was not, however, singular. Many more times than once, I have seen it happen that one mortal has been subject to one Hope, not always, by any means, drawn upon him by any agency of his own, but unaccountably falling upon him again and again, and on every side, until her work on him was done, or until he had passed beyond our ken.

After Nelly's marriage I saw very little of her. She had a standing invitation to Mr. Wardour's; but as her husband had not her uncle's selfrestraint, it could hardly be pleasant to her to bring them often into one another's company. She had a child every year; and every year, on an average, lost one. Every year I made and sent her some little contribution to her nursery wardrobe; and every one was acknowledged by a sweet little grateful note, but always by a short one. Once she wrote, "My husband desires me to save my strength from letterwriting for more important duties."

About six years after her marriage, Mr. Wardour had some business in the State of New York, and determined to take her parsonage in his way, and see for himself how she was.

she is hardly to be reckoned upon from day to day. Either one, of two or three things that are likely to happen, would carry her off directly."

He went up first to Nelly; and I turned into the parlor, where I saw old Mr. Wardour moving restlessly about the room, with the most perturbed expression I ever saw upon his venerable face. He scarcely greeted me.

"I did not know of dear Nelly's being here till the moment before I started to come and see her," said I. "How did you find Mr. Blight?"

He stopped short in front of me. "I found him a brute !" This from Mr. Wardour! I suppose I started; for he added, “A beast, I repeat! God defend you, my dear, from such a one!” He resumed his walk up and down the room, and actually moaned as he walked. "No mercy on the helpless! No fidelity to such a trust! Poor child! Poor child! How shall I ever answer it to her mother, if I meet her in the other world?"

"She came the day before yesterday. I am afraid she is very ill. She wants to see you."

I excused myself in a moment to Miss Dudley, took my bonnet, shawl, and gloves in my hands, and ran out again and into the chaise. "You will make her better, cannot you?"

He shook his head. "The case has been running on too long; it is too complicated; the blood is hopelessly depraved. She is rallying from the fatigue of the journey, and a little revived by change of scene and air; but

I did. But they told me she almost broke her heart before, when he left her, — and what could I do? I would always have tried to give her a happy home. I didn't want my little girl to leave me. But when she wished to go, I straitened myself in my old age, - I did, more than once, — to keep her, and therefore him, in comfort and plenty."

"How glad she must have been to see you!"

"More glad than he was," said Mr. Wardour, striving after a calmer strain. "I found him up in the parlor with some other fellows, red and fat, eating

a dinner fit for an alderman, and her looking just ready to die, down with a maid-of-all-work in a hot, close, dark basement kitchen, half lying in a wooden chair tilted back against the wall, seeing that the dishes were served up to please him."

There

"What did he say?" "He said I exaggerated. was n't a drop of anything stronger than Seltzer or Vichy water in either of his own wine-glasses; and he was only making himself all things to all men to the Bishop and some leading members of his congregation, that it was important for him to gain an influence over. I asked him if it was n't important for him to take a little care of his wife. He answered, 'My parish first, then my family.' He said it in his vainglorious way, as if he was used to being admired for saying it!" Mr. Wardour looked as if he would have sneered at that, if he had only known how to sneer. "I never, before that day," he went on, "interfered between man and wife; but I could n't help asking him if Nelly was n't a member of his parish, and if there was any other member of it that he was married to. I asked him, too, if St. Paul did not say, 'He who provideth not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' He said, I misapplied the text utterly. I don't know; he ought to; but there he was tricked out to the merest fopperies of his sect and profession, and she scarcely had clothes for the journey!"

Here I was called up stairs; and, seeing that he had in a measure eased his mind, I left him.

Nelly was sitting up in her old pleasant chamber, and in her old place in the easy-chair, but looking paler in her white wrapper than I ever saw her before. The old wistfulness had passed from her face. There was that change in its expression which is often, if not always, a sign of sickness unto death, as if another, an angel, were looking through the familiar features. There was an unearthly calm about her. I

took her outstretched hand and kissed her forehead. She clasped me in her arms. A sweet-looking elderly woman, who was waiting upon her as I entered, set a stand with a glass of water, a fan, a cologne-bottle, and a hand-bell upon it, at her side, and gently left us together.

"Dear Nelly! I have only just heard of your being here. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing, dearest, but come and see me. I wanted only to thank you for what you have done, and to do what I could to repay you. The peace you brought me here went with me to my other home. It never left me in solitude or sickness or sorrow. It does not leave me now. But, O Katy, I have thought of you so often, and been so anxious about you! You used to advise me. I am in some ways the most experienced now. I longed so to have a chance to say to you, O Katy, you are disinterested and devoted. Nobody knows that better than I. But you have a high spirit. Ordinary married life would be such a sad trial to you, perhaps a snare ! Katy, do be careful how-whom you marry. course you can't have everything you might fancy, all together, in a husband. You can't have perfection ever, anywhere in this world. But let it be somebody whom you have known not only long, but well, somebody whom you won't have to be always adapting yourself to, — somebody who is adapted to you already." She paused for breath, exhausted by her own haste and earnestness.

