GLIMPSE XXVI.-DASHING BURTON MARRIES.

THREE years have glided away since the "administrator" placed the coveted fourteen thousand dollars in Cyn's outstretched "itching palm." To her, Willis's death had seemed a special providence. She had enjoyed her luxurious indolence for the past three years to its utmost, and her beautiful face had soon resumed its care-free charm that once she appeared about to lose.

The Newells shrewdly calculated that at the rate she lived she would become destitute in seven years, unless she married again, which was not improbable, considering her beauty and inclination. If their prophecies were correct, then she had four years more of grace and beauty, and she would make the most of them.

By her mother's encouragement Amy had used her income so lavishly that want or great retrenchment stared her out of countenance. But Amy caught her breath bravely, and announced that what others could do she could; she would earn her living! Imagine, if you can, the high-toned astonishment of her mother and Burton. Indeed, they would not permit such a thing. Whatever happened, the daughter, the sister of a Meredith, should not labor.

Yet Amy soon taught them she had a will of her own, and she bravely labored until she secured a class of scholars to whom she could teach music, and retained them despite all discouragements.

"Don't fret so at this, mother," she had cheerfully said one day; "I may have to go into a shop yet; if left wholly dependent upon my labor, my music scholars would not support me."

She dared not tell her mother that Fred Bell, who was now a well-to-do business man, had proffered her his heart and hand; if she had done so, Cyn would have insisted upon her acceptance of the offer as far preferable to earning her living.

Amy was resolved that she would marry for naught but love, and she was positive that she only liked Fred in a friendly way. So Fred's wealth of love was cast aside, not sneeringly, but unappreciated.

Amy had long known that Fred Bell had a regard for her, but she could not convince herself VOL. XVI.-35

that the quiet esteem she felt for him was sufficient to insure their mutual happiness.

Burton was settled at last, and for a young lawyer was meeting with brilliant success; indeed, one of the foremost judges of the State asserted that Burton Meredith would stand at the head of his profession in less than ten years.

His brilliant talents blinded his friendly admirers to his drinking habits; wine for the present was an aid to him, and with his noble physique was doing for him double work. Yet when the break came, so much the more disastrous would it prove; how could they fail to see it?

He had fallen in love with Judge Pearson's young sister Anna, and had wooed and won her with an irresistible dash and impetuosity peculiar to himself.

Anna Pearson was a pure, loving, generous, Christian girl, and her unsuspecting affections. were soon completely won by Burton's goodhearted, dashing brilliancy. It never occurred to her that the bright eye, the flushing, changeful countenance, the flashing witticisms from his ready tongue, were stimulated into burning activity by the liberal potations of wine, taken not only daily, but many times a day. Upon his system, inherited from generations of strong drinkers, alcoholic beverages produced fewer of the usual symptoms of intoxication than in the case of ordinary men.

Judge Pearson did know that Burton had been beastly intoxicated, but he allowed his admiration for his ability to blind him to a full sense of his faults, and he had faith in that terrible belief that a good wife will change the man.

Yes, so she may; but by the time that is accomplished, what agony has not the good wife suffered? It is a dangerous experiment, especially so for the wife.

Amy felt the truth of this deeply, as she listened to the daily talk of Burton's approaching marriage. She loved Burton, and would willingly have sacrificed much if it would have weaned her brother from his vices; if he only would reform, she should be so happy, so proud of him. She had learned to love Anna Pearson since Burton's engagement

to her with a true, sisterly love, and for that reason she would gladly have broken the engagement had it lain in her power, for her woman's intuition told her that it would be far easier to break Anna's heart with the full knowledge of Burton's habits than to reform Burton through his affection for his wife.

The wedding-day was now here, and Amy's heart was sad for Anna, who within a few hours must learn at what fount Burton drew his grandest inspirations the fount of Death!

Cyn, too, was unhappy; Amy's obstinacy had almost broken her mother's heart. To think that her only daughter should so wilfully and without cause (so she insisted) refuse to obey either advice or commands from her mother! That Amy should dare persist that she could not afford a new dress (when her mother, equally positive, assured her that she could afford it), but would wear that "everlasting pink silk"!

GLIMPSE XXVII.-ANNIVERSARY OF BURTON'S WED

DING.

