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Dallas had on his table? What makes you think that?-the label? There are more bottles of ether than one in the world. Oh! he asked you to clean his coat with it. What with? -the bottle? Oh, the ether! and the bottle had a lip for pouring, and a bit of blue ribbon about the neck, just like this. Well now, was it full when you saw it? Full? But you see this is nearly empty; therefore it can not be the one after all. Let that teach you to be careful how you are so positive a second time.-Gentlemen, suppose we step into the library: we have too many ears here."

"The long and the short of it is," resumed the officer, "that the thief must have flown or telegraphed himself to this window, for he has clearly only walked out cut out the pane, and passed through Captain Dallas's room, where the Captain evidently slept standing, as his bed is untouched, and must have known where you kept the key of your safe, Mr. Gryce, and of the money which you drew two days ago, and of which you told no one but Captain Dallas. Did this gentleman know also where you placed the key of the safe at night?"

"If your drift is to criminate my friend I prefer to remain silent," answered Geoffrey, coolly.

"I see. Captain Dallas did know. Captain Dallas remained in his room while the burglar unlocked the safe, no short job I fancy, and obligingly shut his eyes when the thief passed back with-"

"All this might have occurred after Dallas left the house," cut in Geoffrey, sharply.

"Might-yes! Mr. Gryce, do you know the nature of the business that took Captain Dallas to Waretucket? No? Do you remember, then, when he first talked of going?"

"Last night."

"Never before?

He is to sail as captain of

has not slept in it; or, granting that he slept in his chair, how was this thief to pass through his room, drench your room with ether, unlock your safe and pass back again, without awakening this sleeper-a young and active man, and from his profession used to wake on slight alarm? And what burglar, with a bottle of ether in his pocket, would leave such an enemy between him and his only chance of escape, to wake when he chose? The theory that the robbery occurred after the Captain left the house is to my mind sheer nonsense. If the robbery was premeditated, the burglar certainly would not have chosen daylight. If he had entered because he saw a door imprudently left ajar, he would never have cut a pane from a window and made that trail. Your maid recognizes this bottle of ether, which I took from his table, and declares that when she saw it it was nearly full. I say again, all this bears hard on him. He has bungled his evidence, which was to find guilty some unknown burglar. He has drawn the bolts to say, N.B., Captain Dallas went out this way! and he has cut a pane to say, N.B., second, the burglar came in here! and then he has made a lot of footprints that turn the wrong way, unluckily for him, and posted off to Waretucket, in place of staying quietly here till the breeze blew over. You can see it is the work of a green hand, with only half a look."

Geoffrey smiled grimly at that, but offered no further opposition. A warrant was procured, and the three started for Waretucket, where they found Mainwaring still at the little hotel where he had ordered breakfast; and on a first hearing of their errand the young man blazed with a passion so fierce that the officer made a hasty grasp for his revolver, but cooled instantly, only saying to Geoffrey,

"You have chosen a bad weapon, Mr. Gryce." Geoffrey's answer was softer than oil. "Heaven knows, Mainwaring, I came in spite of my"Was. He has relinquished the command." self. I believe nothing of it." Still, something "May I ask when ?"

the Sea Foam, I think ?"

"Last night," returned Geoffrey, his eyes on the ground, and with much show of reluctance. "And the reason: you will excuse me, Mr. Gryce, but officers of the law—"

in his look belied his tone.

