Year: 1879

Diet, and strictly fOrbidd n me to eat
any thing else. It's terrible tempting,
Mrs. Tibbons, but the torture of the
penalty is too much for my courage, and
can't give way to it, So, if you please,
lust give me bowl of bread and milk,
and don't think for moment that L
slight your delicious dinner willfully, or
through lack of appreciation"


All of which sounds so nice to Mrs.
Tibbons that she was obliged to be mol
flied, though she did feel a chilling
sensation about the heart, and never
wanted to cry so bad in all her life-but
it wouldn't do. However crushed and
chagrined with modification and dis
appointment she might be, she was too
much the lady to allow the slightest be-
trayal of the same in the presence OF
her guest, and he was also very much OF
gentleman, and withal quite con-
nOisseur in cookery, as his dyspepsia at
tested. Being an excellent talker, and
an adroit dispenser of compliments, he
soon managed to make the little lady
feel that her labor had not been entirely
lost, and she soon entertained feeling
very much akin to that of gratitude to
the young man for having kept his ap-
pointment when it was really undergo
ing very severe penance to do so.


The dinner passed much more pleas
antly than it augured in the outset, and
just as they arose to leave the table, a
sharp ring came from the door-bell, , and
one of the children bounded into the
room, shouting ..


"It's the JansonS!"


And sure enough it was-all of them
children and all-and with them came
also stranger, a handsome young man,
with black curling locks, who brushed
eagerly past the rest and clasped Mrs.
Tibbons in his arms, and kissed her
right square in the mouth, before any
body could say, word, and Tibbons
standing there speeches. with eyes and
mouth wide open with amazement, and
wondering if he was sound asleep and
dreaming, or whether the brandy in the
mince- meat had fuddled his head up so
that he couldn't understand his own
eyes. And then Mrs. Tibbons fell a
crying and sobbing with joy


"Oh, John, you dear boy, little did |
think I'd ever see you again, for |
thought you was dead, John. The pa
pers said 50, and we heard nothing from
you. Where-where have you been all
this while?n


And then Tibbons knew that it was
his wife's brother who had gone to seek
his fortune in the Black Hills, and
whom she had mourned as dead, and in
trying to get to John and get him by
the hand, he tripped over chair and
nearly snapped his knee-cap, but he
scrambled up and never stopped to give
it a thought until he had hugged the
young man, too, and then, after good
deal of talk, in which every body took
a hand at the same time, and nobody
could tell what any body else was say
ing, they all gatl lfred around the table,
and then it all came out how the Jan
sons had got into the wrong street-car,
and gone two miles out of their way,
and had been detained another hour by
by the blockade of the track by the fire,
and then to kill time Mr.. JansOn had
got into a talk with the young man in
the car, and found out that he had been
running all over the city trying to find
his sister, and how surprised they both
were when it accidentally came to light
that it was Mrs. Tibbons he wanted to
see, and that the Jansons were on their
way to her house at that identical mo-
ment. And so he had gone right along
with them, and-well, the result was
that Mrs. Tibbons was the happiest
woman in town that afternoon, and
soon forgot all about Mr.. Menger and
his dyspepsia, her vexations and disap-
pointments of the morning, and
thought only of how grateful and hap
py she was that her long-lost brother
haG been restored to her from the dead,
as you might say, and then as her
husband, with swimming eyes, looked
fondly upon her from the other end OF
the table, and said ...|


"Didn't | tell you, my little woman,
it would all come out right, and so it
has, Susan"


She jumped up and ran to him, be-
fore all the company, threw her arms
around his neck, and said, with a kiss
that meant whole volumes n


"Indeed you did, Hiram, and [ was
foolish to worry as did"