Miss Carew has crimsoned, and has arisen from her chair-not hastily, but very quietly and dignifiedly for her. But it is impossible for her to remain rigid with displeasure long, so she flashes a glance at Dundas that is half defiance and wholly anger.

"Don't you like her, too, Mr. Schuyler," she says, turning to me; "but I won't worry, for I know you won't. She is the very fagend of what's nice."

"Well," says Mrs. Hogarth, who has been frowning in silence for some time, "I suppose this foolishness means that the Hagues will be with us ere long?"

"To-night. Hague writes from York to that effect."

"If the tribe of Ephraim were forty thousand and five hundred "-and Cecile looks just now as though her knowledge of the Bible might be limited to this-"I am glad this place isn't an ark for coming in: they'd have to double."

And she is so thoroughly naughty that I forget to censure, and laugh instead.

When breakfast is over, Dundas follows Cecile to the window, and, as I think he must be petting her back into a good-humor, I do not look to see.

"I wish we didn't have to go in a cab," she says to me when Dundas goes out to engage a carriage for the sight-seeing; "I would like to go as you and Rob went this morning, climbing here and there and without any plan. I never saw such a magnificent sight as that old castle is perched up there. It's the first real castle I've seen-I mean my idea of one. I think your simile of the boat-keel must be good, Mr. Schuyler. I suppose there is just one long street running from the castle down to Holyrood?"

"Yes; but it is not called by the same name all the way. Then, down from this one long street the closes and wynds run steep, like ribs, on either slant of the hill into the valleys."

"Shall we go to Holyrood first, really?" asks Dundas, coming in, to find me at Cecile's side, and looking with her at the old roofs across the way, yellowing now in the broad daylight-and in favor of Holyrood there is a quadruple decision, and we find ourselves all at once formed into a mutually-accommodating party-three sure to go wherever the fourth one may suggest.

"Don't let us drive through the new part," Cecile begs when we enter the cab, and, with her face turned longingly toward the highpitched gables and turrets on the other side of the ravine, "let us go up there first."

"I thought you wanted to go to Holyrood first?" Dundas reminds her.

"So I do; but I want to go the way Queen Mary used to go, down the Canongate. I want to get into the real spirit of the place. To go the new way would be too much of a start."

And, as we all acquiesce, it is plainly shown that Cecile is the fourth exponent of our will, calculated by nature to accelerate one and all of our decisions for the day.

"Cecile, you don't look unlike a picture of Mary Stuart that I saw this morning" -Dundas looks at her with something like

a sweet, fresh beauty-"you only need the coif and pearls and a thousand lovers."

I begin to question now all at once-and the thought is like an air-ball rising through the draught that I am drinking-"Is he jealous that she has learned so often to defer to me as she did just now, with only a look; does he see her fret with color sometimes when I essay indifference; and is he beginning to feel the vibrations that stir her and shake me in his very sight?"

I tingle mentally as we are driven over the bridge and up a street which has been widened by the demolishment of sundry old landmarks, and the general aspect of which in consequence is lamentably modern.

"This isn't fun," cries Cecile, looking first one side and then the other; "only look at those signs-there is a bank, and there an hotel, and there a chapel. I feel like crying, I am so disappointed. I have to look way up to the roofs to see any thing queer."

We are glad to be rid of the cab. As Mrs. Hogarth jumps forth as usual, refusing assistance, the driver is telling Cecile, who has inquired, that Queen Mary's apartments are in the towers to the left, and, ob, yes!! there are strange lights seen flashing out from the windows at night, and the queen sometimes comes to the window-that one there between the towers-and, throwing up her arms as if in despair, shrieks aloud.

Dundas has to put his hand upon Cecile's shoulder, as a hint that she cannot stand all day listening to the driver's ghost - stories, who is looking down at the girl with a sly,. Gaelic twinkle in his eye.

We enter by the front gate-way, and, led by a guide, turn to the left, ascend a stair,. and before we know it are in the picture-gallery where hang the portraits of the nativemonarchs, cut and slashed by the sabres of defeated dragoons, and patched anew with color, a cicatrix for their wounds.

"This is where Prince Charlie used to. dance with the Jacobite dames, causing the white knots to tremble in their bosoms."

Dundas has stolen Cecile away from me,. and stands with her before one of the stiff old

"Only look at that date." I call her attention to a gaunt stone hand, that to see its top one has to stretch one's self almost horizontally. "In such a house as that the barons and peers of the realm lived in the old, chi- | pictures. valrous days, and the gallants emptied their stirrup-cups before setting out for conquest."

