The delicate face by his side turned pale for a moment, then flushed rosy red, but she made no reply.

"Allie, I must tell you how dearly I love you," he continued, taking one of the slender hands in his own.

"I never realized until to-day, how dear you are to me. Can you care for me just a little?" he asked eagerly.

To his surprise, she burst into tears and wept as if her heart would break.

"I have frightened you, and I am very sorry-please forget what I have said, my child," he said, tenderly. "I am too old to talk of love to you," he continued, after a pause.

"Oh, Dr. Ellis, I like you, indeed I do, but I never thought you cared for me like this, until the other day, when Aunt Lizzie said I must not flirt so much, and then she told me all about her own trouble and that is why I have looked and acted so differently, I suppose. And -and-she told me I must not encourage 'you, unless I cared for you, and I don't know whether I do or not, and that is the truth," said the frightened little creature, not daring to raise her eyes to her companion's face.

"Thank you for being so frank with me, Allie, and thanks to your aunt for telling you to avoid the misery she caused herself," said he, gravely. "I want you to think of what I have said and weigh it well in your mind. You may have a month in which to make your decision and in the meantime, I want you to remember, that although I once loved your aunt, very dearly, I long since outgrew that love, and that I never cared for any one as I can care for you, if you will allow it," and he raised the hand he still held to his lips.

With all the innocence of a little child, Allie murmured softly, "I do like you very much indeed" whereupon the gentleman seemed to take courage, for the look of sadness vanished from his face, and a joyous smile took its place.

He then changed the conversation to the objects of interest by the way, and after an hour's ride, turned his horses homeward. Just before they reached the cottage, Allie said slowly, as if half afraid to ask the question—

"Where is the gentleman, that aunt Lizzie was to have married? Is he living?"

"Yes, Allie, and I expect he will visit me in a few weeks," he answered.

"Oh, do you? What is his true name? Aunt would not repeat it."

"It is Walter Montague, and he has never married, but I believe he still loves your aunt. He has been in Europe for several years. A few months ago he met your father and learned, to his astonishment, that Lizzie had never married. When I wrote, asking him to forget the letter I had written, which had caused so much trouble, his answer was that I was never to mention his name again, and of course I never did. I hope that all will come out right in the end. Please do not mention this to your aunt. Your father and Walter will arrive at the same time."

They had reached the gate and the Doctor sprang lightly from the carriage and assisted Allie to alight, murmuring as he did so, something that brought the color to her cheeks and an undefinable look into her blue eyes, as she hastened up the path to the house.

Aunt Lizzie met her at the door with a smile, and saw the flushed face and downcast eyes, but she apparently took no notice of it, for which favor Allie was very grateful. She hurried away to her room, for she desired to be alone, where she could think of all that had occurred and to ask herself if she really cared for the noble man, so much older than herself, who loved her so dearly.

She was very quiet, and not at all like herself, when, in answer to the summons from Susy, the maid, she took her seat at the tea table, and after the meal was over, hesitatingly followed her aunt to the sitting room. Instead of taking her accustomed seat at the piano-for she usually passed an hour or so there after tea-she drew her favorite chair to the window and sat gazing out with the same abstracted look, while her aunt, who sat silently regarding her, thought within herself that her sweet little Allie was no longer a child; that she had suddenly developed into a woman.

At length Allie arose and drawing a hassock to the feet of her aunt, seated

The lady heard her through, and then said, as she laid her hand caressingly on the golden head

was to have given her answer to the doctor, he was bending over her unconscious form, together with Lizzie and the distracted father, who had arrived to find

"Yes, auntie, I know I do, but he is so much older than I, and he cared for you, so many years ago, that, oh auntie, I wish I could have always staid a little girl, and he could be just the same kind friend he has always been to me and no more," she said sadly.

Long and lovingly did her aunt talk to her, and when at last she sought her couch, she sank to sleep to dream that Dr. Hugh had married her aunt Lizzie. and that she herself was a "little girl" again at play with her dolls and kittens. The days passed on. Dr. Ellis called nearly every day, and Allie found herself very lonely if a day passed and he did not come, and when after a while a whole week passed without his calling, she owned to herself in the snug privacy of her own room that she was almost miserable.

