Weekly Mail

I HE DID HIS BEST. Arizona. Pete had been called upon, in the absence of all the deacons and other qualified church officers, to pass the contribution basket. In the seat half way down the middle aisle sat the wealthiest man in the congregation, fast ash ep. Arizona Pete stopped when near him, held the basket under his nose and waited. A soft snore was thp only contribution. He touched him on the shoulder. Another snore. Then he shook him. "Fudclleston," he said, "you can't make a sneak out of this game. Pungle up or I'll throw you out of the window!" It is recorded that Mr. Fuddleston at once pur.gled np to the extent of five dollars, for the first and only time in his religious career.

Jester: Of course, you\'o hoa-d the latest about; Boozem&n? lie isn't drinking amy more. Quest'T: Don't say! Well, that's to his credit. Jester: Oh, no: it's to his lack of ct ed\t. "Doctor, I called to see you about my mother- in-law. I have a presentiment that she was buried nlive again. The last time we buried her she came to life, kicked off the lid of her coffin, and burrowed to the top of the grave." Doctor (proudly) "Don't he alarmed this time, sir I am Rure, she is dead, for I attended her in her last illnetse."

A FISHING MATCH. 4 Some months ago fasmonable London went down the river-banks in parties to indulge in the '"cheap and silent joys" of angling. They caught colds and fish alike. Their wiser sisters, who stayed in co"y corners, made invidious comments on the reddened visages and croaky tones of the returning fishers of Grayling. Likewise, fish are scarce and torpid in January and .February. But with April angling begins in earnest. The girls who go fishing may be fairly presumed to be in earnest also. Dille- tantes wait until the lazy warmth of July. This account is of the honest angler, so far as a man and a girl of the Platonic sort of people with modern nerve-centers and red silences and yearnings, are ever honest. They are both quite modern on the surface. Butt meiely a skin's depth beneath there was a primitive delight in the running water and the shadowy sunshine and the joys of the sport. Wlwn she forgot herself she was a happy child "by the crystal streams, with a conscience clear as they." When the fact that lie was blase passed out of his mind the man was as keen an angler as Dr. Paley, of "Evi- dences of Christianity" fame, who, in response to a stern inquiry from his bishop as to when the immortal work would be completed, said gravely:- "My lord, I shall work steadily at it when the fly-fishing is over." How came the man and girl to be fishing together, clvaperonless ? It was not because they were tin de siecle, but there was a stray courtship and a country friend in the back- ground, where they lunched and where the girl stopped. "Thats one good thing about It being April," suggested the man, "the fish don't bite early in the morning. They wait until the water gets warm before they come out." "So do I," said the girl, promptly. There were leaves upon the willow, birds were ringing, bees humming. The early flowers peeped delicately through the shim- mering grass. A south wind was blowing, and the eye, trained for angling, could see that the water was full and clear. According to the authorities, all these are signs that the trout are waiting to try our skill. "I'm Piscator," observed the girl suddenly, "and you're Venator." "A match, good master," he quoted; and Platonism trembled. But the modern young woman is not routed with small shot. She walked on carelessly, and the modern young man followed. 'I took the precaution of laying the ground bait last night," she said, in cold disparage- ment of his improbable foresight, "in the pool near the largest fern bank, where I myself sha.11 fish." The silence this time was a neutral grey one. Presently the youth observed languidly that the fish in that spot probably ruined their digestions over night. He himself had sunk scores of clay balls filled with worms in the same vicinity. "And still men cumber the earth," said the young woman wearily. "Here we are with a day to make trout weep with a stream preserved for miles,, and you must go and banquet the fish so that they won't want bait for a month. If men would only leave me alone I could live quite happily in this world. The stream pattered noisily over the gravel, here and there stopping to take breath, and incidentally forming the quiet pools the angler love", then chattering away