the window, he began to descend, swaying as he went. She stepped out, watching him over the railing, and unfastened the ladder for him after he had reached bottom. When she reentered her room, she looked at herself in the glass, and saw that her cheeks were burning. Before descending he had paused for just an instant to kiss her hand.

"What a strange man," she said to herself, sinking on a divan.

Then she took the letters in to the Mayor, whose face darkened as he went over them.

"Are these all?" he asked.
"Why, of course," she replied.

On the night designated he made his entrance as before without her being aware of it. She had set the table, and with her back to him, was bending over it when he spoke. She started—and yet it seemed to be more of a thrill running through her-and greeted him with impulsive warmth and outstretched hand. Then she filled the tea, and they sat down to it. It was just like a continuance of their former meeting, supplemented by that peculiar zest that a designation always lends.

The atmosphere danced about them a little. And to the man something debonair pertained; a mood gracing his personality like a launch at play on deep waters. She was eager for the story, and so he told it to her, settling in the relation into that restfulness that seemed to her full of colors and unusual meanings. And all the stars came out in her eyes to listen.

"The Stanhope robbery," he commenced, "happened about three years ago, you will remember. For a while the newspapers were full of it. As I told you, I handled it for the New York Sun. I am out West here for my health. Mrs. Stanhope, Lady Beaufort, etc., was a chorus girl who married an English lord, later a Baltimore millionaire, a captain in the United States army, and afterwards a lieutenant. Year by year she came down the line regularly. But she was pretty, for

you

all a sort of Kitty prettiness, might say. The devil in her paraded smartly and gracefully with bells and a ribbon tied to its neck. She was fetching till you brought right up to her. If you did not know women, she might prove fetching altogether. Her peculiarity was that she passed generally as being brilliant, while she was simply erratic. She was not only capable of thinking the wildest things, but doing them in the same half hour. Having got rid of the lieutenant in a rather dramatic way, she took as her lover a newspaper man who happened around to interview her on the subject. No, it wasn't me."

The girl's eyes, regarding him, had sharpened and drooped instantly.

"Bentley was on the Tribune. The strange part of it was that she actually fell in love with him. I do not think she had ever been in love before. She showered presents upon him, and, much to his embarrassment, bought him clothes which he needed. On his part, it was but novel companionship and passing fancy. It lasted three months, when he fell in love with the sweetest girl imaginable, and sent back to the widow all of her presents with a short note in explanation.

"It was the next day that the lady lost her jewels. And it was two months before she recovered them. The detectives and newspapers alike guessed in vain. Bentley was shadowed during the whole period. After the first installment, I took the detail over from another reporter. The second day after the robbery I had dinner with Mrs. Stanhope.

"She was thin and could well stand a little padding in front. You will pardon me for speaking so. But the gist of the thing is that the lost jewels were concealed in her bodice. I fancied they were somewhere about her, and made her locate them before the dinner was over. She had planned to visit Bentley's room and hide them where later they would be found. A rather neat revenge.

"She was so much in love that I felt sorry for her. She threatened to shoot

herself if I published the story. Nor would she consent to have the jewels found immediately, for having broken down, she clung to the fancy that their loss might somehow bring Bentley back to her. Impulsively she asked me to take care of them for her. Imagine, a quarter of a million dollars' worth of gems! But I undertook the risk. We agreed to discover them in two months. Arriving home one day, she was to find them returned to her without explanation. You will remember that she did.

"But imagine me with those stones. I lived in a garret flat on a lonely hill overlooking the sea. Worse still, I had knocked off newspaper work for a month. At nights I used to take the stones out and regard them. The sight never failed to stir my imagination. People see stones, but how many really think of them? They became a sensation to me, breeding a thousand poetic fancies. They were crystallized souls, each a marvel in its own right and history. I really believed so at length, and finally they came to life for me. Why not? Are not our truest senses those that do not bind us, but whose life is the life of everything. Between the gems and my soul sprang up an affinityship. Oh, I could tell you strange stories of them, if I chose. One of them became my love. It was a large moonstone that I found her in, a moonstone of peculiar markings."

she uncovered her face to me—and my universe thereafter lay within the circumference of her eyes. Her form waxed to life-life so vivid and graceful; her draperies shook to freedom; and there in the moonbeams she stepped out to dance for me. When I closed my eyes she drew near and kissed my lips, and her warm, soft hands caressed my face lightly. It was always so. She would never live for me, except when there was no light and the moon sifted through the open window. And she would never kiss or caress me except when my eyes were closed. Ah, but then, what kisses!