However, when at length he made his appearace with a suitable apology, she grew very cheerful and went with him to the gate, and allowed him to kiss her hand and call her "dear Allie," when, after an hour's stay, he left her to call on his numerous patients. It was very sickly just then, and he cautioned her gently to keep away from the village, where the typhus fever was raging so fearfully

She was making up her mind to say "yes," when he should come for his answer at the end of the month, and she was gradually becoming very happy in the knowledge that her old friend was to become her husband.

One day, she accidentally learned that a poor family in the village were suffering for want of nourishment to restore them to health and strength again, and so she stole away, when her aunt was busy in her own room, and with her basket laden with delicate food, suitable for the sufferers, she hastened on her errand of mercy.

It was true that they were all getting better, but somehow she caught the in

The days passed slowly. At times it seemed to the anxious watchers that she had almost passed through the dark valley, but the best of care, and the many fervent prayers that were offered in her behalf, won her back to life once more, and on a lovely morning in October, we see her again resting in her favorite arm chair, in the cosy sitting room, looking like a ghost of her former self, but watching with a happy, contented face, the two gentlemen who are approaching the house with her father. One, the Doctor, the other, Walter Montague, who upon entering, came directly to her side and spoke so cheerfully and pleasantly to her, and who turned so eagerly to Aunt Lizzie when she entered the room looking so young and happy, in spite of the anxious, weary hours passed by the sick bed of her niece.

Perfect happiness, reader,-if there really be such a thing this side of Heaven

will do much toward bringing back to us our lost youth, and certainly Lizzie Merton looks ten years younger than when we last saw her. She had at last met the reward her many years of patient waiting had merited.

I say patient waiting, for although she had never realized that she was watching and waiting for him, she did not seem at all surprised when Hugh Ellis had brought him to the house on the morning when they had become assured that Allie would live, and had taken her hand and placed it in Walter's, saying as he did

After a few moments passed in general conversation, Hugh Ellis approached Allie and taking one of the slender, wasted hands in his own, he said tenderly— "Allie, are you going to make me as happy as your good aunt is making Montague?"

For answer, Allie raised her blue eyes swimming in tears to her lover's face and aswered softly

"Hugh, papa says you brought me back to life when all the rest thought me dead. I loved you very dearly before, and I am so glad to know that it is to you, under God, I owe my life, that I

will give it into your keeping and try to make you happy, if I can.”

Reader, shall I say more? I might tell how Allie grew stronger each day, and how on New Year's morning, there was a double wedding at the cottage, but my story is altogether too long and I will close.

There is a great deal of happiness in this world, after all, reader, and we should be very thankful that it is so, though, perchance, you and I do not find what seems to be our share, but let us hope that whether in this world or the world to come, we may find it "After Awhile."

"Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards and kings,
Where, stiff the hand and still the tongue
Of those who fought and spoke and sung;
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spake again,
'All peace on earth good will to men.'"

England's "sea-girt isle" contains no monuments more precious than these. The Southern Transept is known as "Poet's Corner," the most sacred and venerated spot in the whole abbey. Chaucer, the first great poet of England, died in 1400 in London, where, in old age, he came to arrange his affairs and set his house in order for his approaching end. He is said to have uttered on his deathbed, in great anguish, the "good counsel," which closes in these words:

"Here is no home-here is but wilderness. Forth, pilgrin; forth, O beast, out of thy stall! Look up on high and thank thy God of all. Controf thy lust; and let thy spirit thee lead; And truth shall thee deliver; "Tis no dread."

