me Von Berlingen.

"Dangerfeld wounded!" cried the latter, bursting into tears--"O, I
have been the cause of this: forgive me--forgive me, Dangerfeld, or
you will kill me."

"You forget, madame, that you belong to another."

"I am yours only--I can never love another. Nor does the person you
allude to," added the lady, turning to Ernest, "cherish any attachment
to me."

"My only feeling for you, madame," said Ernest, with meaning, "would
be gratitude, were a certain paper destroyed."

"What is the meaning of all this?" asked the father of Ernest, coming
forward.

"It means," said Ernest, tearing to atoms the promissory note he
received from the widow's hands, "that I had very ugly dreams last
night--I dreamed that I played at rouge-et-noir, and lost all the
money you gave me to purchase my commission with, and then that I made
up the loss by promising----"

"Hush!" said the widow, laying her finger on her lips.

"Then it was all a dream," said the old man.

"Look at my uniform," replied the captain.

"And what did you mean in the story you told me just now?" asked the
old man.

"Forget it, father," said Ernest. "Dear Meena, look up, my love. It is
our wedding day; and if you do but smile, I'm the happiest dog that
wears a sabre and a doliman."

That very day two weddings were celebrated in the farm house, those of
Captain Ernest Walstein with the Fraulein Meena Altenburg, and Baron
Von Dangerfeld with the yet beautiful and wealthy widow. The captain
never tried his luck again at any GAME OF CHANCE.

THE SOLDIER'S SON.

Many, many years ago, at the close of a sultry summer's day, a man of
middle age was slowly toiling up a hill in the environs of the
pleasant village of Aumont, a small town in the south of France. The
wayfarer was clad in the habiliments of a private of the infantry of
the line; that is to say, he wore a long-skirted, blue coat, faced
with red, much soiled and stained; kerseymere breeches that were once
white, met at the knee by tattered gaiters of black cloth, an old
battered chapeau, and a haversack, which he carried slung over his
right shoulder, on a sheathed sabre. From time to time, he paused and
wiped the heavy drops of perspiration that gathered constantly upon
his forehead.

"Courage, Francois, courage," said the soldier to himself; "a few
paces more, and you will reach home. Ah, this is sufficiently
fatiguing, but nothing to the sands of Egypt. May Heaven preserve m