"Don't talk French to me. I don't under-chievously, seeing how Esther blushed. stand you," replied Esther, evasively.

"Dame Trot, I want to know who the mustached young man on the last page is ?" said Anne Le Fevre, decidedly. "He is from the city or town. I know it by the cut of his jib. You needn't stand there, blushing up to the roots of your hair, and pretending you don't know. You knew the instant I mentioned the subject."

"How should I?" asked Esther, with a blundering affectation of innocence. She came and looked over the album even, as if it were necessary. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "it is Wesley Sheppard."

"Sheppard!" exclaimed Anne Le Fevre. "I remember that name at school, and I remember Wesley Sheppard too. He was uncommonly good-looking then. I remember his sister Jane, moreover, who used to make faces at me because Wesley would bring me apples and candy. The Sheppards were quite wealthy, were they not ?"

pid, I dare warrant.'

"Oh no!" Esther answered, quickly.

is quite lively.'
"A flirt ?"

"No!" Esther replied.

"Stu

"He

"He would not be

guilty of such a thing. He is as good and noble as ever he can be."

Anne Le Fevre laughed sarcastically. "It is true," said Esther, warmly. "Wesley Sheppard would not stoop to a little thing." Anne Le Fevre kept on laughing. She was getting all of Esther's secret, and then she had no faith in man's infallibility. "Prone to evil as the sparks are to fly upward," she said, motioning from Esther's head bent low in the act of polishing the door-knob to her own head far above her. As the sparks are to fly upward," she reiterated, and then she laughed merrily at her own joke.

Anne Le Fevre, sitting under the elm-tree at the foot of the garden that afternoon, laid down the ruffling she was hemming with a smile. Something was going to happen—a handsome · young man was coming down the garden-walk. Something was always sure to happen when Anne Le Fevre came in contact with handsome "She is young men.

"They are well-to-do people," answered Esther, cautiously.

"Is Jane Sheppard living?" asked Anne Le Fevre, with considerable interest.

"Yes," replied Esther Grimshaw.

a very proper sort of a person."

"I would just like to shock her notions of propriety," said Anne Le Fevre, with a twinkle of her black eyes. "I do like to shock these very proper people. I never forgave her for her old dislike of me, and there is nothing I would enjoy better than showing her a trick or two I am able to play."

"Oh, Anne, what a queer girl you are!" exclaimed Esther Grimshaw. "I don't believe you mean half you say.'

"Keep on thinking so, and see where you will land,” said Anne Le Fevre, laughing heartily.

Esther Grimshaw began to polish the little brass door-knobs, and Anne Le Fevre took some stitches in her ruffling. Presently she threw it down and walked to the window. "What a stupid place! oh, what a stupid place!" she exclaimed, with a yawn. "Doesn't any thing ever happen?"

"Oh yes," Esther replied. "We go to town to do our trading, and we go out to tea sometimes, and we go to church Sundays, and once in a while somebody gives a party, and in winter we have singing-school, and apple bees, and quiltings."

"Well, I wish something would happen now besides going to church!" exclaimed Anne Le Fevre, impatiently. "The doctor said dissipation would kill me in the city. I am sure I shall die of stagnation out here. How often does Wesley Sheppard come here ?"

"Oh, he is clerk in a store at Kent," replied Esther, with another blush. "But he is coming home this week for his summer vacation."

“What kind of a man is he, any how?" asked Anne Le Fevre, half interestedly and half mis

The young man started at sight of Anne Le Fevre. It was not that she was so beautiful, for there were scores of women prettier than she, but Anne Le Fevre had a style of bearing that set pretty women's ways at defiance. There was nothing awkward in the young man's start. It was full of the wordless compliment of finding more than he expected. Anne Le Fevre acknowledged it with a gracious inclination of a well-shaped head remarkably well set.

"You are looking for Miss Grimshaw," she said, with a suavity of tone and graciousness of manner that was her passport to belleship in fashionable society. Her sarcastic brother Jack would have called it "a ventilation of her court etiquette."

