CLOVER B. VAN TASSEL.

Mrs. Page, upon finishing, let her pleased gaze rove from one to another

of her three companions. Jack's face was eager and happy, Gorham's

interested, but her husband was the first to speak.

"I foresee that I am going to fall in love with that woman," he

remarked, breaking open his third muffin and handing his cup to the maid

for a second cup of coffee. "That is a charming letter."

"Just an ordinary Chicago production," said Jack exultantly. "What do

you say, old Reliable?" he added, turning toward Gorham.

"We are in great luck," returned the latter.

"Now, I will admit," said Jack, "that I have been trying to provide for

us all at the Chicago Beach; but I will cease my struggles gratefully."

"When do you want to go, Hilda?" asked Robert Page.

"When can you go, is a more pertinent question," she answered.

"July will, I suppose, be the best time. Would it be heresy, Jack, to

inquire if the thermometer in Chicago rises above sixty-five degrees in

July? I have understood that it does."

"I know of no city in the country where there is no hot weather in

summer," returned Jack shortly. "Chicago is, however, a summer resort."

"I suppose you mean a place where summer resorts. That is what I have

heard."

"Perhaps you would better not risk your life there."

"Tut, tut, my boy. I am going to see the writer of that whole-souled

letter."

Jack, who had already excused himself from the table, here left the room

without deigning a reply, and Mrs. Page immediately looked toward her

brother.

"What do you think, Gorham? Of course this is a delightful invitation,

but ought we to accept it?"

"I don't quite see your objection," he answered.

"It is charming of Mrs. Van Tassel, but it is so evidently a sense of

duty which impels her to give such an invitation to a mere acquaintance

like me, and a stranger like Robert."

"Look here," remarked the latter, looking up vaguely. "I don't think I

want any flaws picked in that invitation."

"Now you keep still, Robert, like a dear. You don't know her at all,

and Gorham does. She is just doing this in Uncle Richard's name; I know

it, and I am not willing to impose upon her."

"May I see the letter once again?" asked Gorham.

"Certainly;" Mrs. Page handed it to him with alacrity. He read it

through from beginning to end. It sounded like Clover. He could hear

her pleasant voice in every phrase.

"She is a thoughtful, deliberate sort of person," he said as he handed

the letter back. "Whatever her motive is, it is a sufficient one, and

one thing that would influence me to advise you to accept is the effect

on Jack. Their relations have been a little strained, and I think it

would make things still pleasanter than they are now, if Mrs. Van Tassel

and Miss Bryant were to become better acquainted with his people."

"Yes, that is what I think," remarked Mr. Page; but his wife frowned

upon him.

"You, and Robert, and Jack, go," continued Gorham. "I won't. That

would be rather too much of a good thing; but I can get a room at the

Beach Hotel, and that is near by. I propose to spend a good deal of

time at the Fair. I want to go through it with some degree of

thoroughness. Of course no one will really see half of it. I understand

that, giving one minute to each exhibit, it is estimated that it would

take thirty-two years for a man to get around."

His brother groaned. He was stout and not energetic save in the matter

of wholesale dry-goods.

"Thank Heaven it won't take thirty-two years to see Mrs. Van Tassel," he

remarked devoutly.

There were no doubts or scruples in Jack's mind as to accepting his

invitation, at least for the present. Indeed, this reconciliation

between himself and the Bryants, as he still often found himself calling

his old friends, altered the whole trend of his life. He felt a new

satisfaction in living; a new desire for home; a willingness which

amounted to necessity to shake the dust of Boston from his feet, and

once more to make of Chicago a permanent abiding-place. His sense of

loneliness, an aching one still at times, abated. His own place waited

for him. The friendship of these cousins, kind and helpful in their

way, could never be to him like that of those girls, the only sisters he

had ever known, who had so long divided with him his father's affection

and care. He was going home. It was the first sensation of the sort

that he had had for years.

He did not try to conceal his satisfaction from Mrs. Page when he said

to her his _au revoir_. He expressed sincere gratitude for her kindness

and hospitality, but she saw that he was not sorry to have no plan for

returning to Boston, and felt a little piqued despite Jack's enthusiasm

over the plan which would soon make them a reunited family party.

"I have not seen Jack so gay since Uncle Richard died," she said that

night to Gorham.

"No. His alienation from Mrs. Van Tassel and her sister has worried him

a good deal, I know," responded Page. "This final burial of the hatchet

must be a great relief to a fellow so sensitive as Jack is."

But this explanation was not sufficient to account to Mrs. Page for Van

Tassel's jubilant spirits. He had not sprung up three stairs at a time,

and whistled and sung over his packing, just because of obtaining the

forgiveness of two young women whose feelings he had outraged.

"Men are stupid," she soliloquized. "I know that Jack is in love."

With this truly feminine solution of her cousin's conduct she was the

better satisfied because she would so soon have opportunity of verifying

her own perspicacity by ocular proof. But her diagnosis would have been

a surprise to Jack. No lover-like haste mingled with the impatience he

felt at the lateness of his train on the June afternoon when he reached

Chicago; and when finally he found himself on the familiar home street,

even its unfamiliarity seemed representative of the pleasant new state

of things which had come into his life. His flying visit during the bad

weather of six weeks before had not shown the old neighborhood in its

present finished condition.

Van Tassel smiled as a coach and six rattled by him, the notes of its

"mellow horn" breaking in impertinently upon the strains of an orchestra

at the adjacent fashionable hotel. "Can this be quiet little Hyde

Park?" he asked himself.

How the long June evenings of his boyhood came back to him as he

sauntered down the changed street! How the thrushes used to sing here

at this hour! How the boys and girls who could muster anything to

navigate, from a scow to a trim canoe or sailboat, used to launch their

craft, early in these long evenings, and sometimes lashing the boats

together, a dozen in a row, would drift over the rocking waves and sing

by the hour beneath a moon which electricity had not yet forced out of a

long-established business!

The wild shore was changed, cultivated, and trimmed into order according

to fashion now, like the young people who once disported over it in free

country fashion.

Jack could not whistle the scrap from "Carmen" against the insistent

rhythm of "After the Ball" which was being performed by a uniformed

functionary from the hotel who passed him under the old familiar elms.

But Clover was on the piazza to meet him, a gracious genius of home in

her blue gown, with the welcoming light in her eyes.

"I told you not to stay for me," said Jack, coming up the steps, his hat

in his hand.

"I know," returned Clover, looking down into his happy, handsome face.

"I stayed for my own sake as well as yours. I have been at the Fair all

day, and did not feel like going down this evening. Mildred went from

town with the Ogdens on their drag to take supper in Old Vienna. She

wished me to give you an extra shake of the hand for her."

"Thank you, Clover," he answered, and he held her hand a moment as they

interchanged a look that had in it reminiscence, but reminiscence from

which all bitterness was gone. The sweet summer air seemed throbbing

with their love for him with whom every part of this home was connected.

Miss Berry appeared at the house door. She started at the pretty

tableau she saw, and the pure white Christmas when she pleaded for this

woman with a heart-sore man passed like a vision across the fair June

scene.

She would have withdrawn, but Van Tassel saw her. "How do you do, Aunt

Love?" he said, and then she came forward to return his cordial

greeting.

"Isn't this a queer thing, for me to be in Chicago, Mr. Jack?"

"It is just as it should be," he returned. "Now when we get Gorham and

Mr. and Mrs. Page here, we shall be a complete party."

"Mr. and Mrs. Page promise me July," said Clover, "but your cousin

Gorham seems to think he would better stay at the hotel. We won't

quarrel with him at this distance." She smiled. "Well, Jack, will you

go upstairs? Is it to be hammock or Fair this evening?"

"I can scarcely wait till to-morrow for the Fair, yet I don't like to

leave you at once."

"Don't mind that. I should enjoy seeing your first view, and should

have saved myself for to-night except that I could not escape personally

conducting a friend to-day who was very kind to us last year."

"Come in and eat something first, Mr. Jack," said Miss Berry, so

anxiously that Van Tassel laughed.

"I am sure, Aunt Love, if I have the good luck to meet you in heaven,

the first thing you will do will be to urge upon me some manna or

angel's food, or whatever may be on the bill of fare."

"Hush, child. Come straight in, for daylight is precious."

"Thank you, but I knew that, and so I took lunch in the train. I

expected only to carom on the house as it were, and then make a bee-line

for the great show. We did have the first view of it together, Clover,

you know."

The dimple dipped in Clover's cheek just as of old. "It will seem

different to you to-night," she answered. "That was impressive and

solemn; but now-- No, I won't be so foolish as to try to describe what

is incomparable. I will only say, Go. You will be grateful for whatever

feeble standards of comparison you have gained by travel."

*CHAPTER XV.*

*THE COURT OF HONOR.*

Jack jumped into a Beach wagon as it rolled along from the hotel, and

drove down East End Avenue, approaching the gigantic failure known as

the Spectatorium, whose bulky, half-clothed skeleton upreared against

the sky like a type of blighted hope.

Following Clover's advice, he entered the Park at the Fifty-seventh

Street entrance. A band was playing on its aerial perch above the

Eskimo village, and Jack smiled to hear the gay, assured strains of

"After the Ball" soaring above a vigorous drum accompaniment. He walked

across the bridge and looked down where the Eskimos in their white robes

with the peaked hoods propelled their slender canoes noiselessly amid

the darkening shadows of the willows.

Straight before him to Michigan's brink stretched an electric-lighted

avenue, flanked on one side by State buildings, and on the other by that

lion-guarded Greek Palace of Art whose columns, even pictured, send a

thrill of grateful delight to the hearts of those who have passed within

its portals.

The fresh verdure of the lawns showed living green, as Jack passed on to

the right until he gained the waterside of the Art Building, and there

paused to gaze across at the edifices on the opposite shores. Towers

and domes of all shapes and sizes showed amid the June foliage. Every

beauty of form and tint surrounded him, divided by broad spaces of

rippling water. He was in a city of preternatural loveliness. What

wonder that a noiseless boat came gliding to his feet in answer to his

wish to explore these distant, fairy vistas. He stepped within, and

silently the little craft sped on.

