UNDER AN AUGUST MOON

UPHEMIA CLAYTON came in from the postoffice

with a letter in her hand. She had not opened it, although at every turn of the dusty highroad that led from the village to the farm, she had been sorely tempted to do so. The writing was crabbed and unfamiliar, but she had seen it once or twice in her life, and she knew it for that of Uncle Jabez Barclay. Whatever Uncle Jabez wanted was invariably done by the Clayton family, and Euphemia very much wondered what he wanted now. It might be pleasant or disagreeable; there was no foretelling. The peculiar feature in the case was that the letter should be addressed neither to father or mother, but to herself.

Mrs. Clayton, a spare, elderly woman, with an anxious, care-worn face, was preparing the vegetables for the twelve o'clock dinner. She looked up and smiled when Euphemia, with a sigh, sank into a chair.

"What is it now, daughter?" she asked.

"I don't know, mother. It's a letter from Uncle Jabeza letter to me."

"Open it, dear."

Who has not known the hesitation with which we sometimes struggle before looking into the contents of an envelope? A letter is commonplace enough, but it is often the messenger of destiny. It may make or mar a life. It may bring good tidings or bad. Occasionally, we feel a thrill beforehand when the postman drops a letter at the door, for its very look indicates its nature. Bills, invitations, announcements, letters of friendship, letters of condolence, love letters, business letters, all have a peculiar look that belong to themselves.

"Uncle Jabez," said Euphemia, as she glanced over the closely written page, "must be a mind-reader. Just listen."

Mrs. Clayton took a chair. By this time the dinner was well started and she had leisure for a few moments' rest, and was as eager as her daughter to know what bit of good fortune had come to their house. Good fortune of late years had visited them seldom, but it's a long lane that has no turning. The slip of yellow paper that had fallen from the letter and lay on Euphemia's lap, was plainly a check. Mrs. Clayton leaned forward and took it into her rough hand; she smoothed it tenderly and longingly. It was drawn to the order of Euphemia Clayton, and the amount was one hundred dollars. The letter read:

DEAR NIECE-Unless I am misinformed, you have arrived at your nineteenth year. I think you ought to have a better education than you can get in your present locality. Some time ago I entered your name on the waiting list at the Westfield Seminary for Young Women. I have received a letter from the principal saying that there is now a vacancy. The money I enclose will pay for the first half year. You will have a fortnight to get ready, and then I expect you to go and do your level best to be a credit to your family. Your father has been so shiftless that you need never expect anything much from him, and I have other young people besides yourself to look after. At the expiration of six months, if I hear a good report of you, I

will send another check.

Your affectionate uncle,

JABEZ BARCLAY.

"Horrid, hateful old man," said Mrs. Clayton. "Why did you call him a mind-reader? He never could do a kind thing in a kind way. That remark about your father is unpardonable. John is a better man than my Brother Jabez ever thought of being, though he is poor and Jabez has made money. If I were you, Euphemia, I would send the check straight back."

"I said he was a mind-reader, because I have wanted

quietly.
She was a fair

so very much to go away and learn more than I have been able to here at home. You see, mother, dear, that if anything happens to father I am not prepared to teach or do a single thing to earn my living. I have worried more than you know about this, and while I feel just as you do about the undeserved slur on father, I think I ought to take this money and use it as my uncle desires." "What about Silas ?" said the mother, A flush overspread Euphemia's face. girl, tall and slender, with dark blue eyes and a profusion of light brown hair, arranged low on her neck. Although she had a great deal of hair, it did not seem to weight her head, for it was so light and fluffy that it did not suggest the idea of weight. Silas Heath had said more than once that Euphemia reminded him of an August lily. Her mother was not poetical, but she, too, sometimes thought of a lily when she glanced at her only child, the young daughter who was her father's pride, as well as her mother's chief joy in a difficult life. Whatever had been given to these parents they thought nothing of as compared with Euphemia. Whatever they had lost Euphemia made up for. Her mother could not understand how it was that this child, so worshipped in her home, should take so calmly an insulting reference to an old father. Nor could she comprehend the impulse that had been urging Euphemia to long for flight from the village. This project of going to school and getting more education had not been so much as hinted at, and it had been taken for granted during the last twelvemonth that Euphemia was as good as engaged to Silas Heath. Silas was a young doctor with a growing reputation and an excellent practice. He had succeeded an old doctor who had retired three years ago, and until the last fortnight his attentions to Euphemia had been marked and continuous. Indeed, though nothing had been said about it definitely, Mrs. Clayton knew that Euphemia had for some time been gradually adding to her stock of clothes, and had

