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

A House of Mystery OR, THE GIRL IN BLUE ce^»+«>»^:<5^«4«^^54o-f«>o-f >o> o><H-a>«^CH« «f f »+« fO^ CHAPTER XXI. -{Cont'd). I think I should have grown con- f lential towards Gedge were it not that he apparently treated me as one whose mind was wandering. He believed, and perhaps justly so, that my brain had been injured by the accidental blow. To him, of course, it seemed impossible that I, his master, should know nothing «f my own affairs. The ludicrous- ness of the situation was to me en- tirely apparent, yet what could I do to avert if! By careful questions I endeavorei to obtain from him some tacts re- garding my past. 'You told me," I said, "that I have many friends. Among them are there any persons named An- son?" "Anson 1" he repeated reflective- ly. "No, I've never heard the name." "Or Hickman?" He shook his head. "I lived once in Essex Street, Strand," I said. "Have I been to those chambers during the time â€" the five years you have been in my service I" "Never, to my knowledge." "Have I ever visited a house. The Eoltons, in Kensington?" "I think not," he responded. "Curious! Very curious!" I ob- served, thinking deeply of the graceful, dark-eyed Mabel whom I had loved six years before, and who was now lost to me for ever. "Among my friends is there a man named Doyle?" I inquired, af- ter a ^ause. "Doyle? Do you mean Mr. Rich- ard Doyle the war correspondent?" "Certainly," I cried excitedly. "Is he back? • "He is one of your friends, and has often visited here," Gedge re- plied, "What is his address? I'll wire to him at once." "He's in Egypt. He left Lon- don last March, and has not yet returned." I drew a long breath. Dick had evidently recovered from fever in India, and was still my best friend, although I had no knowledge of it. What, I wondered, had been my actions in those six years of uncon- sciousness? Mine were indeed strange thoughts at that moment. Of all that had been told me I was unable to account for anything. I stood stunned, confounded, petri- fied. For knowledge of what had tran- spired during those intervening years, or of my own career and ac- tions during that period I had to rely upon the statements of others. My mind during all that time, it appeared, had been a perfect blank, incapable of receiving any impres- sion whatsoever. Nevertheless, when I came to consider how I had in so marvel- lous a manner established a repu- tation in the City, and had amassed the sum now lying at niy bankers', I reflected that I could not have accomplished that without the ex- ercise of considerable tact and mental capacity. I must, after all, have retained shrewd senses, but they had evidently been those of my other selfâ€" the self who had lived and moved as husband of that woman who â-  called herself Mrs. Heaton. "Tell me," I said, addressing Gedge again, "has my married life been a happy one?" He looked at me inquiringly. "Tell me the truth," I urged. "Don't conceal anything frt>m me, for I intend to get at the bottom of this mystery." "Well," he said, with consider- able hesitation, "scarcely what one might call happy, I think." "Ah, I understand, " I said. "I know from your tone that you sym- pathize with me, Gedge." He nodded without replying. Strange that I had never known this man until an hour ago, and yet I had grown so contitlential with him. He seemed to be the only person who could present to me the plain truth. Those six lost years were utter- ly puzzling. 1 was as one returned from the grave to find his world vnnisheil, and all things changed. I tried to reflect, to see some ray of light through the darkness of that lost perifd, but to me it seem- ed utterly inexistent. Those years, if I had really lived thani, had malt- ed away and left no trace behind. The events of my life prior to that eventful night when I had dined at The Boltons had no affinity to those of the present. I had ceased to be my old self, and by some inexplic- able transition, mysterious and un- heard of, I had, while retaining my name, become an entirely different man. Six precious years of golden youth had vanished in a single night. All my ideals, all my love, al'. my hope, nay, my very person- ality, had been swept away and ef- faced for ever. "Have I often visited Heaton â€" my own place?" I inquired, turning suddenly to Gedge. "Not since your marriage, I be- lieve," he answered. "You have always entertained some curious dislike towards the place. I went up there once to transact some business with your agent, and thought it a nice, charming old house." "Aye, and so it is." I sighed, re- membering the youthful days I had spent there long ago. All the year round was sunshine then, with the most ravishing snow-drifts in win- ter, and ice that sparkled in the sun so brilliantly that it seemed al most as jolly and frolicsome as the sunniest of sunlit streams, dancing r.nd shimmering over the pebbles I all through the cloudless summer. I Did it ever rain in those old days j I long ago ? Why, yes ; and what j splendid times I used to have on