And then the past years were gone over. Mr. Colwell had failed, not with honor, and had been glad to go West, as his wife had recommended Grant to do years before, and had become lost in the whirl of a great city. Mrs. Colwell allowed it to be reported that Marion was to marry a rich widower. A wealthy family came to occupy the Colwell mansion, and society interested itself in the new and forgot the old. And now Marion, poor and unmarried, had come to the public school as a teacher. The minister called often at the school, and finally the gossips suspected that the cause of education was not the only motive for his visits. Once when he called he laid down a pressed and faded red bud. “Do you remember those flowers I held so many years ago?” And, blushing, she told him of a similar one which she treasured. A look of joy and half surprise came into his face. “Did you, then, think of one whom you supposed a poor boy, Marion?” “And do you think of one who is in reality a poor girl now?” The wedding was a quiet one, Marion wearing, at Grant’s request, a simple blue dress, with red roses in her hand. What were Mrs. Colwell’s thoughts as she looked at the book-agent, now her son, no one could know, for poverty had not made her less proud, but it had doubtless made her more considerate and courteous. “I would sell books again to find you, Marion;” and her pretty blue eyes looked their happiness in response. THE TWILIGHT HOUR SOCIETY. “HELÉNA, we must send out the invitations this very afternoon for the new literary society. It must be done with great care, too. I wish this to be the most select club of the West.” The speaker was Mrs. Helen Brunswick, who had just returned from Europe. She was a lady of considerable culture and taste, and, what was not an inconvenient addition, of wealth. Her husband, a good business man, had died—perhaps opportunely; for, though Mrs. Brunswick was polite to him, she told her bosom friends that “he was not poetical,” and, therefore, not a very congenial spirit. His wife was a teacher when he married her, poor, but of very good family, and his money was undoubtedly the chief attraction. She had one child, whose name, for the sake of elegance, she always called Heléna rather than Helen, and of whom she was very fond; but her one absorbing plan was to make her home a literary centre. She bought, on her return from Europe, an old-fashioned house,—a new one would have seemed vulgar to her æsthetic taste,—and furnished it as nearly as possible like the houses of some celebrated persons which she had seen abroad. She revelled in old tapestries, and bronzes which looked as though they were made in the bronze age. Heléna sat down, note-book in hand, to make out a list of those who were to be honored members of the new association. “Shall we invite Fanny Green, mamma?”