"Eighteen years this las' September." "How long ago did her mother die?" "Eighteen year ago this October." Helen was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, "What did her mother die of, Sophy?" The old woman caught Helen by the hand and clung to it, as if in fear. "Don't never speak in this house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!" she said. "God has made Ugly Things wi' death in their mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows what they're for. But my poor Elsie! To have her blood changed in her before--It was in July mistress got her death, but she liv' till three week after my poor Elsie was born." She could speak no more; she had said enough. Helen remembered the stories she had heard on coming to the village. Now she knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of the cold, glittering eyes. A great change came over Elsie in the last few days. It seemed to her father as if the malign influence which had pervaded her being had been driven forth or exorcised. "It's her mother's look!" said old Sophy. "It's her mother's own face right over again. She never look' so before--the Lord's hand is on her! His will be done!" But Elsie's heart was beating more feebly every day. One night, with sudden effort, she threw her arms round her father's neck, kissed him, and said, "Good-night, my dear father!" Then her head fell back upon her pillow, and a long sigh breathed through her lips. Elsie Venner was dead! * * * * * In the following summer Mr. Dudley Venner married Miss Helen Darley. Mr. Bernard Langdon returned to college, resumed his medical studies, took his degree as Doctor of Medicine, and he now also is married. * * * * * THOMAS HUGHES Tom Brown's Schooldays "Tom Brown's Schooldays" has been called by more than one critic the best story of schoolboy life ever written, and three generations of readers have endorsed the opinion. Its author, Thomas Hughes, born at Uffington, Berkshire, England, Oct. 19, 1822, was himself, like his hero, both a Rugby boy under Dr. Arnold and the son of a Berkshire squire, but he denied that the story was in any real sense autobiographical. Matthew Arnold and Arthur H. Clough, the poet, were Hughes's friends at school, and in later life he became associated with Charles Kingsley and Frederick Denison Maurice on what was called the Christian Socialist movement. A barrister by profession, Thomas Hughes became a county court judge, and lived for many years in that capacity at Chester. Besides "Tom Brown's Schooldays," published in 1857, Hughes also wrote "Tom Brown at Oxford" (1861), biographies of Livingstone, Bishop Fraser, and Daniel Macmillan, and a number of political, religious and social pamphlets. He died on March 22, 1896. _I.--Tom Goes to Rugby_