What I did, then, should be done openly. I took my pen, and dashed off this:

"He that could trust his happiness to so fragile a thing as a flower, deserved the swift retribution that overtook him. But the spring will bring again saffrona buds as sweet as those that perished with their mission but half fulfilled; and for hopes which we mourn as dead, there may also be a springtime and a reblooming. So (speaking as the spirit only moveth her) saith

"FRANCESCA GOLDEN."

Reading it over, I thought I might have signed it “Pythia," with fitness; it sounded oracular enough. But its meaning would not be dark to Paul Venner. And I sealed and sent it forthwith.

Then I began to be dubious. I discerned that none can go back to the precise place in life, he has left behind. Circumstances have dug it up, or built a wall around it, or greened it over, or blighted it with barrenness. Or he has grown, or dwindled, and no longer fits into it.

Besides, there is no such thing as a perfect reparation on earth. When a man would restore the fair image of Right to the place from whence he stole it, the old niche is filled up or vanished. He must take up with the one which nearest resembles it; or go on with his burden, vowing to steal no more.

Perhaps Winnie and Paul have lived so far past that old point of divergence, as to make it impossible to return! Perhaps it is too late for the old mistake ever to be set right. Perhaps Winnie's love is dead, as she thinks; and not in a trance, as I have taken for granted! Perhaps Paul, in "finding all," counts nothing lost! Perhaps―

I am in a state of mortal bewilderment with all these perhapses! Write quickly, and settle me into a certainty of having done well, or ill; either would be preferable to these doubts. Thine, FRANCESCA.

XLIV.

A NOTE OF WARNING.

[Alice Prescott to Francesca.]

EAR Mrs. Golden: I am sorry to have to tell you that Miss Frost is very ill-with that dreadful fever which has already caused us so much sorrow. Will you come to her at once, and also send word to her uncle in New York? We could not find his address among her papers, and none of us happen to know it. We found yours, however, and therefore I write to you; indeed, I should have done so in any case, for I feel certain that she would send for you, first of all, if she could. At present she is unconscious, and recognizes no one.

I think her illness began early last week: I remember she said to me that she had been writing you a long letter, and that it had been difficult to finish it satisfactorily;"My mind seemed all afloat, I could not anchor it anywhere," was her expression. All through the week she was not quite her usual active, cheery self; but she declared positively that she was "not sick, only tired and languid," and as Uncle True's death had left us all in an exhausted and dispirited state, it did not occur to us to be uneasy about her until day before yesterday. Then grandma announced that it was "high time to take her in hand," and did so, administering medicine and forbidding her to leave

her room. Yesterday she was so much better as to dissipate all our anxiety. This morning, on entering her room, I was terror-stricken to find her delirious; she called me "Annita," and began talking to me in Italian. I could just make out that she fancied herself in Italy. We sent for the doctor. Ile looked very grave, and told us "it was always safest to prepare for the worst, while hoping for the best."

We shall send to the depot at every train, after to-morrow morning. Meanwhile, be quite sure that she will have every care and comfort. Aunt Vin came up as soon as she heard of her sickness, took off her bonnet, and proclaimed that she had "come to stay, wanted or not." She immediately took charge of the sick-room, and she is a most experienced nurse. As for Ruth and I, either of us would give our lives for Miss Frost, and we shall not leave her a moment. Besides, we have almost too many offers of help, watchers, etc.; there has been a continual stream of people coming and going, to inquire after her or to tender assistance, ever since the evil tidings went out. I tell you all this, that you may know that there are plenty of loving hearts and willing hands about her, that will not let her miss anything they have to give. Still, we should be glad to have some of her own friends here, to share the responsibility; and we thought Mr. Frost might wish to bring a physician from the city.

Yours truly,

ALICE PRESCOTT.

XLV:

THE SPIRIT OF HEAVINESS.

[Francesca to her Husband.]

T is little more than a week since I wrote you. It is years since I wrote you. The one being the literal fact; the other the felt truth. Such days as those through which I have just lived are not to be measured by clock-strokes. They stagger under a weight of event, emotion, possibility, which sets the night afar off from the morning, and the morning at a weary year's jour ney from the night.

Alice Prescott's letter, herein enclosed, will tell you all it told me. Before I had well finished it, I was thrusting indispensables into a travelling-bag. On my way to the depot, I telegraphed "Uncle John." In half an hour I was on board the express, dashing southward. Two changes of cars and eight hours of travel brought me to Shiloh station at dusk.

A tall, erect, broad-shouldered, gray-headed man; keen of eye, benignant of face; with an enormous black dog at his side; stood on the platform, expectantly. Straightway I went to him. "Mr. Divine, how is Winnie?"

The answer came through quivering lips, ending with a sound akin to a sob:

"Sinking fast."

Recovering himself, the farmer asked, "Are you the

only one?" And he looked behind me as if I should have been leader of a troop.

"The only one. I am Francesca Golden. Is not Mr. Frost arrived?"

He shook his head.

"I telegraphed him at once," said I. "He should have been here first. He had not half the distance to come."

"The worst of it is that this is the last train, and he cannot get here now till morning," said he. "And I'm afraid-"

But the fear, whatever it was, would not "out." No need.

I got into the wagon without another word. The station was on a hill, lit pallidly by the latest gleam of the west. From it the road sank swiftly toward the shadow of the valley below; hiding itself, as it went, under the gloom of trees. We sank with it, drearily. "Sinking fast," rever berated dismally through my heart. Everything was sinking with her, into the dusk of grief, the blackness of despair, the night of death!

Clay Corner, with its clustering lights, its hum of busi ness, its murmur of falling water, its red glow of a blacksmith's forge, was quickly reached, and left behind. In the darkness beyond, the farmer found voice, and even a degree of eloquence. Winnie's goodness, Winnie's talents, Winnie's genuineness, these were the heads upon which he enlarged, as if enamored of the subject. Especially did he dilate upon her unlikeness to "city folks," as he had known them.

"I own I didn't use to take to 'em much," said he. "There was more 'fine feather' than 'fine bird' about 'em, I reckoned. They came and went among us like comets in the sky; no great shakes for light, and no account at all to steer by. They sickened us with their condescension, or riled us with their superciliousness. They left their religion at home, mostly, in their five-hundred-dollar pews with