Year: 1877

of his clothes, and, softly opening the
door of the room, went across the ball
and down the stairs to the ground-foor.
It was quite dark, but he found his way
easily, having a good topographic in
stinct. From the lower hall he entered
the dining-room, and from that the libra
ry. The sea-coal fire in the CRATE was
still Pickering brightly, Illuminating the
sumptuously-furnished room with a faint,
soft glow of peculiarly rich effect.


There on the table his ring glittered
in the fitful freight, and, as he slipped
it on his finger, he felicitated himself on
his successful enterprise. The room was
so charmingly cozy that he felt it would
be sin not to inger awhile. So, throw
ing b imself ON sofa before the CRATE,
he fe into delightful reverie.


Just there, in that chair, Angie had
sat during the evening, and there he
pictured her again, finally going and
leaning over it in a caressing attitude,
fondly cheating himself. Over there
had sat Mrs. McLane, and the chair
back at once transfxed him with two
critical eyes, till he was fain to look away.
The brothers were there, and there.


Bob chuckled with cozy sense of sur.
Righteousness as he thought how they
would stare could they see him now.
The subtle pleasure of clandestine things
is doubtless partly the exaggeration of
the personality which takes place as the
pressure of other minds is withdrawn.
To persons of Bob's sensitive mental at
mosphere that pressure is painful when
such minds are hostile, and often irksome
even when they are friendly, if not IN
perfect accord. So that now it was with
positively yoluptuous sensation that
his personality expanded till it filed and
felt the whole room.


1 The fire burned, and busily few the,
shuttles of his fancy, weaving once again
the often-varied patterns of the future.
Those shuttles had little leisure nova
days, for all the web must be unraveled
and rewoven, that through it all might
run the golden thread of Angles love.
How rarely did it light up the fabric, be-
fore so dull and dark


The bronze mantle-clock sounded with
silvery tinkle the hour of two, but the
sound fell apparently unheeded on the
ear of the dreamer. 1t was full minute
before the impression reached his mind.
There are times when the thoughts
throng SO that each new sensation has to
take its place in the cue and wait its turn
to get attention. Then he stirred and
reused himself, emerging reluctantly
from the warm, voluptuous atmosphere
of imagination, as one leaves an enerva-
ting bath. He had been lying thus a
full hour, and it was high time to return
to bed. He left the library and started
across the dining room with hasty step,


Perhaps long gazing at the fire had
dazzled his eyes, or perhaps his haste,
together with an undue confidence in his
skill in navigation by dead-reckoning,
rendered him less careful than when he
bad come down. However that may be,
q light stand which he had easily avoided
then, he now blundered fully upon.


Everybody knows that when one stubs
the toe in the dark, instead of delivering
the blow when the foot is moving slow
est, at the beginning or the end of the
step, it always happens so that the toe
strikes with the maximum momentum.
So it was this time.s If Bob had been
kicking football he could not have made
a nicer calculation of force, and the shock
sent the stand completely over.


It would have made noise enough any
how, but it must happen that on this
stand the family silver was laid out for
breakfast, and the clangor was similar to
that of Apollo's silver bow, what time
he let fly at the Grecian host before Troy.


Bob stood paralyzed with horror.
Even the anguish of terribly stubbed
toe was forgotten in an overpowering
sense of the awful mess he had made,
and the unimaginable consequences that
would at once ensue. As the hideous
clangor and clatter rang through the
house, shattering its sacred silence, he
shrank together and made himself small,
as if he could impart a sympathetic
shrinkage to the noise. The racket to
his own ears was splitting enough, but
he felt, in addition, as if he heard it with
the ears of all the family, and he wilted
before the conception of the feelings
that were at that moment starting up in
their minds toward the unknown cause
of it.


HIS first rational idea was, to bolt for
his room, and gain it before any one was
fairly roused. But the shock had SO
scattered his wits that he could not at
once recollect his bearings, and he
realized, with indescribable sensations,
that he was lost. He consumed precious
humping himself all about the
room before he found the right door.


AS he reached the foot of the staircase,
voices were audible above, and lights
were cleaning down. His retreat was
cut off; he could not get back to his
room without being discovered. He now
the voice of Mrs. McLane
in an agitated tone entreating somebody
to be careful and not to get shot, the
gruff voices of the brothers responding,
and then their steps rapidly descending
the stairs. Should he go up and take
the risk of volley while announcing
himself? It would make a pretty tab
leau. Presenting himself in such guise
and under such circumstances, what sort
of q reception could he expect from John,
who treated him with undisguised con-
tempt in the drawing room, and whose
study it was to place him at disadvan-
tage? He might have hesitated longer,
but at this moment the voice of Angie,
crying down to her brothers to be care
full, decided him. He could not face her
under such terribly false circumstances,
and without his wig.


All this took place far quicker than [
can write it. The glimmer of the de-
lamp already shone dimly in
the hall, and Bob frantically looked