CHAPTER I.

Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Dan Horwood, and

the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

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BELFORD'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. II. No. 8.

January, 1889.

WICKED LEGISLATION.

The patience with which mankind submits to the demands of tyrants

has been the wonder of each succeeding age, and heroes are made of

those who break one yoke only to bow with servility to a greater. The

Roman soldier, returning from wars in which his valor had won wealth

and empire for his rulers, was easily content to become first a

tenant, and then a serf, upon the very lands he had tilled as owner

before his voluntary exile as his country's defender, kissing the hand

that oppressed, so long as it dispensed, as charity, a portion of his

tithes and rentals in sports and food. And now, after ages of

wonder and criticism, the soldiers of our nineteenth-century

civilization outvie their Roman prototypes in submitting to exactions

and injustice of which Nero was incapable either of imagining or

executing, bowing subserviently to the more ingenious tyrant of an

advanced civilization, if but his hand drop farthings of pensions in

return for talents of extortion. It may not be that the soldiers

and citizens of America shall become so thoroughly debauched and

degraded, nor that the consequences of their revolt shall be a

burning capitol and a terrified monopolist; but if these evils are

to be averted, it will be only because fearless hands tear the

mask from our modern Neros, and tireless arms hold up to popular

view the naked picture of national disgrace.

Twenty-eight years ago the first step had been taken towards the final

overthrow of the objective form of human slavery. There were, even in

those days, cranks who were dreaming of new harmonies in the songs of

liberty; and when tyranny opposed force to the righteous demands of

constitutional government, ploughshares rusted in the neglected

fields, workshops looked to alien lands for toilers, while patriots

answered the bugle-call, and a nation was freed from an eating cancer.

But what was the return for such sacrifices? Surely, if ever were

soldiers entitled to fair and full reward, it was those who responded

to the repeated call of Lincoln for aid in suppressing the most

gigantic rebellion of history--not in the form of driblets of charity,

doled with cunning arts to secure their submission to extortions, not

offered as a bribe to unblushing perjury and denied to honest

suffering, but simple and exact justice, involving a full performance

of national obligation in return for the stipulated discharge of the

duty of citizenship. The simple statement of facts of history will

serve to expose the methods of those who pose as _par excellence_ the

soldiers' friends and the defenders of national faith.

The soldiers who enlisted in the war of the rebellion were promised by

the government, in addition to varying bounties, a stipulated sum of

money per month. It requires no argument to prove that the faith of

the government was as much pledged to the citizen who risked his life,

as to him who merely risked a portion of his wealth in a secured loan

to the government. But the record shows that the pay of the former was

reduced by nearly sixty per cent, while the returns of the latter were

doubled, trebled, and quadrupled; that in many cases government

obligations were closed by the erection of a cheap cast-iron tablet

over a dead hero, while the descendants of bondholders were guarded in

an undisturbed enjoyment of the fruits of their ancestors' greed. For,

after the armies were in the field, the same legislative enactment

that reduced the value of the soldier's pay increased that of the

creditor's bond, by providing that the money of the soldier should be

rapidly depreciated in value, while the interest upon bonds should be

payable in coin; and then, after the war was over, another and more

valuable bond was prepared, that should relieve the favored creditor

of all fear of losing his hold upon the treasury by the payment of his

debt. That the purpose of the lawmakers was deliberate, was exposed in

a speech by Senator Sherman, who was Chairman of the Finance Committee

of the Senate while the soldiers in the trenches were being robbed in

the interest of the creditors at home. In reviewing the financial

policy of his party during the war, Mr. Sherman said, in a speech in

the Senate, July 14th, 1868 [Footnote: Congressional Record, page

4044]:

"It was, then, our policy during the war, to depreciate the value

of United States notes, so that they would come into the Treasury

more freely for our bonds. Why, sir, we did a very natural thing

for us to do, we increased the amount to $300,000,000, then to

$450,000,000, and we took away the important privilege of

converting them into bonds on the ground that, while this

privilege remained, the people would not subscribe for the bonds,

and the notes would not be converted; that the right a man might

exercise at any time, he would not exercise at all."

No page of our national history contains a more damning record of

injustice than this. Mr. Sherman recognizes and admits that the notes,

as issued and paid to the soldiers and producers of the country, were

fundable at the holder's option in a government interest-bearing bond.

He confesses to the foreknowledge that in nullifying this right the

value of the notes would be decreased and to that extent the soldiers'

pay be diminished. No organ of public opinion raised the cry of

breaking the plighted faith of the nation. The soldier had no organ

then; but years after the wrong had been perpetrated, there appeared

in Spaulding's "History of the Currency" the naive statement, "It

never seemed quite right to take away this important privilege while

the notes were outstanding with this endorsement upon them." By a law,

passed against the protests of the wisest and most patriotic members

of the popular branch of Congress, it had been provided that these

government notes, so soon to be further depreciated in value, should

be a full legal tender to the nation's defenders, but only rags in the

hands of the fortunate holder of interest-bearing obligations of the

government, upon which they were based, and into which they were

fundable at the option of the holder. In one of his reports while

Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. Hugh McCulloch showed that fully

thirty per cent of the cost of supplies furnished the government was

due to the depreciation of the currency, the initial step in such

depreciation being the placing of the words "Except duties on imports

and interest on the public debt" in the law and upon the back of the

notes. But, having provided that one class of the government creditors

should be secured against the evil effects of a depreciated currency,

those friends of the soldiers and defenders of the nation's honor

proceeded to a systematic course of depreciation of the currency,

while the soldiers were too busy fighting, and the citizens too

earnest in their support of the government, to criticize its acts.

During the war the sentiment was carefully inculcated, that opposition

to the Republican party or its acts was disloyalty to the government,

copperheadism, treason; and protests against any of its legislation

were answered with an epithet. It so happened that very little

contemporary criticism was indulged in, from a wholesome fear of

social or business ostracism, or the frowning portals of Fort

Lafayette.

But from the very commencement of the war there had been felt at

Washington a strong controlling influence emanating from the money

centres. The issue of the demand notes of the government during

the first year had furnished a portion of the revenues required,

and had served to recall the teachings of the earlier statesmen

and the demonstrations of history--that paper money bottomed on

taxes would prove a great blessing to the people, and a just

exercise of governmental functions. This was only too evident to

those controlling financial operations at the great money centres. The

nation was alive to the necessities of the government; the people

answered the calls for troops with such promptness as to block the

channels of transportation, often drilling in camp, without arms,

awaiting production from the constantly running armories. Those

camps represented the people. From them all eyes were bound to the

source of supply of the munitions of war; in them all hearts burned

for the time for action, even though that meant danger and death.

There were other camps from which gray-eyed greed looked with far

different motives. The issue of their own promissory notes, based

upon a possibility of substituting confidence for coin, had proven

in the past of vast profit to the note-issuers of the great money

centres. The exercise of that power by the government would

inevitably destroy one great source of their profits, and transfer it

to the people. Sixty millions of the people's own notes, circulating

among them as money, withstanding the effect of the suspension of

specie payments by both the banks and the national Treasury, was a

forceful object-lesson to all classes. To the people, it brought a

strong ray of hope to brighten the darkness of the war cloud. To some

among the metropolitan bankers who in after years prated so loudly of

their patriotism and financial sagacity, it brought to view only

the danger of curtailed profits. The government Treasury was empty;

troops in the field were unpaid and uncomplaining; merchants

furnishing supplies, seriously embarrassed for the lack of money in

the channels of trade. The sixty millions of demand notes were

absorbed by the nation's commerce like a summer storm on parched

soil. Under such circumstances, at the urgent request of the

Secretary of the Treasury, the Ways and Means Committee of the House

of Representatives framed a bill authorizing the issue of one

hundred and fifty millions of bonds, and the same amount of Treasury

notes, the latter to be a full legal tender, and fundable in an

interest-bearing bond at the option of the holder. The contest between

the popular branch of the government and the Senate, upon this

measure, forms one of the most interesting and instructive lessons

of the financial legislation of the nation. In the Senate, a

bitter and determined opposition to the legal-tender clause was

developed. The associated banks of New York had adopted a resolution

that the Treasury notes of the government should only be received

by the different banks from their customers as "a special deposit to

be paid in kind;" and it was one of the lessons of the war, that

notices containing the announcement above quoted remained posted in

the New York banks until a high premium on those very notes, over

the dishonored greenbacks, caused a shrewd depositor to demand of

the bank his deposits in kind. The demand was settled by a delivery

of greenbacks, which were a full legal tender for the purpose, and

the notices suddenly disappeared. The compromise effected between

the two Houses resulted in the issue of the emasculated greenback,

and it also led the way to the establishment of the National Banking

system, and the issue of the promissory notes of the banks to be

used as money.

Much of the force of all criticism of the system so devised has been

weakened by the fact that the attack has been aimed at the banks

themselves, and not against one special feature of the system. In

explanation, though not in excuse for this, should be stated the fact

that every issue of the annual finance report of the government

contained the special pleadings of the comptrollers of the currency,

concealing some facts, misstating others, and creating thereby the

impression that they were endeavoring to win the favor of the banking

institutions. Added to this were the efforts of those controlling the

national bank in the great money centres to secure a permanency of the

note-issuing feature of their system, after a very general public

sentiment against it had been aroused, and even after its evil effects

had been felt by smaller banks located among, and supported more

directly by, the producing classes. But now, when the discussion is

removed from the arena of politics, when the volume of the bank-note

system is rapidly disappearing, and when many of the best and

strongest banks are seeking to be relieved from the burden of

note-issuance, it is opportune to discuss calmly and without prejudice

the wisdom of the original acts and their effects upon the country.

It has been claimed that by the organization of the national banks

the government was enabled to dispose of its bonds and aided in

carrying on the war. Do the facts warrant the claim? All national bank

notes have been redeemable solely in Treasury notes. They do not

possess the legal-tender qualification equal to the Treasury note, and

cannot therefore be considered any better than the currency in which

they are alone redeemable, and in comparison with which they have less

uses. These are truths that were just as palpable twenty-five years

ago as to-day. It follows that the issue of the bank notes did not

furnish any better form of currency than that which came directly from

the government to the people. Every dollar of such notes issued

contributed just as much towards an inflation of the currency as the

issue of an equal amount of Treasury notes. With these facts in mind,

a review of the organization of the banks and their issue of notes

will reveal the effect of such acts.

In 1864 the notes of the government had been depreciated to such an

extent that coin was quoted at a premium ranging from 80 per cent to

150 per cent. The record of a single bank organized and issuing notes

under such circumstances is illustrative of the whole system.

Take a bank with one hundred thousand dollars to invest in government

bonds as a basis for its issuance of currency. The bonds were bought

with the depreciated Treasury notes. Deposited with the Comptroller of

the Currency at Washington, the bank received ninety thousand dollars

of notes to issue as money. It also received six thousand dollars in

coin as one year's advance interest upon its deposited bonds, under

the law of March 17, 1884. This coin, not being available for use as

money, was sold or converted into Treasury notes at a ratio of from

two to two and a half for one. The bank, therefore, had received, as a

working cash capital, a sum in excess of the money invested in its

bonds. The transaction stands as follows:

Invested in bonds $100,000

Received notes to issue $90,000

Received coin equal to, say 12,000--102,000

------

Bank gains by transaction $2,000

From this it will appear that the bank has the use, as currency, of

more than the amount of its bonds, while the government is to pay, in

addition, six per cent per annum on the full amount of bonds so long

as the relations thus created continue. Surely no argument is needed

to prove that, if the government had issued the $90,000 in the form

of Treasury notes, and had paid out the interest money for its current

obligations, there would have been no greater inflation of the

currency, a more uniform currency would have been maintained, and a

saving effected of the entire amount of interest paid on bonds held

for security of national bank notes, which at this date would amount

to a sum nearly representing the total bonded debt of the country.

But there remains a still more serious charge to be made against this

system. Defended as a war measure by which the banks were to aid the

government in conquering the rebellion, the fact remains that at the

date of Lee's surrender only about $100,000,000 of bonds had been

accepted by the banks, even though they received a bonus for the act.

But, after the war had closed, and the government was with one hand

contracting the volume of its own circulating notes by funding them

into interest-bearing bonds, the banks were allowed to inflate the

currency by the further issue of over $200,000,000 of their notes.

Time may produce a sophist cunning enough to devise an adequate

defence or apology for such legislation. His work will only be saved

from public indignation and rebuke when a continued series of outrages

shall have dulled the national intelligence and destroyed the national

honor.

But there came a time when the policy of the government was radically

changed. The soldiers had conquered a peace,--or thought they

had,--and, as they marched in review before their commander-in-chief,

had been paid off in crisp notes of the government--legal tender to

the soldier, but not to the bondholder; the time for government to pay

the soldiers had ceased; the national banks had been allowed to show

their patriotism and their willingness to aid the government overthrow

a rebellion already conquered, by the issuance of their notes to add

to an inflated and depreciated currency; the soldiers had returned to

the arts of peace, and had taken their places as producers of the

nation's wealth and taxpayers to the national Treasury. Then Mr.

Sherman, with his brother patriots and statesmen, discovered that the

country (meaning, of course, the bondholders) was suffering under the

evils of a depreciated currency. Their tender consciences had never

suffered a twinge while the soldiers were receiving from the

government a currency depreciated in value as the result of its own

acts. But when the soldier became the taxpayer, and from his toil was

to be obliged to pay the bondholder, then the patriotic hearts of Mr.

Sherman and his co-conspirators in the dominant political party

trembled at the thought of a soldier being allowed to discharge his

obligations in the same kind of money he had received for his

services. As a recipient of the government dole, paper money,

purposely depreciated, was quite sufficient. From the citizen by the

product of whose toil a bonded interest-bearing debt was to be paid,

"honest money" was to be demanded. It required no argument to convince

the government creditor that this was a step in his interest, and

public clamor was hushed with the catchwords of "honest money" and

"national honor," while driblets of pensions were allowed to trickle

from rivers of revenue. The Nero of Rome had been excelled by his

Christian successor, and the dumb submission of ancient slaves became

manly independence in contrast with modern stupidity.

By the passage of the so-called "Credit-strengthening Act," in March,

1869, it was provided that all bonds of the government, except in

cases where the law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has

expressly provided that the same may be paid in lawful money, or other

currency than gold and silver, should be payable in coin. This act was

denounced by both Morton and Stevens, as a fraud upon the people, in

that it made a new contract for the benefit of the bondholder. The

injustice of the act could have been determined upon the plainest

principles of equity: if the bonds were payable in coin, there was no

need for its passage; if they were not so payable, there could be no

excuse for it. If there existed a doubt sufficiently strong to require

such an act, it was clearly an injustice to ignore the rights of the

many in the interests of the few. But the men who had not scrupled to

send rag-money to the soldiers in the trenches, and coin to the

plotters in the rear, had no consciences to be troubled. They had

dared to pay to the soldiers the money of the nation, and then rob

them of two-thirds of it under color of law, and now needed only to

search for methods, not for excuses. Political exigencies must be

guarded against. The public must be hoodwinked, the soldier element

placated with pension doles.

The first essential was to stifle public discussion. Some fool-friends

of the money power had introduced and pressed the bill early in 1868.

There were still a few Representatives in Congress who had not bowed

the knee to Baal, and they raised a vigorous protest against the

iniquitous proposal. Discussion then might be fatal to both the scheme

and the party, and Simon Cameron supplemented an already inodorous

career by warning the Senate that this bill would seriously injure

the Republican party, and that it should be laid aside until the

excitement of a political campaign had subsided, and it could be

discussed with the calmness with which we should view all great

financial questions.

Here was the art of the demagogue, blinding the eyes of the people with

sophistry and false pretences in order to secure by indirection that

which could not be obtained by fair discussion. A Presidential election

was approaching. An honest Chief Executive had rebelled against the

attempt to nullify the results of the war by converting the Southern

States into conquered territories, in order that party supremacy should

be secured, even at the expense of national unity and harmony. Any

discussion of a proposition to burden the victorious soldier with

greater debt, in the interest of a class of stay-at-homes, would have

caused vigorous protests from the men whose aid was necessary for party

success. Thaddeus Stevens had announced that if he thought "that the

Republican party would vote to pay, in coin, bonds that were payable

in greenbacks, thus making a new contract for the benefit of the

bondholders, he would vote for Frank Blair, even if a worse man than

Horatio Seymour was at the head of the ticket." Oliver P. Morton, the

war-Governor of Indiana, had been equally vigorous in his language;

and practical politicians foresaw that even Pennsylvania and Indiana

might be lost to the Republican party with these men arrayed against

it. Therefore the cunning proposal to postpone this discussion "until

after the excitement of a Presidential election was over, and we could

discuss this with the calmness with which we should view all great

financial questions." The hint was taken, the contest of 1868 was fought

under a seeming acquiescence in the views of Stevens and Morton; the

dear people were hoodwinked with catch-phrases coined to deceive, and a

new lease of power was secured by false pretence. But when the

excitement of the election had passed, and there was no longer any

danger of "injuring the Republican party," all discussion was stifled;

and the first act signed by the newly elected President was that which

had been laid aside for that season of "calmness with which we

should view all great financial questions."

The next step in the conspiracy was a logical sequence to all that had

preceded. Having secured coin payment of interest and principal of all

bonds, it was now in order to still further increase the value of the

one and to perpetuate the payment of the other. To this end, silver

was demonetized by a trick in the revision of the Statutes, reducing

the volume of coin one-half, and decreasing the probability of rapid

bond payments. Then the volume of the paper currency was contracted by

a systematic course of substituting interest-bearing bonds for

non-interest-bearing currency, and the first chapter of financial

blunders and crimes of the Wall Street servants ended in a panic,

revealing, in its first wild terror, the disgraceful connection of

high public officials with the worst elements of stock-jobbery.

It is possible that a direct proposition in 1865, to double the amount

of the public debt as a free gift to the creditor-class, might have

caused such a clamor as would have forever driven from power its

authors, and have silenced the claims of modern Republicans that they

were the sole friends of the soldier, and defenders of national honor.

But the financial legislation of the Republican party has done more

and worse than this. Its every act has been in the interest of a

favored class, and a direct and flagrant robbery of the producing

masses. It has won the support of corporate monopoly by blind

submission to its demands, and, with brazen audacity, sought and

obtained the co-operation of the survivors of the army by doling out

pensions and promises. And yet, with a record that would have

crimsoned the cheek of a Nero or Caligula, its leaders are posing as

critics of honest statesmen, and the only friends and defenders of the

soldier and laborer. The leaders of its earlier and better days have

been ostracised and silenced in party councils, while audacious

demagogues have used its places of trust as a means of casting anchors

to windward for personal profit. Its party conventions are controlled

by notorious lobbyists and railroad attorneys, and the agricultural

population appealed to for support. Truly the world is governed more

by prejudice than by reason, and American politics of the present day

offer but slight rewards to manliness or patriotism.

Clinton Furbish.

THE HONOR OF AN ELECTION.

(President Cleveland's Defeat, 1888.)

Whose is the honor? Once again

The million-drifted shower is spent

Of votes that into power have whirled two men:--

One man, defeated; one, made President.

Whose is the honor? His who wins

The people's wreath of favor, cast

At venture?--Lo, his thraldom just begins!--

Or is it his who, losing, yet stands fast?

The first takes power, in mockery grave

Of freedom--made, by writ unsigned,

The people's servant, whom a few enslave.

The other is master of an honest mind.

From venomed spite that stung and ceased,

From slander's petty craft set free,

This man--the bonds of formal power released--

Moves higher, dowered with large integrity.

Though stabs of cynic hypocrites

And festering malice of false friends

Have won their noisome way, unmoved he fits

His patriot purpose still to lofty ends.

Whose is the honor? Freemen--yours,

Who found him faithful to the right,

Clean-handed, true, yet turned him from your doors

And bartered daybreak for corruption's night?

Weak-shouldered nation, that endures

So painfully an upright sway,

Four little years, then yields to lies and lures,

And slips back into greed's familiar way!

For now the light bank-note outweighs

The ballot of the unbought mind;

And all the air is filled with falsehood's praise--

Shams, for sham victory artfully designed.

Is theirs the honor, then, who roared

Against our leader's wise-laid plan,

Yet now have seized his plan, his flag, his sword,

And stolen all of him--except the man?

No! His the honor, for he keeps

His manhood firm, intact, unsoiled

By base deceit.--Not dead, the nation sleeps:

Pray Heaven it waken ere it be despoiled!

George Parsons Lathrop.

November, 1888.

ANDY'S GIFT.

HOW HE GOT IN AND HOW HE WAS GOTTEN OUT.

_An Episode of Any Day._

I.

"Well, Age _is_ beautiful!"

"Then _she_ is a joy forever!"

"Wonderful staying power for a filly of her age, anyhow!"

From a typical, if not very remarkable, group of alleged men of the

world, surrounding the quaint and capacious punch-bowl at a brilliant

society event, came this small-shot of repartee. None of the speakers

had been very long out of their teens; all of them were familiar

ingredients of that cream-nougat compound, called society.

Mr. de Silva Street was of the harmless blonde and immaculate

linen type. He was invited everywhere for his present boots, and

well-received for his expectant bonds; his sole and responsible

ancestor having "fought in his corner" with success, in more than one

of the market battles for the belt.

Mr. Wetherly Gage had glory enough with very young belles and

tenacious marriageable possibilities, in being society editor of _Our

Planet_; while Mr. Trotter Upton had owned more horses and been more

of a boon to sharp traders than any man of his years in the

metropolis. A brief young man, with ruddy, if adolescent, moustache

apparently essaying the ascent of a nose turned up in sympathetic hue,

his red hair was cut in aggressive erectile fashion, which emphasized

the _soubriquet_ of "Indian Summer," given him by the present

unconscious subject of the critical trilogy.

"But remember, Trotter, she is my pet partner," simpered Mr. Street at

the shapely back disappearing down the hallway; and he caressed where

his blond moustache was to be.

"And might have been of your--mother's," added Mr. Gage, with the

lonesome titter that illustrated all of his acidulous jokelets.

"Remember she is a lady, and a guest of your host besides," chimed in

a tall, dark man, as he joined the group. The voice was perfectly

quiet; but there seemed discomforting magnetism in the glance he

rested on one after the other, as he filled a glass and raised it to

handsome, but firm-set lips.

The three typical beaux of an abnormal civilization shifted position

uneasily. Trotter Upton pulled down his cuffs, and laboriously admired

the horse-shoe and snaffle ornamenting their buttons, as he answered:

"Sorry we shocked you, Van. Forgot it was your lecture season! But

I'll taut the curb on the boys, so socket your whip, old fel!"

"If your tact kept pace with your slang, Upton, what a success you'd

be!" Van Morris answered, carelessly. "'Tis a real pity you let the

stable monopolize so much of the time that would make you an ornament

to society." Then he set down his unfinished glass, sauntered into the

hall, and approached the subject of discussion.

Miss Rose Wood was scarcely a beauty; nor was she the youngest belle

of that ball by perhaps fifteen seasons of German cotillion. But she

had tact to her manicured finger-tips, delicate acid on her tongue's

tip, and that dangerous erudition, a brief biography of every girl in

the set, was handily stored in her capacious memory. She had,

moreover, a staunch following of gilt-plated youths who, being really

afraid of her, made her a belle as a sort of social Peter's pence.

Miss Wood had just finished a rapid "glide," when she came under fire

of the punch-room light-fighters; but, though Mr. Upton had once

judged her "a trifle touched in the wind," her complexion and her

tasteful drapery had come equally smooth out of that trying ordeal.

Even that critic finished with a nod towards her as their mentor moved

away:

"She _does_ keep her pace well! Hasn't turned a hair." And he was

right in the fact so peculiarly stated; for it was less the warmth of

the dancing-room than of her partner's urgence, that brought Miss Rose

Wood into the hall, for what Mr. Upton called "a breather."

The visible members of the Wood family were two, Miss Rose and her

father, Colonel Westchester Wood. "The Colonel" was an equally

familiar figure at the clubs and on the quarter-stretch; nor was he

chary of acceptance of the cards to dinners, balls, and opera-boxes,

which his daughter's facile management brought to the twain in

showers. He had a certain military air, and a nebulous military

history; boasted of his Virginia-Kentucky origin, and more than hinted

at his Blue Grass stock-farm. Late at night, he would mistily mention

"My regiment at Shiloh, sah!" But, as he was reputed even more expert

with the pistol than most knew him to be with cards, geography and

chronology were never insisted on in detail. But the Colonel was

undisputed possessor of a thirst, marvellous in its depth and

continuity; and he had also a cast-iron head that turned the flanks of

the most direct assaults of alcohol, and scattered them to flaunt the

red flag on his pendulous nose, or to skirmish over his scrupulously

shaven cheeks.

Of the invisible members of "the Colonel's" household, fleecy rumors

only pervaded society at intervals. The social Stanleys and

Livingstons who had essayed the sources of the Wood family stream in

its dark continent of brown-faced brick, on a quiet avenue, sent back

vague stories of a lovely and patient invalid, and a more lovely and

equally patient young girl, mother and sister to Miss Rose. There was

a misty legend sometimes floating around the clubs, that "the

Colonel," after the method of Cleopatra, had dissolved his wife's

fortune in a posset, and swallowed it years before. But again the

reputation of a dead shot cramped curiosity.

And a similar mist sometimes pervaded five o'clock teas and reunions

_chez la modiste_, to the effect that the younger sister was but as a

Midianite to the elder, while the mother was dying of neglect. But as

neither subject of this gossip was in society, the mist never

condensed into direction.

