ast Side, stood the form of a woman. She had
paused in her rush down the narrow street to listen to the music,
perhaps, or to catch a glimpse of the light that now and then burst from
the widely swinging doors as they opened and shut upon some tardy
worshipper.

She was tall and fearful looking; her face, when the light struck it,
was seared and desperate; gloom and desolation were written on all the
lines of her rigid but wasted form, and when she shuddered under the
gale, it was with that force and abandon to which passion lends its aid,
and in which the soul proclaims its doom.

Suddenly the doors before her swung wide and the preacher's voice was
heard: "Love God and you will love your fellow-men. Love your fellow-men
and you best show your love to God."

She heard, started, and the charm was broken. "Love!" she echoed with a
horrible laugh; "there is no love in heaven or on earth!"

And she swept by, and the winds followed and the darkness swallowed her
up like a gulf.

II.

A DISCUSSION.

"Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to
be so." RAY'S PROVERBS.

"And you are actually in earnest?"

"I am."

The first speaker, a fine-looking gentleman of some forty years of age,
drummed with his fingers on the table before him and eyed the face of
the young man who had repeated this assent so emphatically, with a
certain close scrutiny indicative of surprise.

"It is an unlooked-for move for you to make," he remarked at length.
"Your success as a pianist has been so decided, I confess I do not
understand why you should desire to abandon a profession that in five
years' time has procured you both competence and a very enviable
reputation--for the doubtful prospects of Wall Street, too!" he added
with a deep and thoughtful frown that gave still further impressiveness
to his strongly marked features.

The young man with a sweep of his eye over the luxurious apartment in
which they sat, shrugged his shoulders with that fine and nonchalant
grace which was one of his chief characteristics.

"With such a pilot as yourself, I ought to be able to steer clear of the
shoals," said he, a frank smile illumining a face that was rather
interesting than handsome.

The elder gentleman did not return the smile. Instead of that he
remained gazing at the ample coal-fire that burned in the grate before
him with a look that to the young musician was simply inexplicable. "You
see the ship