exact process, but it was in some way by employing electro-puncture, directing the electric aura against the eyes, drawing it from them during the insulation of the patient, taking small sparks from the eye-lids, or integument round the orbits. I heard the doctors talk about passing down fine needles through any of the branches of the frontal and superior maxillary nerves, and a slightly pricking sensation, indicating the nerve is pierced, a galvanic current is then passed along the needles through the branch of the fifth

nerve."

Prudence looked puzzled, as if she didn't know any better now than before she asked, but she only said, looking over her spectacles at Levi, as she stopped her knitting, "Don't that beat all!"

CHAPTER XLI.

THE RETURN-THE SURPRISE.

"Oh never again, while thy weal is my care,
The dark sinfu' regions o' spaedom I'll dare.
"Twere vain to expect thou wilt cost us nae tears,
In our toil-wearied way through the dim hoped.for years;
But aye we'll see in thee, as sweet and as dear
The Ágnes awa' in the Agnes that's here."

DAVID WINGATE.

"I have ordered the carriage to stop with me at a friend's house on the way," said Selwyn to Carleyn, as he met him and his bride at the depot on their return. They stopped before the door of the most elegant house in that vicinity. Carleyn was surprised, yet he chose to gratify Selwyn, who. looked unusually bright, and who seemed to feel perfectly at home as he went with them into the large parlor, and asked them to walk into the little library out of the parlor, for there they would find the owner of the establishment.

There was a beautiful portrait of a lady in a recess on one side of the mantel, a lady apparently about thirty-fiveon the other was Carleyn's ideal Nepenthe, and as Nepenthe stood before it, her face radiant with the dawn of hap piness, the resemblance was so striking, she herself could

see it. Now that her face wore its native sunshine, the picture might be taken for her portrait.

There was also a striking resemblance in the two portraits.

"That picture on the left side," said Selwyn, "was taken by Carleyn at my urgent request, a few months before your marriage. It was taken from a miniature painted on ivory some years ago. I intended it as a present for you. That vase on the little table is of exquisite workmanship, and was imported by me some years since. The violets in it came from the conservatory belonging to the owner of this house. On the outside of the vase I have had engraved the word Nepenthe in letters of gold."

That vase-that vase! Nepenthe held her hand over her eyes and thought. She had seen it in early childhood often filled with violets, and filled by her mother's hand. It was the most beautiful thing her childish eyes had ever seen. The past began to dawn upon her bewildered mind. That portrait it seemed almost to speak as she gazed upon it. It is my mother's picture," said she at last.

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Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed but roughly with me since I saw thee last."

Taking her arm gently within her own, Mr. Selwyn drew her before the mirror, and bade her look up, and see reflected there the owner of that elegant house, the lady who had recently come into possession of that valuable property.

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And here is the deed of the property, which I hand over to the rightful owner," said he, putting a paper duly signed, sealed and delivered into her hand.

As Nepenthe saw him bending affectionately over her, the truth dawned at last upon her mind. She clasped her arms around his neck, and exclaimed, "My father! my father!"

Poor tempest-tossed, bereaved, long desolate man, he held in his arms at last his Nepenthe. Henceforth he could forget much sorrow and misfortune.

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My child! my child! my Nepenthe!" he exclaimed.— The bitter cup long drained is removed. My prayer is heard. My Lina's gentle hand hath held out to me through all this darkness, this cup of joy to be my solace, while she quaffs her purer Nepenthe from the river of life."

CHAPTER XLII.

MYSTERY CLEARED UP.

"If in our daily course our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,
New treasures still of countless price
God will provide for sacrifice

"Old friends, old scenes will lovelier be,
As more of heaven in each we see;
Some softening gleam of love and prayer
Will dawn on every cross and care.'

"TELL us about all your wanderings, dear father," said Nepenthe the next morning as she refilled the vase with fresh violets from her own conservatory.

"There was a claim of twenty thousand dollars due me in a distant city," said Mr. Stuart, (for he likes to be called by his last name now.) "I heard one day that the parties owing me were intending to make an assignment of all their property to certain preferred creditors. I sent a brief note to my wife, took that morning's express train, which left in half an hour, hoping by seeing the parties before their intended assignment, to induce them to prefer me, and liquidate my claim by paying in whole or in part. The note never reached my wife, nor did any succeeding letters. I was informed by letter, three weeks after my departure, of the death and burial of my wife and child. I was not at all well that day, and I had fallen down through a hatchway the day before. The severe blow caused by the accident, and the fearful news conveyed in the letter, caused an illness which terminated in brain fever. I was ill a long time, and unable to travel. For a time I lost all recollection of any events happening during the last four years.

