“Does it seem to _you_ a thing for laughter?” she asked, passionately. “Have you judged me a woman to laugh at the love of the noblest man I know? To hold it so very cheap that you need not even tell me—” “How could I tell you?” he broke out. “What could I offer in exchange for all I would ask you to lay down? _Could_ I ask you to come and live in this wilderness in the barest poverty, where half the year is winter, where there is no—no society, nothing but work and hardship and loneliness?” “If those were all you had to offer, you were right,” Lily answered, tremulously. “You yourself do not live that life for nothing. There is something that so far outweighs all those things that you count them as naught.” “Oh, I love my people!” said Macpherson at once, and even as he uttered the word it told him what she meant. “My love was such a poor thing to offer,” he faltered humbly, “and I have nothing else.” The tears brimmed over in Lily’s eyes. “And would you take anything else in exchange?” she said—“would money do instead, or rank, or any other thing?” “Oh, no, no, no!” he exclaimed, impetuously; “only love, and only yours! Can love—such love as mine—outweigh all the rest?” His voice failed, and as he raised his earnest, searching eyes to her face, the last words came in a hoarse whisper, “Oh, is it enough for me to dare offer you that alone?” Lily crossed the narrow pathway that divided them, letting all her flowers fall at their feet, and laid her hands in his. “Would you really have let me go away without telling me?” she asked, bravely, while the rosy color deepened in her cheeks. “Less than love, for you and me, is nothing; and more than love there cannot be;” and then she was fain to hide her face and fast-falling tears upon his breast. “Oh, if only I were less unworthy!” Macpherson trembled as he drew her to him. “God bless you, darling!” he murmured, brokenly; and again and again, thinking over the past, she heard him whisper, “Thank God! thank God!”—_Leisure Hour._ WHEN SHALL WE LOSE OUR POLE-STAR?