a garden sloping to the sea. A summer day in southern latitudes.

"And so, after all these years," cried a lady reclining on a cushioned sofa, "Henry Fitzgibbon has come back again!"

"Aye, he has come at last." "I am so curious to see him. We must go early, Mr. Travers, and have a talk with him before the other people come. And with regard to the girls, Miss Morton "— Mrs. Travers raised herself a little, and turned her head-"as my sister likes you to be early, you had better join us about eight."

At the far end of the room Margaret Morton sits writing, with a cheek that nine years have paled, and a figure that their hand has made more slight. All the rounded comeliness of former days is gone; and yet that calm, refined, strong face is beautiful now with a beauty it never possessed of old. The dark eyes have a deep tender look in them, sometimes sad, oftener composed and cheerful; for she has wrought her way out of that great anguish of her youth, and it shades her years now only with a silent and subdued sadness, not any longer with passionate sorrow and revolt.

Yet the love that caused that bitter suffering has been the leading star-the refining element of her life. Its influence has led her in everything that she has donein everything that she has struggled to become. She has been true to it in her whole heart and being, in spite of Philip's injustice, in spite of her own renunciation.

She has risen to the position of a governess in a merchant's family. Hither and thither her lot has led her, during these nine years, over that wide American continent: she is now in a pleasant southern town on the coast of Florida. She is all alone in the world. The kind uncle who brought her over is dead; the sickly mother dead, too, a year ago; her brother, the only one remain

ing, is a fortune-seeker in California.

"You will be at my sister's at eight o'clock," Mrs. Travers said; and at eight o'clock Margaret and her two pupils sat in Mrs. Maurice's drawing-room.

She sat before a side table strewn with books, and whiled the time away in turning them over. There were a few small groups of ladies in the room, making a faint buzz of conversation, but it was not loud enough to interrupt her. For a long while she read undisturbed, until the feeble buzz at last leaped into quicker animation, for the drawing-room door was opened, and new voices sounded, new faces entered and filled the room.

A few feet from where she sat there stood a small empty sofa. Towards this there presently came two persons, and took possession of it-Mrs. Travers, and a gentleman whose face was strange to Margaret. As they sat down it was he who spoke first.

"Begin from your own marriage, and tell me everything," he said. "What has become of all my old friends? I can scarcely see or hear of one of them."

"I can give you a score of histories," she answered. "Who shall I begin with?" And they fell at once into an animated talk together.

It might have lasted perhaps for half an hour, when, after a momentary pause, Margaret heard these words:

"In the midst of all this," Mrs. Travers's companion said, "how in the world have you contrived to be so little changed? To look at you I can scarcely believe that I have ever been away; yet the whole morning I have been complaining to Langton that I cannot recognize a single face I see."

She looked up with an involuntary start, but it was only for a moment. She had heard strangers called by that name before. There

were more Langtons in the world than hers.

"By the way," Mrs. Travers said, "who is this Mr. Langton? Where did you pick him up?" "Langton? Oh, he is a man with some name in political circles in England. He is just now secretary to Lord ———.”

"He is not in the room at present, is he? I am so blind-but I don't see him."

"No; he and Travers got into a discussion together, and we left them to fight it out."

They turned the talk back to their own affairs. With a low sigh Margaret stooped her face again upon her book. "It is not Philip, it is not Philip," she whispered to herself. Bending her head she shaded her eyes, and for a minute closed their lids; and before her attitude was altered, before her eyes were reopened, there fell upon her ear the long-unheard voice.

"How beautiful your open sea here is," it said. "It brings to my mind the only place where I ever lived before by the open sea-a little village in the south of England."

She looked up and saw him. That vision that nine years had robbed her of; that lover to whose memory her life, with all its struggles, successes, endurances, had been an offering. There, before her, his foot within a pace of where she sat, his dark familiar face clear in her sight; familiar, and yet how strange, after this absence, this silence, this abnegation of nine years.

A hand was laid kindly on her arm, and on her ear came the tones of another voice

"You feel this room very hot," it said, "do you not, Miss Morton? I am sure you are hot, you look so pale and tired. Come away with me, and let us take a little walk upon the terrace."

The outstretched hand drew her from her seat. Oh, this was cruel!

There leaped up to her lips one piteous cry-one helpless cry of passionate resistance; and then she rose and went. A way she went, from where her hungry eyes had rested, to the dimly-lighted terrace. "Now take my arm; we will walk for a little here."