those occasionsâ€" toffee-making in the schoolroom, or watching old Dixon, the gamekeeper, cutting gunwads in the harness-room. And I had entertained a marked dislike to the place ! All my tastes and ideas during those blank years had apparently become inverted. I had lived and enjoyed a world ex- actly opposite to my own â€" the world of sordid money-making and the glaring display of riches. I had, in a word, aped the gentleman. There was a small circular mir- ror in the library, and before it I stood, marking every line upon my face, the incredible impress of for- gotten years. "It is amazing, incredible!" I cried, heartsick with desire to pe- netrate the veil of mystery that en- shrouded that long period of un- consciousness. "All that you have told me. Gedge. is absolutely be- yond belief. There must be some mistake. It is impossible that si.x years can have passed without my knowledge." "I think," he said, "that, after all, Britten's advice should be fol- lowed. You are evidently not your- self to-day, and rest will probably restore your mental power to its proper calibre." "Bah!" I shouted angrily. "You still believe I'm mad. I tell you I'm not. I'll prove to you that I'm not." "Well," he remarked quite calm- ly, "no sane man could be utterly ignorant of his own life. It doesn't stand to reason that he could." "I tell you I'm quite as sane as you are," I cried. "Yet I've been utterly unconscious these six whole years." "Nobody will believe you." "But I swear it to be true," I protested. "Since the moment when consciousness left me in that house in Chelsea I have been as one dead." He laughed increduously. The slightly confidential tone in which I had spoken had apparently in- duced him to treat me with indiff- erence. This aroused my wrath. I was in no mood to argue whether or not I was responsible for my ac- tions. "A man surely can't be uncon- scious, while fit the same time he transacts business and lives as gai- ly as you live." he laughed. "Then you impute that all I've said is untrue, and is due merely ti the fact that I'm a trifle dement- ed, eh?" "Britten has said that you a>-e suffering from a fit of temporary derangement, and that you will re- cover after perfect rest." "Then, by taking me around thi-;| house, showing me those books, aoi j explaining all to me you've merely \ been humoring me as you would :» | harmless lunatic!" I cried furi- | ously. "You don't believe what I ', say, that I'm perfectly in my riitht j mind, therefore leave me. I havo no further use for your presence, and prefer to be alone," I .xda ;d harshly. "Very well," he answered, racher piqued ; "if you wish I'll, of cou.se, go." "Yes, go; and don't return till I send for you. Understand that! I'm in no humor to be foo.el, or told that I'm a lunatic." He shrugged his shoulders, aad muttering some words I 'iid not catch, turned and left the library. CHAPTER XXII. He is a faint-hearted creaturv' indeed who, while struggling ar...ig some dark lane of life, cannot, at least intermittently, extract some comfort to himself from ths thovg'at that the turn must come at lastâ€" the turn which, presumably, w'.l bring him out upon the well-meal led high-road of happy content- ment. 1 do not know that I was exact ly faint-hearted. The mystery f all had so stunned me that I felt myself utterly incapable of Dcliev ing anything. The whole thing seemed shadowy and unreal. And yet the facts remained tha' I was still alive, standing there in that comfortable room, in po:S3S- sion of all my faculties, both men tal and physical, an entirely dif- ferent person to my old self, wi'-,h six years of my past lost and ul • accountable. Beyond the lawn the shadow of the great trees looked cool and in- viting, therefore 1 went forth, wan- dering heedlessly across the spaci- ous park, my mind full of thoughts of that fateful night when I had fallen among that strange company and of Mabel, the woman I had loved so fondly and devotedly. Sweet were the recollections that came back to me. How charming she had seemed to me as we had lingered hand-in-hand on our walks across the Park and Kensington Gardens, how soft and musical her voice, how full of tenderness her bright dark eyes! How idyllic was our love ! She had surely read my undeclared passion. She had known the great secret in my heart. Nevertheless, all had changed. In a woman's life half a dozen years is a long time, for she may develop from girl to matron in that space. The worst aspect of the affair pre- sented itself to me. I had. iu all probability, left her without utter ing a word of farewell, and she â€" o'l her partâ€" had, no doubt, ac- cepted some other suitor. What more natural, indeed, than she should have married? "That thought held me rigid. Again, as I strolled on beneath the rustling elms which led straight awav in a wide old avenue towards where a distant village church stood, a prominent figure in the landscape, there recurred to me vi- vid recollections of that last night ..f my old selfâ€" of the astounding discovery I had made in the draw- ing-room at The