BEE’S HANDKERCHIEF.

  “I would bend my spirit o’er yon.” 
  “I am humbled, who was humble! 
  Friend!  I bow my head before you!”

  —­E.B.  Browning.

But a mist fell before Ishmael’s eyes, and when it cleared away Claudia was gone.

The young bridesmaids were chattering gayly in a low, melodious tone with each other, and with the gentlemen of the party filling the room with a musical hum of many happy voices.

But all this seemed unreal and dreadful, like the illusions of troubled sleep.  And so Ishmael left the drawing room and went up to the office, to see if perhaps he could find real life there.

There lay the parcels of papers tied up with red tape, the open books that he had consulted the day before, and the letters that had come by the morning’s mail.

He sat down wearily to the table and began to open his letters.  One by one he read and laid them aside.  One important letter, bearing upon a case he had on hand, he laid by itself.

Then rising, he gathered up his documents, put them into his pocket, took his hat and gloves and went to the City Hall.

This day of suffering, like all other days, was a day of duties also.

It was now one o’clock, the hour at which the train started which carried Claudia away.

It was also the hour at which a case was appointed to be heard before the Judge of the Orphan’s Court—­a case in which the guardianship of certain fatherless and motherless children was disputed between a grandmother and an uncle, and in which Ishmael was counsel for the plaintiff.  He appeared in court, punctually to the minute, found his client waiting for him there, and as soon as the judge had taken his seat the young counsel opened the case.  By a strong effort of will he wrested his thoughts from his own great sorrow, and engaged them in the interests of the anxious old lady, who was striving for the possession of her grandchildren only from the love she bore them and their mother, her own dead daughter; while her opponent wished only to have the management of their large fortune.

It was nature that pleaded through the lips of the eloquent young counsel, and he gained this case also.

But he was ill in mind and body.  He could scarcely bear the thanks and congratulations of his client and her friends.

The old lady had retained him by one large fee, and now she placed another and a larger one in his hands; but he could not have told whether the single banknote was for five dollars or five hundred, as he mechanically received it and placed it in his pocketbook.

And then, with the courteous bow and smile, never omitted, because they were natural and habitual, he turned and left the courtroom.

“What is the matter with Worth?” inquired one lawyer.

“Can’t imagine; he looks very ill; shouldn’t wonder if he was going to have a congestion of the brain.  It looks like it.  He works too hard,” replied another.