"'What's up?' I says, innocent as could be, goin' up to him.

"'It's them d---- river-thieves,' he says, 'with a new kink,----'em!

I'll be even with 'em yet. Here's seven holes right up through, an' the

Lord only knows how they could do it an' I not hear 'em. They're that

thick I believe there's one to every bag of coffee on ship or off; but

I'll get 'em yet.' He looked at me sharp as a rat, but I kept my face

straight till I'd walked off, an' then I believe I laughed a day without

stoppin'.

"That went on three years. I'd got to think no man alive could take me,

for I'd been grabbed a dozen times, an' always slipped out somehow. I'd

been shot at, an' hit twice; been knocked overboard, an' swum under the

dock--'most froze an' stiff with ice before I could get out. An' then to

think that it was only a coil of rope took me at last! I thought 'twas

spices, but the captain'd been too quick for us, an' every bag was in

the government storehouse. I crawled up the side like a cat an' felt

round, mad enough to find only that rope; an' I'd just dropped it over

the side when there was a light, an' three men on me. I dropped, but

they had me. I fought like mad, but the handcuffs were on, an' I was

marched off quicker'n I can tell it. An' one was the very man that had

sworn to be even with us, an' he knew me on the spot. That trial didn't

take long. 'In consideration of my youth,' the judge said, I was to have

'only ten years.' Only ten years! He didn't know how it looked to me,

that loved my own life an' freedom so't I couldn't bear a house over me

even a day, but must be out in the air. I swore I'd kill whoever took

me, an' I fought with the keeper till they chained me like a wild beast;

an' that's the way I went to Sing-Sing, an' all warned they'd got the

devil's own to deal with.

"There was six months I fought: there wasn't a week I wasn't up for

punishment. Do you know what that means? It's better now, they say. Then

it meant the shower-bath till you fainted dead, an' when you came to,

put back to have it ag'in. It meant the leather collar an' jacket, an'

your head wellnigh cut off when, half dead, you had to let it drop a

bit. It meant kicks an' cuffs an' floggin's an' half rations. I was down

to skin an' bone. 'You're goin', sure, Jack,' I said; an' then I said,

'What's the use? Behave yourself an' maybe you'll get pardoned out, or,

better yet, maybe you'll get away.'

"It was tough work. I hated that keeper so't I could have brained him

joyfully any minute. I'd set my teeth when he came near, for the

murder'd run down my arms till my hands twitched an' tingled to get at

him. I swore I'd kill him if I ever got a chance to do it quietly, for

he'd treated us worse than dogs. But I mended my ways. It took a year of

hard work before I could hold on to myself. I'd get a sight at the sky

when we crossed the yard, an' my heart was up in my throat every time.

Oh, to be out! If only I could be on the river ag'in an' smell the salt

an' feel the wind! I've lain on my floor in the cell many a night an'

cried like a baby for only ten minutes' freedom. I'm that way yet:

there's wild blood in me from somewhere, an' I'd make a better Indian

than white man any day."

Jack's restless motions were the best proof of his theory. As his story

began he had sat quietly in the little mission-parlor, but now he was

walking hastily up and down, stopping a moment at some special point,

then starting again--a tall, lean figure, with characteristic New

England face, very thin now, and with a hectic flush on the sunken

cheeks, but shrewd and kindly--the narrow chin and high cheek-bones,

prominent nose and soft thin hair, seeming to belong wholly to the type

of New England villager, and by no possibility to the rough and

desperate native of the Fourth Ward. Born in his own place on some quiet

inland farm, he would have turned peddler, or, nearer the sea, have

chosen that for his vocation; but it was impossible to look upon him as

an ex-convict or to do away with the impression of respectability which

seems part of the New England birthright.

"At last," he went on, "things changed. A new chaplain came, for one

thing, an' I'd got so quiet they changed my cell an' put me on the other

side the buildin'. I went on in a kind of dream. I worked like two, an'

they begun to take notice of me. The chaplain 'd come an' talk to me,

an' he worked over me well; but he might as well have talked to the

dead. But my very keepin' still made him think he'd half got me, an'

he'd fetch books an' papers; an' things got easier that way. I read an'

studied: I was bound now to know something, an' I worked at that hard as

I did at everything else; an' there come a time when I was recommended

for pardon, an' five years an' a day after I went in he brought it to

me. I couldn't speak: I could have gone on my knees to him, an' he had

sense to know how I felt.

"'Jack,' he said, 'you're very young yet, an' now is your chance. Try to

be an honest man an' pray for help. I wish I knew if you will pray.'

"'You'd make me if any one could,' I says, 'but I ain't sure of the use

of it yet: I wish I was.'

"He just looked at me sorrowful, for I hadn't said even that much

before, an' I went off.

"An' I did mean to keep straight. I'd had enough of prison; but when I

went round askin' for work, not a soul would have me. A

jail-bird!--well, they thought not. I grew mad ag'in, an' yet I wouldn't

take to the river, for, somehow, I'd lost my courage. Then I met an old

pal, an' he took me round to Micky's saloon. The barkeeper'd just been

stuck in a fight. I'd been a profitable one for Micky, an' maybe he

thought, beginnin' there, I'd go back to the river once more. An' there

I was three years, an' fights nigh every night of the year. I could stop

'em when no one else could, for I was always sober.

"'Why don't you drink?' they'd say, an' I'd tell 'em I wanted what

brains I had unfuddled. But I hated it worse an' worse. I'd have stopped

any minute if there'd been one alive to take me by the hand an' say,

'Here's honest work.' I looked at folks when I went out, to see if there

was one that could be spoken to. An' at last I made up my mind for

another try. I'd saved some money an' could live a while, an' one

Saturday night I just left when Micky paid me. 'Get another man,' I

said: 'I'm done;' an' I walked out, with him shoutin' after me.

"Then I waited three months. I answered advertisements, an' I put 'em

in. I went here an' I went there, an' always it was the same story, for

I answered every one square. An' at last I was sick of it all: I had

nothing to live for. 'I'm tired of living with rascals,' I said, 'an'

good folks are too good to have anything to do with me. I've had all I

want. If work don't come in a week I'll get out of this the easiest

way.'

"It didn't come. My money was gone: I'd gone hungry two days. I'd been

on half rations before that, till my strength was all gone: I'd pawned

my clothes till I wasn't decent. Then I hadn't a cent even for a place

on the floor in a lodgin'-house, an' I sat in the City Hall Park long as

they would let me. Then, when I was tired of bein' rapped over the head,

I got up an' walked down Beekman street to the river--slow, for I was

too far gone to move fast. But as I got nearer something seemed to pull

me on: I began to run. 'It's the end of all trouble,' I said; an' I

went across like a shot an' down the docks. It was bright moonlight, an'

I had sense to jump for a dark place where the light was cut off; an'

that's all I remember. I must have hit my head ag'inst a boat, for when

they took me out it was for dead. Two of my old pals hauled me out, an'

worked there on the dock to bring me to, till the ambulance come an'

took me to Bellevue.

"I wouldn't have lived, but I didn't know enough not to, bein' in a

fever a month. Then I come out of it dazed an' stupid, an' it wasn't

till I'd been there six weeks that I got my senses fairly an' knew I was

alive after all.

"'I'll do it better next time,' I said, bein' bound to get out of it

still; but that night a man in the bed next me began to talk an' ask

about it. I told him the whole. When I got through he says, 'I don't

know but one man in New York that'll know just what to do, an' that's

McAuley of Water street. You go there soon's you can stir an' tell him.'

"I laughed. 'I'm done tellin',' I said.

"'Try him,' he says; an' he was that urgent that I promised. I'd ha'

given a hand if I hadn't, though.

"I went out, tremblin' an' sick, an' without a spot to lay my head; an'

right there I stood by the river an' thought it would come easier this

time. But I'd never go back on my word, an' so I started down, crawlin'

along, an' didn't get there till meetin' had begun. I didn't know what

sort of a place it was.

"It was new then, in an old rookery of a house, but the room clean an'

decent, an' just a little sign out, 'HELPING HAND FOR MEN.' I sat an'

listened an' wondered till it was over, an' then tried to go, but first

I knew I tumbled in a dead faint an' was bein' taken up stairs. They

made me a bed next their own room. 'You'd better not,' I said: 'I'm a

jail-bird an' a rascal, an' nobody alive wants to have anything to do

with me.'

"'You be quiet,' says Jerry. 'I'm a jail-bird myself, but the Lord Jesus

has forgiven me an' made me happy; an' He'll do the same by you.'

"They kept me there a week, an' you'd think I was their own, the way

they treated me. But I stuck it out: 'When I see a man that's always

been respectable come to me an' give me work, an' say he's not afraid or

ashamed to, then maybe I'll believe in your Lord Jesus Christ you talk

about; but how am I goin' to without?'

"An' that very night it came. You know him well--the gentleman that

looks as if the wind had never blown rough on him, an' yet with an eye

that can't be fooled.

"'You don't need to tell me a word,' he says: 'I believe you are honest,

an' you can begin to-morrow if you're strong enough. It's light work,

an' it shall be made easier at first.'

"I looked at him, an' it seemed to me something that had frozen me all

up inside melted that minute. I burst out cryin', an' couldn't stop. An'

then, first thing I knew, he was down on his knees prayin' for me. 'Dear

Lord,' he said, 'he is Thy child, he has always been Thy child. Make him

know it to-night: make him know that Thy love has followed him and will

hold him up, so that his feet will never slip again.'

"These words stayed by me. I couldn't speak, an' he went away. He knew

what he'd done.

"That's all. Some of the men shake their heads: they say it wasn't

regular conversion. All I know is, the sense of God come into me then,

an' it's never left me. It keeps me on the watch for every soul in

trouble. I'm down on the docks o' nights. I know the signs, an' now an'

then I can help one that's far gone. I'm goin' myself, you see. There

ain't much left of me but a cough an' some bones, but I shall be up to

the last. God is that good to me that I'll go quick when I do go; but,

quick or slow, I bless Him every hour of the day for the old mission an'

my chance."

HELEN CAMPBELL.

WESTBROOK.

