CHAPTER XVIII.

SHEILA'S STRATAGEM.

"We met Mr. Ingram to-day," said young Mosenberg ingenuously.

He was dining with Lavender, not at home, but at a club in St. James's

street; and either his curiosity was too great, or he had forgotten

altogether Ingram's warnings to him that he should hold his tongue.

"Oh, did you?" said Lavender, showing no great interest. "Waiter, some

French mustard. What did Ingram say to you?"

The question was asked with much apparent indifference, and the

boy stared. "Well," he said at length, "I suppose there is some

misunderstanding between Mrs. Lavender and Mr. Ingram, for they both

saw each other, and they both passed on without speaking: I was very

sorry--yes. I thought they were friends--I thought Mr. Ingram knew

Mrs. Lavender even before you did; but they did not speak to each

other, not one word."

Lavender was in one sense pleased to hear this. He liked to hear that

his wife was obedient to him. But, he said to himself with a sharp

twinge of conscience, she was carrying her obedience too far. He had

never meant that she should not even speak to her old friend. He would

show Sheila that he was not unreasonable. He would talk to her about

it as soon as he got home, and in as kindly a way as was possible.

Mosenberg did not play billiards, but they remained late in the

billiard-room, Lavender playing pool, and getting out of it rather

successfully. He could not speak to Sheila that night, but next

morning, before going out, he did.

"Sheila," he said, "Mosenberg told me last night that you met Mr.

Ingram and did not speak to him. Now, I didn't mean anything like

that. You must not think me unreasonable. All I want is, that he shall

not interfere with our affairs and try to raise some unpleasantness

between you and me, such as might arise from the interference of even

the kindest of friends. When you meet him outside or at any one's

house, I hope you will speak to him just as usual."

Sheila replied calmly, "If I am not allowed to receive Mr. Ingram

here, I cannot treat him as a friend elsewhere. I would rather not

have friends whom I can only speak to in the streets."

"Very well," said Lavender, wincing under the rebuke, but fancying

that she would soon repent her of this resolve. In the mean time, if

she would have it so, she should have it so.

So that was an end of this question of Mr. Ingram's interference for

the present. But very soon--in a couple of days, indeed--Lavender

perceived the change that had been wrought in the house in Holland

Park to which he had been accustomed to resort.

"Cecilia," Mrs. Kavanagh had said on Ingram's leaving, "you must not

be rude to Mr. Lavender." She knew the perfect independence of that

gentle young lady, and was rather afraid it might carry her too far.

"Of course I shall not be, mamma," Mrs. Lorraine had said. "Did

you ever hear of such a courageous act as that man coming up to two

strangers and challenging them, all on behalf of a girl married to

some one else? You know that was the meaning of his visit. He thought

I was flirting with Mr. Lavender and keeping him from his wife. I

wonder how many men there are in London who would have walked twenty

yards to help in such a matter?'

"My dear, he may have been in love with that pretty young lady before

she was married."

"Oh no," said the clear-eyed daughter quietly, but quite confidently.

"He would not be so ready to show his interest in her if that were so.

Either he would be modest, and ashamed of his rejection, or vain, and

attempt to make a mystery about it."

"Perhaps you are right," said the mother: she seldom found her

daughter wrong on such points.

"I am sure I am right, mamma. He talks about her as fondly and

frequently and openly as a man might talk about his own daughter.

Besides, you can see that he is talking honestly. The man couldn't

deceive a child if he were to try. You see everything in his face."

"You seem to have been much interested in him," said Mrs. Kavanagh,

with no appearance of sarcasm.

"Well, I don't think I meet such men often, and that is the truth. Do

you?" This was carrying the war into the enemy's country.

"I like him very well," said Mrs. Kavanagh. "I think he is honest. I

do not think he dresses very carefully; and he is perhaps too intent

on convincing you that his opinions are right." "Well, for my part,"

said her daughter, with just the least tinge of warmth in her manner,

"I confess I like a man who has opinions, and who is not afraid to say

so. I don't find many who have. And for his dressing, one gets rather

tired of men who come to you every evening to impress you with

the excellence of their tailor. As if women were to be captured by

millinery! Don't we know the value of linen and woolen fabrics?"

"My dear child, you are throwing away your vexation on some one whom

I don't know. It isn't Mr. Lavender?" "Oh dear, no! He is not so

silly as that: he dresses well, but there is perfect freedom about

his dress. He is too much of an artist to sacrifice himself to his

clothes."

"I am glad you have a good word for him at last. I think you have been

rather hard on him since Mr. Ingram called; and that is the reason I

asked you to be careful."

She was quite careful, but as explicit as good manners would allow.

Mrs. Lorraine was most particular in asking about Mrs. Lavender, and

in expressing her regret that they so seldom saw her.

"She has been brought up in the country, you know," said Lavender with

a smile; "and there the daughters of a house are taught a number of

domestic duties that they would consider it a sin to neglect. She

would be unhappy if you caused her to neglect them: she would take her

pleasure with a bad conscience."

"But she cannot be occupied with them all day."

"My dear Mrs. Lorraine, how often have we discussed the question! And

you know you have me at a disadvantage, for how can I describe to

you what those mysterious duties are? I only know that she is pretty

nearly always busy with something or other; and in the evening, of

course, she is generally too tired to think of going out anywhere."

"Oh, but you must try to get her out. Next Tuesday, now, Judge ---- is

going to dine with us, and you know how amusing he is. If you have

no other engagement, couldn't you bring Mrs. Lavender to dine with us

on that evening?"

Now, on former occasions something of the same sort of invitation

had frequently been given, and it was generally answered by Lavender

giving an excuse for his wife, and promising to come himself. What was

his astonishment to find Mrs. Lorraine plainly and most courteously

intimating that the invitation was addressed distinctly to Mr. and

Mrs. Lavender as a couple! When he regretted that Mrs. Lavender could

not come, she said quietly, "Oh, I am so sorry! You would have met an

old friend of yours here, as well as the judge--Mr. Ingram."

Lavender made no further sign of surprise or curiosity than to lift

his eyebrows and say, "Indeed!"

But when he left the house certain dark suspicions were troubling his

mind. Nothing had been said as to the manner in which Ingram had made

the acquaintance of Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, but there was that

in Mrs. Lorraine's manner which convinced Lavender that something

had happened. Had Ingram carried his interference to the extent

of complaining to them? Had he overcome a repugnance which he had

repeatedly admitted, and thrust himself upon these two people for

this very purpose of making him, Lavender, odious and contemptible?

Lavender's cheeks burned as he thought of this possibility. Mrs.

Lorraine had been most courteous to him, but the longer he dwelt on

these vague surmises the deeper grew his consciousness that he had

been turned out of the place, morally if not physically. What was that

excess of courtesy but a cloak? If she had meant less, she would have

been more careless; and all through the interview he had remarked

that, instead of the free warfare of talk that generally went on

between them, Mrs. Lorraine was most formally polite and apparently

watchful of her words.

He went home in a passion, which was all the more consuming that it

could not be vented on any one. As Sheila had not spoken to Ingram--as

she had even nerved herself to wound him by passing him without notice

in the street--she could not be held responsible; and yet he wished

that he could have upbraided some one for this mischief that had been

done. Should he go straight down to Ingram's lodgings and have it

out with him? At first he was strongly inclined to do so, but wiser

counsels prevailed. Ingram had a keen and ready tongue, and a way of

saying things that made them rankle afterward in the memory. Besides,

he would go into court with a defective case. He could say nothing

unless Ingram admitted that he had tried to poison the mind of Mrs.

Lorraine against him; and of course if there was a quarrel, who would

be so foolish as to make such an admission? Ingram would laugh at

him, would refuse to admit or deny, would increase his anger without

affording him an opportunity of revenging himself.

Sheila could see that her husband was troubled, but could not divine

the cause, and had long ago given up any habit of inquiry. He ate his

dinner almost in silence, and then said he had to make a call on a

friend, and that he would perhaps drop in to the club on his way home,

so that she was not to sit up for him. She was not surprised or hurt

at the announcement. She was accustomed to spend her evenings alone.

She fetched down his cigar-case, put it in his top-coat pocket and

brought him the coat. Then he kissed her and went out.

But this evening, at least, she had; abundant occupation, and that

of a sufficiently pleasant kind. For some little time she had been

harboring in her mind a dark and mysterious plot, and she was glad

of an opportunity to think it out and arrange its details. Mairi was

coming to London, and she had carefully concealed the fact from her

husband. A little surprise of a dramatic sort was to be prepared for

him--with what result, who could tell? All of a sudden Lavender was

to be precipitated into the island of Lewis as nearly as that could be

imitated in a house at Notting Hill.

