admission before the next twenty-four hours were over. The Pallinders were not quit of their landlords, for a few episodes such as those Mazie described; but, as it happens, I never heard her tell of Steven Gwynne's visit; and only learned the details afterwards in a roundabout way from Doctor Vardaman and Gwynne, both of whom were witnesses of that momentous event. Steven was about the age of Doctor Vardaman and looked twenty years older; they had been boys together. When Steven came in town--he lived in a weird little tumble-down cottage with a ragged little farm to match it, several miles out in the country--he always went to see the doctor, whom he called Jack, and of whom he grew touchingly and somewhat embarrassingly fond towards the last of his life. I remember him a tremulous old man with wild grey hair and beard in clothing worse than shabby, and coarse boots, walking with the aid of a ferocious-looking cane, a forlorn and fantastic and rather alarming figure; yet he was really nothing to be afraid of, although I suppose he was just not quite crazy. When you came to know about him, poor old Steven filled one with pity and that strange baseless remorse with which the view of weakness or suffering sometimes afflicts us. The gifts are so unjustly portioned out; simple flesh-and-blood rebels at the shame of it. These are whole, prosperous and victorious; these maimed, mad, dull, helpless, or hopeless--and who is to blame? It is none of our fault; none the less, the sight galls us to the quick; and there are moments when the spectacle of a string of navvies moiling soddenly in a ditch seems an outrage on humanity. Something of this used to go through Doctor Vardaman's mind as he sat in his library listening patiently and most humanely to his old-time playfellow's endless rambling talk. Steven was a profuse talker; he picked up crumbs of misinformation with a kind of squirrel-like diligence; all his life he had been beginning something--law, medicine, divinity, what had he not tried? He never learned anything; he could hardly spell; he used to declaim heatedly against the tyranny of schools, and had a great taste for phrases such as "Nature's gentlemen." Even our tolerant society could not stand Steven Gwynne; it was said that he was not stupid, and not much queerer, after all, than some of the other Gwynnes, but--nobody could stand Steven Gwynne. When he had nearly run through his patrimony, the Governor, who was his cousin, took him in hand, regulated his affairs, and exiled him to that little farm I have mentioned. Steven was upwards of thirty at this time, but he obeyed the family great man peaceably enough; and there he had lived ever since; indulging--theoretically only, by good luck--in extraordinary beliefs about State Rights--during the Civil War--about Science and Religion, about Property, about Marriage, about everything and anything under the sun, harmless, distressing, and annoying. Young