Christmas Snipe Hunting Story

"I am so glad to see you, Henry, and so surprised, too; for you know you expected to remain in St. Louis till after Christmas. It has been awfully stupid here at Helena since you have been gone. There has not been a single party of any kind that I have heard of. I don't know what I should have done but for that conceited coxcomb, Raymond, who has been trying his very best to do the agreeable, and I must say amused me exceedingly."

"What, you don't mean that foppish New York drummer? Why, he is greener than cucumbers; if he were turned loose out in the meadows the cows would follow him. He comes down here to Arkansas selling Yankee notions and gimcracks, and struts about in his new store clothes as though he were a heap better than any fellow in the State. And so, Kate, he has been shining around you, has he?"

"Yes, but I only laugh at him; a lady must have company of some kind, you know, Henry. If none come along whom she can laugh with, she sometimes is content with one she can laugh at. This fine New York gentleman Mr. Augustus K. Raymond he calls himself has invited me to the grand party to be given by Mrs. Gordon on Christmas night."

"But you surely did not accept, Kate; why, I heard of this party, and hurried home from St. Louis before my business was half over, on purpose to ask you to go with me."

"I am extremely sorry, Mr. Morgan, that you should be so disappointed; but what was a poor girl to do? I wouldn't have missed going for the world, and how could I know that you would put yourself to so much inconvenience for my sake?"

"Now, Kate, this is cruel in you. Why do you call me Mr. Morgan, and adopt this lofty tone toward me ? We are old schoolmates and old friends, and — and I had flattered myself that we were very good friends. I had even ventured to hope that some day we might be still better friends. In fact — but I am making myself as great a fool as that fop of a notion peddler. My dear Kate, I scarcely know what I am saying. I only know that I love you devotedly, and that if you will give me the least assurance that you love me in return, I shall be the happiest fellow in Arkansas. Can you give me just one word of encouragement?"

"Yes," replied the roguish girl with provoking brevity, but a serious look immediately stole over her countenance, and after a few minutes of silence, while the young man ardently pressed her hand, she added, as her downcast eyes were raised again to meet his: "You knew all the while that you were the only one my gentlemen friends for whom I really cared anything."

"I was bold enough to think you preferred me, dear Kate, or I should never have been brave enough to declare myself. But what's to be done now about this Christmas party? That simpleton, Raymond shall not go with you if I have to run him out of town."

"Never fear, Henry. I will get rid of him in some way. He bored me terribly before. He would be insufferable now."

"I know how we can get rid of him Kate. We young fellows will get up a sniping party for Christmas eve, and make him hold the bag.

"Oh! that will be capital, said Kate, gayly. "That's just the thing; but there’s the bell now, and no doubt it is he himself. Just wait and see how nicely I shall dispose of him. You are to be my cousin, mind."

A card bearing the name of Augustus K. Raymond was handed in, followed a moment later by an over-dressed young gentleman with waxed moustache, hair parted in the middle, and the air generally of one who has got himself up to make a stunning impression."

"Good evening, Mr. Raymond. Permit me to introduce you to my cousin. Mr. Morgan."

"Delighted to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir. You reside in Helena, I suppose."

"I live here," replied Morgan, curtly.

"Ah, then, perhaps you are in the mercantile business. I have the honor to represent one of the leading notion houses" —

"No, I am not in the trade," interrupted Morgan, dryly.

"My cousin, explained the lady, is in the game business; and, apropos of game, he has just been telling me that he is going with a party of our young of our young gentlemen on a grand snipe hunt tomorrow evening Christmas eve."

"Yes," added Morgan, "and we should like to have you join us."

"Do go with them, Mr. Raymond. I do so want a snipe feather to wear in my hair at the party. They are all the rage with the girls now. Such beautiful feathers they are too! Long and drooping, with the richest red and yellow colors. You must go with them and get me a snipe feather, for I can't think of going to the party without one, and Cousin Henry here, even when he goes, is never smart enough to secure me a good feather. Somebody else always gets the privilege of holding the bag, and so secures the finest of the feathers."

"Certainly I'll go, with great pleasure. Miss Andrews, that is, if the gentlemen really desire that I should honor them with my company."

"Of course we'll feel greatly honored, Mr. Raymond," said Morgan, "if you will condescend to join us in one of our simple Western sports. I can even promise you the post of honor on the occasion."