This was Sheila's scheme, and on these lonely evenings she could sit

by herself with much satisfaction and ponder over the little points

of it and its possible success. Mairi was coming to London under the

escort of a worthy Glasgow fishmonger whom Mr. Mackenzie knew. She

would arrive after Lavender had left for his studio. Then she and

Sheila would set to work to transform the smoking-room, that was

sometimes called a library, into something resembling the quaint

little drawing-room in Sheila's home. Mairi was bringing up a quantity

of heather gathered fresh from the rocks beside the White Water; she

was bringing up some peacocks' feathers, too, for the mantelpiece, and

two or three big shells; and, best of all, she was to put in her trunk

a real and veritable lump of peat, well dried and easy to light. Then

you must know that Sheila had already sketched out the meal that was

to be placed on the table so soon as the room had been done up in

Highland fashion and this peat lit so as to send its fragrant smoke

abroad. A large salmon was to make its appearance first of all. There

would be bottles of beer on the table; also one of those odd bottles

of Norwegian make, filled with whisky. And when Lavender went

with wonder into this small room, when he smelt the fragrant

peat-smoke--and every one knows how powerful the sense of smell is in

recalling bygone associations--when he saw the smoking salmon and the

bottled beer and the whisky, and when he suddenly found Mairi coming

into the room and saying to him, in her sweet Highland fashion, "And

are you ferry well, sir?"--would not his heart warm to the old

ways and kindly homeliness of the house in Borva, and would not some

glimpse of the happy and half-forgotten time that was now so sadly and

strangely remote cause him to break down that barrier between himself

and Sheila that this artificial life in the South had placed there?

So the child dreamed, and was happy in dreaming of it. Sometimes

she grew afraid of her project: she had not had much experience in

deception, and the mere concealment of Mairi's coming was a hard thing

to bear. But surely her husband would take this trick in good part.

It was only, after all, a joke. To put a little barbaric splendor of

decoration into the little smoking-room, to have a scent of peat-smoke

in the air, and to have a timid, sweet-voiced, pretty Highland girl

suddenly make her appearance, with an odor of the sea about her, as

it were, and a look of fresh breezes in the color of her cheeks,--what

mortal man could find fault with this innocent jest? Sheila's moments

of doubt were succeeded by long hours of joyous confidence, in which a

happy light shone on her face. She went through the house with a brisk

step; she sang to herself as she went; she was kinder than ever to

the small children who came into the square every forenoon, and

whose acquaintance she had very speedily made; she gave each of her

crossing-sweepers threepence instead of twopence in passing.

The servants had never seen her in such good spirits; she was

exceptionally generous in presenting them with articles of attire;

they might have had half the week in holidays if Mr. Lavender had not

to be attended to. A small gentleman of three years of age lived next

door, and his acquaintance also she had made by means of his nurse. At

this time his stock of toys, which Sheila had kept carefully renewed,

became so big that he might, with proper management, have set up a

stall in the Lowther Arcade. Just before she left Lewis her father had

called her to him, and said, "Sheila, I wass wanting to tell you about

something. It is not every one that will care to hef his money given

away to poor folk, and it wass many a time I said to myself that when

you were married maybe your husband would think you were giving too

much money to the poor folk, as you wass doing in Borva. And it iss

this fifty pounds I hef got for you, Sheila, in ten banknotes, and you

will take them with you for your own money, that you will not hef any

trouble about giving things to people. And when the fifty pounds

will be done, I will send you another fifty pounds; and it will be no

difference to me whatever. And if there is any one in Borva you would

be for sending money to, there is your own money; for there is many a

one would take the money from Sheila Mackenzie that would not be for

taking it from an English stranger in London. And when you will send

it to them, you will send it to me; and I will tek it to them, and

will tell them that this money is from my Sheila, and from no one else

whatever."

This was all the dowry that Sheila carried with her to the South.

Mackenzie would willingly have given her half his money, if she would

have taken it or if her husband had desired it; but the old King of

Borva had profound and far-reaching schemes in his head about the

small fortune he might otherwise have accorded to his daughter. This

wealth, such as it was, was to be a magnet to draw this young English

gentleman back to the Hebrides. It was all very well for Mr. Lavender

to have plenty of money at present: he might not always have it. Then

the time would come for Mackenzie to say, "Look here, young man: I can

support myself easily and comfortably by my farming and fishing.

The money I have saved is at your disposal so long as you consent

to remain in Lewis--in Stornoway if you please, elsewhere if you

please--only in Lewis. And while you are painting pictures, and making

as much money as you can that way, you can have plenty of fishing and

shooting and amusement; and my guns and boats and rods are all at your

service." Mr. Mackenzie considered that no man could resist such an

offer.

Sheila, of course, told her husband of the sum of money she owned, and

for a longtime it was a standing joke between them. He addressed her

with much respect, and was careful to inform her of the fluctuations

of the moneymarket. Sometimes he borrowed a sovereign of her, and

never without giving her an I O U, which was faithfully reclaimed. But

by and by she perceived that he grew less and less to like the mention

of this money. Perhaps it resembled too closely the savings which the

overcautious folks about Borvabost would not entrust to a bank, but

kept hid about their huts in the heel of a stocking. At all events,

Sheila saw that her husband did not like her to go to this fund for

her charities; and so the fifty pounds that her father had given her

lasted a long time. During this period of jubilation, in which she

looked forward to touching her husband's heart by an innocent little

stratagem, more frequent appeals were made to the drawer in which

the treasure was locked up, so that in the end her private dowry was

reduced to thirty pounds.

If Ingram could have but taken part in this plan of hers! The only

regret that was mingled with her anticipations of a happier future

concerned this faithful friend of hers, who seemed to have been cut

off from them for ever. And it soon became apparent to her that her

husband, so far from inclining to forget the misunderstanding that

had arisen between Ingram and himself, seemed to feel increased

resentment, insomuch that she was most careful to avoid mentioning his

name.

She was soon to meet him, however. Lavender was resolved that he would

not appear to have retired from the field merely because Ingram had

entered it. He would go to this dinner on the Tuesday evening, and

Sheila would accompany him. First, he asked her. Much as she would

have preferred not visiting these particular people, she cheerfully

acquiesced: she was not going to be churlish or inconsiderate on the

very eve of her dramatic _coup_. Then he went to Mrs. Lorraine and

said he had persuaded Sheila to come with him; and the young American

lady and her mamma were good enough to say how glad they were she had

come to this decision. They appeared to take it for granted that it

was Sheila alone who had declined former invitations.

"Mr. Ingram will be there on Tuesday evening," said Lavender to his

wife.

"I was not aware he knew them," said Sheila, remembering, indeed, how

scrupulously Ingram had refused to know them.

"He has made their acquaintance for his own purposes, doubtless," said

Lavender. "I suppose he will appear in a frock-coat, with a bright

blue tie, and he will say 'Sir' to the waiters when he does not

understand them."

"I thought you said Mr. Ingram belonged to a very good family," said

Sheila quietly.

"That is so. But each man is responsible for his own manners; and as

all the society he sees consists of a cat and some wooden pipes in a

couple of dingy rooms in Sloane street, you can't expect him not to

make an ass of himself."

"I have never seen him make himself ridiculous: I do not think it

possible," said Sheila, with a certain precision of speech which

Lavender had got to know meant much. "But that is a matter for

himself. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do when I meet him at

Mrs. Kavanagh's house."

"Of course you must meet him as you would any one else you know.

If you don't wish to speak to him, you need not do so. Saying

'Good-evening' costs nothing."

"If he takes me into dinner?" she asked calmly.

"Then you must talk to him as you would to any stranger," he said

impatiently. "Ask him if he has been to the opera, and he won't know

there is no opera going on. Tell him that town is very full, and he

won't know that everybody has left. Say you may meet him again at Mrs.

Kavanagh's, and you'll see that he doesn't know they mean to start for

the Tyrol in a fortnight. I think you and I must also be settling soon

where we mean to go. I don't think we could do better than go to the

Tyrol."

She did not answer. It was clear that he had given up all intention of

going up to Lewis, for that year at least. But she would not beg him

to alter his decision just yet. Mairi was coming, and that experiment

of the enchanted room had still to be tried.

As they drove round to Mrs. Kavanagh's house on that Tuesday evening,

she thought, with much bitterness of heart, of the possibility of her

having to meet Mr. Ingram in the fashion her husband had suggested.

Would it not be better, if he did take her in to dinner, to throw

herself entirely on his mercy, and ask him not to talk to her at all?

She would address herself, when there was a chance, to her neighbor on

the other side: if she remained silent altogether, no great harm would

be done.

When she went into the drawing-room her first glance round was

for him, and he was the first person whom she saw; for, instead of

withdrawing into a corner to make one neighbor the victim of his

shyness, or concealing his embarrassment in studying the photographic

albums, Mr. Ingram was coolly standing on the hearth-rug, with both

hands in his trousers pockets, while he was engaged in giving the

American judge a great deal of authoritative information about

America. The judge was a tall, fair, stout, good-natured man, fond

of joking and a good dinner, and he was content at this moment to sit

quietly in an easy-chair, with a pleasant smile on his face, and be

lectured about his own country by this sallow little man, whom he took

to be a professor of modern history at some college or other.