Ruth looked very warm and tired as she came up the path in the strong

sunlight; and in striking contrast to her sat Miss Custer in the

sheltered veranda, with her cool gray draperies flowing about her in the

most graceful folds that could be imagined, as though a sculptor's hand

had arranged them. Her dress was cut so as to disclose her white throat

rising, swan-like, above a ruffling of soft yellow lace; and her

sleeves, flaring a little and short enough to reveal a good deal of the

exquisitely-moulded arms, were edged with the same costly trimming,

throwing a creamy shadow on the white skin and giving it a tinge like

ivory.

Miss Custer liked being considered a brunette, and directed all the arts

of her toilette to the bringing out of that idea. She had not much to

commence with, however. Her eyes were brown, it is true, but they were a

sort of amber-brown, large and serene, with dusky, long-fringed lids

drooping over them; and her hair, which was dark in the shadow of the

veranda, all hemmed in with trees in thick foliage, was bright gold in

certain lights.

She was an amply-framed, finely-proportioned person, and rejoiced in her

physique, having a masculine pride in her breadth of shoulders and depth

of chest. But in all other respects she was exquisitely feminine: she

never displayed either strength or agility. Westbrook was a country

place, and in the young folks' rambles about town and out over the hills

she was more often fatigued than anybody else, and obliged to accept

support from some one of the gentlemen, all of whom were eager enough to

offer their services.

She had been in Westbrook only two weeks--she had come to rest herself

from the burdens of fashionable life--but she was already very much at

home with the place and the people. She was one of those persons who

immediately interest the whole neighborhood, and of whom people say,

"Have you met her? Have you been introduced to her?"

She was not an entire stranger: there were a good many people in

Westbrook who had known her parents years before, and who took her at

once upon the credit of her family.

Ruth looked tired and warm, I say, as she came up the path. It was after

four o'clock, and school was just out. She was the teacher of the

grammar department in the ugly red-brick school-house down at the other

end of the town, and she had had a tiresome walk through the heat.

Miss Custer dropped her work, some delicate embroidery, in her lap and

folded her white hands upon it, and smiled down at her. She liked Ruth,

and was glad to see her coming: the afternoon had been rather dull

because she was alone, and she was not constituted for solitude.

Doctor Ebling had said at the dinner-table that, with Ruth's

permission--at which Ruth blushed and said something rather saucy, for

her--he would read _The Spanish Gypsy_ to Miss Custer out in the shade.

"It is so confoundedly healthy at this particular season," he said,

"especially up among these Connecticut hills, that a physician's

occupation's gone."

First, however, he went down town--going part of the way with Ruth--to

make sure that no orders were awaiting him at his office, intending to

come back immediately.

Miss Custer stepped across the hall from the dining-room into the

sitting-room, made cool by having the blinds closed, and struck a few

chords on the piano. Herbert Bruce, a young attorney of some wealth and

some renown, and bosom friend of Doctor Ebling, followed her, and stood,

hat in hand, with his shoulder against the door-jamb. "So you have never

read _The Gypsy_?" he remarked.

Miss Custer turned quickly and came a step toward him. "Oh yes, I have

read it," she returned. "Or, rather, a good many people have read it to

me. But one can stand hearing a poem a good many times, you know."

"By Jove! that's a cooler!" thought Bruce. "No doubt she has been bored

to death by that wretched _Gypsy_, and now Ebling is going to martyrize

her again, and make a fool of himself into the bargain."

"Won't you be seated?" Miss Custer asked, "and let me play you

something?"

In the shaded room, with her languid eyes intensified, she was a decided

brunette, and a very brilliant and beautiful one. Mr. Bruce, pleading

business, although he knew there was not a soul stirring down street,

and nothing more to be done in his office than in that of Mortimer

Lightwood, Esq., declined rather ungraciously and stalked off.

"A born coquette!" he muttered with his hat pulled over his eyes.

"Ebling's a fool: Ruth Stanley is worth a dozen of her."

Miss Custer went up stairs and made her afternoon toilette, then got out

her embroidery and came down to her accustomed rustic arm-chair,

smilingly conscious of the perfection of all that pertained to herself,

from the soft ringlets on her broad forehead, so different from the

stiff, frowsy crimps of the country-girls, to the small Newport ties

with their cardinal-red bows, the only bright color about her. She was

just beginning to wonder what kept the doctor so long, when, raising her

eyes from a reverie which had been almost a nap, she saw him driving by

at a fast trot, with a farm-boy galloping on horseback beside him. He

waved his hand to her.

Just then Hugh, son and heir of Aunt Ruby, mistress of this Westbrook

boarding-establishment, who had been sent down town after dinner to do

some marketing, came in at the gate with a basket on his arm, eating an

apple. He paused when he came up, and rested himself by putting one foot

on the lower step and settling his weight upon the other. "There's a man

out east bin awfully cut up in a mowin'-machine," said he, glancing up

at Miss Custer sideways from under his broad-brimmed straw hat, sure

that she would appreciate the news, he being the first to tell it; for

he had a boyish conceit that Miss Custer had a very high opinion of him,

and even indulged the fancy that if he were a man--say

twenty-one--instead of a youth of seventeen, he could cut out all them

downtown fellers that hung round her.

"Oh! poor man!" said Miss Custer with a sweetness of sympathy that must

have comforted the wounded person immensely had he heard it.

"Burnses' boy came in for Doc Ebling," continued Hugh. "They don't know

whether they can patch him up again or not."

"I suppose the doctor will find out," said Miss Custer complacently; and

Hugh flung away his apple-core and walked on around the house.

Miss Custer hardly knew what to do with herself. She went back to her

room, and was tempted to lie down, but then it would rumple her dress

and spoil her hair. She thought of the invalid lady, Mrs. Tascher, whose

room was at the other end of the hall, but she had an uncomfortable

intuition that Mrs. Tascher disliked her. For herself, she disliked

nobody: there were people who were not congenial to her, but she never

took the trouble to get up a feeling against them. But it seemed to her

Mrs. Tascher had not only clearly defined but conscientious likes and

dislikes. She had tried to overcome the opposing current so far as it

concerned herself, because it was unpleasant; and, although not wholly

unaccountable--for she was conscious of some weaknesses, as most mortals

are--so far as Mrs. Tascher was affected by her shortcomings the

prejudice seemed unfounded. She had never injured her--never, except in

that large sense in which all good souls are injured by wrong-doing;

which large sense Miss Custer, perhaps, had but a dim consciousness of

even when stung--for she was very susceptible--by the criticism, open or

implied, of certain high, discriminating natures.

After a while she went down to the back regions, and glided in upon the

white kitchen-floor with her sweeping skirts.

Aunt Ruby looked up with an exclamation of surprise. She was picking

over raspberries for tea: "Oh, you oughtn't to come in here, Miss

Custer: you'll spoil your clothes."

"Impossible," said Miss Custer, glancing around at the cleanness of

everything with flattering significance, and seated herself in a low

splint-bottomed chair.

"To be sure, Peggy scrubbed this morning," said Aunt Ruby with a feeling

of satisfaction, "but one can't ever be very sure about a

kitchen-floor."

"I could always be sure enough of yours to scatter my best things upon

it," said Miss Custer, who, wishing to be entertained, was exceedingly

good-natured; though, for that matter, she was seldom otherwise.

Aunt Ruby, who was greatly taken with the fine-lady boarder who made

herself so common, entertained her better than she thought, for Miss

Custer took a curious interest in most of the people she met, and liked

to study them.

Of course Aunt Ruby could not spend time for her own or anybody else's

amusement merely: when she got through with the raspberries she went at

something else, her loose slippers clattering over the floor back and

forth wherever her duty called her. But still, she talked, and Miss

Custer sat looking out into the clean-swept back yard with its boxed-up

flower-beds blooming with the gayest annuals, and its cooped-up hens

with their broods of puffy chickens scratching and picking and chirping

outside.

"Have Doctor Ebling and Miss Stanley been long engaged?" Miss Custer

asked, the conversation having somehow led up to that query.

"Oh, la! yes," Aunt Ruby answered--"for more'n a year. The way of it

was: Ruth's guardian, Mr. Murray, who was a minister, went off to some

forrin country several years ago to be a missionary, and left Ruth here

to finish her education. He was to send for her to come an' teach in a

mission-school if she wanted to go--an' she al'ays said she did--after

she'd graduated in the normal. But she came up here to stay a spell

after graduatin', an' met Doctor Ebling; an' they took a notice to each

other right away, an' were engaged. She wrote to Mr. Murray about it,

an' he gave his consent to the marriage. But it couldn't take place just

yet, for the doctor had only just begun his practice an' wasn't ready to

settle down."

"That is, I suppose, he had not sufficient means to set up

housekeeping?" said Miss Custer, smiling.

"Well, perhaps not in the way he'd like," Aunt Ruby returned evasively,

not being a gossip in the mischievous sense.

"And your other gentleman-boarder, Mr. Bruce--" began Miss Custer, and

then stopped.

"Oh, he's got enough money to set up housekeeping like a king," said

Aunt Ruby, feeling that this was safe ground. "If he had anybody to set

up with him," she added, and laughed at her own wit.

"But did Miss Stanley really think of going to teach in a foreign

mission-school?" Miss Custer asked.

"To be sure she did," said Aunt Ruby. "She's a Christian girl, if ever

there was one. You might look the world over, Miss Custer, an' you'd

hardly find another girl like Ruth Stanley. She's the same as a

missionary right here at home, because she looks out for every poor an'

sick body in the town, an' spends half her wages to help them."

"Just the sort of person, then, for a doctor's wife," laughed Miss

Custer, and gathered up her embroidery to go back to the veranda.

Instead of going through the dining-room, the way she had entered, she

crossed over to the door of the back sitting-room, which was ajar, and

pushed it open. She started and her cheeks crimsoned, at the

recollection of her conversation with Aunt Ruby, on finding the

sitting-room occupied.

Mrs. Tascher sat in Aunt Ruby's great arm-chair, with its calico

cushions, looking over some fashion-plates in the carelessly-indolent

way that very warm weather induces. She had some pieces of muslin and a

pair of scissors beside her on the table, as though she had been cutting

out. She looked up with a smile that was intended simply as an

expression of politeness, and not such a smile as she would give a

friend, and nodded: "Good-afternoon, Miss Custer."

