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sleep, Anita crept from her room and concealed this evil charm beneath the lining of the sofa on which Arnold was in the habit of taking his siesta, uttering, as she did so, a form of anathema which might have frightened an evil spirit himself.

Returning to her own apartment, she searched for a vial of prussic acid, and as she held it up before the lamp, savagely muttered:

"If that fails, this will do the work surely and well. A single drop in his ear, and he will die, as did that little one, longlong ago."

She shuddered at the memory of a ghastly face which once lay pillowed on her breast, and precipitately closed the drawer.

CHAPTER XXX.

ORA would not shadow the happiness of her mother's marriage by permitting her to see the anguish that filled her own breast. With the courage of the Spartan boy, she concealed the wound which at moments she believed would prove fatal, for her affection for Arthur had strenghtened until she despairingly thought that death would be better than separation from him. Yet she dared no longer think of him as a lover -another claimed him as her husband, and to her of right belonged all the love she had prized as the bright jewel of her life.

The conduct of Clayton added to this suffering, for he hung upon her steps, listened to her words, and often wrung

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'Mother, do not let my silly fancies disturb your new-found happiness. I suffer now because Arthur-Mr. Clayton-will not let my decision against him be final. He follows me, he persecutes me, and I cannot escape from him."

"Yet you weep because you have refused to see him, as you did but now? My child, this seems sadly inconsistent. You cannot understand your own heart, or you would not trifle thus with your happiness. I thought you loved Mr. Clayton, Dora?" "Yes-I did as a brother, but he can be nothing more to me," she evasively replied.

Mrs. Linden arose, and looked from the window a few moments in troubled thought. She at length said:

"You refuse me your confidence, and I cannot demand that you shall bare your heart before me. I see you suffer, yet cannot aid you. Will change of scene help you to regain your spirits, my love?"

Dora eagerly grasped at this proposal. She said:

"Oh, yes! take me away where I cannot see him-where I can have time to conquer myself. That is all I need. Yes, mother, take me away at once."

"It seems very strange to me, Dora, but I will do the best I can for you-though I am acting quite in the dark. Mr. Linden and myself contemplate a visit to New Orleans, and we will hurry our departure, taking you and Grace with us. I will give Mr. Clayton a hint that we do not wish him to join the party, as you seem to desire to avoid him. Shall it be so, love?" "If you please, mother," was the quiet response.

But when Mrs. Linden left the room, she threw herself upon the bed, and wept so violently that it seemed to her all that had gone before was as nothing to this tempest of passion.

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"Oh, Arthur! Arthur! how shall I live without seeing you, without knowing that you are near me! Yes, I will go-I will forget-will be strong; for this is worse than silly-it is crimifrom her involuntary proofs that his influence was still all-pow-nal, knowing as I do that you are the husband of another woerful, and, heedless of the anguish he occasioned, he would show her how much he exulted in this; how determined he was that she should not escape from the tie which bound her so strongly to himself, although she assured him again and again that she would never marry him while Otelia lived.

Colonel Wentworth took a more dispassionate view of the position of the two toward each other, and he permitted Clayton to visit his house as usual when his niece was there, in the belief that time would gradually reconcile her to the existence of his strangely-wedded bride, and by the time Arthur was legally free to offer her his hand, Dora would know that only by accepting it could she secure happiness in the future.

In the meantime, this conflict of feeling caused the young sufferer to grow pale and nervous, and her mother was roused from the new happiness that filled her own heart to fear and tremble for her darling. She watched to discover the cause of her changed spirits, and soon saw that Clayton was the author of the evil, though how or why she could not determine; for he seemed more devoted than ever to Dora, while she received his attentions as if she wished to repel them, yet had not firmness to do so.

Mrs. Linden spoke to her brother, but Clayton's secret was still confined to the knowledge of himself and his niece, and he did not feel authorized to divulge it. She then had recourse to her daughter. She entered Dora's room when she knew she was alone, and found her with her head bent down beside a window which opened upon the approach to the house; and when she turned her face toward her, she saw that it was covered with tears. They were hastily wiped away, as she beheld her mother within a few paces of ber, while she attempted to smile.

