that day by day he treated her with more tenderness and respect, and that where she had at first only amused she now began to interest him. I thought of this a great deal, and pondered upon it, and asked myself whether anything would come of the altered relations between them. Then I gave up thinking about it altogether, after a while, and determined to patiently await results. Charley had not been at The Elms more than a fortnight, when mother told me, in her composed way, that he had asked my sister to be his wife, and that Maud had accepted, and that the engagement had received her (mother's) sanction.

This announcement surprised me not a little. I felt quite indignant at Maud, on first hearing it, for not having intrusted me with her confidence before outsiders were free to talk of the affair as something definitely settled. "It was very trying," I said to myself, "that one sister should be unwilling to seek the advice and sympathy of another, and especially trying in Maud's case, as she had reason to know of my fealty in the matter of secrets." But I felt my annoyance considerably lessened by the graceful way in which she said to me after tea, that evening, when we happened to be left alone together:

"Mamma says she has told you all about it, Gertrude. I hope you are glad, and I want you to kiss me and say so."

Then she told me, in the winning, childish way that used to become her so well, how strange it had seemed, at first, to have Charley ask her to marry him; and how she had said, " give me a little time to think it all over;" and how it had come upon her, by degrees, that a deep love had been deepening ever since their childhood, and had grown out of their romps and frolics, not quickly like a flower, but with the slower growth of a tree. I heard her story, and kissed the sweet ripe mouth that told it, and then became inquisitive in a matter-of-fact manner as to when and where and how they were to be married. The engagement was to be

Charley's wish and her Own and mother's, and she hoped that it was mine also. She was not quite sure as to the exact "when." Something had been said about next month, but there would be so much to do for several weeks that such an arrangement appeared next to impossible. She wanted to have a nice quiet wedding at the old church in the village, and to have a little party afterwards. She was going to plan a splendid surprise for Helen Rowe, and should not write a word about the engagement till a week beforehand, when the accumulated confidence of a month should burst upon Helen with the most meteoric effect, accompanied by cards for the wedding, as a sort of guarranty that the whole thing was not merely a playful fiction.

Mother and I kept very busy superintending the trousseau, and Charley was sent to New York with a letter for one of our female relations, containing all sorts of commissions in the line of dry-goods and dress-making. Maud was not at all désolée in his absence; I think her happiness was by far too genuine for so slight a trouble to overshadow it. Somehow my sister acquired a habit, during Charley's absence, of stealing into my room in her dressing-gown and slippers just as I was about retiring for the night. Her favorite seat, on such occasions, was the foot of the bed, whereon she twisted herself into so unrecognizable a heap as to be quite a painful sight for anyone but a professed contortionist to contemplate. Her knees, drawn up to a level with her chin in the most unnatural manner, formed a sort of bundle, from which her head protruded, its great mass of blonde hair tumbling out of her close prim night-cap and completely hiding her shoulders. Having accomplished this gymnastic attitude to her full satisfaction, she very often succeeded in putting me to sleep with her low musical chatter about Charley and herself. One evening, however, her confidence took so interesting a turn that I listened without feeling at all

RE me, on my study-table, a confused mass of several pecimens of the bronze coinGreek and Roman Empires, with autonomic coins, those cenic powers, Persian, Cufic, not. They display great indesign, with much talent in Were there equal numbers s of ancient ruins lying here they would not be more uments of antiquity than

are.

licacy of thought and richstration some of these obay! Here is one of about In a square frame is a acchus. The letters Methu on it a word signifying is a coin of Methymne, an wn of Lesbos. Bacchus telary deity of that place; mblem. "On later coins,' hrey, "Arion is seen seated Iphin." Now Arion was ethymene, and the dolphin have saved his life. How ese strange myths are thus mid the most valuable facts upon coins! But this is this ancient token teaches. surnames of Bacchus was nnian, on account of his re; and the comparative coins of this place is disby the use of epsilon upon nd eta upon the more respelling the word Methu! ismatist is posted up on minute distinctions.

