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ALICE LAUDER.

and miserable, and the trees were cut down, and the children grown up, and I was a stranger and an outsider. It is the strangest feeling! The little shop at the corner where I used to buy teacakes (when we could afford it) was the only place I felt at home in. I never knew what ghosts felt before, but now I know and feel for them. They have my sincerest sympathy. I never shall be frightened of them again, poor things!”

“Well, let us have some music so as to soothe their feelings, if there are any about to-night. I will play the accompaniment, and you can open the door so that the landlady will hear it.”

“When sparrows build, and the leaves break forth,
 My old sorrow wakes and cries;
For I know there is dawn in the far, far north,
 And a scarlet sun doth rise.”

There was a new strength and sweetness in Alice’s voice that fairly astonished her friend; and when with a genuine thrill of passion she sang—

“How could I tell I should love thee to-day,
 Whom that day I held not dear?

Clare almost wiped away a tear. “I hope to goodness that the professor won’t think that she means him,” she murmured, for at that moment

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