SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE VOL. XVIII JULY 1895 No., 1 TO A MAKER OF VERSES By Burr Wilton A BREATH of by-gone Junes perfumes thy lines, A dream of dim, delicious, drowsy days When Summers scepter ruled the rain-washed ways And South-born winds woke harp-strings in the pines; A fragrance caught from flower-lit woodland deeps, Sun-flecked and shadow-frescoed, like a floor Of rare mosaic, where the Mistress keeps Neath emerald curtains hidden, safe in store, Her fairest treasures. An Arcadian note Mellow and tender as the tones that float From some rich-throated feathered Voice of spring, Crooning his rapturous love-songs, poised a-wing, Lilts through thy verse and lures my wandering dreams Down shaded, moss-lined glens, where fern-plumes fling Their nodding crests oer banks of blossom-broidered streams. Ah dark-eyed bard, thy winsome, wistful face More than thy verse the Rose-Months mood recalls; And though the winter barriers be like walls That shnt the sunshine out, if but the place Breathe of thy presence, swift my heart forgets Its sombre world; my weary fancy strays Down dreamy by-ways soft with summer haze And sweet with incense-wafting violets, Past shadow-haunted spaces hushed and still And fern-fringed woodlands whispering in the breeze, Oer wide, free, fragrant lifts of plain and hill, Neath dewy dawns and sunset mysteries, When day and dusky twilight intertwine And in the West the splendor leaps and dies Like altar-fires round some old Druid shrine. So thou dost lead me, Sweet, for in the deeps Of thine unconscious, self-forgetful eyes The spirit of eternal springtime lies, And Summers self her sanctuary keeps In thy dear bosom, safe as under soft Italian skies. Copyright. 1895, by Charles Scribners Sons. All rights reserved. PROPER classification of the Athletic Clubs should put the Col- leges at the head of ~ the list. Doubtless t h e Presidents of Princeton, or Yale, or Harvard would object to their ancient insti- tutions being indexed as Athletic Clubs. Yet, whether their motive be educational or advertising, the col- leges are making athletics as much of a pursuit as is any of the avowed athletic associations, and the facilities that are offered by them are the most complete and systematic that can be found any- where. The whole body of undergrad- uates is imbued with the spirit of athlet- ics, and the external form of college life is fashioned about the intercollegiate contests. It was the larger colleges that first caught the Athletic Impulse that has been a distinguishing feature of the past twenty-five years. And in- deed, it may fairly be said that it has been their influence more than any other single cause that has been re- sponsible for the growth of the athletic spirit that has lifted the American nose from the grindstone of business, that has developed in the American people a keenness for outdoor sports, and that has made the rising generation so big and lusty and pleasant to look upon. The intercollegiate contests have awakened the interest of thousands unconnected with the colleges that par- ticipate, and have given to athletics a tone and a favor that is undeniable. And the summer dispersion of the un- dergraduates, with their ducks and Ma- dras shirts and brier pipes and brown skins, has provided a strong athletic leaven for the vacation communities. The first evidence of the spreading of the athletic impulse outside of the colleges was the formation of the New York Athletic Club, in 1868. Before that time the Caledonian Societies used to give Athletic Games at which the canny Scots tossed the caber, ran foot- races, and drank good Scotch whiskey in honor of Bobbie Burns and the do- mestic affections. There were boat

PROPER classification of the Athletic Clubs should put the Col- leges at the head of ~ the list. Doubtless t h e Presidents of Princeton, or Yale, or Harvard would object to their ancient insti- tutions being indexed as Athletic Clubs. Yet, whether their motive be educational or advertising, the col- leges are making athletics as much of a pursuit as is any of the avowed athletic associations, and the facilities that are offered by them are the most complete and systematic that can be found any- where. The whole body of undergrad- uates is imbued with the spirit of athlet- ics, and the external form of college life is fashioned about the intercollegiate contests. It was the larger colleges that first caught the Athletic Impulse that has been a distinguishing feature of the past twenty-five years. And in- deed, it may fairly be said that it has been their influence more than any other single cause that has been re- sponsible for the growth of the athletic spirit that has lifted the American nose from the grindstone of business, that has developed in the American people a keenness for outdoor sports, and that has made the rising generation so big and lusty and pleasant to look upon. The intercollegiate contests have awakened the interest of thousands unconnected with the colleges that par- ticipate, and have given to athletics a tone and a favor that is undeniable. And the summer dispersion of the un- dergraduates, with their ducks and Ma- dras shirts and brier pipes and brown skins, has provided a strong athletic leaven for the vacation communities. The first evidence of the spreading of the athletic impulse outside of the colleges was the formation of the New York Athletic Club, in 1868. Before that time the Caledonian Societies used to give Athletic Games at which the canny Scots tossed the caber, ran foot- races, and drank good Scotch whiskey in honor of Bobbie Burns and the do- mestic affections. There were boat LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS 6 clubs in the vicinity of New York, whose members used to row to the historic Elysian Fields in Hoboken and there organize impromptu games. But there was no association in existence formed with the single purpose and definite aim of cultivating manly sports and athletic exercises, until the New York Athletic Club called itself into being and en- deavored to fashion its life upon the model of the London Athletic Club. The first phase of existence upon which the athletic clubs entered in this country was simple enough. Track athletics in reality comprised the whole of their trade. The ideal athletic club twenty - five years ago consisted of a vacant city block, with a high board fence about it (usually let out to advertisers), a cinder track, and a set of bleachers. A boat - house with an equip- ment of shells, even if a long~ distance from the athletic field, was deemed a great luxury, while a thoroughly fur- nished gymna sium was looked ~ upon as the ultimate goal to ward which all the energies of the club might be directed. Until about 1874, the athletic clubs met with only moderate success, but at that tinie the tide began to run very strongly toward them. And so rapid has been their development since that time, that their founders have in many in- stances been unable to keep up with them. Just as soon as it was discov- ered that athletics were in the way of a boom, with proper American spirit all hands interested set to work to make their own athletic clubs just as big as possible. The consequence was that the mem- bership of the ath- letic clubs lost its distinctively ath- 1 e t i c character. While perhaps a sporting tendency animated the whole, a great part of the boom members were more interested in watch- ing others exercise than in getting in the rigor of the games themselves. Immediately the task was set for the directors to furnish attractions for this weakly athletic element, and immediate- ly they began to reach out for the facil- ities of a social club, and later for the luxury of a country club. Soon it be- I he New York Athletic (Jiub at I racers Island. 6 LIFE AT THE A THLE TIC CLUBS came quite apparent to every- forcibly declare that he de- one that the energetic athletic plored the tendency stimu- clubs were offering more for lated by the membership that the money demanded than recent years has brought into any other kind of club, and the club, which was to divert there forthwith set in an in- the resources of the club to vasion of them by that very other than athletic purposes; numerous class of American and that he felt called upon people that appreciates a bar- to remind the club, in the gain. But this class was cer- words of Hereward the Wake tainly non-athletic in charac- to old Gil be r t of Ghent, ter, and had no coherency that these new - comers, like save in its appreciation of the Jews of old, were en- the value it might receive for its tering into goodly houses which they money. These new members called had builded not, farms which they had very loudly upon directors to give tilled not, wells which they had digged them equivalents for their money, and not, and orchards which they had plant- the Governing Boards of the athletic ed not. clubs have been forced to meet that de- But however the athletic clubs may maud, even at the risk of sacrificing the have fallen away from the original in- interests of athletics. tention of their founders, however de- The consequence has been that ath- plorable some of the phases of their letes are growing less and less im- present condition may be to those en- portant in athletic clubs, and the old thusiasts who regard their associations timers sit together and hold indigna- as having only one reason for existence tion meetings over the course of the the making of physical and moral clubs which they have fathered. I was manhood and however regrettable present at a meeting of the members of may be the ascendancy of the caf6 over a certain athletic club, called to con- the gymnasium, that tendency or con- sider the advisability of the clubs ceas- sequence has been a very natural one. ing to be represented by a football The formative period of the athletic clubs is ended, and they have be- come settled institutions supplying gratification to continuing needs, and only responding occasionally to an enthusiasm for athletics, accord- ing to the composition of their mem- bership. Further, they reflect the present attitude of the community toward athletics. It needs no demonstra- tion to make clear the fact that ath- letics have been pushed to excess, and that there is now a reaction. Among the colleges there appears to be no diminution of the athletic fury, but anion~ the athletic clubs proper, competitive athletics are be- The Hall New York Athletic Club. ing softened into a pursuit of exer- cise, open-air life, and good fellow- team. This particular club has grown ship. The interest in competitive sports out of a football eleven, and had is quite as great as formerly, but no achieved many victories on the grid- longer includes personal competition, iron that had filled its parlors with but is rather confined to a side line banners. I there heard one of these interest in them. older members rouse himself to great The country club feature is the most indignation over the proposition, and pronounced evidence of this change. Water Polo at the New York Athletic Cico. The high-board-fence athletic field has been supplanted by the country house, designed not for its athletic facilities, but for the pleasures of a country life. And indeed the country club feature, when it has been introduced, is a further cause in itself for modifying the excess of athletics. For any ra- tional man would prefer to the monoto- nous pounding of a cinder track in city air and surroundings, the transport- ing of his thoughts and his body to the ameliorating sur- rounding of the country; and the indulgence there in open-air sports, not as a labor or with any purpose save t h e uncon- trollable o n e of naturally u si n g his body, with only such rivalry as demands no ar- duous training yet gives a zest to the game, and can be measured by long glasses afterward. Travers Island is the best known of these country athletic fields. It is one of the rocky, wooded, dromedary-backed formations that are characteristic of the north shore of the Long Island Sound. It was originally an island by the courtesy of the high tide, but a road- way has joined it hard and fast to the shore as a peninsula. It is shoreward of picturesque Glen Island, and between it and Glen Island, and stretching farther away under the shore of Hun- ters Island, is a straight-away course of nearly two miles of as good rowing water as a sweep could dip. 8 On one knoll of the Island sits the club-house, facing the outlet into the Sound, which focusing between Glen Island and the heavily wooded eastern shore of Hunters Island, holds a view of the farther water and the distant shore of Long Island as if one were looking through the lens of a camera. It is the delight of a snmmer s evening to dine upon the club-house piazzas and catch the drifting picture of distant yachts and coasters and snowy Sound steamers. Somewhat farther toward the main- land is a larger knoll, left in its natural state and covered with trees, save where some tennis courts are laid out. Beyond the trees are the boat - house a n d the yachting quar- ters. Between the two knolls lies a level bit of turf as smooth and soft and rich as if it were a cloak of Lincoln green thrown upon the earth, and about it runs the dark border of a cinder track. From the club-house and from the grassy slopes reaching down to the track, a view of the field is given as if one were looking down upon the arena of a nat- ural coliseum; and as one glances at the surrounding hills that give a sense of seclusion to the place and help to concentrate the view upon the field it- self, one could scarcely keep from think- ing, that if the athletic sports of Greece were to be revived, if the somewhat grandiloquent French project to re-es- tablish the ancient athletic games with The New York A. C. at Thaeers Island. The Yacht Club-house. LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS 9 the world as a new Greece They raised their trainers from the po- should succeed, no more sition of rubbers and servants of the harmonious Olympia could club to the position of athletic manag be found. ers, and imposed upon them the duty B u t unfortunately, of having a sufficient number of speedy the palmy days of track legs to run and jump and a sufficient athletics h a v e gone number of muscular backs to throw by. The last annual weights for their clubs, irrespective of championships of the any social requirements of the owners Amateur Athletic of those backs or legs. Union we e held on The consequences most inevitable these very grounds, and although they were given under the auspices of the most power- ful of all the athletic clubs, and although they represented the competition of the whole of the United States, they were attended by only a very meagre audience. The fact is that the American appetite for competition is no longer satisfied with the compara- tively mild contests of the track events. And then again, the athletic clubs them- selves have helped to destroy the inter- est in the ordinary field sports. For many years they made the giving of athletic games the whole purpose of their existence, and finding them pop- ular, they multiplied them to replenish their treasuries. They pursued the idea that the winning of prizes by men wearing their club colors meant pros- perity. They invented a system of The Club-house. athletic memberships, that signified anything that they desired it to mean, were that the athletes of the clubs be- from free initiations, remitted dues, came hired performers, and they were gratuitous board and lodging, to a often kept like a pack of hounds and business situation or cold cash, and taken around by the athletic manager they offered valuable prizes that could to run in one game after another; that quite readily be converted into money. the athletic managers, who were mostly The Olympic A. U. of San Francisco. 10 LIFE AT THE A THLETLC CLUBS illiterate and purely of the professional class, absorbed in themselves practically all of the competitive athletics of the clubs and forced their personalities on the clubs that engaged them; that the Amateur Athletic Union was compelled to make an annual round up of all its members, to brand a goodly number of the ostensible amateurs as profession- als; and finally, that the tone of track athletics became so cheap and so com- mon that the better portion of the club membership held aloof from it. But whatever may be the present status of track athletics, if you havent had too much of them, they are vastly interesting. It is fine to see a quartette of hurd- lers set for the finals, and to watch them break over the low hurdles like the fast curling wave of a fresh-water lake, that tosses itself rapidly along and rushes up the beach as it breaks. It is fine to watch the flat sprinters dart into high movement at the crack of the pistol and fly like leaves before a furi- ous wind, holding together like a liv- ing thing, until a dark, swarthy, sun- burned figure, that has caught your eye from the freedom of his movement, glides out ahead of the rest, every bit of him running, not a false motion anywhere, and you feel that you have seen one of the perfections of physical attributes. And it is fine to follow the full, strong stride of the half-mile and mile run- ners, whose legs rise like pistons and whose prototypes must surely have suggested to the ancients the idea of the winged feet of Mercury, so light- ly do they touch the ground. Perhaps the most exciting of all the track events are the bicycle races, for it is astonish- ing to behold the speed of those meagre skeletons of steel that seem almost like the bones of the wind. Indeed, at the present time ordinary athletic ganmeb will not draw a crowd large enough to pay expenses unless bicycling is made an important part of them. It is interesting in connection with this to pick up the newspaper acconut of the very first games given by the New York Athletic Club, in 1868, at the Empire City Rink, the first games given by any athletic club in this country, for it calls to mind how marvellous has been the development of the wheel since that time. The reporters in those days possessed none of the easy familiarity with sport- ing matters which the craft possesses to-day, and the particular scribe who wrote this story set down with consid- erable na~vet~ what quite filled his eyes. The Cr~n~nt A. 6. of Brooklyn. The Club-house. The Boat-house. Teosis Courts. A Base-ball Game at the Crescent Athletic Club. 12 LIFE AT THE A THLETIC CLUBS At this junc.ture, runs the article, reasonably be expected to become an the velocipede race, which the pro- implement of sport and exercise instead gramme announced as the closing feat- of simply a traditional weapon of inter- ure of the exercise, took place. It proved club competition. nothing more, nor was it intended to be But leaving Track Athletics, I want to more, than an exhibition of the speed to set down a few things about Travers be gained by these wonderful engines of Island and the life there. The best locomotion. The carriage consists of thing about it is the opportunity that but two wheels placed one before the it offers for exercise: a track to run on, other with a treadle apparatus to spin a turf to play ball on, courts to play them on. Without speaking a word tennis on, the water to row about the velocity with which one and sail on, the afternoons can cover ground while riding this on the course or out on machine, the wonder is the Sound, the how one can maintain a swim, the dinner balance on it at on the piazza af- all. Yet this terward, the seems to be no pleasant after- part of the diffi- glow of clean cx- culty in navigat- ercise, a pipe with ing. On the con- the Arcadia trary, every effort mixture to give of the rider seems you a sense of life bent on driving (for that is the se- at a breakneck cret of fire) and speed. The ease The Club-house. to enable you to and celerity with construct a sooth- which this new method of propulsion ing melody from the singing of the was turned around the corners of the frogs in the reeds when the tide is out. building was amazing, and its perform- That these pleasures are appreciated ance was in the highest degree satis- by the members is best illustrated by factory. the fact, that all of the available rooms When one recalls the bone-shakers~ in the club-house are rented for the of that periodas the velocipedes of that whole summer, and that the transient day were calledbuggy wheels with rooms are almost continuously in de- treadles on the leaderand thinks of mand, and sometimes utterly inadequate the contemporary Safety, beating the to accommodate the men who would oc- mile record of the fastest running horse, cupy them. one can well smile at the ingenuous wonder of the reporter at the primi- tive road scorcher he was describing. Despite the present eclipse of track athletics they certainly will not die out of the clubs, for they form the basis for all efforts for physical ex- cellence. And if but the chief Ath- letic Associations should resolutely abolish the giving of prizes of value and the offering of pecuniary induce- ments to contestants, the track might rationally be expected to fill a larger place in the life of the clubs. It would become more interesting to the rank and file of the member- ship, who, under the present condi- tion of affairs would only be duffers if they ventured upon it, and it might The Gymnasium. The Jj~enver A. G~ LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS 13 Travers Island is by no means a country club such as the Westchester, or the Meadow Brook, or the Essex County, where the members patronize the pouter forms of sport and stiffen up their enjoyment of the country with a good bit of style and society. Tray- ers Island is much too democratic. It is laid out primarily for athletics, and everything in it and around it is for use. They havent left any artistic bushes or clumps of sumach-trees where you can look out of bay windows at them, or put up a wall about anything and let ivy grow on it. You do not want to go to Travers Island with the idea that you can take a vol- ume of poems out of the li- brary and calmly enjoy the restfulness of a summers day there. If you sit down on the piazza you will hear the hysterically speedy mel- odeons from Glen Island, or the cries of the beasts in the menagerie. Or, perhaps, a member with some business friends from the West in the dry goods line, will be sit- ting at a table near you with cocktails and small white napkins, and they will be telling stories that are like the atmosphere of the smok- ing compartment in a Pull- man; and they will all laugh so sud- denly and inartistically that you will have to take up your peace of mind and carry it off with you. You cannot go into the house, for the small read- ing-room is next to the billiard-room, and there are sure to be men with brown derby hats and cigars playing billiards there with a proficiency that argues anything but a serious youth; and the sight of a mul- titude of sporting papers with their head-lines exposed will drive you thence. In the hallway there is a hearth, and over it the inscription: Where friends meet hearts warm ; but a log fire un- derneath is no part of the life of the club and there are no easy chairs about. There is cordiality enough, though. In no place do you see more men slap each other on the back, and laugh and call each other by their first names. But it is a bit noisy. The stages wheel up and leave a crowd that come in as if they were going to do something. The club servants are raw, not a shade obse- quious, and seem to think that they are in a hoteL If you wander out to- ward the boat-house you will find every- body in an energy over something. Men with strong backs and brown arms diving off the spring-board, and doing turns that would be a credit to a circus; or a school of swimmers plunging along with the overhand side - stroke that makes them look like some sort of a wheel-fish with a porpoise movement; or perhaps an eight are walking on their toes down the gangway carrying a shell; or if there is a bit of wind, the cat-boats are hoisting their sails. You are supposed to be there for the pur- pose of exercise, and unless you go in The Swimming Seth, Chicago A. (.. 14 LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS for it, you will be apt to leave with a of summer night sounds in the air. A feeling of having been out of sympathy general sense of comfort and tobacco with your surroundings. smoke pervades the audience, and There is no lack of entertainment many of the men who are detained in provided at Travers Island. The sea- town on business are here. It son sets in with the spring regattas, is not exactly so polite an cx- a form of sport that has held on in j hibition as a lawn per- the club with very much the same formance of As You persistency as Track Athletics. Then Like It, but it is vastly come Ladies days when the Island m o r e interesting. In is taken possession of by the be - vaudevilled town of a host ot Omphales. And New York it would be im- family parties come from possible that such an alert the sarrounding country audience should not be quite in rockaways on the invita- even with the very latest tion of members. thing on the boards, and In the early days of the they are not there half so New York Athletic Club it much for the show as they was the custom to scud out are for the fun in it. They notices to the members to are sure to recognize all the bring ladies with them to popular songs, and they ap- the club games, in order propriate the choruses with that athletics might be made as respect- great effect, and take the cigars and able as they were in England. Per- pipes from their mouths to give them a haps nothing illustrates the change of judicious rendering. sentiment in regard to athletic clubs They consider the member of the en- better, than this continual public en- tertainm cut committee who introduces dorsement of the present New York the performers as fair prep, and as he Athletic Club by the present reigning escorts before the footlights a beauti- half of humanity. tul lady in tights with a long purple One of the most interesting features captivator with red lining, who shortly of the summer life is the Vaudevilles will sing a song in a peacocky voice as given on a stage built out on the rocky an apology for her being there, he re- slope in front of the club-house. And ceives a most embarrassing storm of very popular are these variety shows, congratulations, and the audience lets out in the open air under the starlight, itself loose to enjoy its own humor. or with a big yellow moon shining up Its a bit common, perhaps, but its the inlet and with the accompaniment good fun, and it is unique. Again, perhaps the club celebrates its birthday with a clam-bake at which all the queer timber in the mem- bership turns up, and lean men whom nobody knows are on hand and devour great quantities of clams. And as a clam - bake with beer in pitchers is a sort of basic happiness (technically known as an Al-a-ba-zam ), voices begin to sing that have plainly no right to sing, and by the time the green corn appears, the tables are beginning to look half-seas over, a large body of men are persuading themselves that In the Gymnasium Chicago A. C. LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS 15 football, baseball, lacrosse, tennis, and kindred games. Its grounds and coun- try home, which have been in the past practically the whole of the club, are on the Bay Ridge shore, on that part of New York Bay where the shores begin to think of turning in toward the Narrowsthan which there is no more beautiful spot within a thousand miles of New York in that New Utrecht district, from which in the good old days before the advent of the railway bringing vegetables from the South, the farmers used to float their products to before any ofNe~v York by boat a week the market farms in the other sections. So fat and comfortable In the Gymnasium Chicago A. C. a place is it by nature. Here there is a long commodious club - house with a wide piazza sweeping in front of it. they are enjoying themselves, and one A double row of trees gives the house man is attempting to make a speech and an appearance of repose. A green turf is being pulled down whenever he gets rounds down to the water a hundred up. These are times when anyone feet away, and then the superb sight of who loves quiet had better take to the the bay hangs like a marvellous paint- woods. As the middle of night set- ing before you. ties down, and the spirits who own the Thirty minutes sail by the Iron night are again making themselves felt Steamboats brings you from a boiling to the listening ear, the last speech is city to this cool, delightful spot, where only reiterating the first speech, that you are completely secluded on a quiet the New York Athletic is devoted to country road. On that same quiet pure amateur athletics; and the stages shore-road, on which are many quaint that go up the country lane roll away bits of scenery and fine old trees, with the joyous refrain, so popular at carriages only occasionally passand Travers Island to express the feeling of yet you are standing by the side of the having spent a pleasant evening, float- Marine Highway of the world. The ing back from them, ocean-liners stalk out before you in How dry I am, how dry I am, magnificent pro- Nobody knows how dry I am. cession w i t h a steady wave at The Crescent Athletic Club of Brook- thei bows and a lyn is of a somewhat different type. It w h it e smother is a nearer relation to the true coun- behind, and if try club. It grew up about a football the wind be high club organized in 1884 by a few college with their flags graduates, and it has held itself com- like boards. And pletely aloof from track athletics, pur- if you go down suing the idea that the best part of to the roof of the athletics lies in the encouragement of boat - house you 16 LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS can see them coming back, stealing ont of the misty horizon, away down by the Scotland Light, and running up with salty sides to quarantine like great tired hounds. The piazza of the Crescent Club House is more interesting than any club window on Fifth Avenue, and it makes a great part of the life of the club. It is a favorite amusement to drive ladies down to the club for din- ner, and one-half of the piazza in the evening seems as if it were holding a reception. As you look over the stone parapet, at the rest of the balcony, you can see a long line of lighted cigars, like the portholes of a ship in the dark, where the club members are sitting with their feet np on the parapet in sweet comfort. Perhaps it is not the province of an article on athletic clubs to describe the scenery of their country houses, but to give an idea of the club the things which give it value to its members must be described. And if one has stood out on the Crescent Club lawn and watched all the glories of a summer afternoon crowd upon the Staten Island hills, following the con- queror to the gates of night; and then has seen the crimson clouds slowly change to a deep rich purple such as only the combined presence of deep In the Dining-room. water and wooded land can lend, and the outposts of the shadows creeping stealthily across the water and up the hills, following the trail to the summit of them and motioning to the hosts of darkness behind them; and has turned from the darkening bay to meet the biggest of moons that August nights can make, rising over the ridge of Owls Head so near that the first sight of it is companionablehe must feel that some of the influence of an athletic club can fairly claim to be aesthetic. The athletic equipment of the club is not surpassed by that of the New York Athletic Club and indeed it is unequalled in this country for the phase of athletics to which the club is devoted. It has two level fields of turf that cover fully ten acres. On the larger field two diamonds are laid out, and two games of baseball are often played thereon, without any interference from each other. Terraced down from this field is a smaller one given over to ten- nis and lacrosse. A dozen dirt courts are laid out upon it, and there is room besides for fully thirty turf courts. This lower field runs along the shore- road, and just across the road and sit- ting in a harbor formed by breakwaters, is a very attractive and commodious boat-house, with an observation plaza on its roof, and all the shells of two boat-clubs that have been absorbed by the Crescent Club inside. The Chicago A. 6. In the Library. LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS 17 Perhaps the most interesting and characteristic incident of the club life, is the annual baseball tournament con- fined wholly to club members. Over a hundred men take part in it each year. All who desire to play send in their names in the spring, and seven or eight nines are made up, with captains and managers and their colors to designate them. The games are played usually on Saturday afternoons, and they are astonishing good fun. The Crescent Athletic Club field is an interesting show on Saturday afternoon when these ball games are going on. The whole field is as white with outing flannels as a Scotch brae with gowans, and the sharp crack of a home run leaving the bat and the shouts of the players makes the merriest kind of music. On the lower field a lacrosse match may be going on with the oc- casional quick clashing of sticks and the marvellous rapidity of its play. The tennis courts are filled with play- ers unmistakably of the third class, who will be playing tennis long after it has given up all its popularity to golf, and who will be keeping them- selves young by it. And scattered about are enough loafers with no ap- parent object save to enjoy the pleasure of living to rest the eyes. The water on the bay is too rough to permit of any satisfactory shell work, but it is fine sport for gigs and working boats and canoes. Perhaps ten or fif- teen congenial spirits will haul out a war canoe, the Ze-na-diz-e or the Ti-bi- ki-gi-sis and sweep her out into the toss around Fort Lafayette and shoot her into the big ocean waves beyond (if anybody has never been in a war canoe in big water with a pitch to it, he has a new sensation awaiting him). Then when everyone has salt hunger on his tongue, hoist sails on her and sheer down into Gravesend Bay to Stillwellsthat needs but a chronicler to give it a name of fame as a place for shore dinners. This kind of life makes men know each other very well, and there is often much of the aspect of a college campus in the green slope above the water in front of the club-house. On the warm summer evenings, when the town, VOL. XVILJ.2 The Chicago A. C. whose halo of light shows up over Owls Head, is sweltering, the men lie there and sing. There will be scarcely another sound in the air save the soft rush of some excursion steamer slip- ping by like a white castle of lights, and the crowd will often sing there until the Archer has quite chased the Scorpion out of the southern sky. This is good, healthy, honest life. It makes good friends and healthy bodies. And for thirty-six dollars a yearfor that is the amount of the annual dues of the Crescent wClubmany a clerk on a limited salary gets a country home and more fun there and better company than he could buy for half a million of dollars, if he had them. It would be impossible, when foot- ball has become so popular in the col- leges, that the athletic clubs which are so much influenced by them should not take it up. The Crescent Athletic Club was the first to organize a football team, and the influence of the example spread almost immediately. Indeed, at pres L~. _______ V. _________ 18 LIFE AT THE A THLETIC CLUBS ent football is the only competitive sport that awakens any general enthu- siasm among athletic club members. Soon the Denver Athletic Club foot- ball eleven were claiming the cham- pionship of the Rockies, and they were drawing audiences, as some of their own statisticians have said, of twelve to fourteen thousand people. The Chicago Athletic Club stirred up its college men to organize a team that has made a Thanksgiving Day game for the West as much of a feat- ure as the Yale and Princeton contest in the East; and, indeed, I have been informed by a director of the Chicago Athletic Club that the audience at the Chicago Thanksgiving Day game is more distinctively fashionable than at the other. Soon, too, the Boston Ath- letic Club organized a team and began to play with Harvard College, with the natural consequence that the relations between these contestants became some- what strained, for the Boston athletic team showed that prowess which is a distinguishing characteristic of New England athletes and handled Harvard without gloves. But there has never been any league that has been able to hold the athletic clubs together, for a regular competi- tion, for any length of time. The American Football Union, that at one time included the New York Athletic Club, the Manhattan Athletic Club, and the Staten Island Cricket Club, only survives in the annual match be- tween the Crescent and the Orange Athletic Clubs. This is an athletic fixture, however, of considerable mag- nitQde, and one that certainly stirs up great enthusiasm in the following of the two clubs. The game on the Orange Oval, if it shine, brings out all the pleasant life of the Oranges, and drags and traps as far away as Englewood. And if it rain, the men and the girls who keep in touch with the men, coin e out in mac- intoshes; and the girls, like the women on the back rows of the open stands at the last Yale and Princeton game, half- drowned and seeing nothing but open umbrellas before them, perhaps hope that the fad may change. The crowd follows the game in a way that shows that even the youngest boys in knicker- bockers understand how the Crescent left end isnt getting low enough for the interference, or how the Orange fulls is slow in getting away the kicks, and how the umpire is a beast and is giving away the game to the other side. Then when the Orange scores they drawl out in unison that most expres On the Slope at Travers Island. LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS 19 sive and typical of slang words Easy!! Easy!! And when the Crescent Club scores, then its rooters howl as defiantly as if the bleachers across the fields were the walls of Jericho. When the Orange Club wins, as it did last year, the Orangites execute war dances on the boards of the stand, and perhaps press the hand of the girls next to them with unnecessary warmth (as it seems to the Crescent man passing by). And they all go out through the gates with their heads in the air looking for friends at whom to smile, while the members of the team are being hugged in that crazy fashion that is con- sidered de rigueur after football games. The Orange Athletic Club is a fair type of all the sub- urban athletic clubs, and - those of the smaller cities, that are often social clubs, athletic clubs, and family clubs all rolled into one. This social design has been the aim of many of the suburban athletic clubs. In some places the scheme has been eminent- ly successful In the Louisville Ath- letic Club they set forth their mem- bership as composed of so many men, women, and children. In the Staten Island Cricket Club a ladies club- house stands in one corner of the ath- letic field, and all through the summer that corner is giving afternoon teas, and furnishing parties for doubles in tennis, and dropping victims all over the field. Perhaps many of these clubs give each year a grand ball that is the social event of the neighborhood (as does the Orange Athletic Club), or dances galore, for the athletes are much appreciated at suburban routs as stay- ers, but the real life of these clubs is accurately expressed by saying that they are playgrounds for the grown-up boys of the town. There is no essential difference be- tween the athletic clubs of any section of the country. The Olympic Club of San Francisco has a field with roses and gerani- ums the size of rhododen- dron bushes blossoming be- side the running track. The Denver Athletic Club build- ing has a tennis court on its roof that can certainly claim the finest mountain view of any tennis court in the world. But these are incidentals. Philadelphia is the only place that shows any essential idiosyncrasy. Her Cricket Clubs are athletic clubs, and yet there is a gulf fixed between such organizations as the Merion or the Manheim Cricket Clubs, and the Schuyl- kill Navy, or the Bank Clerks Associa- tion. They have time in Philadelphia to play cricket; and I know of no more attractive form of athletic life than that exemplified at Merion; which one might see at its fullest in the match between Lord Hawkess recurring gen- tlemen of England and the gentlemen of Philadelphia. It is shch a life which makes the Philadelphia audience that witnessed that match so fresh and healthful and kindly, that a stranger might wish to pass his days looking at the stands. Indeed the form of it is somewhat aristocratic, and so English that all foreigners, including the de- ductive Conan Doyle, unhesitatingly declare that Philadelphia is the most pleasing of American cities. This life is an evolution from the athletic clubs, howeverand scarcely in touch with their essential democracy. Where the athletic clubs seem most like institutions is in their city club- houses. Perhaps the very best illus- tration of them all is the Chicago Ath- letic Club. The idea came to cer- tain public spirit- ed citizens of Chi- cago, t h a t their city needed an athletic club, just as it came to them later that it needed a public art gal- lery. An inspec- tion was made of all the chief ath 20 LIFE AT THE A THLETIC CLUBS letic clubs in the East, and the result was the edifice on Michigan Avenue, which can fairly claim to be the best equipped of all the athletic club-houses and a composite of them alL It was started, it may be said, with the philan- thropic idea of giving a club home to clerks of moderate means; but when the plans began to show a house that would cost three-quarters of a million dollars, and a fire loaded the Associa- tion with a heavy debt, they dropped philanthropy, and they are now charg- ing one hundred and twenty-five dollars for initiation and sixty-five dollars for annual dues. The house quite covers a plot of ground of eighty by nearly one hun- dred and eighty feet, and ranks among the large structures of the city as an artistic building. To give an idea of it, one could say in the first place that it is the most comfortable hotel in Chicago. Two floors are given up en- tirely to private living-rooms, that are furnished as in the very highest class of caravansaries and kept scrupulous- ly clean, save that if you press your face against the wire screens kept at the windows in summer-time, you will come away with much soot on your nose and forehead. The dining-room on the seventh floor occupies the entire width of the building, and the whole front is built as a window overlooking the milky waters of Lake Michigan, which is Not a bad imitation of the sea, sir. The chef is a former stew- ard of the Pickwick Club of New Or- leans, and the cuisine is so acceptable that five or six hundred men dine there daily throughout the winter. The club is situated near the business heart of the city, and noon lunches in the stalactite room are very popu- lar. So well known is this purely hotel feature of the club, that strangers from out of town who know the ropes get their friends who are members to put them up at the club instead of going to a hoteL It is cheaper and better than the Auditorium, and there are no servants to be feed into politeness. Then as a social club, in its furnishing, and in everything except the homogen- eity of its members, it can claim to stand in the front rank with any of the clubs. Its distinctively social rooms occupy the entire floor-space of the second story of the building. The front hail is the club parlor, and the rear hall is a combined caf6 and billiard-room in which there are twenty-one tables. I know of no room that gives just the impression of the club parlor in the appearance of its wood carving, except the chamber of the House of Lords at Westmin- ster. It is furnished in oak, carved and designed in Gothic lines. Oak col- umns run up to the ceiling, and about their bases are fashioned artistic set- tles. There are four huge fireplaces in the room, one. of which, the largest, with a panelled carving of football players over it, could only have been meant for the burning of the logs of a red-wood tree. The billiard-room, that is in reality but a continuation of the club parlor, is furnished entirely in a dark polished mahogany, and ~he whole aspect of the room is so rich, yet de- corous and chaste, that one would hesi- tate to take off his coat when a game of pool should become too warm. Then in its athletic facilities it is hard to suggest where any more might be added. On the top of the building are two racket courts, whence the snappy crack of the marble-like rack- et balls comes to your ears as you are nearing the floor in the elevator. And there is a tennis court, and hand- ball courts, all duly provided with a professor and obliging markers. The gymnasium, with its accompanying rooms for boxing and fencing, occupies the entire floor-space of two stories, and is an interesting exhibition of the in- genious contrivances that can be made for making a man exercise the different muscles of his body. It was a carte- blanche production, and it would need a man with an interpreter to know what to do with half the things he sees. On the story below the gymnasium there are dressing-rooms and showers enough for a regiment. And farther down on the ground floor is an equip- ment in the way of Turkish baths and swimming-pool, which shows that the builders of the club recognized the power of dirt in their city and desired to make cleanliness attractive. It is impossible to over-praise the Cricket at the Staten Island Cricket Club 22 LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS richness and completeness of the ap- businessas in the New York Athletic pointments of the Chicago Athletic Clubor to ostensible amateurs, who Club, from the elaborate wood carving spar for prizes of watches or jewelry, of the club-rooms and the lavishness of as in the Cbicago Athletic Club. To oak and mahogany, down indicate how they are appreciated to the wonderful glass it is only necessary to say that, barber - shop of a thou- in the New York Atbleti~ sand reflections. T h e Club, if a member wishes to Boston, Providence, Dc- bring a friend with him it troit, Denver, and New will be necessary for him York Athletic Clubs to purchase a ticket, have all fine city club- costing five dollars, and houses, but the Chicago these tickets are strictly Club easily leads them limited in number. all. The equipment of In the Chicago Ath- them all varies, but the letic Club it is not un- life of the clubs is essen- usual for six or tially the samevaude- seven hundred villes, concerts, smokers, men to gather indoor athletic gaInes, on the boxing whist tournaments, gym- nights, and there nastic exhibitions, wrest- is something hug and water-polo, box- quite artistic in ing contests, theatricals the sight. An and amateur circuses ostensible all these are the activ- The Club-house. sixteen-foot ring is built ities of the athletic clubs up from the gymnasium from Portland, Ore., to Portland, Me. floor, and roped in approved style. The In one place, one form of entertain- seats are built about the ring as in an ment finds greater acceptance, from the amphitheatre, running back and up- character ofthe membership; in another ward so that the men in the upper a totally different form. In Boston so rows look down upon the ring with popular are the Sunday afternoon phil- their elbows on their knees. Above the harmonic concerts, that they may be ring is a shaded drop-lightthat floods said to be characteristic of the club, it, and throws the light out beyond into while in the Chicago and New York the faces of a characteristic audience, Athletic Clubs the boxing contests are that banks up from the ring until it always crowded. gets beyond the circle of the light and These boxing contests are a very in- reaches close to the ceilingfifty or teresting illustration of the life of the sixty feet away from the ropes. There clubs. They are purely spectacles is an appreciable expectation in the not participated in by the members of crowd, and they regard with a critical the clubs, but given up wholly to pro- eye the boys, as they are technically fessionals, who fight for money as a called, as they step through the ropes and take their seats in the corners, and are followed by a couple of trainers. Why this should be interesting I can- not say, except to admit frankly that no civilization can ever destroy the Anglo-Saxon love for a good fight. It is hard to admit that one likes to see two men punch each others heads for fair; but still the fact remains that, be- cause they are going to do so presently, deeply interests this typical crowd of the best class of city men. The Running Track. But tbere is not anything brutal about Tlse Boston A. U. LIFE AT THE ATHLETIC CLUBS 23 it. It is a busi- ness with the yo u n g fellows, who sit there, with naked backs, and clean, white, hard flesh, a n d easy muscles, who are being rubbed and fanned, and wbo are having their tongues scraped with a strigil and pressed with lem- ons. There is nothing ugly about them. They come up to each other smiling, and sometimes take each others hands in both their own to show they feel no ill-will. The referee is usually a broker who has had an extensive knowledge of scraps and a copy of the only picture of the Tipton Slasher in existence. It is really a delicious thing to see the sporty sway to his legs as be fol- lows the fights around the ring, and sees that they punch each other hard enough and yet do not get into a regular milL When you have seen it all, and even, perhaps, one of the contestants a bit groggy at the end, you havent seen anything immoral or bador brutal. You have only been seeing part of the life that is explained by the word Ath- letic. You have only been interested The Racket Court, Boston A. C. in those things that make for physical superiority, the power of which shall never cease to be admired. The Gymnasium Boston A. C. UPON my mantelpiece they stand, While all its length between them lies; He throws a kiss with graceful hand, She glances back with bashful eyes. The china Shepherdess is fair, The Shepherds face denotes a heart Burning with ardor and despair. Alas, they stand so far apart! And yet, perhaps, if they were moved, And stood together day by day, Their love had not so constant proved, Nor would they still have smiled so gay. His hand the Shepherd might have kissed The match-box Angels heart to win; The Shepherdess, his love have missed, And flirted with the Mandarin. But on my mantelpiece they stand, While all its length between them lies; He throws a kiss with graceful hand, She glances back with bashful eyes. By Mildred Howells

UPON my mantelpiece they stand, While all its length between them lies; He throws a kiss with graceful hand, She glances back with bashful eyes. The china Shepherdess is fair, The Shepherds face denotes a heart Burning with ardor and despair. Alas, they stand so far apart! And yet, perhaps, if they were moved, And stood together day by day, Their love had not so constant proved, Nor would they still have smiled so gay. His hand the Shepherd might have kissed The match-box Angels heart to win; The Shepherdess, his love have missed, And flirted with the Mandarin. But on my mantelpiece they stand, While all its length between them lies; He throws a kiss with graceful hand, She glances back with bashful eyes. By Mildred Howells THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL* BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD SCENE V. So the husband and wife were left to- gether in the cottage room. The door had no sooner closed on Saunders and his companions than Isaac was seized with that strange sense of walking amid things unreal upon a wavering earth which is apt to beset the man who has any portion of the dreamers tempera- ment, under any sudden rush of cir- cumstance. He drew his hand across his brow, bewildered. The fire leapt and chattered in the grate; the newly washed tea-things on the table shone under the lamp; the cat lay curled, as usual, on the chair where he sat after supper to read his Christian World; yet all things were not the same. What had changed? Then across poor Johns rifled box he saw his wife sitting rigid on the chair where he had left her. He came and sat down at the corner of the table, close to her, his chin on his hand. Ow did yer spend it? he said, startled, as the words came out, by his own voice, so grinding and ugly was the note of it. Her miserable eyes travelled over his face, seeking, as it were, for some promise, however faint, of future help and succor, however distant. Apparently she saw none, for her own look flamed to fresh defiance. I didnt spend it. Saunders wor lyin. Ow did yer get them half- crowns? I got em at Bedford. Mr. Grim- stone give em me. Isaac looked at her hard, his shame burning into his heart. This was how she had got her money for the gin. Of course, she had lied to him the night before, in her account of her fall and of that mark on her forehead, which still showed, a red disfigure- ment, under the hair she had drawn across it. The sight of it, of her, be- gan to excite in him a quick loathing. He was at bottom a man of violent passions, and in the presence of evil- doing so flagrant, so cruelof a house- hold ruin so complete his religion failed him. When was it as yer opened that box fust? he asked her again, scorn- ing her denials. She burst into a rage of tears, lift- ing her apron to her eyes, and flinging names at him that he scarcely heard. There was a little cold tea in a cup close to him that Bessie had forgotten. He stretched out his hand, and took a mouthful, moistening his dry lips and throat. Yerll go to prison for this, he said, jerking it out as he put the cup down. He saw her shiver. Her nerve was failing her. The convulsive sobs con- tinued, but she ceased to abuse him. He wondered when he should be able to get it out of her. He himself could no more have wept than iron and fire weep. Are yer goin to tell me when yer took that money, and ow yer spent it? Cos, if yer dont, I shall go to Wat- son. Even in her abasement it struck her as shameful, unnatural, that he, her husband, should say this. Her remorse returned upon her heart, like a tide driven back. She answered him not a word. He put his silver watch on the table. Ill give yer two minutes, he said. There was silence in the cottage ex- cept for the choking, hysterical sounds she could not master. Then he took up his hat again, and went out into the snow, which was by now falling fast. She remained helpless and sobbing, unconscious of the passage of time, * Copyright. 1895, by Mrs. Humphry Ward. VOL. XVIII.4

THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL* BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD SCENE V. So the husband and wife were left to- gether in the cottage room. The door had no sooner closed on Saunders and his companions than Isaac was seized with that strange sense of walking amid things unreal upon a wavering earth which is apt to beset the man who has any portion of the dreamers tempera- ment, under any sudden rush of cir- cumstance. He drew his hand across his brow, bewildered. The fire leapt and chattered in the grate; the newly washed tea-things on the table shone under the lamp; the cat lay curled, as usual, on the chair where he sat after supper to read his Christian World; yet all things were not the same. What had changed? Then across poor Johns rifled box he saw his wife sitting rigid on the chair where he had left her. He came and sat down at the corner of the table, close to her, his chin on his hand. Ow did yer spend it? he said, startled, as the words came out, by his own voice, so grinding and ugly was the note of it. Her miserable eyes travelled over his face, seeking, as it were, for some promise, however faint, of future help and succor, however distant. Apparently she saw none, for her own look flamed to fresh defiance. I didnt spend it. Saunders wor lyin. Ow did yer get them half- crowns? I got em at Bedford. Mr. Grim- stone give em me. Isaac looked at her hard, his shame burning into his heart. This was how she had got her money for the gin. Of course, she had lied to him the night before, in her account of her fall and of that mark on her forehead, which still showed, a red disfigure- ment, under the hair she had drawn across it. The sight of it, of her, be- gan to excite in him a quick loathing. He was at bottom a man of violent passions, and in the presence of evil- doing so flagrant, so cruelof a house- hold ruin so complete his religion failed him. When was it as yer opened that box fust? he asked her again, scorn- ing her denials. She burst into a rage of tears, lift- ing her apron to her eyes, and flinging names at him that he scarcely heard. There was a little cold tea in a cup close to him that Bessie had forgotten. He stretched out his hand, and took a mouthful, moistening his dry lips and throat. Yerll go to prison for this, he said, jerking it out as he put the cup down. He saw her shiver. Her nerve was failing her. The convulsive sobs con- tinued, but she ceased to abuse him. He wondered when he should be able to get it out of her. He himself could no more have wept than iron and fire weep. Are yer goin to tell me when yer took that money, and ow yer spent it? Cos, if yer dont, I shall go to Wat- son. Even in her abasement it struck her as shameful, unnatural, that he, her husband, should say this. Her remorse returned upon her heart, like a tide driven back. She answered him not a word. He put his silver watch on the table. Ill give yer two minutes, he said. There was silence in the cottage ex- cept for the choking, hysterical sounds she could not master. Then he took up his hat again, and went out into the snow, which was by now falling fast. She remained helpless and sobbing, unconscious of the passage of time, * Copyright. 1895, by Mrs. Humphry Ward. VOL. XVIII.4 26 THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL one hand playing incessantly with a childs comforter that lay beside Iher on the table, the other wiping away the crowding tears. But her mind worked feverishly all the time, and gradually she fought herself free of this weeping, which clutched her against her will. Isaac was away for an hour. When he came back, he closed the door care- fully, and, walking to the table, threw down his hat upon it. His face under its ruddy brown had suffered some radical disintegrating change. Theyve traced yer, he said, hoarse- ly; theyve got it up to twenty-six pound, an more. Most on it ere in Clintonsome on it, Muster Miles o Frampton ull swear to. Watson ull go over to Frampton, for the warrant to-morrer. The news shook her from head to foot. She stared at him wildly speechless. But thats not arf, he went on not near arf. Do yer ear? What did yer do with the rest? Ill not an- swer for keepin my ands off yer if yer wont tell. In his trance of rage and agony he was incapable of pity. He had small need to threaten her with blows every word stabbed. But her turn had come to strike back. She raised her head; she meas- ured her news against his; and she did it with a kind of exultation. Then I will tell yeran I ope it ull do yer good. I took thirty-one pound o Bolderfields money then but it warnt me took the rest. Some- one else tuk it, an I stood by an saw im. When I tried to stop imlook ere. She raised her hand, nodding, and pointing to the wound on her brow. Isaac leant heavily on the table. A horrible suspicion swept through him. Had she wronged him in a yet blacker way? He bent over her, breathing fastready to strike. Who was it? She laughed. Well, it wor Timothy then yur precious beautiful son Timothy! He fell back. Yore lyin, he cried; yer want to throw it off on someone. How cud Timothy ave ad anythin to do with Johns money? Timothys not been near the place this three months. Not till lasst night, she said, mock- ing him. Ill grant yernot till lasst night. But it do appen, as lasst night Timothy took forty-one pound o John Borrofuls money out o that box, an got offclean. Im sorry if yer dont like itbut I cant elp that; yo listen ere. And lifting a quivering finger she told her tale at last, all the beginning of it confused and almost unintelligible, but the scene with Timothy vivid, swift, convincinga direct impression from the ugly immediate fact. He listened, his face lying on his arms. It was true; all true. She might have taken more and Timothy less; no doubt she was making it out as bad as she could for Timothy. But it lay between themhis wife and his sonit lay between them. An I eard yer coming, she ended; an I thought Id tell yeran I wor frightened about the arf-crownspeo- ple ad been talkin so at Dawsonsan I didnt see no way outan~an~ She ceased, her hand plucking again at the comforter, her throat working. He, too, thought of the loving words he had said to her, and the memory of them only made his misery the more fierce. An there aint no way out, he said violently, raising his head. Yerll be took before the magistrates next week, an the assizes ull be in February, an yerll get six monthsif yer dont get more. She got up from her chair as though physically goaded by the words. Ill not go to jail, she said, under her breath. Ill not A sound of scorn broke from Isaac. You should ha thought o that, he said. Yo should ha thought o that. An what youve been sayin about Tim- othy dont make it a aporth the better not for you! Yo led im into it too if it adnt been for yo, eed never ha seen the cursed stuff. Yove dragged im down worse nor ee wereany yer- selfan the childeran me. An the drink, an the lyin !it turns a mans stomach to think on it. All Ive been THE STORY OF BESSIE COS TRELL 27 livin with yerthese twelve years. I wish to the Lord Id never seen yer as the children ud never been born! Theyll be known all their life now as avin ad sich a woman for their mother! A demon of passion possessed him more and more. He looked at her with murderous eyes, his hand on the table working. For his world, too, lay in ruins about him. Through many hard-working and virtuous years he had counted among the righteous men of the villagethe men whom the Almighty must needs reckon to the good whenever the score of Clinton Magna had to be made np. And this pre-eminence had come to be part of the habitual furniture of life and thought. To be suddenly stripped of itto be, not only disgraced by his wife, to be thrust down himself among the low and sinful herdthis thought made another man of him; made him wicked, as it were, perforce. For who that heard the story would ever believe that he was not the partner of her crime? Had he not eaten and drunk of it; were not he and his children now clothed by it? Bessie did not answer him nor look at him. At any other moment she would have been afraid of him; now she feared nothing but the image in her own mindherself led along the village street, enclosed in that hateful building, cut off from all pleasure, all free moving and willingalone and de- spisedher children taken from her. Suddenly she walked into the back kitchen and opened the door leading to the garden. Outside everything lay swathed in white, and a snow-storm was drifting over the deep cup of land which held the village. A dull, melancholy moon- light seemed to be somewhere behind the snow-curtain, for the muffled shapes of the houses below and the long sweep of the hill were visible through the dark, and the objects in the little gar- den itself were almost distinct. There, in the centre, rose the round stohe edg- ing of the well, the copious well, sunk deep into the chalk, for which Bessie s neighbors envied her, whence her good nature let them draw freely at any time of drought. On either side of it the gnarled stems of old fruit-trees and the bare sticks of winter kale made black scratches and blots upon the white. Bessie looked out, leaning against the doorway, and heedless of the wind that drove upon her. Down below there was a light in Watsons cottage, and a few lights from the main street beyond pierced the darkness. The Spotted Deer must be at that moment full of people, all talking of her and Isaac. Her eye came hastily back to the snow- shrouded well and dwelt upon it. Shut that door! Isaac commanded from inside. She obeyed, and came back into the kitchen. There she moved rest- lessly about a minute or two, followed by his frowning lookthe look, not of a husband, but of an enemy. Then a sudden animal yearning for rest and warmth seized her. She opened the door by the hearth abruptly and went up, longing simply to lie down and cover herself from the cold. But, after all, she turned aside to the children, and sat there for some time at the foot of the little boys bed. The children, especially Arthur, had been restless for long, kept awake and trem- bling by the strange sounds outside their door and the loud voices down- stairs; but, with the deep silence that had suddenly fallen on the house after Isaac had gone away to seek his inter- view with Watson, sleep had come to them, and even Arthur, on whose thin checks the smears left by crying were still visible, was quite unconscious of his mother. She looked at them from time to time, by the light of a bit of a candle she had placed on a box beside her; but she did not kiss them, and her eyes had no tears. From time to time she looked quickly round her, as though startled by a sound, a breathing. Presently, shivering with cold, she went into her own room. There, mechan- ically, she took off her outer dress, as though to go to bed; but when she had done so her hands fell by her side; she stood motionless till, suddenly wrapping an old shawl round her, she took up her candle and went downstairs again. As she pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs, she saw Isaac, where 28 THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL she had left him, sitting on his chair, bent forward, his hands dropping be- tween his knees, his gaze fixed on a bit of dying fire in the grate. Isaac! He looked up with the unwillingness of one who hates the sound he hears, and saw her standing on the lowest step. Her black hair had fallen upon her shoulders, her quick breath shook the shawl she held about her, and the light in her hand showed the anguished brightness of the eyes. Isaac, are yer comm up? The question maddened him. He turned to look at her more fixedly. Comm up? noa, Im not comm up so now yer know. Take ycrself off, an be quick. She trembled. Are yer goin to sleep down crc, Isaac? or wherever I likes: its no concern o yourn. Im no usband o yourn from this day forth. Take your- seJf off, I say IIll ave no thief for my But instead of going she stepped down into the kitchen. His words had broken her down; she was crying again. Isaac, Id ha put it back, she said, imploring. I wor goin in to Bedford to see Mr. Grimstoneeed ha managed it for inc. Id a worked extraI could ha done itif it adnt been for Timothy. If youll cipan youd oughter, for yer are my usband, whativer yer may say we could pay John backsome day. You can go to im, an to Watson, an say as well pay it backyo could, Isaac. I can take ter the plattin again, an I can go an work for Mrs. Drewshe asked me again lasst week. Mary Anne ull see to the childer. You go to John, Isaac, to-morreran anto Watson. All they wants is the money back. Yer couldntyer couldntsee inc took to prison, Isaac. She gasped for breath, wiping the mist from her eyes with the edge of her shawL But all that she said only maddened the mans harsh and pessimist nature the more. The futility of her proposals, of her daring to think, after his fiat and the laws had gone forth, that there was any way out of what she had done, for hcr or for him, drove him to frenzy. And his wretched son was far away; so he must vent the frenzy on her. The melancholia, which religion had more or less restrained and comforted during a troubled lifetime, became, on this tragic night a wild-beast impulse that must have its prey. He rose suddenly and came toward her, his cycs glaring, and a burst of in- vective on his white lips. Then he madc a rush for a heavy stick that leant against the walL She fled from him, reached her bed- room in safety, and bolted the door. She heard him give a groan on the stairs, throw away the stick, and de- scend again. Then for nearly two hours thcre was absolute stillness once more in this miserable house. Bessic had sunk, half fainting, on a chair by the bed, and lay there, her head lying against the pillow. But in a very short time the blessed numbness was gone, and consciousness became once more a torture, the medi- um of terrors not to be borne. Isaac hated hershe would be taken from her childrenshe felt Watsons grip upon her arm she saw the jeering faces at the village doors. At times a wave of sheer bewilder- ment swept across her. How had it come about that she was sitting there like this? Only two days bc~~re she had been everybodys friend. Life had been perpetually gay and exciting. She had had qualms indeed, moments of a quick anguish, before the scene in the Spotted Deer. But there had been always some thought to protect her from herself. John was not com- ing back for a long, long time. She would replace the money of course she would! And she would not take any moreor only a very little. Mean- while the hours floated by, dressed in a color and variety they had never yet possessed for herchargcd with all the delights of wealth, as such a human being under such conditions is able to conceive them. Her nature, indeed, had never gauged its own capacities for pleasure till with- in the last few months. Excitement, amusement, societyshe had grown to THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL 29 them; they had evoked in her a richer and fuller life, expanded and quickened all the currents of her blood. As she sat shivering in the darkness and soli- tude, she thought, with a sick longing, of the hours in the public-housethe lights, the talk, the warmth within and without. The drink-thirst was upon her at this moment. It had driven her down to the village that afternoon at the moment of Johns arrivaL But she had no money. She had not dared to unlock the cupboard again, and she could only wander up and down the bit of dark road beyond the Spotted Deer,~~ suffering and craving. Well, it was all doneall done! She had come up without her candle, and the only light in the room was a cold glimmer from the snow outside. But she must find a light, for she must write a letter. By much groping she found some matches, and then lit one after another while she searched in her untidy drawers for an ink-bottle and a pen she knew must be there. She found them, and with infinite difficulty holding match after match in her left handshe scrawled a few blotted lines on a torn piece of paper. She was a poor scholar, and the toil was great. When it was done, she propped the paper up against the looking-glass. Then she felt for her dress, and de- liberately put it on again, in the dark, though her hands were so numb with cold that she could scarcely hook the fastenings. Her teeth chattered as she threw her old shawl round her. Stooping down she took off her boots, and pushing the bolt of her own door back as noiselessly as possible, she crept down the stairs. As she neared the lower door, the sound of two or three loud breathings caught her ear. Her heart contracted with an awful sense of loneliness. Her husband slept her children sleptwhile she Then the wave of a strange, a just passion mounted within her. She stepped into the kitchen, and walking up to her husbands chair, she stood still a moment looking at him. The lamp was dying away, but she could still see him plainly. She held herself steadily erect; a frown was on her brow, a flame in her eyes. Well, good-by, Isaac, she said, in a low but firm voice. Then she walked to the backdoor and opened it, taking no heed of noise; the latch fell heavily, the hinges creaked. Isaac! she cried, her tones loud and ringing, Isaac! There was a sudden sound in the kitchen. She slipped through the door, and ran along the snow-covered garden. Isaac, roused by her call from the deep trance of exhaustion which only a few minutes before had fallen upon his misery, stood up, felt the blast rushing in through the open door at the back, and ran blindly. The door had swung to again. He clutched it open; in the dim weird light, he saw a dark figure stoop over the well; he heard something flung aside, which fell upon the snow with a thud; then the figure sprang upon the coping of the welL He ran with all his speed, his face beaten by the wind and sleet. But he was too late. A sharp cry pierced the night. As he reached the well and hung over it, he heard, or thought he heard, a groan, a beating of the water then no more. Isaacs shouts for help attracted the notice of a neighbor who was sitting up with her daughter and a new-born child. She roused her son-in-law and his boy, and through them a score of others, deep night though it was. Watson was among the first of those who gathered round the welL He and others lowered Isaac with ropes into its icy depths, aid drew him up again, while the snow beat upon them allthe straining menthe two dripping shapes emerging from the earth. A murmur of horror greeted the first sight of that marred face on Isaacs arm, as the lan- terns fell upon it. For there wa~ a gash above the eye, caused by a projec- tion in the hard chalk side of the well, which of itself spoke death. Isaac carried her in, and laid her down before the still glowing hearth. A shudder ran through him as he knelt, bending over her. The new wound had effaced all the traces of Timothys blow. How long was it since she had stood there before him pointing to it? 30 THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL The features were already rigid. No one felt the smallest hope. Yet with that futile tenderness all can show to the dead, everything was tried. Mary Anne Waller camewhite and speech- lessand her deft gentle hands did whatever the village doctor told her. And there were many other women, too, who did their best. Some of them, had Bessie dared to live, would have helped with all their might to 1111 her cup of punishment to the brim. Now that she had thrown herself on death as her only friend, they were dissolved in pity. Everything failed. Bessie had meant to die, and she had not missed her aim. There came a moment when the doctor, laying his ear for the last time to her cold breast, raised himself to bid the useless effort cease. Send them all away, he said to the little widow, and you stay. Watson helped to clear the room, then he and Isaac carried the dead woman upstairs. An old man followed them, a bent and broken being, who dragged himself up the steps with his stick. Watson, out of compassion, came back to help him. Johnyerd better go home, an to yer bedyer cant do no good. Ill wait for Mary Anne, said John, in a shaking whisper Ill wait for Mary Anne. And he stood at the doorway leaning on his stick; his weak and reddened eyes fixed on his cousin, his mouth open feebly. But Mary Anne, weeping, beckoned to another woman who had come up with the little procession, and they be- gan their last offices. Let us go, said the doctor, kindly, his hand on Isaacs shoulder, till they have done. At that moment Watson, throwing a last professional glance round the room, perceived the piece of torn paper propped against the glass. Ah! there was the letter. There was always a letter. He walked forward, glanced at it, and handed it to Isaac. Isaac drew his hand across his brow in bewilder- ment, then seemed to recognize the handwriting, and thrust it into his pocket without a word. Watson touched his arm. Dont you destroy it, he said in warning; itll be asked for at the inquest. The men descended. Watson and the doctor departed. John and Isaac were left alone in the kitchen. Isaac hung over the fire, which had been piled up in the hope of restoring warmth to the drowned woman. Suddenly he took out the letter, and, bending his head to the blaze, began to read it. Isaac, yer a cruel husband to me, an theres no way fer me but the way Im goin. I didnt mean no arm, not at first, but there, wots the good of talkin. I cant bear the way as you speaks to me an looks at me, an Ill never go to prisonno, never. Its orfulfer the children ull ave no moth- er, an I dont know however Arthur ull manage. But yer woodcut show me no mercy, an I cant think of anythin dif- ferent. I did love yer an the childer, but the drink got holt of me. Yer inns see as Arthur is rapped up, an Edies eyes ull ave to be seen to now an agen. Im sorry, but theres nothin else. I wud like yer to kiss me oust, when they bring me in, and jes say, Bessie, I for- give yer. It wont do yer no arm, an praps I may ear it without your know- in. So good-by, Isaac, from yur lovin wife, Bessie. . . As he read it the mans fixed pallor and iron calm gave way. He leaned against the mantelpiece, shaken at last with the sobs of a human and a help- less remorse. John, from his seat on the settle a few yards away, looked at Isaac miser- ably. His lips opened now and then as though to speak, then closed again. His brain could form no distinct image. He was encompassed by a general sense of desolation, springing from the loss of his money, which was pierced every now and then by a strange sense of guilt. It seemed to have something to do with Bessie, this last, though what lie could not have told. So they sat, till Mary Annes voice called Isaac from the top of the stairs. Isaac stood up, drew one deep breath, controlled himself, and went, John fol- lowing. Mary Anne held the bedroom door open for them, and the two men en- tered, treading softly. THE STORY OF BESSIE COSTRELL 31 The women stood on either hand cry- ing. They had clothed the dead in white and crossed her hands upon her breast. A linen covering had been passed, nun-like, round the head and chin. The wound was hidden, and the face lay framed in an oval of pure white, which gave it a strange severity. Isaac bent over her. Was this Bessie Bessie, the human, faulty, chattering creaturewhom he, her natural master, had been free to scold or caress at will? At bottom he had always been con- scious in regard to her of a silent but immeasurable superiority, whether as mere man to mere woman, or as the Christian to the sinner. Nowhe dared scarcely touch her. As she lay in this new-found dignity, the proud peace of her look intimi- dated, accused himwould always ac- cuse him till he too rested as she rested now, clad for the end. Yet she had bade him kiss herand he obeyed her groaning within himself, incapable altogether, out of sheer abasement, of saying those words she had asked of him. Then he sat down beside her, motion- less. John tried once or twice to speak to him, but Isaac shook his head impa- tiently. At last the mere presence of Bolderfield in the room seemed to an- ger him. He threw the old man such dark and restless looks that Mary Anne perceived them, and, with instinctive understanding, persuaded John to go. She, however, must needs go with him, and she went. The other woman stayed. Every now and then she looked furtively at Isaac. If some one dont look arter im, she said to herself, eell go as his fa- ther and his brothers went afore him. Ees got the look on it awready. When- iver its light Ill go fetch Muster Drew. opened it and stood on the threshold looking out. The storm of the night was over, and already a milder breeze was beginning to melt the newly fallen snow. The sun was striking cheerfully from the hill behind him upon the glistening surfaces of the distant fields; the old laborer felt a hint of spring in the air. It brought with it a hundred vague as- sociations, and filled him with a bound- less despair. What would become of him nowpenniless and old and feeble? The horror of Bessies death no longer stood between him and his own pain, and would soon even cease to protect her from his hatred. - Mary Anne came back along the lane, carrying a jug and a loaf. Her little face was all blanched and drawn with weariness; yet when she saw him her look kindled. She ran up to him. What did yer come down for, John? Id ha taken yer yer breakfast in yer bed. He looked at her, then at the food. His eyes filled with tears. I cant pay yer for it, he said, pointing with his stick; I cant pay yer for it. Mary Anne led him in, scolding and coaxing him with her gentle, trembling voice. She made him sit down while she blew up the fire; she fed and tend- ed him. When she had forced him to eat something, she came behind him and laid her hand on his shoulder. John, she said, clearing her throat, John, yer shant want while Im liv- in. I promised Eliza I wouldnt for- get yer, and I wont. I can work yet theres plenty o people want me to. work for eman maybe, when yer get over this, youll work a bit, too, now and again. Well hold together, John anyways. While I live and keep my elth yer shant want. An yerll for- With the first rays of the morning give Bessie she broke into sudden Bolderfield got up from the bed in sobbing. Oh! Ill never ear a crule Mary Annes cottage, where she had word about Bessie in my ouse, never! placed him a couple of hours before, John put his arms on the table and imploring him to lie still and rest him- hid his face upon them. He could not self. He slipped on his coat, the only speak of forgiveness, nor could he thank garment he had taken off, and taking her for her promise. His chief feeling his stick he crept down to the cottage was an intense wish to sleep; but as door. Mary Anne, who had gone out to Mary Anne dried her tears and began fetch some bread, had left it ajar. He to go about her household work, the 32 AMERICAN WOOD-ENGRAVERS--ELBRIDGE KINGSLEY sound of her step, the sense of her lov- ing presence near him, began for the first time to relax the aching grip upon his heart. He had always been weak and dependent, in spite of his thrift and his money. He would be far more weak and dependent now and hence- forward. But again, he had found a womans tenderness to lean upon, and as she ministered to himthis humble, shrinking creature he had once so cor- dially despisedthe first drop of balm fell upon his sore. Meanwhile, in another cottage a few yards away, Mr. Drew was wrestling with Isaac. In his own opinion he met with small success. The man who had refused his wife mercy, shrank with a kind of horror from talking of the Divine mercy. Isaac Costrells was a strange and groping soul. But those misjudged him who called him a hypocrite. Yet, in truth, during the years that followed, whenever he was not under the influence of recurrent attacks of melancholia, Isaac did again derive much comfort from the aspirations and self-abasements of religion. No human life would be possible if there were not forces in and round man perpetually tending to repair the wounds and breaches that he himself makes. Mis- ery provokes pity; despair throws it- self on a Divine tenderness. And for those who have the grace of faith, in the broken and imperfect action of these healing powers upon this various worldin the love of the merciful for the unhappy, in the tremulous yet un- dying hope that pierces even sin and remorse with the vision of some ulti- mate salvation from the self that breeds them in these powers there speaks the only voice which can make us pa- tient under the tragedies of human fate, whether these tragedies be the falls of princes, or such meaner, nar- rower pains as brought poor Bessie Costrell to her end. THE END. AMERICAN WOOD-ENGRAVE RSELB RIDGE KINGSLEY * IT is as an interpreter of Nature that Elbridge Kingsley is best known. His reproductions of paintings by famous landscape artistsCorot, Diaz, Daubigny, Inness, and Tryonand his original blocks, either from his own studies or directly in the wood, are per- meated through and through with a sympathy and poetry only possible to one who knows and loves Nature. His boyhood was passed upon a farm near Hadley, Mass., in the heart of a beautiful and varied country, and his early acquired fondness for the free- dom of the woods and fields has led him back in his maturity to make his home amid the scenes that gave him his first artistic inspiration. From the age of sixteen until manhood, when he came to New York with the ambition to study art, he worked in the office With a portrait and two original wood-engravings. of a small country newspaper. Ar- rived in the city, his first object was to enter the evening classes of the Cooper Union Art Schools, after which he found a practical means of defray- ing expenses as a compositor on The Tribune. An opportunity presenting to take up the more congenial study of wood-engraving, he began it with the enthusiasm that has characterized all of his work. After a few years of city life he returned to the freedom of his loved country, where his spare time was spent in wandering through the woods, sketch-book in hand, ready to make note of any scene that might ap- peal to his passing mood. A reading of Mr. Hamertons Painters Camp, and a long-cherished wish to live and be in touch with Nature, to work with- in her charmed circle, to be at hand in all her changing moods from dawn to night, and in sun and storm, suggested

32 AMERICAN WOOD-ENGRAVERS--ELBRIDGE KINGSLEY sound of her step, the sense of her lov- ing presence near him, began for the first time to relax the aching grip upon his heart. He had always been weak and dependent, in spite of his thrift and his money. He would be far more weak and dependent now and hence- forward. But again, he had found a womans tenderness to lean upon, and as she ministered to himthis humble, shrinking creature he had once so cor- dially despisedthe first drop of balm fell upon his sore. Meanwhile, in another cottage a few yards away, Mr. Drew was wrestling with Isaac. In his own opinion he met with small success. The man who had refused his wife mercy, shrank with a kind of horror from talking of the Divine mercy. Isaac Costrells was a strange and groping soul. But those misjudged him who called him a hypocrite. Yet, in truth, during the years that followed, whenever he was not under the influence of recurrent attacks of melancholia, Isaac did again derive much comfort from the aspirations and self-abasements of religion. No human life would be possible if there were not forces in and round man perpetually tending to repair the wounds and breaches that he himself makes. Mis- ery provokes pity; despair throws it- self on a Divine tenderness. And for those who have the grace of faith, in the broken and imperfect action of these healing powers upon this various worldin the love of the merciful for the unhappy, in the tremulous yet un- dying hope that pierces even sin and remorse with the vision of some ulti- mate salvation from the self that breeds them in these powers there speaks the only voice which can make us pa- tient under the tragedies of human fate, whether these tragedies be the falls of princes, or such meaner, nar- rower pains as brought poor Bessie Costrell to her end. THE END. AMERICAN WOOD-ENGRAVE RSELB RIDGE KINGSLEY * IT is as an interpreter of Nature that Elbridge Kingsley is best known. His reproductions of paintings by famous landscape artistsCorot, Diaz, Daubigny, Inness, and Tryonand his original blocks, either from his own studies or directly in the wood, are per- meated through and through with a sympathy and poetry only possible to one who knows and loves Nature. His boyhood was passed upon a farm near Hadley, Mass., in the heart of a beautiful and varied country, and his early acquired fondness for the free- dom of the woods and fields has led him back in his maturity to make his home amid the scenes that gave him his first artistic inspiration. From the age of sixteen until manhood, when he came to New York with the ambition to study art, he worked in the office With a portrait and two original wood-engravings. of a small country newspaper. Ar- rived in the city, his first object was to enter the evening classes of the Cooper Union Art Schools, after which he found a practical means of defray- ing expenses as a compositor on The Tribune. An opportunity presenting to take up the more congenial study of wood-engraving, he began it with the enthusiasm that has characterized all of his work. After a few years of city life he returned to the freedom of his loved country, where his spare time was spent in wandering through the woods, sketch-book in hand, ready to make note of any scene that might ap- peal to his passing mood. A reading of Mr. Hamertons Painters Camp, and a long-cherished wish to live and be in touch with Nature, to work with- in her charmed circle, to be at hand in all her changing moods from dawn to night, and in sun and storm, suggested AMERICAN WOOD-ENGRAVERS-----ELBRIDGE KINGSLEY 33 the building of a wheeled car that might be used both as a studio and dwelling. Elbridge Kingsley. While working in this gypsy - like home in the fall of 1882 he engraved a scene directly in the wood which at the time attracted attention, both as a beautiful example of his art and a re- inarkable achievement. It went far to prove his claim for the wood-engravers art as one that, in the hands of a mas- ter, may assume the value and dignity of a place for itself apart from its mere- ly reproductive value. With Kingsley the successful engraving of a landscape depends upon his going into the woods himself; he must, as far as possible, be in full accord with the environment that contributed to the original con- ception and inspiration. He cannot work from suggestions by the artist he is to copy. If I do not go to the same source of inspiration myself and earn my position, he would tire of me in half an hour. There is no use in talking technique, if I can in my own way find the black and white transla- tion of his color scheme, sacrificing the smaller to the greater masses. I am a creative artist myself. In other words, the responsibility of producing a harmony in black and white rests VOL. XVHJ.5 with the engraver. His work is a crea- tion in precisely the same way as the painter-etchers, and should receive the same consideration. This note of individuality, the ex- pression of a strong nature striving toward an ideal, is the key to Kings- leys work. He believes the artist should be a law unto himself, untram- melled by aught beyond the necessity of being true to his own impulses and convictions born of an intense earnest- ness, and an elevating enthusiasm for the best that is in him. His art is his personality identified with his every expression. Kingsley says we do not stop to analyze every detail of a pict- ure that touches and moves us, its. faults of technique, often its defiance of recognized conventional canons, but.. we are carried away by its spiritthe thought that gives the impression of truth, and speaks to us of deeper things than mere dexterity of handling. Whatever reaches down and lifts up that which is sweetest and best within us, whether it comes from the running brooks in the meadows, the whispering of the pines in the forest, the music of cow-bells on the mountain-side, or from simple wood-engraving, that to you is Twilight. POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND the highest art. Kingsleys especial distinction in the use of the graver lies in his beautifully delicate tones and in the treatment of masses. He is willing to sacrifice perfection of form, strict accuracy in textnres, and a precision uf line for the sake of attaining a thor- oughly sympathetic translation of the picture as a whole, its meaning and poetry; and few will find fault with the result who will study the essential life that vibrates in such a fine exam- ple of the engravers art as the frontis- piece of this number. It is rich in the tender and delicate feeling of the scene, and conveys with a fine truth the artists motives and mood. Modern process methods of illustrating have encroached upon the domain of the wood - engraver, but while this development has narrowed the field it has also stimulated the wood-engravers, and called upon them for a quality of training and execution that must more and more put their work on a truly creative basis. Kings- ley has always been one of the leaders in this new and broader direction, and has done much both by his original and reproductive work to raise the po- sition of his art. For a number of years he has given a large part of his time to the engrav- ing of large blocks, with especial ref- erence to their careful printing on Ja- pan paper for limited editions, and among them are many charming things after his own paintings. FOSTERS AND FOSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND By M. H. Spielrnann F IF T Y years ago Art and Coni- merce made 1 i t t 1 e pretence of grasping hands. There was no reference to the dignity or degra- dation of which now we hear so much. Wall - announcements and ad- vertising-vans the latter a nuisance long since legislated off Londons face were already a grievance fast grow- ing into a scandal; and when in a spirit of banter Punch suggested that advertis- ers had better take whole houses while they were about it and plaster their en- tire frontages with posters right up to the eaves, the hint was taken with ap- palling promptness and hideous effect. But Art was as yet nusmirched save by Rowlands incomparable Macassar Oil, beloved of Byron, and Warrens Nu- bian Blacking. The former showed us the interesting but unconvincing spec- tacle of a lady covered from head to foot with a luxuriant growth of hair obtained through a course of judicious loyalty to Mrs. Rowland; and the latter, the de- light of a negro grinning at the reflec- tion of his face in a Wellington boot to which he has applied the splendor that lay hid in the blacking-bottle. And that was practically the sum of English poster art. It was admittedly not high; but it was large, and made to cover vast acreage of space. Matters went from bad to worse. Lu-

POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND the highest art. Kingsleys especial distinction in the use of the graver lies in his beautifully delicate tones and in the treatment of masses. He is willing to sacrifice perfection of form, strict accuracy in textnres, and a precision uf line for the sake of attaining a thor- oughly sympathetic translation of the picture as a whole, its meaning and poetry; and few will find fault with the result who will study the essential life that vibrates in such a fine exam- ple of the engravers art as the frontis- piece of this number. It is rich in the tender and delicate feeling of the scene, and conveys with a fine truth the artists motives and mood. Modern process methods of illustrating have encroached upon the domain of the wood - engraver, but while this development has narrowed the field it has also stimulated the wood-engravers, and called upon them for a quality of training and execution that must more and more put their work on a truly creative basis. Kings- ley has always been one of the leaders in this new and broader direction, and has done much both by his original and reproductive work to raise the po- sition of his art. For a number of years he has given a large part of his time to the engrav- ing of large blocks, with especial ref- erence to their careful printing on Ja- pan paper for limited editions, and among them are many charming things after his own paintings. FOSTERS AND FOSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND By M. H. Spielrnann F IF T Y years ago Art and Coni- merce made 1 i t t 1 e pretence of grasping hands. There was no reference to the dignity or degra- dation of which now we hear so much. Wall - announcements and ad- vertising-vans the latter a nuisance long since legislated off Londons face were already a grievance fast grow- ing into a scandal; and when in a spirit of banter Punch suggested that advertis- ers had better take whole houses while they were about it and plaster their en- tire frontages with posters right up to the eaves, the hint was taken with ap- palling promptness and hideous effect. But Art was as yet nusmirched save by Rowlands incomparable Macassar Oil, beloved of Byron, and Warrens Nu- bian Blacking. The former showed us the interesting but unconvincing spec- tacle of a lady covered from head to foot with a luxuriant growth of hair obtained through a course of judicious loyalty to Mrs. Rowland; and the latter, the de- light of a negro grinning at the reflec- tion of his face in a Wellington boot to which he has applied the splendor that lay hid in the blacking-bottle. And that was practically the sum of English poster art. It was admittedly not high; but it was large, and made to cover vast acreage of space. Matters went from bad to worse. Lu- POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND 35 itatorsof the Catnach order, one would saysprang up in plenty, and illustra- tion accompanied printed announce- ment of a sort that did not require fa- miliarity to breed contempt. It was a competition in vulgarity which, while discrediting displayed advertisemenh made a walk in London streets past London hoardings a matter of tribula- tion. Practically, up to 1870 no picto- rial effort appeared upon the walls that did not make the artistic angels weep. To that utter debasement, to the delib- erate if not intentional uglinessfor sometimes there was obviously a vague idea of beauty in the designers mind and to the splendid vulgarity that near- ly always accompanied it, we owe much of the prejudice that exists to this day in the minds of many artists and art writers against the union of art and advertisement; and it is as much in spite of them as of the advertisers themselves that Art has gradually forced her way into her rightful place, and promises henceforth to attend as fairy-godmother at the birth of many a commercial en- terprise. One of the first serious and worthy attempts to free the poor mans pict- ure-gallery of its bad taste and bar- baric coarseness was made in 1869 and 1870 by the Graphic when it heralded its appearance with posters by M. God- froy Durand, still a member of the staff. The first was a preliminary de- sign familiarly called The Tombstone by reason of its shape and attendant winged arnorini; and others repre- sented a dignified female figure, and, during the Franco - Prussian war, a French and German soldier. These posters helped to show the waybut none followed in it, until in 1871 Fred Walker, ARA., drew his famous post- er of The Woman in White. This, a magnificent design of a woman, with her finger to her lips, stepping out into the starlight night, announced Wilkie Collinss new story. People com- plained that it illustrated no scene in the story, ignorant of the fact that that was precisely Walkers intention, and was, in truth, at the very root of his and of the modern principle of poster-design- ing. This, he proclaimed, should not be a pictorial illustration of the object or R. Arming Bell, del. 36 POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND commodity advertised at all, but a deco- show at the same time the ground ration which, completely harmonizing that the publication proposed to cover. with its spirit, should yet attract by its The vast poster reproduced on page 45 independent originality and artistic was the resultwith its suggestion of beauty. I am bent, he wrote at the Art distributing the favors of the great time, on doing all I can with a first painters and sculptors grouped en attempt at what I consider might de- hernicyle behind, to the artist, the arti- celop into a most important branch of san, the student, and the passer-by who art. A reproduction of this poster, stands in front. It was sufficiently con- engraved on wood (before the days of ventional, yet sufficiently pictorial to be process) by the hand of the man who understanded of the people, and the ~on Walkers high commendation fo slight technical imperfection was for- his cutting of the great original block, given for the sake of the success with i~~ shown on pa0e. 46, through the which a difficult problem had been courtesy of the proprietors of the JUiagc~- solved. Twelve years later, the present zinc of Art. No immediate outcome, writer commissioned the same hand to however, was to be recorded; but The design the poster for Black and White Woman in White became the mother (page 37)at the cost, it was currently of the many admirable designs in black- reported, of thousands of pounds and-white which since that time have oc- which for many weeks pleased the eve casionally dignified our hoardings. To of the artist and worried the spirit of these it may be convenient here to refer. the Puritan of London. The letters When the Magazine of Art was received on the subject of this semi- started, Professor Herkomer, IRA., was nude statuesque figure from narrow- aj~pealed to to design a poster that minded correspondents are among the should make the country talk, and curiosities of epistolary literature. GREAT P RIS HIPPODROME VER BEFOR~ S NIN I ATIONAL I AGRLCULT ALHALL ATAD ISONROAD STATIONKENSIN i I S& O BDLRCTTOT ORS YE TS Walter Cane, del U Mr. Walter Cranes advent into the field of poste -designing was the nat- H. Herkomer R.A. del. ural outcome of his artistic principles and activity. He began, hi point of fact, befor~ Fred Thike , as in 1869 he produced the poster for a lead-pencil manufacturer, and continuA at Mr. Comyns Ca rs request with a still-re- ~PATTIC U (RTUrDIUP nembered design in blue and yellow U~VIIWU Ut~IIILIUflU for the Promenade Concerts of the Co- vent Garden Theatre in the early 80s one of the best he ever executed, but unfortunately at this date absolutely unprocurable. In this poster Orpheus was shown harping to the beasts scant courtesy, it may be thought, to the public it was intended to attract. Then appeared the Olympia poster, which billed the town on the arrival of the French Hippodrome troupe that c. me over to astonish London (page 36); and though it was reall.y intended as an illustration for the book issued in con- nection with the same entertainment, it attracted in its enlarged form all eyes to the hoardings by the quietness and distinction .of its style and the beauty of its lines. Afterward came the postem of his own exhibition at the Fine Art Society~s Gallery in 1891; the colored design for IHale & Co.s Champagnes, Lockhart Bogle del. 37 E. F. Skinner, del. 38 POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND the black-and-white for the Arts and played in their draughtsmanship and by Crafts, for the English Illustrated JJfIiag- the vigor of the arrested action of the azine, and the various Scottish insur- Highland athletes. On the other hand, ance companies which, with curious the classic dignity of the posters by Mr. unanimity, found virtue in Mr. Cranes E. F. Skinner (best known, perhaps, as early efforts to influence for good the a comic draughtsman) for the Hampton libels on the name of art which dis- Club (page 37) and for the Star news- graced our Lon- don streets. One of the most ef- fective of all Mr. Cranes disciples is Professor H. An- ning Bell, whose admirable poster for the Liverpool Gallery of Art (page 35) was his first achievement in the IJniversity of that city. The great prin- ciple of poster- designingthat it should be uncon- ventionally c o n - ventional and dec- orative, and if pos- sible originalhas not always been accepted by ar- tists, especially by picture - painters, and even by illus- trators in black- and - white. The little shipwrecked lady who, by means of a cake of Cleav- ers Soap, prettily washed herself ashore, so far vio- lated the rules of the game, that it did not count as an artistic effort at all, notwithstand- ing its great pop- ularity; nor ad- Reproduced by the courtesy of Deeld Allen & Soso, Publishers. mirable and effect- ive as are Mr. Lockhart Bogles strong posters for the paper were perfect of their kind, and annual Scottish GatheringPutting though through the practical absence the Shot and Throwing the Ham- of color they were not decorative in the mer (page 37)did they attract so fullest degree possible, they were among much attention by their aptness for the most impressive and best-drawn of poster design as by the ability dis- London posters. POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND 39 Mr. Linley Sambourue, of Punch, too, has contributed for some years to the hoardings a lively drawing of a lady smoking a cigarette as she sits on a champagne corkbut this was an en- largement of a random sketch made, iii accordance with the artists pleasant cus- tom, on a sheet of note-paper, while talk- ing with a visitor. It was intended for a book. Similarly, Mr. Harry Furnisss filthy Casual, who used Pearss Soap years and years ago, since when he has used no other, is simply an enlarge- ment of a Punch cut. Nevertheless, they do their share in educating the public taste away from the horrors of 1850, and to prepare it for black-and- white work such as M. Willettes litho- graphnot entirely suitable for the po- sition, it is true, but full of passion and tears-for LEnfant Prodigue. Far better adapted to its purpose, though too light and delicate in its lines for effective wall-treatment, was the admira- ble theatrical bill designed by Mr. Hey- wood Sumner for Mr. Bensons Shake- spearian revivals. While Walker and his followers were tempting popular taste away from War- rens Blacking, America through her the- atrical posters was showing to England how much more could be done by lith- ography in the way of color than the old wood - block methodsin which the tint of a face was composed of diagonal red lines which fell into their places and became pink (through cour- tesy of the intermediate bars of plain white papery when the spectator retired to a distance of ten or twenty yards. But, unhap- pily, this otherwise capital innovation was entirely in the direction of pictorial treatment; and the English manufacturers and traders, with characteristic perver- sity, seized upon it at once. The high finish delighted them; and encouraged by ______________________________________ _________ the example of theatrical managerswho were pleased to be able to rep- Redrawn by Frederick Barnard. Drawn by John White from the painting by G. D. Los- lie, RA. DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING The Influence of EDUCATION aad MORALITY and .of IONORANCE and VICE on the HUMAN COUNTENANCE, see 5, b~c~ ~ssaadia~cw~ec/aa wi/A CASSELLS NEW POPULAR EDUCATOR Now Publishing in ontiiiy Pa s, price 6d~ resent a play - scene upon paper with all the glories (and a good deal more) of its native colorsthey proceeded to test it in the direction of picture-re- prodnction. Traders bonght popular paint- ings with their copy- rights at sums~which in themselves w e r e bold advertisements, and had them repro- duced with such addi- tional effects and de- tails as would pro- claim their wares. Thus Bubbles) of Sir John Millais, RA.; This is the Way we Wash the Clothes, of Mr. G. D. Leslie, RA. (page 39); Mariana, by Mr. J. J. Shan- non; A Dress Re- hearsal, by Mr. Chev- allier Tayler; Vene- tian genre scenes by M. Van Haanen; Landseer, Edonard Fr~re, e v e n IRubens and Rembrandt have all in turn adver- tised articles of trade; and had not Fred Walkers Bathers been run up to $13,- 40 125 at the Graham sale in 1886, it would now be in the service of soap, instead of reposing as a treasured gem in Mr. Cuthbert Quilters picture-gallery. C. Burton Barber, del. Sir John Millais, RA., del. 6. L. Raven Hill, del. Soap, it may be said, although the most advertised commodity in Great Britain, is not the most attractive thing for an artist to deal with. A natural- ly cleanly public is getting tired of it ; and for all that it may be matchless for the complexion, we do not want to have it continuously thrust in our faces. On the other hand, advertisers claim to know their own business best from the business point of view, and the greatest of them all re- minds me that this French exhibition (at the Aquarium), I may tell you as an advertiser of some little experience, is an absurdity, whatever may be said of it in respect to its art. Nevertheless, it soon began to dawn upon some commer- cial minds th t the original suitability of a special design might prove as attractive to the public as the most apt dis- tortion of a popular picture, and that besides being talked of for the wares alone they might obtain additional credit 41 P. Wilson Steer, del. NOW ON VIEW KCTCHCS Andr6 Sinet, del. 42 POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND for promoting Commerce to the Seat dash and chic, which, refusing to be of Patronage long since vacated by bound by the ordinary Academic laws the Church. And so Mr. Stacy Marks, of anatomy or classic gravity, produced HA., made his design for Pearss Shav- a poster for Picle-me-up that exactly ing-soap; Mr. Poynter, HA., his nota- reproduced the spirit of the paper it ble and richly colored Minerva in proclaimed. Mr. Hardy, though a frank her Temple for the Guardian Insur- imitator of Mr. Van Beers, brought an ance Company; Mr. Wyllie, A.H.A., his fine marine picture for the Orient Steamship Com- pany; Mr. C. Burton Barber, his Guardian Shepherd Dog for the Lifebuoy Soap (page 40) ; Mr. Charles Green, RI., his Geor- gian scene for Collinson & Lock; and so forth. The idea incu- bated, and on the quadruple ex- perience I have indicated (Walk- er s example American execu- tionreproduction of pictures and special designing by distin- guished hands) there shone the color-beams from the wonderful chromo - lithographic decorative work introduced by M. Ch~ret into delighted Paris, with all their joyousness of subject and of pose. London woke up one day to find the first of all the se- ries of this sort enlivening every hoarding. It was by M. Jan Van Beers, and drew attention to the Salou Parisien in Bond Street, at which his first exhibition in England was about to be opened. The prudes were a little scandal- ized at this short-skirted vision in yellow, but the brightness and suggestive mirth of the compo- sition tickled the public mind, and contributed greatly to the success of the artistic enterprise. His second poster for La Ci- gale at the Lyric Theatre flatter in manner and simpler in tintwas the first hint I saw on English walls of the style that Dudley Hardy, del. was soon to dominate the more talked-of poster-artists of the present added charm, piquancy, and sensuous day, whose performances have been seen suavity which tdld with extraordinary together in Mr. Edward Bellas collec- effect upon the walls, and with his sin- tion at the Royal Aquarium aforesaid. gular ability to draw a smile, especially Where M. Van Beers led, two when daintily illumined by the upthrown draughtsmen of original talent and light of the footlights, and his clear use overflowing spirits quickly followed of telling colors, have made him one of Mr. Paleologue and Mr. Dudley Hardy. the most tellin0 and popular of bill-dc- The former, gifted with extraordinary signers. There is undoubtedly the scen~t POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND Weirclsley Daubery (J. Hearn) del. 4~ 43 of the stage and the demi-monde about most of his ladies, as you may trace in his three designs for The Gaiety Girl, in the great poster of To-day (page 42), and even in the theatrical air of the lily-bearing Sister who, with sanc- tified air, heralded the arrival of St. Pauls. But all the more, perhaps, for that are his efforts applauded and his p cue i 1 em- ployed. Next to Mr. Hardy, and linking him with the latest movement, comes Mr. Robert Fowler, RI., whose rather hesitating design in five colors for the Walker Art Gal- lery of Liverpool has through his classic dignity something of the spirit of the former with more than a soup~on of the Academic flavor of latter-day poster-design- ers. Among these M. Andr6 Sinet created a great impression by the poster he made for his exhibition at the Goupil Gallery (page 41), and his simple figure of a girl drawn in five colors was quickly acted upon. The fine taste and masterly placing in Mr. Morti- mer M e n p e s s announcement- sheets, were passed over in favor of the spirit of Messrs. Sinet, Steinlen, and de Lautrec per- haps because he was too individ- ual, too personal and simple to permit of satisfactory imitation. Mr. Raven Hills two-colored pos- ter for Pick-me-up (page 41), and in particular Mr. Maurice Greiffen- hagens bill for the now defunct Pall JiJiall Budget (page 44), cre- ated a distinct sensation among the younger men, and enabled them to catch the public eyeas they had captured a considerable section of the London press in its critical columns, as well as an equal section of wall-space in the exhibition galleries. Mr. Greiffen- hagens work was peculiar enough to attract public attention and elegant enough not to repel it; its three colors and their relative proportion were well enough se- lected and balanced to please the artist, and the whole was suffi 44 POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND ciently successful to encourage other craze of a former day run madstart- works in the same line. lingly novel, original, and spiritucl, and Meanwhile, Mr. Aubrey Beardsley full of artistic cleverness. Here was had appeared on the artistic horizon indeed the New Poster, ready to the pen a draughtsman of weird and singular of the New Critic and the New Humor- power, who, after importing into his art ist! elements so suggestively opposite as his His first effort in the direction, of distorted echoes of Chinese or Annamite poster-designing was the bill for the execution and IRossettian feeling, seen Avenue Theatre (page 43), from which with a squinting eye, imagined with a many of the stranger characteristics of Mephistophelian brain, and executed his drawings were prudently if neces- with a vampire hand, showed a deep sarily withheld. A creepy vision of a natural instinct for the beauty of line, peacock-green, low-necked woman, be- for the balance of chiaroscuro, and for hind a transparent curtain, stood with decorative effect. It was the ~sthetic a quiet dignity and quaint simplicity Maurice Greiffenhagen, del. By permission of the Magazine of Art. of line that was in itself effective, if not imposing or pleasing. Plainly, the lady was forbidding, uncanny, in- human; yet her reception was appreci- ative, if not altogether sympathetic and complimentary, and provided an excel- lent target for the shafts of the years satire. Then followed from the same hand the colored posters for Mr. Fish- er lJnwin, the publisher, in which the draught~man put nature and the simply weird entirely on one side, and dealt solely in the grotesque. It was mag- nificent in point of audacity, but apart from the technical virtue of balance and a certain Oriental treatment of the dis- tance, it was not beauty, such as is exo- terically accepted and understood. It was not surprising that these works should produce a caricature such as that executed by Mr. J. Hearn under the pseudonym of Weirdsley Daubery for the performance of Pygmalion and Galatea as played at Oxford under the ~egis of the Rev. the Vice-Chancellor of the University (page 43). A serious imi- tator of talent, who has rejected the ex- tremer views, or does not share the personality, of Mr. Beardsley is Mr. VOL. XVJIL6 Lewis Baumer, who for the Royal Academy Students Club in 1894 pro- duced a poster which in point of line set forth some of the best and most characteristic tenets of the Beardsley - cult and creed. And, finally, there are the grim de- signs of Mr. Pryde and Mr. Nicholson, artists who work at poster - making under the professional name of The Beggarstaff Brothers. They are in the very van of the advance-guard of poster- designers who have led the faithful from the gaudy to the joyous, and on to the sober, to the melancholy, and the de- pressing. Messrs Beggarstaffs design for Hamlet for Somebodys Blue, Dashs Candles, for Niggers, and for Pianos, are among the most striking of all the English attempts at original poster - designing, challenging the at- tention of the passer-by and claiming his admiration for the powerful and simple dignity of the figure in the first case (black upon brown), or for the effect of fine white lines and blue spots upon a black ground in the second. They are undeniably conceived in the minor key, and after impressing the be- 45 H. Herkomer, RA., del. 46 POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND holder with their individuality, they send him away thoroughly dejected, and convinced of the entire rightness of their claim to be affixed to a dead wall. They are about as like to Ch~rets posy-like affiehes as a grim and ascetic old Carmelite is like to a lady of the corps de ballet. To imagine London, writes my friend Van Beers, billed with good figures by good designers is, I fear, to imagine a Utopia. Much that is to be done might be done above all in the comic genre and by reduction of forms to a humorous point of absurdity and exagger- ation. I should like an opportunity of showing what I mean. Humor undoubtedly has its uses. One day all London was smiling at the matutinal welcome of Good-morn- inghave you used Pears Soap? as it had before smiled at a negro - cupid whose body had been washed pink by a judi- cious use of the same com- modity. But humor in English posters usually takes the empty, vapid form of well-known states- men nailing down carpets or manning boats very little indeed that is really witty. A capital recent poster in colors, in support of a cycle exhibition, conceived in the manner of Ch6ret, represented a tandem bi- cycle with a fair coryph6e in tights on the front seat; and many were the let- ters of angry denunciation that were sent to the papers in protest. And when the Bovril Highland Bull, by Mr. Will- iam Watson, IR.S.A., was posted in Cork, a Town Councillor impeached it on the score of impropriety! Where, one would ask, in the face of such facts, is the sense of humor with which M.Yan Beers would coquet to the advantage of the poster- public? The truth is that the artistic and non-artistic views of vulgarity, as entertained by the English people, are sharply at variance. The vulgarity of the non-artistic poster rarely strikes them; but in the artisticalmost ex- clusively in the treatment of the femi- nine figurewhat they call vulgarity is usually a certain suggestiveness, usually By permission of the Magazine of Art. fancied, rarely real, which in either case the artist hardly notices, if at all, on account of its artistry. I fear, says Mr. Walter Crane, in discussing the matter from another point of view, that there is something essentially vulgar about the idea of the poster unless it is limited to simple an- nouncements or directions, or become a species of heraldry, or sign-painting. The jostling together of conflicting scenes and motives on the hoardkig, Fred. Walker, ARA., del. Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, 1871. POSTERS AND POSTER-DESIGNING IN ENGLAND 47 however, to which all must submit, is as inartistic a conditi6n of things as a picture exhibition. The very fact of the necessity of shouting loud, and the association with vulgar commercial puff-. ing, are against the artist and so much dead weight. But, surely, the fact is at last becom- ing recognized that ~ shouting is no longer necessary. Just as to practised ears in a boiler-shop the whisper of a man or a soft note of music, can be heard above the deafening din of a hundred hammers, so the artistic poster of real beauty proclaims itself gently, but irresistibly, out of the mass of vio- lent kaleidoscopic color and common design. Few colors in strong contrast skilfully arranged, the fewest lines and masses, simple chia- roscuro, added to charm, grace, dignity, or vigor of designthese are the ele- ments and essentials; and if the conditions are prop- erly fulfilled the result is an artistic triumph of which any artist might be proad. That we in Eng- land, too long delayed, are at last advancing toward this point, there is little reason to doubt; not, pri- marily, through any mo- tives of philanthropy or enthusiasm on the part of the designers who are the mainspring of the move- ment, but rather through the law of self-protection against the perpetrations of bygone days. In this laudable crusade they are being slowly encouraged by some of the advertisers themselves, who are find- ing that they can attract more attention with novel and artistic posters than with shouting ugliness or r a m p a n t Philistinism. But never can the im- provement be more than partial. To the end of time vul- garity will be for the vulgar, and I much fear that the best means of en- listing middle-class sympathy and at- tracting middle-class cash is to appeal, without any show of artistic superior- ity, to middle - class taste and under- standing. Aubrey Besrdsley del., 1894a poster as yet unpublished. THE ART OF LIVING THE STJMMER PROBLEM By Robert Grant ILLtTSTRATIONS BY W. H. HYDE I WHAT is the good American to do with himself or herself in summer? The busiest worker nowadays admits that a vacation of a fortnight in hot weather is at least de- sirable. Philanthropy sends yearly more and more children on an outing in Au- gust, as one of the best contributions to the happiness and welfare of the poor. The atmosphere of our large cities in midsummer is so lifeless and oppres- sive that everyone who can get away for some part of the summer plans to do so, and fathers of families find them- selves annually confronted by a serious problem. I specify the father of a fam- ily because the problem is so much easier for a single man. The single man, and generally the single woman, can pack a bag and go to the beach or mountains, or to a hotel within easy distance from town, with- out much premeditation. The worst that can happen to them is that they may become en- gaged without intention; be- sides they can always come home if they are dissatisfied with their surroundings. But the family man who lives in a large city finds more and more difficulty every year, as the country increases in popula- tion, in making up his mind how best to provide for the midsummer necessities of his wife and children. There are several courses of action open to him. He can remain in town and keep his family there. He can remain in town him- self and send his family to a distance. He can hire a house or lodgings by the sea or in the country within easy reach of town by railroad or steamboat. He can send his family to a summer hotel at a distance, or take a house or lodgings at a distance, making occa- sional flying trips to and from town, according to his opportunities. To stay in town and keep ones fam- ily there is a far from disagreeable ex- perience except in very large cities in unusually hot weather. The custom of going away from home in summer is one which has grown by force of imita- tion. The inclination to change ones surroundings, and to give the wife and Yhe City in Midsummer. k

