or open.

"Ah!" she screamed. "I see it all. I have been betrayed--sold out.
You have broken my confidence."

"I have done nothing of the kind. I have never repeated to a soul
what you told me."

"Then who could have done it?" she exclaimed, bursting into a fit of
hysterical tears. "I have come all this way to secure the property
and now find that I am too late. Shame! shame!"

"I will tell you. Barclay is really here. He knew of the strike as
soon as you did. He is in love with Miss Forbes and followed the
family here to tell them the good news. He is with the man at this
moment."

"Curse him!" she cried through her set teeth.

I left the woman plunged in a state of deep despair. I told her son
that he should go upstairs and attend to his mother, and proceeded to
the Forbes cottage. There I found the family in a state of great
excitement, for Barclay had told them all and already they were
arranging plans for returning to California and taking steps to
reopen the property.

Miss Forbes received me with great cordiality and the mother
announced that the girl and Barclay were engaged to be married, the
father having given his consent at once. The fond mother added that
she regretted very much that her daughter would have to abandon her
literary career which had begun so auspiciously through my discovery
of her latent talent.

I looked at Barclay before I replied. His face was as blank as a
piece of white paper. His eyes, however, danced in his head as if he
enjoyed my predicament.

"Yes," I finally said, "Mr. Barclay has much to be answerable for. I
shall lose a valued contributor. Perhaps," I ventured, "she will
still continue to write from California, for she possesses poetical
talent of a high order."

"I shall gladly do so," cried the young lady, "and without pay, too.
I shall never forget your goodness."

I heard a low chuckling sound behind me. It was Barclay swallowing a
laugh.

* * * * *

They went away in the course of a few days and we corresponded for a
long time; but Mrs. Barclay never fulfilled her promise to cultivate
the muse; nor in her several letters did she refer to her poetical
gift. Perhaps her husband told her of the pious fraud we practised
upon her on Christmas Day, 1860. But whether he did so or not,
I have taken the liberty, fifty-three years after the event, of
exposing the part I took in the deception and craving forgiveness for
my manifold si