Miss Custer, feeling herself compromised by having been caught

gossiping--and by Mrs. Tascher, of all people!--fortified herself by a

little accession of pride in her usually suave demeanor.

"Good-afternoon," she returned, passing on through the room. "How

stiflingly warm it is here!"

"Yes. I have been thinking of going into the parlor," said Mrs. Tascher:

"it is always cool there, because the blinds are kept closed."

"Does she say that to prevent my taking refuge in the parlor?" thought

Miss Custer, and moved on and went outside.

By and by some soft piano-strains came through the window, the sash of

which was raised, at her back. When they ceased she became conscious,

without turning her head to look through the shutters, that Mrs. Tascher

had seated herself in an easy-chair and taken up a book from the

centre-table, which held the usual stock of gilt-edged

poems--Whittier's, Tennyson's, etc.

Nearly an hour passed in sultry silence, broken only by the buzzing of

flies and, now and then, a subdued sound of wheels on the sandy road

below. At last the gate-latch clicked, and Ruth came in, walking slowly

up the path.

Doctor Ebling had driven by a few moments before, and gone up the alley

to the stable, and just as Ruth reached the steps, shutting her parasol

and smiling up rather wearily at Miss Custer, he came around the corner

of the house, lifting his hat and wiping the perspiration from his face.

"Why, where have you been?" Ruth asked in surprise.

"In the country," said he.

"And just think, Miss Stanley," exclaimed Miss Custer, speaking to Ruth,

but looking a smiling reproach at the doctor, and for a moment

forgetting the parlor occupant at her back, "here I have been sitting

this whole blessed afternoon! I could have borne the infliction of my

own solitary company better, of course, if I had not been promised an

entertainment."

"You must charge your disappointment to a poor fellow who got himself

cut to pieces by a grass-mower," said the doctor.

"Who was it?" asked Ruth quickly, with a sympathetic play of facial

muscles.

"A man by the name of Burgess, out east of town."

"And is he in a bad way?"

"Rather."

Ruth stood for a moment with her eyes upon the ground, absorbed in the

thought of a fellow-being in distress, and the doctor, glancing from her

up to Miss Custer, was conscious of the strong contrast between them.

Miss Custer was ten years Ruth's senior, but just now it looked as if it

might be the other way: teaching gave Ruth a jaded look that seemed like

age. But she was only eighteen. She wore a plain brown dress and linen

cuffs and collar, all of which bore the stamp of the school-room. Her

shoes were dusty, and her hair, untouched since early morning, had

settled into a mass at the back of her neck, more artistic than stylish.

By and by she excused herself and went into the house. It was her habit

to take a bath and dress herself before tea. The doctor came up and

seated himself on the top step, and remarked that he didn't know whether

it would be worth while to go up town before supper or not. Miss Custer

was about to persuade him that it would not be worth while, when a

movement on the part of Mrs. Tascher recalled her to the consciousness

of that lady's proximity and put her under a sort of constraint. "Do you

suppose your office to be strewn with orders for your immediate

attendance upon wounded individuals?" she asked carelessly.

"If I thought it was," said he, "I'd make for the woods over yonder and

hide myself."

"Unnatural physician! I always supposed medical men to be the most

devoted to their profession, and the fondest of exercising it, of all

beings."

"As to devotion," said the doctor, "I agree with you--we _are_ a devoted

class. But as to exercise of any description, that is contrary to all

human inclination in such a temperature as this."

"And yet Miss Stanley endures it," said Miss Custer, and could have

bitten her tongue the next moment.

A grave expression settled upon the doctor's face. "Yes," said he, "her

brave spirit surmounts everything. She is of a different make-up from

all the other people I know. And, by the way, it always seems to me

irrelevant to bring her into comparison with ordinary mortals," he

added; and, getting up and settling his hat upon his head, he strode

off.

Miss Custer felt a pang of keen regret. "I have offended him," she

thought.

But at the supper-table, an hour or two later, there was no evidence of

offence in his attitude toward her, though it must be allowed that he

paid rather more attention to Ruth than usual when she came down stairs

freshened up in a light-colored lawn dress and her dark hair handsomely

coiled and ornamented with a half-blown rose. She sat just opposite

Doctor Ebling and beside Miss Custer, and stood the contrast with that

amber-eyed beauty very well. Doctor Ebling thought so, and it had a

tendency to elevate his spirits. The three carried on an animated

dialogue. Mr. Bruce, at the end of the table, was abstracted, and ate

his supper with great diligence, except when Mrs. Tascher, being his

nearest neighbor, addressed a remark to him: then he turned to her with

the utmost deference and replied as elaborately as friendly politeness

demanded.

"Any of you folks in for a boat-ride this evening?" called up Hugh from

the lower end of the table. "My Sally Lunn is anchored down by the big

oak if you want her, and here's the key," holding it up.

"Why, yes," said Doctor Ebling, taking it upon himself to answer. Hugh's

questions and remarks were usually addressed to the company

collectively, and the doctor generally was tacitly elected

spokesman.--"Don't you want to go, ladies?" he asked, "and you, Bruce?"

The ladies, Ruth and Miss Custer, assented with bright looks.

Mr. Bruce replied deliberatively that he was not sure he could leave the

office.

"Oh, come now, Bruce, that's put on," said the doctor. "No man, whatever

his profession, unless he be a farmer, can convince me of a pressure of

business at this season. Banish the delusive idea and make yourself

agreeable for once."

Mr. Bruce raised his head, showing at the same time a flash of his white

teeth and his black eyes. "For once?" he repeated. "Making myself

agreeable, or making a grotesque caricature of myself in my struggles to

be agreeable, has been the business of my life."

"Oh, Mr. Bruce!" laughed Ruth. "Everybody knows you are delightful, but

the idea of your making an effort in that direction is too absurd."

"If I had made that speech," thought Miss Custer, "Mrs. Tascher would

have looked a severe criticism."

Mrs. Tascher, as it was, looked across at Ruth and said laughingly,

"That hits him hard, my dear, but he ought not to wince."

Mr. Bruce _had_ colored slightly and broken up the gravity of his face.

Later, when they all rose from the table, Mrs. Tascher, under some

pretext or other, detained him a moment. "Do go!" she said: "you see how

it is--Ruth never has the doctor to herself a moment any more. They used

to take delightful little moonlight strolls together, and were as happy

as a pair of young lovers ought to be. Now there is always a third

party."

"Oh! So you think I ought to sacrifice myself to the happiness of the

precious lovers? And what if I get enthralled myself? Who will come to

my rescue?"

"I am willing to trust you," laughed Mrs. Tascher. "You have thirty

years upon your head, and a vast amount of hard practicality in it: Dr.

Ebling lacks something of both."

The girls had got their hats and were already out upon the veranda.

"Come, Bruce: have you decided whether there is an important case

pending or not?" called the doctor.

Mrs. Tascher gave him a little push, and he sauntered out. She stood in

the doorway and saw him, with a feeling of satisfaction, pair off with

Miss Custer after they had got outside the gate. "I believe she likes

him twenty times better than she does the doctor," she soliloquized.

"And yet with what persistency she clings to Ruth and her lover! Poor

Ruth! She takes her down in good faith."

The stream upon which Westbrook was built was about half a mile distant,

and the sun was going down when they reached the big oak where the boat

was anchored. Doctor Ebling clambered down the steep bank and unlocked

it, and got in and rowed up a little way to where there was a better

descent.

"Now, then, shall we all go at once," said he, "or take turns?"

"It is such a diminutive vessel," said Bruce, eying it doubtingly, "that

perhaps Miss Custer and myself had better 'pause upon the brink' here,

and wait until you two have made a short voyage."

"Oh, we shall not make a very short voyage," said Ruth, running down the

bank and grasping the doctor's hand as he held it out to steady her in

stepping into the boat. "I want to go up as far as the bridge and make a

sketch to-night: the sunset and the moon-rise are lovely."

"Better come on--don't think we'll upset," said the doctor, beginning,

nevertheless, to push off.

Bruce looked about and found a log to sit on. "Just spread your shawl on

it," said he; and Miss Custer was obliged to unfold her beautiful white

burnous.

"What an idea!" she thought, "and how ungallant he is!"

And yet he had a remarkable power of fascination, though, as Ruth said,

he made no effort to please.

He took a seat beside her, and for some time his eyes followed the boat.

After a while he said, "And did you manage to get through with _The

Spanish Gypsy_ again?"

"Oh no," said Miss Custer. "Didn't you know? The doctor was called into

the country."

"Ah! he was?"

"Yes."

"Then you lost your afternoon's entertainment? That must have been a

great deprivation."

He turned his head and looked at her with a lingering, exploring gaze

that was difficult for her to fathom. How should she answer? He was

certainly the only being of his sex who baffled or embarrassed her.

"It was indeed," she returned demurely, and yet with a hope that he

might discover that she was but half in earnest. Her eyelids drooped and

her lips were curved with a smile. She was pleasurably conscious of his

prolonged gaze, and hoped something from it, knowing from much previous

experience the power of her beauty.

The silence was very eloquent. He broke it--or intensified it indeed--by

repeating from _The Gypsy_, in a low and remarkably well-modulated

voice,

"Do you know

Sometimes when we sit silent, and the air

Breathes gently on us from the orange trees,

It seems that with the whisper of a word

Our souls must shrink, yet poorer, more apart.

Is it not so?

Do you know the answer?" he asked, never once taking away his eyes.

She raised hers and gave it with equal effect:

"Yes, dearest, it is true.

Speech is but broken light upon the depth

Of the unspoken: even your loved words

Float in the larger meaning of your voice

As something dimmer."

There was nothing audacious in her manner of repeating it--no coquettish

reference, in voice or glance, to him. She threw into her eyes an

expression of complete absorption in the spirit and story of the poem,

and appeared to be far away with Don Silva and Fedalina.

Her seriousness and evident intensity of feeling were a surprise to him.

He had simply been trying her with a careless stroke, but he seemed to

strike true flint. "I could have sworn," he thought to himself, "that

she was making fun of Ebling's proposition to read to her to-day when

she said one could stand hearing a poem a good many times." And he

actually went on repeating passage after passage, while she sat with her

hands folded and her eyes fixed dreamily, drinking it in like distant

music sounding all the way from the Spanish shores.

