“DEAR MR. DESPARD--Why am I not a seraph endowed with musical powers beyond mortal reach? You tell me many things, and never seem to imagine that they are all beyond me. You never seem to think that I am hopelessly commonplace. You are kind in doing what you do, but where is the good where one is so stupid as I am? “I suppose you have given up visiting the Grange forever. I don’t call your coming to take me to the church _visits_. I suppose I may as well give you up. It is as difficult to get you here as if you were the Grand Lama of Thibet. “Amidst all my stupidities I have two or three ideas which may be useful in our music, if I can only put them in practice. Bear with me, and deal gently with “Yours, despondingly, “T. T.” To this Despard replied in a note which he gave her at their next meeting, calling her “Dear Seraph,” and signing himself “Grand Lama.” After this they always called each other by these names. Grand Lama was an odd name, but it became the sweetest of sounds to Despard since it was uttered by her lips--the sweetest, the most musical, and the tenderest. As to himself he knew not what to call this dear companion of his youth, but the name Seraph came into use, and grew to be associated with her, until at last he never called her any thing else. Yet after this he used to go to the Grange more frequently. He could not stay away. His steps wandered there irresistibly. An uncontrollable impulse forced him there. She was always alone awaiting him, generally with a sweet confusion of face and a tenderness of greeting which made him feel ready to fall on his knees before her. How else could he feel? Was she not always in his thoughts? Were not all his sleeping hours one long dream of her? Were not all his waiting thoughts filled with her radiant presence? “How is it under our control To love or not to love?” Did he know what it was that he felt for her? He never thought. Enough that he felt. And that feeling was one long agony of intense longing and yearning after her. Had not all his life been filled by that one bright image? Youth gave it to him. After-years could not efface it. The impress of her face was upon his heart. Her voice was always in his ears. Every word that she had ever spoken to him was treasured up in his memory and heart with an avarice of love which prevented any one word from even being forgotten. At church and at home, during service and out of it, in the street or in the study, he saw only one face, and heard only one voice. Amidst the bustle of committee meetings he was conscious of her image--a sweet face smiling on him, a tender voice saying “Lama.” Was there ever so musical and so dear a word as “Lama?” For him, never. The hunger of his longing grew stronger every day. That strong, proud, self-secluded nature of his was most intense in all its feelings, and dwelt with concentrated passion upon this one object of its idolatry. He had never had any other object but this one.