operations in the valley of the Don are the most the whole district rendered dry by the natural

striking chapter in the History of the Isle of Axholme, constructed many additional drains for the accomplishment of this great object. The "Bedford Level Corporation" was formed soon afterwards, in the time of Charles the Second; the conservation of the former works was intrusted to them; and many new ones are attributed to their subsequent exertions.

The winds, however, were fickle and unsteady. "With his crops ready for the sickle, the farmer sometimes experienced sudden and complete ruin. An unexpected fall of rain deluged his land, while his mills-his only hope-stood with their sails unmoved by a breath of wind. The fruits of the labor and industry of the past year perished on the ground." But Watt now brought the unsleeping steam-engine to his aid; and the windmill gradually gave way to it. There are now none on the north or south divisions of the great level; though about a hundred and fifty still remain on the middle division, and a hundred more on other parts of the fenny country. These engines secure not only an efficient drainage, but they secure it at the time and season when it is most required.

descent of the waters to the lower sea. Could the Boston sluice be also removed, the fens on the Witham would likewise obtain a natural drainage, and of the fifty steam-engines and two hundred and fifty windmills now at work in these countries, scarcely one would, after a few years, be seen.

This progress of engineering improvement is very interesting. River mouths had got filled up, But the drainage was still incomplete; the and their waters dammed back; huge dykes are mouths of the rivers choked up more and more; therefore drawn along their channels, to prevent and the water in the canals, which had been cut the streams from overflowing. But the low lands to these rivers at various points, was not low through which they ran were full of water, and enough to dry the land. Fen after fen, therefore, had no outlet; canals are therefore cut to the was inclosed, after the manner of the Dutch pol-lower parts of the rivers, to afford this water an ders; ring canals were dug; windmills were escape. Again, the mouths of these rivers became erected; and the water by their means lifted into choked up still further, or the fall given to them the beds of the rivers. This was found to be so has not proved sufficient, or they have been dameffectual, that the mills were multiplied, until there med back by sluices for the purposes of navigation, were upwards of five hundred on the Bedford level so that the drainage is, or gradually becomes, inalone! complete; upon this, the windmill is set to work, and the water is scooped up from the ditches, to a level high enough to allow it to pass off by more elevated canals, or by the channels of the rivers themselves. At the next step steam displaces wind; by doing its work more effectually and more cheaply, while it is, at the same time, more under command. Then appears the pump in place of the scoop-wheel and the screw. And last of all, after these numerous transitions, cuts are made from the fens, direct to the sea, or (what is equivalent to this) the mouths of the rivers are cleared out, and canals carried directly into them. Thus dykes suddenly become useless, and wind and steam are alike dismissed. We confess that we look with great delight at a result such as this; and there is something of romance to us in the perusal of the difficulties through which successive generations have fought their way to arrive at it. That Vermuyden possesed the idea which is the key to all this, is clear, by the way in which, through cutting the Dutch river, he intended to drain the valley of the Don. But levels were not accurately taken; funds failed; individual interests interfered; the details of the operations were often mismanaged; the action of the silt-depositing tidal waters was not understood; great operations could not be comprehended by the masses, and parties could not agree to combine their means and strength. These and other obstacles prevented the general idea by which the most recent improvements have been regulated, from being sooner taken up as the guiding clue by fen-engineers. Accordingly, what happens in almost all cases of large results, has happened in this. The game has been long protracted; it has been often badly played; but the

Unfortunately the outfalls of the rivers were meanwhile neglected. They were allowed to be choked up to such a degree, that great floods were from time to time inevitable. Those from the Nen, especially, towards the end of the last century, were very injurious to the whole length of the north level. At length Mr. Rennie and other eminent engineers were consulted; and so efficacious have been the works executed upon the Nen, that not only has the land been laid dry, but both windmills and steam-engines can now be dispensed with-while the whole drainage is accomplished by the natural descent of the water to the sea, at an annual " expense of from four to five shillings an acre." Various improvements have also been made upon the outfalls of the Witham, the Welland, and the Ouse; and when the objects of the bill of 1844, relating to this latter river, are fully carried out, it is expected that artificial drainage will become unnecessary;-that the 170 windmills and the seven steam-engines of the middle level will disappear; that the last of the lakes, Whittlesea Mere, will be obliterated from the map, and

*Whittlesea Mere covers 1570 acres. It is no modern creation; for we find it granted in 664 by Wolphere, King of Mercia, to his new monastery of Medehampstead, (now Peterborough,) destroyed by the Danes in 870.

