on the beautiful house across the street -Paul's home-and realized that she was shut out.

"I wish it were all different, darling," said Paul; and as he looked into the beseeching eyes upturned to his face, that moment he did.

August had come. Paul had only reached Busyville that morning. It It was evening, and he and Eirene were in Lover's Walk. He had just told her of the expected visit of his friends, who were to arrive the next day. He went on to say:

I had nothing to do with it. It is mother's work. She came to Boston and invited them. In one way and another I am under obligations to the Prescotts, especially for their hospitality. I visited at Marlboro Hill before I ever saw you. So, when mother gave her invitation, and they accepted it, I could do nothing but second it; and now I cannot do less than make their visit agreeable in every way in my power. It is an actual debt that I owe them, Eirene."

"Yes," said Eirene, "I see how it is. I would not have you do otherwise, if I could. I am wrong, I know, to feel at all disappointed. I mean-I think I should be glad to have you go about with them a great deal, if we could visit a little together—only a little-as we did last September. Then I shouldn't get lonesome."

they see me waiting upon any young lady in town, they always declare I do it with some nefarious design. You are to be my wife. I love you, yet at present I cannot protect you; that is reason enough why I should not bring one shadow of reproach upon you, my darling. If I walked with you here, while my mother refused to invite you to her house, you see how people would talk——”

Eirene grew pale. She was trying to accept it, to understand it-this hard fact, striking into the face of her dream. All she had actually known of Paul's society had been by the peaceful river and in the sheltered room at home; she had not realized before that she could not enjoy something of the same intercourse here. The demon of "people's talk" had never risen before her mind; but, now that Paul spoke of it, she remembered the gossip which she herself often heard in the shop, and knew that what he said was true. It was not to be; perhaps she could not sec him at all; but that he was compelled to tell her that she was not recognized by his own mother, was hard. Then she remembered how he had thought that in one year it would all be different; that now was the time when he had promised to acknowledge her before the world as his affianced wife. Perhaps he read the thought on her white and silent face; for he said,

"I believed that by this time I could have acknowledged our relation to every body; but circumstances have been too strong for me. I am not yet independent. Until I am, we must wait, my darling. It won't be long. When I am fairly established, then it will all come true, the lovely life that I planned last summer."

All the light came back into her eyes as he mentioned the life of the last

summer.

"I could wait forever," she said, "for ease and fortune. The luxury you told about, Paul, don't seem to belong to me. I was happy while you were away. I did not expect to see you; but to see you every day, and yet to be scarcely

able to speak with you-to see you all the time with others, while I long for your society so much, will make me so lonely, Paul, I'm afraid I sha'n't know how to bear it at first; but I will try. Maybe it will not be so hard by-and-by. Only now I am so disappointed. I thought we were going to be so happy. It's so different from what I expected."

"Yet it is not so different from any thing that you might have expected, if you had taken all the circumstances into consideration," said Paul, in his most practical voice, which sounded all the harder because he himself felt annoyed by these very circumstances, and was really distressed by the pain visible on the lovely face before him. Of course, in his irritation he forgot altogether that in every letter that he had written her he had given her reason to expect every thing to be different in this visit from the present reality. She had never before heard this tone in his voice, when he had spoken to her. How full of supplication and tenderness it had always been!

It was almost as if the beloved hand had struck her a blow. The swift tears rose to her eyes; with silent force of will she held them back, and a quiver in her voice alone betrayed her emotion, as she spoke:

"I have expected too much—more than it is in your power to grant me. It is because I love you."

