but his pride forbade. There was a humorous concern, not
without a touch of pity, in the faces of his contributors as he passed;
a few affected to believe in the new advertisement, and asked him vague,
perfunctory questions about it. His position was trying, and he was not
sorry when the term of his engagement expired the next week, and he left
Calaveras to take his new position on the San Francisco paper.

He was standing in the saloon of the Sacramento boat when he felt a
sudden heavy pressure on his shoulder, and looking round sharply, beheld
not only the black-bearded face of Mr. Dimmidge, lit up by a smile, but
beside it the beaming, buxom face of Mrs. Dimmidge, overflowing with
good-humor. Still a little sore from his past experience, he was about
to address them abruptly, when he was utterly vanquished by the hearty
pressure of their hands and the unmistakable look of gratitude in their
eyes.

"I was just saying to 'Lizy Jane," began Mr. Dimmidge breathlessly,
"if I could only meet that young man o' the 'Clarion' what brought us
together again"--

"You'd be willin' to pay four times the amount we both paid him,"
interpolated the laughing Mrs. Dimmidge.

"But I didn't bring you together," burst out the dazed young man, "and
I'd like to know, in the name of Heaven, what brought you together now?"

"Don't you see, lad," said the imperturbable Mr. Dimmidge, "'Lizy Jane
and myself had qua'lled, and we just unpacked our fool nonsense in your
paper and let the hull world know it! And we both felt kinder skeert and
shamed like, and it looked such small hogwash, and of so little account,
for all the talk it made, that we kinder felt lonely as two separated
fools that really ought to share their foolishness together."

"And that ain't all," said Mrs. Dimmidge, with a sly glance at her
spouse, "for I found out from that 'Personal' you showed me that this
particular old fool was actooally jealous!--JEALOUS!"

"And then?" said the editor impatiently.

"And then I KNEW he loved me all the time."

THE SECRET OF SOBRIENTE'S WELL

Even to the eye of the most inexperienced traveler there was no doubt
that Buena Vista was a "played-out" mining camp. There, seamed and
scarred by hydraulic engines, was the old hillside, over whose denuded
surface the grass had begun to spring again in fitful patches; there
were the abandoned heaps of tailings already blackened by sun and rain,
and worn into mounds like ruins of mas