“_DEAR ALAN,--Rayburn Miller told me in confidence of your wonderful success yesterday, and I simply cried with joy. I knew--I felt that you would win, and this is, as he says, a glorious beginning. I am so proud of you, and I am so full of hope to-day. All our troubles will come out right some day, and now that I know you love me I can wait. Rayburn would not have confided so much to me, but he said, while he would not let me tell father anything about the prospective railroad, he wanted me to prevent him from selling his tract of land near yours. You know my father consults me about all his business, and he will not dispose of that property without my knowing of it. Oh, wouldn't it he a fine joke on him to have him profit by your good judgment._” Alan was at the little post-office in Filmore's store when he received the letter, and he folded it and restored it to its envelope with a heart filled with love and tenderness. As he walked home through the woods, it seemed to him that everything in nature was ministering to his boundless happiness. He felt as light as air as he strode along. “God bless her dear, dear little soul!” he said, fervently. XX [Illustration: 9173] BOUT a week after this transaction Rayburn Miller went to Atlanta on business for one of his clients, and while there he incidentally called at the offices of the Southern Land and Timber Company, hoping to meet Wilson and learn something about his immediate plans in regard to the new railroad. But he was informed that the president of the company had just gone to New York, and would not be back for a week. Rayburn was waiting in the rotunda of the Kimball House for his train, which left at ten o' clock, when he ran across his friend, Captain Ralph Burton, of the Gate City Guards, a local military company. “Glad to see you,” said the young officer. “Did you run up for the ball?” “What ball is that?” asked Miller. “I am at the first of it.” “Oh, we are giving one here in this house tonight,” answered Burton, who was a handsome man of thirty-five, tall and erect, and appeared at his best in his close-fitting evening-suit and light overcoat. “Come up-stairs and I 'll introduce you to a lot of strangers.” “Can't,” Rayburn told him. “I've got to leave at ten o' clock.” “Well, you've got a good hour yet,” insisted the officer. “Come up on the next floor, where the orchestra is, anyway, and we can sit down and watch the crowd come in.” Miller complied, and they found seats on the spacious floor overlooking the thronged office. From where they sat they could look through several large drawing-rooms into the ballroom beyond. Already a considerable number of people had assembled, and many couples were walking about, even quite near to the two young men. “By George!” suddenly exclaimed Miller, as a couple passed them, “who is that stunning-looking blonde; she walks like a queen.” “Where?” asked Burton, looking in the wrong direction. “Why, there, with Charlie Penrose.”