"I suppose the old gentleman imagines me trembling at that phrase 'commanded by,' said George; and he took up another letter and read it slowly, word by word, aloud: "DEAR GEORGE; "I am very glad to know that your family still think you obstinate, and have not the least idea of our approaching marriage. What a surprise it will be for them! Your father will bestow all his money on you, and then we can realize, with our combined fortunes, one of the dreams of my life. I wish you to buy a country seat in England; some grand old manor. I presume one of the old families may be prevailed upon to part with their home if splendid inducements are offered, and we can settle down into a jolly life of hunting, company, and driving. Won't that be delightful? You must positively promise to give up art, George. It would shame me to death to have my husband have a picture rejected at the Royal Academy, and you know the fate of your 'Urchins by the Sea-side.' When may we expect you in Paris? Arthur Young is here; he is the delight of our circle, and we are all going to Compiègne fishing next Wednesday. Can we expect you Tuesday? Do get yourself up in style, dear George. Your folks have money enough, and it is now time that you should drop the romantic. I will drive down to the Garde du Nord to meet you if you will write me when I may expect you. Will your father send his carriage for you? "Your future wife, "MADGE ATHERTON. "73 Boulevard Haussmann, "Paris, June 10." George read over the words, "your future wife," two or three times. "I don't know," he finally said, slowly, "whether it is the fling at my 'Urchins by the Sea-side' or the talk about the money which wounds and offends me; but something in this letter from Madge jars strangely on my nerves." Then a thought passed through his mind. like an arrow through the air: "Is this the feeling with which one should read a letter from a future wife. Do I-love her?" Why did he ask himself that question? Surely he loved no other than Madge, even if he did not passionately adore her. Who was that on the stairs? It was Martha helping Clara down in her box. His heart beat strangely, and he felt im pelled to look out and to say some word of cheer. No, he would not do that. He would sit down and re-read the letter from MadgeConfusion a knock at the door. Surely Clara did not intend to ask admittance. But even if she did! Then he remembered how she had clasped him in her arms and held him to her breast on the day of her father's death. What! that waif; that street beggar, whose face had already too much interested him? He made an impatient gesture as he arose to open the door. He hesitated and reflected. For a moment he despised himself. Finally, a light came over his face and he said aloud: "I was about to rush headlong to the sacrifice. Madge would hardly like to know that I hesitated, when she supposed me eager to stand before the altar. I will go over to Paris and see her. If she does n't please me anew-then, George Waldron will still be artist, beggar, and-" "Strange," he thought, rather than said, as he threw open the door, "strange how that girl Clara runs in my head." It was only Papa Zadwinski at the door, very sibilant, very polite, and very demonstrative. "Vell, vell," he said, "how is my dear Mister George? Ah! such news! Ah, my dear George, such sad news! Clara is quite beside herself. I don't know what I shall do with my poor Clara ; she grieves me very mooch!" The old man's lips quivered, and his hands shook as he came in and closed the door. Instantly George was beside him, his face white with apprehension. "Where is she?" he said, "I must go to her." To his amazement, Papa Zadwinski began laughing violently. Ah! George," he said, "I knew that I could get at your secret. No, my dear, you cannot cheat the old man. You love my poor Clara, Mister George." 66 Sir!" thundered the artist; then he bethought himself. "Is there really anything the matter with the child?" 66 Ah, yes, she is very sick-heart-sick, George, and the malady is contagious. Her poor body is crippled, George; she cannot walk graciously, nor dance beautifully; but her heart is not crippled. Ah, my beautiful Clara! If I could only see her happy." There was another knock at the door, and a telegram was handed in. George read it hastily. 66 Paris- London. George Waldron, Minories, Crescent 6, E. C.-Be sure and come Tuesday. Charades at Mrs. Young's in the evening. Compiègne postponed. Answer paid. Madge Atherton." Answer paid! Perhaps she did not think he had money enough to afford the luxury of telegrams. Zadwinski, excuse me," he said; "my relatives demand me in Paris. I am going away for a few days. I may not come back at all. But don't tell Clara." The old man's face grew very stern. "Vell," he said, "there are foolish people in this world who make choices against their consciences. I would not do it. I" But George had vanished into his bed room. An hour after he came out, dressed for traveling. As he entered the long hall leading to the street, after having received. a singularly crusty salutation, when he paid Zadwinski his bill and bade him good-bye, he suddenly found himself face to face with Martha, drawing in Clara, in her little weather-worn, wooden-wheeled box. Clara uttered a stifled cry, and sat motionless. Martha drew herself up indignantly. George said no word. Scarcely knowing what he did, he bent down to Clara, took her hands, then knelt and tenderly kissed her forehead. A moment, and the street door closed after him. V. "THE tidal boat for Boulogne from London Bridge, sir?" "At one o'clock five minutes sharp, sir," was the answer to George's angry