So I ramble on, keeping her interested all the way to the Canongate, only to bring the sweet eyes to mine in the steadfast act of listening, only to watch the come and the go of the color that is ever new.

Dundas pretends not to listen, and is leaning almost with his back turned half out his side the carriage. Mrs. Hogarth reclines back upon her seat as we are dragged up-hill, as uninterested and as uninterfering as one could desire.

The Canongate brings Cecile from out a lethargy of listening into ejaculations of delight.

The tall old house, timber-faced, and picturesque with gables that mum at each other, they are so aged, is a revelation to her eager eyes, looking as if, could they only be tilted a little more, both sides of the street, after a nodding acquaintance of centuries, would unite in one common cairn.

As we drive down the street, I see keen Scotch eyes brighten with pleasure, just as their forefathers may have gazed in greeting their lovely, girlish queen.

"I am going to shut my eyes," Cecile says, when told that Holyrood is in sight, "and I don't want to open them till we get in front of it-I want it all in a shock.-Rob, won't you count three, and then I'll open my eyes right off?"

"There it is now "-Dundas refuses to humor her-and we are crossing the square that once was the garden from which the lovely queen went forth hawking or shooting at the butts, and where now the fountain, like the one she played about as a child at Linlithgow, is built in memory of her.

The carriage is turned with a sudden twist, and stands still in front of the grand entrance. Cecile looks up, catching her breath at the royal arms of Scotland. On either hand are the double-battlemented towers, topped by the round, peaked caps, that seem here the sign-manual of architecture.

The guide tells us we are the first visitors: to come this morning; that we have chosen an hour unusually early for tourists, and Cecile, hearing this, is quite freed from her attack of awe, and goes waltzing down the entire length of the gallery, saucily under the very noses of the grim old kings.

The guide first frowns, and then the taut muscles of his face relax, and, when she stops, I know that he is wishing that shewould waltz again.

After this she quite abandons Dundas and me, to devote herself to asking questions of the guide, and hangs upon his answers just as she did upon mine, when I could serve her turn as well.

Mrs. Hogarth, not feeling especially in-terested in any thing, is imitative, wants to hang about somebody, and so hangs about me. Dundas keeps closely beside Cecile, and the guide, I imagine, enjoys silently my chagrin.

We leave the picture-gallery, and are ushered into the more ancient portion of the palace, where Mary's and Darnley's rooms are situated.

We penetrate the audience-chamber of Darnley-hung with melancholy old tapestry,. that I am glad does not flap, it is so dusty and dismal-we look about the little turretrooms with old portraits only for furniture, while Cecile is hurrying us all the time to get through, that we may go up-stairs soonerto see Queen Mary's apartments, which the guide tells us are immediately over these.

In one of the turret - rooms the guide shows us the private stair up which the assassins crept to murder Rizzio in the queen's sight; and, although iron bars have been put across the narrow doorway, to prevent tres-passing, Cecile does her best to soften the guide's heart with indefatigable pleading.

"Only think how far I've come, and how sea-sick I was coming! If you only knew, you'd find some way to let me go up those stairs."

And when the poor guide shakes his head, and, quite voiceless under the storm of her importunities, points to the iron bars, and even tries to shake them to show her how impregnable to all assault they are, she refuses point-blank to be convinced.

"There is some other way, then. I do want to go up those stairs! It spoils half the romance not to."

"Don't tease so," remonstrates Mrs. Hogarth, and she turns decisively away from the bars through which we see the rough stone steps that Ruthven and Darnley trod that fearful night, winding up into the gloom.

The guide also, rejoiced to get away from the subject, follows, and while Cecile lags sulkily behind, draws our attention to the manner in which the ceilings are paneled.

It is not until we have returned to the audience-chamber that we discover that Cecile is nowhere to be seen. From this chamber another leads out to the left, and while they seek her there, I run back to the little turret-room from which the secret stairs lead

up.

The tapestry is hanging there alone, and no sound is heard but the shrill voices of the

keeper of the palace, it would be as much to him as his place is worth.

"Well, never mind that," interferes Dundas, for Mrs. Hogarth is happy at last in finding somebody to sympathize with her. "I'll make it up to you if there's any trouble which there won't be unless you take the trouble to talk yourself. Now I want you to take us as quickly as you can to the spot where these stairs come out."