"Really, you quite overwhelm me. I shall not fail to be with the party, if I can be of service! I am not familiar at all with — with — what did you call the game? — snipe; but if they possess such beautiful feathers as Miss Andrews describes, they must form a conspicuous mark, and no doubt I shall be able to bring at least one down at every shot. They call me a good marksman at the shooting galleries in New York. You may rely upon me, Mr. Morgan."

So saying, Mr. Raymond bowed himself out in an impressive manner, and had scarcely closed the hall door behind him when both the" others broke out in a paroxysm of laughter.

"That joke of yours, Kate, about the red and yellow leathers, was excellent. It couldn't have been better managed, I'll get the boys together to arrange for the hoax. By 10 o'clock to-morrow night your gallant greeny will be standing up to his knees in the mud and water, out in one of the creeks, holding the bag, and expecting that the rest of us win drive the snipe into it. But he will be as likely to see Santa Claus himself out there as any snipe. When he gets tired of waiting for the game, and for us to return, he can sneak off home alone. It will spoil those striped pantaloons of his, though, and ruffle his temper, so that this climate will not be apt. to agree with him any longer."

The just-accepted lover, however, did not seem in a hurry about going, and it was considerably later in the evening when he finally bade his betrothed "good-night." The latter, we should have explained, was the belle of Helena, Arkansas.

She was a high-spirited, dashing young lady, as might be inferred from the foregoing, and, withal, unusually handsome. She had numerous admirers, and, as may be imagined, her talk about a lack of company was only a little mischievous fibbing, craftily intended to elicit a declaration from him who had long been her favored suitor. The only reason why she had accepted the invitation of Raymond for the party was that she and her friends might make themselves merry at his expense. He was disposed to be spoony, and was so little acquainted with the bluff, hearty manner and disregard of ultra etiquette which characterize the people of the West, that he was constantly making himself ridiculous in their eyes, and therefore was vastly entertaining to the lively young ladies upon whom he lavished his attentions, though in a wholly different way from what he supposed. It may not be fully understood that snipe hunts were formerly a favorite means of humiliating gentlemen from the East who went West with too disparaging ideas about the people resident there and too lofty ideas of themselves. How these affairs were managed will fully appear in the remainder of our story.

A dozen or two choice spirits were assembled by Morgan the next evening, and Raymond, having been notified of the time and place, was punctually in attendance, wearing his best clothes and an air of importance which seemed to say, "I am bestowing a great favor in consenting to join you;" and so he was, for his was the principal and an indispensable part in the farce about to be enacted.

The party proceeded several miles out of town by wagons, to a small stream of water in a wild, lonely place. The wagons were left some distance away from the proposed scene of operations, which was in a low, swampy bottom.

Of course, everything had been well arranged beforehand, but to disarm suspicion, it was proposed by one of the fellows that they pull straws to see who should have the privilege of holding the bag. All pretended to agree to this, except Morgan, who insisted that the drawing be dispensed with, saying:

"I promised the post of honor to our distinguished friend here, Mr. Augustus Raymond, of New York, and I intend to see that he has it.

"Thank you, Mr. Morgan, for championing my cause," said Raymond, condescendingly. "You may rely upon me, gentlemen, in whatever post you assign me. I flatter myself that I shall bag as much game as any of you. But it has just occurred to me that we have no guns. How are we to shoot the snipe without guns?'

"We will soon show you, said one of the party," Bob Norton. "We are to form a line and drive the snipe down the creek, while the best man is to stand in this narrow place holding a large bag with the open end up stream. We have sometimes caught hundreds of snipe alive in that way at a single haul. Did you ever have any experience in holding bags?"

"No; but I know I can do it. Only show me where I am to stand."

"You will get your feet wet," suggested another of the party, adding consolingly, "but they will soon dry again. Do you think you can keep perfectly still and wait patiently till the snipe come?"

"No difficulty about that," replied Raymond, who remembered that he had promised Kate the first pick of the feathers.

"Then you're our man," said Bob, and turning to Morgan, "You vouch for the reliability of your friend, I suppose?"

"No fear about him," said Morgan; "he represents one of the leading notion houses of New York; he is true grit, and I warrant he would stand firm in his place till midnight if it took us so long to get the snipe down to him."