The usual search was set on foot; the detective opening Mainwaring's traveling trunk and handing out its contents to Jeffreys and Mr. Gryce. Mainwaring stood a little apart in scornful confidence, and yet with a doubt of the result that he could not fathom, as they shook out and unrolled his clothes and opened his papers. At last:

"The reason is not mine to give. It concerns a lady. Once more, I can lose a few thousand dollars. If the evidence bears against Captain Dallas I do not choose to follow it up." "But the law does," returned the detective. "There is nothing more," said Jeffreys, who "Why, it is as plain as the sun. You draw a had manifested throughout the utmost dislike large sum of money, of which no one knows def- to the proceedings in which he found himself initely but Captain Dallas, and at once, for some engaged; “and you'll see the rest of it'll flat reason about a lady, he gives up a ship and aout too. Needn't tell me! the whole town has command that he has raised heaven and earth known Main Dallas since he was a boy." to get for I heard it all talked over last night; and on top of that, posts off to Waretucket, on business which he explains to no one, but which may possibly have something to do with the ships there ready to start for Europe. You are robbed on the morning of his departure. If the robbery occurred before he left the house he must have witnessed it, since his bed shows that he

"The trunk is certainly empty," said the detective, reluctantly, fingering the lining; "no room for a false bottom here, I should say. The money isn't here, but there's evidence enough to hold him for all that."

Geoffrey made a step forward, but checked himself. The detective left the trunk and went back to it. He was a pertinacious man, and

his theory was in danger. There was a pocket Geoffrey, speaking with much deliberation, as running lengthwise of the little valise, and this if to emphasize his words. "Either I made time his fingers lighted on the button close un-circumstances tally with his movements, placed der the edge, and “By George, here they are!" the notes in his trunk, smoothed his bed after he exclaimed, drawing out a roll of notes laid he left it, opened my safe, cut out the pane, smoothly one over the other, to bulge as little made the trail purposely in the wrong direction, as possible. "This is your money, Mr. Gryce, and drugged myself with the ether standing on I take it a part of it, at least." his table, or he has committed the crime. the latter case, I do not see why you should be angry with me. In the former case, you ought next to ask why I have done all this.”

"It is mine, certainly," said Geoffrey, in a stifled voice, examining the bills.

Mainwaring kept obstinate silence. He was stunned; and what wit he had left warned him that words just now would only entangle him in the net into which he had fallen.

All New Bracket was moved to meet them, and received the assertion of Mainwaring's guilt with utter incredulity. "I've known him from a baby," said old Berlaps, stoutly, "and his father before him, and it ain't in the grain. I'll go his bail myself; and Mainwaring, my boy, you'll stay with me till this thing blows over.' But later in the day, the evidence growing current, the tide of opinion began to turn, and its hoarse murmur penetrating the more secluded portions of the town, reached Sybil. She waited in unutterable anxiety for Geoffrey, but he was careful to keep at home.

In

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"No, it is for you; and you must, or God will, and in the doing of it shame you."

"God!" repeated Geoffrey, disdainfully. "Sybil, let us be practical; we are talking of life and death; for a verdict of guilty is deathin life—to Captain Dallas. Leave God out of the case. There is a source of all our life and motion, doubtless; but what does it matter to this great First Cause of prodigious effects whether Mainwaring Dallas is innocent or guilty? The coal measures were submerged, and our hearths are warm in consequence; but how much thought did the First Cause take for the life that then was flattened, and crushed, and squeezed out of existence ?"

A night and a day wore away. New Bracket generally settled to a conviction of Mainwaring's crime, for why had he given up the command of the Foam?" What nobody could fathom must of course be wrong; and every where Sybil heard long homilies on "Lord, I thank thee I "I can not argue," answered Sybil, shudderam not as other men are, even as this Main- ing; "but I know that he that formeth the waring." The accusation was sufficiently dread-mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth ful, but the preaching was intolerable. The clock doled out to her anguish in minutes that seemed hours-hours that were centuries-till, throwing aside her work, she went to find Geoffrey, since he would not come to her as he had expected.

He received her with a grave compassion that appalled her. He answered her questions by a terse summoning of the evidence and details of Mainwaring's arrest; not a link was wanting to his cruel logic, not a loop-hole offered itself for doubt. For a moment his pale listener wavered; but love has all faith, and laughs at evidence that would shake it, and lifting her head to look into Geoffrey's eyes,

"But for all that he is innocent," she said, proudly.

unto man what is His thought, the Lord the God of hosts is His name;' and when you defy Him I tremble for you rather than for Mainwaring.”