everything it hears in its journey seaward. Oh, what a gossip tlie stream is ? Listening to the secret of be ferr. to the stones' rebukes, to the scandals from the whispering branches, sympathising, vowing silence, then immediately chattering all its heedless knowledge out to everyone who will listen. And with it all looking at you with sparkling eyes, and tossing its silvery hair over everything and everybody. To go fish- ing in April, to breathe the freshness of the young ferns and living moss, to gather great handfuls of the dainty spring flowers. This is lie joy of springtime. The fatal fascination of the woods goes to the head's of the anglers, 15 91 and there is a great peace upon them. So that they approach the stream as the great and only lzaak would have them approach, in gentle contenplation to indulge in the "most honest, ingenious, quiet, and harmless art of angling." Poth of them knew toe much to go to thc- edge and to look over or to let their shadows fall upon the water. The fish are so easily made aware of the presence of human beings that it is safer to approach on a balloon which lands you safely, noiselessly behind a conve- nient bush with your line cast so that it throws no shadow. All of this takes time andj money, but you cannot both warn your fish and have it. The girl having been a Delsartean before she went in heavily for golf, still retains enough poses to enable her to sink gracefully in the land side of a tree and ca.st her line. There is a worm covering the end of it which has becn known to deceive even trout of the realistic school. The man tries a fly, further up oil the opposite bank. He uses a stone fly because he understands that it is. the cor- rect thing for April, not because he is scientific C'liougli to know the difference. It is no time at all before the girl sharply discovers this lack of acquirement. During an interval she tells him with that candour which leaves nothing to the imagination that the young woman, at the close of this century affects: "There are evidently a few things about fly- fishing which you did not learn at school—nor since, elsewheie." He shifted his cigarette in a way that meant a "North American i'oview" article on the rights of women by an Knglish lady of title. "To whip the water is a mistake which many amateurs falll into," continued the repre- sentative of the professional sex. "If you crack your line that way and bring it down with violence, the fish, not knowing your hannlessne-ss, will be scared. The way to do it is to lightly place the fly on the surface, bringing it down delicately, as if aimlessly, with wings' outspread as a natural fly would alight. Then you ought to be able to throw with either hand and within at least an inch of the spot you have in your mind in wlwch to place the fly, and also so that as little of the line as you can bring yourself to exclude touches the water. I tell you again, in capital letters, that you must keep your baek to tV wind "And I must also fish in the pool I wa; as'signed, which brings me precisely faci .v? ice wiLd," the man interjected. 'And as much as lietil in you, live peaceably with all men.' Go on." "The fiies to use in April are dark in colour because the 11 sect* in that month are somb;3, and tin- iish know the fashions better than v.e. A:id you must rc^r ember at this time of ear the d'0ut come out of their hiding places, <nd aie e:ther on tcp or bottom of the w.r-i* I "]'lilts a gooa sat-? placing," the man. Je- to i-ted. The girl frowned. "You are positively crude. You lost a trout a while ago by not striking quickly enough. A man of your age and intelli- gence "Fulsome adulation 1" explained the other angler. "Ought to know that fishing with artificial flies makes it necessary to get the fisdi far more quickly than w ith the real insects. When the fish gft-s the bait in his mouth he soon finds out tmpt he cannot eat it—or deglutinate it, rather—und so lie blowsi it out again. I am even doubtful whether you know not to let a fish strike towards the weeds or up across the stream." "ioa may be doubtful," he commented. "What does it matter? What does anything matter ? You will catch enough in any ca.se.' The girl "shooed" him off her especial po j! and proceeded to bait her hook with wig- gling worm. She was not too nice to use her fingers, and she held the comfortable feeling that worms liave no feeling." The water is rather brownish, ana the fish disposed to rise towards the surface, so that