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He stood leaning where I had left him, then, taking a seat beside me, he said

"I must know why you refuse me. Is it anything I can ever mend or overcome-oh, tell me?"

"No-no; I feel that I am not half good enough for you," I

sobbed.

"Ah! I see what it is," he said, hopelessly. "You don't love me, only you won't tell me so, and you are too honest to marry me out of pity. Well, you are right, for such love I could not accept even from you. I must have your whole heart or nothing. You have been a darling dream to me, Mary," he added, with a sigh.

again.

And now you will hate me, and I deserve it," I sobbed

"No, that I won't-I can't, even if I would," he answered. "As I love you now I will love you always, I am afraid, for love is a tenant that refuses to be dislodged at will. I must only never see you again if I can help it. For the future you must be to me a dream, and not an existence; only so shall I be able to live down the sorrow of your refusal, and be strong to endure when the sweetest promise of life has been withdrawn. Ah, Mary! you don't know to what you have condemned me!" and he sighed bitterly as he spoke.

I, meanwhile, could only break my heart to think that to the friend I respected so sincerely I could never be other than a sorrowful memory. Truly a woman's heart is a mass of contradictions hard to unravel-at least mine was then.

"I hope you don't think that I have acted wrongly towards you. I have never meant to be otherwise than friendly. I have never wished to mislead you," I murmured.

"If you could only read my heart, Mary, and know all that I feel for you in those simple words 'I love you,' you would know how utterly I acquit you of falseness of any kind. Your open. ness and friendliness of manner led me to be more sanguine than I had any right to be, perhaps; but the fault-if there be any fault in the matter-was mine, not yours. I should have been humbler in my expectations. But now I must leave you, as I see some visitors coming out of the hotel. Good bye, little hand, that I would have loved so well had you been mine!" he said, as he took my hand in parting.

I looked up at him with a face so full of pain and earnest longing for his forgiveness that he read my thoughts.

"For the first, last, and only time, Mary," he said, as he bent down and touched my forehead with his lips. And then he was gone,

It had come at last! That' great awakening, when, after the long sleep of night, we open our eyes upon the glorious sunshine, and bless God for life.

I had felt it growing as he spoke, but now a gleam of joy passed through my heart, tempered with a wild regret, for I was awake at last. His tenderness had opened up a new world hitherto untraversed.

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'Ah, Philip, Philip! come back, come back! and I will give you all that you ask!" I cried. But he was gone beyond hearing. Yes; I felt at that moment that, I could love him well-truthfully, fearlessly, wholly. Oh, would he ever come back? Would he ever again offer me the priceless gift of his honest, loving heart? were the questions that I asked myself repeatedly as I wiped away my tears.

The course of time alone could answer me. But now I knew my heart most surely. He was no longer above or beyond me; his love had descended from its own high world into mine, carrying thither my whole heart, which would remain with him faithfully and for ever.

But how was I to let him know that now?

TOR HILL.

THE changes that have been, O steadfast Tor!
Affect not thee. Thy wolf-infested sides
Hindered the Briton, made the Roman pant,
Heard Saxon malediction, and opposed,
To Norman force, a steep impediment.
But thou dost stand, an everlasting hill,
Though Briton, Saxon, Norman, are no more.
Under thy shadow grew that mighty fane,
The music of whose bells through centuries
Wrapped thee in silvery solemn sound; whose power
Shaped thee in terraces, and crowned thy brow
With sacred stones—an altar in the clouds.
Mapped at thy feet, its glories were beheld
By mounting pilgrims, till a strong bad hand
Stifled, upon thy heights, its latest chief,
And fed rapacious mouths with holy spoil.
Ruin befell; but not ou thee befalls
Ruin or waste. Through all the ages, thou,
Solid, immovable, in storm and calm,

Dost watch Time's trivial changes. Forest-clothed,
In British swamp reflected in the wave,
Surmounting lordly parks, or draped, as now,
With comely green in cattle-haunted plains,
Thy majesty remains. And, at thy feet,
We, the small pageant of an hour, perform
Our little part; mount upward, now and then
To thy tall summit, for a breath of air,

A wider glance; and then-are seen no more.'

F. MAYHEW.

Glastonbury.

SPRINGTIME IN NORTH ITALY

AND THE

TYROL.

PART III.

More

An hour and a half took us back from Venice to Padua. in accordance with good taste than with convenience, the railway. station of modern times is built at too great a distance from this oldest of the cities of North Italy to interfere with its quaint aspect. Before our drive from the station to the Albergo Stella d'oro was accomplished, we had gradually forgotten the formal regularity of the architecture of the present day, and saw, as a thing of course, the long rows of pointed arches, the dingy arcades, the minarets and towers of " Padova la forte."

Very near to our hotel was Pedrochi's café, a fine building with bronze lions at its entrance and marble floors and staircases within -during the carnival, we were told, the rooms were gay with balls and concerts; from it we were taken to the market place, one side of which is occupied by a vast building, entirely on arches, and surrounded by a loggia, which is called the "Palazzo della Ragione," or "della Municipalita." It has a high iron roof, said to be the largest unsupported by pillars in the world. It did not look so large to us as that of Westminster Hall, but perhaps the confused state of the interior detracted from its apparent size. This Palazzo is said to have been originally built after the design of an Indian palace, the drawing of which was brought to Padua early in the fourteenth century by an Augustine friar, who was also an architect and a traveller, named Frate Giovanni. It appears to have been intended as a receptacle for the busts and statues of Italian celebrities; Pietro di Abano, a celebrated alchymist and physician, who died in 1316; the historian Livy, Paulus, the Roman jurist; Alberto Padovano, the physician; and, of far later date, Belzoni, the traveller, are among those whose monuments have found a place in this palace. The wall on one side is painted in compartments representing the different months of the year, with the constellations and planets, and the windows opposite are said to be so arranged that the sun's rays reach each compartment in their proper month. The ball when I saw it was filled with the banners, the triumphal cars, and other "properties" of a royal procession, which took place when Victor Emmanuel visited Padua in 1866, Probably the inscription "Vogliamo Vittorio Emmanuele per il nostro Re," which we

TOR HILL.

THE changes that have been, O steadfast Tor!
Affect not thee. Thy wolf-infested sides
Hindered the Briton, made the Roman pant,
Heard Saxon malediction, and opposed,
To Norman force, a steep impediment.
But thou dost stand, an everlasting hill,
Though Briton, Saxon, Norman, are no more.
Under thy shadow grew that mighty fane,
The music of whose bells through centuries
Wrapped thee in silvery solemn sound; whose power
Shaped thee in terraces, and crowned thy brow
With sacred stones-an altar in the clouds.
Mapped at thy feet, its glories were beheld
By mounting pilgrims, till a strong bad hand
Stifled, upon thy heights, its latest chief,
And fed rapacious mouths with holy spoil.
Ruin befell; but not on thee befalls
Ruin or waste. Through all the ages, thou,
Solid, immovable, in storm and calm,

Dost watch Time's trivial changes. Forest-clothed,
In British swamp reflected in the wave,
Surmounting lordly parks, or draped, as now,
With comely green in cattle-haunted plains,
Thy majesty remains. And, at thy feet,
We, the small pageant of an hour, perform
Our little part; mount upward, now and then
To thy tall summit, for a breath of air,

A wider glance; and then-are seen no more.`

F. MAYHEW.

Glastonbury.

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