"I see you have come armed; but believe me, Sybil, it is with me you have to deal—a man determined not to bate an iota of his advantage. I do not know on what grounds you assert that I am able to save Captain Dallas, but you are right. I have the power, and I will use it, but on conditions, mark you! I do not propose to clear my rival in the fourth act, and join your hands in the fifth. It is you who must save him."

If there could be any thing more hopelessly inexorable than Geoffrey's words, it was the look he bent on Sybil while he waited for her answer. She, utterly daunted by his vehemence, and the

"I trust the court may find him so," he re- strange propositions that he advanced, shrank turned, inflexibly.

away from him; and "You are a bad man," she "You trust; are you quite sure you trust?" cried, in a sort of sudden terror, while great "Miss Overton, are you sure you do well to tears slowly trickled down her cheeks. be angry with me because evidence amounts to Geoffrey cared nothing for the reproach, but the miserable proof that your lover has robbed much for the tears. "Why?" he asked, tenderly; me of what I would gladly have given him if" because I wish to make you, silly child, happy he desired ?" in spite of yourself? If you were blind, and had not courage for the operation that would restore your sight, you would doubtless call me by the most abusive epithets in your little répertoire if I held you by force while the operation was performed; but afterward you would thank me. And, Sybil, I love you with a love that would

"I do not think I am angry; and Mainwaring a robber! a burglar! Impossible! Say that I did it; I will as soon believe it. Neither do you credit it, Geoffrey Gryce; neither do you?"

"Captain Dallas is guilty, or I am," said

"Suppose you put the matter to your sister in that light," said Geoffrey, coolly. But that was too deep for Jack, who besides was sucking oranges, and looking out sharp to see how they were to get up the tall side of the ship, still in process of making ready for her voyage, though the process went on languidly with her Captain under arrest. Geoffrey was met there by the intelligence that the detective whom he had retained in his service had that morning paid the vessel a visit.

be young when that boy's passion for you was | you quick. Ma says Sis is selfish, and I think dead. I have been a man of iron, never swerv- so too; for if she'd have you I could come and ing from a purpose, and yet in your hands wax live with you, and have a black and tan, and a to mould-a feather blown here and there by rough pony, and just as many grapes as I like : your breath. Judge how strong is that love, ma says so.' that has power thus to stem a current as deep and swift as that of my life; and your love for Mainwaring is but the sweet remembrance of a girl's first dream-dew, that will vanish in the sun of mine." He took her hand, and bent eagerly toward her. "Sybil, be reasonable; give me the answer I want." But only a faint murmur of "Be generous" reached his ear. He rose, his ardor cooled at once to sarcasm. "That is in your line, Miss Overton. You are aware that I don't do the virtues. Be gencrous yourself; to your family, whose fortunes are in your hands, and to Captain Dallas, whom nothing can save when his case is once before the court. You will not again have the opportunity. I will not dangle longer between suspense and decision. At five o'clock to-day I shall come for your answer-for your final answer, remember-and be as practical in your intervening meditations as your æsthetic nature will permit." And, taking her hand, he kissed it, smiling, and so they parted.

"And the last, I hope," growled Whately, the first mate, and a rough, big-boned Waretucket man. "It riles me too much when I see that long-nosed hound overhauling the Capen's papers. Mebbe it's his duty, but there's different ways of doing duty I notice; and this Paul Pry runs a man down as ef he was a weasel; seems to take to the business and chuckle over it. I'm a peace man, Mr. Gryce, but I'd a notion more nor once to let my fist drop in his face. Such accidents will happen, you know."