Of

She smiled like a seraph: "Only because you all thought more of my pleasure than your own, I believe. But, Katy, I did not speak of disappointment, did I? It was a trial to me, to be sure, to be obliged to give up visiting and helping the poor. With all the illnesses that you know I had, and the care of a household besides, I could do very little of that kind; and then I used to think of a text you marked for

How could

me once, 'The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord; but she that is married careth for the things of the world,' and so forth. But I do hope you will not think I meant to imply any disappointment in Mr. Blight. That would be very wrong. He is a good man, -a better man in some respects even than when you knew him last; and he says he has loved me only more and more every year. His theory is, that people are never the worse for doing their duty"; (a very true theory, was my internal comment; but, like many another true theory, capable, most unhappily, of many a false application;) "and," continued Nelly, "he always acts up to it himself. I have known him rise literally from a sick-bed to go to an ordination. But he did not know I was ill. he? I did not know it myself. I thought I was merely run down, as I have often been, only a little more so. The springs are apt to be rather trying in Duykinck. But Uncle Wardour has some experience; because, when poor people come to his shop for medicine, he often goes to visit the sick persons at their homes, and see if there is not something else they need. When he told Mr. Blight how ill he thought I was, Mr. Blight was alarmed, and made no objection to my coming home for a good long visit and rest. Dr. Physick has sent me such a dear, good nurse! Uncle Wardour brings me fruit, and lemonade, and everything I like, before I have time to recollect how refreshing it used to be. Even puss remembers me. See, she comes and sits at my feet, to purr me to sleep, for the sake of old times. It is so delicious to be at home, and at rest, and taken care of!"

I fanned her gently, but did not talk much for fear of fatiguing her.

After a little she resumed, with almost an arch look," That did not sound like what I used to say when I sat here, did it ? "

Then more gravely, but very sweetly and softly, she went on at intervals: "I think I was not born for earthly happiness. Some people would

tell me, I suppose, that I ought to receive all the sufferings of the last six years as a judgment upon me for craving it as I did. I do not feel them to be so, except that perhaps my constitution never quite recovered from the exhaustion I brought upon myself by the idle pining out of which you rescued me. But our Heavenly Father called me away from that by a very tender and welcome messenger. It was heartily repented of—I hope atoned for-long before my marriage. I was sorry for Mr. Blight's leaving me; but, I think, quite submissive and resigned. No; a mother will not punish her young child if, when she would carry it away from the soap-bubbles with which its brothers and sisters are entertaining themselves, it stops its tears and cries, and only turns its little longing eyes and hands towards the lovely rainbow balls it wants to play with. If she carries the baby back, and lets it see and feel that the beautiful vision is a thing that only vanishes in its grasp, I think she does it in pure love, that her poor little nursling may not go away with its heart aching for a great possible pleasure unenjoyed, but can be put to sleep at the right time, contented and grateful, — as I shall."

Her nurse returned. I rose to go. She did not try to detain me, but said, with a cheerful, loving look, “When shall you come and see me again?” "To-morrow?"

"Do," she answered; but before the morrow, one of the "two or three things" happened, and she was "put to sleep at the right time" for her, I cannot doubt; and when I did "come and see her again,” she was in her coffin, waiting for the old driver of the same hearse in which we rode together when she rode before. Nelly, I believe that, of those two heart-sick girls, the lot fell to you to be borne into heaven in triumph, a glorified saint! . . . .

Mr. Blight was at the funeral, and came to see me afterwards. I liked him better than I expected ever to like him, because, for the time being, he

appeared humbled by his grief, even to the point of making no parade of his humiliation; and because for the first time I found, as Nelly seemed to think before, that he really had a heart.

CHAPTER XIX.

MISS DUDLEY took from me half my sorrow by her sympathizing tenderness, and soon had a new joy to share with me.

One still, sunny afternoon, early in the summer, I was soothing myself by a saunter up and down the beautiful old-fashioned garden, with its three straight gravel-walks rimmed with box, flanked by beds teeming with the richest luxuriance of old-fashioned flowers, and parted by lawns studded with fruittrees, when I heard her voice calling my name. I turned and hastened to

her.

66

Katharine," cried she out of breath, smiling through tears, and taking both. my hands, "congratulate me, and condole with me! I have gained two nephews, or lost two nieces!"

"Who? Who?" cried I.
"Guess; of course you can."
"Herman Arden, for one."
"No. Try once more."

I was very sorry then; but I have lived to see, in that as well as other things, the vanity of human wishes. Not even Bernard Temple could be more saintly than the younger Arden was; but the glory of martyrdom is too sad a glory for us to desire to see either of our household sunbeams quenched in it. "I do not know who else is quite good enough, unless it might be, indeed, Mr. Bernard Temple; but he is a clergyman."

