We should like to present some of Lessing's ideas of nationality and government, of his thoughts on the education of the human race; but he presents himself so clearly in his finest attitude of truth seeker and finder, that one cannot but feel that the consideration of this gives the deepest insight of his character. How grand must have been the repose of the soul who could say, "If God held all truth shut in his right hand, and in his left nothing but the ever-restless instinct for truth, though with the condition of forever and ever erring, and should say to me, Choose! I would bow reverently to his left hand, and say, Father, give! Pure truth is for Thee alone." A. L. B. S MARRIED. O Eloise Vaughan, the true Eloise, was coming. Dr. Richard Glendenning, pacing slowly up and down the grape arbor, his eve fixed on the blue of the distant hills, and his ear half-cognizant of the steady rush of the river near by, pondered curiously upon the fact. He was a man worth describing. Rather above medium height, with long, clean limbs, compact of nerve and muscle, a finely molded head, well set upon his shoulders; dark hair, that lay in heavy uncurled masses about his brow; a speculative Greek face, which yet expressed an earnest realism not at all Grecian; he struck you at once as a very finely individualized specimen of the race. Dr. Glendenning's life had been also, in some respects, unique. Left fatherless in his boyhood, and brought up in the almost exclusive companionship of a noble, wise mother, and a delicate, pure sister, now, alas, gone hence to a more congenial region, where, he sometimes thought, she still watched over and loved him, the native tone and purity of his character had been preserved from many contaminating influences, and he took out into the world with him more of that kind of strength which seems oftenest to be the heritage of women, strength of insight, and of power to live true to that insight, than most men possess. At the Medical School this sensitiveness of the moral nature, which was both native and trained, encountered some rude shocks. That it never quailed and gave place to wrong-doing we dare not say; but this is certain, Richard Glendenning's soul was one which could not fail to shrink back from sin, with a healthy, hearty recoil, which was in itself an experience not to be undervalued. The glory of those college days was his friendship with Proctor Vaughan. Proctor was broader than Richard, more comprehensive, less fastidious, but noble and true, just fitted to be the medium of an acquaintance with the world which Glendenning greatly needed. So finely were the two souls chorded that Vaughan's experience served his friend in place of a knowledge self-acquired, and he took on second-hand the wisdom of the man of the world. The arrangement had this disadvantage. It is only personal contact which can give to any man the key of personal individualities, and so make him sure of himself in his intercourse with men and women. A single incident of this friendship belongs to our story. The two young men had been out one summer afternoon for a holiday ramble, and sitting under the sway and murmur of green boughs, with the lapse of shining waters at their feet, they had talked of love. They were both men to believe in love. Glendenning, with a religious intensity and enthusiasm; Vaughan, with a strength and passion, if less exalted, still equally tenacious and enduring. "You have all that before you, old fellow," Vaughan had said, "while I have already passed it." It was said with a seriousness which caused Glendenning to look up at him in some wonder. "I never knew before," he said, "that you had dipped your wing in those seas." Between these two the confidence was so perfect that the remark was equivalent to a question. "No," Vaughan replied; "it is a chapter of my life, known only to myself and one other. Something in this dreamy air brings up the old vision afresh, and I think I shall tell you about it." He held his chin in his hand and looked afar, not shaken, but just utterly possessed with remembrance. There had been storms, or there could never have been such a calm as this. Glendenning sat silent, waiting. "Eloise,-Eloise Vaughan!" He called the name softly as if expecting an answer. "She does not hear me, you see," he said, turning to Glendenning, with a smile that made his friend's eyes misty. "Oh! Eloise Vaughan, if ever my voice could have reached your heart!" Richard grew pale about the mouth. To love in vain was to him a doom too sad to be steadily contemplated, when a friend so dear as Vaughan was the sufferer. is your mate and not mine. And, Dick, true friend"-clasping his hand in a manly, outspoken way," if I could see her a wife at all, and not grow cowardly, it would be your wife." Glendenning smiled at this improbable conceit. "I shall not describe her to you," Vaughan went on. "Descriptions are always common-place, and everything about Eloise is rare. Strong, tender, exalted, true, and looking just what she is. You know her sufficiently after that. Or, if you do not, let me tell you an incident." He paused a moment as if dwelling tenderly upon scenes almost too sacred to be shaped in language. "It was just such another summer afternoon that we were walking, Eloise and I, in the deep, still woods on the old Vaughan estate in Brockendale. I have not told you, but of course you have surmised, that Eloise is my cousin. She was very lovely that day. I recall now the soft splendor of her eyes, the flow of her graceful summer drapery, brightened by the scarlet plume of her hat. It is no wonder that, walking by her side, her silver accents falling on my ear as sweet and clear as the tinkle of the