respectfully until his attention was drawn towards him. He wanted to know if Mr. Heath would like to look at a beautiful exotic that had just bloomed that morning. Mr. Heath mechanically assented, and followed the gardener to the greenhouse. Usually he was much interested in the fine collection of plants in the conservatory, but now he listened dully to the man's enthusiastic praises of the rare flower, and looked at it with indifference. Without replying to the gardener, he walked away slowly, musing as he went on that sermon so often repeated but never heeded--the vanity of earthly possessions. "Dross, dross, it is so," he soliloquized, "but how long it takes to learn the lesson! How many envy me; how many whose first thought on seeing me, whose first wish, is to be as I am! What a supremely happy and blessed man I must be! Ah, the monks are wise.... But fame--the incense of popular applause--a name to live in future generations; something that the grave cannot extinguish, and death take away, that is the goal to strive for! Aye, ambition is the only passion worthy a master mind." He re-entered the house and went to his library. The sight of his accustomed work-room seemed to banish the shadow on his countenance. "Blessed--blessed labor, what a balm thou art!" he apostrophized as with a sort of eagerness he threw himself in a chair, seized a pen, and followed a new train of ideas. A singular fit of despondency this in one basking in the smiles of Fortune, and who had so steadily enjoyed her favors; for the capricious dame had marked Rufus Heath for a favorite long ago by a significant gift plainly indicative of her partiality. This gift, or stroke of luck, was the winning at his start in life of a lottery prize, which sudden affluence, judiciously invested, had led to the splendid culmination now apparent. * * * * *