ed the keys to his
pocket.

Then he extinguished the lamp and sat down in the window-nook to his
watch of the stars.

But his thoughts were different from what they once were when he gazed
on their glistening faces.

His soul-pinions had kissed the earth, and become fouled by contact with
a grosser element; and heavy with a weltering weight of woe, that they
could not soar aloft and hover over the casements of angelic homes, to
rest at last on the glory-bright hills of heaven.

CHAPTER XVII.

"I only know their dream was vain,
And that they woke to find it past,
And when by chance they met again,
It was not as they parted last.
His was not faith that lightly dies;
For truth and love as clearly shone
In the blue heaven of his soft eyes
As the dark midnight of her own.
And therefore heaven alone can tell
What are his living visions now,
But hers--the eye can read too well
The language written on her brow."

PHEBE CAREY.

The yearly examination and exhibition of Cedar Hill Seminary was
approaching, and teachers and pupils were busied with preparations in
order to pass the ordeal creditably to themselves and to the
institution.

Prominent among the list of performers stood the name of Edgar
Lindenwood, often in juxtaposition with that of Florence Howard. Since
the scene in the hermit's hut, Edgar, as commanded by his uncle, had
studiously avoided Florence, and she, for a still longer period, had
evinced a certain distance and reserve toward him. Edgar's knowledge of
her father's dislike might be sufficient cause to part him from her, but
it could by no means justify his growing intercourse with Edith Malcome.

As the time approached for the exhibition, Florence asked her father's
permission to absent herself entirely and remain at home. Maj. Howard
thought she had better attend, as she had been to school several terms;
but she said she felt too languid to take part in the exercises, and
thus obtained the excuse of her indulgent father.

Edgar's quick, impassioned nature regarded her absence as a direct
insult to himself, for in all the parts assigned her, she would be
brought on the stage in company with him, and frequently obli