IF anything could make one sure of a destiny that shapes our ends, and against which it is of very little use to contend, it would be the odd and apparently unaccountable freaks that now and then take possession of a man, and lead him to do something altogether outside of his usual routine and contrary to his habits of life. In the case of a man of leisure, whose inclination naturally forms his habits, you might easily suppose them contrary to his inclination, as well. It was a freak of this kind which led Walter Phelps to refuse to join a family party, consisting of his own mother and sisters, his younger brother John, and his cousin, Miss Margaret Sturgis, with her maiden aunt. They were to make the tour of the Northern lakes, and to settle down for a few restful weeks in the Lake Superior region, returning in time for the grand climacteric at Saratoga, and the parting glories of the season at Newport.

He wanted a little outing quite to himself, he said, and said it as one who was in earnest. It was something new for him. He was one of the men fond of being entertained, and accustomed to be made much of; fond, too, of his own womankind, and usually quite to be relied on for

escort duty. His mother and sisters had remonstrated at first, but he told them that, with John in attendance, they surely would not need him. And Miss Margaret Sturgis, his cousin, maintained that he was quite right. So they had started for the north-west, and he for the north-east at about the same time. He had provided himself with the multitudinous equipment of an angler, and already he had stopped in two or three different small villages in New Hampshire, failing so far to find a spot which the trout and he were agreed in approving.

At last, one evening, he was staging it through the beautiful Pemigewasset valley, and watching the sunset glory upon the hills and over the tranquil river. They were just entering a little village, and he turned his eyes by chance-still Destiny, you see, was playing him as if he had been a pawn on a chess-board-away from the river, crimson with sunset, to notice on the other side a picturesque old house among the trees. As they came opposite the door, he saw standing in it a girl whose lovely piquant face flashed on his sight for a moment and then vanished, as the stagedriver, after the manner of his tribe, whipped up his tired horses into a wild

spasm of despairing energy in order to • drive up in state to the hotel. Mr. Phelps had meant only to spend the night in this little village of Riverside; but it began to look to him like a good trout region. When he was shown into a large comfortable chamber overlooking the river, his conviction strengthened; and by the time he had eaten his neatly-served, well-cooked supper, he was sure that if the trout did not come there it was so much the worse for the trout.

A soft summer moon was rising as he went out on the piazza, and he strolled away in the tempting summer night, and went-but this was of set purpose and not at all to be put down to the account of Destiny-toward the house where he had seen the vision of fresh, young loveliness in the doorway. It was a picturesque old place, a square house, the roof sloping up on each side toward a square erection, which was a sort of large-sized cupola. The trees that overshadowed this New England home were old and stately enough for an English park-haughty-looking trees, though they belonged to plain New England people. I use that word belonged, as if it were not a mockery to talk of transient wayfarers on this planet as owning the solid earth, the waiting hills, the whispering trees, that were here long before they came; that will be here, glowing in the warmth and light of each day's sunshine, long after these brief sojourners are dust. Shall property mock its possessor with its own permanence? There is only one Proprietor, because only one who can outlast his possessions; and when David said, "The earth is the Lord's," he understood the secret of ownership.

But Walter Phelps was not of a speculative turn of mind; he only thought of the trees as indicating an old estate. "Some of our stout New England yeomanry," he mused, "who may very likely have lived here for generations. The old house seems almost as strong as the land it is built onbut that girl looked like an exotic. She must be worth knowing, if one could only find out a way. But she is not the girl, nor are such people as live here the people, to permit any impertinent familiarity." Just then Destiny took up the cards again, and shuffled them for him.

A horse came tearing along the country road at a frightful pace. It took only a glance to show the looker-on that he was running away. The vehicle, a sort of

Dr.'s sulky, was swaying from side to side, and its occupant had evidently lost all control of the excited horse. Mr. Phelps glanced round. A few rods in front of him the road turned suddenly and sharply, and unless the animal had sense enough to turn with it, there was nothing to prevent him from dashing everything to pieces. against a solid stone wall. There was no lack of pluck or of muscle about Walter Phelps. He had been stroke oar of his boat's crew in college-he had reserved force enough, and knew how and where to use it. He walked leisurely toward the horse, with an air as listless and dégagée as if he were in a ball-room; but suddenly he had caught the bit with a grip like steel, and the astonished animal stood still in the highway, much surprised, no doubt, at this interruption to his high-footed proceedings.

