“Perchance we may meet in heaven, and walk in the streets above, With nothing to grieve or part us, since our sinning was all through love. God says, ‘Love one another,’ and down to the depths of hell Will he send the soul of a woman, because she loved and fell. “Perchance if we had never met, I had been spared this last regret, This endless striving to forget; and yet, I could not bear the pain Of never seeing you again. Ah, leave me not, I love but thee; blessing or curse whiche’er thou be; Oh, be as thou hast been to me, forever and forever.”’ And so in the moonlight he found her, as around her beautiful clay (Lifeless and pallid as marble, for her spirit had flown away), The farewell words she had written she held to her cold, white breast, And the buried blade of a dagger told how she had done the rest. TALE ONE. THE DIARY OF A CHICAGO GIRL. This story is a copy of the diary kept by a wealthy Chicago girl, who was found dead in her room. “When lovely woman stoops to folly And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her guilt away? “The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is—to die.” JANUARY 1. I, Louise Montgomery, twenty-five years of age, and in full possession of all my faculties, do hereby affirm that I will herein chronicle all the noteworthy happenings of my life for the period of one year. Little diary, I am surprised that I, having reached the mature age of twenty-five, should become so sentimental as to wish to keep a diary. What has prompted me I cannot say. Time may reveal it. The old year has just passed into eternity and the New Year has but commenced his reign as I write. Yes, a new year with all its possibilities. I hope at the end of this year I may look back upon it as the one bright year of my life. I have not made a thousand good resolutions, as I have done hitherto, but mean to meet the trials and temptations of each day as bravely as possible. I am not in love yet, little diary, and I want you to bear witness to this fact. There is a man whom you do not know, and to whom I shall introduce you now, for if I can convert him to my way of thinking by the end of this year, I shall not have lived in vain, and I shall have much to tell you about him as the days go by. He is married, this man of whom I speak. That in itself would preclude the possibility of my loving him now, or falling in love with him in the future. He has a lovely wife and one child. He speaks of her often and dwells on her excellent qualities, until I too love her.