feminine inconsistency, she grew angry, and sneered in secret at his unfashionable collar, and ridiculous over-grown necktie. Miss Jack came home with glowing eulogies of the numerous attractions and many virtues of the widow, and spent the remainder of the day in glorifying her, to Bella's intense disgust. She wasn't interested in the widow, and it bored her to hear hor lauded to the skies, after Aunt Jack's most approved style, which was not without its own private spite. From her description, it appeared that Mrs. Hethrington possessed every peculiarity that Bella lacked.

Yet, in spite of this, the next week found her calling on the widow herself; and she was somewhat surprised to find her a very sweet little woman; and it seemed that she was inclined to be frank enough about her lover.

"It is Miss Bella Rancerne, is it!" she said, giving Bella both little plump hands cheerily. "How glad I am to see you. major has talked about you so much."

The

Her call ended, Bella went home in a great state of dissatisfaction with herself, and the world in general. She was actually dissatisfied to find the major's old love so agreeable, and she was fiercely disgusted with herself for being dissatisfied.

The first object that met her view on entering the house was the major's trunk, and it appeared that the major's trunk was ready for transportation to some unknown portion of the globe, for it stood in the hall, strapped and locked.

She stopped short a moment, and then a sudden thought flashed across her mind. Perhaps he had been called away unexpectedly, and was gone already. A little fluttering lump rose in her throat as she turned away and walked slowly up-stairs.

On her way there she met Miss Jack.

"Who is going away?" she asked, in her coolest voice.

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the major. Old and ill-dressed as he was, she could not bear to lose him, and yet it appeared she must. Her appetite flagged, and she sat with flushed cheeks and pain-bright eyes, playing with her napkinring. It was not so laughable an idea, after all, this of falling in love with the major.

It was a silent meal, because everybody was naturally inclined to sadness. The old colonel sighed over his soup, and looked melancholy over his fricassee, and when they rose from the table, one and all looked relieved.

So, in the afternoon, they all bade good-by to the major, Miss Jack with dignified melancholy, and Bella with constrained composure. She went back into the little parlor as soon as she had said her farewell, and stood before the window waiting for the fly from the railroad station, and looking exceedingly pale and quiet indeed.

She was just standing there, wondering at her own curious, excited misery, when she heard the firm military step passing up the hall, and its simple sound worked a swift change in her. She would not let him go in that manner. He was older than she was, and-perhaps-she had been in the wrong. It could not be wrong to say half a dozen words to him. She swung round just as he neared the open door, and called to him in a sweet, troubled voice:

"Major, major, I want you."

He looked up and flushed all over, and then came forward, and something in his manner, some tremor, or hesitation, or sadness, struck Bella so strongly that she got frightened and held out her hand to him, the tears rushing to her eyes with the sweet simple action of a repentant child.

"Oh, major!" she pleaded, "don't go away without-without making friends with me again. I think I should have asked you to forgive me before, if it had not been for Aunt Jack." And she burst into a gush of the sweetest tears it had ever been the major's pleasure to see a woman shed.

"Friends!" he echoed. "Forgive you? I thought" And when he stopped, his touched, tender face was so bewildered that Bella began to wonder, too.

"Aunt Jack said-that-that you didn't approve of me," she said, flushing until she was lovelier than ever. "She said you thought I was disrespectful to you, and-and I didn't mean to be disrespectful to you, major. Oh, please do believe me."

Then the major's eyes were opened, old-fashioned and truthful as he was. Fire rushed into his honest face, and color to his tanned cheek.

"Bella," he said, "I have been making a foolish, oversensitive mistake. Miss Jack told me-well, never mind what Miss Jack told me. At any rate, I was cruel enough to think that

exactly. At the worst, I thought it was only because you were so young and beautiful that you could not understand an old man's ways, but it hurt me, because-because "-and his voice faltered "because I loved you, Bella. Don't be angry with

She did not come down-stairs again until dinner, during which she learned all the particulars from her father. The major himself had very little to say. His leave of absence had expired, and he was going back to his duties. That was all.

But before she had finished her dinner, Bella discovered that it was a very terrible "all" to her. She didn't want to lose

not trouble you again, you know. I only tell you this to prove to you that Miss Jack was mistaken. I love you, my dear. I love you with all my soul. There, we can part friends, now. Shake hands with me now. The fly is at the door."

But Bella did not move. Both her hands were over her beautiful face, and for a few seconds she stood trembling and palpitating, while the major talked. But when the roll of the

MADEMOISELLE ALBANI.

