my poems together,"-and here she drew forth from a paper a large, thin manuscript, bound in crimson velvet," and think of publishing them in a volume. Now, would you do me the favor to look them over, and give me your candid opinion, whether they are worth publishing? I should value your advice so highly!"

This simultaneous appeal to his vanity and his gallantry from a fair young girl, standing on the verge of that broad, dangerous ocean, in which so many have perished, and looking wistfully over its flashing waters to the shores of the green Isle of Palms, such an appeal, from such a person, it was impossible for Mr. Churchill to resist. He made, however, a faint show of resistance, a feeble grasping after some excuse for refusal, and then yielded. He received from Clarissa's delicate, trembling hand the precious volume, and from her eyes a still more precious look of thanks, and then said,

"What name do you propose to give the volume?"

"Symphonies of the Soul, and other Poems," said the young lady; "and, if you like them, and it would not be asking too much, I should be delighted to have you write a Preface to introduce the work to the public. The publisher says it would increase the sale very considerably."

"Ah, the publisher! yes, but that is not very complimentary to yourself," suggested Mr. Churchill. "I can already see your Poems rebelling against the intrusion of my Preface, and rising like so many nuns in a convent to expel the audacious foot that has dared to invade their sacred precints."

But it was all in vain, this pale effort at pleasantry. Objection was useless; and the soft-hearted schoolmaster a second time yielded gracefully to his fate, and promised the Preface. The young lady took her leave with a profusion of thanks and blushes; and the dainty manuscript, with its delicate chirography and crimson cover, remained in the hands of Mr. Churchill, who gazed at it less as a Paradise of Dainty Devices than as a deed or mortgage of so many precious hours of his own scanty inheritance of time.

Afterwards, when he complained a little of this to his wife, who, during the interview, had peeped in at the door, and, seeing how he was occupied, had immediately withdrawn, — she said that nobody was to blame but himself; that he should learn to say "No!" and not do just as every romantic girl from the Academy wanted him to do; adding, as a final aggravation and climax of reproof, that she really believed he never would, and never meant to, begin his Romance!

NOT long afterwards, Kavanagh and Mr. Churchill took a stroll together across the fields, and down green lanes, walking all the bright, brief afternoon. From the summit of the hill, beside the old windmill, they saw the sun set; and, opposite, the full moon rise, dewy, large, and red. As they descended, they felt the heavy dampness of the air, like water, rising to meet them, - bathing with coolness first their feet, then their hands, then their faces, till they were submerged in that sea of dew. As they skirted the woodland on their homeward way, trampling the golden leaves underfoot, they heard voices at a distance, singing; and then saw the lights of the camp-meeting gleaming through trees, and, drawing nearer, distinguished a portion of the hymn :

"Don't hear the Lord a-coming
you

To the old churchyards,

With a band of music,

With a band of music,

With a band of music,
Sounding through the air?"

These words, at once awful and ludicrous, rose on the still twilight air from a hundred voices, thrilling with emotion, and from as many beating, fluttering, struggling hearts. High above them all was heard one voice, clear and musical as a clarion.

"I know that voice," said Mr. Churchill ; "it is Elder Evans's."

"Ah!" exclaimed Kavanagh, - for only the impression of awe was upon him, "he never acted in a deeper tragedy than this! How terrible it is! Let us pass on."

They hurried away, Kavanagh trembling in every fibre. Silently they walked, the music fading into softest vibrations behind them.

"How strange is this fanaticism!" at length said Mr. Churchill, rather as a relief to his own thoughts, than for the purpose of reviving the conversation. "These people really

believe that the end of the world is close at hand."

"And to thousands," answered Kavanagh,

"this is no fiction, no illusion of an overheated imagination. To-day, to-morrow, every day, to thousands, the end of the world is close at hand. And why should we fear it? We walk here as it were in the crypts of life; at times, from the great cathedral above us, we can hear the organ and the chanting of the choir; we see the light stream through the open door, when some friend goes up before us; and shall we fear to mount the narrow staircase of the grave, that leads us out of this uncertain twilight into the serene mansions of the life eternal?"

They reached the wooden bridge over the river, which the moonlight converted into a river of light. Their footsteps sounded on the planks; they passed without perceiving a female figure that stood in the shadow below on the brink of the stream, watching wistfully the steady flow of the current. It was Lucy! Her bonnet and shawl were lying at her feet; and when they had passed, she waded far out into the shallow stream, laid herself gently down in its deeper waves, and floated slowly away into the moonlight, among the golden leaves that were faded and fallen like herself, among the water-lilies, whose fragrant white blossoms had been broken off and polluted long ago. Without a struggle, without a sigh, without a sound, she floated downward, downward, and silently sank into the silent river. Far off, faint, and indistinct, was heard the startling hymn, with its wild and peculiar melody,—

"Oh, there will be mourning, mourning, mourning, mourning,

Oh, there will be mourning, at the judgment-seat of Christ!"