she uses a ratiter short line with no lead upon it. She ca-sts it as a fly at the head of the stream, moving it gently towards herself, lett- ing it go down the current so a.s to keep it a little under water. Her line is strong, but fine, likewise the hook. and she manages with a light, fine float, for none are so wary asi the trout. They sat under a broad beech tree to eat their lunch, and as the Gentle Angler had done before them, heard the birds in the ad- joining trees having a friendly contention with an echo whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow trec near to the brow of a primrose hill. All along, the rippling dash of water catches their ears, and far oif to the right the salt meadows stretch away in a wide, waste, desolate expanse to where the surge of the Atlantic moans its everlasting complaint against the beach. But the trout weather waits for no man, and it is a brief lunch. The man would like to linger. He even hints at a cigarette. "Which quite proves that girls are the real sportsmen of this age," snaps the girl, under her breath, for the fish lie low and listen. The girl was very lucky in the afternoon. Deprived of distracting society—for he fished further up the stream-the man also did as well as can be expected of a man who paid as slim attention to the wind as he did to play- ing of the trout when he had hooked it. He was keen after the sport, but quite unwilling to attend to the details of the soft and shrewd seduction of the gentle art. The girl cast and pulled in intermittently. It was a, joy to watch her. She crouched, after Delswrte, out of the fishes' sight, battl- ing with a. matter-of-factness and speed the male angler envied, throwing the worm lightly up stream, watching the ripples and the wind, her rod poised scientifically, slackening the line after a bite, not too eager in striking, landing carefully and placing the trout on the pale green moss with delight -so repressed that it bubbded over on the way home. "I love being alive," she said softly. "It's not bad," lie replied brilliantly, taking her basket of fish. What a supper we shall have The girl lifted his basket lid. "We ca,n have yours for supper," she said cooly. "Mine I am going to send to town." "ideally? To whom?" "rw.pli Van Horn. He is always so good. And he loves trout—and me also, she added, a,s if absently. The man swung her basket suddenly up a tree. There it stays," he observed, viciously, "un- til you have promised not to send any to that fellow." After an hour the girl angler was starved into promising. But there were extra induce- ments we a-re not at liberty to speak of until it is announced. Angling is a heathful amuse- ment. It is likewise profitable.

ADVENTURE OF A SELF- SUPPORTING LADY. :BY A NEWSPAPER REPORTED. A reporter on, i North-country newpa.per 8U«X;*ded in interviewing tthe herotino of a mmarkabio affair. Mi<*s Lepronia Baker, of 33, Dover-street, York, is described as a. jreiii-eel, refined, and .educated lady—one of tih.G?o who, averse to being: a, burden on others, pueifer to earn a-n honourable living for tlikr-i- selves. "I had be'en four ve.:tr. in a. situation in juotidon," she said, "and my rolling necessi- tated <1, Rood deal of walking. I becao to feel uneasy a,nd uncomfortable; I greow languid and weary, and was very soon tired oNviii, to the paiii I suffered in. my Ie??, For six months, I should think, the pain got worse, and I wa.s ordered to bed by the doctor." "\Vhwt did he say wsn the 11latt0f "Varicose veins. He said I needed a lonp rest; but I did not derive the promised benafit. I pjarci up my situat,ion in London and came home: but I have now entered upon another engagement, for I have met with a, wonderful recovery bv the use of Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale. People. They cured me when everything ela,e had failed. I had been at home two months when I read in the 'York- fhiro Herald' about a patient in Leeds having been cured bv rtr. Williams's Pink Pills, and at O:,CB sent for a box. The result was very srratifvimr indeed. I derived benefit from the first, and after taking half the contents of the box the pain in my limbs whiich had so troubled me had vanished "What had the doctor Pffi'X'riLed P' "He told me to wear an elastic stocking and a leffging. I did so for several weeks. I had pain in the him whicJi I couldn't account for, and thought- that it must be caused by the pressure rrom tiphtnes? of (the storking and leegrinp-. J