moment before, she began smoothing her hair and arranging her shawl. The inconsistency between her practice and her profession seemed to suggest itself to her suddenly, for she smiled sadly, and murmured, "After all, I have not quite outlived my folly!"

Charlton entered unaccompanied. His manner was that of a man who has a big scheme in his head, which he is trying to disguise and undervalue. Moved by an unwonted excitement, he strove to appear calm and indifferent, but, like a bad actor, he overdid his part.

"I have come, Emily," said he, "to ask your pardon for the past."

"Indeed! you?"

Then you want something.

What can I do for

"You misapprehend me, my dear. Affairs have gone wrong with me of late; but my prospects are brightening now, and my wish is that you should have the benefit of the change."

"My time for this world's benefits is likely to be short," said the invalid.

"Not so, my dear! You are looking ten per cent better than when I saw you last."

"My glass tells me

deal frankly with me.

you do not speak truly in that. Come, What do you want?"

"As I was saying, my love," resumed Charlton, " my business is improving; but I need a somewhat more extended credit, and you can help me to it."

"I thought there was something wanted," returned the invalid, with a scornful smile; "but you overrate my ability. How can I help your credit? The annuity allowed by Mr. Berwick ends with my life. I have no property, real or personal, — except my canary-bird, and what few clothes you can find in yonder wardrobe."

"But, my dear," urged Charlton, "many persons imagine that you have property; and if I could only show them an authenticated instrument under which you bequeath, in the event of your death, all your estate, real and personal, to your husband, it would aid me materially in raising money."

"That, sir, would be raising money under false pretences. I shall lend myself to no such attempt. Why not tell the

money-lenders the truth? Why not tell them your wife has nothing except what she receives from the charity of her step-son ? »

Enraged at seeing how completely his victim had thrown off his influence, and at the same time indulging a vague hope that he might recover it, Charlton's lips began to work as if he were hesitating whether to try his old game of browbeating or to adopt a conciliatory course. A suspicion that the lady was disenchanted, and no longer subject to any spell he could throw upon her, led him to fall back on the more prudent policy; and he replied: "I have concealed nothing from the parties with whom I am negotiating. I have told them the precise situation of our affairs; but they have urged this contingency: your wife, it is true, is dependent, but her rich relatives may die and leave her a bequest. We will give you the money you want, if you will satisfy us that you are her heir."

"You fatigue me," said the invalid. "You wish me to make a will in your favor. You have the instruments all drawn up and ready for my signature in your pocket; and on the opposite side of the street you have three men in waiting who may serve as witnesses."

"But who told you this?" exclaimed Charlton, confounded. "Your own brain by its motions told it," replied the wife. "I am rather sensitive to impressions, you see. Strike one of the chords of a musical instrument, and a corresponding chord in its duplicate near by will be agitated. Your drift is apparent. The allusions under which I have labored in regard to you have vanished, never, never to return! How I deferred the moment of final, irrevocable estrangement! How I strove, by meekness, love, and devotion, to win you to the better choice! How I shut my eyes to your sordid traits! But now the infatuation is ended. You are powerless to wound or to move me. The love you spurned has changed, not to hate, but to indifference. Free to choose between God and Mammon, you have chosen Mammon, and nothing I can say can make you reconsider your election."

"You do me injustice, my wife, my dearest—”

"Psha! Do not blaspheme. We understand each other at last. Now to business. You want me to sign a will in your

favor, leaving you all the property I may be possessed of at the time of my death. Would you know when that time

will be ?"

"Do not speak so, Emily," said Charlton, in tones meant to be pathetic.

"It may be an agreeable surprise to you," continued the invalid, "to learn that my time in this world will be up the tenth of next month. I will sign the will, on one condition." "Name it!" said Charlton, eagerly.

"The condition is, that you pay Toussaint a thousand dollars cash down as an indemnity for the expense he has been at on my account, and to cover the costs of my funeral."

With difficulty Charlton curbed his rage so far as to be content with the simple utterance, “Impossible!”

"Then please go," said the invalid, taking up a silver bell to ring it.

