to Mrs. Dalrymple's extreme satisfaction her son and her wealthy guest were straightway warm friends.

'Only a few days after Frank's appearance, Mrs. Dalrymple sprained her ankle. The accident happened the day before a contemplated excursion. On the following morning she asked, hesitatingly, when the master of the house came to inquire into her trouble:

"Cousin Whart, I wonder if you would do something to oblige me ever so much? You see, though I am quite comfortable, I can't stir from this sofa, and to-day there's the excursion. It is so awkward for three horseback riders to keep together, and I'm loath to have the expedition spoiled. If you wouldn't be too much annoyed to accompany them—” "Bless your heart, Hortense, I'll go; don't fret about that," answered Cousin Whart, with more alacrity than Mrs. Dalrymple suspected.

You are so good! It will just save every thing from being spoiled," answered she, gratefully.

And Cousin Whart rushed away, hunted up a riding-suit, and Mrs. Dalrymple, stretching her neck from the sofa, had the felicity of watching the party cantering out the gate, Frank and Miss Aubrey leading the way, her cousin and Lúcia following.

This move seemed to have broken the ice for the master of the house. In future he was one of the group wherever it might be found. He came out of the dreamy haze with which the abstracted scholar had surrounded himself, and proved a wonderfully gifted and entertaining companion. Mrs. Dalrymple watched serenely the growing earnestness upon her son's face, and the rich crimson which gathered on Sibyl Aubrey's cheek, and the starry splendor deepening in her beautiful eyes. The keen-witted widow read its meaning.

"Ah ha, my lovely heiress! this summer holiday, which was to be so free from flirtation, is teaching you a better lesson. Only love itself lights such glintings in the eyes, and sends such rich overflow of crimsou from the heart to the cheek. My spells are working marvellously. It is so good of Cousin Whart to keep Lucia Gramont from meddling!"

And so Mrs. Dalrymple bore her temporary disability with admirable good-nature. She sent the young people away, if they sought to share her solitude, declaring she was never more comfortable in her life.

Poor Mrs. Green could not repeat that assertion from personal experience. It was a bewildering and vexatious time for her, especially since her master has entered into the gay doings of the guests, and she was not positive half the time, that she was veritably in possession of her right mind.

Miss Sibyl Aubrey and young Frank Dalrymple were really very warm friends. They held frequent and prolonged conversations in the garden, from which the gentleman always returned looking brightened and encouraged, and the lady smiling and gracious. Mrs. Dalrymple watched them from her window one afternoon, and her heart beat high with assured hope. She looked up archly into Frank's face, as he came to say good-night.

"Well, Frank, have you nothing to say to me?"

"Why yes, mother; I said good-night." "Ah yes; but is there nothing else-no piece of welcome information? I hoped to hear it to-night!"

The significance of look and tone could not be mistaken. The young gentleman blushed to his very temples.

"Why, mother, have you guessed? do you know?" he stammered.

"As if, because a certain roguish little archer has blinded your eyes, mine must also be dull! Of course, any one with half an eye can see that you are in love, and that she is quite as deep in the grand passion.”

"And you approve ?" he asked, hastily. "Of course I do, approve heartily. Why else do you think I got her here ?"

Frank kissed both her hands in an unusual ardor of filial attachment, and went away to dream of his lady-love.

Meantime, out in the arbor there was a still more refreshing scene. Miss Sibyl Aubrey was too restless to think of sleep, and leaving her friend in the chamber, she strolled off into the moon-lighted garden, and presently ensconced herself into a seat in a rosedraperied arbor, watching the silvery clouds trooping across the deep-tinted sky, and listening to the drowsy stir of whispering leaves, and the plaintive call of a night bird in the neighboring wood.

A crunching step on the gravel, the aroma of a fine cigar, and then a heavy sigh, gave her warning that the master of the place was possessed of a like restlessness, and a similar desire to be soothed and calmed by the wondrous spell of the night.

He came into the arbor and flung himself

upon the seat, before he was aware of her presence. Although Miss Aubrey's heart beat with sudden vehemence, she quietly drew aside her white drapery of flounced skirt, and said, calmly:

"So you have come to enjoy the moonlight also, Mr. Berne?"

