I suppose every man, woman and child remem. bers that terrible night three years ago when we had lightning while the snow was on the ground. The flashes plowed great yellow seams through the gray of the day, and at night a freezing storm of sleet and rain came. Bob's wife slept uneasily that night. She rolled in her sleep a long time, and at last got up and went to the window and looked out. She shuddered at the sound of the whizzing sleet and the pitiless hum of the rain on the roof. Then she stumbled sleepily back to her couch and dreamed of a long shady lane, and a golden green afternoon in May and a bright-faced young fellow that looked into her heart and held her face in his soft fingers. How this dream became tangled in her thoughts, that night of all nights, she never could tell. But there it was, gleaming like a thread of gold through the dismal warp and woof of her life.

It was full day when she awoke. As she turned lazily upon her side, she started up in affright. There was a man, dripping wet, silent, kneeling by her bedside. An old felt hat lay upon the floor. The man's head was bowed deep down over the bed and his hands were bundled tenderly about one of the baby's fists that had been thrown above its head.

The worn, weatherbeaten figure was familiar to her, but there was something that stopped her, as she started forward angrily. She stood posed

like a statue for a moment, then bent down, curiously and tenderly, and with trembling fingers pulled the cover back from the bed, and looked up into the man's face steadily. Then she put her fingers on his hand, furtively and shrinkingly. Then a strange look crept into her face—the dream of the night came to her like a flash—and she sank back upon the floor, and dropped her head between her knees.

Ah, yes, Bob had “come home to stay.”

The Fiddle Told.

NORA C. FRANKLIN Used by permission of J. B. Lippincott Company. It was the close of a day in the early part of December.

The Governor sat alone in his private office. His clerk had just left him.

The Christmas season was a busy and responsible one with him, for he chose that time to investigate thoroughly the criminal records of the state and pardon such prisoners as good conduct or extenuating circumstances placed within the pale of executive clemency.

If questioned as to his selection of the holiday season for the exercise of the “benign prerogative,” he was wont to answer, “Oh, I may be

helping to turn the tide in the soul of some Paul, and I have a fancy to do it when peace and good-will are most likely to be at the flood; that is all."

Whether this were all, and it were not in response to some deeper sentiment, those who knew him best alone could say.

To-night, as he looked at the piles of mailmatter on his desk yet to be disposed of, he pushed back his chair with a smothered groan, and started to the door, moved by a wild impulse to get outside and turn the key on it all.

An obstruction in his path caused him to stumble, and he saw a curious-looking bundle in brown paper, clumsily tied with a coarse twine string, lying on the floor at his feet.

He remembered his clerk's having mentioned a package from the state prison—this must be it-and pushed it impatiently to one side ; but as he did so something in the coffin-shaped outlines made him stoop and tear away a part of the cover.

pended to it a soiled pencil-written note, evidently an appeal of some kind.

Curiosity conquered fatigue. He had handled many and various petitions, but never one in shape like this.

Detaching the note from its fastenings, he crossed the room to the window, and, by the

waning light of the winter's day, deciphered the following illiterate text:

To the Guvner

They tel me thet yer Hart gits tender to Prisners at chrismus time and you listens to what they has to say. Ive ben Hear 20 years fer killin a man and Ive ben Sorry evry day sence I done it. I was a hot headed Boy uv 22 and the man called pap a Liar and sed things agin mam. I couldnt noways stand thet and I nocked him down. he was a pale sickly complected tender foot and he never got up agin. I never ment to kill him but my fist was hevy and sum mad thing inside uv me sicked me on. they never giv me no sort uv a Trial but jes put me in Hear fer Life. his Folks was rich and mine was pore and couldnt pay no lawyer. pap is gone blind and mam is old and they aint got nobody to look after em but Joseel. Joseel is the gal thet was goin to marry me. she left her home when they sent me Hear and went to look after the old Folks sames they was hern. ef I could get back to Joseel and the old Folks and the mountins Ide never lif my han agin no man agen ceptin twas to help him so help me God.

They tel me as how you kin make a Fiddle talk til the childern puts down their Playthings and follers yer. Guvner I sends you mine along uv this what I made when I was a Boy back in

the mountins, the sames I koted my gal with and played fer mam and pap round the fire sun. day evnins. shes aged along with me but shes kep her voice sweet and stiddy yit.

Take her Guvner and set down by yourself in the still uv the evnin and let her talk to you fer me. I aint afeerd shell fergit nuthin, the old Home on the side uv the mountin and mam and pap and Joseel a settin thar and waitin these 20 years fer the Boy they wouldn't let go their holt uv nor quit luvin no matter what he did. No shell not fergit nuthin. she's too much like them Wimmen shell be tellin you about. seems like she knows things as well as I do. praps cause shes ben lyin agin my Hart so long. and if she cant tell you nuthin Guvner let her talk to yer Wife. Its about Wimmen shell tel you mostly. Wimmen and Sorrer. And Wimmen is quickern men to understan them things.

Thats all. its tuk me 3 weeks to rite this letter. Goodby. God go with the old Fiddle and help her tel it strate.

ABNER HILL.

When the Governor turned away from the window there was a look on his face that few had ever seen there except his wife.

He lifted the violin carefully from the foor, tore away its wrappings, and looked at it long and curiously.