he minor duties
that formed her routine of existence, until it could no longer soar
toward the elevation it once desired to reach."

"Three years from his departure Everard Morris returned home to die.
And now he became fully conscious of the wrong he had done to her he
once professed to love. His mind seemed to have expanded beneath the
influence of travel, he was no longer the mere man of business with no
real taste for the beautiful save in the physical development of
animal life. He had thought of all the past, and the knowledge of what
was, and might have been, filled his soul with bitterness. He died,
and in a long and earnest appeal for forgiveness he besought Jane to
be the guardian of his children--his wife he never named. In three
months after Mrs. Morris married again, and went to the West, without
a word of inquiry or affection to her children."

"Need I say how willingly Jane Lynn accepted the charge bequeathed to
her, and how she was at last blessed in the love of those who from
infancy had regarded her as a more than mother."

There was a slight tremulousness in Aunt Mabel's voice as she paused,
and Kate, looking up with her eyes filled with tears, threw herself
upon her aunt's bosom, exclaiming,

"Dearest, best Aunt Mabel, you are loved truly, fondly by us all! Ah,
I knew you were telling your own story, and--" but Aunt Mabel gently
placed her hand upon the young girl's lips, and while she pressed a
kiss upon her brow, said, in her usual calm, soft tone,

"It is a true story, my love, be the actors who they may; there is no
exaggerated incident in it to invest it with peculiar interest; but I
want you to know that the subtle influences of affection are ever busy
about us; and however tame and commonplace the routine of life may be,
yet believe, Kate," added Aunt Mable, with a saddened smile, "each
heart has its mystery, and who may reveal it."

TO ERATO.

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

Henceforth let Grief forget her pain,
And Melancholy cease to sigh;
And Hope no longer gaze in vain
With weary, longing eye,
Since Love, dear Love, hath made again
A summer in this winter sky--
Oh, may the flowers he brings to-day
In beauty bloom, nor pass away.

Sweet one, fond heart, thine eyes are bright,
And full of stars as is the heaven,
Pure pleiads of the soul, whose light
From deepest founts of Truth is given--
Oh let them shine upo