He started nervously, and rose quickly from the seat, throwing away the cigar.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Sibyl; I had no idea the arbor had an occupant."

"Don't throw away your cigar. Out in this pure air, it could not offend the most fastidious. This moon is superb. I could not resist stealing away to enjoy it."

Wharton Berne sighed again, and then said, abruptly:

"I suppose you came to dream over sweet and delicious realities; but I hurried away to escape goading thoughts, dreary ghosts. This is indeed a lover's evening. From what Frank so incoherently muttered, as I intercepted him at his mother's door, I judge that we shall soon have cause to offer congratulations. Dear child, Heaven knows, I wish you all happiness!"

"Me? I scarcely understand you," said Miss Aubrey; and her voice took a little huskiness.

"Are we all mistaken? Do you not requite the young man's evidently sincere attachment ?"

"It is strange enough Frank could see beauty in any other where you were present," continued he, dreamily. It is all strange."

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Many men, many minds," answered she, lightly.

"And then most girls would be impressed with his gay manners, his ready grace, and fresh, young beauty."

"I never fancied young men," retorted Miss Aubrey, half resentfully, and then stopped short, as if conscious of some tacit confession.

"Sibyl Aubrey, you admitted that the moonlight had its spell. Call it that, if you think me mad, presumptuous, audacious; but tell me, could you fancy a man forever past the buoyancy of boyhood, a man grave, retiring, pain-worn, but whose whole heart goes out to you with a passionate devotion he believed lost to him forever?"

Her stately head was drooping to the clasping hands, he caught her agitated sob.

"Sibyl, sweet Siby!, you have come to me like an angel, waking from the black ashes of desolation a resurrected love. From the first moment I heard your voice, my heart stirred as beneath a potent spell. When you came, flame-wrapped, into my arms, it seemed my lost darling restored to me by Heaven's beneficent hand. O Sibyl, if I dared be so selfish as to ask you to brighten and bless my life-to give me the blessed privilege of watching over you, of smoothing all possible

"Now, indeed, you have made a capital blunder. Poor, dear Lucia! how her blue eyes would pale with tears, if your suspicion were true! But it is not. Frank loves Lucia. He made a confidant of me long ago."

Her companion drew one long, gasping breath. She could feel how it shook him, for he was leaning against the lattice on which her hand rested.

"O, I am so glad!"

"What delicate lines of shadowing there are yonder," observed Miss Aubrey. "There is truly a wondrous witchery in moonlight; but I am not sure it is wise to indulge in it. Now I think I will return to the house."

"Not quite yet-wait a moment," pleaded he. "As you say, the moonlight has a witchery of its own, and it will last for but so few nights, why not enjoy it? It is strange, after all, that it is not you."

She stood leaning against the arbor, not yet returning to her seat, nor rudely persisting in retreat.

O, if I dared!"

She drew away her hands, a glad smile flashing through the tears.

"And if you dare not ask me, sir, you will never receive your reply."

He caught the two white hands in his strong clasp, and his deep voice shook with the vibrating chords of hope and fear.

"Sibyl Aubrey, will you give to me the priceless gift I beg of you? Will you love me? Will you be my wife?"

"Mr. Berne, I will; and I never answered yes before with half the gladness, and trust, and deep content, with which I speak it now."

The moon alone should tell what followed as he drew her to him, exclaiming in the very words with which he had first addressed her: "O my darling! O my saint!"

Mrs. Dalrymple was able to walk without aid the next day, and she made her appearance in the parlor, to which the quartet had retreated after dinner, smiling and gracious.

Frank came forward with a bright smile.

"Just in time, dear mother. We ask for your congratulations upon the happiest consummation one could ask. If you do not object, we shall send an order to the nearest jeweller for a choice assortment of engagement rings. Do you need the explanation we have all been having?"

"Of course not," answered Mrs. Horter.se, triumphantly. "I am not so blind as that. I am very, very happy. I could not ask a dearer or more acceptable daughter-in-law."

She swept forward with a beaming glance toward Miss Aubrey; but Frank, taking Lucia by the hand, interrupted the movement.

"You see, my Lucia, your mother is ready to welcome you. Come, Mr. Berne-Cousin Whart, it is your turn."

Cousin Whart, happier than any crowned king or victor knight, led Sibyl Aubrey forward.

