leg is, doubtless, a much less affair than a broken manly heart! Clara Clayton continued to pace her room in vexed and troubled thought. From what has been said above, the reader will readily divine its complexion! Suddenly she stopped and clenched her jewelled fingers together and wrung them with a look of pitiable and painful despair. “Oh, God! lame for life! A _cripple_! Miserable! miserable that I am! How can I love him now? How can I marry a cripple? Walk Chesnut Street leaning on a lame husband’s arm—or, no—worse still, perhaps, he leaning on mine! Think of this morning as he walked the room! I never saw any body go lamer! It is absolutely shocking! Then how can I dance as he cannot! He will never give nor go to parties! A lame husband! The idea is absolutely horrid!” With this praiseworthy and very sensible utterance of her peculiar feelings on the subject, Miss Clara Clayton threw her bonnet upon the bed, her shawl upon the floor and herself into a chair. For a few seconds she remained silent; at length her thoughts found their proper language. “Yes, it must be! I will address him a note this very morning, stating plainly my reasons why I wish to withdraw from my engagement with him! He is too generous to refuse me! He will see at once how it would break a high-spirited woman full of youth and beauty to be tied down for life to a sofa and arm-chair—a mere machine to hand him his crutches and night-cap! He is too generous to wish it! I do wish he had not met with this awkward accident. I don’t think I could have found a better husband than poor Leslie! But then it is no use to dwell on this now. I cannot think of marrying him after what has happened, and he can’t expect—no one can expect it. I am decided. I will write to him frankly and request him to release me from my engagement.” With this determination, this sweet young lady sat herself down to her escritoire to write poor Leslie’s sentence of death—death to confidence in woman! She bent her graceful head over the gilt-edged note paper, and nibbled her pen several seconds. At length she began to write:— “_Thursday morning, 11 o’clock._ “_No. 2— Chesnut Street._ “To Major Leslie Pierpoint:— “Sir:——” Here she paused and blushed with something like shame. “No, this is too cold. I will not offend him.” And she then took a fair sheet and wrote as follows: “To Leslie Pierpoint, Esq.:— “Dear Sir:——” This address did not suit her. After a few moments’ deliberation she laid a fresh sheet before her and thus commenced, in a free, decided way, as if she had fully determined on the mode in which she should communicate her resolutions to him:— “Dear Leslie: