The battle at last was finished. JThe victory was lost and won, and while the defeated army had fallen |>ark to take shelter in the woods and mountain passes the victorious host had encamped upon the field of action. A thick, misty haze hung over the landscape, through which the setting sun shone like a great copper shield burnished and ready for combat. Since early morn the battle had been in progress, and the carnage was frightful. Even the sturdiest of the surgeons had more than once turned pale as they worked over their improvised operating tables, and all had felt a sensation of faint ness that they did not care to own. In one corner of the field when the fight had been the hottest, in a little grove of half a dozen trees at the angle of a stone wall, knelt the colonel of a New York regiment be side the prostrate form of his own lieutenant, a young man of English birth and a great favorite among his comrades. His breath came slowly and painfully, and when he strove to 6peak the lifeblood welled up in his throat so as to almost choke all utterance. "Creston, my boy," said the colo nel in the low voice which he al ways used when in the presence of suffering, for the colonel was as ( kind and as gentle as a woman to ; the sick, "is there anything more i that I can do for you?any word or message that you want to send ? For you know"? Creston's lips parted with a faint and almost imperceptible motion, and the colonel, bending low, caught the words, "Lift?me?up." Raising the dying man to a half sitting position, the colonel held ! him in his own strong arms and j gently wiped the red froth from his ; tips. "Colonel"?the words were weak and low?"my vest?open?the? the?pocket?inside"? The exertion was so great that he could say no more. The colonof, ?pening the vest, drew from an in ner pocket a miniature, the portrait of a young and beautiful girl, so beautiful that even then the colonel could not help gazing upon the like ness with interest and admiration. "And this?" he questioned as he held it up to the eyes of his dying comrade. The pale face of the suf ferer grew strangely bright when he looked upon the bit of painted ivory before him. "In England, he whispered, "she lives?Densmond in Devon shire?you'll remember?take her this yourself?no one else. Find her in Densmond?Amelia Burton. Tell her?I didn't forget"? A tor rent of crimson lifeblood gushed from his lips, and all was over. The colonel arose, folded a blanket and placed it beneath the head of the corpse. Then the night winds gath ered and whispered among the tree? and brushed with their dark pinions the bright, cold drops that stood on the pale forehead of Herbert Cres ton. Already the sun was casting long shadows over the landscape arbund the pretty English village of Dens mond in Devonshire, for Densmond was pretty and everybody said so? that is, everybody who had ever been there said so. And, as for those unfortunate beings who had not been there, they were so very much in the minority that no one ever cared a straw what they said or thought. The day had been hot and sultry, and with the advent of the cooling breezes of evening every one who could possibly get out of doors did so, for the air was delicious now after the overpowering heat of the day. Along the dusty highway a man. well dressed and evidently a stran ger in the country through which he was passing, was walking slowly, evidently absorbed in thought. He was about forty, of a bronzed com plexion and dark hair, now slightly tinged with gray. On the whole, he was far from handsome, nor did the scar of a saber wound across his forehead add to his attractions. Just now he paused before a cot tage that stood somewhat back from the public road, almost buried in flowers, like the modest and retiring cottage that it was. Sounds of hap py laughter came from an arbor concealed by the surrounding hedge. Colonel Nathaniel Pember paused but a moment, however, before he ?pened the gate. "Can you tell me," he asked one of the party of young girls that met his ?iew as he entered, "if you know of any one residing in this neighbor hood of the name of?of Amelia Burton 1" "Yes, indeed," answered one of the young ladies, with a meaning ?mile, "but you'll have to hurry, though, for there will be no such person here after tonight." "She?she ii not sick?not dying, fs she 7" quMtioned the colonel ha? tilv. "Oh, not at all," answered the young ladv, with a pleasant laugh; "only she's going to be married to Lord Littel tonight." "Married?" said the colonel half to himself; then aloud: "Can you tell me where she lives? I must see her upon business?sometl^ng verv important." "It's not very far from here. The house in the park that you see on the left belongs to her father. But you must hurry. It's after 6:30, and you've scarce an hour." Colonel Pember turned and walk ed hastily along the road. "Married ?married?then I am too late. Perhaps not. I don't understand it. I can't." And with every step he took came the refrain, "Married, married, married." The next day Densmond was all excitement. The daughter of the Hon. Crofton Burton had refused at the last moment to marrv Lord Lorloose Littel. And then, too, the appearance of this suspicious look ing American. That must not be overlooked. Surely there was some thing in this, "if those as knew would tell." But the Hon. Burton, M. P., would tell nothing, and as Lord Littel had left for town that morning he could tell nothing, and Miss Burton had declared that she would tell nothing. So there the matter rested, and like every other sensation was almost forgotten ten days after. Almost, I say, for Colonel Pem ber had taken lodgings at the Pot and Kettle, and scarcely a day pass ed but he made his way to The Oaks, the residence of Mr. Burton, who seemed to have a great fancy for his company. Nor was it long in becoming com mon talk that the colonel had re turned to Miss Burton on the eve of her intended wedding a blood stained miniature, the token of a schoolgirl love that she had given to Herbert Creston, the village ne'er do well, and