ng to tell you--a sort of tragedy I have
concealed. You will hate me for having so far deceived you; but perhaps
my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better of me than
you would do otherwise.'

'Tragedy?' he said, awakening to interest. 'Much you can know about
tragedies, mee deer, that have been in the world so short a time!'

She saw that he suspected nothing, and it made her task the harder. But
on she went steadily. 'It is about something that happened before we
were married,' she said.

'Indeed!'

'Not a very long time before--a short time. And it is about a lover,'
she faltered.

'I don't much mind that,' he said mildly. 'In truth, I was in hopes
'twas more.'

'In hopes!'

'Well, yes.'

This screwed her up to the necessary effort. 'I met my old sweetheart.
He scorned me, chid me, dared me, and I went and married him. We were
coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was
drowned; and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married you,
David, for the sake of peace and quietness. I've tried to keep it from
you, but have found I cannot. There--that's the substance of it, and you
can never, never forgive me, I am sure!'

She spoke desperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or
blue, or slaying her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and
began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.

'O, happy thing! How well it falls out!' he exclaimed, snapping his,
fingers over his head. 'Ha-ha--the knot is cut--I see a way out of my
trouble--ha-ha!' She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he
still continued smiling joyfully, she said, 'O--what do you mean! Is it
done to torment me?'

'No--no! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching
quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this--I've got
a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never have
seen my way to tell mine!'

'What is yours--what is it?' she asked, with altogether a new view of
things.

'Well--it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!' said he, looking on the
ground and wiping his eyes.

'Not worse than mine?'

'Well--that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the
past alone; and I don't mind it. You see, we've been married a month,
and it don't jar upon me as it would if we'd only been married a day or
two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that--'

'Past, p