Ingram, as soon as he found that Sheila was in the room, relieved her

from any doubt as to his intentions. He merely came forward, shook

hands with her, and said, "How do you do, Mrs. Lavender?" and went

back to the judge. She might have been an acquaintance of yesterday or

a friend of twenty years' standing: no one could tell by his manner.

As for Sheila, she parted with his hand reluctantly. She tried to

look, too, what she dared not say; but whatever of regret and kindness

and assurance of friendship was in her eyes he did not see. He

scarcely glanced at her face: he went off at once, and plunged again

into the Cincinnati Convention.

Mrs. Kavanagh and Mrs. Lorraine were exceedingly and almost

obtrusively kind to her, but she scarcely heard what they said to her.

It seemed so strange and so sad to her that her old friend should be

standing near her, and she so far removed from him that she dared not

go and speak to him. She could not understand it sometimes: everything

around her seemed to get confused, until she felt as if she were

sinking in a great sea, and could utter but one despairing cry as she

saw the light disappear above her head. When they went in to dinner

she saw that Mr. Ingram's seat was on Mrs. Lorraine's right hand, and,

although she could hear him speak, as he was almost right opposite to

her, it seemed to her that his voice sounded as if it were far

away. The man who had taken her in was a tall, brown-whiskered and

faultlessly-dressed person who never spoke, so that she was allowed to

sit and listen to the conversation between Mrs. Lorraine and Ingram.

They appeared to be on excellent terms. You would have fancied

they had known each other for years. And as Sheila sat and saw how

preoccupied and pleased with his companion Mr. Ingram was, perhaps now

and again the bitter question arose to her mind whether this woman,

who had taken away her husband, was seeking to take away her friend

also. Sheila knew nothing of all that had happened within these past

few days. She knew only that she was alone, without either husband or

friend, and it seemed to her that this pale American girl had taken

both away from her.

Ingram was in one of his happiest moods, and was seeking to prove to

Mrs. Lorraine that this present dinner-party ought to be an especially

pleasant one. Everybody was going away somewhere, and of course she

must know that the expectation of traveling was much more delightful

than the reality of it. What could surpass the sense of freedom, of

power, of hope enjoyed by the happy folks who sat down to an open

atlas and began to sketch out routes for their coming holidays? Where

was he going? Oh, he was going to the North. Had Mrs. Lorraine never

seen Edinburgh Castle rising out of a gray fog, like the ghost of some

great building belonging to the times of Arthurian romance? Had she

never seen the northern twilights, and the awful gloom and wild colors

of Loch Coruisk and the Skye hills? There was no holiday-making so

healthy, so free from restraint, as that among the far Highland hills

and glens, where the clear mountain-air, scented with miles and miles

of heather, seemed to produce a sort of intoxication of good spirits

within one. Then the yachting round the wonderful islands of the

West--the rapid runs of a bright forenoon, the shooting of the wild

sea-birds, the scrambled dinners in the small cabin, the still nights

in the small harbors, with a scent of sea-weed abroad, and the white

stars shining down on the trembling water. Yes, he was going yachting

this autumn: in about a fortnight he hoped to start. His friend was at

present away up Loch Boisdale, in South Uist, and he did not know how

to get there except by going to Skye, and taking his chance of some

boat going over. Where would they go then? He did not know. Wherever

his friend liked. It would be enough for him if they kept always

moving about, seeing the strange sights of the sea and the air and the

lonely shores of those northern islands. Perhaps they might even try

to reach St. Kilda--

"Oh, Mr. Ingram, won't you go and see my papa?"

The cry that suddenly reached him was like the cry of a broken heart.

He started as from a trance, and found Sheila regarding him with a

piteous appeal in her face: she had been listening intently to all he

had said.

"Oh yes, Sheila," he said kindly, and quite forgetting that he was

speaking to her before strangers: "of course I must go and see your

papa if we are any way near the Lewis. Perhaps you may be there then?"

"No," said Sheila, looking down.

"Won't you go to the Highlands this autumn?" Mrs. Lorraine asked in a

friendly way.

"No," said Sheila in a measured voice as she looked her enemy fair in

the face: "I think we are going to the Tyrol."

If the child had only known what occurred to Mrs. Lorraine's mind

at this moment! Not a triumphant sense of Lavender's infatuation, as

Sheila probably fancied, but a very definite resolution that if Frank

Lavender went to the Tyrol, it was not with either her or her mother

he should go.

"Mrs. Lavender's father is an old friend of mine," said Ingram, loud

enough for all to hear; "and, hospitable as all Highlanders are, I

have never met his equal in that way, and I have tried his patience a

good many times. What do you think, Mrs. Lorraine, of a man who would

give up his best gun to you, even though you couldn't shoot a bit, and

he particularly proud of his shooting? And so if you lived with him

for a month or six months--each day the best of everything for you,

the second best for your friend, the worst for himself. Wasn't it so,

Lavender?"

It was a direct challenge sent across the table, and Sheila's heart

beat quick lest her husband should say something ungracious.

"Yes, certainly," said Lavender with a readiness that pleased Sheila.

"I, at least, have no right to complain of his hospitality."

"Your papa is a very handsome man," said Mrs. Lorraine to Sheila,

bringing the conversation back to their own end of the table. "I have

seen few finer heads than that drawing you have. Mr. Lavender did

that, did he not? Why has he never done one of you?"

"He is too busy, I think, just now," Sheila said, perhaps not knowing

that from Mrs. Lorraine's waist-belt at that moment depended a fan

which might have given evidence as to the extreme scarcity of time

under which Lavender was supposed to labor.

"He has a splendid head," said Ingram. "Did you know that he is called

the King of Borva up there?"

"I have heard of him being called the King of Thule," said Mrs.

Lorraine, turning with a smile to Sheila, "and of his daughter being

styled a princess. Do you know the ballad of the King of Thule in

_Faust_, Mrs. Lavender?'"

"In the opera?--yes," said Sheila.

"Will you sing it for us after dinner?"

"If you like."

The promise was fulfilled, in a fashion. The notion that Mr. Ingram

was about to go away up to Lewis, to the people who knew her and to

her father's house, with no possible answer to the questions which

would certainly be showered upon him as to why she had not come also,

troubled Sheila deeply. The ladies went into the drawing-room, and

Mrs. Lorraine got out the song. Sheila sat down to the piano, thinking

far more of that small stone house at Borva than of the King of

Thule's castle overlooking the sea; and yet somehow the first lines of

the song, though she knew them well enough, sent a pang to her

heart as she glanced at them. She touched the first notes of the

accompaniment, and she looked at the words again:

Over the sea, in Thule of old,

Reigned a king who was true-hearted,

Who, in remembrance of one departed--

A mist came over her eyes. Was she the one who had departed, leaving

the old king in his desolate house by the sea, where he could only

think of her as he sat in his solitary chamber, with the night-winds

howling round the shore outside? When her birthday had come round

she knew that he must have silently drank to her, though not out of a

beaker of gold. And now, when mere friends and acquaintances were free

to speed away to the North, and get a welcome from the folks in Borva,

and listen to the Atlantic waves dashing lightly in among the rocks,

her hope of getting thither had almost died out. Among such people as

landed on Stornoway quay from the big Clansman her father would seek

one face, and seek it in vain. And Duncan and Scarlett, and even John

the Piper--all the well-remembered folks who lived far away across the

Minch--they would ask why Miss Sheila was never coming back.

Mrs. Lorraine had been standing aside from the piano. Noticing that

Sheila had played the introduction to the song twice over in an

undetermined manner, she came forward a step or two and pretended to

be looking at the music. Tears were running down Sheila's face. Mrs.

Lorraine put her hand on the girl's shoulder, and sheltered her from

observation, and said aloud, "You have it in a different key, have

you not? Pray don't sing it. Sing something else. Do you know any of

Gounod's sacred songs? Let me see if we can find anything for you in

this volume."

They were a long time finding anything in that volume. When they did

find it, behold! it was one of Mrs. Lorraine's songs, and that young

lady said if Mrs. Lavender would only allow herself to be superseded

for a few minutes--And so Sheila walked, with her head down, to

the conservatory, which was at the other end of the piano; and Mrs.

Lorraine not only sung this French song, but sang every one of the

verses; and at the end of it she had quite forgotten that Sheila had

promised to sing.

"You are very sensitive," she said to Sheila, coming into the

conservatory.

"I am very stupid," Sheila said with her face burning. "But it is a

long time since I will see the Highlands--and Mr. Ingram was talking

of the places I know--and--and so--"

"I understand well enough," said Mrs. Lorraine tenderly, as if Sheila

were a mere child in her hands. "But you must not get your eyes red.

You have to sing some of those Highland songs for us yet, when the

gentlemen come in. Come up to my room and I will make your eyes all

right. Oh, do not be afraid! I shall not bring you down like Lady

Leveret. Did you ever see anything like that woman's face to-night? It

reminds me of the window of an oil-and-color shop. I wonder she does

not catch flies with her cheeks."