Leen, little by little, accumulating pretty things, which could have only one meaning; they were the beginnings of a modest trousseau.

"What will Silas say?" answered Euphemia, holding her head high and stopping at the door as she was ready to leave the room. "Silas Heath is nothing to me, mother. He is courting Virginia Grant.”

Mrs. Clayton forgot her dinner and sat still, stupefied, until something boiled over on the range. Then she hurried to save the asparagus from burning and went on to set the table; glancing from the window as she went to ring the bell that summoned her husband from the field, she saw young Dr. Heath driving past in his runabout. Beside him sat a young lady in a gray traveling dress and in the conveyance was a small trunk. Evidently the doctor was escorting Virginia Grant to the midday train. Mrs. Clayton was disturbed. In her view Euphemia was not in need of a better education than she had already received. She wished fervently that her brother Jabez had not thrown his bombshell of a check into their peaceful camp. She believed that there was a mistake somewhere. She knew that Euphemia had a good deal of the Clayton obstinacy and for that matter, of the Barclay perversity. "To think," she said to herself, "that all those pretty clothes should be taken for a schoolgirl's wardrobe, when Euphemia cares so little for books, and never, in all the world, will make a good teacher."

At dinner that day there was little talk; but the trio were accustomed to enjoying their meals in silence, and nobody looked unhappy. By common consent, neither mother nor daughter said a word about the letter from Uncle Jabez. After dinner, Euphemia helped her mother to put away the dishes, and about three o'clock both went to the Monthly Missionary Meeting, which assembled in the parlor of the church on the green. After the meeting, the ladies lingered for a social half-hour. Mrs. Marvin,

"I

who took summer boarders, and who was an old schoolmate of Mrs. Clayton, drew the latter into a corner. have lost my best boarder," she said. "That lovely Miss Grant, who came from town to be treated for neurasthenia, has gone home much better. Dr. Heath has done her a heap of good; but he says her folks must take her to some gayer neighborhood, somewhere on the shore, I reckon."

"You said she was lovely?" commented Mrs. Clayton. "So she is, lovely and sweet and sort of helpless and spoiled. Her father was a classmate of old Sam Heath, Silas Heath's father, and he insisted on sending her here."

Though the two ladies spoke in low tones, part of the conversation drifted to Euphemia's ears. A blush mounted to her cheek, for just at the moment she saw Dr. Heath passing the church door alone. Some one told her that there had been a good deal more sickness than usual out on the Brockton turnpike. She noticed that the young doctor looked pale and fagged.

There was a splendid August moon that evening. It silvered the river and flooded the road and wrapped the oldfashioned gardens into a beautiful, mystical veil of dreamy beauty.

Euphemia sat on a bench under a great maple tree at the end of the garden, her garden, full of great roses and white lilies and fragrant phlox. She was feeling lonely and repentant, for she knew that she had been unjust and jealous without a cause. If this were to be her disposition throughout life, certainly she would never do for a doctor's wife. Uncle Jabez' letter, with the check for a hundred dollars, lay in her bureau drawer upstairs. There would be time enough to answer it on the morrow. A step came across the garden. Euphemia heard it, but did not turn her head. Presently, somebody was beside her, somebody had said, "Move a little, dear, and make room for me," and somebody's arm was around her waist. Dr. Heath took the place beside the girl as if no one had a better right. "Why have you treated me so coldly?" he said.