The white loveliness of Brazil, the alabaster lace work of the poetical

Fisheries,--Van Tassel glanced over his shoulder as they were left

behind, and in a minute more the lofty, winged angels of the Woman's

Building blessed his sight.

The dainty conceits of Puck and the White Star melted from his vision to

make way for the glories of the Horticultural treasure house, surmounted

by its illuminated crystal dome. Lilies, red, yellow, and white, were

asleep in the stone-guarded lakelet, upon which smiled the wreathed

marble beauty of women and babies on the facade; and in contrast, next

sprang to life in electric light the alert equestrian figures of cowboy

and Indian controlling restive steed, and peering forth into the night.

But an exclamation escaped Van Tassel's lips as the Transportation

Building was passed, and the arched grandeur of the Golden Door shone

down upon him. The launch turned, and thus ideally, without sound or

effort, he was borne on between Wooded Island and the homes of Mines and

Electricity, approaching the vast expanse of the Liberal Arts building,

only to turn smoothly again beneath the bridge, and glide on toward that

Mecca of all Exposition pilgrims, the unique Court of Honor.

Jack had stood there once in a still, chill time of waiting, and had

seen the dead marble city quickened to life. Now the heart which began

to beat that day had made all the whiteness to glow. He forgot to

breathe as, passing beneath the last bridge, he emerged where the sea

horses reared wildly above cascades that went splashing down the stone

steps beneath Columbia's triumphal barge.

Through pink and purple, the rippling opaline water in the Grand Basin

was losing its sunset hues, and paling, as the fairy boat passed on. The

gold of the statue of the Republic was turning to silver. The figures

on the snowy palaces that faced the four sides of the lagoon still stood

white against the darkening background. Angels poised on soft, strong

wings, seemed vivified as the day died. Jack saw their beckoning hands

through a mist. He heard the penetrating tones of their silver trumpets

through the lingering sweetness of a serenade that proceeded from a

distant pavilion. Strange influences were about him, and he was glad

that no mortal friend stood by.

His father had worked and planned and striven for this. Did he see the

result? Could he know the success that had crowned the efforts of his

confreres?

Suddenly, across the spontaneous regret that sprang in Jack's heart at

the realization of what Death had snatched from his loved one, came an

idea which was like a glimpse of new light. Since such a miracle of

beauty as now lay about him was possible in this lower world, might it

not be indeed true--

Jack's thoughts became confused. They had followed so long and

yearningly out into that unknown country where his father had gone, and

about which he had never before troubled himself, that he had grasped

for his own consolation a belief that it was a reality; and now

something in this stately and beautiful place built with men's hands

made him recall vaguely the Bible declaration:--

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart

of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

It was with reverence and a species of awe that Van Tassel gazed about

him. The Court of Honor had given him his first approach to a

realization of the possibilities of the Celestial City.

Only gradually the details of his surroundings impressed him. His boat

glided toward the Peristyle, and he began to notice that the water was

picturesque with gondolas, propelled by their bright-sashed oarsmen.

Beneath a massive arch he could look out upon the great lake, his lake,

his old playmate, now grown grandly alien as guardian of this mystical

city. He knew every tone of its voice. He had braved it in its stormy

strength, and gone to sleep at night to its lullaby.

Now its surf, breaking against the outer stones, appealed to his moved

heart in the song of a past gone forever, and he did not know whether

its proximity, the voice of this single friend in a place of strangers,

gave the crown of pain or of joy to his tender ecstasy.

And now the royal palaces so lavishly decorated with painting and

sculpture began to assume their further nightly decoration of jewels.

Tiny incandescent lights ran swiftly in diamond necklaces and diadems

about cornice and pediment of buildings, and glittered in long lines

close above the waters of the lagoon. The crown of the Administration

dome shone out in immobile fire, while torches of flame, "yellow,

golden, glorious," flared across its facades.

Van Tassel had no well-meant descriptions of this view to contend

against. No one had endeavored to prepare him for what he was to see.

To him these wonders were appearing for the first time; one after

another spontaneous, unexpected change of scene forming a _crescendo_ of

loveliness. More and more unreal grew the fairy spectacle. Less and less

did he try to realize the impossible fact that he was in a familiar

locality.

He left the boat mechanically because his quiet

fellow-passengers--figures also of a dream--did so; and when he paused

again, he was standing near a giant horse and plowboy near the water's

edge. Behind him stretched the spaces of lawn in front of the Liberal

Arts edifice, softly green in the rays of many arc-light moons. He

gazed westward toward the Administration Building, before which three

great fountains played, and suddenly its regal jeweled dome became more

splendid in the surrounding darkness. The cameos upon its surface shone

out clear-cut and white in the night. A moment thus, then the carving

disappeared, and again the electric jewels stood alone against the sky.

That magic, all-revealing light flitted to rest upon the great central

fountain where the Muses propelled the barge of Progress through

musically plashing waters; and while the erect figure in the chair of

state still looked proudly out into the night, all other brightness

faded. Even the jewels vanished. The palaces stood dark and mysterious

beneath the stars. All at once a light was thrown upon the group which

surmounted the Peristyle.

Columbus in his four-horse chariot shone white above the shadowy

columns, driving in from the broad waters toward distant, glowing,

advancing Columbia.

Van Tassel, spellbound, yielded still more to the mystery of the place

and hour, and a subdued murmur caused him to glance again westward. The

fountains which flanked the great barge on either side had ceased to

play, while a strange beam of light shot heavenward from either one. At

last at the foot of the beam a bright liquid bubbling began, which

seemed to gather strength, and at last leaped from both fountains high

in air. This vivid red changed to violet, to gold, to emerald, to molten

silver, breaking in brilliant showers and mists. Apart from the lofty

middle jet in each one, circled low whirls of bright water with such

swiftness as to stand like sheaves of wheat placed in a ring about the

central cascade.

Van Tassel wished to have a fairer view of both fountains, and changed

his position to another side of the great horse. Around him were other

shadowy beings whom he did not regard. Near his new standpoint and

rather in his way was a woman seated. He did not look to see upon what

she sat. In his present state of mind he would have supposed it a

throne had he thought about it at all; but he did not think about it,

and the throne was in his way, so he unconsciously leaned slightly upon

it in his effort to see.

The figure in the chair turned her head. "Did you find them?" she

asked, then added coldly, "Excuse me," and turned back again.

Van Tassel started like a somnambulist wakened from sleep. Another

familiar voice had spoken to him out of the past. At the same moment

the search light which had been upon the Quadriga sped to the angel

above the pediment of the Agricultural Building. So light her poise, so

strong her wings, so beneficent her outstretched arms, it seemed

impossible in that mystical irradiation that she should not quit her

lightly touched support and float downward to waiting mortals.

A need for sympathy upsprang in Van Tassel's heart. Involuntarily he

spoke:--

"Is that not beautiful, Mildred?"

"Jack!" The exclamation in amazed tones as the girl sat up alertly in

her wheeled chair. "I was just wondering if you had come. When did you

arrive?"

He took the hand she offered. "I don't know," he answered slowly. "Do

you see that angel?"

"Indeed I do. That is my angel."

"Our angel then. Let me share it."

"You shall," replied the girl generously. She waited a moment in

smiling silence; "but that isn't our hand," she added at last. "That is

mine. Haven't you had it a good while, considering it is a loan?"

"Have I? Well," and Jack slowly released it.

"I am in dreamland, Mildred. I am glad to meet you here, whether you

are a reality or not."

"Oh! You remind me of those creepy shades in Vedder's picture where one

asks the other who he is and the second answers shiverily that he

doesn't know. 'I only died last night,' is what he was inconsiderate

enough to reply. I have never forgiven him."

Jack stood at her side and leaned an arm on the back of her chair.

"This is a sort of No Man's Land too," he answered, "and when it grows

dark here one feels that these marble creatures gain life. See that

population on the Peristyle! They belong here. We are only strangers."

"I see the spell of the White City is upon you, else you would certainly

express some surprise at finding me alone."

"It is only one of the good and wonderful things that have befallen me

to-night. It seems perfectly natural. I needed you, Mildred. I needed

some tie to the time in which life was worth living to assure me that it

is so still, and that there is perhaps more use in it than there would

be in sinking into the opal water and dying rapturously in this

enchanted place."

"Why Jack, kindred spirit; you have it as severely as we have!"

The girl extended her gloved hand impetuously, and Van Tassel accepted

it with alacrity.

"Are you going to take it away again immediately?" he inquired, slowly

waking to the situation. "I was enjoying holding it before more than I

realized until I was bereft. One must have sympathy in a place like

this."

"Oh I know it," she said, speaking hastily as she withdrew her hand and

looked over her shoulder apprehensively, "and I am afraid every second

that Mr. Ogden will come back. When our party left Old Vienna, we

separated and promised to rendezvous by the plow-horses, _I_ thought,

but Mr. Ogden understood that it was to be at the Liberal Arts entrance,

and he has gone now to see if they are there. My chair-boy is over

yonder resting his weary bones on the steps. I never can endure to have

the poor things stand around any more than they have to."

"I trust the Liberal Arts entrance is a sufficiently ambiguous term to

detain our friend some time," returned Jack. "Isn't there some white

magic that could be practiced on him? Of course no black art would be

possible here, but I must say I should have to come down by easy stages

before I could converse with Ogden to-night, and I don't want to leave

you."

"I don't want you to, either. I--I especially don't. And I told Mr.

Ogden that if we met you here I should have to go with you-- Yes, I put

it that way, for I told him we expected you, and it wasn't quite the

thing for me to come away; but of course I hadn't the least idea we

_should_ meet you."

