"Yes."

Yes Polly herself might come to this, one
day. As you see what the rose was, in its
faded leaves; as you see what the summer
growth of the woods was, in their wintry
branches; so Polly might be traced, one day, in
a care-worn woman like this, with her hair
turned grey. Before him, were the ashes of a
dead fire that had once burned bright. This
was the woman he had loved. This was the
woman he had lost. Such had been the
constancy of his imagination to her, so had Time
spared her under its withholding, that now,
seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had
struck her, his soul was filled with pity and
amazement.

He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a
comer of the chimney-piece, with his head resting
on his hand, and his face half averted.

"Did you see me in the street, and show me
to your child?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Is the little creature, then, a parly to
deceit?"

" I hope there is no deceit. I said to her,
' We have lost our way. and I must try to find
mine by myself. Go to that gentleman and
tell him you are lost. You shall be fetched by-
and-by.' Perhaps you have not thought how very
young she, is?"

' She is very self-reliant."

"Perhaps because she is so young?"

He asked, after a short pause, " Why did
you do this?"

"O Mr. Jackson, do you ask me? In the
hope that you might see something in my innocent
child to soften your heart, towards me.
Not only towards me, but towards my husband."

He suddenly turned about, and walked to
the opposite end of the room. He came back
again with a slower step, and resumed his
former attitude, saying:

"I thought you had emigrated to America?"

" We did. But life went ill with us there,
and we came back."

"Do you live in this town?"

"Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here.
My husband is a book-keeper."

"Are you—- forgive me asking—- poor?"

" We earn enough for our wants. That is
not our distress. My husband is very, very ill
of a lingering disorder. He will never
recover——."

"You check yourself. If it, is for want of
the encouraging word you spoke of, take it
from me. I cannot forget the old time,
Beatrice."

"God bless you!" she replied, with a bursl
of tears, and gave him her trembling hand.

Compose yourself. I cannot be composed
if you are not, for to see you weep distresses me
beyond expression. Speak freely to me. Trust
me."

She shaded her face with her veil, and after
a little while spoke calmly. Her voice had the
ring of Polly's.

"It. is not that my husband's mind is
at all impaired by his bodily suffering, for I
assure you that is not the case. But in his
weakness, and in his knowledge that, he is
incurably ill, he cannot. overcome the ascendancy
of one idea. It preys upon him, embitters
every moment of his painful life, and
will shorten it."

She stopping, he said again: "Speak freely
to me. Trust me."

"We have had five children before this darling,
and they all lie in their little graves.He
believes that they have withered away under a
curse, and that it will blight this child like the
rest."

"Under what curse?"

"Both I and he have it on our conscience that
we tried you very heavily, and I do not know but.
that, if I were as ill as he, I might, suffer in my
mind as he does. This is the constant burden:
—-' I believe, Beatrice, I was the only friend that
Mr. Jackson ever cared to make, though I
was so much his junior. The more influence
he acquired in the business the higher he
advanced me, and I was alone in his private
confidence. I came between him and you, and
I took you from him. We were both secret,
and the blow fell when he was wholly unprepared.
The anguish it caused a man so
compressed, must have been terrible; the wrath it
awakened, inappeasable. So, a curse came to
bo invoked on our poor pretty little flowers,
and they fall.'"

"And you, Beatrice," he asked, when she
had ceased to speak, and there had been a silence
afterwards: " how say you?''

"Until within these few weeks I was afraid
of you, and I believed that you would never,
never, forgive."

"Until within these few weeks," he repeated.
"Have you changed your opinion of me within
these few weeks?"

"Yes."

"For what reason?"

"I was getting some pieces of music in a
shop in this town, when, to my terror, you came
in. As I veiled my face and stood in the dark
end of the shop, I heard you explain that you
wanted a musical instrument, for a bedridden
girl. Your voice and manner were so softened,
you showed such interest in its selection, you
took it away yourself with so much tenderness
of care and pleasure, that I knew you
were a man with a most gentle heart. O Mr.
Jackson, Mr. Jackson, if you could have felt
the refreshing rain of tears that followed for
me I"

Was Phoebe playing at that moment, on her
distant couch? He seemed to hear her.

"I inquired in the shop where you lived, but
could get no information. As I had heard you
say that you were going back by the next train
(but you did not say where), I resolved to visit
the station at about that time of day, as often as
I could, between my lessons on the chance of
seeing you again. I have been there very often,
but saw you no more until yesterday. You were