dashed against it, the reins snapped off, and part of them left in his bruised and bleeding hands. Genevieve's low prayer for help was answered. The fearless young man had taken advantage of this momentary checking. He leaped forward and flung himself at the head of the nearest horse, holding on with an iron grasp, though he was dragged forward and his feet scarcely touched the pavement.

Genevieve could hear his low soothing talk to the horses, and felt hopeful that he would conquer them. The street being a private one, was fortunately clear of vehicles. A stout policeman ahead saw the catastrophe, and planted himself in a position to seize the off-horse.

By this time Genevieve had recovered coolness. She rose to her feet, carefully turned the door-handle, and was ready to spring out at the first prudent opportunity. To her intense relief, this last measure was needless. Between their united efforts the terrified horses were pulled up, and stood panting and trembling, but submissive to restraint, while Genevieve threw open the door and sprang out. She came around hastily to the young man, who still stood beside the near horse.

"O sir, I hope you are not hurt! How can I thank you for your heroism ?" said she, her sweet voice all tremulous with emotion.

Both the young gentleman and the policeman bowed as respectfully as they would have done had it been one of the royal princesses.

Surpassingly fair indeed was that sweet white face looking forth from the mourning bonnet and crape mantling veil. What a soulful eye it was which turned to them in such almost solemn gratitude. Was it marvellous the rippling gold-brown hair seemed to Philip Leigh like a halo above the broad full forehead?

Philip turned to the policeman.

"You will look after the horses; I will see the young lady to Mr. Merton's house. She is a guest there. I think the creatures are manageable now."

"If they are not, here's a crowd coming; no fear of them now."

Philip Leigh turned with his pleasant smile, though his face was very pale. 66 Now, Miss-"}

"My name is Genevieve Grey," said the girl, quietly.

Genevieve

He bowed gallantly, and did not say what he thought about a certain famous poem.

"Well, Miss Grey, if you will accept such a dilapidated escort, I shall be happy to see you safely to the house from which you were so unceremoniously taken."

"It is through Heaven's mercy, and your bravery, that I am able to return in safety," said she, a slow tear slipping over the long silky eyelash. "I am afraid I cannot thank you suitably, that I shall never be able to repay you. But I shall never forget it. I shall always pray Heaven to give you the reward I cannot.”

There was a simple childlike gravity in her look and tone, and words inexpressibly attractive to Philip Leigh.

"What a wonderful little creature! She is as exquisite and dainty as a fairy, as naive and simple-hearted as a nun. Who can she be ?" thought Philip, the idea of the expected "young woman" never once occurring to him.

They found a crowd around the injured coachman. Among them was Richard Merton, who came hurrying toward them with a singularly agitated face.

"Phil," said he, "you deserve a good scolding; but I am so thankful to see you safe, I cannot find heart to give it to you. How could you be so reckless? Think what might have happened! The ladies are nearly frantic; go into the house and satisfy them that you are safe."

Philip looked at him in astonishment, and answered, a little sharply:

"What would you have me do? Stand like a blockhead and see the young lady borne to destruction ?"

"O Miss Grey! I forgot all about her. I hope you are not hurt, Miss Grey. Pray let us get in out of the street. I sent two or three servants around the square to head off the horses."

He led the way up the steps, and flung open the parlor door.

Annabel sprang up from the velvet lounge where she had flung herself in tearful suspense.

"O Philip, you are safe! you are not hurt! Those terrible horses! O Philip, how could you be so reckless ?"

She had seized both his hands while she spoke. Mrs. Merton also came forward, and in as much agitation as her languid stateliness would allow, expressed her re

lief at his safety. Just across the threshold stood Genevieve, looking toward them timidly, with just the first quivering of wistful distress about her lips. No one looked at her, no one thought of her; not the first word of welcome had been spoken, Philip saw that grieved look cross her face, and bit his lips angrily.

"Really, good folks, this indeed is much ado about nothing. You see I am not killed nor maimed. I must admit that I should not repent the proceeding even if the last had happened, since I have been fortunate enough to save the young lady from disaster."

As he spoke, chivalrous Philip made a step forward toward Genevieve, shaking off Annabel's hand. He began some sort of speech, but the words died off his lips, his step wavered, his lip grew deathly pale, and he fell forward at her feet in a dead faint.

"O Philip's hurt! Philip is dead!" cried Annabel, wringing her hands wildly.

Her mother rang the bell hastily. Mr. Merton knelt down and lifted up the prostrate figure.