Geoffrey felt himself as sure of Sybil's sub- "Dallas's papers ?" repeated Geoffrey, on mission as that two and two make four; or, per- whom the rest of the speech was lost. "What haps I had better say, that he felt the same gen- did he want of them ?" and dived into the cabin. tle degree of doubt concerning both facts; for The table there was covered with Mainwaring's he always held it quite possible that we might papers: charts, memoranda, and letters. Geofsome day unearth the indisputable evidence that frey fingered them over. All harmless, so untwo and two make six. He said to himself that interesting. What did that man, of whom for he was close on the end; and he was right there, certain reasons he could never think without a only the end showed differently to himself and shudder, want there? On what trail was he his guardian angel; for within grasping distance scenting now? for there was no further evidence of success, won in a game of which every day in to be found against Dallas, as who should know the last two years had been a pawn, and all the better than its maker? Geoffrey's conscience general principles were in his favor, the hand of was nervous and suspicious. It suggested to a child was to scatter his masterly combinations, him that a wise man always found out what he and send general principles to the right about. did not know-it was too well-bred to say, a He had four hours yet to wait, and, impatient guilty man; and that the officer should be found of the suspense, strolled down the streets to rid and pumped. Meanwhile Jack had three times himself of the time; and it happened that half-been rescued from the dangers of an open hatcha-dozen boys were chasing each other about a tree-box, one of whom was Jack Overton, Sybil's brother. All children loved Geoffrey, on the principle that made the lamb love Mary so;" and Geoffrey loved children because he had a penchant for innocence-in other people. Therefore the moment that the youngster made out the tall figure of Geoffrey, half a block below, he gave chase, and, coming up, breathless and laughing, struck his little hand into Geoffrey's, with: "I say, Geof, how you do walk! like blazes! and ain't you going to take me to the Sea Foam to-day: I'm about tired of being promised, and promised, and promised."

Geoffrey took the way to the wharves readily enough, for he had nothing in view that he liked better, and petted Jack habitually because he resembled Sybil. On the way he filled the boy's pockets with oranges.

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way, about which he hovered like a moth in love
with a candle; had as excellent a prospect of
being drowned as any boy of his years, when
Whately seized him by the leg just as he was
tumbling overboard; had nearly broken his neck
among the rigging-in short, amused himself
after his kind, with the usual lets and hindrances
wont to crop out in the path of enterprising
small boys, while his meanderings might be ac-
curately traced by the bits of orange-peel that
strewed the deck. And when Geoffrey came, as
flurried and eager as he had been listless, and
ordered the boat for shore, Jack pleaded hard to
stay; and being relentlessly snubbed by Geoffrey,
who was now in his savage humor, fairly threw
down the gauntlet, and vowing that he would
stay, planted his small back against a cask, and
his small legs wide apart, in the true spirit of
James Fitz James:

"Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."

Geoffrey swooped at him, his long arm out to seize him-missed the cunning elf, who slid from under his very fingers and stood laughing at him trod on a bit of that wretched orange-peel, slipped, and fell through the hatchway.

The system of Juggernaut is doubtless good in its way, but no system can be calculated to a nicety; there must be always a margin for accidents; and so a child and a bit of orange-peel had reduced Juggernaut to a failure; for though Geoffrey had neither dashed out his brains, nor broken a leg or an arm, he lay quite helpless down there, where Jack peered over at him fearfully and crying; and when the men lifted him he told them that he could not feel them touch his legs, which made them look at each other queerly.

Presently it was buzzed about New Bracket that the doctors had declared "that it was a mere matter of time;" so is all life, but it seems that they intended a short time; say from three days to a week. Geoffrey at first refused all credence to such a theory till the hours brought

him so close to death that he felt the chill of his clutch; then he promptly sent for a lawyer

thought that this man, who lay sneering at them over Death's shoulder, might stand in need of a minister as well as a lawyer; and some of them ventured to hint as much; but Geoffrey only turned his face to the wall and lay there in sullen silence. He had very nearly done with life. True, there were yet more breaths to draw, but each more labored than the last, and bringing him closer to the end. Juggernaut had forsaken him. Justice had found him out at last, and accounts were balanced between them. "God's 'mills grind slow but fine."

