settle in my mind is that the end will absolutely come. I hold her hand in mine, I hold her heart in mine, I see her love for me alive in all its strength. I cannot shut out a pale lingering shadow of belief that she will be spared. "I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I have often thought of saying, lately. You won't mind?" with a gentle look. "Mind, my darling?" "Because I don't know what you will think, or what you may have thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady, dear, I am afraid I was too young." I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes and speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a stricken heart, that she is speaking of herself as past. "I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don't mean in years only, but in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly little creature! I am afraid it would have been better if we had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I was not fit to be a wife." I try to stay my tears, and to reply, "Oh, Dora, love, as fit as I to be a husband!" "I don't know," with the old shake of her curls. "Perhaps! But, if I had been more fit to be married, I might have made you more so, too. Besides, you are very clever, and I never was." "We have been very happy, my sweet Dora." "I was very happy, very. But, as years went on, my dear boy would have wearied of his child wife. She would have been less and less a companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is better as it is." "Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems a reproach!" "Oh, my "No, not a syllable!" she answers, kissing me. dear, you never deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a reproachful word to you in earnest-it was all had, except being pretty or you thought me so. downstairs, Doady?" "Very! Very!" -- "Don't cry! Is my chair there?" "In its old place." the merit I Is it lonely "Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. I want to speak to Agnes. When you go downstairs, tell Agnes so, and send her up to me; and while I speak to her, let no one come - not even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to Agnes, quite alone." I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her for my grief. "I said that it was better as it is!" she whispers, as she holds me in her arms. "Oh, Doady, after more years, you never could have loved your child wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love her half so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better as it is!" Agnes is downstairs, when I go into the parlor; and I give her the message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear. As I look out on the night, my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart is chastened heavilyheavily. I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance, is the image of the dear child as I knew her first, graced by my young love, and by her own, with every fascination wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply! How the time wears, I know not; until I am recalled by my child wife's old companion. More restless than he was, he crawls out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go upstairs. "Not to-night, Jip! Not to-night!" He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes to my face. "Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!" He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with a plaintive cry is dead. "Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here! " - That face, so full of pity and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to me, that solemn hand upraised towards Heaven! "Agnes!" It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all things are blotted out of my remembrance. THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLN SHIRE. BY JEAN INGELOW. [JEAN INGELOw, a popular English poet and novelist, was born in 1830 at Boston, Lincolnshire, where her father was a banker. Her first book, "A Rhyming Chronicle of Incidents and Feelings" (1850), was published anonymously, and her second, "Poems" (1863), which included "The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire," attained instant success. Later works are: "A Story of Doom," collected poems; "Poems of the Old Days and the New"; and the novels " Off the Skelligs," "Fated to be Free," "Don John," and "Sarah de Berenger." Miss Ingelow died at Kensington, July 19, 1897.] THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. Play uppe 'The Brides of Enderby."" Men say it was a stolen tyde The Lord that sent it, He knows all; The message that the bells let fall: By millions crouched on the old sea wall. I sate and spun within the doore; My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes— Lay sinking in the barren skies; And dark against day's golden death "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Ere the early dews were falling, From the meads where melick groweth "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow; Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot; Quit the stalks of parsley hollow, Hollow, hollow; Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow, From the clovers lift your head; Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow, Jetty, to the milking shed." If it be long, aye, long ago, When I beginne to think howe long, Againe I hear the Lindis flow, Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong; And all the aire, it seemeth mee, Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee), All fresh the level pasture lay, And not a shadowe mote be seene, The steeple towered from out the greene. The swannerds where their sedges are Till, floating o'er the grassy sea Then some looked uppe into the sky, And all along where Lindis flows To where the goodly vessels lie, And where the lordly steeple shows. They sayde, "And why should this thing be, "For evil news from Mablethorpe, Of pyrate galleys warping down; For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe, They have not spared to wake the towne. I looked without, and lo! my sonne Till all the welkin ran again, "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath "The olde sea wall [he cried] is downe, Go sailing uppe the market place." "God save you, mother!" straight he saith; "Where is my wife, Elizabeth?" "Good sonne, where Lindis winds away With her two bairns I marked her long; And ere yon bells beganne to play Afar I heard her milking song." With that he cried and beat his breast; A mighty eygre reared his crest, |