flower of the scented violet, or nodding from beneath the yellow cups of the cowslip, as the breeze sends her laden with perfume back to him again. And in such childish play and innocent enjoyment time rolls on, until the child has reached his ninth year, and becomes the subject and lawful slave of all the rules in Murray’s Grammar, and those who instill them into the youthful mind. And then the boy finds his early friend (although ready at all times to share his hours of relaxation) very shy and distant; when studies are difficult or lessons long, keeping away until the task is accomplished; but cricket and bat and ball invariably summon her, and then she is bright and kind as of yore, content to forget old quarrels in present enjoyment; and as Mordant dreamed, he sighed in his sleep, and the shadow of Happiness went still further off, as if frightened by his grief. The picture changes: and now more than twenty years are past since the time when the boy first saw the light, and he is sitting in the room of a little cottage. The glass door leading to the garden is open, and the flowers come clustering in at the windows. The loveliness of the child has flown, it is true, but in its place a fond mother gazes on the form of a son whose every feature is calculated to inspire love. The short dark curls are parted from off his sunburnt forehead, and the bright hazel eyes (in which merriment predominates) glance quickly toward the door, as if expecting some one. The book he has been pretending to read lies idly on his lap, and bending his head upon his hand, his eyes had shut in the earnestness of his reverie, he does not hear the light footstep which presently comes stealing softly behind him. The new-comer is a young and very pretty girl, with a pale Madonna-looking face, seriously thoughtful beyond her years. She may be seventeen or eighteen, not more. Her hands have been busy with the flowers in the garden, and now, as she comes up behind the youth, she plucks the leaves from off a rose-bud, and drops them on his open book. A slight start, and a look upward, and then (his arms around her slight form) he kisses her fondly and often. And Happiness clings about them, and nestles closely by their side, as if jealous of being separated from either, and they were happy in their young love. How happy! caring for naught besides, thinking of no future, but in each other—taking no account of time so long as they should be together, contented to receive the evils of life with the good, and to suffer side by side (if God willed it) sooner than be parted. They were engaged to be married. At present, neither possessed sufficient to live comfortably upon, and they must wait and hope; and she did hope, and was reconciled almost to his departure, which must soon take place, for he has been studying for a barrister, and will leave his mother’s house to find a solitary home in a bachelor’s chambers in London. Mordant saw himself (as