Romulus

But I was reminded that it was in a dream that Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and on awaking had recalled nothing of his experience, just as I should recall nothing of mine.

When will man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out the secrets of the universe.

“Do your people visit the Earth in the same manner?” I asked my companion.

“Certainly,” he replied; “but there we find no one able to recognize us and converse with us as I am conversing with you, although myself in the waking state.

You, as yet, lack the knowledge we possess of the spiritual side of the human nature which we share with you.

“ “That knowledge must have enabled you to learn much more of the Earth than we know of you,” I said.

“Indeed it has,” he replied.

“From visitors such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse constantly, we have acquired familiarity with your civilization, your history, your manners, and even your literature and languages.

Have you not noticed that I am talking with you in English, which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this planet?” “Among so many wonders I scarcely observed that,” I answered.

“For ages,” pursued my companion, “we have been waiting for you to improve your telescopes so as to approximate the power of ours, after which communication between the planets would be easily established.

The progress which you make is, however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet.

“ “Indeed, I fear you will have to,” I replied.

“Our opticians already talk of having reached the limits of their art.

” “Do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of petulance,” my companion resumed.

“The slowness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a disability so crushing that if we were in your place I fear we should sit down in utter despair.

” “To what disability do you refer?” I asked.

“You seem to be men like us.

” “And so we are,” was the reply, “save in one particular, but there the difference is tremendous.

Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of the faculty of foresight, without which we should think our other faculties well-nigh valueless.

” “Foresight!” I repeated.

“Certainly you cannot mean that it is given you to know the future?” “It is given not only to us,” was the answer, “but, so far as we know, to all other intelligent beings of the universe except yourselves.

Our positive knowledge extends only to our system of moons and planets and some of the nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own; but it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated.

One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which a rational existence may still be possible ought to suffice for the universe.

” “But no one can know the future except by inspiration of God,’9 I said.

“All our faculties are by inspiration of God,” was the reply, “but there is surely nothing in foresight to cause it to be so regarded more than any other.

Think a moment of the physical analogy of the case.

Your eyes are placed in the front of your heads.

You would deem it an odd mistake if they were placed behind.

That would appear to you an arrangement calculated to defeat their purpose.

Does it not seem equally rational that the mental vision should range forward, as it does with us, illuminating the path one is to take, rather than backward, as with you, revealing only the course you have already trodden, and therefore have no more concern with? But it is no doubt a merciful provision of Providence that renders you unable to realize the grotesqueness of your predicament, as it appears to us.

” “But the future is eternal!” I exclaimed.

“How can a finite mind grasp it?” “Our foreknowledge implies only human faculties,” was the reply.

“It is limited to our individual careers on this planet.

Each of us foresees the course of his own life, but not that of other lives, except so far as they are involved with his.

” “That such a power as you describe could be combined with merely human faculties is more than our philosophers have ever dared to dream,” I said.

“And yet who shall say, after all, that it is not in mercy that God has denied it to us? If it is a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one’s happiness, it must be most depressing to foresee one’s sorrows, failures, yes, and even one’s death.

For if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anticipate the hour and manner of your death,-is it not so?” “Most assuredly,” was the reply.

“Living would be a very precarious business, were we uninformed of its limit.

Your ignorance of the time of your death impresses us as one of the saddest features of your condition.

” “And by us,” I answered, “it is held to be one of the most merciful.

” “Foreknowledge of your death would not, indeed, prevent your dying once,” continued my companion, “but it would deliver you from the thousand deaths you suffer through uncertainty whether you can safely count on the passing day.

It is not the death you die, but these many deaths you do not die, which shadow your existence.

Poor blindfolded creatures that you are, cringing at every step in apprehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fall till old age, never raising a cup to your lips with the knowledge that you will live to quaff it, never sure that you will meet again the friend you part with for an hour, from whose hearts no happiness suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread, what idea can you form of the Godlike security with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of those we love! You have a saying on earth, ‘To-morrow belongs to God;’ but here to-morrow belongs to us, even as to-day.

To you, for some inscrutable purpose, He sees fit to dole out life moment by moment, with no assurance that each is not to be the last.

To us He gives a lifetime at once, fifty, sixty, seventy years,-a divine gift indeed.

A life such as yours would, I fear, seem of little value to us; for such a life, however long, is but a moment long, since that is all you can count on.

” “And yet,” I answered, “though knowledge of the duration of your lives may give you an enviable feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that not more than offset by the daily growing weight with which the expectation of the end, as it draws near, must press upon your minds?” “On the contrary,” was the response, “death, never an object of fear, as it draws nearer becomes more and more a matter of indifference to the moribund.

It is because you live in the past that death is grievous to you.

All your knowledge, all your affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, and on that account, as life lengthens, it strengthens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more precious possession.

We, on the contrary, despise the past, and never dwell upon it.

Memory with us, far from being the morbid and monstrous growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudimentary faculty.

We live wholly in the future and the present.

What with foretaste and actual taste, our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, are exhausted of interest by the time they are past.

The accumulated treasures of memory, which you relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss at all.

Our minds being fed wholly from the future, we think and feel only as we anticipate; and so, as the dying man’s future contracts, there is less and less about which he can occupy his thoughts.

His interest in life diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last death finds him with his mind a tabula rasa, as with you at birth.

In a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called on to give it up.

In dying he leaves nothing behind.

” “And the after-death,” I asked,-”is there no: fear of that?” “Surely,” was the reply, “it is not necessary for me to say that a fear which affects only the more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to us, and would be counted blasphemous.

Moreover, as I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives on this planet.

Any speculation beyond them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty.

To us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be called almost the same.

” “But even if you do not fear death for itself,” I said, “you have hearts to break.

Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered?” “Love and death are not foes on our planet,” was the reply.

“There are no tears by the bedsides of our dying.

The same beneficent law which makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us.

With you, it is the intercourse you have had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them.

With us, it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is the foundation of fondness.

As our friends vanish from our future with the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time.

As our dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at the last we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds of those who regard us equally without keen emotions.

So at last God gently unwinds instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying.

Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of torturing us, as with you.

Love means joy, and that alone, to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate pang for every thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile.

” “There are other partings than those of death.

Are these, too, without sorrow for you?” I asked.

“Assuredly,” was the reply.

“Can you not see that so it must needs be with beings freed by foresight from the disease of memory? All the sorrow of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the backward vision which precludes you from beholding your happiness till it is past.

Suppose your life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship.

If you could know it beforehand, it would be a joyous expectation, brightening the intervening years and cheering you as you traversed desolate periods.

But no; not till you meet the one who is to be your friend do you know of him.

Nor do you guess even then what he is to be to you, that you may embrace him at first sight.

Your meeting is cold and indifferent.

It is long before the fire is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already time for parting.

Now, indeed, the fire burns well, but henceforth it must consume your heart.

Not till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how dear your friends were and how sweet was their companionship.

But we-we see our friends afar off coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, years before our ways meet.

We greet them at first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy.

They enter at once into the full possession of hearts long warmed and lighted for them.

We meet with that delirium of tenderness with which you part.

And when to us at last the time of parting comes, it only means that we are to contribute to each other’s happiness no longer.

We are not doomed, like you, in parting, to take away with us the delight we brought our friends, leaving the ache of bereavement in its place, so that their last state is worse than their first.

Parting here is like meeting with you, calm and unimpassioned.

The joys of anticipation and possession are the only food of love with us, and therefore Love always wears a smiling face.

With you he feeds on dead joys, past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance of sorrow.

No wonder love and sorrow are so much alike on Earth.

It is a common saying among us that, were it not for the spectacle of the Earth, the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreciate the goodness of God to them; and who can say that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set before us?” “You have told me marvelous things,” I said, after I had reflected.

“It is, indeed, but reasonable that such a race as yours should look down with wondering pity on the Earth.

And yet, before I grant so much, I want to ask you one question.

There is known in our world a certain sweet madness, under the influence of which we forget all that is untoward in our lot, and would not change it for a god’s.

So far is this sweet madness regarded by men as a compensation, and more than a compensation, for all their miseries that if you know not love as we know it, if this loss be the price you have paid for your divine foresight, we think ourselves more favored of God than you.

Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incompatible with a foresight which weighs and measures every experience in advance.

” “Of love’s surprises we certainly know nothing,” was the reply.

“It is believed by our philosophers that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our constitution like lightning; though of course this is merely theory, for it is only by the study of Earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea of what surprise is like.

Your power to endure the constant buffetings of the unexpected is a matter of supreme amazement to us; nor, according to our ideas, is there any difference between what you call pleasant and painful surprises.

You see, then, that we cannot envy you these surprises of love which you find so sweet, for to us they would be fatal.

For the rest, there is no form of happiness which foresight is so well calculated to enhance as that of love.

Let me explain to you how this befalls.

As the growing boy begins to be sensible of the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare say it is with you, preferring some type of face and form to others.

He dreams oftenest of fair hair, or may be of dark, of blue eyes or brown.

As the years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly adding to this dream-face, this shadowy form, traits and lineaments, hues and contours, till at last the picture is complete, and he becomes aware that on his heart thus subtly has been depicted the likeness of the maiden destined for his arms.

“It may be years before he is to see her, but now begins with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown.

Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess.

But the very passion whose awaking makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children.

The temptations which lead your young men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy planet.

He hoards the treasures of his heart for its coming mistress.

Of her alone he thinks, and to her all his vows are made.

The thought of license would be treasop to his sovereign lady, whose right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully owns.

To rob her, to abate her high prerogatives, would be to impoverish, to insult, himself; for she is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own.

Through all this time that he dreams of her by night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden heart his image is set up to receive the incense of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself through fear of possible cross or separation.

“In due time their converging lives come together.

The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each other’s eyes, then throw themselves each on the other’s breast.

The maiden has all the charms that ever stirred the blood of an Earthly lover, but there is another glamour over her which the eyes of Earthly lovers are shut to,-the glamour of the future.

In the blushing girl her lover sees the fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the patient, pain-consecrated mother.

On the virgin’s breast he beholds his children.

He is prescient, even as his lips take the first-fruits of hers, of the future years during which she is to be his companion, his ever-present solace, his chief portion of God’s goodness.

We have read some of your romances describing love as you know it on Earth, and I must confess, my friend, we find them very dull.

“I hope,” he added, as I did not at once speak, “that I shall not offend you by saying we find them also objectionable.

Your literature possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the curiously inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead.

It is a study especially prized for the development of the imagination, on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings in general.

But our women do not read your romances.

The notion that a man or woman should, ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought.

No doubt you will say that such instances are rare among you, but if your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not unknown.

That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly; but it is needless that the minds of our maidens should be pained by the knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties upon the sacredness of marriage are possible.

“There is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness, to a race accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively to things that are ended.

” “And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense?” I asked.

“We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the future tense,” was the reply.

“If our historians were to wait till after the events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be inaccurate; for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy.

Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass.

Your geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of information here.

” In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of human nature are unknown on Mars.

They for whom the future has no mystery can, of course, know neither hope nor fear.

Moreover, every one being assured what he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect; and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engendered on Earth by the strife of man with man, is unknown to the people of Mars, save from the study of our planet.

When I asked if there were not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no difference in that respect between the lives of the people of Earth and of Mars, both alike being according to God’s will in every particular.

We knew that will only after the event, they before,-that was all.

For the rest, God moved them through their wills as He did us, so that they had no more dense of compulsion in what they did than we on Earth have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our anticipations chance to be correct.

Of the absorbing interest which the study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently.

It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place of figures and symbols.

When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different, he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from the Earth.

No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as the past.

And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their logical necessity so clearly that to desire them different was as impossible as seriously to wish that two and two made five instead of four.

No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so closely are all things, the small with the great, woven together by God that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all eternity.

While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the roseate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and sea scape, never paralleled by an earthly sunset.

Already the familiar constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the slightest variation in their position.

Nevertheless, there was one wholly novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were vividly visible to the naked eye.

But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, swimming low on the verge of the horizon.

Its disc, twice as large as that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like that of Venus.

“It is, indeed, a lovely sight,” said my companion, “although to me always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants.

We call it ‘The Blindman’s World.

‘” As he spoke he turned toward a curious structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly observed it.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It is one of our telescopes,” he replied.

“I am going to let you take a look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of which I have boasted;” and having adjusted the instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to the eye-piece.

I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had exaggerated nothing.

The little college town which was my home lay spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down upon it from my observatory windows.

It was early morning, and the village was waking up.

The milkmen were going their rounds, and workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurrying along the streets.

The early train was just leaving the railroad station.

I could see the puffs from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylinders.

It was strange not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed.

There were the college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back the level sunbeams.

I could tell the time by the college clock.

It struck me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering the earliness of the hour.

A crowd of men stood about the door of the observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that direction.

Among them I recognized President Byxbee, accompanied by the college janitor.

As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, passing through the group about the door, entered the building.

The president was evidently going up to my quarters.

At this it flashed over me quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my account.

I recalled how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left affairs in the observatory.

It was high time I were back there to look after myself.

Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that morning on my desk.

That it is the authentic record of the conditions of life in another world which it purports to be I do not expect the reader to believe.

He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks of somnambulism set down in the books.

Probably it was merely that, possibly it was something more.

I do not pretend to decide the question.

I have told all the facts of the case, and have no better means for forming an opinion than the reader.

Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it the true account it seems to be, that it would have affected my imagination much more strongly than it has.

That story of another world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours.

The readiness with which my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of view concerning the Earth has been a singular experience.

The lack of foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of before, now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying its promise,-a moral mutilation, a deprivation arbitrary and unaccountable.

The spectacle of a race doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured only of what is past and dead,’ comes over me from time to time with a sadly fantastical effect which I cannot describe.

I dream of a world where love always wears a smile, where the partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death is king no more.

I have a fancy, which I like to cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, fancied though it may be, represent the ideal and normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as perhaps it may yet be again.

The hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conference room, just over the framed card bearing the words “Stand up for Jesus,” and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences “Come unto Me,” and “The Wonderful, the Counsellor,” pointed to ten minutes of nine.

As was usual at this period of Newville prayer-meetings, a prolonged pause had supervened.

The regular standbyes had all taken their usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been about as irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so.

For the attendants at Newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the two classes of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or times of special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed.

Deacon Tuttle had spoken and prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday’s sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her.

But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the other hand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine would have been regarded as a dangerous innovation.

Accordingly, it only remained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes.

The clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities.

At intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: “There is yet opportunity.

.

.

.

.

Time is passing, brethren.

.

.

.

.

Any brother or sister.

.

.

.

.

We shall be glad to hear from any one.

” Farmer Bragg, tired with his day’s hoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat.

Mrs.

Parker dropped a hymn-book.

Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath.

Madeline Brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister’s desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers.

A June bug boomed through the open window and circled around Deacon Tuttle’s head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about.

Next it made a dive at Madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, and the little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiest thing in the world; at least, so it seemed to Henry Burr, a broad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, serious face is just now lit up by a pleasant smile.

Mr.

Lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannot see it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage of him, which it makes full use of.

Indeed, so closely is the general attention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might draw the mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship the little company had gathered.

Finally, making a slight concession of etiquette to curiosity, Mr.

Lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and, again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a piece of intelligence, “There are yet a few moments.

” In fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutes left, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings to go home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternate hope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortune to the test, and win or lose it all.

As they furtively glance over at the girls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, how serenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the other sex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from their minds! How presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves now appears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, of accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them! Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.

The minister had taken up his hymn- book, and was turning over the leaves to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the room.

Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and Deacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.

It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training, and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.

About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a corporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of raising money for a pressing emergency.

Various circumstances showed that his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.

He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a single unaccountable deflection from rectitude.

The evident intensity of his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the village druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded, and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the past, and help him to begin life over again.

He had been converted at a revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late, and become indifferent to religion.

He looked badly.

His face was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken.

But these symptoms of mental sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound calm.

He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.

And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.

“If it will not be too great an inconvenience,” he said; “I should like to keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little.

You remember, perhaps, that I professed to be converted last winter.

Since then I am aware that I have shown a lack of interest in religious matters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that I was either hasty or insincere in my profession.

I have made my arrangements to leave you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds of my friends.

Hasty I may have been, but not insincere.

Perhaps you will excuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaning clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history.

” The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.

“After my disgrace,” pursued the young man in the same quietly explanatory tone, “the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume, as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and complete as best he can.

Now you know that in order to find any pleasure in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride in it.

Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every time his eye glances it over.

Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like that beaten crew in last week’s regatta, which, when it saw itself hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the race, but just pulled ashore and went home.

“Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn’t have the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page.

Then I was comforted and took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the teacher gave me the prize.

“Now you see, don’t you,” he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering about his eyes, “how it was that after my disgrace I couldn’t seem to take an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and that gave me a notion that religion might help me.

I had heard, from a child, that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit.

That was what I wanted, just what I wanted.

I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.

” He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his haggard face.

“I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which I had taken literally.

Doubtless I should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts.

Nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all.

I’m blaming no one.

Forgiving sins, I should have known, is not blotting, them out.

The blood of Christ only turns them red instead of black.

It leaves them in the record.

It leaves them in the memory.

That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had the teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least bit better so long as the blot was there.

It wasn’t any penalty from without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wanted taken away, so I might get heart to go on.

Supposing one of you-and you’ll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place-had picked a pocket.

Would it make a great deal of difference in your state of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you, and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, and easily repaired.

Your chief offence was against yourself, and that was irreparable.

No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you and yourself.

Until you have been in such a fix, you can’t imagine, perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody else forgiving you for ruining yourself.

It is like mocking.

” The nine o’clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.

“I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words to say.

The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby’s.

I suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water.

Just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their hearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good and happy lives again.

Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and not merely in name.

The figurative promises of the Gospel would become literally true.

But this is idle dreaming.

I will not keep you,” and, checking himself abruptly, he sat down.

The moment he did so, Mr.

Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction, dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn.

He was afraid that something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still further alienate the unfortunate young man.

His own intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.

He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands around him.

There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them.

There was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened.

The tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant.

Many insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale.

None of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement.

Mr.

Lewis was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which were engaged in talk.

Henry Burr was standing near the door, his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.

“Good-evening, Henry,” said Mr.

Lewis, pausing beside the young man.

“Do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George lately to account for what he said to-night?” “I do not, sir,” replied Henry.

“I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given the cold shoulder.

He is very sensitive.

” “I don’t think any one in the village would slight him,” said Henry.

“I should have said so too,” remarked the minister, reflectively.

“Poor boy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how to cheer him.

” “Yes, sir–that is-certainly,” replied Henry incoherently, for Madeline was now coming down the aisle.

In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man’s, Mr.

Lewis passed out.

As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with another young lady.

“Good-evening,” said Henry.

“Poor fellow!” continued Madeline to her companion, “he seemed quite hopeless.

” “Good-evening,” repeated Henry.

Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time.

“Good-evening,” she said.

“May I escort you home?” he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.

She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her.

Then she said, with a bewitching smile- “I shall be much obliged.

” As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs.

He had got her, and his tribulations were forgotten.

For a while they walked silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic suggestions of poor Bayley’s outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.

For it must be understood that Madeline’s little touch of coquetry had been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious engrossments.

To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships.

This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand.

At length she said- “Why didn’t you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of going home with me? Anybody could have done that.

” “No doubt,” replied Henry, seriously; “but, if I’d left anybody else to do it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does.

” “Dear me,” she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation, curved her lips under cover of the darkness, “you take a most unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me.

I never gave you nor anybody else any right to be, and I won’t have it!” “Very well.

It shall be just as you say,” he replied.

The sarcastic humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she immediately changed the subject, demanding- “Where is Laura to-night?” “She’s at home, making cake for the picnic,” he said.

“The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too.

I wonder if poor George will be at the picnic?” “I doubt it,” said Henry.

“You know he never goes to any sort of party.

The last time I saw him at such a place was at Mr.

Bradford’s.

He was playing whist, and they were joking about cheating.

Somebody said- Mr.

Bradford it was-’I can trust my wife’s honesty.

She doesn’t know enough to cheat, but I don’t know about George.

‘ George was her partner.

Bradford didn’t mean any harm; he forgot, you see.

He’d have bitten his tongue off otherwise sooner than have said it.

But everybody saw the application, and there was a dead silence.

George got red as fire, and then pale as death.

I don’t know how they finished the hand, but presently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off.

” “Oh, dear! dear! That was cruel! cruel! How could Mr.

Bradford do it? I should think he would never forgive himself! never!” exclaimed Madeline, with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing Henry’s arm, and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about George and his misfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he was afraid she would notice it and be offended.

But she did not seem to be conscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, and presently added, in a tone of sweetest pity- “He used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meets one of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away or at the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, or meant to cut him.

I’m sure we’d cut our heads off sooner.

It’s enough to make one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitive that no one can say a word to cheer him.

Did you notice what he said about leaving town? I hadn’t heard anything about it before, had you?” “No,” said Henry, “not a word.

Wonder where he’s going.

Perhaps he thinks it will be easier for him in some place where they don’t know him.

” They walked on in silence a few moments, and then Madeline said, in a musing tone- “How strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant things blotted out of their memories! What dreadful thing would you forget now, if you could? Confess.

” “I would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with Will Taylor last Wednesday afternoon, and what I’ve felt about it ever since.

” “Dear me, Mr.

Henry Burr,” said Madeline, with an air of excessive disdain, “how long is it since I authorized you to concern yourself with my affairs? If it wouldn’t please you too much, I’d certainly box your ears.

“I think you’re rather unreasonable,” he protested, in a hurt tone.

“You said a minute ago that you wouldn’t permit me to be jealous of you, and just because I’m so anxious to obey you that I want to forget that I ever was, you are vexed.

” A small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by letters of the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingenious than ingenuous plea.

“I’ve made my confession, and it’s only fair you should make yours,” he said next.

“What remorseful deed have you done that you’d like to forget?” “You needn’t speak in that babying tone.

I fancy I could commit sins as well as you, with all your big moustache, if I wanted to.

I don’t believe you’d hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate.

You’ve probably got a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you’d die of shame to have people see it.

” “Excuse me, Lady Macbeth,” he said, laughing; “I don’t wish to underrate your powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins would you prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough to trouble your excessively hardened conscience? “Well, I must admit,” said Madeline, seriously, “that I wouldn’t care to forget anything I’ve done, not even my faults and follies.

I should be afraid if they were taken away that I shouldn’t have any character left.

” “Don’t put it on that ground,” said Henry, “it’s sheer vanity that makes you say so.

You know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots, and that’s why you’d rather keep ‘em.

” She reflected a moment, and then said, decisively- “That’s a compliment.

I don’t believe I like ‘em from you.

Don’t make me any more.

” Perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment that prompted her words.

Had she done so, she would doubtless have found it in a consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine and delicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery sounded almost gross.

They paused before a gate.

Pushing it open and passing within, she said, “Good-night.

” “One word more.

I have a favour to ask,” he said.

“May I take you to the picnic?” “Why, I think no escort will be necessary,” she replied; “we go in broad daylight; and there are no bears or Indians at Hemlock Hollow.

” “But your basket.

You’ll need somebody to carry your basket.

” “Oh yes, to be sure, my basket,” she exclaimed, with an ironical accent.

“It will weigh at least two pounds, and I couldn’t possibly carry it myself, of course.

By all means come, and much obliged for your thoughtfulness.

” But as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words.

In the treatment of her lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less sharp- tongued maidens.

Henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charming outline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close the door.

Love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feeling that came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush of thankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not Madeline.

For, if he had been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, of worshipping her.

Ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who, fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, are precluded from being their own worshippers! Well, it was a consolation that she didn’t know it, that she actually thought that, with her little coquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of her beauty.

God make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way for missing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in! When Burr reached home, he found his sister Laura standing at the gate in a patch of moonlight.

“How pretty you look to-night!” he said, pinching her round cheek.

The young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly- “So she let you go home with her.

” “How do you know that?” he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess.

“Because you’re so sweet, you goosey, of course.

” But, in truth, any such mode of accounting for Henry’s favourable comment on her appearance was quite unnecessary.

Laura, with her petite, plump figure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clear cheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite as charming a specimen of American girlhood as the stately pale brunette who swayed her brother’s affections.

“Come for a walk, chicken! It is much too pretty a night to go indoors,” he said.

“Yes, and furnish ears for Madeline’s praises, with a few more reflected compliments for pay, perhaps,” she replied, contemptuously.

“Besides,” she added, “I must go into the house and keep father company.

I only came out to cool off after baking the cake.

You’d better come in too.

These moonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know.

” The brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, and Laura, in trying to fill her mother’s place in the household, so far as she might, was always looking out that her father should have as little opportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition.

CHAPTER II.

That same night toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.

Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits.

Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental condition in which he found himself.

It was not that he thought of anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer.

He recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be so strong and so general.

He wondered if it were possible that it should ever again come over him.

The cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue, more cheerless than pitchiest darkness.

A distant bell, with slow and heavy strokes, struck three.

It was the dead point in the daily revolution of the earth’s life, that point just before dawn, when men oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause eternally, when the clock is run down.

The long- drawn reverberations of the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary.

His spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous duration.

A sense of utter loneliness-loneliness inevitable, crushing, eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of unconsciousness-enfolded him as a pall.

Life lay like an incubus on his bosom.

He shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and deny him its refuge.

Even Madeline’s face, as he conjured it up, seemed wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey light of dawn.

Gradually the moon passed, and he slept again.

As early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards.

Even the children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled, solemn look upon their bright faces.

For a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been paralleled in the history of the village.

That morning the sun, as it peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the darkness of a thing it had been afraid of.

George Bayley sat there in a chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple, whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead.

This, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements for leaving the village.

The doctor thought that the fatal shot must have been fired about three o’clock that morning, and, when Henry heard this, he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that had chilled the genial current in his veins.

Bayley’s family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold, haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral.

When Mr.

Lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason to believe that George was out of his head when he took his life, Mr.

Bayley interrupted him.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“He knew what he was doing.

I should not wish any one to think otherwise.

I am prouder of him than I had ever expected to be again.

” A choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot.

It seemed almost cruel that they must ever cease.

And, after the funeral, the young men and girls who had known George, not feeling like returning that day to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed, and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways.

The funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic.

The latter, in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off a fortnight.

CHAPTER III.

About half- past eight on the morning of the day set for the postponed picnic, Henry knocked at Widow Brand’s door.

He had by no means forgotten Madeline’s consent to allow him to carry her basket, although two weeks had intervened.

She came to the door herself.

He had never seen her in anything that set off her dark eyes and olive complexion more richly than the simple picnic dress of white, trimmed with a little crimson braid about the neck and sleeves, which she wore to-day.

It was gathered up at the bottom for wandering in the woods, just enough to show the little boots.

She looked surprised at seeing him, and exclaimed- “You haven’t come to tell me that the picnic is put off again, or Laura’s sick?” “The picnic is all right, and Laura too.

I’ve come to carry your basket for you.

” “Why, you’re really very kind,” said she, as if she thought him slightly officious.

“Don’t you remember you told me I might do so?” he said, getting a little red under her cool inspection.

“When did I?” “Two weeks ago, that evening poor George spoke in meeting.

” “Oh!” she answered, smiling, “so long ago as that? What a terrible memory you have! Come in just a moment, please; I’m nearly ready.

” Whether she merely took his word for it, or whether she had remembered her promise perfectly well all the time, and only wanted to make him ask twice for the favour, lest he should feel too presumptuous, I don’t pretend to know.

Mrs.

Brand set a chair for him with much cordiality.

She was a gentle, mild-mannered little lady, such a contrast in style and character to Madeline that there was a certain amusing fitness in the latter’s habit of calling her “My baby.

” “You have a very pleasant day for your picnic, Mr.

Burr,” said she.

“Yes, we are very lucky,” replied Henry, his eyes following Madeline’s movements as she stood before the glass, putting on her hat, which had a red feather in it.

To have her thus add the last touches to her toilet in his presence was a suggestion of familiarity, of domesticity, that was very intoxicating to his imagination.

“Is your father well?” inquired Mrs.

Brand, affably.

“Very well, thank you, very well indeed,” he replied “There; now I’m ready,” said Madeline.

“Here’s the basket, Henry.

Good-bye, mother.

” They were a well-matched pair, the stalwart young man and the tall, graceful girl, and it is no wonder the girl’s mother stood in the door looking after them with a thoughtful smile.

Hemlock Hollow was a glen between wooded bluffs, about a mile up the beautiful river on which Newville was situated, and boats had been collected at the rendezvous on the river-bank to convey the picnickers thither.

On arriving, Madeline and Henry found all the party assembled and in capital spirits; There was still just enough shadow on their merriment to leave the disposition to laugh slightly in excess of its indulgence, than which no condition of mind more favourable to a good time can be imagined.

Laura was there, and to her Will Taylor had attached himself.

He was a dapper little black-eyed fellow, a clerk in the dry- goods store, full of fun and good-nature, and a general favourite, but it was certainly rather absurd that Henry should be apprehensive of him as a rival.

There also was Fanny Miller, who had the prettiest arm in Newville, a fact discovered once when she wore a Martha Washington toilet at a masquerade sociable, and since circulated from mouth to mouth among the young men.

And there, too, was Emily Hunt, who had shocked the girls and thrown the youth into a pleasing panic by appearing at a young people’s party the previous winter in low neck and short sleeves.

It is to be remarked in extenuation that she had then but recently come from the city, and was not familiar with Newville etiquette.

Nor must I forget to mention Ida Lewis, the minister’s daughter, a little girl with poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who cherished a hopeless passion for Henry.

Among the young men was Harry Tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by the young men.

And there, above all, was Tom Longman.

Tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme.

He was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls’ charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self- consciousness when in their presence.

From this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do.

With his hands occupied he had an excuse for not talking to the girls or being addressed by them, and, thus shielded from the, direct rays of their society, basked with inexpressible emotions in the general atmosphere of sweetness and light which they diffused.

He liked picnics because there was much work to do, and never attended indoor parties because there was none.

This inordinate taste for industry in connection with social enjoyment on Tom’s part was strongly encouraged by the other young men, and they were the ones who always stipulated that he should be of the party when there was likely to be any call for rowing, taking care of horses, carrying of loads, putting out of croquet sets, or other manual exertion.

He was generally an odd one in such companies.

It would be no kindness to provide him a partner, and, besides, everybody made so many jokes about him that none of the girls quite cared to have their names coupled with his, although they all had a compassionate liking for him.

On the present occasion this poor slave of the petticoat had been at work preparing the boats all the morning.

“Why, how nicely you have arranged everything!” said Madeline kindly, as she stood on the sand waiting for Henry to bring up a boat.

“What?” replied Tom, laughing in a flustered way.

He always laughed just so and said “what?” when any of the girls spoke to him, being too much confused by the fact of being addressed to catch what was said the first time.

“It’s very good of you to arrange the boats for us, Madeline repeated.

“Oh, ’tain’t anything, ’tain’t anything at all,” he blurted out, with a very red face.

“You are going up in our boat, ain’t you, Longman?” said Harry Tuttle.

“No, Tom, you’re going with us,” cried another young man.

“He’s going with us, like a sensible fellow,” said Will Taylor, who, with Laura Burr, was sitting on the forward thwart of the boat, into the stern of which Henry was now assisting Madeline.

“Tom, these lazy young men are just wanting you to do their rowing for them,” said she.

“Get into our boat, and I’ll make Henry row you.

” “What do you say to that, Henry?” said Tom, snickering.

“It isn’t for me to say anything after Madeline has spoken,” replied the young man.

“She has him in good subjection,” remarked Ida Lewis, not over-sweetly.

“All right, I’ll come in your boat, Miss Brand, if you’ll take care of me,” said Tom, with a sudden spasm of boldness, followed by violent blushes at the thought that perhaps be had said something too free.

The boat was pushed off.

Nobody took the oars.

“I thought you were going to row?” said Madeline, turning to Henry, who sat beside her in the stern.

“Certainly,” said he, making as if he would rise.

“Tom, you just sit here while I row.

” “Oh no, I’d just as lief row,” said Tom, seizing the oars with feverish haste.

“So would I, Tom; I want a little exercise,” urged Henry with a hypocritical grin, as he stood up in an attitude of readiness.

“Oh, I like to row.

‘I’d a great deal rather.

Honestly,” asseverated Tom, as he made the water foam with the violence of his strokes, compelling Henry to resume his seat to preserve his equilibrium.

“It’s perfectly plain that you don’t want to sit by me, Tom.

That hurts my feelings,” said Madeline, pretending to pout.

“Oh no, it isn’t that,” protested Tom.

“Only I’d rather row; that is, I mean, you know, it’s such fun rowing.

” “Very well, then,” said Madeline, “I sha’n't help you any more; and here they all are tying their boats on to ours.

” Sure enough, one of the other boats had fastened its chain to the stern of theirs, and the others had fastened to that; their oarsmen were lying off and Tom was propelling the entire flotilla.

“Oh, I can row ‘em all just as easy’s not,” gasped the devoted youth, the perspiration rolling down his forehead.

But this was a little too bad, and Henry soon cast off the other boats, in spite of the protests of their occupants, who regarded Tom’s brawn and muscle as the common stock of the entire party, which no one boat had a right to appropriate.

On reaching Hemlock Hollow, Madeline asked the poor young man for his hat, and returned it to him adorned with evergreens, which nearly distracted him with bashfulness and delight, and drove him to seek a safety-valve for his excitement in superhuman activity all the rest of the morning, arranging croquet sets, hanging swings, breaking ice, squeezing lemons, and fetching water.

“Oh, how thirsty I am!” sighed Madeline, throwing down her croquet mallet.

“The ice-water is not yet ready, but I know a spring a little way off where the water is cold as ice,” said Henry.

“Show it to me this instant,” she cried, and they walked off together, followed by Ida Lewis’s unhappy eyes.

The distance to the spring was not great, but the way was rough, and once or twice he had to help her over fallen trees and steep banks.

Once she slipped a little, and for, a single supreme moment he held her whole weight in his arms.

Before, they had been talking and laughing gaily, but that made a sudden silence.

He dared not look at her for some moments, and when he did there was a slight flush tingeing her usually colourless cheek.

His pulses were already bounding wildly, and, at this betrayal that she had shared his consciousness at that moment, his agitation was tenfold increased.

It was the first time she had ever shown a sign of confusion in his presence.

The sensation of mastery, of power over her, which it gave, was so utterly new that it put a sort of madness in his blood.

Without a word they came to the spring and pretended to drink.

As she turned to go back, he lightly caught her fingers in a detaining clasp, and said, in a voice rendered harsh by suppressed emotion- “Don’t be in such a hurry.

Where will you find a cooler spot?” “Oh, it’s cool enough anywhere! Let’s go back,” she replied, starting to return as she spoke.

She saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then.

She flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid.

He sprang up and extended her his hand.

Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side.

Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips.

She gasped, and freed herself.

“How dared you do such a thing to me?” she cried.

The big fellow stood before her, sheepish, dogged, contrite, desperate, all in one.

“I couldn’t help it,” he blurted out.

The plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable.

Angry as she was, she really couldn’t think of anything to say, except- “You’d better help it,” with which rather ineffective rebuke she turned away and walked toward the picnic ground.

Henry followed in a demoralized frame.

His mind was in a ferment.

He could not realize what had happened.

He could scarcely believe that he had actually done it.

He could not conceive how he had dared it.

And now what penalty would she inflict? What if she should not forgive him? His soul was dissolved in fears.

But, sooth to say, the young lady’s actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended.

She had been ready to be very angry, but the suddenness and depth of his contrition had disarmed her.

It took all the force out of her indignation to see that he actually seemed to have a deeper sense of the enormity of his act than she herself had.

And when, after they had rejoined the party, she saw that, instead of taking part in the sports, he kept aloof, wandering aimless and disconsolate by himself among the pines, she took compassion on him and sent some one to tell him she wanted him to come and push her in the swing.

People had kissed her before.

She was not going to leave the first person who had seemed to fully realize the importance of the proceeding to suffer unduly from a susceptibility which did him so much credit.

As for Henry, he hardly believed his ears when he heard the summons to attend her.

At that the kiss which her rebuke had turned cold on his lips began to glow afresh, and for the first time he tasted its exceeding sweetness; for her calling to him seemed to ratify and consent to it.

There were others standing about as he came up to where Madeline sat in the swing, and he was silent, for he could not talk of indifferent things.

With what a fresh charm, with what new sweet suggestions of complaisance that kiss had invested every line and curve of her, from hat-plume to boot-tip! A delicious tremulous sense of proprietorship tinged his every thought of her.

He touched the swing-rope as fondly as if it were an electric chain that could communicate the caress to her.

Tom Longman, having done all the work that offered itself, had been wandering about in a state of acute embarrassment, not daring to join himself to any of the groups, much less accost a young lady who might be alone.

As he drifted near the swing, Madeline said to Henry- “You may stop swinging me now.

I think I’d like to go out rowing.

” The young man’s cup seemed running over.

He could scarcely command his voice for delight as he said- “It will be jolly rowing just now.

I’m sure we can get some pond-lilies.

” “Really,” she replied, airily, “you take too much for granted.

I was going to ask Tom Longman to take me out.

” She called to Tom, and as he came up, grinning and shambling, she indicated to him her pleasure that he should row her upon the river.

The idea of being alone in a small boat for perhaps fifteen minutes with the belle of Newville, and the object of his own secret and distant adoration, paralysed Tom’s faculties with an agony of embarrassment.

He grew very red, and there was such a buzzing in his ears that he could not feel sure he heard aright, and Madeline had to repeat herself several times before he seemed to fully realize the appalling nature of the proposition.

As they walked down to the shore she chatted with him, but he only responded with a profusion of vacant laughs.

When he had pulled out on the river, his rowing, from his desire to make an excuse for not talking, was so tremendous that they cheered him from the shore, at the same time shouting- “Keep her straight! You’re going into the bank!” The truth was, that Tom could not guide the boat because he did not dare to look astern for fear of meeting Madeline’s eyes, which, to judge from the space his eyes left around her, he must have supposed to fill at least a quarter of the horizon, like an aurora, in fact.

But, all the same, he was having an awfully good time, although perhaps it would be more proper to say he would have a good time when he came to think it over afterward.

It was an experience which would prove a mine of gold in his memory, rich enough to furnish for years the gilding to his modest day-dreams.

Beauty, like wealth, should make its owners generous.

It is a gracious thing in fair women at times to make largesse of their beauty, bestowing its light more freely on tongue-tied, timid adorers than on their bolder suitors, giving to them who dare not ask.

Their beauty never can seem more precious to women than when for charity’s sake they brighten with its lustre the eyes of shy and retiring admirers.

As Henry was ruefully meditating upon the uncertainty of the sex, and debating the probability that Madeline had called him to swing her for the express purpose of getting a chance to snub him, Ida Lewis came to him, and said- “Mr.

Burr, we’re getting up a game of croquet.

Won’t you play?” “If I can be on your side,” he answered, civilly.

He knew the girl’s liking for him, and was always kind to her.

At his answer her face flushed with pleasure, and she replied shyly- “If you’d like to, you may.

” Henry was not in the least a conceited fellow, but it was impossible that he should not understand the reason why Ida, who all the morning had looked forlorn enough, was now the life of the croquet-ground, and full of smiles and flushes.

