A Stranger in the City

HIS name was Golden. He had been in town two days. He was tall and gaunt, with a shock of gray hair, and a voice like an ice-wagon rumbling over a cobble-stone pavement. It was in the parlor of Mrs. Granger’s boarding house in Jay Street, Albany. Only Golden, our genial landlady, and myself were present.

As we gathered around the winter evening fire, Golden continued his narrative. He had already told us that he was brought up “ under the eaves ” of the Green Mountains, that his sister Jane had inspired him while he was yet a boy with a desire for education, and that he had with her help managed to get half-way through college. Continuing his story, he said : —

It was that shortness of funds that brought me to Albany thirty-one years ago. The understanding was that I might take a stop-off ticket for two years; and then, with plenty of money, which I expected to earn in the mean time, Jane and I calculated that the rest of my college course would be a splendid run, ending with a magnificent finish in black broadcloth on Commencement day, — my clothes theretofore having been satinet and fustian.

You ought to understand first where I came from. Perhaps you have never been on the Green Mountains. I might as well tell you that what you cannot see of the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them from the top of old Mansfield is not worth talking about. On one side you have New Hampshire and the White Mountains, and on the other Vermont and Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. That tells the whole story, although remarks are in order, if any one is so disposed. I might suggest, as an item of interest, that the mountain itself is covered with rocks, spruce-trees, and hedgehogs.

Our folks lived at the foot of Mansfield, on the Vermont side. We called it twenty miles to Burlington, on Lake Champlain, and that was our road out into the world. A Vermonter who did business in Albany managed it with some of your city men so that I got a place as teacher in one of your public schools. And then down I came, as unsophisticated as you can imagine, but desiring and resolving to be the best and most faithful instructor in the world. I had never seen a large place before; I was a stranger in the city.

But I am happy to report that my teaching was a success. I liked my scholars, and they liked me. I must state, however, another point which was not so favorable. I will preface it by saying that you have a habit of blackening characters here without much hesitation. Public men are usually the sufferers. Perhaps I was a public man in a very small way. But however that may have been, my point is that guileless and innocent as I was, I had not been here quite nine mouths when I got a slap with the tar-brush that marked me, apparently, for life, and scared me almost out of my senses. I do not say how far human beings were to blame in my case. Perhaps the total depravity of inanimate things had something to do with it. You have noticed that depravity of all kinds is of a blacker dye in political capitals than elsewhere.

What I am trying to get down to is this: they charged me here with stealing. That was what it amounted to. It seems ridiculous, but it is true. The idea that I had stolen thirteen dollars in bank bills out of the office of my friend Captain Brown, who was a shipper down on the dock, took possession of the minds of my scholars and their parents and others. The first hint I had of it was from my pupils. They began to treat me with disrespect amounting almost to contempt, and some of them made allusions to pirates and to Captain Brown which I did not see the force of. When information was asked for, they evaded my inquiries. It was impossible for me to understand the situation. Day by day, however, it became more certain that something was wrong, although I had no idea what it was.

I finally ascertained what the trouble was from a Vermont man named Avery, whose acquaintance I had made in the city. He did not seem inclined to tell me when I first questioned him, but finally disclosed the facts. It appeared that Captain Brown had been sitting in his office one morning with thirteen dollars before him upon his desk, waiting to pay the money to a mechanic, who was to come at an appointed hour. In the mean time the captain was reading a volume that you may have heard of. It is entitled The Pirate’s Own Book. It is illustrated with hideous woodcuts, and the narratives are of a painful and revolting character. It is due to Captain Brown to say that he was not reading such a work solely for his own amusement. He was lamenting the fact that his nephew, Orlando Smith, should have a fondness for such literature. The boy, who was seventeen years of age and remarkably vigorous, was wild enough and bad enough without such reading. Just as the captain was observing a picture in the book which represents a man’s severed head, he heard an unusual noise outside, on the river or the dock. He placed the thirteen dollars in bills between the pages, closed the book upon them, and leaving the volume, with the money thus protected, on his desk, went out and walked to the brink of the river. He was absent fifteen minutes, but did not at any time lose sight of his office door. Your humble servant, on his morning walk, was the only individual who entered that door. So the captain said; and when he returned to his office it was empty, and the book and the money were gone. As I frequently dropped in to say good morning and ask the news, my friend Brown thought nothing of it when he saw me step in, and out again immediately. I had not seen him because he was partially hidden behind some boxes piled on the wharf for shipment. He had permitted me to go on my way without making his proximity known. It was inferred that I took the book and the money. As no one else had entered the office during the captain’s absence, the inference seemed to be unavoidable. But the captain was a generous man, and considering my youth and position, had intended to keep the matter a secret. It had, however, leaked out, perhaps through his family, or through the mechanic who had come to Brown’s office for his money that morning, only to learn that it had disappeared. The people had got hold of the story in some way, and were suspecting me.

