house. I have no attachment to this building. I only know it by the number on the door, unless I see your face at the window when I come home. It is just like all the other houses-it is the fifth house in the block. There is a good deal of individuality displayed in dress. I don't see why there shouldn't be in the exterior of a house. I want something besides a printed directory to point out the place of my residence. I like some railing, or wing, or tree, or shrub a little unlike my neighbor's, some pcg on which to hang an association. I want one tree of my own, not one of a stiff row, but either so luxuriant or crooked that I should know it. I could tolerate even a luxuriant cabbage or gaudy sun-flower. Nepenthe says these rows of houses remind her of the little wooden houses that come in boxes for children to play with, with six trees to stand in front, with little round green bunches for foliage. These trees in front of our door are all just so high, large, round and green. They look prim, stiff, and prudish, as if afraid to rise a little higher and meet the kiss of some caressing breeze or catch the low whisper of a frolicsome zephyr. I get tired of hearing people ask, Do you live in the fourth, fifth, or tenth house in the block? Block-block-how I hate the word block. It is a very good name for such a set of houses that have about as much expression as a block. We have to go into the country every summer to get our souls chiselled out of these blocks. I am one of the doctors and you one of the ladies in this block. We lose all our individuality in this brick-rowed city. I'd rather spend an hour in the forest, listening to the weird music of the hymning leaves than hear a whole year of Broadway sounds. I hope I shall live long enough to have some trees of my own. If I were in the country, I would never cut down a tree,”—and the doctor opened a book and read, "He loved old trees, and used to say, 'Never cut down a tree for fashion's sake, for the tree has its roots in the earth, which the fashion has not.'" -GRATTAN.

of

"But it stands in the way of the tree."--GRATTAN'S FRIEND. "You mistake; it is the house that stands in the way it; if either be cut down, let it be the house."—GRATTAN. Closing the book, the doctor said with a sigh, "That vinecovered, flower-adorned, and tree-surrounded cottage in the

country looms up before me in such dim and distant perspective, if I wait to earn it, I fear I shall be too old to enjoy it. I must invest-the truth is, Minnie, I have invested in some thing which has paid large dividends for many years. I have put six thousand dollars in a mining enterprise.

"After careful calculations, shrewd financiers prophesy, I shall make at least seventy-five per cent. My money will work while I sleep. Mr. James thinks I'll clear three thousand the first year. I will invest one thousand of the profits in bond and mortgage for Nepenthe's benefit. Bond and mortgage is the safest kind of investment."

Take care you do not burn your fingers in this coal speculation," said his wife, laughing and shaking her head.

"Oh, no," said the docter. "This enterprise is a rare chance for making money-but there goes Mr. Mellin-do you know I have lost my practice in all the Mellin family through Trap's influence? He is a rascal, but I can't see what possible grudge he can have against me."

We leave Dr. Wendon a year with his mining operations, but we put down his first reports from the mines.

"With the present arrangements, there is a clear profit. of forty-one cents, in full working order. They yield fifty tons a day, and with additional expenditures named, can be made to reach at least one hundred tons a day, Sundays excepted. The engines and all the fixtures are new, operating since August last, and if we were disposed to push things, would draw up one hundred and twenty tons a day. Six hundred dollars will be wanted in January next."

We drop the curtain for two years on the mining operations, and leave Nepenthe awhile at school-a schoolgirl's history is of little interest to strangers.

Dr. Wendon had built, in imagination, his charming cottage in the country-he had planned a tour of Europe-he would do so much for Nepenthe. She should have the advantages of society, of travel, of lessons from the best foreign artists-her future should be as bright as her childhood had been dark. Each day in moments of leisure, and each night in dreams, he added one more beautiful turret to this Chateau d'Espagne.

He couldn't keep from congratulating himself, and telling

others, how glad he was he invested in this fortunate coal enterprise. So sanguine was he of his success, that he would have been perfectly candid in advising any person to invest their surplus in this promising speculation, but that word speculation always reminds one of risk; he called it enterprise. He practised his profession faithfully and constantly, while he was saving up daily in the bank of his imagination, piles of shining dollars.

ONE could hear nearly all the interjections in the grammar, had they listened at the key hole of a small parlor up town one Wednesday evening. "The dear knows !" the "do tells," and the "you don't says," made a perfect jargon to masculine ears.

