shall ever marry him. I have told him so again and again, and I
believe I shall never surrender this resolve. I have never told my
father of Emile's devotion to me. I have not deemed it necessary, as
I do not intend to marry him; and, then, I have been afraid to tell
him. I only meet Emile by chance, and but rarely. I know you would
advise me not to see him at all, and maybe I will not in the future.
Nous verrons.

"Since I wrote to you last, Kitty Legare has died. She has been
fading, as you know, for a long time with consumption. Dear girl,
now she is at rest; and, I think, to be envied.

"But dear friend, I am drawing my letter to a tedious length. The
stillness of the hour admonishes me to seek repose. So, hastily and
with everlasting love, I bid you good night. "Your own "LEAH."






CHAPTER XVI.





THE days passed on, and the night before the wedding hung its cold,
starless gloom over the Queen City-hung as the sable pall above the
dead.