ver
Mr. Bowers, and rested for an instant with caressing familiarity on the
editor.

"Well, sonny, any news from the old girl at the Summit?"

"No-o," hastily stammered the editor, with a half-hysterical laugh. "No,
Jack. Excuse me a moment."

"All right; busy, I see. Hasta manana."

The picture vanished, the frame was empty.

"You see," continued the editor, turning to Mr. Bowers, "there has been
a mistake. I"--but he stopped suddenly at the ashen face of Mr. Bowers,
still fixed in the direction of the vanished figure.

"Are you ill?"

Mr. Bowers did not reply, but slowly withdrew his eyes, and turned them
heavily on the editor. Then, drawing a longer, deeper breath, he picked
up his soft felt hat, and, moulding it into shape in his hands as if
preparing to put it on, he moistened his dry, grayish lips, and said,
gently:--

"Friend o' yours?"

"Yes," said the editor--"Jack Hamlin. Of course, you know him?"

"Yes."

Mr. Bowers here put his hat on his head, and, after a pause, turned
round slowly once or twice, as if he had forgotten it, and was still
seeking it. Finally he succeeded in finding the editor's hand, and shook
it, albeit his own trembled slightly. Then he said:--

"I reckon you're right. There's bin a mistake. I see it now. Good-by.
If you're ever up my way, drop in and see me." He then walked to the
doorway, passed out, and seemed to melt into the afternoon shadows of
the hall.

He never again entered the office of the "Excelsior Magazine," neither
was any further contribution ever received from White Violet. To a
polite entreaty from the editor, addressed first to "White Violet"
and then to Mrs. Delatour, there was no response. The thought of Mr.
Hamlin's cynical prophecy disturbed him, but that gentleman, preoccupied
in filling some professional engagements in Sacramento, gave him no
chance to acquire further explanations as to the past or the future. The
youthful editor was at first in despair and filled with a vague remorse
of some unfulfilled duty. But, to his surprise, the readers of the
magazine seemed to survive their talented contributor, and the feverish
life that had been thrilled by her song, in two months had apparently
forgotten her. Nor was her voice lifted from any alien quarter; the
domestic and foreign press that had echoed her lays seemed to respond no
longer to her utterance.

It is possible that some readers of these pages may remember a previous
chronicle by the sam