ld one, and I ought, I suppose, not to make it for
months, if ever. But come it must, and to-night my heart has forced it
to my lips."

"It is very sudden," Millicent answered, faintly.

"I know that, but, after all, most deep feelings are sudden. In the
savages, with whom you have been associated, have you not seen hate and
other strong passions develop in a moment? Why, then, should not love,
in a more appropriate soil, spring to life? It certainly has taken deep
root in my heart. Give me some answer, Millicent, if it be but that of
hope deferred. Can you ever love me?"

"What if I do now?" said Millicent, demurely.

"Do you really, Millicent? Then I am the proudest, happiest man alive,"
said Merwin. And, possessing himself of both her hands, kissed them
vehemently.

"I trust I am doing right, Captain Merwin; I am almost sure I love you."

"Thank you, dearest, thank you, for your sweet words. Your reward for
them shall be my life devoted to your service." And he drew her to him
and kissed her lips.

"You deserve a whole life of thanks, Captain Merwin"--

"Call me Harold."

"--for releasing me from such a captivity, Harold, and, lastly, from
death, or worse than death." And weeping, she threw her arms about his
neck and buried her head on his shoulder.

"My brave darling, I hope and believe your troubles are at an end. I
only wonder your strength has survived the hardships of such a life as
yours has been the past year."

"Think of how much has happened in the last short weeks!"

"True, ours has been a courtship in which the bitter and the sweet have
been equally mingled, but now the peace complete is coning love, for
King Philip is dead and the war is over."

THE PICTURE.

BY MARY D. BRINE.

It was only a simple picture,
The simplest, perhaps, of all
The many and costly paintings
That hung on the parlor wall;
But it held my gaze the longest,
And it touched my inmost heart
With a pathos in which the others
Held neither place nor part.

It showed me a lonely hill-side,
Where the light of the day had fled,
And the clouds of an angry twilight
Were gathering overhead;
And under the deepening shadows,
Tired and sore afraid,
A sheep and her lamb were grieving,
Far from the sheepfold strayed.

Only a simple picture;
But oh, how full of truth,
Which silently spoke from the canvas
Its lesson of age and youth!
For are we not she