far more than at first to impress him, While she spoke and laughed, there was so much in her of her old brightness that it half concealed the waste that had been rade in her, but the white exhausted face when it was at rest revealed with a sorrowful clearness all that she had suffered through the sharp pain of the last months.

Captain Lincoln went back to her couch, and stood for a few moments while he spoke to her, looking at her with eyes that let her see more of what he was thinking than he probably knew. They were eyes into which had come an almost tender pity for her-that looked at her as they might have looked at some one they thought was dying.

"Is there nothing I can do for you? I wish you could give me something to do for you," he said to her abruptly.

"Do you?" she said. She lifted up her eyes to him, and gave a half laugh. "You are very good; but I don't know what you could do. You see these people who take care of me leave me nothing to wish for. But you are very good," she repeated, as she held out her hand.

And then he bade her good-by, and

came away.

"It would have been foolish-and quite unnecessary to have proposed to go back again," he said to himself as he walked to the gate. "I am glad I did not do it." But nevertheless he had been upon the point of doing it, when she had held her hand out to him.

He went on to his brother's thinking of her, half with pity, half with amaze

ment.

"There she lies dying," he said to himself; "and yet the old nature in her is so strong that she must play still with any man who comes near her, and practise new coquetries while one foot is in the grave! How strange it is! But it is her instinct, I suppose; she can't help it, And how beautiful she is now! All that loose arrangement of her hair-I know it was done for pure effect,—but how perfect the effect was! Poor girl! Poor girl! The chances are, I suppose, that I shall never see her again, for I cannot believe that

she will live much longer now,—but I am glad that I have at least seen her this once,--I am very glad of it," he said.

And then, when he reached his brother's, he began to talk in the same strain.

"I have seen Miss Trevelyan," he said to Dudley. "I was calling just now at the house, and while I was waiting for Mrs. Trevelyan, she called to me from the next room to come and speak to her. How changed she is !-and yet how like she is to her old self too through it all."

"Yes: except in her face she is very little altered," Dudley said. "She manages to keep her old high spirits wonderfully-doesn't she? I am glad you saw her, though I did not expect that you would, for she has not seen another creature yet except ourselves."

"I believe she merely called me in on the impulse of the moment. She is a curious woman! As to these high spirits-I don't know that her keeping of them is very admirable. I must say that to me they seem to jar rather painfully upon one. I couldn't help thinking, as she talked to us, that to see a woman lying there dying-"

"I trust she isn't dying, Fred."

"Well-at any rate, so ill that she is more likely to die than live-I couldn't help thinking that to see a woman in such circumstances, without apparently one serious thought—”

"You are unjust to her. She has many serious thoughts."

"I can only say they do not appear on the surface, then."

"That may be, perhaps. I don't deny

it. But why do you always persist in judging Hero by nothing but what you see upon the surface? She is worth learning better than that. Upon my word, Fred, I can't think how you can run her down just now!" Dudley exclaimed. "I should have thought that the sight of her would have softened you to her, if anything could have done it."

"The sight of her has softened me to her -but it is just because it has softened me so greatly, that the incongruity between

her manners and the circumstances of her case strikes me the more. Softened me!" Captain Lincoln said,-" of course she has softened me. Why, merely to look at her now!-she was lying with all her hair like a shower of gold about her, and the face was quite wonderfully beautiful -too beautiful, I am afraid, for any woman likely to live. Indeed, when it is at rest it is almost like the face of some one dead already. Poor girl!" Fred said,—and took up a newspaper that was near him, and glanced at it for a few moments, and then began to talk of her again.

"In fact," as Mr. Lincoln said to Hero next day, "you seemed quite to have muddled his mind, and he kept moralizing over you, off and on, all the evening. What made you give him that interview yesterday, Hero? you must have done it out of mere caprice?"

"Well-and may I not be capricious when I can ?—when my opportunities for it are so few now?" she said, and laughed. "I had been so dull and stupid all day yesterday you can't think how stupid I had been-and when Fred came, and was maundering about in there with nobody to talk to, it seemed to me that he might just as well come in and amuse me a little bit. And so I called him—and frightened him so. Did he tell you how I frightened him? Poor Fred-he was very good, on the whole,-though I think at the end he was heartily glad to get out of the house again, for he looked very

much as if he thought he should hardly make his escape before I was dead. He seemed to imagine that he had almos come in for the last scene. Didn't he tell you so?"

There was a curious sort of reckles ness about her that often made her jest in this way. It was as though, knowing that the shadow of death was alway hanging over her, she had resolved in de fiance to make of it a playfellow and companion: she would not be frightened at its horrors; she would not have it only as a dim ghost to haunt her; she put oct her hand to it, and, as it were, grasped it and laughed at it. And yet, hide them as she would, the girl was full of seriou and solemn thoughts. "You do not think that I have no reverence in me, do you, because I sometimes make a jest of what other people do not jest at?" she one day said half wistfully to Dudley. “A do not think that! One can only show others a bit of one's heart; the bigger part of it keeps itself always behind lock and key, it seems to me." She smiled a little as she spoke, but the smile had a kind of tremor in it. Sometimes it hap pened that Hero spoke more openly to Dudley Lincoln than she ever did to her own people; yet even to him it was only at moments, and in a few sudden, quiet words, that she ever showed the thought that lay in her beneath the surface, or for an instant lifted the veil that bid her greatest weakness or her greatest strength.

