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Show f nn heiress oi yon and I lwlieved that I have befor expressed to you my horror of . the imputation of wedding. rich wife." "Don't let that trouble you, Alarmy, der!rt cried Letty hysterically. , "I I meant to have told you all about it be fore, but somehow there never was a real good opportunity." "Told me all about what, Letitia?" asked the major, in some surprise. "About my quarrel with grandpapa last month. He said you were a fortune hunting miscreant you dear Manna- dukel and I never should hava a cent from him if I married you. And then I repeated to him tha noble words you had spoken, and he said grandpapa always had an inelegant way of expressing hiin- self 'that he'd settle your hash for your And he called me a fool, and we had an awful quarrel, and he made a new will, and left all his money to Cousin Bethoah Jenkins; but I don't care, Manny, darling, for I knew," cried the ' disinherited damsel, with a fresh burst of tears, "that you loved me for myself alone, and not for mere filthy lucre!" And so speaking, Letty Price flung her 167 solid pounds of dumpy humanity fondly into the major's arms. Marmaduke Monthill felt like the man in the old tale who has sold his soul for forty pieces of gold, and finds the treasure treas-ure changed into dead leaves. He hud got Letty Price, but not Letty Price's fortune. He went home, promising to call early j the next morning. The next morning came, but not Maj. Monthill. Miss Letty Price is living, a disap- pointed damsel, with her Cousin Bethnah, who is a good natured soul, and does not grudge the "bite and the sup" to the poor girl whom she really thinks has ! been used very ill both by her grand-I grand-I father and the major. As for the gallant Marmaduke, nobody knows what hasbe-j hasbe-j come of him, not even his Jewish creditors,' credi-tors,' who would certainly be the ones to i find out, if any one could. The diamond j solitaire is not yet paid for, and some-body some-body else is living in the cottage at New-' New-' port this season. But, after all, it is only one more illus-i illus-i tration of the daily lesson we all read the mutability of human affairs. Helen j Forrest Graves in New York Weekly. Ana wnen ne letx tne race mansion he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was Miss Letty's accepted lover. He plunged ruthlessly into more debt the very next morning to the amount of $200, to buy a solitaire diamond ring to deck the fat forefinger of his affianced. "It will be a mere drop in the bucket," he said to himself, "when I come to handle her cash. I hope the old gentleman gentle-man means to place it entirely at her disposal, and I'll see to the rest" And Maj. Monthill contracted for a pair of cream colored horses, a yacht and a cottage at Newport for the summer sum-mer season, on the strength of his known engagement to old Zadoc Price's granddaughter. grand-daughter. . Just at this time-iEfe, we all know. ia proverbially uncertain Mft ZadooPi lce took it into his Venerable head to. have a stroke of apoplexy, and depart this existence exist-ence without the ceremonial of more than two days' illness. ; ' ' " "The most sensible thing the old fudge could possibly have done," thought his dutiful grandson-in-law elect. "Letty'll come isto her fortune now without any difficulty, and I shall be a made individual!", indi-vidual!", . He stepped at a hat store to get his hat draped in a suitable mourning weed, and thought it very becoming. The third day after the funeral he called on Letitia, Miss Price received him in her new black suit, her nose swelled with much weeping, and her eyelids as pink as if they bad been painted all round with a red lead pencil "Dear Letty," murmured the major, his voice attuned to the tenderest sympathy, sym-pathy, "do not mourn too deeplyl We must all die and our departed friend had lived out the threescore and ten years allotted to man's life here below." "I know it!" sniffed Letty, taking out her black bordered pocket handkerchief. "You are not bearing your grief all a loner he asked. "No; Cousin Bethnah Jenkins and her husband have been here for a week," Letty lugubriously answered. Maj. Monthill pricked up his ears. Cousin Bethnah Jenkins?' He had not hitherto been aware that his Letitia had any relatives save her1 grandsire. However, How-ever, the $300,000 wqpnld well bear a few reversionary legacies, and this Cousin Bethuah was doubtless an attached relative rela-tive whom it would be scarcely creditable credita-ble for the old gentleman to omit entirely fromhiswilL . ; "The only thing that I regret in this sudden and unlooked for dispensation of Providence, dearest Letty," went on our smooth tongued ma jor, "is that it makes I As DISAPPOINTMENT. "Debt debt nothing but debt," grumbled Maj. Monthill, as he tore open one after another, the. numerous letterg whioh lay upon