As Avery related these circumstances I became hot with anger. The idea that any one should dare to suspect me of stealing seemed wicked, incredible, and vile. My first impulse was to hasten to Brown and demand of him, in the upbraiding tone of injured innocence, whether he was not ashamed of his outrageous and dastardly charge against my sacred integrity. And if he was not, I yearned for the moment to come when I should see him wither beneath the scorn and contempt which I would pour out upon his miserable soul.

Avery cooled me down. I think that my flaming eyes and the demonstrations I made must have convinced him of my innocence ; but he did not think they would have that effect upon the captain. He suggested that if I pitched into Brown, as I had threatened, I would shortly find myself in jail. The circumstances would justify my arrest at any moment. Avery hinted that he had already talked with Captain Brown about my affair, and that if I wished to get clear I had better not provoke a man who was already sore over the loss of thirteen dollars. He remarked that the evidence was squarely against me, and that while this might be my misfortune and not my fault, it would be rash and foolish to disregard it.

I was compelled to feel that even Avery was not quite clear in reference to my innocence, although I think, upon the whole, he believed me. Yet it was puzzling. The money had disappeared from the office, and no one but myself had been there. It was not easy to blame even Avery for his doubts.

As I reflected upon these circumstances and realized the situation, a very uncomfortable feeling stole over me. The shyness of friends was accounted for, and the mystery in the air was no longer without explanation. The dejection which I began to experience was not lessened by the information which Avery volunteered, that Captain Brown would have consented to make complaint against me, and would have permitted my arrest, had it not been that he was a special friend of the man who had procured for me my situation as teacher. It appeared that only friendship had saved me from jail.

As the result of Avery’s statement of the situation and his advice, I was reduced to a condition of pitiable tremor. After I left him to go my room, it seemed to me that every eye in the street was boring into me.

When I reached the small house which I called home, and had ascended to the close and dingy apartment in the third story which was mine (by the week), I found a letter on my table. The terms of that epistle were simple. I was directed to close my school at the earliest convenient day, and without further notice. The information was also conveyed that my services would not be required in the future. The letter was properly signed, and amounted to a very curt dismissal.

It was Saturday (and no school) when I got that news. What I suffered that day and the following Sunday, as I sat alone in my room, no mortal tongue can tell. I was, in point of fact, only a poor country boy, puffed-up with a little college learning, and crying not only for my own sorrow, but for the injury to sister and mother and home. Of course you think you would not have suffered as I did. It is generally supposed that a person who is innocent will, when accused, be brave and defiant. But that is not true. It is the innocent who feel the keenest anguish. Ask any experienced criminal lawyer and he will tell you so. I never have endured more in my life than on the two days to which I have alluded.

Monday, at noon, I dismissed the school, telling them that I should no longer be their teacher, and venturing to say a few words of farewell. But their sneering faces made it almost impossible. They departed without saying good-by, and some of them hooted as they went out of the door. I struggled hard to be manly and brave and not give way in the presence of the scholars whom I loved so well. But in truth I was cut to the heart. I have not told you how I had toiled for them, and had not counted my health or life dear to me, that I might succeed in teaching them and being their true friend. This was my reward. It gives me a chill even yet to think of it.

And now I come to another point. I have said that the scholars did not bid me farewell; but there was one exception. As I sat there at my desk, suffering and trying not to show it, a girl about fifteen years of age, with a handsome, sensitive face, brown hair, and bright hazel eyes, came back and stood looking at me, and biting her handkerchief, and seeming very sad and mournful. It was Phœbe Smith, the sister of Orlando, and niece of Captain Brown.

It had been my way and perhaps my nature to be rather dignified as a teacher. I had treated Phœbe as if she were a small girl; but she was really quite tall and womanly. When she stood and gazed at me in that wondering and mournful way I knew that she expected me to say something. It touched me deeply to see that there was one who was willing to show me kindness. I asked, as cheerfully as I could, —

“ Well, Phœbe, do you wish to say good-by ? ”

She did not come nearer nor offer to shake hands, but with her eyes fixed upon me continued to bite her handkerchief. Finally I asked again, trying to smile, —

“ Would you like to say good-by ? ”

She just shook her head and kept biting her handkerchief as if she were a little girl. Something began to come up in my throat as I looked at her. At last she opened her mouth and said with a kind of gulp, —

“ I do not believe you took that money, Mr. Golden.”

