choking cry of pain and shame, and the sick man turned his head. Their
eyes met.

Amazement, incredulity, hope, dread, all flashed in succession over
Wesley Brooke's lined face. He raised himself feebly up.

"Dosia," he murmured.

Theodosia staggered across the room and fell on her knees by the bed.
She clasped his head to her breast and kissed him again and again.

"Oh, Wes, Wes, can you forgive me? I've been a wicked, stubborn
woman--and I've spoiled our lives. Forgive me."

He held his thin trembling arms around her and devoured her face with
his eyes.

"Dosia, when did you come? Did you know I was sick?"

"Wes, I can't talk till you say you've forgiven me."

"Oh, Dosia, you have just as much to forgive. We were both too set. I
should have been more considerate."

"Just say, I forgive you, Dosia,'" she entreated.

"I forgive you, Dosia," he said gently, "and oh, it's so good to see
you once more, darling. There hasn't been an hour since I left you
that I haven't longed for your sweet face. If I had thought you really
cared I'd have gone back. But I thought you didn't. It broke my heart.
You did though, didn't you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," she said, holding him more closely, with her
tears falling.

When the young doctor from Red Butte came that evening he found a
great improvement in his patient. Joy and happiness, those world-old
physicians, had done what drugs and medicines had failed to do.

"I'm going to get better, Doc," said Wesley. "My wife has come and
she's going to stay. You didn't know I was married, did you? I'll tell
you the story some day. I proposed going back east, but Dosia says
she'd rather stay here. I'm the happiest man in Red Butte, Doc."

He squeezed Theodosia's hand as he had used to do long ago in
Heatherton church, and Dosia smiled down at him. There were no
dimples now, but her smile was very sweet. The ghostly finger of old
Henry Ford, pointing down through the generations, had lost its power
to brand with its malediction the life of these, his descendants.
Wesley and Theodosia had joined hands with their long-lost happiness.

The Story of an Invitation

Bertha Sutherland hurried home from the post office and climbed the
stairs of her boarding-house to her room on the third floor. Her
roommate, Grace Maxwell, was sitting on the divan by the window,
looking out into the twilight.

A year ago Bertha and Grace had come to Dartmouth to attend the
Academy, and found t