when his arms were seized from behind and he was drawn back. He struggled with his captor, at first, and then stood still, with the cunning of an unsound brain to deceive him by a show of submission. "Excuse me for interfering," said his preserver, in a tone both sharp and suave, and the enunciation of a well-bred man, "but I have to remonstrate with you on the folly of throwing away anything that has a money value." Any ordinary appeal might have been lost on Louis; the singularity of this address, and the tone in which it was spoken, arrested his attention. He answered with a bitter laugh: "Do you mean my clothes ?" "No, I mean yourself." "Then I am afraid you do not know what you are talking about," said Louis. "I beg your pardon," said the stranger. "It is you who do not know what I am talking about. I merely suggest that if you have no further use for yourself, as your actions seem to indicate, that you had better dispose of yourself to me, rather than throw yourself into the water, which is not at all sweet, as you know; and if you are found drowned you will be carried to the Morgue-pagh! You never saw the place, I know, or you would not risk that a most unpleasant place to be exposed to the remarks of the community, and for surviving friends to visit." Louis's mood was changed. The suicidal impulse once checked was not likely to return. A minute or two before nothing on earth had interest enough to turn his brain from the one terrible idea. Now he had a curiosity, languid certainly, but yet a curiosity, to know what the man meant. "You must want to dissect me," he said. "No. I want you alive." "Then I cannot guess what you mean, and do not care. If I am worth anything to you, put a price on me, pay it and take me. not, leave me to myself." If "You are worth a thousand dollars to me at once, and as much hereafter as will ensure against your coming here again very soon! A thousand dollars as soon as you have performed a certain service for me." "What service?" "What would you refuse to do?" "Murder." The stranger laughed. have put that before murder. I should like to know what the marriage entails, first." "Nothing worse than death and damnation, to which you were going at any rate; but rest at ease on that point. Had I only wanted a man to marry in a dishonorable way, I might have hired a hundred at a cheaper rate, without setting my foot out doors in so stormy a night. It is a question of property, and you are to separate from your bride at the altar." "In that case, I am ready to be married." "Then come with me." They left the pier and were lost in the blackness of the night. CHAPTER V. LOUIS HAMILTON's deliverer was Mr. John Creighton, and Louis's value in John Creighton's eyes consisted in a striking resemblance to John Creighton's nearest relative. At first sight, this would seem as if Mr. Creighton had a very warm heart. Another fact must be added to it, which is, that for the cousin himself Mr. Creighton had no regard whatever. He would have been very sorry to see him, although he was very glad to see his resemblance. Louis Hamilton, personating Frank Creighton, might be made to do what the real Frank never would do. John Creighton had a talent for furthering his own ends by intrigue which would have gained him a name in the annals of the old French court. Cut off from such a career, he was compelled to do the worst he could as a private citizen of New York. A man who ought to have been, for example, a regent with a prince and princess to educate and a kingdom to govern, was stunted to the guardian and trustee of an estate of half a million and a couple of wards. Fortunately circumstances helped him to develop. The late Horatio Spencer (born 17—, died 18-,) had made a will, in the main wise and sensible, and had given many wise and sensible reasons for a rather unwise clause, directing that his two grandchildren, Alicia Spencer and Francis Creighton, should marry each other. The bulk of the property was left in trust for their benefit until they should reach the age of twenty-three, and if they married then, or were already married, it became theirs absolutely. If they were unmarried, or they married except each other, "It is not murder," he said. "It is the property should be distributed among the marriage." "Ah!" said Louis. "Perhaps I should representatives of the testator and his sister, excepting the said Francis and Alicia, who having already been greatly benefited by the estate, should not, in the opinion of the testator, expect to derive any further advantage from it, as at that age they would be fully educated and have had ample opportunity to be established in life. Mr. Creighton's co-trustees were either dead or superannuated, and he now managed the estate alone. He was also personal guardian of the children. Alicia and Francis were born upon the same day. Alicia's father died before she was born, and Frank's mother died at his birth. Mrs. Spencer and John Creighton's mother brought the children up, under Mr. Creighton's supervision. Frank's father was a stupid lazy man, who had never had an opinion about anything except eating and drinking in his life, and who died from over-devotion to those sole interests, when his son was ten years old. The children ought to have uncommonly good and practical training, for their ancestors had intermar