our time over his book. They say, folks do, that
it's first-rate, as far as it goes; but you see it don't never get any
farther, and it never will. I thought I'd better tell you about it,"
said Wilson, his plebeian, kindly face crimson with a delicate pity that
would have done honor to an aristocrat, and still working assiduously at
the little twig, "I knew you was a genuine writer yourself, and it
seemed a pity for you to take up your valuable time helpin' him on,
about something that can't amount to anything."

May he be forgiven that gentle falsehood!

I looked for a moment at the wide-spread field and distant woodland,
lying green in the peaceful sunshine, at the place grown so dear to me,
that now whirled before my eyes. Far down the road a heavy farm-wagon
creaked its way toward us, in a cloud of white dust.

"You did quite right to tell me, Wilson," I said, turning to go. "No one
shall hear of it from me."

I looked down at the buff envelope from "----'s Magazine," which I had
crushed in my hand, and smoothed it out mechanically, as I went on in
the increasing heat.

It was only August, but my summer was over.

AN AFRICAN DISCOVERY.

"Of course it is very curious; but if you'll pardon me, my dear fellow,
you might as well tell me you had found a philosopher's stone."

Still, the rough glass phial, with odd metal bands around its neck, had
a fascination for me. I picked it up again, and tilted it idly back and
forth in my hand, watching the slimy brown fluid, the color of
poppy-juice, slip along its sides.

Hilyard smoked on imperturbably. The color mounted under his bronzed
skin up to the light rings of his hair; there was a momentary angry
flash in his pale blue eyes, but it was only for an instant.

"Perhaps you would like to try it, since you are so skeptical," he said,
grimly.

"Thanks, I have no wish to poison myself, and I have no doubt it is a
poison; but what I do doubt is the remarkable qualities you claim for
it. How did you come across the vile stuff, anyway?"

Hilyard stretched himself comfortably in his chair, and took his beloved
pipe from his handsome mouth. "Oh! well, you know," he said, lazily, "I
don't claim to be a Stanley by any means, but I did go a good bit into
Africa. I wasn't bent on discovering anything, and I loafed around, and
shot big game when there was any to shoot, and I learned some odd things
from those devils of witch-doctors, as well as a few on my own acc