The livelies, and other short stories
page: Illustration (TitlePage) [View Page Illustration (TitlePage) ]THE TW1TCHELL FAMLY AT BREAKFAST.-Page 85. THE LIVELIES, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES. BY SARAH WINTER KELLOGG. PHLADELPHA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1875. s .' page: Table of Contents-3[View Page Table of Contents-3] CONTENTS. PAGE THE LIVELIES . . . . . . . . . 3 DESIILER & DESIILER . .... 29 WIEN I WAS A BOARDER . . ... 57 HER CHANCE . . . . . . . . . 7 MR. TWITCHELL'S INVENTIONS . . . . . . 80 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year I874, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. THE LIVELIES. IN TWO PARTS.-I. "W HAT under the canopy is all that hammering at the door?" said Mrs. Lively, glancing up from her crocheting. Master Napoleon Lively, the person ap- pealed to. was sucking a lemon through a stick of candy. He took this from his mouth, said, "Dunno," and then re- turned it to the anxious aperture. "And don't care," said Mrs. Lively with spirit. "Any other child in the city would go to the door and find out what it means; but you! much you care to save your mother's feet!"Gathering her ball of worsted with the crocheting in her left hand, she swept out of the room and through the hall to the front door. She pulled this open. There stood a man with hammer in hand. "No harm to ye's, marm," he said. "I's jist afther puttin' a bill on ye's door; for shure it's to be sowld, that the house is." "Sold!" cried Mrs. Lively. "When?" "Faith! whiniver it may please a body to buy it," was the definite reply. Mrs. Lively read the bill: "' Six thou- sand dollars!' Why the whole property isn't worth six thousand, much less the lease for twelve years. Won't the owner take less?" "It's more than likely he would, 'specially from the likes of ye's. Shure! folks most ginerly wants all they kin git, and ef they can't git it they'll be afther takin' less. The gintleman says as it must be sold immadiate, for the owner is bruck to smitherations." Here was prospective trouble. Mrs. Lively went down the doorsteps and along the paved walk to her husband's office, in the front basement. The doc- tor laid down his pen, expecting a pa- tient, but, seeing that it was only his wife, resumed it. "There's a bill put up on our door: the house is for sale-six thousand dol- lars. I'll warrant it could be got for five: I think it's worth six, though. We may have to move out at a day's notice, and we've just had this office newly papered, and the kitchen repainted, and, dear me! just got those Brussels carpets down in the parlors. It's too provoking! I know those carpets 'll have to be cut and slashed into ribbons to make them fit other rooms. I was afraid of that when I got them. Until you own a house we oughtn't to get anything nice. But, oh dear! if I waited till we owned a home, I should go down to my grave on a two- ply. But where in the name of reason are we going? There isn't another va- cant house in this neighborhood that I'd live in. And just think of the damage. to your practice in moving your office! What are we going to do? Why in the world don't you say something? Can't you suggest something? One would think you hadn't any interest in the matter. But it's always the way. I've had to do all the planning for this fam- ily ever since I came into it, and I came into it before it was a family. Oh, you needn't smile: I know you're thinking that I haven't given you a chance to say anything;, but I wouldn't talk if you'd talk, and I wouldn't bother myself about our arrangements if you would. It's too provoking about this house. It just suits me: there isn't a thing about it I should wish to have altered." "Closets, little kitchen, back stairs," said Napoleon, who had entered the office unobserved, and who had often heard his mother denounce the house as most inconvenient in these three par- ticulars. "What have you come for?" the mother demanded sharply. "Go back to the sitting-room, and learn your geog- raphy lesson for to-morrow." "Have learnt it," replied the imper- turbable Napoleon. "Then go and get your arithmetic." "Have got it." 3 page: 4-5[View Page 4-5] "Well, then, get your history." "Heave." "And your grammar and spelling and German-you've learned them all, have you?" "Yes." "Then go and take your walk." "Have." "For pity's sake, what is it you haven't done?" "Nothing." "Every duty of life discharged, is it?" and Mrs. Lively smiled in spite of her- self. "'Cept eating." "Except eating! Of course: I never knew a time in your life when you'd fin- ished up your eating.-What are you going to do about that bill?"Mrs. Lively continued, turning to her husband. "I can't do anything about it except to leave it there," replied the gentleman, smiling quietly. "It's exasperating," cried the lady. "I don't see how I can ever give up this house." "We might buy it," said Dr. Lively. "I've been thinking about it for some time." "How can we? Where's the money?" "I have some in bank." "You have, and you didn't let me know it, you mean, stingy thing!" said Mrs. Lively between a pout and a smile. "How much have you in bank?" "Four or five thousand." "Why, where did you get it?" "Saved it." "Why, you've always talked as poor as povertyr especially if I wanted a bon- net or anything-said you were barely making a living." "No man is making a living till he can afford to own a home," said the doctor, laying aside his pen. "I'll go and see the agent, and learn what we can get the house for." "W ell, beat him down: don't give him six thousand for it, and don't decide on anything till you've consulted me. After all, there are a good many things about this house that don't suit me. Maybe, we can get a lot and build a house to suit us better for the same money." "Hardly," said Dr. Lively. "Well, really, I don't know about buying this house," said the lady in an undecided way. "I should like to be nearer church, and Nappy ought to be nearer his school." "But my practice is all in this neigh- borhood, and it's a most excellent neigh- borhood--permanent: the