So all the people, Sheila learned that night, were going away from

London, and soon she and her husband would join in the general

stampede of the very last dwellers in town. But Mairi? What was to

become of her after that little plot had been played out? Sheila

could not leave Mairi to see London by herself: she had been enjoying

beforehand the delight of taking the young girl about and watching the

wonder of her eyes. Nor could she fairly postpone Mairi's visit, and

Mairi was coming up in another couple of days.

On the morning on which the visitor from the far Hebrides was to make

her appearance in London, Sheila felt conscious of a great hypocrisy

in bidding good-bye to her husband. On some excuse or other she had

had breakfast ordered early, and he found himself ready at half-past

nine to go out for the day.

"Frank," she said, "will you come in to lunch at two?"

"Why?" he asked: he did not often have luncheon at home.

"I will go into the Park with you in the afternoon if you like," she

said: all the scene had been diligently rehearsed on one side, before.

Lavender was a little surprised, but he was in an amiable mood.

"All right!" he said. "Have something with olives in it. Two, sharp."

With that he went out, and Sheila, with a wild commotion at her heart,

saw him walk away through the square. She was afraid Mairi might

have arrived before he left. And, indeed, he had not gone above a few

minutes when a four-wheeler drove up, and an elderly man got out and

waited for the timid-faced girl inside to alight. With a rush like

that of a startled deer, Sheila was down the stairs, along the hall

and on the pavement; and it was, "Oh, Mairi! and have you come at

last? And are you very well? And how are all the people in Borva? And

Mr. M'Alpine, how are you? and will you come into the house?"

Certainly, that was a strange sight for a decorous London square--the

mistress of a house, a young girl with bare head, coming out on the

pavement to shake hands in a frantic fashion with a young maid-servant

and an elderly man whose clothes had been pretty well tanned by

sunlight and sea-water! And Sheila would herself help to carry Mairi's

luggage in. And she would take no denial from Mr. M'Alpine, whose

luggage was also carried in. And she would herself pay the cabman, as

strangers did not know about these things, Sheila's knowledge being

exhibited by her hastily giving the man five shillings for driving

from Euston Station. And there was breakfast waiting for them both as

soon as Mairi could get her face washed; and would Mr. M'Alpine have

a glass of whisky after the night's traveling?--and it was very

good whisky whatever, as it had come all the way from Stornoway. Mr.

M'Alpine was nothing loath.

"And wass you pretty well, Miss Sheila?" said Mairi, looking timidly

and hastily up, and forgetting altogether that Sheila had another name

now. "It will be a great thing for me to go back to sa Lewis, and

tell them I wass seeing you, and you wass looking so well. And I will

be thinking I wass neffer coming to any one I knew any more; and it is

a great fright I hef had since we came away from sa Lewis; and I wass

thinking we would neffer find you among all sa people and so far away

across sa sea and sa land. Eh--!" The girl stopped in astonishment.

Her eyes had wandered up to a portrait on the walls; and here, in

this very room, after she had traveled over all this great distance,

apparently leaving behind her everything but the memory of her home,

was Mr. Mackenzie himself, looking at her from under his shaggy

eyebrows.

"You must have seen that picture in Borva, Mairi," Sheila said. "Now

come with me, like a good girl, and get yourself ready for breakfast.

Do you know, Mairi, it does my heart good to hear you talk again? I

don't think I shall be able to let you go back to the Lewis."

"But you hef changed ferry much in your way of speaking, Miss--Mrs.

Lavender," said Mairi with an effort. "You will speak just like sa

English now."

"The English don't say so," replied Sheila with a smile, leading the

way up stairs.

Mr. M'Alpine had his business to attend to, but, being a sensible man,

he took advantage of the profuse breakfast placed before him. Mairi

was a little too frightened and nervous and happy to eat much, but Mr.

M'Alpine was an old traveler, not to be put out by the mere meeting of

two girls. He listened in a grave and complacent manner to the rapid

questions and answers of Mairi and her hostess, but he himself was

too busy to join in the conversation much. At the end of breakfast he

accepted, after a little pressing, half a glass of whisky; and then,

much comforted and in a thoroughly good-humor with himself and the

world, got his luggage out again and went on his way toward a certain

inn in High Holborn.

"Ay, and where does the queen live, Miss Sheila?" said Mairi. She had

been looking at the furniture in Sheila's house, and wondering if the

queen lived in a place still more beautiful than this.

"A long way from here."

"And it iss no wonder," said Mairi, "she will neffer hef been in sa

Lewis. I wass neffer thinking the world wass so big, and it wass many

a time since me and Mr. M'Alpine hef come away from Styornoway I wass

thinking it wass too far for me effer to get back again. But it is

many a one will say to me, before I hef left the Lewis, that I wass

not to come home unless you wass coming too, and I wass to bring you

back with me, Miss Sheila. And where is Bras, Miss Sheila?"

"You will see him by and by. He is out in the garden now." She said

"gyarden" without knowing it.

"And will he understood the Gaelic yet?"

"Oh yes," Sheila said. "And he is sure to remember you."

There was no mistake about that. When Mairi went into the back garden

the demonstrations of delight on the part of the great deerhound were

as pronounced as his dignity and gravity would allow. And Mairi fairly

fell upon his neck and kissed him, and addressed to him a hundred

endearing phrases in Gaelic, every word of which it was quite obvious

that the dog understood. London was already beginning to be less

terrible to her. She had met and talked with Sheila. Here was Bras.

A portrait of the King of Borva was hung up inside, and all round the

rooms were articles which she had known in the North, before Sheila

had married and brought them away into this strange land.

"You have never asked after my husband, Mairi," said Sheila, thinking

she would confuse the girl.

But Mairi was not confused. Probably she had been fancying that Mr.

Lavender was down at the shore, or had gone out fishing, or something

of that sort, and would return soon enough. It was Sheila, not he,

whom she was concerned about. Indeed, Mairi had caught up a little of

that jealousy of Lavender which was rife among the Borva folks. They

would speak no ill of Mr. Lavender. The young gentleman whom Miss

Sheila had chosen had by that very fact a claim upon their respect.

Mr. Mackenzie's son-in-law was a person of importance. And yet in

their secret hearts they bore a grudge against him. What right had

he to come away up to the North and carry off the very pride of the

island? Were English girls not good enough for him, that he must needs

come up and take away Sheila Mackenzie, and keep her there in the

South so that her friends and acquaintances saw no more of her? Before

the marriage Mairi had a great liking and admiration for Mr. Lavender.

She was so pleased to see Miss Sheila pleased that she approved of

the young man, and thanked him in her heart for making her cousin and

mistress so obviously happy. Perhaps, indeed, Mairi managed to fall

in love with him a little bit herself, merely by force of example and

through sympathy with Sheila; and she was rapidly forming very good

opinions of the English race and their ways and their looks. But

when Lavender took away Sheila from Borva a change came over Mairi's

sentiments. She gradually fell in with the current opinions of the

island--that it was a great pity Sheila had not married young Mr.

Maclntyre of Sutherland, or some one who would have allowed her to

remain among her own people. Mairi began to think that the English,

though they were handsome and good-natured and free with their money,

were on the whole a selfish race, inconsiderate and forgetful of

promises. She began to dislike the English, and wished they would stay

in their own country, and not interfere with other people.

"I hope he is very well," said Mairi dutifully: she could at least say

that honestly.

"You will see him at two o'clock. He is coming in to luncheon; and he

does not know you are here, and you are to be a great surprise to him,

Mairi. And there is to be a greater surprise still; for we are going

to make one of the rooms into the drawing-room at home; and you must

open your boxes, and bring me down the heather and the peat, Mairi,

and the two bottles; and then, you know, when the salmon is on the

table, and the whisky and the beer, and Bras lying on the hearth-rug,

and the peat-smoke all through the room, then you will come in and

shake hands with him, and he will think he is in Borva again."

Mairi was a little puzzled. She did not understand the intention of

this strange thing. But she went and fetched the materials she had

brought with her from Lewis, and Sheila and she set to work.

It was a pleasant enough occupation for this bright forenoon, and

Sheila, as she heard Mairi's sweet Highland speech, and as she

brought from all parts of the house the curiosities sent her from

the Hebrides, would almost have fancied she was superintending a

"cleaning" of that museum-like little drawing-room at Borva. Skins of

foxes, seals and deer, stuffed eagles and strange fishes, masses of

coral and wonderful carvings in wood brought from abroad, shells of

every size from every clime,--all these were brought together

into Frank Lavender's smoking-room. The ordinary ornaments of the

mantelpiece gave way to fanciful arrangements of peacocks' feathers.

Fresh-blown ling and the beautiful spikes of the bell-heather formed

the staple of the decorations, and Mairi had brought enough to adorn

an assembly-room.

"That is like the Lewis people," Sheila said with a laugh: she had

not been in as happy a mood for many a day. "I asked you to bring one

peat, and of course you brought two. Tell the truth, Mairi: could you

have forced yourself to bring one peat?"

"I wass thinking it was safer to bring sa two," replied Mairi,

blushing all over the fair and pretty face.

