his master had done, and rushed past in full cry.  The young man left him to follow home at his pleasure, and walked along the road with a sombre face.  Soon the sound of distant bells reached him.  A minute after a sleigh appeared coming toward him from the vanishing point of the road that here ran straight through the woods for some distance.  It made no difference to Stephen who was in the sleigh.  As it came nearer and nearer he never even glanced at it, until as it was passing, some instinct, or perhaps eyes fixed upon him, made him look up.  He started, stopped, bowed low, took off his fur cap with deference, holding it in his hand until the sleigh had gone slowly by.  Then he turned and stood looking after it, the flush that had come suddenly to his face fading away as his eyes followed Katie Archdale’s figure until it was lost to sight.  He could see her clinging to her father’s arm; he seemed to see her face before him for days, her face pale and sad, and so lovely.  Neither had spoken.  Mr. Archdale had not waited; what had they to say?  Stephen had not really wished it; every thought was deeper than speech, and probably Katie, too, had preferred to go on.  And yet to pass in this way—­it was like their lives.

That afternoon he started for Boston.  It was doing something.  Edmonson who met him just arrived, need not have feared that he was going to Elizabeth.  He was in the city only to prove that the frolic of that summer evening had been frolic merely, and that he was still free to follow that charming face that had passed him by, so reluctantly, he knew, in the woods.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

* * * * *

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

While delivering an address in Faneuil Hall, in 1875, the late distinguished Wendell Phillips declared that he had never cast a ballot in his life.

Such a confession, coming from the liberty-loving champion of the rights and freedom of all people, was not a little startling.

Months later he was requested to explain what seemed to be a serious inconsistency, as bearing on the question—­how can an American citizen wilfully refrain from the high prerogative of exercising his right and duty to vote?

The following is a copy of his letter stating the reason why he had not voted.

The letter hitherto has never been made public.  It is of historical value.

     7 Aug’t ’76.

     DEAR SIR: 

I am in receipt of your kind note.  This is the explanation:  Premising that I entirely agree with you as to the transcendant importance of the vote and the duty of every citizen to use it—­to let no slight obstacle prevent his voting.

The few years after I came of age I was moving about and it happened, curiously enough, that I never lived in one town long enough to get the vote there and never could be, at the proper time, in the town where I had the right.

     Then soon I became an abolitionist and conscientiously refused to
     vote or accept citizenship under a constitution which ordered the
     return of fugitive slaves.