"She had been an Indian Princess, and her passion was a heritage, infinite as it was delicate. Her blood was a flood reserved in small channels. She had the fire of a tigress and the fragrant beauty of a wild flower.

"Then one evening she was gone. I slept with her under my pillow, and, perhaps I left her there, or perhaps she just went. But I have always thought she was stolen. From the old negress, who took care of my place for me, however, I could never force admittance of the theft. The other jewels, my 'braw companions,' as I called them, I put safely away every night. For weeks I searched in vain, and then it was time to return the jewels to Mrs. Stanhope. When I told her of the loss of the moonstone, she merely smiled and said that it was all right. I suppose she thought I wanted to keep She even offered me a valuable

pause.

"This stone seemed to grow on me quicker than the others, though it took me longer to find it out. The others had become living intimates to my loneliness, filling my chamber at nights with the colorful symphony of their lives, before the milkcloud lifted from the face and form that were to prove so lovely. Then one night it did lift and my heart stood still. The moon was shining in the window when

"But I, myself, was not so easily reconciled to the loss. The longing to again possess the Princess grew on me till I became a thief searching here and there, and taking any chance to recover my sweetheart. And that was what brought me through your window."

"I am so glad it brought you," was what she said in reply. Then they sat regarding each other out of the mysticism he had created. It was during this silence that there came the sound of a quick footstep and a knock at her door.

"To-night," she said, "there will be no interruptions. It is the third time, isn't it, and that is always the charm."

She had brought over her jewel case to the table, and was selecting the key from a tiny girdle. In her clinging browns she was a picture of dainty ripeness, and a summer's warmth seemed to breathe about her, flushing the delicate tints of her complexion, and shining in the golden glory of her hair.

"I have a moonstone here," she suggested, "though of course it cannot be yours. However, I am not sure I know where it came from, either."

She opened the case, and they bent over it together.

"I will show you the moonstone last," she said, as she went from one plush-lined compartment to another, revealing stone after stone of different kind and brilliance. Some of them she lifted in her hand and they seemed to grow brighter by being there. A pearl necklace with a topaz pendant, she unwrapped from chamois, and put it on for his inspection. To her round, soft neck, bare to the curve of the shoulder, it gave a touch of Grecian dignity. The blood crimsoned her cheeks at the deep look of admiration he flung her.

"Give me the chamois," he said. And their hands met and clung for an instant.

To cover her embarrassment, perhaps, she bent again over the jewel case, and from the one compartment that remained unopened, took out a large moonstone. She slipped it into his hand, and he stood staring at it while she regarded him. He glanced quickly up at her once, something peculiarly intense in his face. She put out a hand to point to him the stone's most peculiar marking, and her fingers drooped on his palm. Instantly, the

moonstone crushed between them, his grasp closed on her, and he drew her close to him.

"It's the stone," he avowed, breathing deeply; "the stone! And you are the Princess, my Princess-for always." His arm had gone about her neck, and while she answered them unconsciously and without struggling, his kisses fell on her lips again and again.

Then she came to herself and put him away. A sudden revelation had flashed to her. The look in her eyes was judgment should he lie, for he realized her intuition had guessed the truth.

"Why, that story of the moonstone and the Princess?" she demanded. "You made it up for me. What really brought you here that first night?"

He answered her tersely and in a manner of absolute straightforwardness. "My newspaper sent me to get a letter mailed to your father from one of the big companies, enclosing a check for a large amount of money, should he do as they told him. It was suggested to the office that it had been sent. If we got the letter we could, through it, have controlled the company to future decency and fairdealing and saved your father."

"He would not have accepted the money," she declared with decision, the blood aflame in her cheeks.

"He has the reputation of being an honorable man. We did not believe that he would accept. But the check was sent to him on that chance, and it was known he was in some straits. Since it was purely a matter of the company's bargaining, the publication of the letter would not have hurt him, but it would them."

"You did not get the letter?" She was drawn very erect.

His eyes fell. "Yes; I got it the first night. I sorted the mail while you stood at the window."

