moved out across the wide hall into the dining-room, glowing with shaded light and soft color.

The Abbé was separated from his two comrades by the whole length of the table. He sat at the hostess' left hand, and opposite him on Madame's right, sat the Comte de Brignolles.

Dinner was scarcely on its way, the Abbé paying silent attention to his plate, yet somehow not duly appreciating its contents of oysters alive only the instant before, when the Count leaned forward and remarked confidentially over a silver épergne of roses:

"I know now why your face seems familiar, father. I remember you perfectly, for I never forget a face-only you were not an Abbé then!"

You would have thought that the dignified prelate had been the culprit-he grew red and white almost as though he could have foreseen the next words.

"My cousin," said the Count, raising his voice, and glancing genially round the table, "I have been fortunate enough to meet at your table to-night a friend of my youth -my reckless youth, of which you have doubtless heard so many sad stories! In fact I-—moi qui vous parle-was the first penitent of Monsieur, the Abbé here and I promise you I made him a confession that astonished him!"

The Count laughed loudly and emptied his glass of white wine. The soft buzz of talk began again, and the Abbé was thankful, for it drowned his incoherent reply. His neighbors found him unusually silent throughout the meal. fact, the reverend father was completely dazed by this freak of fate.

In

He knew that his two friends-whose eyes he carefully avoided-were absolutely to be trusted; but he writhed, as through the hum of voices there seemed to penetrate Martel's suggestive cough and Besson's malicious chuckle. He knew also that they would already have ascertained that the ruby ring no longer ornamented the Count's thumb-it was one more thorn in his self-complacency.

In truth, the Abbé's soul was confounded and cast down within him, and while the "penitent" opposite luxuriated visibly in the best of the delicate mènu, the confessor leftas a penance-his favorite morsel, golden aspic of prawns, anchovies and olives, absolutely untouched upon his plate.

MANDANY'S FOOL*

BY MARIA LOUISE POOL

E ain't got hungry for termarters, be ye?" Some one had knocked at the screen door, and as there was no response, a man's strident, good-humored voice put the above question concerning tomatoes.

But somebody had heard.

A woman had been sitting in the kitchen with a pan of seek-no-further apples in her lap. She was paring and quartering these and then stabbing the quarters through and stringing them on yards of white twine, preparatory to festooning them on the clothes-horse which stood in the yard. This horse was already decorated profusely in this way. A cloud of wasps had flown from the drying fruit as the man walked up the path. He swung off his hat and waved the insects away.

"I say, have ye got hungry agin for termarters?" he repeated.

Then he rattled the screen; but it was hooked on the inside.

He turned and surveyed the three windows that were visible in the bit of a house.

"They wouldn't both be gone, 'n' left them apples out," he said to himself. "I'm 'bout sure Ann's to home; 'n' she's the one I want to see.”

*From "The Chap-Book."-Published by Stone & Kimball,

A woman in the bed-room which opened from the kitchen was hurriedly smoothing her hair and peering into the glass. She was speaking aloud, with the air of one who constantly talks to herself.

"Jest as sure 's I don't comb my hair the first thing, somebody comes.

She gave a last pat and went to the door. faint smirk on her lips and a flush on her face.

There was a

Her tall figure was swayed by a slight, eager tremor as she saw who was standing there. She exclaimed:

"Goodness me! 'Taint you, Mr. Baker, is it? Won't ye walk right in? But I don't want no termarters; they always go against me. Aunt Mandany ain't to home."

"Oh, ain't she?" was the brisk response.

I will come in.

"Then I guess

The speaker pushed open the now unfastened door and entered. He set his basket of tomatoes with a thump on the rug, and wiped his broad, red face.

"Fact is, he said, with a grin, "I knew she was gone. I seen her goin' crosst the pastur'. That's why I come now. I ain't got no longin' to see Aunt Mandany-no, sir-ee, not a grain of longin' to see her. But I thought 'twould be agreeable to me to clap my eyes on to you."

The woman simpered, made an inarticulate sound, and hurriedly resumed her seat and her apple cutting.

"Won't you se' down, Mr. Baker?" she asked.

