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leave her long in doubt concerning the use to be made of the letter.

"They have no business to be corresponding at all," she said to herself, "I shall not be asked to show the letter, or if I am, I can refuse and get all the more credit for discretion. I am free to say what I please concerning it."

That very day she sought an interview with Miss Zarie. Eloise had never been a favorite with that lady and Elsie felt the ground already half prepared for her, for with the instinct of the female, she had long ago determined to direct all her assaults against the woman she hated, and to keep her own personal record with her husband as unembarrassed as possible.

"Miss Zarie," said Mrs. Glen denning, after some circumlocution, "did you ever fancy Eloise Vaughan to be a wanton woman?"

Miss Zarie's hawk eyes were raised in an instant, she knew at once that there had been a purpose in that speech. "You and I have both had our own opinion concerning Eloise Vaughan," she replied; but what new thing has transpired? I hope it is something we can show up to good advantage. I own I should like to take her down a trifle in Mrs. Vaughan's esti

mation."

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"I don't know what Aunt Dorothea will say, I'm sure; it is a dreadful thing, indeed it is, Miss Zarie. I try to speak of it calmly, but it almost kills me," and she burst into real, unaffected tears.

Miss Zarie scented the carrion at

once, or thought she did. It is astonishing how fond some virtuous women are of the odor.

"What is it, child?” she said, "tell me at once. You don't mean to say that she has fastened the doctor in her snares? The sly thing."

"He has been to see her and now they correspond."

"Elsie Glendenning?" shrieked Miss Zarie, "are you telling me the truth?"

"He told me himself that he visited her, went to Philadelphia for that express purpose, and I have a letter from her to him in my pocket."

The small woman trembled. I suppose few women could deliver a pet bird to the cat without emotion, even though the bird might have deserved death.

"Let me see that letter," said Miss Zarie.

"No," said Elsie, demurely, "I'd rather not. I'll show you the outside of it, if you like."

"Elsie Glendenning, this is a matter in which it is of no use to be squeamish; show me that letter at once?"

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Elsie hesitated, but finally produced the letter for Miss Zarie's inspection. Well, I declare!" said Miss Zarie, as she deliberately unfolded it and adjusted her spectacles upon her nose; "you know I never liked the woman, but I didn't think that of her. So cool and wary as they were last summer too,-why, they even deceived me." The snap of Miss Zarie's eye at that moment showed that the offence was unpardonable. "The hussey, what does she say?"

Oh! she talks about the divine ideal of Love, and other people's false conceptions of it; about their loving. each other in the next world, and all that. The letter is just like her."

Miss Zarie read the letter through coolly and carefully; she gathered from it as correct a view of the case as it was possible for a mind constituted like her own to apprehend.

"To think," she said, "that a Vaughan should so disgrace herself. What do you mean to do about it, Elsie?”

Elsie looked up with real feeling in her tones. "Oh! if you only could frighten him into giving her up and coming back to me," she said. "He has never called me his wife, nor treated me as his wife since my baby was born, and it is all on account of Eloise."

Miss Zarie turned her head on one side and looked at Elsie with precisely the expression of a wise and wicked old parrot.

"I can do it, child," she said, "if anybody can, and I will if I can. But I tell you now it is a hard thing to win a man back to his lawful wife, if he's taken a strange fancy. If he had loved his wife in the beginning, he would'nt have gone astray. However, men can he made to hush things up and give way to decency, and that's what I shall try to do with the Doctor. Upon my soul I do sometimes think that marriage must be an invention of the evil one; it does lead, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, to so much trouble and wickedness. You think, child, that most men are true to their wives, but I know better; this isn't the first scandal case that has come to my knowledge, and for all that comes to light I know that there's ten hushed up and kept in darkness. And that's what must be done in this case; they may think they can live apart and keep their feelings secret till eternity and all that, but I know better. I know what comes of these things and they 've got to stop seeing each other and stop writing to each other, or there'll scandal come of it, and that won't do in this family. I'll see the Doctor to

morrow."

"Will you speak to Aunt Dorothea about it ?"

"Not now, child; your Aunt Dorothea is all very well in her way, but in a case like this she would be so shocked and indignant, and regretful by turns, and make such a muddle of her emotions, as to be of no practical use whatever. I am the woman to master this occasion, Elsie."

There was a little farther conference concerning ways and means, and then the two parted.

That evening Miss Zarie reviewed the case carefully in the silence of her

"words

chief," she soliloquized, won't stop her; but a man, thank heaven, can be reasoned with. Eloise is out of my reach, she always did seem to me like a jack-o'-lantern. I see her, but I never know what she means and I can't calculate on her; but I know the Doctor. He is quiet, he is not conceited, he appreciates the Vaughans, and if I can take him on the right tack, I may be able to frighten him out of this fancy, which has evidently gone no farther than the sentimental stage. I never knew moral or religious talk to do much good in these cases; it don't apply. Folks have to be roundly frightened by a sense of consequences."

