CHAPTER X.

I had not seen Georgy Lenox for four years when, the spring we

graduated, she came to visit a cousin of her mother's in Boston, and we

were all invited to an Easter-party at Mrs. Dwight's, the cards being

brought to us by no less a person than Mr. Lenox himself. I was in my

own room writing when I heard Harry's sweet voice calling, and I went

out. Harry was, as usual, sitting on the table before his easel. It had

been one of his guardian's regulations that he should not touch paints

or canvas during his collegiate course, and until within the last few

months he had obeyed orders, and only lately had taken to water-colors

as a sort of negative course of action calculated to give him relaxation

after the monotony of his unnatural deprivation, without infringing upon

his uncle's injunctions. He was painting a girl in a flower-garden, and

over his shoulder was gazing a shabby, jaunty, decayed-looking person,

who was strangely foreign to my eyes, yet irresistibly familiar.

"Don't you remember Mr. Lenox?" asked Harry, staring at me. "Have you

forgotten the pleasures of your boyhood, miserable ingrate? Have you no

recollection of the big kite this benefactor of your youth made you,

which dragged you down the hill and threw you into the ditch?"

"I remember all about it," said I; and indeed I had been shaking hands

with my old friend all the time Harry was speaking.--"And I am delighted

to see you, Mr. Lenox."

I began looking about me for a chair. In fact, finding a chair was the

one trouble of our three lives, and was the only way in which we felt

hospitality to be a tax upon our time. For, although we had as many

chairs as the room would accommodate, they were always full of books,

fruit, cigars or hats and coats. There was one arm-chair, originally

covered with horsehair, which Harry called the "funeral coach:" it might

have been called anything, for it was so dingy, so battered, so broken,

that its _raison d'etre_ had come to be a matter of speculation. Into

this seat I now inducted our visitor. He was as shabby as the funeral

coach itself, but had kept up more gentility in his decay. I had not

seen him for four years, and the lack of any change in his appearance

surprised me. There he was, as well shaven, as threadbare, as jaunty

and well-mannered, as in the old days when we used to play the siege of

Troy, using an old packing-case for the wooden horse, and he was our

Trojan victim. I was much impressed by my own age, and said a good deal

in those days about the flight of time and the mutability of human

affairs: I expected anybody who was grown up when I was young to be well

stricken in years; and if Mr. Lenox had been a shrunken old man with

altered aspect and a deep sense of the worthlessness of all efforts

after temporalities, the change would have seemed only a reasonable one

to me.

But, on the contrary, he was just the same as ever, and began talking at

once about a grand coup he was going to make presently by investing in a

silver-mine. He had two thousand dollars, and would buy shares at

forty-nine, and be in time for the dividends of ten per cent. in July.

The stock was going up like a skyrocket: a week ago you could have

bought it for nineteen.

Jack had come in now, and was standing behind his future father-in-law's

chair. "A skyrocket is a bad simile," he remarked. "Everybody knows what

it comes down."

Mr. Lenox appeared so happy it seemed really a pity to wilt his

enthusiasm: he had been beaten so many times that the prediction of

failure was a familiar knell to him. But Jack had no time to waste in

talk of any kind, and at once went into my room to study.

"Never mind Jack," said Harry: "he is a born croaker. I dare say the

silver-mine is made of gold. How about the stock in the ---- Railroad

that your wife holds, Mr. Lenox?" And we both laughed at the old joke.

Mr. Lenox smiled furtively: "It was never safe to trust such a secret to

scatter-brains like yourselves. But don't you know about the great

defalcation? Brown, the president of the road, absconded with over a

million of dollars, and they have not paid a single dividend in three

years. You ought to hear my wife go on about it."

"But you have an easy time: you didn't mind Brown's embezzlement," said

Harry. "What a stroke of luck for you! You can buy back your wife's ten

shares at a low figure, and have a good conscience the rest of your

life."

"By Jove, Harry! you have given me an idea. Just as soon as this new

stock of mine gets above par I will sell out, reinvest and put the

certificates in my wife's bureau-drawer. I should breathe more freely,

there is no doubt of it. I confess to you, boys, it's a deuce of a life

to keep a secret from a woman, she has you at such a disadvantage. Yes,

on my honor, I'll buy in some of that stock: it's utterly worthless for

years to come, and there must be thousands and thousands of shares of it

in the market. Yes, I will do it as soon as I have made two hundred per

cent. on my silver-mine. Yet it does seem a pity--" and he gave us a

prudent nod--"to put money into such a broken-down concern."

"But you are as rich as Croesus," remarked Harry, mixing his colors

meanwhile. "It must be awfully jolly to take two thousand in one's

pocket and go out and buy a silver-mine."

"The fact is," said Mr. Lenox confidentially, "that old Raymond has

shelled out at last. I wrote to him, but he took no notice; so I induced

Georgy to send a note to the little girl at The Headlands, and she

somehow persuaded her grandfather to let me have three thousand dollars.

He sent it in a way which robbed the courtesy of charm; but he is an old

man, and for the sake of little Helen I did not repay him in kind."

"Why, what did he do?"

"Sent me his check pinned to a scrap of paper on which he had scrawled,

'A fool and his money are soon parted.' Of course I sent him my note of

hand, and shall pay him as soon as possible. Do you happen to know,

Floyd, anything of the ultimate disposal of his property--the terms of

the old gentleman's will?"

"I know nothing whatever about it," I answered, "but have no doubt of

Helen's being sole heiress. Why not? There is no other direct heir."

"I am his nephew," said Mr. Lenox with his jauntiest air. "I have no

doubt of my claims or the claims of my daughter being recognized by the

head of my family. By all accounts, too, Helen is a delicate child,

fancifully reared and probably short-lived."

"Where do you get your information? Miss Floyd is a tall girl of fifteen

now, straight as an arrow, and can out-ride and out-walk any girl I

know."

"I wish her no harm," exclaimed Mr. Lenox eagerly. "I love the child as

if she were my own. Georgy has always represented her as delicate and

puny."

"She has not seen her for five years."

"True, true! Don't repeat what I said: you know the code of men of honor

on these points, and what is said between friends is inviolate as the

grave. Little Helen Floyd has been a good friend to my poor girl, who

has none of Fortune's gifts. Not a month passes without a letter with an

enclosure of money; and she begs Georgy to look upon her as a loving

sister who is proud and glad to be of help to her in any way."

"And Miss Georgy accepts the money?" drawled Harry with a well-known

look on his handsome face.

"Of course she does," responded Georgy's father with considerable heat.

"Mr. Raymond ought to do anything for her. The amount of that man's

income is fabulous, sir: I tell you, it is fabulous: he cannot begin to

spend it. I sometimes doubt if he spends more than the interest of his

income. Reflect upon his principal; what must it be!"

"Well, it's his own to do as he likes with, I suppose," said Harry,

rather bored with the subject. "And I am sure you cannot complain, since

you are jingling his money in your pocket this very moment. How did it

happen that when Miss Georgy was at Mr. Raymond's she did not make the

old gentleman take a fancy to her? She turns most people's heads."

"It was always a mystery to me," returned Mr. Lenox mournfully. "But Mr.

Raymond does not like my wife, nor, I sometimes think, does he like me.

The truth of the matter is, that that unlucky Hermetically-Sealed Barrel

Company--"

Harry looked at me. The unlucky Hermetically-Sealed Barrel Company had

been one of our old jokes at Belfield, for we had been compelled to hear

its history a hundred times over. It seemed to me, in my youthful

wisdom, odd and pitiful that while we had grown from boyishness into

something better, leaving follies and weaknesses behind us, this man,

almost thrice our age, still studied the old pages of his book, not

reading them with any clearer vision than before, in spite of all his

experience. Why did he not turn the leaf and take a different story?

Experienced in life as I believed myself in those days, I had not

learned then that we halt groping over one lesson throughout our

careers. Although our harps seem tuned for the most various harmonies,

we strike the same chords over and over again in hopeless iteration.

So we got him off the subject, and talked college-talk, and told him

about the probable appointments for commencement. He was one of our

alumni, liked our gossip, and could supplement our stories with those of

the jollier days twenty-five or thirty years before. Harry and I nearly

died of suppressed laughter as he gravely informed us that he had

expected the valedictory, and was served badly when it was given to

another. It appeared a huge joke that this seedy, broken-down man,

without a person in the wide world to respect him or believe in him,

could ever have been justified in any of our high hopes--could ever have

stood in the places we filled now, and, like us, securely counted on

winning the prizes of life.

Then he produced the little white envelopes which he had hitherto

forgotten, and we read that Mrs. Dwight presented us her compliments and

hoped to see us for a social gathering at her house the next Wednesday

evening.

"Miss Georgy's writing," said Harry, putting his down.

"How do you know, you rascal? She certainly does not write to you

usually."

"No, but she writes to a fellow I know," returned Harry, nodding toward

the next room. We all abated our tones now, and talked softly about

Georgy, not wishing Jack to hear. Mr. Lenox was always eloquent upon

this theme. He had brought her up to town himself three days before, and

the Dwights were charmed with her--could not do enough for her. She was

the one success of his life, and no wonder she was precious to him. A

good deal of his ready money had gone into her outfit, which must be

suitable for an aristocratic house and Easter gayeties, and he had put

off getting a new coat until his stock was ripe for harvest. The Dwights

had not seen him, you may be sure. He knew that such people would think

less of Georgy for having a seedy old father out at elbows, so he was

willing to keep in the background. This very morning, however, Georgy

had come out for a rendezvous in a secluded corner of the Common, and

had taken rare delight in the assignation and pretended he was her lover

whom she was forced to meet in secret.

"I dare say she has tripped out before to meet somebody," said Harry,

who was always cynical regarding women, but especially severe where

Georgy was concerned. "Girls practise those wiles on fathers and

brothers, that they may do the thing neatly when a lover turns up."

"Nonsense! For the matter of that, it has sometimes seemed a little hard

upon my girl that, although she is engaged to the best fellow in the

world, she should have no chance to win lovers from society at large.

Not but that I am glad that her future is so secure--a most fortunate

match for her. I am proud when I think of it."

Well he might be proud. It is something out of the course of every-day

events for a girl to possess the love of a man like Jack, whose nature

combined the strongest masculine qualities with the tenderness and

faithfulness of a woman. Of a woman? Strange how we use phrases which

have outworn their meaning! Jack's tenderness and faithfulness were

altogether without parallel.

ELLEN W. OLNEY.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

PERSONAL SKETCHES OF SOME FRENCH LITTERATEURS.

Paris, any Frenchman will tell you, is the capital of intellect; and

though this is but one of a hundred things equally flattering to their

country which all Frenchmen believe, yet it happens to be true. In some

societies it is social rank, in others wealth and fine houses, in

others, still, capacity to render service to the state, which makes old

men courted and opens doors to the novice. But in Paris it is brains. If

you have written a book or painted a picture or discovered a scientific

theory, you have at once a reserved seat, as it were, in the social

world, and nobody thinks of asking who your father was, or where you

live, or what your income may be. With the literary society the

political is so closely allied that the two may be said to coincide.

There are coteries of course, but there are also neutral grounds on

which members of all sets meet in peace and separate in harmony; and

especially since the Republic has become firmly established the barriers

based upon party differences have tended steadily to disappear. During

the Empire some of the cleverest writers, such as Sainte-Beuve and

Merimee and About, were imperialists: now they are all dead or have

changed their politics. During this period, too, the intelligent and

literary opposition was mostly Orleanistic, but the last seven years

have clearly shown not only that the bourgeois monarchy had no roots in

the heart of the people, but also that the conservative Republic

possesses all its advantages, combined with few of its objectionable

qualities. To men like Renan and Laugel, who have been Orleanists all

their lives, and who cherish a personal affection for the party, the

situation appears melancholy, and the wail of Renan in his last book is

sad enough. He is French to the core; supports openly the doctrine, "My

country--right or wrong;" finds the centralization of the French system,

carried to its logical extreme, the ideal government; and hates, above

all things, "Americanism." What strikes an Anglo-Saxon as the merest

commonplace of healthy politics or intellectual life is in his eyes the

most pernicious heresy. We believe that freedom to teach and to write is

the only way to discover the truth, and are confident that in the

struggle of life which opposing systems must pass through the truth is

sure in the end to win. Not so Renan. "The idea that there is a true

knowledge, which must be taught, protected, patronized by the state, to

the exclusion of false knowledge, is losing ground--one of the results

of the general enfeeblement of notions of government." This is bad

enough, but the political situation is even worse than the moral and

intellectual; for M. Renan finds that France has "preferred the

democratic programme, according to which the state, composed of the

agglomeration of individuals, having no other object than the happiness

of these individuals _as they themselves understand it_, gives up all

notion of initiative above their feelings and ideas. The consequence of

such a state of things is the pursuit of prosperity and liberty, the

destruction of whatever remains of the spirit of class, weakening of the

power of the state. Individuals and the subordinate groups of the state,

such as the county and the township, will prosper under such a regime;

but it is to be feared that the nation, the country--France--will lose

every day something of its authority and its strong cohesion. The period

which we are entering upon will be one of liberty _a l'Americaine_."

