water as well as he can, manages to support Dolly's head and his own above the water.

How terribly cold it is! Silas watches the excited figures on the ice. They are hurrying toward the spot, carrying fence boards to support themselves whenever they come to the places where the ice is unsafe. Will they ever reach him? Despite his violent exertions he is becoming numb. The approaching figures become more and more indistinct. His eyes close. He feels his grasp on the ice giving way. Now a delicious warmth comes over him. The scene has changed. He is at a feast-a wedding feast. His own wedding feast. He was to propose a

toast. Whose health will he drink to? Mr. John Walker's? Ah!-The glass slips from his hand, something clutches his wrist, and then he knows no more.

Two hours later, with a strange feeling of drowsiness upon him and a fierce pain darting through his temples, Silas recovers his senses. In an instant he recalls the mishap on the ice. "Is Dolly-did they get Dolly out all right?" he stammers, rather shamefacedly. "Yes," replied Mr. Baker, "help reached you just as your hand was slipping from the ice. You were both half frozen, but we've brought you round all right, so that nothing worse than a cold will result. from the accident."

The next day, Silas, well muffled and protected from the cold, was conveyed to his own home, where ten days' rest and quiet completely restored him to his accustomed health and vigor.

Silas did not have the pleasure of decapitating the turkeys, after all, but he drove into Whitingsville on Wednesday and disposed of them. Perhaps it was not so much the desire to help his father as to deliver a message for himself, that brought Silas out so soon after his illness.

On his way back from Whitingsville he stopped at the home of Farmer Heywood to inquire for Dolly. He found that young lady sitting near the parlor stove, propped up with pillows and looking very comfortable and rosy.

She quite embarrassed poor Silas with expressions of gratitude for what she termed his noble and generous nature. "Wasn't it strange,' she said, after a pause, "that it was you and not Jack Walker that rescued me?" At mention of Walker, Silas waxed wroth. "No, it wasn't a bit strange," he blurted out; "if Jack Walker loved you same as I do he'd have been there in place of me." The next moment Silas was in his wagon, driving home as fast as old Tom could carry him.

Christmas morning Silas sat in the huge kitchen watching his mother preparing the yuletide feast.

Somehow Silas has convinced himself that his Christmas dinner wouldn't taste a bit better than an ordinary meal.

"I don't think I ever did care much for cranberry sauce," he said. Then he fell to wondering how Dolly was, and if she would enjoy her Christmas dinner. "I made a fool of myself again," he thought, "running off just when I had told her the hardest part. Now I've got

to begin all over again if she ever gives me the chance. Silas, you were born foolish. It's not altogether your fault." He had just arrived at this reassuring conclusion when Farmer Heywood's hired man entered, bearing a note. "Letter for you, Silas," he said, with a grin.

Silas opened the dainty note and read a few words, blushed, stopped reading, blushed again and resumed his reading.

The letter was from Dolly. "Dear Silas," it began. "I'm so glad you called on me the other day. I told Cousin Jack what you said, and he wasn't a bit angry with you. Jack is a nice young man, don't you think so? Now, Silas, you must come over and take dinner with us to-day. I want this to be the happiest Christmas I've ever spent, and it won't be unless you are here."

There was more to the letter, but that was enough to bring Silas.

An hour later, dressed in his Sunday suit and with each particular hair of his head scrupulously arranged in its place, Silas was tramping along the stretch of road that led from his home. to Dolly Heywood's.

"It's funny," he reflected, "that I I never guessed that young man from the city was her cousin. I'm glad of it; 'cause he's a nice young man. I like him, always did, took to him first. time I ever saw him. So she wants this to be the happiest Christmas she ever spent. Well, I guess it will be. Silas '11 do his best to make it a merry Christmas.

MICHAEL C. FLAHERTY.

AT CHRISTMAS.

TO M. H.

From far away

The " yesterday"

Steals softly back to pensive eyes,
And chimes long still

O'er vale and hill

Their music fling to Christmas skies.

Old echoes wake

Across the lake

And fill with song forgotten years,

While mem'ry showers

Soft childhood flowers

Around us bowed in dreamy tears.

Hope hides youth's brow

In holly now,

And Yule bells ringing on the lea
Some broken heart

Ere they depart,

Will gladden with their minstrelsy.

D. L. JORDAN.

THE WANDERER'S TALE.

'Twas Christmas eve and several of the neighbors had dropped in to have a little chat. We were all merry in anticipation of the joys of the morrow, and old stories went round and were listened to with as much interest as if they had never been heard before. Finally Uncle John's turn, came and he had a long one for us. It was not a merry tale, but even on Christmas eve, when old men get talking, they are not very careful to confine themselves to merry subjects. Each one tells the tale that is uppermost in his memory. Uncle John's story was as follows:

"It's thirty-six years to-night since I saw a tramp struck by an express train four or five miles down the road. He was picked up by the cowcatcher and lifted about five feet into the air and then fell between the rails of the other track. He had heard the train as it was coming around. the bend, and tried to get out of the way, but it was too late. It's a wonder, of course, that he wasn't instantly killed, and, even as it was, his skull was fractured and he received several other injuries.

"I was standing on the bank at the time, not very far away, and I tried to call his attention, but he couldn't hear me. The moment the train had passed I ran down to see him and tried to do something for him. I wanted to get him off