"Of course my physician did not advise me to visit the scene of my loss with my feeble health and unsettled brain. After some months of medical treatment I was allowed to travel, and visit new scenes, if possible to regain my men

tal vigor and tone. But when I found out two years since, that she who I believed had died so soon after my departure, had lived and struggled on for years, thinking me faithless, and at last had drooped and died of a broken heart, my strength gave way. I was sorely tempted. My reason seemed shaken. I preached no more.

"I could not even bear the name of Professor Henry, the name the students gave me, as there was another Stuart in the University whom they called Professor John.

"I walked my room many a night, and wished I had never taken that fatal journey. I have been the victim of an almost fiendish revenge.

A woman to whom I was engaged when a very young man, and whose fearfully violent temper, accidentally discovered, caused me to violate my contract, has persecuted me and mine with relentless fury. She intercepted all my letters. She wrote me, under an assumed name, that letter informing me of the death of my wife and child, when both were living and mourning my absence. She was a watcher at my wife's death-bed, a nurse at the hospital, a cook at Dr. Wendon's her hand cut with a knife the rope to which the pail was attached when you, Nepenthe, were almost drowned. Attired as a man, she attempted your life one evening-and to carry out her subsequent plans and mystify her movements, she assumed the name of Madam Future. Having a large telescope in the top of her house, by turning it in certain directions she could easily see the movements in many of the houses near.

When Carleyn's windows were unshaded or unshuttered she could plainly see his face and features, and tell what he was about.

"The telescope itself was so concealed that Florence Elliott really thought it some magic glass. She whispered in Carleyn's ear many false statements concerning you, and your unknown father and dead mother-but she herself is dead now, and we will try and forget the irretrievable wrong she has done.

“One night I shall never forget. I had done some great service to a stranger. I came home in a calmer frame than usual, resolved to do my duty, and try and banish useless recollections. I found on my table a sealed note with these words-Your wife did not die soon after you left, but lin

gered lonely years after, watching and waiting for your return, and died at last of a broken heart, believing you faithless. Your child is not dead, but is a homeless wanderer in the wide world, while you are enjoying wealth which can do you no good.'

"I read this cruel letter, and as I thought how her sensitive nature lingered out years of agony, I walked back and forth, almost maddened with grief. It seemed that my heart must break. I moaned, I sobbed, I wept, I shrieked. Suddenly I felt something give way within, as if my heart itself had burst. I put my hand on my heart-I could feel no motion-for years I felt none. I asked a physician's opinion. He said there was a sudden obstruction, and that any great excitement might cause insanity or death. He advised me to keep calm and quiet-so I preached no more. It would have been hard for me, with my wan face and worn heart, to bind up the broken-hearted, and preach deliverance to the captive; to inspire faith and hope in desponding souls. So not caring whither I went, I travelled on. I spent two months in the northern part of Texas, travelling sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, often sleeping at night upon the prairies and in the groves. When the sky was clear and cloudless, I wandered about in search for water, cutting and breaking the limbs of trees, making a big fire by a fallen tree for a back log, baking and eating some corn bread, and boiling water for tea. After supper, we-for there were three companions with me-lay down on some blankets spread on the grouud, with our travelling bags for our pillows, and with gentle zephyrs, wreaths of curling smoke, and flickering shadows dancing about us, we were lulled into quiet slumbers in spite of the owl's dismal music, barking of foxes, and howling of wolves, and all but myself awoke in the morning, refreshed and invigorated. But no sky seemed to me bright, no air balmy.

"In the sky of the soul, each cluster of blessings has its lost Pleiad, and you may count over your circle of loved ones, yet that one who is not, you cannot forget. Many a life-picture has its dark back-ground of clouds, of doubts, and of mysteries."

Mr. Stuart paused-and taking from his pocket a little package, opened an old yellow-looking partly torn letter. "This," said he, with much emotion," is the last page

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