Milly had few friends upon whom to call and leave cards, and her case contained none; but a photograph fell out.

sunburnt skin, bright, unflinching, blue eyes, and a very white and perfect set of teeth.

Milly seemed nervous and ill at ease, avoided her cousin's gaze, answered him monosyllabically. He had brought with him all sorts of presents for her-shawls, scarfs, fans, feathers, paintings, Oriental curiosities, and valuable knick-knackery. She hardly looked at these

asked, quietly.

her cousin common words of thanksgiving.

"A very good-looking young fellow." The doctor closed the card-case. He next took up a small, carefully tied-up packet. "Those are Mark's letters," said Milly, rather breathlessly. "He generally writes about every other mail. Of late, however, he has not been so regular. I thought we should have heard from him last week; but no letter came." The doctor looked thoughtful. Had not something like a sigh escaped her as she said that no letter had come? Did she, then, long so very much to have tidings of her cousin? He turned the letters over and over, poising them in his hand.

"I see they are addressed to you, Milly," he said. There was further inquiry in the expression of his face.

"Would you like to read them?" she asked, simply. "Mark writes very amusing letters. He gives such a capital account of his life at Hong-Kong. I think it would amuse you to read it."

"No, thank you, Milly." And he pressed her hand tenderly, as he gave her back the letters. For a moment he had doubted her; but he dismissed his doubts. Still he could not repress a feeling of jealousy in regard to this cousin of Milly's-this Mark Lance. It was a comfort to reflect, however, that HongKong was a very long way off.

CHAPTER IV.

In the course of a few days there was another visitor calling in Calthorpe Street. Mark Lance had arrived from Hong-Kong. He had written no letter, it appeared, because he was coming in person.

Dr. Dendy, attending his patient with customary punctuality, found the young man in the drawing-room, and recognized him at once. Only, the doctor was not especially pleased to discover the photograph hardly did Mr. Mark Lance justice. He was, in truth, far handsomer than he appeared in his carte de visite -a tall, broad, muscular gentleman, with a

him-sought excuses for quitting him. He surveyed her with surprised eyes. "Was this Milly?" he was asking himself. And he felt wronged and hurt.

Dr. Dendy cast searching glances at the cousins.

"I must go now," said Mark, abruptly. "I have business at the ship's agents in the city."

"I suppose we shall see you again soon?" Milly asked, in faint tones, looking away from him as she spoke.

"I suppose so," he answered, carelessly. "I'm going your way into the city-to the Ostrich Insurance Office, in Cornhill," said Dr. Dendy to the young man. "Let me give you a lift in my brougham; you'll find I go faster than most cabs."

They went away together.

"I'm a madman and a fool, that's what I am!" said Mark Lance, impetuously, as he sat in the doctor's carriage. "How so?"

"I can't, of course, expect you to understand or sympathize with a lover's miserable imbecilities," the young man went on. "You have never loved as I have. You don't know what love is, as I know it." "Perhaps not-perhaps not," said the doctor, with perfect composure.

"I must speak out," cried Mark. "I must tell some one--any one-what I suffer, or I shall go mad! Do you know why I came home so suddenly? Because I loved that girl; because I was sick and dying for love of her; because I couldn't bear to live longer away from her; because it seemed to me that, at all costs, I must set eyes on her again; speak to her of my love for her, whole and true and tender as it is, and entreat her to give me some portion of her love in return. I have been mastered by my love; it has possessed me-it possesses me now, absolutely. To what end? What good has come of it all? You saw how she treated me. She shrinks from, loathes, despises me. I have come home for that!"

I strove to execute.

"You have loved her long?" "I have loved her all my life. As a child and a schoolboy I loved her-years, years ago. I used to long, while we were playing together, that some wild beast might spring upon her, so that I might destroy it, and save her or perish for her. I would have done anything for her even then. Any mad task she set me I was delighted to peril life or limb in her cause. Any mischief that she did, I took the blame of, ever. I have been horsewhipped for her many a time. What did I care for the pain, so long as Milly came afterwards to comfort me and dry my tears? What suffering would not yield to a kiss from her, a smile, or a kindly word? But I am a fool to complain-I gave her my heart for a plaything. She has put it from her now with the rest of her playthings ruined and broken -quite done with. I had no right to expect she would do otherwise."

"She knew of your love?"

"How could she not know of it? Yet I was wrong, perhaps, not to speak out. I ought to have put it plainly before her. No; she does not know of my love. I have never dared to speak openly to her concerning it. I was too poor when I came home before-or, rather, I wanted to be richer, and so in some sort worthy of her, before I spoke to her. I thought she cared for me then a little. But that is all over

now.