"Much obliged, I'm sure," came a voice from the interior of the carriage; "I had been calculating the probabilities, and had about concluded that unless I should be saved by a miracle, it would take a better surgeon than I am myself to set my bones. If you'll hold this blood-and-thunder quadruped a moment more, I'll get out and lead him home."

With which words a portly man of a little past fifty descended from the sulky.

and reached out for the bridle rein.

Could the young beauty be this man's wife? But no; the idea was monstrous. A shuffling sort of farm hand had heard the noise by this time, and came round to the gate.

"Take good care of this beast and rub him down well, for he's been having plenty of exercise," said the master, coolly; and then the horse was led away, and the two men walked up from the front gate to the house together. Already the beauty of Walter Phelps's sunset vision was in the door.

bit and saved me. It only wanted that I should have been a beautiful and belated damsel, instead of a hoary old country doctor, to have it read like a page out of a novel."

"You are better worth saving than any belated damsel I know of," Bessie said, as she kissed him; "and how I thank the 'miracle' that saved you I have no words strong enough to tell."

"The 'miracle' is Walter Phelps, by name, at your service, and only too glad of so easy an opportunity to earn your thanks. I am staying at the hotel, near by, and I will call to-morrow, if I may, to see whether the adventure has had any more serious consequences than appear at present."

"The more often we see you the better," his host answered with cordial hospitality, and Phelps fancied that Miss Bessie's eyes seconded the invitation.

"Papa is forgetting to tell you that he is Dr. Crandall," she said, as she bade him good night; "the only doctor in the place, and you've done a good many people at service, when you kept his bones whole."

So Fate had been, was it kind or unkind-only the future can say which-to Walter Phelps; or let us call it indulgent. He walked back through the moonlight to his hotel, in a mood of mild self-congratulation. She was certainly a girl-they were a family-on whom no impertinent intrusion would have been tolerated. He might have staid in Riverside all summer, angling in vain for the opening which destiny and his own steel-like muscles had made for him to-night. He was born under a lucky star. But just there conscience pricked him, and asked a question he could not evade. Why did he want to know this Bessie Crandall-what could she be to him-why should he seek her? He stood still, and answered the inquiry-answered it all the more defiantly because he knew he was wrong.

"I want to know her just for pastime and why not? Are men and women like tinder and flint that they cannot meet without falling in love? In this dull place any interest is a blessing. No doubt I shall entertain Miss Crandall, as much as her beauty will please me; and when the summer is over it will be autumn all the same, whether we have amused ourselves or been bored."

Mr. Phelps went down late to breakfast, the next morning, and found himself a hero. Dr. Crandall had driven by, and

stopped to tell the landlord the story of his rescue. Phelps had saved from accident the most popular man in the village, and the village was determined to make much of him. He did not go over to Dr. Crandall's until afternoon-he would not be in haste, or intrusive. The Doctor was not at home-possibly he had counted on this in timing his visit—but Bessie received him with a satisfying welcome.

"I took it lightly last night," she said, "but I never slept all night for thinking how easily he might have been killed; and he is all I have in the world."

Walter Phelps begged her not to humiliate him by too much gratitude for a service which cost him nothing beyond a momentary exertion of strength; but her thanks and praises were very pleasant, nevertheless. He leaned back in his chair and surveyed her critically, from under half closed lids. She was a lady, certainly. His cousin Margaret was no more entirely well-bred-but how different they wereas different as ice and fire, flesh and marble. Bessie was slight and lissome and girlish of figure. She had great, dusky eyes, out of which the child's eagerness had not yet faded, though the woman's longing and passion were in them too. Her hair was dark, with a soft ripple in it. Her features were piquant, rather than regular-the broad, sunny brow, the nose not quite straight, the sensitive, sweet mouth, the clear, dark skin, the rounded cheeks where the color came and went-you could not ask for anything brighter or lovelier, or yet more different from the absolute perfection of Miss Margaret Sturgis, not one line of whose classic face an artist would have ventured to criticise.

Their manners were as unlike as their faces. Both were perfectly refined, but Miss Sturgis had the aplomb and selfpossession, the unvarying calmness and repose which come only of careful training and wide social experience. Bessie, on the other hand, was swayed by her impulses, as a butterfly is blown by a summer wind. These impulses, however, being always pure and sweet, the moods of a womanly and gracious soul, the result was quite as charming as the more reasonable deportment of a colder woman. Unconsciously all sciously all these comparisons drifted. through the young man's mind. Miss Sturgis was the woman whom, aside from his mother and sisters, he had seen most of in his life, and of whom he had almost