three hundred.

Sincerely yours,
H. HOPKINS HARGRAVES.

P.S. How did I play Uncle Mose?

Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss Lydia's door open and
stopped.

"Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?" he asked.

Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her dress.

"_The Mobile Chronicle_ came," she said promptly. "It's on the table
in your study."

BARGAIN DAY AT TUTT HOUSE

By George Randolph Chester (1869- )

[From McClure's Magazine, June, 1905; copyright, 1905, by the S.S.
McClure Co.; republished by the author's permission.]

I

Just as the stage rumbled over the rickety old bridge, creaking and
groaning, the sun came from behind the clouds that had frowned all the
way, and the passengers cheered up a bit. The two richly dressed
matrons who had been so utterly and unnecessarily oblivious to the
presence of each other now suspended hostilities for the moment by
mutual and unspoken consent, and viewed with relief the little,
golden-tinted valley and the tree-clad road just beyond. The
respective husbands of these two ladies exchanged a mere glance, no
more, of comfort. They, too, were relieved, though more by the
momentary truce than by anything else. They regretted very much to be
compelled to hate each other, for each had reckoned up his vis-a-vis
as a rather proper sort of fellow, probably a man of some achievement,
used to good living and good company.

Extreme iciness was unavoidable between them, however. When one
stranger has a splendidly preserved blonde wife and the other a
splendidly preserved brunette wife, both of whom have won social
prominence by years of hard fighting and aloofness, there remains
nothing for the two men but to follow the lead, especially when
directly under the eyes of the leaders.

The son of the blonde matron smiled cheerfully as the welcome light
flooded the coach.

He was a nice-looking young man, of about twenty-two, one might judge,
and he did his smiling, though in a perfectly impersonal and correct
sort of manner, at the pretty daughter of the brunette matron. The
pretty daughter also smiled, but her smile was demurely directed at
the trees outside, clad as they were in all the flaming glory of their
autumn tints, glistening with the recent rain and dripping with gems
that sparkled and flashed in the noonday sun as they fell.

It is marvelous how much one can see out of the corner of the eye,
while seeming to view mere scenery.

The