sadly in need of help, and I shed many a bitter tear over her early death; but now I thank God she was not spared to see this day." "You, too, are against me," said Leonard. "I have only my conscience to keep me through this trial."

"The sooner this is over the better," said David. "Call Clara down."

"O no, not now," exclaimed Mrs. Dell, making a false stitch in her excitement; "the shock will kill her."

But Clara had heard her father's voice, and now entered the room pale, trembling more like a ghost than the happy girl Leonard had left but a few hours back. Leonard was about to take her hand when David came between them and roughly pushed him away.

"Clara," said her father, "tell that man that you at last know what a villain you have been weak enough to love."

But Clara was either unable or unwilling to speak. Had not David held her in his arms she would have fallen to the ground.

"Dear Clara," said Leonard, "in the presence of your father and mother I ask you to be my wife."

Why did she not rush into his arms? Why did David utter an oath that made his wife tremble with horror?

"Liar as well as villain," said David. you insult her like that?"

"Dare

And he would have struck Leonard had Clara prevented him.

not

"By the God who alone knows my thoughts," said Leonard, "I am speaking the truth. I will marry you, Clara, though my father should curse me for the act."

"I

"Speak to him, Clara," said her father. "I have loved you dearly," said Clara. love you still; yet you know too well that we can never meet again."

"Is it your wish then that we should part for ever?" asked Leonard.

"It is."

Scarcely knowing what he did, Leonard seized Clara in his arms, kissed her pale face several times, and then left the cottage.

Fiercely raged the storm-madly shrieked the winds, but fiercer than the storm and madder than the winds was the tempest in Leonard's heart. At present his mind was too much shaken to fully understand the events of the last hour, yet he knew that his dream of love was over for ever, but why was a mystery he was unable to fathom. By a sort of instinct he reached Moorlands, without having any idea which way he had come. Something led him home, but it is not the will that directs our movements.

Now it very often happens that when we are suffering under some grief which we think only death can cure we are visited by a second sorrow, which makes the first seem but a trifle in comparison. Leonard Page was met in the hall by one of his father's town servants.

"Why what is the matter, Noakes ?" said Leonard, "My father -"

"Is dangerously ill, sir. There was no time to lose, so I ordered the carriage."

Just then the carriage drove up. Without waiting to change his wet clothes Leonard entered with the servant, and they arrived at Berkeley Square before noon the next day.

But too late. Sir Henry Page was dead.

Many a time afterwards Leonard wondered how he got through that week. Not one of the mournful duties to the dead was neglected. People came, and Leonard saw and spoke to them; yet he felt more like a man doing something extraordinary under the influence of strong drink than a sensible creature performing that sad part in the drama of life which is set down for nature's tragedians and comedians as well. But when the funeral was over his unnatural strength gave way, and Leonard Page was seized with the worst form of brain fever. All through the autumn and early winter he lay insensible, revealing his great trouble to the hired nurse, who was, happily, too stupid to understand it.

And yet he recovered.

"Men have died and worms have eaten them," says Shakespeare, "but not for love. In this matter-of-fact age we have long ceased to believe in broken hearts, still there are people living whose hearts are dead and whose minds have been shattered past recovery.

The winter found Leonard restored as far as animal health was concerned, and rich enough for a splendid journey down the Road to Ruin had he ceased to "go the pace." Idle young gentlemen, whom fate had wisely doomed to the army, navy, or one of those few professions in which society allows men of good birth and weak intellect to genteely starve, envied Leonard and his good fortune, and saw visions of race-horses, omnibus boxes, Richmond dinners to reigning favourites, shooting boxes, heavy bets, unlimited champagne-and Hebrews, sponging-houses, premature age, and early death. But Leonard Page had no intention of being fast, much to the disappointment of those dear friends who were so willing to share in his dissipations.

For the memory of Clara Dell haunted Leonard day and night. After what had happened he felt he never dared appear again in Rivermouth. To be shunned by the people who had once respected him, to be perhaps pointed at in the streets as a monster of infamy, would have driven him mad. And yet Moorlands was his home, and Rivermouth the place he loved best upon earth. He felt like Cain, only Cain had deserved his punishment, while Leonard was certainly more sinned against than sinning.

