she could not be persuaded to fix the day of the marriage.

"Just in the midst of the public speculation on the affairs of the young couple, the lamentations of the sentimental that youth must be sacrificed to age, and the wonder of the imaginative why her father did not find himself a wife and release his daughter, there came in speculation of another sort to disturb the movement of events.

"The course of true love,' you know, 'never did run smooth.' There are always foolish men in the world, and Edith's father claimed his right of admission into that large family. I have told you that he was wealthy. He had long retired from business, but could not, it seemed, let well enough alone. He entered into some speculative adventures, and at sixty found himself a beggar.

"They still lived on, Edith and her father, in the old family mansion. It was said to be all that they had left; in strict justice it was not theirs. It was mortgaged so heavily that the form of a sale would have netted nothing to any one except the holder of the claim. And he did not care to disturb an old friend and respected citizen in his declining days.

Edith patiently and with a daughter's love gave herself to her father. I am afraid that the old man did not fully appreciate the sacrifice that his daughter made. He grew silent and morose. The house was not nearly now so pleasant a place to visit, and the young folks were afraid of meeting the moody countenance of old Mr. Gray. Edith was-outwardly, at least-the same as ever. Never having been what is called 'lively,' she could not now be said to be subdued; but I thought there was an air of sadness on her sweet face, though she still met me, as all other friends, with a calm smile. The wise people said, of course, that now the match must be broken off. I remember that I thought, as a child, how sad it was! And others shared the thought, and placed Edith's sadness entirely to the credit of the interruption of her nuptial preparation. I know now that such was not the case. It was her father's misfortune which oppressed her. "Though people had said the marriage of Edith could not now take place, her silent, uncomplaining course soon changed the fickle tide of public opinion. People began to hint that it was very small and mean for a man, under the circumstances, to break off the engagement. There is no evidence that he had attempted any such thing. Perhaps he had hesitated, and grown somewhat cold. Now he was moved

by the popular judgment, and his visits to Edith became as frequent as ever. The village verdict instantly was spoken that he was a 'noble fellow.' I confess that I do not like such noble fellows; I have no respect for any man who has to feel the public pulse to learn his private duty. On a review of all the circumstances, I am inclined to suspect that such was his case. But to make himself sure, and to guard against his possible feebleness of purpose, and to secure the praise which he coveted, he again formally tendered his hand and fortune to Edith Gray.

"Probably she understood his character. At any rate, much to the surprise of those who did not know her, and not at all to the astonishment of those who did, Edith offered him a release from his engagement. He declined to receive it, and the parties still stood upon their old relations. Edith, everybody said, would be married some time. Long engagements are generally voted tedious. Nobody dislikes them worse than those who have no other interest in them than the public right to talk. People like a young couple to be married and have done with it, and make room for the next candidates.

"It did not require many months for sorrow and disappointed pride to kill Edith's father. He was honored with a large funeral. Those who felt conscious of having neglected him in his reverses, pacified their consciences by following his remains to the grave. Edith was the subject of sympathy and commiseration for which she was grateful, and none the less so, that she did not understand it. People were grieving for her future. She was mourning her father; she thought they united with her in her grief, and was thankful and comforted.

"She felt the full weight of the blow when she was told, as tenderly as it could be done, that the home in which she had lived could no longer be hers. She learned now that the home of her childhood must come under the hammer, and that all the objects familiar to her must be sacrificed, to pay, as far as they might, the demands against an insolvent estate. Now, how the wise women regretted that Edith had been so very punctilious and straight-laced in her ideas of duty! If she had only consented to the proposals made to her! If she were only married now, the death of her father would not have marred her prospects! Twice she had deferred, if not refused, and nobody could expect that the offer would be renewed. It was just one of those long courtships which everybody saw would come to nothing.

