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“Ronald Scotb’s opinion of my proceed- ings in not of vita! importance,” I answer, throwing up my head. "Whether he is planned or displeased matters very Wade 6:) me. I am going up to London on busi- ness which nobody else could manage for “I don't despair but that: youfwill come to your senses some day. and marry him." she says deliberately, getting up from the luncheon-table. “ I think your uncle Todhnnter would die happy If he knew that you were married to such a man as Sir Ronald Scott.” “ Dear aunt Rosa.” I answer gravely. ‘ you cannot: like Ronald better than I do: and what I said to him I said as gogbllas I could.” “Slr Ronald Scott is a. perfect gentleman. What will he think of this freak of yours, Rosalie 7 Do you an pnose he will approve of your going up to London alone like this 7” “ I wish it: were something to you," aunt Ross says a little wistfully. looking at me. “ He lsa. fine fellowâ€"a. true gen- tleman ; and he cares for you, Rosalieâ€" he asked your uncle Todhunter's permis- sion to pay his addresses to you. But; I suppose you snubbed him, as you snubbed all the rest." Aunt RLsa sigha. She would be so glad to hand me over to some good steady man like Ronald Scott, who could keep me in order. She would be so thankful to wash her hands of me and my vagaries, fond as she is of me, once and for ever. “He [3 staying at the hotel your uncle always goes to In London. But I do hope, Rosalieâ€"â€"â€"” “ That I will not do anything unbecom- ing. My dear aunt Rosa. I can be very steadyâ€"when I like ; and I am sure you can trust to the chivalry of your friend SirfRonald Scott." “ Because I could not care enough for him to nlarry hip}. aunfie." me. If he choses'to dinbelieve my {asser- Honâ€"should I feel called upon to make itsâ€"it is nothing to me." ' “Why must you have laid lb at all, child ’2” “ Not unless I should want him, auntie. But it is always well to know the address of a friend in London.” " My dear Rosalie, are you. going to Sir Ronald Scott's hotel in London to call upon him ’1" “ I thinkI was always obstinate, whether uncle Tod spoilt me or not. Aunt Rosa, do you know cousin Ronald's address in town ’2" “ You are very self-wills d, Rosalie. You were always headatrong, alnce you were a baby of three years old. If ever a girl wanted afather or mother to control her. I think you wanted them. As for your uncle Todhunter, if you cried for the moon, he would have tried to get it or you. I often told him he spoilt you and so he did.” Aunt Rosa stares at me. :candalisedâ€" this time overithe Vlfim of her spectacles. “ Indeed I shall do no such thing,” I answer at once. My new maid ls a. wear- lness to me. If old nurse Marjory had not been past work, 1 would never have Installed her in the lodge and hlred this pert French soubretie In her steed. I “ But. my dear child, it is an unheard- of thing for a. girl in your position to go uprrbg lpdginga it} _London 131099;: -“Nobndy need know. And it is not as if Mrs Wauchope were not an old friend ; and I shall only 1‘9 gone a day or two obably. If anything should happen to tain me in town, you may follow meâ€" yon like, and if uncle Tod's cold I: tter." Aunt Rona. does not like the arrange- ment from any yoint of vigy. “ If you go, I shall go with you.” aunt Rosa aaxaAdeclslvely. _ “ Ana leave uncie Tod with that cold on his chest? My dear aunt Rosa, I aa- sure you I am very well able to take care of mlaelfffu “ fou will take Nannette with you, of course 'I" " The Rolleatons are In Denmark ; and 1 don’t: want to catch another fever in Dexter Square.” “ Dear me, I forgot that I" “Not that I am afraid of the fever.” I am bound to add honestly. “ I am not in the least afraid of It ; but I prefer going to Uarleton Street for a great many rea- sons.” “ You have telegraphed to Mrs. Wau- ohopel Do you mean to tell me that you are going up to those dreadful lodging: againâ€"alone ’l" U“ Where else would you have me go aunt Rosa. '1" “You're looking poorly enough still,” “Why. I thought you mlghb be going to Olive Deane. or to the Rolleatona . “Aunt Rosa. Iam going up to London " “ To London I" aunt Rana. repeats, staring at me through her spectacles, aghast. “ Yes. Iam going up on business.” “ But my dear Rosalie, you are not fit. to travelâ€"” “My dear aunt Rosa, it is just what I wantâ€"some variety. I have telegraph- ed to Mrs. Wauchope to have my ad rooms in Carleton Street; ready for me to- morrow. " STRONGER THAN LIFE CHAPTER 1X. (CONTINUED) After the storm, vhe calm. Atber the bruise the balm ; After the pan, the bliss, Abe: the tear. the kisa ; After the battle,â€"rest? The good Lord knoweth best I After the darkness, light, After the andnras. eight; After the den h', b- lief. After the pain. relief ; After the weakness, strength. And the grace of God at ler gth I Afte the quicksandn. clay. Attell.