The Senator's Bride

"Once those eyes, full sweet, full shy, Told a certain thing to mine; What they told me I put by, Oh, so careless of the sign. Such an easy thing to take, And I did not want it...

Ay, I saw her--we have met-- Married eyes how sweet they be! Are you happier, Margaret, Than you might have been with me? Come, but there is naught to say, Married eyes with min...

"You may go, Norah," said Grace Winans, looking up from the child on her breast at the sleepy-eyed nurse. "If I need you again I can ring the bell;" and, smiling, Norah bowed an...

A misty, overcast morning dawned gloomily after the night of Mrs. Conway's ball. In spite of it the lady rose early. She had not slept at all, and, nervous and depressed, she ro...

Grace Winans waked from her troubled sleep with a vague presentiment of impending evil. She heard the small clock on the mantel chiming seven, and looked about her half bewildered.

"There is many a maiden more lovely by far, With the step of a fawn and the glance of a star; But heart there was never more tender and true Than beats in the bosom of darling L...

With the rosy dawn of the summer day consciousness returned to Bruce Conway--a dazed, half-consciousness, though, that only took in part of the scene, and a memory that only hel...

To aid thy mind's development, to watch The dawn of little joys, to sit and see Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch Knowledge of objects, wonders yet to see! To hold thee...

It was January, and the keen, cold sea-air swept over Norfolk, freezing the snow as it fell, and chilling the very marrow of the few pedestrians whom necessity compelled to be a...

"Alone she sat--alone! that worn-out word, So idly spoken and so coldly heard; Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known, Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word--alone!"

Between eight and nine o'clock Grace had specified as the hour when her husband might call--and the French clock on the mantel of her private parlor at Willard's hotel chimed th...

Four o'clock striking in Mrs. Conway's parlor, and our three friends variously disposed therein; Mrs. Conway trifling with some light affair of fancy work, in bright-colored Ber...

At dusk of the next day Paul Winans walked impatiently up and down the floor of his room at the Arlington House. He was waiting for the appearance of Keene, the best detective i...

Sitting at her window watching the radiant day hiding its blushes on the breast of night, Lulu Clendenon's heart was full of a strange, aching pain. She had, as Captain Fontenay...

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 he...

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep, 'Tis that our nature cannot always bring Itself to apathy, which we must steep First in the icy dep...

Ah, me! what matter? The world goes round. And bliss and bale are but outside things; I never can lose what in him I found, Though love be sorrow with half-grown wings; And if l...

"There's a stone--the Asbestos--that flung in the flame, Unsullied comes forth with a color more sure-- Thus shall virtue, the victim of sorrow and shame, Refined by the trial,...

"And why, if we must part, Lulu! Why let me love you so? Nay, waste no more your sweet farewells, I _cannot_ let you go-- Not let you go, Lulu! I cannot let you go!" --MRS. OSGOOD.

"Now she adores thee as one without spot, Dreams not of sorrow to darken her lot, Joyful, yet tearful, I yield her to thee; Take her, the light of thy dwelling to be."

"Hope, cheated too often when life's in its spring, From the bosom that nursed it forever takes wing; And memory comes as its promises fade To brood o'er the havoc that passion...

"If it be a sin to love thee, Then my soul is deeply dyed With a stain more dark than crimson, That hath all the world defied; For it holds thine image nearer Than all else this...

"To be found untired, Watching the stars out by the bed of pain, With a pale cheek, and yet a brow inspired, And a true heart of hope, though hope be vain, Meekly to bear with w...

"Dear, dearest mother, whom I long so much to see that it seems impossible to write you, sitting tamely here, all that is in my heart, how can I express my grief and anxiety at...

"Oh, being of beauty and bliss! seen and known In the depths of my soul, and possessed there alone! My days know thee not; and my lips name thee never; Thy place in my poor life...

"I promised to write you, dear mother if I should discover anything of interest relating to the little child of whom I wrote you in the autumn; and thanks to dear Bruce (who pre...

"The heavier cross the easier dying. Death is a friendlier face to see; To life's decay one bids defying, From life's distress one then is free! Ah! happy he, with all his loss,...

"Such a joyful thing has happened, dear mother, that I could scarcely believe my own ears when (now more than two weeks ago) Bruce came in and told me General Winans was in Lond...

"As the bird to its sheltering nest, When the storm on the hills is abroad. So his spirit has flown from this world of unrest, To repose on the bosom of God."

"My heart grew softer as I gazed upon That youthful mother as she soothed to rest, With a low song, her loved and cherished one, The bud of promise on her gentle breast; For 'ti...

"But all in vain, to thought's tumultuous flow I strive to give the strength of glowing words; The waves of feeling, tossing to and fro, In broken music o'er my heart's loose ch...