"She had her nurse, I suppose," said Margaret, coldly. "But, my dear, you look rather flushed," said Dr. Thorne. He never interfered with his wife's movements as long as she transgressed no rules. "I think a little powder—” "Nothing, thank you—I shall do very well,” answered Mrs. Thorne, beginning to eat to overcome the faintness which she began to feel in every limb. It was a relief when they began to talk of "It would give me no pleasure," she replied, indifferently. emblazoned it finely for the suffering public this night. In the little office at the side, from whose window ruddy beams streamed out, the Doctor was still at work with a bullet-headed boy putting up prescriptions or concocting some patent medicine. Faugh! Margaret thought she could smell the fumes already. How she hated it all! Was this life? Was this all? Was this dull round of days of petty cares-this dreary sameness-the prim order-the strict drill rules-all she was made for? Had she not crossed the threshold with other dreams a Sanitary Fair which was to be held in Philafive years ago? delphia in June. "Would you like to go, MarShe looked at Dr. Thorne again with a flick-garet? I'm pretty busy; but I'd take the time ering gleam of the old feeling, half gratitude, to give you pleasure." half love, which had made the prim house seem pleasant in those old days to the poor girl who had been left without friends or home. But she fiercely turned upon herself for the lingering tenderness. It would not do now-now when her purpose was formed, the fiat passed. She had believed that foolish feeling had burned itself out long ago to dead gray ashes; could it be there was life in it yet? He came to the "And wonders of machinery, and antique afwindow and looked out. A small man, with fairs, and curiosities of the vegetable world, and sandy hair and rather a delicate face-a very an arctic zone, where a ship stands fast locked quiet and serious face you would call it-some-in icy fetters on a frozen sea, and a torrid zone, what lacking as to coloring or mobility of ex- where the strange growth of the tropics may be pression-set-cold, it may be. Large light- seen," continued Dr. Thorne. gray eyes without much speculation in them, and a good firm mouth. A man of rules-you could almost see that at a glance-and already taking out his watch and looking impatiently at the hour. "So he would do if I were dead!" said Margaret, fiercely, as she opened the door softly and ran up stairs, remembering for the first time that she had been away from her child all day. The light-gray eyes grew colder than before. "If I knew what you would like," he said, drearily. "I hear it will be worth seeing-fine pictures. You must own to liking pictures, Margaret?" "I believe I did care for them once!" "do "Bless me!" interrupted Aunt Hetty; tell! Who's goin to contribbit them air zones, and how do they keep the ice froze continniwal? Sakes alive! but I'd like to get the receipt for our ice-cream." But Dr. Thorne talked no more, and even the garrulous old lady seemed to feel that there was an unusual call to silence. The meals were always silent in that house. Margaret had never Poor little Dot!-she had some other ancient questioned herself how far it lay within her to and Puritanical name after John's mother-so make them otherwise. The dining-room was Margaret always called her Dot, and rejoiced dingy, she thought; hard and stiff as its owner. that she stretched out her little fat hands at the The chairs were covered with brown leather name, and never noticed Aunt Hetty's sounding studded with brass nails-slippery, shiny chairs, reiteration of her proper one. Poor little thing! that never held one cordially, but seemed ready with her peach-tinted cheeks and flossy, golden to give you the slip. A brown mixed carpet rings of hair. Had Margaret thought of her- and curtains, and a pervading drug odor, made weighed things truly for her in the matter? the place hateful to Margaret. If she could She only bent down over the crib and kissed have had "carte blanche in those first pleasthe pinky cheek, saying over and over again, inant days she would have made a bright, cheeran unreasoning, passionate way, "She is mine ful place of it," she said; but she could not have -she is mine!" And she put the lilies down | carte blanche. John could not afford it, he by her own pure little lily. Then she began had told her, but she had only half believed hurriedly to dress for dinner. She shivered him: and that was the first cloud. She found still, though a fever was in her veins and burned afterward that he loved old things and dreaded on cheek and lip. She wondered bitterly what innovation. The house had been his father's, sent the strange, glittering light to her eyes and his mother had died there. He would when all within was so dark. Then she went have nothing changed. He was a quiet condown into the dining-room, where John stood servative in every thing. Margaret was a redready, knife in hand, to carve the roast, and hot radical. She asked too much, perhaps, and Aunt Hetty gave a deprecating hem! as she he yielded too little. entered, while the bullet-headed boy regarded the meat with watery eyes, and sniffed continually. "Sakes alive, Margaret!" commenced Aunt Hetty, "where on airth have you bin? The child took on awful, an at last cried herself to sleep." So, long before the honey-moon was over the honey was all gone, and nothing left but the jars. So it came to pass that these two people, bound together by eternal ties, sitting at