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OR, THE GIRL IN BLUE PREF HI CA DHS TH HO HEH DH OHSS OD OHAPTER XXI.--(Cont'd). '1 think I should have grown con- fidential towards Gedge were it not that he apparently treated me as one whose mind was wandering. He believed, and Jerhaps justly so, that my brain had been injured by the accidental blow. To him, of courke, it seemed impossible that 1, his master, should know nothing of 'my own affairs. The ludicrous- ness of the situation was to me en: tirely apparent, yet what could I do to avert it] By careful questions I endeavored to obtain from him some facts re- garding. my past. "You told me," I said, "that I have many friends. Among them are there any persons named An- son?' '"Anson ¥' he repeated reflective- ly. 'No, I've never heard the name."' 'Or Hickman?' = He shook his head. "I lived once in Essex Street, Etrand,"' I said. "Have I been to those chambers during the time-- the five years you have been in my service ¥' "Never, to my knowledge.' "Have I ever visited a house, The Boltons, in Kensington #' "I think not,"" he responded. 'Curious! Very curious!' I ob- served, thinking deeply of the graceful, dark-eyed Mabel whom I ad loved six years before, and who was now lost to me for ever. '""Among my friends is there a man named Doyle #"' I inquired, af- ter a pause. "Doyle? Do you mean Mr. Rich- ard Doyle the war correspondent ?"' "'Certainly,"' 1 cried excitedly. "Is he back?' '""He is one of your friends, and has Jiten visited here,"" Gedge re- ied. "What is his address? I'll wire to him at once." ; "He's in Egypt. He left Lon- don last March, and has not yet returned." I drew a long breath. Dick had evidenily recovered from fever in India, and was still my best friend, although I had no knowledge of it. What, I wondered, had been my actions in those six years of uncon- sciousness? Mine were indeed strange thoughts at that moment. Of all that bad been told me I was unable to account for anything, 1 Sood stunned, confounded, petri: ed. For knowledge of what had tran- spired during those intervening years, or of my own career and ac- tions during that period I had to rely upon the statements of others. My mind during all that time, it appeared, had been a perfect blank, incapable of receiving any impres- sion whatsoever. Nevertheless, when I came to consider how I had in so marvel- lous a manner established a repu- tation in the City, and had amassed the sum now lying at my bankers', 1 reflected that I could not have. accomplished that without the ex: ercise of considerable tact an mental capacity. 1 must, after ally have retained shrewd senses, but "they had evidently been those of my other self--the self who "had lived and moved as husband of that woman who called herself Mrs, Heaton, - park alu IE "Pell 1 said, addressing: ain, 'has my married life d erence. ality, had been swept away and ef- faced for ever. ; "Have I often visited Heaton -- my own place' I inquired, turning suddenly to Gedgy.. : ("Not since your merri lieve,"' he answered. 'You have always entertained some curious dislike towards the place. I went up there once tO transact some business, with your agent, and thought it a nice, charming old house." "Aye, and so it is," I sighed; re- membering the youthful days I'had spent there long ago. All the year round was sunshine then, with the most ravishing snow-drifts in win- ter, and ice that sparkled in the sun so brilliantly that it'seemed al- most as jolly and frolicsome as the sunniest of sunlit streams, dancing and shimmering over the pebbles all through the cloudless summer. Did it ever rain in those old days long ago? Why, yes; and what splendid times I used to have on those occasions--toffee-making in the schoolroom, or watching old Dixon, the gamekeeper, cutting gunwads in the harness-room. And I had entertained a marked dislike to the place! All my tastes and ideas during those blank years had apparently become inverted, 1 had lived and enjoyed a world ex- actly opposite to my own--the world of sordid money-making and the glaring display of riches. I had; in a word, aped the gentleman. There was a small circular mir- ror. in the library, and before it I stood, marking every line upon my face, the incredible impress of for- gotten years. "It is amazing, incredible!" T cried, heartsick with desire to pe- netrate the veil of mystery that en- shrouded that long period of un- consciousness. "All that you have told me, Gedge, is absolutely be- yond helief. There must be some mistake, It is impossible that. six years can have passed without my knowledge:" «I think,' he said, "that, after all, Britten's advice should be fol lowed. You are evidently not your- self to-day, and rest will probably restore your mental power to its proper calibre." "Bah !'"' I shouted angrily. 'You still believe I'm mad. I tell I'm not. I'lliprove to you that "n "Well," he remarked quite calm- ly, 'no sane man could be utterly ignorant of his own-life." It doesn't stand to reason that he could." "1 tell you I'm quite" as sane as you are," I cried. 