Why hadn't she known the state of her own heart that morning? But he took her so by surprise, and all her evil feelings had got uppermost at the moment. It would be very cruel of him-very— not to try her again.

Thus she thought, until she was sufficiently advanced in her toilet to put her wreath on. Should she wear it? Would it not be confessing too much, if he were to see it in her hair? She looked for some ribbons in her drawer, but at this moment her father called her, and said, if she came quick he would drive her over to Susie's before he unharnessed his

old mare. So she put on the hopwreath in a hurry, giving it the benefit of her doubt, and its trembling green bells mixed with the light curls of her pretty sunny hair.

"Where did you get that thing from?" said her father. It's mighty tasty, I declare. Give me a kiss, Cynthy. I hope your beaux will think you look half as pretty as I do. And it's better, my child, to be admired by your old father, who loves you, than by a crowd of foolish fellows, half of whom get round a pretty girl just like my flock of sheep out yonder, one following because another is making up to her."

"Foolish fellows!" they were "foolish fellows." But Frank Handy was not one of them. Frank had never followed in her train sufficiently to be accounted one of her suitors. It was this very "foolish" flock, whose ranks he scorned to enter. All that her father said, seemed to justify her nascent feeling. She kissed the old man's ruddy cheek, and felt as if the callow love, that fluttered at her heart, had almost been made welcome by his approbation.

"What time shall I come for you, Cynthia?" said he, as she alighted at Susy's door.

"Oh! not till late, father," she said, hurriedly. "Stay-not at all. Some of the young men will walk home with me; or, if they don't, I'll come with Tommy Chase. He's only eleven, but he's tall of his age."

And now Cynthia found herself in the bride's chamber. The pretty little rose-bud, blushing in her wedding muslin, and going to be very happy, because.... well, it takes a good deal more sense than Susie had to be unhappy in life when one is blessed with a sweet temper and a good digestion. A superadded power of suffering is a proof of

an advance in organization, and we submit the argument to the skeptic: whether this truth does not imply the necessity of some power or influence which shall counterbalance and adjust this sensitiveness to suffering in the highest natures?

Cynthia was waited for to put the finishing touches to the bridal toilet, for Cynthia had taste, and Cynthia among her "girls" had a reputation for goodnature. Her fingers failed her as she pinned the wedding wreath, and she trembled more than the bride did when the buggy that had been sent for the minister stopped at the end of the brick path which led up to the homestead. She saw Frank Handy in his bridal suit going down to receive the minister.

"Cynthia, you go and tell the gentlemen they may come in."

Cynthia shrank back. But as bridesmaid it was her office, and the others pushed her to the door.

"She didn't want to see Seth Taggart, I reckon," said one of the girls in a half whisper. "Don't you see how pale she has grown."

Cynthia falsified this speech by looking scarlet before the girl addressed could turn her head; and she opened the door of the room, where the bridegroom and his men were caged, with an air in which assumed indifference was strongly marked, and said, "Gentlemen, we are ready," with a toss that sent the hop-bells dancing in her head.

Seth, long and lean, and shiny, in his wedding suit, as a snake in a new skin, took little Susie on his awkward arm; Frank Handy, quite collected, and selfpossessed, offered his to the bridesmaid, and they followed the bride and bridegroom into the best parlour. Cynthia and Frank were parted, when they took their places for the ceremony. It was only a moment that she leaned upon his arm; but that moment gave her a new sensation. It was a pride, such as no woman need be ashamed of, in resting upon manly strength. His arm did not tremble, though all her nerves seemed twittering like wires stretched, and suddenly let loose. He seemed so strong, so calm, so self-collected, and so dignified, that she began to feel her own unworthiness, and to mistrust her power.

She cast her eyes down during the service, tried to bring her rebel nerves under control-she heard nothing, and saw no one. The minister had blessed

them both, and kissed the bride. Everybody came round the pair with salutations. The kissing was rather indiscriminate. Seth claimed the privilege of kissing all the girls, and of course he kissed the bridesmaid. His former sensation of "all over-ever so" transferred itself to her in a different way. She would as soon have kissed a clam.

"Cynthy, you and Frank bring in the cake. You seem to forget all you have got to do," said one of the young girls of the party.

"Frank! Here! Your bridesmaid's waiting, and I declare, I don't believe you have taken the privilege of the kiss you are entitled to."

Frank was called away from the side of a lady in blue, a stranger from the city, who had been brought by some of the guests. She had no other acquaintances, and Frank seemed to be attentive to her.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Cynthia," said he, turning from the lady, and taking no notice of the latter part of the speech that was addressed to him, "let us do all that is expected of us."

