wn alone to wait his coming. The day seemed long
and drear and weary; but she had seen him watching her, and he was
coming at last. Down the slope he glided, holding his fiery steeds in
check. There was joy for the desolate one, for her lover was coming; but
the pitiless sun descended and swept by, scorning the open gates, and
her siren voice, that would have wooed him thither. The next day passed,
and the next, and the next, and she was still disappointed; but she
could not believe that all her labor had been in vain, and still she
nursed her sickly, dying hope. Though that sun has set thousands of
times since then, she hopes for their union still. In the day time the
palace is dark like the clouds; but, as evening approaches, she lights
it up for his coming. Then we see those glorious tints of crimson and
gold and purple and dun, dimming till they mingle with the white clouds
above, and, were we near enough, we might possibly hear the tones of the
reviving music, as it melts; but as the sun goes fairly down, the music
hushes, the beautiful tints fade and die, the palace becomes a dark spot
again, and the poor little watcher within sighs forth her
disappointment and composes herself to wait for another sunset."

"I don't believe your story, Charles Stevens," said Alice, at the
conclusion, "and I don't see what good it does, anyhow, to make up such
a one as that."

"The moral in it is man's faithlessness and woman's constancy," put in
Cora Waters, who had, for a long time, been silent.

Adelpha, who had watched the sun sink beneath the distant blue hills, as
she listened to Charles, now chanced to glance over her shoulder at the
sea behind, with the moon just rising above the watery horizon, and with
a merry peal of laughter she added:

"Charles, your heroine is more dull than modern maids, or, when the sun
jilted her, she would have wooed the moon."

Alice, rising, said, "It is growing dark. Let us go home."

"Alice, are you afraid of the witches, which seem to disturb Mr. Parris
and Cotton Mather?" asked Adelpha.

"There are no witches," Alice Corey answered with a shudder. "Father and
mother both deny that there are any witches, and it is wrong to cry out
against my aunt, Goody Nurse."

"I dare say it is. The evening grows chill. Let us go home."

As the four wended their way across the fields and meadows, Charles
Stevens, who walked between Cora and Adelpha, cast alternately furtive
glances at each, sorely