she. "Nothing, only some
initials which were rather indistinct."

"Some modest bard," remarked the major, as they retraced their steps to
the carriage, "who, as Byron says,

'Like many a bard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own.'

This poet sings of bridges, but does not sign his name to his songs."

Florence was silent during their drive to the hotel. Niagara seemed
suddenly to have lost its interest for her, and after a few more days
they departed, with young Williams and his lovable little sister in
their company.

CHAPTER XXX.

"O, why should Heaven smile
On deeds of darkness--plots of sin and crime?
I cannot tell thee why,
But this I know, she often doeth so."

While the bright summer passed over Wimbledon, matters apparently moved
on as usual in the quiet little village.

The Woman's Rights Reform lagged somewhat with the thermometer at
eighty, as is frequently the case with benevolent organizations; perhaps
because their zealous warmth, when increased by a high-temperatured
atmosphere, mounts to spirits' boil and evaporates.

Mrs. Pimble and Mrs. Lawson sat on their respective piazzas, in nankin
pants and open waistcoats, and flapped great peacocks' tails to and fro,
to cool their feverish, perspiring brows.

Mr. Pimble, in his wife's sun-bonnet, clappered his heelless slippers at
mid-day along the garden paths, in the vain hope of warming his laggard
blood to a brisker flow. Mrs. Dr. Simcoe was still harassed by those
snarling, ill-tempered brats, "Simcoe's children," who seemed
contagiously disposed to all the "ills which flesh is heir to," as if to
test the skill and try the patience of the lady M. D.

One of the most brilliant moons that ever showered its silvery light
over a flower-covered earth, rode in the liquid zenith of a summer
heaven. The splendid grounds of Major Howard's princely mansion never
slept, in their luxuriant beauty, beneath a lovelier sky. Thick trailed
the heavy vines in their leafy exuberance of foliage over arbors and
green-houses. Whole parterres of brilliant flowers loaded the air with
fragrance, and nightingales sang among the boughs of the lindens that
waved against the wrought-iron palings of the terraces.

Was there aught save the breath of love and peace abroad on the air
to-night? Dared a vile vulture of sin to brush with pollutin