And indeed, there being two peats, Sheila thought she might as well

try an experiment with one. She crumbled down some pieces, put them

on a plate, lit them, and placed the plate outside the open window,

on the sill. Presently a new, sweet, half-forgotten fragrance came

floating in, and Sheila almost forgot the success of the experiment in

the half-delighted, half-sad reminiscences called up by the scent

of the peat. Mairi failed to see how any one could willfully smoke

a house--any one, that is to say, who did not save the smoke for his

thatch. And who was so particular as Sheila had been about having the

clothes come in from the washing dried so that they should not retain

this very odor that seemed now to delight her?

At last the room was finished, and Sheila contemplated it with much

satisfaction. The table was laid, and on the white cloth stood the

bottles most familiar to Borva. The peat-smoke still lingered in the

air: she could not have wished anything to be better.

Then she went off to look after the luncheon, and Mairi was permitted

to go down and explore the mysteries of the kitchen. The servants

were not accustomed to this interference and oversight, and might have

resented it, only that Sheila had proved a very good mistress to them,

and had shown, too, that she would have her own way when she wanted

it. Suddenly, as Sheila was explaining to Mairi the use of some

particular piece of mechanism, she heard a sound that made her heart

jump. It was now but half-past one, and yet that was surely her

husband's foot in the hall. For a moment she was too bewildered to

know what to do. She heard him go straight into the very room she had

been decorating, the door of which she had left open. Then, as she

went up stairs, with her heart still beating fast, the first thing

that met her eye was a tartan shawl belonging to Mairi that had been

accidentally left in the passage. Her husband must have seen it.

"Sheila, what nonsense is this?" he said.

He was evidently in a hurry, and yet she could not answer: her heart

was throbbing too quickly.

"Look here," he said: "I wish you'd give up this grotto-making till

to-morrow. Mrs. Kavanagh, Mrs. Lorraine and Lord Arthur Redmond are

coming here to luncheon at two. I suppose you can get something decent

for them. What is the matter? What is the meaning of all this?"

And then his eyes rested on the tartan shawl, which he had really not

noticed before.

"Who is in the house?" he said. "Have you asked some washerwoman to

lunch?"

Sheila managed at last to say, "It is Mairi come from Stornoway. I was

thinking you would be surprised to see her when you came in."

"And these preparations are for her?"

Sheila said nothing: there was that in the tone of her husband's voice

which was gradually bringing her to herself, and giving her quite

sufficient firmness.

"And now that this girl has come up, I suppose you mean to introduce

her to all your friends; and I suppose you expect those people who are

coming in half an hour to sit down at table with a kitchen-maid?"

"Mairi," said Sheila, standing quite erect, but with her eyes cast

down, "is my cousin."

"Your cousin! Don't be ridiculous, Sheila. You know very well that

Mairi is nothing more or less than a scullery-maid; and I suppose you

mean to take her out of the kitchen and introduce her to people, and

expect her to sit down at table with them. Is not that so?" She did

not answer, and he went on impatiently: "Why was I not told that this

girl was coming to stay at my house? Surely I have some right to know

what guests you invite, that I may be able at least to ask my friends

not to come near the house while they are in it."

"That I did not tell you before--yes, that was a pity," said Sheila,

sadly and calmly. "But it will be no trouble to you. When Mrs.

Lorraine comes up at two o'clock there will be luncheon for her

and for her friends. She will not have to sit down with any of my

relations or with me, for if they are not fit to meet her, I am not;

and it is not any great matter that I do not meet her at two o'clock."

There was no passion of any sort in the measured and sad voice, nor

in the somewhat pale face and downcast eyes. Perhaps it was this

composure that deceived Frank Lavender: at all events, he turned and

walked out of the house, satisfied that he would not have to introduce

this Highland cousin to his friends, and just as certain that Sheila

would repent of her resolve and appear in the dining-room as usual.

Sheila went down stairs to the kitchen, where Mairi still stood

awaiting her. She gave orders to one of the servants about having

luncheon laid in the dining-room at two, and then she bade Mairi

follow her up stairs.

"Mairi," she said, when they were alone, "I want you to put your

things in your trunk at once--in five minutes if you can: I shall be

waiting for you."

"Miss Sheila!" cried the girl, looking up to her friend's face with a

sudden fright seizing her heart, "what is the matter with you? You are

going to die!"

"There is nothing the matter, Mairi. I am going away."

She uttered the words placidly, but there was a pained look about the

lips that could not be concealed, and her face, unknown to herself,

had the whiteness of despair in it.

"Going away!" said Mairi, in a bewildered way. "Where are you going,

Miss Sheila?"

"I will tell you by and by. Get your trunk ready, Mairi. You are

keeping me waiting."

Then she called for a servant, who was sent for a cab; and by the time

the vehicle appeared Mairi was ready to get into it, and her trunk was

put on the top. Then, clad in the rough blue dress that she used to

wear in Borva, and with no appearance of haste or fear in the calm and

death-like face, Sheila came out from her husband's house and found

herself alone in the world. There were two little girls, the daughters

of a neighbor, passing by at the time: she patted them on the head and

bade them good-morning. Could she recollect, five minutes thereafter,

having seen them? There was a strange and distant look in her eyes.

She got into the cab and sat down by Mairi, and then took the girl's

hand. "I am sorry to take you away, Mairi," she said; but she was

apparently not thinking of Mairi, nor of the house she was leaving,

nor yet of the vehicle in which she was so strangely placed. Was she

thinking of a certain wild and wet day in the far Hebrides, when a

young bride stood on the decks of a great vessel and saw the home of

her childhood and the friends of her youth fade back into the desolate

waste of the sea? Perhaps there may have been some unconscious

influence in this picture to direct her movements at this moment, for

of definite resolves she had none. When Mairi told her that the cabman

wanted to know whither he was to drive, she merely answered, "Oh yes,

Mairi, we will go to the station;" and Mairi added, addressing the

man, "It was the Euston Station." Then they drove away.

"Are you going home?" said the young girl, looking up with a strange

foreboding and sinking of the heart to the pale face and distant

eyes--"Are you going home, Miss Sheila?"

"Oh yes, we are going home, Mairi," was the answer she got, but the

tone in which it was uttered filled her mind with doubt, and something

like despair.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

* * * * *

THE LAST OF THE IDYLLS.

"Ended at last

Those wondrous dreams, so beautifully told!

It seems that I have through enchantment passed,

And lived and loved in that fair court of old.

"Yes, yes, I know--

The old Greek idylls about which you rave,

Theocritus and his melodious flow

Of verse, and all that Moschus sang o'er Bion's grave.

"You've shown me oft

How far superior all that _they_ have said--

That Tennyson has learned to soar aloft

By seeking inspiration from the greater dead.

"And yet in me

A pulse is never stirred by what _they_ sing:

The reason I know not, unless it be

_Their_ idylls are not _Idylls of the King_.

"You smile: no doubt

You think I've never learned to criticise.

Perhaps so, yet I _feel_ that which I speak about.

And Enim is the last! Well, no more sighs;

"For spring is here:

I have no time to waste in dreamings vain.

_After our marriage_--nay, you need not sneer--

We will read all the idylls through again."

"So shall it be

So long as lives the love which poets sing.

The harp is still, yet is begun for thee

A lifelong dream--the idyll of _thy_ king."

F.F. ELMS.

* * * * *

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

AN EVENING IN CALCUTTA.

About six o'clock every evening the beau monde of Calcutta begins to

take the air on the Course, a very pleasant drive which runs along the

bank of the river. It is usually crowded with carriages, but it must

be confessed that none of them would be likely to excite the envy of

an owner of a fashionable turn-out at home, unless indeed it might be

now and then for the sake of the occupants.

Long before the Course begins to thin it is almost dark, and then,

if the poor lounger is "unattached," and is sharing his buggy with

a friend as unfortunate as himself, the general effect of the scene

before him is the most interesting object for his gaze. The carriages

continue to whirl past, but one sees hardly more of them than their

lamps. The river glides, cold and shining, a long silvery light

under the opposite bank, while trees and masts and rigging relieve

themselves against the golden bars of the distant sky. But the band

ceases to play, and every one goes home to dress.

If the traveler chooses, he may find many an amusing drive in the

native parts of the town. Tall Sikhs, whose hair and beards have

never known scissors or razor, and who stride along with a swagger

and high-caste dignity; effeminate Cingalese; Hindoo clerks, smirking,

conceited and dandified too, according to their own notions; almost

naked palkee-bearers, who nevertheless, if there is the slightest

shower, put up an umbrella to protect their shaven crowns; up-country

girls with rings in their noses and rings on their toes; little

Bengalee beauties; Parsees, Chinese, Greeks, Jews and Armenians, in

every variety of costume, are to be seen bargaining on the quays,

chaffering in the bazaars, loading and unloading the ships, trotting

along under their water-skins, driving their bullock-carts, smoking

their hookahs or squatting in the shade.

We have had the good fortune, thanks to our interest in native

manners and customs, to make the acquaintance of a Hindoo merchant,

a millionaire and a _bon vivant_, on whom his religion sits somewhat

lightly. We might, if we had not been otherwise engaged, have dined

with him this evening. He would have been delighted to receive us,

and would have treated us with abundant hospitality and kindness.