*The reader will form a clearer idea of the nature of

this last improvement when we state, that in some districts, as at Waldersey, in Marshland, the water is at present pumped up from ten to twenty feet into the river, although the land from which it is raised is many feet above the level of the sea, and would have a natural drainage were the outfall of the river improved. Instead of lifting it over the dam of high land that now confines the water, a passage should be cut for it to run through.

winning move, which we now see might have been made sooner, is made at last.

ico?' Have you any knowledge of these intrigues? M. Olozaga also alluded to the squint of covetous ness with which the United States regarded Cuba,

press already spoke as if it were an annexed state. Spain should govern that island, not only with a view to the resources that might be gained from it, but in a liberal and commercial spirit, and with a just regard to the interests of the inhabitants.' The only notice of Cuba in any English paper is a hint that, as Spain does not make any exertions to pay sell Cuba to the United States to prevent its being her bondholders, she may probably be anxious to seized by her creditors. The Daily News says there is an understanding between President Polk and Jezebel Christina upon the subject.'

It is clear, that, when the whole of our fen and marsh lands shall thus be drained by natural out-of which gem of the Spanish crown the American falls, all similarity between the Bedford level and the Dutch drainage will cease; and pumping and poldering will be seen in no other country of Europe but in that of the Netherlands. The projected Victoria level, for which an act has recently been obtained, and which is to consist of a hundred and fifty thousand acres, to be dyked in from the Wash, is, as regards extent, a much greater work than the drainage of the Haerlem sea. But, as regards the real character of the undertaking, it is much less so. The Victoria level, after being embanked, will be warped up to the level of high water, and will thus have a natural drainage ever after. "Seventy-three thousand acres of it are already land at the receding of the tide." But the Haerlem lake has to be first pumped dry; and then it must be kept dry by permanent engines at a perpetual expense. When cultivated and peopled, it will always continue liable to sudden destruction, as often as one of those secular periods shall arrive, in which the same concurring circumstances shall again bear the Northern Ocean over barriers it has so frequently been known to climb before.

In many things our English level drainage has the superiority over that of the Netherlands; and in many more we surpass them in our level farming. We regret, indeed, that our space now prevents us from doing ampler justice to our eastern counties in both respects. But the intellectual interest, both actual and future, which attaches to the water-fights, in which our more amphibious neighbors must always be engaged on the other side of the German Ocean, is vastly greater than we can ever expect or fear on this.

SAW-DUST.-The shipping lists report at Frankfort, (Penobscot river,) Dec. 10th, "six small vessels loading with saw-dust for Charlestown, Mass." The commodity is designed for packing ice at Charlestown and Cambridge-the great sources of the ice trade for almost the whole world.

A very respectable income is now derived, at several places in this state, from the sale of pine saw-dust, for this purpose, and the transportation gives employment to considerable tonnage. Thus the exigencies of luxury within the tropics, and in many of the largest cities of the world, are giving encouragement to the minutest results of industry in the "down east" regions of Maine.

At the steam saw mills it is well known that the saw-dust of their own making forms a large part of their fuel. Yet so little were either of these uses of the article thought of, till lately, that, upon the erection of the first steam saw mill at Hallowell (the first in the state) on the bank of the river, it was deemed necessary to pass a law prohibiting the the saw-dust into the river owners from obstructing the channel, by throwing Similar laws were passed to meet similar cases at Ellsworth and elsewhere. Such legislation is now obsolete, and an article once deemed so useless and worthless, now teaches us to despise nothing that ingenuity and industry can get hold of.-Portland Adv.

ADVICE TO WIVES.-A wife must learn how to form her husband's happiness; in what direction the secret of his comfort lies; she must not cherish his weaknesses by working upon them; she must motto must be, never to irritate. She must study not rashly run counter to his prejudices. Her never to draw largely upon the small stock of patience in man's nature, nor to increase his obsti

A single word more to our Netherland readers. You are replacing your windmills and scoop-wheels by our English steam-engines and pumps. Are there no parts of our country in which you can also imitate our improvements in the outfalls of streams and canals? Can none of your lower mosses be elevated and fertilized by the process of inland warping, which is so wonderfully enrich-nacy by trying to drive him; never, if possible, to ing our moors around the Isle of Axholme, through the medium of the muddy waters of the Trent?