one table, breaking the daily bread of life together-one by the usages of the world and the sanctities of religion-with the daily courtesies, | were depths in his nature that she had never and perhaps endearments, of life on their lips, fathomed! What if she were wounding him were as utterly apart as if a broad continent, cruelly, fatally, in taking the child away! with its reaches of land, and wooded slopes, and Thought after thought seemed turning, whirlbelts of forest, lay between them. So it came ing in her weary brain, like the wheels of a that this woman-Margaret Thorne-with her ponderous machine; but some wheel was wantpassionate, enthusiastic nature, struggling with ing, perhaps, and so the rest clashed on in a her undisciplined heart so long, had fought her blind and aimless way, and worked out nothing. last battle in the fresh green woods that afternoon, asking no aid from God or man, looking only on nature and not to nature's God-had so fought, and lost! For she meant to leave home and husband this night. Yes, she would go. She could live her life better alone-freer, more untrammeled-a true and beautiful life. For she would give herself to art. She had earned her bread in that way once, and could do more now, with dear little Dot to nerve her to steady effort. After all, it was a glorious future-lonely, perhaps; so much the better, art reigned best alone: no divided throne for divine art. She would go to Germany-to Munich it might be—and study hard. She and Dot could live on so little there; and it would be sweet to leave all old scenes behind -better far that the broad ocean should roll between her and her old home and John. Safer too; for surely in any spot or nook of the United States John would find her out. "He would want Dot at least," she said, bitterly. So she hurried about while Dot still slept, putting up her most precious things. She could not take much, you see-no traveling trunks loaded with treasures-only jewels that might be sold, and what clothes she could take in her hand, and some money. Her head ached madly; a whirling and noisy din seemed to fill the silent room. Oh, but for one quiet, painless moment for her to think of what she should need! Not John's picture certainly, though it seemed to come under her hands every where, as if bewitched. Ah well! perhaps for Dot. She might like to see one day what her father was like. He was loving enough to her, poor little Dot! There are tears in Margaret's eyes, but she dashes them away and says they are for little Dot. What was it that favored her-Fate or Providence she wondered vaguely, as she pressed her hands to her burning, throbbing head, that John should be called out into the country? He came up hastily, and she brushed her things into a drawer and sat down by the fire, which made the plain room cheerful on this April night. There was a home glow about it after all-a friendly cheer that made the dark chill streets seem uninviting. He brushed his hair hastily, saying: "Do not sit up for me, Margaret. I have a long ride before me." "I shall not sit up," she said, with a tremor in her voice at the hidden meaning of her words. Would she ever see him again? Why should he bend over the child's crib and kiss her? He loved her, of course; but it had been in a quiet, passionless way, she thought. What if there Then Aunt Hetty came in. She was John's aunt—a bustling, gossiping, meddling old lady, truly kind at heart; but Margaret had always rebelled against her. She took all the cares and household tasks and burdens off Mrs. Thorne's dainty shoulders; but then those very cares might have been healthful for one who knew not how to use the energies of life. And so Margaret grudged her the bustling cheerfulness with which she set about the preserving, and had tussles with the baker, and jokes with the butcher, and saved John a peck of coal a day by having the cinders sifted, and made her life as varied and pleasant to herself as though every phase was as important as the things we dramatize. She grumbled at Margaret sometimes; indeed, Mrs. Thorne was wont to say that her temper, like her pickles, was a "pleasant sour." But then Margaret did not make John happy; more than this, she did not try to make John happy; and Aunt Hetty recognized no greater sin. "I've brought ye a cup o' pennyryal tea, Margaret, for you looked kind o' peakit at dinner; an no wonder-you seem clean beat out a-walkin. In my young days married ladiesnor young ones neither-didn't go scouring round the country like mad, a-spiling good silks that their husbands arned." Sharp Aunt Hetty! she had seen the country soil on the violet silk. Margaret thought her own thoughts, and hardly heard a word. "I tell you, Margaret," said Aunt Hetty, in a solemn way, "you hain't got a mother, an I must stan in her place. I tell you you ain't a doin yer dooty by John. You an he seem to be gittin farther apart every day. yourself a Christian woman-" Now if you call "But I do not," interrupted Margaret, fiercely. "Sakes alive!" said Aunt Hetty, putting up her fat hands in horror, "if yer a heathen tain't no use a-sayin nothin-if ye hain't the fear of God before your eyes, I can't expect ye'll care much about yer vows to man; but ye did, ye know ye did, stan up in God's house an promise to love, honor, and obey an the rest of it. How ye've kep the promise ye know in yer heart." "If John does not complain it is nothing to you," said Margaret, with oh such an aching heart and head, such a mad longing to stop her ears, to be rid in some way of this dreadful woman who was arraigning her at the bar of justice, and bringing fearful charges to which she must plead guilty!" 