broken, breathless words, completed by the entreaty his eyes looked into hers, and the kisses his lips pressed on her hands. With love and remorse together he was completely carried out of himself, shaken to the very soul. Whatever of original good may have been in him had certainly not been increased by the unwholesome, factitious sort of life he had led. He was not much worth, perhaps, but he was better worth than she, for he had a heart and she had none.

She was not in the least moved by his agitation; she was simply angry, for once in her life thoroughly and openly angry. Her face set itself in hard lines that contrasted painfully with the soft, youthful coloring, and though she spoke quietly, he found that those sweet lips could say very cruel things.

"I do not believe it," she said, looking coldly in his face with the beautiful blue eyes which had so often held his heaven; but that tine was past. "It is a stage trick, such as you are fond of naturally," and she smiled scornfully-" it is not true."

"It is true," he said, in a very different tone now, and dropping the hands she again tried to free. "And if you talk of trickery !— what do you call the tones and looks you have been giving me unless you cared for me? Oh, you do care for me, Rosa,-you must," his voice softening again. "You are angry with.me just now, but ".

"I do not care for you," she interrupted, nor ever shall. I have never given you any reason to suppose such a thing. You seem too well acquainted with my affairs to need any more information; but since you know so much, at least you understand that there is some one besides me with whom you will have to reckon if you dare to persist in the claim you have made."

The tone was yet more cutting than the words. As he listened he had grown paler still with passion, but he made one last effort to control himself and soften her.

66

Only hear me, Rosa".

"I will not hear you call me that," she broke in, turning to go.

He sprang after her then and crushed her hands together in his. "You prefer another name? Do not fear I will forget you have a right to mine now! I will not forget it, nor shall you! And as for your boasted champion, the sooner we settle our claims the better-with the devil judge between us!"

For one moment the passion that mastered him almost mastered her too; but directly her natural incapacity for emotion restored her self-possession, together with something like

contempt for such a display of feeling. Sh looked at him with a kind of curiosity, be brows just a little raised. "You forget w are not on the stage," she said, coolly. Wit that she turned and left him, he looking afte her with eyes where rage vainly strove for the first place. The battle between them wa unequal, for he loved her.

Rosa carried her trouble straight to Lina as indeed, with all her willfulness at othe times, she was in the habit of doing, and Lina was too much shocked to remember anger now. How far under the circumstances such a ceremony might be binding she had no idea, but the doubt was dreadful. would it be to Paul! And then, with a heavy heart, she remembered that it was to Paul they must look in this crisis.

What

21

"I suppose I must write to Paul at once," asle she said, lifting her pale face from her hands b It was odd to note the tacit understanding that the difficulties of this task were to fall on her-not on Rosa.

"Of course; Paul is our only hope now. He will be furious, I know," added Rosa, laughing, "but at least I shall not be the only victim. Mr. Dornvitch is likely to meet his match in Paul."

Paul's sister looked at her, wondering at t the light tone. That anger should make her unheedful of Dornvitch's very evident suffer ing and her own share in it was comprehensible, but there was no anger in Rosa's manner now-nothing, as Lina fancied, but a kind of enjoyment of the "situation."

"Well, dear," she said, rising, "having a made confession, I suppose I may go and get a little rest? It may be very romantic to be a heroine in this sort of thing, but it is certainly very wearing."

She did not look worn by it, not half as much as Lina did. A slight, unusual excitement, perhaps, a little more color on the soft cheek and light in the large eyes,-that was the only difference. Did she regard "this sort of thing," with the pain and shock it involved for others, nierely as a drama played for her diversion ? wondered Lina, as she set about her letter.

It was no easy one to write, with the doubt of saying too much or too little, and she was still hesitating over it when the door behind her opened softly, and a hand was laid on her shoulder. She looked round'; it was Paul

himself.

She sprang up, pushing aside the paper lest he should catch his name there-her first in stinctive thought to spare him a moment longer.

"Paul! you have got through sooner than ou expected ?"

"Yes, and stolen a march on you and Rosa. Where is Rosa?"

"Rosa is lying down. No, she is perfectly vell," anticipating his anxious question. 'But-but she is in such trouble!" "What, again?" said he, a queer kind of smile in his frown. 66 Well, I am here to put in end to that!" he added grimly. 'Oh, Paul! if it were only that!" He looked at her and saw her very unusual agitation. "Whatever it is, only tell me the worst at once," he said, quietly, but she saw his features contract and whiten, and dared not prolong his suspense.

He listened without comment to her rapid story, asked a few questions when it was finished, then silently rose and went to the door. She followed him. "Where are you going, Paul?" she said, beseechingly.

"To find that man," he answered, removing, though gently enough, the detaining hand on his shoulder.

Paul's sister was always a little afraid of him, and not the least in this seemingly quiet mood. She knew the uselessness of interference, much as she dreaded from this meeting. She went back to her seat and pressed her face close down on her folded arms, as if by deadening sense she might deaden thought as well during her period of suspense, while in the next room Rosa slept the sleep of the innocent.

