surface except in appreciation and love. Ah, Tresorier, it was being born dumb, but not deaf; always hearing what another said in the touch of a pencil or the stroke of a brush, but never being capable of answering in the same electric speech. So I relinquished it."

"And that's only as a performer. I had the same experience regarding music. I did compose some few things, but the divine essence was not in me. And so with poetry. It was a hard matter to acknowledge to myself that I was not born to create. I suffered acutely at the time. But now, music is my passion, my comfort, and solace."

Claude's breath came rapidly. "It's so wonderful,” he began, with a strange glow, "that painting should enchant you, while your soul makes itself known through music; and though painting seems the voice of my being, music moves me beyond description. I have been dreaming of it ever since that night steeped in trances that bewildered me. I could hardly paint."

"You will come again?" Dana said, with a strange thrill in his voice, a satisfaction heavenly in its completeness. "There will be the more perfect accord between us, because each can supply what the other lacks. A nature complete in itself is a monstrosity. It would ask nothing from any living being, for it could stand so perfectly, so awfully alone."

"And yet it would be glorious to feel one's self so rich in sustaining power!"

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'No, you can't mean it. It may appear dazzling to you, because you've never known absolute solitude of soul, that terrible want and craving for companionship. To go down to a blacker depth than that of despair! There was a time in my life when I thought to stand alone. Like the Ancient Mariner,

Claude shivered, and was silent. The pain and anguish was not to be equal to the solitude.

Dana, standing by the window, glanced out, for these unwitting revelations of a secret sorrow appealed to his delicacy. He knew some day it would be unveiled. From this point you could look into the street, running north and south. Through a space, where the trees were wide apart, he saw a picture. A lovely woman holding out one hand to a not less beautiful child, who was lagging behind.

'O, Tresorier!" he exclaimed, "come and look at this child. It is perfect!"

The artist obeyed his summons; but at the first glance a deep color flushed his face.

The woman, still in the bloom of a glorious girlhood, caught the look, and smiled. Then she took the child in her arms. Claude drew back into the shade, the flush fading to deathly pallor.

"It is Mrs. Tresorier," he said, in a cold, unnatural voice, that startled Dana. There was no pride in it; no joyous ring.

"And the child is yours! Are they coming in? I want to see it. I have such an extravagant love for children. I had a little girl once, but not like that. If she had been, I think her death must have killed me. Wifeless and childless! It is best so, Heaven knows, and I would not call back the dreary past. But sometimes I envy happier men, whom love

has blest."

Claude was moving towards the door, but he went as one stricken blind, and reached out his hands in a nerveless, uncertain manner.

There was a stir in the hall, and leaning over the railing, he said,

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Will you come up here, and bring the child?”

The tone was curiously low and distinct. It chilled Dana, in some inexplicable manner.

"So you want us!" The answer was electric in richness and subtile joyousness.

A

A whispering in the passage, and then Claude returned. baby voice began its soft lispings, as it was taken into the adjoining room to receive a few touches from its fond mother's hand.

When Mrs. Tresorier entered, Felix Dana stood silent from something beyond surprise. Her presence flooded the room with a sense of beauty that thrilled every nerve, so keenly alive to such impressions. Her beguiling grace, her repose, far removed from coldness; her warmth and luxuriance, that while bordering on the sensuous from its very affluence, never palled, and must have charmed the most fastidious beholder, as being a part of her nature you could no more separate than take the color from a deep-hued rose. It bewildered you. It was like the sparkle of fragrant wines, or the odor of powerful perfumes, and mastering you with a sensation akin to fear.

To think of rivalling this woman in her empire over her husband's heart!

Dana came forward, and responded to the introduction with his usual high-bred elegance, veiling the wonder that rushed through every pulse like a torrent. The child was shyly hiding in the flowing folds of his mother's dress some light airy fabric, that was but a foil to her loveliness.

"I saw you out there in the square a moment ago, so you must pardon my desire for a nearer acquaintance with your child. Will he come to me?”

"He rarely goes to strangers." She drew him a little forward into the light.

"What do you call him?"

"He has never had any name besides Ariel."

"Shakspeare's fine spirit.' How wonderfully appropriate ! Yet if he had been mine, I should have called him Raphael, in token of the other up in heaven, angel-eyed now, indeed."

Dana bent on one knee, to be on a nearer level with the child. Holding out his hands, he said, softly,

"Come to me, Ariel."

The little one paused, and swayed uncertainly, attracted by the resistless eyes that sooner or later made their spell apparent. "You will come."

The added charm of the voice won him. He stretched out his tiny hands unhesitatingly, but his eyes were full of wonder. "You rival me with my child, Mr. Dana," Mrs Tresorier said, in a tone rendered sharp by some feeling, yet it was neither anger nor distrust.

"But I don't mean to vex you. How beautiful to be alive!" and, lifting him in his arms, he went to the window.

"If he should ever die!" his mother thought, with a spasm of agony that constricted her very being.

So ethereally fair, like some white cloud floating upon the bosom of heaven in vague innocence; so unearthly the light of the deep impassioned eyes; so quiet to awesomeness the parted lips, whose expression was like nought of earth; so golden the haze made by the fine vapory rings of hair that a breath blew about, and seemed melting into gradual indistinctness. Dana repressed a strange shiver of presentiment. There was something here that had come from neither parent; a spirit, with so slender a claim upon earth, he wondered that it remained at all, fulfilling its God-appointed time.

"How you must love him! he said, with a burst of irrepressible feeling, kissing the soft, unconscious lips. They did not warm with the caress, nor shrink from it, but were simply passive.

"Yes. And strangest of all, I never fancied I should love

a child."

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Why not? Pardon me, but the thought seems monstrous for a woman.'

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Does it?" She gave a strange little laugh, as if amused. "Don't tempt me to frankness. I have a fancy that people

feel inclined to tell you truths. I used to think there must be some capability of return in all affections, but I have been converted from that heresy. The utter helplessness of a child appeals to one as nothing else on earth can."

"I should think so. As if there was not an abundant capability of affection in every child that was not cursed by some fatal hatred in which it had no share ;" and his voice was roused to bitterness. "But this is such an exquisite little being! I don't see how you ever came to have a doubt about loving it."

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It's more than love now," she said, fiercely. "It's my very life. Nothing can compare with it!"

Dana started, and thought of the husband in his shady corner, silent, and spiritually alone. This beautiful woman's heart had but one side; she could love but one object. Her loveliness had dazzled his artistic sight, and now he was doomed to pay the fatal penalty for yielding to the senses instead of the soul. Dana fancied that he understood the artist's mystery now. Some far-reaching fate had drawn them together, and made him capable of ministering to a soul that sat in the gray ashes of desolation.

They chatted on in the twilight. Mrs. Tresorier was decidedly piquant and original, and possessed a keen wit, that flashed fearlessly, indifferent as to its effects. Now and then he paused to kiss the child, who scarcely stirred in his arms, but watched him with a rapt look, until the eyelids drooped over the lovely, but most unchild-like eyes.

They were interrupted by a messenger for Tresorier, who left the room at the summons. The housekeeper lighted the hall lamp, and a long, slender ray from the stairway crept into the apartment.

Mrs. Tresorier crossed over to Dana.

"See, you have put him to sleep!" she said, "which is wonderful. No one ever did that besides myself."

He glanced steadily up into her eyes, but there was nothing responsive in them; no soul that he could touch.