(The following story combines the accuracies of fact with the romance of fiction. Aunt Silly lived at Silver Springs until her death, about sixteen years ago, and was seen by many who visited the Springs. It is from the gifted pen of Mrs. Maley Bainbridge Crist): Near Florida's celebrated Silver Springs lives an old negress, known to the entire surrounding country as "Aunt Silly," whose claim to being 110 years old is borne out by her appearance. Aunt Silly is wrinkled and decrepit, and the wool peeping from her bandanaed head is white as snow, while the blackness and weirdness of her face is intensified by a heavy crop of snow-white beard. As long as the oldest citizen of Ocala can remember Aunt Silly has looked just as ancient as she does now; identified always with Silver Springs, and hobbling about them from morning until night, leaning upon her short, thick staff. That she was a participant in a tragedy is known only to a very few of Ocala's oldest citizens, and seldom referred to by any of them. In the near vicinity of Ocala, when first it was settled, stood a splendid old mansion owned by Capt. Harding Douglass, a South Carolinian of considerable wealth. His only child was a son, who, with his mother's beauty of countenance, had inherited her tender, shrinking nature, and, like herself, was a slave to the old man's iron will. In the beautiful little City of Ocala lived Bernice Mayo, whose blond beauty won, at first sight, the heart of Claire Douglass. Although of Virginia ancestry, Bernice was a true child of the "Land of Flowers," passionate and impulsive. Her eyes were blue and clear as the waters of Lake Munroe, beside which she had spent her childhood, in the fair little City of Sanford. Her hair was as golden as Florida's own sunshine, and Florida's tropical splendor ran riot in her blood. For six months Bernice Mayo and Claire Douglass were constant companions, and Silver Springs was their favorite resort. For half a day at a time they would drift about on the bosom of the splendid, placid curiosity of nature.