o see the duped lover's face! She would give him a bit of her mind,
too--perhaps tear up the letter.

Then flashed across the murky-black night of her stormy mind the
forked-lightning inspiration of what the real revenge would be. To take
his letter--write him another back, and yet others, fool him to the top of
his bent, and presently tell him, tossing at his feet a sheaf of billets.
"And serve you glad--and no more than your deservings! Who put away my
Walt?"

She accepted the letter, only permitting herself one scornful sniff, and
put the missive in her pocket. Next day John Tow, the Chinaman, serenely
fatalistic, smilingly perpendicular in felt-soled shoes, amidst zipping
bullets, brought to the trench a reply, signed "Fare Air."

The writer Toke the Libberty of Hopeing W. Keyse was as it Left her at
preasent. She was Mutch obblig for his Dear Leter Witch it 'ad made her
Hapey to Know a Brave Man fiteing for her Saik.

"Cr'r----!" ejaculated W. Keyse, below his breath. His face was radiant as
he read. Her spelling was a bit off, it was impossible to deny.
But--Cripps!--to be called a brave man by the owner of the maddening blue
eyes, and that great thick golden pigtail. The letter went on:

"Dear mr. Keyse yu will be Plese to Kno Jane is Sutch a
Cumfut to me in Trubel. As it is Selldom Fathful Frends are
To be Fownd But Jane is trew as Stele & Cold be Trustid with
lbs & lbs. no More at Preasent from yr afexn Swetart.

"X X X X

"FARE AIR."

His senses reeled, as under pretence of masking a sneeze he pressed his
burning lips to those osculatory crosses. He wrote her a flaming answer,
begging a Sunday rendezvous. She appointed a place and an hour. He went
there on the wings of love, but nobody turned up except the Jane who could
be trusted with pounds and pounds.

She hurried to him trembling and quite pale, her blue eyes--he had never
noticed that they were blue and really pretty--wide with fright under her
yellow fringe of curls newly released from steely fetters. Her lips were
apart, but he failed to observe that the teeth they revealed were
creditably white; her cotton-gloved hand repressed her fluttering heart,
but he did not see its tumultuous throbbing. He gulped as he said, with a
fallen jaw and a look of abject misery that pierced her to the quick:

"She--couldn't come, then?"

"No, pore deer!" gasped the comfort in trouble, casting about for
something to tell him. She had