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She. had prepared a little set speech to deliver at. onceâ€"a speech which will give the keynote to the afterâ€"interview: but, alas! every word of it has gone out of her head. Unable to articulate a syllable, She stands beside him, and if anyone is to give the keynote, it must be be. “This is very, very good of you. It seems a shame to ask you to come here, with all this horrid paraphernalia of physio about; but I really coultl not wait until they let me be moved into another room.” “She has not yet dared to lift her eyes to his face, in terror lest the sight of the change in it shall overset her most im- sure composure. Already, indeed, she has grecdily asked and obtained every detail of the alteration wrought. in him. She knows that his head is shaved, that his features are sharp, and that his voice is faint; and, when as he ceases Speak- ing, she at last wins. resolution enough to look at him, she sees that she has been told the truth. His head is shave-n, his nose is as sharp as a pen, and his voice is faint. She has been told all this; but what is there that she has not been told? What is his voice be- sides faint? “Will not you sit down? It seems monstrous that I should be lying here letting, you wait upon yourself. Will you try that one ?” pointing to the chair which is. figuring at the same moment in Jim’s tormented fancy. “I am afraid you will not find it very comfortable.I I have not tried it yet, but it looks as hard as a heart.” She sits down meekly as he bids her, glad to be no longer obliged to depend upon her shaky limbs and answers : “Thank you; it is quite comfortable.” “Would not it be better if you had a cushion ?”â€"looking all around the room for one. His voice is courteous, tender almost, in its solicitude frr her case. But is she asleep or awake? Can this be the same voice that poured the frenzy of its heart-rending adjurafions into her car scarce a month ago? Can this long, ccol, white saintâ€"he looks somewhat like a young saint in his emaciafion and his scuff-capâ€"he the stammcring maniac who, when last‘she saw him, crashed down nigh dead at her feet, slain by three words from her month? At the stupcfaction engendered by these questions, her own brain seems turning, but she feebly tries to recover herself. “1â€"1 am so glad you are better." “Thank you so much. Yes it is nice; nice to be “ ‘Not burnt Willi thins-ting, iNor with hot. fingers, nor with temples bursting.’ . Do you remember Keats?” After all, there is something of the original Byng left, and the ghost of his old spouting voice in which he recites the above couplct gives her back a greater measure of composure than could almost anything else. “It is nice, only one would like to be able to jump, not ‘the life to come’â€"ha 5 ha fâ€"but the convalesccnce to come. My mother is even more impatian than I am. She has made up her mind that. we are. to be off in three days, even if I am earned on board on a shutter.” She can see now that he is very much cmbarrassedâ€"-that his fluency is but the uneasy cover of some emotionâ€" and the discovery enables her yet further to re- gain possession of herself. “I should think,” she says in her gentle voice, “that you would be very glad to get out of this room whereâ€"where you have suffered so much.” “Well, yes; one does grow a tib‘xl of seeing little “‘The casement slowly grow a glim- mering square !’ but"~with a rather forced laughâ€"“at least. I have had cause to be thankful that there is no wall-paper to count the Ishe says, half bewildered. LIFE STORY tibly deepening, while his transparent hand fidgcts uneasily with the border of the covcrlet thrown over him, “or”â€" laughing againâ€"“I shall have that tyrant of a nurse down upon me, andâ€"â€" and I do wishâ€"I have wished so muchâ€" so unspeakablyâ€"to see you, to speak to ion.” 3 She sits immovable, listening, while a my of somethingâ€"can it be hope? why should it be hopc‘tâ€"darts across her heart. After all, this may be Byngâ€"her Byng; this strange new manner may 0 only the garment in which Sickness has dressed his passionâ€"a worn-out garment soon to drop away from him in rags and tellers, and in which cannot she already discern the first rent? After all, she may have need for her armorâ€"â€"that ar- nior which, so far, has seemed so piti- fully needless. “I knew that it would be no use ask- ing leave to send for you any sooner , they would have tofu me I was not up tt‘ itâ€"woufd have put me off with some excuse; so I kept a ‘still sough.’ Do you know that I never mentioned your name until to-day? But it has been hard work, I can tell you; for the last two days I have scarcely been able to bear it, I have so hungcred to see you.” llcr eyelids tremble, and she instinc- tively puts up her hand to cover her tell- tale. mouth. Surely this is the old lan- guage. Surely there is, at. all eve-nts,a snatch of it in his last words; and again that prick of illogical joy quickens the beats of her fainting heart, though she tries to chide it away, asking herself why she should be in any measure glad that the love which she has come here for no other purpose than to renounce stil‘ lives and stirs. 7 I “You may think I am exaggerating, but in point of fact I cannot by any exâ€" pression less strong than the gnaw of downright hunger convey the longing I have had to see you.” ‘ Ilc pans-cs with a momentary failure of hzs still feeble powers. ‘ She catches her breath. Now is the time for her to strike in, to arrest him before he has. time to say anything more definite . Now is the time for her to fulfil her promise, her inhuman pro- mise, which yet never for one instant strikes her as anything but irrevocably binding. Does he see her intention, that he plunges, in order to anticipate it, into so hurried a resumption of his in- terrupted sentence? . “To see you in order to begâ€"to sup- »plicafe you to forgive me for my conduct to you.” She gives an almost imperceptible start. This ending is not what she had expected, not the one to defend herself against which she has been fastening on her buckler and grasping her shield. The words that it demands in answer are not those with which she has been furnishing herself, and it is a moment or two before she.can supply herself with others. He must be referring, of course, to his last meeting with herâ€"â€" that one so violently broken off by the catastrophe of his Collapse. “I do not know what I am to forgive,” “You were not accountable for your actions. You were too ill to know what you were do- ing.” “Oh, you think I am alluding to that last time,” cries he, precipitatcly cor- recting her. “No, no; you are right. I was not accountable then. You might as well have reasoned with a wild beast out of a menagerie. I was a perfect Bedlamite then. No”â€"going on very rapidly, as if in desperate anxiety to make her comprehel'id withnthe least possible delayâ€"“what I am asking you â€"â€"asking you on my kneesâ€"to forgive 'me for, is my whole conduct to you from the beginning.” _ -- The two white“ faces are looking breathlessly into each other, and though of late he has been tussling with death “on a bed, and she has been walking 'ahout, and plying her embroidery, and dining at a public table, hers is far the whiter of the two. It must be the un- wrnfed exertion of talking so much that makes him bring out his next speech in jerks and gasps. “I forced my acquaintance upon yc -1 at the very beginning; I watched you like. a detective; I beset you wherever you went; I pcstcred you with my vis- its. .lim always told me that it was not the conduct of a gentleman, but I would not believe himflnot even when”â€"â€"how difficult it is! he finds it almost as hard work as his mother had done upon the Moleâ€"“not even when, by my impor- tunities, I had driven you awayâ€"â€" obliged you to rush away almost by night from a place you likedâ€"a place you were l'appy inâ€"â€"fo escape me. And I have no excuse to offer youâ€"mono; unless, indeed, as I sometimes think, my mind was off its balance even then. I CFpt‘CSS myself \vretch-cdfy f”â€"in a tone pattern of. Ihave blessed the white wall of real distressâ€"“hut you will overlook for its featureless face.” that, will not you? You willâ€"will She moves a little in her chair, as if understand .what. I mean 7" to assure herself that. awake. she is reallyl ’l‘haf. slupefaction is beginning'hg: head, She makes an assenting motion with At. this moment she cannot to numb 1161‘ againfltlmt hilly feelillg'spcak: she will be able to do so again that. this is not Byng at all, this polite in- valid, making such civil conversation for her; this is somebody else. “But. I must not tire myself out. before I have said what i want to say to you,’ he continues. his mubarrassment percep- directly, but she must have just a minute or two. Yet she must not leave him for an instant in doubt that she understands him. Oh. yes, she understands himâ€" i.nderstamls that he is apologizing for having ever loved her; that he awk- E l 1) fm being sane? you from the very bottom of my heart! God bless you! Make haste and get well f” She walks cheerfully to the door, and, reaching it, turns, still wearing that smile, that he may see how perfectly wardly trying to draw the mantle of insanity over even the Vallombrosan wood. It is true that he does it with every sign of discomfort and pain; and he looks away from her, as Mrs. Byng, too, had found it. plansanter to do. “Do you remember what Schiller said when he was dying? ‘Many things are growing clearer to me.’ I thought a rood deal of those werds as I lay over there”â€"â€"glancing towards the now neat- iy-arra-nged and empty bed. “One night they thought it was all up with mcâ€"l heard them say so. T hey did not think I was conscious, but I was; and it did strike me that I had made a poor thing of it, and that if ever I was given the chance I would make a new start.” Again that little assenting movement of her fair head. f-Iow perfectly com- arehensible he still is! How well she understands that he is renoun-cing her among the other follies of his “salad days”â€"eollcge bear-fights, music-halls. gambling clubs. Well, why should not he? Has not she come here on purpose to renounce him ‘I _ Can she quarrel with him for having saved her the trouble? “And I thought that I could not begin better than by falling on my knees to you l”â€"with a momentary expression of extreme impatience at his own bodily weaknessâ€"“and ask-you most. humbly and tenderly and reverently to pardon me.” She looks at him, and sees his wasted face flushing with fatigue and worry and mental suffering. Oh, what a bitter wave of desolafcncss rolls over hpr! But she smiles. “I still do not understand what I am to forgive you for. I suppose that you could no more help having once thought you loved me,’ than you can help”â€"she stops abruptly in compassion for the look of acute. regret, shame and remorse that crosses his sharp features, and, in her mercy to him, gives a different close to her phrase from that which its, begin- ning had seemed to bespeakâ€"“than you can help having been so ill.” “or tone, quite unconsciously to her- self, is incxpressibfy touching; and Ilyng, weakened by illness, turns his face upon the pillow, and breaks into violent weeping. His mother had cried too. It. seems to be in the family. She has risen what further is there for her to stay for ?â€"a.nd pauses quietly at his side till the paroxysm is past. H01 standing posture tells him that she is going, and he consequently struggles to recover himself in some degree; but having never cultivated self-control when he was in health, it declines to come at his enfccbled bidding now. “Forgive me! forgive me i” is all he can Slammer. She looks down upon him strange aml tender smile, in which for the ll’lOIll-Cllt the selfless, pitying sweet- ness has swallowed up the misery. “Which am I to forgive you farâ€"for with a having loved me? or for having ceased to love me? For having been mad? or Yes, of course I forgive friendly is her last look; but he does not see it. fie has rolled over on his face, and the whole sofa is shaking with his sobs. {To be continued). __..__.>X< OUR OLD SUI’ERS'I‘I'I'IONS. Customs Date Back to Dark Ages. Many of our Many of our customs date back to the dark ages, and are based on sup- erstition. We sit up with our dead be- cause long ago our ancestors kept watch by night lest evil spirits come and bear the body away. _ We sfrake hands with the right hand because that is the right blind" and. means that we disarm ourselves in the presence of a friend. We bow our. head in passing others because our ancestors were wont to bow before the real yoke of the oppres- sor. Men bare their heads because they had to“ unmask in the days of chivalry before the queen of beauty. _____...,x..... SOLD BABIES IN ITALX, 'Plump Twins Brought 340 Each, But Police Interfercd. ' A Rome dcspatch brings the story of an attempt to sell children in the mar- ket at Avelline. A peasant. and his wife broughtf'two of their children, twins, four months old, and in open market offered to sell them for $110 each. The babies were plump and healthy. and were bought by a man who offered the price required. He was taking the children away when police stepped Ill and arrested both the buyers and sel- lers. *â€"â€"a;â€"-‘- QUAKE ENRICIIED TOYVN. “Willi all the harm that earthquakes do,” said a rug dealer, “it is pleasant to hear of an entire town that an earth- quake enriched. The town I mean is Ouzoun-Ada, on the Caspian Sea. the terminus of lhc 'l‘rans-(jaspian and Sea- markand railway. Ouzoun-Ada in 'the past had a miserable port, but a few years ago an earthquake visited her. and on its departure she found herself the richer by a harbor deep enough to feat the largest ships. Since that for- tunate visit Ouzounâ€"Ada’s population and wealth have trebled.” >3 In a lazy man he bump of hope is abnormally developed. ,â€" i it THE fifth. WWW t'WHY INCUBATOR CHICKS DIE IN HE SHELL. There seems to be wide and varied opinions as to why chicks die in the shell. Many claim, which is true in a sense, that the germ is weak, caused by too close inbreeding. It is true also that there may be weak germs at times when the. parent stock is not related. Too closa confinement, with little or 'no exercise, or improper feeding, will also cause chicks to die in the shell, ’the germ not being strong enough to withstand the various changes during incubation. The writer is fully convinced after many careful demonstrations that while the above causes are partially true that the