"And you told him that too, I suppose," remarked Jack dryly, all his

dreaminess departed. "You declared it would be your duty to go with me

if we did meet, but of course such a calamity for Ogden was improbable.

I know just how you put it. Girls know how to smooth a man the right

way. Now that we have met, and Ogden is out of the way, you tell me you

especially want me to remain with you, and don't want him."

Mildred looked up at the speaker, and after a moment burst into a

mirthful laugh.

"Where is our angel?" she asked.

Jack glanced across the lagoon, but all was shadow save for the rosy

glow in the colonnade of the Agricultural Building.

"Vanished!" exclaimed Mildred. "Frightened back by your naughty temper

just as she was about to fly down to us."

"I don't like to think of you as the least bit of a coquette," said Van

Tassel.

"Then don't. It is extremely disrespectful. Oh, Mr. Ogden, you are back

again. The unexpected always happens, you see, and truth is stranger

than fiction. Here is Mr. Van Tassel, after all."

"Well, Jack." The two men greeted each other, each endeavoring to

conceal his dissatisfaction. "It is possible to find a needle in the

haymow, then," said Ogden. "Miss Bryant told me you were expected about

now. Your first visit? What do you think of our little show?"

"Can't say yet," returned Jack shortly. "I am just going to see another

part of it."

"The fireworks, I suppose. They will start, now the fountains have

stopped."

"Fireworks? No!" exclaimed Van Tassel in genuine repugnance. What

sacrilege for pyrotechnics to paint the lily! His eyes fell upon a

revolving globe of light inside a window of the Electricity Building.

Its color changed with each revolution. "I think I will wander over in

that direction," he said.

"The fireworks are always fine," remarked Mildred. "Are you sure you

would not prefer to come to the lake shore and see them? The

reflections in the water give beautiful effects." As she spoke, the

girl left her wheeled-chair.

"Oh, don't rise, Miss Bryant," begged Ogden hastily. "I will find our

pusher. The rest of the party did understand that we were to come to

the Liberal Arts entrance. They will meet us at Baker's Chocolate

House."

"Don't let me detain you," said Van Tassel courteously. The electric

jewels were again running in lines of light around the buildings. Jack

could see the expression in Mildred's face as she stood before him.

She waited a moment and Ogden stepped aside to find the guide.

"I don't want to see a rocket go sputtering over this place," explained

Jack, for the girl's eyes demanded something.

She gave a short laugh. "You poor, provincial Bostonian," she remarked.

"Go your way; and when you discover what the fireworks of the White City

really are, perhaps your fastidiousness will not be shocked. Certainly,

Mr. Ogden, I am ready. _Au revoir_, Jack."

"Good-by, old fellow," said Ogden, as Mildred resumed her position in

the chair. He was beaming again with relief from the apprehended loss

of Miss Bryant's society.

Van Tassel moved away in the opposite direction from that they took: but

no amount of attempted concentration on his surroundings would restore

to him the dreamy delight of half an hour ago. He saw continually the

reproach and surprise in Mildred's eyes.

"What right had I to take her away from Ogden?" his thoughts protested.

"It was all nonsense for her to think that hospitality demanded it."

Then his reflections passed over from the indignant hazel eyes to Miss

Bryant's cavalier. The latter's uneasy devotion had been apparent even

in the few phrases Jack had heard him say. The eagerly bent head, the

short nervous laughs with which he interspersed his sentences told the

story: and instantly curiosity leaped up in Van Tassel's heart as to

Mildred's real sentiments toward her admirer.

She had said she especially wanted Jack not to leave her to-night. What

did that mean? Jack walked a little faster because he suddenly knew

that it was the fact that she had said that, coupled with Ogden's

lover-like manner which had made him hold aloof.

He had made a point of giving Ogden his chance, and now he felt ashamed

of it. Why should he have felt injured because Mildred had a lover?

Probably she had a dozen, and what wonder if she had?

He felt humiliated, and convicted of disloyalty. Milly Bryant had wanted

defense from something, and had appealed to him in vain.

Jack had passed along the side of the Electrical Building and crossed

the bridge to Wooded Island by this time, and, deciding to postpone

further exploration, determined to walk straight up through the Cornell

Avenue entrance and go home. But as thousands of people, know to the

cost of their groaning muscles, getting on Wooded Island and getting off

it are two very different things. Jack wandered about for some time

before he found another bridge, and when he did so, it led off to the

east, and his aimless walk brought him to the lake shore. Cannon-like

reports were sounding upon the air, and superb bombs bursting high above

the water broke into lavish showers of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds.

The shore was black with a watching multitude, and Van Tassel found

himself drawn to its outskirts to watch and wonder with the rest.

Volcanoes and serpents of flame, bouquets of a hundred rockets at once,

filled the night with brightness, paling the stars, and illuminating the

surging water; and when a succession of fiery white cascades slowly

unrolled their graceful curves and stood poised in air, showering a

light as of day upon the scene, Jack joined in the cheers that, with

whistles from a congregation of boats saluted the gorgeous spectacle.

"I'm a fool," he said, as he resumed his walk northward. "I am sure

Mildred would have given me her hand again on that."

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*A MASSACHUSETTS CELEBRATION.*

"I see by the paper there's some sort o' doin's at the Massachusetts

house to-day," observed Miss Berry to Clover, as the two stood in the

dining-room one morning after breakfast was over.

"A day when you ought to visit the Fair then, surely," replied her

companion.

"Why, yes. I don't know but I will," returned Miss Lovina ruminatively.

"And you ought to make an early start, Aunt Love. You are not the only

loyal Yankee in town."

"Just so," said the housekeeper placidly. "Mrs. Van Tassel, we must

have a chocolate puddin' pretty soon. Mr. Jack was fond o' chocolate

from a child. I well remember"--

"Yes, I want to hear all about it some time; but you know how hard it is

for you to get an early start for the Fair. Let me attend to your

department to-day, and you go down to the Massachusetts house and have a

good time."

"My dear, I shall get there in good season. Don't you worry a mite.

Independence is won. The country's safe and my bein' on hand at just

such a minute don't signify. I'd rather go through my reg'lar routine.

I'm happier that way."

Thus it was that when Aunt Love stepped leisurely through the Cornell

Avenue turnstile, taking her way down between Kentucky and West Virginia

and around Pennsylvania's edifice, she saw that the Massachusetts

Building was surrounded by a crowd.

"That's clever," she murmured, in nowise disturbed by the evident fact

that she could not approach near enough to hear the speeches. "There's

plenty o' folks to show an interest."

The wreathed facade of New York's palatial home rose beside her, and she

ascended the broad marble steps, passed through the hall, and out upon

the eastern porch. A fountain plashed coolly in its centre, wicker

rocking-chairs stood about, dull blue portieres were looped between its

pillars. Miss Berry was warm and tired from her walk. The chairs looked

inviting. She sank into one of them, and listened to the lulling tone

of the fountain while she looked across the street at the more energetic

patriots or more curious idlers, who lined the way to the Hancock house

in the hope of seeing the dignitaries of the occasion pass in and out.

A fine band stationed in the yard of the mansion began to play

inspiringly. As Miss Berry grew refreshed under the influence of the

silvery falling water and her comfortable chair, her anxiety to see and

hear increased. Her point of view was unsatisfactory, and yet the idea

of joining the crowd of spectators was not attractive.

"I wonder if they'll let you go upstairs in this grand, big place," she

pondered. "One o' those blue fellers'll stop me quick enough if I

can't. They know a good deal better what a body can't do than what she

can."

Miss Berry might be excused for grumbling. She had made her acquaintance

with the Fair City at a date before the Columbian Guards had learned

their points of compass; and she would have to become lighter on her

feet before she could forgive them the unnecessary walking which their

blundering directions had caused her to perform.

She left the shady stone porch, and, passing through the spacious

apartment which led to the hall, began to ascend the stairs. No one

protested, and she took courage to remark her surroundings.

"The New Yorkers seem to like any color so it's red," she mused, noting

the Pompeian glow of the wall. Of course a Massachusetts woman on this

day must not be uncritical of her neighbor's efforts.

But when Miss Lovina entered the banquet hall she stood amazed. Only

for a moment, however. It was an unrighteous place. She felt it. She

refused to be dazzled by its prismatic glass and its painted cherubs.

There was an unholy luxury, a theatrical suggestion about its velvet

boxes. Miss Berry, looking straight before her, hastened swiftly as she

dared across its polished floor and through the light room beyond, out

upon an upper balcony which overlooked the festivities of her own

substantial and respectable State.

Yes, Miss Berry could breathe out here. Coming from the seductive

shadow of the dim hall, the sunlight seemed doubly clear. The heavenly

blue of the firmament bent above snowy and golden domes, flying flags,

and winding waterways, while the bewitching sparkle of Lake Michigan's

electric blues and peacock greens seemed more vital as one listened to

the rhythmic harmonies poured forth on the summer air by the musicians

below. It was a season of delight. The whole atmosphere seemed charged

with gayety.

A man leaning his elbows on the rail of the balcony was thinking this

when Miss Lovina emerged from the doorway. She glanced at him, then

glanced again, then gazed.

"Of course 't ain't him; but if it don't look like him!" she mused.

The more she looked, the stronger grew the resemblance of that back to

one she knew. The man was interested in the celebration over the way.

Why should she not stand beside him a minute?

Acting on the impulse, Aunt Love also leaned her arm on the rail, and

waited a second before stealing a furtive curious look at her neighbor's

face. Their eyes met. In a moment both her hands were being shaken.

"For the land's sake, Mr. Gorham!"

"Hurrah for us," he answered, laughing. "To think that I should have

come unexpectedly upon this celebration and you. What more could a

Bostonian ask?"

"You might ask to be in the Massachusetts house instead of over here in

Gotham."

"I fancy only invited guests go in there to-day; but at any rate I have

only just arrived, and this is a fine place for the general effect. So

that is the old Hancock house."

"Yes. I remember the real one very well."

