Little children hid in their mothers’ gowns, and the old people shook their heads stolidly when he asked in trembling tones if they knew his old-time friends, and they replied, in accents of wonder: “We know them not; we heard never the names.” He asked but one more question: “Did you know my beautiful ship, the Nord Rhyn, and her goodly crew? I was her commander!” with a sad attempt at his old air of pride. “No, no! We never heard of such a ship,” they answered impatiently. He sighed deeply and sadly, as he turned away, and climbed to the summit of the crags his memory held so dear. At last he stood on the rocky height and looked around with saddened eyes; it seemed as though the sun shone less bright, and that the hills had grown bald and ugly; and as he looked toward the north which had so fascinated him in the long ago, it appeared cold and forbidding. He sank down forlornly, and with hand closed over his dim eyes he watched ever the white-clad ships sailing past, and eagerly peered at each to learn her name. “The Nord Rhyn will soon come into port; my sailors must have heard of their commander’s return; they will know, and welcome me,” he would repeat again and again, persistently clinging to this last hope. At times when the autumn winds sighed he would start up tremulously; “It is _She_! I hear her voice! I wish that she would come!” He sighed sorrowfully for the jewel which he had thrown away. One sweet spring morn found him, still with that quietude which ends all weariness; he had found rest on the highest crag overlooking Tana Fiord, on the same spot where he had sat and wished with restless heart in his boyhood days. A sweet moisture rested on his cheek, a happy smile touched his lips and the careworn wrinkles had smoothed away from his brow. Perhaps She had known his sad longing, and with love’s tender forgiving had answered his call in that last hour; the hour in which with clearer vision and unselfish thought he stood on the threshold of the higher plane. With kindly hands the simple people laid him away, afraid to neglect or despise one of “God’s Children,” as they called those of unbalanced mind; and as they passed around the open grave, each cast in a flower and whispered pityingly: “God receive the poor old lunatic!” IN THE BEYOND. The summer sun beat oppressively down upon the heads of August Blair and Aimee Herne, as they walked their horses slowly down the hilly road. Aimee took off her hat and fanned her heated face: “Mercy! the lower regions can’t be much hotter than this!” August laughed as he flicked at the overhanging branches of the trees with his whip: “According to all accounts there isn’t very much shade there.” “Just at present I could imagine only a mitigation of heat and a perpetual breeze, as fitly belonging to that plane of existence,” replied Aimee, in that light tone which either means nothing or hits the truth without positive conception of its being such.