e an ear, there a nose--oh, it was a rare potpourri,
I can tell you! Finally the musquashes all were dead.

"To whom am I indebted for my salvation?" inquired Mary Matilda,
blushing deeply.

"Alas, I do not know," replied the wan stranger. "I am called Juan,
but my lineage is enveloped in gloom."

At once Mary Matilda suspected he was her brother's missing friend,
and this suspicion was confirmed by the lavender trousers he wore.
She questioned him closely, and he told her all. Bessie heard all he
said, and she could tell you more particularly than I can about it. I
only know that Juan confessed that, having tasted of Mary Matilda's
cake, he fell deeply in love with her and had come all this distance
to ask her to be his, indissolubly.

"Still," said he, sadly, "'tis too much to ask you to link your
destiny with one whose lineage is not known."

By this time they had reached the back-yard gate. Eddie Martin was
sitting on the wood-pile talking with a weird old woman. The weird
old woman scrutinized Mary Matilda closely.

"Do you know me?" she asked.

"No," said Mary Matilda.

"I have been serving ten years for a mild indiscretion," said the old
woman, sadly. "I am the gypsy who told your fortune many years ago."

Then the old gypsy's keen eyes fell on Juan, the stranger. She gave a
fierce cry.

"I have seen that face before!" she cried, trembling with emotion.
"When I knew it, it was a baby face; but the spectacles are still the
same!"

[Illustration: BROTHER SLOSSON AND HIS OTHER FRIEND EN ROUTE TO THE
WEDDING.]

Juan also quivered with emotion.

"Have you a thistle mark on your left arm?" demanded the old gypsy,
fiercely.

"Yes," he answered, hoarsely; and pulling up the sleeve of his linen
ulster he exposed the beautiful emblem on his emaciated arm.

"It is as I suspected!" cried the old gypsy. "You are the Prince of
Lochdougal, heir presumptive to the estates and titles of the
Stuarts." And with these words the old gypsy swooned in Eddie
Martin's arms.

When she came to, she explained that she had been a stewardess in the
Lochdougal castle at Inverness when Juan's parents had been exiled
for alleged conspiracy against the queen. Juan was then a prattling
babe; but even then he gave promise of a princely future. Since his
arrival at maturity his parents had feared to impart to him the
secret of his lineage, lest he