hough the lineaments were changing, I thought the
eyes grew softer; they seemed to moisten, the lips trembled,
the bosom heaved and fell, and it was you-----you! as I
had pressed you to my heart a thousand times--my own! my
own! I know not what foolish words I may have uttered, nor
to what excess my rapture carried me, but I was weeping
bitterly as they led me away,--ay, bitterly, Kate; for such
ecstasy as I felt finds its true vent in sorrow! But now I
am happy once more,--happy that I have seen you and dear
Frank,--happy that each of us in life has trodden the path
that best became him! and so I came away, with many a
lingering look, and many a backward glance, at what I was
never to see again.

"Here, in my mountain home, once more I can sit, alone,
and think of you for days. You wander through all my
thoughts, the characters of endless stories, in every
imaginable vicissitude, and with every change of fortune;
but throughout all, Kate--good and beautiful--truthful too,
as you ever were. There, my tears have blotted out what I
tried to say, nor dare I trust myself with more. My school
children are already coming through the vineyard; I hear
their song,--it was your own long ago:----

'Da sind die Taege lang gennch, Da sind die Nachte milde.'

"Good-bye, good-bye, my sister--my dear sister.

"N. D. Meran."

"Oh, let us hasten thither at once!" cried Kate, in rapture. "Oh, dear
uncle, let us away to Meran."

"Not till after Tuesday, Kate," whispered George, passionately; and the
words covered her cheeks with blushes as she heard them.

The reader knows now all that we care to tell him. Time was when
story-tellers wound up with a kind wish that, "if they were not happy,
that you and I may be." Nor am I quite certain that we are wiser in our
vocation than when those words were in vogue.

We are not vain enough to suppose that we have inspired an interest for
any of those characters who have supported the minor parts of our drama.
Should such good fortune have happily attended us, let us say, once for
all, that Messrs. Haggerstone, Jekyl, and Purvis yet survive; that the
Ricketts family are in excellent health, autograph gathering and duke
courting, poetizing and painting, and pilfering, with all the ardor of
youth, untouched by years and unrestrained by conscience. Lady Hester,
too, is agai