Her fingers trembled as she took the darning needle and jabbed it through an apple quarter. The needle went into her flesh also. She gave a little cry, and thrust her finger into her mouth. Her large, pale eyes turned wistfully toward her companion. The faded, already elderly mouth quivered.

"I'm jest as scar't 's I c'n be if I see blood," she whispered.

Mr. Baker's heavy under lip twitched; his face softened. But he spoke roughly.

"You needn't mind that bit er blood," he said, "that won't hurt nothin'. I don't care if I do se' down. I ain't drove any this mornin'. I c'n jest as well as not take hold 'n' help ye. I s'pose Mandany left a thunderin' lot for ye to do while she's gone?"

"Two bushels," was the answer.

"The old cat! That's too much. But 'twon't be, for both of us, will it, Ann?"

The woman said "No."

She looked for an instant intently at the man who had drawn his chair directly opposite her. He was already par

ing an apple.

"I d' know what to make of it," she said, still in a whisper.

"To make of what?" briskly.

you be."

"Why, when folks are so good to me 's "Oh, sho', now! Everybody ain't like your Aunt Mandany."

"Sh! Don't speak so loud! Mebby she'll be comin' back." "No, she won't. 'N' no matter if she is."

The loud, confident tone rang cheerily in the room. During the silence that followed Mr. Baker watched Ann's deft fingers.

"Everybody says you're real capable," he remarked. A joyous red covered Ann's face.

"I jest about do all the work here," she said..

She looked at the man again.

There was something curiously sweet in the simple face. The patient line at each side of the close, pale mouth had a strange effect upon Mr. Baker.

He had been known to say violently in conversation at the store that he "never seen Ann Tracy 'thout wantin' to thrash her Aunt Mandany."

"What in time be you dryin' seek-no-furthers for?" he now exclaimed with some fierceness. "They're the flattest kind of apples I know of."

"That's what Aunt says," was the reply; "she says they're most as flat's as I be, 'n' that's flat 'nough."

These words were pronounced as if the speaker were merely stating a well-known fact.

"Then what does she do um for?" persisted Mr. Baker. "She says they're good 'nough to swop for groceries in the spring.

Mr. Baker made a deep gash in an apple, and held his tongue.

Ann continued her work, but she took a good deal of seek-no-further with the skin, in a way that would have shocked Aunt Mandany.

Suddenly she raised her eyes to the sturdy face opposite her, and said:

"I guess your wife had a real good time, didn't she, Mr. Baker, when she was livin'?"

Mr. Baker dropped his knife. He glanced up and met the wistful gaze upon him.

Something that he had thought long dead, stirred in his consciousness.

"I hope so," he said, gently. "I do declare I tried to make her have a good time."

"How long's she been dead?"

"'Most ten year. We was livin' down to Norris Corners then."

The man picked up his knife and absently tried the edge of it on the ball of his thumb.

"I s'pose," said Ann, "that folks are sorry when their wives die."

Mr. Baker gave a short laugh.

"Wall, that depends."

"Oh, does it? I thought folks had to love their wives, 'n' be sorry when they died."

Here Mr. Baker laughed again.

He made no other

answer for several minutes. At last he said:

"I was sorry enough when my wife died."

A great pile of quartered apples was heaped up in the wooden bowl before either spoke again.

Then Ann exclaimed, with a piteous intensity:

“Oh, I'm awful tired of bein' Aunt Mandany's fool!”

Mr. Baker stamped his foot involuntarily.

"How jew know they call you that?" he cried, in a great voice.

"I heard Jane Littlefield tell Mis' Monk she hoped nobody 'd ask Mandany's fool to the sociable. And Mr. Fletcher's boy told me that's what folks called me."

"Damn Jane Littlefield! Damn that little devil of a boy!"

These dreadful words burst out furiously.

Perhaps Ann did not look as shocked as she ought.

In a moment she smiled her immature, simple smile that had a touching appeal in it.

""Taint no use denyin' it," she said; "I ain't jes' like other folks, 'n' that's a fact. I can't think stiddy more 'n a