I am also in a hurry to go, and so we hasten back, and are soon climbing the staircase leading to the royal apartments above.

In the Chamber of Presence, which we enter first, we see Cecile come walking out from an inner room, trying hard to look as though she had done nothing to offend.

We are so glad to see her safe and sound after her frolic, that even the guide relents into a smile, and Mrs. Hogarth is the only one who continues sourly disposed.

"TIME'S REVENGES.”

fisher-women crying in the streets. I hesi-THR

tate, and while I am hesitating I hear the regular click of tiny boot-heels upon stone steps high above my head. I lean against the bars to listen. They are so close together that I wonder how she has managed to crawl through. The air, moist and cold as if it had been dead a long while, chills my face. "I arrest you in the queen's name for trespassing," I call after her, and my voice reverberates not unlike the hollow accents of a dog baying at the moon.

The click of the boot-heels on the steps is silenced, and I know she is trembling up there, my voice is so strange to her after its winding flight. She is already punished for her temerity.

"Where is she? have you found her?" Mrs. Hogarth reënters leisurely, but she becomes quite pale with apprehension when she finds me there alone, and the tapestry hanging slick and unrumpled as it ought to be when there is no one mischievously con-cealed behind it.

"Cecile has crawled through those bars," says Dundas, who has followed with the guide, and he laughs now heartily at the exploit. "That girl is a trump."

"You should not encourage her so." Mrs. Hogarth begins to fret, but she can go no further, for Dundas is crying lustily through the bars.

"Come back, you vixen! we are waiting for you. Come back, before the ghost snatches you. Don't you see it there all in white, and making up faces at you-boo!"

This latter ejaculation is lengthened spasmodically, and goes, a rumbling discharge of respiration, up the spiral gloom.

"I'm up now where it's light," a queer, distorted voice comes answering back. I'm so disappointed, there isn't a single ghost here-boo yourself!"

The guide meanwhile is complaining to Mrs. Hogarth that if the matter of the young lady's having done such a thing should come to the knowledge of his grace the duke, the

I.

HE river Thames looks very pleasant at Kingston Bridge. Besides the local beauties -the tree-shaded towing-path, the quaint old boat-house, the picturesque waterstairs farther on-there is always some living interest here, and about this old, gray bridge.

Usually a punt or two add character to the scene. Moored across-stream at the present time there is one, with a grave, comfortable-looking angler therein, tickling the water. He screws up his mouth now and then as a boat full of laughing girls shoots past, or even when a quieter freight in the shape of a pair of lovers floats down-stream in one of the dainty little boats that seem part of the place. Just now the angler looked more than disconcerted when an outrigged cutter, with a crew of eight splendid-looking, darkbrowed young fellows, flew past him.

"Confound that Harvard crew!" he mut"theirs is the strongest pull on the

tered; river."

Two young men are standing still on the Kingston side, just below the angler, watching the American boat, and admiring the practised ease of its crew.

"I wish you were going to the United States instead of to Germany, Michael," said one to the other.

The man he spoke to gave a cheerful look out of his frank, blue eyes.

Why, Thorn? You mean I should make money quicker. You forget that I set happiness above money, and I don't want to put the Atlantic between myself and a certain person."

"If you are going for a year, what can distance signify?"

Michael laughed.

"A shorter post, old fellow, will make all the difference."

And then he put his arm into his friend's, and they walked on beside the river.

"Thank Heaven!" the angler muttered. "Why can't the chattering idiots choose some other place?"

The friends turned their backs on the new-stuccoed suburb, which seems like some modern, fashionable child, ashamed of its gray, old-fashioned parent. Just before they reached the quaint market-place of Kingston, Michael stopped suddenly.

"I must leave you here, Thorn, but I'll see you again before I go for good. Between ourselves, it is just possible I may be home in a month, and then go back and stay altogether for a time, at any rate."

Thorn's grave, middle-aged face clouded

"I have plenty of faults," he said, "but I don't think I am over-confident. I feel sure of success, and my idea is, that two people who love one another get on better in life married than single. Now good-by, old fellow; I am due at Lurbiton Lodge."

But Thorn did not let go his friend's hand. He was trying to give a word of advice, and he feared to give offense along with it.

"You say two people. Don't be vexed, but make sure, my dear boy, that you are loved heart and soul before you ask a woman to share a small income."

Michael frowned for an instant, then his bright, sunshiny look came back-a look one seldom sees in an idle man's face; it was like the sparkle on a fountain, welling up from a loving heart and a steadfast mind.