66 "Is he the kind of man to complain?" said Aunt Hetty, drearily; "but don't I see him growin silenter every day. An a thinkin, think- | dow that lifted itself up and floated away like a in, I know, of what he hoped his home would bubble; then the boy before her, loaded with be, when he brought such a bright, hansome her bundles, seemed to be cresting the huge, gal as you was to it. An how it's a growin dark wave of some unseen ocean, and to rise darker every day. He complain! I think I and fall with its tideless current. Were they see him complainin of you. He's like them all sinking together, and was this the wages of Spartan boys in the history, he wouldn't flinch sin? But she held Dot fast through all. though the great grief was a tearin at his vitals." "My head aches," said Margaret, wearily, wondering if John had really suffered any thing, so quiet, so self-contained as he had always been. Why, she would have loved him almost if he had appeared to be wounded, if she could have stung him to passion or indignation, or in any way moved him from the quiet, settled tenor of his ways. room now. "Well, good-night! I'm a-goin up to my You're up here, an it's kind o' lonesome down stairs. I hope ye'll take it kindly what I said. It's for the happiness of ye both, I'm sure." Ah! a clear field now-Fate or Providence, which? Margaret roused herself from a trance of pain and gathered her bundles again. She could take more now, for there was nothing in the way of her hiring a boy in the street to carry her baggage. She looked at her watch anxiously. There was yet time to take the down boat and be in New York in the morning. She took Dot out of the little crib, and the child opened sleepy eyes like dew-wet violets, and laughed at the gay scarlet cloak that was wrapped around her. "She does not know that she is losing home and father to-night," said Margaret, sadly, as another tear rolled down her cheek. All for Dot, of course. Well, all was ready. There was no need to wait; no need for Margaret to lay her head on the pillow where she should never rest again, and shed hot tears, almost of regret; no need that she should put more wood on the fire, so that, looking back from the dark street when far on her way, she might see the ruddy glow like a kindly farewell from the old home; no need, certainly, that she should put John's slippers to the fire, and his dressing-gown on the arm-chair for him to use when he came back from that long, chill ride. Poor fellow! he would meet a deadlier chill by that household fire than night or storm could bring him. As if he could take his comfort when he knew all. Poor John! How weak she was growing! She must hurry away before this soft, pitying mood spoiled all. She had chosen. But men pitied the foe some times, even when they struck the death-blow, and she might pity John. He was not her foe, he had meant to be kind perhaps, but she was going to strike him a deadly blow for all that. She pictured his first entrance, his first surprise, his horror, his fright, his eager, fruitless search. Poor, poor John! | Ha! there was the boat: it blinked up the street with a dozen shining eyes of light, and a white moon made a long silver path behind it on the dark water. The clang of a bell shrilled through the night-air and seemed to strike her head like a blow. People were hurrying on, and she drifted with them. A happy young couple passed her with pleasant chat between them about getting their state-room. She remembered that she had never traveled alone before. Did she envy the young woman who sank luxuriously upon a sofa while her husband bustled about and tended to every thing! Did this first entrance on the world of strife appall her? Oh no! Better, she said, the fiercest wrestling with outer life if one has peace within. But where was the inner peace? Ah! that would come in time when she had gathered together and rewoven again the threads of her old life. The young woman near her leaned over and looked at Dot. "A little angel," she said, smiling; "how happy you must be!" Margaret wondered bitterly if this enviable creature envied her. Perhaps every one was wretched, and all appearance of happiness was but a mask-perhaps all joy was but the outer shell, that in every heart was a "seething, restless hell." Did not "the whole creation groan and travail together in pain until now?" "Is The young woman was a Yankee, and walked Margaret winced, and said "No." "Well, I'll make Will get you a state-room," she said, good-naturedly; "he's the dearest fellow-but I'd give my eyes for a baby like that." And Margaret thanked the friendly young woman, but shrank from her nevertheless-the contest was too new, the wound too terrible to be touched by the kindest hand. When Dot was asleep again she went on deck for a little while. It was a cloudless night-only fair and pearly fragments of cloud hung low at the horizon-above, all was gold-starred azure. The water lay sparkling, phosphorescent-plowed by the boat, it fell back in showers of diamonds, or a delicate silvery spray. On the banks were wooded hills crested by fair homes. It looked like dream-land in that pallid light-too unreal a world for men to suffer and toil in. How fast they went! Margaret was glad to hear the wheels' swift turnings and the labored panting Well-she was in the street now, and the wind of the great machine like a monster struggling