"How well the grounds look. I am anxious to get in. You have visited

it, of course."

"Yes, I have. I must say to you, Mr. Gorham, I had to laugh to see some

o' the stuff they've put in a glass case over there. I've got some

things in my attic in Pearfield they could have had and welcome."

"Perhaps they would have been glad of them," remarked Page.

Miss Berry laughed. "I never thought before o' puttin' Aunt Jerushy's

old calash under glass for a show," she said. "It would 'a' looked

simple to me; but there's papers in one o' the downstairs rooms that are

interestin'. There's no doubt about it. It does make a body's blood

boil to see the old superstitions down in black and white, and think o'

the past sufferin's of innocent folks. There's one paper there makin'

out a case against some poor critter for havin' dealin's with the devil,

'way back in Salem times."

"I want to see everything in that house," returned Gorham, with

anticipatory relish.

"Well, give an account of yourself," said Miss Berry, after a moment's

silence. "Have you been to Mrs. Van Tassel's?"

"No, not yet."

"But you are comin', ain't you?"

"To call, certainly."

"But you've been invited to stay?"

"Yes, I know; but I have taken a room at the Beach."

"Why, what's that for? Mrs. Van Tassel will think that's queer."

"She will have guests enough without me."

"It is your Uncle Richard's house," persisted Miss Berry.

"Yes, that is just the trouble," returned Page quietly.

Aunt Love sighed. "Well, I was 'lottin' on helpin' to make you all

comfortable."

"I haven't a doubt of it, you dear soul. Be sure that only stern

principle drives me from under your wing, and please get me an

invitation to dinner soon, won't you? How is Jack?"

"He's lively. I heard 'em at breakfast talkin' about all comin' down to

the illumination tonight."

"I wonder if I might join the party."

"Of course. Nobody knew you were comin' out so soon."

"I didn't expect it myself. It was a sudden determination."

"They are goin' to have their supper down here at six o'clock, I heard

'em say at breakfast, at the Marine--Caffy, I think they call it. At

any rate I know the house first-rate; and if 't wan't for the Art

Buildin' I could show it to you from here. It's brown, and that's queer

enough in this place, and then it's all covered with candle snuffers.

Just as soon as I once sensed it that the Columbian Guards were put here

to look pretty and didn't know where anything was, I made up my mind if

I didn't learn the g'ography o' the place I'd be a cripple; so I buckled

down to it and I'm most ready to stand an examination. Miss Bryant told

me when I first came down that if I'd just take the opposite direction

to what a Guard told me, I'd find myself all right; and that did work

pretty well, but it's better yet to know your own way around and not

have to make calculations."

Page nodded smilingly.

"It does beat all," Aunt Love went on, "how when you're at this north

end o' the Fair, the Art Buildin' is just across the street from

everything. It does seem sometimes as if it hadn't any end; and when

you once get into it. My!"

"Yes, I suppose so," said Page, "but," he added with the courage of a

new-comer, "I propose to see all that's in it; and speaking of

thoroughness, have you looked over this building?"

"I just glanced as I came along," replied Miss Berry cautiously. "It's

pretty worldly and glitterin', just like the folks that built it. That

hall in there with the slippery floor"--

"A ball-room, yes. Let us go back and examine."

"Oh, it's a ball-room, is it!" said Miss Berry, following the young man

back into the lofty apartment where sunlight sifting through caught in

the prismatic chandeliers and lay in rainbows on the floor.

They stood at the rope-guarded door of the dainty tea-room. Page

pointed out to his companion the beauties of wreathed pillars and mural

decorations in the lofty hall, but he observed that the light of

suspicion still shone in her eyes.

"Let us try the roof, Aunt Love," he remarked. "You can see the Hancock

house again from there, and I'm sure you will be more comfortable."

"Oh, I know this is all elegant, Mr. Gorham, and it's a great thing to

have such riches opened up for everybody to see. Why, downstairs

there's a gold piano, and velvet and silk curtains; but folks don't want

to set their hearts on gold pianos and diamond chandeliers. You ain't

goin' to take that elevator, are you?" she added, dropping her

virtuously impersonal tone for one of anxiety.

"Certainly. You must have learned the importance of economizing steps

here."

"Better get lame from walkin' than break your leg in a fallin'

elevator," remarked Miss Berry. "Accidents in the papers do scare a

body." But she consented to run the risk, and soon was standing beside

Page in one of the square towers on the roof, with the Fair City spread

out around them.

"I suppose you have visited the Midway," remarked Page, looking over to

where the Ferris wheel revolved, slowly and steadily.

Miss Berry threw up both her hands. "Yes, all I want to," she returned

sonorously.

"Don't say that. I expect you to pilot me to all the shows."

"You'll be disappointed, then. Civilization's good enough for me. If

I'd had a call to minister to naked savages, I s'pose I'd 'a' been given

grace to conquer; but to listen to 'em yell, and see 'em dance, is a

mighty queer thing for Christians to seek for entertainment, it seems to

me. If I could go into that Pleasance with plenty o' hot water and

Castile soap, and some sensible clothes, and could help those poor

critters to a more godly way o' livin' that would be a different thing;

but when I want a good time I ain't goin' to try to get it bein' trod on

by camels and yelled at by Turks, all the time smellin' smells I don't

know the name of and would be afraid to. No, sir."

Page laughed. Miss Berry looked as though Michigan's breezes were

powerless to cool her.

"Perhaps the Midway Plaisance is an acquired taste," he said. "You may

like it better, later."

"No, I've seen enough of it if I can't be a missionary, but I'm glad all

the natives have got it warm at last, anyway."

"Which natives?"

"Oh, all those foreign folks. They're all natives of some place, I

s'pose, and they do say when 't was rainy and cold and muddy they had a

forlorn time of it in the Pleasance."

"Yes; we used to read about it, and my brother Robert nicknamed the

street then the Mudway Nuisance. We all laughed at the joke but Jack.

It is against Jack's principles to jest at sacred things like Chicago

and her Fair. I shall have to get him to show me the fine points of the

Midway. He won't refuse me."

"No, indeed. There's plenty that like it. The place gets more crowded

every day. Why, Mr. Gorham," Miss Berry dropped her rather sad, musing

tone, and spoke feelingly. "That Midway is just a representation of

matter, and this great White City is an emblem of mind. In the Midway

it's some dirty and all barbaric. It deafens you with noise; the worst

folks in there are avaricious and bad, and the best are just children in

their ignorance, and when you're feelin' bewildered with the smells and

sounds and sights, always changin' like one o' these kaleidoscopes, and

when you come out o' that mile-long babel where you've been elbowed and

cheated, you pass under a bridge--and all of a sudden you are in a

great, beautiful silence. The angels on the Woman's Buildin' smile down

and bless you, and you know that in what seemed like one step, you've

passed out o' darkness into light." Aunt Love paused thoughtfully.

"It's come to me, Mr. Gorham, that perhaps dyin' is goin' to be

somethin' like crossin' the dividin' line that separates the Midway from

the White City. I've asked myself when I've passed under that bridge

and felt the difference down so deep, what did make it so strong? 'T

ain't only the quiet and the grandeur o' those buildin's compared with

the fantastic things you've left behind; I believe it's just the fact

that the makers o' the Fair believed in God and put Him and their

enlightenment from Him into what they did; and we feel it some like we'd

feel an electric shock."

Page nodded. "You make me more interested than ever in my prospect of

sightseeing," he said. "Now I propose that you show me the way to that

cafe where you say the others will come this evening, and we will take

lunch together there. Not a word of objection, Aunt Love. This is a

great day. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us charge on the cafe

under the candle-snuffers."

The two friends descended to the street, and Page, submitting to Miss

Berry's guidance, was led through the archway running beneath the

eastern corridor of the Art Building. "I won't attempt to take you

through the buildin' itself," said Miss Berry, "'cause I know well

enough I shouldn't get you through before the middle o' the afternoon;

partly 'cause you'd stop to look at the statuary, and partly 'cause the

first thing I always do when I get in there is to lose myself. I've

thought, up to this summer, that I had a pretty good bump o' locality;

but land! let me turn around in that place a few times and all those

signs, 'East Wall,' 'North Wall,' and the rest, don't mean any more to

me than Greek would. You'll see how 't is when you try it."

Page was only half listening. He paused by the brink of the water,

fascinated by the sparkling, shining, noonday beauty before him.

Gondolas were stealing from beneath the bridges, and electric launches

passing and repassing silently and smoothly over the changing waves.

"We must get into one of those boats, Aunt Love," he said with

enthusiasm.

"You can't sail to the restaurant. That's right over yonder," observed

Miss Berry practically, indicating with her parasol the many-towered

roof of the Marine Cafe.

Page sighed. "Do what you like with me," he answered resignedly. "I

can see already that the summer will be too short."

"If your breath ain't, that's all you need fret about," returned Miss

Lovina, as they started eastward, along the bank of the pond. "Many's

the time in the last weeks I've wished I only weighed one hundred.

Don't those ducks and swans have it comfortable?"

Page watched the undulating motions of the pretty birds that eyed them

as they passed.

"No, I didn't bring my lunch; hadn't the least notion o' stayin',"

replied Miss Berry over her shoulder, to the graceful followers who soon

veered away, secure of dining sumptuously every day.

"These here steps," remarked Aunt Love, as she climbed up to Costa

Rica's entrance and down on the other side, "do seem an awful

aggravation when you're tired, which I ain't now, of course. There's no

gettin' out of 'em except by walkin' all around Robin Hood's barn."

Page found his companion surprisingly intelligent as to the names of the

buildings they passed lingeringly on the way to the cafe, and once

arrived at that haven, they proceeded to take a leisurely lunch, after

which Miss Berry allowed herself to be easily persuaded to ride around

the lagoon in an electric launch.

