its results to the good of mankind and His own glory. Nor must we forget how strong an indirect influence religion exerts upon unrenewed hearts. Little does a man of the world realize that what he proudly calls his "honor," is but the shadow of the fairer form of Christian virtue; and that his integrity, benevolence, temperance, and whatever is comprehended under the head of morality, have their deep root in the Divine law that thundered from Sinai, and draw their unseen nourishment from the gentle precepts that dropped from the lips of Christ! And even so, human love continually—perhaps unconsciously-touches the hem of her divine sister's robe, and is insensibly penetrated and purified by her virtue. Without this involuntary borrowing, this unacknowledged help, how inevitably would she go astray, how often would she perish!

I (rather sadly). And so Art and Song and Poetry have all gone wrong, in their long apotheosis of human Love! In lavishing upon it their brightest colors, tenderest melodies, and sweetest numbers, they have insensibly led to an undue magnifying of its importance and an over estimate of its power!

BONA. Would it hurt you much if I were to say, yes? Alas! Art, Poetry, and Song, are too much of the earth, earthy; their immortal spirit is hampered by a mortal body, or misread by mortal interpreters. Servants of earthly Beauty, and lovers of earthly Love, artists and poets and musicians forget that no heart was ever regenerated by the one, no soul ever saved by the other! They forget, too, that all of their work which cannot be made to subserve these vital ends, is worthless, and must utterly perish!

I looked grave, perhaps sorrowful. For a moment, I was in doubt how many of the sweet creations of genius would stand this test. But, after a swift, timid glance sent round the world of imagination, I took courage. Few of the characters which one would really sorrow to miss

from that fair land, but shine with some soft reflection of heavenly virtue, or walk in the strength and serenity of a divine faith. Even that genius, which, in its life and creed, violates every principle of religion-sets at naught its precepts and denies its power-is forced, in its works, to pay reluctant homage to the beauty of holiness, and to irradi ate its creations with the light of Divine truth.

Seeing this point established in my mind beyond her power to shake it, Mala suddenly recurred to that at which the talk began. "Still," said she, "we must admit-the experience of the whole world goes to prove it—that nothing develops the higher nature like Love, that it as essential to life's completeness, as it unquestionably is to its happiness."

BONA. We must admit nothing that arraigns God's providence, nothing that questions His wisdom or His goodness. There are lives into which love never enters (in the shape under consideration), yet we may safely believe that God withholds from no soul anything essential to its preparation for a future state of being. If you find Love in your path, either its sunshine or its gloom,-you may fairly infer that it is meant to you for good, that it is a part of that mysterious process, by which time educates for eternity, an instrument which, if used aright, will do you good service in shaping your course for heaven. But if you find it not, you may rest assured that to you it would have been a hindrance and a snare, and you can work out your salvation more surely and safely without it. Be not deceived by that plausible word, " completeness." Human life, being what it is,—a means, a seedtime, a probation, looking to a future state for its end, its harvest, its cntering into possession,-is, and must be, from its very nature, incomplete. No estimate of it, that takes not eternity into the account, is worth anything. But with that important addition, how quickly the balances change! What seems most incomplete here, may there round out

into the fulness of orbed perfection. The life that was lived without love-technically so called-may be found to have been fullest of that divine Charity, who holds both the life that now is and that which is to come in her soft embrace, greatest of "these three,” in their abiding upon earth, and sole survivor of them in the ages of endless fruition and perfect knowing! The point which I wish to impress upon you being, that all material which God gives us, not love, nor talents, nor influence, nor successes alone, but all things, losses, failures, hindrances, disappointments, impoverishments, may be so wrought into our life-temple by patient labor and fervent faith, that the completed structure shall show no deficiency, no incongruity, no want of fair proportion and costly adornment; but every stone shall seem chosen and fitted for its place; and all shall be polished into the similitude of that diviner temple "eternal in the heavens." Human love may be one of its carved and gilded capitals; or a lofty, illuminated arch ; or a great, rich glory of an altar-window, many hued, and crowded with luminous blazonry of sacred symbolism; or only a blood-incrusted, ebony cross; or its absence may make room for a more minute and delicate finish of all the parts, a softer, chaster, more mellow and harmonious diffusion and exquisiteness of beauty!

And yet there is a certain sense in which Love is an ef ficient element of moral training; everywhere felt, but dimly discerned, and therefore vaguely expressed. But that efficiency grows out of its infirmity, its faithlessness, its carthliness, the very qualities, you observe, which most surely detract from the sum of human happiness, and which each one most earnestly deprecates, in his own experience. Yet, like our Lord, we must needs be made. perfect through suffering. And to most hearts no suf fering like that which comes from the affections !-none penetrates so deep, nor rankles so long, nor is so little susceptible of earthly consolation. But, in the black depths

of that bitterest of sorrows, the soul often finds the pearl of divine love, and struggles up with it to the fair shore of Peace. Out of the loneliness of bereavement or desertion is first born that deep, tender, spiritual yearning for the visible presence of its Lord-"My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh also longeth after Thee, in a barren and dry land, where no water is!" And thus we reap a richer harvest from Love's losses than ever we could have gathered in from its increase. Out of its barrenness, or its ashes, its divine sister rises winged, and we are alone no more forever!

All this-and much more-said Bona softly to me over Uncle True's empty chair, from which Mala had flown dis comfited. A wonderful touchstone is it by which to try earthly experiences and possessions. Worldly balances undergo strange transformations in its light; debt and credit, profit and loss, change places. And daily it recalls and points the good old man's last comfortable assurance, "Take my word for't, Miss Frost, the time'll come when you'll thank the Lord more for that cross than for all the pleasant things that ever He poured into your bosom."

And sometimes, Francesca, it seems to me that that time, if not yet come, is swiftly coming-is near at hand.

So near, at least, that I can now bear to set down how the cross came and of what material it was wrought. Now, you shall know all the strange, sad story of the two months that intervened between that joy-cry sent you from the fulness of a happy heart, "Paul has told me that he loves me; count us one forevermore!" and that brief, bitter sentence, wrung from the depths of a crushed, exhausted spirit, "Paul and I are two; never mention his name to me again!"

XLII.

THE TREACHEROUS FLOWER.

EVER till now, Francesca, could I have borne to rake out and sift these ashes of my heart; thank you for awaiting the process so patiently. It is not every friend that knows how to be at once sympathetic and silent, tender without exaction, and interested without inquisitiveness.

But first, how the love was told; for that is essential to a clear understanding of the rest. It so happened that we were all in the drawing-room, on that March morning-Flora; Sylvia Gay, a friend of hers; Marcia Bodley, a friend of mine; Winnie Frost, a friend of yours-when Paul was shown in. It chanced, too, that I was sitting near the door, so I heard him say to the servant in the hall, with marked emphasis, "Miss Winnie Frost, mind;" saw the slight start of surprise and brief expres sion of chagrin with which he caught sight of our party; and felt my cheek flush with a sudden, shy consciousness of what these things might bode. Recovering his equanimity immediately, however, he drew a chair into our circle; and Sylvia, with her wonted, free, dashing manner toward gentlemen, made him acquainted with the subject in hand.

"You are just in time, Mr. Venner. I am taking counsel, and 'in a multitude,' and so forth, there is wisdom. The uncomfortable truth is, that I cannot afford a new dress for Mrs. Bizarre's grand reception to-night, and there must be