parted in admiration, her eyes riveted on a superb cloth-of-gold rose.

SEE ENGRAVING.

"Oh, how beautiful! how beautiful!" cried the little sufferer, stretching out his wan, wasted hands. "And you say they are all for me?" for Lucy,

"Would you like it, my dear?" asked Lucy; for though rich, beautiful and flattered, prosperity had not spoiled our heroine-she still had a heart. "Oh, so much!" replied the child, looking round to the speaker, and finding assurance in the soft, kind eyes. "But it was not of myself I was thinking," she added, with a blush; "it was of my brother. He is humpbacked, you know, and ill in bed, and, oh, he loves flowers so!"

sister, had come up to his bedside. "I never saw anything, I never believed there could be anything as pretty as these white flowers; they are so pure they make me think of the angels-the angels in their shining robes."

"They are lilies, dear." She could hardly speak steadily. "I thought you would like them." He took them in his hands and inhaled their fragrance. "Oh! so much. I know now; angels always

"Wait, my dear," she cried; and going in, she bought the rose. "Give that to your brother as a Christinas gift," she said. "And now tell me where you live. To-morrow I'll come and see you, and perhaps," with a smile, "I'll bring more flowers."

"Oh! thank you so much."

And then she told Lucy where to come, and, as our heroine, with a nod and another of her sweet smiles, passed on, the child looked after her as if she had scen an angel.

Hugh Willoughby had been, unnoticed, a spectator of this scene.

"Who can she be ?" he said to himself, watching the graceful figure going down the street. "I've been abroad so long that I know nobody here now. But I'll follow the child and ask her where she and her brother live. I may be able to help them."

He sincerely meant to help them, but in his secret heart there lurked a hope that he might sometime meet this sweet almoner at the bedside of the deformed boy.

"Oh, my child, my child!" cried the distracted mother; "don't talk so. You can't mean it. You will outlive us all." She tried to keep down her fears while she said this.

He smiled faintly, and put out his other hand. "Kisse, mother," he said, faintly. "Don't

cry."

Just then the chimes of a neighboring church began to ring. The silver sounds rose aud died, and died and rose again, till the whole air quivered, as if with celestial music.

"I hear them singing-with harps of gold," his face glowed, his eyes were fixed above. "Oh! the walls, the walls all shining-"

His weak voice stopped. There was a sob. The flowers fell from his hand. The frail form sank back.

"O Heaven! he is dying!" shrieked the mother clasping him in wild despair in her arms. “Will no one run for a doctor?"

"O May!" cried her brother, feebly, "where did you get it? Such a beauty. Do let me touch it!" "It is yours, all yours, Harry. And a beautiful lady gave it to me, and said she would come and see you to-morrow." And then she told the whole story, breathless with enthusiasm.

Harry took the rose in his thin, wasted hands, and fell into raptures over its beauty.

Christmas morning broke bright and beautiful. The church bells rang out their glad chimes. Happy people in hundreds were trooping up the street. But Harry, in his narrow attic, was racked with pain. A great change had come over his face; it had a pinched, gray look, and his sister glanced anxiously, first at it and then at her mother.

The poor little fellow asked to have the rose, which had been put in a broken tumbler, with some water, and placed beside him.

"It is beginning to fade, but I don't seem to suffer so much when I can see it," he said. And he murinured, as if to himself, "We all do fade as the leaf."

His mother was vainly struggling to keep back her tears, when there was a knock at the door, and Lucy appeared, bringing a whole handful of the loveliest hothouse flowers.

"I heard you ask for a doctor. My friend here is one. I told you," nodding to the little girl, “I was coming to see you, and we are just in time.”

But his companion, who had already advanced to the bed, shook his head as he gazed on the calm, still face.

"He is where no earthly physician can av:.il him; but happier, happier far," he said, addressing the mother, tears in his voice, "than he was here, or any of us can be till we follow him. The Lord hath given'-for this great practitioner was a devout Christian- and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'"

As he spoke the neighboring chime, as if to confirm his words, rose in a triumphant burst and then were hushed.

