beat upon the old home-roof. Cynthia Locke went up stairs that night and into her room, with something sadder than usual in the slow and feeble step which had been hers for many years. She closed and locked her door, drew a chair up to the fire and sat down, leaning her head upon her hand very, very wearily.

There was something appealing in the picture, in the gray hair brushed back under its black cap, in the sharp angles of her face-an old woman's face, though, she was but fortythree; in the solitude of her eyes-you might meet such eyes upon a desert; in the hand with its one dulled ring, and in the very attitude of her quiet figure.

away before the shadow that lay so heavily upon her own heart.

The night was voiceful for her as for her sister. The first day of the New Year! It was to have been her marriage day. And, miles away, there was a lonely grave over which the evening wind was wailing. It was nearer to her heart to-night than any thing else in all the world.

She rose at last, and, unlocking one of her drawers, took therefrom a box and laid it upon the table. She stopped before she opened it, passing her fingers over some delicate white flowers on its cover with a feeble, trembling motion, like the hands guided by blind eyes.

She took the things out one by one, her face In Cynthia Locke's nature grief, like love, en- bowed over them, her fingers touching them dured to the end. It was no less to her now reverently. Some old letters, yellow and faded, than it had been long years ago, when it had and blurred with many tears; the faint perfume struck suddenly upon the sunlight of her girl- of some withered flowers, which kept the semhood, a heavy cloud and full of storms. Not blance of a wreath, as do those we place upon a less but more. Whatever its sealed story, which grave when they are soaked with autumn rains. none knew or would ever know, the burden A gift or two that would please a girl's fancy, borne so patiently was a heavy one. I think and a lock of clinging hair. Under these the you will say that. I think you would have folds of a silken dress, soft and white; a veil longed to give her that silent sympathy which which fell out over Cynthia's fingers as she alone she would receive; to speak all words ten- touched it, and floated down to the ground like derly to her, if so you might help her, remem- a thing of life; dainty slippers, which might bering Him from whom no mourner ever turned have kept time themselves to some merry muaway uncomforted. sie; and a pair of soft gloves-so soft a little hand within them would hardly have felt their touch.

Yet her sorrow had its blessings as its pain. Many gifts through suffering might have been hers. Gifts of tender help and love. Hearts which groped in darkness, to whom she should bring light; hearts like her own perishing in a dry and thirsty land, to whom she should send the refreshing of a new life; wayward and wandering hearts who needed but the gentleness of such a touch as hers.

So I think her sister was not all to blame in their slow estrangement. Harriet, like many another with her lot to bear, was perverse and petulant and thoughtless. But the long disappointment of years had turned acrid in her heart. There were no softening memories in it, no sense of unseen help, no hopes for a future into which death could not enter. Only the sense of a forsaken eternity, and the sting of tortured pride. She did not suffer as much as her sister; her heart in its self-scorn found yet many joys on earth that Cynthia could not share; she did not suffer as much, but more hopelessly, and therefore far more bitterly. Might not Cynthia have done more than bear her pettish vagaries, and keep silent in all these little jars of their everyday life? She had strength that Harriet knew not of. She should, I think, have borne most tenderly with her; she should have taken this her younger sister by the hand, and led her gently over all rough places and thorny roads. And to bring that stormy life at last into the calm of green fields and chastened sunlight would have been indeed a jewel in her

crown.

Some vague thought of this crossed Cynthia's mind as she sat watching the fire. But it was very vague, and, scarcely taking form, faded

All once of purest white; now faintly yellow. Very faintly, however, for Time had dealt kindly with them: the sad, pale tint was only sad enough and pale enough to touch them with a blessing beautiful for sacredness.

Cynthia laid them all out upon her lap, took them up one by one, and laid them down again. None of them had been worn, nor would be. Made ready for a day which had never come, they were folded away with all their happy dreamings; turned into the dark like a mute, white face in waiting. As if the girl had laid them away trustfully, still looking for that day which never came.

No

What was in Cynthia Locke's soul this night I can not tell you. Far be it from me, for it is holy ground. God only, who had smitten her, knew or shall ever know the darkness of its waste places. She trod them alone with Him. Her face, when she rose at last to fold and lay away the bridal dress, spoke the peace of a heart to which He had indeed been near. selfish grieving could be where He had been. All homely joys and loves and common duties grew suddenly beautiful for His sake. It had been often so before, but never as now. thought she would like to talk with her sister a while-where was Harriet? It was some time since she had seen her; she would go down stairs and hunt her up. She must have been lonely all this evening; she must be often lonely. Some regret was on her face just then, some pang at her heart.

She

So often do we face a duty just as its call has ceased; so often we have but learned to miss a blessing, and it is gone from us.

