WONDER, my dear sister, if you would mind drawing the curtain aside a mite -just a little mite. There, now I can see the river. That is very good of you, very good. The tide seems to be running out, Cecelia; is it so?"

"Yes, my dear Mary, the tide is running out."

"And, Cecelia, dear, I hate, positively hate, to ask you to do anything more for me, but I believe I am sliding, Cecelia; sliding. Isn't it ridiculous?"

Miss Cecelia, a very dainty little Dresden shepherdess, thereupon left the window and tripped to the side of a huge four-poster, in which was tucked away another dainty little Dresden shepherdess, and gave the ruffled pillows many energetic little dabs and pats, and the soft white sheets and flowered counterpane many deft little slaps and foldings and smoothings, not hesitating, so fairy-like was her touch, to let her tiny fingers stray over the shepherdess in the bed herself, and all so quickly and so craftily, and with such magic effect, that instead of sliding down, down, down, and disappearing forever amid a smothering surf of tumbling pillows into the gloom under the bedclothes, as she feared would be her fate, the latter quite suddenly found herself propped up very comfortably indeed, and every bit of foamy lace, and every bow and streamer of violet ribbon on her nightcap and bedjacket looking as if freshly ironed and disposed precisely in its proper place. This required very delicate handling on the part of Miss Cecelia, for her older sister, Miss Mary, the shepherdess in the bed, was an extremely fragile bit of porcelain; and like many another family heirloom of the same perishable material, was somewhat faded in color, and had many little crinkly lines and cracks here and there, and was, so to speak, a trifle chipped about the edges. But Miss Cecelia's hands were always in

excellent practice. From their girlhood it had been her pleasant occupation to wait upon her older and more attractive sister; and since the day upon which Miss Mary had found the tall mahogany staircase so steep and tiresome and altogether such a bother that, if Cecelia would excuse her, she did not think she would go downstairs for breakfast, Miss Cecelia's clever hands and active body had been still more constantly occupied, now in the gentle but very exhausting offices of the sick-room. For Miss Mary had soon discovered, much to her surprise, that not only was walking up and down stairs very tiresome, but also standing up, and sitting in chairs, and moving about one's room-so very tiresome and such a bother, in fact, that she had permitted herself in the end, after much playful expostulation, to be packed carefully away in the big four-poster, where she now lived entirely, and was like to stay, until she made her final descent of the tall mahogany staircase in a manner not fatiguing to herself in the least, but rather to the arms and backs of six strong gentlemen, three on either side of her.

Who could help loving Miss Mary, always so dainty, so sprightly, so ingenuous, so appreciative, so thankful, yes, and up to this very moment, so positively charming; though little by little there is sifting down upon her a few sprinkles of that dust which a certain stout, red-faced gentleman in a white surplice, also to be one of her retinue in her final descent of the tall mahogany staircase, may soon need for other purposes. Who could help loving her! Not Miss Cecelia, a dim little star which had unquestioningly revolved about the greater constellation since it had first risen above the horizon. Not Miss Cecelia, if a lifetime of tender care, self-sacrifice, and selfobliteration mean anything at all. Not Miss Cecelia, who though often worn out with running and watching, is always ready to rescue her sister from the oblivion of the bedclothes and give the pillows those won

derful little pats and shakings which make them stand out like freshly inflated balloons. No, indeed, not Miss Cecelia; for of all the people in the world who have ever loved Miss Mary (and it would be hard to tell how many strong hearts have beaten against tha: fragile piece of Dresden china only to be broken into bits) none has loved her half so dearly or will miss her half so sorely as Miss Cecelia. But love like hers is very wearing, and Miss Cecelia showed it. Even the pudgy doctor, who, after all his professional resources had been exhausted, still came to exchange elegant compliments and polite felicitations with Miss Mary, and who had known and hopelessly loved Miss Cecelia ever since they had played together in pinafores-even this busy, fussy, pudgy doctor, who rarely bothered himself with aught but pulses and tongues and such prosaic things, noticed how wearing such love as Miss Cecelia's was. But he must have his joke, this bald-headed, roly-poly little man; and one day, finding Miss Cecelia standing quite breathless at the top of the tall staircase with a heavy tray in her hands, he asked her very seriously if she happened to have another four-poster in the house as big and comfy as the one in which Miss Mary lived; for, said he: "If I ever catch you carrying up another tray, or sitting up at night, or working too hard, or making as much fluster and bluster about other people's business as you have been making lately, I shall obtain a warrant from the magistrate forthwith and confine you in that four-poster for one long month, and shall myself prevent any rescue by habeas corpus or other process, legal or illegal." And then the doctor laughed heartily, so heartily, indeed, that by the time he reached the hall his eyes were dim and he had great difficulty in finding his hat. "Old, old," the doctor muttered as he went down the stone steps into the street; "old and faded and worn out. The other is a leech, and has sucked all the blood out of the poor girl-been sucking it for fifty years or thereabouts, and has got most of her wits as well."

Poor Miss Cecelia looked in truth just as the doctor, in such shocking language, said she did; and sometimes it seemed as if she should be in Miss Mary's place, or would, willy-nilly, soon be there. Poor Miss Ce celia, now so old and worn and faded, but once so different, so very, very different.

