Then she said, 'I am very dreary,
He will not come,' she said;
She wept, 'I am aweary, aweary,
O God! that I were dead!'"

Why must a glorious belief be torn from the heart of a maiden just setting her feet on the dreary death-land? Alice had found consolation in the death of him she fondly loved, by an assurance that he died faithful to his first love. We shall see!

A gentleman, one of the number with whom Henry Brown went out, returned to his friends in Virginia. He had parted from Henry immediately upon their arrival in San Francisco and thenceforward lost sight of him for a long season. knew nothing of his location or business, in fact had almost forgotten his existence in the whirl of a new and active life, until the day previous to his departure from San Francisco.

He

He met him in the street, and although but little more than one year had elapsed since they parted, found him so altered as almost to elude recognition. The merry, companionable friend-the life of the party on shipboard, the bravest, lightesthearted of them all, was now transformed into a dashing, reckless man of the world, on whom the last night's revelry showed itself painfully. Twelve months had completely wrecked him; but he was not dead.

He gave yet other information; he was married. "To whom?" it was eagerly inquired. A splendid, haughty city belle, whose wit and recklessness, wealth and beauty drove from his mind all thoughts of his first love, and brought him in a few months a dying suitor and adorer at her feet. She was pleased with the fine, open chivalry of his character, -fascinated with his noble face and intelligent expression, and determined in her love by his stories of his father's large estate in far away Virginia, which by inheritance would soon be his. The nuptuals followed before the year was out, and with his splendid, hollow-hearted bride he wedded a perpetual misery that craved oblivion in sin.

Ah! that letter and that lock of hair.

It was all plain then. False love led to falsehood in all respects, and a lying letter was easily written to cloak perjury.

The intelligence spread, like wild fire, through the valley, and was discussed in every family circle. In such circumstances, it was impossible to keep Alice in doubt save for a time. Notwithstanding the care of her parents and the silence of her friends, she discovered it just as the first air of Spring come to her window, and her familiar robins sang to her from the trees.

Her friends thought the knowledge would kill her. It did no such thing. They err who think a woman a mere straw, tossed about in the gales of uncontrollable feeling: indeed they do. She has a strength as immutable as the hills, and especially when her heart is wronged does this strength bear her soul up on the wings of eagles. To Alice the knowledge was as water poured out: she made no murmur, uttered no words of reproach; her health did not even show its effect; she was as calm and lovely and fragile as before. She talked to her mother of Henry's perfidy with a clear, tearless eye, and an unfaltering voice; none would have suspected her to be so complete an heroine. She hoped he might be happy; she forgave him that he had wronged her-that was all.

Still her strength failed in the same ratio as before. Summer came, but she grew daily weaker. One sweet day in June, Leonora and I went to see her. The air was clear and fresh, and her health seemed for the time much improved; she was buoyant in spirits even to gayety. Her lily cheeks were interspersed with roses, as in Northern regions Kane saw poppies growing by the banks of rivers of ice, encircled by bergs and plains of eternal snow; and her eyes had a brightness that was painful as the harbinger of a sure and speedy death. We walked out in the garden, where in childhood she had spent so many happy hours, to the spot where was growing a beautiful geranium--her pet all through the last winter and the previous summer, and to her a memento of Henry. She

needed no memorial of him then, and he deserved none. She turned to me:

"I know certainly that I cannot live long, and I wish you to have this geranium. It may be you will prize the gift for my sake."

Her tones were so sad that I could scarce restrain the tears that rushed to my eyes. I thanked her for the gift, and promised to treasure it as my life. To Leonora she said:

'You will help him watch it for my sake. And if Henry should ever return after I am gone, give him a cluster of leaves, and say they were my dying gift -a memorial of past love, a sign of forgiveness."

Then turning to me with a sweet smile: "How can spirits better minister to the living than through beauty. You taught me to know with poor Keats that 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever.' If I can, I will talk to my friends in the swells of grasses stranded on the Summer air, in the odour of flowers, or the light whispers of the leaves when their edges meet. Our Saviour loved the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. You have helped me to find a wondrous beauty in them; and hereafter, when you hear the zephyr kissing the leaves of my geranium, or this robin, whose music we love, greets you in the morn, think that I am near you, enjoying the infinite beauty of our God's creation, which you can never fully feel until you, too, have put off mortality."