"But the lover seemed determined to take high rank among earth's disinterested and faithful ones. He lost no time, after the death of Edith's father, before he formally declared himself to her again. Decent respect required that the nuptials should be deferred for a season. Meanwhile the suitor reached the very pinnacle of village fame for his magnanimity. I have already said that this kind of excitement in well-doing is dangerous; or rather that the good conduct which comes from such motives is scarcely to be trusted. But in this instance even the skeptics rejoiced that they were to be disappointed.

“Edith retired from the home of her birth, on a small income which had been secured to her from her mother's property, before her father's misfortune. It was increased by the kindness of some friends; and has not only kept her from want, but enabled her to do good to the more needy, all her life. Woman's wants are easily supplied, when, like Aunt Edith, they understand how to put money to its full and highest

use.

"A new surprise was ready for the neighborhood. The advertised sale of Edith's home did not take place. Her lover took house and furniture at a fair appraisement, and Edith's fears of the profanation of a public sale were averted. Now, indeed, it did appear as if one of the impossible good genii of fairy tales had stepped into human life. The gentleman was almost canonized. The highest praise was accorded to him by the selfish, who declared that they did not think there was such a romantic fool among living men.

"Now Edith really could resist no longer. The marriage engagement became a fixed fact for a definite time. Carpenters, masons, painters, and other renovaters were busy upon the old house. The new owner discovered a wonderful taste. People had not supposed the place capable of the improvements which transformed the Gray mansion and grounds, like magic. Perhaps he was guided by a better eye for beauty than his own. But if Edith was his counsellor, her maidenly delicacy prevented any appearance which could identify her with the work.

"The place quite renewed its youth, and stood forth quite an aristocrat among the houses in the village. Any man with money- credit -may erect quite an imposing pile of stone or brick. But fine old trees, shaded avenues, and time-honored associations cannot be created in a day; and a noble old pile of a house judiciously embellished cannot be approached by

any invention of the architect. In view of the splendid mansion preparing for her, people now began to consider Edith Gray one of the most fortunate of women, and the bridegroom, in prospect, one of the most generous and noble among men. Still, Edith's quiet manner was not changed, either to her lover, or to any one else. And if he seemed to move with the style of one who considers himself a benefactor, perhaps it was only my fancy that thus saw him.

"Perhaps you cannot understand what I mean; but I believe that speech is not by any means the readiest mode of our understanding each other. When a person speaks, it is one man or woman giving an opinion or concealing one. For you have heard the cynical remark that speech is a faculty given to us by which we conceal our thoughts. But even the most common observer can gather, he knows not how, the sentiment of a community on any subject without hearing their voices upon it. It may be misunderstood. It may be taken for more than it means, or for less. But we get our ideas of 'public opinion' by a kind of unspoken sympathy, and if we have not a very firm mind, are apt to be swayed-perhaps to our detriment. At any rate, our generous friend, Edith's lover, came to think that he was wholehearted, magnanimous, self-sacrificing, and devoted, to a fault. And she-why she was not worthy of him. He was throwing himself away upon her! How far he let this lofty idea of himself appear to her, we never shall know. To all outward indications the affair was proceeding as successfully as such a long courtship could; and Edith was rather blamed, and he was rather exalted. Perhaps some persons-especially among the ladies, regarded him as rather injured by the coldness of the calm beauty.

"Suddenly the village was startled from its propriety by the announcement that another bride was to be mistress in the house prepared for Edith! It was monstrous! It was an outrage! It was an indecency! There were no words strong enough to express the indignation which was now awakened against the man who could be so base. The popular sympathy was full in favor of Edith, the popular wrath furious against her false swain. No wonder. Still, while everybody had been saying that he was too good and too kind by half, and that his generosity was almost a wrong to himself, and quite a weakness, what could a poor fool do but take the public at its word, and show himself a man?

