Jael's voice broke in sharply. "Abel Fletcher, the doctor's wife is wanting thee down in the kitchen garden, and she says her green gooseberries bean't half as big as our'n."

My father awoke - rubbed his eyes became aware of a lady's presence-rubbed them again, and sat staring.

John led Ursula to the old man's chair.

"Mr. Fletcher, this is Miss March, a friend of mine, who, hearing I was ill, out of her great kindness—"

His voice faltered. Miss March added, in a low tone, with downcast eyelids

"I am an orphan, and he was kind to my dear father." Abel Fletcher nodded - adjusted his spectacles — eyed her all over - and nodded again; slowly, gravely, with a satisfied inspection. His hard gaze lingered, and softened while it lingered, on that young face, whereon was written simplicity, dignity, truth.

"If thee be a friend of John's, welcome to my house. Wilt thee sit down?"

Offering his hand, with a mixture of kindness and ceremonious grace that I had never before seen in my Quaker father, he placed her in his own arm-chair. How well I remember her sitting there, in her black silk pelisse, trimmed with the white fur she was so fond of wearing, and her riding-hat, the soft feathers of which dropped on her shoulder, trembling as she trembled. For she did tremble very much.

Gradually the old man's perception opened to the facts before him. He ceased his sharp scrutiny, and half smiled.

"Wilt thee stay, and have a dish of tea with us?"

So it came to pass, I hardly remember how, that in an hour's space our parlor beheld the strangest sight it had beheld since ah! no wonder that when she took her place at the table's foot, and gave him his dish of tea with her own hand her pretty ringed lady's hand - my old father started, as if it had been another than Miss March who was sitting there. No wonder that, more than once, catching the sound of her low, quiet, gentlewomanlike speech, different from any female voices here, he turned round suddenly with a glance, half-scared, half-eager, as if she had been a ghost from the grave.

But Mrs. Jessop engaged him in talk, and, woman-hater as he

was, he could not resist the pleasantness of the doctor's little wife. The doctor, too, came in after tea, and the old folk all settled themselves for a cozy chat, taking very little notice of us three.

Miss March sat at a little table near the window, admiring some hyacinths that Mrs. Jessop had brought us. A wise present: for all Norton Bury knew that if Abel Fletcher had a soft place in his heart it was for his garden and his flowers. These were very lovely; in color and scent delicious to one who had been long ill. John lay looking at them and her, as if, oblivious of past and future, his whole life were absorbed into that one exquisite hour.

For me - where I sat I do not clearly know, nor probably did any one else.

"There," said Miss March to herself, in a tone of almost childish satisfaction, as she arranged the last hyacinth to her liking. “They are very beautiful," I heard John's voice answer, with a strange trembling in it. "It is growing too dark to judge of colors; but the scent is delicious, even here."

"I could move the table closer to you."

"Thank you

- let me do it will you sit down?" She did so, after a very slight hesitation, by John's side. Neither spoke but sat quietly there, with the sunset light on their two heads, softly touching them both, and then as softly melting away.

"There is a new moon to-night," Miss March remarked, appositely and gravely.

"Is there? Then I have been ill a whole month. For I remember noticing it through the trees the night when —” He did not say what night, and she did not ask. To such a very unimportant conversation as they were apparently holding my involuntary listening could do no harm.

"You will be able to walk out soon, I hope," said Miss March again. "Norton Bury is a pretty town."

John asked suddenly, "Are you going to leave it?"

"Not yet - I do not know for certain — perhaps not at all. I mean," she added hurriedly, "that being independent, and having entirely separated from, and been given up by, my cousins, I prefer residing with Mrs. Jessop altogether."

"Of course

most natural." The words were formally

spoken, and John did not speak again for some time.

"I hope" said Ursula, breaking the pause, and then stopping, as if her own voice frightened her.

"What do you hope?"

"That long before this moon has grown old you will be quite strong again."

"Thank you! I hope so too. I have need for strength, God knows!" He sighed heavily.

"And you will have what you need, so as to do your work in the world. You must not be afraid."

"I am not afraid. I shall bear my burthen like other men. Every one has some inevitable burthen to bear."

"So I believe."

