THE COURIER
'Ought is probably looking for mo ami wondering who I'm sitting
out with all this time. At least, that's what he's generally doing at
a dance."
"Now, if ho would read Lucifera !" said I.
"He approves of it in theory," said Mrs. Knight. "Ah you'ro
very hap I mean I mean you haven't got an 'Ought," Mr. Vansit
tart." "Oh yes. I have," 6aid I, nodding.
"What? Oh, but you're too young! You're surely not "
"Converted?" I interrupted. "Certainly."
"Oh, converted!" murmurmed Mrs. Knight, with a smile.
"And so," said I. "I have found an 'ought.' Shall I tell you what
it is?"
"Yes, please do, Mr. Varsittart."
It was tho shortest explanation which I have ever achieved, when
ono considers, I mean, how absolutely complete it was. It left noth
ing more to say, unless it were a single syllable, which Mrs. Knight
said.
"Oh!" said Mrs. Knight.
" Do you quite underttand or shall I repeat?"
"No," said Mrs. Knight.
At this moment a tall, stout, middle-aged man with black whisk
ers entered tho room, and seeing us cried ii unmistakable satisfact
ion: "Ah!" anJ advanced toward us, saying as he came:
"I could not thii.k what had become of you, my dear. I've been
looking everywhere!"
"Why, my dear, I've been here all the time." said Mrs. Knight.
"Mr. Vansittart do let me introduce my husband to you. Mr. Van
sittart and I have been talking about 'Lucifera.' I have been try
ing to tell him what I meant."
"It is a great book, sir," said the man with the whiskers.
"As Mrs. Knight explains it," said I, "it is superb."
"I trust," he said, "that you agree with its position?"
"I have just explained that 1 do," I said.
Mrs. Knight took his arm and bowed to me. I bowed to Mrs.
Knight.
"We shall meet again 6oon I hope," said she, "and exchange
more "
"Opinions," said I. for what's in a namo after all?
Next morning I perceived that tho thing ought never to have hap
pened. But since it had oh, well.
AT TWIblGHT.
SHE WAS ALWAYS SEbF-SAGRIFICING.
Tho life work of Farmer Milsap's wife was over. Like a head of
wheat fully ripe she was about to be gathered in by the grim har
vester. "Obadiah," she said, in a feeble voice, as tho end drew near
peacefully and painlessly, "you have been a good husband to me."
"I have tried to be, Lucindy," replied Farmer Milsap.
"You have laid yourself out to make things easy and comfortable
liko for me."
"I have always tried to do my sheer, Lucindy."
"Obahiah," she went on, "we've lived together fifty-live years,
hain't we?"
"We have."
"And ever since we were married you've eat all the bread crusts,
hain't you."
"I don't deny it, Lucindy, I have."
"You've eat the bread crusts for fifty five years, so's I wouldn't
have to eat 'em, Inin't you, Obadiah?"
"I don't deny it, Lucindy."
"Obadiah," said Farmer Milsap's wifo after a pause, "it was very
kind of you. And now you won't mind my telling you one thing,
will you?"
"No. What is it, Lucindy?"
"Obadiah" and there was a world of self abnegation in her voico
"I always was fond of crusts."
Ringing Noises
In tho ears, sometimes a roaring, buzzing sound, are caused by
catarrh, that exceedingly disagreeable and very common disease.
Loss of smell or hearing also result from catarrh. Hood's Sarsapa
rilla, the great blood purifier, is a peculiarly successful remedy for
this disease, which it cures by p-jrifying the blood.
Hood's Fills are the best after dinner pills, assist digestion, pro
rent constipation.
I
Written for Tiik Cuuuiui:.
LOVED a rose. It was fair and sweet and beautiful. It's irreat
heart was laid open to mo and I kissed it again anil again. I
held it in my hands and looked at it long and long. I swore
eternal love for it. I never would forsake it. Hut, Ah me! I knew
not myself. Tho busy cares of the day canu between mo and my
rose. I forgot its loveliness and became absorbed in tho hurry and
tush of life.
After the hurry was over I bethought mo of my roso. I went to
where I kept it, but it was dead. Tho pedals had all fallen to tho
ground and only tho naked withered heart remained. I wept over
it, I watered it with my tears, I cried aloud for its beauty to return,
but it ciimo no more. Only ashes and dust and ruins remained.
But I am ever haunted by the ghost of a rose, a dainty memory tuat
goes with mo where ever I go. Ah my pretty rose! My pretty,
pale, dead rose. I love you yet although" you are dead, dead. You
are but a ghost. I will keep you with my ghost memories, with my
mother's kisses, my school day loves and my dead hopes.
After the doubts of the dayj
Comes faith at night,
Groping her way in tho dark
In raiment white.
Raising her hands to heaven
In steadfast prayer.
Bringing our tired souta
Surcease from care.
After the doubts of the uay
Comes Faith and Peace,
Bidding our fretful souls
Their sighings cease.
The last bright rays of the sun have paled in tho west. Tho
clouds that were at first crimson and gold, slowly changed to ashes
of roses, then to glowing gray and are now dark against tho black
azure sky. By unseen hands the curtains of tho night have been
let down over the world. The thin silver moon sails calmly over
head. The tender stars look down and on the curtain of night
memory paints with unerring hand the scenes of other days. Faces
of loved ones that have been buried for years come again and haunt
the twilight. Scenes or childhood, pictures of the old homo all
come and make the world turn back and give us tho old joys once
again.
The gray darkens into black. The day with all its busy cares
fades away into oblivion. Great, calm, silent night tills tho world
and as we sit and dream and dream in the dark, sleep places her
finger on our eyes and the world is shut out from our view. Tho
stars shine on, the moon still sails and the clouds lloat but we heed
them not.
If the dead could only speak. If the cold dumb lips could only
break the silence once agaiu and tell us what lies beyond tho tomb.
If the lowest and most degraded and ignorant person that ever lived
could speak once more after being cold in death, what a crowd of
wondering people he would have about him. IJut death is silent,
inexorably silent. He places his seal upon tho lips and there is no
more murmurings or rejoicings. We may throw ourselves upon
the bn ast of our dead, may press our hot lips against their cold
ones until the dead lips become warm, may cry aloud for just one
word, but tho great, white, majestic death never vouchsafes an
answer. After tho last sigh, the voice that we Knew and loved to
hear, has gone out forever, and is heard no more in all this world.
We know not what lies' beyond the dark curtain that divides us
from we kno- not what. We have our hopes. We hope that there
is a heaven beyond. That our loved ones are waitingor us, but we
are not sure. In great darkness we are blind and groping about
and we dream that we see light ard hope beyond, and yet and yet,
no one has ever come back and whispered in our ears that there is
a heaven. If the dead could only speak.
William Rked Dcjjkoy.
I
!i
1
