"Posey!" He stopped some moments at the word and looked in blank amazement at the delicate, tender, unmistakably honest face that confronted him. Then he continued hastily: "Never better. Saw him yesterday morning. You see that green lantern? That's the Buny Visty. Good-night, ma'am. I stay here—if you should want a friend, you know. Good-night."
Dora thanked him for his kindness, returned his salutation, and tripped away with unruffled spirits. She had been so much concerned to conceal her own agitation as she mentioned the name of her lover that she had quite overlooked the astonishment with which that name had seemed to transfix the driver.
As she picked her way along the dark and muddy sidewalk she could not help complaining a little petulantly to herself because the stage-office had not been located nearer to that distant green lantern. But she was not the girl to lose heart now. Bravely she plodded on, and when at last she was able to discern the words "Buena Vista" upon the beacon toward which she was toiling, suddenly her heart gave a great bound, the tears rushed to her eyes, her knees quaked beneath her, and from her pious soul there went up an earnest thanksgiving to the dear Father of us all for His great mercy in bringing her safely to the end of her momentous journey.
It was some minutes before she could so far compose herself as to be able to proceed; and when she did move forward again, I think a vague notion of the true character of the Buena Vista began to cast a shadow upon her ardor. As she came within a couple of rods of the isolated wooden building in front of which the green lantern was suspended she was suddenly startled at hearing several shots discharged in quick succession within, and a minute later three or four men rushed hastily into the street and hurried away, evidently without noticing her, though they passed within a few feet of her as she stood, almost paralyzed with alarm, just outside the door. Her fright was gone in a moment, however—soon enough, indeed, to enable her to satisfy herself that none of these fugitives was the man she sought. As the door stood wide open, there seemed nothing for her to do but enter, which she did at once. The front apartment of the saloon, though lighted, she found to be a mere ante-room, bare of all furniture save a few chairs; and without pausing here the resolute girl, who must have had a foreboding of the awful truth by this time, passed on into the gambling-room in the rear. There, stretched upon the floor, shot through the heart, lay the stark form of the man she had journeyed so far and so patiently and hopefully to find. He had grown muscular and brawny since she parted with him. His face, too, had changed, and not for the better: it was flushed, sodden and bearded, and the beard was dyed black. She knelt down beside the corpse and took one of the great hands in her own. It was still warm! But the chill of death crept over it as she held it to her heart, and thus her last ray of hope expired.
She sat still by her dead till the man's former companions came to prepare the body for burial. As it was borne to the lonely grave upon the hillside she walked beside the rough coffin. And when the grave was reached she dropped upon her knees beside it, and poured forth in a clear voice a fervent petition to the Most High to receive, for the sake of the dear Saviour who died for all the world, the soul of this poor sinner.
They had said that she might bear up till the funeral was over, but that then she would break down. She did not. The next morning she set her face to the East, and began again, for the fourth time, that awful journey across the Plains. We need not follow her throughout its length. She reached her home worn and sick, but nevertheless at once took up her old school and went on with it a few weeks. And then the end came.
LOUIS A. ROBERTS.
FRANCESCA'S WORSHIP.
In the deep afternoon, when westering calms