e neckerchief folded prim. I waited till after the sermon,
and then I knew by the singing that it was the last hymn, so I darted
in. I don't know what they thought--that I was suddenly converted, I
suppose, and they would probably have given thanks over me as a brand
snatched from the burning. Did I do the dance well? I didn't want to
put them out."

"My darling, it was a dreadful masquerade. Did you want to punish me
to the end?"

"I was punished myself, Charlie, when you fell. Oh dear! don't let's
talk about the dreadful thing any more. But I think you would have
forgiven Elder Nebson if you had seen how tenderly he lifted you into
the wagon. There, now: where are we going to live in New York, and
what have we got to live on besides my little income?"

"Income! I had forgotten you had any."

"Ask Judge Hubbard if I haven't. You'll see."

"But, my dear," said I gravely, drawing forth the packet from my
breast, "I, too, have my story to tell. I cannot call it a confession,
either; rather it is the story of somebody else--Hallo! who's broken
the seal?" For on shipboard I had beguiled the time by writing a sort
of journal to accompany Fanny's letter, and had placed all together in
a thick white envelope, addressing it, in legal parlance, "To whom it
may concern."

"_I_ did," said Bessie faintly, burying her face on my arm. "It fell
out of your pocket when they carried you up stairs; and I read it,
every word, twice over, before you came to yourself."

"You little witch! And I thought you were marrying me out of pure
faith in me, and not of sight or knowledge."

"It was faith, the highest faith," said Bessie proudly, and looking
into my eyes with her old saucy dash, "to know, to feel sure, that
that sealed paper concerned nobody but me."

And so she has ever since maintained.

SARAH C. HALLOWELL.

A STRANGE LAND AND A PECULIAR PEOPLE.

A nodule of amygdaloid, a coarse pebble enveloped in a whitish
semi-crystalline paste, lies on the table before me. I know that a
blow of the hammer will reveal the beauties of its crystal interior,
but I do not crush it. It is more to me as it is--more than a letter
plucked from the stone pages of time. Coarse and plain, it is an index
to a chapter of life. In the occupations of a busy existence we forget
how much we owe to the sweet emotional nature which, by mere chance
association, retains the dearer part of the past fixed in memory, just
as the graceful volutes o