The botanical class excited quite a furor; the woods and the fields were hunted for rare specimens. One lady studied herself ill in a week. Maria and Margaret, together in this as in everything else, planned a day in the woods in search of the rare Asplenium rhizophyllun, or walking-fern. Neither of them had ever seen it, nor did their teacher know where it was to be found. He had, indeed, heard it grew upon a single rock near a small pond in Denham Woods. But the Denham Woods were large, with half a dozen ponds in them, and to find it would require much walking and a long search.

            He had suggested a botanical picnic, in which the class should all go together to the woods some fine day, to look for it. But Maria and Margaret felt the spirit of discovery strong in their hearts, and determined to have the sole honor of finding this desired plant.

            It is not alone in geographical discoveries that emulation exists; its spirit extends to all the minutiae of science -- indeed, of life. Every villager desires in some way to be distinct from his fellow; so, in starting ahead of their class, these young ladies but proved their common origin with the rest of mankind. Let us hope this spirit of emulation did not descend from that animal whose only motive seems mischief.

            Without confiding their intentions to any one, even the cook, of whom was begged a provident lunch-basket, they started early after breakfast one morning for a day's pleasuring.

            "Do not look for us till night, mamma," cried Margaret, as the gate clicked behind her. This young girl was small and fair, with a profusion of light flaxen hair, which gave her a still younger look, and made her infantile ways and expressions seem less inappropriate. But, with all her childish ways, she had a certain depth of insight breaking out in flashes of wisdom far beyond her years.

            Maria met her half-way down the path. Slipping her arm into that of Margaret, she hurried the latter forward without uttering a word. Accustomed to her companion's moods, Margaret, in turn, did not speak; she only pressed her companion's arm closely, smiling toward her as she did so.

            Strangers puzzled themselves over the bond which united these two, "to totally unlike."

            Maria was the oracle of the village, full of wise sayings, and looked up to by her companions with a certain awe.

            "Well, now," said she, when, having walked rapidly fifteen or twenty minute, they approached the borders of the wood.

            "Well," reiterated Margaret, "here we are, started at last, and nobody the wiser."

            "Then you did not tell your mother?"

            "Mamma never asks. She knew you were to be with me, and took it for granted we were after some plant. Did you tell any one where you were going?"

            "Not I. I have found out that to tell what I intend to do loses me the power of doing it."

            Margaret looked at her companion in some surprise. She was accustomed to strange ideas from her, but anything quite as metaphysical as this she had never heard. Nevertheless, she did not ask questions.

            Maria walked along in silent thought, brushing aside the fallen leaves as she passed. She seemed desirous of pushing some troublesome thought aside. She had taken the lunch-basket, which she declared to be no sort of inconvenience to her. With it in hand, she walked so fast there was no chance for conversation, and frequently the windings of the slightly-trodden path hid her entirely from Margaret's view.

            At the end of half an hour, the latter found her seated upon a fallen tree which some storm had up-rooted and thrown across the way.

            "Idler!" exclaimed Maria, touching Margaret's cheek with a bit of brushwood. "Already the sun mounts in the heavens, and still the way is long before us."

            "A moderate pace and a continuous one suits me best. Yours is breaks and halts. Let me take that basket now."

            Tossing off her sun-hat, which the shade of the woods made unnecessary, she placed the basket on her head, swung the hat over her arm, and with hand on hip started merrily along, singing, "Tra, la, la! tra, la, la!" in a voice so full and melodious that even the squirrels stopped to listen.

            After a while she turned to Maria, who was not in the rear, and asked:

            "Which pond shall we visit first?"

            "Take them as they come." If I remember, this path zigzags around them all."

            "I should say zigzag! I should need an Indian along to zigzag me to the right place, so you shall lead the way."

            Maria came slowly up; the girls seemed to have changed characters within half an hour. Maria, so wise, so free from superstition, no longer desired to lead the way. A foreboding of evil seemed to hang over her. At last, in a half-questioning, half-assertive tone, she said:

            "Do you ever have presentiments, Margaret?"

            "Myriads, but they never amount to anything. I had a presentiment a few days ago that our house was on fire, and I ran all the way home to find ashes on every hearth; even the kitchen- fire was out, and cook fast asleep in her room. The more I have the less I care for them."

            "To-day, since I came into this wood, I feel as I have never felt before. Something seems pulling me back, telling me not to go on."

            "Stuff and nonsense, Maria! you've got an attack of dyspepsia. What did you eat for your breakfast? Let me recommend a diet of branbread and water; sha'n't even allow you to eat fruit, because it is cold, and therefore unsuited to your present condition. But, stop! here is a partridge-berry -- that ; the color is good, corresponds to your idea of what is enlivening." And her peals of merry laughter rang through the forest.

            Maria seemed to pick up courage.

            "I don't know what came over me," she said. "Come on!" And she, who a moment since had been so backward, now resumed her usual manner, and once again Margaret found it difficult to overtake her.

            "Here is lake number one," she soon cried; "hurry up."

            Long and carefully they looked. They found many varieties of fern, among them the delicate maidenhair, with its branching fronds, and its glossy black stems, but no walking-fern.

            "How far is lake number two?" said Margaret, at the end of their fruitless search. "I must have that fern."

            "A third of a mile; and number three is three-quarters of a mile beyond that. Unless we find it at one of these two ponds, we shall have a long tramp to the fourth lake. These three are all connected by little streams, and it is easy enough to find them, but number four is an independent pond, fed by underground springs. I have almost forgotten its direction, it is so many years since I came last."

            "Shall we be obliged to go that far, do you think?"

            "Oh, I don't know," answered Maria, carelessly. "Discoverers do not count distances. When one sets out to find a new worlds, or a new fern, he must keep on despite the changing needle, or tiresome paths."

            "That is true; but my tramp has made me hungry, and I wish to calculate for our woodland hotel."

            "Nonsense! don't talk of eating at this hour; let us first find the fern, then we shall have good appetites."

            "But eating gives strength."

            "But eating brings weakness," retorted Maria, who had resumed her own character and metaphysical style of replies.

            "Let us refrain, then; but I hope your walking-fern is not an edible that I shall be tempted to devour the moment I see it. Some plants have such a queer, inviting look; they seem to say, 'Come, eat me!' " Then, apparently struck by a new thought, she added: "I suppose your fern is called walking because it compels people to walk o far for it?"