Young men seldom turned away with indifference from that sweetness of tone and deference of manner. They had won her a score of victims. The young man before her, hat in hand, under the shade of the elm-tree, was not indifferent to them. "I was looking for Miss Grimshaw," he said.

hand as topics of conversation, and the two strangers, with no interest in common, were chatting animatedly when Esther Grimshaw appeared.

woman would make a dash any where and in any society."

After tea, while Esther Grimshaw washed the dishes, and skimmed the milk, and packed the eggs for market, Wesley Sheppard and Anne Le Fevre chatted in the parlor. Anne Le Fevre

She shook hands with the young man, blushing deeply. "I did not think you would remember Anne," she said, addressing the gen-had the prettiest way in the world of talking tleman.

The young man looked puzzled. "I certainly never met this face before. It is not one to be forgotten," he said, gallantly.

"Oh, I thought you knew!" exclaimed Esther, apologetically. "Don't you remember Anne Le Fevre ?"

"Anne Le Fevre, the recipient of my apples and candy! Indeed I do!" and the young man offered his hand in friendly greeting.

"You see, Mr. Sheppard, I have carried your image better," said Anne Le Fevre, taking the extended hand and leading the conversation into amusing reminiscences of school-days.

Esther Grimshaw stood by silent. She was hurt. This man was her lover, and she stood in his presence eclipsed and overlooked.

Anne Le Fevre rose to go. "I have letters to write," she explained.

trifles. Wiser men than Wesley Sheppard had mistaken her shallowness for deep waters, and he, a novitiate in society, where Anne Le Fevre had been at home for years, could not but be charmed. He had quite forgotten Esther, the cleverest housekeeper and most practical and best-tempered woman in those parts, according to the Sheppard creed, when she passed the window with a pail of milk.

"The romantic dairy-maid," said Anne Le Fevre, with a smile.

Wesley Sheppard frowned. Esther's cheeks were too red for beauty, and the pail was heavy, and she tugged it along in an awkward, onesided way. Then her hair was plain as a pipestem, and her dress was dark and homely. She did not make a pretty picture at all. The daisomery-maid was not half so romantic as the tall woman leaning in a pretty attitude against the window, her hair full of bewitching little waves and kinks, and her dress harmonious in color and exquisite in fit.

"Don't go," remonstrated Esther Grimshaw, more politely than earnestly.

"I beg you will not go," added Wesley Sheppard; and any lack in Esther's tone was compensated by the heartiness of his invitation.

"I must." Anne Le Fevre dropped her ruffling as she moved away. Wesley Sheppard brought it to her. She looked up with a smile. Esther was beyond hearing if she spoke low. "Two is a company and three is a crowd," she explained.

Wesley Sheppard colored, and in a low tone responded: "If you make the crowd I must confess to a partiality for crowds."

Anne Le Fevre went to the house with a triumphant smile on her proud face. "Was looking for Miss Grimshaw''If you are a crowd I must confess to a partiality for crowds,"" she quoted. "And this is the man with the popish prerogative of infallibility! Heaven save the mark!"

Wesley Sheppard accepted Esther Grimshaw's invitation to tea. He had not eaten such biscuits as Esther's mother made since he went away, and every body knew there was not such a notable cake-maker in the country as Esther. His taste was excellent, Esther knew. He said it half in justification for his thoughts of the handsome woman he knew he should meet at the Grimshaw supper-table. "Such a splendid creature for this out-of-the-way place!" he commented. "Why, that woman would make a dash on Broadway!"

At the Grimshaw supper-table he sat opposite the woman capable of making a dash on Broadway, and had a chance to note more fully the grace of Anne Le Fevre's manners, the silver clearness of her voice, the beauty of her brilliant eyes, and the magnetic power of her animated face. "By Jove!" he thought, "the

Anne Le Fevre picked up the photograph album. How many conversations photograph albums have saved from becoming becalmed in silence, or going down at sea among rocks and breakers of discord! Anne Le Fevre's comments were not severe as her morning thoughts had been, but Wesley Sheppard found himself laughing over good old faces he had always held in reverence. They had passed Esther's picture with no comment save Wesley Sheppard's half apology, "Esther's dress is not so becoming as it might be, and those horrible back-grounds are trying to any body.'

