"HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL IN THE HUMAN BREAST."

—Tennyson's "Gardener's Daughter."

It is the latter part of the month of February, and Norfolk is waking up from its winter torpor. Our friends who wintered in Washington are all at home again. Mrs. Conway and her well-beloved nephew are located once more at Ocean View. Mrs. Winans, only just recovered from her severe and lengthy illness, is once more established in her handsome residence in Cumberland street, and has prevailed on Miss Clendenon to spend the first few weeks after their return with her—Mrs. Clendenon, though lonely without her, willingly giving up those weeks of her daughter's treasured society to the fair woman of whom both son and daughter speak in terms of such unqualified praise.

They are very fond of each other—Grace and Lulu—and, indeed, the fair mistress of that grand home feels as if life will be a blank indeed when Lulu, too, leaves her, for her pleasant company helps to dispel the aching sense of waiting and suspense that broods drearily over her own heart.

Senator Winans has not returned to the United States—indeed, seems in no haste to return—for he has resigned his seat in Congress, and writes that he will never return until accompanied by the child so strangely lost.

At present the fate of that little child is wrapped in impenetrable mystery. The detectives in Liverpool who were watching for the arrival of the steamer there, were eluded by the cunning of his poor, half-insane abductor, and not a trace of her afterward could be found, though the story was widely circulated in the prominent papers, munificent rewards offered for his restoration to his father, and the best detectives employed to hunt the woman down. In vain.

Whether the little Paul yet lived was a matter of doubt to many who considered the subject carefully, and remembered how irresponsible, how poorly fitted to take care of the tenderly nurtured babe, was the poor, grief-stricken, demented creature. But Winans remained abroad, resolved that he would never give up the search nor return home until success crowned his efforts. And with him, to make a resolve was generally to keep it.

As for Grace, the first sharp agony of her grief being past, a sort of apathy settled upon her, a quietude that appeared to infold her so closely it seemed as if joy or pain could never touch her more. Very still and quiet, though sweet, and gently observant of the cares of others, she glided through the elegant rooms of her strangely quiet and solitary home, and books and music, and long, lonely drives, shared only by Lulu, formed the only objects of her daily occupation. Health returned to her so slowly that life seemed slipping from her grasp by gradual declining, and the fair cheek, never very rosy, wore the settled shadow of an inward strife, the girlish lip a quiet resolution that moved the gazer to wonder.

And for Lulu, also, a slight paleness has usurped the place of the brilliant roses she carried to Washington. The starry brown eyes hold a grave thoughtfulness new to their soft depths, and sometimes, when suddenly spoken to, the girl starts, as if her thoughts had strayed hundreds of miles away, though the truth of the matter is they never strayed further than Ocean View, where the handsome object of their thoughts dawdled life away, "killing time" and thought as best he might, and seldom coming into Norfolk—"recruiting after a fatiguing season," he was wont to say, when rallied on the subject by his numerous friends in the city, and had Lulu been at her mother's, he would very possibly have called occasionally to see her, but while she staid with Grace she was debarred the pleasure of seeing him, for Bruce never expected to cross the threshold of the house that called Mrs. Winans its mistress, and where Lulu sat one bright, sunny morning, toward the last of the month of February. As is often the case, February had borrowed a windy day from March, and the "homeless winds" shrieked around the corners, and moaned dismally in the trees that were just putting out the safest and greenest of velvet buds, and Lulu, sitting alone in the cozy morning parlor, idly turning the pages of a new volume, started up in surprise and pleasure as a servant ushered "dear brother Willie" quite unexpectedly into the room.

"So glad to see you," she said, brightly, putting both hands in his one, and rising on tiptoe for a kiss.

He stooped and gave her a dozen before he accepted the chair she placed for him beside her own.

"Mother is well? I haven't seen her these two days," she queries, anxiously.

"Mother is well—yes, and sent her love."

"Now," she chattered, laying aside her book, and concentrating all her attention on him, "give me all the news."

"Well, Lulu, all the news I have is soon told. I am come to bid you good-by. Winans has been urging me so earnestly in his letters to join him abroad in his search for the little Paul, that I have not the heart to refuse, if I wished, which I do not, and I start to-night. There is no use putting it off, and I do not need to. The only thing I regret is that this will curtail your stay with Mrs. Winans, as mother cannot spare us both at once, and will want to have you with her to console her anxieties while 'with a smile at her doleful face, her Willie's on the dark blue sea.' Still, dear little sister, you can spend much of your time with Mrs. Winans, which I hope you will do."

"I certainly will do so," she gravely promises.

"It is solely for her sake that I go," he concluded. "Otherwise I do not care for the trip, and it rather encroaches on my business at this time. But if I can help lift the cloud from her life, no effort of mine shall be wanting. Noblesse oblige, you know, little sister."

She glanced up into the soft, serious, gray eyes, that met her gaze so kindly with a smothered sigh.

"My darling," he bent and looked into the face that lay against his shoulder, "you are not well—you do not look like my bright, happy bird. What is it—what has troubled you?"

"Nothing; indeed it is nothing. I have the least bit of a headache, but it is wearing off in the joy of seeing you," she answered, smiling a little, and then, woman-like, touched by a sympathizing word, breaking into tears and sobbing against his shoulder.

