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"To my room, Frank," she said, as they re-entered the house; "and you, John, run for the doctor."

sight of her face or sound of her voice should aggravate the fearful disease, although the patient had never for an in

"It is brain fever, and the chances are stant seemed conscious of her situation, against her."

"But you must save her," said Frank. "I'll do what I can, my boy;" and he spoke pityingly; for he had been told the whole story, and he knew that if the girl died, Frank's heart would ever after know a torture worse than the fabled hell.

"She must have the best of nursing."

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I will nurse her," said he. "Yes, I will. Small atonement it will be. Leave every direction with me.”

They nursed her together, mother and son, he hardly realizing, in his wild anxiety, how much he was suffering himself with his frozen members. His mother would poultice and plaster and anoint them, though he declared to her in vehement whispers, "he hoped they'd never heal; he deserved to have them raw and running sores all his life."

was so changed that her lover himself hardly recognized her. She seemed to have had ten years added to her life, — years of thrilling experiences too; and fulfilled the usual duties of her mother with such a gentle dignity, and was, withal, so thoughtful and tender of them all that even Frank forgave her the cruel suspicion that had so nearly blighted the health and perhaps the life of the young seamstress.

It came at last; the dreaded crisis. The physician stayed to watch it through, and stood for hours bent over the bed, with a mirror in his hand which from time to time he held to the wasted lips. Frank stood beside him, motionless as though turned to stone. Mrs. Selden knelt on the other side, her face buried in the sheets. Her husband and daughter, with Albert, sat in the next room. Mary was crouched on the threshold of the sick-room, counting her beads. John sat on the first platform, ready for any emergency, while the cook went from range to pantry and pantry to store-room trying to find something more to do than merely keep the fire bright and the kettles bubbling.

Nothing was left undone that money or care could do for that suffering girl. The bells were muffled; the windows trebly lined with quilts to keep out the street sounds; the household went on tiptoe and breathed rather than spoke to each other; the doctor was ordered to get the best counsel the city afforded, while either Frank or his mother sat constantly beside the bed. Mr. Selden spent half his time on the stoop warding off callers and motioning to milk and bread carts to drive softly as possible. John slept on the kitchen floor, in front of the range, lest the fire should go down a moment. The cook kept every conceivable article of sick-room diet spread out on her pantry shelves, and in fifteen minutes could have sent up messes enough for a regiment. Irish Mary, poor girl, her eyes were nearly swollen blind with crying,- sat all day long just outside the threshold of the chamber, and at night she knelt down there and counted her beads, and then stretched herself there to catch the little sleep that her troubled conscience would let her take. sleep. And Belle, poor Belle!-not daring to crawl show her head in the sick-room, lest the thanks.

Through the heavily-lined windows came the muffled sound of one of the city clocks striking twelve. As its last stroke died away, the doctor for, it seemed to Frank, the hundredth time, put the mirror to the white lips. As he lifted it and gazed at it he put it down and felt the pulse, then the heart, then the temples, then drew his fingers across the forehead. Was she dead? A cold sweat burst from every pore of the anxious lookers-on. Again he went through the same processes, and then, turning to Frank, he whispered, "It is past, will live.".

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There was no need to enjoin perfect stillness during the hours that she might They were all only too glad to away to their beds, and give

Frank only sat up to watch

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her. Not even his mother must meet her first conscious look. He, he alone, whose thoughtless act had so nearly killed her, and who had forced a memory into her heart that must canker there forever, must answer her first words.

It was a long, long watch. The night brightened into morning, morning dazzled into noon, and noon faded into twilight, and still she slept. The doctor looked in every two hours, and his brief "She is doing well," was, to the household, like balm to an aching wound.

For a moment after his last call, Frank hid his face in his hands. It was to press back the tears that were threatening to blind him. When he looked again at the sick girl he found her eyes open and saw a wistful look in them. Her lips moved. He bent his head. "Tell me all," she breathed rather than spoke.

"You have been proven innocent, little lamb. You have been very sick, too, and must neither talk nor be talked to. Try to sleep. By and by you shall know all." He gave her the few drops of nourishment that had been ordered, gently lifted her head and smoothed her pillow, and whispering again, "Try and sleep," resumed his watch.

Several times during the night she awoke, and each time said, "Do they all believe me now?" and then fell asleep again.