            At the second pond their success was no better than at the first. Many plants, new and curious to them, they noticed for the first time, but did not stop to gather them. Toward the third pond they approached with less accelerated pace. Two disappointments had somewhat checked their ardor, and led them to expect disappointment.

            The lunch-basket began to grow heavy, and even Maria no longer indulged in sentences of hidden meaning as Margaret again hinted the propriety of eating. Neither did she assent, so the basket was not opened.

            The friendship of these two girls was of a singular nature; it was less that of equality than that of mistress and maid. In point of fortune and of birth Margaret stood first, yet Maria exercised a sway over her that comes to the strongest will when any two are united whether in friendship, in business, or in marriage.

            Margaret, who was again carrying the basket, merely slipped it from one arm to the other, and walked on. Again Maria appeared lost in deep thought. The changes which came over that strange being this morning were something unusual. Margaret did not try to understand them.

            "What matters?" she thought. "I shall live just as long if I don't know exactly what has come over her. Of one thing I am sure: it is nothing bad."

            Thus she showed her faithfulness without seeking that vivisection of the emotions demanded in some styles of friendship. Another short half-hour, and a gleam of green through the trees, a glint of something glistening as the branches waved in the wind, showed them lake number three near at hand.

            "How beautiful!" said Margaret, as they came to its border.

            Maria stood silently looking into its depths, which even at the shore sank at once in a bowl-like depressions, far deeper than a man's head. No gradual shelving of a sandy beach here; no slow approach to its so-called unfathomableness; but at once down, down! Not a ripple stirred the water. The slight wind played its gentle pranks far above its surface, tossing the leaves upon each other, but not descending low enough to bend the shrubs at their feet.

            The green of this lake was of the same translucent hue which secured for Lake George its old-time appellation of Lake Sacrament, and which endowed its waters with a fabulous sanctity in the eyes of its early discoverers.

            Margaret had never before seen the like; but Maria, who had been to school on the shores of Lake Superior, had seen in that vast body of water, and in some parts of Lake Michigan, a similar purity and clearness.

            Is it not a fact that appreciation of beauty grows upon us? Maria, to whom this hue and clearness were no novelty, was more strongly moved by their contemplation than was Margaret.

            The latter looked at them in a more utilitarian light.

            "What a lovely shade for an evening silk!" she exclaimed. "To catch that hue would make any dyer's fortune!"

            Maria filler her soul with its hidden meaning, sighed on thinking it too profound to be rightly understood.

            It is easy to see that Maria was a full-blooded mystic, ready at any moment to slip from the control of the body, and, soul alone, mount the blue empyrean. At times she so longed for death, in order to solve the mystery of life, that she scarcely could refrain from hastening its hour.

            Margaret was a butterfly, happy in the present, and leaving the solution of life's riddles unguessed till the appointed hour.

            "But where now is your walking-fern? queried she, yawning so hard as to stretch her pretty lips wide asunder. "I am hungry, and tired, and sleepy; as you have said we cannot eat till we find it, I propose we give up the contemplation of this dye-pot, and begin our search."

            Paying no attention to the contemptuous name bestowed by Margaret upon the lake, Maria slowly turned away, and began to climb the bed of rocky ravine, from which the water had long since dried. Margaret followed her, climbing and falling over the stones, which even the wear of the water had not deprived of a certain sharpness. She groaned once or twice as her foot slipped, or she bruised her hands in the ascent.

            About half-way up the hill Maria stopped, looked eagerly around, made a little exclamation, and left the ravine. Soon, high above her head, towered a giant rock, standing there alone -- some bowlder [sic] brought down on a glacier and stranded. It was thickly covered with something green, that did not look like moss. One could have fancied some mysterious affinity between the rock and the plant that had drawn the latter to pity the isolation of the bowlder, and to cover its nakedness with its own lovely verdure.

            So though Margaret, who, while quite materialistic in her views, still had a tinge of romance -- like all young girls -- in her heart, which had been led in this direction by a chapter in her botany upon the loves of the plants.

            "Come, here it is," called Maria, and, before Margaret gained sure footing upon the bank, she had climbed to a little knoll, and, with her hands clasped in an ecstasy of half-devotion, stood looking down upon the leafy covering of the rock.

            Long, narrow, lancelate leaves, with a slender, stem-like apex, that, catching in the soil, threw out tiny rootlets, making arches whose ends, like those of the rainbow, were hidden from sight -- this was what Margaret saw -- the walking-fern.

            "Now I shall eat my dinner," said practical Margaret. "I want to fill the basket with these plants, which I cannot do until my lunch is taken out; and then, too, the trowel is at the bottom of the basket."

            "So you brought a trowel, did you? I never thought of that."

            "No, I suppose not; you, doubtless, thought the beetles or ants would help you; and you would never have thought of lunch, either, or basket. It is well your Margaret does not live in the clouds."

            "Doesn't it look like a fairy-garden?" said Maria, scarcely drawn away by the clatter Margaret made as she unpacked the lunch.

            "Yes and no -- anything, if you will only come and eat. I am so hungry I shall not answer for your having anything unless you come now." And she dropped down on to a bed of moss beside the lunch.

            Before they had finished eating, they heard approaching footsteps, and soon a middle-aged man appeared in sight. His long, gray beard fell upon his breast; his head was bowed, so that only a small portion of the lower part of his face was visible; his hands were clasped behind his back; and he scarcely seemed conscious of the direction he was taking, which brought him close to the bowlder.

            Neither of the girls spoke, but Margaret lightly pulled Maria's dress. As to herself, she was somewhat startled to see this man, when they thought themselves entirely alone. It was not that he should also be in the woods -- they had been brought up with the usual American fearlessness, or perhaps I should say confidence in the respect of men toward women -- but this man was strangely dressed. Around his neck, drooping low upon his beard, on which it lay in fine contrast, was a double-stranded necklace of rose-hips. His wide-brimmed straw hat was turned up upon one side, and fastened in place by a green wreath, which run [sic] around the crown. The rest of his habiliments were of common order, except the adornment of his low shoes, upon which partridge-berries were placed in form of a large buckle.

            Just at the moment Maria felt the pull upon her dress, the stranger looked up.

            "Whom have we here?" he hastily cried; then, regaining his startled composure, he courteously lifted his hat and bowed profoundly, disclosing a round, full-moon face, quite bronzed in color, as such a shaped face should be. Clear, light blue eyes gave rather a cold look to an otherwise rubicund countenance, and in a different-shaped face would have given him the air of a detective.

