hat intensity of admiration
with which you worship?

----Poor Clarence! it is his first look at Life!

The Thousand Isles with their leafy beauties lie around your passing
boat, like the joys that skirt us, and pass us, on our way through life.
The Thousand Isles rise sudden before you, and fringe your yeasty track,
and drop away into floating spectres of beauty, of haze, of distance,
like those dreams of joy that your passion lends the brain. The low
banks of Ontario look sullen by night; and the moon, rising tranquilly
over the tops of vast forests that stand in majestic ranks over ten
thousand acres of shore-land, drips its silvery sparkles along the
rocking waters, and flashes across your foamy wake.

With such attendance, that subdues for the time the dreamy forays of
your passion, you draw toward the sound of Niagara; and its distant,
vague roar, coming through great aisles of gloomy forest, bears up your
spirit, like a child's, into the Highest Presence.

The morning after, you are standing with your party upon the steps of
the hotel. A letter is handed to you. Dalton remarks in a quizzical way,
that "it shows a lady's hand."

"Aha, a lady!" says Miss Dalton,--and _so_ gayly!

"A sister," I say; for it is Nelly's hand.

"By the by, Clarence," says Dalton, "it was a very pretty sister you
gave us a glimpse of at Commencement."

"Ah, you think so;" and there is something in your tone that shows a
little indignation at this careless mention of your fond Nelly; and from
those lips! It will occur to you again.

A single glance at the letter blanches your cheek. Your heart
throbs--throbs harder--throbs tumultuously. You bite your lip, for there
are lookers-on. But it will not do. You hurry away; you find your
chamber; you close and lock the door, and burst into a flood of tears.

V.

_A Broken Home._

It is Nelly's own fair hand, yet sadly blotted,--blotted with her tears,
and blotted with yours.

----"It is all over, dear, dear Clarence! Oh, how I wish you were here
to mourn with us! I can hardly now believe that our poor mother is
indeed dead."

----Dead!--It is a terrible word! You repeat it with a fresh burst of
grief. The letter is crumpled in your hand. Unfold it again, sobbing,
and read on.

"For a week she had been failing every day; but on Saturday we thought
her very much better. I told her I felt sure she would live to see you
again.

"'I shall never see him again, Nelly,' said