Cynthia took up her lamp and went down | table, in front of the stove, behind the stove, on stairs. She opened the sitting-room door, and the chairs, and on the floor. spoke, her voice quite gentle: "Haven't you been-"

But there she stopped, for the room was empty. Harriet's low rocking-chair stood before the fire as she had left it. Some gust sweeping in at the open door stirred it; while she looked it rocked slowly back and forth. The embers were smouldering on the hearth, the windows rattled in the storm, and still as she stood listening that blank, bare chair rocked slowly.

A vague chill crept into Cynthia's heart; she shivered and turned to go out. Then she came back, put her foot upon the chair, and stopped it with some impatience. Turning as she closed the door a second time, she looked back-it still was rocking slowly.

She crossed the entry with a bit of self-contempt in her smile; Harriet was of course in the kitchen. There was some confusion there as she turned the handle. Jane was sitting by the stove, her cheeks the color of its coals, knitting as demurely as if she had done nothing else throughout the evening. Some scuffling was on the door-steps, however, and the girl began to push away an empty chair that had stood quite near her own.

To say that Jack was happy would be but a meagre expression. The group did not indeed form an unpleasant picture. The covers of the stove were off, and the light fell warmly on the little brown faces and bright eyes; the mother, too, in her neat, holiday dress, was very fair in her husband's eyes that night.

"I say for't," he remarked, admiringly, "ef you don't look like Mollie Jenkins, fur all the world, I'm beat; jes' the way you was when I come courtin'-'long in hayin' time it was too -eh, Mollie?"

"Don't be foolish, Jack," replied his wife, in a stifled voice, quite smothered by the arms of some affectionate infant, who was employing its time in journeying from her lap to her shoulder and down the back of her chair, returning by a vociferous express to the original station.

"At any rate," puffed Jack through his pipe, with the tone of one who has made a point in an argument, "Tim's some on the gals."

"Tim does very well." His mother's one sin was pride in that young gentleman. "Tim does well enough-all his nonsense you've learned him."

"You can't say I didn't know what I was up to when I set up fur a wife," said Jack, with triumph in his eye.

For some reason this reminded Cynthia of an expression she caught on Harriet's face that evening at supper-time. How young and pret- Mrs. Higgins appreciatively fished up an enorty she had looked to-night! How feverish that mous nut from among its fellows and expressed light in her eyes! What ailed her? She wish-it to her husband. The engineer, apparently feeled she had asked.

"Has Miss Harriet been here, Jane?" "No, mum, she hain't. I heern the front door shut long since."

"She didn't come this way then?" going to the window in an anxious way.

"No, mum-indeed, mum, she didn't. You needn't look that way for her-I know she ain't there."

Jane's confusion was increasing. At any other time her mistress would have smiled. Now she only left the room quite gravely, and put on her shawl and rubbers to go out. Harriet must be over at Jack's; she would step in and call for her, and they would come home together. There had been none to make her New-Year's eve, and she had gone away to forget it and herself. Poor Harriet!

ing no responsibility for freightage, managed to dispose of it on the trip.

"Where is the boy now?"

"Over to Miss Locke's," replied his father. "Miss Locke's! what does she want of him?" "Oh, only some little business," said Jack, discreetly. Mrs. Jack looked incredulous; he puffed away in silence.

"It is any how," he broke out at last.

"This is a slick sort o' home of ourn; ain't it now ?"

"Well, if I say it as shouldn't say it, it's happier nor some greater folks'-neighbors too," returned his wife, significantly.

A great disturbance at the door drew the eyes of the whole colony to it just then. It was the son and heir: he stumbled up the steps and stood with the door half open.

"What are you letting in all that draught for, Timothy ?"

If you had looked into Jack Higgins's kitchen that night your eye would have been caught by two principal adornments, each of them good in their proper place and quantity, lavished here with wild profusion. I refer to children and "Mother, you just hush up, will you?" said dough-nuts. Of which time would fail me to the cavalierly Tim. "Can't a gentleman listen tell you; children upon their father's knee, pull-on his own threshold when he thinks he hears ing at their mother's skirts, under the table, on a noise?" the table, in front of the stove, behind the stove, on the chairs, and on the floor. Dough-nuts in pans, dough-nuts upon plates, dough-nuts cushioning all available seats and paving the floor; dough-nuts in the hands and in the mouths of all the children upon their father's knee, pulling their mother's dress, under the table, on the

The argument was unanswerable, and Mrs.
Higgins subsided.

"It is," said Tim, at length.
"What?"

"Somebody hollerin' down on the beach."
In a moment that gentleman found himself
penned in the midst of the whole family with-

They "Somethin's bobbin' up and down out there.
Ain't no misfort'nate love in the case, is there,
Miss Cynthy?"