his 11 o'clock breakfast table. "If Iwas Midas himself I couldn't pay 'em all and , I wouldn't either. There's'only one alternative left open to me that I know of and that is marrying an heiress." ' 'p'y ' -'. ' . ' : , . The major eyed himself critically in the opposite mirror'. He was a tall, handsome hand-some Apolloof a military gentleman, with well preserved teeth, hair and whiskers, bright hazel eyes, and a general gen-eral air of stylishness. "Yes," quoth themajor, "Imust marry rich and Letty Price is the woman. She's as ugly as a Gorgon what very unpleasant looking females those Gor-. gons must have been, by the way, to get themselves such a reputation for homli-ness; homli-ness; but a man must overlook minor defects de-fects when his settlement in life is at stake. I've been a gay young bachelor long enough; I must really turn my at- Itention seriously to Letty Price. But there are several preliminaries to be considered, con-sidered, and one is that she has a lover for every day in the week, and every lover I believe a more, genuine fortune hunter than myself. . It takes policy to . outgeneral so many suitors, and I've got to look sharp if I expect to win the prize." , Miss Letty Price was rather after the Gorgon style of womankind. Maj. Monthill Mont-hill was right in his criticism Of her style. ' She was fat and stout and ungraceful, with a dumpy figure, a short neck, greenish green-ish gray' eyes, reddish brown hair, a' turned up noose and teeth broken and ' decayed. Her complexion- Was muddy and her chin retreated, and. altogether she was a picture that sorely needed the i glitter of , a golden., frame to setit oftV But then Miss Letty's grandfather was worth $200,000, and she waaconsequently what the newspapers call a "society favorite." People listened when she - spoke, and laughed obsequiously at her jokes and admired her taste in dress, and Miss Letty, naturally of a confiding and credulous disposition, believed it alL With Maj. Monthill to will was to do, and no sooner did he make np his mind that he must marry an heiress, and that heiress Miss Letitia Price, than he set vigorously about consummating the affair. af-fair. Bouquets, drives in the Central park, books and photographs, soft glances and poetically flavored quotations were all alike the engines of his warfare; and when at length the time had arrived in his estimation to strike the final blow, he dressed himself in the guise of a Nineteenth Nine-teenth century exquisite, and went to call on Miss Price. "It seems to me," said the heiress, who had contrived to make her hlowsy cheeks a shade blowsier than ever by a hideous ruby silkjiress, with a scarlet cashmere ecarf looked over it, "that you. are unusually unusu-ally dull this evening, Maj. Monthill." The major affected to start from a deep and absorbing reverie. ... "Ah, Miss Price, you of all others should not reproach me with my lack of epirits," he 6aid sentimentally. . ' "And why not?" demanded Miss Letty, with elephantine playfulness. "Need you ask me when you know so well that my heart is racked by contending contend-ing emotions." "I'm sure," quoth the heiress, looking down at the point of her Marie Antoinette Antoi-nette slippers, "I don't know why it should be racked." : , "Because I love you, and I dare not speak my love!" Miss Price colored and essayed a faint little giggle, "I'm sure, major, I don't ese any necessity ne-cessity for such timorousness." "Because," impressively went on the major, looking unutterable things into the greenish gray orbs his own eyes were an exquisite wine brown, and well he was aware of his advantages in this respect "because you are rich and I am poor, and I have registered a solemn vow upon the tablets of my own soul never to wed an heiress!" "La!" said Miss Price. "Of all men," said Maj. Monthill, "I am the least mercenary. A roof to shelter shel-ter me from the driving storm, a crust," a glass of clear cold water from the spring that's all I want. Money I spurn, gold is my bugbear. And yet, dear Letitiav nay, let mo call you thus for once fate has decreed that I should hopelessly lose my lieart to one who ib unfortunately rich." Miss Price burst into tears and impulsively im-pulsively put her fat hand into the major's slender palm. "Don't talk that way, Marmaduke," she sobbed, "and dont look at me witk tnose mournful eyes, or you'G break my heart" "Letitia, do you then love mer" "Yes, yes, I do," wailed the heiress. I loy you with all my pouL" "Alas!" groaned the major, "that tw inch hearts as ours should be parted by a wall of gold!" "But they aha'n't be!" asserted Letty, her nose growing red and her eyes twinkling in the enthusiasm of the moment. mo-ment. "No, Marmaduke, no! Not if grandpapa was ten times as obstinate and pig headed as he is." "My Letitiar sighed the major, in voice honey sweet, and as low as summer Winds breathing o'er the twilight sea, . |