Demorralic: ata,
Bellefonte, Pa., June 8, 1900.
RECOLLECTIONS.
There is royal satisfaction in the birds and bottles
which
Were invented for the tempting of the palates of
the rich ;
Pleasure lurks in fancy dishes that imported
cooks create
For elated politicians who ean squander ‘‘ten per
plate ;
But of all the joys that eating brings to mortals
here below
None compares with those old dinners we sat
down to long ago—
The good old Sunday dinners
Cooked for hungry little sinners
By mother in the careless long ago!
Little Dick was fond of white meat ; Fannie rath-
er liked the thigh—
How we battled for the wishbone, little Maude
and Joe and 1!
Father always seemed to fancy that the leg was
just the thing,
And at last would come dear mother, meekly
asking for a wing.
Oh, the gravy! Oh, the biscuits! What con-
tentment used to glow
In the faces 'ronnd the table where we gathered
long ago—
The good old chicken dinners
Cooked for hungry little sinners
By mother in the happy long ago!
The robin chirps serenely where the gate is torn
away,
And decay has claimed the manger where the
brown hen used to lay ;
They are scattered who once clamored for the
meat they liked the best,
And the grass is growing over two who long have
lain at rest;
But the tender recollection still is left to me,
and oh!
To be sitting at the table where we gathered
Jong ago!
Ab, the good old Sunday dinners
Cooked for hungry littie sinners
By mother in the dear, dead long ago?
ROBERT HARDY'S SEVEN DAYS.
4 Dream and [ts Consequences.
BY REV. CHARLES SHELDON.
Author of “In His Steps.” *“ The Crucifixion of Philip
Strong,” Malcolm Kirk,” Ete.
[Copyright, 1900, by Advance Publishing Co.)
(BEGUN IN No. 12, MARCH 23, 1900.)
There is little need to describe the
rest of this day. Robert went home.
Every one greeted him tenderly. His
first inquiry was for Clara. Still in
that trancelike sleep. Would she nev-
er wake? The wife shuddered with
fear. Mrs. Hardy had spent much of
the time in prayer and tears. The
evening sped by without special inci-
dent.
James Caxton came and joined the
family circle. His presence reminded
Mr. Hardy of the old quarrel with the
young man’s father. He spoke to
James and said if anything should pre-
vent his seeing his father the next
day James might tell his father how
completely and sincerely he wished the
foolish quarrel forgotten and his own
share in it forgiven.
So that day came to a close in fami-
ly conference. in tears, in fear and
hope and anxiety and prayer. But
Mrs. Hardy would not lose all hope.
It did no. seem to her possible that her
husband could be called away the next
night.
CHAPTER XII.
Alice, with the quickness of thought
that always characterized her, planned
that all the rest should go to church
while she remained with Clara. Will
was able to go out now. So, for the
first time in months, Robert and his
wife and Bess and the two boys sat to-
gether in the same seat. George had
not been to church for a year, and Will
was very irregular in his attendance.
. The opening services seemed espe-
cially impressive and beautiful to Mr.
Hardy. He wondered how he had ever
dared sit and criticise Mr. Jones and
the way he had of reading the hymns.
To be sure, he was not a perfect speak-
er, but his love for his people and his
great love for men and his rare good
life every day were so well known that
they ought to have counted for more
than they ever did.
It is astonishing how many good
deeds and good men pass through this
world unnoticed and unappreciated,
but every evil deed is caught up and
magnified and criticised by press and
people until it seems as if the world
must be a very wicked place indeed
and the good people very scarce indeed.
Mr. Hardy joined in the service with
a joy unknown to him for years. He
had come to it from the reading of his
Bible instead of the reading of the
morning paper and from prayer in-
stead of from thoughts of his business
or a yawning stroll through his library.
His mind was receptive of the best
things in the service. He entered into it
with the solemn feeling that it was his
last.
