keep house on the top of a hill
with servants whose language they don't understand, a couple of
noisy children and a small income, and then, as dear Mark Twain says,
"they'll know something about woe."

DINNER IN A STATE PRISON.

An invitation to take dinner with a friend in the State's prison
was something new and exciting to a quiet little body like me, and I
re-read Ruth Denham's kindly-worded note to that effect, and thought
how odd it was that we should meet again in this way after ten years'
separation and all the changes that had intervened in both our lives.
We had parted last on the night of our grand closing-school party,
after having been friends and fellow-pupils for five years. She was
then fifteen, and the prettiest, brightest and cleverest girl at
Lynnhope. I was younger, and felt distinguished by her friendship, and
heart-broken at the idea of losing her, for she was going abroad with
her family, while I remained to complete my studies at the institute.

I had plenty of letters the first year, but then her father died, and
with him went his reputed fortune. A painful change occurred in the
position of the Welfords in consequence, and Ruth became a teacher, as
I heard, until she met and married a young man from the West, whither
she returned with him immediately after the ceremony. She had written
to me once after becoming Ruth Denham, and her letter was kind and
cordial as her old self, but the correspondence thus renewed soon
ceased. I was also an orphan, but a close attendant at the couch of
my invalid aunt; and Ruth's new strange life was too crowded with
pressing duties to permit her to write regularly to her girlhood's
companion, whom she had not seen for years. My aunt had now recovered
so far as to indulge a taste for travel. We were on our way by the
great railroad to the Pacific coast, and we stopped at the small
capital of one of the newest States to discover that Ruth Denham was
a resident there, the wife of the lieutenant-governor, who was
consequently the warden of the State prison. The note I held in my
hand was in answer to one I had despatched to her an hour before
by the hands of a Chinaman from the hotel, and it was as glad and
affectionate as I could wish:

"My husband is quite ill with sciatica, which completely
lames him, as well as causing him intense pain. I am his only
attendant, or I would fly to you at once, my dearest Jenny. I
am so sorry you leave