MANY are the changes that are swiftly brought about even in twelve short months. It was with a sense of fear, deepening into horror as the months passed on, that Anna learned that at the table, early in the morning and late at night, at all times, Burton must have his stimulants. She never dreamed that these habits had for years been Burton's master, though by some means she had learned during their courtship of the horrible deaths of his father and grandfather, and she had fervently prayed that Burton might ever be restrained from imbibing even society's friendly glass, lest the slumbering appetite should be aroused to the demon's strength.

Everybody had pitied Anna from the first, but knew the danger of meddling with other people's affairs. No one except her brother could have told her the truth without being credited with pure maliciousness. Thirty years of life will teach the most obtuse that to warn a man or woman in love of even the publicly-understood faults of the adored one will but precipitate affairs to a crisis.

Had Amy even told Anna the truth, it would have been like trying to extinguish a fire with a pair of bellows. Anna would have at once decided that Amy was opposed to the match, and did not desire her for a sister, while other equally

reasonable accusations would have been brought against her. Amy, wiser than some, knew this, and was silent, tenderly resolving that when the hour of suffering came she would prove a true sister to both.

Within the past year that resolve had been ofttimes fully tested, and she never failed them. Anna tried long and well to win her husband from the seductive influence of the bottle.

It was useless. Unsteadily he went to slumber each night; if the day's work had been unusually hard, so was the day's drinking; one measured the other. Those who saw him in the early morning knew best how surely this life was telling upon his naturally fine constitution. A sharp cough, a hectic flush, indicated that though fair still on the surface, yet the victory of the battle would soon be to the strong, and the conflict was to be comparatively short, sharp, and decisive.

So indeed it was; but there was another and a fairer victim must fall first. Anna could not long endure this one-handed struggle against relentless Fate. It lessened her faith in her husband's love for her when she found her entreaties that he should forsake his habits were of no avail. Had she been capable of looking at the matter in a scientific light, and could she have seen that his chains had been forged by his paternal ancestors, she would have pitied him more, even though she might still have bitterly censured him for willfully riveting them on with his own hands.

Tender and true she tried to remain to him, but her heart was breaking all the while. All comfort in his society was gone, when she knew that it was not Burton, but Wine that was so witty; she felt a mortal terror of this fiend; she never felt at ease for a moment in its presence, for her heart told her that the imprisoned demon was there, and might manifest itself at the happiest, wittiest moment. Safety was but the chance which might by some sudden freak be instantly changed to imminent danger.

This state of mind was not healthful, and her step grew languid. Daily her breaking heart grew weaker; the pallor around her sweet mouth grew steadily whiter, the glow upon her cheek was daily painted a brighter hue.

A peculiar cough explained the nature of her disease, and people began to say that Burton Meredith and his wife were both ill with consumption. Strange, wasn't it? His was caused

Months passed on until a twelvemonth and a day had gone, and with it Anna Pearson Meredith went to that home where fear and disappointment are unknown.

And Burton ? He drowned his benumbed sense of sorrow as well as he could in the best of wine, then dressed himself in the most immaculate of linen, with the blackest of jet bosom-studs and cuff-buttons; a new spring suit of lavender broadcloth, a light silk hat with a broad weed, completed his outward display of mourning, and when he had drawn on his faultlessly-fitting black kid gloves, he was ready at the proper time to mourn in his graceful manner as deeply as he was capable of doing.

Amy felt that God at last was merciful to her loved sister, Anna, and though she wept not for the dead, her tears fell fast and free for the living.

A faint hope thrilled her that Anna's death might accomplish that which her life had so signally failed to do.

GLIMPSE XXVIII.-DWINDLING FORTUNES.

Six years have passed away, and Cyn must face the ugly fact that her money has dwindled away, from her repeated drafts upon it, until at her usual rate of living it will soon be completely exhausted.

Cyn has dressed finely and traveled much, but somehow fortunes have not been laid at her feet, and now the question stares her in the face, What shall she do to be saved from work and poverty? Amy bravely tells her that she does not know what can now save her from work, but she does know that work will save her or any one else from poverty.

Despite her mother's protestations, Amy persisted in her plan to enter a shop in the village, and then, with the income from her class, she could allow her mother a fair sum for her board; then Burton might leave the hotel and board with them; Cyn could dismiss her servant, and do the work with her own hands. Cyn was aghast at this proposition. What! she, Cyn, work?

