as brightness entered, the theme asserted it¬ 
self. Those wonderful tones climbed higher 
and higher, expressive of a great faith, of a 
fond, mad triumph and bewildering joy. On 
long gallery parted, and a dark face peered 
It was a man’s face, handsome but 
early to rehearsal to-morrow for the sake of 
knowing that you are safe." 
“ Do! ” lie answered, “ I shall bring you glad 
tidings. Success is too near for me to miss it 
now. Good night, good night, my sweetheart!” 
And so speaking he passed from her into the 
shadow of his waiting doom. 
After that, night of storm the day dawned 
clear and oold. At St. Paul’s the Choral So¬ 
ciety, just then in the lirst flush of enthusiasm 
over a new oratorio, gathered early. One—two 
—three 1 the great bells chimed the hours, and 
the singers waited patiently for their leader. 
Something had detained him, most likely; he 
would come soon 1 Tim hour struck four, and 
he had not come, and Hester Heatherslelgh, 
with a heart heavy as load In her bosom, fell 
on her knees in an agony of prayer. “ Oh, my 
God!” she cried,reckless of who might hear 
her, “ he is dead. My Hubert is dead! He has 
been lost in the cruet storm.” 
Some orm, pitying, touched her arm. It was 
her cousin, Conrad Obarterla: he was looking 
down at, her with a pale face—a face paler far 
than that with whiah ho had spied upon her 
yesterday behind the gallery curtain. Her 
piteous cry had touched even his atony heart. 
“Hush!" ho whispered, “here Is news from 
him—from Robert; come and boar what it Is,” 
A note had boun brought by a swl’t-runnlng 
messenger, and a shudder ran round the wait¬ 
ing circle of listeners when its contents were 
made kuowu. It was signed by tbo leaoing 
physician of the city, and stated that Robert 
Field had been picked up that morning at t he 
foot of the ciillVi and taken burnt) for dead, tie 
was now, at the date or wilting, l> ug in an in¬ 
sensible condition,and itwua impossible to teil 
what the extent of Ids Injuries were, or if thore 
were any hope of his ultimate recovery. 
A horror-stricken silence followed the read¬ 
ing of the note, broken at last by a low, sobbing 
cry from Hester lleathersleigb's white lips. 
“I must go to him— oh, I must go to iniu! 
Who will take me ? Vou I you !" and she caught 
Conrad Charteris by the arm. 
Ho shrank away from her with a. gesture, 
much as if she had pierced him with a knife. 
His black eyes dilated horribly. “I? X go with 
you to see him?” ho cried. “What are you 
thinking of? Wbut do you tako uie for?" 
Thou noting tier astonished look he made a 
fleroo struggle for composure; but Ida hand 
shook like withered leaves. “ Why du you wish 
to go to 1dm?” he questioned angrily. “ He 
would not recognize you and it is no place for 
you ! hot mo tako you homo.” 
She snatched up her shawl ami bound it with 
trembling lingers about her shoulders. “ I tell 
you I shall go to him,” sho answered. “I was 
to have been Ids wife, and, living or dead, my 
place Is now by Ida side. You can come with 
me if you JJko!” And she flew down the steps. 
It seemed an age to her, that short time she 
was on the road loading to tbo lonely house of 
Robert Field's widowed mother; and when at 
Inst, by dint of her prayers and tears, she was 
suffered to approach the bedside, sho looked 
down on a very different Robert Field from the 
one with whom she had parted in such high 
hope the night before. 
The brul-sos were chiefly about, the bead, the 
physician sc id gravely, and oven if he recovered 
it was doubtful If bis mind would ever be sound 
again. Hester heard him, and with a great sob 
fell on her knees by tbo bedside. Where now 
were the brilliant aspirations, the tender hopes, 
the gay courage and stout-hearted f aith of one 
short day gone by ? Lost! lost! Success so near 
to him, and yet to fail. Triumph ho noariy 
won, and yet to pas3 by on the other side. 
“Robert, O my Robert! Lookup! Speak to 
mo, nr I, too, shall die ! ’’ 
Ah! but love remained. Love unchanged 
and unfaltering. This, then, was left—the 
blessing of *i love which, believes all things, 
hopes all things, and endures all things unto 
the end. 
