"Do you mean to tell me that you can do this? You who would not crush a worm beneath your heel, to tear from your-from me-the one crumb of bread that keeps me from starving? No, you are too

"The same and not the same." He has gone nearer her, and has sat down by her. "It is like some dream! Some story-romance! I thought you were dead!"

"The Apollo" speaks as of some buried bliss or bane; who knows which?

"No, alive! Shall I go away? I leave it to you." Vivian Reade's voice sounds as if in saying this she had laid down her life with the words.

"Go away from me ?" cries he, catching at her locked hands, wildly. "No, no, Vivian! Vivian, I know not what you are to me, but I do know this "-Rex's voice sinks into a soft whisper-"If you leave me I shall follow you, and find you !"

The little fingers do not unclasp. She sends no responsive, thrilling glance back to him, nor any sign. She rises and stands a moment, says, "God help this woman who has been married to you !" and then she walks away. Nannie Rideau meets her at the threshold with wide, curious eyes, and finds her husband sitting there in the gloaming with a look on his face that she finds new.

"Rex, my darling boy!" The two beautiful arms are thrown round him, and the luxurious, soft lips meet his. "Why do you sit out here in the damp? Come in-come up-stairs; I want you!"

He glances up at her, and his arms remain folded together, and he says:

"And you are sure of this?"

"Sure of it! Although for ten long years I have not seen you, until six weeks ago. I know that the heart that was mine once is mine to-night."

"Oh, my love-my love! why has life been so cruel to us? Why was I so blind, reckless? Why did I not seek you out-mine and not mine?"

"But you didn't know." And with the voice of a forgiving little child she looks up into his face. Some day, Rex, you will not forget me! No, not that! But I will be buried, and you will have quiet, easy times with her. There is-well, you know I could make you happybut there is a stain upon me!" Her voice sinks to a whisper and her head droops low upon her bosom. "Hush !"

And Rex Rideau crushes his love close to his heart and kisses the tender lips, and the little hands, and the white throat, till a great soft cloud covers the moon.

And when the cloud has blown over from the east to the west their chairs are empty, and only the poet stands there looking at the night, and within the curtained window Nannie Rideau is weeping and sighing, and calling on her gods as such sumptuous women will when they are grievously wounded. The other would have

been silent.

The sun shines brightly out the next morning, and the beach is gay with groups of bathers in all manner of picturesque- "before the bath," and unpicturesque "after" the same costumes. Half a dozen phaetons bouting up and down; two women cantering along with a man,

"

them. Lots of children and maids and people, merely lookers-on in Vienna. Among these last Rex Rideau, sauntering about with a couple of dogs at his heels, now and then lounging beside his wife's phaeton as she stops for chat with some one. Nobody could say that Mrs. Rideau was less pretty than yesterday, but there are sharp lines about her lovely mouth, and a strange watchfulness in her eyes. She sees, although he does not, Vivian Reade go quietly from her bathing-house, throw her cloak to her maid, and stand with a slow, shrinking torture on her white face, waiting for the eager wave to creep up and carry her on its buoyant bosom-whither ? Then, attracted by the steady gaze of Mrs. Rideau, Mr. Rideau's glance follows hers, and finds that frail figure, that white face now shining in the morning sunlight, now, oh, God! sunk clean from sight.

He tears off his coat, his hat and shoes, and plunges in. He gropes and searches in the cool sea-waters, but he cannot find what he seeks; but hours afterward, when the tide comes in, it brings with it the fair body of Vivian.

He has watched for it standing there, and his wife sitting in her carriage, and he drags her in his arms up safe upon the shore; a heavy, weary weight, for they found shot sewed in her garments, and they knew then that she had wished to die. He has her in his arms, closer than he had under last night's moon, and, ah !

"Do you mean that you think I am going to give you up out of my sight? Do you mean to say that you can leave me and go your way, and never with the mere light of your face give me joy again ?" The man's voice is full of repressed passion, and a keener pain than I

night.

