Year: 1872

Without one word, He had written that
the letter told you of was his last appeal.
i have urged you 30 often, he wrote, that II
you do not reply favorably to this, shall
Know j. Is coquetry, not love, that makes
you smile on me


'Coquetry !" cried Matte disdainfully.
"As II you ever knew the meaning of that
word ~


Probably he repented, Matte and thought
poor country girl would not grace his city
home. But whatever his motive, he left me,
and l confess shrink from meeting him."


certainly you do, and will not urge you
20 stay now, dear, but after we return from
Newport, where suppose Charlie will have
douglas for his guest, and you will come
home again ?"


''We will see, Matte Let me 90 now"


u am afraid you will find Hill farm Just
as horrid as ever"


just as horrid as ever Edith concluded Il
was, after weeks sojourn at the dismal
farm she had called her home during her
girlhood. Her Uncle did not domineer quite
as much over the dignifed stately lady who
came, after five years of city life, TO replace
the uniformed girl who had left him, but be
was morose and ill-tempered as ever, and
the dreary house had no added charm. Edith
found there servants TO do the churning,
baking and housewOrk she had shared with
Matte and rambled about the place, wonder
ing little how many weeks of II would suf-
flee to fit her for lunatic asylum.


In one of these rambles, two weeks after
her arrival, she came upon a group of men
who were repairing the tumble down fences
and rickety gates about the place. They
were at work upon the old gate post she had
turned into post-oflice, and she stood list
lessly watching them as they loosened the
earth around 1t, to lift the rotten woodwork
from its place. The loose top.was gone, and
there were wide cracks in thesswooden slabs
under 1t, where the love-letters of five years
ago had lain waiting for eager hands and
eyes.


Edith felt her heart beating fast, her eyes
filling with tears, as blow after blow fell
upon the hollow post, cracking, bending 1t /;
till 1t fell to the ground, Just as the noon-day
bell called the men to dinner.


When the curious eyes that might have
seen her safely within doors, contemplating
meat and vegetables, Edith went close to the
old post, and looked into the hole where 1t
had stood for so many years. In the damp,
dark earth; she saw a folded paper, evidently
shaken from the hollow post by the receIt
blows. A strange, suffocating feeling held
her fast for moment, then stopped, reach





a dainty missive, such as she sent to New
port, for 1t was not easy for her to find scent
ee paper and tinted envelopes at Hill farm.
1t was a sheet of coarse letter paper, folded,
sealed and stamped with "a thimble-top, di-
rected in round, girlish hand to Douglas
Fisher the letter she had written TO appoint
time and place for an elopement-the letter
he had never seen, that in her hurry and agi-
tation she must have slipped 1t down through
one of the wide cracks down into the hollow
post


She opened it carefully, her heart plying
even then the simple girl who opened her
whole loving soul to her lover. The very
words were so different from those she would
use now. No polished courtesy of address,
no polite evasion of the tender question, but
frank, girlish !outpouring of her happy con-
sent to leave her hard, bitter life, and accept
the sunny future her lover promised her
Edith was cold, impassive and stately in the
days when she shared her sisters happy
home. 1t was rare event to see her show
emotion in any way, and Charlie had wonder
cd more than once at his cousins admiration
of her statuesque beauty.


But as she read now the secret of her low
er's apparent fickleness, the record OF her
own young heart, the tears fell fast upon the
yellow, stained sheet, and sobs shook her
whole form, There was no one to see her,
no one to hear her, and she knelt down by
the fallen gate-post, and wept for her own
lost youth and broken hopes.


She was still kneeling there, the open
letter In her hand, when she heard footstep
turn from the road into the narrow lane lead
ing to the farm house. In moment il would
be at the gate. She sprang to her f=et and
faced a tall, heavily bearded man, who
paused for moment, looked searchingly in
to her face-only for a moment, and then he
opened his arms.


Edith !" he said, in deep, tender tones,
81 never saw your letter !"


She was resting against his breast as she
put it now into his hand, and told him how
she had found it.


"Mattie told me all, ," he said, and came
on at once. Oh, Edith, 1t seems too much
happiness now to find you still single, still my
own !"


Charlie and Matte were fully prepared for
the return of the truants to Newport, and the
autumn collected concourse of dear friends
to witness grand wedding, few suspecting
the previous courtship of the handsome cou-
q