THE ART OF LIVING THE STJMMER PROBLEM By Robert Grant ILLtTSTRATIONS BY W. H. HYDE I WHAT is the good American to do with himself or herself in summer? The busiest worker nowadays admits that a vacation of a fortnight in hot weather is at least de- sirable. Philanthropy sends yearly more and more children on an outing in Au- gust, as one of the best contributions to the happiness and welfare of the poor. The atmosphere of our large cities in midsummer is so lifeless and oppres- sive that everyone who can get away for some part of the summer plans to do so, and fathers of families find them- selves annually confronted by a serious problem. I specify the father of a fam- ily because the problem is so much easier for a single man. The single man, and generally the single woman, can pack a bag and go to the beach or mountains, or to a hotel within easy distance from town, with- out much premeditation. The worst that can happen to them is that they may become en- gaged without intention; be- sides they can always come home if they are dissatisfied with their surroundings. But the family man who lives in a large city finds more and more difficulty every year, as the country increases in popula- tion, in making up his mind how best to provide for the midsummer necessities of his wife and children. There are several courses of action open to him. He can remain in town and keep his family there. He can remain in town him- self and send his family to a distance. He can hire a house or lodgings by the sea or in the country within easy reach of town by railroad or steamboat. He can send his family to a summer hotel at a distance, or take a house or lodgings at a distance, making occa- sional flying trips to and from town, according to his opportunities. To stay in town and keep ones fam- ily there is a far from disagreeable ex- perience except in very large cities in unusually hot weather. The custom of going away from home in summer is one which has grown by force of imita- tion. The inclination to change ones surroundings, and to give the wife and Yhe City in Midsummer. k THE SUMMER PROBLEM 49 children a whiff of country or sea or mountain air for a few weeks in the course of the year is an ambi- tion which is neither godless n o r extrava- gant. But it is not worth while to set this necessity up as an idol to be worshipped at the expense of comfort for the rest of the year, for, after all, our an- cestors successfully reared large families of children, including some of us, without going away from home in the sum- mer, and the- cant-get-aways in our largest and most un- comfortable cit- ies still outnum- ber those who can and do in the proportion of at least five to one. It costs more to go away than to stay in town; from which cer- tain native philosophers, who maintain that anyone who spends more than twenty-five hundred dollars on his fam- ily in any one year is not a good Amer- ican, may argue that those who have both a summer and a winter home are aristocrats and materialists. Their ar- gument is not likely to diminish sum- mer travel, to bankrupt the summer hotels, or to induce the well - to - do American citizen to shut up his cot- tage. A change in summer, for a longer or shorter period, is generally recognized as one of the most healthful and improving advantages which a fa- ther in our civilization can give his fam- ily and himself. On the other hand, to go out of town simply because ones neighbors do, when one cannot afford it, is a pitiful performance. Moreover, the man who does not send his family out of town from motives of economy, has more than a clean conscience to comfort him. He can remember that probably one-third of the annual expe- riments in summer culture and health- giving recreation, made by his friends and acquaintance, turn out dire failures, and that another one-third results in mixed joy and comfort. He can reflect too, if he lives in the suburbs of a city, or in a town or small city, that, barring a few ex- ceptionally hot days, he and his family are real- ly very comfortable at home. Even if his household gods are in a parboiled metropolis, he will commonly be able to relieve his tedium and physical discomfort by some form of excur- sion. All our seaboard cities have their mid- summer Meccas for the multitude in the form The single man can pack a bag. of beaches; and even where no ocean breezes blow, there is usually close at hand verdure, a lake, a grove; or a river where the philosophical soul can forget the thermometer, and cease to commiserate with itself on being kept in town. Ones own bed is never humpy, and the hollows in it are just fitted to ones bones or adipose devel- opments. One can eat and drink in ones town-house without fear of indi- gestion or germs. Decidedly the hap- piness of staying at home is not much less than the happiness of passing one, two, or three months at a place where everything is uncomfortable or nasty, at a cost which one can ill afford, if at all. Good city milk and succulent city vegetables are luxuries which are rare- ly to be found at the ordinary summer resort. It is difficult to convince ones fam- ily of this in advance. Besides, man is 50 THE SUMMER PROBLEM always to be blessed. We are always hoping that the next summer will be a grand improvement on those which have gone before, and generally by the first of May we believe, or at least im- agine, that we have discovered the gen- uine article the ideal spot at last. Discovered it for our families. The American father has the trick of send- ing his family out of town for the summer, and staying at home himself. This had its origin probably in his supposed inability to escape from busi- ness in the teeth of the family craving to see something of the world outside of their own social acquaintance. Yet he acknowledged the force of the family argument that with such a large coun- try to explore it would be a pity not to explore it; and accordingly he said, Go, and I will join you if and when I can. Paterfamilias said this long ago, and in some instances he has vain- ly been trying to join them ever since. There are all sorts of trying in this world, and perhaps his has not been as determined as some; nevertheless he has maintained tolerably well the rep- utation of trying. The Saturday night trains and steamboats all over the country are vehicles, from July first to October first, of an army of fathers who are trying successfully to join their nearest and dearest at the differ- ent summer-resorts of the land. To be separated for three months from ones wife and children, except for a day or two once a fortnight, is scarcely an ideal domestic arrange- ment, in spite of the fact that it is more or less delightful for the dear ones to meet new people and see new scenes. The American father may not try very hard to leave his city home, but it must be admitted that he has been an amiable biped on the score of the summer question. He has been and is ready to suffer silently for the sake of his family and his business. But now that he has made up his mind at last that he prefers to leave his busi- ness for the sake of his family and his own health, the difficulties of sending them to a distance are more apparent to him. Ten or fifteen years ago it dawned upon him that the city in sum- mer without his family was not the ideal spot his fancy had painted, and that the sea-side and country, especially the former, were, after all, the best place for an over-worked, full-grown man on a summers afternoon. It dawned upon him, too, that there was sea-coast and country close at hand where he could establish his family and refresh himself at the end of ev- ery days work. Twe nty -five years ago the marine and at- tractive subur- ban environs of our cities were sub stanti ally unappropriated. To-day they bristle with cot- tages, large and small, the sum- mer homes of city men. Every available prom- ontory, isla n d, hill, nook, and crook, which commands a pleasing view or is visited by cooling breezes is, or soon will be, occupied. What can a busy man do better, if he can afford it, than buy or hire a cottage, as humble as you like, to which he can Where the philosophical soul can forget the thermometer. THE SUMMER PROBLEM 51 return in the afternoon to the bosom of his own family, and be comfortable and lazy until morning? From the do- mestic point of view this is assuredly the most satisfactory arrangement for the father, and the American pater- familias, ever since the truth dawned upon him, has been prompt in recog- nizing the fact. He has builded, too, according to his taste, whim, and in- dividual idiosyncrasies. A sea - side cottage within easy reach of town includes, to - day, every variety of shelter from a pict- uresque villa of the most super- civilized type to the hulk of a ship fitted up as a camping- out home. To a large extent, too, the hotel has been discard- ed in favor of the domestic hearth, even though the single chimney smokes so that tears are perpetually in the domestic eye. The well-to-do city man who comes to town every day ap- preciates that a ho- tel is a poor place for children; conse- quently the long piazzas, where the terrible infant for- ever used to abound, are now trod- den chiefly by visitors from a dis- tance and transients who have escaped from the city for a day in search of a sea-bath and a clam chowder. If the summer cot- tage to which the hus- band returns at night, is not the most satis- factory arrangement for tile mother, she must blame herself or the civilization in which she lives. The sole argument in favor of passing the sum- mer at a hotel is that the wife and mother escapes thereby the cares of housekeeping, too often so se- vere during the rest of the year that the prospect of not being obliged to order dinner for three months causes her to wake in the night and laugh hysteri- cally. Formality and conventional cer- emony are the lurking enemies of our American summer life, who threaten to deprive our mothers and daughters of the rest and vacation from the tension, excitement, and worry begot- ten by nine months of active domestic duties. Simplicity of living ought to be the controlling warm-weather maxim of every household where the woman at the head of the establishment does the housekeeping, as nine thousand nine hundred and ninety- nine women out of -~ ten thousand in ~ America do. It may be argued that great- er simplicity in liv- ing all the year round would enable the wife and mother to do without a vacation. Possibly. But unfor- tunately for her the trend of the tide is all the other way. Be- sides, simplicity is such a difficult word to conjure with. Her interests have become so varied that the Wear and tear is Meals with many cosraea. An Artistic Interior. I- THE SUMMER PROBLEM 52 quite as likely to proceed from new mental strivings as from a multiplicity of sheer domestic duties. At least there seems to be no immediate pros- pect that she will be less tired in the Spring, however exemplary her in- tentions, and it therefore behooves her not to allow the wave of increasing luxury to bear her on its crest through the summer and land her in her town-house in Octo- ber a physical and mental wreck. The external at- tractiveness of the modern summer cottage, with its pleasing angles and comely stains, is easily made an ex- cuse for an artistic interior and sur- roundings to match. But artistic beauty in summer can read- ily be produced without elaboration, and at comparative- ly slight cost, if we only choose to be content with simple effects. The be- witching charm of the summer girl, if analyzed, proves to be based on a few cents a yard and a happy knack of combining c o 10 r s and trifles. Why need we be solicitous to have all the paraphernalia of winter - life meals with many courses, a retinue of ser- vants, wines, festal attire, and splen- did entertainments? While we rejoice that the promiscuous comradeship of hotel life has largely given place at Newport, Bar Harbor, Lenox, and our other fashionable watering - places to the pleasant protection of the cottage home, is it not seriously deplorable that simplicity is too often lost sight of? To be comfortable is one thing, to be swathed in luxury or to be tortured by ceremony all the time is another. It seems strange to many of us, who cannot choose precisely what we will do and where we will go in summer, that those who can so often select a mere repetition of mid- winter social recreation. There is Pat- terson the banker for instance, the em- ployer of Rogers. He can go where he pleases, and he goes to Newport. 0 n e can see him any af- ternoon driving au- gustly on Bellevue Avenue or along the ocean drive, well gloved, well shod, and brilliantly neck- tied, in his landau beside Mrs. Patter- son. They have been to Newport for years in summer, and their house, with its beautiful outlook to sea, has doubled and trebled in value. How do they pass their t i m e? Entertain and let themselves be entertained. Dinners with for- mal comestibles, late dances, chain- p a g n e luncheons, pate de fois gras picnics on a coach are their daily asso- ciations. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson are close upon sixty themselves, but they followa little more solemnly than for- merly, but still without stintthe same programme, which grows more and more elaborate with each succeeding year. It was there that their youngest daugh- ter was married, six months ago, with widely heralded splendor, to a Russian nobleman who speaks beautiful English. May her lot be a happy one! The son, who went through the Keeley cure, and the elder daughter, who is separated from her husband, have spent their sum- mers at Newport from their youth up. That newly created product the American girl. THE SUMMER PROBLEM 53 There are comparatively few who have the means to live, or who do live just like Patterson, but there is many a man of fine instincts and with a suffi- cient income to maintain a summer home, who finds himself to-day op- pressed by the incubus of things. He seeks rest, books, fresh air, the oppor- tunity to enjoy naturethe sea, the foliage, the flowersand yet he is harassed by things, the very things he has all win- ter, with a garnishment suit- able to hot weather. He wishes to be still; and things keep him moving. He yearns to strip off, if not all his clothing, at least enough of it to give his lungs and his soul full play; but things keep him faultlessly dressed. He in- tends to slake his thirst only from the old oaken bucket or the milk-pail, and things keep his palate titillated with champagne and cocktails. Our old-time simplicity in summer is per- haps no longer possible in the large watering-places. It is even with con- siderable satisfaction that we don, and Refusing the man who is not her choice. The son, who went through the Keeley cure. see our wives and children don, the at- tractive clothing which has taken the place of shirt-sleeves and flannel shirts as articles of toilette ; but is it not time to cry halt in our procession to- ward luxury, if we do not wish to live on our nerves all the year round? It is this difficulty in escaping the expenses and the formality of city life in the sum~ner cottage or at the sum- mer hotel, almost as much as the fact that the desirable locations near town have all been taken, which is inclining the American father to send his family to a distance. After twenty-five years of exploration the outlying beaches and other favorite resorts near our large cities have become so thoroughly ap- propriated that the man who wishes to build or own a summer home of his own is obliged to look elsewhere. As a consequence cottages have sprung up all along the line of our coast, from the farthest confines of Maine to New ~. Jersey, on the shores of the lakes of the middle West, and on the Pacific shore. Many of these are of a simple and attractive character, and generally they stand in small colonies, large enough for companionship and not too large for relaxation. With the similar double purpose of obtaining an attrac- tive summer home at a reasonable price, and of avoiding the stock water- ing - place, city families are utilizing also the abandoned farm. There is not room for us all on the sea coast; be- 7/ 7 II ~ Stranded on inlanda. sides those of us whose winter homes are there are more likely to need in- land or mountain air. There are thou- sands of beautiful country spots, many of them not so very far from our homes, where the run-down farm can be redeemed, if not to supply milk and butter, at least to afford a picturesque shelter and a lovely landscape during the season when we wish to be out of doors as much as possible. A very few changes, a very little painting and re- furnishing will usually transform the farm-house itself into just the sort of establishment which a family seeking rest and quiet recreation ought to de- light in. You may bring mosquito- frames for the windows if you like, and you must certainly test the well- water. Then swing your hammock be- tween two apple-trees and thank Prov- idence that you are not like so many of your friends and acquaintances, working the tread-mill of society in the dog-days. Of course most men who have homes of this description at a distance can- not be with their families all the time. But, on the other hand, the conviction that a busy man can do better work in ten or eleven months than in twelve, is gaining ground, and most of us, if we only choose to, can slip away for at least three weeks. Many of the de- mands of modern civilization on the family purse cannot be resisted with- out leaving the husband and parent 54 a little depressed; but it seems to me that a serious item of expense may be avoided, and yet all the genuine bene- fits and pleasures of a change of scene and atmosphere be obtained, if we only dismiss from our minds the idea of living otherwise than simply. A little house with very little in it, with a modest piazza, a skiff or sail-boat which does not pretend to be a yacht, a garden hoe and rake, a camera, books and a hammock, a rod which is not too precious or costly to break, one nag of plebeian blood and something to harness him to, rabbits in the barn and sunflowers in the garden, a walk to sunset hill and a dialogue with the harvest moon why should we not set our summer life to such a tune, rather than hanker for the neigh- borhood of the big steam-yacht and polo - ground, for the fringe of the fashionable bathing beach, for the dust of the stylish equipage, and try in our several ways, and beyond our means, to follow the pace which is set for us by others? II WHY? Largely on account of that newly created species, the American girl. From solicitude for her happiness and out of deference to her wishes. Many a father and mother would be delighted to pass the summer on an abandoned farm or in any other spot - 4 ~ 4, - ~4dI1G Li// Iii THE SUMMER PROBLEM 55 where it were possible to live simply and to be cool, comfortable, and lazy, but for fear of disappointing their young peopleprincipally their daugh- ters, who, unlike the sons, cannot yet come and go at will. Feminine youth has its inherent privileges everywhere, but the gentle sway which it exercises in other civilizations has become almost a sour tyranny here. Was there ever an American mother who knew anything portrayed in fiction? The American daughter is commonly presented as a noble-souled, original creature, whose principal mission in life, next to or in- cidental to refusing the man who is not her choice, is to let her own parents un- derstand what weak, ignorant, foolish, unenlightened persons they are in com- parison with the rising generation both parents in some measure, but chiefly and utterly the mother. She is usually willing to concede that her father has a few glimmering ideas, and a certain amount of sensehorse business sense, not very elevating or inspiring yet something withal. But she looks upon her poor dear mother as a feeble- minded individual of the first water. What we read in contemporary fic- tion in this realistic age is apt to be pho- tographed from cx- istin g conditions. The newly created species of our homes does not al- ways reveal these sentiments in so many words; in- deed she is usually disposed to conceal from her parents as far as possible their own shortcomings, believing often, with ostrich-like complacency, t ha t they have no idea what she really thinks of them. Quite frequently late in life it dawns upon her that they were not such com- - plete imbeciles as she had adjudged them, and she revises her convictions ac- cordingly. But often she lives superior to the end. It would be an excellent thing for the American girl if her eves could be definitely opened to the fact that her parents, particularly her moth- er, are much more clever than she sup- poses, and that they are really her best counsellors. But on the other hand, is not the American mother herself chief- ly responsible for this attitude of loving contempt and sweet but unfilial conde- scension on the part of her own flesh and blood? It sometimes seems as though we had fallen victims to our reluctance to thwart our children in any way lest we should destroy their love for us. But is it much preferable to be loved devotedly as foolish, weak, and amiable old things, than to be feared a little as individuals capable of exer- cising authority and having opinions of our own? This yielding, self-abnegating ten- dency on the part of parents, and con- sequent filial tyranny, are especially conspicuous in the case of that arch Joins an almost tearful support to the summer girls petition. 56 THE SUMMER PROBLEM despot the summer girL I admit her fascination unreservedly, and am will- ing to concede that she has run the gauntlet of criticism hurled at her by the effete civilizations with an unblem- ished reputation. Though she may have become a little more conservative and conventional out of deference to good taste, she is still able to be lost in caves or stranded on islands with any young man of her acquaintance with- out bringing a blush to any cheek except that of the horror - stricken f or- eigner. But having ad- mitted this, I am obliged to charge her with tramp- ling on the prostrate form of her mother from the Give young people a chance to enjoy themaelvea. first of July to the first of October. She does so to a certain extent the year round, but the summer is the crown- ing season of her despotism. The first concern of the American father and mother in making plans for the summer is to go to some place which the children will like, and the summer girl in particular. This is natural and in keeping with the un- selfish devotion shown by the present generation of parents toward their chil- dren. But it is one thing to endeavor to select a place which will be satisfac- tory to ones eighteen-year-old daughter and another to be sweetly hectored by that talented young woman into going to some place selected by her of which you entirely disapprove. And just here it is that the American mother almost seems to be convicted of the feebleness of intellect ascribed to her by the newly created species. You, the father, are just screwing your courage up to say that you will be blessed if you will go to a summer hotel at Narragansett Pier (or wherever it is), when your wife, who has been cowed or cajoled by the des- pot in the interim, flops com- pletely, as the saying is, and joins an almost tearful support to the summer girls petition. And there you are. What are you to do? Daughter and mother, the apple of your eye and the angel of your heart, leagued against you. Resistance be- comes impossible, unless you are ready to incur the reputation of being a stony- hearted old curmudgeon The summer girl invariably wishes to go where it is gay. Her idea of enjoy- ment does not admit domesticity and peaceful relaxation. She craves to be actively amused, if not blissfully ex- cited. It is not strange that the tastes and sentiments of young persons from seventeen to twenty-three should differ considerably from those of mothers and fathers from forty to fifty, and it speaks well for the intelligence and unselfish- ness of middle-aged p~reuts and guar- dians in this country that they so THE SUMMER PROBLEM 57 promptly recognize the legitimate claims of youth, and even are eager to give young people a chance to enjoy them- selves before the cares of life hedge them in. But have we not gone to the other extreme? Is it meet that we should regard ourselves as moribund at fifty, and sacrifice all our own comfort and happiness in order to let a young girl have her head, and lead a life in summer of which we heartily disap- prove? It is not an exaggeration to state that there is a growing disposition on the part of the rising hordes of young men and girls to regard anyone in society over thirty-five as a fossil and an encumbrance, for whom, in a social sense, the grave is yawning. It is not uncommon to hear a comely matron of forty described as a frump by a youth scarcely out of his teens, and every old gentleman of thirty-nine has experi- enced the tactless pity which fashiona- ble maidens under twenty-one endeavor to conceal in the presence of his senil- ity. The summer girl is generally a young person who has been a winter girl for nine months. I am quite aware that some girls are much more effective in summer than at any other season, and it may be that in certain cases they ap- pear to so little advantage in winter that to attempt to gratify par- ental inclinations at their ex- pense would be rank unkindness. But it is safe to allege that the average sum- mer girl in this coun- try has been doing all she ought to do in the way of dancing, pranc- ing, gadding, going, workiug, and general- ly spending her vital powers in the autumn, winter, and spring immediately preceding, and consequently when summer comes needs, quite as much as her parents, physical, mental, aud moral ozone. But what does she prefer to do? Whither is she bent on leading her father by the nose with the assistance of her mother? To various places, ac- cording to her special predilection, and the farthest limit of the parental purse. If possible, to one of the gay- est watering - places, where she hopes to bathe, play tennis, walk, talk, and drive during the day; paddle, stroll, or sit out during the evening, and dance until twelve oclock at night two or three times a week. Else to some much- advertised mountain cataract or lake- resort, to lead a stagnant hotel corridor and piazza life, in the fond hope of see- ing the vividly imagined Him alight from the stage-coach some Saturday night. Meanwhile she is one of three- score forlorn girls who haunt the office and make eyes at the hotel clerk. The summer girl has a mania for the sum- mer hotel. It seems to open to her ra- diant possibilities. She kindles at the mention of a hop in August, and if she is musical, the tinkle of her piano play- ing reverberates through the house all day until the other boarders are driven nearly crazy. In the gloaming after supper she flits off from the house with her best young man of the moment, and presently her mother is heard bleating along the piazza, My Dorothy has gone without her shawl, and will catch her death a cold. And so it goes all summer. When autumn comes and the leaf is about to fall, and Dorothy re- turns to town, what has she to show for it? A little tan and a callous heart, a promised winter correspondence with the hotel clerk, new slang, some knack at banjo-playing, and considerable un- certainty in her mind as to whom she Haunt the office and make eyea at the hotel clerk. 58 THE SUMMER PROBLEM be a much more simple matter than it seems, for, after all, she has her own blood in her veins, and she has only to remember what a dogmatic person she herself was in the days of her youth. If the code of fathers and mothers, in- stead of that of girls and boys, were in force at our summer hotels and water- ing-places, a very different state of affairs would soon ex- ist; and that, too, without undue inter- ference w i t h that inherent, cherished, and unalienable right of the American daughter, the maidens choice. We must not forget that though our civilization boasts the free exercise of the maidens choice as one _____ of the brightest jewels in the crown of republican liberties, the crowded condition of our divorce courts forbids us to be too demonstrative in our self- is engaged to, or whether she is en- satisfaction. gaged at alL And like as not the doc- It would be dire, indeed, to bore the tor is sent for to build her up for the young person, especially ~the summer winter with cod-liver oil and quinine, girL But does it necessarily follow There is too much ozone at some of that a summer home or a summer life these summer hotels. indicated by the parent would induce We cannot hope to do away wholly such a disastrous result? I am advis- with either the summer hotel or the ing neither a dungeon, a convent, nor fashionable watering-place by the as- some excruciatingly dull spot to which sertion of parental authority. Such an no fascinating youth is likely to pene- endeavor, indeed, would on the whole trate. Verily, even the crowded bath- be an unjust as well as fruitless piece ing beach may not corrupt, provided of virtue. The delightful comradeship that wise motherly control and com- between young men and young women, panionship point out the dangers and which is one of our national products, protect the forming soul, mind, and is typified most saliently by the sum- manners, instead of allowing them to mer girl and her attendant swains. Naturally she wishes to go to some place where swains are apt to congre- gate; and the swain is always in search of her. Moreover, the summer hotel ~ ~ must continue to be the summer home of thousands who, for one reason or another, have no cottage or abandoned A farm. My plea is still the same, howT ever. Why, now that the negro slave is free, and the working-man is being legislated into peace and plenty, and / the wrongs of other women are being righted, should not the American moth- er try to burst her bonds? It would Considerable uncertainty in her mind as to whom she. is engaged to. 1 Flits off from the house with her best young man of the moment. THE SUMMER PROBLEM 59 be distorted and poisoned by the ups and downs of promiscuous amatory summer guerilla warfare. But may it not happen, when the maternal foot is once firmly put down, that the summer girl will not be so easily bored as she or her mother fears, and will even be grateful for protection against her own ignorance and inexperience? Boating, sketching, riding, reading, bicycling, travel, sewing, and photography are pastimes which ought not to bore her, and would surely leave her more re- freshed in the autumn than continuous gadding, dancing, and flirtation. To be a member of a small, pleasant col- ony, where the days are passed simply and lazily, yet inter- estingly; where the finer senses are con- stantly appealed to by the beauties of nature and the healthful character of ones occupations, is a form of exile which many a sum- mer girl would ac- commodate herself to gladly if she only understood what it was like, and under- stood, moreover, that the selection of a summer programme had ceased to be one of her prerogatives. A determined man who wishes to marry will discover the object of his affections on an aban- doned farm or in the heart of the Maine woods, if he is worth his salt. In these days of many yachts and bicycles true love can travel rapidly, and there is no occasion for marriageable girls to se- lect courting-grounds where their lov- ers can have close at hand a Casino and other conveniences, including the op- portunity to flirt with their next best iDulcineas. If the summer-time is the time in which to recuperate and lie fallow, why should we have so many summer schools? After the grand panjandrum of Commencement exercises at the col leges is over, there ought to be a pause in the intellectual activity of the nation for at least sixty days; yet there seems to be a considerable body of men and women who, in spite of the fact that they exercise their brains vigorously during the rest of the year, insist on mental gymnastics when the thermom- eter is in the eighties. These schools chiefly assemblies in the name of the ologies and osophiesbring together more or less people more or less learned, from all over th~ country, to talk at one another and read papers. Judging merely from the newspaper accounts of their proceedings, it is al- most invariably impossible to discover the exact meaning of anything which is uttered, but this may be due to the absence of the reg- ular reporters on their annual vaca- tions, and the con- sequent delegation to tyros of the diffi- cult duty in ques- tion. But even as- suming that the utterances of the summer schools are both intelligible and stimulating, would not the serf- ous-minded men and women concerned in them be better off lying in a hammock under a wide- spreading beech-tree, or, if this seems too relaxing an occupation, watching the bathers at Narragansett Pier? There is wisdom sometimes in sending young and very active boys to school for about an hour a day in summer, in order chiefly to know where they are and to prevent them from running their legs off; but with this exception the mental workers in this country, male and female, young and old, can afford to close their text-books with a bang on July 1st, and not peep at them again until September. Philosophy in August has much the flavor of aspara- gus in January. Close their text-books with a bang on July 1st. THE PRICE OF ROMANCE By Robert W. Herrick THEY were paying the price of their romance, and the question was whether they would pay it cheer- fully. They had been married a couple of years, and the first flush of excitement over their passion and the stumbling- blocks it had met was fading away. When he, an untried young lawyer and delicate dilettante, had married her she was a Miss Benton, of St. Louis, niece of Oliphant, that queer old fellow who made his money in the tobacco trust, and hence with no end of prospects. Ed- wards had been a pleasant enough fel- low, and Oliphant had not objected to his loafing away a vacation about the old house at Quogue. Marriage with his niece, the one remaining member of his family who walked the path that pleased him, was another thing. She had plenty of warning. Had he not sent his only son adrift as a beggar because he had married a little country cousin? He could make nothing out of Edwards except that he was not keen after busi- nessloafed much, smoked much, and fooled with music, possibly wrote songs at times. Yet Miss Benton had not expected that cruel indifference when she an- nounced her engagement to the keen old man. For she was fond of him and grateful. When do you think of marrying? had been his single comment. She guessed the unexpressed complement to that thought. Yon can stay here un- til that time. Then good-by. She found in herself an admirable spirit, and her love added devotion and faith in the future, her lovers future. So she tided over the months of her en- gagement when her uncles displeasure settled down like a fog over the pleas- ant house. Edwards would run down frequently, but Oliphant managed to keep out of his way. It was none of his affair, and he let them plainly see this aspect of it. Her spirit rose. She could do as other women did, get on without candy and roses, and it hurt her to feel that she had expected money from her uncle. She could show him that they were above that. So they were married and went to live in a little fiat in Harlem, very mod- est, to fit their income. Oliphant had bade her good-by with the courtesy due to a tiresome Sunday visitor. Oh, youre off, are you? his indifferent tones had said. Well, good-by, I hope you will have a good time. And that was alL Even the colored cook had said more; the servants in gen- eral looked deplorable. Wealth goes so well with a pretty, bright young woman! Thus it all rested in the way they would accept the bed they had made. Success would be ample justification. Their friends watched to see how well they would solve the problem they had so jauntily set themselves. Edwards was by no means afain~ant his record at the Columbia Law School promised better than that, and he had found a place in a large office that might answer for the stepping- stone. As yet he had not individual- ized himself; he was simply charming, especially in correct summer costume and luxuriating in indolent conversa- tion. He had the well-bred, fine-featured air of so many of the graduates from our Eastern colleges. The suspicion of effem- inacy which he suggested might be un- just, but he certainly had not experi- enced what Oliphant would call life. He had enough interest in music to dis- sipate in it. Marriage was an excellent settler, though, on a possible income of twelve hundred! The two years had not the expected aspiring march, however; ten-dollar cases even had not been plenty in Ed- wardss path, and he suspected that he was not highly valued in his office. He had been compelled to tutor a boy the second year, and the hot summers made him listless. In short he felt that he had missed his particular round in the ladder. He should have studied music,

THE PRICE OF ROMANCE By Robert W. Herrick THEY were paying the price of their romance, and the question was whether they would pay it cheer- fully. They had been married a couple of years, and the first flush of excitement over their passion and the stumbling- blocks it had met was fading away. When he, an untried young lawyer and delicate dilettante, had married her she was a Miss Benton, of St. Louis, niece of Oliphant, that queer old fellow who made his money in the tobacco trust, and hence with no end of prospects. Ed- wards had been a pleasant enough fel- low, and Oliphant had not objected to his loafing away a vacation about the old house at Quogue. Marriage with his niece, the one remaining member of his family who walked the path that pleased him, was another thing. She had plenty of warning. Had he not sent his only son adrift as a beggar because he had married a little country cousin? He could make nothing out of Edwards except that he was not keen after busi- nessloafed much, smoked much, and fooled with music, possibly wrote songs at times. Yet Miss Benton had not expected that cruel indifference when she an- nounced her engagement to the keen old man. For she was fond of him and grateful. When do you think of marrying? had been his single comment. She guessed the unexpressed complement to that thought. Yon can stay here un- til that time. Then good-by. She found in herself an admirable spirit, and her love added devotion and faith in the future, her lovers future. So she tided over the months of her en- gagement when her uncles displeasure settled down like a fog over the pleas- ant house. Edwards would run down frequently, but Oliphant managed to keep out of his way. It was none of his affair, and he let them plainly see this aspect of it. Her spirit rose. She could do as other women did, get on without candy and roses, and it hurt her to feel that she had expected money from her uncle. She could show him that they were above that. So they were married and went to live in a little fiat in Harlem, very mod- est, to fit their income. Oliphant had bade her good-by with the courtesy due to a tiresome Sunday visitor. Oh, youre off, are you? his indifferent tones had said. Well, good-by, I hope you will have a good time. And that was alL Even the colored cook had said more; the servants in gen- eral looked deplorable. Wealth goes so well with a pretty, bright young woman! Thus it all rested in the way they would accept the bed they had made. Success would be ample justification. Their friends watched to see how well they would solve the problem they had so jauntily set themselves. Edwards was by no means afain~ant his record at the Columbia Law School promised better than that, and he had found a place in a large office that might answer for the stepping- stone. As yet he had not individual- ized himself; he was simply charming, especially in correct summer costume and luxuriating in indolent conversa- tion. He had the well-bred, fine-featured air of so many of the graduates from our Eastern colleges. The suspicion of effem- inacy which he suggested might be un- just, but he certainly had not experi- enced what Oliphant would call life. He had enough interest in music to dis- sipate in it. Marriage was an excellent settler, though, on a possible income of twelve hundred! The two years had not the expected aspiring march, however; ten-dollar cases even had not been plenty in Ed- wardss path, and he suspected that he was not highly valued in his office. He had been compelled to tutor a boy the second year, and the hot summers made him listless. In short he felt that he had missed his particular round in the ladder. He should have studied music, THE PRICE OF ROMANCE 61 or tried for the newspapers as a musi- cal critic. Sunday afternoons he would loll over the piano, picturing the other lifethat life which is always so allur- ing! His wife followed him heroically into all his moods with that pitiful ab- sorption such women give to the men they love. She believed in him tre- mendously, if not as a lawyer, as a man and an artist. Somehow she hadnt been an inspiration, and for that she humbly blamed herself. How was it accorn- plished, this inspiration? A loving wife inspired the ordinary man. Why not an artist? They got into the habit of planning their life all differently so that it might not be limited and futile. If they had a few thousand dollars! That was a bad sign, and she knew it, and struggled against it. If she could only do something to keep the pot boiling while he wrote for fame and success! But she could reduce expenses; so the one servant went, and the house-bills grew tinier and tinier. However, they didnt make connections, and some- thing was wrongshe wondered what. As the second summer came in they used to stroll out of their stuffy street, up St. Nicholas Avenue, to the Park, or to the Riverside Drive. There they would sit speechless, she in a faded blue serge skirt with a crisp, washed-out shirt-waist, and an old sailor hatdark and pretty, in spite of her troubled face. He in a ready-made black serge suit, yet very much the gentleman pale and listless. Their eyes would seek out any steamer in the river below, or anything else that reminded them of other conditions. He would hum a bit from an opera. They needed no words; their faces were evident, though mute, indications of the tragedy. Then they would return at bed-time or supper-time into the sultry streets; from the open windows of the flats came the hammered music of the city. Such discordant ef- forts for harmony! Her heart would fill over him, yearning like a mother to cherish him in all the pleasant ways of life, but impotent, impotent! She never suggested greater effort. Conditions were hard, she said over and over; if there were only a little money to give him a start in another VOL. XVIIL7 direction. She admired his pride in never referring to old Oliphant. Her uncle was often in her mind, but she felt that even if she could bring herself to petition him, her husband would in- dignantly refuse to consider the mat- ter. Still she thought about it, and espe- cially this summer, for she knew he was then at Quogue. Moreover, she expected her first child. That worried her daily; she saw how hopeless another com- plication would make their fate. She cried over it at night when the room was too hot to sleep. And then she re- proached herself; God would punish her for not wanting her baby. One day she had gone down-town to get some materials for the preparations she must make. She liked to shop, for sometimes she met old friends; this time in a large shop she happened upon a woman she had known at Quogue, the efficient wife of a successful minister in Brooklyn. This Mrs. Leicester invited her to lunch at the caf6 at the top of the building, and she had yielded after a little urging, with real relief. They sat down at a table near the windowit was so high up there was not much noiseand the streets suddenly seemed interesting to Mrs. Edwards. The quiet table, the pleasant lunch, and the energetic Mrs. Leicester were all re- freshing. And how is your husband? Mrs. Leicester inquired, keenly. As a minis- ters wife she was compelled to inter- est herself in sentimental complications that inwardly bored her. It was-a part of her professional duties. She had taken in this situation at once-- she had seen that kind of thing before; it made her impatient. But she liked the pretty little woman before her, and was sorry she hadnt managed better. Pretty well, Mrs. Edwards replied, consciously. The heat drags one down so! Mrs. Leicester sent another quick glance across the table. You havent been to Quogue much of late, have you? You know how poorly your uncle is. No! You must know that Uncle James doesnt see ~ Well, Mrs. Leicester went on, has- tily, hes been quite ill and feeble, 62 THE PRICE OF ROMANCE and they say hes growing queer. He never goes away now, and sees nobody. Most of the servants have gone. I dont believe he will last long. Then her worldliness struggled with her conventional position, and she re- lapsed into innuendo. He ought to have someone look after him, to see him die decently, for he cant live be- yond the autumn, and the only person who can get in is that fat, greasy Dr. Shapless, who is after his money for the new Methodist school in Jersey City. He goes down every week. I wonder where Mr. Oliphants son can be? Mrs. Edwards took in every word avidly, while she ate. But she let the conversation drift off to Quogue, their acquaintances, and the difficulty of shopping in the summer. Well, I must be going to get the train, ex- claimed Mrs. Leicester at last. ~Vith a sigh, the young wife rose, looked re- gretfully down at the remains of their liberal luncheon, and then walked si- lently to the elevator. They didnt talk again, but there was something under- stood between them. Mrs. Leicester hailed a cab; just as she gathered her parcels to make a dive, she seemed il- luminated with an idea. Why dont you come down some Sundayvisit us? Mr. Leicester would be delight- ed. Mrs. Edwards was taken unawares, but her instincts came to her rescue. Why, we dont go anywhere; its awfully kind, and I should be delight- ed; I am afraid Mr. Edwards cant. Well, sighed Mrs. Leicester, smil- ing back unappeased, come if you can; come alone. The cab drove off, and the young wife felt her cheeks burn. The Edwardses had never talked over Oliphant or his money explicitly. They shrank from it; it would be a confes- sion of defeat. There was something abhorrently vulgar in thus lowering the pitch of their life. They had come pretty near it often this last summer. But each feared what the other might think. Edwards especially was ner- vous about the impression it might make on his wife, if he should discuss the matter. Mrs. Leicesters talk, how- ever, had opened possibilities for the imagination. So little of Uncle Jamess money, she mused, would make them ideally happywould put her husband on the road to fame. She had almost made up her mind on a course of ac- tion, and she debated the propriety of undertaking the affair without her hus- bands knowledge. She knew that his pride would revolt from her plan. She could pocket her own pride, but she was tender of his conscience, of his comfort, of his sensibilities. It would be best to act at once by herselfper- haps she would fail anyway and to shield him from the disagreeable and useless knowledge and complicity. She couldnt resist throwing out son~e feel- ers, however, at supper that night. He had come in tired and soiled after a days tramp collecting bills that wouldnt collect this droughty season. She had fussed over him and coaxed a smile out, and now they were at their simple tea. She recounted the days events as in- differently as possible, but her face trembled as she described the lunch- eon, the talk, the news of her uncle, and at last Mrs. Leicesters invitation. Ed- wards had started at the first mention of Quogue. Its been in his mind, she thought, half-relieved, and his nervous move- ments of assumed indifference made it easier for her to go on. It was kind of her, wasnt it? she ended. Yes, Edwards replied, impressive- ly. Of course yqu declined. Oh, yes; but she seemed to expect us all the same. Edwards frowned, but he kept an expectant silence. So she remarked, tentatively: It would be so pleasant to see dear old Quogue again. Her hypocrisy made her flush. Edwards rose abruptly from the table and wandered about the room. At length he said, in measured tones, his face averted from the table: Of course, under the circumstances we cannot visit Quogue while your uncle livesunless he should send for us. Thus he had put himself plainly on record. His wife suddenly saw the folly and meanness of he~ little plans. THE PRICE OF ROMANCE 63 It was hardly a disappointment; her mind felt suddenly relieved from an unpleasant responsibility. She went to her husband, who was nervously playing at the piano, and kissed him almost reverently. It had been a temp- tation from which he had saved her. They talked that evening a good deal, planning what they would do if they could get over to Europe for a year, calculating how cheaply they could go. It was an old subject. Sometimes it kept off the blues ; sometimes it indi- cated how blue they were. Mrs. Ed- wards forgot the disturbance of the day until she was lying wide awake in her hot bed. Then the old longings came in once more; she saw the com- monplace present growing each month more dreary; her husband drudging away with his hopes sinking. Sudden- ly he spoke: What made Mrs. Leicester ask us, do you suppose? So he was thinking of it again. I dont know! she replied, vague ly. Soon his voice came again: You understand, Nell, that I dis- tinctly disapprove of our making any effort that way. She didnt think that her husband was a hypocrite. She did not generalize when she felt deeply. But she knew that her husband didnt want the responsibility of making any effort. Somehow she felt that he would be glad if she should make the effort and take the responsibility on her own shoulders. Why had he lugged it into plain light again if he hadnt expected her to do something? How could she accomplish it without making it unpleasant for him? Before daylight she had it planned, and she turned once and kissed her husband, protectingly. That August morning as she walked up the dusty road fringed with blossom- ing golden-rod toward the little cottage of the Leicesters, she was content in spite of her tumultuous mind. It was all so heavenly quiet! the thin, drooping elms with their pendant vines; like the waterfalls of a maiden lady; the dusty snarls of blackberry bushes; the mid- summer contented repose of the air, and that distantly murmuring seait was all as she remembered it in her child- hood. A gap of disturbed years closed up and peace once more! The old man slowly dying up beyond in that deserted gambrel-roofed house would forget and forgive. Mrs. Leicester received her effasively, anxious now not to meddle dangerously in what promised to be a ticklish busi- ness. Mrs. Edwards must stay as long as she would. The Sundays were es- pecially lonely, for Mr. Leicester did not think she should bear the heats of the city so soon, and left her alone when he returned to Brooklyn for his Sunday sermon. Of course, stay as long as Mr. Edwards could spare hera month, if possible. At the mention of Mr. Edwards the young wife had a twinge of remorse for the manner in which she had evaded himher first deceit, for his sake. She had talked vaguely about visiting a friend at Moriches, and her husband had fallen in with the idea. New York was like a finely divided furnace, radiat- ing heat from every tube-like street. So she was to go for a week or ten days. Perhaps the matter would arrange itself before that time was up ; if not, she would write him what she had done. But ten days seemed so long that she put uncomfortable thoughts out of her head. Mrs. Leicester showed her to her room, a pretty little box, into which the woodbine peeped and nodded, and where from one window she could get a glimpse of the green marshes with the sea beyond. After chatting awhile her hostess went out, protesting that her guest must be too tired to come down. Mrs. Edwards gladly accepted the ex- cuse, ate the luncheon the maid brought in two bites, and then prepared to sally forth. She knew the path between the lush meadow-grass so well! Soon she was at the forbidding entrance to the Oh- phant place. It was more run down than two years ago; the lower rooms were shut up tight in massive green blinds that reached down to the warped boards of the veranda. It looked old, neglected, sad and weary; and she felt almost justified in her mission. She 64 THE PRICE OF ROMANCE could bring comfort and light to the dying man. In a few minutes she was smothering the hysterical enthusiasm of her old fijend Dinah. It was as she had ex- pected: Oliphant had grown more sus- picions and difficult for the last two years, and had refused to see a doctor, or, in fact, anyone but the Rev. Dr. Shapless and a country lawyer whom he used when absolutely necessary. He hadnt left his room for a month; Dinah had carried him the little he had seen fit to eat. She was evidently relieved to see her old mistress once more at hand. She asked no questions and Mrs. Ed- wards knew that she would obey her ab- solutely. They were sitting in Oliphants office, a small closet off the more pretentious library, and Mrs. Edwards could see the helpless disorder into which the old mans papers had fallen. The confusion preceding death had already set in. After laying aside her hat, she went up unannounced to her uncles room, determined not to give him an opportu- nity to dismiss her out of hand. He was lying with his eyes closed, so she busied herself in putting the room to rights in order to quiet her nerves. The air was heavily languorous and soon in the quiet country afternoon her self-consciousness fell asleep, and she went dreaming over the irresponsible past, the quiet summers, and the strange, stern old man. Suddenly she knew that he was awake and watching her closely. She started, but as he said nothing, she went on with her dusting, her hand shaking. He made no comment while she brought him his supper and arranged the bed. Evidently he would accept her services. Her spirit leapt up with the joy of success. That was the first step. She deemed it best to send for her meagre satchel, and to take posses- sion of her old room. In that way she could be more completely mistress of the situation and of him. She had had no very definite ideas of action before that afternoon; her one desire had been to be on the field of battle, to see what could be done, perhaps to use a few tears to soften the implacable heart. But now her field opened out. She must keep the old man to herself, with- in her own care not that she knew specifically what good that would do, but it was the tangible nine points of the law. The next morning Oliphant showed more life, and while she was helping him into his dressing-gown, he vouch- safed a few grnnts, followed by a pierc- ing inquiry: Is he dead yet? The young wife flushed with indig- nant protest. Broke, perhaps? Well, we havent starved yet. But she cowed under his cynical examina- tion. He relapsed into silence ; his old bristly face assumed a sardonic peace whenever his eyes fell upon her. She speculated about that wicked beatitude: it made her uncomfortable. He was still, howevernever a word from morn- ing till night. The routine of little duties about the sick-room she performed punctiliously. In that way she thought to put her con- science to rights, to regard herself in the kind r6le of ministering angeL That illusion was hard to attain in the presence of the sardonic comment the old man seemed to add. After all it was a vulgar grab after the candied fruits of this life. She had felt it necessary to explain her continued absence to her husband. Mrs. Leicester, who did not appear to regard her actions as unexpected, had undertaken that delicate business. Evi- dently she had handled it tactfully, for Mrs. Edwards soon received a hurried note. He felt that she was performing her most obvious duty; he could not but be pleased that the breach caused by him had been thus tardily healed. As long as her uncle continued in his present extremity, she must remain. He would run down to the Leicesters over Sundays, etc. Mrs. Edwards was re- lieved: it was nice of him, more than that, delicate, not to be stuffy over her action. The uppermost question these days of monotonous speculation was how long would this ebb-tide of a tenacious life flow. She took a guilty interest in his condition, and yet she more than half wished him to live. Sometimes he would THE PRICE OF ROMANCE 65 rally. Something unfulfilled troubled had a puggy nose and a heavy, thinly his mind, and once he even crawled down- bearded face incased about the eyes in stairs. She found him shakily putter- broad steel spectacles. ing over the papers in his huge daven- Thats Dr. Shapless, she said, in a port. He asked her to make a fire in flutter. the grate, and then gathering up an arm- What of it? Edwards replied. ful of papers he knelt down on the brick He mustnt come in, she cried, with hearth, but suddenly drew back; his sudden energy. You must see him, deep eyes gleamed hatefully at her. and send him away! He wants to see Holding out several stiff papers he mo- Uncle Oliphant. Tell him hes too sick, tioned to her to burn them. Usually to come another day. Edwards went she would have obeyed docilely enough, down the path to meet him. Through but this deviltry of merriment she re- the window she could hear a low conver- sented. While she delayed, standing sation, and then crunched gravel. Mean- erect before the smouldering sticks, she time Oliphant seemed restlessly alert, noticed that a look of terror crept across expectant of something, and with sus- the sick face. A spasm shook him, and picious eyes intent on her. he fainted. After that his weakness kept Her heart thumped with relief when him in bed. She wondered what he had the gate clicked. Edwards had been been so anxious to burn, effective that time. Oliphant was try- From this time her thoughts grew ing to say something, but the hot Au. more specific. Just how should she gust day had been too much for him attain her ends? Had he made a will? it all ended in a mumble. Then she Could he not now do something for them, pulled in the blinds, settled the pillows or would it be safer to bide their time? nervously, and left the room in sheer Indeed for a few moments she resolved fright. to decide all by one straightforward The fight had begunand grimly. prayer. She began, and the old man . . . seemed so contentedly prepared for the I wonder what the old cove wanted,~~ scene that she remained dumb. Edwards said the next day; he was dead In this extremity of doubt she longed set on seeing your uncle; said he had an to get aid from her husband. Yet un- engagement with him, and looked me up der the circumstances she dared to ad- and down. I stood him off, but hell be mit so little. One Saturday afternoon down again. he called at the house; she was com- Dont you know about that new pelled to share some of her perplexities. school the Methodists are building? He seems so very feeble, she re- Uncle Oliphant has always helped the marked. They were sitting on the ye- Methodists, and I suppose Dr. Shapless randa some distance from Oliphants wanted to see him about some con- room, yet their conversation was furtive. tributions. Edwards asked no more Perhaps he should see a doctor or a questions, and, in fact, got back to minister. town on a pretext of business that af- No, I dont think so, Edwards re- ternoon. He was clearly of no use in plied, assuringly. You see he doesnt Quogue. His wife sent for a physician believe in either, and such things should that week. It was tardy justice to pro- be left to the person himself, as long as priety, but it was safe then, for Oliphant hes in his right mind. had given up all attempts to talk. And a lawyer? Mrs. Edwards con- The doctor came, looked at the old tinned, probingly. man, and uttered a few remarks. He Has he asked for one? would come again. Mrs. Edwards did Nobut he seems to find it hard to not need to be told that the end was talk. coming. The question was, how soon? I guess its best not to meddle. That week had another scare. Some- Whos that? how old Slocum, the local lawyer Oh- A little fat man in baggy black trou- phant used, had been summoned, and sers and a seersucker coat was pant- one morning she ran across him in the ing up the gentle hill to the gate. He hall. She knew the man well of old. 66 THE PRICE OF ROMANCE He was surprised and pleased to see her, and it was not difficult to get him out of the house without arousing his suspicions. But he would talk so boisterously; she felt her uncles eyes aflame in anger. Be sure and send for me when he rallies, quick, Slocum whispered loudly in the halL Perhaps we can do a lit- tle something for some folks. And with a wink he went out. Had she done the clever thing after all in shooing old Slocum out? Her mind went over the possibilities in tense anxiety. If there were no will, James, Jr., would get the whole, she thought. If there was a will already in the house, in that old davenport, what then? Would Shapless get the money? She grew keen in speculation. To leave her in the lurch, to give it all to that greasy Shapless would be the most nat- ural trick in the world for an incisive old fellow like Oliphant. It was too much! She cried a little, and she began to hate the helpless man upstairs. It occurred to her to poke about in the papers in the adjoining room. She must do it at once, for she expected Edwards every moment. First she ran upstairs to see if her uncle was all right. As soon as she en- tered, he glared at her bitterly and would have spoken. She noted the ef- fort and failure, elated. He could not betray her now, unless he rallied won- derfully. So leaving the door ajar, she walked firmly downstairs. Now she could set herself to rest. If the money were all left to Shap- less? She might secure the will, and bargain with the old parasite for a few thousands of dollars. Her mind was full of wild schemes; if she only knew a little more about affairs! She had heard of wills, and read many novels that turned upon wills lost or stolen. They had always seemed to her im- probable, mere novels. Necessity was stranger than fiction. It did not take long to find the very articles she was after; evidently Oh- phant had been overhauling them on that last excursion from his room. The package lay where he had dropped it when he fainted. There were two docu- ments. She unfolded them on the top of the mussy desk. They were hard reading in all their legal dress, and her head was filled with fears lest her hus- band should walk in. She could make out, however, that Oliphant was much richer than she had ever vaguely sup- posed, and that since her departure he had relented toward his son. For in the first in date she was the principal heir, a lot of queer charities coming in besides. In the second, James, Jr., re- ceived something. Her name did not appear. Several clauses had been add- ed from time to time, each one giving more money and lands to the Methodist school. Probably Shapless was after another codicil when he called. It had taken her into the twilight to gain even a meagre idea of all this. She was preparing to fold the docu- ments up in their common wrapper, when she felt the door open behind her. All she could see in the terror of the moment was the gaunt white arm of her uncle, and the two angry eyes in the shaking head. She shrieked from pure nervousness, and at her cry, the old man fell in a heap. The accident steeled her nerves. Dinah came in a panic, and as they were lifting the bony frame from the floor, Edwards entered. With his as- sistance they got the sick man to bed. That was clearly the last gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every time she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified ma- lignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and unstrung. Perhaps with some sudden survival of his forces he would kill her. He was lying there too still for defeat. His life had been an expression of hatesthe last one might be dreadful. Yet she stood to her post in the sick- room, afraid, as she confessed to her- self, to trust herself with her husband. Her mind was soiled with seething thoughts, and in contrast his seemed so fresh and pure! If she could keep him unsuspicious of her, all would be well in the end. But the task she had set herself for him was hard, so hard! That night when all was still she crept downstairs and groped about in the davenport for the papers. They had been lying there unopened where THE PRICE OF ROMANCE 67 they had fallen earlier in the evening. She struck a match, caught up the fresh- er document, and hugged it to her as she toiled upstairs. When she had tucked it away in her satchel the end seemed near. They must wait now. She put her husband out of her mind. Outside the warm summer days died away over the sea, one by one, and the grass beyond the gates grew heav- ier with dust. Life was tense in its monotony. That had happened on a Saturday; Monday Dr. Shapless came again, his shoes dusty from his long walk from the station. He looked oiled as ever, but more determined. Mrs. Edwards daringly permitted him to see the dy- ing manhe had been lying in a stu- por, for she was afraid that the rever- end doctors loud tones in the hall might exasperate Oliphant to some wild act. Dr. Shapless shut her from the room when he went in, but he did not stay long. A restless despair had settled down on her uncles face, there to remain for the last few hours. And his visitor was enraged with defeat. Her heart sank; she longed to cry out to the poor old man on the bed that she did not want his money. She re- mained with him all night, yet she did not dare to approach his bed. She would disturb him. He died the next afternoon, and at the last he looked out on the world and at her with his final note of intelli- gence. It was pathetic, a suggestion of past tenderness defeated, and of de- feat in hate, too. She closed his sad eyes: it was awful to meddle with a mans last purposes. The funeral was almost surreptitious. Old Dinah, the Leicesters, and the Ed- wardses occupied the one carriage that followed him to the graveyard across the village. They met a hay-cart or two on their way, but no curious neigh- bors. Old Oliphants death aroused no interest in this village, ridden with sum- mer strangers. The day was impersonally suave and tender, with its gentle haze and autumn premonitions. Mr. Leicester said a few equivocal words, while Mrs. Edwards gazed helplessly into the grave. The others fell back behind the minister. Between her and her uncle down there, something remained unexplained, and her heart ached. They spent that night at the Leices- ters, for Mrs. Edwards wearily refused to return to the Oliphant place. Ed- wards carried the keys over to Slocum, and told him to take the necessary steps toward settling the old mans af- fairs. The next day they returned to the little flat in Harlem. The Leices- ters found their presence awkward, now that there was nothing to do, and Mrs. Edwards was craving to be alone with her husband, to shut out the past month from their lives as soon as pos- sible. These September days, while they both waited in secret anxiety, she clung to him as she had never before. He was pure, the ideal she had voluntarily given up, given up for his sake in order that he might have complete perfection. His delicate sensitiveness kept him from referring to that painful month, or to possible expectations. She wor- shipped him the more, and was thank- ful for his complete ignorance. Their common life could go on untainted and noble. Yet Edwards betrayed his nervous anxiety. His eagerness for the mail every morning, his early return from business indicated his troubled mind. The news came at breakfast - time. Mrs. Edwards handed Slocums letter across the table and waited, her face wanly eager. The letter was long; it took the country lawyer some half-dozen large letter-sheets to tell his news, but in the end it came. He had had the will probated and was happy to say that Mrs. Edwards was a large, a very large beneficiary. Edwards read these closing sentences aloud. He threw down the letter and tried to take her in his arms. But she tearfully pushed him away, and then, repenting, clasped his knees. Oh, Will! its so much, so very much, she almost sobbed. - Edwards looked as if that were not an irremediable fault in their good luck. He said nothing. Already he was plan- ning their future movements. Under 68 THE PRICE OF ROMANCE the circumstances neither cared to dis- cuss their happiness, and so they got little fun from the first bloom. In spite of Mrs. Edwardss delicate health and her expected confinement they decided to go abroad. She was feverishly anxious for him to begin his real work at once, to prove himself; and it might be easier to forget her one vicious month when the Atlantic had been crossed. They put their af- fairs to rights hurriedly, and early in November sailed for France. The Leicesters were at the dock to bid them God - speed and to chirrup o~er their good fortune. Its all like a good, old-fashioned story, beamed Mrs. Leicester, content with romance for once, now that it had arranged itself so decorously. Very satisfactory; quite right, the clergyman added. Well see you soon in Paris. Were thinking of a gay va- cation, and will let you know. Edwards looked fatuous; his wife had an orderly smile. She was glad when Sandy Hook sank into the mists. She had only herself to avoid now. They took some pleasant apartments just off the Rue de IRivoli, and then their life sank into the complacent com- monplace of possession. She was out- wardly content to enjoy with her hus- band, to go to the galleries, the opera, to try the restaurants, and to drive. Yet her life went into one idea, a very fixed idea, such as often takes hold of women during their confine- ipent. She was eager to see him at work. If he accomplished something even content !she would feel justi- fied and perhaps happy. As to the child, the idea grew strange to her. Why should she have a third in the problem? For she saw that the child must take its part in her act, must grow up and share their life and in- herit the Oliphant money. In brief, she feared the yet unborn stranger, to whom she would be responsible in this queer way. And the child could not repair the wrong as could her husband. Certainly the child was an alien. She tried to be tender of her hus- band in his boyish glee and loafing. She could understand that he needed to accustom himself to his new free- dom, to have his vacation first. She held herself in, tensely, refraining from criticism lest she might mar his joy. But she counted the days, and when her child had come, she said to herself, then he must to work. This morbid life was very different from what she had fancied the rich future would be, as she looked into the grave, the end of her struggle, that September afternoon. But she had grown to demand so much more from him; she had grown so grave! His bright, boyish face, the gentle curls, had been dear enough, and now she looked for the lines a mans face should have. Why was he so terribly at ease? The world was bitter and hard in its conditions, and a man should not play. Late in December the Leicesters called ; they were like gleeful spar- rows, twittering about. Mrs. Edwards shuddered to see them again, and when they were gone she gave up and be- came ill. Her tense mind relieved itself in hysterics, which frightened her to fur- ther repression. Then one night she heard herself moaning: Why did I have to take all? It was so little, so very little, I wanted, and I had to take all. Oh, Will, Will, you should have done for yourself. Why did you need this? Why couldnt you do as other men do; its no harder for you than for them. Then she recollected her- self. Edwards was holding her haIA and soothing her. Some weeks later, when she was very ill, she remembered those words, and wondered if he had suspected anything. Her child came and died, and she forgot this matter with others. She lay nerve- less for a long time without thought; Edwards and the doctor feared melan- cholia. So she was taken to Italy for the cold months. Edwards cared for her tenderly, but his caressing presence was irritating instead of soothing to her. She was hungry for a justification that she could not bring about. At last it wore on into late spring. She began to force herself back into the old activities in order to leave no ex- cuse for further dawdling. Her atti- tude became terribly judicial and sus- picious. THE PRICE OF ROMANCE 69 An absorbing idleness had settled down over Edwards, partly excused to himself by his wifes long illness. When he noticed that his desultory days made her restless, he took to loafing about galleries or making little excur- sions, generally in company with some forlorn artist he had picked up. He had nothing, after all, so very definite that demanded his time; he had not yet made up his mind for any attempts. And something in the domestic atmos- phere unsettled him. His wife held herself aloof, with alien sympathies, he felt. So they drifted on to discontent and unhappiness until she could bear it no longer without expression. Arent we to return to Paris soon? she remarked one morning as they idled over a late breakfast. I am strong now, and I should like to settle down. Edwards took the cue, idly welcom- ing any change. Why, yes, in the falL Its too near the summer now, and theres no hurry. Yes, there is hurry, his wife replied, hastily. We have lost almost eight months. Out of a lifetime, Edwards put in, indulgently. She paused, bewildered by the insin- nation of his remark. But her mood was too incendiary to avoid taking of- fence. Do you mean that that would be a bfe, loafing around all day, enjoy- ing this, that, and the other fine pleas- ure. That wasnt what we planned. No, but I dont see why people who are not driven should drive themselves. I want to get the taste of Harlem out of my mouth. He was a bit sullen. A year ago her strict inquiry into his life would have been absurd. Perhaps the money, her money, gave her the right. If people dont drive themselves, she xvent on, passionately, they ought to be driven. Its cowardly to take ad- vantage of having money to do nothing. You wanted thethe opportunity to do something. Now you have it. Edwards twisted his wicker chair into uncomfortable places. Well, are you sorry you happen to have given me the chance? He looked at her coldly, so that a suspicious thought shot into her mind. Yes, she faltered, if it means throwing it away, I am sorry. She dared no more. Her mind was so close on the great sore, the perpetual irritant in her gentle souL He lit a cigarette, and sauntered down the hotel garden. But the look he had given her a queer glance of disagreeable intelli- genceillumined her dormant thoughts. What if he had known all along? She remembered his meaning words that hot night when they talked over Oh- phants illness for the first time. And why had he been so yielding, so utterly passive, during the sordid drama over the dying man? What kept him from alluding to the matter in any way? Yes, he must have encouraged her to go on. She had been his tool, and he, the passive spectator. The blind cer- tainty of a woman made the thing as- sured, settled. She picked up the faint yellow rose he had laid by her plate, and tore it slowly into fine bits. On the whole he was worse than she. But before he returned, she stub- bornly refused to believe herself. In the autumn they were again in Paris, in soberer quarters, which were conducive to effort. Edwards was working fitfully with several teachers, goaded on, as he must confess to him- self, by a pitiless wife. Not much was discussed between them, but he knew that the price of the statu quo was con- tinued labor. She was watching him; he felt it and resented it, but he would not under- stand. All the idealism, the worship of the first sweet months in marriage had gone. Of course that incense had been foolish, but it was sweet. Instead, he felt these suspicious, tolerant eyes fol- lowing his soul in and out on its feeble errands. He comforted himself with the trite consolation that he was suffer- ing from the natural readjustment in a womans mind. It was too drastic for that, however. He. was in the habit of leaving her in the evenings of the opera. The light was too much for her eyes, and she was often tired. One wet April night, when he returned late, he found her up sit- ting by the window that overlooked the steaming boulevard. Somehcw his soul 70 THE PRICE OF ROMANCE was rebellious, and when she asked him about the opera he did not take the pains to lie. Oh, I havent been there, he mut- tered. I am beastly tired of it alL Lets get out of it; to St. Petersburg or Norwayfor the summer, he added, guiltily. Now that the understanding impend- ed she trembled, for hitherto she had never actually known. In suspicion there was hope. So she almost en- treated. We go anyway to Vienna next win- ter, and I thought we had decided on Switzerland for the summer.~~ You decided! But whats the use of keeping up the mill night and day. Theres plenty of opportunity over there for an educated gentleman with money, if what you are after is a sphere for me. You want toto go back now? No, I want to be let alone. Dont you care to pay for all you have had? Havent you any sense of justice to Uncle Oliphant, to your op- portunities? Oliphant, Edwards laughed, dis- agreeably. Wouldnt he be pleased to have an opera, a Gilbert and Sulli- van affair, dedicated to him! No. I have tried to humor your idea of mak- ing myself famous. But whats the use of being wretched? The topic seemed fruitless. Mrs. Edwards looked over to the slight, careless figure. He was sitting dejectedly on a large fan- teull, smoking. He seemed fagged and spiritless. She almost pitied him and gave in, but suddenly she rose and crossed the room. Weve made ourselves pretty un- happy, she said, apologetically, resting her hand on the lapel of his coat. I guess its mostly my fault, Will. I have wanted so much that you should do something fine with Uncle Oliphants money, with yoi.~rself. But we can make it up in other ways. What are you so full of that idea for? Edwards asked, curiously. Why cant you be happy, even as happy as you were in Harlem? His voice was hypocritical. Dont you know? she flashed back. You do know, I believe. Tell me, did you look over those papers on the daven- port that night Uncle James fainted? The unexpected rush of her mind be- wildered him. A calm lie would have set matters to rights, but he was not master of it. So you were willingyou knew? It wasnt my affair, he muttered, weakly, but she had left him. He ~wandered about alone for a few days until the suspense became intoler- able. When he turned up one after- noon in their apartments he found prep- arations on foot for their departure. Were going away? he asked. Yes, to New York. Not so fast, he interrupted, bitter- ly. We might as well face the matter openly. Whats the use of going back there? We cant live here, and besides I shall be wanted there. You cant do anything now. Talk sensibly about it. I will not go back. She looked at him coldly, critically. I cabled Slocum yesterday, and we must live somehow. You but she laid her hand on his arm. It makes no difference now, you know, and it cant be changed. Ive done everything. A HISTORY OF THE LAST qUARTER-CENTURY IN THE UNITED STATES BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS THE UNITED STATES WILL PAY RESUMPTION. THE LEGAL TENDEE DECISION. DEMONETIZATION OF SILVER. THE BLAND BILL. FAILURE OF JAY COOKE. RESIDENT HAYESS bold inde- pendence did not seriously divide P his party. He touched th~ danger- line in removing Chester A. Arthur from the Collectorship of the Port of New York on the charge of partisan activity, hav- ing to rely on Democratic votes in the Senate to secure the successors confir- mation. Vet few stalwarts dared call Hayes a traitor. Democratic opposition fortified him against this. The House, Democratic throughout his term, fought nearly all his wishes, as did the Senate, now also Democratic, during his last two years. To balk him, appropria- tion bills were laden with riders in- volving legislation which he could not approve, but he firmly applied the veto. The futile attempt to right the al- leged fraud of 1877 by ripping up the Electoral Commissions work, kept Hayes before the country as the Repub- licans man, incidentally doing much to advertise his sterling character. Fraud in seating him there may have been, and he may not have been wholly ignorant of it; but he did not originate the Com- mission, or even recommend it, while, under the circumstances, his acceptance of the Presidency was clearly his duty, whatever he thought of the antecedent procedure. Refreshing decency marked all of Mr. Hayess public doings. The PANIC OF 1873. A NEW BLACK FRIDAY. THE GRANaERS. THE MOLLY MAGUIRES. GREAT RAILWAY STRIKES. men placed in office by him were the best available, chosen with little regard to political influence, and, like all others in the civil service, they were required to abstain from active participation in po- litical affairs. This policy enraged poli- ticians, but, by immensely relieving the party from the odium into which it had fallen, aided to put it in condition for the campaign of 1880. The most momentous single deed of Mr. Hayess administration was the res- toration of the countrys finances, public and private, to a hard-money basis. On January 1, 1879, the United States be- gan again the payment, suspended for more than sixteen years, of specie in liquidation of its g,reenback promises. The familiar legend upon our Treasury notes, The United States will Pay, became true at last. Our paper dollar had begun to sink below par so early as December 28, 1861, after which date it underwent the most painful fluctuations. On July 11, 1864, it was sixty-five per cent. below par, thenceforward sinking and rising fitfully, but never reaching gold value again till the month of Dc- cember, 1878. The difficulties of replacing the coun- trys business on a solid monetary plat- form had been foreseen as soon as the subject loomed into view. Senator Sher