Society found Miss Rose Wood a peculiarly useful and pleasant person;

and it took her--as "the Colonel" took many of his pleasures--on

trust.

II.

The ball was a crowded one; but was, perhaps, the most brilliant and

select of that season, combining a Christmas-eve festivity with the

_debut_ party of the acknowledged beauty and prize-heiress of the

entire set.

Blanche Allmand had been finally finishing abroad for some years,

after having won her blue-ribboned diploma from Mde. de Cancaniere, on

Murray Hill. Rumors of her perfections of face and form and character

had come across the seas, in those thousand-and-one letters, for which

a fostering government makes postal unions. And ever mingled with

these rumors, came praises of those thousand-and-one accomplishments,

which society is equally apt to admire as to envy, even while it does

not appreciate.

But what most inspired with noble ambition the gilded youth of that

particular _coterie_, was the universally accepted fact that old Jack

Allmand was master of the warmest fortune that any papa thereabouts

might add to the blessing he bestowed upon his son-in-law.

And, like Jeptha of old, he "had one fair daughter and no more." A

widower--not only "warm," but very safe--he had weathered all the

shoals and quicksands of "the street," and had brought his golden

argosy safe into the port of investment. Then he had retired from

business, which theretofore had engrossed his whole heart and soul,

and lavished both upon the fair young girl, to bring whom from final

finishing at the _Sacre Coeur_, he had just made himself so hideously

sea-sick.

It was very late in the season when the delayed return of the pair was

announced, with numerous adjectives, in the society columns; but Mr.

Allmand's impatience to expose his golden fleece to the expectant

Jasons would brook no delay. Blanche was allowed scarcely time to

unpack her many trunks; to exhibit her goodly share of the _chefs

d'oeuvres_ of Pengat and Worth to the admiring elect; and to receive

gushing embraces, only measured by their envy, when the _debut_ ball

was announced for Christmas-eve.

His best Christmas gift had come to the doting father; and what more

fitting season to show his joy and pride in it, and to have their

little world share both?

When Blanche, backed by Miss Rose Wood, had hinted that it was rather

an unusual occasion, he had promptly settled that by declaring that

she was a peculiarly unusual sort of girl. So the invitations went

forth; the Allmand mansion was first turned inside out, and then

illuminated, and flower-hidden for the _debut_ ball.

That it would be _the_ affair of the season none doubted. Already,

many a paternal pocket had twinged responsive to extra appeals from

marketable daughters; and as to beaux, they had responded _nem. con._,

when bidden to the event promising so much in present feast, and which

might possibly so tend to prevent future famine. For already the clubs

had discounted the chances of one favorite or another for winning the

marital prize of the year.

Foremost among those who had hastened to welcome Blanche back to her

new home was Miss Rose Wood. She had the mysterious knack of "coming

out" gracefully with every fresh set; of perfectly adapting herself to

its fads, and especially to its beaux. Set might come and set might

go, but she came out forever; and some nameless tact implied to every

_debutante_, what Micawber forced upon Copperfield with the brutality

of words, that she was the "friend of her youth."

So, already, Miss Wood was prime favorite and prime minister at the

home-court of the confiding Blanche, who, spite of brave heart and

strong will of her own, fluttered not unnaturally in the unwonted buzz

and glare of her new life. But most particularly had Rose Wood warned

her against the flirts and "unsafe men" of their set; including, of

course, Vanderbilt Morris and her present partner of the ball in the

ranks of both.

That partner, Andrew Browne, was avowedly the best _parti_ of the

entire set. Handsome, fun-loving, and well-cultivated, he was that

_rara avis_ among society beaux, a thorough gentlemen by instinct; but

he was lazily given to self-indulgence, and had the prime weakness of

being utterly incapable of saying "no," to man or woman. The intimate

friend and room-mate of Van Morris for many years, Browne had never

lost a sort of reverence for the superior force and decision of the

other's character; and, though but a few years his junior, in all

serious social matters he literally sat at his feet.

And Morris had always grown restive when Miss Rose Wood made one of

her "dead sets" at Andy's face and fortune; for a far-away experience

of his own, in that quarter, had taught him how small an objection to

that maiden would be a fortune with the man whom she blessed with her

affection.

"And _that_ brand of the wine of the heart," he had once cautioned

Andy, "does not improve with age."

Doubtful of that young gentleman's confident response, that

"_he_ was not to be caught with chaff," Van still kept watch and

ward. So, leaving the elegant book-room of the elegant avenue

mansion--converted, for the nonce, into an elegant bar-room for Mr.

Trotter Upton and his friends--Morris sauntered through knots of

pretty women and of pretty vacuous-looking men, resting on seats

half-hidden in potted plants, and approached the pair interesting

him most.

Neither glowed with delight at his advent, although Andy seemed only

to be rattling off common-places, in peculiarly voluble style. Morris

asked for the next waltz; Miss Wood glanced shyly up at her companion,

dropped her eyes demurely, and believed she would rest until the

_cotillon_. Then, after a few more small necessaries of social life

about the beauty of the girls, the heat of the rooms, and the elegance

of the flowers, she permitted Andy to drift easily towards the door

that opened on the dim-lit coolness of the conservatory.

As they turned away, Rose Wood sent one sharp glance of her gray eyes

glinting into Morris's; then hers fell, and even he could find only

bare common-place in her words:

"So many little dangers, you know, Mr. Morris--at a ball. One cannot

be _too_ prudent."

He did not answer; but the look that followed her graceful figure had

very little of flattery in it.

"Curse that _Chambertin_!" he muttered in his moustache. "I warned him

against the second pint at dinner. Andy _couldn't_ be fool enough,

though," he added, with a shrug, and moved slowly towards the

dancing-room.

The critical group, still around the big punch-bowl, looked after him

curiously.

"_He's_ not soft on the old girl, is he?" queried Mr. de Silva

Street.

"Never!" chuckled Mr. Wetherly Gage. "Morris is too well up in Bible

lore to marry his grandmother!"

"And he don't have to," put in Mr. Trotter Upton, with a sage wink.

"I'd back Van against the field to win the Allmand purse, hands down,

if he'd only enter. But he _won't_; so you're safe, Silvey, if you've

got the go in you. But Lord! Van's too smart to carry weight for age!

Why, you may land me over the tail-board, if the woman that hitches

_him_ double won't have to throw him down and sit on him, Rarey

fashion!"

And the speaker, remarking _sotto voce_, that here was luck to the

winner, drained his glass with a smack, set it down, and lounged

into the smoking-room. There he lazily lit one of Mr. Allmand's

full-flavored Havanas, and thoughtfully stored his breast pocket

with several more.

III.

Meanwhile, the horsey pundit's offered odds seemed not so wisely

laid.

In the great room a crowded waltz was in progress; and Morris saw

Blanche Allmand standing on the opposite edge of the whirling circle.

Her head and her dainty slipper were keeping time to the softly

accented music; while a comical expression--half anger, half

mischief--emphasized the nothing she was saying to her companion.

Van caught her eye and, adept that he was in the social signal-service,

took in the situation at a glance. He slightly raised his eyebrows and

barely moved his lips; she assented with the smallest of nods and a

happy flush; and, a moment later, he had edged around the masses of

bumping humanity and offered his arm.

"My waltz, I believe," he said, with the ease of the heir-apparent of

Ananias. "I was unlucky enough, in losing the first turn, not to

grudge Major Bouncey the rest."

"You deserve to lose the whole for coming late," the girl answered,

drawing her arm from her partner's with that pretty reluctance which

makes society's stage-business seem born in woman. "It was just too

good of Major Bouncey to take your place and save my being a

wall-flower." And, not pausing for that gallant soldier's labored

disclaimer, the graceful pair glided away to the graceful time of 'La

Gitana' waltz.

"Horrid bore, that Bouncey," Blanche panted in the first pause. "Don't

stop near him! He does all his dancing on my insteps; and I dare not

stop for fear of his still more dreadful spooning."

"You would not have _me_ blame him? A better balanced brain might well

lose its poise, with _such_ temptation!" And the man looked down on

her with very eloquent eyes.

There was a pause. Then Van Morris bent his head, and the eyes still

more strongly emphasized the words:

"Blanche, do you know how dangerously lovely you are?"

The girl's frank eyes dropped beneath the strong light in his; but

there was not a shade of consciousness in the soft laugh that prefaced

her reply:

"Ah! I've a cheval-glass and this is my first ball. So I suppose I

know how 'dangerous' I am! Then, too, that awful Bouncey called me a

lily of the valley!"

"It is the purest flower made by God's hand," were Morris's simple

words; but the vibrant tone came from deeper than the lips, now close

pressed together.

"But I _know_ I'm not," Blanche retorted, merrily, "for _they_ drink

only dew, and I am quite wild for Regent's punch!"

They were at the refreshment room, now nearly deserted. Once more the

man's eyes grew darker and deeper, as they met the girl's frank blue

ones.

"And yet, not purer," he said, unheeding the interruption, "than the

heart you, little girl, will soon give to some----"

He stopped abruptly; but the eyes added more than the words left

unsaid.

Again Blanche dropped her eyes quickly; but her color never

heightened, nor did the soft laces nestling over the graceful bust

move at all quicker than the waltz might warrant. Van's face still

bent over her with earnest expression, as she sipped the glass of

punch he handed her; but neither spoke until they had crossed the

corridor and passed another door into the conservatory.

IV.

The soft, warm air, heavy with the breath of the "Grand Duke" and of

orange blossoms; the tremulous half-light from colored lamps hung amid

the leaves; the dead stillness of the place, broken only by the plash

of the fountain falling back into its moss-covered basin, all

contrasted deliciously with the hot, dusty atmosphere and giddy

buzzing under the flaring gas-jets left behind.

They strolled slowly down the gravelled walk, between rows of huge

tubs, moist and flower-laden with the products of almost every clime.

Here gleamed the glossy leaves of the Southern _grandiflora_; the rare

wax plant crept along the wall beyond, its pink, starry blooms

gleaming delicately among the thick, artificial-seeming leaves; while,

as though in honor of the happily-timed birthnight of the fair young

mistress of all, a gorgeous century plant had opened its bud in a

glory of form and color, magnificent as rare.

"Blanche, do you remember how long I have known you?" Morris asked,

suddenly breaking the silence. "Ever since you were like _this_; a

close, callow bud, giving but vague promise of the glorious flowering

of your womanhood! I watched the opening of every petal of your mind

and tried to peer through them into the heart of the flower. But they

sent you away; and now your return dazzles me with the brilliance and

beauty of the full bloom. This was the past--_this_ is the present!"

And reaching up, the man suddenly snapped off the glowing blossom from

the cactus and held it before the girl, close to the pale camellia bud

he had plucked before.

She raised her beautiful face, crowned with its halo-like glory of

hair, full to him; and the expression it took was graver and more

womanly than before. But still no agitation reflected in the candid

eyes that looked steadily into his, and the voice, more softly

pitched, had no tremor in it, as she answered:

"_Please_ think of me, then, as the child you used to know; never as

the _debutante_ who must be fed, _a la_ Bouncey, on the sweets of

sentiment."

"Take sentiment--I mean the higher sentiment, that lifts us sometimes

above our baser worldly nature--out of life, and it is not worth the

living," Morris said earnestly. "That man could not understand it any

more than he could understand you!"

"Perhaps you are right," she answered, quietly. "_We_ are too old

friends to talk society at each other; and you are _so_ different from

him."

Perhaps Morris was luckier for not replying.

It may be that the Destiny, which, we are told, shapes our ends, did

not leave his so rough-hewn as it might have.

He himself could scarcely have told what thoughts were framing

themselves in his mind; what words had almost formed themselves on his

tongue. There are moments in life, when we live at the rate of hours;

and Van Morris was certainly going the pace, mentally, for those ten

seconds of silence, before the echo of the girl's voice ceased

vibrating on his ear. He was vaguely conscious, some ten seconds later

still, that rarely had a calm, well-posed man of the world found

himself quite so dizzy, from combined effects of a quick waltz, a

flower-laden atmosphere, and a rounded arm pressing only restfully

upon his own.

Suddenly that pressure grew sharp and decided. They stopped abruptly

at a sharp turn of the walk.

On a somewhat too small rustic seat, under the fruit-laden boughs of

an orange tree, and comfortably screened thereby from the gleam of the

tinted lantern, sat Miss Rose Wood and Mr. Andrew Browne.

Their two heads were rather close together; their two hands were

suspiciously distant, as though by sudden movement; and the lady's fan

had fallen at her feet, most _a propos_ to the crunch of the gravel,

under approaching feet.

But only Blanche--less preoccupied with her thoughts than her

companion--had caught the words, "Dismiss carriage--escort home,"

before Miss Wood's fan had happened to drop at her feet.

What there might be in those words to drop the color out of rosy

cheeks, or to clench white little teeth hard together, it might well

puzzle one to guess. But the face that had not changed under the

strong music of Van Morris's voice, now grew deadly white an instant;

then flooded again with surging rush of color.

But very quickly, though with perfect self-possession, Miss Wood had

risen and advanced one step, to arrange Blanche's lace, with the

words:

"Your _berthe_ is loose, darling!"

Then, as she inserted the harmless, unnecessary pin, she whispered in

the shell-like ear:

"_Don't_ scold me, loved one! Indeed, I was _not_ flirting. I only

came out here to keep him from the--_champagne punch!_"

Blanche made no reply to this whispered confidence; nor did she seem

especially grateful for the grace done to her toilette. She never so

much as glanced at Andy Browne. He, also, had risen, after picking up

the dropped fan, with not effortless grace; and now stood smiling,

with rather meaningless, if measureless, good nature upon the

invaders.

And Van Morris was all pose and _savoir faire_ once more. He might

have been examining Blanche on her progress in algebra, for all the

consciousness in his manner as he complimented Miss Wood on her

peculiarly deft management of that dangerous weapon, the pin. But

there was no little annoyance in the whispered aside to his friend:

"Don't drink any more to-night, Andy. _Don't!_"

"All right, Van; I promise," responded the other, with the most

beaming of smiles. "Tell you the truth, don't think I need it. Heat of

the room, you know--"

"And the second pint of _Chambertin_ at dinner," finished Morris, as

Miss Wood--the toilette and _her_ confidence both completed--slipped

her perfectly gloved hand into Andy's arm again.

Precisely, then, three sharp notes of the cornet cut through the

stillness under the flowers. It was followed by the indescribable

sound, made only by the rush of many female trains towards one spot.

Like the chronicled war-horse, Andy shook his mane at the first note;

Miss Wood nodded beamingly over her shoulder at the second; and the

pair were hastening off by the time the third died away.

Blanche showed no disposition to take the vacated seat.

"The German is forming," she said, "and I am engaged to that colt-like

Mr. Upton."

Only at the door of the conservatory she paused.

"Does Mr. Browne ever drink too much wine?" she asked abruptly.

Van never hesitated one second. He lied loyally. "Why, _never_, of

course," he deprecated, in the most natural tone. "With rare

exceptions. But what deucedly sharp eyes she has," he added, mentally,

as Mr. Upton informed them that "the bell had tapped," and took

Blanche off.

Almost at the same moment, a waiter rushed by with a wine-cooler and

glasses; and he heard the pompous butler direct:

"Set it by Mr. Browne's chair. He leads in _ler curtillyun!_"

Morris half started to countermand the order. Then he reconsidered and

leaned against the doorway.

"He can't mean to drink it, after his promise to me," he thought.

"Anyway, he might get something worse. Besides, I am not his guardian;

and," he added very slowly, a strange smile hovering about his lips,

"I can scarcely keep my own head to-night."

Somehow he, best dancer in town as he was, had no partner to-night.

The sight before him had no novelty; and Mr. Trotter Upton's vivacious

prancing somewhat irritated him, in spite of the amusement at himself

he felt at the sensation.

"Didn't think I was so far gone as to be jealous of Trotter," he

muttered.

Then he slipped into the hat-room and was quickly capped and cloaked

for that precious boon to the bored, the exit _sans adieu_.

V.

It was a raw, searching Christmas morning into which Van Morris

stepped, as he softly closed the door of the Allmand mansion and

turned up his fur collar against "a nipping and an eager air."

Even in that fashionable section the streets already showed somewhat

of the bustle of the busy to-morrow. Belated caterers' carts spun by;

early butchers' and milk-wagons rumbled along, making their best speed

towards distant patrons. Here and there, gleams from gas-lit windows

slanted athwart the frosty darkness, punctuated by ever-recurrent

flaring of street lamps. Not infrequent groups of muffled men--some

jovial with reminiscent scenes of pleasure left behind, and some

hilarious from what they brought along with them--passed him, as he

strode rapidly along the echoing flags, too intent on his own thoughts

to notice any of them.

Suddenly, from beneath one of the gloom punctuators opposite, a

woman's voice cut the air sharply:

"_Please_ let me pass!"

Morris, alert in a second, had crossed the street and joined the group

of four intuitively, before he knew it himself. Three young men, whose

evening dress told that they were of society, and whose unsteady hold

of their own legs, that they had had just a little too much of it,

barred the way of a young girl. Tall, slight, and with a mass of

blonde hair escaping from the rough shawl she drew closer about her

head as she shrank back, there was something showing through her

womanly terror that spoke convincingly the gentlewoman. The trio

chuckled inanely, making elaborate bows; and the girl shivered as she

shrank further into the shadow, and repeated piteously:

"Do, _please_, let me pass! _won't_ you?"

"Certainly they will," Van answered, stepping up on the pavement and

taking her in at a glance. "Am I not right, gentlemen?" he added

urbanely to the unsteady trio.

"Not by a damned sight!"

"Who the devil are you?" were the prompt and simultaneous rejoinders.

"That doesn't matter," Van answered quietly; "but you are obstructing

the public streets and frightening this evident stranger."

"We don't know any stranger at two o'clock in the morning," was the

illogical rejoinder of the third youth, who clung to the lamp-post.

"What about it, anyway?" said the stoutest of the three, advancing

towards Morris. "Do _you_ know her?"

"_You_ evidently do not," Van replied; then he turned to the girl

with the deference he would scarce have used to the leader of his

set. "If you will take my arm, I will see you safely to the nearest

policeman."

The girl hesitated and shrunk back a second; then, with that

instinctive trust which--fortunately, perhaps--is peculiarly feminine,

slipped her red, ungloved little hand into his arm.

The leader of the trio staggered a step nearer. "You're a nice

masher," he said thickly; "but if it's a row you're looking for, you

can find one pretty quick!"

Morris glanced at the man with genuine pity.

"You look as though you might be a gentlemen when you are sober," he

said. "_I_ am not looking for a row; and if you boys make one, you'll

only be more ashamed of yourselves on Christmas day than you should be

already. And now I wish to pass."

"I'll give you a pass," the other answered; and, with a lurch, he

fronted Morris and put up his hands in most approved fighting form. At

the same moment, the girl--with the inopportune logic of all girls in

such cases--clung heavily to Morris's arm and cried piteously:

"Oh, no! You mustn't! Not for me!" and, as she did so the man lunged

a vicious blow with his right hand, full at Morris's face.

But, though like J. Fitz-James, "taught abroad his arms to wield," Van

Morris had likewise used his legs to wrestle in England, and had

moreover seen _la savatte_ in France. With a quick turn of his head,

the blow passed heavily, but harmlessly, by his cheek. At the same

instant his foot shot swiftly out, close to the ground, and with a

sharp sweep from right to left, cut his opponent's heels from under

him, as a sickle cuts weeds, sprawling him backwards upon the

pavement.

Drawing the girl swiftly through the breach thus made, Morris placed

her behind him and turned to face the men again. They made no rush, as

he had expected; so he spoke quickly:

"You'd better pick up your friend and be off. You don't look like boys

who would care to sleep in the station," he said, "and here comes the

patrol wagon."

They needed no second warning, nor stood upon the order of their

going. The downed man was on his feet; and it was devil take the

hind-most to the first corner. For the rumbling of heavy wheels and

the clang of heavy hoofs upon the Belgian blocks were drawing nearer.

To Van's relief, for he hated a scene, it proved to be only a

"night-liner" cab, though with rattle enough for a field battery; but

to his tipsy antagonists it had more terror than a park of Parrot

guns.

"Can I do anything more for you?" he asked the girl; then suddenly:

"You're not the sort to be out alone at this hour of the night. Are

you in trouble?"

"Oh, indeed I am!" she answered, with a sob; again illogical, and

breaking down when the danger was over. "What _must_ you think of me?

But mother was suddenly _so_ ill, and father and sister were at a

ball, and the servants slipped away, too. I dared not wait, so I ran

out alone to fetch Doctor Mordant. _Please_ believe me, for--"

"Hello, Cab!" broke in Van. "Certainly I believe you," he answered the

girl, as the cab pulled up with that eager jerk of the driver's

elbows, eloquent of fare scented afar off. "I'll go with you for

Doctor Mordant, and then see you home."

"Why, is that _you_, Mr. Morris?" cried Cabby, with a salute of his

whip _a la militaire;_ but he muttered to himself, "Well, I _never_!"

as he jumped from the box and held the door wide.

"That's enough, Murphy," Van said shortly. "Now, jump in, Miss, and

I'll--" But the girl shrank back, and drew the shawl closer round her

face. "No, I won't either. Pardon my thoughtlessness; for it isn't

exactly the hour to be driving alone with a fellow, I know. But you

can trust Murphy perfectly. Dennis, drive this lady to Dr. Mordant's

and then home again, just as fast as your team can carry her!" And he

half lifted the girl into the carriage.

"That I will, Mr. Van," Murphy replied cheerily, as he clambered to

his seat.

The girl stretched out two cold, red little hands, and clasped his

fur-gloved one frankly.

"Oh! thank you a thousand times," she said. "I _knew_ you were a

gentleman at the first word to those cowards; but I never dreamed you

were Mr. Van Morris. I've heard sister speak of you _so_ often!"

"_Your_ sister?" Van stared at the cheaply-clad night wanderer, as

though _he_ had had too much Regent's punch.

"Yes, sister Rose--Rose Wood," she said, with the confidence of

acquaintance. "I'm her sister, you know--Blanche."

"Blanche? Your name is Blanche? I cannot tell you how happy I am to

have chanced along just now, Miss Wood;" and Van bared his head in the

cutting night wind to the blanket-shawled girl in the night-liner, as

he would not have done at high noon to a duchess in her chariot. "But

I'm wasting your time from your mother; so good-morning; and may your

Christmas be happier than its eve."

"Good-by! And oh, _how_ I thank you!" the girl said, again extending

her hand over the cab door. "I'll tell Rose, and _she_ shall thank

you, better than I can!"

"Good-night! But don't trouble _her_," Van said, releasing the girl's

hand. "One minute, Murphy," he added aside to the driver; "here's your

Christmas-gift!"

A bright gold piece glinted in the dirty fur glove, in which Dennis

Murphy looked to find a shilling under the next gas-lamp.

"Blanche! and the same golden hair, too!" Van muttered to himself, as

the cab rocked and ricketted down the street. "Well, I suppose that is

what the poet means by 'the magic of a name'!" and he suddenly

recalled that he was still standing bareheaded in the blast. "And Rose

Wood's sister looks like that! Well, verily one half the world does

_not_ know how the other half lives!"

Then he turned and strode rapidly homeward; pulling hard, as he

thought many strange thoughts, on the dead cigar between his lips.

Once in his own parlor, Van Morris walked straight to the mirror over

the mantel, and looked long and steadily at himself. Then he tossed

Mr. Allmand's half-smoked cigar contemptuously into the grate, lit one

he selected carefully from the carved stand near, and threw himself

into a smoking-chair before the ruddy glow of coals.

"I must be getting old," he soliloquized. "I didn't use to get bored

so easily by these things. Either balls are not what they were, or _I_

am not. Now, 'there's no place like home!' Not much of a box to call

home, either!" And he glanced round the really elegant apartment in

half-disgust. "There's _something_ lacking! Andy's the best fellow in

the world, but he's so wanting in order. Poor old boy! Wonder if he

_will_ drink anything more? I surely must blow him up to-morrow

morning. How deucedly sharp _she_ is!" and he smiled to himself. "She

saw through Rose Wood's game at a glance. Wonder if she saw through

_me_?"

He looked steadily into the glowing coals, as though castles were

building there. Once or twice his lips moved soundlessly; and suddenly

he reached over to the escritoire near by, and taking an oval case

from it, opened it, and gazed long and earnestly at the picture in it.

The face was the average one of a young girl, with stiff plaits of

hair stiffly tossed over the shoulder, in futile chase after grace;

but the wide blue eyes were a glory of purity and trust, and they were

the eyes of Blanche Allmand.

Then he rose abruptly, walked to the sideboard, and filled a glass

with water. Then he placed carefully in it the cactus flower and

camelia bud, which had never left his hand since he plucked them in

the conservatory. As he did so, Morris' face grew serious, and looked

down wistfully into the fire.

When he raised his eyes they were full of hopeful light, and they

rested long and steadily upon the flowers.

"Yes! It _is_ better!" he exclaimed aloud, as though continuing a

train of thought. "Some of _that_ family bloom only once in a

century. I cannot look for miracles, and many a hand may reach for

_my_ flower. Yes, to-morrow shall settle it! The Italian was even

more philosopher than poet when he said, '_Amare e no essere amato

e tiempo perduto_'!"

VI.

