previous episodes of this history to Ruth: "you've got the whole plot
before you. It dragged a little in the second act, for the actors
weren't up in their parts. But for an amateur performance, on the whole,
it wasn't bad."

"I don't know, I'm sure," said Rand impulsively, "how we'd have got on
without Euphemia. It's too bad she couldn't be here to-day."

"She wanted to come," said Sol; "but the gentleman she's engaged to came
up from Marysville last night."

"Gentleman--engaged!" repeated Rand, white and red by turns.

"Well, yes. I say, 'gentleman,' although he's in the variety profession.
She always said," said Sol, quietly looking at Rand, "that she'd never
marry OUT of it."




AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG.


The first intimation given of the eccentricity of the testator was, I
think, in the spring of 1854. He was at that time in possession of a
considerable property, heavily mortgaged to one friend, and a wife of
some attraction, on whose affections another friend held an encumbering
lien. One day it was found that he had secretly dug, or caused to be
dug, a deep trap before the front-door of his dwelling, into which a few
friends, in the course of the evening, casually and familiarly dropped.