was a princess in his eyes, but others saw in her a somewhat spoiled and over-petted beauty. That is--some others--most others. There was one who worshipped her as even her father never dreamed of doing; one to whom her faintest wish was law; one to whom her lightest word was sacred, and to whom her smile, or the touch of her little hand meant heaven. People wondered how Dick Graham could consent to hang on there at 'Mahbin mill, "grubbing" for that grasping old Morrow like a slave. Poor Dick! Slave he was, as many another had been, but not the miller's. He could and would have broken with him three years before, when the death of his invalid mother left the young fellow independent of all claim--but he could not and would not break the tie that bound him to 'Mahbin and the dusty, dingy, red-shingled old mill. He idolized Nellie Morrow, and she held his life in her hands. She had learned to be very fond of Dick in the year that followed her brother's disappearance. She had grown into his heart the year before she went to school, and when she came home from her first vacation, child though she was, she knew it and gloried in it. Each year added to her maidenly graces, and to his thraldom, and the very winter that preceded this centennial summer Dick had brought her home from a sleighing-party one night fairly wild with joy and pride. In answer to his impetuous and trembling words she had murmured to him that he was dearer to her than anybody else could be, and he believed it, though Miss Nellie had grave doubts in her own mind as to the truth of that statement even when she made it. Still, it was very nice to have the best-looking and smartest young man in and around 'Mahbin for her own, when she was home, but he was not quite to be compared with the exquisites she saw in the city streets, or the brothers of some of her school friends. And there was one--oh! so romantic a fellow! whom she met that very winter in Chicago when spending Thanksgiving holidays with a schoolmate; a dark-eyed, splendid-looking man, tall, straight, athletic, with bronzed features and such a strange history! He was much older than these school-girls. He must have been thirty or thereabouts, and was own cousin to her friend. He had been a soldier when very young; had run away from home and fought in the great war, and had been a wanderer almost ever since; had been to California and to sea, and--they did not really know where else. Nellie was too young to notice that he had not been cordially welcomed by the old people on his arrival at the home of her friend. He had been wild and reckless, had "Cousin Harry," and papa did not like him, was the explanation of subsequent coldness she could not help seeing. But to the girls he was perfect. He had so mournful, mysterious, pathetic a manner. He was trying so hard to find some steady employment--was so eager to settle down--and he soon became so interested in Nellie, so devoted to her in fact, and the very day