I felt my face growing scarlet. I saw Phœbe put her handkerchief to her eyes. Then my lips began to quiver, and the first I knew I broke down, and throwing my arms on the desk before me I buried my face on them. Some one came to the door and called, “ Phœbe, Phœbe,” and away she went; and that was the end of my school.

You can see for yourselves, friends, the position in which I was placed. Here I was in a large city, bearing a stinging disgrace. Our folks had always been very particular. There was not so much as a speck on the reputation of the Goldens. I had calculated to be high up in the matter of a shining name. Sister Jane and I had hoped I might be a minister of the gospel. That was my dream. A thousand times I had longed, as I walked my lonely round on our little farm and on the mountain, to engage in some way in the great battle with the world. And here I was in the midst of the conflict, and it was going dead against me. A thing had happened which was not dreamed of in my philosophy. If it had been the loss of health or friends, or the certainty of my own speedy death, I think f could have borne it well. All those troubles I had calculated upon. But when my good name was touched, I shrank and withered like Jonah’s gourd. I had not learned the lesson that a man’s reputation is in part the gift of God, and may be taken away at any moment. I find that this is a strange doctrine to many men. Job was the only one who believed it in his time and section of the country. I had never thought of it as really applicable except in the past among the martyrs. Of course I had supposed in a vague way that some such thing was true, but that was very different from experiencing and believing it. I have always been glad that I learned the lesson when I was young. Perhaps some men are not called upon to learn it at all in this life ; but if so, I think they die without their education being finished.

I am aware that there is a philosophy which says that a man (or boy) may be superior to adversity. That was the doctrine which delighted me and became my stay and support in college. Perhaps there is no better system for a learned professor with a comfortable salary. But when it comes to being turned out of a public school, I think the philosophy needs bracing. I distinctly remember that it did not sustain me after my scholars were dismissed for the last time, and Phœbe Smith had gone home.

Having locked the schoolhouse door and got to my room, I reflected upon the strange events that had occurred. I did not know what to do. That day passed, and then another, and then a week, without activity on my part. I scarcely went out, except early in the morning to walk by the river in a place not much frequented. Thinking matters over, I gradually and very painfully came down from my high hopes, and decided that it would not do to go away, but that I must in a modest and manly fashion face the situation in which I found myself. It was a trying conclusion to come to. To think, innocent as I was, of going through life as a black sheep was hard. But I made up my mind to it; and I thought that a quiet place in a machine-shop under Avery, who was a boss, would be about my size.

Of course you will perceive that I took an exaggerated view of the horrors of my position. But I was sensitive, inexperienced, and alone.

It has never been possible for me to blame myself severely for the discouraging view I took of my life at that time. In memory, I see myself as I was then, often crying in my sleep until my sobs awoke me. I remember the dank and sickly air of the summer nights, and the stifling heat of the crowded city. That I had been disgraced and thrown aside, and that my greatest hopes in life were cut off, was, at any rate, a great reality to me. For what chance was there for a minister of the gospel who was known as a thief ? And what chance was there to disprove the charge, amid a crowd of strangers, who had judged the case on evidence, and who now shunned me as if I were a leper ? Perhaps I imagined more than was true. Yet I think it would not have been very unwise to have learned a trade. What would have happened in that direction if something else had not happened, I will not undertake to say. But something else did happen. The summer heats were coming on, and the close and tainted atmosphere and city food and mental suffering brought me down so that I took to my bed with a raging fever. The doctor pronounced it a severe case, and what took place after that I do not remember. I know that in some way Phœbe Smith was with me more or less, and that Jane came, and on the whole I had a serious time of it. But I pulled through, and in August, while the heat was still dreadful, and my room like an oven, Jane took me home. That summer in the city, with the sickness, is still, in my recollection of it, like a nightmare.

As soon as we reached Vermont I was better, and in a few weeks the country surroundings and quiet rest restored my physical frame, although I was still somewhat haggard with anxiety.

Jane had got the facts of my great trouble from Phœbe. We talked matters over. I could see that my poor sister was dreadfully hurt by my illfortune.

