She did know herself this evening, nor understand what it was that ailed her.  She had only consciously loved for two days, and this was the anguish to which she had been brought.  No, not even when mamma died had she suffered as she was suffering now.  She felt as if she had lost him even as she had lost her.  She did not believe in to-morrow:  it would never come.  She would never be with him again as she had been to-day.  No self-reasoning, feebly aimed at, could calm her or convince her of the folly of her fears.  He had gone, she was left, and they were parted for ever.

She sat by the window desolate, deserted, more alone than she had ever been before, because she had lost more than she had ever either held or lost before.  The storm that was raging in the sky grew gradually stronger and came still nearer, but she scarcely noticed it:  it was only as the symphony sounding in sad harmony with her unspoken wail.  Flash followed flash, swifter, nearer, more vivid; the thunder crashed and roared as if it would have beaten the house to the ground and rent the very earth whereon it stood; the rain fell in torrents that broke the flowers like hail and ran in turbulent rivulets along the paths.  Never had there been such a furious tempest as this at North Aston since the days of tradition.  It made the people in the village below quail and cry out that the day of judgment had come upon them:  it made Leam at last forget her sorrow and quail in her solitude as if her day of judgment too had come upon her.

Then there came one awful flash that seemed to set the whole room on fire; and as Leam started up, thinking that the place was indeed in flames, her eyes fell on the Tables of the Ten Commandments given her by madame; and there, in letters of blood that seemed to cry out against her like a voice, she saw by the light of that accusing flash those words of terrible significance to her: 

THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER!

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

ROSE-MORALS.

I.—­RED.

  Would that my songs might be
    What roses make by day and night—–­
  Distillments of my clod of misery
          Into delight.

  Soul! could’st thou bare thy breast
    As yon red rose, and dare the day,
  All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest? 
          Say yea—­say yea!

  Ah, dear my Rose! good-bye! 
    The wind is up; so drift away. 
  That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,
          I strive, I pray.

  II.—­WHITE.

  Soul! get thee to the heart
    Of yonder tuberose:  hide thee there—­
  There breathe the meditations of thine art
          Suffused with prayer.

  Of spirit grave but light,
    How fervent fragrances uprise
  Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white
          Virginities!

  Mulched with unsavory death,
    Grow, Soul! unto such white estate,
  Strong art and virginal prayer shall be thy breath,
          Thy work, thy fate.