many things my mother has been wrong. She acknowledges it herself. She loved me so entirely, and had so long been mistress of my home and the first object of my thoughts and affections, that perhaps it would have been too much to expect of human nature that she should

ments in our lives when we are not the rulers of our own spirits-when the reins are held by the invisible evil agents who forever wage secret and perilous warfare against our souls? I had no control over the fierce rage which shook me for a moment, and then led me on with nerves of steel. I went into the room. I walked delib-heartily rejoice in my marriage, or regard with erately by Owen, and stood in front of his mother. I think I spoke with steady tones:

entire complacency one who was to be hereafter nearer and dearer to me than all others."

"Do you justify her, for that reason, in treating me with contempt; in watching my movements as if I were a child for whose training she was responsible; above all, in trying to alienate from me your confidence?"

"Madame, I thought I had borne enough from you since I entered this house. I have suffered in silence slights, contempt, surveillance; now I find you trying to take from me all that makes life in any way tolerable-my husband's confidence. I have borne up to this "I have said, Kathie, that I thought she was point. This ends it. You have been hungry wrong. She is ready to acknowledge it. At for my secret-take it. Know that my husband the same time I do not think you have been just expressed, six weeks ago, a wish that I should to her. You have seen unkindness where none learn to sing. For your sake, he said. I con- was meant, and when a few words of explanafess I would have done little for your sake only, tion would have set all right; and surely if my but to please him was worth an effort. Doubt- wife was troubled, she had no right to conceal it ful how I should succeed, I chose to try my ex-from her husband. But we shall all understand periment secretly. I went to Mademoiselle Pier- each other better now. rot, and for six weeks I have studied under her days hereafter." care. To-morrow you were to have heard the result. I had taken a keen, sweet delight-all the stronger because it was unshared-in this surprise which I had planned as a birthday offering for my husband. Perhaps, for you, my word needs confirmation. You shall hear the songs I had intended to sing to-morrow."

There will be happier

"Not with Madame Bartholemew and me under the same roof."

Owen looked at me for a full minute before he spoke. Then he said, very slowly: "I do not understand you, Kathie. What do you mean?"

"What I say. Your mother has made herself utterly abhorrent to me. I will not degrade myself by living with her in open enmity and

as to dwell with her in outward peace when heart and soul are full of bitterness. You must choose between us, Owen-choose now!"

He smoothed my hair with sad, patient tenderness.

Neither of them had interrupted the rapid, indignant flow of my words. Neither spoke now as I went to the piano and sat down. With un-contention; still less will I be such a hypocrite faltering voice I sang through my repertoire. I knew I was singing well-upheld by that pride and passion-far better than I should have done the next evening in the tremulous excitement of tenderer emotion. The soul of the music thrilled through the room. I sang all that I had learned. Then a wild, clanging chord burst full and resonant under my hand, and I stood up before Madame Bartholemew with stern pride, and eyes whose burning rays no tears came to quench. She was very pale. She spoke then :

"Poor tortured, self-willed child, you know not what you say! You wrong yourself. Nature has not made you so unforgiving."

Call

"Owen, I mean it-mean it bitterly. me unforgiving, if you will-there are some things one never can forgive. I know my feelings toward her are such as neither time nor en

"In this matter, at least, I have done you in-deavor can conquer. I can not, I will not live justice. Will you forgive me?" with her. Again I demand that you choose between us."

"I never heard, Madame, that the rich man asked the poor man to forgive him when he had slain his one ewe lamb. Would not the request have been idle? If you take away my husband's trust in me, you take away all the glory of my

life."

I went royally out of the room. I needed no support-none was offered. I went into my own chamber and sat there, I know not how long, alone with my bitter, tearless wrath.

At length Owen came up. He sat down beside me; kissed my burning cheek, and took my hot hand in his. He looked into my eyes with that gaze of tender control which had never lost its power over me till now.

He spoke with quiet firmness: "Kathie, in my whole life I have never been so deeply pained as this evening. I think in

"Do you ask, Kathie, that I should refuse my mother the shelter of my roof? Listen a moment: My father died when I was a year old. He failed in business, and the shock so wounded his sensitive pride that he never held up his head again. My mother was left, at twenty-four, with me to provide for, and not a dollar to help herself with except the handsome furniture of her house, on which, as it was purchased before her marriage with her own money, the creditors had no claim. All the rest even of her private property had been invested in my father's business, and swept away in the general wreck. Where so many women would have given up to absolute despair she did not falter. Her landlord knew her energy, and trusted in her integrity. With no security ex

