nviction that he is bequeathing the foundation of an immense fortune
to his son-in-law, and more wisdom to the world than has been
contributed to its stock by all that have gone before. And he often
reminds Emilia that she has to thank him for getting so good a husband.
If it hadn't been for him she might have married that sickly student.

_1871_.

THE STORY OF A VALENTINE.

When my friend Capt. Terrible, U.S.N., dines at my plain table, I am
a little abashed. I know that he has been accustomed always to a
variety of wines and sauces, to a cigarette after each course, and to
cookery that would kill an undeveloped American. So, when the captain
turns the castor round three times before selecting his condiment, and
when his eyes seem to be seeking for Worcestershire sauce and Burgundy
wine, I feel the poverty of the best feast I can furnish him. I am
afraid veteran magazine readers will feel thus about the odd little
story I have to tell. For I have observed of late that even the short
stories are highly seasoned; and I can not bear to disappoint readers.
So, let me just honestly write over the gateway to this story a
warning. I have no Cayenne pepper. No Worcestershire sauce. No cognac.
No cigarettes. No murders. No suicides. No broken hearts. No lovers'
quarrels. No angry father. No pistols and coffee. No arsenic. No
laudanum. No shrewd detectives. No trial for murder. No "heartless
coquette." No "deep-dyed villain with a curling mustache." Now if,
after this warning, you have the courage to go on, I am not
responsible.

Hubert said I might print it if I would disguise the names. It came out
quite incidentally. We were discussing the woman question. I am a
"woman's righter." Hubert--the Rev. Hubert Lee, I should say, pastor of
the "First Church," and, indeed, the only church in Allenville--is not,
though I flatter myself I have made some impression on him. But the
discussion took place in Hubert's own house, and wishing to give a
pleasant turn at the end, I suppose, he told me how, a year and a half
before, he had "used up" one woman's-rights man, who was no other than
old Dr. Hood, the physician that has had charge of the physical health
of Hubert and myself from the beginning. Unlike most of his profession,
the doctor has always been a radical, and even the wealth that has come
in upon him of late years has left him quite as much of a radical, at
least in theory, as ever. Indeed, the old doctor is not very