"I shall bless you to my latest day, Cousin Hortense, for bringing this dear guest to the house. Henceforth, she is its mistress."

Mrs. Dalrymple opened her eyes, staring from one couple to the other. There was such a choking, gasping suffocation at her throat, that she put up her hands and untied the lace bow of her cap.

"You understand, don't you?" repeated Cousin Whart. "Frank and Lucia are one happy couple, and Sibyl and myself another."

Mrs. Hortense conquered herself by one masterly effort. She swallowed down the

called up a tolerably good imitation of a happy sinile, and shook hands with them, one by one, offering her congratulations. She even kissed Lucia's blushing cheek, when she longed heartily to box her ears. But, as soon as possible, she got away and crept into her own room. Once there, she walked up to the full-length mirror, and glaring defiantly at the reflection there, she exclaimed, shaking her hand menacingly:

"So this is the result of your scheming! A pretty diplomat, indeed! You've just entangled your son with a girl not worth a shilling of her own! The very creature, I do believe, you took such pains to win him from while he was there at college. And you've cheated yourself nicely out of your home here. Cousin Whart married-how can you come here summer after summer? A pretty piece of diplomacy. Bal! No doubt they will seek your services at the foreign diplomatic office. O!"

And Mrs. Hortense sat down and had a good shower of angry tears, after which she retired to her couch, and sent down word to her dear friends and happy guests to excuse her absence, as her ankle was not quite so well."

"Lame, indeed!" she muttered again, pulling the coverlet over her face; "and lamer in diplomacy than in anything e'se. How I hate the word! Bah!"

The winding, widening stream of life Looks bright to us in gladsome youth, As joyously we sail along,

Safe-guided by the hand of truth. We pluck the flowers that lean above The silvery-spaugled, starry stream; We catch the bubbles rainbow-dyed,

And careless onward sail and dream.

But when we've gone far down the stream, And bright blue skies are clouded o'er; When time has mingled tears with joys,

And distant seems each flowery shore; When all around on rocky reefs

False lights of guile and sin are set; When tired sailors drop their oars,

And tears will come and vain regret;

Then glad we'd turn our barks about,
If downward tides were not so rude;
And struggling seek the calmer waves,
And olden, joyous solitude,

Where castles rose on every cloud,

And all the isles with gems were starred,
Where gates of wondrous, shining gold
The magic touch of youth unbarred.

Alas! no bark goes up time's stream,
But all are ceaseless sailing down;
The Fount of Youth was but a dream,
Where weak man thought his cares to drown;
To lay aside his joyless years,

And take up youth's sweet hopes once more, And gather love's bright flowers that grew Along the music-echoing shore.

But joy! when bars and breakers crossed,
We draw a-near the widening sea,-
When trembling hands lay down the oars,
And barks glide on with sails set free,-
Faith sees a beauteous land beyond,

A-blaze with sunset's golden gleam,
Then tired hearts would not turn back,
Nor sail again the rugged stream.

JACK MARTIN, or Major Martin, as we oungsters learned to call him, was a favored guest at my uncle's house, thirty years ago, and was the peculiar admiration of us juniors who were just sprouting into early manhood. He was the model of a well-preserved bachelor of fifty, tall and erect, with a fine military carriage of figure, long side-whiskers, which civilians had not then the audacity to wear, as now, a Wellington nose, an eye like a hawk, and a voice as rotund in its cadences as that of an Irish orator. He had retired from the British army, upon half pay, and, unlike most of such people, with a little money beside; and we used to think that there could be no handsomer style of a man than that of Major Martin, with his undress uniform, half covered over the breast with medals, sitting at the foot of my uncle's table, or leading some one of our many cousins through the contra-dance. He was the very beau ideal of manly politeness, and had a charming, easy way, that made him immensely popular with the ladies. I have

