ic weed--and leaving that gentleman to 'witch the world with
wondrous horsemanship,' the 'Tattler' reporter withdrew, 'pierced
through with Envy's venomed darts,' and satisfied that his courtly
entertainer had been 'more sinned against than sinning.'"

Col. Belcher read the report with genuine pleasure, and then, turning
over the leaf, read upon the editorial page the following:

"COL. BELCHER ALL RIGHT.--We are satisfied that the letter from
Sevenoaks, published in yesterday's 'Tattler,' in regard to our highly
respected fellow-citizen, Colonel Robert Belcher, was a gross libel upon
that gentleman, and intended, by the malicious writer, to injure an
honorable and innocent man. It is only another instance of the
ingratitude of rural communities toward their benefactors. We
congratulate the redoubtable Colonel on his removal from so pestilent a
neighborhood to a city where his sterling qualities will find 'ample
scope and verge enough,' and where those who suffer 'the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune' will not lay them to the charge of one who
can, with truthfulness, declare 'Thou canst not say I did it.'"

When Mr. Belcher concluded, he muttered to himself, "Twenty
dollars!--cheap enough." He had remained at home the day before; now he
could go upon 'Change with a face cleared of all suspicion. A cloud of
truth had overshadowed him, but it had been dissipated by the genial
sunlight of falsehood. His self-complacency was fully restored when he
received a note, in the daintiest text on the daintiest paper,
congratulating him on the triumphant establishment of his innocence
before the New York public, and bearing as its signature a name so
precious to him that he took it to his own room before destroying it and
kissed it.

CHAPTER XV.

WHICH TELLS ABOUT MRS. DILLINGHAM'S CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR'S
RECEPTION AT THE PALGRAVE MANSION.

A brilliant Christmas morning shone in at Mrs. Dillingham's window,
where she sat quietly sunning the better side of her nature. Her parlor
was a little paradise, and all things around her were in tasteful
keeping with her beautiful self. The Christmas chimes were deluging the
air with music; throngs were passing by on their way to and from church,
and exchanging the greetings of the day; wreaths of holly were in her
own windows and in those of her neighbors; and the influences of the
hour--half poetical, half religious--held the unlovely and the evil
within her in benig