Raymond was then furnished with a large bag, the end of which was kept open by a hoop, and suffered himself to be stationed where the water and soft mud were unpleasantly deep, his legs from the knees down being completely submerged. He by no means relished the position, but remembering that he had promised some of the finest red and yellow feathers to Kate, and that Kate's cousin had vouched for him so emphatically, determined to stick it out.

"The water is very cold," he rather meekly suggested as the practical jokers were leaving him. "Do you think it will take very long?"

"We can't tell," replied Morgan. "We may scare up a flock in a few minutes, and it may take half an hour or so. Then, sometimes, they don't drive well, and that causes delay. But don't leave or stir till you have bagged them, for if you should give up and go away you might just miss a splendid flock. We will go to the American Hotel after the hunt is over, and have a Christmas eve supper. That will make amends for all our trouble."

We need scarcely add that they went straight home, taking their wagons with them, and leaving Raymond sinking deeper and deeper into the mud and water. Returning to Morgan's own residence they had a jolly time, and I cracked many a joke at the expense of their poor victim.

"Santa Claus may take pity on him," said Bob Norton, "and fill up his bag with Christmas presents, if he waits there long enough. That would console him, perhaps."

"He wouldn't appreciate them," chimed in another, "unless Santa Claus certified that the toys and things came from that leading notion house which he represents."

"I don't think he would have consented so willingly to hold the bag if I had not worked upon his cursed vanity so well," said Morgan; "and then Kate Andrews made him believe that snipe had long, beautiful red and yellow feathers, and that she wanted him to bring her one to wear to the party tomorrow night."

"I'm thinking his own fine feathers, which he has been strutting about in ever since he came here, will be much the worse for to-night's work," observed another.

And so passed the time with them till long after Christmas had been ushered in. Meanwhile Raymond was standing patiently in the water. No sound disturbed the stillness of the night except the occasional splash of a big fish in a deeper part of the stream just above him.

"This is a delightful manner of spending Christmas eve," he thought to himself. "What would my New York friends think if they could see me in this position?"

His feet and legs were as wet as they possibly could be, and he shivered with cold. Several times he was on the point of giving up, when the thought of Kate, the party, and the promised feathers came to him. Nor could he bear the idea of provoking the ridicule, and perhaps the wrath, too, of the young follows, by deserting his post.

Nearly an hour thus passed and he was not only drenched with water but nearly benumbed with the cold, when suddenly a suspicion dawned upon him that he had been outrageously duped.

"They have made a fool of me," he muttered, with an added imprecation, as his teeth chattered involuntarily, and throwing away the bag he hurried off in search of the wagons.

Fear was added to his rage and mortification when he found they were gone, and that he was left entirely alone in the wild solitary place. Fortunately it was a straight road back to town, and he had no difficulty in following it. He ran most of the way, yet did not reach his hotel till some time after midnight, and it may be readily surmised took the first train next morning for home.

Henry Morgan accompanied Kate Andrews to the Christmas party, and it was remarked by all their friends that she never looked so well nor seemed in such lively spirits, and that he appeared to be unusually happy.

Neither was ever again troubled by the attentions of New York drummers, and just one year later there was a grand wedding in Helena!

The happy pair included New York in their tour, and in a Broadway store met their old acquaintance, Raymond. He greeted them pleasantly, and, after some explanations on both sides, inquired:

"So Mr. Morgan was not your cousin, after all?"

"No more than you were yourself."

"And I suppose he escorted you to the party. I see through it all now. Well, though it was a most unhandsome trick you played upon me, it has turned out for the best. By hurrying home then I got here in time to be of great service to our house at a critical junction, and as a reward, have since been taken into the firm. Besides, I have found another lady-love, the accomplished daughter of our senior partner; and if you can wait till next Thursday, you shall be present at our wedding."

Christmas Snipe Hunt. December 25, 1873. Elk County Advocate 3(43): 1.

The Haunted House

by Amy Randolph.

"Only one passenger by the evening stage," said the landlady of the "Travelers' Repose," as she turned away from the window where she had been watching the cumbrous, old-fashioned vehicle that connected with the railroad, ten miles away.

Only on passenger — a tall, fresh looking girl, with glossy musses of raven dark hair and eyes of liquid hazel. Marian Couchley was pretty, in the rare, blooming English style which is so seldom met with, more's the pity, upon this western continent of ours, and she was very self-possessed withal, as she entered the little inn parlor.

"Can you furnish me with a conveyance to 'Moreton Grange?" she asked of the landlady, who hustled forward to meet her.