"Vivian, my love, my life! So you had the courage to leave me, my fair, pure child! my darling! my

"What was this woman to you, Rex Rideau ? Since I must listen to your laments and sweet speeches, let me know it all."

And the loving woman shrieks and swoons, and the dead woman is gathered closer to the breast of the golden haired Apollo, but upon her lips no answering kiss, no smile to welcome love's fair, fond, wild outpouring.

To-morrow they find a small slip of paper, addressed to him, in her pocket-book; not many words:

"I go out of this world, Rex, that you may remain in it stainless! That she who has your name may not have sin with it! That she may teach you to love her in a new way! That you may know at last that I loved you, although lips and looks have not told you so in ten long years. VIVIAN."

But Rex Rideau did none of these things. He never looked upon Nannie Hawthorne's face again.

He informed his lawyers in plain language that he was a bigamist. That his wife, shortly after their marriage, had become insane; hopelessly so, as was supposed at the time. That he had imagined her dead, and had married again, hoping to dispel the memory of the reluctant child he had loved in the morning of his life with the later fascinations of the beautiful Nannie. That his wife - his first wife - he had met during the past Summer at Newport ; she appearing like one risen from the dead to him. That she had offered to leave the place;

that he had compelled her to remain. That he was her husband, and hers only. That Miss Hawthorne was a free woman, and that he declined to see her.

No remonstrances were of any avail. Mr. Hawthorne made every effort to heal the disgrace, but Rex Rideau was inexorable, and while the affair was pending, and society in a state of despair, took passage in the Scythia for Europe.

Our poet stumbled over him in Rome in a palace, standing before the statue of the Apollo, staring at the god's image that was so like unto his own beauty.

"Why do you never look at the statues of women, or at women themselves ?" some one asked him.

And the poet heard him answer:

"The eyes of the Apollo "-with an odd little mocking laugh-" are sealed and sightless, and within his own cold heart only can we look for the love of the Apollo."

And he stood there looking, while past him swept Nannie Hawthorne, and scores of sweeter women, unseen to him, for, ah! truly, the Apollo's eyes are blind to all women, the Apollo's heart is cold, they say, and in it there lies buried the memory of the face of his wife, Vivian.

Ir is certain, that either wise hearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases oné of another; therefore, let them take heed of their company.

DISCONTENT is the want of self-reliance; it is the infirmity of will.

NIRVANA.

BY W. L. Courtney.

O WEARY Soul, for ever shalt thou rest,

For evermore of dreamless slumber fain; Nor knowing aught, nor caring of the pain Thy long-past uncomplaining years attest: Rent is the dream of perfectest and best,

The fond illusion which thy youth might feign, For ever. Hope and love and joy are slair., And life stands bare, in misery confest.

What more awaits thee? Slumber sweet and still,
And eyes fast closed against the weight of tears,
And heart that beats not with imagined fears,
And folded hands, and unresisting will;
Dead to the weary waste of ceaseless ill,
And untormented by the passing years.

IN A GRANGE GARDEN.
BY ANNIE THOMAS.

HE four persons who are pacing along the
alley on the southern side of this garden
feel nothing of the rasping March wind
that is blowing lustily and dustily over
the open roads and fields. For the sides
of this alley are formed with thick and
well-grown holly, bays and cypress-trees,
interspersed with daphnes and bushes of
rosemary and lavender.

Down among the roots of these shrubs and bushes there are great patches of bright blue-and-white violets, of yellow daffodils and paler primroses, of anemones and the interlacing blue-and-white periwinkle.

In other parts of the old grange garden rarer and more costly flowers are to be found in abundance; but this southern alley is left a good deal to nature and to the three girls who are strolling along its sheltered length with their brother this morning.

They are the three daughters of Mr. Salisbury, of Sittingdean Grange, and the youth with them, their halfbrother, is Rupert Salisbury, the only son and heir. The girls, when grouped together, have that quality which Dickens so charmingly assigns to Dot and May Fielding in that sweet old Christmas carol, "The Cricket on the Hearth"- they set off and adorn one another.

