strong suspicion that Julius may have played a more than unconscious
part in this transaction. Among other significant facts was his
appearance, the Sunday following the purchase of the horse, in a new
suit of store clothes, which I had seen displayed in the window of Mr.
Solomon Cohen's store on my last visit to town, and had remarked on
account of their striking originality of cut and pattern. As I had not
recently paid Julius any money, and as he had no property to mortgage, I
was driven to conjecture to account for his possession of the means to
buy the clothes. Of course I would not charge him with duplicity unless
I could prove it, at least to a moral certainty, but for a long time
afterwards I took his advice only in small doses and with great
discrimination.




SIS' BECKY'S PICKANINNY

We had not lived in North Carolina very long before I was able to note a
marked improvement in my wife's health. The ozone-laden air of the
surrounding piney woods, the mild and equable climate, the peaceful
leisure of country life, had brought about in hopeful measure the cure
we had anticipated. Toward the end of our second year, however, her
ailment took an unexpected turn for the worse. She became the victim of
a settled melancholy, attended with vague forebodings of impending
misfortune.

"You must keep up her spirits," said our physician, the best in the
neighboring town. "This melancholy lowers her tone too much, tends to
lessen her strength, and, if it continue too long, may be fraught with