She was a good player, and had a corresponding interest in beating, but her equanimity on the present occasion was not in the least disturbed by the disgraceful defeat which Henry’s awkwardness and absence of mind entailed on their aide.

But her portion of sunshine for that day was brief enough, for Madeline soon returned from her boat-ride, and Henry found an excuse for leaving the game and joining her where she sat on the ground between the knees of a gigantic oak sorting pond-lilies, which the girls were admiring.

As he came up, she did not appear to notice him.

As soon as he had a chance to speak without being overheard, he said, soberly- “Tom ought to thank me for that boat-ride, I suppose.

” “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, with assumed carelessness.

“I mean that you went to punish me.

” “You’re sufficiently conceited,” she replied.

“Laura, come here; your brother is teasing me.

” “And do you think I want to be teased to?” replied that young lady, pertly, as she walked off.

Madeline would have risen and left Henry, but she was too proud to let him think that she was afraid of him.

.

Neither was she afraid, but she was confused, and momentarily without her usual self-confidence.

One reason for her running off with Tom had been to get a chance to think.

No girl, however coolly her blood may flow, can be pressed to a man’s breast, wildly throbbing with love for her, and not experience some agitation in consequence.

Whatever may be the state of her sentiments, there is a magnetism in such a contact which she cannot at once throw off.

That kiss had brought her relations with Henry to a crisis.

It had precipitated the necessity of some decision.

She could no longer hold him off, and play with him.

By that bold dash he had gained a vantage-ground, a certain masterful attitude which he had never held before.

Yet, after all, I am not sure that she was not just a little afraid of him, and, moreover, that she did not like him all the better for it.

It was such a novel feeling that it began to make some things, thought of in connection with him, seem more possible to her mind than they had ever seemed before.

As she peeped furtively at this young man, so suddenly grown formidable, as he reclined carelessly on the ground at her feet, she admitted to herself that there was something very manly in the sturdy figure and square forehead, with the curly black locks hanging over it.

She looked at him with a new interest, half shrinking, half attracted, as one who might come into a very close relation with herself.

She scarcely knew whether the thought was agreeable or not.

“Give me your hat,” she said, “and I’ll put some lilies in it.

” “You are very good,” said he, handing it to her.

“Does it strike you so?” she replied, hesitatingly.

“Then I won’t do it.

I don’t want to appear particularly good to you.

I didn’t know just how it would seem.

” “Oh, it won’t seem very good; only about middling,” he urged, upon which representation she took the hat.

He watched her admiringly as she deftly wreathed the lilies around it, holding it up, now this way and now that, while she critically inspected the effect.

Then her caprice changed.

“I’ve half a mind to drop it into the river.

Would you jump after it?” she said, twirling it by the brim, and looking over the steep bank, near which she sat, into the deep, dark water almost perpendicularly below.

“If it were anything of yours instead of mine, I would jump quickly enough,” he replied.

She looked at him with a reckless gleam in her eyes.

“You mustn’t talk chaff to me, sir; we’ll see,” and, snatching a glove from her pocket, she held it out over the water.

They were both of them in that state of suppressed excitement which made such an experiment on each other’s nerve dangerous.

Their eyes met, and neither flinched.

If she had dropped it, he would have gone after it.

“After all,” she said, suddenly, “that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get a mitten.

If you are so anxious for it, I will give it to you now;” and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face.

He sprang up from the ground.

“Madeline, do you mean it?” he asked, scarcely audibly, his face grown white and pinched.

She crumpled the obnoxious glove into her pocket.

“Why, you poor fellow!” she exclaimed, the wildfire in her eyes quenched in a moment with the dew of pity.

“Do you care so much?” “I care everything,” he said, huskily.

But, as luck would have it, just at that instant Will Taylor came running up, pursued by Laura, and threw himself upon Madeline’s protection.

It appeared that he had confessed to the possession of a secret, and on being requested by Laura to impart it had flatly refused to do so.

“I can’t really interfere to protect any young man who refuses to tell a secret to a young lady,” said Madeline, gravely.

“Neglect to tell her the secret, without being particularly asked to do so, would be bad enough, but to refuse after being requested is an offence which calls for the sharpest correction.

” “And that isn’t all, either,” said Laura, vindictively flirting the switch with which she had pursued him.

“He used offensive language.

” “What did he say?” demanded Madeline, judicially.

“I asked him if he was sure it was a secret that I didn’t know already, and he said he was; and I asked him what made him sure, and he said because if I knew it everybody else would.

As much as to say I couldn’t keep a secret.

” “This looks worse and worse, young man,” said the judge, severely.

“The only course left for you is to make a clean breast of the affair, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

If the secret turns out to be a good one, I’ll let you off as easily as I can.

” “It’s about the new drug-clerk, the one who is going to take George Bayley’s place,” said Will, laughing.

“Oh, do tell, quick!” exclaimed Laura.

“I don’t care who it is.

I sha’n't like him,” said Madeline.

“Poor George! and here we are forgetting all about him this beautiful day!” “What’s the new clerk’s name?” said Laura, impatiently.

“Harrison Cordis.

” “What?” “Harrison Cordis.

” “Rather an odd name,” said Laura.

“I never heard it.

” “No,” said Will; “he comes all the way from Boston.

” “Is he handsome?” inquired Laura.

“I really don’t know,” replied Will.

“I presume Parker failed to make that a condition, although really he ought to, for the looks of the clerk is the principal element in the sale of soda-water, seeing girls are the only ones who drink it.

” “Of course it is,” said Laura, frankly.

“I didn’t drink any all last summer, because poor George’s sad face took away my disposition.

Never mind,” she added, “we shall all have a chance to see how he looks at church to-morrow;” and with that the two girls went off together to help set the table for lunch.

The picnickers did not row home till sunset, but Henry found no opportunity to resume the conversation with Madeline which had been broken off at such an interesting point.

CHAPTER IV.

The advent of a stranger was an event of importance in the small social world of Newville.

Mr.

Harrison Cordis, the new clerk in the drug-store, might well have been flattered by the attention which he excited at church the next day, especially from the fairer half of the congregation.

Far, however, from appearing discomposed thereby, he returned it with such interest that at least half the girls thought they had captivated him by the end of the morning service.

They all agreed that he was awfully handsome, though Laura maintained that he was rather too pretty for a man.

He was certainly very pretty.

His figure was tall, slight, and elegant.

He had delicate hands and feet, a white forehead, deep blue, smiling eyes, short, curly, yellow, hair, and a small moustache, drooping over lips as enticing as a girl’s.

But the ladies voted his manners yet more pleasing than his appearance.

They were charmed by his easy self-possession, and constant alertness as to details of courtesy.

The village beaus scornfully called him “cityfied,” and secretly longed to be like him.

A shrewder criticism than that to which he was exposed would, however, have found the fault with Cordis’s manners that, under a show of superior ease and affability, he was disposed to take liberties with his new acquaintances, and exploit their simplicity for his own entertainment.

Evidently he felt that he was in the country.

That very first Sunday, after evening meeting, he induced Fanny Miller, at whose father’s house he boarded, to introduce him to Madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call.

Fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of Newville wooers to make very gradual approaches.

Laura warmly expressed to Madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon Laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did.

Madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which Laura issued second best, as people generally verbal strife with Madeline.

Meanwhile it was rumoured that Cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times.

The drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet.

The last of the week Fanny Miller gave a little tea-party, to make Cordis more generally acquainted.

On that occasion he singled out Madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued.

Laura, having her brother’s interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things.

They all remarked how queerly Madeline acted that evening.

She was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself.

When the party broke up, Cordis walked home with Madeline and Laura, whose paths lay together.

“I’m extremely fortunate,” said he, as he was walking on with Laura, after leaving Madeline at her house, “to have a chance to escort the two belles of Newville at once.

” “I’m not so foolish as I look, Mr.

Cordis,” said she, rather sharply.

She was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every Newville girl as he had Madeline’s with his city airs and compliments.

“You might be, and not mind owning it,” he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased.

“I mean that I don’t like flattery.

” “Are you sure?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Of course I am.

What a question!” “Excuse me; I only asked because I never met any one before who didn’t.

” “Never met anybody who didn’t like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren’t true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe ‘em?” “I don’t expect you to believe ‘em yourself,” he replied; “only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but I wouldn’t give a cent for friends who didn’t think better of me than I think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too.

” They stood a moment at Laura’s gate, and just then Henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house.

“Is that your brother?” asked Cordis.

“Yes.

” “It does one’s eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man.

Is your brother married, may I ask?” “He is not.

” “In coming into a new circle as I have done, you understand, Miss Burr, I often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons I meet,” he said, apologizing for his questions.

Laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it.

“My brother has been attentive to Miss Brand for a long time.

They are about as good as engaged.

Good-evening, Mr.

Cordis.

” It so happened that several days after this conversation, as Madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw Harrison Cordis coming behind her on his way to tea.

At the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her.

Her pace slackened.

She blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry.

The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis’s feminine temperament.

Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other.

They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs.

Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile.

It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did.

“Good-evening, Miss Brand,” he said, as he over took her.

“I don’t really think it’s fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you.

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to,” she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it.

“It isn’t safe to,” he said, laughing.

“You can’t tell who it may be.

Now, it might have been Mr.

Burr, instead of only me.

” She understood instantly.

Somebody had been telling him about Henry’s attentions to her.

A bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this.

For several seconds she could not control herself to speak.

Finally, she said- “I don’t understand you.

Why do you speak of Mr.

Burr to me?” “I beg pardon.

I should not have done so.

” “Please explain what you mean.

“You’ll excuse me, I hope,” he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her.

“It was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least I understood, that you were engaged to him.

” “Somebody has told you a falsehood, then,” she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping.

If she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that.

Mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door.

Until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped.

Good-afternoon, Madeline.

I’m glad to see you.

You haven’t made me a call this ever so long.

” “I’m sorry, Mrs.

Tuttle, but I haven’t time to stop to-day.

Ha-have you got a-a pattern of a working apron? I’d like to borrow it.

” CHAPTER V.

Now, Henry had not chanced to be at church that first Sunday evening when Cordis obtained an introduction to Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller’s teaparty.

Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever.

Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions.

She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse.

Moreover, now that she had warned Cordis that Madeline was pre- empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere.

And so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance.

And it was very blissful.

He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic.

He had told his love-he had kissed her.

If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he.

And, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? The fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand.

Circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams.

A sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights.

He contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on Madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her.

It was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home.

It chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between Madeline and Cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place.

She did not come in till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way.

She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him.

He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it.

It did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh.

This cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air.

While he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for Madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject.

Finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate- “Mr.

Taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn’t he?” “I should think you ought to know, if any one.

You pass his house every day,” was her response.

“Why, of course I know,” he said, staring at her.

“So I thought, but you said ‘hasn’t he?’ And naturally I presumed that you were not quite certain.

” She was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable.

She looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding.

As she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored.

“Madeline, do you know what I should say was the matter with you if you’ were a man?” he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh.

“Well, really”-and her eyes had a rather hard expression-”if you prefer gentlemen’s society, you’d better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman.

But I was reminded that it was in a dream that Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and on awaking had recalled nothing of his experience, just as I should recall nothing of mine.

When will man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out the secrets of the universe.

“Do your people visit the Earth in the same manner?” I asked my companion.

“Certainly,” he replied; “but there we find no one able to recognize us and converse with us as I am conversing with you, although myself in the waking state.

You, as yet, lack the knowledge we possess of the spiritual side of the human nature which we share with you.

“ “That knowledge must have enabled you to learn much more of the Earth than we know of you,” I said.

“Indeed it has,” he replied.

“From visitors such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse constantly, we have acquired familiarity with your civilization, your history, your manners, and even your literature and languages.

Have you not noticed that I am talking with you in English, which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this planet?” “Among so many wonders I scarcely observed that,” I answered.

“For ages,” pursued my companion, “we have been waiting for you to improve your telescopes so as to approximate the power of ours, after which communication between the planets would be easily established.

The progress which you make is, however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet.

“ “Indeed, I fear you will have to,” I replied.

“Our opticians already talk of having reached the limits of their art.

“ “Do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of petulance,” my companion resumed.

“The slowness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a disability so crushing that if we were in your place I fear we should sit down in utter despair.

“ “To what disability do you refer?” I asked.

“You seem to be men like us.

“ “And so we are,” was the reply, “save in one particular, but there the difference is tremendous.

Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of the faculty of foresight, without which we should think our other faculties well-nigh valueless.

” “Foresight!” I repeated.

“Certainly you cannot mean that it is given you to know the future?” “It is given not only to us,” was the answer, “but, so far as we know, to all other intelligent beings of the universe except yourselves.

Our positive knowledge extends only to our system of moons and planets and some of the nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own; but it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated.

One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which a rational existence may still be possible ought to suffice for the universe.

” “But no one can know the future except by inspiration of God,’9 I said.

“All our faculties are by inspiration of God,” was the reply, “but there is surely nothing in foresight to cause it to be so regarded more than any other.

Think a moment of the physical analogy of the case.

Your eyes are placed in the front of your heads.

You would deem it an odd mistake if they were placed behind.

That would appear to you an arrangement calculated to defeat their purpose.

Does it not seem equally rational that the mental vision should range forward, as it does with us, illuminating the path one is to take, rather than backward, as with you, revealing only the course you have already trodden, and therefore have no more concern with? But it is no doubt a merciful provision of Providence that renders you unable to realize the grotesqueness of your predicament, as it appears to us.

” “But the future is eternal!” I exclaimed.

“How can a finite mind grasp it?” “Our foreknowledge implies only human faculties,” was the reply.

“It is limited to our individual careers on this planet.

Each of us foresees the course of his own life, but not that of other lives, except so far as they are involved with his.

” “That such a power as you describe could be combined with merely human faculties is more than our philosophers have ever dared to dream,” I said.

“And yet who shall say, after all, that it is not in mercy that God has denied it to us? If it is a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one’s happiness, it must be most depressing to foresee one’s sorrows, failures, yes, and even one’s death.

For if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anticipate the hour and manner of your death,-is it not so?” “Most assuredly,” was the reply.

“Living would be a very precarious business, were we uninformed of its limit.

Your ignorance of the time of your death impresses us as one of the saddest features of your condition.

” “And by us,” I answered, “it is held to be one of the most merciful.

” “Foreknowledge of your death would not, indeed, prevent your dying once,” continued my companion, “but it would deliver you from the thousand deaths you suffer through uncertainty whether you can safely count on the passing day.

It is not the death you die, but these many deaths you do not die, which shadow your existence.

Poor blindfolded creatures that you are, cringing at every step in apprehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fall till old age, never raising a cup to your lips with the knowledge that you will live to quaff it, never sure that you will meet again the friend you part with for an hour, from whose hearts no happiness suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread, what idea can you form of the Godlike security with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of those we love! You have a saying on earth, ‘To-morrow belongs to God;’ but here to-morrow belongs to us, even as to-day.

To you, for some inscrutable purpose, He sees fit to dole out life moment by moment, with no assurance that each is not to be the last.

To us He gives a lifetime at once, fifty, sixty, seventy years,-a divine gift indeed.

A life such as yours would, I fear, seem of little value to us; for such a life, however long, is but a moment long, since that is all you can count on.

” “And yet,” I answered, “though knowledge of the duration of your lives may give you an enviable feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that not more than offset by the daily growing weight with which the expectation of the end, as it draws near, must press upon your minds?” “On the contrary,” was the response, “death, never an object of fear, as it draws nearer becomes more and more a matter of indifference to the moribund.

It is because you live in the past that death is grievous to you.

All your knowledge, all your affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, and on that account, as life lengthens, it strengthens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more precious possession.

We, on the contrary, despise the past, and never dwell upon it.

Memory with us, far from being the morbid and monstrous growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudimentary faculty.

We live wholly in the future and the present.

What with foretaste and actual taste, our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, are exhausted of interest by the time they are past.

The accumulated treasures of memory, which you relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss at all.

Our minds being fed wholly from the future, we think and feel only as we anticipate; and so, as the dying man’s future contracts, there is less and less about which he can occupy his thoughts.

His interest in life diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last death finds him with his mind a tabula rasa, as with you at birth.

In a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called on to give it up.

In dying he leaves nothing behind.

” “And the after-death,” I asked,-”is there no: fear of that?” “Surely,” was the reply, “it is not necessary for me to say that a fear which affects only the more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to us, and would be counted blasphemous.

Moreover, as I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives on this planet.

Any speculation beyond them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty.

To us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be called almost the same.

” “But even if you do not fear death for itself,” I said, “you have hearts to break.

Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered?” “Love and death are not foes on our planet,” was the reply.

“There are no tears by the bedsides of our dying.

The same beneficent law which makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us.

With you, it is the intercourse you have had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them.

With us, it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is the foundation of fondness.

As our friends vanish from our future with the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time.

As our dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at the last we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds of those who regard us equally without keen emotions.

So at last God gently unwinds instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying.

Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of torturing us, as with you.

Love means joy, and that alone, to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate pang for every thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile.

” “There are other partings than those of death.

Are these, too, without sorrow for you?” I asked.

“Assuredly,” was the reply.

“Can you not see that so it must needs be with beings freed by foresight from the disease of memory? All the sorrow of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the backward vision which precludes you from beholding your happiness till it is past.

Suppose your life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship.

If you could know it beforehand, it would be a joyous expectation, brightening the intervening years and cheering you as you traversed desolate periods.

But no; not till you meet the one who is to be your friend do you know of him.

Nor do you guess even then what he is to be to you, that you may embrace him at first sight.

Your meeting is cold and indifferent.

It is long before the fire is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already time for parting.

Now, indeed, the fire burns well, but henceforth it must consume your heart.

Not till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how dear your friends were and how sweet was their companionship.

But we-we see our friends afar off coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, years before our ways meet.

We greet them at first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy.

They enter at once into the full possession of hearts long warmed and lighted for them.

We meet with that delirium of tenderness with which you part.

And when to us at last the time of parting comes, it only means that we are to contribute to each other’s happiness no longer.

We are not doomed, like you, in parting, to take away with us the delight we brought our friends, leaving the ache of bereavement in its place, so that their last state is worse than their first.

Parting here is like meeting with you, calm and unimpassioned.

The joys of anticipation and possession are the only food of love with us, and therefore Love always wears a smiling face.

With you he feeds on dead joys, past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance of sorrow.

No wonder love and sorrow are so much alike on Earth.

It is a common saying among us that, were it not for the spectacle of the Earth, the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreciate the goodness of God to them; and who can say that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set before us?” “You have told me marvelous things,” I said, after I had reflected.

“It is, indeed, but reasonable that such a race as yours should look down with wondering pity on the Earth.

And yet, before I grant so much, I want to ask you one question.

There is known in our world a certain sweet madness, under the influence of which we forget all that is untoward in our lot, and would not change it for a god’s.

So far is this sweet madness regarded by men as a compensation, and more than a compensation, for all their miseries that if you know not love as we know it, if this loss be the price you have paid for your divine foresight, we think ourselves more favored of God than you.

Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incompatible with a foresight which weighs and measures every experience in advance.

” “Of love’s surprises we certainly know nothing,” was the reply.

“It is believed by our philosophers that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our constitution like lightning; though of course this is merely theory, for it is only by the study of Earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea of what surprise is like.

Your power to endure the constant buffetings of the unexpected is a matter of supreme amazement to us; nor, according to our ideas, is there any difference between what you call pleasant and painful surprises.

You see, then, that we cannot envy you these surprises of love which you find so sweet, for to us they would be fatal.

For the rest, there is no form of happiness which foresight is so well calculated to enhance as that of love.

Let me explain to you how this befalls.

As the growing boy begins to be sensible of the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare say it is with you, preferring some type of face and form to others.

He dreams oftenest of fair hair, or may be of dark, of blue eyes or brown.

As the years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly adding to this dream-face, this shadowy form, traits and lineaments, hues and contours, till at last the picture is complete, and he becomes aware that on his heart thus subtly has been depicted the likeness of the maiden destined for his arms.

“It may be years before he is to see her, but now begins with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown.

Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess.

But the very passion whose awaking makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children.

The temptations which lead your young men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy planet.

He hoards the treasures of his heart for its coming mistress.

Of her alone he thinks, and to her all his vows are made.

The thought of license would be treasop to his sovereign lady, whose right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully owns.

To rob her, to abate her high prerogatives, would be to impoverish, to insult, himself; for she is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own.

Through all this time that he dreams of her by night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden heart his image is set up to receive the incense of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself through fear of possible cross or separation.

“In due time their converging lives come together.

The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each other’s eyes, then throw themselves each on the other’s breast.

The maiden has all the charms that ever stirred the blood of an Earthly lover, but there is another glamour over her which the eyes of Earthly lovers are shut to,-the glamour of the future.

In the blushing girl her lover sees the fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the patient, pain-consecrated mother.

On the virgin’s breast he beholds his children.

He is prescient, even as his lips take the first-fruits of hers, of the future years during which she is to be his companion, his ever-present solace, his chief portion of God’s goodness.

We have read some of your romances describing love as you know it on Earth, and I must confess, my friend, we find them very dull.

“I hope,” he added, as I did not at once speak, “that I shall not offend you by saying we find them also objectionable.

Your literature possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the curiously inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead.

It is a study especially prized for the development of the imagination, on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings in general.

But our women do not read your romances.

The notion that a man or woman should, ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought.

No doubt you will say that such instances are rare among you, but if your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not unknown.

That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly; but it is needless that the minds of our maidens should be pained by the knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties upon the sacredness of marriage are possible.

“There is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness, to a race accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively to things that are ended.

” “And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense?” I asked.

“We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the future tense,” was the reply.

“If our historians were to wait till after the events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be inaccurate; for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy.

Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass.

Your geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of information here.

” In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of human nature are unknown on Mars.

They for whom the future has no mystery can, of course, know neither hope nor fear.

Moreover, every one being assured what he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect; and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engendered on Earth by the strife of man with man, is unknown to the people of Mars, save from the study of our planet.

When I asked if there were not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no difference in that respect between the lives of the people of Earth and of Mars, both alike being according to God’s will in every particular.

We knew that will only after the event, they before,-that was all.

For the rest, God moved them through their wills as He did us, so that they had no more dense of compulsion in what they did than we on Earth have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our anticipations chance to be correct.

Of the absorbing interest which the study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently.

It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place of figures and symbols.

When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different, he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from the Earth.

No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as the past.

And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their logical necessity so clearly that to desire them different was as impossible as seriously to wish that two and two made five instead of four.

No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so closely are all things, the small with the great, woven together by God that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all eternity.

While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the roseate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and sea scape, never paralleled by an earthly sunset.

Already the familiar constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the slightest variation in their position.

Nevertheless, there was one wholly novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were vividly visible to the naked eye.

But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, swimming low on the verge of the horizon.

Its disc, twice as large as that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like that of Venus.

“It is, indeed, a lovely sight,” said my companion, “although to me always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants.

We call it ‘The Blindman’s World.

‘” As he spoke he turned toward a curious structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly observed it.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It is one of our telescopes,” he replied.

“I am going to let you take a look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of which I have boasted;” and having adjusted the instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to the eye-piece.

I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had exaggerated nothing.

The little college town which was my home lay spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down upon it from my observatory windows.

It was early morning, and the village was waking up.

The milkmen were going their rounds, and workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurrying along the streets.

The early train was just leaving the railroad station.

I could see the puffs from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylinders.

It was strange not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed.

There were the college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back the level sunbeams.

I could tell the time by the college clock.

It struck me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering the earliness of the hour.

A crowd of men stood about the door of the observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that direction.

Among them I recognized President Byxbee, accompanied by the college janitor.

As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, passing through the group about the door, entered the building.

The president was evidently going up to my quarters.

At this it flashed over me quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my account.

I recalled how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left affairs in the observatory.

It was high time I were back there to look after myself.

Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that morning on my desk.

That it is the authentic record of the conditions of life in another world which it purports to be I do not expect the reader to believe.

He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks of somnambulism set down in the books.

Probably it was merely that, possibly it was something more.

I do not pretend to decide the question.

I have told all the facts of the case, and have no better means for forming an opinion than the reader.

Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it the true account it seems to be, that it would have affected my imagination much more strongly than it has.

That story of another world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours.

The readiness with which my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of view concerning the Earth has been a singular experience.

The lack of foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of before, now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying its promise,-a moral mutilation, a deprivation arbitrary and unaccountable.

The spectacle of a race doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured only of what is past and dead,’ comes over me from time to time with a sadly fantastical effect which I cannot describe.

I dream of a world where love always wears a smile, where the partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death is king no more.

I have a fancy, which I like to cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, fancied though it may be, represent the ideal and normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as perhaps it may yet be again.

The hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conference room, just over the framed card bearing the words “Stand up for Jesus,” and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences “Come unto Me,” and “The Wonderful, the Counsellor,” pointed to ten minutes of nine.

As was usual at this period of Newville prayer-meetings, a prolonged pause had supervened.

The regular standbyes had all taken their usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been about as irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so.

For the attendants at Newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the two classes of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or times of special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed.

Deacon Tuttle had spoken and prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday’s sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her.

But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the other hand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine would have been regarded as a dangerous innovation.

Accordingly, it only remained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes.

The clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities.

At intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: “There is yet opportunity.

.

.

.

.

Time is passing, brethren.

.

.

.

.

Any brother or sister.

.

.

.

.

We shall be glad to hear from any one.

” Farmer Bragg, tired with his day’s hoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat.

Mrs.

Parker dropped a hymn-book.

Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath.

Madeline Brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister’s desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers.

A June bug boomed through the open window and circled around Deacon Tuttle’s head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about.

Next it made a dive at Madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, and the little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiest thing in the world; at least, so it seemed to Henry Burr, a broad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, serious face is just now lit up by a pleasant smile.

Mr.

Lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannot see it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage of him, which it makes full use of.

Indeed, so closely is the general attention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might draw the mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship the little company had gathered.

Finally, making a slight concession of etiquette to curiosity, Mr.

Lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and, again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a piece of intelligence, “There are yet a few moments.

” In fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutes left, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings to go home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternate hope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortune to the test, and win or lose it all.

As they furtively glance over at the girls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, how serenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the other sex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from their minds! How presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves now appears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, of accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them! Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.

The minister had taken up his hymn- book, and was turning over the leaves to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the room.

Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and Deacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.

It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training, and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.

About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a corporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of raising money for a pressing emergency.

Various circumstances showed that his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.

He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a single unaccountable deflection from rectitude.

The evident intensity of his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the village druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded, and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the past, and help him to begin life over again.

He had been converted at a revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late, and become indifferent to religion.

He looked badly.

His face was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken.

But these symptoms of mental sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound calm.

He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.

And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.

“If it will not be too great an inconvenience,” he said; “I should like to keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little.

You remember, perhaps, that I professed to be converted last winter.

Since then I am aware that I have shown a lack of interest in religious matters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that I was either hasty or insincere in my profession.

I have made my arrangements to leave you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds of my friends.

Hasty I may have been, but not insincere.

Perhaps you will excuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaning clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history.

” The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.

“After my disgrace,” pursued the young man in the same quietly explanatory tone, “the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume, as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and complete as best he can.

Now you know that in order to find any pleasure in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride in it.

Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every time his eye glances it over.

Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like that beaten crew in last week’s regatta, which, when it saw itself hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the race, but just pulled ashore and went home.

“Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn’t have the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page.

Then I was comforted and took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the teacher gave me the prize.

“Now you see, don’t you,” he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering about his eyes, “how it was that after my disgrace I couldn’t seem to take an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and that gave me a notion that religion might help me.

I had heard, from a child, that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit.

That was what I wanted, just what I wanted.

I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.

” He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his haggard face.

“I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which I had taken literally.

Doubtless I should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts.

Nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all.

I’m blaming no one.

Forgiving sins, I should have known, is not blotting, them out.

The blood of Christ only turns them red instead of black.

It leaves them in the record.

It leaves them in the memory.

That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had the teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least bit better so long as the blot was there.

It wasn’t any penalty from without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wanted taken away, so I might get heart to go on.

Supposing one of you-and you’ll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place-had picked a pocket.

Would it make a great deal of difference in your state of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you, and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, and easily repaired.

Your chief offence was against yourself, and that was irreparable.

No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you and yourself.

Until you have been in such a fix, you can’t imagine, perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody else forgiving you for ruining yourself.

It is like mocking.

” The nine o’clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.

“I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words to say.

The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby’s.

I suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water.

Just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their hearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good and happy lives again.

Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and not merely in name.

The figurative promises of the Gospel would become literally true.

But this is idle dreaming.

I will not keep you,” and, checking himself abruptly, he sat down.

The moment he did so, Mr.

Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction, dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn.

He was afraid that something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still further alienate the unfortunate young man.

His own intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.

He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands around him.

There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them.

There was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened.

The tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant.

Many insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale.

None of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement.

Mr.

Lewis was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which were engaged in talk.

Henry Burr was standing near the door, his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.

“Good-evening, Henry,” said Mr.

Lewis, pausing beside the young man.

“Do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George lately to account for what he said to-night?” “I do not, sir,” replied Henry.

“I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given the cold shoulder.

He is very sensitive.

” “I don’t think any one in the village would slight him,” said Henry.

“I should have said so too,” remarked the minister, reflectively.

“Poor boy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how to cheer him.

” “Yes, sir–that is-certainly,” replied Henry incoherently, for Madeline was now coming down the aisle.

In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man’s, Mr.

Lewis passed out.

As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with another young lady.

“Good-evening,” said Henry.

“Poor fellow!” continued Madeline to her companion, “he seemed quite hopeless.

” “Good-evening,” repeated Henry.

Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time.

“Good-evening,” she said.

“May I escort you home?” he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.

She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her.

Then she said, with a bewitching smile- “I shall be much obliged.

” As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs.

He had got her, and his tribulations were forgotten.

For a while they walked silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic suggestions of poor Bayley’s outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.

For it must be understood that Madeline’s little touch of coquetry had been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious engrossments.

To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships.

This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand.

At length she said- “Why didn’t you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of going home with me? Anybody could have done that.

” “No doubt,” replied Henry, seriously; “but, if I’d left anybody else to do it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does.

” “Dear me,” she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation, curved her lips under cover of the darkness, “you take a most unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me.

I never gave you nor anybody else any right to be, and I won’t have it!” “Very well.

It shall be just as you say,” he replied.

The sarcastic humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she immediately changed the subject, demanding- “Where is Laura to-night?” “She’s at home, making cake for the picnic,” he said.

“The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too.

I wonder if poor George will be at the picnic?” “I doubt it,” said Henry.

“You know he never goes to any sort of party.

The last time I saw him at such a place was at Mr.

Bradford’s.

He was playing whist, and they were joking about cheating.

Somebody said- Mr.

Bradford it was-’I can trust my wife’s honesty.

She doesn’t know enough to cheat, but I don’t know about George.

‘ George was her partner.

Bradford didn’t mean any harm; he forgot, you see.

He’d have bitten his tongue off otherwise sooner than have said it.

But everybody saw the application, and there was a dead silence.

George got red as fire, and then pale as death.

I don’t know how they finished the hand, but presently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off.

” “Oh, dear! dear! That was cruel! cruel! How could Mr.

Bradford do it? I should think he would never forgive himself! never!” exclaimed Madeline, with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing Henry’s arm, and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about George and his misfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he was afraid she would notice it and be offended.

But she did not seem to be conscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, and presently added, in a tone of sweetest pity- “He used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meets one of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away or at the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, or meant to cut him.

I’m sure we’d cut our heads off sooner.

It’s enough to make one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitive that no one can say a word to cheer him.

Did you notice what he said about leaving town? I hadn’t heard anything about it before, had you?” “No,” said Henry, “not a word.

Wonder where he’s going.

Perhaps he thinks it will be easier for him in some place where they don’t know him.

” They walked on in silence a few moments, and then Madeline said, in a musing tone- “How strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant things blotted out of their memories! What dreadful thing would you forget now, if you could? Confess.

” “I would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with Will Taylor last Wednesday afternoon, and what I’ve felt about it ever since.

” “Dear me, Mr.

Henry Burr,” said Madeline, with an air of excessive disdain, “how long is it since I authorized you to concern yourself with my affairs? If it wouldn’t please you too much, I’d certainly box your ears.

“I think you’re rather unreasonable,” he protested, in a hurt tone.

“You said a minute ago that you wouldn’t permit me to be jealous of you, and just because I’m so anxious to obey you that I want to forget that I ever was, you are vexed.

” A small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by letters of the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingenious than ingenuous plea.

“I’ve made my confession, and it’s only fair you should make yours,” he said next.

“What remorseful deed have you done that you’d like to forget?” “You needn’t speak in that babying tone.

I fancy I could commit sins as well as you, with all your big moustache, if I wanted to.

I don’t believe you’d hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate.

You’ve probably got a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you’d die of shame to have people see it.

” “Excuse me, Lady Macbeth,” he said, laughing; “I don’t wish to underrate your powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins would you prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough to trouble your excessively hardened conscience? “Well, I must admit,” said Madeline, seriously, “that I wouldn’t care to forget anything I’ve done, not even my faults and follies.

I should be afraid if they were taken away that I shouldn’t have any character left.

” “Don’t put it on that ground,” said Henry, “it’s sheer vanity that makes you say so.

You know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots, and that’s why you’d rather keep ‘em.

” She reflected a moment, and then said, decisively- “That’s a compliment.

I don’t believe I like ‘em from you.

Don’t make me any more.

” Perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment that prompted her words.

Had she done so, she would doubtless have found it in a consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine and delicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery sounded almost gross.

They paused before a gate.

Pushing it open and passing within, she said, “Good-night.

” “One word more.

I have a favour to ask,” he said.

“May I take you to the picnic?” “Why, I think no escort will be necessary,” she replied; “we go in broad daylight; and there are no bears or Indians at Hemlock Hollow.

” “But your basket.

You’ll need somebody to carry your basket.

” “Oh yes, to be sure, my basket,” she exclaimed, with an ironical accent.

“It will weigh at least two pounds, and I couldn’t possibly carry it myself, of course.

By all means come, and much obliged for your thoughtfulness.

” But as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words.

In the treatment of her lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less sharp- tongued maidens.

Henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charming outline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close the door.

Love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feeling that came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush of thankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not Madeline.

For, if he had been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, of worshipping her.

Ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who, fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, are precluded from being their own worshippers! Well, it was a consolation that she didn’t know it, that she actually thought that, with her little coquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of her beauty.

God make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way for missing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in! When Burr reached home, he found his sister Laura standing at the gate in a patch of moonlight.

“How pretty you look to-night!” he said, pinching her round cheek.

The young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly- “So she let you go home with her.

” “How do you know that?” he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess.

“Because you’re so sweet, you goosey, of course.

” But, in truth, any such mode of accounting for Henry’s favourable comment on her appearance was quite unnecessary.

Laura, with her petite, plump figure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clear cheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite as charming a specimen of American girlhood as the stately pale brunette who swayed her brother’s affections.

“Come for a walk, chicken! It is much too pretty a night to go indoors,” he said.

“Yes, and furnish ears for Madeline’s praises, with a few more reflected compliments for pay, perhaps,” she replied, contemptuously.

“Besides,” she added, “I must go into the house and keep father company.

I only came out to cool off after baking the cake.

You’d better come in too.

These moonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know.

” The brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, and Laura, in trying to fill her mother’s place in the household, so far as she might, was always looking out that her father should have as little opportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition.

CHAPTER II.

That same night toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.

Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits.

Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental condition in which he found himself.

It was not that he thought of anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer.

He recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be so strong and so general.

He wondered if it were possible that it should ever again come over him.

The cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue, more cheerless than pitchiest darkness.

A distant bell, with slow and heavy strokes, struck three.

It was the dead point in the daily revolution of the earth’s life, that point just before dawn, when men oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause eternally, when the clock is run down.

The long- drawn reverberations of the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary.

His spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous duration.

A sense of utter loneliness-loneliness inevitable, crushing, eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of unconsciousness-enfolded him as a pall.

Life lay like an incubus on his bosom.

He shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and deny him its refuge.

Even Madeline’s face, as he conjured it up, seemed wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey light of dawn.

Gradually the moon passed, and he slept again.

As early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards.

Even the children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled, solemn look upon their bright faces.

For a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been paralleled in the history of the village.

That morning the sun, as it peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the darkness of a thing it had been afraid of.

George Bayley sat there in a chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple, whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead.

This, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements for leaving the village.

The doctor thought that the fatal shot must have been fired about three o’clock that morning, and, when Henry heard this, he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that had chilled the genial current in his veins.

Bayley’s family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold, haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral.

When Mr.

Lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason to believe that George was out of his head when he took his life, Mr.

Bayley interrupted him.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“He knew what he was doing.

I should not wish any one to think otherwise.

I am prouder of him than I had ever expected to be again.

” A choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot.

It seemed almost cruel that they must ever cease.

And, after the funeral, the young men and girls who had known George, not feeling like returning that day to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed, and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways.

The funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic.

The latter, in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off a fortnight.

CHAPTER III.

About half- past eight on the morning of the day set for the postponed picnic, Henry knocked at Widow Brand’s door.

He had by no means forgotten Madeline’s consent to allow him to carry her basket, although two weeks had intervened.

She came to the door herself.

He had never seen her in anything that set off her dark eyes and olive complexion more richly than the simple picnic dress of white, trimmed with a little crimson braid about the neck and sleeves, which she wore to-day.

It was gathered up at the bottom for wandering in the woods, just enough to show the little boots.

She looked surprised at seeing him, and exclaimed- “You haven’t come to tell me that the picnic is put off again, or Laura’s sick?” “The picnic is all right, and Laura too.

I’ve come to carry your basket for you.

” “Why, you’re really very kind,” said she, as if she thought him slightly officious.

“Don’t you remember you told me I might do so?” he said, getting a little red under her cool inspection.

“When did I?” “Two weeks ago, that evening poor George spoke in meeting.

” “Oh!” she answered, smiling, “so long ago as that? What a terrible memory you have! Come in just a moment, please; I’m nearly ready.

” Whether she merely took his word for it, or whether she had remembered her promise perfectly well all the time, and only wanted to make him ask twice for the favour, lest he should feel too presumptuous, I don’t pretend to know.

Mrs.

Brand set a chair for him with much cordiality.

She was a gentle, mild-mannered little lady, such a contrast in style and character to Madeline that there was a certain amusing fitness in the latter’s habit of calling her “My baby.

” “You have a very pleasant day for your picnic, Mr.

Burr,” said she.

“Yes, we are very lucky,” replied Henry, his eyes following Madeline’s movements as she stood before the glass, putting on her hat, which had a red feather in it.

To have her thus add the last touches to her toilet in his presence was a suggestion of familiarity, of domesticity, that was very intoxicating to his imagination.

“Is your father well?” inquired Mrs.

Brand, affably.

“Very well, thank you, very well indeed,” he replied “There; now I’m ready,” said Madeline.

“Here’s the basket, Henry.

Good-bye, mother.