People do not say that Mabel, the eldest, is lovely, until they see her delicate grace set off to fullest advantage by the stately beauty of her second sister, Helen, and the piquant charms of the brown-eyed youngest, Berry-so called after an aunt, Mrs. Berrydale, who promised at the child's birth to leave it all her property, and at her own death forgot her promise in re James Salisbury's youngest daughter in favor of two women who had maltreated her for her "own good" for several years under the titles of "companion" and "assiduously devoted " friend.

Poor Berry Salisbury had been born under an evil star. Her mother had been ill for a long time, miserable for a longer period, and mad for some months before poor Berry came into the world.

But, for all these adverse influences, Berry came into the world with a fine, clear brain, and a high, bright spirit of her own; and the stepmother who was soon brought home to the grange, to manage it and all appertaining thereto, found Baby Berry the most difficult to deal with.

Baby Berry was not a year old when her half-brother Rupert was born; and the people who had not come inder the influence of the second Mrs. Salisbury's sparking eyes and manner said hard things about this mariage and the son and heir.

Sittingdean Grange is an important little place in its neighborhood, and all that concerns it interests its neighDors greatly. Accordingly, the second Mrs. Salisbury ound that hard measure was dealt out to her by local gossip when she and her infant came to claim its sufrages.

No one knew when or where Mr. Salisbury had maried her, but every one said that it must have been indeently soon after his first wife's death. And in saying his they fell far short of the actual measure of his offense.

What that offense is, is a secret known only to himself and to the unhappy woman against whom he committed it long ago, when his passion for her urged him on to the commission of the crime of marrying her while his first wife was still alive, mad in an asylum.

When death mercifully removed the insane woman, he wickedly and weakly kept his own counsel from the one who believed herself to be his wife legally, and who was about to become a mother. He had not the courage to face the outburst of wounded love and pride and trust to which he thought she would give way. But when, in after years, accident revealed to her the secret he had kept, her silent anguish was even harder for him to bear.

It was in vain he pleaded that what he had done had been the result of overmastering love for her. She scorned him for the meanness which had made him deceive her for the gratification of his wicked love, and she hated him for the wrong done to her boy with a hatred that she made no effort to conceal from him.

For a time he feared she would leave him and proclaim her wrongs; but regard for the welfare of her child prevented her taking this step. But, though she remained under his roof for Rupert's sake, she never spoke to him or saw him save in the presence of others.

In vain did he humble himself in his penitence, and entreat her to permit him to do her the tardy justice of a genuine marriage. Nothing could alter the fact of her son being illegitimate, therefore nothing could be gained by giving him the right to exercise legal marital authority over her. She staid on in his house, giving tender, loving, prudent care to the daughters of the woman whom she had unwittingly injured, exercising a wise rule over the management of the household, and stinging Mr.Salisbury to his soul by her coldness and contempt.

Matters have gone on in this way for several years, now, at Sittingdean Grange, and the children are still in ignorance of the cause of the iron-bound, icy relations which exist between their father and mother. These relations have existed for so long a time that both children and servants have ceased to speculate about them, and the neighborhood has almost ceased to mention "that Mr. and Mrs. Salisbury don't get on well."

On this day, while Rupert and his half-sisters are strolling up and down the southern alley, Mrs. Salisbury breaks through her rule of silence toward the man to whom that silence is so bitter a punishment.

It brings the blood to Mr. Salisbury's brow, partly with surprise and partly with the hope of softer feeling setting in, when Rupert's mother voluntarily enters his study, and, in a gentler tone than she has used toward him for years, says:

"I have come to speak to you about my boy's future.

the priest who performs the ceremony, and an old man who keeps the church moderately clean and sees to the vestry fire in Winter.

He gives this "woman to be married to this man," and thinks what an improvement this sort of marriage is on the ordinary order of weddings, when the bride comes provided with a father or a friend who does the givingaway part of the business, and deprives the churchcleaner of an easily-earned guinea.

As they are leaving the church, trembling both of them with natural emotion, Mrs. Salisbury's face flushed

"I have not long to live," she says, sadly. "Don't think I am trying to alarm you, or wish to create a fictitious interest in your mind for me; but I am so sure of what I say that I want to be assured of my son's welfare. What is Rupert to be ?"