And now the room darkened so fast that I could not see them; but their voices seemed a great way off, as the children's voices playing at the old well-head used to sound to me when I lay under the brow of the Flat in the dim twilights at Enderley.

"I intend," John said, "as soon as I am able, to leave Norton Bury and go abroad for some time."

"Where?"

"To America. It is the best country for a young man who has neither money, nor kindred, nor position nothing, in fact, but his own right hand with which to carve out his own fortune as I will, if I can."

She murmured something about this being "quite right."

"I am glad you think so." But his voice had resumed that formal tone which ever and anon mingled strangely with its low, deep tenderness. "In any case, I must quit England. I have reasons for so doing."

66 What reasons?"

The question seemed to startle John - he did not reply at

once.

"If you wish, I will tell you; in order that, should I ever come back or if I should not come back at all, you who were kind enough to be my friend will know I did not go away from mere youthful recklessness, or love of change."

He waited, apparently for some answer and he continued

- but it came not,

"I am going because there has befallen me a great trouble, which, while I stay here, I cannot get free from or overcome. I do not wish to sink under it I had rather, as you said, 'do my work in the world' as a man ought. No man has a right to say unto his Maker, 'My burthen is heavier than I can bear.' Do you not think so?"

"I do."

"Do you not think I am right in thus meeting, and trying to conquer, an inevitable ill?"

"Is it inevitable?"

"Hush!" John answered wildly. "Don't reason with me you cannot judge -you do not know. It is enough that I must go. If I stay I shall become unworthy of myself, unworthy of Forgive me, I have no right to talk thus; but you called me 'friend,' and I would like you to think kindly of me always. Because - because -" and his voice shook broke down utterly. "God love thee and take care of thee, wherever I may go!"

"John, stay!"

It was but a low, faint cry, like that of a little bird. But he heard it felt it. In the silence of the dark she crept up to him, like a young bird to its mate, and he took her into the shelter of his love forevermore. At once all was made clear between them; for whatever the world might say, they were in the sight of Heaven equal, and she received as much as she gave.

When Jael brought in lights the room seemed to me, at first, all in a wild dazzle. Then I saw John rise, and Miss March with him. Holding her hand, he led her across the room. His head was erect, his eyes shining - his whole aspect that of a man who declares before all the world, "This is my own."

"Eh?" said my father, gazing at them from over his spectacles.

John spoke brokenly, "We have no parents, neither she nor I. Bless her for she has promised to be my wife."

And the old man blessed her with tears.

FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD. A popular American novelist; born in Bagni di Lucca, Italy, August 2, 1854; died April 9, 1909. Author of "Mr. Isaacs," "Dr. Claudius," "To Leeward," "A Roman Singer,” “An American Politician," "Zoroaster," "A Tale of a Lonely Parish," "Saracinesca," "Marzio's Crucifix," "Paul Patoff," "With the Immortals," "Greifenstein," "Sant' Ilario," "A Cigarette-maker's Romance," "The Witch of Prague," "Khaled," "The Three Fates," "Love in Idleness," "Katharine Lauderdale," "The Ralstons," "Casa Braccio," "Taquisara," "A Rose of Yesterday," "Corleone."

Crawford was highly educated and a student in many lands. "Mr. Isaacs" was written at Newport, and "Dr. Claudius" at the Boston home of his aunt, Julia Ward Howe. His father was a most eminent American sculptor residing in Rome. His works, which have been widely translated, are eminently cosmopolitan. Their incidents occur in different lands, but in whatever country the plot is laid, he writes of it like a native. When he died, at his villa near Sorrento, it was on Good Friday; and he said, "I enter serenely into eternity; I die with the dying Christ.”

THE UPPER BERTH

SOMEBODY asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation was beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, the wine had got into those brains which were liable to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did something to rouse our oppressed spirits, the meeting would soon come to its natural conclusion, and we, the guests, would speedily go home to bed, and most certainly to sleep. No one had said anything very remarkable; it may be that no one had anything very remarkable to say. Jones had given us every particular of his last hunting adventure in Yorkshire. Mr. Tompkins, of Boston, had explained at elaborate length those working principles, by the due and careful maintenance of which the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad not only extended its territory, increased its departmental influence, and transported live stock without starving them to death before the day of actual delivery, but, also, had for years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the corporation aforesaid was really able to