s of love years before had washed ashore at a most untimely moment,
thought he; but the audience had not reached the end to ponder on the
writer's name. A miss was as good as a mile in slipping between the cup
and the lip.

But the course of true love is a rugged path to the close of the
ceremony; beyond, it is still more rugged, and the surrounding country,
they say, is often wild and desolate, and quite unlike the park
gardening and its beckoning vistas to be seen along Lovers' Lane before
the turn in the road at the altar.

A cloud no larger than the tiny mist from the whistle of one of those
tooting tugs familiar in the harbor scene was gathering while the sun
shone so brightly in the tower apartment. An electric shock will gather
and burst a cloud large enough to bring midnight and deluge at noonday.
Mr. Gibson understood the importance of lightning arresters, but was not
prepared to apply them in his home. The women could do nothing; and, of
course, I, the only person in the world who might have transformed the
current to a harmless voltage, had been shunned as an enemy.

Then came the lull before the hurricane--the soft whispering of the wind
in the tree-tops. Jim alone could see the havoc it raised along the
mountain ridge, foretelling by a few minutes the arrival of the twisting
and wrenching blast.

"Oh, Nellie, you remember my telling about the gushy love-letters the
nurse read to us at the hospital, for our entertainment. Well, here,
please take this; she has sent another, which I see by a glance is quite
as good as the rest. Would you mind reading it aloud? and then I ask you
all to excuse me while I snatch a moment to read her long letter."

In this way, Gabrielle believed she would solve the problem of time,
that had been so limited that busy day.

"Why, certainly; let us have the pleasure, and go ahead with your
reading." Nellie was always ready to entertain the company.

But Gabrielle did not advance more than a few lines with Hygeia's
accompanying letter. The Gibson family were so delighted with Nellie's
reading of my celebrated collaboration with Lord Byron, constructed by
the drip of my pen welding some of the choicest gems of the inspired
poet to bring together the hearts of Jim and that fair Margaret, it was
quite out of the question for Gabrielle to withdraw from the fun. She
became as attentive as the other auditors and added her applause to
sustain the clever elocutionist. Comment flowed