"The fickle bridegroom-fickle at last, after long constancy-took the public, like another

Napoleon, by a coup d'état. Before the popular indignation was ripe for the inauguration of Judge Lynch, or even for the arrangement of a charivari, he appeared in the village church with his wife on his arm and a bridal party in her train, occupying two or three pews. She was beautiful, even more so than Edith; and, poor frightened thing, what could she have known about it? How was she to be blamed? It was not her fault, and she must be received courteously. And then she was so well connected! The name, position, and family of every one of the party were known through the whole town before anybody slept, except, we may add, those who slept in sermon time. There was some talk of 'audacity,' and 'bad taste,' and 'worse principles,' through that Sunday. But after the congregation had all slept upon it, it was reasonably perceived that so distinguished a connection was not to be ignored. The 'reception' included everybody in its invitations, and there were very few indeed who did not respond. Nobody was ever better welcomed. Such is the value of popular opinion sometimes. Perhaps it was as well so. "And poor Edith? She did not die, as we very well know. Hackneyed phrases spoil the gravity of a narrative, but really we can find nothing better than to say that 'she behaved with a great deal of propriety.' It was a blow and a most mortifying one; but Edith had the good sense to see that inasmuch as it was a misfortune over which the world could give her no relief, her only remedy was to conquer herself, and subdue her own chagrin. She made no public exhibition of her feeling of disappointment, and neither sought nor encouraged pity. Indeed I may say that she never permitted it, for she must have been on very intimate and familiar terms with her who could introduce a subject which she studiously and carefully avoided. She visited her faithless lover with no open censure, and to no few select friends (including half the village) did she confide her denunciations. But while people looked that she should have gone into a decline, or sunk into melancholy, become demented, or in some other way have given testimony how deep and awful was the blow, she went quietly on her way, the same gentle Edith

as ever.

'The cold world soon came to the conclusion that Edith Gray's disappointment was no such great matter, after all. The young and novelfed of ardent imaginations were quite indignant that the cold Edith Gray could so set all precedent and all genuine sentiment at defiance, as

neither to drown, die naturally, or go mad under the operation of the 'sundering of her heart strings.'

"Years passed, and brought with them the evidence that Edith Gray's disappointment had shielded her from a worse misfortune. To be sure, having lost her first opportunity of matrimony, she remained single. This was not, be it noted, from necessity. Many an incipient attachment she might have encouraged into a declaration; but she had a very lady-like but positive way of checking such demonstrations. Some proceeded in spite of her, and these she resolutely put down at the proper time, and before the affair became so notorious as to cause remark. Having tested the thing once, she was determined on no more experience in that direction. Her friends tried in vain to break her resolution, for, gentle as she was, she had still the firmness of a strong will, supported by a clear conscience. Her conduct -vindicated her from the charge of want of feeling. A person more demonstrative would have made more outcry with less affection, and settled, after her first disappointment, upon some one else.

The

"I have said that Edith Gray's desertion by her lover shielded her from a worse fate. man who had laid so grievous a load upon his conscience sank under it. He was consumed by the coals which Edith heaped upon his head. If she had given him the excitement of a quarrel, if by a suit at law she had afforded him opportunity to add insult to injury, the punishment would have been less severe. But her calm superiority and indifference, easily, and perhaps not altogether wrongly, construed into contempt, maddened him. She evidently considered that he had proved himself to be not the man whom she had loved. He might not have been willing to confess it, but the punishment of Cain was upon him, and his inward strife and struggles made him wayward and fitful. His friends, and his family especially, could never be sure of him; one moment jocose, even to rude mirth, he was the next moody, even to moroseness. His fitfulness ended where that of men of small mind and less principle is apt to end-in habits of intemperance. You are ready to say that if he had married Edith this would not have been. Perhaps not; but the man who is guilty of one meanness might have been of another. And the treacherous lover would, had he saved his character until after he married, have probably proved a treacherous husband. So, indeed, he did, though not to Edith.

