s story now," the other
confessed.

"So the embroidery on the dream-gown gives the first of your strange
situations; and the three others were suggested by the coins you have
been using as buttons," said Paul Stuyvesant. "There is only one thing
now that puzzles me: that is the country church and the noon wedding
and the beautiful bride."

And with that he turned over the folds of the silken garment that hung
over his arm.

Cosmo Waynflete hesitated a moment and a blush mantled his cheek. Then
he looked his friend in the face and said: "I think I can account for
my dreaming about her--I can account for that easily enough."

"So can I," said Paul Stuyvesant, as he held up the photograph of a
lovely American girl that he had just found in the pocket of the
dream-gown of the Japanese ambassador.

(1896.)

THE RIVAL GHOSTS

The good ship sped on her way across the calm Atlantic. It was an
outward passage, according to the little charts which the company had
charily distributed, but most of the passengers were homeward bound,
after a summer of rest and recreation, and they were counting the days
before they might hope to see Fire Island Light. On the lee side of the
boat, comfortably sheltered from the wind, and just by the door of the
captain's room (which was theirs during the day), sat a little group of
returning Americans. The Duchess (she was down on the purser's list as
Mrs. Martin, but her friends and familiars called her the Duchess of
Washington Square) and Baby Van Rensselaer (she was quite old enough to
vote, had her sex been entitled to that duty, but as the younger of two
sisters she was still the baby of the family)--the Duchess and Baby Van
Rensselaer were discussing the pleasant English voice and the not
unpleasant English accent of a manly young lordling who was going to
America for sport. Uncle Larry and Dear Jones were enticing each other
into a bet on the ship's run of the morrow.

"I'll give you two to one she don't make 420," said Dear Jones.

"I'll take it," answered Uncle Larry. "We made 427 the fifth day last
year." It was Uncle Larry's seventeenth visit to Europe, and this was
therefore his thirty-fourth voyage.

"And when did you get in?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I don't care a
bit about the run, so long as we get in soon."

"We crossed the bar Sunday night, just seven days after we left
Queenstown, and we dropped anchor off Quarantine at three o'clock on
Monday morning."