that as she saw the pic ture, stained with his lifeblood, the old love had returned, and she had refused to inarrv any one else. So passed a year, and again sum mer visited the little village, sprin kling the lawns with yellow dande lions and the hedges with all man ner of sweetness. From the many farmyards came the sounds of cat tle and of fowls upon the clear and silent air, mingled with the distant dashing of brooks. The trees, re splendent in their "garments of green," east grateful shadows for the noonday wanderer. And then the gardens?roses everywhere! The air was one mass of perfume, de lightful and overpowering, the first sweet gift of. summer. During this time Miss Burton had not been seen by the village folk save on one or two rare occa sions, and those who had viewed her reported that she was looking pale and sickly and that she scarcely ever spoke. Now, however, at the approach of summer she had thrown off her gloomy aspect, laid aside the "inky cloak" that she had insisted upon wearing and had even gone so far as to ride out into the country and always with the colonel as a companion. One night they walked together in the gardens that almost entirely surrounded The Oaks. There was no other light than that of the stars. As Amelia paused the colonel placed his arm about her and held her hand. "You have my answer?" he ques tioned softly. She raised her face slowly. Their lips met. "It is 'ves ?'" he asked. And she answered, "Yes." ******* Far away in the wilderness of Virginia the night winds gathered and whispered and murmured and muttered and with their dark pin ions brushed the bright cold drops of dew that clung to the blades of Sass above the unmarked grave of erbert Creston. Palmerston and the Empire. When Lord Palmerston was pre mier of Great Britain, he took over the colonial office for a time during the absence of Lord John Russell on a foreign mission. His first question I of the permanent secretary of that department was, "Mr. Merivale, where are the colonies?" He was cheered to find the office full of maps. "I manage the British em pire, as you know," he said, "but I never could understand my latitude and 'ongitude or make out where the British empire isn't." Books and Germ*. A medical journal draws atten tion to the dangers of circulating li braries and says that all books should he disinfected before being taken from them. Experiments have proved that the germ of diph theria will live for twenty-eight davs in a volume and the germ of tuberculosis for more than a hun THE STRICT GRAMMARIAN. H?'? All Right on Papor, but Not In Conversation, Says Thla Writer. Mercutio wreaked all his dislike upon a man that fought "by the book." 1 have a mortal grudge against one that talks by the book. Let a man write himself into syn tactical tangles that would befuddle a Herman philoso t; let him be pompous as Sir William Temple; let him he purposely archaic as Spenser or us lull of coinages as Shake speare, as parenthetical as Brown ing pi as antithetical as Swinburne: let him follow any whim or tcholas ticism to the deaih, so long as he commits bookishness only on paper. But heaven preserve me from fre quent encounter with the fatal bore that talks bookishly. I am not pa tient with the unco' learned who interlard their speech with those crackling "by which's" and "to whoin's" rather than 6eek the direct colloquial forthright that give them an honest, stout preposition to end a sentence with. Now, the torment of bookishness in actna1 talk is had enough, but you can ill ways escape by running, or at least call the police. What refuge is there, though, from the bookish talk of the characters in fiction? When an author is before the curtain in pro pria persona, one is not offended necessarily by magniloquence or overnicety of construction, but when he steps back and pulls the strings that work his puppets' jaw then surely, surely, he must talk like talk and not like composition.? Scribner's. The Banana. The banana was named musa aft er Antoninus Mm a, llie freedman and physician of the great August us of the Romans, says Linna*us. Th sapient u m?the wisenesa?in its name is a graceful tribute to it li the "wise man's food," for, ineivd ! ible as it may seem, it is perhaps the best food product of the earth, being far more productive than ei ther wheat or potatoes, the staple food of other nations. Long ago it was calculated that it is 133 times as productive as wheat and forty four times as productive as the po tato?in other words, that the ground that would give thirty-three pounds of wheat or ninety-nine pounds of potatoes would, as far as mere space is concerned, give 4,000 pounds of lmnanas and with a frac tional amount of the same trouble. It has been called the "prince of the tropics" because it takes the same place, onlv to an even greater degree, in those hot countries that wheat, rye and barley take in west Asia and Europe and that rice takes in India and China.?Longman's Magazine. Bats and Vampires. At sunset in the forest of Guiana the bats flit from their hiding places, some taking the place of the parrots and flocking around the fruit trees, while the horrid vam pires wander far and near in search of some sleeping animal or even man in order to obtain a meal. Cows, goats, hogs, fowls, as well as game birds and quadrupeds, all suf fer from their attacks if not secured in well latticed pens, while the trav eler must not be surprised when awaking to find blood oozing from a wound in his foot or tempie. In some places domestic animals can not be kept at all, as they are so weakened by repeated attacks as to ultimately die of exhaustion. For tunately, however, the vampires arc not very common and with proper care may be excluded from dwelling houses and stock pens. Enlarged Vocabulary. To have helped a great man on his way is something to remember. A Chicago paper says of.?ne western senator that he takes pride in never saying more than "yes" or "no" to newspaper men. One day a correspondent inter viewed him with the usual result and ended by asking: "What is the largest city in South Dakota?" The senator looked his surprise, but replied courteously: "Sioux Falls." The reporter bowed and took his leave. A few moments later he met a friend and said to him: "I've beaten all you fellows. I've just added the words 'Sioux Falls' to Senator ?1?'s vocabulary." Merits of Honey. If people would use more honey and less butter on their bread, we think it would be better for their health, especially for children and invalids, at least such as suffer from defective or weak digestive power. Honey is a partly digested form of sugar and thus relieves the stoma b from the task of changing cane sugar to grape sugar, whirh must j be done with other forms of sugar i before they can be absorbed into the system. Many resort to honey when they want a remedy for coughs and sore throat, but why not use it as a preventive ? GOLDFISH. Th? Proper Way to Care For Theea Pretty Household Pets. Goldfish are the cleanest and least troublesome of pets. A quart of water to a lish is sufficient. A me Gum sized globe will accommodate four fish aud, containing some shells and a growing plant, which can be bought of the fish fancier, makes a very pretty ornament for the room. The water must be changed about once a week in cool and twice in hot weather. With a cup I gently dip out the fish, one at a time, and put them in a bowl of fresh water, which I have tried with my fingers to be sure it is of the same tempera ture. They can stand cold better than heat. Then the globe and shells must be scoured and the plant rinsed. After the shells and plant have been returned and the globe refilled the fish can be put back the same as taken out, and they show their appreciation of being at home again. I have fed mine once a day for nearly a year on oat flakes, about two to a fish, and they flour ish on their diet. They soon learn to come to the top and accept food from my fingers. They should be fed nothing else, except fish food, as meat and bread are apt to sour the water. If when cleaning the globe I find particles of food among the shells, I do not feed tnem quite so much. They must not have more than they will eat, as it makes the water cloudy. The intelligence they manifest seems wonderful to me. One usually rules the "globe," and it is not always the largest. 1 have a little tyrant too greedy to let others eat until he has been served, and he will chase one of his mates twice his size. Goldfish repay what little trouble they cause. They are not especially suitable for children, as they do not thrive so well when tampered with. Lot them live in their own way r.nd they will be hap py.?Good Housekeeping. Turtles Ruin Vines. "One of our colonists," says an Algiers paper, "recently noticed that his vines had been gnawed around the roots, and, resolving to ascertain the cause, he went at night into the vineyard and soon heard a noise which was so strange that for a moment he thought it was of supernatural origin. "Having lighted a lamp, however, he discovered that it was made by an army of turtles, which was slow ly making its way from the river to the vineyard. The mystery was now solved, for the turtles no sooner en tered the vineyard than they began to ravage the vines. Summoning some laborers, the owner finally succeeded in getting rid of the tur tles, but in order to guard against further assaults he was obliged to erect a wall around the vineyard." Small Change In Abyssinia. For small change in Abyssinia a peculiar "coin" is employed. This is no other than bars of hard, crys tallized salt, about ten inches long and two and a half inches square, slightly tapering toward the end. People arc very particular about the standard of fineness of the currency. If it does not ring like metal when struck with the finger nail or if it is cracked or chipped, they will not take it. It is a token of affection when friends meet to give each oth er a lick of their respective "coins," and in this way the value of the bar is decreased. Smaller change than a bar of salt is sometimes needed, and then the natives have recourse to cartridges. Three cartridges pass for one bar of salt. A Curious Echo. "Fellow citizens," thundered the impassioned orator, bringing his fist down hard on the table, "what, I ask again, is our country coming to? And the echo answers, 'What ?'" "Pardon me, sir," interposed a mild looking man in the audience, rising to his feet. "Did I under stand your question to be 'What is our country coming to?'" *Yes, sir." "And you say the echo answers, 'What ?'" "That is what I said, sir." "Then there's something wrong with the acoustics of this building," said the mild man, shaking his head in a perplexed way and sitting down again. A Changed Man. A Scotchman had reached the summit of his ambitions, says Ev erybody's Magazine, in attaining to the magisterial bench. The honor teemed to him a gTcat one, and he tried to live up to it. With his head high in the air he swaggered along till he went bolt up against a cow, which had not the manners to get out of the way, but continued to browse by the road side in mild unconcern. "Mon," cried the indignant own er, "mind mv coo!" "Woman," he replied, with fine dignitv, "I'm no longer a mon. I'm a baillie." Proverbs " When the butter won't come put a penny in the hum," is an old time dairy jroverb. It often seems to work though no one has ever 'old why. When mothers are worried x*cause the children do not ?ain strength and flesh we ay give them Scott's Emul >ion. It is like the penny in the milk because it works and because there is something astonishing about it. Scott's Emulsion is simply a milk of pure cod liver oil with some hypophosphites especially prepared for delicate stomachs. Children take to it naturally because they like the taste and the remedy takes just as naturally to the children be cause it is so perfectly adapted to their wants. For all weak and pale and thin children Scott's Emulsion is the most satisfactory treat ment. We will send you the penny, /. e., a sample free. Be sure that this picture in the form ?