And when the minister gave out the
text, “For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, that ev-
ery man may receive the things done
in his body, whether they be good or
bad,” he started and leaned forward
intently, feeling that the message of
the preacher was for him and him
alone and strangely appropriate for
his own peculiar condition. The first
statement of the sermon arrested his
attention and held him to the argu
ment irresistibly to the end:
“The judgment seat of Christ will
not be a dreadful place to a man whose
sins have been forgiven in this world.
but if he comes up to it seamed and
scarred and stained with sins unre
pented of and unforgiven because he
has not asked God to forgive him it
will be a place of awful fear to his
soul. There are men here in this au-
dience who are as ready to die now as
they ever will be. They have made
their peace with God. They have no
quarrel with their neighbors. Their
accounts are all square in business.
They are living in loving relations
with the home circle. They have no
great burdens of remorse or regret
weighing them down. and if God
should call them this minute to step up
to the judgment seat they would be
ready.
“But there are other men here who
are pot at all ready for such a tremen-
dous event. They may think they are,
but they are mistaken. How can they
stand before the greatest being in all
the universe and have no fear when
they are unprepared to answer hisques-
tions: ‘Why did you not confess me be-
fore men? Why did you not do as 1
commanded and bear the burdens of
the work instead of pleasing yourself?
What will the man say then?
“It is true that Christ is all merciful,
all loving. But will it make no differ-
ence with a soul whether it comes up
to his judgment seat out of a life of
selfish ease and indulgence or out of a
life of self sacrifice and restraint?
When every possible offer of mercy is
held out to men on earth and they will
not accept it, will it be all the same as
if they Lad when they come before the
judgment seat of Christ? Why. that
would be to mock at the meaning of
the incarnation and the atonement. It
would be to cast scorn and contempt
on the agony in the garden and the
crucifixion. It would make unnecessa-
ry all the prayer and preaching. What
possible need is there that men preach
a gospel of salvation unless there is
danger of the opposite?
“If we are all going to be saved any-
way, no matter whether we accept
God's love in Christ or not, what use is
the church? And why should we be
anxious any more about our children?
And what difference does it make
whether they go to the bad here In this
world if in the world to come they will
all be saved? For eternity will be so
much grander and sweeter and endur-
ing than time that we might as well
take it easy here and not pay much at-
tention to the message. ‘God so loved
the world'—that is, if we are going to
be saved anyway.
“1, ny should we care very much If it
does say in the revelation of God's
word that the wicked shall go away
into everlasting punishment if we
don't believe it? Why. he wicked will
stand just as good a chance of eternal
glory as the good if the judgment seat
of Christ does not mean a separation
of the good from the bad. Let us close
our churches and go home. Let us eat
and drink and dance and be merry, for
tomorrow we may die: and after death
the judgment. and after the judgment
glory and joy and power and peace and
life eternal in the presence of God.
“It is true we scorned him on earth.
but that won't make any difference;
he will receive us just the same. It is
true we refused to believe in his only
begotten Son after ali he suffered of
shame and agony for us, but that
makes no difference; he will say, ‘Enter
into the joy of thy Lord." It is true we
made fun of Christians and mocked at
prayer and sneered at faith. but that is
not much to be afraid of. It is true we
hated our neighbor and would not for
give an insult. but that is a little thing
It is true when the Holy Spirit pleaded
with us a year or six months ago to
confess Christ in public we told him to
leave us: we were ashamed to do it in
the presence of men. to confess him
who spread out bis arms on a cross of
bitterest agony for us, but for all that
we feel sure that when we march up to
the judgment seat of Christ he will
treat us just the same as he treats the
disciples who have laid down their
ifves for the Master
“Then let us tear out of the Bible
every line that speaks of retribution or
punishment or judgment—for we don’t
like those passages; they hurt our feel-
ings—and let us leave only those words
that speak of love and mercy and for-
giveness, for those words are the only
ones that can be true, for those words
don’t make us feel uncomfortable.
