A. DELIGHTFUL LOVE | . VIGOROUS AND CAPTIVATING, oe By 5. Ie DACI we wD BEGINS NEXT WEEH. vr fitlereé he Ce few York, as Second Class Matter. Lttered According tg Act of Congress, 12 the vear > h 2 YF Congress, Washington, D.C. 79-89 eeccis Asana, New York. New York, April 2A, Ce No. 29. Two Copies Five Dollars. A i | | CH li ; ; ects ' " mT ’ : ; which young men divide their hearts, < vl ae miiiill ! ei, 7 ‘ing i a seit a uy Hn wily Mitt tam A and bestow their hasty affections,on BY JUDD MORTIMER LEWIS. Pale a i al Ht i Fi a : Oa | PHU A ome HH girls whom they have no reason to sede a Hh a wre: a 3 il A believe will be such wives as they gee Sal gee a i eal | : need, nor even such as their calm Touslehead and Eyes-o’-Bly bo Sa 7 jot il | | HHH SSE : % & Spe ; 3 | iif judgement wopld desire. apis : 2 3 ; ig ttt at pital at NAN Hh Wht f B } J He ! f 2 HH Hit love. soon cools, but also it Iéaves be- Hazel-eyes and Fluffy Crown, at ie eel ie a w(t ut y i ir ay ae ae es fr ii abled hind it the blighting scars of fire.’ Mother’s bending over you, og vate rei ul Daa Dit ee ha F A he ae aae nl Hi aa MAN HI Pauline now devoted. ssiie. hours Hise : : eee Per ae f Uy TTT ARR TERA : uit vee eS ; ; : LH of each morning to:,these Sicttons us. abay and snuggle down: oat oll HA ea Tat mt a i fe Ee ‘ ee Si ee 4 a iq Lady Astraea taught.drex Only dream of pleasant things HERR i ate i Hi : : 3 ; mid ous method of her own oe Seaton =k a i WAN Hi} Hi Bf } tlle : : oe eR ee Si ee 5 NS them together. in Yédtmess. for “be- Hushabay-o-bye-o, dear, ; HVAT Rae ares Pa Boe! A : 3 FES ieee ee Bees Sst 3 ing bound. .. Her ladyship ssai@- tha oer after all her lettéfs were in thi we Hark the song that mother sirigs, made ready fore yolumes she slitai: ~~ a- ingeni- for fastening Tl Fie : lb ' . : eg ree aaa oe AEG es Go to sleep, dear, others here. Ni . : i a Hi is : eo D i a P as S : : Si 5 ie ete ae i find some person:-who could bind ete i " "i | j <= Hatt lt gantly, acecustonied to doing “ap vol- = : — (iti “itt ait 2 fee alti RELA a eases : H ne, is umes for amiateurs, and this person Snuggle neath the blankets tight, al " : ey al Me 4 a a lk Hee ASS i ioe Z should come to the Towers@apde bind Never fear at all or cry, " in LS it TA i HH i if Ht a eae: aa 2 Ake ee yhiah. EDS would not trust ” 4s : a - a eee Hitt “8 ul i : ! al Hi Hun HY Wat ates 3 é f : Hae H Pith gl | iin < out Of her own hands. That $ the soft wind of the night i nl zi eal Mit veg eco alae Loot ea 9A Za : Ee Hegemon yo ; In the. pale-gold sunlight of ~ “Hyacintl 2 Seth Im the stove to keep you warm tN } BTS ANN oe 2 mgt ( hie sy ” ii building the Hyacinth Rooms; ’ Kf Ha a . y } . See 2 ee : “ities ion as she assorted, and read, and Sleep the dream of happy days Pte ARE NT sites ite | oe ns 7 CR Megs 8 at alt uth tt A ry dexed the letters of the generous Full of pl tac 4 ; i Ny i WE p : ; s me SN et ast! et sunny-tempered. girl who had once ul of play and free from storm. i % : : yy Occupied Bhe same apartments, the ; i , nie Dena pala ; 3 i ae. Ps : ; 4 is ; HEE currents their two lives, so widely That’s a dog way off somewhere Ha, S % . WAT \ =. Z are ts ; y sg arene ae ‘ cH ea eet r H divided, Appeared to meet and mingle. . 4 ce ! NK : Pisa ‘ : y 3 fea wy 5 gene BH Hl ft seemed as if the loyes, the in- Saying good night to the moon, ) a 2 ' Hh by NMA Ns , te ; a6 : ¥ ‘4 fi am Ue E Hoe terests, the opinions of this..woman, Never mind and never care, Sa aos yi} : eae a MTs SS ; BES who was so tong dead, were “flowing y : a : ; ) f : TL H Gn in this stranger who had come to bee : IN : { 7 : f i I ho had t Go to sleep and pretty soon a a 7 e/ “3 Sas "LA OS SS iM Pray Harcourt Towers. Lady Astraea . ‘ 7 MY ‘ t ; r ‘ : : oa, * ‘ 5 S ae ! ‘ E i ite came-to sit wi Fauline as s Twill be morning, and the skies : it ey = ] vw on es ges i plied eee faa Roaoeine: fetters Will be bright to welcome you, Aim Wh ge yf ae : ae 4) BY fi} J A 4 i ra eS EER E and commenting upon them, Snuggle down and close your eyes, (aii NS PGRN aa FE ee at | A Aen at | warcourt, loved these roome, sho oer Eyes-o’-Brown and Eyes-o’-Blue. itn INA: : . j V7 ‘ay AK f een ey cupied them as a young girl when ete ; a ? ae / ie = ! iit, : Hae : f ii H F visiting me, At that time my~ son In the morning you shall play ; wo L ty ee et e ¢ ; Se : : a Ht was in Europe, and the dear child , : — Wes A ra * « : aS F /P) _cetnssen 4 Bea Hf Was accompanied by her governess, You shall Jauch and dance. and ” * x ’ 5 ge we ee Yj $ Tae s “ : Hy : Wit Then, as a young lady of eighteen, eee , - t i ith 1 t ; ; : ATM eae : 3 i Pre Ded Bree woe : ‘SR 3 i Pete te she came again with her mother, my sing, : } Cat ee : , Fe ae ri e ‘ < i See : 2 gee : F f Fa : H . 1 @ : i F dear friend. I remember how troubled Be contented all the day, ol EE FI ‘ 3 ” : . H at ie vy : a ‘ ; Bs ental 8s : I was because my son’s fancy seemed ma: : ‘ 4 3 e } : an 5 haa ts SH f ; x 5 rai at § too absorbed to rest upon our guest, Swing high in the old Tope swing; } : sit a as marr ete pst ws ee Ha eie RsTati and it occurred to me that she was rah? ; at ; ANA Hit 3 a Zig , : oe Wi 4 rsa ‘ Fj " % i falling unawares into an innocent, Nothing then shall stay your hand, Nh) aoe Z : Hugger HL fH be ' : z unconscious love for him. She came You shall build yourselves a heap i Z ‘ i ee BF Me again for a -week after. they were—he- E " 3 S R oie ee d p Sr ee r My ie na, troted; the engagement was a very Of wee houses in the sand, ~ : i en oe Tae N te ; hy a ; = short one.> -Thes,-as a wife and’ mis- 4 : i : H 4 5 é : tress of the house, she tec 2Se Snuggle down and go to sleep. rooms, and often’ ised Then Eve : : he Fy ; y } : a 5 Ppa J : member she wsed to sit here for Qne more kiss and oné more sigh, } iu | . ‘ ie : : ASE i si AN t aaa hy Hi ; i hours, sewing on marvelously beauti- 7 es a, peer nt ‘s ie 1 ; a j ; ‘ lig Six AAT Past aa ' : pill ful little garments, before her daugh- One more try to keep awake, rf Lg NY i : if A KN A ge) 2g RAH Ht eae td ter was born. Into these yery rooms, Bye-o-baby, bye-o-bye; PO Le, Rau THBE UIE a . VOW. Hh AWE My : Hi th ae eas as nearest the scene of her accident, : i vies wee pe Hf he i Ht iy 7 , ff HUN Wii We IN Indi TTT mune we carried her after that fatal fall Father guard, for Jesus sake, cul Het V//4 ee , ; : 3 / JY a is 4 ; 4 ra HGR ith OH ; iii that has overshadowed our house in : ee . ae ee vn é . u SILAS 4 Z y ne a i : all these years since it happened. Our wee babies in their beds; aa uy : : ae tus aes FP itt “fe Saeed AT aaa 3 Snell When I see these ‘hyacinth rooms’ Our trust, Father, is in you. Yy = prelate Se YT | Z a. a eres yuce more opened, I fancy I see her , : — ; i ‘ , 5 Sey \ f pat | } Ah ; form, and*hear her yoice, And yet ; = : é ! Keep guard over tousleheads, : — Wi hi 4 / & a a eh se ey ; ae | ; is not that you are so like her; ae »_ in RPS on . ; } | hay f q bp wf vi } ee 1er figure was less stately, the pose Eyes-o’-Brown and Eyes-o’-Blue. : ere ZA — Wes Be i ie 7 ye) We of her head less proud, her features Baie ainihee soins “atice ~ gene ¥ /, / ti ips 7 Ms il : 4 th ti ss ; Ht eee ften less perfect; but oh! my dear, no oO the gs Ss = J / i ( a H rt : j ; eS aiid character could be more lovely than Heavenward above the night, a a we ; Hi L i Be. ih 4 lift Hh tip , : y et " é m < Pn hers—she was embodied. goodness.” re 1 lullabi et “Do you know,” Said’ Pauline, who Mother love and lullabies, as < 4 BAe Tate Meal loved to hear the old lady rambling Mother love, with eyes ahight VC . 7 nt ors G i / ! ; 7 5 iH Hei Fenn et | pre Mebsoars a oe reminis¢ ences of her Past, g ‘ eee J HTL Vs wen AM i ene siya shislan “that often have an odd impression Bending by the trundle bed i BA eno ; Hey : eee ety || that the Lady Harcourt is still here ; : . ey 2 “ Dp A Ei asi) 5; ‘ ; “ SHITE TT i ; 8 in these rooms that she loved: as TI Where the sleeping baby lies; = fell coe fi phere es Agere Ret i HIN ifleces : sit here reading these letters I have i" ‘ ; th rel L ie " } i Eyes-o’-Blue or Touslehead, jal i vu an impression of her presence; she aie seems to pass along these rooms and Fluffy Crown or Hazel Eves stand. by the window. Say, did she / have a habit of standing by this win- 4 Sis cette i am —— Socee ——— a ES = . dow, one hand on the sill, the other behind her, looking toward the sea?” of how. delightful it would be to have this charm-| keeper, and scare ly any others in the Towers “Her very position!’ cried Lady Astraea. ing family of kindred near him, with whom to| knew that Lord Thomas Harcourt had had some “And there, in the arch between “these two spend holidays and evenings, to have Lord, strange seizure. Dugald delayed his departure} rooms; she often stands, fair-faced, dressed in Thomas sympathizing with his Italian studies in| for a week. The day after his singular attack, | mourning, between the two violet curtains. the antiquities, Lady Astraea to talk with of phil-| Lord Thomas bade Timball go to the village and | Swinging gold of those tassels just above her € anthropies, and questions of justice, and political} inquire carefully if any stranger had been stop-{ head; a well-made, compact figure, hardly middle- . economy, and education, and this loyely girl to} ping there. He returned, reporting that at one} size. wander with him through miles of picture-gal-| cottage some one, very ‘much of a lady,” hand- “Exactly as I have seen her a hundred times leries, where beauties smiling from marble or] some, about forty years old, who never went out} when she was in mourning for her mother. How canyas were none of them fairer than she. by daylight, had been stopping for some little very strange for you to have that feeling of see- Tr 7 —- ~ ~~ “I know your father could hire some grandj| time, but was now gone, ing her so plainly,’’ Bw DUNCAN Bc x REGOR, old palazzo, splendid in antique iene” and ae left this morning early, my lord.” Bara ne I tove seen her portrait: I love . Ss ae : s ; < : : tapestries, and massive pavements, carved chests tO go where?’ : ; : to look at it. But, Lady Astraea, do you know Author of “*kennedy’s foe, ““Tshmael Reformed,’ ‘*_A Game of Threé,’’ | like that in which the lady of the misletoe bough she Said she was going somewhere in Italy. { talked once with a gentleman who argued that . < Z : Saat : ~ F found her doom, corridors haunted by the mighty “After Mr, Probyn leaves us, Timball, é when people had much. loved and lived in- any ‘* Bdna’s. Peril? ete arahoe-tae ghosts Pt the middle ages; a palazzo Lee the family early to London, to é certain spot, so that their heart-home was there, 4 where every room has @ story.’’ winter, heir ments ersonality at intangible being of “Oh, delicious! And what kind of stories?’ Lord Thomas. seemed quite himself on the sent i Gueta sae ton. “a er enel eect hits SS ee “Of all tones and shades, graye and gay, | morning when the whole family came upon the our physi@ad frames as in a mold, and takes their comic and tragic. In this banquet-Hall an in-| terrace to bid Dugald Probyn-good-by and to see shape, wileither during Hfe or. after death re- surrection was plotted, and here the agents of} him off. It happened that Pauline was standing | turn, a Be@@hless. fender visitant. to suct a place = the Medici butchered in coid blood the plotters. ee — eee a Dugaid looked back atja guest whom we might see if our eyes were not Here fron his window an enraged mob swung] them as he got into the carriage. so ¢ .d since Ad: fe > th sht tha rhe CHAPTER V.—( Continued.) And yet Dugald had not forced himself upon], eaediaal fash from his Nastia icstrom this “TI shall soon be back here to a wedding,” he te enti Socenies zn Pe ae oe eed Once in her chosen retreat Lady Lina flung} ber. She knew this, and liked him accordingly.| patcony some fair Juliet of happier destiny de-| said. “Well, I have no right to object to my!seen that we again seem to live in its. scenes herself in a large chair and began to meditate, | Sle Said that evening: scended on a rope ladder to her expectant Romeo, | cousin’s marriage I shall simply have to carve] then this mental personality has gone, for the but no sooner had she fairly set before -herself “I am sorry you are going back to Italy to-{| Here some fugitive Vandois maiden came in| MY Own way, and no need to grumble at that, time being, out of. our bodies, and superior to the figure and speech of the gipsy, and from this} morrow, Cousin Dugald. { like gentlemen’s com-j{ menial: guise, and the lord of the palazzo fell in} with poor Persis Ormesby’s money in my pocket. time and space has sought its chosen home.” portraiture gathered the impression which the] pany better than ladies’, and I like to have one! love with her, married her, and the long line of | I wish shevhad it back.” Lady Astraea laughed. woman herself had failed to convey—ihat thej gentleman around who does not feel bound to} her sons and successors is written in the gold Then another look at Lord Harcourt’s middle “That is too metaphysical and imaginative @ gipsy character was assumed—when Rivers, came | make love to me.” rs age, stately and handsome, and at.Pauline’s beau-| theme for me, it- would have suited Dugald Pro- in, flustted and discomposed. “That may have been because you gave me n0 “Enchanting! To liye in such a palazzo will} tiful youth, with the element of graciousness that | hyn. You should have talked it “My Lady Lina! It is long past the hour to} encouragement.” give flavor to my life, See that you get us| Youth so often jacks. “It looks a match scarcely “Dear Lady dress for dinner. The family are at table, and “Eh? Well, you got so much from other quar-| there, Dugald.” ; : ’ suited to so young a girl,” he said, “but if she ga Acta Lady Astraea Harcourt and my lord are so} ters I thought you did not need -”. said Lina, At this instant Lady. Lina thought that she} Makes it, I’ll believe she married for honest love alarmed about you! They haye sent the footman } looking up roguishly. saw a shadow pass the open window; that shadow} She reminds me of that verse in Scripture that everywhere.” “Then add it to-my sins of omission,” said} like a tall, graceful woman, a kerchief knotted| Lady Astraea wrote in my mother’s Bible: ‘Who eonstrained, my eyes fell, my face darkened, as “Go, Rivers,” wried Lady Lina; laughing, ‘“‘tell| Dugald, “that I did not rave, and fall on myjaround her. head, a cloak over her shoulders, ean find a virtuous woman, for her price is above if I had been plotting some great Hayases to him them that I am’ here—that I haye not eloped— | knees, and make violent love.” This was the fashion of the gipsy, passing, look-}| rubies. he heart of her husband doth safely | pow like are often the outward signs of inno- cértainly, if I should go it would never be so “The idea of such a thing! That would not} ine in. ‘ : trust in her, so that he shail haye no need of cence and guilt.’’ ; ; hastily as to leaye my jewels. Bring me some|be your fashion. This would be your way of “Quick, Dugald! spring out on the terrace and{ Spoil.’ ” “Still metaphysical!” laughed her ladyship dinner here to my boudoir, and then dress me} making love: see who is there!’ nines “tomer pp. with 4n8-to. the viIRBes ehere Are sale to.g0 down after the ladies return to the. draw- “"My dear Lady Lina, I have felt myself very -robyn sprang out with a promptitude natural } sare ; sick und poor, and young babes there we whose ing-room.”’ fortunate in securing your friendship. I feel| to him, but the terrace was deserted, and no CHAPTER wants I must. attend. 3 eadi is We are going to “it is always the same thing,” said Lina, after} how far I—how far any man falls betéOw the} rustle or footfall sounded in the shrubbeties. PER OF THE srorrtT tow n ative? bay Rs, Pree se ae her maid left. “Stranger aud friend, all per-|} ideal of such a woman as_you are. Your dignity He broke off a spray of ivy and returned to een SP ene Ts se ~~ ae Ad and - Pauline walked low] plexing themselves about my marriage, as if I} of character, the charm and benefit of your con-} the drawing-room, winding the spray in Lina’s uld have thought,’’ said the famous Mr. aa aan fa Senter Tie foe . 3 Prenton ee ie were a puppet, unable to choose for myself, and] versation have supplied to my life the one ele-]| puffs and-braids of gold auburn hair. He thought itt office-seeker, ‘‘that ¢ inéeure. would | caus pene AtOy sore eek bak ae ae vo were the one marriageable girl in three king-| ment that has been lacking to my perfeet happi- | as she looked up at him, with deep, pansy-hued | have sui you better,’ Saude pee mets vere eS Pet aes Fal doms! Choose—I will choose! I have chosen!| ness. To part from you is more painful than Ij eyes, that she was the prettiest girl he had ever ad ,? replied the applicant; “but only give nanan nn aah oe ce Ja at Saeed sat And now, Lady Lina Harcourt, my dear, see if} can express, If you would accept my heart, my} seen, » place, and I’ll make it a sinecure.’”’- a Serie oa aes ete res papa Sintartt 0) ¢ you can carry out your. plans.”’ fortune, and my future, you would make me the Lord Hareourt had remarked with joy the auli soon perceived that Lady Astraé@e de- ae +] s sees “Saati Tea " eacineas ee ee She took out a locket with the ivory portrait | happiest of men.’ ” friendly and animated “talk between his daughter} sired to make the office of secretary a mere sine- one es re ae oe ae toate ‘i of Granitto Marie Arriano, and studied it until Dugald broke into a hearty laugh as Lina, in| and his heir-at-law. He was so gratified that he| cure. ‘ W e will stop there, Susan Larkin was un- Rivers came up with a footboy and her dinner. ] a broad caricature of his grave tones, and his old-}| drew nearer them. ‘Dear Lady Astrae will .you not give me der-housemaid at the Towers when Lina was Study of the painted hero had not spoiled Lina’s]} school courtesy, thus commended qualities as “Lord Harcourt,’ said Dugald, “TI have been | something to do?” the gitl would crv } born, then upper-housemaid, and finally married appetite, for she attacked the fare set before dignity and improving conversation, in which describing to-Lady Lina some of. the charms of “My deat, at: present. really 1. have nothing Joseph. Larkin who had been for five or six her with the vigorous zest of youth and health. she was entirely lacking, Florentine life. She desires to go to Italy. . Will | ready.” one in’ Australia ; his grandmother lived is this The next day Lady Lina persuaded Pauline “And then if you kindly accepted me?’ he}! you. not consider the advantage and pleasure of “Meanwhile, I have no work to do for you.” cottage before them, and did up laces and fine to drive to Hastings with her, and while Mrs. | said. leasing a palazzo fora few months, and making “Yes, child, but it is so delightful to think muslin or our family a ee Vilthorpe was choosing a bauble in the Swiss “You would eat, sleep, and proceed with the} a prolonged stay in ‘the Lady Land? ” there is some* one'to do whatever miay happen to They stopped at the door. Susan Larkin’s back store, with Pauline to aid her selection, Lady | routine of your daily life and affairs, just as “Indeed, I will,” said Lord Harcourt, “if Lina, | be needed.” was turned to the entrance, and a little girl was Lina ran up to the studio of the miniature- calmly as ever.”’ and my mother, and—-Miss Percy would enjoy Nevertheless the girl’s “pertinacity prevailed, | holding up to her a forefinger with a ring of old painter. “And if you cruelly refused me?” 7 and oné day Lady Astraea’s maid unlocked a| @nd_peculiar workmanship, crying: — A fortnight later Pauline- remarked, hanging “You would be astounded in spite of your hu- “And not Aunt Vilthorpe,” suggested Lina. desk containing some hundred letters, “Mammy! here’s the ring the lady lost. 1f on the rose-colored wall of the Lady Lina’s room,|mility, but would still eat. sleep, and proceed Not half an hour ister Lord Harcourt, very “There, child,” exclaimed Lady Astraea; “since | found it in the straw of her bed-tick 5 ‘ ® portrait set in strong relief by the bright tints| with legation business. However, there is one jubilant in view of th: plan of taking Lina to! you are so insistent, you shall arrange those let- | “Let me see that ring,” said Lady Astraea, in around it—an oval olive face, black hair waving | comfort, Dugald, you will never loye me in this} Florence, sauntered through the hall and out of|ters, They were all written by my daughter-in-| @ Sharp voice. ; : over. the shoulders, black eyes. full of fire, aj way. You are more my idea of a friend than] the main entrance into the portice, to look at the| law. Arrange them according to date, and make} Mrs. Larkin started, flushed darkly, and_ta- quaint humor and great quickness expressed in any one else, and, Dugald, I want you to do-me| weather prospects. In less than five minutes he an index of the contents. I am glad to put in} king the ring from the child--with an impatient every. line and featutre—it might have been aj] a favor.” staggered in, white and blind as a man who] your hands letters of a woman so pure and true| motion, handed it to her ladyship. Phe lady model ‘for “Young Italy.” “Joyfully—what is it?’ had been struck a heavy blow, and fell senseless} that to read what she has written would be in| examined it with care and evident agitation. «Whose face is this?’’ cried Pauline. “Tm sick of England. T. haye not been in} on the hall floor. Thus reported’ Timball, his} itself an education. You. will see that she be-| “Where did you get this eee site The face of the man I mean to. marry,” re- Italy for years. Not since I was a little girl:{ man; who had just entered the hall, and who gan to write to.me when she was yet a young ‘It was lost, as the gal says, by a lodger here plied Lina. T want to go there and see—oh, the Pitti Gal-| carried his master to the library. Timball made| girl in the care of her governess, long before; lately.” “ ; bs aos “Then you do not mean to marry Dugald Pro-| lery, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the|his report to Dugald Probyn, whom he hadj|she had dreamed of being my son’s wife. She, “A lodger?. What kind of a lodger? ha : 6 Sa Apollo. of the Vatican. Do, Donald, beg Lord{ called from the drawing-room. Timball wunder- my dear Pauline, was the wife I had always “Oh, just ag ornary person, as lodges whiles “Certainly not. The worst reeommendation ne} Thomas. to take us all over there to stop several| stood his master’s aversion to all excitements, | desired for my son, and-he was her only love:;| in cottages : : 4 could have is the way in which he has been months, won’t you?” and he carried Lord Thomas to his room, sent}| but. she also was not his sole passion I often “Mammy,” said the child, she was a lady forecd upon _me.” “Why, certainly,” said Dugald, with @ vision} for Dugald, and a physician, and the house-| think with grief and anger of the manner in | quite. >> (“THE DovBLE SxCRET” was commenced in No, 25.. Back numbers can o0@ Obtained of all newsdealers.) over with him. Astraea, I was afraid of betraying myself, and I never spoke ten consecutive words to Mr. Probyn. while he was here. When I by ehance spoke to him, my voice and manner were e 7 THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. A — Vol. 64—No 29 “And what was her name?’ asked Lady As- traea. “Who was she?” “Mrs. Winship, and I know no more of her,” said Mrs. Larkin. “Oh, mammy!’’ eried the unlucky child, “you seemed well beknownst to her, and I heard you talking of old times while I was in my bed.” Mrs. Larkin was so incensed that she gaye the tattling child a furious blow with a wet dish- cloth which she had in her hand. “Begging your pardon, my lady, for the loss of my temper in your ladyship’s presence, but the child is such @ liar, and it’s myself don’t know where she gets it.” “Do you know, Susan, where the woman is to send her this ring?’ “No, indegd, my lady, no more’h & babe un- born.” “Then, as it is valwable, I will take care of it until you find her, and you will always know where to get the jewel for her.” “As you please, my lady,’’ said Susan Larkin, illy concealing het chagein at this turn of af- fairs. “Tt is the mother, not the child, who is lying,” said Lady Astraea as they left the cottage. “If the little one is untruthful, J know where she gets the trait. Susan told few lies; but what she did tell she stuck to with the most astonishing pertinacity. Stay, I must speak to Betty Hol- with.’ Lady Astraea stopped Susan’s home. “Betty, did you What was she like?” “A Jady, ma’am, I’d say, with a tall, beauti- ful figure, dressed in black, with a net veil on her face, and through the veil her skin lovely clear, and eyes dark and deep; but she was shy of going abroad by daylight. There’s a heap of people in this world, my lady, who can’t abear sunshine on them or their ways, Whence she eame or where she went no one here knows.” The ring still clasped in her hand, Lady As- traea returned home, and dismissing Pauline, went to her son in the library. She laid the ring before comment ! “A lodger with Susan Larkin lost this ring in her house.” Lord Thomas turned pale, took up the and laid it down. He called his mother as turned away. “Mother, what do you know about this ring?” “T know that I gave it to you a quarier of a century ago.” “And, mother—stay, ring to Agnes Clifford!’ There was such contrite anguish in his tone that his mother, a model of all honor, standing erect before him, gave no accusation, “except in the general rebuke of her whole expression. . “Agnes Clifford must then have been in this village lately. Tell me, mother, do you appre- hend any trouble or complication from her?” “Yes, do,” said Lady Astraea;: “and you fo. Now, my son, I ask of you a clear statement of what you fear. Where can she harm you?” “Mother, through my child.” “Through your child? Oh, heavens!” Lady Astraea reéled at the suggestion, and fell fainting into a chair. Lord Thomas rushed toward his mother in alarm, and exerted himself to restore her to con- sciousness. In a few minutes this was effected, and he then resumed his explanation. “Agnes Clifford,’ he said, “was a woman of wonderfully tenacious purpose, intense pride, and a capacity for revenge that could destroy herself for the sake of destroying fhe: And yet, what at the cottage opposite see Susan’s lodger lately? him with one sole ring she it was my éngagement- a singular charm she had ere she willed it! Capable of fascinating menflike a Cleopatra. I fear that she will revenge herself on me by fol- lowing up my daughter, making secret acquaint- ance with her, influencing her héedless, reckless, romantic mind, and bringing her into some low marriage that will disgrace our house. f shall then have yielded her revenge for the evil hour when I told her love might for me be the pastime of a summer’s day, but a Harcourt must marry his peer. Ah, mother, with what Iong, slow agonies do we atone for the sins of our youth!” “J had other ideas of her vengeance,” said Lady Astraea. “Believe me, mother, it will come through Lina. That will be retribution of the dearest or- der. Mother, we will go to London, and this giddy beauty shall be married.’’ “Marriage does not end blunders. Tt is often the beginning of the greatest. If Lina magries where she does not love she may be more giddy than before, and less guarded.” “She is affectionate; she will love. If she and Dugald cannot make a match, let her-take her choice, Ah, if I had such a daughter as Pauline Percy i should fear no témpter for her !’’ Lady Astraea turned away. without replying. Once more Lord Thomas detained hers “We will leave the Towers, my lady, weeks, if that suits your convenience.” Pauline was one of the first whom Lady As- traea told of their expected removal to the capi- tal. The girl meditated for a few moments, then said? “Dear Lady Astraea, will you not excuse me from going to London? I cannot go there now.”’ “Why Ynot? You-must go some time, and now, under my protection—and if not there, where will you 20?” “I am in too deep mourning this year to go into society, and yet I should doubtless meet some who have known’ me as Persis Ormesby—all my miserable story would be discussed. I cannot go there, kind friend, thus orphaned and name- less. Can I not stay here, and work for you? There “were so many letters, journals, and cabi- nets for>-me to look over. See, leave me my and I will be a good .child, and do it in two those letters, and papers, and cabinets at our home at Marke Holme. They were sent there when we went last to the Continent. -I have not been at Marke Holme for a quarter of a century almost.” “Oh, pray let me go there and attend to the work myself? I will put all in lovely order for you. I shall not be so very far. from you, and while I listen to the Medway rippling and gur- gling along by your old Holme Castle, I shall think it carries my message to you.” “But, my dear girl, to go there without any chaperon !’’ “ft can take my maid.” “The maid is a mere infant.” “Think of some of your friends who will go there with such a judicious elderly behaved girl as I am. Oh, I do so long for quiet, for work, for hiding—do let me go!’’ “How insistent yousare! There is my old second cousin, Dame Hooper, but she is such an atrocious woman! She wears a great orange satin bow as large—as large as my hand—and her neck is always so abominably dressed.” “Tt shall not: mind those little peculiarities, said Pauline. “And as for a chaperon, she sits for hours dozing with a handkerchief over the top of her head. She neither reads, sews. knits—she does nothing! What a woman she is?” “Never mind,” said Pauline. “You send her with me for-look’s sake, and TAm sucia sober girl I do not need a very active chaperon. While she Sleeps in the window, with her handkerchief over her head, I will attend to my work.” "J have to take care of my Cousin Hooper,” said Lady Astraea, “and I dare say she is tired of lodging in Bernard Street, and will be glad to go to Marke Holme. She shall come here and accompany you, for I cannot go there. I have very sad memories connected with that place.” “How kind you are to let me go there, and that you do not insist on my going to London!” eried Pauline. “There is an old servant there, Mrs, Dobbs, who unites the offices of housekeeper and upper housemaid. Her husband is butler, coachman, and head gardener: their daughter is laundry- maid and a cook. Many of the rooms at Holme Castle are shut, and this humble little household suffices. You will take dewn your maid, Lucy, and Cousin Hooper, and I will send Ted, our gardener’s boy, with a pony phaeton, which will do you for equipage; Ted can remain there all winter. JI will give you all the keys, and you ean look over the rooms and see if there are any relics or papers which need attention. You shall be the Chatelaine of Holme Castle, conduct the household as you choose, and I shall see what faculties you have for being Lady of the Manor.” “T have none, I think, as in me such faculties would go to waste. I shall never be lady of a manor. I am sure when those papers come to be opened they will contain some sad _ story which might better have rested in obliyion—ex- cuses, perhaps, for my poor unknown mother, whose memory will thenceforth remain shrouded in a cloud. You are good to send me to Holme Castle, where I can work, for only in work can I find the comfort of forgetting.” And now, when all the harvest-fields stood brown and bare, when the woods were silent and leafiess. then Harcourt Towers were deserted, ex- cept for a few denizens of the servants’ hall; and while Lord Harcourt, the dowager Lady Harcourt, and Lady Lina went to their London residence, Pauline, with Mrs. Hooper and the little maid Lucy, reached their winter home by the Med- way. Holme Castle was the most ancient portion of the immense Harcourt property, a property seattered through many counties of England. The eastie stood with its round tower planted on Med- way bank, an ancient oak wood guarded the ap- proach, well trimmed and cleaned, with one broad carriagé-road winding through it from the main entrance of the castle to the highway leading to Maidstone; on the northeast side a dense fir-wood rose in dark protecting beauty, and, sheltered by its streneth, the garden of the ca&tle nurtured fig-trees, and espalier peaches and pears against its antique walls. ” Now, after a long desertion, life awoke.at the castle with the coming of Pauline; youth never looked so young, grace never so gracious, as when contrasted with the frowning age of this Norman round tower, that had been added to the rectangular keep, with its olden round-arched windows. A life which would have chill@@ and saddened some girls seemed a native element to Pauline. Hitherto her years had been cramped and vexed by the ecaptious frivolity, the rebellious stiffering of Charlotte Ormesby, and then had been repressed and seemed to ring untruly, when she, a lonely stranger, her very name a mystery, had moved among the happy and high-born throng at the Towers. Here at the castle she could be herself; her love of nature, of retirement, of study, of the ancicnt, a very passion for anti- quarianism—all these could develop at their will; and, queen of her little household at the castle, Pauline seemed the reviving of some gracious Chatelaine of the long-gone days, holding her keep while her lord was away to the wars; and often standing in the sunset light, watching from the top of the round tower the-silver flood of Medway rolling to the narrow seas, Pauline’s strong and pure contralto rang out the ballads of the middle ages, half fancying as she sang that she saw along the distant road armor gleaming in the light of parting day, and banners waving, and heard the ring of steel on steel. Perhaps it would have been too imaginative a life for most girls, but not for her, who so long had been bound to the trivialities and deceptions of Charlotte Ormesby’s fading life as Ixion to his wheel. It had been the old bitter fantasy, horribly set in real life: “And, Betty, give my cheek a little red, One would not be a fright if one is dead.” Ah! bitterness unspeakable to an honest soul to stand by and hear the directions to Adeline: “Draw that red curtain closer to light me up better; take that ghastly green out of my bouquet, it makes my hand look deathly; put more pad- ding in my wrapper, why will you let me look so shrunken? more lace on my cap, Adeline, you absolutely let the gray streaks in my hair show!” and so until death stopped the pitiful mockery forever. And now, instead, Pauline had around her these mighty,. unshakable walls, the stout hearts of the oaks, the faithful color of the firs, everything in castle and grounds, without and within, all solidly what it seemed to be. And here in solitude Pauline bloomed like the roses of Ainwick, until even sleepy Dame Hooper roused up a litth and remarked: “Tt was a blessed thing for Lady Lina that Miss Percy had not gone to town as a rival belle.” One great source of joy to Pauline was the an- cient church on the Marke Holme estate, the church that stands just without the fir-wood, a church which is said to antedate the Norman times, and to occupy the site of one built by Augustine, the first missionary into Kent This is the church where.Gervose Lewis had played his marvelous symphonies, living in self-elected re- tirement and humble fortune, happy in creating harmonies, until the sweet-sounding chords of his life were rudely snapped asunder, and he died. Since his day the great organ has been almest silent; few came to thé Marke Holme church who could make melody from those sonorous pipes. The rector, a-man of eighty, read pray- ers in the afternoons, and the curate, a new fledgling of Oxford, one of the numerous Percy line, a youth who expected from Lady Astraea the reversion of the living, preached in the morn- ings a neat little essay which suggested “sweet girl graduates with their golden curls,” and dainty little compositions tied with a biue rib- bon; their fifteen-inch parchments had in them a deal of birds and flowers, and the merest modi- eum of law or gospel. ; Pauline, sitting in the grand oak carven Har- court pew, felt almost irresistible impulses to go up through the chancel and shake a little life into the placidly murmuring preacher. This curate saw one long-remembered morn- ing, beside the dozen old men and women, the castle servants, and. a score of schoolchildren, his usual congregation, a sleepy old dame nod- ding cordial assent to-all his platitudes, and be- side this head, a facé calm, grand, and lovely, beyond all that hé had ever seen. We remark in passing that the curate fell in love instanter, but not too wildly to reason. He learned that this was a Percy, a ward of Lady Astraea, a damsel who ruled her household well, and had all her servants in the hall while she read morning and evening prayers. Such a wife would be.a prize for the future incumbent of Marke Holme. He offered himself as on as possible, and Pauline merely opened hefr=) os a little wider than usual, said she was surprissd, and must insist. upon hearing ne more4 about it. After that she liked the sermons less than ever, and to her inclination for shaking, added. a sincere desire to box the young man’s ears. As this fragment of the “loves of the angels” has nothing to do with the course of our story, we get over it as soon as possible. From the nine-o’clock breakfast at—the castle until three,-except"the four for luncheon, Pauline was busily engaged looking over letters and pa- pers, sorting them as to authors, setting these in order by years, and indexing them hy themes, and then getting them ready for binding. She also, with the aid of Ted and Lucy to do the dusting and washing, cleaned and set in order cabinets, restored labels, and made catalogues, To her great delight she found that the aged rector, whom she loved to call “Father Rowley,” was a@ man of science and an antiquarian, and hours and hours the man of eighty spent among the cabinets with this young girl and her juvenile assistants, giving strange names to various ob- jects of the collections, discoursing of the wonders of nature, and of iegends of the olden times. After three o’clock Pauline went out and walked until dusk and dinner came simultaneous- ly. In these rambles,_as Dame Hooper was too heavy-footed to accompany her, Ted or Lucy fol- lowed her steps, and one choice treat was to take Ted to the old church and have him blow the or- gan while she played. Sometimes Father Rowley and Dame Hooper would toddle along to the church, and comfortably established in the chan- cel, would listen to the music. ‘Another favorite ramble of Pauline’s was in the graveyard. Here were olden tombs, quaint and choice inscriptions, strange hints of marvelous histories, or long-past remances, lingering yet about the trysting-places of the dead, as faint fragrance hangs to withered roses. After a long and tiresome day of work among the letters found in an ancient setretary, Pau- line, Announced that she was going for a walk. It was a gray December afternoon, threatening in- stant rain; the wind sobbed mournfully, and the Medway rolled by in one long complaint. Dame Hooper roused from her dozing long enough to protest, “Such a dismal, forlorn day! Better stay by the bright fire, and enjoy a novel until dinner.” But Pauline’s young blood needed exercise, and away she went, with Ted following like a steady watch-dog after her steps. It was the time of the death and burial of the year; where so appropriate a place to spend it as in the place of graves? Now Ted was not a thoice campanion for a walk amid funereal tokens; h¥s nature was out of harmony with the tragic or the pathetic. He would venture such remarks as: “Do see, miss, ain’t he a drefful guy, this ’ere cherubim with wings a-growin’ out of is ears, an’ no legs? Just a look ’e, my lady, bean’t this a ’eathenish sway to spell ‘the’—y-e? I knows more’n this tumstun! Miss, ’ere’s a little boy wot died o’ ketchin’ cold; mustn’t ’e a bin a weak one?” To prevent which jarring numbers, Pauline was wont to bid Ted perch himself on the wall by the gate, and wait until she had made her pilgrimage among the graves.. On this day Ted mounted aloft, and, to keep his spirits up, whistled and danced jigs along the top of the wall, while Pauline, unconscious of his antics, slowly paced her favorite ways. In a GCistant corner of the. churchyard was & yew-tree bending low over a grave marked only by a red sandstone slab with an X on it. Draw- ing near this obscure spot, Pauline heard a low sound as of sobbing, and suddenly confronted a woman sitting on this grace, her sobbings dry and*spasmodic, her head bowed so that her eheek rested on the stone. She seemed to be tali; her figure struck one by its singular symmetry. She was plainly dressed in black, with a net veil over her face, and her hands, clasped over the rough dark stone, showed small and white. Pauline’s first impulse was to turn away; but this woman seemed so desolate that she paused and said softly: “This is the grave of one that you loved?” “Say rather the grave of the only one who ever loved me. Is it not bitter never to recog- nize the face of an angel until it is turned from you forever?” “Is that thought remorse®” said Pauline. “If it is, take comfort in the fact that real love is always forgiving.’ “Though love forgives, justice éxacts the pen- alty of wrong,” was the reply, and the conver- sation continued for some time, indeed until the stranger had accompanied Pauline to the door of her home, and had succeeded in interesting her deeply. That night Pauline wrote to Lady Astraea. “J think I have found some one who will.come to the castle and bind your letters—a widow whom I have met here, and who desires the work as she must support herself. She tells me that she has bound books, and choice papers, and pic- tures for amateurs. If she brings me suitable recommendations shall I engage her? She says she has acted as secretary, and amanuensis for literary people, and knows how to make an index, a thing which I do very poorly.” \ Lady Astraea assented to this proposal about the bookbinding, and the woman for whom Lord Thomas Harcourt had shunned Italy, and whom his mother sought at the Towers, was presently domiciled at the castle, while Pauline a dozen times a day seemed to catch some fleeting vision or association as she looked at her, but failed to recognize the primrose-seller of Hyde Park. TO BE CONTINUED, THE CURSE OF GREED. By MARIE CONNOR LEIGHTON, Author of “The Peer's Masqierade,” ** Love and Money,”* “Baithful Blanche,” “The Unwritien Law,'*,¢tc. (“Tre Cursp or GREED” was commenced in No. 23. Back numbers can be obtained of all newsdealers,) e CHAPTER XXI. MYSTERIOUS BLOOD-STAINS, For-a second or two, that seemed like an age, the icy hand of fear clutched tighter at Eve Clere’s throat. The jeering voice sounded again in her fancy like the whisper of a mocking fiend close to her ear, with its taunt: “You are caught like a rat in a trap!” Then she, who-was full of pluck, pulled herself together, steadied her nerves, and, wrestling -with her fears, got the better of them, She looked about her at her grim surround- ings—at the grimy walls, more than half veiled by ugly shadows, at the old packing-cases, the filthy barrels, the rotting pieces of old rope. Last- ly, she looked at Samson Argles, sitting bent over his paper-littered deal table, with his horn- rimmed spectacles and his straggling gray whisk- ers, his low-pulled cap and his muffler ‘wound high about his throat, and she laughed an amused, defiant, mocking laugh. “The light of those two miserable little candles does make you and everything else look queer,” she said boldly. “Why, when I come to look round me, the place and you together are enough to frighten the rats!” As much of the face of Samson Argles as was visible, in spite of his various disguises, showed now that he was possessed by two feelings—a cer- tain admiration of her spirit, mingled with anger at her having dared to laugh at him and at the hideous place in which he sat, “The sooner you learn respect for me, Miss Clere, the better it will be for you,” he replied to her in a half-sullen. yoice, that had in it an undertone of warning. “I don’t think you quite realize what sort of a man you are dealing with. As-it is, I know a great deal more about you than you do about me. I know, in fact, more of your life than you are ever likely to know about my life, simply because I have certain wonderful powers of penetration, which you don’t happen to have. For instance, I know that once, when you were poor, before Josh Oliver came across your path, you promised yourself to a poor man, and then threw him over because you had had a vivid dream in which you had seen yourself liv- ing in luxury, and you didn’t’ want to spoil your chances of the dream coming true by tying your- salt to a penniless wretch. You remember this, e 5” She looked at him in surprise. “How do you know that?’ He grinned. He was not likely to tell her the truth, namely, that he lived a higher social life under another name in the world in which she moved, and that the Mrs. Tranby Paul, of whom she made a friend and confidante, was his wife, and passed her confidences on to him. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on her through his horn- rimmed spectacles, and went on again? “One day, when you were fourteen years old, you and your sister were taken to Epping Forest for a treat, and there: you met a gipsy woman, who told you that she could see your father driving through the streets of some great city that she couldn’t give a name to, and could hear the people talking about him as one of the richest men in that city. And you-felt so mighty proud about this, that you put on a haughty air for weeks afterward, in spite of your hardly having food enough—you and your mother and sister—toekeep your souls in your bodies.” Eve.Clere looked: atehimvramazedly then. “How, in Heaven’s name, did you get to know that?” she cried to him. “Ti is true. I believed for years afterwafd that péy father must be a very rich man. But how did you know?” He laughed a low ugly laugh. “J guessed I’d take your breath away 2 Dit, Miss Eve. I told you I know most.things, and now I’ve given you proof of_it...But fet~us come to the-business tn hand. Ned, you can go out- side for a few minutes. } You’re not afraid to be left alone with me for #& minute or two, my dear Eve, eh?” ; He smiled peculiarly as he spoke. Eye shook her head. Limping Ned scrambled up from his packing-case seat, and out of the place by the same door by which he had brought her in; and the Wizard leaned forward across his table. Cun- ning and sharp-eyed and ‘sharp-witted though Eve Clere was, she yet did not recognize in the voice, the look, or the manner of the Wizard, so much as a@ single suggestion of her host of this eveninge—Mr. Tranby Paul—-from whom she had parted only a little while ago. Certainly Mr. Samson Argles was a master in the art of disguising himself! “Well?” he .asked her now. “What’s your mother’s answer to me? Is she going to pay me to hold my+tongue about the ugly slur that’s on her marriage and on your and your sister’s birth?” She moved a step or two nearer to him ovér the damp floor. She looked at him very steadily. “Before I give you your answer, what about the proof you were to show us?” she asked him. The grin came-on the Wizard’s face again. He beckoned to her to come nearer yet. Then he took out from one of his pockets a large envetope, and, opening it, produced from it a paper. “This is the certificate of your father’s first marriage,” he informed her. “In order to satisfy you, I have borrowed it for a few hours from the woman who is now your father’s real wife. She doesn’t know I’ve got hold of it. To teil you the truth, my pretty dear, I’ve stolen it. [| shall put it back just as quietly and safely in an hour or two’s time, when you and I have transacted our littie bit of business over it. Come and look at it! Here it is, as plain as a pike- staff: ‘Arthur Clere, of Tonbridge, Kent, to Phebe Smee.’ They were married at a West End church, which happens since to have been burned down. The witnesses are John Curlew and Ellen Seale. Did you ever hear your mother speak of either of these two persons? No? Well, it’s not likely she’d know them. Your father would be pretty sure to keep the witnesses to his first marriage out of her way, if he could. But they can be found, if you want them. Do you see? Look closer! Even this tallow candle ought to be enough for you to see that by. There! Are you satisfied? Are you sure now that it’s worth paying on?” “T don’t doubt it‘after the kind of man my father has always shown himself to be. He was capable of anything. You shall have your thou- sand pounds down. I will bring it to you to- morrow night, unless you yourself come and get “You havyen’t brought the money with you, then, eh?’ While he replaced the certificate in his pocket, Samson Argles’ eyes were peering through the horn-rimmed spectacles at the diamonds glitter- ing in her hair and about her full,white throat. “Suppose you leave me some.of those jewels you’re wearing now as payment? They’d do just as well as the coin. Diamonds that came from Josh. Oliver are good enough for me any day. You leave me that necklace instead of the rhino.” But Eve drew back sharply. “Not likely!” She refused him with another laugh—a half-angry one. “I’m not fool enough for that, Mr. Argles. You’ve paid me a poor compliment in supposing that I could be! “Tt’s a yery good idea, I dare say,” she ad- mitted. “But I may as~ well tell you frankly, Mr. Argies, that if I’m going to transact business with blackguards, I’d rather they were clean- looking ones.” ‘‘Ah‘a-a-ah! We're getting particular, are we, now that we’ve got up in the world?” Samson Argles’ yoice was full of cold mockery. “Wwe were not so particular when we were working and starving in Bow Road. Oh, dear, no!” Eve Olere’s splendid black eyes were fixed upon him ponderingly. “Tt might be worth my while to get on good terms with him,” she was saying to herself. . “‘I might find through him a new market for dis- posing secretly of the diamonds I want to sell.” Aloud she said: z: “You seem to like diamonds. Do you know any people rich enough to buy them?” The “Wizard’s glance met hers. They were glances as keen as blades intercrossing. “T have a pood»many rich friends, though 1 mayn’t look it,’ he said, with a knowing chuckle. “Perhaps you’d like to make the acquaintance of some of them?” Eve Clere made a restless movement. . She had begun to feel that it was about time for her to go away—alone as.she was, and in a low neighborhood, which was hardly safe at night. “We will talk of that some other time,” shé returned. “I cannot stay here any longer now. Shall I bring your money to-morrow night? or } will you come for it yourself?” “Tl come myself—after dusk,’’ the Wizard said, with another knowing look at her. Eve moved toward the door, carefully holding up her satin skirts from contact with the filth of the rotting floor, picking her way carefully among the rat-holes. She reached the door, and was unwillingly putting out her white right hand to open it, with an expression of disgust on her handsome face, when a sound from outside ar- rested her movement. She stood motionless, with tense features, listening. t The sound was one of footsteps approaching stumblingly along the passage. outside. In the next moment the door was- opened vio- lently by Limping Ned. He rushed in breath- lessly, in his poor, maimed way, nearly knocking against Eve in his excitement. “Buck Foxley is a-comin’ along the passage,” he announced to his master, “‘and he ain’t a-com- in’ by himself. _He’s bringin’ with him a chap that he’s talkin’ to as ‘Josh.’ They’ll be here in another arf minnit.” Eve Clere uttered a sharp exclamation. Hor- ror had come upon her face. “Josh!” she exclaimed in a suppressed, panting voice. ‘‘That must be Josh Oliver. He must not discover me here. I must get out before he comes !” And she looked wildly about the den. The footsteps sounded again outside. . They were nearer now. Eve Clere did not trust any longer to the searching of her eyes. She rushed from one side to the other of this hideous place in which she found herself a prisoner, feeling with almost frenzied hands for some half-hidden stairway or trap-door, by means of which she might slip out, and so eseape Josh Oliver’s sight and recognition. But she found no break in those dank walls. It was in*vain that she ran her fingers along the damp surface and beat against it, while the Wizard and Limping Ned watched her through the shadows, with a smile of amusement distort- ing their features. . Realizing, then, the hopeless- ness of her search, she ran back to Samson Argles and threw herself on her knees in front of him, heedless of the dirt upon the floor. “Hide me! Hide me!” she implored thick, half-chokéd voice, “He must not see that man who is coming along the passage. Not for all the world must he~get so much as .a glimpse of me! For the love of Heaven, hide me somewhere! ‘You must surely know of some place! Quick, quick! They’re stumbling because it’’ dark in the passage, but they’ be here in another moment!’ She moved forward on her knees in the des- peration of her entreaty. The beautiful rich, white satin of her dress trailed and dragged in the: filth of the floor, but she cared not. She only implored the Wizard again and again to hidé her from Josh Oliver’s’ eyes. “You must know of some place—anywhere, anywhere !