They were both so absorbed--not in the poem, but in thoughts that

floated under the poem and circled right around themselves--that they

did not hear the dipping of the oars as the doctor rowed back to shore

in the white moonlight--not softened now, as it had been a while ago, by

the mellow tints in the west. "Hallo!" he called. "Come down now and

embark."

"Shall we?" asked Bruce in a voice so low that it seemed almost tender.

She answered by getting up, and he took the burnous off the log and

folded it about her shoulders. It gave her a conscious thrill.

They sauntered down, and Bruce gave her his hand to make the descent of

the bank. Ruth sprang up like a gazelle while the doctor held the boat

to shore, and then pushed it off when the occupants were seated.

"I'm the poorest rower in Christendom," said Bruce, taking up the oars

and making a few awkward strokes.

"Never mind about rowing," said Miss Custer. "When we get out into the

current let us drift: I like it just as well."

Bruce did so, resting the handles of the oars upon his knees.

Perfect silence reigned. The moon was strangely bright, making the very

air silvery. Miss Custer, with the rarest tact, let the stillness alone,

knowing there was power in it.

By and by Bruce murmured,

"With dreamful eyes,

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise.

What a strange effect moonlight and water have upon us, Miss Custer!

They seem almost to disembody us. I can hardly ever recall a single line

of poetry in the daytime when the sun is shining. But moonlight brings

out all the delicate images of the mind's palimpsest."

"Pray, then, go on and repeat something more," said Miss Custer in a

low voice: "I like to hear you. Repeat the rest of 'Drifting.'"

Bruce complied, and then struck upon Byron, and was surprised and

delighted to find that Miss Custer followed him even there. The truth

was, Miss Custer had rehearsed all these things many times before with

different actors. The whole plot lay before her, ending and all. Bruce

was certainly hooked, and all she had to do was to draw the line

carefully in. To be sure, he was an odd specimen, a sort of man she was

not much acquainted with; but that made him all the more interesting,

and she was conscious of her power to manage him.

At last Bruce put the boat about without consulting her, and rowed back

to the landing in silence and with considerable dexterity, considering

his self-depreciation as a rower. Ruth and the doctor, who had no doubt

been affected by the moonlight too, stood on the bank waiting for them.

They all went home together, a rather merry party, and immediately

dispersed for the night.

The next morning, when Miss Custer came down to breakfast radiant and

joyous, with a consciousness of being in perfect keeping with the

unpoetic sunshine, she was stricken with consternation at finding Mr.

Bruce as distant and nonchalant as ever. No lingering, exploring glance

this morning--nothing but the usual flash of his dark eyes as he bowed

to her. Was it possible that all the fine effects of last night had

passed out of his consciousness?

Some time during the day Bruce found an opportunity to say to Mrs.

Tascher, "Don't ask me to do it again: I came near making a fool of

myself last night. Got to quoting poetry and all that."

"Did you, indeed?" said she, laughing. "If the siren had that effect on

you, a hardened bachelor, consider how it would go with Ebling."

"Ebling's heart is supposed to be preoccupied," said Bruce: "mine is an

'aching void.'"

That evening Hugh challenged Miss Custer to a game of croquet, and she,

with secret reluctance, but a very good grace--being one of those

sweetly-amiable people who never speak ill of any one, and never

manifest the least boredom, no matter who undertakes the office of

entertainer to them--accepted. However, she would make the most she

could out of it. She invited the rest of the company to come down and

look on and see that she had fair play. Bruce, at whom she glanced

appealingly, paid no heed, but put on his hat and went down town with

the air of a man greatly preoccupied and oppressed with business cares.

Mrs. Tascher never went out when the dew was falling, and so there was

nobody but Ruth and the doctor. They complied at once, and took seats on

a rustic bench under the trees.

Miss Custer was conscious of showing to advantage in this picturesque

game, and paid far more attention to her attitudes than her strokes: as

a consequence, she was beaten, and immediately threw down her mallet.

"I'll give you another chance," said Hugh wistfully.

"Oh, I could never redeem myself with you if we should play till

doomsday," she answered.

"You _have_ beaten me," persisted Hugh.

"But I have a presentiment that I can't do it to-night," she returned.

"Well, then, Hugh," said the doctor, getting up and helping himself to a

mallet, "if she is so disheartened, suppose we give her a chance to come

off second best by taking a game with me?"

Hugh, smiling, but a little put out, stepped back, and the contest

began, with far more animation on the part of Miss Custer. Presently

Hugh's mother called him, and he went away. After a time Ruth called to

the players, who were both at the other end of the ground, "Say, folks,

if you'll excuse _me_ I'll go in."

Miss Custer turned round and answered, "Oh, poor child! I presume you do

find it dull."

Ruth ran up to Mrs. Tascher's room. Her acquaintance with that lady she

counted among the best things of her life. The world had seemed larger

and brighter and better since she had known her.

Mrs. Tascher was a widow: she had considerable wealth, but being an

invalid she was deprived of the enjoyment of it to a great extent. She

welcomed Ruth's friendly little visits always with a smile that seemed

to make her soul stand out upon her face. She was what one might call a

woman of the world. That is, she had travelled much, read much, studied

people much, and mingled all her previous life in intelligent and

refined society.

"Why, where is the rest of your party, my dear?" she asked as Ruth

tapped on the door and came in.

"Hugh's mother wanted him," Ruth answered, "and I left Frank and Miss

Custer playing a game."

Mrs. Tascher's smile faded. She felt tempted to speak a word of warning,

but it seemed too bad to destroy the innocent faith of this high-minded,

unsuspecting girl. She gave Ruth a chair, and Ruth begged her to read

something: Mrs. Tascher's reading was sweeter than music to her. She

complied readily, because it gave her pleasure to do anything Ruth

asked. "Here is a poem by Whittier, just out," she said, taking up a

magazine, the leaves of which she had cut only that afternoon. She began

it, and Ruth leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes the better to

see the images that passed in her mind. Mrs. Tascher read on until the

light grew so dim that she could not see the lines, and then she got up

and went to the window to finish. She glanced out as she did so, and

stood silent. At last she said, "Come here, Ruth."

Ruth got up and went and looked out.

Away down at the farther end of the lawn stood Miss Custer and the

doctor with their elbows resting upon the fence, evidently very deeply

absorbed in each other. The spot was very lonely and still, hemmed in by

trees, and would not have been visible from below--perhaps from hardly

any other point but this window.

"Doesn't it strike you, Ruth, that a couple of young people must be

rather sentimental to stray away like that?" asked Mrs. Tascher.

Ruth laughed, but not very joyously, and immediately turned away from

the window, as though the sight hurt her.

Mrs. Tascher did so too, and struck a match to light her lamp. "If I

were you, Ruth," she said as she settled the shade over it, "I would go

down to the croquet-ground, from where you can see those people, and

call to them."

"Oh no," said Ruth with a shiver.

"Why, you see," continued Mrs. Tascher, "it doesn't look well. Miss

Custer ought to know better, but she is so vain of her influence over

gentlemen that she exercises it upon every occasion that offers. It

doesn't appear to make any difference who the gentleman is: it would be

all the same to her now if it were Hugh instead of the doctor. I believe

she does care something for Bruce, and he is her lawful prey; but she

knows the doctor is not in the market."

Ruth threw back her head proudly. "He _can_ be in the market," she said

hoarsely.

"No, no, my dear," said Mrs. Tascher, shaking her head. "I don't want

you to get reckless: I want to see you play this game with Miss Custer

with a cool hand and come out ahead. You can do it, and you will be

stronger and safer in the end."

Ruth pretty soon went out. She entered her room with her hand upon her

heart, and sat down by the window without striking a light. In the

course of half an hour the doctor and Miss Custer appeared in sight,

walking slowly toward the house. They passed directly under her window,

but their voices were so low that she could distinguish no word. By and

by she heard the piano going. A moment after Mrs. Tascher tapped on her

door, and, turning the knob, put her head in and called, "Ruth!"

Ruth got up and came forward.

"Come," said her visitor, "let us go down to the parlor."

"I cannot," said Ruth: "please don't ask me."

"Foolish child!" said Mrs. Tascher. "I am a thousand times sorry that I

brought this thing to your notice."

"It was brought to my notice long ago," said Ruth brokenly; and Mrs.

Tascher turned and went down stairs.

The doctor was leaning back in an easy-chair, completely absorbed in

watching the exquisite figure at the piano and listening to the strains

she evoked.

"One _would_ think she had feeling," commented Mrs. Tascher mentally as

she entered the room and swept across to the vacant seat beside the

doctor, dispelling somehow, with her strong presence, the spirit of

sentimentalism that pervaded the atmosphere. "Why, Doctor Ebling, are

you here?" she asked: "I supposed you had gone to town. Where is Miss

Stanley?"

"I--I don't know," said the doctor--honestly enough, to be sure.

"I thought you all went down to the croquet-ground?"

"Yes, we did. But she came back, and left Miss Custer and myself to

finish our game."

"Oh, then I presume she is in her room.--Have you finished playing, Miss

Custer?" with a smile of placid indifference as Miss Custer turned round

on the piano-stool.

"Yes," said Miss Custer, getting up and taking a chair. "Doctor Ebling

wished to hear the 'Last Hope.'"

"You haven't come to that in your experience yet, have you, doctor?"

laughed Mrs. Tascher, though she was not in the habit of playing upon

words.

"No," said the doctor. "It seems to me the 'last hope' is that we feel

when we draw our last breath."

The three spent the evening together, and Mrs. Tascher brought into

exercise the old charms and graces of manner and conversation that years

ago had made her one of the most brilliant and fascinating women society

could boast of. She was not old--not more than thirty-five--and when

animated she was still beautiful: her face became illuminated and stars

shone in her eyes. She so far outdid Miss Custer in the matter of

pleasing and entertaining that when the doctor went away he hardly

thought of the latter. He said to himself as he went down town, "What a

remarkably brilliant woman Mrs. Tascher must have been in her day! And

is yet, for that matter. Husband been dead six years: wonder why she

never married again?"

Then he wondered with a slight feeling of uneasiness where Ruth had kept

herself all the evening. "How affectionately and admiringly Mrs. Tascher

always speaks of Ruth!" he said, and added, "Well, she is a noble girl."