All this seems mournful to men of Renan's type, and to young men of

fashion who sigh for the "elegance" of the Empire or the Restoration,

and pose consequently as imperialists or as adherents of Henri V. But

the mass of the nation is supremely contented. The peasants say that the

Republic is the only government which does not go to war; the middle

classes, richer and more numerous in France than in any other country,

are happy in having the care of their material interests in their own

hands, and especially in the consciousness that they are now the ruling

class, and that bourgeois intelligence and respectability, rather than

imperial frivolity or royal pietism, is the prevailing idea. Even Renan

admits that "the present hour is sweet:" what troubles him is the

thought of the future. But the republicans are not troubled at all. They

don't intend to carry out any great reforms; they wish to avoid all

foreign complications until the yearned-for hour arrives when Germany

will be forced to disgorge what they are pleased to term its ill-gotten

booty; they have in their ranks almost all the administrative and

oratorical powers of the country; and they tell you that M. Grevy, the

present president of the Chamber of Deputies, will succeed to the

presidency, when the "stupid" MacMahon goes out, with just as little

difficulty as the latter had in coming in, and that he, in turn, will in

all probability be succeeded by Gambetta. These two men are bourgeois to

the tips of their fingers, as was Thiers--modest, leading a regular

life; well-informed on all local matters, and naively ignorant of the

rest of the world; not strong believers in political economy; prudent

and anti-clerical. Only, Gambetta, being twenty years younger than

Grevy, is by twenty years more fiery and radical.

The reader must not complain that he has been entrapped into reading a

leader on French politics when he desired nothing of the sort; for,

without bearing in mind these preliminary facts, it is quite impossible

to understand the relations of French literary men among themselves.

Party passion has ever run high in France, and now that everybody can

freely speak his mind, it has become more difficult than ever for even

the oldest friendship to stand the strain of daily discussion. Take the

instance of M. About and M. Taine. They were schoolboys together, and it

would be hard to say which of the two most distinguished himself at this

period of his career. They were both prodigies, but, though rivals, the

fastest friends. After they had emerged from the Ecole Normale they went

and set up housekeeping together in an old house in the Quartier Latin;

and as they were both poor as rats, the difficulties they had in keeping

soul and body together recall the most picturesque and thrilling scenes

in Murger's _Vie de Boheme_. One day they discovered that they had

neither money nor anything to eat, and About started out to scare up

some nutriment for the inner man. After a while he returned laden with a

basket containing a dozen bottles of wine and various packets of

provisions, and followed by an organ-grinder. Taine was of course no

less pleased than astonished, but he demanded an explanation. "Oh," said

About, "I stumbled across a wine-dealer who wanted a first-class

advertisement done in the highest style of art, so I sat down and wrote

it for him, and he gave me fifty francs and this wine."--"But the

organ-grinder?" pursued Taine.--"Heavens!" exclaimed his friend, "you

don't think one can enjoy a banquet without music, do you? Come, fall

to; and you, old buffer, go to work on that divine instrument of yours;"

which the old buffer proceeded to do, probably more to the satisfaction

of his employer than to that of Taine.

Nor was lively companionship and assistance of this sort all that the

future philosopher and critic owed to the friend of his youth: he

probably owes him his life also, and hence the world is, in a sense,

indebted to M. About for the _History of English Literature_ and _Les

Origines de la France contemporaine_. While they were living in the

style above described Taine was taken suddenly ill, and, as the common

purse was not sufficiently full to enable him to consult a physician,

the two went to see a clever medical student of the quartier and

requested his advice. The budding doctor examined Taine carefully, and

finally pronounced that there was but one thing for him to do, and that

thing was to go to the Pyrenees. "You might as well tell me to go to the

moon," said the poor fellow. "Ah, well," replied the student, "you asked

my opinion, and I have given it; and I may add that if you don't do

what I tell you, you are a dead man." It may be imagined that the two

friends did not pass a particularly pleasant evening; but after much

cogitation About hit upon a possible means of relief; which, however, he

kept to himself.

About's youthful talent was as precocious as his matured abilities are

brilliant, and he had at this time published a book. One evening during

the last season the present writer formed one of a group of three to

whom he narrated, in a most charming manner, how he had made the

acquaintance of the great publisher Hachette, a granddaughter of whom

was another of the trio. He had left his manuscript at the

publishing-house, and after some time was informed that the firm would

be happy to publish it, and to pay him in cash for the copyright eight

hundred francs--an offer with which he closed immediately. A week or so

later he was visited, to his astonishment, by the great publisher in

person. "Sir," began the latter, "it is often said that publishers don't

know how to read, and I myself know some who drive a thriving trade on

that principle. But I read occasionally the books which I publish, and I

have read yours. I am unable to approve the contract which my agent has

made with you. You have parted with your copyright for eight hundred

francs: I return to you the contract, you retain the copyright, and I

give you for the edition fifteen hundred francs." About was even more

touched by the publisher's kindness than he was gratified by his

generosity, and the two men mutually pleased each other--a fact which

the younger now proposed to turn to account in aid of his friend Taine.

So he went to M. Hachette with the following proposition: "I have a

friend named Taine, who is very ill, and I want you to send him to the

Pyrenees."--"But, M. About, I don't know your friend, and why, in

Heaven's name, should I send him to the Pyrenees?"--"But he is a genius,

he will be famous one day, and he will make your fortune. Your fortune

is already made, I know, but he will increase it." The publisher then

remarked that the name Taine was familiar to him, and finally dismissed

his enthusiastic author with a promise to consider the matter. In a few

days Taine received a note requesting him to come and dine with M.

Hachette at his country-place just outside of Paris. The two young men

were again in the depths of financial need, and all the money they could

scrape together was barely sufficient to pay for a railway-ticket. Taine

was quite nonplussed by the invitation--did not know what to make of it;

but About persuaded him to accept, saying that he would at least have a

good dinner, which was more than he could expect at home. And so he

went. The publisher was politeness and cordiality itself, complimented

his guest on his successes at the Ecole Normale, and after dinner took

him aside and said: "M. Taine, we want a book written on the Pyrenees,

and we think you are the best man we can get to do it. If you accept our

offer you will start at once for that region, you will deliver us the

manuscript in six months, and we will pay you for it six thousand

francs; of which I have the pleasure of offering you half to-day." This,

the first of Taine's books, duly appeared, and was a great commercial as

well as literary success, so that the publisher had no cause to regret

his generosity.

One might suppose that a friendship founded and sustained in this

fashion would be tolerably secure against the wear and tear of life,

especially if no personal difficulties intervened. And so it might in

any other land; but literary Frenchmen are too much sentimentalists and

doctrinaires to allow friendship or anything else to stand in the way of

the expression of their opinion, in season or out of season, in regard

to what, from their individual standpoint, constitutes the public weal.

Love me, love my dog; subscribe to all my opinions; follow all my

political changes or I disown you,--when people guide their conduct by

this principle all pairs of friends, except such a one as Boswell and

Dr. Johnson's, sooner or later must separate. Taine is an observer, an

investigator, a critic; and having devoted himself in turn to travel and

to the study of metaphysics, of art and of literature, he has now turned

his attention to recent French history; and the book he has written is

not at all to the taste of sentimental politicians of the About type.

The reader will not need to be reminded that there is no country in the

world so favorable to the growth of "legend" as France: the petite

bourgeoisie of Paris, as I found by personal experience, has already

fabricated a complete legendary history of the Commune, and there is no

subject on which the average Frenchman is so ignorant, and on which his

ignorance is so precious to him, as the real character of the Great

Revolution. As France is the guide of nations; as it represents, and

always has represented, the summit of civilization; as it has ever

possessed the greatest hearts, the purest spirits, as well as the most

brilliant intellects of the time,--why, it is nothing less than high

treason for a Frenchman to turn round and begin to show up the weakness

or wickedness of, say, Robespierre. This sort of thing is pardonable

only when the exposure of some historical character is offensive to the

reigning government, as was the case with the early volumes of Lanfrey's

_Napoleon_. About probably knows the truth about the men of '92 and '93

as well as anybody, but he thinks it desirable that the illusions

respecting them should continue. They are, he says, an important

political factor. Whereas Taine, like the late MM. Lanfrey and De

Tocqueville, loving truth for its own sake, slashes away without caring

for the practical result. I was told by an intimate and lifelong friend

of both men that it had required the most persistent efforts of persons

situated like himself to prevent About's sharply attacking Taine in his

paper (since the appearance of _La Revolution_ the radicals have favored

its author with the epithet of "reactionnaire"); in which case a rupture

would have been unavoidable.

Taine does not like German historians nor German methods of working up

history, and he absolutely denies what, to my mind, is their greatest

and most unrivalled excellence--their relative impartiality. Mommsen was

the subject of unsparing denunciation, as having used Roman history as a

mannikin by which he could illustrate certain views on contemporary

German politics. Mommsen is an author of whom I know little, but there

is another German historian, Von Sybel, who seems to me the most

admirable writer in this department with whom I am acquainted; and as

his great work partially covers the same period to which Taine has

recently devoted himself, I ventured to mention his name in this

connection. But I might as well have stirred up a hornet's nest. "Von

Sybel," said Taine, "wrote his book to prove that Prussia was perfectly

right in taking part in the partition of Poland, and some other things

of like nature." He seemed to think this assertion (admitting its truth)

settled Von Sybel's place in literature as definitely as if he had said

he had written a book to prove Friedrich II. to have been the son of

Jupiter or that the Prussians were God's chosen people. One would have

supposed that the fact of a man's holding such an opinion in regard to

the partition of Poland sufficient evidence for sending him to a lunatic

asylum, although most people believe it to be a perfectly established

historic truth. Taine would not even admit the excellence of Von Sybel's

style--well enough, he said, and clear, but the style of a leader-writer

in the ---- (naming an old, soberly, but far from stupidly written Paris

daily--one of the most readable papers in Paris, and the favorite of the

petite bourgeoisie). I mentioned the reputation Von Sybel enjoyed in

Germany as having an excellent style, and the response was, "Very

likely: where all the rest are blind a one-eyed man sees very well"--a

remark true enough as regards the mass of German writers, but very

unjust to the person under discussion. Taine's models are Macaulay and

Froude, but one would hardly think so from reading his _France

contemporaine_. Be their demerits what they may--and they are no doubt

great--the two English historians certainly have the faculty of

presenting a sharply-outlined and vivid picture, while Taine heaps up

hundreds of little facts, so that the reader, as the French say, can

hardly see the wood for the trees. I may add that the French scholar's

opinion of Prescott and Motley and Bancroft is still lower than that

which he cherishes for their German contemporaries.

Taine has more the air of a scholar, and less that of a man of the

world, than any other litterateur whom I met at Paris. During the winter

his wife receives once a fortnight, and he regularly attends the famous

weekly dinners of the Princess Mathilde, and occasionally dines

informally with some intimate friend; but beyond this he goes but little

into society, and takes his opinions of it at second hand; with regard

to which fact Sainte-Beuve once kindly remonstrated with him in an

admirable letter printed in the second volume of the _Correspondance_.

He is fifty years old, and made, some sixteen years ago, what, in

respect to the rank and wealth and amiable and intellectual qualities of

his wife, was a very brilliant marriage. The story of the wooing is a

"romance in real life." They have two children, the usual size of French

families, though About has seven--"toute une famille anglaise," as

Madame About remarked to me--whether with pride or in a half-ashamed

happiness I did not discover. The Taines live handsomely in the midst of

the Faubourg St. Germain, in a house whose windows have a clear view of

the Hotel des Invalides across the gardens of the Sacre-Coeur. I would

say that I found Taine particularly courteous and cordial, were it not

that I met no French gentleman who in any other society would not be

distinguished for perfection of manner and winning kindness.

Taine has often been urged by friends who have been in America to visit

the United States, both with a view to repair his somewhat shattered

health and to write a book about us after the manner of his _Notes on

England_. He always says he will do so; and it is probable that upon

the completion of the great work, of which the third and last volume is

now nearly finished, he and Madame Taine will set sail for our shores.