ried and lived in an atmosphere of their own, until the family character was a bundle of morbid tendencies. They had a home education on a peculiar system, which resulted very differently with the two. Alicia had genius and talent; her brain became like a hothouse; a wonder of rare, luxuriant and premature growth, and liable to become an utter ruin by one hour's frost. Her health, without any marked disease, was delicate and capricious, her temper morbid and excitable; and her moral nature would have been better for the most frivolous training than for one which taught her to regard strength of intellect as the greatest good, without teaching her what strength of intellect really was. She was brilliant, eccentric, learned, and entirely under the influence of her guardian, who flattered her weak points, and feigned to admire her intellectual power. Frank's idiosyncrasies took another form. Books he detested and could scarcely be taught to read and write; not from incapacity so much as aversion. He ran away repeatedly, and went through every kind of strange adventure. His peculiar gift was an ability to transform himself so completely that even those who knew him best would be deceived even when they were on their guard. His talent naturally led him to the stage. He shocked his friends by appearing at a New York theatre, under an assumed name. guardian threatened to put him under personal restraint if he did not behave more His rationally. Upon that Frank took a flight across the ocean, entered the French army, and at last advices had been lying ill in a foreign hospital, very unlikely to recover. Alicia did not like her cousin. He laughed at her and she despised him. She would have married him, for she had taught herself to think that she must have the money. She had many expensive tastes and habits. Her guardian had hitherto gratified them. Lately he had begun to restrain them, on the same principle that a hound is half fed. He did not mean to give an account of his stewardship. If the marriage took place, he would remain Alicia's trustee and manage Frank in some way. But now the day was near, and Frank was out of the way to help or to hinder his schemes. This gave him a chance to carry out a favorite maxim, that a scheme had only to be thoroughly improbable to be highly practicable. He had seen Louis Hamilton, and at first supposed it to be Frank returned incognito. When he discovered his mistake, it of course struck him that others might be deceived as well as he. He proposed the plan to Alicia, who rejected it and accepted it twenty times, and finally accepted it. Mr. Creighton kept watch for Louis, traced him to the West and back, and finally secured him. He had already announced that Frank would return to marry his cousin. Louis was brought to Spencer Hill, and had a brief glimpse of Alicia. He saw a dark brilliant face, proud, petulant and impatient, and a slender, graceful form. She scarcely glanced at him, he thought, and though the blushes glowed on her face, she preserved a cold stately demeanor. For himself he was not desirous to protract the interview. Mr. Creighton hurried him away to a room on the second floor, and placed it at his disposal, bidding him remain there until his own return. He went down then to his own rooms on the ground floor, thinking that all would go smoothly, at least until he secured the money, and made arrangements for leaving America. As he thought over all the steps already taken and their success he smiled to himself, and opened the door of the small library that was the first of his suite of rooms. It was already occupied. There, waiting to meet him, stood the real Francis Creighton whom he believed three thousand miles away or dead. BY THE BROOK. BY GEORGE KLINGLE. Leaves of autumn on the airBrightest leaves-and everywhere On the ground brown rustlfng things, Rustling on the laughing winds. Flowers of crimson by the brook, Purple wild-flowers lightly shook, Flowers with golden cups and tall Stretching up above them all. Chubby feet, with cautious tread, Venturing over pebbly bed, Toward the cups of golden hue, Towards the crimson flowers and blue; Through the curling waters clearSinging waters, cool and clearAll the glow of sweetest flowers, All the light of sunniest hours, Gathered neath the hood of gray, Gathered where the dimples play. What if homespun's crudest plaid Wraps her round, and russet shade Steals from neath the twining hair, Mingling with the tints more fair? What that foreign fingers wrought, Not the wickerwork that's brought To hold flowers, but, singing low, Watching ring-doves come and go, She had woven it before, On the mat beside the door; Woven willows, singing low, Watching ring-doves come and go. Gathering wild-flowers, crimson, blue, Golden cups-but tell me true, Which is fairest, autumn's flowersLight of autumn's drifting hoursOr the face where dimples play Underneath the hood of gray? SWEET-WILLIAM. BY THEODORE ARNOLD. GIRLS do like to be made fools of once in a while, and they deserve to be. Did you ever, dear reader, see them flock around a soft scamp of a fellow, like flies around molasses? I have many a time, and I have wished that they were really flies, and the fellow really molasses, to drown them. William Janston was one of those ladykillers, and he did more execution with his infernal