"You haven't expected more than I want to give you, nor one tenth of what you deserve," said Paul, passionately and penitently, feeling again the old impulse to snatch her in his arms and carry her off, away from all the world; for it seemed to him that only away from the world could he be absolutely true to her and worthy of her. "If it wasn't for my cursed life, my cursed" position, he was going to say; but in an instant he felt ashamed to mention it. "If I was not tangled on every side, darling, it would be so different. But I'll tell you every thing. I know you would forgive me, no matter what I did. I am in debt. Before I knew you, I spent more than my al

lowance. I associated with rich young men, who gave suppers, made bets, and wasted their money; I did the same. Now, darling, I'm reaping the consequences. I can't marry till I get out of debt. The very day that I do, I can begin life anew, and with you. You will wait for me, won't you, precious? No matter what you see, no matter how hard things may seem, you will believe in me and love me, won't you?"

"I will." And never had the womangaze been so tender and trusting and entire, as it was while the girl uttered these words and looked into his face.

The influence of her spirit on his was to call forth every generous impulse latent in it. Paul Mallane never owned his shortcomings to any body else; but it really was a delight to him to confess his sins to her. It made him think better of himself while he was doing it; and, while he looked into her eyes, he felt capable of the noblest actions, and actually meant and believed that he would do every thing that he promised her. "I don't deserve such devotion, you lovely one!" he exclaimed, as all the mean thoughts and regrets of the last month rushed into his mind. "I wonder that you do, that you can, love me, when I think of myself as I really am. But I love you. No matter what happens, believe this, that I love you as I never loved before, as I shall never love again; that you are the only woman I ever saw whom I wished to be my wife. Promise me you will believe this." And, as he uttered these words, Paul snatched her into his arms, and kissed her forehead, her eyes, her mouth, with something like the prescience of despair running through each, that, as it was the first time, so it would be the last; and as the thought struck his heart, it seemed to him that he could never unclose his arms and let her go.

They had come to the end of the walk, where the river bent and ran on both sides of the great willows, which hung down to the water. It ran swift and dark and wide here towards the dam, a little further on. Its rush, and

the cry of the whippoorwill high overhead, gave a weird quality to the moment, the dim moment of a midsummer twilight. Paul held the face that he loved up in the soft light. One lingering gaze, one kiss more, long and silent, then, without a word, he took her hand in his, and they walked back. When they came out into the village the stars were shining above the great elms, and hundreds of couples were sauntering to and fro under their shadows. The towering form of Paul Mallane could not be mistaken. Many recognized him, and a few the girl in white by his side. It was told in more than one shop, the next day, that "Paul Mallane had been out walking with that Vale girl again, and it was plain enough to see that it was for no good."

The next evening, just as the last sunrays were brightening the beautiful garden across the street, Eirene sat by her window, alone. It seemed to her that she was dreaming, and she tried to think back and make life seem to her as it did before Paul kissed her. She still felt those kisses upon her eyelids, her lips, her brow. It seemed to her as if they still rested there, the seal of his love.

"This is love," she said. "How wonderful! I read of it, but I knew nothing of it. How could any one ever write or tell what love is? I only know, when I think what it would be to me now to live without it. How did I live, and not unhappily, when nobody cared for me-when nobody would have missed me or have mourned for me if I had died-nobody, I mean, but those at home. I could not be so peaceful now, if no one cared for me― if nobody thought of me and missed me, as I miss Paul. Oh, if I could only see him every day-if I could go into the garden with him and look at those flowers in the vases-if I could go into the house and look at all the pretty things! I like to look at pretty things. If I could go and come, as Miss Prescott will! And we cannot walk any more by the river! I would not, if I could not see him as a friend elsewhere.

But if he cannot come here, and I cannot go into his home, we cannot meet any more. When you are so near, how can I live without you, Paul? Oh, you thought we should be so happy in August! And her heart gave a sudden cry, and she lifted her hand involuntarily, as if to hold the remembered kisses upon her face. "I'm so lonely, Paul!" she said, in a broken voice.