The dinner would have been of a composite character, partly European,

partly native. A sort of rissole of chicken would certainly have been

one of the dishes, and with equal certainty would have met with your

approval: the curry, too, would have satisfied you, even if you had

just come from Madras or Singapore. There would have been knives and

forks for us: our convives would not have made much use of the latter,

and some of the dishes on which they would have exercised their

fingers would hardly have tempted us. The champagne and claret are

excellent, and our host, Hindoo as he is, is not sparing in his

libations; and at the same time he and his countrymen would have been

vociferous in pressing us to eat and drink, filling our glasses the

moment they were empty, and heaping our plates with the choicest

morsels. After all, however, perhaps we have had no great loss in

missing the dinner. We shall enjoy the pleasant drive, and by being

a little late shall escape the not very delightful sound of various

stringed instruments being tuned. Arrived, we leave our horse and

buggy to the care of some most cutthroat-looking individuals, who

crowd round with much noise and gesticulation, wondering who and what

we are, while the noise brings out a sort of majordomo, who recognizes

us as friends of the master, and soon clears a way for us across the

courtyard, takes us up a flight of steps, and ushers us into a

long and tolerably well-lighted room. Our host comes forward with

outstretched hands, and with great cordiality welcomes and presents

us to his friends. We can't understand all he says, for his English

at the best is not always intelligible, and he is now particularly

talkative and jolly: it is evident he has dined. There is a great

noise; every one is talking and laughing; and the talking is loud, for

it has to overcome the sounds made by sundry musicians seated at the

other end of the room, who are striking their tomtoms and singing a

most doleful chant. The baboo bustles about, and makes vacant for us

two sofas, the places of honor. Little marble tables are before them,

on which are placed wine, brandy and soda-water. The other guests

resume their seats along the two sides of the room on our right and

left. There are eight or ten men and two or three ladies; the ladies

very handsomely dressed. Lower down are several young girls in light

drapery, laughing, talking and smoking their hookahs. The fair sex

look rather scared and shyly at the foreigners, but some of the men

are evidently trying to reassure them. Order being at length restored,

our cheroots lighted and our iced brandy-pawnee made ready, the

performance recommences. The corps de ballet are not hired for the

occasion, but form part of the establishment of our friend the baboo.

One of the girls seated near the musician advances slowly, in time

with the music, to within a few feet of one of our sofas, and she

is followed by another, who places herself opposite the other sofa.

Others in the same way prepare to dance before the other guests. They

all stand for a moment in a languid and graceful attitude, the

music strikes up a fresh air, and each nautch-girl assumes the first

position of her dance. She stands with outstretched arm and hand,

quivering them, and allowing her body very slightly to partake of

the same movement. Her feet mark the time of the music, not by being

raised, but by merely pressing the floor with the toes. The action and

movement thus seem to run like a wave through the body, greatest where

it begins in the hand, and gradually diminishing as it dies away in

the foot. With a change of time in the accompaniment the girl drops

her arm, advances a step or two nearer the person before whom she is

dancing, and leans back, supporting her whole weight on one foot, with

the other put forward, and pressing against the floor the border of

her drapery.

In her hands she holds a little scarf, which serves to give a motive

to the action of the arms and head. The movement in this figure, which

admits of great variety, no two performers being at all alike in it,

is somewhat stronger than in the first. The undulation, too, instead

of dying away gradually from its commencement, runs with equal force,

like the line of an S, through the body. Without any pause in the

music the dancer sometimes glides imperceptibly into, sometimes begins

with startling suddenness, the next movement. The general position

remains what it was before, but to describe how its principle of

life and motion seems concentrated below the dancer's waist, and

from thence flows in undulating streams, to flash from or to dull,

according to her organization, the eyes, and to crisp the child-like

feet with which she grasps the carpet, is for me impossible. A Gavarni

might draw what would recall this wonderful pantomime to the brain of

one who had seen it, but nothing but his own imagination could suggest

it to him who had not. One of these girls is a perfect actress:

numberless shades of expression pass over her delicate features, but

the prevailing one is a beseeching, supplicating look. We administer

to her, as the custom is, some rupees in token of our admiration, and

with an arch smile the no longer supplicating damsel passes on.

A vague notion prevails that a nautch is a very naughty and improper

exhibition. My experience is limited, but I must say that in the few I

have seen there was nothing that a _sergent de mile_ at Mabille could

have objected to. Certainly, no one who retains a seat during the

performance of a ballet can say a word on the subject. If the charge

of indelicacy is to be brought against either, it would, I think,

weigh most heavily against the latter. The Indian dance is voluptuous

and graceful, as a dance should be; which is more than can be affirmed

of a ballet of the French school, some of the attitudes of which are

certainly not addressed only to the sense of beauty. But it was now

late, and, although the festivities showed no signs of abatement, we

bade our host adieu and returned home. W.H.S.

NO DANBURY FOR ME.

Not in Danbury. No: life has too many vicissitudes in that Connecticut

borough. It presents too kaleidoscopic an appearance to suit my style.

Family catastrophes succeed each other at a brisker rate than I am

used to. I shouldn't relish being a Danbury man on North street or

South street: indeed, if you urge the thing, not even on East, West or

any other street. I could by no manner of means hope to get reconciled

to the accidents, you know. It is climatic, I suppose--an exhilarating

air. I should be attempting all sorts of impossible feats, my sickly

failures would of course get into the papers, and chagrin, dismay

and general discomfort would be my earthly lot. I am not ambitious to

undertake teaching the family to rock the cradle, fry doughnuts, do

the family ironing and coax our stray hens into the coop, all in one

motion. Nor am I impatient to get up in the moonlight with the idea

buzzing in my brain that burglars have arrived, and after putting

two or three pounds of lead into our best cow, to creep back to bed

feeling badly, like a second Alexander, that there's no more glory.

Really, I haven't enterprise enough for Danbury.

Now, there _are_ men who ought to start off at once and move into that

town. A wide-awake, bustling fellow, who craves excitement, who is

never happy unless whirling around like a bobbin with a ten-per-cent.

semi-annual dividend to earn, who is on hand at all the dog-fights,

Irish funerals, runaway teams, tenement fires, razor-strop matinées,

and public convulsions generally,--such a man, if he went well

recommended, would be likely to find, I imagine, constant employment

in the town of Danbury. He might make arrangements to take his meals

on the jump, and would sleep of course with his hat and boots on.

Browne is mercurial. Browne would be happy in Danbury. Till he died.

For a fortnight, say--one brief, glowing, ecstatic fortnight. Fourteen

giddy days would surely finish him. Imagine Browne (him of the eagle

eye) up in the morning, his face washed, hair combed, breakfast taken

aboard, and everything trim and tight for sailing out into the surging

whirlpool of Danbury locals. We see him fold the substantial Mrs. B.

to his manly bosom and discharge a parent's duty toward the little

Brownes. We see him tear himself from the bosom of his family. It is

affecting, as those things usually are.

Browne gains the street, backing out of his gate as he blows a

superfluous kiss to Miss Tilly Browne, his youngest. He lurches,

just as you may expect, into a stout market-woman laden with eggs and

garden vegetables. She careens wildly, and plunges into a baby-cart

that is pushing by. The darling occupant of fourteen months is

smothered in a raw omelet and frescoed over the eye by bunches

of asparagus. The cries of the sweet little cherub would melt the

stoutest heart. The market-lady caracoles around, and leads Browne

to infer that his conduct is not approved, from her festooning that

gentleman's eyes with heavy lines of crape. Mrs. Browne arrives on the

scene. The baby goes into fits. The fast-assembling crowd cry "Shame!"

and Browne, after trying in vain to apologize, seeks the shelter of a

hack and makes good his escape.

He descends at Main street, just in time to observe the man with the

ladder and paint-pot working his way up along. That genius is smashing

in store fronts and dropping paint liberally on the population.

However, as he does this twice a day regularly through the week, it

does not appear to attract much attention, except from strangers.

The fat gentleman who is in training to remove pieces of orange-peel

from the sidewalk has already begun his labor of love for the day.

He is just getting up and dusting himself as Browne goes by. There is

nothing fresh in this either, so Browne does not stop. He merely nods

and hurries on.

That Danbury youth who gets snarled up so badly when he is sent to

do anything, and who has lived through no end of mustard plaster

and other soothing applications, is standing in a doorway whistling.

Browne conceives it to be a capital idea to waylay this boy and

interview him. But, as if divining Browne's purpose, the young hero

gives a war-whoop and dives down a side alley. Browne will write up

the interview just the same, though.

Browne sees something lively now, something Danburian. A fire company

in lobster-colored shirts turn into Main street, aided and abetted by

a brass band hired by the job to play furiously. Browne admires the

gallant firemen as they step along bravely, winking at the pretty

girls on either side--at the machine which glistens in the sun, and

maintains a lively jingling of bells and brass-work as it joggles over

the pavement. "Ah," thinks Browne, "this is gorgeous!" It is. Browne's

instincts are generally correct.

