ine. The benignant mountains westward kindly surveyed
the happy pair, and the sun seemed created to warm and cheer them.

"And you forgive me, Belle?" said the lover. "I feel as if I had only gone
bad to make me know how much better going right is."

"I always knew you would find it out. I never stopped hoping and praying
for it."

"That must have been what brought Mr. Wade here."

"Oh, I did hate him so, Bill, when I heard of something that happened
between you and him! I thought him a brute and a tyrant. I never could get
over it, until he told mother that you were the best machinist he ever
knew, and would some time grow to be a great inventor."

"I'm glad you hated him. I suffered rattlesnakes and collapsed flues for
fear you'd go and love him."

"My affections were engaged," she said, with simple seriousness.

"Oh, if I'd only thought so long ago! How lovely you are!" exclaims Bill,
in an ecstasy. "And how refined! And how good! God bless you!"

He made up such a wishful mouth,--so wishful for one of the pleasurable
duties of mouths, that Belle blushed, laughed, and looked down, and as she
did so saw that one of her straps was trailing.

"Please fix it, Bill," she said, stopping and kneeling.

Bill also knelt, and his wishful mouth immediately took its chance.

A manly smack and sweet little feminine chirp sounded as their lips met.

Boom! twanging gay as the first tap of a marriage-bell, a loud crack in
the ice rang musically for leagues up and down the river. "Bravo!" it
seemed to say. "Well done, Bill Tarbox! Try again!" Which the happy fellow
did, and the happy maiden permitted.

"Now," said Bill, "let us go and hug Mr. Wade!"

"What! Both of us?" Belle protested. "Mr. Tarbox, I am ashamed of you!"

* * * * *

LIGHT LITERATURE.

Though the smallest boulder is heavy, and even the merest pebble has a
perceptible weight, yet the entire planet, toward which both gravitate,
floats more lightly than any feather. In literature somewhat analogous may
be observed. Here also are found the insignificant lightness of the pebble
and the mighty lightness of the planet; while between them range the
weighty masses, superior to the petty ponderability of the one, and
unequal to the firmamental float of the other. Accordingly, setting out
from the mote-and-pebble extreme, you find, that, up to a certain point,
increasing values of thought are commonly indicated by increasi