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mortal ear; but when, some hours afterwards, her hus- I came straight from the heart; look to it dear, slow old band drew aside the curtain, and looked on the sleeping Robert; or throw away your spectacles and live in face of his young wife, he found it was flushed as with blindness evermore. unquiet slumber, and the long lashes that rested on it, wet with recent tears.

They all said it was a pleasant Christmas Day; even Carry allowed that-and certainly everyone seemed very merry. There was old Mrs. Fairfield, with her quiet, dignified ways, making her very looks respected; even Carry was awed into trying to win a golden opinion from her. There was Margaret, so delighted with everything around her, praising their country fare and habits at every turn; never tired of hearing how all looked in summer, and what were the pleasures they tasted then. Robert, too, continued to keep clear of all long stories, devoted himself chiefly to Margaret, and renounced spectacles for the day. Why he ever wore them no one could understand. It was not for the sake of looking professional, for he was a man of small, but independent fortune; nor because he was near-sighted, or had weak eyes-no, but he had formed the habit, and though he could see much better without them, not even Nellie's coaxing could procure more than one day's intermission of the odious things.

"Your marriage is not quite such a mystery to me as it was last night, Nellie," said Carry, smiling archly, when they found themselves alone again.

"Oh!" said Nellie triumphantly, "you begin to do him justice then?"

"Do you justice, do you mean, you demure little hypocrite? however, you might have been frank with me. How much a-year has she?"

"Who?"

“Why, Mrs. Fairfield, of course."

"I have no idea," said Nelly. "Why?"

"Oh! I dare say you have no expectations," said Carry, satirically; "you are quite superior, you and Robert, to anything of the kind."

"My dear Carry," said Nellie, with wounded amazement, "Mrs. Fairfield lives on an nnuity that dies with her."

"Then I am more in the dark .han ever," said Carry. She stood looking musingly at the fire a few

moments.

"But there, go to bed, Nellic, do," she added, giving her a cold kiss; “I think, after all, you're just a fit wife for that dear, slow old Robert of yours. Good night, Nellie; good night."

Nellie had a puzzled look on her face when she left the room; it wasn't as bright and cheerful now as on Christmas Eve.

"Dear, slow old Robert," murmured Nellie, as she laid her hand on the handle of the parlor-door; "after all, I may as well go to bed at once; I dare say he doesn't care for a gossip;" and softly withdrawing it, she went up stairs again.

Look to it, Robert; for a man with spectacles, you are blind indeed if you cannot see that there is a veil weaving between your heart and your little wife's. The bright smile has been worn for show to-day, and the cheerful voice made an effort to be cheerful-neither

Carry was gone to see the poor relative who had been Nellie's protectress; Robert was spending an hour with his mother, as his custom was every morning. Nellie brought her work, an embroidered collar that Carry had designed for her, and sat down beside the sofa on which Margaret lay reading. The book was laid aside at her sister's first attempt at conversation.

"Well, Peggie dear, you haven't told me how you like Robert ?"

"There was no need for it, Nellie; who can help liking so kind and gentle a man ?" "You don't find him

then?"

80 very old-fashioned,

"I like old-fashioned things, Nellie; did we not agree yesterday that there were no songs, no books, no flowers, like the old-fashioned ones?”

"And you do think Robert old-fashioned ?” "It is such a strange epithet to apply to him, I hardly know. What does it mean?"

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Why, that he is prosy and odd, not like the young men of the present day."

"He is hardly to be called one of them, dear Nelly; so that says nothing. As to his being prosy, I don't know; he tells long stories, certainly; but he so evidently enjoys them himself, and has such a kind intention of amusing his listeners, that they should be the last to find them so."

"One more question, Madge, and I have done. Would you have married Robert Fairfield had he asked you?"

"No, Nellie."

"Ah! there you see, why not?"

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"Because, dear, there was one, and only one, to whom I ever would have said 'Yes,' answered Margaret quietly, though her changing color revealed the emotion she tried to suppress.

Nellie kissed her caressingly.

"Forgive me teasing you with questions," she said; "but Carry has put these things into my head-she does not like Robert. You see Mr., I mean the young man she is engaged to, is such a fine handsome fellow, she cannot help comparing her lot with mine; and then she pities me, buried, as she says, in the country, and leading such a humdrum life."

"Laugh at her for her pity, Nellie; you don't need it; and if it is any consolation to you, I assure you, were I compelled to choose between the two gentlemen, you would be the loser, not Carry.”

"Ah! you would take my Robert, then; and yet Charles Sewell is very handsome and gentlemanly.” "Granted; but I prefer Robert's expressive face and genuine kindness."