” They were a well-matched pair, the stalwart young man and the tall, graceful girl, and it is no wonder the girl’s mother stood in the door looking after them with a thoughtful smile.

Hemlock Hollow was a glen between wooded bluffs, about a mile up the beautiful river on which Newville was situated, and boats had been collected at the rendezvous on the river-bank to convey the picnickers thither.

On arriving, Madeline and Henry found all the party assembled and in capital spirits; There was still just enough shadow on their merriment to leave the disposition to laugh slightly in excess of its indulgence, than which no condition of mind more favourable to a good time can be imagined.

Laura was there, and to her Will Taylor had attached himself.

He was a dapper little black-eyed fellow, a clerk in the dry- goods store, full of fun and good-nature, and a general favourite, but it was certainly rather absurd that Henry should be apprehensive of him as a rival.

There also was Fanny Miller, who had the prettiest arm in Newville, a fact discovered once when she wore a Martha Washington toilet at a masquerade sociable, and since circulated from mouth to mouth among the young men.

And there, too, was Emily Hunt, who had shocked the girls and thrown the youth into a pleasing panic by appearing at a young people’s party the previous winter in low neck and short sleeves.

It is to be remarked in extenuation that she had then but recently come from the city, and was not familiar with Newville etiquette.

Nor must I forget to mention Ida Lewis, the minister’s daughter, a little girl with poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who cherished a hopeless passion for Henry.

Among the young men was Harry Tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by the young men.

And there, above all, was Tom Longman.

Tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme.

He was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls’ charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self- consciousness when in their presence.

From this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do.

With his hands occupied he had an excuse for not talking to the girls or being addressed by them, and, thus shielded from the, direct rays of their society, basked with inexpressible emotions in the general atmosphere of sweetness and light which they diffused.

He liked picnics because there was much work to do, and never attended indoor parties because there was none.

This inordinate taste for industry in connection with social enjoyment on Tom’s part was strongly encouraged by the other young men, and they were the ones who always stipulated that he should be of the party when there was likely to be any call for rowing, taking care of horses, carrying of loads, putting out of croquet sets, or other manual exertion.

He was generally an odd one in such companies.

It would be no kindness to provide him a partner, and, besides, everybody made so many jokes about him that none of the girls quite cared to have their names coupled with his, although they all had a compassionate liking for him.

On the present occasion this poor slave of the petticoat had been at work preparing the boats all the morning.

“Why, how nicely you have arranged everything!” said Madeline kindly, as she stood on the sand waiting for Henry to bring up a boat.

“What?” replied Tom, laughing in a flustered way.

He always laughed just so and said “what?” when any of the girls spoke to him, being too much confused by the fact of being addressed to catch what was said the first time.

“It’s very good of you to arrange the boats for us, Madeline repeated.

“Oh, ’tain’t anything, ’tain’t anything at all,” he blurted out, with a very red face.

“You are going up in our boat, ain’t you, Longman?” said Harry Tuttle.

“No, Tom, you’re going with us,” cried another young man.

“He’s going with us, like a sensible fellow,” said Will Taylor, who, with Laura Burr, was sitting on the forward thwart of the boat, into the stern of which Henry was now assisting Madeline.

“Tom, these lazy young men are just wanting you to do their rowing for them,” said she.

“Get into our boat, and I’ll make Henry row you.

” “What do you say to that, Henry?” said Tom, snickering.

“It isn’t for me to say anything after Madeline has spoken,” replied the young man.

“She has him in good subjection,” remarked Ida Lewis, not over-sweetly.

“All right, I’ll come in your boat, Miss Brand, if you’ll take care of me,” said Tom, with a sudden spasm of boldness, followed by violent blushes at the thought that perhaps be had said something too free.

The boat was pushed off.

Nobody took the oars.

“I thought you were going to row?” said Madeline, turning to Henry, who sat beside her in the stern.

“Certainly,” said he, making as if he would rise.

“Tom, you just sit here while I row.

” “Oh no, I’d just as lief row,” said Tom, seizing the oars with feverish haste.

“So would I, Tom; I want a little exercise,” urged Henry with a hypocritical grin, as he stood up in an attitude of readiness.

“Oh, I like to row.

‘I’d a great deal rather.

Honestly,” asseverated Tom, as he made the water foam with the violence of his strokes, compelling Henry to resume his seat to preserve his equilibrium.

“It’s perfectly plain that you don’t want to sit by me, Tom.

That hurts my feelings,” said Madeline, pretending to pout.

“Oh no, it isn’t that,” protested Tom.

“Only I’d rather row; that is, I mean, you know, it’s such fun rowing.

” “Very well, then,” said Madeline, “I sha’n't help you any more; and here they all are tying their boats on to ours.

” Sure enough, one of the other boats had fastened its chain to the stern of theirs, and the others had fastened to that; their oarsmen were lying off and Tom was propelling the entire flotilla.

“Oh, I can row ‘em all just as easy’s not,” gasped the devoted youth, the perspiration rolling down his forehead.

But this was a little too bad, and Henry soon cast off the other boats, in spite of the protests of their occupants, who regarded Tom’s brawn and muscle as the common stock of the entire party, which no one boat had a right to appropriate.

On reaching Hemlock Hollow, Madeline asked the poor young man for his hat, and returned it to him adorned with evergreens, which nearly distracted him with bashfulness and delight, and drove him to seek a safety-valve for his excitement in superhuman activity all the rest of the morning, arranging croquet sets, hanging swings, breaking ice, squeezing lemons, and fetching water.

“Oh, how thirsty I am!” sighed Madeline, throwing down her croquet mallet.

“The ice-water is not yet ready, but I know a spring a little way off where the water is cold as ice,” said Henry.

“Show it to me this instant,” she cried, and they walked off together, followed by Ida Lewis’s unhappy eyes.

The distance to the spring was not great, but the way was rough, and once or twice he had to help her over fallen trees and steep banks.

Once she slipped a little, and for, a single supreme moment he held her whole weight in his arms.

Before, they had been talking and laughing gaily, but that made a sudden silence.

He dared not look at her for some moments, and when he did there was a slight flush tingeing her usually colourless cheek.

His pulses were already bounding wildly, and, at this betrayal that she had shared his consciousness at that moment, his agitation was tenfold increased.

It was the first time she had ever shown a sign of confusion in his presence.

The sensation of mastery, of power over her, which it gave, was so utterly new that it put a sort of madness in his blood.

Without a word they came to the spring and pretended to drink.

As she turned to go back, he lightly caught her fingers in a detaining clasp, and said, in a voice rendered harsh by suppressed emotion- “Don’t be in such a hurry.

Where will you find a cooler spot?” “Oh, it’s cool enough anywhere! Let’s go back,” she replied, starting to return as she spoke.

She saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then.

She flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid.

He sprang up and extended her his hand.

Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side.

Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips.

She gasped, and freed herself.

“How dared you do such a thing to me?” she cried.

The big fellow stood before her, sheepish, dogged, contrite, desperate, all in one.

“I couldn’t help it,” he blurted out.

The plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable.

Angry as she was, she really couldn’t think of anything to say, except- “You’d better help it,” with which rather ineffective rebuke she turned away and walked toward the picnic ground.

Henry followed in a demoralized frame.

His mind was in a ferment.

He could not realize what had happened.

He could scarcely believe that he had actually done it.

He could not conceive how he had dared it.

And now what penalty would she inflict? What if she should not forgive him? His soul was dissolved in fears.

But, sooth to say, the young lady’s actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended.

She had been ready to be very angry, but the suddenness and depth of his contrition had disarmed her.

It took all the force out of her indignation to see that he actually seemed to have a deeper sense of the enormity of his act than she herself had.

And when, after they had rejoined the party, she saw that, instead of taking part in the sports, he kept aloof, wandering aimless and disconsolate by himself among the pines, she took compassion on him and sent some one to tell him she wanted him to come and push her in the swing.

People had kissed her before.

She was not going to leave the first person who had seemed to fully realize the importance of the proceeding to suffer unduly from a susceptibility which did him so much credit.

As for Henry, he hardly believed his ears when he heard the summons to attend her.

At that the kiss which her rebuke had turned cold on his lips began to glow afresh, and for the first time he tasted its exceeding sweetness; for her calling to him seemed to ratify and consent to it.

There were others standing about as he came up to where Madeline sat in the swing, and he was silent, for he could not talk of indifferent things.

With what a fresh charm, with what new sweet suggestions of complaisance that kiss had invested every line and curve of her, from hat-plume to boot-tip! A delicious tremulous sense of proprietorship tinged his every thought of her.

He touched the swing-rope as fondly as if it were an electric chain that could communicate the caress to her.

Tom Longman, having done all the work that offered itself, had been wandering about in a state of acute embarrassment, not daring to join himself to any of the groups, much less accost a young lady who might be alone.

As he drifted near the swing, Madeline said to Henry- “You may stop swinging me now.

I think I’d like to go out rowing.

” The young man’s cup seemed running over.

He could scarcely command his voice for delight as he said- “It will be jolly rowing just now.

I’m sure we can get some pond-lilies.

” “Really,” she replied, airily, “you take too much for granted.

I was going to ask Tom Longman to take me out.

” She called to Tom, and as he came up, grinning and shambling, she indicated to him her pleasure that he should row her upon the river.

The idea of being alone in a small boat for perhaps fifteen minutes with the belle of Newville, and the object of his own secret and distant adoration, paralysed Tom’s faculties with an agony of embarrassment.

He grew very red, and there was such a buzzing in his ears that he could not feel sure he heard aright, and Madeline had to repeat herself several times before he seemed to fully realize the appalling nature of the proposition.

As they walked down to the shore she chatted with him, but he only responded with a profusion of vacant laughs.

When he had pulled out on the river, his rowing, from his desire to make an excuse for not talking, was so tremendous that they cheered him from the shore, at the same time shouting- “Keep her straight! You’re going into the bank!” The truth was, that Tom could not guide the boat because he did not dare to look astern for fear of meeting Madeline’s eyes, which, to judge from the space his eyes left around her, he must have supposed to fill at least a quarter of the horizon, like an aurora, in fact.

But, all the same, he was having an awfully good time, although perhaps it would be more proper to say he would have a good time when he came to think it over afterward.

It was an experience which would prove a mine of gold in his memory, rich enough to furnish for years the gilding to his modest day-dreams.

Beauty, like wealth, should make its owners generous.

It is a gracious thing in fair women at times to make largesse of their beauty, bestowing its light more freely on tongue-tied, timid adorers than on their bolder suitors, giving to them who dare not ask.

Their beauty never can seem more precious to women than when for charity’s sake they brighten with its lustre the eyes of shy and retiring admirers.

As Henry was ruefully meditating upon the uncertainty of the sex, and debating the probability that Madeline had called him to swing her for the express purpose of getting a chance to snub him, Ida Lewis came to him, and said- “Mr.

Burr, we’re getting up a game of croquet.

Won’t you play?” “If I can be on your side,” he answered, civilly.

He knew the girl’s liking for him, and was always kind to her.

At his answer her face flushed with pleasure, and she replied shyly- “If you’d like to, you may.

” Henry was not in the least a conceited fellow, but it was impossible that he should not understand the reason why Ida, who all the morning had looked forlorn enough, was now the life of the croquet-ground, and full of smiles and flushes.

She was a good player, and had a corresponding interest in beating, but her equanimity on the present occasion was not in the least disturbed by the disgraceful defeat which Henry’s awkwardness and absence of mind entailed on their aide.

But her portion of sunshine for that day was brief enough, for Madeline soon returned from her boat-ride, and Henry found an excuse for leaving the game and joining her where she sat on the ground between the knees of a gigantic oak sorting pond-lilies, which the girls were admiring.

As he came up, she did not appear to notice him.

As soon as he had a chance to speak without being overheard, he said, soberly- “Tom ought to thank me for that boat-ride, I suppose.

” “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, with assumed carelessness.

“I mean that you went to punish me.

” “You’re sufficiently conceited,” she replied.

“Laura, come here; your brother is teasing me.

” “And do you think I want to be teased to?” replied that young lady, pertly, as she walked off.

Madeline would have risen and left Henry, but she was too proud to let him think that she was afraid of him.

.

Neither was she afraid, but she was confused, and momentarily without her usual self-confidence.

One reason for her running off with Tom had been to get a chance to think.

No girl, however coolly her blood may flow, can be pressed to a man’s breast, wildly throbbing with love for her, and not experience some agitation in consequence.

Whatever may be the state of her sentiments, there is a magnetism in such a contact which she cannot at once throw off.

That kiss had brought her relations with Henry to a crisis.

It had precipitated the necessity of some decision.

She could no longer hold him off, and play with him.

By that bold dash he had gained a vantage-ground, a certain masterful attitude which he had never held before.

Yet, after all, I am not sure that she was not just a little afraid of him, and, moreover, that she did not like him all the better for it.

It was such a novel feeling that it began to make some things, thought of in connection with him, seem more possible to her mind than they had ever seemed before.

As she peeped furtively at this young man, so suddenly grown formidable, as he reclined carelessly on the ground at her feet, she admitted to herself that there was something very manly in the sturdy figure and square forehead, with the curly black locks hanging over it.

She looked at him with a new interest, half shrinking, half attracted, as one who might come into a very close relation with herself.

She scarcely knew whether the thought was agreeable or not.

“Give me your hat,” she said, “and I’ll put some lilies in it.

” “You are very good,” said he, handing it to her.

“Does it strike you so?” she replied, hesitatingly.

“Then I won’t do it.

I don’t want to appear particularly good to you.

I didn’t know just how it would seem.

” “Oh, it won’t seem very good; only about middling,” he urged, upon which representation she took the hat.

He watched her admiringly as she deftly wreathed the lilies around it, holding it up, now this way and now that, while she critically inspected the effect.

Then her caprice changed.

“I’ve half a mind to drop it into the river.

Would you jump after it?” she said, twirling it by the brim, and looking over the steep bank, near which she sat, into the deep, dark water almost perpendicularly below.

“If it were anything of yours instead of mine, I would jump quickly enough,” he replied.

She looked at him with a reckless gleam in her eyes.

“You mustn’t talk chaff to me, sir; we’ll see,” and, snatching a glove from her pocket, she held it out over the water.

They were both of them in that state of suppressed excitement which made such an experiment on each other’s nerve dangerous.

Their eyes met, and neither flinched.

If she had dropped it, he would have gone after it.

“After all,” she said, suddenly, “that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get a mitten.

If you are so anxious for it, I will give it to you now;” and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face.

He sprang up from the ground.

“Madeline, do you mean it?” he asked, scarcely audibly, his face grown white and pinched.

She crumpled the obnoxious glove into her pocket.

“Why, you poor fellow!” she exclaimed, the wildfire in her eyes quenched in a moment with the dew of pity.

“Do you care so much?” “I care everything,” he said, huskily.

But, as luck would have it, just at that instant Will Taylor came running up, pursued by Laura, and threw himself upon Madeline’s protection.

It appeared that he had confessed to the possession of a secret, and on being requested by Laura to impart it had flatly refused to do so.

“I can’t really interfere to protect any young man who refuses to tell a secret to a young lady,” said Madeline, gravely.

“Neglect to tell her the secret, without being particularly asked to do so, would be bad enough, but to refuse after being requested is an offence which calls for the sharpest correction.

” “And that isn’t all, either,” said Laura, vindictively flirting the switch with which she had pursued him.

“He used offensive language.

” “What did he say?” demanded Madeline, judicially.

“I asked him if he was sure it was a secret that I didn’t know already, and he said he was; and I asked him what made him sure, and he said because if I knew it everybody else would.

As much as to say I couldn’t keep a secret.

” “This looks worse and worse, young man,” said the judge, severely.

“The only course left for you is to make a clean breast of the affair, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

If the secret turns out to be a good one, I’ll let you off as easily as I can.

” “It’s about the new drug-clerk, the one who is going to take George Bayley’s place,” said Will, laughing.

“Oh, do tell, quick!” exclaimed Laura.

“I don’t care who it is.

I sha’n't like him,” said Madeline.

“Poor George! and here we are forgetting all about him this beautiful day!” “What’s the new clerk’s name?” said Laura, impatiently.

“Harrison Cordis.

” “What?” “Harrison Cordis.

” “Rather an odd name,” said Laura.

“I never heard it.

” “No,” said Will; “he comes all the way from Boston.

” “Is he handsome?” inquired Laura.

“I really don’t know,” replied Will.

“I presume Parker failed to make that a condition, although really he ought to, for the looks of the clerk is the principal element in the sale of soda-water, seeing girls are the only ones who drink it.

” “Of course it is,” said Laura, frankly.

“I didn’t drink any all last summer, because poor George’s sad face took away my disposition.

Never mind,” she added, “we shall all have a chance to see how he looks at church to-morrow;” and with that the two girls went off together to help set the table for lunch.

The picnickers did not row home till sunset, but Henry found no opportunity to resume the conversation with Madeline which had been broken off at such an interesting point.

CHAPTER IV.

The advent of a stranger was an event of importance in the small social world of Newville.

Mr.

Harrison Cordis, the new clerk in the drug-store, might well have been flattered by the attention which he excited at church the next day, especially from the fairer half of the congregation.

Far, however, from appearing discomposed thereby, he returned it with such interest that at least half the girls thought they had captivated him by the end of the morning service.

They all agreed that he was awfully handsome, though Laura maintained that he was rather too pretty for a man.

He was certainly very pretty.

His figure was tall, slight, and elegant.

He had delicate hands and feet, a white forehead, deep blue, smiling eyes, short, curly, yellow, hair, and a small moustache, drooping over lips as enticing as a girl’s.

But the ladies voted his manners yet more pleasing than his appearance.

They were charmed by his easy self-possession, and constant alertness as to details of courtesy.

The village beaus scornfully called him “cityfied,” and secretly longed to be like him.

A shrewder criticism than that to which he was exposed would, however, have found the fault with Cordis’s manners that, under a show of superior ease and affability, he was disposed to take liberties with his new acquaintances, and exploit their simplicity for his own entertainment.

Evidently he felt that he was in the country.

That very first Sunday, after evening meeting, he induced Fanny Miller, at whose father’s house he boarded, to introduce him to Madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call.

Fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of Newville wooers to make very gradual approaches.

Laura warmly expressed to Madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon Laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did.

Madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which Laura issued second best, as people generally verbal strife with Madeline.

Meanwhile it was rumoured that Cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times.

The drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet.

The last of the week Fanny Miller gave a little tea-party, to make Cordis more generally acquainted.

On that occasion he singled out Madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued.

Laura, having her brother’s interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things.

They all remarked how queerly Madeline acted that evening.

She was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself.

When the party broke up, Cordis walked home with Madeline and Laura, whose paths lay together.

“I’m extremely fortunate,” said he, as he was walking on with Laura, after leaving Madeline at her house, “to have a chance to escort the two belles of Newville at once.

” “I’m not so foolish as I look, Mr.

Cordis,” said she, rather sharply.

She was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every Newville girl as he had Madeline’s with his city airs and compliments.

“You might be, and not mind owning it,” he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased.

“I mean that I don’t like flattery.

” “Are you sure?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Of course I am.

What a question!” “Excuse me; I only asked because I never met any one before who didn’t.

” “Never met anybody who didn’t like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren’t true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe ‘em?” “I don’t expect you to believe ‘em yourself,” he replied; “only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but I wouldn’t give a cent for friends who didn’t think better of me than I think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too.

” They stood a moment at Laura’s gate, and just then Henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house.

“Is that your brother?” asked Cordis.

“Yes.

” “It does one’s eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man.

Is your brother married, may I ask?” “He is not.

” “In coming into a new circle as I have done, you understand, Miss Burr, I often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons I meet,” he said, apologizing for his questions.

Laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it.

“My brother has been attentive to Miss Brand for a long time.

They are about as good as engaged.

Good-evening, Mr.

Cordis.

” It so happened that several days after this conversation, as Madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw Harrison Cordis coming behind her on his way to tea.

At the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her.

Her pace slackened.

She blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry.

The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis’s feminine temperament.

Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other.

They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs.

Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile.

It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did.

“Good-evening, Miss Brand,” he said, as he over took her.

“I don’t really think it’s fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you.

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to,” she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it.

“It isn’t safe to,” he said, laughing.

“You can’t tell who it may be.

Now, it might have been Mr.

Burr, instead of only me.

” She understood instantly.

Somebody had been telling him about Henry’s attentions to her.

A bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this.

For several seconds she could not control herself to speak.

Finally, she said- “I don’t understand you.

Why do you speak of Mr.

Burr to me?” “I beg pardon.

I should not have done so.

” “Please explain what you mean.

“You’ll excuse me, I hope,” he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her.

“It was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least I understood, that you were engaged to him.

” “Somebody has told you a falsehood, then,” she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping.

If she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that.

Mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door.

Until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped.

Good-afternoon, Madeline.

I’m glad to see you.

You haven’t made me a call this ever so long.

” “I’m sorry, Mrs.

Tuttle, but I haven’t time to stop to-day.

Ha-have you got a-a pattern of a working apron? I’d like to borrow it.

” CHAPTER V.

Now, Henry had not chanced to be at church that first Sunday evening when Cordis obtained an introduction to Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller’s teaparty.

Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever.

Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions.

She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse.

Moreover, now that she had warned Cordis that Madeline was pre- empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere.

And so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance.

And it was very blissful.

He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic.

He had told his love-he had kissed her.

If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he.

And, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? The fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand.

Circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams.

A sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights.

He contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on Madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her.

It was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home.

It chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between Madeline and Cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place.

She did not come in till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way.

She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him.

He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it.

It did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh.

This cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air.

While he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for Madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject.

Finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate- “Mr.

Taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn’t he?” “I should think you ought to know, if any one.

You pass his house every day,” was her response.

“Why, of course I know,” he said, staring at her.

“So I thought, but you said ‘hasn’t he?’ And naturally I presumed that you were not quite certain.

” She was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable.

She looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding.

As she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored.

“Madeline, do you know what I should say was the matter with you if you’ were a man?” he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh.

“Well, really”-and her eyes had a rather hard expression-”if you prefer gentlemen’s society, you’d better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman.

But I was reminded that it was in a dream that Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and on awaking had recalled nothing of his experience, just as I should recall nothing of mine.

When will man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out the secrets of the universe.

“Do your people visit the Earth in the same manner?” I asked my companion.

“Certainly,” he replied; “but there we find no one able to recognize us and converse with us as I am conversing with you, although myself in the waking state.

You, as yet, lack the knowledge we possess of the spiritual side of the human nature which we share with you.

“ “That knowledge must have enabled you to learn much more of the Earth than we know of you,” I said.

“Indeed it has,” he replied.

“From visitors such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse constantly, we have acquired familiarity with your civilization, your history, your manners, and even your literature and languages.

Have you not noticed that I am talking with you in English, which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this planet?” “Among so many wonders I scarcely observed that,” I answered.

“For ages,” pursued my companion, “we have been waiting for you to improve your telescopes so as to approximate the power of ours, after which communication between the planets would be easily established.

The progress which you make is, however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet.

“ “Indeed, I fear you will have to,” I replied.

“Our opticians already talk of having reached the limits of their art.

“ “Do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of petulance,” my companion resumed.

“The slowness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a disability so crushing that if we were in your place I fear we should sit down in utter despair.

“ “To what disability do you refer?” I asked.

“You seem to be men like us.

” “And so we are,” was the reply, “save in one particular, but there the difference is tremendous.

Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of the faculty of foresight, without which we should think our other faculties well-nigh valueless.

” “Foresight!” I repeated.

“Certainly you cannot mean that it is given you to know the future?” “It is given not only to us,” was the answer, “but, so far as we know, to all other intelligent beings of the universe except yourselves.

Our positive knowledge extends only to our system of moons and planets and some of the nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own; but it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated.

One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which a rational existence may still be possible ought to suffice for the universe.

” “But no one can know the future except by inspiration of God,’9 I said.

“All our faculties are by inspiration of God,” was the reply, “but there is surely nothing in foresight to cause it to be so regarded more than any other.

Think a moment of the physical analogy of the case.

Your eyes are placed in the front of your heads.

You would deem it an odd mistake if they were placed behind.

That would appear to you an arrangement calculated to defeat their purpose.

Does it not seem equally rational that the mental vision should range forward, as it does with us, illuminating the path one is to take, rather than backward, as with you, revealing only the course you have already trodden, and therefore have no more concern with? But it is no doubt a merciful provision of Providence that renders you unable to realize the grotesqueness of your predicament, as it appears to us.

” “But the future is eternal!” I exclaimed.

“How can a finite mind grasp it?” “Our foreknowledge implies only human faculties,” was the reply.

“It is limited to our individual careers on this planet.

Each of us foresees the course of his own life, but not that of other lives, except so far as they are involved with his.

” “That such a power as you describe could be combined with merely human faculties is more than our philosophers have ever dared to dream,” I said.

“And yet who shall say, after all, that it is not in mercy that God has denied it to us? If it is a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one’s happiness, it must be most depressing to foresee one’s sorrows, failures, yes, and even one’s death.

For if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anticipate the hour and manner of your death,-is it not so?” “Most assuredly,” was the reply.

“Living would be a very precarious business, were we uninformed of its limit.

Your ignorance of the time of your death impresses us as one of the saddest features of your condition.

” “And by us,” I answered, “it is held to be one of the most merciful.

” “Foreknowledge of your death would not, indeed, prevent your dying once,” continued my companion, “but it would deliver you from the thousand deaths you suffer through uncertainty whether you can safely count on the passing day.

It is not the death you die, but these many deaths you do not die, which shadow your existence.

Poor blindfolded creatures that you are, cringing at every step in apprehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fall till old age, never raising a cup to your lips with the knowledge that you will live to quaff it, never sure that you will meet again the friend you part with for an hour, from whose hearts no happiness suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread, what idea can you form of the Godlike security with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of those we love! You have a saying on earth, ‘To-morrow belongs to God;’ but here to-morrow belongs to us, even as to-day.

To you, for some inscrutable purpose, He sees fit to dole out life moment by moment, with no assurance that each is not to be the last.

To us He gives a lifetime at once, fifty, sixty, seventy years,-a divine gift indeed.

A life such as yours would, I fear, seem of little value to us; for such a life, however long, is but a moment long, since that is all you can count on.

” “And yet,” I answered, “though knowledge of the duration of your lives may give you an enviable feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that not more than offset by the daily growing weight with which the expectation of the end, as it draws near, must press upon your minds?” “On the contrary,” was the response, “death, never an object of fear, as it draws nearer becomes more and more a matter of indifference to the moribund.

It is because you live in the past that death is grievous to you.

All your knowledge, all your affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, and on that account, as life lengthens, it strengthens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more precious possession.

We, on the contrary, despise the past, and never dwell upon it.

Memory with us, far from being the morbid and monstrous growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudimentary faculty.

We live wholly in the future and the present.

What with foretaste and actual taste, our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, are exhausted of interest by the time they are past.

The accumulated treasures of memory, which you relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss at all.

Our minds being fed wholly from the future, we think and feel only as we anticipate; and so, as the dying man’s future contracts, there is less and less about which he can occupy his thoughts.

His interest in life diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last death finds him with his mind a tabula rasa, as with you at birth.

In a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called on to give it up.

In dying he leaves nothing behind.

” “And the after-death,” I asked,-”is there no: fear of that?” “Surely,” was the reply, “it is not necessary for me to say that a fear which affects only the more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to us, and would be counted blasphemous.

Moreover, as I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives on this planet.

Any speculation beyond them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty.

To us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be called almost the same.

” “But even if you do not fear death for itself,” I said, “you have hearts to break.

Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered?” “Love and death are not foes on our planet,” was the reply.

“There are no tears by the bedsides of our dying.

The same beneficent law which makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us.

With you, it is the intercourse you have had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them.

With us, it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is the foundation of fondness.

As our friends vanish from our future with the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time.

As our dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at the last we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds of those who regard us equally without keen emotions.

So at last God gently unwinds instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying.

Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of torturing us, as with you.

Love means joy, and that alone, to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate pang for every thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile.

” “There are other partings than those of death.

Are these, too, without sorrow for you?” I asked.

“Assuredly,” was the reply.

“Can you not see that so it must needs be with beings freed by foresight from the disease of memory? All the sorrow of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the backward vision which precludes you from beholding your happiness till it is past.

Suppose your life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship.

If you could know it beforehand, it would be a joyous expectation, brightening the intervening years and cheering you as you traversed desolate periods.

But no; not till you meet the one who is to be your friend do you know of him.

Nor do you guess even then what he is to be to you, that you may embrace him at first sight.

Your meeting is cold and indifferent.

It is long before the fire is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already time for parting.

Now, indeed, the fire burns well, but henceforth it must consume your heart.

Not till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how dear your friends were and how sweet was their companionship.

But we-we see our friends afar off coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, years before our ways meet.

We greet them at first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy.

They enter at once into the full possession of hearts long warmed and lighted for them.

We meet with that delirium of tenderness with which you part.

And when to us at last the time of parting comes, it only means that we are to contribute to each other’s happiness no longer.

We are not doomed, like you, in parting, to take away with us the delight we brought our friends, leaving the ache of bereavement in its place, so that their last state is worse than their first.

Parting here is like meeting with you, calm and unimpassioned.

The joys of anticipation and possession are the only food of love with us, and therefore Love always wears a smiling face.

With you he feeds on dead joys, past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance of sorrow.

No wonder love and sorrow are so much alike on Earth.

It is a common saying among us that, were it not for the spectacle of the Earth, the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreciate the goodness of God to them; and who can say that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set before us?” “You have told me marvelous things,” I said, after I had reflected.

“It is, indeed, but reasonable that such a race as yours should look down with wondering pity on the Earth.

And yet, before I grant so much, I want to ask you one question.

There is known in our world a certain sweet madness, under the influence of which we forget all that is untoward in our lot, and would not change it for a god’s.

So far is this sweet madness regarded by men as a compensation, and more than a compensation, for all their miseries that if you know not love as we know it, if this loss be the price you have paid for your divine foresight, we think ourselves more favored of God than you.

Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incompatible with a foresight which weighs and measures every experience in advance.

” “Of love’s surprises we certainly know nothing,” was the reply.

“It is believed by our philosophers that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our constitution like lightning; though of course this is merely theory, for it is only by the study of Earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea of what surprise is like.

Your power to endure the constant buffetings of the unexpected is a matter of supreme amazement to us; nor, according to our ideas, is there any difference between what you call pleasant and painful surprises.

You see, then, that we cannot envy you these surprises of love which you find so sweet, for to us they would be fatal.

For the rest, there is no form of happiness which foresight is so well calculated to enhance as that of love.

Let me explain to you how this befalls.

As the growing boy begins to be sensible of the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare say it is with you, preferring some type of face and form to others.

He dreams oftenest of fair hair, or may be of dark, of blue eyes or brown.

As the years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly adding to this dream-face, this shadowy form, traits and lineaments, hues and contours, till at last the picture is complete, and he becomes aware that on his heart thus subtly has been depicted the likeness of the maiden destined for his arms.

“It may be years before he is to see her, but now begins with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown.

Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess.

But the very passion whose awaking makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children.

The temptations which lead your young men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy planet.

He hoards the treasures of his heart for its coming mistress.

Of her alone he thinks, and to her all his vows are made.

The thought of license would be treasop to his sovereign lady, whose right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully owns.

To rob her, to abate her high prerogatives, would be to impoverish, to insult, himself; for she is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own.

Through all this time that he dreams of her by night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden heart his image is set up to receive the incense of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself through fear of possible cross or separation.

“In due time their converging lives come together.

The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each other’s eyes, then throw themselves each on the other’s breast.

The maiden has all the charms that ever stirred the blood of an Earthly lover, but there is another glamour over her which the eyes of Earthly lovers are shut to,-the glamour of the future.

In the blushing girl her lover sees the fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the patient, pain-consecrated mother.

On the virgin’s breast he beholds his children.

He is prescient, even as his lips take the first-fruits of hers, of the future years during which she is to be his companion, his ever-present solace, his chief portion of God’s goodness.

We have read some of your romances describing love as you know it on Earth, and I must confess, my friend, we find them very dull.

“I hope,” he added, as I did not at once speak, “that I shall not offend you by saying we find them also objectionable.

Your literature possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the curiously inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead.

It is a study especially prized for the development of the imagination, on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings in general.

But our women do not read your romances.

The notion that a man or woman should, ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought.

No doubt you will say that such instances are rare among you, but if your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not unknown.

That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly; but it is needless that the minds of our maidens should be pained by the knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties upon the sacredness of marriage are possible.

“There is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness, to a race accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively to things that are ended.

” “And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense?” I asked.

“We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the future tense,” was the reply.

“If our historians were to wait till after the events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be inaccurate; for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy.

Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass.

Your geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of information here.

” In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of human nature are unknown on Mars.

They for whom the future has no mystery can, of course, know neither hope nor fear.

Moreover, every one being assured what he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect; and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engendered on Earth by the strife of man with man, is unknown to the people of Mars, save from the study of our planet.

When I asked if there were not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no difference in that respect between the lives of the people of Earth and of Mars, both alike being according to God’s will in every particular.

We knew that will only after the event, they before,-that was all.

For the rest, God moved them through their wills as He did us, so that they had no more dense of compulsion in what they did than we on Earth have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our anticipations chance to be correct.

Of the absorbing interest which the study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently.

It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place of figures and symbols.

When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different, he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from the Earth.

No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as the past.

And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their logical necessity so clearly that to desire them different was as impossible as seriously to wish that two and two made five instead of four.

No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so closely are all things, the small with the great, woven together by God that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all eternity.

While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the roseate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and sea scape, never paralleled by an earthly sunset.

Already the familiar constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the slightest variation in their position.

Nevertheless, there was one wholly novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were vividly visible to the naked eye.

But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, swimming low on the verge of the horizon.

Its disc, twice as large as that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like that of Venus.

“It is, indeed, a lovely sight,” said my companion, “although to me always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants.

We call it ‘The Blindman’s World.

‘” As he spoke he turned toward a curious structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly observed it.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It is one of our telescopes,” he replied.

“I am going to let you take a look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of which I have boasted;” and having adjusted the instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to the eye-piece.

I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had exaggerated nothing.

The little college town which was my home lay spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down upon it from my observatory windows.

It was early morning, and the village was waking up.

The milkmen were going their rounds, and workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurrying along the streets.

The early train was just leaving the railroad station.

I could see the puffs from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylinders.

It was strange not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed.

There were the college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back the level sunbeams.

I could tell the time by the college clock.

It struck me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering the earliness of the hour.

A crowd of men stood about the door of the observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that direction.

Among them I recognized President Byxbee, accompanied by the college janitor.

As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, passing through the group about the door, entered the building.

The president was evidently going up to my quarters.

At this it flashed over me quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my account.

I recalled how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left affairs in the observatory.

It was high time I were back there to look after myself.

Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that morning on my desk.

That it is the authentic record of the conditions of life in another world which it purports to be I do not expect the reader to believe.

He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks of somnambulism set down in the books.

Probably it was merely that, possibly it was something more.

I do not pretend to decide the question.

I have told all the facts of the case, and have no better means for forming an opinion than the reader.

Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it the true account it seems to be, that it would have affected my imagination much more strongly than it has.

That story of another world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours.

The readiness with which my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of view concerning the Earth has been a singular experience.

The lack of foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of before, now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying its promise,-a moral mutilation, a deprivation arbitrary and unaccountable.

The spectacle of a race doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured only of what is past and dead,’ comes over me from time to time with a sadly fantastical effect which I cannot describe.

I dream of a world where love always wears a smile, where the partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death is king no more.

I have a fancy, which I like to cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, fancied though it may be, represent the ideal and normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as perhaps it may yet be again.

The hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conference room, just over the framed card bearing the words “Stand up for Jesus,” and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences “Come unto Me,” and “The Wonderful, the Counsellor,” pointed to ten minutes of nine.

As was usual at this period of Newville prayer-meetings, a prolonged pause had supervened.

The regular standbyes had all taken their usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been about as irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so.

For the attendants at Newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the two classes of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or times of special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed.

Deacon Tuttle had spoken and prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday’s sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her.

But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the other hand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine would have been regarded as a dangerous innovation.

Accordingly, it only remained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes.

The clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities.

At intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: “There is yet opportunity.

.

.

.

.

Time is passing, brethren.

.

.

.

.

Any brother or sister.

.

.

.

.

We shall be glad to hear from any one.

” Farmer Bragg, tired with his day’s hoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat.

Mrs.

Parker dropped a hymn-book.

Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath.

Madeline Brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister’s desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers.

A June bug boomed through the open window and circled around Deacon Tuttle’s head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about.

Next it made a dive at Madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, and the little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiest thing in the world; at least, so it seemed to Henry Burr, a broad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, serious face is just now lit up by a pleasant smile.

Mr.

Lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannot see it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage of him, which it makes full use of.

Indeed, so closely is the general attention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might draw the mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship the little company had gathered.

Finally, making a slight concession of etiquette to curiosity, Mr.

Lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and, again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a piece of intelligence, “There are yet a few moments.

” In fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutes left, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings to go home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternate hope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortune to the test, and win or lose it all.

As they furtively glance over at the girls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, how serenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the other sex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from their minds! How presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves now appears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, of accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them! Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.

The minister had taken up his hymn- book, and was turning over the leaves to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the room.

Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and Deacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.

It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training, and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.

About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a corporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of raising money for a pressing emergency.

Various circumstances showed that his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.

He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a single unaccountable deflection from rectitude.

The evident intensity of his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the village druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded, and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the past, and help him to begin life over again.

He had been converted at a revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late, and become indifferent to religion.

He looked badly.

His face was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken.

But these symptoms of mental sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound calm.

He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.

And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.

“If it will not be too great an inconvenience,” he said; “I should like to keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little.

You remember, perhaps, that I professed to be converted last winter.

Since then I am aware that I have shown a lack of interest in religious matters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that I was either hasty or insincere in my profession.

I have made my arrangements to leave you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds of my friends.

Hasty I may have been, but not insincere.

Perhaps you will excuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaning clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history.

” The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.

“After my disgrace,” pursued the young man in the same quietly explanatory tone, “the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume, as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and complete as best he can.

Now you know that in order to find any pleasure in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride in it.

Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every time his eye glances it over.

Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like that beaten crew in last week’s regatta, which, when it saw itself hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the race, but just pulled ashore and went home.

“Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn’t have the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page.

Then I was comforted and took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the teacher gave me the prize.

“Now you see, don’t you,” he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering about his eyes, “how it was that after my disgrace I couldn’t seem to take an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and that gave me a notion that religion might help me.

I had heard, from a child, that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit.

That was what I wanted, just what I wanted.

I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.

” He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his haggard face.

“I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which I had taken literally.

Doubtless I should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts.

Nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all.

I’m blaming no one.

Forgiving sins, I should have known, is not blotting, them out.

The blood of Christ only turns them red instead of black.

It leaves them in the record.

It leaves them in the memory.

That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had the teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least bit better so long as the blot was there.

It wasn’t any penalty from without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wanted taken away, so I might get heart to go on.

Supposing one of you-and you’ll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place-had picked a pocket.

