"It is needless to detail the circumstances which ended at length in a separation between Mr. Morris and his wife--the latter returned to her home, and the former went abroad, having placed his children at school, and besought Jane to watch over them. Eighteen months subsequent to the death of Mrs. Lynn, a distant and unknown relative died, bequeathing a handsome property to Mrs. Lynn, or her descendants. This event relieved Jane from the necessity of toil, but it came too late to minister to her happiness in the degree that once it might have done. She was care-worn and spirit-broken; the every-day trials of her life had cooled her enthusiasm and blunted her keen enjoyment of the beautiful she had bent her mind to the minor duties that formed her routine of existence, until it could no longer soar toward the elevation it once desired to reach." "Three years from his departure Everard Morris returned home to die. And now he became fully conscious of the wrong he had done to her he once professed to love. His mind seemed to have expanded beneath the influence of travel, he was no longer the mere man of business with no real taste for the beautiful save in the physical development of animal life. He had thought of all the past, and the knowledge of what was, and might have been, filled his soul with bitterness. He died, and in a long and earnest appeal for forgiveness he besought Jane to be the guardian of his children--his wife he never named. In three months after Mrs. Morris married again, and went to the West, without a word of inquiry or affection to her children." "Need I say how willingly Jane Lynn accepted the charge bequeathed to her, and how she was at last blessed in the love of those who from infancy had regarded her as a more than mother." There was a slight tremulousness in Aunt Mabel's voice as she paused, and Kate, looking up with her eyes filled with tears, threw herself upon her aunt's bosom, exclaiming, "Dearest, best Aunt Mabel, you are loved truly, fondly by us all! Ah, I knew you were telling your own story, and--" but Aunt Mabel gently placed her hand upon the young girl's lips, and while she pressed a kiss upon her brow, said, in her usual calm, soft tone, "It is a true story, my love, be the actors who they may; there is no exaggerated incident in it to invest it with peculiar interest; but I want you to know that the subtle influences of affection are ever busy about us; and however tame and commonplace the routine of life may be, yet believe, Kate," added Aunt Mable, with a saddened smile, "each heart has its mystery, and who may reveal it." TO ERATO. BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. Henceforth let Grief forget her pain, And Melancholy cease to sigh; And Hope no longer gaze in vain With weary, longing eye, Since Love, dear Love, hath made again A summer in this winter sky-- Oh, may the flowers he brings to-day In beauty bloom, nor pass away.