SWIFT-WINGED birds sail lightly through the air, merrily chattering with each other, or sounding trumpet-like their powerful notes on high, happy in the foretaste of the warm days and the abundant food that is waiting for them at the South, and happier still, as they return, in the familiar home, the place of their birth, and the scene of their early sports, which their prophetic eye sees from afar. There is deep and true poetry in this merry, airy journey which they undertake every spring and every fall, in their cheerful companionship, and the gleesome songs and jubilant chorus with which they lighten their labor, and rejoice the heart of man, who is bound to the glebe. Who has not once in his life wished to have the wings of the birds, to cleave the air and wander to happier, sunnier climes? Who has not said to himself, in the loneliness of his grief, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest!" and yet found comfort in the thought that He hides us under the shadow of His wings, which are better than all the strength of men and the power of princes!

Far different are the wanderings of fourfooted beasts, although they also are impelled by a marvellous instinct to undertake great journeys, in which they cross stormy seas and lofty mountains, and brave death in every form with a steadiness of purpose, and confiding trust in their Maker, which could teach us many a sober lesson. Their wanderings, however, are not, like the migrations of birds, great events in nature, that regularly recur twice a year, and are seen by thousands of admiring spectators. Some are yet hid altogether from the eye of man. The Swiss marmots, for instance, first cousin to our woodchucks, leave every spring their winter quarters, in which they have been comfortably slumbering during the cold months, and make their way slowly and painfully through deep furrows and crevices in the rocks to remote parts of the upper Alps and the

highest peaks of the Pyrenees. Althongt the journey is made by daylightfor the marmot cannot do without it night's rest-no man has ever yet bee able to meet the strange wanderers. The mystery is probably due to the hidden paths on which they travel from excessive caution, and the amazing swiftness with which they hide behind rock and furze, conscious that they canno escape by flight.

The only point of resemblance between winged and four-footed wanderers is, that the latter also either undertake regular migrations at fixed periods, or roam about, gypsy-like, following the temptation of abundant food and pleasant water, wher ever they find such provisions. St others are driven by famine or flood from their ancient homes, appear suddenly and in terrifying numbers, spreading with amazing rapidity over vast districts, and then vanish again as suddenly as they had come, without leaving a trace behind them. Even our domestic animals, it is well known, have to perform journeys, often of considerable length and not without peril, from their pleasant summer pastures on distant meadows or high mountain-slopes to their warm winter quarters in ample stables, and back again Swiss cattle, as renowned for their intelligence as for their beauty, travel thus many a weary league, but always with great delight. No sooner is in early spring the large bell heard, which hangs from the neck of the leader, than the cows are seen to run up to each other with wild leaps and loud lowings, and great commotion is seen in every stable and farm-yard. And truly marvellous is their delight, when at last the fairest of their herd, bearing the largest bell, skilfully attuned to accord with the other chimes, and adorned with bright ribbons, a large bunch of flowers between her horns, sets out on the mountain path, while the herdsmen begin their Alpine songs, which the mountains re-echo far and near, and young and old crowd by

ter.

In other cases large flocks of sheep, for instance, have to be driven southward with the beginning of winter, to provide for their grazing. The northern portions of Germany, and above all, the northern provinces of Spain, thus send annually millions of these useful animals to more highly favored regions. In Spain the traveller meets in September many a flock of more than ten thousand merinoes, who leave the mountainous regions on their way to classic La Mancha and loyal Estremadura. They used to enjoy the privilege of free pasture on their way to and fro, wherever they happened to be at night—so highly did the Spaniards esteem the importance of wool as a source of national wealth-but the right was so shamefully abused by indolent and reckless shepherds, and the injury done to agriculture was so serious, that only a few districts continue to show the same courtesy. They travel with strange rapidity, for although the distance is often not less than four or five hundred miles, they reach their destination in forty days, and the loss on the way is inconsiderable. Then comes a touching feature in these strange wanderings: the stupid, stolid looking animals immediately recognize from afar already, the pasture places of last year, and each one returns

with unerring instinct to the meadow on which it first saw the light of day. When winter is passed, and May promises fair crops of short but fragrant and most nutritious grass on the mountain sides of Old Castile and Arragon, the shepherds gather their largely increased flocks and lead them back to the north, while not a few of the older sheep often escape, impelled by an irresistible longing, even before the general breaking-up, and make their way, no one knows how, to their beloved pastures, where they are found by the returning shepherd quietly grazing.

The same reasons which thus lead cattle and goats, horses and sheep, to seek the sustenance denied them in one region farther off in another, forces wild beasts also to change their home twice in the year. When winter covers hill and dale with its white pall, and checks the growth of plants and the life of small living creatures, they leave their inhospitable forests and seek the places where food is abundant. Foxes and hares, wolves and deer, wild boars, and even wild cats, come nearer to the habitations of man, to profit by his work in the summer, and to feast on his own provisions. Others do still worse; martins and weasels, ermines and countless varieties of mice at once take possession of his house, and, careless about their welcome, install themselves in convenient corners to endure the rigors of winter. These journeys, however, are naturally but short, and vary according to the nature of the animal by whom they are undertaken; we mention, therefore, here merely the curious and yet almost unknown habits of our domestic cats, who, in cities as well as in villages, in large numbers leave their winter homes to enjoy the summer in the country, and faithfully return to the warm fireside when the nights begin to be cold. They seem to enjoy the freedom of the fields and woods, but especially the abundance of small game, doing great harm to our singing-birds, and return not unfrequently with a strange, half-wild progeny. It almost seems as if the cat, never entirely tamed, and attached not to man but to the locali