barks of unmistakable delight; while the new-comer sought to repulse him quietly, but in vain. At length a voice exclaimed, in distinct, impatient, and not altogether unfamiliar tones:

"Down, Leo! down, sir! down!"

Ruth opened her eyes dreamily; Leo's bark subsided into a low whine.

The next moment the screening boughs opposite parted; in the opening appeared a young man's head and shoulders; on his face was an expression of mingled chagrin, amusement, and deprecation.

"Fairly caught in the act you see!" said he, lifting his hat and bowing with a somewhat exaggerated humility. "Trespassing and—(ugly word!)-stealing. The culprit surrenders at discretion. He throws himself upon your mercy, Miss Frost."

Ruth started up into a sitting posture, and gazed at him with wide open eyes of amazement, still soft with the haze of slumber. I saw him glance at her admiringly.

"Mercy?" I repeated, dryly,-"I doubt if my stock on hand is equal to the demand. Take justice, instead; it is the rarer article, Mr. Cambur."

"True," he rejoined, gravely. "If we could always get perfect justice at the hands of our fellow-men, we should not so often be obliged to ask for mercy. Well, I will try the quality of yours! I suppose I may come into court. Criminals on trial do not usually stand outside, looking in at the window;-though some of them, doubtless, would not object to such a position! You will take it as an evidence of my guiltlessness of evil intent, I hope, that I voluntarily place myself completely in your power."

So saying the artist swung himself down the rock, by the aid of a pendent bough, and sat down upon a huge, outcropping tree-root at its base. The brook flowed and rippled between us.

"There!" said he, putting his hat on the ground be

side him, "that is the proper arrangement. This bank serves for the criminal's box, that for the judge's bench. I await your sentence, Miss Frost. I am curious to taste the flavor of your justice."

I did not answer: my attention was fastened upon Leo. He had followed the artist down the bank; and, being forbidden by a second energetic "Down, Leo!" to spring upon him, he had cast himself at his feet, looking up at him with great, piteous, imploring eyes, and giving vent to his emotions by low, irrepressible sounds, mingled of bark, whine, and howl, yet full of ecstatic joy. In short, he seemed to have unexpectedly encountered the friend of his heart, after a separation of months or years.

"I was not aware that Leo had the honor of your acquaintance," I remarked, glancing significantly at the dog.

"I-I,-" the artist stammered and hesitated, drawing his hand across his brow, "That is to say, dogs always take to me, instinctively," he concluded, somewhat incoherently.

"I should think so," responded I, dryly,-" if Leo's present performance is the usual measure of their taking to!' Do you always 'take to' their names instinctively, too?"

He reddened and bit his lip. "Leo?-ah, yes, to be sure!" said he. "Well, you see, I once had a dog of that name myself; and it seems to come to my lips spontaneously, whenever I speak to one of his kind. Odd that it happens to be your dog's name, too!"

"Very," returned I, with quiet irony. The explanation was plausible enough; but I was too well acquainted with Leo's habitually reserved and dignified deportment toward strangers, to believe, for one moment, that this was his first meeting with Mr. Cambur. Still, if there were a mystery, it was not my business to pry into it. The artist had a right to the possession of. his own affairs;—the more indisputably, because there was something in his face and bearing strongly indicative of inward integrity, and seeming to

be a sufficient guarantee that the ambiguity wherein he chose to leave the present circumstance did not imply anything wrong. Besides, Mrs. Danforth and her friend had vouched, most emphatically, for his character and antecedents. I took pity, therefore, upon his embarrassment at Leo's persistent attention,-so inevitably suggesting a previous acquaintance that he preferred to ignore,—and made an attempt to relieve it.

"Leo! come here!" said I. "Mr. Cambur can dispense with your further attendance. further attendance. Come to me, sir!"

To my extreme surprise, the dog only turned his head, gave me a pathetic, pleading look, wagged his tail,—and resumed his adoring contemplation of Mr. Cambur.

"Go

That gentleman looked more annoyed than ever. to your mistress!" he exclaimed, in a tone of impatient command, accompanied by a gesture of dismissal; but adding, with an immediate assumption of playfulness ;-" No need to stand guard over me any longer, thou black constable! I have given myself up to justice, and I shall bide its course, parole d'honneur."