"These country dress-makers make the women look such dowdies!" Anne Le Fevre said, over the next picture; and Wesley Sheppard blushed visibly, wondering if Esther Grimshaw was included among Miss Le Fevre's dowdies.

He shut the album with a feeling of relief, and in a restless way commenced promenading the little parlor. He was thinking of his position with Esther Grimshaw. His folks and her folks expected him to marry her. Esther doubtless expected the same thing, and he could not but confess it was a reasonable expectation, with his devoted attention for years as a foundation. He himself had expected to marry her. All his life long he had heard praises of her goodness, and cleverness, and practical commonsense; but it was a pity she did not crimp her hair, and wear thin, cobweby dresses like Miss Le Fevre's; and it was so much against a woman to have brown hands; and it was horribly trying to a man's nerves to hear his proposed wife called "dowdy." He wondered if he really stood committed. If he did not, just think of that glorious Miss Le Fevre ! He paused in

front of one of the cheap little prints on the traipsing out to the barn after eggs and feeding wall, and turned to Anne Le Fevre. chickens with a book-muslin gown on, draggling

"Are you fond of art ?" asked that young around!" lady, with a mocking smile.

Wesley Sheppard had not observed the print before. Now he turned and saw the prodigal son. Weeks after that picture thrilled him, poor, and cheap, and miserably colored as it was. He laughed now, the prodigal was so ex-Such another set of pictures! Nothing but twoceeding lean, the swine so cumbrously fat, and the husks such ridiculously unnatural husks.

"Oh, pshaw, Jane!" answered Wesley Sheppard. "You live so alone by yourself that you "Yes," Wesley assented, cutting the air don't see the onward movement of the world." with his riding-whip.

Jane Sheppard looked up with surprise. "Why, how can you say so?" she exclaimed. "I'm sure you never saw any thing neater or smoother. You wouldn't want her to kink it all up like them heads we see in fashion-books. Goodness! They look more like brush-heaps than the heads of civilized white folks. Might as well have nigger's wool in the first place! | never could agree about her. You always hated It's ruination to the hair, too." her at school when I gave expression to my boy

"Well, I am sure she might wear better ish fancy." clothes," persisted Wesley Sheppard. "She wears homely dark dresses, and I am used to seeing ladies in town with pretty, thin dresses -white, and pink, and sky-blue.'

"Why, Wesley Sheppard, I believe you've taken leave of your senses!" answered Jane Sheppard, angrily. "A pretty figure Esther would cut, sweeping, and baking, and churning, and tending to the milk and butter, with a white dress on! Wouldn't she be a pretty spectacle

If Jane Sheppard's fool was a man whom Anne Le Fevre should interest, she had reason to pronounce her brother a fool. Day after day found him at the Grimshaw homestead. It had been his habit to go there frequently while visiting his home, but aforetime he had gone at hours when Esther was disengaged. Now the mornings found him there when Esther was occupied in her domestic duties; but Anne Le Fevre, hemming yards of ruffling, or stitching away at delicate embroideries, gave him entertainment and pleased attention. So the days of Wesley Sheppard's vacation passed. "You will settle it all with Esther, I suppose, before you go away this time," said Jane Sheppard, anxiously, the day before Wesley was to return to town. "Your salary is large enough to keep house on, with such a careful manager as Esther is."

"Oh, bother! I am not ready to get married yet," answered Wesley Sheppard, impatiently. "I don't know as I ever-"

He paused. He could not say to that rigid sister Jane it was doubtful if he ever married Esther Grimshaw.