SPAIN AND MEXICO.-The London correspondent of the National Intelligencer, says, in a letter dated 16 December:-"The most striking intelligence from Spain is found in the speech of Senor Olozaga, in the legislature of that kingdom, in which he alluded to recent occurrences in Mexico.' He held in his hand,' he said, the proof that large sums had been wasted in absurd intrigues there. The account of the expenditures of the revenue of Havana for the year 1816 contained the following item: "Paid in cashing treasury bills remitted by her majesty's minister plenipotentiary in Mexico, the sum of $100,000." Was this nation then so abundantly supplied with money that it could afford to fling away its resources upon miserable intrigues in Mex

have scenes. I doubt much if a real quarrel, even if made up, does not loosen the bond between man and wife, and sometimes, unless the affection of both be very sincere, lastingly. If irritation should occur, a woman must expect to hear from most men a strength and vehemence of language far more than the occasion requires. Mild as well as stern men are prone to this exaggeration of language; let not a woman be tempted ever to say anything sarcastic or violent in retaliation. The bitterest repentance must needs follow such an indulgence, if she do. Men frequently forget what they have themselves said, but seldom what is uttered by their wives. They are grateful, too, for forbearance in such cases; for, whilst asserting most loudly that they are right, they are often conscious that they are wrong. Give a little time, as the greatest bocn you can bestow, to the irritated feelings of your husband.-The English Matron.

EDITH KINNAIRD.-PART III. CHAPTER V.

66

As they walked home Edith began to express her warm admiration of Alice Brown's unobtrusive goodness. There is to me a charm about her which I cannot define," said she; "plain and shy as she is, without brilliancy, without striking talent of any sort, without captivation of manner, she wins upon my affection I don't know how! It is quite against all my theories; I never fancied that mere goodness was necessarily lovable, though, of course, it must always be respectable-yet I don't know what there is in Alice that is attractive, unless it be her goodness. I think, Amy, her character is like one of the figures on old stained glass -strange and stiff, and violating perhaps all the rules of art, but impressing you at once with the idea of an unearthly beauty such as none of those rules could have produced.' "She paused, but Mrs. Dalton made no answer.

"You don't like her!" exclaimed Edith, with an air of disappointment.

perfect liberty, enough admiration to keep me always in good humor, a happy home-no, a comfortable home, that's the word-a comfortable home and a good husband: the last are the two grand essentials, don't you think so, Edith ?"

"How lovely Beechwood is looking!" returned Edith, who was painfully embarrassed, and knew not what to say. They were just passing the park gate.

66

66

Yes, beautiful!" cried Amy, stopping short, and looking up at the cool dark blue sky through the crevices in the golden foliage. Look there!" she added; "there is a new kind of garden roller, which Mr. Dalton invented; it took him a whole vacation to bring it to perfection; and he was so much interested in it, that he used to lie awake at nights, and mutter dark sentences concerning it when he dropped asleep. Presently he will take out a patent for it, and be henceforth known as the inventor of the improved garden roller-he will rank among the master spirits of the age, and the benefactors of posterity. Is it not a proud distinction for me to shine in the reflection of such a light?"

"Oh yes!" replied her friend, hurriedly, and in a low, faltering voice; the next moment she with- "Amy! Amy!" exclaimed Edith, in a supplidrew her arm from the clasp of the wondering cating voice, "forgive me, but indeed this is not Edith, put her hands before her face, and began to right-it makes me unhappy to listen to you." weep bitterly. Edith was greatly shocked; she "Nay, but Edith," persisted Mrs. Dalton, "this did not like to inquire the reason of a grief so un-is not fair; I am naturally ambitious, and I am tryexpected and so overpowering, but walked on in ing to induce my ambition to feed upon the only sympathizing silence. Amy's usual self-command kind of nourishment it can get. Fame is fame, seemed to have completely deserted her; her tears you know, and the source from which it springs flowed fast and long without restraint. At length can be of very little consequence. Nothing is valshe snatched her handkerchief from her eyes with uable in itself; it is only as we choose to think a gesture of impatience, and began to pluck the highly or lowly of it that it rises or falls. I don't clematis from the hedges beside which they were see why Mr. Dalton's new roller should not be as walking. "It is very graceful, is it not?" said grand a creation to him as Lichfield Cathedral was she, with assumed levity, holding up a branch and to the architect who imagined it. And if to him, twisting it into a garland; "it would make a lovely of course to me-that follows, you know. Quand wreath for the hair; I think it would suit you ex-on n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on aactly. Do take off your bonnet, Edith, and let me that is true philosophy.' try-I like to exercise my genius upon your toilette-you do me such credit."

