'case 'twan't no story like Cassy-by-anker."

He pointed the latter poem out to Eloise, who said, "Will you give me
this book?"

Jake hesitated before he replied, "He wanted it, the Colonel, an' I tole
him no, but you're different. I'll think about it."

Mr. Mason had returned by this time, and with Jack was looking at the
bundle of letters tied with a satin ribbon which Jake said Miss Dory had
taken from her white dress, the one he believed she was married in, as
it was her bestest. There were four letters and a paper which did not
seem to be a letter, and which slipped to the floor at Eloise's feet as
Jack untied the ribbon. There was also a small envelope containing a
card with "James Crompton" upon it, the one Mandy Ann had carried her
mistress on a china plate, and which poor Dora had kept as a souvenir of
that visit. With the card were the remains of what must have been a
beautiful rose. The petals were brown and crumbling to dust, but still
gave out a faint perfume, which Eloise detected. While she was looking
at these mementos of a past, Jack was running his eyes over the almost
illegible directions on the letters, making out "Miss Lucy Brown,
Atlanta, Ga."

"That doesn't help us much," he said to Mr. Mason. "Brown is a common
name, and the Atlanta before the war was not like the Atlanta of
to-day."

"Perhaps something inside will give a cue," Mr. Mason suggested, and
Jack opened one of the letters carefully, for it was nearly torn apart.

The spelling was bad and the writing was bad, but it rang true with a
young man's love for the girl of his choice, and it seemed to Jack like
sacrilege to read it. Very hurriedly he went through the four letters,
finding nothing to guide him but "Atlanta," and a few names of people
who must have been living in the vicinity.

"Here's another," Eloise said, passing him the paper which she had
picked from the floor.

Jack took it, and opening it, glanced at the contents. Then, with a cry
of "Eureka!" he began a sort of pirouette, while Eloise and Mr. Mason
wondered if he, too, had gone quar, like the Harrises.

"It's the marriage certificate," he said, sobering down at last, and
reading aloud that at the Hardy Plantation, Fulton County, Georgia, on
December--, 18--, the Rev. John Covil united in marriage James Crompton,
of Troutburg, Massachusetts, and Miss Eudora Harris, of Volucia County,
Florida.

Upon no one did the finding of this certificate produce so miraculo