Nellie kissed her again; she felt happy and contented once more; and laying aside her embroidery, drew out a pocket-handkerchief of Robert's that wanted hemming and worked his initials in her own hair. Margaret smiled quietly, and resumed her book. * *

*

It is in the middle of June, and a bright summer day | allow her a small annual sum, which she could eke out -not your modern summers, but an old one, such as our with needlework. ancestors basked in: there are June flowers in the gar- This reply was repeated by Carry in her weekly letden, June scents pouring in at the window, and filling ter to Nellie. Margaret was silent on the subject, and the cheerful rooms with their rich fragrance; and bet-in her indignation she carried the letter to Robert. ter than all, June smiles on the sunny face of Robert's little wife, as she stands beside him, in a plain cotton dress, reaching up the nails he is hammering into the wall.

There are genial, beneficent spirits abroad this morning to a certainty, and their influence is seen and felt everywhere; there isn't a swallow soaring round the cottage that isn't conscious of it; there isn't a saucy breeze dancing among the leaves, or dashing in at the window, to ruffle Nellie's stray curls, that isn't full of the joyous certainty as it can be; the brawling brook in the meadow beside the house is singing the same thing; and the flowers nod their heads and toss them up and down, with evident conviction of the fact.

But what has all this to do with a newly whitewashed room, a new cheerful paper, a husband nailing up muslin curtains, and a little wife handing him the nails? A great deal, as you will see.

The six months that have passed have not gone by without leaving some token of their presence and effects. If Robert were compelled to make a confession, though thumb-screws and the rack wouldn't induce him to do it, he would own that the Christmas visitors had not left his home such a happy one as they found it; and that every time a letter came in Carry's handwriting, there was a renewal of the old strangeness in Nellie's tone and manner-a shadow on her face that used not to be seen there once; that very often, when his spectacles were bent on his book, his eyes were looking over them, trying to find out what that something was-all to no purpose. And Nellie, oh! hers would be hard confessions, too, of envious feelings when she heard of Carry's gaiety, and Carry's lover, and Carry's presents; of yearnings to be fashionable whenever patterns of the newest shapes were sent her; of attempts at Italian sonatas, instead of the simple old songs that Robert loved. A shameful confession, indeed, Nellie, and one you may well blush to make, even to us.

But it had been even worse than this since May, when Carry was married; and in truth the account of the wedding, such a wedding as it was, might well turn Nellie's simple head, and make her heart discontented for a month afterwards. And if the truth must be told, the house was smaller, the garden emptier, and Robert's stories longer than they had ever been before. It was well that Carry could not marry again just yet. About a week before the bright morning we have just described, a note had come from Margaret, announcing that the aged relative with whom she had hitherto resided was no more, and she had written to Carry asking from her the asylum she needed.

This was natural, for Carry's husband was a rich man, and in her large establishment, a nook could easily be found for her sick sister.

But Carry had replied that her husband declined heing burdened with her, though he would be happy to

"You must write to Margaret, dear," he said when he had read it, "and tell her, as long as we have a home there will be a place in it for her; she will be a blessing to our house, my wife-we shall all be better for it."

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By six o'clock the next morning there was a great bustle and hammering in the house. Nellie opened her eyes, and sleepily wondered what it might mean. sently she discovered Robert was gone. Ah! then he was at the bottom of it, no doubt. With righteous curiosity she jumped up, thrust her little white feet into slippers, flung on a dressing-gown, and stole down stairs. As she opened the study door, the beloved sanctum of her husband, the room which even she always entered with a sensation of awe, she was driven back by a cloud of dust. Returning to the charge, she presently distinguished through it that the walls were dismantled the heavy bookshelves moved, the old disused doorway to the garden opened, and the carpet taken up.

"Why Robert, Robert," interrupted Nellie, "what does this mean; what are you doing?"

Robert emerged from the interior, dusky with dust and dirt. Nellie laughed at the figure he presented. "What are you doing, ogre?" she repeated. "Arranging a room for our sister, Nellie, to be sure; you didn't think she was to be doomed to her bedroom or our company for ever, did you? No, no; she must have her own little quiet parlor, where no one shall enter without her leave. A little paint and papering, a new carpet, a sofa, &c.”

"But your study, Robert-your papers and books?" "Must find a fresh place, Nellie." "Dear, kind husband."

She forgot his dusty coat, and laid her little head lovingly against it.

"Why, you see, darling, I can have the bay window in the parlor, place a table there for my papers, a shelf for my books, and be as snug as here."

"You are too kind, dear," said Nellie, with tearful eyes.

Robert thought she was going to say more, so he caught her up in his arms, and ran with her to her own room.

"Dress yourself quickly, and come to work, Nellie," he said, cheerfully; "there will be great need of your clever fingers."