When Mr. Andrew Browne tumbled into the cosy parlor of that bachelor's

box at 4 A.M. on Christmas morning, he was by all odds the happiest

man of his acquaintance, even if he knew himself, which was more than

doubtful.

He slammed the door, slung his fur-lined overcoat across the sofa,

turned up the gas until it whistled merrily, and poked the fire until

it roared again. Then he hunted the boot-jack, and drew off one boot;

changed his mind, and flung himself into the smoking-chair, and

stretched booted and unbooted foot to the blaze. Thus posed, he

trolled out, "_Il segreto per esser felice_," in a rich baritone; only

interrupting his _tempo_ to spit out superfluous ends, bitten from his

cigar, in the effort to phrase neatly and smoke at the same time.

"Why the deuce don't you get to bed?" growled Van Morris from the next

room. He was aroused from dreams of Blanche Allmand, music, diamond

solitaires, and orange-blossoms, mixed into one sweet confusion. "Stop

your row, can't you? and go to bed!"

"You go to bed yo'sef!" responded the illogical Andy, rising, not too

steadily, on his one boot, and throwing wide the folding-door. "Who

wants to go to bed? _I_ sha'n't."

"You're an idiot!" muttered Mr. Morris; and he turned his face to the

wall.

"Guess am an idiot," responded Andy, blandly. "But I ain't tight,--only

happy! I'm the happiest idiot--_Il segreto per ess_--Say, Van! I'm so

_devilish_ happy, ol' boy!"

Morris turned over with a groan, and pulled the covering over his

head. The strong, small word he uttered as he did so is not to be

found in the church service. But Andy was not to be snubbed in that

style. He stepped forward; attempted to sit on the bed's edge;

miscalculated his momentum, and succeeded in landing plump on the

centre of his friend's person.

"Confound you!" gasped the latter, breathless. "You're as drunk as--as

a fool!"

"No, I ain't," chuckled Andy, imperturbably happy. Then he laughed

till the bed shook; composing himself suddenly into gravity, with a

fierce snort--"No, I ain't: you're sober!"

"And when _she_ asked, I said you never drank," reproached the irate

and still gasping Morris. "I _lied_ for you!"

"Tha's nothing. I'll lie for you; lie for you to-morrow--see'f I

don't! Say, Van, ol' boy, I ain't tight; only happy--_so_ happy! Van!

_Van!_" and he shook the pretended sleeper heavily. "I'm goin' to

reform! I'm goin' to be married!"

"_What? Rose Wood?_"

Van Morris sat bolt upright in bed now. The tone of voice in which he

invoked Miss Wood might have brought response from that wise virgin,

disrobing for triumphant rest full ten blocks away.

But he found it vain to argue with Andy's mixed Burgundy and champagne

punch. Contradiction but made him insist more strongly that he _was_

engaged to the old campaigner, whom Morris had so manoeuvred to

outflank. Finally, in a miscellaneous outfit of evening pants,

night-gown, and smoking-cap, he succeeded in getting the jubilant

groom _in futuro_ into bed, where he still hummed at the much-sought

secret of happiness, until he collapsed with a sudden snore, and slept

like the Swiss.

Then Morris walked the floor rapidly, wrapped in thought and a cloud

of fragrant cigar-smoke. Then he threw himself once more into the

smoking-chair, and gazed long and earnestly into the coals, a heavy

frown resting on his face. Suddenly it cleared off; the sunshine of a

broad smile took its place; and Van tossed the end of his cigar

exultingly into the fire. Then he rose and stretched himself like a

veritable son of Anak, when

"Stalwart they court the rapture of the fight."

"I have it, by George!" he cried. "I'll get the poor fellow out of

this box, if the old girl did induce him to pop, and accepted him out

of hand! Andy! I say, Andy, wake up!" and he ran into his chum's room,

dragged him out of bed, and had him at the fire, before he was well

awake.

Mr. Andrew Browne was no longer in a mood even approaching the

jubilant. He had utterly forgotten the secret _per esser felice_,

during his two hours' nap. He confessed to a consuming desire for

Congress-water, and made use of improper words upon finding only empty

bottles, aggravating in reminiscence of it, in the carved ebony

sideboard.

Finally he sat down, with his head in his hands, and told his story

dismally enough.

Miss Rose Wood's carriage had been dismissed, as per programme. Andy

had led the German with her, and a bottle of champagne at his side. He

had walked home with her; had told her--in what wild words he knew

not--that he loved her; and had been, as Van had surmised, "accepted

out of hand."

"And, Van, I'm bound, as a man of honor, to marry her!" finished the

now thoroughly dejected _fiance_. "Yes, I know what you'd say; it _is_

a pretty rum thing to do; but then she mustn't suffer for my cursed

folly!"

"Suffer? Rose Wood _suffer_ for missing fire one time more?"

Surprise struggled with contempt in the exclamation Morris shot out by

impulse.

"But, if she loves me well enough to engage--" Andy began, rather

faintly; but his mentor cut him short.

"Love the d--_deuce!_" he retorted. "Why, she's a beggar and a

husband-trap!"

"But her family? What will _they_ think?" pleaded Andy, but with very

little soul in the plea.

"Poor little Blanche!" muttered Morris, half to himself. "Bah! the

girl _has_ no heart!"

"Blanche?" echoed Van, in a dazed sort of way. "Why, you don't suppose

Blanche will know it! I never thought of _her!_" and he rose feebly,

and stood shivering in his ghostly attire.

"Why, of course, Rose Wood couldn't keep such great news. Why, man,

you're the capital prize in the matrimonial lottery; but hang me if

Miss Wood shan't draw another blank this time!"

There was a compound of deadly nausea and effortful dignity in the

elbows Mr. Andrew Browne leaned upon the mantel, which hinted volumes

for what his face might have said, had it been visible through the

fingers latticed over it.

"I am a gentleman," he half gasped. "It _may_ be a trap; but I'll keep

my word, and--_marry_ her, unless--unless, Van, you get me out of

it!"

"Go to bed, you spoon!" laughed his friend. "I have the whole plan cut

and dried. I'll teach you your lesson as soon as you sleep yourself

sober."

Morris stood many minutes by the bedside of his quickly-sleeping

friend; but, when he turned into the parlor again, his face was pale

and stern.

"The way of the world, always," he said aloud. "One inanely eager,

another stupidly backward. 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!'

Poor boy! he'd give as much to-morrow to unsay his words as I would to

have spoken those I nearly said last night!"

The chill gray dawn outside was wrestling at the windows for entrance

with the sickly glaring gas-light within. Morris drew aside the heavy

curtains and pressed his forehead against the frost-laced pane. Long

he looked out into the gray haze with eyes that saw nothing beyond his

own thoughts. Then he turned to the fire again. The gray ash was

hiding the glow of the spent coals. Then he took up the glass once

more and looked earnestly at the contrasted flowers it held. He

replaced it almost tenderly, and walked slowly to his own room.

"Yes, I know _myself_," he said; "I think I know _her_. I'll hesitate

no longer; some fool may 'rush in.' To-morrow shall settle it. The

tough old Scotchman was right:

'He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,

That dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all!'"

VII.

That same afternoon, at two o'clock, Mr. Vanderbilt Morris's stylish

dog-cart, drawn by his high-spirited bays, drew up at Miss Rose Wood's

domicile. Holding the reins sat Mr. Andrew Browne, beaming as though

_Chambertin_ had never been pressed from the grape; seemingly as fresh

as though headache had never slipped with the rest out of Pandora's

box.

But it may have been only seemingly; for, faultlessly attired from

scarf-pin to glove tips, Andy was still a trifle more uneasy than the

dancing of his restless team might warrant in so noted a whip as he. A

queer expression swept over his handsome face from time to time; and,

as he came to a halt, he glanced furtively over his shoulder, as

though fearing something in pursuit.

"Ask Miss Rose if she will drive with me," he said hurriedly to the

servant. "Say I can't get down to come in; the horses are too fresh."

Then the off-horse danced a polka in space, responsive to deft

tickling with the whip.

Miss Wood did not stand upon ceremony, nor upon the order of her

going, but went at once to get her wraps.

"Better late than never," she said to herself, as she dived into a

drawer and upset her mouchoir case in search for a particular

handkerchief. "I really couldn't comprehend his absence and silence

all day--but, poor boy! he's _so_ young!" And then Miss Rose, as she

tied a becoming cardinal bow under her chin, hummed two bars of "The

Wedding March" through the pins in her mouth.

Two minutes later saw her seated on the high box beside her future

lord _in posse_; the bays plunging like mad and Andy swinging to the

reins as if for life. For, before she could speak one word--and for no

reason to her apparent--he had let the limber lash drop stingingly

across their backs.

Very keen was the winter wind that swept by her tingling ears; and

Miss Wood raised her seal-skin muff and hid her modest blushes from

it. For that gentle virgin had ever a familiar demon at her elbow. His

name was Experience; and now he whispered to her: "A red nose never

reflects sentiment!"

"And _he_ is so particular how one looks," Miss Rose whispered back to

the familiar; and her tip-tilted feature sought deeper protection in

the furs.

At length, when well off the paved streets, the mad rush of the brutes

cooled down to a swinging trot--ten miles an hour; Browne's tense arms

relaxed a trifle; and he drew a long, deep breath--whether of relief,

or anxiety, no listener could have guessed. But he kept his eyes still

rooted to that off-horse's right ear as though destiny herself sat

upon its tip.

Then, for the first time, he spoke; and he spoke with unpunctuated

rapidity, in a hard, mechanical tone, as though he were a bad model of

Edison's latest triumph, and some tyro hand was grinding at the

cylinder.

"Miss Rose," he began, "we are old friends--never so old; but I can

never sufficiently regret--last night!"

He felt, rather than saw, the muff come sharply down and the face turn

full to him; regardless now of the biting wind.

"No! don't interrupt me," he went on, straight at the off-horse's

right ear. "I _know_ your goodness of heart; _know_ how it pained you;

but you could have done nothing else but--_refuse me!_"

Miss Rose Wood's mouth opened quickly; but a providential gutter

jolted her nearly from the seat; and the wind drove her first word

back into her throat like a sob.

The inexorable machine beside her ground on relentless.

"Yes, I understand what you would say: that you refused me _firmly_

and _finally_ because I--_deserved it!_" Had Andy Browne's soul really

been the tin-foil of the phonograph, it could not have shown more

utter disregard of moral responsibility. "You knew I was under the

influence of wine; that I would never have dared to address you had I

been myself! I repeat, I deserve my--_decisive rejection!_ It was

proper and just in you to say '_No!_'"

Woman's will conquered for one brief second. Spite of wind and spite

of him, Miss Wood began:

"'_No?_' I--"

"Yes, '_no!_'" broke in the relentless machinery. It ground on

implacable, though great beads stood on Andy's brow from sheer terror

lest he run down before the end. "_No!_ as firmly, as emphatically as

you said it to me last night. Indeed, I honor you the more for flatly

refusing the man who, in forgetting his self-respect, forgot his

respect--_for you!_ But, Miss Rose, while I pledge you my honor never,

_never_ to speak to you again _of love_, I may still be--_your

friend!_"

The bays were bowling down the street again by this time; when another

_kismet_, in small and ugly canine form, flew at their heads with yelp

and snarl. Rearing with one impulse, the spirited pair lunged forward

and flew past the now twinkling lamps in a wild gallop. Andy pulled

them down at last; their swinging trot replacing the dangerous rush.

The Wood mansion was almost in sight; but the Ancient Mariner was a

tyro to Andy Browne in the way he fixed that off-horse's right ear

with stony stare.

He might have looked round in perfect safety. The lithe figure by him

sat gracefully erect. The face a trifle pale; the lips set tight

against each other, with the blood pressed out of them, were not

unnatural in that cutting wind. The eyes, fixed straight ahead, as his

own, gleamed gray and cold; only a half-closing of the lids, once or

twice, hiding an ugly light reflecting through them from the busy

brain behind. But Andy never turned once until he brought up the bays

stock still and leaped down to offer his hand to the lady at her own

door.

She took it, naturally; springing to the ground as lightly as any

_debutante_ of the season. Not one trace of annoyance, even, showed on

that best educated face.

"Andy, we _are_ old friends," she said, offering her hand frankly.

He took it mechanically, with a dazed soft of feeling that he must be

even a bigger fool than he felt himself.

"Real friends," Miss Wood went on, pleasantly, "and I'll prove it to

you now. _You_ have acted like a man of honor to me; _I_ will betray

one little confidence, and make two people happy!"

The man still stood dumb; and his eye furtively wandered to the pawing

off-horse, as if to take _his_ confidence as to what it meant. The

woman's next words came slowly, and she smiled; a strange smile the

lips alone made, but in which the glinting gray eyes took no share.

"For Van Morris is your best friend, after all. He will remember that

I told him, last night, 'One cannot be too careful'!"

She rose on tiptoe, whispered three words, and was gone before he

could frame one in reply.

Once more those ill-used bays got the whip fiercely; and they turned

the corner so short that Mr. Trotter Upton looked over his shoulder

with a grin, and remarked to the blaze-faced companion in his sulky

shafts:

"Nine hundred dollars' worth of horse risked with nine dollars' worth

of man! Van Morris better drive his own stock. G'long!"

VIII.

It was two o'clock when Mr. Andrew Browne had ridden forth to

recapture his plighted troth.

The shades of Christmas evening had now wrapped the city completely,

and the gilt clock upon his parlor mantel now pointed to six. Still he

had not returned; and still Van Morris's eagerness to test the issue

of his own tactics was too keen to let him leave their rooms. He had

even resisted the temptations of a gossip at the club, and was smoking

his fifth cigar--a thought-amused smile wreathing his lips--when the

chime of six startled him suddenly to his feet.

"How time flies!" he exclaimed. "And we are to dine at the Allmand's

at seven."

He tossed away his cigar, turned into his own apartment, and made an

unusually careful toilet. Then he looked into Browne's still vacant

room once more.

"Where _can_ he be?" he muttered. "By George! he must have bungled

fearfully if he did not pull through. He certainly had his lesson by

heart! But _she_ must not be kept waiting," and his face softened

greatly, and the deep, strong light came back into his eyes. "How

ceaselessly that old verse comes back to me! And now 'to put it to the

test' myself."

He turned to his escritoire, and took a small Russia case from the

drawer; then to the mantel, and carefully shook the dampness from the

two flowers he had placed there that morning. Putting case and flowers

carefully in his vest pocket, Van paused at the door, gave a long,

sweeping glance--with a sort of farewell in it--to the rooms; then

shut himself outside, still repeating _sotto voce_,

"He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small."

Metropolitan Christmas was abroad in the streets. Young and old,

grandsire and maiden, beggar and parvenu jostled one another on the

pavements. Rough men, laden with loosely-wrapped, brown-papered

packages, strode happily homeward; wan women skurried along leading

eager children from unwonted shopping for dainties; carriages rolled

by, with the gas-light glimpsing on occupants in evening dress, driven

Christmas dinnerward.

Van Morris recked little of all this, as he strode rapidly over the

very spot where his coolness had saved an ugly misadventure twelve

hours before. His brain was going faster than his body; one goal only

had he in view; one refrain ever sounded in his memory: "To gain, or

lose, it all!"

A quick turn of the corner, and he stood at the door he had quietly

escaped from during the ball. The servant replied to his inquiry that

Miss Blanche was in the library; and thither he turned, with the

freedom of long intimacy.

Only the warm glow of fire-light filled the room; there was a rustle,

as of a retreating silk dress. There was also a man's figure, backed

by the fire, with that not infrequent expression all over it that

tells he would really be at his ease if he only knew how.

"Why, Andy! And in your driving suit!"

"Van, dearest old boy," cried the other, irrelevantly, "congratulate

me! I'm the luckiest dog alive!"

"With all my heart," Van answered, shaking the proffered hand

heartily. "I was sure it would come out all right."

"You were?" Andy fairly beamed. "She said so!"

"What? _she_ said so? Did Rose Wood expect you to break off, then?"

"No, no! Not _that_. She said she knew you'd be glad of the match."

"Glad of--the match!" Van stared at his friend, with growing suspicion

in his mind.

"Yes, you dear old Van! I'm engaged, and just the happiest of--"

"_Engaged?_" and Van seized Andy by the shoulders with both hands.

"Yes, all fixed! And Rose Wood is just the dearest, best girl after

all! I'd never have known happiness but for her!"

Van Morris turned the speaker full to the firelight, and stared hard

in his face.

"I wouldn't have believed it, Andy," he said, contemptuously. "You

have come _here_ drunk again!"

"No, indeed! I have pledged my word to _her_ never to touch a drop!"

protested Andy, with imperturbable good nature. "And, Van, _she has

accepted me_."

"_She?_"

"Yes. Rose said, 'Morris has his heart set on the match;' I went

straight on that hint, and Blanche Allmand will be Mrs. Andrew Browne

next Easter."

Morris answered no word.

With a deep, hard breath, he turned abruptly, strode to the alcove

window, and peered through the curtains into the black night beyond. A

great surge of regret swept over him that shook the strong man with

pain pitiful to see. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass;

and the contrast, so strong, to the hope with which he had looked out

thus at the gray dawn, sickened him with its weight. There was a boom

in his ears, as of the distant surf; and his brain mechanically groped

after a lost refrain, finding only the fragment: "To lose it all!

_lose it all!_"

But heart-sickness, like sea-sickness, is never mortal, and it has the

inestimable call over the latter of being far less tenacious. And Van

Morris was mentally as healthy as he was physically sound. He made a

strong effort of a strong will; and turned to face his friend and

his--fate. In his hand he held a wilted camellia bud and a crushed

cactus flower.

Moving quickly to the fire, he tossed them on the glowing coals;

watching as they curled, shrivelled, and disappeared in the heat's

maw. Then he moved quietly to the window and looked into the night

once more.

Wholly wrapped up in his new-found joy, Andy Browne saw nothing odd in

his friend's manner or actions. He moved softly about the room, and

once more hummed, "_Il segreto per esser felice_;" very low and very

tenderly this time.

Suddenly the rustle of silk again sounded on Morris's ear.

He turned quickly, and looked long, but steadily, into the beautiful

face. It was very quiet and gentle; glorified by the deeper content in

the eyes and the modest flush upon the cheek. His face, too, was very

quiet; but it was pale and grave. His manner was gentle; but he

retained the little hand Blanche held out to him, in fingers that were

steadier than her own.

"I reminded you last night," he said, very gravely, "how long we had

been friends, Blanche. It is meet, then, that I should be the first to

wish you that perfect happiness which only a pure girl's heart may

know."

Then, without a pause, he turned to Andy, and placed the little Russia

case in his hand. As it opened, the eye of a dazzling solitaire

flashed from its satin pillow.

"Andy, old friend," he added, "Rose Wood told you only the truth. I

_had_ set my heart on Blanche's happiness; and only this morning I got

that for her engagement ring. Put it on her finger with the feeling

that Van Morris loves you both--better than a nature like Rose Wood's

can ever comprehend."

T. C. De Leon.

FROM THE WINDOWS OF A GREAT LIBRARY.

"The dead alive and busy."--Henry Vaughan.

Without, wind-lifted, lo! a little rose

(From the great Summer's heart its life-blood flows),

For some fond spirit to reach and kiss and bless,

Climbs to the casement, brings the joyous wraith

Of the sun's quick world, without, of joyousness

Into this still world of enchanted breath.

And, far away, behold the dust arise,

From streets white-hot, into the sunny skies!

The city murmurs: in the sunshine beats,

Through all its giant veins of throbbing streets,

The heart of Business, on whose sweltering brow

The dew shall sleep to-night (forgotten now).

There rush the many, toiling as but one;

There swarm the living myriads in the sun;

There all the mighty troubled day is loud

(Business, the god whose voice is of the crowd).

And, far above the sea-horizon blue,

Like sea-birds, sails are hovering into view.

There move the living; here the dead that move:

Within the book-world rests the noiseless lever

That moves the noisy, thronged world forever.

Below the living move, the dead above.

John James Piatt.

"GOING, GOING, GONE."

I.

"Take it to Rumble. He will give you twice as much on it as any other

pawnbroker."

The speaker was a seedy actor, and the person he addressed was also a

follower of the histrionic muses. The latter held before him an ulster

which he surveyed with a rueful countenance.

It was not the thought of having to go to the pawnbroker's that made

him rueful, for he would have parted with a watch, if he had possessed

one, with indifference; but the wind that whistled without and the

snow that beat against the window-pane made him shiver at the thought

of surrendering his ulster. However, he had to do it. Both he and his

friend were without money, and it was New Year's eve, which they did

not mean to let pass without a little jollification. Therefore they

had drawn lots to determine which should hypothecate his overcoat in

order to raise funds. The victim was preparing to go to the

sacrifice.

"Yes," continued his friend, "take it to Rumble. He is the Prince of

Pawnbrokers. Last week I took a set of gold shirt studs to him. He

asked me at what I valued them. I named a slightly larger sum than I

paid for them, and the old man gave me fully what they cost me."

"Let us go at once to Rumble's," said the other, seizing his hat, and

the two sallied forth into the night and the storm.

Down the street they went before the wind-driven snow. Fortunately

they did not have far to go.

When they opened the door of Rumble's shop, the old pawnbroker looked

up in surprise. The tempest seemed to have blown his visitors in. The

windows rattled; the lights flared; fantastic garments, made in the

style of by-gone centuries, swayed to and fro where they hung, as

though the shapes that might have worn them haunted the place; a set

of armor, that stood in one corner, clanked as though the spirit of

some dead paladin had entered it and was striving to stalk forth and

do battle with the demons of the storm; while the gust that had

occasioned all this commotion in the little shop went careering

through the rooms at the rear, causing papers to fly, doors to slam,

and a sweet voice to exclaim:

"Why, father, what is the matter?"

"Nothing, my dear, it is only the wind," answered the old man, as he

advanced to receive his visitors.

The one with whom he was acquainted nodded familiarly to the

pawnbroker, while he of the rueful countenance pulled off his ulster

and threw it on the counter, saying:

"How much will you give me on that?"

Rumble, who was a large man, rather fleshy and slow of movement,

started toward the back of the shop with a lazy roll, like a ship

under half sail. He made a tack around the end of the counter and hove

to behind it, opposite the men who had just come in. He pulled his

spectacles down from the top of his bald head, where they had been

resting, drew the coat toward him, looked at it for an instant, then

raised his eyes till they met those of his customer.

"How much do you think it is worth?" he said, uttering the words

slowly and casting a commiserating glance at the thinly-clad form of

the man before him.

"I paid twenty dollars for it," said the young man. "It is worth ten

dollars, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes!" returned the pawnbroker. "Shall I loan you ten dollars on

it?"

"If you please," answered his customer, whose face brightened when he

heard the pawnbroker's words. He had thought he might get five dollars

on the ulster. The prospect of getting ten made him feel like a man of

affluence.

The pawnbroker opened a book and began to fill the blanks in one of

the many printed slips it contained. One of the blanks he filled with

his customer's name, James Teague. That was his real name, not the one

by which he was known to the stage and to fame. That was far more

aristocratical.

As Rumble handed Teague the ticket and the ten dollars, he took a

stealthy survey of his slender and poorly-clad form, then glanced

toward the window on which great flakes of snow were constantly

beating, driven against it by the wind that howled fiendishly as it

went through the street, playing havoc with shutters and making the

swinging sign-boards creak uncannily.

"Mr. Dixon," said the pawnbroker, turning to Teague's companion, "will

not you and your friend wait awhile until the storm slackens? It is

pleasanter here by the fire than it is outside."

His visitors agreed with him and accepted his invitation. They seated

themselves beside the stove which stood in the center of the room,

and from which, through little plates of isinglass, shone cheerful

light from a bed of fiery coals. Both leaned back in their chairs;

both turned the palms of their hands toward the stove, to receive the

grateful heat; and when the old pawnbroker joined them, smiling

genially as he sank into his great arm-chair, which seemed to have

been made expressly for his capacious form, the same thought came to

both of his guests. To this thought Dixon gave expression.

"Mr. Rumble," he asked, "how happened it that you became a pawnbroker?"

"Well, I might say that it was by chance," replied Rumble. "I was not

bred to the business."

"I thought not," answered Dixon, as he and his friend exchanged

knowing glances.

"I was a weaver by trade," continued Rumble, "and until two years ago

worked at that calling in England, where I was born. But I made little

money at it, and when an aunt, at her death, left me five hundred

pounds, I decided to come to this country and go into a new

business."

"But what put it into your head to choose that of a pawnbroker?" asked

Dixon.

"Because everybody told me that larger profits were made in it than in

any other. You see I am getting on in years, and I have a daughter for

whom I must provide. When I die I want to leave her enough to make her

comfortable."

The street door was opened and for a moment the room was made

decidedly uncomfortable by a cold blast accompanied by driving snow.

Again the windows rattled, the armor clanked, and the hanging suits

swung and shook their armless sleeves in the air.

A tall, slight young man, clad in well-worn black clothes, stood by

the door. Although his beardless pale face was the face of youth, it

was not free from the marks of care, and in his large lustrous dark

eyes there was a yearning look that spoke, as plainly as words, of

desires unfulfilled.

Dixon and Teague exchanged glances which as much as said, "here's

another customer for the pawnbroker."

"Is Miss Rumble in?" said the newcomer in a hesitating manner, as he

turned toward the old pawnbroker.

"You wouldn't have her out on such a night, would you, Mr. Maxwell?"

said Rumble, laughing. "She is in the sitting-room," he added,

pointing to the rear; "go right in."