He put his arm around her, inexpressibly shocked and pained.

"Something has troubled you, and I know it. Tell me, Lulu, or I cannot be content to cross the ocean leaving you with some untold grief in your happy young heart. Come, you do not have any secrets from brother Willie."

"No, no, it is nothing, dear brother, but I am so nervous of late—have learned to be a fashionable lady, you know," smiling faintly to allay his anxiety, "and I am so shocked to think you are going away—so far, and so soon—how long do you mean to stay?"

"I cannot tell. I shall write to you often, anyhow, so that you and mother shall not miss me so much. I shall throw all my powers into this undertaking. And, Lulu, I think—that is—I should like to see her and say good-by—if you think she would see any one?"

"She would see you, certainly; she is very fond of you; talks often of you. You can go down into the conservatory; she was there a little while since. I know she is there still. After you tell her good-by, you will come back to me—will you?"

"Yes, dear," he answered, as he rose and left her, passing on through the continuation of the elegant suite of rooms leading out to the door of the conservatory and glancing in for her he sought.

She was there. He caught his breath with a pang as he saw the slender figure standing under a slim young palm tree, looking like a sculptured image of thought with her downcast eyes and gravely quiet lips. A furred, white morning robe of fine French merino, girded at the waist by silken white cords and tassels, fell softly about her form and trailed its sweeping length on the marble floor. There were faint blue shadows around the glorious eyes, though they may have been but the shadow of the sweeping black lashes—there was a glow but no color on the pure, fragile cheek, and a dumb suggestion of quiet martyrdom in the droop of the hands that loosely clasped each other, as

the eyes of Captain Clendenon dwell on her for a moment with a mist before their sight, and then—but then she lifted the sweeping lids of those rare pansy-vailed eyes, and looked up at him.

The ghost of a smile touched her lips as she gave him her hand.

"It seems a long time since I saw you," she said, "though it really is not two months."

"Sometimes," he answered, gravely, "so much suffering can be crowded into two months that it may well seem two centuries."

"Ah! yes." She set her lips suddenly in the straight line with which she was wont to keep back a sob. After a moment, "Have you seen Lulu?"

"Yes, I have seen her," going over patiently, and at more length, the information he had just given his sister, talking this time brightly and cheerfully. "I feel almost assured he will be found; he must be—'there is no such word as fail,' you know, in the 'lexicon of youth,'—and I think you are giving up too easily. You will undermine your health already weakened by your severe illness. Why, you have the appearance of one who has given up all hope."

"And I have," she calmly made answer.

"That is simply suicidal," he said, trying to rouse her into hope with all the strength of his strong, true nature.

"You are so kind, Captain Clendenon," she flashed a blinding ray of gratitude from her dusk eyes upon him, "so kind to go and look for him—my baby—believe me, I never, never can forget it, though I feel that all search will be in vain—still, still, it is so kind, so noble in you to do all this, and I know you are doing it for me," laying her small hand mechanically on his coat-sleeve in a childish fashion she had, and keeping the grateful eyes still on his face.

"Mrs. Winans," he answered, quite gravely, "I would go to the ends of the earth to serve you—any man who knows your unmerited sufferings, and appreciates you as well as I do, could not do less, I think."

"Thank you," she murmured, with the faintest quiver in the music of her voice.

"And now," he spoke less gravely, and more brightly, "I think I must be saying good-by. Is there anything I can do for you on the other side of the Atlantic—any commission for Parisian finery—any message for your husband?"

"Nothing—thanks," she answered, decisively.

He sighed, but did not urge the matter.

"You are not going to send me to Europe without one flower, and so rich in floral blessings?" his glance roving over the booming wilderness of beauty and fragrance all around her.

"No, indeed, but you are not going yet. You will certainly stay to luncheon, will you not?"

"I cannot—thanks!"

"You shall have all the flowers you want. What are your favorites? Pray help yourself to all you fancy, and welcome," she urged, earnestly.

He glanced around. Everything rare, and sweet, and bright he could think of, glowed lavishly around him, but the only white rose that had blown that day she had quite mechanically broken and placed on her breast.

"I only want one flower. I like white roses best," he answers.

She turned her head, bending forward to see if any were there, and one of her long, fair curls swept across and tangled itself in a thorny bush beside her. She caught it impatiently away, leaving a tangle of broken gold strands on the thorny stem. Before she turned back to him he had broken off the spray and hid it in his breast.

"There is not a rose," lifting regretful eyes to his face, "excepting this one I wear. I carelessly broke it, but it is still fresh. You are welcome to that, if you will have it," she said, sweetly.

"If you please."

She disengaged it, and put it in his hand. He retained hers a moment.

"Thanks, and—good-by."

"Good-by," her voice said, regretfully, then added: "Oh! Captain Clendenon, find him for me, if you can! Oh, try your best!"

"I pledge you my word I will," he answered, "but promise me that you will have faith in my endeavor; that you will live in hope."

"Oh! I cannot, I cannot! I feel that I can never hope again!" she cried, but with a brightening glance.

"But you will," he answered, cheerily. "Health, and hope, and love will all come back to you in time. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast.' God bless you, and good-by."

Their hands met a moment in a strong, friendly clasp; her violet orbs dusk and dewy with feeling; her voice scarce audible as it quivered:

"Good-by!"