Amy firmly said: "Yes; I do not see any reason why you should not; the work for three grown persons will not be so very depressing. Surely there is no other way, unless you, too, take a

"Amy Meredith! I should think you would be ashamed to insult your own mother in that way; you've the least feeling of all the persons that I ever knew. You never sympathize with me in any of my troubles, as Burton does. He would not talk to his mother about going into a shop. If I must stoop to work, I had best do my own housework, as you propose; nobody need know much about it. I shall not answer the doorbell until the work is done and I am dressed for company."

"I think, upon the whole, that will be as well as you can do," continued Amy; "then Burton can stay here until he marries again, which will doubtless be a long time, as Gertie has yet quite a while to attend school before she graduates. It does seem too bad for a pure young school-girl like Gertie to love and marry a man with Burton's habits, and a widower also." "Amy Meredith ! of your brother again like that; you speak of Burton's habits as if they were low. Let me tell you that the best and cleverest men in the country indulge in some form of stimulant. Burton is never more charming in conversation than when he has been heavily drinking. I am ashamed of you, Amy.'

Never let me hear you speak

"I don't doubt it, mother; I believe that has been your chronic condition for a long time. I forgot to say to you that I am going to the city to-night to hear Booth. Frank Mayo is to be my escort, and Jennie Mayo and her lover will accompany us." And Amy coolly started to walk out of the room, as if unconscious that she had added the last straw to her mother's grievances.

"Amy, you shall not; the foreman of that shop, indeed! I do wish that you had never set foot in it."

"Better work than starve, mother, even if it is not quite so genteel; my education is not thorough enough to be of any practical benefit to me, and I cannot live by my wits, for want of capital.”

"But you might do as I want you to, and marry Dr. Deming; you know it is talked that he has great expectations, and he has taken a great deal of notice of you; he is young and handsome too. What more do you care for ?"

"He is welcome to his expectations, and I'm sure that I wish they may be realized; whether

they are or not is a matter of indifference to me personally. I do not like him, and would not marry him if he were a millionaire. Perhaps he thinks we have great expectations; you know that our nice furniture and extensive wardrobes, secured by past extravagance, might easily lead persons to believe us better off than we are. One thing I forgot to say, mother, Jennie Mayo has made me a generous offer for my watch and chain. I need the money, and it is not in very good taste for a shop-girl to wear a watch. Future acquaintances might greatly misjudge me, not knowing that once I thought I had a right to such luxuries."

"Amy Meredith, are you crazy? You shall not; neither shall you receive any further attention from Frank Mayo. People will surely think that we are poor if you sell that watch. You must try to win Dr. Deming; we need him in the family. You are an ungrateful girl if you refuse to do this; I feel positive that he is rich."

Amy Meredith fairly glowed with indignation, and, with an emphatic stamp of her foot, she replied with much spirit:

"Mother, henceforth I shall act as I think best. I shall receive attention from Frank Mayo. I shall sell my watch; it is decidedly unbecoming to me in our present financial condition, and the money is very much needed. I will not accept Dr. Deming's attentions; I hate him; he is a fortune-hunter." Amy grew more and more excited as she spoke, and at last said bitterly: "Never mind the doctor's youth, mother mine; marry him yourself. It is more in your line than mine."

"Why not?" thought Cyn. "I am not so very old, nor much faded; a brighter thought than you know, Amy," she smilingly whispered to herself.

GLIMPSE XXIX.—GERTIE NORRIS.

GERTIE NORRIS was just in the blush of womanhood, with unfinished education, when Fate threw her in Burton Meredith's path. The romantic ideas of school-girls are well understood, and so it was small wonder that, meeting Burton as she did, henceforth his handsome form and face were to her the beau-ideal of manly grace.

Burton Meredith possessed a full, shapely figure, a fair, smooth skin of medium darkness, and, strange to say, the liquor that he had drunk failed to manifest itself in the changed color of neck and

face. His complexion grew clearer and whiter, with the exception of the flushed cheeks: those grew yet more rosy. One unobservant of the sharp, quick cough and rapid irregular pulse would have been surprised to hear that he was a hard drinker.

It was a sultry, stifling day, and Gertie Norris was languidly sauntering home from school, tired at the very thought of the two-mile-walk before her. Of frail constitution, and strong consump tive tendency, the physician had earnestly desired that, unless the weather were stormy, she should, for the sake of her health, walk to and from school.

To-night she is paler than usual, and she has scarcely passed over half a mile of the homeward walk, when a sudden thunder-peal causes her to glance hastily northward, and she discovers a blackness that frightens her into quickening her steps. Hurriedly now she presses on, her breath coming short and quick, and just as the big drops begin to pelt her maliciously the rapid tread of a horse on the road behind her is heard approaching.