For when it was noised about the ancient borough of Georgetown that Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a gallant French gentleman who had followed in the train of Mr. Washington when he came home from the wars, had been chosen to make the plans for the great Federal city which Mr. Washington and Mr. Jefferson hoped would some day rise from the marshes and wooded hills bordering the Potomac, and would establish his headquarters in a house near that in which she lived with her father and her sister Mary, there were few more attractive young gentlewomen in that or any other borough than Miss Cecelia herself. It is true she lacked the sprightliness and gayety of Miss Mary. But she was very simple and charming in her innocent young girlhood; demure, trustful, tender, quiet, with great love for everything that was beautiful, and great faith in everything that was good, and with a very loyal little heart beating in her white, virginal bosom. Who can say how much that little heart throbbed with fluttering expectation, and who can say how many other hearts were doing precisely the same thing, when, sure enough, M. L'Enfant finally arrived, bringing with him a great array of curious instruments of brass and glass and this and that, and enormous rolls of paper and parchment, and many other wonderful things, and set to work at his plans in a red-brick house, standing for all to see to this very day. But the most wonderful thing that M. L'Enfant brought with him, quite the most wonderful by all odds in the eyes of Miss Mary and Miss Cecelia, and of many another belle of the borough aforesaid, was a certain monsieur, the lieutenant, Jean Laurent Maxime de Chalaron. Whether in his uniform of lieutenant of engineers or in his surtout of light-brown duffy, salmon-colored waistcoat, nankeen trousers and bell-crowned hat, this young gentleman made a most amiable figure, and when thus caparisoned, he picked his way along the streets, all the hearts in question beat turbulently at one and the same time.

About her neck at this very moment Miss Mary wore, hanging by a fine gold chain, a large locket which hid within itself something (suspected, but not known of Miss Cecelia) which she had once received from this same M. de Chaiaron; and after Miss Cecelia for the nine hundred and ninety

ninth time that day had propped her up comfortably upon her pillows, she let her eyes rest tenderly upon the locket, while the younger sister distributed about the room some of those same magic touches which she had already bestowed upon the bed and upon Miss Mary herself.

"Ah, my dear Cecelia," said Miss Mary at length, still holding the locket in her hand, "how right he was when in his own tongue he called it the grand passion. How grand in its delights! How grand in its sorrows!" Tears began to flow from Miss Mary's faded eyes, and in her efforts to discover the whereabouts of her handkerchief she came perilously near to sliding once more into obscurity.

"From the time of his arrival with M. L'Enfant," continued she, the handkerchief having been found and disaster temporarily averted, "almost from the day of his arrival, I could see the love-light in his eyes. Those months of companionship and intimacy-how delightful they were! And when he fell upon his knees in the front parlor and offered me his heart and hand-I never knew what happiness was until then. How ardently he loved me! How dearly I loved him! What a consolation to remember that!" cried Miss Mary in another burst of tears.

me.

"Don't cry, sister," murmured Miss Cecelia plaintively; and with little cooing words, with fond little hugs and kisses, she caressed her as tenderly as if she had been a sick and fretful child. "Don't cry. I know how you must suffer; but don't give way." "Don't cry? What do you know of the agonies of a broken heart?" demanded Miss Mary irritably. "Let me weep out my sorrows; there is nothing else left to No one can tell how I suffer now, as no one could guess how I then rejoiced. Indeed, I do not believe that even you imagined, for a long time, at least, that there was love between us. M. de Chalaron entreated me to permit our passion to remain secret. For it was evident that our father suspected its existence and was not favorably disposed toward him; and Maxime was too sensitive to wound anyone, least of all the only parent of his beloved. Our father's attitude alarmed me, I confess; it was possible that he might renounce me in his will; and although I knew perfectly well that Maxime's affection for me

was wholly unselfish, yet it hurt my pride to think that I might be obliged to come to him empty-handed. That my Maxime's love for me remained ardent and undimmed from first to last, even in face of the fear which I so often expressed to him that our father might leave all of his property to you and entirely ignore me in his testament, is another proof-a final proof, if one were wanting-of the nobility of my lover's soul and the perfect loyalty and unselfishness of his attachment to me. But our father's manifest distrust of M. de Chalaron caused both of us the supremest grief, and must have rankled in Maxime's lofty spirit and sensitive heart when he was so suddenly ordered back to France. What a parting! Ah, Cecelia, my sister, you will never know what my sufferings have been!"

Miss Cecelia listened with interest and compassion to this story, every word of which she knew by heart, and then instinctively hurried to her sister's side. But it required many soothing words, many of Miss Cecelia's strongest pulls and pushes, many of her deftest pats and foldings and smoothings, before the shepherdess in the bed could be brought to look once more like a shepherdess, and not like a poor, weak, withered old woman, well-nigh lost among a smother of bedclothes and tumbled pillows.

"Thank you, my dear Cecelia," Miss Mary at length found breath to say; "and would you mind very much, before you sit down, drawing the window-curtain a little more to one side? There; that is just right. And how is the tide, Cecelia? Still running out? I cannot help thinking, dear sister, when I look at the stream yonder, that sometimes one of my tears may, perhaps, find its way into the river, and like one of the drops of water now flowing past us with the outgoing tide, may reach the bay, and may float on and on into the sea, and across the sea, and may, in the end, somehow come to water the grave where he lies buried on the field of Marengo. Who knows! Who knows! Ah, what a gallant gentleman! How often he sighed for glory; and it was there he found it and death as well. How I wish that I might have thrown myself down beside his body, lying, as General Berthier wrote to Major L'Enfant, facing the enemy, his spurs buried deep in the ground, and the toes of his military boots pointed toward the blue Italian sky!"