“Away with everything that hurts
our feelings, that makes us anxious.
that sends us to our knees in prayer,
that makes us confess Christ and live
a life of self denial and service, for
when the judgment seat is prepared
and Christ sits down there and we ap-
pear before him he will receive us as
we come before him—the pure and the
impure, the selfish and the proud and
the humble and the believer and the
disbeliever and infidels and scoffers
and cowards and despisers of God's
love on the earth, all the class of men
who fell back on weak and imperfect
Christians as an excuse for their own
weak lives, and the drunkards and the
liars and the oppressors of the poor.
and everybody who heard a thousand
sermons full of gospel and despised
them because of some imperfection in
the delivery or elocution, and ail those
men who went through the earth be-
trayers of the home, and the selfish
politicians who betrayed their country,
and all the men who read the Bible
and believe only the parts that didn't
hurt their sensitive feelings. and the
young men who lived fast lives and
sowed wild oats because a wicked and
false public sentiment made them
think it was excusable and perhaps
necessary, and all the other men and
women who lived as they pleased, re-
gardless of God and eternity. When
all these shall appear before the judg-
ment seat of Christ. he will behold
them all as one soul and with a smile
of gracious pardon will reach wut his
almighty arm and sweep them all
alike into a heaven of eternal bliss,
there to reign with him in glory and
power, world without end!
“But is this what Christ taught the
world? Suppose what we have said is
true. It turns his whole life into a
splendid mockery. Foolishness and
absurdity could go no further than to
create a life like his and to put into his
mouth such teachings as we have re-
ceived if at the judgment seat all souls,
regardless of their acts in this world,
are received on an equal footing and all
received into eternal life. And where
is there any room in the teachings of
Christ for a purgatory? Do we believe
that? Is it not the plain teaching that
after the judgment the destiny of souls
is fixed forever?
“But what could man wish more?
Will be not have opportunity enough to
accept the mercy of God before that
time? Does he not have opportunity?
If any soul appears at last and at the
judgment complains that he did not
have a fair chance, will that gracious
Judge condemn him if his complaint be
true? We know he will not. But the
facts of the judgment are these: At
that time. whenever it is, the souls of
men will be passed for their acts in the
earthly life, a verdict that will deter-
mine their everlasting destiny. and
that verdict will be just and it will be
merciful. For the crucified one could
not do otherwise. But the men who
have despised and neglected and disbe-
lieved and confessed shall be separated
from him forever, and the men who
have confessed and believed and tried
to live like him shall be in his presence
continually.
“There will be a division of souls. It
will not be based on wealth or position
or birth or education or genius, but on
Christlikeness—on that divine and eter-
nal thing we call character. Every-
thing else shall go away into destruc-
tion, into death, into punishment, into
banishment from God. And banish-
ment from God will be hell, and it ill
be a hell not made by God. but by man
himself, who had an opportunity—nay.
a thousand opportunities—every day of
his life to accept the bliss of heaven
and of his own selfish choice rejected
every one of them and went to his own
place.
“But some soul starts up and says:
‘You are not preaching the gospel; you
are preaching fear. hell. torments. Is
this your boasted love of God?” Yes; for
what am 1 preaching if not the love of
God when 1 say. ‘God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten
Son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting
1ifeA 1s there no danger of perishing?
Why did Christ come then? Why did
he say the things he did? Why did he
speak of the condemnation of the wick
ed and unbelieving if that were not a
part of the gospel?
“The gospel is glad tidings. but what
makes it glad tidings? Because of the
danger we are in. What is salvation?
It is the opposite of being lost. We
cannot have one without the other. So
I am preaching the gospel here today
when 1 say. ‘We must all appear be-
fore the judgment seat of Christ!’
There will be no fear to us then if we
believe in him. if we have lived his life
here. if the things done in the body are
good. And. more than that. as long as
this earth life continues (God's mercy
is with us every moment.
*It is possible some soul Is here who
for years has lived selfishly within his
own little toys of pleasure. He looks
back on a life of uselessness. of neglect
of all that Christ did for him. He this
day hears the voice of God. He listens.
he repents, he cries out, smiting on his
breast. ‘God be merciful to me, a sin-
per!” ‘Then what will God do? Will he
reject hiin because he is old in sin. be.
cause he has wasted beautiful years?
When he appears before the judgment
seat. will Christ say: ‘You repent~d too
late on earth. You cannot be saved
now?
“No! Even if after 100 years of shame
and sin a soul with its outgoing breath
in genuine repentance and faith in the
Son of God cries out for mercy that
cry would be answered, and he would
be saved. What less of glory and pow
er such a soul may experience in the
realms of glory we may not be able to
tell. But he himself will be saved.
