“Oh, Miss Malina, don’t look at me in that way!” I said, burying my face in her dress and weeping still more bitterly. “Take me back to the falls, Miss Phebe and the minister will think we are lost.” Malina dropped my hand as I spoke, and sunk to the grass, trembling all over and utterly strengthless; after a moment she lifted her head, looked wildly around as if to be certain that no eye witnessed her grief, and then she gave way to a passionate burst of sorrow, which to my young perception seemed like madness; she wrung her hands, shrouded her tearful face in the long curls which fell over it one moment, and flung them back with both hands damp and disheveled the next; her lips trembled with the broken and sorrowful words that rushed over them, words that had no connection but were full of that passionate eloquence which grief gives to the voice. At length she ceased to tremble and sat motionless, bending forward with her hands locked over her face and veiled by the drooping tresses of her hair. Now and then a sob broke through her fingers, while tears would trickle over them and fall, one after another, like drops of rain, over my dress, for I had crept into her lap and with my arms about her neck was striving in my childish way to comfort her. “Don’t cry so,” I entreated, kissing her hands and exerting my infant skill to put back the curls which drooped in wet and glossy volumes over her face, “I love you very much.” She unclasped her hands, and drawing me closer to her bosom, looked with a mild and touching sorrow into my eyes. “Nobody loves me,” murmured the poor, sobbing girl, shaking her head mournfully, “nobody loves _me_.” I could only answer with childish expressions of endearment, which made her beautiful eyes brim with tears, and she wept on calmly and in silence, for the passion of her grief had exhausted itself. At length she placed me on the turf, and gathering up her hair, strove to arrange it, but the tresses were too abundant, and had become so disordered, that when she was compelled to grasp it in both her hands, and knot it back from her face beneath the cottage bonnet, the plain look which it gave to her forehead, the pallor of her face, with the dint and sorrowful expression of those eyes, almost transformed her. She was altogether unlike the gay and frolicsome girl who had helped me climb the rocks but one hour before. Alas! how few moments are required to change the destiny of a heart! [_To be continued._ * * * * * “L’AMOUR SANS AILES.” BY C. F. HOFFMAN. Love came one day to Lilla’s window And restive round the casement flew, She raised it just so far to hinder His wings and all from coming through.