"At home!-oh, true, we are not at home yet,' repeated Amy, looking around her as if she had only just noticed the circumstance; "we shall be at home when we are at Beechwood. It will be wiser to wait certainly-more in accordance with etiquette, and sins against etiquette, you know, are unpardonable, especially in women. We may break the laws of God as often as we please, and we may evade the laws of man, provided we do it cunningly, without fear of losing caste; but the laws of society are sacred, and the woman who neglects them is sentenced ere the crime be consummated. What a nice thing it is to have a number of pretty little conventional channels for the feelings, where they may play about safely and do nobody any harm-only it's a pity they are so shallow-it's bad policy, you see, for a strong current sweeps them all away in an instant. Did you think I was crying just now?"

Edith's distressed silence answered for her. "Oh, don't deny it," pursued Amy, in the same tone; "I am sure you did, you looked so frightened. My dear child, I was only tricking you. What should I find to cry about, unless I were like a baby and cried for the moon? I have everything in the world to make me happy-plenty of money,

"And like all philosophy," said Edith, making a strong effort to change the subject, "it is very well to talk about, and quite impossible to do. Mr. Thornton would laugh at me for the elegant phraseology in which I am clothing my ideas; would he not? By the bye, how kind it was of him to remember poor Alice Brown! I should not have expected it of him; it was a quiet, unpretending little piece of benevolence, which I should have thought his far-gazing eyes likely to overlook."

"Ah, you don't do him justice," replied Mrs. Dalton; he has an excellent heart."

"But an excellent heart does not always teach one to do right," observed Edith. Mrs. Dalton was silent and seemed scarcely to hear the remark. Edith went on talking, almost breathlessly, to prevent the renewal of a train of thought which had been so unspeakably painful to her "Ah! see how the Russian violets have come into bloomwhat an abundance! the ground is quite purple— let me get you a bouquet. She kneeled down to gather the flowers. "Don't pick them!" said Amy; "I hate the scent of violets!"

Edith looked up in her face inquiringly. "I hate flowers!" continued Amy, with vehemence. "What have I to do with quiet, simple pleasures and sweet natural beauties?—I have poisoned them all! I have never gathered a violet since I was eighteen-and then- tears again interrupted her words.

Edith rose, threw her arms around her, and tried to soothe her by caresses and words of endearment. If the presence and the voice of Love cannot soothe

alive to their acutest painfulness. They know not the sensation of utter powerlessness which has no alternative but escape or prostration-the_cowardice of a bleeding and undefended heart. Every

grief, it is indeed irremediable; and that love is wisest which at such bitter seasons seeks rather to express its sympathy than to contend against the sorrow of the mourner. Mrs. Dalton repulsed Edith, but gently, and without any effort to dis-tree or stone that we see has perhaps the power of guise her emotion. "Leave me, dear Edith," said she;"'t is of no use. There, leave me-I am as weak as a child. Twelve years ago," she added, clasping Edith's hand between her own and speaking in a stifled but quite articulate voice, "I was engaged to that man whom you have seen this morning, and I gave him up because he would not give up his duty for my love. So he left England -and I-married. And we have never met since. Now go-and forget all this-and ask me no more questions-I shall be just as usual this evening."

And Edith obeyed, and left her, with a warm embrace but without a word, and in the evening she was just as usual-a little flushed perhaps, and rather more vivacious in her conversation than was her habit when at home, but perfectly composed, and full of badinage with Mr. Thornton. She declined singing, but that was no uncommon whim, and she broke up the party early, but then she was tired with her long walk. She did not come into Edith's room, but pressed her hand on the stairs and wished her good-night, and the next morning the unwonted color and the slight restlessness were gone, and even her friend's eyes could discover no traces of the terrible emotion of the previous day. Truly, in one sense, we all of us walk through life like the pilgrim child in the German picture; we know not what fearful abysses are hidden from us by the fruits and flowers which grow around our path.

calling up a phantom from the accusing past; but
we do not think of the trees or stones till we see
them-we are too much occupied by the unwilling
contemplation of the shapes which are ever present
before us, whether with or without them. So
Edith did not weep at the thought of once more
becoming an inmate of Enmore Hall, much and
long as she wept afterwards at the eloquent memo-
rials of the place when she was actually its inmate.
She wept, because in that kind letter she had re-
ceived the fullest consolation which her grief was
capable of receiving, and because she felt its utter
impotence to soften that grief; because the thought
passed slowly through her heart,
Now every-
thing has been done that can be done, and you are
still desolate."

