Rock Island Argus

[Original.]

"Marriage is not a lottery. If a man will take the pains to apply a few tests to the girl he expects to marry he can very easily determine if she is the one of a thousand he wishes for a wife."

"Are you going to test me?"

"I may."

"How?"

He smiled.

"It would be very stupid of me to put you on your guard. Forewarned, forearmed, you know."

"You might at least tell me for what faults you propose to test me," she pouted.

"Oh, there are innumerable faults in women to make a man's life miserable."

"Such as"

"Well, there's curiosity, for instance."

"What else?"

"Jealousy. To tell the truth, I think that on these two hang the law and the prophets."

"Upon my word, you quote Scripture like the devil."

He started as if struck. Could the immaculate woman he had chosen to be his wife use such language? "You surprise me," he said coldly.

"Why, don't you know the devil quotes Scripture admirably?"

"Oh!" he muttered with evident relief.

He kissed her, and they parted. He fully intended when he spoke to apply the tests for the faults he had mentioned, but men are not adepts in such matters, and they haven't the time to devote to them. Besides, he was pretty well satisfied that the girl he had chosen was superior to most weaknesses peculiar to women. The next time he saw her the subject had slipped his mind.

On her wrist was a gold bracelet, a snake making three coils about the well-shaped member. Its eyes were emeralds. A tongue, at the tip of which was a ruby, protruded from its open mouth.

It was certainly not a pleasant looking ornament to be worn on the arm of a fair girl. It caught his eye in a moment, giving him a slight shudder, and a vague premonition came to him that the serpent had come between them.

"What a singular bracelet!" he remarked. "I don't remember seeing it on your wrist before."

"That is because I usually put it on when I go to bed and take it off when I get up in the morning."

"That's singular. And why do you depart from your rule today?"

"Because this is the anniversary of the day it was given me. On this day once a year I wear it the whole twenty-four hours."

"That's singular," he said again, pulling his mustache wonderingly.

The girl he had chosen for her immaculate traits turned the subject.

"Are you going to the Crabtree ball?" she asked.

"Perhaps—that is, if you go," he replied absently. "But this bracelet about which there is so much mystery—does it pertain to anything in your past life I would wish to know?"

"No," she replied after some moments of thought. "I should not consider it anything that you have a right to know."

His reply came after a period of thought equal to her own: "I did not speak of my rights. I merely spoke of my wish."

"At any rate, any wish you may have in the matter cannot be gratified."

This time he was much longer in framing his reply, and it came in a changed tone. "Do you think it prudent for a man to marry a woman who must keep a lifelong secret from her husband?"

"If he has not confidence in her he would be imprudent to marry her."

He arose, shook down his trousers, buttoned up his coat, took out his gloves and put them on with unnecessary deliberation. All this was to give her time. But the bluff was without effect. Having proceeded thus far, it was impossible for him to recede.

"No man in his senses," he said, "would tie himself up for life with a woman who has a secret of her past life that she dare not impart to her husband."

"You mean that this ends our engagement?"

She was very cool about it. Indeed, her indifference troubled him. He sought a loophole through which to crawl out.

"Will you assure me that the bracelet has nothing to do with a previous love?"

"No: it is connected with the deepest love of my life."

The color faded slowly from his face. To give his hands employment and for the purpose of concealing his feelings he took out his handkerchief. His hand trembled.

"Is he dead?" he asked, grasping at a straw.

"No, thank heaven, he lives."

There was an awful silence, at the end of which he moaned:

"Will you grant me one last favor?"

"What is it?"

"A kiss."

"If it will be of any comfort to you."

He advanced, and when he reached her she sprang up and into his arms.

"What does it all mean?" he asked astonished.

"It means that a woman may apply a test as well as a man. But if the man doesn't stand the test she needn't turn him away for a little thing like that. You have failed on both curiosity and jealousy."

"Who gave you the bracelet?"

"My father."

"And the rest of the story?"

"Oh, I made up all that."

"You little liar!" And he folded her in his arms.

ARLINE PHILLIPS.