            With hat removed, he seemed a much younger man than when he approached them. His hair was but slightly gray, and his eyebrows did not possess that wild, bushy look so frequently seen as old age approaches.

            He was evidently a man who had cared for himself, and whose hair, beard, and eyebrows, had not been left to negligently grown as they would, but had been trained and pruned in accordance with the behests of civilization. His eyebrows gave special indication of this care. His tones of voice were those a cultured man, and his appearance indicated familiarity with the world.

            "You ladies doubtless belong to the university botanical class, of which I have heard, as I see you have found my favorite aspenium?"

            "We came for it," replied Maria. "May I ask, sir, by what right you claim this fern?"

            "It has been mine as long as I could see it every hour if I chose; it is no longer mine, if you care to remove it."

            "We do not wish it all - merely to replace our lunch with its fragrant leaves."

            "Ah, you are a true lover of Nature, if she thus admits you into her mysteries. Few people can perceive its odor. When I traveled in Tasmania I found a fern of powerful fragrance. The belles of that far-off land wore it in their hair as a charm, and long before meeting them one would be aware of their coming by its approaching perfume."

            "You have traveled?" said Maria, in whom the mention of far-off lands or distant countries awakened vehement desire to also go.

            "Years since" -- with a deprecatory wave of the hand -- "years since! The wine of life lies on its lees for me now, except in these woods. After fifty, man has few illusions left. For three years I have not been outside these woods."

            "And yet you keep your hold on the world?"

            "Through means of a messenger whom I never see, but who comes at stated periods with a few changes of clothing and a month-old paper. Books I never read, only this book" -- and cast his eyes reverently around. "I keep out from the turmoil of the world, for I read no news that is fresh."

            This strange man threw himself upon the ground, and looked confidingly into their faces.

            "A whim has seized me to tell you my history. To you, life is yet full of illusions; I have passed them by, and had thought to go down to my grave unknowing and unknown. Your bright young faces have changed my determination."

            Without waiting for a reply, he said: "I was one of a family in which were six boys and three girls. Our mother died when I, the youngest, was but three months old."

            Margaret was certain she saw a tear in his eye; but at that moment a gust of wind threw a lock of hair across his face, and brushing it aside gave him a chance to also brush the tear away if it were there. Maria had noted nothing of the kind.

            "I lived, I grew up, and here I am -- all the rest are dead. Of six strong boys, and three loving, kind girls, I alone am left -- I who was the youngling, the motherless! We were not a marrying family: four of the boys and two of the girls chose a single life. One of my brothers, one of my sister, and I myself, were the exceptions. Better, far better, had we, too, obeyed the family instinct. The time comes in the history of families when their thread should be dropped. The purpose of that line has been accomplished, and any effort to thwart Fate will be futile. The final hour of my father's family had come. Nine children, even, were not a power against that power invisible. soon I shall be gone, the last of my race."

            Maria's eyes had never moved from his face, though, now he had stopped a moment, Margaret whispered:

            "Let us take our ferns and leave the tiresome old fellow to himself. Any one can see he is mad."

            "Mad! the world is full of mad people; this one is of a new order -- let us hear his story," replied the mystic Maria.

            Looking up at them, he continued: "All lived to be over sixty. My brother who married took to himself an insane wife. He did not know it, neither did she. That her mother died in a mad-house had been carefully kept from the daughter: she had been educated abroad, and was a most lovely woman. Not one of my own sisters was dearer to me. Everybody loved her; my bachelor brothers felt they had a new home, and her husband was devoted to her. In little over a year's time she gave birth to a daughter; soon after, that strange form of insanity which sometimes comes on at such an hour held her in its grasp. My brother devoted himself to her, but after another year she died -- had worn herself out by the violence of her paroxysms. My brother shortly followed her, broken-hearted; the babe had not lived long enough to make any trouble."

            At this point the stranger man arose to his feet, walked toward the lake, seemingly about to seek its depths, then stopped, turned about, and soon resumed his old place.

            "Here was one part of our family blotted out -- my brother's was the first death."

            Maria twisted a cohosh-plant growing near her, and, bruising its berries in her hands, tossed the whole on to the ground; it fell at his feet.

            He looked up in apparent surprise at seeing those two sitting there.

            "I beg your pardon," he said, "but did you wish anything of me?"

            "Your story," uttered Maria, in a low voice. -- Turning to Margaret, she rapidly said: "My presentiment is upon me. I must know this man's life."

            "To what purpose? We have sat here half the afternoon, and, at the rate he talks, it will be tomorrow night before he finishes."

            "I shall stay till then if it is -- "

            "What? You are madder than he! How am I to get home? I have no fancy for these woods at a much later hour."

            The stranger had risen while this talk was going on, and now stood a few steps nearer to them, his back against a tree. As soon as he saw them glance toward him he again began:

            "Two of my bachelor brothers, who went abroad for cheer after this melancholy episode, were lost at sea on their way home. The vessel was burned, and only one man survived in a boat that was cast off. My brothers had remained on board, perhaps happier to have died that way, terrible but quick, than to have lingered for weeks, a prey to starvation, the want of water, and to be saved at last through eating their companions."

            "What uncanny stories he tells us! My blood grows chill here in this wood. He can't have had every bad experience, can he?"

            "I must hasten," he said, as if divining her words. "My one remaining brother and two of my sisters died of consumption. That left Anna and myself. We were both married. Anna's husband was a well-to-do farmer, but terribly close. he did not spare himself nor her. In that house there were no leisure moments -- all was work. No books came in, no music was heard, no lightness nor joy of any kind, even no young children; but a boy was taken into the family, who grew up a perfect copy of my sister's husband -- the same greed of money, the same hatred of learning, the same anxiety to do hard work. It is one of the mysteries to me how it came about, but, finally, Anna's husband determined to put his farm into that boy's hands -- boy I call him! he was then thirty years old, and my brother-in-law sixty -- he determined, I say, to give everything to the boy then, before he died, on condition of support for himself and Anna while they lived. It seemed a marvelous thing for such a man to do; and sometimes I thought he was more determined upon it because he knew his wife was much opposed to this step."

            "It was the pauper-instinct!" said Maria.

            "I beg your pardon; did I hear aright?"

            "Yes, you heard aright; you cannot fail to have met with this instinct, often and often. The desire of being supported, the protection of somebody else, the freedom from care. It shows itself in various ways, and is so lightly condemned that men even pride themselves upon their begging powers, and are sent for from far and near. Oh, yes, the pauper-instinct is strong in some people."

