So the years passed away, and Frank James found one being long ago who inspired his heart with tenderer dreams of love than any which had ever come to him before. For years the fair face, with its shadings of glossy brown hair, and eyes of deepest azure, glancing from beneath their long silken lashes, was imprinted on his mind and shrined in his heart. Frank James had met her many times, and no more touching story of woman's devotion has yet been told; than that of the attachment of pretty Annie Ralston for Frank James, the bold border bandit. In time to come, the writers of the romance of the period covered by the career of the James Boys, will recall the name of the fair girl who became the outlaw's bride, and weave around it the choicest flowers of literature. CHAPTER XXXV. FAIR ANNIE RALSTON, THE OUTLAW'S BRIDE. "The loves and hopes of youthful hours, Though buried in oblivion deep, Like hidden threads in woven flowers, Upon life's web will start from sleep. And one loved face we sometimes find Pictured there with memories rife-- A part of that mysterious mind Which forms the endless warp of life." There are many people about the old town of Independence who cherish pleasant memories of fair Annie Ralston. There are many who knew and loved her long ago, who will not soon forget the beautiful face of the outlaw's bride. And long after those who knew her in the halcyon days of her innocent girlhood shall have passed to the quiet repose beneath the sod in "the silent cities of the dead," her story will be repeated. Many a romance has been based on incidents in lives far less dramatic than has fallen to the fortune or the fate of Annie Ralston. The years which have rolled their cycles round to swell the measure of the greedy past, have not been so many that they have swallowed up the memories which cluster around the name of the gentle Annie, and bring sighs to the lips of those who but a few short winters ago conned with her the lessons of the sages from the dreary pages of text books when they were schoolmates.