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fitful strength that came and went; that outburst of hope, that silence of despair which made, in turn, my dear one's torture. One night I found her sitting in the moonlight with her face dropped forward on the windowsill. So pure, so white, so frail of body, and so strong of soul, she might have been some marble priestess waiting there for God's breath to move in passion through the pulse less stone.

“Claudia, dear, are you asleep?" I whispered.

“No, I was thinking if the moon would ever shine upon the night when I shall feel no more the pangs of hunger.' I took her in my arms and wept, although her eyes were strangely tearless. She put out her hand and stroked away

my tears.

"Don't, dear," she begged. "It is all right. It is only that there is no place for me. The niche I wish to fill has never been chiseled in the wall of this world's matters. It is God's mistake if one is made, and God must look to it. I tell you, Gertie," and she rose up grandly in her pride and in her wrath, “there are but two niches made for woman in this world. There's but one choice, wife or harlot. The poor, who refuse still to be vile, must step aside, since honest poverty by man's decree is but a myth. There's no room in this world for such."

She was growing bitter, bitter, driving on, I thought, to that fatal rock from which the wrecks of lost women cry back to rail at God who would not save them from destruction, although they prayed aloud and shrieked their agony up heavenward, straight to His ears. I think sometimes I should not like to sit in God's stead when such women come to face His judgment. Women who called, and called, and never had an answer, and so went down, still calling. It was thus she called.

One day I came upon her where she had thrown herself upon a little garden stool to rest. A book lay on her knee, her eyes upon the page; and as I listened, for she read aloud, slowly, as when one reads to his own heart, I caught the meaning of the poet's words as they had found interpretation by her:

6 For each man deems his own sand-house secure,
While life's wild waves are lulled; yet who can say,

If yet his faith's foundations do endure,

It is not that no wind hath blown that way?""

She was silent a moment, then repeated the first line of the stanza again, even more softly than before,

"For each man deems his own sand-house secure.'

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Then, tossing the book aside, she burst out wildly, all the pent-up patience, all the insulted and outraged womanhood within her, breaking bonds at last. She lifted up her hand as if calling down from God a curse, or offering at His register an oath. It might have been an oath, indeed; who knows? Thinking of her since I think it was an oath, made, in that moment of her frenzy, betwixt her soul and God, and registered with Him.

"Gertie," she said, "to-day a man offered me money. Offered me all I asked, offered to make me his mistress. Do you hear? Do you? or has your soul gone deaf as mine has? His mistress! I meet it everywhere. Yet why? Because I am respectably poor. To-morrow the roof tumbles about my ears. The mortgage closes. You and I alike are

homeless. I went to him, my father's friend, to whom, in dying, he entrusted me for guidance. I begged of him that guidance, or, at the least, a little longer time upon the mortgage. He laughed. Don't worry,' said he, ‘and don't soil your pretty hands with ink stains any further. Leave that for the printer, or the devil. You and I will make an easier trade. Ease! ease! I tell you 'tis these flowery beds of ease on which poor suffocated women wake in hell. "Soil' my soul and leave that for the 'devil,' too, his trade meant. He put it in plain words, that gray-haired guardian of a dead friend's honor. Ease! I did not ask for ease, but work. I am strong, and young, and willing; but my 'sand-house' trembles with the lashing of the tide on its foundation. O my God! what fools we women be to kick against the pricks of fate."

"Each man deems his own sand-house secure."

I repeated the words when she had left me there with the echo of her bitter rebellious words still ringing in my ears. I felt no anger and no fear for her, only sorrow, sorrow. My poor, proud darling. Her father's house had sheltered many; his hand had been open and his bounty free. And yet not one reached out a hand to her. She might have begged, or held a hireling's place. She was 'not too good for it,' the

old friends said (so few are friends to poverty), but yet none found such a place for her.

Through my tears I saw her go down the garden walk, stopping to pluck a handful of the large Jack roses growing near the gate and tuck them in her belt, so that the dullish red blooms lay upon her heart, like blots of blood against her soft white dress. I shuddered, and drew my hand across my eyes. Blood! those old blood-roses rise before me now, in dreams at night. I heard the latch lift and click again into its place, and when I looked the child was gone.