"His property soon gave evidence of the consequences of his habits. Other vices followed in the train of that parent of vices, drunkenness. He gamed, and tried by hard-hearted usury, and by questionable speculation, to repair the inroads which extravagance had made in his fortune. He was not without friends, and as his course threatened to make him a charge upon them, they used their influence to provide him such a maintenance as would avert this danger.

"As there existed such a positive necessity that he should be provided for, it required only a skilful use of party logic to demonstrate that he was precisely the patriot who should hold a place of trust under the government. The principle of 'rotation in office' decreed a vacancy.

The old incumbent was 'rotated' out, and our unworthy hero was appointed. The requisite securities were executed without difficulty. There is no more efficient qualification for office than the necessity which may exist to provide for a needy man who has powerful friends.

“Habits of extravagance are not easily laid aside. Whatever may have been the officeholder's desire or resolutions, he early fell into the delusion of mistaking the public funds for his own. With every quarterly return, the deficiency he was compelled to conceal increased. His securities took the alarm, and hinted to him, not obscurely, their suspicions. Affrighted at the possibility of detection in his first breaches of trust, he was betrayed into crime of a deeper dye. He embarked in a course of deliberate frauds, which were continued for several years, and ended at last in detection, and the penitentiary.

"I have recently heard that the poor wretch lives still; and hope that he has, in adversity, better motives for reform than he had, in his prosperity, for good conduct. You see, my dear children, how weak a safeguard for our correct conduct is mere regard for human opinion and a taste for popular praise. And you see, too, that Aunt Edith Gray could have done worse than remain a single woman. The man of weak principles would have proved as weak as her husband as he showed himself when the husband of another.

"I have not told you his name. Nor do I intend to mention it. It is Aunt Edith Gray's secret; and the regard of the community has suffered oblivion to fall upon it. The wretched wife went home to her friends, upon the arrest of her husband.

"And now happened, in real life, one of

those instances of poetical justice which we read of in books, but seldom see. Edith's father had been ruined by heavy investments in a corporate concern which fell from par to about ten per cent. The stock was purchased at this low rate by the creditors. By a turn of the wheel of fortune, it came up again, and the holders found themselves paid twice over. When the old mansion was sold on behalf of the government, the creditors of Mr. Gray bought and tendered it to his daughter.

"A romantic woman would have said, 'No! a thousand times, no!' with all the emphasis of the last shilling novel. Edith slept on it, rose calmly in the morning, wrote a note to her friends, and gracefully accepted the return which it was their pleasure to make, no less than her advantage to accept. And so she returned to the home of her childhood.

"The most curious incident yet remains. Edith could not live alone in that great house. And she began to find that she should one day grow old. She needed a young heart to be growing into strength, when she should be sinking into weakness. She desired a friend in the city to find her a child of years so tender, and of condition so destitute, that there should be neither power to recollect, nor need to recall its parentage. Clara, whom you know as Clara Gray, was that child, and is now her attached and most dearly loved friend. Clara knows no nearer heart than Aunt Edith.

"The child had been in her new home a year-and a sweet child she was-when Aunt Edith discovered that little Clara is the daughter of the faithless man who has been the shadow over her life! The mother is dead.

"A romantic woman again would have instantly discarded the child of such parentagethe reminder of her own early unhappiness. Edith looked on the babe as it slept. She looked, and wept, till her sobs awakened the infant. The child stared in wonder, reached out her little arms, kissed away Aunt Edith's tears, and stole so deeply into Aunt Edith's heart that nothing will ever dislodge her.

"Now, my dear children, I have done. You see why I have withheld the father's name from you. You will keep Clara Gray's secret; and you will cease to wonder, Anna, why Aunt Edith never was married. It is strange; but I do believe that she is such a stoic-or such a Christian, rather-that the tone of Clara's voice and the glance of her eye, which remind those who knew him, of her father, make the child still dearer. Edith never talks of her feelings. I only judge from her conduct."

AN ALLEGORY.

BY WILLIE E. PABOR.

