"'I never was more taken in,' said Louis, as he resumed his seat beside
me. 'It was the dead image of a man on horseback holding out a pistol.
I'll come down here to-morrow and examine the place, to find out how I
could have been so silly, but in the daylight, of course, it will look
quite different. I shan't ever dare to tell the story, however, for
they'll laugh at me from the Red River to the Mississippi, and say I'm
getting to be an old fool, and ought to have somebody to look after me!'

"I saw that Louis was ashamed of the mistake he had made, but I was so
thankful to be safe that I paid little heed to what he said. The next
day he rode down to the Big Sugar Creek, sure enough, to identify the
slain, as he said. When he came back, a couple of hours later, he was in
high good-humour.

"'I shall not be afraid to tell the story against myself now,' he said.
'What do you think I found in the stump?'

"'What did you find?' asked I, full of interest in this, the only
highwayman I ever met.

[Sidenote: The Last Laugh]

"'_Sixteen bullet-holes!_ You see, there have been other fools as great
as myself, but they were ashamed of their folly and kept it dark. I
shall tell mine abroad and have the last laugh at all events.'"

[Sidenote: Dorothy played a highly important part at a critical period
in the life of her father. She begins in disgrace and ends in triumph.]

Dorothy's Day

BY

M. E. LONGMORE

"My costume!" said Dorothy Graham, jumping up from the breakfast-table.

"You need not smash _all_ the china!" observed Dick.

"The parcels post never comes so early," murmured Dorothy's mother. "How
impulsive that child is!"

In a few minutes Dorothy came back with a crestfallen air and laid a
brown, uninteresting-looking envelope by her mother's plate.

"I might have known he never comes so early, except with letters," she
remarked, sitting down again.

"Of course you might," said Dick, clearing the bacon dish, "but you
never know anything worth knowing."

"Don't tease her," said Mrs. Graham kindly; "it is not often she gets a
new frock."

"A _costume_," corrected Dick, imitating Dorothy's voice. "A _real_
tailor one--made in Bond Street!"

Mr. Graham rustled his newspaper, and Dick succumbed.

"Why, Dorothy!" Mrs. Graham was looking at her letter. "Dear me!" She
ran her eyes quickly through its contents. "I'm afraid that costume
won't come to-day. They've had a fire."

[Sidenote: A Fire in