Genevieve's quick eye perceived the goblet of water standing upon the tray near the door. She brought it speedily, but yet without any seeming effort, bent down and sprinkled his face, and then calmly loosened his silk cravat.

The servants were despatched in a dozen different directions, upon a dozen incoherent errands.

"It is only a faint. Coming into the warm air after such exertions caused it," said Genevieve's soothing voice, in answer to Annabel's hysterical alarm. "I fear, though, that wrist was paining him severely. See how it is swollen !"

"Only a faint!" exclaimed Annabel, indignantly, for the first time appearing to notice her. "He risked his precious life for such as you, and this is all the gratitude he gets!"

"I am sorry. I did not mean to offend you," meekly replied Genevieve, generously refusing to be angry with one so overwhelmed with agitation and excitement. "No one can be more conscious than I of the debt I owe him. I thought to soothe your alarm."

"It is of no consequence what you thought. If it had not been for you, it 14

would not have happened!" was the ungracious reply.

Genevieve turned away in silence. If she had known where to go, she would have left the room. No one had offered her a seat, and she stood silently by the door, wondering rather ruefully if this was the affectionate reception she had expected.

Philip revived under the vigorous efforts of Jean, Mr. Merton's valet. His slowly unclosing eyes fell upon the still quiet figure by the door.

"What a sweet saint she would make! I would fight with lions and dragons to save her again!" The tone was dreamy and rambling. "Coleridge must have seen just such a lovely young creature when he wrote the song. How glad I am I stopped the horses."

He closed his eyes, sighed heavily, and opening them again, was quite himself. "What is the matter?" asked Philip, raising himself on his elbow, and looking bewilderedly around.

"You fainted. You were more hurt than you would allow," said his guardian, assisting him to rise.

"Take care; my wrists are tender. This right one stings me like a million gnats. Halloo, doctor! have they sent for you? Don't you make me out anything serious, for I wont have it."

The last of his speech was addressed to the learned physician who came tiptoeing into the room.

"Ah, Leigh, what's all this? Making a hero of yourself? As if you were not petted enough already by the ladies, you handsome young scapegrace! O Miss

Annabel!"

"O doctor, do see if his arms are to be set, or amputated, or anything horrible!" replied Annabel, seizing upon a gold vinaigrette and applying it to her aristocratic

nose.

The physician quietly tore open the broadcloth sleeves, and unbuttoned the linen wristbands.

"A pretty tough pull for the muscles, Leigh; you wont pull an oar or touch a cue for a good month. The right is dislo cated. No wonder you fainted; a pretty hard strain on the nerves for an idle young fellow. Mrs. Merton, I think we'll order a warm room at once, and take him in before we commence our pleasant little treatment. Jean, you'll help me get him there.

Don't waste your strength in resisting, my gallant patient; you have no idea how used up you'll be by to-morrow."

"Stop this horrible pain in my arm, and you may do what you have a mind. Miss Grey, don't look so distressed, I beg of you. Why are you standing all this time? You have borne your share of excitement, and need rest. Annabel, I wish you would give some of the compassion wasted upon me, to this young lady."

While he was saying this he was carried from the room.

Mrs. Merton rose from her easy-chair with stately chilling courtesy, and rang the bell for the twentieth time. As the servant came, she said to Genevieve:

"Miss Grey, you will no doubt be glad to retire to your chamber. I dare say you are tired. Jane, show this person to the room prepared this morning on the servants' floor."

Richard Merton heard, and made an interposing gesture, but a look on his wife's face checked the words he would have spoken.

When the door had safely closed behind poor Genevieve, the lady turned to her husband with chilling hauteur.

"I must say, Richard, this is exceedingly unaccountable conduct-so unlike your usual sagacity."

"What do you refer to, my love ?" answered he, faintly.

"This girl-introducing her here just now; it is so extremely injudicious."

"I could not help it. She was left by Captain Alick's will to my care. It would be scandalous in me to refuse the trust, while accepting his whole fortune."

"Then you had better have left her there, and paid her board in some quiet family. I positively cannot have her here." "But, my dear Annabel, if not my word, my honor is pledged. She must remain, unless she prefers to go."

"She shall soon do that, then," said Mrs. Merton, with a cold glitter in her hitherto placid and dreamy eye.

"I don't see your objection. You will find her quite accomplished, and can make her extremely useful."

