I did n't know then that Ernest Heart was n't sure yet of Laurence Greenleaf's residence or identity. How much he conjectured, guessed, or imagined, I know not, he dared not address the wrong person, but as he began to be sure of one thing, that I knew who Laurence Greenleaf really was, and was in some way connected with his plots and plans of benevolence, he took this way of showing me his gratitude to the said Laurence, thinking probably that through me, his unknown benefactor might receive his heartfelt expression of thanks. My remarks had puzzled him. If I had promised to keep a third person's secret, I might blush and be embarrassed at being questioned about it, just as I would blush and be embarrassed in trying to keep the secret if it were my own.

As Ernest Heart thought over the subject by star-light and dream-light, he fancied that I, a young maiden, might possibly have conceived the pleasant plot; but his sober, morning, daylight opinion was, that Laurence Greenleaf was some unknown masculine individual; and so he left Pleasantville, leaving me to give to the mysterious Laurence his poetic thanks.

As for me, I was half sure that he suspected me; it seemed to me that Tabby's head, at least, was fairly out of Fate's reticule.

CHAPTER XIX.

A LEAF FROM SORROW's GREENWOOD.

I STAYED in the country till I saw the first tinge of the autumnleaves. I am back to the city again. Most of the city-dwellers have returned. Harry came to see me last night. He says Ernest Heart has not returned yet, that he was sent for on some urgent business the night before he left Pleasantville. Mrs. Cater expects him very soon, and she keeps the room just as he left it. Mildred is well. She has three more pupils. You would n't think, to see her move about now, that she ever had been lame at all. Jane comes in one morning, and she is so long sweeping up the hearth, rubbing the windows, and dusting off the mantel, I begin to think she has something to say. By and by she stops and stands still, with a duster in one hand, and a pail of suds in the other, and says, "Miss Louise," and then stops.

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'Well, what is it, Jane? Have you anything to tell me?" "Margaret says there's a stranger lady sick in Ailanthus Street, where her sister Kate lives; very sick; and there's nobody to do anything for her but Kate. She is quite young, too, and Kate is afraid she is going 'to die, and die without a priest or anybody."

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Well, Jane, tell me where she is, and I will go and see her." "It is a three-story white brick house," said Jane, “No. 123 Ailanthus Street. The lady's only been there two weeks, and the first three days after she came she was out nearly all day long somewhere, and she came home the third day, it was last Tuesday, nearly tired out, and she took sick, and she's been sick ever since. Kate says she thinks she must have some trouble on her mind, for she sleeps so little and has no appetite. Kate says she went to the Five Points, and in those shanties uptown, and to all the police-stations, and she sent some kind of advertisements to the papers; she was busy about something all the time until she was sick."

I go around to Mr. Humphrey's and get a bouquet of migno

nette, heliotrope, tuberose, and violet, and a little cluster of those dear little blue violets. I take that beautiful group of Autumn Leaves, in its elegant frame, which I bought at Goupil's yesterday, and in a little basket I put some wine-jelly and some clusters of white grapes. I take the flowers, as the most graceful letter of introduction I can carry to the unknown invalid. If she is young and sensitive and suffering, these heliotropes and violets are as old friends of hers as they are of mine, -our mutual acquaintances.

Kate meets me at the door; she leaves me in the parlor a few moments; then takes me up into the sick lady's room.

I went up to her bedside, and taking her pale hand, said, "I have brought you some flowers; you are a stranger here; they are old friends of yours." She took them in her hand and smiled,: - all but the little bunch of blue violets, which she wished me to lay on the table, the other side of the room.

I hang the picture of Autumn Leaves up where she can see them without turning her head, as she lies there on the bed. Hers was one of those rare faces sickness does not fade or wither, - it only etherealizes, spiritualizes, beautifies. She talked very slowly, and almost every sentence ended with a long despairing sigh, a half sob. She said her name was Blanche Page; that only three months ago her husband left a flourishing business, inspired by irresistible patriotism, enlisted as a private in the army, and was in the battle of Bull Run. She had no letter for days. She took up a morning paper and read,

"Private Arthur Page, shot through the heart,

dead.'

"He was buried by the enemy, with a great many other unrecognized, uncoffined dead, and all I heard of him was his remark to one of the company, a particular friend of his, on the eve of the battle: I think we shall have a terrible battle, and I may be killed. If you can, take this little miniature and send it to my dear wife; but don't take it off until I am gone. Tell her I am willing to die for my poor country.'