Kavanagh's heart was full of sadness. He left Mr. Churchill at his door, and proceeded homeward. On passing his church, he could not resist the temptation to go in. He climbed to his chamber in the tower, lighted by the moon. He sat for a long time gazing from the window, and watching a distant and feeble candle, whose rays scarcely reached him

whom we brilliant moon-lighted air. Gentier thoughts she over time an invisine presence wotnej Lim; an invisible hand was laid upon Le Leal and the trode and unrest of his spirit were changed to peace.

» Anever me, thou mysterious future!" ex

claimed he tell me, shall these things be according to my desires?“

And the mysterious future, interpreted by those desires, replied. —

→Soon thou shalt know all. It shall be well with thee!"

Os the following morning. Kavanagh sat as usual in his study in the tower. No traces were left of the heaviness and sadness of the preceding night. It was a bright, warm morning: and the window, open towards the south, let in the genial sunshine. The odor of decaying leaves scented the air; far off flashed the hazy river. Kavanagh's heart, however, was not at rest. At times he rose from his books, and paced up and down his little study; then took up his hat as if to go out; then laid it down again, and again resumed his books. At length he arose, and, leaning on the window-sill, gazed for a long time on the scene before him. Some thought was laboring in his bosom, some doubt or fear, which alternated with hope, but thwarted any fixed resolve.

Ah, how pleasantly that fair autumnal landscape smiled upon him! The great golden elms that marked the line of the village street, and under whose shadows no beggars sat; the air of comfort and plenty, of neatness, thrift, and equality, visible everywhere; and from far-off farms the sound of flails, beating the triumphal march of Ceres through the land;

these were the sights and sounds that greeted him as he looked. Silently the yellow leaves fell upon the graves in the churchyard; and the dew glistened in the grass, which was still long and green.

Presently his attention was arrested by a dove, pursued by a little king-bird, who constantly endeavored to soar above it, in order to attack it at greater advantage. The flight of the birds, thus shooting through the air at arrowy speed, was beautiful. When they were opposite the tower, the dove suddenly wheeled, and darted in at the open window, while the pursuer held on his way with a long sweep, and was out of sight in a moment.

At the first glance, Kavanagh recognized the dove, which lay panting on the floor. It was the same he had seen Cecilia buy of the little man in gray. He took it in his hands. Its heart was beating violently. About its neck was a silken band; beneath its wing a billet, upon which was a single word, "Cecilia." The bird, then, was on its way to Cecilia Vaughan. He hailed the omen as auspicious, and. immediately closing the window, seated himself at his table, and wrote a few hurried words, which, being carefully folded and sealed, he fastened to the band, and then hastily, as if afraid his purpose might be changed by delay, opened the window and set the bird at liberty. It sailed once or twice round the tower, apparently uncertain and bewildered, or still in fear of its pursuer. Then, instead of holding its way over the fields to Cecilia Vaughan, it darted over the roofs of the village, and alighted at the window of Alice Archer.

Having written that morning to Cecilia something urgent and confidential, she was already waiting the answer; and, not doubting that the bird had brought it, she hastily untied the silken band, and, without looking at the superscription, opened the first note that fell on the table. It was very brief; only a few lines, and not a name mentioned in it; an impulse, an ejaculation of love; every line quivering with electric fire, every word a pulsation of the writer's heart. It was signed "Arthur Kavanagh."

Overwhelmed by the suddenness and violence of her emotions, Alice sat for a long time motionless, holding the open letter in her hand. Then she read it again, and then relapsed into her dream of joy and wonder. It would be difficult to say which of the two emotions was the greater, her joy that her prayer for love

should be answered, and so answered, -her wonder that Kavanagh should have selected her! In the tumult of her sensations, and hardly conscious of what she was doing, she folded the note and replaced it in its envelope. Then, for the first time, her eye fell on the superscription. It was "Cecilia Vaughan." Alice fainted.

On recovering her senses, her first act was one of heroism. She sealed the note, attached it to the neck of the pigeon, and sent the messenger rejoicing on his journey. Then her feelings had way, and she wept long and bitterly. Then, with a desperate calmness, she reproved her own weakness and selfishness, and felt that she ought to rejoice in the happiness of her friend, and sacrifice her affection, even her life, to her. Her heart exculpated Kavanagh from all blame. He had not deluded her; she had deluded herself. She alone was in fault; and in deep humiliation, with wounded pride and wounded love, and utter self-abasement, she bowed her head and prayed for consolation and fortitude.

One consolation she already had. The secret was her own. She had not revealed it even to Cecilia. Kavanagh did not suspect it. Public curiosity, public pity, she would not have to undergo.

