looking back upon his love for me. as upon a dream-a tale that is told— asking if it were possible he ever loved me as passionately as his memory told him. The thought that he sees me, and will know, perhaps, my very thoughts, will nerve me--will save me, father, from a dead life. The belief in his presence will be so exquisite-so beautiful! Earth is lovely to me now-life glorious--and death--what can that be but dearer than all to me?" Exaltation of feeling will not rest nor take up its abode with us children of earth. In due time tears came to Mary--storm and fever and when life came back to her it did not seem always the glorious thing it was to her in the first hours of her bereavement, but a blank, objectless, aimless existHow often in life must the loving heart clothe itself in sackloth, and sit among the ashes of its disappointed hopes!

ence.

SKETCH FOURTH.

Heard you ever of a heroine of a love-tale who was forty years old? Never, perhaps, in the stories of the day; and yet we may read many when eternity tells us the stories of past time. When the histories of life shall be told in heaven, we shall see that all-startling incident does not belong, as the novelists would have us fain believe, to youth. We shall find, as age creeps upon us, that though the heart grows old many times in life, so that we could often say, Now I am even ninety :-I have passed through all the severe conflicts of life I can ;-nought can move me more-nought can carry me beyond a pleasant cheerfulness into great joy, so that again I feel young; -yet, blessed be God, the heart can and does become young again, though the body be old; we live many life-times in one life.

Yes, Mary is forty years old, and married. Mrs. Leger she is now, and still beautiful; not with the beauty of youth, however; her hair is silvernot silvered, but silver. Illness, care and sorrow have dimmed her glorious eye, and changed her complexion to a yellow, sallow tint. She bears marks. of age uncommon for her years-there are deep lines in her face, but her form is unbent; her silver hair is very becoming and luxuriant, and is combed plainly down over her face; but there is beauty of expression, the beauty of a lovely soul visible in the face, and with, of course, the addition of a carefully cultivated mind and a rare intellect, for these are great enrichers and beautifiers of soul, heart and face. Yes, she was still beautiful.

It was evening, and her last evening in Paris before her return to England from a continental tour. She was at the house of a wealthy Marquis, who gave that evening a féte in honor of his guests. Mr. Leger was a man honored and known in the literary, political, and benevolent history of the day, and his wife, our Mary, had not lost any of her peculiar attractive powers, and the best, the most talented, as usual, sought her that evening. Mr. Leger seemed unusually silent. The day had been an exciting day, the last to be spent for many months with his dear friend the Marquis; and beside, he had heard that day that some great political measure he had advocated with his pen and influence had been successful. So, a proud and a silent man was he; silent from an intensity of feeling and happiness. With a sigh, however, he turned from the circle of his wife as he asked himself, "Why could she not have loved me as I love her, and so should not have to accept her mere friendship?" Then the thought came to him, such a murmur was wrong; he had entered into the marriage with no expectation of such love, and he should be satisfied with the earnest friendship of such an one; and then, as a consolation, he remembered that his daughter, who so much resembled her mother, loved him passionately, and again he moved on with a chastened

but praiseworthy pride. For it is by faith that only the noble and great can love-it requires heart, soul, and mind; and there is but little of love in its holiness and strength in the world; there are many approaches to it though, blessed be God.