"Never fear, old friend-I think I'm safe -thank you for your anxiety — and, now, good-by in earnest."

He hurried on till he had left the old town behind, and was some way up the tree-shaded road leading to Lurbiton Hill.

"Poor old Thorn! I don't fancy he and his wife are happy together, and so he croaks about Georgie and me. I believe he has such an absurdly high opinion of me that he can't think Georgie or any woman half good enough for me."

And then his pace slackened as his thoughts gathered on the doubt his friend's words had stirred.

"Does Georgie love me as I love her?" A pause here. "Nonsense! I'm a fool to plague myself. What I take for coldness is only the reserve that modest girls have. I believe those who are shyest generally have the strongest power of loving."

He whistled "Love's Young Dream" as he went up the hill. Inwardly he was not quite content, but he told himself that doubt and fear were two sure attributes of true love, and that it would be all right when once Georgie Needham was his wife.

Past the church, he took a turning on the right. There were no stuccoed houses to be seen here. The road overlooked the open country on one side, and on the other was bordered by high hedges, powdered just now with summer dust. He soon came to a white swing-gate in one of these hedges, pushed it open, and went up a carriage-drive with a flower-border on the right, and some goodsized maple and sycamore trees on the left, which effectually screened the house.

In gaps here and there you caught glimpses of an irregular picturesque dwelling, built chiefly of red brick, so festooned by wistaria and climbing roses that even the flight of stone-steps in front, and a projecting balcony which overlooked the lawn on one side, were almost hidden.

A shrubbery of laurels hid the lawn itself, but sounds of laughter and the sharp click of croquet-mallets were plain enough.

Michael Radcliffe hurried along the turn in the drive which led to the house, and went in without any ring or knock at the open door at the top of the flight of steps.

A voice had reached him from the other side of the laurel-hedge, which told him that Georgie was not playing croquet. His heart beat fast as he passed through the empty drawing-rooms, out through the French windows, and out on the little stone balcony overlooking the lawn. He felt sure of Georgie's answers to the questions he had come to put to her. At least he told himself he was sure, and yet his heart throbbed in a most unusual fashion.

Georgie's three sisters, and some other young women in bright, butterfly-like costumes, are playing croquet. Mrs. Needham makes a contrast to them in the deep mourning-dress she still wears. She sits on the lawn, near the croquet players. Michael Radcliffe takes in the scene almost without looking at it. He has only eyes for the strangely ill-mated pair walking beside the laurel-screen. Just now they are coming up toward the house.

Georgie is a tall, handsome girl, simply dressed in black and white, her face shaded by a black-straw hat. A short, stout, redfaced dame walks beside her, and takes little, waddling steps, two or three to each of the stately movements of her companion.

The afternoon is not oppressively warm, but, as you look at the full-blown, rose-colored face, and the many-hued tints of her dress, you feel heated and jarred. She is entirely out of harmony with her surroundings. They turn abruptly, and Michael runs down the steps from the balcony and reaches them as they stand looking at the pond beyond the lawn.

"I can't fancy, my dear," says Georgie's companion, "what your poor dear ma can be thinking of not to have that water drained off, when your little brothers come home for holidays. I must speak to her seriously, I must indeed; they're sure to be drownedwhy, my gracious! here's Mr. Radcliffe! Ah, you don't remember me, sir, perhaps? I met you over at Stamford Hill at a ball last year."

To Michael's surprise, she holds out her hand, and a dim remembrance comes to him of a loud-talking, pompous mother and son, said to be wonderfully wealthy. He looks impatiently at Georgie, but she, after shaking hands with Michael, walks on beside her visitor. Michael hurries to Mrs. Needham.

Their greetings over, he says: "Please release Georgie from that old horror. I have something very special to say to her, and I must leave early, for I have an appointment in London at eight o'clock."

It seems to him that easy-complying Mrs. Needham shows a want of alacrity in his ser

"Come in-doors, darling, won't you? we can't talk comfortably in the midst of all this clatter."

"I should have thought you would be glad of as much fresh air as possible," says Georgie, but she walks beside him to the balcony. "I beg your pardon, dearest "-he looks so winning as she sits beside her on a couch in a snug corner that she smiles, too. "I know I looked cross just now, but I felt sure you wanted to be free of that old vulgarian."

"O Michael! don't speak like that; Mrs. Wood is our friend."

