'We'll go to the city," Henry had said when first he and Mary had talked it over.

"Not without money," she pleaded. "We'd starve there. Nobody 'd know we were poor, and they wouldn't believe we were honest." Then they had talked of a clerkship that Brown, the other dry goods man, had offered Henry. It was open yet. The answer was to be given Monday.

"To tell you the truth, Mary, I don't feel much like going to church. It's like being exhibited as a curiosity." His wife looked mournfully into space and was silent.

Her

"I hate being stared at," he said, in an explanatory tone, after a moment. Mary was still silent. Her battleground was silence. Her victorious general was self-repression. tongue ran too easily to be allowed to think for her on great occasions, and she had come to understand it. But their misfortune was a bitter disappointment to her. Her oft-repeated assurance that it would surely come right had pressed down into her own mind and rooted there, so that the trouble which had been so surely coming for years was in this wise a shock

to her.

"We'll have to go out some time," she said, doggedly-" that is, if we stay here we might as well go today."

"Yes, if we stay here," her husband answered, with crafty emphasis.

"Oh, you're not thinking of going to Toronto-not till you get something to do, Henry." Her words were only the lettering of her anxious face. Harvey looked down into it, and though he knew that it exhibited good sense and should be respected, he grew unreasonably pettish.

"You'd stay here and have me Brown's body slave, with a crust thrown at me now and then. It's all the same to you. Women can't understand these things, and I'd rather starve on a doorstep than beg here.” The poor fretted wife gulped down a sob and began brokenly: "I feel as bad as you do, Henry, and every time I

think of the store it gives me a shiver. I keep feeling something heavy on my mind all the time. When I wake up in the morning I know something's the matter. It's like it was when the baby died, only it aint nearly so bad." There was a burst of tears at the last, and then Mrs. Harvey went on more smoothly. "But we're bound to see folks sometimes, and they're good folks, Henry. They've known me ever since I was born, and you, these eight years. They know we're honest, and that's a good deal."

Henry made no reply. He was bitter as he thought of the whispering and guessing that was going on about them in the little village. He wanted to get away from it all. He was in that state of mind in which a man so frequently is when, thinking to better things, he leaps from the undeniably hot frying-pan into the undoubtedly hotter fire.

"I believe church will take us out of ourselves," said Mrs. Harvey presently, "and I guess that's what we want." Henry paused irresolute, and the quarter bell rang.

"I'll go and black my boots," he said, with sudden determination. "You'll have to hurry, Mary," but his wife was already on the stair.

Some of the villagers turned to look at the Harveys as they stepped up the aisle to their pew. There was no unkindliness meant. It was only curiosity-a somewhat indelicate one some of us might say-and it deepened the lines on Henry Harvey's face and tightened the muscles of his mouth, while his wife's cheeks flamed behind her veil.

They were a few minutes early. The hush was disturbed only by the aspirated voices and timid footfalls of the gathering congregation. Two or three lilies stood beneath the pulpit, and the whisking about of wraps and coats rolled waves of their heavy perfume here and there. An old man took his seat behind the Harveys. He leaned over the pew-front, and put his cracked, red hand on Harvey's. "Glad to see ye," he quavered, "an' you jest

bear in mind we're all feelin' fur you, Fine day aint it,

an' bearin' you up. but it's cold fur-"

The minister's voice broke in upon his sentence, and the old farmer drew back to fumble the leaves of his clumsy hymn-book.

Dim-eyed, feeble and half-palsied from a life of hard toil, with sunken cheeks, and straggling wisps of white hair, he stood up and mingled his tremulous voice with the others, looking forward to the Easter text with the anticipation of simple goodness. He did not know it, but he had already preached the sermon of the day to the man in front.

Many an eye wandered to the Harvey's pew. Many a woman sighed for sympathy with the wife. Many a man said "poor fellow" in his heart, and some still looked from curiosity. This business failure was a home production of a city novelty. To many, a man who had failed was as much a sight as the elephant at the circus.

Harvey heard little of the sermon. His brain was making swift journeys to and from the various points in his life. He contrasted this Easter with last, and a sense of relief came to him as he felt his hands emptied of the cares which had weighted them so heavily. The past five years had many a sleepless night folded away in them, many a day in which he had dragged himself about with aching eyeballs, parch

ed lips and hot, glazed skin. Last night, from sheer exhaustion, he had slept like a baby.