            "My sister did not live to endure this shame long. She died, and I had no further interest in him."

            Again the narrator walked toward the lake, again returned.

            "That left only myself, my wife, and one son."

            Maria noticed that, as he mentioned his wife, a spasm passed over his face, contracting its ruddy proportions, till from a full moon it came to have a look like that satellite in its third quarter. Behind, in its shadow, lay his family.

            "But I must hurry, ladies; the day falls and you must go. To say that I loved my wife, is nothing: I worshipped her, and God always brings punishment upon those who adore a creature above the Creator. I lost her, lost her, lost her!" and with the last words his voice rose to a wailing cry, and he tossed his arms frantically above his head.

            "It matters not how," he began, after a few moments. "I lost her, and I was mad with sorrow. I could not bear to look upon my boy: he was very fair, too fair for a boy -- the picture of his mother. So I placed him where he would receive good care, and I went abroad. I staid [sic] for years; I visited every land on the globe, but I could not banish her. Let me go where I would, among the snow of Siberia, on the desert of Sahara, on ship and shore, she was with me. I tried to curse her memory, but the words died on my lips, for how can the same lips bless and curse at the same moment?

            "What do you think my age to be?" said he, abruptly changing the subject.

            "About fifty, you say; ah! but that is only in mortal years; beside me, the Pyramids are young, I have passed through an endless eternity since those hours," and again he covered his face.

            "My wife -- she who once was my wife -- loved the walking-fern; always on her work-table stood a little pot of them, and I helped her manage them, so they should always look fresh." Coming to the bowlder, he picked up a leaf, carried it to his nostril, which dilated like that of a race-horse on its course as he sniffed its order; then he threw it down with an air of hatred ere he spoke again:

            "When at last I returned to this country -- I will not say home, for all places and none are home to me now -- I could not find my son; I had not written him for many years; the family with whom I placed him were dead, and nobody knew whether he, too, was dead or not. I call him dead. This bowlder of walking-fern is the tombstone of all my hopes, and Nature has written the epitaph, 'Adieu!' You who take of this, take part of my sorrow unto yourselves. Nevertheless, it is not mine; it belongs to the world. Once more, and forever, ladies!" saying which, he rapidly disappeared from their sight.

            "A queer story, and a queerer man," said Margaret; "not very romantic, and quite incredible. Let us get our ferns and go."

            "Hush! I would not touch a root for the world! Let us go."

            "What! and leave all this we have had such a tramp to get? I shall take some."

            "Take it, then, as your own. I am going home;" and, gathering up her hat and the light shawl she had worn about her, Maria glided rapidly off in the direction whence they had come.

            "Wait, wait!" cried Margaret, hastily seizing the basket and trowel -- "wait! I shall be lost in these woods;" and, forgetting her anxiety to carry home a fern, she ran rapidly after Maria, leaving every leaf untouched.

            "I shall bring a gentleman home to dinner," said Margaret's father one morning, as he left the house.

            Strangers to dinner were no unusual occurrence in that house, and Margaret gave the announcement no second thought, until she heard the gate click, and saw her father, accompanied by a young man, coming up the walk.

            "My daughter, Mr. Harris," was her father's simple introduction; then he went out of the room.

            "Rather a bad fire for your town," said Mr. Harris, "must have given your people something to do while it lasted."

            "Have you come about the fire?" said Margaret, who suddenly divined this was the expected agent of the insurance companies.

            "No -- yes; in fact, I am not the special agent, but, as I was traveling in the vicinity, our firm requested me to look into it. No special trouble about the valuation, I think. Your father tells me he is about the heaviest loser."

            Though possessing a spice of romance in her composition, Margaret was not looking for a possible lover in every young gentleman she saw; still, this young man attracted her attention in an unusual degree.

            The tomes of his voice seemed familiar, even the expression of his eye, and she puzzled herself during all the dinner-hour upon the subject. With his departure she thought no more of it.

            Toward night Maria came in. Three months had passed since their adventure in the woods. The botanical class had disbanded, without its proposed search, and no asplenium graced any of its herbariums. These two friends still kept at work, and had much to show for their labors. Quite a long discussion took place this afternoon as to the best method of securing leaf-impressions, during which Margaret referred to the lanceolate leaf of the walking-fern.

            "I met the Walking-Fern in the streets this afternoon, somewhat rejuvenated and less adorned, but still the same," said Maria.

            "What! our lunatic of the Green Pond? You must have been mistaken."

            "Perhaps it was his wraith, with a hint of the spirit's eternal youth. About twenty-five now, I should say, his age cut half in two; not so wild-looking; brown hair and whiskers; the same cold, blue eyes, divining everything at a glance."

            Margaret looked at her in a surprised manner, then a sudden glint of intelligence flitted across her face. She clasped her hands together, saying:

            "It is he!"

            "Who? Have you, too, seen him?"

            "He dined here."

            "So he lives on mortal food? -- it could not have been his wraith," said the speculative Maria. "It seemed too soon."

            Without inquiring into this mystical phrase, Margaret continue: "I was puzzled all dinner - time because he looked so familiar -- something about his eyes, his expression, the tones of his voice. If old Mr. Walking-Fern had not said he had no relatives, I should say this Mr. Harris was one of them."

            "It should not surprise us to discover resemblances among the tens of millions of people in the world," said Maria, who now evidently desired to remove from Margaret's mind the idea she had just implanted there.

            "The wonder is there should ever be any dissimilarity," replied Margaret, ever ready to follow the bent of Maria's mind.

            "Does it not teach us of the unseen? The body builds itself upon the soul, and so each body looks quite unlike every other one," continued Maria.

            "I don't pretend to know or care; I leave all such speculations to your 'inner light.' What I want to know now is, Who is this Mr. Harris? Where did her come from? Where is he going to? How came he to be traveling in this vicinity, and what is he to the insurance company? And I will find out, too."

            At tea-time her father said: "I have invited Mr. Harris in this evening. He seems to be a cultivated fellow, and Bruce's Hotel is a dreary place for a decent young man."

            "Who is going to entertain him? this is your lodge-night."

            "Sure enough! I had forgotten that: don't believe I'll go. I want to get his opinion on Darwin's last book; and then we'll have a quiet rubber of whist. Nobody plays that old-fashioned game now, but Harris casually mentioned his familiarity with it."

            "I believe that was the reason you invited him over."