Would it make a great deal of difference in your state of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you, and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, and easily repaired.

Your chief offence was against yourself, and that was irreparable.

No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you and yourself.

Until you have been in such a fix, you can’t imagine, perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody else forgiving you for ruining yourself.

It is like mocking.

” The nine o’clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.

“I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words to say.

The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby’s.

I suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water.

Just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their hearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good and happy lives again.

Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and not merely in name.

The figurative promises of the Gospel would become literally true.

But this is idle dreaming.

I will not keep you,” and, checking himself abruptly, he sat down.

The moment he did so, Mr.

Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction, dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn.

He was afraid that something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still further alienate the unfortunate young man.

His own intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.

He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands around him.

There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them.

There was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened.

The tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant.

Many insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale.

None of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement.

Mr.

Lewis was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which were engaged in talk.

Henry Burr was standing near the door, his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.

“Good-evening, Henry,” said Mr.

Lewis, pausing beside the young man.

“Do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George lately to account for what he said to-night?” “I do not, sir,” replied Henry.

“I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given the cold shoulder.

He is very sensitive.

” “I don’t think any one in the village would slight him,” said Henry.

“I should have said so too,” remarked the minister, reflectively.

“Poor boy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how to cheer him.

” “Yes, sir–that is-certainly,” replied Henry incoherently, for Madeline was now coming down the aisle.

In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man’s, Mr.

Lewis passed out.

As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with another young lady.

“Good-evening,” said Henry.

“Poor fellow!” continued Madeline to her companion, “he seemed quite hopeless.

” “Good-evening,” repeated Henry.

Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time.

“Good-evening,” she said.

“May I escort you home?” he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.

She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her.

Then she said, with a bewitching smile- “I shall be much obliged.

” As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs.

He had got her, and his tribulations were forgotten.

For a while they walked silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic suggestions of poor Bayley’s outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.

For it must be understood that Madeline’s little touch of coquetry had been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious engrossments.

To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships.

This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand.

At length she said- “Why didn’t you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of going home with me? Anybody could have done that.

” “No doubt,” replied Henry, seriously; “but, if I’d left anybody else to do it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does.

” “Dear me,” she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation, curved her lips under cover of the darkness, “you take a most unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me.

I never gave you nor anybody else any right to be, and I won’t have it!” “Very well.

It shall be just as you say,” he replied.

The sarcastic humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she immediately changed the subject, demanding- “Where is Laura to-night?” “She’s at home, making cake for the picnic,” he said.

“The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too.

I wonder if poor George will be at the picnic?” “I doubt it,” said Henry.

“You know he never goes to any sort of party.

The last time I saw him at such a place was at Mr.

Bradford’s.

He was playing whist, and they were joking about cheating.

Somebody said- Mr.

Bradford it was-’I can trust my wife’s honesty.

She doesn’t know enough to cheat, but I don’t know about George.

‘ George was her partner.

Bradford didn’t mean any harm; he forgot, you see.

He’d have bitten his tongue off otherwise sooner than have said it.

But everybody saw the application, and there was a dead silence.

George got red as fire, and then pale as death.

I don’t know how they finished the hand, but presently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off.

” “Oh, dear! dear! That was cruel! cruel! How could Mr.

Bradford do it? I should think he would never forgive himself! never!” exclaimed Madeline, with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing Henry’s arm, and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about George and his misfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he was afraid she would notice it and be offended.

But she did not seem to be conscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, and presently added, in a tone of sweetest pity- “He used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meets one of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away or at the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, or meant to cut him.

I’m sure we’d cut our heads off sooner.

It’s enough to make one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitive that no one can say a word to cheer him.

Did you notice what he said about leaving town? I hadn’t heard anything about it before, had you?” “No,” said Henry, “not a word.

Wonder where he’s going.

Perhaps he thinks it will be easier for him in some place where they don’t know him.

” They walked on in silence a few moments, and then Madeline said, in a musing tone- “How strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant things blotted out of their memories! What dreadful thing would you forget now, if you could? Confess.

” “I would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with Will Taylor last Wednesday afternoon, and what I’ve felt about it ever since.

” “Dear me, Mr.

Henry Burr,” said Madeline, with an air of excessive disdain, “how long is it since I authorized you to concern yourself with my affairs? If it wouldn’t please you too much, I’d certainly box your ears.

“I think you’re rather unreasonable,” he protested, in a hurt tone.

“You said a minute ago that you wouldn’t permit me to be jealous of you, and just because I’m so anxious to obey you that I want to forget that I ever was, you are vexed.

” A small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by letters of the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingenious than ingenuous plea.

“I’ve made my confession, and it’s only fair you should make yours,” he said next.

“What remorseful deed have you done that you’d like to forget?” “You needn’t speak in that babying tone.

I fancy I could commit sins as well as you, with all your big moustache, if I wanted to.

I don’t believe you’d hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate.

You’ve probably got a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you’d die of shame to have people see it.

” “Excuse me, Lady Macbeth,” he said, laughing; “I don’t wish to underrate your powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins would you prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough to trouble your excessively hardened conscience? “Well, I must admit,” said Madeline, seriously, “that I wouldn’t care to forget anything I’ve done, not even my faults and follies.

I should be afraid if they were taken away that I shouldn’t have any character left.

” “Don’t put it on that ground,” said Henry, “it’s sheer vanity that makes you say so.

You know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots, and that’s why you’d rather keep ‘em.

” She reflected a moment, and then said, decisively- “That’s a compliment.

I don’t believe I like ‘em from you.

Don’t make me any more.

” Perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment that prompted her words.

Had she done so, she would doubtless have found it in a consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine and delicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery sounded almost gross.

They paused before a gate.

Pushing it open and passing within, she said, “Good-night.

” “One word more.

I have a favour to ask,” he said.

“May I take you to the picnic?” “Why, I think no escort will be necessary,” she replied; “we go in broad daylight; and there are no bears or Indians at Hemlock Hollow.

” “But your basket.

You’ll need somebody to carry your basket.

” “Oh yes, to be sure, my basket,” she exclaimed, with an ironical accent.

“It will weigh at least two pounds, and I couldn’t possibly carry it myself, of course.

By all means come, and much obliged for your thoughtfulness.

” But as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words.

In the treatment of her lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less sharp- tongued maidens.

Henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charming outline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close the door.

Love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feeling that came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush of thankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not Madeline.

For, if he had been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, of worshipping her.

Ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who, fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, are precluded from being their own worshippers! Well, it was a consolation that she didn’t know it, that she actually thought that, with her little coquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of her beauty.

God make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way for missing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in! When Burr reached home, he found his sister Laura standing at the gate in a patch of moonlight.

“How pretty you look to-night!” he said, pinching her round cheek.

The young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly- “So she let you go home with her.

” “How do you know that?” he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess.

“Because you’re so sweet, you goosey, of course.

” But, in truth, any such mode of accounting for Henry’s favourable comment on her appearance was quite unnecessary.

Laura, with her petite, plump figure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clear cheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite as charming a specimen of American girlhood as the stately pale brunette who swayed her brother’s affections.

“Come for a walk, chicken! It is much too pretty a night to go indoors,” he said.

“Yes, and furnish ears for Madeline’s praises, with a few more reflected compliments for pay, perhaps,” she replied, contemptuously.

“Besides,” she added, “I must go into the house and keep father company.

I only came out to cool off after baking the cake.

You’d better come in too.

These moonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know.

” The brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, and Laura, in trying to fill her mother’s place in the household, so far as she might, was always looking out that her father should have as little opportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition.

CHAPTER II.

That same night toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.

Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits.

Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental condition in which he found himself.

It was not that he thought of anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer.

He recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be so strong and so general.

He wondered if it were possible that it should ever again come over him.

The cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue, more cheerless than pitchiest darkness.

A distant bell, with slow and heavy strokes, struck three.

It was the dead point in the daily revolution of the earth’s life, that point just before dawn, when men oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause eternally, when the clock is run down.

The long- drawn reverberations of the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary.

His spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous duration.

A sense of utter loneliness-loneliness inevitable, crushing, eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of unconsciousness-enfolded him as a pall.

Life lay like an incubus on his bosom.

He shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and deny him its refuge.

Even Madeline’s face, as he conjured it up, seemed wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey light of dawn.

Gradually the moon passed, and he slept again.

As early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards.

Even the children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled, solemn look upon their bright faces.

For a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been paralleled in the history of the village.

That morning the sun, as it peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the darkness of a thing it had been afraid of.

George Bayley sat there in a chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple, whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead.

This, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements for leaving the village.

The doctor thought that the fatal shot must have been fired about three o’clock that morning, and, when Henry heard this, he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that had chilled the genial current in his veins.

Bayley’s family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold, haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral.

When Mr.

Lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason to believe that George was out of his head when he took his life, Mr.

Bayley interrupted him.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“He knew what he was doing.

I should not wish any one to think otherwise.

I am prouder of him than I had ever expected to be again.

” A choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot.

It seemed almost cruel that they must ever cease.

And, after the funeral, the young men and girls who had known George, not feeling like returning that day to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed, and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways.

The funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic.

The latter, in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off a fortnight.

CHAPTER III.

About half- past eight on the morning of the day set for the postponed picnic, Henry knocked at Widow Brand’s door.

He had by no means forgotten Madeline’s consent to allow him to carry her basket, although two weeks had intervened.

She came to the door herself.

He had never seen her in anything that set off her dark eyes and olive complexion more richly than the simple picnic dress of white, trimmed with a little crimson braid about the neck and sleeves, which she wore to-day.

It was gathered up at the bottom for wandering in the woods, just enough to show the little boots.

She looked surprised at seeing him, and exclaimed- “You haven’t come to tell me that the picnic is put off again, or Laura’s sick?” “The picnic is all right, and Laura too.

I’ve come to carry your basket for you.

” “Why, you’re really very kind,” said she, as if she thought him slightly officious.

“Don’t you remember you told me I might do so?” he said, getting a little red under her cool inspection.

“When did I?” “Two weeks ago, that evening poor George spoke in meeting.

” “Oh!” she answered, smiling, “so long ago as that? What a terrible memory you have! Come in just a moment, please; I’m nearly ready.

” Whether she merely took his word for it, or whether she had remembered her promise perfectly well all the time, and only wanted to make him ask twice for the favour, lest he should feel too presumptuous, I don’t pretend to know.

Mrs.

Brand set a chair for him with much cordiality.

She was a gentle, mild-mannered little lady, such a contrast in style and character to Madeline that there was a certain amusing fitness in the latter’s habit of calling her “My baby.

” “You have a very pleasant day for your picnic, Mr.

Burr,” said she.

“Yes, we are very lucky,” replied Henry, his eyes following Madeline’s movements as she stood before the glass, putting on her hat, which had a red feather in it.

To have her thus add the last touches to her toilet in his presence was a suggestion of familiarity, of domesticity, that was very intoxicating to his imagination.

“Is your father well?” inquired Mrs.

Brand, affably.

“Very well, thank you, very well indeed,” he replied “There; now I’m ready,” said Madeline.

“Here’s the basket, Henry.

Good-bye, mother.

” They were a well-matched pair, the stalwart young man and the tall, graceful girl, and it is no wonder the girl’s mother stood in the door looking after them with a thoughtful smile.

Hemlock Hollow was a glen between wooded bluffs, about a mile up the beautiful river on which Newville was situated, and boats had been collected at the rendezvous on the river-bank to convey the picnickers thither.

On arriving, Madeline and Henry found all the party assembled and in capital spirits; There was still just enough shadow on their merriment to leave the disposition to laugh slightly in excess of its indulgence, than which no condition of mind more favourable to a good time can be imagined.

Laura was there, and to her Will Taylor had attached himself.

He was a dapper little black-eyed fellow, a clerk in the dry- goods store, full of fun and good-nature, and a general favourite, but it was certainly rather absurd that Henry should be apprehensive of him as a rival.

There also was Fanny Miller, who had the prettiest arm in Newville, a fact discovered once when she wore a Martha Washington toilet at a masquerade sociable, and since circulated from mouth to mouth among the young men.

And there, too, was Emily Hunt, who had shocked the girls and thrown the youth into a pleasing panic by appearing at a young people’s party the previous winter in low neck and short sleeves.

It is to be remarked in extenuation that she had then but recently come from the city, and was not familiar with Newville etiquette.

Nor must I forget to mention Ida Lewis, the minister’s daughter, a little girl with poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who cherished a hopeless passion for Henry.

Among the young men was Harry Tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by the young men.

And there, above all, was Tom Longman.

Tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme.

He was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls’ charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self- consciousness when in their presence.

From this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do.

With his hands occupied he had an excuse for not talking to the girls or being addressed by them, and, thus shielded from the, direct rays of their society, basked with inexpressible emotions in the general atmosphere of sweetness and light which they diffused.

He liked picnics because there was much work to do, and never attended indoor parties because there was none.

This inordinate taste for industry in connection with social enjoyment on Tom’s part was strongly encouraged by the other young men, and they were the ones who always stipulated that he should be of the party when there was likely to be any call for rowing, taking care of horses, carrying of loads, putting out of croquet sets, or other manual exertion.

He was generally an odd one in such companies.

It would be no kindness to provide him a partner, and, besides, everybody made so many jokes about him that none of the girls quite cared to have their names coupled with his, although they all had a compassionate liking for him.

On the present occasion this poor slave of the petticoat had been at work preparing the boats all the morning.

“Why, how nicely you have arranged everything!” said Madeline kindly, as she stood on the sand waiting for Henry to bring up a boat.

“What?” replied Tom, laughing in a flustered way.

He always laughed just so and said “what?” when any of the girls spoke to him, being too much confused by the fact of being addressed to catch what was said the first time.

“It’s very good of you to arrange the boats for us, Madeline repeated.

“Oh, ’tain’t anything, ’tain’t anything at all,” he blurted out, with a very red face.

“You are going up in our boat, ain’t you, Longman?” said Harry Tuttle.

“No, Tom, you’re going with us,” cried another young man.

“He’s going with us, like a sensible fellow,” said Will Taylor, who, with Laura Burr, was sitting on the forward thwart of the boat, into the stern of which Henry was now assisting Madeline.

“Tom, these lazy young men are just wanting you to do their rowing for them,” said she.

“Get into our boat, and I’ll make Henry row you.

” “What do you say to that, Henry?” said Tom, snickering.

“It isn’t for me to say anything after Madeline has spoken,” replied the young man.

“She has him in good subjection,” remarked Ida Lewis, not over-sweetly.

“All right, I’ll come in your boat, Miss Brand, if you’ll take care of me,” said Tom, with a sudden spasm of boldness, followed by violent blushes at the thought that perhaps be had said something too free.

The boat was pushed off.

Nobody took the oars.

“I thought you were going to row?” said Madeline, turning to Henry, who sat beside her in the stern.

“Certainly,” said he, making as if he would rise.

“Tom, you just sit here while I row.

” “Oh no, I’d just as lief row,” said Tom, seizing the oars with feverish haste.

“So would I, Tom; I want a little exercise,” urged Henry with a hypocritical grin, as he stood up in an attitude of readiness.

“Oh, I like to row.

‘I’d a great deal rather.

Honestly,” asseverated Tom, as he made the water foam with the violence of his strokes, compelling Henry to resume his seat to preserve his equilibrium.

“It’s perfectly plain that you don’t want to sit by me, Tom.

That hurts my feelings,” said Madeline, pretending to pout.

“Oh no, it isn’t that,” protested Tom.

“Only I’d rather row; that is, I mean, you know, it’s such fun rowing.

” “Very well, then,” said Madeline, “I sha’n't help you any more; and here they all are tying their boats on to ours.

” Sure enough, one of the other boats had fastened its chain to the stern of theirs, and the others had fastened to that; their oarsmen were lying off and Tom was propelling the entire flotilla.

“Oh, I can row ‘em all just as easy’s not,” gasped the devoted youth, the perspiration rolling down his forehead.

But this was a little too bad, and Henry soon cast off the other boats, in spite of the protests of their occupants, who regarded Tom’s brawn and muscle as the common stock of the entire party, which no one boat had a right to appropriate.

On reaching Hemlock Hollow, Madeline asked the poor young man for his hat, and returned it to him adorned with evergreens, which nearly distracted him with bashfulness and delight, and drove him to seek a safety-valve for his excitement in superhuman activity all the rest of the morning, arranging croquet sets, hanging swings, breaking ice, squeezing lemons, and fetching water.

“Oh, how thirsty I am!” sighed Madeline, throwing down her croquet mallet.

“The ice-water is not yet ready, but I know a spring a little way off where the water is cold as ice,” said Henry.

“Show it to me this instant,” she cried, and they walked off together, followed by Ida Lewis’s unhappy eyes.

The distance to the spring was not great, but the way was rough, and once or twice he had to help her over fallen trees and steep banks.

Once she slipped a little, and for, a single supreme moment he held her whole weight in his arms.

Before, they had been talking and laughing gaily, but that made a sudden silence.

He dared not look at her for some moments, and when he did there was a slight flush tingeing her usually colourless cheek.

His pulses were already bounding wildly, and, at this betrayal that she had shared his consciousness at that moment, his agitation was tenfold increased.

It was the first time she had ever shown a sign of confusion in his presence.

The sensation of mastery, of power over her, which it gave, was so utterly new that it put a sort of madness in his blood.

Without a word they came to the spring and pretended to drink.

As she turned to go back, he lightly caught her fingers in a detaining clasp, and said, in a voice rendered harsh by suppressed emotion- “Don’t be in such a hurry.

Where will you find a cooler spot?” “Oh, it’s cool enough anywhere! Let’s go back,” she replied, starting to return as she spoke.

She saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then.

She flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid.

He sprang up and extended her his hand.

Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side.

Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips.

She gasped, and freed herself.

“How dared you do such a thing to me?” she cried.

The big fellow stood before her, sheepish, dogged, contrite, desperate, all in one.

“I couldn’t help it,” he blurted out.

The plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable.

Angry as she was, she really couldn’t think of anything to say, except- “You’d better help it,” with which rather ineffective rebuke she turned away and walked toward the picnic ground.

Henry followed in a demoralized frame.

His mind was in a ferment.

He could not realize what had happened.

He could scarcely believe that he had actually done it.

He could not conceive how he had dared it.

And now what penalty would she inflict? What if she should not forgive him? His soul was dissolved in fears.

But, sooth to say, the young lady’s actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended.

She had been ready to be very angry, but the suddenness and depth of his contrition had disarmed her.

It took all the force out of her indignation to see that he actually seemed to have a deeper sense of the enormity of his act than she herself had.

And when, after they had rejoined the party, she saw that, instead of taking part in the sports, he kept aloof, wandering aimless and disconsolate by himself among the pines, she took compassion on him and sent some one to tell him she wanted him to come and push her in the swing.

People had kissed her before.

She was not going to leave the first person who had seemed to fully realize the importance of the proceeding to suffer unduly from a susceptibility which did him so much credit.

As for Henry, he hardly believed his ears when he heard the summons to attend her.

At that the kiss which her rebuke had turned cold on his lips began to glow afresh, and for the first time he tasted its exceeding sweetness; for her calling to him seemed to ratify and consent to it.

There were others standing about as he came up to where Madeline sat in the swing, and he was silent, for he could not talk of indifferent things.

With what a fresh charm, with what new sweet suggestions of complaisance that kiss had invested every line and curve of her, from hat-plume to boot-tip! A delicious tremulous sense of proprietorship tinged his every thought of her.

He touched the swing-rope as fondly as if it were an electric chain that could communicate the caress to her.

Tom Longman, having done all the work that offered itself, had been wandering about in a state of acute embarrassment, not daring to join himself to any of the groups, much less accost a young lady who might be alone.

As he drifted near the swing, Madeline said to Henry- “You may stop swinging me now.

I think I’d like to go out rowing.

” The young man’s cup seemed running over.

He could scarcely command his voice for delight as he said- “It will be jolly rowing just now.

I’m sure we can get some pond-lilies.

” “Really,” she replied, airily, “you take too much for granted.

I was going to ask Tom Longman to take me out.

” She called to Tom, and as he came up, grinning and shambling, she indicated to him her pleasure that he should row her upon the river.

The idea of being alone in a small boat for perhaps fifteen minutes with the belle of Newville, and the object of his own secret and distant adoration, paralysed Tom’s faculties with an agony of embarrassment.

He grew very red, and there was such a buzzing in his ears that he could not feel sure he heard aright, and Madeline had to repeat herself several times before he seemed to fully realize the appalling nature of the proposition.

As they walked down to the shore she chatted with him, but he only responded with a profusion of vacant laughs.

When he had pulled out on the river, his rowing, from his desire to make an excuse for not talking, was so tremendous that they cheered him from the shore, at the same time shouting- “Keep her straight! You’re going into the bank!” The truth was, that Tom could not guide the boat because he did not dare to look astern for fear of meeting Madeline’s eyes, which, to judge from the space his eyes left around her, he must have supposed to fill at least a quarter of the horizon, like an aurora, in fact.

But, all the same, he was having an awfully good time, although perhaps it would be more proper to say he would have a good time when he came to think it over afterward.

It was an experience which would prove a mine of gold in his memory, rich enough to furnish for years the gilding to his modest day-dreams.

Beauty, like wealth, should make its owners generous.

It is a gracious thing in fair women at times to make largesse of their beauty, bestowing its light more freely on tongue-tied, timid adorers than on their bolder suitors, giving to them who dare not ask.

Their beauty never can seem more precious to women than when for charity’s sake they brighten with its lustre the eyes of shy and retiring admirers.

As Henry was ruefully meditating upon the uncertainty of the sex, and debating the probability that Madeline had called him to swing her for the express purpose of getting a chance to snub him, Ida Lewis came to him, and said- “Mr.

Burr, we’re getting up a game of croquet.

Won’t you play?” “If I can be on your side,” he answered, civilly.

He knew the girl’s liking for him, and was always kind to her.

At his answer her face flushed with pleasure, and she replied shyly- “If you’d like to, you may.

” Henry was not in the least a conceited fellow, but it was impossible that he should not understand the reason why Ida, who all the morning had looked forlorn enough, was now the life of the croquet-ground, and full of smiles and flushes.

She was a good player, and had a corresponding interest in beating, but her equanimity on the present occasion was not in the least disturbed by the disgraceful defeat which Henry’s awkwardness and absence of mind entailed on their aide.

But her portion of sunshine for that day was brief enough, for Madeline soon returned from her boat-ride, and Henry found an excuse for leaving the game and joining her where she sat on the ground between the knees of a gigantic oak sorting pond-lilies, which the girls were admiring.

As he came up, she did not appear to notice him.

As soon as he had a chance to speak without being overheard, he said, soberly- “Tom ought to thank me for that boat-ride, I suppose.

” “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, with assumed carelessness.

“I mean that you went to punish me.

” “You’re sufficiently conceited,” she replied.

“Laura, come here; your brother is teasing me.

” “And do you think I want to be teased to?” replied that young lady, pertly, as she walked off.

Madeline would have risen and left Henry, but she was too proud to let him think that she was afraid of him.

.

Neither was she afraid, but she was confused, and momentarily without her usual self-confidence.

One reason for her running off with Tom had been to get a chance to think.

No girl, however coolly her blood may flow, can be pressed to a man’s breast, wildly throbbing with love for her, and not experience some agitation in consequence.

Whatever may be the state of her sentiments, there is a magnetism in such a contact which she cannot at once throw off.

That kiss had brought her relations with Henry to a crisis.

It had precipitated the necessity of some decision.

She could no longer hold him off, and play with him.

By that bold dash he had gained a vantage-ground, a certain masterful attitude which he had never held before.

Yet, after all, I am not sure that she was not just a little afraid of him, and, moreover, that she did not like him all the better for it.

It was such a novel feeling that it began to make some things, thought of in connection with him, seem more possible to her mind than they had ever seemed before.

As she peeped furtively at this young man, so suddenly grown formidable, as he reclined carelessly on the ground at her feet, she admitted to herself that there was something very manly in the sturdy figure and square forehead, with the curly black locks hanging over it.

She looked at him with a new interest, half shrinking, half attracted, as one who might come into a very close relation with herself.

She scarcely knew whether the thought was agreeable or not.

“Give me your hat,” she said, “and I’ll put some lilies in it.

” “You are very good,” said he, handing it to her.

“Does it strike you so?” she replied, hesitatingly.

“Then I won’t do it.

I don’t want to appear particularly good to you.

I didn’t know just how it would seem.

” “Oh, it won’t seem very good; only about middling,” he urged, upon which representation she took the hat.

He watched her admiringly as she deftly wreathed the lilies around it, holding it up, now this way and now that, while she critically inspected the effect.

Then her caprice changed.

“I’ve half a mind to drop it into the river.

Would you jump after it?” she said, twirling it by the brim, and looking over the steep bank, near which she sat, into the deep, dark water almost perpendicularly below.

“If it were anything of yours instead of mine, I would jump quickly enough,” he replied.

She looked at him with a reckless gleam in her eyes.

“You mustn’t talk chaff to me, sir; we’ll see,” and, snatching a glove from her pocket, she held it out over the water.

They were both of them in that state of suppressed excitement which made such an experiment on each other’s nerve dangerous.

Their eyes met, and neither flinched.

If she had dropped it, he would have gone after it.

“After all,” she said, suddenly, “that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get a mitten.

If you are so anxious for it, I will give it to you now;” and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face.

He sprang up from the ground.

“Madeline, do you mean it?” he asked, scarcely audibly, his face grown white and pinched.

She crumpled the obnoxious glove into her pocket.

“Why, you poor fellow!” she exclaimed, the wildfire in her eyes quenched in a moment with the dew of pity.

“Do you care so much?” “I care everything,” he said, huskily.

But, as luck would have it, just at that instant Will Taylor came running up, pursued by Laura, and threw himself upon Madeline’s protection.

It appeared that he had confessed to the possession of a secret, and on being requested by Laura to impart it had flatly refused to do so.

“I can’t really interfere to protect any young man who refuses to tell a secret to a young lady,” said Madeline, gravely.

“Neglect to tell her the secret, without being particularly asked to do so, would be bad enough, but to refuse after being requested is an offence which calls for the sharpest correction.

” “And that isn’t all, either,” said Laura, vindictively flirting the switch with which she had pursued him.

“He used offensive language.

” “What did he say?” demanded Madeline, judicially.

“I asked him if he was sure it was a secret that I didn’t know already, and he said he was; and I asked him what made him sure, and he said because if I knew it everybody else would.

As much as to say I couldn’t keep a secret.

” “This looks worse and worse, young man,” said the judge, severely.

“The only course left for you is to make a clean breast of the affair, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

If the secret turns out to be a good one, I’ll let you off as easily as I can.

” “It’s about the new drug-clerk, the one who is going to take George Bayley’s place,” said Will, laughing.

“Oh, do tell, quick!” exclaimed Laura.

“I don’t care who it is.

I sha’n't like him,” said Madeline.

“Poor George! and here we are forgetting all about him this beautiful day!” “What’s the new clerk’s name?” said Laura, impatiently.

“Harrison Cordis.

” “What?” “Harrison Cordis.

” “Rather an odd name,” said Laura.

“I never heard it.

” “No,” said Will; “he comes all the way from Boston.

” “Is he handsome?” inquired Laura.

“I really don’t know,” replied Will.

“I presume Parker failed to make that a condition, although really he ought to, for the looks of the clerk is the principal element in the sale of soda-water, seeing girls are the only ones who drink it.

” “Of course it is,” said Laura, frankly.

“I didn’t drink any all last summer, because poor George’s sad face took away my disposition.

Never mind,” she added, “we shall all have a chance to see how he looks at church to-morrow;” and with that the two girls went off together to help set the table for lunch.

The picnickers did not row home till sunset, but Henry found no opportunity to resume the conversation with Madeline which had been broken off at such an interesting point.

CHAPTER IV.

The advent of a stranger was an event of importance in the small social world of Newville.

Mr.

Harrison Cordis, the new clerk in the drug-store, might well have been flattered by the attention which he excited at church the next day, especially from the fairer half of the congregation.

Far, however, from appearing discomposed thereby, he returned it with such interest that at least half the girls thought they had captivated him by the end of the morning service.

They all agreed that he was awfully handsome, though Laura maintained that he was rather too pretty for a man.

He was certainly very pretty.

His figure was tall, slight, and elegant.

He had delicate hands and feet, a white forehead, deep blue, smiling eyes, short, curly, yellow, hair, and a small moustache, drooping over lips as enticing as a girl’s.

But the ladies voted his manners yet more pleasing than his appearance.

They were charmed by his easy self-possession, and constant alertness as to details of courtesy.

The village beaus scornfully called him “cityfied,” and secretly longed to be like him.

A shrewder criticism than that to which he was exposed would, however, have found the fault with Cordis’s manners that, under a show of superior ease and affability, he was disposed to take liberties with his new acquaintances, and exploit their simplicity for his own entertainment.

Evidently he felt that he was in the country.

That very first Sunday, after evening meeting, he induced Fanny Miller, at whose father’s house he boarded, to introduce him to Madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call.

Fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of Newville wooers to make very gradual approaches.

Laura warmly expressed to Madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon Laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did.

Madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which Laura issued second best, as people generally verbal strife with Madeline.

Meanwhile it was rumoured that Cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times.

The drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet.

The last of the week Fanny Miller gave a little tea-party, to make Cordis more generally acquainted.

On that occasion he singled out Madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued.

Laura, having her brother’s interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things.

They all remarked how queerly Madeline acted that evening.

She was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself.

When the party broke up, Cordis walked home with Madeline and Laura, whose paths lay together.

“I’m extremely fortunate,” said he, as he was walking on with Laura, after leaving Madeline at her house, “to have a chance to escort the two belles of Newville at once.

” “I’m not so foolish as I look, Mr.

Cordis,” said she, rather sharply.

She was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every Newville girl as he had Madeline’s with his city airs and compliments.

“You might be, and not mind owning it,” he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased.

“I mean that I don’t like flattery.

” “Are you sure?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Of course I am.

What a question!” “Excuse me; I only asked because I never met any one before who didn’t.

” “Never met anybody who didn’t like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren’t true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe ‘em?” “I don’t expect you to believe ‘em yourself,” he replied; “only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but I wouldn’t give a cent for friends who didn’t think better of me than I think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too.

” They stood a moment at Laura’s gate, and just then Henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house.

“Is that your brother?” asked Cordis.

“Yes.

” “It does one’s eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man.

Is your brother married, may I ask?” “He is not.

” “In coming into a new circle as I have done, you understand, Miss Burr, I often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons I meet,” he said, apologizing for his questions.

Laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it.

“My brother has been attentive to Miss Brand for a long time.

They are about as good as engaged.

Good-evening, Mr.

Cordis.

” It so happened that several days after this conversation, as Madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw Harrison Cordis coming behind her on his way to tea.

At the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her.

Her pace slackened.

She blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry.

The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis’s feminine temperament.

Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other.

They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs.

Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile.

It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did.

“Good-evening, Miss Brand,” he said, as he over took her.

“I don’t really think it’s fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you.

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to,” she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it.

“It isn’t safe to,” he said, laughing.

“You can’t tell who it may be.

Now, it might have been Mr.

Burr, instead of only me.

” She understood instantly.

Somebody had been telling him about Henry’s attentions to her.

A bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this.

For several seconds she could not control herself to speak.

Finally, she said- “I don’t understand you.

Why do you speak of Mr.

Burr to me?” “I beg pardon.

I should not have done so.

” “Please explain what you mean.

“You’ll excuse me, I hope,” he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her.

“It was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least I understood, that you were engaged to him.

” “Somebody has told you a falsehood, then,” she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping.

If she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that.

Mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door.

Until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped.

Good-afternoon, Madeline.

I’m glad to see you.

You haven’t made me a call this ever so long.

” “I’m sorry, Mrs.

Tuttle, but I haven’t time to stop to-day.

Ha-have you got a-a pattern of a working apron? I’d like to borrow it.

” CHAPTER V.

Now, Henry had not chanced to be at church that first Sunday evening when Cordis obtained an introduction to Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller’s teaparty.

Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever.

Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions.

She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse.

Moreover, now that she had warned Cordis that Madeline was pre- empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere.

And so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance.

And it was very blissful.

He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic.

He had told his love-he had kissed her.

If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he.

And, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? The fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand.

Circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams.

A sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights.

He contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on Madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her.

It was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home.

It chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between Madeline and Cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place.

She did not come in till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way.

She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him.

He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it.

It did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh.

This cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air.

While he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for Madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject.

Finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate- “Mr.

Taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn’t he?” “I should think you ought to know, if any one.

You pass his house every day,” was her response.

“Why, of course I know,” he said, staring at her.

“So I thought, but you said ‘hasn’t he?’ And naturally I presumed that you were not quite certain.

” She was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable.

She looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding.

As she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored.

“Madeline, do you know what I should say was the matter with you if you’ were a man?” he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh.

“Well, really”-and her eyes had a rather hard expression-”if you prefer gentlemen’s society, you’d better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman.

But I was reminded that it was in a dream that Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and on awaking had recalled nothing of his experience, just as I should recall nothing of mine.

When will man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out the secrets of the universe.

“Do your people visit the Earth in the same manner?” I asked my companion.

“Certainly,” he replied; “but there we find no one able to recognize us and converse with us as I am conversing with you, although myself in the waking state.

You, as yet, lack the knowledge we possess of the spiritual side of the human nature which we share with you.

“ “That knowledge must have enabled you to learn much more of the Earth than we know of you,” I said.

“Indeed it has,” he replied.

“From visitors such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse constantly, we have acquired familiarity with your civilization, your history, your manners, and even your literature and languages.

Have you not noticed that I am talking with you in English, which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this planet?” “Among so many wonders I scarcely observed that,” I answered.

“For ages,” pursued my companion, “we have been waiting for you to improve your telescopes so as to approximate the power of ours, after which communication between the planets would be easily established.

The progress which you make is, however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet.

“ “Indeed, I fear you will have to,” I replied.

“Our opticians already talk of having reached the limits of their art.

“ “Do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of petulance,” my companion resumed.

“The slowness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a disability so crushing that if we were in your place I fear we should sit down in utter despair.

“ “To what disability do you refer?” I asked.

“You seem to be men like us.

“ “And so we are,” was the reply, “save in one particular, but there the difference is tremendous.

Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of the faculty of foresight, without which we should think our other faculties well-nigh valueless.

“ “Foresight!” I repeated.

“Certainly you cannot mean that it is given you to know the future?” “It is given not only to us,” was the answer, “but, so far as we know, to all other intelligent beings of the universe except yourselves.

Our positive knowledge extends only to our system of moons and planets and some of the nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own; but it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated.

One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which a rational existence may still be possible ought to suffice for the universe.

” “But no one can know the future except by inspiration of God,’9 I said.

“All our faculties are by inspiration of God,” was the reply, “but there is surely nothing in foresight to cause it to be so regarded more than any other.

Think a moment of the physical analogy of the case.

Your eyes are placed in the front of your heads.

You would deem it an odd mistake if they were placed behind.

That would appear to you an arrangement calculated to defeat their purpose.

Does it not seem equally rational that the mental vision should range forward, as it does with us, illuminating the path one is to take, rather than backward, as with you, revealing only the course you have already trodden, and therefore have no more concern with? But it is no doubt a merciful provision of Providence that renders you unable to realize the grotesqueness of your predicament, as it appears to us.

” “But the future is eternal!” I exclaimed.

“How can a finite mind grasp it?” “Our foreknowledge implies only human faculties,” was the reply.

“It is limited to our individual careers on this planet.

Each of us foresees the course of his own life, but not that of other lives, except so far as they are involved with his.

” “That such a power as you describe could be combined with merely human faculties is more than our philosophers have ever dared to dream,” I said.

“And yet who shall say, after all, that it is not in mercy that God has denied it to us? If it is a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one’s happiness, it must be most depressing to foresee one’s sorrows, failures, yes, and even one’s death.

For if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anticipate the hour and manner of your death,-is it not so?” “Most assuredly,” was the reply.

“Living would be a very precarious business, were we uninformed of its limit.

Your ignorance of the time of your death impresses us as one of the saddest features of your condition.

” “And by us,” I answered, “it is held to be one of the most merciful.

” “Foreknowledge of your death would not, indeed, prevent your dying once,” continued my companion, “but it would deliver you from the thousand deaths you suffer through uncertainty whether you can safely count on the passing day.

It is not the death you die, but these many deaths you do not die, which shadow your existence.

Poor blindfolded creatures that you are, cringing at every step in apprehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fall till old age, never raising a cup to your lips with the knowledge that you will live to quaff it, never sure that you will meet again the friend you part with for an hour, from whose hearts no happiness suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread, what idea can you form of the Godlike security with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of those we love! You have a saying on earth, ‘To-morrow belongs to God;’ but here to-morrow belongs to us, even as to-day.

To you, for some inscrutable purpose, He sees fit to dole out life moment by moment, with no assurance that each is not to be the last.

To us He gives a lifetime at once, fifty, sixty, seventy years,-a divine gift indeed.

A life such as yours would, I fear, seem of little value to us; for such a life, however long, is but a moment long, since that is all you can count on.

” “And yet,” I answered, “though knowledge of the duration of your lives may give you an enviable feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that not more than offset by the daily growing weight with which the expectation of the end, as it draws near, must press upon your minds?” “On the contrary,” was the response, “death, never an object of fear, as it draws nearer becomes more and more a matter of indifference to the moribund.

It is because you live in the past that death is grievous to you.

All your knowledge, all your affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, and on that account, as life lengthens, it strengthens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more precious possession.

We, on the contrary, despise the past, and never dwell upon it.

Memory with us, far from being the morbid and monstrous growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudimentary faculty.

We live wholly in the future and the present.

What with foretaste and actual taste, our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, are exhausted of interest by the time they are past.

The accumulated treasures of memory, which you relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss at all.

Our minds being fed wholly from the future, we think and feel only as we anticipate; and so, as the dying man’s future contracts, there is less and less about which he can occupy his thoughts.

His interest in life diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last death finds him with his mind a tabula rasa, as with you at birth.

In a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called on to give it up.

In dying he leaves nothing behind.

” “And the after-death,” I asked,-”is there no: fear of that?” “Surely,” was the reply, “it is not necessary for me to say that a fear which affects only the more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to us, and would be counted blasphemous.

Moreover, as I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives on this planet.

Any speculation beyond them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty.

To us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be called almost the same.

” “But even if you do not fear death for itself,” I said, “you have hearts to break.

Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered?” “Love and death are not foes on our planet,” was the reply.

“There are no tears by the bedsides of our dying.

The same beneficent law which makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us.

With you, it is the intercourse you have had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them.

With us, it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is the foundation of fondness.

As our friends vanish from our future with the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time.

As our dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at the last we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds of those who regard us equally without keen emotions.

So at last God gently unwinds instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying.

Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of torturing us, as with you.

Love means joy, and that alone, to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate pang for every thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile.

” “There are other partings than those of death.

Are these, too, without sorrow for you?” I asked.

“Assuredly,” was the reply.

“Can you not see that so it must needs be with beings freed by foresight from the disease of memory? All the sorrow of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the backward vision which precludes you from beholding your happiness till it is past.