He

All rose to sing presently, and Harvey, mechanically, with the rest. was very tall and round-shouldered. His coat, black once, was green with age, and shiny, and frayed a little; but his face was the face of a man wealthy by his thought. It was pale from intense mental effort, but strong and brave and hopeful. He had come into the church bitter and suspicious, and prepared to be aggressive towards all his fellows. He was burdened with disappointment and his heart was nursing its wounded pride. The simple. kindliness of a simple old man had turned the trend of all his thought.

As they walked home Harvey said to his wife: "I feel like a different man; I'll take the clerkship from Brown, and we'll board until we get ahead enough to go housekeeping.'

"When will they sell our furniture and things?" asked Mary.

"I don't know exactly," he made reply, and he wondered why his wife sighed.

"You're not sorry we gave them up," he said, half-reproachfully, bending to look at her face.

"No, oh, no," was the dreary answer, for she was as honest as he, but in her woman's heart she had a special shrine where she worshipped in no idolatrous way, her poor little household gods.

L

ONGMORE pressed the red end of his half-smoked cigarette, and flung it into his waste-paper basket. The several clocks downstairs had just struck

two.

He

He crossed the room and took down his long racing skates from the high shelf on which his many divers sorts of skates stood arow-hockey skates, Halifax "skeletons" for fancy skating, and the wide-runnered pair which he had brought from Holland, and which he used when the ice was soft. fondled the racers for a half-minute or so, as a smoker fondles a favourite pipe, and for the same reason. Then he ran a critical thumb all along their twenty inches of blade, feeling the edges as one passes one's thumb along the edge of a razor, and put a new pair of laces into the boots to which they were riveted.

He meant to skate a five-mile race that evening at Lindsay, with a Norwegian skater who was accounted a fast man in his own country, and whom Crawford, the celebrated hockey-player, and the holder of many skating records, had beaten by only a yard at Montreal two days before.

The race was to be skated in the big Aberdeen open-air rink, which had a six-lap track. Longmore preferred short laps and many to the mile, being very quick at the ends. But he had heard that the European was not expert at swinging around the ends, and so he had chosen the Aberdeen because of its size; for he was a thoroughbred sportsman.

Longmore was living then at Whitesideville, which is a small country place ten miles west of Lindsay, on the Mid

At

land spur of the Grand Trunk. three of the clock the slow-running afternoon "mixed," from Toronto, reached the big Midland town, not as late by half-an-hour as it was wont to be; and out of its battered and dirty smoking-car a tall, slight young man, who moved with a singularly easy swing of his whole lithe body, stepped into the arms of a score of his friends. This was Longmore, and his friends. greeted him with loud and continuous shouts. Their eyes glowed hotly with admiration of him, the genuine sort of adulation which famous football, hockey, lacrosse and cricket players, cyclists and skaters receive in Canada. The younger men of Lindsay and of Whitesideville adored Longmore, who was their champion all-round athlete; they had set a mental image of him upon a very high mental pedestal.

Several fellows seized the bag which contained his skates and knickerbockers and sweater, jerking it from him, and all formed what looked like a Rugby scrimmage about him and hustled him across the platform to a cab, from which they unhitched the horse. Then with much more shouting and occasional bursts of cheering and the inevitable "For he's a jolly good fellow," they hauled their idol up town to

the Hotel Benson.

The lanky and cheerful-looking Norwegian skater, burning a cigarette at the hotel office windows, grinned when he heard and saw the yelling crowd dragging the cab up to the pavementedge. The varied manifestations of intense enthusiasm recalled to him exactly similar scenes at home. Five minutes later he and Longmore were shak

ing hands, exchanging commonplaces, and drinking whiskey and water for form's sake a tablespoonful of whiskey to a glass of water.

At seven of the clock-the race was to be skated at seven-thirty--a couple of thousand people crowded the Aberdeen rink. The unceasing hum of their loud-voiced talk was like the sound of a strong wind blowing through a forest of naked trees. And when Longmore, wearing the Toronto Athletic Club's colours, which he had carried to the front in many bicycle, skating and foot races, appeared on the ice they cheered madly, and shouted loud greetings.

Longmore swung swiftly several times around and around, as if to take a possible stiffness out of his legs. A minute or two afterward the Norwegian stepped upon the ice, was heartily cheered, and "did" three or four laps much more rapidly, but more labouriously, than the Whitesideville man had.