To the windows of the house belonging once to Geoffrey Gryce crowd often the little rosy faces of the orphans for whom it is now a home." In the church-yard stands a slab, bearing the inscription: GEOFFREY GRYCE, AGED 45.

Roses cluster and blossom around the stone, trimmed and tended from year to year by the hands of Sybil Dallas and her children.

2

ESM!"

and made his will-business first as always "YE

making New Bracket his inheritrix, heir to an orphan asylum; that done, "And now," said Geoffrey, "for the full, true, and particular account of that modern Joseph who put the silver cup in the sack of a Benjamin, meaning to send him to State Prison, the dying confession of one Geoffrey Gryce, who, on the night of the 24th instant, did feloniously and burglariously rob himself of five thousand dollars in gold and notes;" and though Geoffrey's tone was careless, there was no mistaking the purpose of his face. Mr. Deepdwell's astonishment was good to see, for he was a man running always in one groove, and devoutly believing that respectability was goodness, and that a man who was regular at church, and swore only in private, had all the Christian virtues; and a man slipped up on his theory is as funny in his way as a man slipped up on the ice. It was well that Geoffrey's account was terse, clear, and complete, not a link wanting; otherwise Mr. Deepdwell would have set it aside as the fancy of a man in delirium.

You think now Geoffrey had repented. Not in the least. He loved Sybil, and he cared nothing for obituaries. He knew it would be useless to will that self-willed girl his estate or a portion of it, as she would inevitably donate it to the first charitable institution. Mainwaring Dallas could insure her future, but for that he must first be acquitted of the charge against him. Geoffrey debated the point long. He would have relished a posthumous vengeance on the man who had dared to rival him, and he gnashed his teeth at thought of that man's happiness. But he loved Sybil with a mighty love, Istronger than all the other impulses of his life; and so New Bracket was treated to the confession of the modern Joseph. "Tell Sybil Overton this is my bequest to her," he said at its close. After such a confession the good simple folk

BRAINS.

I turned with a start. I was quite alone, as I thought, and the fine treble of that odd little voice struck strangely upon my ear. I had been saying that I was tired of life, or some such repining speech, which I never allowed myself except in solitude, and this object at my knee answered me, "Yes'm!" I looked at her in amazement. She was a little morsel, scarcely so tall as a well-grown child of seven, but with a grave, mature, preternaturally wise face, which might have belonged to any age from fifteen to twenty-five. Was she goblin or mortal?

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Susan Mory, ma'am, but they mostly call me 'Brains.' They say I've an old head to be on such young shoulders." And she laughed, a small, fine, queer laugh, as uncanny in sound as her voice. I was hardly yet convinced that she was human.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve, ma'am, last birthday."

"And what do you want, Brains? How came you here?"

"I want to do your errands, ma'am. I heard you needed some one; and your door wasn't quite shut, so I came in. Excuse the freedom." And here she bobbed me a droll little courtesy, quite in keeping with her voice, and her laugh, and the quaint correctness and propriety of her conversation. It was true I wanted an errandgirl; but what could this odd morsel of humanity do?

"What wages did you expect?" I asked, more from curiosity to see what estimation she put upon her services than with any serious intention of employing her.

"I heard you had been paying three dollars a week, and the girl boarded herself. I think I could earn as much."

"But she was a large girl," I said, in sur-ceived a fine-lady sort of education. I could play and sing-with taste rather than with science. I danced well; I drew a little; I read French; I could manage Italian enough for a song; but what one thing did I know well enough to teach it? Not one. And even if I had, there were fifty applicants for every vacant situation in the department of instruction. Clearly I must do something besides teaching. I could not sew fast enough to earn much in that way. What was I good for? My selfesteem went rapidly down to zero, when suddenly a new idea took possession of me. I had one endowment which I might make available as capital-taste in dress. I use the words in their highest sense. I not only knew what was pretty when I saw it-I knew what would be pretty before I saw it. I had original ideas. In the days when I had been a leader of fashion in my own set my dresses and my trimmings had never been servile imitations of French models. I had always invented something for myself, often for my friends. Schneider had said that my taste would be a fortune to any mantua-maker. It should be a fortune, then, to me.

prise. "She swept and dusted my room, carried home all my work, and shopped for linings and trimmings.'