"Well, then, she's charming - but never mind Mrs. Wood. Now, my own girl, for once I'm going to talk very seriously. I have got a year's appointment as engineer to the projected Luxemburg Railway-enough to live on comfortably out there, darling." He pauses here, and looks down on the handsome face he has drawn so near to his. Georgie's eyes are fixed on her clasped hands, her color deepens, and she listens.

"Go on," she says, quietly.

"Well," he speaks, eagerly, "I won't deceive you, darling-it would not be enough for England; but at the end of a year I am promised a much better thing altogether."

Why can't you have that now? "—still she does not raise her eyes, but she seems very intent on his words.

"Because my getting it very much depends on the success of this present work. Now, my darling, if you are with me I am sure of success; and if you saw this quaint little German town, I am sure you would like it."

And then he goes off into an enthusiastic description of a charming house and garden he has found out in Luxemburg, which he only waits her permission to secure as their home. He tells her the exact amount of his income and his expectations, and opens his whole heart to her.

"You will say 'Yes,' darling; I will go over for a month, get every thing ready for you, and begin my work, and then I will come and fetch you. Is it not a lucky stroke of fortune?

He bends down and kisses her tenderly, but Georgie draws herself away, and gives a little laugh.

"Stop, Michael, you are going on too fast, you are taking my consent for granted; don't be vexed, dear"-she smiles, and holds one

of his hands in hers; "but why should we not keep to our old plan? You said our engagement had better last more than a yearthat is not half over yet."

Michael pulled his hand away.

"Then you don't care to make me happy?" "I asked you not to be vexed, Michael; you know I have always told you that I am practical. Suppose I were to say 'Yes,' and, after all, you were not to get the other appointment, but get into debt instead-is it not much better to wait on another year, even, in hope, and then begin life comfortably, and as we mean to go on, than to run any risks? L should never forgive myself if you get worried and embarrassed for want of money. I saw enough of that while my father lived."

Every word falls like a drop of cold water on the lover's warm, beating heart. He gets up and stands facing her.

"I wish you were not so prudent, darling;. have you no trust in me? I tell you I'm sure of success if I have you beside me to cheer me up."

"But, Michael, you may fall ill, or a dozen things may happen."

Michael looks more grave than vexed. "My dearest Georgie, I don't ask you only to trust me; have a higher trust. It seems to me no one can ever be quite sure of any thing, but so far as it is possible to be sure. I have a certain moderate income for this year, and a very sufficient one farther on; but I have been too impatient. I won't ask for your answer to-night; take time. I will come down again to-morrow; we won't talk about it any more now."

Georgie glances up at him.

"We need never talk of it again," she says, coldly. "I am sure it is best to let things be till you have got the new appointment. You will come over between whiles, won't you?"

Till now, Michael has contrived to seem calm, but his bitter disappointment will make a last effort. He feels it is a turning-point in his life.

Once more he sits down beside her; he whispers tender, passionate love; he takes her in his arms; he pictures the happy life of the quaint, foreign town, where they will be more all in all to each other than they can be in England; and then he tells her how desolate he shall be there alone, and how she, too, will miss his visits.

"You know I am not good at letter-writing," he says, at last, "and letters are cold comfort in place of a wife. Say you will give me hope, darling-that you will change your mind; take two months, even, but don't keep us waiting so needlessly long for our happiness."

There is reproach in her eyes as she draws herself from his arms.

"I thought you unlike other men in onething," she says, coldly; "I thought you unselfish, Michael. It seems to me you are willing to sacrifice a secure future, only to spare yourself some present discomfort."

Michael flushes, but he keeps down the pain she makes him feel.

"I was not thinking only of myself. I thought of you, too, my darling, in these months of separation. I realize better than

you do what you will feel "—and he presses her hand fondly-" but perhaps I am selfish. I will try and think you are right, Georgie, and I shall still live in the hope that you will shorten the time."

At parting from her lover that evening Georgie is more affectionate than usual. She goes down to the gate with him, and stands watching him in the dim light along the road.

"How well he walks, and how good-looking he is, and how nice he is! Oh, dear me ! how will it all end? I believe if I could have brought myself to marry at once and be poor, I should have been very happy with him; but then I suppose I found the life he describes intolerably dull. He says we must live out of society; there is something so lowering in giving one's self to house-keeping and thinking about ways and means of living within one's income. No, no, I cannot be poor! I should grow cross and fretful, and that could not make Michael happy! No, I'm quite sure I was right to wait, and he will think so, too, after a bit."