blowing fresh from the river. Somehow things for breath. How many miles already between seemed drifting away strangely like the scenes her and the old life! yet she could not realize in a panorama; now it was a lighted shop-win- it. It haunted her yet, and weighed her down, she gathered all her strength and rose to her feet. Looking at her empty arms she gave a terrible cry. Searching eagerly around she saw that she stood in a doctor's office, and the doctor himself was near her. A stiff, peremptory little man, with gold spectacles on, red hair, and an oracular voice that commanded her to sit down at once. like the Old Man of the Sea in the fairy tale. | moved once more in a jarring, spasmodic way, So many miles from John! Yet somehow she seemed nearer to him than when she sat by his side at table that day. Strange that she could never forget him-that she must be wearied with an endless iteration of the same scene. Strange that she could not leave him behind utterly, with the repudiated old life. No-not strange, since she must take with her always her own heart. Well, it was weary work, after all, watching the ceaseless shine and sparkle of the waves; so she went in, and lay down by the side of innocent little Dot, and slept a dreamless sleep. A morning of mist and fog-fog reeking in the sunshine, lingering in shreds on forests of masts, hanging tender lace-like veils before the great warehouses and over the squalor of the low tenements filled with dirty, quarreling children-fog brooding on the river, yet wearing opaline hues in the sunshine. A fog so dense that the great steamboat, where Margaret was hustled about in the crowd, seemed the only real and tangible thing in the universe. The whole world behind her seemed blotted outthe world before her was as the baseless fabric of a vision-a cloud-land of vague shapes and dream fancies. But the street was solid enough after all. Only, strange to say, it came forward to meet her after a fashion most unusual to streets. Had every thing lost its balance-had the world itself swung from its orbit, because she had been recreant to the laws of God and man? She did not call a carriage. Clogs seemed bound upon her feet, pain racked her, and the hot, swift blood rushed with resistless tide to ward her brain; but still she remembered through all that she had no funds to spare. She had known New York all her life, and needed no guide. She would make her way now to one of her old art-friends and rest for a few days, she thought, before beginning the pleasant new life beyond the sea. "My child!" she panted out. "Well enough, well enough my good lady; if you were half as well, off you might thank your stars. My wife has got her asleep in the next room." "I must have her, I must have her!" cried Margaret, in a wild way. "I have lost every thing but her!" The doctor looked as if he thought she had certainly lost her reason for one thing. "Certainly! you shall have her. Do you know how ill you have been ?" "I suppose so; but I am well now, and must be going." "You are not well; I am confident of that. Let me examine and see if I can not prescribe for you. Does your heart always beat in this way?" It will beat in this way till you give me my child," said Margaret, fiercely, rising and drawing away from the stethoscope. "I am well— look at me," she continued, glancing proudly in the glass at her glittering eyes and glowing cheeks; "do your patients wear such color as that, or look on the world through such clear eyes? I am well, I must be well for the work I have to do; bring me the child!" The doctor sighed a little as he left the room, and he was not wont to sigh. But Margaret laughed. She examined herself in the glass as she had never done before, even on her wedding night. Ill! with that bloom on her cheek, with those firm yet rounded outlines. She turned away in the satisfied pride of strength and beauty-turned to go impatiently toward the open door through which the doctor had disap these words uttered in an explosive whisper: "I tell you, wife, she can not live a year. I listened to her heart, and it is beating now the knell of doom.” "And can it not be cured ?" "Any excitement would take her in a moment!" Dot stretched out her hands and smiled at every thing as if she wished to embrace this beautiful new world which opened before her-peared; turned to hear from the other room made up to her baby vision chiefly of plateglass windows and rainbow hues. She did not miss her father's face that morning. Were they sitting down to breakfast yet at home, Margaret wondered vaguely, looking in at a watch-maker's. Ah, yes! John would be punctual, of course-breakfast at eight, life or death. How the pain stabbed her head! Was she "Ah, ah!" a prolonged exclamation of pity going to be ill? Well, if so, she would have no and then silence. Silence every where; did one to worry her with attentions or drive her the clock forget to tick? did her heart forget to into a fever with fussing; but then Dot, poor beat? was the supreme moment already come? little Dot! Oh no! she must not, she would To die! why this altered the face of all the not be ill; and at the thought came a great world; why this swept the solid earth away; whir in the life machinery- a sudden crash, why this tore out all the leaves of life; and and the wondrous machine stood still. The where was the fair new page? Where were all pain dropped away like a garment-beating her plans, and hopes, and dreams? Could her heart and burning brow; they grew very silent life-boat