Suppose your life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship.

If you could know it beforehand, it would be a joyous expectation, brightening the intervening years and cheering you as you traversed desolate periods.

But no; not till you meet the one who is to be your friend do you know of him.

Nor do you guess even then what he is to be to you, that you may embrace him at first sight.

Your meeting is cold and indifferent.

It is long before the fire is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already time for parting.

Now, indeed, the fire burns well, but henceforth it must consume your heart.

Not till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how dear your friends were and how sweet was their companionship.

But we-we see our friends afar off coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, years before our ways meet.

We greet them at first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy.

They enter at once into the full possession of hearts long warmed and lighted for them.

We meet with that delirium of tenderness with which you part.

And when to us at last the time of parting comes, it only means that we are to contribute to each other’s happiness no longer.

We are not doomed, like you, in parting, to take away with us the delight we brought our friends, leaving the ache of bereavement in its place, so that their last state is worse than their first.

Parting here is like meeting with you, calm and unimpassioned.

The joys of anticipation and possession are the only food of love with us, and therefore Love always wears a smiling face.

With you he feeds on dead joys, past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance of sorrow.

No wonder love and sorrow are so much alike on Earth.

It is a common saying among us that, were it not for the spectacle of the Earth, the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreciate the goodness of God to them; and who can say that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set before us?” “You have told me marvelous things,” I said, after I had reflected.

“It is, indeed, but reasonable that such a race as yours should look down with wondering pity on the Earth.

And yet, before I grant so much, I want to ask you one question.

There is known in our world a certain sweet madness, under the influence of which we forget all that is untoward in our lot, and would not change it for a god’s.

So far is this sweet madness regarded by men as a compensation, and more than a compensation, for all their miseries that if you know not love as we know it, if this loss be the price you have paid for your divine foresight, we think ourselves more favored of God than you.

Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incompatible with a foresight which weighs and measures every experience in advance.

” “Of love’s surprises we certainly know nothing,” was the reply.

“It is believed by our philosophers that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our constitution like lightning; though of course this is merely theory, for it is only by the study of Earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea of what surprise is like.

Your power to endure the constant buffetings of the unexpected is a matter of supreme amazement to us; nor, according to our ideas, is there any difference between what you call pleasant and painful surprises.

You see, then, that we cannot envy you these surprises of love which you find so sweet, for to us they would be fatal.

For the rest, there is no form of happiness which foresight is so well calculated to enhance as that of love.

Let me explain to you how this befalls.

As the growing boy begins to be sensible of the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare say it is with you, preferring some type of face and form to others.

He dreams oftenest of fair hair, or may be of dark, of blue eyes or brown.

As the years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly adding to this dream-face, this shadowy form, traits and lineaments, hues and contours, till at last the picture is complete, and he becomes aware that on his heart thus subtly has been depicted the likeness of the maiden destined for his arms.

“It may be years before he is to see her, but now begins with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown.

Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess.

But the very passion whose awaking makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children.

The temptations which lead your young men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy planet.

He hoards the treasures of his heart for its coming mistress.

Of her alone he thinks, and to her all his vows are made.

The thought of license would be treasop to his sovereign lady, whose right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully owns.

To rob her, to abate her high prerogatives, would be to impoverish, to insult, himself; for she is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own.

Through all this time that he dreams of her by night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden heart his image is set up to receive the incense of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself through fear of possible cross or separation.

“In due time their converging lives come together.

The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each other’s eyes, then throw themselves each on the other’s breast.

The maiden has all the charms that ever stirred the blood of an Earthly lover, but there is another glamour over her which the eyes of Earthly lovers are shut to,-the glamour of the future.

In the blushing girl her lover sees the fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the patient, pain-consecrated mother.

On the virgin’s breast he beholds his children.

He is prescient, even as his lips take the first-fruits of hers, of the future years during which she is to be his companion, his ever-present solace, his chief portion of God’s goodness.

We have read some of your romances describing love as you know it on Earth, and I must confess, my friend, we find them very dull.

“I hope,” he added, as I did not at once speak, “that I shall not offend you by saying we find them also objectionable.

Your literature possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the curiously inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead.

It is a study especially prized for the development of the imagination, on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings in general.

But our women do not read your romances.

The notion that a man or woman should, ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought.

No doubt you will say that such instances are rare among you, but if your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not unknown.

That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly; but it is needless that the minds of our maidens should be pained by the knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties upon the sacredness of marriage are possible.

“There is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness, to a race accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively to things that are ended.

” “And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense?” I asked.

“We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the future tense,” was the reply.

“If our historians were to wait till after the events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be inaccurate; for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy.

Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass.

Your geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of information here.

” In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of human nature are unknown on Mars.

They for whom the future has no mystery can, of course, know neither hope nor fear.

Moreover, every one being assured what he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect; and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engendered on Earth by the strife of man with man, is unknown to the people of Mars, save from the study of our planet.

When I asked if there were not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no difference in that respect between the lives of the people of Earth and of Mars, both alike being according to God’s will in every particular.

We knew that will only after the event, they before,-that was all.

For the rest, God moved them through their wills as He did us, so that they had no more dense of compulsion in what they did than we on Earth have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our anticipations chance to be correct.

Of the absorbing interest which the study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently.

It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place of figures and symbols.

When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different, he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from the Earth.

No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as the past.

And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their logical necessity so clearly that to desire them different was as impossible as seriously to wish that two and two made five instead of four.

No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so closely are all things, the small with the great, woven together by God that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all eternity.

While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the roseate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and sea scape, never paralleled by an earthly sunset.

Already the familiar constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the slightest variation in their position.

Nevertheless, there was one wholly novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were vividly visible to the naked eye.

But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, swimming low on the verge of the horizon.

Its disc, twice as large as that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like that of Venus.

“It is, indeed, a lovely sight,” said my companion, “although to me always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants.

We call it ‘The Blindman’s World.

‘” As he spoke he turned toward a curious structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly observed it.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It is one of our telescopes,” he replied.

“I am going to let you take a look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of which I have boasted;” and having adjusted the instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to the eye-piece.

I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had exaggerated nothing.

The little college town which was my home lay spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down upon it from my observatory windows.

It was early morning, and the village was waking up.

The milkmen were going their rounds, and workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurrying along the streets.

The early train was just leaving the railroad station.

I could see the puffs from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylinders.

It was strange not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed.

There were the college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back the level sunbeams.

I could tell the time by the college clock.

It struck me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering the earliness of the hour.

A crowd of men stood about the door of the observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that direction.

Among them I recognized President Byxbee, accompanied by the college janitor.

As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, passing through the group about the door, entered the building.

The president was evidently going up to my quarters.

At this it flashed over me quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my account.

I recalled how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left affairs in the observatory.

It was high time I were back there to look after myself.

Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that morning on my desk.

That it is the authentic record of the conditions of life in another world which it purports to be I do not expect the reader to believe.

He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks of somnambulism set down in the books.

Probably it was merely that, possibly it was something more.

I do not pretend to decide the question.

I have told all the facts of the case, and have no better means for forming an opinion than the reader.

Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it the true account it seems to be, that it would have affected my imagination much more strongly than it has.

That story of another world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours.

The readiness with which my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of view concerning the Earth has been a singular experience.

The lack of foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of before, now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying its promise,-a moral mutilation, a deprivation arbitrary and unaccountable.

The spectacle of a race doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured only of what is past and dead,’ comes over me from time to time with a sadly fantastical effect which I cannot describe.

I dream of a world where love always wears a smile, where the partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death is king no more.

I have a fancy, which I like to cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, fancied though it may be, represent the ideal and normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as perhaps it may yet be again.

The hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conference room, just over the framed card bearing the words “Stand up for Jesus,” and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences “Come unto Me,” and “The Wonderful, the Counsellor,” pointed to ten minutes of nine.

As was usual at this period of Newville prayer-meetings, a prolonged pause had supervened.

The regular standbyes had all taken their usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been about as irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so.

For the attendants at Newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the two classes of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or times of special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed.

Deacon Tuttle had spoken and prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday’s sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her.

But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the other hand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine would have been regarded as a dangerous innovation.

Accordingly, it only remained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes.

The clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities.

At intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: “There is yet opportunity.

.

.

.

.

Time is passing, brethren.

.

.

.

.

Any brother or sister.

.

.

.

.

We shall be glad to hear from any one.

” Farmer Bragg, tired with his day’s hoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat.

Mrs.

Parker dropped a hymn-book.

Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath.

Madeline Brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister’s desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers.

A June bug boomed through the open window and circled around Deacon Tuttle’s head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about.

Next it made a dive at Madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, and the little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiest thing in the world; at least, so it seemed to Henry Burr, a broad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, serious face is just now lit up by a pleasant smile.

Mr.

Lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannot see it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage of him, which it makes full use of.

Indeed, so closely is the general attention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might draw the mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship the little company had gathered.

Finally, making a slight concession of etiquette to curiosity, Mr.

Lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and, again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a piece of intelligence, “There are yet a few moments.

” In fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutes left, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings to go home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternate hope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortune to the test, and win or lose it all.

As they furtively glance over at the girls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, how serenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the other sex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from their minds! How presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves now appears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, of accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them! Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.

The minister had taken up his hymn- book, and was turning over the leaves to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the room.

Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and Deacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.

It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training, and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.

About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a corporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of raising money for a pressing emergency.

Various circumstances showed that his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.

He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a single unaccountable deflection from rectitude.

The evident intensity of his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the village druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded, and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the past, and help him to begin life over again.

He had been converted at a revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late, and become indifferent to religion.

He looked badly.

His face was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken.

But these symptoms of mental sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound calm.

He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.

And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.

“If it will not be too great an inconvenience,” he said; “I should like to keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little.

You remember, perhaps, that I professed to be converted last winter.

Since then I am aware that I have shown a lack of interest in religious matters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that I was either hasty or insincere in my profession.

I have made my arrangements to leave you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds of my friends.

Hasty I may have been, but not insincere.

Perhaps you will excuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaning clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history.

” The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.

“After my disgrace,” pursued the young man in the same quietly explanatory tone, “the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume, as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and complete as best he can.

Now you know that in order to find any pleasure in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride in it.

Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every time his eye glances it over.

Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like that beaten crew in last week’s regatta, which, when it saw itself hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the race, but just pulled ashore and went home.

“Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn’t have the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page.

Then I was comforted and took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the teacher gave me the prize.

“Now you see, don’t you,” he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering about his eyes, “how it was that after my disgrace I couldn’t seem to take an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and that gave me a notion that religion might help me.

I had heard, from a child, that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit.

That was what I wanted, just what I wanted.

I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.

” He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his haggard face.

“I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which I had taken literally.

Doubtless I should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts.

Nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all.

I’m blaming no one.

Forgiving sins, I should have known, is not blotting, them out.

The blood of Christ only turns them red instead of black.

It leaves them in the record.

It leaves them in the memory.

That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had the teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least bit better so long as the blot was there.

It wasn’t any penalty from without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wanted taken away, so I might get heart to go on.

Supposing one of you-and you’ll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place-had picked a pocket.

Would it make a great deal of difference in your state of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you, and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, and easily repaired.

Your chief offence was against yourself, and that was irreparable.

No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you and yourself.

Until you have been in such a fix, you can’t imagine, perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody else forgiving you for ruining yourself.

It is like mocking.

” The nine o’clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.

“I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words to say.

The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby’s.

I suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water.

Just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their hearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good and happy lives again.

Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and not merely in name.

The figurative promises of the Gospel would become literally true.

But this is idle dreaming.

I will not keep you,” and, checking himself abruptly, he sat down.

The moment he did so, Mr.

Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction, dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn.

He was afraid that something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still further alienate the unfortunate young man.

His own intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.

He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands around him.

There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them.

There was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened.

The tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant.

Many insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale.

None of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement.

Mr.

Lewis was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which were engaged in talk.

Henry Burr was standing near the door, his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.

“Good-evening, Henry,” said Mr.

Lewis, pausing beside the young man.

“Do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George lately to account for what he said to-night?” “I do not, sir,” replied Henry.

“I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given the cold shoulder.

He is very sensitive.

” “I don’t think any one in the village would slight him,” said Henry.

“I should have said so too,” remarked the minister, reflectively.

“Poor boy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how to cheer him.

” “Yes, sir–that is-certainly,” replied Henry incoherently, for Madeline was now coming down the aisle.

In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man’s, Mr.

Lewis passed out.

As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with another young lady.

“Good-evening,” said Henry.

“Poor fellow!” continued Madeline to her companion, “he seemed quite hopeless.

” “Good-evening,” repeated Henry.

Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time.

“Good-evening,” she said.

“May I escort you home?” he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.

She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her.

Then she said, with a bewitching smile- “I shall be much obliged.

” As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs.

He had got her, and his tribulations were forgotten.

For a while they walked silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic suggestions of poor Bayley’s outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.

For it must be understood that Madeline’s little touch of coquetry had been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious engrossments.

To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships.

This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand.

At length she said- “Why didn’t you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of going home with me? Anybody could have done that.

” “No doubt,” replied Henry, seriously; “but, if I’d left anybody else to do it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does.

” “Dear me,” she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation, curved her lips under cover of the darkness, “you take a most unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me.

I never gave you nor anybody else any right to be, and I won’t have it!” “Very well.

It shall be just as you say,” he replied.

The sarcastic humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she immediately changed the subject, demanding- “Where is Laura to-night?” “She’s at home, making cake for the picnic,” he said.

“The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too.

I wonder if poor George will be at the picnic?” “I doubt it,” said Henry.

“You know he never goes to any sort of party.

The last time I saw him at such a place was at Mr.

Bradford’s.

He was playing whist, and they were joking about cheating.

Somebody said- Mr.

Bradford it was-’I can trust my wife’s honesty.

She doesn’t know enough to cheat, but I don’t know about George.

‘ George was her partner.

Bradford didn’t mean any harm; he forgot, you see.

He’d have bitten his tongue off otherwise sooner than have said it.

But everybody saw the application, and there was a dead silence.

George got red as fire, and then pale as death.

I don’t know how they finished the hand, but presently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off.

” “Oh, dear! dear! That was cruel! cruel! How could Mr.

Bradford do it? I should think he would never forgive himself! never!” exclaimed Madeline, with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing Henry’s arm, and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about George and his misfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he was afraid she would notice it and be offended.

But she did not seem to be conscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, and presently added, in a tone of sweetest pity- “He used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meets one of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away or at the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, or meant to cut him.

I’m sure we’d cut our heads off sooner.

It’s enough to make one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitive that no one can say a word to cheer him.

Did you notice what he said about leaving town? I hadn’t heard anything about it before, had you?” “No,” said Henry, “not a word.

Wonder where he’s going.

Perhaps he thinks it will be easier for him in some place where they don’t know him.

” They walked on in silence a few moments, and then Madeline said, in a musing tone- “How strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant things blotted out of their memories! What dreadful thing would you forget now, if you could? Confess.

” “I would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with Will Taylor last Wednesday afternoon, and what I’ve felt about it ever since.

” “Dear me, Mr.

Henry Burr,” said Madeline, with an air of excessive disdain, “how long is it since I authorized you to concern yourself with my affairs? If it wouldn’t please you too much, I’d certainly box your ears.

“I think you’re rather unreasonable,” he protested, in a hurt tone.

“You said a minute ago that you wouldn’t permit me to be jealous of you, and just because I’m so anxious to obey you that I want to forget that I ever was, you are vexed.

” A small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by letters of the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingenious than ingenuous plea.

“I’ve made my confession, and it’s only fair you should make yours,” he said next.

“What remorseful deed have you done that you’d like to forget?” “You needn’t speak in that babying tone.

I fancy I could commit sins as well as you, with all your big moustache, if I wanted to.

I don’t believe you’d hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate.

You’ve probably got a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you’d die of shame to have people see it.

” “Excuse me, Lady Macbeth,” he said, laughing; “I don’t wish to underrate your powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins would you prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough to trouble your excessively hardened conscience? “Well, I must admit,” said Madeline, seriously, “that I wouldn’t care to forget anything I’ve done, not even my faults and follies.

I should be afraid if they were taken away that I shouldn’t have any character left.

” “Don’t put it on that ground,” said Henry, “it’s sheer vanity that makes you say so.

You know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots, and that’s why you’d rather keep ‘em.

” She reflected a moment, and then said, decisively- “That’s a compliment.

I don’t believe I like ‘em from you.

Don’t make me any more.

” Perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment that prompted her words.

Had she done so, she would doubtless have found it in a consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine and delicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery sounded almost gross.

They paused before a gate.

Pushing it open and passing within, she said, “Good-night.

” “One word more.

I have a favour to ask,” he said.

“May I take you to the picnic?” “Why, I think no escort will be necessary,” she replied; “we go in broad daylight; and there are no bears or Indians at Hemlock Hollow.

” “But your basket.

You’ll need somebody to carry your basket.

” “Oh yes, to be sure, my basket,” she exclaimed, with an ironical accent.

“It will weigh at least two pounds, and I couldn’t possibly carry it myself, of course.

By all means come, and much obliged for your thoughtfulness.

” But as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words.

In the treatment of her lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less sharp- tongued maidens.

Henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charming outline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close the door.

Love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feeling that came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush of thankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not Madeline.

For, if he had been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, of worshipping her.

Ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who, fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, are precluded from being their own worshippers! Well, it was a consolation that she didn’t know it, that she actually thought that, with her little coquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of her beauty.

God make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way for missing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in! When Burr reached home, he found his sister Laura standing at the gate in a patch of moonlight.

“How pretty you look to-night!” he said, pinching her round cheek.

The young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly- “So she let you go home with her.

” “How do you know that?” he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess.

“Because you’re so sweet, you goosey, of course.

” But, in truth, any such mode of accounting for Henry’s favourable comment on her appearance was quite unnecessary.

Laura, with her petite, plump figure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clear cheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite as charming a specimen of American girlhood as the stately pale brunette who swayed her brother’s affections.

“Come for a walk, chicken! It is much too pretty a night to go indoors,” he said.

“Yes, and furnish ears for Madeline’s praises, with a few more reflected compliments for pay, perhaps,” she replied, contemptuously.

“Besides,” she added, “I must go into the house and keep father company.

I only came out to cool off after baking the cake.

You’d better come in too.

These moonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know.

” The brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, and Laura, in trying to fill her mother’s place in the household, so far as she might, was always looking out that her father should have as little opportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition.

CHAPTER II.

That same night toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.

Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits.

Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental condition in which he found himself.

It was not that he thought of anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer.

He recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be so strong and so general.

He wondered if it were possible that it should ever again come over him.

The cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue, more cheerless than pitchiest darkness.

A distant bell, with slow and heavy strokes, struck three.

It was the dead point in the daily revolution of the earth’s life, that point just before dawn, when men oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause eternally, when the clock is run down.

The long- drawn reverberations of the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary.

His spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous duration.

A sense of utter loneliness-loneliness inevitable, crushing, eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of unconsciousness-enfolded him as a pall.

Life lay like an incubus on his bosom.

He shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and deny him its refuge.

Even Madeline’s face, as he conjured it up, seemed wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey light of dawn.

Gradually the moon passed, and he slept again.

As early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards.

Even the children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled, solemn look upon their bright faces.

For a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been paralleled in the history of the village.

That morning the sun, as it peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the darkness of a thing it had been afraid of.

George Bayley sat there in a chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple, whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead.

This, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements for leaving the village.

The doctor thought that the fatal shot must have been fired about three o’clock that morning, and, when Henry heard this, he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that had chilled the genial current in his veins.

Bayley’s family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold, haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral.

When Mr.

Lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason to believe that George was out of his head when he took his life, Mr.

Bayley interrupted him.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“He knew what he was doing.

I should not wish any one to think otherwise.

I am prouder of him than I had ever expected to be again.

” A choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot.

It seemed almost cruel that they must ever cease.

And, after the funeral, the young men and girls who had known George, not feeling like returning that day to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed, and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways.

The funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic.

The latter, in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off a fortnight.

CHAPTER III.

About half- past eight on the morning of the day set for the postponed picnic, Henry knocked at Widow Brand’s door.

He had by no means forgotten Madeline’s consent to allow him to carry her basket, although two weeks had intervened.

She came to the door herself.

He had never seen her in anything that set off her dark eyes and olive complexion more richly than the simple picnic dress of white, trimmed with a little crimson braid about the neck and sleeves, which she wore to-day.

It was gathered up at the bottom for wandering in the woods, just enough to show the little boots.

She looked surprised at seeing him, and exclaimed- “You haven’t come to tell me that the picnic is put off again, or Laura’s sick?” “The picnic is all right, and Laura too.

I’ve come to carry your basket for you.

” “Why, you’re really very kind,” said she, as if she thought him slightly officious.

“Don’t you remember you told me I might do so?” he said, getting a little red under her cool inspection.

“When did I?” “Two weeks ago, that evening poor George spoke in meeting.

” “Oh!” she answered, smiling, “so long ago as that? What a terrible memory you have! Come in just a moment, please; I’m nearly ready.

” Whether she merely took his word for it, or whether she had remembered her promise perfectly well all the time, and only wanted to make him ask twice for the favour, lest he should feel too presumptuous, I don’t pretend to know.

Mrs.

Brand set a chair for him with much cordiality.

She was a gentle, mild-mannered little lady, such a contrast in style and character to Madeline that there was a certain amusing fitness in the latter’s habit of calling her “My baby.

” “You have a very pleasant day for your picnic, Mr.

Burr,” said she.

“Yes, we are very lucky,” replied Henry, his eyes following Madeline’s movements as she stood before the glass, putting on her hat, which had a red feather in it.

To have her thus add the last touches to her toilet in his presence was a suggestion of familiarity, of domesticity, that was very intoxicating to his imagination.

“Is your father well?” inquired Mrs.

Brand, affably.

“Very well, thank you, very well indeed,” he replied “There; now I’m ready,” said Madeline.

“Here’s the basket, Henry.

Good-bye, mother.

” They were a well-matched pair, the stalwart young man and the tall, graceful girl, and it is no wonder the girl’s mother stood in the door looking after them with a thoughtful smile.

Hemlock Hollow was a glen between wooded bluffs, about a mile up the beautiful river on which Newville was situated, and boats had been collected at the rendezvous on the river-bank to convey the picnickers thither.

On arriving, Madeline and Henry found all the party assembled and in capital spirits; There was still just enough shadow on their merriment to leave the disposition to laugh slightly in excess of its indulgence, than which no condition of mind more favourable to a good time can be imagined.

Laura was there, and to her Will Taylor had attached himself.

He was a dapper little black-eyed fellow, a clerk in the dry- goods store, full of fun and good-nature, and a general favourite, but it was certainly rather absurd that Henry should be apprehensive of him as a rival.

There also was Fanny Miller, who had the prettiest arm in Newville, a fact discovered once when she wore a Martha Washington toilet at a masquerade sociable, and since circulated from mouth to mouth among the young men.

And there, too, was Emily Hunt, who had shocked the girls and thrown the youth into a pleasing panic by appearing at a young people’s party the previous winter in low neck and short sleeves.

It is to be remarked in extenuation that she had then but recently come from the city, and was not familiar with Newville etiquette.

Nor must I forget to mention Ida Lewis, the minister’s daughter, a little girl with poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who cherished a hopeless passion for Henry.

Among the young men was Harry Tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by the young men.

And there, above all, was Tom Longman.

Tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme.

He was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls’ charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self- consciousness when in their presence.

From this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do.

With his hands occupied he had an excuse for not talking to the girls or being addressed by them, and, thus shielded from the, direct rays of their society, basked with inexpressible emotions in the general atmosphere of sweetness and light which they diffused.

He liked picnics because there was much work to do, and never attended indoor parties because there was none.

This inordinate taste for industry in connection with social enjoyment on Tom’s part was strongly encouraged by the other young men, and they were the ones who always stipulated that he should be of the party when there was likely to be any call for rowing, taking care of horses, carrying of loads, putting out of croquet sets, or other manual exertion.

He was generally an odd one in such companies.

It would be no kindness to provide him a partner, and, besides, everybody made so many jokes about him that none of the girls quite cared to have their names coupled with his, although they all had a compassionate liking for him.

On the present occasion this poor slave of the petticoat had been at work preparing the boats all the morning.

“Why, how nicely you have arranged everything!” said Madeline kindly, as she stood on the sand waiting for Henry to bring up a boat.

“What?” replied Tom, laughing in a flustered way.

He always laughed just so and said “what?” when any of the girls spoke to him, being too much confused by the fact of being addressed to catch what was said the first time.

“It’s very good of you to arrange the boats for us, Madeline repeated.

“Oh, ’tain’t anything, ’tain’t anything at all,” he blurted out, with a very red face.

“You are going up in our boat, ain’t you, Longman?” said Harry Tuttle.

“No, Tom, you’re going with us,” cried another young man.

“He’s going with us, like a sensible fellow,” said Will Taylor, who, with Laura Burr, was sitting on the forward thwart of the boat, into the stern of which Henry was now assisting Madeline.

“Tom, these lazy young men are just wanting you to do their rowing for them,” said she.

“Get into our boat, and I’ll make Henry row you.

” “What do you say to that, Henry?” said Tom, snickering.

“It isn’t for me to say anything after Madeline has spoken,” replied the young man.

“She has him in good subjection,” remarked Ida Lewis, not over-sweetly.

“All right, I’ll come in your boat, Miss Brand, if you’ll take care of me,” said Tom, with a sudden spasm of boldness, followed by violent blushes at the thought that perhaps be had said something too free.

The boat was pushed off.

Nobody took the oars.

“I thought you were going to row?” said Madeline, turning to Henry, who sat beside her in the stern.

“Certainly,” said he, making as if he would rise.

“Tom, you just sit here while I row.

” “Oh no, I’d just as lief row,” said Tom, seizing the oars with feverish haste.

“So would I, Tom; I want a little exercise,” urged Henry with a hypocritical grin, as he stood up in an attitude of readiness.

“Oh, I like to row.

‘I’d a great deal rather.

Honestly,” asseverated Tom, as he made the water foam with the violence of his strokes, compelling Henry to resume his seat to preserve his equilibrium.

“It’s perfectly plain that you don’t want to sit by me, Tom.

That hurts my feelings,” said Madeline, pretending to pout.

“Oh no, it isn’t that,” protested Tom.

“Only I’d rather row; that is, I mean, you know, it’s such fun rowing.

” “Very well, then,” said Madeline, “I sha’n't help you any more; and here they all are tying their boats on to ours.

” Sure enough, one of the other boats had fastened its chain to the stern of theirs, and the others had fastened to that; their oarsmen were lying off and Tom was propelling the entire flotilla.

“Oh, I can row ‘em all just as easy’s not,” gasped the devoted youth, the perspiration rolling down his forehead.

But this was a little too bad, and Henry soon cast off the other boats, in spite of the protests of their occupants, who regarded Tom’s brawn and muscle as the common stock of the entire party, which no one boat had a right to appropriate.

On reaching Hemlock Hollow, Madeline asked the poor young man for his hat, and returned it to him adorned with evergreens, which nearly distracted him with bashfulness and delight, and drove him to seek a safety-valve for his excitement in superhuman activity all the rest of the morning, arranging croquet sets, hanging swings, breaking ice, squeezing lemons, and fetching water.

“Oh, how thirsty I am!” sighed Madeline, throwing down her croquet mallet.

“The ice-water is not yet ready, but I know a spring a little way off where the water is cold as ice,” said Henry.

“Show it to me this instant,” she cried, and they walked off together, followed by Ida Lewis’s unhappy eyes.

The distance to the spring was not great, but the way was rough, and once or twice he had to help her over fallen trees and steep banks.

Once she slipped a little, and for, a single supreme moment he held her whole weight in his arms.

Before, they had been talking and laughing gaily, but that made a sudden silence.

He dared not look at her for some moments, and when he did there was a slight flush tingeing her usually colourless cheek.

His pulses were already bounding wildly, and, at this betrayal that she had shared his consciousness at that moment, his agitation was tenfold increased.

It was the first time she had ever shown a sign of confusion in his presence.

The sensation of mastery, of power over her, which it gave, was so utterly new that it put a sort of madness in his blood.

Without a word they came to the spring and pretended to drink.

As she turned to go back, he lightly caught her fingers in a detaining clasp, and said, in a voice rendered harsh by suppressed emotion- “Don’t be in such a hurry.

Where will you find a cooler spot?” “Oh, it’s cool enough anywhere! Let’s go back,” she replied, starting to return as she spoke.

She saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then.

She flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid.

He sprang up and extended her his hand.

Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side.

Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips.

She gasped, and freed herself.

“How dared you do such a thing to me?” she cried.

The big fellow stood before her, sheepish, dogged, contrite, desperate, all in one.

“I couldn’t help it,” he blurted out.

The plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable.

Angry as she was, she really couldn’t think of anything to say, except- “You’d better help it,” with which rather ineffective rebuke she turned away and walked toward the picnic ground.

Henry followed in a demoralized frame.

His mind was in a ferment.

He could not realize what had happened.

He could scarcely believe that he had actually done it.

He could not conceive how he had dared it.

And now what penalty would she inflict? What if she should not forgive him? His soul was dissolved in fears.

But, sooth to say, the young lady’s actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended.

She had been ready to be very angry, but the suddenness and depth of his contrition had disarmed her.

It took all the force out of her indignation to see that he actually seemed to have a deeper sense of the enormity of his act than she herself had.

And when, after they had rejoined the party, she saw that, instead of taking part in the sports, he kept aloof, wandering aimless and disconsolate by himself among the pines, she took compassion on him and sent some one to tell him she wanted him to come and push her in the swing.

People had kissed her before.

She was not going to leave the first person who had seemed to fully realize the importance of the proceeding to suffer unduly from a susceptibility which did him so much credit.

As for Henry, he hardly believed his ears when he heard the summons to attend her.

At that the kiss which her rebuke had turned cold on his lips began to glow afresh, and for the first time he tasted its exceeding sweetness; for her calling to him seemed to ratify and consent to it.

There were others standing about as he came up to where Madeline sat in the swing, and he was silent, for he could not talk of indifferent things.

With what a fresh charm, with what new sweet suggestions of complaisance that kiss had invested every line and curve of her, from hat-plume to boot-tip! A delicious tremulous sense of proprietorship tinged his every thought of her.

He touched the swing-rope as fondly as if it were an electric chain that could communicate the caress to her.

Tom Longman, having done all the work that offered itself, had been wandering about in a state of acute embarrassment, not daring to join himself to any of the groups, much less accost a young lady who might be alone.

As he drifted near the swing, Madeline said to Henry- “You may stop swinging me now.

I think I’d like to go out rowing.

” The young man’s cup seemed running over.

He could scarcely command his voice for delight as he said- “It will be jolly rowing just now.

I’m sure we can get some pond-lilies.

” “Really,” she replied, airily, “you take too much for granted.

I was going to ask Tom Longman to take me out.

” She called to Tom, and as he came up, grinning and shambling, she indicated to him her pleasure that he should row her upon the river.

The idea of being alone in a small boat for perhaps fifteen minutes with the belle of Newville, and the object of his own secret and distant adoration, paralysed Tom’s faculties with an agony of embarrassment.

He grew very red, and there was such a buzzing in his ears that he could not feel sure he heard aright, and Madeline had to repeat herself several times before he seemed to fully realize the appalling nature of the proposition.

As they walked down to the shore she chatted with him, but he only responded with a profusion of vacant laughs.

When he had pulled out on the river, his rowing, from his desire to make an excuse for not talking, was so tremendous that they cheered him from the shore, at the same time shouting- “Keep her straight! You’re going into the bank!” The truth was, that Tom could not guide the boat because he did not dare to look astern for fear of meeting Madeline’s eyes, which, to judge from the space his eyes left around her, he must have supposed to fill at least a quarter of the horizon, like an aurora, in fact.

But, all the same, he was having an awfully good time, although perhaps it would be more proper to say he would have a good time when he came to think it over afterward.

It was an experience which would prove a mine of gold in his memory, rich enough to furnish for years the gilding to his modest day-dreams.

Beauty, like wealth, should make its owners generous.

It is a gracious thing in fair women at times to make largesse of their beauty, bestowing its light more freely on tongue-tied, timid adorers than on their bolder suitors, giving to them who dare not ask.

Their beauty never can seem more precious to women than when for charity’s sake they brighten with its lustre the eyes of shy and retiring admirers.

As Henry was ruefully meditating upon the uncertainty of the sex, and debating the probability that Madeline had called him to swing her for the express purpose of getting a chance to snub him, Ida Lewis came to him, and said- “Mr.

Burr, we’re getting up a game of croquet.

Won’t you play?” “If I can be on your side,” he answered, civilly.

He knew the girl’s liking for him, and was always kind to her.

At his answer her face flushed with pleasure, and she replied shyly- “If you’d like to, you may.

” Henry was not in the least a conceited fellow, but it was impossible that he should not understand the reason why Ida, who all the morning had looked forlorn enough, was now the life of the croquet-ground, and full of smiles and flushes.

She was a good player, and had a corresponding interest in beating, but her equanimity on the present occasion was not in the least disturbed by the disgraceful defeat which Henry’s awkwardness and absence of mind entailed on their aide.

But her portion of sunshine for that day was brief enough, for Madeline soon returned from her boat-ride, and Henry found an excuse for leaving the game and joining her where she sat on the ground between the knees of a gigantic oak sorting pond-lilies, which the girls were admiring.

As he came up, she did not appear to notice him.

As soon as he had a chance to speak without being overheard, he said, soberly- “Tom ought to thank me for that boat-ride, I suppose.

” “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, with assumed carelessness.

“I mean that you went to punish me.

” “You’re sufficiently conceited,” she replied.

“Laura, come here; your brother is teasing me.

” “And do you think I want to be teased to?” replied that young lady, pertly, as she walked off.

Madeline would have risen and left Henry, but she was too proud to let him think that she was afraid of him.

.

Neither was she afraid, but she was confused, and momentarily without her usual self-confidence.

One reason for her running off with Tom had been to get a chance to think.

No girl, however coolly her blood may flow, can be pressed to a man’s breast, wildly throbbing with love for her, and not experience some agitation in consequence.

Whatever may be the state of her sentiments, there is a magnetism in such a contact which she cannot at once throw off.

That kiss had brought her relations with Henry to a crisis.

It had precipitated the necessity of some decision.

She could no longer hold him off, and play with him.

By that bold dash he had gained a vantage-ground, a certain masterful attitude which he had never held before.

Yet, after all, I am not sure that she was not just a little afraid of him, and, moreover, that she did not like him all the better for it.

It was such a novel feeling that it began to make some things, thought of in connection with him, seem more possible to her mind than they had ever seemed before.

As she peeped furtively at this young man, so suddenly grown formidable, as he reclined carelessly on the ground at her feet, she admitted to herself that there was something very manly in the sturdy figure and square forehead, with the curly black locks hanging over it.

She looked at him with a new interest, half shrinking, half attracted, as one who might come into a very close relation with herself.

She scarcely knew whether the thought was agreeable or not.

“Give me your hat,” she said, “and I’ll put some lilies in it.

” “You are very good,” said he, handing it to her.

“Does it strike you so?” she replied, hesitatingly.

“Then I won’t do it.

I don’t want to appear particularly good to you.

I didn’t know just how it would seem.

” “Oh, it won’t seem very good; only about middling,” he urged, upon which representation she took the hat.

He watched her admiringly as she deftly wreathed the lilies around it, holding it up, now this way and now that, while she critically inspected the effect.

Then her caprice changed.

“I’ve half a mind to drop it into the river.

Would you jump after it?” she said, twirling it by the brim, and looking over the steep bank, near which she sat, into the deep, dark water almost perpendicularly below.

“If it were anything of yours instead of mine, I would jump quickly enough,” he replied.

She looked at him with a reckless gleam in her eyes.

“You mustn’t talk chaff to me, sir; we’ll see,” and, snatching a glove from her pocket, she held it out over the water.

They were both of them in that state of suppressed excitement which made such an experiment on each other’s nerve dangerous.

Their eyes met, and neither flinched.

If she had dropped it, he would have gone after it.

“After all,” she said, suddenly, “that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get a mitten.

If you are so anxious for it, I will give it to you now;” and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face.

He sprang up from the ground.

“Madeline, do you mean it?” he asked, scarcely audibly, his face grown white and pinched.

She crumpled the obnoxious glove into her pocket.

“Why, you poor fellow!” she exclaimed, the wildfire in her eyes quenched in a moment with the dew of pity.

“Do you care so much?” “I care everything,” he said, huskily.

But, as luck would have it, just at that instant Will Taylor came running up, pursued by Laura, and threw himself upon Madeline’s protection.

It appeared that he had confessed to the possession of a secret, and on being requested by Laura to impart it had flatly refused to do so.

“I can’t really interfere to protect any young man who refuses to tell a secret to a young lady,” said Madeline, gravely.

“Neglect to tell her the secret, without being particularly asked to do so, would be bad enough, but to refuse after being requested is an offence which calls for the sharpest correction.

” “And that isn’t all, either,” said Laura, vindictively flirting the switch with which she had pursued him.

“He used offensive language.

” “What did he say?” demanded Madeline, judicially.

“I asked him if he was sure it was a secret that I didn’t know already, and he said he was; and I asked him what made him sure, and he said because if I knew it everybody else would.

As much as to say I couldn’t keep a secret.

” “This looks worse and worse, young man,” said the judge, severely.

“The only course left for you is to make a clean breast of the affair, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

If the secret turns out to be a good one, I’ll let you off as easily as I can.

” “It’s about the new drug-clerk, the one who is going to take George Bayley’s place,” said Will, laughing.

“Oh, do tell, quick!” exclaimed Laura.

“I don’t care who it is.

I sha’n't like him,” said Madeline.

“Poor George! and here we are forgetting all about him this beautiful day!” “What’s the new clerk’s name?” said Laura, impatiently.

“Harrison Cordis.

” “What?” “Harrison Cordis.

” “Rather an odd name,” said Laura.

“I never heard it.

” “No,” said Will; “he comes all the way from Boston.

” “Is he handsome?” inquired Laura.

“I really don’t know,” replied Will.

“I presume Parker failed to make that a condition, although really he ought to, for the looks of the clerk is the principal element in the sale of soda-water, seeing girls are the only ones who drink it.

” “Of course it is,” said Laura, frankly.

“I didn’t drink any all last summer, because poor George’s sad face took away my disposition.

Never mind,” she added, “we shall all have a chance to see how he looks at church to-morrow;” and with that the two girls went off together to help set the table for lunch.

The picnickers did not row home till sunset, but Henry found no opportunity to resume the conversation with Madeline which had been broken off at such an interesting point.

CHAPTER IV.

The advent of a stranger was an event of importance in the small social world of Newville.

Mr.

Harrison Cordis, the new clerk in the drug-store, might well have been flattered by the attention which he excited at church the next day, especially from the fairer half of the congregation.

Far, however, from appearing discomposed thereby, he returned it with such interest that at least half the girls thought they had captivated him by the end of the morning service.

They all agreed that he was awfully handsome, though Laura maintained that he was rather too pretty for a man.

He was certainly very pretty.

