CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

BASSWOODS gave Olive a rather more cordial reception than usual when she returned. In fact, Mrs. Merton's visit had done her a great deal of good. People are very apt to set a greater value on what they perceive to be prized by others, and the good people of Basswoods suddenly thought much more of Miss McHenry, on discovering that she had an uncle and aunt who were such very superior people, and who were evidently so much attached to her.

The school filled up at once, and even with Isabella Lambert's assistance, Olive found her hands very full. Isabella's talents were of a higher order than her sister's, and she had studied more, and Olive found her a valuable coadjutor, as well as a pleasant companion.

Melissa Tucker, having finished her education, had returned to her aunt's house, improved in nothing, but on the contrary more malicious, more conceited, and more fond of tattling than ever. Her aunt, however, thought her nothing short of perfection, and paraded her sayings and doings upon all occasions. No sooner did Melissa find herself comfortably settled at home than she began to look about for something whereon to exercise her talents, and she soon came to the conclusion that she could not be better employed than in making mischief between Miss McHenry and her friends.

She knew better than to address herself to Olive, whom she felt understood her perfectly, so she began her attack by calling upon Mrs. Prendergrass and Isabella, professing great regret that there had been any misunderstanding, and a desire to be friends, an advance that was cordially met by the two girls, who had always disliked the idea of a quarrel. Once established there, she began by wary insinuations of "patronage," "intermeddling," etc., to try to poison their minds against Olive. If she had been open in her abuse, they would have met her at once. But her covert attacks were not so easily warded off; and they began to have their effect, especially upon Isabella. She was, at first, not quite so successful with Maria, who cared nothing at all about being patronized, and knew that Olive did not meddle. So she changed her points of attack.

"Cousin Maria," she said one day, in her softest accents, "don't you think Mr. Prendergrass thinks a great deal of Miss McHenry?"

"So we all do," was the brief reply.

"Of course. It is natural you should, perhaps; especially after what happened before you were married, you know."

"I don't know what you mean, Melissa. What happened before we were married?" asked Maria, her curiosity a little excited.

"Why, don't you know? Oh! I am sorry I said any thing, but I supposed you knew all about it. It was so commonly talked of in the village. But if I had had any idea that you did not know it, I would not have spoken for the world."

"I can not conceive what you refer to," said Maria, seriously annoyed.

"Why, only that Mr. Prendergrass was so much attached to Miss McHenry. It was in every one's mouth, but nobody blamed him, for of course they all knew that she drew him on. It was about the same time that she was spreading her nets for Mr. Landon, and I really don't suppose she meant any thing worse than to amuse herself, and perhaps have another string to her bow, in case one failed. But it was well-known that he offered himself to her, and that she refused him more than once. I am sorry I told you, but it was so generally talked of, that I supposed, of course, you would have known it."

And, having fulfilled her mission, Miss Tucker departed, congratulating herself on the idea that she had at last succeeded in sowing dissension between Miss McHenry and her most devoted adherents. She had never forgiven or forgotten her first rebuff in attempting to carry tales to Miss McHenry in school, and moreover, she felt a mean jealousy of Olive's popularity, being one of those amiable persons who think every consideration bestowed upon another just so much taken from themselves.

As it turned out, she was completely baffled, and that not by any ingenuity upon Olive's part, but by simple plain dealing. She soon perceived, that something was the matter—that Isabella's manner toward her grew haughty and distant, and that any little favor was received most ungraciously, if at all; while at Maria's house, which she had always looked upon as a second home, she met a reception so cold as almost to amount to an insult. She took no notice of it at first, thinking it but a passing cloud, but the change soon became too much marked not to force itself upon her attention, and she determined to investigate the matter.

Accordingly, one evening, after tea, she called at Maria's, accompanied by Augusta, and received any thing but a welcome, while a most cordial greeting was bestowed upon her companion. Mr. Prendergrass indeed was the same as ever, and his cordial manners gave Olive more courage to proceed.

"Maria," she said, after a few moments of indifferent conversation, "I have not come without an errand, as you may imagine after the reception you gave me the last time I was here, but I am determined, if possible, to be at the bottom of this business. It is evident that both you and Isabella think you have some good reason to be offended with me, and I think, in all Christian kindness, you are bound to tell me what it is."

Olive spoke kindly but decidedly.

Isabella flushed up to her temples, and Maria seemed just ready to cry, while Mr. Prendergrass laid down his book, and stared first at one, and then at another, in undisguised amazement.

