vociferating between them,--Adelicia would demonstrate that this doubtless meant the other, or it was plain to see that the reference was not general, thus including Cap'n Lucy, but was made directly to the character under discussion; whereby Cap'n Lucy, perceiving that no added burden of meekness or other Christian grace was to be laid upon him as essential to salvation, would permit himself to be pacified. And Adelicia's gifts grew by much exercise. Even Cap'n Lucy, always acute, became reluctantly aware of this, in some sort. "Ad'licia hav got so durned smart she kin mighty nigh explain away the devil," he fretted, unaware that this feat had already been accomplished by other and more pretentious theologians than Adelicia. The gossips said, in the Cove, that it was in the process of trying to "'square' Cap'n Lucy to the Scriptur's, or ter square the Scriptur's ter Cap'n Lucy," that Adelicia and Jasper fell in love with each other. Certain it is the days came in which neither had aught to regret, and Adelicia's optimism was triumphantly justified. Even his vanished star came to be a tender memory to Larrabee rather than a poignant bereavement. Sometimes thinking of that dread descent into the crumbling old shaft of the Lost Time mine, with the chill sound of the tumbling waters below, the thick foul air in his every breath, the desperate straining of the ropes that so shook his nerves, the fragments of rock falling about his head, and his heart fairly failing him for fear, he deemed he had found the "leading" he had asked and had followed it. For since he could do naught for Christ, whose humble humanity is merged in the majesty of the great King of heaven, he might do somewhat for man whom He died to save. He did not know that his star remained for a time a faint telescopic object and interested the speculation of astronomers, whose outlook from their wisdom was also limited as his from his ignorance. They merely accounted it one of those mysterious, unwonted apparitions, a stranger to all the astral hierarchy, prettily called "guest-stars" in the ancient Chinese records, and they knew after a time that the "Ke-sing dissolved." They did not dream that this celestial visitant could be charged with a moral mission; for in all the discoveries and advances of science, what mystic lens might serve to reveal the amaranthine wreath and the nearing pinion? * * * * * BOOKS BY "Charles Egbert Craddock." (MARY N. MURFREE.) IN THE TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS. Short Stories. 16mo, $1.25. DOWN THE RAVINE. For Young People. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00. THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25. IN THE CLOUDS. A Novel. 16mo, $1.25.