When the cool September days came I seemed to drink in new life, and the gloom which had been gathering upon me, in part passed away. Mother and Jane would not listen to the idea that I must give up my plan of life because of the occurrence at Albany. They tried to have it that my views upon that point were ridiculous and morbid. At times they seemed so to me; but then, as I reflected, the facts would push themselves obstinately into the foreground. I did not feel that I could justify myself in standing before the world as a religious teacher, with such a record.

It was true in our place as in most country places, that nothing pertaining to any of the people could be long unknown. Jane’s going to Albany after me and all the reasons for it were well understood by our immediate neighbors and many other people of the town. I thought most of them took sides with me in the matter. Yet who could tell ? To determine that I would go out among my friends and face opinion required courage. I endeavored each day to steel my heart and gain strength to meet the trial. I formed some very good resolutions, but did not carry them out.

There was one point in regard to which I was decided and firm. It was my fixed intention to return to Albany and busy myself in a machine-shop, and meet the enemy in that silent, persevering way. It seemed to me that if I did not, the thought of the stain upon my record would haunt me forever. My disposition was to attack the falsehood and fight it down, if it took a lifetime. Jane was strenuously opposed to this. She said that she had not toiled for my education to have me throw it away. It was apparent that she had the advantage in the argument. She claimed that it was wrong for me to shrink from contact with friends as I did. When I pleaded for delay to grow stronger before pushing out into social life, she would not heed my excuses. I could not resist her pleadings. Jane arranged that I should lead the union, week-day, conference-meeting, at our schoolhouse, on Thursday, the seventeenth day of September, and I consented to do it. The day of the month and all the circumstances are impressed upon my mind. I dreaded that appointment more than any other of my whole life ; and I am not quite sure that Jane was right in pushing me up to it. It would be very hard for me, even now, to stand before the people with a charge of stealing existing against me. Nevertheless, I was right in deciding to yield to Jane’s entreaties. It was a matter of conscience with me. I did not let her know that it kept me awake nights.

On Monday, before the important Thursday, I went out of the house and across the pasture, and up upon some rocks with my Bible. I desired to study a subject for the meeting. There was a place where the September sun was reflected, and it was warm and bright. It had been my retreat for several days. I had been trying hard to find out how to agree with Jane about my course in life. On this occasion that subject kept forcing itself into my mind in spite of my efforts to banish it. But I had rid myself of such thoughts for the time, and had just settled down to the Bible lesson, when I heard a noise. I looked up and there was Jane coming over the grass from the house. She was calling aloud, and almost screaming as she ran. Jane always was a little nervous, but I had never seen her act quite like that before. I sat and looked at her for a while and listened.

I saw that there was something more than common the matter, and so I got up and went down off the rocks on to the grass and walked toward her. When I came near she was crying, and as I reached her she threw herself on the ground, seemingly out of breath, her face twitching, and her lips working inarticulately. Presently she managed to find her voice, and then she cried out, —

“ Oh, Sam, Sam, they have found the money, they have found the money ! ”

With this she held an open letter towards me and a piece cut from a newspaper.

Orlando Smith had been lost at sea and his chest had come home, and in it they had found the book and the money all safe, packed away with other books and wrapped in a piece of brown paper. In a minute I understood it. Orlando had run away, to go to sea, the very day the book and the money disappeared, and he had in some way got possession of them and had taken them with him.

I never could remember exactly how I spent the next five minutes after I had learned of this. Probably I was on the grass, crying. I remember that soon the sunshine seemed brighter than before, and an old familiar look, that I had long missed, came back upon the mountain. The valley again resumed that restful appearance which had been one of its greatest charms in my boyhood ; and a spiritual light which was new to me began to dawn. From where we were I could dimly see Burlington. One of my first thoughts was that I could go there now without fear.

After a little while we went to the house and saw mother, who seemed ten years younger than she had been when I started out that morning. She was a still kind of woman, whose feelings were very strong and deep.

The news that the book and the money had been found was not long in spreading through our town. One copy of the Albany newspaper which gave an account of the matter was taken in our neighborhood, so that some of the people learned of it in that way, and some received the facts from Jane. When Thursday evening came I went to the conference meeting in a very happy frame of mind. I had slept soundly and eaten heartily for the first time since my sickness. I hardly think, as a matter of fact, I did anything very wonderful in the way of a speech that evening, but I became enthusiastic and forgot myself. As I was speaking and looking into the eyes of the people, I got talking fast, and then in some way they were in tears. I had no idea of being pathetic or eloquent, but I presume my feeling of thankfulness was apparent. Somehow, that talk made my reputation in the town. The people said I had a gift, and that preaching ought to be my occupation.

