He drew a long sigh of relief. That intelligence simplified existence enormously. He had had a hopeless feeling, of late, that life was too complex an affair for him to grapple with. Now, as by a flash, order was restored in his chaotic universe. He stood gazing in rapture at Miss Jones's blushing face, which seemed angelic in its purity and its dignified maidenhood. That there dwelt a sweet young soul behind those blameless features he felt blissfully convinced. "Miss Jones," he began, "if Miss Roeschen has confessed to you, you know what I would have liked to say to you--that night in the grotto. Now, what would you have answered me?" A little ray of mirth stole over the girl's face, and vanished again. "I should have said--no," she remarked smilingly. The orderly universe again tumbled into chaos. She was the veritable Sphinx, and he not the Oedipus to read her riddle. "Then I will bid you good-bye," he managed to stammer, extending an unwilling hand and again withdrawing it. "Good-bye, Mr. Grover," she said with heartless cheerfulness; "I hope it is not forever." "I am afraid it is," he murmured sadly. He took two steps toward the door, and laid his hand on the knob. "Oh, by the way," ejaculated the girl, with a sudden alarm in her voice; "that question you would have asked me in the grotto--why don't you ask it now?" "You said you would say no." He had turned about in unutterable astonishment. "I didn't say that," she retorted gravely. "What did you say then?" "That I should have said No _in the grotto_." The scene which followed was of a strictly private and confidential character; I fear Miss Jones would take me to task if I divulged it. THE STORY OF TWO LIVES. BY JULIA SCHAYER. _Swinton's Story-Teller, October 31, 1883._ The early darkness of a moonless winter night had fallen, nowhere more darkly and coldly than upon a certain small western town, whose houses were huddled together in the valley as if for mutual protection against the fierce winds sweeping through the trackless forests which surrounded it. Here and there the cheerful glow of lamp or fire shone from some uncurtained window, most brightly from the windows of the stores and saloons that occupied the centre of the town, whence issued also fitful sounds of talk and laughter. Otherwise the darkness was complete. On the outskirts of the town, just at the foot of a steep hill, stood a cottage somewhat more pretentiously built than the others, and surrounded by something of a lawn, laid out with flower-beds and shrubbery, now almost buried in deep drifts of snow. From one window of this cottage, too, a most heartsome glow streamed out over the snow from a lamp placed, as could be seen, with loving intent upon the window-ledge, and out of the darkness there presently emerged the figure of a man, making his way up the foot-path toward the house, his feet ringing sharply against the hard-trodden snow.