Death to her mind had no terrors. Long time she would sit and tell me in glowing language her visions of Heaven, and her anticipations of its glories. A living faith supported her as her feet approached the tomb. All her life was a beautiful tapestry, woven upon “Love to Christ," and through the whole, like a delicate, all-enduring thread of gold, ran her pure, holy love for Henry Browne.

Why linger longer on this sad theme? Glorious is woman's love! Oh! richer he than all the monarchs of India who can worthily win and wear it! Henry Browne was unworthy of such supernal devotion as filled the heart of her to whom he had plighted a holy troth be

fore God and His angels. Falsely in his case rings the old song:

"Tis said that absence conquers love,

But oh! believe it not."

Better had he died, slain by the tomahawk of the savage, than to live perjured before God, men, and his own soul. Did he ever truly love the sweet Alice? Who can tell? She thought so, and lavished on him all the stores of her rich virtue; lived with his image in her heart, cherished more holily than ever was that of large-eyed Madonna, and died, no doubt, thinking of him, and blending his name in prayer with that of her Saviour.

"And now," said Leonora, "you know the rest. Henry Browne and his wife will soon be here. So, at least, he has written. Before he comes, if you are willing, we will smooth her grave, and plant sweet flowers over it; through whose fresh lips her words of love and memory may cut his false heart like swords in battle. You must take him there with you some morning, and while he stands by her grave, tell him Alice Gray's last words; give him a cluster of geranium leaves and say for me, Woman's love is love forevermore.""

One pleasant morning in August Henry Browne and myself were riding through the smiling valley towards the church and graveyard on the hill, consecrated forevermore to me by the grave of Alice Gray. I said nothing to him of my errand, and he suspected nothing. He was that day the most miserable man that has ever rode a horse by my side,his old friends regarded him with aversion; his father, without hope in his own son, was cold and formal, and be could not find in his haughty, irascible wife any consolation for the pains of conscience or the neglect of friends.

The road wound around the graveyard wall, and when we reached the gate of entrance, I checked my horse.

"Would you like to walk through the graveyard, Mr. Browne?"

"Not this morning," he replied quick

ly, "it is getting warm and we had better get home."

“We will have time enough. Doubtless there are some graves of old friends here, which you would like to see again. There is one grave that I wish to see, maybe for the last time, and you had better come."

By this time I had tied my horse, and was at his side. He had no excuse for refusing longer, and submitted with a gloomy grace.

There was the grave right before usgreen and garnitured with the flowers of Leonora's planting. At the head of the sleeper a marble lamb crouched on a sward of snowy lilies, and below were cut the few words:

Our Daughter Alice,

We paused a little, and neither spoke. Oh! that grave was eloquent; though dead, the sweet girl spoke to us that morning-to me in the flowers, to him in fearful memories. I dared not raise my eyes to his face for some time, and my heart failed me as I thought of my errand.

"He is wretched enough," I said to myself, "let him alone." But I thought of the pale beauty that I saw fade in patience-and all for him-of Leonora's charge, and courage came back to my heart.

She was a lovely girl. Oh! her life was a glorious poem, drawn out in a mournful cadence with a long, swelling note of beauty, sinking, rising, dying in an echo over the hills of the spirit-land, for an end. One day, awhile before she died, she was in the garden and gave me a geranium, bidding me keep it holily for her sake, and charging me to gather a

cluster of leaves and present them-a memorial of past love, a sign of forgiveness-unto you when you should come. Here"-I put my hand in my breast and drew from thence the sweet green leaves -"is her dying gift to Henry Browne." He took them and pressed them to his lips.

"God knows," he said in a tone of despair, "I have sinned deeply against you, my first, my only love, Alice Gray. And now my punishment is greater than I can bear. May Heaven forgive me!"

"She has forgiven you, and God may," I said, "for she loves you still. Be assured, though we may neglect and deride it, a woman's love is love forevermore." He strode from the graveyard, mounted his horse, and in silence we rode away.