But Maxwell did not go right in. He knocked lightly at the door, which

in a moment was opened by a young woman, whose girlish face and

willowy figure presented a vision of loveliness to those in the outer

room.

As Maxwell disappeared in the sitting-room, Dixon and his friend again

exchanged glances which showed that they had changed their opinion in

regard to the newcomer's relations with the pawnbroker.

"Well," asked Teague, "have the profits in this business met your

expectations?"

"I have not been in it long enough to tell, for I have not had an

auction," replied Rumble. "In one respect, however, I have been

disappointed. Very few articles on which I have loaned money have been

redeemed. I don't understand it."

"Perhaps you are too liberal with your customers," said Dixon.

"You would not have me be mean with them, would you?" answered Rumble.

"Why, you know they must be in very straitened circumstances to come

to me. If I took advantage of people's poverty, I would expect that

after their death all the old women who have pawned their shawls with

me would send their ghosts back to haunt me."

"Well, I never thought of that," murmured Dixon. "If their ghosts do

come back what very lively times some pawnbrokers must have!"

"But if your customers do not redeem their goods, how do you expect to

get your money back?" asked Teague.

"From auctions," replied the pawnbroker.

"Oh!" was Teague's response.

"You should have a good auctioneer," said Dixon.

"The goods will bring a fair return," replied Rumble quietly.

Although it was apparent that the pawnbroker had begun to mistrust his

methods of doing business, it was also evident that he had great faith

in auctions. He had attended auctions in his time and had bid on

articles, only to see them go beyond the length of his modest purse.

Now, he said to himself, the auctioneer would be on his side. The

bidding would go up and up and up, and every bid would bring just so

much more money into his pocket. Altogether he was well satisfied.

The faces of his guests showed that they at once admired and pitied

the old man. They admired his generosity and his faith in human

nature, and wished that other pawnbrokers with whom they had dealt had

been like him; they pitied him, for they knew that he would have a

rude awakening from his dream when the hammer of the auctioneer

knocked down his goods and his hopes of getting back the money he had

loaned on them.

"It is time we were going," said Dixon, at last, as his eyes fell on a

tall hall clock that stood in a corner, quietly marking the flight of

time.

"Well, then let us go," answered Teague, as he cast a dismal look at

the windows, against which the snow was still driven in volleys by the

wind that howled as loudly as ever.

It was the pawnbroker's turn to pity his visitors.

"I am afraid you will take cold going from this warm room out into the

storm," he said to Teague. "Let me lend you an overcoat. You see I

have more here than I have any use for," he added jocosely.

"Oh, I could not think of letting you lend me one!" exclaimed Teague,

blushing probably for the first time in his life.

Dixon laughed quietly as he enjoyed his friend's confusion, while the

pawnbroker looked among his stock for a coat that would fit Teague.

Presently he advanced with one which he held out with both hands, as

he said:

"Let me help you put it on."

Teague protested.

"Why, you can bring it back to-morrow when you come this way," added

Rumble.

"But how do you know I will bring it back?" said Teague. "I am a

stranger to you."

"Oh, your friend is good surety for you," replied the pawnbroker. "He

is one of my few customers who have redeemed their pledges."

A thundering blast struck the house. The wind beat at the windows as

though it meant to smash them.

The sound of the tempest persuaded Teague to accept the pawnbroker's

offer. Without another word he caught the edge of either sleeve with

his fingers and put his arms out behind, while Rumble put the overcoat

on him. His arms, however, never found the ends of its capacious

sleeves. It was almost large enough for a man of twice Teague's size.

Dixon had a fit of laughter at his friend's expense, and even the

pawnbroker could not forbear a smile.

"It is rather large for you, isn't it?" said Rumble. "Let us try

another." And then he added: "Why, your own fits you best, of

course."

Then seizing Teague's ulster, which still lay on his counter, he threw

it over its owner's shoulders, and bade the two men a hearty

good-night as they went forth into the storm.

When he had succeeded in closing the door in the face of the tempest,

he turned the key in the lock, and then, with a shiver, returned to

the fire. As he stood before the stove he smiled and seemed to be

chuckling over the thought that he had made Teague wear his own coat.

His face wore a happy look. He had a clear conscience. He knew that he

was a philanthropist in a small way, and had helped many a poor soul

when the light of hope was burning dimly. But he took no credit to

himself for this. The opportunity of doing a little good had come in

his way, and he had not let it pass; that was all. Besides, as he

often said, he expected to make money in his business. He simply

conducted it on more liberal principles than most pawnbrokers. When he

went into it he was told that a large proportion of pawnbrokers'

customers never redeemed their pledges, and that by advancing on goods

pawned only a small percentage of their value, a great deal of money

was made in the sale of unredeemed articles. He thought, therefore,

that it was only just to loan on whatever was brought to him nearly as

much money as he deemed it would bring at auction. To do anything less

would, in his opinion, have been to cheat his customers. Besides, if

he loaned more money on goods, in proportion to their value, than

other pawnbrokers, his return in interest was also greater when the

goods were redeemed. This was the peculiar principle on which he did

business, and it is needless to say that he did a very large business,

much to the disgust of all other pawnbrokers having shops in his

neighborhood.

It was not strange, therefore, that, as he stood before the fire on

that New Year's eve, the face of old John Rumble wore a contented

smile. The knowledge of having done good brings content, if it brings

nothing else; and the pawnbroker knew that he had done well by his

customers, and he thought, also, that his customers had done well by

him, as he surveyed his full shelves.

While he stood there musing, the door of the sitting-room was opened

and his daughter appeared.

"Come, father," said the girl. "If you don't hurry you will not have

the punch ready by midnight."

The old man's face assumed an anxious expression, and he started with

a roll for the sitting-room.

Not to have the punch ready to drink in the New Year at the stroke of

midnight, would indeed be a calamity. He had never failed to welcome

the New Year with a brimming cup. His father had done so before him,

his daughter had done so with him, and he hoped his grandchildren

would do so after him.

"Bring the punch-bowl, Fanny," he said, as he went to a cupboard and

took out a big black bottle.

His daughter brought him an old-fashioned blue china bowl and hot

water, and while he made the punch, Maxwell told him of his plans for

the coming year, about which he had been talking with Fanny.

Arthur Maxwell, who was a civil-engineer, had been followed by

ill-fortune for some time. Indeed, he made Rumble's acquaintance in a

purely business way; but he called it good fortune that had led him to

the pawnbroker's door, for otherwise he would not have known Fanny.

And now fortune seemed really to smile on him. He had secured a

position with a railroad company, and was going to Colorado as an

assistant of its chief engineer, who had charge of the construction of

a railway there.

And then, hesitating, he told the old man that Fanny had promised to

be his wife as soon as he could provide a home for her.

The pleasure which Rumble had expressed, as Maxwell told of his good

fortune, was a little dashed by this last bit of information. Of

course he had expected that his daughter would leave him sometime, and

he had not been blind to the fact that Maxwell had gained a place in

her affections; nevertheless, he was not quite prepared for this news,

and it left a shadow on his kindly face.

"But, father," said Fanny, advancing quickly, and placing her arm

about his neck and her head on his shoulder, "Arthur and I hope that

we shall all be together. He may return to New York; but if we have a

home in the West you might live with us there."

It was a loving, tender look which Rumble gave his daughter as she

uttered these words.

At that moment the clock began to strike, horns were heard in the

street, bells were rung, and in a lull in the storm the musical notes

of a chime fell on their ears.

Rumble filled the cups, and then, raising his, he said:

"Here's to the New Year, and here's to your success, Arthur, and to

Fanny's happiness."

And while the clock was still striking, the three drank in the New

Year.

II.

That year, however, was not a fortunate one for Rumble. His little

fund had dwindled. He had, as he thought, barely enough to conduct his

business to the time when he could legally have an auction. But how

was he to do this and pay his rent? That problem troubled him. It was

finally solved by the consent of his landlord, in consideration of a

high rate of interest, to wait for his rent until Rumble had his

auction. When this arrangement was made, the pawnbroker, who had been

gloomy for some time, again wore a cheerful look. His daughter had

advised him to pay his rent and curtail his business for the time

being; but that, he said, would never do; and when he had tided over

the crisis in his affairs, he went on distributing his money among the

people who brought him their old clothes and their all but worthless

jewellery.

From time to time pawnbrokers called on him and tried to persuade him

that his method of doing business was a mistake; that it was not only

hurting their business, but was ruining himself. Rumble was not

convinced. If his way of doing business took from the profits of other

pawnbrokers, they were only meeting with justice, he said; they had

made money enough out of the poor; he meant to treat his customers

better. He admitted that he might not get his money back from some of

his investments, but then the auction would make it all right; what he

lost in one way he would get back in another. He looked to the auction

as to a sort of Day of Judgment, when there would be a grand evening

of accounts.

At last the great day came--the day of the auction. Rumble was full of

the importance of the event, and had donned his best clothes in honor

of the occasion. He had advertised the auction in several newspapers,

and he expected a large attendance. He was somewhat disappointed when,

a little while before the time set for the sale, it began to rain; but

he hoped for the best.

When the auctioneer rapped on his desk and announced that he was about

to open the sale, there were not more than a dozen people in the room.

Among them Rumble recognized several pawnbrokers, and the others

looked as though they might belong to the same guild. He wondered why

they were there. Had they come to bid--to bid at his auction, on goods

on which he had loaned more money than they would have loaned? He did

not understand it.

When the sale began Rumble took a seat near the auctioneer and

watched the proceedings. He soon understood why the pawnbrokers were

there. The prices obtained were absurdly small. There was very little

competition, and the sale had not gone far before it dawned on

Rumble's mind that the pawnbrokers had a tacit understanding that they

would not bid against one another, but would divide the stock among

them.

The poor old man's heart sank, and great beads of perspiration

appeared on his brow, as lot after lot went for almost nothing. All

his worldly possessions were melting away before his eyes, and he had

not the power to put out his hand and save them. Was he dreaming? No,

for he could hear the auctioneer's voice, loud and clear, crying:

"Going--going--gone!"

He turned his head and saw his daughter standing in the sitting-room,

near the open doorway, with her eyes fixed upon him. Her face was

white, white as the 'kerchief about her neck. She understood it all.

Yes, it was all too real.

"Going--going--gone!"

Again those terrible words rang like a knell in his ears, and every

time he heard them he knew that he was a poorer man; he knew that more

of his little stock had gone at a sacrifice.

At last he scarcely heeded the words of the auctioneer, but sat

staring before him like one spell-bound. The buzz of conversation

about him seemed like a sound coming from afar, like the roll of waves

on the seashore; and through it all, at intervals, like the faint note

of a bell warning seamen of danger, came those words telling of his

own wreck:

"Going--going--gone!"

When the auction was over Fanny went to her father's side. He was

apparently dazed. She helped him to rise. He leaned heavily upon her

as she led him into the sitting-room, where he sank back into a chair,

and did not utter a word for a long time. At last, when he found

voice, he said:

"Going--going--gone! It's all gone, Fanny, all gone! We are ruined!"

The sale on which Rumble had built so many hopes, realized but little

more than enough to pay the rent he owed. He did not have money enough

to continue his business, and a few days after the auction his

pawnshop was closed.

In the meantime, to add to their distress, Fanny had received a letter

from Arthur Maxwell, informing her that the railroad company with

which he had found employment had failed, owing him several hundred

dollars--all his savings. He wrote that there was a prospect that a

labor-saving invention of his would be put in use in one of the mines.

This was the only gleam of hope in the letter. Fanny answered it,

giving Arthur an account of the misfortune which had befallen her

father. Although she gave him the number of the new lodging into which

they moved when her father's shop was closed, she received no reply.

She had hoped soon to have some cheering word from him, but none came.

She could not understand his silence. This, in addition to her other

troubles, seemed more than she could bear.

Since the auction Rumble had not been a well man. His nerves at that

time had received a shock from which he had not recovered.

Between nursing her father, and earning what little she could by

sewing, Fanny had a hard time. The pittance she got for her work did

not go far toward meeting their expenses. Rumble had given up his shop

in the early autumn, and the little money he had saved from the wreck

had disappeared when winter set in. At last it became necessary to

pawn some of their household goods. Fanny would not let her father go

the pawnbroker's, but went herself. When she returned, and showed him

the little money she had obtained on the articles she had pledged, he

said:

"Why, I would have given twice as much."

"Yes, father," answered Fanny, "but all pawnbrokers are not like

you."

"No, no," muttered the old man. "If they were they would be poor like

me."

Although Rumble was not able to work, he was always talking of what he

would do when he felt a little stronger. He worried continually

because he was dependent upon his daughter, and every time she went to

the pawnbroker's he had a fit of melancholy.

At last, just before Christmas, he became seriously ill. The doctor,

whom Fanny called in, said he had brain fever, and gave her little

hope of his recovery. His mind wandered, and seemed to go back to the

auction, of which he spoke almost constantly. Many times he repeated

the words of the auctioneer, that had made such a deep impression on

him: "Going--going--gone!"

It was a gloomy Christmas for Fanny, and when New Year's eve came she

was still watching by the bedside of her father, whose fever had

reached its crisis.

Her thoughts went back to another New Year's eve, when Arthur Maxwell

had told her of his plans for the future. And it had been so long

since she had heard from him!

She had to get some medicine which the doctor had ordered, and while

her father slept, asking an acquaintance who lodged on the same floor

to watch over him, she went out, taking with her a gold locket which

she meant to pawn.

Although she knew that a pawnbroker had opened a shop where her father

had kept his, she had never gone to it. But something seemed to lead

her there that evening. When she reached the place her heart almost

failed her; but, summoning courage, she entered the shop, and

presented the locket to the pawnbroker. While he was examining it two

men entered. The pawnbroker's clerk waited on them. She seemed to feel

their eyes on her.

When she gave the pawnbroker her name, he said:

"Rumble? Frances Rumble? Why, a young man was here to-day inquiring

for Mr. Rumble, and some time ago the carrier brought two letters here

for you. I could not tell him where you lived, and he took them

away."

Fanny's heart beat wildly. She was sure that the letters were from

Arthur, and that it was he who had inquired for her father.

"Is this Miss Rumble?" said one of the men who had followed her into

the shop.

She turned and recognized Dixon. The person with him was Teague. Dixon

had just pawned a watch, and had remarked that he wished Rumble still

kept the shop.

When Fanny told them of her father's illness and of his misfortune,

Dixon and Teague insisted on going home with her, meaning to lend

assistance in some way.

When they reached Fanny's humble lodging, and followed her into her

father's room, they found Maxwell at Rumble's bedside.

A cry of joy escaped Fanny as her lover folded her in his arms. She

soon learned from him that he had never received the letter in which

she wrote him about her father's trouble and their removal from the

old shop. It had missed him while he was moving about in the West. And

then he told her of the success of his invention.

Rumble, whose mind was lucid for the moment, said:

"You will be happy at last, Fanny. Arthur has come for you."

"And you, too, will be happy with us, father," replied Fanny, taking

his hands in hers.

The old man smiled faintly, and rolled his head to and fro on his

pillow, as if he thought differently.

The clock began to strike; it was midnight, and the New Year was at

hand. The sound of bells came to their ears, and a distant chime was

heard.

Rumble's mind once more began to wander; again he talked about the

auction; again he muttered the words that had troubled him so much:

"Going--going--gone!"

They were his last words. The old man's life went out with the old

year.

Albert Roland Haven.

THE ROOT OF THE SPOILS SYSTEM.

What is known as the spoils system of politics, in a measure common to

all times and all forms of government, seems to have reached its

highest development in our Republic. This fact justifies the suspicion

that something in our form of administration is favorable to such

development; and whether we regard the spoils system as praiseworthy

or reprehensible, it will be instructive to inquire why it has

prevailed in this country as among no other free people.

Most persons who deplore the spoils system urge as one of its greatest

evils that it substitutes for the discussion of principles a mere

scramble for office; that it teaches men to value the material prizes

incident to government above political truth. Such reasoners have

strangely mistaken cause for effect. The rarity of ideas in our

political discussions is not an effect, but the immediate cause of the

spoils system; and behind both, as the direct cause of the latter and

the remote cause of the former, lies the difficulty of expressing the

popular will in legislative enactment. In other words, we have

substituted the pursuit of place for the discussion of principles,

because the relations of the people to the law-making body are not

sufficiently close.

No reader of this periodical needs to be reminded that when our

present constitution was written the mass of freemen had not, as now,

come to believe that a constitutional government should include a

legislature promptly obedient to the popular will; a ministry

dependent upon the support of a majority in the popular branch of the

law-making body; and an executive powerless to interfere in

legislation. It was natural, then, that our forefathers, imperfectly

acquainted with this modern device of free peoples, should have

believed that they had secured the prompt and certain efficacy of the

popular will in government by placing no restriction as to national

elections upon the wide suffrage already prevailing in most of the

States, and providing that the chief magistrate and both branches of

the national legislature should be elective and chosen for short

terms. They could not foresee that in course of time a constitutional

monarch would come to have less power than the executive head of the

Republic; that an hereditary House of Lords less often than an

elective Senate would dare to cross the will of the popular

legislative body; that the popular branch of the legislature in a

constitutional monarchy would, in effect, change at will the

administrative head of the government, while in the new Republic

premiers would retain power despite the adverse verdict of the people

as expressed in legislative majorities; and, finally, that the

enfranchised portion of a people dwelling under a constitutional

monarchy would determine at the ballot-box every great question

arising in their politics, and drive from power all men who should

dissent from the popular decision, while the whole people of the

Republic might be balked not only of their will in matters upon which

they had distinctly made up their minds, but even of bringing

questions thus potentially decided to the practical test of the

ballot-box, and of introducing other important issues into the realm

of popular discussion.

The difficulty of procuring from the people of the United States an

unequivocal decision upon any political question, and of expressing

that decision in legislative enactment, is familiar to every student

of our history. The questions that occupy Congress now are in large

part the same that were debated there forty years ago, save that the

issue of slavery and the extreme States' rights theory have

disappeared. But even in these cases the exceptions prove the rule;

for it is grimly significant of our legislative immobility that the

two great questions of a century should finally have been settled by

the sword. If the people declared for anything at the general election

of 1884, they may be supposed to have declared for a revision of the

tariff, since the platform of principles adopted by each great party

at its National Convention affirmed the necessity of such revision;

yet Congress not only failed to legislate for that object, but

actually at one time refused to discuss a measure designed to meet the

issue in question, and at another stopped in the midst of such

legislation to test the popular will upon the very same matter.

Furthermore, while it will be assumed by most persons that whatever

the significance of the election four years ago, the contest just

ended sets the seal of disapproval upon the recent effort of the House

of Representatives to revise the tariff; yet we hear already that the

LI. Congress can hardly escape some such legislation as has just been

attempted. The truth is, that the election of 1884, as all our

elections, was in the main a struggle for spoils. The question at

issue was not tariff revision or any other great economic idea, but

which party should administer during the next four years the great

patronage of the Federal Government. In the contest of November last

the people for the first time in twenty years had a living issue

presented, but so unused were they to the discussion of economic

principles that it may be questioned whether the verdict just

delivered with so much apparent emphasis was really the expression of

a well-ascertained public opinion. It is worthy of note, too, that

believers in the spoils system of politics are already taunting the

vanquished with the folly of presenting a political idea to the

American people, and prophesying a more rigid exclusion of principles

from politics in all time to come.

Such difficulties have beset us throughout all our history. Let men

wince as they would under galling injustice and false economics, they

could not work their will upon the body whose duty it is to express in

legislation the political desires of the people. A mocking fate seemed

to balk the accomplishment of our most earnest purposes, and men whose

interests were adverse to the public good constantly took it upon

themselves to declare that the people had not spoken upon whatever

vital question was uppermost, or that their words had meant something

other than they seemed to mean. The result of all this was what we

see. A self-governing people must have some sort of political

activity, and since it was early discovered that the discussion of

principles was little better than a vain occupation, the pursuit of

place soon became almost the sole object of political organization. If

it was almost impossible to carry a question from the stage of popular

discussion to that of legislative enactment, it was a very simple

matter to elect presidents and congressmen who should see to a proper

distribution of places. Since men could not accomplish the rational

object of political endeavor, they strove for what was easily

attainable. If they could not make the laws they could at least fill

the offices. Then came the easy descent to Avernus. Politics having

become a mere struggle for place, public affairs were left more and

more in the hands of men who found such work congenial, and the mass

of the people, to whom the hope of office is but a shadowy illusion,

became less and less interested in a struggle that held for most

voters neither the promise of gain nor the incentive of high purpose.

The spoils system having thus been established, the causes that bred

it were in their turn intensified by its reaction, and the evil round

was complete. To make matters worse, the struggle for wealth,

stimulated by the marvellous richness of a part of the country,

claimed the attention of thousands to the exclusion of politics, and

those who would naturally have led in affairs of State adopted the

evil philosophy that it is cheaper to be robbed by professional

politicians than to neglect private business for the sake of public

duty.

Having sought thus to trace the steps by which our form of administration

has begotten the spoils system, let us endeavor to prove the conclusion

by another process of reasoning. Were our government a parliamentary

system, such as exists among the free peoples of the Old World, we

should have a legislature promptly responsive to movements of the popular

will, a ministry sitting in one or the other house of Congress, and

dependent for continuance in power upon the support of a majority in the

Lower House, and an executive disarmed in whole or in part of the power

to negative legislative enactments. The result would be to concentrate

interest not as now upon the election of a president whose chief

function is to distribute places, and whose part in legislation is

almost purely negative, but upon the choice of the legislative body whose

majority should determine the political complexion of the president's

advisers and the general policy of the administration. At each general

election for members of the Lower House the issue would be some

well-defined question then under hot discussion, and in most instances

Congress would have been dissolved for the express purpose of taking the

sense of the people upon the matter at issue. Public interest in

political discussion would return, because great principles, such as

have an important bearing upon the lives of all men, would be under

debate, and the mass of voters would have such an incentive to activity

as the shadowy hope of place could never furnish. The knowledge that

the popular will would find prompt expression through the law-making

power would render it impossible for the people to be turned from their

purpose by the jugglery of place-hunters.

With a whole people interested in political discussion no conceivable

abuse of patronage could balk them of their will, and the spoils

system would disappear because the factitious importance of

office-holders and office-seekers, favored by the defects of our

present form of administration, could no longer obscure the vastly

greater question of the public weal. This change in the popular

attitude toward politics would be sufficient of itself to seal the

doom of the spoils system; but if other influences were needed they

would be found in the new relations of the ministry to the legislature

and the people, since a cabinet bound to take the initiative in great

lines of policy and required to give an account of itself to a hostile

minority in Congress would have little time and less stomach for the

nice apportionment of political rewards to partizan deserts. Finally,

should we adopt the principle of a ministry dependent upon the support

of a majority in the Lower House, the possibility of two changes of

administration within a single year would make the spoils system, as

we now have it, unendurable and unworkable. Indeed, it may be

questioned whether a rigid application of the spoils system by the

administration coming into office in March 1889 would not place the

evils of that system in a peculiarly glaring light, when it is

remembered that a very large number of those who would be asked to

make places for party workers unversed in the routine of public office

have exercised their official functions for barely four years, and but

recently acquired the skill so necessary to the efficient transaction

of business.

The attentive reader will have noted that it has been argued, first

that the spoils system is the natural and inevitable outcome of the

rigidity that seems unseparable from our form of administration; and

second, that such a system, in its grossest development, is almost

impossible under a parliamentary government. The latter line of

argument has been taken less for its own sake than for the purpose of

strengthening the conclusions reached by the former; and the writer

would not be understood as insisting that to eliminate the spoils

system we must adopt exactly such a parliamentary form as now exists

among the free peoples of Europe. Any system that should make it easy

to ascertain the popular will, and should insure the prompt and

certain expression of that will in legislation, would accomplish the

object of substituting principles for spoils in our politics. To

suggest a plausible plan for grafting upon our system this far more

democratic scheme of administration would be a stupendous work,

calling for the highest exercise of trained political sagacity; but it

is not difficult to indicate some of the things that need not be done.

It is not necessary that the president should be reduced to any such

mere figure-head as is the monarch in the half-dozen parliamentary

governments of Europe. Perhaps the principle of a ministry sitting in

the houses of Congress might be omitted; and it is not clear that the

president's veto would have to be altogether sacrificed. It is not

positive, indeed, that a formal amendment of the constitution would be

necessary to obtain the essentials of the reform under consideration.

We have amended the spirit of the constitution in one highly important

feature without changing the letter of that instrument. Perhaps the

nearest way to the object in view lies through a more intimate

relation between the cabinet and the committees of the Lower House.

Finally, the consideration presents itself that if the conclusions

reached here are correct, those persons who have sought by statutory

restriction and appeals to public conscience to abolish the spoils

system have not employed the wholesome policy of attacking the evil at

its source. They seem to be mowing rather than uprooting the weeds.

Doubtless our political garden has been tidied, but the roots of the

evil growth and the aptitudes of the soil remain. The reform system,

as applied to the great body of minor clerical offices, will probably

prevail from now on; but we can scarcely hope that the broad spirit of

civil service reform can reign in this land until the people shall

have made themselves immediate masters of the legislative power.

Edward V. Vallandigham.

UNCLE SCIPIO.

Once more the wizard of the Christmas-time lifts his wand in our

homes, brightening young eyes that look forward, dimming old ones that

look backward. Thou hast prisms of hope for the young; prisms of tears

for the old, but shining always in our souls with a light all thine

own. We hail thee, lovely spirit of this matchless festival!