‘ Dem mber, May; After the fever. sleep. Solemn and sweet and deep After the race, ihe prize. And the doors of Paradise I AFTER “For me or for you '2" he asks, his eyes on my white face. “For me. You can be present of 0001'} ll “ I 3mm: you to manage an interview with that; manâ€"Gerard Baxterâ€"who is in “1:11:02 f3: mqrdgring 1315 wfie.” sin “ I have forgotten nothing," he says, amfliyg a llhtle. Mm. IWauchofie nods. Lily Baxter's photograph is in all the shop-windows ; but she does not care to have it. at: all. Early the next morning I transgresa all at:an Rosa’s rules of propriety by taking a cab and driving to my cousin Ronald Scott’s hotel. I find him finishing break- fast, half a dozen business-letters scatter- ed about the table. “I am glad to hear ib,Rosalle." he an swers, standing by the table. 1 have re fused the chair he offered me, with the plea that: my cab wgs waiting below. I sound in the light of Mrs. Wauohope'u mould candle, looking at the phofiograph in my hand. It in a beautiful faceâ€"an exquisite faceâ€"soft and bright and inno- cenu as a child's. “ Ronald,” I say, in my honest fearless way, “ I have come to put a promise you made me to the test." “ Why, they say he was jealous, you know. She was a flighty little thing. and some abriat was painting her picture, and Mr. Gerard didn’t like lb. That was what they were quartelling about on the mornlng of the day it happened.” “ I will keep this for the present, Mrs ngchopi. May I 7" r “ Bu} whit; had her face to do with it. 7" 1 $2896.17- “ Here is the photograph,” Mrs. Wau- chope says, taking something from the table, and wipi‘ng it‘wlplshfn: _blsr_:k apron. “ A pretty- faéa. Isn't it? I've kuo-wn a man to lose his llfe for a face that wasn't: half is prepty gs that"? After ten, Mrs. Wenchope takes me np-stairs. If the studio had had an un- tidy look when I first saw it, it looks like nothing now buta gloomy attic full of lumberâ€"the empty easel pushed into a corner, the unfinished canvass covered thick with grey oobwebs, every chair and table covered inch-deep with dust. “ You are welcome to see them, Miss Allie. The studio is just as he left: iiiâ€"I never even let the bedroom since. You see I had regard for him, having known him no long ; and I thought he would come back to me some day, till I heard he had married that girl." “ 1 wish you would let me see them, Mrs. Wanohope. I shouldn't mind tak- ing some of them 03 your hands. And, if Mr. Baxter ever comes to claim them, you 3m refer him to me." “ Have you seen him since he gave up painting here, Mrs. Wenchope 7" “ Once or twiceâ€"not more than that. I heard he was married ; and I was sorry to hear it, knowing the kind of person he married. There was a great deal of good in him, poor lad; but he was an unstable as waterâ€"he never finished anything. There are upwards of twenty pictures up-etaire, not one of them finished. If they were good, I'd sell rhem to pay up his arrears of rent; but they’re nothing but useless lumber.” A thrill of something very like jealousy of the dead girl, whose photograph Gerard Buxheryhad cared to pin up in his room runs like a neadle through my heart. But what right have I to be jealous of herâ€" the wrexched child who had been his wife? “ Do you think he did it '3" I ask, standing on the rug. My landlady ls busied at the table, with her back towards me ; she does not look round, though I can scarcely keep my voice steady while I speak the six words. “ Oh everybody knows he did it i" “ How can they know ’I" “ But there was no one else to do It.” “ That proves nothing.” “ Oh, but he was heard to threaten her 1 And then the stories he made up I And I believe she was a flighty ltttle thing, and to pretty for her station in life. Those painters had spoilt her, for ever painting,r her picture. It was only the other day I found her photograph up in his studioâ€"pinned to the wall.’I “Isn’t. this a terrible business about) poor Mr. Baxter '1” she remarks presently. “ i never got such a turn in my life as when I saw all about ii: in the paper. and such a young lad as he is too ; and I believe she was a little more than a child!" .Mrs. Wenchophe is truthful, if she is not complimentary. Glancing at myself in the sea- green depths of the mirror over the mantelpiece. I am forced to ac- knowledge thet I do look ten years older than when I last saw myself refitcled be- tween the tall vases of imitation Bohem- ian glass which grace the mantelshelf. In deference to aunt Rosa's old-fashioned notions, and for other reasons, I have en- deavored to give myself as staid an ap- pearance as possible, wearing the close black bonnet which Olive always said gave me a demure look, though my dim- ples were against me. And I am wrap- ped up in my long fur lined cloak, and have altogether the look of a respectable young widow, as I say to Mrs. Weuchope‘ laughing, while she gets my tea ready with her own plump hands. Ronald Scott: looks phi-ofoundly surpris- Mrs. Wauchope says, regarding me by the light of the gas in her great) dingy drawing-room. “I don’t know whether it’s the bonnet, or what; , but you look ten years older than you did when you were up here with me in the spring." “ Do you' remember the promise. cou- it ne if so ScoEt makes 11 ne. You can be present of should wish you to be present), ed not last more than five min- CHAPTER X. war what My interview with him lasted half an hour. Ronald Scott: stood leaning with folded arms under the barred window ; Gerard walked up and down the cell resh- leasly, reminding me of some caged crea- tureâ€" “ When all his stretch of burning sand and sky Shrinks to a twilight den, which his despair Can measure at a stride.‘ He and I white faces haudsâ€"twc yet for wh I have heard Gerard’s storyâ€"I have asked the single question I wanted to ask; and the answer has confirmed my own beliefâ€"Gerard Baxter is innocent of the horrible crime imputed to him. I believe every word of the story he has told me, as firmly as I believe that I am a living woman. He knows no more of the man- ner in which his wretched wife met her death than I do, except that he had no hand or part in it. have come to an end. What Ronald Scott thought of our meeting I know nobâ€"I had never given him a thought: during the whole of the lnuerview. Gerard had told me his wrebched story never gh whole of I wrap my fur cloak about me, shiver- ing, though it is August. Ronald walks down the hotel-stairs with me across the hall, in silence which I do not care to break. He puts me into the cab in the same almost stern silence. I do not glance back at him as the cab leaves the door. though he stands there bareheaded, looking after me. I am thinking of a man in prisonâ€"a man whom I seem to love the more the world hates himâ€"the more he seems to have made shipwreck of his own most miserable life. l have seen Gerard in prlson. Ronald Scott managed it all for meâ€"came with mq h_lmse1( to the_ prisqner’s cell. _ _ “Oh, I am Very wEll-l-a little tired from the journey perhaps 1” “ If you come to Carleton Street for me, I shall be ready to go with you." “ It; will very likely be to-morrow.” “Then I shall remain at) home all bo- morrow. And, If you fail, you will let me know '2" “ I will let you know. I hope you are taking care of yourself, cousin Rosalie. Yo_t_1 Eye looking thoroughly wo_rn_out.” “ I have notvatudied the case. But my own impressions are that the man is guilty. If I can manage what you want me to do, where shall I meet ygu 7" I believe he thinks my mind has not quite recovered from the effects of the feverâ€"he certainly looks at; me as if he thought me slightly deranged. ' “ There must be some way to prove it â€"the man is innocent.” “ PEove it my poor child 1 How can you prqvgrit 7" “ It) was boâ€"to see this man that you came up to town?” “ Yes." “ But what is he to you, Rosalie. that you should concern yourself in his affairs 7” “ He Is nothing to me." “ Then why mix yourself up in such a disgraceful business W “Because the man is Innocent, and I must_ provq it.” “ Then so much the more I thank you for keeping it. If it cost one nothing to keep a promise, there would not be occasion for much gratitude, would there?" He does not answer, standing before me, still leaning on the table, still studying my