Year: 1874

fickleness Of Ewes fair daughters, and


was corespondingly elated upon the


happy occasion of their benignant
condescension. He made money in
the mines, and kept it-enough to at


tract the attention of women Of uncer
tain age. He had in its incipient
state, the friendly spirit which takes
in its embrace the back of its victims
chair in public places-than which,
says the modest girl, there is nothing
more excruciating in the catalogue of


social offences. In fact, he possessed
in high degree, the ''makings' of a
first-class society nuisance but the
"unspiritual god, Circumstance" had
debarred him from the attritions of
that reflner Of mind and manners, and
left him an untutored blunderer. He
had many virtues, good habits, busi-
ness integrity, and a kind heart but
his negative virtues and negative vi
ces were so evenly distributed that
he could arouse no active feeling in
the human breast. Neither loved nor
hated, he stood on that battle-ground
so extensively occupied by that ban d
Of Natures unhappy creations-good
men and women ; a name unanimous
ly agreed upon by the world as appro-
pirate for beings with neither virtues
nor vices.


The hopeful eye of the humanitari-
an see in the dim future of million
years hence new order of things,
when courtship and marriage will
be made easy and agreeable by
the classification of men and women.
Obadiah Fuller should have deferred
his coming until that time. But
could it have been possible for him,
by the light OF science or otherwise,
to have found the woman to whom
his attentions were acceptable and his
courting not obnoxious, from what
disastrous experiments he would have
been saved Doubtless there was such
an one somewhere; and Jane Springer
might be she, as, upon gala day, he
Invited her to the country-seat.


They started in the early morning.
Jane in her neat-ftting riding habit,
looking younger and fresher than was
her wont. A housekeeper in the La
rue Hotel, this opening-day held with
in its hours two possibilities for her
a pleasant ride, and a proposal. Should
the latter come she resolved to accept
it. 1t did come. Everything con-
spired to make it easy, and it was
made far less awkwardly than Jane
had imagined possible from Obadiah.
The hand and heart were accepted
not with unseemly haste, but with
good feeling and womanly delibera
ton. The country-seat reached and
they made various purchases, dined,
and were about starting for home.


"Obadiah p


"Well, Jane"


"Have you got everything asked
Jane.


"Everything can think Of" said
he.


'Think again, Obadiah" with a
little tinidity.


81 can't think unless its cooking
stove"


"No, Obadiah it's the license"


'Iicense ?"


eyes, the marriage license"


With more alacricity than he usual
ly exhibited, he dismounted, and pro
cured that necessary document. 1t
was late in the afternoon when they
finally started. Everything had gone
well. They were in delicious DALI
ance with the last half of happy day,
and on the return of a memorable trip.
AT the moment when Obadiah exhib-
tied his lack of dispatch in business
as to the license-when Jane was
forced to stand forth in the unnatural
light of an impatient finance-through
her soul there crept the shadow of a
doubt as to the eternal fitness of
things. Later, the doubt took the
awful proportions of a dead certainty.
Obadiah announced, just at dark, that
in his opinion they had taken the
wrong trail, and were lost but that
likely, they would soon strike the
right one. He was the first man to
whom Jane had ever pinned her faith,
and she determined to enjoy to its
fullest extent the womanly luxury of
being rescued from the dangers of this
night by him.