"To-night, Miss?"

"Yes, tonight."

"Then you must be the young lady as is coming as companion to Mrs. Moreton?" asked the hostess, with a spice of the curiosity inherited from Morther Eve.

"I am," said Marian, as independently as if she were owning herself the lady of the White House.

"It's a long drive, Miss," said Mrs. Ducey, "and you'd may be better take a bit of supper while Tom's harnessing up the horses. This night air ain't good on an empty stomach, and there're some of the nicest brook trout you ever seen, my man's just brought in."

So Marian sat down to wait; and Mrs. Ducey eyed her in a sidewise fashion as she brought in blue-edge cups and saucers, and homespun napkins, and fresh butter, and a huge bar of honeycomb, dripping sweetness.

"She's a lovely lookin' gal," thought Mrs. Ducey, and Mrs. Ducey was right. Marian looked like a queen as she sat there in her sober black robes, with a warm line of white about her throat, and the coronal of her jettylocks wreathed about her marble air brow.

Marian Couchley was thinking too. She was wondering how this new experiment of hers, to earn her own living, would end. She was sick at heart of the bread of dependence; yet, just now, she felt bewildered and strange, like a child lost in the woods. The only clue she had to follow was a brief advertisement in the newspapers, and that had led her hither.

She turned suddenly to Mrs. Ducey, as that thrifty dame entered with a plate of red smoked beef shaved very thin.

"Is Morgan Grange very far away?"

"Four miles, Miss."

"It must be very lonely."

Mrs. Ducey shook her head.

"I wouldn't like to live there — that's all I've got to say!"

A thrill of apprehension ran through Marian's nerves.

"Why not?"

"Well, Miss — there ain't no accountin' for them things — but people do tell strange stories about the Grange bein' haunted!"

"Haunted!" Marian's clear, bell-like laugh rang through the room with an indescribable accent of relief. "What nonsense! As if any one in the possession of their senses could credit such an idea."

"Tea is ready, Miss," said the landlady primly. "Will you please to set up and take a cup?"

The Grange, as Marian Couchley first saw it, by the light of a faint spring moon, was a glaring red brick house, its northern gables entirely draped with ivy, and its chimneys secluded from sight of the road by dense growing evergreens, cedar, hemlock and Norway spruces. Mrs. Moreton was on the steps to meet the newcomer — a fair, pallid old lady, with silvery curls and a dress of pearl gray silk.

"I am glad to see you, my dear," she said, pressing the cold little hand. "You must have had a dreary ride.

And Marian Couchley knew that she should love her employer.

It was all so new and strange to her, the wide halls, with narrow strips of Persian carpeting laid along their centre in the echoing corridors, where weird faces stared down at her from the canvass of old family portraits, the light streaming down through stained-glass casements and oriels, seeming to bar the floors with scarlet and gold and deep, tremulous violet; while all the dwellers in the roomy mansion, except the servants, were Mrs. Moreton, her son Aldebert, and herself.

Aldebert Morton — the name was like a knight of romance, and so was its owner. Marian's heart throbbed with a singular sensation, as she ventured once or twice to glance slyly as him as he sat opposite to her at the table.

"I hope you like your room, Miss," said the old housekeeper, as she glanced around the apartment to which she had conducted Miss Couchley.

"It is a beautiful room," said Marian, "but it is large enough for half a dozen."

"The whole house is large, Miss."

"Tell me," said Marian, drawing closer to the old woman, "what is it about this house being haunted?"

Mrs. Brett smiled.

"People will talk," she said. "and it's small use tryin' to stop 'em. And the truth is, strange things have happened in this house, although its haunted by nothing worse than sad memories. When I was in my prime it was a different place. Master Aldebert is the last and youngest of three as noble boys as ever made an old place glad."

"And what has become of the others?"

"The eldest is dead," Mrs. Brett answered in a whisper. "He lies in a bloody grave, stricken down by the hand of his own brother in a sudden fit of passion. Poor Mr. Hugh! he fled the country to escape from justice, and died in England. It nearly killed my mistress, and — Hush! there's her bell now, and I must go."

And with a hurried adieu, the old housekeeper hastened away.

So this was the history of the Moreton Grange! Marian Couchley shuddered as she sat alone by the fire, fancying the cry of a murdered man in every sigh of the wind, and seeing the flutter of ghostly garments in the shadow that lurked in the far end of the huge room.

