Year: 1876

ton of '4S, and had been compelled after
its failure to fly the country. He had


come to America, and, being penniless


had been compelled to take up the first


pursuit that offered itself. In his owl


land nearly everybody has some knowl


edge of music but Andrea was an anna
teur of more than ordinary merit, and
he naturally became a teacher of sing
ing. Margaret Ascot was his favorite
pupil. He saw in her everything that
youthful manhood in its highest type
admires she saw in him a hero and q
martyr. Compared with the prosaic
young men OF business or the cold, cal
culating lawyers, or the idle men of
fashion, who constituted the bulk of her
admirers, he was prince in disguise, a
young god


Parents do not sufficiently make al
lowances for the imaginative elements
of their daughters. They fancy that at
nineteen girls can feed as their mothers
do at forty; that the dry husks of mat
ter-of-fact life are sufficient for them. 1t
is not so. and Mr.. Ascot, though sens
ible man in other respects, could not
understand why his daughter was cold
to her wealthy lovers and had given her
heart to the exile.


When Margaret, hopeless of altering
her fathers opinion, finally eloped with
her lover, his wrath knew no bounds.
He refused to answer her letter an
nouncing the marriage; and when, a
few weeks later, she came in person, he
had her literally thrust from the door.


After vainly trying to get some other
employment-fo Mr.. Ascot's influence
deprived Andrea of all his pupils-the
young couple went abroad. For while
they lived in London; but afterward
Andrea returned to Italy and there strug-
gled on until he died. He left his wild
ow penniless; she had only money
enough to pay her passage to America,
whittier she had resolved to come, in
hopes by last appeal to soften her
fathers heart. 1t was winter voyage
and Margaret caught violent cold,
which threatened an Inflammation of the
lungs. She could only crawl feebly to
the nearest lodging on the night she
landed-a miserable attic.


The next day Margaret wrote note
to her father, trusting to her boy to de-
liver it, as she was too i'll to go out her
self. Knowing that Mr.. Ascot would
be out during the day, she had deferred
sending the Lad until toward nightfall;
but hardly had he left before she began
to think of the perils he ran alone
in that great city. Perhaps, she
said to herself, he has fallen down
some open area perhaps he sank cold
and insensible in some bank of snow.
When eight o'clock struck from O neigh
boring steeple, and still her boy did not
return, she became almost wild with
fright. Ten o'clock came, but still no
son. She listened intensely for the
sound of his feet, but she heard nothing
but the roar of the storm. At last her
anxiety and fear rose to frenzy she was
sure her boy was dead. Eleven o'clock
struck. Her candle had burned down
into the socket and was almost on the
point of expiring. Suddenly the sound
of carriage wheels, n-uffied by the snow,
was heard the carriage stopped. Sure
ly that was the opening of the street
door there were steps ascending the
stairs. Yes, she could not be mistaken,
they were the steps of her boyi The
door of her room flew open and her son
rushed in.


Mother, mother!" he cried, finging
his arm eagerly around her, ct came as
soon as could. And oh mother, /
have brought grandfather with me.
See I"


She looked past her son, scarcely be-
lieving her own eyes. There, just be-
hind her boy, stood her father. She
rose up in bed she held out her arms.


"Father !" she sobbed. 1


I" Margaret, my child |" And then
they were locked in each others arms,
and both were in tears.


ST can die in peace now," she MUIR
INJURED, after while, as she chung to her
fathers breast, "since you have for
given me. You will promise to take care
of Thorntong"


"Die!" cried the father, rising bolt
upright and fairly lifting her from the
bed, all the strength of his youth COM
ing back in that supreme moment.
"You shall not die. You are going
home with us we have brought blankets,
food, everything. The risk is not 30
great as remaining another night here |;
physicians-th best-shall be called in.
No, you shall not die You have not
come home to die"


Nor did she die. Our simple tale has
already been too long in the telling, or
we might narrate how the sense of rest
and peace that grew up in her now, the
skillful care of the best physicians, and
the knowledge that her boys future was
assured, all combined to work cure
that, otherwise, might have been re-
garded as almost miraculous.


To-day there is no more beautiful
woman of her years in that great city
than Margaret. She lives only for her
father and her boy they come. at
least, before everything else. But she
does not exclude herself entirely from
society. To the select and cultivated
circle of which she is the center and
chief ornament, she gives freely Of her
varied accomplishments and of her ex-
quisite charm of manner. But the
memory of her dead husband is still
green in her heart and ever will be ; and
though men of high station and even
worldwide celebrity would WOO her, IL
she would, to be the light of their home.
they know, one and all, that her first and
last love lies buried in that lonely grave
on the blue shores of the Riviera, to
which, every year or two, she makes a