One of the peculiarities of Paris, regarded as a _weltstadt_, is, that

it contains no socially disreputable quarters: there is no part of the

city where men of wealth and position do not live. Thus, Theuriet and

Cherbuliez reside in the Quartier du Luxembourg (between the Latin

Quarter and the Faubourg St. Germain), as did Sainte-Beuve, About and

Tourgueneff in the Rue de Douai (toward Montmartre), Girardin and Dumas

in the Champs Elysees, Feuillet in the Rue de Rivoli, etc. Feuillet's

name is, I think, as well known in the United States as that of any

French man of letters except Taine, and if his biography were written he

would be as famous for his eccentricities as was Balzac. An old friend

of his once told me that one day, in calling upon Madame Feuillet, he

expressed his regret that she had no regular reception-day, as in that

case he would be able to see her more frequently. "Well," she answered,

"I should like to have one, but, you see, it is quite impossible. One

can't light the candles till after four o'clock, and before that time it

is so dark here in the entresol that you can't see anybody." (I should

have prefaced this anecdote by saying, for the benefit of those readers

who have never been in Paris, that the entresol is a low story just over

the shops, and that the Rue de Rivoli is one of the noisiest streets in

the city.)--"But Feuillet has leased the third and fourth floors: why

don't you receive up there?" responded the visitor.--"Oh, Octave would

never hear of such a thing. Why, when I merely asked leave to hang some

of my dresses up stairs, he would not let me: 'I have leased this whole

story in order to have silence about me when I write, and the story

overhead to have quiet above me. If you should hang your dresses up

here, your maid would all the time be rummaging round, and that would

derange my thoughts.'" Another of Feuillet's oddities is his hatred of

railways. He has a country-place on the coast in Normandy, and every

summer sends down his wife and children and servant by rail; after

which, like a Russian grand seigneur, he goes down himself with

post-horses. I am inclined to think Feuillet has greater genius than any

other living writer of French fiction, with one exception. His _Monsieur

de Camors_, for instance, is a masterpiece, though one of the most

painful and unhealthy books ever written. But his talent is essentially

dramatic talent, and when he writes a novel his inner consciousness, in

spite of himself, is centred upon the stage effect. Thus, in his last

story, _Les Amours de Philippe_, there is no unity whatever, the book

consisting of three distinct and independent episodes, precisely

corresponding to the three acts of a play. The first of these parts is

one of the most agreeable pieces of writing in French literature, a

really charming little idyl--a Parisian idyl, to be sure, and not

precisely the most suitable reading for young girls. Nothing is more

peculiar than a Frenchman's ideas of morality in literature; for,

strange as it may appear, several of Feuillet's books are considered

highly edifying, and the secretary of the Academy, upon his entrance

into that august body, was able to greet him with the, in France, by no

means negative praise that it was not his fault if there still existed

_mauvaises menages_. Feuillet, rather by sentiment than by conviction,

it would appear, is an ardent Catholic, and, like Dumas, owes no small

portion of his worldly success to the appreciation of this fact in high

quarters. Another of his peculiarities is, that almost alone among the

writers of the day he cherishes a lingering regret for the pleasant days

of the Empire, when for a long period he was not only a favorite at the

Tuileries and Compiegne, but almost the only man of talent who found it

possible to write.

Another writer whom I used to meet in Paris, at About's and at his own

house, was Andre Theuriet, favorably known in America by his lovely

little story of _Gerard's Marriage_. I had read that and other almost

equally charming tales of its author, and felt a strong desire to see

him. Of some literary men one creates in his mind's eye a picture of

which the colors are the impressions produced by their books, and I had

imagined Theuriet either a youngish man with a pretty wife or a

gray-haired paterfamilias with two or three grown-up sons and daughters.

Theuriet's hair is partially gray, to be sure, but he is unmarried, and

by no means _bon enfant_ as regards personal appearance. He was born in

1833 at Marly-le-Roi, near Paris, but educated in a little town in

Lorraine, where his mother's family lived, and whither he still returns

two or three times a year, as he said to me, "to run in the woods." He

early entered the civil service, and was long stationed at Auberive, a

place situated in the forest-region on the edge of Burgundy, and about

which is laid the scene of his novels _Gerard_ and _Raymonde_. For the

last eight years his official duties have caused him to live at Paris,

and it is during this period that his works of fiction have been

produced. Theuriet is a poet as well as a novelist, and his poetry is

said by competent critics to be very good; but the public looks with a

more kindly eye upon his novels, and as their author cannot afford to

disdain contemporary profit and reputation, he has been obliged rather

to show the cold shoulder to the Muse. Theuriet's appearance in letters

and his popularity are, I think, to be taken as a sign that a healthy

change is going on in the taste of French readers. His books,

consciously or unconsciously, are a protest against the system in which

young girls are brought up in France, and which most intelligent

Frenchmen deplore. It is less from an innate tendency to that sort of

thing than because young girls of their own rank must not only always be

under the eye of a chaperone, but also are intentionally afflicted with

a deadly ignorance, incapacity to talk or to make themselves agreeable,

that the young men leave them for the society of _cocottes_. Now,

Theuriet has been a good deal in the society of English people, and

while he stoutly maintains that his girl-characters are thoroughly

French, he yet admits that the idea of describing a kind of young girl

that in France is always assumed to be hoydenish and ill-brought-up,

came to him from observing the family-life of his neighbors from across

the Channel. Theuriet is not a great writer: he has none of that power

of analyzing physical and mental emotions in which Balzac and Stendhal

are the great adepts, though their descriptions, while unquestionably

implying great knowledge of the human heart, produce upon the

Anglo-Saxon reader a feeling of pain, of offence, and often of disgust.

I once asked him if he thought France, under the present bourgeois

regime, likely to return to a healthier taste in literature, and

received as answer the assurance that since coarse and sordid realism

_could_ go no further than _L'Assommoir_, a reaction _must_ set in. From

the filthiness of low life, I dare say, but how about the elegant

fleshliness of the previous school? France will have to undergo a

complete turning inside out before this loses its hold upon the national

mind; as a proof of which I may mention the fact that a man who knew as

much of the world and of books as Taine does, one day said to me that

the best advice he could offer to a foreigner who thought of devoting

himself to letters was to carry back with him, to his own country,

Balzac, Stendhal and Merimee.

Of all the men of letters at Paris, there was no one for whose works I

cherished so hearty an admiration as I did for those of Ivan

Tourgueneff, and none in whose personality I felt so profound an

interest. Tourgueneff is far from being a model novelist, but his tales

are written with wonderful power, and yet are neither indecent nor

melodramatic nor rasping to the nerves. That the burden of strong

natures is in proportion to their strength, that human nature in general

is weak, and that the Devil still sometimes appears incarnate in the

person of lovely woman, seem to form his theory of life. Hence his

stories are ever sad, but they are not depressing; for his weak

characters we sympathize with and do not despise, his strong and

generous ones we sorrow for, his lovely women we reverence. And,

however great one's admiration of Tourgueneff's books may be, the man

Tourgueneff will not appear unworthy of them. What storms may, in

earlier years, have passed over the heart of the now sixty-year-old man

I do not know, but now his rather aged face, fringed with perfectly

white hair and beard, bears an expression of perfect peace. Much of his

time is constantly employed in helping others, and, from all I heard,

Madame Greville hardly exaggerated when she said to me, "He is a saint,

a nineteenth-century saint!" And withal he is one of the most guileless

of men: whatever he may think of men in general, he never can bring

himself to think ill of any man in particular.

Tourgueneff has now for a long period passed at least six months of the

year in Paris, and only three or four in Russia. He used to spend the

summer at Baden, but since the war he has exchanged Baden for

Carlsbad--whether or not on account of sympathy with France, and hence

hatred of the peacefully-disposed nation which it is pleased to consider

its deadly enemy, I do not know. It might well be, for he feels almost

as strongly as a Frenchman as he does as a Russian, and I met no one in

France who was so enthusiastic a republican as he. The present French

Republic (which he insists is fundamentally and thoroughly different

from the Republics of '93 and '48, as well as from that of the United

States) seems to be his ideal government. In a century, he says, there

won't be a king in Europe, except perhaps in England, and there he will

be nothing but a pageant--a political mummy shown to the populace at so

much a head.

In writing of the great Russian novelist it naturally suggests itself to

say a word upon Madame Emile Durand, or "Henri Greville," who has lately

achieved so universal a reputation. One of her slightest efforts has

just been crowned by the Academy, and one or more of her tales has been

translated into all the tongues of Europe, including Dutch and Spanish.

The Durands, who are childless, reside in a little _pavillon_, or house

with garden behind the main structure which fronts the street, in the

not very inviting region of Montmartre. Madame Greville is a

comfortable-looking lady of thirty-five with the air of forty, and is a

most agreeable talker. In her varied experience she has seen a good deal

of the up and downs of life, but has now settled down, as she told me,

"to making her three novels a year." I hardly think she will ever again

reach the level of the _Expiation de Saveli_. Her husband is the Paris

correspondent of a St. Petersburg paper, and incidentally a painter.

No sketch of French literary society, however short, should omit mention

of that most famous of all periodicals, the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. It

is forty-eight years old, and during its long life it has seen perhaps a

hundred rivals rise and fall, while it has itself gone on constantly

increasing in importance, so that it is now become an institution, like

the Academy or the Comedie Francaise. Its offices are located in a fine

old hotel not far from the noble faubourg, where M. Charles Buloz (son

of the founder of the _Revue_) and his wife give during the winter

fortnightly receptions to the contributors and their friends, as well as

literary dinner-parties which form, I suppose, the most catholic

reunions in Paris; and for the excellent reason that all opinions except

blatant radicalism and the dogmatic idiocy of Bishop Dupanloup and his

friends are represented by its contributors. By admitting him to its

columns the _Revue_ gives a French author a stamp of approval which

suffices to make him known and respected (at least as regards talent) in

all quarters of the globe. As was the late, so is the present, manager

fully conscious of his power, and feels as independent with regard to

his authors as does the director of the Theatre Francais toward his. A

short time since the most famous of those literary Frenchmen who are not

novelists, and a man who rarely writes for periodical publications, sent

an important contribution to the _Revue_, but neither the name of the

author nor the fact that the contribution was of a character to attract

great attention among the public induced M. Buloz to print what seemed

to him, from a literary point of view, unworthy of a place in the

columns of this journal. The pecuniary rewards of writing for the latter

are but slight: a writer receives nothing at all for his first article,

and afterward the prices vary--not in proportion to the merit of the

production, but in relation to the reputation of the author. Henri

Greville, for instance, obtained for her _L'Expiation de Saveli_--a

novel which, I am inclined to think, will not only always remain her

masterpiece, but will ever be considered a most perfect work of art--but

one hundred and fifty dollars; and the ordinary price for articles upon

historical or philosophical or art topics is but one dollar to two

dollars per page. It is odd, too, considering the artistic eye and touch

possessed by Frenchmen, and their sensitiveness in regard to such

matters, that the _Revue_, in spite of its large circulation and high

subscription-price, is the worst printed magazine in the world. To

American readers, who have doubtless noticed with pleasure the attention

paid of late years by the _Revue_ to American literature, it will

perhaps be interesting to learn that "Thomas Bentzon," who has

discovered for the French public so many of our authors, is a Madame

Blanc. She was described to me as a woman of great intelligence and the

highest character, the daughter of an old but poor noble family, and

early married to a wealthy banker. This person not proving to be a model

husband, his wife sought a separation; and the fault being obviously on

his side, he was ordered by the court to make Madame Blanc a handsome

allowance. She, however, refused to take the money of a man whom she

could not respect, and having consented to accept only the small annual

sum necessary for their child's education, set bravely but quietly to

work to earn her own living--a task in which she has slowly succeeded.

ARTHUR VENNER.

HIS GREAT DEED.

In all the old Norse legends we are sure to find the inevitable three

brothers, to the youngest of whom, Grimmel, fall all the adventures, the

dealings with the Devil, and the pot of yellow gold at the end.

Not many years ago there lived in a lonely hut on Mount Mitchell in

North Carolina this identical Grimmel and his brothers. Their father,

John Boyer, was a hunter. When he died the two elder sons, Richard and

Hugh, remained with their mother, farmed a sterile tract on the Black

Mountains and trapped bears and wolves through the great southern ranges

of the Appalachian chain. Twice in the year they came down to the hamlet

at Gray Eagle to exchange their peltry for such goods as they needed.

They were, in short, Grimmel's elder brothers, who sat satisfied in the

chimney-corner while giants, devils and trolls were carousing without.

They wore the cloth which their mother had spun, woven and made up for

them. They shot with their father's rifle, ate the same corn-dodgers,

nodded over the same Bible every evening, and drank plenty of whiskey

from the same secret still back in the gorge. It had never occurred to

them to go down into the world, to learn a trade or profession or to

make money. Why should they? Money was of very little use. They probably

did not handle twenty dollars in the year, yet they had all they wanted.

They were big and slow-moving and serious as the tame bear which lay

before the fire. At forty they always spoke of the house and farm as "my

mother's, Mistress Boyer's," and meekly obeyed the old woman as she

ordered them about with a sharp tongue. The instinct of kinship was as

strong in them as in the old Jews. They would strike a bee-line for each

other through the trackless wilderness when miles apart. This happened

often.

"How do I know where to find Richard?" said Hugh. "I don't know how I

know. Something in my bones tells me."

