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grace of any college to send forth men who cling still to out-worn dogmas, to irrational race and caste prejudices, to meaningless customs and traditions, and whose minds remain subject to whatever happen to be the prevailing sentiments around them.

Has the case been misstated? Will any champion of established usage maintain that our colleges of today are doing their full duty? Can any assert that my ideal of the true scholar is an unworthy one? If the position here taken is, as I deem, unassailable, how long must we wait for the development of a true system of education? The task is not a hard one, though it will involve some radical

changes in college work, not entirely in the curriculum of regular courses.

To avoid any possible misapprehension, let me add that the use of the masculine pronoun throughout has been purey for convenience. As applied to female education, even more might well be said. Not a woman's college in the country even approaches a rational idea of education. The subject is worthy of an entire paper; but I may simply say here that the higher education of the future must involve co-education, with precisely similar methods of instruction for both sexes. Truth belongs to man and woman alike.

T

The Rivers of Oregon.

III. The Rogue.

By GEORGE MELVIN.

HIS stream, which rises in Klamath County, in the vicinity but a little to the northward of Crater Lake, finds its own way to the sea. From the most remote and almost inaccessible fastnesses of the Cascades it flows southwest and south to somewhere near the center of Jackson County, that land of gold, and almost constant sunshine, when it turns suddenly and sharply to the west, and races straight toward the place of the setting sun till its way is blocked by the rugged spurs of the Coast Range and it is compelled to make another right angle, this time to the north. It follows the North Star till it discovers a broad and beautiful pass through the hitherto obstructing mountains, to the heaving wastes of the boundless deep.

Unlike other rivers on the Oregon coast, the Rogue does not broaden into a bay at its mouth, but pours its strong current directly into the ocean. Its journey is a lonely one, for the most part,

and its banks are not always clothed with verdure. There are desolate miles of sage-brush, there are bald buttes and levels of waste lands. Yet, these same barren stretches could be made to blossom as the rose if properly tilled and irrigated.

Jackson County is perhaps one of the richest in minerals in the state, not even excepting that in which Sumpter is locatcd. The wealth taken from the mines mounts up to the millions, and other millions vet remain untouched. But it is not altogether in metals that this region is rich. There are no finer fruit lands anywhere than are to be found in the vicinity of Ashland. The grapes of Southern Oregon are condensed sweetness and sunshine. The peaches are ambrosia steeped in the nectar of the gods. In short, the orchards and the vineyards that are watered by the Rogue river and its tributaries rival those of the far-famed Sacramento Valley in productiveness and beauty.

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EONA, Leona de Vere!

Chapter VI.

Where had he heard that name before today? But even as he asked himself that question, he was remembering, as one looks at the pictured pages of a book long closed, and suddenly and unexpectedly opened, so his mind reviewed the forgotten incidents of one beautiful spring, spent in the country, years ago. There were pleasant loiterings along a lonely lane in the dusk of evening, and a vision of his companion on these walks beneath the pale twilight stars, flashed back upon him. A sweet, fair-haired girl, a girl whose ready laughter was like water, rippling in the sun, and whose cheek was as pink as the wild rose blooming in the hedges. He had half-fancied himself in love with her, and she-he shrank from recalling how trustingly and frankly she had given her heart. Of course he meant nothing-men of his stamp never do, but poor little girl! She was slow to understand this, and how she had wept when he had told her good-bye. He had

a faint recollection of having promised to return, but that was solely to soothe her. He could never see a woman weep unmoved, and he may have said a number of hopeful things which he did not mean. However, it was all years and years ago, and was only one of many affairs of a similar nature. She had doubtless soon consoled herself for his loss with some country swain. Being so young and so pretty she could not have long lacked for comforters. And now some one who bore the name of Leona će Vere was dying, and they had sent for his wife. It was an odd occurrence. Could there be two Leona de Veres? It could not be possible that this was the girl he had kissed good-bye one evening in May, in that country lane, so long ago!.

Meantime, having nothing in particular to do this morning and not wishing to disturb Elise, he decided to go in her stead to the bedside of this dying Leona de Vere. His wife would be pleased, perhaps at this evidence of his interest in her work. For, he took it, that this was

one of her charity cases," and he was seized with a sentimental fancy, as unaccountable as it was sudden, for going to see this girl.

Elise was still sleeping as he tiptoed into her room, and he kissed her softly without waking her. She looked very pale and tired in the dim light. He told himself, as he went out, that he must not, really must not, allow her to spend so much of her time in the debilitating atmosphere of Reese Alley.

Colonel Randolph had ample time to consider the possibilities of the situation. in the drive across the city from his own handsome residence on the Upper Avenue to the humble suburban cottage where the widow lived. The boy, silent, swallowed up in the rapture of that swift flight, had no eyes nor mind for anything but the horse.

The Colonel, glancing down, caught the expression upon the lad's face. Prompted, perhaps, by some lingering memory of his own boyhood, he divined the tingle in the eager palms, and laid the reins in them, and felt the little figure proudly brace itself to meet the welcome tug and strain. He forgot, in watching the exultation of his small companion, the troubled recollections awakened by the name of Leona de Vere, the thoughts that were beginning to sting. It was a new experience, this, and he found himself marvelling that it should be such a simple and satisfactory thing to make a child happy.

