He has sprung to his feet, and his arms are flung around his wife. "Forgive me, Frederick, if I seemed unkind to you," sobbed Kate, as soon as she could command her voice. "There was no unkindness in my heart--only love." "It is I who most need to ask forgiveness," replied Lee. "I who have--" "Hush! Not a word of that now," quickly returned Kate, placing her hand upon his mouth. "Let the past be forgotten." "And forgiven, too," said Lee, as he pressed his lips eagerly to those of his wife. How happy they were at this moment of reconciliation! How light seemed the causes which had risen up to mar the beautiful harmony of their lives! Haw weak and foolish both had been, as their acts now appeared in eyes from which had fallen the scales of passion! Both were wiser than in the aforetime. Kate tried to look away, as much as possible, from the little faults which at first so much annoyed her; while her husband turned his thoughts more narrowly upon himself, at the same time that he made observation of other men, and was soon well convinced that sundry changes in his habits and manners might be made with great advantage. The more his eyes were opened to these little personal defects, the more fully did he forgive Kate for having in the beginning laid her hand upon them, though not in the gentlest manner. "Six months have passed since you were married," said Mrs. Morton one day to Kate. "Yes, six months have flown on wings of perfume," replied the happy wife. "I saw Frederick yesterday." "Did you?" "Yes; and I knew him the moment my eyes rested upon him." "Knew him! Why shouldn't you know him?" Kate looked a little surprised. "I thought he was to be so changed under your hands in six months, that I would hardly recognise him." There was an arch look in Mrs. Morton's eyes, and a merry flutter in her voice. "Mrs. Morton! Now that is too bad!" "Your experiment failed, did it not, dear?" The door of the room in which the ladies were sitting opened at the moment, and Frederick Lee entered. "Not entirely," whispered Kate, as she bent to the ear of her friend. "He is vastly improved--at least, in my eyes." "And in others' eyes, too," thought Mrs. Morton, as she arose and returned the young man's smiling salutation. "MY FORTUNE'S MADE." My young friend, Cora Lee, was a gay, dashing girl, fond of dress, and looking always as if, to use a common saying, just out of a bandbox. Cora was a belle, of course, and had many admirers. Among the number of these, was a young man named Edward Douglass, who was the very "pink" of neatness in all matters pertaining to dress, and exceedingly particular in his observance of the little proprieties of life. I saw, from the first, that if Douglass pressed his suit, Cora's heart would be an easy conquest, and so it proved.