His figure was tall, slight, and elegant.

He had delicate hands and feet, a white forehead, deep blue, smiling eyes, short, curly, yellow, hair, and a small moustache, drooping over lips as enticing as a girl’s.

But the ladies voted his manners yet more pleasing than his appearance.

They were charmed by his easy self-possession, and constant alertness as to details of courtesy.

The village beaus scornfully called him “cityfied,” and secretly longed to be like him.

A shrewder criticism than that to which he was exposed would, however, have found the fault with Cordis’s manners that, under a show of superior ease and affability, he was disposed to take liberties with his new acquaintances, and exploit their simplicity for his own entertainment.

Evidently he felt that he was in the country.

That very first Sunday, after evening meeting, he induced Fanny Miller, at whose father’s house he boarded, to introduce him to Madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call.

Fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of Newville wooers to make very gradual approaches.

Laura warmly expressed to Madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon Laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did.

Madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which Laura issued second best, as people generally verbal strife with Madeline.

Meanwhile it was rumoured that Cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times.

The drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet.

The last of the week Fanny Miller gave a little tea-party, to make Cordis more generally acquainted.

On that occasion he singled out Madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued.

Laura, having her brother’s interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things.

They all remarked how queerly Madeline acted that evening.

She was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself.

When the party broke up, Cordis walked home with Madeline and Laura, whose paths lay together.

“I’m extremely fortunate,” said he, as he was walking on with Laura, after leaving Madeline at her house, “to have a chance to escort the two belles of Newville at once.

” “I’m not so foolish as I look, Mr.

Cordis,” said she, rather sharply.

She was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every Newville girl as he had Madeline’s with his city airs and compliments.

“You might be, and not mind owning it,” he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased.

“I mean that I don’t like flattery.

” “Are you sure?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Of course I am.

What a question!” “Excuse me; I only asked because I never met any one before who didn’t.

” “Never met anybody who didn’t like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren’t true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe ‘em?” “I don’t expect you to believe ‘em yourself,” he replied; “only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but I wouldn’t give a cent for friends who didn’t think better of me than I think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too.

” They stood a moment at Laura’s gate, and just then Henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house.

“Is that your brother?” asked Cordis.

“Yes.

” “It does one’s eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man.

Is your brother married, may I ask?” “He is not.

” “In coming into a new circle as I have done, you understand, Miss Burr, I often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons I meet,” he said, apologizing for his questions.

Laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it.

“My brother has been attentive to Miss Brand for a long time.

They are about as good as engaged.

Good-evening, Mr.

Cordis.

” It so happened that several days after this conversation, as Madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw Harrison Cordis coming behind her on his way to tea.

At the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her.

Her pace slackened.

She blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry.

The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis’s feminine temperament.

Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other.

They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs.

Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile.

It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did.

“Good-evening, Miss Brand,” he said, as he over took her.

“I don’t really think it’s fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you.

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to,” she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it.

“It isn’t safe to,” he said, laughing.

“You can’t tell who it may be.

Now, it might have been Mr.

Burr, instead of only me.

” She understood instantly.

Somebody had been telling him about Henry’s attentions to her.

A bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this.

For several seconds she could not control herself to speak.

Finally, she said- “I don’t understand you.

Why do you speak of Mr.

Burr to me?” “I beg pardon.

I should not have done so.

” “Please explain what you mean.

“You’ll excuse me, I hope,” he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her.

“It was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least I understood, that you were engaged to him.

” “Somebody has told you a falsehood, then,” she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping.

If she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that.

Mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door.

Until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped.

Good-afternoon, Madeline.

I’m glad to see you.

You haven’t made me a call this ever so long.

” “I’m sorry, Mrs.

Tuttle, but I haven’t time to stop to-day.

Ha-have you got a-a pattern of a working apron? I’d like to borrow it.

” CHAPTER V.

Now, Henry had not chanced to be at church that first Sunday evening when Cordis obtained an introduction to Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller’s teaparty.

Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever.

Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions.

She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse.

Moreover, now that she had warned Cordis that Madeline was pre- empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere.

And so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance.

And it was very blissful.

He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic.

He had told his love-he had kissed her.

If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he.

And, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? The fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand.

Circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams.

A sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights.

He contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on Madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her.

It was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home.

It chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between Madeline and Cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place.

She did not come in till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way.

She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him.

He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it.

It did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh.

This cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air.

While he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for Madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject.

Finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate- “Mr.

Taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn’t he?” “I should think you ought to know, if any one.

You pass his house every day,” was her response.

“Why, of course I know,” he said, staring at her.

“So I thought, but you said ‘hasn’t he?’ And naturally I presumed that you were not quite certain.

” She was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable.

She looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding.

As she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored.

“Madeline, do you know what I should say was the matter with you if you’ were a man?” he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh.

“Well, really”-and her eyes had a rather hard expression-”if you prefer gentlemen’s society, you’d better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman.

But I was reminded that it was in a dream that Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and on awaking had recalled nothing of his experience, just as I should recall nothing of mine.

When will man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out the secrets of the universe.

“Do your people visit the Earth in the same manner?” I asked my companion.

“Certainly,” he replied; “but there we find no one able to recognize us and converse with us as I am conversing with you, although myself in the waking state.

You, as yet, lack the knowledge we possess of the spiritual side of the human nature which we share with you.

“ “That knowledge must have enabled you to learn much more of the Earth than we know of you,” I said.

“Indeed it has,” he replied.

“From visitors such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse constantly, we have acquired familiarity with your civilization, your history, your manners, and even your literature and languages.

Have you not noticed that I am talking with you in English, which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this planet?” “Among so many wonders I scarcely observed that,” I answered.

“For ages,” pursued my companion, “we have been waiting for you to improve your telescopes so as to approximate the power of ours, after which communication between the planets would be easily established.

The progress which you make is, however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet.

“ “Indeed, I fear you will have to,” I replied.

“Our opticians already talk of having reached the limits of their art.

” “Do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of petulance,” my companion resumed.

“The slowness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a disability so crushing that if we were in your place I fear we should sit down in utter despair.

” “To what disability do you refer?” I asked.

“You seem to be men like us.

” “And so we are,” was the reply, “save in one particular, but there the difference is tremendous.

Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of the faculty of foresight, without which we should think our other faculties well-nigh valueless.

” “Foresight!” I repeated.

“Certainly you cannot mean that it is given you to know the future?” “It is given not only to us,” was the answer, “but, so far as we know, to all other intelligent beings of the universe except yourselves.

Our positive knowledge extends only to our system of moons and planets and some of the nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own; but it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated.

One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which a rational existence may still be possible ought to suffice for the universe.

” “But no one can know the future except by inspiration of God,’9 I said.

“All our faculties are by inspiration of God,” was the reply, “but there is surely nothing in foresight to cause it to be so regarded more than any other.

Think a moment of the physical analogy of the case.

Your eyes are placed in the front of your heads.

You would deem it an odd mistake if they were placed behind.

That would appear to you an arrangement calculated to defeat their purpose.

Does it not seem equally rational that the mental vision should range forward, as it does with us, illuminating the path one is to take, rather than backward, as with you, revealing only the course you have already trodden, and therefore have no more concern with? But it is no doubt a merciful provision of Providence that renders you unable to realize the grotesqueness of your predicament, as it appears to us.

” “But the future is eternal!” I exclaimed.

“How can a finite mind grasp it?” “Our foreknowledge implies only human faculties,” was the reply.

“It is limited to our individual careers on this planet.

Each of us foresees the course of his own life, but not that of other lives, except so far as they are involved with his.

” “That such a power as you describe could be combined with merely human faculties is more than our philosophers have ever dared to dream,” I said.

“And yet who shall say, after all, that it is not in mercy that God has denied it to us? If it is a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one’s happiness, it must be most depressing to foresee one’s sorrows, failures, yes, and even one’s death.

For if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anticipate the hour and manner of your death,-is it not so?” “Most assuredly,” was the reply.

“Living would be a very precarious business, were we uninformed of its limit.

Your ignorance of the time of your death impresses us as one of the saddest features of your condition.

” “And by us,” I answered, “it is held to be one of the most merciful.

” “Foreknowledge of your death would not, indeed, prevent your dying once,” continued my companion, “but it would deliver you from the thousand deaths you suffer through uncertainty whether you can safely count on the passing day.

It is not the death you die, but these many deaths you do not die, which shadow your existence.

Poor blindfolded creatures that you are, cringing at every step in apprehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fall till old age, never raising a cup to your lips with the knowledge that you will live to quaff it, never sure that you will meet again the friend you part with for an hour, from whose hearts no happiness suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread, what idea can you form of the Godlike security with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of those we love! You have a saying on earth, ‘To-morrow belongs to God;’ but here to-morrow belongs to us, even as to-day.

To you, for some inscrutable purpose, He sees fit to dole out life moment by moment, with no assurance that each is not to be the last.

To us He gives a lifetime at once, fifty, sixty, seventy years,-a divine gift indeed.

A life such as yours would, I fear, seem of little value to us; for such a life, however long, is but a moment long, since that is all you can count on.

” “And yet,” I answered, “though knowledge of the duration of your lives may give you an enviable feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that not more than offset by the daily growing weight with which the expectation of the end, as it draws near, must press upon your minds?” “On the contrary,” was the response, “death, never an object of fear, as it draws nearer becomes more and more a matter of indifference to the moribund.

It is because you live in the past that death is grievous to you.

All your knowledge, all your affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, and on that account, as life lengthens, it strengthens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more precious possession.

We, on the contrary, despise the past, and never dwell upon it.

Memory with us, far from being the morbid and monstrous growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudimentary faculty.

We live wholly in the future and the present.

What with foretaste and actual taste, our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, are exhausted of interest by the time they are past.

The accumulated treasures of memory, which you relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss at all.

Our minds being fed wholly from the future, we think and feel only as we anticipate; and so, as the dying man’s future contracts, there is less and less about which he can occupy his thoughts.

His interest in life diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last death finds him with his mind a tabula rasa, as with you at birth.

In a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called on to give it up.

In dying he leaves nothing behind.

” “And the after-death,” I asked,-”is there no: fear of that?” “Surely,” was the reply, “it is not necessary for me to say that a fear which affects only the more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to us, and would be counted blasphemous.

Moreover, as I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives on this planet.

Any speculation beyond them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty.

To us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be called almost the same.

” “But even if you do not fear death for itself,” I said, “you have hearts to break.

Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered?” “Love and death are not foes on our planet,” was the reply.

“There are no tears by the bedsides of our dying.

The same beneficent law which makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us.

With you, it is the intercourse you have had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them.

With us, it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is the foundation of fondness.

As our friends vanish from our future with the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time.

As our dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at the last we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds of those who regard us equally without keen emotions.

So at last God gently unwinds instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying.

Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of torturing us, as with you.

Love means joy, and that alone, to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate pang for every thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile.

” “There are other partings than those of death.

Are these, too, without sorrow for you?” I asked.

“Assuredly,” was the reply.

“Can you not see that so it must needs be with beings freed by foresight from the disease of memory? All the sorrow of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the backward vision which precludes you from beholding your happiness till it is past.

Suppose your life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship.

If you could know it beforehand, it would be a joyous expectation, brightening the intervening years and cheering you as you traversed desolate periods.

But no; not till you meet the one who is to be your friend do you know of him.

Nor do you guess even then what he is to be to you, that you may embrace him at first sight.

Your meeting is cold and indifferent.

It is long before the fire is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already time for parting.

Now, indeed, the fire burns well, but henceforth it must consume your heart.

Not till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how dear your friends were and how sweet was their companionship.

But we-we see our friends afar off coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, years before our ways meet.

We greet them at first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy.

They enter at once into the full possession of hearts long warmed and lighted for them.

We meet with that delirium of tenderness with which you part.

And when to us at last the time of parting comes, it only means that we are to contribute to each other’s happiness no longer.

We are not doomed, like you, in parting, to take away with us the delight we brought our friends, leaving the ache of bereavement in its place, so that their last state is worse than their first.

Parting here is like meeting with you, calm and unimpassioned.

The joys of anticipation and possession are the only food of love with us, and therefore Love always wears a smiling face.

With you he feeds on dead joys, past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance of sorrow.

No wonder love and sorrow are so much alike on Earth.

It is a common saying among us that, were it not for the spectacle of the Earth, the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreciate the goodness of God to them; and who can say that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set before us?” “You have told me marvelous things,” I said, after I had reflected.

“It is, indeed, but reasonable that such a race as yours should look down with wondering pity on the Earth.

And yet, before I grant so much, I want to ask you one question.

There is known in our world a certain sweet madness, under the influence of which we forget all that is untoward in our lot, and would not change it for a god’s.

So far is this sweet madness regarded by men as a compensation, and more than a compensation, for all their miseries that if you know not love as we know it, if this loss be the price you have paid for your divine foresight, we think ourselves more favored of God than you.

Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incompatible with a foresight which weighs and measures every experience in advance.

” “Of love’s surprises we certainly know nothing,” was the reply.

“It is believed by our philosophers that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our constitution like lightning; though of course this is merely theory, for it is only by the study of Earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea of what surprise is like.

Your power to endure the constant buffetings of the unexpected is a matter of supreme amazement to us; nor, according to our ideas, is there any difference between what you call pleasant and painful surprises.

You see, then, that we cannot envy you these surprises of love which you find so sweet, for to us they would be fatal.

For the rest, there is no form of happiness which foresight is so well calculated to enhance as that of love.

Let me explain to you how this befalls.

As the growing boy begins to be sensible of the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare say it is with you, preferring some type of face and form to others.

He dreams oftenest of fair hair, or may be of dark, of blue eyes or brown.

As the years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly adding to this dream-face, this shadowy form, traits and lineaments, hues and contours, till at last the picture is complete, and he becomes aware that on his heart thus subtly has been depicted the likeness of the maiden destined for his arms.

“It may be years before he is to see her, but now begins with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown.

Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess.

But the very passion whose awaking makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children.

The temptations which lead your young men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy planet.

He hoards the treasures of his heart for its coming mistress.

Of her alone he thinks, and to her all his vows are made.

The thought of license would be treasop to his sovereign lady, whose right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully owns.

To rob her, to abate her high prerogatives, would be to impoverish, to insult, himself; for she is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own.

Through all this time that he dreams of her by night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden heart his image is set up to receive the incense of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself through fear of possible cross or separation.

“In due time their converging lives come together.

The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each other’s eyes, then throw themselves each on the other’s breast.

The maiden has all the charms that ever stirred the blood of an Earthly lover, but there is another glamour over her which the eyes of Earthly lovers are shut to,-the glamour of the future.

In the blushing girl her lover sees the fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the patient, pain-consecrated mother.

On the virgin’s breast he beholds his children.

He is prescient, even as his lips take the first-fruits of hers, of the future years during which she is to be his companion, his ever-present solace, his chief portion of God’s goodness.

We have read some of your romances describing love as you know it on Earth, and I must confess, my friend, we find them very dull.

“I hope,” he added, as I did not at once speak, “that I shall not offend you by saying we find them also objectionable.

Your literature possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the curiously inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead.

It is a study especially prized for the development of the imagination, on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings in general.

But our women do not read your romances.

The notion that a man or woman should, ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought.

No doubt you will say that such instances are rare among you, but if your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not unknown.

That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly; but it is needless that the minds of our maidens should be pained by the knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties upon the sacredness of marriage are possible.

“There is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness, to a race accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively to things that are ended.

” “And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense?” I asked.

“We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the future tense,” was the reply.

“If our historians were to wait till after the events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be inaccurate; for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy.

Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass.

Your geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of information here.

” In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of human nature are unknown on Mars.

They for whom the future has no mystery can, of course, know neither hope nor fear.

Moreover, every one being assured what he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect; and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engendered on Earth by the strife of man with man, is unknown to the people of Mars, save from the study of our planet.

When I asked if there were not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no difference in that respect between the lives of the people of Earth and of Mars, both alike being according to God’s will in every particular.

We knew that will only after the event, they before,-that was all.

For the rest, God moved them through their wills as He did us, so that they had no more dense of compulsion in what they did than we on Earth have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our anticipations chance to be correct.

Of the absorbing interest which the study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently.

It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place of figures and symbols.

When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different, he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from the Earth.

No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as the past.

And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their logical necessity so clearly that to desire them different was as impossible as seriously to wish that two and two made five instead of four.

No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so closely are all things, the small with the great, woven together by God that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all eternity.

While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the roseate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and sea scape, never paralleled by an earthly sunset.

Already the familiar constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the slightest variation in their position.

Nevertheless, there was one wholly novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were vividly visible to the naked eye.

But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, swimming low on the verge of the horizon.

Its disc, twice as large as that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like that of Venus.

“It is, indeed, a lovely sight,” said my companion, “although to me always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants.

We call it ‘The Blindman’s World.

‘” As he spoke he turned toward a curious structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly observed it.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It is one of our telescopes,” he replied.

“I am going to let you take a look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of which I have boasted;” and having adjusted the instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to the eye-piece.

I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had exaggerated nothing.

The little college town which was my home lay spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down upon it from my observatory windows.

It was early morning, and the village was waking up.

The milkmen were going their rounds, and workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurrying along the streets.

The early train was just leaving the railroad station.

I could see the puffs from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylinders.

It was strange not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed.

There were the college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back the level sunbeams.

I could tell the time by the college clock.

It struck me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering the earliness of the hour.

A crowd of men stood about the door of the observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that direction.

Among them I recognized President Byxbee, accompanied by the college janitor.

As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, passing through the group about the door, entered the building.

The president was evidently going up to my quarters.

At this it flashed over me quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my account.

I recalled how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left affairs in the observatory.

It was high time I were back there to look after myself.

Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that morning on my desk.

That it is the authentic record of the conditions of life in another world which it purports to be I do not expect the reader to believe.

He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks of somnambulism set down in the books.

Probably it was merely that, possibly it was something more.

I do not pretend to decide the question.

I have told all the facts of the case, and have no better means for forming an opinion than the reader.

Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it the true account it seems to be, that it would have affected my imagination much more strongly than it has.

That story of another world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours.

The readiness with which my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of view concerning the Earth has been a singular experience.

The lack of foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of before, now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying its promise,-a moral mutilation, a deprivation arbitrary and unaccountable.

The spectacle of a race doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured only of what is past and dead,’ comes over me from time to time with a sadly fantastical effect which I cannot describe.

I dream of a world where love always wears a smile, where the partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death is king no more.

I have a fancy, which I like to cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, fancied though it may be, represent the ideal and normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as perhaps it may yet be again.

The hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conference room, just over the framed card bearing the words “Stand up for Jesus,” and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences “Come unto Me,” and “The Wonderful, the Counsellor,” pointed to ten minutes of nine.

As was usual at this period of Newville prayer-meetings, a prolonged pause had supervened.

The regular standbyes had all taken their usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been about as irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so.

For the attendants at Newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the two classes of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or times of special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed.

Deacon Tuttle had spoken and prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday’s sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her.

But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the other hand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine would have been regarded as a dangerous innovation.

Accordingly, it only remained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes.

The clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities.

At intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: “There is yet opportunity.

.

.

.

.

Time is passing, brethren.

.

.

.

.

Any brother or sister.

.

.

.

.

We shall be glad to hear from any one.

” Farmer Bragg, tired with his day’s hoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat.

Mrs.

Parker dropped a hymn-book.

Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath.

Madeline Brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister’s desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers.

A June bug boomed through the open window and circled around Deacon Tuttle’s head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about.

Next it made a dive at Madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, and the little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiest thing in the world; at least, so it seemed to Henry Burr, a broad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, serious face is just now lit up by a pleasant smile.

Mr.

Lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannot see it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage of him, which it makes full use of.

Indeed, so closely is the general attention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might draw the mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship the little company had gathered.

Finally, making a slight concession of etiquette to curiosity, Mr.

Lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and, again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a piece of intelligence, “There are yet a few moments.

” In fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutes left, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings to go home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternate hope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortune to the test, and win or lose it all.

As they furtively glance over at the girls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, how serenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the other sex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from their minds! How presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves now appears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, of accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them! Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.

The minister had taken up his hymn- book, and was turning over the leaves to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the room.

Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and Deacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.

It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training, and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.

About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a corporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of raising money for a pressing emergency.

Various circumstances showed that his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.

He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a single unaccountable deflection from rectitude.

The evident intensity of his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the village druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded, and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the past, and help him to begin life over again.

He had been converted at a revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late, and become indifferent to religion.

He looked badly.

His face was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken.

But these symptoms of mental sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound calm.

He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.

And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.

“If it will not be too great an inconvenience,” he said; “I should like to keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little.

You remember, perhaps, that I professed to be converted last winter.

Since then I am aware that I have shown a lack of interest in religious matters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that I was either hasty or insincere in my profession.

I have made my arrangements to leave you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds of my friends.

Hasty I may have been, but not insincere.

Perhaps you will excuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaning clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history.

” The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.

“After my disgrace,” pursued the young man in the same quietly explanatory tone, “the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume, as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and complete as best he can.

Now you know that in order to find any pleasure in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride in it.

Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every time his eye glances it over.

Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like that beaten crew in last week’s regatta, which, when it saw itself hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the race, but just pulled ashore and went home.

“Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn’t have the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page.

Then I was comforted and took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the teacher gave me the prize.

“Now you see, don’t you,” he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering about his eyes, “how it was that after my disgrace I couldn’t seem to take an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and that gave me a notion that religion might help me.

I had heard, from a child, that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit.

That was what I wanted, just what I wanted.

I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.

” He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his haggard face.

“I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which I had taken literally.

Doubtless I should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts.

Nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all.

I’m blaming no one.

Forgiving sins, I should have known, is not blotting, them out.

The blood of Christ only turns them red instead of black.

It leaves them in the record.

It leaves them in the memory.

That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had the teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least bit better so long as the blot was there.

It wasn’t any penalty from without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wanted taken away, so I might get heart to go on.

Supposing one of you-and you’ll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place-had picked a pocket.

Would it make a great deal of difference in your state of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you, and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, and easily repaired.

Your chief offence was against yourself, and that was irreparable.

No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you and yourself.

Until you have been in such a fix, you can’t imagine, perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody else forgiving you for ruining yourself.

It is like mocking.

” The nine o’clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.

“I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words to say.

The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby’s.

I suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water.

Just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their hearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good and happy lives again.

Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and not merely in name.

The figurative promises of the Gospel would become literally true.

But this is idle dreaming.

I will not keep you,” and, checking himself abruptly, he sat down.

The moment he did so, Mr.

Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction, dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn.

He was afraid that something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still further alienate the unfortunate young man.

His own intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.

He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands around him.

There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them.

There was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened.

The tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant.

Many insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale.

None of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement.

Mr.

Lewis was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which were engaged in talk.

Henry Burr was standing near the door, his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.

“Good-evening, Henry,” said Mr.

Lewis, pausing beside the young man.

“Do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George lately to account for what he said to-night?” “I do not, sir,” replied Henry.

“I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given the cold shoulder.

He is very sensitive.

” “I don’t think any one in the village would slight him,” said Henry.

“I should have said so too,” remarked the minister, reflectively.

“Poor boy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how to cheer him.

” “Yes, sir–that is-certainly,” replied Henry incoherently, for Madeline was now coming down the aisle.

In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man’s, Mr.

Lewis passed out.

As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with another young lady.

“Good-evening,” said Henry.

“Poor fellow!” continued Madeline to her companion, “he seemed quite hopeless.

” “Good-evening,” repeated Henry.

Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time.

“Good-evening,” she said.

“May I escort you home?” he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.

She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her.

Then she said, with a bewitching smile- “I shall be much obliged.

” As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs.

He had got her, and his tribulations were forgotten.

For a while they walked silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic suggestions of poor Bayley’s outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.

For it must be understood that Madeline’s little touch of coquetry had been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious engrossments.

To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships.

This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand.

At length she said- “Why didn’t you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of going home with me? Anybody could have done that.

” “No doubt,” replied Henry, seriously; “but, if I’d left anybody else to do it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does.

” “Dear me,” she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation, curved her lips under cover of the darkness, “you take a most unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me.

I never gave you nor anybody else any right to be, and I won’t have it!” “Very well.

It shall be just as you say,” he replied.

The sarcastic humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she immediately changed the subject, demanding- “Where is Laura to-night?” “She’s at home, making cake for the picnic,” he said.

“The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too.

I wonder if poor George will be at the picnic?” “I doubt it,” said Henry.

“You know he never goes to any sort of party.

The last time I saw him at such a place was at Mr.

Bradford’s.

He was playing whist, and they were joking about cheating.

Somebody said- Mr.

Bradford it was-’I can trust my wife’s honesty.

She doesn’t know enough to cheat, but I don’t know about George.

‘ George was her partner.

Bradford didn’t mean any harm; he forgot, you see.

He’d have bitten his tongue off otherwise sooner than have said it.

But everybody saw the application, and there was a dead silence.

George got red as fire, and then pale as death.

I don’t know how they finished the hand, but presently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off.

” “Oh, dear! dear! That was cruel! cruel! How could Mr.

Bradford do it? I should think he would never forgive himself! never!” exclaimed Madeline, with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing Henry’s arm, and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about George and his misfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he was afraid she would notice it and be offended.

But she did not seem to be conscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, and presently added, in a tone of sweetest pity- “He used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meets one of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away or at the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, or meant to cut him.

I’m sure we’d cut our heads off sooner.

It’s enough to make one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitive that no one can say a word to cheer him.

Did you notice what he said about leaving town? I hadn’t heard anything about it before, had you?” “No,” said Henry, “not a word.

Wonder where he’s going.

Perhaps he thinks it will be easier for him in some place where they don’t know him.

” They walked on in silence a few moments, and then Madeline said, in a musing tone- “How strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant things blotted out of their memories! What dreadful thing would you forget now, if you could? Confess.

” “I would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with Will Taylor last Wednesday afternoon, and what I’ve felt about it ever since.

” “Dear me, Mr.

Henry Burr,” said Madeline, with an air of excessive disdain, “how long is it since I authorized you to concern yourself with my affairs? If it wouldn’t please you too much, I’d certainly box your ears.

“I think you’re rather unreasonable,” he protested, in a hurt tone.

“You said a minute ago that you wouldn’t permit me to be jealous of you, and just because I’m so anxious to obey you that I want to forget that I ever was, you are vexed.

” A small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by letters of the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingenious than ingenuous plea.

“I’ve made my confession, and it’s only fair you should make yours,” he said next.

“What remorseful deed have you done that you’d like to forget?” “You needn’t speak in that babying tone.

I fancy I could commit sins as well as you, with all your big moustache, if I wanted to.

I don’t believe you’d hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate.

You’ve probably got a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you’d die of shame to have people see it.

” “Excuse me, Lady Macbeth,” he said, laughing; “I don’t wish to underrate your powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins would you prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough to trouble your excessively hardened conscience? “Well, I must admit,” said Madeline, seriously, “that I wouldn’t care to forget anything I’ve done, not even my faults and follies.

I should be afraid if they were taken away that I shouldn’t have any character left.

” “Don’t put it on that ground,” said Henry, “it’s sheer vanity that makes you say so.

You know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots, and that’s why you’d rather keep ‘em.

” She reflected a moment, and then said, decisively- “That’s a compliment.

I don’t believe I like ‘em from you.

Don’t make me any more.

” Perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment that prompted her words.

Had she done so, she would doubtless have found it in a consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine and delicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery sounded almost gross.

They paused before a gate.

Pushing it open and passing within, she said, “Good-night.

” “One word more.

I have a favour to ask,” he said.

“May I take you to the picnic?” “Why, I think no escort will be necessary,” she replied; “we go in broad daylight; and there are no bears or Indians at Hemlock Hollow.

” “But your basket.

You’ll need somebody to carry your basket.

” “Oh yes, to be sure, my basket,” she exclaimed, with an ironical accent.

“It will weigh at least two pounds, and I couldn’t possibly carry it myself, of course.

By all means come, and much obliged for your thoughtfulness.

” But as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words.

In the treatment of her lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less sharp- tongued maidens.

Henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charming outline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close the door.

Love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feeling that came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush of thankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not Madeline.

For, if he had been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, of worshipping her.

Ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who, fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, are precluded from being their own worshippers! Well, it was a consolation that she didn’t know it, that she actually thought that, with her little coquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of her beauty.

God make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way for missing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in! When Burr reached home, he found his sister Laura standing at the gate in a patch of moonlight.

“How pretty you look to-night!” he said, pinching her round cheek.

The young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly- “So she let you go home with her.

” “How do you know that?” he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess.

“Because you’re so sweet, you goosey, of course.

” But, in truth, any such mode of accounting for Henry’s favourable comment on her appearance was quite unnecessary.

Laura, with her petite, plump figure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clear cheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite as charming a specimen of American girlhood as the stately pale brunette who swayed her brother’s affections.

“Come for a walk, chicken! It is much too pretty a night to go indoors,” he said.

“Yes, and furnish ears for Madeline’s praises, with a few more reflected compliments for pay, perhaps,” she replied, contemptuously.

“Besides,” she added, “I must go into the house and keep father company.

I only came out to cool off after baking the cake.

You’d better come in too.

These moonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know.

” The brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, and Laura, in trying to fill her mother’s place in the household, so far as she might, was always looking out that her father should have as little opportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition.

CHAPTER II.

That same night toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.

Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits.

Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental condition in which he found himself.

It was not that he thought of anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer.

He recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be so strong and so general.

He wondered if it were possible that it should ever again come over him.

The cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue, more cheerless than pitchiest darkness.

A distant bell, with slow and heavy strokes, struck three.

It was the dead point in the daily revolution of the earth’s life, that point just before dawn, when men oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause eternally, when the clock is run down.

The long- drawn reverberations of the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary.

His spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous duration.

A sense of utter loneliness-loneliness inevitable, crushing, eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of unconsciousness-enfolded him as a pall.

Life lay like an incubus on his bosom.

He shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and deny him its refuge.

Even Madeline’s face, as he conjured it up, seemed wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey light of dawn.

Gradually the moon passed, and he slept again.

As early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards.

Even the children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled, solemn look upon their bright faces.

For a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been paralleled in the history of the village.

That morning the sun, as it peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the darkness of a thing it had been afraid of.

George Bayley sat there in a chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple, whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead.

This, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements for leaving the village.

The doctor thought that the fatal shot must have been fired about three o’clock that morning, and, when Henry heard this, he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that had chilled the genial current in his veins.

Bayley’s family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold, haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral.

When Mr.

Lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason to believe that George was out of his head when he took his life, Mr.

Bayley interrupted him.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“He knew what he was doing.

I should not wish any one to think otherwise.

I am prouder of him than I had ever expected to be again.

” A choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot.

It seemed almost cruel that they must ever cease.

And, after the funeral, the young men and girls who had known George, not feeling like returning that day to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed, and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways.

The funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic.

The latter, in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off a fortnight.

CHAPTER III.

About half- past eight on the morning of the day set for the postponed picnic, Henry knocked at Widow Brand’s door.

He had by no means forgotten Madeline’s consent to allow him to carry her basket, although two weeks had intervened.

She came to the door herself.

He had never seen her in anything that set off her dark eyes and olive complexion more richly than the simple picnic dress of white, trimmed with a little crimson braid about the neck and sleeves, which she wore to-day.

It was gathered up at the bottom for wandering in the woods, just enough to show the little boots.

She looked surprised at seeing him, and exclaimed- “You haven’t come to tell me that the picnic is put off again, or Laura’s sick?” “The picnic is all right, and Laura too.

I’ve come to carry your basket for you.

” “Why, you’re really very kind,” said she, as if she thought him slightly officious.

“Don’t you remember you told me I might do so?” he said, getting a little red under her cool inspection.

“When did I?” “Two weeks ago, that evening poor George spoke in meeting.

” “Oh!” she answered, smiling, “so long ago as that? What a terrible memory you have! Come in just a moment, please; I’m nearly ready.

” Whether she merely took his word for it, or whether she had remembered her promise perfectly well all the time, and only wanted to make him ask twice for the favour, lest he should feel too presumptuous, I don’t pretend to know.

Mrs.

Brand set a chair for him with much cordiality.

She was a gentle, mild-mannered little lady, such a contrast in style and character to Madeline that there was a certain amusing fitness in the latter’s habit of calling her “My baby.

” “You have a very pleasant day for your picnic, Mr.

Burr,” said she.

“Yes, we are very lucky,” replied Henry, his eyes following Madeline’s movements as she stood before the glass, putting on her hat, which had a red feather in it.

To have her thus add the last touches to her toilet in his presence was a suggestion of familiarity, of domesticity, that was very intoxicating to his imagination.

“Is your father well?” inquired Mrs.

Brand, affably.

“Very well, thank you, very well indeed,” he replied “There; now I’m ready,” said Madeline.

“Here’s the basket, Henry.

Good-bye, mother.

” They were a well-matched pair, the stalwart young man and the tall, graceful girl, and it is no wonder the girl’s mother stood in the door looking after them with a thoughtful smile.

Hemlock Hollow was a glen between wooded bluffs, about a mile up the beautiful river on which Newville was situated, and boats had been collected at the rendezvous on the river-bank to convey the picnickers thither.

On arriving, Madeline and Henry found all the party assembled and in capital spirits; There was still just enough shadow on their merriment to leave the disposition to laugh slightly in excess of its indulgence, than which no condition of mind more favourable to a good time can be imagined.

Laura was there, and to her Will Taylor had attached himself.

He was a dapper little black-eyed fellow, a clerk in the dry- goods store, full of fun and good-nature, and a general favourite, but it was certainly rather absurd that Henry should be apprehensive of him as a rival.

There also was Fanny Miller, who had the prettiest arm in Newville, a fact discovered once when she wore a Martha Washington toilet at a masquerade sociable, and since circulated from mouth to mouth among the young men.

And there, too, was Emily Hunt, who had shocked the girls and thrown the youth into a pleasing panic by appearing at a young people’s party the previous winter in low neck and short sleeves.

It is to be remarked in extenuation that she had then but recently come from the city, and was not familiar with Newville etiquette.

Nor must I forget to mention Ida Lewis, the minister’s daughter, a little girl with poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who cherished a hopeless passion for Henry.

Among the young men was Harry Tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by the young men.

And there, above all, was Tom Longman.

Tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme.

He was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls’ charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self- consciousness when in their presence.

From this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do.

With his hands occupied he had an excuse for not talking to the girls or being addressed by them, and, thus shielded from the, direct rays of their society, basked with inexpressible emotions in the general atmosphere of sweetness and light which they diffused.

He liked picnics because there was much work to do, and never attended indoor parties because there was none.

This inordinate taste for industry in connection with social enjoyment on Tom’s part was strongly encouraged by the other young men, and they were the ones who always stipulated that he should be of the party when there was likely to be any call for rowing, taking care of horses, carrying of loads, putting out of croquet sets, or other manual exertion.

He was generally an odd one in such companies.

It would be no kindness to provide him a partner, and, besides, everybody made so many jokes about him that none of the girls quite cared to have their names coupled with his, although they all had a compassionate liking for him.

On the present occasion this poor slave of the petticoat had been at work preparing the boats all the morning.

“Why, how nicely you have arranged everything!” said Madeline kindly, as she stood on the sand waiting for Henry to bring up a boat.

“What?” replied Tom, laughing in a flustered way.

He always laughed just so and said “what?” when any of the girls spoke to him, being too much confused by the fact of being addressed to catch what was said the first time.

“It’s very good of you to arrange the boats for us, Madeline repeated.

“Oh, ’tain’t anything, ’tain’t anything at all,” he blurted out, with a very red face.

“You are going up in our boat, ain’t you, Longman?” said Harry Tuttle.

“No, Tom, you’re going with us,” cried another young man.

“He’s going with us, like a sensible fellow,” said Will Taylor, who, with Laura Burr, was sitting on the forward thwart of the boat, into the stern of which Henry was now assisting Madeline.

“Tom, these lazy young men are just wanting you to do their rowing for them,” said she.

“Get into our boat, and I’ll make Henry row you.

” “What do you say to that, Henry?” said Tom, snickering.

“It isn’t for me to say anything after Madeline has spoken,” replied the young man.

“She has him in good subjection,” remarked Ida Lewis, not over-sweetly.

“All right, I’ll come in your boat, Miss Brand, if you’ll take care of me,” said Tom, with a sudden spasm of boldness, followed by violent blushes at the thought that perhaps be had said something too free.

The boat was pushed off.

Nobody took the oars.

“I thought you were going to row?” said Madeline, turning to Henry, who sat beside her in the stern.

“Certainly,” said he, making as if he would rise.

“Tom, you just sit here while I row.

” “Oh no, I’d just as lief row,” said Tom, seizing the oars with feverish haste.

“So would I, Tom; I want a little exercise,” urged Henry with a hypocritical grin, as he stood up in an attitude of readiness.

“Oh, I like to row.

‘I’d a great deal rather.

Honestly,” asseverated Tom, as he made the water foam with the violence of his strokes, compelling Henry to resume his seat to preserve his equilibrium.

“It’s perfectly plain that you don’t want to sit by me, Tom.

That hurts my feelings,” said Madeline, pretending to pout.

“Oh no, it isn’t that,” protested Tom.

“Only I’d rather row; that is, I mean, you know, it’s such fun rowing.

” “Very well, then,” said Madeline, “I sha’n't help you any more; and here they all are tying their boats on to ours.

” Sure enough, one of the other boats had fastened its chain to the stern of theirs, and the others had fastened to that; their oarsmen were lying off and Tom was propelling the entire flotilla.

“Oh, I can row ‘em all just as easy’s not,” gasped the devoted youth, the perspiration rolling down his forehead.

But this was a little too bad, and Henry soon cast off the other boats, in spite of the protests of their occupants, who regarded Tom’s brawn and muscle as the common stock of the entire party, which no one boat had a right to appropriate.

On reaching Hemlock Hollow, Madeline asked the poor young man for his hat, and returned it to him adorned with evergreens, which nearly distracted him with bashfulness and delight, and drove him to seek a safety-valve for his excitement in superhuman activity all the rest of the morning, arranging croquet sets, hanging swings, breaking ice, squeezing lemons, and fetching water.

“Oh, how thirsty I am!” sighed Madeline, throwing down her croquet mallet.

“The ice-water is not yet ready, but I know a spring a little way off where the water is cold as ice,” said Henry.

“Show it to me this instant,” she cried, and they walked off together, followed by Ida Lewis’s unhappy eyes.

The distance to the spring was not great, but the way was rough, and once or twice he had to help her over fallen trees and steep banks.

Once she slipped a little, and for, a single supreme moment he held her whole weight in his arms.

Before, they had been talking and laughing gaily, but that made a sudden silence.

He dared not look at her for some moments, and when he did there was a slight flush tingeing her usually colourless cheek.

His pulses were already bounding wildly, and, at this betrayal that she had shared his consciousness at that moment, his agitation was tenfold increased.

It was the first time she had ever shown a sign of confusion in his presence.

The sensation of mastery, of power over her, which it gave, was so utterly new that it put a sort of madness in his blood.

