wards her with the tread of a
man. She started to her feet, while her heart gave a sudden bound. As
she turned, her eyes fell upon the form of her long absent lover. For
an instant, perhaps longer, she looked into his face to read it as the
index of his heart, and then she lay quivering on his bosom.

A few weeks later, Clara became the bride of Charles Fisher, and left
with him for the South. Neither of them ever knew the authors of the
wrong they had suffered. It was better, perhaps, that in this they
should remain ignorant.

So much "_for the fun of it_."

FORGIVE AND FORGET.

Forgive and forget! Why the world would be lonely,
The garden a wilderness left to deform,
If the flowers but remembered the chilling winds only,
And the fields gave no verdure for fear of the storm! C. SWAIN.

"FORGIVE and forget, Herbert."

"No, I will neither forgive nor forget. The thing was done wantonly. I
never pass by a direct insult."

"Admit that it was done wantonly; but this I doubt. He is an old
friend, long tried and long esteemed. He could not have been himself;
he must have been carried away by some wrong impulse, when he offended
you."

"He acted from something in him, of course."

"We all do so. Nothing external can touch our volition, unless there be
that within which corresponds to the impelling agent."

"Very well. This conduct of Marston shows him to be internally unworthy
of my regard; shows him to possess a trait of character that unfits him
to be my friend. I have been mistaken in him. He now stands revealed in
his true light, a mean-spirited fellow."

"Don't use such language towards Marston, my young friend."

"He has no principle. He wished to render me ridiculous and do me harm.
A man who could act as he did, cannot possess a spark of honourable
feeling. Does a good fountain send forth bitter waters? Is not a tree
known by its fruit? When a man seeks wantonly to insult and injure me,
I discover that he wants principle, and wish to have no more to do with
him."

"Perhaps," said the individual with whom Herbert Arnest was conversing,
"it is your wounded self-love, more than your high regard for
principle, that speaks so eloquently against Marston."

"Mr. Welford!"

"Nay, my young friend, do not be offended with me. Your years, twice
told, would not make mine. I have lived long enough to get a cool head
and understand something of the springs of action that lie in the human
heart.