The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-09-07

/ cOulun' leave bHe poor libtle NoLidh
pretty words unanswered, don't you
know; and SO, before long, quite a brisk
correspondence passed to II fro between
them.
He still kept up his nom de plume,
though for no particular reason other
than that he wished to avoid the trouble
of an explanation, and it was all the same
TO her: and long letters filled with the
accounts of her child's life or with the
opinions of his characters came to him
regularly, and were as regularly answered.
Sometimes he would send her a book, and
often she would send him Il little box OF
flowers, which adorned his buttonhole.
Rather a new departure for you, eh'
old chap?" Trevor limited.
"Better late than never" %returned the
major, cheerfully.
81 always thought Amyatt would ak
it badly if he did take it, confided the
senior captain to Arlington.
''Ah, but you didn'tthink he ever would
take it," Arlington said by way of a re-
minder.
sWell, that's true" Trevor admitted.
Amyatt, however, knew nothing of the
gossip in the regiment concerning him
other thar what Trevor had actually said
| u Hill, III, vi RIitS VI liz 49, Il
larity, there was Il certain something
about him which effectually prevented
even that familiarity which usually ex-
lists among officers of the same regiment.
And the days passed on until they grew
into weeks, as the days of busy men do,
when one day he realized that it was
more than six weeks since he had heard
from his little child friend, Laura Holt.
"How odd that little soul has not
written" he thought, perhaps she, too,
has forgotten"
However, as he had just got some num-
bers of a magazine in which a short story
of his was appearing that month, he put
a a round one and addressed it
to "Miss Laura Holt;' and by return of
post there came for him q letter i'll a
strange handwriting, bearing the post
mark of the town in which she lived.
Aye, but was it so strange? Amyatt
stared at it for a full minute before he
opened it, his memory going back, back,
back-ohl to the days of his boyhood,
gone never to come again, never any
more. And then, when he tore the cover
and found that it contained a little note
in his friends round handwriting, that
memory ~straightway vanished.
Dear Mr.. John Dawes, "itsaid, "thank
YOU so much for sending me the story.
Mother is just going to read it to me-, but
WANTED to write to you first. You must
have thought it odd | didn't write so
long. have been very i'll, and can only
sit up for a few minutes and write with a
pencil now. ! think | am rather better.
l nave been five weeks in bed already.
Ever your loving friend, LAURA.
Naturally, Amvatt knew but little
about the ailments of children, but it
seemed to him that for a child of nine
years to be in bed five weeks at a stretch,
with no immediate prospect of getting up
again, was n very bad sign, and in his
anxiety he appealed to the regimental
surgeon.
"Whats the matter with the child?' he
asked.
II don't know
"Then you'd better make the illness
shorter, or give it scarlet fever, he said,
thinking that Amyatt was merelystatlng
II case for one of his stories.
'But it is u real child, " the major eX-
planned.
VERY bad lookout, Them returned the
doctor decidedly.
Then Amyatt wrote to his mother.
81 shall be grateful if you will tell me
how my little friend is" he said. Il az
sure you if | had known her for twenty
years l could not feel more anxious than
her letter has made me feel this morn
ing" Yet even when this was gone, he
still could not take his thoughts away
from the dear little friend whom he had
never seen, lying PROSTATE, for the hand
writing told him she must be indeed very
i'll, on a bed of sickness and pain.
In two days the reply came, written i'll
the same hand us the cover of the child's
last letter, handwriting which set every
nerve in his body t~hrobbing, every pulse
beating like a steam engine.
"My little girl is very, very i'll, Mrs.
Holt wrote, "much worse since she wrote
to YOU, and the doctors told me last night
that | must be ready to face the worst.
When | tell you that she n | are quite
alone i'll this world, you will know what
my agony is. l can't write about it. |
can only thank you and bless you for all
the pleasure you have given her, and beg
YOU, utter stranger that you are, to pray
that this blow may not fall upon me.
Yours gratefully,
"LAURA ST. MARY Holt"
Utter stranger that you are!" Why,
even in his concern and distress, Amyatt
almost laughed out aloud. a stranger
to her-a stranger Why, the letter, the
handwriting, the name, had all brought
back the self-same memorythat the cover
of the child's letter had called back only
the other day! The memory of what?
Well, just this; OF the only woman that
he had ever asked to be his wife, the only
woman he had ever loved.
She had told him frankly and simply
that she was engaged to another man,
and Amyatt had rushed away. never ask
ing, in his misery, so much as his rivals
name.
So it had been Holt And he was dead.
Yes, evidently he was dead, for she had
said thai she and the child-the child
who was dying-wero quite alone in the
world.
But lie could help her there! She
should be alone no longer. for he would
20 to her-he would stand between her
and the world, he would offer her his
Htrong arm and his true heart to guard
fer from all evil, to keep her SO that
trouble should not come nigh her.
Aye, but could he help her so that
trouble should not come nigh her? No;
no, alasl for when he reached her side the
child was-dead.
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