I think that when the youngest brother, Peter, left the mountains these

older men suffered a kind of physical loss ever after, as if an arm or a

leg had been taken from them. Peter was somewhere out in the world,

living by his wits. God had given him precisely the same kind of wits as

his brothers, but with a single added drop of uneasy leaven. He tumbled

out of his cradle when he was a baby to see what lay beyond. He was

thin, wizened, restless as a strange beast in a cage, though his

brothers tirelessly puzzled their slow brains to soothe and satisfy him.

When he was a boy he was wretched because he was not taken down into the

valley or to far-off towns. His brothers were puzzled, dismayed.

"It is the bird in the bush he wants," said his shrewd old mother. "The

bird in the bush: he will never get it in his hand."

When he was a boy of ten a party of geologists stopped at the log hut.

There was much talk among them of the cities, of science and of

politics. Peter Boyer thought he had found his bird in the bush.

"I must have an education, and a good one, mother," he said.

He was sent to Raleigh to school. Reports came home that no such boy had

ever been taught there. His fellow-students prophesied that Carolina

would some day be proud of her gifted son. Up in the mountains the two

brothers ploughed, trapped, dug ginseng and climbed the peaks for balsam

with hot, steady zeal to earn the little money which was needed to pay

for his schooling. The bare cabin grew barer, mother and brothers went

hungry many a day, but the pittance was always saved and sent to him.

The boy came home in vacations with his moustache, his gorgeous

scarf-pin and his quick, eager talk: he brought, too, piles of gilded

prize-books, and once a silver medal. He did not care much for books or

medal, but Richard wrapped each one carefully in paper and packed them

in the big chest, and when the boy was gone the two broad-shouldered men

would take them out at night and turn them over, and sometimes spell out

a page, with a grave awe and delight.

Presently, the lad sent back their money: he was pushing his own

way--into college, into the University of Virginia, finally--great and

culminating triumph!--into the newspapers. Poems (after Poe, as a matter

of course), political diatribes in Johnsonese periods in _De Bow's

Review_, essays, criticisms,--nothing came amiss to him.

The young man's mind was of that flabby but fidgety kind which throws

off ideas as a crab its shells, one after another--useless, imperfect

moulds of itself. He came home to the mountain-hut in the first flush

and triumph of authorship, bringing every newspaper-clipping in his

pocket-book wherein a mention of his name had appeared. Richard, Hugh

and his mother were never tired of hearing nor he of reading them. The

poems and the clippings were left to be stored away--sacred relics--with

the prize-books and medals. Peter set off to the West.

"The bird in the bush is always out of sight with Peter," said his

mother, whose hair was growing white and her voice feeble. He became a

lawyer, a Congressman. When he made his first speech (on the snags in

the Missouri River) he ran down to Carolina with a copy of it in _The

Congressional Globe_. He had grown portly and red-faced, and talked in a

strident voice. All the towns on his route received him as a conquering

hero. "The Honorable Peter M. Boyer arrived last night," said the

papers, "and received a magnificent public dinner at the ---- Hotel. The

distinguished Senator, one of the favorite sons of the Old North State,

is on his way to visit his parents at their summer retreat in Buncombe

county."

The distinguished and pompous Senator, at home in the hut, walked up

and down with uneasy strides and anxious wandering eyes, just as he had

done when a thin cub of a boy. The Senate Chamber evidently was but as

narrow a cage for this alien beast as the life of a hunter had been.

"I'm not satisfied," he told Hugh and Richard. "Politics are not the

right groove for me. But I'll find it. I know that I have an intellect

different from that of the ordinary man. You can't compare pure gold and

brass, can you? Well, I've tested those fellows at Washington, and they

are brass: they're pot-metal, sir! My brain," tapping his forehead,

"will tell some day on the world: I'll make my mark. I'll hit the bull's

eye yet."

The Senator went back to Iowa. He was not returned for the next term. In

a month or two his mother received a letter from him dated at London.

"When I succeed," he said, "I will come back to you. I have given up

politics and taken to literature. Literature is the only career in which

my brain can reach its full development: all others compress and

constrain me. I shall seek in the Old World for the recognition which

the New did not yield me." All this was Greek to his mother and her

sons, but they knew that it meant that he was gone.

He never came back.

In two years the Honorable Peter was as extinct, so far as the American

Congress, newspapers and people were concerned, as any saurian dead

before the Flood. His mother died. Peter had always been an alien to

her, a perpetual disquiet. But when he was gone the thorn was out of her

flesh. She talked and thought of him as in his babyhood, and left him

her blessing at the last. As year after year crept by, the twin-brothers

ceased to talk of him. But it was because they had begun to think of him

with that strained, tense attention with which we sit and listen for the

steps of one who long delays his coming, and who may be dead by the way.

He might come back any day, with a crown of glory on his head. Or--was

he dead? So many ships went down in that dim outer world--so many

cities were burned; legions of men were swept away in battle; in short,

the millions of graves which dotted the earth's surface only meant to

these Boyers the one possible grave where he might lie. The gray-headed

old men went stealthily alone at night sometimes to the big chest and

turned over again the poems and essays yellow now with age, and the

gilded prize-books. But they never spoke to each other of them.

* * * * *

About eighty miles from Black Mountains, in a hamlet on the Nantahela

range, the whereabouts of Peter Boyer was discussed one July day as a

subject of more practical interest. All the men in Sevier--a dozen, all

told--were gathered as usual under the great oak which stood by the pump

in the middle of the square. It was a grassy, weedy square: one or two

cows lay chewing the cud on it, as they did all day long. Why not? There

was never enough noise in the little street which ran round its four

sides to disturb them. In the evening the women went out and milked them

just where they were: occasionally, a meditative sow with her litter, or

a slouching boy, passed them; or a canvas-covered wagon drawn by a steer

would lumber slowly along, stop, and a woman get out of it with a bag of

ginseng or angelica to barter for sugar and shoes; or a farmer in

butternut homespun would jog up the street on his mule, his gun and bag

of rations strapped behind, on his way to the higher peaks to salt his

wild cattle; or a party of Cherokees from Qualla would come in with

baskets to sell; or Seth Keen, the dwarf hunter, would bring in a roll

of wolf-skins, and stay to tell his old stories over for the hundredth

time. But these were rare events: on ordinary days the cows dozed

undisturbed in the sleepy, foggy air, and the men lounged on the trough

by the pump, and smoked from morning until bed-time, and cracked jokes

on each other, and told marvellous stories of the war and its ravages.

"It giv' Sevier a staggerin' blow, gentlemen," old Judge Scroope would

say: "we'll never recover from it. I tell you, Jefferson Davis an'

Lincoln wur men the country hed no use for. Nor the Almighty neyther.

That's my cool jedgment, now that we are out of the fracas. Look at the

ruin them men wrought around you!"

And his audience would look around them, and shift their legs, and shake

their heads with solemn conviction, though they knew, and he knew that

they knew, that since North Carolina began to exist the decrepit frame

houses yonder had turned the same pauper faces to the square in Sevier,

and that their grandfathers in homespun had lounged just as they did on

this very broken trough, and watched their lean cows chew the cud, and

leisurely abused the Federalists for the ruin of the country. Twice a

year the judge and Lawyer Grayson rode down to court and crossed the old

track of Sherman and his raiders, and coming back would tell of levelled

fences and burned barns. For thirteen years they had gone down, and the

barns and fences yet lay as Sherman left them, as unchanged as the

gneiss rocks about them.

On this day, however, they had a new subject to discuss. The

sheepskin-covered chair which sat by the pump day and night the year

round, ready for the judge, had been empty for two weeks. The old man

had pneumonia, and was on his deathbed. Every morning the doctor brought

a full account of his latest symptoms, and the crowd drearily discussed

them during the rest of the day over interminable melancholy games of

backgammon.

On this morning Grayson the lawyer had been sent for.

"The old gentleman's going to make his will," said the doctor, taking a

seat.

The words were like a chilly wind from the grave. The gossips of Sevier

were, after all, a simple affectionate folk. They had grown together

like the mossy logs of their houses: when one was torn away, it left a

gap and a dull, abiding sense of loss for years. There was a long

silence.

"De jedge am bin a class-leader fohty year," said at last old Primus the

barber in the background, shaking his woolly poll.

Nobody answered. The squire noiselessly laid down the dice and shut the

backgammon-board. Major Fetridge rose with a groan: "I'll go over and

get a glass of somethin'. Won't some gentleman join me?"

Nobody joined him. The major's red head and lean little legs moved

unsteadily over the square.

"Sam Fetridge hes hed enough a'ready," said the squire. "He'll follow

the jedge, and that hot foot, ef he don't pull up. D'ye think Dave

Cabarreux will come in for all the Scroope proputty, doc?"

"I don't know. I--don't--know," pulling his beard meditatively. "It'll

be left in a lump: that much the jedge told me himself. 'I'll not part

the proputty,' he says, 'but I'll leave it whar it'll keep up the

standin' of the family.' The old man always hed his sheer of pride in

the Scroopes, you know."

"Dave Cabarreux is his cousin once removed," interrupted Bright the

landlord, who had sauntered back with the major, and engineered that

unsteady worthy to a place on the trough. "He hes no other kin than

Dave, that I know of. David's as genteel a young man as walks Sevier

streets."

"He's a damned cub!" The major staggered to his feet, gesticulating

angrily with his trembling hands.

"Tut, tut, Sam! sit down," said the squire, pulling at his coat-tail.

"You begrudge Dave his pretty little sweetheart. I understand: I've

watched you. Why, Fetridge, you're old enough to be her father, you

moon-calf!"

Sam stiffened his shaky body into a drunken dignity: "Squire, you can

talk of me as you choose: every scrag-end of humanity kin take liberties

with my name now, and does it. But the pump is no place to mention that

lady, nor any lady, sir."

"No, it's not: that's a fact, Sam. I beg her pardon. But Primus tells

me, gentlemen, that the jedge has been talkin' incessant of his nephew

Boyer. Who's Boyer?"

"I've heerd the jedge talk of him frequent, sittin' on that very cheer,"

said Byloe the carpenter. "He's his grand-nephew. Peter Marmyduke Boyer

is the full name. Governor of Iowy. The jedge has told me he was one of

the first men of the present century. He'd all the genius of the Scroope

family. Fact is, I used to think he was a straw man the jedge had made

expressly to hang the honors of the family on."

"What's the jedge callin' on him now for?" said the major.

The doctor glanced around cautiously to the circle of attentive faces,

the silent street beyond, the houses that fenced them in: "It's my

opinion--in strict confidence, gentlemen," lowering his voice: the faces

gathered more closely, Sam's, pimpled and eager, the nearest--"it's my

opinion that the jedge means to cut off Dave without a shilling, and

leave the proputty to this Honorable Peter M. Boyer. But what's the

difference?" he continued after waiting a moment to allow the sensation

produced by his words to subside. "This man Boyer, they tell me, has not

been heard of for years. He didn't even turn up in the war. Undoubtedly,

he's dead."

Major Fetridge sank back against the pump with a drunken chuckle: "Dave

Cabarreux thinks that he's dead, hey? Boyer's not the sort of man to die

as long as a good thing like this is in the dice. Why, Boyer's young,

sir. He's got more brains and experience and vitality than all the

damned wooden Cabarreuxes in a lump."

Byloe squirted tobacco-juice skilfully into the puddle between his feet,

and winked at the squire. "It would go dead ag'in' your chances down at

Calhoun's, major, if Dave gets that proputty," he said gravely. "Old

Tony Calhoun is a full-blood Yankee. He'll never give his daughter to a

man with lean pockets."

The major pulled himself up, half sobered as if by a dash of cold water.

"And what has Cabarreux to make him fit for her?" he demanded shrilly.

"Neither money nor brains. No one of the name ever had energy to earn

salt to his bread. Cabarreux? Bah-h! Boyer is a man! Why, gentlemen, if

Peter Marmaduke Boyer were to appear in Sevier, it would be like the

coming of the eagle among the magpies."

"Sam, you're drunk," said Byloe. "What d'ye know about the man?"

"Know Boyer?" He laughed. The major had a peculiar laugh, which always

put the crowd about the pump in a good-humor--a shrill, pleasant cackle

of exultation. "Why, the whole country knows Boyer. But, if you must

know it, he was a personal friend of mine. He had a great intellect--a

gi-gantic intellect," sweeping the horizon with his arm. "He represented

one of the great Western States in the Senate, Mr. Byloe: ten years ago

he was known through the length and breadth of the Union as North

Carolina's favorite son. To have asked who was Peter M. Boyer then would

have argued yourself unknown."

"Sam's right," said the squire, nodding. "Now, that you speak of it, I

remember him perfectly well. He had a great reputation as a politician.

The Raleigh _Herald_ used to publish his speeches _in extenso_. Queer he

took no part in the war!"