demand. So, then, with his usual negligence, he had missed the express train from Charing Cross, and must submit to tossings and stomachic agonies on the night boat to Boulogne? Unless he did, he could not be in Paris on Tuesday; and he knew from experience how exacting Madge was. THE OLD MAN'S SURPRISE. of regret surging through his brain. Something was lost; had he forgotten his portmanteau at the coffee-house? No; the loss was within; there was a new emptiness of soul; a deadness at the heart,-less light in the eyes, no inspiration in the rush of the cool night-breeze coming up from the river. What was it that had departed from the world surrounding him? The mute divine glory which had thrilled him now and anon during the few months of his residence at Zadwinski's, no longer hovered about him; the glow, the perfume, the delicious transition from a grand repose to a sweet unrest-the gradual surrender of his being, heretofore so perturbed and rebellious among the world's rough ways; the sublime faith in the development of a future happiness, to be his compensation for long years of loneliness and weariness the ragged child who pitifully besought-all, all seemed departing. He clutched alms, and buried himself in the gloomy after them-his darling treasures-fiercely, recesses of a coffee-house stall, until with his hands. the sleepy waiter came to warn him that it was very late, sir, and would 'e mind drinking his last cup of coffee, sir, and making a little 'aste, kindly? He went out into the night with his head bent downward, and a strange feeling He turned away impatiently from "'Ere you are at the Bolong boat, sir," said a rough voice; "and, bless me, if you 'aint dropped your portmanteau. Now, then, she's off in less time than the elephant swallowed the 'aystack, and that was a caution." George could have struck the rude waterman, who was persistently following up his duty; but in a moment he had rallied, and was clambering along the crowded ways leading to the Boulogne boat. She lay among a mass of other craft, close down to the arch of the gigantic bridge which seemed savagely to affront the moonlight. From her deck a plank was laid across to a huge barge, and as George was anxiously following the crowd along the narrow path, he heard a harsh voice say : "Humbug! I'll do nothing of the sort." "But you will though," was the response; "and mind you do it, too. She goes, and I knows it; and I aint afraid to tell on it neither! It's a rum go if I can't have my say once in a lifetime about who shall ride on these boats. Take her along, and land 'er in France, and no 'umbuggin growling at 'er, d'ye hear?" Evidently the first speaker did hear, for he finally consented, with very bad grace, to allow some person who was poor and unfortunate to make the journey from London to Boulogne on the boat of which he was captain, without receiving compensation therefor. George threw his portmanteau into his berth; and as the boat moved swiftly and almost noiselessly along the dark, deep stream, he leaned upon the rail and tried to question his own heart again. He lit a cigar, and threw it away. He considered the possibilities of cooling his heated brain by getting the steward to dash a bucket of cold water over his head. Then his thoughts drifted idly through the past and present, until they came to the Crescent, and there they eddied, and eddied, and whirled and foamed and frothed and spun up heavenward in myriad-million cloudlets and spray-jets of thought-foam, until they became a very whirlpool of dancing and simmering and vanishing and evanescing passions, which so consumed him that he shuddered as though dissolution were at hand. The Crescent! The arch! Clara! Clara-the dependent and forlorn; Clara, the orphan and the cripple; Clara, the woman who loved him, who worshiped him-whose whole life was bound to his by the chain of irrevocable fate, by a destiny which would not even leave him master of his own thoughts! Clara! he rebelled; he struggled with himself; then, like a flash, the secret of the disorder of his mind was laid bare before him. He did not love Madge; he would not go to her; let his parents and his fortune vanish; he saw, knew, longed for Clara, and Clara only. The love which he had never analyzed before came to him, and caught him in its fierce caress, and took him entirely to itself. Henceforth, there was no peace for him without the little half-woman who, only a few hours before, he had thought of quitting forever! 66 And quitting her for Madge, too," he said. "That was even madder than I should have believed myself." He turned, and a little way from him, reclining wearily in her worn old cart, near which stood a stout sailor, he saw the halfwoman, the love which had but that instant been revealed to him;-the embodied love, henceforth far more beautiful in his eyes than any of the gracious forms of women that had ever haunted his imagination-the Clara! Love knows all things; he knew by instinct that the poor child had followed him because her heart was breaking without him; he uttered a faint cry, in which the whole passion of a noble life and a true heart rang grandly; he stepped forward, and, kneeling, placed his hand upon Clara's brow. * * catch a glimpse of him, and adore him in silence. He would not drive her away when he saw her; she would never annoy him by word or look; only to see him now and then would be too much joy; and she knew she could beg her way to Paris. When Papa Zadwinski saw George's preparations for departure, he lost no time in telling Clara; and she had told him of her mad design to follow George to Paris. The old man was frightened, and bade her