change off with some of the boys so that you could run up to the house tonight and I'd go pretty middling early, if I were you.

Macdonald needed no urging, but it took the better part of the forenoon to make the desired change in his working hours. It was accomplished finally by his agreeing to work during the afternoon for one of the day men, who was to relieve him at seven and who, in turn, was to be relieved at nine by Pinckney. It was unquestionably the longest afternoon in Macdonald's life, and when it came to an end, he could only make a pretence of eating the supper which Mrs. Jordan had kept warm for him. Running up to his room to dress, he met the twins Delay and Haste on the threshold, and it was eight o'clock when the rang the bell at the superintenden's house. While waiting on the doorstep he had a chill of apprehension superinduced by the sight of the lighted parlor windows, presaging another and an earlier visitor; and the presentiment had its fulfilment when the servant led him past the parlor door and into the deserted family sitting-room.

It was five measureless minutes before Mellicent joined him, and he saw at once that she had come only to excuse herself. There was no time for the commonplaces, and still less for subtle and progressive upleadings to the object of his visit.

"Miss Elbert - Mellie," he began, taking her hands in his, "give me just one minute. I don't need to tell you that I love you-that's been saying itself for more than a year-but I've been an over-cautious fool. I've been given to understand that I had a meeting-point to make here to-night; tell me in just one word-am I too late?"

The whispered answer was frank and unhesitating: "No; wait." And before he could put his joy into words she was gone.

Nevertheless, Macdonald's patience was tested severely before he was permitted to mend the broken thread of his wooing. Mancraft was only human; and inasmuch as Mellicent left him to his own devices for a good half hour while she went to her room to have it out with her emotions, he retaliated by killing time mercilessly after she returned. Putting this and that together, what with the mining engineer's dalliance, and his obstinate refusal to take anything less than an argumentative series of negatives for his final answer, it was after nine o'clock when Mellicent rejoined Macdonald. A little later, when the arrearages of repressed affection had been given a hearing, and coherence once more became possible, Mellicent thought of her promise, and of her father's displeasure.

"we

"Oh, Fergus!" she whispered, can't go on and be happy, after all! Papa will never, never give his consent."

"Yes, he will," asserted Macdonald, cheerfully; "he has done it already-İ asked him this morning."

And you made him say yes, after he had told me- "Mellicent stopped abruptly and left the sentence unfinished. "Tell me what you said to him."

It was Macdonald's turn to hesitate now, and he floundered helplessly among the introductory phrases. "I told him he'd have to-that is, I gave him to understand-or rather, I should say, he wasn't going to

Mellicent laughed and clapped her hands softly. "Go on, Fergus; you're doing beautifully.”

"Oh, pshaw! I suppose I might as well tell the truth and be done with it. He said no, at first, and wasn't going to hear me he was just going away, you know-and then I got angry and put my back against the door, and told him he'd have to listen. He was good about it afterward, though, and when I told him about my savings, and about the fortune Aunt Spurlock had left me--" he stopped in deference to the wide-eyed astonishment of his listener, and suddenly remembered that Mellicent knew nothing about the legacy.

Why, bless my idiotic soul!" he

The clang of the front door bell interrupted him, and a sleepy servant came in with a telegram addressed to Mellicent. Macdonald watched her face as she read, and so was not wholly unprepared for her little gasp of dismay.

What is it, Mellie?" he asked, excitedly.

For answer she gave him the message, and he read it with a curious inversion of the senses which seemed to set him upon a pinnacle remotely apart from the commonplace realities. It was from the superintendent, and it was incisive and curtly definite.

"Tell Macdonald his trick is discovered, and send him about his business. Miss Elvira Spurlock is a passenger on this train."

Macdonald grappled with his sanity, and got up to rage back and forth like a caged lion.

Grand River Railway." Then he remembered the midnight talk Pinckney and Reddick.

That tells the story," he said, savagely; "I know who did it, and I'll make them both wish they'd never been born. Where's my hat?

Mellicant saw battle and murder and sudden death in his flashing eyes, and a pair of soft arms went quickly about his neck. "You mustn't, Fergus, dear," she entreated. "Whoever did it couldn't know what would happen; and, besides "-she hid her face on his shoulder-"you know you were waiting, and—and if it hadn't been for the letter'

The most courageous affection could go no farther, and Macdonald's wrath dropped a few degrees below the murder point when he supplied the missing half of the suggestion.

"You're right, Mellie," he said, disengaging himself gently from the clinging arms; "I won't kill either of them, but in justice to your father I must go. Good-night, dear; try hard to think me out of this ghastly scrape" and he was gone before she could promise.

