The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

)\'«A«I i^M« I CONFUSION Or Oentllil^r I OF CA5TE. I N^'bi^ty ^, 5^„, I CHAPTER XV. We often try so hard and long to keep our secrets hidden, buil'dinsj barricades around them, telling or acting lies to guard them, sotting a watch at the door behind which they stand concealed; and then suddenly some accident on which we have never reckoned, some chance so un- likely that we had never (eared it, makes, perhaps, in one monicnt, al'. our ellorts vain. Vor seventeen years poor Letty had kept her secret hidden from her daughter, and it happened all at once at the erd of that time that a stranger told it to her in a dozen careless words. The revelation was made one day soon after Mrs. Markham's visit ended. It chanced that day that Dor- cos, coming along the village street, waf. caught in a sudden summer shower ; she had come out in the sunshine, not expecting rain, and. beginning to run to find some shel- ter, a woman standing at an open door asked her to conic into her cottage. "It's going to be a regular down- pour, miss," she said ; "you'd best come in and stop till it's gone past.' She was an old woman â€" a Mrs. Cameron, whom Do.cas knew but slightly, but the rain was heavy. So she was glad to accept her in- vitation. She went into the cottage and sat down, and presently the old woman sat down too, and began to talk to hei^-about her rheuma- titm, and how the rain had been coming .through the roof, anJ how times were so bad that she had a. deal of trouble to make both ends meet. "And I've got my daughter hero too, because she's been sickly," sho went on, after a time ; "she's here with her baby ; and her husband â€" he's half his "time out of work, and it's a bad look-out for them. I was telling her yesterday that your motli- cr might be willing to do something for her, and, if you'd mention it, miss, you'd be doing a kindness. If you'd just tell her it was Martha, as was fellow-servant with her .it Mr. Trelawney's before she married." Sho said this quite quietly, and the words passed into Dorcas' ears, filling her mind with only a kind of vague confusion. As she beard them first, they did not even so much as startle her ; she mciclv thought, a little puzzled, that surc'y the old woman had expressed her- self oddly, or that she herself wa.s stupid not to be able to understand her. "As was fellow-servant with liT at Mr. Trelawney's before sh« uiar- ried," she repeated slowly to her- self, making an instinctive but vain effort to take the meaning of the statement in. "Yesâ€" that is many years ago, miss, and times is changed sit.ce < then," the old woman went on wearily. "Martha dicln't .stop after ' your mother was marriedâ€" she gave warning to Mrs. Maikham the very day she heard about the wedding ; •* but they all parted good enougn frlcnds-^and I think it wouldn't be . more than my daughter might look for if Mrs. Trelawney was to give a little help to her nowâ€" for Martha never grudged her her good lutk, I'm sureâ€" and there's many in hci place would have done it, and havo made mischiefâ€" there's not a bit of doubt about that. But Marthaâ€" she wasn't that sort, niis.s." Was the old woman in her senses ? llorcus rose from her seat tivmhlliig, with the color going and coining in hei- face. "Iâ€" 1 think I had better go liome. It is not raining so very much. I wil". tell mamma about your daugh- ter," Dorcas said f'urriedly, in a strange, nervous voice. She wa< trembling as she spoke : sho fvlt OS if she could hear her position no longer ; there wire a hundred ques- tions on her lip«. but they w.jnid have choked her *< she had tried lo ask them of this woman. Without iniyiiiK' .I'ly icgMifl to llrs. Cameron's otTorls to detain her hhc bade her good moiiilng niid went out into the strret again, and ran homewards through the rain that was still falling fast. She hurried through the village, and only i)aus- fd to take brcuth when the lust house was left behind her. Wet ni it was, aho struck into a path across the fields, where it was least likely that, in such weather, she should meet any passer-by, for a miserable instinct of shrinking from the sight of any face she knew had already taken possession