The next day while his mother watched, Frank went to his own room and read a little parcel of manuscript that the jailer had sent him, and which he said he had found in the cell after she left it. It was the story of her life, briefly told, and in the simplest words, and yet never did the saddest poem so deeply affect the young man's heart. It was the old, old story of the petted daughter of a merchant prince reduced to poverty by her father's failure, and utter loneliness by his sudden death, the old, old story of vain efforts to earn an honorable living in the city of her birth; repulsed by strangers, scorned by the friends of other days, trying now as a music-teacher, then as daily governess, again as assistant in a school, any and everything that a

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young lady would try to do, but failing each time to secure a situation. Everybody seemed to have a music-teacher and a governess, and no school had a vacant post. "Then I tried nursing. My mother had always been sick and my father was delicate, and I had had much experience; but no one would trust me with their dear ones, because I was too young. Alas, and I could only grow older by the day! Then I tried to be waiting-maid; but the ladies all wanted French girls. Then I tried to be child's nurse, but the young mothers were afraid I'd flirt with their husbands, and the older ones afraid their sons would flirt with me. They told me so to my face. Then I tried to be seamstress; but everybody was supplied with one. Then, putting away the last remnant of my pride, and it was a very scanty one then, accepted a situation as chambermaid and waiter in a family I had been intimate with. But, on the second day of my stay, they invited a large dinner-party of the very same young men and girls with whom I had formerly associated as an equal. I went through my delicate duties without a single mistake; but, it was foolish perhaps, wicked even their sneers and winks and contumely were too much, I felt, ever to be endured again, and I left the house that night, and took the first train for Boston, determined to begin a new life where I was utterly unknown. My mother's old nurse had removed here three years before, and to her I went with all my sorrows. She gave me what no rich friend had offered to, a home; and when I had rested and become strong again, procured me the situation of seamstress at Mrs. Selden's."

Then followed the story of her accusation and the assertions of her innocence. The last page seemed to have been written on the day before her deliverance. It was almost illegible; but Frank made out the words, I have such strange thoughts; my head aches so; I get blind at times; I fear I'm going crazy. Oh, if I should get sick and die while they believed me guilty! Oh, it is very, very hard to be patient!

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Poor Frank felt those words every hour in the day and night during the slow convalescence of the poor girl. It was so hard to wait for the color to come back to her cheeks and lips, the lustre to her eye, the voice to her breath, the quickening to her pulse, the strength to her wasted limbs. It was so hard to wait the recital of all till the physician said he might speak. And oh, it was hardest of all to wait till the fitting time should come when he could tell her how dear she had become to him in those long watches, and that only a lifetime of devotion to her could reconcile him, even half-way, to the blight he had thrown on her pure spirit.

His only comfort was in writing daily to his old uncle, to whom he had forwarded her written story. He pondered long over one paragraph in the old man's letters. "You must not be too sanguine of success with her, my boy. Unintentionally you did her a grievous wrong, and it will be very, very hard for her to quite forgive you. Only those who have experienced it can fully estimate the intensity of the anguish which preys upon the soul when its purity has been suspected of stain. If it were a man whom you had harmed so, I should never expect you to be forgiven; but as it is a woman,

a woman in the freshness of life, I well, she'll pity you first, because you feel so badly, and you know what pity is akin to, boy. But don't be too sanguine. These women are riddles, the best of them. They often love where you'd think they'd hate, and hate where you'd think they'd love."

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"Mother!" and he kissed the roguish smile from her lips and hurried up-stairs. It was a long interview. Hours passed unnoticed. The bustle of an arrival down-stairs was unheeded. But when, at length, Mrs. Selden came in to them, though there was a scarlet flush on the young girl's cheeks, she seemed no worse than in the morning.

"What has Frank been saying to you, all this time," said she, gayly. "He has told me all, and asked me to forgive him."

"And did you, darling?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," she said, archly. "How could I refuse? Only think of his frozen toes and fingers and ears and nose and cheeks! I think that ride through the drifts was punishment enough."

"Did he ask you for nothing else, darling?"

The scarlet flush deepened on the cheeks and ran up to the forehead and down over the fair neck; but she said nothing, only looked pleadingly at Frank. "I have asked her to be my wife, mother; and she says if you and father

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"Of course we do, of course; we've talked it all over, and as soon as she gets well you shall be married and have a splendid wedding too. I'll make the cake myself; " and she folded the now weeping girl to her heart.