never more to think of it; but she seduced simple Martha to her aid, and the good old servant dragged her in the cart to the boat, and placed her, ticketless, upon it. She trusted Clara implicitly, and did not even question the half-woman's ability to wrestle with travel in a foreign land. Then, when the boat had started, Clara sat very still, thinking. She was not dismayed at her reckless advent to a new life; her only thought was, George has gone to Paris by the express train to-night; to-morrow he will be in Paris; some day, I also shall be there; perhaps I shall see them together. Then she clenched her hands very tightly, and trembled, saying softly to herself: "I feel his presence near If it only could be." me. Ah! would to Fate, that all we who long and sigh in bitterness of unrest for the presence of the loved, for the presence of the lost, might clasp them for a moment in our arms when we seem to feel that presence near, even as Clara suddenly, and with ecstasy of impulse, clasped to her breast the man she loved. Do you not think, O loved ones, O lost ones, even when thousands of miles-vasty deeps, impassible gulfs, yawn between us, that we feel your blessed presence, and stretch out our hands to you? Do you not know that love and longing go to you, even beyond the graves into which you have thrust our past, and cry bitterly for you, even though it be in vain? The great echo of the cry rings ever "O Christ, that it were possible The souls we love, that they might tell us But Clara was not deceived, for the real presence.-the presence the living, breathing, loving George was at her side; and she knew that for her the melody of existence was henceforth set to more joyous measure; that the massive, plaintive minors, the great crescendoes of sorrow, were gone; and that on and on forever would flow the joyous refrain of a tranquil love, which no poverty could deaden, which no privation could sadden. "I knowed as you would meet him, Miss," said the rough sailor behind Clara's cart, solemnly; "I seen it in your face, Miss." The boat was at the mouth of the Thames; it sped swiftly out into the great channel, and bore away toward the French coast. To the music of the rushing of the summer waves, amid a harmony that seemed to pervade every atom of the universe, the half-woman passed the night of her betrothal, leaning on the breast of her strong lover. They sat together until the stars paled, and sunrise was hinted; other groups had sat around them all night; and yet none save the two knew of the culmination of the great drama which had been so stirring, so alternately bitter and sweet, and at last sublime, to two souls. George is still painting in East London, and Papa Zadwinski sometimes draws a sprightly baby up and down the Crescent in a worn, peculiar-looking old cart. Clara has a new carriage, with springs, much more graceful than was the little cart. George paints passably well; and it is an affectation, this living in the Crescent, for he gains a good income by his brush. But he finds his subjects there, he says; and Clara loves the black old Crescent so much that she sometimes fears she shall be sad in Italy, whither they are going when the babe is a little older. George's father sometimes speaks of "his undutiful son, who married a crippled beggar." But George's father has not fathomed all the depths of love. HUMAN history, say the philosophers, is the evolution of events which lie already in their causes, as the properties of geometrical figures lie in the scientific definition of those figures. The qualities which Euclid proves to belong to the circle, exist in the circle eternally. There is no before and no after, and the sense of sequence is only in the successive steps by which proposition after proposition is made known to the limited understanding of man. In like manner the unnumbered multitude of living things, the animated throng of beings which fill the air, and crowd the water and the earth, lie potentially in the elemental germs out of which they seem to be developed; and the life of the individual man, the long sequel of the acts and fortunes of his race, and all that he has done and is to do, till the type is exhausted and gives place to other combinations, is governed by laws as inherent and as necessary as those through which the mathematician develops his inferences from the equation of an ellipse. Were the equation of man constructed out of elements as few and simple, we should know all that has been, and all that is to be, without moving from our library chairs; but with the knowledge we should lose the uncertainty which gives life its purpose and its interest. The pleasure of existence depends upon its anxieties, and if we are indeed but the automata spiritualia which Leibnitz de fines us to be, then, of all the gifts which God has bestowed upon us, the choicest of all is the trick which he has played upon our understandings-which makes the certain appear as uncertain, which cheats us with the belief that the future is in our hands, to mould either for good or ill. Of the dynamic forces of humanity the most powerful is forever concealed from us. The acorn has produced the oak, and the oak the acorn, from the time when oaks first began to be, and one oak, for practical purposes, is identical with another. Man produces man; but each individual brings into the world a character and capabilities differing from those of his fellows, and incalculable till they have had room to display themselves. An idea generated in a single mind penetrates the circle of mankind and shapes them afresh after its likeness. We talk of a science of history-we dream that we |