Volcanically.

The succeeding days saw the Talbots restored to peace and ease. Miss

Lydia's face lost its worried look. The major appeared in a new frock

coat, in which he looked like a wax figure personifying the memory of

his golden age. Another publisher who read the manuscript of the

_Anecdotes and Reminiscences_ thought that, with a little retouching

and toning down of the high lights, he could make a really bright and

salable volume of it. Altogether, the situation was comfortable, and

not without the touch of hope that is often sweeter than arrived

blessings.

One day, about a week after their piece of good luck, a maid brought a

letter for Miss Lydia to her room. The postmark showed that it was

from New York. Not knowing any one there, Miss Lydia, in a mild

flutter of wonder, sat down by her table and opened the letter with

her scissors. This was what she read:

DEAR MISS TALBOT:

I thought you might be glad to learn of my good fortune. I have

received and accepted an offer of two hundred dollars per week by a

New York stock company to play Colonel Calhoun in _A Magnolia Flower_.

There is something else I wanted you to know. I guess you'd better not

tell Major Talbot. I was anxious to make him some amends for the great

help he was to me in studying the part, and for the bad humor he was

in about it. He refused to let me, so I did it anyhow. I could easily

spare the three hundred.

Sincerely yours,

H. HOPKINS HARGRAVES.

P.S. How did I play Uncle Mose?

Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss Lydia's door open and

stopped.

"Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?" he asked.

Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her dress.

"_The Mobile Chronicle_ came," she said promptly. "It's on the table

in your study."

BARGAIN DAY AT TUTT HOUSE

By George Randolph Chester (1869- )

[From McClure's Magazine, June, 1905; copyright, 1905, by the S.S.

McClure Co.; republished by the author's permission.]

I

Just as the stage rumbled over the rickety old bridge, creaking and

groaning, the sun came from behind the clouds that had frowned all the

way, and the passengers cheered up a bit. The two richly dressed

matrons who had been so utterly and unnecessarily oblivious to the

presence of each other now suspended hostilities for the moment by

mutual and unspoken consent, and viewed with relief the little,

golden-tinted valley and the tree-clad road just beyond. The

respective husbands of these two ladies exchanged a mere glance, no

more, of comfort. They, too, were relieved, though more by the

momentary truce than by anything else. They regretted very much to be

compelled to hate each other, for each had reckoned up his vis-à-vis

as a rather proper sort of fellow, probably a man of some achievement,

used to good living and good company.

Extreme iciness was unavoidable between them, however. When one

stranger has a splendidly preserved blonde wife and the other a

splendidly preserved brunette wife, both of whom have won social

prominence by years of hard fighting and aloofness, there remains

nothing for the two men but to follow the lead, especially when

directly under the eyes of the leaders.

The son of the blonde matron smiled cheerfully as the welcome light

flooded the coach.

He was a nice-looking young man, of about twenty-two, one might judge,

and he did his smiling, though in a perfectly impersonal and correct

sort of manner, at the pretty daughter of the brunette matron. The

pretty daughter also smiled, but her smile was demurely directed at

the trees outside, clad as they were in all the flaming glory of their

autumn tints, glistening with the recent rain and dripping with gems

that sparkled and flashed in the noonday sun as they fell.