Just then a span of magnificent bays in white trappings pranced up to the house opposite. The carriage which they drew was so much more splendid than any Eirene had ever seen before, that for an instant she was too dazzled to distinguish Paul sitting on the back seat with a lady, while in front was a gentleman with Grace. This moment Momo, in the further window, having just caught the name from Eirene's lips, began to cry, "Paul! pretty Paul!" with undiminished vehemence. The lady in the carriage looked up, saw the parrot, saw Eirene. Isabella Prescott immediately recognized "the shopgirl;" and the shop-girl, looking down upon that face turned full upon her, knew instinctively, without knowing wherefore, that she looked into the eyes of an enemy.

Why, how glad this parrot is to see you! And who is that pretty girl?" asked Bell of Paul.

"Her name is Vale," said Paul, hurriedly.

Before this, the footman had opened the carriage-door, and Tabitha Mallane had appeared in the veranda of the tea-green mansion, arrayed in Aunt Comfort's best silk.

The air was full of gay words and laughter. A light, mocking laugh came back to Eirene as the party disappeared in the house. Never in her life before had Eirene heard any thing so mocking as this laugh. It struck her heart, and she felt a new and utterly unknown sensation-the pang of love, jealousy. It is not true that perfect love, if human, casts out fear. All human experience proves otherwise. Her love was complete, but the conditions under which she loved were cruel.

Immediately and intuitively she realized the immense advantage possessed by the woman who had looked up at her and mocked her with a laugh. She even overrated them, so humble was she in her opinion of herself. To see a highly-wrought, passionate woman jealous, is often a grand picture; for there may be sublimity in a mental and emotional storm as well as in a material

one.

But to see a gentle nature struck to the heart by this demon, is a sorrowful sight; there is no thunder and lightning and wrath to sustain the energy of such a one, but only tears, and silent, unutterable anguish. Such a woman struck by jealousy is like a dumb animal that has received its death-wound. Eirene sat silent, as if paralyzed. In an instant all joy seemed to be struck out of her life, and she to be alone on earth. But Momo, who was thoroughly wide awake, and evidently excited by the unwonted appearance of the new-comers across the street, continued to scream, "Paul! pretty Paul! " He brought Eirene back suddenly "to a realizing sense," as Tilda would have called it. "You sing for spite-you sing for doom!" she would undoubtedly have exclaimed had she been a theatrical young lady; but as she was only a simple, suffering girl, whom a new anguish had suddenly stung into a nervous irritation before unknown to her nature, she only walked quickly to the window and took the cage from the ledge, with Momo still screaming to the most piercing limit of his voice. "Hush! hush!" she exclaimed. "Momo, you shall never mortify me again; you shall go and sit in the back yard for――ever!”

Here came a long, deep sob, and she sauk vanquished by the first blow of her new enemy.

"What on earth is the matter?" said Tilda, an hour or two later, when, as she returned from prayer-meeting, she stumbled over the cage in the middle of the floor, and, lighting the candle, found Momo in deep disgrace, with his head muffled in his feathers, and Eirene with her head buried in the bed.

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Nothing," said Eirene, lifting a white face from the pillow, "only I'm not feeling quite well. Momo was so noisy in the window, I set him there. I shall keep him in the yard hereafter." And with these words she arose, and quietly walked out of the room with the cage.

"Oh, no; nothing's the matter!" muttered Tilda, as she sat down by the open window, grimly planting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands; "nothing's the matter; only those cussed-(may the Lord forgive me!)-those cussed Boston folks have come. I saw 'em drive up this mornin' in a circus-coach, it looked like to me; and the snip had her hat full of feathers, and the feller looked as if he ought to be spanked; and I thanked goodness the child was in the shop and couldn't see 'em; but she has seen 'em and heard 'em, and heard the peanner goin', and the poor baby all alone in the dark! Now, we'll see what we shall see. I'll see if he'll keep the promise he made in that letter, and marry her. If he don't, may the Lord-- If he does, he'll be the death of her. I told her so. Why didn't she get religion! Then he'd 'a' had to have stayed with his own kind, for all of comin' to break her heart!"