A horseman was vanishing in the distance, riding slowly and despondently away, and Mrs. Linden knew that Dora had positively refused to see him only half an hour before, and now watched his departure with such signs of grief as were not to be mistaken. She drew her to a seat beside her, and tenderly said: 'My beloved Dora, why is this? You no longer confide in me; you cherish a secret grief which I am not permitted to share-a grief whose course is incomprehensible to me. Speak, my darling. To whom should you unburden your heart, if not to your mother?"

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Dora crushed back her tears, and calmly replied:

man."

She would go to New Orleans, plunge into the gayety of the carnival which was approaching, and experiment upon her own heart, to see how much it would bear. If it gained strength in absence, it was well; if not, she dared not look to the alternative, for she feared that her very existence was staked on the issue.

Arthur alternately hoped and desponded. He had received no replies to the two letters sent to Otelia in the early days of their separation, and pride prevented him from addressing her again. In the present miserable state of his mind he felt as if he must hear from the Park, and learn how affairs had gone on there since his departure. He had no intimate friends near his uncle's residence, and he hesitated as to whether he should write to the family lawyer, or to the clergyman who had performed the inauspicious ceremony which was now binding him to misery.

He finally concluded that as Mr. Carleton knew the source of his interest in all that concerned Otelia, he would address him; and forthwith a letter was indited which was to carry consternation into the parsonage, and fear to the good but weak man who had been lured into doing what his conscience always condemned.

The arrangements for the proposed trip to New Orleans were made, and the day after Clayton had heard it discussed and decided on at the Cane Brake, Colonel Wentworth placed in his hand a note from his niece. He remarked:

"I've done all I conscientiously can do for you, Arthur; and now I've come to the conclusion that Dora must be permitted to manage her affairs her own way. I shall always be your fast friend; but since I talked with her last night I am convinced that she will be miserable if she marries you under such circumstances as she must, if she accepts you at all; and my opinion is, that the only fair chance the poor child has to recover her spirits is to let her have her own way, and no longer trouble her with devotion which she thinks it a sin for you to feel for her."

"Yet, I believe if it is withdrawn, she will be more miserable than she now is," replied Arthur, gloomily. "I cannot help thinking Dora unreasonably fastidious. Can she not let things glide quietly on as they did before this cruel knowledge came

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to her, and put off the necessity for a decision until the time arrives when I can ask her to make it?"

"Ah, my boy, you know that by that time Dora would have lost all power to cling to the right. She comprehends that, and therefore refuses such trifling with destiny. Read her note, and give me your answer, for I am hurried this morning."

Arthur glanced over these words:

"I have consented to accompany my mother, that I may escape from the power you still triumph in wielding over me; for I am resolute to do that which is right. I demand of you that you shall not follow me; and if you do, I assure you that I will come back at once to the Cane Brake, without seeing or enjoying anything. If you wish to deprive me of such advantages as I may obtain from change of scene, by pursuing me with your usual reckless disregard for my peace, you can do so but I will not meet you before I re-embark for my home.

He snatched a pen and wrote in reply:

"DORA."

I

"Your letter is cruel; but I forgive you, and I cease to persecute you from this hour. I can do so, Dora, for the assurance that you will yet be mine beats so strongly in my heart. that can afford to wait. Yes, you will be mine yet-remember that, and do not make too strenuous efforts to root out the love which shall in time be the blessing of our united hearts. Ever your devoted

"ARTHUR."

GREATNESS stands upon a precipice; and if prosperity carry a man ever so little beyond his poise, it overbears and dashes him to pieces.

GIANT TREES OF SOUTH AMERICA.

