It was the eve of the New Year. The snow had folded its white mantle over the earth, and in the gardens, where the flowers had hidden their fragile beauty from the ruthless fingers of the Frost King, it gleamed whitely from amid the sombre foliage of the hardy evergreens. On lawn and terrace it lay in uneven drifts, tossed at will by the chilling winter winds. Pendant from tree and shrub hung glittering icicles, and on the window panes the frostwork looked like the invisible effort of some fairy spirits, that a breath from mortals would dissolve.

The bright New Year is ever welcomed as a season of enjoyment for those who have happy homes, where friends meet around well-laden boards, to return thanks for past prosperity, and form plans for future happiness. But to others, friendless, forsaken, and perhaps weary of a life of ill-requited toil, the retrospection is often inexpressibly mournful.

Alone in her room, at her friend's humble cottage, sat Clemence Graystone, watching for the noiseless incoming of another year. The light gleamed redly out from the blazing wood fire, lighting up the small apartment with its cheerful glow, but failed to call anything like warmth or color to the marble face that drooped low with its weight of painful thought. The morrow was to be her wedding day. She raised her head and glanced around the room, which was filled with all the paraphernalia of the wedding toilet.

An undefined dread took possession of her. It seemed as though this happiness, that appeared so near, was yet to elude her. A mirror stood where she could behold her own image. A sadness stole over the girl's spirit as she looked at the semblance of herself there reflected. As she gazed, she seemed to be communing with some invisible presence, and she found herself pitying the young face in the mirror, as if it were another than her own.

While she looked sorrowfully, a second shadow became dimly outlined behind it. Clemence started in momentary terror. The thought occurred to her of the old-time superstition connected with this illusion. She remembered that an old nurse had told her in childhood that it was an omen of death to behold this spectral shadow. In spite of her freedom from vulgar superstition, her lips grew colorless, and her heart beat with alarm. She sank down again into her chair, cowering close to the cheerful fire.

An hour passed thus. The clock struck twelve. The girl roused herself again at this—remembered that this was to be the most eventful day of her existence. "I must retire," she soliloquized; "it will never do to have pale cheeks or troubled thoughts for my wedding day. Would that I could make myself beautiful for his dear sake."

A smile of hope and joy wreathed the lips of the soft-eyed dreamer. She paced the floor absently backward and forward, with far-off gaze; then knelt at her bedside and breathed to the kind All Father a prayer for guidance and strength for what might come to her.

Clemence Graystone's future seemed, for the first time since her father's sudden death, to hold in it somewhat of happiness for her portion. The dreary waste had changed to a smiling landscape, that glowed beneath skies of a roseate hue. There was surely nothing now to fear. With the love of one powerful to protect her from life's ills, means to lavish upon the wistful-eyed child who had grown each day deeper into her affections, and a firm, trusting faith in the guidance of One who ruleth over the world He has created, a faith that had kept her from despair in the darkest hour, and made her young life beautiful; with hope beckoning, with smiling eyes, to the crowning glory of womanhood, this girl, who had suffered so much from fate, ought to have been content and happy. But the mysterious shadow of her coming doom brooded darkly over her.

At length, inspired with a sudden feeling, for which she could hardly account, Clemence rose, and seated herself at her writing-desk. If she had been given to spiritual sympathies, she would have said that her hand was controlled by some unseen power. As it was, there was a look of awe upon the pallid face that bent to the task, and the girl was whiter than the paper before her, as she wrote thus:

My Dearest Friend: Something within me, a strange, mysterious influence, the whisperings, perhaps, of some angel spirit sent to call me hence, impels me to write these few words of farewell. If nothing should happen me, if my life should flow on tranquilly into the valley of peace that my fond fancy pictured, then I will keep this to laugh over, as the wild vagaries of an over-wrought, excited imagination. But, if death should find me at my labor of love, you will know how irrevocably my heart has been given to you, and realize somewhat of the depths of that affection which my lips have never dared to frame. Oh, my darling, had I been permitted to live, I would have worshipped you; and if God calls me, I will still hover around you, and be the first to welcome one I loved to Heaven. All that you have been to the weary-hearted girl, you will never know. Life seemed hopeless, but your affection has made it a dream of happiness. I have wanted to tell you how deeply your image was graven on my heart; how one face that was dear to me haunted my sleeping and waking dreams. I would have lived for you, and can die breathing a blessing for your future.

There is one other that I have cared for as a mother would the babe she carried in her bosom. My patient, tender-eyed Ruth—watch over her when I am gone. Sometimes, when thinking of this hour, I have prayed that its bitterness might be averted. Realizing the agony of parting, the cruel severing of the clinging tendrils of unselfish affection, I have shrunk from the trial. But now I feel that my strength is sufficient, even unto the end. Though I walk through the "valley of the shadow of death," I do not fear, for I can behold the light that breaks beyond, "over the delectable mountains."

My own Love! Strive to meet me there. Others have gone before—the fond eyes that watched over my cradle, the mother who nursed me during the hours of helpless infancy, and he who sheltered and protected my early youth with tenderest care. I shall know and love them again. The thought makes me happy.

I have one last request to make. During my years of loneliness, when I have met with so much to dishearten and discourage me in my efforts to earn an honest livelihood, I have learned to pity the struggling, self-supporting ones of my sex, as only those can pity and sympathize who have suffered from a similar cause. I have often wished that I had means to provide a home, not for "fallen women," but for those patient toilers who are breasting the cruel, overwhelming waves of adversity. There are many such, thrown from loving homes upon the charities of a cold and selfish world. It is my desire to benefit them, and, with this end in view, I would leave the money which has so lately come to me, to be expended in the erection of a home to shelter helpless and unprotected women, who are incapable of self-support, either wholly or in part.

This is no school-girl fancy, but a plan long matured, formed from experience and observation. It is a sorrowful fact, that has come within my own knowledge, that more than one delicately-reared girl, having an innate love of virtue and horror of vice, has fallen into infamy from this cause. They have resorted to crime from a total inability to sustain themselves in even the humblest manner, or provide the coarsest food and clothing by their own unaided efforts. I would be glad to give what means and influence I may possess for so worthy an object, and I trust you to carry out these my last wishes.

I can write no more. God be with and comfort you, my own, own love.