passed, both the young ladies had ceased to think or speak of him as the tailor, except now and then to wonder and conjecture what could have led him to select such an occupation.

But Dora was beginning to be very slow to speak of Mr. Armitage in any way, which was very singular, Bella thought, until a faint suspicion began to dawn upon her mind, which was strengthened one day by a remark of Mrs. Wingate's.

"Bella,” she said, "do you know I think Mr. Armitage is in love with Dora? and I am by no means sure that she does not return it. I hope it is so, for I like him very much, and I am sure, though we know so little about him, that he is perfectly unexceptionable."

Bella grew pale with dismay. Could it be possible that Dora was in love with the tailor? And would she think of marrying him? Would he presume to ask her to marry him? And Bella was not the only one who debated in her mind these questions. Poor little Dora was in a sad quandary. Vexed, and struggling constantly with herself, she could not help acknowledging that, in her secret heart, she thought more of, and cared more for, the tailor than-than for anybody else in the world! But she must not, she would not, be so foolish as to give way to such a feeling; she must never let him speak any words of love to her!

But, alas for Dora's resolution! out on the moonlit piazza, alone with Mr. Armitage, one night, before she had the slightest idea of what was coming, she found herself listening to a tender and passionate avowal of love. And when she would have repulsed him, her lips trembled so that she could not speak, and she stood, for a moment, flushing, and paling, and silent.

"You should never have spoken those words to me, Mr. Armitage," she said, faintly, at last. "It can never, never be!” "Because you can never love me?"

"No-no, perhaps not that," faltered Dora. "But-but your profession, your occupation is so-so objectionable."

It was well that Mr. Armitage turned his eyes away from Dora's at that moment, or the sparkle of mirth in them might have awakened a suspicion in her mind. But the next moment he was as grave as before.

"My occupation," he said, "is one which my father and my grandfather followed before me, and I have always considered it an honorable one; but I know that a prejudice

exists against it, and that, in the circle in which you move, a tailor is not considered a gentleman. But I have always had a hopeperhaps dream would be the fitter wordthat one day I should find one who would love me for myself; who would be content to accept even poverty and an humble station for my sake. I fancied that I had found that one, and my love blinded me, perhaps, to the great difference in our stations. O Miss Caswell-Dora-if you could only forget that difference, if you would give yourself to me, no woman was ever loved and cherished as I would love and cherish you! No rude winds should ever blow upon you, no care or sorrow that human power could arrest should ever reach you!"

The words were very low and tenderly spoken, and thrilled to Dora's very heart. Her impulse was to rush away from him to the very ends of the earth; if she stayed a moment longer, she felt that she should yield. "I cannot tell to-night-let me have time to think,” she murmured.

"But don't keep me in suspense any longer than you can help," he said, earnestly.

"In a day or two-in a few days, I will tell you." And Dora sprang away from him and ran up to her own room, where Bella was awaiting her. She rushed in without a word, and throwing herself on the bed, began to sob hysterically. Bella was at her side in an instant with ready sympathy.

"What is the matter, Dora?" she said.

"O, I can't tell you!" sobbed Dora. Bella was not without a suspicion of the truth, but she wisely held her peace. There was silence for the space of two or three minutes, and then Dora suddenly raised her head.

"I must tell you, Bella; I want somebody to advise me," she said.

"I am waiting, dear," said Bella, gently. Then there was another interval of silence, broken only by Dora's sobs.

"Bella," said she, at last, "if a person who was very much below you in station-in a very humble station indeed-loved you very much, and—and you loved him, what would you do?"

"I should marry him, I think," answered Bella, promptly. "But you needn't talk in that way, dear. I know, of course, that you mean Mr. Armitage-and a tailor isn't so very bad. Just think, there have been great men-"

merchant-tailor, and kept a large store, it wouldn't be so bad; but, O Bella, he sews himself, and works with a goo-goose!"

Bella's round, black eyes grew rounder and blacker.

"A what ?" she said.

"A goose," repeated Dora, with slight asperity in her tone. "Don't you know what that is? It is something that tailors use."