Without a word they came to the spring and pretended to drink.

As she turned to go back, he lightly caught her fingers in a detaining clasp, and said, in a voice rendered harsh by suppressed emotion- “Don’t be in such a hurry.

Where will you find a cooler spot?” “Oh, it’s cool enough anywhere! Let’s go back,” she replied, starting to return as she spoke.

She saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then.

She flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid.

He sprang up and extended her his hand.

Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side.

Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips.

She gasped, and freed herself.

“How dared you do such a thing to me?” she cried.

The big fellow stood before her, sheepish, dogged, contrite, desperate, all in one.

“I couldn’t help it,” he blurted out.

The plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable.

Angry as she was, she really couldn’t think of anything to say, except- “You’d better help it,” with which rather ineffective rebuke she turned away and walked toward the picnic ground.

Henry followed in a demoralized frame.

His mind was in a ferment.

He could not realize what had happened.

He could scarcely believe that he had actually done it.

He could not conceive how he had dared it.

And now what penalty would she inflict? What if she should not forgive him? His soul was dissolved in fears.

But, sooth to say, the young lady’s actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended.

She had been ready to be very angry, but the suddenness and depth of his contrition had disarmed her.

It took all the force out of her indignation to see that he actually seemed to have a deeper sense of the enormity of his act than she herself had.

And when, after they had rejoined the party, she saw that, instead of taking part in the sports, he kept aloof, wandering aimless and disconsolate by himself among the pines, she took compassion on him and sent some one to tell him she wanted him to come and push her in the swing.

People had kissed her before.

She was not going to leave the first person who had seemed to fully realize the importance of the proceeding to suffer unduly from a susceptibility which did him so much credit.

As for Henry, he hardly believed his ears when he heard the summons to attend her.

At that the kiss which her rebuke had turned cold on his lips began to glow afresh, and for the first time he tasted its exceeding sweetness; for her calling to him seemed to ratify and consent to it.

There were others standing about as he came up to where Madeline sat in the swing, and he was silent, for he could not talk of indifferent things.

With what a fresh charm, with what new sweet suggestions of complaisance that kiss had invested every line and curve of her, from hat-plume to boot-tip! A delicious tremulous sense of proprietorship tinged his every thought of her.

He touched the swing-rope as fondly as if it were an electric chain that could communicate the caress to her.

Tom Longman, having done all the work that offered itself, had been wandering about in a state of acute embarrassment, not daring to join himself to any of the groups, much less accost a young lady who might be alone.

As he drifted near the swing, Madeline said to Henry- “You may stop swinging me now.

I think I’d like to go out rowing.

” The young man’s cup seemed running over.

He could scarcely command his voice for delight as he said- “It will be jolly rowing just now.

I’m sure we can get some pond-lilies.

” “Really,” she replied, airily, “you take too much for granted.

I was going to ask Tom Longman to take me out.

” She called to Tom, and as he came up, grinning and shambling, she indicated to him her pleasure that he should row her upon the river.

The idea of being alone in a small boat for perhaps fifteen minutes with the belle of Newville, and the object of his own secret and distant adoration, paralysed Tom’s faculties with an agony of embarrassment.

He grew very red, and there was such a buzzing in his ears that he could not feel sure he heard aright, and Madeline had to repeat herself several times before he seemed to fully realize the appalling nature of the proposition.

As they walked down to the shore she chatted with him, but he only responded with a profusion of vacant laughs.

When he had pulled out on the river, his rowing, from his desire to make an excuse for not talking, was so tremendous that they cheered him from the shore, at the same time shouting- “Keep her straight! You’re going into the bank!” The truth was, that Tom could not guide the boat because he did not dare to look astern for fear of meeting Madeline’s eyes, which, to judge from the space his eyes left around her, he must have supposed to fill at least a quarter of the horizon, like an aurora, in fact.

But, all the same, he was having an awfully good time, although perhaps it would be more proper to say he would have a good time when he came to think it over afterward.

It was an experience which would prove a mine of gold in his memory, rich enough to furnish for years the gilding to his modest day-dreams.

Beauty, like wealth, should make its owners generous.

It is a gracious thing in fair women at times to make largesse of their beauty, bestowing its light more freely on tongue-tied, timid adorers than on their bolder suitors, giving to them who dare not ask.

Their beauty never can seem more precious to women than when for charity’s sake they brighten with its lustre the eyes of shy and retiring admirers.

As Henry was ruefully meditating upon the uncertainty of the sex, and debating the probability that Madeline had called him to swing her for the express purpose of getting a chance to snub him, Ida Lewis came to him, and said- “Mr.

Burr, we’re getting up a game of croquet.

Won’t you play?” “If I can be on your side,” he answered, civilly.

He knew the girl’s liking for him, and was always kind to her.

At his answer her face flushed with pleasure, and she replied shyly- “If you’d like to, you may.

” Henry was not in the least a conceited fellow, but it was impossible that he should not understand the reason why Ida, who all the morning had looked forlorn enough, was now the life of the croquet-ground, and full of smiles and flushes.

She was a good player, and had a corresponding interest in beating, but her equanimity on the present occasion was not in the least disturbed by the disgraceful defeat which Henry’s awkwardness and absence of mind entailed on their aide.

But her portion of sunshine for that day was brief enough, for Madeline soon returned from her boat-ride, and Henry found an excuse for leaving the game and joining her where she sat on the ground between the knees of a gigantic oak sorting pond-lilies, which the girls were admiring.

As he came up, she did not appear to notice him.

As soon as he had a chance to speak without being overheard, he said, soberly- “Tom ought to thank me for that boat-ride, I suppose.

” “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, with assumed carelessness.

“I mean that you went to punish me.

” “You’re sufficiently conceited,” she replied.

“Laura, come here; your brother is teasing me.

” “And do you think I want to be teased to?” replied that young lady, pertly, as she walked off.

Madeline would have risen and left Henry, but she was too proud to let him think that she was afraid of him.

.

Neither was she afraid, but she was confused, and momentarily without her usual self-confidence.

One reason for her running off with Tom had been to get a chance to think.

No girl, however coolly her blood may flow, can be pressed to a man’s breast, wildly throbbing with love for her, and not experience some agitation in consequence.

Whatever may be the state of her sentiments, there is a magnetism in such a contact which she cannot at once throw off.

That kiss had brought her relations with Henry to a crisis.

It had precipitated the necessity of some decision.

She could no longer hold him off, and play with him.

By that bold dash he had gained a vantage-ground, a certain masterful attitude which he had never held before.

Yet, after all, I am not sure that she was not just a little afraid of him, and, moreover, that she did not like him all the better for it.

It was such a novel feeling that it began to make some things, thought of in connection with him, seem more possible to her mind than they had ever seemed before.

As she peeped furtively at this young man, so suddenly grown formidable, as he reclined carelessly on the ground at her feet, she admitted to herself that there was something very manly in the sturdy figure and square forehead, with the curly black locks hanging over it.

She looked at him with a new interest, half shrinking, half attracted, as one who might come into a very close relation with herself.

She scarcely knew whether the thought was agreeable or not.

“Give me your hat,” she said, “and I’ll put some lilies in it.

” “You are very good,” said he, handing it to her.

“Does it strike you so?” she replied, hesitatingly.

“Then I won’t do it.

I don’t want to appear particularly good to you.

I didn’t know just how it would seem.

” “Oh, it won’t seem very good; only about middling,” he urged, upon which representation she took the hat.

He watched her admiringly as she deftly wreathed the lilies around it, holding it up, now this way and now that, while she critically inspected the effect.

Then her caprice changed.

“I’ve half a mind to drop it into the river.

Would you jump after it?” she said, twirling it by the brim, and looking over the steep bank, near which she sat, into the deep, dark water almost perpendicularly below.

“If it were anything of yours instead of mine, I would jump quickly enough,” he replied.

She looked at him with a reckless gleam in her eyes.

“You mustn’t talk chaff to me, sir; we’ll see,” and, snatching a glove from her pocket, she held it out over the water.

They were both of them in that state of suppressed excitement which made such an experiment on each other’s nerve dangerous.

Their eyes met, and neither flinched.

If she had dropped it, he would have gone after it.

“After all,” she said, suddenly, “that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get a mitten.

If you are so anxious for it, I will give it to you now;” and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face.

He sprang up from the ground.

“Madeline, do you mean it?” he asked, scarcely audibly, his face grown white and pinched.

She crumpled the obnoxious glove into her pocket.

“Why, you poor fellow!” she exclaimed, the wildfire in her eyes quenched in a moment with the dew of pity.

“Do you care so much?” “I care everything,” he said, huskily.

But, as luck would have it, just at that instant Will Taylor came running up, pursued by Laura, and threw himself upon Madeline’s protection.

It appeared that he had confessed to the possession of a secret, and on being requested by Laura to impart it had flatly refused to do so.

“I can’t really interfere to protect any young man who refuses to tell a secret to a young lady,” said Madeline, gravely.

“Neglect to tell her the secret, without being particularly asked to do so, would be bad enough, but to refuse after being requested is an offence which calls for the sharpest correction.

” “And that isn’t all, either,” said Laura, vindictively flirting the switch with which she had pursued him.

“He used offensive language.

” “What did he say?” demanded Madeline, judicially.

“I asked him if he was sure it was a secret that I didn’t know already, and he said he was; and I asked him what made him sure, and he said because if I knew it everybody else would.

As much as to say I couldn’t keep a secret.

” “This looks worse and worse, young man,” said the judge, severely.

“The only course left for you is to make a clean breast of the affair, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

If the secret turns out to be a good one, I’ll let you off as easily as I can.

” “It’s about the new drug-clerk, the one who is going to take George Bayley’s place,” said Will, laughing.

“Oh, do tell, quick!” exclaimed Laura.

“I don’t care who it is.

I sha’n't like him,” said Madeline.

“Poor George! and here we are forgetting all about him this beautiful day!” “What’s the new clerk’s name?” said Laura, impatiently.

“Harrison Cordis.

” “What?” “Harrison Cordis.

” “Rather an odd name,” said Laura.

“I never heard it.

” “No,” said Will; “he comes all the way from Boston.

” “Is he handsome?” inquired Laura.

“I really don’t know,” replied Will.

“I presume Parker failed to make that a condition, although really he ought to, for the looks of the clerk is the principal element in the sale of soda-water, seeing girls are the only ones who drink it.

” “Of course it is,” said Laura, frankly.

“I didn’t drink any all last summer, because poor George’s sad face took away my disposition.

Never mind,” she added, “we shall all have a chance to see how he looks at church to-morrow;” and with that the two girls went off together to help set the table for lunch.

The picnickers did not row home till sunset, but Henry found no opportunity to resume the conversation with Madeline which had been broken off at such an interesting point.

CHAPTER IV.

The advent of a stranger was an event of importance in the small social world of Newville.

Mr.

Harrison Cordis, the new clerk in the drug-store, might well have been flattered by the attention which he excited at church the next day, especially from the fairer half of the congregation.

Far, however, from appearing discomposed thereby, he returned it with such interest that at least half the girls thought they had captivated him by the end of the morning service.

They all agreed that he was awfully handsome, though Laura maintained that he was rather too pretty for a man.

He was certainly very pretty.

His figure was tall, slight, and elegant.

He had delicate hands and feet, a white forehead, deep blue, smiling eyes, short, curly, yellow, hair, and a small moustache, drooping over lips as enticing as a girl’s.

But the ladies voted his manners yet more pleasing than his appearance.

They were charmed by his easy self-possession, and constant alertness as to details of courtesy.

The village beaus scornfully called him “cityfied,” and secretly longed to be like him.

A shrewder criticism than that to which he was exposed would, however, have found the fault with Cordis’s manners that, under a show of superior ease and affability, he was disposed to take liberties with his new acquaintances, and exploit their simplicity for his own entertainment.

Evidently he felt that he was in the country.

That very first Sunday, after evening meeting, he induced Fanny Miller, at whose father’s house he boarded, to introduce him to Madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call.

Fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of Newville wooers to make very gradual approaches.

Laura warmly expressed to Madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon Laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did.

Madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which Laura issued second best, as people generally verbal strife with Madeline.

Meanwhile it was rumoured that Cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times.

The drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet.

The last of the week Fanny Miller gave a little tea-party, to make Cordis more generally acquainted.

On that occasion he singled out Madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued.

Laura, having her brother’s interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things.

They all remarked how queerly Madeline acted that evening.

She was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself.

When the party broke up, Cordis walked home with Madeline and Laura, whose paths lay together.

“I’m extremely fortunate,” said he, as he was walking on with Laura, after leaving Madeline at her house, “to have a chance to escort the two belles of Newville at once.

” “I’m not so foolish as I look, Mr.

Cordis,” said she, rather sharply.

She was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every Newville girl as he had Madeline’s with his city airs and compliments.

“You might be, and not mind owning it,” he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased.

“I mean that I don’t like flattery.

” “Are you sure?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Of course I am.

What a question!” “Excuse me; I only asked because I never met any one before who didn’t.

” “Never met anybody who didn’t like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren’t true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe ‘em?” “I don’t expect you to believe ‘em yourself,” he replied; “only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but I wouldn’t give a cent for friends who didn’t think better of me than I think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too.

” They stood a moment at Laura’s gate, and just then Henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house.

“Is that your brother?” asked Cordis.

“Yes.

” “It does one’s eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man.

Is your brother married, may I ask?” “He is not.

” “In coming into a new circle as I have done, you understand, Miss Burr, I often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons I meet,” he said, apologizing for his questions.

Laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it.

“My brother has been attentive to Miss Brand for a long time.

They are about as good as engaged.

Good-evening, Mr.

Cordis.

” It so happened that several days after this conversation, as Madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw Harrison Cordis coming behind her on his way to tea.

At the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her.

Her pace slackened.

She blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry.

The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis’s feminine temperament.

Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other.

They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs.

Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile.

It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did.

“Good-evening, Miss Brand,” he said, as he over took her.

“I don’t really think it’s fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you.

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to,” she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it.

“It isn’t safe to,” he said, laughing.

“You can’t tell who it may be.

Now, it might have been Mr.

Burr, instead of only me.

” She understood instantly.

Somebody had been telling him about Henry’s attentions to her.

A bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this.

For several seconds she could not control herself to speak.

Finally, she said- “I don’t understand you.

Why do you speak of Mr.

Burr to me?” “I beg pardon.

I should not have done so.

” “Please explain what you mean.

“You’ll excuse me, I hope,” he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her.

“It was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least I understood, that you were engaged to him.

” “Somebody has told you a falsehood, then,” she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping.

If she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that.

Mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door.

Until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped.

Good-afternoon, Madeline.

I’m glad to see you.

You haven’t made me a call this ever so long.

” “I’m sorry, Mrs.

Tuttle, but I haven’t time to stop to-day.

Ha-have you got a-a pattern of a working apron? I’d like to borrow it.

” CHAPTER V.

Now, Henry had not chanced to be at church that first Sunday evening when Cordis obtained an introduction to Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller’s teaparty.

Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever.

Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions.

She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse.

Moreover, now that she had warned Cordis that Madeline was pre- empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere.

And so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance.

And it was very blissful.

He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic.

He had told his love-he had kissed her.

If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he.

And, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? The fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand.

Circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams.

A sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights.

He contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on Madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her.

It was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home.

It chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between Madeline and Cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place.

She did not come in till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way.

She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him.

He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it.

It did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh.

This cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air.

While he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for Madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject.

Finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate- “Mr.

Taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn’t he?” “I should think you ought to know, if any one.

You pass his house every day,” was her response.

“Why, of course I know,” he said, staring at her.

“So I thought, but you said ‘hasn’t he?’ And naturally I presumed that you were not quite certain.

” She was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable.

She looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding.

As she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored.

“Madeline, do you know what I should say was the matter with you if you’ were a man?” he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh.

“Well, really”-and her eyes had a rather hard expression-”if you prefer gentlemen’s society, you’d better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman.

But I was reminded that it was in a dream that Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and on awaking had recalled nothing of his experience, just as I should recall nothing of mine.

When will man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out the secrets of the universe.

“Do your people visit the Earth in the same manner?” I asked my companion.

“Certainly,” he replied; “but there we find no one able to recognize us and converse with us as I am conversing with you, although myself in the waking state.

You, as yet, lack the knowledge we possess of the spiritual side of the human nature which we share with you.

“ “That knowledge must have enabled you to learn much more of the Earth than we know of you,” I said.

“Indeed it has,” he replied.

“From visitors such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse constantly, we have acquired familiarity with your civilization, your history, your manners, and even your literature and languages.

Have you not noticed that I am talking with you in English, which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this planet?” “Among so many wonders I scarcely observed that,” I answered.

“For ages,” pursued my companion, “we have been waiting for you to improve your telescopes so as to approximate the power of ours, after which communication between the planets would be easily established.

The progress which you make is, however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet.

“ “Indeed, I fear you will have to,” I replied.

“Our opticians already talk of having reached the limits of their art.

“ “Do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of petulance,” my companion resumed.

“The slowness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a disability so crushing that if we were in your place I fear we should sit down in utter despair.

“ “To what disability do you refer?” I asked.

“You seem to be men like us.

” “And so we are,” was the reply, “save in one particular, but there the difference is tremendous.

Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of the faculty of foresight, without which we should think our other faculties well-nigh valueless.

” “Foresight!” I repeated.

“Certainly you cannot mean that it is given you to know the future?” “It is given not only to us,” was the answer, “but, so far as we know, to all other intelligent beings of the universe except yourselves.

Our positive knowledge extends only to our system of moons and planets and some of the nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own; but it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated.

One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which a rational existence may still be possible ought to suffice for the universe.

” “But no one can know the future except by inspiration of God,’9 I said.

“All our faculties are by inspiration of God,” was the reply, “but there is surely nothing in foresight to cause it to be so regarded more than any other.

Think a moment of the physical analogy of the case.

Your eyes are placed in the front of your heads.

You would deem it an odd mistake if they were placed behind.

That would appear to you an arrangement calculated to defeat their purpose.

Does it not seem equally rational that the mental vision should range forward, as it does with us, illuminating the path one is to take, rather than backward, as with you, revealing only the course you have already trodden, and therefore have no more concern with? But it is no doubt a merciful provision of Providence that renders you unable to realize the grotesqueness of your predicament, as it appears to us.

” “But the future is eternal!” I exclaimed.

“How can a finite mind grasp it?” “Our foreknowledge implies only human faculties,” was the reply.

“It is limited to our individual careers on this planet.

Each of us foresees the course of his own life, but not that of other lives, except so far as they are involved with his.

” “That such a power as you describe could be combined with merely human faculties is more than our philosophers have ever dared to dream,” I said.

“And yet who shall say, after all, that it is not in mercy that God has denied it to us? If it is a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one’s happiness, it must be most depressing to foresee one’s sorrows, failures, yes, and even one’s death.

For if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anticipate the hour and manner of your death,-is it not so?” “Most assuredly,” was the reply.

“Living would be a very precarious business, were we uninformed of its limit.

Your ignorance of the time of your death impresses us as one of the saddest features of your condition.

” “And by us,” I answered, “it is held to be one of the most merciful.

” “Foreknowledge of your death would not, indeed, prevent your dying once,” continued my companion, “but it would deliver you from the thousand deaths you suffer through uncertainty whether you can safely count on the passing day.

It is not the death you die, but these many deaths you do not die, which shadow your existence.

Poor blindfolded creatures that you are, cringing at every step in apprehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fall till old age, never raising a cup to your lips with the knowledge that you will live to quaff it, never sure that you will meet again the friend you part with for an hour, from whose hearts no happiness suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread, what idea can you form of the Godlike security with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of those we love! You have a saying on earth, ‘To-morrow belongs to God;’ but here to-morrow belongs to us, even as to-day.

To you, for some inscrutable purpose, He sees fit to dole out life moment by moment, with no assurance that each is not to be the last.

To us He gives a lifetime at once, fifty, sixty, seventy years,-a divine gift indeed.

A life such as yours would, I fear, seem of little value to us; for such a life, however long, is but a moment long, since that is all you can count on.

” “And yet,” I answered, “though knowledge of the duration of your lives may give you an enviable feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that not more than offset by the daily growing weight with which the expectation of the end, as it draws near, must press upon your minds?” “On the contrary,” was the response, “death, never an object of fear, as it draws nearer becomes more and more a matter of indifference to the moribund.

It is because you live in the past that death is grievous to you.

All your knowledge, all your affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, and on that account, as life lengthens, it strengthens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more precious possession.

We, on the contrary, despise the past, and never dwell upon it.

Memory with us, far from being the morbid and monstrous growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudimentary faculty.

We live wholly in the future and the present.

What with foretaste and actual taste, our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, are exhausted of interest by the time they are past.

The accumulated treasures of memory, which you relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss at all.

Our minds being fed wholly from the future, we think and feel only as we anticipate; and so, as the dying man’s future contracts, there is less and less about which he can occupy his thoughts.

His interest in life diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last death finds him with his mind a tabula rasa, as with you at birth.

In a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called on to give it up.

In dying he leaves nothing behind.

” “And the after-death,” I asked,-”is there no: fear of that?” “Surely,” was the reply, “it is not necessary for me to say that a fear which affects only the more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to us, and would be counted blasphemous.

Moreover, as I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives on this planet.

Any speculation beyond them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty.

To us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be called almost the same.

” “But even if you do not fear death for itself,” I said, “you have hearts to break.

Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered?” “Love and death are not foes on our planet,” was the reply.

“There are no tears by the bedsides of our dying.

The same beneficent law which makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us.

With you, it is the intercourse you have had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them.

With us, it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is the foundation of fondness.

As our friends vanish from our future with the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time.

As our dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at the last we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds of those who regard us equally without keen emotions.

So at last God gently unwinds instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying.

Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of torturing us, as with you.

Love means joy, and that alone, to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate pang for every thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile.

” “There are other partings than those of death.

Are these, too, without sorrow for you?” I asked.

“Assuredly,” was the reply.

“Can you not see that so it must needs be with beings freed by foresight from the disease of memory? All the sorrow of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the backward vision which precludes you from beholding your happiness till it is past.

Suppose your life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship.

If you could know it beforehand, it would be a joyous expectation, brightening the intervening years and cheering you as you traversed desolate periods.

But no; not till you meet the one who is to be your friend do you know of him.

Nor do you guess even then what he is to be to you, that you may embrace him at first sight.

Your meeting is cold and indifferent.

It is long before the fire is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already time for parting.

Now, indeed, the fire burns well, but henceforth it must consume your heart.

Not till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how dear your friends were and how sweet was their companionship.

But we-we see our friends afar off coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, years before our ways meet.

We greet them at first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy.

They enter at once into the full possession of hearts long warmed and lighted for them.

We meet with that delirium of tenderness with which you part.

And when to us at last the time of parting comes, it only means that we are to contribute to each other’s happiness no longer.

We are not doomed, like you, in parting, to take away with us the delight we brought our friends, leaving the ache of bereavement in its place, so that their last state is worse than their first.

Parting here is like meeting with you, calm and unimpassioned.

The joys of anticipation and possession are the only food of love with us, and therefore Love always wears a smiling face.

With you he feeds on dead joys, past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance of sorrow.

No wonder love and sorrow are so much alike on Earth.

It is a common saying among us that, were it not for the spectacle of the Earth, the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreciate the goodness of God to them; and who can say that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set before us?” “You have told me marvelous things,” I said, after I had reflected.

“It is, indeed, but reasonable that such a race as yours should look down with wondering pity on the Earth.

And yet, before I grant so much, I want to ask you one question.

There is known in our world a certain sweet madness, under the influence of which we forget all that is untoward in our lot, and would not change it for a god’s.

So far is this sweet madness regarded by men as a compensation, and more than a compensation, for all their miseries that if you know not love as we know it, if this loss be the price you have paid for your divine foresight, we think ourselves more favored of God than you.

Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incompatible with a foresight which weighs and measures every experience in advance.

” “Of love’s surprises we certainly know nothing,” was the reply.

“It is believed by our philosophers that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our constitution like lightning; though of course this is merely theory, for it is only by the study of Earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea of what surprise is like.

Your power to endure the constant buffetings of the unexpected is a matter of supreme amazement to us; nor, according to our ideas, is there any difference between what you call pleasant and painful surprises.

You see, then, that we cannot envy you these surprises of love which you find so sweet, for to us they would be fatal.

For the rest, there is no form of happiness which foresight is so well calculated to enhance as that of love.

Let me explain to you how this befalls.

As the growing boy begins to be sensible of the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare say it is with you, preferring some type of face and form to others.

He dreams oftenest of fair hair, or may be of dark, of blue eyes or brown.

As the years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly adding to this dream-face, this shadowy form, traits and lineaments, hues and contours, till at last the picture is complete, and he becomes aware that on his heart thus subtly has been depicted the likeness of the maiden destined for his arms.

“It may be years before he is to see her, but now begins with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown.

Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess.

But the very passion whose awaking makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children.

The temptations which lead your young men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy planet.

He hoards the treasures of his heart for its coming mistress.

Of her alone he thinks, and to her all his vows are made.

The thought of license would be treasop to his sovereign lady, whose right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully owns.

To rob her, to abate her high prerogatives, would be to impoverish, to insult, himself; for she is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own.

Through all this time that he dreams of her by night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden heart his image is set up to receive the incense of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself through fear of possible cross or separation.

“In due time their converging lives come together.

The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each other’s eyes, then throw themselves each on the other’s breast.

The maiden has all the charms that ever stirred the blood of an Earthly lover, but there is another glamour over her which the eyes of Earthly lovers are shut to,-the glamour of the future.

In the blushing girl her lover sees the fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the patient, pain-consecrated mother.

On the virgin’s breast he beholds his children.

He is prescient, even as his lips take the first-fruits of hers, of the future years during which she is to be his companion, his ever-present solace, his chief portion of God’s goodness.

We have read some of your romances describing love as you know it on Earth, and I must confess, my friend, we find them very dull.

“I hope,” he added, as I did not at once speak, “that I shall not offend you by saying we find them also objectionable.

Your literature possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the curiously inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead.

It is a study especially prized for the development of the imagination, on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings in general.

But our women do not read your romances.

The notion that a man or woman should, ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought.

No doubt you will say that such instances are rare among you, but if your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not unknown.

That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly; but it is needless that the minds of our maidens should be pained by the knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties upon the sacredness of marriage are possible.

“There is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness, to a race accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively to things that are ended.

” “And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense?” I asked.

“We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the future tense,” was the reply.

“If our historians were to wait till after the events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be inaccurate; for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy.

Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass.

Your geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of information here.

” In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of human nature are unknown on Mars.

They for whom the future has no mystery can, of course, know neither hope nor fear.

Moreover, every one being assured what he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect; and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engendered on Earth by the strife of man with man, is unknown to the people of Mars, save from the study of our planet.

When I asked if there were not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no difference in that respect between the lives of the people of Earth and of Mars, both alike being according to God’s will in every particular.

We knew that will only after the event, they before,-that was all.

For the rest, God moved them through their wills as He did us, so that they had no more dense of compulsion in what they did than we on Earth have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our anticipations chance to be correct.

Of the absorbing interest which the study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently.

It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place of figures and symbols.

When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different, he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from the Earth.

No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as the past.

And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their logical necessity so clearly that to desire them different was as impossible as seriously to wish that two and two made five instead of four.

No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so closely are all things, the small with the great, woven together by God that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all eternity.

While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the roseate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and sea scape, never paralleled by an earthly sunset.

Already the familiar constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the slightest variation in their position.

Nevertheless, there was one wholly novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were vividly visible to the naked eye.

But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, swimming low on the verge of the horizon.

Its disc, twice as large as that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like that of Venus.

“It is, indeed, a lovely sight,” said my companion, “although to me always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants.

We call it ‘The Blindman’s World.

‘” As he spoke he turned toward a curious structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly observed it.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It is one of our telescopes,” he replied.

“I am going to let you take a look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of which I have boasted;” and having adjusted the instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to the eye-piece.

I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had exaggerated nothing.

The little college town which was my home lay spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down upon it from my observatory windows.

It was early morning, and the village was waking up.

The milkmen were going their rounds, and workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurrying along the streets.

The early train was just leaving the railroad station.

I could see the puffs from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylinders.

It was strange not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed.

There were the college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back the level sunbeams.

I could tell the time by the college clock.

It struck me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering the earliness of the hour.

A crowd of men stood about the door of the observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that direction.

Among them I recognized President Byxbee, accompanied by the college janitor.

As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, passing through the group about the door, entered the building.

The president was evidently going up to my quarters.

At this it flashed over me quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my account.

I recalled how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left affairs in the observatory.

It was high time I were back there to look after myself.

Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that morning on my desk.

That it is the authentic record of the conditions of life in another world which it purports to be I do not expect the reader to believe.

He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks of somnambulism set down in the books.

Probably it was merely that, possibly it was something more.

I do not pretend to decide the question.

I have told all the facts of the case, and have no better means for forming an opinion than the reader.

Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it the true account it seems to be, that it would have affected my imagination much more strongly than it has.

That story of another world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours.

The readiness with which my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of view concerning the Earth has been a singular experience.

The lack of foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of before, now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying its promise,-a moral mutilation, a deprivation arbitrary and unaccountable.

The spectacle of a race doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured only of what is past and dead,’ comes over me from time to time with a sadly fantastical effect which I cannot describe.

I dream of a world where love always wears a smile, where the partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death is king no more.

I have a fancy, which I like to cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, fancied though it may be, represent the ideal and normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as perhaps it may yet be again.

The hand of the clock fastened up on the white wall of the conference room, just over the framed card bearing the words “Stand up for Jesus,” and between two other similar cards, respectively bearing the sentences “Come unto Me,” and “The Wonderful, the Counsellor,” pointed to ten minutes of nine.

As was usual at this period of Newville prayer-meetings, a prolonged pause had supervened.

The regular standbyes had all taken their usual part, and for any one to speak or pray would have been about as irregular as for one of the regulars to fail in doing so.

For the attendants at Newville prayer-meetings were strictly divided into the two classes of speakers and listeners, and, except during revivals or times of special interest, the distinction was scrupulously observed.

Deacon Tuttle had spoken and prayed, Deacon Miller had prayed and spoken, Brother Hunt had amplified a point in last Sunday’s sermon, Brother Taylor had called attention to a recent death in the village as a warning to sinners, and Sister Morris had prayed twice, the second time it must be admitted, with a certain perceptible petulance of tone, as if willing to have it understood that she was doing more than ought to be expected of her.

But while it was extremely improbable that any others of the twenty or thirty persons assembled would feel called on to break the silence, though it stretched to the crack of doom, yet, on the other hand, to close the meeting before the mill bell had struck nine would have been regarded as a dangerous innovation.

Accordingly, it only remained to wait in decorous silence during the remaining ten minutes.

The clock ticked on with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities.

At intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: “There is yet opportunity.

.

.

.

.

Time is passing, brethren.

.

.

.

.

Any brother or sister.

.

.

.

.

We shall be glad to hear from any one.

” Farmer Bragg, tired with his day’s hoeing, snored quietly in the corner of a seat.

Mrs.

Parker dropped a hymn-book.

Little Tommy Blake, who had fallen over while napping and hit his nose, snivelled under his breath.

Madeline Brand, as she sat at the melodeon below the minister’s desk, stifled a small yawn with her pretty fingers.

A June bug boomed through the open window and circled around Deacon Tuttle’s head, affecting that good man with the solicitude characteristic of bald-headed persons when buzzing things are about.

Next it made a dive at Madeline, attracted, perhaps, by her shining eyes, and the little gesture of panic with which she evaded it was the prettiest thing in the world; at least, so it seemed to Henry Burr, a broad-shouldered young fellow on the back seat, whose strong, serious face is just now lit up by a pleasant smile.

Mr.

Lewis, the minister, being seated directly under the clock, cannot see it without turning around, wherein the audience has an advantage of him, which it makes full use of.

Indeed, so closely is the general attention concentrated upon the time-piece, that a stranger might draw the mistaken inference that this was the object for whose worship the little company had gathered.

Finally, making a slight concession of etiquette to curiosity, Mr.

Lewis turns and looks up at the clock, and, again facing the people, observes, with the air of communicating a piece of intelligence, “There are yet a few moments.

” In fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, there are five minutes left, and the young men on the back seats, who attend prayer-meetings to go home with the girls, are experiencing increasing qualms of alternate hope and fear as the moment draws near when they shall put their fortune to the test, and win or lose it all.

As they furtively glance over at the girls, how formidable they look, how superior to common affections, how serenely and icily indifferent, as if the existence of youth of the other sex in their vicinity at that moment was the thought furthest from their minds! How presumptuous, how audacious, to those youth themselves now appears the design, a little while ago so jauntily entertained, of accompanying these dainty beings home, how weak and inadequate the phrases of request which they had framed wherewith to accost them! Madeline Brand is looking particularly grave, as becomes a young lady who knows that she has three would-be escorts waiting for her just outside the church door, not to count one or two within, between whose conflicting claims she has only five minutes more to make up her mind.

The minister had taken up his hymn- book, and was turning over the leaves to select the closing hymn, when some one rose in the back part of the room.

Every head turned as if pulled by one wire to see who it was, and Deacon Tuttle put on his spectacles to inspect more closely this dilatory person, who was moved to exhortation at so unnecessary a time.

It was George Bayley, a young man of good education, excellent training, and once of great promise, but of most unfortunate recent experience.

About a year previous he had embezzled a small amount of the funds of a corporation in Newville, of which he was paymaster, for the purpose of raising money for a pressing emergency.

Various circumstances showed that his repentance had been poignant, even before his theft was discovered.

He had reimbursed the corporation, and there was no prosecution, because his dishonest act had been no part of generally vicious habits, but a single unaccountable deflection from rectitude.

The evident intensity of his remorse had excited general sympathy, and when Parker, the village druggist, gave him employment as clerk, the act was generally applauded, and all the village folk had endeavoured with one accord, by a friendly and hearty manner, to make him feel that they were disposed to forget the past, and help him to begin life over again.

He had been converted at a revival the previous winter, but was counted to have backslidden of late, and become indifferent to religion.

He looked badly.

His face was exceedingly pale, and his eyes were sunken.

But these symptoms of mental sickness were dominated by an expression of singular peace and profound calm.

He had the look of one whom, after a wasting illness, the fever has finally left; of one who has struggled hard, but whose struggle is over.

And his voice, when he began to speak, was very soft and clear.

“If it will not be too great an inconvenience,” he said; “I should like to keep you a few minutes while I talk about myself a little.

You remember, perhaps, that I professed to be converted last winter.

Since then I am aware that I have shown a lack of interest in religious matters, which has certainly justified you in supposing that I was either hasty or insincere in my profession.

I have made my arrangements to leave you soon, and should be sorry to have that impression remain on the minds of my friends.

Hasty I may have been, but not insincere.

Perhaps you will excuse me if I refer to an unpleasant subject, but I can make my meaning clearer by reviewing a little of my unfortunate history.

” The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.

“After my disgrace,” pursued the young man in the same quietly explanatory tone, “the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume, as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and complete as best he can.

Now you know that in order to find any pleasure in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride in it.

Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every time his eye glances it over.

Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like that beaten crew in last week’s regatta, which, when it saw itself hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the race, but just pulled ashore and went home.

“Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn’t have the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page.

Then I was comforted and took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the teacher gave me the prize.

“Now you see, don’t you,” he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering about his eyes, “how it was that after my disgrace I couldn’t seem to take an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and that gave me a notion that religion might help me.

I had heard, from a child, that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit.

That was what I wanted, just what I wanted.

I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.

” He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his haggard face.

“I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only figurative expressions which I had taken literally.

Doubtless I should not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not made my wishes fathers to my thoughts.

Nobody was at all to blame but myself; nobody at all.

I’m blaming no one.

Forgiving sins, I should have known, is not blotting, them out.

The blood of Christ only turns them red instead of black.

It leaves them in the record.

It leaves them in the memory.

That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had the teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least bit better so long as the blot was there.

It wasn’t any penalty from without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wanted taken away, so I might get heart to go on.

Supposing one of you-and you’ll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place-had picked a pocket.

Would it make a great deal of difference in your state of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you, and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, and easily repaired.

Your chief offence was against yourself, and that was irreparable.

No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you and yourself.

Until you have been in such a fix, you can’t imagine, perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody else forgiving you for ruining yourself.

It is like mocking.

” The nine o’clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.

“I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words to say.

The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby’s.

I suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water.

Just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their hearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good and happy lives again.

Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and not merely in name.

The figurative promises of the Gospel would become literally true.

But this is idle dreaming.

I will not keep you,” and, checking himself abruptly, he sat down.

The moment he did so, Mr.

Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction, dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn.

He was afraid that something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were good men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still further alienate the unfortunate young man.

His own intention of finding opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was, however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.

He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands around him.

There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to look through people without seeing them.

There was a buzz of conversation as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened.

The tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained, and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant.

Many insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to the fact that he looked so pale.

None of these good hearts were half so much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement.

Mr.

Lewis was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the groups which were engaged in talk.

Henry Burr was standing near the door, his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.

“Good-evening, Henry,” said Mr.

Lewis, pausing beside the young man.

“Do you know whether anything unpleasant has happened to George lately to account for what he said to-night?” “I do not, sir,” replied Henry.

“I had a fancy that he might have been slighted by some one, or given the cold shoulder.

He is very sensitive.

” “I don’t think any one in the village would slight him,” said Henry.

“I should have said so too,” remarked the minister, reflectively.

“Poor boy, poor boy! He seems to feel very badly, and it is hard to know how to cheer him.

” “Yes, sir–that is-certainly,” replied Henry incoherently, for Madeline was now coming down the aisle.

In his own preoccupation not noticing the young man’s, Mr.

Lewis passed out.

As she approached the door Madeline was talking animatedly with another young lady.

“Good-evening,” said Henry.

“Poor fellow!” continued Madeline to her companion, “he seemed quite hopeless.

” “Good-evening,” repeated Henry.

Looking around, she appeared to observe him for the first time.

“Good-evening,” she said.

“May I escort you home?” he asked, becoming slightly red in the face.

She looked at him for a moment as if she could scarcely believe her ears that such an audacious proposal had been made to her.

Then she said, with a bewitching smile- “I shall be much obliged.

” As he drew her arm beneath his own the contact diffused an ecstatic sensation of security through his stalwart but tremulous limbs.

He had got her, and his tribulations were forgotten.

For a while they walked silently along the dark streets, both too much impressed by the tragic suggestions of poor Bayley’s outbreak to drop at once into trivialities.

For it must be understood that Madeline’s little touch of coquetry had been merely instinctive, a sort of unconscious reflex action of the feminine nervous system, quite consistent with very lugubrious engrossments.

To Henry there was something strangely sweet in sharing with her for the first time a mood of solemnity, seeing that their intercourse had always before been in the vein of pleasantry and badinage common to the first stages of courtships.

This new experience appeared to dignify their relation, and weave them together with a new strand.

At length she said- “Why didn’t you go after poor George and cheer him up instead of going home with me? Anybody could have done that.

” “No doubt,” replied Henry, seriously; “but, if I’d left anybody else to do it, I should have needed cheering up as much as George does.

