Dr. Heidenhoff's Process

th entire complacency, and that was Ida Lewis, the girl with a poor complexion and beautiful brown eyes, who had cherished a rather hope

other, about whom she was becoming quite anxious, she had Ida over to tea once or twice, and, by var

feelings changed, and he discovered how soft-hearted his own sorrow had made him toward all who suffered in the same way. His eyes smarted with pitifulness as he noted the pains with which the little girl opposite him had tried to make the most of her humble charms in the hope of catching his eye. And the very poverty of those charms made her efforts the more pathetic. He blamed his eyes for the hard clearness with which they noted the shortcomings of the small, unformed features, the freckled skin, the i

on became so absorbed in his own misery that he quite forgot about her, and, failing to rejoin the girls that evening, Ida had to go home alone, which

lips and haggard face came under her view, but sorry in a dim and distant way, as one going on a far and joyous journey is sorry for the former associates he leaves behind, associates whose faces already, ere he goes,

be too much for him. Instead of his getting used to the situation, it seemed to grow daily more insufferable. Every evening the thought that they were toget

that she loved Cordis, not that Cordis loved her. It is only low and narrow natures which can find vent for their love disappointments in rage against their successors. In the strictest, truest sense, indeed, although it is certainly a hard saying, there is no room in a clear mind for such a feeling of jealousy. For the way in which every two hearts approach each other is necessarily a peculiar combination of individualities, never before and never after exac

de up his mind to leave the village, he wrote to accept it, and promptly followed his letter, having

particular to say, "don't tell me

at, of endless aching loss as filled his mind at this time, was a most exacting background for his daily achievements in business and money-making to show up against. He had lost that power of enjoying rest which is at once the reward and limitation of human endeavour. Work was his nepenthe, and the d

efforts his success was indifferent. Whenever he began to flatter himself that he was gaining a philosophical calm, the glimpse of some face on the street that reminded him

the longing to return and see what had happe

to break off the match. He was far, indeed, from formally consenting to entertain such a hope. He professed to himself that he had no doubt that she was married and lost to him for ever. Had anything happened to break off the match, Laura would certainly have lost no time in telling him such good news.

the station with the briefest possible greetings to the acquaintanc

g about Madeline's being married. He felt that he could only bear to hear it from Laura's lips. Whenever the other opened his mouth to speak, a cold dew started out on Henry's forehead for fea

him to fly. It was not yet too late. Why had he come? He would go back to Boston, and write Laura by the next mail, and adjure her to tell him nothing. Some time he might bear to hear the truth, but not to-day, not now; no, not now. What had he been thinking of to risk it? He would get away where nobody could reach him to slay with a word this shadow of a

see how you all were," he

ondering only this morning if you

orehead with h

d just run ou

so glad

noticed his merely havin

well this spri

'm pret

sed about your patent. H

ry looked nervously from point

s

ry, and

basket, and bent her face over it, and seemed to have

id, in a quick

eline m

Would she

red, with a fal

ad spoken as if it were the worst of news, instead of good. Ah! could it be? In all his tho

is will stamping the shuddering thought into words,

again, with the sa

eet. Laura looked out at the window so that she might not

nd afterward-only last week-she ran away, no

sion of his face as he sits in the car is not that which might be expected under the circumstances. It is not that of a man crushed by a hope

ce of her sorrow, she reproached him almost bitterly for not marrying Madeline, instead of going off and leaving her a victim to Cordis. It was rather hard for him to be reproached in this way, but he did not think of saying anything in

ror that on that morning had given back the picture of a girl in white, with crimson braid about her neck and wrists, and a red feather in the hat so jauntily perched above the low forehead-altogether a maiden exceedingly to

ld have accepted sympathy, and in her lonely desolation it was very sweet. And at the last, when, as he was about to go, her grief burst forth afresh, he put his arm around her and drew her head to his shoulder, and tenderly soothed her, and stroked the

he said. "I will find