T was on a hot July day. I stepped into the cars, glad, oh, how glad! to escape from the mingled confusion and dust of the city. I met with no adventures on the route. The engine did the usual number of miles within the given time; there were no delays, and that is saying a great deal. The usual amount of doleful metallic screams went up among the hills, scaring the echoes on the mountain-tops; and as the sunset splendor fell, mantling wood and meadow with gold and purple tints, we stayed our course at the depot in the midst of the beautiful valley which was my place of destination. I thought the clamor of the hissing valves no bad imitation of a real Indian powwow, which might oft before have startled the slumbering echoes in the mighty gorge, and convince the most

valiant warrior of the Mohawk tribe, could he look again through the misty years, that Yankee invention had beaten them, even in their primitive cries. Then I fell into a little dream of that wondering people, who chose always the wildest and most romantic situations for their transient encampments.

I fancied the dusky faces of the Indians peering through the foliage; eyes flashing astonishment at the innovations of civilization; the wigwam, with its curling smoke rising to heaven like incense; then the murmuring of the foaming rapids, disturbed only by the picturesque bark canoe, paddled skilfully by some tawny son of the woods, gracefully poising himself preparatory to the dangerous rush over the boiling eddies: then with lazy indifference he floats to the shore, where his faithful squaw comes forth to meet her hunter lord.

But, in the dying out of the Aborigines, the romance of our beautiful land is lost forever. Now, instead of the smoke from the branch-woven hut, houses, towers, and spires loom in the distance at every eligible spot. Locks and canals; the tramp of the horses, and the unmusical shouts of the

drivers; steam-mills, railroads, and all the means and appliances of modern industry and progress, meet the eye. Men, of various nations and dissimilar creeds, in unsympathetic tones desecrate the old shrines where these wandering children of nature, with mysterious rites, consigned to earth their dead, trusting that their souls had passed to the pleasant hunting-grounds which await them beyond the grave.

All dreams must have an end, and so had mine. Friend Murray laid his hand on my arm, and led me away to the carriage waiting close by. A pleasant drive brought us to the house, where I met such a welcome as made my heart bound again. All aglow with happiness, they hurried me to the tea-table.

"Berthold not come yet?" said friend Murray. "Not yet," replied Mary, the wife of John. "We will not wait, he is so uncertain.”

Just then a shadow darkened the open window, and the person in question stepped into the room. I looked up. Our eyes met. There was the haunting dream of girlhood standing before me—tangible, alive. An instant-the bewildering, deafening, ever

lasting thunders of Niagara were sounding in my ears. I felt myself floating like a weed on the edge of that terrible abyss; and then-I don't quite remember what, everything was so sudden, and so indistinct-I sat in a large armchair, and he was holding both my hands, and his touch thrilled me from head to foot. Mary Murray said:

"She is so exhausted with the journey."

"And the long fast, I dare say," chimed in comfortable John.

They wheeled me up to the tea-table. I protested against being considered an invalid; declared myself quite well, which Berthold, I thought, rather mischievously certified to, immediately prescribing tea and toast, which I quietly consented to take.

There was no formal introduction. My Quaker friends called him "Berthold St. Cyr:" he, falling into the habit of those around him, called me "Emile," as though he had known me forever.

And so we met again. I had said—and I believed when I said it-there could be no second passion, after the first passionate young dream of youth. That lost or broken, the heart could never

know another. But there came a day in which my cold philosophy was baffled. I knew that the motion of my blood might be disturbed; and the veil, in which I so proudly wrapped myself, might be rent, and fall off, to leave me shivering in the light of truth.

That evening passed quickly; and my gentle hostess kissed me "Good-night," and left me to myself. There was a whirlwind of new experiences for me to battle with a warfare of strange emotions at work in my own heart, which I dared not analyze. I was afraid to think. Was it cowardice or wisdom? Perhaps both. My heart was tugging at the lock to which the key was lost. Day after day we saw each other, but kept no record of the hours. Like two happy children let loose from school, the weeks were one bright holiday.

Glad as a bird, I sang in the woods, as we rambled, unquestioned. I could make nothing of it; but it seemed like stories I had heard of happy youth in fairy-land. It had been years since I had tasted such perfect freedom; never, with such a companion.