main cause is improper venti- lation, that chicks suffocate from insuf- ficient air. The ventilation of almost all makes of incubators remain practi- cally the same from the beginning to the end of the hatch, and that while the ventilation may be just right at some stage of the hatch, it certainly is not right all the way through. If the .pro- per amount of air passes through at the beginning of the hatch, the ventila- tcrs being of a given and stationary size, then as the chick grows it must have a greater amount of air, and as it is not forthcoming, suffocation t‘olâ€" lows: The system of ventilation in incuba- tors of to-day is such as to cause a draught, drying the eggs too fast, causé ing the membrane or lining beneaththe shell of the egg, to become tough, so much so that at hatching time the chick is unable to break through, many even dying in the shell after being pippcd, ‘whereas if this membrane should be kept soft and brittle, as when fresh laid, the chick would easily have picked its way out BETTER ROADS. Good road-s are indicative of a high state of civilization. The improvement in the condition of the common high- ways proclaims, in mute yet unmis- takable language, the advancement in the civilization of the country. I-Iighly specializ;(l industries, which usually at.- “iend upon the high state of cultivation am~:.ng the people, seldom flourish where means is unprovided for a quick ex- change of commodities. As thc‘stand- 'ard of living in a community rises, it soon finds expression in a demand for better roads. ‘ The most natural system to follow in road buifding is to begin the improve- ‘ment in the city or village, working outward in the. different directions on the lines of least resistance, but at all “times striving to reach the greatest p-:.pulafion and the heaviest t‘aflic. . The work should be placed in charge Of a man who understands road build- 1 ‘ing and road repair. The statement. is equally true whether there be nmch or little money available for the work. The system which permits the appointment of men as road supervisors regardless ’of their fitness for the position is ac- countable in a great measure for poor roads and for the feeble interest in road improvcmcnft. Probably tit-ere is no “more road work in many countries than could be superintendcd by one man, and that man could be selected with an eye- to his qualifications for the work to be done, which would result not only in better roads but also in greater effi- ciency and economy. LIVE STOCK NOTES. Do not forget the old hens and old Cocks. If they are worth keeping for breeders, they may need special care during the later fall moult. The custom in former years was to keep livestock till they were of mature ago before fattening them. Now the butcher and shipper demand young ani- mals and light weight. The farmer must meet this demand, and it is far more profitable to do so than follow the old way. Early maturity is now the keyi'iotewith breeders of cattle, hogs and mutton sheep. The practice of giving additional food to cows when pastures run short is be- coming more general. of late years, yet there are still a great many who do not do it. Men who make a business of dairying know that their profits depend upon the cows having enough to eat, but those farn'iers who keep but a few cowsâ€"just enough to make butter with which to buy groceriesâ€"pay very ill- !“ attention to it. If the cows shrink in milk, they will complain and tell you they don’t get enough to pay for milk- ing, but say not a word about feeding them anything extra. 7 The Ohio experiment station made some careful experiments with ordinâ€" ary leached barnyard manure, and carefully saved unleachcd manure, and came to the conclusion that the leached manure benefitth the crop so little that it barely paid the cost of the applica- lion. Never leave your tools and imple- ments exposed to the sun in sunnner any longer than is absolutely necessary because they are injured more than they would be by the inclement weather at other seasons. The wooden portions. lacomhig very dry, shrink, crack and warp, and soon the entire implement becomes loose and shaky. The fact is, the hurry of harvest should not be an excuse for leaving any implement in the field. When they are left. unpro- tected in this way it will cost more to Fire'pmor buildings cost 12 per cent" repair the neglect than one will earn more than ordinary ones. Ghosts probably walk at night in order 9'. keep in the shade. i lgy having a little more time at his dis- posal. _ Swamp muck varies very wad-cl fertilizing constituents. Sometimes it to little better than ordinary soil, and then again it is quite valuable. The .ma- terial should be thrown out during the fall and winter where it will weather and freeze. It may then be spread upâ€" cn grass lands or used by spreading on. the surface of plowed lands. By' dig- ging it and allowing it to dry out only half as much weight will have to be moved as if drawn directly upon the- Iand. Then, too, most muck is sour, and must be exposed to the air before the plant food is available. It is usu- ally test applied on the surface to grass lands, from twenty to 50 leads per acre. Its real value cannot be deterâ€" mined without noting the effect upon. he crop. __.