a considerably _more_
accelerated rate of locomotion?'"

How we laughed at the natural drollery of the man, the deliberate
utterance, the unsophisticated air. While we laughed, he prepared
himself to finish his story.

"It was only day before yesterday," he said, "that I met her. I happened
to be in the parlor of the hotel when she came in. At first, I wasn't
certain of its being her; but, as I watched her, I became certain of it.
And she recognized me; I felt certain of that, too. It was in the early
part of the evening, and I had to wait until the people in the parlor
would disperse. She saw what I was waiting for, and stayed, too; she
told me with her eyes that she _remembered_. After a while she went to
the piano, and played and sang 'Kate Kearney.' Then I was satisfied that
she would not leave me before I had spoken to her. As soon as the
opportunity came, we confessed ourselves."

"Was she married? was she happy?"

"She was married, yes. Happy? she told me, as she had once before, that
she was 'content.' She said it with a sigh, as she did the first time;
and I doubted her as I did then. But they are putting out the lights.
There is always, in this world, somebody going around, putting out our
lights. Good-night."

"Good-night."

ON THE SANDS.

I was summering at our Oregon Newport, known to us by the aboriginal
name of Clatsop. Had a balloonist, uninstructed in the geography and
topography of this portion of the Pacific coast, dropped down among us,
his impression would have been that he had alighted in a military
encampment, very happily chosen, as military encampments usually are.

Given, one long, low, whitewashed house enclosed by whitewashed pickets;
a group of tents outside the enclosure and on the bank of a beautiful
graveled-bottom, tree-shadowed stream, and you have the brief summing up
of accommodations for summer visitors at Clatsop. The plentiful
sprinkling of army buttons among the guests--for there are two forts
within a three hours' ride of this beach--tend to confirm the impression
of military possession. Besides, our host of the whitewashed hotel is a
half-breed; and there is enough of the native element hanging about the
place, picking berries and digging clams, to suggest an Indian family
where a temporary station might be demanded. It would only be by peeping
inside those tents where ladies and children are more numerous than
bearded men, that one could be convinced of the gy