“Is not God merciful, then? Let no
man depart from this house of God
fearful or despairing. The earthly life
is full from beginning to close with
the love of an Almighty Father. Shall
men complain because. they cannot
have all of this life and all of the oth-
er, too, in which to repent and be for-
given? ‘Now is the accepted time;
now is the day of salvation.’ ‘Today
if ye will hear his voice harden not
your hearts.’
“Men of Barton, you have heard the
word of God proclaimed from this desk
today. Young men, will you wait un-
til you are old in sin and shame before
you will repent and be saved? How
do you know you will live to be old
men? And what a life to live, even if
you were sure of a hundred years, to
pour out the dregs at last as an offer-
ing to Christ just to escape hell! Oh,
all men, hear ye this day the message
of Christ! He is a Saviour of sinners.
It is not necessary that any man go
away from this service unsaved. You
may believe here and now. Won't you
do it? ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Then
go home and pray, rejoicing.
“And if the Almighty call you out
and away from this prison of elay into
his resplendent presence this very
night what will you have to fear? Not
one thing. You have put your trust in
him. Your sins are all forgiven. You
can appear before his judgment seat
and await your verdict with a calm
and joytul soul, for you know as you
gaze into the loving countenance of
your Redeemer and Judge that when
he turns and speaks to you he will
say, ‘Come, ye beloved of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.’
Truly God is love!”
The prayer that followed the sermon
seemed to bring all the souls in the
church very close to God. The events
of the past week had stirred the town
deeply. The awful disaster so near
them, the speech of Mr. Hardy in the
town hall, rumors of the experience he
was having—all these had prepared the
audience for just such a sermon on
Sunday morning. AnG men bowed their
heads and prayed in that house who
had not done such a thing sincerely in
many years.
Robert had many inquiries concern-
ing himself and Clara to answer at the
close of the service. He finally went
up and thanked the minister for what
he had said and spoke as he never had
spoken before in encouragement of his
pastor's work.” But it seemed to him
that he must be getting home. The
time was growing short. He must
have the rest of it with the dear ones
in the home.
What need to describe the details of
the afternoon? Robert Hardy had the
joy of knowing that all his children
were with him. and at dark James
came over and asked if he might join
the circle. He did pot know all that
Mr. Hardy bad gone through, but the
children had told him enough to make
him want to be with the family.
“Why, come right in and join the cir-
cle, Jim. You're one of us.” cried Mr.
Hardy cheerfully. So Jim drew up his
chair, and the conversation went on.
“Did you not hear some one calling?’
They were sitting in the up stairs room
where Ciara lay and facing an open
fire. The doctor had called in the mid-
dle of the afternoon and brought two
other skilled surgeons and physicians
at Mr. Hardy's request. It was a sin-
gular case, and nothing special could
be done. This was the unanimous
opinion after deep consultation, and
after remaining some time the doctors
had withdrawn.
When it grew dark. Alice started to
turn on the lights. but her father said,
“Let us sit in the firelight.” So they
drew close together and in awe looked
upon him who seemed so sure that God
would cali him away at midnight.
Who shall recount the words that were
uttered. the exact sentences spoken, the
fears and hopes aud petitions and tears
of the wife, the commands of the fa-
ther to his boys to grow up into the
perfect manhood in Jesus Christ, the
sweet words of love and courage that
passed between him and his wife and
daughters? These things cannot be de-
scribed: they can only be imagined.
So the night passed. It was after 11
o'clock. when the conversation had al-
most ceased and all were sitting hush-
ed in a growing silence. that Clara
spoke again, so suddenly and clearly
that they were all startled and awed
by it:
“Father! Mother! Where have 1
been? I have had such a dream! Where
are you? Where am I?”
Mrs. Hardy arose and. with tears
streaming down her face, kneeled be-
side the bed and in a few words recall-
ed Clara to her surroundings. The girl
had come out of her strange uncon-
sciousness with all her faculties intact.
Gradually she recalled the past. the ac-
cident. the dream of her father. She
smiled happily on them all. and they
for awhile forgot the approach of mid-
night and its possible meaning to Mr.
