New York Tribune

"Lamia, my dear!" exclaimed young Stuart, troubled by this subterfuge and prevarication, "why did you mislead him?"
"For your sake, Cleve. Oh, my dear, don't you understand? I was so quick to see your interests, and to guard them. These lawyers must not know of the existence of this heiress until you have made her and her fortune your own. Nor must she know of her accession to wealth until she is your wife. She..."
But the young man had started from the side of his companion, and was striding up and down the room muttering: "Horrible! Horrible!"
Lamia, fearing she would lose her influence over him, put up her hands, and, in beseeching tones, cried: "Cleve, do you not love..."
"Not love you! O, Heaven!"
Then, if you do, pray, pray sit down, try to be calm and cool and reasonable, and listen to me, will you?" she cooed and coaxed, caressing him with her soft hands.
"I have no choice but to hear and obey," he answered in a tone made tragic by the conflict in his soul.
"Now listen. There is not a hope of Palma's recovery. You have not the power to heal her malady, but you may make her happier than she has ever been in her life, and you may prolong her existence, will you have done her any harm? Surely not. Nor is there any one else whom this plan would wrong. There is no other heir after her. She is last of the Hays. She disinherited the whole family. Real and personal [estate] willing to you. To a hotly contested. On b..."
And he resolved to recover or die in the attempt? Both were silent until she touched a secret spring and proved to him her plan." And then he rushed from the house.
He hastened to the tenement house where Palma was lying. He found Mrs. Pole, the old nurse, in the hall. She informed him that Palma was dying and was resigned to her fate, and then led the way into an attic chamber.
And there, propped up by pillows in a rocking chair, reclined the lovely, dying girl. She wore a faded blue gown, her silky black hair flowed freely over head and shoulders, her little dark face was wasted by illness; but her large, dark eyes were so brilliant, and her cheeks and lips so bright, that she was beautiful even under the shadow of death.
A cry of pity half escaped the lips of Cleve Stuart as he approached her chair. She held out both hands to welcome him, and her face was radiating celestial light and joy.
He took her in his arms and kissed her, and laid her little head against his breast for a moment. The caress was impulsive, spontaneous, compassionate and withal as pure and holy as if it had been bestowed on a little suffering sister.
"Are you so glad to see me, Palma!" he gently inquired, as he laid her back in her chair.
"Oh, so glad!" she breathed with a sigh of profound content. And she held out her hands to him, as if mutely imploring him to take them.
He drew a chair to her side and seated himself, and took the little, emaciated hands and held them together in his own.
"You are so good to come! You make me so happy! I am going to die soon; but I should not mind if I could only have you here sitting by me, holding my hand to the last-to the very last!" she panted, tightening her clasp upon the hands that were holding hers: and then Cleve Stuart, really forgetting all mercenary interests, found it in his heart and conscience to marry Palma Hay, if she really wanted to be his wife.
Why should he not make this poor child happy for the few remaining days or hours of her life!
"Palma, will you give me the legal right to care for you? Will you have me for your husband?" he asked, gently taking her hand and bending over her.
"Oh, sir, do you mean it? Can you mean it?" she breathed, gazing up in his face with childish frankness, surprise and delight-the failing light kindling in her dark eyes the fading color flushing in her wan cheeks.
"I do mean it, dear child. Will you give yourself to me?" he asked, smoothing her dark hair with his jeweled hand.
"Yes, oh, yes! if you want me-but I am such a poor creature;" she answered, holding out to him her wasted hand, and smiling faintly.
"So be it, then;" he said, lifting the little hand to his lips.
And the scene ended in the solemn betrothal of the young gentleman to the dying girl, the appointment of their marriage to be solemnized on the following Sunday noon, and the departure of the bridegroom elect to make preparations for the ceremony.
As Cleve left Palma she said to him, in a childlike trustful way: "Oh, how happy you have made me! I would rather live, now."
This declaration touched Cleve to the heart, and stirred all his better nature to its utmost depths. He resolved to devote himself with absolute fidelity to the happiness of Palma during the brief remainder of her life. In this mood he returned to his hotel. There he found a letter awaiting him from Lamia Leegh, marked Immediate. He went to his room and opened the letter. His face flushed crimson, and then faded into pallor, as he read:
No. - FIFTH-AVE., April 20, 8 p. m.
Cleve, come to me instantly. Go no further in the matter we planned. There are no 'millions in it.' But ruin. Drop the girl like a grenade and escape destruction. She is a beggar. An heir has been discovered in the son of Hay's second son who was supposed to have died unmarried in California, who takes precedence of the daughter of the third, and who brings all the documents necessary to prove him the heir-at-law of the late John Haywood Hay, of Haymore. Come instantly to hear all the particulars.
L. L.
Cleve Stuart finished the letter of Lamia Leegh, laid it down, and covered his face with his hands. The above we publish as a specimen chapter of this beautiful story: but the continuation will be found only in the N. Y. Ledger. Ask for the number dated January 3, which can now be had at any news office or book store. The New York Ledger is the Great Family Paper, full of good and interesting reading, containing, in addition to the stories, articles by Bishop Clark, the Rev. Dr. John Hall, and other eminent scholarly and divine. Now if you want a paper that has something in it-something to amuse, to entertain, to instruct-the best and truest love stories, sound, wholesome doctrines about right and wrong, and plain, definite variety of interesting, agreeable and diverting articles, subscribe for the Ledger. The price is three dollars a year. Address Robert Bonner, publisher, 31 Willing's, New York. The cost is nothing compared to the value of what you get.