Year: 1874

but Walter Phelps was not of these
He missed Bessie's RANT little face with
its dark beauty, her gay laughter, her
sudden moods of half-pathetic tender
ness; she was woman, you perceive, af-
ter his own heart, while the homage he
had paid to the other for so many years
had been but the clear perception of his
intellect.


He had never been used to self control;
no experience had taught him to submit
patiently TO discomforts of mind or body.
He was uncomfortable now; and his boy
ish impulse was to run away from his
trouble is like the ghost which had tor
mented certain worthy family for years
The good wife finally concluded to move
in order to escape him; but when the !
last load of goods was on the van, a
neighbor passed that way and said, "So
you're moving?' "Yes," cried the ghost,
lifting from among the beds and cush-
ions voice af congratulations; '.Fes, we
re al going" Walter Phelps had not
learned that all maladies which are of
the spirit have wings by right of birth,
and will fly with US wherever We go. He
thought Europe would have resources
enough to put out of mind one little,
brown, mocking face. He would try it.
Miss Sturgiss should go with him, if she
would. He could take her over to the
old Greek marble women, with whom
she seemed to belong. What if she
should choose to turn into stone there,
and live on forever in white dream of
beauty? He laughed at his own conceit,
and then went to his cousin.


With an altogether unfattering
abruptness, he proposed to her to be
married at once, and catch the next
steamer for Europe. The mood to go
was, on him now; he had no patience
with waiting; as for gowns and things,
they were plenty there as blackberries in
New Hampshire.


Miss Sturgis was a thorough bred,
self fconta;ned woman of the world; but
she was neither without heart nor with
out perception. Whether the New
Hampshire in his comparison suggested
any ything to her do not know; but, at
any rate, she had no mind to be married
in an unsentimental haste that did not
even pretend to excuse itself by any
passionate ardor of love.


She refused his proposal with quiet
frmness; and do not think he was at
all sorry to start upon his travels alone


Europe diverted him, however, less
than he had expected. He spoke Amer
lean French, and it did not open to him
any wild delights of a social nature.
For vulgar dissipation he had no taste.
At that stage in his career he was. no
doubt, selfish, ease-loving, good-for-
| naught-but he was always pure-mind-
ed The balls of the Mabille only dis
gusted him-the salons of asociety, cor
responding to his own in New York,
were not open to him. He liked paint
ing and music and sculpture, all of them
with mild, good taste-not one of them
was capable of giving him an intense
emotion. He would have gone home in
year, had not the problem of his life
waited at home for his solution. He sought
for light on it in all the accustomed di-
rections-he wintered in France to 40
purpose-he passed the next winter in
Rome, with 10 better success. A sum-
mer in Switzerland, and another in
northern Europe served him no farther
and at the end of two years he went
home, just as puzzled and uncomforta-
BILE man as when he said away from
New York.


Meantime Miss Sturgis had been
thinking. Would lover who loved her
have stand away two years? When he
had asded her to go with him, had it
not been with make-the- -best-of-it air?


These thoughts were in her mind
when he returned to her, and asked her
if, at last, she were ready to name the
wedding-day. -


She looked at him with a curious ex-
preston of inquiry, just touched, or at
least he thought SO, with scorn.


"This is sweetly courteous of you, I
am sure" she said, in her cold, clear
tones; "but I want to understand you
perfectly-do you ask me to be your


wife because you love me with a love


that would choose me out of all the


world; or because, after our understand


ing in the past, honor constrains you?"


at is late in the day to ask that ques-


tion," he said, with what indignant man


hood he could summon, "now that yo4


have been my promised wife four years" !"


She smiled-a smile which promised


him no consolation.


"Well, will change the conditions,
: then. I am no longer your promised


wife. l withdraw every pledge ever


made you.. Now, if you seek me, it
must be afresh. You have thought me
cold woman; but l tell you that any
man would marry me at his peril who
could not give me the uttermost love OF
his heart. 1t would be treason could
never forgive-I should be inexorable
as death. Do not speak one word more
to me of marriage, unless you know, in


your soul, that you love me with de,
votion that is absolute, exclusive, and
. for all time"


He had never come so near doing just
this thing as at that moment. The keer
excitement of her mood had breathed
life into this seeming statue. Her eyes
shone with new fire. A brilliant scar
L let glowed on her cheeks. There were
e new tones in her we'll voice. H,
n had never found her so intoxicating.
n think he would have thrown himself a
e her feet, but that he feared her. Posi-
bly,, also, he feared himself. 1t may b,
e that he had self-knowledge enough tc
+ understand that when the excitement O
h this mood was over, and she had gon,
/ back to her old graceful and gracious re
q pose, she would fail to satisfy him, a