of her. Her mind was all in confusion as yet : she had made no connected story so far out of the facts that had been told her ; gaunt and separ- ate, they only stood up like isolated spectres before her, filling her with terror and shame. For this girl, you see, was but seventeen, and at that age the humbling of our pride seems sUch a, bitter thing. Was it possible â€" she went along crying to herselfâ€" could it be possible that her father had done this dreadful thing ? She had hoped to get, unseen, into the house, but poor I^elty, as she Came up the garden path, was stand- ing at the open door looking for her. "Oh, my darling, how wet you are !" she cried innocently, and she hurried forward to meet Dorcas with hands already stretched out to un- fasten her dripping cloak ; but the girl, with an involuntary spasm of anger, shrank back as she would have touched her." "1 can take it oft ; you will only get yourself wet too. I will change all my things ; you need not come Hpstairs with me," she said quickly and imperatively ; and without a word of kindness threw down her hat and mantle in the porch, and ran up to her own room. She was hard, she knew, but yet it seemed to her that she would not help being hard ; had not her mother deceived and choiited her all her life ? The sight of the gentle little woman had roused no tenderness in Dorcas' heart ; instead cf that it had only seem»»d to nuicken her to a keen- er ana fiercer sen.se of the wrong done to herself. She had no pity in these first hours â€" not one grain of pity â€" (or the poor mother who had sullered much more than she would over do. Dorcas had no pity for her mother as she sat brooding over this thing that she had heard. When Letty came to the door a couple of hours after her daughter had returned to the house, and gently opened it and looked in, with her anxious, wonder- ing face, it was ni:)t pity at all, but an unrea.sonable flame of anger that sprang up in the girl's heart. "My dear, I thought you must be lying down. Vou have been such a long time here â€" and so quiet," Letty said. And then Dorcas gave an annoyed and hasty answer to her. "I have just been sitting down- resting. What is the use of looking after uie ? You need not fear that I have not taken off all my wet things ; there they all are," she Said. The clothes she had changed were still lying on the chair where she had flung them, and Letty, without speaking again (only perhaps dis- turbed and wondering a little'), came forward and began to lay them straight. "Your poor frock is so draggled ; it will need to be washed," she said. "Oh, dear, just look how wot it is ! I can't think why you came all through the rain, jny dear ? I made sure you would shelter somewhere." "I did shelter," the girl said dr/a/wTchase's or catarrh cure... zuc U Mnt dlreal to ttu diuiied »»rls bji the Improved Blower, Meal. Ihg ulcers, clear, tbealt passacea, nop. dror-plnM lo Iha Ibroat and permaiianl:y cure. CaUrrb and Hnjr Fev.r. Blower free All dealer., or Dr. A. W. Ch.M Meuldna Co., Toronto and Bufiida. shortly. "J went to Mrs. Camer- on's." "Mrs. Cameron's ?" Letty paused in her occupation for a nioniout, and â€"to- Dorcas' imagination, at leastâ€" an uneasy look passed over her (ace. "Whatâ€" the old woman living near the little bridge ? 1 didn't think you know her, Dorcas ?" "Oh, yes â€" I have often spoken to her." And then Letty made no answer, and in silence went on foUling up the clothes. "I stayed in her cottage till I was tired," Dorcas said, after a minute. And thcr^ she added hastily â€" "She told me to tell you that her daugh- ter was here, and that f.'.