Year: 1878

Lost l Lost in snow storm in the wilds of Northern Michigan, with the painless pine wilderness stretching miles beyond miles, on every side, without guide or compass, my dead horse beside me, and the snow falling so thickly and fast that the sky was dark with the swarming hakesi

 Two months before I had come from New York to Pere Marquette, at the summons of my father, who had been stricken in the midst of business by & malady that eventually made me an orphan girl, with small fortune, but without relative in the world.

 On one stormy winter morning they buried myfather in lonely burial place., among the pines of the Notipecago river, and was left alone. We all know the desolation of the house of death-the sombre windows, the funeral gloom, She mufffed football, and the whispered voices-and most of us, in our dumb anguish, have felt the lowering, unob- trusive presence of sympathetic friends.

 But knew nothing of this. My father had died in woodman's shanty in the depth of the pinery, where he had been stricken down in the strength of his wig orous manhood. The uncouth, but kind and skillful physician remained with me to the very last, and did all that human ity could do for me in my bereavement

 "I don't like to leave you alone to- night" he said to me, after the burial "but I have patient who is lying be- tween life and death in our village. The storm is increasing, and it is bitterly cold; so do not think you had best subject yourself Co the disagreeable ride tonight. will send sledge for you in the morning."

 Dr. Jones lived & mile or two away, at some indefinite (to mel village in the pine forest; and the railroad that ran through the place was to be my route oi travel cityward on the morrow. A few dreary hours passed. Nightfall came, and the ring of the woodman's axe ceased.

 Darkness came, and I knew by the ecundless desolation around me that the woodmen had gone home to their distant cabins.

 was not afraid was accustomed tc the unbroken solitude of the wilderness But then there was a new solitude to pight-the fearful solitude of the hous, through which death had stalked and lef the horror of his presence upon ever, object around. missed, too, the patien figure on the bed in the dim corner, fol whose lessening breath had been won to listen in the watches of the friendles midnight. I lit a candle and put it higl upon dresser, that it's wavering hgh might reach the farthest nook of thi doleful room. Then sat down befor the stove, and tried to think. Life loome, up before me like barren mountain oI which the sunlight fell not, and the bifd sang not, nor the flowers blossomed.

 The new year would come tomorrow One year ago had been so blessed, S happy; now how hopeless, how misera ble was. One year ago Alexis love me, and loved him, and we were be trothed. Then my father had gone o lis fatal Western quest; and littl after she came-that tigerish animal i t.sz sss:.f;:;o:s beauty, who lived deiio tusly and whose smile made men mad

 Alicia Lowering came with her hlar dishments and won the nanny lover for whom she cared less than she did fc the jewel she wore on her breast. An Aletis forgot me; and Alexis rode wit Alicia in her phaeton in the mornings he rode beside her in the afternoon, wit one hand on her bridle rein and his ado ing eyes upon her face; he dined vii her in her luxurious apartment, sup2ed with her when the music VI silent and the dancers were weary tn, sang, and laughed, and loved and VI forgotten.

 For Alexis was drunken with her e chAatm ents. He loved her, and he wou have married her. And then the seuu casie. A shabby, loathsome outls deposed, with the most condemnato proof, that this runaway wife was t pePet1stor of an atrocious crime f