The Doctor meanwhile was serenely unconscious of the storm that was brewing for him. He had not expected a speedy answer to his letter, and was only now beginning to feel his heart beat a trifle faster with expectation as he walked to the postoffice for his evening mail. He was sitting in his office reading the last number of Braithwaite's Retrospect, when Miss Zarie entered upon her philanthropic mission.

"Good morning, Doctor," she said with a gravity of demeanor, which, however unintentionally, impressed the Doctor at once with the sense of an emergency.

"Good morning," he replied, suavely. "Is there anything the matter at your house to-day, Miss Zarie ?"

"No," replied Miss Zarie, the weight of her manner sensibly increasing, till the Doctor began to feel that it might be measured in tons avoirdupois. business which brings me here this "It is not professional morning."

"I am happy to hear it," said the Doctor. "How can I serve you unprofessionally?"

Miss Zarie compressed her lips and looked fearfully in earnest.

Zarie,

"Dr. Glendenning," said Miss "it is a very delicate matter to "When a woman is bent on mis- meddle in anybody's domestic rela

own room.

tions. Nobody knows that better than I. Still there are times when somebody must so meddle. For instance, if the good name of an old and proud family like the Vaughans is threatened, it becomes the duty of some representative member of that family to take the matter in hand and settle it in such a manner as to arrest that danger."

The Doctor's eyes would certainly have twinkled if the matter had touched his peace of mind one whit less nearly. As it was he simply replied to this imposing declaration:

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So you come to me as a representative, do you, Miss Zarie? It is of the first importance that I should know whom you have the honor to represent ?"

Miss Zarie drew herself up and looked dignified.

"I represent the entire Vaughan family," she replied; and then as if that were possibly too sweeping, she added, “with perhaps one exception." "Indeed," said the Doctor, well aware of what was coming, and determined to make a good fight of it; "may I inquire if the entire Vaughan family, with perhaps the one exception, to which you refer, have given you credentials and instructions to appear before me in this manner?"

Miss Zarie drew in her breath a little.

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Perhaps I should not say that exactly," she replied, “but I have certainly been appealed to, to interfere in this matter

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By one member of the Vaughan family, I suspect," said the Doctor, "namely Mrs. Elsie Glendenning?

Miss Zarie felt that she was not hitting her mark and decided to vary her aim a trifle.

"Doctor," she said, dropping at once the inflated manner she had assumed, and, speaking with a keen natural zest," why don't you say your wife?"

"I was speaking of her then as a member of the Vaughan family," replied the Doctor, drily.

I'm

"But I am informed," said Miss Zarie," that you never do call her wife now-a-days; that you do not any longer treat her as your wife; that on the other hand you have transferred your affections to-to another member of the Vaughan family,-whom in defiance of domestic fidelity and of social and religious law, you surreptitiously visit. Now, Doctor, you know me well, you know that I am direct and positive in my manner, but after all, I never move in these matters without good cause, and when I do move, it is generally to some purpose. not going to talk to you about broken vows and ruined peace of mind, and all that sort of thing. I know men too well. Elsie is a weak little thing, pretty enough in her fresh bloom, but not calculated to wear well. You've grown tired of her, and would like a change. It is all very natural, but Doctor it won't do. You are in the vice, and if it does pinch you some, you must stay there. Matters may be uncomfortable, but you must consider that when you've abandoned one woman and ruined another, you'll not find yourself one whit more comfortable. Now, Doctor, you have good sense, and I put it to you in this plain way, because I count on you're being man enough to bear the truth and submit to circumstances."

"Miss Zarie," said the Doctor, "you've said a good deal in a short space of time. Some of it requires proof."

"Doctor, I've said nothing that I cannot prove.—Indeed, I've fallen short of the truth in my charges."

"Miss Zarie," said the Doctor, "Allow me to say that I think you are taking a mean advantage of your sex. Why didn't my wife send a man here, so that I might meet him on equal terms, and serve him to such treatment as men usually do get when they meddle impertinently in other men's affairs."

"Simply because, Doctor, you would have ruined yourself by such a course.

The thing is not only as bad as I have stated it, but worse." She fixed her keen, black eye upon the Doctor, and deliberately proceeded: "You correspond with Eloise Vaughan. I, my self, have seen a letter from her to you, which not only contains abundant proof of what I have said, but which carried into any court of law ought to be considered as good ground for a divorce."

Richard sprang to his feet with a rush of hot words upon his lips--but looking at the keen inflexible woman before him, he restrained them. He took a turn up and down his office and then re-seated himself.

"So it seems," he said with as calm a voice as he could command, "that you and Elsie have been engaged in the laudable occupation of violating private letters. Miss Zarie, you know me; after that do you expect me ever to take that woman again to my bosom as my wife?"

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I do," said Miss Zarie calmly, "Continence in marriage or out of it, is good. St Paul praises it, and I must say, that I truly think if the men in the ministry were what they ought to be, his teaching in that respect would be more frequently enforced. But there are times when it is out of place. If a man and his wife get tired of each other, there is nothing like a family of children to heal divisions and prevent scandal.”

