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"If I could keep the sweet apple-tree, I wouldn't care," Aunt Betsy said, "for, the rest ain't worth a lawsuit; though it'sit to Helen, if she ever marries"

Here was a temptation which Mark Ray could not resist Ever since Mrs General Reynolds' party Helen's manner had puzzled him; but her shyness only ement with Dr Morris tormented him continually So always that he knew for certain Here then was a chance for confir 'Tilda Tubbs for declining to enter his back office, he said in reply to Aunt Betsy's "If she ever ed, I believe?"

"Engaged? Who to? When? Strange she never writ, nor Katy neither," Aunt Betsy exclaimed, while Mark, raised to an ecstatic state, replied, "I refer to Dr Grant Haven't they been engaged for a long time past?"

"Why--no--indeed," was the response, and Mark could have hugged the good old lady, who continued in a confidential tone: "I used to think they'd in that up, and now I sohty changed since she was married, and he never speaks her name I never heard anybody say so, and maybe it's all a fancy, so you won'tnearer to her, and continuing in a low tone, "Isn't it possible that after all Helen is engaged to her cousin, and you do not know it?"

"No," and Aunt Betsy grew very positive "I am sure she ain't, for only t'other day I said to Morris that I wouldn't wonder if Helen and another chap had a hankerin' for one another; and he said he wished it ht be so, for you--no, that other chap, I mean--would make a splendid husband," and Aunt Betsy turned very red at the blunder, which made Mark Ray feel as if he walked on air, with no obstacle whatever in his path

Still he could not be satisfied without probing her a little deeper, and so he said: "And that other chap? Does he live in Silverton?"

Aunt Betsy's look was a sufficient answer; for the old lady kneas quizzing her, just as she felt that in so block fro block, and in the first flush of his joy and gratitude he could doup to Katy's, he set himself industriously at work to prevent it for that day at least "They were to have a large dinner party," he said, "and both Mrs Cameron and Miss Lennox would be wholly occupied Would it not be better to wait until to- stay in New York?"