oo. When I got
Sidney's letter saying he was dying I just moped about and was of no
use to anybody. Then I made up my mind what to do. Sid had died for
fame, and it wasn't just he shouldn't get what he paid so dearly for. I
gathered together what money I could and went to Africa, steerage. I
found I couldn't do anything there about searching for Sid, so I
resolved to be his understudy and bring fame to him, if it were
possible. I sank my own identity and made up as Sidney Ormond, took his
boxes and sailed for Southampton. I have been his understudy ever
since, for, after all, I always had a hope he would come back some day,
and then everything would be ready for him to take the principal, and
let the old understudy go back to the boards again and resume competing
with the reputation of Macready. If Sid hadn't come back in another
year, I was going to take a lecturing trip in America, and when that
was done, I intended to set out in great state for Africa, disappear
into the forest as Sidney Ormond, wash the paint off and come out as
Jimmy Spence. Then Sidney Ormond's fame would have been secure, for
they would be always sending out relief expeditions after him and not
finding him, while I would be growing old on the boards and bragging
what a great man my friend, Sidney Ormond, was."

There were tears in the girl's eyes as she rose and took Jimmy's hand.

"No man has ever been so true a friend to his friend as you have been,"
she said.

"Oh, bless you, yes," cried Jimmy, jauntily. "Sid would have done the
same for me. But he is luckier in having you than in having his friend,
although I don't deny I've been a good friend to him. Yes, my dear, he
is lucky in having a plucky girl like you. I missed that somehow when I
was young, having my head full of Macready nonsense, and I missed being
a Macready too. I've always been a sort of understudy, so you see the
part comes easy to me. Now I must be off to that confounded Mayor and
Corporation, I had almost forgotten them, but I must keep up the
character for Sidney's sake. But this is the last act, my dear. To-
morrow I'll turn over the part of explorer to the real actor ... to the
star."

"OUT OF THUN."

1.--BESSIE'S BEHAVIOUR.

On one point Miss Bessie Durand agreed with Alexander von Humboldt--in
fact, she even went further than that celebrated man, for while he
asserted that Thun was one of the three most beautiful spots on earth,
Bessie held that this Sw