the
early morning sun came in through the open window, and woke me with its
gentle touch. The air was sweet with spring fragrance, and the first
sound that came to my awakened ears was the song of a little wren, a
little wren who sang even as to-day in the days of my youth and joy,
whose nest is built over the window that was so often a frame for that
dearest-loved face. The song brought with it the recollection of all the
little songster had outlived--the love, hope, and fear that had sprung
up and grown and died, since I had first heard his warbling. And I broke
into those quiet tears that are now my only expression of a grief too
familiar to be passionate.

To-day is the first of June--a year to-day since all was over!

Three years ago, this very day, was to have been my wedding day. June
and its roses were made for lovers, as surely as May, with its May
flowers and little lilies, is the month of Mary the Blessed. I had
always wished to be married in June, and circumstances combined to
render that time more convenient than any other. My love affair had been
a long one, and had met with no obstacles. Our families had always been
intimate, and I remember _him_ a boy of fourteen, when he first came to
live in the house opposite. At sixteen he went to West Point, and when
he came home in his furlough year, I was fifteen. We were both in
Washington until August; it was a long session; his father was in
Congress, and so was mine. Edward Mayne had nothing to do that summer,
and I never had much to occupy me; we saw each other every day, and so
we fell in love. The heads of both families saw all, smiled a little,
and teased a good deal; but no one interfered. My mother said it gave me
occupation and amusement, and helped me to pass the long summer
evenings, which I thought charming, and every one else thought a bore.
It was called a childish flirtation, and when he went back to the
Academy, and I to school, the thing dropped out of notice, and was soon
forgotten.

But not by us. We remembered each other, and, each in our different
lives, we were constant to our early love. And so it came to pass that,
when he came back again, after graduating, we were very glad to see each
other; the old intercourse was renewed, and the old feeling showed
itself stronger for the lapse of years. No one interfered with us; the
intimacy between our families had continued, and when we went to the
seaside for the hot months, the Maynes went t