endured the pain, not knowing what tike to do, but in the end I was obliged to (five, up my situation and come home. 1rr. Williams' Pink Pills cured me; the pain has not returned, and I feel better than I have ever boen before. Everyone I knew used to tell me how pale and how thin I looked. Diffe- rent remedies were tried, but to no purpose. When I took to Dr. Williams' Pink Pills I becran to mend at once." Dr. Williams' Pink Pills cure rheumaiiis-m, neupaHgia" locomotor ataxy, St. Vit.us' dance, nervous headar-he, and iTpostration diseases of the blood, s-uoh as scrofula, chronic erysriped tie., restore pale a.nd ssallow complexions to the trlow of health, are a specific for all the troubles ipecuKar to the female .sex, and in men cure aÆ cases arising from worry, overwork, or excesses. They aire sold by ali chemists^ and by Dr. Wiillia.ms'- Medioine Company, 46, Hol- born-viaduot, London, at 2s. 9d. a box, or six for 13s. 9cl.. in woodon boxes w.ith pink i wnvpiicr; genuine only with full name, Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People. [Lcll56 fTTTl 1 i| | I—H WM Wl ■ I I IWUBllUU

HOW THE NEW WOMAN WILL PROPOSE. I. The room was in confusion. (That is the way the books say it. An ordinary man with good eyes would have said confusion was in The rocm. "At la."t!" Her hands trembled as she attempted to fix her tie. Thirteen collars have been ruined.She took a photograph from a drawer. It was the sweet, innocent face of a young man. "Ah little George I ca,n no longer deceive myself, [ love you. The strong is about, to liecome the weak. How far we women will yo for the bright eves of a silly man But, enough I shall ask you to be mine this night, come what may." II. "Mr. Nicely will be down in a moment. Pray be seated." But her heart beat too wildly. She paced the floor. "The dear, dear, little boy How I love him." The curtains parted, and the world's greatest treasure—a true-hearted, innocent young man— entered. III. (An ordinary every-day conversation for a few minutes. She attempts to take the hand of George, who blushes and looks startled.) IV. "I must explain myself Hear me I can no longer act this hateful part! I must speak I love you with the great love of a brave woman. "But this is so "It is. But will you be my husband?" There was a great gulf of pity in the young man's gentle eyes. But he spoke — "No. But I will be a brother to you."

The Dressmaker: You wish your new gown to be very simple? Mrs. Van Bank: Just as simple as possible. Spare no expense. Mr. Richmann You have a handsome young,, man named De Ribbon in your employ, I un- derstand. He is engaged to my daughter, and o like you to do me a favour. Merchant: Cerminly, my old friend. Want him advanced, eh ? "No. I want him kept just where he is until my daughter gets tired waiting for him to be able to marry." "Um—how long will that be?" "About six weeks." -c-

HIS ENGAGEMENT. Mr. Black Avais walking briskly away fro/0 the barber's. He was met by a niau asked' • 4 "Is this Norton Black?" h ies--why, Sid Tor bush There were mutual handshakes and a nooct Qf questions. "Dine with me?" said Torbusli.. > "Thanks i Not to-night. I've a speCia engagement." "il promise you your dinner the niOHieD you arrive." "I .i have to be off half an hour from Black seemed to go under protest, but 11 followed his friend. It was really a cr6a.r pleasure to find again his old chum, even he did have a very pressing engagement, f apartments were luxurious, quite in the OrieD^ tal style. They were promptly served by waiter who brought in the viands from a11 joining cafe, and the dinner was a good OJle. But Norton Black, after the second course; looked nervously at his watch. "Remember; he said, "I must be away from here in fifteen minutes." "Oh, come now," laughed the othed "You're not the fellow you used to be, as foIl of eating and drinking as Lucullus, if you wean to slight my dinner in that fashion." "I'm sorry, but I told you before I cam? u I ought not to; that I had a very import#0 engagement—one that I can't miss." 11 "Pretty woman?" asked Torbusli, with sort of sardonic lifting of one point of t" waxed moustache. "A beautiful woman, one of the loveliest 1 the worid." "I thought so' There are only two tJblDS that are important—money and wdiii-en. if it had been a. business deal, you would nDl have stopped for a fresh shave, so I knew it was a woman. But am 1 not to have a pøep at tlie inamorata?,' "Perhaps so, some day." "After she is