            "Well, I shouldn't wonder if it was half the reason. I hate always to have a dummy-partner, and old Mr. Penrose will be delighted. -- Here, Bridget! you just step into Penrose's, and tell him I have got a partner for him to-night."

            Mr. Brandon sat steadily looking into the fire a few moments, after Bridget's departure. Suddenly he looked up at Margaret.

            "Have I told you, child, I thought of leaving Holmsbee, when this affair was settled?"

            "Leaving! Where? What for? What has put that idea into your head?"

            "I believe I can build up a better business in a larger place. You don't care, do you? Society is poor for you here, and your mother has always disliked this town. My business is broken up by this fire and the change will not be so great. I wish, too, to give the youngsters a better chance for education than they will get here -- fill up their heads with solid ideas, my dear; get in plenty of good thoughts, and leave no room for the bad ones."

            Quiet games of whist, with Margaret, Mr. Penrose, and a dummy, were Mr. Brandon's favorite winter-evening amusements -- having been indulged in for several years. It was early in the season for their commencement, but the prospect of another partner in the game had roused all Mr. Brandon's enthusiasm.

            Before the bell rang, Margaret had drawn forward the old-fashioned mahogany whist table which opened on to a fifth leg, put the cards in place, near her father's seat, and ordered the dish of walnuts cracked with which her father's whist evenings invariably closed.

            Margaret's mother, who seldom interested herself in this game, contrary to her usual custom, came into the room this evening and took her seat close to the table. Something new evidently interested her. Perhaps it was her husband's plan of leaving Holmsbee, where she had never been quite satisfied to live. Only love for her husband in the least reconciled her to the place -- a place with whose society she seldom mingled. She had not one of those makeshift characters that, if they cannot have their desire, will take something less and learn to be satisfied. Quite the contrary -- she could do without, but she could not accept a modification.

            This made her, in the eyes of the neighbors, a peculiar person. She was not understood by them; therefore they disliked her. She held herself aloof from them; therefore, knowing so little of her, they made it their business to talk a great deal against her. Of this her husband knew nothing, and for it Mrs. Brandon cared nothing.

            The advent of this stranger gave her a little pleasurable excitement. He came from the great world, once so familiar to her, but now so distance. To see him, to hear him, was like the breath of some remembered air.

            She did not come down to talk during the game, for she well understood its character to by synonymous with its name, whist, while the game lasted.

            The stranger pleased her at first sight; his manner when presented to her was easy but deferential; very different from the nonchalant air of many of the present generation, who, when introduced to an older person, toss their head with an air of condescension, which seems to say, "I honor you by speaking."

            Whatever traits of character the young stranger might show upon a more protracted acquaintance, he was at present neither presuming nor vain. His air of deference continued, and he occasionally glanced at Mrs. Brandon in an appealing way, which still further tended to render him pleasing in her eyes. Regard for his wife's tastes caused Mr. Brandon to shorten the delightful games he was playing, and, after three rounds, he rose from the table, drew a semicircle of chairs before the open fire and invited his wife and daughter,. Mr. Harris, and Mr. Penrose, to seats therein. As for himself, he took the centre [sic] chair.

            "You like the corner, wife, and I know Mr. Penrose has similar tastes. I will keep the young people, one at each side."

            "Shall I bring the nuts, papa?" whispered Margaret.

            "Not just yet; Mr. Harris has promised me an hour on Darwin."

            "Oh, I hope, Mr. Brandon, you did not understand me as considering myself capable of adding anything new there," said Mr. Harris. "I can only give you my thought."

            "Well, well, we shall see. I have nobody in this town to express even his thought upon it, and I see you have given the subject some attention."

            Mr. Harris turned with a bow to Mrs. Brandon.

            "With a thousand thanks; we need a little enlivening, I assure you. Books do very well as promoters of thought, but seed sowed by them is much like garden-growth, very slow. I liken conversation to the forcing-house that compels rapid evolution."

            Thus pressed the young man began slowly to speak. He seemed at first quite inclined to keep the beaten track, but a few questions from the members of the little circle soon threw him into self-forgetfulness, and for nearly an hour he talked brilliantly, and with an acumen that justified Mrs. Brandon's idea of the results of conversation.

            Then the walnuts were brought on, and talk ran in its usual strain the remainder of the evening.

            "I wish Maria had been here," exclaimed Margaret, after the company had separated. "How much longer is Mr. Harris to be in town, father? Maria must certainly meet him."

            "I thought you told me she had seen him."

            "Oh, that was nothing; a mere street rencontre. But they two would certainly suit. I have never seen the young man before that I thought good enough to talk with her. How long did you say?"

            "Oh, I don't know; a week, more or less. Insurance affairs won't take as long, but I understood him to say he had other business to attend to -- something about somebody he once knew. I didn't pay much attention."

            "You dear old father, you never pay attention to what does not concern you; but I want Maria to see Mr. Harris, and you must invite him here again, and I will manage that Maria shall be here."

            "Pooh, pooh! what scrape are you getting your old father into, now? -- Wife, how is this?"

            But Mrs. Brandon only smiled. She was quite used to such passages between father and daughter. This family was one that very well understood itself. Constant explanations were not needed within the charmed walls of that home, each member of which thoroughly believed in every other member.

            Affairs seemed inclined to arrange themselves; for the very next evening came a call from Mr. Harris.

            "Pardon me," he said, "but I wish to make some inquires in regard to Denham Woods, and your father has referred me to you as well acquainted with their peculiarities. Can you tell me about the chain of lakes? I shall visit them myself in a few days, but first I desire to make a few inquiries."

            "I have a friend, a member of my botanical class, who knows tenfold more in regard to them than I do. I will call mamma to entertain you while I run over for her."

            He was about to protest, but before he could open his mouth she was gone.

            A bright, frank laugh broke over his face.

            "A transparent child!" he exclaimed.

            When Margaret returned she found her mother seated in an arm-chair, her white morning-shawl fallen one side, and Mr. Harris on a stool at her feet, entertaining her with an account of the races he had attended a few weeks before.

            Never had Margaret seen her mother so animated. Usually very placid, her life passed along with but few ripples. Now her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, and she looked ten years younger than in the morning -- so surely does happiness contain the secret of eternal youth.

            When she rose to leave the room, he hastened to open the door for her, bowing with all the deference due a princess.

            "Ah, Miss Margaret, you are fortunate that you have a mother! I never knew mine. Is your woodsy friend coming?"

