eport they bore to Heaven,
And how they might have borne more welcome news."

Yet there is a sadness in looking back. I see the many lost opportunities
lifting to me their wistful faces, and dumbly pleading with me to accept
them and their promises; yet I carelessly passed them by. I see worse. I
see the rents in the hedge, where I forced my wilful way into forbidden
fields, and only regained my path after weary wandering, brier-torn, and
none the better for my folly. Lost faces come before me which I might have
gladdened oftener. Voices sound in my ear whose tones I might have made
happier if I would. Withheld sympathy rises up before me deploring its
wasted treasure. How can any one be happy in looking back? The only
pleasure in looking forward is in hope. Yet now both grief and joy are
tempered with a softness which enfolds my fretted spirit gratefully.

"Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart gently; not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp to deaden its vibrations."

And so I am looking forward to-night to an old age more peaceful, less
turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life
holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise
comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to
concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear
and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want to
take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for
rude handling in my youth--that youth which lies very far away from me
to-night and is wrapped in a rainbow mist.

THE END

LOVE-LETTERS
OF A
WORLDLY WOMAN.

By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD, Author of "Aunt Anne," "Mrs. Keith's Crime," etc.
16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 25.

This volume contains three brilliant love-stories well worth reading....
The letters are original and audacious, and are full of a certain
intellectual "abandon" which is sure to charm the cultivated reader....
We trust that Mrs. W. K. Clifford will give us more fiction in this
delicately humorous, subtle, and analytic vein.--_Literary World_, Boston.

Mrs. Clifford's literary style is excellent, and the love-letters always
have their special interest.--_N.Y. Times._

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