The major chuckled again, delighted: "He did, sir! he did! Beauregard

had no braver officer. To see that man lead his command into the teeth

of the Yankees was a spectacle nobody who saw it can ever forget." The

little man stood up as he talked, gesticulating fiercely as if in the

presence of the foe, his linen coat flapping about his legs, his white

hat set jauntily on one side. "Ha! those were pleasant days, squire,"

wiping his forehead in a glow of triumph. "They brought men up to their

proper level! Boyer was never promoted, though. He was too modest to

push himself, and war was hardly the right groove for him, after all."

"So this great man was a personal friend of yours, Sam?" asked Byloe

with another wink and shrug at the crowd.

The major nodded: "Yes. I wasn't always a drunken loafer in Sevier, nor

Ike Byloe's companion," he said quietly.

There was a laugh of applause. The little man, with all his vaporing,

his windy boasts, his general utter worthlessness, had at bottom a grain

of something genuine which keen Ike Byloe lacked.

"What sort of looking man was this Boyer, Sam?" asked the doctor. "I

confess I have a curiosity about the jedge's heir."

"Oh, a fine-looking fellow--every inch a man," said the major

carelessly. "Voice orotund, magnetic. Easy manners. Good figure;" and he

walked up and down complacently, slapping his own shrunk shank. There

had been a well-shaped leg inside of the ragged linen trousers once, and

the conscious merit which infused every atom of his lean little body

still culminated in his strut.

The sun was setting behind the Balsam Range, and threw a cheerful glow

over the oak and the pump and the little group, when a loose-jointed

figure came across the fields.

"Hyar's Grayson!--Well, colonel, how is he?"

"It's all over, gentlemen. The jedge is gone."

There was a sudden silence. The men asked no questions, as Northern

gossips would have done. Presently, they got up one by one, with a brief

word or two, and went quietly away to their own houses to close them up,

and to tell madam. The Carolinian "madam" may be ugly and shabby and

silly, but she is usually first in her husband's mind all day.

Nobody was left under the oak but Grayson, the major and Byloe, who was

resolved to solve the mystery of the will.

"I s'pose the jedge attended to his earthly affairs before he went off,

Colonel Grayson?" he said.

Grayson nodded.

"Will witnessed, signed--all correct?"

"Yes."

Byloe gave a dolorous cough: "Folks are talkin' a good deal about Dave

Cabarreux as the heir. Dave's the next of kin."

Grayson pushed the ashes into his pipe in imperturbable silence.

"_I_ was suggestin' that Boyer had a chance--Governor Boyer of Iowy: Sam

hyar'd prefer him. Ef Dave gits the proputty, he'll take somethin' else

that Dave's set his heart on, eh?" chuckling. "Sam knows Boyer."

The lawyer looked up quickly. He said nothing, but Byloe noted the

glance. "Boyer is the man!" he thought, and hurried off to tell the

news.

When he was gone Mr. Grayson turned to the major: "Do you really know

this Boyer, Fetridge? Could you find him if he was wanted?"

Sam did not answer immediately. He was looking thoughtfully at the

ground, his palms resting on his knees. He too supposed that Boyer was

the heir, and the news had driven all the braggadocio and drunken fire

out of him. What a weak imitation of a man he was, any how! Grayson

thought, looking at him curiously, and wondering what had moved the

fellow so strangely. Was it possible that he hoped to marry Calhoun's

little girl if Dave lost this money?

The major got up at last, and put on his hat. "If Peter Boyer is

wanted--that is, if the money is really left to him--I can produce the

man, Grayson," he said, and walked slowly away, his head bent and his

hands clasped behind him. The stagey strut was quite gone.

* * * * *

The day after the judge was buried Mr. Calhoun came down in the buggy

from the farm to Sevier, Isabel driving. "I have a new mule in harness,"

he explained to the squire, "and I had to bring Bel to manage him. It's

bad training to use the whip, and he has the temper of the devil. He's

beyond me, but Bel has her ways of making him go."

The old squire, looking up at her, his hat in his hand, said gallantly

there was nothing in Sevier which Miss Isabel couldn't make go; at which

the little girl laughed, and put her foot in his offered hand to jump

down from the buggy. There did not seem to be a large amount of

propelling power in her. She had a childish-looking figure, and went

shyly into the store, blushing nervously as she passed the men outside.

They all stood up and took off their hats, though they did that when any

woman passed; but one after another, from Colonel Grayson to old Primus,

contrived afterward to throw himself in her way, to give her a good-day

respectfully, and have a private glimpse of the beaming face under the

broad-brimmed brown hat. As soon, too, as it was noised about that

Calhoun's wagon was in town the women all came out to find Isabel.

Sevier was dismal enough after the funeral, and needed heartening, and,

as Byloe said, "That young woman hed spirit enough for all Haywood

county." Isabel was an intimate friend of every woman in town. Sue

Grayson hurried her in to read her last love-letter, and Mother Byloe

consulted her about her cherry jam. It was a pity, they thought, that

she had no beauty--there was always a lamentation on that point when she

was gone--and the men agreed that she lacked flesh; but Major Fetridge,

who had known something of the world outside of Sevier in his day, used

to follow her far off to watch her clear, sparkling face. However drunk

he might be, it sobered him. To-day, as she stood among the village

women, whose charms had ripened on the fried meat and black coffee on

which they had been fed since babyhood, she reminded him of a fine proof

engraving among cheap chromos.

How it was that the little Pennsylvanian moved the mules and sluggish

Sevier to life even the major did not know, but it was a fact that she

always left the village more awake and happier than she found it. It was

as if one had sung a stirring song in the market-place.

As she drove away to-day the squire looked after her admiringly. "I

heard you were going to send her North, Mr. Calhoun?" he said to the

paunchy, brisk little man beside him.

"Yes, yes," pulling his black moustache. "Fact is, this is no place for

Isabel, squire. She has no mother: I have to think for the child. She

has kinsfolk in New England, and I'll send her there for a year or two.

To tell you the truth, I can't see her mated with one of these loggish

young ploughmen about Sevier."

"You mean Cabarreux?" said the squire with a significant nod.

"Yes, I mean Cabarreux. 'Twon't do, squire. I've forbidden her to see

him again. Well, what d'ye think of sending her away? I meant to ask

your advice about it."

The squire was more intimate with Mr. Calhoun than any of the other men

in Sevier; but it was the Northerner's practice to take counsel with

them all concerning his endless schemes: he was a friendly, social

fellow, and liked to hear himself explain his plans--just the man to

buttonhole Charon in his boat and get a useful hint or two from him

about the other side. The people of Sevier liked Calhoun, but were a

little afraid of him. His education and mind, they knew, were no better

than theirs; his manners were not as good; but a man who, with but a

hundred dollars in his pocket, could camp down in the woods and evolve

out of the bare earth a farm, a mill, a mica-mine, a house with comforts

and luxuries such as Sevier had never dreamed of, had a quality which

stunned and awed them. A man may know how common are the iron and steel

and coal that go to make up a steam-engine, but none the less does the

mysterious force inside make him stand out of the way.

The squire and Mr. Calhoun sauntered down the street. "I'll not deny,"

said the old man, meditatively, "that Cabarreux has no Northern 'go' in

him. But Dave's a good-natured fellow. He fought like the devil thar in

the Wilderness, and him but sixteen!"

"Yes, and has done nothing since but think of it. Oh, I've no objections

to Carbarreux except that he's of no account: he'll never earn his

bread. I can't see my girl starve."

"They'd be a fine-looking couple," persisted the squire, whose heart

leaned toward the young people. "Dave stands a good chance for the

jedge's property, too. We'll know to-night: the will's to be read this

afternoon."

Mr. Calhoun stopped: "I'll acknowledge, squire, that would make a

difference--that would undoubtedly make a difference. I'm a practical

man. Cabarreux with a steady income would be a dead weight which Bel

might manage to shove along through the world; but Cabarreux with

nothing is a millstone which would grind her to powder. I'd made up my

mind to send her away next week. But if you think--"

"Stay in town until we hear. The will's to be read to-night. Come and

dine with me: the madam has corned beef and succotash to-day."

* * * * *

Isabel drove briskly along the mountain-road. When she came to the forks

she stopped and hesitated: either way would take her home--one in half

an hour, the other after a long circuit among the hills. She turned the

mule's head into the longer road, a red flush rising suddenly on her

delicate neck and face. For an hour the narrow path climbed the

mountain-side, then dipped abruptly into the valley. Isabel looked

eagerly down the gorge; her breath came quickly; she began to sing

softly to herself. Yet there was nothing in sight but a little clearing

in the vast stretch of sombre, uninhabited forest, a vacant log house, a

half-built barn.

This was the place which Dave Cabarreux's father had given him years

ago, and which she had heard he was going to work next spring. He would

be drudging here while she was in the North, thinking of her as he

ploughed: she knew that. But she would be gone for ever. It would be all

over then. Isabel stopped the mule, and sat with her hands clasped on

her knees, looking at the meadow and the desolate closed house. It was

nobly done in David to give himself up to hard work. Her heart beat as

high with pride as if he had been the first man who ever undertook at a

late day to earn his living. She had heard in town that he had been down

looking at the place the day before. Perhaps he had walked over that

very meadow. She leaned forward: the ground was soft: surely there were

the marks of footsteps. Only yesterday! Isabel glanced quickly

around--at the lonely road, the mighty hills that shut her in, swathed

in forest, shouldering the clouds, the gray mist creeping through the

gorge. An eagle swept across the opening overhead, frogs croaked in the

swamp yonder: there were no other living things to see her. She sprang

from the wagon, ran across the meadow, put her foot in the deep print:

her bosom heaved, the tears came to her eyes. Isabel was not a

sentimental, silly girl, but a shrewd, hard-working woman. She had not

seen her lover for a long time, and she thought it would be years before

she would see him again.

She walked down to the river--sat down under a walnut tree. Surely she

might rest there a minute. She would never see David's home again.

A tall, dark man gathered himself up from among the deep fern, watching

her breathlessly. Was it possible that she cared to walk over the land

because it was _his_ land? No: she was too cold-blooded a little thing

for that.

"Miss Isabel!"

She sprang to her feet. It was he! Then she spoke coolly, precisely as

if they had met on the street in Sevier: "How did you come here, Mr.

Cabarreux? I thought there was nobody but myself in this valley."

Young Cabarreux stood leaning over her, his hat in his hand: "The truth

is, I was asleep by the branch thar. I came out to look into the quality

of the soil this mornin', but I took a rest instead: I'll have enough of

work hyar next year."

"Yes, you will," with a little sigh, and a quick glance of pity at the

well-knit, handsome figure.

Cabarreux colored high and hesitated: "You--you knew it was my land,

then, Miss Isabel? When you stopped?" He bent so close that she could

feel his breath stir her hair. What could she say? She had never let him

know that she cared for him so much as that. She gave a frightened

glance at the face above her, the mellow olive complexion, the laughing

mouth, the dark, liquid eyes. It seemed to her that one of the early

gods might have had such a face.

"I had heard--I thought you had a farm in this valley," she faltered,

moving away.

Cabarreux did not press the question: he followed her, moving the

branches aside with patient courtesy. He was a sincere man, and he

loved the girl with all his strength. _Did_ she care for him? He would

know now.

He stopped, clearing the dead leaves from a mossy log. "Will you sit

down?" he said with a certain stately grace which even his baggy,

homespun clothes and torn hat did not make absurd. "It _is_ my land, and

it would seem always different to me if you'd rest on it for a minute,

Miss Isabel."

Isabel sat down. The color glowed hot in her face, and her lips moved

unsteadily as she tried to talk. "The laurel blooms late in this gorge,"

she said. "Look at the bush by the rock."

But Cabarreux did not look at the laurel: he did not know what she said.

He stood immovable before her, his sultry eyes lazily reading her face.

There was deep quiet in the little valley, except when a fish leaped in

the water beside them or the call of a mocking-bird rang through the

woods. They had never before, as it happened, been quite alone together.

Now this great silence and solitude shut them in.

He stood erect at last with a long breath. "There is somethin' I've

wished to say to you for a long time," he began in his leisurely drawl.

She stood up pale and fluttering. If she were the man! If she could

speak! She would compel love, she would force confession by sheer

strength of words. But Cabarreux stood deferential, indolent. "I must go

home: it is late," she said, hurrying across the field.

"One moment, Miss Isabel. This will be my home," stopping by the porch

of the little house. "If you would only look at it or walk through it

once--just once! It will be something for me to remember--when you are

gone."

When she was gone? This was the last time. She went hesitatingly up on

to the porch, and stood in the empty room by the bare hearth, Cabarreux

beside her. Once or twice he tried to speak, but the words died on his

lips: when he gave her his hand as she went down the steps his fingers

were icy cold and trembled. Perhaps she guessed the pain that the man

felt at the time, and was quite willing that he should feel it. She

said coolly as they walked through the woods to the road, "It's quite a

pretty little house, and this is very good soil indeed. I shall think of

you as very comfortable here, Mr. Cabarreux, when I am in the North."

"When you are in the North? Great God! do you know what you are sayin'?