Here I reach a stage in my narrative where explanation is in order. The first point is to show how it happened that Orlando got into the office that morning and obtained possession of his copy of The Pirate’s Own Book, and the thirteen dollars inclosed in it, without being seen by his uncle. The newspaper presented a theory upon that subject revealing some curious facts aud circumstances. It appeared in the first place that Captain Brown had a defect in his right eye which rendered that important organ substantially useless. But it was admitted by all his neighbors and acquaintances that his left eye was uncommonly bright and efficient, so that he was an excellent watchman. The newspaper remarked, however, that there was a scientific fact in regard to the vision of a single eye, not generally known. It was this : In the normal eye of every person there is a blind spot, a little toward the outer angle from the axis of vision. This blind spot (of which we are wholly unconscious) may readily be detected by the aid of two large dots located to the right and left on a white page, and three inches apart. Hold the page, as in reading, about twelve inches from the face. Close the right eye and look intently at the dot to the right with the left eye. The dot to the left will mysteriously vanish. It is covered by the blind spot. The experiment may be varied in many ways. Small black buttons or even nickels (if the adjustment of distances is exact) may be used with success. Objects on all sides of the dot (or button, or nickel) will be perceived out of the corner of the eye, but the dot itself seems to have melted into the white paper. If you look across a street and have the arrangement of distances in the same proportion as in the experiment I have suggested, a window or a door can be made to disappear in the same mysterious manner.

A man with only one eye is of course greatly surprised upon learning of this defect in his vision. He may think that he perceives the entire side of a house when in fact there is a place several feet in diameter which entirely escapes him. The newspaper stated that Captain Brown had become convinced that this defect in his vision, of which he was unaware until it was demonstrated to him, had prevented him from seeing Orlando on the important occasion in question.

You will readily imagine that Jane and I delighted in the curious experiment described so minutely in the newspaper. We found it entirely successful with every one who tried it, and a matter of amusement and surprise to all the neighbors. No one had ever heard of the blind spot before. But it was found a very complete and satisfactory solution of the mystery.

Here, perhaps, I ought to pause. Having presented a pleasing picture of my deliverance, the fitness of things warns me not to interfere with it. But it is important to tell the whole truth in this matter, and I shall not forbear.

I am sorry to announce that the joyful intelligence which lifted the dark shadow from my life was not in reality true, although its falsity was not discovered until years had passed away. In point of fact, neither the book nor the money which had been lost was found. The story which had been published in the newspaper, and which we had hugged to our hearts and rejoiced over and cried over, and from which I had gained health and vigor, was based upon a set of fallacious circumstances, curiously devised and falsely manufactured for my especial benefit. In behalf of my happiness and with a view to my relief, a pious trick, if there is such a thing, had been played by a kind-hearted girl. You can say that the presence of political and legislative management in this city had dulled her moral sense, if that is your view. I do not attempt to place the responsibility. All I affirm is, that a fraud which made every person who was interested believe that the book and the money had been recovered was planned by the brain and executed by the hands of Phœbe Smith.

In considering the act of which I am about to tell you, I think it right that you should remember how young she was, and reflect upon the motive which induced her to resort to deception. She believed in my innocence, and had seen as perhaps as no one else could (except my mother or my sister Jane) the anguish I had been made to suffer. However wrong it may have been to deceive, it was certainly very noble to wish so earnestly to save me from deep sorrow.

The plan Phœbe adopted was simple and effective. She secured another copy of The Pirate’s Own Book, and wrote Orlando’s name in it, imitating his handwriting, and adroitly placed it in his chest with money of her own, when, after his loss, the chest came back from sea and before it was supposed to have been opened.

I have already stated that Orlando ran away the very day the book and the money disappeared. This fact gave great plausibility to Phœbe’s deception. Fortunately for my peace of mind, I did not know of her plot in my behalf until adventitious circumstances revealed it, long subsequent to the events I have related. Neither was it made known to any one. The secret was profoundly buried by Phœbe in her own breast. I have been amazed when contemplating the breadth and completeness of her deception, viewed in connection with her youth and the sincerity of her heart. It would seem that from her own recollection of the lost volume, and from the captain’s description of the money, she so succeeded in duplicating both, that no thought ever occurred to any one that the substituted articles were not the originals. Besides putting the book and the money so skillfully in the chest where they were discovered, she made the suggestion explaining the probable manner of the loss, which impressed itself upon Captain Brown and all the friends, and upon the newspaper reporter and the public, as the truthful explanation of the occurrence.