Thoughts and emotions were whirling very rapidly in Doctor Glendenning's brain, but the most urgent and irresistible one of all, paramount even to his disgust at Miss Zarie's broad presentation of sensualism as a religious duty, was his desire to rescue Eloise's letter from what he felt to be the profanation to which it had been subjected.

"Miss Zarie," he said, "you will excuse me for saying, that you cannot possibly suggest anything to me in relation to this matter which I have not thought about at least fifty times before. I understand the situation perfectly. I

have taken no step without premeditation. Let me remind you also, that it is just as impossible for you to see my conduct in the same light that I do, as it is for me to justify you in the means which you have taken to make yourself aware of it. You can take my compliments to the Vaughan family and say to them, one and all, or to so many of them as you represent, that at the bar of my own conscience I stand or fall, and that when their dictum conflicts with my own sense of right, it is not of the value of a rush to me. In regard to the scandal, if there is to be any, it is your own party who will make it. You, Miss Zarie, have it in your individual power to make two or three people very unhappy if you choose, and do them besides a very deep and damnable injustice. You can do it if it pleases you, but I fail to see wherein you will reap your reward. You will excuse me now, I am going home to my wife. I want to see this letter you speak of."

"I advise you to do so," said Miss Zarie, smiling grimly.

"It will be a tough battle," she thought, as she walked homeward. "But if they do withstand me, they shall rue it Somebody'll be made an example of."

When the Doctor reached home, he went straight to Elsie's room. That lady turned very pale as he entered.

"Elsie,” he said, “I am told that you have in your possession a letter from Eloise Vaughan addressed to me. You will please to produce it."

Elsie looked up at him, frightened, yet obstinate.

"I don't know how you dare to come to me," she said, "and ask for such a letter. Oh! Richard, what have I done that you should treat me so. If not for my own sake, at least for dear little Dora's sake, you might preserve some show of respect towards me."

Elsie, I should be very glad if you would maintain your own self-respect so far as to hold yourself above an act like this."

"You have no right to reproach me," she said, "I have been a true and faithful wife to you. I have never deserved that you should treat me as you have done; and even now Richard, I am not hard-hearted, I would forgive you everything, if only—”

"I am not here to be forgiven," said Richard coldly. "I am here to get my letter, and I want it at once." Elsie was visibly distressed. She saw that her husband had come out of a fierce conflict, and she knew that if Miss Zarie could not prevail against him by force, she certainly could not hope to do so. Perhaps he might be melted by tenderness and tears. She took her baby in her arms and knelt before him. Holding up the child, she stretched out her little hands for

an embrace.

Richard was touched.

forgiven or forgotten it," said Elsie. "If it could only be arranged now, Miss Zarie would keep it all as secret as the grave."

"Elsie, what arrangement do you want? Would you accept as your husband, a man who does not love you; who never can love you, because he does, though in a most hopeless and unfortunate way, truly and entirely love another?

"You used to say you loved me," she sobbed, "and what will become of the poor baby?"

"Elsie, I shall not forsake my child. It is true that she is born to an unhappy lot. It is a heritage to which no other child of mine shall ever be born; but in so far as it is possible for me to be true to her, I certainly shall be. Neither shall I abandon you. The happiness of a true married life it is out of my power to bestow upon you; and I think you need no assurance that if I am left to myself, I shall never voluntarily bring trouble or disgrace upon those who bear my name.'

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"Elsie, child," he said, "I know it is hard for you, but the root of it all is a great ways in the past. I have never reproached you for deceiving me, but you must remember that I was deceived, and let that circumstance go as far as it may toward explaining what seems cruel and arbitrary in my conduct. Moreover, you have chosen your friends in this matter ill-advisedly. What possible good did you think it could do you to set that virago upon me? I could have borne almost any other indignity with a better grace.' I cannot," she replied, "Aunt Vaughan, would never have with Zarie."

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He had the baby in his arms and was holding her close to his bosom. Elsie felt that he spoke truly and earnestly, but his words were, after all, very unsatisfactory. "Elsie," he said, "will you give me my letter?" "I left it

C. F. CORBIN.

THE COST OF LIVING.-THE TARIFF.

"EXCELSIOR" unquestionably deserves the profoundest thanks of his fellow Free-traders for the many and exhaustive arguments he has produced in support of their Utopian theory, and if he has not succeeded in convincing them that "Americus" is a numskull, in the bargain, the fault is certainly not his own. But opinions differ, and the last named individual must crave indulgence to take up arms yet once again in defense of his "darling theury" and the foregoing assumption. And in the first place I would remark that since

"Excelsior" considers that my "admissions cover the whole ground of controversy," it is difficult to perceive his object in reopening said controversy, but am led to suppose, from what follows this sentence, that it was employed simply as a make-weight in the rather light article it introduces, and has no particular meaning per se. The entire force of the article in question, to my mind, rests in a series of flat denials of the points made by me on another occasion with little, or for the most part no attempt, to confute them with

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