What could so raise those carefully cultivated voices so far abone the conventional pitch?

"What's all this about, girls?" said a voice in a clear masculine baritone sounding through the crack of the door.

Why, Fred, it is the most wonderful thing you ever heard of, most unaccountable," said his sister Kate. "You know that large house on the corner we passed the other day?"

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Kate," said Fred, "I wish you wouldn't begin everything with you know.' I counted all the 'you knows' in one of your sentences yesterday, and there were actually five."

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Fred, I wish you wouldn't bother me so much about my talking," said Kate, as she turned dignifiedly round to Mrs. Edwards, and went on with her story. "The family live in the fifth house in the block,"

"A ring was heard at the street door one afternoon, and the girl went. There stood a man wrapped up in a cloak." "Approved brigand style," exclaimed Fred, laughing. "Don't bother me, Fred," said Kate, really vexed. was wrapped up in a cloak, with his hat drawn over his eyes."

He

Yes, that's just it; slouched hat and intense black eyes," interrupted Fred again.

Paying no attention to Fred, Kate went on. Only one of the servants was in. The man asked if the doctor was at home? She said, no. He then inquired if his wife was in? The girl replied, no. The man then turned as if to go, when there was a loud rap at the basement door.

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Probably Bridget was expecting her beau that night, for she left the front door open, and went down in haste to see who was there. It was a boy with a basket of apples. She stayed to chat with the boy and put up the apples, and coming back up stairs, closed the front door, and went up to her sleeping-room on the fourth story, to beautify, preparing for the expected visitor, with whom she had been 'keeping company' so long. It is now thought that the man improved the occasion of her temporary absence to slip into the library at the end of the hall, and then into the extension room in the rear of the parlor. There was a young lady in the front parlor who was singing,

'Life let us cherish,

While yet the taper glows;

And the fresh flowrets

Pluck, ere they close.'

As she finished the last line, the wind came in through the open shutters, and blew off one of the music pages from the piano. She stooped to pick it up, when a bullet whizzed through the air, and lodged in the wall directly in front of her a bullet intended for her, and which would have killed her had she remained a moment longer in her erect position. A breath of wind had literally saved her. Isn't there a line of poetry somewhere about A breath can prostrate and a breath can save?' But whatever was his design, the assassin fled."

"You are quite poetical, Kate," said Fred, in a complimentary tone; "you quote so accurately, you might get up a verse of your own sometimes. If I were a relative of the

young lady's, I would ferret out the mystery. There is some wild love or deadly hate about it." Here he paused, and then added, "I have a slight recollection of something occurring away back "

Fred stopped suddenly, as if broaching a forbidden subject.

"Do tell us!" exclaimed two ladies at once, with all the eagerness of curiosity. What do you know about away

back?"

"O nothing," replied Fred, quietly. "I have no right to reveal that which I must unavoidably find out in my profession. We shouldn't abuse fiduciary relations-those impromptu disclosures, often so unwillingly made. But really, ladies, I have no disclosures to make. I had once a few suspicions from a few stray facts; and unsettled and vague as they now are, I would trouble or trust no one to help me keep such secrets."

"As for me," said Kate, "all secrets are a burden; and isn't it provoking, that the very condition of a secret is often the keeping it forever from the knowledge of the very person to whom of all others you would most like to tell it? I like to surprise, excite or amuse people with unexpected or startling news. Somehow it does give us a little extra importance in our own eyes, to have some wonderful secret confided to us- -to be the only person beside the narrator that knows it. We promise never to tell anybody as long as we live; but then people will guess sometimes, and guess right—and we must blush, dodge, lie, or keep silence. Some people have such a way of pumping about a thing, you really feel rude if you evade their queries, and they'll get everything out of you. But these very ones will never tell you anything of their affairs, never allow in any way any of their secrets to escape them. It is rather mortifying to have every bundle of secrets in your head overhauled and inspected, while you remain utterly in the dark about their concerns. I declare I believe if it was only right to lie, I'd like to try it occasionally, and say I don't know, right up and down. There's Charity Gouge; she begins at you with one of her 'Do you really think so and so?' when she knows you don't think, you know all about it and she's the last person in the world I would choose for a confidant.”

There's no place in your head, Kate, for a secret," said