ps that the
hope which now illumines me is gone, it will continue to burn on in my
breast, shedding light upon a way that can never seem dark while that
glow rests upon it." And bowing with the ceremonious politeness our
positions demanded, I held out my hand. "One clasp to encourage me," I
entreated.

It seemed as if she did not comprehend. "You are going to give up music,
and for--for--"

"You?" said I. "Yes, don't forbid me," I implored; "it is too late."

Like a lovely image of blushing girlhood turned by a lightning flash
into marble, she paused, pallid and breathless where she was, gazing
upon me with eyes that burned deeper and deeper as the full
comprehension of all that this implied gradually forced itself upon her
mind.

"You make a chaos of my little world," she murmured at length.

"No," said I, "_your_ world is untouched. If it should never be my good
fortune to enter it, you are not to grieve. You are free, Miss Preston,
free as this sunshiny air we breathe; I alone am bound, and that because
I must be whether I will or no."

Then I saw the woman I had worshipped in this young fair girl shine
fully and fairly upon me. Drawing herself up, she looked me in the face
and calmly laid her hand in mine. "I am young," said she, "and do not
know what may be right to say to one so generous and so kind. But this
much I can promise, that whether or not I am ever able to duly reward
you for what you undertake, I will at least make it the study of my life
never to prove unworthy of so much trust and devotion."

And with the last lingering look natural to a parting for years, we
separated then and there, and the crowd came between us, and the Sunday
bells rang on, and what was so vividly real to us at the moment, became
in remembrance more like the mist and shadow of a dream.

VII.

MRS. SYLVESTER.

Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that
romances are more amusing than history.

--CHAMFORT.

"He draweth out the thread of his verbosity, finer than the
staple of his argument."

--LOVES LABOR LOST.

Young Mandeville having finished his story, looked at his uncle. He
found him sitting in an attitude of extreme absorption, his right arm
stretched before him on the table, his face bent thoughtfully downwards
and clouded with that deep melancholy that seemed its most natural
expression, "He has not heard me," was the young man's first mortifying
ref