They went together into the pantry, and were there alone. Cynthia thought, "if he intends to say Snip! now is the moment." But Frank was intent on arranging the cake on plates, and disposing them on a large waiter. Cynthia felt ready to cry. She took refuge in silence, and the cake. It may have been the sweet, unwholesome smell of wedding cake which made her head ache violently.

"It is a foolish custom," said Frank, as they arranged the cake. "Foolish, that persons, because they are happy, should want to make other folks sick. But there is a great deal of selfishness in the display of newly-married happiness, as that essay by Elia tells us."

Frank sighed, and that sigh revived the courage of Cynthia. Now she thought he will say "Snip!" Can I say "Snap!" Oh! no.

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She put on a little coquetry. "You will not have any cake at your wedding, Mr. Frank," she said. "Everything about that will be the perfection of good sense and reason."

She had not intended to be sarcastic, but as the speech fell from her lips, it sounded so. It was trifling-unworthy. She wished she had not said it. Its tone was out of harmony with what sho felt.

them." He took one of the handles of the tray, and the bridesmaid took the other. The room was very merry. The cake was served with plenty of noise, and the wine after it. Frank seemed to be quite self-possessed, and attentive to everybody. Cynthia's beaux could make nothing of her. She answered their questions wrong. A rumor ran that she was wearing the willow for Seth Taggart. She declined to dance, on the plea that she must keep herself disengaged for her duties as a bridesmaid, and, indeed, her head ached so she feared the motion. Agonized by her self-consciousness, and with too little spirit left to make head against the reports that were going about, she could not but perceive that Frank seemed not to remember her.

"Who is that lady in blue, Mr. Handy is so taken up with?" she said to one of the party. Cynthia had always called him " Frank" before, but consciousness made her now reject the old familiarity.

"Oh! that is somebody very wonderful. Everybody else is afraid to speak to her. She has written a book. Frank seems to be right down flirting with her -doesn't he? I declare, now, he always wanted somebody out of the way. Nobody here was good enough for Frank. Have you heard he has been offered a professorship, and is going away? He is going to live in the same place she does. I shouldn't wonder at his courting her should you?"

"I don't care," said Cynthia in her heart, "I don't care. Oh! yes I do. I care that he should have weighed me in the balances so calmly this afternoon, and found me so unworthy, that he takes back the love he has offered me. Has he judged me very cruelly? Or am I quite unworthy of his attachment? Oh! think that this morning I had it in my power to be happy all my life, when I refused him! Oh! how can any one compare any other man with him? And he loved me only to-day-and now, to-night, his reason says I am not good enough to be his wife; and he is afraid of being unhappy with me. Indeed, I am not good enough-but I would try to be."

If you would snip it."

It was Frank Handy's voice. She caught the word, and looked up eagerly. Frank saw her, and stopped embarrassed. He was holding up a torn fold in the dress of his partner in blue.

"If I knew where to find a needle and thread," said the authoress, with a half look at the bridesmaid.

"I know. Let me sew it up for you," said Cynthia.

Her pride had left her. She felt humbled to the dust. It would be a relief to do something for this woman-better than herself whom Frank preferred to her.

"Let me do it," she said earnestly. "Mr. Handy, I shall depend upon your escort."

Frank Handy bowed, and the girls went together into a bed-room.

Escort?-was it his escort to the city? He had told her he should go there. Cynthia sewed up the hole in the blue dress, very sadly and quietly.

The animation faded from the young authoress's face, as she looked down on Cynthia's quivering lip, and saw a big tear fall upon her sewing. She had heard some one say, she had been the victim of false hopes raised by Seth Taggart; and had in her heart despised her for it; but now she felt as if the sad, heart-broken love bestowed on him endorsed him as far better than he looked. It was a woe, however, to which she could not openly allude. But, as Cynthia set the last stitch in her dress. she stooped down and kissed her. "Every sorrow has its lesson," she said, "as every weed has a drop of honey in its cup. Blessed are they who suck that drop, and store it for good uses."

She had gone, and Cynthia was left alone. Yes, she had much to learn. This night's experience had taught her that her reign was over, and her career of bellehood run. She, who was not good enough to keep a good man's heart when she had won it, would set herself to her new task of self-improvement. She would

have her dear old father's love, and live at home, and little children, too, should learn to love her. And then, perhaps, some day, when they both grew old, Frank Handy might, perhaps, see that he had judged her hastily, and not be glad, as he was now, that she had rejected him. At least, every improvement in her would be due to his influence, though unseen; and so, even in her lonely life, he would not be altogether dissociated from her. She sat in the dark, with her hands clasped tightly over her burning forehead.

She heard voices in the passages. The party was breaking up. People

were beginning to go. Oh! why had she staid alone so long! Perhaps during that hour Frank might have changed his mind. She had deprived herself of the opportunity.