She answered, "Yes," but she could not do it. She tried, and walked a dozen steps; the suddenly stood still and cried

"Let me sit down." She leant against a pillar near her.

"Mrs. Carlton, let me sit down! Here, where it is not light; oh here, where it is not light!" she cried.

"My dear, there is no seat: stand still one moment."

Pausing to ask no questions, Mrs. Carlton hurried to the house. She was absent for a few seconds; then she returned, and not alone. Another arm was laden with the chair that she had gone to find, and another hand set it by Margaret's side.

"Thank you, Mr. Langton. Now, my dear, sit down. You will be better soon in this fresh air.”

She sat down as she was bidden; helplessly, without a word. She gave no thanks.

Having come, he stayed. Deliberately and at once he took the place where she had stood, and leant where she had leant against the pillar. He stood with his face partly towards her, with the light upon it.

"We shall never teach this northern snowdrop to bear our southern warmth," Mrs. Carlton said. "Mr. Langton, are all your countrywomen so hard to accustom to new climates? Are they all such fragile creatures as this one?"

He turned his head where Margaret sat, and looked at her. Following that look there came no change upon his face, no token in him of recognition, nothing but this quiet answer

"You are used to a warmer coloring here. Our northern snows rob Englishwomen of that."

"And yet England is a good way from the pole. And you are not like a snowdrop, Mr. Langton, at all." "I am scarcely English; my mother was an Italian."

"Was she? I did not know. And have you lived in Italy? Ah, Mr. Langton!" she cried suddenly, in a quick outburst of her southern enthusiasm, "tell me about Italy. What parts of it do you know? Do you know Rome and Venice? Ah, tell me about them."

Her request was eager, but he was very slow to do her bidding. Possibly his thoughts were occupied to-night with other things than Italy's falling palaces and walls; yet presently her quick questionings roused him: he warmed and spoke. There, where the light fell on his face, illumining each kindling lineament, he stood and talked to her of the mighty cities of the

south.

It was a thing that might have been a dream, so strange, unreal; the southern summer night and the softened lights; the scene so unlike all scenes of home, and yet in the midst of it, so calmly, quietly mingling with it, that one home figure, the centre star of Margaret's life. But even he so changed. All calmed, softened, refined; the old dark face, dark and irregular still, but in its whole expression grown so full of harmony and strength; its restive pride composed, its aggressive temper all subdued.

She listened to him as he talked, listened at first with a strange thrilling wonder of delight, then presently with a nameless sickening pain. Oh! she had striven all these years to reach up to his height, and he had left her in the race, as if she had not run.

"And now, after all your European wanderings," Mrs. Carlton said, "you have at last come here."

He answered, "Yes." "Are you going farther south?" "No; I shall retrace my steps now."

"But not at once, I hope?"

"I may leave to-morrow. If not to-morrow, still as soon as possible."

Sitting in the shadow, Margaret heard, and lifted up her head, swiftly, suddenly, driven by the startling cry of her sharp misery. She lifted up her head, and her raised eyes saw

Oh! this was no stranger's look upon her--this was no stranger's gaze, sending its keen light through her!

"So soon as to-morrow? Why, Mr. Langton, you will have seen nothing."

"I shall have seen what I came to see," he answered.

"Ah well! About that I cannot speak," she said laughing; and there was a few moments' pause, which was broken presently by a sound of music coming through the opened door.

"That is Mrs. Travers's voice," Mrs. Carlton said. "Mr. Langton, you must come and hear her, she has the finest voice I know. Miss Morton will you remain here, or come with us? You had better both come."

She went forward towards the door, and Mr. Langton followed her.

One moment Margaret saw the two figures stand upon the threshold; then one went forward and the other retraced his steps.

He came back in silence, calmly and quietly, to the place that he had left, into Margaret's full sightthere where she sat motionless, her clasped hands as he neared her only closing their fingers tighter.

He stood before her in silence for several moments; then, through the distant music, she heard his voice.

"She said I should see nothing," he said abruptly. "She was wrong. Shall I tell you what I have seen ?"

His eyes were directed towards her, but he did not wait for her to speak. Before she could reply he spoke again.

"She told me to tell her about ruined cities. There are other ruins besides fallen stones. One such," and his voice sank into infinite tenderness, "I have seen tonight, a temple that I left entire -fresh from God's hand."

