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Here she broke off abruptly, and a deep blush suffused her cheeks Then, looking up suddenly, she took my hand impulsively, and pressed it

"Beinflection in her rich voice, "I have no friends of my own sex, and I wish to love you My brother has always had so much distrust of the companionship of women for me You know his theories; and he has always asserted that the sphere of thought in which I have lived all my life is so widely apart fro but unhappiness for ether When he toldto seein your nature that was not antipathetic to ht you to me Do you think you can like me?--perhaps LOVE me after a little while?"

It would have been a cold heart indeed that would not have responded to such a speech as this, uttered with the pleading prettiness of a loving child Besides, I had warmed to her from the first moment I had touched her hand; and I was overjoyed to think that she illing to electher My beautiful, tender Zara! How innocently happy she seerant lips met mine in that sisterly caress! She leaned her dark head for a moment on my shoulder, and the mysterious jewel on her breast flashed into a weird red hue like the light of a storned, and sealed our coaily, "will you co in it that deserves to last, I think; still, one has patience with a child when he builds his brick houses, and you must have equal patience with h her lovely room, which I now noticed was full of delicate statuary, fine paintings, and exquisite e the hangings at the farther end of the apart, into a lofty studio, filled with all the appurtenances of the sculptor's art Here and there were the usual spectral effects which are always suggested to the mind by unfinished plaster models--an arle hand, protruding ghost-like from a fold of dark drapery At the very end of the rooure, the outlines of which could but dis; and to this work, whatever it was, Zara did not appear desirous of attracting my attention She ledaside a s I have finished in '"