Jane Sheppard was thoroughly angry with her brother for his unaccountable behavior. Such a treasure as Esther was! "She'd serve you right to marry Tom Akers, who'd give his two eyes to get her," she said, indignantly. "And you gallivantin around with that lazy trollop of a Le Fevre girl! Why, a man would have to be made of gold to keep that woman a-going. And you say men admire her? Lord, what fools men are!"

Wesley Sheppard was turning over in his mind his sister's estimate of his sex as he took his way to the Grimshaw homestead in the summer twilight. He encountered Esther leaning over the rails in the southi meadow. He came upon her so suddenly that he almost started when he found her grave brown eyes looking up

into his.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Oh, I had every thing done up for the night, and it was warm and stifling up at the house, and I didn't want to talk to any body up there, so I came down here," Esther said, letting her eyes wander over the south meadow with a sort of weary longing.

"I'll try to run around a minute in the morning," he said to himself as he moved away. Wesley Sheppard was not comfortable. Esther Grimshaw was such a true woman, he knew that. Somehow she had not looked so very homely that night. She was neat as a pin, as Jane said, and that brightening and saddening in her eyes was beautiful. Miss Le Fevre did nothing prettier than that. He turned and looked toward the south meadow. There was

a man approaching Esther. Was it?-Yes, it was Tom Akers. "I've, the greatest mind to turn. around and show him that's no go," he said to himself; but looking up, he saw Anne Le Fevre coming down the road, her gauzy dress floating gracefully, like an angel's robe, he thought, and her face full of woman's witcheries. He walked on to meet her, and forgot Esther and Tom Akers.

Anne Le Fevre's mood was calculated to make him forget every thing save himself and herself. Her brother Jack would have said she had laid herself out to catch or victimize in that mood.

Wesley Sheppard was a willing victim. Afterward he never saw sheep licking the hand just ready to slay but he thought of that night. They stood at the window, gazing out upon the moonlit landscape.

"I am quite in love with the country and the people," Anne Le Fevre said, gently.

Her hand lay temptingly on the windowpane-such a white and pretty hand! Wesley Sheppard covered it with his broader palm. "Would she be content to live always in the country? Could she live there with him?" he asked.

Anne Le Fevre withdrew her hand and laughed. "Oh no! not for the world," she said. She was going to Europe. All the ruffling and embroidery she had worked at during these weeks was preparatory to that visit.

"You are going to be married ?" asked Wesley Sheppard, in the bitterness of wounded vanity.

"Yes," replied Anne Le Fevre. "I should have told it before, but country people gossip so horribly about one's affairs. You will not forget about the lace I asked you to get. It will be two dollars a yard, and I want eight yards. I don't know what Pa will say to my extravagance. I ran up a bill of a hundred dollars for laces last month. I have a headache, and shall retire. Excuse me, please. Esther will soon be in. Good-night, Mr. Sheppard. I "I left her in the parlor," Esther answered, wish you all the good luck possible."

"Is Miss Le Fevre up at the house?” asked Wesley Sheppard. "I promised to undertake a commission for her in the city to-morrow," he added, seeing that Esther's brow had clouded at mention of her name.

simply.

66

Her bow was the last display of court eti

'Well, I must go," said Wesley Sheppard, quette, and Wesley Sheppard was alone, thinkcarelessly.

Esther ought to have kept the pain out of her eyes. Wesley Sheppard had no business to see it; but Esther Grimshaw was all woman, and an unsophisticated woman at that.

"I'll see you again," added Wesley Sheppard, kindly, as if in compensation for his last careless words.

ing of his sister Jane's words-"Lord, what fools men are!" Nothing could have taught him his folly like that last speech of Anne Le Fevre's. "A hundred dollars for lace!" he thought. "What was I thinking of? A man would have to be made of gold to keep her going, as Jane says. Jane has very commonsense notions if she is sharp." He looked

around the room, and his eye fell on the picture of the prodigal son. "Husks!" he said to himself; "I have come to this poor fellow's pitch." His eye softened as it took in the next picture, the prodigal's return, and he remembered the story of the best robe, and ring, and fatted calf. Would Esther forgive him so? Esther! He had left her at the south meadow bars with Tom Akers, and Jane had said Tom Akers would give his two eyes to get Esther. What a fool he had been! He wished Esther would come. If Tom Akers was with her he must not be seen. If she came alone

He held his breath to hear the footsteps that came around the house. There was only one pair of feet, and those a woman's. Esther came alone.

