Year: 1878

A clear, beautiful night, with the least
touch of frost in the delicious air, and a
brilliant indigo sky, thickly studded
with stars, like sparks of flame.


In small, neat room on the upper
most floor of six-story tenement, a
pale, petite young lady stood at the one
window thoughtfully watching the mo.
ton and glitter in the street below.


On couch on the other side of the
apartment lay weak-faced woman, evil
IDENTIFY i'll, or, what is worse, thought
herself so. And, in truth, Mrs. Maria
CARL was one of those dependent, cling
ing, unambitious creatures whom the
world pities sometimes, and despises
always. She had been reared in that
unenviable grade of society known as
"genteel poverty that peculiar, sup
erfcial class whose heads and hearts are
as empty as their stomachs, and whose
gilded idleness is poorly suggestive of
Solomon's lilies, inasmuch as neither
one nor the other tolls nor spins. At
twenty she had sold herself to a rich CID
husband, whose childless widow she
had been for years. Mrs. CARL, who
could not make her own caps no more
than she could earn them, AMI who
could not tell mortgage from a love
letter, woke up one fatal morning ant
found herself as poor as she had been il
the days of her girlhood. She felt that
the only role of life left her was that O.
interesting invalid in reduced circum
stances, and she assumed it accordingly.


at was a crushing blow, my dea
MIS-. Grundy, I assure you, and I shall
aever recover from it-never," she was
won't to say, patbetically, behind her
handkerchief of worn and al cent lace.


On this Thanksgiving eve she awoke
rom a prolonged slumber, and saw her
niece, Linnie, standing, pale and pen
sive, beside the window, blurred by the
delicate frost-tracery of the early night.


"Have you made mp your mind yet,
Linnie ?" she inquired fretfully.


"T-I have not, aunty." faltered the
eoung girl, signing as she turned from
the window and paused before large
glass vase, in which a magnificent Span.
lsh lily had just burst into bloom. For
Linnie, those green, rich leaves and the
odor of the creamy flower aroused the
memory of love sweeter than life and
and enduring as mortality itself.


1t was on one delicious April morning
that Erle Warford brought her the
young bulb with its green eaf-plants
just breaking through the sand and
water of the crystal jar, and bade her
tend it carefully in memory of him.
They were not quite so poor then as
they were now. They had pretty rooms,
and she had plenty of work coloring
photographs in dingy pretension of
studio, where she sang all day long
and dreamed happy dreams of her lover
and her future when she should be his
wife.


1t was spring then, and the days were
long and warm, and she was satisfied
with life and all it might bring, despite
the peevish aud eternal repinings OF her
burdensome relative.


1t was winter now, and the days were
brief and dark, with storm and trouble.
She had no work, and the last penny of
her earnings was gone. All her hand
some dresses and precious trinkets were
in the pawn-shop. The last coal was
dying out in the CRATE, and the last
crumbs in the cupbourd would not have
fed "the one sparrow for whom God
caretb.


OF Erie Warford she had not heard
since the day on which he had brought
her the souvenir flower. He might be
untrue, or he might be dead, or the
naughty and eccentric old grandfather
might have cajoled him into some love-
less, selfish marriage.


"Don't be uneasy about the future,
little one," Erie had said at parting:
"The old gentleman has never refused
me anything, and he will not oppose me
oor;ouslv in such momentous matter as
marriage. Before this lilly flowers you
shall be my wife. and he will be quite as
proud and fond Of you as he is indulgent
to me-" and os
she thought Of the inexplicable absence
and silence Of months, q big tear ike o
diamond dewdrop fell and flashed n'o


he heart OF the blossom.