Mrs. Leger was alone, excepting one young admirer who had been expressing admiration in rather fulsome terms. "A truce to compliments," she said; "I dislike them, excepting in hours when one must see them gushing from true respect or love: but these maskings in the robes of love and respect come but lamely into common intercourse, and then I always feel as if a person who places another in an awkward position by flattery either thinks one very silly and vain, or is himself silly and vain, and to be admired himself will even give away some choice bit, when his hungry vanity longs for the whole banquet of praise. You see I can speak plainly to you, but I am like a kind physician," she said, looking into her companion's face," and love best when I wound. To be sure, you Englishmen might even adopt the sin of flattery as somewhat graceful drapery to your hauteur, and possibly I may perceive it as a sin in you more than else I might, were you not an Englishman." The young man colored, but said he kissed the provoked hand that held the rod. "And now," she continued, "we have been so long in France that we are really beginning to study the philosophy of catering to the mind and heart in the same fashion that we do to the palate; and as we have both partaken for the last few moments of a sauce which requires an acquired taste to like, let us send away the unpalatable condiment, the gift and reception of advice, and have some sweet dish of music, or books, or jest. By the bye, I saw Legendre with you to-day; what does he say to our proposed tour to the Hebrides?" At this moment an acquaintance said to her, " Mrs. Leger, allow me to introduce a friend to you.' "She raised her eyes, beautiful still, and saw before her-Edward Livingston! who bowed as to a stranger. One glance told her he did not recognize her; and the strength that comes so blessedly at trying moments came to her, and after a few passing common remarks, Edward and his friend moved away. Edward, whom she had mourned as dead, and thought of as her guardian angel, was living, and had seen her, spoken to her, and had not known her! How eagerly she longed to ask had he forgotten her-did he love her still-was he married? but her tongue was chained, her brain giddy, her cheek pale, and glad was she to take the arm of Mr. Leger, and pleading the heat of the room as a cause for her partial faintness, seek the piazza for fresh air. No one was upon the piazza, and in silence she stood, not heeding the glory of the evening; her heart keenly suffering, and longing for the wings of the dove, or that a voice from heaven might direct her how to act, when her husband broke the silence: "Mary, dear, I love to see you so much impressed and delighted with a scene like this; impressed even to silence, you are capable of such deep enjoyment and sorrow, that I would cast all things beautiful in your path. I imagine all who love must feel somewhat as I do, and yet I see those whom I know love deeply, love selfishly-but my love is not selfish, I believe. When I first sought you, Mary, and you talked of your love for another, whose very name I knew not, I could have called him from his grave, had such been my power, to make you happy, so grieved was I to know you a mourner; and I pressed you again and again to be my wife, not from selfish motives only, but because you were so alone, sad, fatherless, and friendless, excepting the friendship of my dying mother. saw your position in its sadness, and knowing what a great heart yours was, and felt its restlessness would be comforted by a friendship for a kind husband and love for your children; and although the beauty of an earnest love has never been your gift to me, I have been happy and blessed in your friendship."

I

These kind words but increased her wretchedness tenfold. Had they been said but an hour before, she could have told him that her second love was almost as deep as the first; but the old spell was on her again. Edward had been seen, and her heart, so strangely stirred, could not utter what she longed to say to comfort the noble being beside her, for it would be now untrue. Yes, Edward, the same and yet how different, she still loved! Time, which steals away from woman's beauty, adds to man, deepens expression, while from woman it takes her chief beauties, -softness of complexion, and lustre of her eye.

Edward, with his host, interrupted the broken reply of Mrs. Leger, and a second introduction took place: "Colonel Livingston, Mrs. Leger." Again she bowed, and she saw that still he did not recognize her. Mr. Leger felt the hand laid upon his arm tighten its grasp, but he scarcely heeded it; and as she continued silent, the gentlemen both began and upheld the conversation, and again, with beating heart and almost maddened brain, Mary listened to Livingston's eloquent words and thoughts. Presently Grace, her little daughter, came to her mother, sleepy and wearied with the night's excitement. The mother in her weakness could scarcely put her arm about her, but she did so, and whispered, "In a moment, love, I will go with you to your room." Edward looked at the child, and his interest seemed in a few minutes changed from the usual one evinced by a stranger for a beautiful child to an intense interest, and coming to her side he put his hand upon her head and said, "Look up, my child." The little girl, surprised, shook back her curls, and looked up. "My God!" was the exclamation that burst from his lips, and Grace, escaping from his hand, he leaned against the balustrade, and covering his face in his hands, he wept. As soon as he recovered from the emotion that overpowered him, and saw that they were surprised, even to forget the usual apparent indifference of politeness, said, "My exclamation, my tears, are caused by the wonderful resemblance existing between the child and one whom I have long mourned, and shall ever mourn."