            How many sides had this man? How different the tone from that with which he addressed her mother! A mocking laughter Margaret was quite sure dwelt in the words "woodsy friend," and she turned to him half expecting to see a laugh upon his lips; but he was as sedate as when she first met him, and again she was struck by his resemblance to the Green Pond stranger.

            "Shall I tell him?" though Margaret; but something held her back. "What right have I? He might take it amiss; still I should not care were it not for his strange, puzzling similarity in look."

            Maria's entrance broke this train of thought. In her heart, Margaret had already seen them wedded, and now she felt watchfully curious as to the first conversation.

            This young girl was pure and simple in all her ideas, but was somewhat imbued with the prevailing thought of Holmsbee society that marriage was the fate of all young women.

            It was a subject not talked upon between these two girl friends. Margaret had never heard Maria mention marriage, and was herself careful not to speak of this topic before Maria's mother, who had been left a widow through a very painful accident.

            In the course of that morning's conversation, Margaret for the first time learned that the Denham Woods, from the village to the third lake, had grown into a forest within the last twenty-five years, and that formerly an elegant mansion stood upon one shore of Green Pond -- at that time called lake -- from which, upon one side, extended a grand park, filled with deer, while beyond the lake stood the primeval forest as now.

            Every day for a month Mr. Harris found occasion to call at Mr. Brandon's. His business seemed to drag along, and yet he did not hasten it. He was like a drifting pebble, resting until some new and stronger force should move him. So thought Maria. Margaret felt sure she knew the secret of his waiting, and fell to weaving a long romance, ending in a far-off future year. Her mother grew brighter every day with the prospect of life in a new and larger town. It seemed to Margaret that her mother loved Mr. Harris, because she associated him with the change. She never refused to see him, never showed signs of weariness at his stay.

            Margaret's voice was heard oftener than before in song about the house. Her "Tra, la, la" had a new tone of gayety. The world was changing to this family; but they failed to surmise the cause.

            "Where have you been?" was Margaret's first salutation one morning, as her usual visitor approached. She said this half eagerly, then quickly checked herself. "How rude I am!" she thought.

            The young man merely smiled.

            "Will you have it?" he said, extending a small pot in which was growing a luxuriant specimen of the walking-fern.

            She took it without reply, and bent her head for a moment over it.

            "Do you catch its perfume?" he asked.

            She made no answer for a moment, then she said:

            "Maria ought to have this."

            "I took her one an hour since."

            "Oh, did you?" she exclaimed, joyously. "Then I shall keep this, with thanks!"

            "My mother loved it," he simply said.

            Margaret opened her eyes widely, then suffered the lids to droop slowly over them -- a pretty trick she retained from childhood -- "making baby-eyes," her father called it.

            "Your mother?" she said, slowly and gently.

            "I have only her memory," he said. "Do you wonder why I adore your sweet mother? Ah, she permits me to lover her!"

            "Permits?" said Margaret. "Is not love free?"

            "Not at all. It is not free to come or free to go. Of all mortal or immortal things, it is the least free."

            "If Maria were only here!" murmured Margaret.

            Maria would know what to say -- how to answer, but she did not. All this while she was playing with the fern -- passing her small fingers over it in a caressing manner.

            "Does this grow so common that you do not ask me where I obtained it?" he said.

            "I know: the Green Pond."

            "So you have been there?"

            "Once."

            "Will you go again? I have bought this part of the forest, and to-morrow workmen begin a road through it."

            "Will not that destroy it?"

            "Oh, no; I shall preserve all the wild features; but I must have readier access. The land belonged once to my ancestors. There is a queer cave upon it, and the remains of a mine whose workings have been destroyed. I have found a trace I have long sought, and for it I must thank Holmsbee fire."

            "Thank a fire?"

            "That is nothing. I thank any fortuitous accident that brings my goal. Do you wonder at events? I do not; their march is no surprise. A year since, a thing is impossible; a year to come, it has long been accomplished."

            "All this is fine, but I do not comprehend it," sighed Margaret, but so low he did not hear. "Maria would enjoy this talk."

            Taking up the pot, she led the way gayly [sic] to her mother's room.

            "See, mother, what I have brought you!"

            Her mother's eyes shot past the fern, and rested with a smile upon the young man who had brought it.

            "Now there are two of them," said Margaret.

            "Two! two what?" said her mother, half unconsciously.

            "Two Mr. Walking-Ferns."

            They did not know what she meant, but the fancy pleased her, and she repeated it to herself.

            "The old and the young."

            She again looked at her fern, but could read no more of its secrets.

            "I shall go to the woods again," she thought. "Who would have believed botany to be so deep a science? It holds all mysteries. Perhaps that is why Maria is so sagacious!"

            Always Maria!

            Leaving her mother in conversation with the fern-giver, she took her hat and wandered down the garden to look at her beds of flowers.

            Pulling a weed here, fastening a stake there, she had forgotten he was in the house -- forgotten his very existence, so little had it to do with her thought and life -- when she heard an approaching step, and turned to see him coming down the walk.

            "Ah, you wish to see what care I give my beauties!" said she.

            He did not reply -- did not seem to hear; but, coming close to her, said:

            "Margaret, I love you! Will you be my wife?"

            She opened her eyes wide, and let the lids fall over them i n the pretty way already described.

            "Why do you love me?" she at last murmured; which the young man took as an admission that she returned his love, and stooped to kiss her.

            "No, no!" she said, skillfully evading the caress. "You have not answered me."

            "Ah, I know not; but it gives me happiness."

            "I do not think I love you," she said. "What is love?"

            "You ask? Then you do not love. It is something that fills the whole being -- it shines on all of this world, all of the next. It makes life worth living -- ah, without it -- there is no life!"

            "I love my mother," whispered Margaret.

            "There are many loves. Ah! Margaret, sweet, let me teach you the secret."

            She shook her head gently.

            "Ah! well, dear, I love you all too much to wish to force your heart. If you cannot love me of yourself alone, I must wait or go away. I should scorn myself if I deemed the fault yours; not to be loved is my misfortune, not anything blameworthy in you;" and he turned gently away.

            Margaret stood for a long time where he had left her, her fair hair, loosened by the wine, falling over her face, as, leaning thoughtfully on her hand, she looked steadily toward the ground. The sun lighted it like gold, as its beams fell aslant its abundant bands.

            Maria sat alone that afternoon, but, strangely enough, her thoughts were upon these two. When the dusk of the evening set in she head swift steps coming up the walk, and Margaret burst into the room.

