Edith’s voice trembled with emotion, but she did not perceive the agitation of many of her guests, for her eyes were fixed, as if in a dream, on the lower end of the hall. There was a movement of surprise among those seated there: she made her way, she knew not how, through them all. Yes, it was Percy!--One look, expressing a thousand emotions, and their hands were clasped in each other! For an instant her lovely head was bowed before him, while a few large, heavy tears, fell on the flowers at her feet! But she soon mastered her emotion, and, with a face radiant with joy, led him through the crowd of sympathising faces to her mother’s side. In the short silence which ensued, the bells of the village church were plainly heard ringing-in the new-born year! When had they ever sounded so sweetly before? And now a joyous strain again burst forth, and all returned to the ball-room. Again the young, the beautiful, the gay, joined in the dance; and never feet flew more lightly than theirs. But there were those who felt a deeper joy; the serene, the heavenly one of Reconciliation! And Percy and Edith once more stood side by side,--united, happy! And Marion told her wondering friend how Percy (who was an old college friend of her husband’s) had come to see them that morning, and in their quiet home had confessed that he was drawn to them by the desire of obtaining news of her, round whom his deep true love still lingered with so much regret. She had tried to persuade him to accompany them that night, but still he doubted--still feared. Yet he now confessed to Edith how, when they were gone, he had longed to see her face again, how he had concealed himself in the crowd, and how he had been moved, by what she had just said, to rush forward from the recess where he stood unobserved, that he might be the first to own the gentle Magic of those words! And many others had felt them too! Marion was leaning on _her father’s_ arm--her eyes cast down and tearful in their joyfulness, as he spoke to her in a low tone of the invalid whom she must see on the morrow. And all hearts were touched and softened, and rich and poor felt drawn closer together! And they thought of the voice that had said,--“Love one another as I have loved you,”--and of the divine lessons of peacefulness and long-suffering which some had forgotten! And many blessed to the end of their days the Magic Words spoken by the Peacemaker[A] on that New-year’s Night. MAGIC WORDS. Magic words! magic words! From holy impulse they are born, The seeming chance of circumstance, God’s utterance to hearts forlorn; Where’er they fall reject them not, Nor think their mission is in vain; ’Twixt loving hearts, whom coldness parts, Let not the dreary silence reign. Magic words! what are they? Things the truest soul will say!