It would be hard to say what attraction drew Rosa and Paul together, for two human beings more unlike could not well have been found; unlike, not with the variation which often blends into harmony, but with that radical difference that is apt to make discord. But there was the fact, however it might be accounted for. As much as it was in her power to care for any person Rosa cared for Paul; not exactly with her heart, for, except in a strictly physical sense, she had none--but perhaps with a kind of reflex of his own intensity of feeling, for Paul's was the stronger nature, and he loved her with all the force, all the latent fire, of a reserved and seemingly cold temperament; loved her all the more, perhaps, as against a perpetual inward protest.

He walked on now with a fury under his outward composure that might well have justified his sister's fears. Little more than she did he know how far such a claim might hold, but, beyond the doubt, the mere claim itself was torture to one of his organization. To find his rival was the one thought that now stood out clearly in the whirl of his passion:

what was to be the aim, the end, of such a meeting he hardly told himself; only, to find him, to stand once face to face with him, that was all he asked.

He made his way directly to the river, where, as he had gathered, Dornvitch was likely to be found. Plunging through the. first opening in the bushes to the path down by the waterside, he stood still and looked uncertainly up and down the stream. At length he saw a small boat coming round the bend above, and in it, as it approached, a man's figure lounging back.

"Are you Dornvitch ?" he called out abruptly. Dornvitch, for he it was, guessed the situation at once.

"Is it Monsieur Paul ?" he returned, mockingly. "Then you come too late."

"Scoundrel!" cried Paul hoarsely, his hands clenching themselves in the desire to throttle him-"we will see that."

"To our better acquaintance!" shouted back Dornvitch, springing to his feet with a mocking gesture. shot out of sight.

The boat trembled and

The blood was beating too hotly across Paul's eyes for him to see clearly through the dazzle of the sun on the water. When he found that the boat had disappeared, his only thought was that Dornvitch had slipped under one of the woody overhanging banks with the intention of getting out of his way. "Coward!" he called aloud in his rage as he sprang forward, "Coward! where are you hiding?" But not a breath answered his taunts. There was neither sound nor movement, save the little fret of the water where it curled round a great stone lying in mid-current.

All at once his bewildered gaze fixed itself on some object visible a little past this rock. It was the boat bottom upwards.

Only then a suspicion of the truth flashed upon him. Looking round he saw some one busy in a neighboring field, who at his shout came running to the place. But the man shook his head as he listened.

"He went down under the boat, most likely," said he, "perhaps got a blow when she turned over. He's found a deep enough grave by this-one he won't rise out of this side of Judgment Day. Our river keeps what it gets," he added, with a kind of grim satisfaction in such a stream.

Paul turned sick, as he stood there in the warm sunlight and saw the play of colors on the green-filled water and heard the soft purr of the current over the prey it had swallowed,

and remembered how his own heart had

been hot with rage, but now; how he had

called out taunting words to the corpse even then sinking out of all mortal sight. The terrible perplexity hitherto wholly absorbing his mind was indeed thus terribly solved; but that Paul was incapable of making his first thought;-in the presence of this man's sudden death, he could think only how he had himself been longing for it, and for the moment he felt like a murderer.

Leaving the man to carry the news of the accident to the hotel, he staggered up the bank and mechanically made his way back to his sister. She sprang up anxiously, turning pale at the record she read in his face.

"What has happened, Paul?" she cried, catching his arm as he dropped into a seat.

Before he could answer, Rosa came hurrying in. Her face was pale and excited. She took no notice of Paul's presence.

"Lina!" she said, breathlessly, "do you know? have you heard-Dornvitch" "What! what! cried Lina, with a horrible sinking of heart.

"He is drowned!" "Paul!" gasped his sister under her breath, "it was not-" She could not go on. He shook his head silently, understanding her fear.

"Drowned in the Leise," recommenced Rosa. "How strange it seems! Do you remember Gertrude Hildebrand warning him about the bottomless holes? The first shock was already passing with her; but as for Paul, this sort of gossiping comment jarred on him inexpressibly.

"Don't talk of it, Rosa," he said shortly. But Rosa could not comprehend this. "Of course it is very horrible, very shocking," she began, after a pause, "but why you, of all people-"

Paul sprang to his feet and rushed out of the room. Rosa looked after him in aston ishment. "Really, I cannot understand Paul," she said at last.

For that matter it was not the first time and probably would not be the last. His sister comprehended better, that had he hated this man less he would have been more indifferent to his fate, but that now the catas trophe had come too much like an answer to his own revengeful desires.

