. “Iwon’t deny that I wish you had accepted me for love, and that alone; but darling, never name un worthiness in connection with yourself, or think that I can ever do otherwise than love you with my whole strength and heart and soul. You are so stainlessly true and honorable, that you are making yourself morbidly wretched over what any other woman would regard as the most venial of faults, and yon must not do it any longer. Look up and smile, and kiss me before I go, and be ready to tell me at our next meet ing, when I may claim you as my own dear wife. ” “ Do you wish it still ?” Her tone is almost apathetic, bnt there is the steely clasp of one hand about its fellow whose meaning he knows so well. “Can you doubt it?” he says, growing per ceptibly paler, and an anxious inflection creep ing into his voice. “ Why should I not? There is nothing in what you have said to make my purpose falter.” “No,” dully, as before, “I did not tell you quite all the truth.” “Lyt,” hard .lines coming about his mouth, “in heaven’s name, speak plainly. Y"ou cannot mean to reject me now i” The flame in her cheek's bums out to gray pal lor. She lifts her eytfe-fapty to his with the slow answer: * { “No, I mean nothing of the sort. Y'ou hold my promise, freely given, and its fulfillment, if you claim it, shall not be avoided. So far as duty can go, nothing shall be lacking. I will serve, honor, and obey—but I do not love you, and I know I never can.” There is a dreary, passionless ring about the words inexpressibly pathetic. The lover puts her gently away from him and goes away to the window. Oh ! the battle in his heart. He can not give her up. She has grown a part and par cel of his very life. It would Jbe like parting with air and sunshine suddenly come to, after long darkness, to renounce her|now, and he has only to stretch forth his hand and make her his own forever. He goes back in a little time, say ing, very gently: “ Let the matter rest for to-night, Lyt. You are fevered with too much excitement already. Stay here, while I find Mrs. Seaton and the car riage. You had best go home.” She looks at him piteously. “ Do you think there is any rest for me while it is unsettled ? It is that which has made me feverish. Let the end be—now.” “Do you hate me, Lyt?” “ Oh, Colonel Windsor!” “Do yon like me, then?” “As well as it is possible to like anybody.” “Lyt,” breaking wildly away from his forced calm, “you must, you shall love me ! I cannot live without you.” “ Colonel "Windsor, I have tried to love you, and if you make me your wife, I shall never cease trying; but I know, and tell you now, the endeavor will be fruitless.” “Why?” No answer; only the quick flushing of the pale face, as it seeks for the first time the shelter of her hands. Colonel Windsor stands aghast. Here is light that makes plain the dark places. Knowing so well the woman who stands, with bowed head, before him, he understands now why she shuddered at his embrace. No longer can he.give ear to the specious song of Hope, saying that her heart is but waiting to be won. Adieu, golden dreams of Italy with her. Back to the realm of sorrowful shadows ye sprites that played in the home-light. How trifles haunt us in the darkest hours. Some stray cadence of the band without brings back to him, in grim irony, the strain she sang in the summer-lit parlor: “Hearts are broken, heads are turned wi- castles in the air.” Presently she lifts a face calm with strong re solve, and lays her hand upon his arm saying very quietly: “Take me to Mrs. Seaton, please. I am tired and must go back; and I will keep my promise at all cost, Col. Windsor, and forgive me for the trouble I have made you.” A joy-flashed that dies in springing, goes over his face at her words. He turns away as if to steady himself for what he had to say, and I do not think those who may look upon his face in its coffin sleep will see it much whiter or more “ I wish, oh ! I wish you had never seen me,” I she says, gasping between the words, “or that all the pain might be mine. I alone deserve it.” ; “You must not think so,” he says with some effort. “Iloved you from the first, in spite of ! myself; it was all the work of Fate. And now I must leave you or I shall lose the train. Shall I take you to the ball room ?” “I will spare you that pleasure,” says Mr. autumn, I i Inge coming forward, “though I am of opinion 1 Miss Canmore is better away for the present. Say good bye and be off, "Windsor, you have no minute to lose.” “ I have said it,” says that gentleman, “bnt the word has an ominous sound which I dont like; so instead an revoir. As he goes slowly out, Harry Bate comes in with Mrs. Seaton on