it,

"You see, Mrs. Putnam," he began, "I've wanted Alice to marry me for a long time. But first she'd say yes, and then she'd say no, and it wasn't until last evening that I got her to say she would as if she really meant and to say I might tell you. So I came up the first thing to have the matter settled before she changed her mind again. Alice is the sweetest girl I ever saw, but she does seem so slippery."

A low derisive laugh floated down the stairs.

"Why, Henry Morgan," said Mrs. Putnam, "you just take my breath away. Alice ain't no more fit to be married than a baby. She can't make bread; she don't know a thing about house-keeping."

"Yes, I do, too," cried a voice from the head of the stairs. "I can boil eggs and make sponge-cake, and Henry says he's willing to live on those awhile."

"I don't care, Mrs. Putnam," said the young man, earnestly. "We can board, if Alice would rather. I've got plenty to take care of her with. You know father left me the place and five thousand dollars besides, and they raised my salary last spring. If I can only have Alice, I'll do my best to make her happy."

"Why, Henry," said Mrs. Putnam, kindly, "I hain't no objection that I know of. You've always been reported well-behaved and steady. I'm sure I'm glad enough to have you marry Alice, for I know you'll do well by her, only I am so took by surprise."

Miss Susan had not spoken during this conversation. Her eyes filled slowly under her rampant bang. "I guess I'll go out and feed the chickens," she murmured, softly. "Poor creeturs! poor creeturs!" she said, as they came clucking around her; "that's the way they ought to feel, I suppose. Shoo, there! Now, Speckley, don't you go and fail me; I just need all the help I can get. So lovin' and eager! Yes, that's the way to feel. Poor creeturs!"

Whether the chickens understood her rather incoherent remarks or not, she certainly was comforted and strengthened herself; and she went back through the shed and into the kitchen of the little brown house strong to bear whatever ordeal was before her. But the ordeal took an unexpected shape. It came in the guise of a letter on Wednesday morning, the day before the wedding day. It was a letter from Hiram. Miss Susan had been expecting him, and she said, as she took the letter, "This is to tell when

he'll come, most likely; but he'll get here now 'bout as soon as his letter."

Alice was pinning up golden-rod on the curtains. "It's such an obliging flower," she said to Henry Morgan, who was helping her; "it stays just where you put it, and it doesn't fade."

Miss Susan opened her letter and read it eagerly. Then she turned very white. She sank down by the side of a little table, threw her arms across it, and buried her face in them. "Oh, my good Lord!" she cried-"my good Lord!"

There was a moment of startled silence. Then Mrs. Putnam ran to her. "Susan, Susan, whatever is the matter?" She put her hands on her sister's bowed shoulders and gave her a little shake.

Miss Susan roused herself with a start, and sat up very straight. Her face was red, and her unfortunate bang stuck out in a fierce, defiant sort of way. There were no tears in her eyes. "Hiram-ain't-a-coming," she gasped. "He's a-going to marry some other woman. There ain't going to be any wedding here at all. Alice, you stop pinning up that golden-rod! Alviry, don't you bake all that bread we've got in sponge; we won't need

her.

no sandwiches." Then she rose. There was a certain terrible dignity about "You can read his letter," she said, "and don't you, one o' you, ever speak his name to me again!"

She went up the narrow stairs, and they heard her go into her own little room and shut the door. Then in awe-struck silence they came together and picked up the fatal letter, which Alice read aloud.

It was the despairing letter of a weak but not a wicked man. There had been another woman, it seemed, who had a claim upon hin. Mrs. Putnam and Alice, in their simplicity and ignorance, could to more understand the nature of this claim than poor Miss Susan had done. But Henry Morgan guessed the truth.

"He's a scoundrel, a villain !" he said, passionately. "I would like to horsewhip him!"

The writer spoke of this woman as "another lady," and said, with a sort of pathos, that she was "cutting up awful," when she heard he was going to be married.

"She says she'll have the law on me," he went on, "and I don't feel that she'll ever let me be in peace, even if I was married to you. I wish I

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