I turned my steps towards the little cluster of green leaves, leaving footprints on the moist soil around them. A faint breath of sweetness greeted me; the violets were in bloom, white and pure and fresh from the bosom of the earth. I gathered them one by one with loving care,—some half-dozen in all,—and rose up to carry them into the house.

"Miss Annie!"

Nurse was standing in the path with a letter in her -hand, a letter with a black seal. It was addressed to me in Norman's writing, and my heart told me its contents before I tore it open. The wave had broken over us at last.

Mrs. Dayne was dead,-"entered into the everlasting rest," as Norman said. His words were not many, and they were very calm words; the quiet utterances of deep grief and sure and certain hope. But I was less tranquil; and I had been wilfully blind to the coming sorrow, and it fell upon me heavily.

Putting my hands before my face, I burst into an agony of tears, letting the violets drop unheeded upon the ground. They lay there to be crushed and trodden under foot, and yet they might have breathed sweetly the old promise of "The Resurrection and the Life.” Many a heart, in the first pang of its suffering, casts away recklessly the very things that could bring it comfort. And God's balm is often rejected by the souls that need it most.

In this trial of mine Captain Jerrold showed himself both wise and kind. He permitted my grief to have its course unchecked, and he left me entirely in the

hands of my nurse. Tenderly she soothed and calmed me, leading my thoughts upward to that new home whereof death is only the portal; and gradually the violence of my anguish subsided. I wrote to Norman, trying to put my deep sympathy into words; and ere long I received another letter from him. It told me that my name had been on his mother's lips in the last hour of her life, and that in his heart the memory of that mother and of myself must ever dwell together.

That letter strengthened me, and by degrees I grew more like my old self, and went back again to my old plans and occupations. For my uncle's sake, I knew that it was my duty to be cheerful. I had no right to bring a cloud under the roof that sheltered me— no right to embitter his declining years with my own sorrows. So I went about my daily work, striving to be as I was before that wave swept over me; and the captain's face brightened when he saw that mine was losing its shade.

The spring advanced. March, with its treacherous sunshine and keen winds, passed away, and the sweet April days came on. I arose early, to watch the soft dawnlights over the sea, and at eventide I strayed out upon the shore, lingering until the sun had gone to rest, and the after-glow tarried in the skies like the memory of a departed saint. All the well-known sights and sounds of spring awakened the old familiar delight within me, and the buoyancy of girlhood asserted itself. One day as I ran lightly down the garden path, a wandering breeze blew the

low boughs of the cherry tree against my face, and the scented white blossoms kissed me, leaving their dew upon my lips. Half unconsciously I broke out into a verse of an old song about summer and flowers and sunlight.

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"That is sweet music to me, Annie," said my uncle, who chanced to be close at hand. "I was half afraid that my little girl had lost her voice."

T was an August afternoon, sultry and still, and scarcely a breath of air wandered through the house. The front door was wide open, to give us the benefit of any stray breeze blowing off the sea; and in the sitting-room I sat sewing by the window. I was alone. Captain Jerrold had taken a boat and had gone.

some miles up the harbour to inspect a certain new dock which was in course of construction. The hot weather made me languid: ere long I laid the sewing aside, leaning back in my chair, undecided whether to sleep or to muse. The sea voice had sunk into a whisper that day, and I listened with half-closed lids to its dreamy tones.

Some time had elapsed since any letter had come to me from the London parsonage, and the silence gave me pain. True, Norman and I had never been regular correspondents, and Mrs. Dayne was the ordinary link of communication between us; but that

link was broken, and was our intercourse to be - broken too? I believed not; yet I was impatient for news, and chafed at the delay. Surely he might spare a few brief moments out of his busy life to tell me how he fared.

"Patience," I said to myself. "If Norman's friendship is as true as yours, you can well afford to trust him. And if it be only a one-sided friendship let it die a natural death."

It did not seem to me a one-sided friendship; but just then I was inclined to distrust my powers of judging clearly. The subject harassed me; I would have dismissed it altogether if I could, and failing in this, I tried to lose it for a while in slumber.

I know not how long I slept. It was not a profound sleep, for I awakened without any apparent cause, having a dim consciousness that some one was in the room. And there, standing before me, and looking steadfastly into my face, was Norman Dayne! "Mr. Dayne!" I cried, starting up in bewilderment. "Is it really you? How did you come here?"

"The door was open, and I entered without ceremony," he answered. "I had caught a glimpse of you as I passed the window, Annie.”

"Have you just arrived from London? You must, be tired and needing some refreshment."

"I am just come from town, but I need nothing, my child. Sit down, and listen to what I have to say."

Something in his tone struck me with an indefinable fear. He was looking noticeably thin and