-ie wants you to do something for her." "Whatâ€" Martha ?" Letty psked quickly, and now the color really rose to her cheek. "Did you see her ?" she said, af- ter a moment's pause. "No â€" she was out. But Mrs. Cam- eron told me to tell you that she was very poor." "Oh, I'll see and do something for her." Letty said this quickly too, and thon gave a hasty, uneasy glance at the girl's face. AVhat did she know ? What had been told to her ? She folded up the remaining clothes In silence ; with a poor, tim- id elTort to win a touch of kindness from her daughter before she went away, she put her hand upon her shoulder. "Are you coming downstairs, Dor- cas," she said. "Don't sit up here so long alone. Your head is not aching, is it, my dear ?" "Vou know I never have head- aches, Dorcas answered testily, and made a movement almost as if she would shake off the caressing haJKl. And then poor Letty went awiiy, and the girl, ns she closed the door, knew that she had been very hard and cruel, and yet .she was too angry and bitter to repent. Had not her mother done wrong ? Would her father ever have married her, or thought of marrying her, if somehow the fault at first had not been hers ? She had begun painfully to link the few facts that had been given her together, and to make vvmething like a connected stnry out of them. Her mother and Martha Cameron had been fellow-.servants here togeth- er : was not that what Mrs. Camer- on had said ? Mrs. Markham must have got her brought here ; she must have got her brought here, and then somehow, they must have made hiir promise to marry her. Had Martha Cameron had anything to do with it, she wondered ? â€" or was it Mr?. Markham who had managed it all.' For it must have been manageJ somehowâ€" it must ! the girl passion ately reiterated ; left to himself, her father would never have lowered him- self to do this thing. Dorcas' check was burning as she sat thinking and weaving her cruel story. Oh, how hard it wus ! â€" how hard for her I If only it could havii been kept from everybody's know- ledge ! â€" if, after his marriage, he had gone to live in some new place !â€" but to think that, of all the people sho had lived amongst all her life, there was not one who did not know this thing that she had never known â€" that they mu.st have talked it ov.-i- a thouscuid timesâ€" that there was no one she ever spoke to who did nol know what her mother had been ! Poor little Dorcas, who had held her head till now so high ! This trouble of hers was a very unsub.stantia! trouble, perhaps, yet, coming as il did, it seemed to her to be very harii to bear. .She suffered in silence for three days, and then, at the end of tlnu time, the truth came out. "Are you not well, Dorcas?" her father had said to her more tli.Tn once ; and Letty had watched lioi hour after hourâ€" not innocently. r,iiil in the dark, ns to the cause of the change in her, and as Mr. Tre'rwinv was, but with timid and inc,e:'.sii\j fear and pain â€" with fear that mtidf her shy and conslrained in the gJrl's presence, .and almost chocked all ex- pression of anxiety or tendern?i>; "She is angry with mo, and t-ln.' will not IcU me w fty she is angry," poor Letty said, sadly, fo ler hus- band. "I think slic has hca. .1 s-; mii.' thing in the village, and that that is what hiis ve.xc.l her." "What should siiij hear m iIk; village ?" he replied quickly, not un- derstanding her iiicaniiig for a ui Jin- ent, and then sho toKl *iini hoiv Dorcas had been ut Sirs. <.;.imer )u's, and how she had bcon " sii .iiu-c" lo her ever since. "Mrs. Cameron is an old mischiet- makcr if she has been tolling her anything," he said, after a little silence ; "hut il sho has wu had belter find it out. 1 will speak to Dorcas. That is all I can do. I'or- haps she wa= sure to hear t\w stony sooner or later. Wo cannot help it, Ijctty. You must not fret about il. And he drew her to his side and took her hand. "It will iiiake no real diderence," he said hopefully. "Sho loves us both too well to mind sucli OSd A Modloino that Invtgoi atea the Kidnsyo and Livor, Takes Away ILe Pains and AchoCi end Rogu- lates tho Action of tho Bodily Orgenso-Stiong RocommcnL'ation for Or Chase's Kidnoy-L!ver Pills. Tho cxporlenrf) of Mr. Dn.vvn as Btii'.ffd in hin lotter below, is siroilar to that of scoree of men and wo- men who feel oid age creeping in upon thorn. Tho kidneys grow weak and inBcti\c, the back aclies, there are deposits in the urine, and pain and smarting in passing water. The legs swell, and there come p;uns and orh> 8 not tinliko rheuiiiatism. ' Under such circunist-iiicos oid people turn to I>r. Chare's Kidney-Liver Pills for relief an*! ctxro, and are not disappointed. They ha\e learned by ropcatod trial that they can dopond on Dr. Chafe's Kldnoy-Llver Pills every time, and consequently they have liecon.e known as the old people's favorite mcdic4ne. Mr. .John Brown, (5(4 Nelstm slioet. Ottawa, Ont., states : â€" "I luu getting up in yoiXT», and having been a hard worker all my life, 1 am, lieginniiig to fall. For some time past 1 have thought there was something wrong with, my kidneys, i seemed to bloat up, was ^'«ry short of breath, and fcai'ed heart disease, although t was told there was noUiIng wrong with mj heart. I got so htuA that I had to do something. "Hearing of Dr. Chase's Kidney- Lh'er PlUf, I bognn using them, and by the time I had unod up the first bux I felt considerably improved. 