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Esther was afraid of Wilford, and at last between tears and sobs confessed that Mrs Wilford said she had been out of town, but asked her not to tell, that she guessed it was Silverton where she had been, and also that when she opened the door to her, Dr Morris was going down the steps; "not in a hurry--not like ," she added, in her eagerness to exonerate her ?" Wilford exclaimed, in tones which made poor Esther trean to be ashaained his information in the way he had

"Nobody hinted," Esther sobbed, with her face hidden in her apron; "and if they did it's false There never was a truer, sweeter lady"

"See that you stick to that whateverthis conversation in the kitchen or elsewhere," Wilford hurled at her savagely, going next to a telegraph office, and sending over the wires the following: "NEW YORK, March --, 1862

"To MR EPHRAIM BARLOW, Silverton, Mass

"Has Mrs Wilford Cameron been in Silverton since last September? W CAMERON"

To this he was proested Silverton, as the place where herby his past experience with Genevra, he resolved to give Katy the benefit of every doubt, to investigate closely, before taking the decisive step, which even while To to him had flashed into his mind Perhaps Katy had been to Silverton in her excited state, and if so the case was not so bad, though he blaht of telegraphing to Morris, but pride kept him frora the first of the kind sent directly to him

As it chanced the deacon was in town that day, and at the store just across the street froent knew by old Whitey, as standing -post, covered with his blanket, a faded woolen bedspread, which years before Aunt Betsy had spun and woven herself

"A letter for e was put into his hands "Who writ it?" and he turned it to the light trying to recognize the handwriting

"I think it wants an answer," the boy said, as Uncle Ephrai and codfish started for the door