And yet Georgie Needham's heart is very heavy as she goes back, and she feels a sudden disgust at Mrs. Wood's fulsome compliments on her beauty.

II.

MICHAEL RADCLIFFE sits smoking a wellcolored pipe in his cheerful little sitting-room in the old German town. He has taken the quaint house and garden, after all. He had so pictured Georgie as its mistress that in some way it seemed to him filled with her atmosphere. Michael was thoroughly real and practical, but he had a warm nook in his heart for sentiment, and he was not ashamed of it. He had made an excursion to the Black Forest, and had brought back all kinds of quaint, carved furnishings for the old rooms with their deep-ledged windows, and for the rambling passages, too-passages which seemed to get on in life a few stairs at a time, and then to stumble down or unexpectedly to one side. At the foot of the staircase a bear stood erect, holding a gold ball between its paws, and at every corner a bear's head appeared topping the massive standard.

A bear's head, too, figures on the stove near which Michael sits smoking. For the weather has grown chill and dark, four months now since the bright, dusty July afternoon when he disturbed the angler at Kingston Bridge, and had to submit, so sorely against his will, to Georgie's prudence.

He had yielded then, because she had convicted him of selfishness; but, as the weeks had gone by, his mind had changed on this point.

"If two people love each other equally, it cannot be selfish for one to try and make both happy. Surely happiness would be mutual if hearts are truly one! I ought to have insisted. I am afraid that poor, darling girl only refused for my sake, and I have a right to make her happy in spite of herself. She must feel the separation even more than I do, for she has less to occupy her. The lifeless tone of her letters tells me how dull she

is. Well, I am lonely enough of an evening, but my work is a great compensation. I believe the worst part of a woman's life is when there is absence of a decided employment in it."

A tap at the room-door. The entrance into the hall is always open. The bear with his golden ball stands there all day as its sole guardian.

"Come in," Michael says.

There comes in a stout man in a blue coat and light trousers, very much out of keeping with the season, but with a ruddiness of content on his beaming, round face that seems to imply that, although he differs from his countrymen in his indifference to the cold, he has the cheerful content which makes life pass so easily to the fair-haired, blue-eyed sons of South Germany.

64

Well, friend, and what dost thou here alone?" says Carl Schimmel, in a loud, cheerful voice.

"I am not alone. I have my pipe and my thoughts."

"I don't know"-the German leans against the stove and refills his own pipe-" some thoughts are very lonely, but these would not be thine, my friend-thou art no egolist."

"I don't know that, either," Michael smiles, and watches a wreath of smoke vanish gradually into the room. "I was thinking of my life here next year with a certain person of whom I have spoken to you, and I am vain enough to think that life will be so united that I suppose it comes round to egotism after all; lovers are generally selfish, my friend."

"Selfishness is not one of the rails you run along," says the German; but he looks inquisitive, and pulls his yellow mustache. "Have you any fresh English news since I was here last?"

"No; I am expecting a letter-an answer to a question."

Michael does not say what question, but he has been very frank with Carl Schimmel, and the German nods and goes on smoking.

66

May I look at the lady's portrait again?" he says, presently.

Michael unfastens a locket from his watchchain, and passes it to his friend.

Carl Schimmel looks earnestly at the portrait inside the locket, and his face changes; he sighs as he gives it back to Michael.

"What's the matter? I'm half inclined to believe there is a Fräulein Something somewhere, to whom that sigh belongs."

"No, indeed!" The ruddy face has got a troubled look.

"What is it, then? Surely there is nothing to sigh about in this portrait, except for envy."

Michael opens the locket, and gives a long, fond look at the beautiful face.

"I observe"-the German tries to smile off his serious look-" that thou lookest always at the bright side of life-so do I; but yet, in such a serious contemplation as marriage, I think I should consider also the reverse."

"I don't understand, my friend." Michael

shuts up the locket with a snap, and replaces it on his chain. "What is the dark side in my future?" I only say

"I do not affirm there is one. that every belief is linked to a possible refutation; in thy case, the refutation would be that thy beloved may weary of the long separation, and may grow forgetful or cold."

Michael's face clouds as quickly as the sky does in April; his heart tells him how painfully cold and unsatisfactory Georgie's letters have become.

"I think," he speaks slowly, as if he thought out the idea as he went on," that separation is always trying, but ours is coming to an end. I have planned to spend my Christmas in England."

The German smiles.

"Thou wilt not, then, return alone? Michael is busy with his pipe; he does not look up as he answers.