Maria at last murmured something about "not being aware—"

"That is simply impossible, Maria. Both you and Isabella must be aware that you have treated me very differently for three weeks past, from what you have done before. I think I have a right to demand the cause of offense that I may make amends if I have been wrong, and take measures to justify myself if I have been slandered. I have aimed to treat you as a sister," she continued, her voice faltering a little, "from the first time that you came to me, and I have done the same by Isabella, but it is possible, that by some inadvertence, I may have wounded you. If so, I am very sorry."

Mr. Prendergrass here interrupted her. "Miss McHenry, I can not conceive it possible, ma'am, that any of my household can have treated you with disrespect, so much attached to you as we all are. If so, I shall insist upon an immediate apology."

"It is not an apology that I want, Mr. Prendergrass," replied Olive. "I presume Maria thinks I have injured her in some way, and I am only anxious to get at the truth. I suspect some one has been telling stories about me, and—"

The look that passed between the sisters convinced her at once that she was right, and she went on with fresh courage.

"If this is so, I hope you will tell me at once both the name of the storyteller and the substance of the story."

"I am sure I never thought of such a thing," said Maria, beginning to sob, "till I was told that—that—"

"Well—that what?" said Olive encouragingly.

"That you—that Mr. Prendergrass had—had—"

A sudden light burst upon Olive's mind, and she exclaimed: "You little goose! You don't mean to say any one has been trying to make you jealous!"

Maria sobbed more than ever.

"I dare say that some obliging person has been telling you that your excellent husband was a little taken with me at one time, which was very true, and a great compliment I felt it, though, as he will tell you, it was one I would rather have dispensed with. But that was long before he saw you. When you came, he almost forgot that such a person as I ever existed."

"But they say that you encouraged him, and—and—"

"Did I ever encourage you, Mr. Prendergrass?" asked Olive, turning to him.

"No, Miss McHenry," he replied. "You never gave me one particle of encouragement. I regret very much that my dear wife has been so weak as to cherish suspicions injurious, not only to herself and you, but to her husband, who has never had a thought separate from her since he first knew her."

"You see, my dear Maria, how unfounded your ideas have been—do you not? I was engaged to Mr. Landon three months before Mr. Prendergrass ever said any thing to me, and I have been engaged to him ever since. Now, tell me, did I ever say an unkind word to either of you since I first knew you?"

"No," said both the sisters at once.

"Did I ever speak harshly or slightingly of you to any one?"

"You said I was a good sort of a girl, if I were educated," said Isabella, half-indignantly, half-laughing.

"I do not see any thing very slanderous in that, even if it were true," observed Olive. "But I do not remember saying so. When was it?"

"At Mrs. Jones's—at the society."

"Augusta, do you remember my saying that Isabella was a good sort of a girl, if she were educated?" asked Olive, with due gravity.

"Nothing of the kind," replied Augusta. "I remember Miss Tucker asking you if you did not think Miss Lambert would be a pretty girl, if she were not so uncultivated. I can not say I have any recollection of your making any reply whatever."

"Why, Melissa told me herself that you said so!" exclaimed Isabella, unguardedly.

"Oh! Ho! I thought we should get at the bottom of the business before long. So Miss Tucker has been having a hand in it. But, Maria, I thought you knew the whole family too well to attach any importance to their sayings and doings."

"Melissa said you called me a serpent," sobbed Maria, now as much ashamed as she had before been angry.

"I assure you, my child, if I had ever thought so, I should acquit you now. You have shown conclusively that you have little of the wisdom attributed to that animal, or you could not allow yourself to be made uncomfortable by the speeches of a professed mischief-maker. But let by-gones be by-gones. Is there any more?"

Maria and Isabella could not think of any thing else that amounted to aught but vague insinuations, except that Melissa had declared that Miss McHenry had told Mr. Gregory, in her hearing, that Mr. Prendergrass was a great fool to marry a poor girl, who had her reasons for being glad to jump at the chance of having him.

"That is neither more nor less than an unmitigated lie!" said Olive, provoked into using a strong word. "I don't see, Maria, how you could believe such a story for a moment. I am not much in the habit of using such elegant expressions—am I? But we won't say any thing more about it," she added. "I see you are convinced that you are wrong, so we will let the whole matter drop, and consider it as a joke."

"Don't go!" begged Maria. "Stay and spend the evening with us, if it is only to show that you are not angry with us. I am sorry I was so very silly, and so is Isabella, I am sure. Pray do stay—won't you?"