CALIFORNIA boasts her monster trees, but she must yield the palm to South America. In a South American forest one of the longest-lived of plants is the Great Locust tree, which from the infancy of the sapling to the decay of age, ranges from two thousand to four thousand years. "In one place where these prodigious trees were found," says a learned traveler, "it appeared to me as if it were the portals of a magnificent temple, not constructed by the hands of man, but by God Himself, as if to awe the mind of the spectator with a holy dread of His own presence. Never before had I beheld such enormous trunks; they looked more like living rocks than trees; for it was only on the pinnacle of their bare and naked bark that foliage could be discovered, and that at such a distance from the eye that the forms of the leaves could not be made out. Fifteen Indians with outstretched arms could only just embrace one of them." His careful sketch of the tree is here given. The Mexican cypress -found in the same latitudes as the preceding-is of the same

family as the yew. When fully grown the stem is straight, tapering, and spirally twisted like a corkscrew. It is ninety feet round its base, and is stated by Professor Henslow to live to the wonderful age of four thousand years. The great traveler, Baron Humboldt, describes a tree of this species which measures one hundred and eighteen feet round; and it is related that a greater part of the Spanish army under Cortes once reclined under its shadow.

THE man who likes widely, for the most part, likes truly.

THE STORY OF THE TRENHOLMS.

would be rendered superlatively wretched through the contemplation of so many varied perfections of person and toilet.

"WELL, who is it?''

CHAPTER I.

The stranger-a woman still young-was tall and sallow, with hollow cheeks and great brown dark-circled eyes, and altogether

"A-lady, ma'am," answered Janet, with visible hesitation, such a worn and wearied look that something like a half-pitying "and she would give no name."

"Would give no name?" echoed Mrs. Geraldine Trenholm. "She said that it was useless, for you did not know her, ma'am."

"Oh," cried madame, with a contemptuous shrug, "some one of those stupid charity-fair people, I suppose. But she will get nothing here; I have no money to waste on such make-believe Godliness. Do I look well, Janet?"

Janet's answer was given with characteristic warmth.

emotion really fluttered the well-steeled heart of the approach-
ing divinity. She came forward with a gracious smile.
"Whom have I the pleasure of meeting, madame?''
"I am Eleanor Chamberlayne-Clinton Chamberlayne's
wife."

The announcement was made with icy composure. Evidently
this was a lady, Janet's reluctant admission notwithstanding.
"I did not know," faltered the other, the gracious smile now
dead upon her lips and a ghastly pallor over-creeping the rose-

"You look like an angel, Mrs. Trenholm-an angel spic and tint of her cheeks-"I did not know—" span new from the skies."

The angel smiled complacently, and, by way of recompense for this disinterested homage, threw back a pleasant command as she swept from the room.

"Did not know that he was married? Oh, yes you did. He has told you-confessed what others would have betrayed. Reckless as he may be, he is not reckless enough to deny that fact." "Pardon me," corrected Mrs. Trenholm, with haughty em

"Take away that green dress, Janet; it is getting to be quite phasis, "I did not know it." shabby."

Certainly Mrs. Geraldine Trenholm was a very lovely woman. Small, with masses of fair hair bewilderingly coiled and curled; a clear skin, well-cut features, and eyes large, gray, and heavily shaded. To all these add the chiefest charm--an expresion of innocence almost

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adorers - and she

had sufficient artfulness to be charmingly naturalwhen it suited her. A coquette, you see; but then, frankly, could she well be different? Assuredly not. So, the wor

ship of the men, the envy of the women, were little atten

tions which she received and repaid in kind.

Upon this neverto-be-forgotten morning, Mrs. Trenholm wore a robe of rich black silk, relieved by vivid colorings; these contrasted well with the fresh brilliancy of her complexion and the pale gold of her hair. So it was with

a little anxious sigh that she wondered whether her visitor

"It is true, nevertheless. I have been ill for some timeyou may see that now-ill and away in the country. He does not suspect that I am here."

"But why are you here."

"Why?"-a sneer quivered across the colorless lips-" well,

"I STOOD THERE WHEN THEY OPENED THE COFFIN. YOU HAD A KEY, SIR.

THEM LIFT YOU OUT; MR. CHAMBERLAYNE DID THAT.

because the know-
ledge came to me
the other day -- it
does not matter how
-that he had be-
come your shadow.
Is that true?"
"Madame!"'