brooklet that covered the pebbles at my feet, my passion should have reached its crisis. As friend and cousin, I knew that I was dear to her. How could I foresee the trouble of her eyes as she hushed my rashly-uttered vows, and bade me, if I loved her, forget that I had ever dreamed so wild a dream. She was too true, too gentle, not to be also firm at such a moment, and I knew as well as now that the love I coveted I could never, never win. You who know me, know, or can dream, just how aimless and valueless my life appeared to me at that moment. Death seemed all that was left to pray for. That instant, as if in answer to my unspoken thought, I was startled by the shrill warning of a rattlesnake, and beheld the deadly reptile coiled just in our pathway. Eloise sprang with a cry to a safe distance, while I proceeded with a coolness that was half desperation, to cut a stick with which to dispatch the foe. I certainly did not intend to place myself within his reach; yet just as certainly my mood made me almost utterly indifferent to the danger, and in an unguarded moment he sprang and fastened his fangs in my arm. It was the work of an instant to dispatch him, but before it was well accomplished, Eloise was tearing off the thin sleeve which covered the wound. 'O, Proctor,' she cried, you have not let him kill you? Pray God it may not be so!' She caught the knife from my hand, and drawing it deeply across the wound again and again, placed her dainty lips to the flowing wound and drew the venom. In vain were all my efforts to oppose her The strength of her determination overawed me, and in five minutes' time, I knew that I was safe from the consequences of my own carelessness that you will not mention this incident to any one. Promise me,' she replied, as I hesitated. If you acknowledge yourself in any way my debtor, do not refuse me my boon. For your sake, for mine, for all of us, this folly must be buried. I will not let you go until you promise me that your lips shall never divulge it?" "Eloise,' I said, 'I have no heart to thank you for having saved my life. You have made it too poor a boon."" "Do not crush me by saying that,' she replied, sweetly; I ask no thanks; my regrets are too deep for the folly into which I have unwittingly betrayed you. But, if in addition to the pain I have caused you, I had also been the means of bereaving your parents of their only child, overwhelming the bloom and promise of your life in one black and utter ruin, I should indeed have been dismayed. You cannot deceive me, Proctor. It was not fear which blanched your cheek, and struck the vigor from your arm.' "Thank you,' I said, for reminding me of my parents. From them at least you will receive the gratitude due your heroism.' "She caught my hand and looked with an energy of entreaty into my "I believe I did promise her, but by some accident of her soiled drapery, the thing was known in our immediate families, though never beyond. The Vaughans', you know, are not wealthy, save in good blood, except my father, who has retrieved in trade the fortunes of his family. Of course he was overwhelmed with gratitude to the woman who had saved my life, that she had previously refused to be my wife, he does not now know, and would have bestowed upon her thousands: insisted, at least, upon enabling her to gratify those aspirations for culture which she was known to cherish; but she would never receive anything from him. "Just one lock of Proctor's hair I want, uncle,' she replied to him, half sadly, half playfully, to weave into a token. It is good to have saved life. Do not spoil my reward by gifts.' My mother gave her the hair, and she wears it yet, I think, upon her chain." There flowed on other talk between these two, but nothing could efface from Richard Glendenning's mind the picture which these words. of his friend had made there. Three years later, Vaughan had gone abroad for some years, and Glendenning was anxiously looking about for a favorable opening for the practice of his profession, which was now his sole means of support, when he received a letter from an old friend of his mother, a Mrs. Chilvers, residing in Brockendale, the pith of which is contained in this extract. "My principal motive in writing you, is to inform you of the recent 666 Promise me, Proctor,' she said, removal by death of our lamented eyes family physician, Dr. Vaughan, and to advise you to come at once to Brockendale, with a view to filling the professional opening so occasioned. As the son of an old and valued friend, I take the liberty of inviting you to my own house, that as my guest you may become acquainted with the locality, and judge for yourself whether it will suit you. I do this, because if you come at all, you must almost necessarily meet Mrs. Vaughan and her daughter Eloise, and their affliction is yet so recent, that it would be much less embarrassing if you were not to allow your intentions to transpire until circumstances shall have smoothed the way to their accomplishment." The invitation was a kind and welcome one in itself, but Mrs. Chilvers did not dream how much she had promoted the cause she had at heart, by that casual mention of the name of Eloise Vaughan. Dr. Glendenning went to Brockendale, decided to settle there, and in due time made the acquaintance of Miss Eloise Vaughan. His first interview with her was a curious psychica! experience. There had been an introduction which had revealed to him nothing, except a figure shorter by some inches than the one which had haunted his dreams, and a voice slightly less impressive than those silver accents of which Proctor Vaughan had spoken; but on a bright June morning Dr. Glendenning walked over to Briar