the days gone by you made me see an unreal man, but you will
never do it again! Good-by."

"Edith," cried Loring, "you don't--"

But she had disappeared through a side door, and he never
spoke to her again.

Walking home through the dimly lighted streets, Loring
involuntarily spoke aloud.

"And this," he said, "is what came out of the magic egg!"



"HIS WIFE'S DECEASED SISTER"

It is now five years since an event occurred which so colored my
life, or rather so changed some of its original colors, that I
have thought it well to write an account of it, deeming that its
lessons may be of advantage to persons whose situations in life
are similar to my own.

When I was quite a young man I adopted literature as a
profession, and having passed through the necessary preparatory
grades, I found myself, after a good many years of hard and often
unremunerative work, in possession of what might be called a fair
literary practice. My articles, grave, gay, practical, or
fanciful, had come to be considered with a favor by the editors
of the various periodicals for which I wrote, on which I found in