“I—I would rather not see him, just now." And she went hastily from the room, and ran up-stairs. Once having gained her own chamber, she shut the door, and gave herself up to a paroxysm of

weeping.

How much poignant anguish do we shut in with the door of our own room; how much frantic, useless grief has that room witnessed!-tears that we should really have been ashamed to shed elsewhere. But the room knows us; the furniture—all knows us. There is the arm-chair we threw ourselves in on such a day, when we received that terrible letter; there is the looking-glass, wherein we saw our changed face after that bitter parting; there is the bed, by whose side we have so often knelt, crying from the depths of a broken heart, with no strength for any other thought than an appeal to Divine compassion; there is the pillow, watered by so many tears; there are the bed-clothes we had so often dragged

over our heads to shut out the morning light, because the day brought no hope with it.

There are certain truths we shall never learn but by weeping over them, as the flowers cannot spring forth from out the ground without the showers as well as the

sun.

Better to learn those truths, if the tears be ever so bitterly shed, than never to know them at all.

"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,

Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed hath sate,

He knows you not, ye heavenly powers."

Ethel, when she had closed her door and locked it, sat upon the edge of her little white bed and covered her face with her hands, she seemed powerless to cope with the perplexities which suddenly confronted her. The same sad reflections passed again and again through her mind, but from them she could draw no conclusion, arrive at no decision.

As a weak nature will trust unquestion

ingly, unreservedly, to a stronger, Ethel relied on Justin; she felt perfectly sure he would do what he thought right and best for her; and what he thought right she had implicit faith was right.

Justin, in the meantime, after sitting long with his head on his hands, had written a very long letter to St. Clare; it took him a great deal of time, for he often stopped and considered, and was slow in finishing it. At last, when it was sealed and directed, he sat with it in his hand, so deep in reflection that Langley's entrance into the room quite startled him.

I

"You are the very person I was last thinking of, Martin, although your entrance made me jump. I want your advice. must leave here by the half-past-two train, and return to the Asylum. I shall be back again to-morrow, or the next day. Martin, I intend to leave Dr. Allen entirely."

"Indeed! I thought you were getting on there so well," said Langley, with evi

dent astonishment.

"Is not the place good

enough to suit your ambitious views ?" "Quite; but I have urgent reasons for leaving there, one of which is, that my health, as you noticed last night, suffers. The work tries me too much, iron as my nerves are. I intend to go to Germany."

"What do you want my advice about, if you have already made up your mind?" naturally inquired Langley.

"Not on that, but on a much more simple matter ; I decide important steps for myself; besides, there is no doubt in my own mind as to the necessity of the change. What I want to ask you is, shall I make known my intention to my father and mother to-morrow, or to-day ?"

"To-day, of course. If the thing is to be done, let it be done at once. If you come back with all your luggage to-morrow, will it not astonish and grieve them that you have reposed no confidence in them ?"

"Martin," exclaimed Justin, rising from

his chair, “I am a coward in this matter;" and he began to walk up and down the room. “Throwing up this appointment will, of course, grieve and puzzle them; going abroad will be a still more painful announcement, as it will separate me so far from them."

Why must you go abroad?" inquired Langley.

"I must; I can give you no other reason. I have already accepted a partnership in Berlin with a distant relative of Dr. Allen's. There it is that you are so different from my parents: I say to you, ask no questions, and you ask none; you do not torment me with solicitous inquiries; you are satisfied."

"There you are mistaken, Justin; I cannot say I am satisfied, but I see it is an irritating subject with you. I divine that it is in some way connected with the secret you spoke of last night. Still I think you make yourself unnecessarily uneasy about