Stay! you shall hear me! It's a poor hovel--I know how wretched it looks

in your Northern eyes--but as I lay there this morning I was

plannin'--plannin' how to make a palace of it for you--for you. Why, I'd

work like a slave--"

He stopped short. Dave Cabarreux had never done an honest stroke of work

in his life. Nothing but planning. He remembered that in this imminent

moment, and laughed. "Miss Isabel, I've been a good-for-nothing dog:

that's the truth. Everybody knows it: you know it. But there's a woman

that I love who could put a new soul into my body. If she would."

They had halted by the fence now, and Isabel's hand was on the mossy

rail. He put his own over it. "If she would? Isabel, do you care for

me--at all?"

She looked up at the dark face full of tenderness and power. It seemed

as if the gods were coming very close to her indeed. "Yes, I care for

you," she said gently. "But I must go home--I must have time--I will not

hear more to-day."

But she waited to hear more. He only stooped and reverently kissed her

lips without a word. His brain reeled as it had done when he was going

into battle in the Wilderness. He had never worked, but he would--to win

her! He had not borne himself so badly in that other fight.

He lifted her into the buggy and walked beside her, his hand on the

reins, as the mule crept drowsily along the five miles between the

valley and the Calhoun farm. He spoke little. He was in a rapturous

dream, in which the warm sunlight, the woods, the soft fingers which he

touched now and then, bore a part.

Isabel talked or sang softly to herself, as she always did when she was

happy. Once he heard her say, "I should try oats in that meadow, if I

were you. And I should not be surprised if corundum could be found in

those rocks back of the house."

Oats and corundum?

Tears of vexation stood in her eyes as he looked at her perplexed. "It

is the farm I mean. You don't seem to have heard me. My father is so

practical! Indeed, indeed, it is only by hard work that you can gain his

consent."

"Oh, I understand perfectly," gazing dreamily into her eyes. "I shall go

to work upon that place: I shall tear it all up--next spring." He walked

on beside her. The golden light deepened in the west; the air was full

of delicious resinous odors from the pine forest; now and then he

pressed his lips to the warm, rose-tinted hand. Surely, he thought, this

divine draught which they had just begun to taste was not as sweet to

her as he found it, or she would not care to talk of oats and corundum.

When he left her he sauntered leisurely up the mountain wrapt in a

delirious ecstasy. Suddenly he quickened his steps: "I must go and hear

Uncle Scroope's will. A chance of something thar. No need of grubbing

out my life then in that old sheep-pasture." But he soon slackened his

pace again, thinking with a glow of exultation how true and tender he

would be to his love--how he could fight for her if need be. He wished

there were some foes to fight. No doubt if there had been, Dave would

have done his devoir, for he was as gallant a gentleman as any Sidney of

them all.

Isabel sat on the porch alone that evening. The women, with the men,

were at work ploughing corn on the upland, and her father would not

return from Sevier until late. The sun was going down, throwing the

shadow of a great peak of the Balsam Range over the house and the neat

farm with its Pennsylvania barn and fences. High up on the mountain

heaps of mica outside of the gaping black mouth of a deserted mine

glistened like silver.

A queer little figure was coming up the lonely road. Isabel saw it, and

laughed. Nobody could mistake the consequential strut, the flapping

linen suit, the white hat with its band of crape. But Isabel was in a

happy, tender mood toward all the world to-night; and she had always

been gentle with the poor little major. She only, of all the people in

Sevier, saw beneath the drunken braggart a man who had been sorely

worsted, and that perhaps not fairly, in the long fight. He was quite

sober this evening. But as she rose to meet him she saw signs of an odd

change in him. The linen clothes were scrupulously clean, costly ruby

buttons blazed in his shirt-front, on his fore finger was a curious

antique ring never seen there before: the usual defiant jauntiness of

the man had given way to a more significant self-assertion, as if he had

at last found secure ground beneath his feet.

"My father is not at home, Major Fetridge: I am sorry," said Isabel,

offering him a chair.

But he remained standing, leaning airily against a pillar, looking down

at her. "_I_ am not sorry, Miss Calhoun. It was you that I came to see,"

he said pointedly. A nervous smile showed his teeth; his pale blue eyes

shone: the little man was, she saw, aflame with some secret exultation

as with wine.

"I fancy that you bring me good news, major?" said Isabel, humoring his

mood.

"News? Yes, I bring you news. The will is read--Judge Scroope's will."

"Who is the heir?"

"Peter Marmaduke Boyer, if he is alive. If he is dead, young Cabarreux."

Isabel made no reply for a moment: the work she held fell from her hand.

She had not known of this chance. If David Cabarreux were the heir he

would have every virtue in her father's eyes.

"I hope," she said at last, taking up her work again with a soft,

complacent little laugh, "Mr. Cabarreux may live long to enjoy his good

fortune."

"The fortune is not his," cried Sam excitedly. "You don't understand.

Boyer is the heir--the Honorable Peter M. Boyer. A man who stood in the

Senate of the United States, Miss Calhoun. A man who knows the

world--who will know how to give his wife place and power, and who will

have money now to buy both."

"I thought you said he was dead?"

"No. I--" He paused, grew suddenly pale, and went on hurriedly: "I know

the man. He is alive."

"Then--It does not matter. It is all just as it was before," said Isabel

with a proud smile. But, her thoughts going to her lover in his

disappointment, she almost forgot that the major was there until he

spoke again.

His altered tone startled her into attention. It was sharp with

repressed passion and pain. The poor sot was in earnest--more in

earnest, it seemed to her, even than Cabarreux had been when he had told

her that he loved her to-day. "Miss Calhoun, do you remember one day

three or four years ago, when I was knocked down in a drunken fight at

Sevier, and lay like a beast on the roadside?"

"Major Fetridge--"

"Hush! I must tell you: I never spoke to you about it before. You passed

by. You were a little thing then--the people in Sevier had left me there

like a dead dog--but you tried to rouse me, to take me home; and when

you could not do it, you spread your handkerchief over my face to hide

it. I have it yet. Look there! Such a scrap of a thing!" opening it out.

"Any girl would have done it. Why do you bring up this miserable story

now?" cried Isabel.

"Because on that day I swore before Almighty God that if ever I reached

my place in the world you should stand beside me. Oh!" pacing up and

down with a bitter laugh, "I wasn't always the drunken bummer Sam

Fetridge. I have within me great capabilities--even yet, yet. _You_ saw

that. You saw the man I might have been, and never was. Every word you

have ever spoken to me has showed me that you saw it."

The words and the uncontrollable excitement of the man had a singular

effect upon Isabel. Something in the voice, the words, came from a

strong soul in desperate strait--belonged to a man with intellect and

energy, for whom she could have near sympathy, a sense of alliance; but

before her eyes was only ridiculous Sam Fetridge, the butt of the

village, vaporing up and down.

"It is true," she said frankly, "that your life in Sevier has been

wretched enough. I thank God that you are going to change it. What can I

do to help you?"

"Don't you know? Don't you understand even yet?" The little man came up

before her and took both her hands in his: the tears stood in his

blinking eyes. Isabel looked into them steadily, and she did not take

her hands away. "You see it is a sort of crisis to-night with me, Miss

Calhoun. I've thought for a good while the game was played out for body

and soul. But there's one thing that could make a man of me again, and

to-night I feel as if I had some right to put out my hand and take it."

Her lips moved, but she said nothing.

"It is your love. I've loved you a long time. I'm old enough to be your

father, but I never loved any woman but you, Isabel."

"I thought you meant that," she said under her breath.

"It is not drunken Sam Fetridge that loves you. I have culture,

intelligence, energy. I am a better man at bottom than Dave Cabarreux,

and one nearer akin to yourself."

"I love him: I do not love you." She said it mechanically, her eyes

fixed on his with a frightened, curious look of recognition. It followed

him as he left her, half staggering across the porch: it was on him

still as he came back, and, leaning against the pillar, held out his

hand again to her.

She did not take it now.

"Miss Calhoun, there is not in the United States a man with more

ambition than I have, nor one with a better chance to take his place

among other men if--if I had your hand to hold. Give it to me: be my

wife. For God's sake, don't take the chance from me!"

"Major Fetridge," she said resolutely, but with a strange quaver in her

voice, "I love David Cabarreux. I never can marry you. If there is

anything else that I can do--"

"No, there is nothing you can do," he cried vehemently. "It would have

been better you had thought me a drunken brute like the others, and had

not recognized me. For you did recognize me, you know."

He turned without another word, and walked down the hill with slouching

step and head bent. Isabel tried to think of him as the tippling major,

but it seemed as if she had talked to another man.

* * * * *

Mr. Calhoun met Major Fetridge as he came home, but he was in an

ill-humor and did not speak to him. Late that evening Sam lay on a bench

by the pump. He had been drinking heavily, but he was sober. The squire

and Grayson were discussing the event of the day, the will.

"Calhoun is savagely disappointed," said the squire. "If Cabarreux had

had the money, he would have allowed him to marry Isabel, he says. Now

he means to send her North at once."

"Are you sure that this Boyer is alive?" said Grayson.

"Sam says so. He says he is going to bring the man up soon. Well, it's

all up with poor Cabarreux. I'm sorry for them. Bel is a good girl: she

ought to have been a happy wife."

The men went home to bed, leaving the major on the bench. He lay there

for an hour or more. The village had gone to sleep for the night. Dense

fogs wrapped the mountains that shut in the little hamlet, but overhead

the stars were shining in the near heaven.

He rose at last. He was ghastly pale, as if the blood had ceased to flow

in his body, but he stood up, drawing himself to his little height with

a sudden triumph. "Damned if I don't do it! the time has come for the

great deed!" He went with a swagger, as though he walked on air, down

the street.

Two days later young Cabarreux, sauntering leisurely, as usual, across

the square, met the squire and Sam Fetridge coming out of Grayson's

office. Both men were greatly excited, but Sam was silent, while the

squire talked volubly. He grasped Dave by the hand: "Cabarreux, I

congratulate you! You are a lucky dog! I was just saying to Fetridge

hyar, 'What is there that fellow hasn't got?'"

"What's the matter? what have I got?" said Cabarreux.

"The major here hes heerd about that fellow Boyer. He's dead."

"Is this true?" turning to Fetridge.

The major did not answer.

"Of course it's true," said the squire. "Sam has the letter in his

pocket.--Show it to him, Fetridge."

Sam looked up at the handsome, eager face for a full moment. "Boyer is

dead," he said.

"The proputty's yours, Cabarreux," cried the squire.--"By George, he's

off already! Straight for the Calhoun farm! Thar will be as fine a

couple as there is in Carolina. Come, let's drink their health, major.

I'll stand treat."

"Drink their health? No. Good-night. I'm going out of town a bit," he

replied, nodding shortly; and without another word of farewell he turned

his back on Sevier for ever.

* * * * *

There is no couple better beloved in all that mountain-region than David

Cabarreux and his wife. They live on the farm. Dave lies in the fern a

good part of every day smoking and planning, but as his wife is

satisfied that his dream is one of love for her, she is content:

besides, she wishes him to rest, being careful of his health and in

constant terror lest he may fall a victim to cerebral disease from

overwork, which is so common an ailment in the North. Oats and corundum

both came according to prophecy. The Cabarreux property is turning out

better than any other in that part of the State, both as to soil and

mineral products: there is some talk of a gold-mine, indeed, lately.

"And Bel," her father tells the squire, "will find out the latest

improvements in working it. Bel can bring the best profit out of any

ground, however poor. Even out of Cabarreux himself."

Mr. Calhoun is a little prejudiced still against his Southern

son-in-law.

* * * * *

Peter Marmaduke Boyer is dead. He died at home, in the mountain-hut. The

way it came about was this: The two brothers sat alone one night by the

fire after a day's hunting. Suddenly Richard stood up. His practised ear

heard a step far off down the mountain. Then Hugh rose: they looked at

each other. "It is he," they said, and went out into the night to meet

him. Their watch of half a lifetime was over.

Their brother, when they brought him into the house, was very poor and

weak, and looked as if he were an older man than either of them. But he

was full of triumph and good cheer.

"Boys," he said, "I told you I would not come back to you until I had

done a great deed. I have done it."

He never told them what it was, and they were contented with knowing

that he had taken rank above all other men down in the great world

yonder.

He lived for more than a year. It was a very happy year. The brothers

had waited long for it. They listened from morning until night to his

boastful little stories with undoubting faith and pleasure. As for their

hero, he felt that he had made his mark: he had his circle of admirers

and limitless applause: what could life give him more?

The little man wasted away gradually. Just at the last he looked up with

an assuring nod to Richard and Hugh: "You'll not be long behind me,

boys. But I'll be there before: I'll straighten matters a bit for you."

And so he went out with an airy swagger into the other world.

REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

A DAY AT TANTAH.

"Tantah, a town of Lower Egypt, in the Delta province and 5 miles S. W.

of Menoof, on the Damietta branch of the Nile. It has a government

school."