"Pray do not be offended. In accusing you I also accuse one who has been very dear to me. I confess to you that I love my husband and I cherish his honor. You will understand, therefore, that i have been jealous, suspicious, watchful; and I have discovered that you are compromised. The expression is guarded. I might use plainer language and still be strictly truthful, you know. Is this assertion false?"

"Most certainly," was the prompt reply.

"In that case you will be good enough to explain this letter. You may take it, it is only a copy."

Mrs. Trenholm caught at the proffered paper. Her

eyes ran over the penciling. Then she sat very still, saying never a word.

"It bewilders you," continued her

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visitor, always in

that icy, even tone.

VOL. XXVII., No. 2-8

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"I do not wonder at that. I arrived in the city several days you nor I may never hope to know him. Good and true and since. This morning, only, I went to Mr. Chamberlayne's honest-there is Clinton Chamberlayne. And why do you drag hotel; he was absent, unfortunately; his servant took me to his name to me? if you were wise you would not do it. I his room and then went to seek his master. Whilst alone I loved him once; you know that; but he was poor then, and I employed my time profitably. I instituted a search; the result -a wretch whom in His anger God would not kill-I deceived was that I found a package of letters; that is a copy of the him, Clinton Chamberlayne! Would he stoop to me now, do latest; I made it then. When my husband came, I received you think ?'' him with the utmost amiability, and he suspected nothing. I did not accuse him; but you, can you divine why I am here?''

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"I am your debtor, I can never forget that, madame." This he said as he led her to the door, and she went her way without so much as a glance at that poor face, so pallid with its dumb agony and fear.

Presently the husband was back again. Now, this man, the wretched drama of whose life we are about to learn, was a slim, black-eyed gentleman of forty-five, with a dark, impassible face, a low voice, a pleasant manner of speech, and a tenacity of opinion and purpose which was as unfortunate as singular, for through it he won no friends and lost no enemies. Those there were who could recall the period when the moral status of that unmanageable yet most unobjectionable person, Yorke Fitz-Hugh Trenholm, had been rated at the very lowest possible value; when, in fact, his name bad been the synonym for every vice and evil-doing. But all that was changed now; time had worked a miracle; a serious middle age followed the wildest excesses; an earnest passion shamed countless light o' love caprices.

We all know that worn out sinners make excellent calendar folk; as husbands, though, they are fearfully exacting; consequently, when Yorke Trenholm took to himself a wife, he deliberately walked into a purgatory of his own creation, and, by a sort of retributive justice, were his sins now visited upon him. In the merry days gone by he had held womanly purity and womanly honor as the cheapest of all cheap bargains, but with his marriage came a notable mending of morals; bad habits fell from him as dead leaves from a tree; he was fresh and vigorous, and almost young again; happy, too, when-what?

Only this the shame which he had thrust into so many homes now crouched at his own fireside. Ah! the thought was death!

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"I think so-yes."

"And you will not rest. I have been frank with you; that is true; at the same time I have been faithful. Many wives would have been neither the one nor the other." "Pure soul! And yet you have been so often and so foully slandered!"

She turned upon him slowly, fearlessly.

"no

"I have been slandered," she spoke very quietly now; one is so entirely convinced of that as yourself. I have been wretched, reckless; that is all. Love kept me from sin."

"See now, madame"-his calmness rivaled her own-" your correspondence with that man must cease."

"I cannot answer for what may be now," she muttered, sullenly. "Then it behooves me to answer for you. To begin as you deny having written that letter

"But understand me. I do not deny having written that letter, and many others; I only deny any further imprudence. If you were not blind with rage you might see that I am sinless, at least."

"Upon that point there can be but one opinion, therefore we need not discuss it. Your frankness, however, charms me, and, with your permission, I must attempt to rival it. Now, madame, the facts of your accusation are so evident to me, that your denial is simply monstrous. It cuts like a two-edged sword, for I find in it not only treachery, but pitiful cowardice. Do not imagine that I am about to create a scandal. I would not so smirch my good name. Neither shall you trail it in the dust. We understand each other now. You are a-false wife, and I know it. I do not speak of forgiveness, repentance, rehabilitation. Such sentimentalities may never be for us. But, I repeat, I shall act cautiously and wisely. I shall not put you away from me—

"You cannot," said his wife; "you could find no cause for that."