And the child! In all his dreams he had never approached a joy to equal this. And at that moment he would not have changed places with the President of the United States, or even with the mounted policeman who rode in the park, and who was at once a terror and the admiration of all the small boys with a penchant for lolling on the grass.

Meantime, these two, the child of the people and the gentleman of leisure, were, side by side, moving swiftly toward the house, where, in an upper chamber, Leona de Vere lay dying, and both had forgotten, for the time, that it was death that hurried them. But all earthly pleasures pass, and with a sigh the youthful driver relinquished the reins and pointed out his mother's gate

in a quiet lane not far from the beginning of the river road. It was a cheerful enough looking place, set well back from the highway in a nest of shrubbery that was wearing a faint suggestion of vernal spring. There was nothing about it to indicate the presence of "the angel with the amaranthine wreath." And yet, but a moment before, beneath that lowly roof there had been

"Whispered a word that had a sound like Death."

The widow met them at the door.

"It is too late," she said when the Colonel made known his identity and explained that he came in Mrs. Randolph's place because she was not well. He was surprised at the ease with which he made this explanation and the readiness with which it was accepted.

"It is no wonder she is sick," remarked the widow. "Mrs. Randolph has just worn herself out looking after the poor girl upstairs. She has watched at her bedside night after night. I've seen, for some time past, that the strain was too much for her. But she made me promise to send for her if there was any change, and I did. She will be glad to know that the end was peaceful. The dear child just fell asleep-and-and I can't help thinking she has waked up in heaven in spite of all her troubles and temptations here. She surely suffered enough in this world without being punished in the next for sins that were only half her's."

The widow paused to wipe away the tears that persisted in dimming her eye lashes.

"Would you like to go up and look at her?" she asked, and taking the Colonel's silence for affirmation, led the way to the darkened room where all that was mortal of Leona de Vere lay white and still, the thin hands crossed upon the pulseless breast, and the long lashes sweeping the pale cheeks. Death had been kind. When he took away the soul he restored the body to the beauty and innocence of youth and effaced all marks of time and trouble and transgression. It was the face of the girl he had known in that long-forgotten springtime upon which Colonel Randolph gazed as he

paused by the narrow, white bed.

"She had a hard life, poor little girl," he heard the widow saying, "a hard life, but it's all over now and she's free from pain, at least. Ah, me! The misery there is in this world!"

She seemed to take it for granted that he was acquainted with the whole pitiful story and went on to speak again of his wife's unvarying kindness and devotion. And the man listened and understood as he never had before, and as the full meaning of the situation dawned upon. him he felt himself in the grip of an unspeakable fear. He hardly knew how he got out of the place or came to be driving furiously down the river road in the afternoon sunshine, but there was nothing vague or indistinct about the fact that he was having a bad hour with himself when he once more gained control of his reasoning faculties.

He had not been conscious of the process, nevertheless, his whole moral nature, during the years that elapsed since his marriage, had undergone a change. Subjected to the subtly-refining influence of a pure and loving woman, his attitude toward life had, by imperceptible degrees, been entirely reversed, and he had insensibly grown to see all things in a different light-to look at the world through her eyes. It must be admitted that he had not suffered any inconvenient qualms of conscience concerning his former mode of life. Indeed, he seldom or never thought about it. Absorbed in his present happiness, adoring his wife and secure in her love, he had neither time nor inclination to recall past experiences, pleasant or otherwise. But this!-this was thrust upon him, and he could not escape. It was something that had to be faced, and for the first time in his, by no means, brief existence, he was confronted by himself --and was compelled to realize what manner of man he had been. And Elise! He felt himself turn cold and his pulses all but cease to beat at the bare possibility of her having come so near this ghost of an early sin. What if she had found him out-what if she had even suspected-but he could not believe that she had. He made no effort to disguise from himself the knowledge that

without her affection and respect life would be unbearable, and the mere suggestion of what she must suffer if it came to her that he had been responsible for the wreck of a woman's happiness, was enough to madden him. But he told himself, over and over again, that Leona de Vere had not betrayed him. It was something to be thankful for-the one gleam of light in this sudden darkness that engulfed him, though it in no wise lessened his sense of guilt-rather but served to deepen it.

It was late when he finally drove up to his own door and turned his horse over to the wondering groom. That worthy remarked to the stable boy a few minutes later that he "never see a horse worse used up."

Mrs. Randolph had risen shortly after mid-day and, having breakfasted, ordered the carriage and gone out, leaving no word as to where or when she would return. The Colonel, longing, yet dreading to meet her, went into the library. Sitting there in the gathering twilight, he thought of many things. He had never confessed to any religious convictions of his own, though maintaining an attitude of good natured indifference toward the church and an outward show of respect for the convictions of others, but he came as near praying as a man of his temperament and training could in that dark hour, while waiting for Elise to return. She came straight to the library, her face drawn and white with sympathetic anxiety. She had been to the widow's cottage and learned of his visit there earlier in the day. She would have spared him this, but fate was too strong for her, and now it was only left her to comfort him and to conceal from him her own knowledge of his misdeed.

"He shall never know that I know; never, never!” was her unspoken resolve, and yet when she came to him there in the semi-darkness, and found him with his head buried in his out-flung arms upon the table, his whole attitude eloquent of suffering and remorse, she fell upon her knees beside him crying, "My love! my love!" and the cry was an unmeant confession.

He gathered her close to his heart and felt the soft rain of her tears and the

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