Hardy —all but himself. He kneeled by
the bed, at the side of his wife, and
thanked God that his dear one was re-
stored.
Suddenly he rose to his feet and
spoke aloud, quietly, but clearly:
“Did you not hear some one calling?”
His face was pale, but peaceful. He
bent down and kissed Clara, embraced
his sons, drew his wife to him and
placed his hand on Bessie’s head; then.
as if in answer to a command, he gen-
tly kneeled down again by his chair,
and as his lips move?@ in prayer the
clock struck once more the hour of 12.
He continued kneeling there, and he
was nearer God than he had ever been
in all his life before.
Thus Robert Hardy's seven days
came to an end.
THE END.
The War in the Philippines.
Small Engagements Continue to be Reported
Daily to Manila.
MANILA, June 7.—Scouting small en-
gagements and the capture of aims and
prisoners continue daily in northern Lu-
zon. Last week’s operations by the
Ninth, Twelfth, Thirty-third, Thirty-
fourth and Thirty-sixth regiments resulted
in the killing of forty-six of the enemy,
taking of 180 prisoners and the capture of
300 rifles and a quantity of ammunition.
Col. Edward E. Hardin, with three
companies of the Twenty-ninth regiment
and blue jackets from the gunboat Helena,
landed at Palonoga, under the enemy’s fire,
routed the insurgents and after an engage-
ment lasting half an hour, occupied the
town without casualties.
The insurgent commander, with twenty
officers and 230 men, surrendered on May
20th, giving up a hundred rifles. An im-
pressive scene occurred on the plaza when
the prisoners were disarmed and liberated.
The islanders were found suffering from
lack of food, owing to the blockade and the
American authorities are endeavoring to
relieve them.
Peace reigns and no trouble is expected
in Manila, although the city is crowded
with people from the provinces, who are
leaving the unprotected hamlets in order
to avoid the conscription which the insur-
gent leaders are enforcing, as well as rob-
bery and outrages at the hands of roving
insurgents and bandits.
The investigation of the charges against
Brigadier General Frederick Funston, who
summarily executed two natives in the
province of Zambeles, has resulted in a
discontinuance of the proceedings. It de-
veloped the fact that General Funston
caught the natives in the very act of mur-
dering Maccabebe scouts, his action, under
the circumstances, being regarded as justi-
fiable.
Jell-O, the Dessert,
pleases all the family. Four flavors: Lemon;
Orange, Raspberry and Strawberry. At your
grocers. 10 cts, Try itto-day. 5%
0
—
—
PIERS out
=
me
—— an er -~&
Ee rere or
SIX YEARS LOST.
“What would we live on, Max?”
laughed Sydney Vernon, glancing down at
her elegant morning dress with the pretty
slipper just peeping from heneath its hem.
“It’s all very well to eschew the practical-
ities of life, hut they are somewhat neces-
sary for all that, and I have never seen any
great evidence of economy on your part,
and IT am quite sure you have not in
mine.”
Max Bayard tugged impatiently at his
moustache as the girl, whom a moment he-
fore he had asked to be bis wife, thus an-
swered him.
He had known her long enough to learn
to love her with all the strength of his
heart; to worship her beauty; to follow
her constantly with his eyes, knowing but
one wish, one hope, that she might be his.
And he fancied, not altogether wrongly, !
that his love had met some return. Her
eyes had brightened at his coming, her
voice had learned to welcome him, until he
felt he must end suspense and gain some
certain assurance; the more so that a Mr.
Clayton had lately come upon the scene—a
rich and childless widower, who evidently
looked with favor upon the belle of the
watering place, and whom her aunt (under
whose care she was), if not the young lady
herself, looked upon with favor in return.
“I have never had an incentive to econ-
omy,”” Max said in answer. ‘I have
enough to live on and feed my horses,
though my tailor’s bill does trouble me
now and then. I confess; hut, Sydney, I
will change all that, dear. I can’t, per-
haps, give you the luxuries to which you
are accustomed, but you shan’t lack for
comforts, that I promise you.”