Would that words could paint to you a picture which I carry in my

heart! I see it through a light brilliant, yet tender, that Christmas

morning long ago in the old Georgia home. Those were dark days of war

which I remember, and the shadow of death had already fallen on our

house: but there was one day in the year when we did not feel its

chill. What shadows can withstand the light of the Christmas fire in

the heart of a child?

We had grown to be pretty thorough Bohemians, my little brother and

I, in those war days, and were ready to take any stray bit of sport,

asking no questions whatever for conscience' sake. But the outlook was

rather bad for us, one dreary December. The holidays were very near,

and we saw no preparations for rendering the big dining-room royal

with holly and cedar, as usual, for King Cole's reception. We had

already ceased to press our grievances in the "big house," for we

felt, through a child's instinct, that we were standing in the

presence of griefs greater than our own.

We began to fear that Santa Claus had been killed in the war, or

that maybe he would not care to come to us now since the fire had

grown so small in the huge fire-place, where it used to roar and flash

around the back-log, until the polished floor was flooded in light,

and the candelabra's lights shone cold and pale as stars through a

conflagration. Even the crimson rugs and hangings, that used to

brighten up the dark old floor and furniture, had disappeared, one

by one, to be transformed into haversacks and warm garments for our

poor boys at the front, whose hearts were stouter and courage more

lasting than their regimentals. And so, we thought, poor little

infants! that perhaps our deity would desert the altars on which the

fires burned so low, and would go, with all his wonderful store, to

the happy children away in the North. There, we were told, the cities

blazed with light and merriment for weeks before his coming; there the

snow sometimes fell whole days at a time, until it lay like a white

carpet along the streets, where children could walk without fear,

and which never echoed to the tramp of foes; for there the heavy

booming cannon never sounded to drown the chiming bells, and

blanch the children's laughing lips with terror. Why, we argued,

should he not go there instead of driving his reindeer across

bloody fields and deserted highways, to bring gifts to two poor

little children? Truly we would have been comfortless in that sad

time but for one old standby, who had never yet failed us. Dear old

Uncle Scipio--his ebony face shines in the light of memory as it

used to shine in the light of the kitchen fire. To him we turned in

our trouble. We did not know all his worth then, but we knew him for

the sympathizer in all our childish griefs. Oh, those preposterous

old stories he used to tell us! but they could raise the sheeted dead

then in every corner of the old kitchen, as we sat in awed silence

on his knee, and watched the supper fire die out.

And not to us only, was Uncle Scipio the stay and comfort in those

dark days, but to our mother also. He had been the guardian,

playmate, and tyrant of two eager boys, my brothers, through infancy,

and through the sunny college days, when, with the school boy's

profanation of the classics, they had stumbled on the story of his

great prototype, and laughingly called him "Scipio Africanus." Through

tear-dimmed spectacles he watched them march away, two boy soldiers,

with no premonition of misfortune on their faces, and minds full of

great Shakespearian thoughts of "all the pomp and circumstance of

glorious war." And last of all, he stood by my father's stirrup when

he mounted to ride on his last journey, and took his final orders

concerning us.

About this time, I remember, there was quite a disturbance among the

negroes; some were for following in the wake of the first Union troops

that should pass, as the only sure means of gaining their promised

freedom. These, we knew, had been trying to persuade Uncle Scipio to

join them. To us this was a thing too preposterous to think of; but I

think that mother and grandmother really had some doubts on the

subject. So one day the latter asked him what he should do if the

opportunity should be offered him to go. I was balancing on the

rockers of her chair at the time, and I shall never forget the look he

gave her in reply.

"I can't go, ole missus," he said, shaking his gray head, as he rose

from emptying an armful of lightwood knots into the wood box, and

dusted the splinters from his sleeve. "I can't go, nohow, and leave

young missus and de chillun in dese yere times. Mars Ben he done die,

and lef' me to take care o' dese yere darlins o' hisen, and no kind o'

proclamation, dis side de Jordan o' def, gwine to free ole Scipio from

dat charge."

"But don't you want to be free if the rest are?"

"Yes, ole missus, but ef de Lord mean to bring freedom to dis ole

nigger, he kin fin' him here. Ef He mean to fetch our people dry shod

tru dis Red Sea o' blood, outen de house o' bondage, den when I hears

de soun' o' dem timbrels, and de dancin', an' de shoutin', I praise

Him too; but I don't tink He gwine to be angry kase one ole man love

his home so much 'til he got to stay behind and weep wid dem in de

house where de eldest born am slain."

And faithfully he kept his promise to the slain. But see! I began to

tell you the story of that memorable Christmas-time, and am letting

the shadows of the intervening years crowd between me and the

Yule-log. Avaunt! ye ghosts of bitter days of want, of hatred and

contention; the spirit of peace and good-will exorcise ye from the

hearth of Christmas memories!

I was going to tell you how Uncle Scipio undertook to save us from

despair in that terrible time.

We, the much abused community of infants, had submitted with

tolerable fortitude to taking our rye substitute for coffee,

sweetened with sorghum, and similar hardships; but now, as the

holidays approached, and we saw no signs of festivity, we began to

feel great apprehensions.

We resolved to confide our fears to Scipio.

"Do you think," I asked him one evening, as we sat in our usual

evening attitudes before the fire, "that old 'Santy' will forget us

this year because it is so cold and dark, and because everybody is so

sad, and?--"

Here my griefs overcame utterance: I could say no more.

"Now, Lawd o' messy!" cried the dear old creature, taking a closer

look at my tearful face. "What dat yer sayin', chile? Ole Santy Claus

forgit yer, honey? What make yer tink he gwine to forgit yer? Well,

well! You's a funny little chile, sho'--yer makes me laugh 'til I

cries; sho' yer do."

I noticed that he did take off his "specs" and wipe them with his

yellow bandana, but I didn't see anything to laugh at. He gazed sadly

enough, I thought, into the embers for awhile, and smoothed my hair in

a thoughtful way. Then an inspiration seized him; he saw his way

through the dilemma. He straightened himself in his chair, and

readjusted his glittering ornaments across his nose. He assumed the

air which all the country 'round knew as the precursor of something

oracular, for he was "not 'zactly a preacher, no sah! but sort of a

'zorter 'mongst de breren."

"Now, my dear little chillun," he began, "I dunno who tuk an' turned

in an' put dat funny notion in yer heads 'bout ole Santa Claus

forgitten yer, but pay 'tickler extension to what I'se gwine to say to

yer. You mustn't go to kalklatin' on none o' dem high-falutin' tings

what he used to fotch here fo' de wah sot in, fur de times is mighty

hard, and de ole feller'll have to run de blockade to git yere

t'all--sho' he will. But ef you sez you'll be powerful good til' dat

time, an' don't go to pesterin' yer ma 'bout it, I'll promise yer dat

he aint gwine to forgit yer altogedder."

This was surely consolation; but it required all our faith in Uncle

Scipio to keep our courage alive until the great day. It drew near and

nearer, and still we saw no unusual stir in the house, and our hearts

began to sink a little. At last it wanted but one day, and I shall

never forget that Christmas eve.

Uncle Scipio was very much preoccupied, and could not be disturbed by

any means, that day; so we betook ourselves to the society of our

elders. But there matters were worse. There was little of privation

and bad news that we had not become pretty familiar with by this time,

and war, I remember, seemed to me the normal condition of things. But

it soon became clear to me that something a little worse than usual

was apprehended that day.

There were whispered conversations going on above our heads, but we

caught enough of it to know that a piece of terrible news had arrived.

A party of refugees had passed through our town in the early morning.

They were a company of fragile women and children, with a few faithful

negroes, fleeing from their homes as from a pestilence. They told us

that a large company of Yankees had made their appearance a few miles

above us, and if they followed the most direct route to the railroad,

would, in all probability, reach us that night or the following day.

Our little town being on the line of the railroad, rarely escaped the

military visitations. Besides, it was at this time the depository of a

great deal of cotton, which it was feared might be the occasion of its

being burned.

I have heard mother say that this day before Christmas there were just

three able-bodied men in the town--the hospital doctor, the miller,

and the conscript officer; not a very formidable defence against a

hostile invasion. But I suppose those two lonely women, my mother and

grandmother, must have looked for help in this extremity, towards the

everlasting hills where the twelve legions of angels lay encamped, for

they bore their anxiety like Spartans.

The day dragged through, however, and the last sun rays showed us no

blue coats on the western road towards which aching eyes had turned

through the heavy hours. Things began to look a little more hopeful.

We began to feel that reaction from anxiety which is almost sure to

come when the candles are lighted.

We sat close together in the sitting-room, and took our very frugal

supper there in quite a hysterical sort of cheerfulness.

The day had passed without disaster, and we had been told that in case

the "Yankees" should make their appearance during the night, and our

garrison of three be obliged to evacuate the town, the village

church-bell would be rung to apprize the citizens of the situation.

No, we felt sure the enemy _could_ not come on Christmas eve. We even

ventured to hang up our stockings in the accustomed place.

We knelt, my brother and I, by dear old grandmother's knee, and said

our prayers to Him who, she told us, knew what it was to spend His

first Christmas days here under the shadow of the sword, and would not

that one of His little ones should perish. Then tossed by hope and

fear, we slept.

It was a notable fact, but one which escaped comment in the general

anxiety of that night, that Uncle Scipio had not appeared as usual,

after his out-of-door tasks were finished. It had gone pretty hard

with us all not to be able to confide everything to this faithful old

friend; but the strictest injunctions had been laid upon us to keep

the whole matter a secret from the negroes, for many reasons. So he

knew nothing, and went about his tasks all day, singing his most

dirge-like tunes, which meant some pleasant preoccupation of mind. We

had learned that. We knew soon after what it was that occupied his

heart and head that day.

I do not know how long we had slept in our trundle bed, but I know I

had travelled in my dreams over many leagues of fairy land, walking

under endless avenues of lighted Christmas trees, when suddenly, I

thought, from some unseen source, the deep tones of a bell struck

discord on the radiant air. It seemed so out of place in that

enchanted region; and at the sound all the lights on the trees

flickered and went out, and we were lost in the dark. Louder and

nearer the bell still sounded; and then we awoke and our hearts stood

still with terror.

We knew it was the village church-bell, proclaiming its story to the

sleeping town. The enemy were upon us, and our Christmas fires would

be the light of blazing homes. Oh, such awakening after such dreams!

So eloquent was every face, of horrible certainty, that scarcely a

word was spoken. It was only about midnight, but I was dressed by

trembling hands--mother had not been undressed at all. And then we

waited--for what? We could not have told precisely. But after a little

the bell ceased to ring, and then we listened for the tramp of horses

and the quick Northern voices speaking words of command to the men. We

had heard it before, and knew the sound well. Once before I had

awakened from sleep and seen the distorted shadows of horsemen chase

one another across the strip of moonlight just over my bed, and looked

from my window to see the moonlight glittering on the sabres and gun

barrels of an armed host surrounding our house. That is not a sight to

be forgotten, let me tell you, children who are born and reared in the

lap of peace and plenty.

For quite a while--it seemed ages to me--we sat in silence looking at

one another. But though the lights twinkled in all the neighboring

windows, telling of other anxious watchers, no unusual sound disturbed

the air.

What could it mean? Surprise began to succeed to alarm. It occurred to

some one to call up Uncle Scipio, and get him to investigate. But it

was wonder on top of wonder--he was not to be found; neither had his

bed been disturbed during the night. Had he deserted us and gone over

to the enemy, then? No, we could not really doubt him, even yet; but

his absence was too significant; there must be some plot hatching

somewhere in the dark.

There was nothing for us to do but wait. But we had not to wait much

longer; for presently in walked the absentee, clothed in his most

majestic air, but a little non-plussed to see us all up and dressed.

"Oh, Scipio! where have you been?" we exclaimed indignantly. "How

could you leave us at such a time and the town full of soldiers? Which

way are they coming? What shall we do?"

"Well, I clar," he answered, in a bewildered sort of way, "dis yere

proceedin' clean tops my cotton! Is you all clar outen yer minds, or

what's de matter wid yer? I aint seed nary a Yankee dis night, and I

jes bin way up to de Mef'dis chache, ringing de Christmas chimes fur

to cheer you up a little. Did'n ole Scip tell you, honeys, dat dis was

gwine to be de boss Christmas? And he done kep his word. I met ole

Santy out yonder, sittin' on de pump and he sez he's comin' here

soon's iver he kin; so you better git to bed 'mejitly, ef not sooner;

ef you don't he'll be here and ketch you 'Christmas gif' fust, sho' he

will."

And so this was the end of it all. The dear old soul had taken it into

his funny old head to give us a surprise and ring the Christmas chimes

as in the old times.

Well, we tried to soften the blow, when we told him what a blunder he

had made; but we knew it would be a long time ere he would recover

from his chagrin. He had long been a terror to the idle young darkies

about town, and they were only too glad to get something to use

against him. Of course there was general indignation among the

citizens when they learned that they had suffered a false alarm; but

when they considered the beautiful motive that prompted the action,

the tide of reproach was turned aside, and it all ended in a general

laugh at Uncle Scipio's expense.

It still wanted several hours till day, when our fears were relieved

by his appearance, and we went to bed again.

With the first streak of light, however, we were up with bare feet and

frowzy heads to find Uncle Scipio's promise had not failed us. The

Christmas saint had been upon our hearthstone and left his footprints

there. The stockings were as fantastically distended as ever in the

palmiest times.

I suppose the children of the present day would not covet the

wonderful objects that we hauled forth from heel and toe. Yet I have

spent many Christmas holidays amid the gayeties of the metropolis

since then, and its richest gifts wax poor when I remember that

morning. What did it matter to us that both toys and confections bore

the stamp of home manufacture--little wooden dolls, like Chinese

deities, carved out of wood by Uncle Scipio's jack knife--strange

people baked in sweet bread with coffee grains for eyes? What did it

matter that the war cloud hovered around us; that to-morrow might

renew the scenes of yesterday? We were happy in our treasures. We

know, now, what the charm was that made them precious, for we know

that

"The painted vellum hallows not the prayer,

Nor ivory and gold the crucifix."

Ah! that will ever be the day of days to me. And with it are enshrined

in fadeless green, the names of many whose eyes have long been closed

upon the wars and joys of this earth. Not the least dear among these

will ever be old Scipio, who loved us better than his own freedom; who

stood by us in the day of trial, and was faithful till death to the

charge of a master who could never return to take account of his

stewardship.

He was grandiloquent, insisted on spectacles, though he generally read

the hymns upside down; wore a collar on Sundays that would put our

modern dudes to naught; but he was a prophet, for all that, and saw

farther than most men into the future.

We trust he has honor now in his own country; while in our hearts his

memory will yearly ring the chimes of Christmas bells.

Celine McCay.

THE RESULT.

(November 6th, 1888.)

We have no longer Uncle Sam,

Nor yet our Yankee-doodle;

The first is but an Uncle Sham,

The last is Yankee-boodle.

James McCarroll.

SILK CULTURE.

"There are so many persons thirsting for information," I says to Mrs.

Wrigglesniff, "let's tell them all about it." It was always my way to

stir in something useful with what was agreeable; and here was an

opportunity, while pursuing an avocation that was at once pleasant and

lucrative, to bring forward at the same time, an illustration of those

great economic and philosophic principles, that lie at the foundation

of all government and are the ground-work of the social fabric. The

tariff, although an intricate subject, I felt was one that could be

elucidated by simple exemplification in practical life; and so I

opened up to her one day, by remarking upon the great importance of

fostering our "infant industries." That most efficient mother was

nursing the baby at the time. The baby was four weeks old, weighed

sixteen pounds, and could partake of more nourishment at nature's

fountain, than any two ordinary pair of twins.

"Infant industry! here's one now," observed Mrs. W., gazing with

maternal fondness upon the lusty native American in her lap, who was

tugging away with a zeal quite amazing.

You should first understand, however, that Mrs. W. is a superior woman

"as has got intellect into her," as her uncle John Fetherly Brown was

wont to say. Her father's second cousin was a half-brother to Noah

Webster, and she has, therefore, inherited some of the qualities of

that distinguished philosopher. I proposed the subject to her one day,

in a genial sort of a way, and she said, "W.," says she, "You're a

fool! Silk indeed!" She always calls me "W.," as the whole of it makes

it too long, and being a practical woman, she is aware that life is

short. I could not help admiring the promptness with which Mrs. W.

arrived at her conclusions; and as she is a most excellent judge of

human nature, I changed the subject, not wishing to exasperate her.

The way it came about was this. I had read all about it in the papers

and books and things, and was thinking over it one day and all of a

sudden I spoke up, and says I:

"Mrs. W., let's have worms."

She looked at me just that way for a minute, I thought there was going

to be a funeral. So I said, says I, "We can get the eggs from

Washington for nothing; then we can have the stands in the attic, and

there's the osage-orange hedge, that does nothing in the world but

keep the boys from stealing apples, and we have no apples to steal;

the children can feed them, so that the total cost will be nothing. We

can sell the cocoons at $1.50 a pound; and suppose we raise five

hundred pounds only the first season; there's $750, which is

absolutely clear profit, the whole of it. We can then buy a carriage,

and we will give a ball, and 'ye shall walk in silk attire.'"

Mrs. W. turned up her nose. In using that expression, I do not mean

that she actually inverted that feature of her countenance, but the

expression of her face indicated the idea which usually finds

utterance in the word 'Rats.' At this point I took occasion to explain

to Mrs. W. the relations of this most beautiful and fascinating

industry to the principles of political economy. My amiable lady had

frequently said it was all "bosh;" that to try to raise silk in this

country was mere gammon. I explained to her that her position, as a

philosophical proposition, would be true, were it not for the

fostering care of a paternal government, which had inaugurated the

American system of protection. That this great principle of protection

was the source of our national wealth, that the tariff on silk was

sixty per cent, and----

"Tariff!" inquired Mrs. W., "what is tariff?"

"Tariff, my dear," said I, "I am surprised. I had supposed that such

an intellect as yours would have familiarized itself with the great

economic questions of the day." But I did not wish to be too severe

with her, as I remembered that the sphere of woman did not bring her

into contact with these rugged issues that are the theme of

philosophers and statesmen; so I explained briefly, but still kindly:

"My dear, a tariff is a tax paid by the importer."

To this she made the very singular reply: "But how is taxing a people

going to make them rich, and be the source of national wealth? I know

when tax day comes around, you are always groaning and saying that it

keeps your nose flat on the grindstone, to raise money enough to pay

your taxes." I told her she still failed to see the point, as she was

referring to mere state taxes, while I, upon a higher plane, was

viewing the comprehensive bearings of national institutions.

"W.," she said, "you don't know any more about it than Horace Greeley

did." Such a reference to the great apostle of American protection, I

confess, shocked me; but I suppressed my feelings in consideration of

her sex.

I have said that Mrs. W. is a woman of intellect; but she has no

enthusiasm. With me it is different. I am all enthusiasm and no--I was

about to say no intellect; but I mean no such intellect as has Mrs.

W.

So she says: "That's the way you're always doing, W.; going into

something you don't know anything about, throwing away your money; and

that's about all you're fit for."

"But, my love!" I exclaimed, "there's no chance to lose money in silk

worms. You get them for nothing, feed them for nothing; and how is it

possible to lose money on them, with the tariff at sixty per cent ad

valorem?"

"W.," she interrupted, "when you talk Latin to me, please explain

yourself."

Some people have thought that there was an asperity in Mrs. W.'s

nature, that occasionally found expression in words, but it is not so.

She is of most amiable disposition, and I never knew her to--if I may

coin a word--to asperse. I, therefore, said that in the tariff laws,

duties were levied upon the value of articles, as stated in the

importer's invoice.

"But," said she, "won't the importers value too low?"

"Oh, my dear," I said, "that would be dishonest, and importers are

never dishonest; indeed it is upon the virtue and integrity of the

people that the welfare of our institutions depends." As I was about

to expand upon this theme, my wife checked me with the remark that we

would take the American eagle and the rest of it, at another time, but

just now we would hear about the silk worms. I told her I had made all

necessary arrangements, and would that day write to the "Department"

at Washington, and secure the necessary supply of eggs to commence a

flourishing business. I did so and in due time I received from the

capital of the nation, a nice little wooden box, and inside of that

another little tin box, and inside of that were the eggs. They were

about as big as pin's heads and it looked as though there were

millions, but I don't suppose there were that many.

I exhibited them with pride to the partner of my bosom, exclaiming,

"Such is the fostering care of a paternal government, it raises these

eggs at vast expense, and bestows them liberally upon those who ask."

I then explained to Mrs. W. how it was that our glorious republic

nursed those infant industries that were so delicate they could not

stand alone; supporting them with great assiduity, inasmuch as they

could not support themselves. I showed her how employment was thus

furnished to thousands of persons, who would otherwise be idle, or

engaged in some other occupation that was able to take care of itself;

of course, therefore, making wages lower. I contrasted the condition

of the American laborer, with that of the European serf, trodden under

the iron heel of despotism, at ten cents a day, and satisfied her that

the laboring man in the United States was the best paid, and therefore

the happiest and most contented being on earth, owing to the fact of a

protective tariff, ever since 1789.

"W.," exclaimed that angelic creature, "why is it, then, that the

workingmen are always striking and marching around town with brass

bands? First shoemakers, then carpenters and railroad men, and

stone-masons, and iron-molders, and hod-carriers--all wanting higher

wages. Where does the happiness and content come in? I heard you say,

yourself, the other day, that the disorganized system of labor was

such in this country, that it was degenerating into socialism and

anarchy and was ruining every branch of business."

I hated to do it, but I crushed her with the reply: "Ah! my dear, that

is begging the question."

But that sweet creature, unruffled as a summer sea, preserved an

equanimity that astounded me, as she said: "Why is it, W., that

whenever a woman corners a man in argument, he simply ends the

discussion by telling her she is 'begging the question?'" Seeing that

she did not exactly catch the drift of my logic, I adroitly turned the

subject to silk-worms again, and how we should proceed in our

enterprise.

"Now," said I to Mrs. W., "I will procure the necessary lumber, at

usual market rates, and make a stand on which to lay the frames."

She observed: "You know, W., you never made anything in your life and

can't do it. Go up to the carpenter and he will do what you want for

fifty cents, and you can't buy the lumber for that."

"Mrs. W.," I replied, "I scorn your words. I propose that this

undertaking shall be absolutely inexpensive, except, perhaps, the

outlay for the raw material."

"Very well," she observed, "try it." My! what a head that woman has. I

took a book that had a picture of the stand I wanted, and took the

dimensions carefully down; went to the lumber yard, selected the

pieces, and they cost only $1.25; went home, measured, planned, and

figured, and found that I had ordered the upright cut the length of

the cross pieces, and _vice-versa_, so that the whole was useless. My

disposition, however, is to take cheerful views of things, and I

explained to Mrs. W. that I could still use the stuff for pickets on

the front fence, some of which were missing. Mrs. W. quietly observed:

"How are you going to use four-foot pickets on a six-foot fence?"

When I purchased the second lot I was very careful to proceed

deliberately. I am a good deal of a carpenter, if things would only

come out square when finished: but they never will. When I saw a

board, somehow the saw runs off to one side, and when I try to nail it

to the other board, the two won't fit; and by the time I get around to

the fourth side, one end of the concern is up in the air, and I have

to sit on it to keep it down. I have often gazed with admiration on a

real carpenter, to see him run his saw along, straight as a string and

true as a die, and then put the pieces all together and have them fit,

nice as a cotton hat. This is true genius.

Sensible of the danger and liability to mistake in putting the pieces

together, I told Mrs. W., who was superintending the operation, that

we would not use nails, but screws, so that in case of error--and all

human judgment is fallible--we could take the screws out and take the

pieces apart, which could not be done with nails. Mrs. W. conceded the

suggestion to be a valuable one. So we went to work, she kindly

lending her assistance. I measured all the pieces, got them the exact

length, and for the greater certainty, stood them up on the floor to

see if they would all fit. They certainly seemed to do so, as far as

mortal vision could determine. As all this required a great deal of

deliberation, a great deal of measuring, a great deal of sawing, some

chiselling, etc., the hour of sunset was approaching when I had put in

the last screw, and triumphantly called Mrs. W. from her afternoon nap

to witness the success of my mechanical endeavors. I stood the blamed

thing up on its four legs, and three of 'em were on the floor, and the

fourth wasn't. It was impossible for me to discover the defect in my

workmanship. I could make any three of the legs stand on the floor,

but the fourth could not be prevailed upon for any consideration. The

cross-pieces, which should have been horizontal, and which, to that

end, had been measured with mathematical precision, slanted up on one

side and slanted down on the other. I was in despair, until Mrs. W.

brought her intellect to bear upon my difficulties; when it appeared

that three of the uprights were four feet six inches high, and the

fourth was four feet seven inches. How it happened no one could

explain.

"Now, W.," says Mrs. W., "send for the carpenter." I did so. He

came--a rough, totally uncultured man. He could barely write his name

and his clothes were principally suspenders. But that uneducated man

just took these pieces of wood, and knocked them here, and knocked

them there, and, by aid of some disreputable shingle nails, in twenty

minutes had as neat looking a stand made as ever you saw come out of a

cabinet maker's shop. I was abashed and paid him twenty-five cents.

Mrs. W. said nothing, but smiled.

We had some frames, about two feet square, covered with brown paper.