She stayed a long while. Over all the garden and across the open windows, the moon was shining when I heard her step upon the doorway. It had a weary sound. Those feet which had begun so bravely were tired out already. Still had I no fear for her. She might have stayed until the gray dawn cleft the black of night and not one doubt of her could sting my faith. She climbed the stairs wearily, as if old age had of a sudden caught and cramped the young life in her feet; and listening thus I swore a mighty oath against the thing called Fate.

She so young, so strong, so willing, so full of aspiration, so loyal to faith and honor, with every door barred against her. O my God! was there none, not one human heart open to her cry? Was there but one resource- -one opening for her pure soul and her proud heart-the harlot's door? my God! my God! women are driven to it every day, every day. Is it, indeed, the only door that opens to their knock? And would she, too, seek it at last, when faith should be quite dead? No, never! not while my palsied fingers could find strength to draw a knife across her throat.

I arose, and went to find her in her room. The door stood slightly open, and I entered, softly. Why so softly, I never could have told; only it seemed the proper thing to do. She had thrown herself across the bed, near by the open window. The moonlight flooded the room, showing me the strong, pale face lying against the pillow. Her white dress fell about her like a silverish shroud; and on the table near the window where she had sat to finish her task lay a manuscript. The moonlight fell upon the title page with mocking splendor. I stooped and read:

"Thou art our Refuge and our Strength?"

Dear heart! dear, sad soul! She had sought her refuge and indeed found strength. Strength! I brand him liar who calls it other.

One hand lay on the coverlid beside her, and one upon her breast half hidden by the dark blood-roses covering her heart. And that heart when I placed my hand over it—was still.

Broken! who dares say suicide? I say it was the grandest blow that weakness struck for virtue, her life, offered in the name of outraged womanhood. The choice lay open. Shame or suicide! and like the real woman that she was, she made her choice for virtue. Conquered by fate, overcome by adversity, those who should have been helpers turned tempters. Who dares meet God in his soul and say she did not choose the better part?

"Thou art our Refuge and our Strength.'"

I whispered it above her grave and left her there, under the stars and broken lily buds.

But when the grand Jack roses bloom, I always think of her, and thinking, I ponder again the same old riddle, Fate, whose edict swears, "No room for honest poverty; no niche for such as she." And thinking thus I wonder,—where shall the blame rest? Whose shall the crime be?

THE HEIRESS OF THE RIDGE.

NO-NAME PAPER.

THE "Ridger" is quite a different person from the Mountaineer. He looks upon the latter individual as a sodden and benighted unfortunate, whose inaccessible habitation entitles him to the pity of the favored dwellers on the "Ridge."

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That the Ridge is but a low out-put of the Mountain, that it is barren and isolated, does not disturb the comfortable theory of its inhabitants. To the people of the Valley the Ridger is a twin brother of the owner of the hut on the topmost peak of the range.

They look alike. Their bearing and habits are similar. To the Valley eye their clothes are of the same material and cut; but to the Ridger himself there is as wide a difference between him and his less favored brother on the "mounting" as that to be found by the stroller on Fifth Avenue when he gazes with profound contempt upon the egotistic biped who plainly hopes to deceive the elect into a belief that he, also, belongs to the charmed circle and has not simply "run over" from Jersey City, or St. Louis, or New Bedford.

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The Mountaineer is frequently a Tunker, the Ridger rarely. Therefore the Ridger is likely to have a shaven face, and, for the younger contingent, a mustache is the rule, a 'goatee" the fashion. To the Tunker none of these are permissible. The beard may not be cut, a mustache may not be worn, and, with the first of these propositions in force it will be seen at once that "a goatee" is quite out of the question.

When I say that the Ridger is likely to have a shaven face I do not intend to convey the impression that he ever uses a razor. He shaves his face with the scissors. His Tunker neighbor up the mountain performs the same feat on his own upper lip. The result is effective and satisfactory from both a religious and artistic outlook in the eyes of these sticklers for fashion and dogma, albeit, it might be looked upon as more or less disappointing by the habitués of the Union League Club or the devotees at St. Thomas.

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