anionship, in old age for care and
comforting. Our good host has been trying to live alone, but the fair
faces I see around me to-night prove that he too is largely dependent
upon the gentler sex for most that makes life worth living,--the society
and love of friends,--and rumor is at fault if he does not soon yield
entire subjection to one of them. Mr. Ryder will now respond to the
toast,--The Ladies."

There was a pensive look in Mr. Ryder's eyes as he took the floor and
adjusted his eyeglasses. He began by speaking of woman as the gift of
Heaven to man, and after some general observations on the relations of
the sexes he said: "But perhaps the quality which most distinguishes
woman is her fidelity and devotion to those she loves. History is full
of examples, but has recorded none more striking than one which only
to-day came under my notice."

He then related, simply but effectively, the story told by his visitor
of the afternoon. He told it in the same soft dialect, which came
readily to his lips, while the company listened attentively and
sympathetically. For the story had awakened a responsive thrill in many
hearts. There were some present who had seen, and others who had heard
their fathers and grandfathers tell, the wrongs and sufferings of this
past generation, and all of them still felt, in their darker moments,
the shadow hanging over them. Mr. Ryder went on:--

"Such devotion and such confidence are rare even among women. There are
many who would have searched a year, some who would have waited five
years, a few who might have hoped ten years; but for twenty-five years
this woman has retained her affection for and her faith in a man she has
not seen or heard of in all that time.

"She came to me to-day in the hope that I might be able to help her find
this long-lost husband. And when she was gone I gave my fancy rein, and
imagined a case I will put to you.

"Suppose that this husband, soon after his escape, had learned that
his wife had been sold away, and that such inquiries as he could make
brought no information of her whereabouts. Suppose that he was young,
and she much older than he; that he was light, and she was black; that
their marriage was a slave marriage, and legally binding only if they
chose to make it so after the war. Suppose, too, that he made his way
to the North, as some of us have done, and there, where he had larger
opportunities, had improved them, and had in the course of all thes