This, and nothing more, from the _Gazetteer_. It does not promise much,

and yet Tantah is an important place, and, in spite of the _Gazetteer_,

is _not_ on the Damietta branch, but in the very heart of the Delta,

among the smaller water-courses. On this account it is not often visited

by travellers.

And first I must tell how I came to go to Tantah. In the year 1867 the

sloop-of-war ----, to which I was attached, was cruising in the Levant,

touching now and again at Canea or at Suda Bay to see how the Turks and

the Cretans were getting on with their war, or at Larneka to lend the

"influence of the flag" to that pleasant gentleman, General di Cesnola,

then in the full tide of archaeological research in Cyprus. Sometimes we

were sipping fruity wine in Samos or eating "lumps of delight" and

smoking Latakia in Smyrna; and generally we represented the United

States in these uttermost parts with great dignity.

One day while at Smyrna we received orders by the mail-steamer to go at

once to Jaffa, and there afford assistance to certain "distressed

Americans" then sojourning on the Plain of Sharon. We already knew

something about them. These people were the remains--the _sediment_, so

to speak--of a certain "American colony" which had come out from New

England, principally from Maine and New Hampshire, a year or two before,

being the latest crusaders on record, and "bound to occupy the land" on

the way to the Holy City. They had some kind of queer, fanatical belief,

which had been fostered by their leader, one Adams, a long, raw-boned,

bearded Yankee, until they sold their farms or shops and tools of trade,

and placed the proceeds in a common stock under the charge of their

prophet and leader. This Adams was said to have formerly been an actor,

and then a Methodist minister in St. Louis, a Mormon (some people said)

after that; and finally he had invented a creed and founded a sect of

his own. It does not speak very well for the vaunted New England

shrewdness and intelligence that near two hundred and fifty persons of

all ages cast in their lot with him, or, rather, cast in their lots for

him. He chartered a vessel, freighted it with provisions, seed for

planting, agricultural implements and lumber for houses, and forthwith

sailed for the Holy Land at the head of his followers, intending to sow

and reap and prepare for the coming of the nations at the millennium,

supposed by the colonists to be near at hand. Such people are apt to be

useful so long as their enthusiasm lasts, whatever the motives which

prompt them. This even the Turks could see; and a firman had been

procured without difficulty, enabling them to erect their houses and to

lease and cultivate a certain portion of land, planting American

seed-wheat and maize where before grew only _gran turco_, barley,

sesamum and anise.

Thus it came about that there was to be seen the curious contrast of

staring Yankee frame houses and a regulation "meeting-house" peeping

over the orange-groves of Jaffa. Yankee-built farm-wagons passed along

the dusty cactus-hedged lanes in company with panniered donkeys and

laden camels, while Yankee forms and voices were daily seen and heard in

the filthy narrow streets of the old town itself. I wonder how much

these simple, homely people knew of Roman assaults and massacres or of

Napoleon's butcheries enacted on the very ground where their

hearthstones were laid? Not much, I fancy. And it was hard to get them

to talk freely or connectedly on any subject. In fact, their experience

had not been happy; and by this time the Plain of Sharon was dust and

ashes to them, and "their dolls were stuffed with sawdust." Some of the

younger members of the community did confess to a passing knowledge of

Jonah and the whale, and of the ships which brought the cedar of Lebanon

to the port where their lot was cast; but they seemed as much at sea as

Jonah was when the Crusades were mentioned. At any rate, here was this

American-born community ploughing this historic soil, most of the

members of which had never been fifty miles from home before they took

this great blind leap into the dark.

I never knew just how much Adams believed in himself and his mission. On

a previous visit, while all was still _couleur de rose_ with the colony,

I had asked him how he proposed to keep order among his flock and to

settle the disputes and difficulties which must inevitably arise. "Why,

sir," he answered, "we have no disputes; but should any arise, I, with

the elders, will sit and judge them in the gate, just as in Bible

times--just as was done right here twenty-five centuries ago."

We found matters sadly changed since our visit of the year before. It

was now almost harvest-time, and there was little to reap, for little

had been planted. Many of the colonists had fallen sick, and not a few

had laid their bones under the strange soil to mingle with the dust of

ages. Some had been assisted to return to their Western home by a

benevolent member of the party whose pilgrimage is immortalized by Mark

Twain in the _Innocents Abroad_. Some who had privately and wisely

retained a small sum for a "rainy day" had gone off, abandoning their

interest in the common weal. But many had, in the inception, with

unquestioning faith, placed their all in the common stock, and were

unable to extract any part thereof from the custody of Adams, who not

only did not account for the funds, but by this time had taken to drink,

and was generally to be seen (when to be seen at all) in a state either

of maudlin piety or of morose defiance of all questions and demands. Of

course, under these circumstances the business-affairs of the colony

went to rack and ruin. The small number of his disciples who remained

were suffering from want of comforts and from malaria, home-sickness and

disappointment. One or two of the women had taken to themselves Syrian

husbands, and one or two of the men, with Yankee readiness and

adaptation where a penny was to be turned, had taken to "guiding"

travellers to Jerusalem or trading in horseflesh; but nearly all of

those who were left were longing for "home," and would be glad to get

there on any terms.

It was determined very soon after our arrival, in spite of Adams's

covert opposition, that those who wished to leave should be taken on

board our ship and transported to Alexandria, whence they could be sent

by the consul to Liverpool as "distressed American citizens," and thence

to America. Poor people! they had little to bring on board but the

clothes in which they stood--well worn and mended, but generally clean

and decent. Some few had modest bundles, and the younger women had even

retained a little personal finery. Indeed, the women and girls all

showed in their deportment much of the self-respect and quaint good

manners due to their New England birth and training. These were all

provided with private quarters for the short passage in the cabin and

wardroom. The men were quartered upon the different messes among the

crew, and they seemed to have suffered more degradation in their fallen

fortunes than the women. Among the males was to be seen an occasional

_tarboush_ or a pair of baggy trousers and sash; and it was curious to

observe how the wearers of these garments had acquired a loaferish,

_farniente_ air worthy of a native. Our officers and men did what they

could toward assisting these poor people with spare clothing and a

little cash. They seemed, however, to move about in a kind of daze,

receiving the contributions properly enough, but in a quiet,

undemonstrative kind of way; so different from the usual _backsheesh_

transactions to which we were accustomed in this part of the world that

the contrast of itself would have proclaimed them a foreign race. In

one or two cases the women, as soon as they found out what was going on,

made a private request that any cash intended for them might be put into

their own hands, "their men bein' kind of shiftless-like, you see."

A quiet run of thirty hours brought us to the busy port of Alexandria,

where the crowded harbor and the rush and bustle of the Overland traffic

and travel caused a turmoil to which we had been for months

unaccustomed. It must have been fairly bewildering to our passengers,

fresh from their humdrum existence. The arrangements on their behalf

were made in a few hours, and our poor fellow-countrymen were soon off

for England in the steerage of a huge cotton-loaded freight-steamer,

having a new experience in the companionship of Bengalese, Maltese,

Arabs, English navvies and riff-raff of all tongues and complexions. In

fact, the Overland route, at that time especially, afforded about the

most curious aggregation of nationalities and costumes that the world

has ever seen since the Crusades.

"It is an ill wind which blows nobody good." We had earnestly desired,

during two terms of service in the Levant, to visit Egypt, but some

untoward event had always prevented us from doing so. A threatened

massacre at Damascus, some consul's squabble at Sidon or Haiffa, or some

fresh atrocity reported in the course of the Cretan insurrection, or the

desire on the part of our minister to have "the flag shown" at

Constantinople, had invariably barred us from getting to the south. But

here we were at last within sight of Pompey's Pillar, and we felt sure

that we should not leave the East again, as we had done once before,

without a peep at the Pyramids, and at least a glance at the wonderful

work of M. de Lesseps, then approaching completion.

On the day after our arrival, while dining with our consul-general, the

great fair then being held at Tantah became the subject of conversation.

As most of us had never even heard of Tantah, we were informed that it

was a large and flourishing town in the Delta, about halfway between

Alexandria and Cairo, where an annual fair--_the_ fair of Egypt--had

been held time out of mind. That is, out of modern Egyptian mind, which,

in strange contrast with its belongings and residence, does not seem to

remember anything much before the last harvest, the last hatching of

eggs and the last conscription. Lately, the fair had been interdicted by

the viceroy on account of cholera having been introduced by the pilgrims

returning from Mecca and Jeddah, and then spread by the multitude which

congregated there; for the fair was held just at the time that the

pilgrims returned from the "Hadj," and hadjis, as a rule, are not averse

to dealing and turning an honest penny.

This year, however, the fair was in full blast again, and more

frequented than ever on account of its temporary suspension. To this

point were drawn not only the Fellahs of the surrounding Delta, but

Nubians, Soudanese and Copts from the south; Arabs from across the Red

Sea and from Fezzan and Tripoli; Mograbs on their western way from the

Hadj; Turks from Aleppo, Broussa and Constantinople; Greeks, both

Hellenes and Fanariots; Maltese, Italians and Syrians; Armenians and

Jews. The time was late in April, and the weather already very hot, so

that the tribe of winter Nile travellers would be conspicuous by its

absence, and visitors to the fair would be spared their airs and graces,

and have an opportunity to enjoy a scene of genuine local color without

a pervading sense of tourists to spoil it.

The consul-general kindly proposed that we should make up a party for

the next day, undertaking to procure a vice-regal order (Ismail was not

yet khedive) for a special car to be attached to the morning-train, wait

for us, and bring us back to Alexandria in the evening. The

consuls-general of Russia and Belgium, who were present, volunteered to

join the party. Each of them, as well as our own consul, was to be

attended by his two _cavasses_--magnificent persons in costume gay with

color and lace, and bristling with weapons; in addition to which they

carried in the hand a long and heavy rod.

We reached Tantah before nine o'clock, and emerged from the station

under the close inspection of a motley crowd of loafers, to find the

day, as usual, splendidly clear and bright, but already too hot for

comfort. The American vice-consul was in waiting to receive us--a Syrian

merchant of some substance, whose office was a sinecure, and who spoke

no word of English, but to whom the position was of much importance as a

protection from any petty persecution of the local authorities. He

seemed to be quite overwhelmed by the honor done him by the visit, which

would add immensely to his social and business standing.

Forming a sort of procession, we walked slowly toward the centre of the

town, preceded by the six cavasses, who shouted to the motley crowd to

make way for their high lordships, and when the promptest obedience was

not rendered whacked the offenders with their canes with great

impartiality and no light hand. Hardly a curse or a scowl resulted from

this treatment, the crowd mostly seeming to take the stick discipline as

a joke.

The town of Tantah is, for Egypt, a very modern place, on flat ground of

course, containing the usual bazaars, mosques, barracks and pasha's

residence or konak, with some substantial private buildings near the

centre, from which the houses soon dwindle to the ordinary mud residence

of the Fellah. The place was said to contain some fifty or sixty

thousand people, while more than double that number was just now drawn

to it by the fair.

The vice-consul, swelling with pride and shiny with perspiration, led us

straight to his residence, a large house in one of the principal

streets. Here we had breakfast, with coffee and pipes, which occupied an

hour, the whole large establishment seething and working with the

unwonted excitement of entertaining such distinguished guests. This was

evident even to such utter strangers as ourselves, for we were

constantly aware of a scuffling and whispering outside the large room

in which we were entertained, and every now and then became aware of

eyes surveying us curiously from some coign of vantage; which eyes, on

meeting ours, suddenly and silently disappeared.

As soon as possible we sallied out to pay the necessary visit to the

pasha of the district. Our coming had been duly announced, and upon

arriving at his residence we found him at the landing of the staircase

ready to receive us, for consuls-general are great people in Egypt,

having diplomatic functions, and being, in all but name, ministers

resident. The pasha was a small, spare, dark little man, with his black

beard clipped as close as scissors could do it. He was dressed in the

official costume--a single-breasted black coat such as some of our

Episcopal clergymen wear, black trousers, patent-leather boots, and of

course the red fez. The reception-room into which he led us was a large

one--cool by comparison with the outside air, and somewhat dirty and

shabby, as such places are apt to be, according to my experience.

Seating ourselves according to rank on the rather greasy divan which ran

round three sides of the apartment, we were offered cooling drinks and

cigarettes. (Chibouks are things of the past for all ordinary occasions.

It's a pity, for they are better smoking than cigarettes, and certainly

more picturesque.) Compliments were exchanged in bad French, and the

ordinary topics discussed, but nothing was said as to the weather except

that it was warm--a self-evident proposition. The weather is not a

fruitful topic in Egypt. After a little time some officials came in with

a whole pile of papers for signature, and we took the opportunity to

terminate our mutual discomfort, the pasha with a perfunctory grin

shaking hands with everybody, at the same time ordering some of his own

cavasses to join ours as a special bodyguard to clear the way for us

through the narrow, crowded streets.

