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success, you may tell Kezia how long and how deeply I have loved her; but if you doubt me, I am willing to wait till I have still stronger evidence to convince you I am worthy to be trusted with one so dear to us all."

Kezia laid this letter down, and rose with wet eyes and burning cheeks.

"I understand what you would have me know, Elias Morgan," she said, "need I read more?"

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'Yes, Kezia, read that ;" and he gave her the fourth and last of the letters he had selected from the packet.

This was written after the brilliant success of his song, to which the desired verses had been written by Rymer.

"Of course I have thrown up my situation at Tidman's; it would be sheer nonsense to stay there. My plans are not yet quite settled. I shall write again in a day or two. I was certainly surprised you did not speak to Kezia as I wished, upon receiving my last. I shall begin to think, Elias, if you still show such reluctance to let her know the truth, that I am but a poor, miserable fellow, with

all my success-I mean that you feel there is no hope for me. It would certainly be better for me to know the worst."

This was the last letter Elias had received from him, and a month had elapsed since its arrival.

Kezia had read it standing.

"O what a pity this is, Elias; what a great, great pity," she said in a trembling voice, without looking up from the letter.

"You will be his wife, Kezia-you will make him happy;" said Elias, in a tone half entreating, half authoritative.

He heard her tears pattering on the letter, but her head was unusually erect, her cheek very bright and hot.

He walked to the other end of the room and back, then said to her again,

"You will be his wife, Kezia? You will let me write to-day and set his heart at rest ?"

The letter rustled in her hands, then fluttered to the floor, and she turned slowly, holding the edge of the table.

"Elias Morgan, do not ask me that again.

I am sorry-no one could be more sorry-but never ask me again !"

They stood looking in each other's faces, and there was a strange light in the eyes of Elias that might have been taken for a gleam of intense joy, but that as he spoke his voice was so harsh and measured.

“And do you know, Kezia, that he looks to me to win you for him—to give you to him ?"

"That you cannot do."

"You say it, Kezia, I cannot ;" he said, with a strange passion in his voice and eyes. "If you will not, how can I force you? Had I, like the patriarchs of old, full power over all my house, I would command you to marry him-The Lord be my witness, I would command you to marry him!"

"And it would be the first command of yours, Elias, that

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She had gone to the door, and now, without finishing her sentence, glided out gently.

They did not meet again till evening, and then not a word was said till Hirell's return. When Kezia, some time after Hirell, went up to bed, she took from an old box of hers a

little packet, and sat down with it in her lap before her bare, blindless window, which showed, through its small square panes, the April stars and moon. Kezia opened the paper with trembling fingers. Soon there glittered in them a plain gold ring; and where it had lain, words were traced-too faintly for her to see by the moonlight but that she knew them as well as she knew her

own name.

"I leave this, my wedding ring, to Kezia Williams, my death-bed comforter and friend, whom I earnestly desire one day to take my place as my husband's wife and my daughter's mother, with the blessing of her who shall have gone before to dwell with her Saviour." Kezia looked at the faint lines, and laid back the ring, saying softly

"Mary, Mary! it is over!"

CHAPTER XVII.

THE REVEREND EPHRAIM JONES SENDS EVIL

NEWS.

THE next morning Elias received the following letter from the Reverend Ephraim Jones.

"DEAR FRIEND,

"Your brother has given great dissatisfaction at Tidman's by his negligence during the last few weeks of his being there, and by his leaving suddenly without any reasonable warning. He seems, by his manner of dress and living, to be prosperous; but I warn you he is among evil companions. You will do wisely to order him home at any cost. "Yours truly,

"EPHRAIM JONES."

Elias never thought of questioning the ad

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