"PERCY, dear Percy, take back those bitter words! As Heaven is my witness, they are undeserved by me. See, my eye quails not beneath yours; my cheek blanches not. I stand before you, at this moment, with every vow I made you at the altar unbroken, in letter and spirit;" and she drew closer to him, and laid her delicate hand upon his broad breast. "Wrong me not, Percy, even in thought."

  The stern man hesitated. Had he not wilfully blinded himself, he had read truth and honor in the depths of the clear blue eyes that looked so unflinchingly into his own. For a moment, their expression overcame him; then, dashing aside the slender fingers that rested upon him, he left her with a muttered oath.

  Mary Lee had the misfortune to be very pretty, and the still greater misfortune to marry a jealous husband. Possessing a quick and ready wit, and great conversational powers, a less moderate share of personal charms would have made her society eagerly sought for.

  As soon as her eyes were opened to the defect alluded to in her husband's character, she set herself studiously to avoid the shoals and quicksands that lay in the matri-

  Mary was no coquette. Nature had given her a heart; and superior as she was to her husband, she really loved him. To most women, his exacting unreasonableness would only have stimulated to a finished display of coquetry; but Mary, gentle and yielding, made no show of opposition to the most absurd requirements. But all these sacrifices had been unavailing to propitiate the fiend of jealousy;—and there she sat, an hour after her husband had left her, with her hands pressed tightly together, pale and tearless, striving, in vain, to recall any cause of offence.

  Hour after hour passed by, and still he came not. The heavy tramp of feet had long since ceased beneath the window; the pulse of the great city was still; silence and darkness brooded over its slumbering thousands. Mary could endure it no longer. Rising, and putting aside the curtain, she pressed her face close against the window-pane, as if her straining eye could pierce the gloom of midnight. She hears a step! it is his!

  Trembling, she sank upon the sofa to await his coming, and nerve herself to bear his bitter harshness.

  Percy came gayly up to her and kissed her forehead! Mary passed her hand over her eyes and looked at him

  "Percy regrets his injustice," she said to herself. "Men are rarely magnanimous enough to own they have been in the wrong;" and, with the generosity of a noble heart, she resolved never to remind him, by speech or look, that his words had been like poisoned arrows to her spirit.

  The following day, Percy proposed their taking "a short trip into a neighboring town," and Mary, glad to convince him how truly she forgave him, readily complied. It was a lovely day in spring, and the fresh air and sweet-scented blossoms might have sent a thrill of pleasure to gladder hearts than theirs.

  "What a pretty place!" said Mary. "What a spacious house, and how tastefully the grounds are laid out! Do you stop here?" she continued, as her husband reined the horse into the avenue.

  "A few moments. I have business here," replied Percy, slightly averting his face, "and you had better alight too, for the horse is restive and may trouble you."

  Mary sprang lightly from the vehicle and ascended the capacious stone steps. They were met at the door by a respectable gray-haired porter, who ushered them into a receiving room. Very soon, a little, sallow-faced man,

  As they left, a respectable, middle-aged woman entered, and invited Mary to take off her hat. She declined, saying, "she was to leave with her husband in a few minutes."

  The old woman then jingled a small bell, and another matron entered.

  "Better not use force," said she, in a whisper. "Poor thing! So pretty, too! She don't look as though she 'd wear a 'strait-jacket.'"

  The truth flashed upon Mary at once! She was in a Lunatic Hospital! Faint with terror, she demanded to see her husband,—assured them she was perfectly sane; to all of which they smiled quietly, with an air that said "We are used to such things here."

  By and by, the little wizen-faced doctor came in, and, listening to her eloquent appeal with an abstracted air, as one would tolerate the prattle of a petted child, he examined her pulse, and motioned the attendants to "wait upon her to her room." Exhausted with the tumult of feeling she had passed through, she followed without a show of resistance; but who shall describe the death-chill

  Some refreshment was brought her, of which she refused to partake. She could not even weep; her eyes seemed turned to stone. She could hear the maniac laughter of her fellow-prisoners,—she could see some of the most harmless marching in gloomy file through the grounds, with their watchful body-guard.

  Poor Mary! She felt a stifled, choking sensation in her throat, as if the air she breathed were poison; and, with her nervous, excitable temperament, God knows the chance she stood to become what they really thought her. To all her eager inquiries she received only evasive answers; or else the subject was skilfully and summarily dismissed to make place for one in which she had no interest.

  Little Dr. Van Brunt daily examined her pulse, and "hoped she was improving"—or, if she was n't, it was his interest to issue a bulletin to that effect, and all "company" was vetoed as "exciting and injurious to the patient." And so day after day, night after night, dragged slowly along. And Percy, with the meanness of a revengeful spirit, was "biding his time," till the punishment should be sufficiently salutary to warrant his recalling her home. But while he was

  "Leave me, please, will you," said Mary to the nurse, as she turned her cheek to the pillow, like a tired child. "I want to be alone."

  The old woman took her sewing and seated herself just outside the door, thinking she might wish to sleep. In a few moments she peeked cautiously through the open door. Mrs. Percy still lay there, in the same position, with her cheek nestling in the palm of her little hand.

  "She sleeps sweetly," she muttered to herself as she resumed her work.

  Yes, Dame Ursula, but it is the "sleep" from which only the trump of the archangel shall wake her!

  Mary's secret died with her, and the remorse that is busy at the heart of Percy is known only to his Maker.