"Stop! stop!" cried Charlton. "Give me a minute to consider. Three hundred dollars will more than cover all the expenses, medical attendance, undertaker's charges,- all. At least, I know an undertaker who charges less than half what such fellows as Brown of Grace pile on. Say three hundred dollars."

With a smile of indescribable scorn, the invalid touched the bell.

"Stop! We'll call it five hundred," groaned the convey

ancer.

A louder ring by the lady, and the old negro's step was heard on the stairs.

"Seven hundred, eight hundred: O, I could n't possibly afford more than eight hundred!" said Charlton, in a tone the pathos of which was no longer feigned.

The invalid now rang the bell with energy.

"It shall be a thousand, then!" exclaimed Charlton, just as Toussaint entered the room.

"Toussaint," said the invalid," Mr. Charlton has a paper he wishes me to sign. I have promised to do it on his paying you a thousand dollars. Accept it without demur. Do you understand?"

Toussaint bowed his assent; and Charlton, leaving the room,

returned with his three witnesses. The sum stipulated was paid to Toussaint, and the will was duly signed and witnessed. Possessed of the document, Charlton's first impulse was to vent his wrath upon his wife; but he discreetly remembered that, while life remained, it was in her power to revoke what she had done; so he dismissed his witnesses, and began to play the fawner once more. But he was checked abruptly.

"There! you weary me. Go, if you please," said she.

"If I have occasion, I will send for you."

May I not call daily to see how you are getting on?" whined Charlton.

"If

"I really don't see any use in it," replied the invalid. you will look in the newspapers under the obituary head the eleventh or twelfth of next month, you will probably get all the information in regard to me that will be important." "Cruel and unjust!" said the husband.

forgiveness in your heart?"

"Have you no

"Forgiveness? Trampled on, my heart has given out love and duty in the hope of finding some spot in your own heart which avarice and self-seeking had not yet petrified. But I despair of doing aught to change your nature. I must leave you to God and circumstance. Neither you nor any other offender shall lack my forgiveness, however; for in that I only give what I supremely need. Farewell."

"Good by, since you will not let me try to make amends for the past," said Charlton; and he quitted the room.

Half sorry for her own harshness, and thinking she might have misjudged her husband's present feelings, the invalid got Toussaint to help her into the next room, where she could look through the blinds. No sooner was Charlton in the street than he drew from his pocket the will, and walked slowly on as if feasting his eyes on its contents. With a gesture of exultation, he finally returned the paper to his pocket, and strode briskly up the street to Broadway.

"You see!" said the invalid, bitterly. "And I loved that man once! And there are worthy people who would say I ought to love him still. Love him? Tell my little Lulu to love a cat or a hawk. How can I love what I find on testing to be repugnant to my own nature? Tell me, Toussaint, does

God require we should love what we know to be impure, unjust, cruel?"

66

Ah, madame, the good God, I suppose, would have us love the wicked so far as to help them to get rid of their wickedness."

"But there are some who will not be helped," said the invalid. "Take the wickedness out of some persons, and we should deprive them of their very individuality, and practically annihilate them."

"God knows,” replied Toussaint; "time is short, and eternity is long, long enough, perhaps, to bleach the filthiest nature, with Christ's help."

66

Right, Toussaint. What claim have I to judge of the capacities for redemption in a human soul? But there is a terrible mystery to me in these false conjunctions of man and woman. Why should the loving be united to the unloving and the brutal?"

"Simply, madame, because this is earth, and not heaven. In the next life all masks must be dropped. What will the hypocrite and the impostor do then? Then the loving will find the loving, and the pure will find the pure. Then our bodies will be fair or ugly, black or white, according to our characters."

"I believe it!" exclaimed the invalid. "Yes, there is an infinite compassion over all. God lives, and the soul does not die, and the mistakes, the infelicities, the shortcomings of this life shall be as fuel to kindle our aspirations and illumine our path in another stage of being."

Here a clamorous newsboy stopped on the other side of the way to sell a gentleman an Extra.

"What is that boy crying?" asked the invalid.

"A great steamboat accident on the Mississippi," replied Toussaint.