"Here you, Karl; catch me the young rooster-" She trailed off into voluble German, and we into the orchard, hand in hand.

We soon lost Jim and Elsie, or they lost us; and, at length, after being dragged about from pen to pasture, exhausting every available adjective meanwhile, I was allowed to collapse on the lounge in the kitchen, for which I was properly grateful, not having been very strong since the roundup I had with that bucking, charging Pullman some time before, in which I was not only thrown, but suffered the indignity of being sat on also, so to speak.

Mildred drew up a big wooden chair and violently rocked herself and a much astonished kitten, while she chatted joyfully of all she had seen, and all that she expected to see before she left the farm. We had been offered the parlor, "a fine room,

yes," but after one glance at its dim interior, which was funeral to-night, whatever it might be coaxed into at other times, we had preferred the bright, cosey kitchen. Our hostess and Karl bustled in and out; a great sizzling and many odors from the stove increased our appetites, already ravenous; the table was laid; and Karl had just shyly passed us with a pitcher on his way to the well, when, hearing a startled exclamation, we turned to the opposite door.

On the threshold stood a girl in a faded, shapeless rag of a dress, collarless and nearly sleeveless. A slat bonnet, as characterless as the rest of the outfit, dangled down her back, which, with her disreputable old shoes, completed about the most unattractive get-up it was ever my lot to behold. The swift color flooded her face and neck as she stared at us in dismay,

and she turned as though to go back; but, changing her mind, hurried across the room without a word to us, and disappeared in the pantry. I thought I knew the reason of her distress, and the look of pity in Mildred's eyes confirmed my suspicion.

"Oh, Tom! Why did you look at her?" asked Mildred reproachfully.

I stared at her in astonishment.

"Heavens, Mildred! You don't think-" I began.

"No, you old duck!" The last is the only printable word. "I don't think; but didn't you see how embarrassed she was? and she was real pretty in spite of that awful rig."

"I didn't notice it: I never do when you are around," I returned virtuously; and was rewarded by a beaming, tender look

that merged into one of puzzled doubt, making me very thankful for the precipitous entrance of Jim and Elsie.

It was nearly ten o'clock when Mildred came out on the porch where Jimmie and I were learnedly discussing farm matters with our host, and consuming some of the fiercest "home grown" it was ever my lot to convert into smoke.

"It is time you were in bed, Tom," she announced decidedly; and I immediately rose and picked up my hat. Ever since the accident it has been a pleasing fiction between us that she leads me about by the nose, and bullies me scandalously for my own good. I saw the under jaw of the lordly Schneider sag until it endangered his long china pipe; and heard him mutter "Mein Gott!" in amazement as I followed Mildred into the house like a well-trained poodle; for I had been somewhat assertive in my opinions that night, with no trace of the hen-pecked husband about me. The perfidious James sighed heavily as I left them; and I have often wondered what he told the old Dutchman to cause him to eye me the next morning as though I belonged to another species.

I followed Mildred to a great, bare, immaculate chamber at the front of the house proper.

"Have you decided yet which we are?" I asked as I removed my coat, and hung it on a kitchen chair that had been painted white and had a pieced cushion in the seat. "Why, we're wedding, of course," she replied abstractedly, looking intently at the floor; the dry-goods box, tricked out like a skirt-dancer, that did duty as a dressingtable; then at the walls and windows.

"What are you looking for?" I asked. "Did you ever see anything like it, Tommy?" she cried breathlessly. "Everything is hand-made. See! The spread is knitted; the pillow-cases and curtains have hand-made lace on them; they've painted the furniture, and braided the rugs, and tinted the walls, and

"And even the floor is hand-painted," I put in.

"Yes," she agreed soberly. "And it is all the work of those two poor women. All this labor to save a few dollars; miserly old beast!"

VOL. XLV.-14

I looked at her in surprise. She had dropped into a chair, and, holding a trim little stockinged foot in both hands, was rocking herself to and fro.

"Oh, Tom, Tom!" she continued mournfully, shaking her head. "Mildred, is that tooth aching again?" I asked in alarm.

"No, but my heart is. Tom, I feel wicked for being so happy when even now she's crying her pretty eyes out in that scrap of a closet she sleeps in off the kitchen." She dropped the foot and replaced it with her face.