"I shall not put you away from me," he continued. "I shall not permit the name of my wife to be stricken from the roll of honest women; for you are mine, madame; so I shall keep you -I shall watch you. Be careful, then, in future. Remember that you have always at your side a judge who, God helping him, will be merciless.

CHAPTER II.

THE next afternoon, Monday, Mrs. Trenholm received a letter. It reached her through Janet, and that obliging creature tool: charge of the answer.

Husband and wife met as usual, and the most vigilant could have detected no cause for gossip in their pleasant interchange of matrimonial courtesies.

On Tuesday of the same week, at midnight, a cloaked figure stole from a small gate of the garden at the side of the Trenholm residence. Then, without a moment's hesitation it sped quickly on, utterly heedless of the fast-falling snow, which dimmed the flickering glare of the street-lamps, and spun around in whirling eddies.

At the nearest corner was a close carriage, the well-muffled driver standing beside it. When the figure reached him, he opened the door without a word. The other sprang within.

Then the driver leaped upon his box, the whip-lash cut the falling flakes, the horses bounded forward, and Mrs. Geraldine Trenholm's new life arose before her.

CHAPTER II.

Ir could have been but an hour later when the same carriage came whirling back. This time it stopped before Mr. Trenholm's door, and from it descended that gentleman and a lady. Janet met them as they entered the hall.

"Great Lord!" she cried, but said no more, for her master | of pure water. She understood all now; yet, she neither treminterrupted. bled nor wept.

"You are astonished to see her back soo soon, eh? You did not count upon this ending to your bargain, double-dyed Judas that you are! Go to your room! We have no need for you to-night."

And Janet flew up the stairs-she scented danger. As for Mrs. Trenholm, she said nothing-just remained as still and purposeless as a person in a half dream might have done. When the pair reached madame's chamber, they entered. Yorke Trenholm locked the door. His wife was standing, following his actions with great, frightened eyes, when he approached and quietly removed her cloak and heavy hood.

"You must be cold," he said. "Sit here."

She obeyed, passively; he seated himself opposite. "Now," he continued, "endeavor to recover yourself, and let us, if possible, end this affair at once. To begin, then, I shall acknowledge that trusting a woman like yourself was a dangerous experiment. Still, you were my wife, young, not altogether vicious, and I had some hope for you-and I loved you-I confess it with regret-I loved you. I need not remind you that love is impatient-it brooks no delay. I will tell you this, however, that, overpowering as it may be, jealousy is by far the keener passion. Naturally enough, after that scene the other day, I was jealous. What! wait for months, years, perhaps, for some evidence of your reformation, and then, after a lifetime of torturing doubts, die-the shameful fear yet battling with my soul? Bah! not J. I would have proof, and at once. I would be convinced, and at rest, forever. So I suborned your faithful go-between, Janet. I intercepted your lover's letter; I wrote another and sent that to you. In that other I proposed flight. I waited-ah, well! you do not know how anxiously I waited for the answer which was to decide so much! It came. You accepted the proffered dishonor. Ah! madame, verily is love blind, else would you have suspected the trap, or I would have killed you when you lay in these arms and called me by his accursed name !"

He ceased, his head fell upon his hands. For a few moments there was a silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire, and the tick-ticking of the clock.

"Will you hear me?"

It was Mrs. Trenholm who spoke. "I listen."

"Before I ever knew you, we loved, Clinton Chamberlayne and I. Then he was forced to go away, and they married me to you. He was not rich, you see, and I was weak, God help me! Do you talk of treachery? Why, I deceived him, whom I loved above all else on earth! He went-trusting me. He returned to find me your wife! And I never forgot that fact. Careless, reckless wretch as I was, I never did you an actual wrong. Then this woman came. Do you tell me of jealousy? Were there no tortures for me, think you? How I suffered! But he is not her husband; he swore to me that he was not, and I believe. What I would have done cannot matter now. This only I declare to you: I am not what you think I am."

