had softened and humanized me. I said to myself, "Ah, poor
little Mary!" and I kissed the green flag, in grateful memory of the
days that were gone forever.

We drove to the waterfall.

It was a beautiful day; the lonely sylvan scene was at its brightest
and best. A wooden summer-house, commanding a prospect of the falling
stream, had been built for the accommodation of pleasure parties by the
proprietor of the place. My mother suggested that I should try to make
a sketch of the view from this point. I did my best to please her, but I
was not satisfied with the result; and I abandoned my drawing before it
was half finished. Leaving my sketch-book and pencil on the table of the
summer-house, I proposed to my mother to cross a little wooden bridge
which spanned the stream, below the fall, and to see how the landscape
looked from a new point of view.

The prospect of the waterfall, as seen from the opposite bank, presented
even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist like me, than the
prospect which he had just left. We returned to the summer-house.

I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, checked in my
advance by an unexpected discovery. The summer-house was no longer empty
as we had left it. A lady was seated at the table with my pencil in her
hand, writing in my sketch-book!

After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to the door, and
stopped again in breathless amazement. The stranger in the summer-house
was now plainly revealed to me as the woman who had attempted to destroy
herself from the bridge!

There was no doubt about it. There was the dress; there was the
memorable face which I had seen in the evening light, which I had
dreamed of only a few nights since! The woman herself--I saw her as
plainly as I saw the sun shining on the waterfall--the woman herself,
with my pencil in her hand, writing in my book!

My mother was close behind me. She noticed my agitation. "George!" she
exclaimed, "what is the matter with you?"

I pointed through the open door of the summer-house.

"Well?" said my mother. "What am I to look at?"

"Don't you see somebody sitting at the table and writing in my
sketch-book?"

My mother eyed me quickly. "Is he going to be ill again?" I heard her
say to herself.

At the same moment the woman laid down the pencil and rose slowly to her
feet.

She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes: she lifted her hand
and beckoned me to approach her. I obeye