"Oh, I am so ashamed of you," she articulated, covering her face with her hands; "so ashamed of you!"

He stepped swiftly over to her, catching the two hands in one of his own, and holding her close to him.

"Ila, forgive me, forgive me," he pleaded. "I have never been a thief before, and I never will be again. I got the letter; I read it, but I did not publish it. I realized that I loved youyes, even that first night. So I lied to the managing editor, telling him I had reason to know that no such letter had been mailed. I could not ruin you, sweetheart; surely, you know that I would save you regardless of everything-everything" He floundered, grasping for words to go on, but realizing that he had already said too much.

She looked straight in his eyes, her face near to his. "Then the letter did implicate father, the letter did implicate father," she insisted.

There was no use trying to deceive her, and he knew it. He caught her by the two arms, holding her straight in front of him, and bringing all the power of his personality to bear on her. She had drooped so that she almost needed holding. "Remember," he said, "that your father is a public man, and that such are subject to a thousand temptations. Not over one in a hundred are on the exact square always. He is only human, and you cannot expect too much of him. I want you to believe that at the last moment, in spite of everything, he would have returned the check."

re

"In spite of everything!" she peated weakly and caustically. "Yes; in spite of everything!" She would have sank to a chair, but she turned, staring whitely at the door. The Mayor was standing there, a blanched look on his face. His hand trembled visibly on the knob, his spare, gaunt figure seeming drawn for breath. But he commanded himself immediately and strode over facing the other man.

"Some of this conversation I heard through the door," he said, in a voice

restrained to quietness; "and what you said just now, sir, after I had opened it. You are O'Dare of the 'World,' are you not. I remember you very well. You have a reputation, haven't you, of getting everything you go after. With regard to this letter addressed to me, will you let me have it?"

The other handed it to him without a word, but with a look that meant everything. The girl watched them with blighted eyes.

The Mayor read the letter rapidly, the hand that held it trembling as he did so, but a smile hovering about his lips. Then he tore it into a thousand pieces, dropping them into a basket at his feet. The check he still held in his hand, and this he tore full length two ways. The four pieces he enclosed deftly and swiftly in an envelope, writing the address of the sending company in a large hand on the outside. It had been all done in a minute.

"Post that for me," he directed O'Dare, smiling at him in a genial way. Then, stooping to kiss the girl on the forehead, he walked straight out of the room, his broad shoulders swinging resolutely beneath his heavy gray hair.

The color had come back to the girl's face. "Father!" she cried after him in a voice of forgiveness.

Then, gathering herself for a moment, she held out her hand to her companion, who stepped quickly toward her. For an instant, while he smoothed her hair, her head hid on his breast. Then she looked up in his face.

"If you were to express your dearest wish," she asked, "what would it be?"

"That you would go right out with me now and be married."

"And that is just what I am going to do," she consented.

HASTE

WISH that we were safe on some good farm."

How often one hears the wish from those who are noting the advancing price of farm products and the shifting business vales of war times. This condition produces feeling of uncertainty that is serving to awaken a new interest in farming, and increase the number who are trying to find a way "back to the land."

It is an undertaking for a man to cut loose from the anchorage of a comfortable salary and stake his future on a homestead, but for a woman to venture such an undertaking requires more than ordinary fortitude. When a woman is successful in making one of Uncle Sam's farms pay her in money and health and happiness, the knowledge of her work becomes a source of inspiration and encouragement to those who are wishing for the security of a farm. It was in the hope of furnishing such encouragement that a woman who has converted one of Uncle Sam's homesteads into a flour

ishing farm has been persuaded to tell her story-to report her efforts, and furnish statistics of her work-to blase a trail of personal experience that may be some guide to others who may be trying to find a way "back to the land."

"My story starts on an Iowa farm," began the narrator, as she looked with satisfaction over her own farm, so beautiful with spring's promise of autumn's harvest. "My farmer kin all enjoyed the rural life, but they all assured me that farming was drudgery, and congratulated me on my great good fortune in escaping from the labor of the farm for the easy work of teaching school.

"Some way, I don't seem to be made to live within doors, and the enthusiasm with which I began teaching very soon began to wane and was slowly but surely replaced by a longing for horizons instead of walls-a longing which must be felt by thousands who chafe against the ceaseless grind and close confinement of the school room, the office, the shop and the factory.