"He is my heir," he answers, solemnly.

who is hurrying on his way to Somerset House.

"Halloa! what's up?" he says to himself in the vernacular. "Uncle and Aunt Salisbury coming out of church at this hour of the day! What on earth brings them to town?"

He turns and follows them at a distance for a short time. Then another thought strikes him, and, turning

"I mean that.

Once more a soft glow suffuses her face, and now she holds her hand out to him. It is the first time since she made the fatal discovery of the wrong he wrought her that her hand had touched his, and the contact makes him tremble like an aspen-leaf.

"I have been very hard and unforgiving," she murmurs, "but I am dying now; for the sake of the love we bore to one another once, make all secure for Rupert; word your will in such a way that, whatever happens, the property will be indisputably his."

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The very precautions you would have me take might rouse suspicion and cause his claim to be disputed," Mr. Salisbury says; as it is, no one can doubt or contest it. Sittingdean is strictly entailed; it will go to my son as surely and safely as it came to me from my father.. Be satisfied-be happy at last."

"Who would have an interest in dispossessing Rupert of the estate? Not the dear girls, I know. Would it not be your nephew James ?" she asks, eagerly.

"Have you anything worth showing in your church ?" the young man asks, hurriedly. "Some friends of mine who have just gone out told me to come in and I should see something curious. What is it?"

The young gentleman does not falter at the utterance of an untruth, it may be remarked; but a nervous spasm convulses him for a moment when the old man says:

"I s'pose the curos thing they towld you to look at was their marriage-register. 'Tain't often a pair in years like them come to be married without a friend to look on." "It will please them that I should see the register," Mr. James Salisbury says, sardonically, "and it will please me, too," he adds, with savage exultation.

Five minutes after this he has handed five shillings to the old man who thinks he is in luck's way this day, and is leaving the church with his uncle's bitter secret in his possession, and the knowledge of which will cost Rupert his inheritance.

He is an astute young man, and he knows that if he

"Or if any flaw can be found in Rupert's birthright?" she asks; and Rupert's father, with a face pallid and drawn with heart-sickening remorse, has to admit the truth of her suggestion.

"But no such flaw will ever be proved," he pleads; "the secret is ours to keep while we live, and when we die it will be buried with us; cease from these idle fears! Be at rest at last!"

There is such a passionate prayer for forgiveness in these words that all resentment vanishes, and weeping, but not bitterly, Mrs. Salisbury puts her quivering lips to his forehead in token of pardon and peace.

The four young people out in the garden are astounded presently by the sight of their parents coming toward them, talking together freely and happily. They are even more astounded when Mr. Salisbury tells them that their mother and himself are obliged to go to town on business for a few days. The girls plead vainly one after the other "to be taken, too." Mr. and Mrs. Salisbury are smilingly inexorable, and in the afternoon they take a tender leave of their children, and start on their journey, the object of which may be guessed! It is none other than thistheir marriage !

he may be balked yet. Mr. Salisbury can sell many a broad acre that is not entailed, and will do so assuredly if his son's prospects are endangered, and Sittingdean Grange, without the broad acres that lie around it, will be rather a burdensome inheritance.

So Mr. James Salisbury makes up his mind to keep his own counsel, to hold his hand, indeed, until his uncle dies, and the widow and her son are helpless.

"Then I'll bear down upon them with my knowledge of this morning's work, and oust the young bastard," he says, triumphantly; "and I'll marry Berry and kick all the rest out."

From this glimpse into the state of his feelings it may be surmised that Mr. James Salisbury has a strong element of brutality and coarseness in him. It also may be assumed that he will show no mercy and very little justice.

Two days after this Mr. and Mrs. Salisbury go home again, and all would be peace and happiness at Sitting| dean Grange were it not for her fast-failing health.

The few days' absence from home have made a great change in her. She is weak and visibly suffering when she returns to her children; and, to their bitter, unavailing grief, they see the weakness grow and the suffering increase daily.

A