meadow, where fragrant white clover lay thick and heavy, like a harvest of pearls in the grass, divided the orchard from one of those old-fashioned tree embowered farmhouses that in New England are always a picturesque feature in almost every landscape. When the young couple reached the stone wall which divided the clover lot from the orchard, they paused once more, and Franklin wrung the little hand that clasped his.

"I must go now," he said, "it is late, and young Brownson is at the tavern, expecting me."

Ellen started, and turned a shade paler.

"Young Brownson!" she said, "I-I thought that he had gone south weeks ago."

"No he heard of my intention to go while in Boston, and came back that we might travel together. I thought had seen him."

that you

"No," replied Ellen, and her voice faltered; for a new and overpowering foreboding of evil came over her, "I have not seen him." She paused, looked hurriedly around and then holding Franklin's hand between both hers looked earnestly in his face, while the breath came unequally through her parted lips. Franklin mistook this emotion; he thought that her anxious and troubled look arose from a feeling that the parting moment was upon them; the strong control with which he had curbed his own feelings, was fast yielding to a sight of her increasing anguish, and without waiting for the words that trembled on her lips, he flung his arms around her, strained her for a single moment to his bosom, and with a half smothered "God bless you beloved," sprang over the wall, and was out of sight, before the glow of his farewell kiss had faded from her forehead. "Oh heavens! he is gone; and it is too late," sobbed the poor girl, clasping her hands and sinking to a frag-. ment of stone that had cast from the wall. "Franklin! Franklin!" she started up, and her faint cry sounded

plaintively on the still air, for emotion deprived her voice of its usual power. But though faint and mournful, it seemed to have reached the ear of her lover; a rapid step coming along the foot-path, down which he had gone, fell upon her ear: the shadow of a man gliding over the turf met her tearful gaze, and clasping her hands with a sob of joy, she sat down again, striving to compose her thoughts, that her confession might be made in as brief words as possible.

She was scarcely seated, when, with a single leap, the person whom she had seen approaching, sprang over the wall, and stood by her side.

"Miss Fleming."

At the sound of his voice, Ellen started to her feet as if a serpent had stung her; a look of affright broke through her eyes, and she shrunk back against the wall. A young man, some three or four and twenty, stood before her, with his hand extended as if he expected that she would take it, and even in the moonlight she could see that a derisive smile hung upon his lips.

"You seem surprised at seeing me here Miss Ellen," he said, allowing the hand she had refused, to drop quietly by his side.

"I thought I hoped you had left the neighbourhood," was the faint reply.

“What? without saying farewell-You do me injustice --I could not have been so neglectful;" there was a covert sneer in his voice, and he glanced at the shrinking girl, from under his half closed lashes with a look of sinister enjoyment. She drew back with a thrill of disgust, and cast an imploring look around as if still hopeful that Franklin might be within hearing.

"I am fortunate in meeting you alone, and in this retired place," said the young man, drawing closer to her and speaking impetuously, though in a subdued voice, "I have little time, but enough, to ask if you are still obdurate

against me; if no afterthought has softened your heart toward one who has loved you so devotedly."

"Mr. Brownson why will you intrude the subject on me again?" cried Ellen, raising a portion of her natural dignity. "I have told you how impossible it is for me to think of you as a husband. I have given you a sufficient reason."

"No! not sufficient, because not the true reason," replied the young man, more bitterly than he had yet spoken. "That you have seen me, or rather heard of me overcome by wine, once or twice, is no reason that men would not laugh at."

"Have I not said that I cannot love you," cried Ellen, striving to force away the hand he had taken, in spite of her resistance.

"Yes! that you cannot love me, because I am a drunkard-a drunkard when?"

"I said that I could not love you," replied Ellen, with dignity; though her voice trembled: "not because you were intemperate had it been otherwise, all hopes of affection from me would have been the same. Still though I had loved you better than my own life, this one habit would have decided my heart against you."

"So you would have me think that indulgence in a glass of wine, now and then, has lost me all chance of this pretty hand," said Brownson, half mockingly; lifting the struggling hand forcibly to his lips. "Now if the night had been less still-and the shadow of the wall not quite so convenient, I might have believed this; but after seeing you in Franklin's arms, with his lips upon your forehead, after ten o'clock at night-"

"That you have seen me taking leave of my future husband, the man to whom I have been engaged during the last three months, is a fact for which you the unwelcome intruder should blush. I can only feel indignant," exclaimed Ellen, interrupting him with modest firmness.

"This scornful expression is piquant and becoming,"

was the quiet reply. "But listen to me Miss Flemingnay do not struggle, I will be heard; have no fear, I am not about to offer unwelcome love to you again: but I could not leave this part of the country, without thanking you for the pleasure your society has afforded me; both in love and hate you have been an object of great interest to me."

"In hate," repeated Ellen, shrinking from the burning glance which made her shudder though subdued by the soft moonlight. "What have I done to merit so wicked a feeling?

"You have rejected my love; you have scorned my habits is not that enough ?"

"I have pitied your habits, not scorned them."

"I asked for love, and you gave me pity; in return I rendered hate, that shall reach you years and years from now!"

There is no describing the malignant and bitter expression that swept over Brownson's face; as he spoke, his dark eyes gleamed, and specks of foam flew to his lips. "You refused me, because I sometimes drain a glass with my friends. Look on me Ellen Fleming, you will yet sleep in the bosom of a drunkard !"

"Never! never!" cried the young girl, affrighted by his fiendish look, and more fiendish prophecy; and with sudden strength, she wrenched her hand from his grasp. "Leave me, sir, it is late; and I must go home."

"I will leave you," now cried the young man, seizing her hand, and wringing it hard. "When we meet again, you will remember the words I have spoken this night."

"Would to Heaven I could forget them," cried the poor girl, as she fell shuddering against the rough stones, with both hands pressed upon her eyes.

When Ellen looked up she was alone, but the words of her tormentor were ringing at her heart, and that night

was the most wretched one her innocent life had ever known.

Every human life has its vulture thought, and this it was that fastened itself upon the heart of Ellen Fleming.

CHAPTER II.

THEY stood together, Franklin and young Brownson, on one of those magnificent steam-boats, that plough the mighty waters of the Mississippi. The distant shores, heavy with dank foliage, lay on either hand flat and sedgy, while the turbid waters of the great river surged and weltered around them with the force of an unpent ocean.

Every thing was unlike the scenery of his own mountain state, and yet the very contrast that it presented, brought all the sweet home scenes that he had left to Franklin's mind. For the first time in many days, he was alone and thoughtful. The excitement of travel, new scenes, and persons altogether unknown, would have disturbed a mind vivid and imaginative as his at any time; but he had never found a moment's time of that quiet solitude necessary for reflection. His travelling companion was ever at his elbow, full of wit, ready to communicate the knowledge won by former experience and at all times devoting himself as it were to the amusement of his companion with a quiet earnestness that excited no power or wish of resistance.

Brownson had left him for a moment and Franklin leaned over the railing, glad to think of home-and yet with a vague sensation of self-reproach, that made solitude not quite happiness. When before had two weeks gone by without affording hours and hours of sweet reflection, when his full heart panted for the society of that one dear object? When had he ever sunk to rest, without some holy