Ger canet pay via in vihen burung me inges Wooden windeed that le was purwing a HL * wprawy moment le relinqustel kong iber 1 beep md eren de mamat in ne shjen nat nken full possesart $2.4 ing Hinnan Tharon y si langra-emqonaq was soman-her other arter reved My se sacht mal y pesment, to his mind Ater 1 visits, the queation when, ne wood nimief was act: -W I be she to Arte, were 7 wat: “ W... I be able to make her love me ? Of bia own wility %% maver the former question he was entirely antiched, though he atrading denied to himself the present exsave some pain. He acknowledged that her attraction for him had greatly strengthened--that he detected a new pleasure in het weesory that she was not unfemininely cold and hard, na he had feared, but at least gentle and tender: yet, with all this knowledge, there came no passionate, perturbing thrill to his heart, such as once had heralded the approach of love. She had now a permanent place in his thoughts, it is true: he could scarcely have shut her out, if he had wished: and all the new knowledge which he had acquired prompted him to stake his rising hopes upon one courageous throw, and trust the future, if he gained it, to the deeper and truer development of her nature which would follow.

At the next visit which he paid to the cottage after Mrs. Waldo's half reproachful complaint, the friendly warmth with which Hannah Thurston received him sent a delicious throb of sweetness to his heart. Poor Hannah! In her anxiety to

A STORY OF AMERICAN LIFE.

She

be just, she had totally forgotten what her treatment of Seth Wattles, from a similar impulse, had brought upon her. only saw, in Woodbury's face, the grateful recognition of her manner towards him, and her conscience became quiet at once. The key-note struck at greeting gave its character to the interview, which Woodbury prolonged much beyond his usual habit. He had never been so attractive, but at the same time, his presence had never before caused her such vague a arm. All the cold indifference, which she had once imagined to be his predominant characteristic, had melted like a snow-wreath in the sunshine: a soft, warm, pliant grace diffused itself over his features and form, and a happy under-current of feeling made itself heard in his lightest words. He drew her genuine self to the light, before she suspected how much she had allowed him to see: she, who had resolved that he should only know her in her strength, had made a voluntary confession of her weakness!

Hannah Thurston was proud as she was pure, and this weird and dangerous power in the man, wounded as well as disturbed her. She felt sure that he exercised it unconsciously, and therefore he was not to be blamed; but it assailed her individual freedom-her coveted independence of other mindsnone the less. It was weakness to shrink from the encounter: it was humiliation to acknowledge, as she must, that her powers of resistance diminished with each attack.

Woodbury rode home that evening very slowly. For the first time since Bute's marriage, as he looked across the meadows to a dusky white speck that glimmered from the knoll in the darkening twilight, there was no pang at his heart. "I foresee," he said to himself, "that if I do not take care, I shall love this girl madly and passionately. I know her now in her true tenderness and purity; I see what a wealth of woman hood is hidden under her mistaken aims. But is she not too loftily pure-too ideal in her aspirations-for my winning? Can she bear the knowledge of my life? I cannot spare her the test. If she comes to me at last, it must be with eveey

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veil of the Past lifted. There dare be no mystery between us-no skeleton in our cupboard. If she were less true, less noble-but no, there can be no real sacrament of marriage, without previous confession. I am laying the basis of relations that stretch beyond this life. It would be a greater wrong to shrink, for her sake, than for my own. It must come to this, and God give her strength of heart equal to her strength of mind!"

Woodbury felt that her relation to him had changed, and he could estimate, very nearly, the character which it had now assumed. Of her struggles with herself-of the painful impression which his visits left behind he had, of course, not the slightest presentiment. He knew, however, that no suspicion of his feelings had entered her breast, and he had reasons of his own for desiring that she should remain innocent of their existence, for the present. His plans, here, came to an end, for the change in himself interposed an anxiety which obscured his thoughts. He had reached the point where all calculation fails, and where the strongest man, if his passion be genuine, must place his destiny in the hands of Chance.