            "What is love?" she cried. "Maria, you are wiser than I, tell me what is love?"

            It was too dark for Margaret to see how this question changed Maria's look, and how cheek and neck and brow reddened at this question.

            Margaret could not see this, and, sitting down by Maria's side, she took her hand in her clasp and pressed for an answer.

            When Maria found tongue -- "Wiser ones have vainly asked, " she said. She feared the trembling of her tongue, the rapid bounding of her heart, would betray the fact that she had learned the secret.

            "O Maria, it must be a fearful thing to love any one not your mother -- I mean, love some one else -- some man! I am sure I don not know how love comes, or what makes it -- do you?"

            Again the color ran over Maria's face, but her heart did not beat quite as fast, nor her voice tremble as it had done. Her secret, her very own, and not another's, had been invaded by his friend, who had plunged into its midst all unknowing where she stood, for Maria had given her heart, unasked, to the one that this day had offered his own to Margaret.

            Soon Margaret laughed merrily, child that she was in all her ways.

            "Poor me!" she exclaimed. "Had it been you, Maria, I should have said it was all right."

            "Who is it, dear? what is it? You have not told me," said Maria. A strange frenzy had seized her; she felt determined to force from Margaret's lips the name she dreaded to hear -- the name she already knew.

            "It is his secret, not mine," said Margaret, when thus pressed, childishly unaware that she had already betrayed him.

            "True, true; forgive me," was Maria's reply. Some dreadful demon had been whispering her to hate her friend, who had stepped before her in the love of a man to whom, all unasked, she had given her own heart. But she tried to banish the temptation and the thought alike. Margaret was innocent of all wrong toward her -- she did not even return the love that had been offered; and so, in order to drive away the demon of distrust and hate which disappointed love so often brings, she drew Margaret into her arms and kissed her.

            "That is right, dear," she said; "another's secret is not your own. I cannot tell you what love is; when it comes you will know."

            Margaret nestled closely to her bosom, and, drawing Maria's ear to her lips, whispered:

            "There is one I wanted to have love you; I don't know, but it seems to me there is time yet."

            Two years have passed. Mrs. Brandon has recovered her health, strength, and spirits in the congenial atmosphere of that city-life in which her youth was passed. She renewed the acquaintance of her early days, and, had the customs of France existed, would have found herself a middle-aged belle in the society where she was a girlish belle twenty-five years before.

            Introduced to a new life, Margaret had given up her botanical studies: all that remained to put her in mind of them was a half-filled herbarium, which she seldom saw, and a pot of dead asplenium. She kept it, she scarcely knew why, yet she always fancied a touch of romance clung to its faded and shriveled fronds.

            Maria and she were no longer intimate, though no grain had crossed their friendship. They were separated by distance, that was all.

            In her new life Margaret found much to claim her attention -- much that was in common with ordinary girl-experience. She was no longer an unconscious child, she studied no longer plants, but human beings. Her mother wished her to marry; one suitor after another had received his dismissal. "I do not want to leave home," was all she said. To father, to mother, to suitors, the same cry.

            Her mother strove to reason with her. "We want you, too, my child; but we shall not live forever. Do you not wish a home of your own -- two homes?"

            "Never, mamma; do not speak of it;" and she would clasp her arms about her mother's neck and kiss her.

            Mr. Harris called whenever he came to the city, but he no longer wore the bright, fearless look of old. He had lost his color, and his curious resemblance, so puzzling to Margaret. He, too, had left Holmsbee, though Margaret liked to fancy he knew more of Maria than she did herself.

            She sometimes caught him looking fixedly at her; the young girl did not blush, but steadily returned his gaze, but she found at such times he was not conscious of her presence; his body alone was there, his soul was afar.

            Opening the parlor-door one morning about his usual hour, he caught a glimpse of something which fixed a long-thought-of-plan. Seated upon a sofa was Margaret; before her stood a young man twirling his mustache in an embarrassed manner. "This is the fifth time, is it not?" he heard Margaret say. Feeling himself an intruder, he drew back, shutting the door so noiselessly that he was not heard; but Margaret, whose back was toward the door, had seen the reflection of his presence in the mirror.

            Before reaching the street he was passed by the young man. He paused for a moment as the latter rushed by him, slamming the door vigorously. "What matter!" he ejaculated. "As well now as ever," and he turned his steps. But he did not again enter the room where he had just seen Margaret; he passed along, up a flight of stairs, and soon found himself in Mrs. Brandon's apartment.

            "I am going away," was his abrupt salutation, "to Europe; and I must tell you my history. Will you listen?"

            "You know I will; sit down in this comfortable arm-chair. Now, I an ready."

            "Have you never thought I once had hoped to be nearer to you than I am; that I love Margaret -- have long loved her? You say nothing. Do you, too, deem me unworthy?" and he clasped his hands over his eyes.

            "Do you not know I have long loved you as a son?" she said; "but Margaret has always so closely coupled your name with that of Maria -- indeed, I Never thought of you as my daughter's lover."

            "I am -- I have been for years, but I shall never ask her to be mine. When I leave this country, I shall be a wanderer forever; a wanderer like my unhappy father. I am the last of my race. Listen! When I was an infant, a terrible domestic calamity overtook my father's household. I will not pain you or myself by its recital. It was not known to me for years; it so utterly destroyed that family, that its memory gradually faded from the minds of people. those who had me in charge brought me up as their own, until I was ten years old. The one I called my mother then died; the one I called my father married again, and I was as a stranger in that household.

            "I went out into the world, and from that hour to this have depended upon myself. Home has had the greatest attractions for me -- all my exertions have been to build one up."

            At this point he stopped, looked imploringly toward Mrs. Brandon, and said, "In your home I found my model."

            She answered by lightly touching his hand.

            "I loved Margaret from the first moment I saw here; I told her my love before you left Holmsbee. It was too soon; she had not seen the world, and I did not press her when she said, 'Nay; ' I wished to be her free choice."

            "Your sentiments were noble," responded Mrs. Brandon; "and uncommon," she added, in a lower tone.

            He looked at her gloomily.

            "They were just," he cried. "Could I wish to bind a heart that would not come to me freely? Ah, no!"

            She glanced toward him and smiled.

            "You are my heart's mother," he said, reverently kissing her hand. "I am innocent, yet I am accused for the sake of another; an hereditary taint poisons my blood. I tell you this, not to alter things, but that you make know. Do not think of me as all bad, for I have intended no evil."