go down in a silent sea like this? now, and a great, cool darkness wrapped her in a beneficent mantle. She covered her face with her hands, and felt once more her heart like a muffled drum beat When life came back again, and the wheels ing its funeral march. And she had railed at life and at the work-day world as if God should | a sunlight that sifted through it; a faint odor have spread for her upon the table of life a con- of violets in the room; a cluster of Easter lilies tinual feast. She had groaned, "Oh, weary, on the table near her shining in pearl and gold, weary days!" and had let them fall one after sometimes floating about in strange confusion, another carelessly as scattered rose-leaves on sometimes looking fixed and real, till she murthe ground; now they seemed worth picking mured aloud: up again-now the dreariest was worth reliving because she was not ready to die. To die; but she had hardly thought of death even in her fiercest unrest, for life, for life she had been ready to battle with the world; but here right in her way lay the impassable gulf, and what beyond? Ah, what beyond! She had set aside human law, she had snapped the strongest human ties like a tender thread; and now God, leaning down, had laid His hand upon her. She took Dot in her arms mechanically when the Doctor brought her back, and refused all offers of assistance. One purpose shaped itself in her brain amidst the general numbness that was diffusing itself over her, to take Dot home again. She must die and leave her; then she would leave her with John. Even fussy motherly Aunt Hetty would be invaluable to the child. Then she thought how the little thing would have brightened her life, even in the prim, dull home. It was pleasant after all to tell John about her new little airs, and to see the love for Dot transfigure his plain face; perhaps through this child they might have grown nearer together one day. But she had thrown away her chance for this, and now it could never be, never now! The fog had not passed away but fell in fine, silvery showers-April showers mingled with sunshine. A woman at the corner of the street was selling violets. How the odor brought back her wedding-day to Margaret, when she had searched through the poor little city garden and found a few with such triumph! The violet seller had a child with her too, a forlorn little sickly girl, but she was comforting her with these words as Margaret went by: "Yes, my darlint, be asy till mammy sells her truck, an thin we'll be afther having the foine dinner-didn't ye hear yer daddy promise a gran sirloin an a wee cake for his colleen-an it's not often we do be havin the mate now, more's the pity!" Did Margaret envy the poor, ignorant woman who looked on violets as truck, and who would go home to a shanty and eat her steak in an atmosphere of foul odors? Almost, for this woman had a home and a husband, a loving heart and a household fire, while she had cast both away; this woman had a robust vitality about her that told of life, life to care for and tend her delicate little one, while she was walking in a black shadow-the Valley of the Shadow of Death. What wonder that she stretched out impotent hands and cried out, "Oh, John, forgive! forgive!" and lost all sense and power at the words. "I muse on joys that can not cease, Whose odors haunt my dreams." "Hush!" said John, bending tenderly over her; "she knows me, I do believe." A So this was home, then-or a dream. dream, perhaps, for it was so sweet. John was looking at her with his heart in his eyes, and whispering tender words. He loved her, then. Why, this would make life beautiful. But she was not to have it; she was not to have life, but death. "I am so sorry, John," she faltered. "We should have grown nearer in time. Forgive me that I dared-" "I have nothing to forgive, my darling," John began; and he looked so bewildered that Margaret wondered again if it was a dream. But there were the lilies with their pearly bells near her. She must have gone to church and listened to the Easter service with her cold, dark heart; she must have planned and done all. But then how was it possible to be here? And life looked lovely even in the prim, dull room; even with the staid and self-contained John; even with the kind and fussy aunt, who was even then bathing her forehead with Cologne. Ay, life looked lovely, but it was passing; and before her stocd an open grave. "Now yer lookin nateral," said Aunt Hetty, smoothing the rich waves of gold-brown hair; "we'll have you as chick as ever in a week. Now I'll jest go an cook you up a bit of chicken broth; for you know you scarcely picked a bit yesterday at dinner." Surely she was dreaming now. The lilies seemed to bud and bloom and spread out into a wonderful tree, under whose branches she sat and looked through a thicket of starry flowers at John's grave face. "Yesterday," she dreamily said; "did I dine here yesterday?" "Of course, my darling; and I thought you were not well then. To think I should have been off in the country when you were taken so ill. You have been wandering all night." Wandering indeed, thought Margaret; how far she had wandered from the path of right in plan and purpose she could not tell him then. "Oh, John!" she said, stretching out her hand, "they said I could not live a year, and then I thought of you!" "That was only one of your vagaries, dear,” he said, briskly. "You will live to be a grandA soft air that just lifted the thin curtain; mother, as far as I know, and dance Dot's chil |