” “Dear me,” she exclaimed, as a little smile, not exactly of vexation, curved her lips under cover of the darkness, “you take a most unwarrantable liberty in being jealous of me.

I never gave you nor anybody else any right to be, and I won’t have it!” “Very well.

It shall be just as you say,” he replied.

The sarcastic humility of his tone made her laugh in spite of herself, and she immediately changed the subject, demanding- “Where is Laura to-night?” “She’s at home, making cake for the picnic,” he said.

“The good girl! and I ought to be making some, too.

I wonder if poor George will be at the picnic?” “I doubt it,” said Henry.

“You know he never goes to any sort of party.

The last time I saw him at such a place was at Mr.

Bradford’s.

He was playing whist, and they were joking about cheating.

Somebody said- Mr.

Bradford it was-’I can trust my wife’s honesty.

She doesn’t know enough to cheat, but I don’t know about George.

‘ George was her partner.

Bradford didn’t mean any harm; he forgot, you see.

He’d have bitten his tongue off otherwise sooner than have said it.

But everybody saw the application, and there was a dead silence.

George got red as fire, and then pale as death.

I don’t know how they finished the hand, but presently somebody made an excuse, and the game was broken off.

” “Oh, dear! dear! That was cruel! cruel! How could Mr.

Bradford do it? I should think he would never forgive himself! never!” exclaimed Madeline, with an accent of poignant sympathy, involuntarily pressing Henry’s arm, and thereby causing him instantly to forget all about George and his misfortunes, and setting his heart to beating so tumultuously that he was afraid she would notice it and be offended.

But she did not seem to be conscious of the intoxicating effluence she was giving forth, and presently added, in a tone of sweetest pity- “He used to be so frank and dashing in his manner, and now when he meets one of us girls on the street he seems so embarrassed, and looks away or at the ground, as if he thought we should not like to bow to him, or meant to cut him.

I’m sure we’d cut our heads off sooner.

It’s enough to make one cry, such times, to see how wretched he is, and so sensitive that no one can say a word to cheer him.

Did you notice what he said about leaving town? I hadn’t heard anything about it before, had you?” “No,” said Henry, “not a word.

Wonder where he’s going.

Perhaps he thinks it will be easier for him in some place where they don’t know him.

” They walked on in silence a few moments, and then Madeline said, in a musing tone- “How strange it would seem if one really could have unpleasant things blotted out of their memories! What dreadful thing would you forget now, if you could? Confess.

” “I would blot out the recollection that you went boat-riding with Will Taylor last Wednesday afternoon, and what I’ve felt about it ever since.

” “Dear me, Mr.

Henry Burr,” said Madeline, with an air of excessive disdain, “how long is it since I authorized you to concern yourself with my affairs? If it wouldn’t please you too much, I’d certainly box your ears.

“I think you’re rather unreasonable,” he protested, in a hurt tone.

“You said a minute ago that you wouldn’t permit me to be jealous of you, and just because I’m so anxious to obey you that I want to forget that I ever was, you are vexed.

” A small noise, expressive of scorn, and not to be represented by letters of the alphabet, was all the reply she deigned to this more ingenious than ingenuous plea.

“I’ve made my confession, and it’s only fair you should make yours,” he said next.

“What remorseful deed have you done that you’d like to forget?” “You needn’t speak in that babying tone.

I fancy I could commit sins as well as you, with all your big moustache, if I wanted to.

I don’t believe you’d hurt a fly, although you do look so like a pirate.

You’ve probably got a goody little conscience, so white and soft that you’d die of shame to have people see it.

” “Excuse me, Lady Macbeth,” he said, laughing; “I don’t wish to underrate your powers of depravity, but which of your soul-destroying sins would you prefer to forget, if indeed any of them are shocking enough to trouble your excessively hardened conscience? “Well, I must admit,” said Madeline, seriously, “that I wouldn’t care to forget anything I’ve done, not even my faults and follies.

I should be afraid if they were taken away that I shouldn’t have any character left.

” “Don’t put it on that ground,” said Henry, “it’s sheer vanity that makes you say so.

You know your faults are just big enough to be beauty-spots, and that’s why you’d rather keep ‘em.

” She reflected a moment, and then said, decisively- “That’s a compliment.

I don’t believe I like ‘em from you.

Don’t make me any more.

” Perhaps she did not take the trouble to analyse the sentiment that prompted her words.

Had she done so, she would doubtless have found it in a consciousness when in his presence of being surrounded with so fine and delicate an atmosphere of unspoken devotion that words of flattery sounded almost gross.

They paused before a gate.

Pushing it open and passing within, she said, “Good-night.

” “One word more.

I have a favour to ask,” he said.

“May I take you to the picnic?” “Why, I think no escort will be necessary,” she replied; “we go in broad daylight; and there are no bears or Indians at Hemlock Hollow.

” “But your basket.

You’ll need somebody to carry your basket.

” “Oh yes, to be sure, my basket,” she exclaimed, with an ironical accent.

“It will weigh at least two pounds, and I couldn’t possibly carry it myself, of course.

By all means come, and much obliged for your thoughtfulness.

” But as she turned to go in she gave him a glance which had just enough sweetness in it to neutralize the irony of her words.

In the treatment of her lovers, Madeline always punctured the skin before applying a drop of sweetness, and perhaps this accounted for the potent effect it had to inflame the blood, compared with more profuse but superficial applications of less sharp- tongued maidens.

Henry waited until the graceful figure had a moment revealed its charming outline against the lamp-lit interior, as she half turned to close the door.

Love has occasional metaphysical turns, and it was an odd feeling that came over him as he walked away, being nothing less than a rush of thankfulness and self-congratulation that he was not Madeline.

For, if he had been she, he would have lost the ecstasy of loving her, of worshipping her.

Ah, how much she lost, how much all those lose, who, fated to be the incarnations of beauty, goodness, and grace, are precluded from being their own worshippers! Well, it was a consolation that she didn’t know it, that she actually thought that, with her little coquetries and exactions, she was enjoying the chief usufruct of her beauty.

God make up to the haughty, wilful darling in some other way for missing the passing sweetness of the thrall she held her lovers in! When Burr reached home, he found his sister Laura standing at the gate in a patch of moonlight.

“How pretty you look to-night!” he said, pinching her round cheek.

The young lady merely shrugged her shoulders, and replied dryly- “So she let you go home with her.

” “How do you know that?” he asked, laughing at her shrewd guess.

“Because you’re so sweet, you goosey, of course.

” But, in truth, any such mode of accounting for Henry’s favourable comment on her appearance was quite unnecessary.

Laura, with her petite, plump figure, sloe-black eyes, quick in moving, curly head, and dark, clear cheeks, carnation-tinted, would have been thought by many quite as charming a specimen of American girlhood as the stately pale brunette who swayed her brother’s affections.

“Come for a walk, chicken! It is much too pretty a night to go indoors,” he said.

“Yes, and furnish ears for Madeline’s praises, with a few more reflected compliments for pay, perhaps,” she replied, contemptuously.

“Besides,” she added, “I must go into the house and keep father company.

I only came out to cool off after baking the cake.

You’d better come in too.

These moonlight nights always make him specially sad, you know.

” The brother and sister had been left motherless not long before, and Laura, in trying to fill her mother’s place in the household, so far as she might, was always looking out that her father should have as little opportunity as possible to brood alone over his companionless condition.

CHAPTER II.

That same night toward morning Henry suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.

Drowsiness, by some strange influence, had been completely banished from his eyes, and in its stead he became sensible of a profound depression of spirits.

Physically, he was entirely comfortable, nor could he trace to any sensation from without either this sudden awakening or the mental condition in which he found himself.

It was not that he thought of anything in particular that was gloomy or discouraging, but that all the ends and aims, not only of his own individual life, but of life in general, had assumed an aspect so empty, vain, and colourless, that he felt he would not rise from his bed for anything existence had to offer.

He recalled his usual frame of mind, in which these things seemed attractive, with a dull wonderment that so baseless a delusion should be so strong and so general.

He wondered if it were possible that it should ever again come over him.

The cold, grey light of earliest morning, that light which is rather the fading of night than the coming of day, filled the room with a faint hue, more cheerless than pitchiest darkness.

A distant bell, with slow and heavy strokes, struck three.

It was the dead point in the daily revolution of the earth’s life, that point just before dawn, when men oftenest die; when surely, but for the force of momentum, the course of nature would stop, and at which doubtless it will one day pause eternally, when the clock is run down.

The long- drawn reverberations of the bell, turning remoteness into music, full of the pathos of a sad and infinite patience, died away with an effect unspeakably dreary.

His spirit, drawn forth after the vanishing vibrations, seemed to traverse waste spaces without beginning or ending, and aeons of monotonous duration.

A sense of utter loneliness-loneliness inevitable, crushing, eternal, the loneliness of existence, encompassed by the infinite void of unconsciousness-enfolded him as a pall.

Life lay like an incubus on his bosom.

He shuddered at the thought that death might overlook him, and deny him its refuge.

Even Madeline’s face, as he conjured it up, seemed wan and pale, moving to unutterable pity, powerless to cheer, and all the illusions and passions of love were dim as ball-room candles in the grey light of dawn.

Gradually the moon passed, and he slept again.

As early as half-past eight the following forenoon, groups of men with very serious faces were to be seen standing at the corners of the streets, conversing in hushed tones, and women with awed voices were talking across the fences which divided adjoining yards.

Even the children, as they went to school, forgot to play, and talked in whispers together, or lingered near the groups of men to catch a word or two of their conversation, or, maybe, walked silently along with a puzzled, solemn look upon their bright faces.

For a tragedy had occurred at dead of night which never had been paralleled in the history of the village.

That morning the sun, as it peered through the closed shutters of an upper chamber, had relieved the darkness of a thing it had been afraid of.

George Bayley sat there in a chair, his head sunk on his breast, a small, blue hole in his temple, whence a drop or two of blood had oozed, quite dead.

This, then, was what he meant when he said that he had made arrangements for leaving the village.

The doctor thought that the fatal shot must have been fired about three o’clock that morning, and, when Henry heard this, he knew that it was the breath of the angel of death as he flew by that had chilled the genial current in his veins.

Bayley’s family lived elsewhere, and his father, a stern, cold, haughty-looking man, was the only relative present at the funeral.

When Mr.

Lewis undertook to tell him, for his comfort, that there was reason to believe that George was out of his head when he took his life, Mr.

Bayley interrupted him.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“He knew what he was doing.

I should not wish any one to think otherwise.

I am prouder of him than I had ever expected to be again.

” A choir of girls with glistening eyes sang sweet, sad songs at the funeral, songs which, while they lasted, took away the ache of bereavement, like a cool sponge pressed upon a smarting spot.

It seemed almost cruel that they must ever cease.

And, after the funeral, the young men and girls who had known George, not feeling like returning that day to their ordinary thoughts and occupations, gathered at the house of one of them and passed the hours till dusk, talking tenderly of the departed, and recalling his generous traits and gracious ways.

The funeral had taken place on the day fixed for the picnic.

The latter, in consideration of the saddened temper of the young people, was put off a fortnight.

CHAPTER III.

About half- past eight on the morning of the day set for the postponed picnic, Henry knocked at Widow Brand’s door.

He had by no means forgotten Madeline’s consent to allow him to carry her basket, although two weeks had intervened.

She came to the door herself.

He had never seen her in anything that set off her dark eyes and olive complexion more richly than the simple picnic dress of white, trimmed with a little crimson braid about the neck and sleeves, which she wore to-day.

It was gathered up at the bottom for wandering in the woods, just enough to show the little boots.

She looked surprised at seeing him, and exclaimed- “You haven’t come to tell me that the picnic is put off again, or Laura’s sick?” “The picnic is all right, and Laura too.

I’ve come to carry your basket for you.

” “Why, you’re really very kind,” said she, as if she thought him slightly officious.

“Don’t you remember you told me I might do so?” he said, getting a little red under her cool inspection.

“When did I?” “Two weeks ago, that evening poor George spoke in meeting.

” “Oh!” she answered, smiling, “so long ago as that? What a terrible memory you have! Come in just a moment, please; I’m nearly ready.

” Whether she merely took his word for it, or whether she had remembered her promise perfectly well all the time, and only wanted to make him ask twice for the favour, lest he should feel too presumptuous, I don’t pretend to know.

Mrs.

Brand set a chair for him with much cordiality.

She was a gentle, mild-mannered little lady, such a contrast in style and character to Madeline that there was a certain amusing fitness in the latter’s habit of calling her “My baby.

” “You have a very pleasant day for your picnic, Mr.

Burr,” said she.

“Yes, we are very lucky,” replied Henry, his eyes following Madeline’s movements as she stood before the glass, putting on her hat, which had a red feather in it.

To have her thus add the last touches to her toilet in his presence was a suggestion of familiarity, of domesticity, that was very intoxicating to his imagination.

“Is your father well?” inquired Mrs.

Brand, affably.

“Very well, thank you, very well indeed,” he replied “There; now I’m ready,” said Madeline.

“Here’s the basket, Henry.

Good-bye, mother.

” They were a well-matched pair, the stalwart young man and the tall, graceful girl, and it is no wonder the girl’s mother stood in the door looking after them with a thoughtful smile.

Hemlock Hollow was a glen between wooded bluffs, about a mile up the beautiful river on which Newville was situated, and boats had been collected at the rendezvous on the river-bank to convey the picnickers thither.

On arriving, Madeline and Henry found all the party assembled and in capital spirits; There was still just enough shadow on their merriment to leave the disposition to laugh slightly in excess of its indulgence, than which no condition of mind more favourable to a good time can be imagined.

Laura was there, and to her Will Taylor had attached himself.

He was a dapper little black-eyed fellow, a clerk in the dry- goods store, full of fun and good-nature, and a general favourite, but it was certainly rather absurd that Henry should be apprehensive of him as a rival.

There also was Fanny Miller, who had the prettiest arm in Newville, a fact discovered once when she wore a Martha Washington toilet at a masquerade sociable, and since circulated from mouth to mouth among the young men.

And there, too, was Emily Hunt, who had shocked the girls and thrown the youth into a pleasing panic by appearing at a young people’s party the previous winter in low neck and short sleeves.

It is to be remarked in extenuation that she had then but recently come from the city, and was not familiar with Newville etiquette.

Nor must I forget to mention Ida Lewis, the minister’s daughter, a little girl with poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who cherished a hopeless passion for Henry.

Among the young men was Harry Tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by the young men.

And there, above all, was Tom Longman.

Tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme.

He was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls’ charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self- consciousness when in their presence.

From this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do.

With his hands occupied he had an excuse for not talking to the girls or being addressed by them, and, thus shielded from the, direct rays of their society, basked with inexpressible emotions in the general atmosphere of sweetness and light which they diffused.

He liked picnics because there was much work to do, and never attended indoor parties because there was none.

This inordinate taste for industry in connection with social enjoyment on Tom’s part was strongly encouraged by the other young men, and they were the ones who always stipulated that he should be of the party when there was likely to be any call for rowing, taking care of horses, carrying of loads, putting out of croquet sets, or other manual exertion.

He was generally an odd one in such companies.

It would be no kindness to provide him a partner, and, besides, everybody made so many jokes about him that none of the girls quite cared to have their names coupled with his, although they all had a compassionate liking for him.

On the present occasion this poor slave of the petticoat had been at work preparing the boats all the morning.

“Why, how nicely you have arranged everything!” said Madeline kindly, as she stood on the sand waiting for Henry to bring up a boat.

“What?” replied Tom, laughing in a flustered way.

He always laughed just so and said “what?” when any of the girls spoke to him, being too much confused by the fact of being addressed to catch what was said the first time.

“It’s very good of you to arrange the boats for us, Madeline repeated.

“Oh, ’tain’t anything, ’tain’t anything at all,” he blurted out, with a very red face.

“You are going up in our boat, ain’t you, Longman?” said Harry Tuttle.

“No, Tom, you’re going with us,” cried another young man.

“He’s going with us, like a sensible fellow,” said Will Taylor, who, with Laura Burr, was sitting on the forward thwart of the boat, into the stern of which Henry was now assisting Madeline.

“Tom, these lazy young men are just wanting you to do their rowing for them,” said she.

“Get into our boat, and I’ll make Henry row you.

” “What do you say to that, Henry?” said Tom, snickering.

“It isn’t for me to say anything after Madeline has spoken,” replied the young man.

“She has him in good subjection,” remarked Ida Lewis, not over-sweetly.

“All right, I’ll come in your boat, Miss Brand, if you’ll take care of me,” said Tom, with a sudden spasm of boldness, followed by violent blushes at the thought that perhaps be had said something too free.

The boat was pushed off.

Nobody took the oars.

“I thought you were going to row?” said Madeline, turning to Henry, who sat beside her in the stern.

“Certainly,” said he, making as if he would rise.

“Tom, you just sit here while I row.

” “Oh no, I’d just as lief row,” said Tom, seizing the oars with feverish haste.

“So would I, Tom; I want a little exercise,” urged Henry with a hypocritical grin, as he stood up in an attitude of readiness.

“Oh, I like to row.

‘I’d a great deal rather.

Honestly,” asseverated Tom, as he made the water foam with the violence of his strokes, compelling Henry to resume his seat to preserve his equilibrium.

“It’s perfectly plain that you don’t want to sit by me, Tom.

That hurts my feelings,” said Madeline, pretending to pout.

“Oh no, it isn’t that,” protested Tom.

“Only I’d rather row; that is, I mean, you know, it’s such fun rowing.

” “Very well, then,” said Madeline, “I sha’n't help you any more; and here they all are tying their boats on to ours.

” Sure enough, one of the other boats had fastened its chain to the stern of theirs, and the others had fastened to that; their oarsmen were lying off and Tom was propelling the entire flotilla.

“Oh, I can row ‘em all just as easy’s not,” gasped the devoted youth, the perspiration rolling down his forehead.

But this was a little too bad, and Henry soon cast off the other boats, in spite of the protests of their occupants, who regarded Tom’s brawn and muscle as the common stock of the entire party, which no one boat had a right to appropriate.

On reaching Hemlock Hollow, Madeline asked the poor young man for his hat, and returned it to him adorned with evergreens, which nearly distracted him with bashfulness and delight, and drove him to seek a safety-valve for his excitement in superhuman activity all the rest of the morning, arranging croquet sets, hanging swings, breaking ice, squeezing lemons, and fetching water.

“Oh, how thirsty I am!” sighed Madeline, throwing down her croquet mallet.

“The ice-water is not yet ready, but I know a spring a little way off where the water is cold as ice,” said Henry.

“Show it to me this instant,” she cried, and they walked off together, followed by Ida Lewis’s unhappy eyes.

The distance to the spring was not great, but the way was rough, and once or twice he had to help her over fallen trees and steep banks.

Once she slipped a little, and for, a single supreme moment he held her whole weight in his arms.

Before, they had been talking and laughing gaily, but that made a sudden silence.

He dared not look at her for some moments, and when he did there was a slight flush tingeing her usually colourless cheek.

His pulses were already bounding wildly, and, at this betrayal that she had shared his consciousness at that moment, his agitation was tenfold increased.

It was the first time she had ever shown a sign of confusion in his presence.

The sensation of mastery, of power over her, which it gave, was so utterly new that it put a sort of madness in his blood.

Without a word they came to the spring and pretended to drink.

As she turned to go back, he lightly caught her fingers in a detaining clasp, and said, in a voice rendered harsh by suppressed emotion- “Don’t be in such a hurry.

Where will you find a cooler spot?” “Oh, it’s cool enough anywhere! Let’s go back,” she replied, starting to return as she spoke.

She saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then.

She flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid.

He sprang up and extended her his hand.

Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side.

Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips.

She gasped, and freed herself.

“How dared you do such a thing to me?” she cried.

The big fellow stood before her, sheepish, dogged, contrite, desperate, all in one.

“I couldn’t help it,” he blurted out.

The plea was somehow absurdly simple, and yet rather unanswerable.

Angry as she was, she really couldn’t think of anything to say, except- “You’d better help it,” with which rather ineffective rebuke she turned away and walked toward the picnic ground.

Henry followed in a demoralized frame.

His mind was in a ferment.

He could not realize what had happened.

He could scarcely believe that he had actually done it.

He could not conceive how he had dared it.

And now what penalty would she inflict? What if she should not forgive him? His soul was dissolved in fears.

But, sooth to say, the young lady’s actual state of mind was by no means so implacable as he apprehended.

She had been ready to be very angry, but the suddenness and depth of his contrition had disarmed her.

It took all the force out of her indignation to see that he actually seemed to have a deeper sense of the enormity of his act than she herself had.

And when, after they had rejoined the party, she saw that, instead of taking part in the sports, he kept aloof, wandering aimless and disconsolate by himself among the pines, she took compassion on him and sent some one to tell him she wanted him to come and push her in the swing.

People had kissed her before.

She was not going to leave the first person who had seemed to fully realize the importance of the proceeding to suffer unduly from a susceptibility which did him so much credit.

As for Henry, he hardly believed his ears when he heard the summons to attend her.

At that the kiss which her rebuke had turned cold on his lips began to glow afresh, and for the first time he tasted its exceeding sweetness; for her calling to him seemed to ratify and consent to it.

There were others standing about as he came up to where Madeline sat in the swing, and he was silent, for he could not talk of indifferent things.

With what a fresh charm, with what new sweet suggestions of complaisance that kiss had invested every line and curve of her, from hat-plume to boot-tip! A delicious tremulous sense of proprietorship tinged his every thought of her.

He touched the swing-rope as fondly as if it were an electric chain that could communicate the caress to her.

Tom Longman, having done all the work that offered itself, had been wandering about in a state of acute embarrassment, not daring to join himself to any of the groups, much less accost a young lady who might be alone.

As he drifted near the swing, Madeline said to Henry- “You may stop swinging me now.

I think I’d like to go out rowing.

” The young man’s cup seemed running over.

He could scarcely command his voice for delight as he said- “It will be jolly rowing just now.

I’m sure we can get some pond-lilies.

” “Really,” she replied, airily, “you take too much for granted.

I was going to ask Tom Longman to take me out.

” She called to Tom, and as he came up, grinning and shambling, she indicated to him her pleasure that he should row her upon the river.

The idea of being alone in a small boat for perhaps fifteen minutes with the belle of Newville, and the object of his own secret and distant adoration, paralysed Tom’s faculties with an agony of embarrassment.

He grew very red, and there was such a buzzing in his ears that he could not feel sure he heard aright, and Madeline had to repeat herself several times before he seemed to fully realize the appalling nature of the proposition.

As they walked down to the shore she chatted with him, but he only responded with a profusion of vacant laughs.

When he had pulled out on the river, his rowing, from his desire to make an excuse for not talking, was so tremendous that they cheered him from the shore, at the same time shouting- “Keep her straight! You’re going into the bank!” The truth was, that Tom could not guide the boat because he did not dare to look astern for fear of meeting Madeline’s eyes, which, to judge from the space his eyes left around her, he must have supposed to fill at least a quarter of the horizon, like an aurora, in fact.

But, all the same, he was having an awfully good time, although perhaps it would be more proper to say he would have a good time when he came to think it over afterward.

It was an experience which would prove a mine of gold in his memory, rich enough to furnish for years the gilding to his modest day-dreams.

Beauty, like wealth, should make its owners generous.

It is a gracious thing in fair women at times to make largesse of their beauty, bestowing its light more freely on tongue-tied, timid adorers than on their bolder suitors, giving to them who dare not ask.

Their beauty never can seem more precious to women than when for charity’s sake they brighten with its lustre the eyes of shy and retiring admirers.

As Henry was ruefully meditating upon the uncertainty of the sex, and debating the probability that Madeline had called him to swing her for the express purpose of getting a chance to snub him, Ida Lewis came to him, and said- “Mr.

Burr, we’re getting up a game of croquet.

Won’t you play?” “If I can be on your side,” he answered, civilly.

He knew the girl’s liking for him, and was always kind to her.

At his answer her face flushed with pleasure, and she replied shyly- “If you’d like to, you may.

” Henry was not in the least a conceited fellow, but it was impossible that he should not understand the reason why Ida, who all the morning had looked forlorn enough, was now the life of the croquet-ground, and full of smiles and flushes.

She was a good player, and had a corresponding interest in beating, but her equanimity on the present occasion was not in the least disturbed by the disgraceful defeat which Henry’s awkwardness and absence of mind entailed on their aide.

But her portion of sunshine for that day was brief enough, for Madeline soon returned from her boat-ride, and Henry found an excuse for leaving the game and joining her where she sat on the ground between the knees of a gigantic oak sorting pond-lilies, which the girls were admiring.

As he came up, she did not appear to notice him.

As soon as he had a chance to speak without being overheard, he said, soberly- “Tom ought to thank me for that boat-ride, I suppose.

” “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, with assumed carelessness.

“I mean that you went to punish me.

” “You’re sufficiently conceited,” she replied.

“Laura, come here; your brother is teasing me.

” “And do you think I want to be teased to?” replied that young lady, pertly, as she walked off.

Madeline would have risen and left Henry, but she was too proud to let him think that she was afraid of him.

.

Neither was she afraid, but she was confused, and momentarily without her usual self-confidence.

One reason for her running off with Tom had been to get a chance to think.

No girl, however coolly her blood may flow, can be pressed to a man’s breast, wildly throbbing with love for her, and not experience some agitation in consequence.

Whatever may be the state of her sentiments, there is a magnetism in such a contact which she cannot at once throw off.

That kiss had brought her relations with Henry to a crisis.

It had precipitated the necessity of some decision.

She could no longer hold him off, and play with him.

By that bold dash he had gained a vantage-ground, a certain masterful attitude which he had never held before.

Yet, after all, I am not sure that she was not just a little afraid of him, and, moreover, that she did not like him all the better for it.

It was such a novel feeling that it began to make some things, thought of in connection with him, seem more possible to her mind than they had ever seemed before.

As she peeped furtively at this young man, so suddenly grown formidable, as he reclined carelessly on the ground at her feet, she admitted to herself that there was something very manly in the sturdy figure and square forehead, with the curly black locks hanging over it.

She looked at him with a new interest, half shrinking, half attracted, as one who might come into a very close relation with herself.

She scarcely knew whether the thought was agreeable or not.

“Give me your hat,” she said, “and I’ll put some lilies in it.

” “You are very good,” said he, handing it to her.

“Does it strike you so?” she replied, hesitatingly.

“Then I won’t do it.

I don’t want to appear particularly good to you.

I didn’t know just how it would seem.

” “Oh, it won’t seem very good; only about middling,” he urged, upon which representation she took the hat.

He watched her admiringly as she deftly wreathed the lilies around it, holding it up, now this way and now that, while she critically inspected the effect.

Then her caprice changed.

“I’ve half a mind to drop it into the river.

Would you jump after it?” she said, twirling it by the brim, and looking over the steep bank, near which she sat, into the deep, dark water almost perpendicularly below.

“If it were anything of yours instead of mine, I would jump quickly enough,” he replied.

She looked at him with a reckless gleam in her eyes.

“You mustn’t talk chaff to me, sir; we’ll see,” and, snatching a glove from her pocket, she held it out over the water.

They were both of them in that state of suppressed excitement which made such an experiment on each other’s nerve dangerous.

Their eyes met, and neither flinched.

If she had dropped it, he would have gone after it.

“After all,” she said, suddenly, “that would be taking a good deal of trouble to get a mitten.

If you are so anxious for it, I will give it to you now;” and she held out the glove to him with an inscrutable face.

He sprang up from the ground.

“Madeline, do you mean it?” he asked, scarcely audibly, his face grown white and pinched.

She crumpled the obnoxious glove into her pocket.

“Why, you poor fellow!” she exclaimed, the wildfire in her eyes quenched in a moment with the dew of pity.

“Do you care so much?” “I care everything,” he said, huskily.

But, as luck would have it, just at that instant Will Taylor came running up, pursued by Laura, and threw himself upon Madeline’s protection.

It appeared that he had confessed to the possession of a secret, and on being requested by Laura to impart it had flatly refused to do so.

“I can’t really interfere to protect any young man who refuses to tell a secret to a young lady,” said Madeline, gravely.

“Neglect to tell her the secret, without being particularly asked to do so, would be bad enough, but to refuse after being requested is an offence which calls for the sharpest correction.

” “And that isn’t all, either,” said Laura, vindictively flirting the switch with which she had pursued him.

“He used offensive language.

” “What did he say?” demanded Madeline, judicially.

“I asked him if he was sure it was a secret that I didn’t know already, and he said he was; and I asked him what made him sure, and he said because if I knew it everybody else would.

As much as to say I couldn’t keep a secret.

” “This looks worse and worse, young man,” said the judge, severely.

“The only course left for you is to make a clean breast of the affair, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

If the secret turns out to be a good one, I’ll let you off as easily as I can.

” “It’s about the new drug-clerk, the one who is going to take George Bayley’s place,” said Will, laughing.

“Oh, do tell, quick!” exclaimed Laura.

“I don’t care who it is.

I sha’n't like him,” said Madeline.

“Poor George! and here we are forgetting all about him this beautiful day!” “What’s the new clerk’s name?” said Laura, impatiently.

“Harrison Cordis.

” “What?” “Harrison Cordis.

” “Rather an odd name,” said Laura.

“I never heard it.

” “No,” said Will; “he comes all the way from Boston.

” “Is he handsome?” inquired Laura.

“I really don’t know,” replied Will.

“I presume Parker failed to make that a condition, although really he ought to, for the looks of the clerk is the principal element in the sale of soda-water, seeing girls are the only ones who drink it.

” “Of course it is,” said Laura, frankly.

“I didn’t drink any all last summer, because poor George’s sad face took away my disposition.

Never mind,” she added, “we shall all have a chance to see how he looks at church to-morrow;” and with that the two girls went off together to help set the table for lunch.

The picnickers did not row home till sunset, but Henry found no opportunity to resume the conversation with Madeline which had been broken off at such an interesting point.

CHAPTER IV.

The advent of a stranger was an event of importance in the small social world of Newville.

Mr.

Harrison Cordis, the new clerk in the drug-store, might well have been flattered by the attention which he excited at church the next day, especially from the fairer half of the congregation.

Far, however, from appearing discomposed thereby, he returned it with such interest that at least half the girls thought they had captivated him by the end of the morning service.

They all agreed that he was awfully handsome, though Laura maintained that he was rather too pretty for a man.

He was certainly very pretty.

His figure was tall, slight, and elegant.

He had delicate hands and feet, a white forehead, deep blue, smiling eyes, short, curly, yellow, hair, and a small moustache, drooping over lips as enticing as a girl’s.

But the ladies voted his manners yet more pleasing than his appearance.

They were charmed by his easy self-possession, and constant alertness as to details of courtesy.

The village beaus scornfully called him “cityfied,” and secretly longed to be like him.

A shrewder criticism than that to which he was exposed would, however, have found the fault with Cordis’s manners that, under a show of superior ease and affability, he was disposed to take liberties with his new acquaintances, and exploit their simplicity for his own entertainment.

Evidently he felt that he was in the country.

That very first Sunday, after evening meeting, he induced Fanny Miller, at whose father’s house he boarded, to introduce him to Madeline, and afterward walked home with her, making himself very agreeable, and crowning his audacity by asking permission to call.

Fanny, who went along with them, tattled of this, and it produced a considerable sensation among the girls, for it was the wont of Newville wooers to make very gradual approaches.

Laura warmly expressed to Madeline her indignation at the impudence of the proceeding, but that young lady was sure she did not see any harm in it; whereupon Laura lost her temper a little, and hinted that it might be more to her credit if she did.

Madeline replied pointedly, and the result was a little spat, from which Laura issued second best, as people generally verbal strife with Madeline.

Meanwhile it was rumoured that Cordis had availed himself of the permission that he had asked, and that he had, moreover, been seen talking with her in the post-office several times.

The drug-store being next door to the post-office, it was easy for him, under pretence of calling for the mail, to waylay there any one he might wish to meet.

The last of the week Fanny Miller gave a little tea-party, to make Cordis more generally acquainted.

On that occasion he singled out Madeline with his attentions in such a pronounced manner that the other girls were somewhat piqued.

Laura, having her brother’s interest at heart, had much more serious reasons for being uneasy at the look of things.

They all remarked how queerly Madeline acted that evening.

She was so subdued and quiet, not a bit like herself.

When the party broke up, Cordis walked home with Madeline and Laura, whose paths lay together.

“I’m extremely fortunate,” said he, as he was walking on with Laura, after leaving Madeline at her house, “to have a chance to escort the two belles of Newville at once.

” “I’m not so foolish as I look, Mr.

Cordis,” said she, rather sharply.

She was not going to let him think he could turn the head of every Newville girl as he had Madeline’s with his city airs and compliments.

“You might be, and not mind owning it,” he replied, making an excuse of her words to scrutinise her face with a frank admiration that sent the colour to her cheeks, though she was more vexed than pleased.

“I mean that I don’t like flattery.

” “Are you sure?” he asked, with apparent surprise.

“Of course I am.

What a question!” “Excuse me; I only asked because I never met any one before who didn’t.

” “Never met anybody who didn’t like to be told things about themselves which they knew weren’t true, and were just said because somebody thought they were foolish enough to believe ‘em?” “I don’t expect you to believe ‘em yourself,” he replied; “only vain people believe the good things people say about them; but I wouldn’t give a cent for friends who didn’t think better of me than I think of myself, and tell me so occasionally, too.

” They stood a moment at Laura’s gate, and just then Henry, coming home from the gun-shop of which he was foreman, passed them, and entered the house.

“Is that your brother?” asked Cordis.

“Yes.

” “It does one’s eyes good to see such a powerful looking young man.

Is your brother married, may I ask?” “He is not.

” “In coming into a new circle as I have done, you understand, Miss Burr, I often feel a certain awkwardness on account of not knowing the relations between the persons I meet,” he said, apologizing for his questions.

Laura saw her opportunity, and promptly improved it.

“My brother has been attentive to Miss Brand for a long time.

They are about as good as engaged.

Good-evening, Mr.

Cordis.

” It so happened that several days after this conversation, as Madeline was walking home one afternoon, she glanced back at a crossing of the street, and saw Harrison Cordis coming behind her on his way to tea.

At the rate she was walking she would reach home before he overtook her, but, if she walked a very little slower, he would overtake her.

Her pace slackened.

She blushed at her conduct, but she did not hurry.

The most dangerous lovers women have are men of Cordis’s feminine temperament.

Such men, by the delicacy and sensitiveness of their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other.

They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs.

Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile.

It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line he did.

“Good-evening, Miss Brand,” he said, as he over took her.

“I don’t really think it’s fair to begin to hurry when you hear somebody trying to overtake you.

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to,” she replied, glad to have a chance to tell the truth, without suspecting, poor girl, that he knew very well she was telling it.

“It isn’t safe to,” he said, laughing.

“You can’t tell who it may be.

Now, it might have been Mr.

Burr, instead of only me.

” She understood instantly.

Somebody had been telling him about Henry’s attentions to her.

A bitter anger, a feeling of which a moment before she would have deemed herself utterly incapable, surged up in her heart against the person, whoever it was, who had told him this.

For several seconds she could not control herself to speak.

Finally, she said- “I don’t understand you.

Why do you speak of Mr.

Burr to me?” “I beg pardon.

I should not have done so.

” “Please explain what you mean.

“You’ll excuse me, I hope,” he said, as if quite distressed to have displeased her.

“It was an unpardonable indiscretion on my part, but somebody told me, or at least I understood, that you were engaged to him.

” “Somebody has told you a falsehood, then,” she replied, and, with a bow of rather strained dignity turned in at the gate of a house where a moment before she had not had the remotest intention of stopping.

If she had been in a boat with him, she would have jumped into the water sooner than protract the inter-view a moment after she had said that.

Mechanically she walked up the path and knocked at the door.

Until the lady of the house opened it, she did not notice where she had stopped.

Good-afternoon, Madeline.

I’m glad to see you.

You haven’t made me a call this ever so long.

” “I’m sorry, Mrs.

Tuttle, but I haven’t time to stop to-day.

Ha-have you got a-a pattern of a working apron? I’d like to borrow it.

” CHAPTER V.

Now, Henry had not chanced to be at church that first Sunday evening when Cordis obtained an introduction to Madeline, nor was he at Fanny Miller’s teaparty.

Of the rapidly progressing flirtation between his sweetheart and the handsome drug-clerk he had all this time no suspicion whatever.

Spending his days from dawn to sunset in the shop among men, he was not in the way of hearing gossip on that sort of subject; and Laura, who ordinarily kept him posted on village news, had, deemed it best to tell him as yet nothing of her apprehensions.

She was aware that the affection between her brother and Madeline was chiefly on his side, and knew enough of her wilfulness to be sure that any attempted interference by him would only make matters worse.

Moreover, now that she had warned Cordis that Madeline was pre- empted property, she hoped he would turn his attention elsewhere.

And so, while half the village was agog over the flirtation of the new drug-clerk with Madeline Brand, and Laura was lying awake nights fretting about it, Henry went gaily to and from his work in a state of blissful ignorance.

And it was very blissful.

He was exultant over the progress he had made in his courtship at the picnic.

He had told his love-he had kissed her.

If he had not been accepted, he had, at least, not been rejected, and that was a measure of success quite enough to intoxicate so ardent and humble a lover as he.

And, indeed, what lover might not have taken courage at remembering the sweet pity that shone in her eyes at the revelation of his love-lorn state? The fruition of his hopes, to which he had only dared look forward as possibly awaiting him somewhere in the dim future, was, maybe, almost at hand.

Circumstances combined to prolong these rose-tinted dreams.

A sudden press of orders made it necessary to run the shop till late nights.

He contrived with difficulty to get out early one evening so as to call on Madeline; but she had gone out, and he failed to see her.

It was some ten days after the picnic that, on calling a second time, he found her at home.

It chanced to be the very evening of the day on which the conversation between Madeline and Cordis, narrated in the last chapter, had taken place.

She did not come in till Henry had waited some time in the parlour, and then gave him her hand in a very lifeless way.

She said she had a bad head-ache, and seemed disposed to leave the talking to him.

He spoke of the picnic, but she rather sharply remarked that it was so long ago that she had forgotten all about it.

It did seem very long ago to her, but to him it was very fresh.

This cool ignoring of all that had happened that day in modifying their relations at one blow knocked the bottom out of all his thinking for the past week, and left him, as it were, all in the air.

While he felt that the moment was not propitious for pursuing that topic, he could not for the moment turn his mind to anything else, and, as for Madeline, it appeared to be a matter of entire indifference to her whether anything further was said on any subject.

Finally, he remarked, with an effort to which the result may appear disproportionate- “Mr.

Taylor has been making quite extensive alterations on his house, hasn’t he?” “I should think you ought to know, if any one.

You pass his house every day,” was her response.

“Why, of course I know,” he said, staring at her.

“So I thought, but you said ‘hasn’t he?’ And naturally I presumed that you were not quite certain.

” She was evidently quizzing him, but her face was inscrutable.

She looked only as if patiently and rather wearily explaining a misunderstanding.

As she played with her fan, she had an unmistakable expression of being slightly bored.

“Madeline, do you know what I should say was the matter with you if you’ were a man?” he said, desperately, yet trying to laugh.

“Well, really”-and her eyes had a rather hard expression-”if you prefer gentlemen’s society, you’d better seek it, instead of trying to get along by supposing me to be a gentleman.