‘We should be miserable, Max, miser-
able, both you and 1,” the girl answered
bitterly. ‘*We have not either of us heen
reared in a school of poverty. I would cry
for cake while you could only give me
bread, and you for ale, while I could give
you only kisses. Come, be sensible, and
let us be good friends.”
‘Friends? Never! he exclaimed. “I
am starving, and you throw me a stone.
Look into my eyes, Sidney, straight and
true, and say you do not love me, and I
will go away aud trouble you no more.”
The long lashes dropped low on her
cheek.
*‘I cannot quite say that,’’ she answered
“but I will say more, I promised last night
to become Mr. Clayton’s wife within six
months.”
Max Bayard’s handsome face grew white
to the very lips—a look of deadly anger,
mingled with something like loathing,
crept into it. Sydney shrank from it as
from a blow.
*‘Don’t Max—don’t!"’she cried, ‘*‘I couldn’t
help it—I am very sorry.”’
*‘You could not help it--you are very
sorry!”” he repeated, very slowly.
‘‘Could not help what? Toying with me
for your amusement—playing fast and
loose with your victim, or selling yourself
to the highest bidder? Which? You are
very sorry—for whom? For the man you
mean to marry ?"’
With these words he turned and left her
sitting on the sands, the ocean making its
low moan at her feet.
“Qh, if it would come on and on and
swallow me up?’ she wailed in echo. ‘I
love him—I love him! Max, you are
right! the man I propose to marry does de-
serve the pity. But you—oh, my love! I
did it for the best—I did it for the best—I
did it for the best.”
* * * * * *
Six years had passed—six years, fraught
indeed with change.
‘If she had been but true to herself and
me !”’ Max Bayard had thought, when, but
a few moments after the event which had
driven him from his native land to find
forgetfulness in travel, a letter had been
put in his hand, which bad followed him
from port to port, announcing that he had
fallen heir to a fortune which migit have
challenged Mr. Clayton’sin its magnitude.
‘If only she had trusted me!’’ he said
bitterly again and again in the lonely
hours of the night, despising himself that
he could not learn to hate her.
A year afterward he married. His wife
was very young and very lovely. but there
were depths in his nature that she
never stirred, and even as she lay with her
head pillowed on his breast another
haunted face would come between and
‘mid the caressing murmur of her words
would sound the echo of the ‘might have
been.”’
But he loved her very dearly, and
mourned her very truly when, one short
year after their marriage, he laid her away
in her grave and took up the burden of life
again, with the added responsibility of the
tiny infant she had left him.
“Wanted—A lady to superintend the
education of a little girl. Apply between
the hours of 4 and 6, at—"’
It was in answer to this advertisement
that six years after that memorable after-
noon upon the beach, a lady stood waiting
in the elegant drawing room of the house
to which she had been directed.
Her veil was down, and the room was
half in ‘shadow from the heavy curtains
which draped the window: but, for all that,
she started when a step crossed the hall,
and a gentleman, his hair slightly tinged
with gray, entered.
She had sunk back on the sofa, and her
frame quivered with emotion.
‘You have come, madam, in answer to
my advertisement?’’ he asked, cautiously.
“No, no!” she answered. ‘‘There are
reasons why it will now be impossible for
me to accept the situation offered.”
That voice! Had it not too long haunt-
ed him to be thus easily forgotten ? Would
he not know it, even though it sounded
above his very grave ?
“Sydney ! you here?’ he exclaimed.
‘Ab, Mrs. Clayton—pardon me; for the
moment I forgot.”
Then she drew back her veil. Six years
had made little change. It was the same
beautiful face, but grown very pale, and
* the lovely mouth quivered as she spoke.
‘‘Believe me, I would not have intruded
myself upon you had I dreamed it was you
: who had inserted the advertisment. I bad
‘not even heard of your marriage.”
“My wife is dead.’’ he answered. *‘But
| stay,’’ as she 10se to go. “Tell me how
it happens that yon are in necessity. Is
Mr. Clayton dead ?”’
She shuddered.
**You mistake,”’ she said.
I marry Mr. Clayton.
still.”
**You did not marry him ??’
**No. It is a woman’s privilege, you
know, to change her mind, but my aunt
was very angry and at her death she left
i me nothing. Your advertisement attract-
ed me. I thought I might learn to love a
little girl.”