"Richard Merton, I wonder at your stupidity! You, who pique yourself upon sharpness of vision!" replied she, bluntly. "She's just the sort of girl to catch the interest of a romantic young man like Philip.

Although we have always tacitly taken it for granted, you know very well that Philip's engagement to Annabel is not a settled thing.'

"You don't mean anything so absurd as that Philip would prefer this nameless, portionless girl to our beautiful Annabel ?" demanded the Honorable Richard, aghast at the new idea of another danger connected with this troublesome girl looming up in his path.

"I do mean it!" answered Mrs. Merton, rather sharply. "Not that I concede to her attractions beyond my daughter's; but that she is new, while he has been Annabel's playfellow from childhood. The girl must go away, and she shall."

Which speech having been given in a most unusually spirited tone, the lady sank back into her chair, quite exhausted with so much excitement.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

MASCULINE DISADVANTAGES. Some one has been writing on masculine disadvantages, and points to the experience of a schoolboy as illustrative of the fact. "Can he," says this writer, "dodge his calculus by complaining of a sick headache, and breakfasting on toast and tea in bed? Can he slide over his untranslated Virgil by putting on a new coat, his most bewitching cravat, and curling his hair, and looking down when the grumpy old professor growls at him. Can tearful eyes and quivering lips, and a sob or two condone in his case for a forbidden correspondence? Then look at the partiality shown the sweet girl graduates.' The reporters rhapsodize over their 'gracefulness,' their 'queenliness,' their musical voices,' and give a reportorial part or two to their inaudible little platitudes; and in the next day's paper figure some bonmots from their sparkling essays. Nobody dilates on the 'majesty,' the 'kingliness,' the 'Apollo-like charms' of the young gentlemen graduates. They stand up there and bravely address the audience, conscious all the time, to the very centre of their beings, that their hands are big and red, that there is one lock of their hair that will stick up, and that those coat sleeves will pull up."

Never wait for a thing to turn up. Go and turn it up yourself. It takes less time, and is sure to be done.

JOSIE RAYMOND was in her own cosy little room, with its bright anthracite fire, and all its dainty belongings, so well adjusted to her own bright dainty little self, walking with restless feet from window to window, and starting nervously every time the bell rang. It was the afternoon preceding the first ball of the season, and Jo was waiting for the bouquet and card she had felt so sure Guy Fulton would send her. For what would the ball be to her without him? And the reason of her impatience was that the hands of the little bronze clock on her mantel, and also those of her watch, were rapidly nearing the hour when she must answer a note from another gentleman, received that afternoon, and she did so hope Guy's would come in time for her to answer that in the negative. Naughty in Josie, wasn't it? I know her rule should have been "first come first served," but you see it was a half understood thing between them that Guy should attend her to this ball, and she didn't want to go with any one else, because-I might as well confess it here, for you'll find it out for yourself if I don'tshe loved Guy Fulton.

While she walked in her impatience there came the sound of a clear voice in the hall below, "Up stairs, did you say, Mrs. Raymond? Yes ma'am, I know the way." And the tap of tiny boot heels on the stairway.

Jo opened the door, and was caught in the arms of a very pretty girl of about her own age-her "most intimate friend," in schoolgirl fashion.

"Jo Raymond, you dear precious child! I've been nearly crazy to see you! Who's going with you to the ball? Guy Fulton, of course, though; he gives nobody else a chance. O, your dress! Isn't it lovely ?" Jo's cheeks burned, and she spoke pettishly:

"Do sit down, Nell Fisher! My head aches bad enough now."

"Why, Jo!" And the black eyes opened wide in amazement. "What's the matter with you? You shan't be cross with me. Poor head!"

The laughing girl pulled her friend down to a seat beside her on the rug, and took the golden head, now in a sadly tumbled condition, in her lap, smoothing it while she talked with deft gentle fingers, in great contrast to the vehemence of her tongue.

"Let me see your card. Do you knowof course you do, though-who that very handsome lady is who is visiting Guy's sister? She is just splendid, and dresses 80 handsomely! She and Guy were at the lecture last night. By the by, why were not you there? Fred Converse asked about you, and May said—”

"I declare I believe what Frank says about your tongue, Nell," said Josie, springing to her feet. "Keep it still a moment, can't you, while I answer this note? The boy will be here in a moment now."

"Let me see first," said Irrepressible, catching the card as it fell. "Fred Converse, as I'm a sinner! Where's Guy? O, I guess he'll be escort for his sister's visitor! You ought to have seen them last night, Jo! They look splendidly together. May said it must be the lady we heard Guy was engaged to last summer."

