history, essays, novels, poems, and reviews. Still her indomitable will maintained the conflict. Her hopes, aims, energies, all centered in this momentous struggle. She studied over these world- problems until her eyes grew dim and the veins on her brow swelled like cords. Often gray dawn looked in upon her, still sitting before her desk, with a sickly, waning lamplight gleaming over her pallid face. And to-day, as she looked out on the flying clouds, and listened to the mournful wail of the rushing gale, she seemed to stand upon the verge of a yawning chaos. What did she believe? She knew not. Old faiths had crumbled away; she stood in a dreary waste, strewn with the wreck of creeds and systems; a silent desolation! And with Richter's Christ she exclaimed: "Oh! how is each so solitary in this wide grave of the All? I am alone with myself. Oh, Father! oh, Father, where is thy infinite bosom, that I might rest on it?" A belief in something she must have; it was an absolute necessity of the soul. There was no scoffing tendency in her skepticism; she could not jest over the solemn issues involved, and stood wondering which way she should next journey after this "pearl of great price." It was well for her that garlands of rhetoric and glittering logic lay over the pitfalls before her; for there were unsounded abysses, darker than any she had yet endeavored to fathom. Clara came back, and softly laid her hand on her friend's arm. "Please put up your book and sing something for me, won't you?" Beulah looked at the serene countenance, so full of resignation, and answered gloomily: "What! are you, too, tired of listening to this storm-anthem nature has treated us to for the last two days? It seems to me the very universe, animate and inanimate, is indulging in an uncontrollable fit of the 'blues.' One would almost think the dead-march was being played up and down the aisles of creation." She pressed her hands to her hot brow, as if to wipe away the cobwebs that dimmed her vision, and, raising the lid of the piano, ran her fingers over the keys. "Sing me something hopeful and heart-cheering," said Clara. "I have no songs of that description." "Yes, you have: 'Look Aloft' and the 'Psalm of Life.'" "No, no. Impossible. I could not sing either now," replied Beulah, averting her face. "Why not now? They are the excelsior strains of struggling pilgrims. They were written for the dark hours of life." "They are a mockery to me. Ask me for anything else," said she, compressing her lips. Clara leaned her arm on the piano, and, looking sadly at her companion, said, as if with a painful effort: "Beulah, in a little while we shall be separated, and only the All- Father knows whether we shall meet on earth again. My application for that situation as governess up the country brought me an answer to-day. I am to go very soon." Beulah made no reply, and Clara continued sorrowfully: