he had been then) sitting with his first love in that old familiar place, her hand clasped in his, her fair hair falling around her, and vailing the face she hid upon his shoulder, and even more vividly still, the remembrance of that Happiness which had ever been attendant on them then, when the most trivial incidents of the day were turned into matters of importance, colored and embellished as they were by love. He saw himself in possession of the reality, which, alas! he had thrown away for the shadow of it, and he longed for the recovery of those past years which had been so unprofitably spent, in a vain attempt at regaining it. The girl still sat by him; they did not seem to speak, and throughout that long summer afternoon still they sat, she pulling the flowers (so lately gathered) in pieces, and he playing with the ringlets of her hair. And now the door opens, and his mother enters, older by many years than when she last appeared to him, but still the same kind smile and earnest look of affection as she turns toward her son. Her hand is laid upon his arm (as he rises to meet her), and her soft voice utters his name, coupled with endearment. “Mordant, dearest, Edith and myself wish to walk, if you will accompany us?” “Certainly,” is the reply, and the three set out, and the dreamer watched their fast receding forms down a shady lane, until a turn lost them to his sight, and the retrospective view had vanished, but quickly to be replaced by another. Again he sees the same youth, this time impatiently walking up and down a close, dismal room. The furniture is smoke-dried and dusty, once red, now of a dark ambiguous color. The sofa is of horse-hair, shining (almost white in places) from constant friction. On the mantlepiece hangs a looking-glass, the frame wrapped round with yellow gauze to protect it from dirt and here and there a fly-catcher, suspended from the ceiling, annoys the inmate of the dusky room by its constant motion. It is a lodging-house, ready furnished, and the young man, who has not left his home many months, is not yet accustomed to the change, and he is wearied and unhappy. He has just been writing to Edith, and the thought of her causes him uneasiness; he is longing to be with her again. Restlessly he paces up and down the narrow chamber, unwilling to resume studies, by the mastery of which he could alone hope to be with her again, until a knock at the hall-door makes him pause and sit down; another knock (as if the visitor did not care to be kept waiting). Mordant knew what was coming; he remembered it all, and felt no surprise at seeing in his dream a friend (now long since dead) enter the apartment, with the exclamation of “What, Lindsay! all alone? I had expected to find you out, I was kept so long knocking at your door. How are you, old fellow?” and Charles Vernon threw himself into a chair. “We are all going to the play,” continued he, “and a supper afterward. You know Leclerque? he will be one of the party—will you