She rose up suddenly from her seat and stood before him with her slight figure erect, and with all that she had in her of gentle pride gathered upon her face.

"My white face does me wrong to-night," she said. "I am no ruin. I have known sorrow, as others have; but no sorrow I have felt has crushed me. I have grown to look old, perhaps; but I am not young now, even in years."

His dark face had for a moment thrown off its mask, but all tenderness that in word or look had begun to appear in him shrank back before her words. The pause that came when she ceased to speak was broken by this cold reply:

"If there has been no suffering then my petition may be granted the more easily. I have come a long way," he said slowly, "to ask your forgiveness for a wrong done to you long ago." He paused for a moment, and then his voice grew bitter as he ended. "It will cost you little to grant it. When the pain of a wrong has ceased, we can forgive the wronger easily."

She had been very calm outwardly when she had spoken, but now her hands were crushed to

gether, and her eyes, fixed on his face, were troubled and dark. She stood one moment shivering; then all her love rose in a wild defence, and out of that nine years' silence leaped this cry

"It has not ceased! oh, the pain has not ceased!"

Her head fell down upon her parted hands, she hid her face upon them, and broke with passionate helplessness into a low piteous sob.

And then as she stood there desolate, once more, in its deep loving tenderness, she heard his voice

"Margaret, I have been faithful," he cried. "In spite of that harsh wrong I have lived for you. I have worked for you. I came to pray for more than forgiveness. I came to pray for my reward."

It was far away that English village by the old familiar sea, yet, before his tones had died away, how there flashed back on her a picture of it, clearer than the sight of tropic land. She lifted up her eyes-the loving gaze of old was on her face; she raised her arms-they fell to their old place upon his neck; she spoke to him.

Long years ago he had told her to wait for him till he came back. Like a child delivering up its trust, she whispered

"I have waited!"

That was all. From him there only came one passionate low utterance of her name. Then between them there was perfect silence, and they stood beneath the tropic trees as they had stood nine years before under the sea-cliff at Brent.

THE golden maxim, "Man, know thyself," applies not only to the study of ourselves as the noblest of God's creation, but likewise to our relations with those various

forms of government in which our conduct as men and citizens may render us suited or unsuited to the part we are called to play in society. As men we must study our relations to our fellow-man, how we may best fulfil our obligations to the government that we rejoice in calling our own, not because we established it, but because we are called through our personal responsibilities and obligations, as far as in us lies, to defend and perpetuate it.

Simply as citizens this obligation is binding; as Christians another link is placed to this chain of duty, while as Catholics, members of a church always on the side of the weak, we are doubly bound to study our position in a government which professes equal respect for the poor as for the rich, and while submitting to all laws made for the amelioration of the condition of both, repel, with the energy of conscious duty, anything that might tend to circumvent or destroy the glorious privileges secured by our venerable predecessors of 1776.

No portion of American history has greater charms for the Catholic student than the relations of the deeds of our fathers, and this probably induced our professors, than whom none are more faithful citizens, and the proprietors of the CATHOLIC RECORD, than whom none do more to elevate the intellectual condition of our people,-this, permit us to say, has probably suggested to them the propriety of giving the students of La Salle College, for the subject of their prize essay in the graduating class,

the very charming and almost inexhaustible theme upon which we have the pleasure of speaking to you this evening.

The troublesome period of the Revolution, with all its clamor and tumult, with all the evils of existing distresses, and all the dread influence of threatening power, affords a grand source for the commencement of the history of a people.

It is difficult to give this subject the appearance of originality, for within the last few years it has formed the theme of many pens. This need not deter us from entering into a discussion of the question, for truth like beauty is ever new, and, however ancient, can never grow old.

Nearly a century ago the nation was writhing under the yoke and insults of regal tyranny, and a foreign power was exhausting its resources and dwarfing its growth. The few undaunted heroes, who looked around with the agonized aspect which none but suffering patriots can assume, beheld nothing but weaponless men and defenceless families. This was the time that "tried men's souls," and cooled the courage of the bravest. Mighty minds and brave hearts trembled at the disparity of the belligerents, but, with the courage and fortitude of heroes, men gathered to defend their country and their honor; they gathered from the houses of the wealthy and from the hovels of the poor; from the lofty mountains and the wild prairies; the farmer abandoned his plough and the hunter his sport, and with brave resolves and daring deeds they entered upon the trials and afflictions that have followed their lonely marches and watched their weary vigils; that have cast a shade of sadness over their mem