trashy love-making, that a sensible girl ought to have seen through in a minute, than a prime good fellow could do if he worked with all his might to please. "SweetWilliam " the fellows called him in scorn, and the ladies adopted the name in fondness. There's no mistake but the fellow was handsome. He was well-formed, and had a perfect Grecian face, with bright dark eyes, and a transparent skin. He could dance beautifully, sing sweetly to the guitar, and wrote jingling lines which he and his admirers called poetry. He dressed well, also, too well. I often longed to throw mud or stale eggs on his good clothes, the prig! And O! the melting tones and glances, the sighs that he could breathe, the glances that he could give, the lies that he could tell. Moreover, he had the art, no small one, of making each one of the flock of simpletons about him believe that she was the prime favorite. He could make a girl think that she was engaged to him, talk to her as if she were, and not commit himself by a single reportable word. Some who knew this, some women who were not quite fools, yet tried to excuse him. "It was his way," they said. "He couldn't help being fascinating, and also fascinated by those who tried to please him; but he didn't mean any harm, and was grieved to death if he thought any one was unhappy about him." You can't come round a woman in such an argument, when she has made up her mind to defend a man. But men looked on the matter differently, and they called William Janston a mean scamp. "It's all envy, you know it is, Dode," Hester Bailey said to me once, when I had been freezing my mind about Janston. "You men all hate him because the ladies like him." "Of course we do," I owned at once. "But the reason is a good one. He is not worthy of their liking." have heard her say that she didn't like the way some girls had of going round with gentlemen." I was a little uneasy, though, for I didn't see who else she had promised to go with. She tossed her lovely head. "He pleases Ned had asked her, and she said she had us, and that is all we want." "Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw,'" I quoted. She pushed out her under lip. "Perhaps we are all silly; but if we are, then why should you care whom we like?" The question was not badly put. I complimented Hester on it. "But you have some sense," I added. “And I am provoked that you do not use it." It was useless to talk to her, and yet, I hated to give up. I knew that Ned Palmer set his life by Hester, and that he was too proud to contend with such a rival as William Janston. I thought, too, that if Ned would only put his pride in his pocket, and go in for the girl, he could get her. I told him so, but he, in his way, was as stubborn as Hester in hers. "I'm not going to take the crumbs that fall from that fellow's table," he said, savagely. "I'm not a fellow to stand by and catch a word when he is engaged elsewhere, and be ignored when he turns the light of his face on the girl." "Don't take his crumbs," I advised. "Kick him out of the window, and sit down to the feast yourself. Depend upon it, if you can make him look flat and mean, his chance is gone." "Nature has made him flat and mean, and yet Hester thinks him the ideal man," he said, striking his fist on my knees with such a force that made me jump. "Good gracious! I'm not Sweet-William," I said, drawing back. "But, Ned, girls are not worth one's being proud and reserved about. If you want 'em take 'em, that's my motto." The only answer was a sigh and a muttered longing, "I wish I could take her!" "I wish I could shake her!" I responded, being in a rhyming mood. "I'm sure she is going with him to-night to the theatre," Ned said, after a little while. "And that looks particularly suspicious, you know." "I don't believe it!" I said. "Hester isn't such a fool as to go to a public place with a fellow unless she is engaged to him, and the idea of her having him is preposterous. I already been invited. So Ned and I took standing places, there being no other, and went to the opening of the Globe. As we went up the stairs we saw William Janston, in exquisite array, leaning against a pillar in the rear, evidently waiting for a lady in the dressing-room. How shiny his little boots were, how well his coat fitted, and how his pantaloons looked as if he had been melted and run into them! A tuberose and a pink rosebud, emblems of purity and affection, bloomed in his button-hole as if they grew there, and were very happy to, his gloves fitted as if his hands had been painted, instead of being invested in kid-skins, and his hair was in just that state of graceful carelessness which showed that he must have spent at least one hour over it. He was, in fine, precisely such a looking fellow as a sensible man would like to take in hand and rumple up to any extent. Her Ned and I passed by without being perceived by this languid divinity, and took our places against the wall that commanded the dressing-room door. Presently it opened, and our worst fears were realized. There was the light and graceful form, with an opera cape of white just slipping from the shoulders, a pink fold of the lining showing brightly against the rich brown of her dress. auburn hair was in a light fluff about the sweet oval face, and piled in a heavy braid at the back, a bunch of