Yet as the days went by, the old Grange assumed a home-like look to her. Mrs. Moreton was all gentle sweetness, and Aldebert's chivalric kindness endured him inexpressibly to the solitary girl. She began to feel that she had found a refuge. But it was not destined to last for long.

She was sitting at her window one moonlight night in July, long after the family had retired to rest, when something white and spectral glided across the luminous space on the lawn — the figure of a tall man, not unlike Moreton!

She started up with a slight scream, and buried here face in the draperies of the window.

"The ghost!" she gasped inaudibly; "the ghost!"

Nor did she rest until she had taken refuge in Mrs. Moreton's room.

The old lady listened to her tale with trembling silence.

"My dear," said she, "you are mistaken. The dwellers of another world are never allowed to come back to haunt this. You were asleep — you dreamed unconsciously."

"Dear Mrs. Moreton," persisted Marian, "I was as wide awake as I am now. I tell you I saw it with my own eyes. It was tall and white, and oh, how gastly."

She shuddered as she spoke. Mrs Moreton soothed, explained and coaxed, but in vain. Marian would not even go back to her own room alone, so complete had been the shock.

"I will go with you, my dear," said the old lady, at length.

She arose, threw on a light flannel dressing gown, and opened the door of her apartment. As they stepped out into the wide hall, Marian uttered a piercing cry. There, full before them, stood the ghost.

Mrs. Moreton drew Marian back into her room, shut and locked the door, and sank trembling on the sofa, clasping both her hands before her eyes.

"Did I not tell you?" faltered Marian. "How can you explain away this?"

Mrs. Moreton had no word of answer; she could only rock herself backward and forward, moaning like one in mortal pale.

"You must not go from this room tonight, child," she said. "Lie down upon my bed, and try to rest."

Toward morning Marian waked from a brief, fevered slumber, and found herself alone; and when she next met Mrs. Moreton, it was at the breakfast table.

Aldebert entered the room later. He was pale and strangely agitated, and his mother looked wistfully up in his face as he entered. He nodded slightly.

"At last," he said.

"Thank God!" Mrs. Moreton murmured.

And Marian noticed that neither mother nor son ate a morsel of the breakfast, so temptingly laid out.

Marian went to Mrs. Moreton, as soon as Adlebert had withdrawn, and falteringly imparted to her her resolve to leave Moreton Grange. Their kindness had made it very pleasant to her; she had been treated more as an equal than a salaried dependent; but the shock her nervous system had last night received rendered it impossible for her to remain longer.

Mrs. Moreton listened in silence.

"Aldebert," she said to her son, who at that moment entered, "Miss Couchley is going to leave us."

"To leave us! And why?"

Involuntarily Marian's heart leaped up, as she saw the sudden flush upon his death-pale forehead.

"She saw — the ghost, last night!" said Mrs. Moreton, speaking the words with an effort.

"She will never see it again," said Aldebert Moreton sadly. "Marian" — he had never called her Marian before, and the word sounded strangely sweet in her ears — "you will come with me?"

He led her to a darkened apartment in the disused portion of the old Grange, where upon a canopied couch, a dead corpse lay, robed in the garments of a grave!

"There is the ghost you saw, Marian," he said; "it will never haunt these glades again."

"Who is it?" she faltered, clinging to his arm, with awe-stricken face.

"My brother Hugh, who has long dwelt concealed within these walls that witnessed his crime and his daily atonement of remorse, and who is at length set free by the great pardoner Death. Immured in necessary retirement throughout the day, he used to seek air and exercise at night; and the common people, who had fancied him dead in England long ago, and who delight in aught savoring of superstition, believed, from an occasional glimpse of him, that the Grange was haunted. We let the story gain credence; better anything than divulgence of the truth. The long deception is over at last, and the poor prisoner, thank Heaven, is set free. Last night he roamed out, half delirious, in the temporary absence of his nurse, returning only to die."

He led Marian from the room; she breathed more freely in the fresh air of the portico without.

"Marian," pursued Aldebert, in a low earnest voice, "you will not leave the Grange now? With you its sunshine would all depart?"

"I will stay," she answered.

"But not as my mothers companion, Marian; that must all be over now. You must stay here as my wife!"

