might have known it. And I've had to tell the post office clerk, and then he had to take me in at the back of the boxes to look for your letter." Pausing a moment for breath she continued, "He's promised to keep back all the professor's let ters till Monday, and I'm to go early before school and see if your writing is among them. Now I want to know if it is. I'm almost distracted over my own troubles, [something towering between two or more of her numerous admirers,] and you stand there and won't tell a word."

"Yes, I will. O yes, I'll tell," said Rachel softly, for she saw by Kittie's pale cheeks and tearful eyes that she was really suffering. "But it's only because you are in trouble, or I would n't tell a word. Not a word. And you need n't let Maud and Elsie know."

But Maud and Elsie did hear of it some way that evening, though not, as their red eyes attested, very early.

Maud said to Rachel the next morning, "Well, I've learned a lesson," and her eyes looked very sweet and tender as she held out her hand and the two kissed each other.

Elsie asked distantly (and trying to fain ignorance of the real outcome,) why Rachel could n't have kept her word to Inez and waited for all to go together to the post office.

"O, I did n't care to have you all suspect whom my letter was from by seeing whom my letter was to," was Rachel's answer with a tilt of the head.

And that was all that was said, but the girls were very good to each other ever after,- that is, till they were parted by

vacation.

F. Borneo.

In the summer of 1873 I was thirty years of age, in perfect health, and of steady nerve. I was no believer in the uncanny - hardly in the supernatural and had always pooh-poohed at tales of ghosts, phantoms, and visions of all sorts. But at the time mentioned above the experience I am about to relate put my intellect and sensibility to test in such a manner as to make me sparing thenceforward of ridicule, and forced me to find a place in credence for the possibility of apparition.

It is unnecessary to explain how I came to be traveling in the far West without companions, except for horse, and dog, and gun. Following the gen eral route of the old overland trail, I camped one night in the edge of a considerable forest, and at a point from which I could look forth over a broad, open plain.

It was already after sundown. The good horse was picketed, and having provided a supper for myself and the dog from a rabbit which my gun had brought down an hour or two earlier, I disposed things for the night, and, as the stars came out, lay down to sleep, comfortably rolled in a blanket.

It was probably in the small hours of night that I awoke and rose to a sitting posture. The moon was climbing the

eastern sky, with not a feather of cloud in her course, and every object stood forth as clearly as in the day.

But it was not for me to contemplate in quietude the rare beauty of the night. In almost the first moment of consciousness my eyes fell upon a slowly moving object in the distance. It was one of those canvas-covered wagons, the "prairie schooners" so familiar in the early days of overland travel to California.

It was approaching almost directly toward me, and my curiosity was at once aroused. Why anyone should be traveling thus, and so late at night, I could not imagine. The movement was heavy, as if the horses were jaded, and the man who walked by their side had a weary step.

Twenty minutes passed, the vehicle approaching nearer and nearer. Still on it came, until, when about thirty yards from me it suddenly stopped, and the man looking about seemed to be considering the wisdom of making camp.

At this point I suddenly realized that the approach of the wagon had been utterly noiseless. Not a chuck of the wheels, not the sound of a step, either of horses or man. And furthermore there was no indication that I had been discovered, although I should have been as visible to this man as he to me. What

could this mean? Was I dreaming? No, I was never more awake. Was this hallucination? No, for the dog, who had been aroused by my movement in awakening, now turned his head in the direction of the new arrival, and uttered a low growl. I laid my hand on him to keep him quiet.

The man now stood by the forward wheel, looking in at the opening of the canvas top, and though I heard no voice, I imagined that he was speaking to some one within. A woman's head appeared, and after a glance around gave a nod of assent, and the man proceeded to unharness the horses and turn them loose to graze. Then after a moment, in which he seemed to be anxiously surveying the trail over which they had come, he helped the woman to alight.

And now their movements greatly puzzled me. Walking to and fro, they seemed to be searching for some particular spot of ground. As I said above, I had selected my camping ground in the outer edge of a forest. They were moving about therefore amid mingled shadows and moonbeams, but every motion was visible. Finally the woman pointed to a space between two young trees, and the man after looking at it for a moment went to the rear end of the wagon and brought forth a spade. With the edge of this implement, he marked off a rectangular space about five feet by two, and began to dig. All this, let it be remembered, was in absolute silence. Here were apparently living beings, actively engaged, and not more than a hundred feet away, and yet no sound was borne to me on the quiet air.

By this time my curiosity had turned to marvel. Here was a contradiction of common sense! I could not believe that what I saw was real; these beings must be apparitions. And yet here by my side was the dog, as alert as I, and trembling with an impulse to investigate, while obedient to my hand of restraint.

The digging proceeded, and the soil

being soft, some five feet of depth was soon reached, and then the man threw out the spade upon the ground. The woman, meanwhile, had been plucking branches of evergreen, bringing them in armfuls and throwing them beside the

"the grave," I thought. And now, with utmost care and patience, the whole cavity was lined with these sprigs of evergreen, held in place by twigs thrust into the banks on either side.

This done, the man sprang out. The two surveyed their work for a moment, and then, after gazing once more as if in anxiety over the route by which they had come, they approached the wagon. Having rolled up the canvas on one side, they lifted out a small mattress, depositing it upon a blanket which they had spread upon the ground.

This mattress was not without its burden. The beams of the full moon enabled me to see thereon a slight formthat of a little girl who had scarcely lived out three years. The pretty white hands were folded over the breast. Long golden curls fell on either side upon the pillow. The face, which I could see with astonishing clearness, was wonderfully beautiful in its aspect of innocence, and bore a life-like smile, as if in answer to the radiant queen of the sky, who seemed to be smiling too, as she looked steadfastly down upon the living and the dead.

The mother forthwith proceeded to arrange the spreads upon the child, tucking them and smoothing them down, as if she were only putting her little one to bed, although while I heard no sob nor any expression of grief, I could see that her breast was heaving with sorrow and her face was visited by tears.

The two now knelt on either side, kissing their darling many times, and weeping over her, though trying apparently to comfort one another in their mutual wretchedness, if perchance there might come in their hearts a calm like that with which the moon was still sending down her beams to illumine the tearful scene.