I desired to know what was wrong.

`But will you promise to reform, if I tell you?'

Yes, if I can--and without offending a higher authority.'

`Ah! there it is, you see--you don't love me with all your heart.'

`I don't understand you, Arthur (at least, I hope I don't): pray tell me what I have done or said amiss?'

`It is nothing you have done or said; it is something that you are: you are too religious. Now I like a woman to be religious, and I think your piety one of your greatest charms, but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherialize her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies.'

`And am I above all human sympathies?' said I.

`No, darling; but you are making more progress towards that saintly condition than I like; for, all these two hours, I have been thinking of you and wanting to catch your eye, and you were so absorbed in your devotions that you had not even a glance to spare for me--I declare, it is enough to make one jealous of one's Maker--which is very wrong, you know; so don't excite such wicked passions again, for my soul's sake.'

`I will give my whole heart and soul to my Maker if I can,' I answered, `and not one atom more of it to you than he allows. What are you, sir, that you should set yourself up as a god, and presume to dispute con of my heart with Him to whom I owe all I have and all I am, every blessing I ever did or ever can enjoy yourself among the rest--if you are a blessing, which I am half included to doubt.'

`Don't be so hard upon me, Helen; and don't pinch my arm so, you're squeezing your fingers into the bone.'

`Arthur,' continued I, relaxing my hold of his arm, `you don't love me half as much as I do you; and yet, if you loved me far less than you do, I would not complain, provided you loved your Maker more. I should rejoice to see you, at any time, so deeply absorbed in your devotions that you had not a single thought to spare for me. But, indeed, I should lose nothing by the change, for the more you loved your God the more deep and pure and true would be your love to me.'

At this he only laughed, and kissed my hand, calling me a sweet enthusiast. Then taking off his hat, he added--

`But look here, Helen--what can a man do with such a head as this?'

The head looked right enough, but when he placed my hand on the top of it, it sunk in a bed of curls, rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle.

`You see I was not made to be a saint,' said he, laughing. `If God meant me to be religious, why didn't He give me a proper organ of veneration?'

`You are like the servant,' I replied, `who instead of employing his one talent in his master's service, restored it to him unimproved, alleging, as an excuse, that he knew him "to be a hard man, reaping where he had not sown and gathering where he had not strawed." Of him, to whom less is given, less will be required; but our utmost exertions are required of us all. You are not with out the capacity of veneration, and faith and hope, and con science and reason, and every other requisite to a Christian's character, if you choose to employ them; but all our talents in crease in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise; therefore, if you choose to use the bad--or those which tend to evil till they become your