She broke the seal of Frank's letter somewhat listlessly; she had written to him once since her illness, but had not yet received an answer. They had parted just before she left Selcombe Park; she had then been convalescent for some days, but had carefully avoided all private conversation with him, so that she actually did not know what view he took of her position. He had been satisfied with the proofs of returning health which he saw in her, and with the knowledge that she was going to stay with a friend so congenial to herself (though not to him) as Mrs. Dalton; and he had treated her with that careful and considerate tenderness which bodily ailments seldom fail to win from those who love us. The sickly and drooping soul is generally left to shift for itself, or shaken and scolded into a healthier state, if so be. Why can we not bestow upon it the same delicate handling that we should readily award to the broken or injured limb? Is it a thing of stronger and more intelligible constitution-or of less consequence? Thus did Frank write:

At breakfast, on the third morning after Mr. Thornton's arrival, two letters were placed in Edith's hands, and it was with a fluttering heart that she examined the handwriting on the envelopes. One was from Aunt Peggy; the other from Frank. She opened Aunt Peggy's first, and read a most cordial and affectionate acquiescence in her proposal. Miss Forde welcomed with delight the idea of again receiving Edith as an inmate, delicately abstained from any allusion to her peculiar circum-"My dearest Edith, stances beyond a strong expression of sympathy "I was delighted to receive such an improved and interest, and added the information that Enmore account of you. I thought, when I saw you last, Hall was again vacant, and that Edith's letter had that you were just in the state for a change of air decided her upon engaging it for the winter, in- to do wonders.-[Edith paused here, and reflected stead of occupying the small cottage in its neigh- a little on the wonderful potency of change of air, borhood where she had been passing the last fewere she proceeded.]—I hope you take immense care months and at which Edith had addressed her. of yourself as the winter comes on; we have had She needed no further notice, but would be ready cold winds lately, and I thought of you a thousand to receive her beloved guest at any day and hour times. after the date of her present_note. Why did tear after tear drop slowly from Edith's eyes as she ended the perusal of words so kind and consolatory? Was it that she shrank from again seeing a place where so many happy hours had furnished so many bitter recollections? not exactly; that soft memorial sorrow does not excite the imagination and so come upon us by anticipation. A thrill passes over us, it is true, whensoever we read the name of a place where we have once been happy, but it is the privilege of a tranquil state of melancholy to people the mind with quiet visions of the past, and to embody, as it were, and localize the picture by particular features of landscape or even forms and dispositions of furniture-the new bitterness of an unmellowed grief leaves no leisure, no power for such embellishments of sorrow. Those who voluntarily dwell upon unhappy thoughts have either become callous, or were never

You are very reserved with me, and unnecessarily so, for I know all about it. Surely, my darling sister, you must be aware that I should never seriously oppose any step in which your happiness was concerned. I have my opinions-fancies, if you please-and I have had my wishes, but no one of them, nor all of them put together, could ever be entertained by me for a moment in such a manner as to interfere with your happiness. Having thus broken the ice, you won't be surprised at my mentioning Mr. Thornton, and I shall go at once to the point and wish you all possible joy. I believe him to be an excellent fellow; and though I know but little of him, I have no doubt we shall soon be better acquainted; 1 would commission you to give him my warmest congratulations, but I suppose that would not exactly do. Write to me openly, and don't let there be any more concealments between us. Had I known how it really

was, I would never have annoyed you for a mo-
ment. I am most anxious to hear from you; and
I hope now you will have no scruple in giving me
your confidence; there never can be any feeling
that should separate you and me from each other.
Good-bye, darling; God bless you, and give you
every happiness which this world can afford.
"Your affectionate brother,

"Oxford, October 18th.

"FRANK KINNAIRD.

she to herself again and again, but there was neither strength nor comfort in that thought, and she knelt down and wept all the more bitterly for her punishment because she deserved it. The whole past had become as nothing to him, and to her it was, simply, her LIFE. How should this be? How should the thoughts, and words, and actions, which had moulded themselves into eternal memories for one, have broken as mere bubbles for the other? How was it possible for any future, how ruthless and profane soever, to desecrate that holy and beloved past? Even that was now taken from her-it was no longer a possession to her-she had not the privilege of weeping over it. It was as though some tender watcher by a new-made grave, whose life was spent in decking the low mound with flowers, and kneeling thereupon to offer praythe coffin-lid and see a vacant space where the body ers, had been suddenly empowered to look beneath of the beloved should be,-how should he believe that the form now gone had ever been there at all? how should he repay his heart for its wasteful love, -for its meaningless piety?