So there was, indeed, and busy enough they were for many days. The Italian songs were quite forgotten; the new fashions laid aside in oblivion, and Carry me

her husband, if ever they came into Nellie's thoughts, | up, a last touch with the duster, a vase of fresh flowers were dismissed with gentle pity. on the table, and all would be ready for dear Margaret, The room was nearly ready now, looking so clean who was making the journey in short stages, and would and bright, those fluttering muslin curtains once hung arrive by tea-time.

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Now Tom was not a ready speaker, though a careful, | great emphasis on the first word, "I'll give a look in at loving attendant of Robert's horse, and a most discreet Missus's flowers from time to time." gardener of Nellie's flower-beds.

"Please Sir, the Squire's no objection."

"What, he'll take you, Tom, will he?" said Robert, turning round on the top of the ladder, with a boldness that struck fear to Nellie's heart, and looking down on the mortals beneath him with the aspect of a very new and original cherub of a reckless character.

"Please Sir," said Tom, glancing up rather timidly; for he did not feel ensured against a precipitate descent from his master; "please Sir, the Squire'll try me." "What! is Tom going?" said Nellie.

"Do, Tom, and what's more, if ever you go courting Annie Morris of a Sunday, and don't come here first for a flower to put in your button-hole, why I hope Harry Long will cut you out."

"Thank ye, Sir, I'm sure," said Tom, with & grim sinile, "if I may make so bold. Not as I'm afraid o' the likes of him!"

Robert held out his hand to his faithful servant. Tom took it respectfully, and shook it roughly. Nellie too turned round, and extended hers; but Tom could not stand it any longer. He bolted out of the room

"Yes, my dear. You see I have sold the horse. It and hiding himself behind the stable-door, blubbered doesn't want another nail, Nellie, does it?"

"Sold the horse, Robert?"

"Yes, my dear. I may come down now, mayn't I?" "Steady, Sir," said Tom, applying his hand to the ladder.

Robert went on talking as he came, evidently pretending that he was used to it, and not at all ner

yous.

"Walking is so much better for the health, my dear; and the Squire was quite anxious for my horse, he admired him so much. Take away the ladder, Tom, will you, please? And so for the garden, Nellie my love, I think gardening good for the health too, and that, between us, we can always keep it as pleasant and neat as it is now, eh?"

A very strange thing is taste. In Nellie's eyes at that moment-ay, and for ever afterwards-that quiet, oldfashioned man, in his spectacles and his working-dress, was the handsomest hero that ever existed. The old faith and love, only a thousand times stronger than before, came welling up from her heart and streaming from her eyes, as she threw her arms round him, and murmured how good and noble he was, and how unworthy she felt to be his wife. More she would have said, in her shame and penitence, but Robert stopped her with his kisses. He needed no confession. Her face was still hid against his shoulder when Tom came back, and she kept it there to hide her tears.

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like a child.

Robert told one of his longest stories after tea that night, when they sat beside Margaret in her pleasant little room; and he had scarcely begun it when Nellie quietly stole her hand into his, and so startled him, he almost forgot what he was talking about. But he soon grew accustomed to it; and indeed it became such a habit, that he never could tell a tale well without it at last.

Robert wears his spectacles to this day; but it is observed that every year he lives, he looks more and more over them at his wife's face, and less upon his books. It is not surprising to those who know what pleasant thoughts are written there, and what a quiet contented heart they rise from. Margaret is a bond between them both-a constant exercise for self-denial, patience and forbearance, keeping their souls ever pure from selfish rust and idle indifference; and Nellie, having lost her taste for Italian and the fashions, and having once made up her mind that her husband is the best and handsomest man on the earth, has never since been converted from the delusion, despite several wellaimed efforts on the part of her sister Carry. And she is quite right too; these illusions are half-sisters to Faith; and if in the ancient camp in the wilderness there were some who spoke mockingly of wooden images, covered with gold, it was better to kneel among the simple believers, who called them angels of the Mercy Seat; for to those only was the hidden glory revealed.

THE SUMMER VACATION.

some tasks, no routine of duties check the full expansion and riot of their capacities for pleasure.

THE summer vacation begins with July, and soon we | fling their awful shadows, no studies obtrude their irkshall see the meadows and mountains crowded with migratory citizens, in search of a brief rural episode of quiet and pleasure. The schools, many of them, how- It is an excellent thing, this brief respite from brick ever, do not close till near August, and therefore it is walls, odorous gutters, hot pavements, and the proprienot until the last of the summer trio is upon us that the ties. With what an elastic bound one's feet first touch season arrives at its height and fullness. Meanwhile, the turf after months of tramping over the hard, glitterexpectation is ripe, and the little ones, with longing ing, unyielding stone! with what a gasp of pleasure the eyes, are looking forward to that consummation of their air that comes over meads and forests, is drawn into the dreams—a month among the hills and forests—a free, | lungs until it titilates through every vein in the unrestrained month of holidays, wherein no schools body! with what independence do we tear stock and

vacation in the country, who cannot enter into all these little pleasures, and mainly find his source of happiness in the thousand things that lie around his path.