'Yet I've been utterly unconscious these six whole ears." "Nobody will believe you." "But I swear it to be true,'"' I protested. "Bince the moment when consciousness left me in that house in Chelsea 1 'have been as one dead." iy He. laughed increduously. ~The slightly confidential tone in which had. spoken had apparently in- 'duced him to. treat me with indiff- This aroused my wrath. I was in no mood to argue whether or not I was responsible for my ac- tions. + "A man surely can't be uncon scious, while at the same time he transacts business and lives | as pal Yom mi and of Mabel, the woms loved so fondly and devote Sweet were the reco e, I be-| Gardens, how soft and m voice, how full of tenders Fright dark eyes! How idy our love! She had purely 3 undeclared passion. - Bhi known the great secret in my heart. Nevertheless, all had changed. In & woman's life half a dozen ¥ 1s a long time, for she may di from girl to matron in that Di The worst aspect of the i pre: sented itself to me. I had probability, left her without ing a word of farewell, and on her part--had, 'no dou cepted some other suitor. more natural, indeed, th should have married? A ie That thought held me vigid, 'Again, as I strolled on eneath the rustling elms which led straight away in a wide old avenue towards where a distant village church stood, a prominent figure in the landscape, there recurred to me yi- vid recollections of that last night of my old self--of the. astounding discovery I had made in the draw- ing-room at The 'Boltons. "= ° I to account for that, 1 paused and glanced around up- on the view. All was quiet and peaceful there in the mid-day sun- light. Behind me stood the great white facade of Denbury; before a little to the right, lay a small vil- lage 'with its white cottages--the village of Littleham, I afterwards discoyered--and to = the: left. white cliffs and the 'blue stretch of the English Channel gleamed through the greenery. Ge ram the avenue I turned and wandered down a _by-path to a stile, and. there I rested, in full uninter- rupted view of the open sed: Deep below was a cove--Littleham Cove, it proved to be--and thers, 'under shelter of the cliffs, a couple f yachia wor riding gail & anchor while far away upon the . rizon a dark smoke-trail showed the track of a steamer outward bound. iat (To be Continued.) rep rm -- 3 ANCIENT BABYLON. London 'is Seven Times Bigger Than the Old City. at anchor, | ed that the most successful pig f er is the one'that has fat pig at all seasons of the year, ut par- is a good | dea Ei to sell | ticularly in'July and August, as the |} highest price is then generally ob tained for pork, while it has cost ag less to produce 3 given quantity of pork in warm than in cold weather. It hasbeen conclusively proved that in severe weather the whole of the putriment contained in the food i required to-keep up the animal of the pigs, so that no increase in weight is made, Tl oe 18 heat oth stro i apd weak) Hioh poor. - Civic 'du demands = that should as f Again, a well matured sow. will | rear at-least 20 per cent. more pigs at less cost per head than will mst young sows with their first littera, besides this dhe proportion of weax- ly igs will be smaller, A aturally there exists a consider able difference of opinion.as to the type or style of pie most genorally profitable.' The first point cona:der- ed is the market which the pig breeder proposes. to supply. In London and other large citiss, the chief demand is for pigs some four to five months old 'and' weighing about 60 pounds dead weight; for this the' kept, -and often cros shire bogie. vo chide, i 'The form and weight. of the pigs - required in "other districts varies from. the so-called bacon curers' pig of some 160 pounds dead sick, some 'of them became ill. = "A cup which had been in use nine - days in a school was 'a clear thin 'pathogenic germs : cups; snd 3, the "discovery that 'where a number of persons drank from a cup pr used: by the glass. It was broken into a num: 'ber of pieces and proper ined for examination with a microscope agnifying 1,000 diame eters, Fhe iddle White Yorkshire is | OX" d'by & Berk: | no. weight to the 250-pound to 300- | third und fat pig wanted north o and. For this finer qi ; or J.aTge ACK BF gene Another historieal lie has been} nailed to the counter by the Ger-1y man Oriental Society, which has been engaged recently in uncover: ing the ruins of ancient Babylon. |} n their 'report they state th practically the whole area of th city has now been laid bare, an the foundations 'of the inclosinj Toll traced throughout 'its e ength. The space occupied by the cit was barely one square mile-- 'compared with London's seventy-- and the buildings were plain, ? etefitio 8 4 brik The fams an wh pierced by ty as: well as ; and working in the @ 'One day a fashions