"I hope not; but I cannot be sure." There is a want of his usual cheerful tone, and Carl Schimmel feels a little self-reproach.

"We cannot be sure of any thing, but, my friend, the maiden must be hard-hearted who could withstand thy pleading."

They sat and chatted pleasantly an hour or more on other subjects, and Michael tried to yield himself up to the friendly influence; he laughed at the grotesque legends his friend told, and strove to get interested in some of the sentimental ballads he recited, but it was all an effort. It was a relief when at last his visitor went away-a relief from the trouble of restraint, but the solitude and silence only increased the cloud of doubt which Schimmel's words had wakened.

"Nonsense!" he said, presently; "Georgie has always said that she is practical; a word from her means more and is worth a dozen protestations from a gushing girl-and women of her type are as true as steel-I won't be faint-hearted. Once we are married we shall be all right."

Meantime Carl Schimmel walks home slowly in the moonlight which silvers the fortifications of the quaint frontier town.

"I had better have left him in peace," says the German, smiling good-humoredly, with none of the sour self-reproach an Englishman would possibly show. "It is probable that he sees English girls with different eyes from mine. That face he thinks so beautiful is to me full of self and cold calculation. If no one else comes in her way, good; she will doubtless marry my poor friend, and he will live her life and serve her devotedly, and think himself truly loved, while she will give him as much affection as she can spare from herself; but if a rich man comes and offers himself, I fear for Michael. These English girls are beautiful, and amiable, and innocent, but they are taught from the beginning to worship ease and luxury, and to them love is romance when it asks them to sacrifice their early idols. Ah! marriage would be a safe card if one could only train one's wife from the beginning."

Here Carl Schimmel consoles himself with a fresh pipe and certain visions of a blueeyed maiden in the small Bavarian town he left three years ago.

III.

MICHAEL RADCLIFFE has passed a restless night; his dreams have been far from pleasant. He goes out earlier than usual to see if there are any English letters.

He has not heard from Georgie for a fortnight, and he has written three times in the interval.

"She said she should be away from home just now; no doubt that is the cause. I complained of her silence rather impatiently, perhaps, but still I ought to get a letter today."

No, there is not one. His blue eyes have got bright and cheery again with the fresh morning air, and with hope; they cloud over at once, and his heart sinks, but, after a few minutes' thought with bent brows, he says:

"But there's no use in being worried;" he puts his hands in his pockets and goes toward the railway-works. "What a blessing it is I have something to do!"

But when the day's work is done, and evening comes again, the doubts and worries come back-not timidly as they have hitherto come, standing far off and whispering, but pressing round him with importunate, mocking faces, like some of those rustic stalls in the old church half-way down the hill. He lights his pipe and gets a book, but his eyes follow the sombre wreaths instead of resting on the page; the faces are there again, more hideous in the moving, curling vapor than when they were merely shaped out of the darkness.

Three days pass thus heavily, and there is no letter from Georgie Needham-no evening visit from Carl Schimmel.

"I will not go to him till he has heard from England," the German thinks; "I am a poor deceiver, and he suffers enough without any feeding of his doubts from without."

But every morning Carl goes to the posthouse and ascertains that no letter from England has come for the English Herr.

It is the fourth morning, and for the first time the two friends meet as Michael goes up to the post-house.

"Joy, my friend!"-the smiling fellow shakes Michael by both hands-" there is a letter from England; may good news be in it!" and then the kind-hearted fellow goes away, singing softly to himself.

Michael goes breathlessly to the posthouse and secures his treasure.

There is no one to see on the steep bit of road, and Michael kisses the letter.

"I have been mistrustful and undeserving," he thinks. He hurries toward the house, but before he reaches it he opens the letter with a bright glow of happiness in his face-not lately seen there; it falls as he reads the first words.

Before he fully masters the contents there is a mist between him and the letter; the steep road seems to go round as if he were climbing instead of coming down the hill. He stands still and puts up his hand to screen his eyes, and so he stands for several minutes; then he crushes the letter, open as it is, into his pocket, and goes down the road at a quick pace.

He shuts the low-browed entrance-door as he passes into his house-a new idea, for it

stands open all day-and then he goes into the quaint sitting-room.

He sits down near the window, and takes out the letter.