1 continued iis-ing this modlcinc, and to-dny feci ten years yoingcr. I am strong and hearty, and do not suHer from cy former ailments. I consider Dr. Chuso'a Kidnoj'-Liver pills an Mceltent medicine for old people." Th«re are people In nearly every town, villaf, and country tide lond who hare proven the merits of Dr. Chaas'v Kidney-Lf-vcr Pills. Ab!< your friends or neighbors about thuik.. Oue jiiU i^ doM ; 2B oonts • hox. Al a^'' A*t<i»ta, or Edmansun, Datoff ar.d Co., Toronto^ a thingâ€" except for the moment. She has too much good sense. Believe me, dear, she will not mind it." It was late in the evening â€" after sunset. He had finished his work (or toe day, and thrown himself back in his easy chair, as if to rest ; and it was then, in. the dusk, that he called her to him. She had been sitting in the window scat, reading, for a good while. She got up when he told hor to come to him, and went to his side unsuspic- iously, lie merely meant to talk for a little, she supposed, before he lighted his lamp. But when Bhe sat down near him he took her hand, and then the first grave words that he spoke startled her. "Dorcas, you have let something come between us during these last days," he said. "What is it ? I want you to tell me. Perhaps your mother and I both guess what it may be, but we cannot be sure until you tell us that we have guessed right. I think you have heard some- thing this week that has vexed you. Is this not so ?" Her hand almost unconsciously, as he began to speak, had made a spasmodic effort to escape from his, but he held it tight, and after a. moment it lay impassive again in his clasp. But when he abked his question she hung her head, and made no answer to it, and he had to repeat it before, in a low voice, she said the one word â€" "Yes." "Where did you hear it ? Was it in the villageâ€" at Mrs. Cameron's ?" And then she said "Yes" again, almost below her breath, with her heart beating in great throbs. There was a pause after this, but only for a moment or two, after that he said, very quietlyâ€" "She told you something about your mother before her marriage ? Was that it ?" "Yes," Dorcas said for the third time ; and then he felt her hand quiver, and heard her begin to sob. N"o doubt it was har3 for him too. Perhaps in past years he had suffer- ed at times pretty .sharply on ac- count of his marriage, but no doubt the keenest suffering he had ever kno>ra was what he endured now, as he sat here with his daugh- ter at his side, knowing that the thing which had been told her had come like a sword between them, and shaiken the faith and trust in him that she had had all through her life. To be Continued. BAB"3r'S BIETHHIOHT Is Health and Happiness. â€" ^How notkers Can Keep Theiy Xit- tle Ones Well. Health is the birthright o't all lit- tle ones. It is a mother's duty to see that her baby enjoys it. Moth- er's grejitest aid in guai'ding child- ren's health is Baby's Ov«n Tttblctsâ€" a medicine which can 1)« given with perfect safety to '.he yoiuigest 'oaby. Among the many mothers who have pro\ed the value of this medicine is Mrs. .1. W. Booth, Bar River, Ont. She says ;â€" "My baby suffered great- ly from sore mouth and bad stomach. Several doctors prescVibed (or her. but nothing seemed to bene- fit her in the least till 1 began giv- ing her Baby's Own Tablets, and tlien In a short time my little one was fully restored to health. I would not be without the Tablets in the house, and would advice all mothers to use them when their children are ailing." Baby's Own Tablets are used in thousands of homes in Canada and always with beneficial