The man who assists in carrying the bass drum has a sore thumb,

a sensitively sore thumb. Nothing more natural, when Sherman goes

"marching through Georgia," than that this thumb should come in for a

share of attention. The bang it gets sends the acutest pain running up

and down its owner's spine. In a frenzy (in a moment, we may say, of

emotional insanity) he draws a tomahawk and buries it in the head of

the captain of that bass drum. The infuriated musician, supposing it

to be the cornet who has mutinied, at once gets his Smith & Wesson in

range. When the smoke has cleared away three shots are found to have

taken effect--two of them in a span of high-stepping horses attached

to the elegant turnout of old Mrs. P----. That estimable lady is

spilled into the third-story window of an establishment where sits our

old friend Hannah binding shoes. The shock so far upsets poor Hannah's

reason that she turns a blood-curdling somersault out upon an awning,

bounces back, and on her return trip carries away a swinging sign

and a barber's pole. These heavy articles strike on a copper

soda-fountain, which explodes with a fearful noise, and mortally

wounds a colored man uninsured against accident. (Full particulars for

the next twelve months in the insurance journals.) The gallant boys in

red flannel, assuming from the commotion that a fire must be under

way in the neighborhood, set the machine to work in a twinkling. The

leading hoseman in his hurry rams his bouquet into the fire-box, tries

to screw his silver trumpet on the end of the hose, and stands on his

stiff glazed hat to find out what kind of strategy is needed. Then

they proceed to drown out an ice-cream saloon on the wrong side of the

street.

Browne is happy. He climbs a lamppost, and sets to work taking notes

as fast as his pencil can fly. Somebody, mistaking his coat-tail

pockets for the post-office, drops in a set of public documents (it

is the last day of franking), which so interferes with Browne's

equilibrium that he falls over backward into an ash-barrel, after

getting out of which he finds it rests him to write with his pencil in

his teeth. At last order is restored, the thumb is repaired, and the

procession, getting untangled, moves off to the inspiriting strains of

"Ain't you glad," etc.

Browne mixes in two more scenes before lunch. In the afternoon there's

a balloon ascension, where everything goes up but the balloon; and

a croquet-party brim full of eccentricities. Browne picks up half a

dozen juvenile and domestic incidents, hardly worth alluding to, and

goes home, through a series of adventures, to find a tall, raw-boned

horse, a total stranger, walking over his flower-beds and occasionally

looking in at the windows. Browne's skirmishes around the animal (the

whole campaign together) cost him about thirty dollars.

I resign Danbury to Browne. Though there's a capital fellow there whom

I should like to see, I'd rather not go down there and pay taxes.

SARSFIELD YOUNG.

ANOTHER GHOST.

In the August number of this magazine a narrative is given of a

ghostly appearance which haunted a house in a seaside town. The writer

states that she was not an actor in its scenes, nor was it related

to her by one who was. Having more than once heard the story from the

lips of the principal witness of the events, Mrs. M---- of Newport, I

can confirm the correctness of the narrative, in the main. Some of the

particulars, however, having been altered in the transmission, I will

give my version, to the best of my remembrance.

When Mrs. M---- hired the house, which had been for some time vacant,

she found it difficult to procure or keep servants. This in itself is

not uncommon, but in this case there was something more. The servants

complained of being disturbed at night by a woman who walked the

chambers with a white hood upon her head--not a sun-bonnet, as I am

glad to state, which is certainly a more commonplace head-dress. Some

of the neighbors were also asking from time to time who that woman was

who sat at the upper hall window in a white hood. It could not have

been a little boy who was disturbed by the strange woman, for Mrs.

M---- had no son, but one of the daughters when sitting in the upper

hall on a hot evening, and making the remark that it was very warm,

heard the reply from out of the darkness, "I am so cold!"

As in Mrs. Hooper's version, the dénoûment was brought about by the

aid of a clergyman. Men of this profession have always been considered

the most efficient guardians against the powers of darkness. He,

with the help of Mrs. M----, made the excavation in the cellar which

brought to light the half-consumed skeleton. Here, unfortunately, is a

gap in the evidence. The remains were pronounced by medical authority

to be human, but was that authority reliable? was that doctor skilled

in comparative anatomy? If not, the bones might have been those of a

sheep, buried perchance in the cellar by a provident dog.

The house still stands, or did recently, in Washington street. The

builder was a sea-captain returning after a long absence with plenty

of money, supposed by the townspeople to have been acquired in the

slave-trade or by piracy. There was also a young woman, house-keeper

to this Captain Kidd, who disappeared about the time that he did

himself.

Mrs. M---- was fond of narrating this story, and, having a pretty

talent that way, she had versified it; though I am bound to say that

in plain prose it was much more effective. She was an Englishwoman,

had seen much of the world, and was a person of considerable reading

and cultivation. She had moral and physical courage in an uncommon

degree, and was thoroughly reliable, so that this story is to me as

well authenticated as one can well be at second hand.

I have another incident of the same shadowy and quasi-supernatural

kind to relate, which took place in the same street of that town,

formerly much affected by ghosts and other supernatural appearances.

I say formerly, for what spirit, however perturbed, could revisit the

glimpses of the moon in a modern villa, or abide long within the sound

of the steam-whistle?

Some years ago I was living in Newport in an old-fashioned house, also

built by a retired sea-captain in the early part of the century, but,

unlike the other, there were no tales of terror connected with it

that I ever heard of. At 1 p.m. on a winter's day, in the midst of a

furious snow-storm, as we sat at dinner, we heard a commotion in the

kitchen. Instead of the expected joint, enter a pallid woman: "Oh,

please come out and see Martha!" The lady of the house hastened to

the kitchen, and found Martha, the cook, almost fainting upon a chair.

"What is the matter?" As soon as she could speak she gasped out, "Oh,

that face at the window!" The window of the kitchen looked out upon

the garden, which had a high fence all around it. I at once ran out

to see if any person was there: the ground was covered with a pure and

untrodden surface of snow six or eight inches deep. This was rather

startling, when inside the window a woman was fainting at the sight

of some fearful appearance on the outside. I looked out on the street,

which ran alongside the garden fence, and which was not much of a

thoroughfare. There were no tracks to be seen in the snow. No human

foot had lately been in the garden.

When the woman came to herself, she said that, suddenly looking up,

she saw a female face with an agonized expression looking in at her

from the window. On being asked if it was any one whom she knew, she

replied that the face seemed familiar, but that she could not recall

the name that belonged to it. After reflection she said that it looked

like a daughter of hers whom she had not seen since she was a child.

The girl had been brought up by a lady in another State, and was now a

married woman, living in Vermont.

About a week afterward, Martha received a letter from the lady who

had brought up her daughter, informing her that the young woman had

recently died after a short illness, and that her great anxiety seemed

to be to see her mother before she died. Some time after I wrote to

the town indicated to ascertain the exact time of the young woman's

death. The husband had moved away immediately after the funeral, but

the town clerk replied that a person of the name mentioned had died

there about the time mentioned in my letter. Here came the fatal

gap in the evidence, which always seems to prevent the chain being

perfect. If I could have obtained a certificate of the death having

occurred on the day of the snow-storm, I should have found myself

nearer to a ghost than I ever expect to be again till I become one

myself. S.C. CLARKE.

NOTES.

Treatises on the "language of flowers" should, to be complete, give

a chapter on their political significance. England had her War of the

Roses; and of this contest a mild travesty may possibly be furnished

in a French "Strife of the Flowers". The violet is the Bonapartist

badge, and when, last spring, the emperor died in exile, and his

partisans sought to show some outward token of their fidelity to his

memory and his cause, violets began to bloom profusely in buttonholes

as the half disguised emblem of the outlawed party. But there was one

unexpected result of this demonstration, for in republican Marseilles

the flower-merchants found their trade in violets declining, owing to

the popular distrust of this once favorite and unassuming flower.

It is almost incredible that the third city of France should have so

thrown down the gauntlet to one of the sweetest gifts of Nature. But

if upon the innocent violet is to be heaped the curse of Sedan, then

when Bourbonism lifts its abashed head are lilies to be proscribed in

the Lyons market as violets were darkly suspected in Marseilles? And

if the radicals should make the red poppy their symbol, would it in

turn be scorned by the lovers of the lily? If so, with the numerous

parties, new and old, in France, what flower could a Frenchman wear

or cultivate without danger of being mobbed by the partisans of some

other emblem in politics?

* * * * *

Thousands of people who have passed the summer in the country, and

have been accustomed to take long drives, will testify to noticing

one great lack on the highways of our country. This lack is that of

guide-posts. There is no more effectual way of giving a traveler a

vivid impression of the sparsity of settlement in a rural district

than to let him lose his way. Regions which he might otherwise have

fancied to be densely peopled will seem to him strangely depopulated.