securely yours ?" "After she is securey mine." Black said this with a sort of radiant chucks as though the fine humour of it was somethi°| exclusively his own, and that when he sai*7 to impart it to his friend he would also struck with its richness. "Why not to-night?" urged Torbush. "Oh, impossible! Besides I must prepare her for your wiles. Tor bush, there's pom*?' thing positively uncanny about you. Your eyes uou-t luok as they used to. "I suppose not. I'm seven years, older, and you know seven years we slough off a snake. "Only ten minutes more," exclaimed Blaci, snappong his watch and attacking Jiis sala with vigour. „ 'Til bet you you stay half an hour longer, laughed his host. "I'll bet you I won't." "What will you bet?" "Fifty dollars." "Lord, she must be beautiful!" "I'd rather you wouldn't refer to the lady again, please." "Oh, all right. But you're pretty hard hit, old man." "Put up your man," laughed Black. Itl* come in especially good just now. Torbush solemnly wrote a cheque, and BlacJt covered it with a pile of bank-notes. "You ve either got to take me to see her or stay a. half hour longer," said the host. "I vhall do neither one," answered his as he sat back in his chair waiting for the neS course. "What do you see so peculiar about eyes?" asked the other. "I wish you'd lao};: in them and tell me." Black looked steadily into the young 11ianv eyes. Very soon his own closed, and he saO back in the c-hair. Torbush oame nearer to him and stood oVC him. He made many passes with his han above uie head and face of the sleeper. The he sat down quietly and pulled out his watC'1' opened it and laid it on the table, smiling a he noted the hands telling off the minutes. He let the hands mark five minutes p?f the time before he proceeded to awaken h* friend, but he did not come out of the tra# as he had expected. He tried all his methods. They failed. He became frigl1' tened. At last, after working over him iiea_ ly an hour, he succeeded in restoring him to consciousness. "I have won the wager," said Torbush- d "What, have I been asleep?" exclaim* Black, starting up, and he caught at bl watch. "Great Heavens lie cried, turning white; "I am ruined What have you done to foe, Drugged me? Speak, devil!" He sprang at the other man's throat. Torbush caught his hand and held him- "No, no, y;ou drank no win#. I ate Mine as you. No. no. On my honour, I mtS merised you, that's all. I didn't mean it to so long, but you were so hard to bring out it." The young man scanned once more n* watch with an agonised look. "It's nine o'clock," lie groaned. "I have oean married at half-past eight. my God! What will she think?" The face of the other was now as white his. "Forgive me, old man. I didn't kn that," he faltered. „ "Come with me. You must explain- t "And face her? Never. They would to tear me limb from limb." "Come, I say." "I will help you in any other way." They dashed out of the room, hailed a. cab, and were soon rattling away. j "I must dress," wailed Black It is a ^0 three mile;; to K<iith's house, and we were have taken the train at ten." i There was consternation at Black's ing-hmise when he arrived. The v. was excited, messengers had been there ing for him, and the police had been ,Iia j inquiries. All site could tell them was ti he hid gone out at lialf-past five. He p'f 0 the hastiest toilet of his life, and on at the home of his affianced noticed c.ar- riages driving away a.s though the guests oro leaving. Torbush couldn't get up courage to go in with him, but remained in tlie cab. The bride was pale and unforgiving. "Go and make some explanation to t guests, who are leaving," she said, If I wave my hand between the portiei-^ when you have finished you may come <lD„ get me. otherwise there will be no cereaiiony- Black came into the drawing-room, and ill- stantlv there was a hush. He told his story simply, just as it had happened. "After I had made the wager I remember more," he said, "till my friend awakened irJe.' "He'd better produce that friend," pered a woman. "tiasheesh." said a man, sotto voce. "Drcuk I guess," sneered another. "Ymu lie rang out a voice near tric Torbush had come in and stood defiant)" e ing the last speaker. i iilac.1-: looked for the hand. It was n° there. "I dreaded to face you," said the "because mv little joke had ended so 1,1 V-t,cf ably. I did not know it was his wedd' night, and I hypnotised him." A Black looked again at the portieres- small, white-gloved hand fluttered there.