Cottage to pay his first call to the widow and daughter of his lamented predecessor. He was shown at once into the small, cosy parlor in which Miss Vaughan was already seated at her embroidery. As she put away her work and rose to greet him, his first mental impression was one of disappointment. His next, as he took her little, white hand, and looked down into her pretty, petite face, whose sweetness was so touchingly illustrated by those heavy robes of mourning, was of impatience at himself, for being so disappointed. Fair hair and brow of snow, eyes like summer violets, and lips like crushed rosebuds, what brighter type of womanhood need a man wish to dream of during a life time. And yet the back-ground of this picture, the thing entirely indispensable to its completeness and satisfying beauty, was the old atmosphere of heroism and self-renunciation which for three years he had associated with the name of Eloise Vaughan. Again and again he had dreamed of conversing with this being, about whom everything was rare; and always their conversation had been of those bright idealities which glorify life; but now as he sat face to face with her, pure sunshine flooding the room, rose-scents and bird-songs wafted in at the window, he found himself saying nothing more eloquent than that the weather was unusually fine even for the season. It certainly did not answer his conceptions, and yet Miss Vaughan was very engaging. “Poor mamma," she informed him, "would not be able to come down this morning. Mamma is really a great sufferer; you knew of course that she had consumption." "No, Dr. Glendenning was not aware that it was so serious as that. He had understood that Mrs. Vaughan was an invalid, but was it really consumption?" "Oh yes, that point was settled before papa died, and since then, of course, so heavy a stroke could not fail of its effects upon an already shattered constitution." And this delicate creature will soon be an orphan, was Dr. Glendenning's mental reflection, and his heart was too tender not to be a little touched by it. They chatted on for a half hour, and then suddenly Miss Vaughan asked to be excused for a minute, and returning with an added airy cheerfulness that made her seem more like to step up-stairs to mama's room. Dear papa had always been so attentive to the lightest change of poor mama's condition, that since his death Miss Vaughan had often fancied that she felt the dreariness of the change more than she had confessed; and it had suddenly struck her, that if Dr. Glendenning, who seemed already so much like a family friend, would sit by her bedside for a few minutes and talk with her professionally, it might cheer her. Would Dr. Glendenning be pleased to go up?" What medical man on the youthful side of twenty-five could have helped loving a charming woman who made her filial tenderness minister so adroitly to his vanity. Dr. Glendenning went up to see mama; found in reality a suffering, broken-hearted woman, for whom he saw at once nothing could be done but to cheer and to comfort; used all the native tact and delicacy and tenderness which he possessed to do this, and left quite unselfishly delighted that Mrs. Vaughan had accepted a prescription from him and had asked him to consider himself her medical adviser, and to call as often as he thought her case required his attention. "It will relieve Elsie's mind too," Mrs. Vaughan had said, quite unaffectedly, "to have some one to talk over matters with. We have met with a great loss, doctor, and if we lean in consequence a little too heavily on those kind friends whom Providence sends us, are we beyond the pale of pardon?" Can any one tell by what process youthful dreams become transmuted into middle age realities, and that without occasioning any severe psychical shock? How it is that the same being can sigh one moment for a starbeam, and comfort himself the next with the ray of a farthing candle, without in the least perceiving that there is a difference? Youthful passion and inexperience are no doubt great wonder-workers, and to them must be added in Dr. Glendenning's case one other ele ment. Two months later, in a cosey, twilight chat, he said to Miss Vaughan, after some casual mention of her cousin Proctor. "Did you know that he was my dearest friend, and that to him I owe my first knowledge of you?" A curious, faint flush overspread Elsie's face. 66 No; certainly not," she said. Yes; and I have yet to thank you for a heroic deed. If he had died on that summer afternoon, my life would have run drearily through some days which now I count among its brightest." "He told you that nonsense!" she said, this time a little angrily; and then, after a momentary pause, added -oh, so softly," Proctor always exaggerated the merit of that performance; but I thought it was to be a secret. You will not speak of it again, I trust." I have never mentioned it before; I never shall again to any except perhaps to you. You will grant me that reserve?" She smiled, and he took her hand. There seemed to be a new bond between them, although, in fact, they never alluded to the theme again. In October they were quietly married; in November Mrs. Vaughan died. Dr. and Mrs. Glendenning continued to occupy the old house; all the country round about accepted the new doctor as the lineal descendant of the old one, and Richard Glendenning's professional success was assured. Meantime, his wife Elsie developed her matronly peculiarities. She was a good house-keeper to begin with, and a bright and cheerful spirit in her best moods, to preside at one's table and fireside. To be sure, a headache or a refractory servant, had the certain effect of letting her down from this domestic pinnacle to |