Year: 1869

"On! nave you Deen Iancying that 1
was frettingF' Elsie exclaimed. In a
lower tone, and as if her own words
almost frightened her, she went on
"Could you think so, Philipi Don't
you understand that / am only sorry,
and grieved, and angry with myself
because ] do not feel as ought Yes,
you were right in what you said that
was child's love, and this is the real
grown-up love; and now this about my
ring seemed like reproach."


'YOu are making me much happier
than ! can express" was all her lover
could answer.


"And / hope--I do hope-my feel
ings are not wrongiDg bis memory" she
whispered on: 81 did care you
know l did. But, o, not as ] care for
you"


She looked up at him with such
look of trust and affection as those
sweet eyes had never given him before.
Doubts and fears vanished, and for
once bis restiye pasSinate heart was at
peace.


Elsie CIavering had spoken the truth
in the ayowal she had just made. Her
sailor lover, gay, buoyant, and rather
shallow, had been too like herself in
temperamentto command the reverence
with which Philip Denbigh had inspired
her. The days Of her first short bright
wOoing had passed by, stirring only the
surface of her nature, and leaving its
depths to be fathomed ct later hour.


"She is happy, she is really and truly
happy now!" thought her lover, as he
walked home through the darkness Of
the fOggy January night. HShe win
be thousand times happier than that
poor fellow ever could have made her.
Fate has been good to us both. She
would have been utterly thrown away
on poor empty-hesded Clavering whose
sailor admiration Of beauty was ast
stirred by her pretty face, but who
would have liked any other we'll. looking
girl just as much as my pearl, my dar-
ling, the only woman in the whole
world to me! / have won her at last
at last-after all these years! Only
this one night more to be lived through,
and to-morrow-to-morrow!"


An early hour had been fixed for the
marriage, in order that it might be as
quiet as possibleI it was hardly nine
o'clock, when Mrs. Carter, almost the
only invited guest, arrived at the
church, and took herplace in the vicar
age pew. It was a raw black m morning,
with biting wind, threatening snow.
The wears wife was shivering under
all her wraps, and half sobbing besides,
for she had keen feeling that the eter-
nal fitness Of things, and, above all, the
dignity of womanhood, were outraged
by the purpose for which she had come
there; and that Elsie Clavering, by all
the rules of feminene propriety, was
bound rather to have died of a broken
heart.


"Oh! If John were to die, would /
ever, ever forget him p thought the
warm-hearted little woman. She was
in the midst of doleful, and yet rather
soothing vision of her own inConsolable
conduct at Johns funeral, when sound
in the porch made her turn her head,
and she saw the bridegroom entering,
But such a bridegroom! Philip Den
bigh was at all times palei but the
white, set, ghastly face Of the man then
entering the porch was as unlike the
Philip Denbigh of yesterday as a stiff
fened corpse is unlike the living-breath-
ing creature. Mrs. Carter was abso-
lutely terror-stricken.


"Good God, this man is going mad"
was the thought which flashed across
her. Next moment she smiled at her
own fears, when she saw that the doc
tors manner was quite collected. But
old IsOtt, who, in her cherry-colored
merino and white ribbons, was standing
close by, never took ber eyes off her
master. And she observed what Mrs.
Carter did not, that, when he tried to
pass the time in turning over the leaves
Of a praysr-book, bis hand so shook
that he was obliged to put 1t down and
that all the while he stood with folded
arms awaiting his bride, he was gnaw-
ing his under lip But he was ready
in moment to take his place before
the alter when Elsie arrived, leaning on
the arm of kind old gentleman Of the
neighborhood, who had undertaken to
act as father for the occasion. She had
chosen q very quiet dowager garbi a
dress Of silver gray silk, which fell
about her in soft rich folds, under the
long white burnous; and few green
orange leaves in her small white bonnet
prevented her dress from being half
mourning But she could not have
chosen any dress which would have set
of to greater advantage her childish
feminine beauty.


''SureIy," thought Mrs. Carter, "she
must be startled if she looks at his face"
And a sentence which she had not read
for years came back to her mind: "For
as brent as your brow is, there is that
in it that is near akin to death as to
wedlOck."


But Elsie saw nothingi during the
whole service she did not once raise her
eyes. Only once she shrank, when
Philip seized her hand with grasp as
hot as fra. enuaezin0 her soft little fin
gers with 3 positively painful force.
And once again she started when the ]
--....,. :......ass;va voiaa nronouncad tha