Examining Physician: How would rolJ x:aJTnmng lyp.1Clan: ow ,0\1'(; treat a man with delirium tremens? Medical Student: I wouldn't treat h'11'^ all. I believe in shutting down on right away. j L I; p "That boy of yours, madam," rem arse" ticket-inspector, as he punched -the t0r ticket, "looks remarkably weil-developtd a child under twelve." ••ft's "Thank you, replied the lady, calmly- 0 so gratifying to me to have anyone no Tommy's remarkable precocity." {e. Tommy's remarkable precocity." ore. The inspector was cruched, and said no In

ma;—it was so ,"tiff-and asked him to do it for her. Then she told him what Jamie had heard. "Are you quite sore one of the men was the laird, Jamie?" asked Campbell, incieum lously. "Ay, ay; Jamie kens the laird fine." "What is to be done, Graham? Another such fright as dear aunt had at the Lindsays' would either make her seriously ill or drive her mad," said Mary. "Leave it to me, dear Mary. Your aunt shall know nothing about it, if I can help it. And I will give the fellow such a lesson as he will not forget for a long time. Not a word to Mrs. Macduff; go back to her now, a.nd trust to me." I And so well did the two lovers manage to betray no uneasiness that Mrs. Marxhitf retired to rest without the l'i.-t suspicion thai & burglar, possibly two. might be ex- pected at midnight. Althoug? ho discounted the proffered help of Daft Jamie, Graham Campbell did not refuse it. Jamie was instructed to crouch behind a water-butt not far from the scullery window bv which Burke mecnt to effect an entrance, but Campbell impressed upon him the necessity of keeping out of sight unless his assistance was really required. A few minutes before midnight the quick ears of the listening Jamie caught the sound of footsteps in the lane at the back of the house, aiyd presently Graham Camp- bell sat' a stealthy figure get over the wall, which was only about five feet in height. The man stopped for a few moments, glancing at the house, but, all being in darkness, he crossed the kitchen garden, and made his way to the itHery window. Suddenly, and before he ould realise it, the would-be burglar received < heavy blow under the ear, and he dropped e a stone. .(1 when Burke awoke to consciousness a r minutes afterwards, the result of a. bucket „ o ater thrown over his face, he was lying ó .he stable floor, bound hand and foot, and actually gagged. "Well, Mr. Burglar, how do you feel now? Rather wet aaid a little cold, maybe. Never mind; you will be warm enough before I have done with you," and a heavy cart whip wielded by the powerful arm of the young bank-clerk, who had now quite recovered his strength, caused the wretch to writhe aid squirm like a worm on the fish-hook. The onlv sound that came from the tortured man was a kind of subdued bellow. "There, I think you will do," said Camp- bell, taking the piece of sacking from Burke's mouth, and then untying his legs. "You may go now; and the sooner you get back to Edinburgh the better your chances of escaping the police." "Untie my l ands," said Burke, in a savage tone. His hands were fastened securely behind, and all his struggles had failed to slacken the cord. "No; you can ask the first person you meet to do that for you; I shall not. Come, make a move, or I'll march you to Edinburgh at the muzzle of this pistol. I ought to have let you have its contents when you got inside the garden, and thu? rid the neighbourhood of a wretch who will yet be hung." And, smarting from the nape of his neck to his heels, Burke slunk out of the stable, and was let out of the garden by the gate. When he had gone some little distance, he turned round, cursing horribly, and declaring his intention of having his revenge some day for what he had suffered. He reached home without meeting anyone whom lie dare ask to untie the rope that bound his hands, and frightened his wife by his savage reply to her inquiries. Fortu- nately for her, she had a quantity of whisky in the house, and, having drunk nearly a tumblerful, he lay down on the bed without undressing, not wanting even his wife to know aught of the terrible flogging he had received. At dusk on the