l! Matter and spirit--earth and
heaven--have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses!
You have earned the right to laugh."

These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her
eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that
purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how
barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed
forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their
happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble and
anxiety that he could by no means account for.

"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she.

"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"

"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, "you
have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so
high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could
offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"

Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of
life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union
with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark--that
sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the parting
breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her
soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight.
Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the
gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the
immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands
the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a
profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which
would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the
celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed
to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in
eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.

YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN

Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem
village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to
exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was
aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the
wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman
Brown.

"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, w