Wesley Sheppard did not depart the next day. He told his sister Jane he had concluded to remain over another day and take Esther Grimshaw to the county Fair, and Jane smiled her approval.

Fevre. "Oh, you don't know her. She isn't one of our set. She is a girl away out in the country where I boarded last summer. She had a lover who she thought was a piece of manly perfection, and because it was terribly stupid, and this man was a superior sort of a person for the country, and I liked to test my power with a piece of perfection, I flirted with this girl's lover. The upshot of the matter was, he proposed to me just before I left-actually proposed. Just think! He, a clerk in a country store, and I already engaged to Jerome Archbald, the banker! Of course the young man didn't break his heart, but coolly turned around and made up with Esther Grimshaw. It was the most sensible thing he could do, but he had shown his fallibility in proposing to me. This girl's faith is the most beautiful thing you ever saw. It isn't like any thing in you or me, Lou Riker. In our prospective marriages, you and I think mainly of our trousseaus, and the splurge and establishments and turn-outs possible in our new relation. This girl, Esther Grimshaw, has scarcely a thought of these things. To-day she has talked more of her trust in her fiancé, and the patience she hopes to have, and the help she hopes to be, than she has of her outfit. She told me to-day she was foolish enough to be jealous of me last summer, but she should never distrust her lover again. And verily, she will have no need. Such truth and faith as Esther Grimshaw's will anchor any man. would give my kingdom to believe in human nature and my husband as she will."

I

"Didn't you tell her the man proposed to you?" asked Lou Riker. "It's such fun to tell women these things; it takes the vanity all out of them."

"No," Anne Le Fevre answered; "I couldn't do it. I could fascinate the man, and wound his vanity, but I couldn't destroy that woman's

"Yes," answered Esther, with a blush. "I faith." have come in to buy my dresses."

It was a confession showing the spark of true "What are you going to buy?" asked Anne womanhood in Anne Le Fevre's nature. Le Fevre.

"I hardly know," answered Esther. "I haven't thought much about my clothes. I think more about my happiness, and Wesley's goodness, and whether I will make him a good wife, than I do about my dresses. I thought maybe you'd go shopping with me."

It

was a justification for Esther Grimshaw's remark, that there was always something about her that attracted her in spite of all her faults.

MR.

THE CRABBE FAMILY.

R. CRABBE came home worn out by the After a day's shopping with Esther Grimlabors of the day. It would have refreshed shaw, Anne Le Fevre stood over the grate in his spirit had he found his dressing-gown and her room, strangely thoughtful. Her friend slippers waiting by the fire, or even had some Lou Riker looked out of the window and wait-one brightened up and spoken pleasantly as he ed for Anne to come out of her abstraction. It was no use to talk to Anne Le Fevre when she had the dumps, she said.

Mrs.

appeared. Nothing of the sort occurred. Crabbe had indeed remembered the dressinggown, but decided in her own mind that Mr. Crabbe was quite as able to wait upon himself as she was to wait upon him; no one else had even thought of it. As for the pleasant greeting, not a word was uttered. The various members of the family looked up for an instant as the door opened, and seeing that it was "nobody "What girl's?" asked Lou Riker. but father," returned to their occupations. Mr. "Esther Grimshaw's," answered Anne Le Crabbe stepped into the next room-to be sure

"It's the queerest thing!" broke out Anne Le Fevre, suddenly, as if she were arguing a question with herself, and not communicating a fact to a friend. "It's the queerest thing, and the most enviable thing I ever knew-that girl's faith."