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But, mother, I don't want to wait till she gets well. She needs me now more than she ever will again. She wants some one to lean on when she tries to walk across the floor; and she wants some one to carry her down-stairs when she goes to ride, and some one to hold her in the carriage when she gets tired.”

Convalescent! Frank, only that it was a broad step to health and strength, would have hated the word; for now that the danger was over, the proprieties of life must be observed, and Frank, instead of going in and out on tip-toe, just as often as he chose, must content himself with an hourly bulletin from his mother, and a gentle tap at the door three times a day, with a bouquet for the patient. "I suppose .she could use a cane, But one sunny day in early spring- Frank; and I suppose your father could time, for the winter was over, his carry her out, and I suppose I could hold mother came down dressed for a ride. her. Why don't you say right out that

you are a selfish fellow, and want her all to yourself. But did you know your Uncle John had come?"

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"Uncle John! no. Bless his dear old soul!" and he whispered something to his darling; but his mother caught the words, "He'll make them all consent." And he did. His own heart had been. completely won by the sad story, and when he came to see the beautiful young creature, her loveliness so spiritualized by sickness and suffering that she seemed almost an angel, he said at once, the best reparation Frank could make her was to take her in her weakness and nurse her into health. "Bring her out to the old farmhouse, boy, as soon as she can be moved, and I'll warrant by fall she'll be well and rosy. And then I'd like a bird in my old cage, boy. I think its singing would make me young again."

And so the old man and the young man had their way. There was a quiet wedding and the ring was a plain gold band, as Frank had said it should be. And if there were more tears than smiles they were tears that sanctified the hearts of those that shed them.

Four weeks later Frank and his bride accompanied their Uncle John to his home on the farin. At Buffalo the old man took the stage, but the newly-married pair traversed the road in a light buggy drawn by old Ned. And if Frank had suffered there nearly the agonies of death on that winter night, on that fair June morning he enjoyed enough to more than compensate him. It was verily to a day of

him
-nor to him alone
heaven upon the earth."

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AN UNFINISHED POEM.

By Mrs. Helen Rich.

THE moon is toiling up yon mount of clouds;
The spring's soft hands are swaying the old elm,
And fairy feet are bending down the grass.
Night is around us, as an unseen spirit,
Filling our souls with soft, mysterious yearn-
ings.

We think of glory and the thrilling shout
Of the admiring world. We dream of music
That rode upon our heart's wild, heaving tide.
As glides the light ship o'er the unfathomed sea.
We muse of childhood, and the wildering joy
That swept our pulses then. We catch the
thought

That struck us blind with brightness, as the sun

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Glares through prison bars, the poet thought That shocked us like a battery, in that sunset hour

When first we met. Ah! when did spirit first
Stand face to face with its fellow? When
First saw my being thine? Listen;
Souls are but words of Deity. They fall
Like jewels from his lips. Some are pearls,
Others are diamonds and stones of lesser price.
Thine and mine
They seek an earthly casket.
Fell like a drop divided from his lips,-
A word two syllabled, a jewel halved.
They have, 'tis true, a separate habitation.
Thine is the fairer temple, and the gem.
Thy angel spirit hath the finer finish,
The richer lustre. But, beloved one,
When God, the soul's great banker, gathers up
Shall we not meet again,
Each coin he issued, making up his jewels,
the gem rejoined,
The word made whole, and thou and I be one?
Then why, my own, refuse to lift thy gaze
Up to these eyes that feast upon thy beauty?
Ormurmur Hush! unto thy own sweet thoughts,
Clothed in another's language? Do not turn
Thy pale cheek from me, as a bright dream flies,
Rested upon my arm, like white dove lit
When we entreat its stay. Thy hand but now
A moment on the casement, tremulous with
fear,

Longing to rest within the fairy realm,
It feared but hid the snare. Ah! thy voice,
A moment since, shook like a warrior's plume,
Throbbed like a dying strain from golden harp.
Now it is calm as death. Methought but now
Thine eyes like azure angel burners
Beckoned me on to the haven of thy heart.
They surely could not wear a base disguise!
Not mine the love dearer than all the world's!
Oh, I am faint with grief! Alas, not mine,
That mocking sunile upon my throbbing woe.
But stay! let me but gaze within thine eyes
I'd read my sentence there. Forbear ! — and
once more;

tears,

Each worth a hundred earths. A crimson flood
Broke over that white cheek, as sunset clouds
Kissing a bunch of lilies! Oh, beloved!
Didst think to cheat me of my soul's rich crown?
To hide from my rapt gaze the world of bliss
Thy love would be to me? These lips -

I'll take them prisoner for this sweet treason,
And punish thus, and thus, and thus.

