and Gavin Burns was a ruined man.  His eleven years savings only amounted to nine thousand dollars, and for the balance he was compelled to sell his furniture and give notes payable out of his next year’s salary.  He wept like a child as he signed these miserable vouchers for his folly, and for some days was completely prostrated by the evil he had called unto himself.  Then the necessities of his position compelled him to go to work again, though it was with a completely broken spirit.

“I’m getting on to forty,” he said to his sister, “and I am beginning the world over again!  One woman has given me a disappointment that I will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she has got all my saved siller, and more too; forbye, she is like to marry Bob Severs and share it with him.  Then I have them weary notes to meet beyond all.  There never was a man so badly used as I have been!”

No one pitied him much.  Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he knew right well their private opinion was that he had received just what he deserved.

AN ONLY OFFER.

“Aunt Phoebe, were you ever pretty?”

“When I was sixteen I was considered so.  I was very like you then,
Julia.  I am forty-three now, remember.”

“Did you ever have an offer—­an offer of marriage, I mean, aunt?”

“No.  Well, that is not true; I did have one offer.”

“And you refused it?”

“No.”

“Then he died, or went away?”

“No.”

“Or deserted you?”

“No.”

“Then you deceived him, I suppose?”

“I did not.”

“What ever happened, then?  Was he poor, or crippled or something dreadful”

“He was rich and handsome.”

“Suppose you tell me about him.”

“I never talk about him to any one.”

“Did it happen at the old place?”

“Yes, Julia.  I never left Ryelands until I was thirty.  This happened when I was sixteen.”

“Was he a farmer’s son in the neighborhood?”

“He was a fine city gentleman.”

“Oh, aunt, how interesting!  Put down your embroidery and tell me about it; you cannot see to work longer.”

Perhaps after so many years of silence a sudden longing for sympathy and confidence seized the elder lady, for she let her work fall from her hands, and smiling sadly, said: 

“Twenty-seven years ago I was standing one afternoon by the gate at Ryelands.  All the work had been finished early, and my mother and two elder sisters had gone to the village to see a friend.  I had watched them a little way down the hillside, and was turning to go into the house, when I saw a stranger on horseback coming up the road.  He stopped and spoke to mother, and this aroused my curiosity; so I lingered at the gate.  He stopped when he reached it, fastened his horse, and asked, ’Is Mr. Wakefield in?’