This was a little too much for Bella's gravity; she turned her head away to conceal the smile which she could not prevent, but Dora saw the motion and rose quickly, smoothing out her rumpled dress with an air of dignity. "I think you are unkind to laugh, Bella," she said, "though I know I am behaving in a very childish and ridiculous way."

Of course Bella was filled with instant contrition, and atoned for her fault by giving all the sympathizing counsel in her power to poor Dora, who wiped away her tears at length, and began to feel a little comforted.

In the meantime, in his own room, Mr. Armitage was perusing, with a very vexed face, a letter which he had just received. It was from Mr. Shelby Caswell, who requested his immediate presence at the summer resort among the mountains where he was staying, as he wished to see him on an urgent matter of business.

"If you haven't finished your masquerading yet," the letter said, " and are afraid Dora will think it strange that you should leave C

to go to another summer resort, you can let her think that you have gone back to 'your shop' in H-; and if you have got on far enough to propose a correspondence, as I should judge by your last letter you had, you can ask her to direct your letters to Hand Harry will send them to you.”

It was very annoying to be obliged to go away just at this time; but the business affair was very important, and if he didn't go Shelby might appear at C and ruin everything. Accordingly, a few moments after, a waiter brought a note to Dora, and in another half hour Mr. Armitage was in the cars whirling away from C.

His note to Dora was a very affecting one, judging, as Bella did, from Dora's appearance while reading it, closing with the information that he should be obliged to be away two weeks, and begging that she would not keep him in suspense that length of time, but would write to him and tell him her decision; three little words that he could think of

would be sufficient, he said; for he knew that, if she loved him, she would not let her pride stand between them forever.

After a week of doubt and indecision, Dora finally came to a conclusion, and Bella saw on her table one morning a dainty little envelop directed to Mr. Jacob F. Armitage.

"You see I am going to begin at once to try to get used to the name," she said, smiling faintly. “O if it were anything but Jacob!"

Master Harry Caswell had received instructions to go every day to the post-office, as soon as the mail came in, and inquire for letters for Mr. J. F. Armitage, lest the letter should fall into the hands of the other Mr. J. F. Armitage; but every day, even on the day when Dora had sent her letter, he went away empty-handed.

For, woful to relate, that delicate little epistle, in its perfumed, rustling, French envelop, which Dora, impelled by that mysterious evil genius who takes delight in ruffling the course of true love, had directed to Jacob Armitage, found its way into the dingy little receptacle for letters which graced the shop door of the bona fide tailor, the little, grayheaded old man who had threatened such dire vengeance against Harry Caswell when he received Dora's message that she wished to be troubled no more by him.

The little tailor's correspondence was not very extensive, and he turned Dora's letter over and over, with a puzzled look on his face, as he took it from the box. Then he carried it up stairs to the little room over the shop where his wife sat.

"Look a here, Clarindy," he said; "I've got a letter!"

"Bless us! who is it from?" exclaimed Mrs. "Clarindy."

The little man opened it slowly, as if impressed with a profound sense of the weighty responsibility of the undertaking.

"Read it out, man, an' let's hear it!" said his wife, impatiently.

He began to spell it out slowly and laboriously:

"DEAR MR. ARMITAGE,-I am willing-to accept poverty-and an humble-station for your sake. I will not-let my pride-separate us forever-though, even now-I cannot help

wishing that you had-chosen some-other profession-than that of a tailor." The little man's eyes opened very wide, and he looked into his wife's face with a comical look of surprise and consternation. "Pride and

prejudice have been conquered-by a feeling -deeper than themselves-and I am willing -if it will make any amends to you-for the scornful-and unkind-way in which I've often-treated you-to say those three words-which you asked me to-I love you.

"DORA CASWELL."

The climax was too much for the little tailor; it added the last feather's weight to his astonishment, which overcame him utterly. He sank down into a chair, and wiped his little bald head with his handkerchief.

"Bless my soul!" he ejaculated, at last; "Dora Caswell! That's Harry Caswell's cousin the young woman that was to pay my bill, and sent word how she didn't want no more trouble with me!"

Mrs. Clarindy's face was a study for a painter; amazement and wrath mingled in its expression.