At his first word, Leo rose, slowly crossed the brook, and threw himself down by my side, with a heavy sigh and a deeply wounded air.

"Now," continued Mr. Cambur, looking much relieved, "I should be glad of the learned judge's decision, if it is ready."

"We will put you on the witness-stand first, if you please. What were you doing, over yonder?"

"Um--sketching."

"The landscape, doubtless," observed I, in a slightly satirical tone. "You might have chosen a better point of view; your look-out from thence could not have been extensive."

"If the truth must be told," he responded, with a mirthful gleam in his eyes, "it was not so much the look-out as the look-in which attracted me.”

"Humph! Let me see your sketch."

He looked steadily in my face, for a moment, as if seeking to read my purpose there; then, he shook his head dubiously.

"Of course, you have a right to demand it," said he; "I do not dispute that. Only, listen to me a moment, first ; I will make a clean breast of the whole matter, I have been rambling over these hills and dales, all the morning. I struck this brook in that dark wood, down yonder, and followed it up; crossing on the stepping-stones, below there, and coming up on this side. Seeing this group of trees, and suspecting that a green nook was here concealed, with a pretty bit of rock and water, I looked in. Imagine my sur prise and delight at seeing two nymphs of the fountain (for such I immediately pronounced them) seated by its brim; the one asleep, the other lost in thought. Of course, I gazed,—it is an artist's delight,-nay, his very life, to look; by it he breathes, feeds, and has his being. Spontaneously, the nymphs had assumed attitudes finer and more picturesque than I could have hit upon, if I had tried for months. In the basin below, the picture was repeated, —line for line, tint for tint, as if they were creatures doubly existent on the earth and in the water, at the same moment. The artist's instinct awoke within me. I sought in my pockets for paper; I found the blank page of a letter; I laid it on the top of my hat, and sketched away as for dear life; trembling lest some chance movement should spoil those charming attitudes, and change those graceful lines, before I could fix them on paper. But my unconscious sitters were immobile as statues-the waking one not less than the sleeper. As I sketched, I saw the finished picture before me; every line, every color, perfect. It hung in a gallery, richly framed, an admiring crowd of spectators before it. Underneath was written, 'DreamReverie-Reflection.' Treat it kindly, I pray you, Miss Frost; upon it I base my hopes of earthly immortality!"

He ended in a tone between jest and earnest, and handed me the sketch across the ripple of the brook. Ruth looked at it with me, leaning over my shoulder,

The figures were clearly, boldly outlined; the background not even hinted at, which Mr. Cambur explained by saying he could come and sketch that, at his convenience. My face was indicated by a few rapid strokes only; it was on Ruth's that he had concentrated his attention. That had been drawn with a lingering tenderness of touch, betraying how deeply his artist-nature had been stirred by a thing so beautiful. The likeness was exact ;-Ruth's face needs no idealizing; it is, in itself, as fair and ideal a countenance as ever hovered in the outer haze of an artist's imagination. The original blushed with pleasure, as she looked at the sketch, drooping her head low; she could not help seeing how lovely it was.

"I think," said I, after examining it carefully, "that I must needs confiscate this. I have long wished for a picture of-by the way, I suppose you must be introduced ;— Miss Winnot!-Mr. Cambur:

(The artist rose and bowed low; Ruth bent her head, blushing):

"But," I continued, "I did not care for a picture of her, taken under the depressing, stiffening influence of a daguerrian gallery. Now, this sketch of yours will do very well. Only, I wish the eyes were open!"

"So do I," responded the artist. "Certain it is, that no one who has once seen them open, could thereafter be wholly satisfied with any picture which only represented them closed. Miss Frost, I think this matter can be arranged to our mutual satisfaction. Permit me to keep my stolen sketch, I am loth to part with it. Bring Miss Winnot to my studio, some day, and I will make you a sketch of her, in color, that cannot fail to satisfy you better than this; though I should need to dip my pencil into some marvelous mixture of dawn red, sunset gold, and twilight