rs, and blushing violently, she
leaped into bed, whence she bid the stranger retire for a bit until
she could dress, when they would invoke the kindly offices of the Rev.
Eusebius Williams.

"Your name," she called, as the stranger was about to retire.

"My name," said he impressively, "which will soon be yours, is
Breckenridge Endicott."

"Mulvane," said Mr. Breckenridge Endicott to himself, noiselessly
descending the stairs, "what if she had screamed before you had pulled
yourself together and thought of that stunt? You didn't get old Tibb's
money, but you did get--away."

Mr. Endicott tried the front door. To his apparent annoyance, there
was no bolt, no knob to unlock it, and key there was none. In the
parlors, he could hear the voices of boarders.

"No way there, Mulvane," said Mr. Endicott. "I'll go into the kitchen
and walk out the back door. If there's anybody there, they'll think me
a new boarder."

But he started violently and stood for some moments trembling for no
assignable reason, as he saw in front of the range a fat German hired
girl sitting in the lap of a fat Irish policeman.

"No go through Almira's room to the fire escape. But perhaps I can get
out on the roof and get away somehow. She can't have dressed so soon,"
and he ascended the stairs to run plump into Miss Almira, who popped
out of her room, resplendent in a rustling black silk.

"Oh, you impatient thing," said Miss Almira, shaking a reproving
finger. "I put this on, and then I thought I ought to wear something
white, and so came out to tell you not to get impatient waiting, and
why I kept you so long," and back she popped.

"You are up against it, Mulvane," said Mr. Breckenridge Endicott,
sitting disconsolately down upon the stairs. "Hold on, just the thing.
Why, as her husband, you'll live here unsuspected and get in with old
Tibbs. Why, the job will be pie. It won't be mean to her, either. When
you just vanish, she'll have 'Mrs.' tacked to her name, and that'll
help her. It will be lots of satisfaction. They can't call her an old
maid. 'Better 'tis to have loved and lost than never to have loved at
all.' I'll give her some of the boodle. She isn't bad looking. Wonder
why nobody ever grabbed on to her. If I had enough to live well, I'd
marry her myself and settle down."

The Rev. Eusebius Williams, with ten dollars fee in his right
pantaloons pocket, and the radiant Almira, did not look happier during
the wedding ceremony than d