A HISTORY OF THE LAST qUARTER-CENTURY IN THE UNITED STATES BY E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS THE UNITED STATES WILL PAY RESUMPTION. THE LEGAL TENDEE DECISION. DEMONETIZATION OF SILVER. THE BLAND BILL. FAILURE OF JAY COOKE. RESIDENT HAYESS bold inde- pendence did not seriously divide P his party. He touched th~ danger- line in removing Chester A. Arthur from the Collectorship of the Port of New York on the charge of partisan activity, hav- ing to rely on Democratic votes in the Senate to secure the successors confir- mation. Vet few stalwarts dared call Hayes a traitor. Democratic opposition fortified him against this. The House, Democratic throughout his term, fought nearly all his wishes, as did the Senate, now also Democratic, during his last two years. To balk him, appropria- tion bills were laden with riders in- volving legislation which he could not approve, but he firmly applied the veto. The futile attempt to right the al- leged fraud of 1877 by ripping up the Electoral Commissions work, kept Hayes before the country as the Repub- licans man, incidentally doing much to advertise his sterling character. Fraud in seating him there may have been, and he may not have been wholly ignorant of it; but he did not originate the Com- mission, or even recommend it, while, under the circumstances, his acceptance of the Presidency was clearly his duty, whatever he thought of the antecedent procedure. Refreshing decency marked all of Mr. Hayess public doings. The PANIC OF 1873. A NEW BLACK FRIDAY. THE GRANaERS. THE MOLLY MAGUIRES. GREAT RAILWAY STRIKES. men placed in office by him were the best available, chosen with little regard to political influence, and, like all others in the civil service, they were required to abstain from active participation in po- litical affairs. This policy enraged poli- ticians, but, by immensely relieving the party from the odium into which it had fallen, aided to put it in condition for the campaign of 1880. The most momentous single deed of Mr. Hayess administration was the res- toration of the countrys finances, public and private, to a hard-money basis. On January 1, 1879, the United States be- gan again the payment, suspended for more than sixteen years, of specie in liquidation of its g,reenback promises. The familiar legend upon our Treasury notes, The United States will Pay, became true at last. Our paper dollar had begun to sink below par so early as December 28, 1861, after which date it underwent the most painful fluctuations. On July 11, 1864, it was sixty-five per cent. below par, thenceforward sinking and rising fitfully, but never reaching gold value again till the month of Dc- cember, 1878. The difficulties of replacing the coun- trys business on a solid monetary plat- form had been foreseen as soon as the subject loomed into view. Senator Sher 72 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY TEE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COlYIPAN!. AU m& AU TAKEN 31 TESS COEPAIT STEW! TA THE FOLLOWING TUNA ~ ~ ~ /4 /w~ _ _ _ _ fd~4~~7 ~c,*~ _ LTREAD THE NOTICE AND ACREEMENT AT THE TOP. The Telegram Announcing the Result of the First Days Resumption st the New York Sub-Treasury. man, upon whom finally fell the main bur- den of carrying the operation through, wrote in 1868: I am in real embarrass- ment about questions that I must now act upon. My conviction is that specie payments must be resumed, and I have my own theories as to the mode of re- sumption, but the process is a very hard one and will endanger the popularity of any man or administration that is compelled to adopt it. The details of resumption were hotly debated all through the presidential campaign of 1876. Mr. Tilden would assign them to the domain of practical administrative statesmanship. Like all other Democrats, he urged a system of preparation for resumption in place of the Republican Resumption Act. A system of preparation without the promise of a day, for the worthless promise of a day without a system of preparation would be the gain of the substance of resumption in exchange for its shadow. In reply it was main- tained that the way to resume was to resume. This thought fortunately de- termined the policy of the country and was justified by the event. The Resumption Act, passed January 14, 1875, had set a date for iesumption four years ahead, January 1, 1879. The first section provided for the imme- diate coinage of subsidiary silver to re- deem the fractional currency. This was practicable, as the now low gold price of that metal rendered possible its cir culation concur- rently with green- backs. The mas- ter-clause of the act authorized the Secretary to buy coin~~ with any of his surplus revenues, and for the same purpose to issue, sell, and dispose of bonds of the United States. It was fortunate for the country that Mr. Sher- man, who, as Sen- ator, had draft- ed the measure, was, as Secretary of the Treasury in the Hayes Cabinet, called to execute it. In resolutely preparing for this, spite of cries that it was impossible, or, if possible, certain to be ruinous and deadly, Sherman, whom many had thought timid and vacillating, evinced the utmost strength of will; while the advertising and placing of his loans showed him a master in big finance. By the sale of four-and-a-half-per cent. bonds, callable in L891, he had, before the appointed day, accumulated $138,- 000,000 of precious metal, all but $32,- 000,000 of it gold; the gold alone being almost forty per cent. of the then out- standing greenbacks. Partly owing to several abundant harvests, throwing the balance of European trade in our favor and crowding gold this way, resumption proved easier than any anticipated. The greenbacks rose to par thirteen days before the date fixed for beginning gold payments. When the day arrived, only straggling applications for coin were made, less in amount than was asked for in greenbacks by bondholders, who could in any event have demanded coin. During the entire year 1879 only $11,- 456,536 in greenbacks were offered for redemption, while over $250,000,000 were paid out in coin obligations. It was found that people preferred paper to metal money, and had no wish for gold instead of notes when assured that the exchange could be made at their option. Notwithstanding our accept- ance of greenbacks for customs$109,- 467,456 during 1879the Treasury at the end of that year experienced a dearth of these and a plethora of coin, having actually to force debtors to receive hard money. The magnitude and meaning of the financial policy thus launched can hardly be over-estimated. The nation had piled up a war debt amounting to the enormous sum of $2,844,649,626. This figure, the highest which the debt ever attained, was reached in August, 1865. Many people at home and in other countries thought that amounts so vast as were called for could never 73 possibly be paid. When we began bor- rowing, the London Economist declared it utterly out of the question for the Americans to obtain the extravagant sums they asked, saying: Europe wont lend them; Americans cannot. The Washington agent of the London bankers, through whom our Government did foreign business, after the battle of Bnll iRun called at the Treasury on Sunday to get his little bill settled, having the effrontery to ask the acting Secretary, Mr. George Harrington, to give security that the balance, about $40,000, wonld be paid. Mr. Harring- ton directed the anxious Englishman G. F. Edmunds. W. B. Allison. 0. P. Morton. John A. Logan. F. T. Frelinghuysen. T. 0. Howe. T. W. Ferry. G. S. Boutwell. Roscoe Conkling. A. A. Sargent The Republican Caucus Committee which Formulated the Resumption Act in December 1874. VOL. XVJIJ.8 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-cENTURY justice Justice Justice Justice (.5ie5-Justice Justice Justice Justice Field. Miller. Clifford. Nelson. Chase. Grier. Swayse. Davis. Chief-Jsstice Chess Asossocing the Decisios of the Supreme Court is the First Legal Tesder Trial Hepburn vs. Griswold. to wait, a~ the Government would prob- enormous war debt. The will to re- ably not break up before business hours duce it opened the way, and the pay- next day. The London Times declared: ment went on by leaps and bounds. No pres e that ever threatened is The policy was to call in high-rate equal to that which now bangs over the bonds as soon as callable, and replace United States, and it may safely be them by others bearing lower rates. S& said that if in future generations they immense was the Governments income faithfully meet their liabilities, they that to have set so late a date as 1891 will fairly earn a fame which will shine for the time when the fonr-and-a-halfa throughout th world. In March, could be cancelled proved unfortunate. 1863, concluding an article on Secre- To fix for the maturity of the fours s& tary Chases st en~ous operations, remote a date as 1907 was worse still. the same newspape exclaimed: What The th ee-per-cents of 1882, which sup-. strength, what resources, what vitality, planted earlier issues, were wisely what energy there must be in a nation made payable at the Governments op- that is able to ruin itself on a scale so tion. For the twenty-three years be- transcendent! ~ ginning with August, 1865, the reduc No nation ever took a braver course tion proceeded at an average rate of a than did the United States in deliber- little under $63,000,000 yearly, which ately beginning the reduction of that would be $5,250,000 each month, $175,- 000 each day, $7,291 each hour, and. * 5huckers Life of S. P. chase, pages 225, 226. $121 each minute. 74 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURy 75 THE LEGAL TENDEE QUESTION thereby they might bring safe into port the leaky ship of state, in danger of being Av act of Congress passed February engulfed in the mad ocean of civil war. 25, 1862, had authorized the issue of Thus the issue of legal-tenders began $150,000,000 in non-interest- under the pressure bearing Treasury notes. These of urgent necessity. notes had no precedent with us From first to last since colonial times. Neither $450,000,000 of this receivable for duties nor pay- p a p e r had been able for interest on the public voted, whereof, on debt, they were yet legal ten- January 3, 1 8 64, der for all other payments, pub- $449,338,902 w a s lie and private. As the Gov- outstanding. Spe- eminent paid its own debts cie payments were with them they amounted to a suspended two days forced loan. before t h e intro- The legal - tender clause of duction of the legal- the 1862 law roused bitterest tender act. Gold antagonism. The press ridi- went to a premium culed it, in some cases being while that act was refused the use of the mails under discussion,. for that reason. The luau- Elbridge G. Spaulding.* remaining so till cial fabric of the Union just before resumption, totters to its base, said January 1, 1879. Even a leading journaL Sec- the subsidiary silver coin-. retary Chase himself, the age disappeared, and Con- father of the greenback, gress was obliged to issue afterward, as Chief-Jus- fractional paper curren- tice, pronounced the law cy, shin-plasters, in its unconstitutional. T h i s stead. was his judgment from Several constitutional the first, and he overrode questions were connected it, after painful delibera- with the greenback. Th tion, only because such Hepburn vs. Griswold (8 a course seemed abso- Wall., 603) the Court lutely necessary to save held, fourt Justices the nation. Mr. Lincoln against three, that, while is said to have aided his the act of February 25, Secretary at this crisis by the parable of the cap- Richard P. Bland. 1862, might, as a war measure be valid, mak tam who, his ship ing greenbacks legal tender aleak, w o r s e and for debts contracted after its worse in spite of passage, yet, so far as its pro- his prayers to the visions related to pre-existing Yirgin, threw her debts, it was inconsistent with i m a g e overboard, the Constitution, not being a and, having success- necessary or proper fully made port and means to any end therein an- docked h is vessel thorized. In Parker vs. Davis for repairs, found (12 Wall., 457), the personnel the image neatly of the Court having b e en filling t h e ho 1 e changed by the resignation of w h e r e the water Justice Grier and the appoint- had come in. Both deemed it patriotic * One of the chief promoters of the Legal Tender Act. to make jetsam of t Or five if Grier be counted. He agreed with the majority, but resigned before the the Constitution if opinion was announced. William B. Alliaon. W. A. Richardson, Massachusetts, b. i-i. Bristow, Kentucky, March 17, 1873June 2,1874. June 2,1874June 21, 1876. John Sherman, Ohio, William Windom, Minnesota, March 8,1877March 5,1881. March 5,1881October 27, 1881. W. Q. Gresham, Indiana, Hugh McCulloch, Indiana, October 24, 1884October 28, 1884. October 28, 1884March 6,1885. C. S. Fairchild, New York, Cherish Foster, Ohio, April 1,1887March 5,1889. February 24, 1891March 6,1893, The Secretaries of the Treasury during the Last Quarter~Century.* * For G. S. Boutwell, March 11, 1869March 11, 1813, see March issue, p. 219. L. M. Morrill, Maine, June 21, 1876March 8,1877. C. J. Folger, New York, October 27, 1881October 24, 1884. Daniel Manning, New York, March 6,1885April 1,1887. James G. Carlisle, Kentucky, March 6,1893 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-cENTURY 77~ ment of Justices Bradley and Strong, though Chase, Clifford, and Field stren- uously maintained their former views, the Hepburn vs. Griswold decision was reversed. That case, the Court now said, was decided by a divided Court, hav- ing fewer Judges than the law then in existence provided that this Court shall have. These cases have been heard be- fore a full Court, and they have received our most careful consideration. Jus- tice Bradley, whom in the judgment of Senator Hoar, the general voice of the profession and of his brethren of the bench would place at the head of all then living American jurists, concurred with the majority in a separate opinion of his own, at once elaborate and em- phatic. In the famous case of Juilliard vs. Greenman (110 U. 5., 421) a third question was tried out, namely, whether Congress has the constitutional power to make United States Treasury notes legal tender for private debts in peace as well as in war. The decision was again in favor of the greenback, Field being the only Justice to register dis- sent. Though this was the first decis- ion of the question arrived at by strictly legal reasoning, it evoked much hostile criticism. When equal to gold, green- backs began to be glorified, and all thoughts of retiring them gave way. June 20, 1874, the maximum greenback circulation was placed at $382,000,000, which the operation of the Resumption Act in 1875 brought down tQ $346,681,- 000, letting the gap be filled by national bank notes. The sum last named is, within a trifle, that still outstanding (1895), all further retirement or can- cellation of legal-tenders being forbid- den by the act approved May 31, 1878. This popularity of the greenbacks stim~ ulated to fresh life the fiat green- back theory, whose pith lay in the proposition that money requires in its material no labor-cost value, its pur- chasing power coming from the decree of the public authority issuing it, so that paper money put forth by a finan- cially responsible government, though involving no promise whatever, will be the peer of gold. This idea was long very influential throughout States so conservative as Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, where, in several campaigns, the able stump addresses of men like Gar- field, Schurz, and Stanley Matthews laid it pretty well to rest. It was, however, the rallying thought of the National Labor Greenback Party, or- ganized at Indianapolis, May 17, 1876, when it nominated Peter Cooper for the Presidency. On the very day that resumption went into effect, a Green- backer Convention in New England de- clared it the paramount issue of their party to substitute greenbacks for na- tional bank notes. DEMONETIZATION or 5JLVER THE old silver dollar, the Dollar of our Fathers, had never ceased to be full legal tender until 1873, although it had since 1853 been, as compared with the gold dollar, too valuable to circulate much. In 1873 a law was unobservedly passed demonetizing it, and making gold the exclusive form of United States full tender hard money. That legislation of such importance should have passed without general debate, either in Congress or by the public, was unfortunate; but, contrary to a very prevalent view, there is no evidence that a single Congressional vote for it was secured by fraud. Little silver had been coined by the United States since 1834. The mone- tary problem of 1873 was not that of to-day. Then, simplicity of monetary system was considered the great de- sideratum, whereas authorities now deem adequacy in volume the most im- portant trait of a hard-money system. In 1873 gold had been for twenty years pouring out of the earth in immense volume, rendering not unnatural the expectation that it alone, without sil- ver, would soon suffice for the worlds hard-money stock. Such was then the judgment of the leaders of public opinion in all lands. It was the view of the Paris Conference in 1867, which recommended the general demonetiza- tion of silvera recommendation cx- tremely influential in determining to a gold policy the German Empire, whose course toward silver in 1873 was iden- tical with ours. European opinion on the subject was 78 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY known and concurred in here. At in- tervals ever since 1816 representative Americans had suggested that we should adopt Great Britains metal- lic money system. In his report of November 29, 1851, the Director of our Mint declared the main features of that system eminently worthy of adoption into the monetary policy of our own country. Hon. Thomas Cor- win, of Ohio, then Secretary of the Treasury, whom no one will charge with obsequiousness to England or to the Money Power at home, in his Re- port of January 6, 1852, seconded the recommendation of the Director of the Mint, carefully setting forth the argu- ment for adopting it. To the Act of 1873 the Senators from Oregon, Cali- fornia, and Nevada unanimously agreed. At the 1867 Paris Conference the Unit- ed States was (by delegates) present as a gold country, Mr. Seward, then Secretary of State, being responsible for this, though no one protested. In- spired by such example and by the recommendation of the Conference, the Secretary of our Treasury, in 1870, drafted the bill discontinuing the silver dollar, which passed the Senate early in 1871 and became a law in 1873. PA55AGE or THE BLAND BILL AN increased value attaching to gold was soon apparent, or, what is the same thing, a general fall in prices. This be- gan so soon as silver full money had been laid aside, silver falling in gold price almost exactly as products at large felL In view of this movement, since all Government bonds outstand- ing in 1873 were payable in coin, it was a nearly universal belief in most sections of the country that the abridgment of the right to pay debts in silver would, if persisted in, be very unjust to taxpayers in liquidating the national debt. The Bland Bill was therefore brought forward, and in 1878 passed, restoring silver again to its an- cient legal equality with gold as debt- paying money. In this act, however, so great was now the disparity in value between gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, Congress did not venture to give back to the white metal the right of free coinage. The Allison tip, as it was called, was incorporated in the bill, requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase monthly not less than two million dollars worth of sil- vet, or more than four million dollars worth, and to coin it into dollars. The Bland-Allison Act was disapproved by President Hayes, but immediately passed over his veto, February 28, 1878. However necessary to final prosper- ity, the contraction of our currency was a sore process, and it encountered at every stage the most bitter opposition. The war left us, as it found us, with painfully little grasp on the principles of money. Men of one type felt that low or falling prices, however caused, meant prosperity; another class at- tached this meaning to high prices, however caused. Few reflected enough to see that great and solid prosperity may attend rising prices, as between 1850 and 1870, or that, on the other hand, prices may be going down and yet greater and greater effort be re- quired to obtain the necessaries of life. The generally conceded desirableness of replacing business upon a precious- metal basis, whatever hardship in low- ered values this might cost those whose property consisted of goods or lands and not of money, misled many, even after the gold platform was reached, to hail each drop in general prices with hallelujahs. Eastern people and the creditor class elsewhere were usually in this frame of mind. Far different felt those, so numerous throughout the West, who had run in debt when rank inflation was on, and who, tied to their mortgaged farms, were compelled to produce against a constantly falling market. They writhed under the pinch, and more or less cor- rectly understood the philosophy of it. A Montgomery County, Pa., farmer once went into a store in Norristown and bought a suit of clothes. The storekeeper said: That is the cheap- est suit of clothes you ever bought. Oh, no, said the farmer, this suit cost me twenty bushels of wheat. I have never paid over fifteen bushels of wheat for a suit of clothes before. The Rush from the New York Stock Exchange on September 18, 1873. 80 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY houses in New York. Jay Cooke & Co., THE PANIC OF 1873 who had invested heavily in the con- struction of the Northern Pacific Rail- THE panic of 1873, so far as it result- way, suspended on September 18th. ed from contraction, had its main origin When authoritative news of this event abroad, not in America, so that its sub- was made known in the Stock Ex- ordinate causes were change a perfect stain- generally looked upon pede of the brokers as its sole occasion; ensued. They surged yet these bye causes out of the Exchange, were important. The tumbling pell-mell shocking destruction of over each other in the wealth by fires and by general confusion, has- reckless speculation, tening to notify their Newton Booth. remer cooper. ~amueI 1-. (ary. Three of the Prominent Greenbackero. of course, had a baneful effect. During respective houses. Next day, Septem- 1872 the balance of trade was strongly ber 19th, Fiske & Hatch, very conserva- against the United States. The ciren- tive people, went down. lation of depreciated paper money had September 19th was a second Black brought to many an apparent prosperity Friday. Never since the original Black which was not real, leading to the free Friday had the Street and the Stock creation of debts by individuals, cor- Exchange been so frantic. The weath- porations, towns, cities, and States. An er, dark and rainy, seemed to sympa- unprecedented mileage of railways had thize with the gloom which clouded been constructed. Within the half the financial situation. Wall, Broad, decade ending with December, 1873, and Nassau Streets were thronged with $1,700,000,000 were thus spent in this people. From the corner of Wall Street country. Much supposed wealth con- and Broadway down to the corner of sisted in the bonds of these railroads Hanover Street a solid mass of men filled and of other new concerns, like mining both sidewalks. From the Post-Office and manufacturing corporations. Thus along Nassau Street down Broad Street the entire business of the country was to Exchange Place another dense throng on a basis of inflation, and when con- moved slowly, aimlessly, hither and traction came disaster was inevitable, thither. Sections of Broadway itself In the course of the summer solid were packed. Weaving in and out like values began to be hoarded and inter- the shuttles in a loom were brokers and est rates consequently to rise. In Au- brokers clerks making the best speed gust there was a partial corner in gold, they could from point to point. All broken by a government sale of $6,000,- faces wore a bewildered and foreboding 000. In September panic came, with look. To help them seem cool, mon- suspension of several large banking- eyed men talked about the weather, A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 81 but their incoherent words and nervous ing rain as they gazed with rapt atten- motions betrayed their anxiety. The tion on the scene below. All the brok- part of Wall Street at the corner of ers offices were filled. In each, at the Broad Street held a specially interested first click of the indicator, everybody mass of men. They seemed like an as- present was breathless, showing an in- semblage anxiously awaiting the appear- terest more and more intense as the ance of a great spectacle. High up on figures telegraphed were read off. the stone balustrade of the Sub-treas- It was half - past ten in the morn- ury were numerous spectators, um- ing when the Fiske & Hatch failure brellas sheltering them from the pelt- was announced in the Stock Exchange. The Trial of Thomas Munley the Molly Maguire at Pottoville, Pa. From photographs by George A. Bretz. 82 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY For a moment there was silence ; then nor of the Exchange was of noble alti- a hoarse murmur broke out froiu bulls tude, with a vaulting top, brilliantly col- and bears alike, followed by yells and ored in Renaissance design, that sprang cries indescribable, clearly audible on upward with a strength and grace sel- the street. Even the heartless bear, in dom so happily united. A cluster of gas- glee over the havoc he was making, jets, hanging high, well illuminated the paused to utter a growl of sorrow that enclosure. On the capacious floor, un- gentlemen so honorable should become obstructed by pillars or by furniture, ursine prey. The news of the failure save one small table whereon a large ran like a prairie fire, spreading dismay basket of flowers rested, a mob of bro- that showed itself on all faces. Anno- kers and brokers clerks surged back tators of values in the various offices and forth, filling the immense space made known in doleful ticks the depre- above with roars and screams. The ciation of stocks and securities. Old floor was portioned off to some twenty habitu~s of the exchanges, each usually different groups. Here was one toss- placid as a moonlit lake, were wrought ing New York Central~~ up and down; up till they acted like wild men. near by another playing ball with Wa- At the corner of Broad Street and bash ; Northwestern~~ jumped and Exchange Place a delirious crowd of sank as if afflicted with St. Vituss money-lenders and borrowers collected dance. In the middle of the floor and tried to fix a rate for loans. The Rock Isand cut up similar capers. matter hung in the balance for some In a remote corner Pacific Mail was time until the extent of the panic be- beaten with clubs, while Harlem came known. Then they bid until the rose like a balloon filled with pure price of money touched one - half of hydrogen. The uninitiated expected one per cent. a day and legal interest, every instant to see the mob fight. One man, after lending $30,000 at three- Jobbers squared off at each other and eighths per cent., said that he had $20,- screamed and yelled violently, flinging 000 left, but that he thought he would their arms around and producing a not lend it. As he said this, he turned scene which Bedlam itself could not toward his office, but was immediately equal. surrounded by about twenty borrowers Behind the raised desk, in snowy who hung on to his arms and coat-tails shirt-front and necktie, stood the Pres- till he had agreed to lend them the ident of the Exchange, his strong ten- $20,000. or voice every now and then ringing The Stock Exchange witnessed the out over the Babel of sounds be- chief tragedy and the chief farce of the neath. The gallery opposite him con- day. Such tumult, push, and bellowing tamed an eager throng of spectators had never been known there even in the bending forward and craning their wildest moments of the war. The inte- necks to view the pandemonium on Franklin B. Gowen. James MoParlan, Thomas Munley. From photograph by Gote- the detective. ksnst. Jimmy Kerrigas the aqsealer. From photographs by George A. Sretz. the floor. The rush for this gallery was fearful, and, apparently, but for the utmost effort of the police, must have proved fatal to some. Excite- ment in Wall Street not infrequently draws crowds to the main front of the Exchange; but hardly ever, if ever be- fore, had the vicinity been so packed as now. Two large blackboards ex- hibited in chalk figures the incessant- ly fluctuating quotations. Telegraph wires connected the Exchange with a thousand indicators throughout the city, whence the quotations, big with meaning to many, were flashed over the land. The first Black Friday was a bull Friday; the second was a bear Friday. Early in the panic powerful brokers began to sell short, and they succeeded in hammering down from ten to forty per cent. many of the finest stocks like Harlem, New York Central, Erie, Wabash, Northwestern, Rock Island, and Western Union. They then bought to cover their sales. Bull brokers, unable to pay their con- tracts, shrieked for margin money, which their principals would not or could not put up. They also sought relief from the banks, but in vain. It had long been the practice of certain banks, though contrary to law, early each day to certify checks to enormous amounts in favor of brokers who had not a cent on deposit to their credit, the understanding in each case being 83 The attempt to Fire the Pennsylvania Railroad Round-house in Pittsburgh at Daybreak on Sunday July 22 1877. Painted by W. R. Leigh from photographs by Robinson. 84 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY that before three oclock the broker would hand in enough cash or securi- ties to cancel his debt. The banks now refused this accommodation. In the Exchange eighteen names were read off of brokers who could not ful- fil their contracts. As fast as the fail- ures were announced the news was carried out on to the street. In spite of the rain, hundreds of people gath- ered about the offices of fallen repu Secretary McCulloch had called in for cancellation were set free. But as Mr. Richardson announced no policy on which the public could depend, most of the cash let loose was instantly hoarded in vaults or used in the pur- chase of other bonds then temporarily depressed, so doing nothing whatever to allay the distress. On the 25th the Treasury ceased buying bonds. The person who, at the worst, sustained the burnt s-relgnr ~...ars.* Union Station. Round-house. Scenes After the Rsilwsy Riot of 1877 in Pittsburgh. tation, and gazed curiously through the market and kept it from breaking to a windows trying to make out how the point where half of the street would broken brokers were behaving, have been inevitably ruined, was Jay In deference to a general wish that Gould, mischief itself on the first Black dealings in stocks should cease, the Friday, but on this one a blessing. He Exchange was shut on Saturday Sep- bought during the low prices several tember 20th, and not opened again till hundred thousand shares of railroad the 30th. Such closure had never oc- stocks, principally of the Vanderbilt curred before. On Sunday morning stripe, and in this way put a check on President -Grant and Secretary Rich- the ruinous decline. ardson, of the Treasury, came to New The national banks of New York York, spending the day in anxious con- weathered this cyclone by a novel de- sultation with Vanderbilt, Clews, and vice of tbe Clearing-house or associated other prominent business men. banks. These pooled their cash and Had the Secretary of the Treasury collaterals into a common fund, placed acted promptly and firmly he might this in the hands of a trusty commit- have relieved the situation much; but tee, and issued against it loan certifi- he vacillated. Some $13,500,000 in cates that were receivable at the Clear- five-twenty bonds were bought, and a ing-house, just like cash, in payment few millions of the greenbacks which of debit balances. Ten million dollars worth of these certificates was issued * Owing to the general congestion of traffic there were at first, a sum subsequently doubled. miles of freight trains blocked at this point, which the This Clearing-house paper served its rioters bnrned just as they stood. A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 85 purpose admirably. By October 3d confidence was so restored that $1,000,- 000 of it was called in and cancelled, followed next day by $1,500,000 more. None of it was long outstanding. The Clearing-house febrifuge was success- fully applied also in Boston, Philadel- phia, Pittsburgh, and other cities, but not in Chicago. The panic overspread the country. Credit in business was refused, debtors were pressed for payment, securities were rushed into the market and fell greatly in price. Even United States bonds went down from five to ten per cent. There was a run upon savings- banks, many of which succumbed. Manufactured goods were little salable, and the prices of agricultural products painfully sank. Factories began to run on short time, many closed entire- ly, many corporations failed. The pe- culiarity of this crisis was the slowness with which it abated, though fortunate- ly its acute phase was of brief duration. No date can be set as its term, its evil effects dragging on through years. THE GRANGER AGITATION THE complaints evoked by industrial depression were in due time echoed in politics. Agrarian movements and labor movements in great numbers V. (Notice found in yard of D. Patchen, Engineer, Crensona.) from the gap Daniol Patch remember you will be running in this coal ragion at night you took an nother mans engin we will give you fair warning in time and some more. V. L. M. M. H. S. T. czZ~ Vt we hear notify you to leave th Road for you took a nother man chop take a warning to Save your live to Yost A Notice Put in Evidence During the Molly Maguire Prosecutions. social phenomena at first, but rapidly evolving political significancemarked the times. VOL. XVIII.9 The Grangers, or Patrons of Husbandry, was a secret organization for the promotion of farmers interests. It was founded at Washington, Dc- ceinber 4, 1867, women as well as men being members. In 1868 there were but 11 granges. The total member- ship of the order on April 1, 1874, six years from the time when local granges began to be formed, was 1,500,000, distributed throughout nearly all the States, though most numerous in the West and South. The central aim of Granger agitation at first was to secure better transpor- tation and lower freight rates, particu- larly from the West to the East. After waiting for railway facilities to be de- veloped, the shippers of grain and beef found themselves, when railways were at last supplied, hardly better off than before. The vast demand for transpor- tation sent freight charges up to appall- ing figures. All sorts of relief devices were considered, among them a project for opening canal and slack-water nav- igation between the Mississippi and the Atlantic coast. This was earnest- ly urged by the Southern Commercial Convention at Cincinnati in 1870. The difficulties of freight transporta- tion between the States was discussed at length by Congress, spite of railway attorneys insistence that the subject was beyond Congressional controL In the House of Representatives, dur- ing January, 1874, Hon. G. W. Mc- Crary, Chairman of the Committee on Railroads and Canals, made an exhaustive report affirming the con- stitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. This valuable paper laid bare, in Section 8, Article 1, of the Constitution, a depth of meaning which, till then, few had suspected, a discovery that prepared the way for the Interstate Commerce Act, passed on February 4, 1887. Discrimination in freight charges was a fruitful source of discontent. In Illinois a dispute known as the Three-Cent War intensified feel- ing against railroads. This partic- ular trouble was the outgrowth of the Illinois Centrals disregard of an order issued by the Illinois Railroad Coin- 86 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY missioners, limiting passenger fares to three cents per mile. The Commis- sioners decree having been found con- trary to the State Constitution, the Legislature passed a law to limit fares. This the railroads fought with all energy in both State and Federal Courts. In November, 1875, in the case of the people against the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company, the United States Circuit Court handed down a decision sustaining the constitutional- ity of the law. Several Granger cases went to the national Supreme Court, which affirmed a States right to fix maximum railway charges. In 1865 a Labor Congress was ~ (7 held at Louisville, with but twenty- ~ five or thirty delegates. A second ~ U sat at Baltimore in August, the next year, whose proceedings attracted some attention. Labor agitation had by this time assumed consider- able proportions, ~most, perhaps, in Massachusetts, where the Grand Lodge of the Knights of St. Crispin was chartered in 1870. Able men and influential newspapers began to espouse the labor cause. The Congress of 1867 was held in Chicago, and it mooted a scheme of labor unionscity, county, and State. The Congress of 1868 was in New York, that of 1869 in Philadelphia. These marked little prog- ress; but the National Labor Congress which met in Cincinnati, August 15,1870, was said to represent four hundred thou- sand people. It demanded Treasury notes not based on coin, an eight-hour work-day, the exclusion of Chinese la- borers from the country, and the crea- tion of a National Department of Labor. Till now the movement was non-po- litical, but the Chicago Congress, by a close vote, adopted a resolution creating an independent political organization to be known as the National Labor Re- form Party. The party at once began to have influence. In the Massachu- setts election of 1870 it fused with the Prohibitionists, making Wendell Phil- lips the candidate for Governor, who re- ceived nearly twenty-two thousand of the about one hundred and fifty-two thousand votes which were cast. One labor reformer was elected to the Mas- sachusetts Senate, and eleven to the House. In 1871 the Congress met at St. Louis, August 10th. Little was done here beyond adopting a platform on which it was proposed to appeal to the country in the presidential election of 1872. This platform, slightly modified, was launched at the Columbus Convention, which met on February 21, 1872. Twelve States were represented. The Convention demanded as the nations money greenbacks not based on coin. A tariff taxing luxuries and protecting Notice you have Caned this as far as you can By cheating thy men you three Bosses Be Carefull if the Above dont Be your home in A short Time. From a Stranger he nowes you A Molly Maguire Notice. home industries, a law for an eight-hour labor day, and the governmental control of railways and telegraphs were also in- sisted on. Hon. David Davis was nomi- nated for the Presidency, but declined to run. Subsequently Charles OConor was named. Mter the passage of the Resumption Act, January 14, 1875, the forces of labor reform were directed more par- ticularly against the policy of contrac- tion. A convention of anti-contraction- ists met in Detroit, August 23, 1875. Protesting that they were not inflation- ists, they yet earnestly deprecated any diminution in the volume of currency, which they would maintain by green- backs redeemable only in bonds, these, in turn, being convertible into green- backs. THE NATIONAL GREENBACK PARTY THE Independents, known as the National Greenback Party, assembled at Indianapolis, Ind., on May 17, 1876. Two hundred and thirty-nine delegates were present from nineteen States. The platform was essentially a demand A HISTORY OP THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 87 for the immediate and unconditional repeal of the Resumption Act and for the issue of United States notes con- vertible on demand into Government obligations bearing a low rate of inter- est, such notes to form our circulating Notice is here given to you men the first and the last Notice that you will get for no mau to go Down this slope After to Night if yo Do you Can Bring your Coffion Along With you for By the internal Crist We mean What this Notice says you Drift man stop at home and Cut no more Coal let him go and get Coal himself I Dont mean En,ineer or firemans let them mine there one Work now men the Next Notice you Will get I Dont mean to Do it With my Pen I Will Do it With that there Rolver I Dout Want no more Black legs at this Collary. A Molly Maguire Notice. medium, and such bonds, re-exchange- able for notes at the option of the hold- er, to render needless any further sales of bonds payable in coin. Peter Coop- er was the nominee for President, New- ton Booth for Vice - President. Mr. Booth declining, Samuel F. Cary, of Ohio, was chosen in his stead. Mr. Cooper accepted the nomination condi- tionally, expressing the hope that the Independents might attain their aims through either the Republican or the Democratic party, permitting him to step aside and remain in that quiet which~ he declared most congenial to his nature and time of life. Cooper ran, however, receiving 82,640 votes. The next year his party polled 187,095 votes, and in 1878, 1,000,365. The Greenback or National Greenback- Labor party entered actively into the canvass of 1880, running General J. B. Weaver for President, who polled 307,- 740 votes. Four years later General B. F. Butler was the presidential candi- date both of this party and of the Anti-monopoly party. He received 133,825 votes. Happy had it been for the country could we have diverted the entire force of the labor agitation into political channels. But this was impossible. The worst labor troubles of these years had to be settled not at the polls but by force. This was mainly due to the large number of immigrants now arriving, among them Hun- garians, Poles, Italians, and Portu- guese, usually ignorant clay for the hand of the first unscrupulous dem- agogue. Another cause of the labor wars was the wide and sedulous in- culcation in this country of the so- cial democratic, communist, and anarchist doctrines long prevalent in Europe. Influences concurrent with both these were the actual in- justice and the haughty and over- bearing manner of many employers. Capital had been mismanaged and wasted. The war had brought un- earned fortunes to many, sudden wealth to a much larger number, while the unexampled prosperity of (No sienature) the country raised up in a perfectly normal manner a wealthy class, the like of which, in number and power, our country had never known before. As, therefore, immigration, along with much else, multiplied the poor, the eternal angry strife of wealth with pov- erty, of high with low, of classes with masses, crossed over from Europe and began on our shores. Time rise of trusts and gigantic corpo- rations was connected with this strug- gle. Corporations worth nigh half a billion dollars apiece were able to buy or defy legislatures and make or break laws as they pleased; and since such corporations, instead of individuals, more and more became the employers of labor, not only did the old-time kindliness between help and hirers die out, but men the most cool and intelli- gent feared the new power as a menace to democracy. Strikes, therefore, com- manded large public sympathy. Stock- watering and other vicious practices, involving the ruin of corporators them- selves by the few holders of a majority of the shares, in order to repurchase the property for next to nothing, con- tributed to this hostility. So did the presence, in many great corporations, 88 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY of foreign capital and capitalists, and also the mutual favoritism of corpora- tions, showing itself, for instance, in special freight rates to privileged con- cerns. Minor interests, and particularly employees, powerless against these Ti- tan agencies by any legal process, re- sorted to counter-organization. Labor agitation was facilitated by the extraor- dinary increase of urban population, it being mostly manufacturing and me- chanical industry which brought the hordes of workmen together. Trades- unions secured rank development. The Knights of Labor, intended as a sort of union of them all, attained a member- ship of a million. The manufacturers black list, to prevent any agitator laborer from securing work, was an- swered by the boycott, to keep the products of obnoxious establishments from finding ~ale. Labor organizations, so strong, often tyrannized over their own members, and boycotting became a nuisance that had to be abated by law. THE MOLLY MAGULRE5 IN the Pennsylvania mining districts labor troubles early became acute. The great coal barons, offending the public by pricing their indispensable product extortionately high, long received no sympathy and no aid in repressing em- ployees crimes. During 1873, 1874, and 1875, these grew frightfully coIn- mon. Usually the motive seemed to be not so much to injure employers property as to scare scab help from the mines during contests against cuts in wages. A cut at the Ben Franklin Colliery had been accepted by the men, who were peaceably at work, when the breaker was burned, throwing them all out. Another breaker near by, a gang of strikers fired almost by daylight, first driving the workmen away. A common method of intimidation was for ten or twelve roughs to form a gang, and, armed, to sweep through a mining camp, forcing every man to join; the numbers so collected being soon sufficient to overawe any inclined to resist. June 3, 1875, one thousand men thus gathered stopped work at several mines near Mahanoy City, and a similar band did the same at Shenan- doah. At night there was an attempt to derail a passenger train approach- ing Shenandoah, but the plot was dis- covered in time. The same night a breaker near Mount Cannel went nil in smoke, and a few days later two contractors at the O~kdale mine were shot. For a time every passenger train on the Reading Railroad had to be pre- ceded through the mining districts by a locomotive carrying an armed posse. Watchmen and station-agents were beaten; loaded cars and other obstruc- tions were put upon main tracks switches were misplaced and ware- houses plundered. At every cut or for- est along the line lay armed assassins to shoot trainmen and passengers. Each engineer ran his train, his left hand on the throttle, his right clutching a re- volver. Bosses and scabs specially hated by the desperate miners were served with notices denouncing vengeance on them if they did not leave. Some of these are reproduced on pp. 85, 86, and 87. One admonition ran: Now men i have warented ye be- fore and i willnt warind you no mor but i will gwrintee you the will be the report of the revolver. A rude drawing of a revolver was subjoined as the authors sign manual. Others were as follows: NOTICE Any blackleg that takes a Union Mans job While He is standing for His Rights will have a hard Road to travel and if He dont he will have to Suffer the Consequences. This Notice was followed by a picture of a dead man in his coffin, and signed BEACHEE AND TILToN. At Locust Summit, March 31, 1875, was posted the following: NoTIcE. Mr. Black-legs if you dont leave in 2 days time You meet your doom there vill Be an Open warimeateatly A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY 89 Such threats, unless heeded, were nearly always executed. Among others notified in these ways was one MeCar- ron, a policeman in Tamaqua, who had aroused the enmity of Powder Keg Carrigan. Two men were detailed to kill McCarron late on a given night, and hid themselves for this purpose near his beat. But on this night McCarron hap- pened to have changed beats with an- other policeman, named Yost, an old sol- dier, whom all, even the Mollies, liked. Climbing a lamp-post ladder early in the morning to turn out the gas, Yost was fatally shot by the men who had been lying low for McCarron. The chief source of these atrocities was a secret society known as the Molly Maguires, thefr nanie and spirit both imported from Ireland. They terror- ized the entire Schuylkill and Shamokin districts. A superintendent or a boss was attacked, beaten, or shot down some- where almost every day. Gangs of these thugs would waylay a victim in the field or by the roadside if they could, but, failing in this, they surrounded his house, forced him out, and did him to death. Among the most brutal of their murders was that of Alexander iRae, a mine superintendent, pounded to death in October, 1868. Driving along a lonely road between Mount Carmel and Centralia, supposed to be going to pay off his men, and therefore to have $19,- 000, more or less, in his buggy, he was set upon by four MolliesPat Hester, iDooley, McHugh, and Kelly the Bum. After filling themselves with liquor, the four, at dawn, hid in a piece of woods through which their victim was to pass, and, upon his approach, rushed at him, pistols in hand. Kelly the Bum fired first. Rae piteously begged for his life. He happened on this occasion to have only $60 with him, having sent the pay- money ahead by a clerk; but he offered his assailants all he had, as well as his watch, agreeing also to sign a check for any amount if they would spare him. In vain. Having fired several bullets into .the wretched man without killing him, they finished the work with clubs and the butts of their revolvers. All four of the bloody villains were subse- quently tried, convicted, and hung for this murder. Law-abiding people feared to stir out after dark, or even by day, unless well armed. The Mollies had their signs and passwords for use when necessary, but they grew so bold that such devices were rarely needed. In cases of arrest plenty of perjurers were ready to swear an alibi, though not a witness could be drummed up for the State. The Mol- lies nominated officers and controlled elections. Members of the Order be- came chiefs of police, constables, and county commissioners. One of them came very near being elected to the Schuylkill County bench. Superintend- ents of jobs had to hire and discharge men at the Mollies behest or be shot. At a certain State election a high State official gave the Order large money for casting its vote his way. Jack Kehoc, a leading Molly, when in prison for mur- der, boasted that if he were convicted and sentenced the old man up at Har- risburg would never let him swing. The entire power of the Catholic Church in the region was used against the Or- der, but in vain. The principal honor of exposing and suppressing this Pennsylvania Mafia is due to Hon. Franklin B. Gowen, a law- yer, at the time President of the Penn- sylvania and Reading Coal and Iron Co. Knowing the uselessness of attempting the work with the local police, he, in 1873, secured from Pinkertons Detec- tive Agency in Chicago the services of one James MeParlan, a young Irish- man of phenomenal tact and grit, to go among the Mollies as a secret detective. No bolder, no more dangerous, no more telling work was ever wrought by a de- tective than that now undertaken by MeParlan. Calling himself McKenna, he began operations in the autumn of 1873. By stating that he had killed a man in Buffalo and that his favorite business had been shoving the queer, he was at once admitted to the Order, and soon became one of its prominent officers. He seems, however, to have been from the first the object of some suspicion, so that the progress of his mission was slow. It was not till 1875 that MeParlans work began to tell. Two murders to which he was privy he unfortunately could not prevent, so closely was he 90 A HISTORY OF THE LAST QUARTER-CENTURY watched. One of these was that of Thomas Sanger, a young English boss miner. Early on the morning of Sep- tember 1st, Sanger started from his house to his work. Hardly out of sight of his door a man faced him and shot him through the arm. Running round a house near by he was met by a sec- ond villain, pistol in hand. Turning, he stumbled and fell, just as a third appeared, who shot him fatally. A fourth deliberately turned the body over so as to make sure of hitting a vital part, and shot him again. Robert Heaton, an employer, heard the firing and rushed, armed, to Sangers aid. The murderers fled. Poor, brave San- ger, bleeding to death, told Heaton: Never mind me, give it to them, Bob. Sangers agonized wife, from whom he had just parted, reached his prostrate form barely in time to hear him gasp: Kiss me, Sarah, for I am dying. The assassins escaped H eaton, but went straight to the house where Mc- Parlan was, acquainting him with every detail of their bloody deed. Gowen had employed him on the express con- dition that he should never be called as a witness or be required in any way to show his hand, but when arrests were made the Mollies suspected him, so that it appeared to be his safest course to come out openly for the prosecution. Going upon the witness-stand he de- molished the sham alibi which the culprits soughf to establish, and gave dews which led to the extirpation of the entire gang. Schuylkill County, where the worst crimes had occurred, rose in its might and stamped out the conspiracy. A small army of alibi wit- nesses were punished for perjury. Nine of the Mollies were sentenced to death, and most of the other leaders impris- oned for long terms. Then, said Mr. Gowen, who acted as counsel for the prosecution, we knew that we were free men. Then we could go to Patsy Collins, the com- missioner of this county, and say to him: Build well the walls of the new addition to the prison; dig the foun- dations deep and make them strong; put in good masonry and iron bars; for, as the Lord liveth, the time will come when, side by side with William Love, the murderer of Squire Gwither, you will enter the walls that you are now building for others. Then we could say to Jack Kehoe, the high con- stable of a great borough in this coun- ty: We have no fear of you. Then we could say to Ned Monaghan, chief of police and murderer and assassin: Behind you the scaffold is prepared for your reception. Then we could say to Pat Conry, commissioner of this county: The time has ceased when a governor of this State dares to pardon a Molly Maguireyou have had your last pardon. Then we could say to John Slattery, who was almost elected judge of this court: We know that of you that it were better you had not been born than that it should be known. Then all of us looked up. Then, at last, we were free, and I came to this county and walked through it as safely as in the most crowded thor- oughfares of Philadelphia. The times evoked a specially bitter feeling against great railway corpora- tions, and a widespread desire to set legal limitations to their power. Their reckless rivalries, their ruinous borrow- ing and extravagance were freely criti- cised even by such as did not deem themselves injured thereby; but their employees were rendered frantic. GREAT RAILWAY 5TEIKE5 THE most desperate and extensive strike that had yet occurred in this country was that of 1877, by the em- ployees of the principal railway trank linesthe Baltimore & Ohio, the Penn- sylvania, the Erie, the New York Cen- tral, and their western prolongations. At a preconcerted time junctions and other main points were seized. Freight traffic on the roads named was entirely suspended, and the passenger and mail service greatly impeded. When new em~rloyees sought to work, militia had to be called out to preserve order. Baltimore and Pittsburgh were each the scene of a bloody riot. At the lat- ter place, where the mob was immense and most furious, the militia were over- come and besieged in a round-house, which it was then attempted to burn by THE SMOKE lighting oil - cars and pushing them against it. Fortunately the soldiers escaped across the river. The militia having had several bloody and doubtful encounters, on July 21, 22, and 23, at the request of the Governors, President Hayes despatched United States troops to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. Faced by these forces the rioters in every instance gave way with- out bloodshed. The torch was applied freely and with dreadful effect. Machine-shops, ware- houses, and two thousand freight-cars were pillaged or burned. Men, women, and children fell to thieving, carrying off all sorts of goodskid ball-shoes, parasols, coffee-mills, whips, and gas- stoves. The police found seven great trunks full of clothes in one house; eleven barrels of flour in another. It is said that a wagon-load of sewing-ma- chines was sold on the street, the machines bringing from ten cents to $1 apiece. The loss of property was estimated at $10,000,000. In disturb- ances at Chicago nineteen were killed, at Baltimore nine, at Reading thirteen, and thrice as many wounded. One hundred thousand laborers are believed to have taken part in the movement, and at one time or another 6,000 or 7,000 miles of road were in their power. The agitation began on July 14th, and was serious till the 27th, but had mostly died away by the end of the month, the laborers nearly all returning to their work. Hosts of Pennsylvania miners went out along with the railroad men. The railway strike itself was largely sympa- thetic, the ten per cent. reduction in wages assigned as its cause applying to comparatively few. The next years witnessed continual troubles of this sort, though rarely, if in any case, so serious, between wage - workers and their employers in nearly all industries. The worst ones befell the manufac- turing portions of the country, where strikes and lock-outs were part of the news almost every day. THE SMOKE By Hannah Parker Kimball DovE-WINGED against a tender, turquoise sky The white smoke flits; or through the lambent air Quivers to fading violet spirals fair; Or shifts to gray, curled upward heavily. It rises in strong, twisted colunins high From grimy funnels, flecked with fitful flare; Or through the planks of creaking bridges bare It sifts a sinuous way to trail and die. The still, vast skies are background for its strife; Tis like mans yearning, mounting from mans pain, Seeking the tranquil Heavens, waveringly; Earths ceaseless clash and clangor give it life; Tis like mans prayers, that rise from toil and strain, Trail, and are lost, in Gods immensity. 91