face. “ Then, since that is settled, I shall wish you good-bye, cousin Ronald. ” “Where are you going?" “Back to Carleton Street. I have writ- ten to Olive to come to see me." “ We wlll not quarrel about that, Ronald I dare say you are right; but it is too late to bemoan my want of excluslveuess now. What I want you to do is to man- age that 1 may see my friendâ€"if It is only for one moment." "For what 1” he asks sharply. “ Merely to ask him a single question.” He looks ah me doubtfully. His face has grown pale under all Its sunburnâ€" as pale as my own. “I wlll keep my promise. Rosalie. But it will be altogether in defiance of my better judgment.” “As to his respectability," Ronald says coldly, “ that must be a matter of opinion. Subsequent events have moved that he could not have been a very respectable acquaintance for you or any one else i” “ Oh, subsequent events !” “But suppose there were no subsequent events. This Baxter was a poor artist â€"a Bohemianâ€"not exactly the kind of friend Miss Scott’s friends would have chosen for herâ€"at least, I think not." “I cannot think how you ever made his acquaintance, Roualie. If you had been lodging in the same house for fifty years, you should have had no acquaint- ance with hlm." “ 011, he was quite respectable l I met him in other placesâ€"In society. The Rollestona knew himâ€"he was at thelr house every day. ' “ We lodged in the same house in Lon- donâ€"the house in Carleton Street where I am staying now " “But howâ€"â€"" I cannot help laughing outright at the exceeding gravity of his face. I think of the bunch of violets; but I do not tell Ronald about themâ€"it is so different re- lating a piece of thoughtless folly like that-it would seem so much more hein- ous an ofience repeated under the cold unsympathetic eyesof my judicial cousin 1 “ I can try. Was he an acquaintance of yours 7 “ He was a friendâ€"was. and is." “ I should say ‘ was,’ " Ronald observes, shrueglnq hls shoulders. “ May I ask how you made hlaacquainh- ance, Rosalie '3" “I any ‘ls."’ I repeat stubbornly. “Gerard Baxter is a. friend of mine." Ronald's dark brown meet in a rather heavv frown. ht had met w thout a. word, with with trembling outstretched miserable beings-so young, om all the happiness there been in the world seemed to World.” It was July delivered Until within a few years the most re- markable of all Chinese customs were the public fashionable suicides conducted with much pomp, and sometimes actually under the directions of an officer of the empire.; P'. T. Barnum recently received a. letter stamped on its face and back seventeen times. The letter bore the prescription : “ Mr. Barnum, America.” and was posted in Maulmain, Bribish Burmah. Ib con- tained two letters addressed to the atten- dants on the white elephant. This places Barnum by the side of Samuel Johnson and Franklin. The latter, it is said, once paid Johnson the compliment of addressing him a. letter. “Samuel J ohn- son, Great Britain." Not to be outdone, Johnson responded with a letter ad- dressed to, “ Benjamin Franklin, The \Vorld.” It was dulv delivered A curious Illustration of the wayward wanderings which these floating terrors of the deep often indulge in was given in the report of the German ship Black Hawk, which arrived from Hamburg. 0n Much 23 the schooner John H. Way ran into the three-masted schooner Twenty-one Friends, and injured it so badly that it was abandoned. Warnings were given to look out for it, and many eyes on the southern routes of travel havelooked anx- iously for it But it was hardly expected that the derelict would show up nearly two thousand miles from the scene of the wreck ten weeks ago. Yet onZMay 22 it was seen by the crew of the Black Hawk in latitude 44 degrees 12 minutes; longi- tude 41 degrees 58 minutesâ€"in the direct path of travel. Capt. Haerloop, of the German ship, reported that the wreck was without masts, and that her hatches were open and full of water. Yet she showed no signs of sinking. She is a very dangerous obstacle. “I do not know. I have never uttered his name to any oneâ€"except to her. I know now that my uuapiciona of him were groundlessâ€"it was only the day the police came for me that I met him, and he ask- ed me why she had not come for any more sittings for the picture. He was an hon- est fellow, though he paid her compliments sometimesâ€"everybody did. And I did not