inion
touching this 'mariage de convenance.'

"Mr. Gardner's house was one of some pretension originally; that is to
say, it had been built in the style of country gentlemen in New
England forty years ago. A row of white-pine pillars surrounded the
house from roof to basement, and formed a piazza-walk very convenient
in a dull day. Six chimneys crowned the roof, and the whole
arrangement was tasteful and imposing. There was a terrace of green
turf all round the house, and the offices and out-buildings were at a
short distance from the main building. As the stage-coach wound up the
avenue, I noticed in the disposition of the grounds and shrubbery the
evident hand of female taste. Fantastic arbors, almost hid behind
clematis and honeysuckle; little white arches supporting twining roses
of twenty sorts, and trees arranged in picturesque groups, gave a
character of beautiful wildness to the scenery.

"I fancied Mary the presiding genius of the place as I last had seen
her, white and bright, with a little rose-tint on her cheek, caught
from nature and the happy quiet of her life--for I had heard that she
rejoiced in an infant, whose beauty and promise I knew must renew all
the affectionate sympathies of her woman's heart.

"The stage-coach stopped. A servant opened the door, and to my inquiry
for Mrs. Gardner, answered hesitatingly, that 'he believed she did not
wish to see company.' How much of apprehension was compressed into
that brief moment. What could have happened to her? Much might have
happened, and I not know it, for I had been living in great seclusion,
and had had no correspondence with Mary. However, I gave my card to
the man, and bade him take it to Mrs. Gardner, meanwhile sitting with
a throbbing heart in the carriage.

"The man returned in a short time with a message requesting me to
stop, and to have my trunks taken off. Not a welcoming voice or face
met me--and in silence I followed the servant to the parlor. Mary was
sitting there; some fire was in the grate, though it was in July; and
she hovered over it as if she sought to warm her heart enough to show
proper feeling at the sight of an old friend.

"'Mary Dunbar!' I cried out, with my arms outspread, for the figure
before me of hopelessness and gloom gave me a feeling almost
heart-breaking.

"The sound of her own maiden name acted like magic on Mary. She sprung
to my arms like a frightened bird, and clung to me with such intensity
of sad earnestn