The race was started immediately. At the crack of the pistol the foreigner jumped ahead, making a red-hot pace, and was regarded as a certain winner by the greatly chagrined onlookers, who supposed that Longmore was doing his best and could not narrow the space between his opponent and himself. They told themselves that their favourite had at last met his match and consoled each other by comparing his longmeasured swinging with the jerky and tremendously labourious skating of the European.

Round and round they dashed, their long skate-blades catching the white glare of the many electric lights, and flashing like heliographs; Longmore, easily and gracefully, with hands locked behind him; his an

tagonist with great apparent exertion, with arms held downward, so that a handkerchief which he held in his right hand trailed upon the ice.

At the end of the 26th lap, Longmore, a grin breaking out upon his face, increased his speed with hardly an added effort, and swept by the European skater as if the latter had been standing still, which caused so clamourous a cheer to ring out that the frosty air seemed to quiver with the resonance of it. His pace was so terrific and his tremendous swings so easy and graceful that he seemed to be flying through the air rather than skating, and he finished two laps ahead of the Norwegian, who was as much astonished at the sudden sprint as the spec

tators.

He brought himself to a stop about twenty-five yards from the finish line, ploughing up the ice with his great skates so deeply that a shower of tiny fragments flew high into the air. Then, shouldering a path through the yelling enthusiasts who instantly swarmed about him, he dived into his dressingroom and locked the door. He wished to escape from his friends, who would fain have borne him to his hotel upon

their shoulders, and given him champagne to drink, and forced him to make a speech and made speeches themselves, all about the athletic prowess of Canadians. He did not particularly object to this sort of thing; on another occasion he would hardly have looked upon it as an ordeal; but on that night he would have none of it. For he desired to fulfil, without unnecessary delay, a mental resolution he had made during the afternoon. If he won the race, he had promised himself he would propose to Her immediately afterward.

He hastily removed his racing clothes and skates. His heart drummed furiously, not from over-exertion, he had not exerted himself greatly in the race, and he was trained "fine," but from sheer nervousness. He was very much in love with her, and she had shown no signs of being in love with him, and he could not imagine himself continuing quietly to exist without her companionship, and he knew that if she rejected him, it would be quite impossible for them to be chums afterward. But they had been "going together" as it is called in rural districts, for a year, and she must, he argued, have at least a strong liking for him.

His most intimate friends were outside, pounding on the door and yelling. His desire for privacy struck them as singular, and they were remarking this to each other in loud tones. Would he abandon his intention, break his promise to himself, unlock the door and allow them to do with him what they greatly desired to do? No, he would not. He had finished dressing, and picking up his bag he passed out by the street door.

He went straight to the house at which she was staying. It is a good mile, but he did it in ten minutes, walking at a racing pace. His mind was quite made up now; he would force himself to do it. But at the house door he received an answer to his short question, "Is Miss Muriel in ?" which made him grow quickly cold with disappointment.

"Has she gone home? Was she at the rink?" he asked hurriedly.

"She returned from the rink only ten minutes since. Captain Brown drove her and May. She left again at once, taking her skates, saying she meant to skate to Whitesideville."

He instantly decided to follow her. "Good night," he said, passing down the steps.

"Good night, and let me congratulate you on having won. Muriel seemed greatly pleased."

"Oh !" he returned, in a tone of deprecation that was impolite, and made for the river.

He chanced to have the key of a boathouse with him, and left his bag therein, having exchanged the boots he was wearing for those to which the racing skates were attached. Then he went off up the river flying like a train. He knew that she would give him a hard chase, for the ice was particularly good, and she was a fast skater, and had had a long start.

It was one of those splendid nights of which there are so many in our fourmonths-long Canadian winter. There was not a breath of wind, it was cold and strangely clear, and the moon laid a wash of soft luminance over the snow-blanketed country.

At the junction of the Scugog with the smaller stream which, fifteen miles above, passes through Whitesideville, he came in sight of her flying figure a half-mile or so ahead, and quickened his speed. And when he came sweeping up behind her she was much astonished.

"Why!" she cried, "I had no notion that you meant to skate home to-night." "That is not extraordinary. How could you have had? You are not a medium."

"Indeed, I am not." merry laugh.

She gave a

He took her arm and they moved forward again.

"I never saw the ice so good here," he declared.

"You beat the Viking easily, did you not?” she asked.

"Yes, rather."

They were silent for some minutes; only the low ringing of their skates and