r of Elinor kept him
as blameless as any good-natured preacher of the endless theme, that
all is vanity, could do.

These family arrangements, however, and the modified happiness obtained
by their means, were still all in the future, when John Tatham, a little
afraid of the encounter, yet anxious to have it over, went to Ebury Street
the day after these occurrences, to see Elinor for the first time under
her new character as Lady St. Serf. He found her in a languor and
exhaustion much unlike Elinor, doing nothing, not even a book near,
lying back in her chair, fallen upon herself, as the French say. Some of
those words that mean nothing passed between them, and then she said,
"John, did Pippo tell you that he had been there?"

He nodded his head, finding nothing to say.

"Without any warning, to see his mother stand up before all the world to
be tried--for her life."

"Elinor," said John, "you are as fantastic as the boy."

"I was--being tried for my life--before him as the judge. And he has
acquitted me; but, oh, I wonder, I wonder if he would have done so had
he known all that I know?"

"I do so," said John, "perhaps a little more used to the laws of
evidence than Pippo."

"Ah, you!" she said, giving him her hand, with a look which John did
not know how to take, whether as the fullest expression of trust, or an
affectionate disdain of the man in whose partial judgment no justice
was. And then she asked a question which threw perhaps the greatest
perplexity he had ever known into John Tatham's life. "When you tell a
fact--that is true: with the intention to deceive: John, you that know
the laws of evidence, is that a lie?"

THE END.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR IN UNIFORM STYLE

MARRIAGE OF ELINOR
WHITELADIES
THE MAKERS OF VENICE

CHICAGO
W. B. CONKEY COMPANY

We are the Sole Publishers of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's Books

The Poetical and Prose Works of

_ELLA WHEELER WILCOX_

Mrs. Wilcox's writings have been the inspiration of many young men and
women. Her hopeful, practical, masterful views of life give the reader
new courage in the very reading and are a wholesome spur to flagging
effort. Words of truth so vital that they live in the reader's memory
and cause him to think--to his own betterment and the lasting improvement
of his own work in the world, in whatever line it lies--flow from this
talented woman's pen.

MAURINE

Is a love story told in exquisite verse. "An id