I supposed she was speaking of the shabby female with the basket of strawberries; and, while I was not discommoded by the stirrings of sympathy, dear, tender-hearted Mildred was incoherent with it; and that was enough for me: I took her in my arms.

"And she thinks she loves him just as well as I do you, Tommy," she whispered fondly in my neck. "And he's so near, but every stitch is locked up-and he's watching her all the time, and—and those old rags most falling off of her—and her feet on the ground." She kissed me back of the ear, and sighed.

"Why don't he look the other way then?" I ventured.

"Who?-Why?" asked Mildred blankly. Then, seeing that she had not made herself sufficiently clear, endeavored to “a round, unvarnish'd tale deliver"; and, though it was all corners and trailing ends, I got the gist of it in time. Robbed of all ejaculations, speculations and osculations the story ran thus:

Elsie had retired early, pleading indigestion-or did she say indisposition, wondered Mildred, wishing to be quite accurate and she, being very lonely, wandered out back of the house in search of the kitten, and found Bertha on a bench in the midst of the milk pails and pans, weeping like Oh! well, like some one she had read about weeping in the midst of well, something; she couldn't just remember what. The poor girl was desperate, and was soon induced to tell Mildred her trouble.

Oh!

It seemed that the gentle Bertha had aspirations beyond spatting around in the mud slopping pigs, and slopping about in the wet feeding chickens. She wanted an

education; and the old grandmother, who could neither read nor write, sympathized with her; and when she, the grandmother, departed this life, left a considerable sum of money for that purpose.

"Jenks's forty we'll buy, alretty," announced Schneider calmly.

"I go mit the school, alretty," announced the fair Bertha.

Then there was-well, say the doctor to pay; for Bertha fell ill of worry and anger-and possibly starvation-for she hinted darkly of bread and water, and barred doors. But, one night, when she intentionally appeared much sicker than she was, the ogre relaxed his vigilance and she escaped.

For four long years she imbibed knowledge at a great seat of learning, returning therefrom, her patrimony spent-Mildred paused here to wonder why it should not be called matrimony, as it was bequeathed by her grandmother-and with an even greater distaste for the afore-mentioned mud and wet and the family's manner of living, generally.

With her knowledge and her distaste, she also brought home a modest diamond, the gift of the very nicest man ever-again Mildred digressed to assure me that she disagreed with Bertha, and to explain the girl's seeming blindness-but, coupled with the niceness was the fact that he was an American, and again her "Paw" balked. She should wed a Jenks, "Py Himmel!" and thereby gain the forty she had lost by her "tam-foolishness, yes!"

She wrote the "nicest ever" that there was no use to try to placate, and then she prepared to vacate. With this end in view, she had donned the rig she now wore on last wash-day, wishing to have her own limited wardrobe clean and fresh when the expected summons came. Unfortunately, it came right in the midst of the "wash"; and her "Paw," with tender, parental interest in her welfare, read it first; locked up every stitch but the one in her back, engendered by the heavy "wash"; then gave her the letter and much profanity.

He, "the nicest ever," read the letter, was camping near Berne, three miles away. Would she not come to him as it would probably save a fight; and before Thursday, as that was the day of departure. "And, Tommy, to-morrow is Thursday!"

concluded Mildred tragically. "Whatever is she to do?"

"I'm sure I don't know," I returned. "But I do know what we must do; we must get to bed right away. It is nearly midnight; and I must be in Berne by seven o'clock to-morrow morning." "Why, Tom!"

"Yes, Karl brought out a telegram from Cunningham to-night, saying that he was going through and would stop off between trains; and I must see him."

"But, Bertha-" began Mildred.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," I said. "Karl will take me in early, and the rest of you can come later. In the meantime, find out where the 'best ever' is camping, we'll see him, and all will be well."

At 8:30 the next morning I had completed a very fair day's work; and, with Cunningham gone, settled myself on the hotel piazza with the morning papers, till, becoming vaguely annoyed by the nervous pacing to and fro of a man on the walk in front of me, I laid down my paper and looked him over. He was a handsome fellow in kahki, tall and well set up; and I wondered what he was doing there till I remembered that it was the time of the annual encampment; and decided that he must be waiting for a train. At length he took himself and his perturbation, whatever it was, to a little park across the street; and I read on till interrupted by the welcome "honk" of the car.

