Earth, sea, and sky reflecting, as she flew, Yet here, methinks, Truth wants no ornament, in her own shape MARRIAGE. (From "Human Life.") THEN before All they stand - the holy vow ANNA KATHARINE ROHLFS. ROHLFS, ANNA KATHARINE (GREEN), an American novelist; born at Brooklyn, N. Y., November 11, 1846. After graduating at Ripley College, Poultney, Vermont, in 1867, she lived in Buffalo. In 1884 she was married to Charles Rohlfs of Brooklyn. She has published several detective stories, including "The Leavenworth Case" (1878); "A Strange Disappearance" (1879); "The Sword of Damocles" (1881); "X. Y. Z." (1883); "Hand and Ring" (1883); "The Mill Mystery " (1886); "7 to 12" (1887); "Behind Closed. Doors" (1888); "A Matter of Millions" and "The Forsaken Inn" (1890); "The Doctor, His Wife, and the Clock" (1895); "Dr. Izard" (1895). Mrs. Rohlfs is also the author of the "Defence of the Bride, and Other Poems" (1882), and "Risifi's Daughter," a dramatic poem (1886). THE CONFESSION OF TRUEMAN HARWELL.1 (From "The Leavenworth Case.") I AM not a bad man; I am only an intense one. Ambition, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge- transitory emotions with some are terrific passions with me. To be sure they are quiet and concealed ones, coiled serpents that make no stir till aroused, but then, deadly in their spring and relentless in their action. Those who have known me best have not known this. My own mother was ignorant of it. Often and often have I heard her say, "If Trueman only had more sensibility! If Trueman were not so indifferent to everything! In short, if Trueman had more power in him!" It was the same at school. No one understood me. They thought me meek; called me Dough-face. For three years they called me this, then I turned upon them. Choosing out their ringleader, I felled him to the ground, laid him on his back and stamped upon him. He was handsome before my foot came down; afterwards - Well, it is enough he never 1 Copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons. called me Dough-face again. In the store I entered soon after, I met with even less appreciation. Regular at my work and exact in my performance of it, they thought me a good machine and nothing more. What heart, soul, and feeling could a man have who never sported, never smoked, and never laughed? I could reckon up figures correctly, but one scarcely needed heart or soul for that. I could even write day by day and month by month without showing a flaw in my copy, but that only argued I was no more than they intimated, a regular automaton. I let them think so, with the certainty before me that they would one day change their minds as others had done. The fact was, I loved nobody well enough, not even myself, to care for any man's opinion. Life was well-nigh a blank to me; a dead level plain that had to be traversed whether I would or not. And such it might have continued to this day if I had never met Mary Leavenworth. But when, some nine months since, I left my desk in the counting house for a seat in Mr. Leavenworth's library, a blazing torch fell into my soul whose flame has never gone out and never will, till the doom before me is accomplished. She was so beautiful! When on that first evening I followed my new employer into the parlor, and saw this woman standing up before me in her half alluring, half appalling charm, I knew as by a lightning flash what my future would be if I remained in that house. She was in one of her haughty moods and bestowed upon me little more than a passing glance. But her indifference made slight impression upon me then. was enough that I was allowed to stand in her presence and look unrebuked upon her loveliness. To be sure it was like gazing into the flower-wreathed crater of an awakening volcano. Fear and fascination were in each moment I lingered there; but fear and fascination made the moment what it was, and I could not have withdrawn if I would. It And so it was always. Unspeakable pain as well as pleasure was in the emotion with which I regarded her. Yet for all that I did not cease to study her hour by hour and day by day; her smiles, her movement, her way of turning her head or lifting her eyelids. I had a purpose in this; I wished to knit her beauty so firmly into the warp and woof of my being that nothing should ever serve to tear it away. For I saw then as plainly as now, that coquette though she was, she would never stoop to me. No; I might lie down at her feet and let her trample over me, she would not even turn to see what it was she had stepped upon. I might spend days, months, years, learning the alphabet of her wishes, she would not thank me for my pains or even raise the lashes from her cheek to look at me as I passed. I was nothing to her, could not be any thing unless as this thought came slowly I could in some way become her master. Meantime I wrote at Mr. Leavenworth's dictation and pleased him. My methodical ways were just to his taste. As for the other member of the family, Miss Eleanore Leavenworth she treated me just as one of her proud but sympathetic nature might be expected to do. Not familiarly, but kindly; not as a friend, but as a member of the household whom she met every day at table, and who, as she or any one else could see, was none too happy or hopeful. Six months went by; I had learned two things: first, that Mary Leavenworth loved her position as prospective heiress to a large fortune above every other earthly consideration; and secondly, that she was in the possession of a secret which endangered that position. What this was, I had for some time no means of knowing. But when later I became convinced it was one of love, I grew hopeful, strange as it may seem. For by this time I had learned Mr. Leavenworth's disposition almost as perfectly as that of his niece, and knew that in a matter of this kind he would be uncompromising; and that in the clashing of these two wills something might occur which would give me a hold upon her. The only thing that troubled me was the fact that I did not know the name of the man in whom she was interested. But chance soon favored me here. One day month ago now I sat down to open Mr. Leavenworth's mail as usual. One letter- shall I ever forget it? - ran thus: MR. HORATIO LEAVENWORTH: HOFFMAN HOUSE, March 1st, 1876. a DEAR SIR,-You have a niece whom you love and trust, one too who seems worthy of all the love and trust that you or any other man can give her; so beautiful, so charming, so tender is she in face, form, manner, and conversation. But, dear sir, every rose has its thorn and your rose is no exception to this rule. Lovely as she is, charming as she is, tender as she is, she is not only capable of trampling on the rights of one who trusted her, but of bruising the heart and breaking the spirit of him to whom she owes all duty. honor, and observance. VOL. XVII.-32 If you don't believe this, ask her to her cruel, bewitching face, who and what is her humble servant and yours, HENRY RITCHIE CLAVERING. If a bombshell had exploded at my feet, or the evil one himself appeared at my call, I should not have been more astounded. Not only was the name signed to these remarkable words unknown to me, but the epistle itself was that of one who felt himself to be her master, a position which, as you know, I was myself aspiring to occupy. For a few minutes, then, I stood a prey to feelings of the bitterest wrath and despair; then I grew calm, realizing that with his letter in my possession, I was virtually the arbitrator of her destiny. Some men would have sought her there and then, and by threatening to place it in her uncle's hand, won from her a look of entreaty if no more; but I—well, my plans went deeper than that. I knew that she must be in extremity before I could hope to win her. She must feel herself slipping over the edge of the precipice before she would clutch at the first thing offering succor. I decided to allow the letter to pass into my employer's hands. But it had been opened! How could I manage to give it to him in this condition without exciting his suspicion. I knew of but one way; to let him see me open it for what he would consider the first time. So waiting till he came into the room, I approached him with the letter, tearing off the end of the envelope as I came. Opening it, I gave a cursory glance at its contents and tossed it down on the table before him. "That appears to be of a private character," said I, "though there is no sign to that effect on the envelope." He took it up while I stood there. At the first word he started, looked at me, seemed satisfied from my expression that I had not read far enough to realize its nature, and whirling slowly around in his chair devoured the remainder in silence. I waited a moment, then withdrew to my own desk. One minute, two minutes passed in silence; he was evidently rereading the letter, then he hurriedly rose and left the room. As he passed me I caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. The expression I saw there did not tend to lessen the hope that was rising in my breast. By following him almost immediately up stairs I ascertained that he went direct to Mary's room, and when in a few hours later the family collected around the dinner table, I perceived, |