e is a coin of Hadrian to 138), of whom Gibbon,

in one of his fine generalizations, says: "Were all our historians lost, medals, inscriptions, and other monuments would be sufficient to record Hadrian's travels."-Chapter I. Upon the obverse of this is a fine portrait, inscribed AVGVSTVS HADRIANVS, exhibiting a man with short military hair and clipped beard. Upon the reverse, Sabina, his wife, under the effigy of Cybele, is represented in a chariot drawn by four lions, with the words Cos III, implying the third year of her husband's consulship. Looking in my old Francis Camp's quarto of. 1695 (bought in London in 1868 for one English shilling sterling!) I find among other coins of Hadrian one that gives a full length of Minerva, as honoring him for his patronage of science and the arts; one that presents a coin struck in his honor by the colony of Laodicea when he visited that city. This has the Supreme Jove upon the reverse, in standing posture, holding his characteristic emblem, the Eagle, in his right hand, and many others. Thus, a single monument of this sort suggests a whole series. Let me call out a few of them one by one: This with a reclining female holding a wheel on her knee; this with Hercules seated on armor; this with the Egyptian emblems of the Sphynx, hippopotamus, etc.; this with Hadrian on horseback, etc.

But this coin, which has lain unnoticed in sacred soil for so many centuries, has yet more to tell us. It speaks to us of the purpose of the Emperor Hadrian to rebuild Jerusalem (A. D. 130); to establish a pow

Charley says that the love of an honest man is always schemed after by women of her stamp. She knew the utter trustfulness of him who offered her his love, and felt no scruples in using it as a means of furthering her wicked plans. When Charley asked her the all-important question, Who are you?a question which he put, I suppose, in more roundabout and lover-like terms, she answered him sadly enough with a touching story of her past life. He believed this story, as he believed everything about the woman who told it. Their engagement was a short and secret one. In a little more than a month's time from their first meeting, Margaret Elison was Charley's wife.

"The first few weeks of his married life must have passed very happily. Charley rented a pleasant cottage at a short distance from the city, intending to remain there during the winter and return north in the spring. But when spring came, Gertrude, it found that cottage vacant and Charley a very miserable man. He had parted from his

wife forever."

Maud paused, and I said impatiently: "Why don't you go on? Do you mean that she died?"

"No," said my sister, "it would have been better if she had died before Charley found out what a wicked creature he had married. I can not tell you through what means he made the discovery of his wife's falsehood and shame. He gave me but the outline of the story, entering into but few of its shocking particulars. The name of Margaret Elison veiled another to which the most infamous notoriety had been attached. For want of sufficient evidence she had narrowly escaped conviction on the charge of poisoning her first husband, and by sheer force of artful cleverness and cool audacity had succeeded in establishing herself, far away from the scene of her disgrace, at the household in which Charley had first met her. If she had really borne any affection for the man whom she succeeded in marrying, one might be able to regard charitably

act which brought dishonor to his name. But the motive which urged her to this step was altogether a mercenary one, as she confessed to Charley at their last interview, in a cruel, brazen way. I, who find it difficult even to imagine a character like hers, uniting every outward charm with the deepest inward depravity, beautiful and infamous, lovely and hideous, I shudder when I try to realize the extent of Charley's fearful disappointment. Many another man would have reproached and cursed and sneered upon her. Charley did nothing of this sort. He had once loved her passionately, and however unworthy of its object he afterwards found that love to be, it was not easy to root it up and cast it away in a moment. Yesterday he had worshiped-to-day he could not insult, her.

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Almost the last words that Charley spoke to his wife before they parted, related to the question of her future support. The law compelled him to allow her a yearly income. He offered this and she, strange to say, refused it promptly and decisively. I think there was something in this act, Gertrude, that showed regret for the inhuman deception she had practiced. They say that the worst natures can love. Perhaps she had found out this truth, and could not bear to receive the gold of the man who would scorn and despise her in the years to come. And so they parted, and Charley left almost immediately for New York. Since then he has heard of Margaret Ascott but once, and then he heard of her death."

"You have a beautiful work before you, Maud," I said, kissing her fo good-night. "With you it shall labor of love to drown your hus dark past in the clear d contentment. Charley mankind is weak-yo en it. There is his memory pluc me