Year: 1870

mantle-piece should be taken down; YOU
wouldn't wish to break your promise 10
your own little Miss Oily who loves you
SOP"


Miss Penelope-sndeavoredt to be firm and
remain indignant, ,for the insult to the trea-
sured heirloom was not to be patiently
su admitted to-: but it was of no use, and she
finally yielded, as she always did.


Miss Amelia .cSolly informed Susan that
she had dropped the watch down the crack;
and although Susan listened with appraised
hands and eyes, she declared she was not
the least astonished; Miss Dilly would do
mischief, she supposed, to the end of her
days.. .fs I. .---- r-r


Miss Dilly had taken the precaution to
drop in few advertisements; SO when the
chimney-piece was taken down, and while
Miss Penelope and Susan were anxiously
examining the watch, she secured the
precious letter among the advertisements
and no one noticed it. When alone in her
room she carefully fastened the door, and
then sat breathelessly gazing at the i'm
portant document for several moments be.
fore daring to open it. But when she did
and read in it how deeply Stephen loved
her. how she was the only woman in the
world to him, her heart stood still for very
rapture; she conscious of but one
thought and that filed her to the exclu-
sion of all others Stephen loved her
After a time she read the letter more at
tentively, for at first the words swan in
golden light, very beautiful but very be-
wildering; and then she found that no re.
quested her, If her answer was unfavorable,
not to speak or write to him upon the sub
ject; words would, he said, be unendur-
able; if she could not accept his love let
him know it by utter silence, and in silence
be would endeavor to bear it. Then she
saw how he must have misunderstood her
jesting words that night, and her heart
sank down from its height of Joy when she
reflected with what contempt he must have
looked upon her when he imagined that
she made mockery If his love, and intend
ed telling the Cuban of it as a matter of
amusement.


This thought was more than she could
bear; his love, perhaps, had passed from
her forever, but his respect she would not
lose; he should know that she was no dis
honorable firt; he should give her place
in his esteem, if not in his Affections. She
snatched up pen and paper. and dashed off
few hasty lines, telling him how the letter
was lost. and that it had just then been dis
covered by the taking down of the chin
ney-piece; that when it fell in the crack
she supposed 1t was from q friend in New
York on the subject of party: aid that
her idle words applied to that. She never
mentioned love. but told him she could not
bear to forfeit the esteem ofso dear friend.
Then, trembling with excitement, she hur-
ried to the village and mailed her letter;
after that she sought secret nook deep in
4 fha n1c. IN, t.b h
ed, and lying on the soft crisp leaves. wept
as though her heart would break. Doubts
seixed ker - had she done something bold
and unwomanly? She could not tell; all
was in maze; and finally. sick at heart,
and in body too, from heightened weeping,
she dragged herself home, and was in bed
two days; during which time lIiss Pene.
lope, Susan and Jenny stole up and down
stairs and about the house like frightened
mice, and in a great state of anxiety, Miss
Penelope was firmly convinced that Dilly
was going into brain fever, and that the
pulling down of the chimney-piece was the
FIRST symptom of it. Of course shesent with
all speed for the doctor. who Indignantly
informed he anxious aunt that be consid-
cred 1t rather an attack of irritability than
snthing else, Dilly having received him
very ungraciously, fiatly telling him that
she would not swallow one atom of his mas
~, useless, poisonous doses. Being of q
positive nature, she did not; and in few
days emerged from her room, looking much
ss usual, though shade paler.


Suspense is hard to bear, and so Dilly
found it; but she also made another discov-
cry and that WAS that she loved Stephen
more and more each day, and that this
love had stuck its roots so deeply in her
heart that poor coquetry had withered and
died for want of room and moisture.


Stephen had asked for silence in case
Dilly had no love to give him; but when,
in answer to her letter, he arrived, deter
mined to make one more effort, he was not
only satisfied with his Dilly's silence, but
thought it more speaking than thousand
words- For when he stood before her, and
she started up, shy, trembling, pale, he saw
in her swiftly falling glance the look his
heart thirsted for, and when he opened his
longing arms, Dilly answered Kim by SIM
ply nesting in them, and holding her face
upon his faithful breast.