collar from our necks, hide from our sight stiff beavers, | away. These are old highways by which the choicest encase our feet in the easiest of shoes, and in the way wild flowers dwell, over which armies of bees have of coat and pantaloons, repudiate fashion, law, and marched. Pleasant is it to linger about such spots as the tailors! And then with fly-baited hook, to sit and these, listening to the bleating of sheep, and the fainter dream upon river Lanks, and fancy ourselves true cry of the little lambs as they bound over the daisy-clad anglers; to saunter up the steep mountain side; to hillocks, while the deeper lowing of horned cattle, who gallop along the river road; to sleep at noon-day give a charm to every landscape, adds an agreeable beneath waving elms; to glide with spreading sail voice to the out-of-door concert of Summer, and plays over the moonlit lake; to pluck fruit, fresh and dew-bass to the band of birds that sing in our great, green glistening, from drooping boughs—these are only a few cathedrals-the woods. Indeed he is not adapted for of the pleasures the summer respite affords. We find a rare pleasure in the most insignificant things of rural life; in berry pickings; in whole day's rambles in the forests; in flower and moss gathering; in watching play | Convulsive seekers after violent and noisy pleasures, of light and shade amid the foliage; in the fishing jaunt; in the mountain pic-nic; in the drive; in the walk; in cool drinks of creamy milk! This last is not to be despised. Who that has wandered in the country, parched with thirst, has not felt a deep delight at stumbling, unaware, by some sudden turning in a green lane, beside an open gate, upon some modest milk-maid, and obtaining of her a draught of new milk, which was drunk while the white foam hung about the lips like creamy may-buds. Those draughts of milk linger about | our memory still.

It is delightful to wander up those green lanes that lead nowhere save to fields where the road is never crushed by a wheel all summer long, saving where the hav-harvest or the wheat harvest is gathered in and led │

should betake themselves to the watering-places, to big hotels, hot bed-rooms, pompous and noisy dinners, midsummer balls, dusty drives, much fashion, and no comfort. The quiet, in-glowing happiness of rural life, is not for such as they. But those whose summer vacations are spent with nature, in simplicity and love, will have bathed in the bath of youth, and will go back to town duties and pursuits, regenerated and new-made. The air they have breathed will be as nectar to their lungs-a golden spur to their vigor, and the blood so animated and set a-glow, will stagnate no more that year. The brain will work the stronger and clearer, and the heart will be the purer for its little diversion into the sympathies, hopes, and charms of Nature.

A STORY OF TWO LIVES.
"I think we are not wholly brain,
Magnetic mockeries."-In Memoriam.

THE scene was a London fireside about the middle of December. A family group was assembled round the tea-table, in the dining-room of a convenient substantial house, in a pleasant and well-esteemed quarter; evidences of comfort and wealth were abundant, and perhaps a stranger would have observed that the apartment bore more the appearance of a commodious general sitting-room than of a mere salle à manger. Had he known also that there was a very elegant suite of drawing-rooms above, and a numerous and efficient corps of servants below stairs, he must have conjectured that there was some especial reason for the family spending the evening in the room where they had dined.

A girl of sixteen, just bursting out of childhoodwith the bloom of her early womanhood rather to be guessed at than acknowledged-was presiding at the tea-table; her next sister, the junior by a year or two, was busily engaged on some wool-work, perhaps manufacturing slippers for papa; little Willy was cutting the leaves of his prize-book; and Mrs. Ireton was leaning back in her arm-chair, eyeing the party with quiet maternal satisfaction, and every now and then dropping

some pleasant words-like flowers thrown upon a stream-into the murmuring babble of their family talk. Opposite to her, in the fellow arm-chair, sat her beloved husband, with their youngest treasure -8 golden-haired, blue-eyed darling of four years old-on his knee; but for the father was no longer the blessing of beholding the dear faces around him. Mr. Ireton was blind, and it was on account of his bereavement that the family so often occupied the room with which he thought himself the most familiar. As the child on his knee clasped its arms around his neck, played tricks with his cravat, and showered kisses on his cheeks with baby prattle, and restless infantile glee, there was something pathetic in the manner in which the father passed his hands across the face of the child he had never seen! The gesture was all the more touching, because it was only loving, not sad.

Willy put down his new book, and handed Mr. Ireton his tea, with a gentle care not to have been looked for in a school-boy; while she of the embroidery-needle hastened to lift down baby, as the youngest was still called, from her father's knee. It was the delight of Mr. Ireton's children to watch and wait upon him; and they felt jealous every time a servant approached him.

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