his arm. “Go back, my young friend,” says Mr. Inge, “there is nothing here for you.” “We will see,” laughs the young fellow. “ Miss Lyt, are you ready?” “Excuse me, please. I did not know I was tired until I came away from the music.” “Certainly. But what is the matter? you look worse than tired.” Mr. Inge gives him a look that seems to say, “ keepyour observation to yourself,” and aloud: “I don’t wonder at it, seeing you were her prospective partner,” at which there is a laugh, for Harry, though a splendid dancer, has some what of Mr. Arthur Pendennis’s faculty for coming in collision with other couples, and bears the contretemps with much better temper, being on the whole a prodigiously good-natured young giant. As he stoops to look into Lyt’s eyes saying: “Were you really afraid to trust me?” Mr. Inge looks at him with infinite pity. He sees only too well whither all this is tending, and is half-tempted to give the useless warning which Mrs. Seaton’s eyes seem to ask. Lyt hardly takes note of looks or words; her hand plays absently with something at her throat, crushing out of life and bloom, the flowers below, and flecking her white dress here and there with scattered scarlet petals. Suddenly something falls with a sharp tinkle at the feet of the group. Mr. Inge picks it up and says: “What is it?” says: “No, Lyt, I give you back your freedom; if, in mv mad love, I wanted to kill you, I would the slow torture of a loveless marriage—for it ciuld only end in that, I know. I have no right to ask who stands between me and your heart; but some day, when I can bear it, you will tell me. Forgive me the pain you have known over all this, and promise that if I can ever serve you you will let me do it.” I will,” she says solemnly, “and I would CHAPTER XXX. “INFELICIA.” ‘‘Alas ! for the heart whose bitter dower Is ihe perfume-breath of a withered flower.” “ My locket, I believe,” Lyt says. “ The chain has worn in two.” “ It has, hut what a quaintly-fashioned trinket: silver, with a cipher in diamonds and black en amel. What will you offer me to take care of it until to-morrow ?” “Nothing, being quite equal to the task my self ; give it here, please.” “Not I. It is, I believe, a sort of talisman— something that you ‘conjure’ with, as the dar keys say.” •‘I am sure I cannot be even suspected of the black art, but I want my property all the same.” “You shall have it—to-morrow. What is there in it that I am not to be trusted with it?” “Her heart, maybe,” Harry Bate says. “How is it in the song?— “Locked my heart in a case o’ gowd, And pinned it wi’ a.siller pin ?” “Good boy. How fast he does learn,” says the elder gentleman, patting his shoulder. “Re ally I’m obliged for the suggestion. I’ve won dered a long time where Miss Canmore stowed that portion of her anatomy.” ••Aren’t you glad to have found out?” forcing herself to adopt his tone of banter. “ However, it will not benefit you much, as you will hardly find the ‘open sesame.’” “I don’t think I would try, Mr. Inge,” says Mrs. Seaton; “that is a sort of medallion, which does not open at all.” “And that treacherous creature would have made me waste an hour of my valuable time in a fool’s endeavor. Well, Miss Canmore, I shall heap coals of fire on your head by returning this at four o’clock to-morrow, or rather to-day, mended in Blythe’s best style.” “Will you promise to be very careful of it ?” “Can you doubt it, knowing what Mr. Bate supposes it to hold? Harry, don’t waylay me and get possession of the precious article; I am armed, and ready to die the death.” “Don’t make my poor trinket a cause of quar rel, gentlemen,” Lyt says; “it is sufficiently storied already.” “Indeed ! What’s its history?” “The same as this arrow’s, which you were once curious about.” “And which you would not tell me. Let us hear it now.” “ It is just about a woman who lived and loved and died.” “For love?” “Well, no; not exactly.” “W"ho was she?” “My great grand-aunt, Mistress Elizabeth Stuart. These are part of what were meant to be her bridal ornaments. See, in this cipher, the letters ‘E. S. C. W.’ Charles Wyville, Esq., was her lover.” “Ah! it grows interesting. Of course he proved false ?” “That depends. It was in the troublous era ‘forty-five,’ and her father was an old Jacobite, who swore that his bonnie Bessie was for no man who had not the spirit and loyalty to fight for Prince Charlie.” “I like him for that; ‘none but the brave,’ you know.” “The other Charlie — Charlie Wyville—did not. He was well content with the Hanoverian line, and replied to the old man’s ultimatum by proposing to elope with Miss Bessie to America. ” “And what said she to that?” “ Very properly, ‘Nay.’ She would obey her father at the cost of her dearest love; and after a stormy scene, they parted never to meet again, for after Culloden, where two of her brothers were left on the field, the whole family came out to America.” “Did she ever marry ?” “No; though she was greatly sought in the new world, as well she might be. Her portrait is one of the loveliest faces that ever smiled happy, would make one’s life thenceforward so much higher, purer, stronger, as in the end to more than make amends lor the pain it may have brought us.” Love, thou art sweet ! then bitter death must be. Love, thou art bitter ! sweet is death to me. Harry Bate quotes impressively. “ My poor fellow !” Mr. Inge’s face puts ou a look of preternatu ral concern. “ Is it so serious as that?” The young fellow reddens almost angrily.. “I suppose you never make a quotation l he says, intenogatively. “Rarely,” is the answer; “hut I was about to venture one which is pitably true—namely: ‘He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.’ ” “Which is remarkable, like most of yours, for its happy inappropriateness,” Lyt says, be fore Harry can speak. Mrs. Seaton yawns slightly. “Good people, what is all this about love and death? I can tell you, what none of you seem to have thought of,' that it would be much easier to die for some people than to live with them. And now put by sentiment, if you please, and i let’s go home.” As Harry Bate and Mr. Inge stop for a minute i in the light of the late moon and paling lamps j at the door of their bachelor lodgings, the latter | puts a hand on each of the young fellows’ broad j shoulders, saying: “ Harry, I want to give you a piece of advice, which I am afraid will hardly please you.” j “ What is it?” rather impatiently. |\ “Let Tennyson alone for the present. Y'ou know more of him than is safe now.” Then seeing the flush that rises at his words: “If I am impertinent, forgive me. I, too, have cried for the moon and sighed for the in- attainable.” Of all rare foolishness under the sun—and the capacities of this, our planet, seem in that line fairly illimitable—there is none at all com parable with the foolishness of advice-giving; unless, indeed, we give advice that goes along with inclination, when our wisdom and our friendship shall be held at equally high premium until we grow rash enough to oppose Hope with Experience, when, presto ! we are at the lowest ebb of influence and credibility. Nobody knew this better than Mr. Inge, or generally to more purpose. W'hy he thus broke through his usual line of conduct, I cannot say. Perhaps to vindicate the sagacity of his pene tration; perhaps in the kindness of a fellow- feeling. I only know that his words had the common force and effect of such admonitions, and that it was a small eternity—six months, at least—ere Harry Bate flung away as a trifle the flower—a crushed geranium, vivid even in death, which to-night fell from somebody’s hair. quicker breath and shifting color show that she has caught his meaning. He draws her close, close, and sets his first lover’s kiss—long, rap- . . . turous, passionate—upon her yielding lips, choose mercifnl bullet or dagger, rather than from canvas. She lived to a great age—eighty Why must that haunting chill come, even in this supreme minute? She is trembling in his arms, but not with the languorous, passionate, half-yielding thrill that wakes when love meets love, but rather the quick, convulsive shudder of some wild bird, suddenly prisoned and pass ive in the captor’s hand. “Lyt,” putting the brown head upon his shoulder, “are you afraid of me?” “No,” rather slowly; “I never knew fear of I the rest of it. Take this, please,” dropping her anybody.” i ring into his palm. “ Why do you tremble so ?” He holds the flashing bauble to the light, “I don’t know; I have been a little nervous j saying: all day.” | “Willyou do me a kindness?” four, I believe.” “You should not have told that—it ruins the romance. As she did not die outright of heart break, you might have left us to fancy her, grad ually exhaling, through a few tearful years. ” “And I think that is just where the storys true sweetness lies. Death cannot be incon stant. There is no merit in its changelessness. Mr. Aylett Inge sits alone in his own room, apparently lost in thought, though upon what matter of small or great moment, I cannot un dertake to say. Perhaps it is the fashion of last- century ornaments. Certainly, he has j ust lifted from its bed of jewelers’ cotton a quaint silver medalion, and turns it over and over in his hand. I do not know that he has any thought of the white throat about wliich it so lately hung, but