the eleventh verse. As I felt the kind Doctor's tender, gentle hand on my aching head, I fell asleep, thinking of the words, "Only Luke is with me." I awoke in a few moments from my halfdelirium not sleep; I repeated the words again, "Only Luke is with me; I moaned; I was feverish, and not half conscious. Some one around my pillows darkened the room, moving about noiselessly. I could see the fire in the grate. To move, was agony; to stir, torture. I slept again. When I awoke, the Doctor was feeling my pulse. There was ice on my tongue, ice on my temples. "Luke, the beloved physician, greets thee," I thought, as I turned over, and closing my eyes, fell into that halfunconscious state again.

If

After awhile, when I suppose they thought me asleep, I heard the Doctor whisper to Jane, "Don't leave her a moment. there is any change, let me know it."

A long time after, I heard Jane say, "I did n't see the Doctor I only saw his wife. She said she would send him right around; and I fell asleep again. I remember, when awake again, wondering how "the Doctor's wife" looks, and then thinking I must have lain there a great many days.

I thought I saw myself in a coffin, and I heard them closing the lid. I was alive, only I could n't speak; but I could feel the choking, stifling sensation, and then this verse came tolling through my soul like a faint funeral bell :—

"There is a state unknown, unseen,

Where parted souls must be;
And but a step doth lie between
That world of souls and me."

CHAPTER XIII.

COMING BACK TO LIFE.

"GIVE me the glass, Jane," said I one morning, after I had lain on the bed three or four weeks.

"Let me brush your hair, Miss Louise," said Jane; "it will tire you too much; you are weak yet."

66

Bring me the glass," I said, a little impatiently, vexed at Jane for not complying with my request immediately and with her usual promptness.

"Won't you please wait till afternoon? Have a nap first; I'm afraid you will tire yourself," she replied, evidently uneasy and distressed. "Wait until after the Doctor comes."

"I don't think I'm too weak to look in the glass," said I, dignifiedly. "I wish it now and Jane rose up slowly and brought me the glass. "Open the shutters, Jane," said Ï; “I' can't see."

"I'm afraid the light will hurt your eyes," said she, hesitatingly, and only opening the shutter so as to let in a very little light.

"Open them wide," said I, imperatively.

This time she obeyed, and the clear light streamed in full on the little mirror and on my face in the mirror. There was a big, ugly mark on one side of my cheek, just below my right temple! I started, dropped the glass on the bed, looked a moment at Jane, and said, "Was I hurt there, Jane?"

"Yes; but the Doctor says in a few weeks it will all be healed, there'll be no scar."

"What did the Doctor do with it?" said I.

"He sewed it up," said Jane, evidently frightened, but determined to keep nothing back from my persistent questioning.

66

Did I scream or stir?" said I.

"No, ma'am; you lay perfectly still, just as if you were asleep," said Jane.

The Doctor may have given me chloroform, thought I. Well, I am very thankful it was done. I should n't have liked that big,

ugly scar on my face. I am thankful the Doctor sewed up the wound in time. It looks badly now, but it will be all right by and by. The door-bell rang, and Jane went, for Margaret had gone out.

"Who was that, Jane?" said I.

"The young gentleman," she answered, slowly.

"What young gentleman ?"

"The one that came home with you that day; he comes here every day to ask how

you are."

"What do you mean, Jane? No young gentleman ever came home with me in the daytime."

"The young gentleman that brought you home that day you went to ride with Harry, ma'am.”

"Oh, yes, I understand," said I, trying to go back and recollect a little. 66 I was brought home, was I? How long have I

been here, Jane?"

"A little more than four weeks, ma'am."

"Four weeks! four weeks! and you say the young gentleman has been here every day? What is his name ?

"I don't know, ma'am.'

"How does he look, Jane?"

'He is tall, well-dressed, pale-faced, with black hair and black eyes."

"Were you here when he brought me home?"

"Yes, ma'am.".

"Did I say anything?"

"I think not, ma'am; you were stunned like, when the young gentleman went after the Doctor."

"Who laid me on the bed?"

"The young gentleman,

he seemed very anxious."

he bathed your forehead a little;

"Was there anything on the bed?"

