The young man, who was a Spanish officer of high rank, as we could see by his uniform, was resplendent in gold lace and medals, and the young lady, elegant in her court dress.

Hardly had they taken their places, before the door again opened and there entered four young men carrying a cot, on which lay on old Mexican woman. As they placed the cot before the fire, we could see her distinctly. Old and feeble, with a wrinkled brown face.

When she caught sight of the two, she cried out, "My blessed senor, my beautiful lady, I knew you would come." They smiled lovingly at her and she went on, "They told me you would never come, that you were drowned in the dreadful sea."

They bowed their heads sadly before her. She looked at them in wonder and then seemed to realize what they meant, as once more she cried out, "Yes, yes, it is true, for you are young and I am old, and we were all the same age, but you have come back from the dead to tell me that you know old Juanita has kept her word. She promised to take care of your home until you returned and she has kept her promise."

Once more they bowed lovingly before her.

"And tonight, tonight," she cried, "I will go with you, my work is done."

Looking upward they made the sign of the cross, and as they did so, the priest knelt before the old woman and began a prayer. Before he had finished the two had stepped behind the curtain, and when she looked to see them once more, she saw only the dark curtain, which to her dim eyes seemed only one of the darker shadows of the room. But she was happy and satisfied. Her work was done. Tenderly and carefully they carried her out of the room.

The two young people then came from behind the curtain, once more in their long dark cloaks. They knelt before the priest, who blessed them for their great kindness to a poor, desolate old woman. They kissed his hand and followed by the Mexican went out into the night.

The old priest threw some more wood

on the fire, and as we gathered around, he told us the story of the old house. "Years ago, before California became a part of the United States, a young Spanish officer was ordered to take command of the Spanish troops at Monterey. He was betrothed to a young lady of high rank, with the consent of both her family and his own. But when the young officer was orederd to America, her father absolutely refused to let the marriage take place. He would never give his consent for his daughter to be taken so far away. Tears and prayers were all in vain, so escaping from the house, she met her lover and together they boarded the ship in time to sail for America.

"The first six months they lived happily in Monterey, and then came the request that he resign from the army. Her father, having great influence in the affairs of the nation, had not rested until he had had revenge in the way that he knew would prove the greatest disgrace to him. The young officer would not tell his wife, but told her that he had not been feeling very well, so had consulted a physician, who had ordered him to resign from the army and live as simple a life as he could in the mountains and, in so doing he might hope to entirely recover his health. She very willingly consented to go, never dreaming there was any other reason. He had this house built and a smaller one in the rear for Juanita, her servant, then a young girl. "He confided in this young Mexican girl, so that she would help him to keep the truth from her young mistress, whom she almost worshiped. Two years they lived here. He was quite an artist and painted many pictures, which we still have in the monastery at the foot of the mountain.

"Juanita carried their food and whatever else they cared to buy from Monterey. He had an income from his estates in Spain and with Juanita's help all knowledge of the real state of affairs was kept from the young wife. At the end of two years came a letter from her father begging them to come home. He was dying and longed for their forgiveness. He had used his powers to rein

state the young man in his former po

sition in the army.

"He only read that part of the letter referring to her father's sickness to her and told her as he had entirely recovered there was no reason why they could not go at once. They were to go on a small sailing boat from Monterey Bay to Santa Barbara and from there on an ocean vessel to Spain.

"They left their home, just as it was, in the care of Juanita, promising her that they would soon return. He felt that he could never live in Spain where he had been treated so unjustly and she, thinking it was the only place where he could have perfect health, was quite willing to return.

"The small boat on which they sailed from Monterey was never heard from again. Whether it burned or how it went down no one ever knew. No other ship had seen it and no one of the crew or passengers lived to tell the story of its loss.

"For weeks and months after everyone else had given up hope, Juanita still watched and waited for news of the missing boat. Until at last her mind gave way and she forgot all about the loss of the boat and now only asked for news of ships from Spain, expecting her loved ones on each one. She lived alone in the little house she had occupied when they were here and kept this house in perfect

order for years.

When she became so old and feeble, that she was no longer able to take care of it, we persuaded her to let us remove everything of value to the monastery. But we still have to come up once a week at least and clean this house thoroughly to satisfy her.

"A Mexican and his wife stay with her at night now, as she is perfectly helpless. Every night they have to lift her to the window to see if there is any light here. She expects them to come at any time. Tonight the light from your fire could be seen so plainly from the window and she insisted on coming over at once. She was sure they were here. So we promised to bring her as soon as the storm was over.