Olive laughed, and suffered her bonnet and shawl to be captured, and herself to be set down in the most comfortable chair in the room. It seemed as if the girls could not do enough to show their penitence and good-will, while she, on her part, set herself to obliterate any uncomfortable impression that might have been left upon their minds. They were in the midst of a great frolic over a game of "twenty questions," Mr. Prendergrass replying with a caution which would have been becoming to a diplomatist, to the severe examination of the ladies, when the door opened, and in walked Miss Melissa herself.

She looked both startled and puzzled at the scene which greeted her eyes, but in a moment recovered herself, and came forward with her usual caressing manner. Miss McHenry and Mrs. Tower greeted her with great politeness—the latter especially was remarkably gracious. Maria and her sister looked provoked and uneasy, and Mr. Prendergrass was as immovable as Mont Blanc. It was impossible for Miss Tucker not to perceive that something was wrong, but she made great efforts to appear as usual.

"How pleasant it looks here!" she observed, in her smoothest way. "It is really delightful to find you all so sociably engaged."

"You know how to appreciate such things, Miss Tucker," said Augusta, in her most silvery tones. "I am really delighted that you came in."

"But I must really call you to account for little mistake you made," added Olive, taking up the ball. "How did you come to tell Miss Lambert that I said she would be a good sort if she were only educated, when you know very well you yourself asked me if I did think so?"

If a glance could have killed Isabella, she would have fallen dead upon the spot, but Miss Tucker did not answer. She did not exactly know what to say. Olive went on:

"Moreover, you told Mrs. Prendergrass that I made remarks about herself and her husband which you know very well I never did make. I do not know how you can reconcile it with your conscience to tell such falsehoods, nor does it particularly matter to me. I am sorry, however, that you should do it, under the mask of a high religious profession, both for your own sake, and for that of the cause. I must tell you that if you are leaning for salvation upon any principle which allows you to do such things, you are leaning upon a broken reed which will fail you in the day of trial. Let me entreat you to examine your own state at once and honestly, and repent of the slanders of which you have been guilty before it is too late, and you are brought into judgment for them. I am not much afraid of your injuring me, but I must tell you that unless you stop these covert attacks I shall take some measures to defend myself, and these measures may not be very agreeable to you. I hope this is all that is necessary for me to say."

Miss Tucker had stood like a statue during this address, and for a moment after it was concluded, then recovering herself she said, blandly, but with a deep sigh:

"Dear Miss McHenry, I am sorry to see you so angry and for such a trifle. I am much obliged to you for your advice, and for your threats I am not at all troubled at them. If Maria has been weak enough to betray a friend who meant to do her a service, I pity her from the bottom of my heart, and regret that her confiding disposition should be so abused." And she glanced in an unmistakable way from Olive to the gentleman.

"Did you mean to do her confiding disposition a service when you told her that Miss McHenry made insinuations against her character to my father?" inquired Mrs. Tower. "Permit me to tell you that I shall inform him of the way you have used his name in this matter in order that he may take such steps as he thinks best."

Miss Tucker heard this with another sigh, as though in pity for such deep depravity, but she did not seem inclined to say any more, and walked in a dignified manner out of the room. The next thing heard of her was that she had gone to spend some time with a school-mate who lived at the West, somewhere about Green Bay.

Olive was very glad, for she disliked very much the idea of a collision, and feared further mischief. The Lamberts, heartily ashamed of being influenced by such a person, were more her friends than ever, and Olive took pains to show them by every means in her power that she did not cherish any resentment. Isabella improved in usefulness every day, and Olive grew more and more attached to her the more she knew her.

Olive's Sunday-school class at last began to reward her for the pains she had taken. When Mr. Gregory announced an approaching confirmation, four of the oldest girls gave in their names at once. Julia stood aloof for the time. She seemed very anxious to make a profession of her faith, but was afraid she should not always persevere, and that she would be the means of bringing discredit upon her profession.

"But Julia," said Olive, "you are not required to persevere always all at once. Every duty has its day, and for every day strength will be provided according to the need. It is not as if you were dependent on yourself, you know, and is it not something like a distrust of God's mercy to doubt his giving you that power which he has promised?"

Julia pondered.

"It is such a little time since I began to think about such things. Miss McHenry, I used to think I was so much superior to the rest of the girls because I did not care for going to church, and religious books and such things."

"But you do not feel so now, Julia."

