Year: 1877

she was full of tender sympathy, sh,
was eminently practical, and with clear
fore ible words she made him realiz,
fully how unworthy was the idol hi
had worshiped.


With her own personal property sh,
had also brought Gilbert's from
their old home, and she took hous,
in New York, where they both soor
felt at home, returning no more t,
Fern Nook. Then, with true practica
kindness she persuaded Gilbert to allow
her to buy him a partnership in light
business, and reused him from hi
dreamy, sensitive moods, to active, ma
tural life.


He might have become soured and
hard, but for the love of this old maid
who had never before let him read the
tenderness of her heart. But, while he
suffered keenly, his manhood developed
and he was stronger, better man fol
his disappointment.


When Myra's name ceased to be q
torture, Aunt Jane made herself known
to old friends of her girlhood, and gath
cred about her pleasant, social circle,
where Gilbert was soon a favorite.
There was no hint of the spinster's hope
when she said very quietly:


"Any attention you can pay TO Ella
Rayburn, will be very pleasing to me,
Gilbert. Her mother has been my warm
est friend in past years. and we have re-
newed the old times most pleasantly.
If Ella is like her mother she is pure,
sweet, unselfish woman"


Sand Ella was like her mother, and
was soon taken into Aunt James closest
intimacy.


Still smsrting under the past pain,
Gilbert was merely attentive to his
sunt's young friend, and not yet realiz-
ing that a reality filling his old idea
was near him.


And while these old residents of Fern
Nook were quietly gathering up broken
threads of life, to weave a more perfect
web of content, Myra Gorham was eat
ing out her heart in bitterness. Instead
of an old, indulgent husband, ready 10
humor every whim, TO give her idola-
trous devotion, she found herself tied
to querulous invalid, who had been
accustomed to the unquestioning obe-
dience and devotion of his daughter and
grandson, and who exaeted similar
care from his reluctant wife. In place
of balls, concerts and operas, the gay
life of the metropolis, Mrs. Gorham
found herself shut up in country
house, certainly sufficiently handsome
and well appointed to meet the most
fastidious taste, but lonely beyond en-
durance to the woman miles away from
her own friends, and coldly ignored by
the friends of the Gorhams, fully aware
of her mercenary treachery.


Yet she endured it as patiently as
possible, till the old man. pining for
Jane and Gilbert, sickened and failed
visibly.


1t was when ali hope was gone, that
the young wife cautiously but very
plainly urged the necessity of making
will. 1t seemed TO her as if all the
misery of life concentrated in the peev-
ish reply:


81 have nothing to will. All the
property belongs to Jane! / only hold
a life lease on my late wife's estates"


Janet" gasped Myra, remembering
the insulting terms in which she had
intimated to that spinster that she pre-
ferred to reign alone at Fern Nook.


Certainly. If Gilbert's father had
lived he would have shared in the prop
erty, but 1t all reverts to Gilbert if Jane
dies unmarried"


All Gilbert's and might have been all
Lers.


Myra felt too stunned and miserable
even to cry! To think that all her base
scheming, her feigned devotion had led
her only to this, the beggared widow of
an old man.


But after the funeral was over Mrs.
Gorham made few discoveries. First,
all the deep black of her dress, with the
fine white line of her widows cap, the
sombre Grape and soft snowy tarletan
were most becoming to her brilliant
blonde beauty. She studied her dress
to its minutest detail, and when it was
perfect, formed her new plans. In her
late husbands desk she found five
thousand dollars which she appropria-
ted, leaving Miss Jane and Gilbert, who
came to the funeral, TO defray all the
expenses. She accepted Miss Gorham's
offer of the use of the house for year,
and when she was left in possession un-
scrupulously sold many small but valu-
able articles there.


When the year was over, and Miss
Jane Gorham once more opened her
house to her friends, she was mute with
one day when a carriage
heavily laden with baggage, drove up
60 her door, from which aiighted her
fathers widow, who threw herself into
her arms, sobbing:


"Do not send me away. l am dying
in the gloomy seclusion of my dear
husbands home. Let me stay with
you!'' i


She stayed, of course. Miss James
notions of hospitality
were too strong to permit her to turn
guest away. even If uninvited and un-
welcome. But she smiled grimly to see
how Gilbert's face fell at the announce
ment of the visitor.


''She is my fathers widow" the
spinster said gravely. $50 we must
endure her for time"


She was a most fascinating widow
when she appeared at the late dinner,
in a thin black dress, all jet anc srim-
ming, with some knots of black ribbon
in the profusion of her golden curls.
Her color was softly tinted as ever,
her blue eyes as babyish and winsome;
yet, when the first evening was over she
knew she had gained nothing i'm her