"The young couple you saw had come to the monastery to be married and were detained by the storm, so we persuaded them to put on some of the clothes left by Juanita in our care, trusting to her failing eye-sight to carry out the deception, with what success you have seen."

We thanked him for telling us the story and, as it was near daylight, we very gratefully accepted his invitation to breakfast. We followed him down the rocky canyon to the monastery, where we were very kindly served.

We felt, as we went on our way back to the present-day world, that we had had a real glimpse of the old Spanish California.

ITH expert fingers, Dr. Harrell

W knotted the split end of the

bandage and adjusted the sling. "There," said he, to the young man sitting on the sofa, "that'll serve you till I come again. And I'm sure this young lady and her parents will continue to give you the best of care." A very pretty girl, wearing a diamond solitaire, who occupied the other half of the seat, smiled and lowered her eyes.

"Yes," agreed Roger Stanley, "Marie certainly makes a great nurse. And this house is any amount better than a hospital. With all due respect to the New England Northern Railroad, and much as I miss my engine, I'd rather be laid up here a while than be sound and back on the job. What do you think-will I get out of the shops with a good side-rod?"

"Your arm," replied the medical man, "worried me a bit when I first saw it. The break was an awkward one-nearer the elbow than I like-but it's in very good shape now, and I believe I can pull you through without a stiff joint."

"Glad to hear that, Doc, but I can't kick if you don't-I'm lucky to be alive." "Very lucky indeed," confirmed the physician. "It was little short of a miracle, the way you slowed up your train-on that down-grade, too. And the wreck occurred just where the curve winds through the big cut in the ledges -how did you ever see that freight in time?"

"I didn't see it."

"Then how the deuce did you happen to have your brakes on?"

The railroad man hesitated. The very pretty girl took his big left hand between

"Come, come!" laughed the physician. "I'm growing curious-what's the mystery?"

"We'll tell you about it," replied Marie, "and then perhaps you can explain it, being a wise man. It's the queerest adventure I ever had, and Roger says the same thing for himself. It's positively uncanny."

"But for the love o' Mike, Doc," put in Stanley, "keep it dark!"

"As you know," began the girl, "while father was ill I ran the station here at Montague Junction-working the night trick, part of the time."

"No place for a woman," remarked the doctor.

"Of course, it is a lonely spot," admitted Marie. "Sometimes when it was pitch dark, and raining, and the wind was moaning in the telegraph wires, along toward two o'clock in the morning, I would feel the creeps coming on, and I'd begin to imagine I saw and heard all sorts of weird things. But then I would think of Roger, in his cab, climbing up through the mountains on the single track, and facing real danger, and I'd just laugh at myself for being nervous in my dry, cosy little office."

"Oh, you're safe enough there," said Harrell. "I was merely thinking that the work is a man's job."

"Last Monday night was one of those dismal times," resumed the girl. "After the Boston Express went through the Junction I didn't see a soul for hours, nor heard a sound except the rain driving against the windows and the gale howling around the station. And Roger's train was turned over to him an hour late at White Springs, so that he didn't pull into the Junction until three o'clock. His orders, which I had taken myself, were to run as usual without stop to Waterville, where he was to meet southbound freight No. 395."

"Engine 395 is a hoodoo," observed Stanley. "Wish I had finished her for the scrap heap."

"But the operator at Waterville," continued Marie, "forgot to set his board against the freight, and it got by himall that's been in the papers. As soon as he realized his oversight he reported it to the despatcher, who called me, just as Roger's train was pulling out, and told me to hold it here until 395 made the Junction. The despatcher started to explain the trouble, but I didn't wait to hear him-I just grabbed a red lantern from the floor and ran out. But I was too late the tail lights of the express were away down at the end of the long platform, and I knew I hadn't one chance in a thousand of stopping it then. However, I ran after the train, and screamed. Some passengers had got off the express -only to find that the branch train doesn't make the night connections except in Summer-and they shouted. I ran out into the railroad yard, and then -it was silly of me, I know, but I was simply frantic-I threw the lantern toward the express. But nobody on the train heard or saw anything. Then I tripped over a switch frog and fell, and everything went dark."

Marie shuddered.

"The passengers carried me into the station, and I came to. The despatcher was calling me, and he read me the articles of war. for leaving my wire-but apologized when I told him what had

happened. Then he said he had ordered out the wreck crew, and told me to telephone to Montague for doctors. After I attended to that I had nothing to do but wait. I put my coat on over my wet dress, turned down my lights, and looked out of the window toward Waterville-into that awful blackness."

Her voice lowered, and she slipped her arm into the elbow of her engineer.