Dornvitch's speech to Rosa had come strangely true: he had lived as long as she wanted him. Did those words of a man who had at least loved her in earnest come back to her with any sting, now that he had, as it were, paid his life for his love? Not at all. The first shock over, she did not hesitate to consider the convenience to herself of this man's death. Incapable of having wished for it, she was equally incapable of the remorse that would almost have bought back his life at the price of its own: both feelings were beyond her.

Paul knew this perfectly, and so he awak ened from his dream, you say! But did he have to learn Rosa's character to-day? Does love always go by deserving in this

world?

SOMETIMES I feel like rushing through the world with two placards-one held aloft in my right hand, BEWARE OF CHILDREN'S MAGAZINES! the other flourished in my left, CHILD'S MAGAZINE WANTED! A good magazine for little ones was never so much needed, and such harm is done by nearly all that are published. In England, especially, the socalled juvenile periodicals are precisely what they ought not to be. In Germany, though better, they too often distract sensitive little souls with grotesquerie. Our magazines timidly approach the proper standard in some respects, but fall far short in others. We edit for the approval of fathers and mothers, and endeavor to make the child's monthly a milkand-water variety of the adult's periodical. But, in fact, the child's magazine needs to be

stronger, truer, bolder, more uncompromising than the other. Its cheer must be the cheer of the bird-song, not of condescending edi torial babble. If it mean freshness and heart. iness, and life and joy, and its words are simply, directly, and musically put together, it will trill its own way. We must not help it overmuch. In all except skillful handling of methods, we must be as little children if we would enter this kingdom.

If now and then the situation have fun in it, if something tumble unexpectedly, if the child-mind is surprised into an electric recognition of comical incongruity, so that there is a reciprocal "ha, ha!" between the printed page and the little reader, well and good But, for humanity's sake, let there be no editorial grimacing, no tedious vaulting back

but what it attempts to do it must do well, and the editor must not over-help nor hinder. He must give just what the child demands, and to do this successfully is a matter of instinct, without which no man should presume to be a child's editor and go unhung.

Doubtless a great deal of instruction and good moral teaching may be inculcated in the pages of a magazine; but it must be by hints dropped incidentally here and there; by a few brisk, hearty statements of the difference between right and wrong; a sharp, clean thrust at falsehood, a sunny recognition of truth, a gracious application of politeness, an unwilling glimpse of the odious doings of the uncharitable and base. In a word, pleasant, breezy things may linger and turn themselves this way and that. Harsh, cruel facts-if they

must come, and sometimes it is importan that they should-must march forward boldly say what they have to say, and go. The idea child's magazine, we must remember, is pleasure-ground where butterflies flit gay! hither and thither; where flowers quietly spread their bloom; where wind and sunshin play freaks of light and shadow; but where toads hop quickly out of sight and snakes dar not show themselves at all. Wells and foun tains there may be in the grounds, but water must be drawn from the one in right trim bright little buckets; and there must be no artificial coloring of the other, nor great show-cards about it, saying, "Behold! a fountain." Let its own flow and sparkle proclaim it.

A FEW months ago I visited one of those retreats for the insane by the establishment of which my native State has done itself honor. Large additions to the buildings had recently been made; and the original structure was then undergoing extensive changes, beautifying and modernizing it, and conforming it to the late additions, thus giving to the institution most of the elegancies and conveniences that architectural skill and enlightened philanthropy could suggest. The chapel, the place to me of pleasant and hallowed associations, was a mass of ruins, and workmen were busy in bringing order out of the confusion. The institution, when completed, will be a noble pile, an ornament to the place of its location, and an honor to the State which established it, and which will maintain it in the future with even an increasing liberality.

As I was passing through the halls of the stupendous edifice, under the guidance of its superintendent, speaking, as we passed along, a pleasant word now and then to its unfortunate inmates, I was on the qui vive to identify the apartment which at one time had been the place of my own abode. "Doctor," said I to the superintendent, fearful that the changes which had been made had taken away the marks by which it would be known to me, "I would be pleased to see the old third ward again." He said nothing until we

had walked much farther on, and weariness had begun to creep upon me. Entering a compartment that was untenanted, and half filled with the débris of the changes which it was undergoing-"This," said he, "is the old third ward."

I entered one of its rooms alone; and then thought and memory began a busy work This had been my home for long, long, and weary months. Here I had been the object of remark and pity to others, as others were now the objects of remark and pity to my self. I contrasted my condition and pros pects and my existing feelings with what they had been when I was the hopeless tenant of this narrow room; and my sensations were embodied in the words, "What hath Gol wrought!"

of

The time of my constrained Occupancy this ward is an epoch of my life which stands out prominently from all the rest of it; a lif which, upon the whole, had been a cheerful one. Sometimes, however, a gloominess would steal upon me and cast its shadow over my mind. While it continued I enjoyed no blessing in possession, and was uncheered by any hope of good to come. At the first this moodiness was of a transient kind, and I would hide it from the view of even those most familiar with my habits of mind. When the cloud was lifted from my soul, and the cheerful sun shone in again, all things both