'But have you brought no tidings from the Mills?' Lucy at length inquired.

'O, yes a most important event takes place there this evening. You know it is old Hodgkins's wedding night.'

'I know it was to have been, had not the bride run away,' said Lucy, laughing.

"Ah, you little Miss Vanity, don't you suppose there is another bride in the world but yourself? and do you imagine the rich Mr. Hodgkins was to be disappointed of a wedding, while girls are still so plenty at Percy-Dale? O, no! and so tonight he receives the fair hand of Miss Jane Curtis, while the approving mother stands by in a flutter of pride and delight.'

'Indeed! why, I declare! it all turns out as happy as a love-story!'

'To be sure! why should n't it, when it is a love-story? Truth is often stranger than fiction, and there are a great many more real love-stories in the world, dear Lucy, than were ever written upon paper.'

With this grave adage, dear reader, our little story closes.

SONNET.

THE COTTAGE MAIDEN.

BY D. H. JAQUES.

HER merry voice, in strains of gladness ringing,
Falls ever sweetly on the listener's ear:
The birds amid the garden roses singing

Chant not their matin songs in tones more clear.
She sits, half hidden by the clustering flowers,
Within her vine-clad arbor's cooling shade,
Like some fair wood-nymph 'mid the forest bowers,
Waking the echoes of the sylvan glade.

Amid her soft and wavy auburn tresses

There shine no costly gems or jewels rare, But flowers, such as every pure heart blesses, Are twined with careless grace amid her hair: Her bright dark eye, in petty arts untaught, Speaks in each glance a wealth of holy thought.