She was resigned. She made the heroic sacrifice of self, leaving her sorrow to the great physician, Time, the nurse of care, the healer

of all smarts, the soother and consoler of all sorrows. And, thenceforward, she became unto Kavanagh what the moon is to the sun, forever following, forever separated, forever sad!

As a traveller, about to start upon his journey, resolved and yet irresolute, watches the clouds, and notes the struggle between the sunshine and the showers, and says, "It will be fair; I will go," and again says, "Ah, no, not yet; the rain is not yet over," so at this same hour sat Cecilia Vaughan, resolved and yet irresolute, longing to depart upon the fair journey before her, and yet lingering on the paternal threshold, as if she wished both to stay and to go, seeing the sky was not without its clouds, nor the road without its dangers.

It was a beautiful picture, as she sat there with sweet perplexity in her face, and above it an immortal radiance streaming from her brow. She was like Guercino's Sibyl, with the scroll of fate and the uplifted pen; and the scroll she held contained but three words, three words that controlled the destiny of a man, and, by their soft impulsion, directed forevermore the current of his thoughts. They were,

"Come to me!"

The magic syllables brought Kavanagh to her side. The full soul is silent. Only the rising and falling tides rush murmuring through their channels. So sat the lovers, hand in hand: but for a long time neither spake, neither had need of speech!

IN the afternoon, Cecilia went to communicate the news to Alice with her own lips, thinking it too important to be intrusted to the wings of the carrier-pigeon. As she entered the door, the cheerful doctor was coming out; but this was no unusual apparition, and excited no alarm. Mrs. Archer, too, according to custom, was sitting in the little parlor with her decrepit old neighbor, who seemed almost to have taken up her abode under that roof, so many hours of every day did she pass there. With a light, elastic step, Cecilia bounded up to Alice's room. She found her reclining in her large chair, flushed and excited. Sitting down by her side, and taking both her hands, she said, with great emotion in the tones of her voice, "Dearest Alice, I have brought you some news that I am sure will make you well. For my sake, you will be no longer ill when you hear it. I am engaged to Mr. Kavanagh!”

Alice feigned no surprise at this announcement. She returned the warm pressure of Cecilia's hand, and, looking affectionately in her face, said very calmly,

"I knew it would be so. I knew that he loved you, and that you would love him."

"How could I help it?" said Cecilia, her eyes beaming with dewy light; "could any one help loving him?”

"No," answered Alice, throwing her arms around Cecilia's neck, and laying her head upon her shoulder; "at least no one whom he loved. But when did this happen? Tell me all about it, dearest!"

Cecilia was surprised, and perhaps a little hurt, at the quiet, almost impassive manner in which her friend received this great intelligence. She had expected exclamations of wonder and delight, and such a glow of excitement as that with which she was sure she should have hailed the announcement of Alice's engagement. But this momentary annoyance was soon swept away by the tide of her own joyous sensations as she proceded to recall to the recollection of her friend the thousand little circumstances that had marked the progress of

her love and Kavanagh's; things which she must have noticed, which she could not have forgotten; with questions interspersed at intervals, such as, “Do you recollect when?" and "I am sure you have not forgotten, have you?" and dreamy little pauses of silence, and intercalated sighs, she related to her, also, the perilous adventure of the carrier-pigeon; how it had taken refuge in Kavanagh's tower, and had been the bearer of his letter, as well as her own. When she had finished, she felt her bosom wet with the tears of Alice, who was suffering martyrdom on that soft breast, so full of happiness. Tears of bitterness, — tears of blood! And Cecilia, in the exultant temper of her soul at the moment, thought them tears of joy, and pressed Alice closer to her heart, and kissed and caressed her.

"Ah, how very happy you are, Cecilia!" at length sighed the poor sufferer, in that slightly querulous tone to which Cecilia was not unaccustomed; "how very happy you are, and how very wretched am I! You have all the joy of life, I all its loneliness. How little you will think of me now! How little How little you will need me! I shall be nothing to you, you will forget me."

"Never, dearest!" exclaimed Cecilia, with much warmth and sincerity. "I shall love you only the more. We shall both love you.

You will now have two friends instead of one."

"Yes; but both will not be equal to the one I lose. No, Cecilia; let us not make to ourselves any illusions. I do not. You cannot now be with me so much and so often as you have been. Even if you were, your thoughts would be elsewhere. Ah, I have lost my friend, when most I needed her!"

Cecilia protested ardently and earnestly, and dilated with eagerness on her little plan of life, in which their romantic friendship was to gain only new strength and beauty from the more romantic love. She was interrupted by a knock at the street door; on hearing which, she paused a moment, and then said,

"It is Arthur. He was to call for me."