As our hero sat by her work-table after tea, a sudden thought came into his head. “I will see if my writing will share the fate of others,” said he to himself. And scribbling, upon some paper, the verse he had heard her sing on his first visit—beginning with, “One only I love and forever,” he cut it into small pieces and placed it on the table before her, at the same time laughingly pointing to the fatal basket. Margaret began to join the pieces, succeeded in the first line, colored, smiled as she read, and making a playful feint of putting them in the basket, threw them at last, with would-be carelessness, into a book, which lay open on the table. Vivian’s heart beat high! and higher still, when, gently taking his pencil from his hand, she wrote on a card, and cut to pieces, the following lines, which after much puzzling he placed correctly together. “I sincerely congratulate the ‘one only.’ He or she, whichever it may be, will be happy certainly in the _invariable_ devotion you display.” Vivian bit his lip at the word “invariable;” for he remembered his fit of ill-humor. But he did not despair, he wrote again, as follows,— Nay! If this heart’s devotion changes, ’Tis only as the needle turns, With trembling truth, howe’er it ranges, To where the pole-star beams and burns: Star of my life! howe’er I flee, So Fate has linked _my_ love to thee! Margaret seemed to become suddenly sensible that this at least was a clandestine correspondence; for blushing again more deeply than before, she rose and left the room, with the paper still in her hand. She did not return that evening, and our hero began to fear that his half playful, half in earnest declaration had offended her. They met at breakfast, however, and save a slight additional shade of reserve, her manner was the same as usual. Vivian knew not what to think. He pined to be relieved, but he would not, without further encouragement, hazard another and more formal declaration. Awaking from his reverie, he found himself alone in the breakfast-room, turning, unconsciously, the key of Margaret’s work-box. Suddenly a little secret door sprung open at his accidental touch, and there, on a tiny shelf, lay a paper with “Vivian,” written on the outside, in a delicate female hand! Bewildered with love and hope, he opened it ere he thought of the dishonor of so doing, and found—(yes! it was no dream and he was the happiest of the happy!)—the very bits of paper, which he had laid before her the night previous, and which she had thrown so carelessly into a book! Forgetting, in his passionate delight, the impropriety, the indelicacy of allowing her to know that her secret was betrayed, he hurriedly penciled on a card—