—-so that he does. not find me here. Quick, quick! They’re almost at the door now !” Samson Argles was looking at her steadily and coolly.. Then he tapped one of the papers imme- diately in front of him. “I’ve got a document here that I want you to sign,” he told her. “You've only to put your name to it without troubling to read it, and then Til put you where Josh Oliver, or whoever else is coming, won’t get so much -as a sight of the end of your dress, or of one of the gleams from those .diamonds in your hair. It’s a good thing you kept your head well covered up- while you were on your way here, or you'd never have reached here with them shining -all over those black coils of yours like that. Sign this paper, and I'll hide you safe enough.” “What is in it?’ Eve stretched out grasping hands. “Let me see it! .Let me read it! Ah, but there’s no time! What’s in it? Tell me!’’ “te 78 an an undertaking on your part to pay me my hush-money on your own behalf and on that of your mother and _ sister. Nothing could be plainer or more straightforward.” Eve made a movement of tortured suspense}; yet still she resisted this new condition that he put upon her. “Give me the paper, and let me take it home for my mother to sign,” she said... “Sufely it is her business to sign it, and not mine!” But the Wizard shook his head, with a broad smile, “You are the. one who will always have the cash, my handsome Eve—the ready cash, I mean, as apart from.the. allowances Josh Oliver makes to the family. You’re the one whose signature I require, and if you don’t want to be found here, There’s no time! you’ve got to sign.” I'll do Hide me now! Hide me!” “No, no! Not now! it afterward! The stumbling, uncertain footsteps eutside had come very near now. Two voices could be heard. distinctly. The suspense on Eve Clere’s face was painful to see—so painful that it needed. all Limping Ned’s hard training to hold him silent as he looked at her. Yet still the Wizard sat calmly smiling, with one long, lean finger resting oh a blank space at the foot.of the document .nearest in front of him—the blank space reserved for a signature. With his other hand now he dipped @ pen in the inkstand on his deal table and held it out to the kneeling, imploring woman. He said nothing, but simply waited, holding rates pen, and gazing at the girl, who looked up4 a im. The picture was a strange one—ihat of the stooping-shouldered man, aged-looking, and hide- ous in his disguise, sitting at his deal table in these horrible, loathsome, and weird surround- ings, holding down a pen to the woman who knelt beside him, trembling with suspense, in her grime-stained satin dress and her white cloak, and -with the diamonds sparkling on her heaving breast and shooting forth flashes of light from amid the masses of her dark hair. it was a picture so strange that even Limping Ned—-the Jad who had been all his life a gutter- waif—held his breath at the dramatic intensity of it. If he could only have dared to speak, he would have pleaded for the desperate woman. But he did not dare, Outside, in the passage now, a hand was fum- bling to find the door. Eve Clere started, and jooked round with a stifled exclamation. But still the Wizard sat, calmly smiling, holding out the pen. Then, in a sudden access of fury, the girl real- ized that she must obey him. She snatched the pen from his hand, and sprang to her feet. What- ever might be in*that document that lay before him, she must sign it if she wanted to avoid be- ing caught here by Josh Oliver. And, bending down, she hurriedly scratched, rather than wrote, the letters of her name across the paper that lay in front of the Wizard, and in the open space to which his finger pointed. : His smile broadened and became more hideous, as he watched her. For he had won! There before him was her signature, and he alone knew to what that signature had been appended. Until this moment he had been as one com- pletely unconscious of the urgency of the, situa- tion. But now, Suddenly he—this extraordinary man, before whom hardened criminals felt an un- easiness which they could not have explained— showed some signs of ordinary human emotion. _ “Keep quiet! And now give yourself over en- on to my guidance, if you don’t want to be seen ere.” He snatched* up an old, soiled muffler, which had lain on one end of his table, and wound it roughly and tightly round the girl’s beautiful head, with the many diamonds looping the deli- cately perfumed mass of her hair. _As he did this, Limping Ned hopped over on his own account to the door, ready to use his feeble strength to impede, even if he could not wholly bar, the entrance of the strangers outside, until Eve should have reached safety. “Quick, Mr. Argles! Be quick, for the love of Heaven !” she urged him again. He had thrust into his pocket the paper which she had signed, and now he led her hastily away into the shadows at the back of the den. With his hand on her arm, masterfully guiding her, he led her up toe a certain point in the filthy wall. There was a slight clicking noise. An opening appeared, and she passed through it, just as two men strode into the place. Then Eve heard the slight clicking noise again, and knew that the door in-the thick wall had closed behind her and her companion. She had to give herself up absolutely now to Samson Argies’ guidanee; for, beyond being aware that she was in some kind of a *narrow passage, she had not the faintest idea of the scene around her. Such little light as filtered in from somewhere—she could not guess. where it came from—was entirely obscured from her eyes by the muffler, which Samson Argles had at first wrapped only about her head, but which now he had re- arranged, so that it very nearly covered her face. It was woolen, and she could breathe through it without inconvenience: but even breathing freely with uncovered. nostrils would have been a dis- comfort here, for. the air .was heavy and dank, as the air in a vault might have been. In spite of the fact that her ears were covered, there came to her the sound of a drip, drip, that had in it something ominous—-something so ominous that the sound struck terror to the heart of even this girl, who was usually so callous. Why did it strike this terror into her? “Was it from a feeling that this drip was not the drip of water, but something else—something un- namable?”’ She stood, and involuntarily put out the one of her hands that was free; the other being held elose in the grip of the Wizard, in order that he might guide her. Her fingers came -in ‘contact with a wall, damp and slimy as the wall of the den had been. Ah, then it was a fact that shé was in a pas- sage! : in a me— With a thrill of secret satisfaction, she let her |hand remain against the wall. She wanted to 'find out as much as possible of her surroundings here, in the hope that the knowledge thus. gained might be of some~-use to her in her future deal- ings with’Samson Argles. She noted every change in the formation of the wall as she made her un- certain way along it. Presently her hand came in contact with an iron stanchion. She had hardly had time to wonder what it was there for when her arm shot into space. There was an in- terval of some three feet of space. Then again came the.damp, slimy wall. A few yards more of stumbling along the pas- sage, and then again a yoid. Surely these open- ings must mean that there were side passages, leading off from this central one, along which she was groping her way, guided by the Wizard. The thought of the dark arches of a spacious tomb came into her mind. She felt that she and her companion were going down, down, down, until she could almost have imagined that they were descending into the very bowels of the earth. Yet a little farther on, and they came to steps. Eve began to count them, but soon gave up doing so, for the number of them seemed to have no end. She and Samson Argles went round and round, until she felt sure that they must be descending a spiral staircase. And yet it had no-wall, When she stretched out her arm as far as possible she could feel nothing. The steps were slippery. She stumbled, and fell.on her hands “and knees. Her free hand touched something before the Wizard had had time to pull. her to her feet again by the other hand, which he still held.- And at this moment her self-control-gave way under the long strain that her’ nerves had had to bear. She uttered a scream, that rang, loud and wild, through the dank and silent void. rm Surely, surely the nameless thing which she had touched was a body! ; The Wizard’s hand rested for an instant over her mouth. Then, having dragged her to her feet by sheer force of his unusual physical strength, he led her onward, more masterfully even than before. .They reached other steps, but these they mounted instead of descending, and_ at last—after a space of time which seemed to Eve Clere to have been hours, but could only have been minutes—they. emerged into the open air. Ah, how the pure air refreshed her! She breathed in deep drafts of it as if they had been drafts of life: Samson Argles led her still some little way along. Then suddenly he left her, muttering a few words, the meaning of which she did not eatch. She supposed that the words had simply been an intimation that she was now free. She tore the muffer from about her face and head, and looked round her. ~ > : She was again in a very poor quarter, like the one through which she had passed to get to the Wizard’s den. But this district was not the Same. It was utterly strange to her. She walked on a litfle way, and found, to her amazement, that even at this late hour of the night the whole neighborhood seemed awake and out of doors, Groups of people—men, women and chil- dren alike—were standing about. A great many of the women were sobbing, and the children were crying, while the faces of the men were hard and sullen. The whole scene was like a nightmare— grim and hideous, and full, surely, of some evil meaning. She was standing looking at it, won- dering what could be the explanation of it, when suddenly there came through the crowd the figure of a tall, handsome young fellow, carrying a child. The young man was evidently not of the class of the poor crowd that filled the street. He had not yet come into the Hight, but Eve could see that he was very handsome, with a_ refined, noble face. His overcoat was partly open, and revealed the fact that he was in evening clothes. She felt that he was a man who would help her, and whom she could trust absolutely. She was just going up:to him t ask her way, when he passed under a street-lamp, and his face was clearly revealed to her. She recognized him with ho consternation stamped upon her own fea- ures. “Doctor Grove !” “Miss Clere!” ‘ He had stopped suddenly, and, still holding the child close against his breast, he looked at her with-consternation as great as her own. “You here alone, and in that dress and at this hour?” he exclaimed, amazed. Eve remembered, then, what a strange figure she must Jock in her wonderful evening finery of satin and chiffon. As she thought this, she drew a little way back from, him, and the movement made the brilliants she wore gleam and flash, so that they caught Lance Grove’s attention. “Why, you have diamonds in your hair!’ he ‘exclaimed. “And you are here with your head bare——here, in this district, with thousands of pounds’ worth of jewels on you-—-and on foot? Why, what cat be the meaning of it? It is dan- gerous—really dangerous!” Eve remembered her lace scarf, which had fallen from about her head while she had been in Samson Argles’ den. She put up her hand to feel for it now. It was still about her shoulders, and she rapidly covered her jeweled hair with it. Then, before answering his questions, she ques- tioned him in her turn, speaking quickly and eagerly: “But why is. it that you are here, Doctor Grove? Why are you carrying that child? What’s the meaning of these people being all gathered out here like this, as if they were camping out, at this hour of the night?” ; Lance Grove’s handsome face grew suddenly very hard and stern—hard and stern as she had neyer seen it before—while his eyes flashed with 2 indignant light that was. equally strange te er. “JT will tell you what it all means,” he said in a voice which had so much indignation in it that it was choking and unsteady. “It means” that Josh Oliver’s accursed greed. has been at work again. This is his doing—this sullenness of men, this sobbing of women, this crying of Tit- tle children, this homelessness of whole familtes in the middle of a winter’s night! He is the owner of a great many tenement-houses just about here—miserable places, in which -live the very poorest of the poor. He shows the poor people no mercy;.in sfact, he seems to ‘glory im having a chance to make them suffer. He turns them out on the smallest provocation, sranting them not a day’s grace when the rent is over- due. And this is what has happened to-day. ie has been pitiless!’ : His voice shook again with his deep indignation. He went on quickly, glancing back at the miser- able groups of people in the street. — “Josh Oliver has been here ever since early afternoon, until.an hour or two ago, abusing and bullying the tenants. About two hours ago he finished up by turning many of them into the streets. He often goes these rounds himself with his agent, and I’m certain he does it to enjoy the poor creatures’ sufferings. I got to know of what was going on to-day from a messenger be- ing sent to me, asking me to come to see a poor, sick woman, who was among those who had been turned out. I was just on the point of starting for the Tranby Pauls’ when the messenger came, but, of course, I came on here instead of going there then. I have been here ever since.” “What—all these hours?’’ Eve cried. “Yes, all these hours. iI’ have not been able to do much, but I have done what I could. This little child that I have in my arms now is very near to death. am going to take her fe a warm, cozy house near here;.until I myself am ready to go home. Then I shall take her With me, and see if I ean nurse her back éo life. But I do not want Madoline to think that it did not hurt me to have to come here instead of keeping my promise to go to the Tranby Pauls’. ft was hard for me—very hard. You are going back to her now, and I want you to tell her so. ft want you to explain exactly to her why I did not come, and how sorry Iam. Will you do this?” “Yes, yes, of course I will do so!’ ~Eve gave .the promise readily. enough, but in her heart she did not mean to keep it. She was, on the eon- trary, firmly resolved to break it. She went en however, in the sweetest of tones: “I will tell her everything—and not only all that you have told me, but also about all the good you have done and are doing: But I want you to make me a promise in return. I want you te promise me not to mention to Madoline, when you see. ker, where it was that you met me: to-night.” Lance Grove looked surprised. “Certainly, I. will not «tell her if you dq not want me to do so. But why should I not? And why are you here in this least likely of all. places, and at this strangeést-of all hours?”’ Eve hesitated for a moment. Then the lie that she needed came.to her help. ; “As a matter of fact—only I don’t want it known—I came here, like yourself, on an errand of charity,” she answered him with seeming re- luctance. “I, too, was summoned here by some one who needed help, and I came just as I was, I did not realize that this neighborhood was quite as poor a oné as I find it to be, so I did not des of going home at first to charge into other clothes.” = ance Grove looked surprised.. He had never known her to do any kindly or charitable action peforé; and _it struck him as very strangé that she should have come here to this neighborhood on an errand of mercy, and should have left a brilliant party in order to do so. But he be- lieved her, and began inwardly to reproach him- ee for not having thought better of her in the a St, . “That was ‘good of you,” he said, with one. of his sweet, tender smiles. “You may trust me not to tell your sister, as you would rather she ~ did not know. How are you going home now? Haven’t you a cab waiting? .Yeu must have come jn a cab.” , “J sent it away,” she told him, with an air of Vol 64—No. 29 - distress. ‘“‘I thought it would be easy to get another. As JTve just said, I didn’t know the neighborhood, But perhaps you know it better, and can advise me as to what I had best do.” Lance Grove nodded. “If you will come with me as far as the house where I am going to leave this little one for an hour or two, I will then put you safely on your Way home,” he answered her, “¥’You must cer- tainly not walk about here any more alone, dressed as you are now. Why, what is the mean- ing of this?” “ Eve Clere had passed unthinkingly under a street-lamp, and the light had revealed to him the state of her dress. He stopped short. “Why, your dress is in a terrible state!” “ie <-3ts Eve Clere looked at her grime- stained satin gown, as if this mews were quite strange to her. ‘Oh, how annoying! JI slipped down just now at one place where the pavement was very muddy, but I didn’t suppose that I had ruined my dress like this.” Lance Grove’s eyes were examining her gravely. “Surely you must have eut your hands very badly when you fell. They are covered with blood! And your dress has bled-spots on it, too! My dear Eve, you must have hurt yourself a great deal more than~you know! . Let me see your hands!” _ Eye held them out to him. He could not examine them while he still held the child. “Wait until I have made this child safe and comfortable for a little while, and then I will see how much you have hurt yourself,” he told her. ; She walked with him silently. He handed the little one that he carried in his arms over to the care of a motherly-looking woman, and then he turned once more to Eve. “Let me see how much you have hurt your hands. I am afraid you must have-cut them very badly indeed.” He took her red-stained fingers in his, and jooked at them closely in the light from the door- - Way of the house; and, as he examined them, a look of puzzled ‘surprise came upon his face. “Why, you have no cuts at all! The blood on your hands and dress must have come from some outside thing that you have touched. What can it have been?. Where can you possibly have been to get blood upon you?” “ Eve remembered, then, with a sudden shudder, the mysterious drip, drip, that had reached her ear in the dank stone passage between Samson Argies’ den and the street. She remembered, too, the nameless something which her hand had come in contact with when she had stumbled on the spiral staircase. And her daredevil callousness gave way for the night. What untold horrors had she been at close quarters with in “the course of that secret jour- ney from the Wizard’s lair to the open street? CHAPTER XXII. MADOLINE’S SUSPENSE, ““You’li have to do better business with those diamonds, Eve, my girl. I’m not selling them for the pleasure of letting other people have them, as you seem to think, but in order to make money. You may suppose that when a man turns over hundreds of thousands of pounds in a month, and sometimes in a week, on the Stock Exchange, as I do, the selling of a few stones ata mod- erate profit wouldn’t matter. But when a man is piling up millions upon millions, everything matters. I’ye only -got one clear-aim in life, and that’s the making of money. I want to be the richest man in the world! And a thousand or two more or less on the sale of diamonds makes a difference. You’ll have to be sharper, ye ” These were the last words that Josh Oliver had uttered on leaving. Eve Clere’s presence three days after her visit to the Wizard in his den at night. He had added, as he went out: “The falling short can’t be all due to Mado- line. Some of the fault is surely yours... So you had better look out, or it may be the worse for you,” e This mood in him had filled Eve with alarm. She set her cunning brain to work to find a way of oe Madoline’ more completely in his sight. * It did not take her long to find that way. Rarely ten minutes after Josh Oliver had gone she was sitting in her own room with the door locked, selecting from her private jewel-case, the contents of which none but herself knew; a particularly magnificent diamond ring. She looked at this tenderly for a long time, and then -packed it up in a small box, and carefully ad- dressed a label to her sister. “T hate parting with this ring,” she said to herself angrily; “but it must be done, as a means to an end. Josh Oliver will be a fool if he doesn’t notice this on Madoline’s finger, and put an ugly construction on her possession of it. Now for the letter.” _ ; She sat down at her writing-table, took a sheet of paper that had no heading upon it, and in a handwriting totally unlike her own, and surpri- singly like Lance Grove’s, set down the following sentences : “The sender of this ring has made it the joy- ful labor of months to get it for you, and wants you to wear it always as a personal favor. “Byen should “you. guess from whom this gift comes, do not thank the giver, nor speak to him of the gift.”’ ‘ 3 - “Unless Iam very much mistaken, this will exactly answer my purpose,” Eve said to herself in a gratified tone, as she enclosed the letter with the ring. ‘‘Madoline will be fool enough to. be- lieve that Lance Grove has sent it. She will wear it openly, and Josh Oliver will notice it, and think that she got it for herself by cheating him. This may not be the nicest of tricks to play, but I must do it in self-defense, especially now that that miserable paper which Samson Argles made me sign turns out to be a deed of partnership, as well as a promise to pay hush-money, and the old wretch takes his share of the profits of any good thing he helps me to in the diamond-sell- ing way. By the time I’ve satisfied him, as well as Josh Oliver, I sha’n’t have anything left fer myself.” Ss ‘ She took the trouble to go to another district to mail her package; and things turned out ex- actly as she had expected. Madoline wore the magnificent ring, explain- ing, with a blush, in answer to her sister’s ques- tions, that she did not really know who had sent it to her, but that she privately believed Lance Groye-had done so. Josh considered absurd the story told to account for the girl’s possession of the ring, and left the house with an ominous cloud darkening his features. Then Lance Grove came to see Madoline-—came with his heart full of hot love and deep, desperate yearning, with which was mingled again some- thing of the uneasiness that had never wholly died out of his heart since the evening when he had met her coming out, distracted, as with grief and horror, from Josh Oliver’s rooms at the hotel. He had seen her since then, and she had given him an agitated, halting, half-explanation of the occurrence. And now his doubts came back to him with tenfold force as he saw that she was restless and uneasy in his presence. ; “Madoline, my darling, what is the matter? What change is it that has come over you? You do not seem to want to see me now, as you used to. I could even fancy that you shrink from. me. Is it on account of that man—Lord Duncansby— making you care for him?” “Lord Duncansby? Oh, Lance! say such a thing?” Her voice was full of reproach. filled with tears. He put his arm about her. In an instant his expression had become very tender. - ‘ “No, no, my darling! I did not mean it. I only said it because some one who was at the Tranby Pauls’ the other night overheard angry talk between Lord Duncansby and his fiancée, He said he could not marry a woman who had flirted so outrageously with any other man as she had flirted with Josh Oliver; and she defended herself by saying that she had only flirted with Josh Oliver to pay him back for the attentions he bad paid.to you. And their engagement is now completely broken off, and people say it is your doings. Madoline, come to me for always. Give up this idea.of being presented at Court, and going into upper-class society, and come to me. Do you not think that my love could more than make up-to you for the loss of all that hollow, social glory?” Both his arms were about her now, lips were close against her cheek. “I know your beauty would bring you great social triumphs, Madoline; but if that beauty is ~my glory, my pride, my delight, will not that be enough for you? Tell me, my treasure, will that be enough?” ° Bnough? Ah, yes, Heaven knew that it would be enough for her! Heaven knew that one kiss from him would be worth more to her than all the grandest triumphs that ever beauty. won for any woman. But how could she say “yes” to him when there was between them now His murdered father’s blood crying for vengeance? “If he knew the truth—the dreadful truth, that it was my father who shed his father’s blood—he would hate me!” she thought. “No, no—Lance!’’ she faltered brokenly.. ‘‘You —you must not talk to me about marriage yet— not for a long while!” “Why not?’ “‘Because—because 4 She .broke off, and put her hand to her fore- head, with a dazed movement. The action showed him the magnificent new circlet of brilliants that ornamented her finger. a ae did you get that ring?” he asked sud- enly. Madoline opened her lips to give him a true How can you Her eyes had and his second time on this strange” -teresting reading, barring any mishap. answer, telling him all she knew about the com- ing of the ring, and what she guessed as to the identity of its sender, Then she remembered the letter that had come with it, and simply smiled and kissed the ring. Had he not asked her not to allude to it, and never to thank the giver, even if she should guess who he was? A shadow came again into his tender, yet ardent eyes. He went up very close to her, as if to demand that she should give him an-.answer in words. But at that moment the room door opened, and Eve came in. TO BE CONTINUED, SS A FATAL BARGAIN. By NICHOLAS CARTER, Author of “Kendrick’s Pledge,” “The Price of @ Secret,” “The Wheel of Fute,’ “A Legacy of Hate,” “Sealed Orders,” ete. (“A Fata BARGAIN” was commenced in No. 22. Back numbers can be vbiainued of ull newsdealers,) CHAPTER XVIII-"* NICK MAKES A DISCOVERY, A momentary. chill, almost overpowering for an instant, and a plunge into darkness like that of the grave—these were Nick Carter's first impres- sions when he splashed headlong into the waters = the Harlem River and vanished under the sur- ace. : Yet he was not quite as helpless as Peter Coyle and his confederates fully believed. For the trick turned by Patsy, under the instructions artfully conveyed by Nick before leaving the shed, had been so deftly accomplished that none had observed it, and was one from which Nick felt sure he could derive a later advantage, aside from thus escaping the gang into whose hands he had fallen, In the brief struggle that occurred, Patsy had eut the cords confining Nick’s wrists, leaving them in his hands, together with the knife he had used. Not until he was sure that Nick had a firm grip on both did he push him over the rail, and then rush back among the gang as if horrified by what he had done, but in reality to divert their attention in case Nick involuntarily parted his hands before striking the water. The latter guarded against anything of that kind, however. He held them rigidly behind him, and quickly sank out of view. He felt the slimy side of the huge dredger, as the current swept him against it, and in a moment realized that he was being carried beneath it. Knowing that he must drown if caught in the darkness under its vast bottom, Nick first seized the slippery lower edge, and drew himself out till he could get a bearing against its broad side. Then, doubling in the water, still a fathom un- der the surface, he quickly cut the, cords from his ankles. Now able to swim freely, in which art he was an adept, a few vigorous strokes car- ried him toward the bow of the dredger, where, with head throbbing and lungs: strained to their limit, he was compelled to rise to the surface. He emerged noiselessly, however, and saw at once that he was a dozen yards from where he had sumk, and out of probable discovery in the darkness, Supporting himself by quietly treading water, he listened-intently for several. moments. He could hear nothing at first, but presently the sound of a door noisily closed reached his ear. “The rascals have returned to the shed,” he said te himself. “Convinced that I am drowned, no doubt, and well pleased with the conviction. This may serve me well a little later. I 11 make sure that none of them have remained to see if I show up.’ , Now removing the handkerchief from over his mouth and thrusting it into his pocket, that no evidence of his ruse might be discovered the fol- lowing day, Nick quietly floated aft and supported himself by the rudder-chains, again listening briefly. - Not a sound came from the deck, how- ever,.and he soon felt sure that the last of the gang had departed. Swimming quietly around the stern of each pile- driver, he presently reached the stone wall at which they were made fast, where he climbed up noiselessly until he could took over the capstone. The shed was shrouded in darkness, From no chink or crevice came a ray of light. ‘Have the scoundrels bolted as quickly as this?’ he asked himself, still. listening. ‘‘I be- lieve, by Jove, they have. Some important busi- ness must have taken them-~away on the jump. It’s a safe wager that Patsy is with them, how- ever, and now stands ace-high in’ their rascally esteem. » His report, when he finds an oppor- tunity to communicate with me, should be in- It looks as if nothing was left for me but to hike for home.” : Chilled, with garments drenched, Nick had mounted the wall while indulging in the above re- flections, and a brief examination at the shed door convinced him that the place was deserted. He could only conjecture whither the gang had now gone, and seeing nothing to be gained by attempting to trate them in his present condi- tion, he made his way out of the vast enclosure dividing the work from the neighboring streets, and set about finding a conveyance in which to quickly reach home, It took him. only a- short time to locate a cabman, whom he warned against making any disclosures concerning him, and soon after nine o'clock he arrived at~his residence. He found Chick in the business office, from whom he had parted at four o’clock in the Hotel Royal. “Well, you must have found Mrs, Pat Selkirk very entertaining,’ Chick cried, not at once ob- serving Nick’s condition. “Yes, I did—decidedly entertaining,” Nick dry- ly rejoined. “She’s one of the most accom- plished——”” “Holy smoke !* Chick interrupted, now staring. “Where the dickens have you been? Not in swimming with her?’’ “Not with her—but because of her.” “The deuce you say! You look as if you’d been in a sewer.” “711 tell -you .where I’ve been, Chick, after getting into dry garments,” Nick replied, hasten- ing from the office after placing the contents of his pockets on his desk. He returned after ten minutes, and in as many more had told Chick all that was essential of what had occurred, and his reasons for the course he had taken. “We could have arrested that whole bunch, mind you, but that wouldn’t do,’ Nick said in conclusion. “It would have been a leap in the Gark. “We weren’t sure of the identity of any of them, barring Cullen, nor how close they may be to the chief criminals. ~There are far bigger men than any of them in this game that’s being played, and they must be given no loophole for escape. It’s much better as matters now stand, for Patsy will surely make important discoy- eries, and we may gain something by noting what effect my supposed death has in various quarters.” “In the stock-market, for example,” Chick sug- gested. “Exactly. If United Transit begins to soar again to-morrow morning, it will be because the Todd crowd think me dead, and they can have been informed to that effect only by the rascals we encountered to-night, who, I fully believe, are in their employ.” “Are you sure Todd was not among them?” “Absolutely.’? said Nick. ‘Todd could not dis- guise himself so well that I could not recognize him.” “Or McNulty?” “No, nor McNulty,’ Nick declared. ‘Neither of them was there. The fact that I was taken to a tool-shed belonging to MeNulty, Cassidy & Coyle, moreover, would cut no great. ice, provi- ding we had arrested this gang and found none of the firm among them, nor men whom we could proye are in their employ. They could swear, in that case, that some unknown gang had broken into the shed because of its isolation, in order to do their knavish work undetected.” “That’s very true, Nick.” " ‘“Here’s another point,’”’ Nick added. “If work is immediately resumed on the Harlem River job, following the Packard decision, you may safely assume that both Todd and MeNulty’s firm have the courage to resume operations at onee only because they think me down and out, and that they can now crush Fenno in the market, if not bring about his rearrest and detention in cus- tody. With both of us out of their way, they’ll think they have smooth sailing.” “There’s one bad feature. of the situation,” Chick remarked. “What is that?” “If they boom United Transit again to-morrow, as you suspect, they may succeed in eausing Fenno’s failure. He must be awfully short of the stock since the smash he gave it to-day.” “With my help he’ll smash it worse to-mor- row.”’ “With your help?” queried Chick. “What do you mean?’’ ““Just this,’”? replied Nick, with grim determi- nation. “We're up against a big- case, looking at the financial side of it—-one in. which mil- lions are at stake and fortunes made or lost in a day. Mighty quick work must be done, and ree steps taken. No-half-way moves will suffice. playing as bold and desperate a game as has ever been played in New York City. They can be beaten only by counter-moves of equal audacity, culminating with a. complete exposure of their criminal operations. These include, I feel sure, the killing of Judge Packard.” “What are your designs?” “On the strength of what little absolute -evi- dence I possess, and the deductions I have made, I am going to drive this gang to the wall with a rush, and down them as quickly as possible.” “In what way?” asked Chick, deeply impressed by Nick’s unusual austerity. “To begin with, I must protect Fenno,” Nick replied. ‘‘He has millions involved, has taken tremendous chances on the strength of my ad- vice and predictions, and, take my word for it, he shall quit no loser. [ will pull him out, Chick, and put millions in hf® pocket, or lose a leg in the attempt.” “How can. you do it? You talk as if you had the National Treasury back of you.” ; “T’jl tell you how,’ Nick grimly went on. “You must see District Attorney Henderson to- morrow morning, and get his assistance. He will give you what legal advice you require. I want you to apply for an injunction on such grounds as he may suggest, restraining the resumption of work on the Harlem River job, and ail further construction by the United Transit .Company, pending a hearing.as to the validity of Packard’s decision, and an inquest upon his death. Hen- derson will get Judge Peabody to grant such an injunction, and it will have a double effect. It will drive the Todd crowd to greater extremes, J and enable Fenno to smash the stock to smither- eens, after whatever advance it may make to- morrow morning.” “By Jove, that’s so,’? Chick. approvingly cried. “The news of the injunction will not leak out before noon, and the action of the stock during the first two hours of the market will show me plainly enough whether Todd has been informed of my death. When the news of the injunction reaches the market, let Fenno alone to smash the stock again. I shall see him early to-mor- row. morning,eand relieve him of all apprehensions as to the final results of my work.”’ “By gracious, Nick, you’re tackling an awful proposition, the biggest ever.” -“Yet Ili come under the wire a winner, you can bet on that.” “TI hope so. But there’s a raft of work to be done !’’ ~ “We should receive important information from Patsy to-morrow#forning, or during the day,” Nick replied; ‘fand I shall~begin to get busy right after breakfast.” “But you are thought to be dead.” “T shall get in my work in disguise.” “Yes, of course.” “T’ll not let the Todd crowd learn that. I’m alive, you can gamble on that,’”’ Nick dryly added. “It might prove fatal to my plans.” “What other plans have you?” Chick inform him, and the clock quired. Nick proceeded to had struck tyelve when they ceased discussing the case andthe work to be done, the nature of which will appear in their subsequent efforts. “By Jove, there’s one thing I’ve -forgotten,” Chick abruptly remarked, when they were about to start for bed. ‘What's that, Chick?’’ “You had three telephone-calls during the early evening.” : “By whom?” “Give it-up,” Chick said tritely. “She de- clined to tell me her name, or even her tele- phone number, in order that you might call her up when you returned.” “A woman, eh?” “Ves, the same one each time,’ Chick nodded. **T recognized the voice.’”’ “Young or old?” “Tt sounded like that of a young lady.” “H’m! is that so?’ Nick drawled thoughtfully. “Did she state what she wanted?’ “Only that she was very anxious to communi- cate with you. I told her I was your chief as- sistant, but that evidently made no _ difference. She insisted that she must talk with you, and said that she would ring you up later:” ‘You told her I would return to-night?” “T told her I was not sure about that,” Chick rejoined, ‘She then replied that she would ring you up either to-night or in-the morning.” _ “She appears to have deferred it until morn- ing.”’ “Got any “¥es, an in- idea who she is?” idea,” “Nick nodded. “Fenno’s lady in navy-blue,”’ “Annie Elmore?” “That’s her name.”’ “What can*she want of you?” “That’s an. open question,’ smiled Nick. shall learn to-morrow.’’ Despite this prédtction; -no.telephone-call was received before eiglit o'clock the next morntre; at which hour both detectives left the house. Both were in disguise, moreover, Nick as an elk derly man, wearing smoked glasses, and Chick in a less conspicuous make-up. It was too early for the latter to confer with the District Attorney, and Nick wanted Chick with him during a visit he now had in view, despite the early hour. For he meant what he said when he declared that, with what little evidence he had, together with the deductions and theories he had formed, he would drive the Todd crowd to the wall with a rush. Using every precaution to prevent an exposure of his death-ruse, the journey was made in a public autocab, and at precisely half-past eight both detectives alighted at Judge Packard’s resi- dence, A huge wreath hanging on the door told that the funeral of the murdered jurist had not yet been held. Nick Carter had not called to view the corpse, however. He sent in a request to see Mrs. Pack- ard, stating that he had come from the court- house and was acting under the instructions of the coroner. This subterfuge had the desired effect upon the bereaved wife, who naturally de- sired that her husband’s assassin should he brought to justice; and after a brief argument, mingled with a -grave display of authority, Nick obtained permission to examine the contents of Judge Packard’s roll-top desk—in search, he stated, of letters or papers that might point to the identity of his murderer. This was not strictly true, however, as was implied by a quiet remark to Chick, when they were seated at the desk and left alone in the library. ’ “If he was engaged in any crooked work, and received any communications relating to it, he would have had them sent here, instead of to his law office, where a clerk or secretary might pos- sibly open, them. We'll have a look, at all events, since the game is worth the hunt.” The contents of the desk were in good order, however, and the search proved to be an easy one, also seeming likely to prove equally futile. For an- examination of several packages of letters, a few legal documents and numerous insignificant papers, brought nothing to light that appeared to have any bearing on the crime. ; A communication finally discovered by Nick would have appeared equally insignificant to one less impressionable, yet it at once received his careful attention. He found it thrust carelessly into a pigeonhole, among some unpaid bills; so many of them, in fact, and some so old, that Nick promptly inferred that Packard must have been very short of money. a, The-envelope containing the brief missive had been mailed on the day preceding the murder, and the address was typewritten, also the few lines on the sheet within. That the letter was otherwise blank, and had been received so near the day of the murder, first aroused Nick’s in- terest. Yet the communication read merely as follows: “My Dear PacKkarp: Enclosed find check, a8 requested. You will find no trouble in obtaining the goods, and: they are exactly what you re- quired. - No more need be said. “Yours as ever, max “Wm!” Nick thoughtfully murmured. He studied the communication for several mo- ments. It seemed entirely natural that Judge Packard should have been the recipient of a check. There should be nothing strange in that. What goods were referred to, however, that there might have been a difficulty in obtaining? What were the exactions in regard to them and im- posed by him? No more need be said—about what? ‘Why was the signature, instead of a name, an initial only? Nick felt increasing misgivings while he asked himself these questions. He could not answer them then and there, nor make anything more of the missive, and he re- verted to the address on the envelope. Incidentally, he now discovered in the lower right corner a faint semicircular line, unobserved before. It was not a line drawn with a pen or pencil. It was in the paper itself. It was, in fact, as if something about the size and shape of a half-dollar had been enclosed in the en- velope, and as if the pressure of a thumb and fingers, presumably those of the _ letter-carrier, had caused a slight semicircular ridge in the pa- per, where it was pressed over the edge of the coin. Niek Carter’s brows knit a bit closer. He passed both the letter and envelope to Chick, saying quietly : “Here’s something worth keeping. Ill them in your care.” Chick examined them closely. 2 “Rather oddly worded and signed,” he re- marked, looking up. “Packard evidently received high-strung friend—the girl “We leave a check, possibly sent to him to purchase the The gang back of United Transit are; goods mentioned.” oo. “Think not?’’ “The check Packard received was not check.” “Not a bank-check?’’ “Not by a long chalk!’’ Nick quietly declared, pointing out the discovery he had made. “The check mailed in this envelope was of metal, Chick—presumably brass, or nickel.” “A trunk-check?” “More likely a check for—the bag he brought to the Hotel Royal,” Nick impressively whis- pered. “Holy smoke! You think goods mentioned?” “Exactly.” “Money ?” “As sure as you’re a living man,’’ Nick nodded, with eyes gleaming. ‘‘Mgney, Chick, that bought the Packard decision. Bribery, Chick, as sure as death and taxes. Money, for which he be- came a crook—-and for which he afterward was slain. Yet the question still remains—slain by whom?” When the two detectives left the house a few minutes later, Chick Carter carried both the missive and the envelope in his breast pocket. They departed in the cab, which Nick had re- tained, but Chick alighted a block below and now started for the District Attorney’s office. Nick leaned from the cab windodw and gave the driver his instructions. “Drop me in front of Broadway,” he said curtly. if you make good time.” He was bound for Percival Fenno’s office Wall Street. it then was nine o’clock, a bank- it contained the the Trinity Church, “Double fare, cabbie, in CHAPTER XIX, THE RAT IN _ The curtains were drawn to exclude the morn- ing sunlight from Percival Fenno'’s private of- fice. Glancing into the room, one would have said that he was the only occupant. A tall Jap- anese screen of bamboo and figured silk was drawn across. one corner of the room, a portion enclosing the table, typewriter and desk of his private secretary and stenographer—Miss Janet Bolton. She was idlé just then, lolling back in her chair and manicuring her nails—a tall, auburn- haired girl in her twenties, with a striking rather than pretty face, and a slender, sinuous figure, in natty attire. Her brows were drawn and she was gazing moodily at her finger-tips. Fenno sat at his desk against an opposite wall. It was literally covered with papers, checks, stock-certificates and the like, which he was hur- riedly signing. He looked pale and haggard, his eyes feverish, his lips gray and drawn; yet the iron will of the man was reflected in every feature. The private office was a commodious _ one. There was a wardrobe closet in one corner. A door near Fenno’s desk led into the main office. An opposite door opened into a corridor leading to the stairs and elevators of the building. Both doors were closed. From the outer office not a sound could be heard, yet a dozen clerks were working as if for dear life. A man who battles for supremacy with millions for his ammunition knows no rest. A clock on. the THE MEAL, mantel struck half-past nine. gentleman wishes to see you, Mr. “Impossible!” Fenno replied curtly, without looking up, without ceasing his hurried work. “TI can’t see him—can’t see anybody.” The clerk withdrew, only to return presently and tender a sealed envelope. ; “The old gentleman insists that you read this, sir. Fenno dropped his pen, frowning impatiently, then broke the seal and read the name written on a slip of paper that fell into his hand—Nick Carter. “Oh!” The ejaculation was involuntary. Dropping the slip of paper on his desk, Fenno sprang up and hastened into the outer office. Peering through a crevice between the sections of the folding screen, Janet Bolton saw the door close behind her employer. She arose quickly, darted to his desk and read the name on the slip of paper, “Nick Carter-!’’ She caught her breath, merely gasping the name, then. recoiled, hesitated for an instant, with eyes ablaze and lips twitching. Moving with the rapidity and sinuous of ‘a erat rattle- grace snake, she then snatched her hat and jacket from | the of-} the broad sill of the window, seized from fice table several letters ready for the mail, and darted into the wardrobe closet and—held the door ajar. Fenno returned ten seconds later, the man In disguise. x “By. Jove, I’ve been Noping you'd call,” he said, hurriedly closing the door. “Y’ve tele- phoned twice to your office, Mr. Carter, but ce “Gareful!” Nick cautioned him. ‘Don’t speak my name again. Are we alone here?’’ Fenno glanced back of the screen, then at the table on which the letters had been lying. “Ves,” he said quickly. “I was alone ~ with my stenographer. She has gone out with some mail.” He dropped into the chair at his desk, to one corner of which Nick drew another, “How did you quit yesterday?’ he asked curi- ously. “Two millions to the good,’ said Fenno. “Tf I can hold the price down at the opening this morning——” “Don’t try to,” Nick interrupted. “Not try! But us “There aren’t any buts,’ Nick insisted. at wish to know what the stock will do in the first hour, if left to Todd’s manipulation.” “He may-bull it back to 70.” “T hope he will. It will clinch my suspicions.” “And possibly turn the tide of sentiment so strong that I shall be unable to break the price again,’ protested Fenno, aghast at what Nick was proposing. ‘‘Do you realize what you ft “T know what I’m about,” Nick again inter- rupted. “I'll give you at noon to-day, Fenno, a big stick with which you can smash the stock worse than ever.’ “Good heavens! What?” 5 “Another injunction, restraining the company from further construction-work, pending a hearing on the validity of Packard’s decision and an in- quest upon his death. Before those come off, Fenno,’”’ Nick impressively laid his forefinger on his hearer’s knee, ‘before those come off I'll have these fellows nailed to “the cross.” “Are you sure?” **Absolutely.” **—T cannot doubt you,” said Fenno, lighting; ‘‘but don’t -keep me in the dark. have you learned?” “Too much to be told in the short time I can remain, or you can afford to lose,’’ Nick forcibly replied. ‘I cannot go into explanations, but you must do what-.I advise: I am thought to be dead by certain persons, and I wish to learn whether information to that effect will reach the Todd crowd. The action of the stock, if you re- main comparatively passive for an hour or two, will show me.” “T understand,” Fenno nodded. “Yet I at liberty to act éonsistently, am I not?” “Yes, certainly.” < “J will, then, do what you require.” “But don’t, under any circumstances, reveal our relations, or the fact that I am alive,” Nick said warningly. ‘I wish certain persons to feel convinced of my death for the present. They'll find me lively enough later, however. I have Patsy, one of my assistants, in the very midst of the gang, and on a friendly footing with them.”’ “Good! Yet you amaze me—amaze me! How can you have accomplished so much in so short a time?” “There is, as I have’said, no time for explana- tions,” Nick insisted. ‘‘You must act blindly on my advice, Fenno, and follow my instructions to the letter. On my word, however, the results shall be all you ean ask.” “You may depend upon me.”’ “Now one more thing,” -said@ Nick. “After noon to-day, when the news of the injunction reaches Wall Street, I want you to break the market wide open. Smash United Transit to a single figure, if you can.” followed by with eyes What am “T ean and will,’ Fenno declared, and his face} “T will risk my entire fortune in the looked it. effort. I’ll break it, Nick—-or break myself!” “Tf you succeed—mark me, Fenno!” The voice of the great detective fell lower. ‘‘We shall have the Todd crowd in a financial corner, in a hole, driving them to the utmost extremes, the most desperate measures. I have reason believe they will, in order to support the market, ap- propriate the’ funds of the Ironclad National Bank, in which Todd is the most influential figure, barring not even its president.’’ “That’s right.’ “Do what I have commanded, Fenno, and—note my next move,’’ Nick added, in his intensely im- pressive fashion. “I’ll plug half a dozen bank examiners in there the instant the bank opens to- morrow morning. If I find there is a deficit— faugh! I shall then have these fellows in the palm of my hand, where I can crush them like egg-shells.”’ ‘ Though as pale and grave as if his life hung upon the work required of him, Fenno’s dark eyes refiected an admiration he could not verbally ex- ress. r “You are a general one should be proud to follow, a support that would make .a giant of a gmy,’ he said warmly. “I marvel at your to pygn soe Baha | ability, your energy, your invincible courage. - i @uired their jas he will do what you require, as I have said, for’I have unbounded faith in you.” “Good !’’ was the hearty rejoinder. find it is not misplaced.” “T am convinced of that.” Nick glanced at the clock—-twenty minutes of ten; and, incidentally, he noticed a cabinet-pho- tograph standing near it on an easel. The sub- ject struck him as being a bit fancy, dashing in appearance. ..The face was striking, yet did not please him. The impression came in an in- stant, and remained recorded in his brain. “That one of your family, Fenno, or your sweetheart?’ he lightly inquired, with a toss of his head in the direction of the photograph. Fenno laughed a bit nervously. *“Neither,’’ he replied, “It’s a picture of Miss ea ee ed stenographer and private secretary.” z . “You shall “She has been with me for two years,’ Fenno added. ‘Her father was Bolton, the Broadway haberdasher. He was thought to be wealthy, but died deeply in debt. I was acquainted with the daughter, who was rather a bright, fashionable girl in those days, and I gave her employment. It had become a case of hustle for her living.” “T see,’ nodded Dick. “I may rely upen you to follow my instructions?” ‘As surely as I live and breathe.” “That's all, then. It is now a quarter of ten. You must soon leave for the Exchange. I have work elsewhere.” Nick abruptly Fenno arose Office. The door no sooner was closed than the other opened—Janet appeared again. Her cheeks were hueless, her lips as gray ashes. She was trembling from head to foot. As if wild with excitement, or in a frenzy of haste, she put on her hat and jacket and started for the door leading into the corridor—only to halt abruptly, beating her brow with her hand, as if to quell the riot in her brain. Then she turned sharply and darted to the telephone on Fenno’s desk. With the receiver started. up while speaking, and and accompanied him to the outer as in her hand she _ hesitated again, staring wild-eyed at the door through which Fenno would return. She heard his ap- proaching steps while she gazed. As quick as a flash she replaced the receiver, then darted to her own desk, thrusting into one of the drawers the letters she had taken from the table. When Percival Fenno entered she was removing her hat and jacket, like one who had just come in from the street. “T have been out to drop your mail, Mr. Fen- no,” she remarked, with a composure in vivid eontrast with her recent agitation. “Very well, Janet. I saw you out.’”’ had stepped spoke without a glance at her, resuming his seat and his writing. “Are you going to the Exchange this morning?” “Ves? “It is nearly ten. I mind you.”’ “Quite right, Janet. Thank you.”’ Still, he did not look at her. She zing at him from under her knit brows, lips jerking spasmodically at times, and slender white hand rigidly gripping one of vertical bamboo rods of the figured screen. “Ry the way, Janet Nf “Yes, sir.’’ “You must help Mr. Ashley this morning.” Fenno referred to his bookkeeper. ‘‘He has more than he can dor These are troublous times. He will give you — at his desk and tell you would we thought I re- stood with ga- her her the what he wants.7= “Very well, sit?’ Janet’s voice jwas unchanged, but her frown had become a scowl of bitter hatred, of deadly determination. She resumed her chair, thrust the letters deeper into the desk drawer, and quickly locked it, ; “Tt must be done=dquickly done!’ she mut- tered the words through her teeth inaudibly, fiercely twining her slender fingers and staring vyacantly at the work on her desk. ‘‘Done—yes! or there’ll be the devil to pay: But if I insist on going out, I shall incur suspicion. If I tele- phone, I may be heard. If I—bah! Ill find a way! Jill invent. a wey!” / The clock on the mantel struck ten. The bookkeeper appeared at the door, Fenno had sprung up and seized his hat. ‘“J’m. going to the Exchange, Ashley,” abruptly said. “T have spoken to Janet. will assist you at once.’’ He was_out and away while he spoke. Janet arose, white and moody, and followed Ashley to the outer office, taking a stool beside him at his desk and awaited his instructions. The work re- laboring together, and he plunged into it at once, necessitating, her doing likewise. it was a Situation from which she could “not easily escape. She grew more pale while she weérked, Her lips were hard pressed, her eyes dilated. A ticker in one corner began clieking noisily. Half a dozen clerks leaped down from their stools and ran to look at the tape. One of them threw up-his* hands and staggered. “Up ten points!” he gasped, with a stare at his hearers. ‘‘Heavens, what an opening!” ‘What's that?’ cried Ashley “United Transit higher?’ “Yes, ten points.” “The deuce! What has happened?’ Janet kept on writing—a mute, ghastly-white girl bending over the huge ledger, At half-past ten United Transit crossed 50, with a terrific up-swing, and at eleven was being bought in huge blocks at 55, still steadily ad- vancing. The inmates of Fenno’s office were in feverish excitement. A fraction meant thousands lost—a point, the loss of a small fortune. At half-past eleven the stock crossed 60, with no sign of a break. Ashley, the bookkeeper, was trembling over his work, The clerks were aghast, speechless, nervous, and at times unable’to work at all. Suddenly one of them cried: “What’s the matter with Miss out—catch her, Ashley! The warning came too late—the girl slipped from her stool, with eyes rolling, collapsed in a heap’on the office floor. “Bring water!’’ Ashley shouted, bending her. ‘“‘She’s il], and must be sent home. of you call a cab.” Janet had found the way. “T feel dreadfully ill,” she moaned, when had revived her. ‘‘It must be the excitement. I haye been out of sorts for. days. A cab—yes! 3ut I will return later—if able.” Yes, Janet had found the way. ~ At one o’clock that day, entering, the Hotel Royal on a mission presently to appear, Nick Carter saw a young woman huriedly departing, having come from the side corridor in which the eleyators were located. He saw her face plaimly—as plainly as he had seen the photo- era on the mantel in Fenno’s private office. No “ordinary circumstance, or, rather, the full significance of it, could stagger Nick Carter. Yet, when he beheld this woman, the steel-nerved detective reeled as if suddenly dealt a blow, with his heart momentarily sinking and his cheeks turned strangely white. “Good God!” he mentally exclaimed, staring after her as she hurried down the vestibule steps and passed into the sunlit street. ‘That girl here! ‘I’ll swear that’s the face I saw in the photograph on Fenno’s' mantel. His private stenographer, eh? A rat in the meal-tub rather! That’s what—a rat in the meal-tub!” No Iayman unfamiliar. with the subtleties of fine detective work could appreciate what this simple incident meant to Nick Carter, what a shock it had given him, what disaster he Saw confronting him, TO BE CONTINUED. but he She Look had and 30lton ? She’s fainting!” over One ‘they —_——_--——_—> + O+ SURE TO RETURN. old was railroad- A young man about twenty-five years sitting in the waiting-room of a Boston station, with a baby on his knee, and his help- lessness in pacifying the howling child attracted the attention of passers-by. Presently. an elderly man walked up with a smile of pity, and queried: ‘A woman gave you that baby to hold while she went to see about her baggage, didn’t she?” PY O63"? “And you expect her to return, I suppose?’ “JT think sh®e’ll come back.” “Well, such gullibility makes me laugh. A woman played the same trick on me once, but no one ever will again. Young man, you've been fooled; you’ve been taken for a greenhorn, and been sold! Better give the baby over to a po- liceman, and make a move before some reporter gets at you and asks for particulars.” “Oh, she’ll come back,” replied the young man looked anxiously round. “She will, eh? The practical joke grows richer and richer. What makes you think she’ll come?” “Recause she’s my wife, and this is our first baby.”’ “Oh—h’m! { see,’ muttered the old man, whose hilarity ..suddenly evaporated; and when he also discovered that he’d lost his train, he kicked a dog that had been left unguarded on the platform. i « Do Gk on art or the man something authority politics as money at such or of Nobody speaks with literature or philosophy who has made a pot else. THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. Vol. 64—No, 29 NEW YORK, APRIL 24, 1909, Terms to Mail Subscribers; (POSTAGE FREE.) Wa tare eee ee Ocle COPIES. oo ee ee + «$5.00 4 months ......-...$1.00/4 copies. ... oe +. .10.00 LB year .iesc eve eee 8 00|8 COPIRRs oes o0c0 20.00 TO CLUB RAISERS.—Upon request we will send sample copies to aid you in obtaining sub- secribers. AGENTS.—Our responsibility for remittances applies only to such as are sent to us direct, and we will not guarantee the reliability ef any sub- scription agency or postmaster. ADVERTISING RATES.—One dollar twenty-five cents per line, agate measure. Subscriptions may begin at any time, and any issue later than 1903 can be supplied at regular rates. Carefully state with what number and volume you wish your subscription te begin. COPIES LOST IN TRANSIT—Are duplicated without extra charge. Remit by Express Money Order; Draft, Post Office Order, or Registered Letter.» We will not be responsible ‘tor loss of remittances not so sent. All letters should be addressed to STREET & SMPETH, 79-89 Seventh Ave., N. Y. 8 months and The New York Weekly has a larger cir- culation than all other similar publi- cations combined. PRINCIPAL ue oe, a! PTY} a ee ae Ne i i" ye ik, on Wy lat ees : The Double Secret (Serial) -...-. .Duncan McGregor The Curse of Greed (Serial) .. Marie Connor Leighton A Fatal Bargain (Serial) .....2....3.. Nicholas Carter When Love Rutes the Heart (Serial) . A Great Wrong (Serial)....... Evfina Garrison Jones A Loveless Marriage (Serial) 6 38 Be F. L. Dacre The Affair at the Nest..... Mrs. Helen Corwin Pierce A Double Romance...............- Geoffrey Harborn -Owen Masters Tracked by the Typewriter.....W. Kesterton Dowie Lady Bianea’s Choice.......... sinsan tae ceed A Thrilling Case of Somnambulism........... Hope for the Best.............-...- «Harkley Harker The JCOndGR POOL Sivans doschocpuacas Josh Billings DIV OTCOs cake a cee VeakiNbanswes sauehsensyee nO LOL Pleasant Paragraphs.......-.-....Charles W. Foster WOPK- BOSS Fs cise ee vee eek aS Mrs. Helen Wood Items of Interest, Correspondence, etc. POEMS. “The Watchers,” by Judd Mortimer Lewis. “The Eyes of a Child,” by Rev. J.T. M’Farland. “A Sweet Good Night,” by Edward Everett Nelson. A CHARMING LOVE STORY. A -wondeffully captivating story, spirited and lifelike, and teeming with dramatic action, will be placed before our readers next week, under the title of SIR JOHN’S HEIRESS. By okie DACRE, Author of *-A Loveless Marriage,’ ‘*A Change of Heart,” “Tyrenholme’s Trust,” **A Case for the Court,” ete. The heroine is a young woman of ambition and determination, chained to misfortune by poverty. Her father is a ne’er-do-well, selfish and unscrupulous, who so envies his more enterprising and fortunate brother that to- ward him he enacts the part of a trickster and traitor. Because of the rascality of this recreant brother, the daughter is spurned and despised, her uncle deeming her as un- worthy as her father. But just before his demise the uncle relents, showers kindness upon her, and makes her his heiress, Her ambition partly realized, by tite oppor- tunity to revel in wealth, she soon fills her- self beset with troubles far more irksome than those pertaining to poverty. Her improvi- dent father anchors himself in her home, and becomes an exasperating barnacle, intro- ducing to her attention an audacious com- rade whom it is difficult to suppress The story is repleté with exciting scenes and cleverly planned tableaus, all of them portrayed with artistic skill and vigor, There is not a dull chapter in the entire work. The opening instalment will appear in the next issue of the NEw York WEEKLY. me ai 6 Ge ee THE VOICES OF ANIMALS. The wonderful preacher .of the middie Francis of Assisi, used to discourse to bi fish. He anticipated, by several hundred ‘ the teaching of science that animated nature is united by a common bond. One of the illustra- tions of this fact is that animals and birds ejacu- late notes and cries that resemble the human voice, There is a crow in India which laughs in a tone that resembles the loud laughing of a man. The laughing-jackass, an Australian bird, when warning his feathered mates that daybreak is at hand, utters a ery that resembles the wild chorus of shouting, laughing boys. The night-jay has a voice like one lamenting in distress. Among birds that have the power of imitation the parrot is quite amazing, but, as a matter of fact, its voice is decidedly inferior to that of the mino, a species of starling. Curiously enough, the male bird speaks in a high, clear tone, like that of a child, while the female has a gruff voice. Another bird, the morepork of Australia, is fre- quently heard yehemently demanding more pork in a clear, loud voice. The whippoorwill also demands his punishment ina clever imitation of the human voice, and the command of the guinea-fowl to come back could €asily be mistaken for a human voice. Coming to quadrupeds, the cries of none ap- proach more closely that of the human voice than those of seals when lamenting the loss or capture of their young. The cry of a wounded hare re- sembles that of a child in distress, keeping, THE EYES OF A CHILD. BY They are clear, the eyes of a child, Clear as the blue of the sky; No murks of a spirit assoiled In their limpid azure lie. They are deep, the eyes of a child, Deep as the deeps of the sea; Under their lifted fringes soft Lies a soul of mystery. By Harkley What is hope, if it be not “for the best”? We cannot hope for anything that is not good. Hope looks forward to what is good, or better, or best. It is -almost the sweetest function of the soul. It is more cheering than faith. Love itself would die without it. It is the flower of the soul, the bloom and fragrance of.our immortal part. It was given us to make life always endurable. When hope departs, the reason itself totters. We say, and rightly, of a despairing man, “He has lost. his head.’ ‘The rational action, necessary in»life, has ceased to be possible when there is no hope, Yet how lightly we treat it, our faculty of hope, as if it were of less account than our hands. ‘‘You hope for the best?’ exclaimed a good woman in my hearing, recently, to her son. “But what are you going to do about it? Ho- ping for it doesn’t bring it!” She was both right and wrong. Wrong in disparaging the young per- son’s hopefulness. For if he had not that, he could not do anything. He hoped, and therefore he was going on to try. The mother, however, seemed to laugh at that hope. She spoke as if her boy’s hope was a mere wish, a guess, a toss of luck; whereas, in fact, his hope was as real a movement of his mind, as natural a part of him, as his love for his mother, or his sense of honor. She was right if she meant that hope, without trying to bring the hope to pass, was vain. We first think of a good we can. foresee as among the possibilities: Then we hope that it is attainable. -Finally, we work for it in all ra- tional ways. Happy are we when we get ij, if it is one-half as pretty a thing as we hoped for. Hope is such a painter of the beautiful. Hope can so adorn the poorest life with its fair por- trayals.. Hope is a magician, which can arouse all our energies. She is an inventor, with all the genius of ways and means. She feeds us, affords us strength, clears our vision, directs our steps, never sleeps, quarrels with our fears, and defeats them if she can, sings to us, langhs till we laugh, weeps, prays—does any and all things to. arouse the whole man and keep him struggling. Hope finds us new friends, encourages us to forgive the false friend, whispers patience and courage, Hope keeps a_ store, in which is bread, meat, clothing, houses, stocks, fame, and all sorts of happiness, Nothing can be thought of that hope will not deal in. She offers the pretender a crown and the boy king a peaceful reign. Even heaven itself is on her tongue. Can reason equal all this? Can faith? Can the wonderful eye or the ear compare with hope? What power of the body or the mind has such marvelous scope! We shall never see as much as we have hoped for, nor hear, nor handle, except in our immortal spirits. The very spirit of man finds its. chief flower, like the blossom of the century plant, in hope. Ever hoping, too, through all the ages of that endless existence. Think of it, what a dar- ing flight. of this faculty, when we hope for something in the next, and the next, and the next million years! REVEREND © J, T. M’FARLAND, They are keen, the eyes of a child, Keen as the lances of light; The pure in heart alone. can stand Unshamed in their searching sight, They are strong, the eyes of a child, Strong as the strength of a god; They rule the world with gentle sway, For love is their scepter-rod. Hope for the Best. . arker, lf, therefore, soine. dark-browed, despondent friend ‘would rob you of the joy you-get out of this faculty, refuse to be dismayed. Tell your friend that your pleasure is natural; that the Creator gave you a lookout window, so high up that it cannot be blinded. Be truly thankful that you can hope, for you have few, if any, greater blessings from the Creator. “But a bad man may hope for evil,’’ you object. Yes, the thief may hope for fat plunder, and the assassin for his vyietim’s death. But you never#knew a bad man’s despair to fail. It comes at last, a time when his hope leaves him. It is his punishment that all his outlook is*darker and darker, till he can see nothing but night ahead, Do we not take away the condemned murderer’s hope, when the Governor at last refuses to in- terfere? It is a strange fact that we cannot de- base our hope by evil plans and wicked purposes, but by doing so we clip its wings and at last des- troy it. Hope is from Heaven, and it will not serve the devil except it die, sooner or later. Never hope for an evil thing. Did you never notice that, if one indulges a hope in some wrong to his neighbor, some revenge, he is ashamed to speak of it? We are secretive with all attempis to hope for wrong things. Cultivate a hopeful disposition, fair girl, if you would make yourself invaluable to your fu- ture husband. What priceless cheer there is in a woman’s bright look into the dark. future! She is hopeful when sickness is in the house. She speaks hopefully of business and its darkling sky. She says we shall succeed when-every one else says we shall fail. I would rather marry a hopeful woman than an intellectual woman, if I could not have both characteristics-in one. “The daughter of the missing baronet? Yes, she married Sir Geoffrey’s son and went abroad. I saw the account in the papers.” “Precisely, Now, Mr. Gerhart, I beg that you won’t ask me a question, but only have the kind- ness to do as I tell you. There’s a secret in this Hearing: it, down into that ’ matter, which I am bound in honor not te be- tray, you understand?” “7 understand,- sir. ‘What would you like me to do?” ; '“Take the paper—Heavens, what a stir it will “ make-among the aristocracy of London; I must be there to see, Mr. Gerhart, and go to No. — St. John’s Wood. There is a lady there—I can’t give her name; that’s where the secret comes in, you see. I'll tell you this much—she’s vitally concerned in these discoyeri¢s. You must see her, and show her the paper before you submit it to any one else.” ~ Ambrose shrugged his shapely shoulders. “Rather a blindfold sort_of errand, I should say, sir,” he replied. ‘For whom shall I ask, if I’m not to know the lady’s name?” -“7’]] write a note and seal it, and you shall send it up to her.’ “Very well... You look like a man of honor. rite the note and I will do as you wish, though * J must confess I’m not particularly pleased with ~ the errand.” = Sir Harry, with much pain and difficulty, wrote the note, signed and sealed it, and directed it to Sean Lady on first floor front, No. — St. John’s ood.” With this letter in his possession, Ambrose, tall and gaunt from his-jate sufferings, journeyed down to London. ‘ He took a cab at the depot and drove direct to St. John’s Wood, reaching the unpretending dwelling which bore the designated. number a littie before sunset. ; The hostess herself received him in her small _“gitting-room, and took charge of the note. - . There was a lady on the first floor, front; she would take it up to her, Ambrose sat down, and waited, the yellow leaves, which: had been hidden for so many years in the black dungeon, rising and falling with impatient heart. : Five, ten minutes; and then there came a light step and the rustle of a woman’s garments. The door opened, and Ambrose rose to his feet. — “JT beg your pardon, madam, for this intrusion “* he began, but at sight of her face the words died on his lips. " - He stood and stared like one who sees an ap- parition. He stood face to face with the woman “or whose sake he: had once risked his life, the woman he loved! é For one minute Miss. Trevethon lost her im- perial self-control. ‘The hot .blood surged to her temples, -her clear eyes fell, her heart heaved with great, suffocating throbs; but in the next she was her own queenly self. : She advanced to méet her visitor, extending one slender white hand. : “T am glad to see you, Mr. Gerhart,” she said, “Sir Harry failed to mention your name in his note, and meeting you so suddenly surprised me. You are well?’ “T am well, thank you,’”” answered Ambrose, ac- cepting the seat she offered, and setting his teeth hard to keep down his emotion. If it cost him his life, she should not see how the sight of her loveliness moved him. She drew a chair in front of him, and folded her graceful hands. 3 “Poor Sir Harry has met with an accident?’ “Tt hope it is nothing serious.” “She loves him,” thought Ambrose; ‘“‘and he her. What a fool I was to be decoyed into com- ing here!” _. “Nothing serious,” he answered aloud; “only a painful fracture, which forces him to keep quiet.” “And it was all for me. Poor, kind Sir Harry !” She wrung her lovely hands, and Ambrose bit his lips in an. agony of jealous rage. “We tells me,’’ she continued after a pause, “that you have been making some very wonder- ful discoveries at the Haunted Grange?” Ambrose rose abruptly, and drew the roll of yellow paper from his breast, “T bhaye been down in the dungeon again,” he blurted out, ‘and I found a skeleton. These pa- pers were in its hands, and there was a-diamond ring upon its finger. The papers I brought away, the ring I left wntouched.’’ Miss Trevethon half rose, her face the hue of death, her limbs shaking under her, but sank back again, unable to articulate a word. “Sir Harry Tresham insisted .that I should bring the papers here and show them to you first; -and here they are,” continued the young man, laying them on the table beside her. She looked at them, shuddering from head to cot. “A skeleton—a skeleton down in that awful place! Oh, my poor murdered father!” Ambrose gave a great Sart; “Good heavens!” he cried, ‘you don’t mean to say: as i But, checking himself; he stepped short, leav- as the question unmasked. . till trembling in every limb, still death-white, roll; and smoothed out its discolored pages. ; The first date was some years back, and ran as follows? : “J, Arthur Trevethon, do leave this, my last charge and testimony, hoping that by some chance it may one day come to the eyes of the world.. I am down in this dungeon, beneath the manor, mangled and dying. I was forced through the trap-door, which opens from the anteroom which adjoins the library, by a man who came to me professing to be my cousin, Sir Geoffrey Treve- thon, the late.baronet’s son and heir. This man is strangely like Sir Geoffrey. Moreover, he has ample proofs of his identity, but he is an im- postor, nevertheless. I told him so when he came to me as I sat in the library on the night previous to my return to London. . 2 ~ “Heé grew livid with guilt and rage, and seiz- ing me bodily, foreed me into the anteroom, and through the secret door. ‘Now. betray me, if “you can!’ were his last words to me, as I fell. “TI am writing this, in. the thick darkness, on the leaves of my diary. The chill of death is al- _ ready at my heart. “I shall never see the light again—never see the faces of my dear wife and child until I meet them in heaven. J shall die down here in this terrible place, and no one will! Back numbers can be obtained of all newsdealers.) know; but Heaven’s justice will surely bring this foul deed to light. By some chance my fate will be made known to the world, and this paper, which I am writing in darkness, and in untold agony, will be found. And to him who finds it, I give my charge. Avenge my murder, and right this great wrong. ‘The man.who calls. himself Sir Geofirey Trevethon is a base impostor. The true Sir Geoffrey will come one day and claim his wn. e “T can write no more. My hand fails, and death comes to set me free. My dear wife, fare- well. . Lenore, my little girl, if you live, do not disregard your poor, fond father’s will. When your cousin Richmond comes you will ratify your childish betrothal, and become his wife; and may the Almighty Father bless and prosper my daugh- ter and her husband!” 4 The last lines were blurred and blotted, but Lenore made them out, and then the faded leaves fluttered from her nerveléss hands. “At last! at last!’? she moaned, letting her head fall forward; “the mystery of his fate is made clear! My poor father! what a death he died !”’ 4 > Ambrose ~uttered not a word, but sat like a statue, grave, and stern, and silent. He under- stood enough to Crush out all hope from his heart. This woman, for whose sake he had risked so much, whom he loved as no man ever loves but ones was Lenore Treyethon, and another man’s wife. Until that- moment he had never known the full force of the passionate love that had taken root in his heart. A pang that was like a death- throe thrilled through him as he looked at her, bowed down-in her sorrow, so gracefully lovely, so alluringly helpless and womanly. But he shut his lps close, lest some weak word should escape him. Not for his life would he have betrayed his love. ‘Miss Trevethon,”’ he said, advancing to her side with proffered hand, “allow me to congratu- late you, while I feel for your pain. It must be -a relief to you to know the truth of your father’s fate. And if there is anything I ean do for you,”’-he added, seeing that she made no answer, “J shall be only too glad to receive your com- mands.” “She raised her head and looked at him, her wondrous eyes swimming in tears. “You have done so much for me already,” she faltered, the red blood surging to her cheeks. Then, abashed by her own guilty emotions, and in dread lest he should read the secret of her heart, she hesitated, averted her eyes, and. added, somewhat coldly: “Tf thank you, but there is.no need to trouble ‘you. | As soon as Sir Harry Tresham recovers “I undertand,” interposed Ambrose, flushing with mortification, “and I beg your pardon for having presumed to intrude my services upon you;-and now, Miss Trevethon, I bid-you good evening.” She half rose, as if to detain him; but pulling his hat over his eyes, he strode out of the room. ; “What an ungrateful wretch I am!” she cried. - have not even thanked him, and now~he is ‘one !’? : Her lovely head fell. forward, and with the yellow papers which contained her father’s dying testimony rustling round her feet, she wept the bitterest and most desolate tears her young life had ever known. : : CHAPTER XXV.. A BRIEF ENGAGEMENT, “Now, Edith, pray act like the sensible girl you are, this morning. Throw aside all senti- mental folly, and secure for yourself an enviable position while you have the chance. Sir Geof- frey is sure to speak to you this day, and I really hope;, my love, you have no thought of refusing im.’ Lady Marlowe and her daughter were driving to Sir Geoffrey’s town house, where a select and elegant little breakfast-party was to be given. “He is a fine-looking man,” Lady Marlowe con- tinued. “And quite as old as papa,’”’ Edith interposed. “Dear me, no! and if he were, what does it signify? A sensible girl does not count the years of the man she chooses for her husband; she looks to the position he can give her. As Sir Geoffrey’s wife, there need be no wish of your heart ungratified. His name is one of the best and oldest. in the peerage, and he told me himself that since the death of his son’s wife the bulk of the great Trevethon wealth reverts to him— to Sir Geoffrey, I mean. Just think of it, my dear, and remember, too, how wretchedly cramped your poor father is. He cannot touch a penny of Arthur’s money, and though the world knows nothing of it; your dowry will be a mere nothing. Sir Gedffrey admires you excessively, and he will be willing to make the most generous settle- ments. Consider all this, Edith. How much *bet- ter it will be, to be an old man’s darling, as the phrase. goes, and have every dream of your life realized = “And detest the man I marry?” interrupted } Edith, with a bitter laugh. “Oh, nonsense. I gave you credit for having better sense. “No woman need love before mar- riage the man she chooses for her husband; after marriage she loves him as a matter of course, as you will love Sir Geoffrey. There are dozens of well-born women in England who would jump at his offer. Do not reject him, Edith. Surely,” she added artfully, “you will- not. suffer any silly fancies in regard to Sir Harry Tresham to influence you? You ought to have better pride than that?” Edith threw up. her haughty head, the hot blood staining her fair cheeks. “What is Sir Harry Tresham to me, that his name should be brought into this discussion?” she demanded. “Nothing, thank Heaven,” her mother an- swered. “He could not give you one tithe of all that will be yours as Sir Geoffrey’s wife. My love, you have always been a dutiful child; do not disappoint me in this, the dearest wish of my heart?” | “T will not disappoint-you, mama,” the girl an- swered, setting her lips in a hard line, and look- ing out at the yellow sunshine glittering along the drive, with eyes from which the last faint gleam of womanly tenderness seemed dying out. They reached the grand mansion in Bucking- ham Square, and were conducted into the break- fast parlor by their host himself. The exquisite breakfast was eaten amid the fragrance of tropic fruits and flowers, and amid a silken flutter of fans and a musical babble of pleasant talk; and then, while his guests sauntered into the morn- ing drawing-room, the suave, smiling Sir Geof- frey decoyed Edith into the eee is’: and then, as Lady Marlowe had prophesied, he made her an offer of his heart and hand. She accepted both with smiling grace, and held out her supple white fingers for the costly engagement-ring he proffered. At last, after patient years of waiting, the hour of his full triumph had come. His son was married, and his son’s wife- was dead, and the princely. Trevethon fortune was secured. And now the fairest and proudest maiden in London had consented to become his wife. A laughing triumph looked out of Sir Geof- frey’s steely eves, and in his hidden heart_ he gloried in the deeds his hands had done. At last his full reward had come, The wages of his sin was life, not death. With his affianced bride on his arm he entered the morning drawing-room, smiling and flushed with triumph. Lady Marlowe’s keen eye caught. the glitter of the diamond on her daughter’s™hand, and she was hastening to her side to offer her congratula- tions, but Sir Geoffrey’s confidential valet stepped in advance of her. His two eyes like full moons, his face ashen- white, he crossed the drawing-room, and reached his master’s side. . “For Heayen’s sake, Sir Geoffrey, come into the hall a minute!’ he imploreds< : Sir Geoffrey looked at him, and his smiling countenance ehanged. He put his affianced from his arm with a brief apology, and turned to leave the room, £ “ No need, for, as he turned, the drawing-room door swung open, and Lenore Treveihon swept in, calm, smiling, resolute, and regal #58 queen ! One wild stare, one hoarse cry of fiendish rage and terror, and then Sir Geoffrey reeled like a drunken man, and fell heavily to the floor. They raised him up, his teeth set, his features convulsed, his eyes protruding. ; Before the day closed he lay in a criminal’s cell to be tried for his life. His sins had found him out. - “Slip off the ring, Edith, for Heayen’s sake!” whispered Lady Marlowe, conducting her daugh- ter from the drawing-rooms after the disastrous contretemps. “Slip it off quick and conceal it. What a fortunate thing that this has happened before your engagement was made public.’ And Edith removed the glittering diamtond from her white finger, with a smile on her lips that was half-bitter and half-regretful. CHAPTER XXVI. MORETON HOUSE. The great Trevethon murder trial had ended at last. For weeks it had gone on, conducted by the finest legal talent that the country afforded, and had been attended by hundreds of eager listeners. The witnesses were numerous, the evi- dence~ was voluminous, the arguments pro and con would run through vast folios, but at last it came to an end; and the man who for a score of years had called himself Sir Geoffrey Treve- thon was found guilty—not of one crime alone, but of a legion, including fraud, usurpation, and foul, red-handed murder. From his high posi- tion in the social world he was dragged down and fettered in a felon’s cell under sentence of death. The mystery of Black Hollow Grange was cleared up; the imputed shame was lifted from the fair name of Lenore’s murdered mother; the skeleton of Sir Arthur Treyethon, the old keeper ring, which had been worn by every baron of the line since time immemorial, still gleaming on his fieshless finger, was brought up from the dun- geon where it had so long been hidden, and put away with honor under the storied Trevethon marbles; and Lenore Trevethon, sole remaining scion of her race, wgs reinstated in her old posi- tion as heiress to one of the finest estates in England. But the honored Trevethon title remained un- claimed. Of the true Sir Geoffrey or his son nothing was known; and although the leading journals of the day were filled with notices and inquiries, not the slightest clue to the fate of the long-banished heir of the house of Treve- thon could be obtained, And thus the months drifted on. Summer went, and the yellow autumn-time was on the wane, the criminal lying in hisefelon’s cell awaiting the day of his doom, and Miss Trevethon in the grand halis of her old ancestral home, surrounded by hosts of officious friends, the wealthiest, the fair- est, the most famous woman in England, and, sad to tell, the most wretched. In the midst of her splendor she pined; and while she squandered her money in vain efforts to gain some tidings of the lest Sir Geoffrey, in her secret soul she was in constant terror lest his son Richmond should appear, and she be forced eto ratify her childish marriage, in -obe- dienece to her father’s will—that marriage which, although she rebelled against its fetters, she never could find it in her heart to repudiate, and whose tiny golden symbol, sacredly kept through all the years of her eventful life, still hung from her chatelaine. As @ matter of course, with her great wealth and personal attractions, her admirers were nu- merous, and searcely a day went by but she was beset by some ardent wooer. To one and all her answer was the same. ‘“‘I cannot marry; and I have no inclination to do so; if I had, it would not alter the ease. -I must wait till Sir Geof- frey and his son come!” “They will never come, Miss Trevethon,” said Sir Harry, renewing his own suit, in rather a forced and languid manner, after his recovery and return to London. ‘“‘Sir Geoffrey and his son will never come now; such a thought is prepos- terous.~ They are dead, and the old title must go with the estates to your own fair self; and what man on*earth will be found worthy to be your husband?” . Lenore shook her head sadly, “I must- wait,” she said. “‘f think they will come some day. Stranger things have happened !” The young man bowed low. “You are sure, Miss Trevethon, you will not change your mind?” ; “Very sure, Sir Harry. But, begging your pardon,” she added, with an arch glance and a merry laugh, “I think you will change yours. Indeed, it looks very much to me as if you had changed it already.” And Sir Harry blushed, in confusion and con- scious guilt, to the very roots of his fair hair, While matters stood thus, one dreary Novem- ber day, Ambrose Gerhart bade adieu‘to his par- ents and to the home of his boyhood, and started off, as they say in the children’s stories, “to seek his fortune.” : “IT cannot stay, mothér; I shall-go mad if I do,” he said, in answer to her wild importuni- ties. “I’ve wanted to go all my. life long; so let me depart in peace now, and Ill come back in a year or two, a better man, Heaven willing.” “Let him go, dame,” said Donald, looking with infinite pity at his son’s haggard face. It will be the best for him.” ; And Ambrose went, afoot, all his earthly pos- sessions in the little knapsack at his back. His way led through .oné of the counties be- yond London, where there dwelt a cattle-dealer who owed his father a little over a hundred pounds, which Ambrose was to collect and take with him on his journey. He found the dairy-farm, received his money, and was setting forth again toward the close of a drizzling afternoon. “There’s a post-town near, I suppose?” he asked. “I want to drop’a line to my father be- fore I go on.”’ “Yes, the village just beyond there. see the spires.’’ “And that old building on the hill what’s that?” He pointed with his staff toward an ancient- looking mansion, with towers and cupolas, and begirt with massive brick walls, “That, sir,” Said the ¢attle-dealer, “is Moreton House.”’ ‘Moreton House?” sudden thrill of curiosity. place is it?” “Private madhouse, sir—first-class institution. Would you like to*take a look round? Strangers generally do. Pleased to give you a permit, sir. I’m one of the commissioners, you see. Visitors allowed from half-past ten till three.” “J wonder if he can be there?’ thought Am- brose, his eyes wandering over the silent grounds a curious yearning at his heart. ‘Poor eld King Lear. Moreton House was the place, and no mis- take. I should *like to see him again. By George! I’ll try it, anyhow; he might be there. Yes, sir, I'll take the permit, and I’m very much obliged to you.’’ The cattle-dealer tendered the little slip of paper which Ambrose received and put away in his pocket and then, instead.of keeping the road, he went down into the village and got quarters for the night, and on the morning following he presented himself at the gates of Moreton House. The morning was raw and windy, and Ambrose was sadly out of spirits, tired, and heart-sick, and hopeless, despite his indomitable. will and energy. He had been dreaming of home the live- long night, and of the woman he could not forget. Her rare, fair face, with her lustrous eyes and golden hair, was constantly before him. For her sake he was a wanderer and an exile, and she had not even thought it worth her while to thank him, or even to give him a glance of her proud eyes when they last met. And he loved her foolishly, fatally, as men of his temperament always love, with a passion that nothing short of death could conquer. Through the dreary fields, under the arches of the clanking trees, he pursued his way up to the grim-iron gate. “Poor old King Lear! I wonder if I shall find him? Most likely I shall not. My trouble will go for naught; but what does it matter?” He was admitted and strolled up the central avenue; groups of fantastic creatures meeting him at intervals—ladies in court trajns, gentle- men in powdered wigs; poor, forlorn, witless creatures, some in tears, some convulsed with laughter, others filling. the grounds with the echoes: of their shrill singing. He was ushered into the public reception-hall, and into the presence of Mrs. Latimer, who flashed a keen glance at Ambrose from her cold, shining black eyes. The young man bowed. “Hxcuse me, madam, but is there a person here who calls himself King Lear?” . Mrs. Latimer gave utterance to a_ little peal of genial laughter, which showed all her fine white teeth, “King Lear? Indeed, there is, sir. We couldn’t get along at Moreton House without King Lear.” She put out her large, white hand and rang a little bell. “Sanford,” she commanded, as a burly fellow appeared, “‘go and fetch King Lear.” ; In five minutes King Lear appeared, a fanci- ful wreath of autumn leaves surmounting his flowing white locks. His vacant eyes flashed at sight of Ambrose, and he hurried forward with both hands extended. “Really, now, Mr. Gerhart, this is kind of you,” he cried, “and I’m very glad to see you-—-I am, indeed.”’ : They shook hands like old friends, Mrs. Lati- mer looking pleasantly on. “You've crossed him in some of his rambles, no doubt?” she said, addressing Ambrose... ‘‘He’s always going about the country, and we neyer re- strain him. He always comes back to us. Dan’t you King Lear?” You can yonder, repeated Ambrose, with a “And what manner of THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. The old man made a profound bow. _ “Who could remain away from Moreton House since Mrs. Latimer is here?” he said gallantly. Mrs. Latimer laughed and shook her jeweled forefinger, “Who is he, madam?’ undertone. “The best soul alive, the gentlest and most harmless. That’s all we know. Bless you, sir, we couldn’t tell you the antecedents of one out of a hundred of the poor creatures committed to our care.” ~ “I suppose not,” the young man answered; but something in the woman’s gleaming eyes told him she was uttering falsehoods. ; _King Lear accompanied him .to the gate when his visit was ended, and they shook hands again with great cordiality. ; “Tf liked you from our ‘first meeting,” the old man said. ‘‘It is your face, sir. It always re- minds me of something—something that slips away “from me—something like a dream. How kind it*was of you to come and see me! Well, I ae step down to the Grange again some day, and——’ “What made you run away that day?’ inter- rupted Ambrose. “You did not wait to hear of my discoveries in the dungeon. Do you know that the mystery of Black Hollow Grange is cleared up at last?” The old man’s face ehanged curiously, and he put his hand to his*head. “Did I run away?”’®he asked, in a bewildered way. “Yes, I remember now. Sir Geoffrey Treve- thon had a son, and his name is Richmond. That was it. You see, sir, I’ve made up my mind that they’re right here at Moreton House. I’m mad, you see, like all the rest of the poor creatures here,” touching his forehead significantly, ‘“‘and all my fancies are dreams—mere dreams, sir!’ “What are your fancies, and who are you?’’ asked Ambrose, a sudden thought shooting like lightning through his brain. The old man laughed in an embarrassed way. “Ah, no matter—no matter!” “But it does matter,’’ persisted Ambrose. ¥‘‘Tell me—or let me tell you something first. I found a Skeleton down in that dungeon from Which you rescued me—the skeleton of Sir Arthur Treve- thon, The keeper ring of the Trevethons was on his finger and a roll of papers in “his hand, which prove that he was thrown down there by the man who has for years usurped the Trevethon title. This man has beén deposed, and tried and con- victed of his crimes, and now lies in prison un- der sentence of death. The Trevethon title waits for the banished heir’s return. King Lear, are you Sir Geoffrey Trevethon?’’ The old man’s face grew ashen-white, his limbs tottered under him, “My God!” he gasped, “how should you know?” “Come, King Lear, Mrs. Latimer is wanting you, run along!” cried the keeper, coming up at this moment, to. lock the gate. ‘ “Let me see him_one minute longer!” entreated Ambrose. But the iron key rasped in its great lock, and a courteous “‘good day, sir,” was his answer. The young man turned away, biting his lips in anger. “T must investigate this,’ he thought; but a shrill ery ‘from a window far above startled him —a woman’s voice, calling him by name. “Ambrose ! Ambrose!” ‘In the name of Heayen, who knows me here?’’ cried Ambrose, in amazement, staring up at the tower window. There had been a white face, but it was gone; only the black iron bars were to be seen. He seized upon the gate and shook it violently. “Who was that called me by name?” he de- manded. “That, sir, was a poll-parrot,” a crazy gentle- man, wearing a King Charles wig, made answer ; whereupon his comrades set up a shout of laugh- ter, The keeper heard the question and response, but without deigning a backward glance, strode away. Ambrose went back to the village, and reflected upon the events of. the morning. “It might have been a poll-parrot,” he re- flected, ‘‘and King Lear may be only a lunatic! If I meddle in this business I shall get laughed at for my pains, no doubt. I’ go about my business, and think no more of it.” : He shouldered his knapsack and took to the road; but before he had gone half a mile on his journeyshe turned back. He seemed to hear that imploring voice call- ing him, and the face of King Lear haunted him. He went to the cattle-dealer and demanded a second permit to visit the institution, and was denied; he sought out the other commissioners, and met with the same result. He wrote a note and sent it up to Mrs. Latimer, and received no answer. Evidently there was some perplexing mystery here—some reason why he was to be kept away-from Mecreton House. “P}] go back to London and have the whole thing looked into,’ said Ambrose; and on the morning following he went. TO BE CONTINUED. asked Ambrose, in an —__—___—<} -0-@-+ >—____—- THE AFFAIR AT THE NEST. BY MRS, HELEN CORWIN PIBPRCE. “Never mind, Frank, we can wait.” “You're an angel, Violet,” and the young man earessed softly the little hand that fluttered in his, “and Aunt Hannah is Ee “Not? laughed Violet Granger, finishing the sentence for him, : “Well, I hate her. What difference will it make to her twenty years hence, whom I marry now. I'm not sure, indeed, that she’s good for ten years longer, and if rp “Frank Eccleson?’” “Oh, yes, I know. People may spare no ef- fort to make you hate them. Well, then, I love the aunt who has crossed me all my life, do I? You know it’s not so, Violet. You know if I went home now, and found her in her shroud, it wouldn’t cost me any great heartache.” “It should, since’ you profit by her money. Oh, Frank! Frank! I didn’t think you would speak so of the poor old woman who has been a mother to you, with all her harshness,” said Violet, with sad sweetness, “T deny it. Was it motherly to force me all my life to do the very things I hated most? Have I ever had a single taste or inclination she did not thwart, if it were possible? No, no, Violet, you and Aunt Hannah are two persons. I love one and hate the other, and that is the end of it. I should like to be able to have my own way, though, once before she dies. It'll be dreary waiting till she shuffles off this mortal coil—eh, Violet?” The young man stern. Violet listened to him with unhappy, loving eyes. “Something will happen surely. Something may happen, dear,” she said tenderly. ‘And if we love each other so truly, what are a few years more or less to hearts so young as ours?” “A few years? You’re too much of an angel to calculate ‘upon anything but. that termagant softening toward us. She won’t, though, That flinty heart won’t give in until death’s fingers crumble it to ashes, You and I’ll be gray be- fore that time.” “We can hope, at least, Frank dear; even Aunt Hannah cannot take our hope from us. Shall I sing for you now?” She took his silence for assent, and going to the modest little instrument which stood across the room, sang softly one tender, soothing strain after another, while her lover, lingering in the low window-seat, pulled the roses that grew near and tore their leaves with a half-vicious hand, too savagely irritated at the fate that hindered his desires, to heed the loving tones with *which Violet sought to divert him from his annoying thoughts. Contemplating the mischief her lover had done her roses next morning, Violet’s eyes were half sad, half smiling; but.she broke into a carol, like bird notes, as she tied anew the vines his too energetic hand had loosed from their supports. A passer-by called her. “Have you heard——no, I see you have not— what happened at the Nest last night?” Violet turned swiftly, with a changing coun- tenance. Frank lived at the Nest with his aunt. Poor old Miss Eccleson was murdered in her bed last night.” . Violet caught at the window-frame for sup- port. her lips turning white, and her heart beat- ing slower and slower, “Tt can’t be!’ she gasped. “J wish it couldn’t, but it is. I just met the doctor coming away. They sent for him, of course, but she must have been dead hours be- fore he got there. There are crowds of people gone over from town. But you live so remote from the Nest, it’s no wonder you did not hear of it till now.” Violet shuddered, and wished the man would only go on, as he did presently, for he was anxious to reach the scene of the tragedy. Murdered! * And Frank had almost wished her dead the night before! Poor Frank, what a horrible lesson it must be to him! Later in the day came a note from: Frank, a hurried scrawl, almost unreadable, and written with a hand that visibly trembled. “Don’t come near, darling,” it said. ‘The horror is almost more than I can péar now. I wouldn’t have you see: and endure what I have to see and endure for all her money. I wish to Heaven it could go into the grave with her. spoke bitterly, and looked deeply 5 I will come and see you as soon as J can get enough color in my face to dare to.” He came for a few moments that evening, but for all the life in his look he might have been as dead as Aunt Hannah, His face was ghastly, his eager blue eyes had a scared expression that made Violet try, but in vain, to check him, as he lingered, with a sort of: horriblé fascinatio_, over the details of the murder. Aunt Hannah had been strangled with her own pocket-handkerchief, as she sat late at her knit- ting. The servants had found her, purple and stiff-in her chair, when they went to call her to breakfast at half-past six in the morning. _“I don’t think she had been dead long. I didn’t think so, and I sent for the doctor as fast as.a horse could ride. I couldn’t do more, could Tt, Violet? She always gets up early. She must have got up early and taken her knitting, you know, and the wretch that killed her would have been as like to do it early in the morning as late at night, wouldn’t he now, Violet, dear?’ “Had her bed been slept in,’’? questioned Vio- let, controlling her repugnance to discussing the subject, for her lover’s sake. “No one eould tell. She always made her own bed, though, and she might have made it the first thing that morning. Oh! I am quite sure it was early in.the morning. She sat with her back to the window, you see, and her hand- kerchief must have fallen to the floor, where the fellow could secure it without being seen. Then it was easy enough to accomplish the rest before she could cry out: She couldn’t have had time to call out, do you think she could ?”’ “JT don’t think anything about it. And you had better stop thinking about it,’ exclaimed Violet, with an uncomfortable. shiver. “Why will you talk of it, Frank?’ me to,’ Frank back into the “JT won’t, if you don’t wish said gloomily, pushing his chair shadow, and covering his face with his hands. Violet regarded him wonderingly. “Poor fellow, he is so sensitive,’’ .she herself, and moving her chair nearer drew his cold hands into her warm clasp. He returned her tender gaze with a look pain- fully sad and questioning. “Would it be possible, Violet,” he said at last, ‘“‘would it be possible for you to believe that I had any hand in last night’s tragedy?’ The face of the sweet girl blanched like snow. Her eyes darkened and dilated like one smitten with sudden terror. Then she dropped her lips to his hands with swift, passionate kisses. “No, no, Frank; no, never!”’’ “My darling,’ he murmured, drawing her to him, and kissing her again and again. She remembered those kisses long after. Could any but innocent lips have kissed her so? There was no clue to the murderer, nothing had been stolen, and though Frank Eccleson was the only one who could have profited by her death, no one thought of accusing him, and not a shadow of suspicion attached to him. There was no one to contest the heirship with him, and the Nest, with its wide, rich lands, and other belongings fell to him without delay or questien. But Frank Eccleson was unconscious of all. He came home from his-aunt’s funeral—a wet, soggy evening it was—and threw himself into an easy chair, calling the servants to pile wood in the wide fireplace till it glowed like a fur- nace, but the blaze failed to warm him. -He sat there trying to wapm his chilled fingers, and muttering to hime ui the fever which had marked him for its @yvn, swooped upon bim like a vulture, and dug itS*beak into heart and brain. They carried him, to his chamber by main force, he struggling and raving with delirium, and Violet came to help the housekeeper, Mrs. Grim, to nurse him. For weeks Frank Eccleson hung upon the very borders of eternity, and knew no one, and talked as people with brain fever will—vwild, strange talk, that drove Violet’s young blood curdling round her heart, and set in her white face a shadow that was not cast by the death she had battled so desperately fronf her lover’s bedside, but was even more cruel. Mrs. Grim had been more:than housekeeper to Miss Eccleson. She had been her bosom friend, the one soul of all the world, perhaps, that had truly loved the miserly old woman; and though Hannah Eccleson had not so much as mentioned her in her will, the housekeeper held to her loyally. Violet made one wild attempt to banish Mrs. Grim from the sound of Frank’s. mad talk, but Mrs. Grim would not go. Sometimes the eyes of the two women met, above that terrible couch, and the look of one was sick with horror, and piteous with appealing. The other’s was hard, was pitiless as her dead mistress’ would have been under similar cir- cumstances, At last. there came a time when the fever loosed its hold, and left the sick man like some wan ghost of himself, stranded upon those shores from which he had so nearly drifted. He was too weak, too strange to the use of his senses to read at once the new look that had -so darkened Violet’s sweet eyes. With ail her strength she tried to, keep it out of them when she looked at him, but hers was a frank heart, used to mirroring all its thoughts in those innocent depths. Frank hadsread them too many times in the old happy days to make any mis- take now. He was a coward, and would fain have persuaded himself that his* eyes told him wrong, but he could not. Besides, there was Mrs. Grim, whose face spoke the same story, though in a different tongue. The sick man shrank away among his pillows, and shut his eyes whenever by any chance Mrs, Grim or Violet looked at him. “Thus- conscience does make cowards of us all.” Mrs. Grim sat alone in the kitchen at the Nest. She sat with her feet on the platform of the stove, those hard, unrelenting eyes ga- zing into the~ embers. A soft step sounded beside her. Her face was pale, her eyes round them. “Well?” she said gently, as Mrs. Grim looked said to to his, and loving It was Violet. had dark circles up. “T shall do it to-morrow,’’ Mrs. Grim _ said, and shut her eyes tightly over the sentence. “You will give him no chance for his life, you who loved her?” Mrs. Grim’s lips shook her head. “At least wait a week longer.” “When he will be strong enough to flee, per- haps, from the doom he merits? No!” “You will not?’ and Violet knelt by the hard woman’s side, and lifted her poor, quivering hands in wild appealing. But Mrs. Grim only glanced at her, and looked back into the fire. Then Violet rose to her feet again, and went back to the sick-room. i said she, going close to him, ‘you must 16 at me; you must listen to me. You are weak, I know, but if your life depended upon it, you could get up and dress yourself, and go away from here. I am sure you could—I am sure you will try.’’ Frank Eccleson opened his wide blue eyes,’ and looked at her. He seemed in that instant. to shake off the strange cowardice that had so unmanned him. “What do you mean?” he asked. ‘Tell me, If I am to muster strength for what you say, I must have a strong incentive. But I wilk not try. I will stay, whatever it is, and meet it, I have shrunk too long.” Violet shivered a little. “You were delirious, Frank, and you told ail there was to tell, and Mrs. Grim-heard it. She is going to inform against you to-morrow.” Frank lifted himself on his elbow and looked Violet in: the face. A light seemed to dawn upon him, “Will you ask Mrs. Grim to come here? Not that I may plead with her, but that I may tell her the truth.” Mrs. Grim’s stony lips set themselves like flints, but she rose and went to the sick-room when she got the message. “T have been a miserable coward,” Frank said, as the two women drew near, but I have not been the guilty creature you imagine. You are a hard woman, Mrs. Grim, but you are @ just one, and you will believe me when you have heard my story. “T came home from your house that night, Violet, with a bitter and wicked heart. I don’t know but at heart I was as wicked as the vil- lain who murdered her. It was late, but there was a light in my aunt’s room. As i came along the passage she called out to me sharply twice, and her veice sounded strange. There seemed, too, to be some sort of strange movement in the room, but it was slight, and I, feeling hard and bitter toward her, would not answer her. In- stead of going to her, I turned back and went to my room by another way. But I never dreamed what awful thing was doing. I. thought she had one of those neuralgic attacks to which she was subject, and I said to myself that she might fight it out, as I was doing. # don’t know yet that it was not so. I don’t know yet that she came to her death then, or that she was struggling with the villain when she _ called me; but the fear that it was so has nearly cost. me my senses, and the fear that if I told the truth it would direct suspicion to me as the probable perpetrator of the deed, held me in @ cowardly silence. Do you believe me, Mrs. Grim?” “T do not believe you, Frank Eccleson,” said Mrs. Grim, and went back to her kitchen. Long before Frank had finished his recital Violet had crept close to her lover and prayed him to forgive her. He had stopped to kiss did not relax. She only > What the Httle hand that fluttered to his grasp, and to say, ““My poor darling!” “How could I?’ Wiolet sobbed. “I deserve that you should never forgive me, but you ac- eused yourself so frightfully in your delirium.” “TI aeeuse myself still. I would give all my aunt’s money to know certainly that she was not struggling with her murderer when she called me and I did not reply.” Mrs. Grim kept to her intention, and lodged her information, as she called it, in the proper quarter the next day. She met a somewhat discouraging reception, however. But, as Frank said, though a hard woman, she was just, and him and Violet with sincere rejoicing. The real murderer had been found, confessed the deed. He proved to be one of the laborers employed by Miss Hannah LEccleson. There had been some money difference between them, in which she had beeg very hard. The man was of a stolid, slow, revengeful nature, and he waited his time, and strangled her with her own hand- kerchief as she sat knitting on the morning they found her stark and dead in her chair. So Frank had not that on his conscience, Oe WHEN LOVE RULES THE HEART By OWEN MASTERS, “One Impassioned Tour,” “The Heir of Avisford,”’ “The JIronmaster’s Daughter,” ete, (“WHEN LOVE RULES THE HEART” was commenced in No. 20. Back numbers can be obtained of all newsdealers.) CHAPTER XXII. ENEMIES FACE TO FACE. The day of Zilla’s departure from Brixton had passed; it was nearly midnight. Armitage went to his club, hoping against hope. mews from the detective. It have.to wait until the next day. How could he endure the wretched hours? His father and he were upon even terms. He smiled grimly, but a weary sigh passed his lips. she went back to | and had | | isolated house at half-past four | | but yourself. 'the chase?” | Good day !” } world were well rid of such a pest! THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. Clever fellow to hoodwink the police, Left London in the Street, No doubt he was in the job. company of Mr. Gus Etherington. Driven in a barouche by Etherington’s coachman. €hanged horses at the Ludgate Mews; first horse tired and blown, proving a previous long run. Ahem!” He paused and gazed refiectively.at a huge fiy buzzing fiercely against the dirty window panes. Armitage waited breathlessly. Mr. Gus Eth- erington! He felt that there was murder in his heart! “It now -resolves itself into a matter of A B OC,” the detective resumed. “A ridiculously simple affair! We followed the barouche—man and bicycle, do you see?” “Yes, yes—for Heaven’s sake, go on!” “Etherington and the convict Seton went to an a mile or two beyond a village known as Perryhill, fifteen miles to the south- west of London. I have no dowbt that the girl is there The house is called the Cedars, and was given by Etherington years since to a couple of old servants of the family. The case lies In a nutshell, Mr. Armitage. The girl is in the hands or Etherington and her father. You are out of court. No illegal act has been done by any one Do you see?’ “Your fee?” the young man curtly interrupted. “F am already well paid with the money you | gave to me yesterday. ‘You are going on with | He smiled pityingly. ‘‘Well, obtain | and drive to Perryhill. No trains. Armitage was in the street again. He caught a refiection of himself in a window. No wonder that people turned to stare, even in busy Lon- don! His linen was ruffled and dirty; his face was wild and haggard. a road-map “TI do not eare now,” he thought, with a thrill | of exultation. “I shall find my poor Zilla, and | xyus Etherington!’ He ground his teeth. “Thea I have yet | ; to learn in what Clarence Mountarbon figures to | Author of “Captain Emlyn’s Bride,” “The Woman Wins,’ | | ; an end between my father and myself. } | | There was no} seemed an age to} = $ | Grand Hotel. He sought a’ quiet corner of the smoking-room, | and lighted a cigar to try to soothe his tingling | nerves. -An evening paper lay on thetable before him, and he read the full account which it con- } } the landlord eame to the door, raising one finger tained of John Seton’s recent adventures with the police. The man had been wrongfully charged before the presiding magistrate at the Bow Street Police Court with participating in a daring jewel robbery. Absolute proof of his innocence had been produced, and f> had been discharged. Poor Seton! He was af old offender, however— his record was unclean. ‘But the reference to his daughter was cruel in the extreme! Armitage flung the paper aside, acquaintance strolled toward him, a game of cards. “By Jove, Armitage, you are is wrong; dear boy? Have a brandy soda? No? Have some coffee, then, if you are not going home? What do you say to a game at ecards? Kearté? You are going to Goodwood, of course?” “TJ do not wish to be disturbed, Seaforth,’’ was the impatient repl¥. A man of his | | was | was cook. village two or three times yesterday. and suggested | the likes of me to be askin’ questions.” out of sorts! | and | “Iil-tempered brute !’? remarked Seaforth play- | fully. He was a tall, fair young man, with a vacuous countenance: “I am going to order cof- fee for two, even if you supplement the order with p If you won’t be civil to a fellow, y go to the deuce! Come now, yousha’n’t with me.” Duncan Armitage glared angrily at Seaforth, and Seaforth coolly ordered coffee and brandy for two. “Do you no end of good, old man! TI’ve had two nights out myself, you know. Afraid to face the governor. Abominable Hebrew money-lender has written to him about a trifling couple of thou’ !”’ Armitage was silent. the. coffee and some brandy, rapidly meanwhile. “Here’s to you, old man!” WHe- held his cup aloft. It contained -considerably more brandy than coffee. * “And may the tears from your eyes never wear out the toes of your boots!’ Capital toast that! « Here’s another. ‘Heré’s to the health of those who love us; and may the gods turn the ankles of those who don’t love us, so that we may know ’em when they walk!’ Oh, don’t go away, old man!” ‘Tdiot !’’ growled Armitage, rising. “Thank you,’ said Seaforth serenely. ‘That complimentary appellation has long become mine by right—if- my: governor is to be believed. I have no wish to tread upon sacred ground, old man; but a certain set are discussing you and your affairs, and one can’t but hear. I saw The attendant brought Seaforth chattering Clarence Mountarbon to-night—a couple of hours | since.” Armitage swung round. was transformed, “Where?” he demanded in tone. “At the Savoy Theater.” Armitage was silent. teeth were clenched. “There is an air of estheticism about the: Sa- voy which soothes one’s ruffied feelings at times,” resumed Seaforth. “Charming operatic comedy, or comie opera——‘Yeomen of the Guard,’ know.” He fixed his eyes curiously upon Armi- tage’s facé, and hummed: In an instant his face a strangely quiet His hands shook, his 3. SOn; If you’ll listen to popular rumor; From the morn to the night he’s so joyous and bright, And he bubbles with wit and good humor! He’s so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse; Yet, though people forgive his transgression, There are one or two rules that all family fools Must’ observe if they love their profession, That all family fools, There are one or two rules,& Half a dozen maybe, ‘ Of whatever degree, Must observe if they love their profession.’ ” at the People “Hush! You have seen Mountarbon Savoy? You may know why I hate him? are talking! Bah! Be serious, Seaforth! That idiotic grin of yours maddens me. ‘Tell me if Mountarbon was alone.’ Armitage glared at his companion. He bent forward, his lips twitching. “No! Jove, you make me feel uncomfortable! I tell you that-he was with the Cassons—Casson, the millionaire, you know. Father, mother, and uncommonly handsome daughter—Lorna, [I think her name is—were all there. I heard that Moun- tarbon’s chances in that quarter were off. You know why. Made it up again, I suppose? “I spoke to him and to them. Your name cropped up as a matter of course, and I don’t sense in your bloodthirsty piratical style of “Good night!’ Armitage interrupted. He went into the street. The air was soft and balmy. es * %* * * * Paul Carroll took his wife abroad to avoid the brief sensation which would be sure to follow. They visited many an interesting and beautiful Continental city, finally resting in Rome, within sight of St. Peter’s glorious dome, One morning Margaret placed an open in her husband’s hand. “News from home,” Paul.’’ letter she whispered. “If you wish it, darling!’ He tenderly pressed his lips to the rich brown hair. ‘‘From Jessie—loving-hearted Jessie!’ he said, and read: “My DrAR MARGARET: JI wonder if you and Paul will be interested in anything that it is pos- sible for me to write? I wonder if anything un- der the sun will interest you outside your little world of two? Well, I, at least, shall find some satisfaction in writing, so I must not grumble. It wants one littl month to Christmas—only one little moenth—and then Tom and I have decided to be married. I hope that you will be at Fern- “Read it, < | dale then! “My dear fellow, what are you raving about?” | da hen “Poor Arthur is quite changed since his awful bout with brain fever—so quiet and earnest! Your acceptance of his picture—St. Ursula—has given him so much pleasure; and the kind letter sent to him by Paul he will cherish until his dy- ing day. “What do you think of Lady Natalie Greville? I hear that she is to be married privately to the Duke of Redlands—a decrepit old man of seyenty, Abominable taste! “Alas—here I am with hardly a thing more to say, and I started with the idea of sending you a perfect budget of news! Never mind—it must wait until Christmas! “Yours affectionately, “JESSIE FYELDING.” There was a brief silence. were wet with happy tears. “Paul,” she whispered, “I believe growing homesick.’’ “What? Tired of me already?’ he laughed. Her glance’ filled him with rapture. He kissed the red lips—he caressed the shining hair. “Little woman, I, too, am dreaming of home, ef a happy Christmas, a genial house-warming, with only those true and tried friends about us, whose lives in the troublous past were blent with ours—the Fieldings, Captain Ashburn, and our dear old colonel, Vhat do you say, darling?’’ “T ean only say that your words do but. echo my own thoughts. Paul.” They looked into each other’s eyes. no shadow there. Their union was Loveless Marriage. Margaret’s »eyes that I am There was no longer a THE END. _—_———_—_<< + 8 __—_—__- IMPORTANCE OFQNEEDFUL REST. In the hurry of life the fact is often looked that rest is as “ingperative .as the formance of labor; that it is a duty to be rec- ognized as plainly as that of obtaining our food to sustain life. We see so much to be accom. plished that must and ought to be done,’ we only think of that side, without considering where the strength is to come. from that is to enable us to perform the tasks. It is not possible to go on working unless we have an essential amount of rest. Mechanical appliances are made so that, if- properly fed with oil, they can be used con- stantly, but how long do they last? Even if made of the best wrought-iron or steel, they soon become so worn that cogs will slip, screws be- come loose, and different portions have to be re- plenished with new material. None of us expect a machine to last forever. The facts of every-day life prove beyond ques- tion that rest is a physiological necessity, that without it man soon becomes a raving junatic, or suffers from an illmess that compels him to go to bed. Among animals in their free, natural rest is taken. It is only when man steps in and interferes with their life that we find them worn and old before their time. It being granted that rest is a necessity, how much is needed will be the next thought in each mind. Too often we see this reversed, and the question asked: How little is needed? How little can I get along with and not become played out? We fail to recognize the fact that good and per- fect strength only comes from good and properly assimilated food.. Qur appetite may be good, our food hearty, yet, with poor digestion, they will do us little good; our strength gives out too quickly for the amount of work- accomplished; we wonder what the trouble is, and why we ara not as strong as we used to be. Rest, and that properly etaken, is just-as essential as food. If we’ give our stomachs constant work to do, they very soon give out, and it takes much longer to rally fram the dyspepsia caused by such mal- treatment than it did to bring it on. over- per- 'PLEASANT READING FOR THE FAT What a simple and inexpensive solving of the fat woman’s problem the Marmola Prescription Tablets provide. She takes one of these harmless, pleasant, little tablets after each meal and at bedtime and loses from 12 to 16 ounces of fat each day, and yet suffers no harm, creates no disturbances inwardly, and produces no wrinkles. This elegant prepara- tion (made exactly in accordance with the famous Marmola Prescription) has rendered exercising and dieting for the reduction of excess flesh as super=_ fluous as a fifth wheel. A further recommendatien is that it is the least expensive fat reducer on the market, a large case (costing only 75 cents from any druggist or by mail from the Marmota Company, Dept. 159, Detroit, Mich.) containing a quantity of tablets large enough to give very de- cided results in os iad every case. NATIONAL DREAM BOOK. A truthful explanation of dreams, omens, and forewarnings, placed in alphabetical order, and interpreted ‘1 accord. ance with the teachings of the wisest authorities, together with designa- tion of numbers fortus sate for human happt- ness. Price, 10 cents, All newsdealers. If sent by mail, three cents exe tra for postage. STREET & SMITH, Publishers, New York City, FRANK MERRIWELUS BOOK OF 2 Athletic Development. lilustrated. This is an instructive book for young and old. The sub. ject is mainly the develop. ment of the human body, Proper food and lothing, “Alcohol and tobacco. Pure ~ @ir. Indoor and outdoor ex. ercises. Muscle ouilding ete, Price, 10 cents. All newse If sent by mail, three cents extra for post- We ; J dealers, AGE. STREET & SMITH, Publishers, —Any numbers of the New York City, WANTE Fireside Companion. Write stating what you have and what you want for them. WILLIAMS, P. O. Box 24, Sta. G., N. ¥'; Cc. ; —Certain fumbers of THE WAN ’TED GOLDEN ARGOSY and GOLDEN HOURS, Address, stating what numbers*you have, GAMA, P. @. Box 24, Sta. 0,” N, Y. 7 8 THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. | A SWEET GOOD NIGHT. BY EDWARD EVERETT He said “Good night,” and he held In a hesitating way, And he hoped that her eyes What his lips refused. to say. NELSON, her hand would understand He held her hand and he murmured low; “T’m sorry to go like. this; It seems so frigidly cold, you know— This ‘Mister’ of ours, and ‘Miss.’ 39 “TI thought—perhaps———”’. and he paused to note If she seemed inclined to frown; But the light in her eyes his heart-strings smote As she blushingly looked down. She said no word, but she picked a speck Of dust from his coat lapel, Such a small, such a wee little, tiny fleck, *Twas a wonder she saw so well. And it brought her face so very near, In that dim, uncertain light, That the thought, unspoken, was made quite clear, And I know ’itwas a sweet “Good night.” TRACKED BY THE TYPEWRITER. BY W. KESTERTON DOWIE. It was certainly a most annoying affair, and there was some excuse for the deep anathema which came from George Heriot’s lips,.as he read the contents of the brief letter in his hand. “What’s wrong, old man?” asked his chosen chum and companion, Bertie Vane, from the other side of the breakfast-table. “It’s that most dastatdly of all things—an anonymous letter,’’ was the brief reply. “Chuck it in the fire, and. have some of these deviled kidneys before they get cold,’ was Bertie’s shrewd advice. ‘*That’s what I did with the first,” and the second, too,” and Heriot scowled fiercely as he spoke. “And now here’s a third of the ‘horrible things. Ah, don’t I wish I could have five min- utes, only five minutes, with the sender!” “Disguised handwriting, of course?’ Bertie. ‘Not a bit of it—typewritten,”’ ‘‘May I have a look at it?” Heriot hesitated for a moment, then he said: “Well, old fellow, you see, it doesn’t cohcern me alone; if it did, 1 wouldn’t care a rap. - But it’s a nasty insinuation against some one who’s a good deal dearer to me than I care to acknowl- edge.”’ “You mean Helen Carr?’’ “Yes—I do; but how did you know?” “Oh, most simple youth! As if any one couldn’t see how awfully ‘gone’ you are in that quarter. Why, I’ve been expecting to hear the engagement announced any time this three months,’’ “No such luck,” and Heriot shook his head mournfully. ‘I don’t think she cares one little bit for me.” “Don’t you?” replied hgs-friend dryly. ‘Well, lookers-on see most of thiggame sometimes. But if you care so much fot Miss Carr, don’t you think you ought to try te find out who is tradu- cing eher?”’ “Don’t I only wish it were possible. _ I’m not a rich man, but I’d give a pony to find out the writer of this vile thing. Here, have a look at it,’ and Heriot threw the letter in question across the table. Bertie Vane picked it up, and scrutinized it carefully. It was short, merely containing an in- Sinuation that the lady in question had bestowed her heart, and would willingly her hand, to a suitor far below her rank,in life, and whoever married her might rest assured that his wife’s affection was already bestowed on, and would be retained by, the individual in question. “Got such a thing as a microscope in the house, old fellow?’’ asked Bertie, after a prolonged ex- amination of the letter. “A microscope? Yes, I think so, but what has that to do with it?” “T’ll show you directly. you?”’ Obediently, but thoroughly puzzled, Heriot rose from the table, left the breakfast-room; and in a few minutes returned with a small mahogany box. ; “Hasn’t been used for years,’’ he remarked, as he handed, it to his friend; “not since I was bit- ten with an entomological craze at college.’’ “Never mind, it’ll answer our purpose, 7 dare say,” and Bertie opened the box as he spoke, placed the microscope in position, and then care- fully focused its tube on the letter, each line of which he examined earefully. “Thought so,” he at length exclaimed, ‘“‘though I shouldn’t have cared to trust to my eyesight alone, good as it is. Now just come and have a look here, old man, See anything peculiar about that ‘m’?” Heriot peered through the microscope for a mo- ment or two, and then said: “Do you mean that line stroke?” “Yes, I do. look at the lines below.’’ Heriot did so, and found the same slight mal- formation of the letter. “But what does all this lead to?’ he asked. *T’ll tell you—it’s only my theory, you know, but I fancy it'll work out. I believe that little line is caused by a small piece of hair, or some- thing of that sort, which, by accident, has ad- hered to the surface of the letter.” “Well?” “Now, We must queried Fetch the affair, will across the middle Now next ‘m’ two don’t you get impatient, old fellow. do a little bit of detective business, and I fancy it'll be. rather funny and keep us busy for a week or two. This thing,’ and he in- dicated the letter on the table, “has been written with a new Montague typewriter. I can recog- nize the peculiar style of letter; and it’s one of the best on the market, too. But it’s only. very recently introduced. Now ‘we've got to find out who have purchased Montagues recently, and next which of those machines has an ‘m’ which corre- sponds with this.’’ “And do you think we can do it?’ “At any- rate we can try. Now library, and we'll take the first step.’ A curtly worded letter was sent to the agent for the Montague typewriters, asking for price- lists, etc., and a specimen of the work done by the machine; and by return of maili¢ame a lot of descriptive pamphlets, etc., antiga courteous letter from the manager, written hn the ma- chine, which he, of course, describe@@as the very best and most desirable ever invented. An examination of this communication under the microscope reyealed two important facts. Firstly, that a slight deformity in the tail of the capital *‘Q’’ existed in. both the anonymous letter and the manager’s note. This proved that all the type used in the Montague machines was cast from the same.molds. Secondly, the line across the small ‘‘m” was. only to be found in the anonymous communication, a presumptive proof that it was a peculiarity of the machine used by the writer, and of that one alone. “And now we must find out who owns that ma- chine,” said Bertie; “put on your hat, and we'll be off.” ; : “Where to?” asked Heriot, who lost no time in obeying the order. “We'll go straight to the Montague office and see how far.the manager can. help ”* replied come to the , us, Bertie, as he hailed a passing hansom, and _the pair of amateur detectives were driven rapidly away. Fortunately the manager was a man of the world. When he had gianced at the cards of his visitors, and had booked an order for one of the highest priced Montagues, with stand and cabinet complete, the matter of the anonymous letter was broached. “And how tan I gentlemen?’ he asked, after listening clear and lucid explanation. ‘Well, you can give us a list of those who have purchased typewriters from you recently; I will. write a letter to each of them, asking if they find the machine work easily, as I am think- ing of buying one, and their name has been given to me as a reference as to the quality, etec., of the typewriter. Then, if among the replies I find one in which the ‘m’ has the same peculiar line across it, I don’t think the rest will be very. difficult.”’ “A capital plan, but I think I can sim- plify your labors a bit,”’ said the manager. “We generally ask our customers to write us a tésti- monial as to the working of the Montague aiter they’ve had it a little while, and the request is almost invariably complied with. Now, we paste those letters in a big ‘testimonial album,’ as we call it. Suppose we look over that first? I have a -targe magnifying-glass_ which perhaps will. do for the purpose.” At the end of half an hour» Bertie, avho was examining the various testimonials, came to the end of his task, “Gone through them ager. help you, to Vane’s Sin’ all, sir?” asked the. man- -**Yes; rather. a waste of time, I fear. We shall have to give it up, I’m afraid. Of course, if any machine should be returned. to you for repairs, with an ‘m’ such as I’ve deseribed, you'll com- municate with mé. You sha’n’t be a loser by it.” “Certainly, sir. Sorry your search has been unsuccessful—glad to assist you, if it lies in my power,’’ and the speaker politely bowed his visit- ors out of the office. Once in the street, and out of sight of the Montague premises, Bertie’s conduct was peculiar. He seized his friend by the arm, dragged him into an adjacent café, and ordered a pint of Moet, winking most solemnly at Heriot as he did: so. “Got him, dear boy!” he exclaimed ecstatically. “Got him on a little bit of toast, and done as brown as brown can be.” : “Got whom? What do you mean?” “Got the writer of that pretty little letter.’ “Why, you said you hadn’t found anything, and———’”’ “Of course; didn’t want that fellow to know, too, or he might have desired to take a hand in our little game. Spotted that peculiar ‘m’ in the fourth or fifth testimonial I looked at, It was written only three weeks ago. Here’s hoping he’ll get his reward,’ and the speaker drained his glass at a draft. Heriot turned pale, He, too, emptied his glass to steady himself—he needed it. Then he asked, in tones that he vainly tried to control: “Well, who is it?’ “Mr. Harry Sinclair, Stella Apartments, One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street,’’ was the brief reply. “Sinclair! Why, that’s that infernal cad that I caught cheating at cards in my rooms, and kicked down the stairs, don’t you remember?” “Yes, and I remember that he swore he’d be revenged on you for it. Looks as if he hadn’t forgotten his oath, doesn’t it?’ * ae * * * * * Three days later, two athletic young men, one of whom carried a stout riding-whip, ascended the stairs leading to the Stella Apartments, and knocked at the outer door of the rooms occupied by Mr. Harry Sinclair. The door was opened by that gentleman himself, who, catching sight of his visitors, endeavored to close it again; but a foot pushed forward foiled the attempt. Sinclair was thrust back into the passage, the two young men entered, and unceremoniously led the trem- bling Sinclair into his sitting-room. “What does this ————- intrusion mean?” he asked, with an attempt at bluster. “Most happy to explain,” said Bertie suavely. ‘We have an idea, and a pretty good one, too, that you’ye been sending anonymous letters to my friend Heriot, in which you have slandered a young lady. We’re just going to see if we're right. Here, Heriot, just keep watch over this gentleman while I apply the finishing test. If he tries to get away, knock him down.” “Oh, he won’t get away,’’ said Heriot, handling his whip with much ostentation. For a minute or two Bertie was busy ‘with the Montague, which stood on the writing-table. Then he examined the paper, on which he had been experimenting, with a pocket magnifying-glass. “It’s all-right, old boy; here’s the ‘m,’ just as we expected... Now you have your little innings, while I mount guard outside.” For the next two or three minutes there was a sound from the interior of Mr. Sinclair’s rooms as if some one was beating carpets with un- wonted vigor, and then Heriot rejoined his friend, looking flushed but radiantly happy. “Best exercise I’ve had for years,” he ex- claimed, adjusting his collar, which had become somewhat disarranged. “But it’s thirsty work; let’s go and have a drink.”’ How the affair leaked out no one ever knew. Perhaps Bertie told the story—in confidence, of course—to one of his club-mates. Certain it is, however, that when next Heriot met Miss Carr at a crowded At Home she greeted him so cordially, and showered so many feminine favors upon him, that he plucked up courage, proposed, and was accepted. Some four months later there was a very smart wedding at Grace Church, at which Bertie Vane figured as best man. In the library of the fine residence occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Heriot is a Montague typewriter on an ebony stand, which is used alike by both Heriot and his charming wife. While among the whips and other trophies which hang over the mantel of the master’s ‘‘den’ is a steut and serviceable jockey’s whip, which Mrs. Heriot in- sists on dusting with her own hands. PLEASANT PARAGRAPHS. BY CHARLES W. FOSTER. AN UNFORTUNATE CONTINGENCY. Customer—"You said these stockings were fast black. They are all faded out.” Dealer (a retired anarchist)——‘‘Mein Gracious! You must haf washed ’em,”’ ON SHARES. Wilkins—“How about that bill you undertook to collect on shares?”’ E Lawyer—“You said I- could have half of it, didn’t you?” “Certainly.” “Well, I’ve yours.” collected my half. Can’t get EXCUSABLE AWKWARDNESS. Guest—‘‘Ouch! Geewhittaker! You've spilled some soup down my neck!” Waiter—‘I’s orful sorry, sah; but you see, sah, I’s so in doubt if you is gwine to gub me a tip or not, it makes me nervous.” A NEW NEIGHBOR. Mrs. De Gadd—‘‘That new neighbor of yours don’t go to any particular church as L.can see. He’s an atheist, ain't he?” Mrs. De Gabb—‘‘Not so bad as that, I assure you. He is what is called a Liberal Christian.” Mrs. De Gadd—‘‘Well, I’m glad to hear that, and I'll call on him this very day. Our church is awfully in need. of a new organ and a new bell, and we ain’t got half enough collected to pay the preacher yet. Liberal Christians is what we're sighing for in this town.”’ A DESIRABLE CATCH, Mr. Million—‘‘I am afraid that young man who is so attentive to you is as poor as a church mouse. He smokes wretched cigars—can’t cost over five cents.” Miss Million—‘No, indeed, pa, he pays twenty- five cents a piece for them, but the dealers cheat him.” Mr. Million—‘‘Then it’s all right. fool.” He’s only a THE SILVER LINING, Stranger (in railway-train)—‘“‘So you went on a long journey to get a situation as newspaper reporter, only to find that the paper had suddenly changed hands?” Despondent Youth—‘“Yes. The trip took all the money I had saved up, and now I don’t know what I’m to do.’ Stranger—‘‘Keep up your courage, Every cloud has a silver lining. I got a situation on a newspaper when I was young, but I was dis- charged for a slip which I could not -help, and I could not get another job as reporter anywhere. Pretty cloudy, wasn’t it?” Despondent Youth—‘‘Yes; silver lining?” Stranger—‘‘Driven to desperation, I started a peanut and apple-stand, and now I am one of the wealthiest fruit importers in the country instead of being a worn-out old editor in a poorhouse.” MUSIC, HEAVENLY MAID. Mr. Canner (of Chicago)—‘‘Are you musie, Miss Tremello?’ Miss Tremello (of Boston)—‘“‘Music, Mr. Can- ner? Could any cultivated consciousness pos- sessed of delicate susceptibilities ‘help being de- voted to so divine an art? Music? Music is my passion.’’ Mr. Canner—‘I am so glad. May I have the pleasure of your company this evening to the min- strels?’’ but where was the fond of DOMESTIC PROBLEMS. Mr. Newwed—‘‘My dear, I wish you’d tell that cook that we don’t like our beefsteak burned, and don’t want our roasts raw.” Mrs, Newwed—‘“Tell her? -How can I? She never comes into the parlor and she won’t let me go into the kitchen.” SELECTED PLEASANTRIES. No Heap ror STATISTICS.—Howell—“It is hard for a woman to understand statistics.” Powell—‘‘I guess that is so. I told my wife that for every passenger the railroads of this country transported two tons of freight, and she wanted to: know why the passengers were allowed to Garry so much baggage.”’—Harpers Weekly. SCANTY CoLLEcTIONS.—“How’s collections at your church, Brudder Shinn?” “Well, we ain’t nebber dle of a collection to go Louisville Courier-Journal. THe Wronc Foor.—A child-loving man was on his way to Denver to transact some important business. . During the afternoon he noticed, in the opposite section of the Pullman, a sweet-faced, tired-appearing woman traveling with four small children. Feeling sorry for the mother -he soon made friends with the little ones. Early the next morning he heard their eager questions behind the curtains of the berths, and an’ empty de box.”— had to stop in de mid-. the patient “Yes, dear,” of the mother as she tried to. dress them; and looking out he saw a small white foot protruding beyond the opposite curtain. Reaching across the aisle he took hold of the large toe and began to recite: “This little pig went to market, This litfle pig stayed at home; This little pig had a piece of roast beef, This little pig had none; This little pig eried ‘“wee-wee’ all the way home.’’ “How is that?” inquired the eager man. Then the foot was suddenly withdrawn, and a cold, quiet voice said: “I should think it was quite sufficient.”—Harchange. SELF-DEFENSE, to meet my wife’s eldest sister.’ She—“But she can find house.”’ He—‘“‘She can; but if I meet her in public I won't have to kiss her.’”—New York Telegram, He—‘l’m going to the station her way to your THe STRANGE New Creep.—Professor Percival Lowell, the famous astronomer and author, said the other day of the amazing public ignorance where astronomical matters are concerned: “IT can’t discuss my Martian theories with the average man. He is as ignorant of astronomical terms as one of our city policemen is of all long Latin. words: “This policeman arrested the other night an elderly gentleman who was parading the street in a white nightgown. “**Good gracious, officer!’ said the old gentle- man, giving a great start, ‘it’s all right. Let me so. Tm a somnambulist.’ “But the policeman tightened his grip on the old fellow’s arm, *“*Tt don’t make no odds what your religion is,’ he said, ‘you come along with me.’ ”’+—Seattle Post-Intelligencer, eet 8 @ oe Se LADY BIANCA’S CHOICE, e “News, good sirs,” said Gaspardo Bellini, tering his school one morning. “Is it good news, my worthy master?’ inquired a handsome young man, who was lazily retouch- ing a picture. “Yes,”’ returned the old man; the painters of Bologna.” “Let us hear it at once, master,” said half a dozen voices. “Well, the Lady Bianca has made up-her mind to marry at last, and " “And has ordered a hundred pictures of her native town,” put in a young student, interrupt- ing Bellini. “Not so fast, not so fast, my worthy signor. Lady Bianca, as I just now said, has made up her mind to marry; and she has promised——” “A thousand ducats for the best painting of the Madonna!” exclaimed another student, throwing up his velyet cap. “Give me my brushes, you lazy dog, Stephano, and I’ll to-work at once,” said a third, address- ing a thin, poorly dressed youth, who was serv- ant of all work in Gaspardo-Bellini’s studio. “Now, now, good sirs,” said Bellini, “if ye do not give me a fair hearing, I-will let ye go to the market-place to hear the news.’ : “Silence, my worthy gentlemen all,” said a roguish-looking young man, mounting a stool and flourishing a brush. ‘Silence in the school, while our worthy and much-beloved master, Gaspardo Bellini, doth make known to us this wonderful piece of news. Stephano, you Jew,” he added, “if a mouse do but squeak, thine unlucky head shall be food for the dogs of Bologna.’’ Bellini recommenced : “The Lady Bianca hath at last made up her mind to marry, and hath: promised———” He paused, as_if expecting a fresh interrup- tion; but there was none, and he went on, slowly : “Hath promised her hand in marriage to the student of Bologna who shall paint the best two pictures from subjects of his own choosing.” There was a deathlike stillness in the studio when Bellini finished speaking. Stephano, with his large, crouched in a corner. ““Alberto,”’ whispered Giuseppe to his friend, “your fortune is made, and Bianca is won.” “Our Lady grant so,” said the young man, pressing Giuseppe’s hand. “My noble Bianca hath run a great’ risk for the sake of her poor Alberto.”’ , “Think you the young duke will enter the lists with us?” i “T fear so,’’ returned Alberto. ‘“‘He is the only one in Bologna I dread; for report says that the masters at Venice and Rome were highly pleased with his work.” Before the sun went down that day, each stu- dent in the school of Gaspardo: Bellini had chosen his two subects, and made some preparations for his work. SS Giuseppe’s subjects were “St. Cecelia” and a “Street Scene. in Bologra.” Alberto’s were the “Lady Bianca at Vespers” and “St. Michael the Archangel.” Two years was the given time, and the Lady Bianca during that periad secluded herself in a convent. = Stephano waited on his young masters as faith- fully as ever; but they now treated him a little more kindly, for there were two crimson spots in the youth’s cheeks and a bright light in his eye, which warned the giddy students that Ste- phano’s place would soon have to be filled by another. “If I gain the Lady Bianca’s hand, Stephano, I. will have a requiem chanted for you in the ca- thedral and: masses celebrated for the repose of your soul,’ Stephano smiled sadly. ‘And what will you do for me, Alberto?’”’ “I will bring the Lady Bianca to your grave, and tell her that the gentle Stephano, whom I loved as a brother, is quietly resting there. I will show her the picture I have drawn of you, and teach her to love your memory.”’ Tears gathered in Stephano’s eyes and a deeper flush dyed his cheeks. x The day on which the Lady Bianca was to redeem her promise dawned bright and lovely. All Bologna was astir early, for that day the great lady was to give her hand in marriage to the student who had suceeeded in painting the best two pictures, Alberto walked toward the cathedral leaning oh Giuseppe’s arm. “Courage, courage, Alberto; the yours !”’_said his friend. Alberto-shook his head mournfully. “Saints preserve us!’ exclaimed “there is little Stephano dressed in girl’s clothes. “No, 20, it is !’ ejaculated Alberto, en- “good news for dark eyes ablaze, prize is Giuseppe, Rosini! rushing forward in the crowd. : He returned in a few seconds, looking disap- pointed. “*Poor Rosini! On the gates pasted, which contained the names cessful paintings. “J am blind, Giuseppe. I cannot see,’’ said Al- berto. ‘‘Tell me their names.” “Come, let us go away,” replied Giuseppe, with blanched cheeks. “No, no, Giuseppe; tell me, tell me.” “David and Nathan,’ and the.‘Sermon on -the Mount,’’’ said Giuseppe hoarsely. “These are the duke’s,” gasped Alberto, per- mitting his friend to lead him away. “I have lost my Bianca; but come, Giuseppe,’ he added, “we will to the cathedral, and there witness my noble lady’s saerifice for me.” Vainly did Giuseppe protest. Alberto would have his way, and the two friends entered the old eathedral and took seats in the gloomy transcept. “See, see, Alberto! there are the paintings!” exclaimed Giuseppe in raptures. “Merciful Heaven!’ ejaculated Alberto; “the hand of an ange! painted them. He deserves thee, my Bianca.’’ On the opposite wali, facing the young men, with the rich light of the eastern chancel win- dows falling directly on them, were the two paint- ings. One represented Nathan as he denounced David with the words, “Thou art the man.’ The prophet’s bent figure, tattered clothes, and aged face, with its mingled look of scorn’ and pity, pre- sented a strange contrast to the’ youthful mon- arch’s rich, .graceful robes, and handsome face, from which the expression of indignation had not wholly passed away. The other painting, called the ‘‘Sermon on the Mount,’”’ represented a woman ministering to the wants of a beggar. The face of the once. It had been Lady. Bianca. The young man his hands, Presently there was the flourish of trumpets, and the organ swelled joyously as the Lady Bianca moved slowly up the aisle, She looked up at the paintings and a blush came into her face; then she knelt devoutly for a few seconds, the music died-away, and there was profound silence in the cathedral. The Count Paulo, her uncle, turned and faced the congregation. > “Alberto Romani will take his place by the Lady Bianca’s side, as a reward for his genius.” The count’s yoice rang through the cathedral. “Wake up, wake up, Alberto!’ exclaimed Giu- seppe; “‘you are the bridegroom—the count says you are. St. Michael must have painted those pictures for you, and Sent the angels to place them.in the church.” He almost dragged Alberto forward, and before - I could not find her,’’ he said. of the eathedral a paper was of the suc- woman Alberto recognized at drawn from a portrait of the groaned and hid his face in the young man recovered himself the bishop had commenced the ceremony. Alberto knelt by the side of the blushing Bi- anca and received the bishop’s blessing. As they rose from their knees a shrill voice at the end of the church called out: “Let me go, I say, and denounce the perfidy ot Alberto Romani, for those paintings are not is7%: 3 Alberto recognized the voice of his master, Gas- pardo Bellini, Lady Bianca drew from close by to her hus- band’s side. “What means the old man, my Alberto. They cannot now separate what Heaven hath made one.”’ Old Gaspardo at length succeeded in reaching the count. He threw himself on his knees at the nobleman’s feet. “Pardon, my lord count—pardon, Alberto; the paintings are not his, but were drawn by my servant, the boy, Stephano.” The. count put his hand to his sword, when the bishop stepped from the altar. : “Return your sword to its sheath, my son; the house of God is no place for such weapons. Send for Stephano, and hear the whole of the story; for good Master Bellini is too much excited to tell his tale clearly.” s _ “Here I am, my lord bishop,” anda slight, girlish figure, in a peasant’s dress, stepped for- ward and knelt at the churchman’s feet. “I am Stephano, and it was I who gave Alberto’s name for my paintings. I love him, and I knew that he and the Lady Bianca loved each other.” “Why did you give his name for your own?” asked the bishop. “Because,” and the girl’s voice trembled, “I knew my paintings would win the prize, for I did them because I loved my art.” “Rosina!” exclaimed Alberto, coming to the girl’s side, “‘were you Stephano, the drudge of our school?” “T was, Alberto. I followed you from our own valley, because I loved you; and I have been near and worked for you all the years you have been in Bologna. But let me kiss the dear Lady Bianca, for I love her, too. When I am gone, Alberto, you will do what you promised in the studio.” i : Bianca raised the kneeling girl, and kissed her tenderly, “You will live for our sakes, The girl smiled faintly. “Yes, for a little while longer,” she said, a * * * * * * Once again the old cathedral was crowded; but the bells no longer rang joyfully—they swung slowly ahd mournfully in their muffled covering. The great organ sadly and reluctantly gave ‘the harmony for the requiem chanted by the black- robed choir. The paintings of “David and Nathan” and the “The Sermon on the Mount’ still adorned the Rosina.” Vol. 64—No, 29 - dark walls, but they were partly hidden by 7 folds of crape which draped them. : ‘5: Amid the sobs of the congregation a small cof- fin was carried by the students of Bellini’s school, and deposited in the chancel. The pall was re- moved, and revealed on the coffin in golden lIet- - ters the name Stephano, att» Bp aa — *o* ye Items of Interest. A perfect ruby of five carats averages at least five times the value of a diamond of the same size and quality. : According to a MisSouri newspaper, a candidate for county office announces himself in the follow- ing manner: “Owing toe the earnest solicitation of those to whom I owe money, I have consented to become a candidate for the office of county treas- urer, subject to the usual disclosures of charac- er A curious product of the vegetable world is the tooth-brush plant of Jamaica. It is a kind of creeper. By cutting pieces of it to a Suit-— able length and chewing the ends, the natives convert it into a tooth-brush. Tooth-powder to accompany the use of the brush is prepared by pulverizing the dried stems. In the island of Madagascar zebus form important element of agricultural wealth. the northern and northwestern parts of the an In is- ‘land large herds of these animals are raised, but they are found more or less abundantly in all parts of Madagascar. After crossing with Huro- pean cattle the hump of the zebu disappears, and the yield of milk is increased, but the meat of the uncrossed zebu is superior. A straw hat valued at $1,000 is worn by. the proprietor of a fashionable café at Marienbad, Bohemia. It is woven of straws through which the crowned heads of Europe have at various times imbibed cooling drinks dispensed inthe owner’s establishment. For many years this king wor- shiper had been collecting straws from the royal lips, scorning mere nobles or statesmen. When the collection was large enough the hat was manufactured. ‘ An invention that is likely to harass - the whisky trust is that of Doctor Henry Spencer Blackmore, of Washington, D. C. He has de- vised a plan'to produce whisky from natura] gas. “If the combustion is properly. regulated he says, “5,000. feet of natural gas will pr@luce approximately fifty gallons of alcohol. As nat- ural gas can be readily obtained in unlimited quantities at from five to ten cents a thousand feet, it follows that the cost of fifty gallons of alcohol produced in this manner would be only twenty-five to fifty cents for raw material.” eH FH He SH | THE LADIES’ WORK-BOX EDITED BY MRS. HELEN WOOD trated in this column at ten cents each. be forwarded on receipt of twenty cents. The hand embroidery of the coming season promises to be exquisite. On the new lingerie blouses and frocks and on the blouse and robe patterns there is observed a tendency toward fine and delicate designs relieved by little inset motifs of- lace or drawn work, or by occasional open eyelets. Motifs .embroidered on Valen- ciennes may be so inset that the embroidery ap- pears to have been done after the lace was in- troduced into the frocks. Sprays, wreaths or tendrils of embroidery carefully cut out may be applied across inset bands of lace, the em- broidery extending out over the frock material and giving the appearance of hand-work, as is the case in the costliest frocks showing such ef- fects. Naturally the appliqué must be done with great skill or it will seem botched -and tawdry, but it is easfer to have such work done than to have fine hand embroidery done, and jn- cidentally much less expensive... Tiny hand-run tucks used in profusion will give a dainty touch to a lingerie frock, and such work, while tedious, is not beyond the powers of the average needle- woman. E Jet is the most conspicuous thing among the new trimmings, and nery to a great extent. An entirely new and novel garment is the stole made like a priest’s vestment, whole at front and back with panels falling straight aud with open sides and low neck, usually square. One of the kind worn recently with a handsome lace robe was of allover, finely jetted net bordered with Velvet bands. - The short sleeves of the lace gown, and the under-arm parts of the lace bodice, were unveiled by it, and so wete the sides of the skirt. The stole came within about eight inches of the hem of the gown. Such garments are being used over satin and silk gowns, aswell as over transparent ones. A pale turquoise-blue satin dinner-gown seen last week had one of the typical tunics and bodices of the day. The skirt was long, plain and scant. A tunic, dipping upward at the front and- falling into the pointed train, was banded with the new embroidery done on net in shades of the blue with glints of gold: and worked FASHION NOTES it is being used in milli-) By special arrangements with the manufacturers, we are ehabled to supply the readers of Tur New York WEEKLY with the patterns of all garments described or illus- Catalogues containing about 1,000 patterns will When ordering patterns, to mention the number of the pattern and size wanted. Address Fashion Department, THe New Yorx WEEKLY, 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City. please be particular with chenille, soft untwisted silk and chiffon, The low-cut bodice was draped across the shoul- ders and bust with the embroidered net, and there were narrow-shaped straps of the -work which went high onto the bare neck and over the uncovered shoulder, heightening the effect of both neck and work. It should have been said that the embroidered net made a panel down the front of the tunic from the high-placed bodice-line, this — panel being narrow at the top and gradually widening to the bottom. : A ‘noticeable change is most noticeable in out- side garments, particularly in the separate wrap. As an example, a long coat of heavy black vel- vet, designed for both day and evening wear, is semifitted and double-breasted, fastening across at the waist, a long: shawl collar giving a sur- plice effect. The back, underneath the arms, laps over the front in a_ scroll-liné, which is covered with a narrow embroidery of black and ~ gold. This embroidery extends across the back, — still in a scroll-line, with a“ down-turned at the center, which emphasizes the le effect. <8 gh Sa en One of the fashionable fads is the drapery for evening gowns, which chiffon, tulle or other gauzy a space of four or five inch with a hem and generall tached to the center ba over the arm and attache to the center front, or in a of the center front. This i tractive arrangement for the A picturesque corsage fr over one shoulder with a scarf 0: in true. French fashion, over an und gray with a distinct tint of mauve. embroideries of black pearls, and ar dull surfaces like moonstones,. Green is a_ dominant color both in and dull shades and for millinery in r with black, as also in crépe de Chine and vet for evening toilets. as Modish Styles for the Present Season. : 2827—Tucked Shirt-Waist for a Miss, with Yoke, Dotted lawn, silk, challis, Persian or Vic- toria lawn or batiste, are all suitable materials for the development of this model; Three sizes, 13 to 17 years. 2808—Lady’s Shirt-Waist, with one-piece plain sleeves or regulation shirt-sleeves. This model reaches its best. development in linen, lawn, piqué, duck or Madras, as it is cut on strictly. tailored lines. Seven sizes, 32 to 34.inches bust measure. 282i—Child’s Coat. This attractive model may _be developed ‘in covert- cloth, Panama, chevyiot, serge or mohair, stitched with the same or a contrasting shade of silk and fastened with but- tons either of the pearl or cloth variety.» Four sizes, 1 to 7 years. 2815—Girl’s and Child’s Apron. Adaptable to Persian or Victoria lawn, batiste, nainsook, cham- bray, linen, Indian-head cotton or scrim, this is a practical and easily made little garment. Six Sizes, 2 to 12 years. = _ = = : 2829—Child’s. One-Piece Dress, with Dutch neck and shoe sloexes. Piqué, linen, mercerize t } : Seven. sizes, - 2828—La : _ Simple Waists and Skirts, Seas 2811—-Shirt-Waist for a’ Miss, with long or three-quarter sleeves. This simple model is par- ticularly attractive for linen, Madras, piqué, In- dian-head cotton or Victoria lawn. Three sizes, 13_to 17 years. ee Pol ain ees : 2806—Lady’s Shirt-Waist, Closing at Back: A stylish and simply constructed little model, de- veloped in pongee, with a yoke of heavy white or cream-colored Jace, and a trimming of very harrow lace, matching that in the yoke, Six sizes, 32 to 42 inches bust measure. Sees 2795—Girl’s One-Piece Dress, slipped over the head and having a separate guimpe. An excellent. model for an every-day or play-frock developed in linen, cotton yoile, poplin or gingham. Four sizes, 6 to 12 years.-— a Se velepr stg 2820—Lady’s Nine-Gored Skirt, closing- with ~ buttons at. each side, especially. designed. for | laundering. “A pretty and stylish gnats! for linen; - Indian-head cotton, duck, khaki “Or raquet cloth. _ 22 to.34 inches waist measure. == s Four-Piece Corselet Skirt, with © Striped. serge, cheviot, broadcloth, lew worsted materials, are suit- eon nt of this model. Six — inches waist measure,