And from the wedding day of the last heir of Moreton Grange, a newer, brighter life dawned upon the old place. As the years crept on, and the sound of little children's voices made music around the gray walls, the shadows fled away, and no one, save Aldebrt and his wife, ever knew where the murderer was laid to rest, after his long penance of solitude and remorse!

Moreton Grange was haunted no longer.

August 3, 1895. Door County Advocate 34(16): 3. Published at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Some archaic spellings were updated.

Mr. Caxgrove's Home Mission

By an anonymous author.

"Really," said Mrs. Caxgrove, "I don't think I had better take it."

"It will do no harm," said the white-haired old missionary, still holding out the little mite chest from which the elegantly dressed lady shrank. "It will take up but a trifling space on yonder marble-topped table, and who knows the good it may do?"

"Oh, yes, of course," said Mrs. Caxgrove; "but we have so few visitors who are charitably disposed, and in our own family there are so many necessary outlets for money."

"In some of the homes where I am acquainted," persisted the old clergyman, "there is quite a fund raised by friendly fines levied by different members of the family on each other — a penny for gloves or hat left lying round, a penny for a careless of ungrammatical expression, and so on — and it is very useful as well as charitable institution."

"I dare say," said Mrs. Caxgrove; "but in our family it would scarcely be worth while."

The old man smiled.

"Are you then so absolutely faultless?"

"Oh, no, I did not mean that," Mrs. Caxgrove answered, somewhat confused. "Only —"

"You will allow me to leave the mite chest?" said Mr. Salter, smiling as he placed it on the center of the marble table, just beneath a basket of camellias, tuberoses and other hot-house plants, the cost of which might have filled it a dozen times over. And Mrs. Caxgrove was too polite to object further.

"Such a nuisance!" she said to Mrs. Jaynesford that afternoon. "As if I wanted to turn collection agent for the missionary society. But Mr. Salter is positively a child in the ways of the world."

"I wish he'd get his wife a new silk dress," said Mrs. Jaynesford. "I'm tired of seeing that old figured poplin. Sarah had a new one last Sunday."

"New!" cried Mrs. Caxgrove, elevating her nose scornfully; "it's nothing on earth but the cinnamon brown dyed black?"

"You don't say so!" cried Mrs. Jaynesford. "Did you know that Ellen Black had an Indian shawl?"

"No?" interrogated the lady of the house. "And her uncle failed last week!"

"Some people fail very comfortably," sniffed Mrs. Jaynesford. "And Hellen Barr told me, at the artists' reception last Thursday —"

She checked herself as the dark blue velvet curtain which fell over the embrasure of a bay-window was lifted, and her friend's husband sauntered forth.

"I did not know you were there, Stephen," said Mrs. Caxgrove, coloring a little.

"So I concluded!" he observed dryly, And taking up the little mite chest, he held it with a smile toward the visitor.

"I have no pennies," she said, glancing over the contents of her Turkey morocco pertemonnaie, and slightly tossing her head, as she rose to take leave.

"The stingy creature!" said Mrs. Caxgrove, when the door was fairly shut behind her. "I don't believe any one ever knew Myrtilla Jaynesford to give a cent in charity!"

"See here, Lill," said her husband. "I only wish I had a phonographic report of your conversation for the last hour!"

"Why?"

"Because you and your friend Mrs. Jaynesford were tearing the rest of the world fearfully into tatters! What does the bible say about the 'unruly members?'"

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Caxgrove, saddening. "Myrtilla is a great gossip, but —"

"I beg your pardon, Lill; but you were quite as bad."

"I don't believe it."

"Let's make a bargain, my dear," said Mr. Caxgrove. "I give you a tolerably good allowance of pin money per week, don't I?"

"Yes, but what on earth has that to do with it?"

"Just this: Every time your tongue touches a neighbor's misdoings, or you speak disparagingly of any one, you shall put a ten cent piece into the mite chest.."

"I would just as soon do it as not," said Mrs. Caxgrove excitedly. "I am sure I never —"

"Is it a bargain?"

"Yes, of course. If it was Myrtilla Jaynesford, now —"

Mr. Caxgrove held out the mite chest. Lill bit her lip, but she dropped in the little folded bit of paper.

"Stephen, you are too bad! To take me up so!"

"But I thought it was a bargain."

Mrs. Caxgrove swept indignantly across the room. Presently she jerked the bell wire.