She certainly was a beauty as she swung into view around a curve in the road, the green of the trees along the river accentuating her polished crimson surface, the sunlight reflected from every bit of shining metal. Jim and Elsie were in front; and Mildred, in her red coat, veiled, hooded and goggled-much to my surprise, for I knew how she hated it-sat alone in the tonneau. Dear little girlwoman! Was ever a man blessed with such a wife? so true, so loving, and—as I thought of Bertha-so impulsively tenderhearted.

Jimmie, with a great flourish, brought the car to a standstill before the hotel. I rose and began folding my papers. Elsie turned and solicitously asked Mildred something, and I caught the disquieting word "Tooth"; Jimmie was preparing to alight; when, suddenly we were all struck

dumb and motionless by the action of Mildred. With a muffled cry she sprang from the car and ran madly across the road into the little park, and literally fell into the arms of the perturbed one, who had been giving a continuous performance since 8:30. With a great cry of surprise and joy, his arms closed about the red cloak; hers about the kahki coat; and they kissed each other wildly, over and over again, as though such a thing as a husband and a pair of staring petrifactions did not exist.

Merciful heavens! Was I dreaming? Was I astride a steed conjured up by "fried chicken 'n strawberries 'n-?" No, it was all too real. Elsie gave me a furtive, frightened glance; and Jim's face was bewildered and pale.

He, the man who had my wife locked in his arms, suddenly held her off at arm's length, and seemed to be looking her over. I could hear his tender, excited ejaculations, though not the words. Then I grew sort of dazed and giddy, and had to lean against a porch pillar as he snatched her madly to him, and kissed her again and again.

She had no brothers. I knew her halfdozen cousins intimately- Of course it was all right somehow; but, how? I decided to go to her, but found I was very tired; so sat down on the railing instead, and put my arm about the pillar. Jim had not moved, nor had Elsie, except to turn her head toward me. They still stared rigidly. My eyes had involuntarily turned away when I heard a sudden: "Well, I'll be damned!" from Jimmie, and, even then, wondered dully why Elsie did not expostulate.

I looked up. The red coat and the kahki were arm in arm now, as though they'd never be parted more; they were advancing toward us, and-the face, from which the veil and goggles had fallen, was not Mildred's, but Bertha's.

"Quick!" called Elsie shrilly as the landlady appeared in the door. "Oh! bring us some water, quick; we're choking with thirst." But I seemed to be the only one that drank any when it came. Jim stood by with his hands in his pockets, swearing unrebuked, and Elsie fluttered about me, neither asking a question, which shows what thoroughbreds they are; but they looked mighty puzzled.

"I tell you, old man," Jim complained;

"you can't stand being up till twelve, and getting up at five."

Then the couple arrived, and introductions and explanations were as plentiful as kisses had been a moment before. I never saw a more surprised pair than were Jim and Elsie, who had not known till then that so sweet a creature as Bertha Schneider graced the earth.

"Oh, Mr. Marsden!" cried Bertha tremulously; "your wife is an angel!"

"So would I have been in another minute," I returned ruefully.

"And I thought that veil hid a toothache," declared Elsie, squeezing Bertha's arm.

"Something I've always dreaded, but wouldn't mind having right now," interpolated James, looking intently into the cloudless sky. Elsie frowned; and I, strangely weak as to knees and shaky as to hands; but determined, clambered into the car. Bertha shed the red cloak and laid it across my lap; and a look of even greater admiration—if that were possible-leaped into the "nicest's" eyes as they rested on the trim, gray-clad figure.

"There's your train!" I called as I started. "Jimmies, you had better go on to the city with them, and help them get properly yoked." Then I let her out; and the way I wove a crimson streak into that landscape was a caution. I grew more uneasy about my blessed girl every minute. What might not old Schneider have done to her if he had discovered the ruse?

"Mil-Bertha?" I gasped as I ran across Mrs. Schneider placidly churning on the back porch.

"Mit the strawberry patch, alretty. But, mein Gott! her Pop”

I heard no more, for I was already halfway down the hill. It was fearfully hot and the sun beat mercilessly down on the "patch." She was not used to such labor and exposure. What if Then I saw her; a faded, ragged, drooping blot against the vivid green.

"Mildred!" I cried as I paused, panting and breathless, beside her. She threw back the old bonnet with a startled cry and raised a pitiful face, the color of her stained fingers from heat and weariness. I drew her stiffly to her feet, and she clung to me in a perfect abandonment of joy and relief; and, be it said in passing, that not once did.