Early in the morning Owen was sent for to see a patient in imminent danger, whose residence was several miles away. As he left he remarked:

cept her word he consented to lease her the friend-would be sufficient to support me, and to house. She opened it for boarders. By un- provide even for the extra expenses of my proceasing toil she continued to maintain a respect- spective illness. Its proceeds since my marriage able appearance. She brought me up, and gave were lying untouched in my desk. I could be me every advantage which the son of a million- independent. aire could have enjoyed. She never rested from her labors until I had so far succeeded in my profession that my income was sufficient to surround us both with the comforts and elegances of life. Even then it was only by very urgent entreaties that I prevailed on her to enjoy the rest she had so richly earned, and consent to be the honored mistress of the home I could only consider as the fruit of her sacrifices and exertions. Now, Kathie, would you have me send this noble mother, to whom I owe all that I have or am, out into the world, at fifty-four, to begin again her battle of life?"

Was I mad-lost to all noble impulse, all generous emotion? Did an evil spirit, tempting me, utter its mocking words through my lips? I spoke with cold indifference:

I

"Nay, I would have no influence either way. I did not ask you to give up your mother. only said she and I could not dwell under the same roof. You are the best judge which is most necessary to your happiness-mother or wife!"

"My own happiness is not the question. I must do what is right-what God requires. Kathie, I do not recognize my gentle wife in you. Pain and anger have made you beside yourself. I do you injustice by listening to what you say to-night. We will talk more of this to-morrow."

"As soon as I can leave Mr. Reynolds, Kathie, I shall come home, for I wish to renew our conversation of last night. I can not let my wife make herself unnecessarily unhappy. None of us can order life quite as we would. To something, God's will or man's, we all have to submit."

To submit! Mary Ann Willis's very words. Was I indeed to learn it, as she had feared, by hard and bitter lessons. I would not! Surely freedom was Heaven's best gift. I would not lightly part with mine.

I went into my room and commenced packing my trunks. I put into them every thing which was mine at my marriage-nothing which I had received from my husband save some trifling keepsakes of small value, yet too dear to be abandoned. This occupied me all the morning. At twelve o'clock I had just sent a servant for a carriage, and was putting the last articles in my trunk when Owen came in. He looked at my preparations in amazement. Then he turned to me:

"Kathie, what does this mean?"

"Did you think I was trifling when I told you my decision last night? I believe I understood yours. Did you not utterly refuse to part with your mother?"

"I did refuse to turn my mother out of the shelter of my home. Kathie, you loved your father. By his memory I conjure you to be just to my mother."

"Yes, I loved my father," I said, drearily, "and he, I know, loved me-the only one, I think he was, who ever did. And yet, had he been living, I would have left him to go to the world's end with you."

Man

"My wife, you wrong me bitterly. never loved woman more faithfully than I love you. I would give up every thing in life for you except the law of God. He commands us to honor our parents, and speaks of children who are thankless and disobedient as under His curse.'

I was silent, but my mind was not changed. All that night, while Owen slept in peace by my side, my thoughts were busy. I recalled all the past-all the love with which I had loved him; but its memory did not soften me. My eyes were blinded that I should not see the truth. Light enough had his love been, I thought, compared with mine. Would I have given him up for any other tie? So I went on, hardening my heart, making my plans for my lonely future. There was another secret which I had intended to whisper in his ear on the morrow-now he should not know it. A few months more, I believed, would make him a father. How my heart had thrilled hitherto when I had planned in what words I would tell him this in the silence of our chamber, and thought how his look would kindle with joy, his eyes soften and grow dim with tenderness, his voice tremble with its full freight of blessing! Now I experienced a kind of savage exultation at the thought that he would not know it; that he would lose so much more happiness than he dreamed if he chose his mother in my stead. I believe all the while I cherished a vague, unconscious hope that he would not so choose-that, in the end, he "Kathie, once for all, I will not banish my would not have strength to part with me. Yet mother from my home. The duty I owe her I I went on, making my plans. My own property, will fulfill to her death day or mine. You are which I held in such bonds and securities that, my wife, whom I love as my own soul." Over wherever I might go, I could procure the income those words his voice softened, and he opened of it without his assistance-in fact, if I should his arms. "Come to my heart, Kathie! Take so choose, without the knowledge of any former its love, its shelter. I will make you happy.

"You find it convenient to forget," I cried, scornfully, "that He says a man shall forsake father and mother, and cleave unto his wife."

I was goading him too far. A white light of anger blent with resolution began to gleam in his eyes. He spoke sternly:

"He told you his heart would be faithful to As the express train bore me swiftly on to you-his home ever open. Why do you not New York I mapped out my future.