“And you will not learn to love my lit-
tle motheiless child ?”’ he asked. ‘‘Accept
this position, I beg of you Miss Vernon. It
is only that you should see she is not left
to the mercy of nurses, and that she has
some refining care.’’
Soit was at last decided, and Sydney
found the old emptiness of life fled, since
her heart and hands were full.
She rarely saw the master of the house.
One day when she entered on some errand
into his study she bad seen hanging over
his desk the fair, pictured face of Mabel’s
mother.
‘‘How soon he learned to love again,”
she thought. ‘*‘And I—I whom he so
cruelly condemned—threw aside ambition
and wealth for the idol I could never
grasp.
But one evening Mabel stole to the side
of the lovely lady who had won all her loy-
al little heart.
‘‘Papa is ill,’’ she said. ‘‘Do you know
it, Miss Sydney ? Won't you go nurse him
like you do me when me is ill ?”’
“Certainly darling, if I can do any-
thing.,’
And with trembling steps she descended
the stairs and entered his room.
For hours she sat beside him, changing
the cooling bandages upon his brow and
fanning his fevered cheeks.
Mabel had come in for her good-night
kiss; then he had fallen asleep, and she
feared to stir, as she might waken him.
“Sydney, why did you not marry Mr.
Clayton !”’ s
Had he really spoken, or was it her own
thoughts which formed the question? No,
he was awake now, his eyes resting upon
her.
“You have no right to ask me,’’ she said
imperiously. ‘‘Let the dead past bury its
dead.
“No right, perhaps—that I admit; but
answer me, all the same. For the sake of
all these starving years, let me know the
truth.”
‘‘Because I did not love him,’’ she an-
swered; then— ‘‘hecause I found myself
weaker than I knew.
‘Oh, Sydney! if we had known—if we
had known! My darling, was there an-
other reason? Was it because you loved
me ?’’
In his voice there thrilled the truth. In
that moment she knew herself empress of
his heait all these years, and gliding from
her chair until she fell down on her knees
by his side, with her beautiful head close
pressed against his heart, while his kisses
rained upon her hair, she whispered :
“Because I shall love you while life
lasts.’
A month later there was a quiet wedding
when, after six years’ cruel waiting, Syd-
ney made the life happiness of the man to
whom she gave herself a royal gift, but
they always said with a sigh of deep regret
that in both their lives they had lost—six
years.—F-om the Lancaster Examiner.
“I did not
I am Sydney Vernon
To Bring Home our Fighters.
Volunteers Will Begin to Return in December.
The War Department has decided that
the return of the 34,000 volunteer troops
now in the Philippines shall begin in De-
cember. The army reorganization pro-
vides that they shall be returned to their
recruiting stations by June 1st, 1901, and
it will require at least six months to bring
them home.
Their withdrawal will leave about 31,-
000 regulars on the islands. Twenty-one
thousand of these must also return by July
1st, 1901, leaving hut 10,000 troops in the
Philippines after that date. Most of the
17,500 regulars who will fill out the com-
plement of the army of 27,500 men after
July 1st, 1901, will probably be sent to
the Philippines. But the War Depart-
ment expects that a new army bill will be
passed( and that 27,500 men, with only
about 20,000 available for service, will not
be left to fight for supremacy with the
Filipinos.
WEALTH oF Beaurv—Is often hidden
byunsightly Pimples, Eczema, Tetter, Ery-
sipelas, Salt Rheum, cte. Bucklen’s Arnica
Salve will glorify the face by curiog all Skin
Eruptions, also Cuts, Bruises, Buras, Boils,
Felons, Ulcers, and worst forms of Piles.
Only 25 cts. a box. Cure guaranteed. Sold
by F. P* Green drugg -
——When a boy thinks he knows more
than his father it is about time for him to
begin to pay board.
e—————————— —
The merit of Hood's Sarsaparilla
Is literally written in blood.
It is traced in the vital fluid
Of millions of the human race.
It cures all diseases arising
From or promoted by impure
Blood by its intrinsic merit as
The @ne True Blood Purifier.