THE SMOKE lighting oil - cars and pushing them against it. Fortunately the soldiers escaped across the river. The militia having had several bloody and doubtful encounters, on July 21, 22, and 23, at the request of the Governors, President Hayes despatched United States troops to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. Faced by these forces the rioters in every instance gave way with- out bloodshed. The torch was applied freely and with dreadful effect. Machine-shops, ware- houses, and two thousand freight-cars were pillaged or burned. Men, women, and children fell to thieving, carrying off all sorts of goodskid ball-shoes, parasols, coffee-mills, whips, and gas- stoves. The police found seven great trunks full of clothes in one house; eleven barrels of flour in another. It is said that a wagon-load of sewing-ma- chines was sold on the street, the machines bringing from ten cents to $1 apiece. The loss of property was estimated at $10,000,000. In disturb- ances at Chicago nineteen were killed, at Baltimore nine, at Reading thirteen, and thrice as many wounded. One hundred thousand laborers are believed to have taken part in the movement, and at one time or another 6,000 or 7,000 miles of road were in their power. The agitation began on July 14th, and was serious till the 27th, but had mostly died away by the end of the month, the laborers nearly all returning to their work. Hosts of Pennsylvania miners went out along with the railroad men. The railway strike itself was largely sympa- thetic, the ten per cent. reduction in wages assigned as its cause applying to comparatively few. The next years witnessed continual troubles of this sort, though rarely, if in any case, so serious, between wage - workers and their employers in nearly all industries. The worst ones befell the manufac- turing portions of the country, where strikes and lock-outs were part of the news almost every day. THE SMOKE By Hannah Parker Kimball DovE-WINGED against a tender, turquoise sky The white smoke flits; or through the lambent air Quivers to fading violet spirals fair; Or shifts to gray, curled upward heavily. It rises in strong, twisted colunins high From grimy funnels, flecked with fitful flare; Or through the planks of creaking bridges bare It sifts a sinuous way to trail and die. The still, vast skies are background for its strife; Tis like mans yearning, mounting from mans pain, Seeking the tranquil Heavens, waveringly; Earths ceaseless clash and clangor give it life; Tis like mans prayers, that rise from toil and strain, Trail, and are lost, in Gods immensity. 91 AN ASSISTED DESTINY By Francis Lynde THE hands of the synchronized clock on the wall of the train- despatchers office pointed to mid- night, and Macdonald got up from his place at the telegraph-table and kicked the chair toward his successor. There you are, Pinckney, he said; everything rolling and nobody hurt. See if you can do as well from now till morning. IReddick, you solemn-eyed owl, why dont you go home and go to bed? Havent any home, retorted Red- dick; besides, I have to stay here to keep you fellows from going to sleep. If the train-men knew how many times Ive saved their lives theyd chip in and buy me a house and lot. Macdonald knocked the ashes out of his pipe and threw it at Reddick, after which he bent over the train-sheet with Pinckney. 3 and 4 are both on time, and 4s engine is steaming well, for a wonder. 16 is an hour off, with about ten more loads than the mogul can handle; you wont hear anything more from her till shes doubled over the hill. Come on, Reddicklets go home. Told you I didnt have any home, replied the general agents chief clerk, putting his feet upon the deserted Western Union table and refilling Mac- donalds pipe from the absent oper- ators tobacco-box. So say we all of usand more~s the pity, rejoined Macdonald, putting on his coat. If I had money enough, Id see if I couldnt buy myself a little comfort along that line. Get somebody to die and leave you a legacy, suggested Reddick; and Piuckney looked up from the train- sheet to say: Thats a good idea, Mac; got any rich relatives? Macdonald laughed and said, No ; then he corrected himself. Yes, I have, too; a grandaunts a relative, isnt she? I dont knowI never had one, replied Reddick; but Piuckney thought there was no doubt about it. If youre sure of that, I have one rich kinswoman, said Macdonald. My grandfathers sister lives in Whit- tlesey, Canada, and she has all the money there ever was in the family. Pinckney looked up again at the mention of the place. Whittlesey? What is her name? Elvira Spurlock, spinsterat least, thats what she used to be; perhaps shes married nowI dont keep up with my mothers side of the family. Youre not going up town, then, Red- dick? Well, I am; good.night. When he was gone the midnight si- lence in the despatchers office was un- marred save by the clicking of the sounders and the irregular crashings of the night switch - engine coupling the cars in the crowded freight-yard. Reddick smoked reflectively for a few minutes, and when Pinckney closed his key and leaned back in his chair, the chief clerk began to vilify the absent Macdonald. What a hypocrite Mac is! he said, sententiously. Talking poverty all the time, and hes got over a thousand dollars in the bank! If he should ever happen to strike it rich, I believe hed be the worst miser on top of the earth. Piuckney shook his head. Thats just where youre off wrong, he ar- gued. You take a fellow that saves his money by littles, as Mac does, and hes all right; but you give him a pot of it in a lump and see how quick itll turn his head. If Macs aunt should happen to remember him in her will, youll see a spoiled Scotebman trying to buy experience by the car-load. All the same, I dont believe it, asserted Reddick. Just then Piuckney had to answer the wire, and while he was busy, Red- dick reached for the Official Guide.

AN ASSISTED DESTINY By Francis Lynde THE hands of the synchronized clock on the wall of the train- despatchers office pointed to mid- night, and Macdonald got up from his place at the telegraph-table and kicked the chair toward his successor. There you are, Pinckney, he said; everything rolling and nobody hurt. See if you can do as well from now till morning. IReddick, you solemn-eyed owl, why dont you go home and go to bed? Havent any home, retorted Red- dick; besides, I have to stay here to keep you fellows from going to sleep. If the train-men knew how many times Ive saved their lives theyd chip in and buy me a house and lot. Macdonald knocked the ashes out of his pipe and threw it at Reddick, after which he bent over the train-sheet with Pinckney. 3 and 4 are both on time, and 4s engine is steaming well, for a wonder. 16 is an hour off, with about ten more loads than the mogul can handle; you wont hear anything more from her till shes doubled over the hill. Come on, Reddicklets go home. Told you I didnt have any home, replied the general agents chief clerk, putting his feet upon the deserted Western Union table and refilling Mac- donalds pipe from the absent oper- ators tobacco-box. So say we all of usand more~s the pity, rejoined Macdonald, putting on his coat. If I had money enough, Id see if I couldnt buy myself a little comfort along that line. Get somebody to die and leave you a legacy, suggested Reddick; and Piuckney looked up from the train- sheet to say: Thats a good idea, Mac; got any rich relatives? Macdonald laughed and said, No ; then he corrected himself. Yes, I have, too; a grandaunts a relative, isnt she? I dont knowI never had one, replied Reddick; but Piuckney thought there was no doubt about it. If youre sure of that, I have one rich kinswoman, said Macdonald. My grandfathers sister lives in Whit- tlesey, Canada, and she has all the money there ever was in the family. Pinckney looked up again at the mention of the place. Whittlesey? What is her name? Elvira Spurlock, spinsterat least, thats what she used to be; perhaps shes married nowI dont keep up with my mothers side of the family. Youre not going up town, then, Red- dick? Well, I am; good.night. When he was gone the midnight si- lence in the despatchers office was un- marred save by the clicking of the sounders and the irregular crashings of the night switch - engine coupling the cars in the crowded freight-yard. Reddick smoked reflectively for a few minutes, and when Pinckney closed his key and leaned back in his chair, the chief clerk began to vilify the absent Macdonald. What a hypocrite Mac is! he said, sententiously. Talking poverty all the time, and hes got over a thousand dollars in the bank! If he should ever happen to strike it rich, I believe hed be the worst miser on top of the earth. Piuckney shook his head. Thats just where youre off wrong, he ar- gued. You take a fellow that saves his money by littles, as Mac does, and hes all right; but you give him a pot of it in a lump and see how quick itll turn his head. If Macs aunt should happen to remember him in her will, youll see a spoiled Scotebman trying to buy experience by the car-load. All the same, I dont believe it, asserted Reddick. Just then Piuckney had to answer the wire, and while he was busy, Red- dick reached for the Official Guide. AN ASSISTED DESTINY 93 When the despatcher closed the key again, the chief clerk said, Whittle- seys on the Great Eastern, isnt it? Yes; I know the place. Thats so; I forgot you were a Canuck. Do you happen to have an operators roster in your kit? Pinckney found the book in the table-drawer and gave it to Reddick. The chief clerk ran down the list of names. Here we are, he said; John Whitcomb, night-operator, Great East- ern, Whittlesey. I wonder what kind of a fellow he is? Jack Whitcomb! Hes one of the best fellows in the world. I had the night trick with him in the commercial office in London. I didnt know he was at Whittlesey. Seems to be, said Reddick, adding, thoughtfully, Say, Piuckney, do you suppose hed do you a small favor if youd ask him ? Of course he would; why? I have a scheme; Ill tell you about it when I come back. The passenger office was just across the corridor, and a little later Pinckney heard, in a lull in the telegraphic clat- ter, the clicking of a typewriter. When Reddick returned he handed the de- spatcher a freshly written letter. How would that do for an experi- ment? he asked. Pinekucys solemn face relaxed in a sardonic grin as he read. Humph! youll get yourself badly disliked sonic day. But this wont do, you know; these people wouldnt write on a blank sheet of papertheyd have a letter-head. All right, they shall have a letter- head. Reddick disappeared again, and when he came back the synchronized clock was measuring off the second of the small hours. Think thatll pass muster? he asked, tossing the sheet of paper across the railing to the despatcher. Thats better, said Pinckney; how did you do it? With a pen and some India-ink; you didnt know Id been sent up for forgery once, did you? No, but I think its quite likely. Youll get us both killed on this deal, though, if Mac ever finds out. Never mind about that, said Red- dick, yawning cavernously; you go ahead and do your part, and Ill go hunt me a little sleep. Good-night. Fergus Macdonald was indebted to his fathers fore-elders for two things besides his Scottish name. One was the Macdonald physique, the figure of a young giant with a handsome face, curly brown hair, and honest blue eyes. The other was something more than one mans fair share of Scottish caution. It was the latter trait which made him a laggard in love. To himself, Mac- donald stated the case thus: Miss El- bert was the superintendents daughter; her fathers salary stood sponsor for all of the comforts and not a few of the luxuries; therefore, he, Fergus Mac- donald, must wait until his savings would make Mellicents future some- what nearer akin to her present. They had been acquainted a year, but Macdonalds courtship, tempered by thrift and hampered by an occupa- tion which kept him at his office from four in the afternoon to midnight, seven days in the week, had been rather more formal than a young woman of Melli- cents temperament could approve. Moreover, there was Mr. Hugh Man- craft, whose evenings were his own, who called four times to Macdonalds once, and whose suit was warmly sec- onded by her father. It was upon the night of IReddicks experiment in pen-lettering that the Macdonald possibilities first took form in the mind of the superintendent. Mancraft had taken Melhicent to the theatre; and had again urged his un- successful suit. As he left the house he met the superintendent coming home from the club; and ten minutes later Mellicent was listening to a state- ment of the case from the parental point of view. Now, why cant you be reasonable about this thing, Melhie? the argu- ment concludedMancraft is a good fellow, in a good line of business, and he can give you any kind of a social position you want. I know, papa, said Mellicent, tying nervous little knots in the fringe of her opera shawl as she talked, but you forget that I dont love him. 94 AN ASSISTED DESTINY Lovenonsense! You are living in the wrong end of the century to fall back on sentiment! This is the age of common-sense, and you know you cant urge a single reasonable objection to Mancraft. Noonly that. The superintendent leaned forward in his chair. Youre keeping some- thing back, Mellie, he said; theres some other fellow in the background. Who is it ?not Macdonald, I hope. Unfortunately, Macdonalds self - re- pression had left Mellicent thus far without weapons, but she took some- thing for granted, and said: IlikeMr. Macdonald. Oho! thats it, is it? The super- intendents look of displeasure deep- ened into the judicial frown which made him a terror to erring train-men called into the private office for repri- mand. Well, let me tell you: Mac is nothing but an operator, and hell never be anything else on this division. You promised your mother before she died that you wouldnt marry without my consent, and Ill never consent to let you throw yourself away on a poor devil of an office-man here the official habit asserted itself irresistibly, and he concluded: Just take ten days to think about that, will you? Mellicent wanted to cry, but the fa- miliar sentence of suspension saved her, and she caught eagerly at the re- prieve. It shall be as you say, papa, she said, submissively; Ill give Mr. Mancraft his answerin ten days. If Macdonald had been omniscient, it is fair to presume that he would have thrown his frugal scruples to the dogs; but knowing nothing of Mancraft, the parental point of view, or the reprieve, he suffered nine of these precious days to make yesterdays of themselves un- marked save by his usual Sunday after- noon call upon Mdllicent. On that ac- casion she did what a modest young woman may do toward smoothing the difficulties from the path of a reticent lover, and more than once during his visit Macdonald had to emphasize the contrast between her home surround- ings and the modest figure of his bank account, before he could persuade him- self to hold his peace yet a little longer. It was on the morning of the tenth day that the despatcher, coming down to his late breakfast in Mrs. Jordans dining-room, found a Canadian letter on his plate. Mrs. Jordan, herself, came in with his coffee while he was reading the address, and like an honest woman she made instant confession and apology. Im ever so sorry, Mr. Macdonald the postman brought that letter four or five days ago, and I put it up here on the mantel and clean forgot it. I do hope theres no harm done. It is doubtful if Macdonald heard a word of Mrs. Jordans explanation. He had opened the letter, and the first typewritten line made him forget that Mrs. Jordan was observing him and that his coffee was getting cold. Dear Mr. Macdonald, it began: As attorneys for Elvira Spurlock, lately deceased, it was our mournful privilege to draw up her last will and testament. Although the terms of this document have not yet been made pub- lic, we are in a position to know that you are the principal legatee, and as such we hasten to offer you our hearty congratulations upon your good fort- une. Owing to the absence of one of the executors, the reading of the will will be postponed for a few days; but as your presence will be necessary, you may rely upon us to give you due notice. In the meantime, in evidence of our good-will toward one whom we hope to retain as our client, we authorize you to draw upon us for any sum you may need for your present requirements up to $1,000, the advance to be repaid when we shall have the pleasure of turning over the major portion of the Spurlock estate to its future owner. Until then, believe us, dear sir, Your most obedient servants, GiuMsHAw & FLYNT. Some tokens of Macdonalds min- gled emotions must have found their way into his face, since Mrs. Jordan hastened to ask: No bad news, is it, Mr. Macdonald? Oh, no; its rather the other way, I believe, replied Macdonald, putting AN ASSISTED DESTINY 95 the letter into his po6ket and trying to bring himself down to the common- place necessity of eating his breakfast. Mrs. Jordan went to the window and looped back the curtain so that he might have more light. As she looked out, a young man passed on his way down-town. There goes Mr. Elberts future son- in-law, she remarked, coming back to replenish Macdonalds coffee-cup. What Mr. Elbert? asked the de- spatcher,-absently. Why, our Mr. Elbertthe superin- tendent. Didnt you know that his daughter Mellie was going to be mar- ried to Mr. Mancraft, the mining en- gineer? There is a limit to the number and nature of the surprises that a man may endure with becoming indifference, and Mrs. Jordans bit of gossip wrecked Macdonalds equanimity instantaneous- ly and hopelessly. Whats that you say? he gasped, pushing his plate back and staring wildly at his landlady. Mrs. Jordan repeated the scrap of gossip. But it cant be, insisted Macdon- ald. Iexcuse me, Mrs. Jordan, I dont believe I want any more break- fast and the closing of the front door behind him punctuated his apol- ogy. Once in the street, his determination was quickly taken, and within the quarter-hour he was closeted with the superintendent in the latters private office. Youll have to talk quick this morn- ing, Mac; Im going out on No. 43 to meet the Boston excursion. Macdonalds tongue dave to the roof of his mouth, but he was not the man to look back after he had put his hand to the plough. Its aboutabout your daughter, Mr. Elbert, he stammered; I love her, and I want your permission to ask her to be my wife. The superintendent glanced at his watch. Am I to infer from this that you havent already asked her? he inquired. Yes; I came to you first be- cause Mr. Elbert waved his hand impa- tiently. There is no need of making any more talk about it; the matter can be settled in one wordno. Macdonald was already overwrought, and the curt negative set the hot blood of his Celtic ancestry to dancing un- civilized measures in his brain. Put- ting his broad shoulders against the door, he burst out passionately: You shall hear what Ive got to say, if you miss twenty trains! I want to marry your daughter; I can give her a good name; Ive saved up enough money to start us in decently; and if that isnt enough taking the attorneys letter from his pocketI can give her more. Read that! The superintendent glanced at the letter, impatiently at first, and then with awakening interest. Open that door and tell Burwell to have 43 held till I come down, he said; and when Macdonald had done so Youre a hot-headed young fool, like all the rest of them, but I like your spirit. Now tell me all about this. There isnt much to tell, rejoined Macdonald, whose wrath vanished with the provocation. My grandfather dis- inherited my mother for marrying a Scotch gardener and left his money to his sister. It seems now that she has tried to repair the injustice done to my mother. How much of a fortune is it? I dont know that; grandfather left $50,000 in English securities, and there was some real estate in Canada. Mr. Elbert was a man of quick de- cision, as a superintendent should be. Handing the letter back, he said, Im not more mercenary than I have to be, Mac, but you see how it is,yourse~ I wouldnt be much of a father if I didnt keep a level head where Mellies inter- ests are involved. After all, though, it rests with her; but if you can get her consent, whyI guess you wont have any trouble with me. Now I must go, before I get 43 laid out on her meet- ing-point. At the door he thought of some- thing else, and paused with his hand on the knob. By the way, Mac, per- haps it would be as well for you to 96 AN ASSISTED DESTINY change off with some of the boys so that you could run up to the house to- night and Id go pretty middling early, if I were you. Macdonald needed no urging, but it took the better part of the forenoon to make the desired change in his working hours. It was accomplished finally by his agreeing to work during the after- noon for one of the day men, who was to relieve him at seven and who, in turn, was to be relieved at nine by Pinckney. It was unquestionably the longest afternoon in Macdonalds life, and when it came to an end, he could only make a pretence of eating the supper which Mrs. Jordan had kept warm for him. Running up to his room to dress, he met the twins Delay and Haste on the threshold, and it was eight oclock when the rang the bell at the superintendens house. While waiting on the doorstep he had a chill of apprehension superin- duced by the sight of the lighted par- lor windows, presaging another and an earlier visitor; and the presentiment had its fulfilment when the servant led him past the parlor door and into the deserted family sitting-room. It was five measureless minutes be- fore Mellicent joined him, and he saw at once that she had come only to ex- cuse herself. There was no time for the commonplaces, and still less for subtle and progressive upleadings to the object of his visit. Miss Elbert Mellie, he began, taking her hands in his, give me just one minute. I dont need to tell you that I love youthats been saying it- self for more than a yearbut Ive been an over-cautious fool. Ive been given to understand that I had a meet- ing-point to make here to-night; tell me in just one wordam I too late? The whispered answer was frank ~nd unhesitating: No; wait. And be- fore he could put his joy into words she was gone. Wait? I should think I would! Ill wait till midnight, God bless her! said Macdonald, tramping up and down the rooni in the exuberance of his hafr- piness. I hope the other fellow will take his medicine easier than I could mine. Whew! I can almost find it in my heart to pity him, poor devil! Nevertheless, Macdonalds patience was tested severely before he was per- mitted to mend the broken thread of his wooing. Mancraft was only human; and inasmuch as Mellicent left him to his own devices for a good half hour while she went to her room to have it out with her emotions, he retaliated by killing time mercilessly after she re- turned. Putting this and that together, what with the mining engineers dalli- ance, and his obstinate refusal to take anything less than an argumentative series of negatives for his final answer, it was after nine oclock when Mellicent rejoined Macdonald. A little later, when the arrearages of repressed affec- tion had been given a hearing, and co- herence once more became possible, Mellicent thought of her promise, and of her fathers displeasure. Oh, Fergus! she whispered, we cant go on and be happy, after all! Papa will never, never give his consent. Yes, he will, asserted Macdonald, cheerfully; he has done it alreadyI asked him this morning. And you made him say yes, after he had told me Mellicent stopped abruptly and left the sentence unfin- ished. Tell me what you said to him. It was Macdonalds turn to hesitate now, and he floundered helplessly among the introductory phrases. I told him hed have tothat is, I gave him to understandor rather, I should say, he wasnt going to Mellicent laughed and clapped her hands softly. Go on, Fergus; youre doing beautifully. Oh, pshaw! I suppose I might as well tell the truth and be done with it. He said no, at first, and wasnt going to hear mehe was just going away, you knowand then I got angry and put my back against the door, and told hini hed have to listen. He was good about it afterward, though, and when I told him about my savings, and about the fortune Aunt Spurlock had left me he stopped in deference to the wide-eyed astonishment of his listener, and suddenly remembered that Mellicent knew nothing about the legacy. Why, bless my idiotic soul ! he AN ASSISTED DESTINY 97 exclaimed, I havent told you yet! Another day like this would curdle what little brain I have lefthere, read this letter, and Ill explain afterward. Melliceiit read Messrs. Grimshaw & Flynts letter with kindling enthusiasm. At its conclusion she said, fervently, Oh, Im so glad; now you wont have to work nights, will you, Fergus? Macdonald smiled lovingly at her unselfish first thought. That wasnt what I was thinking of, he said. Im glad because it makes it possible for Inc to give you all the little comforts and luxuries youve been used to; thats what I was saving for, and its why I waited so The clang of the front door bell in- terrupted him, and a sleepy servant came in with a telegram addressed to Mellicent. Macdonald watched her face as she read, and so was not wholly unprepared for her little gasp of dis- may. What is it, Mellie? he asked, ex- citedly. For answer she gave him the message, and he read it with a curious inversion of the senses which seemed to set him upon a pinnacle remotely apart from the commonplace realities. It was from the superintendent, and it was incisive and curtly definite. Tell Macdonald his trick is discov- ered, and send him about his business. Miss Elvira Spurlock is a passenger on this train. Macdonald grappled with his sanity, and got up to rage back ai~id forth like a caged lion. What do you make of it, Fergus? asked Mellicent, shading her eyes from the light with the opened letter. Make of it? Theres only one thing that can be made of itits a miserable hoax, and he thinks Im a party to it! You mustnt mind hes angry now, pleaded Mellicent. Who in the world could do such a thing ? she glanced up at the letter and caught her breath Fergus, would anyone in Canada be likely to use C. & G. R. paper? Whats that? She rose and held the letter before the lamp and Macdonald read the water-mark in the paper, Colorado & Grand River Railway. Then he re- membered the midnight talk with Piuckney and Reddick. That tells the story, he said, sav- agely ; I know who did it, and Ill make them both wish theyd never been born. Wheres my hat? Mellicant saw battle and murder and sudden death in his flashing eyes, and a pair of soft arms went quickly about his neck. You mustnt, Fergus, dear, she entreated. Whoever did it couldnt know what would happen; and, besides she hid her face on his shoulder you know you were wait- ing, andand if it hadnt been for the letter The most courageous affection could go no farther, and Macdonalds wrath dropped a few degrees below the mur- der point when he supplied the missing half of the suggestion. Youre right, Mellie, he said, dis- engaging himself gently from the clinging arms ; I wont kill either of them, but in justice to your father I must go. Good-night, dear; try hard to think me out of this ghastly scrape and he was gone before she could promise. Notwithstanding his relenting ad- mission, Macdonald was determined to have it out with Pinckney and Reddick before he slept; and while he was on his way down - town, a dramatic little scene came upon the stage in the de - spatchers office. Piuckney had relieved the day man, and had settled down to his nights work, when Reddick rushed in with a Western Union telegram. Great murder, man! Read that, will you? he exclaimed, dropping into a chair and fanning himself vigorously with his straw hat. Piuckney read: Miss Elvira Spur- lock, of my party, wants Fergus Mac- donald to meet her on arrival of excur sion in morning. Find and notify him quick. J. M. JOHNsON. Who is Johnson? he asked. . Passenger man in charge of the ex- cursion. What on top of earth do you suppose brings that old woman out here right in the middle of things? Piuckney bad the answer to that question in his pocket. In asking the 98 AN ASSISTED DESTINY Whittlesey operator to mail Messrs. Grimshaw & Flynts incendiary epis- tle, he could not refrain from telling the joke. Whitcomb had thoughtless- ly repeated it, and he wrote in some contrition to say that Miss Spurlock had been making inquiries and had taken a ticket for the Boston-California excursion. For prudential reasons, however, Pinckney ignored the ques- tion and asked: Do you suppose Macs got his leg- acy yet? Got it? I should say he had! I met Burwell a half hour ago, and he says Mac had a row with the superin- tendent about his daughter this morn- ingscored the old man up one hill and down the other, and ended by shoving that fool letter under his nose.~~ Pinckney came out of his indifference at once. Thats seriousthats why Mac wanted to get off to-night. Did you know there was anything between him and Mellie Elbert? Yes; but I didnt suppose he would go and make a full-blown idiot of him- sell before hed taken time to find out. You might have known he would, when there was a woman in the case. Oh, youre in for itthe old mans on the train, and hes probably seen the passenger agent; that means a red-hot message to his daughter, or to Mac, or to both of them. Reddick, if I were you, Id get out of town for a day or two, if I had to walk. I? Whats the matter with you? Youre as deep in the mud as I am in the mire. Mac wont think so; and, besides, one scapegoats a~plenty what was that? A door slammed at the foot of the stairs and a quick step echoed in the corridor. Here he comes now, said the de- spatcher, coolly; if you want to keep a whole skin, youd better get out of here. The advice was good, but there was only one door to the room and IReddick did what he could, diving into a cup- board under the copying-press a scant half-second before Macdonald entered the office. IPiuckney looked up, nod- ded, and took his cue from appear- ances. Wheres iReddick? asked Macdon- ald. Dont know; he was in awhile ago. but he went out again the despatcher on duty found it convenient to be very busy over the day mans transfer- notes. Macdonald tossed an open letter upon the table. I want to know which one of you fellows wrote that, he said, sternly. Piuckney read the letter with well- simulated interest. What makes you think either of us wrote it? he asked. I dont thinkI know -Macdon- ald held the sheet up to the gas-jet you see the water-mark, he con- tinued; well, this letter has cost me my job, and something more, and Im going to punch somebodys head. Shall I begin on you? Piuckney had a just regard for the righteous anger of a good-tempered young giant, and he was mindful of his cue. Dont be a fool, Mac, he said, with a fine assumption of virtuous in- dignation; Im no school-boy. If that letter is a fake, you know well enough who wrote it. iReddick, you mean? Of course; hes the only man in the outfit with a pin-head brain. Besides, I remember his asking me something about Whittlesey that night after you told us about your aunt. He did, eh? Macdonald spoke doubtfully~ I more than half believe youre trying to lie yourself out of a licking. Pinckney went from indignant depre- cation to pathetic. I didnt think youd go back on an old partner like that, Mac; its rough, especially when the thing is as plain as the nose on your face. Let me show youhere is a passe~nger department letter written by that chuckle-headed dwarf of a chief clerk to-day; just look at it, and see if the typewriting isnt the same. You are right, admitted Macdon- ald, comparing the letters; I take it all back, old man, but Ive had grief enough to-day to rattle anybody, and all on account of that idiotic letter. Pinckney, he went on, his wrath rising AN ASSISTED DESTINY 99 again at the mental review of his mis- fortunes, you tell Reddick to keep out of my way. If I get my hands on him before Ive had time to cool off, therell be a murder. He let himself out through the gate in the railing, but Piuckney called him back to give him the passenger agents telegram. Macdonald read it with a snort of contempt. Ill do nothing of the sort! he said, crumpling the message into a ball and throwing it into the waste-basket on his way to the door. When Macdonald was gone, the cup- board under the copying-press yawned, and a dusty, sweat-begrimed harlequin bounded into the circle of light to dance around Pinckneys table, shaking its fists and rolling its eyes. Oh, you double-dyed hypocrite ! you smooth-faced, lantern-jawed for- eigner! Chuckle-headed dwarf, am I? with a pin - head brain? You just wait, will you? Maybe I wont make you wish youd been born deaf, dumb, and blind, before I get through with you! Reddick vanished, breathing out threatenings, and when the door closed behind him, an opportune call for a train - order saved Piuckney from the collapse which might otherwise have followed his bad quarter of an hour. When Macdonald awoke the follow- ing morning, his angry determination to ignore his aunts request had lost some of its vehemence. He was obliged to confess that she was in nowise to blame for his misfortunes; and since kinship has its undeniable demands, he could scarcely do less than she had asked. Accordingly, he met the excur- sion train upon its arrival and sought out the passenger agent, who was too busy at the moment to answer his ques- tion. When the time served, Miss Spurlock was not to be found; but a brakeman enlightened the inquirers. The little old Englishwoman, you mean? Yes, she was in this car; Mr. Elberts been looking out for herreck- on she must be one of the English stockholders, isnt she? Did they go away together? asked Macdonald. Thats what they did; made a bee- line for a carriage, soon as the train pulled in. It was the last drop of bitterness in Macdonalds brimming cup. His affair was the common ground upon which these two people had met; the assump- tion of his rascality was doubtless the theme upon which each had enlarged during their short acquaintance. And now they had gone to Mellicent! When an optimistic young man of cheerful habit begins to give ground to the blue devils, his retreat is apt to be- come a rout. Looking back upon his performances of yesterday, Macdon- ald accused himself wrathfully of hav- ing given place to childish credulity and unreasoning impulse; and the af- front to his sell-respect was simply un- bearable. Clearly, there remained but one thing for him to doto obliterate himself at once and unobtrusively. A west-bound train, ready to depart, of- fered the means. He could telegraph his resignation from a way-station, and he could send for his belongings when he had settled upon his destination. The conductors All aboard! and the ringing of the enginebell decided him and he swung up to the step of the last car as No. 5 steamed out of the sta- tion. An hour later, when Reddick went to the superintendents office to arrange for the future movement of the excur- sion train, Burwell handed him a tele- gram. It was Macdonalds resignation; and the chief clerk of the passenger de- partment did not shirk his responsibil- ity. Obtaining permission to deliver the message, he went straight to the superintendents house, and was closet- ed with Mr. Elbert for a humiliating quarter of an hour. When he came out, he was the bearer of a telegram which reached Macdonald at noon. Dont make a fool of yourself, it read. Double back on No. 6 and come to the house. Your aunt wants to see you. B. A. ELBERT. Macdonald read it twice and empha- sized his decision by tearing the tele- gram into bits. It was too late to re- turn now, he told himself; and he determined to think no more of it, at least not until the train had passed its 100 AS TOLD BY HER meeting-point with No. 6. That was an honr away, however, and many reso- lutions may be made and broken in sixty minntes. Before the time was half spent, Macdonald found himself fighting a losing battle with an irre- sistible desire to go back to Mellicent at whatever sacrifice of pride or self- esteem. The crisis came when the op- erator at Jornado handed two telegrams through the open window of the car as the train pulled in beside No. 6. The first was a telegraphic return pass; the second was less formal: Come back and take it out on inc. I have owned up and squared you with everybody. REDDIOK. No. 6 was behind time that evening, and it was late when Macdonald rung the bell at the house of the superinten- dent. Mellicent opened the door, and she scolded him tearfully for running away. There wasnt anything else to do, this morning, he said, humbly; and then Mellie, give me my cue quick, before we go in; what am I to say or do? Anything you please; the murder s outpapa and your aunt have fixed it all up between them, somehow. She has been trying to find you for years, and it was that letter that gave her the clew. The joke was too good to keep, and Mr. Pinckney wrote the operator at Whittlesey all about it. The villain! said Macdonald; and then they went arm in arm into the sit- ting-room. They were married a few weeks later, and Reddick, who did many things well, was Macdonalds best man. The wedding journey paused longest at Whittlesey, and the young couple might have settled there had Fergus been less independent. As it was, they turned their faces westward again in the au- tumn, and Macdonald is, or was at last accounts, the division superintendent of the Grand River Extension. Having been his guest, I can testify to the cosi- ness of his home in the wind-swept valley at Mountain Junction; and it was therewhen I had risen to exam- ine a typewritten letter framed and hanging over the library fireplacethat I heard from his own lips the story of An Assisted Destiny. STORIES OF GIRLS COLLEGE LIFE AS TOLD BY HER By Abbe Carter Goodloe ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHANLES DANA GIBSON THE waiters had served the coffee and were retiring in long rows down the sides of the big dining-hall. The rattle of knives and forks and the noise of general and animated talk was subsid- ing, and the pleased, expectant hush which always precedes the toasts was falling upon the assembly. At the lower end of the room, farthest from the dis- tinguished-guest table, the unimpor- tant people began to turn their chairs around toward the speakers and to say Sh, and Whos that? to each other in subdued whispers, and the seniors grasped their sheep-skins less nervously and began to realize their importance, and the fact that they were no longer undergraduates but full-fledged alum- n~n. And with the realization came a curious disagreeable sensation and a queer tightening in the throat, accom- panied by a horrible inclination to shed tears over the closed chapter of their lives. Then they fiercely thought how their brothers act under similar circum- stances, and wished they were men and could give the class yell and drink cham- pagne to stifle their feelings. That be-

