any old friends still
about? Kind of lonely business if you haven't," continued Andrew.

"I really cannot say I have," said Mr. Blake, moving towards the door.
"I'm a fish out of its accustomed waters, even in its old
hunting-ground, if you will excuse mixed metaphors. Good-evening to you
both; I'm glad to have met with you."

"Good-evening to you," cried the men.

The Canadian was gone, but the two old cronies sat smoking; and the
twilight, that great gleaner of the past, crept about them, bringing
tender memories that mistrusted the garish day. In the very midst of
them, Gavin said:

"What did the cratur mean when he spoke aboot 'mixed metaphors'? I never
heard tell o' them before."

"I'm not very sure," answered Andrew, cautiously; "he must have meant
something."

"'Mixed metaphors,'" mused Gavin, "an' the body wadna tak onythin';
it'll be somethin' they tak in Ameriky--I'll ask Ronnie."

Now Ronnie was the bartender!

XXX

_LOVE'S VICTORY OVER SIN_

The curtain of the night had fallen--and human souls were on their
trial; for human life is then behind the scenes, and the candour of its
purity or shame comes with the shelter of the falling night. In their
noblest acts, and in their basest deeds, men are aided by the impartial
dark. Both alike she screens, though with fickle folds, retreating when
she hears the first footfall of the dawn; then is every man's work made
manifest of what sort it is--and the great judgment day shall be but
relentless light.

The landscape no longer glimmered on the sight when Michael Blake set
out from the little inn, his heart burning with fear. And hope heaped
fuel on the flame, for fear would die if it were not for hope. He walked
on beneath the stately elms, their far-spread branches whispering as he
passed, for they knew well his step, and wondered that it hurried so. He
paused at the spring and drank again, but his thirst was still
unquenched.

He looked about him at the holy night; and surging shame flooded neck
and face with crimson. For it had been thus and there, amid the
sanctities of the night, and by their trysting-place, that the soul's
great wound was made, the blood oozing ever since, oozing still. Memory,
ermine-robed, half enchantress and half avenger, turned her face full on
his as he sat by the spring; but he turned his own away and started on,
ever on.

"Oh, my God! Give me a chance," he cried, "give me a chance," and the
darkness answered