There was an indefinable hardness in Ruth's manner the next morning. Her

voice was hollow and her smile seemed ironical, though she was unusually

gay. Mrs. Tascher, who observed her closely and with some uneasiness,

thought her mockingly attentive to Miss Custer. Something was said at

the dinner-table again about the doctor's promise to read to Miss

Custer, and Ruth exclaimed, "By all means!--Miss Custer, make him stay

at home and read you that poem."

The doctor of course fell readily in with the idea, and said he would

not go down town this time to see if there were any orders: if anybody

wanted him it was generally known that if he was not in his office he

was at his boarding-place.

"Why _did_ you do it?" said Mrs. Tascher, putting her handkerchief on

her head and going down to the gate with Ruth.

"Because," said Ruth with drawn lips and heaving bosom, "I do not want

to get him unfairly. If there is some one else who interests him more

than I, he is still at liberty to choose."

"Ruth," said Mrs. Tascher, and her eyes flashed, "do you think she is

getting him fairly? You have no conception of the scheming of that

woman."

"Oh yes, indeed I believe I know it all," said Ruth, and hurried away.

In a few days school closed, and Ruth packed her trunk and went up to

Merton, a little village about twenty miles distant, to visit her aunt.

Almost as soon as she was gone Miss Custer was taken sick. Aunt Ruby

insisted upon her occupying the spare bedroom, a cool, spacious

apartment opening off the back sitting-room. The professional services

of Doctor Ebling were of course engaged at once, and he proved himself

very attentive at least.

To save appearances and for Ruth's sake, although she had little hope,

Mrs. Tascher took up her position in the sick-room and compelled the

doctor to give all his directions to her. He pronounced the malady a low

fever brought on by the extreme heat of the season. Mrs. Tascher thought

it was the result of exposure to night-dews, carelessness in regard to

diet and lack of proper exercise.

Her presence, it must be allowed, put but little constraint upon the

extraordinary intimacy of the pair. The doctor was all devotion, and

Miss Custer all languor and dependence. She made a beautiful invalid,

with her rare complexion and her white, lissome hands lying so restfully

and helplessly on the counterpane. One day, after being freshly dressed

in an embroidered gown of the finest texture, and instructing Mrs.

Tascher how to wind her hair, which was long and abundant, around the

top of her head in a coronet that was very becoming to her, she

requested to have Mr. Bruce sent in when he came to his dinner. She had

some affairs that must be looked into immediately by a legal eye.

"Had you not better just send him a message?" asked Mrs. Tascher.

"No: I prefer to attend to it myself," she returned coldly.

Bruce was therefore sent in, and Mrs. Tascher stepped out into the

sitting-room. Miss Custer, who was certainly very white, raised her

dusky eyelids, smiled faintly and held out her jewelled hand. Bruce,

standing awkwardly enough by the bed-side, took it, but without apparent

appreciation of its loveliness.

The invalid had chosen an inopportune moment: despite the subdued light

of the chamber, it was high noon and the sun shone burningly outside,

and Bruce, who had just eaten a hearty dinner, was utterly devoid of

sentiment and indifferent to nice effects. There was a tumbler of dewy

roses on a little table beside the bed, and he picked out one, and,

sitting down, began eating the leaves one by one. "I hope," said he,

thinking it a good plan to rally the sick a little, "you haven't got so

discouraged by this indisposition--which the doctor tells me is not at

all serious--that you wish to make your will?"

"No," she returned, hardly able to conceal her disgust at the unfeeling

wretch: "I merely wish to send to my attorney for some money."

"Oh, is that it?" said Bruce, laughing. "Then the doctor was right. So

long as a person takes a controlling interest in his affairs he is

safe."

"A _person_!" thought Miss Custer, and really curled her lip. She gave

him her lawyer's address, stated the sum she wanted and told him he

might say that she was ill.

"And unable to write," added Bruce. "All right! I shall be as prompt in

the execution of your commission as the exigences of the case appear to

demand."

He took up his hat and went out cheerily, and Miss Custer turned her

face to the wall and cried. For a day or two she was worse: then she

grew better, and was finally able to sit up. At the expiration of two

weeks Ruth came back. She was very pale and her face had a rigid look.

Miss Custer met her sweetly, being still under the subduing influence of

invalidism, and Ruth tried to feel kindly to her; which was a great

vexation to Mrs. Tascher.

"Let me alone," said Ruth passionately one day. "Don't you see how I

hate her? I could almost kill her! I am trying to fight down the demon

in me."

The doctor, who had himself grown thin and haggard-looking, welcomed

Ruth back with an air of constraint.

One day the young folks of the village got up a picnic and invited Aunt

Ruby's boarders. The doctor at first hesitated about giving his

permission for Miss Custer to go, but she coaxed, and he finally

consented. The evening before the picnic Ruth requested an interview

with the doctor, and they walked out into the grove. She told him she

wished to release him from his engagement, and it was a painful

satisfaction to her to see the agony that was in his face. He accused

himself bitterly--said he had broken up her happiness and ruined her

life, that he could never forgive himself, and ended by refusing to

accept his release, and declaring that he should never avail himself of

any of the advantages it offered.

The next morning he went to Bruce with white face and strained eyes,

and begged him, for the love he bore him, to take Miss Custer to the

picnic and to stay by her.

"So, my boy," said Bruce, not a little affected, "you have got into the

ditch and want me to help you out? Well, I will do what I can.--Thank

the Lord, his eyes are opened at last!" he muttered as Ebling went away.

The picnic-ground was a wooded hillside that sloped down into a grassy

meadow a mile from town. The company all got together at the appointed

hour--two in the afternoon--in the street below Aunt Ruby's, and waited

for her boarders to come out. Ruth had persuaded Mrs. Tascher to go, and

the doctor, with a painful attempt to appear natural, kept beside her

and was scrupulously attentive to her comfort. Ruth playfully claimed

Hugh as her escort. Bruce, true to agreement, monopolized Miss Custer in

a masterly way, much to her surprise. She tried to snub him at first,

but he ignored all her efforts in that direction with consummate

stupidity, and in the end she submitted with a charming grace that was

torture to the doctor.

Everybody seemed in fine spirits, but on the part of two or three

members of the company we have reason to suppose that it was _only_

seeming. And perhaps a little general knowledge of the affairs of

mankind might justify us in the suspicion that there were others not so

happy as their bright looks seemed to warrant. But, however that might

be, every one threw in his or her contribution to the pleasure and

amusement of the day. The doctor helped to lay out a croquet-ground and

fixed the target for archery-practice; Hugh was active in putting up

swings; some of the older and more dignified gentlemen, including Bruce,

took upon themselves the lighter duty of entertaining the ladies; when

lunch-time came some of the young fellows kindled a fire, and Ruth

boiled the coffee. After that there was a good deal of pairing off and

walking about, or sitting cozily upon old mossy, fallen trunks of trees.

Miss Custer, who had not yet risen from the grass-plot where she had

sat to eat her dinner, looked away down across the green meadows with

sleepy, half-shut eyes, and asked, "What is that pile of stones in the

corner yonder?"

A youthful jeweller whom she remembered among her distant admirers

answered, "It's an old well. This place here used to be a stock-farm,

but it hasn't been used for that for a good many years; so the framework

and buckets have been taken away."

Miss Custer, seized with a sudden impulse, sprang up and exclaimed, "I

have a great mind to go down and take a look into it. Old wells have a

peculiar fascination for me, and that one looks so lovely and romantic!"

She had a thought that Bruce might volunteer to accompany her, but that

indolent barrister, sprawling upon the grass at her feet, hardly felt

called upon by the nature of his agreement with Ebling to undergo quite

so much as that. He reflected that it was his business to keep the

charmer out of mischief for the day. "And if she meanders away to that

fascinating well," he thought, "in her own solitary company, nobody will

be damaged, so far as I can see."

But Miss Custer, seeing no other way and feeling the position a little

awkward, appealed to Ruth, who got up and started with her. When they

had clambered down the rather steep hill to the meadow's edge Miss

Custer affectionately took her arm. "Don't you think picnics are stupid

things?" she asked confidingly.

"Why," said Ruth, "we didn't think so this morning."

"Oh no, not when we were anticipating, but

One of the pleasures of having a rout

Is the pleasure of having it over.

I shall be glad when we get back home, though I suppose we shall not

start till near sundown."

When they reached the well Miss Custer stepped upon the flat white

stones with which it was walled up to the surface of the ground and

gazed down into its dark depths. "What a queer feeling that is which one

is almost sure to have standing upon the edge of danger!--a sort of

reckless impulse to throw one's self forward. Did you ever feel it?"

Ruth, standing just behind her as she leaned over, saw her hands

involuntarily clutch her dress, as though the strange temptation were so

great that she must hold herself forcibly back from it. "I have--a

thousand times," she added; "and I feel it now."

"Take care!" cried Ruth, catching at her.

Miss Custer, in turning away her charmed gaze, lost her balance from

sheer dizziness and plunged forward. Ruth, with a look and cry of

horror, bent over and saw the fearful descent, so quick and so noiseless

until the dull splash was heard and the black water opened and closed

again. Then she threw up her hands and started to run toward the hill,

calling loudly. But already they had seen and were coming. One--Doctor

Ebling--was far ahead of the rest. Ruth met him and turned back with

him.

"Ruth, you did it: I saw you push her," he found breath to say. But

Ruth's sensibilities were too shocked to feel the accusation.

The doctor was halfway down the well before any one else reached the

spot. Bruce had had the forethought to cut down a swing and bring the

rope. In a very few minutes Miss Custer--or what was believed to be her

lifeless body--was lying wet upon the grass and the doctor, also

dripping, was making a hasty examination of her condition. "I think she

will live," was his verdict, "but we must get her home with all speed."

A light wagon coming up the road was signalled to, and they got her into

it and drove furiously to town. By the time the rest of the party

reached home she was partially recovered, though very weak and terribly

shaken.

As soon as it was said that she was out of danger and would probably

suffer no serious consequences Ruth recalled the doctor's frightful

words: "You did it: I saw you push her."

She rushed in search of him. He was in the parlor, walking back and

forth with a troubled air. She went up to him: "Frank, you accused me

of doing that dreadful thing. I have just remembered what you said--that

you saw me push her. I did not: I put out my hand to save her."