"The impudent hussy! Loves you indeed, does she? Yes sir, that comes of your gallivantin' off alone to the city! Let me see her -let her tell me that she loves you!" And she shook her fist in the air, her eyes fairly blazing with anger.

"La, now, Clarindy, don't take on so!" said the tailor. "I never laid eyes on her, to my knowledge; but she's most likely seen me somewhere. If I were a young man, as I was once, it wouldn't be surprisin'; but—”

His wife was too much excited to hear anything that he said.

"Now, Jacob Armitage," she said, interrupting him, "I am agoin' to answer that letter myself. I'll give her a piece of my mind! Accep' a' humble station, will she? An' you a tryin' to palm yourself off for a widderer, as I make no doubt you did—”

"I tell ye I never see her!" said the little tailor, excitedly. "She must 'a' seen me unbeknownst to myself, and been attracted at once by my face or my fine figger."

But his wife's wrath was not to be diminished, and the next night Dora received a letter, written in a coarse, scrawling hand, to this effect:

"I take my pen in hand for to answer the imperdent letter that you rote my husban', an' to tell you that I am alive an' flourishin', an' you wont proberble have to accep' the 'umble stashun of bein' his wife rite away. I s'pose likely he represents himself a single man when he goes gallivantin' off, leavin' his lawful wife to home, but I'd have you understan' that sich is not the case, an' you better

"Things

Dora put her hand up to her head. "I don't know," she said, feebly. grow stranger and stranger, and I believe I am growing crazy!"

But poor Dora's grief and suspense were not destined to last long. The very next night the mail brought her a letter from Harry, and, with an instant presentiment that it contained some explanation of the mystery, she tore it open eagerly.

"Dear Dora," he wrote, "I've been standing by and seeing you deceived, and even helping to deceive you, for a long time, but now I see that it is beginning to get you into a fix, and when I think how many fixes you've helped me out of, I haven't the heart to do it any longer. Dora, the fact is, there are two Mr. J. F. Armitages, when they've been making you believe there was only one. Mr. Jacob F. Armitage is a little old man who keeps a tailor's shop here in H—; Mr. J. Frederick Armitage, who has been at Cwith you this summer, is a lawyer, and Shelby's particular friend. Shelby came home more than two months ago-I know you've received letters from him since then, which he pretended he enclosed in letters to father, and got him to direct so that you needn't think it strange that they were postmarked P; and one day, at our house, Mr. Armitage told us about calling on you, and the queer reception you gave him, giving him money and having him shown out before he could explain. (By the way, it was he that sent you back the money, not I.) Of course I understood at once that you mistook him for the tailor, and told him so, and then he said he wanted to try to get acquainted with you, allowing you to think him a tailor. So he made Shelby and me promise not to expose him, and-well, I suppose you know the rest better than I do. He has gone to Shelburne, where Shelby is now, instead of to H, as he let you suppose, and he wanted me to get a letter which was to come to the

post-office here, and forward it to him. As I didn't get any, I had a suspicion that it had fallen into the hands of the tailor, and went down to his shop this morning, to ask him about it, when, the moment I entered the shop, his wife began to tell me, in a great rage, about a love-letter which my cousin had written her husband! Of course I understood at once how matters stood, but I had the hardest work to convince the old woman that the letter was not intended for her husband; but she finally said 'ef there was a mistake, she hoped you'd excuse the letter she wrote you.' I tried to get the letter, but she said she had burned it. I'm very sorry that I had anything to do with this, Dora, for I think it was a very shabby trick, though I thought, at first, it would be only a good joke. I hope you'll forgive me, and believe me, as always, your affectionate cousin,

"HARRY."

Great was the excitement when the two young ladies perused this epistle. Dora was divided between indignation and delight, and it was difficult to tell which predominated.