"Yes, ma'am, your portfolio. It fell off, and the young gentleman picked it up and put it up there in the book-case; it has been there ever since."

"Did anything fall out?"

66

Nothing but two or three little scraps

of paper, and the gen

tleman picked them up and put them carefully in the folio." "Was there any writing on the pieces of paper?

"Oh, I'm sure I did n't notice, ma'am."

66

folio.

Bring me my folio, Jane," I said; and she brought me the

"Hold it for me," I said, "while I take out the papers." I took out several sheets of paper and some letters, and three little scraps of blue paper, all the small pieces there were in the

folio.

"Those were the pieces, ma'am," said Jane. "I remember now they were blue paper, and they dropped out and fell in two or three different places, one at a time; one came just where I sat."

"Jane," said I, "try and think, now, did the young man look at either of them as if he saw anything on them?"

"I think he only started just a little, as he picked up the last one, and I remember thinking that he might have had a stitch in his side, after”. and she stopped, and did n't finish her sen

tence.

66

Never mind, Jane," said I; "I understand; you think he had a pain in his side after carrying me up stairs."

"Yes, ma'am.”

"You need n't be afraid to tell me anything now," said I. "Jane, I've got my senses now, and I don't think I shall lose them again ;" and I told Jane to put up the folio, and I still held those three pieces of blue paper in my hand. There, on each, in plain, large letters, was my adopted signature, "Laurence Greenleaf."

I was very weak, very; it seemed a great effort for me to think at all. It took me a long time to ask Jane these few questions, and my brain seemed confused if I tried to remember anything. One moment I felt as if I had n't a thought in my head, and the next as if a great ocean of thought was rushing in, and each thought like a big wave overwhelming the other, as if my brain were actually rolling, surging, heaving like the sea, and I trying to rest my mind on some still, calm shore. I wished I could keep one clear, quiet thought in my head,—just one coherent, sensible thought.

"Jane," said I, "put these bits of paper in the fire," and she threw them in the grate.

"Are you sure they all are burned up, Jane? didn't you drop one of them?”

"No, ma'am; they are all burned up." And yet I was so weak and nervous, because I could n't sit up in the bed and see them burn, I still feared that in some way one of them might have escaped the flames and be hiding in some corner, where some other eye might read the words, "Laurence Greenleaf."

I was so nervous and weak that night, I could not sleep, and early in the morning, when Jane came in to fix the fire, I said, Jane, I shall sit up awhile this morning. If that young gentleman comes to the door to ask how I am, will you tell him to walk up stairs? I'd like to see him."

66 Yes, ma'am," said Jane ; "I'll not forget."

But the young gentleman did n't call that morning, nor the next, and nobody seemed to know who he was or where he lived; nobody had seen him at the door any morning but Jane. The morning I was hurt, nobody saw him but Jane. Mrs. Harwed was out, and all I could get out of Jane was this very clear, valuable information, that his hair was black, but not so very black; he was tall, but not so very tall; thin, but not so very thin.

I lay there and cried from vexation that somebody had perhaps saved my life and I could n't even see him and thank him. Somebody was certainly stupid, or they would have found out. That somebody I should like to have scolded; but who should I scold?

Every morning on my table has been a little bunch of fresh flowers, not a bouquet, but a cluster. One morning it was simply balm, another a cluster of heliotropes, and the next it would be mignonette. Yesterday morning, there was a cluster of amaranths with heliotropes in the centre. I thought of the language of the flowers: the heliotrope is devotion, and the amaranth immortality. The amaranths encircling the heliotropes was a beautiful symbol of the immortality of devotion, and this morning there were camellia japonicas a bouquet of them with heliotrope in the centre devotion in the centre; and all around it the flowery fact written in the japonica's fairy leaves, "My destiny is in your hands," and for days after I was hurt, there were sent little clusters of balm; I know some one sent them as a silent token of sympathy.

"Jane," said I," who sent me those flowers?"

"I don't know, ma'am ; there 's been a new bunch every day." "Did n't Arthur Glenstein send them?

66 Oh, no, ma'am ; he sent those large fine bouquets, with almost

every kind of flower in them, but these little bunches a boy always brings."

"What kind of boy, Jane?"

"There's been a different boy most every morning, maʼam I never saw any of them before; this morning the boy was little and pale."