"I hope to God you did!" said he, but his look was doubting and

reproachful.

"Why, Frank," she said, with scarcely enough breath to speak the words,

"if you do not believe me it will kill me!"

Just then some one came to the door and beckoned to him, and he went

out. Ruth turned, with a breaking heart, to go up stairs. The youthful

jeweller was talking to Mrs. Tascher in the hall. "Yes," he was saying,

"I saw it all. She was standing leaning over the well, and was just

turning to step back when she gave a sort of lurch as if she had got

dizzy, and Miss Stanley reached out her hand and caught her by the

shoulder. But she had got the start of her, and over she went in a

twinkling. The whole thing was done in an instant."

"Oh, Mr. Omes, I wish you would explain all that to Doctor Ebling," said

Ruth, coming up.

"Oh, he knows all about it: he saw it the same as I did," said the young

man.

A suspicion crossed Ruth's mind that the doctor _knew_, but she could

not believe him so base.

Miss Custer was doomed to have a serious time of it, after all. The

great excitement brought on fever again, and for some days her recovery

was thought doubtful. Everybody in the house did all that was in her or

his power to do, and the doctor was more devoted than ever. It became a

fixed idea that he would marry Miss Custer as soon as she was able to

sit up. He and Ruth scarcely spoke to each other.

One day Mrs. Tascher told Ruth she must go away.

"Yes, I know," answered Ruth: "I am going."

She packed her trunk again--this time taking all her things--and went

back to her aunt's. In less than a week Mrs. Tascher had a letter from

her stating that she had started, under the escort of a friend of her

guardian's, for Beirut.

It was so great a shock to Mrs. Tascher that she scarcely left her room

for ten days after it, and indeed did not wholly recover until another

letter came, dated from far-off Syria, with a curious commingling of the

strange and the familiar in the well-known handwriting and the foreign

post-mark, assuring her that her young friend was safely sheltered under

the protection of her guardian and his estimable wife. Ruth dwelt

entirely upon her new experience, and never mentioned the old. She had

not so much to say about her journey, though it was interesting and

delightful, as about her arrival and the meeting with her dear friends,

whose loved faces were so sweetly familiar in that strange, strange land

that she fell upon their necks and wept. She drew vivid pictures of the

magnificent scenery that lay around her in her new home--the gardens,

the orange-groves, the figs and olives, the terraced slope of Mount

Lebanon, the glorious Mediterranean.

Mrs. Tascher was comforted, though the void made by Ruth's absence was

almost like death, the wide space seemed so unspannable. She wrote back

at once in all the fulness of her heart, and Ruth was not so absorbed in

grief for the loss of her lover but that she appreciated and was deeply

grateful for the tender, unfailing affection of her friend. Mrs.

Tascher, who felt that the sharpest knife was the best to be used in a

case of urgent surgical necessity, wrote briefly that the doctor and

Miss Custer were married--that Miss Custer had begged for at least three

months' preparation, but the doctor was impatient; and so, as soon as

she was able to stand the journey to Boston, where her friends and

property were, they had joined hands and started.

"The marriage took place in the parlor," Mrs. Tascher wrote, "and the

household were invited to be present. I, however, had a bad headache and

could not get down stairs; Bruce pleaded 'business;' and poor Hugh,

whose boyish affections have been cruelly tampered with, had a fishing

engagement. So there was nobody but Aunt Ruby and her 'help' to witness

the touching ceremony except the minister and his wife. It _was_

touching, I suppose: Miss Custer wept bitterly at being so 'neglected,'

and Ebling is mortally offended with Bruce."

Three years went by; which space of time Mrs. Tascher spent chiefly in

Florida and New York, going back and forth as the seasons changed in

obedience to medical authority. At last she concluded to try a few weeks

in Westbrook again. Aunt Ruby, who still kept boarders--all strangers,

however--gave her the old rooms up stairs with their pleasant windows.

Here she sat and wrote to Ruth a few days after her arrival.

Ruth had become quite contented, and even happy, under the warm Syrian

sun, watching with earnest, loving eyes the development of barbarism and

heathenism into civilization and Christianity, though it seemed very

much to her sometimes as if she had lost her place and personality in

the world. She was swallowed up in the great pagan East, and was nothing

to the land that owned her--to the people that were her people. She was

dead to the life and world to which she had been born.

The family of her guardian, together with some of their pupils, had

removed to a little village up the side of the mount to spend a few of

the hottest weeks, as was their custom. The mail was regularly brought

up by a young Arab riding a mule. One evening, when Ruth had gone to sit

alone on one of the grassy terraces overlooking the sea and the

luxuriant foliage and vegetation below--a thing she liked, though it

usually made her pensive and a little sad--a young Syrian girl ran down

and gave her a letter. It was Mrs. Tascher's, and I will take the

liberty to transcribe a part of it here:

"Aunt Ruby has furnished me with a good many surprising items in regard

to the fortunes and actions of our old associates. Bruce (he was a

splendid fellow--wasn't he?--solid, practical and all that), who, you

remember, had a good deal of means, has built himself a house, something

quite elegant. It stands on that little knoll on the other side of the

town, overlooking the river. I mean to go over and take a look at it

some day: it is said to be beautifully furnished, and is kept by an old

maiden aunt of our friend. Bruce, by the way, is in Europe, though what

took him there I cannot conjecture, unless he means to bring home a

European exportation in the shape of a wife. I wish, my dear, _you_ had

taken a fancy to him: I always thought he admired you. You don't mind my

probing an old wound--do you?--because I want to speak of some of the

others. Miss Custer's fortune, as it turned out, was extremely limited.

She had, I believe, enough to furnish a small rented house here, and she

and the doctor immediately went to housekeeping. But time, which settles

all things and places them in their true light and relations, has

brought to the notice of this precious pair that they are very ill

adapted to each other: it is even said that they quarrel. The coarser

gossips affirm that Mrs. Ebling is lazy and shiftless, and that the

doctor is disheartened and neglects his business. I have seen him once,

and can judge something of his state by his bearing and looks. He is

certainly not the sort of man I once thought he would make. Whether

there is better stuff in him than what we see developed, or whether he

owes what he is entirely to circumstances, is an unsolvable question. I

am inclined to think that every person has the making of two individuals

in him--one bad, the other good. What a pity that a man usually has only

one chance! If he makes a mistake he is lost. My dear Ruth, in the whole

course of my life I have kept my eyes upon the infallible law of cause

and effect; and I know this, that wrong-doing inevitably brings its own

retribution."

When Ruth took her eyes from this letter and fixed them upon the distant

blue water-depths they were brimful of tears. "Yes, wrong-doing is

followed by retribution," she thought, "but where is the reward for

right-doing?"

Oh, she felt so lonely in that far-off heathen land, with the shadow of

others' wrong-doing lying always across her path! Why must she suffer

and be alone?

A step from behind startled her, and she sprang up and turned round. A

pair of black eyes were smiling at her from a handsome, familiar face.

"Oh, Mr. Bruce!" she cried, and flew up the steps, holding out both her

hands.

"I have come such a long way to see you," said Bruce, "that my motive

must be pretty conspicuous: I don't mean to try to conceal it. Perhaps

you have never thought of me as a man you would be at all likely to

marry. Still, I have made it my business to come and ask you, and I

thought I might better let you know my errand at once, instead of

leaving you to guess it from any clownish efforts of mine to do the

agreeable to you."

He certainly broke it to her very well, smiling and holding her

hands--so well that she laughed heartily and was at home with him in a

moment.

One day it was rumored in Westbrook that Bruce had come home with a

wife. The news had but just reached Aunt Ruby's premises when Bruce

himself came rapidly up the path and asked for Mrs. Tascher. She came

down at once. "I have come for you to go and call upon my wife," said

he.

"Why, Mr. Bruce--" she began.

But he stopped her, and in spite of her demurring carried her off.

"You certainly _have_ a lovely place, Mr. Bruce," she said, looking

admiringly round as they mounted the front steps of his residence. The

door flew open, and there, waiting to welcome her, stood the

bride--Ruth.

ALICE ILGENFRITZ.

WHERE LIGHTNING STRIKES.

The air has been growing hotter for many days, with "occasional

counteracting influences" (as "Probabilities" says), until the

sunshine-loving doves hide under shadowing gables and the robins and

sparrows sit on the lower branches of the trees with little wings lifted

from their palpitating sides. The multitudinous shrilling of the

grasshoppers adds emphasis to the white heats of the air. Even the

housefly seeks the shade and hums drowsily in complicated orbits about

the upper part of the room, or, with too keen proboscis, destroys my

last crumb of comfort, the post-prandial nap.

My eyes open upon a world that dreams. The trees stand motionless. Among

their tops the bull-bat darts erratically. The pale star of thistledown

mounts on some mysterious current, like an infant soul departing

heavenward. The hum of the near city is hushed. The sound of the

church-bells is muffled. The trumpeting of the steamer comes from the

bay, as though some lone sea-monster called aloud for companionship.

There is a sudden rattle and roar as a train rushes by, and then the

smoke drifts away over the glowing landscape.

But there is an increasing opaque dimness in the western horizon that

steadily deepens in color. Fleece-like clouds rapidly increase in height

and density, and a sheet of pale flame flashes from the midst and is

gone. A glowing, crinkly line marks the edge of the cloud, and

disappears.

Now swallows soar far up in the sky, the doves make wild, uncertain

flights above the steeples, and the hoarse trumpet of the steamer again

calls for recognition. At the west another bright line falls, zigzag, to

a distant hill, revealed an instant, then lost in the shadow of the

cloud. Soon there is a low, momentary rumble, and you are assured that

the swift, delightful, dangerous shower, that cools the earth without

interrupting our pleasures for dreary days, is approaching. No one whose

dwelling is not better protected than most of those which bear the vain

and flimsy decorations called "lightning-rods" can know whether his own

house may not in a few moments receive a ruinous stroke, or that it may

not be his lot to enter eternity with the first flash from that dark,

towering mass of sulphurous hue that already casts its ominous shadow

upon his face.

