Year: 1873

became his wife. Darling he wrote,
I am rich, and Matte shall come 20
us as soon as you viii. Tell me where
to meet you, and / wiz have clergy
man ready TO make you my wife.
Trust your life to me, Edith, and you
shall never regret it, Matte. wrote
/. him q letter, appointing a time and
place of meeting. went there He
did not come. Three days went al
|, most hourly to the gate post for some
word of explanation None came;
I and when next heard from Seaton,
Douglass had gone away.p
J "WithOut writing ?"


without one word. He had writ
ten that the letterI told you of was
his last appeal. Il have urged you so
often he wrote, that if you do not
reply iavOrably to this, / shall know
that IL is eoquetry, not love, that
makes you smile upon me-"
"CoqGetry W said Matte, disdain-
fully. "As if you ever knew the
meaning of the word ~


probably he repented, Matte, and
thought poor country girl would not
grace his city home. But whatever
his motive was, he left me, and con-
7 less cDIlAlh lEOIl luGGLillS


"Certainly you do. will not urge
you to stay now, dear, but after we
return from Newport, whereI suppose
Charlie will have Douglass for his
guest, you come home again ."


"We will see, Matte. Let me go
now"


''I am afraid you will find Hill farra
just as horrid as ever"


Just as horrid as ever Edith eonclud-
ed it was after q weeks soiourn at the
dismal farm she had called home dur
ing her childhood. Her uncle did not
domineer quite as much over the dig
nified, stately lady, who came, after
five years of city life, to replace the
Uniformed girl who had left him, but
he was morose and ill-tempered as ev-
er, and the dreary house had no adj
ded charm. Edith found there were
servants to do the churning, baking
and house work she had shared with
Matte, and rambled about the place,
wondering little how many weeks
of ii would suffice to At her for Is
natic asylum.


In one of these ramDies, 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
on the old gate-pOst size had turned
into pOst-office, and she stood list
lessly watching them as they loosened
the earth around it, to lift the rotten
woodwork from its place, The loose
top was gone, and there were wide
cracks in the wooden slab under it,
where the love letters of five years
ago had lain waiting for eager hands
and eyes.


! n Edith felt her heart beating fast, her
4 ayes filling with tears as blow after
blow fell upon the hollow post, crack
ing and bending it, till it fell to the
ground, just as the noon-day bell
called the men to dinner.


When the curious eyes that might
have seen her were safely indoor, con-
templatiDg meat and vegetables, Edith
went close to the old post, and looked
into the hole where it had stood for so
many years. In the damp, dark
earth she saw folded paper, evident
lY shaken from the hollow post by the
recent blows. A strange, suffocating
feeling held her fast for a moment,
then she stopped, reached over and
secured the letter. 1t was not q dain-
ty missive, such as she sent to New
port, for it was not easy for her TO
find scented paper and tinted envel-
opes at Hill farm. It was q sheet of
coarse letter paper, folded, sealed and
stamped with a thimble top, directed
ina round, girlish hand to Douglass
Fisher; the letter she had written to
appoint time and place for an elope-
ment-the letter he had never seen,
that in her hurry and agitation she
must have slipped through one OF the
wide cracks down into the hollow
post.


She opened it carefully, her heart
pitying even then the simple girl who
opened her whole loving soul to her
lover. The very words were so differ
ent from those she would use now.
No polished courtesy of address, no
polite evasion of the tender questions,
but q frank, girlish outpouring of her
happy consent to leave her hard, Bit
ter 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 a
rare event to see her show emotion in
any way, and Charlie had wondered
more than once at his Cousins admi-
ration of her statuesque beauty.


But as she read now the secret of
her lovers apparent fickleness, the
record of her own young heart, the
tears fell fast upon the yellow, stained
sheet, and sO6s shook her whole form.


There was no one to see 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 the
sound of a fOo.step turn from the road
! into the narrow lane leading to the
farm house. In moment it would
be at the gate. She sprang to her feet
and faced q tall, heavily bearded man,
who paused for a moment, looking
searchingly into her face only for a
moment, 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 how she had found it. &
! 'sMattie told me all, ~ he said, land
1 came on at once. Oh, Edith, it
seems too much happiness now to
i find you still single, still my own"
| Charlie and Matte were fully pre-
pared for the truants at Newport, and
! the autumn collected a concOurse of
dear friends to witness a grand we'd
ding, few saspecting the previous
| cOurtship of the handsome couple who
] were united after long years.