him to buy The holders

make it possible for small tracts of land. of the old estates do not care to atomize their plantations, but would gladly dispose of their entire holdings. There is a vast field for philanthropy with the additional inducement of five per cent. Already such attempts have been made. Hon. George W. Murray, the last Negro Congressman from South Carolina, has disposed of 60,000 acres of land in South Carolina in small holdings to Negro farmers. and is equally enthusiastic over the commercial and philanthropic aspect of the enterprise. Some Northern capitalists have undertaken a similar movement in the neighborhood of Tuskegee Institute, which promises to have far-reaching fect upon the betterment of black belt conditions. There are also dications of Negro villages and i dustrial settlements to afford better social and business opportunities Colored men of ambition and educ

be put on ses mes safe powers. The semen at: New Expand my planted in these uns ::: the sons of Entina that cow gridem cu receive the

a recent s cated the setom and has eat me: great etc.

M

ISS Lucrece was busy among her roses. Tall old bushes laden with bloom, lined either side of the brick walk which led up to her small white house, and here and there between these fragrant veterans, low tea-rose clusters peered out and offered their small sweet wares. Sometimes a long green briar, swaying in the soft air, would lean and catch at Miss Lucrece's muslin skirt as though fearing lest she should overlook its especial treasure of loveliness. Sometimes a down-dipping, heavyheaded blossom would beat gently against her cheek, leaving upon it the kiss of the morning dew.

They were old friends, Miss Lucrece and the roses. Years ago, when she was a little girl, their tallest sprays had hung just a span's breadth above the golden glint in her dark curls, and they still nodded just a span's breadth over the locks. whose golden glint had long since softened into a silver shimmer. Miss Lucrece had never grown up to the roses. They had watched over her so many days, so many years, that it was as though they shared with her the same gentle spirit of protection which they felt for the tea-roses at their feet.

Indeed Miss Lucrece was very like a tea-rose herself, so small, so delicate, so sweet in an oldfashioned way. As the spirit of remembered Junes seems to steal over one when one breathes the fragrance of that dainty yellow flower,

so when one saw Miss Lucrece, one's mind instinctively filled with vague tender thoughts of those lovely lost summers when she was a girl, when the gold glint was still in her hair, when the now faint pink in her cheeks was but a shade paler than her small red mouth, when her dark eyes sparkled instead of softly glowing.

She was as different from her contemporaries in the little village of Meadowvale where she lived, as her lavender muslins and clinging grey wools were different from their purple cambrics and stiff black silks. Even her name set her apart. There were Lucretias in plenty, it was a favorite name in the place,— there was but one Lucrecea queer heathen sounding name the towns folk thought it, and, loving Miss Lucrece most loyally, they regretted this defect. They had been very proud of her in the gay old days when "Lovely Lucrece Hamilton" was the name on every young gallant's lip, and that pride was not yet submerged in the gentle affection with which every one thought of her now that she was "Miss Lucrece," living alone with her old servant Martha and her roses.

Perhaps Meadowvale held her all the dearer because there were two mysteries about her which had been the source of endless conjecture and had never yet been solved.

One mystery was Miss Lucrece's reason for remaining single. There had been so many lovers at her

door, and all Meadowvale had been sure at one time that either Squire Wood's eldest son, Holt, or the young lawyer, Basil Hunting, would be the favored one. But Holt Wood had died at sea years ago, and Basil Hunting had left Meadowvale about the same time, and had become one of the famous judges of the state. Rumor said that he had married late in life and that his wife had died, but all that Meadowvale was sure of, was that a few years ago he had come back to his native town and opened the old Hunting house where he lived with his two servants, elderly like himself. One of these was a staid old fellow in bright blue coat and brass buttons, who was said to have been the Judge's butler in his city home; and the other was a sister of Miss Lucrece's Martha, who had by some strange coincidence become lodged in the Judge's household, and who regaled her master with the same dainty concoctions for which Miss Lucrece's table had long been famous. Between Miss Lucrece and the Judge themselves, nothing passed less formal than the low bow and quaint curtesy which they exchanged on meeting.

The other mystery had to do with one of the rosebushes that bordered Miss Lucrece's front walk. It was not one of the very old ones set out by her father, though it dated back to the days of her girlhood. It stood green and tall near the doorstep at the end of the row, but not one flower had it borne, and Meadowvale's practical mind could not understand why such a worthless thing should be preserved. Once when Miss Lucrece had hired a new gardener he had spoken to her of removing it, and had even thrust his spade into the soil about its

roots in pursuance of his suggestion, but Miss Lucrece had snatched the spade quickly away; with her own small hands she had smoothed over the wound its blade left in the earth and her eyes were filled with tears as she told him that never so long as she lived must that rose bush be disturbed.

Always, when Miss Lucrece had filled her garden basket with roses from the other bushes, she would stop by this one for a moment before she went in; sometimes gathering a spray of the shining leaves, since in them lay all its beauty.

She was standing there this morning in the shadow flecked sunlight. The basket at her feet was a pink puff of bloom, but she turned away from its mass of musky fragrance and touched the flowerless branches of the rose bush caressingly with small white hands.