The drawn white face on the pillow did not 
change at Hester’s cry, but under the half- 
closed lids the dull eyes gleamed feeblyand the 
slender band outside on the coverlet groped 
helplessly. Hester took his hand In hers, and 
then quick as lightning, by some strange, subtle 
instinct rather than by any demonstration of 
his, she felt, that the poor stricken sodsos were 
trying to break through the darkle ss that en¬ 
veloped them, and make their unknown want 
understood. 
“Robert, Robert! what is it?” she cried, 
“what is it that you want to make us under¬ 
stand ? ” 
The helpless movement of his lips, the help¬ 
less groping of his Angers were enough to make 
one weep. Hester kept her ear to his mouth. 
“ What is it, Robert, dear? Toll me—what is 
it you want?” 
The stiffened lips strove with a mighty effort 
to move, and this time one word was feebly ar¬ 
ticulated : 
“ Music! ” 
Hester looked up with a startled exclama¬ 
tion ; 
“Music! Hs calls for his music. Do you not 
hear? Where is it? Who knows about it ? Is 
it lost?” 3he questioned eagerly. 
Again that terrl >le attempt at speech. The 
dull eyes opened wide, the feeble Ungers 
t'leuchcd themselves in Heater's hand, and, 
with a last mad effort of expiring, desperate 
strength, he raised himself, and sbrli ked ; 
“My music! Find It 1 Save U I" And then 
he fell back on his pillow like one dead. 
“You have killed him,” said the physician, 
through 
cruel in that purple gloom of gathering shadow. 
I It was no friendly face, either, that, with its 
BY CHARLOTTE CORDNER 
DANCING alonp with footsteps light, 
My little ones go, all robed in white, 
Over the road which all must tread. 
From downy crib to grassy bed. 
Apart 1 watch beside a hill, 
Then travel on with glee, until, 
Between the leaves, all fresh and fair. 
Arc thickly fouud the thorns of care; 
Where roses once their perfume shed. 
Whose scattered leaves, now brown and dead 
The dimpled hands can tempt no more 
To linger oft their sweetness o'er. 
Mow slowly tread the little feet 
O’er well-worn s„d, and glances meet 
My loving gaze at last, in prayer 
For wayside buds without the care. 
Ah, little ones! with voices swcet. 
Your pleadings oft my ear shall greet 
E’en Autumn's fruits of fairest mold. 
Without alloy, your bauds shall hold. 
A summer sun’s Promethean fire. 
With noontide blaze may light a pyro 
In brain and heart before thy prayer 
May give the buds without the care. 
I, who have walked the path you tread, 
Have seen it scattered with iny dead 
As thickly strewn ns autumn leaves, 
Before l gained the golden sheaves. 
Now, 'neath green brunches, by n lull 
Where tempered winds say, ” Peace, be still! ” 
At last my load of cure I see, 
Like golden fruit upon life’s tree. 
A nd you, who’ll sigh beneath your load 
While traveling o’er my backward road, 
Each day may find the grace to bear, 
In answer to your childish prayer. 
No lisping tone or cry can fall 
By Him unheard; for when you call 
Across life,'* harp in minor tones. 
Have pity, Lord I the rnusle moans. 
Then, while I bind my scattered sheaves 
And you tread o'er uiy dying leaves, 
My little ones, be this your prayer: 
O Father, give us grace to bear 1 
MATTAKESET LODGE, KATAMA, MARTHA $ VINEYARD, 
and on the chords swept; it was as if a living 
chain of light ran round the world. 
When he had finished there was silence for a 
moment between these two. Tho lingering 
echoes rolled back and forth till one by one 
they too escaped Into stillness. Then Hester 
Heatherslelgh stooped, and, with quivering lips 
and tear-wet eyea, reverently kissed the bowed 
forehead of her lover. 
“Oh, my darling!’’ sh® cried, “it is so beau¬ 
tiful! I am so proud of you. Who taught you 
to play like that?” 
A proud and satisfied smile curved Robert 
Field's lips as he listened. “Mylove for you 
taught me,” ho said. “ My love for you, which 
is so great, so all-absorbing, that my music 
seomsto bo but a poor expression of it.” 
many changes of bate and jealous auger, and 
furious despair seemed, while the lovers talked, 
to be playing a dark and stormy accompani¬ 
ment to the Idyl of their love. 
