while he had absorbed himself in dancing life away, and sketching pretty faces, she had plied an unerring pencil, and solved some of life's most intricate problems. At length she said:

'We do not and cannot assimilate.'

'That is too general.'

Her face flushed.

'I doubt if you have any right to ask for more, and I would rather spare you; but I can, if you wish, repeat a conversation that did more to dispel the illusion from my mind than all else. A mutual acquaintance was in my hearing expressing the common wonder why Neill Sargent did not marry, and another answered: 'He is too selfish!' You think that hard and unjust, and for the moment so did I, indignantly; but afterward I felt that it was so, and that you too much valued the favor and admiration of your many lady-friends, to give them all up for me, and you have too much honor to break a woman's heart, after you have promised to be every thing to her.' The lurid flash of anger that passed over his face did not discourage her; she proceeded in the same even tone: 'Do not be angry; we are all selfish, and I feel daily that I am deeply so; but then and there I was disenchanted, and I have prayed for you ever since, with the same calm and earnest accent, as for my brother Willie.'

His look of anger was now gone, and his voice quivered.

'Thank you, Mabel, do pray for me. I am not worthy of you.'

'Not so, Neill, my friend. To know one's ignorance is the beginning of all self-knowledge. You may now think you have just missed happiness, that the very moment you had the fickle butterfly in your grasp, and were closing your fingers over it, it eluded you. But trust me when I tell you, that there are more enduring and ennobling pleasures than dancing and flirting; that life is not a stick of sugar-candy, to be eaten as fast as possible, but a sometimes bitter medicine, nauseous but healing; and to walk the appointed thorny paths, and to fulfil the tasteless or irksome duties without a murmur, and unsympathized with, is better than a thoughtless marrying and giving in marriage.' "It is so, Mabel; let me sit at your feet and learn.'

'I am not fit to be a teacher, I am a scholar myself, neither well drilled nor tutored still an unruly and rebellious scholar.'

'Mabel,' said he, 'you have gone beyond me, and I cannot overtake you. You must wait for me.'

'I have not done it without a struggle; it is hard to go alone in this life; I have found it so! And yet, 'let not him that putteth his hand to the plough look back,' much less, stand still or go back.'

'And did you leave me without any compunctions of conscience, or thought of sorrow?'

'No, Neill, no. You will be surprised at my frankness, and I am astonished at myself for telling you so freely of this affection — idolatry it was; now 'twice dead and plucked up by the roots.' A few days since, I burned a quantity of trash - keepsakes I called them once of an old port-folio, all in some way associated with you; but I will specify only

- that I found in the pocket

one. I called it a poem then; it was a rhymed expression of my soul, that must find utterance some way, so I published it. Your editorial scissors clipped it, and it was copied in your paper, characterized as 'a sweet heart-breath, a spark struck by the flint of trial, from some body's soul,' etc. etc.'

'I remember; I can repeat it; did you write it? I am astonished at the multitude of your gifts, Mabel.'

'Spare me any more of that, Neill; at least a liking for flattery is not one of them.'

'No; you never would hear praise, I am sure,' and then, with an emphasis that brought the color to her cheeks, he repeated the old 'heart-breath,' she now styled 'trash :'

Neill Sargent was evidently surprised and touched. I think a new feeling of respect for Mabel's undreamt-of strength of character also awoke in his heart, for he said, sadly enough:

'Mabel, I cannot find the way; I can see the ‘starry heights,' but I cannot get there. You must reach your hand down to me, and lead me.'

'No, Neill. Do n't you remember what CHRIST said: 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life?''

'Yes, yes! but He is so far off; I am human, and want human aid and sympathy.'

'And did not our CHRIST, made flesh, have every element of intense humanity, save its sin?'

'Yes, Mabel, but I cannot follow you on that topic; you have taken the ultimate hope of my life from me, and I cannot think of abstractions with that reality facing me!'

'Selfish' was none too severe a word to express Neill Sargent's dominant trait of character, and in this he unwittingly betrayed it. That any of her hopes had grown dim; that this woman, after tedious lengths of years, made perfect through suffering, from his own unscrupulous fickleness, had found her cup dashed with bitter, he did not think-possibly did not care! The wild desire of possession, growing fiercer as the chances became more desperate,

swept over him; for the moment the future seemed desolate without her, but her dreary past entered not into his thoughts, and awoke no regrets.