Having attended to the _bienseances_, we sallied out for sightseeing,

going first to the principal mosque, as it was in our way and evidently

considered by our guides one of the "lions." Whether it was owing to

the rank of some of our party or to the presence of the pasha's cavasses

I don't know, but we walked straight into this mosque, without taking

off our boots or putting papooshes over them--the first and last time,

in my experience of the East, in which such a thing was done. There was

suppressed grumbling on the part of some dervishes and some

old-fashioned turbaned individuals grouped in the arcaded porch, but

nobody seemed to care much about them. There was nothing particular to

see inside the mosque after we got there. It had not the grand

proportions or elaborate decoration of some of the Cairene mosques,

neither was the pulpit as handsomely carved or the hanging lamps and

ostrich-shells as numerous. The coolness of the thick-walled, domed

building was, however, most grateful, for the heat in the streets was by

this time almost insufferable, and the smells awful.

But we had no time for coolness or comfort on this day. We were to dine

with the vice-consul at two o'clock, and we had not yet seen the fair.

Passing hurriedly through the principal bazaars, we could only glance

about, for we were almost suffocated by the surging crowds, which

pressed upon us in spite of the utmost exertions of our cavasses.

Indeed, we were all too much accustomed to bazaars to have much

curiosity about these. Escaping to the outskirts of the town, where the

real fair was held, we found the fun growing fast and furious, and the

different sights and sounds more and more bewildering. Here were

hundreds of tents and other temporary erections, and swarms of people of

the quaintest appearance, buying and selling, cooking, eating and

drinking, praying, quarrelling and chaffing. Of course the blue cotton

long shirts of the indigenous Fellahs lent the principal color to the

crowd, but this was relieved by the most brilliant-colored clothing

among the visitors and traders, including the red fez on most heads, the

red and yellow headgear of the Arabs, the black caps of the Copts, and

the white uniforms of the viceroy's nizam or regular soldiers. Sherbet-

and water-sellers pervaded the scene, and added the chatter of their

voices and the clatter of their brass cups to the already indescribable

din. There were piles of different sorts of grain; harness for horses,

camels and buffaloes; heaps of carpets and rugs and clothing; fez caps,

papooshes, pipes and tobacco, mostly the common Jibileh; brass and

copper cups and cooking utensils, and cheap jewelry and trinkets.

Farther on was a space reserved for buying and selling horses, donkeys,

camels and cattle, and here were to be seen fellows who would not be off

their feet at Tattersall's or at a Kentucky "quarter race," so much are

jockeys and horse-dealers alike all the world over. It was really

amusing to recognize the well-known "horsey" look from under the

_kufieh_ of an Arab whenever the chance for a "trade" presented itself.

Near the horse-fair we became aware of music of a peculiar kind, with a

good deal of tambourine in it, proceeding from a closed tent; and upon

its becoming known that our party was present, out streamed from the

door a group of musicians and almehs, or dancing-women; the latter in

rather light attire, but covered, as to their heads, bosoms, arms and

ankles, with strings of jingling coins--some with toe-rings, and all

with the eyes heavily lined out with kohl and fingers stained with

henna. These people have not, for many years, been permitted publicly to

exercise their vocation in Northern Egypt, but have been banished away

up the Nile. I presume their presence at the fair was winked at by the

authorities, and they were probably not the best of their class. Some of

the women were by no means bad-looking, and they danced with a sway of

figure and a grace and abandon perfect in their way. It is the same

dance, with the same steps and gestures, which is painted on the walls

of many an ancient Egyptian tomb, and transmitted from the time of

Osortasen and the Pharaoh who knew Joseph. A tremendous crowd at once

collected on the prospect of a dance at the expense of the strangers,

and, gaping over each other's shoulders, divided their stares between

our party and the almehs. The sun, all this time, was beating down upon

the scene with power sufficient, one would have thought, to bake the

unprotected brains of most of the company. One of our party became

fairly ill from this cause, and we were all glad to escape from the

reeking markets and streets, and to take refuge once more in the cool

and spacious house of our vice-consul.

Here we managed to cool off a little, and in due time were ushered into

the dining-room, where was a table handsomely decked and furnished in

the European style. Our host took his place at the head of the table,

but during the whole dinner never touched a morsel, occupying himself in

superintending the movements of the numerous servants and in smiling

blandly on each of us as we caught his eye, and evidently inviting us by

his gestures to "go in and win." When we had had eight or ten courses of

the usual soups, fish and roast and boiled, accompanied by wine of

several sorts, we began to feel that there was a limit to our capacity.

But there appeared to be none to the resources of our host's larder and

kitchen, for course after course of native dishes was now brought on,

and we were pressed to try one after another of strange-looking and

still stranger-tasting concoctions. Finally, the list of these seemed to

be exhausted, and the roasts began over again, until, on the appearance

of a huge turkey stuffed with pistachios, my right-hand neighbor, who

had a statistical mind, announced that this formed the twentieth course.

At this point the consul-general interfered, and informed our host, with

many thanks and compliments, that we could positively eat no more. With

a gratified smile and the air of a general who had won a victory he

turned to his servants and ordered the cooking to cease. We were told

afterward that it was the etiquette of a grand repast among wealthy

people of this class that the courses should continue to appear until

the guests asked the host's mercy or gave other decided evidence of

repletion. Our consul-general, knowing this, had been willing to let us

see how far the thing could go.

When we had risen from table and taken seats upon the divan, the wife

and daughter of our host (Syrian Christians) served us with basins of

perfumed water and fine fringed towels, after which they raised the

hands of the principal members of the party to their lips and foreheads

and thanked them for the great honor they had done them.

The sun was by this time low, and the time for our train had quite

arrived. So we left the house of our entertainer to walk the short

distance to the station. On the way we met the horses of one of the

viceroy's squadrons going to water. Beautiful animals they were--all

dark bay or chestnut, splendidly groomed, and marching to the sound of

the trumpet as steadily as if each carried a rider. The men in charge of

them were well-set-up, soldier-like fellows, who, barring their white

uniforms and dark faces, might have just ridden out of Knightsbridge

Barracks or the gate of Saumur.

At the station we found our car just being attached to the evening-train

from Cairo; which train, by the by, had been waiting for us for some

time, to the very apparent disgust of the English-speaking and other

European passengers. The native passengers seemed to take the delay

calmly and as a matter of course, some of them spreading their

prayer-carpets upon the platform to recite the evening prayer, to which

the muezzins were calling from the minarets as we left the town: "La

Illah illa Allah! Mohammed du russul Ala-a-h!"

We were soon off, passing through most monotonous scenery, with

constantly recurring groups of Fellahs and their animals returning from

their long day of labor, and filing along the causeways and embankments

toward the mud villages and towns, over which the pigeons were whirling

their last flight before betaking themselves to their cotes for the

night. The air became cooler and the moon rose as we rolled along the

embankment of Lake Mareotis, and the whole scene was so calm and

peaceful and conducive to reverie that it seemed a rude awakening when

we dashed into the station at Alexandria and the touts and donkey-boys

began their tiresome yells and shouts, as if they had never left off

since morning: "Onkle Sam, sir! werry good donkey, my master."--"Dis Jim

Crow! more better, sir!"--"Hotel Mediterranee, signori!" Bidding

good-night to our pleasant and courteous fellow-sightseers, we were

soon clattering through the streets to the custom-house landing. Our

cutter was waiting: "Up oars! let fall! give way all!" and twenty-four

strong, bronzed arms were pulling us over the smooth surface of the

moonlit harbor. In ten minutes we were once more on board our floating

home, and turned in forthwith, tired enough to sleep without rocking.

E. S.

ACROSS STRANGE WATERS.

These winter days, my love, are short and sad--

Oh, sad and short!

But future summers will not make us glad,

Of Fate the sport.

I go; and where we have been you abide,

To face the light

Of days that pour their splendor far and wide,

And mock the night.

How you will hate their brightness well I know--

Their fragrant ways,

Thick set with bloom, free winds that come and go,

And birds that praise

The triumph of the summer, and are glad

Of their desire,

Fulfilled in warmth, with mirth and music mad,

And set on fire

Of Love, to whom all sweet things do belong:

Those new, bright days,

With overflow of blossoms and glad song,

You will not praise.

Nor shall the swift, short nights, when skies bend low,

And through the blue

The white moon moves on silently and slow,

Bring rest to you.

The day will vex you, and the night deny

Your idle prayer:

Shall I, across strange waters, hear your cry,

And be aware?

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

C. G.; OR, LILLY'S EARRINGS.

I.

Not since the day on which we heard of Lee's surrender had there been

such a commotion in the house. We who had grown up since that date had

ceased to expect anything in the way of pleasure, for "the war" was a

ghost that wouldn't be laid. Did we want fine dresses, we were asked

where the money was coming from, now that Uncle David had lost all his

property by the war; did we vainly long for a trip to a Northern city,

we were consoled by the announcement that if it had not been for the war

Uncle David would have taken us to Europe; if we complained that we had

to keep our own rooms in order and sweep the parlors besides, a

dignified reference was made to the former number of servants in the

establishment; and when we roundly declared that life wasn't worth

living without a dessert for dinner every day, somebody would say that

it could hardly be expected we should set such a table as we did before

the war. Positively, we didn't know how old we were, for Aunt Nanny

declared that her memory wasn't a yard long on account of the trouble

she had had during the war, and the family Bible had been "confiscated"

by a pious private of taking propensities. Lilly was the older, however:

we knew that. She was half a head taller than I, and had a dignified

figure, though she looked like a child in the face and had a good many

child's ways. She never knew what to do with her hands, for one thing,

and when a little embarrassed she had a sweet cunning habit of putting

one hand up to her mouth and laughing behind it. Her mouth was her

prettiest feature. It had a bewitching way of dimpling at the corners,

and the twenty-four pearls behind it had never been touched by the

dentist. This, Aunt Nanny said, was the one good result of the war; for

we had to eat boiled rice and drink cold water instead of plum-cake and

coffee; so we kept our teeth sound.

We were orphans. Our names were Lilly and Stella Tresvant. Our father

had been killed during the war, and our mother had died of grief. We

were little children then, and had been sent to the Island City,

Galveston, to live with Aunt Nanny and Uncle David. We thought ourselves

quite grown-up now. Since we came to our island home we had never been

away from it. It was forlorn enough, though it was a pretty place, all

overgrown with oleanders and cape-jessamines. We used to get so tired

watching the sea, hearing the restless beat, beat of the waves against

the shore, and seeing the far-off birds dip their wings into the water!

There was an old book in Uncle David's library that I suppose we had

read a dozen times. It was called _Rasselas_, and was about a young

prince and his sister who lived in a Happy Valley, and yet could never

be happy until they got away. "I can sympathize with them," Lilly used

to say with such a mournful look in her big gray eyes; "and yet what was

their case compared to ours? They didn't have to wear their

grandmother's clothes made over, I'm very sure."

But the turning came in our long lane. One year Uncle David's crop was

uncommonly good. He made a bale to the acre, got it all picked in good

time, and the hands paid off without any grumbling. His plantation was

in the interior, and just before the cotton was sent off we all went up

to have a look at it. There were about fifty bales--a very good crop for

these times, though Aunt Nanny declared it wouldn't have been a drop in

the bucket "before the war." But it looked like immense wealth to Lilly

and myself.

"Only think, Stella!" said Lilly to me: "if we had just a single bale

apiece, what a good time we might have!"

Now, it happened that Uncle David overheard this. He was walking about

the yard, as silent as usual, but he was holding his spectacles in his

hand, and that was with him a sign of great good-humor. We could always

tell the state of the cotton-market by the position of Uncle David's

spectacles; and, as Mrs. Gargery tied on her apron when upon a

"rampage," so uncle jammed his spectacles close to his eyes when things

were very much out of joint.

"Well, girls," he said, "you've been pretty good lately, and I'll

present you each with a bale of cotton."

We couldn't speak for surprise. But I flew at Uncle David and gave him

such a kissing as he had never had from anybody, I suppose, for he

blushed quite red.

Then we ran off to the cotton-press to see the last bales pressed. As

often as we had watched that revolving screw and the two mules going

slowly round squeezing the huge bale--it was rather a primitive press

this, made by the carpenter on the place--we had never looked with an

interest to compare with that which we now felt. It was our own property

being squeezed into shape; and we actually stood there until the

bale in press was rolled out, corded and tied. It was a great

five-hundred-pounder at least; and "That's mine," said Lil.

When we had been at home a few days a lady called to see us who had been

an old friend of our mother's: Mrs. Long was her name. She was sparkling

with jewels, and Lil and I were quite dazzled by them and her pretty

clothes and her careless way of saying that she thought of "running over

to New Orleans for a couple of months," just as we should have proposed

to run down to the beach to pick up shells.

"I wish I could take these two girls with me," she said, waving her hand

toward Lilly and me. "Would it not be possible, dear Miss Nanny?"