We will now suppose a period of three years to have passed. Luella had been sent to visit her friends in southern Iowa, partly to assuage her grief, and partly to save expenses, for she was a hearty eater. Here she met a young man named Rufus G. Hopper, who fell in love with her, about the first hard work he did, and when, metaphorically speaking, he laid his 40-acre homestead, with its wealth of grasshopper eggs, at her feet, she capitulated, and became his'n, and he became her'n.

Thus these two erstwhile lovers of the long ago had become separated, and the fair Queen of the Skimmilk Ranche had taken a change of venue with her affections. Still all seemed to be well to the casual observer, although at times her eyes had that far-away look of those who are crossed in love, or whose livers are out of order. Was it the fleeing vision of the absent lover, or had she eaten something that didn't agree with her?

Ah! who shall say that at times there did not flash across her mind the fact that she had sacrificed herself on the altar of Mammon, and given her rich love in exchange for forty acres of Government land? But the time drew nigh for the celebration of the nuptials, and still no tidings of the absent lover. Nearer and nearer came the 4th of July, the day set apart for the wedding, and still in the dark mysterious bosom of the unknown, lurked the absent swain.

These stars indicate the number of days which we must now suppose to have passed, and the glad day of the Nation's rejoicing is at hand. The loud mouthed cannon, proclaims, for the one hundredth time, that in the little Revolutionary scrimmage of 1776, our forefathers got away with the persimmons. Flags wave, bands play, and crackers explode, and scare the teams from the country. Fair rustic maids are seen on every hand with their good clothes on, and farmers' sons walk up and down the street, asking the price of watermelons and soda water. Bye and bye the band comes down street playing "Old Zip Coon," with variations. The procession begins to form and point toward the grand stand, where the Declaration of Independence will be read to the admiring audience, and lemonade retailed at five cents a glass.

But who are the couple who sit on the front seat near the speaker's stand, listening with rapt attention to the new and blood-curdling romance, entitled the "Declaration of Independence?" It is Luella and her bran new husband. The casual observer can discover that, by the way he smokes a cheap cigar in her face, and allows the fragrant smoke from the five cent Havana to drift into her sorrel eyes. All at once the band strikes up the operatic strain of "Captain Jinks," and as the sad melody dies away in the distance, a young man steps proudly forth, at the conclusion of the president's introductory speech, and in a low, musical voice, begins to set forth the wrongs visited on the Pilgrim Fathers, and to dish up the bones of G. Washington and T. Jefferson, in various styles.

What is it about the classic mouth, with its charming naivete, and the amber tinge lurking about its roguish outlines, which awakes the old thrill in Luella's heart, and causes the vital current to recede from its accustomed channels, and leave her face like marble, save where here and there a large freckle stands out in bold relief? It is the mouth of Pigeon toed Pete. Those same Gothic features stand out before her, and she knows him in a moment. It is true he had colored his mustache, and he wore a stand-up collar; but it was the same form, the same low, musical, squeaky voice, and the same large, intellectual ears, which she remembered so well.

It appeared that he had been to the Gunnison country, and having manifested considerable originality and genius as a bull whacker, had secured steady employment and large wages, being a man with a ready command of choice and elegant profanity, and an irresistable way of appealing to the wants of a sluggish animal. Taking his spare change, he had invested it in hand made sour mash corn juice, which he retailed at from 25 to 50 cents per glass. Rain water being plenty, the margin was large, and his profits highly satisfactory. In this way he had managed to get together some cash, and was at once looked upon as a leading capitalist, and a man on whom rested the future prosperity of the country. He wore moss-agate sleeve buttons, and carried a stem-winding watch. He looked indeed like a thing of life, and as he closed with some stirring quotation from Martin F. Tupper amid the crash of applause, and the band struck up the oratorio of "Whoop'em up'Liza Jane," and the audience dispersed to witness a game of base-ball. Luella took her husband's arm, climbed into the lumber wagon, and rode home, with a great grief in her heart. Had she deferred her wedding for only a few short hours, the course of her whole life would have been entirely changed, and, instead of plodding her weary way through the long, tedious years as Mrs. Hopper, making rag-carpets during the winter, and smashing the voracious potato bug during the summer, she might have been interested in a carbonate 'Bonanza, worn checked stockings, and low-necked shoes.

There are two large, limpid tears standing in her sorrel eyes, as the curtain falls on this story, and her lips move involuntarily as she murmurs that little couplet from Milton:—

"I feel kind of sad and bilious, because

My heart keeps sighing, 'It couldn't was.'"