in mouth, when he heard a hurried, nervous summons on his door.

He went to the door, and, throwing it open, found himself face to face with Pen, who stood in the corridor, white and shaking.

"Something is the matter with Geordie, Barnes," she wailed. "It is something dreadful, and I want the doctor and Mademoiselle Denis. There is no one I can call on but you."

They were both scared, though they thought of nothing but their dread for the child. Before morning both the little ones were stricken with fever, and Pen, pale and haggard with fear, turned to Barnes in helpless anguish.

"You will not go away!" she cried. "I have no one but you, Barnes. I want your strength to help me.'

"You may be sure I will not desert you in your extremity, Pen," he answered, pressing her hand. Nor did he. Nearly a month of terrible anxiousness and constant watching followed, and he stood by her through it all with the strength of a man and the gentleness of a woman. He watched her as he watched the children, and supported her in every crisis.

When the worst was over, and the children convalescing, Pen's day of reckoning came. now she was doubly restless.

If she had been restless before, She had not even the spirit to think of her journey. It would be such a lonely journey, and such a lonely summer would follow.

When the time came for Barnes to make his adieux once more, it was worse than ever. On the evening he had decided upon for his departure, she came down to dinner, and waited in the salon to bid him good-by. She looked ill and agitated, but she had very little to say.

"I can never thank you for your kindness to me," she said. "I cannot even try. You have saved my little children for me, and I can only remember you always with a full heart. God bless you, Barnes!" And she seized his hands, and kissed them before he could check her.

"God bless you, Pen!" he answered her. "We shall not forget each other, at least, I think."

The train by which he was to leave Florence was a late one. At ten o'clock a carriage stood at the door, and his possessions were carried down to it. He had said farewell to Mademoiselle Denis, and lingered for a moment to glance round his room for the last time, and at length, throwing his traveling cloak about

him, he went slowly downstairs. Very slowly, and heavily. But before he reached the bottom step of the first flight, he stopped altogether, arrested by the sound of a door opening upon the landing above, a door he knew to be Pen's. He paused, and looked up.

"Is the Signor ready?" he heard a servant say below. "He has but a few moments to spare.

But Barnes remained motionless. He heard Pen's feet upon the floor above, and could not make up his mind to descend.

"She may want something," he said. "She may have forgotten to ask me to do something for her."

He could not resist the sudden impulse which seized him. He gave way to it, and, turning round, went up the staircase three steps at a time, until he reached the top. A lamp, burning high upon the wall, gave forth a faint light; but it was strong enough to show him all he cared to see,-a slight, worn figure, in a white dress, and with a white, appealing face, and thin little outstretched hands, - Pen, who, at sight of him, uttered a pathetic, incoherent cry.

"Pen!" he said; and, with three strides, was at her side, clasping her closely, and trying to soothe her. "Pen! At last, my dear! At last!"

She clung to his arm, and laid her face upon his breast, sobbing with excitement and relief.

"I heard you," she said, "and I could not let you go. I knew it at the last moment, when it seemed too late, and I ran out of my room, but I dared not speak. If you had not heard me, and come, I think I should have died. If you love me yet, Barnes, take me, for I cannot live without you; for I love you, too!"

"Yet, Pen," he whispered, smoothing her hair with his trembling hand. "Yet, when I have waited so long?" "Is the Signor ready?" asked the voice below.

"No!" answered Barnes, advancing to the head of the stairway. "He has changed his mind. Give the man this, and send him away."

LOVE BY THE OCEAN.1

BY ARMANDO PALACIO VALDÉS.

(From "The Marquis of Peñalta" ("Marta y Maria"): translated by Nathan Haskell Dole.)

[ARMANDO PALACIO VALDÉS, Spanish novelist, resides in Oviedo, Spain. He has published "Marta y Maria" (Martha and Mary: English translation as "The Marquis of Peñalta"), "Riverita," and its sequel, "Maximina," "Sister St. Sulpice," "The Idyl of an Invalid," "José," "Froth," — all novels. He has also written "The Athenian Orators," "Spanish Novelists," and "A New Journey to Parnassus."]

MARTA'S silhouette emerged from the darkness and stood out against the niggardly light which entered through the aperture.

A long, dull murmur was audible in the cave, hinting at the proximity of the ocean. In a few moments they came out into the light.

Ricardo was in ecstasies over the sight which met his eyes. They stood facing the sea in the midst of a beach surrounded by very high, jagged crags. It seemed impossible to issue from it without getting wet by the waves, which came in majestic and sonorous, spreading out over its golden sands, festooning them with wreaths of foam. Our young people advanced toward the center in silence, overcome with emotion, watching that mysterious retreat of the ocean, which seemed like a lovely hidden trysting place where he came to tell his deepest secrets to the earth. The sky of the clearest azure reflected on the sandy floor which sloped toward the sea with a gentle incline; months and years often passed without the foot of man leaving its imprint upon it. The lofty, black, eroded walls, shutting in the beach with their semicircle, threw a melancholy silence upon it; only the cry of some sea bird flitting from one crag to another disturbed the eternal, mysterious monologue of the

ocean.

Ricardo and Marta continued slowly drawing nearer the water, still under the spell of reverence and admiration. As they advanced, the sand grew smoother and smoother; the prints of their feet immediately filled with water. Coming still nearer, they noticed that the waves increased, and that their curling

1 Copyright, 1886, by T. Y. Crowell & Co. Used by permission.