won,
and should be won.

"My wife, my Alice, my Golden Hair," he kept repeating to himself,
until, in his weak state, the perspiration dropped from every pore, and
his mother, when she came to him, asked in much alarm what was the
matter.

He could not tell her of his newly-born joy, so he answered evasively:

"Rocket is sold to-day. Is not that matter enough?"

"Poor Hugh, I wish so much that I was rich!" the mother sighed, as she
wiped the sweat drops from his brow, arranged his pillows more
comfortably, and then, sitting down beside him, said, hesitatingly--"I
have another letter from 'Lina. Can you hear it now, or will you read it
for yourself?"

It was strange how the mention of 'Lina embittered at once Hugh's cup of
bliss, making him answer pettishly:

"She has waited long enough, I think. Give it to me, please," and taking
the letter that morning received, he read first that 'Lina was much
obliged for the seventy-five dollars, and thought they must be growing
generous, as she only asked for fifty.

"What seventy-five dollars? What does she mean?" Hugh exclaimed, but
his mother could not tell, unless it were that Alice, unknown to them,
had sent more than 'Lina asked for.

This seemed probable, and as it was the only solution of the mystery, he
accepted it as the real one, and returned to the letter, learning that
the bracelet was purchased, that it could not be told from the lost one,
that she was sporting it on Broadway every day, that she did not go to
the prince's ball just for the doctor's meanness in not procuring a
ticket when he had one offered to him for eighty dollars!

* * * * *

"I don't really suppose he could afford it," she wrote, "but it made me
mad just the same, and I pouted all day. I saw the ladies, though, after
they were dressed, and that did me some good, particularly as the Queen
of the South, Madam Le Vert, asked my opinion of her chaste, beautiful
toilet, just as if she had faith in my judgment.

"Well, after the fortunate ones were gone, I went to my room to pout,
and directly Mother Richards sent Johnny up to coax me, whereupon there
ensued a bit of a quarrel, I twitting him about that ambrotype of a
young girl, which Nell Tiffton found at the St. Nicholas, and which the
doctor claimed, seeming greatly agitated, and saying it was very dear to
him, because the original was dead. Well, I told him of it, and said if
he loved that girl better th