-

on 'Change. Now you shall hear. Bernard can maintain Rose very well; or he should not have her, and I believe would not. He is not a person to take upon himself obligations which he has no means to discharge. Those two Temples are no common young men, as you will see when you have seen a little more of them. They were sons of my brother's favorite Professor at Cambridge; and he has known them nearly all their lives. Almost from the cradle up, it was Bernard's ruling passion to be a clergyman, and Arthur's to be a statesman. Their father encouraged them. Their mother, a shrewd, hard-working, homespun woman, used to say: If you are content to live single, boys, do as you like, a single man can live very well on much less than half as much as a double, or triple, or quadruple man; but if you mean to be married, I can tell you from experience, a young family needs a good many other things besides speeches and sermons; and if you want, as I should hope you did, to preach fearless sermons, and make honest speeches, remember what poor Richard says, It's hard for an empty bag to stand upright.' They hit upon a compromise, if that can be called a compromise which sacrifices nothing. They went from college into such safe business as they could find, with the settled purpose of securing, if possible, an 'independence,' and of thus securing their independence of action in what they held to be the highest departments of human action. They have proved as fortunate as they were honest and able, and won what makes, with their little patrimony, not wealth, to be sure, but a competence. In the mean time, they have been studying their professions in their leisure time all their lives; and perhaps they will be none the worse fitted to guide their fellow-men in secular and sacred matters, for having known the world by toiling in it, and temptation by withstanding it. You scarcely know Arthur, I believe; but my brother does not consider him inferior to Bernard, and considers scarce

ly any one of his age Bernard's superior. He says that Arthur is filling a most important place in the State legislature, and likely soon to be sent to Washington. Bernard has just been telling us, that he has received a unanimous call to our church here. Rose will live at the pretty little parsonage all the year round."

wards granted me appear a separate boon. It has gently broken to me the sentence of death. It has enabled me to teach many of my habitual thoughts and hopes to make their home in heaven. I endeavored before, indeed, to send them onward to pioneer me there; but it was more difficult until they had the goad of an apparent doom

"O, did I not say? She has the other Temple, of course. As usual, they have everything alike.' My brother has given her a piece of land to build upon, just beyond our hedge. She is to pass her summers here. Are you not quite satisfied now, Katharine? We have always been on our guard, as you must have seen, against pampering the young people; and the girls have every prospect of an income sufficient, if not for luxury, for every reasonable purpose of health, peace, taste, and charity."

"I will be both satisfied and gratified, dearest mistress, if Mr. Bernard is as good and charming as he looks and seems, and Mr. Arthur as he looks,

- for I have not yet seen enough of him to know how he seems, and if they are not too old, after having time to do and learn so much."

on.

"As for that, we are all moving

Bernard is thirty, and Arthur but thirty-two. Our small children are twenty-one; and Paul encourages them with the assurance that they will soon be older.'" Miss Dudley paused. Her face grew more and more gravely bright, like the sunset, as we walked. She passed her arm round my waist, and spoke again: "Katharine, now, at last, I feel as I have never been able quite to feel before, as if I were prepared, when my time comes, to say, — from my full heart to say, 'It is enough; O Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.' It might seem that, as I was not to die in my illness, eight or nine years ago, it was a superfluous hardship to me to be informed of my danger. It was an unspeakable blessing, even if a blessing in disguise! It made every day after

trast between leaving my family situated as I should leave it now, and as I must have done if I had left it then, would be alone enough to warm my death-bed with a glow of thankfulness. Now I should not leave my brother desolate. A band of noble and dutiful young men and women would cluster round him, vying with each other to comfort and cheer him. Rose and Lily have grown up under my own eye, more than to fulfil my fondest hopes. Keeping all her graceful fancy, one of them has safely learned, at length, the difference between fact and fable, and the other changed her natural impetuosity into self-control within and generous energy without. I should, if I died today, leave one of them—with her lofty enthusiasm, her grand, high views, and wide sympathies -a heroine at a hero's side, and the other a little ministering angel, hovering round a reverent, grateful saint!" She paused again, and smiled half tenderly, half playfully: "My jurisprudent, not otherwise very prudent Paul? Whether he is to be chief-justice, or what he is to be, I do not yet know; but I need not. He is safely over the quicksands of his teens. I can trust Paul. O Katharine, mark my words! It is but a dangerous heresy to believe that youth is the only season in which happiness can find us out. Many lives grow richer and richer, and brighter and brighter, as they go on from youth to age. So it has been with mine. My treasure, so may it be with yours!"

We turned back from the end of the garden at the foot of the hill, and saw the lovers and Paul entering the opposite gate, and coming towards us. As we met the foremost pair, Bernard of