"You are sorry that you have nothing for me," she said, softly, "Yes, I know that you would have gladly given me roses if you could, but there was a mistake, such a dreary mistake somewhere, and you can give me nothing, though I love you best of all. I used to be angry with you, so angry that you would not let me have one tiny bud when I was sure you knew why I wished it. I am not angry with you any more. One grows patient after many years. He did not go by this morning nor yesterday. I am wondering-" Miss Lucrece stopped suddenly. One little hand went fluttering to her heart, the other caught at a low branch which a sudden gust of wind had blown into view. She drew it tremblingly into the sunlight regardless of the thorns that pricked her soft palm. Under the silver-lined leaves, wholly hid

den by them until now, hung a rose, a half blown rose, its great velvety petals tinged with the merest blush of pink where they met the green, but white as snow flakes where they clung still folded above the golden heart within.

"Why it's white!" Miss Lucrece said softly, "It's white and we thought, he told me it would be red. Like your lips, Lucrece, and I am to have the first one' he said when we planted it here in the moonlight years ago."

Miss Lucrece framed the flower gently between her hands as though it were a little face. Her voice was as low as the voices of the pigeons cooing under the eaves, and full of sobbing notes as were theirs.

"You were long in coming, dear first rose, that I have waited for such a weary while. You did not come when you might have done so much to help the pain that has long ceased to be so hard to bear. The first one, so you are not mine after all, but his. It was fifty years ago and perhaps he would not remember. Fifty years, and it is not red but white, and I am not the Lucrece that used to be, but an old, old woman, Basil, an old, old woman. Perhaps you would not know what it meant, perhaps you have forgotten. If only I might keep it myself, I would love it so, but I promised, I promised the first one to you."

She was not talking to the flower now. Though she still held it between her hands, her eyes looked over it as though at some one standing just beyond. The next moment a child's laugh in the road came crashing in upon her dream and rent its shadowy web. With a little gesture of confusion she put both hands before her face and went in

out of the sunlight. Through the cool hall up the narrow whispering stairs to her own chamber she went with the shreds of the dream mist still in her eyes. The smell of the roses came eddying into the room with every gust that stirred the white curtains at the open window, and their fragrance blended with the vague breath of old lavender that has long lain amid cool sweet linen.

There was as it were a gentle aloofness about the room, not unlike Miss Lucrece herself. On that low white bed she had slept the deep child-sleep, the silent gap between the days of busy play; there she had dreamed the dear bright dreams of girlhood; there she had watched, as a woman, the long nights which follow when the dream webb raveis and fades at last. The oval mirror over the dressing case had seen so many faces look into it, so many Miss Lucreces, that had slipped away to give place to the gentle presence that it now knew. There was a little rose-wood box on the dressing case under the mirror and Miss Lucrece drew it toward her and slowly turned the tiny key which made it fast. Within on the velvet lining, half hidden by the length of faded blue ribbon from which it once had hung, lay a gold locket from whose crystal heart the half faded photograph of a man's face looked out with clear young eyes. The hair lay in a soft dark sweep over the broad forehead and the chin was held high above the deep black stock. On the lips still hovered the shadow of a smile brought by some fleeting fancy which passed but left its imprint evermore.

Miss Lucrece bent low over the tiny frame as she held it to the light.

"Basil," she said softly, "Basil, our rose has blossomed at last. The first one, the one I promised should be yours. I cannot keep it, and yet how can I send it to you now? If only I could be sure that you still care, still care as I do and as you used to before the dreary mistake that ended all. Oh, Basil, you were so blind, so blind, why could you not see!"

The cool fragrant bedchamber suddenly faded from Miss Lucrece's sight. She was back in the garden again sitting on the doorstep in the twilight of a summer day. She wore no longer this soft pale muslin, but a quaint white gown and there was a red rose in her hair. There was some one beside her, and his eyes, as they sought hers, were dark with a deep wonderful meaning that thrilled her heart into glad unrest. She lifted her hand to her lips to hush the outcry that trembled there and her quick gesture caught from its hiding amid the soft folds on her breast, a long loop of blue ribbon from which hung a golden locket. Before she could seize and hide it again, the man beside her had caught a glimpse of the pictured face it held. He leaned toward her in the dusk.

"Who is it, Lucrece?" he said. The spell of his glance bewildered her. All thoughts save one were blotted out.

"It is the man I love, Basil," she answered, and then at the sudden realization of her confession buried her hot face in her hands.

There was a moment's silence. When he spoke his voice sounded. strangely harsh and strained.

"Will you let me see the man you love, Lucrece?"

But she did not raise her head. "I cannot, Basil, I cannot," she

cried in an agony of maiden shame. She heard him take one step away from her and stop.

"Do you really love him then, Lucrece? Are you sure you cannot let me see the picture?"

She longed to go to him, to draw him back to her again, but her gentle reticence proved suddenly too strong a bond. How could she reveal the secret of her love before he had sought it!

"I cannot, Basil, I cannot," she repeated.

She lifted her face to meet his and stretched out her hand with a little pleading gesture, but he had turned away with her first words. The gate clicked noisily in the stillness. He was gone.

She turned and went into the house groping as though in darkness, though the moonlight flooded the hall. Over and over through the long nights, the long days that followed, she comforted herself with one phrase which echoed in her mind with persistent pain and hope. "He thought it was Holt, but when Holt comes home, it will all be made plain."

"When Holt comes home." Miss Lucrece felt again the quick stab of sorrow and despair which came that day when she learned that that return would never be. There had been selfish tears amid the bitter ones she shed for the dead lover; but among old regrets a new hope had blossomed in her heart.

"When I send him his rose, the first rose, he will understand," she told herself, and waited for the flower that would give her back her joy-waited how long! And now the rose had come at last-after fifty years, and had he ceased to care?

There was a sound of footsteps.