ad as Julius Caesar! The Indians killed
him, burnt him and minced him up! Now, that's the solemn truth, and
his last words to me were, 'Break the news gently to Maria.' You see
the man loved you. He cared more for you than you seemed to do for
him. He would have welcomed death if he had known you had ceased to
love him."

"What did you say his last words were?"

"Why, just before his soul took its eternal flight he whispered
something in my ear. Then I made a sudden dash and escaped from the
savages, to bring his message back to you. That message was: 'Break
the news gently to Maria.' That's what the major said with his dying
lips."

"Well, then, why don't you break the news to Maria?"

"Madam, such levity is untimely. I have broken it--broken it gently.
You have heard it all."

"Do you suppose I am Major Bing's wife?"

"Certainly."

"Well, she moved around into Market street last December. Maybe you'd
better hunt her up."

The general looked at Mrs. Wood solemnly for a minute, and then he
said he would. Then he bade Mrs. Wood good-morning, bowed himself out
and walked around to look for the widow. When the real widow heard the
news, she was deeply affected, and she sobbed in a most distressing
manner. Subsequently she went into mourning. The life insurance
company paid her the money due upon the major's policy. The major's
lodge passed resolutions of regret, his family divided up his
property, and the community settled down comfortably in the conviction
that the major was finally and hopelessly dead.

About a year afterward, however, Major Bing suddenly arrived in town
without announcing his coming. He had been held as a prisoner by the
Indians, and had escaped. As he stepped from the cars a policeman
looked at him a minute, then seized him by the collar and hurried
him around to the coroner's office. Before he could recover from
his amazement the coroner empaneled a jury, put the action of the
insurance company in evidence and promptly got from the jury a verdict
that "the said Bing came to his death at the hands of the Indians."

Then the major went to his house and found his widow sitting on the
front porch talking to Myers, the man to whom she was engaged to be
married. As he entered the gate his widow gave one little start of
surprise, and then, regaining her composure, she said to Myers,

"Isn't this a new kind of an idea--dead people coming around when
common decency requires them to keep quiet?"