Boltons. How was I to account for that. I paused and glanced around up- on the view. All was quiet and peaceful there in the mid-day sun- light. Behind me stood the great white facade of Denbury ; before a little to the right, lay a small vil- lage with its white cottagesâ€" the village of Littlehara, I afterwards discoveredâ€" and to the left white cliffs and the blue stretch of the English Channel gleamed through the greenery. From the avenue I turned and wandered down a by-path to a stile, and there I rested, in full uninter- rupted view of the open sea. Deep below was a coveâ€" Littleham Cove, it proved to beâ€" and there, under shelter of the cliffs, a couple if yachts were riding gaily at anchor, while far away upon the clear ho- rizon a dark smoke-trail i.howed the track of a steamer outward bound. (To be Continued.) ON TIE \m. -*-- BIRDS THAT DECEIVE. "All birds are not so innocent as they would seem," says a natural- ist. "Take, for instance, the goose. Most people have heard a goose hiss when threatened by danger. jlVell, that is a trick on the bird's part. In past ages, when the mo- ther goose was sitting on her nest among the reeds, she somehow learned that this action made her litacl and neck simulate a snake. So it formed a fine defence. "The lapwing is another deceiver. If you approach her nest, she will set up a dismal outcry, and run back- ward and forward, trailing one wing on the ground, as though it were broken. Thinking to pick her up, you follow. Thus she lures you away from her young. In tiiues of drought the thrush acts a lie. He will beat upon the ground with his claws like a dancer. By this he wakes the earthworms think it is raining. Up they come, and tlicn the wilv thrush dines lux iriously. LOOKS DO NOT ALWAYS COUNT In a great many things, looks, or the appearance of a thing counts for a very great deal. The surrounding and outside appearance of a cheese factory or creamery count for much. An untidy and slovenly appearance gives a duterent impression trom that produced by neatness and good taste. So in a great many things, looks count for much, and the cheese and butter maker should see to it that the tactories present a neat and attractive appearance, both in- side and out. One of the things in wnic'u looks don t count is m the milk cans, cream cans, milk pails, etc. A milk pail rinsed out in water after milk- ing may look clean, while it may be far from being m that condition, there may be minute particles of dirt left in the seams of that pail, where innumerable bacteria will propagate, and be ready to operate on the fresh milk at the ne.tt milk- ing time. So with milk acd cream cans. At many cheese factories the sour whey is returned to the patron m the milk cans. Upon the whey being emptied, the can may be mere- ly washed out with cold or luke- warm water, and may present a clean appearance, so far as looks go But it is far from clean, and cannot be considered as clean until it is thoroughly washed with boiling hot water, and placed in the sunlight to dry. So with the factory utensils. Butter makers often make the mis- take of thinking the churn clean, be- cause it looks that way. But if left without a thorough cleaning and scalding after each churning bad flavors may develop and cause in- jury to the butter. The patron supplying milk to a cheese factory or cream to a cream- ery, and both the cheese and butter maker cannot, therefore, depend up- on looks alone. They must make sure that everything is clean. Half way washing will not do Thorough washing and sci-lding are necessary in every case. It is the unseen things, they call bacteria, cannot be harm. 'these little infinitesimal things, they call bacteria, canot be seen. If they could no one would have them lurking around m milk pails, milk cans, churns and vats to work their own sweet will. For this reason more than looks is re- quired in cleaning all dairy unten- sils. A medium must be used that will reach these unseen things, and put them out of business, and that medium is plenty of scalamg hot water, it will penetrate into all the cracks and crevices, and leave the utensils sweet and pure, as well as clean in appearance. If everyone who handles milk in any way could be made to realize this, and to act upon it, what a re- volution in the quality of our dairy products would be effected. Clean milk handled m clean utensils re- mains clean if properly kept, and as- sures cheese and butter of the high- est quality being made. The dairy- man must go deeper than mere looks. A box of butter may look good, and also a cheese, and looks count for a great deal, too, with these. But both may be far from being of prime quality. There must be something more than this, and that something can be attained by strict attention to cleanliness all along the line. FEEDING FOR FEATHER UKOWXM. The growth of feather is not often taken into consideration in feeding young stock and moulting hens, al- though much can be done to assist old birds at a critical time by pro- viding some food of an oily charac- ter. Among the best