autumn waked up the young people to a sense of the beauty of dances and candypullings, causing them to drive long distances to country places or to neighboring settlements, to find a sufficient amount of

amusement.

Of course Mrs. Grundy waked up, too, and while allowing them to have the most unquestioned freedom, the gossips kept a viciously strict account of the young people's fallings from grace, and especially were their eyes fixed on Letty Tobin, Nick's wife.

That Letty was beautiful, no one denied, and her marriage to Nick Tobin had been an astonishment to all who knew her. Nick himself had been somewhat surprised, for up to the moment of her acceptance she had treated his loyal service as something of a joke, giving all her favors to other young men, especially to Loftus Beesley, who, for Greenville, was rich.

Nobody understood this sudden change of front, and all prophesied that the marriage would never take place. But it did, and in his love and gratitude Nick swore that if love and devotion could.make Letty happy she should never have cause to repent her choice. And work he did, even Letty's mother declaring that he "spoiled the girl to death.”

As Nick " travelled" for a firm in a neighboring city, he could be very little at home, which was declared to be "unfortunate," especially as Letty lived alone, declining even the company of her own sisters, who, doomed to the country, would have been very glad of a change to town.

Nick's comings and goings were uncertain also, but he came home as often, and stayed as long as possible, meanwhile leaving to his cousins, Ben and Reub Seelye, the care of his wife and his home.

They had been married for a year now, and Nick had not yet entirely recovered from his surprise at his luck, for, besides being a modest fellow, his mind was as slow as his temper was quick. But when this first cold snap came, and all the young people of the town waked up to the delights of this weather that was so ideal for merrymaking, Nick was away, and Ben Seelye found himself very unhappy about his cousin's wife and about the talk that was so rife concerning her.

There was nothing that he could have proved, and yet he knew, and every one else knew, that things were not as they should be, and that Loftus Beesley was the man.

One morning Ben walked into Squire Kayley's office, pale, and somewhat breathless.

"What's up?" the Squire asked at once, not even suggesting that his visitor should be seated.

Ben held out a telegram. "Nick's coming," he said, "and Letty's not here." "Where is she?"

"We all drove over to Pinehollow last night to a candy-pulling," Ben explained, "and some of us stayed over all night at Colonel Bolles's; but this morning when I reached town I found that Letty had not come. She and Loftus left Bolles's a little ahead of me, and took the road home, so that I felt safe, but John Brewin says that she and Loftus turned off on the Valley Creek pike, and told him to tell me they'd be back by five o'clock-and-and Nick is 'most here now!"

"Well? " queried the Squire.

"Well, it'll be death to somebody," Ben answered.

The Squire walked about a little bit with his hands in his pockets, then paused to look out of the window.

'It shall not come to that," he said at last; "there's no harm in the girl's going to a picnic; and if you'll meet Nick and tell him about it quietly, it'll be all right."

"If it was any other fellow but Loftus," Ben answered.

"Is Nick jealous of Loftus?"

I don't know, but Loftus is so careful when Nick's at home, that it makes a fellow think, an' when Nick's away, not a day passes but he sees Letty."

"And I've known that girl since she was a child," the Squire said, as if to himself, again pausing to look out of the window; after a moment he turned-" If she comes at five," he continued, "we can smooth it, but a girl who deceives her husband systematically may not come home at five." Ben groaned.

The Squire sat down again, and there was silence in the little office until the Squire roused himself with a deep sigh.

"Well," he said, "you go and meet Nick and explain things as lightly as you can,

and if she does not come at five you bring Nick here; I'll be here late this evening;' and Ben went off.

struck nine-then ten-then the Squire sent Reub Seelye out to the house of Letty's mother, to see if she was there.

It was a long ride, and until Reub returned, after midnight, the Squire managed to keep Nick quiet, but when a negative answer came Nick was almost beside himself, and Squire Kayley had to compromise, giving up the point that Nick must

stead, that he should pack all Letty's belongings, and in the morning send them to her mother's house and, leaving Ben Seelye to meet the couple, come to Squire Kayley's place outside the town. For at any cost, Nick and Loftus must be kept apart.

"Don't receive her," he said, "but give her a chance to clear herself."

"And Loftus?" Nick snarled between his teeth.

"What's Loftus done?" the Squire asked "Letty's not the kind to be lednor driven."

"If Loftus blames her I'll kill him."

"No, we are not going to have any bloodshed," the Squire went on; "if you can't hold yourself, I'll hold you. can't do any better I'll put you in jail."

If I

Nick laughed long and loud, then burst. into tears "I love her so!" he cried, "I love her so!"

"Of course you do," his mentor answered. "And first thing you know it'll be all right."