These we placed on the stand and spread out the eggs. I was a little

uneasy about what kind of a hen to get to hatch them, as I could find

nothing in the books on the subject; but Mrs. W. called me my usual

pet name, and said that the first warm day was all the hen needed.

Wonderful woman that! Just as she predicted! In a few days the brown

paper was covered with little dark specks in a state of agitation.

Mrs. W. spoke of them contemptuously as "nasty black worms."

They grew at a prodigious rate. I explained to the children that all

they had to do was to go down to the osage-orange hedge, cut off the

twigs and branches, and feed them to the worms; that in a few weeks

the product would be ready for market, and if the Mills bill didn't

interfere with protection to American industry, the profits would be

large, and should be equally divided between themselves and their

mother. The children were highly elated and were soon discussing what

should be the color of the carriage horses. One wanted black, the

other blue; and the excitement ran so high that parental intervention

became necessary and some spanking ensued. The next morning our early

dreams were disturbed by fearful outcries from the direction of the

front fence. The smallest of the children had tumbled head first into

the osage-orange hedge, and could not get out. Anyone who knows the

infernal, brutal intensity with which the thorns of the osage-orange

sting, can understand the predicament of that child. We extracted her

in a fearfully lacerated condition. She was punctured all over. Having

read in a book entitled "Three Thousand Valuable Receipts, for

Twenty-five Cents," that ammonia was good for stings, I applied

ammonia liberally to that bleeding child, until she became absolutely

frantic. Her screams attracted Mrs. W. to the scene, and she

exclaimed:

"Have you no more sense than to put ammonia on raw flesh like that?" I

pointed to the "Three Thousand Valuable Receipts, for Twenty-five

Cents," which she immediately picked up and threw out of the window.

The child ultimately recovered, but from that day abhorred silk

culture in all its branches. Still the industry went on. The children

were so stung by the thorns that the work devolved on me, and it was a

task most fearful. There is a poison in the thorn of the osage-orange

that not only makes the pain exquisite, but swells one up as though he

had been stung all over by bees, or had chronic dropsy. My hands and

arms were puffed up, and my face looked as though I had been in a

prize-fight. As I observed to Mrs. W., however, these were minor

difficulties, and we could put up with them in consideration of the

large profits which would ensue. One day one of the servants--they are

always going around and turning things up side down--left one of the

frames on the floor, and all the worms, to the number of several

hundred, scattered themselves profusely about the house, and without

any reference to the comfort or convenience of the family. If you

opened the flour barrel, there was a silk worm. They pervaded the

sugar and crawled into the cream. You found them in bed and the mash

was awful. How many were trodden into the parlor carpet can never be

known. This, too, was but an episode; and as the worms grew in size

and began to spin their cocoons, the process was quite interesting,

and even Mrs. W. overcame her repugnance to the crawling little

wretches.

I was startled one day, as I was feeding my silk-worms, who were

consuming the osage-orange leaves at the rate of a bushel a day,

making two bushels of litter, to hear Mrs. W. abruptly ask:

"W., what is a consumer?" The unexpectedness of the interrogation

found me at fault for a moment; but reflecting a little while and

looking at the silk-worms, I concluded the best way to put it was: "A

consumer, my dear, is--well, a consumer in this country is one who

consumes." Thinking that no exception could be taken to such a

definition, I was triumphant.

"W.," said that pertinacious person, "you don't hang together well, if

any. You said the other day that this tariff thing was for the benefit

of the producer, etc."

"My dear," I replied, "I seize the occasion. 'My foot is on my native

heath, and my name is McGregor.' When our industries were in their

infancy, it was found impossible to compete with foreign productions.

Labor was so cheap abroad that they could undersell us in our own

markets. We had laid the foundation of a broad, comprehensive

manufacturing interest; we had taken men from agricultural and other

pursuits, where they earned a livelihood, and put them in new and

strange employments, about which they knew nothing, where they

expected to earn more than a livelihood. But this could not be done on

account of prices. So government imposed high duties, and the producer

sold his articles for a higher price. In this way he was benefited and

enabled to make money. The tariff added just so much to the price of

the article sold, and the producer was happy."

"But who paid this extra price?" queried Mrs. W.

"Well," I replied, "it is a principle of political economy, I believe,

that all taxes are paid ultimately by the consumer, so that in a case

of this kind--"

"The consumer is the American people," interrupted Mrs. W.

"My dear," I cried, "once more I am compelled to observe, you are

begging the question."

"Mendicant again," was her arch reply, and a cry from the nursery

ended the discussion.

In about six weeks we had the cocoons. Of course, during that time the

house was littered with dirt, dried leaves, and all sorts of unclean

things; and if you ran about the premises in the dark, barefooted, you

were sure to step on an osage-orange twig; and I am satisfied, from

the amount of squalling done, that if the season had lasted six months

most of the children would have been exterminated.

I corresponded with some concern in one of the eastern cities, stating

that I had a large amount of fine cocoons, and wanting to know what

they would pay. I observed to Mrs. W. that I was confident of

receiving a reply to the effect that I should ship the cocoons, draw

at sight for five hundred dollars, leaving the balance to be paid as

per account sales.

The reply was, to send on half-a-pound as a sample, and they would see

if they could take them. When we came to weigh out half-a-pound, both

Mrs. W. and I were appalled. It took about two bushels--nearly, if not

quite, half of the entire crop. However, they were sent, and Mrs. W.

snickered as she did up the package.

In the course of several weeks I received a specimen, say about a

skein, of the most beautiful silk I had ever beheld, with an

order to forward the balance of the cocoons per Adams Express, which

I did at the expense of one dollar. Waited several months for

acknowledgement of receipt, wrote various letters, the postage on

which was two cents each. As considerable time elapsed while we were

"waiting for the returns," and as I was determined that Mrs. W.

should understand this great subject of the tariff, as I knew she

could if she gave her mind to it, I proceeded to eviscerate the

whole matter. Said I, "When a tariff is laid upon a manufactured

article, it enables the manufacturer in this country to pay his

workmen higher wages."

"And does he always do it?" said Mrs. W.

"Always," I replied. "Statistics show that when the tariff on iron was

increased twenty per cent the manufacturers of iron immediately raised

the wages of all their employes twenty per cent."

"I see," said that clear-headed woman, "what excellent persons these

iron men are. They do not hire their men for as little as they can,

but pay them more than they want."

"Exactly so," I replied; "the general rule I admit to be that a man

pays as little as he can for labor; but under the protective system,

the tariff increases the price of the manufactured article, so that

the manufacturer is enabled to sell his goods for that higher price,

and the workman thus gets the benefit of it."

This argument seemed to have great weight with her, as it gave her new

light on things, for she said it was contrary to experience; but I

explained to her that unless some flaw could be found in the

syllogism, the conclusion was irresistible, all experience to the

contrary notwithstanding. I then showed her how entirely disinterested

the manufacturers were; that all their efforts were solely for the

benefit of the workmen; that, personally, the tariff made no

difference to them; that they never besought Congress to lay high

tariffs; that no one ever knew of the iron men, or the sugar men, or

the copper men, besieging the legislators at Washington to impose

duties upon articles they made; that it was the workmen who always did

it.

I do not know exactly how long it was that we waited to receive our

fortune from those cocoons, but one day a postal card came to hand

from the parties to whom I had sent my wealth, stating that they had

received so many cocoons they could not tell which mine were. Inasmuch

as mine were the only ones that had ever been shipped from the town

wherein I reside, it occurred to me that this remark might be

considered in the nature of a joke. Then there followed another

voluminous correspondence. I appealed to Adams Express Company, who

said they would send out a "tracer"; I did not like to betray my

ignorance by showing that I did not know what a tracer was, but,

frankly, I should not have known one had I met it on the street. But

with the infinite knowledge of affairs that Mrs. W. has, that

remarkable woman signified to me that a tracer was something that goes

up and down and to and fro upon the face of the earth, like a roaring

lion, seeking something, and not generally finding it. It is an

immense consolation, however, to railroad men and others; for it

appears that after a "tracer" has been "sent out," nothing more can,

by any possibility, be done by anybody. Whether or not the tracer had

anything to do with the final result I never knew. But about six

months after I had transmitted my cocoons to that large silk

manufacturing house that paid such large wages to American workmen for

the purpose of fostering American industry, I received a note sending

a balance-sheet, and enclosing a check for eighty-eight cents.

When I received this portentous paper, I observed to Mrs. W.: "My

dear, how much do you suppose we got for our cocoons?" "About

seventy-five cents," was the reply. The mind that woman has for detail

is simply wonderful.

The check I have had framed, and hung up in the parlor, but when I

balanced the books, I still found the profit large, thus:

Dr. _W. in Acc't with Silk Worms._ Cr.

=======================================================================

1887. | | | 1888.| |

| | | | |

Jan. 1, | Cash p'd lumber | $2 00| Feb. | By acc't sales | $0 88

" " | " " carpenter| 25| " | " amt. experience |

| | | | gained | 500 00

Sept. 1,| " " express | 50| | |

Nov. | " " " | 1 00| | |

1888. | | | | |

Feb. | " " postage | 20| | |

| Profit | 496 93| | |

| |-------| | |-------

| |$500 88| | |$500 88

D. Thew Wright.

IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE?

How like the ague is this boon

Of matrimonial strife!

The fever ends in one short moon,

The chill runs on through life.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

THE COMMUNISM OF CAPITAL.

The President in his late and last message to Congress calls

attention, in his incisive and felicitous style, to a condition of our

people that must strike all intelligent minds with alarm. The

corner-stone in the foundation of communism is that agency of the

government which makes of the sovereign power that legal process which

controls all private affairs for the good of the people. In popular

phrase, it upholds the paternal form which enters every man's house

and regulates by law all his transactions. This is the foundation,

while the holding of property in common is rather a consequence than a

cause. If there are no rights pertaining to the citizen but those

derived from government, to give practical effect to the scheme all

property owned by the government must be held in its care in common by

its dependents.

Heretofore this theory has been advocated by the poor and oppressed,

and stoutly resisted by the rich. We are treated to a reversal of

position in the parties, and the rich are practically pressing the

scheme upon the poor.

Jefferson, the father of modern democracy, taught that the government,

a mere form of expression, in the way of rule, by the people, who held

the sovereignty was only a trust of power, instituted for the sole

purpose of keeping the peace between the citizens. To use a popular

phrase, it was nothing but the intervention of the constable.

Our central government, not being built altogether upon this broad yet

simple proposition, opened in its mixed nature the door to communism

found in the paternal form. Indeed, it would have been entirely

divested of the Jeffersonian theory had it not been for the necessity

under which the framers found themselves of conciliating the States,

that then jealously fought every proposition looking to a deprivation

of their sovereign rights. All that we so happily gained then came

from a regard to the several States and not to any thought of popular

rights.

This fact gave us a Constitution under which, we have managed to

live, comparatively prosperous, for a century. Had it been otherwise,

our Constitution would have gone to pieces in the first twenty-five

years of its existence. A constitution is a legal recognition of

certain general rules of conduct that are ever the same under all

circumstances. Legislation is the adaptation of those rules to

individual cases; and as these vary and change with continuously

new conditions, a fixed application in a constitution is impossible.

For this restriction, as far as it goes, we have to thank the States

and not the sagacity of the fathers.

The Constitution was scarcely enacted before the communism of a

paternal form began to manifest itself. The Federal party was of this

sort. It sneered at and fought the sovereignty of the people, and

found its governing element in a class that was supposed to hold

in itself the intelligence and virtue of the people. It has

departed and been done to death, not by the people, who failed to

comprehend or feel the situation, but by the same cause that

created the Constitution,--and that was the jealous opposition of

the States to a centralization of power at Washington.

After the death of the Federal party the Whig organization was formed,

on the same line and for the same purpose as those of its Federal

predecessor. Henry Clay, its author, an eloquent but ignorant man,

formulated his American system, that was a small affair in the

beginning, but had deadly seeds of evil in its composition. Mr. Clay

saw the necessity for manufactures in the United States; and as

capital necessary to their existence in private hands could not be

obtained, he proposed that the government should intervene through a

misuse of the taxing power and supply the want. It was a modest want

at first. "Let us aid these infant industries," he said, "until they

are strong enough to stand alone, and then the government may withdraw

and leave competition to regulate prices." It was a plausible but

insidious proposition.

This was fought bitterly by the South, not altogether from a high

ground of principle, although the argument was made that the

government at Washington had no such power under the Constitution, but

the main motive was self-interest. The South was an agricultural

region, and found in cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco staples that had

their better, indeed their only, market in Europe, and saw no sense in

trammelling it with laws to benefit Eastern capital. The American

system was having a rough time and bidding fair to die out, when the

sectional issue between the North and South culminated in war, and

driving not only the South but the democracy from the government, left

the paternal party in power.

This organization was made up mainly of Whigs. The abrupt dissolution

of that party threw in the newly formed Republican organization the

majority that from the first until now has governed its movements. How

patriotic a party founded on property is, we learn from its first act

after securing control of Congress. In the terrible war that followed

secession, the greatest of dangers that threatened success was in

European interference. Common sense, to say nothing of patriotism,

dictated that Congress should at least abstain from measures likely to

offend the governments abroad, if it did not do all in its power to

conciliate. Greed recognized no such duty. Almost the first measure of

any importance introduced and passed to a law was the Morrill tariff,

that slapped the greatest war powers of Europe in the face. Under

pretence of raising a war revenue, they made a deadly attack on

resource from that source, for they well knew that as they increased

the duties they lessened the income.

The panic and distress that followed this measure in all the markets

of the world can well account for the deadly hostility to our

government felt abroad. Small wonder that while arms were furnished

the South in the greatest abundance, cruisers were fitted out in

English ports to prey upon our helpless commerce. The greater danger

of official recognition was only averted by the stubborn stand taken

by Great Britain; and as it was, we now know that had the South been

able to continue the war ninety days longer that intervention would

have come. A French army, sent there for that purpose, would have

invaded our lands from Mexico, while the fleets of allied France and

England would have dissipated our so-called blockade, lifted the

Confederacy's financial credit to par, and we would have been called

on to make terms of peace at Philadelphia.

All this gathered evil was shattered at Nashville by the gallant

Thomas and his noble Army of the Cumberland, when he not only defeated

the fifty thousand veterans under Hood, but annihilated an army.

This was the birth of the communism of wealth that is to govern our

country for the next four years. Of course it is absurd to charge

nearly a half of our people with corrupt motives and unpatriotic

conduct. We have no such intent. We are only striving to show that the

success of the Republican policy is fatal to the Republic. This party,

as we have said, is in no sense a political organization. It is a

great combination of private interests that seek to use the government

to further their own selfish ends. Governments through all the ages

have been the deadly enemies of the people they governed. Ours,

controlled by the Republican party, makes no exception to the rule.

The gigantic trusts, or combinations, are eating the substance out of

honest toil, and back of them stands the awful shadow of a powerful

organization making those trusts possible, and doing to the people

precisely the cruel wrong it was created to prevent. Palaces multiply

as hovels increase; and while millionaires are common, the million

sink back to that hopeless poverty of destitution that has the name of

freedom, as a mockery to their serfdom.

THE INFAMY OF IT.

For years past it has become more and more patent to the people of the

United States that the ballot has come to be a commercial affair, and

instead of serving its original purpose of a process through which to

express the popular will, represents only the money expended in its

use. For a long time it was abused through stuffing, false counts,

repeating, and switching tickets. In the late Presidential election we

seemed to have passed from that stage to open and shameless bribery.

This is simply appalling to those who love their country and believe

in our great Republic. The old system of roguery that attacked the

integrity of the ballot was that of a few low villains, who could be

met by an improved box and other stringent, legalized guards that

would make the vile practices difficult, and punishment easily

secured. But this open purchase of votes indicates a poison in the

spring head itself, and a consent found in the apathy of the public.

What good would be the Australian system, that seeks to shield the

secret ballot, where the official agents themselves would of course

be corrupt and purchasable? Under this system the voter entering a

stall by himself finds an official to give him such ticket as he may

demand. What will be the good of this when that agent can be

purchased? We really simply give the corruption into the hands of the

corruptionists through the very enactment called in to protect us.

Our unhappy condition is recognized. There is not a man, woman, or

child in our country possessed of any brain but knows that Benjamin

Harrison was elected President by open, wholesale bribery. Mr. Foster

advertised this in his well-known circulars wherein he called for

funds, and quoted Senator Plumb as saying that the manufacturers ought

to be squeezed. And why should they be squeezed?--because, he said,

they are the sole beneficiaries of the one measure at issue in the

canvass. This was followed by Senator Ingalls' famous advice to the

delegate at the Chicago convention, which said, "Nominate some such

fellow as Phelps, who can tap Wall Street." This was followed by the

Dudley circular directing the purchase of "floaters in blocks of five

or more," and assuring those dishonest agents that the funds would not

be wanting to close the purchase.

Under this exhibit of evidence the fact cannot be denied; but to make

it conclusive, the New York _World_ has gathered from all parts of the

country clear, unmistakable proof of wide-spread, clearly planned, and

openly executed purchase of voters.

The chair of the Chief Executive has followed the seats of Senators to

the market, and that highest gift of the citizen has been sold to the

highest bidder. The great political fabric of the fathers, built from

woful expenditure of patriotic effort and blood, is honeycombed with

rot, and remains, a mere sham, to shame us before the world.

Of course we are not so silly as to attach blame only to one party.

The difference between the two lies in the fact that the one had more

money than the other, and a stronger motive for its use. The

Republicans being a "combine" of property interests, depending upon

the government to make those interests profitable, were impelled to

exertion far beyond the Democrats, who were struggling for the power

only that a possession of the government brings. But we are forced to

remember that the votes purchased came from the Democratic party. Said

a prominent Democrat of Indiana to the writer of this: "We had enough

money to purchase the State had we known the nature of the market, and

possessed agents upon whom we could rely. The agents of our opponents

were preachers, deacons, elders, class-leaders, and teachers in

Sunday-schools, and could be relied on to use their swag as directed.

Our fellows put our money in their pockets, and left the voting to

care for itself. And then, again, while we were on the lookout for

repeaters, pipe-layers, and ballot-box stuffers, they were in open

market purchasing votes. We learned the nature of the business when

too late to meet it, had we even had the means to make our knowledge

available."

No doubt this gentleman told the truth. The sums subscribed, that

counted in the millions, came from men not only of means, but of high

social positions, who, not being altogether idiots, well knew the

purpose for which their ample means were assessed. That able and

honorable gentleman, Judge Gresham, whose well-known courage and

integrity rendered him unavailable as a candidate for the Presidency

at Chicago, points openly to these respectable corruptionists as the

real wrong doers. It is more than probable that such may escape the

penitentiary, and it is poor comfort to know that when such die

lamented, their souls, in the great hereafter, will have to be

searched for with a microscope.

The pretence offered for such assessments is too thin to cover the

corrupt design. Says a prominent editor of the political criminals:

"The legitimate expenses of a national political canvass have come to

be enormous. There is a great educational work to be done; a vast

literature to be created and circulated; an army of speakers to be

brought into the field; various organizations to be made and

mobilized; machinery to be perfected for getting out the full vote;

safeguards to be provided against fraud: all the immense enginery for

persuading and marshalling at every fighting point the last score

among six million voters."

The comments upon this made by the New York _Evening Post_ are so to

the point, and conclusive, that we quote them in full. The _Post_

says:

"Well, now, this being so, why did Wanamaker and Quay, when they had

finished their noble work, burn their books and accounts? Missionary,

tract, and Bible societies for mutual improvement and for aid to home

study, lyceums and lecturing associations, not to speak of charitable

and philanthropic associations, do not, after six months of unusual

activity, commit all their papers, vouchers, and books of accounts to

the flames. No such thing is ever thought of in Wanamaker's Bethel

Sunday-school. Why, then, was it done by the Advisory Committee?

Religious and educational organizations, such as the Advisory

Committee seems to have been, on the contrary, when they have raised a

large sum of money and spent it in worthy ways are usually eager to

preserve and spread the record of it, that others coming after them

may be encouraged to do likewise. In fact, the more one reflects on

the Wanamaker-Quay holocaust, the more mysterious it seems."

This election of a chief magistrate, that shook the great republic

from centre to circumference, was but a continuation of the corrupt

system that began some years since, and is known to the public as that

of "addition, division, and silence."

This condition of the polls is no menace to our government. That

period is gone. It is a loss of all. The ballot is the foundation

corner-stone of the entire political fabric. Its passage to the hands

of corrupt dealers is simply ruin. We may not realize this, but we do

realize the contempt into which it has fallen. When the new President

swings along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to be inaugurated,

upon the side of his carriage should be printed what history with its

cold, unbiased fingers will put to record:

"BO'T FOR TWO MILLIONS OF DOLLARS."

THE PULPIT CULT.

In the days of our Saviour the rich man of Jerusalem would, on a

Sabbath morning, bathe and anoint his body, and putting on fine linen

and wearing-apparel, move in a dignified fashion to the synagogue,

feeling that he was serving God by making God respectable in the eyes

of men.

The proneness of poor human nature to lose in the mere form that for

which the form was created to serve is the same throughout the world,

and through all the ages, evolution to the contrary notwithstanding.

As our physical being is, and has been, and will ever be about the

same, our spiritual suffers little change. When Adam and Eve, leaving

the garden of Eden, encountered the typhoid fever, that dread disease

had the same symptoms, made the same progress to death or recovery,

that puzzles the physicians to-day. That horrible but curious growth

we call cancer was the same six thousand years ago that it is in this

nineteenth century. The sicknesses of the soul are the same in all

climes and in the presence of all creeds.

Said a witty ordained infidel who preached the salvation of unbelief

many years at London, on visiting a business men's prayer meeting:

"Our merchants may not be Jews in their dealings, but they are

certainly Hebrews in their prayers."

The form has survived the substance. We have retained the customs

and phraseology, while losing the meaning. As the rich men of

Jerusalem who on the Sabbath thronged the Temple and were solemnly

earnest in their prayers, returned to their cheating the day after,

so we give unto God one-seventh part of our time and devote the rest

to the practices of Satan. We are full of wrath and disgust at the

Sunday-school cashier who appropriates the money of other people and,

unable longer to conceal his thefts, flees to Canada. This is

unjust. The poor man was not less pious than his president or his

directors who neglected their duties and in many cases shared in

the luxury. His crime was not in what he did, but in being caught at

it before he could carry out his intent to replace the funds from his

successful speculations. He saw in the leaders of his little

congregation in the Lord, millionaires who had made all they

possessed through fraud, and why should he, with the best intentions,

not accumulate a modest competence through the same means? He

heard nothing to the contrary from the pulpit. The eloquent divine

told, in winning words, of the righteousness of right and the

sinfulness of sin, but the illustrations were all, or nearly all,

two thousand years old, and the words were the words of Isaiah and

the prophets. To denounce the sins of to-day in "the vulgar tongue"

would be to offend the millionaires of the congregation and lessen

the salary of the worthy divine.

The late Chief Justice Chase once startled the writer of this by

saying: "The wicked men are not in the penitentiary, they are in the

churches. The criminals we convict are not wicked, they are simply

weak--weak in character and weak in intellect. The men from whom

society suffers are the cold, selfish, calculating creatures who not

only keep clear of the courts but seek the churches, and deceive

others as they deceive themselves and hope to deceive the Almighty."

Sin is never so dangerous as when it gets to be respectable. The

sanction of law, whether it gets to be such through custom or legal

enactment, so nearly resembles the order of God that we accept it as

such, and if it furthers our selfish greed we take it gladly.

The moral code, like that of municipal law, is made up of a few simple

rules, easily understood, and the trouble comes in on the practice of

the one and the application of the other. That church is divine which

subordinates the rule to the practice, and has works as well as faith

to testify to its commission. That is the true religion which leaves

the sanctuary with the believer, and is with him at all hours, eats at

his table, sleeps in his bed, and accompanies him to his labor. It

never leaves him alone.

How we have separated the two, the precept from practice, this pulpit

cult bears evidence. The high-toned infidel and lofty agnostic sneer

at the humble Catholic who, in deepest contrition, confesses his sins

to his spiritual adviser and goes forth relieved, probably to fall

again. How much better it is to attend divine worship one day in

seven, put on a grave countenance, and listen to eloquent discourses,

more eloquent prayers, and heavenly music, and then go out with no

thought of religion until the next Sunday returns for a like

performance!

Two thirds of what comes under the head of moral conduct in one is

pure selfishness. A man may be honest in his dealing, honorable in his

conduct, a good citizen, a loving husband, and an affectionate father,

and yet be without kindness, charity, faith, hope--in a word, all that

brought Christ upon earth in His mission of peace.

One summer and autumn we lived at a mountain resort on the line of a

great railroad. We saw, day after day, long lines of cattle-cars

crowded with their living freight in a three-hundred-mile pull of

intensest agony. The poor beasts were jammed against each other,

unable to lie down,--to get under the hoofs of the others was

death,--fighting, hungry, in the last stages of thirst, panting with

tongues protruded, and their beautiful eyes staring with that

expression of wild despair which the scent of blood brings to them,

they rolled on to their far-off slaughter-houses with moans that were

heart-breaking.

It was our fortune that same autumn to meet one of the cattle-merchants

at church. He was there with his family. A stout, middle-aged man of

eminent respectability, he was a church-member, and looked up to as a

model citizen. We saw him listening to the eloquent sermon, and

wondered if there were not a low, deep undertone of agony running

through the discourse. When the prayers were offered up he knelt

humbly, and covered his face with his hands. Did they shut out the

wild, despairing eyes of those suffering beasts?