"Owen," I said, "have they buried my little "It is a boy, and as nice a little fellow as you child? Were you here before he died? If I could ask for!" could only once have seen his face!"

thing disagreeable, I had hesitated to mention her. I summoned resolution at length to say, "Owen, do you think your mother will ever be able to receive me kindly-to like me a little?" "I think she likes you a great deal already, Kathie. She has always taken the chief blame to herself, for she says hers was the first error. When Mrs. Allin's telegram came she insisted on accompanying me to New York. I refused at first, for I feared her presence might annoy you. But she plead with me so earnestly that

It was the anniversary of our marriage-the fourth of September-that we started again for Philadelphia. The next night I heard the same old dear words, "Welcome, my wife!" I went up the steps, and this time a mother greeted me in the hall; a mother's kiss was on my cheek; a mother's blessing was breathed over me. This was my true home-coming.

MOUNT VICTORY.

at last I yielded. She would never go in your MY life was as monotonous as the whirr of

sight, she said, until I thought it best, but she must be near at hand-otherwise the suspense would be intolerable. She could care as no one else would for the baby; and if you were going to die she must hear you say that you forgave her. She came, and while you were too ill to recognize her she proved herself the most efficient of nurses. As for the boy, she fairly idolizes him. She has a warm heart, Kathie, though her manner is cold. Whose would not be that had fought so many battles with the world-had so few helpers? When she loves, though, it is with a tenderness strong, faithful, and cherishing. She loves you now."

"Will you ask her to come to me?"

"At once, but, Kathie, do not ask her to forgive you, for she blames herself so much it would only give her pain. I think it woull suit her best not to talk about the past at all."

It certainly suited me best. I had a natural antipathy to scenes; and, save to Owen, I disliked excessively having to talk about my own feelings.

the great sails on the wind-mill before me. I had sat there watching them more than an hour from sheer mental inactivity. It had been so for a long time. Sometimes when I rose the freshness of the morning air would inspire me with a trace of my old energy, and I went briskly from the mill to the boiling-house, or out to the cane fields where the gang were commencing their daily labor. I have envied them, master and owner as I was. I have often envied my overseer and manager. They all had something to live for, some allotted task to accomplish, something that they desired to gain. I had nothing.

The mere accumulation of wealth had ceased to be an enjoyment. My habits were simple, I had no one to lavish it upon. In our far off island, governed by home policy, there was not even the excitement of political life for me to plunge into, had I been so inclined. As for speculation, that, too, was foreign to our quiet shores; we were an agricultural people. Warehouses and merchants took the trouble of dis

How did we exist?

There was such a look of gentle interest, of posing our crops from our hands, but, save at the tender care, of heart-felt joy on Madame Bar-season for shipping, the wharves were as dull as tholemew's face, when she came in, as trans- my curing-room. figured it to me. She bent over me with dim eyes, and her voice was tremulous as she whispered, "Thank God you are so much better, my chiefly fathers of large families, who had interest daughter." And I answered,

"I ought to reward you by getting better; Owen says you have taken such good care of me, dear mother."

Others seemed to get on very well, for being an agricultural people we were also domestic. My acquaintances were

enough in providing for them, and "the bachelor club" early disgusted me by its coarse amusements. When there is the social atmosphere that I describe, and men are not held above it by the refinements of home life, they soon fall into sottish indulgence. I could count five of my neighbors, young men with fine estates and good incomes, who had drunk themselves into the grave since I had come into possession of mine.

Fortunately for me my natural taste revolted. Study sustained me for a while; but let one have no other companionship, and books, unless one has a vocation for a student's life, grow very

There was no need of any other words. When I could bear the journey, I went to pass a week with Mary Ann Willis in the dear old home. Owen was with me, and my boy. How fond her welcome was! how bright were the long, blue days of that last week in August! Once, when she and I were quite alone, with only my baby on my knees, I told her the history of the first year of my married life. She kissed me through her tears, and said, tenderly, "I am thankful, Kathie, that you have learn-wearisome. ed so soon what I foresaw must be your life's Now and then some breath from the far off hard lesson. I have no fears for you now. You living world, some echo of its hurried and clamorwill never again be in any danger of forgetting ous interests would tempt me to return to it. that above all poetry, all passion, all enthusiasm, all sentiment, must reign eternally Heaven's immutable law of right. The life lived for our own sakes only-with no sacrifices made for others, no hard duties done for duty's sake—is not worth the living."

But I had renounced my old home long since, for the same reason that I had renounced all thoughts of making one for myself where my lot had fallen.

Well, I thought that was all done with long ago. I thought that memory was cauterized