passed by with another gentleman, and she heard him say:

"How much better young girls look in simple white than in the elaborate
silks suited only to their mothers!"

Thoughtless words--possibly forgotten as soon as uttered--they sharply
pierced this already sufficiently stricken and uneasy breast, and were
the cause of the tears which had aroused my suspicion when I came upon
her in the library, standing with her face to the night.

But who can say whether, if the evening had been devoid of these
occurrences, and no emotions of contrition and pity had been awakened in
her behalf in the breast of her chivalrous host, she would ever have
become Mrs. Ashley?

THE LITTLE STEEL COILS

I

"A Lady to see you, sir."

I looked up and was at once impressed by the grace and beauty of the
person thus introduced to me.

"Is there anything I can do to serve you?" I asked, rising.

She cast me a childlike look full of trust and candour as she seated
herself in the chair I had pointed out.

"I believe so; I hope so," she earnestly assured me. "I--I am in great
trouble. I have just lost my husband--but it is not that. It is the slip
of paper I found on my dresser, and which--which----"

She was trembling violently and her words were fast becoming incoherent.
I calmed her and asked her to relate her story just as it had happened;
and after a few minutes of silent struggle she succeeded in collecting
herself sufficiently to respond with some degree of connection and
self-possession.

"I have been married six months. My name is Lucy Holmes. For the last
few weeks my husband and I have been living in an apartment house on
Fifty-ninth Street, and, as we had not a care in the world, we were very
happy till Mr. Holmes was called away on business to Philadelphia. This
was two weeks ago. Five days later I received an affectionate letter
from him, in which he promised to come back the next day; and the news
so delighted me that I accepted an invitation to the theatre from some
intimate friends of ours. The next morning I naturally felt fatigued and
rose late; but I was very cheerful, for I expected my husband at noon.
And now comes the perplexing mystery. In the course of dressing myself I
stepped to my bureau, and seeing a small newspaper slip attached to the
cushion by a pin, I drew it off and read it. It was a death notice, and
my hair rose and my limbs failed me as I took in its fatal and
incredible words.

"'Died