"No indeed! I can not tell you how ashamed and humbled I am when I look back at that time. It is more that than any thing else which discourages me now, for fear that I should go back and be as proud and careless as ever."

"I do not think there is much danger of that, Julia. You could never forget that feeling of unworthiness, and of the mercy which brought you to the knowledge of it."

"Perhaps not; and yet people do become careless, you know."

"Yes; and they are much more likely to become so if they have nothing outward to prevent them. You will have the communion, coming at least every month, to make you examine your self, to remind you of your Saviour's dying love and mercy, to renew your self-consecration to himself and his Church. Will not this be a great help to you in maintaining a Christian character?"

Julia thought so, but she still seemed to feel that she was unworthy.

"So are we all, my dear. There never was a communicant yet who was worthy of the mercy of God. But if, with all your unworthiness, you have not hesitated to accept the salvation of which the communion is only the outward and visible sign, why should you be stopped by the sign itself?"

Julia thought and considered, and finally made up her mind to take the step. She had left school, but still continued to be a frequent visitor, and Olive was very fond of her, though she had given her more trouble than any other girl in school. But there was something about her so truthful and hearty, and so far removed from the aimless frivolity that wearied her life out in so many of her other pupils, that she was ready to forgive a good deal of willfulness.

If Julia was sometimes conceited, and now and then rebellious, she learned her lessons and took an interest in them, and in things which illustrated them. She really thought and talked, instead of dreaming and chattering. Then she was eminently truthful, and resorted to none of the mean artifices which some of the other girls used to conceal their faults. She would have scorned to bring in a false excuse for being late in the morning, or to lay a plot for getting called out of school half an hour before it was over, or pretend a headache or weak eyes as an excuse for neglecting a lesson.

With many of Olive's pupils, seriousness upon any subject whatever, seemed all but out of the question. Senseless chattering and equally senseless giggling seemed their only idea of social intercourse, and any attempt to develop or employ their higher faculties only made them sullen. Educating these young persons was almost out of the question. The only thing that could be done was to drag them perseveringly through a course of lessons in hopes that some knowledge would stick to them which might afterwards bear fruit. This was hard work enough, and thankless enough, but now and then one would come out from her companions, and after a while attain to a respectable degree of learning, and these few examples encouraged Olive to persevere.

Olive's warm friendship with Ruth and Augusta continued and increased, and it did them all good. In Mrs. Tower indeed the improvement was not so apparent, but in Ruth every one saw it. She was as cheerful and useful as ever, but she was much gentler, and did not say nearly so many sharp things. Moreover, she was more careful in her manners and dress. Her superb hair was put up with some attention to the becoming, as well as to the shortest possible time in which it could be put up, and her general appearance was much improved.

The Milton and Tennyson war still waged sometimes, but with diminished force. Olive had learned to see new beauties in the English classics, and Ruth allowed that not many poems were superior to the "Palace of Art," and that Dryden never wrote any thing equal to "Œnone." Ruth even treated the ingenious Mr. Ruskin with something short of absolute contempt, a degree of toleration at which Augusta never expected her to arrive. And Augusta, who had a secret leaning to candlesticks, allowed that in the present state of the world, it would be better worth while to build four churches worth four thousand dollars a piece and leave the rest of the money for parish purposes than to erect one edifice costing fifty thousand.

They had been studying German together during the last winter, Olive acting as teacher, and they found a new source of pleasure as they learned to read it with some degree of facility. Together they admired and pitied Egmont, and heartily detested Wilhelm Meister, and set critics at defiance by alternately ridiculing and railing at Faust. They studied the beloved Schiller, laughed over "Puss in Boots," and regretted that Goethe's years of life had not been granted to the good and pure Fouqué and Novalis.

Mr. Gregory shook his head sometimes over these German raptures, and wished that they would spend the time upon Greek. And Mrs. Felton was made very uneasy on their account, having imbibed the idea that all the Germans since Luther's time were either infidels or transubstantialists—meaning probably trancendentalists—but as Ruth lost none of her fondness for the Bible and religious reading, and seemed to enjoy her lessons very much, her fears gradually subsided, and she regarded the obnoxious volumes with more complacency, even when opened in her presence.

But before long an event happened which for some time put an end to their studies. One evening the three friends were sitting over their books in the pleasant little study at the parsonage which looked out upon the road. It was a warm spring evening, and the long windows were thrown open to their full extent to admit the spring air and the last lingering rays of the sun.

"Decidedly it is too dark for study," said Augusta, closing her book.

