Heart-break." If he had lived a few years longer, and could have found
time from the more heavy duties of his busy life, he doubtless would have
turned to some use the practical workings of his wonderful cure. But
Death, with that old fondness for a shining mark, has seen fit to remove
him from this, the scene of his earthly labors (See rural sheet obituary
notice).

In the early career of George Addison, when he was obscure and desperately
poor, he met her--that inevitable she--Florence Barlowe.

She had three irresistible charms. She was very young; she was very
pretty--and, most charming of all, she was very silly. Time could steal
away--and doubtless did--the youth. Time could ravage--and surely must
have--her beauty. But nothing could--and nothing did--mar the
uninterrupted splendor of her foolishness. She was born a fool, lived a
fool, and undoubtedly must have died--if dead--the death of a glorious and
triumphant fool.

George Addison was from the first attentive. But he was shy in those days,
and knew not how, in words, to frame the love that filled his heart and
rose like a lump in his throat whenever he saw her pretty face and heard
her soft voice. She was a fool, it is true, but she was like so many fools
of her kind, full of a subtle craft which acts like the tempting bait on
the hook that catches the unwary fish.

So she made him a present--it was of her own handiwork. Each Christmas
tide she repeated the process; each year enriching the hook with a more
tempting offer. It took her seven years to graduate in presents from a hat
mark to a scarf-pin of little diamonds and a big rare pearl; but somehow
there was a hitch and a halt within the heart of George Addison.