Her love for me, if she ever felt any, has quite died out of her heart now. It is hard, very hard to bear. I have toiled only for her; I am rich now. Even her father, my uncle, he is an exacting gentleman enough-but even he would own that I am now rich enough to think of marrying even his daughter. And now it seems it is too late. What have I go by my toils, my long waiting, my forbearance? Nothing. A great gulf has opened between Milly and me, I know not how or why. I have lost all hope of her. I am the most miserable fellow on this earth."

And Mark Lance covered his face with his hands.

"I am, I know, a fool, a weak fool, to talk like this," he said, presently recovering himself. "What must you think of me? What are my sorrows to you? What can you care for a lover's troubles, and longings, and despair? What is my heart to you? What can you know or care about it? Nothing, of course not; nothing."

"Nothing, of course not," the doctor echoed, mechanically. "No; I know nothing of the human heart."

CHAPTER V.

From the city Dr. Dendy, having parted with Mark Lance, returned to Calthorpe Street. As he entered the drawing-room with the cautious and noiseless tread of a man well used to sick chambers and acutely sensitive patients, he heard a faint moaning sound.

Milly Lance, with tearful eyes, was reading over once again her cousin's letters-was contemplating once more the photograph contained in the ivory card-case. She started, with a half scream, as she found the doctor at her side. "Forgive me!" she cried, in an agonized

voice. "I-I am going to burn them." And then, hardly knowing what she did, she seemed to be trying to fall on her knees at the doctor's feet. He raised her up with tenderness. "Calm yourself, Milly," he said.

She made an effort to throw the letters into the fire-place, but her courage or her strength failed her, and she burst into a passionate flood of tears.

"Have mercy," she moaned; "have mercy." "You are ill, Milly," he said, gently. "Don't be afraid of me, my dear. I wouldn't wrong you or pain you for the world. Calm yourself: dry your eyes. Come, that's better. But what a pulse! Give me a sheet of note-paper. I must write you a prescription at once. you must obey my instructions to the letter. He scribbled a few lines. "Read that, Milly," he said.

Mind,

She glanced at the paper, expecting to find the usual unintelligible medical hieroglyphics. She started. To her amazement, she found she could understand the prescription—it was written in English, being the first and last prescription which Dr. Dendy in the whole course of his professional career had written out of the Latin tongue.

It ran something in this wise

R. Take cousin Mark to church with you as soon as possible, and make him your husband. God bless you (Signed) JOHN DENDY, M.D.

He kissed her on the forehead. She put up her lips to him; but he didn't, or wouldn't, or couldn't see what she meant.

He went away sighing, very grave in aspect, and yet lightened and comforted by the thought that he had acted rightly.

"Perhaps I shall be able to finish that book of mine now," he said, gravely. "It's time it was done. One thing I know more about it than I did. It's but a poor, weak, troublesome organ, after all, the heart. And its ache is very hard to bear. I don't believe there's any certain cure for that in the whole range of the pharmacopæia."

Poor Dr. Dendy looked very miserable. "This won't do," he said, presently. "I must prescribe for myself. Hard work; that's my best medicine. It cures a good many complaints. At any rate, it prevents the patient having time to think about them."

THE BLIND LINNET.

BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.

The sempstress's linnet sings

At the window opposite me;It feels the sun on its wings,

Though it cannot see.

Can a bird have thoughts? May be.

The sempstress is sitting,

High o'er the humming street,
The little blind linnet is flitting
Between the sun and her seat.
All day long

She stitches wearily there,
And I know she is not young,
And I know she is not fair;
For I watch her head bent down

Throughout the dreary day,
And the thin meek hair o' brown

Is threaded with silver gray; And now and then, with a start At the fluttering of her heart,

She lifts her eyes to the bird, And I see in the dreary place The gleam of a thin white face, And my heart is stirr'd.

Loud and long

The linnet pipes his song!

For he cannot see

The smoky street all round,

But loud in the sun sings he,

Though he hears the murmurous sound; For his poor, blind eyeballs blink,

While the yellow sunlights fall, And he thinks (if a bird can think) He hears a waterfall,

Or the broad and beautiful river Washing fields of corn, Flowing for ever

Through the woods where he was born; .And his voice grows stronger,

While he thinks that he is there, And louder and longer

Falls his song on the dusky air. And oft, in the gloaming still, Perhaps (for who can tell?)

The musk and the muskatel, That grow on the window sill,

Cheat him with their smell.

But the sempstress can see
How dark things be;
How black through the town
The stream is flowing;
And tears fall down

Upon her sewing.
So at times she tries,

When her trouble is stirr'd, To close her eyes,

And be blind like the bird. And then, for a minute, As sweet things seem, As to the linnet

Piping in his dream! For she feels on her brow The sunlight glowing, And hears nought now

But a river flowing

A broad and beautiful river,

Washing fields of corn,

Flowing for ever

Through the woods where she was born -And a wild bird winging

Over her head, and singing!