Timid persons should experience gladness rather than alarm at the sound

of the thunder and the flash of the lightning, both being signals that

personal danger is past for the time. Persons who have been struck and

rendered insensible, but who have afterward recovered, had not seen or

heard what hurt them. Unless we are acquainted with the locality, and

know the points likely to receive the fiery bolt; if a disruptive

discharge occurs near us there is no telling the spot of danger or of

safety in open ground. A discharge from the front of the cloud may take

a downward angle of forty-five degrees, and, passing over hill and

forest, strike an insignificant knoll or a moist meadow half a mile in

advance of the cloud. For myself, if overtaken in the country by a

thunderstorm, I would seek the nearest and most convenient shelter from

the rain and take my chance with the lightning.

Teams and the persons accompanying them appear to be peculiarly in

danger during a thunderstorm. Caves, and even deep mines, afford no

absolute safety, for the thunderbolt has been known to enter even these.

Tall trees are more dangerous than low ones, but none of them appear

capable of affording protection against this mysterious element. The

people of different countries have regarded various kinds of trees as

exempt from the electric stroke, but inquiry has always shown that every

species has suffered in one locality or another. The beech, from some

cause, has probably escaped more generally than any other tree of

considerable size in northern latitudes. But it is the neighborhood of a

good conductor, not a sheltering non-conductor, that affords safety.

Some scientific men have advised a station of fifteen to forty feet from

a tree, or such a position between several trees, but it has sometimes

happened that such open spaces have received the bolt. In cities and

villages, likewise, open spaces are not found to be places of

safety.[5]

The question whether the small metallic articles usually carried about

the person increase the danger is a matter of some concern. Many persons

on the approach of a thunderstorm customarily relieve themselves of

these things. Hair-pins, clasps and the metallic springs often used in

the dresses of ladies are not, however, so easily got rid of. From the

record of the effects of lightning upon the human body we reach the

conclusion that metal is dangerous about the person only according to

its position. Constantine mentions that during a thunderstorm a lady

raised her arm to close a window, when a flash of lightning entered: her

golden bracelet was entirely dissipated, but without the slightest

injury to the wearer. A similar case is reported in the _Edinburgh New

Philosophical Journal_ for 1844. During a violent thunderstorm a

fishing-boat belonging to Midyell, in the Shetland Islands, was struck

by lightning. The discharge came down the mast (which it tore into

shivers) and melted a watch in the pocket of a man who was sitting close

by, without at all injuring him. He was not even aware of what had

happened until, on taking out his watch, he found it fused into one

mass. Instances might be cited where a portion of the shoe was carried

away without serious injury to the wearer, and where knitting-needles,

scissors and other household implements have been struck, sometimes

conducting the current to the person with fatal effect.

During a thunderstorm in France in July, 1858, a peasant-woman, on her

way home from the fields, was struck down by lightning. No wound was

detected upon her person, but her hair was singed and a part of a silver

comb melted. Here metal seems to have conducted the electricity to the

body. On the other hand, the traveller Brydone relates a circumstance

which happened to a lady who was regarding a thunderstorm from her

window. At a flash of lightning her bonnet was reduced to ashes, nothing

else about her being affected. Brydone supposes the electric current to

have been attracted by the metallic wire which maintained the shape of

her bonnet. Hence he proposes that either these wires be abandoned or in

times of danger a metallic chain be attached to the bonnet, by which the

charge might pass to the earth. Accordingly, we find that it became

fashionable in France at that period to wear on the top of the bonnet an

ornament of bright metal connecting with a small silver chain dropping

down to the ground. At about the same time umbrellas were carried fitted

with wires and chain for a similar purpose.

In July, 1819, lightning fell upon the prison of Biberach in Suabia, and

there struck, in a common apartment, among twenty prisoners, one only--a

condemned captain of brigands, who was chained about the waist. A

similar arrangement of metal proved fatal in another case. On the 9th of

October, 1836, on the coast of Italy, a young man was struck by

lightning and killed. It was found that he wore a girdle containing gold

coins. Undoubtedly, danger or safety depends on properly placing the

conducting object. It may convey the current to the vital organs or it

may ward off the stroke. Probably any line of metal parallel with the

length of the body when upright would be in some degree a protection.

The noted Dr. King once saw a military company receive a discharge of

electricity from the clouds upon their bayonets, whence their muskets

conducted it to the ground without harm or any painful shock. On the

other hand, a battalion of French infantry, while marching between

Mouzon and Stenay, June 2, 1849, was struck by lightning, and two men

killed, while about two hundred were struck to the ground. Blood flowed

from their mouths, ears and noses. This effect appears to have been the

result of the concussion. Similar results sometimes follow from heavy

discharges of artillery.

Uniform testimony goes to show that men in metallic armor have never

been fatally injured by lightning. A complete suit of metallic armor

embodies the principle of the well-known electrical cage of Faraday.

This is simply a basket of wire network with its open side to the

ground. If the wire is of proper size and the capacity sufficient, this

cage is the most effectual protection possible, unless the walls be of

solid iron.

If one places beside him a better direct conductor to the earth than his

own body, he will not be fatally injured by the electric current,

though, if it pass very near, he may be blinded by the glare or deafened

by the noise--effects which are usually temporary. Equal safety for

buildings may be similarly secured.

Glass being so well known as an excellent non-conductor, some have been

led to suppose it effectual in warding off the disruptive stroke. Hence

chambers or cases of glass have actually been made for the use of

individuals who were apt to be overcome with terror during the

prevalence of a thunderstorm. In this belief, also, the vane of Christ

Church in Doncaster, England, was furnished with a glass ball; but the

spire was afterward struck, causing great damage. Many also think they

may sit beside a closed window in safety, but records of holes being

melted in the glass and whole windows crumbled to powder by lightning

are too numerous to admit of any reliance upon such a precaution.

In the case of silken garments the evidence met with does not warrant a

statement either for or against them; yet there appears to be no reason

why this non-conductor should be more of a safeguard than any other. No

doubt an abundance of gold and silver lace, or cloth having threads of

these metals, might prove a protection. Feather beds, too, have been

regarded as places of safety, but persons have been killed by lightning

while in bed. Dr. Franklin advised especially that the vicinity of

chimneys be avoided, because lightning often enters a room by them. All

metallic bodies, mirrors and gilded ornaments, he held, should likewise

be shunned. Contact with the walls or the floor or proximity to a

chandelier, a projecting gas-pipe, a position between two considerable

pieces or surfaces of metals, unless distant, are all hazardous.

Draughts of air are also to be avoided. Bell-wires may generally be

considered as protective, though too small to be effectual. Perhaps a

hammock, in addition to the preceding precautions, will afford as much

security as can be derived from insulation. But in a building having

continuous iron walls, posts or pillars from top to bottom, or in one

which is properly supplied with conductors in other forms, all the

foregoing precautions may be neglected without apprehension. Yet, as was

suggested early in this article, the great number of buildings damaged

by lightning while furnished with rods has caused much distrust of this

system of protection.

From the large number of trees receiving the electric current it has

come to be thought by many that these may be the best protectors of

buildings if properly placed. In a case coming under my observation a

tree received (or at least deflected) the current and communicated it to

the house. In many instances, however, the building is struck while tall

trees near by are untouched.

There is no doubt that lightning generally strikes elevated rather than

low objects, and therefore it has been thought that a building

surrounded by steeples had nothing to fear. As previously stated,

however, the bolt sometimes selects a low object when high ones are at

hand. For example, lightning fell upon a house occupied by Lord Tilney

in Naples, although it was surrounded on all sides, at the distance of

four or five hundred paces, by the towers and domes of a great number of

churches, all wet with a heavy rain.

In considering the matter of protection from lightning we must bear in

mind that trees, buildings, masts and other elevated points exert no

attractive power on the thundercloud except in connection with the great

plane where they are situated. The primary cause of the discharge is not

in the metals of the building, the exact point or line in which the

insulation by the air breaks down being determined by a variety of

causes. The elevated points of a building or ship may form a channel for

the passage of the current, but it is not the only one nor the cause of

the discharge, which would take place sooner or later though the ship or

building were absent altogether.

There has been a difference of opinion in regard to the area protected

by lightning-conductors, early notions on this point having been much

exaggerated. Leroy's, in 1788, is the earliest positive statement which

I have met. It is, that a conductor protects a horizontal space around

it equal to somewhat more than three times the height of the metal rod

above the building to which it is attached. The physical section of the

Academy of Sciences of Paris, on being consulted by the Minister of War

in 1823, expressed the opinion that a lightning-conductor protects a

circular space of which the radius is equal to the height of the rod.

Here, apparently, is a wide difference, but possibly the estimates refer

to different elevations. Leroy clearly intended an area at a level with

the top of the building: thus, supposing the rod to be attached to a

chimney six feet in height and to rise a foot and a half above the

chimney, then it would protect a radius of about ten feet on the roof.

The estimate of the Academy of Sciences speaks of the total height of

the rod, and refers to a horizontal area at the base of the measurement,

whether this began at the ground or at the top of the structure to which

the rod is attached. In this view the estimates do not differ so much as

might appear, the latter being about one-third less than that of Leroy.

Other French writers estimate the area protected as having a radius of

double the height of the rod above the highest point of the connected

structure, being twice the radius allowed by the Academy. Later

physicists have been cautious in giving figures, for experience has

shown that estimates of protection are not accurately observed by the

descending bolt. For instance, when Her Majesty's corvette Dido,

furnished with the best system of conductors, was struck by lightning,

the discharge fell in a double or forked current upon the main royal

mast, one of the branches striking the extreme point of the royal yard

arm and passing along to the conductor on the mast, while the other fork

fell on the vane, spindle and truck; which last was split open. As soon

as the discharge reached the conductor all damage ceased.

The practice of the best electricians has now long been to protect all

angles and projections, the latter by a branch of the rod, and the

former by running a line of rod over them, having at every few feet

sharp points of an inch or two in length attached to and standing out at

right angles with the rod. Indeed, some go even beyond this, forming

points along the whole length of the conductors by notching the corners

of a square rod with a chisel. Sometimes a rod is twisted for ornament,

but with a loss for practical uses, for in a twisted rod the electrical

current is retarded, and a portion of the charge is more liable to leave

the conductor.

In England, during our Revolutionary war, an active scientific

discussion was carried on as to whether the upper end of a

lightning-conductor should be sharp or blunt. "The scientific aspect of

the question soon became lost in political acrimony, those who, with Dr.