Yet how amazed would that estimable citizen have been had his minister

said to him: "You are railroading your soul to hell. Every moan of

those tortured animals goes up to God for record. You are freighting

disease to great cities, and the fevers and death are yet to be

answered for by you--wretched sinner!"

There is not a fashionable church in any city of our land that has not

within gunshot of its door great masses of starving, sinful,

poverty-stricken humanity. Crowded into tenement-houses, from the damp

cellars to the hot garrets, they make one wonder, not that they die,

but that they live. No eloquent discourse on the righteousness of

right and the sinfulness of sin; no well-balanced sentences of

prayers, sent up on perfumed air to our heavenly Father; no deep-toned

thunder set to music in hymns, ever reach their ears, or could, if

they did, carry consolation to the sorrowful, or curing to the sick.

And yet, from marble pulpits to velvet-cushioned pews, the work goes

on.

We beg pardon: it does not go on. The well-meaning divines complain of

non-attendance. They are startled by the fact that not one-tenth of

our population of sixty millions are really attending church-members.

What can be done to popularize the pulpit? There is but one way, and

that is to make the people desire to attend. Time was when the great

truths of Christianity were new to the human race. The multitudes were

eager to hear of the revelation, and the Church sent out its

missionaries to preach and teach mankind. So far as a knowledge of

these truths is concerned, the civilized people have been taught.

There is not a criminal in jail to-day but knows more theology than

St. Paul. The people are weary of this everlasting thrash of

theological chaff. The civilized world is fairly saturated with

preaching, which has come to be stale, flat, and in every sense

unprofitable.

Instead of asking the people to come to the church, let the church go

to the people. This is the secret of the sneers attending the Catholic

faith. There is, with it, very little preaching, but a great deal of

practice. Its orphan asylums, its homes for the aged poor, its

hospitals, to say nothing of its great body of devoted priests and

holy sisters of charity, tell why it is that its temples are thronged,

and its conversions almost miraculous.

It is a grave error to suppose that true religion is to be advanced

through the intellect. It makes its appeal to the heart. If it is not

a refuge to the woful wayfarers of earth, it is nothing. If the

sorrowful may not find comfort; they who are in pain, patience and

hope; if the poor may not get sympathy and aid, and the dying

consolation, it is of doubtful good.

As for the preaching, all that we can say is, that when one produces

evidence and proceeds to argue, he admits a doubt that neither

evidence nor argument is of avail. God's truths call for no evidence.

If they are not self-evident, no process of poor human reason can

make them visible. An argument in behalf of such is a confession and a

defeat. The man who undertakes to prove that the sun shines is insane

and a bore.

The pulpit work of worthy divines who think aloud upon their legs has

lost its attraction in losing its novelty. They imitate the late Henry

Ward Beecher. And these immediate divines are filling their churches

as merely platform-lecturers indulging in certain mental gymnastics

that glitter and glisten like a winter's sun on fields of ice. It is

all brilliant and amusing to a few, but it is not religion.

A BEAUTIFUL LIFE.

"Died at New York, 28th of November, 1888, Mrs. Eleanor Boyle

Sherman."

The above simple announcement of a sad event was read through more

tears than usually fall to the lot of one whose unassuming, quiet life

was passed in the privacy of a purely domestic existence. This not

because she was the wife of a noted officer, nor the daughter of one

of Ohio's most famous statesmen, but for the excellence of her

character and the Christian spirit of her retired career, that made

her life one long, continuous deed of goodness. If ever an angel

walked on earth administering to the sorrows and sickness of those

about her, that angel was Mrs. Sherman. Inheriting much of her great

father's fine intellect, she added a heart full to overflowing with

the sweetest sympathy for affliction in others. Self-sacrifice was to

her a second nature. She not only carried in patient humility the

cares imposed upon her by our Saviour, but cheerfully took up the

woful burdens of those whose failing spirits left them fainting on

their way. Her exalted social position was no bar to the poor,

downtrodden, and oppressed. Her hand like her heart was ever open.

The heroism of private life is little noted among us. Acting out great

deeds of self-sacrifice in the silent, unseen walks of domestic

existence, it lacks the sustaining plaudits of a thoughtless public,

and has no incentive to effort other than that found in the conscious

presence of an approving God, and no hope of recompense beyond the

promised approval of the hereafter when our heavenly Father shall say,

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

No man, however exalted his position may be, or distinguished his

services, is ever followed to his tomb by more real mourners than one

carriage can convey. The crape-canopied hearse, the nodding plumes of

woe, the wailing music of the hired bands, the long procession of

slow-moving coaches, the tramp of hundreds, tell only of human vanity:

we make our show of sorrow. One vehicle only holds hearts breaking in

an agony of grief--hearts that know nothing in their woe of the dear

one's greatness; know only that he has gone from their household that

his presence had made so happy. In his death the dear walls of that

home were shattered, the fire upon the hearth is dead, and the hard

world darkened down to desolation's nakedness. Could all who were

favored in knowing this beautiful character, and blessed by her very

presence, been called to form the funeral cortege, real heart-felt

grief would have lived along the entire procession, and sobs, not

strains of mournful music, would have broken on the ear. And in this

procession would have been found not only the rich and well-born, clad

in costly silks and furs, who had received from this gracious lady the

divine influences of the Christian spirit, but the thinly clad poor,

the dependent orphans, and helpless age. It is such a procession that

does not disperse and disappear at the cemetery, but follows in prayer

the mourned-for spirit to its home in heaven.

It is not for us to invade the sacred privacy of this lovely life. We

owe an apology to her blessed memory for even this mention of her

name. We know how she shrank from such while among us, and it is only

as a duty to the living that we venture on this tribute to her

excellence.

What we feel, and what must be felt by all, a pagan poet imbued

unknowingly with the truest Christian impulses has sung in immortal

verse:

"But thou art fled,

Like some frail exhalation which the dawn

Robes in its golden beams;--ah, thou hast fled!

The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,

The child of grace and genius! Heartless things

Are done and said i' the world, and many worms

And beasts and men live on, and mighty earth,

From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,

In vesper low or joyous orison,

Lifts still its solemn voice:--but thou art fled--

Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes

Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee

Been purest ministers, who are, alas!

Now thou art not!

* * * * *

"Art and eloquence,

And all the shows of the world, are frail and vain

To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.

It is a woe 'too deep for tears' when all

Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,

Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves

Those who remain behind, not sobs nor groans,

The passionate tumult of a clinging hope,

But pale despair and cold tranquillity--

Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,

Birth and the grave, that are not as they were."

As a low, sweet echo to the music of those words, we add a tribute to

the memory of this noble woman from the gifted pen of Helen Grace

Smith:

Ah! Death hath passed us by--hath passed us near;

The swift, keen arrow cutting the light air,

And falling where she stood

In perfect motherhood,

With silver crown of years upon her hair.

The many years--the glorious full years,

All shining with her charity and truth--

How tenderly we trace

Their silent work of grace,

Fulfilling the sweet promise of her youth!

A life complete, yet lived not all in sun,

But following sometimes through shadowed ways,

Where sorrow and distress

Cried loud that she might bless

With her pure light the darkness of their days.

Resplendent mission, beautiful as his

Who fought for her in fighting for his land--

Who heard the loud acclaim

That gave his honored name

To live wherever deeds of heroes stand.

And she, the wife, the mother--ah! her tears

Fell for the wounded sufferers and the dead--

Fell for the poor bereaved,

The helpless ones who grieved

Where ruin and despair lay thickly spread.

Now peace--God's peace--is brooding o'er the land,

And peacefully she sleeps, her life-work done.

We would not break that sleep,

That rest so calm, so deep,

That sweet reward by faithful service won.

Only we kneel, as often she hath knelt,

Where Heaven's love lights up the quiet aisle,

And, praying as she prayed,

Our sorrow is allayed--

Our grieving changed to gladness in God's smile.

THE PASSING SHOW.

The political season is over, and popular fancy lightly turns to

thoughts of the drama. New York's gay winter festivities are opening,

and the theatres are nightly crowded with appreciative audiences. It

would be strange indeed if, with upwards of twenty-five comfortable

resorts for popular amusement in the metropolis, and a weekly change

of attractions drawn from the best American and European sources, the

most fastidious taste should fail to be pleased.

Probably the most successful of this year's dramatic ventures is "The

Yeomen of the Guard" at the Casino. The managers of that theatre have

been wise to replace their variety-shows with this excellent comic

opera. It steadily holds its own in spite of the critics, and after a

three-months' run continues as popular as ever. Mr. Aronson says it

may remain at the Casino until the end of April. Gilbert and

Sullivan's productions are always new, always attractive. Each has a

character of its own, yet no one could fail to detect the humor of

Gilbert and the merry melodies of Sullivan in them all. If one may

venture to compare their beauties, we should say that "Pinafore"

excelled in vivacity--that peculiar sprightliness which the French

call _verve_; "The Pirates" in humor; "Patience" and "Iolanthe" in

satire--the one of a social craze, the other of political flunkeyism;

and "The Yeomen of the Guard" in quaintness. The patter songs of the

first are lacking in the last, hence its airs are not so dinned into

one's ears by the whistling youth of every street-corner, but the

music is of a distinctly higher order. It is unfortunate that there is

no change of scenery between the two acts. The dingy background of the

Tower is not relieved by brilliance of costume, and the eye of the

ordinary theatre-goer, accustomed to look for altered scenic effects,

is disappointed at the repetition, only relieved by moonlight in the

second act.

Some of the incidents of the play resemble "Don Caesar de Bazan," and

are similarly worked out. Colonel Fairfax, imprisoned as a sorcerer,

marries a young ballad-singer, who receives a hundred crowns, with the

assurance that within an hour she will be a widow through her

husband's execution. He escapes, and is disguised as one of the Yeomen

of the Guard, with whom, in spite of her vows, the young girl falls in

love. A pardon for Fairfax arrives, his identity is established, the

singer learns that the man she loves is already her husband, and all

ends happily. In this transmutation of character, from the imprisoned

sorcerer to one of the prison-keepers, we recognize the topsyturvydom

of Gilbert, which is the distinguishing mark of his genius, from the

Bab Ballads all through his later productions. In catchwords the

present opera is lacking, and in the puns which never failed to draw

out the "ohs" of the audience. But there is the same genial

undercurrent of innocent humor which for years has amused the whole

English-speaking public, and for which Mr. Gilbert deserves the

lasting gratitude of a world too much given to life-sadness and mental

worry. If "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine," it is safe to

say that the prescriptions of this most ingenious dramatic author have

effected more widespread good than those of the most celebrated

followers of AEsculapius.

It is especially to its music that the operetta owes its success. In

this production Sullivan has excelled his former efforts. The first

chorus is very fine, and in orchestration Sir Arthur shows himself to

be without a rival. Its pure melodies form a valuable addition to

English music, and mark the growth of a new school of which he is the

leader. The influence of Wagner is clearly seen in some of its

majestic marches, but the English composer escapes the metaphysical

and unintelligible harmonies of the German school. Sir Arthur has

evidently aimed at producing a more classical composition than any of

his previous works, and he has done this perhaps at some slight

sacrifice of immediate popularity. The jingle of "Pinafore" and "The

Pirates" is replaced by a more sober style, which is likely to produce

a lasting impression on English music.

Mary Anderson captured the town, as usual, on her return from England

early in November. Palmer's theatre was so crowded that it was

difficult to get a seat even four weeks in advance, and the audiences

were so enthusiastic that their enthusiasm constituted quite an

interruption to the play. She chose "The Winter's Tale" as her opening

piece, taking the parts both of Hermione the queen and of her daughter

Perdita. Miss Anderson is the first actress who has ever dared to so

interpret the play. She tried it at the London Lyceum, to the horror

of the critics, but it proved a great success. The resemblance between

Hermione and her daughter, which Shakespeare insists on so strongly,

gave Miss Anderson the idea of trying both parts. This plan had the

additional advantage, that the leading lady is not suppressed by being

cut out of the act in which Hermione does not appear. Her studies

abroad have undoubtedly improved "Our Mary." The coldness and

statuesqueness with which she has been reproached could not now be

discovered by the most adverse critic. She is more womanly, softer,

less angular, and more graceful. The programme at Palmer's should have

been varied so as to give the public opportunity to see her in the old

_roles_ that used to charm all beholders. One must not forget the

exquisite scenery with which this piece has been set. It was used at

the Lyceum, and, although it has been considerably cut down to fit the

smaller stage of Palmer's theatre, it is one of the best settings ever

seen in this country.

Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett have been doing fairly with their

Shakespearean revivals at the Fifth Avenue. There is no truth in the

report that any difference has occurred between them. They will appear

together at the Broadway Theatre next season, with better support, it

is to be hoped, than they have recently had. Miss Mina Gale, who plays

the leading female parts, however, is a promising young actress.

Agnes Booth has scored a great triumph as Mrs. Seabrook in "Captain

Swift" at the Madison Square. For painstaking attention to detail,

nicety of intonation, and powerful expression, Agnes Booth is in the

front rank of leading ladies. We have seen her in many society dramas,

and in each she has shown a charming appreciation of all the

requirements. At the Madison Square, with its cosey stage, the visitor

forgets that he is one of the audience, and feels almost like an

intruder upon a scene in a private drawing-room. The situations in

"Captain Swift" are striking. The hero, an illegitimate son of Mrs.

Seabrook, goes away in his youth to Australia, cracks a bank, and

returns after many years, unconsciously to become a rival to the

legitimate son for the affections of his cousin. The mother discovers

his identity, and discloses it to him in order to prevent the

ill-starred marriage. The mingled expression of shame, suffering, and

maternal love in Agnes Booth's face during this scene is one not soon

to be forgotten. The audience remains spellbound for a moment, then a

burst of enthusiastic applause crowns her effort. In the original

play, as written by Mr. Haddon Chambers, the hero, being followed by

an Australian detective, commits suicide. As altered for the American

stage--by Mr. Boucicault, it is said,--Captain Swift, to relieve the

Seabrook family from embarrassment, gives himself up to the officers

of justice. In either case the _morale_ of the play--the portrayal of

an absconding bank-burglar and horse-thief as polished, brave,

generous, gentle--is to be regretted, as every apotheosis of vice

should be. Mr. Barrymore, as Captain Swift, exhibits some capital

acting, and Annie Russell makes a very graceful Mabel Seabrook.

Mrs. Burnett's dramatization of her well-known story, "Little Lord

Fauntleroy," is attracting large crowds at the Broadway Theatre. It is

peculiar in that it depends entirely for its success on the acting of

a child, or rather children, Elsie Leslie and Tommy Russell

alternating in the title _role_. This arrangement has been adopted

because the part is so long that it would be too fatiguing for a young

child to play it night after night. Both the children show a

delightful unconsciousness in the recitation of their lines, but

Tommy's natural boyishness fits the character rather better than

Elsie's assumed character, although her gracefulness charms the

audience. The motive of the play, as in the story, is the love of a

boy for his mother; and this makes it a great attraction for the

ladies.

A pretty play is "Sweet Lavender" at the Lyceum. Its plot is simple. A

young lawyer falls in love with his housekeeper's gentle little

daughter, but family pride prevents their union until, by the

opportune failure of a bank, his fortunes are reduced to a level with

hers. Its clever details and quiet humor make it well worth seeing.

Pinero, the author, is a playwright skilled in the mechanical

arrangement of his situations, and everything runs smoothly. Miss

Louise Dillon as Lavender, fits the part exactly.

Thompson and Ryer's play of "The Two Sisters" at Niblo's made many

friends, in spite of its somewhat threadbare theme. There was the

typical dissolute young man who seduces one of the sisters, and the

benevolent hotel-keeper who befriends and marries the other. The

villain murders his father, is arrested, and dies, while the betrayed

girl is given a home by her sister's husband. Some good singing is

scattered throughout the play.

A similar drama, full of love and murder, was "The Fugitive," by Tom

Craven, which had a very brief run at the Windsor.

Vivacious Nelly Farren and the London Gaiety Company, which recently

held the boards of the Standard Theatre in "Monte Christo, jr.," gave

New Yorkers an enlivening taste of English burlesque. The play is

nothing, the dancing everything.

The German opera season is well under way. The Metropolitan Opera

House opened with "The Huguenots," which was followed by "William

Tell" and "Fidelio." Herr Anton Seidl, with his unrivalled orchestra,

makes these productions of the great German and Italian composers a

yearly treat to lovers of music, which is looked forward to with

eagerness and parted from with regret.

"The Old Homestead" holds its own at the Academy of Music; the "Brass

Monkey" at the Bijou has had a longer run than it deserves; Clara

Morris has been appearing in Brooklyn; Louis James and Marie

Wainwright are beginning their New York engagement. "She" was

pronounced a great success in Boston, over $1600 being taken in at one

performance. Mr. Boucicault is conducting his Madison Square

theatre-school of acting with patience and confidence, although the

results thus far are not very promising. Of the eighty pupils, the men

are awkward and the women lack talent. However, as Mr. Boucicault

said, if but three or even one out of the eighty should come to

dramatic eminence, it would be well worth all the trouble.

Our German fellow-citizens are to be congratulated on the opening of

Mr. Amberg's new theatre in Fifteenth Street. The location is central,

the house is well built, the company good, and the repertory includes

drama, comedy, farce, and comic opera.

There have not been many dramatic events abroad this season. The new

Shaftesbury Theatre in London is possessed of such a wonderful

fire-proof curtain that a few weeks ago the audience had to be

dismissed because they could not raise it. "Captain Swift" proved a

great success, financially, at the Haymarket, and "Nadjy" is

attracting crowds at the Avenue Theatre. At Terry's, "Dream Faces," a

one-act play, and "The Policeman," a three-act farce, had good houses.

Grace Hawthorne has just had to pay a hundred pounds to the owners of

some lions. She was seeking to produce an English version of

"Theodora," and engaged a den of lions twelve months in advance of the

time she wanted them. She demurred to paying for the animals that she

had not used, but the case went against her. On the Continent there is

not much doing. P. A. Morin, the dean of Holland's dramatists and

actors, recently celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his first

appearance, his golden jubilee, at Amsterdam. It is announced that

Patti will sing in "Romeo and Juliet," at the Grand Opera House,

Paris, giving three performances for one thousand dollars each.

More attention than usual is being paid just now to the development of

musical taste on both sides of the water. Mr. Walter Damrosch has been

lecturing in New York on Symphony. The Liederkranz and the Symphony

Society have been giving enjoyable concerts; and Herr Moriz Rosenthal,

the pianist, has met with a success that has only been rivalled in

late years by Joseffy.

REVIEWS.

When the late George Butler, quite regardless of fact, and for the fun

of the thing, telegraphed from Long Branch to Dion Boucicault at New

York, that Billy Florence and Jack Raymond had been saved from a

watery grave by a huge Newfoundland, Boucicault responded, "God is

good to the Irish." This sentence, so often quoted, passed, without

its point, among the masses. What Dion caught on the nib of his pen

and wired to the world was the fact that these two famous comedians,

with their English names, were Irish by birth, instincts, and

blunders. The people that present to the earth the only race that has

wit for its national trait never had two more striking illustrations

of the fact than in these stage delineators of genius. Raymond is in

his grave, and the inevitable dust of forgetfulness is gathering upon

his tomb. But Florence, so kindly known throughout the land as Billy

Florence, is yet alive, and very much alive. The evidence of this fact

is before us in a book entitled _Florence Fables_ (Belford, Clarke &

Co.). Those so-called fables are not fables, but fiction without

morals, but full of interest, which is much better, and come to the

reader in the shape of love-stories, odd adventures, and strange

incidents at home and in foreign lands.

The book is sure of a wide sale, for the multitudes that have seen

Florence in his merry performances, and learned to love as well as

enjoy this finished comedian behind the footlights, will be curious to

learn how he appears as an author. But they "who come to scoff" will

hold on to enjoy. The name is enough to attract; the book itself is

sufficiently charming to entrance the reader.

In the last issue of BELFORD'S we gave a specimen of the humor: to

find the pathos and the true love the reader must consult the volume.

_Divided Lives_, a novel, by Edgar Fawcett (Belford, Clarke &

Co.).--There is no more charming writer of English fiction than Edgar

Fawcett, and the volume before us is one of his best. He builds upon

the English method, animated by the French motive, and deepens the

shallow affection of the first to the unfathomable depths of human

passion to be found in the last. His dramatic ability holds one to the

interest of his book whether it has plot or not. Of course he has his

faults. His characters are known to us mostly by name, labelled, as it

were, and he will at any time sacrifice one or a dozen to work up a

dramatic effect. Then he has affectations, not precisely of style, but

of phraseology, that irritate; and he cannot resist putting smart

speeches into the mouths of everybody. Here is an example:

"Indeed, no," Angela replied, "there never was a more devoted friend

than Alva is. To leave her charming home, and all her gay town life,

for weeks, just that she may be near me! It is something to vibrate

through one's entire lifetime."

This is said by a little girl to her lover, and the lover responds:

"It teaches me a lesson. What is easier than to misjudge our

fellow-creatures, and how wantonly we're forever doing it! We are all

like a lot of mountebanks behind an illuminated sheet. The uncouth

shadows we cast there are the world's misrepresentation of us."

As these young people were desperately in love with each other, but

then just engaged, this sort of talk, however clever, is as much out

of place and jarring on one as would be the murder scene from

Macbeth.

Edgar Fawcett is given to a delineation of social life in New York.

This is a wide and varied field, and the author makes it intensely

interesting. We have called attention, however, to the fact that he is

not altogether correct. The English motive, of turning the interest

upon social caste, is not true when applied to our mixed condition. We

have no aristocratic class, as recognized in England; and the

assumption of such in real life is too ludicrous and unreal for the

purpose of the novelist. Mere wealth without culture, and culture

without wealth, contend in a mixed condition with each other, without

supplying the interest to be found in earnest endeavor to overcome

unjust distinctions and power. When Mr. Fawcett does deal with a class

he is not always just. In his _Miriam Balestier_, published in the

November number of BELFORD'S, by far the most artistically beautiful

work from the pen of our author, he by implication attacks an entire

profession that has held through generations not only the admiration

but love of the public. There is absolutely nothing in the vocation of

an actor that either degrades or demoralizes. On the contrary, there

is much to elevate and refine--the work sustained by art found in

painting and music, the thought and feelings of the poets; and while

this is meant to amuse, the stage has been the most potent factor in

not only furthering civilization and culture in the masses, but

awaking in the hearts of the many the loftiest patriotism known to

humanity. It has awakened a deeper feeling for the home, a firmer

trust in the law of right, and a stronger faith in virtue than aught

else of human origin. That taints, stains, and abuses have attached is

no fault of the drama. One could as well attack the bar or the pulpit

because a few unworthy members have disgraced themselves, as to hold

the stage responsible for the recognized evils that have fastened

themselves to a part. That we have senseless burlesques and lascivious

exhibits of nakedness at a majority of our theatres is the fault of

the patrons, not the stage. The manager, like any other dealer in

commercial wares, caters to the taste of his customers, and the stage

is no more responsible for their productions than the street is for

the wretched street-walker.

So long as citizens take their wives and children to witness the

shameless productions, so long will the managers produce them, and

when remonstrated with, shrug their shoulders, and ask, "Well,

what would you?" The pulpit denounces the drama, but leaves untouched

their congregations in their patronage of its abuse. The great city

of New York, for example, lately entertained a convocation of

Protestant clergymen, met to consider the sad fact that they were

preaching to empty churches, and to devise means through which to

awaken the religious conscience of the multitude. They went to

their meetings along streets where every other house was a saloon,

where the beastly American practice of "treating" makes each a door

to ruin; and they passed corners where the walls were aflame with

pictured advertisements of naked legs, bare bosoms, and faces fairly

enamelled with sin. One reads their debates with amazement. Their

clerical minds were troubled with what? The doings of "papists," as

Catholics were designated.

Our pen has carried us from our author. Of course Mr. Fawcett will

say--and say with truth--that his strictures were aimed at the abuse

and not the legitimate use of the drama. But his fault was that he

does not make this clear, and by intimation he leaves himself open to

the charge.

Aside from this, his work is a work of genius; and his story of the

little girl who struggled with such vain endeavor against her

environment will live among the noblest productions of fiction given

us.

_The Professor's Sister_, by Julian Hawthorne (Belford, Clarke &

Co.).--This is the most successful work of a successful novelist, and

holds the reader entranced from the first page till nearly the last.

We say reader, but not all readers. Mr. Hawthorne is as peculiar in

his work as his eminent father was, with a more select audience. He is

at home in the wild, weird production of humanity, touched and marked

by a spiritualism that is far above and beyond the average readers of

romance. If it calls for as much culture, in its way, to enjoy a work

of art as its creation called for in the artist, Mr. Hawthorne's

fictions demand the same tastes and thought the author indulges in.

The little girl who craves love-stories, or the traveller upon the

cars who picks up a book to lose in its pages the wearisome sense of

travel, will scarcely select the _Professor's Sister_, and if he or

she does, will wonder what in the name of Heaven it is all about.

