to two-tenths Swede and Teuton, or my deductive powers are sadly at fault.

May 7th. She gave me a purse this morning to buy necessaries

and delicacies for a few poor patients. As her interest in humanity seems to revive, I told her the little story of Noonan's devoted wife. With set features, in a hard, unexpected tone, she said, "Ah, she must have loved him-instead of desp She checked herself on the instant, but I am sure the word on her lips was "despising."

the conventional hell.

As I sat by his bedside, holding his skinny nand, he fixed his superlatively bright eyes upon me, and said:

"I have been deceiving you. Dinsmore is not my name." I made no answer, but kept my professional hold on his lank wrist, and he continued:

"I know as well as you that I must die soon. I want death-I crave it but before it comes, I wish to tell you my story. I think you are the only human being who would care to hear it. I have not yet lost faith in you, or in the good saint under whose roof I lie." He hesitated. "I-I am a jailbird! I have been in prison!" "But you were not guilty," I said, involuntarily.

The thought leaped to my lips by a heavenly impulse. I felt sure of what I said.

He clasped his bony fingers around my own with a tremor of affection.

"Thank you. You are right; I was not guilty. It will ease me to tell you of it—and it can make no difference now-to any one." I encouraged him to go on, and then, broken by intervals of coughing and prostration, followed the recital of as hopeless a history as ever fell upon my ear. Had I the pen of a Hugo, a Dickens, a George Eliot-could I throw around the bald narrative the fadeless garlands that the hand of genius weaves-the story would be worthy of a golden lettering, the subtle power of the page would draw tears from the most indifferent. My duty is

plain-imperative. To keep silence were an injustice to both the living and the dying, and who can tell what may be the issue?

She greeted him quietly-even auguidly. Her restoration to health was not so near at hand as Dr. Sylvester flattered himself. The smiles had gone out of this woman's life never to come back. It was cowardly, criminal to take arsenic or paris-green, it was simply vulgar to adopt the opium habit, therefore she lived on, "aweary, aweary, and would that she were dead.”

A few courteous professional inquiries, then Dr. Sylvester went straight to the point. It was habitual with him. Professional and social success might have been his in greater measure had he been a subtle flatterer, a sick-room diplomatist, but James Sylvester hated shams and trickeries as he hated a patent window-pad.

"I have a strange story to tell you, Mrs. Delmar. I came with the express purpose of telling it this morning, as I think you are now strong enough to bear the hearing of it."

She glanced quickly and keenly at his face. No. She was not in danger of being called upon to listen to a declaration. There was no love-making in those grave eyes. With a little sigh of relief she settled herself in an easychair, in an attitude of polite attention, but without curiosity. If it were about a charity patient, she could give him another purse. She was always glad to relieve suffering.

"I have heard of a man," he began, "who once loved a beautiful lady."

Mrs. Delmar's lips twitched uneasily. Perhaps it was going to be a declaration, after all.

"They were both young, both strong and hopeful, and

66

The elder brother confessed the theft. The younger was so bright, so winning. He had always been their mother's darling. His future was all before him to repent-retrieve. What could the elder choose but suffer in his stead? Another man, making the same sacrifice, would have simply fled the country. This man's sense of honor was so high that he served a two-years' term of imprisonment."

Mrs. Delmar was weeping bitterly.

"Afterward he made himself a voluntary exile for fifteen years, to make good the stolen money (that his brother's pathway might be left clear), and to build up

his own fortunes. He could not trust himself to see the beautiful girl. But he wrote her a letter telling—"

care.

"She never" broke forth Mrs. Delmar. But Dr. Sylvester heeded not the interruption. "He wrote her a letter, telling her of his innocence, telling her all the circumstances, as he considered he had a right to do, because he had such faith in her "-Mrs. Delmar gave a little moaning cry-"and felt sure that she would approve his course, and at the same time show leniency to his brother. The possibility that she could for one moment be untrue to him, never entered his great, loyal heart. He intrusted this letter to his brother's He had restrained himself from writing it till the term of his imprisonment was ended, lest she should not be so heroic as he, and should inform the authorities of the true state of the case. He solemnly adjured his brother to watch over her, just as in the letter he had entreated her to watch over and pity him. The brother promised. The night before the elder sailed, he passed with his brother, as when they were little children. Almost his last act was for his welfare. He sailed to a foreign country to carve out a fortune and to dream of her. He purposely shut off all source of hearing from her, lest his resolution might waver, and because he had such faith in her. He checked off the days of the weeks, the months of the years, which must elapse before he he could see her face again. In starlit nights, on the ground of Australian camps, he would say to himself, She cannot see these glorious constellations, but the old, old stars that we loved together are shining down on her dear head, night after night, and they will help her to remember me.' When storms swept, and lightning hurtled, and strange sounds came from the bush, he thought, 'Thank Heaven, my darling is safe!' He came back to find she had married his brother-the man whom he had saved from prison."

"She was so young-so easily influenced. Remember, it was fifteen years ago," sobbed Mrs. Delmar.