Mabel felt it, and with a chilling hauteur, that lacked little of contempt, and contrasted strangely with her former gentle earnestness, she replied:

'You are unhappy in your choice of words! Practically you have said, 'Oh! I would be a butterfly!' and like that fickle summer's favorite, you have gone from flower to flower. Here, a pair of dangerous eyes, the pansies, have held you in thrall; there, you have toyed with a dainty little hand, like a lily; now a sweet voice has charmed you, the chime of the blue-bells, or their bewitching grace; you have talked nonsense or flattery to beauty, that is the tulip; poetry to sentiment, which is the rose; abstractions to intellectuality, figured in the dahlia; and at last, as night falls, weary and sated, you come to some hitherto unnoticed weed, begging with honeyed words for shelter. If all animated things have a soul-life, as some contend; if 'the love of the flowers,' is a reality in that order of creation, can the weed see the butterfly woo, win, and forsake all the flowers at will, without a pang or thought of distrust? I know I have not carried out the figure perfectly, but my meaning is palpable. The ultimate hope! Perhaps you thought, after you had exhausted all the charm of life, and freshness of trust and truth, in indiscriminate flirtation, to proffer me the remnants, the withered fragments. In my infatuation, I might once have accepted the offering; now I return it to you - I have no use for it.' 'Do n't, Mabel, do n't!' he plead with a conscience-smitten look.

The erect head fell on her hands, and she sobbed aloud; fortunately they were alone on the balcony, and the music rose above all. Forgive me,' she said, as soon as her lips could articulate, 'I have spoken a bitter truth bitterly.'

Neill Sargent was surprised beyond measure. Was this, could this be Mabel Hawthorne, with her spirit of iron? What a furnace-trial she must have passed through, so to melt it down! But what was that crucible of affliction he did not even then comprehend. 'Mabel,' he replied, and for once conviction outspoke self-conceit, 'I have nothing to forgive; you have told me only the truth, and I upbraid myself for the past more than you do or can. But tell me now what I shall look forward to.'

Her earnest eyes, out-looking through tears, were like those of a prophetess. 'My life is bounded by a single word: Duty! It may seem a small circle, a weary tread-mill round, but throw yourself, heart and soul, into it; and, as if a pebble were dropped in a stream, it will widen away in every direction, till it reaches the shore of the Infinite Beyond.'

'You really have a poet's heart, Mabel,' he said lightly— compliment came so naturally to his lips!

'No; I am a worker now - not a dreamer.'

--

'And you would have me also go to work?'

'Yes, with earnest striving-redeeming the time.'

At this moment two ladies came up.

'Here you are, you naughty truants!' laughed Mrs. Barry, a mutual friend. 'What have you been doing? You'll catch your death-cold, Mabel!'

'Rhapsodizing, talking poetry, love-making, or something of that kind!'

answered Amelia Holmes, her companion, a very giddy and independent, not to say impertinent, young lady.

It was too near the truth not to hit, and for once Neill Sargent was abashed in repartee, and said nothing, because he could think of nothing to say, or rather, nothing that he dared to say, with Mabel standing by, and listening as unconcernedly as if she were not included in this brilliant sally.

'He blushes, Mrs. Barry, that is as good as an acknowledgment of guilt,. and he looks serious too! Did you get some good advice along with the the alas! that I should have to say it ! but I mean the mitten?' She put on such a look of the disconsolate and mock-pathetic that all laughed, and she rattled

on.

'Next time you are seized with a fit of loneliness, Neill Sargent, just ask me, and I will sigh you 'Yes, as gently as a sucking dove'- see Shakspeare. Or wait till next leap-year, and I'll ask you; and if you look daggers, and say, 'No!' or blush, and simper out, 'I'd rather be excused!' I'll go home and ask mamma to tie my wounded heart up in a rag.'

'Did your mother never teach you to wait till you were asked, before you say, 'Yes, and thank you?''

'Of course, but I like to encourage bashful little boys!"

-nor

The jests became free, general, and distasteful to Mabel; others joined in, and quietly gliding away, Mabel saw no more of Neill Sargent that night have they since met. She went home, mused thoughtfully as she combed out the heavy braids; and after having read in her pocket Testament, 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols,' prayed that she might be so led, and with the word Duty chiming its solemn cadence and rhythm in her heart, fell asleep.

And Neill Sargent I wish I could say that Duty was an abiding-guest in his heart also, but, save that his editorials seem a little more practical and earnest, one can see no difference, yet it may be that he 'at last shall walk those starry heights,' for Mabel still prays for him.

Shall the never-dying flowers
That descend in silvery showers
On the heads of the immortals
Who have passed the golden portals,
And have entered into rest;
Bring no sweet remembrance ever,
On the banks of that pure river,
Of your spiritual faces,

Looking up from earth's green places,
Smiling saintly from her breast?

O ye Pansies, golden-hearted!
When from all earth's beauty parted,
And the darkness and the dawnings
Of her mid-nights and her mornings,
And the glory of her flowers;
Would it stir no secret pleasance
To behold your gentle presence,
With the first familiar sweetness,
Grown to heavenly completeness,
In imperishable bowers.