way, he shouted at her, "Are we still using the same room, Em? I'll just move in my things and wash up a bit."
In the sitting-room Emma sat down and wrote three notes—one to Naomi, one to Mabelle, and the third to Moses Slade. With a trembling hand she wrote to him, "God has sent Jason, my husband, back to me. He came to-day. It is His will that we are not to marry. Your heartbroken Emma."
She summoned the slattern Essie, and, giving her instructions of a violence calculated to impress Essie's feeble mind, she bade her deliver the three notes, Mr. Slade's first of all. But once outside the sight of Emma, the hired girl had her own ideas of the order in which she meant to deliver them, and so the note to Moses Slade arrived last. But it made no difference, as the Honorable Mr. Slide, bearing a copy of the Labor Journal, was at the same moment on his way to Emma's to break off the engagement, for he had discovered the author of the libelous drawings. The latest one was signed boldly with the name, "Philip Downes." He never arrived at Emma's house, for on his way he heard in Smollett's Cigar Store that Jason Downes had returned, and so he saved himself the trouble of an unpleasant interview. For Essie, in the moment after the returned prodigal had made known to her his identity, had put on a cast-off hat of Emma's and set out at once to spread the exciting news through the Town.
When she returned at last from delivering the three notes, Emma was "getting Jason settled" in the bedroom he had left twenty-six years before. Essie, tempted, fell, and, listening outside the door, heard him
