ping, he measured the two sections of wood. Then,
turning to Lazare, he asked, "Is it a fair divide?"

Lazare covered his feelings with a comical shrug, but Narcisse and both
the crews looked whipped with disappointment, and eyed the innocent old
block resentfully. Bascom motioned to have it brought alongside his gun.

"I don't see," he said, afterward, "what better an old party like that
could have done, comin' from so far, than to bring his comforts with him
instead of presents for folks he didn't know."

Bascom never told what Narcisse had done to him under water, and the gun
that had had a share in it was used to keeping its own counsel. It and
its comrades were left in his care, and when he saw that they would be
awkward ballast on the _Mystery_, they were piled together on Tony's
beach to wait a purchaser. The faith which Bascom had had in them staid
with him, although public interest in them died out, and they were
forgotten again. But Bascom was always working with them, and polishing
them, and talking to them when he had the time.

"It's queer how you all staid there so quiet, and waited hundreds an'
hundreds an' hundreds of years--just for me," he said to them. "I wisht
I could only find out where you come from, and what you're calculatin'
for me to do. You didn't come for nothin', I make sure of that."

But the guns with all their sleeping possibilities of voice lay still.

MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE.

BY AGNES LITTLETON.

Part III.

[Illustration: Decorative T]

he next morning at ten o'clock two frightened and trembling maidens
presented themselves at the door of Miss Briggs's house on Madison
Avenue. It was all out of order, to be sure, for them to be calling at
such an hour, for it was the time appointed for their lessons, and
yesterday had been a holiday also on account of the fair; but Miss
Briggs's word was to a certain extent law in the family, and governesses
and masters were asked to defer their coming.

The mothers of Millicent and Peggy had little idea as to why their
cousin wished to see them, for neither girl dared to confess her
atrocious deed. In fact, Millicent herself did not know of Peggy's poem.
Peggy was putting off the evil moment as long as possible, when she
should be forced to give an account of what she had done.

She was really very much ashamed of herself. She had lain awake half the
night thinking of what a rude, unladylike, childish trick she had been
guilty.