"For God's sake, go and tell her, Kingsmill!" shouted Fenn, mounting. The next instant his horse had shot away, under spur, for the tannery road.

It was a solemn group that wound up the highway from the railroad crossing, coming back.

By the time the wagon that had been obtained was ready to start, Anice, also, had arrived on horseback; and the two mounted figures moved at a funereal pace beside the cart. Ethel had fainted at first, but was restored d; and, unless she had suffered internal hurt, was judged to be the worse only for a few bruises. Mr. Evans had not come off so well. He had a broken arm, and was prostrated by the shock he had sustained. His light carriage was left behind, a partial wreck, and the borrowed wagon had to proceed slowly, in order to avoid possible injury to the sufferer.

Fenn and Anice did not exchange a word, but both were lost in wonder at the chance that had thus brought them together again on this same night, under such altered conditions. From time to time Fenn, bringing his horse close to the wheels on Ethel's side, spoke some low word of inquiry or soothing, as indistinguishable to any but her ear as the murmur of the night breeze in the pines. Sometimes, when he fell back and watched the muffled forms reclining in the wagon, a picture presented itself to him in which he saw Ethel as she might have been, motionless and darkly covered and insensible to the jolting of the springs,-a picture of the dead being brought home silently from the place of her death; and then he would turn away and curse himself, in the midst of a mute thanksgiving.

The chemist sat by his wife all night and watched, while she slept, after many vain attempts. In the morning, the physician who had been telegraphed for from a distance arrived, and pronounced with some confidence that she had no unseen injuries.

It was late in the afternoon that Fenn knelt by his wife's bed, while a soft light from the fading west pervaded the room. Seeing that she was strong and recovered, he spoke: "Ethel, I cannot put off any longer the confession I must make of the wrong that has been in my heart these last few weeks." "I have been afraid," she answered calmly. "Oh, yes, I knew"; and the tears rose in her eyes. "But I must not hear it. I cannot."

The blood mounted to his face. "How despicable I am!" he groaned. "But you don't know all, Ethel. You cannot know that I told her

She covered her face with her hands, crying, "Oh, why must I believe this! Why can't I forget it all, pretend that I did not see?" Then, with a hot beating in her temples, she took away her hands, and said with forced deliberation, "Never tell me any more. I cannot promise to be the same to you or to hold you so; but I will hear nothing. Only tell me,—did you mean to do me a wrong? Are you true to me?”

"The wrong," he replied,

66 was a madness, an infatuation. That was all. But I am not fit, now, even to say I am true to you." He lifted his eyes to hers.

She looked into them with a calm, just scrutiny; and Fenn thought that he knew what the light in the recording angel's eyes must be like. But it was only the glance of a tender woman possessing deep intuitions. She said at length: "I will believe in you.

Ethel put her hand upon his head, with a touch so simple and gentle that it was the best of benedictions.

He had held, once, that there was a peculiar mystery about Anice, and the belief had made her the more dangerously fascinating. Ethel was transparent enough, exteriorly; but the mystery of her nature lay deeper down, and he was only just beginning to apprehend it. The quality in Anice served merely as a unit of measure for its larger presence in Ethel. Kneeling here before his wife, with too much humility in him even to put his lips to hers, Fenn saw that he was touching the mystery which is profounder than intellectual choice; which diffuses itself through earth and heaven, and solves all but explains nothing,-pure love.

THE PHOEBE-BIRD.

́ES, I was wrong about the phobe-bird:

YES,

Two songs it has, and both of them I've heard.
I did not know those strains of joy and sorrow

Came from one throat, or that each note could borrow
Strength from the other, making one more brave
And one as sad as rain-drops on a grave.

But thus it is. Two songs have men and maidens:
One is for hey-day, one for sorrow's cadence.
Our voices vary with the changing seasons
Of life's long year, for deep and natural reasons.

Therefore despair not. Think not you have altered
If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love and hate or good and evil-all
At separate times in separate accents call;
Yet 'tis the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended.

TH

THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES.

HE sunshine of thine eyes, (O still, celestial beam!) Whatever it touches it fills

With the life of its lambent gleam.

The sunshine of thine eyes,
Oh, let it fall on me!
Though I be but a mote of the air,
I could turn to gold for thee.

COME

THE FLOWN SOUL.

FRANCIS HAWTHORNE LATHROP, 6 FEBRUARY, 1881.

not again! I dwell with you Above the realm of frost and dew, Of pain and fire, and growth to death.

I dwell with you where never breath

Is drawn, but fragrance vital flows

From life to life; even as a rose

I still can work and think, and weep.
But all this show of life I keep

Is but the shadow of your shine;
Flicker of your fire; husk of your vine:
Therefore you are not dead, nor I,
Who hear your laughter's minstrelsy.

Unseen pours sweetness through each Among the stars your feet are set:

vein,

And from the air distils again.

You are my rose unseen: we live
Where each to other joy may give
In ways untold, by means unknown
And secret as the magnet-stone.

For which of us, indeed, is dead?
No more I lean to kiss your head;—
The gold-red hair so thick upon it:
Joy feels no more the touch that won it,
When o'er my brow your pearl-cool palm
In tenderness so childish, calm,
Crept softly, once. Yet, see: my arm
Is strong, and still my blood runs warm:

1883.

Your little feet are dancing yet
Their rhythmic beat, as when on earth.
So swift, so slight, are death and birth!

Come not again, dear child. If thou
By any chance couldst break that vow
Of silence, at thy last hour made;
If to this grim life, unafraid,
Thou couldst return, and melt the frost
Wherein thy bright limbs' power was
lost;

Still would I whisper-since so fair
The silent comradeship we share—
Yes, whisper 'mid the unbidden rain
Of tears: "Come not! Come not again!"

Sorrow, my friend,

I owe my soul to you.

And if my life with any glory end

Of tenderness for others, and the words are true,

Said, honoring, when I'm dead,

Sorrow, to you, the mellow praise, the funeral wreath, are due.