100 AS TOLD BY HER meeting-point with No. 6. That was an honr away, however, and many reso- lutions may be made and broken in sixty minntes. Before the time was half spent, Macdonald found himself fighting a losing battle with an irre- sistible desire to go back to Mellicent at whatever sacrifice of pride or self- esteem. The crisis came when the op- erator at Jornado handed two telegrams through the open window of the car as the train pulled in beside No. 6. The first was a telegraphic return pass; the second was less formal: Come back and take it out on inc. I have owned up and squared you with everybody. REDDIOK. No. 6 was behind time that evening, and it was late when Macdonald rung the bell at the house of the superinten- dent. Mellicent opened the door, and she scolded him tearfully for running away. There wasnt anything else to do, this morning, he said, humbly; and then Mellie, give me my cue quick, before we go in; what am I to say or do? Anything you please; the murder s outpapa and your aunt have fixed it all up between them, somehow. She has been trying to find you for years, and it was that letter that gave her the clew. The joke was too good to keep, and Mr. Pinckney wrote the operator at Whittlesey all about it. The villain! said Macdonald; and then they went arm in arm into the sit- ting-room. They were married a few weeks later, and Reddick, who did many things well, was Macdonalds best man. The wedding journey paused longest at Whittlesey, and the young couple might have settled there had Fergus been less independent. As it was, they turned their faces westward again in the au- tumn, and Macdonald is, or was at last accounts, the division superintendent of the Grand River Extension. Having been his guest, I can testify to the cosi- ness of his home in the wind-swept valley at Mountain Junction; and it was therewhen I had risen to exam- ine a typewritten letter framed and hanging over the library fireplacethat I heard from his own lips the story of An Assisted Destiny. STORIES OF GIRLS COLLEGE LIFE AS TOLD BY HER By Abbe Carter Goodloe ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHANLES DANA GIBSON THE waiters had served the coffee and were retiring in long rows down the sides of the big dining-hall. The rattle of knives and forks and the noise of general and animated talk was subsid- ing, and the pleased, expectant hush which always precedes the toasts was falling upon the assembly. At the lower end of the room, farthest from the dis- tinguished-guest table, the unimpor- tant people began to turn their chairs around toward the speakers and to say Sh, and Whos that? to each other in subdued whispers, and the seniors grasped their sheep-skins less nervously and began to realize their importance, and the fact that they were no longer undergraduates but full-fledged alum- n~n. And with the realization came a curious disagreeable sensation and a queer tightening in the throat, accom- panied by a horrible inclination to shed tears over the closed chapter of their lives. Then they fiercely thought how their brothers act under similar circum- stances, and wished they were men and could give the class yell and drink cham- pagne to stifle their feelings. That be- AS TOLD BY HER 101 ing impossible they tasted a very mild decoction of coffee and turned their troubled eyes to the far end of the room, and wished ardently that the President would get on her feet and say some- thing funny to make them forget that this was the endthe last act of polite- ness on the part of the faculty to them that they were being gracefully evicted, as it were, and could never be taken back upon the same terms or under the same conditions. It was the annual Commencement dinner to the retiring senior class, and the senior class was, as usual, feeling collapsed and blank after the excite- ment of Commencement week and the discovery that they were B. A. s or B. S.s, and that the world was before them and there would be no more faculties to set them going or haul them up, but that they would have to depend on their own faculties in the future. There was the annual foregathering of brilliant men and women whose presence was to be an incentive to the newly fledged alumna~, and the display of who~e wit and wisdom in after-dinner speeches was to be a last forcible impression of intellectual vigor and acquirements left on their minds. Suddenly the President arose. She stood there, graceful, perfectly at ease, waiting for a moment of entire silence. Her sensitive, bloodless face looked more animated than usual, her brown eyes quietly humorous. It was a face eminently characteristicindicative of the element of popularity and adapta- bility in her nature that made her, just then, so valuable to the college. When she spoke her voice carried surprisingly far, notwithstanding its veiled, soft quality, so that those farthest from her were able to catch and enjoy the witty, gnomic, sarcastic manner of her speech. What she said was taken down by the short-hand reporter smuggled in for the occasion by the enterprising class-presi- dent and is enrolled in the class-book, so it need not be recorded here; but when she had finished, the editor of one of the foremost magazines in the coun- try was smiling and nodding his head appreciatively, and a man whose ser- mons are listened to by thousands every Lords Day leaned over and made some VOL. XVIIL1O quick side remark to her and ran his hands in a pleased, interested way through his long hair; and the young and already famous President of a cer- tain college said, on rising, that he felt very genuine trepidation at attempting any remarks after that. He fully sus- tained his reputation, however, of a brilliant talker, and was followed by the honorary member of the juniors, whose post-prandial speeches have made him famous on both sides of the water. The room became absolutely quiet, save for the voice of the speaker, the occasional burst of applause, and the appreciative murmur of the listeners. Outside, the afternoon began to grow mellow, long shadows thrown by the pointed turrets of the building lay across the green campus, the ivy at the big windows waved to and fro slightly in the cool breeze. Attention flagged; people began to tire of the clever, witty responses to the toasts and to look about them a little. At one of the tables, reserved for the alumna~, near the upper end of the room, sat a girl dressed in deep mourn- ing. Her face was very beautiful and intelligent, with the intelligence that is more the result of experience than of unusual mental ability. There were delicate, fine lines about the mouth and eyes. She could n6t have been more than twenty-four or five, but there was an air of firmness and decision about her which contradicted her blondal- most frivolousbeauty and lent dignity to the delicate figure. After a while she leaned back in her chair a trifle wearily and looked about her curiously as if for changes. The general aspect of the place remained the same, she decided, but there were a great many new facesnew faces in the faculty, too, where one least likes to find them. Here and there she saw an old acquaintance and smiled per- functorily, but, on the whole, there was no one present she cared very much to see. She had just come to the con- clusion that she was sorry she had made the long journey to be present at the dinner when she became conscious that someone was looking intently at her across the room. She leaned for- ward eagerly and smiled naturally and 102 AS TOLD BY HER cordially for the first time. And then she sank back suddenly and blushed like a school-girl and smiled again, but in a different way, as if at herself, or at some thought that tickled her fancy. It certainly did strike her as rather amusing and presuming for her to be smiling and bowing so cordially to Pro- fessor Arbuthnot. She remembered very distinctly, in what awe she had stood of that learned lady, and that in her undergraduate days she had sys- tematically avoided her, since she could not avoid her examinations and their occasionally disastrous consequences. She recalled very forcibly the masterly lectures, the logical, profound, often original talks, which she had heard in her lecture-room, though she had to acknowledge to herself reproachfully, that the matter of them had entirely es- caped her memory. She had been one of a big majority who had always con- sidered Professor Arbuthnot as a very high typeperhaps the highest type the college affordedof a woman whose brains and attainments would make her remarkable in any assembly of savants. In her presence she had al- ways realized very keenly her own superficiality, and she felt very much flattered that such a woman should have remembered her and not a little abashed as she thought of the entire renunciation of study she had made since leaving college. She wondered what Professor Arbuthnot might be thinking about hershe knew she was thinking about her, because the bright eyes opposite were still fixed upon her with their piercing, not unkindly gaze. It occurred to her at last, humorously, that perhaps the Professor was not considering her at all, but some ques- tion inthermo-electric currents for in- stance. But Miss Arbuthnots mind was not on thermo-electric currents; she was saying to herself: She is much more beautiful than when she was here, and there is a new element of beauty in her face, too. I wonder where she has been since, and why she is in mourn- ing. She was unintelligent, I remem- ber. Its a great pitybrains and that sort of beauty rarely ever go together. Her name was EllisyesGrace Ellis. I think I must see her later. And the Professor gave her another pierc- ing smile and settled herself to listen to a distinguished political economist a great friend of hersspeak. The Political Economist got upon his feet slowly and with a certain diffi- dence. He was a man who had made his way, self-taught, from poverty and ignorance to a professorship in one of the finest technical schools of America. There was a brusqueness in his man- ner, and the hard experiences of his life had made him old. He spoke in a quiet, authoritative way. He declared with a rather heavy attempt at jocose- ness, that his hearers had had their sweets first, so to speak, and that they must now go back and take a little solid, unpalatable nourishment; that he had never made a witty or amusing remark in his life, and he did not pro- pose to begin and try then, and finally he hinted that the President had made a very bad selection when she invited him to respond to the toast The Modern Education of Woman. As he warmed to his subject he became more gracious and easy in manner. He spoke at length of the evolution of womens colleges, their methods, their advantages their limitations; he touched upon the salient points of dif- ference between a mans college life and that of a girl; differences of char- acter, of interests, of methods of work. And then he went on: I believe in itI believe firmly in the modern education of woman. It is one of the things of most vital inter- est to me; but my enthusiasm does not blind me. There are phases of it which I do not endorse. I object to many of its results. The most obvious bad re- sult is the exaggerated importance which the very phrase has assumed. He smiled plaintively around upon the company. Are we to have nothing but womans educationtoujours l& lu- cation de la femme? There is such eagerness to get to college, such blind belief in what is to be learned there, such a demand for a college education for women, that we are overwhelmed by it. Every year these doors are closed upon hundreds of disappointed women who turn elsewhere, or relin AS TOLD BYHER 103 quish the much-prized college educa- tion. The day is not far distant when it will be a distinct reproach to a wom- an that she is not college-bred. He looked down thoughtfully and intently and spoke more slowly. It is ethis phase of it which some- times troubles me. Life is so rich in experiences for womanso much rich- er and fuller for woman than for man that I tremble at this violent reaction from nature to art. To-day woman seems to forget that she must learn to live, not live to learn. At the risk of being branded as behind the times of being considered narrow, bigoted, old-fashioned, I must say that until woman re-discovers that life is every- thing, that all she can learn here in a hundred times the four years of her college course, is but the least part of what life and nature can teach her, un- til then I shall not be wholly satisfied with the modern education of woman. When he ceased there was an awk- ward and significant silence, and the editor looked over at him and smiled and shook his head reprovingly. And then the President got up quickly and with a few graceful, apropos remarks she restored good - humor and taking the arm of the distinguished divine, led the way from the dining-hall to the re- ception-rooms, and people jostled each other good-naturedly, and edged them- selves between chairs and tables to speak to acquaintances, and there was much laughter and questioning and ex- clamations of surprise and delight, un- til finally the long procession got itself outside the dining-hall into the big cor- ridors. At the door Professor Arbuthnot caught sight of Miss Ellis again. She beckoned to the girl, who came quick- ly toward her. I am tired and am going to my rooms for a while, will you come? The girl blushed again with pleasure and some embarrassment. I should be delighted, she said simply, and together they walked down the broad hall-way. Its very good of you, she broke in nervously looking down at the small, quiet figure beside hers she was head and shoulders taller than the Professor. Not at all, declared Miss Arbuth- not, kindly. I want to see youit has been a long while since you were a stu- dent herefour or five years I should sayand you recall other faces and times. It has been four yearsI can hard- ly believe it, said the girl, softly. She wondered vaguely what on earth Miss Arbuthuot could wish to see her for she had been anything but a favorite with the faculty as a student, but she felt very much flattered and very ner- vous at the attention bestowed upon her. When she reached Professor Arbuth- nots rooms, the embarrassment she had felt at being noticed by so distinguished a member of the faculty, visibly in- creased. The place was so typicalthe absence of all ornament and feminine bric-~-brac the long rows of book-shelves filled with the most advanced works on natu- ral sciences, the tables piled up with brochures and scientific magazines, en- veloped her in an atmosphere of pro- found learning quite oppressive. She had never been in the room but once before, and that was on a most inaus- picious occasion just after the mid- years. She wondered uneasily, and yet with some amusement, if Professor Arbuthuot remembered the circum- stance. But that lady was not think- ing of the young girL She was busy with her mail, which had just been brought in, opening and folding up let- ter after letter in a quick, methodical way. More work for me, she said, smil- ing; here is an invitation to deliver six lectures on electro-optics. The girl looked at her admiringly. Absolutely Ive forgotten the very meaning of the words; and as for lect- uring! she broke off with a little laugh. Are you going to give them? Yes: it makes a great deal of work for me, but I never refuse such invita- tions. Besides I shall be able to take these lectures almost bodily from a lit- tle book I am getting out. Professor Arbuthuot went over to the desk and lifted up a pile of manuscript, and smiled indulgently at the girls ex- clamation of awe. 104 AS TOLD BY HER It isnt much, she went on. Only some experiments I have been making in the optical effects of powerful mag- nets. They turned out very prettily. I have a good deal of hard work to do on the book yet. I shall stay here a week or two longer, quite alone, and finish it all up. The girl touched the papers rever- ently. Here is a note I have just received from Professor (Miss Arbuthnot named one of the most distinguished authorities of the day on magnetism and electricity). I sent him some of the first proof-sheets, and he says hes delighted with them. We are great friends. The girls awe and admiration in- creased with every moment. She looked at the small, slight woman whose intel- ligent, ugly face, had an almost child- like simplicity of expression, contrast- ing strangely enough with the wrinkled, bloodless skin, and piercing eyes. Her hair, which was parted and brushed se- verely back, was thickly sprinkled with gray. She gasped a little. You actually know himknow Professor ? Miss Arbuthnot laughed. Oh, yes, she said; we often work together. We get along famously; we are sympa- thetic in our work, as the French say. The girl swept her a mock courtesy. I feel too flattered for anything that you deign to speak to me, she said, laughing and bowing low. Professor Arbuthnot looked pleased; she was far above conceit, but she was not entirely impervious to such fresh, genuine admiration. She was feeling particularly happy too, over the results of her experimentsparticularly inter- ested in her work. If you are so impressed by that, she laughed, I shall have to tell you something even more wonderful still. I have just received an honorary degree from College. It was quite unex- pected, and I must say I am extremely pleased. It is very agreeable to know that ones work is appreciated when one has given ones life to it. It seemed to the girl, with these evi- dences of success appealing to her, that a life could not be more nobly spent than in such work. She went slowly around the room after that, look- ing at a great many interesting things. At books with priceless autographs on their title-pages, and photographs of famous scientists, and diagrams of elec- trical apparatus, and editions. in pam- phlet form of articles by Professor Arbuthnot, published originally in sci- entific journals. The girl suddenly felt sick and ashamed of herself. It struck her very forcibly just how little she knew, and how she had neglected her opportuni- ties. What an awful ignoramus I am! she burst out at length. I dont know what these mean; I have only the vaguest idea what these men have done. How different you are! Your life has had a high aim and you have attained it. While I-! she stopped with a scornful gesture. If it were not for Julian I believe I would come back here and start over! Miss Arbuthnot looked at her criti- cally. She admired the girls beauty tremendouslyit was her one weakness this love of beauty. She never looked at herself in a mirror oftener than nec- essary. Ah! Julian; who is Julian? The girl blushed againshe had a pretty way of flushing quickly. Julian ?why hes my husband. I forgot to tell you that I married my cousin, Julian Ellis, as soon as I left college. Really! Miss Arbuthnot came over and sat down on the divan beside the girL You look so young, she said, rather wistfully. And you have been married four years? The girl nodded. It seems much longer, she said. I have hada great deal of trouble. Tell me about it, said the older woman kindly. But the girl was much embarrassed at the idea of talking of her own little affairs to Professor Ar- buthnot. I am afraid it would only bore you, she said, hurriedly. Your interests you are interested in so many But Miss Arbuthnot was firm. Let me hear, she insisted. Im sure I hardly know what there AS TOLD BY HER 105 is to tell, the girl began nervously, suffering, and you nearly powerless to ~y father was much opposed to my do a thing. And how I loved him! I marrying Julian. He did not wish me never knew until then what he was to leave college; and how much of my life he did not believe in he had become. You cousins marrying. He must know what agony said that if we did he I went throng h? she would disinherit me looked interrogatively, you know he is rich. beseechingly at the But Julian and I were woman beside her. in love with each other, Miss Arbuthnot and so of course we looked away. I am got married. She not sureII was stopped suddenly and never in love, she said drawing off her glove uncertainly. A cnn- looked at her wedding- ous wave of jealousy ring. Professor Ar- swept over her that buthnot watched her she who had been such curiously. The girls a student, whose whole simple statement life had been a study, and of course we got should have somehow married struck her m i s s e d experiences forcibly. She won- that this girl had lived dered what it would through already. The feel like to be swayed girl shook her head by an emotion so pow- softly, pityingly, as if erful that a fathers she could hardly be- commands and the loss lieve her. of a fortune would I shall never for- have absolutely no in- get it, and that night, fluence upon it. She The Political Economist. she went on, closing could not remem- her eyes faintly. I ber ever having felt anything like that. thought he was dying. I had to have Julian was awfully poor and I of a doctor, but I was afraid to leave course had nothing more, and so we went him. I remember how everything to TexasJulian had an opening there, flashed through my mind. It was a she went on. It was awfully lonely decision for life or death. If I left we lived ten miles from the nearest him I knew I might never see him townand you know what a Texas alive again, and yet if I did not town is. Miss Arbuthuot shook her She opened her eyes wide and clasped head. She had never been west of and unclasped her hands. It was the Ohio. most horrible moment of my life. The girl gave a little in-drawn gasp. My poor child! Miss Arbuthuot Well, its worse than anything you put her hand timidly on the girls arm. can conceive of. I think one has to live She suddenly felt absurdly inexperi- in one of them and then move away and enced in her presence. have ten miles of dead level prairie land I got Ivans saddle on himI dont between you and it to know just what know just howand we started. It loneliness is. But we were so happy, so was about two oclock I remember. happy at firstuntil Julian was taken The prairie looked just like the sea, at ill. She leaned back against the couch nightonly more lonesome and quite and clasped her hands around her silent. I was horribly frightened. knees. Even Ivan was frightened. He trem- It was awfulI cant tell you, she bled all overits a terrible thing to went on in a broken voice. But you see a horse tremble with fright. know what unspeakable agony it is to Do you mean to say, demanded see what you love best on earth, ill and Professor Arbuthnot, that you rode VOL. XVIII. 11 106 AS TOLD BY HER twenty miles in the dead of night, alone upon a Texas prairie? Yes, answered the girl mechani- cally. It was for Julian, she added as if in entire explanation. Miss Arbuthnot looked at her, she could not realize such wealth of cour- age and devotion. She wondered with a sudden, hot shame whether she would have dared it had she been in this girls place. I dont think I ever prayed before really prayed you know. She ran on meditatively as if she had forgotten the Professors presence. It was dawn when we got back. She stopped en- tirely and looked out through the win- dow onto the cool green campus. Miss Arbuthnot scarcely dared niove. There was something so intimate, almost sa- cred in the girls revelations. Did he live? she inquired softly at length. The girl turned her face toward her. An almost illuminated look had come into it. Yesthe doctor saved his life, but he said if I had been two hours lat- er You saved his life! Professor Arbuthuot got up and walked to the window. She could not quite take it all in. The girl appeared entirely dif- ferent to her. She was looking at a woman who had saved the life of the man she loved. And then the girl gave a little laugh I faintedwasnt it ridicu- lous? I am such an idiot. It makes me ashamed to think of it nowwhen there was so much to be doneand for me to faint! She gave an impatient little shake of the head. I am sure you never did anything so silly as to faint! She glanced ad- miringly at Professor Arbuthnot. I dont think I ever experienced any emotion sufficiently strong to make me. Miss Arbuthnot spoke so grimly that the girl jumped up hurriedly. Im awfully afraid I am boring you and keeping you from your work She gave a glance at the manuscript upon the desk. Im sure you are wanting to get at it, and think me very troublesome to tell you all this about myself. Professor Arbuthnot looked at her a moment. Sit down! she said imperiously. I am learning more than if I were working on the physical principles of the nebular theory! The girl gave a gay, puzzled little laugh. Are you making fun of me? Im sure I dont know what you mean. Miss Arbuthuot waved her remark away impatiently. And after you had recovered from your fainting spell, what happened? OhI helped the doctor and we pulled Julian through together some- how. And then, I went to work. He was ill all wintersomething had to be doneI sing fairly well I remember now, broke in Miss Arbuthnot. You used to sing at College Vespers. I liked your voice. The girl gave a gasp of pleasure. She felt immensely flattered that Professor Arbuthnot had liked to hear her sing. Thank you, she said feelingly. I got a position in a church choir and I went into town three days in the week and gave lessons. I made four hun- dred dollars that winter. She broke off with a little laugh. I dont think I ever felt so good in all my life as when I counted up and found I had really made four hundred dollars for Juhian! I never understood before why poor people want to get marriedits for the fun of working for each other I think. Its the most satisfying sensation I know of. She glanced up at the wom- an beside the window. Miss Arbuth- not nodded absently. She was think- ing of her safe investmentsshe had accumulated a good deal of money dur- ing her long years of teaching and her people had all been well off and she had never given a cent to anyone except in presents and trifling remembrances and organized charitable work. A strange desire grew upon her to share her life with someone. She looked with troub- led eyes at the girl who had suddenly made her work and her life dissatisfying to her. I dont understand she mur- mured and didnt you ever regret regret your wealth and social position? the other life you had known? I think its my turn not to under- stand, said the girl slowly with a puz- zled look. You mean did I regret marrying Julian? Miss Arbuthnot nodded. An angry little flush mounted to the girls cheek, and then, as if the mere thought was too amusing to be taken seriously: Regret marrying Julian? 0! Professor Arbuthuotand then there was little Julian, you know. He was the dearest, the sweetestwait, I have his picture. She pulled at a little silk cord about her neck and drew forth a small miniature case. In it, painted on porcelain, was the head of a child with the blond beauty of its mother. As the girl looked at it her eyes filled with tears and she bent over it sobbing and kissing it passionately. That is all I have to regret, she said. He was two years old when he 107 It has been a long while since you were a student herePage 103. 108 AS TOLD BY HEk diedthat was almost a year ago. I couldnt tell you what he was like. I think he was the brightest, prettiest, sweetest boy in the world. You onght to have seen his hands and feetall dimples and soft pinkiness and milky whiteness and his eyes and long lashes ! she stopped breathlessly. Professor Arbuthnot looked at her wonderingly. She went over to her and looked down at the crushed figure. You have loved and loved again and lost. You have been a mother and your child is dead, she said slowly. I would sympathize with you if I knew how. The girl caught her hand. How kind you are! I never speak of thisI hardly know how I came to do so with you. I am sure I must have wearied you. She put the locket back and began to draw on her gloves again slowly. Professor Arbuthnot said nothing. In the last hour she had had glimpses of a life and a love she had never known, and the revelation silenced her. She had sometimes reproached herself that the studious calm, the entire absorption of her life in her work had been exag- gerated, and as she looked at the slight figure in its black gown, at the pale face with its sombred, youthful beauty, the conviction was borne in upon her, by this little breath from the outside world, by the life of this girl as told by her, that the insularity of her existence had been a mistake. A sudden in- tense dissatisfaction and impatience with her life took hold upon her. How kind you are. END YMION 109 The girl rose to go. She stood there hesitating, embarrassed, as if she wished to ask something and rather dreaded doing so. II shall have a great deal of time this winter, she hazarded, twisting the ring of her fan slowly round and round her finger, and I am going to study indeed I am I She glanced up quick- ly, as if afraid Professor Arbuthnot might be smiling. I know you think it foolish for me to try, but you dont know how youve inspired me this afternoon! She went on enthusiasti- cally. You and everything here make me realize intensely how little I know, and I am going to begin and really learn something. You dont know how much obliged Id be if you would tell me a little how to begin what to start onsomething easy, adapted for weak intellects! She looked up smiling and with heightened color at Professor Arbuth- not. She still stood in so much awe of her and was so afraid of being laughed at! But that lady was not laughing at all. She looked preternaturally grave. It seems to me, she said slowly, that you and the natural sciences can get along admirably without each other. Why, child, you have lived! she cried with sudden vehemence. She went over and shook her gently by the shoul- der. You are twenty-four and I am fifty! In four years you have crowded into your life more than I shall ever learn! The girl looked at her wonderingly, puzzled. Have you forgotten so soon what we heard this afternoonthat life is everything, that all that you can learn in a hundred times the four years of your college course is but the least part of what life and nature can teach you? She pushed the girl toward the door. When you are tired of living come back to me. She stood and watched the girl, with the mystified, half-hurt look on her face, disappear down the corridor. When she had quite gone she went in and stood at the window for a long, long while looking out at the deepen- ing shadows, and then she seated her- self grimly at her desk and wrote to her publishers that they would have to delay the appearance of her book, as she felt she needed a vacation and would have to give up work on it for a while. ENDYMlON By J. Russell Taylor THE new moon like Dianas ankle dips From out a cloud-skirt dusky in the west, And lights this pool of night and all my breast With dim desire. I dreamed my hair, my lips Felt touch I know not what fine finger-tips; And waking, one long thread of silver oer The silent ripples crawling in to shore Showed me the way she vanished, whither slips That silver ankle into cloud. Strange dream, Strange lonely waking: it may be that she Bent really oer me, an elusive gleam Of longing-laughing love; or it may be Twas born of slumber and the quiet stream That shakes a few drownd stars phantasmally. VOL. XVIII.12

END YMION 109 The girl rose to go. She stood there hesitating, embarrassed, as if she wished to ask something and rather dreaded doing so. II shall have a great deal of time this winter, she hazarded, twisting the ring of her fan slowly round and round her finger, and I am going to study indeed I am I She glanced up quick- ly, as if afraid Professor Arbuthnot might be smiling. I know you think it foolish for me to try, but you dont know how youve inspired me this afternoon! She went on enthusiasti- cally. You and everything here make me realize intensely how little I know, and I am going to begin and really learn something. You dont know how much obliged Id be if you would tell me a little how to begin what to start onsomething easy, adapted for weak intellects! She looked up smiling and with heightened color at Professor Arbuth- not. She still stood in so much awe of her and was so afraid of being laughed at! But that lady was not laughing at all. She looked preternaturally grave. It seems to me, she said slowly, that you and the natural sciences can get along admirably without each other. Why, child, you have lived! she cried with sudden vehemence. She went over and shook her gently by the shoul- der. You are twenty-four and I am fifty! In four years you have crowded into your life more than I shall ever learn! The girl looked at her wonderingly, puzzled. Have you forgotten so soon what we heard this afternoonthat life is everything, that all that you can learn in a hundred times the four years of your college course is but the least part of what life and nature can teach you? She pushed the girl toward the door. When you are tired of living come back to me. She stood and watched the girl, with the mystified, half-hurt look on her face, disappear down the corridor. When she had quite gone she went in and stood at the window for a long, long while looking out at the deepen- ing shadows, and then she seated her- self grimly at her desk and wrote to her publishers that they would have to delay the appearance of her book, as she felt she needed a vacation and would have to give up work on it for a while. ENDYMlON By J. Russell Taylor THE new moon like Dianas ankle dips From out a cloud-skirt dusky in the west, And lights this pool of night and all my breast With dim desire. I dreamed my hair, my lips Felt touch I know not what fine finger-tips; And waking, one long thread of silver oer The silent ripples crawling in to shore Showed me the way she vanished, whither slips That silver ankle into cloud. Strange dream, Strange lonely waking: it may be that she Bent really oer me, an elusive gleam Of longing-laughing love; or it may be Twas born of slumber and the quiet stream That shakes a few drownd stars phantasmally. VOL. XVIII.12 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE BY GEORGE MEREDITH CHAPTER XXV THE PHILOSOPHER MAN OF ACTION GO WEBS bedroom window looked over the shrubs of the square, and as his form of re- volt from a city life was to be up and out with the sparrows in the early flutter of morning, for a stretch of the legs where grass was green and trees were not enclosed, he rarely saw a figure below when he stood dressing. Now there appeared a petticoated one stationary against the rails, with her face lifted. She fronted the house, and while he speculated abstractedly, rec- ognition rushed on him. He was down and across the roadway at leaps. Its Madge here! The girl panted for her voice. Mr. Woodseer, Im glad; I thought I should have to wait hours. Shes safe. Where? Will you come, sir? Step ahead. Madge set forth to north of the square. He judged of the well-favored girl, that she could steer her way through cities. Mouth and brows were a warn- ing to challenger pirate craft of a ves- sel carrying guns; and the red lips kept their firm line when they yielded to the pressure for speech. Its a distance. Shes quite safe, no harm; shes a prisoner; shes well fed; shes not ill-treated. Youre out? Thats as it happens. Im lucky in seeing you early. He dont mean to hurt her; he wont be beaten. All she asks is ten minutes with him. If he would !he wont. She didnt mean to do him offence tother night in that placeyouve heard. Kit Ines told me he was on duty there going. She couldnt help speaking when she had eyes on her husband. She kisses the ground of his footsoles, you may say, let him be ever so unkind. She and I were crossing to the corner of Roper Street a rainy night, on away to Mile End a way down, to one of your fathers families, Mother Davis and her sick daughter and the little ones, and close under the public-house Goat and Beard, we were seized on and hustled into a covered carriage that was there, and they drove sharp. Shes not one to scream. We werent frightened. We both made the same guess. They drove us to the house shes locked in, and me too, up till three oclock this morning. Youve seen nobody, Madge? Hes fixed shes to leave London, Mr. Woodseer. Ive seen Kit Ines. And shes to have one of the big houses to her use. I guessed Kit Ines was his broom. He defends it because he has his money to makeand be a dirty broom for a fortune! But any womans sure of decent handling with Kit fliesnot to speak of lady. He and a mate guard the house. An old woman cooks. He guards the house and he gave you a pass? Not he. His prides his obedience to his paytron he calls his master, and wont hear that name abused. We are on the first floor; all the lower doors are locked day and night. New street, not much neighbors; she wouldnt cry out of the window. Shes to be let free if shell leave London. You jumped it! If Id broke a leg, Mr. Kit Ines would have had to go to his drains. It wasnt very high; and a flower-bed un- derneath. My mistress wanted to be the one. She has to be carefuL She taught me how to jump down not to hurt. She makes you feel you can do anything. I had a bother to get her to let me and be quiet herself. Shes not one to put it upon others, youll learn. When I was down I felt like a stick in the ground. and sat till I had my feet, she at the window waiting; and I started for you. She kissed her hand. I was