The writing is quite distinct now, and his hand does not shake as he holds the letter. It begins

"MY DEAR FRIEND: I have not written to you because I shrank from what I had to say, and yet it must be said. Ever since you went away I have been thinking seriously about our position, and it seems to me that I ought to release you from your engagement to me, and my mother quite agrees with me. We are both young enough to form other ties; why should we sacrifice each other to a silly question of honor? You think you love me now, but poverty, harassment, and debt, weaken any affection, and all three must fall to our lot if we keep to our engagement. I hope you will be reasonable. You will easily find a much better wife than I should ever have made you, who will have means to help you on in life instead of being a burden. You have no idea how fretful and discontented I should be if I were poor and worried. I suffer enough at home from seeing how much contrivance is necessary to keep up appearances. Good-by. Do not try to persuade me to change my mind. I have not decided hastily. I only wish I had had courage enough to end it all before you went away; it would have spared us both much worry. You will, perhaps, be angry with me now, but you will soon consider me

"Your true friend,

"GEORGINA NEEDHAM."

He read the letter through twice; his face flushed deeply, and he breathed hard and quickly. Then he laid it down and covered up his face.

"O my God!" he cried out, "how she has deceived me! I can never believe in a woman again."

IV.

GEORGIE NEEDHAM sits in her bedroom at Lurbiton Lodge. When she sent her letter to Michael, she only told him half the truth

she left her mother to tell him in a subsequent letter that his place was already filled by Mr. Richard Wood, "the richest man on the Stock Exchange," and she judged rightly in thinking that Michael Radcliffe would get this second letter before he had made up his mind how to answer her own.

She looks pale and worn-there is none of the glow of a bride-elect on her face. This is the night before the wedding, and tokens of bridal finery are scattered about the

room.

She opens a case on her dressing-table, puts some diamond stars in her hair, and then looks at herself.

"I look like a ghost; I believe I first worried myself with fear that he would write me a letter full of reproaches; and now I am vexed because he only wrote to mammasuch a horrid little note, too!"

She takes a note out of her pocket: "I have received your letter. Will you be kind enough to tell your daughter that I received hers yesterday? I believe I follow

her wishes by leaving it unanswered. I hope she may be happy in her choice."

"How hateful and unfriendly!" and then, with strange inconsistency, she cries fitfully, and sobs till the full white throat quivers and throbs with anguish. She kisses the letter between her sobs, and then she twists it up, and holds it in one of the candles till there is only a little bit of scorched and blackened paper. A tap at the door, and Mrs. Needham comes in with a jewel-case in her hand.

"Look here, Georgie darling!-My dear child, whatever can you be crying for?-Here is another lovely present from Richard. Put it on, my dear; it is just the thing for you."

She opens the case, and shows a magnificent pearl necklace, with pendants of brilliants.

Georgie turns away with a look of disgust; then, by a strong effort, she forces a smile, and tries on the necklace.

"What

"Beautiful!" cries her mother. exquisite taste Richard has!-Don't sit up, dear," her mother says; "you must look well to-morrow, you know.-Good-night."

Georgie locks the door when her mother leaves her. The necklace seems to gall her; she unclasps it and throws it on the bed, and then walks up and down with her hands clasped behind her. At first her face is wrung with a look of agony, but this fades through many gradations to a sad smile.

"I believe it is only my ignorance," she says, presently. "I believe marrying with every one is a mere question of habit. I shall get used to this man. Most likely if

Michael and I had married I should have tired of him after a bit. Nothing in the world frets me so much as want of money, at any rate, and I shall never know that want now, and Richard-it is so hard to call him Richard is very kind, and when I get used to him it won't be all so-" Here she throws herself upon a chair, and puts her hands before her eyes, and tries only to think of her jewels and her dress. It seems as if she had succeeded, for both jewels and dress are faultless; yet, when the girl lays her head on her pillow, she sobs as if her heart were breaking.

"It is all too hurried "-the words come in broken gasps. "I ought to have had time to forget If I only had known Mr. Wood first !—O mother, it is all your fault!"

Carl Schimmel did not go to see his friend again that day.

"If the news is good he will seek me; if not, he had better digest it alone. Bad news and a pipe are the best companions," he thinks, stolidly, but he gives a deep sigh, too.

He goes down to the works next morning. The Herr Engineer was indisposed yesterday, he hears did not come to the works all day. The foreman comes to the Herr Schimmel, and asks if he is going to see the Herr Engineer.

"I can go;" and Carl turns, half gladly, half unwillingly, to the quaint house at the foot of the hill.

Michael rises from his seat beside the stove. He is very pale, but there is no sign of grief on his face. It seems to Carl that his friend is hard and stern for the first time.