ONCE upon a time the King of Cloudland called his family of shadows together, in order to select one for a special mission to earth.

Now this king, having dominion over the dark side of humanity only, had sent an embassy to the realm of Sunshine for a spirit of that bright country to go with his own envoy upon the proposed mission. The embassy had returned, hence the gathering of the shadows.

Having chosen one suitable for his purpose, the king sent forth the Shadow and the Sunshine, saying to them as they went: "Go through the world and be witnesses of the way in which men walk; let the Sunshine-for the world's brightness will then render it invisibletake notice of their doings by day, and the Shadow-hidden in the darkness-watch them through the silence of the night. Bring back a faithful record of all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and disappointments, the pleasures and the pains of the children of men. · Above all, discover the source from whence flows the most of evil wrought by human hands. Find out the fountain whose waters are more bitter than all the bitter waters of the world."

So, the king having dismissed them, the Shadow and the Sunshine journeyed together toward the lower world.

While yet afar off they heard sounds resembling distant thunder; as they drew nearer the air seemed to be full of cries of sorrow and wails of woe; here and there mingled among the discordant note, songs of revelry and echoes of words of blasphemy. At these the Sunshine wondered, but the Shadow said: "In Cloudland there is a legend that the words once uttered upon earth die not with the sound of the voice of the one that speaks them, but float on through space forever and forever, undying witnesses of the good or the evil deeds of men. This, then, must be Echo-Land. Here the cry of Abel, as Cain struck him to the ground, vibrates through the air; here lingers the plaintive appeal of Joseph as his brethren sold him into Egypt, mingling with their words of wonder, when, years later, they saw the brother they had sold a slave second only to the king upon his throne; here David's song of triumph cannot drown the accusing voice of the Prophet as he tells the story of the one ewe-lamb coveted by the owner of many flocks; here Peter's oath of denial vibrates through all the arteries of the air; here the dying words of the early martyrs testify in their behalf; and here

the echoes of all the words that lips have ever uttered since Adam stood in the Garden of Eden, keep the record of the lives of men. By. these shall they be judged and justified or condemned.”

As the Shadow ceased, their lightning-like speed carried them beyond the confines of EchoLand, and lo! they were in the heart of a city the hum of whose traffic went unceasingly upward night and day. *

Through the streets of the city, the Shadow and the Sunshine went. Here they saw a beggar asking alms; here a Shylock taking his pound of flesh; here a mother clasping a dying infant in her arms, and herself suffering the pangs of starvation; here a miser dying amid his gold with no one to close his eyes or fold his dead hands over his pulseless breast. They went all through the homes that the daylight and the darkness covers, in the highways and the byways of the great city; they looked into the hearts of all those with whom they came in contact and saw there the secrets that were hidden from the eyes of men. They saw smiles upon faces and the worm of agony in the heart belied the face every hour. They heard words that lips uttered and the life falsified. They saw the mantle of friendship cover the smouldering fires of revenge and hate. The wolf of Guilt they beheld in close communion with the lamb of Innocence. Humanity in all its guises and in all its disguises; in all its beauty and deformity; in all the sweetness of its promise and all the bitterness of its realization; in all the glory that invests it, and in all the disgrace that encircles it, was laid bare before them. High and low, far and near they went their way seeking the fountain whose waters, on the lips of mankind-were bitterest of all; seeking the source of that evil wrought wholly by human means and influences and controlling the fate of so many lives.

And when, having grown weary of witnessing the effect, they began their search for causes, they learned that INTEMPERANCE lay at the root of nearly all the pain, the sorrow and the suffering of human kind.

"Surely," said the Sunshine, "this must be the fountain of which we are in search. The waters of Marah were bitter to the taste; but one drop from this fountain embitters a whole life."

They heard a man on the steps of the gallows trace his past history until he reached the turning point of life in his youth; and the winecup, with the serpent of Crime hidden in its glowing bosom stood out as the first great cause