But when, a few days later, Shelby and Mr. Armitage, learning from Harry that their plot was discovered, appeared in C, in a rather abashed and contrite frame of mind, Miss Dora was as dignified and stately as any tragedy queen. But I am obliged to confess that her dignity and stateliness were not very long-lived, and before many days passed, Mr. Armitage had the pleasure of hearing a repetition, in very faltering accents, of a portion of the contents of that letter which had fallen a victim to the wrath of the tailor's wife; and before the next summer came, Dora wore bridal white and orange blossoms, with Bella beside her, radiant in pink tarletan, and Mrs. Wingate in the background, serenely triumphant. And, as yet, Dora has never been sorry for the resolution that she made to sacrifice wealth and station for "love's sweet sake;" and I really think that she is sometimes sorry, in her foolish, romantic little soul, that her husband is not what she fancied him to be, that she might prove how contented and happy she could be with the "poverty" and the "humble station."

Down a dreary, dreary glen
Long I Nved, remote from men,
In a cell that had been graven,

By some hermit, in the stone
Where the owl, and bat, and raven,
Were my visitors alone.

Passing strange what there befell
Of an evening, as alone.

I was sitting by my cell:

Dear old times came back once more,The dear old times long, long since gone,— Plain as if I lived them o'er.

And, entranced, I fixed my eyes on,

Mid a sky of dusk and gray,-
Golden streaks in the horizon,
Harbingers of brighter day;
'Twas a moment's ease from care,
One when everything was fair-
Fair as to an infant's eyes
Dreams of late-lost paradise.

Then I raised my eyes up slowly,
And, O heavens! what did I see,
Like an angel pure and holy,
Coming down to visit me?

As the little path descended

Not right down, but strangely wended
In and out among the trees,
Was she lost or in my sight;
While the softly-swaying breeze,
Lifting up her golden hair,
In the mellow evening light,
Cast a halo round her head,

Such as saints are wont to wear.

Down she came the narrow way,
Where man's footsteps seldom stray,
Until by my side she rested,

Where we used to sit of old;
For it was the place we trysted,
Where our loves we first had told.

Sitting by her on the stone,
As I did in years agone,
Thus about our love I spoke,
While in mine her hand I held:
"Though the chain has long been broke,
Yet would I essay to weld;
Closer still the ends I'd bring
That were parted long in twain;
Making links together cling,
Making love complete again."

False I have been and untrue,
And the vows that once were spoken-
Vows of fealty to you-

I have trampled on and broken;
Yet from those I crave release,
Else no more for me is peace."
"Peace be yours forevermore,
All your vows I now forego;
Peace be yours," I gently said.
"What I've borne you did not know,
Or you could not have betrayed."

And she went into the wold,
Where lurked dangers manifold.
With the dark cloud overhead,
And the serpent 'neath her tread.
Till she faded from my sight
Upon her my eyes I kept,
Until hid by storms and night,
Then my happiness was o'er:
And I bent me down and wept,
As I never wept before.

Still, at times, a loving voice
Makes my longing heart rejoice,
And there comes a happy face,
That her beauty doth inherit,

Bringing gladness in the place.
But, alas! it is a spirit
Who is envious of me,
That I live remote from men,
That I live contentedly
Down a dreary, dreary glen,
Where she'll never come again.

"YES sir, you will indeed find a great change; Miss Mildred has improved very much."

"Indeed!" One might easily imagine that the speaker mentally added, "there was room enough for it," by the sarcastic tone in which the above was uttered, but he said nothing more, but tipped his chair back and puffed away, watching the vapory wreaths of smoke as they floated away, and cast a glance now and then toward Mrs. Haskell the housekeeper.

“Yes, Mr. Lucien, Miss Mildred is a fine young lady, pretty, amiable and accomplished." "Pshaw!"

"Dear me, he is just the strange creature that he was five years ago," thought Mrs.

Haskell. "Yes sir, she is indeed; you will be delighted to see how lovely she has grown. I will send her to you at once."

66

Well, she wishes me evidently to bear in mind that my protege has improved," thought Lucien Rushton, as the housekeeper left him. "It is very odd, but that little girl whom I left here five years ago, a little black-eyed elf in pinafores, somehow, or rather has entirely gone out of my recollection, yet she must be eighteen if she is a day, quite a young lady. I wonder what she is like! Like all her sex, sentimental, idle, silly, extravagant. Bah! I dread it."

"Mr. Rushton, Miss Mildred will see you in her parlor. This way please."

"Well, upon my word, matters have come