to be played exclusively for your amusement. I do not like this. The play costs the performers too much, and the audience is too cold-hearted.”

“You are severe,” said Holgrave, compelled to recognize a degree of truth in the piquant sketch of his own mood.

“And then,” continued Phoebe, “what can you mean by your conviction, which you tell me of, that the end is drawing near?

Do you know of any new trouble hanging over my poor relatives? If so, tell me at once, and I will not leave them!”

“Forgive me, Phoebe!” said the daguerreotypist, holding out his hand, to which the girl was constrained to yield her own. “I am somewhat of a mystic, it must be confessed.