"He came back, broken in health and energy, to lose almost the last vestige of his faith in humankind. He found her his brother's widow, it is true-the servant who turned him from her door told him that much; but her faithlessness had turned his love to ashes. It could never live again, he said to himself-never, in all the world to come, for he had nearly done with this. In the letter which

"She never received it! Oh, believe me, she never received it!"-this with piteously streaming eyes and clasped hands. "It was withheld from her. Only within a few months has it come into her possession, in looking over her hus-his brother's papers. He did not dare to destroy it. Still less did he dare to show it to her after he had gained her poor, wavering, contemptible allegiance. Allegiance!" She struck her hands together fiercely. "What right have I to take such a word upon my lips? If you could send him word-if he could only know that it is the one grief, the one undying sorrow, of her life. If"

Mrs. Delmar poured forth, in a floodtide, her burning hatred of the fraud that had been practiced upon her; her bitter self-contempt for believing Roger unworthy; her denunciation-such as only an aroused, wronged woman can utter-of him who had so wronged her. Tossing out her slim, white hands, where gleamed no jewel, not a single thread of gold:

"See," she cried, "would I wear this hateful marriage-ring one single hour after I made the shameful discovery? Never again! Oh, my poor, poor Roger, how could you fail to hate me? I should almost despise you if you had not!"

Dr. Sylvester was startled at her vehemence. This was a new state of the case. His diagnosis must be remapped. She was not so heartless, fickle, faithless, after all. How much wrath and pain and despair might have been saved to poor Roger, could he have known, or even guessed, in his unsuspicious heart, that she had been deceived. Even the natural wrath against the deceiver might have been swallowed up in the thought that she was less to blame. Mrs. Delmar went on to say that the finding of the letter had brought on her illness-had dragged her to the verge of madness. How many times she had been on the point of telling him all this! How many trifling things had prevented the disclosure!

He will be comforted to know the true state of the case," said Dr. Sylvester.

"This lady is a relative, who has just heard of his illness," explained Dr. Sylvester, briefly, and he led the way to the inner chamber where the sick man lay. On the white pillow was a face so thin and ghastly that Mrs. Delmar started back momentarily, as if it had been Death's very self.

The eyes were closed, the bony yellow fingers lay spread upon the counterpane, and the lips were murmuring fitfully.

Mrs. Delmar bent her head to listen. The sick man opened his eyes feebly.

"It is I, Roger !-it is I, Erminia. Can you not remember? Is there no trace in me of the gay girl you left so long ago! Speak, Roger! For heaven's sake do not hate me!"

Can

Over the dulling sense swept a thrill of old memories, sweet-of late ones, bitter. The latter triumphed. With a look of scorn and hate he motioned her away. "Oh, Roger, believe me! I never knew the truth through all these years. I never got the letter, till I found it a few months ago. It was kept from me. you not understand why? I was foolish, I was youngeasily led. It seemed to me that if you had cared for me you would not have gone, without a word—a look! Do not hate me, Roger! Oh, my love, my lost dear love !"

She had thrown her arms around him, and compelled his glance to hers.

Who shall say what buried dreams stirred again in the long, long gaze of those living and dying eyes! What years of loss and pain rolled away to meet the fastcoming wave of oblivion, leaving, by divinest mercy, only the brief, bright visions of the time when joy and hope were all in all! Ah, who shall say save those who in some solemn hour have given and received such glances?

Fainter grew the light of the hollow eyes, feebler the clasp of the hand, swiftly and more swiftly came the dark wave that closes over all.

THE GREAT ELECTOR OF

BRANDENBURG.

BY ALFRED H. GUERNSEY. FREDERICK-WILLIAM of Hohenzollern, the eleventh Elector of Brandenburg (1640-1688), is known in history as "The Great Elector." He acceded to the Electorship before he had completed his twentieth year, and his rule lacked but two years of half a century. He found his scattered dominions only the shadow of a sovereignty, a mere Protestant appanage of the overmastering Catholic Reich. He raised Brandenburg not only to the foremost place among the German Principalities, but to an acknowledged rank among the Sovereign Powers of Europe. He was a king in all but name, and should be regarded as the real founder of the Prussian Monarchy.

Frederick-William was born February 16th, 1620, just

as the smoldering embers of religious strife were bursting out into the Thirty Years' War. Berlin soon became no safe place for the young prince, and while a mere child he was sent to more quiet Küstrin, under the charge of an accomplished and capable tutor, by whom

his mental and physical training was carefully conducted. He

was twelve years old when Gustavus Adolphus came over from Sweden to head the Protestants in their struggle against the Catholic Kaiser. The Elector of Brandenburg was forced to join the Protestant League, and the Swedish King built largely upon the grow

ing promise of

FREDERICK-WILLIAM, THE GREAT ELECTOR.

the young Frederick-William, for the furtherance of his far-reaching schemes. He projected a marriage between the Electoral prince and his own daughter, Christina, the heir-presumptive to the Swedish crown.

In that event, Sweden on one side of the Baltic, and Brandenburg, Preussen

and Pommern on the other, united under one sovereign, would form a mighty Protestant state; and, as a thoughtful French statesman expressed it, "The Brandenburger would be the most powerful prince in Europe." Gustavus fell in the dearly bought victory of Lutzen, and this great project came to naught. His trampled corpse was