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"Yes," she whispered, laughing and trembling and crying all at once. "I am your own, if you want me, and will save me from Aunt Jack. Do you want me?"

The major's answer is better imagined than described. As to the widow, she was nothing more than a cheery, honest little woman, who was faithful enough to an old friend to be deeply interested in the progress of his love affair; and on the occasion of the heartless Bella's marriage with the major, it was she who rendered herself invaluable in so many pretty, affectionate, womanly ways that the charming young Mrs. MacWheedleton Dowlas canonized

her promptly, and ever afterward clung to her, and claimed her as her dearest adviser and friend.

JACOB AND LABAN.

READ carefully, the Bible is a book not only of instruction and amusement, but of the profoundest philosophy. It is the completest history of the nature of man that has ever been written; and, even to those who question its Divine inspiration, there is no volume extant which affords such lessons of life.

The earlier books are especially full of these chapters of experience. We select for this number an illustration of Jacob in the house of Laban, his uncle. He had received his nephew very kindly, and, having two marriageable daughters, thought, doubtless, that Jacob would make an eligible husband for them, for in those primitive days bigamy was not against the moral code.

Jacob soon fell in love with Rachel, his youngest cousin, and told his uncle, Laban, that he wished to marry her. Laban made it conditional that he should serve seven years for her. Even as Jacob had deceived his old father, Isaac, so did Laban deceive him, for, as it is usual to bring the bride to the altar vailed, Lalan palmed his eldest daughter, Leah, upon the unsuspicious Jacob, instead of the younger and handsomer. However, it could not be helped, and when the luckless bridegroom reproached his uncle for the trick, he told him that it was not the custom of his country to let the younger daughter be married before the elder, and that if he wished to marry Rachel he must for her seven other

serve

THIS young lady, whose portrait we present, bears an Italian is Emma La Jeunesse. She belongs to the old Acadian family of that name, immortalized in Longfellow's "Evangeline." She was trained in the study of music from early childhood by her father (himself a skilled musician), who recognized with delight the talents of his little daughter. Losing their mother while still of tender years, she and her sisters were sent to the convent of the Sacré Coeur, at Montreal, to complete their education. But in a few years her proficiency on the organ attracted such attention that, for the peace of the convent, the good Sisters were obliged to bid their young guest a tender and sorrowful farewell. Her father then, by the urgent advice of

friends, determined to send her to Europe for instruction not attainable elsewhere. Under the care of Baroness Lafitte, she was two years at Paris, where she studied under the famous Duprez. He then sent her on to the old maestro Lamperti, at Milan, who, when he heard her, exclaimed, with reference to her reluctance to go on the stage, "Ah! there is a fortune in that little throat, but there is only one way to find it."

Several years of hard study followed, till at length, her scruples overcome, she made her début at Messina, under her present name, in 1870, with entire success. At the end of the first act she was engaged for Malta. Her sojourn in that island was most gratifying. Both Maltese and English residents, with the many travelers, yachtsmen, and Indian officers who make the island a resting-place en route from East to West, were delighted to hail the advent of the sweet Canadian nightingale-a rara avis, whose feet had never before alighted on that classic yet sterile rock.

The fame of her singing, as well as the grace of her presence and manner, spread to England; and the director of the Royal Italian Opera, having satisfied himself of the truth, secured this new attraction for his establishment. Her début in England was expected, and, indeed, announced in private circles, in July, 1871; but Mr. Gye, as soon as he heard her in rehearsal, determined, rather than destroy its éclat, to postpone it to the commencement of a new season.

Mademoiselle Albani therefore resumed her studies at Milan, and last Winter sang in the theatre of La Pergola, at Florence, before the most critical audience in Italy, to whom she was heralded by a message from the old maestro that "he was sending them the most accomplished musician and the most finished singer in style that ever left his studio."

How well she was to redeem his words the Florentines were soon convinced. The papers of Italy repeated her praises, and the palco scenico of La Pergola was carpeted with wreaths and flowers each time she sang. Her crowning effort was in the "Mignon" of Ambrose Thomas.

AN ADVENTURE IN THE CLOUDS.

GREEN, the famous aeronaut, relates that the greatest surprise he ever experienced was in the clouds. We will give it in his own words:

"As Mr. Holland, my companion de voyage, and I were chatting, at a moderate pitch of voice, quite out of eves-droppers, being nearly two miles above the earth, he startled me by a loud exclamation. 'Look, Green! look! We shall run against it!' I turned to where he pointed, and there beheld another balloon, evidently coming toward us. A moment's considertion demonstrated it was the reflection of our own balloon reflected in a cloud, for there were our two selves as faithfully depicted as though we were looking in a mirror. Although we knew that in certain phases the clouds have this property, it was the first time we had ever had the fact so vividly brought before our sight. Our spectral companions soon disappeared, and left us to pursue our journey through the air alone."