"You astonish me, madame. Yet even that possible truth is of no moment now: You may be innocent; still you will admit, however, that you are somewhat compromised?"

"I suppose so-yes."

"And that you really intended making a wretch of yourself? You do right not to reply. No woman in your position would be truthful. But your lover and yourself seem altogether to have overlooked the fact that there is always a third party in these little escapades-the husband. And now it is time that I should be heard; I have but few words to say; yet, first, answer me. Is life dear to you?"

"Without him-no!" was the defiant retort. "And should you be separated?”

"I would die."

"Very well. I thank you for this frankness; it renders my duty less difficult."

He turned from her abruptly, and passed to the other side of the room. Watching eagerly, the wretched woman saw him at the table-saw the contents of a tiny vial poured into the glass

Mr. Trenholm placed the goblet upon the table, and approached his wife.

"I have examined this affair thoroughly," he said, in a calm, unmoved voice, "and I cannot really reconcile it with my conscience that this world should be scandalized by two such sinners as yourself and that man. One of you must die. If you still cling to life, why, then, he shall be the sacrifice." "You would murder him? Oh, coward!"

"Do you call it murder?" he asked, with well-feigned surprise. "I call it justice. As for you, dear lady, do you remember what his wife said to you? Well, she was right. You are mine-my purchase, my chattel, my slave. I shall keep you."

Crimson flushes stained the woman's cheeks, and her breath came in quick, hard gasps.

"And if I do not cling to life-if I choose death?" she asked, hurriedly.

"Then he escapes."

"Swear it!"

"I swear. There is really no need for such an oath. Your own good sense might assure you that there would be but little satisfaction in sending your souls adrift together. My plan of vengeance is far better conceived than that. Well, I swearwhat then?"

"Give!" starting to her feet.

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Nay," said Mr. Trenholm; " you must be your own executioner."

Then he walked to the fire, and stood looking down fixedly at the blazing embers.

When he turned his wife was leaning back upon the sofa, and the goblet was upon the table-empty. "That is all," he murmured.

With a satisfied smile, he rang for Janet.

When that estimable person tapped at the door, he opened to her, turned the key again, then seized her hand and dragged her forward.

THE following morning Mrs. Geraldine Trenholm was found dead in her bed!

CHAPTER IV.

THAT Friday night was dark-not stormy, but cold, with a murky fog, which seemed almost tangible. Black clouds lay low to earth, and feeble moon-rays, glinting athwart their ragged edges, fell in pale patches of light.

But the two men, creeping along the inner side of the stone wall which hedged the lonely cemetery, gave only smothered curses to these fitful gleams. Evidently no holy work was theirs.

A few moments' stealthy tramping brought them to a quaint stone structure looming up in the dense shadow of the willows. It was the Trenholm tomb.

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'Leap over the railing!" whispered one of the men, as, suiting the action to the word, he vaulted within the enclosure. His companion followed.

"Now, then, the lock," muttered the latter, who was a tall, lithe man, wrapped in a large cloak.

"Ay, try it, sir. I misdoubt you haven't the trick of that contrivance. It's an out-and-out puzzle, to be sure, sir."

But the doubt went for naught. The puzzle appeared to be an understood thing, for, in a moment, the clumsy door was slowly swinging on its hinges. Unhesitatingly the intruders entered; then the door was carefully closed again. At the same time the tall mar drew from his pocket a small lantern. Slipping the slide, he let its feeble light flicker over the moldy walls and creep in among the coffins which were ranged in such dreary precision upon the stone shelves.

Approaching one of the lonely beds, he who held the lantern spoke:

"This!" said he, with an imperative gesture; "and be quick!"

Here followed some hurried work. The great cloak was unloosed and spread upon the floor, the casket was placed beside it, a tiny key clicked in the lock, the cover was raised, the two

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