how did that orphan get his education?"

"By hook and by crook, as the saying is, Mr. Wall. I think the little
lady taught him to read and write, and she loaned him books. He left
here when he was about thirteen years old. He went to the city, and got
into the printing office of _The National Watch_. And he learned the
trade. And, oh, you know a bright, earnest boy like that was bound to
get on. He worked hard, and he studied hard. After awhile he began to
write short, telling paragraphs for the _Watch_, and these at length
were noticed and copied, and he became assistant editor of the paper. By
the time he was twenty-five years old he had bought the paper out."

"And, of course, he made it a power in politics. I see the rest. He was
elected State representative; then State senator."

"Yes, indeed. You've hit it. And now he is going to marry his first love
to-day, and to take his seat as governor to-morrow," continued the
matron, with a little chuckle.

"Regulas Rothsay will never take his seat as governor," spoke a solemn
voice from the thicket on the right of the road along which the party
were walking to the scene of the grand wedding. All turned to see a
strange form step out from the shelter of the trees--a tall, gaunt,
swarthy woman, stern of feature and harsh of tone; her head covered with
wild, straggling black hair; her body clothed in a long, clinging
garment of dark red serge.

"Old Scythia," muttered the matron, shuddering and shrinking closer to
the side of the bookkeeper, for the strange creature was reported and
believed by the ignorant and superstitious of the neighborhood to be
powerful and malignant.

"Regulas Rothsay will never take his seat as governor of this State!"

As the beldame repeated and emphasized these words, she raised her hand
with a prophetic gesture and advanced upon the group of pedestrians.

"Now, then, you old crow! What are you up to with your croaking?"
demanded Mr. Marwig. "Look here, Mistress Beelzebub! Do you know that
you are a very lucky woman to live in a land where not only may a
barefooted boy rise to the highest honors by talent and perseverance,
but where a malignant old witch may torture and terrify her neighbors
without fear of the ducking stool or the stake?" he demanded.

The beldame looked at him scornfully, and disdained to reply.

"Wait!" said a stout, dark, middle-aged, black-whiskered man, Timothy
Ryland by name, and one of the managers of the "works"