ng her husband aside.

"Perhaps," he said in a low voice, and a manner quite free from any
personal annoyance,--"perhaps it's just as well that you lied to her
as you did. You can say now that the pick-pocket was arrested the other
day, and you got your money back." Mr. Oakhurst quietly slipped four
twenty-dollar gold-pieces into the broad hand of the bewildered Mr.
Decker. "Say that--or any thing you like--but the truth. Promise me you
won't say that."

The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly returned to the front of the
little carriage. The sick woman was still eagerly occupied with the
flowers, and, as she raised her eyes to his, her faded cheek seemed to
have caught some color from the roses, and her eyes some of their dewy
freshness. But at that instant Mr. Oakhurst lifted his hat, and before
she could thank him was gone.

I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly broke his promise. That
night, in the very goodness of his heart and uxorious self-abnegation,
he, like all devoted husbands, not only offered himself, but his friend
and benefactor, as a sacrifice on the family-altar. It is only fair,
however, to add that he spoke with great fervor of the generosity of Mr.
Oakhurst, and dwelt with an enthusiasm quite common with his class on
the mysterious fame and prodigal vices of the gambler.

"And now, Elsie dear, say that you'll forgive me," said Mr. Decker,
dropping on one knee beside his wife's couch. "I did it for the best. It
was for you, dearey, that I put that money on them cards that night in
'Frisco. I thought to win a heap--enough to take you away, and enough
left to get you a new dress."

Mrs. Decker smiled, and pressed her husband's hand. "I do forgive you,
Joe dear," she said, still smiling, with eyes abstractedly fixed on the
ceiling; "and you ought to be whipped for deceiving me so, you bad boy!
and making me make such a speech. There, say no more about it. If you'll
be very good hereafter, and will just now hand me that cluster of roses,
I'll forgive you." She took the branch in her angers, lifted the roses
to her face, and presently said, behind their leaves,--

"Joe!"

"What is it, lovey?"

"Do you think that this Mr.--what do you call him?--Jack Oakhurst would
have given that money back to you, if I hadn't made that speech?"

"Yes."

"If he hadn't seen me at all?"

Mr. Decker looked up. His wife had managed in some way to cover up
her whole face with the roses, except her eyes, which