The meeting at that bed of death was not the last one between Hugh Willoughby and Lucy Grafton. They attended together the simple funeral, assisted afterwards to advance the fortunes of the bereaved mother, and joined in sending the sister to school. They met, too, at other similar scenes, and in time contracted a mutual affection, which ended in the happiest of marriages. Theirs was indeed a "union of true souls."

One day, years after, Lucy head, for the first

I

PATIENT WAITING.

A LEAF FROM WOMAN'S LIFE.

BY FRANCES M. CHESEBRO'.

CHAPTER I.

WAS fourteen years old when, in consequence of my mother's death, I became an inmate of my grandfather's family. Ten years previous, my father had removed from New England to St. Louis, and here, by slavish devotion to business, he accumulated a quick fortune. But his plans and hopes were frustrated by the sudden death of my still young and beautiful mother. She died of cholera, and in the absence of her husband. My father's grief was terrible. Its power and passion frightened me, and had a tendency to check my

own tears.

Scarcely had three months passed, when a letter from my father's sister was received, begging him to send his only child to Boston, to be under her care until the term of school education should be completed. Thus, in four months from that dark day when death robbed our home of its joy and sunlight, I was ushered into the large, old-fashioned drawing room of my grandfather's house in Boston. A young and very beautiful woman came into the apartment to welcome me. This was my father's sister, my Aunt Mary. She, too, wore the mourning dress, in which I was myself robed. She, too, thought I, has wept for the same sorrow that has afflicted me. This touched my heart and conquered my reserve. I burst into tears, and subbed upon her bosom until I was exhausted.

When I had prepared my toilet and dried my tears, I was taken to my grandmother's room. As I entered the chamber I was struck with awe and timidity. The apartinent was not elegant, after the style of the home I had left, but was filled with old and costly furniture. The walls were hung with family portraits dating back to three generations. My grandmother was a dignified and fine looking woman of seventy years. She was an invalid, and never left her room, excepting on great occasions. She was stern, and almost cold in her reception of me, but her voice trembled slightly as she bade me come forward to the ebony arm chair in which she was reclining. She even bent forward and kissed my pale cheek.

the stair. He entered the room with a smiling, jovial face, that reminded me at once of my own father. His reception was more cordial. Now that these formidable presentations were over, I was glad to escape to my own room, where, with my beautiful young relative, I could talk freely, and act myself.

I soon became devotedly attached to Aunt Mary, and she encouraged and fostered the confidence that dated from the first moment of our acquaintance. I was not long in discovering that she was the centre of a select circle of admiring friends, and the evenings often found the parlor filled with young and gay company. I was always admitted on these occasions, and usually favored by a seat at Aunt Mary's side. She was accomplished, even gifted in music, and her execution awoke me to a new world of romance and beauty. But best of all were those quie: evenings, when, with a single friend, we sat together in the library, and listened to reading or conversation on books and art.

There was one gentleman who was never present at our gayest gatherings, but came by himself, and usually brought some poem or new song for the evening's entertainment. Louis Mansfield was of fair complexion, with dark, hazel eyes, the expression of which changed with every phase of thought that passed through his mind. His hair was thrown back from his high, white forehead, and was of a dark brown hue. He was somewhat above the medium height, and was what the world would call a man of noble form and mien. I never could decide whether or not this opinion was true. Sometimes, when he was talking earnestly, and his soul rose into his brow and looked out from his deep hazel eyes, I thought him almost perfect; but there were other times when I looked in vain for any trace of beauty in his face.

One evening he came, bringing with him a new song for Aunt Mary, and with other pleasantry that passed between them, Louis demanded payment for the gift. Aunt Mary half conceded the point, in a playful manner that was peculiarly bewitching to her. After the song was sung, Louis took from the library a volume of Coleridge, and turning to the exquisite poem of Genevieve, laid the book open before her on the table. A rich blush stole into her cheek and mounted to her brow, as she glanced at the poem selected for her reading.

"Oh, no," said she, quickly. "It will be profanation to read these verses by gaslight, and in such a mood as we are in. This should only be read in the twilight of a summer evening, or by the soft light of the moonbeams, and then, only in a low, subdued voice."

"Do you indeed prize it so highly? It is also my favorite."