And she can smell

The musk and the muskatel
That beside her grow,
And, unaware,
She murmurs an old air

That she used to know!

CONTENT.

London Poems.

Would you be free? 'Tis your chief wish, you say;
Come
on, I'll show thee, friend, the certain way:
If to no feasts abroad thou lov'st to go,
While bounteous God does bread at home bestow;
If thou the goodness of thy clothes dost prize
By thine own use and not by others' eyes;
If (only safe from weathers) thou canst dwell
In a small house, but a convenient shell;
If thou without a sigh, or golden wish,
Canst look upon thy beechen bowl and dish:
If in thy mind such power and greatness be,
The Persian king's a slave compared with thee.
ABRAHAM COWLEY (from Martial).

DAVID SWAN.-A FANTASY.

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life and our final destiny. There are innumerable other events, if such they may be called, which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even betraying their near approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan.

We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. Be it enough to say, that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton academy. After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage-coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a little tuft of maples with a delightful recess in the midst, and such a fresh bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons, tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yet rise from the road after the heavy rain of yesterday; and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down. The spring murmured drowsily beside him; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead; and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events which he did not dream of.

While he lay sound asleep in the shade other people were wide awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by his bedchamber. Some looked neither to the right hand nor the left, and knew not that he was

there; some merely granted that way, without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly be slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full of scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity on David Swan. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the recess, and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the texture of his evening's discourse, as an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the roadside. But censure, praise, merriment, scorn and indifference were all one, or rather all nothing, to David Swan.

He had slept only a few moments when a brown carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to a standstill nearly in front of David's restingplace. A linch-pin had fallen out and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in the carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel, the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow; and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown lest David should start up all of a sudden.

"How soundly he sleeps!" whispered the old gentleman. "From what a depth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as that brought on without an opiate would be worth more to me than half my income; for it would suppose health and an untroubled mind."

"

And youth besides," said the lady. "Healthy and quiet age does not sleep thus. Our slumber is no more like his than our wakefulness."

The longer they looked the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the unknown youth, to whom the wayside and the maple shade were as a secret chamber, with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside so as to intercept it. And having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him.

"Providence seems to have laid him here," whispered she to her husband, "and to have

brought us hither to find him, after our disappointment in our cousin's son. Methinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry. Shall we awaken him?"

"To what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating. "We know nothing of the youth's character."

"That open countenance!" replied his wife, in the same hushed voice, yet earnestly. This innocent sleep!"

While these whispers were passing the sleeper's heart did not throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of interest. Yet fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burden of gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth except a distant relative, with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. such cases people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician, and awaken a young man to splendour who fell asleep in poverty. 'Shall we not awaken him?" repeated the lady, persuasively.

In

"The coach is ready, sir," said the servant behind.

The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, mutually wondering that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous. The merchant threw himself back in the carriage, and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business. Meanwhile David Swan enjoyed his nap.

The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two, when a pretty young girl came along, with a tripping pace, which showed precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry kind of motion that caused-is there any harm in saying it?-her garter to slip its knot. Conscious that the silken girth, if silk it were, was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the shelter of the maple trees, and there found a young man asleep by the spring! Blushing as red as any rose that she should have intruded into a gentleman's bed-chamber, and for such a purpose too, she was about to make her escape on tiptoe. But there was peril near the sleeper. A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead-buzz, buzz, buzz-now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan. The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. As free-hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly, and drove him from beneath the maple shade.

How sweet a picture! This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath and a deeper blush, she stole a glance at the youthful stranger, for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air.

"He is handsome!" thought she, and blushed redder yet.

How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms? Why, at least, did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face? She was come, the maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from his own, and whom, in all his vague but passionate desires, he yearned to meet. Her only could he love with perfect love-him only could she receive into the depths of her heart-and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain by his side; should it pass away, its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again.

"How sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl. She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came.

Now this girl's father was a thriving country merchant in the neighbourhood, and happened at that identical time to be looking out for just such a young man as David Swan. Had David formed a wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father's clerk, and all else in natural succession. here again had good fortune-the best of fortunes-stolen so near that her garments brushed against him; and he knew nothing of the matter.

So

The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside beneath the maple shade. Both had dark faces, set off by cloth caps, which were drawn down aslant over their brows. Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartness. These were a couple of rascals, who got their living by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece of villany on a game of cards, which was to have been decided here under the trees. But finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow