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* <£ p p T'lpyriKhtecl, 1*7, t>y CYRUS 11. K. CUHls. Yearly Subscription 00 Cent* VOL. V, NO. 4. PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1888. ") Copies 6 Cents. [Foh The i, a hies' Home Journal] strained her eyes through the blinding snow to many, — and I am getting old ; we both are grow vale, accompanied by Max, who was going on to see If he were In It. when he came before he ing old. You said so in your letter. But Maude New York, and thence to keep his appointment THE SPRING FARM. had stood up and waved bis hat o them, but Is young, and In my dream she wore the bridal in London. there was no token now to tell If he were there, dress at the last, and I saw my own grave, with Few were the words spoken between themdur- By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes. and she waited breathlessly uutil the carriage you beside it and Maude, and both so sorry be ing the journey, and those mostly of the dead stopped before the side entrance, knowing then cause I was dead. But it is better so, and I am woman lying under the snow at Mt Auburn; Author of " Tempest and Sunshine," "Lena for sure that he bad come. glad to die and be at rest. If I could be what I but when Merrivale was reached, Max took the Jiivers," etc., etc. "Thank God I" she cried, as she went out to once was, oh 1 bow I should cling to life I Fori girl's hands in his own and pressed them hard as meet him, bursting Into tears as she said to him, love you so much I Oh, Max, do you know, can ne called her a second time by her name. Copyright, 1887, by Daniel Holmes. (All rights re "I am so glad, ana so will Miss Raynor be. She you guess how 1 have loved you all these years, "God bless you, Maude, for all you were to served). does not Itnow that I wrote you. I didn't tell and what it has cost me to give you up?" Grace. When I can I will write to you. Good CHAPTER IX. her, for fear you wouldn't come." Max's only answer was the hot tears he bye." She had given him her hand and he was bond dropped upon her face as she went on: "You Only for a moment the train stopped at the GOOD-BYE, MAX; GOOD-BYE. ing It fast as she led bim into the hall. Sbe did will not forget me; that 1 know; but sometime, — station, and then It moved swiftly on, leaving not ask him when or where be received herletter. yes, sometime,— and when it comes, remem Maude standing upon the platform with ber It was a cold, stormy ufternoon in March The She only helped him off with his coat, and made ber,— I was willing. I told Maude so. Where is mother and John, while Max resumed bis seat, thermometer marked six below zero, ami the him sit down by the fire while she and pulling his hat over bis eyes, never spoke mo» which bad fallen the day before was tossed told him how rapidly Grace had again uutil New York was reached. A week by the wind in great white clouds, which sifted failed and how little hope there later and a ship of the Cunard line was plowing t.irough every crevice of the house at the Cedars, was that she would ever recover. the* ocean to the eastward, and Max Gordon was and beat against the window from which Maude "You will help her, If anything among the passeDgers, silent and abstracted, Graham was looking anxiously out into the can. I am going to prepare her with a bitter sense of loneliness and pain in bis storm for the carriage which had been sent to now," she said, and, going out, she heart as he thought of the living and the dead he meet the train in which Max Gordon was expect left him there alone. was leaving behind,— Grace, w ho was to have ed. He had not kept his promise to be with He had been very sorry himself been his bride, dead in all ber sweetness and Grace ut Christmas. An important law-suit had that he could not keep his promise beauty, and Maude, who was nothing to him but detained him, and as it would be necessary for at Christmas, and had tried to find a delicious memory, alive in all ber freshness him to go to Loudon immediately after Its close, a few days In which to visit the Ce and youthful bloom. He could hardly tell of couid not tell just when he would be at the dars between the close of the suit which he thongbt the more, Grace or Maude. s again. and bis departure for England. Both seemed ever present with bim, and It was through the autumn Grace had been fail But he could not, and bis passage many a day before he could rid bimself of the ing, while a cold, taken in November, had left was taken and his luggage on the fancy that two faces were close against bis own, her with a cough, which clung to her persistent ship, which was to sail early in the one cold and dead, as be had seen it last, w ith ly. Still she kept up, looking forward to the morning, when, about six o'clock the snowy hair about the brow and a smile of holidays, when Max would be with her. But In the evening, Maude's letter perfect peace upon the lips which had never said when sbe found he was not coming she lost all was brought to him, changing his aught but words of love to him,— the other glow courage, and Maude was alarmed to see how rap plans at once. Grace was dying — ing w ith life and girlish beauty, as it had looked idly she failed. Nearly all the day she lay upon the woman be had loved so long, at him lu the gathering darkness when be stood the couch in her bedroom, while Maude read or upon the car step and waved It his good-bye. sang to her or talked wit J her of the book which had actually been commenced, and in which CHAPTER X. Grace was almost as much laterested as Maude herself. Grace was a careful and discriminating AT LAST. critic, and If Maude were ever a success she would owe much of It to the kind friend whose Five years uad passed since Grace was laid In sympathy and advice were so Invaluable. A por ber grave in Mt Auburn, and Max was still tion of every day she wrote, and every evening abroad, leadiugthat kind of Bohemian life which read what she had written, to Grace, who smiled many Americans lead In Europe, when there is as she recognized Max Gordon In the hero and nothing to call them home. And to himself knew that Maude was weaving the tale mostly Mux often said there was nothing to call bim from her own experience. Even the Bush dis home, but as often as he said it n throb of pain trict and its people furnished material for the belled bis worus, lor he knew that across the sea plot, and more than one boy aud girl who had was a face aud voice he was longing to bear and called Maude schoolma'am figured In Its pages, see again, a face which now visited blm In bis while Grace was everywhere, permeating the dreams quite as often as that of bis dead love, whole with her sweetness and purity. and wbicli he alwuyssaw as It bad looked at him "I shall dedicate it to you," Maude said to her that summer afternoonlu the log bouse among one day, and Grace replied : "That will be kiud ; the Richland hills, with the sunlight falling upon but I shall not be here to see it, for before your the rings of hair and lending u warmer tint to book is published I shall be lying under the the glowingchceks. Delicious as was the mem flowers in Mt. Auburn. I waut you to take me ory of that afternoon, it had been the means of there, if Max is not here to do it." keeping Max abroad during nil these years, for, "Ou, Miss Ray nor," Mamie cried, dropping in trie morbid state of mind into which he had her MS. and sinking upon her knees beside the fallen alter Grace's death he felt that he must couch where Grace was lying, "you must not do penance for having allowed himself for a mo talk that way. You are not going to die. I ment to forget her who had believed in him so ean't lose you, the dearest friend I ever had. fuilv. "Grace trusted me, and 1 was false to her aud What should I do without you, aud what would will punish myself for it, even if by the means I Max Gordon do?" lose all that now makes life seem desirable," he At the mention of Max's name a faint smile thought; and so he stalo on and on, yearafter played around Grace's white lips, and lifting her year, know Ing always just where Maude was and thin hand she laid it caressingly upon the girl's what she was doing, for Archie kept bim in brown hair as she said: "Max wilt be sorry for formed.

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