tuberoses, Sweet-William's gift, of course, her only head ornament. The filmy handkerchief, delicate gloves, white fan, all were like Hester, dainty and pretty. She gave him her opera-glass, and they went round to the most conspicuous seats in the whole house-the corner of the balcony. "If I don't give Hester a blessing for this before I am twenty-four hours older, then I'm blessed myself,” I announced. Ned said nothing. The sight cut him to the heart. But no sooner were the two seated than I saw something which redeemed Hester a little. Though they had come alone, they were in the midst of a family party. There were Mr. and Mrs. Janston, and Tom Bailey and his girl. But why, in the name of goodness, hadn't she come in with them? Not being myself in love with Hester, I was soon engrossed in Monte Cristo, watching the speaking face of Fechter, the lovely shoulders and arms of Miss Leclercq, and the most preposterous bustle which lifted the coat tails of Jungfrau. "Why didn't she take it off before she put on men's clothes, Ned?" I asked. But Ned was staring at the corner of the balcony at our left, and did not hear me. When half past eleven o'clock came, and still the play went on with no immediate prospect of ending, I proposed to go home. But Ned wanted to stay. He was interested, he said, and wanted to see the end. It was really a very clever adaptation, and didn't I think that scene of moving waves, and stone stairs, and poor Edmund dragging himself up on to the canvas rock, were remarkably fine? Of course, I knew that he was lying, that he had only got a squint at these theatrical wonders, and recollected them by some sudden inspiration, being all the time straining his eyes to watch Sweet-William smile on the lady at his side, and put up the opera-glass with his pretty little gloved hands, and examine the great actor, as if he himself were a greater actor and greatest critic who had come to see what the fellow was like. At length the curtain went down for the last time, and Ned and I stood back in the press and watched our party go by. I was glad to perceive that Hester did not take her escort's arm, but walked between him and her brother. She spied Ned and I, I was sure of that, perhaps, had been aware of us all the evening. But we did not look at them. The next day I sent Hester a note congrat ulating her on her engagement. “If you had been one of those cheap girls who show themselves in public with any young man who will ask them," I wrote, "I should not be so sure that you are engaged. But, know ing you as I do, I am positive that what everybody said last night about the family party must be true. I wished differently, but you have chosen for yourself, and I hope you may never regret it." "There, if that doesn't start her pride, I give her up," I said, as I sealed the letter, and directed it in my best Virginia fence style. In two hours came back a letter of four pages full of protestations, reproaches, explanations and entreaties, winding up with, "people really don't think so, do they? Come and tell me." I didn't answer her letter. But some of her feminine friends must have comforted and reassured her, for I saw her driving out the next day as gay as a lark. She sulked at me when she saw me, and refused to speak, then smiled and nodded brightly to some one across the street. I looked and saw SweetWilliam just replacing his hat on his lovely head, after a bow which was, doubtless, grace itself. A few days after Ned and I went down to Nantucket Beach for a sniff of air. I knew that Hester was at the hotel there, and Ned knew it, too, or he wouldn't have cared to go. I didn't mean to go to see her. I told him I wouldn't; but, lover-like, he wanted to be near her. But she was one of the first persons we saw. Walking among the rocks we saw the flutter of a dress, turned a corner, and came upon Hester sitting above in a nook, and looking out to sea. She forgot to be angry, and, blushing brightly, invited us to share her rock sofa. There was just room for us, so we accepted her invitation and were soon chatting pleasantly. She looked so pretty, and was so really glad to see us, that we forgot everything but her prettiness and sweetness. As for Ned, I pitied him, for, though she was as gentle and smiling toward him as any one could desire, I knew he didn't trust it. If she had been as amiable when William Janston was of the company, it might have been worth something. She noticed his gravity, and tried to dispel it, at first by gayety, then with a softer sympathetic air. I didn't know what to make of her. If she didn't like Ned, then she was an abominable coquette, that was all. I wanted to put her to the test a little. "Hester," I said, "if you stay here long your Sweet-William will go astray. I saw him yesterday walking with a lady.” Hester blushed, hesitated, then spoke out with a dignity which set prettily on her: "I may as well tell you at once, Mr. Arnold, that I am engaged to Mr. Janston. It will stop this kind of comments, and all misunderstandings." As she spoke Ned started up with an exclamation, and then dropped down again as pale as death. I hadn't a word to say, I was too much confounded, and Hester herself, her story told, could not speak for a moment. Her blushes had died in pallor, and she sat with downcast eyes. At this moment there were steps above our |