following evening, when Burke was still lying on the bed. so stiff and sore that movement was fresh torture, a boy came to the house with a message from the laird, who wanted Burke to go to the dram-shop at the corner of the close. "Tell the gentleman I cannot come," said Burke. And so anxious was the laird to learn the result of his last attempt to get rid of his niece and sister-in-law that he ventured down the close and into Burke's house. "He's in the bedroom beyant," said Helen Burke, when the laird asked to see her hus- band. The place smelt horribly, but the laird went in, and found Burke, as he supposed, recovering frim a fit' of drunkenness. "Did you succeed?" he asked, in an eager whisper. "Yes—in getting nearly kilted. Sure, I was expected, and walloped wid a horsewhip till every square inch o' me is covered wid wales. Laird, ye'll pay me for all I've Buffered?" "Not a penny ■"Then get out o' my house An' if I don't make Edinburgh too hot to hould ye, my name's not William Burke." Too much chagrined by the failure of his plans to heed the threats of his accomplice, the laird departed, determining to quit the vicinity of Edinburgh for a time, until the affair had blown over. As for Burke, the lesson he had received was not lost, for he was thenceforth careful not to enter upon any enterprise where he might be exposed to the risk of meeting with such untoward accidents as his capture by Graham Campbell. He was barely well enough to go out, and still suffering from the effects of his midnight ']a' adventure, when he received a secret summons from Captain Blair, of whose band both he and Hare were members, to join him at the haunted house iu the West Bow. Burke dared not let the captain know Itught of his attempt to play the role of mid- night assassiu, for the members of the band were sworn not to engage in such nnterprises for reward without the previous consent of thewhok band. To Burke's intense surprise, he found the captain alone in the room where Gordon Munro had witnessed the sentence of death carried out upon the traitor. "I want your help. Number Five, in a little enterprise which, if successful, will yield an amount sufficient to give each member of the band at least a thousand pounds—pro- bably two. And the three who take part in the affair wiH lie entitled to double shares. You have heard of the old miser lady at Liber- ton ?" "Yes, captain." "We are going to pay her a visit." "Not much good, captain. We shall never manage; to get in. What wid the spiked gate, and the high walls covered at the top wid broken glass, and the hloodhounds-why. it will be a waste of time trvin' said Burke, shaking his head ominously. "The dogs will be dead enough by the time we get there, and the gate will 'be opened for us from the inside." "Ah That makes a mighty big difference. I'm yer man "Then do you meet Number Three and my- self at the end of the lane that runs down behind the house to-morrow night at twelve. And wear your beard." Burke was on the point of blurting out that he had lost it. but remembered in time that the attempt of himself and Hare tc murder Mary Paterson in Greyfriars' Churchyard was not ..mown to the captain. He would have to procure another, and, luckily, was not with- out money. 'TJl be there, captain." As the captain had stated, the gate of Mrs. Heseldine's garden was to be opened t > let in the thieves, Jessie Macduff being the traitress who was to sell her mistress. If the theft of the roll of notes had been dis- covered by the old lady, she had said nothing about it. Jessie believed that her mistress had discovered the loss she had sustained, for another bedroom had been assigned to the companion, the old lady professing her belief that her own wakefulness prevented Jessie getting sufficient sleep. Gordon Munro had solemnly promised to marry her, if she would do as he desired, a.nd that they would leave Scotland. With the money he would obtain, he could set up in London as a doctor, and their future wel- (fare would be secure. And Jessie, whose moral fibre was exceedingly weak, had yielded with few qualms of conscience. (ToJot continued. Commenced May 12, 1895).