care enough about her to be jealous, only I told her I W nid have no non- senseâ€"I would kill her first 1" A Curious Terror of the Sea. The “derelict.” is an ever-present terror to the navigator. It is an aban- doned wreck floating about in the open sea and, carried hither and thither by the currents of the Atlantic. Ofteutimes it is without masts, and being water- logged it lies almost even with the water. There is nothing to distinguish it in the dark or thick weather, and acollision with it would be a very serious matter. “ Whgre is heâ€"thls xfian you call her friend '1" “ I do he} think it. She was not the 33 girl fio_do a. _thing like that “I” “ And you never saw her again, from that day to this 7” “ Never again." - “ Do you think, " I asked vaguely, looking into his hollow eyesâ€"“ do you think sheâ€"put an end to herself 3" I have wondered since how I had strength to carry out my own resolution ; but my indomitable will, the obstinscy aunt Rosa. deplored so much in my char- acter, and the resolution to save Gerard Baxter. if mortal power could save him, carried me through. “'But 11: must: have come out, sooner or later " , “Then I should have destroyed myself!” the lad raid fiercely. “ I often wonder nay yvhy I held_ myAhand I" Ronald Scott had moved reatlesaly at this juncture ; but I had never glanced at him. I came here to hear Gerard Baxter’s story. and I meant to hear in to the end. “ But I did know, or I thought I knew. She had thfl abened more than once to go toâ€"a friend she had in London. And I thought that she had carried out her threat: â€"at last.” V “In Qould have been better to have told the truth,” I repeated. “ Batter to have said that she had gone â€"you knew not where." Mu. Wauchope's hint of jealouav came into my mind. He had been jealoua of somebodyâ€"some artist: who had been painting his wife’s beautiful face. “She was snob"; fool, such a poor senseless idiot; and I had driven her to itâ€"or so I thought. I ought not to have tried to reason with her as I would with a. responsible being i I ought to have shut her up and fed her with bread and water like an obstinate child." “ But why 7" Inked, astonished. “If you knew nothing about: her, why did you do what must turn to such terrible evidence against yourself 1" “ I did not care about myself.” “ But you did not: benefit her." He turned away from me. walking up and down the floor again, a deep red an- gry gush on his haggard face. “ They 'aaked me, and I had to say something.’ “ But why not have told the truth ’4’ ' “ I would rather have said I killed her than have told the truth." “ Then why did you tell her mother what you dld? Why dldyou invent those stories for the neighborsâ€"about letters and messages '2”_ “ She left the house on the twenty-sec- ond of July. and I have never seen her since, dead or alive," he as“, pausing in his restless pacing up and down to con- hont me as I sat on the wretched pallet. “ She ran away in a rsge because I scold- ed her sbout somethingâ€"and I never saw her again.” in very few words. What he would not say in self-defence to the magistrate he said to meâ€"not that I might justify him before the worldâ€"he aeemed to care very little about thatâ€"but that he might just- ify himself to me. (TO BE CONTINUED.) It ls said that a district about to be at- tacked by cholera ls at once forsaken by swallows and sparrows. A whale caught recently near Coos Bay, Oregon, had embedded in its body a bar- poon that was of a pattern of forty years ago. At; a Fredericksburg pumpkin seed gues- sing a. blind boy guessed the exact number of seeds, 496, while a Miss Kellogg gues- Bad 495. While Henry P. Smith of Farmington, Kansas. was splittings. log that had belong- ed to an old blacksmith shop built before the war, but now in ruins. ll: parted at large auger hole that had been securely plugged, and $1,000 in greenbacks fell out. The shop formerly belonged to Judge Thomas Haile, who, it is supposed, secret- ed the money in the log for safety during the war. The Judge was subsequently killed. by some Federal soldiers on_one of the highways near his me. Half a. pound of red pepper sifted upon an ivy rid the residence of a Germanbown, Pa. , gentleman of a colony of sparrows that had been a great: annoyance. As a sacrifice for the loss of a child, a a. butcher ab poplar Creek Agency, M. T. , cub 03 his forefinger, besides killing