Knowing he ought to try and forget the past, he went abroad, thinking that absence from familiar scenes would alone drive away the thoughts which were destroying his peace of mind. But wherever he went, alone with the past in Rome or Venice, or amongst the cities of the future in America or Australia, a pael girl's face would suddenly rise up between Leonard Page and happiness, until he at last

knew that his wound was too deep to ever heal on this side of the grave.

For his school days Leonard had "come to grief" over one of the most difficult problems of Euclid. The more he tried to understand why A B C was a given circle and D a given rectilinial angle, the more confused seemed the proposition. At last he gave it up. But here was a problem of life which he was unable to give up. It was continually saying "demonstrate me," while it appeared a Theorem" which was not to be demonstrated." Clara Dell had loved him, then how account for her sudden dislike? And why was her father so angry even after Leonard had proposed marriage? These were questions Leonard was continually asking himself all over the world-questions for which he could never find answers.

After a long absence, he returned to London and sought refuge in society. Society received him with open arms, and paraded its fairest daughters before the favourite of fortune (?); but the frivolous, worldly-minded belles of Belgravia only made Leonard think the more of the girl he had loved and lost. Society proved a failure.

I often wonder what becomes of the people whose hopes have been blighted in early youth. In this world, where people judge by actions rather than motives, there must be many men and women with shattered brains and crippled hearts. We know them in the hour of their trouble; but what becomes of them afterwards? We never meet them in society. Is it not because real grief lies buried in the heart? Only the vulgar-minded make a parade of their

Borrows.

Again Leonard went abroad. For years he was trying to escape from the memories of the three weeks when he had known such a great happiness that life seemed robbed of every charm now that happiness was gone. And he tried in vain.

It was now thirty years since he had left Rivermouth in the midst of the autumn storm. And Leonard Page, thinking that there was little chance of meeting those he had known in his youth, at last made up his mind to return to Moorlands. He reached the old place at the close of an April day. The housekeeper and the servants (engaged and looked after by an agent) saw their master for the first time; but Moorlands looked just the same as if those thirty years had been a dream. The old turniture, the familiar books and pictures, and the trees in the garden, seemed to Leonard like so many dear friends.

still fewer old ones had disappeared, and except that it was quieter, Rivermouth looked outwardly the same as ever.

What had become of the Dells? It seemed to Leonard that the churchyard might give him the best information. Wandering amongst the graves in the early twilight, Leonard knew what he wished to know from a tombstone:

SACRED

To the Memory of
DAVID DELL;

SARAH, his wife; BELLA FORESTER, their daughter;

AND

HARRY FORESTER, and ESTHER, his wife.

The two last had been dead but a few months. What had become of Clara ?

A middle-aged woman in black approached the grave. The recognition was mutual. It was Clara Dell.

There are very few "scenes" in real life, especially between elderly people. These two shook hands as calmly as if they had only parted the day before.

"I am glad we have met," said Clara. "I have long forgiven you, and wished to tell you so before I died."

"Forgive me for what?" asked Leonard. "For having been miserable for thirty years because I had to live without you?"

Though Leonard spoke thus, he felt no love for the woman standing before him. The sight of Clara herself, old and no longer beautiful, broke the spell under which her memory had for so long held him captive.

"Is your wife still alive?" asked Clara.

My wife! Knowing how I loved you, do you think I could have married anyone else?" "And yet you were married.”

"When? I do not understand you." "When you came to our house that stormy night, and asked me to be your wife, were you not already married?"

By the dead lying under our feet I swear that I was neither married then nor afterwards!" "I live in the same old place," said Clara. "Will you come there, Leonard? We have much to say, and can say it better there."

Sitting together in the parlour, in the fastgathering twilight, those two unravelled the mystery that had parted them thirty years before.

When Harry Forester married Bella Dell, Dora Morden, without any cause whatever, fancied herself slighted, and became the wife of old Jacob Drew, merely to prevent the neighbours from thinking she was grieved at Harry's fancied infidelity. But Dora hated the Dells; and when she saw that Clara had a chance of marrying Leonard Page, Dora, who had lived in London, told David that Leonard not only had a wife living, but that he had deceived many girls as he was trying to deceive Clara.