Franklin, advocated sharp conductors, being classed with him and the

Revolutionary party, while those who advocated blunt conductors were

held to be loyal subjects and good citizens." There is a difference in

the action of a sharp conductor and one with a blunt end or terminating

in a ball. In the first the point silently receives the current, while

in the other the opposite electricities of the rod and cloud may meet

with explosion; but the building will not necessarily be injured from

this cause. M. Michel proposed to combine the advantages of the two

systems by having the rod terminate in a spherical enlargement from

which should project points in various directions. This, he thought,

would lessen the danger of fusion and control the current at distances

where it might escape other forms of terminal. Some American

electricians now use a modification of this form, surmounting the rod

with a branching tip, while others prefer the single point. The latter

is the form used in the American and British navies. The vane, with its

appurtenances, is sometimes made the terminal of the conductor, and

should at least always be connected.

The practice is also a good one of combining balustrades, finials and

other metal-work at the tops of buildings with the system, by which

protection is rendered more complete. Especially is it important to

connect with a metallic roof at its lower edge, and with the gutters,

unless the rain-conductors connect with the earth to its moist mass.

In regard to the material for conductors, copper is undoubtedly the

best, but more expensive than iron. The latter is more liable to rust,

and on account of its lower conductive power is more easily melted. An

electrical explosion which only melts a copper wire would utterly

destroy an iron wire of twice the diameter of the former. In being

heated a rod contracts in length, and is then liable to fracture by the

shrinkage, but if of sufficient size these results are not likely to

occur. An iron rod, by successively receiving an electrical discharge,

is sometimes reduced in size.

The conducting power of metals likely to be found in buildings is as

follows: taking the power of lead as _one_, that of tin will be

_two_--that is, tin conducts electricity twice as well as lead; iron,

nearly two and a half times as well; zinc, four times; and copper,

twelve times. From this comparison of conducting power the important

fact will appear that when any two of these metals are used in the same

line of conduction, the one of low power should be proportionately

larger. Sir W.S. Harris--perhaps the best authority on lightning-rods

in general--advises that the size of the rod, if of iron, should be

three-fourths of an inch in diameter, although he admits that probably

never in the experience of man has a rod half an inch in diameter been

melted by an electrical discharge. He regarded the extent of surface

rather than quantity of metal in the conductor as the measure of its

power, while many other electricians hold the contrary opinion.

It is important that the conductor should form an unbroken line

throughout its extent, otherwise there is danger that a portion of the

charge may be diverted from it. For instance: a large barn struck not

long since had a conductor at each of three corners. In order to

maintain the uniformity of the four angles of the square hip roof, a rod

was run from the main conductor down the fourth angle to the hip, where

it terminated in an erect point. A heavy discharge struck the main rod

at the cupola, and, descending, divided among the four branches. That on

the short branch jumped from its end to the metal sheathing along the

angle of the roof, which it followed to the gutter, passing along this

to one of the conductors, doing some damage on the way. Had not the

charge found a line of metal on which to continue its course from the

end of the rod, it would have done greater damage, and most likely have

set the building on fire.

Another point of importance is, that the connection of the joints of the

rod be perfect, as explosions and fusion occur wherever the surface in

contact is less than the size of the rod, unless the latter is much

larger than necessary. The hook and the lap joints, if not very

carefully made, are liable to this objection. The best connection, no

doubt, is that of the screw coupling.

The insulation of the rod from the building is an expense not only

without the least advantage, but the contrary. Harris (_Thunderstorms_,

pp. 129, 131) says: "This practice is not only useless, but

disadvantageous, and is manifestly inconsistent with the principles on

which conductors are applied." Dr. Franklin says: "The rod may be

fastened to the wall, chimney, etc., with staples of iron. The lightning

will not leave the rod to pass into the wall through these staples. It

would rather, if any were in the wall, pass out of it into the rod, to

get more readily by that conductor to the earth." The practice may have

gained vogue from an observance of the use of glass knobs as insulators

of telegraph-wires. Many intelligent people have failed to apprehend the

vast difference between the low tension of voltaic electricity and

frictional electricity, lightning being in the nature of the latter. The

fact that when lightning strikes the telegraph-wire it jumps from the

wire to the posts, often tearing in pieces half a dozen in a row, ought

to be conclusive in regard to insulating lightning-rods.

The same considerations will also effectually dissipate the fallacy by

which the horizontal lightning-rod has duped so many people in certain

portions of the West; for if the wire be cut off from the

ground-connections (in which condition it accords with the conductor in

question) the posts (which answer to the building thus "protected") must

suffer still greater damage. So far from being insulated, the rod should

be connected with all considerable masses of metal in the building,

these having also a good connection with the earth. Frequently during a

thunder-shower--sometimes even on the approach of one--all metallic

objects will be electrified, and those of considerable size will often

yield a spark; and this without the building containing these objects

being struck. When struck, the larger masses of metal might occasion a

dangerous explosion from induction, though at some distance from the

rod: for this reason, as before stated, they should be connected with

the ground. Being then liable to receive a part of the current from the

conductor in case this be too small, they should be connected with it,

as otherwise the current would cause damage in its passage. In a word,

therefore, all metal bodies in a building should, as far as possible, be

made a part of the system of conduction. This matter is not well

understood generally. A dwelling in Boston having been struck by

lightning a few years since, a neighbor remarked that "it was fortunate

the lightning did not reach the gas-pipe, for it would then have gone

all over the house." The fact was, that the bolt did not go more than

five feet inside the house before it struck the pipe, and there all

damage ended. The idea may be novel to most people, but if the gas-or

water-pipes were carried above the roof to the usual height of

lightning-rods, they would form a very efficient system of conductors so

long as they were connected with the main pipes in the street. Knowing

the destructive character of lightning when it passes through air, wood,

brick, stone or other non-conductor, people are naturally fearful of

allowing the current to run through their houses. But the lion and the

lamb are not more different than are the disruptive discharge while

passing through a non-conductor and the same current passing through a

good conductor.

The system of lightning-conductors in use in the British navy goes

through the woodwork of the vessel, the conductors sunk in the side of

the masts connecting with the sea through the metal bolts in the hull.

After the terrible charge of electricity had fallen on the Chichester,

Captain Stewart wrote: "I examined the planks about the bolts, and found

all quite fair and water-tight." (These "bolts" formed the lower part of

the system of conduction, passing through the bottom of the vessel and

connecting with the water.) After twenty-five years' use there had not,

as we learn from the _British Nautical Magazine_ for March, 1853, been a

solitary instance of serious damage by lightning on ships fitted with

these conductors, though many had been struck by heavy discharges. In

our own navy the conductors pass from the upper part of the mast over

the side of the vessel.

It is not, however, to advocate making the gas-and water-pipes the main

lines of conduction that I have made these citations, but to remove in

some degree the dread of "having the lightning come into the house." A

better conductor would be the metal covering of the roof when such

material is used. When a good metallic connection is made between a

metal roof and metal rain-conductors, which, in their turn, are well

connected with the earth, nothing further is needed for complete

protection than a rod soldered to the roof for each chimney or other

projection. But as the lightning is liable to melt the plate at the

point where it enters, especially if the metal be tin or zinc, it is

well to solder points at the angles. Some, "to make assurance doubly

sure," carry the rods over the whole distance quite to the ground in

addition. All authorities consider such a system as this to be as

complete a defence against lightning as possible.

"If," says Harris, "a building or a ship were perfectly metallic in all

its parts, no damage could possibly arise to it when struck by

lightning, since the explosive action would vanish the instant the

electrical agency entered the metal. In applying lightning-conductors,

therefore, as a means of guarding against the destructive effects of

lightning, our object should be to carry out this principle in all its

generality, and bring the building or ship as nearly as possible into

that state of passive electrical resistance it would have supposing the

whole mass were iron throughout."

After the most careful and extended inquiry possible to him, it is the

writer's conclusion that in nearly every case of serious damage by

lightning to a building having conductors of any well-known system

(except the horizontal, which is not a conductor at all in the usual

sense of the word), the failure to protect has been on account of a

_defective ground-connection_. The fact is the more surprising as this

connection is so much within control and is the least costly part of the

system. This fault has arisen from the failure of lightning-rod men, as

well as owners of buildings, to apprehend what constitutes a

ground-connection for electricity. If the eye sees the end of the

conductor pass a short distance beneath the surface, all the connection

necessary is thought to be effected, because "the ground is always wet

enough in a shower." In the cities it is customary to connect the rod

with the water-or gas-pipes in the street, which makes the conduction

perfect. In the absence of these it is best to carry the rod to a well;

and it is always desirable to enlarge the lower end of the conductor,

which may be done by soldering it there to a sheet of copper. If the

termination of the line cannot be carried to a well, it should be

deeply buried in a bed of coke or charcoal that has been subjected to a

red heat.

A season or two ago a large barn in the vicinity of Boston was struck by

lightning, and though there were rods at three of the four corners,

three kine were killed by the discharge. The barn stood upon the side of

a hill, having a cellar and sub-cellar, the bottom of the last being

very moist. An ox stood in one corner, a cow in another and a heifer at

a third, and each received a fatal stroke. On examination it was found

that the rods entered the ground to the depth of only about one foot,

and the soil, being dry, perfectly insulated them. Consequently, on the

way to damp earth the currents jumped to the nearest conductors, which

happened to be these unfortunate animals. In placing conductors it must

not be forgotten that dry earth in general is not a conductor. Neither

will any small quantity of surface water serve to check the rage of the

electric stroke, unless there is a connection of moisture with the mass

of moisture below the soil.

The depth to which lightning may penetrate before it is so dissipated as

to lose its dangerous character is shown by the fulgurites, or

"lightning-tubes," sometimes found in sandy soils. Their formation has

been conclusively traced to disruptive electrical discharges from the

clouds, which have melted the sand by the intense heat generated in

passing through to a moist earth. These tubes generally divide into

prongs, like a parsnip, as they descend. The inner surface is smooth and

very bright. It scratches glass and strikes fire as a flint. They are

sometimes found three inches in external diameter, and extending to a

depth of thirty feet. In one instance five of these tubes were found in

a single hill.