Page found so much to interest him in this initial trip, the quiet

gliding motion, cool air, and constantly stimulating panorama were so

charming, that he scarcely knew when to abandon this certain good for

one more doubtful. At last, however, he and Miss Berry found themselves

roaming beneath the gilded towers of the Electricity Building. Miss

Lovina gazed benevolently and uncomprehendingly upon one and another

evidence of marvelous achievement, waiting patiently whenever Page

paused to examine and question.

"There's one place here," she volunteered at last, "where I will say for

'em they've done a cute thing. They've harnessed chain lightnin' so it

pulls up and down a zigzag path just as tame as my cow'll go to pasture.

Come and see it, Mr. Gorham."

So Page was piloted through the spectacular southeast portion of the

building, where color and movement thrilled through every phase of

intensity, from the steady glow of the living green pillars of the

Egyptian temple, to the various whirling globes and wheels, and the

racing bubbles of changing light which sped along their irregular

tracks.

"Ah, here are the telephones," remarked Page.

"Yes; do you know, Mr. Gorham, till I came to Chicago I'd never seen a

telephone? I find folks don't make anything of 'em here. Mrs. Van

Tassel ain't any more afraid of her telephone than she is of her sewin'

machine. When I first came I used to jump a foot every time that sharp

little bell rung; but I made up my mind that I was havin' advantages,

and that I wasn't goin' to slight 'em. I made up my mind I was goin' to

speak into that box, no matter how fast the chills traveled up my back,

and I did it; it makes me as weak as a kitten yet, but I just will be up

with the times I live in if I get a chance; and ain't a telephone a

perfect wonder now?"

"It is, indeed, and they are improving them all the time. I see there

is a long-distance telephone. How should you like to talk to New York?"

"I shouldn't like to make a fool o' myself that way or any other, Gorham

Page."

"But really, Aunt Love"--

"Save your breath, Mr. Gorham. I know this buildin's full o' queer

doin's and it's a good place to play jokes on a body, but there's limits

to even a greenhorn's credulity."

"I was never more in earnest, I assure you. It is possible to talk to

New York."

Miss Berry regarded her companion severely. "Then it's blasphemous.

That's all I've got to say."

"Why, I don't see that."

"Do you s'pose the Lord would have put New York a thousand miles away

from Chicago if he'd expected 'em to talk to each other?"

Page laughed. "I never thought of that before as a reason for the

antagonism between the two cities. Nonsense, Aunt Love; the world

moves, and you must move with it. You shall speak to New York and be

proud of yourself ever afterward. You know it is to be expected that

science will do everything possible toward annihilating space."

Page ascended the steps toward a silk-curtained cabinet; a uniformed boy

opened its glass door.

After remaining in the closet a minute and speaking a few sentences into

the telephone, he beckoned to Miss Berry who had remained standing at

the foot of the steps looking very apprehensive.

"Now, Aunt Love," he said encouragingly, as she slowly approached, a

do-or-die expression on her face. Had Miss Berry been of the Romish

church instead of being a "Con'regationalist in good and regular

standing," she would assuredly have crossed herself before entering that

tasteful little apartment.

Page smiled into his mustache as he placed the receiver in her hand,

fervently wishing that he might hear both sides of the impending

dialogue.

"Mr. Gorham," said Miss Berry, addressing him over her shoulder

impressively, "think of the miles, the hours, I traveled; the rivers and

lakes I crossed; the mountains I tunneled"--

"Yes, yes, Aunt Love; but don't keep our New York friend waiting."

"I feel prickly, Gorham. I think I'm goin' to faint."

"Oh no, you're not. Just say Hello," returned Page cheerily, his eyes

twinkling.

"Hello," quavered Miss Lovina, and promptly the answer came:--

_New York_. Is this Miss Berry?

_Miss Berry_. How did you know my name?

_New York_. A gentleman just told me to expect you. I am happy to meet

you, or to hear you, all the way from New York.

_Miss Berry_. Go away!

_New York_. Aren't you a little unreasonable, madam? I'm a good way

off already.

_Miss Berry_. How am I to be sure you ain't in the next room, sir?

_New York_. Do you hear me so distinctly?

_Miss Berry_. It is the most wonderful thing in the world if you are

real.

_New York_. Oh, I am real, I assure you, madam. I see you have been

making trips to the Midway, and your confidence in human nature is

shaken.

_Miss Berry_. You're just right there. I should like to talk to you

about the Midway. Have you been to the Fair yet?

_New York_. No; and alas, I'm afraid I'm not coming; but if I do, I'm

going to the Midway the first thing.

_Miss Berry_. Now, young man, you just stand there a minute, and I'll

convince you--"Hey?" for Gorham was pulling her sleeve.

"There are some more people waiting to speak, Aunt Love."

"What? Oh," Miss Berry looked dazed, relinquished the receiver, and

moved like a somnambulist out of the cabinet.

"You might have said good-by to your new friend," suggested Page.

"Mr. Gorham, tell me," spoke Aunt Love beseechingly. "If I was ever

good to you, if you ever liked my cookies, tell me the truth. Was that

all hocus-pocus, or was it genuine?"

"Why, it was genuine, Aunt Love. It is done every day in business."

"Well," Miss Berry stepped off energetically. "All is, then, I've capped

the climax o' my life. I don't calc'late to ever call anything wonderful

again."

But she did. Page took her upstairs to the gallery where a door opened

by magic when her foot touched the threshold; where the tel-autograph

reproduced a writer's chirography while transmitting his thoughts; where

a metal rod, passing along a person's spine, caused blue flames to leap

forth, crackling and spitting in Mephistophelean fashion, a cure which

Miss Berry thought worse than any known disease. She saw there, too,

the smallest steam-engine in the world, reposing its miniature

perfection in a walnut shell, and displaying its exquisite mechanism

only beneath a magnifying glass.

But the cooking of food and the hatching of chickens by electricity

appealed to Aunt Love so engrossingly that, after repeated vain efforts

to woo her away from both these attractions, Page finally took his leave

of her there, and his parting view showed Miss Berry gazing through the

side of an incubator where chicks were in every stage of existence, from

the first thrust of a yellow beak through the eggshell, to the freed and

bedraggled little wretch whose sole aim in life seemed to be to half hop

and half tumble across the incubator until its wet body rested directly

upon an incandescent light. These eventful journeys, with their

apparently suicidal goal, so absorbed Miss Berry that she could do

little more than wave her hand after Page as he set briskly off for

pastures new.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*THE BRONZE BABY.*

Somebody says that we only really live when we do not know that time is

passing. If that be true, Miss Berry lived intensely during the period

she passed in the gallery of the Electricity Building that afternoon.

"I wonder how late it is!" she asked herself at last with a start. "The

folks'll think I'm lost. I must hurry home directly."

But she sighed as she said it. To "hurry home" from this city of

magnificent distances was but a form of words.

"If I could only borrow the wings off 'n some o' those angels!" she

murmured as she hastened down the nearest flight of stairs; but doubtful

as she was of the lateness of the hour, she could not keep her mind from

straying back to the strange scenes in the miniature world she had been

watching. Next the incubator had been a little sandy inclosure in the

midst of which stood a small curtained house where the young chickens

could be brooded at will, and across whose front ran the defiant legend,

"Who cares for mother now!"

"I wonder how soon electricity'll take the place o' folks," she mused.

"Seems if 't won't take long. Yes, yes," she went on in answer to a

faint peeping that came from beneath her wrap, "we'll get home some time

to-night," and she hurried faster still, a pleased smile breaking over

her face; for Aunt Love was not alone. She had at the present moment

one of those emancipated chicks in a pasteboard box pressed to her side.

"I believe I'll take the Internal Road, and then the cars," she said to

herself. "There'll be an awful crowd at Sixtieth Street, but I can

stand consid'able squeezin'. I know I'm late."

She was late. Not that it mattered. She was to dine in solitary state

that evening in any case; but she had meant to reach the house in time

to carry the information of Mr. Page's arrival and his plan to meet his

friends; and in this she was disappointed. Only Blitzen was left at

home to give her his customary boisterous greeting, and she had before

her the difficult task of explaining and introducing to him her ball of

yellow fluff and impressing its sacredness upon his volatile mind.

Jack was the first to arrive at the rendezvous that evening, and to his

satisfaction Mildred was second. She sauntered up to the steps

accompanied by a young army officer at whom Jack stared down from his

post on the balcony. He had, however, sufficient self-control to

swallow his discontent. Mildred had somehow taught him this

self-control in the short space of a week, and he managed to walk to

meet her with an air of nonchalance suited to that with which she slowly

mounted the steps after dismissing her escort.

"Who is the military?" he asked lightly.

"A cousin of Helen Eames. He has been showing us over the Battle Ship."

"Indeed? I was there this afternoon too."

"Were you? It is awfully stuffy down below in that museum, isn't it?

Our party was glad to retreat to a private room and have a sherry

cobbler. Everything is beginning to be crowded now."

"What interests me," said Jack, placing a chair by one of the tables for

Mildred as he spoke, "is to know how soon you are going to give me a

day."

"Oh, any time," returned the girl as she seated herself.

"Any time! That is what you always say, but when I try to pin you down

you slip away."

"Wouldn't anybody?" smiled the other. There was something about the

curves at the corners of Mildred's upper lip and its downward dip in the

middle that made her smile more provoking than other girls'.

"There! You are slipping away again."

"No, indeed. I am far too tired and this is too comfortable."

"You have had an engagement every day since I have been here. You can't

deny it. What sort of a way is that to treat a guest?"

"You aren't my guest, you are Clover's."

"Clover is a daisy and always was," exclaimed Jack, regardless of

paradox. "She is the sweetest girl in the world."

"Of course," returned Mildred, raising a glass of water to her lips as

coolly as though she liked this.

"I ought to have gone with you that first evening," said Van Tassel

gloomily.

Mildred set down her glass and looked at the speaker with an

unfathomable expression as she spoke slowly:--

"'There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to'"--

"Would it, Mildred?" Jack broke in with a sort of earnest excitement.

