off, and not like a real, breathing story, as it was, appealing
strongly to his heart. The following facts, which have been kept
inviolate in this office for nearly twenty years, and only brought to
light here because those most concerned have passed away, will show what
a stirring and pathetic narrative lay beneath the newspaper chronicler's
dry words.

Early in the spring of the year above named, an elderly gentleman of
undoubted respectability was shown into our private office. He was
exceedingly nervous and flurried, and his wan, colorless face looked
like an effaced page. In a tortuous, round-about way, he intimated that
his married daughter was in great trouble, in consequence of the
operation of a great weakness or defect in character which was
apparently hereditary. Her mother, his wife, he said, an excellent,
kind-hearted, conscientious, truthful woman, had occasionally manifested
the kleptomania impulse and had been detected. Happily the crime had
been committed under circumstances which obviated exposure; it had been
charitably overlooked upon his paying the bill for the purloined goods.
Up to the date of her marriage, he had not observed or otherwise become
cognizant of the development of the unfortunate trait in his only
daughter. Her husband was a noble-minded man who devotedly loved her,
and whom she idolized. Two years after her marriage she was caught
shop-lifting in an establishment where she was known. By a merciful
stroke of fortune, the information and the bill were sent to the father
instead of the husband. Great moral and religious influence had been
brought to bear on her, and for several years there was cause to believe
that she had overcome her weakness. Unfortunately there had been another
lapse into temptation. At present she was suffering the tortures of the
damned, but in what particular respect she had refused to explain to
him. "Father, find me an active, bold and energetic lawyer," she had
said in a paroxysm of tears, "and I will tell him what I _cannot_ tell
you."

The lady came to the office next morning, alone. She was pale as a lily,
and she bore on her forehead that shadow of melancholy which tells all
the world that a woman is suffering and unhappy. Her eyes were dark and
soft as the darkest and softest violet, and she was dressed with the
utmost simplicity. She was in a most desponding mood. She said nothing
was worth striving for any more. There was no good under the sun for
h