There is another class, however, that will read with avidity and

interest every page of this book, and this class grows wider in our

midst every day. One meets at every turn a man or woman who will tell,

in a matter-of-fact way generally, that is positively comical, of some

experience he or she has had with spooks. This, not the old-fashioned

experience with ghosts. All that has long since been relegated to the

half-forgotten limbo of superstitious things. One hears of communions

with the dead, told off as one would tell of any ordinary occurrence

common to our daily life. This is the natural reaction of the human

mind against the scientific materialism of the day, that seeks to

poison and destroy all religious faith. Religion is as necessary to

health of mind as pure air is to that of body, and when deprived of

either, we struggle for loop-holes of light and breath with

instinctive desperation. Shut out the light of heaven from the soul,

be it in library or laboratory, and one sickens and resists.

Mr. Hawthorne wisely lays the scene of his story in Germany. The

rarefied condition of the German mind is recognized the world over,

and through the everlasting smoke of philosophers' and students' pipes

one is prepared for all sorts of fantastic shapes moving through the

mist. The author opens with a talk on occult subjects that sounds like

voices heard in a fog-bank. With the reader thus prepared, he plunges

him into a drama where substantial men and women mingle with spirits,

and the strange story does overcome us like a summer's cloud, without

our special wonder.

We have said the story holds one spellbound till near the end. The

_denoument_ is not good. "Calling spirits from the vasty deep" is much

easier than disposing of them after they come. To give a satisfactory

explanation of the mystery, and to exorcise the spirit back to rest,

make no easy task, and Mr. Hawthorne is not to blame for finding it

difficult.

We cannot drop the book without calling attention to the author's

happy use of English, in depicting character. Here is a specimen:

"Madame Hertrugge was white, red, and black. Her skin was white, her

cheeks and lips red, her hair, eyes, and eyebrows black. Her mouth was

beautifully formed, and firm, with a firm chin. Her eyes were rather

full, imperious, and ardent. She was overflowing with vitality. The

hand which she extended to one in greeting was soft but strong, with

long fingers. She was dressed in black, as became her recent

widowhood; but she had not the air of mourning much. She was sensuous,

voluptuous, but there was strength behind the voluptuousness. You

received from her a powerful impression of sex. Every line of her,

every movement, every look, was woman. And she made you feel that she

valued you just so far as you were man. You might be as nearly Caliban

as a man can be, but if you were a man she would consider you. You

might court her successfully with a horsewhip, but if she felt the

master in you, and were convinced that you were captivated by her, she

would accept you. It was ludicrous to think of the senile old merchant

having married such a creature. In fact, marriage, viewed in

connection with this woman, seemed an absurdity. There was nothing

holy about her, nothing reserved, nothing sacred. I don't mean that

she was not ladylike, as the phrase is. She knew the society

catechism, and practised it to a nicety, but like a clever actress,

rather than by instinct or sympathy. It was obvious that she didn't

value respectability and propriety the snap of her white fingers, save

as a means to an end; and if she were in the company of one whom she

trusted intimately, she would laugh those popular virtues to scorn

with her warm, insolent breath. As it was, all the forms and

ceremonies in the world could not disguise her. Her very dress

suggested rather than concealed what was beneath it. She was a naked

goddess--a pagan goddess--and there was no help for it. She made you

realize how powerless our nice institutions are in the presence of a

genuine, rank human temperament.

"And be it here observed that I am here writing of her as a

temperament, and nothing more. I knew nothing of her former life and

experience. I had no reason to think that her conduct has ever been

less than unexceptionable. But the facts about her were insignificant

compared with her latent possibilities. Circumstances might hitherto

have been adverse to her development; but opportunity--rosy, golden,

audacious opportunity--was all she needed. She certainly bore no signs

of satiety; she had nothing of the _blase_ air. She was thirsty for

life, and she would appreciate every draught of it. She was impatient

to begin. And, contemplating her abounding, triumphant, delicious

well-being, it seemed as if she might maintain the high-tide of

enjoyment until she was a hundred. It really inclined one to paganism

to look at her."

_What Dreams May Come_, by Frank Lin (Belford, Clarke & Co.).--This is

a cleverly constructed story of English life by an American pen, and

the average reader is kept in doubt as to the sex of the author. There

is a clear, incisive style of the masculine sort on one page that

indicates the man; there is a treatment of female wearing apparel on

another that gives proof of the feminine. With us there is one feature

that solves the doubt. The pages abound in convictions. Now the female

mind, as a general thing, is not given to doubt. When a woman believes

anything she believes it, and her faith is as firm as the solid rock.

She stands "on hardpan," to use a phrase common to the Pacific slope.

Although the book is built on dreams, the theory of heredity it is

written to promulgate is no dream in the mind of this fair author. We

have called attention to the fact that the use of the novel to

illustrate some doctrine, philosophical or religious, is really an

abuse. One takes up such form of fiction to be amused, and one feels

put upon and abused to find it an essay more or less learned on life

and things. If a little information can be injected in the story

unbeknownst, like the parson's liquor told of by President Lincoln,

well and good; but it is rarely done successfully. If philosophy is

indulged in, one quickly detects the bald head and wrinkled brow; if

it is religion, the cloven hoof or wicked tail of Satan betrays the

author.

When it was once proposed by a staff officer to drive an obnoxious

guest from headquarters by a liberal use of burnt brimstone, General

Sherman said, "That is high strategy in its way, but it is not war."

"When one goes a turkey-hunting one does not care to be killed by

bears," said an old hunter; and when a seeker after amusement, to be

found in a love-story, opens what purports to be a novel, it is

shocking to find it a learned treatise on some abstruse subject.

The book before us is another illustration of this defect. It opens

with an exquisite picture of Constantinople a hundred years since. In

this prologue some wicked conduct is rather hinted at than told. After

this the story opens and moves on pleasantly enough, until the fact is

developed that the hero and heroine are reproductions of the sinful

grandfather and grandmother long since lost to the census-taker of the

British empire. What was evil in the ancestors is an innocent love in

the descendants; and the fair author exhibits considerable power by

preserving the sanity of her characters, to say nothing of that of the

reader, in the complications and situations that follow.

The book is of interest to us, not so much for what it accomplishes,

as the promise of better things. It exhibits all the qualities

necessary to a successful writer of fiction. There is a keen

appreciation of character, a love of nature, and a clear, incisive

style that make a combination which if properly directed insures

success.

THE PASSING OF THE YEAR.

Like some triumphal Orient pageantry

Beheld afar in slow and stately march,

Glittering with gold and crimson blazonry,

Till lost at length through many a dusky arch--

I saw the day's last clustering spears of light

Enter the cloudy portals of the night.

The wind, whose brazen clarions had blown

Imperious fanfarons before the sun

All the brief winter afternoon, died down,

And in the hush of twilight, one by one,

Like maidens leaning from high balconies,

The early stars looked forth with lustrous eyes.

Then came the moon like a deserted queen,

In blanched weed and pensive loneliness;

Not as she rises in midsummer green,

Hailed by a festal world in gala dress,

With thin sweet incense swung from buds and leaves,

And strident minstrelsy of August eves;

But treading in cold calm the frozen plain,

With bare white feet and argent torch aloft,

Unheralded through all her drear domain,

Save where the cricket sang in sheltered croft,

And, faintly heard in fitful monotone,

A solitary owl made shuddering moan.

Charles Lotin Hildreth.

THE LION'S SHARE.

By Mrs. Clark Waring.

CHAPTER I.

SUKEY IN THE MEADOW.

"Where's that cow?"

The speaker was old Farmer Creecy. He was coming up the back steps,

and his words were addressed to his wife, who was manipulating an

archaic churn on the back porch.

"What cow?" sharply retorted Mrs. Creecy, startled out of all

knowledge of four-footed beasts by the unexpectedness of the

question.

"_What cow!_ Look here, now, Alvirey, have you got any sense at all?

How many cows have we got? Can't you count that far? Don't you know

how many?"

Alvirey did. Looking like a sheep being led to the slaughter, and

feeling worse than two sheep under such circumstances, she hung her

head low, and answered, meekly:

"One cow."

"Then I ask you, again, where is that cow?"

"And why do you ask me that, Jacob Creecy? You know as well as I do

where she is. She's down in the meadow."

"And where's Mell?"

"Down there, too. They ain't nobody else to keep Sukey out the corn."

"Ain't, hey? Ha! ha! ha! That's all you know about it! Where does you

keep your senses, anyhow, Alvirey? Out o' doors? Because, I ain't

never had the good luck to find any of 'em at home, yet, as often as

I've called! This very minute there's somebody else down in the meadow

long side o' Mell."

"Why, who, Jacob? Who can it be?"

"You wouldn't guess in a month o' Sundays, Alvirey. Not you! Guessing

to the point ain't in your line. It's that chap what's staying over at

the Guv'ner's, who looks like he had the title-deeds of the American

continent stuffed loose in his vest-pocket."

"You don't say so! Lor'! Jacob, what does he want down there with

Mell?"

"What does he want? If you had a single grain of sense, Alvirey, you'd

know without any telling. He wants to make a fool of her! That's what

a man generally has in view when he runs after a woman. But, I am a

thinking, that chap won't make no fool out of Mell, for Mell's got a

long head, like her old daddy, and a tongue of learning to back it!

Just you keep on a saying nothing. You never missed getting things

into a mess yet, as I knows on, 'cept when you let 'em alone. I'll

shut down on him right away, and then I'll be _blarsted_ if Mell can't

take care of herself! Don't be nowise uneasy, Alvirey. Mell takes

after her old dad."

Alvirey did not return immediately to her churning. She craned her

neck and got on her tiptoes, and gazed curiously after her husband as

his stout figure rolled heavily to the edge of the breezy woodland,

and thence beyond to the newly cleared grounds, and onward still to

that narrow path among the pines, whose turf-margined and daisy-dotted

track was a covert way to the meadow. Presently, through its mazy

windings and the medium of a hazy summer atmosphere, Mr. Creecy came

in sight of a youthful Jersey, sedately cropping some tender blades of

grass on the enticing borderland of a promising cornfield, and a young

girl not far away seated on an old stump in a shady nook under a clump

of trees. Her costume consisted principally of an airy muslin frock,

nebulous in figure, and falling about her in simple folds, and a white

sun-bonnet, which was a bonnet and something more--to be explicit, an

artistic elaboration of tucks and puffs and piled-on embroideries,

beneath which peeped forth a face as prodigal of blooming sweets as a

basket heaped with spring flowers.

At her feet lounged in careless fashion a young man. He was lithe and

straight, and had that striking cast of countenance which catches the

observant eye on first sight. This look of distinction, which in him

was as marked in form as in feature, has been called, not inaptly,

thoroughbredness. A self-made man never has it. All that a man may do

will not put it upon himself, but his son possesses it as an

heritage.

Looking upon such persons, we know intuitively that they have always

had the best of everything, beginning from their cradle, the best of

_its_ kind.

Not always strong, these thoroughbred faces are generally attractive.

The one before us possesses both strength and beauty. We may consider

it foremost among his first-rate advantages.

Seeing this huge monster of humanity bearing down upon them,

slow-wabbling, like a proboscidian mammal, fast-puffing, like a steam

locomotive, the young man lifted himself to a sitting posture, and

without any suspicion as to the true state of the case, remarked to

his companion:

"Here comes a doughty old customer, upon my word! 'What tempest, I

trow, threw this whale with so many tons of oil'----"

The young lady cleared her throat--she cleared it point-blankly.

"Excuse me, but, perhaps you do not know, that is--is--my father."

Stammering forth these words, she at the same time turned very red in

the face.

This was slightly awkward, or would have been to another. As for this

young man, he did not mind a little thing like that.

"I did not know it," he told the girl, unruffled; "I crave your

pardon. The fact is, it is an habitual failing of mine to make sport

of fat people. The lubberly clumsiness of a huge corporation of human

flesh is to me so irresistibly comic! My mother tells me a dreadful

day of retribution is coming--a day, wherein I shall be fifty and fat,

and a fit subject for the ridicule of others."

"I cannot discern the foreshadows of such a day," replied the girl,

glancing with unconscious approbation at the admirable outlines of

a figure whose proportions were well-nigh faultless. She fingered

nervously at her bonnet-strings, smiled a panic-stricken little smile,

broke out into a cold sweat of fearful expectation, and through all

the horrors of the situation, tried her best to emulate the young

man's inimitable air of cultured composure. He got up at this

juncture from the ground, not hastily, not awkwardly, but in his own

time and at his own pleasure, and standing there, entirely at his

ease, looked every inch the living exemplar of that expressive

little phrase--"don't-care."

Some persons object to being interrupted, he did not.

The girl stood up, too, but stood with such a difference! More and

more disconcerted she became with every passing second, so ashamed was

she of her unsightly old father, in his blue cotton farm clothes,

dirty and baggy, and his red cotton handkerchief--no redder than his

face--so ashamed, and with such a sense of guilt in her shame! Truth

to tell, the contrast between the two men thus confronted, was almost

startling; the bloated ungainliness of the one, the sinewy shapeliness

of the other; the misshapen grotesqueness of the one, and the

sculpturesque comeliness of the other. It was a contrast painful to

any intelligent observer, and for the poor girl before us, about to

introduce a lover of such mold to a father of such aspect, it was like

being put to the rack.

"Mr. Devonhough, father."

"Mr. _Who?_" gasped a big voice, struggling out from smothered depths

of grossness.

"Mr. Devonhough," repeated the daughter, looking all manner of ways,

"a friend of the Rutlands."

"How does ye, Mr. Deviloh?" inquired the old farmer, in his

exceedingly countrified, agonizingly familiar manner; extending a big,

rough, red, and very filthy hand to be shaken by this exquisite sprig

of refined gentility. Mr. Devonhough, needless to mention, touched it

as gingerly as if it had been a glaringly wide awake and aggressively

disposed Cobra de Capello. He endured the ceremony in silence,

however; about as much as could be reasonably expected from one so

superbly self-controlled.

"What will father do next?" wondered the perturbed young lady, in

burning suspense. What he did was to stare unmercifully into the young

man's face, as if every separate feature was a distinct and

incomprehensible phenomenon, and, afterward, inspect him with due

carefulness, and at his very deliberate leisure, from the hat on his

head to the shoes on his feet.

Mr. Devonhough did not flinch. Some persons object to being stared at;

he did not. It is very foolish to mind such things. And besides, he

had eyes as well as this old Brobdingnagian, and knew how to use them

to quite as good a purpose. While the bellicose Creecy took in slowly

the outward manifestations of this bland young stranger, the young

stranger himself, in about two seconds and a half, had cross-examined

every constituent element in the old man's body, and thoroughly

analyzed even the marrow in his bones.

We have intimated that the old man's figure was bad; his face was a

dreadful climax to a bad figure, so marred it was by worry, so

battered by time, so travel-stained on life's rough journey, so

battle-scarred in life's hard strife. Behind this forbidding frontage,

the old man kept in store a good, sound heart; but what availed that

to his present inquisitor? A good, sound heart in an ugly body, is the

last thing a young man looks for in this world, or cares to find.

From the inspection of so much ugliness, Mr. Devonhough glanced

towards the daughter; it was merely a glance, for with a delicate

sense of feeling, he quickly looked away in an opposite direction.

Flushed she was with shame, ill at ease, ready to cry out with a

bitter cry, accusingly towards heaven, unspeakably humiliated; but,

withal, a winsome lass, so fresh and fair, so pretty. Such a father!

Such a girl! In heaven's name how do such things come about?

Satisfied with his investigations, Mr. Creecy now remarked, quite

cheerfully:

"I s'pose, sir, you air a drover?"

"A drover? No, sir; as far as I am able to judge, I am not. More, I

cannot say, as I do not know what you mean."

"Den I reckin, sir, you air er furiner inter the bargin."

"No, sir; not a foreigner either, though I was educated abroad--partly."

"Dat's it," ejaculated the old man, triumphantly. "Eddicashun is the

thing what plays the Ole Harry wid the onderstan'in'. Dar is my little

Mell, dar, when she war er chit of er gal, an' knowed nuthin' 'bout

the things writ down in books, she war er mighty smart gal. She had a

onderstan'in' of plain English, mity near es good es mine, an' she

could keep house, an' make butter, an' look arter farm bizniss in

gin'ral, not ter say nuthin' 'bout sowin' her own cloes; an' now,

bless God! arter gittin' er fine eddicashun, she don't know the

diffrance 'tween er hoss an' er mule, or er bull an' er heifer; an'

she'd no mo' let yer ketch 'er wid er broom in her han', or er common

word on her lips dan steal er chickin! Es fur es my experance goes,

nuthin' spiles er gal like high schoolin'. I purt myself ter a heap er

trouble, young man, ter edicate my only darter, but I'd purt myself

ter er long site mo', ter onedicate 'er, ef I know'd how!"

This speech amused Mr. Devonhough to such an extent that he

reluctantly displayed a set of very white teeth, and Mell's rather

strained gayety found an agreeable echo in his pleasant-sounding

laughter. Even the old farmer's features relaxed. He was "consid'ble

hefted up" at the undisguised effect of his own facetiousness.

"The reason I axed ef yer wuz er cattle dealer," he proceeded, "is

dis. You 'pears ter be in the habit er comin' hur every mornin' ter

see our fine Jersey. She's er regular beauty, ain't she?"

"She is--worth coming to see; but since you press the point, I feel

called upon to disavow coming here for any such purpose."

Here Mr. Devonhough turned his contemplative glance from the direction

of Suke's charms, and fixed it mischievously upon Mell who, having

already, since the beginning of this interview, looked into the four

quarters of the globe, now dropped her eyes in search of the mysteries

beneath it.

"To be honest wid ye," admitted old Creecy, "I didn't 'low ye wuz

arter Suke, ezzactly, but I sorter reckin'd ef yer'd come ter see

Mell, it's the front do' yer'd er knockt at, es I ust ter do when I

went er courtin' my gal--Mell's mammy--an' had it out comferterble in

the parler. We has er very nice home up dar on the hill, with er whole

lot er fine furnisher in the front room, which Mell never rested 'till

I went in debt ter buy. Now its mos' paid fur, an' I kinder 'low Mell

'ud be glad ter see yer mos' enny time."

"Thank you," responded Mr. Devonhough, with frigidity.

"He mought go now, Mell, ef yer'd ax him."

"Not to-day, thank you," turning to Mell, with more graciousness of

manner. "In fact, I have not yet breakfasted;" and he abruptly bowed

adieu, and made his escape.

He was quite out of sight before father or daughter addressed a word

to each other. At length the old farmer demanded roughly of the girl

"What in the tarnation she wuz er blubberin' erbout?"

"What, indeed!" sobbed Mell, in a frenzy of passion, and with eyes of

storm. "I have good cause to cry. What else can I do? I can't say

_Damn!_"

"Can't yer? Why not? 'Tain't the cuss what's so bad; it's the feelin'.

Ef the devil's in yer, turn him out, I say. I ain't no advercate er

bad language, but ef er man feels like cussin' all the time, he mought

as well cuss! Dat's my opinion. An' ef it will help yer to cool down

er bit, my darter, I'll express them sentiments, which ain't too bad

for a young lady ter feel, but only to utter. So here goes--but

remember, Lord! 'tain't me, it's Mell--damn! damn! damn! Sich er

koncited, stiff-starched, buckram-backed, puppified popinjay, as this

Mr. Devil--"

"Hush your mouth," screamed the daughter, beside herself with rage; "I

don't want _him_ damned!"

"You don't! Then who?"

Mell, wrought up to the highest pitch of exasperation, made no reply

beyond looking daggers and gnashing her teeth.

"Not your old dad, Mell?"

"No, father; I don't want you damned either. But what did you come

down here for? What did you call him a cattle dealer for? What did you

talk about such horrid, nasty, disgusting things, for? Oh! I am

mortified almost to death."

"I sorter reckon'd yer'd hate it worser'n pisen," chuckled the old

farmer; "but er good dose of pisen is jess what some folks needs bad.

Come, come, Mell, hold your horses! It's your eddicashun what's er

botherin' of yer!"

"I wish to God I had no education!" exclaimed Mell, passionately.

"It's turned out to be the worst thing I ever did do, to get an

education! It has made me unhappy ever since I came home and found

things so different from what they ought to be. How poor and mean a

home it is! How lowly its surroundings, how rude its ways and how I am

degraded and fettered and hampered and looked down upon for things

beyond my control!"

"I knows--I knows"--answered her old father, with that suspicious

thrill-in-the-voice of a subjugated parent. "It's yo' ignerront ole

daddy an' yo' hard-workin' ole mammy what's er hamperin' ye! We ain't

got no loving little Mell, no longer, to say, Popsy and Mamsy, so

cute, but only er fine young miss, who minces out 'father' and

'mother' so gran', an' can't hardly abide us, the mammy what bare her,

and the daddy what give her bein'. I knows. Ef it warnt fer us, ye'd

be the ekill of the finess' lady in the lan', wouldn't ye, Mell? Wall,

ye kin be, my darter, in spite o' us, ef you play yo' kerds rite.

You'se got es big er forshun es Miss Rutlan'--bigger, I believe.

Hern's in her pockit, yourn's in yo' phiz. But, arter all, a gal's

purty face don't 'mount ter mor'n one row er pins, ef she ain't got no

brains to hope it erlong. Play yo' purty face, Mell; play her heavy,

but back her strong wid gumshun! Then you'll git ter be er gran' lady

o' fashion, in spite o' yer ugly ole dad an' common ole mammy. Now, I

wants ye ter tell me somethin' 'bout dat young jackanapes. What's his

bizniss? What is he?"

"A perfect gentleman!"

"Sartingly--sartingly. I seed dat, as soon es I sot my eyes on 'im,

but what sorter man? My ole dad ust ter say, 'one fust-rate man could

knock inter blue blazes er whole cart load er gentlemin'. I'll tell

yer fer er fack, er gentlemin ain't nothin' nohow, but er man wid his

dirty spots whitewasht. But what air the import er this one's

intentions respectin' of ye?"

Whatever her ideas on this point, the girl was too modest to express

them.

"Wall, maybe you kin tell me the dispersition of your own min'

regardin' him?"

"Yes, I can do that," she replied with alacrity. "Make up your mind to

it. I'm going marry him just as soon as he asks me. And the sooner the

better!"

"Exactly! But when is he gwine ter?"

"How do I know, father?"

"I kin tell ye, Mell. _Never!_"

"You don't know one thing about it--not a thing!"

"Sartingly not! It's the young uns these days what knows everything,

an' the ole ones what dont know nuthin'. But yo' ole dad knows what

he's talkin' 'bout. The likes o' him will never marry any gal who puts

herself on footin' wid er cow. Does yer reckin Miss Rutlan' would

excep' his visits in er cornfiel', and let him make so free?"

"It only happened so, father."

"Hump! It's happen'd so er good many times, es I happen ter know.

Happenin' things don't come roun' so reg'ler, Mell. See hur, my gal,

'tain't no use argufyin' wid me on the subjec'. I ain't got nary

objecshun ergin yo' marryin' the young man; provided--now listen,

Mell!--_provided you kin git him_. He's es purty es er grayhoun', an'

I reckin has es much intellergence, but insted ef lettin' him make a

fool er you, es he's now tryin' ter do, turn the tables, Mell. The

biggest fool on top o' this airth is the woman who wants ter git

married; the next biggest fool is the man in er hurry ter git er wife!

One mo' word, Mell, an' I'll go my way, an' you kin go yourn. Ain't

gwine ter mortify you no mo'. Remember, what I say: thar's only one

thing you dassent do wid er fine gentlemin--_trus' him!_ Don't trus'

him, Mell; don't trus' him! My chile, the good Lord ain't denied ye

brains, use 'em! Here ends the chapter on Devilho--"

Turning off abruptly, Mr. Creecy puffed sturdily up the hill, leaving

his daughter deep in the sulks, but with much solid food for

reflection.

Her eyes followed him sullenly. He was but one remove from--a darkey.

Never had he appeared so irredeemably ugly, awkward and illiterate;

never acted so altogether and exasperatingly vulgar, horrid and

abominable, and yet she pondered deeply on his words. Their effect

upon her surprised even herself. Can an unschooled man be wise? Ah,

Mell! wisdom is not curbed by rhetoric, nor ruled by grammar. The

_respicere finem_ of the unlettered appears oftentimes to be _jure

divino_.

After a while Mell wiped away the very last tear of agonized pride,

which hung like a dewdrop on her long curling lashes. The gall and

wormwood of her present feelings were somewhat abated. She knew what

she was going to do.

"I'll get out of this!" exclaimed Mell, speaking to herself in

particular, and into space at large. "Get out of it, the very first

chance."

Get out of what, Mell? This humdrum life of little cares and big

trials? this uncongenial association with an overworked and sickly old

mother (once as pretty as yourself, Mell) and an ill-favored,

ill-mannered and illiterate old father?

Is that what Mell intends to get out of?

Yes, and she means to do it in the easiest possible way, according

to her own conception of the matter. Other girls may find it

necessary to work their way, by a long and tedious process, out of

disagreeable surroundings, but she will do it with one brilliant

master-stroke--_coute qu'il coute_.

Put a placard on pretty Mell; proclaim her in the market place; hawk

the news upon the street corners; inscribe it on the pages of the

great Book up yonder!

To unite her destinies with some being--not divinely, blessing and

being blessed--not vitally, loving and being loved; not necessarily a

being affectionately responsive and, therefore, fitted to become the

sharer of her joy and the assuager of her grief, but simply some being

of masculine endowment serving in the capacity of a latch-key, through

whose instrumentality she can gain admission into the higher worldly

courts, for whose untasted delights her whole nature panted, is

henceforth, until accomplished, the end and aim of Mellville Creecy's

existence.

Ho, there! all ye buyers, come this way!

Here's a woman for sale!