As one of the consequences of subsequent investigation, I am able to go back in the course of my narrative and state to you what poor Phœbe was doing when I was sorrowing over the dark calamity that had fallen upon my career. Her friends found out, long afterward, how she passed through various difficulties in obtaining thirteen dollars. A dealer in second-hand volumes identified, by his small label and price mark, the copy of The Pirate’s Own Book which she had purchased at his store and made use of as I have described. This searching and identification took place after Phœbe’s death, and nearly four years after she was my pupil.

You can imagine what a curious task and labor of love it was for her associates and friends to trace out the ingenious goodness and strange deceit which had marked the achievement which she had buried from the eyes of the world. The hidden life of this young girl was found to be very interesting.

It came to light, in tracing the course of Phœbe’s scheme, that her main anxiety had been to find some reasonable hypothesis that would account for the pretended fact that Orlando visited the office of his uncle and secured the hook without being observed. When once the book and money were discovered in the chest, of course that left the burden of accounting for the mistake that, apparently, had been made, upon the shoulders of Captain Brown. It was for him to explain, if he could, how he had failed to see Orlando. Phœbe evidently dreaded this point, and made preparations of a subtle and curious nature to furnish her uncle with an excuse. It appeared that she had first taken into the account the fact I have already mentioned, that the captain had a defect in his right eye. And now I come to the point where Phœbe, as it seems to me, showed her greatest skill and power of combination. You may remember to have seen a curious book, found in many school-libraries, entitled Brewster’s Natural Magic. In that work, which reveals, in a very plain way adapted to the minds of the young, some of the wonders of science, Phœbe found an account of the blind spot in the eye, and the experiment demonstrating it, as I have described. Her application of it was ingenious. The first item remembered about it is that soon after the news of the loss of Orlando had been received, and while they were still waiting for the return of his chest, “ the blind-spot experiment ” came into vogue with Phœbe and her friends. It is remembered that Phœbe Smith first called attention to it, and devised various changes to render it more interesting.

Notwithstanding her youth, and the benevolent motive which influenced her, Phœbe died without having made a revelation of the deception she had practiced. I think we can understand how, in a moral atmosphere where successful political management is regarded with approval, she might have been led to associate such deceit in a good cause with virtue. I have been confirmed in this view by the fact that certain friends of hers have expressed to me their sense of the superlative merit of her effort in my behalf. Some of the women contemplated her heroism with wonder and tearful admiration. They made mention of her sacrifice of truth and veracity for me as the loftiest possible example of praiseworthy, womanly devotion. To do such a deed as she had done in my behalf, and pass away from earth without any mention of it, seemed to them an exhibition of human goodness that was extremely bright and dazzling. I am compelled to think that these kind friends admired her benevolence and its success all the more because of the trick involved in it. I hope not, but it has appeared so to me as I have talked with them about it. You may smile at this, but the whole matter strikes me as very serious. It seems wonderful to me that my happiness for years, and, humanly speaking, my plan of life and my usefulness, were dependent upon the deception of this young girl.

All these phases were discussed by us when the genuine Orlando copy, so to speak, of The Pirate’s Own Book was actually found, — an event which occurred soon after Phœbe’s death, when the old office was pulled down for the purpose of rebuilding. There was then revealed behind the wainscoting, directly back of where the captain’s desk had stood, the identical volume which had made the trouble, with the thirteen dollars in bills still undisturbed between the pages. It was remembered also that the roller of a large map which reached along the wall had sometimes been hit by a loose cleat on the old office door, and it appeared that the roller thus moved must have pushed the book off the desk into an opening there was in the rough boarding. About that time the captain confessed that he had always dimly felt that the money found in Orlando’s chest was not exactly the money which had been lost. It was not until this revelation brought to light the true copy of the book and the real state of the case that Phœbe’s benevolent scheme was suspected and investigated. It was then that her goodness was so commended by those who had been her associates. I do not say it was wrongly commended. Indeed, I would be an ungrateful wretch if I could entertain the shadow of a thought against her. I try to think that only the kindness and heroism and love were Phœbe’s, and that the influences which had poisoned the moral atmosphere around her were responsible for the deception.

P. Deming.