NAVIGATION IN A FOREST.

LIEUTENANT GARNIER, in his very interesting "Travels in Chin-India," gives a singular account of the manner in which he traversed a forest in Cambodia, which, at certain seasons of the year, the rain converts into a lake, with the trees growing out of the water. Our engraving on page 117, which is an exact copy of Lieutenant Delaporte's sketch, gives such a vivid idea of the scene as to require little description. The forest through which the canoe is being navigated is in the vicinity of the Cambodia River, one of the principal rivers of the Southeast of Asia. It rises in Thibet, then intersects the Chinese province of Yun-nan, traverses Laos and Cambodia, divides the Liamese and Anamese dominions, separates into numerous channels, nl enters the Chinese sea by several mouths, near latitude 10 degrees north latitude, 106 degrees east longitude.

=

POVERTY parts friends. Prevention is better than cure.

IN THE WHEAT-FIELD.

IN the waving wheat-field Mabel stands,
Now shading her eyes with her milk-white hands;
Now swinging her bonnet, and now looking down
On the sighing corn, so golden and brown;
But sorrowful thoughts are nestling near,
Filling her heart with a vague, strange fear,
For she sees around her the ripening corn,
All glad and bright in this golden morn;
And full on her soul returns the day
When he promised to lead her in bridal array;
And the time draws nigh, and his plighted word
Is in the sighing wheat-ears heard,
And it falls on her heart like a blighting fear,
With its spectral voice of " Autumn is near,
But he'll never come."

And now she stands
In the ripe cornfield with her clasp'd hands.

FTER Hubert Walgrave's departure, the entire story of Grace Redmayne's life I could be told in three words: "He was gone." She abandoned herself utterly to the bitterness of regret. She went to and fro by day, and lay down to rest at night, with one great sorrow in her heart -a childish grief perhaps, at worst, but none the less bitter to this childish soul. Nor had she any friendly ear into which to pour her woes. On the contrary, she had to keep perpetual watch and ward over herself, lest she should betray her foolish secret. It was the same old story of the worm in the bud, and the damask cheek began to grow wan and pale. So changed and haggard, indeed -so faded from her nymph-like beauty did the girl become, that even Mrs. James Redmayde's unsentimental eyes perceived the difference, and that worthy matron told her husband, with some anxiety of tone, that he niece must be ill.

"She's going the way of her poor mother, I'm afraid, Jim," she said. "She's fainted dead off more than once since that evening in Clevedon Chase. I let her do a hand's turn in the dairy the day before yesterday; for she gets restless and fretful sometimes for want of work-lolloping about all day, reading novels or playing the piano. It was light work enough-making up a bit of butter into swans-for it isn't likely I'd give the dairy half an hour or so, she went off all of a sudden as white her anything heavy to do; but when she'd been standing in bricks if I hadn't caught her in my arms, and a regular bother as a sheet of paper, and would have gone flat down on the I had to bring her round, too. Depend upon it, Mr. Humphreys was right, and there's something wrong with her

heart."

He

"Poor little lass!" murmured the farmer, tenderly. remembered his niece when she had been indeed a little lass, and had sat upon his knee peering into the mysteries of a turnip-shaped silver watch-a fragile, flower-like child, whom he used to touch tenderly with his big clumsy hands, as if she had been an exotic. "Poor little lass! that seems hard, though, Hannah, if there's anything amiss. She's so young, and so bright, and so pretty-as personable a young woman as you can see between this and Tunbridge. And there's her father working for her over yonder. I think it would clean

"We might do that," Mrs. Redmayne answered, thoughtfully, "when the hops are gathered. I couldn't spare a day between this and then if it was a matter of life and death, as you may say, and, thank God, it isn't that! The girl ain't strong, and she's subject to fainting fits; but there mayn't be anything serious in it, after all."

Mr. Walgrave had been gone three weeks-ah, what an age of sadness and regret!-when the parcel containing the locket came to Grace. A parcel directed in his hand-it was only too familiar to her from pencil-notes in some of the books he had lent her, and from the papers she had seen scattered about his

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"I say, mother," Mr. James Redmayne remarked to his spouse, after a pause, 'you don't think the girl's got anything on her mind, do you? She ain't fretting about anything, is she?"

