THE VENDETTA. Had an angel from heaven pointed out the way to Eva’s heart, her mysterious lover could not have known more surely how to win the little beauty’s love. She was intensely romantic, like the most of pretty young girls. She loved poetry and flowers, and she loved love for its own dear sake. Incidentally she doted on bonbons, and her unknown lover had catered to all these passions, adding to them the delicious flavor of a romantic mystery. What a lover must he be who risked his life climbing to a two-story window at midnight to leave tokens of his love on her casement! Vainly she had tried to entrap him, watching night after night for his coming behind her little white curtain. Some instinct seemed to tell him when she was awake, so that he never ventured near until her tired eyes closed and she nodded wearily in her chair. Then her bold lover would leave his token on her window sill, beneath the embowering honeysuckles, and escape undetected by the beautiful object of his passion. It was all so beautiful and romantic, it gave new zest and pleasure to her dull, prosaic life, and all her thoughts went out to him in gratitude and love. Those were the happiest days she had ever spent, dreaming of her splendid unknown lover--her lover whom she fancied must be as handsome and as noble as a demigod. But now she reflected with regret and pain that everything would be at an end, for if he came again he must surely be detected by that stupid Dan, who had overheard outside the door her confession of her mysterious love affair, and on entering the kitchen had stolidly announced that he would watch for “that impertinent feller, an’ yank him down by the legs if he ever caught him climbing up to Miss Eva’s window again. It would break down all the vines, and was enough to skeer the pore gal to death, anyway, and he would put a stop to him with a gun if anybody told he might do it.” “No, no, Dan; I forbid you to watch for him at all! I--I don’t want it stopped; I like for him to come. I love him!” the young girl cried breathlessly, but her cousins laughed, and urged Dan on, saying they would give him a quarter if he would find out the identity of Eva’s unknown lover. Urged on by a secret jealousy, for he doted himself on lovely Eva, Dan declared that he would never rest until he found out the truth. Chagrined to the point of tears, Eva flung out of the room, determining to go for a little canter on Firefly before the early autumn twilight set in darkness. There was nothing like a swift gallop in the cold, clear, bracing air to set the blood a-tingling and drive out the blues.