tains, forests, rivers, winds, and all living creatures waking in springtime from winter's long sleep, talk together, deep-voiced, and join in one great rejoicing naturehymn. Read what Coleridge wrote "At Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni," look out past Tenaya, to the high white peaks of the Sierra, greater than Alps, and then go down to build a camp-fire beside those mystic waters! Beyond, rising from 1,000 to 2,500 feet higher, and vividly reflected in the clear lake, are Tenaya Peak, Tenaya Dome, and other masses of glacier-rounded and polished rock. Beautiful beyond speech as the sunlight fades, or by starlight or moonlight, or at earliest morning and sunrise, is Tenaya. A thousand new forms, shadows, colors, reflections, sweep across its surface, haunt the granite walls of this gigantic cleft. Ever the skies and lights change from glory to glory till their charm is like the charm of some great oratorio. Blue fades into green, melts into steel-gray, deepens into black, whitens into pearl and pale onyx, flashes into rose and pink, silver and riotous scarlet.

At the head of the lake is the famous cabin and stable of old John Murphy, the guide. The cabin is now a wayside recordbook, carved and pictured by many a lighthearted group of travelers. The best of these achievements of knife and pencil represents a well-known University instructor driving his two donkeys, "John Brown and "Glory Hallelujah," with demoniac objurgations up an almost perpendicular trail.

The road proceeds, northeast, beside bold bluffs, and the lake margin; then, leaving the lake and going for several miles along the southeastern slope of a long ridge, we reach the broad Tuolumne Meadows, a superb camping-place, and can branch off to the Soda Springs, at an elevation of about 8,600 feet. This is where Lembert, the hermit-artist, once lived, and years ago, sheep and goats pastured throughout the district every summer. Now, the wild flowers and grasses grow again as of old, and everywhere, across the warm, bright meadows.

After crossing the Tuolumne Meadows, the Tioga Road extends for a long distance on the north side of the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne, ever climbing to new revelations of this mountain land; it finally turns due north, and passes high along the western shore of a beautiful lake named (let us believe, by some exiled Scotchman) Jessie Montrose. Its long course is nearly done, for in a mile after leaving this Alpine lake, it has ascended to the ruins of the little mining-camp. The trail to Lundy goes on, crossing LeeVining Creek and zigzagging past Mount Warren up an enormous ridge and down to Mill Creek. But here, among the eight or ten deserted cabins of Bennetville, the story properly ends. All about it tower the amazing snow-crests of such mountains as Dana, Gibbs, Conness and Lyell. One could hardly spend a happier summer than camped somewhere along the upper portions of the Tioga Road.

Harriet Winthrop Waring.

H

E WAS smoking in lazy contentment at the open window of his rooms on the Embankment, listening with placid enjoyment to the dreamy and caressing strains of the band on the Terrace of the Savoy, when his servant entered, and placed three letters and the evening paper on the table at his side. Indolently he stretched out his hand for the letter on the top of the pile-a large, square, gray envelope, addressed in a bold, dashing hand--and opening it, he read :—

My dearest Frank:-How recklessly and wickedly extravagant of you, but how delightful! The emeralds are exquisite and the setting is perfect. And those lovely roses and carnations! They harmonize to perfection with the gown I am wearing to-night.

Of course, I really ought to be dreadfully severe, but then how can I ever have the heart to be anything but kind and nice to you?

Remember, we count upon seeing you at the Lyric this evening. We must arrange about to-morrow, you know, and there is something quite original on the tapis this time.

Don't forget-Box E; but you need n't look us up before half past ten, as we are only going for Bernhardt's great scene in the third act.

I suppose it is quite useless to expect to see anything of you at the Crawleys' tonight, as you have such a rooted aversion to them. Still, it might be worth your while this time, as they have got that wonderful new tenor, whom people are all fighting over, and everybody seems to be going this evening.

A ce soir, then, Dearest,

He laid the letter on the table, and took up the second one. This was written on cheap, flimsy, white paper, in a small, uncertain, girlish hand, and a slight frown of annoyance passed over his face as he tore it open. It ran as follows:

My darling Frank:-Ever since you left me yesterday, my heart has been like lead, and 1 have cried and cried until I can scarcely see; *and yet all the time I have been tryng to reason with myself, and to see things in the right light, as you told me to. O, of course, I have known all along, that we could not go on like this forever, and that one day, sooner or later, you would marry a girl who was beautiful and clever and would belong to your world, and who would know how to

give big parties and entertain all your grand friends. And I could never, never do that, for I should only feel shy and awkward, and perhaps you would be ashamed of me, and that would break my heart. But now that the time has come when we must really part, and now that I begin to realize what it ad means, I cannot, O, my love, I cannot, cannot bear it!

Sometimes, I wish I could see the girl you are going to marry. I have often read about her in the papers, and she seems to go to all the fashionable parties and to wear lovely gowns and to have everything in the world to make her happy. Then again, I feel as if I could not bear to see her, for I know that it would fill my heart with envy and hate and all kinds of wicked feelings, and I don't want to be wicked as well as unhappy. But, O, it is so hard, so cruelly hard! If I were only clever and ambitious, and had lots of spirit, like some girls, I might perhaps find some new interests in life, and get over it all in time; but I am not, and now that all the joy and light has gone out of my life I don't seem to have any strength or courage left to go on with.

