took care of itself and the future was whatever you chose to make it? Now, when I know the world-know it, Miss Thurston"-and his voice was grave and sad-" to be far worse than you, or any other pure woman suspects, and still keep my faith in the Good that shall one day be triumphant, I can smile at my young ignorance, but there is still a glory around it. Do you know Wordsworth's Ode ?"

"Yes the light that never was on sea or land.'"

"Never-until after it has gone by. We look back and see it. Why, do you know that I looked on Mrs. Merryfield as a Greek must have looked on the Delphian Pythoness ?"

Hannah Thurston laughed, and then suddenly checked herseif. She could not see one of her co-workers in the Great Cause ridiculed, even by intimation. The chord he had touched ceased to vibrate. The ease with which he recovered from a deeper tone and established conversation again in mental shallows, annoyed her all the more, that it gratified some latent instinct of her own mind. She distrusted the influence which, in spite of herself, Woodbury exercised upon her.

"I see your eyes wander off to the hills," he said, after an interval of silence. "They are very lovely to-day. In this spring haze the West Ridge appears to be as high as the Jura. How it melts into the air, far up the valley! The effect of mountains, I think, depends more on atmosphere than on their actual height. You could imagine this valley to be one of the lower entrances to the Alps. By the way, Miss Thurston, this must have given you a suggestion of them. How did you manage to get such a correct picture in your mind ?"

The

She turned her surprised face full towards him. dreamy expression which softened its outline, and hovered in the luminous depth of her eyes, did not escape him.

"Oh, I know it," he added, laughing. "What was the song you sang at Mr. Bue's? Something about an Alpine hunter: it made me think I was standing on the Schei

deck, watching the avalanches tumbing down from the Jung fraz

You have been in Switzerland Mr. Wooday," she ercisinel, with simutka

"Yes, on my way from England to I

He described to her his Swiss tour, inspired to prolong the narrative by the eager interest she exhibited The in beapes of the higher Alps stood clear in his memory, and be bad the faculty of translating them distinctly into works. Commene ing with the valley of the Reuss, he took her with him over the passes of the Farca and the Grimsel, and had only reached the falls of the Aar, when the gate of the Widow Thurston's cottage shut down upon the Alpine trail.

"We will finish the trip another time." said Woodbury, as he opened the gate for her.

"How much I thank you! I seem to have been in Switzerland, myself. I think I shall be able to sing the song better. from knowing its scenery."

She offered him her hand, which he pressed cordially. “I should like to call upon your mother again," he said.

"She will be very glad to see you."

As he walked down the street towards the Cimmerian parsonage, his thoughts ran somewhat in this wise: "How much natural poetry and enthusiasm that girl has in her nature! It is refreshing to describe any thing to her, she is so absorbed in receiving it. What a splendid creature she might have become, under other circumstances! But here she is hopelessly warped and distorted. Nature intended her for a woman and a wife, and the role of a man and an apostle is a monstrous perversion. I do not know whether she most attracts me through what she might have been, or repels me through what she is. She suggests the woman I am seeking, only to show me how vain the search must be. I am afraid I shall have to give it up."

Pursuing these reflections, he was about passing the parsonage without recognizing it, when a cheery voice rang out to im from the open door:

.

"Have you lost the way, Mr. Woodbury ?"

"Not lost, but gone before,'" said he, as he turned back to the gate.

"What profanity!" exclaimed Mrs. Waldo, though she laughed at the same time. "Come in: our serious season is over. I suppose I ought to keep a melancholy face, for two weeks longer, to encourage the new converts, but what is one to do, when one's nature is dead against it ?"

"Ah, Mrs. Waldo," replied Woodbury, "if you suffered under your faith, instead of rejoicing in it, I should doubt your Christianity. I look upon myself as one of your converts." "I am afraid you are given to backsliding.”

"Only for the pleasure of being reconverted," said he; "but come-be my mother-confessoress. I am in great doubt and perplexity."

"And you come to a woman for help? Delightful!"

"Even so. Do you remember what you said to me, when I picked you up out of the wreck, last winter? But I see you do not. Mrs. Fortitude Babb is a tyrant."

Mrs. Waldo was not deceived by this mock lamentation. He would not first have felt the tyranny now, she knew, unless a stronger feeling made it irksome.

"Ah ha! you have found it out," she said. know the remedy."

"Well-you

"Yes, I know it; but what I do not know is the woman who should take her place."

"Don't you?" said Mrs. Waldo, with a sigh, "then, of course, I do not."

"I walked from Merryfield's, this afternoon, with Hannah Thurston," he presently remarked.

"Well?" she asked eagerly.

"What a perversion of a fine woman! I lose my temper when I think of it. I came very near being rude to her." "You rude?" exclaimed Mrs. Waldo," then she must have provoked you beyond endurance."

"Not by any thing she said, but simply by what she is."

དས..

woman. Heaven keep me from all mag te va and my household shall

(nume, exciting,” sud Mr. Waldo, hearing the last

CHAPTER XV.

WHICH COMES NEAR BEING TRAGIC.

In the beginning of June, the Merryfields received ad ditional guests. Among their acquaintances in New York city were Mr. and Mrs. Whitlow, whom they had met during the Annual Convention of the Anti-Slavery Society. Mr. Whitlow was a prosperous grocer, who had profited by selling "free sugar" at two cents a pound more than the product of slave labor, although the former was an inferior article. He was very bitter in his condemnation of the Manchester manu facturers, on account of their consumption of cotton. The Merryfields had been present at a tea-party given by him to Mr. Wendell Phillips, and the circumstance was not forgotten by their hosts. When the latter shut up their house in the respectable upper part of Mercer street, in order to make a summer trip to Lake Superior by way of Niagara, they determined to claim a return for their hospitality. Tea in Mercer street was equivalent, in their eyes, to a week's entertainment at Ptolemy. If not, they could invite the Merryfields again, at the next Convention, which would certainly balance the

account.

Accordingly, one fine evening, the stage from Atauga City brought to Ptolemy, and a carriage from Fairlamb's liverystable forwarded to the Merryfield farm, Mr. and Mrs. Whitlow, and their two daughters, Mary Wollstonecraft Whitlow, aged thirteen, and Phillis Wheatley Whitlow, aged nine -together with four trunks. The good-natured host was overwhelmed with this large and unexpected visit, and feebly endeavored to obtain a signal from his wife as to whether they