"Would it have led on to fortune?"

The girl colored under the glowing gaze.

"If I had gone with you, would you have had fewer engagements and more

time for me since then?"

"How can I tell?" she returned, with a low laugh of enjoyment. Jack was

fairly dramatic. He was really entertaining.

"I didn't know exactly what my feeling was then; but I knew afterward,"

he went on. "Ogden wasn't any part of our past. I didn't want to share

you with him that night."

"He didn't want to share me with you either, so you were both

satisfied," returned Mildred demurely.

"Was he satisfied?" asked Van Tassel savagely. "Methinks not. I notice

that whatever your engagements have been this week, he has not been in

them."

"How observing you are!"

"Yes. He is done for. It would be interesting to know how many scalps

that makes, Mildred."

"Look here, Jack," the girl was not smiling, and her eyes darkened as

she met his; "if you will practice conservation of energy now, I will

give you a capital opportunity to air your talents in amateur

theatricals next winter. You are the very man we have been looking

for."

"Can I make love to you?"

"That depends on your versatility."

"Or my patience in standing in line. I've been standing in line all the

week. Don't you think it is about time I got there?"

"What do you call this?" Mildred gave him a tantalizing glance from

under her half-dropped lids. "I arrive early at the rendezvous. We sit

_tete-a-tete_, and how do you make use of the time?"

Color flashed all over Jack's face.

"I am a fool," he agreed.

"That must be why you always speak the truth so indiscreetly. I never

thought of that as the reason, really. Now let us decide what to order

before Clover comes. What can make her so late?"

The fact was that Clover, wanting to stop a minute to look at some

pieces of old china and silver in the Louisiana house, had had the usual

curious experience in World's Fair minutes. In a city of enchantment,

how could it be expected that sixty seconds should be of the

conventional length? She had set aside plenty of time also just to walk

through the middle of the Art Building; and as every woman knows, it was

always impossible to pass so near "The Young Athlete" without pausing,

if but for a brief acknowledgment.

Gorham Page had just been admiring the bronze, and had stepped aside to

look at the photographs on a neighboring table when Clover advanced. He

was short-sighted, and she wore an Eton suit and a sailor hat, the garb

of ninety-nine out of every hundred women in the summer of '93; but he

knew her at once, and paused. After a moment's watching he approached

her.

She colored faintly with surprise as she returned his greeting.

"The subtle differences in the nature of man and woman are more

interesting than the obvious ones," he said.

"What are you leading up to now?" she asked. "I expected your first

words to be an explanation or an apology, or both. How does it happen

that this is the place where we first meet?"

"You were very, very kind, Mrs. Van Tassel, and I hope I assured you of

my appreciation in my letter; but I found I could get a room at the

hotel near you, and then affairs taking a favorable turn I left Boston

suddenly, and none too soon; none too soon; I have been here all day.

How stupendous it is! You are on your way to the Marine Cafe. May I go

with you?"

"Oh, you have seen Jack, or my sister."

"No."

"Then how comes it that you are so well informed?"

"Happily for me, I ran across Aunt Love."

"Oh, that explains her prolonged absence perhaps. Usually it is hard for

us to persuade her to spend a whole day down here. We must hurry a

little, I think." Clover laughed. "Hurrying is the normal condition of

people who try to keep appointments at the Fair."

They threaded their way amid groups and figures in plaster and marble,

and emerged from the southern entrance.

"What I started to speak of when I first met you was the contrast of a

man's and woman's way of approaching that bronze," said Page. "I went

up to it and especially noticed the muscles and veins of the man's hand

and the truthful way the fingers sink into the flesh of the baby it

supports. You approached it and took hold of the baby's hand and patted

his leg. Now why didn't I want to pat that little fellow's fat leg?"

"I give it up," laughed Clover. "I can only say you had very poor

taste."

"No, there is a deep reason for the difference. Of course it is a

woman's nature to pet a baby."

"What a deep discovery! I congratulate you on the result of your

explorations. Do you think you shall write a book about it?"

"I amuse you, Mrs. Van Tassel."

"Yes, you do, I won't deny it." Clover was a trifle ashamed of having

been caught in her loving ebullition toward the soft bronze, and was

willing to laugh it away.

"Still it is interesting," Page went on musingly, "to observe how

affection is outward with women and inward with men."

"That doesn't sound complimentary to us, Mr. Page. I hope you mean

well."

Gorham's pensive eyes met her merry ones. "Yes. I revere the wise

arrangement by which it takes a man and a woman to make one complete

being; and the more I observe and understand refined human nature, the

more I think I see the possibilities, and what it was intended that

marriage should be. You are a good walker, Mrs. Van Tassel."

"Yes; I am thinking how impatient Mildred and Jack will be with me. I

will give you a subject for your analytical mind. Make a record of the

broken appointments at the World's Fair and discover the reasons for

them. You would have a psychological study of absorbing interest."

"All phases of human nature are interesting."

"Even that where vials of righteous wrath are poured out upon you for

delinquency when you know you haven't any defense to offer? You are my

defense this time."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh, I wouldn't trust you to say anything. I am morally certain that

you would tell the truth."

"That isn't so very damaging, is it?"

"Why, certainly. You would tell them that I stopped to make love to the

bronze baby; and if Mildred heard that, hungry as she is by this time,

you would soon have to formulate exceptions to your rule that women are

all affection outwardly. By the way, what a fortunate experience yours

must have been."

Page smiled philosophically, and looked approvingly at his light-footed

companion.

They arrived at the cafe shortly after Mildred had directed her

companion's attention to the menu, and the apparition of the unexpected

guest entirely diverted from Clover any comment upon her tardiness.

The cordiality of his welcome pleased Page. He could not know the reason

for the nervous energy of his cousin's greeting. The four sat for an

hour at table and then took their way by boat to the Court of Honor,

where they remained in the launch during the playing of the fountains.

Clover, sitting next Page, watched his attitude toward this first view

of the evening's spectacle with some curiosity.

He caught her amused gaze once as it rested upon him.

"Sumptuous! Delicate! Wonderful!" he said, breaking a long, absorbed

silence.

"What?" returned Clover. "But you haven't suggested yet going down

beneath the electric fountains to find out the why and the how of it

all; and I am sure you will not rest until you have been on the roof of

the Manufactures Building and made friends with the man who manipulates

the search light."

"No." Page smiled vaguely and shook his head. "I do not want to go

behind the scenes."

"Then the Court of Honor is a wonderful place," said Clover.

"Poetical! Marvelous!" gasped Page.

A gondola decked with soft lanterns stole by. One gondolier swept his

oar lazily through the water, the other stood with his hand caught in

his bright sash, and poured forth the "_Dammi encor_" from "Faust" with

true musical intensity.

Again Clover and Page looked into one another's eyes, but there was no

badinage this time in her glance. It was a place of dreams. Showers of

golden mist fell beneath the stars. The massive buildings softened away

into distant shadowy suggestion. The sculptors' creations shone out

thrillingly.

In heavenly beauty stood the Agricultural Hall with its foreground of

gleaming water, the pure white of its columns defined against the

tempered rose-color of its inner wall,--a vision glowing and pure; as

far above its sister palaces in beauty as its use was set apart from

theirs; for here were displayed the works of God rather than the

imperfect marvels of man's handiwork.

Amid the majestic splendor of the night rolled the passionate appeal of

the gondoliers' love-song, become an impersonal voice now as the boats

drifted apart. Little wonder that Page forgot to be abstractly

analytical, and that the soft spontaneous sympathy of his companion's

eyes exercised enchantment borrowed from the environment. He smiled

upon her with a bright tenderness which transfigured his thoughtful

face.

For a long time they were silent, but when he gave her his hand as she

stepped from the launch, he spoke out of the depths of his enjoyment:--

"That was a never-to-be-forgotten experience for me."

"I think no one ever forgets his first evening in the Court of Honor,"

returned Clover.

"Well, what are we going to do now?" asked Mildred, as they ascended the

steps. "My! How the wind has sprung up from the lake. They will

hardly dare to have the fireworks."

"Then let us take a brisk constitutional home," proposed Jack.

"Come, children. Follow your leader," commanded Mildred, turning and

addressing Clover and her companion.

"Hurry her by the chocolate houses, Jack," said Clover; "that is, if you

can."

"He can't," returned Mildred. "I have my eye on Baker's now."

She insisted that they all stop and partake of the cup, more potent than

tea to cheer when the east wind blows, served by the pretty, uniformed

girls, who by this time in the evening were inclined to be pessimistic

and severe, small blame to them. They must easily believe that the

human body is largely liquid.

Leaving the little circular temple, the quartette started up the lake

shore on the stone walk. The dark waves were tumbling and dashing,

tipped with foam in the sudden gale. The battle-ship and large

excursion boats were gay with electric lights.

"Oh, Mrs. Van Tassel!" exclaimed Page. "See the search light on the

Quadriga." They turned to view the group with its mounted heralds and

champing, prancing horses, distinct and unearthly fair in the

surrounding blackness.

"Could we walk home backward, do you think?" he asked.

"No," replied Clover. "I can answer with certainty, for I've tried it

more than once."

"I suppose we do in course of time get past the Manufactures Building?

What an incomprehensible, colossal thing it is."

"Yes, a good deal more so to me now than it was a month ago."

"Have mercy!" exclaimed Page with a groan.

Mildred and Jack were walking in front of them.

"Isn't this like old times, Mildred?" asked the latter with a relish,

clapping his hat on tighter as the sweep of the wind threatened it.

"Just about as unlike as we could imagine. Sorry to disagree with you,

Jack."

"Don't mention it. You don't disagree with me, my child. I have

enjoyed this first evening with you immensely."

"First evening is pretty good, isn't it?" suggested the girl, and they

both laughed. "You didn't use to quarrel for my society," she added.

"I want you to understand that I wasn't quarreling with you there, a few

hours back, at the Marine Cafe."