Motionless, breathless, as if turned to stone, Mrs. Leger listened to all that passed, and after a few words of sympathy from her companion, heard the conversation again gracefully fallen into, though scarcely by Edward.

The last words she heard that night were, "Dearest, Colonel Livingston says that he will visit us when we have our winter household in Derbyshire; he will be a valuable acquisition to our six weeks' party."

When the hours of sleep came over the household, Mrs. Leger thought of the past, present, the dread future; and, asking help from on high, arranged her plans relative to Livingston, and well did she keep them. When he came to their hospitable country-house in England, she treated him courteously but distantly, and strove not to think of him, not to watch him. It seemed impossible, she thought, that her identity with his lost Mary would ever be traced. She went to the convent under an assumed name, and her real name had not been known in Europe. She had told Mr. Leger that her name was an assumed one, but he did not wish to know her real one, or the name of the husband of her youth. He had known and loved her as Mary Walton, and as such he wished her always to seem to him, with the addition of Leger to it; and as to the other name, if he ever heard a name like it, he said it would sadden him to think the love given him must be the love only of friendship. During her stay at the convent her father had died, without a near relative there, -her uncle and aunt dead,-Edward, as she believed, dead,—what did

she care to return to America? She loved the Abbess and sisters, and the quiet, industrious life she had led for so many years; she would stay with them all her life. But Mrs. Leger came to the south of France for her health,-chose the convent for her winter's residence, learned to love Mary, and be loved by her,-took her to England, and was happy in being able at last to call her daughter before she died. Mrs. Leger reasoned well, and was right in her course of action. Mr. Leger's sufferings would be so dreadful, if the truth should be told him, that if it could be preserved it must be, and Edward's most poignant grief must have passed. He mourned for his youthful bride-not the present Mary;-he could not recognize his Mary in the Mary Leger; as for herself, she could suffer, alone and in silence. He visited them in England, as I said before, and he reverted but once in her hearing to his sad past life, when he said that his history had been too sorrowful almost to think upon; but she knew how he must love the memory of his loved and lost by the affection he showed for Grace, and by the constant watching every movement of her's, and the eloquent tear in his eye sometimes. She was so little with him, that but one unpleasant contretemps took place: one morning a lady said, as Edward, Mary, and herself were standing together, watching the gentlemen assemble in the court for a hunt, "Why, Mrs. Leger, here am I with two arch rebels !-two Americans! Pray, are you in league together for treason and strategy, as your place of birth would lead us loyalists to believe? Did you know Mrs. Leger in America, Colonel Livingston?" "Mrs. Leger an American? Why, I did not know that. Strange that I should not; what was your name there, Mrs. Leger?" Her cheek grew deadly pale as she said, "You do not remember of ever meeting with one Mary Walton, do you?" He looked at her somewhat bewildered, as if a suspicion crossed him that that face had been seen before by him, but apparently became satisfied that he had not, said, "Mary Walton, no; but it seems to me, had I ever met you, Madame, I should have remembered you." Then, after some conversation about America, Mrs. Leger made some excuse to leave them, and hurrying into her room, as often she had done before, in bitterness of woe, locked the door, and with tears, and kneeling in prayer, begged for help and comfort.

When Edward left them and England for his home, she felt even more sadly than she had prepared herself for-more alone. She thought she had bade him farewell in life. But Providence had ordered it otherwise. He came again to Europe with consumption plainly written on his cheek and in his eye. During the two or three years of his travelling in search of health, they met once or twice, and he was again their guest at gay evening or dinner parties. God had willed that his last hours should be spent at Mrs. Leger's house. He had come to England to embark for home, to go home to die; but he had not thought the evil hour as near as it was. He went to London to wait some few days for letters, and had accepted Mr. Leger's earnest invitation to stay with him at his house, as there many luxuries and kindnesses awaited him that were not to be had at a hotel. The day after the invalid had gone to Mr. Leger's, dreadful suffering was his lot; and day after day passed in the same torture, and it was evident he must die. He could not have been moved from the house had Mr. Leger even been willing to have had him, and at last the hour came for him to die-shall I tell of it? And one day, before his death-hour, he spoke of Mary to Mary-shall I tell of it?

