No sooner had the young man news of his engagement, and that he had to look to a comfortable cottage, a good income, and employment in which he was sure he could be happy and give satisfaction to his employers, than he hastened to his native place, which he had been unable to revisit for six months. He was full of hope, full of joy, but on his arrival his joy was somewhat dashed and his hope clouded. He found that his Mary, whom he had loved since boyhood, was manifestly in a decline. Hoping against hope, snatching at every encouraging symptom, she had not forewarned him, and he saw on his arrival that already she was deathstruck. Her delicate complexion was delicate to the utmost refinement; her beautiful soft eyes were larger than they had ever seemed, even in childhood; her lovely face was lovelier than ever, with an angelic purity and beauty. Then she told him the truth; but, indeed, he saw it for himself. "Mary, dearest," said he, "if there is a little bit of life left only to you, let it be to me also." "Dick, I can but be a burden." "That--never--a joy as long as you are with me. Give me the one thing I have thought of, worked for, if it be but for a year or two." "A year or two! Oh, Dick, only perhaps a month." "Then let this month be our honeymoon." And so it was. The faithful fellow, true to everyone with whom he was brought in contact, was true to his dying love. She came, ghostlike, to church, and I shall never forget the pathos, the tenderness, the sincerity with which each took the irrevocable vows which bound in one the ebbing scrap of one life with the flowing vigour of the other. Richard moved his frail, fading Mary to the pretty gardener's cottage at Lord St. Ledger's. There she ebbed away, happy, peaceful, with the love and devotion of her husband surrounding her. The story of his marriage reached the ears of the ladies of the castle, and hardly a day passed without some of them coming to see her, and Lord St. Ledger gave orders that fruit and flowers were to be hers as she craved for them. Just a month after the marriage her coffin was brought back to her native village and laid in a grave in a sunny part of the yard. "Make a double grave," said Richard to the sexton. A double grave was made. When the funeral was over, his old master, the squire, went to him, took his arm, and said, "Oh, Richard, you have had a terrible loss." "I have had a great gain, sir." "A gain!" "Yes, sir. I could never have been happy had she not been mine. But she became mine, and she is mine--for ever." He returned to his duties. * * * * *