heads; for that sleep, they thought, I nel Trevelyan had kissed his little girl more fondly than usual, and had spoken to his wife with much kindness. would have no waking. It was restless, and dreadful enough to see; and they tried to persuade Geraldine to leave the room; but she refused positively, and begged, unless it was absolutely necessary for them to remain, that they would leave her alone with her husband. Then she threw herself on her knees, and prayed for him-prayed with a passion and an earnestness which, alas, our prayers too often want!-prayed that his life might be spared, and hers taken; or, if this could not be, that God would forgive him his many sins; that mercy might be shown him; that this awfully sudden death might end his punishment. No wife who had adored her husband could have prayed more fervently than this poor young creature, whose life he had wrecked, whose youth he had blighted. She prayed for herself too, that she might be forgiven. With anguish unspeakable she recalled her brief rebellion, and thanked God for the peace which had followed it. But though her grief was great, the agony of the days she so contritely remembered could never come again. Thank God, there are limits to human pain! and that once you have known the passion of despair, though you may grieve, and grieve deeply, you have to a certain extent exhausted suffering, and will never again experience that which is quite unendurable. She thought over the days that were gone and would never come back. Only yesterday, in the morning, though it already seemed a century ago, Colo Trifles too came crowding into her mind, as in supreme moments they will: little things, forgotten, long since buried, she had hoped-things which had seemed hard enough to bear at the time; with which she had fought battles and conquered-came to torment her with their memories now. Every feeling, every trial of her life, all its unspoken difficulties, seemed to crowd into her surging brain. But she prayed on, until the daylight streamed into the sick-room. And dare we say her prayers were not heard?—that it was too late? Is it ever too late with God? The dying man's hand strayed over her bowed head for a moment. She rose quickly to her feet and bent over him. In accents gasping, but still clear and distinct, to her eager ear came her own name; the one word "forgive," followed by that blessed one which is associated with all pardon-"Jesus! A little later he again struggled to say something, and, fixing his eyes full upon her, he faintly murmured, "Pray!" And Geraldine did pray. She prayed, as if she were inspired, every petition that could suit that bitter hour and her own aching heart; and as she concluded, with that most beautiful prayer from the Visitation of the Sick: "Deliver him from fear of the enemy, and lift up the light of Thy countenance upon him and give him peace, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ," she felt certain her own "Amen! وو was feebly repeated by | inclined; but it soon became apparent the voice she had hardly dared to hope Then an ashy paleness came over his face; a paleness which poor Geraldine had seen too often and knew too well. With a suppressed cry she summoned the doctors; and almost ere they reached her she fell to the ground, nearly as lifeless and inanimate as the corpse which was all that now remained of the admired, the rich, and the prosperous Colonel Trevelyan. Geraldine had two children living at the time of her husband's death. The eldest died, as has already been told at the commencement of this story. The youngest lived to grow up very lovely, with the sweet and touching grace of her mother, and some of the superb beauty of Colonel Trevelyan. She inherited all the portion set aside for younger children, and made a marriage which rejoiced her guardian Lady St. Clair's heart. In her first season she captivated the eyes and won the affections of Lord d'Eyncourt, heirapparent to a dukedom, and, moreover, The mother and child were hardly ever seen apart, and Geraldine gave up society altogether, that she might devote herself entirely to her little daughter. The poor knew her well, and to the sick and the sorrowful she seemed an angel visitant. Blessings should not be far from her, had all their prayers been heard. The only relaxation she gave herself, from a life of duty and of active exertion for others, was her drawing. Every summer she made a sketching expedition; and in the prettiest parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, the fair Madonna-faced woman, still young, but too worn to be lovely, accompanied always by a most beautiful, radiant, dark child, excited the curiosity of tourists and of others who saw them. She and Mr. l'Estrange never met again in this life. They both judged it best that it should be so. Geraldine had been fading for a man young, clever, good, and attrac-years; but there seemed to be no defi- Her mother's sad story is not likely life had probably wasted it; but I to be repeated in the child. Geraldine survived her husband many years, and her memory is most tenderly cherished by the daughter whose good angel she had been. She was still young and lovely when her husband died, and she had more than one opportunity of making a brilliant marriage, had she been so doubt whether, under the happiest auspices, she would have been a longlived woman. Natures tuned so high are apt to snap suddenly; and she had none of the hardness or the dulness required to meet trials like hers. Mrs. l'Estrange was the only friend with whom she kept up any thing like intimacy, and she was with her when THE FIRST AND LAST KISS. she died. It was very sudden at the last-that gradual fading so often is. Mrs. l'Estrange had meant to ask Arthur to come and see her. But it was not to be. The last time he saw 99 He hardly ever goes with her into the gay world, in which she so much delights, and of which she is so great an ornament. Her beauty created quite a fureur at first, and she is still the face of the woman he had so pas-courted and made much of in very sionately and nobly loved was with the seal of death upon it, and the smile of triumph on her lips which brought back some of its youth and beauty to the worn and marble face. He kissed her then for the first and last time; and even his mother did not stay to see the agony which shook the strong man, as he thought of both their wasted lives, and of the suffering which it had never been the privilege and blessing of his life to lighten. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur l'Estrange are said to be a very happy couple. He is devoted to his art-so devoted, that that is the only grievance his wife can find in what seems an exceptionally happy lot. exclusive circles. She is so entirely wrapped up in her husband, that the most conceited of aspirants cannot get up more than a mild and utterly harmless flirtation with her. They have two children, a boy and a girl. The boy is beautiful like his mother, and idolized by her. The pale, fairy little girl Mrs. l'Estrange calls plain; but to her father she is every thing. And sometimes when they are alone together, and his lips are pressed against hers, I fancy he is thinking of another pale face which has already put on immortality. "And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill: But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!" |