Clara believed the story, but she did-and suffered for her credulity.

Dora Drew had long gone where it is hoped her wickedness was forgiven.

"What have you been doing all these years?" "I have scarcely ever left Rivermouth. Bell came to live with me when her husband died. She had a son, who grew up and married. Poor Harry and his wife died of cholera last autumn. But I am not alone."

Clara left the room for a minute, and returned with two shy little girls, who seemed as fond of their great aunt as if she had been their mother. "Poor Bell's grandchildren!" said Clara. "I have been inuch happier since they were left to my care."

"You are not so lonely as I am," said Leonard. "I have no one to love."

"But you shall, Leonard. Go to that gentleman, Polly !”

Polly, a little kitten of six, seemed afraid of Leonard until she thought what a nice plaything his watch-chain would make. Then she climbed on to his knees, and made one of those sudden friendships, alas! only made in early childhood. Lizzie, who was two years older, followed the example of her sister; and, somehow, Leonard felt like one who had been struggling for years

against the waves of trouble, and had at last drifted into a harbour of peace.

When the children had been put to bed, Leonard and Clara talked long over the past. After that night the past was treated as if it had never been.

Leonard Page is now living at Moorlands. He sees Clara every day, and they are like some brother and sist r, who have met after a long separation. Lizzie and Polly are receiving a most wonderful education, and it is rumoured that they will one day be two of the greatest heiresses in the county.

And here ends this very simple story.

The moral is this: We should never believe anything against those we love. Knowing as we do that there are people capable of breaking the Ninth Commandment, it is always best to reserve judgment until we have found out the whole truth.

Leonard Page and Clara Dell might have been two of the happiest creatures in this world, where real happiness is by no means common: as it was they suffered so greatly that only the knowledge of death resigned them to their fate. And what happened to them is happening every day!

MY DEAR C—, I will venture this letter across the enemy's lines, though it is far from being sure whether you will ever receive it, as the balloon that is destined to carry it over may fall into the hands of the Prussians; if it do, good-bye to your Paris correspondence. We have been fortunate in our airy post so far, for several carrierpigeons have returned to announce to us the safe arrival of aëronauts out of Von Bismarck's clutches; so that, if we do not know what is going on outside our fortifications, at least the world knows what is passing in Paris. Is it possible, that Paris is besieged? When I wake in the morning methinks that it is a nightmare that I have had; it is only when I hear the cannon roaring from our fortresses, that I am convinced that it is no dream, but sa reality. Oh! those who have never been in a besieged town cannot imagine the tumult of sensations that make the heart thrill, now with hope and patriotism, now with anguish and sadness; those brave fellows that we see starting off buoyant with courage and enthusiasm to our outside forts, may by nightfall be launched into eternity, dead to all our love for ever; it makes me shudder to see them pass on their glorious mission of defending the fatherland; the only war that christians can admit is legitiinate; let the King of Prussia and M. Von Bismarck invoke the God of Battles as much as

they will, that is all hypocrisy; it is the god of Ambition that is their god; but they will rue the day that they dared to lead their German hordes under the walls of Paris. We repudiate the unaccountable attack our ex-Emperor made on Prussia, without arms, without money, without soldiers (although we had yearly been paying for six hundred thousand men), without a plan. One would almost imagine that he aspired after a defeat, that he saw that he was impossible and was determined to ruin France in leaving her-so far Prussia was in her right. But when we asked for peace, and offered to put a stop to further bloodshed by paying an immense indemnity-mind you not from fear, for the disaster of Sedan had made the whole heart of France thrill with indignation, patriotism, and courage-the most unwarlike cried for arms and swore to chase the invader. It is impossible to fancy such a burst of enthusiasm: I shall never forget it; but our Government "provisaire" shrunk at the butchery for both nations that would ensue, and deemed a sacrifice of money preferable by far to a useless, for both parties, continuation of hostilities. Brutal force may wrench from us, for a time, part of our territories, but it will only be for a time. M. Von Bismarck's answer to M. J. Favre, is now known to all Europe. It had the effect to calm the few who criticized our government and to prove to M. Von Bismarck that he must not count on the populace of Paris for aid. We