She started up and hurried out amongst the company. They were all getting their cloaks and shawls on. Frank, in his great coat, was standing impatiently at the house-door.

Please to tell her that my buggy has come up first," he said to some one, as Cynthia presented herself in the passage.

"I am ready," said the lady in blue, presenting herself.

Frank raised his hat to the company; and took her on his arm.

"Shut up that door," said somebody; "and don't let the night air into the house."

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So the door closed with a jar that went to Cynthia's very heart. She turned aside and tried to help some of the girls to find their shawls and hoods. "Every lassie had her laddie," Cynthia only had no one to take her home. She asked Tommy Chase to walk home with her, and he said he would as soon as he had had some more cake and some more supper.

Cynthia went back into the empty parlor, and sat down by an open window looking on the yard. She hid her face in her hands. All sorts of thoughts went singing through her brain; but the one that presented itself oftenest, was an humble resolution that she would try to be such a woman as Frank Handy wisely might have loved.

There was a stir among the vines that draped the window-frame. She did not look up. It was the wind. She heard it sigh. She felt its warm breath near her cheek-warmer, surely, than the night wind. She lifted her head quickly.

"Snip!" said Frank's voice at her side. It trembled; and he trembled as he stood with a great hope and a great fear contending in his breast. His selfpossession was all gone. The struggle had unnerved him.

WA

AR is no obsolete or decayed tradition. The millennium still perversely lingers in the caves of Apocalyptic vision, and mighty, indeed, must be that faith which accepts universal peace as an impending reality. Mars is not yet a fossil for moral paleontologists to speculate upon, but, from his old Olympian home, he even now looks down on a contest more stupendous and destructive than any before waged on this earth. The year in which Sebastopol was taken; the year in which pestilence and sword have celebrated their new entente cordiale in the Tauric Chersonese with human holocausts, unequaled in numbers and nobility; such a year is no time for denying that war is an ever possible contingency, which each independent nation is bound so far to anticipate as by all just and honorable means to avert its oncoming, and to be forearmed against its disasters.

Most sincerely do we deprecate war. The appeal to brute force in any form, as an arbiter of rights, is abstractly bad logic, and worse humanity. Yet who can doubt that such appeals will continue to be made? As a plain question of fact, what is there in the present state of the world to give even the most shadowy hope of our being forever at peace with all nations?

As wars have been our national portion, so are we still bound to regard their coming as possible. The United States have no privilege of exemption from the casualties of national existence. With whatever fidelity we may cultivate international amity, the time may arrive when no choice is left us but war. We appear even now to owe no thanks to England's prime minister and prime newspaper for the peace which we enjoy, despite the formidable fleet lately dispatched to bathe its sides in the Gulf Stream. Canada, Cuba, Central America, Mexico, the Northwestern boundary, the Sandwich Islands, the Sound dues, our commercial policy, our resistance to search, our doctrine of naturalization, violated neutrality, and sundry other points, present contingencies which may easily provoke the dialectics of war. The Eastern Allies, whether flushed with victory or enraged by failure in their

strife with Russia, are less likely to maintain a pacific and conciliatory deportment towards us. Nor can we deny that our own nation, if not, as Lord Ellesmere declared, the most warlike power on earth, is by no means meek or gentle under insult, menace, or dictation; we are not yet millennium saints, and shall scarcely become so, while the cool audacity of frontier life continues to leaven the sobriety of our commercial and manufacturing elements. Thus, while deprecating, and because we deprecate all needless strife, we hold it to be the part, both of prudence and of duty, to foresee and provide against the disastrous effects of any breach of peace, come from what source it may. It is an imperative duty to maintain our country in such an attitude of defensive preparation, as not to invite hostility and spoliation by leaving bare, to petty invasion, the vital points of our national strength.

The situation of our country is such, that any formidable war must especially involve the maritime element. No neighbors on this continent need be taken into the account, except as auxiliaries to European powers. No transatlantio enemy can operate against us, except by effecting what, in military parlance, is called a grand descent, or by bombardment from shipboard. Petty descents may be prevented, and could not much influence the result of hostilities. A grand descent involves the embarkation of an army on shipboard, its transportation across the seas, and its debarkation on an enemy's shores, either rapidly, to effect a local object, or to conduct one or more campaigns from a seacoast base. A bombardment from shipboard usually requires only a naval armament, and no landing need be forced. Now, it is almost exclusively to the one or other of these forms of attack that we are exposed. It is true that Great Britain, or, especially, Great Britain and France combined, could attack us effectively by the Canada route, which, therefore, necessitates some special precautions along our inland frontier. But, for us, the main problem of home defense consists chiefly in our being able successfully to repel grand descents and naval bombardments.