A sudden, angry burst of wind at the narrow 
window roused them unpleasantly to a sense of 
night, and tho nearing storm. 
“Ob, the rain!” cried Hester, with a pale 
face. “ How thoughtless of us to stay, and you 
have that loug, desolate walk over the cliffs In 
tho dark! ” 
“ Never mind,” cried Robert, stoutly. “There 
are such light and warmth within me that l 
shall not heed a passing touch of wind and 
water. I will see you to your door first, and 
then good-night.” 
“My cousin Conrad promised to come for 
A STORY OF LOVE AND CONSTANCY 
Let me recount to you a true love story; a 
story of love pure and undeflled—love as It was 
In tho beginning. Is now, and ever shall be, 
world without, end. For love Is ali things in 
one to us. It is hope and tear and joy and de¬ 
spair ; it is truth and it Is falsehood ; it Is any¬ 
thing, in sboit, that you are pleased to call it, 
and it can represent the brightness of heaven 
or the blackness of perdition. 
*’ Love Is a melting of tho soul.” 
It was late in the afternoon of a dull autum¬ 
nal day that a group of young people came 
chatting down t.ho flight of stone stops loading 
from the door of a cathedral church in an old 
Atlantic seaport town. They wero members of 
the choral society attached to the church, and 
they had evidently been there for rehearsal. 
AYithin, this great building yawned black and 
lonely, save In the gallery, where, over tho or¬ 
gan, a gas jet sprung rays of light in tho gloom 
and tho sound of softly-subdued voices broke 
through the stillness. 
The visible occupants were two, a man and a 
maiden—young, both, and with the «& balls Me 
word, “lovers,” gleaming,as did tho mysteri¬ 
ous handwriting of old on tho wall, on their 
foreheads. Robert Field, the organist, wag 
turning over some sheets of manuscript music 
with au absorbed air, while by his side stood 
Heater Heatherslelgh, her pretty face full of 
anxious Interest as she watched his movements. 
A little cloud of uneasiness wrinkled her fore¬ 
head now and then as she saw tho rout edges of 
angry clouds scud by the narrowslit of window 
going to the east, where the gray sea lay toss¬ 
ing stormlly. 
“ Well, Robert,” she said at last, dropping her 
slim hand on his shoulder, “ AVeli, Robert, 
what is it ?’’ 
The musician’s dark, serious face lighted for 
a moment, gloriously, as he turned and took 
the little ungloved hand in his. 
“ 1 asked you to stay, Hester, because I wish to 
play for you some passages from my new piece. 
1 shall submit it to tie society at Music Hall 
to-morrow, and, Hester, I want your opinion in 
advance." 
The young girl laughed — a little, rippling 
laugh of gleeful enthusiasm. 
“My opinion! Why, Robert, you know be¬ 
forehand what that will be. It would be noth¬ 
ing but a form asking It.” 
Robert raised the little hand tenderly to his 
lips. 
“I know thet love makes gentle critics of us 
all," lie said, wisely. “But now I want you to 
forj et who is the author of the melody and to 
exeicise your .judgment without stint. Re¬ 
member, too, that Jove is the theme; love 
which, wisely or unwisely, hopes all things, be¬ 
lieves all things, and endures all things unto 
the end,” And then he turned to the organ. 
He played slowly at first. It was a lovely 
opening, full of strange, sad chords, as if a soul 
ocr-nooit life at the vineyard, 
tender, maiden sweetness kissed his forehead, 
kissed his wavy hair, and kissed the thin, pale 
band wbieh lay nervelessly on the yellow organ 
keys. And then a stillness crept about them— 
a stillness more fraught with eloquent joy than 
uuv measure of golden speech could have been. 
While they thus stood hand In hand talking, 
the curtain behind them partitioning off the 
lug his coat closer about him. “ No harm must 
come to that. It represents fame and fortune 
and love and honor for thee and me, my darl¬ 
ing.” 
Hester lifted a small, wet face to peer into 
the gloom. “I wish you could stay,” she said. 
“And oh, Robert, bo careful of the cliffs—the 
path is so lonely and dangerous, I shall come 
