complete the rhyme, because human sensation
should not encroach on the divine; but the spirit of that hymn sings in
my heart; for if there is anything on this earth that woman should be
grateful for, it is love.

Yes, my sisters, at last I feel that I am beloved. A ray of sympathetic
feeling has darted from a grand and noble soul to mine, changing that
dull, sandy coast to Elysium.

Last night, when I retired to the secrecy of my chamber, it seemed to me
that if ever a woman's heart--beg pardon, a young girl's heart--was born
again, mine had become more tenderly infantine than it was when I lay
one week old in my loving mother's arms.

The moonlight was streaming through the muslin curtains of my room when
I entered it. It was an ovation of silvery light dawning upon the new
life that opens before me. I do not know how other people feel when the
crisis of fate is on them, but in my heart there is room for nothing but
infinite thankfulness.

Yes, sisters, I think you can conscientiously congratulate me. Virtue
does sometimes meet with its own reward, especially when it is combined
with youthfulness, elegance, and high mental attributes.

XCVI.

C. O. D.

Dear sisters:--The cruelty of one female woman to another is something
awful. As a general thing, E. E. Dempster is a good-natured, amiable
person, but her conduct on the very day after that heavenly season on
the shore was worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. She has lacerated the
heart in my bosom, and torn me away from this place like a ruthless
highwayman. That is what she has done.

Early in the morning, while I was dreaming sweetly of the sea-shore,
that unfeeling female rushed into my room.

"Phoemie," says she, "you can't sleep any longer. We are packing up
for the city. Cecilia has been insulted here, and I won't stay another
hour in the place."

"What! what is it?" says I. "How could you! He was just giving up
metaphor and coming squarely out in the sweetest way."

"You will have no more than time to pack your trunk before the train
starts," says she.

"Starts--what for! where?"

"For New York, and after that to Saratoga; Cecilia insists on it, poor,
sweet darling."

"For New York?" says I.

"On the way to Saratoga."

"But--but who is going. Is--is--?"

"Why, you and I, Dempster, and that sweet, ill-used child. Would you
believe it, that rude boy's father refuses to whip him, and said a girl
that could give a black eye with her par