"Oh!"

"No, I was merely making the excusable protest of an old

friend,--speaking in a brotherly way, you know."

"Oh, it won't do, Jack." He knew exactly how she was smiling in the

darkness. "It is my unalterable rule never to be a sister to any of

them. I can't break over it for you."

"Them!" ejaculated her companion. "I don't thank you to class me with

Tom, Dick, and Harry, and the rest of these late arrivals. Remember, I

was the first-comer into your friendship."

"You were a pretty good sort of fellow."

"Yes; you probably can't conceive of what a healing thought it is to me

now that I have snubbed you many a time, young lady. I had to. Your

attentions were so persistent in those days. Yes, mademoiselle, I had to

hold you off, or I should never have had any peace of my life. I

remember it well. Perhaps you don't."

"Oh yes, I do, perfectly," sighed Mildred. "Wasn't the Flirt the

stanchest little dear that ever spread a sail; and to think that is all

over! I don't feel nearly so much elation over going with Mr. Eames on

that yacht party to-morrow as I used to in nagging you into consent that

I should sail the Flirt."

"Is that the infantry officer?"

"Yes; and he is very nice. I should like you to meet him. If I knew

him a little better I would have procured you an invitation. You should

remember that virtue is its own reward. If you had not preferred

smoking in the hammock to coming into the parlor and making yourself

agreeable the other evening when Helen Eames and her mother were

calling, they would surely have asked you to join the party. 'If you

would be loved, be lovely.' That is what my mother used to tell me."

Mildred laughed to herself.

"Then why don't you obey her?" returned Jack curtly.

"I don't want to be loved," returned the spoiled girl. "I'm loved too

much already."

After this they marched in silence for a time, their springy steps

carrying them by the foreign buildings, Ceylon, France with its green,

fountain-sprayed court, Spain, and Germany. It was not until they

turned beside Iowa's pavilion and left behind them the waves dashing on

the sea-wall that Mildred spoke again.

"It gives me the blues, Jack, every time I see our boathouse stranded

high and dry behind that nightmare of a Spectatorium."

"I don't see how you can call anything dry that is as full of beer as

that is."

"Oh," exclaimed the girl indignantly, "what a fall from its old estate!

To think of our playhouse being turned into a saloon! Do you remember

the dance it was christened with? I was allowed to go, and you made me

perfectly happy by waltzing with me once."

"Humph!" returned the other. "And now it is a great question whether

you would make me perfectly happy by waltzing with me once."

"Oh, Jack," Mildred laughed out now, "don't be cross. Don't grudge a

girl her 'little brief authority.' My observation of life has taught me

that her queenship is brief enough. She blossoms out of awkward

childhood into an attractive womanhood, and then after a little space

yields up her sweet liberty to some lord of creation whom she has to

pacify and wait on ever afterward. Moral: Let her keep her authority as

long as possible."

"You seem to have been rather unfortunate in your married masculine

acquaintance," returned Van Tassel drily.

A sudden thought sent the color flying to Mildred's face, and her

customary complacent poise was shaken.

"There was one exception," she said, so timidly and meekly that her

companion was struck by the change; but she had not the courage to be

more specific, and there was no need. Jack understood her.

When the four reached home they found Miss Berry in the sitting-room

reading by the light of a lamp.

Blitzen was sitting on a rug, and did not, as usual, run to meet them.

On a chair reposed a bird-cage with some white stuff in it.

"What is this, Aunt Love?" asked Clover. "Have you some new pets?"

"I've got one," returned Miss Berry, smiling placidly. "I'll give you

all three guesses. It's a World's Fair souvenir."

"Tell us, Blitzen," said Mildred, kneeling on the rug beside the small

dog and shaking his tousled head; but Blitzen, as soon as he could free

himself, withdrew in unwonted dignity. Evidently there was that within

him to-night which could not brook flippancy.

"A live souvenir?" asked Clover, perplexed.

"Mr. Gorham can guess," remarked Miss Lovina, glancing again down the

columns of her newspaper, and shaking in a comfortable silent laugh.

"I?" said Page; then, after a moment's cogitation, "You surely didn't

bring home one of those chickens?"

"I did. In that cage, my dears, there is an electric chicken." Miss

Berry looked over her spectacles impressively. "The same power that

runs the inter-internal railroad and shines in the rainbow fountains,

don't disdain to hatch a chicken. If you doubt it, there's the

chicken."

She gestured toward the bird-cage.

"I brought it home in a box; and I said to myself that most everybody

had an old cage, so I went up garret, and there I found that one. On

Blitzen's account I thought best to use a cage to-night." Her gaze

descended on the terrier, whose head descended beneath it.

"Blitzen," asked Jack with deliberate, stern solemnity, "what do you

think of the chicken?"

Blitzen rose with a crushed air, and slowly, as one who would not

attract attention, crept across the room and retired under a remote

sofa.

A shout of laughter followed his unostentatious disappearance.

"We've had some words," explained Aunt Love. "He barked cruel at the

poor little thing when he first saw me with it."

"Have it out, have the chicken out," said Mildred; and Miss Berry,

yielding to the general urgency, produced her prize from the depths of

the cotton wool. It began to struggle and peep vigorously as soon as

its beady eyes saw the light, and there came a muffled howl from under

the sofa.

"What are you going to name it?" asked Clover.

"I don't know what name would be good enough for such a smart critter."

"Why, Electra, of course," remarked Jack. "Nothing less for such a star

among chickens."

"Sounds well and suitable," observed Miss Berry placidly, "whether it

means anything or not."

"I wonder if it has any unusual springs," said Mildred. "If I should

touch the button do you suppose it would give us a rest?" She advanced a

finger toward one of the bright eyes, but Miss Berry removed her

squeaking prize from harm, and tucked it away again in the cotton from

which it struggled several times before finally settling down with a

diminuendo of peeps.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

*CLOVER'S DIPLOMACY.*

Mr. and Mrs. Page arrived duly, even a little earlier than they had at

first anticipated. Jack met them at the station and drove with them to

their destination.

"You see it was simply impossible, Mrs. Van Tassel, for my wife to curb

her impatience after Gorham began to write home," said Mr. Page to his

hostess in explanation of their change of plan. "Gorham doesn't very

often gush, as perhaps you know."

"And I assure you that Mr. Page was not difficult to persuade," added

Hilda. "Your last kind letter determined us. And I am really in

Chicago!" she went on, looking about her. "Jack, congratulate me!"

"I do, sincerely. I think you, Hilda, will appreciate your advantages."

Mr. Page gave his contagious, quiet chuckle. "That is the way he goes

on," he said, turning to Mildred. "Jack is very severe on me always. I

am going to show you, Miss Bryant, several lists of adjectives,

carefully prepared, very carefully and thoughtfully, one for every day

in the week, that I am intending to use on the World's Fair to mollify

my cousin."

"You might have trusted safely to the inspiration of the moment,"

returned Mildred gayly.

"Oh, you don't know Jack. One single false move, one expletive out of

place, and it would be all over with me."

"Poor Robert, I feel for you," remarked Van Tassel.

"Why, that is mysterious," replied his cousin. "Anybody who

compassionates me just now doesn't understand economizing his emotions."

The speaker sank back in his roomy wicker chair and took a glass of

lemonade from a salver which Miss Berry was passing to the company. The

crushed ice jingled pleasantly against the crystal, and the couple of

straws that emerged from each glass were alluring to a stout and thirsty

man. "Aunt Love, it is very pleasant to see you here," he added. "We

shall have to renew our old acquaintance. We had no time in Boston."

"That's so, Mr. Page. I guess I can jog your memory about a good many

things."

When later the husband and wife were shown to their own room and the

door was closed, Robert looked at Hilda with large eyes. "Whew!" he

said softly. "Uncle Richard was all right. What pretty women!"

"I told you so. I told you that Mildred was a perfect Juno, and that

you were very unfortunate to be out of town when she spent that week

with me at the beach. As for Mrs. Van Tassel"--

"Why, she's an angel,--she's an angel! I knew it from her letter. I

felt it in my bones."

"As if you knew anything about your bones, you dear old cushion. Stop

praising those girls,--calling one a goddess and one an angel. Come and

apostrophize the lake. Isn't it beautiful?"

"It was you who called Miss Bryant a goddess, remember. Yes, this is

every bit as good as the ocean, for all I see," walking to the window

and putting an arm around his wife's waist. "We are in great luck,

Hilda," continued Page, glancing about their spacious room. "This isn't

much like the discomforts we read about in connection with World's Fair

visiting. I don't wonder," he added after a pause, "that Jack was cut

up by being at cross purposes with those girls."

"H'm. There is one exhibit I have come out here to see that isn't

inside the White City," returned Hilda. "I've come to discover which

one of them Jack is in love with."

"Both, of course. How can he help it?" replied her husband promptly.

Gorham took it upon himself to launch his brother and sister on their

Fair pilgrimage that very evening.

When they came home again, hours later, Clover and Jack were sitting

alone in the parlor and rose to meet them as they entered the room.

Their tired, excited faces were a study.

Hilda dropped into a chair. "Well," she exclaimed, "I never expected to

go to heaven till I died; but I've been there."

"Jack," added Robert meekly, "get in your fine work now. I've nothing

to say, absolutely nothing. I've dropped my jaw so often since six

o'clock that it isn't in working order, any way."

"Say no more," returned Van Tassel, waving his hand grandiloquently.

"We Chicagoans are nothing if not magnanimous."

"I thought I knew what I was going to see, that is the queer part of

it," said Page, looking perplexed; "but it seems I didn't know anything

at all about it. I feel there is an unlimited feast in store for me,

Mrs. Van Tassel."

Clover smiled at his enthusiastic tone. "You are in the first-day frame

of mind, I see."

"What is that?"

"Oh, eagerness and hopefulness."

"And what is the second?"

"Despair; yes, overwhelming, stony despair."

