d this was
the anguish to which she had been brought. No, not even when mamma
died had she suffered as she was suffering now. She felt as if she had
lost him even as she had lost her. She did not believe in to-morrow:
it would never come. She would never be with him again as she had been
to-day. No self-reasoning, feebly aimed at, could calm her or convince
her of the folly of her fears. He had gone, she was left, and they
were parted for ever.

She sat by the window desolate, deserted, more alone than she had ever
been before, because she had lost more than she had ever either held
or lost before. The storm that was raging in the sky grew gradually
stronger and came still nearer, but she scarcely noticed it: it was
only as the symphony sounding in sad harmony with her unspoken wail.
Flash followed flash, swifter, nearer, more vivid; the thunder crashed
and roared as if it would have beaten the house to the ground and rent
the very earth whereon it stood; the rain fell in torrents that broke
the flowers like hail and ran in turbulent rivulets along the paths.
Never had there been such a furious tempest as this at North Aston
since the days of tradition. It made the people in the village below
quail and cry out that the day of judgment had come upon them: it made
Leam at last forget her sorrow and quail in her solitude as if her day
of judgment too had come upon her.

Then there came one awful flash that seemed to set the whole room on
fire; and as Leam started up, thinking that the place was indeed in
flames, her eyes fell on the Tables of the Ten Commandments given
her by madame; and there, in letters of blood that seemed to cry out
against her like a voice, she saw by the light of that accusing flash
those words of terrible significance to her:

THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER!

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

ROSE-MORALS.

I.--RED.

Would that my songs might be
What roses make by day and night---
Distillments of my clod of misery
Into delight.

Soul! could'st thou bare thy breast
As yon red rose, and dare the day,
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?
Say yea--say yea!

Ah, dear my Rose! good-bye!
The wind is up; so drift away.
That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,
I strive, I pray.

II.--WHITE.

Soul! get thee to the heart
Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there--
There breathe the meditations of thine art
Suffused