Naturally, of course, there are many manly hearts eager to pay homage at so fair a shrine; but Mr. Thorpe with paternal pride, has set his heart on securing an eligible partner for his darling. And so it begins to be rumored around town, that Hon. Elwyn Reeves has out-distanced all competitors, and is in fact, the betrothed husband of the beautiful March. To be sure, he is her senior by many years, but he comes from a long line of aristocratic ancestors, and has added to his proud name a princely fortune, as his solid, elegant home, away upon the hill, frowning in its imposing stateliness upon its humbler, less aspiring neighbors, attests. “A very good match indeed, considering her mysterious and somewhat doubtful parentage, a remarkable _chef-d’œuvre_ of fortune for her;” say anxious mammas and disappointed maidens. Mr. Thorpe is pre-eminently satisfied, and if March herself shows no gratification in regard to her good fortune, it is to be attributed to her peculiar disposition, at times so reticent and reserved. Thus Mr. Thorpe quiets any scruples he may have entertained as he remembers how listlessly and wearily March replied, when he had mentioned Mr. Reeves’ proposal, and dwelt warmly upon the happiness in store for her as his wife. “It shall be as you wish, papa, you may, if you desire it, give Mr. Reeves a favorable answer when he calls.” But of course she was happy; any sensible person would be with such a future in anticipation. All are therefore quite unprepared for the announcement that Mrs. Thorpe with ashen face, and broken, quivering voice, first communicates to her husband, that the servants quickly catch up and carry into the streets; that in an incredibly short time is upon every tongue—March has left them, as mysteriously and silently as she came among them. “Where had she gone, and why?” These were questions with which speculative minds were for sometime busy, and anxious. Questions which were never answered to them. She had gone, leaving no trace behind. In a little note addressed to her foster-parents, she left them her dear love and a farewell. She should never, never forget their goodness and tenderness to her; she had been happy with them, but she had chosen for herself another life, and a happier, and she must needs live it. That was all. After a while other faces came, and crowded the memory of hers away. The house on the hill soon found a mistress, who brought to her husband as a dower in the place of March’s queenly beauty, a fortune equal in magnificence to that of its owner, and so he was content. It is one of the laws of compensation that gives one good in the place of another taken. Only Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe long remembered, loved, and waited for the lost one. Every story must have its sequel, so has mine. I think it was five years before it came.