THE AMAZING MARRIAGE BY GEORGE MEREDITH CHAPTER XXV THE PHILOSOPHER MAN OF ACTION GO WEBS bedroom window looked over the shrubs of the square, and as his form of re- volt from a city life was to be up and out with the sparrows in the early flutter of morning, for a stretch of the legs where grass was green and trees were not enclosed, he rarely saw a figure below when he stood dressing. Now there appeared a petticoated one stationary against the rails, with her face lifted. She fronted the house, and while he speculated abstractedly, rec- ognition rushed on him. He was down and across the roadway at leaps. Its Madge here! The girl panted for her voice. Mr. Woodseer, Im glad; I thought I should have to wait hours. Shes safe. Where? Will you come, sir? Step ahead. Madge set forth to north of the square. He judged of the well-favored girl, that she could steer her way through cities. Mouth and brows were a warn- ing to challenger pirate craft of a ves- sel carrying guns; and the red lips kept their firm line when they yielded to the pressure for speech. Its a distance. Shes quite safe, no harm; shes a prisoner; shes well fed; shes not ill-treated. Youre out? Thats as it happens. Im lucky in seeing you early. He dont mean to hurt her; he wont be beaten. All she asks is ten minutes with him. If he would !he wont. She didnt mean to do him offence tother night in that placeyouve heard. Kit Ines told me he was on duty there going. She couldnt help speaking when she had eyes on her husband. She kisses the ground of his footsoles, you may say, let him be ever so unkind. She and I were crossing to the corner of Roper Street a rainy night, on away to Mile End a way down, to one of your fathers families, Mother Davis and her sick daughter and the little ones, and close under the public-house Goat and Beard, we were seized on and hustled into a covered carriage that was there, and they drove sharp. Shes not one to scream. We werent frightened. We both made the same guess. They drove us to the house shes locked in, and me too, up till three oclock this morning. Youve seen nobody, Madge? Hes fixed shes to leave London, Mr. Woodseer. Ive seen Kit Ines. And shes to have one of the big houses to her use. I guessed Kit Ines was his broom. He defends it because he has his money to makeand be a dirty broom for a fortune! But any womans sure of decent handling with Kit fliesnot to speak of lady. He and a mate guard the house. An old woman cooks. He guards the house and he gave you a pass? Not he. His prides his obedience to his paytron he calls his master, and wont hear that name abused. We are on the first floor; all the lower doors are locked day and night. New street, not much neighbors; she wouldnt cry out of the window. Shes to be let free if shell leave London. You jumped it! If Id broke a leg, Mr. Kit Ines would have had to go to his drains. It wasnt very high; and a flower-bed un- derneath. My mistress wanted to be the one. She has to be carefuL She taught me how to jump down not to hurt. She makes you feel you can do anything. I had a bother to get her to let me and be quiet herself. Shes not one to put it upon others, youll learn. When I was down I felt like a stick in the ground. and sat till I had my feet, she at the window waiting; and I started for you. She kissed her hand. I was THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 111 to come to you, and then your father, you nowhere seen. I wasnt spoken- to. I know empty London. Kit Ines was left sleeping in the house? Snoring, I dare say. He dont drink on duty. He must be kept on duty. Drink or that kind of duty, its a poor choice. Youll take him in charge, Madge. Ive got a mistress to look after. Youve warmed to her. Thats not new, Mr. Woodseer. I do trust you, and you his friend. But you are the ministers son, and any man not a great nobleman must have some heart for her. Youll learn. He kills her so because shes fond of himloves him, however he strikes. No, not like a dog, as men say of us. Shed die for him this night, need were. Live with her, you wont find many men match her for brave; and shes good. My Sally calls her a Bible saint. I could tell you sto- ries of her goodness, short the time though shes been down our way. And better there for her than at that inn he left her at to pine and watch the Royal Sovereign come swing come smirk in sailor blue and star to meet the rain would make anybody disrespect royal- ty or else go mad. Hes a great noble- man, he cant buy what shes ready to give; and if he thinks he breaks her will now, its because she thinks shes obeying a higher than him, or no lord alive and Kit Ines to back hims told her. Women want a priest to speak to men certain times. I wish I dared; we have to bite our tongues. Hes master now, but, as I believe Gods above, if he plays her false, hes the one to be brought to shame. I talk. Talk on, Madge, said Gower, to whom the girls short-syllabled run of the lips was a mountain rill compared with London park-waters. You wont let him hurry her off where shell eat her heart for never see- ing him again? She prays to be near him, if shes not to see him. She speaks in that way? I get it by bits. Im with her, so its as good as if I was inside her. She cant obey when it goes the wrong way of her heart to him. Love and wisdom wont pull to- gether, and they part company for good at the church-door, said Gower. This matrimonys a bad business. Madge hummed a moan of assent. And my poor Sallyll have to marry. I cant leave my mistress while she wants me, and Sally cant be alone. It seems we take a step and harms done, though its the right step we take. It seems to me youve engaged your- self to follow Sallys lead, Madge. Girls minds turn corners, Mr. Woodseer. He passed the remark what it was that girls minds occasionally or habit- ually did, or whether they had minds to turn, or whether they took their whims for minds, were untroubled questions with a young man studying abstract and adoring surface nature too exclu- sively to be aware of the manifestation of her spirit in the flesh, as it is not revealed so much by men. However, she had a voice and a face that led him to be thoughtful over her devotedness to her mistress, after nearly losing her character for the prize-fighter; and he had to thank her for invigorating him. His disposition was to muse and fall slack, helpless to a friend. Here walked a creature exactly the contrary. He listened to the steps of the dissimilar pair on the detonating pavement, and eyed a church-clock shining to the sun. She was sure of the direction: Out Camden way, where the murder was. They walked at a brisk pace, convers- ing or not. Tired? You must be, he said. Not when Im hot to do a thing. Theres the word of the thorough- bred. You dont tire, sir, said she. Sally and I see you stalking out for the open country in the still of the morning. She thinks you look pale for want of food, and ought to have some one put a biscuit into your pocket overnight. Whod have guessed I was under motherly observation ? You shouldnt go so long empty, if you listen to trainers.~~ Capital doctors, no doubt. But I get a fine appetite. You may grind the edge too sharp. He was about to be astonished, and 112 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE reflected that she had grounds for her sagacity. His next thought plunged him into conte~npt of Kit Ines, on ac- count of the fellows lapses to sottish- ness. But there would be no contempt of Kit Ines in a tussle with him. Nor could one funk the tussle and play cur, if Kits engaged young woman were looking on. We get to our courage or the show of it by queer screws. Contemplative over these matters, the philosopher transformed to man of ac- tion heard Madge say she read direc- tions in London by churches, and pres- ently exclaiming disdainfully, and yet relieved, Spooner Villas, she turned down a row of small detached houses facing a brick-field, that had just con- tributed to the erection of them, and threatened the big city with further de- facements. Madge pointed to the marks of her jump, deep in flower-bed earth under an open window. Gower measured the heights with sen- sational shanks. She smote at the door. Carinthia nodded from her window. Close upon that, Kit Ines came bounding to the parlor window; he spied and stared. Gower was known to him as the earls paymaster; so he went to the passage and flung the door open, blocking the way. Any commands, your honor? You bring the Countess to my lord, immediately, said Gower. Kit swallowed his mouthful of sur- prise in a second look at Madge and the ploughed garden-bed beneath the cham- ber window. Are the orders written, sir? To me ?for me to deliver to you? for you to do my lords bidding? Wheres your head? Kits finger-nails travelled up to it. Madge pushed past him. She and her mistress, and Kits mate, and the old woman receiving the word for a cup of tea, were soon in the pas- sage. Kits mate had a ready obedience for his pay, nothing else, no counsel at all, not a suggestion to a head knocked to a pudding by Madges jump and my lords paymaster here upon the scene. My lady was to go down Wales-way, sir. That may be ordered after. Im to take my lady to my lord? and, Does it mean my lady wants a fly? Kit asked, and harked back on whether Madge had seen my lord? At five in the morning? Dont sham donkey with me, said Gower. The business looked inclined to be leaky, but which the way for proving himself other than a donkey puzzled Kit; so much so, that a shove made him partly gratefuL Madges clever counter- move had stunned his judgment. He was, besides, acting subordinate to his patrons paymaster; and, by the luck of it, no voice of woman interposed. The countess and her maid stood by like a disinterested couple. Why be suspi- cious, if he was to keep the Countess in sight? She was a nice lady, and he preferred her good opinion. She was brave, and he did her homage. It might be, my lord had got himself round to the idea of thanking her for saving his nob that night, and his way was to send and have her up, to tell her he forgave her, after the style of lords. Gower pricked into him by saying, aside, Mad, I suppose, in case of a noise? And he could not answer quite manfully; lost his eyes and colored. Neighbors might have required an explanation of shrieks, he confessed. Men have sometimes to do nasty work for their patrons. They were afoot, walking at Car- inthias pace, before half - past seven. She would not hear of any conveyance. She was cheerful, and, as it was pitiful to see, enjoyed her walk. Hearing of her brothers departure for the Austrian capital, she sparkled. Her snatches of speech were short flights out of the meditation possessing her. Gower no- ticed her easier English; that came home to the perpetual student he was. She made use of some of his fathers words, and had assimilated them mentally be- sides appropriating them; the verbaliz- ing of purpose, then peculiar to his father, for example. She said, in reply to a hint from him: If my lord will allow me an interview, I purpose to be obedient. No one could imagine of her that she spoke broken-spiritedly. Her obedience was to a higher than a mor- tal lord, and Gower was touched to the quick through the use of the word. THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 113 Contrasting her with Countess Livia and her cousin, the Earl might think her inferior on the one small square com- partment called by them the world; but she carried the promise of growth, a character in expansion; and she had at least natural grace, a deer-like step. Although her picturesqueness did not swarm on him with images illumining night, subduing day, like the Countess Livias, it was marked, it could tower and intermittently eclipse, and it was of the uplifting and healing kind, by com- parison, not a delicious balefulness. The bigger houses larger shops, aus- tere streets of privat~ residences, were observed by the recent inhabitant of Whitchapel. My lord lives in a square, she said. We shall soon be there now, he en- couraged her, doubtful though the issue appeared. It is a summer morning for the Ortler, the Gross-Glockner, the Vene- digerall our Alps, Mr~ Woodseer. If we could fly! We love them. Why, then we beat a wingyes. For I have them when I want them to sight. It is the feet are so desirous. I feel them so this morning, after pris- onership. I could not have been driven to my lord. I know the feeling, said Gower; any movement of us, not our own im- pulse, hurries the body and deadens the mind. And by the way, my dear lady, I spoke of the Earls commands, to this man behind us walking with your Madge. My father would accuse me of Jesuitry. Ines mentioned commands, and I took advantage of it. I feared, said Carinthia. I go for my chance. Gower had a thought of the smaller creature, greater by position, to whom she was going for her chance. He alluded to his experience of the Earls kindness in relation to himselffrom a belief in his honesty; dotted out- lines of her husbands complex charac- ter, or unmixed and violently opposing elements. She remarked: I will try and learn. The name of the street of beautiful shops woke a happy smile on her mouth. Father talked of it; my mother too. VOL. XVIIL13 He had it written down in his Book of Maxims. When I was a girl, I dreamed of one day walking up Bond Street. They stepped from the pavement and crossed the roadway for a side-street leading to the square. With the swift variation of her aspect at times, her tone changed. We are near. My lord will not be troubled by me. He has only to meet me. There has been misunderstanding, I have vexed him; I could not help it. I will go where he pleases after I have heard him give orders. He thinks me a frightful woman. I am peaceful Gower muttered her word misunder- standing. They were at the Earls house-door. One tap at it, and the two applicants for admission would prob- ably be shot as far away from Lord Fleetwood, as when they were on the Styrian heights last autumn. He de- livered the tap, amused by the idea; it was like a summons to a genie of doubt- ful service. My lord was out riding in the park. Only the footman appeared at that early hour, and his countenance was blank whitewash as he stood rigid against the wall for the lady to pass. Madge followed into the morning-room; Ines remained in the hail, where he could have the opening speech with his patron, and where he soon had com- munication with the butler. This official entered presently to Gower, presenting a loaded forehead. A note addressed to Mrs. Kirby-Level- lier at the Countess Livias house hard by, was handed to him for instant dis- patch. He signified a deferential wish to speak. You can speak in the presence of the Countess of Fleetwood, Mr. Wayte, Gower said. Wayte checked a bend of his shoal- ders. He had not a word, and he turned to send the note: He was compelled to think that he saw a well-grown young woman in the Whitechapel Countess. Gowers note reached Henrietta on her descent to the breakfast-table. She was alone and thrown into a torture of perplexity; for she wanted advice as to the advice to be given to Janey, and Livia was an utterly nnprofitable person to consult in the case. She thought of 114 THE AMAZING MAPRIAGE Lady Arpington, not many doors dis- tant. Drinking one hasty cup of tea, she sent for her bonnet, and hastened away to the great lady, whom she found rising from breakfast with the Marquis. Lady Arpington read Gowers note. She unburdened herself: Oh! so its no longer a bachelors household! Henrietta heaved the biggest of sighs. I fear the poor dear may have made matters worse. To which -Lady Arpington said: Worse or better, my child! and shrugged; for the present situation strained to snapping. She proposed to go forthwith, and give what support she could to the Countess of Fleetwood. They descended the steps of the house to the garden and the Green Parks gravel walk up to Piccadilly. There they had a view of Lord Fleetwood on horseback leisurely turning out of the main ways tide. They saw him alight at the mews. As they entered the square, he was met some doors from the south corneg by his good or evil genius, whose influence with him came next after the marriage in the amazement it caused, and was perhaps to be explained by it; for the wealthiest of young noble- men bestowing his name on an unknown girl, would be the one to make an ab- surd adventurer his intimate. Lord Fleetwood bent a listening head while Mr. Gower Woodseer, apparently a good genius for the moment, spoke at his ear. How do we understand laughter at such a communication as he must be hearing from the man. Signs of a sharp laugh indicated either his cruel levity or that his presumptuous favorite trifled and the mans talk could be droll, Lady Arpington knew: it had, she rec- ollected angrily, diverted her, and soft- ened her to tolerate the intruder into regions from which her class and her period excluded the lowly born, except at the dinner-tables of stale politics and tattered scandal. Nevertheless, Lord Fleetwood mounted to his house- door, still listening. His Asmodeus, on the tongue of the world, might be doing the part of Mentor really. The house-door stood open. Fleet-wood said something to Gower; he swung round, beheld the ladies and advanced to them, saluting. My dear Lady Arpington! quite so, you arrive opportunely. When the enemy occupies the citadel, its proper to surrender. Say, I beg, she can have the house, if she prefers it. I will fall back on Essle- mont. Arrangements for her conven- ience will be made. I thank you by anticipation. His bow included Henrietta loosely. Lady Arpington had exclaimed: En- emy, Fleetwood? and Gower, in his ignorance of the smoothness of aris- tocratic manners, expected a remon- strance; but Fleetwood was allowed to go on with his air of steely geniality and a decision, that his friend imagined he could have broken down like an old partition-board nuder the kick of a sar- casm sharpening an appeal. Lord Fleetwood was on the point of going in, he assured the great lady. Lord Fleetwood may regret his change of mind, said she. The Count- ess of Fleetwood will have my advice to keep her footing in this house. She and Henrietta sat alone with Carinthia for an hour. Coming forth, Lady Arpington ejaculated to herself: Villany somewhere ! You will do well, Henrietta, to take up your quarters with her a day or two. She can hold her position a month. Longer, is past possibility. A shudder of the repulsion from men crept over the younger lady. But she was a warriors daughter, and observed: My husband, her brother, will be back before the month ends. No need for hostilities to lighten our darkness, Lady Arpington re- joined. You know her? trust her? One cannot doubt her face. She is my husbands sister. Yes, I do trust her. I nail my flag to her cause. The flag was crimson, as it appeared on her cheeks; and that intimated a further tale, though not of so dramatic an import as the cognizant short survey of Carinthia had been. These young women, with the new complications obtruded by them, irri- tated a benevolent great governing lady, who had married oft~ her daughters and embraced her grandchildren, comfort- ably finishing that chapter; and beheld THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 115 now the apparition of the sexs ancient tripping foe, when circumstances in themselves were quite enough to con- tend against on their behalf. It seemed to say, that natures most burdened weaker must always be beaten. De- spite Henriettas advocacy and Carin- thias clear face, it raised a spectral form of a suspicion, the more effective by reason of the much-required justifi- cation it fetched from the shades to plead apologies for Lord Fleetwoods erratic, if not mad, and in any case ugly conduct. What otherwise could be his excuse? Such was his need of one, that the wife he crushed had to be pro- posed for sacrifice, in the mind of a lady tending strongly to side with her and condemn her husband. Lady Arpington had counselled Ca- rinthia to stay where she was, the Fates having brought her there. Henrietta was too generous to hesitate in her choice between her husbands sister and the Earl. She removed from Livias house to Lord Fleetwoods. My lord was at Esslemont two days; then es- tablished his quarters at Scropes Hotel, five minutes walk from the wedded lady to whom the right to bear his title was granted, an interview with him refused. Such a squaring for the battle of spouses had neveror not in mighty London been seen since that old fight began. CHAPTER XXVI AFTER 5OME FENCING THE DAME PA55E5 OUR GUARD DAME GOSSIP at this present pass bursts to give us a review of the social world siding for the Earl or for his Countess; and her parrot cry of John Rose Mac- krell ! with her heads loose shake over the smack of her lap, to convey the contemporaneous tipsy relish of the rich good things he said on the subject of the contest, indicates the kind of inter- vention it would be. To save the story from having its vein tired, we may accept the reminder, that he was the Countesss voluble advo- cate at a period when her friends were shy to speak of her. After relating the Vauxhall Gardens episode in burlesque Homeric during the freshness of the scandal, Rose Mackrells enthusiasm for the heroine of his humor set in. He tracked her to her parentage, which was new breath blown into the sunken tradition of some old Buccaneer and his Countess Fanny; and a turn of great good luck helping him to a copy of the book of the Maxims for Men, he would quote certain of the racier ones, passages of Captain John Peter Kirbys personal adventures in various lands and waters illustrating the text, to prove that the old warrior acted by the rule of his recommendations. They had the repulsive attraction proper to rusty lumber swords and truncheons that have tasted brains. They wove no mild sort of halo for the head of a shil- lelah-fiourishing Whitechapel Countess descended from the writer and doer. People were willing to believe in her jump of thirty feet or more off a subur- ban house-top to escape durance, and her midnight storming of her lords town-house, and ousting of - him to go find his quarters at Scropes HoteL He, too, had his band of pugilists, as it was known; and he might have heightened a raging scandal. The nobleman for- bore. A womans blow gracefully taken adds a score of inches to our stature, floor us as it may; we win the worlds afterthoughts. Rose Mackrell sketched the Earl ;always alert, smart, quick to meet a combination and protect a dig- nity never obtruded, and in spite of himself the laugh of the town. His humor flickered wildly round the ridic- ulous position of a prominent young nobleman, whose bearing and character were foreign to a position of ridicule. Nevertheless, the Earls figure contin- uing to be classic sculpture, it allied him with the aristocracy of martyrs, that burn and do not wince. He pro- pitiated none, and as he could not but suffer shrewdly,he gained esteem enough to shine through the womans pitiless drenching of him. During his term at Scropes Hotel, the carousals there were quite old-century and matter of dis- course. He had proved his return to sound sense in the dismissal of the fiddler, notoriously the womans lieu- tenant, or more; and nightly the rev- 116 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE elry closed at the great gaming tables of St. Jamess Street, while Whitechapel held the cotonetted square, well on her way to the law courts as Abrane and Potts reported; and positively so clear case. That was the coming de- velopment and finale of the marriage. London waited for it. A rich mans easy smile over losses at play merely taught his emulous troop to feel themselves poor devils in the pocket. But Fleetwoods contempt of sleep was a marvel, superhuman, and accused them of an inferior vigor, hard for young men to admit by the example. He never went to bed. Issuing from Fortunes hall-doors in the bright, lively summer morning, he mounted horse and was away to the hills. Or he took the arm of a Roman Catholic nobleman, Lord Feltre, and walked with him from the green tables and the establishments re- nowned dry still Sillery to matins at a Papist chapel. As it was not known that he had given his word to adjure his religion, the pious gamblers did no worse than spread an alarm and quiet it, by the citation of his character for having a try at everything. Henrietta dispatched at this period the following letter to Chillon: I am with Livia to-morrow. Janey starts for Wales to-morrow morning, a voluntary exile. She pleaded to go back to that place where you had to leave her, promising she would not come west- ward, but was persuaded. Lady Arp- ington approves. The situation was getting too terribly strained. We met and passed my lord in the park. He was walking his horseelegant cavalier that he is; would not look on his wife. A woman pulled by her collar should be passive; if she pulls her way, she is treated as a dog. I see nothing else in the intention of poor Janeys last offence to him. There is an opposite counsel, and he can be eloquent, and he will be heard on her side. How could she manage the most wayward, when she has not an idea of ordinary men. But, my husband, they have our tie be- tween them; it may move him. It sub- dues herand nothing else would have done that. If she had been in England a year before the marriage, she would, I think, have understood better how to guide her steps and her tongue for his good pleasure. She learns daily, very quickly ; observes, assimilates ; she reads, and has her commentswould have shot far ahead of your Riette, with my advantages. Your unclebut he will bear any charge on his conscience as long as he cau get the burden off his shoulders. LDo not fret, my own. Reperuse the aboveyou will see we have grounds for hope. He should have looked down on her. No tears from her eyes, but her eyes were tears. She does not rank among beautiful women. She has her moments for outshining themthe loveliest of spectres. She caught at my heart. I cannot forget her face looking up for him to look. A great painter would have reproduced it, a great poet have rendered the impression. Nothing short of the greatest. That is odd to say of one so simple as she. But when acci- dents call up her reserves, you see moun- tain heights where mists wereshe is actually glorified. Her friendI do be- lieve a friendthe Mr. Woodseer you are to remember meeting somewhere a sprained anklehas a dozen similes ready for what she is when pain or hap- piness vivify her. Or it may be tender charity. She says that if she feels for suffering people, it is because she is the child of Chillons mother. In like man- ner Chillon is the son of Janeys father. Mr. Woodseer came every other even- ing. Our only enlivenment. Livia fol- lowed her policy in refusing to call. We lived luxuriously; no money, not enough for a box at the opera, though we yearnedyou can imagine. Chap- ters of philosophy read out and ex- pounded instead. Janey likes them. He sets lessons to her queer maid reading, writing, pronunciation of Eng- lish. An inferior language to Welsh, for poetical purposes, we are informed. So Janey determining to apply herself to Welsh, and a chameleon Riette dread- ing that she will be taking a contrary view of the honest souls as she feels them to bewhen again under Livia s shadow. The message from Janey to Scropes Hotel was dispatched half an hour after THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 117 we had driven in from the park; fruit of a brown meditation. I wrote it third person a single sentence. Ar- rangements are made for her to travel comfortably. It is funnythe shops for her purchases of clothes, necessaries, etc., are specified. She may order to any extent. Not a shilling of money for her poor purse. What can be the se- cret of that? He does nothing without an object. To me, uniformly civil, no irony, few compliments. Livia writes that I am commended for keeping Janey company. What can be the secret of a man scrupulously just with one hand and at the same time cruel with the other? Mr. Woodseer says his wealth More money than is required for their needs, men go into harness to Plutus if that is clever. I have written my husband as Janey ceases to call her own; and it was pretty and touching to hear her my husband. Oh! a dull letter. But he is my husband though he keeps ab- sentto be longed forhe is my hus- band still, my husband always. Chillon is Henriettas husband, the world cries out, and when she is flattered she does the like, for then it is not too presump- tuous that she should name Henrietta Chillons wife. In my ears, husband has the sweeter sound. It brings an angel from overhead. Will it bring him one half hour sooner? My love! My dear! if it did I should be lisping husband, husband, husband from cock-crow to owls cry. Livia thinks the world fool- ish, if not detestable. She and I have our different opinions. She is for lux- ury. I choose poverty and my husband. Poverty has its beauty, if my husband is the sun of it. Elle radote. She would not have written so dull a letter to her husband if she had been at the opera last night or listened to a distant street band. No morethe next line would be bleeding. He should have her blood, too, if that were her husbandsit never would be; but if it were for his good in the smallest way. Chillons wish is to give his blood for them he loves. Never did woman try more to write worthily to her absent lord and fall so miserably into the state of dripping babe from bath on nurses knee. Cover me, my lord and love, my lover, my cause for no, my excuse, my refuge from myself. We are one? Oh! we are one 1and we have been separated eight and twenty days. HENRIETTA KIRBY-LEYELLIEit That was a letter for the husband and lover to receive in a foreign land and be warmed. - The tidings of Carinthia washed him clean of the grimy district where his waxen sister had developed her stubborn insensibility resembling craziness, every perversion of the refinement de- manded by young Englishmen of their ladies; and it pacified him with the be- lief that she was now at rest, the dis- turbed history of their father and mother at rest as well; his conscience in rela- tion to the marriage likewise at rest. Chillon had a wife. Her writing of the welcome to poverty stirred his knowl- edge of his wifes nature. Carinthia might bear it and harden to flint. Hen- rietta was a butterfly for the golden rays. His thoughts, all his energies, were bent on the making of money to supply her need for the pleasures she flew ina butterflys grub without it. Accurately so did the husband and lover read his wife, adoring her the more. Her letters embracing close was cost- ly to them. It hurried him to the compromise of a debatable business, and he fell into the Austrian Qrovern- ments terms for the payment of the in- heritance from his father; calculating, that his sisters share deducted money would be on hand to pay pres- sing debts and enable Henrietta to live unworried by cares until he should have squeezed debts, long due and in- creasing, out of the miserly old lord, his uncle. A prospect of supplies for twelve months, counting the hack and carriage Henrietta had always been used to, seemed about as far as it was re- quired to look by the husband hastening homeward to his wifes c~ui. Her letter was a call in the night. Besides, there were his yet untried inventions. The new gunpowder testing at Croridge prom- ised to provide Henrietta with many of the luxuries she could have had, and had abandoned for his sake. The new blasting powder and a destructive shell might build her the palace she deserved. 118 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE His uncle was, no doubt, his partner. If, however, the profits were divided, sufficient wealth was assured. But his uncle remained a dubious image. The husband and lover could enfold no positive prospect to suit his wifes tastes beyond the twelve months. We have Dame Gossip upon us. One minute let mention be of the ex- citement over Protestant England when that rumor disseminated, telling of her wealthiest noblemans visit to a moun- tain monastery, up in the peaks and snows; and of his dwelling among the monks, and assisting in all their ser- vices day and night, hymning and chant- ing, uttering not one word for one whole week; his Papistical friend, Lord Feltre, with him, of course, after Jesuit arts had allured him to that -place of torrents and lightuings and canticles and demon echoes, all as though ex- pressly contrived for the horrifying of sinners into penitence and confession and the monkish cowl up to lifes end, not to speak of the abjuration of worldly possessions and donation of them into the keeping of the shaven brothers. There was a general consent, that if the Earl of Fleetwood went to the extreme of making over his property to those monks, he should be pronounced insane and incapable. Ultimately the world was a little pacified by hearing that a portion . of it was entailed, Esslemont and the Welsh mines. So it might be; but what if he had no child! The marriage amazing every- body, scarcely promised fruit, it was thought. Countess Livia, much be- sought for her opinion, scouted the possibility. And Carinthia Jane was proclaimed by John Rose Mackrell (to his dying day the poor gentleman tried vainly to get the second syllable of his name accentuated) a young woman who would outlive twice over the husband she had. He said of his name it was destined to pass him down a dead fish in the nose of posterity, and would affect his best jokes; which something has done, or the present generation has lost the sense of genuine humor. Thanks to him, the talk of the White- chapel Countess again sprang up, mer- rily as ever; and after her having be- come, as lie said, a desiccated celeb rity, she outdid cabinet ministers and naughty wives for a living morsel in the worlds mouth. She was denounced by the patriotic party as thi cause of the Earls dalliance with Rome. The Earl, you are to know, was then coasting along the Mediterranean, on board his beautiful schooner yacht, with his Lord Feltre, bound to make an inspection of Syrian monasteries, and forget, if he could, the face of all faces, anothers possession, by the law. Those two lords, shut up together in a yacht, were advised by their situation to be bosom friends, and they quarrelled violently, and were reconciled, and they quarrelled again; they were explosive chemicals; until the touch of dry land relieved them of what they really fancied the spell of the fiend. For their argu- mentative topic during confinement was woman, when it was not theology; and even off a yacht, those are subjects to kindle the utmost hatred of dissension if men are not perfectly concordant. They agreed upon land to banish any talk of woman or theology, where it would have been comparatively inno- cent; so they both desiring to be doing the thing they had sworn they would not do, the thoughts of both were fast- ened on one or the other interdicted subject. They hardly spoke; they per- ceived in their longing minds that the imagined spell of the fiend was indeed the bile of the sea, secreted thickly for want of exercise, and they both regret- ted the days and nights of their angry controversies; unfit pilgrims of the Holy Land, they owned. To such effect, Lord Fleetwood wrote to Gower Woodseer, as though there had been no breach between them, from Jerusalem, expressing the wish to hear his cool wood-notes of the philosophy of life, fresh drawn from Natures breast; and urgent for an answer, to be addressed to his hotel at South- ampton, that he might be greeted on his return home first by his friend Gower. He wrote in the month of January. His arrival at Southampton was on the thirteenth day of March; and there he opened a letter some weeks old, the bearer of news which ought by rights to make husbands proudly happy. THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 119 CHAPTER XXVII WE DESCEND INTO A STEAMER S ENGINE- ROOM LEET WOOD had dropped his friend, Lord Feltre, at An- cona; his good fortune was to be alone when the clang of bells rang through his head in the read- ing of Gowers lines. Other letters were opened: from the Countess Livia, from Lady Arpington, from Captain Kirby-Levellier. There was one from his lawyers, informing him of their re- ceipt of a communication, dated South Wales, December 11th, and signed Owain Wythan; to the effect, that the birth of a son to the Earl of Fleetwood was reoistered on the day of the date, b with a copy of the document forwarded. Livia scornfully stated the tattling worlds latest. The Captain was as brief, in ordinary words, whose quick run to the stop could be taken for a challenge of the eye. It stamped the adversarys frown on Fleetwood read- ing. Lady Arpington was more politic; she wrote of a healthy boy, and the healthy mother giving him breast, this being the way for the rearing of strong men. She condescended to the par- ticulars, that she might touch him. The Earl had not been so reared; his mother was not the healthy mother. One of his multitudinous, shifty, but ineradicable ambitions, was to exhibit an excellingly vigorous, tireless con-. stitution. He remembered the needed refreshment of the sea-breezes aboard his yacht during the week following the sleep-discarded nights at Scropes and the green tables. For a week he hung to the smell of brine, in rapturous amity with Feltre, until they yellowed, differed, wrangled, hated. A powerful leaven was put into him by the tidings out of Wales. Gower, good fellow, had gone down to see the young mother three weeks after the birth of her child. She was already renewing her bloom. She had produced the boy in the worlds early manner, lightly, without any of the tragic mod- ern hovering over death to give the life. Gower compared it to a flush of the vernal orchard after a days drink of sunlight. That was well: that was how it should be. One loathes the idea of tortured women. The good fellow was perhaps ab- surdly poetical. Still we must have poetry to hallow this and other forms of energy: or say, if you like, the right view of them impels to poetry. Other- wise we are in the breeding yards, among the litters and the farrows. It is a question of looking down or look- ing up. If we are poor creaturesas we are if we do but feast and gamble and begetwe shall run for a time with the dogs and come to the finish of swine. Better say, life is holy! Why, then we have to thank her who teaches it. He gazed at the string of visions of the woman naming him husband, mak- ing him a father: the imagined Carin- thiabeautiful Gorgon, haggard Venus; the Carinthia of the precipice tree- shoot; Carinthia of the IDucal dancing hall; and she at the altar-rails; she on the coach-box ; she alternately softest of brides, doughtiest of amazons. A mate for the caress, an electrical hero- ine, fronted him. Yes, and she was Lord Fleetwoods wife, cracking sconces a demoiselle Moll Flanders the worlds White- chapel Countess out for an airing, in- fernally earnest about it, madly ludi- crous; the schemer to catch his word, the petticoated Shylock to bind him to the letter of it, now persecuting, haunt- ing him, now immovable for obstinacy; malignant to stay down in those vile slums and direct tons of sooty waters on his head from its mains in the sight of London, causing the least histrionic of men to behave as an actor. He be- held her a skull with a lamp behind the cycholes. But this woman was the woman who made him a father; she was the mother of the heir of the house, and the boy she clasped and suckled as her boy was his boy. They met inseparably in that new life. Truly, there could not be a woman of flesh so near to a likeness with the beatific image of Feltres worshipped Madonna! The thought sparkled and darkened in Fleetwoods mind, as a star passing 120 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE into cloud. For an uproarious world claimed the woman, jeered at all allied with her; at her husband most, of course ; the punctilious noodle, the golden jackass, tethered and goaded. He had choice among the pick of wom- en; the daughter of the Old Buccaneer was preferred by this wiseacre CoAebs. She tricked him cunningly and struck a tremendous return blow in producing her male infant. By the way, was she actually born in wedlock? Lord Levelliers assurances regarding her origin were, by the cal- culation, a misers shuffles to clinch his bargain. Assuming the representative of holy motherhood to be a woman of II- legitimate birth, the history of the house to which the spotted woman gave an heir would suffer a jolt when touching on her. And altogether the history fumed rank vapors. Imagine her boy in his fathers name, a young collegian. No commonly sensitive lad could bear the gibes of the fellows rak- ing at antecedents; Fleetwood would be the name to start roars. Smarting for his name, the Earl chafed at the boys mother. Her production of a man-child was the further and grosser offence. He recurred to Gower Woodseers letter. The pictures and images in it were not the principal matters, the impres- sion had been deep. A plain transcrip- tion of the young mothers acts and words did more to portray her; the reader could supply reflections. Would her boys father be very pleased to see him? she had asked. And she spoke of a fear that the father would try to take her boy from her. Never that you have my word, Fleetwood said; and he nodded, con- sentingly, over her next remark: Not while I live, till he must go to school! The stubborn wife would be the last of women to sit and weep as a rifled mother. A child of the Countess Carinthia (he phrased it) would not be deficient in will, nor would the youngster lack bravery. For his part, comparison rushing at him and searching him, he owned that he leaned on pride. To think that he did, became a theme for pride. The mother had primitive virtues; the father the developed; he was the richer mine. And besides, he was he; the un- riddled, complex, individual he; she was the plain, barbarian survival, good for giving her offspring bone, muscle, stout heart. Shape the hypothesis of a fairer wom- an, the mother of the heir to the earl- dom. Henrietta was analyzed in a glimpse. Courage, animal healthfulness, she, too, mighther husband not obstructing transmit; and good looks, eyes of the sapphire Ega~an. And therewith such pliability as the Mother of Love re- quires of her servants. Could that woman resist seductions? Fleetwoods wrath with her for re- fusing him and inducing him in spite to pledge his word elsewhere, haphaz- ard, pricked a curiosity to know whether the woman could beand easily, easily he wageredled to make her conduct warrant for his contempt of her. Led; that is, misled, you might say, if you were pleading for a doll. But it was necessary to bait the pleasures for the woman, in order to have full view of the precious fine fate one has escaped. Also to get well rid of a sort of hectic in the blood, which the womans beauty has cast on that re- flecting tide ; a fever-sign, where the fever has become quite emotionless and is merely desirous for the stain of it to be washed out. As this is not the de- sire to possess, or even to taste, con- tempt will do it. When we know that the weaver of the fascinations is pur- chasable, we toss her to the market where men buy; and we walk released from vile subjection to one of the fe- male heapssubjection no longer, doubt- less, and yet a stain of the past flush, often coloring our reveries, creating active phantasms of a passion absolute- ly extinct, if it ever was the veritable passion. The plotformless plotto get re- lease by the sacrifice or at least a cru- cial temptation of the woman, that should wash his blood clean 6f her im- age, had a shade of the devilish, he acknowledged; and the apology offered THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 121 no improvement of its aspect. She might come out of the trial triumphant. And benefit for himself, even a small privilege, even the pressure of her hand, he not only shrank from the thought of winning, he loathed the thought. He was too delicate over the idea of the married woman whom he fancied he loved in her maidenhood. Others might press her hand, lead her the dance ; he simply wanted his release. She had set him on fire; he conceived a method for trampling the remaining sparks and erasing stain and scars; that was all. Henrietta rejected her wealthy suitor; she might some day hence be seen crawl- ing abjectly to wealth, glad of a drink from the cup it holds, intoxicated with the draught. An injured pride could animate his wealth to crave solace of such a spectacle. Devilish, if you like. He had expiated the wickedness in Cistercian seclusion. His wife now drove him to siu again. She had given him a son. That fluted of home and honorable life. She had her charm, known to him alone. But how, supposing she did not rub him to bristle with fresh irritations, how go to his wife while Henrietta held her throne? Consideration was her due until she stumbled. Enough if she wavered. Almost enough if she stood firm as a statue in the winds, and proved that the first page of her was a false in- troduction. The surprising apparition of a beautiful woman with character; a lightly thrilled, pleasure-loving woman devoted to her husband or protected by her rightful self - esteem, would loosen him creditably. It had to be witnessed, for faith in it. He reverenced our leg- endary good woman, and he bowed to noble deeds; and he ascribed the for- mer to poetical creativeness ; the latter operated as a scourging of his flesh to yield its demoniacal inmates. Nothing of the kind was doing at present. Or stay: a studious reperusal of Gower Woodseers letter enriched a lit- tle incident. Fleetwood gave his wife her name of Carinthia when he had read deliberately and caught the scene. Mrs. Wythan down in Wales, related it to Gower. Carinthia and Madge, trudging over the treeless hills, came on a birchen clump round a deep hollow or gully-pit; precipitous, the Earl knew, he had peeped over the edge in his infant days. There at the bottom,Nn a foot or so of water, they espied a lamb; and they rescued the poor beastie by going down to it, one or both. It must have been the mountain-footed one. A man would hesitate, spying below. Fleet- wood wondered how she had managed to climb up, and carrying the lamb. Down pitches Madge Winch to help they did it between them. We who stand aloof admire stupidly. To defend himself from admiring, he condemned the two women for the risk they ran to save a probably broken - legged little beast; and he escaped the melting mood by forcing a sneer at the sort of stuff out of which popular ballads are woven. Carinthia was accused of letting her adventurous impulses and sentimen- tal female compassion swamp thought of a mothers duties. If both those two women had broken their legs, the child might have cried itself into fits for the mother, there she would have remained. Gower wrote in a language transpa- rent of the act, addressed to a reader whose memory was to be impregnated. His reader would have flown away from the simple occurrence on arabesques and modulated tones; and then envisaging them critically, would have tossed his poor little story to the winds, as a small thing magnifiedwith an object, being the next thought about it. He knew his Fleetwood so far. His letter concluded: I am in a small Surrey village, over a bakers shop, rent eight shillings per week, a dames infant school opposite my win- dow, miles of firwood, heath, and brac- ken openings, for the winged or the nested fancies. Love Nature, she makes you a lord of her boundless, off any ten square feet of common earth. I go through my illusions and come always back on that good truth. It says, be- ware of the worlds passion for flavors and spices. Much tasted, they turn and bite the biter. My exemplars are the lately breeched youngsters with twopence in their pockets for the gin- gerbread-nut booth on a fair day. I learn more from one of them than you can from the whole cavalcade of your attendant Ixionides. 122 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE Mounting the box of his coach for the drive to London, Fleetwood had the new mime for the parasitic and sham vital troop of his ears. My Ixionides! he repeated; and did not scorn them so much as he re- joiced to be enlightened by the title. He craved the presence of the magician who dropped illumination with a single word; wholesomer to think of than the whole body of these Ixionides; not bad fellows here and there, he reflected, tolerantly half laughing at some of their clownish fun. Gower Woodseer and he had not quarrelled? No, they had merely parted at one of the crossways. The plebeian could teach that son of the genuflexions, Lord Feltre, a lesson in manners. Woodseer was the better comrade and director of routes. Into the forest, upon the heights; and free, not locked; and not parroting day and night, but quick for all that the world has learnt and can tell, though two-thirds of it be composed of Ixion- ides; that way lies wisdom, and his index was cut that way. Arrived in town, he ran over the headings of his letters, in no degree anxious for a communication from Wales. There was none. Why none? She might as well have scrawled her announcement of an event pleasing to her, and, by the calculation, important to him, if not particularly interesting. The mothers wifish lines would, per- haps, have been tested in a furnace. He smarted at the blank of any, of even two or three formal words. She sulked? I am not a fallen lamb! he said. Evidently one had to be a shivering beast in trouble, to excite her to move a hand. Through so slight a fissure as this piece of discontent cracked in him, the crowd of his grievances with the woman rushed pell-mell, deluging young shoots of sweeter feeling. She sulked! If that woman could not get the command, he was to know her incapable of submis- sion. After besmutting the name she had filched from him, she let him under- stand that there was no intention to re- pent. Possibly she meant war. In which case, a man must fly, or stand assailed by the most intolerable of vul gar farces; to be compared to a pelting of one on the stage. The time came to him to knock at doors and face his public. CHAPTER XXYUL BY CONCE55ION5 TO M15TRE55 GOSSIP A FURTHER INTRUSION IS AVERTED IVIA welcomed him, with com- miserating inquiry behind her languid eyelids. You have all the latest? it said. He struck on the burning matter. You wish to know the part you have to play, maam. Tell me, Russett. You will contradict nothing. Her eyebrows asked: It means? You have authority from me to admit the facts. They are facts ? she remarked. Women love teasing round certain facts, apparently; like the law courts over their pet cases.~~ But Russett, will you listen? Has the luck been civil of late? I think of something else at present. No, it has not. Abrane? Pray attend to me. No, not Ab- rane. I believe youve all been cleared out in my absence. St. Ombre? Her complexion varied. Mr. Am- brose Mallard has once or twice. . But let me beg you; the town is rag- ing with it. My dear Russett, a bold front nowtheres the chance of your release in view. A rascal in view! Name the sum. I must reckon. My head iscan you intend to submit? So, its Brosey Mallard now. You choose your deputy queerly. Hes as bad as Abrane, with steam to it. Chummy Potts would have been bet- ter. He wins one night; loses every pound-note he has the next; and comes vaunting the dry still Sillery of the es- tablishmenta perpetual chorus to his losses! His consolation to you for yours. That is the gentleman. Chummy THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 123 doesnt change. Say, why not St. Om- bre? Hes cool. There are reasons.~~ Let them rest. And I have my rea- sons. Do the same for them. Yours concerns the honor of the family. Deeply; respect them. Your relatives have to be thought of, though they are few and not too pleasant. If I had thought much of them, what would our relations be? They object to dicing, and I to leading- strings. She tui-ned to a brighter subject, of no visible connection with the preced- ing. Henrietta comes in May. The month of her colors! Her money troubles are terrible. Both of you appear unlucky in your partnersif winning was the object. She shall have all the distractions we can offer. Your visit to the Chartreuse alarmed her. She has rejoined her husband? A girL She feared the Jesuit in your friend. Feltre and she are about equally af- fected by music. They shall meet. Russett, this once: I do entreat you to take counsel with your good sense, and remember that you stand where you are by going against my advice. It is a perfect storm over London. The world has not to be informed of your generosity; but a chivalry that invites the most horrible of sneers at a man! And what can I say? I have said it was impossible. Add the postscript: you find it was perfectly possible. I have to learn more than I care to hear. Your knowledge is not in request: you will speak in my name. Will you consult your lawyers, Bus- sett, before you commit yourself? I am on my way to Lady Arping- ton.~~ You cannot be thinking how seri- ous it is. I rather value the opinion of a hard- headed woman of the world. Why not listen to me? You have your points, ma~am.~~ Shes a torch. She serves my purpose. Livia shrugged sadly. I suppose it serves your purpose to be unintelligible tome. He rendered himself intelligible im- mediately, by saying: Before I goa thousand ? Oh, my dear Ilussett! she sighed. State the amount. She seemed to be casting unwieldy figures and he helped her with, Mr. Isaacs? Not less than three, I fear. Has he been pressing? You are always good to us, Bus- sett. You are always considerate for the honor of the family, maam. Order for the money with you here to-morrow. And I thank you for your advice. Do me the favor to follow mine. Commands, should be the word. Phrase it as you please. You know I hate responsibility. The Chorus in classical dramas had generally that sentiment, but the sing- ing was the sweeter for it. Whom do you not win when yo~ condescend to the mood, you dear boy. He restrained a bitter reply, touch- ing the kind of persons he had won; a girl from the mountains, a philosoph- ical tramp of the roads, troops of the bought. Livia spelt at the problem he was. She put away the task of reading it. He departed to see Lady Arpington, and thereby rivet his chains. As Livia had said, she was a torch. Lady Endor, Lady Eldritch, Lady Cowry kindled at her. Again there were flights of the burning brands over London. The very odd marriage; the no-marriage; the two-ends-of-the-town marriage; and the maiden marriage a fruitful marriage; the monstrous mar- riage of the countess productive in banishment, and the unreadable earl accepting paternity; this amazing mar- riage was again the riddle in the cracker for tattlers and gapers. Bat the lady, though absent, did not figure poorly at all. Granting White- chapel and the shillelah affair, certain whispers of her good looks, contested 124 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE only to be the more violently asserted and therewith Rose Mackrells tale of being a young woman of birth, hav- ing a romantic story to tell of herself and her parentage; made her latest performance the champagne event of it hitherto. Men sparkled when they had it on their lips. How, then, London asked, would the Earl of Fleetwood move his pieces in reply to his Countesss particularly clever indication of the check threaten- ing mate? His move had no relation to the game, it was thought at first. The world could not suppose that he moved a simple pawn on his marriage board. He purchased a shop in Piccadilly for the sale of fruit and flowers. Lady Arpington was entreated to deal at the shop, Countess Livia had her or- ders; his friends, his parasites and satellites, were to deal there. Intensely earnest as usual, he besought great la- dies to let him have the overflow of their hot-houses; and they classing it as an- other of the mystifications of a purse crazy for repleteness, inquired, But it is you we are to deal with? And he quite seriously said: With me, yes, at present. Something was behind the curtain, of course. His gravity had an effect of the ultra - comical in conceal- ing it. The shop was opened. We have the assurance of Rose Mackrell, that he en- tered and examined the piles and pans of fruits, and the bouquets cunningly ar- ranged by a hand smelling French. The shop was roomy, splendid windows lighted the yellow, the golden, the green, and party-colored stores. Four doors off, a chemists, motley in bellied glasses, crashed on the sight. Passengers along the pavement had presented to them such a contrast as might be shown if we could imagine the Lethean ferry-boat- load brought sharp against Pomonas lapful. In addition to the plucked flow- ers and fruits of the shop, Rose Mackrell more attentively examined the samples doing service at the counters. They were three, under supervision of a watch- ful - eyed fourth; and all wore white caps of one pattern ; they repaid scru- tinypunctually, as he saidwith just the modest lifting of a lid to return it. Dame Gossip is for quoting his wit. But the conclusion he reached, after quitting the shop and pacing his dozen steps, is important; for it sent a wind over the town to set the springs of tattle going as wildly as when the heralds trumpet blew the announcement for the world to hear out of Wales. He had observed that the young wom- an supervising was deficient in the ease of an established superior; her brows were troubled ; she was, therefore, a lieutenant elevated from a lower grade; and, to his thinking, conducted the bus- iness during the temporary retire- ment of the mistress of the shop. And the mistress of the shop? The question hardly needs be put. Rose Mackrell or his humor answered it in unfaltering terms. London heard, with the variety of feel- ings which are indistinguishable under a flooding amazement, that the beauti- ful new fruit and flower shop had been purchased and stocked by the fabulous- ly wealthy young Earl of Fleetwood, to give Whitechapel Countess a taste for business, an occupation, and an honor- able means of livelihood. There was, Dame Gossip thumps to say, a general belief in this report. Crowds were on the pavement, peering through the shop-windows. Carriages driving by stopped to look. My lord himself had been visible, displaying his array of provision to friends. Nor was credulity damped appreciably when over the shop, in gold letters, appeared the name of Sarah Winch. It might be the Countesss maiden name, if she really was a married countess. But, in truth, the better informed of the town, having begun to think its Crcesus capable of any eccentricity, chose to believe. They were at the pitch of excitement which demands and will swallow a succession of wilder extrava- gances. To accelerate the delirium of the fun, nothing was too much, because every absurdity was anticipated. And the Earls readiness to be complimented on the shops particular merits, his grat- ified air at an allusion to it, whirled the fun faster. He seemed entirely un- conscious that each step he now took wakened peals. His child-like uncon- sciousness of the boiling sentiments THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 125 around, seasoned, pricked, and mad- dened his parasites under compression to invent, for a faint relief. He had his title for them, they their tales of him. Dame Gossip would recount the tales. She is of the order of persons inclining to suspect the title of truth in prodigies of scandal She is rustling and bustling to tell us of Carinthia Janes run up to London to see Sarah Winchs grand new shop, an eclipse of all existing grand London Western shops; and Rose Mack- rells account of her dance of proud de- light in the shop, ending with a lovely cheese just as my lord enters, and then a scene, wild beyond any conceivable for pathos and humor, and the Earl has the Whitechapel baby-boy plumped into his arms; and the Countess fetches him a splendid bobdip and rises out of a second cheese to twirl and fandango it; and all serious on a sudden, request, whimperingly beseech, his thanks to her for the crowing successor she has pre- sented him with; my lord ultimately, but carefully, depositing the infant on a basket of the last oranges of the season, fresh from the Azores, by delivery off my lords own schooner-yacht in South- ampton Water; and escaping, leaving his gold - headed stick behind him, a trophy for the Countess; a weapon, it may be. The Dame shall expose her confusions. She really would seem to fancy that the story is not an impossible one. Ca- rinthia had not the means to travel; she was moneyless. Every bill of her estab- lishment was paid without stint by Mr. Howell Edwards, the Earls manager of mines; but she had not even the means for a journey to the Gowerland rocks she longed to see. She had none since she forced her brother to take the half of her share of their inheritance, 1,400, and sent him the remainder~ Accepted by Chillon John as a loan, says Dame Gossip; and no sooner received than consumed by the pressing necessities of a husband with the Rose Beauty of Eng- land to support in the comforts and luxuries he deemed befitting. Fleetwood was honestly unaware of ridicule in the condition of inventive mania at his heels. Scheming, and hes- itating to do, one half of his mind was absorbed with the problem of how to treat the mother of his boy. Her be- havior in becoming a mother was ac- knowledged to be good; the production of a boy was goodconsiderate, he al- most thought. He grew so far recon- ciled to her as to have intimations of a softness coming on; a wish to hear her speak of the trifling kindness done to the sister of Madge in reward of kind- ness done to her; wishes for looks he remembered, secret to him, more his own than any possessions. Dozens of men had wealth, some had beautiful wives; none could claim as his own that face of the look of sharp steel melting into the bridal flower, when she sprang from her bed to defend herself and rec- ognized the intruder at her window, stood smitten. It is my husband. Moonlight gave the variation of her feat- ures. And that did not appease the resent- ment tearing him from her; so justifi- able then, as he forced himself to think, now hideous. Glimpses of the pictures his deeds painted of him since his first meeting with this woman had to be shunned. He threw them off; they were set down to the mystery men are. The degrading, utterly different, back view of them teaches that life is an irony. If the teaching is not accepted, and we are to take the blame, can we bear to live? Therefore, either way the irony of life is proved. Young men straining at thought, in the grip of their sensations, reach this logical conclusion. They will not begin by examining the ground they stand on, and questioning whether they have consciences at peace with the steps to rearward. Having established life as the coldly malignant element, which induces to what it chastises, a loathing of woman- hood, the deputed mother of life, ensues by natural sequence. And if there be one among women who disturbs the serenity we choose to think our due, she wears for us the sinister aspect of a con- fidential messenger between Nemesis and the Parca~. Fleetwood was thus compelled to regard Carinthia as both originally and successively the cause of his internal as well as his exterior dis- comfort; otherwise those glimpses would have burnt in to perpetual stigmas. He had also to get his mind away from her. 126 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE They pleaded against him volubly with the rising of her image into it. His manager at the mines had sent word of ominous discontent down there. His presence might be required. Ob- viously, then, the threatened place was unfitting for the Countess of Fleetwood. He dispatched a kind of order through Mr. Howell Edwards, that she should remove to Esslemont to escape annoy- ances. Esslemont was the preferable residence. She could there entertain her friends, could spend a pleasanter time there. He waited for the reply. Edwards deferred it. Were they to be in a struggle with her obstinate will once more? Henrietta was preparing to leave London for her dismal, narrow, and after an absence desired, love-nest. The Earl ealled to say farewell, cool as a loyal wife could wish him to be, admir- ing perforce. Marriage and maternity withdrew nothingadded to the fair young womans bloom. She had gone to her room to pack and dress. Livia received him. In the midst of the casual commonplaces, her memory was enlightened. Oh, said she, and idly drew a letter out of a blotting-pad, we have heard from Wales. She handed it to him. Before he knew the thing he did, he was reading: There is no rest for my brother, and I cannot help; I am kept so poor I have not the smallest of sums. I do not wish to leave Wales, the people begin to love me; and can one be mistaken? I know if I am loved or hated. But if my lord will give me an allowance of money of some hundreds, I will do his bidding; I will leave England or I will go to Esslemont; I. could sayto Mr. Woodseer, in that part of London. He would not permit. He thinks me blacked by it, like a sweep-boy coming from a chimney; and that I have done injury to his title. No, iRiette, to be a true sister, I must bargain with my lord be- fore I submit. He has not cared to come and see his little son. His boy has not offended him. There may be some of me in this dear. I know whose features will soon show to defend the mothers good name. He is early my champion. He is not christened yet, and I hear it accuse me, and I am not to blame, I still wait my lords answer. Dont be bothered to read the whole, Livia had said, with her hand out, when his eyes were halfway down the page. Fleetwood turned it, to read the sig- nature: Janey. She seemed servile enough to some of her friends. Carinthia would have had a pleasanter sound. He folded the letter. Why give me this? Take it, said he. She laid it on the open pad. Henrietta entered and had it restored to her, Livia remarking: I found it in the blotter after alL She left them together, having to dress for the drive to the coach-office with Henrietta. Poor amusement for you this time. Fleetwood bowed, gently smiling. Oh! cried Henrietta, Balls, routs, dinners, musicas much music as I could desire, even 1 What more could be asked? I am eternally grateful. The world says you are more beau- tiful than ever. Happiness does it, thenhappiness - owing to you, Lord Fleetwood. Columelli pleased you? His voice is heavenly. He carries me away from earth. He is a gentleman, toorare with those fellows. A pretty manner. He will speak his compliments in his English. You are seasoned to endure then in all languages. Pity another of your wounded; Brailstone has been hard hit at the tables. I cannot pity gamblers. May I vent- nrc ?half a word? Tomes! But just a little compassion for the devoted. He wouldnt play so madly ifwell, say, a tenth dilution of the rapt hearing Columelli gets. Signor Columelli sings divinely. You dont dislike Brailstone? He is one of the agreeable. He must put his feelings into Ital- ian song. To put them aside will do. We are not to have our feelings? Yes, on the proviso that ours are THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 12T respected. But, one instant, Lord Fleet- wood, pray. She is I have to speak of her as my sister. I am sure she re- grets . . . She writes very nicely. You have a letter from her? Henrietta sighed that it would not bear exposure to him; Yes. Nicely worded? Well, yes, it is. He paused; not expecting that the letter would be shown, but silence fired shots, and he has stopped the petition. We are to have you for a weeks yacht- ing. You prescribe your company. Only, be merciful. Exclusion will mean death to some. Columelli will be tour- ing in Switzerland. You shall have him in the house when my new bit of ground northwest of London is open; very handy, ten miles out. Well have the opera troupe there and you shall com- mand the opera. Her beauty sweetened to thank him. If, as Livia said, his passion for her was unchanged, the generosity mani- fested in the considerate screen it wore over any physical betrayal of it deserved the lustre of her eyes. It dwelt a mo- ment, vivid with the heart close behind and remorseful for misreading of old his fine character. Here was a young man who could be the very kindest of friends to the woman rejecting him to wed another. Her smile wavered. How shall a loving wife express warmth of sentiment elsewhere, without the one beam too much, that plunges her on a tideway? His claim of nothing called for everything short of the proscribed. She gave him her beauty in fullest flower. It had the appearance of a tempta- tion; and he was not tempted, though he admired; his thought being: Hus- band of the thing! But he admired. That condition awakened his unsatisfied past days to desire positive proof of her worthless- ness. The past days writhed in him. The present were loveless, entirely cold. He had not even the wish to press her hand. The market held beautiful women of a like description. He wished simply to see her proved the thing he read her to be; and not proved as such by himself. He was unable to summon or imagine emotion enough for him to simulate the forms by which fair women are wooed to their perdition. For all he cared, any man on earth might try, succeed or fail, as long as he had visual assurance that she coveted, a slave to the pleasures commanded by the wealth once disdained by her. Till that time, he could not feel himself perfectly free. Dame Gossip prefers to ejaculate, young men are mysteries, and bowl us onward. No one ever did comprehend the Earl of Fleetwood, she says: he was bad, he was good; he was whimsical and steadfast; a splendid figure, a mark for ridicule; romantic and a close arithme- tician; often a devil, sometimes the humanest of creatures. In fine, he was a i~illlionaire noble- man, owning to a considerable infusion of Welsh blood in the composition of him. Now, to the Cymry and to the pure Kelt, the past is at their elbows continually. The past of their lives has lost neither face nor voice behind the shroud; nor are the passions of the flesh, nor is the animate soul, wanting to it. Other races forfeit infancy, for- feit youth and manhood with their pro- gression to the wisdom age may bestow. These have each stage always alive, quick at a word, a scent, a sound, to conjure up scenes, in spirit and in flame~ Historically they still march with Cad- wallader, with Llewellyn, with Glen- dower; sing with Aneurin, Taliesin, old Llywarch; individually, they are in the heart of the injury done them thirty years back, or thrilling to the glorious deed which strikes an empty buckler for most of the sons of Time. An old sea rises in them, rolling no phantom bil- lows to break to spray against existing rocks of the shore. That is why, and even if they have a dose of the Teuton in them, they have often to feel them- selves exiles when still in amicable com- munity among the preponderating Sax- on English. Add to the singular differentiation enormous wealthwe convulse the ex- cellent dame by terming it a chained hurricane, to launch in foul blasts or beneficent showers according to the moods during youthand the compos- ite Lord Fleetwood comes nearer into our focus. Dame Gossip with her jig- ging to be at the butterwomans trot, 128 THE AMAZING MARRIAGE when she is not violently interrupting, would suffer just punishment were we to digress upon the morality of a young mans legal possession of enormous wealth as well. Wholly Cambrian Fleetwood was not. But he had to the full the Cambrians reverential esteem for high qualities. His good-by with Henrietta, and esti- mate of her, left a dusky mental void, requiring an orb of some sort of con- templation; and an idea of the totally contrary Carinthia, the woman he had avowedly wedded, usurped her place. Qualities were admitted. She was thrust away because she had offended; still more because he had offended. She bore the blame for forcing him to an examination of his conduct at this point and that, where an ancestral sav- age in his lineaments 6ocked a strange eye. Yet at the moment of the act of the deed he had known himself the veritable Fleetwood. He had now to vindicate himself by extinguishing her under ~he load of her unwomanliness: she was like snn-dried linen matched beside oriental silk; she was rough, crisp, unyielding. That was now the capital charge. Henrietta could never be guilty of the unfeminine. Which did he prefer? It is of all questions the one causing young men to screw wry faces when they are asked: they do so love the feminine, the ultra-feminine whom they so hate for her inclination to the frail. His depths were sounded, and he an- swered independently of his will, that he must be up to the heroical pitch to decide. Carinthia stood near him then. The confession was a step, and fraught with consequences. Her unacknowl- edged influence expedited him to Sarah Winchs shop, for sight of one of earths honest souls; for whom he had the lat- est of the two others down in Wales, and of an infant there. He dined the host of his Ixionides, leaving them early for a drive at night eastward, and a chat with old Mr. Wood- seer over his punching and sewing of his boot-leather. Another honest soul. Mr. Woodseer thankfully consented to mount his coach-box next day, and as- tonish Gower with a drop on his head from the skies about the time of the mid-day meal. There we have our peep into Dame Gossips young man mysterious. (To be concluded.) IT was said the other day of a man noted for his charitable estimate of his fellow-creatures that he would find some- thing to admire in Satan himself. The re- mark was told him, and he said, Yes, I always did admire the devil for his per- sistence. If he adopted the popular no- tion of Satan he might have found easily enough other grounds for admiring him; for while it is commonly held that the devil is not so black as he is painted, the better opinion seems to me to be that nowadays he is not painted anything like as black as he is, and that owing to the unfaithfulness with which his likeness is set forth he is very munch more generally admired and respected than his qualities and true character deserve. The popular contemporary conception of Satan is of a highly successful man of the world. It is admitted that there are shady spots in his past history, that he has done some things that he should regret, that he is a hazardous associate and an unsafe person to have transactions with. But converse- ly it is realized that he is rich, powerful, and attractive, and intimately concerned and interested iu promoting the material prosperity of the human race. He is known to be full of enterprise and public spirit, disposed to make things pleasant, and powerful in carrying the enterprises with which he is concerned to a profitable issue. It is true that he is un .~tood to be unscrupulous, but it is felt th~t success excuses very much, and that when an in- dividual has attained a position which en- ables him to be useful to the public it is a mistake to be over-nice about rejecting his good offices because in early life when his necessities were more pressing, his mneth- ods or affiliations were not always such as a conscientious person could approve. Then, thanks to the misdirected zeal of a multitude of worthy persons who asswne to abhor Satan and all his works, he gets credit for a host of things with which he really had very little to do. Lots of clergy- men and others are sure that he invented all kinds of dances and laid the corner- stones of all the theatres. He gets im- muense credit all the time in certain quar- ters as the loosener of restrictions as to the use of the SabbAth, so that in some parts of the country folks can hardly walk in the fields on a Sunday afternoon with- out a sense of obligation to him for his share in the enlargement of their liberties. Inasmuch as he is earnestly and contin- uously denounced by hordes of good and zealous people as the discoverer and pro- moter of all exhilarating beverages, people who like beverages of that sort and feel safe in consuming them in moderate quan- tities cannot help a certain kindliness of feeling toward him on that account. The upshot of all this perversion is that the enemies of the Adversary have unwittingly carved him out a great repu- tation as the champion of personal liberty, and the purveyor of manifold terrestrial delights which are not necessarily hurtful to those who realize them with discretion, and which are undeniably in favor with the natural man. Consequently it is easy for him to masquerade as a public benefactor, and folks, without admitting even to themselves how well they think of him, grow to feel that perhaps he has come to be good-natured in his old age, and that, nowadays, anyhow, his be- havior seems pretty square, and that, may- be, the stories of his depravity do him an injustice, VoL. XVHI.14

IT was said the other day of a man noted for his charitable estimate of his fellow-creatures that he would find some- thing to admire in Satan himself. The re- mark was told him, and he said, Yes, I always did admire the devil for his per- sistence. If he adopted the popular no- tion of Satan he might have found easily enough other grounds for admiring him; for while it is commonly held that the devil is not so black as he is painted, the better opinion seems to me to be that nowadays he is not painted anything like as black as he is, and that owing to the unfaithfulness with which his likeness is set forth he is very munch more generally admired and respected than his qualities and true character deserve. The popular contemporary conception of Satan is of a highly successful man of the world. It is admitted that there are shady spots in his past history, that he has done some things that he should regret, that he is a hazardous associate and an unsafe person to have transactions with. But converse- ly it is realized that he is rich, powerful, and attractive, and intimately concerned and interested iu promoting the material prosperity of the human race. He is known to be full of enterprise and public spirit, disposed to make things pleasant, and powerful in carrying the enterprises with which he is concerned to a profitable issue. It is true that he is un .~tood to be unscrupulous, but it is felt th~t success excuses very much, and that when an in- dividual has attained a position which en- ables him to be useful to the public it is a mistake to be over-nice about rejecting his good offices because in early life when his necessities were more pressing, his mneth- ods or affiliations were not always such as a conscientious person could approve. Then, thanks to the misdirected zeal of a multitude of worthy persons who asswne to abhor Satan and all his works, he gets credit for a host of things with which he really had very little to do. Lots of clergy- men and others are sure that he invented all kinds of dances and laid the corner- stones of all the theatres. He gets im- muense credit all the time in certain quar- ters as the loosener of restrictions as to the use of the SabbAth, so that in some parts of the country folks can hardly walk in the fields on a Sunday afternoon with- out a sense of obligation to him for his share in the enlargement of their liberties. Inasmuch as he is earnestly and contin- uously denounced by hordes of good and zealous people as the discoverer and pro- moter of all exhilarating beverages, people who like beverages of that sort and feel safe in consuming them in moderate quan- tities cannot help a certain kindliness of feeling toward him on that account. The upshot of all this perversion is that the enemies of the Adversary have unwittingly carved him out a great repu- tation as the champion of personal liberty, and the purveyor of manifold terrestrial delights which are not necessarily hurtful to those who realize them with discretion, and which are undeniably in favor with the natural man. Consequently it is easy for him to masquerade as a public benefactor, and folks, without admitting even to themselves how well they think of him, grow to feel that perhaps he has come to be good-natured in his old age, and that, nowadays, anyhow, his be- havior seems pretty square, and that, may- be, the stories of his depravity do him an injustice, VoL. XVHI.14 130 THE POiNT OF VIEW To give the devil his due is proverbially proper, but to make such a hero of hhn is not only inexpedient but very bad morals. John Milton is partly to blame for it, for he first made Satan grand and semi-re- spectable, but the work has made great progress since his day. The pleasantest and most reassuring line in the prayer- book is that which describes the service of God as perfect freedom. If that idea of Gods service would be more generally disseminated, with due supplementary in- culcation of the truth that all the salutary arid truly pleasant things in life are the gifts of God and not devices of the Evil One, Satan would come iuuch nearer to getting his due than he usually does come nowadays, or is likely to come perhaps, until the final reckoning. WHILE we toil slowly together up lifes long incline our fellow - travellers upon the strange, eventful journey observe, if we ourselves do not, that certain of our peculiarities in speech, gesture, and ex- pression have gradually become so inten- sified as to make remembrance of us in- complete without them. Thread by thread the strands we twist Till they hind us neck and wrist, before we are conscious of the self-in- flicted thraldom; arid no man who has come to what are commonly called years of discretion ever entirely frees himself from the net-work of habit daily forming round him. The utmost that an altruis- tic philosopher can do is to make his net a web of gossamer, so that, however much he may be entangled in its meshes, those who are forced to brush by him shall es- cape galling. This is a task by no means easy. But to snap, or even to lighten the web of opinion when we have once woven it about some obstinate brain-cellhoc opus, hic labor est, which might baffle the Cuma~an Sibyl herself, with all her seven hundred years of wisdom. Why then will many of us persist in accumulating such fetters upon the reason, and even go so far as to glory in the servitude which their adoption entails? Of course we must all have our little innocent preferences which need not therefore be aggressive even to ourselves preferences in the choice of food, of our friends, for the hard bed and the leather cushion. We like sommie cheeses best, but we can put up with Roquefort if Camemn- bert and Brie are not attainable. These are mild affairs of semi - unconscious growth, like the personal manners and customs that spring front the conditions in which we live. It is not of these that I speak, but of those assertive, rasping prejudices which yield to no persuasion gentle or otherwise, and are flaunted upon all occasions with arrogant pride. I know men, and good men too, who sit so en- circled by unquenchable bigotries that they resemble Wotans daughter, cut off from temporal things by tongues of fire. For discussion leading always to the same invincible issue is profitless, and the points upon which they have satisfied themselves through their own violent iteration grow wearisome to others. A mystic circle of conviction, solemnly drawn about a sub- ject soon makes that subject one to be tabooed. When these howling dervishes of preju- dice are strictly faithful to their tenets what delight in life they lose! Following the beaten path which they maintain is the right one, they see but a single land- scape, and never know the pleasures of exploration. In literature and the arts their course, like some Italian by-way be- tween high garden-walls, has no outlook at all. One declares that music died with Beethoven, and that Liszt, Chopin, and Berlioz are all charlatans, while Wagner, of course, is an abomination. Trol- lope ! cries another; I have never read a line of him. Scott is my novelist. As though Barsetshire were non - existent, and human nature valueless south of the Tweed! Yet this same tissue of complex- ities will only laugh in the theatre ; he must see French farce there, or nothing; the words of Hamlet bore him. How much surer his ground of satisfaction might be, if he would draw one long breath and expand sufficiently to like Hamlet and the French farce too. Once, long ago, in the street, there was pointed out to me a man who had become famous in his little way, for never com- mitting himself to an opinion. I suppose that he was a very ridiculous person; evi THE PbINT OF VIEW 131 dently my companion thought so. But he wore a happier look than I often see in the faces of my positive friends, and I have since learned that he lived to a green and prosperous old age. THE Japanese have many nice qualities and some great ones. They are clean, they are polite, and apparently they are very gentle and very brave. They are said to be exceedingly neat, too, and to be boun- tifully endowed with that sense of pro- priety, a defective development of which accounts for much of the rubbish in Amer- can streets and most of the disagreeable- ness of American street-car travel. They certainly beat us in a good many things, and not unreasonably their example is much held up to us nowadays for emula- tion. Intelligent foreigners who have observed us closely have declared that we are the rudest and the kindest people in the world. Of course it is a pity that we are not more universally courteous; that our children are not demure and orderly like the Japanese children; that we throw papers into the street and drop peanut- shells and orange-peel on the floors of our public conveyances. Of course it is a pity that we are not more like the Japanese in many particulars; but, for my part, I make bold to confess that Anierican manners, with all their defects, are better suited to my American taste than Japanese man- ners with all their gentle perfections. When Nature finds bark necessary for the protection of her growths it may be noticed that she always applies it to the outside. Our manners are to a certain extent our bark, and though it is by no means necessary that it should be dis- agreeably rough or scraggy, it seems not a thing to be altogether deplored that what we have of it we should choose to wear as the trees do, externally and in sight. When Nature leaves the bark thin she is apt to provide thorns, and if one must make a choice between the two means of protection, it may be excusable to prefer the bark which one can recog- nize afar off, to the thorn which draws blood without warning. We are quite accustomed to the tradi- tional disparagenient of the French as a people in whom a superficial politeness is developed at some cost of more indispen- sable nierits, but the politeness of the Jap- anese being a trait of comparatively re- cent observation, seems to be accepted without munch consideration of its cost. It is not worth very much, but it does cost something. For one thing, travellers tell us that it takes a prodigious amount of time. Japanese etiquette takes no note of the hands of the clock, or the rising or the setting of the sun. Japanese business seems not to be very much prompter. Time in Japan is estimated at its Eastern value. We are told, too, that Japanese courtesy condemns even such a reas6n- able candor as would permit one in polite conversation to acknowledge that he held an opinion different from one his friend had expressed. Letters are not punctu- ated in Japan because it would seem to imply ignorance in the recipient. There can scarcely be such an extreme softness of conduct without some sacrifice of down- right honesty. American manners are not nearly as good as they should be, not nearly as good as one may hope they may become, but that Japanning would profit theni is not so certain as it looks at first sight, even if it did not involve a much greater amount of self - repression or self - obliteration (doubtless more apparent than actual) than the American temperament could endure or has any desire to attain to. The amelioration of our national demean- or must rather be sought in an increased and enlightened self-control joined to a strengthened self-respect. If we ever do become civilized, it will be first at the heart and afterward at the rind. I WAS saying the other day to Mrs. Pamocles, that I had such a high opinion of Winship, partly because of his excep- tionally enlivening personal qualities and partly for his niarvellous discrimination in the choice of a wife. And I added that I had the very highest opinion of Mrs. Winship because of her sense and her loveliness, and especially because of her success in living with Winship and being his wife. Now Winship is a good man and delightful company. He is pretty to look at and very good indeed to go; but 132 THE POINT OF VIEW he has a prodigious enjoyment of life and such an unbroken eagerness to taste every- thing that is good, and be in everything that is moving, that I felt that I cast no reflection upon him when I said that for a woman to live with him, as Mrs. Win- ship did, was a great feat. It is a great feat, remarked Mrs. Damnocles, with a certain air of giving her mind relief, for any woman to live with any man, or any man to live with any woman. Well, if it comes to that, said I, I presume it is, and it is a feat exceedingly well worth accomplishing. I find I have more and more respect the older I grow for people who hit it off gracefully and successfully. That was true. I do have such a senti- ment fdr such people, and I dare say it is a sentiment as common as it is well founded. I respect them whether their success is due to natural sweetness or to sustained effort. People who are capable of sustained effort to maintain the har- momiy of their domestic relations are a very good sort of people. They must have fidelity, that king-pin among the virtues, and divers other strong ingredients that go to make up what we call good stuff. I am not sure but that we should respect them even more than folks who are sun- ply born sweet and reasonable, and who love each other and get on without try- all. But the world is not big enough for the successful disagreement of man and wife. They may part, but it is not suc- cess; it is failure. Both must carry away the marks of it, and whatever may hap- pen neither is quite as good as before. In spite of divorce laws and all easements of that sort, we have contrived to make a deeply serious business of marriage. We ought to applaud those who succeed in it, because success is so indispensably neces sary. It would be a little different if folks were really free to marry or not as they chose, with no fierce bugaboo behind the alternative. But the fact is the majority of us are not quite free. We are taught and believe that, if we dont marry, a worse thing may happen to us, for we will grow old without either the discipline or the companionship of a mate, without chil- dren to bring youth back into our lives; indeed, without the elements of a home. We see people in that predicament, and though there are plenty of encourag- ing exceptions, on the whole celibacy seems so very second-rate to most of us that we dont bargain for it except under stress of strong necessity. Marriage in most cases seems so preponderantly ex- pedient that we would feel that we ought to marry even if we didnt want to, and as usually we do want to, marriage be- conies, practically, a necessity. ing. I declare that I am personally grateful It is matter of record that in patri- to married people who get on conspien- archal and scriptural times it was held a ously well. They are a reassuring spec- thing particularly good and pleasant to tacle in society, and as part of society I behold brethren dwell together in unity. take comfort in knowing them, and am That man and wife should dwell in that obliged to them for existing. And, of way seems not to have been thought so course, I am especially obliged to the affecting a spectacle. Perhaps it was held women like Winships wife,.who are par- that if a patriarch could not live harmoni- ticularly good wives. You should see that ously with one wife, he could with an- lady, how she holds that hare-brained other; or perhaps the sentiment of the creature, not with too tight a lariat or too times favored hammering a disorderly loose; neither nagging nor neglectful; wife with a tent-pin until she becamne not so dependent on him as to shackle tractable, so that domestic tranquillity was him, nor so independent as to leave him taken for granted. It is not surprising too free. Of course, she couldnt do it that with changed conditions and the unless she was a womami of brains, and new woman we moderns should have as- unless Winship was a good fellowa fel- sumed a different point of view. It is low, that is, with some gaps in his selfish- pleasant to be sure to see brethren broth- ness. She is too good a wife for him, but erly, but it is no great matter if they dif- I am glad he has got her, and so, unmis- fer, for the world is big enough for them takably, is he. NINETY-THREE. ENGRAVED BY A. LEVEILLE. From the bust by Radio.

