The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-05-26

no room for more, and got here first
Keep back, curse you u
He seized the cane which lay or
the table and struck out wildly at us
Harold warded it aside and lifted me
to the table.
"There is room for two," he said
"And if there was room for only one,
that one should be Nora, you cow
ard ~
Jump, Harold cried; Jump
quick !"
,, He leaped aside just in time to avoid
the spring of the cobra. He circled
around the room, jumping from side
to side in his frantic efforts to avoid
the horrible death that menaced him.
My heart stood still. 1t seemed to
me that the room was filled with those
CHASTITY, erect, quivering bodies, with
hooded heads, from which shot forth
tongues of death with unnatural, dis
tended necks.
/ knew now the man whom / loved,
and 1 covered my face with my hands
that I might not see him stricken
down before my eyes. But the awful
fascination of it was greater than my
will. / had to look again. The face
of Harold Waring was covered with
beady perspiration, and in his eyes
lurked grewsome despair.
"The stick !" he gasped, as he
passed the table.
But George Vardon clung to it
despairingly, imploring Harold to
save him at any price, for heavens
sake to save him.
"Oh, you coward" / flung at him.
Then with sudden inspiration /:
"The stick is on the desk, Harold, !"
l cried to him.
He reached the desk in safety,
grasped the stick, and as he. touched
the roller-top desk it flung back.
From the desk two more cobras slid
with dull thud to the ground. Ha-
rold Waring made his way to corner
of the room, and made a last stand
with his back to the wall.
Again and again he beat back the
venomous reptiles with swift cuts of
the stick, or trsmpled upon them with
his heavy boot heels. But the end
was near, and I knew it.
Icould stand it no longer. Snatch
ing the stick from the palsied hands
of George Vardon, / leaped to the
ground and made across the room. I
heard curious whistle, and instantly
every reptile fell suddenly still. The
whistle was repeated, and they began
to crawl toward the box from whence
they had come.
A panel slid aside in the wall, and
my late uncle's valet, Lal Singh,
stood smiling in the opening. He
looked from one to another of us with
a curious light of understanding in
his eyes, as if he appreciated perfectly
the part that each had played in the
scene Just finished. Then he came
forward with his usual obsequious bow
and handed me letter.
took it, swayed uncertainty for a
moment, and pitched forward in
faint. When I came TO myself Ha-
rold was bending over me with face
like chalk. Lal Singh and George
stood back little way, the one still
smiling, the other with twitching
limbs.
tore open the letter and read it.
The signature at the bottom was my
dead uncle's:
Dear Nora.-There can come to
woman no greater misery than to
marry the wrong man. She had
better be in her grave than to find
that the man she has promised to love
and honor is selfish and coward.
From long experience / know that it
would be useless for me to tell you
which of your cousins is man and
which is not, so / have arranged
little test for you to judge them by.
1t is at supreme moments that there
appears the difference between the
coward and the brave man. For that
reason have brought you and them
face to face with such moment. If
the strain has been hard one, re-
member that it has been only on ac-
count of the great love bear you,
and forgive. JAMES WARING.
hsnded the letter to Harold War
ing, and he read it aloud. George
Vardon shrank back in shame, his
breath coming in labored gasps.
When he had finished reading, my
soldier cousin faced me, bnt with
countenance from which all color of
blood had fed.
"And this little test has it
availed, Nora ?" he asked.
There was something in his manner
that forbade me trifle with him.
eyes, l know now," I said. "It
is you love, Harold. F"
He took me in his arms and kissed
me once, and then he put me from
him.
"You will have but short court
ship and sad, long mourning, Nora,
for-I think I am about to die, sweet
heart. I was bitten three times, and
the bite of the cobra is-fatal," he
told me sadly. Then, smiling a little,
"You see, one of us is to die within
an hour after all.'
"Not so, sahib," interposed the
soft voice of Lal Singh. "The fangs
of the cobras had all been removed. !"
W. Mel. r., in illustrated Bits.
If A WOMAN wishes to be very
smart these days she should have all
of her manicure implements, toilet
brushes and clothes brushes mounted