Notwithstanding his relenting admission, Macdonald was determined to have it out with Pinckney and Reddick before he slept; and while he was on his way down-town, a dramatic little scene came upon the stage in the despatcher's office. Pinckney had relieved the day man, and had settled down to his night's work, when Reddick rushed in with a Western Union telegram.

"Great murder, man! Read that, will you?" he exclaimed, dropping into a chair and fanning himself vigorously with his straw hat.

Pinckney read: "Miss Elvira Spurlock, of my party, wants Fergus Macdonald to meet her on arrival of excursion in morning. Find and notify him quick.

J. M. JOHNSON."

"Who is Johnson?" he asked.

"Passenger man in charge of the excursion. What on top of earth do you suppose brings that old woman out here right in the middle of things?"

Pinckney had the answer to that question in his pocket. In asking the

ances.

ald.

Where's Reddick?" asked Macdon

66

Do you suppose Mac's got his legacy yet?"

I

"Got it? I should say he had! met Burwell a half hour ago, and he says Mac had a row with the superintendent about his daughter this morning-scored the old man up one hill and down the other, and ended by shoving that fool letter under his nose." Pinckney came out of his indifference at once. That's serious-that's why Mac wanted to get off to-night. Did you know there was anything between him and Mellie Elbert?

"Yes; but I didn't suppose he would go and make a full-blown idiot of himself before he'd taken time to find out."

"You might have known he would, when there was a woman in the case. Oh, you're in for it-the old man's on the train, and he's probably seen the passenger agent; that means a red-hot message to his daughter, or to Mac, or to both of them. Reddick, if I were you, I'd get out of town for a day or two, if I had to walk."

"I? What's the matter with you? You're as deep in the mud as I am in the mire."

66

Mac won't think so; and, besides, one scapegoat's a plenty - what was that?"

A door slammed at the foot of the stairs and a quick step echoed in the corridor.

"Here he comes now," said the despatcher, coolly; if you want to keep a whole skin, you'd better get out of here."

The advice was good, but there was only one door to the room and Reddick did what he could, diving into a cupboard under the copying-press a scant half-second before Macdonald entered the office. Pinckney looked up, nod

'Don't know; he was in awhile ago, but he went out again "-the despatcher on duty found it convenient to be very busy over the day man's transfernotes.

Macdonald tossed an open letter upon the table. "I want to know which one of you fellows wrote that," he said,

"I don't think-I know "-Macdonald held the sheet up to the gas-jet"you see the water-mark," he continued ; 'well, this letter has cost me my job, and something more, and I'm going to punch somebody's head. Shall I begin on you?

cue.

Pinckney had a just regard for the righteous anger of a good-tempered young giant, and he was mindful of his "Don't be a fool, Mac," he said, with a fine assumption of virtuous indignation; "I'm no school-boy. If that letter is a fake, you know well enough who wrote it.'

"Reddick, you mean?"

"Of course; he's the only man in the outfit with a pin-head brain. Besides, I remember his asking me something about Whittlesey that night after you told us about your aunt."

"He did, eh?" Macdonald spoke doubtfully; "I more than half believe you're trying to lie yourself out of a licking."

Pinckney went from indignant deprecation to pathetic. "I didn't think you'd go back on an old partner like that, Mac; it's rough, especially when the thing is as plain as the nose on your face. Let me show you-here is

a passenger department letter written by that chuckle-headed dwarf of a chief clerk to-day; just look at it, and see if the typewriting isn't the same."

again at the mental review of his misfortunes, "you tell Reddick to keep out of my way. If I get my hands on him before I've had time to cool off, there'll be a murder."

He let himself out through the gate in the railing, but Pinckney called him back to give him the passenger agent's telegram. Macdonald read it with a snort of contempt. "I'll do nothing of the sort!" he said, crumpling the message into a ball and throwing it into the waste-basket on his way to the door.

When Macdonald was gone, the cupboard under the copying-press yawned, and a dusty, sweat-begrimed harlequin bounded into the circle of light to dance around Pinckney's table, shaking its fists and rolling its eyes.

"Oh, you double-dyed hypocrite! you smooth-faced, lantern-jawed foreigner! Chuckle-headed dwarf, am I? -with a pin-head brain? You just wait, will you? Maybe I won't make you wish you'd been born deaf, dumb, and blind, before I get through with you!”

Reddick vanished, breathing out threatenings, and when the door closed behind him, an opportune call for a train-order saved Pinckney from the collapse which might otherwise have followed his bad quarter of an hour.