"What is the third? Suicidal tendency?"

"No indeed. Resignation. At first one expects and determines to see

everything; soon finds that to be so impossible that he yields to his

bewilderment, and at last accepts the inevitable and sets himself to see

what he can, and be rapturously content therewith."

"Thank you, thank you! Forewarned, forearmed. Perhaps we may even skip

the second stage."

A few days later, Clover, her guests having scattered on various quests,

went to the noon orchestral concert in Festival Hall. This wonderfully

generous free exhibit attracted a large audience, many of whom embraced

it as an opportunity to rest from the fatigues of sight-seeing, while

many others, coming perhaps from the country where "hearing a band" was

a rare privilege, were drawn thither by the hope of attractive music.

Possibly one half the number came intelligently to the feast, and

greeted the conductor when he entered upon the stage. Clover joined in

the applause as Theodore Thomas passed before his players with that

quiet, characteristic grace, which has power to thrill with anticipation

a greater number of America's music-lovers than the movement of any

other man.

It interested her as it had many a time before, this summer, to note the

effect upon certain of the audience of the number with which the

programme opened. She saw pleased hopefulness give way to apathy in

many faces, as strange harmonies and dissonances fell upon uncultivated

ears. She noticed one patient-faced countryman who waited through two

numbers, evidently discovering nothing but a wilderness of sound. He

then examined his programme, and not finding "After the Ball" on it,

arose and departed from the hall more in sorrow than anger.

Blessings on the man, by the way, who introduced the noiseless paper on

which those programmes were printed. There were two girls sitting next

to Clover, chewing gum while they listened for some melody they could

recognize, and Clover congratulated herself that all the foldings and

drummings of their programmes were inaudible; but alas, as soon as the

maidens discovered that the music they were hearing was unworthy the

name, they cheerfully set about doing the next best thing, which was to

prepare for the afternoon's campaign. This was a free concert anyway, so

no matter if it wasn't worth much. They would not leave at once,

because this was a better place to rest than they would be likely to

find soon again; so they unfolded their maps of the grounds, not printed

on absorbent paper, far from it, and proceeded to discuss their plans.

Clover caught sight of Jack standing across the hall. He discovered her

at the same moment. His concentrated look flashed into a smile as they

exchanged nods.

At the close of the number he came around to where Clover sat in the

front row of the circle, and leaned his arm on the railing in front of

her.

"How handsome Jack can look, when he is happy and interested," she

thought, and instantly became aware that her neighbors had ceased their

planning, and were nudging each other in silent absorption.

"Wasn't that great!" he exclaimed. "Are you going over to the Music

Hall this afternoon?"

"Indeed I am. They are going to play the Tschaikowsky Symphony."

"That settles it. Suppose we go up in the wheel after lunch, and then

go over to the concert together."

"All right. I'd like to. Why, there is Mildred on the left, down there

near the front. I didn't know she was coming."

"Nor I. Shall I go and speak to her?"

In a minute Jack was back, just as the music began again. The girls who

had constituted the thorn in Clover's side during the first half of the

programme had left their seats as soon as he moved away, so he came in

and took the place beside Clover.

"Mildred says she will go with us," he whispered.

When the Intermezzo was finished, Clover spoke.

"Did you ask Mildred to join us?" she asked.

"No, she proposed it," returned Jack, and there was a pleasure in his

eyes which did not escape his companion.

"You mentioned last night in our talk that you hadn't seen much of

Mildred since you came; that she was too much of a belle for your

comfort."

"Yes. It is simply surprising to find her here alone."

Clover's eyes twinkled. She had mentioned to her sister, this morning,

that she meant to meet Jack at the noon concert.

"Well, you leave her to me. No matter what I say, don't contradict me.

Promise?"

"What's up?" asked Van Tassel doubtfully.

"Oh, Mildred's conceit and a few other things that ought to come down.

I want you to myself a part of the time, Jack."

Her companion met her laughing glance.

"I am yours to command, Clover, always."

"Don't forget, then," she answered.

When the concert was over, Mildred came slowly up the aisle, superb as

usual in her consciously unconscious carriage.

"Well," she said to her sister as they met, "where are we to lunch?"

"Are you going to lunch with us?" asked Clover in well-affected

surprise.

"Of course I am," returned the younger with a half-pouting smile flung

at Jack; "and I am going in the Ferris Wheel with you too. I haven't

been up in it yet."

"Why, I don't see how you possibly can, Mildred," said Clover coolly.

"I heard you promise Mr. and Mrs. Page to meet them in the Art Gallery

at two o'clock, and show Mrs. Page some of our favorite pictures."

Mildred expected some protest from Jack, and was disconcerted that none

came. "I only told them that if I was at the south entrance at two

o'clock I would act as their cicerone," she answered.

"Well, my dear, having said so much," suggested Clover gravely, "I think

the least you can do is to be there, considering that they are our

guests."

Still Jack did not interfere. Mildred could not forbear hurling one

glance at him from beneath her eyelashes, but it might have been a gaze.

Van Tassel was absently viewing the dispersing audience.

Her eyes and cheeks burned as they had on the night he refused to

accompany her to witness the fireworks, but as on that occasion she

carried the matter with a high hand.

"Very well, then you have lost my company at lunch, too. You and Jack

would be sure to make me late, dawdling at table. _Au revoir_," and as

they nodded to her, she swept away.

Clover looked at her companion and tried to repress the mirthful laugh

that bubbled over her lips.

"Jack, you wouldn't be human if you hadn't enjoyed that."

"Then I must be inhuman," he responded rather ruefully, "for I give you

my word I'm scared almost to death."

"Don't you worry, mon ami; I know Mildred to the depths of her noble,

generous, overbearing, over-indulged soul."

"I don't suppose you realize, Clover," Van Tassel spoke low and jerkily,

"but I care very much; absurdly much, you might think, considering the

shortness of the time."

Clover looked into his flushed face, and the merriment in her sweet eyes

was quenched.

"Dear Jack," she said, laying her hand lightly on his arm, "whatever you

wish, I wish. Trust me. No harm has been done. Do you want my

advice,--the advice of one who knows?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then don't let Mildred suspect what you have told me. The round world

is just a rattle to her now. You are one of the bells on it that jingle

for her amusement when she moves you. There are Katherines in existence

still, and Petruchios are wholesome teachers for them."

"Imagine me cracking a horsewhip at Mildred!"

"Out, please!" roared a Columbian Guard, exasperated by the sight of

these two loiterers, after the remainder of the audience had drifted

away. "As if there wasn't any other place on the grounds to spoon but

just this," he muttered.

Mildred, to her credit be it said, devoted her afternoon to Mrs. Page

with as cheerful courtesy as though she bore no grudge in her mind

against the world. Mr. Page left them together and went off somewhere

under his brother's guidance. It was nearly dinner-time when he drove

up to the house in a Beach wagon, and found Mildred swinging idly in a

hammock on the piazza.

"Your wife is taking a nap," she announced, as he came up the steps.

"Fortunate woman!" he responded, sinking wearily upon a wicker divan.

"The only interest I've had for hours in any exhibit was as to whether

there was a chair in it; but Gorham is a terrible fellow. Merciless.

Each building being one thousand miles from every other building makes

it hard lines. I threatened more than once to trip over one of those

chains that say 'Keep off the grass,' and refuse to get up again."

"You and your brother should have taken one of those double chairs."

"Oh, there wouldn't have been any room for Gorham," and the jolly man

laughed. "I suppose you have done the Plaisance."

"Partly, yes."

"Gorham and I went into the Dahomey village, this afternoon. Some of

those savages were unpleasantly personal. Good afternoon, Aunt Love,"

as the housekeeper appeared on the veranda. "I was just telling Miss

Mildred how those children of nature in the Dahomey village injured my

finer feelings to-day. One of them came for me with a big carving

knife, yelling 'Big man, fat man,' and going through the pantomime of

taking a slice off my sacred person."

"Dirty critters!" remarked Miss Berry sententiously.

"Isn't it a funny paradox to see an incandescent light over the door of

each hut?" went on Page. "There was one big fellow squatted down in the

sun, off by himself, playing on a rough sort of a harp, and singing

monotonously something that sounded like 'Come away, come away,

Chicago.' I tried to write down the pitches he sang, and that amused

him immensely. His ivories would have made a perfect dentist's sign. I

gave him a dime or so to repeat the performance, a sufficient number of

times, and he was delighted, and kept saying 'Chicago beer.'"

"Yes," returned Miss Berry bitterly. "They have to come to a Christian

land for that."

"Wait till you see the South Sea Islanders," said Mildred.

"We did. Fine, aren't they? There is an exhibition of drill and muscle

worth seeing."

"And that _cafe-au-lait_ skin!" exclaimed Mildred. "I am entirely

spoiled for white beauties."

"Let 'em wear somethin' more 'n a straw wreath and a piece o' calico

then," remarked Miss Berry.

"But Aunt Love," suggested Page, "you must remember how clothing that

brown skin is. I am sure you must admit it is an improving sight to see

one of those heavy-eyed beauties sit cross-legged, and absently scratch

one great toe while she sings."

"What are you all laughing about?" asked Hilda, coming out upon the

piazza in the freshness of a light organdie gown.

"Your husband has been to the Midway," returned Miss Berry. "Don't be

surprised at anything he may say or do; and I don't believe we'd better

wait for Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel any longer, for dinner was ready when I

came out here."

"I don't understand Clover's staying so," remarked Mildred, leaving the

hammock and trying not to speak severely.

"I go, I fly, to make myself presentable," said Page, slowly dragging

himself up from his comfortable resting-place.

After dinner Mildred made an opportunity to address the housekeeper

privately. "For pity's sake, Aunt Love, when you are going to speak of

Jack and Clover as you did this evening, don't say Mr. and Mrs. Van

Tassel."

"Why not?" asked Miss Lovina with exasperating unconsciousness.

"Why, it sounds so--so--absurdly married."