or sweeter far has been to me the pain
Of love unsatisfied, than all the vain
And ill spent years I lived before we met."

Still she stood, gravely looking at him, her maturing beauty made the
fairer by the sable gown she wore.

"Forgive me," then she spoke. "I thought you knew. I have been Leslie
Walcott's wife these four months."

As he sat beside his solitary hearth there was a fumbling outside the
door. He opened to admit old Ailsie, now crippled with rheumatic pains.

"I know'd dat was you. Marse Doctor, 'n I follered yer, I want to tell
yer:--Mistress 'splained all 'bout dat 'fore she died. Dey wan't nothin'
wrong. Her an' her ma was 'feared to let old Master know she hed run
'way an' married Marse Henry. He said he wan't gwine ter will her nary
cent. So mistess and her sister, Miss Ellen, arter while, dey fotch her
up to de springs. Den ole master he died sudden like, an' Marse Henry,
he had done ben 'way off to New Auleens--never know'd dey had fooled old
Master 'bout de chile an' all dat. Po' Mistress! she nebber could tell
him no better, and she was always skeerd-like arter she seed you agin.
But she sot right down dat day and writ all about it to you an' I goes
and gives de letter to dat purty white lady what was sich a good frien',
and den she gimme yourn, ain----"

"Yes, yes, Auntie, I know--I have the letters here----at last," he added
in low, husky tones.

* * * * *

The _Louisville Journal_ of the next New Year, under date of
January 9, contained the following notice, with lengthy editorial
comment:

"Died suddenly last night, of heart disease, at the close of the
Military Ball, at the Capitol Hotel, Frankfort, the Hon. Leslie
Walcott, age thirty-two years."

Did hope stretch out an alluring hand to one lonely reader?

His Gratitude

VENGEANCE IS MINE

"But surely you do not realize, Robert Garrett, that when you foreclose
this mortgage you leave us virtually penniless;" and the large dark eyes
of the suppliant were blinded by an agony of tears.

"Really, madam, I regret to seem hard;" and the polished courtesy of the
cold, harsh voice fell with heavy weight upon her strained senses. "Your
husband has had more time now than any law allows, human or divine."

"Oh, how gladly he would have paid the debt;" she moaned; "it was his
kindness and forbearance to others--kindness that seemed imperative. He
could not take the law against his