When Macdonald awoke the following morning, his angry determination to ignore his aunt's request had lost some of its vehemence. He was obliged to confess that she was in nowise to blame for his misfortunes; and since kinship has its undeniable demands, he could scarcely do less than she had asked. Accordingly, he met the excursion train upon its arrival and sought out the passenger agent, who was too busy at the moment to answer his question. When the time served, Miss Spurlock was not to be found; but a brakeman enlightened the inquirers.

"The little old Englishwoman, you mean? Yes, she was in this car; Mr. Elbert's been looking out for her-reckon she must be one of the English stockholders, isn't she?"

"Did they go away together?" asked Macdonald.

"That's what they did; made a bee

line for a carriage, soon as the train pulled in."

It was the last drop of bitterness in Macdonald's brimming cup. His affair was the common ground upon which these two people had met; the assumption of his rascality was doubtless the theme upon which each had enlarged during their short acquaintance. And now they had gone to Mellicent!

When an optimistic young man of cheerful habit begins to give ground to the blue devils, his retreat is apt to become a rout. Looking back upon his performances of yesterday, Macdonald accused himself wrathfully of hav ing given place to childish credulity and unreasoning impulse; and the affront to his self-respect was simply unbearable. Clearly, there remained but one thing for him to do-to obliterate himself at once and unobtrusively. A west-bound train, ready to depart, offered the means. He could telegraph his resignation from a way-station, and he could send for his belongings when he had settled upon his destination. The conductor's "All aboard!" and the ringing of the engine-bell decided him; and he swung up to the step of the last car as No. 5 steamed out of the station.

An hour later, when Reddick went to the superintendent's office to arrange for the future movement of the excursion train, Burwell handed him a telegram. It was Macdonald's resignation; and the chief clerk of the passenger department did not shirk his responsibility. Obtaining permission to deliver the message, he went straight to the superintendent's house, and was closeted with Mr. Elbert for a humiliating quarter of an hour. When he came out, he was the bearer of a telegram which reached Macdonald at noon.

"Don't make a fool of yourself," it read. "Double back on No. 6 and come to the house. Your aunt wants to see you. R. A. ELBERT."

Macdonald read it twice and emphasized his decision by tearing the telegram into bits. It was too late to return now, he told himself; and he determined to think no more of it, at least not until the train had passed its

meeting-point with No. 6. That was an hour away, however, and many resolutions may be made and broken in sixty minutes. Before the time was half spent, Macdonald found himself fighting a losing battle with an irresistible desire to go back to Mellicent at whatever sacrifice of pride or selfesteem. The crisis came when the operator at Jornado handed two telegrams through the open window of the car as the train pulled in beside No. 6. The first was a telegraphic return pass; the second was less formal:

"Come back and take it out on me.

They were married a few weeks later, and Reddick, who did many things well, was Macdonald's best man. The wedding journey paused longest at

REDDICK."

No. 6 was behind time that evening, and it was late when Macdonald rung the bell at the house of the superintendent. Mellicent opened the door, and she scolded him tearfully for running

away.

"There wasn't anything else to do, this morning," he said, humbly; and then- "Mellie, give me my cue quick, before we go in; what am I to say or do?"

“Anything you please; the murder's

have settled there had Fergus been less independent. As it was, they turned their faces westward again in the autumn, and Macdonald is, or was at last accounts, the division superintendent of the Grand River Extension. Having been his guest, I can testify to the cosiness of his home in the wind-swept valley at Mountain Junction; and it was there when I had risen to examine a typewritten letter framed and hanging over the library fireplace-that I heard from his own lips the story of "An Assisted Destiny."

THE waiters had served the coffee and were retiring in long rows down the sides of the big dining-hall. The rattle of knives and forks and the noise of general and animated talk was subsiding, and the pleased, expectant hush which always precedes the toasts was falling upon the assembly. At the lower end of the room, farthest from the "distinguished-guest" table, the unimportant people began to turn their chairs around toward the speakers and to say "Sh," and "Who's that?" to each other in subdued whispers, and the seniors

grasped their sheep-skins less nervously and began to realize their importance, and the fact that they were no longer undergraduates but full-fledged alumnæ. And with the realization came a curious disagreeable sensation and a queer tightening in the throat, accompanied by a horrible inclination to shed tears over the closed chapter of their lives. Then they fiercely thought how their brothers act under similar circumstances, and wished they were men and could give the class yell and drink champagne to stifle their feelings. That be