"Hope Miss Harrit ain't gone and drowned herself," sympathized Jack, pushing off the boat. "Is Miss Harriet here?” speaking hurriedly, "This water is a big 'un; ef she's there we'll with some attempt at a smile. haul her in, Miss Cynthy. Steady there, Tim!" And with a sweep and a lurch the boat was tossing on the waves.

Cynthia Locke's face had paled suddenly. Jack saw it and looked at his wife; his wife looked at him. This stretch of fathomless sea, this tide that "Where can she be ?" said Miss Cynthia, her swept and broke with such a mighty cry, these veice full of ill-repressed alarm. cruel rocks that tore and tossed the waves-was

"Ain't she to some o' the neighbors, Miss Harriet here? Her face growing grayer and Cynthy?" "No," shaking her head; she felt very sure struggled against it stood out against the night

Turning then into the little yard, up the steps, and into the old home door, slowly-very slowly. Many times had Harriet come up those steps and into that door, with the pattering, imHer face was a shade whiter in the full light patient feet of a little child whose laugh rang of the lantern, her voice sharp.

like music all over the silent house-whose pretty dimpled face made all its light. With the

"Thought so," said Jack, working on the rope. happy tread of a girl looking through green vines

and sunlight, who waited for the sounding of a step upon the grass. With the weary feet of a woman who had walked many years alone. Cynthia thought of this as they bore her through the door that swung and creaked upon its hinges to give them entrance.

Past the room where the little tea-table still stood spread for two, where the fire was burned to ashes and the empty chair had ceased to rock. So many times coming in, Harriet had turned to it to warm her hands at the blaze, or take her work at the window. Now she passed it by, and, passing, did not see it. For one alone the table should be spread to-morrow; one only should henceforth sit and work beside the fire.

Up the stairs, and into her own room-the room where she had slept for so many years; where it was fitting they should bring her for this most quiet slumber. The worn furniture was there, the warmth of the home-like fire, and the ivy in the window.

They laid her down upon the bed, her poor white face turned upon the pillow, the wet, wet hair falling over it.

Then Cynthia kneeled down and hid her face upon the bed.

Peals of thunder reverberating like ten thousand tides upon a world of rock-bound coast, growing fainter, and lost at last in a low and distant growl. The dash of waves that touched the heavens, falling and smoothing to the faroff ripple of some restless sea. The fury of an eternal storm held at length, and calmed like the sobbing of a weary child. The world by some gigantic machine pumped void of air-a gasping and struggling toward the brazen sky. The torments of a rack and the binding of iron chains. The scorching of a tropic sun upon leagues of desert sands. The blackness of a mighty void, and the sense of walking blindfold through it.

A gleam of light at length; a grateful warmth like the winds of summer; the touch of something like the clinging of softest velvet; a pleasant murmur like the lull of many fountains; a sense of rest as the soothing of a mother's lullaby. The flash of broader light and bright colSo it had turned many times upon that pil-oring; the trailing of a green vine upon a winlow, her cheeks wet then as now--but not with dow; the crackling of a fire in a warm and ocean waves--her hair tossed away from sleep-home-like room. The picture of a pale face, less eyes that watched the long night through.

They laid her down very tenderly, and then the two men went softly out to leave Cynthia Locke alone with her dead.

The doctor coming in at last at Jack's summons found the room bright with fresh fire, and the two women-Cynthia and Jane-hopelessly chafing Harriet's frozen limbs, and trying in vain to bring breath into the cold and lifeless mouth.

with anguished eyes and sad, gray hair, that moved about the room, that came to the bed, that bent over it with a low cry, dropping hot

tears.

And Harriet knew that God had given her back her life.

"Cynthia !"

"Harriet! Oh, my sister!"

And Cynthia gathered her in her arms, and broke into the sobbing of a little child.

Harriet smiled faintly, and closing her eyes lay back upon the pillow as if quite content. The hours wore away while she lay there, still too weak for speech, but gaining strength with every moment. Cynthia sat beside her, her eyes upon the pallid face, clasping the clinging hand in both her own. The warm light that brightened and glowed in the room lent strange beauty to the faces of the two, each so old with the weight of lonely years, each white as the Death that had so nearly sundered them, each so still with the hush of thoughts that could not

Cynthia looked up into his face when he came to the bedside, stooping, with his ear to Harriet's heart and his finger on the pulse-a mute look that was far more piteous than a cry. He did not meet her eye, nor speak. The moments passed like the toll of a bell. Cynthia felt that the light was bright upon the ivy in the window, and upon the bed where it touched such a silent form. She heard the pattering of the winter rain upon the roof, the shriek of a stormy wind, and the rolling of distant surge. She saw and heard them over and over like the sudden changes of tone in some grand dirge-be spoken. the light and wind, the rain and light, each in turn. The half hour struck. The doctor, stopping in the midst of some quick order, stooped once more with his ear at Harriet's heart.

