“Heaven forgive me!” he said to himself, remorsefully, as he sealed the little packet; “but I really think that this is one of the cases wherein one cannot be blamed for not revealing the truth.”

A few months later, Horace Rutherford stood in Greenwood Cemetery contemplating with curiosity and interest the inscription on a recently-erected monument of pure white marble.

“Sacred to the memory of Marion Nugent, beloved wife of Clement Rutherford,” he read.  “Well, this is consistent at least.  She wears the disguise of a virtuous woman in her very tomb.  Marion Nugent rests beneath the waves of the Atlantic ocean, and here Rose Sherbrooke sleeps in an honored grave beneath the shelter of the dead girl’s stainless name.  But the deception has power to harm no longer, so let us leave her in peace.  It is well for our family that, even as a sunken wreck, we still find this pirate bark Under False Colors,”

LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER.

The Hungry Heart.

A village on the coast of Maine; in this village a boarding-house; in this boarding-house a parlor.

This parlor is, strictly speaking, a chamber:  it is in the second story, and until lately it contained a bed, washstand, etc.; but a visitor from New York has taken a fancy to change it to a reception-room.  In the rear, communicating with it, is a sleeping-closet.

The room is what you might expect to find in a village boarding-house:  the floor of liliuptian extent; the ceiling low, uneven, cracked and yellow; the originally coarse and ugly wall-paper now blotched with age; the carpet thin, threadbare, patched and stained; the furniture of various woods and colors, and in various stages of decrepitude.

But a tiny bracket or two, three or four handsome engravings, two fresh wreaths of evergreens, two vases of garden flowers, a number of Swiss and French knickknacks, and a few prettily-bound books, give the little nest an air of refinement which is almost elegance.

You judge at once that the occupant must be a woman—­a woman moreover of sensibility and taste; a woman of good society.  Of all this you become positive when you look at her, take note of her gracious manner and listen to her cultured voice.

Her expression is singularly frank and almost childlike:  it exhibits a rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions:  it is both vivacious and refined, both eager and sweet.  It would seem as if here were the impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness and feeling.

In a large easy-chair reclines her rather small, slender and willowy form, starting slightly forward when she speaks, and sinking back when she listens.  Her sparkling eyes are fixed on the eyes of her one visitor with an intentness and animation of interest which should be very fascinating.

He, a young man, not five years older than herself, very gentle in manner and with a remarkably sweet expression of face, evidently is fascinated, and even strongly moved, if one may judge by the feverish color in his cheeks, the eager inquiry of his gaze and the tremor of his lips.