results. They contain absolutely no opiate or other harmful drug ; are mild. but sure in their action and pleasant lo t.ake. The very best medictine for all troubles of the stomach and liowe'.s, curing colic, indigestion, con»ftipn- tion diarrhoea and simple fever. They give relief in teething troubles, dispel worms, promote healthful sleep and cure all the minor ailments of chiWren. Price 25 cents a box at nil druggists, or sent by mail post pinld, by writing direct to The Dr. Williams' Medicine Co.. Brockville, Ont., or Schenectady, N.Y. WORDS OF flOPE. TO ALL WHO SUFFEH FHOM A EUN DOWN SYSTEM. Mrs. Harriet A. Tarr, Fonwick, Ont., Tells How She Obtai» ed a Cure After Suffering lor Two Years. Thousiinds throughout this coun- try sufler seriously from general de- bilityâ€"the result of imjpo-serishetl blood and shattered nerves. To all such the story of Mrs. Harriet Parr, widow of the late Rev. Richard Fair, Fenwick, Ont., a lady well known throughout the Niagara district, will point the means of renewed health. Mrs. Farr says ; â€" "For a couple of years prior to 1899 1 was a great sufferer from a run down system. My digestion was bad ; I had little or no appetite and was in a very poor stats'; I suffered from heart palpitation and a feeling of continual e.xhaustlon. Doctors' treatment failed to benefit me and I gradually grew worse until 1 was finally unable to do tho least work. I then began using Dr. Williams' Pirik Pills, and from the very first I noted an improvement in my con- dition. The severity of my trouble gradually lessened and by the time I had taken eight boxes I was again enjoying the best of health despite my sixty years. I believe that Dr. Williams' PinK Pills saved my lify and would strongly urge tl I iBufferers to give them a trial, believing they will be of great benefit." When your blood is poor and watery, when your nerves are un- Blrung, when you suffer fr.jin h"ad- aches and dizziness, when you are pgle, languid and completely run down. Dr. Williams' Pink Pills will promptly restore your health by re- newing and enriching the blood. They are a. prompt and certain cure for all troubles having their origin in a poor and watery condition of tho blood. But only the genuine cure and these bear the full name, "Dr. V/illiams' Pink Pills for Pale People," on the wrapper around ev- ery box. Solk by all dealers in medicine or sent post paid at 50 cents a box or six boxes for $2."iO, by addressing the Dr. Williams' Mc)']< cine Co., Brotikville, Ont. BEST PARTED. A lady, talking of the servant problem, relates the following inci- dent: After giving a trial to many servants â€" ranging (rom bad to very badâ€" the lady at last secured what she described as "a treasure." For six short weeks mistress and servajit were perfectly satislicd with each other. Then, early one morning. Miu'.v met her uaictrese with the dreaded: "Very sorry, ma'am, but I'll have to give you a month's notice." "Indeed!" exclaimed the mistress. "How is this, Mary? It was only yesterday that you told mo you lik- ed the place!" "So I does, ina'iun," returned Mary. "I likes llie place all right, an' I likes you!" "Tlien why leave me?" "Well, you sue, ma'am, your dog doesn't like my young man, an' my young man doesn't like your dog. JThey can't agree nohow, so they're best parted!" EXCUSED HIM. A lady travelling by rail sat (acing a gentleman who, with one eye at least, seemed to be staring fixedly at her. She became indignant and said: "Why do you look at me so, sir?" He said he wa.s not aware of hav ing done so, but she insisted. "I beg your pardon, madam, but it's this eye, is it not?" lilting his- finger to his left optic. "Yes. sir, that's ili.- ive." "Well, madam, that eye won't do you any harm. It's a glass eye. I hope you'll excuse it. But I'm not surprised that even a glass cyt should feel interested in so charming a woman." The explanation and tho compli- ment combined to put the lady inti good humor. DIAGI^AM SHOVVII^G riOVV V0L:ANIC EXPLOSION ISCAUbM mnnntni^^-l^,?.'^,?! above picture will show how the molten mass' In the mountain! Interior met the water, ana how the steam eeneriitwi thvrnhv foUowln, th. lino of least re.l.tanee. blew oft tSe top of the vol«»J!