dim with departing night. It offered freshness and peace to her hot head
and restless heart. She dressed herself hastily, crept down stairs,
passed the death-chamber, and stole out of the quiet house. She turned
away from the still sleeping village and walked towards the open
country. She went a long way without knowing it. The sun had risen high
when she bethought herself to turn. As she came back along the
brightening highway, and drew near home, she saw a tall figure standing
beneath the budding trees of the garden, hesitating, apparently, whether
to open the gate. Lizzie came upon him almost before he had seen her.
Bruce's first movement was to put out his hands, as any lover might; but
as Lizzie raised her veil, he dropped them.

"Yes, Mr. Bruce," said Lizzie, "I'll give you my hand once more,--in
farewell."

"Elizabeth!" cried Bruce, half stupefied, "in God's name, what do you
mean by these crazy speeches?"

"I mean well. I mean kindly and humanely to you. And I mean justice to
my old--old love."

She went to him, took his listless hand, without looking into his wild,
smitten face, shook it passionately, and then, wrenching her own from
his grasp, opened the gate and let it swing behind her.

"No! no! no!" she almost shrieked, turning about in the path. "I forbid
you to follow me!"

But for all that, he went in.

THE FROZEN HARBOR.

When Winter encamps on our borders,
And dips his white beard in the rills,
And lays his shield over highway, and field,
And pitches his tents on the hills,--
In the wan light I wake, and see on the lake,
Like a glove by the night-winds blown,
With fingers that crook up creek and brook,
His shining gauntlet thrown.

Then over the lonely harbor,
In the quiet and deadly cold
Of a single night, when only the bright,
Cold constellations behold,
Without trestle or beam, without mortise or seam,
It swiftly and silently spread
A bridge as of steel, which a Titan's heel
In the early light might tread.

Where Morning over the waters
Her web of splendor spun,
Till the wave, all a-twinkle with ripple and wrinkle,
Hung shimmering in the sun,--
Where the liquid lip at the breast of the ship
Whispered and laughed and kissed,
And the long, dark streamer of smoke from the steamer
Trailed off in the rose-tinted mist,--

Now all