God, what a cry! It cleft the shuddering brain,

As lightning tears a mast! She stood upright,
Her eyes, a midnight tempest flooded
With tears like summer rain. Her lips,
White as red coral touched with snowy foam,
Trembled; while o'er the velvet of her cheek,
Wave after wave of feeling, as the sea
Washes a stranded corpse, swept madly.
One little hand pressed hard her beating heart,
As if to still its mighty heavings. Hark!
Her voice at last, as breaks the autumn wind
Through leafless bower was heard. She sung
And never misery found casement more fa r,
Through which to look on freedom, than her
heart,

Swanlike, sought burial in a sea of music.

"IN like manner will He come again."

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were scattered here and there, creating such a picture of rural beauty that we could scarce be drawn away from its attraction to attend to our necessary arrangements.

Many were the pleasant strolls enjoyed during this resting-time, the only bar to our full enjoyment arising from the fear of that ocean voyage, which loomed up ominously in the future, not even the prospect of seeing the dear home-faces being quite sufficient to make that great dread of long voyaging grow less in the anticipation.

During those days the Beloved became enamored with the beauties of angling, and we recollect one nice dish of goldenflecked trout, as a result of his practice in the piscatory art. Each day we found some new path for strolling, discovered some new beauty in the scenery around us. It was at this time that we wrote as follows from the top of Mansfell (one among the chain of mountains which encircle the green basin-like valley with a protecting wall), which we yesterday ascended. A more charmingly-varied prospect can scarcely be imagined.

What a succession of charming homepictures gladdened our sight as, leaving the railway train at "Berthwaite," we continued our journey to Ambleside by stage over a pleasant road, lined with tasteful residences, whose ample grounds and wealth of foliage made the district appear one of equal social and natural attraction! Now a glimpse of sparkling water, now a castellated height; here a nestling cottage, nearly smothered in its profusion of vines, and there a park, with winding walks, velvet lawns, and flowery shrubs, sloping down to its terminus of gray stone wall, attracted our admiration. The earth had been newly baptized with copious showers, enhancing the sylvan beauty of this naturally lovely region. The later days of spring, too, were come, and thus we entered upon our new life among the mountains under most propitious stars. Truly was the favorable augury fulfilled during the succeed-ingly grand, possessing more softness of ing weeks, spent recuperating an almost exhausted system, after the fatigues of those many months of going "to and fro

in the earth."

By nightfall, we were comfortably established in a lodging-house, with our cosy apartment of two rooms. In one of these a cheery fire soon blazed, and in less than an hour it assumed a perfectly homelike aspect. From the window of our sleeping-room opened the loveliest view of green fields and distant mountains; while nearer, the village church, with its fine proportions and beautiful enclosure, stood out a symbol of worship before us. Neighboring cottages, built of dark gray stone, with rustic porches and drapings of rich green vines, surrounded by tastefully-arranged gardens,

For grandeur and sublimity the Alps. and Apennines must, of course, remain pre-eminent in our memory; but the mind cannot always be upon the stretch, and, wearied with its tension, gladly seeks repose in scenes less bold, less strik

outline, more minuteness of detail.

From our point of observation, the three lakes, "Windermere." or "Winding Water," "Rydalmere," and "Grassmere" lay before us, gemming the vales below with shining crystal; while the winding "Rothay," a narrow but exquisitely clear stream, was gracefully looped around the velvet fields, like a silver chain on the green bodice of a rustic beauty. Fair, undulating meadows and grassy slopes stretched out in every direc tion, dotted over with flocks of quiet sheep and their frolicking lambkins. Here and there well-conditioned kine were peacefully feeding. Occasionally, one of the picturesque cottages, completely draped with clinging vines, or the pointed gables of some tasteful villa,

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