atefully as
they stopped in front of the gate.

Melinda greeted her relatives with a warmth and enthusiasm that
embarrassed and made them suspicious. She was not usually so complacent,
so solicitous for the health and progress of offspring; above all she
was not usually so loth to talk about herself. She acted as though she
had never written a story, yet three copies of it were spread open under
her nose--one on the piano, one on the parlor table, one on the
sideboard--all open at the passage about "The Preacher."

The relatives retired in disgust. With the departure of the last one
Melinda seized a magazine and fled to the orchard. She would read that
story herself. As she turned the leaves she caught sight of a manly form
carefully climbing the fence. She dropped the periodical and stood on
it, gazing up pensively into the well-laden boughs of the Baldwin.

The Reverend Graham took her hands in a strong ministerial squeeze.

"It is very good of you to come to see me so soon after my return," she
faltered.

"Good--Melinda! Do you think I could help coming?" he ejaculated. "I can
not tell you--words are inadequate to express what I feel," he went
on,--"the deep gratitude, the humility, the wonder, the triumph, the
determination, with God's aid, to live up to the high ideal you have set
forth in your wonderful story. You have seen the latent qualities, the
nobler potentialities; you have shown me to myself. _Melinda!_ Do not
think that I do not appreciate the difficulties of this hour for you. I
know how your heart is shrinking, how your delicate maidenly modesty is
up in arms. But Melinda, you know! you know! _Dear Melinda!_"

"I am glad you understand me, John."

"Understand you!" The Reverend Graham could restrain himself no longer.
He swept her into his arms, appropriating his own.

Melinda remained there quiescently leaning against his shoulder, because
there seemed nothing else to do, also because it was a broad and
comfortable shoulder against which to lean. "I am done for," she
reflected. "Now I will never dare to confess that I was trying to be
humorous."

Then she reached up a hand and touched the Preacher's face timidly. His
cheek was wet. "Why, John--_John!_" she whispered.

ABOU BEN BUTLER

BY JOHN PAUL

Abou, Ben Butler (may his tribe be less!)
Awoke one night from a deep bottledness,
And saw, by the rich radiance of the moon,
Which shone and shimmered like a silver s