a fine mare and a three-year-old steer on the grave of his child. A child less than two years old pulled the tail of a. gamecock in Little Hempaton, Eng , when the bird turned, knocked the child down, and killed it by driving it: spur into its brain. A few day! ago an Upaon county, Ga , man found hidden in the earth 3,000 silver half dollars that; he buried twenty-two years ago. He had lost his landmarks, and had searched for years in vain. The electrical conditions consequent on the earthquakes in the province of Malaga have, it is said, given vitality to vineyards that were given up as dead. There is nothing in the attitude of either Indians or white men near the border line of Alaska and British Columbia which calls for the appointment of a costly in- ternational commission to locate the exact and precise line which divides the rough, snow-topped mountains of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia. The Takon mining country is also said to be under the control of the Wrangle Indians. It is entered from Chilcat at the head of Lyon Canal, the northern terminus of the inland channels. The Ohiicats permit no interference with the rights by the Wrangel or other tribes, and insist that all trading between coast Indians and the interior Indians must pass through the Ohileat tribe, which largely outnumbers the Wrangel and other clans of southeastern Alaska. The Chilcats formerly opposed the passage of whites through their territory ; but since the visits of the Wachusett and Adams to their waters they have abandoned their opposition, and now behave well to the whites. Two salmon canneries have been established in their waters without cppo- sition from the chief or his followers. and many of the latter find employment In supplying salmon to the canneries. The report that the‘WrangelIndians are etoppiug miners frem going into the Jurac river without paying toll to them is probably a canard. If it is true, the Indians should be summarily dealt with, as they have no claim by right of discov- ery or otherwise to the placers. Unfortu- nately for the VVrangei Indians they have one or two bad white advisers who seek to gain influence among them by pander- in g to their worst fault: and passions, and fomenting dissension between the Indians and the miners and traders. The com- mander of the gunboat Pinta can soon suppress the ninterference of the Indians with the miners whether the latterlbe Alaskans or Canadians. As the boundary line is just thirty miles back from the coast there can be no great difficulty in fixing upon the place at which it crossess the river and determ- ining whether the miners are working in Alaskan or Canadian territory. Even in the absence of a certain fixed line agreed upon by the Governments, no difficulty need arise. The mining laws of the United States and Canada are similar, with this trifling exception, that in Can- ada a miner must take out a license, costv ing 85. Where a miner is in doubt whether his claim is on the Alaska or Canada side of the line, he will, if he is wise, fortify his right to the ground by taking out a Canadian license. These are issued as freely to Amer-clan citizens as to Canadian or British subjects. _ With the exception of its water front on the channels which flow between the mainland and the islands of the Alexander Archipelago and the Stickeen, June, and Takon rivers, this strip of territory is an impenetrable wilderness of mountain and morass. Gold deposits have been discov- ered on the coast and on the rivers. and placers have been worked at several points with more or less success. Prospecting' parties are constantly on the lookout for new and promising locations The latest of the reported finds is on the J ursc Riv- er, about 100 miles south of Fort Wran- gel, and some forty miles north of the southern boundary of Alaska. THE: GOLD MINERS (ON THE Attempts ‘lo Go! Up in [Dispute 'wllh Canada About the Alalkan Bolmduvy. All the reports of impending trouble on the boundary line between southeastern Alaska and Canadian territory are simply revivals of old stories invented by enter- prising individuals on both sides of the boundary, who are on the lookout fora fat Government billet. The boun 'lmy on which they are trying to make trouble. is the line which separates the thirty- mile wide strip of southeastern Alaska from British Columbia. ODD STORIES. J l it).