"I have been looking for you to find that out," replied Ruth; "I have been unable to tell one letter from another for the last half-hour."

"There is nothing very strange in that," answered Augusta, laughing. "You never will be able to tell your 'B's and your 'V's apart, even in broad daylight. If we were to study two years, I should expect to find you looking for 'beugen' among the 'v's."

"There is some one coming to see your father," remarked Olive, glancing out of the window; "do you know who it is?"

"It is no one I ever saw before, I am sure," said Augusta. "How miserably ill he looks! Bless me, Ruth, what is the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost."

Ruth was indeed extremely pale. She stood looking at the stranger, who came straight across the grass to the study-windows, as though familiar with the ways of the place. He was a respectably-dressed man, tall and large, but looking very pale and ill. The girls glanced from him to Ruth in surprise, seeing nothing in his appearance to cause alarm. But before they could speak, he reached the window.

Ruth sprang forward to meet him, and seemed as though she would have fallen, but he caught her in his arms.

"God bless you, Ruth!" he exclaimed. "You knew me, if no one else did."

Augusta caught his hand and looked in his face.

"Frederick! Can it be possible?"

"I did not think I was so altered that no one could recognize me," he said mournfully. "Yes, Augusta, I have come back to see if there is a corner of the old house left for me—to die in," he added in a lower tone, as he sank upon the sofa. "Where are my father and mother?"

"Shall I go and find them?" asked Olive in a low tone. And without waiting for an answer, she hurried away.

She met Mr. and Mrs. Gregory sauntering slowly homeward through the deepening twilight, the one burdened with a basket of early radishes and lettuce from a neighbor's hotbeds, the other with a bunch of flowers.

"Where are you hurrying at such a rate?" asked the lady in wonder.

"I was going to look for you," replied Olive breathlessly, though trying to conceal her agitation. "There is a gentleman at the house that wants very much to see you."

"Why, child, how flurried you are!" exclaimed Mr. Gregory. "Is it Walter?"

"It is no one I ever saw before," said Olive, as they walked along more quickly, "but Augusta and Ruth know him, and sent me to look for you."

"Augusta and Ruth! Husband, can it be—!" And Mrs. Gregory quickened her steps almost to a run, to keep pace with her husband's long strides.

Olive followed at a distance, thinking she might be needed, and sat down in the parlor. She heard a faint scream, an exclamation from Mrs. Gregory, and then the door closed between them. She sat patiently for half an hour, struggling against a forlorn kind of feeling of being a stranger, and out of place. Why is it that this feeling so often comes to us in the presence of joy in which we have no share, and so seldom when the scene at which we are present is one of sorrow? She was just wondering what Mrs. Felton would imagine had become of them, when she heard Augusta's voice calling to her.

"What—are you sitting here in the dark? Come in, do. I am afraid we have not been very hospitable, but we have been so surprised with Frederick, that—"

"That you have forgotten me," said Olive smiling; "and no wonder. How is Ruth?"

"She hardly knows, herself, I believe. Was it not wonderful that she should have known him the first moment? It is six years since we have any of us seen him. Poor fellow! He is sadly worn and tired now, but I hope he will be better to-morrow."

"Where has he been all this time?" asked Olive.

"Oh! In many places here and there. Mostly in the Indian Ocean. He has come home quite a rich man he says."

Olive could not so much wonder at Ruth's recognition of her long-absent lover, when she looked at him as he sat between his father and mother on the sofa. He was so exactly like Augusta, despite his beard and moustache, and all other differences, she thought she should have known him anywhere. He looked pale and worn, for all his bronze complexion, and there was a languor in his manners which seemed to indicate either illness or great fatigue. One hand was clasped in his mother's, the other rested on his father's arm. But his eyes seemed all for Ruth, who sat leaning back in the rocking-chair, looking pale, but with an expression of intense yet subdued happiness that fully transfigured her face, and made Olive wonder how she could ever have thought her plain.

Augusta was the only one of the party who looked sad. Her brother had left them in the beginning of her engagement, and since then she had been a beloved wife, a widow, and a childless mother.

"Ruth, what will your mother think has become of us?" asked Olive, after a while. "We ought to have been at home by eight, and it is now eleven."

"We must go," said Ruth, rousing herself. "I had no idea that it was so late. I wonder what mother will say?" she continued, as they were walking homeward by themselves, having declined Mr. Gregory's escort. "Would you mind telling her about it, Olive, and letting me go up-stairs? I want so much to be alone."