It was past midnight when the music and mirth in the drawing-room across the street ceased, and Isabella Prescott retired to the apartment assigned to her for the night. It was Eirene's old room, into which two others had been thrown. Bella was seated by the same window where Eirene sat when Paul contemplated her from under the cherrytree. But her gaze was not turned outward; she was busy scanning the furniture by the searching gas-light, which had taken the place of Eirene's tallow candle.

"Every thing smells as if it had just come out of a varnish-shop," she said, as she sniffed her nose contemptuously. "New, stark, staring new, every article in the room. I see they have taken some lessons from Marlboro-bought every thing as dark and rich as possible; but veneering, varnish, and new

oils, are not to be repressed. Ugh! I shall smother. If I don't, how I shall look in the morning, after breathing such air all night! And it is quite necessary that I should look my bestlanguid, slightly pale, but still my best," she said, proceeding to the glass and commencing to practise her usual faces. "The shop-girl has more of a face than I was quite prepared to see," she soliloquized, as she went on putting her hair into crimps. "Not a common face, certainly-a face that I would make havoc with myself, if I were a young man. I like to do it justice absolute justice; then I can take so much the more credit to myself as an artist, when I triumph over it and crush it; for I intend to crush it. I'll pay you, Miss Shop, for interfering with a Prescott!"

Miss Prescott was perfectly well aware what she was doing when she brought her carriage and horses, coachman and footman, to Busyville. Dick remonstrated said it was parvenuish, and unworthy of their high estate; but Miss Isabella declared that “she didn't care; " and she didn't. What she did care for, was to impress upon the mind of a vulgar town her own magnificence, for the establishment was her own. "It is useless to object, Dick," she said; "I'm not going to be jolted about in their old country arks. I'm so delicate!" Thus the Prescott bays and barouche issued from the village livery-stable every evening, and passed through the village-street, the wonder and the envy of the natives. A European war, or the “abolition of slavery," could not have plunged the villagers into such a state of personal excitement.

"It is plain enough to see why such people visit the Mallanes. They have a son!" said the Brahmins, with uplifted noses.

"What does Brother and Sister Mallane expect is goin' to become of their souls, encouragin' such pomps and vanities, and a-settin' such an example ! " said the Bustlers. But in both classes the seed of Isabella Prescott's vanity

reaped an abundant harvest. For six months after, Busyville boasted that it had more dashing teams than any other town in the county.

More than a week had passed, and Paul and Eirene had not spoken since the evening when they met in Lover's Walk. Yet she saw him every daysometimes in the grand barouche, seated beside Miss Prescott; sometimes on Fleetfoot, with Miss Prescott, in an elegant habit, with a jaunty hat full of shining plumes, on another curvetting horse by his side, going or returning from their daily ride; sometimes in the veranda, reading to Miss Prescott; sometimes in the rustic seat under the old cherry-tree, chatting with Miss Prescott by the hour; but whenever or wherever she saw him, always with Miss Prescott. Outside of workinghours there was little refuge from this sight of him; for there was neither light nor air in Seth Goodlove's front chamber away from the window.

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Well," ," said Tilda, one evening, looking across the stand to Eirene, sitting in her old seat with her eyes fixed upon a piece of sewing, through which the needle seemed to pass faltering and slowly, "I will declare that you are sick, and shall go home. John Mallane gave you a vacation last year; why don't he do so this? You need it now enough sight more, goodness knows. I shall ask him myself to-morrow, and tell him, if you don't go, you'll be right sick; and you will. No, I won't tell him any such thing: I'll tell him you need rest, and must have it. I will say to you, Eirene Vale, that I never saw such a change in any person in one week in my life. I can't bear it, and ain't a-goin' to try. I hate him so, I do. Oh, I'm losing my religion. I've lost my enjoyment. I ha'n't had the evidence for a week. That's the harm it's doin' me, Eirene Vale; and it's killing you. I told you So. I told you so. Heed me you

wouldn't."

The face had, indeed, changed, which looked back to Tilda without a word. The roundness, the peachy bloom of