"Fretting about anything! Mercy's sakes, what's she got to fret about? All her victuals found for her, and no need to soil the tips of her fingers, unless she likes. She's never known a trouble in her life, except her father leaving her; and she's got the better of that ever so long. What can put such rubbish into your head, father?"

"Well, I don't know; girls are apt to have fancies, you see. There was that chap, Mr. Walgry, for instance, hanging about her, and talking to her a good deal, off and on. He may have put some foolish notions into her he d-may have flattered her a bit, and made her think he was in love with her."

Mr. Redmayne made these observations in a dubious tone, and with a somewhat guilty feeling about his own conduct during that one week of his wife's absence. He had left those two so entirely free to follow their own devices, while he made the most of his brief span of liberty. The partner of his fortunes took him up sharply.

Hanging about her, indeed!" she exclaimed. "I never allowed any hanging about to go on under my nose; and I must say I always found Mr. Walgry quite the gentleman. Of course he did take some notice of Grace; she is a pretty girl, and it isn't likely she'd be passed over like a plain one. But I don't believe he ever said a foolish word to her, or behaved any way unbecoming a gentleman."

"If you say so, Hannah, I make no doubt you're quite correct in your views," the farmer replied, submissively; "only I don't like to see Gracey hanging her head; it don't seem natural."

"It's weakness, that's what it is, James. If she'd only drink the hop-tea I make her, she'd pick up her strength fast enough. There's nothing finer than a tumbler of hop-tea every morning; but girls are so obstinate, and think that physic ought to be as sweet as sugar-plums."

So the discussion ended. Grace's health seemed variable. She looked brighter on some days than on others; made little efforts, in fact, to stifle her sorrow; put on an appearance of life and gayety; and then relapsed and gave way altogether. When questioned by her aunt or uncle, she said she had a headache; they could never extort more from her than that. Once, good-natured James Redmayne took her aside, and asked her, with simple earnestness that touched her keenly, if there were any trouble on her mind; but she answered him very much as her aunt had done on her behalf: What could there be to trouble her?

You are all so kind to me, dear Uncle James," she said; "and if my father were only at home, I ought to be as happy as any girl in Kent."

It was rather a vague answer, but to James Redmayne it seemed a sufficient one. He went in to his wife with an air of mingled wisdom and triumph.

"I've got to the bottom of it all now, mother," he said. "Gracey's still fretting for her father; she owned as much to me just now."

Fortune favored her in the receipt of the packet. She had gone out to take the letters from the postman that morning, expecting nothing, hoping for nothing. From him or of him she never thought to receive sign or token. Had he not told her many times, in the plainest words, that the story of their love must come to an end, like a book that is shut, on the day he left Brierwood? She was too simple-minded to imagine him capable of wavering. He had said that his honor compelled him to forsake her, and he would be faithful to that necessity.

Her heart gave a great leap when she saw the address on the little packet. She fled round the house like a lapwing, and did not stop to breathe till she was safe under the shadow of the cedar, in the spot where she had known such perilous happiness with him. Then she sank down on the rustic bench, and with tremulous fingers tore open the little parcel.

A dainty case of dark-blue velvet, in itself a treasure to a girl so unsophisticated as Grace; a casket that opened with a spring, revealing a large yellow gold locket, set with pearls, reposing on a bed of white satin-a gem so beautiful that the sight of it took her breath away, and she sat gazing upon it, transfixed with womanly rapture.

She opened the locket, and looked at the little enameled picture of forget-me-nots. Sweet, very sweet! but, oh, how much she would have preferred his portrait, or even one little ring of his dark, wavy hair! She laid the treasure on the bench beside her, and opened his letter, devouring it with wideopen, luminous eyes.

The scrap of paper attracted her attention first: "There is a secret spring; touch it, and you will find my photograph." She gave a little cry of joy, and began to search for the spring, found it, and gave a louder cry of utter delight when she beheld the face of her lover.

The skillful colorist had flattered Mr. Walgrave not a little: the pale-dark complexion was Italianized; the gray eyes were painted in ultramarine; the face in the miniature looked from five to ten years younger than the original. But to Grace the picture was simply perfect. She perceived no flattery; the face, which was to her the noblest upon earth, was only idealized as she had idealized it in her own mind from the hour in which she began to love its owner. And yet, when Hubert Walgrave first came to Brierwood she had seen nothing wonderful in his appearance, and had considered him decidedly middle-aged.

At last, after gazing at the miniature till her eyes grew dim, clouded with innocent tears after kissing the glass that covered it with fond, foolish kisses-she touched the spring and shut the case, and then read the letter.