SCRIBNERS MAGAZINE AUGUST 1895 THE PASTELS OF EDWIN A. ABBEY By F. Hophinson Smith ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF MR. ABBEYS PASTELS HE most irritating of mediums is pastel. It T is never what you want, 4 and it is never where / you want it. When you raise the lid of the box con taining this color puzzle, with all its blues, reds, and yellows in infinite gra- dations, each color occupying its prop- er place, and each one delighting your eye with its brilliancy, you are charmed with the freshness and purity of the tones. You are quite sure that this is what you have been looking forsonic- thing that leaves a positive result when it touches your canvas, and requires no dabbings in of brush, no thinnings with juice of poppy or olive; something that stays put and is not constantly dry- ing lighter, as do water-colors, or turn- ing yellow and dull, as do oils; some- thing requiring no frequent dippings into ink, with splutterings of pen and scratchings of paper; no constant wash- ings of brushes; no careful pattings of pigment, correctings of tone, tryings on canvas, re-correcting and trying again; no getting tacky before you are half through none of all these worries, often so harassing that half ones in- spiration is gone because of the short- comings of the materials needed to ex- press it. So you gloat over your classified col- or schemefor all the world like sample skeins of silk of every shade and hue and in your enthusiasm up goes your easel and you begin to work. Then you discover that pastels are not at all what you want. In other words, that they are half a dozen tones higher or lower, or more metallic than anything you have ever handled. You worry along, trying to be content with the rawest of impressionistic purples, when you long for a delicate atmos- pheric gray-blue, or you suffer under a lettuce green, when you require noth- ing stronger than olive broken with brown. With this discovery comes another. You find that these little bits of chalk break with the handling, and as you never stop to note the exact spot from which you picked up any particular stick, you can never replace the pieces. So they are thrown among the nearest blues, yellows, or reds, and often be- come so coated with the last color that stuck to your fingers, that their own tone is concealed; or they are mislaid on the easel ledge or dropped on the floorgenerally on the floorthe im- pression of your heel scattering their remains. When this accident occurs you awake to the fact that there was but one stick of this shade in the box, and that you cannot finish your sketch without it. If you are the ordinary man picking up pastel for the first time, in exchange for any of your regular mediums, you waste an enormous amount of vital en- Copyright, 1595, hy Charles Scribners Sons. All rights reserved. VOL. XVIII No. 2 COPYRIGHTED BY EDWIN A. ABBEY. A Girl in Red with a Mandolin CUPY1iK~HTLU by ~UWIN A. AbBEY. Josephine. 138 THE PASTELS OF EDWIN A. ABBEY ergy, indulge in a certain form of sup- pressed profanity, close the box and never open it again. NoI am wrong you cannot close it. The box never shuts tight after you fuss with it for a day or two, for everything in it is in a heap. No man, since the death of the prophet, has ever been found who would be patient enough to straighten out a box of pastels. When you cool off you are of the opinion that pastel is a crude, Chinesely raw, uncertain, un- satisfactory, and highly perishable me- dium not worth the bothering over. If, however, you happen to be born a genius and are master of your own mediums, whether ink, oil, water-color, or charcoal, you accept pastel as you accept any of the others, knowing that each has its limitationsthat none are perfect, and that your business, as an expert, is not to abuse the quality of the horn but to make the spoon. In a talk with Whistler a few months since, in one of his studios the one up that queer court in the Latin Quar- ter, not where he works, but where he playshe handed me half a dozen ex- quisite pastels of figures drawn on a dark bluish - brown paper. The flesh tones were laid on with the flat of the chalk dragged lightly across the paper, only the top points of its roughness catching the color, leaving the paper clear in spaces for the shadow tones. The draperies were expressed in the same way, except that here and there in the deeper shadows where the pa- per would not exactly give the needed tone, a delicate hares-foot touch of the stump, soft as a zephyr, was lightly passed over them, melting the tones together. Each sketch had all the re- finement of touch, certainty of handling, and harmony of color, which distin- guish the work of this master mas- ter in every medium he handlesand he has five, the needle, lithographic crayon, pastel, water - color, and oil. These drawings were not finished worksonly suggestions, fantasies, im- pressions, as if the painters hand had wandered over the paper in a dream. Do you ever carry these things any farther? I asked. The painter had been in one of his happiest moods. The details of his en- rious attack upon Trilbys creatorstill even then a delicious morsel under th~ tongue of his ironyhis constant sal- lies of wit as he made mince-meat of the work of his brother painters, espe- cially those across the channelall had shown that peculiar side of his nature which endears him to his enemieshe will tell you he has no more friends. now, Du Manner being the last. Suddenly, at my question, his whole manner changed. The man of the world, the cynic, wit, and sensationalist. instantly vanished. His answer came slowly and thoughtfully. My dear boy. Never carry a me- dium farther than it ought to go. It was only one of his lifelong con- victions, perhaps, one that has made his work as great as it is, but it was as. wise a saw as any philosopher in any~ other department of law or morals can ever give us. The art of knowing when to stop! With this in mind most of the de- lays, irritations, and disappointments. of this Pandoras Box of crumbling, breakable, unshapable, unfindable color~ points will disappear. If, in addition, you have a firm con- viction of what you want to express, a. touch that obeys you instantly and im- plicitly, and a precise knowledge that. comes of years of traininga knowl- edge of anatomy, of drapery, of tree; and cloud form you can be bold enough to lift the lid of a box of pas- tels. If not, then pass on to something~ else; no medium will ever be more difficult. This knowing when to stop is the~ predominating characteristic as seem in Edwin A. Abbeys pastels exhibited in connection with the superb panels painted for the Boston Public Library works which have placed his name among those of the first painters of his time. The larger oil panels were a sur- prise to many who knew Abbey only as. an exquisite draughtsman, a painter of daintily drawn and charmingly tinted water-colors, expressive of quaint Eng- lish life or illustrative of English drama. and poetry. These smaller pastels, how- ever, came as a confirmation of a belief in his genius. COPYRIGHTED BY EDWIN A. ABBEY. The Blue Door. COPYRIGHTED BY EDWIN A. ABBEY. Mr. LDfty and Dubardieu. From the Good-natured Mae COPYRIGHTED BY EDWIN A. ABBEY. The Bailiff. From the Good-natured Man. 142 THE PASTE9IS OF EDWIN A. ABBEY You feel in thema few of which are reproduced in these pagesthat wheu once he had clearly conveyed his idea he stopped short; that when by some dexterous use of the grit of the me- dium he had expressed the sheen on the round of the mandolin in The Girl in iRed, or caught the glint of gold on the dish in The Golden Dish, he threw the bit of chalk aside, knowing that no added touch could improve, just as did that other painter, the late Will- iam Rant, who would say to his pupils, whenever a morsel of gray paper es- caped the wash of the brush and by some lucky chance was the exact tone needed, Leave it. Thank God and pass on, you can never better it. These pastels brought besides that comfort and peace and delight one feels in the successful accomplishment by some dear friend of whatever he has set his hand to do. You detected in them something of the happiness and enthusiasm the painter himself must have felt as the productions of his genius grew under his touch. You saw the joyousness that came with every stroke. You felt immediately that this almost insurmountable me- dium played about fingers that knew their every secret. That because of his life-long training, because of his thorough mastery of detaildetail of background, dimple of cheek, and crinkle of gownthe painter revelled in the growth of the picture under his touch fully as much as you do in his result. That it was a joy, a delight, a very pastime for him to draw them. It was as if he could not keep his eager, restless fingers out of the color-box, and could not wait a moment longer to record the visions of his brain on a paper equally hungry to receive them. It is this insight into the painters happiest mood which makes these pastels so delightful, for it is rarely in his most serious moments that an ar- tist is at his best. The intense mental application required in solving prob- lems of perspective, composition, and color, the hours of anxious thought over correct historical details, the many groupings half completed and discard- ed, the careful weighing in the artists mind of the effect of contrasting colors, are always apparent to the critical mind in such work as the Library panels, no matter how noble the result. One sees that the painter has given his best, and one knows that this can only come through certain processes of mental suffering. It is when his mind is at rest and when his hand is at play over some simple sketch that we get a glimpse of the true greatness of the man beneath. In these moments the painter, unconsciously to himself, is drawing upon all that store of knowl- edge accumulated through a lifetime and which now flows from his fingers ends. And all the more spontaneously because the mind is free of mental strain and unhampered by fears of ul- timate success. The marvellous powers shown in the composition and drawing of these pas- tels were expected of Abbey. We all knew his life-long apprenticeship and how faithfully he always studied the details of furniture, equipment, and architecture. We knew, too, his slav- ish devotion to his modelsalways the flesh and blood before him and in the exact costume and appointment of the period. But the richness, harmony, and purity of his color were a surprise, an overwhelming surprise, to many who have held to the opinion that the con- stant study of black and white elimi- nates the color-sense, and that no black- and-white man of our time could ever succeed as a great colorist. This sort of babble can now come to an end. The art of the illustrator is a distinct and honorable art by itself, and the men who devote themselves to its development are making excellent the art of the century. They are not all great colorists, because life is too short for the highest success in more than one medium, and only a genius untram- melled by the ordinary shortcomings of humanity can arrive at success in every branch of his art. The surprise was therefore all the greater when this man, pre-eminently the first black-and-white draught~man of his time, a man distin- guished for the directness and accuracy in his single line, in a few short years developed into a colorist of such power. As regards the varying color-tones, no clear understanding of their harmonies, COPYRIGHTED BY EDWIN A. ABBEY. The Golden Dish. 144 THE PASTELS OF EDWIN A. ABBEY subtleties, meltings in one with the other, can of course be given to the reader of these pages who has had the misfortune not to see the originals. But enough is suggested to arouse the very pertinent speculation as to the future of a man and the value of his influences on the art of his time, who at forty years of age has completely routed the firm convictions of critics by this tremen- dous surprise. But yesterday a careful, precise pen-and-ink draughtsman, and to-day covering square feet of canvas with all the delicacy of a drawing the size of yonr hand, and with all the breadth and power necessary in a can- vas whose point of sight is below an elevation of some fifteen feet. What next will a man do thus endowed and thus forceful and fruitful? Unfortunately, color-processes for re- production are as yet too complicated to permit our magazines to give us fac-similes, but by the azalene pro- cess now used in reproducing color drawings, the defects of photography the blues paling out and the yellows and reds becoming darker are corrected to a great extent, and these black-and- white reproductions here in these pages do give something of the values of the originals. Abbey never fails to rise above the place of the mere illustratorthat of the man who illustrates the text and is content. He has alxvays done more than this, he has worked as the poets do. He has chosen themes which other men have used, stories they have told, men and women they have pictured. About these has played the fire of his own fine imaginatiou, transforming and ennobling them. Where Goldsmith leaves off Abbey begins. It is always something of him- self that he adds, and it is always a re- finement of the theme, never a touch that degrades. If he gives us Portia, it is not only the woman of affairs, the wise coun- sellor, but the merry triumph beneath it all that shows at a glance her enjoy- ment of the humor of her escapade. It is difficult in discussing the many qualities of his work not to be led away by the very excellence of his tech- nique, the management of his high lights, the skill of his arrangements, the charm of his appointments, all so satis- fying to the artistic sense. And yet there is another and far more impor- tant sense which he satisfies as well. That sense in every critic and observer which is always alert to detect the ar- tists purpose, his sentiment toward the subject he selects, his ideals, his grasp of the emotions, his understanding of character, his understanding, indeed, of life. Mr. Abbey, within the limitations chosen for himself, seldom fails to prove this understanding. Among his illus- trations of Goldsmiths Good-natured Man he has given ns that of ilir. Homeywood lying relaxed in his chair. The perplexity which Abbey has writ- ten across his forehead belongs, we all recognize, as much to every amiable man whose undue generosities have swamped him as it does to Hone ywood himself. It is the old conflict between the theoretical and the practical virtues which Abbey has expressed in his draw- ing, a conflict which baffles every re- former. Then what repose, even solem- nity, there is in the bending figure of Dubardieu as he closes the door behind. Lofty! How low the head, how soft the purring voice, how cat-like the noise- less tread. His very legs have turned the wrong way from many years of bowing! And yet with what skill has Abbey made us feel that the deference of the servitor is the deference of the man who regards that attitude as a duty, in no way conflicting with his right to his own individuality and opinions. Again, in the face of old Mr. Croalcer that man who was wont to exclaim, Come, then, produce your reasons. I tell you Im fixed, determined; so now produce your reasons. When Im de- termined I always listen to reason, be- cause it can then do no harm Abbey has given us an expression always found on the face of an obstinate man, in con- stant fear of being surprised by a con- vincing argument, just like a spoiled child or grumbler afraid of being pleased with some nice thing you may do. The sketch of Lofty is perhaps less satisfying as a study of character. The mans own artificiality, his lack of truth, his vain boastings and braggings, his underhand methods and his sudden Mr. Croaker. From the Good-natured Mao. ABBEY. COPYRIGHTED BY EDWIN A. ABBEY. A Lady with a Paraaol. THE PASTELS .OF EDWiN A. ABBEY 147 reform, never made him lovable. Be- sides, Lofty deceived too many people to have been so palpably tbe deceiver that Abbey has made him here. Per- haps, however, he meant to treat him from a certain theatrical standpoint. For all that, there are few more de- lightful bits of composition in the whole collection than this which represents Lofty and his servant. The blending lines of the two figures, the bending of the servants head, the opposite bending of Loftys, the repetition of certain dominant curves, the exquisite poise of Loftys figure a movement caught midway in its action without losing the sense of its motionthat poise so difficult to catch, so impossi- ble for any but a master to portray. But of all Abbeys characters his women are the best. They are always so wholesome. Even in their dejected moments they are never lackadaisical. They have always a reserve fund of spirit. They are full of sprightliness, of grace, vitality, beauty, refinem cut. They are eternally young. If he has cver shown them to us in old age, we have forgotten them in delight of their younger sisters. They are never, to be sure, every - day home acquaintances. Our introductions to them are more or less formal; on occasions as it were when they are in some mood or sonic dress that sets them apart for the mo~ ment. We see them always through the medium of the picturesque, re- moved from us by tradition, by a differ- ent habit of living, by almost impassa- ble barriers of another time and custom. They are to us like people who speak a different tongue, with whom we cannot be en rapport at once. Yet we know them to be always delicate, always pure, always vivacious, alw-ays buoyant, al ways tender. Moreover, he has never drawn a wom- an in whom refinement had no part. Here, for instance, are five women dis- tinct in individuality, in pose , gesture, costume, mood, and yet in them all we find these same delightful qualities which distinguish his many creations. Josephine, with her airy grace and un- dulating movement, seems for a mo- ment to have nothing in common with the girl in red who holds a mandolin, yet the same refinement, the same exquisite sentiment, is characteristic of both. Or take again A Lady with a Parasol, and she with the Golden Dish. One is seen in the quaint, prim dress of an old English village; one in that of sumptuous Venice at her height. Greater contrasts could hardly be im- agined. But the woman underneath the dress in both is the woman whom Abbey best understands, she of virginal charm and beauty, of dignity, of sweet- ness, and that guilelessness and tender- ness which come with a desire to please. They are always so human too; women of whom one could make companions and friends when once the first reserve is broken through. Abbey in his art really has done what Wagner has done in music, Tennyson and the poets in verse, He has taken the old, retouched it and made it new, giving us something infinitely better than the thing lie fomid. An authors noblest work, his truest ideal, may in- deed be always safely trusted in his hands. Dr. Holmes once said to an ar- tist who illustrated one of his poems, I am so glad. I was afraid you would spoil it. I am so glad would have been the verdict of Goldsmith and of all the old English balladists whose men and wom- en Abbeys touch has blorified. Who is this mss, and whst hss he ts ds with yss? Psge 157. THE WHEEL OF LOVE A COMEDY IN NARRATIVE By Anthony Hope It is a familiar fact that the intensity of a passion varies with the proximity of the ap- propriate object. Mx. LESLIE STEPHEN, Data of Ethics. How the devil is it that fresh features have such a charm for us poor human creatures? LoEn BYRON, Don Juan. CHAPTER I THE VIRTUOUS HYPOCRITE AT first sight they had as little rea- 5011 for being unhappy as it is possible to have in a world half full of sorrow. They were young and healthy; they had each declared the other more than common good-looking, half a dozen times; they both had, and never knew what it was not to have, money enough for comfort, and in ad- dition that divine little superfluity wherefrom joys are born. The house was good to look at and good to live in ; there were horses to ride, the river to go a-rowing on, and a big box from Mudies every week. No one worried them; Miss Bussey was generally visit- ing the poor; or, as it happened at this moment, asleep in her arm-chair, with Paul, the terrier, in his basket beside her, and the cat on her lap. Lastly, they were plighted lovers, and John was staying with Miss Bussey for the express purpose of delighting and be- ing delighted by his fianc~e, Mary Travers. For these and all their mer- cies they should certainly have been truly thankful. However, the heart of man is wicked. This fact alone can explair~ why Mary sat sadly in the drawing-room, feeling a letter that was tucked inside her waistband (there was just room; she was a sensible girl, and did not pinch her waist too tightly), and John strode moodily up and down the gravel walk, a cigar, badly bitten, between his teeth, and his hand ever and again covertly stealing toward his breast-pocket and pressing a scented note that lay there. In the course of every turn John would pass the window of the drawing-room; then Mary would look up with a smile and blow him a kiss, and he nodded and laughed and returned the salute. But, the window passed, both sighed deeply and returned to fingering those hidden missives. Poor little girl! I must keep it up! said John. Dear, good John! He must never know, thought Mary. And the two fell to thinking just what was remarked a few lines back, namely, that the human hea~t is very wicked; they were shocked at them- selvesthe young often are. Miss Bussey awoke, sat up, evicted the cat, and found her spectacles. Where are those children? said she. Billing and cooino~ somewhere, I suppose. Bless me! why dont they get tired of it? They hadnot indeed of billing and cooing in general, for no one at their age does or ought to g~et tired of that but of billing and cooing with one another. It will be observed that the situation promised well for a tragedy. Never- theless this is not the story of an un- happy marriage. If there be one thing which Govern- ment should forbid, it is a secret engagement. Engagements should be advertised as marriages are, but un- less we h~ippen to be persons of social importance, or considerable indepen- dence, no such precautions are taken. Of course there are engagement rings; but a man never knows one when he sees it on a ladys handit would in- deed be impertinent to look too closely VOL. XVJIJ.16

THE WHEEL OF LOVE A COMEDY IN NARRATIVE By Anthony Hope It is a familiar fact that the intensity of a passion varies with the proximity of the ap- propriate object. Mx. LESLIE STEPHEN, Data of Ethics. How the devil is it that fresh features have such a charm for us poor human creatures? LoEn BYRON, Don Juan. CHAPTER I THE VIRTUOUS HYPOCRITE AT first sight they had as little rea- 5011 for being unhappy as it is possible to have in a world half full of sorrow. They were young and healthy; they had each declared the other more than common good-looking, half a dozen times; they both had, and never knew what it was not to have, money enough for comfort, and in ad- dition that divine little superfluity wherefrom joys are born. The house was good to look at and good to live in ; there were horses to ride, the river to go a-rowing on, and a big box from Mudies every week. No one worried them; Miss Bussey was generally visit- ing the poor; or, as it happened at this moment, asleep in her arm-chair, with Paul, the terrier, in his basket beside her, and the cat on her lap. Lastly, they were plighted lovers, and John was staying with Miss Bussey for the express purpose of delighting and be- ing delighted by his fianc~e, Mary Travers. For these and all their mer- cies they should certainly have been truly thankful. However, the heart of man is wicked. This fact alone can explair~ why Mary sat sadly in the drawing-room, feeling a letter that was tucked inside her waistband (there was just room; she was a sensible girl, and did not pinch her waist too tightly), and John strode moodily up and down the gravel walk, a cigar, badly bitten, between his teeth, and his hand ever and again covertly stealing toward his breast-pocket and pressing a scented note that lay there. In the course of every turn John would pass the window of the drawing-room; then Mary would look up with a smile and blow him a kiss, and he nodded and laughed and returned the salute. But, the window passed, both sighed deeply and returned to fingering those hidden missives. Poor little girl! I must keep it up! said John. Dear, good John! He must never know, thought Mary. And the two fell to thinking just what was remarked a few lines back, namely, that the human hea~t is very wicked; they were shocked at them- selvesthe young often are. Miss Bussey awoke, sat up, evicted the cat, and found her spectacles. Where are those children? said she. Billing and cooino~ somewhere, I suppose. Bless me! why dont they get tired of it? They hadnot indeed of billing and cooing in general, for no one at their age does or ought to g~et tired of that but of billing and cooing with one another. It will be observed that the situation promised well for a tragedy. Never- theless this is not the story of an un- happy marriage. If there be one thing which Govern- ment should forbid, it is a secret engagement. Engagements should be advertised as marriages are, but un- less we h~ippen to be persons of social importance, or considerable indepen- dence, no such precautions are taken. Of course there are engagement rings; but a man never knows one when he sees it on a ladys handit would in- deed be impertinent to look too closely VOL. XVJIJ.16 150 THE WHEEL OF LOVE and when he goes out alone he gen- erally puts his in his pocket, consid- ering that the evening will thus be rendered more enjoyable. The Ash- forth-Travers engagement was not a se- cret now, but it had been, and had been too long. Hence, when Mary went to Scotland and met Charlie Ellertonand when John went to Switzerland and met Dora Bellairsthe truth is, they ought never to have separated, and Miss Bnssey (who was one of the peo- ple in the secret) had been quite right when she remarked that it seemed a curious engagement. John and Mary had scoffed at the idea of a few weeks absence having any effect on their feel- ings except, if indeed it were possible, that of intensifying them. I really think I ought to go and find them, said Miss Bussey. Come, Paul! She took a parasol, for the April sun was bright, and went into the garden. When she came to the drawing-room window John was away at the end of the walk. She looked at him: he was reading a letter. She looked in at the window: Mary was reading a letter. Well! exclaimed Miss Bussey, have they had a tiff? and she slowly waddled (truth imposes this wordshe was very stout) toward the unconscious John. He advanced toward her still reading; not only did he not see her, but he failed to notice that Paul had got under his feet. He fell over Paul, and as he stumbled the letter fluttered out of his hand. Paul seized it and began to toss it about in great glee. Good doggie ! cried Miss Bussey. Conic then! Bring it to me, dear. Good Paul ! Johns face was distorted with agony. He darted toward Paul, fell on him, and gripped him closely. Paul yelped and Miss Bussey observed, in an indignant tone, that John need not throttle the dog. John muttered something. Is the letter so very precious? asked his hostess, ironically. Precious! cried John. Yes ! No !Its nothing at alL But he opened Pauls mouth and took out his treasure with wonderful care. And why? inquired Miss Bnssey, are you not with Mary, young man? Youre very neglectfuL Neglectful! Surely, Miss Bussey, you havent noticed anything like neg- lect? Dont say Bless the boy! I was only joking. Youre a model lover. Thank you, thank you. Ill go to her at once, and he sped toward the window, opened it and walked up to Mary. Miss Bussey followed him, and arrived just in time to see the lovers locked in one anothers arms, their faces expressing all appropriate rapt- ure. Theres nothing much wrong, said Miss Bussey; wherein Miss Bussey her- self was much wrong. What a shame! Ive left you alone for more than an hour! said John. Have you been very unhappy? and he added, darling. It sounded like an afterthought. I have been rather unhappy, an- swered Mary, and her answer was true. As she said it she tucked in a project- ing edge of her letter. John had hur- riedly slipped his (it was rather the worse for its mauling) into his trousers- pocket. Youyou didnt think me neglect- ful? Oh, no. I was thinking of you all the time. And I was thinking of you, dear. Are you very happy? Yes, John; arent you? Of course I am. Happy! I should think so, and he kissed her with un- impeachable fervor. When a conscientious person makes up his mind that he ought, for good reasons, to deceive somebody, there is no one like him for thorough-paced hypocrisy. When two conscientious people resolve to deceive one another, on grounds of duty, the acme of duplic- ity is in a ftiir way to be reached. John Ashworth and Mary Travers illustrated this proposition. The former had been all his life a good son and was now a trustworthy partner to his father, who justly relied no less on his character than on his brains. The latter, since her parents early death had left her to her aunts care, had been the comfort and prop of Miss Busseys life. It is THE WHEEL OF LOVE 151 difficult to describe good people with- out making them seem dull; but luck- ily nature is defter than novelists, and it is quite possible to be good without being duTh Neither Mary nor John was dull; a trifle limited, perhaps, they were, a thought severe in their judg- ments of others as well as of them- selves; a little exacting with their friends and more than a little with themselves. One description paints them both; doubtless their harmony of mind had contributed more than Marys sweet expression and finely cut features, or Johns upstanding six feet, and honest, capable face, to produce that attach- ment between them which had, six months before this story begins, cul- minated in their engagement. Once arrived at, this ending seemed to have been inevitable. Everybody discovered that they had foretold it from the first, and modestly disclaimed any credit for anticipating a union between a couple so obviously made for one another. The distress into which lovers such as these fell when they discovered by personal experience that sincerely to vow eternal love is one thing, and sin- cerely to give it quite another, may be well imagined, and may well be left to be imagined. They both went through a terrible period of temptation, wherein they listened longingly to the seduc- tive pleading of their hearts; but both emerged triumphant, resolved to stifle their mad fancy, to prefer good faith to mere inclination, and to avoid, at all costs, wounding one to whom they had sworn to be true. Thus far their stead- fastness carried them, but not beyond. They could part from their loved ones, and they did; but they could not leave them without a word. Each wrote, after leaving Scotland and Switzerland re- spectively, a few lines of adieu, confess- ing the love they felt, but with resolute sadness, saying farewell forever. They belonged to another. It was the answers that Mary and John were reading when Miss Bussey discovered them. Marys ran: Mv DEAR Miss TRAvERs: I have re ceived your letter. I cant tell you what it means to me. You say all must be over between us. Dont be offended but I wont say that yet. It cant be your duty to marry a man you dont love. You forbid me to write or come to you; and you ask only for a word of good-by. I wont say good-by. Ill say Au revoiran revoir, my darling. CHARLIE. Burn this. This was Johns: Mv DEAR MR. ASHFOETH: What am I to say to you? Oh, why, why didnt you tell me before? I oughtnt to say that, but it is too late to conceal any- thing from you. Yes, you are right. It must be good-by. Yes, I will try to forget you. But oh, John, its very, very, very difficult. I dont know how to sign thisso I wont. Youll know who it comes from, wont you? Good- by. Burn this. These letters, no doubt, make it plain that there had been at least a momentary weakness both in Mary and John; but in a true and charitable view their con- duct in finally rising superior to tempta- tion was all the more remarkable and praiseworthy. They had indeed, for the tinie, been carried away. Even now, Mary found it hard not to make allow- ances for herself, little as she was prone to do that, when she thought of the im- petuous abandon and conquering whirl with which Charlie Ellerton had wooed her; and John confessed that flight alonea hasty flight from Interlaken after a certain evening, spent in gazing at the Jungfrau, had saved him from casting everything to the winds and yielding to the slavery of Dora Bellairss sunny smiles and charming coquetries. He had always thought that that sort of girl had no attractions for him, just as Mary had despised butterfly - men like Charlie Ellerton. Well, they were wrong. The only comfort was that shallow natures felt these sorrows less; it would have broken Marys heart (thought John), or Johns (thought Mary), but Dora and Charlie would soon find consolation in another. But here, oddly enough, John generally swore heartily and Mary always began to search for her handkerchief. 152 THE (f/HEEL OF LOVE Theyre as affectionate as one could wish when theyre together, mused Miss Bussey, as she stroked the cat, but at other times theyre gloomy company. I suppose they cant be happy apart. Dear! dear! And the good lady fell to wondering whether she had ever been so foolish as that. CHAPTER II SYMPATHY IN SORROW GIVE me, observed Sir Roger Deane, Cannes, a fine day, a good set to look at, a beehive chair, a good cigar, a cocktail on one side and a nice girl on the other, and there I am! I dont want anything else. General Bellairs pulled his white mus- tache and examined Sir Rogers figure and surroundings with a smile. Then only Lady Deane is wanting to your complete happiness, said he. Maud is certainly a nice girl, but when she deserts me Where is she ? I dont know. I do, interposed a young man, who wore an eye- glass and was in charge of a large jug. Shes gone to Monte. I might have known, said Sir Rog- er. Being missed here always means youve gone to Montelike not being at church means youve gone to Brighton. Surely she doesnt play? asked the General. Not she! Shes going to put it in a book. She writes books you know. She put me in the lastmade me a dashed fool, too, by Jove! That was unkind, said the General, from your wife. Oh, Lord love you, she didnt mean it. I was a hero. Thats how I came to be such an ass. The dear girl meant everything that was kind. Whos taken her to Monte? Charlie Ellerton, said the young man with the eye-glass. There! I told you she was a kind girl Shes trying to pull old Charlie up a peg or two. Hes had the deuce of a facer, you know. I thought he seemed less cheerful than usual. Oh, rather. He met a girl some- where or otherI always forget places MissMisshang it I cant remem- ber namesand got awfully smitten, and everything went pleasantly and she took to him like anything, and at last old Charlie Spoke up like a man and_______ Sir Roger paused dramatic- ally. Well ? asked the General. She was engaged to another fellow. Rough, wasnt it? She told old Charlie she liked him infernally, but prom- ises were promises, dont you know, and shed thank him to take his hook. And he had to take it, by Gad! Rough, dont you know? So Mauds been cheering him up. The devil ! Whats the matter now? inquired the General. Why Ive just remembered that I promised to say nothing about it. I say, dont you repeat it, General, nor you either, Laing. The General laughed. Well, said Sir Roger, he oughtnt to have been such a fool as to tell me. He knows I never remember to keep things dark. Its not my fault. A girl came out of the hotel and strolled up to where the group was. She was dark, slight, and rather below middle height; her complexion at this moment was a trifle sallow and her eyes listless, but it seemed rather as if she had dressed her face into a tragic cast, the set of the features being naturally mirthfuL She acknowledged the mens salutations and sat down with a sigh. Not on to-day? asked Sir Roger, waving his cigar toward the lawn-tennis courts. No, said Miss Bellairs. Are you seedy, Dolly? inquired the General. No, said Miss Bellairs. Mr. Laing fixed his eye-glass and sur- veyed the young lady. Are you taking any? said he, indi- cating the jug. I dont see any fun in vulgarity, observed Miss Bellairs. The General smiled. Sir Rogers lips assumed the shape for a whistle. Thats a nasty one for me, said Laing. Ah! Here you are, Roger, ex- claimed a fresh, clear voice from behind THE WHEEL OF LOVE 153 the chairs. Ive been looking for you everywhere. Weve seen everything Mr. Ellerton was most kindand I do so want to tell you my impressions. The new-corner was Lady Deane, a tall young woman, plainly dressed in a serviceable cloth walking-gown. By her side stood Charlie Ellerton in a flannel suit of pronounced striping; he wore a little, yellow mustache, had blue eyes and curly hair, and his face was tanned a wholesome ruddy-brown. He looked very melancholy. Letters from Hell, murmured Sir Roger. But I was so distressed, continued his wife. Mr. Ellerton would gamble, and he lost ever so much money. A fellow must amuse himself, re- marked Charlie, gloomily, and with ap- parent unconsciousness he took a glass from Laing and drained it. Gambling and drink what does that mean? asked Sir Roger. Shut up, Deane, said Charlie. Miss Bellairs rose suddenly and walked away. Her movement expressed impatience with her surroundings. Af- ter a moment Chatlie Ellerton slowly sauntered after her. She sat down on a garden-seat some way off. Charlie placed himself at the opposite end. A long pause ensued. Im afraid Im precious poor com- pany, said Charlie. I didnt count you to be company at all, answered Miss Bellairs, and she sloped her parasol until it obstructed his view of her face. Im awfully sorry, but I cant stand the sort of rot Deane and Laing are talking. Cant you? Neither can I. They never seem to be serious about anything, you know, and Charlie sighed deeply, and for three minutes there was silence. Do you know Scotland at all? asked Charlie at last. Only a little. There last year? No, I was in Switzerland. Oh. Do you know Interlaken? No. Oh. May Ihave a cigarette? Of course, if you like. Charlie lit his cigarette and smoked silently for a minute or two. I call this a beastly place, said he. Yes, horrid, she answered, and the force of sympathy made her move the parasol and turn her face toward her companion. But I thought, she con- tinued, you came here every spring? Oh, I dont mind the place so much. Its the people. Yes, isnt it? I know what you mean. You cant make a joke of everything, can you? Indeed no, sighed Dora. Charlie looked at his cigarette, and, his eyes carefully fixed on it, said, in a timid tone: Whats the point, for instance, of talking as if love was all bosh? Doras parasol swept down again swiftly, but Charlie was still looking at the cigarette and he did not notice its descent, nor could he see that Miss Bellairss cheek was no longer sallow. Its such cheap rot, he continued, and when a fellowsI say, Miss Bel- lairs, Im not boring you? The parasol wavered and finally moved. No, said Miss Bellairs. I dont know whether youno, I mustnt say that, but I know what it is to be in love, Miss Bellairs; but whats the good of talking about it? Every- body laughs. Miss Bellairs put down her parasol. I shouldnt laugh, she said, softly. Its horrid to laugh at people when theyre in trouble, and her eyes were very sympathetic. You are kind. I dont mind talk- ing about it to you. You know Im not the sort of fellow who falls in love with every girl he meets ; so of course its worse when I do. Was it just lately? murmured Dora. Last summer. Ah! Andand didnt she? Oh, I dont know. Yes, hang it, I believe she did. She was perfectly straight, Miss Bellairs. I dont say a word against her. SheI think she didnt know her own feelings until until I spoke, you knowand then 154 THE WHEEL OF LOVE Do go on, ifif it doesnt- Why, then, the poor girl cried and said it couldnt be because sheshe was engaged to another fellow, and she sent inc away. Miss Bellairs was listening atten- tively. And, continued Charlie, she wrote and said it must be good-by and and And you think she 2 She told me so, whispered Charlie. She said she couldnt part without telling me. Oh, I say, Miss Bellairs, isnt it all damnable? I beg your par- don. Dora was tracing little figures on the gravel with her parasol. Now what would you do? cried Charlie. She loves me, I know she does! and shes going to marry this other fellow because she promised him first. I dont suppose she knew what love was then. Oh, Im sure she didnt, exclaimed Dora, earnestly. You cant blame her, you know. And its absurd tototonot to well, to marry a fellow you dont care for when you care for another fellow, you know! Yes. Of course you can hardly imagine yourself in that position, but suppose a man liked you andand was placed like that, you know, what should you feel you ought to do? Oh, I dont know, exclaimed Dora, clasping her hands. Oh, do tell me what you think! Id give the world to know! Charlies surprised glance warned her of her betrayaL You mustnt ask me, she exclaimed, hastily. I wont ask a word. IIm awfully sorry, Miss Bellairs. Nobody knows, she murmured. Nobody shall through me. Youre not very ? Im very ashamed. Why? And because of me! After what Ive told you! Charlie rose suddenly. Im not going to stand it, he an- nounced. Dora looked up eagerly. What? Youre going to 2 Im going to have a shot at it. Am I to stand by and see her? Im hanged if I do. Could that be right? I should like to know what ones duty is? This talk with you has made me quite clear. Weve reasoned it out, you see. Theyre not to be married for two or three months. A lot can be done in that time. Ah, youre a man I shall write first. If that doesnt do, I shall go to her. Dora shook her head mournfully. Now, look here, Miss Bellairsvou dont mind me advising you? I ought not to have let you lee, but as it is You do as I do, you stick to it. Confound it, you knowwhen ones lifes happiness is at stake Oh, yes, yes! One mustnt be squeamish, must one? And Dora Bellairs, in a very low whisper, answered, No. I shall write to-night. Oh! To-night? Yes. Now promtse me you will too. Its harder for me than you. Not if he really Oh, indeed, he really does, Mr. Allerton. Then youll write? Perhaps. No. Promise? Wellit must be right. Yes, I wilL I feel the better for our talk, Miss Bellairs, dont you? I do a little. We shall be friends now, you know, even if I bring it off I shant be con- tent unless you do too. Wont you give me your good wishes? Indeed I wilL Shake hands on it. They shook hands and began to stroll back to the tennis-courts. They look a little better, observed Sir Roger Deane, who had been listen- ing to an eloquent description of the gaming-tables. Dora and Charlie walked on toward the hotel. Hi! shouted Sir Roger. Teas coming out here. THE WHEEL OF LOVE 155 Ive got a letter to write, said Charlie. Well, Miss Bellairs, you must come. Whos to pour it out? I must catch the post, Sir Roger, answered Dora. They went into the house together. In the hall they parted. Youll let me know what happens, Mr. Ellerton, wont you? Im so in- ~erested. And you? Ohwell, perhaps, and the sallow of her cheeks had turned to a fine dusky red as she ran upstairs. Thus it happened that a second let- ter for John Ashforth and a second let- ter for Mary Travers left Cannes that night. And if it seems a curious coincidence that Dora and Charlie should meet at Cannes, it can only be answered that they were each of them just as likely to be at Cannes as anywhere else. Be- sides, who knows that these things are all coincidence? CHAPTER III A PROVIDENTIAL DISCLOSURE ON Wednesday, the eleventh of April, John Ashforth rose from his bed full of a great and momentous resolution. There is nothing very strange in that, perhaps ; it is just the time of day when such things come to a man, and, in ordinary cases, they are very prone to disappear with the relics of breakfast. But John was of sterner stuff. He had passed a restless night, tossed to and fro by very disturbing gusts of emotion, and he arose with the firm conviction that if he would escape shipwreck he must secure his bark by immovable anchors while he was, though not in honor, yet in law and fact, free; he could not trust himself. Sorrowfully admitting his weakness, he turned to the true, the right, the heroic remedy. Ill marry Mary to-day fortnight, said he. When we are man and wife I shall forget this madness and love her as I used to. He went down to breakfast, ate a bit of toast and drank a cup of very strong tea. Presently Mary appeared and greeted him with remarkable tender- ness. His heart smote him, and his re- morse strengthened his determination. I want to speak to you after break- fast, he told her. His manner was so significant that a sudden gleam of hope flashed into her mind. Could it be that he had seen, that he would be generous. She ban- ished the shameful hope. She would not accept generosity at the expense of pain to him. Miss Bussey, professing to find bed the best place in the world, was in the habit of taking her breakfast there. The lovers were alone, and, the meal ended, they passed together into the conservatory. Mary sat down and John leant against the glass door opposite her. Well? said she, smiling at him. It suddenly struck John that, in a scene of this nature, it ill-befitted him to stand three yards from the lady. He took a chair and drew it close beside her. The thing had to be done and it should be done properly. Weve made a mistake, Mary, he announced, taking her hand and speak- ing in a rallying tone. A mistake! she cried ; oh, how? In fixing our marriage So soon? My darling! said John (and it was impossible to withhold admiration for the tone he said it in), no. So late! What are we waiting for? Why are we wasting all this precious time? Mary could not speak, but consterna- tion passed for an appropriate confusion, and John pursued his passionate plead- ings. As Mary felt his grasp and looked into his honest eyes, her duty lay plain before her. She would not stoop to paltry excuses on the score of clothes, invitations, or such trifles. She had made up her mind to the thing; surely she ought to do it in the way most gracious and most pleasing to her lover. If Aunt consents, she murmured at last, do as you like, John dear, and the embrace which each felt to be inevitable at such a crisis passed be- tween them. A discreet cough separated them. 156 THE tVHEEL OF LOVE The butler stood in the doorway, with two letters on a salver. One he handed to Mary, the other to John, and walked away with a twinkle in his eye. How- ever, even our butlers do not know everything that happens in our houses (to say nothing of our hearts), however much they may think they do. John glanced at his letter, started violently and crushed it into his pock- et. He glanced at Mary; her letter lay neglected on her lap. She was looking steadily out of the window. Well, thats settled, said John. I J think Ill have a cigar, dear. Yes, do, darling, said Mary, and John went out. These second letters were unfortu- nately so long as to make it impossible to reproduce them. They were also very affecting. Doras from its pathos, Charlies from its passion. But the waves of emotion beat fruitlessly on the rock-built walls of conscience. At al- most the same moment, Mary, brush- ing away a tear, and John, blowing his nose, sat down to write a brief, a~ final answer. We are to be married to- day fortnight, they said. They closed the envelopes without a moments delay and went to drop their letters in the box. The butler was already waiting to go to the post with them and a sec- ond later the fateful documents were on their way to Cannes. Now, said John, with a ghastly smile, we can have a glorious long day together! Mary was determined to leave her- self no loophole. We must tell Aunt whatwhat we have decided upon this morning, she reminded him. It means that the wedding must be very quiet. I shant mind that. Shall you? I shall like it of all things, she an- swered. Come and find Aunt Sarah. Miss Bussey had alwaysor at least for a great many years backmain- tained the general proposition that young people do not know their own minds. This mornings vows confirmed her opinion. Why the other day you both agreed that the middle of June would do perfectly. Now you want it all done in a scramble. The pair stood before her, looking very guilty. What is the meaning of thisthis [she very nearly said indecent ] ex- traordinary haste? Miss Bussey asked only one indul- gence from her friends. Before she did a kind thing she liked to be al- lowed to say one or two sharp ones. Her niece was aware of this fancy of hers and took refuge in silence. John, les~ experienced in his hostesss ways, launched into the protests appropriate to an impatient lover. Well, said Miss Bussey, I must say you look properly ashamed of yourself [John certainly did], so Ill see what can be done. What a fluster we shall live in! Upon my word you might as well have made it to-morrow. The fuss would have been no worse and a good deal shorter. The next few days passed, as Miss Bussey had predicted, in a fluster. Mary was running after dress-makers, John after licenses, Cooks tickets, a best man, and all the impedimenta of a marriage. The intercourse of the lovers was much interrupted, and to this Miss Bussey attributed the low spirits that Mary sometimes displayed. There, there, my dear, she would say im