more than once his lips are pressed to the senseless metal. The strongest of us will be foolish sometimes, when we fauey that none will ever see or know it, quite forgetful, pur blind creatures that we are, that things most privily done are often proclaimed from the housf-tops. I wonder if he means to keep the design always in memory Certainly, his finger follows the intricate tracery of crest and cipher, as though that might be his purpose. Ah ! How is this? A slight accidental pressure on that upper diamond and the oval flies apart, re vealing—what? One side, a lovely, langhing face, that seems to mirror Heaven’s own bright ness; the other, vacant, but after the story, we can guess whose pictured semblance would have filled it, but for the staunch, Jacobite loyalty of that old-time father. But what was that, which fluttered from between, like a snow-flake or a rose-leaf? Mr. Inge stoops and lifts from the carpet, a double oval of dainty silk paper, accu rately fitting the missing portrait’s space. It falls apart in his hand, and he sees—only a fairy wreath, a tiny ring, of what were once delicate, pale-green, vanilla-sweet grape-blossoms, such as you may pluck from every hedge and stream- side in the first blush of June. They are almost dust now, crumbling even at a breath, and in trying to place them whence they came, so they shall not seem to have been disturbed, which he does with an odd sense of having come unwit tingly upon something holy. He reads upon the outer paper a date, “June 1st, 1863,” and within the flower-circle faintly traced, in tiny letters, “Infelicia.” His face is hot, his hands moist and trembling, as he shuts the case. What right has he to pry thus dastardly into what she would die to keep unrevealed ? No wonder she feared to trust it in other hands. Harry Bate was marvelously near the truth—how near, it is a pity he cannot know. Infelicia ! A whole story in the brief pathos of a word. Detail would only mar. He can well fancy how it was. That was the time of battle in the land; and most likely her love went down to death on that first of June, while she was langhing in the sunshine, and playing, as her restless fingers have such a knack of doing, with the soft trails of the vine. Or perhaps—but this he can hardly conceive—the flowers are precious, as the gift of one who crossed her path in that changeful time, and went blind and heedless after, along his separate way. Infelicia. He knows now the root which flow ered in such genuine sympathy with his own trouble. And how bravely she has borne herself through all these years since that sorrowful word was written. So it will be to the end, for she has Elizabeth Stuart’s heart, with Elizabeth Stuart’s name; and of her, too, shall it be writ ten, “ Fidele a mort.” She had a right to speak of love’s ennobling power. Perhaps it is that which makes her so strangely different to the mass of women; perhaps, but for that, she might have been—but no, he will not even think it. Never, in any case, could the deceitful light of coquetry show in her true, honest eyes. Poor, poor Windsor ! Even his eloquence could not teach her to forget. That was plain in his face last night; and, indeed, hers held almost as much of misery as compassion when he first came upon them. Good God ! how out of joint the times are ! A plague upon love and women, and all the fantastic coil they bring to honest men—but, poor creatures, how often are their poisoned weapons envenomed in their own wounds. But Windsor—he cannot get him out of his mind. He loved her, as men seldom do, with the concentred passion of a life-time. How will he endure the fading of this mirage that seemed so real? In a strong, silent agony, no doubt, as he would do anything that left him with life. That desolating philosopher, Reoch- faucauld, laid down as one of his axiomatic maxims, “In the grief or mischance of a friend, there is something which gives us pleasure,” ! but I do not think Mr. Aylett Inge contemplates give half my life to love you as you deserve, for Her life was long, busy and full of change, but j in such a spirit the coming to nought of his aT— . fViFnnrrli all L’hfl n over ctt’flrroil frnm lior -fi rot .Ul i_ through all she never swerved from her first, last love, but to the day of her death kept his memory green, and wore about her neck this friend’s cherished purpose, although that gen tleman is no angel, but a man of faults and in firmities like our own. Philosophers who un memorial of her lost happiness, ‘ Faithful unto dertake to map and outline our poor humanity J death,’ as the motto on the crest hath it.” ; are apt to generalize from extremes, and, quite^