But Jo had gone to the window with her writing-desk, and with trembling fingers was inditing the note that accepted Fred's company for the evening. When it was gone, she came back to Nell with a lovely color in her cheeks and her big blue eyes dancing. Only outside glitter, little Josie ! A certain little heart we know of is heavy with grief and jealousy. Yes, for the first time, that foul fiend has entered the pure depths and is troubling its placid waters.

"If you aint in any better humor, Jo, than you were when I came, just say so, and I'll go," said Nell, independently.

"Nonsense, Nell! The idea of my being in a bad humor with you!" And the really penitent girl put her arms about her friend and kissed her lovingly. Sit down and

tell me about the lecture."

There was an hour's chat over the fire between the two friends, than whom more perfect opposites could not be found. Our Jo was a tiny creature, with great blue eyes that could be wistful and tender, or

laughing and defiant at will; with hair like sunshine, which, in defiance of fashion, she wore au naturelle, in burnished waves of gold to the slender waist; a firm rosy mouth, neither too small nor too large, and cheeks like rose leaves. "Willful, petted, spoiled and fast," she was called by those who envied her. "Pretty, charming, independent, and perhaps a little too wild," by those who knew and loved her. There were very few who knew all the depths of her nature. Perhaps not even her proud indulgent mother, whose idol she was. No one understood her better than wild rattling Nell Fisher, with her flashing black eyes and reckless saucy tongue, her tall graceful figure and brilliant face, with its crown of lustrous black hair, which always went naturally into the prevailing fashion, no matter what it was. She, who was the envy of all her young girl friends for her wealth and beautywho said and did things that not another girl in her set would have dared; who, in spite of all, had a great, warm, tender heart, and a soul as pure as the lilies she often wore in her hair. She it was to whom Jo had hitherto opened every chamber in her girlish heart, and whom she loved as she would have loved a sister had God given her one. And Nell, whose heart, her numerous lovers said, was as hard as the pavement her pretty feet disdained, loved Josie with all the love she would have given the father, mother, brothers and sisters God had taken away from her. They were inseparable, and hitherto one had not had a thought she did not share with the other. But this eve, some way, Josie could not tell Nell her trouble. They talked of all things under the sun but this, and when Nell rose to leave Jo congratulated herself upon having kept her secret well. She did not dream that all Nell's idle talk had not been without its object, that she knew her secret and meant to give her timely warning.

Josie refused dinner, and dressed for the ball in a whirl of emotion. One moment she would think she could not go, then she would resolve that not a gayer, seemingly happier girl should be in Mrs. May's drawing-rooms that night than herself. Her mother came to the door several times to see if her darling needed her assistance; but Josie did not dare show her her tearstained face, and for once did not open the

You see, this was Jo's first fight with trouble, and she felt a kind of selfish pleasure in having it all to herself. For a year now Guy Fulton had been her "all in all." Ever since her seventeenth birthnight, when she stood with uncertain feet upon the threshold of this new world of gayety. Frank, her only brother, though older than she, was still in college, and Guy had been her constant attendant everywhere. Until to-night she could not remember an occasion since her "coming out" that he had not been with her, "liege servant and true" to an always capricious, sometimes tyrannical mistress. True, he had never really spoken one word of love. But what need has love of words? In her heart she felt that he loved her, and so gave in return her own, without doubt or question. Is it wonder that this sudden absence, without warning or word, made her heart ache?

At last her dressing was over, and she stood before the mirror for the last look girls deem so necessary. The rich blue silk which, when she had purchased it, he had said just "matched her eyes," fell softly to her feet, and lay in shining folds upon the floor behind her, and the lace that was draped above it was not whiter than the neck and arms that were clasped with serpents of turquoise and pearl; over all fell that glorious veil of golden hair, undecked, and needing no adornment. Never had she been more beautiful in the eyes of her worshipping mother and brother than to-night. They knew not what emotion gave the velvet cheek a so much richer bloom, or made the blue eyes so brilliant. They could not know how strongly and bitterly the heart that had been so light and careless throbbed beneath its folds of silk and lace.

"A royal blooming it is, my Blossom," said Frank, catching her in his arms as she glided down the stairs, and carrying her in triumph into the room of their almost invalid mother. "Behold, mamma! The butterfly has emerged from the chrysalis, and deigns to rest a few moments in your quiet bower before seeking more congenial companionship."

The mother kissed the sweet face held