People are not all ossified--brain, sense and heart, because God's Commentary on his written Revelation was given first--was handed down from a thousand Sinais, and strewed in green, and golden shadowy lines through all the ages. It yet lives, and is, from under His own hand, above, around, beneath us; and by it we may understand that holy mystery--how God is Love, and Love is God-like. And we feel, and know, that never again to us from out the shade of the years, can ministers of grace or glad ideals come, except through such sweet enchantment. Who, then, will condemn gentle Annie Ralston, the pet of the class, the warm friend, the glad-hearted girl, if she proved at last to be--like all her sisters--human? What circumstances conspired to induce her to become an outlaw's bride? If we could answer all the questions which might be asked concerning the emotions of the heart, the freaks of the mind, and other phenomena of human nature, and the structure of society, then might we be able to answer why fair Annie Ralston became the wife of Frank James, the proscribed enemy of society. But we cannot engage in such an undertaking. Her story is brief, but full of interest. Before the period of blighting war, which swept like a destructive tornado over the fairest portions of Western Missouri, Annie's father, Mr. Ralston, was a wealthy man, and his home was one of the most pleasant to be found in the vicinity of Independence. He was a gentleman of culture and refinement, and his wealth gave him leisure to cultivate all the social graces. His hospitality was unbounded, and no man was more esteemed than Samuel Ralston. Annie was a "wee girl" when the thunder peal of war burst in all its lurid terrors all around and about her. It was no period of sentimental dreaming, and she was early accustomed to see and hear of bloodshed and devastation. She must necessarily have grown familiar with scenes which, under ordinary circumstances, would have excited her terror, and she had learned to look unmoved on the bloody corpse of the battle's victim. But no storm can continue forever; after the convulsion comes quiet; after the night dawns the day--so, at last, the war-cloud rolled away. Then commenced the work of collecting fragments of wrecked fortunes and rebuilding waste places. But some wrecks were complete, and no fragments remained. In a large measure this was the case with the life-barque in which Mr. Ralston sailed down the river of time.