whose uplifted hands, and tears of agony, fail to stay death's dart.

Roll on, gentle stars!

Shall not He, who feedeth your never-consuming fires, yet make every crooked path straight, every rough place plain? What though the tares grow amid the wheat until the harvest, shall not the great Husbandman surely winnow them out, and gather the wheat into the heavenly granary?

Roll on, gentle stars!

CHAPTER XXXV.

MR. JOHN HOWE sat comfortably in his easy-chair, smoking his chibouk. Mrs. Howe sat opposite to him, dressed in a fashionable suit of black, with her gaiterboots on a bronze hound.

"John ?"

John smoked away as imperturbably as if he were a bachelor.

"Mr. Howe ?"

"Well," replied John, complacently regarding the curling smoke.

"Do you know this is the last day of June ?" "Well,” repeated John.

"Well-well!' Mr. Howe, I do wish you'd stop thinking of that contemptible political paper you are reading, and attend to me. But before I begin, I wish to say that I should like a paper in the house that has something in it. There is not an account of the fashions in that newspaper from one year's end to the other; in fact, there is nothing in it but politics-politics; it is the stupidest paper I ever read. Why don't you take the 'Lady's Garland,' now, or 'The Parlor

Weekly,' or some such interesting periodical, with those lovely fashion-prints, and cuff and collar patterns, and crochet guides? One would think you imagined a woman's mind needed no nutriment at all. What are you laughing at, Mr. Howe ?"

"Your thirst for knowledge," replied John.

"Laugh away—it is a great point gained to get one's husband good-humored. Now, listen: Mrs. St. Pierre has gone into the country, so has Mrs. Ralph Denys, and Mrs. George Cook goes to-morrow.”

"What the deuce has that to do with us?" asked John. "It is so vulgar to stay in the city in summer,” replied Mrs. Howe. "Nobody does it but tradespeople, and those who can not afford to migrate. I tell you it is indispensable for people in our station not to be seen here in the summer months."

"I don't want to be seen," said John, still puffing. "Shut the front window-shutters; let the silver doorplate grow rusty, and the cobwebs gather on the blinds and front-door; live in the back part of the house; never go out except in the evening. That's the way half the fashionables 'go into the country ;' confounded cheap way, too," and John laughed merrily. "Now, John," said his wife, "where did you pick that up? I took good care not to tell you that, because I knew I should never hear the last of it; but even that is better than to be thought unfashionable. Still, it is not like having a country seat."

"A country-seat !" ejaculated John, wheeling square round, so as to face his wife; "catch me at it! Eat up by musquitos, kept awake by bull-frogs, serenaded by tree-toads, bored to death by riding-parties from the city, who devour your fruit, break off your flowers, and bark your trees; horses and carriages to keep, two or three extra servants, conservatory, hot-house, stables, barns, garden-tools, ice-house-shan't do it, Mrs. Howe;" and John turned his back, put his heels deliberately up on the window-seat, and resumed his chibouk.

Mrs. Howe smiled a little quiet smile, snapped her finger, as if at some invisible enemy, and tiptoeing up behind her husband's chair, whispered something in his conjugal ear.

The second time that magic whisper had conquered Mr. Howe!

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SLOWLY Rose regained her consciousness. Had she been dreaming about Vincent's death? The dim light of morning was struggling in through the vines that latticed the window. She raised herself from the floor. Ah, now she remembered. It was only the incoherent ravings of the poor crazed being who had been in the evening before; how foolish to let it make her so miserable! As if there were not more than one person of the name of Vincent in the world. She tried to shake off her miserable thoughts; she knelt by the side of little Charley's bed, and kissed his blue eyes awake, although it was scarcely daylight; for she felt so lonely, just as if her Vincent were really dead, and the wide earth held but one. She took Charley up and held him in her arms, and laid her cheek to his. Strange she could not shake off that leaden feeling. It must be that she were ill, she was so excitable. She would be better after breakfast. Sad work those trembling fingers made with Charley's toilet that morning. Still she kept tying, and buttoning, and pinning, and rolling his curls over her fingers-for the restless, unquiet heart finds