"I was ill for some days after this. And then, hearing that one member of the company to which Arthur belonged was in Philadelphia, I went there with my little Blanche, then only two years old, to try to find out something more about my poor husband's fate. I took Blanche with me everywhere; but one day I found I could see the gentleman I was so anxious to meet, by going to a certain locality where he was lying ill. In the same house were two children very sick with scarlet fever. I was afraid to

take little Blanche, and left her about an hour with a new nurse I had got to take care of her, giving very strict directions to watch the child closely. When I came back, the child was gone. The nurse said, she went down-stairs a moment to get her some water, and when she came back the child had been taken out of the cradle; but probably she had left Blanche asleep in the cradle, and gone down-stairs half an hour to talk with Bridget in the kitchen. Blanche had a very pretty chain on her neck, little bracelets on her arms, and was dressed richly. I thought at first the child might have been stolen for her elegant clothes, the thief thinking a large reward would be offered for her restoration. Such things have happened in New York; and the thief comes back in a few days with the child, pretending to have found it, and claiming the reward, which its too happy parents are glad to give, without asking any questions. I offered large rewards, and had the police on the alert. There was a band of thieves about Philadelphia at that time, who had committed burglary, robbery, and many crimes, and Blanche was not the first missing child. The police had information, giving them suspicion that the band of robbers had left for New York. And after every possible search and investigation in Philadelphia, I was haunted day and night by the thought that Blanche might be in New York. The police would inform me of some newly found lost child; I would go and look in the child's face, but it would not be Blanche. Only a week before she was lost she was going up-stairs, trying to carry with her her little hoop and stick; she fell down a few steps and cut the right corner of her upper lip, and it left and always will leave a little scar, which you would not notice unless you examined the mouth closely. While walking the streets with me in Philadelphia, she would always pull at my dress and tease me for some of those videts, as she called those bunches of blue violets the flower-women had for sale, on the walks in front of the stores. These blue violets she would carry home in her own little dimpled hands, and put them in her little cup. She looked for them every time she went out."

Poor Mrs. Page! now she could n't look without heartache upon those flowers. I gave her the jelly and the grapes. Those blue eyes looked eloquent thanks, but, I knew, no jelly and no grapes of mine, no comfort of mine, could comfort her. She said, "If there were only a little grave I could visit; if I had only laid her tenderly to rest in Greenwood; if I could plant those blue violets over the spot; if I knew, if I knew she was safe

with the angels, until I could go and meet her there; but I know, yes, I am sure, she suffers somewhere. She may be roughly, cruelly, harshly handled by pauper, beggar hands; if I could only look upon her face once more! There is her little locket in the drawer; go and look upon it. I cannot look upon it; I can never see it more." And the unhappy, bereaved mother sobbed and wept, overcome with her great, hopeless grief. "Once every night, about two o'clock," she said, "little Blanche would wake up, and putting her arms around my neck, say, • Love me, mamma; love me, mamma.'

"I would put my arms around her neck; she would lie awake, clinging to me and folding her arms around my neck, and fall asleep; and, till I sleep my last sleep, I always shall wake at that same hour of night and listen for the sweet voice, Love me, mamma; love me, mamma."

I opened my little pocket-Bible, and read to her the sweetest words I could find; but what words could bind up this bruised reed? I saw the Plymouth Collection of Hymns on the bureau. I opened it and read some of the most soothing hymns. At last I persuaded her to eat, little by little, some of the jelly and the grapes. I put the flowers on the table where she could see them, bathed her forehead, and then read to her until at last she fell asleep, the first sleep she had had for days. I sat by the bedside and watched her; how I wished I could be an angel only a little while, if I might roll away the great stone of grief from that aching heart. She turned uneasily in her sleep, and whispered something; it was this," Private Arthur Page, shot through the heart."

She slept a half hour quietly, and then spoke again,-" Blanche, Blanche, come, come! Here are some videts, put them in the little cup; " and a smile came a moment on her lips, — and a moment more the smile was gone. In a little while she awoke suddenly, saying, "Where's Blanche? I thought I was talking with her." Oh! oh! I thought, if I could only prolong that sleep; it is her only respite from agony !

While she was asleep, I had looked at that little miniature; the round laughing face was so like one of the faces in that beautiful engraving called Nature, a copy from Laurence's wonderful picture, and which I always thought an ideal of the artist's until a clergyman, recently in England, told me, while there he learned that the picture was a portrait of Sir Somebody's two children, I have forgotten the baronet's name. I stayed almost