people own their houses. To go into a new neigh- borhood would be like going into a new city. I should have to build up a prac- tice with new people." Dr. Lively saw the agent, and agreed to pay five thousand dollars in cash for the house, and five hundred in one year, at six per cent. "Now, my dear," he said to his wife, "we've got to save that five hundred dollars this year." "Don't I know that? I suppose, now, I shall have to hear that ding-donged at me for the next twelve months. You'll fling it at me every time I ask for change. I dare say before the year is out I shall repent in sackcloth and ashes that we ever bought the house. Save it! Of course I've got to save it. It never enters your head that it's possible for you to save anything." "Who saved the five thousand?" ask- ed the doctor quietly. "For pity's sake, how could I save it if you never gave it to me? I didn't even know you'd made it. I'm sure-my dress has been shabby enough to suit the stingiest mortal in existence. There isn't a woman in our church that dresses plainer than I do." "As you are going out," said the doc- tor, changing the subject, " you can call at the savings bank and get the money: the agent will be here in the morning with the papers." Mrs. Lively came home in due time and displayed ten five-hundred-dollar bills, "They offered to give me a cheque," she said, "but these bills look so much richer." "But a cheque is safer in case of ac- cident," the doctor suggested. "What in the world's going to happen to-night? You are such a croaker, al- ways anticipating trouble!" "Oh no ; I don't anticipate a fire or a robbery before morning," the doctor said. That night, when Mrs. Lively went to bed, she took the doctor's purse from his pocket and put it under her pillow. All night long she was dreaming about those bills. The next morning, when she woke, her first act was to look for the purse. There it was, just where she had placed it. She returned it to her husband's pocket, and then dressed with- out waking him, for he had been called up that night to see a patient. Very promptly at eight o'clock the agent for the house presented himself in Dr. Lively's office. Who ever knew an agent behind time when a sale was to be consummated? Dr. Lively looked over the papers carefully, and, being satisfied, opened his purse to make the cash payment. If the agent's eyes had not been eagerly watching the purse for the forthcoming bills, but instead had been fixed on Dr. Lively's face, they would have seen in it first a look utterly blank, then one of intense alarm. "Excuse me a moment," he said as he closed his purse. He left the office and hurried to Mrs. Lively's sitting-room. "Well, is the deed done?" the lady asked with the complacent air of a land- holder. "What did you do with the money?" the doctor asked anxiously. "I thought you put it in my purse." "I did," replied Mrs. Lively, her eyes dilating with alarm. "It isn't here," the doctor asserted. "You must be mistaken." "I am not mistaken," said the lady, panting with alarm. "I did put it in your purse. You've dropped it out somewhere." "That is impossible: I haven't opened my purse since those bills were brought into the house until just now in my office. You must have put the bills somewhere else. Look in your purse." "I tell you I put the money in your purse," replied Mrs. Lively with asperity, at the same time opening her purse with an impatient movement. "It isn't here.: I knew it wasn't. I tell you again I put it in your purse, and you've dropped it out somewhere." "But I haven't opened the purse till a moment since in my office," the doctor reiterated. "Then you've dropped the bills in the office." "No, I have not. I was holding the purse over the table when I opened it, and I perceived at once that it was empty, even to my small change." "Well, that shows that the money has been dropped out of the purse some time when you opened it. If I put the bills somewhere else, what's become of the change? You've lost it all out together, you see." "Then it must be in the house some- where," said the doctor, evidently stag- gered, "for I haven't been out since those bills were brought home." "Yes, you have," urged Mrs. Lively from her vantage-ground. "You were called up last night to see that child on Morgan street." ' But I didn't lose it there. For when I wanted to make change for a five- dollar bill, I found that I hadn't my purse; and that reminds me, I found it in my pocket this morning, though it wasn't there last night." "I can explain that," said Mrs. Lively after a moment's hesitation. "I put the purse under my pillow last night, and returned it to your pocket this morning." "Then of course you lost the money out," said the doctor promptly. "Of course! I might have known you would lay it on me if there was a shad- ow of a chance. I had nothing in the world to do with the losing of that money." "You ought to have got a cheque." "Why in Heaven's name didn't you tell me to?" All this while the two had been look- ing the room over, rummaging through drawers, looking on whatnots, brackets, shelves, etc. "Well, I can't keep the agent waiting any longer," said the doctor. "I'll tell him I'll bring the money round to him;" and he left the room. "What are you standing there for?" page: 6-7[View Page 6-7] said Mrs. Lively, whirling sharply on Na- poleon. "Go, and look for that money." "Where?" "How do I know where? Look any- where and everywhere. There's no tell- ing where your father lost it. Napoleon Lively," she exclaimed, a sudden idea seeming to strike her, "what did you do with that money?" "Nothing," answered the youth with cool indifference. "Where did you hide it?" "Didn't hide it." His perfect nonchalance was irresist- ibly convincing. "Have you found it?" said the doctor, re-entering the room. "Found it!"Mrs. Lively snapped out the words, and then her lips shut close together as if with the vehemence of the snapping. "Perhaps the house was entered last night," suggested the doctor. "I locked every door and window, and they were all locked this morning when I got up," replied Mrs. