subject. It is too serious an affair. We might get ourselves into trouble." "True. But I cannot bear to think that others are suffering from an act of mine." "It is not a pleasant consciousness, certainly. But still, to confess what we have done would place us in a very awkward position. In fact, not for the world would I have an exposure of this little act of folly take place. It would affect me in a certain quarter--where, I need not mention to you--in a way that might be exceedingly disagreeable." "I didn't think of that. Yes, I agree with you that we had best keep quiet about it. I'm sorry; but it can't be helped now." And so the matter was dismissed. No one saw Clara Grant in company for the space of twelve months. When she did appear, all her old friends were struck with the great change in her appearance. As for Fisher, he had left the city some months before, and gone off to a Southern town, where, it was said, he was in good business. The cause of estrangement between the lovers remained a mystery to every one. To all questions on the subject, Clara was silent. But that she was a sufferer every one could see. "I wish that girl would fall in love with somebody and get married," Mears remarked to his friend, about two years after they had passed off upon Clara their good joke. "Her pale, quiet, suffering face haunts me wherever I go." "So do I. Who could have believed that a mere joke would turn out so seriously?" "I wonder if he is married yet?" "It's doubtful. He appeared to take the matter quite as hard as she does." "Well, it's a lesson to me." "And to me, also." And, with this not very satisfactory conclusion, the two friends dropped the subject. Both, since destroying, by a few words spoken in jest, the happiness of a loving couple, had wooed and won the maidens of their choice, and were now married. Both, up to this time, had carefully concealed from their wives the act of which they had been guilty.