Year: 1873

in just the same way? l "I looked back. Tom was on the ground, had picked up his whip, and : had one foot in the stirrup, ready to r mount again. I gulped down my heart , that was up ill my throat, and spoke out

 : "'Sarah, will you marry me?' l Philip, she turned her eyes again , toward me-those large brown eyes,

 those holy eyes-and blessed me with : their unutterably glorious gaze. To my dying hour I shall not forget that gaze , to all eternity it will remain in my soul. ) She looked at me one look and whether 1t was pity, sorrow, surprise, or love, l can not tell you, that filled them and overfowed toward me from out their immeasurable depths but, Philip, it was the last light of those eyes I ever saw-the last, the last.

 'Is there any thing left in that bot tie? Thank you. Just glassful. You will not take any? Then, by your leave, l will finish it. My story in nearly ended, and I will not keep you much longer.

 "We had not noticed, so absorbed had we been in our pleasant talR, that black cloud had risen in the west and OOoOuAC CO U11C Oll111 duSl CONCICu GIl6 Cu- tire sky; and even the sultry air had not called our attention to the coming thunderstorm.

 "As she looked at me, even as she fixed her eyes on mine, a flash, binding and fierce, fell on the top of pine tree by the roadside, not fifty yards from us, and the crash of the thunder shook the foundations of the hills.

 For moment all was dazzling, burning, blazing light; then sight was gone, and momentary darkness set tied on our eyes. The horses crouched to the ground in terror, and Sarah bowed her head as if in the presence of God.

 "All this was the work of an instant, and the next, Toms horse sprang by us on furious gallop, dragging Tom by the stirrup. He had been in the act of mounting when the flash came, and his horse swerved and jumped so that his foot caught, and he was dragged with his head on the ground.

 "There was a point in the road, about fifty yards ahead, where it divided into two. The one was the carriage track, which wound down the mountain by easy descents the other was foot path, which was short, precipitous cut to point on the carriage-road nearly a quarter of mile below.

 "Calling to Sarah to keep back and wait, l drove the spurs into my horse, and went down the steep path. Look ing back, I saw her following, her horse making tremendous speed. She kept the carriage-road, following on after Tom, and I pressed on, thinking to in- tercept his horse below.

 ''The pace was terrible. could hear them laundering down the track above I looked up and caught sight of them through the trees. l looked down, and wide and as many deep.

 "A great horse was that black horse Cesar, and he took the gully at flying leap that landed us far over it, and moment later I was at the point where the roads again met, but only in time to see the other two horses go by at furious pace, Sarah's abreast of the gray, and she reaching her hand out, brave1y horse went leap for leap with him.

 '"To ride close behind them was worse than useless in such case. It would but serve to increase their speed so I fell back a dozen rods and followed, watching the end

 ''At the foot of the mountain the river ran, broad and deep, spanned by the bridge at the narrowest point. To reach the bridge, the road took short turn up stream, directly on the bank.

 "On swept the gray and the black horse, side by side, down the hillside, not fifty leaps along the level ground, and then came the turn.

 ''She was on the off-side. At hesharp turn she pressed ahead half-length | and refined her horse across the gray's shoulder, if possible to turn him up toward the bridge.

 ''It was all over in an instant. The | gray was the heavier horse. He pressed | her close; the black horse yielded, gave way toward the fence, stumbled, and the fence, light rail, broke with crash, and they went over, all together into the deep black stream. >

 ''Still, still the sound of that crash and plunge is in my ears. Still I can see them go headlong down that bank together into the black water

 "I never knew exactly what I did | then. When I was conscious I found | myself swimming around in 8 circle, | diving occasionally to find them, but in vain. The gray horse swan ashore and | stood on the bank by my black, with dlstended nostrils and trembling limbs, | shaking from head to foot with terror. The other black horse was floating down | the surface of the stream, drowned. His mistress was nowhere visible, and | Tom was gone also.

 II found her at last.

 "Yes, she was dead

 Restore her? No. A glance at her face showed how vain all such hope was. l Never was human face so angelic. She | was already one of the .saintly-one of the immortals-and the beauty and glory of her new life had left some faint likeness of itself on the dead form and 1 face.

 "I said I had never grown day older since that time. You know now why. have never ceased to think of her as on that day. I have never lost the bless ing of those eyes as they looked on me 1n the forest on the mountain road, I have never left her, never grown away from her. If, in the resurrection, we are to resume the bodies most exactly fitted to represent our whole lives if, as have sometimes thought, we shall rise in the forms we wore when some great event stamped our souls forever, then l am certain that shall awake in form and feature as was that day, and no memorial will remain of an hour of my life after her burial.

 "We buried her in the old vault close by the house, among the oaks. Beauti- ful to the very last.

 My voice is broken. I can not talk any more. You have the story. That is the whole of it. God bless you, my boy. You have patientl y-to -my-talk.

 "Good-night Go to bed. I'll stay here in this chair a while. I don't -exactly--feel--ike--sleeping--jus just yet.'

 I left him sitting there; his head