This disappointed her a little. It was evidently written to be read by her uncle and aunt. Not one word of that brief, bright past; only a letter such as any grateful lodger might have written to his landlady's daughter. She shed a few tears. "It was good of him to send me his picture," she said to herself. "But he is quite gone from me; I shall never, never see him again!"

The picture had kindled new hope in her breast; the letter destroyed it. There was some comfort, however, in being able to show this letter to her aunt, and to wear her locket in the light of day. She carried the little velvet case and the letter indoors, and went in quest of her aunt, whom she found in the dairy.

"Oh, Aunty Hannah, I have had a letter and a present!" "What, a pincushion or a bookmarker from one of your old schoolfellows, I'll lay, or some such trumpery? You girls are always fiddle-faddling about some such rubbish!"

Look, aunt!" cried Grace, displaying the locket, imbedded in white satin.

"It's a pretty thing enough," she said, at last, "and must have cost a sight of money-pearls and all, for I suppose they're real; and I can't see as he had any call to send you such a thing. He paid for what he had, and there was no obligation on either side. Forget-me-nots, too, as if it was for a young woman he was keeping company with. I don't half like such nonsense, and I doubt your uncle will be for sending it back." 'Oh, aunt!" said Grace, and then began to cry.

"Lord bless me, child, don't be such a cry-baby. If you can get round your uncle to let you keep the locket, you may. A present's a present, and I don't suppose Mr. Walgry meant any harm; he's too much a gentleman for that, leastways, as far as I could see. All I hope is, he never went talking any nonsense to you behind my back."

"No, aunt; he never talked nonsense; he was always sensible, and he told me-something about himself. He's engaged to be married-has been engaged for ever so long."

"Well, it was fair and honorable of him to tell you that, anyhow. You can show the letter to your uncle at dinnertime; and if he likes you to keep the locket, I'm agreeable."

When dinner-time came, Mr. James, whose opinion upon most subjects was a mere reflection of his wife's, studied that worthy woman's countenance; and seeing her favorably disposed toward the gift and the giver, opined that his niece might accept Mr. Walgrave's present without any derogation to the family dignity. She

must write him a pretty little letter of thanks, of course, showing off her boarding-school education, which Mr. Wort would no doubt forward to him, as he had happened to omit any address in his letter.

So Grace wore her locket in the face of mankind on the first Sunday after the arrival of the packet; wore it on her muslin dress at church, with a shy consciousness that all the parish must be dazzled by its splendor-that the old rector himself, if his eyes were good

enough, might break down in the midst of his sermon, overcome by a sudden glimpse of its gorgeousness. She wore it on a black ribbon under her dress, secretly, upon those days which her aunt called "workadays;" and at 1ight she put it under her pillow.

Hers was the early, passionate, girlish love, which is so near akin to foolishness; the Julict love, which would have her Romeo cut out in little stars,

"And he will make the face of Heaven so fine, That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish day."

The girl's spirits revived a little with the possess on of this locket. She looked brighter and better, and her aunt forgot her fears.

September came to an end, and the hop-picking began; herds of tramps from the wilds of Hibernia, from the heart of the Seven-dials, from the wretchedest alleys in Whitechapel and Bermondsey, came pouring in upon the fair Kentish country.

Mrs. Redmayne was too busy to think much of Grace's health; and when the girl began to flag a little again, finding that life was dreary even with that portrait in her bosom, no one observed the change.

She went off into rather a severe fainting-fit one afternoon; but there was no one at hand but Sally, the maid-of-all-work, who brought her round as best she might, and thought nothing of the business. She had fainted herself on a Midsummer Sunday, when Kingsbury church was hotter than usual, and never went to that place of worship without a big blue bottle of smelling-salts.

Now in the dusky October (venings, fitful patches of light glowed here and there on the landscape; and riding along narrow lanes, the traveler came ever and anon to a rustic encampment-a ragged family huddled round a fire, sunburnt faces turned toward him inquiringly as he passed, a bevy of tatterdemalion children darting out at him to ask for alms, and sharp cries of "Pitch us a copper, sir!" in the purest Cockney. The group, so picturesque at a distance, was sordid enough on inspection, and the traveler could but wish these nomads had better shelter.

A ragged blanket, perhaps, hung upon a couple of poles, made a rough tent here and there; but those who possessed so much luxury were the aristocrats of the community; the vulgar herd slept in the open air, save on some lucky occasion when a liberal farmer gave them the use of an empty barn.

James Redmayne was tender-hearted, and at Brierwood the