Why She Was Glad

"I did not think you could be so tejí ish, Agries. What! jealous of a mere chilA likeKate!" The speaker was a man between 35 and 40. Handsome he certainly was, kind hearted and generous all could testify who knew him. The person addressed was in the full maturity of womanhood, with a thoughtful and earnest look in her face that showed that she had feit and sufEered beyond the majority of her sex. "Kate is not a child, but a woman, Arthur," she replied, "a very pretty woman, as no one knows better than you." Arthur Reeves looked sharply at his companion. Agnes understood that look and said steadily : "I saw you beneath the elm last evening. I had heard many things before, but could not credit them. The evidence of my own senses I must believe." "Go on," he said, with forced coolness. "I suppose I may as well take my lecture now as any time." "I am not going to lecture you, Arthur, nor even reproach you. The time for that has passed. I siniply wish to convince you that you have been mistaken in the feelings that you have professed to cherish for me - that we have both been mistaken." "I love you, Agnes. You know that." "And yet I am not sufficient for you. Your eyes, if not your lips, have said the same to Kate Norton as well as others. " "This is the sheerest folly, Agnes: My feelings for Kato are as those I cherish for my little sister Ellen." "If you think so you deceive yourself. And whether it be so or not it is evident that the feelings aroused in her heart are of a far different nature." "You do Kat great injustice, Agnes; she is as innocent hearted as a child. " "You must have a strange idea öf the innocence of childhood. Kate Xorton had litMe reputation to lose before she met vou. She has less now. A girl that can opciily boast that thero is not a married lady of her acquaintance but what is jealor of her has as little principie u& duiicacy." ' i teil you again, Agnes, that I do not care for Kate. I have paid her sor.ie attention, it is true, but it is because I know she has few pleasures, and I wanted to make her stay as pleasant as possible." "And yet, when, after months of close confinement in the schoolroom, I sought a brief respitc from mny cares, the change of scène and air I so sorely needed. you did noi think it uecessary to devote yourself so assiduously to me, who, if half your assurances are to be believed, have a claim upon you more sacred than any other. You could even leave me alone for days - not on account of business - but in pursuit of pleasures in wbich I had no share. " Arthur Reeves winced at these words. " You are jealous Agnes, and a jealous woman can never see things as they are." The two had been walking along a wooded path. They had now reached the brow of a bilí, from which diverged two paths - one Ie ding to Agnes' home, the other to the village, whose glitteriag spires could be seen in the distance. "Our paths lie separate here, Arthur." "And our life paths as well? Is that what you wish to say, Agnes?" "Our life paths as well." Xo one knew all it cost her to utter those calmly spoken words - certainly not the man who, winning that loving heart, had held it so tightly. Motionless, with arms folded tightly across his chest, he watched her retreating form. Perhaps there was n faint hope in his heart that she would pause or turn her head, but Agnes was not the woman to falter or look back in the path she had chosen. She kept steadily on, not even turning when slie reached the door, which, closing upon her, shut him out as completely from her heart and life as if he had never been. Then he feit as he never had before, if not áll that she had been, all that she might have been to him. It was Arthur Reeves' misfortune that he could not resist the voice of flattery, especially from the lips of a pretty woman. Did such smile upon him or hang upou his accents with delight, partly real, partly feigned, for the time being she swayed and seemed to fill his heart wholly. He wooed Agnes Irwin engerí y and persistently - for she was not a woman to be won unsought - never resting until he knew that her whole heart was his. It was not that he did not know how rich was the treusure he had won ; to be loved so entirely and exclusively would have been gratifying to any man, but he was one of those witji whom a love once won has lost its clrtKn. Arthur made no attempt to change a purpose that he well knew was unchangeable. He married a few months after, and no one prayed more fervently for his happiness than didne from whose life he had taken much of its bloom and brigbtness. Some years after, wheu what we have recorded was looked upon as a troubled dream, in taking up a paper her attention was arrested by the following paragraph: "Arthur Reeves, a wellknown merebant in , has eloped with a gay young widow. The guilty pair left for Europe on the last steamer. The scoundrel leaves behind him a wife, whose conduct has been irreproachable, and three children. Mrs. Reeves returned yesterday to her father's house, which she left six years ago as a happy bride." When the shock that tbis gave her had subsided, what grateful emotions swelled her heart that hers were not those woree than fatherless children ; that she was not that more than widowed wife, returning in shanie and soi-row to her father's house!