Irving, in the Sketch Book, says that

memorials in Poet's Corner." The immortal bards there commemorated are the friends,teachers and companions of all cultured men of all ages and climes. Chaucer leads the sleeping host. His ashes have been once removed; but have never been dishonored. He remained alone, in his glory, for more than a century and a half. Spenser was the next poet, buried near to Chaucer. He died in 1599. Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson and, probably, Shakespeare, were among his mourners in the funeral procession. Beaumont was next buried in the same place; and it was intended to lay the remains of Shakespeare near his friends; but the plan was frustrated, possibly, by the anathema contained in his epitaph, written by himself, against any one who should "move his bones, or dig his dust." His dust remains in his original tomb in Stratford upon Avon. Ben Jonson objected to placing Shakespeare by the side of Chaucer and others, saying:

"Thou art a monument without a tomb

And art alive still, while thy book shall live, And we have wits to read and praise to give."

Drayton was next honored by a burial in Poet's Corner. He was renowned in his days for a poem called "Polyolbion," which was then regarded as a divine work. Not a century elapsed before he was forgotten. When Goldsmith read his name, he exclaimed: "Drayton! I never heard of him before." The lines on his monument, ascribed to both Jonson and Quarles, show how his contemporaries esteemed him:

"Ruin shall disclaim
To be the treasurer of thy fame,
His name that can not fade, shall be
An everlasting monument to thee."

Ben Jonson soon followed the man he so generously eulogized. Before his death he asked King Charles I, for "eighteen inches of square ground in Westminster Abbey." He is thought to have been buried in a standing posture, and this request is adduced to prove his purpose. The inscription

"O, rare Ben Jonson"

is said to have been cut for eighteen pence, at the charge of a friend of the poet named Jack Young. As late as 1849, when the grave of Sir Robert Wilson was opened near the monument of Jonson, the superintendent of the work affirmed that the loose sand of Jonson's grave, rippled in like a quicksand; and that the bones of the legs were standing upright and the head with some red hair upon it, fell down from above to the bottom of the new grave.

Several other poets, some of them distinguished in their day, others having no claim to the immortal honor conferred upon them by their tombs, followed Jonson and preceded Dryden. Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, reared his monument. Many inscriptions were prepared, but a very simple one was finally adopted. Pope suggested this:

"This Sheffield raised: the sacred dust below Was Dryden's once-the rest who does not know?"

John Phillips, an ordinary poet, was buried in Poet's Corner in 1708. He was an admirer of Milton, and the patron who composed his epitaph, pronounced him second only to Milton:

"Uni Miltono secundus, primoque pæne par."

Bishop Sprat, then Dean of Westminster, had the offensive allusion erased, because he would not allow the name of the regicide Milton to be engraved on the walls of Westminster Abbey. Bishop Atterbury, his successor, though a Tory, four years later, restored the line. After the lapse of four more years, the criticisms of Addison, in the Spectator, made Milton so dear to the English people, that his bust was set up in the abbey. How fickle is public opinion. One day, hosannas rend the air, another, the cry of "Away with him.” blind old bard, the order was reversed and the insult came first in time. Addison sleeps near his beloved Milton's bust. His monument was not erected till 1808. Pope choose to be interred in Twickenham. He resembled nobody else in body, mind or estate. He was always unique in all that he said or wrote or did. Of the proposal to lay his body in Westminster Abbey, he wrote:

In the case of the

"Heroes and kings your distance keep,
In peace, let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flattered folks like you :
Let Horace blush and Virgil too."

He took more pleasure in this repulse of the proffered honor than others enjoyed in the anticipation of it. When old Sam Johnson, a few days before his decease, was asked where he would choose to be buried, he replied with conscious dignity: "Doubtless, in Westminster Abbey."

The three greatest geniuses of the generation that preceded ours, Burns, Scott and Byron were buried in other places. The last named poet was excluded by the guardians of the abbey, and public opinion sustained their verdict. The same English people are now rearing a public monument to his memory. His vices are already forgotten and his surpassing genius alone remembered. Envy is sometimes extinguished by death and time. "Extinctus amabitur."

A long list of men of letters lengthens the catalogue of those buried in Poet's Corner. Macaulay, Thackeray and Dickens close the records of the men ennobled by genius.