"Yes'm." She spoke with an acquiescent air, as if she thought the work I had mentioned was not at all too much for her. She seemed so ready and cheery that I couldn't bear to refuse her.

"Can you sweep?" I asked.

"If you'll try me, ma'am, I think my work will please you. If not, you know it's only to send me away again."

There was no room to dispute her assertion. I began to like the quaint, neat little creature, with her carnest, unchildish face. I would question her a little more, I thought.

"Have you a home?" I asked. live with your parents?"

"Do you

"With my mother. There are three of us -mother, and I, and Body-I mean my sister Jane; she grew so fast, and was so careless and thoughtless, that father always used to call her Body, and me Brains. When the war broke out he went for a private soldier, but he was shot the second summer. We have eight dollars a month, you know-mother's pensionbut that won't quite make us comfortable, and mother's delicate; and so I thought if I could do your errands, ma'am."

So she, too, had lost by the war-she in one way and I in another. The thought made my heart warm to her yet more.

"You may come to-morrow morning,” I said. "Come at half past six, and ask the porter for the key of No. 10. You will find a broom in that closet behind the door, and you can get the room swept and dusted before the girls come to work."

"Yes'm."

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I matured my plan and then communicated it to my mother. As I had foreseen, it vexed her sorely at first. But when I set matters before her in their true light, and she saw it afforded our only chance of comfort and independence, she began to look on the idea more favorably. She made only one stipulationthat I should not attempt to carry out my undertaking in New York. To this I was quite ready to accede. The supercilious patronage of all my former friends would have been a burden quite too heavy to be borne. I should feel more comfortable, even if I made less money, to begin elsewhere. My scheme was quite an

Another droll little courtesy, and she was ambitious one. I ignored the proverbs about gone.

small beginnings, little acorns, and so on. I meant to storm success at the outset. I let the self-house which we were occupying for a year, and arranged to leave my mother with the new tenants until I was ready to come for her. Then I went to Boston.

Then I went back to my thoughts again. They were a little less melancholy and compassionate, however, for the diversion. Yet I had lost so much. Before the war began my father had been one of the wealthy merchants of New York. He did a large wholesale busi- I found vacant rooms in a building on Sumness, mostly with the South, and when the cri-mer Street, in which nearly all the up-stairs sis came it ruined him utterly. In the summer apartments were used by milliners and dressof 1861 we went to a little place in the country which belonged to my mother, and there he died. I think it was his trouble which brought on the long, slow fever from which he never rallied. Then, in that fall after his death, I had to decide upon my future. We had scarcely a hundred dollars in the world besides the little place which sheltered us, but which insured us only a roof over our heads. My mother was a delicate woman, accustomed ever since her marriage to be petted and waited on and tended. She was utterly broken down by her grief at the loss of my father. I must think for both and work for both.

I, too, had been accustomed to luxury, and never trained to any thing useful. I had re

makers. I had no references, but I engaged to pay my rent monthly in advance; and having paid the first month I arranged my rooms, and put my sign-"MISS MACGREGOR"-on my door, and down stairs at the lower entrance. I had hired a dress-maker to go on with me from New York-one who had been in the habit of going out by the day, and had often sewed for me on common dresses. She could fit exceedingly well, but she would have been utterly wanting in the comprehensive ability necessary to carry on a business, and she made no pretensions to taste about trimming. She was quite satisfied to be hands and let me be head, and would be contented with her weekly wages. In one of my rooms was a wardrobe bedstead,

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