athing the low hanging branches as they flowed along.

"Oh, how beautiful it is here! It will do you good to shout as loud as
you can, Elsli. I'm sure it would make you feel better."

"Yes, indeed," said the girl assentingly, but no joyous look came into
her pale face, such as shone from Fani's eyes. "When I sit here I always
think of Nora. There's such a beautiful view of the sunset from here.
And then I think of the evening when she went away, how the whole sky
was golden, as if the heavens were open, and you could look right into
them and see the crystal river flowing there forever. Whenever it is a
clear evening, and the red clouds come in the west, I always think that
Nora is looking down at me and beckoning me to come to her. How dearly I
should love to go!"

Fani sprang to his feet in great distress.

"How can you talk so, Elsli? Here we are living so happily together.
Nobody was ever so happy as we are, and yet you talk as if it was all
nothing, and all you want is to die! I'm sure I don't want to die, and
you ought not to. And if you were to talk in this way to Mrs. Stanhope
just once, what do you suppose would happen? I can tell you--she'd just
send us straight home, I know; and how would you like that? And I'm
certain that she means to have us stay here always; for several times
when I've said something about being a painter she has begun to talk
about the future, and she takes it for granted that you and I are to
live with her. Just think of that! Then I shall be a gentleman and you a
lady like Mrs. Stanhope, and then--"

"Oh, Fani, you trouble me still more when you talk so," interrupted
Elsli, sadly. "I see more plainly every day that I can never be what
Mrs. Stanhope wants me to be. I am afraid she will be more and more
vexed about it, and will like me less and less. And you too will be
ashamed of me by and by, because I cannot be what you would like to have
me."

Fani had seated himself again at Elsli's side, but at these words he
sprang again to his feet, crying out reproachfully:--

"Oh, Elsli, what strange notions have you taken into your head? It isn't
pleasant in you to talk so. Why don't you think of all the nice things
there are, and what good times we have together, and let all these
melancholy ideas go?"

"I don't think of melancholy things on purpose, Fani, and I wish I did
not at all," said Elsli, pleadingly. "It is this way. Whenever I begin
to think of something very pleasant, then