Dim the pure light with low desires, And sink her soul in torturing woes. * * * * * LOVERS’ QUARRELS. BY PERCIE H. SELTON. “Mary!” said the low voice of Henry Ashton. The maiden looked up. “Mary! I have much to tell you—will you listen to me awhile, only for a moment!” and he spoke fast and eagerly. “A moment only, you say—well, I suppose I must,—but what a beautiful butterfly is that. Oh! the dear, sweet, tiny thing; do, pray, try and catch it for me.” Ashton was stung to the heart. He had been on the point of declaring his long-cherished passion for Mary Derwentwater, and he felt that she knew, not only the depth of his affection, but that the words trembling on his lips were an avowal of his love. Her light-heartedness at once changed the whole current of his feelings. Often had he heard others say that his beautiful cousin was a coquette, and more than once had she trifled with his own feelings. He had hoped that her conduct was the result only of a momentary whim, but this last act displayed a confirmed heartlessness of which an hour before he would not have deemed her capable. He sighed, and was silent. “Oh! dear, how ungallant you are,” continued his cousin, “the beautiful creature will really escape, and I do so love butterflies.” “It is gone.” “So it is. I shall never forgive you. Don’t ask me to,” said Mary affectedly. “Then we must part without it,” said Henry carelessly. “I leave here to-morrow, and shall visit Europe before I return. It may be years—it may be forever that I shall be absent.” “Why—Harry—you jest,” said his companion, struggling to appear composed, although she felt how cold and pale her cheek had grown. “I never heard of this before. You are not in earnest,” and she laid her soft white hand—that hand, whose touch made every nerve of Ashton thrill—on her lover’s arm, looking up into his face with her dark, and now melting eye. But the chord had been stretched until it had snapped, and her influence over Ashton was gone. He half averted his head, as he answered coldly,— “I do not jest, especially with a friend.” The tone, the emphasis, the manner, all stung the pride of Mary. She felt that his censure was just, and yet she spurned it. Her hand fell from his arm, and emulating his own coldness, she said,— “Then I will not ask you to stay. But as it is late, and you will have your preparations to make, I will not intrude on your time,” and curtesying, she withdrew.