no, I could not finish the sentence even in
thought. I turned hastily, lifted the latch and went in.

"Kitty!" I said, with my hand on the room door; "it's I, Jack! don't be
frightened."

She gave a little scream, and, it seemed to me, shrank back from me, as
if I had been a ghost; but the next instant she sprang into my arms with
a glad cry of, "Jack, Jack! is it really you?"

"Yes, Kitty, who else should it be?" I said, reassuringly. "But tell
me--how is she? How is Mary? Let me hear the truth."

Kitty looked up brightly: "Mary! oh, she is better, much better, and now
that you are here, Jack, she will soon be well!"

I drew a breath of intense relief. Then, touching my little sister's
pale, tear-stained face, I asked what had so troubled her.

"Oh! Jack," she whispered, "it was you! I thought you were dead!" She
handed me an evening paper, and pointed out a paragraph which stated
that a fatal accident had occurred in the Blank Tunnel. A man named John
Blount, a commercial traveller, had been killed; it was believed while
attempting to walk through the tunnel to the junction station. The body
had been found, early the previous morning, by some plate-layers at work
on the line. The deceased was only identified by a letter found upon
him.

And so, poor fellow, he had met his fate in the very death from which he
had saved me! In the midst of my own happiness my heart grew very
sorrowful as I thought of him, my unknown friend, whose face I had never
seen!

_The Royal Humane Society_

[Illustration: THE MEDAL OF THE ROYAL HUMANE SOCIETY.]

Few Institutions appeal more strongly to popular sympathy than the Royal
Humane Society. The rewards which it bestows upon its members, who are
distinguished for a self-forgetting bravery which thrills the blood to
read of, are merely the outward tokens of admiration which is felt by
every heart. Those members include persons of all ranks of life: men,
women, and children; nay, even animals are not excepted, and a dog wore
the medal with conscious pride. We have selected the following examples
out of thousands, not because they are more deserving of admiration than
the rest, but because they are fair specimens of the acts of
self-devotion which have won the medals of the Society in recent years.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN JAMES DE HOGHTON.

_From a Photograph._]

LIEUTENANT J. DE HOGHTON.

"On Thursday, the 10th September, 1874, at 9.30 p.m., in the gateway
betwe