____,I‘____,._ THEIR LOVE FOR NATURE.- Its Enjoyment is Due to Long Training and Education. “I often wonder,” said the High school principal, “how many of the peeple who are travelling across our continent and the sea to view nature at her wildest appreciate the fact that their enjoyment of her handiwork in its most awesome aspects is a result due rather‘to Ion-g training and education than to any innate sense of the beautiâ€" ful and the aesthetic. There was la time. and not so many centuries agor when the attitude of cultivated men and women toward nature was quite dif- ferent to what it is toâ€"day. The eigh- teenth century looked aékance at what the nineteenth and twentieth go to no end of trouble, inconvenience and ex- pense to pay the warmest sort of tri- hate and the highest admiration. “Without being able to lay my hands on the passage, I remember that Ad- dison speaks somewhere, I believe in his letters, about the. barbarous and abhorrent scenery of the Alpss'Macau- lay writing about the Celtic wilds of Soil-and, tells us that it excited nothing but contempt and loathing. Wood”, water and erag, he observes, were in so wise different then from what they are now, when they are being visited by no end of those who come to sketch or merely to praise and see. “In 1730 Capt. Burt, an English trav- ieller of intelligence andf cultivdtiion, wrote of the mountains of Inverness, with the feeling; and the sentiment common to his age, that they were monstrous excrescenccs, the deformity of which made the sterile plains seem lovely by comparison. In fine weather le found them still more disagreeable, tor the clearer the day the more dis~ agreeably did these misshapen» masses of gloomy brown and dirty purple affect the eye. The tame and subdued beau- ties of Richmond Hill he found admir- able by contrast. “Even Oliver Goldsmith, poet. though he was and alive to the beauties of na- iITI'C when tame and subdued, was re- pelled by the scenery of the highlands and declared that he found infinitely more pleasing the conventional and so- ber beauties of the cultivated country around Leyden. ~14 DISASTERS FROM FIRE‘NORKS. Five Explosi'ms Occurred in Italy in One Month. Fatal accidents in fireworks factories are so alarmingly on the increase in Italy that politicians .are being imm- datcd with petitions from all quarters to devise special preventive legislation. As is generally known, Italy has an enormous inland trade in fireworks, and in the southern provinces and Sicily pyrotechnic displays form an indispen- sable item in every sort of public rc- joicing. During last month alone five terrible explosions were recorded through Cfll'E? lessncss in the process of manufacture, costing in each case the lives of from one to five persons. The other day two further mishaps swelled the list of victims. Several hundredweights of gunpow- der blew up at. a factory in the com~ mime of Saint Antonio, in the suburbs of Naples, killing three workmen and inflicting fatal injuries on seven others. The explosion was so terrific as to Set fire to a big storage of hemp Eli-early a mile away. The other disaster occurred at Leecc, where a large consignment of fireworks ready for a popular festival, exploded. Of three brothers, partners in the firm, who happened to be standing near, one was blown to pieces and the other two were horribly laceraled. % -......___ 'l‘III'tOW'N TO THE SHARKS. “'omm Fiung Screaming Into the Sea by Turks. ‘Discharged Turkish soldiers who ar- rived at l-fodicdah from the inland part of Yemen, but were prevented from go- ing home immediately by the lack d steamers, have been committing execs. 5.75 of the grosscst kind. When ~ one steamer did arrive 2,000 soldiers em- barked thereon, several with their sweethearts. Terrible quarrels broke cut on board, and 110 people were kill- cd or wounded. The women were thrown overboard alive to the sharks surrounding the steam-er, «and there was an awful scene as the tigers of the sea seized their screaming, struggling prey. Then came 1.800 more discharged men who, not finding any transjmrts, cut the waterpipcs, attacked the shops and destroyed everything within reach. They also Seized the general in command of 111 troops and dragng him about amidst. coarse insults. More discharged soldiers are expected, and therefore the town is greatly excit- t'tf. The Italians have asked the (lov-. ernor of Erythrca to send a ship, and. 5“ a British vessel is expected at Blodeidub..