Mrs. Leger had been reading to him from the Bible. The pale sufferer lay in his bed while the soft summer air played among the white muslin

drapings of the bed, and as he lay there, his was a glorious face to look upon, lighted up as it seemed, almost, with some of the beauty heaven must soon give to so beatified and good a spirit. The physician and Mr. Leger had interrupted the reading, and had just left. Mrs Leger was seated on the bed, which was quite low, and her heart was awe-struck, for that question had been just asked by the dying man, "Do you think I can live through the night?" and the answer had been-" Before morning I hope to hear you are at peace-your sufferings over." Mrs. Leger rested her head on her hand, and thought with fearful intenseness. She was roused from her earnest questionings into the mysteries of life and death, by the low, weak voice of the dying man. So, death is really in the room," he said, "and waiting by me, indeed, while the one great and dear purpose of my life has not been accomplished. I have referred," he said, after a pause, "to my past life as having had much sadness in it. I will tell you all of my life's history, how I lived and lost one dearer than life to me. I will tell you not in words, but through my journal. Read it when I am gone, and then you will see how madly and vainly I have sought my beautiful Mary; and now, oh it is so sad to die without having seen her-without knowing where she is that makes death bitter indeed. If I could only know where she is, I could die content; but still, patience, a few more hours and possibly I shall know all." Said Mrs. Leger, earnestly—" Could you bear to know about her now, when she must have lost the charms of youth and beauty, and when, if she were by, you might not recognise her?" "Ah!" said he, "it seems to me I could never see Mary without knowing her; some chance word or tone would bring all remembrance, and all love back to me. But, oh! if I could only know that she does not suffer."

At that moment Mr. Leger returned, and that night they both watched with him. Contrary to all expectations, he lived through the night, and the next day the physicians, finding him still alive, thought that he might live a few days more, possibly, even a fortnight; he seemed daily to gather strength, and at last was well enough to leave his bed, and take his place of rest in a large easy chair.

It was evening. The moon shone into the chamber, and the night lamp was shaded far off in the room. The nurse was dismissed for an hour or two, and Mrs. Leger took her past, though not the nurse's place, for she sat upon a low seat at his feet. They had been silent for a few moments, and at last Edward said, "I have been thinking to-day, as I often have, how Mary must be changed, and I cannot picture her as otherwise than beautiful and young." He drew from his bosom a small miniature, enclosed in a case of gold. Touching the spring, the lid flew open, and Mrs. Leger recognised herself, in the loveliness of her youth. Mrs. Leger sighed, for she did not think it strange he did not see Mary Brighton in the Mrs. Leger with silver hair. She put it into his hand with eloquent tears, and an evident incapability of speaking, from emotion; then rousing herself, she rose, and bringing a guitar from its hiding place, sang a song, composed, oh! years ago, and set to music by Edward. At first, he looked at her with involuntary surprise, although it was no new thing to hear her sing, but her singing now seemed so ill-timed, but the song touched his heart. "Strange!" he exclaimed, when she had finished, "it seems familiar, as if I had heard it; but no matter, I can't recollect it. Sing again my dear Mrs. Leger." A gain she sang, but with faltering voice; it was a song she often had heard him praise and love. It affected him so that he wept, and said, "Ah! my life seems sad, indeed, when I hear that song. Mary used to sing it, and now death has come with my search for her all baffled, and I am alone, to die in a foreign land-no, not alone, dear Mrs. Leger; but let us not talk any more