I could not even get through my work as usual this morning. I had a lot of important reports and statements to typewrite at the office, and they were full of mistakes and blunders, for I kept striking the wrong keys, and repeating words, and leaving out whole sentences. Mr. Smedley was very angry with me, for the work was for one of ou: best clients, and I am generally so accurate But now I am going to try hard to be brave and patient, and to bear it all; for we cannot change things in this life, no matter how hard and cruel and unjust they may seem to us, can we? We must just bear them. I have done as you asked me to, and have le stroyed all your letters, but I am keeping the ring you gave me on my last birthday. I mean the one with the diamond and the queer old setting. You don't mind, do you dearest?

My love, I cannot write any more to-night. for the tears are blinding my eyes, and I feel frightened and dazed, just as if something dreadful were before me, and I must pull myself together and try to go on again as usual. But, O, my love, my love, my heart is breaking!

YOUR LOVING LITTLE BESSIE.

The letter dropped from his hand. His face had grown suddenly set and gray Slowly he took up the third and last let ter. It resembled the second letter closel and was evidently from the same person With nervous, unsteady fingers he brok the seal and read:

1

66

tleman come out of a house and get into a brougham. They were directly in my path and I stood aside to let them pass, and as the light from the carriage lamp flashed into the man's face, I saw that it was you, and then I understood. I heard you say, The Criterion," to the coachman as you stepped into the carriage, and I stood there for a time looking stupidly after it as it drove away. Then, all of a sudden, I had a great desire to see what she was really like, this girl whom you are going to marry. It seemed that if I only could see you both together that very night at the theater, it would bring me to my senses, and touch my pride, and cure me; and so, instead of going home, I turned into Oxford Street, and took a 'bus down to the Circus. The theater was not at all crowded, and I easily got a seat in the second row of the pit, and looking up I saw in one of the boxes a fair, slender girl, all in white and silver, with a great bunch of red roses, such as you used to bring me, in her hands. I knew at once that it was she. O, it seemed to me that I had never seen any one so beautiful! She looked just like one of those lovely white lilies you see in the florists' windows at Easter, so stately and grand, like a queen, but a little cold and proudlooking, too. And presently you came in and took a seat just behind her, and from time to time you would speak to her and she would smile and turn to you, and I knew that you could not help feeling proud of her, and I could see that you were both very happy!

And now, dear Love, I understand it all, and everything has suddenly become clear to me. She is the wife you need, and I could never be to you what she would be and will be. My love is just as strong and as pure as hers, but that is not enough, and my ways are much too plain and simple for the great world that you belong to, and it is best so. But although I see all this so clearly and plainly now, it has not cured me as I hoped it would, but has only driven the knife deeper into my heart, and I realize that I could not live on from day to day and bear it all. You see, I could never really be quite sure of myself again, for in time I know that I should grow hard and bitter and revengeful, and in a moment of weakness I might even try to come between you and separate you, and that would only make you hate me and break her heart, as mine has been broken.

O, I do not reproach you, my dearest, for you are not to blame any more than I am, and it is only life that is so cruel and relentless and pitiless, and after all I could never have had a place in your life. I know that

now.

People say that it is very weak and foolish to care for any one with all one's heart and soul, and I dare say it may seem so to those who have so much to live for; but you see, I had never really known what it meant to be happy until I met you. Your love was my life, my all, and now that you no longer care for me, why, there is nothing left, nothing, nothing at all.

But at least I have had two years of happiness, such a good and simple kind of happiness too, with no wrong in it either, to embitter the memory of it at this moment. But now, my dearest, I know that there is only one course open to me. It is very, very wicked, and a great sin, I know that perfectly well, and it would be different, of course, if I had people who cared for me, and would grieve over me; but no one will really miss me, and I shall not leave a void in any one's life. You see, there has never been any one in my life who really cared for me, except you, dearest, and now-now, you-, O, my God! can't you see that I haven't the strength and the courage to face things any longer?

And now good-night, my dearest, dearest Love! I am tired, so very, very tired, and I long for rest and peace. You will grieve a little just at first, I know, but you will be very happy as the time goes on, I am sure of that, and I know too, that no matter how happy you may be in the future, you wil never quite forget your little girl who had nothing to offer you but her great, great love, and devotion. Good-night, good-by, my Love, my Life, my All!

YOUR BROKEN-HEARTED BESSIE.

Mechanically, and as in a dream, he laid the letter down and took up the evening paper. Then, as if impelled by an impulse born of a sudden presentiment, he unfolded it quickly, and glanced rapidly and searchingly down the columns, until his eye was arrested by the following:

SAD AND MYSTERIOUS SUICIDE OF A YOUNG GIRL.

Early this morning [the paragraph ran] two bargemen discovered the body of a young woman, floating in the river, just below London Bridge, on the Surrey side. The body had evidently only been in the water a short time, and was that of a woman of about twenty, well dressed, and exceedingly attractive in appearance. All efforts on the part of police authorities to identify the body have so far proved fruitless. They have, however, one clew, in the shape of a ring found on the body, and consisting of a small but valuable diamond, in a curious antique setting, and through this medium, they hope shortly to be able to communicate with the unfortunate woman's friends or relatives.

A hush had fallen upon the room. The man at the window sat silent and immovable, like a figure carved in stone, staring with fixed, vacant eyes out into the fading light. His face was white and stern, the paper had fallen from his nerveless fingers.

In the adjoining bed-room, his servant had lighted the candles on the dressingtable, and was putting out his evening