feather-form- ing foods are hemp-seed, linseed, and sunflower seeds. The last-named is not generally known to be so use- ful, but we can strongly recommend all gardening poultry-keepers to grow a crop of sun-tlowers. the heads of which are generally ripe about moulting time, and the seeds can easily be beaten out. A proper proportion of one-eighth part of hemp-seed, with other grains, given to young stock be- tween the ages of four and a half and seven months, will greatly assist in growing the new feathers, and for old birds in th-a moult, a fourth part of hemp-seed will not be too much. Hasecd meal may be given m the same proportion mixed with other meals, but it is not necessary to give this when hemp-seed is being pro- vided. CHEAP PRODCCTION OF PORK. The mau who has not provided a ;!->vcr field for his sows and pigs to run in from now on through the summer, has no business raising hogs,"' says a farmer writing to Tlie Indiana Farmer. The profit in hog production comes from making the greatest gains from the pasture and not when the hogs are put on grain feed. There should be no let-up in crowding the pigs. If the sows have been properly handled, they can stand heavy feeding while the pigs are sucking. Turn out the sows with their litters. See that they have a good water supply but let them live in clover now for a couple of months. If you have not clover for i them, provide rape instead. It will I be well to provide some rape for I them at any rate as it will be very acceptable later on. â€" -*- FOKTVNES IN APPLE GHOWINO Ta-smaaia is Described as the Fruit-Growers' Paradise. Thousands to-day are making fortunes in the cultivation of the apple in far-away Tasmania. "rhe island may well be describ- ed as the fruit-growers' paradise. Ac expert agriculturist with a ten- acre orchard can not only make a good income in a healthy occupa- tion amid ideal surroundings, but find at the end of the season a very substantial balance at his bank. It is in the Huon district, so named from the river of that name which flows through it, where the finest apple orchards are to be found. Curiously enough, it is very rare to find one man owning an or- chard more than fifty or sixty acres in extent. The majority of them range from fifteen to thirty acres, while a ten-acre orchard is regard- ed as ample size, and five or six acres of good orchard land is con- sidered quite enough to keep a fam- ily in comfort. There are two orchards owned by two Scotsmen. They went out some few years ago, purchased the land at the modest sum of i$2.50 per acre from the Government, cleared ii, and planted apple trees upon it. Last year both of them netted over *7,oOO apiece, entirely out of the sale of apples. Many a man, if he manages his ten acres of land pro- perly, can make $2,500 or $3,000 profit at the end of the season. Some men are now making as much as $3,000 a year from tneir ten- acre patches. The result is that some 10,000 people in the island are now grow- ing apples, yet they cannot supply the demand. The sawmills in the colony could not turn out enough boxes last season to pack all the apples that were grown. The prin- cipal reason why the colonists are making nice little fortunes out of their apples is because the fruit has now captured the British markets. I; required twenty-seven large steamers to carry the quantity tak- en bv Great Britain last season. The value of the industry to the col- ony is not less than $1,250,000. EMPRESS W\S HEROINE. Dowager Einprcs-s of Russia Twice Saved Husband's Life. The reported discovery of the Czarina of a -Terrorist death sen- tence" lying on the bed of her sleeping son recalls two similarly tiagic episodes in the life of her mother-in-law, the Dowager Em- press. On one occasion she found on her husband's dressing-table a curious and unfamiliar jewel case, and, on picking it up to examine it more closely, was both surprised and alarmed at its weight. Hur- rying with it to her own ri.>om. she plunged it into a basin of water, and summoned the Prefect of Po- lice, who pronounced the innocent- looking jewel case a bomb of a par- ticularly deadly type. On another occasion, on entering Alexander 3 studv. the Czarina fancied she heard a slight rustlinj: sound be- hind the window curtains. With a rare presence of mind she took her husband away under pretext of bidding his children "good-night in the nursery. On leaving the room she locked the door and gave the key to a party of soldiers, who on entering and e-xamining the study, made the startling discovery that some one had made his escap* through the window. Dorothv. rged 3. who had been very ill. was much impressed with the wisdom of the family physician. "Whv. mamma," she said oue day, •if i wanted to die I couldn't, cause Pr, Blank wouldn't let me." WAR LOSSES FROM DISEASE In a recent campaign of the French in Mad.agascar 14.000 men woi-e sent to 'ie front, of whom 39 were killed in action, accl --.er '7.- 000 perished from preventubi? dis- ease In the Boer war tho English losses were ten times s-ostar from disease than from k-'illoto