            "Life is wonderful," replied Mrs. Brandon, who saw he was expecting some word from her. "The happiest of us do not escape."

            "Margaret never told you of a strange man she and Maria met, years ago, at the Green Pond?" he queried.

            "I don't know; it strikes me she did. When she was botanizing?"

            "I see she has told you. That strange being was my father. At that hour he knew of no son; I knew of no father. He deemed himself the last of his race; I must be the last."

            An expression of poignant sorrow settled over his face, as he continued: "And yet, through a slight gift of mine, fate has its rasp on two others -- the two whom I would least have drawn into the gulf with me."

            Mrs. Brandon slightly shuddered.

            "Ar you cold?" he asked. "Do you divine?"

            "Not cold; but your tale is weird."

            He looked at her fixedly, hesitated a moment, then said:

            "My father lived to tell me the fate of my mother; he lived to tell me what made him a wanderer on the face of the earth. I had found those woods once to have belonged to my father's family. I purchased them, not knowing what misery I bought, with the graceful trees. Do not think me mad, mother -- I may call you mother, just for one day -- I found a man who had not looked on mortal face for three long years. His tastes were like mine, and we met by a rock -- his tomb, he called it. I wrung from him his history, I told him mine. Do you wish to know his name?"

            He arose, and, although they were alone in the room, he bent his lips close down to her ear and whispered it.

            She drew slightly back.

            "Not he?" she said.

            "The same, the very same; and do you wonder now why I could not say again to Margaret I loved her? I found my father but to lose him, for he died within a month, and, at his own desire, was buried at the foot of the rock where first I saw him -- where Margaret saw him too. He charge me never to marry, never to carry my inheritance of misfortune and crime further down the world."

            "My son --" began Mrs. Brandon.

            "Bless you, bless you for that word, your 'son!' I shall bear my exile better now. I must hurry," said he, "while I have courage. I did not decide in a moment; I came here again and again; I saw your happy home: oh, how I longed for its peace: I did not promise even myself for a while, but at last I have decided, and to-morrow I go. It is best for Margaret to forget me -- she soon will; but you -- you sometimes bear me in mind;" and, seizing his hat, he started toward the door.

            Mrs. Brandon put out her hand and detained him.

            "I do not know Margaret' heart," she said, "She has refused many suitors. I doubt if she knows her own heart; it may be yours, I cannot tell. but whether it is or not, you have no right to throw away all of life simply because of another's crime. What a hopeless world such a course would make!"

            "You trust me still?" he said. "I am glad. I fill with courage; life is not all gloom now. Let me go while I have this light."

            "You shall not go without one promise."

            "What is that?"

            "A letter every month."

            He paused; his face darkened.

            "So much the better," he finally said; "so much the better. If you have faith, I will."

            "Nor is this quite all. If ever you desire to return -- if ever you wish to come back, promise me you will not hesitate, promise me you will come."

            Her words, which declared her faith in him, her caressing voice, the touch of her hands, weakened his resolution.

            "I promise," he at last said.

            "And now you must see Mr. Brandon and tell him you are going. Do not run off like a convict. Secrets are bad, at best, and at best the world is very suspicious. there is no cause why you should not go openly."

            In the morning her mother told Margaret he was gone. She made no reply; she did not seem to listen; but from that time she went less and less into young company. She would sit hours with her work in her lap, her head drooping into her hand.

            "Of what are you thinking, my child?" her mother often asked her.

            At such times she would smile, pick up her work, and answer --

            "Nothing."

            Whenever Mrs. Brandon received a letter she would mention its place of sending, but Margaret evinced no interest. She asked no questions, nor could her mother have answered any, as these letters merely said, "I am well."

            Several months passed in this wise, and then Margaret wrote for Maria to visit her.

            She came, and the old-time friendship seemed to take its olden course. Margaret deferred to Maria in everything. A great many secret consultations took place between the two. Maria had the air of a protector over Margaret. Even her mother wondered, though no jealous thought of another's influence came over her. Margaret loved them both, but in different fashions.

            By-and-by they proposed a little journey together, those two girls. Margaret's mother was glad, and hastened a few little preparations.

            "Twill do Margaret good," she said. "Even now I can see that Maria's coming has effected a change for the better -- the dear child is more cheerful."

            The cyclones of life do not always give warning: when we look back, it is in surprise at our unconsciousness, even to the moment before the storm that changes all our life. That journey, over which Mrs. Brandon had so many happy thoughts, is the wonders it was to do for Margaret, was the casting of her fate -- a fate that was to draw her young life down to the dark grave.

            It all came out soon enough now.

            "O my mother!" moaned Margaret, "who will tell her. You must, Maria; but what shall stay her under the grievous news?"

            Knowing all that was before her, Maria shrank from its doing. "Her only one!" she said.

            All mystic utterances fled before the great burden upon her.

            An incurable disease, terrible in its nature, yet to-day fearfully frequently among both men and women -- the surgeon's knife, and death in near prospect: these more certainly known after that journey, which Mrs. Brandon so fondly hoped would cheer Margaret's spirits and restore her health.

            How she broke the terrible truth to father and mother, Maria never knew: when the bitter task was done she returned to Margaret, pale, as one who had passed through some fearful mental torture.

            "My child -- my darling child!" moaned her mother, bending over the sofa where she lay.

            "Don't, mother, don't!" said Margaret, a spasm of pain sharply drawing her features. "Mother, dear mother!" said she, a moment after, throwing her arms about her mother's neck. "It can't be helped; don't let us cry; we have had a happy home together, and I will leave you another comfort. Send for him, mother; I must see him."

            No need now to mention names; but, as month after month slowly passed, and he did not come, Margaret grew more restless. But at last the hour came when he, too, stood in her room.

            "Leave us together," said Margaret. When he came out to seek her parents, the agony of death seemed to have passed over his face.

            Father, mother, and lover, talked long together.

            "And you?" at last said Mrs. Brandon.

            "It must be as she wishes," he said; "it cannot change my fate."

            "Let it be as the child says," answered the father; the mother bowed her head on to her hands and wept;

            A week more, and Margaret lay dead in the house. Beside her coffin, mourning with the parents, stood he so lately made her husband -- so soon left a widowed bridegroom.

            Did Margaret love him?

            I think not. Long suspecting her fate, she had dreamed no dream of marriage, and least of all to him whom she had set aside as the chosen of her friend; she had dreamed no dream of marriage of long life, but she knew his regard for her mother, and left him to be called son.