brought on renewal of rheumatic fever, and I was crippled in hands and feet for six terrible weeks. One day, as I was trying my ability to walk about the room, a delayed letter was forwarded from college--the last I ever received from Nona. Her father had died very suddenly from congestion of the lungs, and his wife returned immediately to her family in Arkansas; but because of my poor Nona's condition, which had subjected her to severe abuse and horrible accusations, the stepmother had cast her off, refused her recognition, and abandoned her. Because she refused to divulge the name of her husband, her declaration that she was a wife only increased the torrent of insults that swept her beyond the pale of respectability. She wrote that one friend--the only person who believed her assertion that she had been lawfully married--was just then leaving the Post for his old home, his time of service having expired, and he had kindly carried her in a covered wagon to a small village some days' travel east of the Post, where he found shelter for her until after the birth of her child. She begged I would send money to pay her board and also to enable her to travel east and live near me, because she was so terror-stricken among strangers. The same day my father summoned me to Europe, having decided I should attend lectures in Germany and at Oxford. By express, I forwarded the money to Nona, in accordance with her directions--"Care of Delia Brown, Thompsonville, ---- Territory"--and I wrote her, explaining all the circumstances, assuring her I would join her as soon as I could travel, and that henceforth we should never be separated. A few hours later I was laid up with a severe relapse, and when, finally, I started west in September, I was still so lame any movement was torture. At last the stage coach put me down at the cluster of log houses called Thompsonville, and by the aid of crutches I found my way to a low, dark cabin of two rooms, where Delia Brown made a scanty living by washing and ironing for men attached to a party of prospecting miners. She was a gaunt, sinister looking woman from Maine, with small, deep-set, faded yellow eyes that bored like a gimlet, and as she took a pipe from her ugly bluish lips and greeted me my heart sank. Where was Nona? Gone--with the man who brought her there, and who 'paid well for her keep.' When? Several weeks ago. Did she receive my letter, and had the money reached her? Yes, the money had been delivered to her--Delia Brown--and she had given it to the woman Nona, in the presence of one Josh' Smith. My letter had seemed to terrify the woman, and as soon as she knew I was coming she went away suddenly, saying she was going to New Orleans, and she and the man could take care of the baby. What was the man's name? He called himself Lay' Walker, but she doubted 'if he was not somebody else, and folks had their suspicions about the whole affair.' The baby boy was