"My last day in the schoolroom is over. I have enjoyed my work. Many of the little tots are better for the training I have given them. But best oi all is the imr provement the experience has brought to me. Every good deed reacts upon the doer. Ashton will hardly realize the progress I have made in education, physical appearance, and culture during the vanished year "; and she smiled approvingly at her reflection in the little mirror. "And to think that to-morrow is our wedding-day!" She resumed the reading of her cherished missive.
"It will interest you to know that the fellow Hankins, whose villany came so near to wrecking our happiness, my beloved, has been sent to the Pen. at Salt Lake for forgery. What a splendid man he might have been if he had improved his opportunities! He still has a penitentiary term to serve in New York, which, added to his twenty years in Utah, will take him into the sere and yellow leaf."
"And I'd have allowed myself to marry that fellow, I fear, if you had proved false to me, my Ashton," exclaimed Jean, as she turned from her musings to survey her trousseau, upon which she and Mary had spent much time and skill.
"Are you at leisure, sister?" asked Mary.
"Of course I am always at leisure to see you, Mary. But what is the matter? You are as red as a rose and bright as a diamond!" and she fondled the sparkling gem upon her own finger lovingly.
"Something sweet and momentous has happened, my dear. Wish me joy! Mr. Buckingham and I are to make the fourth couple to join the matrimonial combination at the fateful hour to-morrow."
"Isn't this rather sudden, Mame? Won't you be leaving Mar jorie in the lurch at the cook-house? And, above all, what will you do for a trousseau?"
"No, dear, this change is not sudden. As you know, we have been engaged for over six months. But my