No

seen young fellows of five-and-twenty sulking against the wall, and watching with envy the major, as he promenaded the room with their lady-loves; and when it came to waltzing, everybody confessed that there was not his equal in the country. And then he was a rare conversationalist, and a captivating story-teller. I have seen men of large experience and remarkable adventure in the world, who became frightful bores the moment they opened their mouths to speak; but this was never so with Jack Martin. man nor woman ever coughed, or rattled the dishes, or began talking loudly to the host, when he commenced, "When I was a subaltern in the Blues," or "That reminds me of a funny thing that happened at Bombay," or "Just about a week after the battle of Waterloo, sir." There was always point to his jokes, and spirit in his adventures; and, indeed, in those lamented days of magnificent dinner-parties, when the youthful element was always largely represented, no man could safely pronounce his entertainment a success

in advance, who had not secured the presence of Jack Martin, beyond a peradventure. But, strangely enough, he lived and died a bachelor. All the women admired him, and I believe half of them loved him; and how it was that he had never married one of them, I could never clearly comprehend, until he told me himself. Some people said he was spoiled by flattery, and could never content himself with such a single devotion as a good husband must feel; others had it that he was a flirt, and liked to display his powers too well to fetter himself; and there were others who would say that the major had an early disappointment, and had long forsworn love and matrimony. There was some truth in this last theory, although it was true in a different sense than I had supposed before I had it from his own lips.

It was one lovely moonlight night in my seventeenth year, after the breaking up of a most pleasant party, that the major and myself were sitting out on the piazza. We had been talking upon indifferent things until he It his pipe for he had an old campaigner's love for the weed, and never used a cigar. Gradually he became thoughtful, and answered me with monosyllables, till I ceased to talk, and sat watching his handsome profile as the light of the moon outlined it against the wall. He smoked slowly, as one in a deep reverie, and when he hummed a verse of one of his own songs which he had sung to the company that evening, I knew he was thinking of something in the past.

"O yes, there's a memory long as the life, And dearer and sweeter 'tis growing,

Of eyes that will sadly look out from the strife, When battle's red current is flowing."

"Now, major," I broke out, "tell me a little about yourself. Do you know, we boys wonder and wonder why it is that you never married. I believe you could tell a story about it, if you chose. Will you ?”

He turned his head and looked at me with a look of quizzical gravity, which made me certain that I had touched him on a tender place. "Ned, you reprobate," he said, "what put that into your skull? Can't a man live to be half a century old without taking him a wife?"

“I never could," I answered, very emphatically. And with that he broke into one of his joyous, hearty bursts of merriment, such as often led the mirth of a whole drawingroom full.

"Well," he continued, "that's the difference between seventeen and fifty. Thirtythree years' experience, my lad, puts a very different complexion on a man's views; for, begad, I believe I thought very much as you do when I was a cornet, with just a faint promise of a moustache. But, now—” and the major twirled the ends of his luxuriant hirsute adornment-" now, love is a kind of a myth to me-except the love of my meerschaum; and I'm abundantly satisfied to kiss my pipe stem; that, and that only."

"But it wasn't always so," I persisted.

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"No, of course not. Hang it! I see you will have my story, and I can get rid of you best by telling it. The episode was rather a sad one to me; in fact, ludicrous as it was, in part, I believe I have never entirely recovered from it; and I don't remember ever telling a soul about it. Your question was making me serious, until you upset me with that quaint answer, which sounded so much like your father, that I feel like telling you what you want to know, if it's only in memory of the happy days he and I had together in the field and the saloon. I think he was with me when it happened; but it was nigh thirty years ago, and there's nobody this side the water who knows about it. So here it is: only, my boy, keep it to yourself till I'm dead and gone; for, after all, I think there's a sore spot yet in one corner of my heart, for the Mag Maxwell of thirty years ago-God bless her!"

I am not disobeying his injunction by telling it now; for he has been asleep two years, with such a redolent memory surviving him, as I hope to have when I have gone to my own rest. As he said, it is not much of a story; but it shows how a great, noble heart may be shipwrecked.

I was hardly twenty-one at the time, but was in a way for rapid advancement. I was the senior subaltern of the 7th Foot, and could reckon pretty confidently on a captaincy before the next Christmas. The regiment was at Malta then, and gloriously situated; very little duty to do, capital quarters, good society, and, best of all, a good prospect of enjoying it all for some time to come. Colonel Maxwell was a favorite at the war-office-a cousin, I believe, of the under secretary-and excepting in time of war, of course, his command could count on light duty and pleasant quarters. There are some unhappy corps in the service, or were then, against whom the