aching gaze into the cloudless
azure of the southern sky, every deep-drawn breath of the sunny
southern air.

Mrs. Smith grew daily stronger, more like herself. Time, and care, and
ceaseless affection, had wrought their beneficent work, and mind and
body were recovering a healthier tone; her interest revived, and her
hold on life renewed itself. As the weeks drifted into months, her
condition became so materially improved that the anxiety of her family
subsided and left room for other thoughts and interests; and finally
her health was sufficiently re-established to admit of her husband's
leaving them in the picturesque French village, while he returned to
America.

In the quaint little village, time glided softly by on golden-slippered
feet, the peaceful monotony broken only by little jaunts to neighboring
hamlets, the arrival and departure of the mails, and long, blissful
sails on the deep blue sea. Blanche's sweet face and gentle ways
speedily won the simple hearts of the fisher-folks, and her letters
were filled with anecdotes of her village _proteges_, and their
picturesque life. And a steamer would have been necessary to convey
away the floral and aquatic treasures heaped on her by the kindly
peasants and their little brown-legged children.

The family would winter abroad, and return to America in the spring for
the wedding, which Blanche had decided should take place in June. June
was a lovely month, she thought, past all the uncertainty of spring,
and with the glory of summer beyond it.

Some weeks after General Smith's return to New York, Nesbit Thorne
joined his relatives in the pretty Mediterranean village. The general
had found his nephew so changed, so worn in mind and body, that the
kindly old soldier became seriously alarmed, and insisted on trying the
remedy uppermost in his mind. He had come, with unswerving faith, to
regard the south of France as an unfailing sanitarium, and he took his
nephew promptly in hand, and gave him no peace until he consented to go
abroad, never leaving him until he had secured his stateroom, and seen
him embarked on his voyage.

Thorne went indifferently enough, partly to escape his uncle's
persistence, and partly because all places were alike, all equally
wearisome to him. He cherished also a hope of hearing, through
Blanche, some tidings of the woman who still possessed him like a spell.

When he first joined them, Norma's waning hopes flickered up, in a
fina