Still Cynthia listened to the swelling of the dirge; still she saw the light within the room, and heard the mourning of the storm without.

The minutes tolling slower and more slowly counted at last an hour. The mute face upon the pillow had not stirred or warmed with the faintest flush. The doctor had been growing graver; he turned away from the bed. Cynthia looked up into his sorrowful eyes.

"Is it too late?" in a low, unvarying voice. "With God it is never too late," he answered, solemnly. "I can do nothing more."

The doctor seeing them so had turned away his face, his kind eyes wet. Little Jane was crying upon the floor.

The Old Year met its death at last quite peacefully The storm had ceased and hushed upon the sea; the wind, weary with its crying, slept at last; the quiet waves that wet the beach caught the light of a faint new moon which rested like a crown upon the hills, and far above and beyond them both the sky was marshaled with its brightest stars.

Cynthia, standing for a moment at the window to fold her hands upon her breast and turn her eyes up to them, heard the clock of a little church that stood near to the sea strike the hour of midnight. So did Harriet, and she raised

her head to listen. When the last stroke died | away she called her sister feebly.

Cynthia sent them all away and closed the door. Then she came up and lay down by Harriet's side, and put her arm about her neck. She used to do this when they were girls together. It was many years since then.

"Harriet, did you try to go away from me to-night ?"

"No, thank God!"

"It is I who should thank Him," said Cynthia, solemnly; "look into my eyes, Harriet."

And Harriet looked through her tears. What "Cynthia, I want to tell you-" But Cyn- she saw there made her hide her face upon her

thia stopped her with a long, long kiss.

"It is I, Harriet."

"No; you have borne so much, and I-I let you suffer all alone."

"And you?"

Harriet looked up, her face quivering. "No matter, I was all wrong, Cynthia. you will only help me a little-"

sister's arm and cling to her neck. Cynthia laid her cheek to hers and kissed her.

"We've nothing left but each other," she said.

After a while she laid Harriet back upon the pillow, and rose to put the room in order for the If night, her face as quiet as yesterday, no sign in the grave way she went about her work that any thing had occurred to break upon the silence of her daily life-her voice only telling the promise of the New Year.

Cynthia took her younger sister in her arms, and laid her head upon her shoulder, caressing the wet hair.

CHRISTMAS AT TRINITY.

HILE from the lofty gallery sweeps the organ's music-thunder,

Wand res a billowy baptism o'er the people kneeling under,

Till in the calm that follows the passionate prayer abating,

The white-robed priest and white-robed boys their praise are alternating;
And through the rosy lattices the golden sun-rays glinting,

The marble altars and the walls with love's own hue are tinting;

Down showers tumultuous music from the belfry of Old Trinity—
Merry chiming for His birth, and grave songs for His Divinity!

All up and down bright Broadway, with eager, festal faces,
In festal garments gayly clad, the population paces.

We hear the pulse of one great heart, that in great love rejoices;
One loving intonation makes a chord of many voices;
Upon the long procession, in its coming and its going,
Like a river in some fairy land, in Magian splendor flowing;

Down showers tumultuous music from the belfry of Old Trinity—
Merry chiming for His birth, and grave songs for His Divinity!

Last night, as by the church-yard, the tombs in moonlight sleeping,
I wandered while the shadowed spire across the dead was creeping—
Across the dead who pillow'd there, unheeding gloom or gleaming,
Through all the rolling years have slept the sleep that knows no dreaming;
Twelve times the ponderous hammer struck, its beat imperious falling:
The dead slept on, and made no sign, but waited God's own calling!

Down showered tumultuous music from the belfry of Old Trinity-
Merry chiming for His birth, and grave songs for His Divinity!
There's mockery in our wooing-there is death in all our houses;
He liveth best who loveth least-the fool alone espouses;
The bridal chaplet that we wear, our brows serene adorning,
Fades in the spectral night that dims the eyes of dancing morning.
"Sleep well," I cried, "and wisely in your graves, O ye departed!
You are blest above the living, for you are not broken-hearted!"

Down showered tumultuous music from the belfry of Old Trinity-
Merry chiming for His birth, and grave songs for His Divinity!
Sweet bells of hope! I heard you, with a spirit stronger growing,
While over me eternal stars with love and strength were glowing;
And when the Christmas noon-tide came, and came the gilded thronging,
I could look on all the happiness nor feel the lonesome longing;
While on children lightly leaping, while on maid and lover blushing,
While on mothers proud and comely, on the living river rushing,

Down showered tumultuous music from the belfry of Old Trinity-
Merry chiming for His birth, and grave songs for His Divinity!