the right when I turned to the wrong; if I had known who that person was from the first and shunned his acquaintance; if I had chosen that path in life instead of this one; if I had, in short, done exactly the opposite to what I did do. Vain, vain repinings; vain, useless repinings. The only plan is to keep them as far as possible from our hearts. If we could foresee the end of a thing at its beginning, if we could buy a stock of experience at the outset of life, if we could, in fact, become endowed with the light of divine wisdom, what different men and women the world would see. But we cannot undo the past, it is ours with all its folly, its shortsightedness. Perhaps its guilt, though we stretch out our yearning and pitiful hands to Heaven in their movement of agony, though we wail out our bitter my Lord pardon me! heal me! help me! though we beat on our remorseful bosom and tear away its flesh piecemeal in bitter repentance. We cannot undo the past; we cannot undo it. The past remains to us unaltered, and must remain so forever. Perhaps some idea of this kind of the utter uselessness of these regrets, but no personal remorse attached to her, was making itself heard in the mind of Miss Taylor even through her grief. She had clasped her hands upon her bosom now and bent her head downwards, completely lost in retrospect. She was aroused by the entrance of Charles. He sat opposite her at the other corner of the window; he appeared to be buried in thought, neither spoke a word; presently Mary arose to leave the room and George met her almost immediately, showing in Mr. Blakely. He hastened forward to prevent Charles from rising. Laying one hand upon his shoulder and the other on his hands he pressed him down and would not let him rise. The slanting rays of the setting sun were falling on the face of Charles Taylor, lighting up its handsome outlines, the cheeks were thinner, the hair seemed scantier, the truthful gray eyes had acquired an habitual expression of pain. Mr. Blakely leaned over him and noted it all. “Sit down,” said Charles, drawing the chair which had been occupied by Mary nearer to him. Mr. Blakely accepted the invitation, but did not release the hand. They subsided into conversation, its theme as was natural, the health of Charles and the topics of the day and weather. Charles sat in calmness waiting for him to proceed; nothing could stir him greatly now. Mr. Blakely gave him the outline of the past, of his love for Martha and her rejection of him. “There has been something in her manner of late,” he continued, “which has renewed hope within me, otherwise I should not be saying this to you now; quite of late, since her rejection of me, I have observed what I could not describe, and I have determined to risk my fate once more.” “But I did not know that you loved Martha.” “I suppose not. It has seemed to me, though, that my love must have been patent to the world. You would give her to me, would you not?” “Thankfully,”