Year: 1872

"She said she would meet me here,
went on Thayer. II don't understand
it,


"My dear fellow" calculated Ayers,
"who among US can pretend to under
stand a woman. They are fearfully
and wonderfully made, that's just the
long and short Of it. Will you have
a cigar ?"


Thayer thanked him, and declined
he preferred that solitude which is
said sometimes to be the best of socie-
ETY.


"What a joke" thought Ayers,men-
tally hugging himself as he went home
II didn't for an instsnt think she
would believe me. It's almost too
good to keep to myself, but if / said
q word the fun would all be up. To
think that she believes that Charles
Thayer has got wife and child all
the time that he's been making such
red hot love to her-it's too good"


And Ayers stopped in the middle
of the street to laugh so hartily that
a policeman eyed him distrustfully,
and two little boarding-school misses
ran breathlessly by him under the i'm
preston that he was that bug-bear
of their youthful years, drunken
man."


Meanwhile the unconscious victim
of this very facetious practical joke
was in his own room tasking his mag
nation to the utmost to think what
he should say to pretty Mary Brooks.


"For of course he told himself, 81
must write to her and apologize for
my stupidity in not seeing her. It's
all my fault should have left Bes-
sic to look after herself, but what is a
fellow to do when his brother-in-law
asks him to hold the badly half min
ute to get the tickets and the evening
papers Moral--don't be too good
natured, or people will be sure to take
advantage of you"


And Charles Thayer took a mono
gram sheet of paper, opened his stan
dish of violet ink, and dipped his gold
pen solcmnly into its purple depths.


If Mary Brooks had only known
what trouble it cost him to compose
that simple little epistle A job of
wood saving would have been easier,
and he could have played half a dozen
games Of croquet or billiards, in the
time it took to express his ideas on
that one sheet of paper with the mon
ogram &c. T." on the top.


Miss Brooks sitting at her needle
work on the cool front piazza, where
various erratic robins were darting in
and out Of the crimson dotted cherry
trees, and the scent of new mown hay
was borne in upon every breeze,
when her little sister Nellie brought
her in the letter from the post office
the letter upon which Mr.. Thayer had
"Miss Mary Brooks" with
so many heart palpitations.


Mary read it all through-the care
fully turned sentences, the studied
phrases, the chosen words in which
Charles Thayer had told her of his
love and asked her to become his wife.
And then she tore the epistle deliber-
ately in two and began to cry.


MARY Why, sister Mary cried
the astonished child, "what's the mat
ter? 2"


And Mary answered nothing "
and then she cried more passionately
than ever.


"To think of his daring to insult
me so ~ she sobbed "but / will an
swer his letter Yes, he shall know
my opinion of him !"


Her reply was short, but not sweet.
This is the way it ran:


"MR. TnAYER Perhaps my best
mothod of resenting your gratuitous
insult would be to write to your wife.
l saw you with her at the depot the
day I left New York, and compre-
hendcd at once the full villany of your
character. Pray do not trouble your
self to respond to this note.


"Yours, in anger and contempt,


MARY Brooks"


The paper dropped from Charles
Thayer's nerveless fingers as he read
the curt, cruel words.


"What on earth does this mean ?n
he asked himself, sorely bewildered


"My wife-the villany of my char.
actcrl What can have put it into
her head that Bessie was my wife p
BY all the fatcs, I'll go to her and at
least defend myself as a man should
who had been unjustly attacked