"Susan," she said to the girl who answered the summons, "do take those sickening tube-roses away. Anybody might know when Mrs. Lawrence has had a ball at her house by the liberality with which she sends the second-hand flowers round among her friends the next day.

"Susan," said Mr. Caxgrove philosophically, "take that little paper box to your mistress."

"Stephen!" cried Mrs. Caxgrove. "I only —"

"I know it, my dear," said her husband. "If you say so, I'll release you from the agreement."

"I do not want to be released," said Mrs. Caxgrove angrily. "Accident happens to be on your side just now."

"On the side of the Home Mission, you mean," said her husband. "By the way, there's that note from Miss Dallas to be answered. Have you forgotten it?"

"What shall I say?"

"Accept her invitation, I suppose."

"Oh Stephen, I would so much rather go to the opera! It's always so stupid at the Dallas's, with old Mrs. Dallas telling about her coughs and colds, and Jessie always full of the last sewing circle."

"Well, I suppose it isn't very lively," sand Mr. Caxgrove, with a sly smile. "Ten cents, Lill, if you please."

"Why Stephen, what have I said? Oh — to be sure!" And Mrs. Caxgrove could not help laughing. "Well its worth ten cents to have the privilege of speaking my mind. Any way, I shall send regrets."

"There will be an awful fib, then!" said Mr. Caxgrove.

"Only a polite fiction. There I haven't a sheet of note paper left! Mrs. Captain Sibthorpe sent in and borrowed the last yesterday; and Mrs. Sibthorpe never returns anything she borrows, by any possibility."

"Like the wicked woman in the scripture," said her husband. "Ten cents my love."

"It's too bad!" cried Lill, with flaming cheeks. "I didn't mean to be taken up this way."

"I only wish Mrs. Jaynesford or one of her set would call again," said Mr. Caxgrove roguishly. "There goes the bell now!"

"I shall be on my guard," said his wife. "I do believe it's Mrs. Montague, the very one of all others I most wished to see. No, it isn't either — it's old Miss Ducey! Oh dear! Now I shall be bored for a mortal half hour."

"The Home Mission again!" said Mr. Caxgrove, calmly presenting the inexorable mite chest, at the same instant in which Miss Ducey was shown into the drawing-room.

Miss Ducey had come to tell Mrs. Caxgrove all the particulars of a recent wedding, and she stayed an hour and a half. And when she went away she circulated a report that "poor dear Mrs. Caxgrove's husband was really getting quite insane on the subject of money, for all the time she was there he sat in the bay-window, pretending to be busy with a book, but every now and then he would repeat to himself, 'Ten cents!' 'ten cents!' 'ten cents!'

"And, my dear," added Miss Ducey, "I never saw a poor creature so mortified as Mrs. Caxgrove. She turned as red as a beet!"

"Stephen," cried the wife as soon as her visitor was gone, "it's too bad for you to make me responsible for the tongue of an old talebearer like Miss Ducey! I couldn't stop her mouth!"

"Of course not," said Stephen, "your mouth is the only one for which you are accountable, and it has just got you into another ten cent difficulty. Upon my word, the Home Mission is making money at a railroad rate! Don't look so vexed, Lill, darling; all this only proves to you that you really were getting into an almost unconscious habit of criticism and fault-finding."

"But I declare I won't be caught again," said Mrs. Caxgrove resolutely.

At the end of five minutes she came back with a telegram in her hand.

"You'll have to go to the depot, Stephen," she said, "to meet the Ravens. Here is a telegraphic dispatch to say they are on there way to visit us. Oh, dear, why can't they stay at home? What shall I do with those three horrid, disagreeable young savages of children. I declare, I'd rather pay —"

"Ten cents, Mrs. Caxgrove," said her husband. And then he went off to meet the train.

At the end of the week the mite chest was opened, and found to contain five dollars and thirty cents in fine money.

"I didn't know I was so bad, Stephen," said Mrs. Caxgrove, half laughing, half crying. "For the future I will try to 'set a watch upon the door of my lips.'"

Mr. Caxgrove counted out the money and sent it to Mr. Salter, with a little note, saying that the mite chest had met with better luck than his wife anticipated.

"We'll set the little trap to catch a bad habit again," he said laughingly to Lilla. "I hope the money will do the Home Mission much benefit, but I am sure it has already wrought a good work in my own little domestic home mission."

"I think so too, Stephen," said Lilla.

February 11, 1886. Door County Advocate 24(42): 1. Published at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.