o the house exclaiming:

"Oh, mamma! I think it is Uncle Ben."

Mrs. Ross would have fallen had she not been caught by the strong arms
of the stalwart brother whom she had not seen for twenty years. And
then it all came out. Mabel's secret was a secret no longer.

Captain Ben Grayson, old soldier, and retired ranch owner, had come
back after twenty years of life in the west to hunt for his sister,
his only known relative, whom he had last seen when she was a girl
like Mabel. He had been told a Miss Grayson had died from the ravages
of an epidemic that swept through the school she had been placed at;
and so, when the war ended, he went out west instead of returning to
New York as he should have done but for that false report. But he had
lately heard, from an old school-friend, he had come across, that she
was living, had married, and become a widow, and that was all the
information he could get.

By the simplest chance he had stopped at Fairmount. Shortly after
rising that morning, he was startled by a parrot hung outside the
window of the room next to his, calling out,--"Cheer up! cheer up!"
and shortly after,--"'On Linden when the sun was low,' ha! ha! ha! ha!
ha! Poor Ben!"

"Well," said Uncle Ben, "you can imagine the effect. I knew my parrot
could not be living yet; but I thought to myself, _that_ parrot must
have learned from my old one or from you, Alice, and I hastened to
make the acquaintance of my next-door neighbor, and so _I have found
you_."

And Mabel bought her parrot back again, which was now doubly dear, as
it had been the means of finding Uncle Ben. And quiet brother Ben was
made happy by an artist's outfit, and had the satisfaction of doing
Mabel and the parrot in colors, as he had long ago done them with the
camera.

When the last gift had been given, the boys, with one accord, threw up
their hats and cried,--"Hurrah, for Uncle Ben!"

As for Mrs. Ross, her measure of happiness was full; she had her long
lost brother Ben.

WAIF'S ROMANCE.

Several years ago the beautiful Shenandoah valley in West Virginia was
the scene of a great freshet. The river overflowed its banks, and the
usually placid stream became a mighty torrent, rushing along with
frightful velocity, carrying away houses, barns and cattle. Buildings
were washed from their foundations by the resistless current, and sent
whirling down the stream with the terrified occupants clinging to the
roofs. They had not had timely