The lights shine on. To strains of witching music forms pass to and fro in the mazes of the dance—jest and song, laughter and wine, flash and ring out for unheeded hours and hours—but she is gone. The pale wretch that pressed shivering against the window pane is gone. Down the dark thoroughfare, with the cold snow beating in her face, maddened, sobbing, sick to death, she flies. Oh! where? What demon leads her on? Why down that silent, deserted street? On, on, past quiet homes where the night-lamp yet gleams on peace and happiness—past shops where low drunkenness revels in late hours—on she unheeded flies. And now she stumbles over loose stones, and the air blows keener. Down the steep bank she reels—poor little Mary—she pauses for a moment. A mighty river, shrouded in darkness, sweeps on before her. Boats, tied to the bank, rub against each other, making a moaning noise, while the waves flap under their bows—this is all she hears, for the great stream sweeps on in silence. From the opposite shore a furnace glares, that glittering out red, sends a long line over the waves and lights her way to death. She steps along the plank to the deck of a boat—over that to the very edge—and then disappears. Disappears in the dark flood silently as the snow-flakes. The mighty river moves on like fate to eternity. Into its deep bosom it took what God had made and man cast out. For many hours after the music still sounded in the marble palace, and dancers gracefully answered the strains, for the silent street had no tale—the great river no revelation for the heartless throng. A party of medical students were lounging round a billiard-table in a celebrated restaurant, the evening after the event just narrated. They were smoking, drinking, laughing, and at intervals knocking idly the ivory balls over the table. Their light sacks, or black velvet coats, with fancy caps, variously fashioned and tasseled, showed them to be youths whose fathers could pay for something beside the improvement of their brains. “Will you be at class to-night, Tom?” asked one, of his comrade, as he rattled down his empty glass. “To be sure, I don’t intend to miss a muscle of Crosstree. We had too much trouble in getting the infernal rascal.” “We had that, and Cross. is a beauty, besides having been hung.” “I want to see him carefully dissected,” said a handsome, light-haired youth, joining the group. “Why, Ned, do you expect ever to undergo the innocent operation of being hung?” “Can’t say. No telling what a fellow may come to in such a crowd as this. If Strong ever sings another sentimental song in my presence I’ll murder him—now mind.” “Crosstree is a magnificent subject. I was looking at him to-day—old S. says he never saw a finer.” “Class B has a finer, they say—a girl. They gave two hundred for her.” “They wont be outdone. But I believe in the rope yet. Come, fellows—it’s getting late—let’s be off.” “Where’s Dudley?” “Drunk as usual.”