But there is, fortunately, a special chance provided for cases of this kind. All the moods of Nature, all the little accidents of life, become the allies of love. When the lover, looking back from his post of assured fortune over the steps by which he attained it, thinks: "Had it not been for such or such a circumstance, I might have wholly missed my happiness," he does not recognize that all the powers of the earth and air were really in league with him-that his success was not the miracle he supposed, but that his failure would have been. It is well, however, that this delusion should come to silence the voice of pride, and temper his heart with a grateful humility: for him it is necessary that "fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy."

Woodbury had no sooner intrusted to Chance the further development of his fate, than Chance generously requited the

trust. It was certainly a wonderful coincidence that, as he walked into Ptolemy on a golden afternoon in late September, quite uncertain whether he should this time call at the widow's cottage, he should meet Hannah Thurston on foot, just at the junction of the Anacreon and Mulligansville highways. It was Miss Sophia Stevenson's day for relieving her, and she had gone out for her accustomed walk up the banks of the stream. As Woodbury lifted his hat to greet her, his face brightened with a pleasure which he did not now care to conceal. There was a hearty, confiding warmth in the grasp of his hand, as he stood face to face, looking into her clear, dark-gray eyes with an expression as frank and unembarrassed as a boy's. It was this transparent warmth and frankness which swept away her cautious resolves at a touch. In spite of herself, she felt that an intimate friendship was fast growing up between them, and she knew not why the consciousness of it should make her so uneasy. There was surely no reproach to her in the fact that their ideas and habits were so different; there was none of her friends with whom she did not differ on points more or less important. The current setting towards her was pure and crystal-clear, yet she drew back from it as from the rush of a dark and turbid torrent.

"Well-met!" cried Woodbury, with a familiar playfulness. "We are both of one mind to-day, and what a day for out-ofdoors! I am glad you are able to possess a part of it; your mother is better, I hope ?"

"She is much as usual, and I should not have left her, but for the kindness of a friend who comes regularly on this day of the week to take my place for an hour or two."

"Have you this relief but once in seven days?"

"Oh, no. Mrs. Styles comes on Tuesdays, and those two days, I find, are sufficient for my needs. Mrs. Waldo would relieve me every afternoon if I would allow her."

"If you are half as little inclined for lonely walks as I am," said Woodbury, "you will not refuse my companionship today. I see you are going out the eastern road."

"My favorite walk," she answered, "is in the meadows yonder. It is the wildest and most secluded spot in the neighborhood of the village."

"Ah, I have noticed, from the road, in passing, the beauty of those elms and clumps of alder, and the picturesque curves of the creek. I should like to make a nearer acquaintance with them. Do you feel sufficient confidence in my appreciation of Nature to perform the introduction ?"

"Nature is not exclusive," said she, adopting his gay tone, "and if she were, I think she could not exclude you, who have known her in her royal moods, from so simple and unpretending a landscape as this."

"The comparison is good," he answered, walking onward by her side, "but you have drawn the wrong inference. I find that every landscape has an individual character. The royal moods, as you rightly term them, may impose upon us, like human royalty; but the fact that you have been presented at Court does not necessarily cause the humblest man to open his heart to you. What is it to yonder alder thickets that I have looked on the Himalayas? What does East Atauga Creek care for the fact that I have floated on the Ganges? If the scene has a soul at all, it will recognize every one of your footsteps, and turn a cold shoulder to me, if I come with any such pretensions."

Hannah Thurston laughed at the easy adroitness with which he had taken up and applied her words. It was a light, graceful play of intellect to which she was unaccustomed-which, indeed, a year previous, would have struck her as trivial and unworthy an earnest mind. But she had learned something in that time. Her own mind was no longer content to move in its former rigid channels; she acknowledged the cheerful brightness which a sunbeam of fancy can diffuse over the sober coloring of thought.

He let down the movable rails from the panel of fence which gave admittance into the meadow, and put them up again after they had entered. The turf was thick and dry,