In cities, where a hundred people can always be found between any

two streets to tell you your whereabouts, we yet scrupulously post up

signs at every corner; but in the country, where you may travel a mile

before meeting a man or a house, hardly one in five of the junctions

of thoroughfares are marked with guide-boards. This lack is perhaps

more serious in the suburbs of large cities than elsewhere, since in

thinly-settled districts the main road at least is generally easy to

keep. Occasionally the post is a mocker, its painted letters being

suffered to grow so dim with time as not to be decipherable; or

perhaps the board has been carried off by a gale, or else turned the

wrong way by some joker, who relies on the authorities to neglect

the mischief. It would save much time and temper for wayfarers were

guide-boards multiplied fourfold in all parts of the country.

* * * * *

When Von Moltke had conquered France, his first care for the future

was to protect Germany, by the seizure of the French frontier

fortresses, from all danger of successful attack in time to come;

yet at Belfort one gap in the line has been left in the keeping of

France--possibly, like the heel of Achilles, the point at which

a hostile shaft may one day wound the German empire. The Berlin

_Börsenzeitung_, which claims that with Metz, Strasburg, Mayence,

Coblentz and Cologne, and with the enlargement of Ulm and Ingoldstadt

and the new line of Bavarian defence, "Germany has a barrier of

fortresses unequaled in the world," yet admits that the project of

establishing a new German fortress near Mulhouse or Huningue, "so as

to take the place of Belfort," has now been abandoned--a fact which

seems to show that there is one little loophole in the defensive armor

of Germany, otherwise invulnerable.

* * * * *

"A man may steal the livery of Heaven to serve the devil in." It has

always been a favorite device of Napoleonism to dress itself up in the

garb of popular government, and to appropriate the peculiar phrases

of democracy, with a view to confound the distinction between the

sovereign will of one and the sovereign will of the many. Napoleon

III. enjoyed proclaiming himself the great champion of universal

suffrage, although what his _plébiscites_ really were the caustic

pen of Kinglake has told us. The other day the French imperialists

celebrated at Chiselhurst the fête of the late emperor; and there

Prince Louis had the audacity to say: "Planting myself as an exile

near the tomb of the emperor, I represent his teachings, which may be

summarized in the motto, 'Govern for the people, by the people.'"

The motto was a double plagiarism--a plagiarism in idea from the

republican theory, and a plagiarism in expression from the immortal

phrase, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people,"

pronounced by Lincoln at Gettysburg.

* * * * *

The most sensible, manly and independent address made to the shah

during his European tour was, we think, the speech of welcome

delivered by the president of the Swiss Confederation. We may premise

that the shah is the first sovereign who, as such, has become the

guest of Switzerland since the meeting of the Council of Constance in

the fifteenth century. Still, the Swiss people did not show themselves

overcome, but received their guest with a sober and dignified

cordiality--a sail, a dinner without speeches, and a magnificent

illumination of Geneva and the lake providing the entertainment. On

arriving at the railroad station the shah was greeted by the Swiss

president in words which we render literally as follows: "Royal

Majesty: I welcome you in the name of the authorities of the Swiss

Confederation. You do not expect to find here the sumptuous greeting

of the great nations which surround us. We have to show you neither a

standing army nor the splendors of a fleet. You come into the midst of

a people that owes to liberty and to labor the place that it has made

for itself in Europe, and it is in the name of this free people that

the Federal Council offers you hospitality." The severe simplicity of

this address is the more tasteful since its strength and manliness

do not rob it of a tithe of its courtesy, which last quality becomes

indeed all the more striking from the absence of that Oriental

profusion of epithets and compliments which the shah had received at

every previous step in his European travels.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

The Intellectual Life. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Boston: Roberts

Brothers.

A man of fair culture and a frequenter of cultured society pleads in

these pages the attractions of an intellectual bias or life-training:

he pleads to all accessible classes--to the curate and to the

nobleman, "to a country gentleman who regretted that his son had the

tendencies of a dilettante," "to a lady of high culture who found it

difficult to associate with persons of her own sex," and so on.

Over seventy different addresses are included, each in the form of a

letter, which, though not necessarily ever posted, is really aimed at

a specific person known to the author and distinctively spoken to. The

effort is to reconcile culture with the world of practice and morals,

and answer or forestall the objections of religion or utilitarianism.

Mr. Hamerton talks with great self-possession to the highest class

within ear-shot, and matches a late stricture of Mr. Ruskin's--that

English noblemen exist to shoot little birds--with another on the

influence of railways in sending back the upper ranks to a state of

nomadic barbarism. "Their life," he says, "may be quite accurately

described as a return, on a scale of unprecedented splendor and

comfort, to the life of tribes in that stage of human development

which is known as the period of the chase: they migrate from one

hunting-ground to another as the diminution of the game impels them."

He points out a curious reaction in the spirit of this class: formerly

they loved to lard their speech with Latin and Greek to keep the

ignorant in their places; but now, that cheap education has endowed

the tradesman with Latin and Greek, there is a tendency to feel toward

intellectual culture much as the barons did away back in the Dark

Ages, and to outdazzle by mere show of costly pleasure the class they

can no longer excel in learned polish. After all, the great question

in recommending culture is the question of its effect on morals: if

the effect of poetry and art is weakening to the moral sense, as many

have claimed from Socrates to Augustine, then letters have no ethical

reason for existence. Our author, who has a habit of continually

turning his tapestry to see the aspect of the other side, is very

sensible of a characteristic in people of extreme culture to allow

Nature her most contradictory reactions. This tendency, opposed as

it is to all our ideal conceptions of the intellectual life, is

the merest commonplace of biography. "The most exquisitely delicate

artists in literature and painting have frequently had reactions

of incredible coarseness. Within the Chateaubriand of _Atala_ there

existed an obscene Chateaubriand that would burst forth in talk

that no biographer would repeat. I have heard the same thing of the

sentimental Lamartine. We know that Turner, dreamer of enchanted

landscapes, took the pleasures of a sailor on the spree. A friend said

to me of one of the most exquisite living geniuses, 'You can have no

conception of the coarseness of his tastes: he associates with

the very lowest women, and enjoys their rough brutality.'" To this

specious and damaging objection our author makes the excellent reply,

that in observing whole classes we generally see an advance in morals

go along with an advance in culture. The gentleman of the present day

is superior to his forefather whom Fielding described: he is better

read and better educated, and at the same time more sober and more

chaste. The man of genius does not, then, by his oscillations of

temperament, retard or misdirect the company whose course he points.

It is an interesting question, nevertheless, what are the moral

standards of our apologist for the intellectual life, and what degree

of ethical perfection would satisfy him in a world of various spheres

all regenerated by culture. There is one letter in which he undertakes

to pick out the special virtue which most helps his ideal way of

life, and here, in chanting the praises of disinterestedness, he takes

rather a superior tone toward so homespun a grace as honesty: "The

truth is, that mere honesty, though a most respectable and necessary

virtue, goes a very little way toward the forming of an effective

intellectual character." This refinement of ethics, which leaves the

humdrum commandments away out of sight, is doubtless very fine, but

we cannot be sure that Mr. Hamerton has the same standard for all the

different strata of people whom he addresses. Pretty soon we find him

addressing a young clergyman, who appears to have apprehensions

lest intellectual doubts may come to disturb his satisfaction in

Bible-teaching. To this the author replies with the following

odd encouragement: "It may be observed, however, that the regular

performance of priestly functions is in itself a great help to

permanence in belief by connecting it closely with practical habit, so

that the clergy do really and honestly often retain through life their

hold on early beliefs which as laymen they might have lost." This hint

on the efficacy of continued rowing for stopping a leak in the bottom,

if it be really meant for encouragement, shows an odd principle of

honor, if not of "honesty." When it comes to the large and attractive

class which some persons call "females," Mr. Hamerton abandons with

ready grace his moral colors, and falls at once into the easiest tones

proper to a man of the world. "You must not be didactic with ladies,"

he says; and in the capital story about the mother-in-law he appears

to side with the polite French _gendre_ who said to every proposition,

"Yes, mother dear, you are quite right," and to have much sympathy

with the learned Scotch lawyer who observed that there was not whisky

enough in all Scotland to make him frank with his wife. Mr. Hamerton,

in fact, spoiled son of fortune that he is, cannot keep for a long

time the austerity of tone which belongs to a deliberate apology for

culture: he therefore does what is better in taking the desirableness

of his ideal for granted, and in lifting it out of the sloughs into

which it has fallen in the muddy minds of many sorts of people, by

pleasantly talking and chatting, _en attendant_ that Hercules shall

come down and shoulder on the car of progress.

_Books Received_.

The City of Mocross, and its Famous Physician. By the author of

"Morcroft Hatch," etc. Boston: Henry Hoyt.

Tom Racquet, and his Three Maiden Aunts. By Frank E. Smedley.

Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.

Miriam Rosenbaum: A Story of Jewish Life. By Rev. Dr. Edersheim.

Illustrated. Boston: Henry Hoyt.

Frank Fairleigh. By Frank E. Smedley. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson &

Brothers.

Jessie's Work: A Story for Girls. Illustrated. Boston: Henry Hoyt.