"I could see that heavy express tearing along through the rain and darkness, flying past the station at Middleton, which is closed at night, and then dropping down the five-mile grade toward Waterville, around the sharp curves above the river, and through the rock cuts below Clay Hill. And I could see the freight, puffing, puffing up the grade, coming nearer, nearer, nearer

"And all those hundreds of passengers, asleep in their berths," suggested the doctor.

"They never entered my mind," said Marie. "I thought only of Roger. I knew he would have his throttle wide open, instead of coasting down, as he does when he is running on time. And I saw him sitting there in his cab, with no thought of danger, but planning how he could make up a part of that lost hour in the hundred miles of his run this side of Montreal. He had waved his hand and smiled at me as he pulled into the Junction-and when I thought that was the last time I should ever see him I almost went crazy. Oh, how I wished I could be there in the cab with him, to warn him of his peril! There was just one thing left for me to do, and I did it-I prayed." She turned to Stanley, and he took up the story.

"I was certainly trying to make up time, all right. I had the general superintendent's private car at the tail of my train and three directors of the road with him. In one of the Pullmans there was the Governor of some big Western State and the president of an insurance company, as I learned afterwards. We also had a car full of theatrcial people going from Boston to Montreal, and there were some famous actresses in that party. We were making around seventy

miles an hour when we passed the Middleton station-our wind almost sucked it along after us. Then we hit the down grade you know the spot-on one side of us was Clay Hill, which slides down on the right of way in carload lots of real estate every Spring, and on the other side, a hundred feet below us, was the river. Beyond Clay Hill is the long reverse curve through the ledges."

"Worst place on the road," commented Dr. Harrell.

"You've said it. Well, just as my engine was tearing along above the river, and I was sitting, thinking of nothing in particular-guess maybe I might have been sort of dreaming about Marie, at that it seemed, all of a sudden, as if she stood right there beside me, kind of gentle-like and sympathetic. As if she were all of a flutter, like a breath of air -it's hard to describe the feeling I had. I was startled and I must have turned to the left a little-like you do when you think somebody has spoken to you, or is looking at you from behind your back, though, of course, I didn't see anyone there. And as I turned I pulled the throttle back, without meaning to. But -will you believe me, Doc?-it seemed almost as if somebody put a hand on mine and MADE me close that throttle. There was no hand there any fool could see there wasn't-but just the same, I had a queer hunch that there had been one."

"I credit your story," said Dr. Harrell. "I consider it entirely possible-stranger occurrences are on record in books on mental phenomena, as I can prove to you if you will drop in at my office. And then what happened?"

"The exhaust of my engine stopped, of course, when I shut her off. She'd been using a lot of steam and her safetyvalve didn't pop, so the only noise was the roar of the train. I was about to open her up again, when I thought I heard a locomotive whistle-but the sound was so faint I couldn't be sure. I looked across the cab at my fireman-he was staring at me, his mouth open, and his face a dirty gray. It must have been as white, under the soot, as this bandage.

I held back the throttle and then I heard the sound again, as plain as you hear me now some engine whistling for a crossing."

Marie tightened her grip on Stanley's arm as she listened.

"Maybe the sound," said he, "was magnified or reflected, somehow, in coming through the cut. Or perhaps the damp air carried the blast better than in dry weather. But I knew there was another engine not very far away, and I knew it must be ahead of us-nothing on wheels could have caught up with me from behind. And we were due to hit anything ahead, whether it was going or coming. Believe me, Doc, I jammed those brakes on to the tires if ever a man did!” "And then?"

"We had just taken the curve into the long cut through the ledges. I couldn't see the iron three hundred feet aheadnothing but walls of rock in the glare of my headlight, and not much of that, in the driving rain. All I could do was tɔ sit there, tickling the air to get the most of the shoes, expecting every second to see the enemy's headlight poke around that curve, and wondering whether I was going to be instantly killed, slowly boiled to death, or just merely crippled for life." "And your train crashed into the freight, head-on."

"No, sir, it didn't-we kept on going and going, slower and slower, until, just when we had almost stopped, the freight came thundering up and bumped into us and I fell down in front of the fire-box and got this broken wing. You can be. lieve me or not, Doc, as you see fit, but what I've told you is true as a piston rod. I don't know whether it was a sort of vision I had, or just a fool fancy, but I do know that if I hadn't shut her off when I did I wouldn't have heard the freight engine whistle-and I wouldn't be here. And there'd have been a lot of other jobs for the undertaker. But it's no credit to me that I had a little wreck instead of a big one-I was doing my best to pile up rolling stock in a heap when I got wise to that hoodoo, 395."

"You are right, my boy," seconded Harrell. "The credit belongs, not to you,