Olive consented, of course, and as they found the door open, Ruth went straight to her own apartment, and Olive went into the sitting-room, where she found Mrs. Felton asleep on the sofa.

"Bless me. Olive!" she said peevishly, as she roused herself and rubbed her eyes. "Where have you been all this time? Here I have been sitting up for you till my eyes are fairly out of my head. Where is Ruth?"

"She is gone up-stairs," replied Olive. "I am sorry we kept you up, but we could not help it very well. They have had rather an exciting evening at the parsonage. Frederick has come home."

"Why, do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Felton, wide awake at once. "Well, if I ever! You don't say he has come home! Why, every one thought he was dead long ago. And so he has come back! When did he get here? Tell me all about it, won't you?"

Olive complied, making her tale as circumstantial as possible. When she mentioned the circumstance of Ruth's being the first to recognize the stranger, Mrs. Felton exclaimed: "There now! That is just like her! I never did see such a girl. I dare say she would have him now if he asked her, though she has refused so many good offers."

"He does not seem to me as though he were likely to have any body," said Olive. "I think he looks very ill indeed, but that might have been only fatigue and agitation."

"I wonder if he has come home to be a burden on the old folks in the evening of their days?" Mrs. Felton went on to say. "I think it will be really too bad if he has."

"He told Augusta that he had come home quite a rich man," answered Olive, "but even if he had not, I know they would not feel it a burden."

"Quite a rich man, eh? Well now, I'd never expect that of Fred Gregory. But any way, I am glad he has come home if he has reformed. It will be a comfort to their minds to see him once more. What did the old lady say to him when she came in?"

"I don't know. I was not in the room. I thought they would rather be by themselves."

Mrs. Felton seemed to think this a very remarkable piece of self-denial on Olive's part, and promised herself the pleasure of going over to sympathize with Mrs. Gregory, the first thing in the morning. The hint that Olive had given respecting Frederick having acquired property, was sufficient to set her imagination at work, and she lay awake half the night, arranging a romance wherein Mr. Gregory the younger played the part of an immensely wealthy nabob, come home expressly to marry her daughter, and to die shortly afterward, leaving Ruth a rich widow.

"We can go on living together just the same," her reverie went on, "only in more style, of course. Black always was becoming to Ruth. I wonder whether she will wear caps?" And in deciding whether these caps should be of muslin or crape, Mrs. Felton finally lost the thread of her reflections in sleep.

It did not appear, however, that any part of her romance was likely to be realized, except that which related to her hero's death. In the morning, he was so ill that he was unable to leave his room, and for two or three weeks he lay between life and death, in a fever. No one seemed to think it strange that Ruth was constantly at the parsonage, and indeed made it her home, till Frederick began to improve a little.

There was a great deal of talk about his unexpected return, and considerable speculation as to the amount of his property, and people wondered whether he would marry Ruth in case he got well enough, and whether she would have him. Mrs. Tucker thought that she would refuse him with disdain if she had an atom of proper pride about her, as, of course she had not, or she would not be at the parsonage so much. She did not think it at all proper, for her part.

Meantime, the objects of all this conversation paid very little attention to any thing beyond themselves. The prodigal was happy in being at home again, at peace with himself, the world, and his God, and looking forward with humble confidence to that city which hath foundations, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. The peace that passeth all understanding brooded over Ruth's heart and mind. She felt that it was well with her lover, and whether she enjoyed his society in this world, or looked forward to it in the next, was comparatively a matter of small concern. It was enough that he was faithful, repentant, forgiven, safe; that she could minister to his wants, both of body and mind; that he loved to have her by him; that he always knew her, even when his father and mother seemed like strangers to him; that he was at last worthy of her love.

After a time, he recovered sufficiently to ride out, and even to walk to church. But he continued feeble and suffering, and all felt that his life hung upon a thread. He had earnestly requested Doctor Gordon's true opinion, and that opinion was freely given. The physician told him that he could never recover, even though he might live some time. His disease was one of the heart, which might terminate his life at any moment.

Frederick received the announcement calmly and cheerfully, and set about finding some employment which should occupy without fatiguing him. This was found in the cataloguing and arranging a large quantity of East-Indian and Chinese curiosities, which he had picked up in his travels, and which he proposed to present to the academy. Thus he spent his time quietly and peacefully, happy in the society of those he loved best in the world, and awaiting the summons to his heavenly rest.

This was the state of things when Olive went down to New-York to visit Laura, who would not hear of her stopping anywhere else first.