respectful to poor girls, who is handsome and good and does not try to
flirt. But I could love him only if he had an ambition, an object, some
work to do in the world. I would not care how poor he was if I could
help him build his way up. But, sister dear, the kind of man we always
meet--the man who lives an idle life between society and his clubs--I
could not love a man like that, even if his eyes were blue and he were
ever so kind to poor girls whom he met in the street."

BY COURIER

It was neither the season nor the hour when the Park had frequenters;
and it is likely that the young lady, who was seated on one of the
benches at the side of the walk, had merely obeyed a sudden impulse to
sit for a while and enjoy a foretaste of coming Spring.

She rested there, pensive and still. A certain melancholy that touched
her countenance must have been of recent birth, for it had not yet
altered the fine and youthful contours of her cheek, nor subdued the
arch though resolute curve of her lips.

A tall young man came striding through the park along the path near
which she sat. Behind him tagged a boy carrying a suit-case. At sight of
the young lady, the man's face changed to red and back to pale again. He
watched her countenance as he drew nearer, with hope and anxiety mingled
on his own. He passed within a few yards of her, but he saw no evidence
that she was aware of his presence or existence.

Some fifty yards further on he suddenly stopped and sat on a bench
at one side. The boy dropped the suit-case and stared at him with
wondering, shrewd eyes. The young man took out his handkerchief and
wiped his brow. It was a good handkerchief, a good brow, and the young
man was good to look at. He said to the boy:

"I want you to take a message to that young lady on that bench. Tell her
I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where I shall
join that Alaska moose-hunting expedition. Tell her that, since she has
commanded me neither to speak nor to write to her, I take this means of
making one last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake of what has
been. Tell her that to condemn and discard one who has not deserved such
treatment, without giving him her reasons or a chance to explain is
contrary to her nature as I believe it to be. Tell her that I have thus,
to a certain degree, disobeyed her injunctions, in the hope that she may
yet be inclined to see justice done. Go, and tell her that."

T