Amid a cloud of dust the steed and carriage whirl past her; instinctively she had turned a pleading face toward it, hoping that it might be some acquaintance, or at least some one kindhearted enough to take her home in safety.

The driver of the spirited horse had caught a glimpse of that sweet face, now growing terrorstricken at the thought of the coming tempest.

He stopped his horse as soon as possible, and as she came up alongside the carriage, he lifted. his hat as if the dusty girl were a queen instead of a school-girl, as her strap full of books told him.

"Are you going far, miss? Will you allow me to take you to your home, wherever that may be ?" asked the bright-faced, frankly-spoken gentleman of Gertie.

She felt that Fate was propitious; here was she not only rescued from the storm, but by a hero. Would not her romance exceed those which the other girls had tauntingly tantalized her with heretofore? How they had laughed at her simplicity, until she had positively begun to feel that she must be lacking, or else she would not always have to report nothing yet.

All the girls had had one or two experiences, if not more, and it had made her feel quite insignifi

cant that she never met with any adventure worth repeating to her friends.

"But now," she thought, as she glanced shyly at her handsome companion, "this was really worth waiting for."

Naught cared she for rain or thunder now; what if the horse did plunge and rear, when her noble-looking companion seemed so perfectly calm and able to soothe the frightened steed?

"A lovely girl," thought Burton. "I think this will prove to be a fine road to exercise Rex upon, about five P.M."

Burton was assiduous in his effort to entertain his companion, and he rarely failed where he cared to please.

Mr. Norris was well-known to Burton as a wealthy gentleman, and altogether he thought it was not an unpleasant adventure. Gertie's father came out to the carriage and was introduced, and insisted upon Burton's remaining until the tempest was over. So Gertie was to have her romance at last, and it was far sweeter than she had dreamed.

GLIMPSE XXX.-BURTON AN INVALID.

BURTON MEREDITH was too ill to practice, and so he lounged around home through the day, alternately tormenting and petting his beautiful | mother. The days now passed drearily enough to one of his active temperament, with the exception of his morning and afternoon drives, which were now the one solace and pleasure of his life.

The physician had recommended him to keep in the open air as much as possible, and to combine pleasure with medicine he drove out to Mr. Norris's each morning, and after taking a brisk drive with Gertie around the pleasant country highways and by-ways, he would leave her at the school-building, bidding her good-bye until five P.M., when he and Rex and the buggy were punctually in attendance waiting for Miss Gertie, and again they sought, amid the soothing summer breezes, for the restoration of failing health.

Burton was won from a melancholy contemplation of his own sufferings by the purity of Gertie's love for him and her perfect faith and confidence in his supposed integrity.

not strength to resist ; not even as far as his physician dared suggest, to try the experiment of gra lually reducing his stimulants, and finally, if possible, dropping them altogether.

The physician knew he would lose the case were he to insist upon his stopping at once and altogether. Burton felt that he could not live without liquor even if he died with it. So he wandered about the house daily like a ghost; yes, a ghost of his former self; of his friends' early hopes; of what he might have been, but for the curse that follows "even unto the third and fourth generation."

Cyn, of course, felt aggrieved when Burton's health failed him and he had no money to pay his board with; how did people think that she could get along if Burton was sick? Surely some one of the family ought to assist her; Cyn had now sunk so low (as she esteemed it) that she was forced to do the family washing herself.

Upon the first Monday morning Amy had asked out of the shop that she might assist a couple of hours, in pity for her mother's unprecedented position. Cyn was busily rubbing clothes in a tub which was placed upon a bench in front of the back window in the kitchen, and now and then a tear of disgust at the thought of her misfortunes dropped brinily into the suds; not many, however, for tears are not beautifiers, as Cyn well knew.

The door-bell rang; Amy was washing dishes, and so asked Burton to go to the door; he slowly gathered himself up from the lounge and in a moment Amy heard him saying, "Mother is out this morning."

Certain events had caused Amy to vow that she would thwart the next lie that should be told to screen their poverty; hastily drying her hands she lightly ran to the door, saying, "Did you inquire for mother? Burton was mistaken, mother is in, though very busy; just step into the kitchen, please; we are washing," and ushered the caller into her mother's presence before the wash-tub. Of all Cyn's life-troubles, this was the worst.