Daylight found Reub Seelye with Letty's trunks, being driven out to Mrs. Purdy's; Squire Kayley and Nick on their

"Not at all," the Squire returned; "you must give her every chance to clear herself; she's young, and beautiful, and fond of admiration and gayety, and that kind of woman has a thousand temptations that a quieter kind never dreams of. She had the choice of every unmarried man in this town-" the Squire hesitated a moment, then added—" even of your humble servant, and out of all she selected you

Nick turned quickly "You, too, Squire?" he asked.

The Squire nodded. "And I love her enough still," he added, " to insist that justice be done her."

The evening wore on.

a note in his pocket, and the key of Nick's house, on his way home to breakfast.

But, alas! as the day wore on and Ben did not come with news of Letty's arrival, Nick became almost wild; then the Squire tried to soothe him into quiet with talk of a divorce.

"You think she's too far gone to shed blood for," Nick said at last, his voice grown low and weak from weariness"that's what you said about that other woman at the North; you want me to sue Loftus for his money, and let him have Letty? Great God !"

"Do you want her?”

"But Loftus," Nick reiterated, "leave

"Humanity's strange," the Squire began, slowly, "let 'em have what they want, and ten to one they don't want it. Letty belongs to you, and that makes her the one thing on earth that Loftus wants. You belong to Letty, and that cheapens you in her sight. Let her go-that minute your value will double, and like Esau she'll shed many and bitter tears for what she threw away. Let her go; and Loftus will wonder what it was that made him so crazy. There's nothing makes a man feel so Godforsaken as to be left to follow his own evil courses-as to say to him 'You've hurt me beyond help-take what you've been striving for and go your way'-and right then and there the tip-top apple on the tree that he's been fighting for turns to dust and ashes in his mouth, and he can never-never-never get you and your maimed life out of his heart. But just lift one finger to revenge yourself, and you lift the burden from his heart on to your own. Let 'em go, boy, wash your hands clean of 'em, and after awhile peace will come to you-peace such as you've never dreamed of.

But not to them, they'll have entered on a new lease of tribulation-for 'what ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.' I'm not much of a preaching Christian," he went on in a lower tone, "but there's one thing I've read in Scripture-just a few words Are not all these things writ

ten in Thy book ?'"

Nick sat silent, his arms crossed on the table and his head bowed on them. No food had passed his lips, and he was faint and weary, and for a little while he seemed to see as Squire Kayley saw, and so he fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion.

Just as the sun was setting Ben Seelye rode slowly into the yard and around to the stable, and the Squire stepped out very carefully, so as not to waken Nick.

"She's come," Ben said, " an' when she read the note she laughed a little, then she turned right white, and gave it to Loftus-" "And Loftus ?"

"He looked like a rooster with his tail feathers pulled out, an' said he thought he'd better leave town for awhile, and then he looked at me and sorter straightened up, and asked Letty- What do you want me to do?' an' she said Leave town,' then he turned to get into his buggy, an' I told him he'd better drive Letty out to

her

mother's, 'cause the servants were gone an' the house locked up, an' all Letty's things were out there waitin' for her. It was pretty bad; but they did what I said, an' I rode my horse right behind 'em through the town, an' every body stared, an' nobody spoke, not even Uncle Adam Dozier. It was bad. Loftus leaves at seven o'clock, if Nick 'll only sleep till then."

Never in the annals of Greenville had there been such excitement as when Nick Tobin sued Loftus Beesley for alienating his wife's affections.

The whole town and county-men, women, and children-rose in a solid, clamoring body against Squire Kayley. Women who had often torn poor Letty's character into ribbons now rallied around her, declaring that to bring a woman into such unheard-of publicity, into court, subjecting her even to the evidence of her negro servants, was to destroy not only all the old and time-honored customs, but to subvert society.

Uncle Adam proclaimed that any man in Nick's position who did not shoot his rival was a coward, and that if Squire Kayley had not meddled, it would all have been arranged as of old; Loftus decently buried and his money left to his family, Nick could have come back, and everybody would have been his friend; and Letty-well, Letty would have been a "grass widder" with a bad name. Now, Squire Kayley's methods had turned the two sinners into hero and heroine, and the injured man had become an object of pity and contempt, who deserved all he got !

Every sort of compromise was suggested, but Squire Kayley was determined to teach a lesson once and for all to his native town, and he did it. An awful, searching, withering lesson that revealed to mothers, and fathers, and brothers the perilousness of the liberty which they accorded their young daughters and sisters; which revealed to the women the views of themselves as given in the talk of the men who formed their society; which revealed to the men their own unloveliness as seen by purer eyes and an unanswerable logic; an awful, withering lesson that was as if the whole town had been driven into the palace of truth, there to endure a day of terrible judgment.

Through it all Squire Kayley kept Nick