"Everard is with me here; he has had a small property left him, and is going to pass the winter at Oxford during the matriculation of his youngest brother, who is just come up to Oriel. In the spring we shall make a short tour together before he rejoins his regiment. I am doubtful whether you will approve of my mentioning the subject, but I wish just to tell you that you need not give yourself any pain on his account. We are intimate here with a very charming family-the Bracebridges; and I should not be surprised if Miss Emily, the youngest, who has the prettiest blue eyes and the archest tongue that ever I encountered, were to take upon herself the charge of consoling him; she Is there any anguish like that of losing love by a is a good girl too-and rather an uncommon style fault?-any pain like that slow bitterness which of character, I fancy. She first caught Everard's comes upon the heart when the certainty of its attention by her perfect indifference to all the gay-said it must be so, imagination anticipated it, fear actual loss becomes fully perceptible to it? Reason eties that were going on here; and then her brother, (who is a boy at Winchester, and came here for the holidays,) a very communicative youth, told us that she doated upon balls, but had given her whole year's allowance, except what she wanted for absolute necessaries, and all her ornaments, Edith answered Frank's letter and denied her towards a new painted window for Chapel. And so she assumed this carelessness of all amusesupposed engagement, but could not command herments for fear her abandonment of them should self sufficiently to touch on other subjects. And seem like ostentation-I like the trait uncommon-face and manner were so expressively miserable when she announced to Amy her wish to go, her ly."

Frank fancied this letter a masterpiece of diplomacy. He thought it would at once disperse all Edith's fears of his disapproval of her marriage with Thornton, (which he believed to be a settled thing;) relieve her from any lurking self-reproaches which she might be feeling on Everard's account, and pave the way, without offence, for a continuance of a friendship which was far too precious to him to be resigned even for the sake of his darling sister. Moreover he flattered himself that the cordial tone which he had taken about Thornton, and the cool manner in which he had spoken of Everard, would effectually conceal his own keen disappointment in the matter, and the condemnation which he still could not help secretly passing upon Edith's conduct. His kind heart could not bear the idea of giving pain to one whom he loved so dearly after the first interval of natural irritation at her behavior; and the supposition that her three years' separation had entirely worn out her affection for Everard, and that Thornton had stepped into his place, was in no wise inconsistent with his opinion of women in general and of her in particular.

shrank from it, but love itself stood still, tremulous and unbelieving, till that certainty fell upon it and crushed it; and then it lay still beneath the weight, stunned and motionless, but yet alive, and living forever, though living only to suffer.

that her friend could only pity her, and acquiesce in any scheme that seemed likely to procure her comfort. Moreover, strange to say, the involuntary confidence now established between them was rather a bar than a stimulus to their intimacy; for there was painful consciousness on both sides, accompanied by the strongest possible repugnance to the subject which occasioned it. Mr. Thornton was very gallantly sorry to wish Edith good-bye, and Mr. Dalton instructed her as minutely concerning the roads by which she was going to travel as though she had been on a government commission to survey them. Alice Brown shed some genuine tears, and smiled through them when Edith promised to correspond with her; and poor dumb Paul stood at the carriage-window with a choice bouquet of chrysanthemums, and the last heliotrope from his garden. So Edith left tears behind her and carried flowers away with her alas, for her heart the flowers were all gone and the tears ever present!

CHAPTER VI.

"And now, my dear Aunt Peggy, I have told you all," said Edith, lifting her tearful face to the kind eyes that were bent so sympathizingly upon her. "I think I shall not feel quite so unhappy now. All my sorrow is my own fault, and so, you know, I must needs take it patiently."

Edith put down the letter in a tumult of feelings which almost prevented her from appreciating its full import. This, then, was the interpretation which Frank, and doubtless Captain Everard also, placed upon her conduct; and how could she en- "I don't believe one word of his being in love lighten the one without seeming to wish also to with that young lady!" was Aunt Peggy's conundeceive the other? Indignation, shame, sorrow, Isolatory answer. arose in her heart by turns, and mounted even to roor human nature! Those were the words that agony. And she was forgotten! And her place comforted Edith. Prayers, tears, efforts, resolualready filled! "I deserve it! I deserve it!" said | tions, all were feeble beside the might of that one