did everything but faint, and I might have accomplished that feat if Clara (for she insisted on that appellation) had not come in upon me, resolved to bring about different conditions. She succeeded at last, and the afternoon found us quietly sitting together in our middle room apparently enjoying ourselves, though I did not forget Hal was gone, and a cloud of woe overspread my mental horizon.

CHAPTER IV.

OUR NEW FRIEND.

We could not object to the stay of our cousin, and she planned to remain indefinitely. I always smiled at the relationship, and I don't know exactly how near it was, but this I believe was it—father's mother and Mrs. Desmonde's grandmother were cousins; that brought me, you see, into very near kinship. She laughed at it herself, but, nevertheless, I was "her dear cousin Emily" always. "Little Lady" was my name for her, but she forced me call her "Clara." Her mother, it seemed, had married a gentleman of rank and fortune of French descent, and although she told me she was the picture of her mother, the graceful ways of which she was possessed, her natural urbanity and politeness, together with her fascinating word-emphasis accompanied with so many gestures, were all decidedly French, "Little lady" just expressed it. She was, when she came to our home, only thirty-seven years of age, and looked not more than twenty. Her complexion was that of a perfect blonde; her hair was light and wavy, clear to the parting; she had a luxuriant mass of it, and coiled it about her shapely head, fastening it with a beautifully carved shell comb. Her eyes were very dark for blue, large and expressive; she had teeth like pearls, and a mouth, whose tender outlines were a study for a painter. She seemed to me a living, breathing picture, and I almost coveted the grace which was so natural to her, and hated the contrast presented by our two faces. She called my complexion pure olive, and toyed with "my night-black hair" (her own expression), sometimes winding it about her fingers as if to coax it to curl, and then again braiding it wide with many strands, and doing it up in a fashion unusual with me. She was a little below the medium size, I, a little above, and though only turned nineteen, I know I looked much older than she. We were fast friends, and I could do her bidding ever and always, for her word was a friendly law, and I am sure no family ever had so charming a boarder. She bought gingham, and made dresses exactly alike for herself and me, made some long house-aprons, as she called them, and would never consent to sit down by herself but helped about the house daily until all the work was done, then changed her dress when I changed mine, and kept herself close, to us, body and soul—for she seemed in one sense our ward, in another our help, making her doubly dear, and I many times blessed the providence that brought her to us just as we were losing Hal. She was sensitive, but never morbidly so, apparently anxious to have every one about her happy, and I never saw the airs that I expected her to assume, for she was ever smiling and happy in her manner.

As the days passed over us, we took long walks in the woods together, and she unfolded to me leaf by leaf of her life history.

The deep love she had borne her husband remained unchanged—and nightly, with perfect devotion, she looked upon and pressed to her lips his miniature, which was fastened to a massive chain hanging on her neck; never in sight, but hidden from other eyes, as if too sacred for their gaze. Her husband was of French parentage, but had, when at the early age of sixteen she married him, been alone in this country. He was twenty years older than herself, and her parents passing away soon after her marriage, he had been husband, mother and father. Her son, Louis Robert, eighteen years of age, was named for him, and both she and her son had fortunes in their own right. It seemed that Mr. Desmonde had an illness lasting for months, and knowing it must prove fatal, had arranged every thing perfectly for his departure. It was his wish that Louis Robert should, if agreeable to his mind, pursue a course of study, to prepare him for professional work of some kind.

In a letter written on his death-bed he impressed upon his son the necessity of dealing honestly with his fellow-men, and exhorted him to endeavor to be always ready, as opportunities presented themselves for small charities and kindnesses; these, as his father thought, are often more praiseworthy than donations to public objects, and the giving of alms to be seen of men, as many wealthy people do.

In accordance with these last wishes, Louis was placed under the care of a worthy man, who was principal of a seminary a little distance from the city where their home was. Clara desired him to come to us about the twentieth of August and stay two weeks, and also urged me to go to her home with her and meet him, then returning together.

I hardly wanted to do so, but her sweet urgency persuaded me, and I consented, reflecting mournfully over those shabby ribbons and that lemon-colored bow. If there is anything like help in the world that I receive most gratefully, it is the prompt recognition of a need, and unobtrusive aid for it. A short time before the day appointed for us to go to the city, our Clara came down stairs dressed in a beautiful dark shade of blue Foulard silk, with a lace ruff about her throat, fastened with a lemon-colored bow.

The blood rushed with a full tide to my face when my eyes fell upon her as she entered. Simple, I presume, to those accustomed to elegant costume would her attire have seemed, but to me, as yet uninitiated in the mysteries of society, dress, etc., she was the perfection of loveliness, and the impression made upon me was an indelible one; I never saw anything half so lovely and perfect as she at that moment appeared to me.

It was an unusual thing too for her to be dressed so nicely for an afternoon at home. She had, I knew, many beautiful dresses, and had told me sometimes of the elaborate toilets of the city, but had heretofore donned as an afternoon dress the gray mohair she wore when she came, and a light blue scarf over her shoulders was the only color she wore about her. The weather was warm but the heat was never oppressive to her—her blood, she said, had never felt as it were really warm since the night her husband died. On this particular afternoon, we were talking principally of Hal, and my eyes unconsciously riveted their gaze on the folds of her dress hanging so gracefully about her, and trailing softly on the carpet if moved.

I wondered too a little at it, for I noticed it to be quite long in front as well as behind. The afternoon was far spent, and it was nearly time for Ben and father to come in to supper. Before she made any allusion to her extra toilette, extra for our little home, and nodding at me as I raised my eyes from the soft blue folds to meet the light of the blue eyes above them, she said:

"How does my dress please Mademoiselle Emily?"

"Oh!" I replied, "I never saw so beautiful a dress." She smiled one of her bright quick smiles as if some fancy struck her, and said, laying her hand over the bow at her heart,

"And this too?"

"Both are beautiful in my eyes," I said, "and so suited to you Clara."

After supper we were going to take a walk, and Clara went to her room, doffed the blue Foulard and came down in the grey mohair. We had a beautiful walk out from under the shade of the o'erarching chestnut trees before our door, along the grassy highway leading to the upper meadow, over the smooth newly-cut field on to the edge of the birch woods beyond. There we rested quiet,