Ah! I am far away from the grave of Alice Gray. The howling winds of Winter chase the Summer to her death over the blue hills. The flowers I planted over that grave have faded; the leaves of the maples pile in dun splendour upon the rose that covers her: the snow--no less white than her own soul-will lie there in the cold days of Winter. But I ween, where the white-ephoded angels have harps and sweet songs that sound like many waters, ascend around the Mount Zion where the Lamb dwells, she, a pure lily of the valley, resting on the bosom of her Saviour, turneth her sweet eyes, not where snows pile and winds sweep over a quiet country grave, but where a great white throne is reared, and an ineffable glory dwells.

DEAR BILLY:

I cum hoam fum a vissitin uv the Pressydint in high sperrits. The squirtin wine had got into my hed, which it felt like a hous-raisin wus a goin on somewhar, or ruther like the publick mind ware roustid apun a impawtunt subjick of genrul intris. Thar apeared to be a good eel uv ixsitemunt, and I had a inlarged vue, as it twuz fum sum mounting eminents. Oans he poked off to one plais or anuther, levin me to entur my bodin hous aloan but puffickly cuntentid and rezined. The fust thing I heard it were little ole Melloo a skratchin on his fiddil and a makin uv prehaps the sicknest and horrowblis souns in the wirl. He can't play no fiddil. The neckst thing I dun, I run against Mayan in the dark-snatcht her rite up, carrid her in my room, shet the dough, and lockt it, detummined to diskoover the reesin she spoke Inglish sumtiems and then agin Iritch sumtiems, or dy in the atemp. She ware sollid, Billy, is a wannut stump, wayin, I jedged, a hundud and fotty poun nect, but she warnt nuthin but a shuck boalstur to me, feelin is I did. Mo rover, it ar a noan fac that a man, mo ptickly ef he ar yung, kin toat mo gal, mo ptickly ef she ar yung and pritty, then uv enny uther substunts uv nater, whether uv the anemil, vedjetubble, or minrul kingdum; and I candlely bleeve that eavin a pur uv muels kin haul fo to one, by wate, uv gearls to enny uther kine uv truck.

I hadin sean Mayan to speak to her fer I dunno when. So I set her doun on a cheer, lit my lamp, set doun myself, and lookt at her and sed nuthin. I diddent knew what too say. had dun dun the thing almost befo I knowd it, thout knowin how I cum to do it, and had nearly forgot what I dun it fer, igzackly. She lookt at me mad is fier.

"Is it outin yo centsis ye ar?" she sais.

I shet my mouth hard.

"I do be thinkin its murther ye ar arfther."

I sais not a silly bul.

She jumpt at the dough like litenin, but I ketcht her, took the key out and pnt it in my pocket. She fit desprit, but I hilt her, and finely set her back in the cheer agin, while she set thar pail is flour pantin fer breth, and lookin at me with her black eyes like sheed burn me cleen up. I set puffickly still and diddent bat my eye wunst. Then she give up. She took to cryin like I don't warnt to sea nobody cry agin. I drord my cheer up and took her han; she thode me off like I'd been a mockersin snaik and cryd mo then uvver. I tried it agin; she thode me off agin feerser then the fust time, and kep on a cryin. I getherd a pipe, filled it with that good Linchbug tobarker, and petendid to smoak. But I ware skeerd. I ware feard sheed kill herself, she cryd so. herself, she cryd so. I begged her, I sais :

So.

'Mayan, fer the Lord's saik don't cry I don't mean you no harm. I'd die ten thousin deths befo I'd hert a har uv yo hed."

But that maid her wuss. So thar we set, she a cryin and I a trimblin. You may depen I wrepentid what I had dun. I got up and opined the dough, onlockt it, and spred it wide opin. She stopt in a minnit. She got up to go out, still a sobbin, but makin no noise. I put my han on her shoalder verry gently, and sais :

"Pleas don't go, Mayan."

She didin pull mighty hard, so I jes led her back eesy, and set her doun agin, and she commenst a cryin but not like befo-peard like it come mo softer to her. I hitched up my cheer clost to her,