The old man, still smiling with anticipated triumph, kept bending eagerly over his crucible, stirring the mixture with his rod, and muttering to himself all the time. “Now,” I heard him say, “it changes. There—there’s the scum. And now the green and bronze shades flit across it. Oh, the beautiful green! the precursor of the golden-red hue that tells of the end attained! Ah! now the golden-red is coming—slowly—slowly! It deepens, it shines, it is dazzling! Ah, I have it!” So saying, he caught up his crucible in a chemist’s tongs, and bore it slowly toward the table on which stood a brass vessel. “Now, incredulous doctor!” he cried, “come and be convinced,” and immediately began carefully pouring the contents of the crucible into the brass vessel. When the crucible was quite empty he turned it up and called me again. “Come, doctor, come and be convinced. See for yourself.” “See first if there is any gold in your crucible,” I answered, without moving. He laughed, shook his head derisively, and looked into the crucible. In a moment he grew pale as death. “Nothing!” he cried. “Oh, a jest, a jest! There must be gold somewhere. Marion!” “The gold is here, father,” said Marion, drawing the ingot from her pocket; “it is all we ever had.” “Ah!” shrieked the poor old man, as he let the empty crucible fall, and staggered toward the ingot which Marion held out to him. He made three steps, and then fell on his face. Marion rushed toward him, and tried to lift him, but could not. I put her aside gently, and placed my hand on his heart. “Marion,” said I, “it is perhaps better as it is. He is dead!” Fitzjames O’Brien My Wife’s Tempter I A PREDESTINED MARRIAGE Elsie and I were to be married in less than a week. It was rather a strange match, and I knew that some of our neighbors shook their heads over it and said that no good would come. The way it came to pass was thus.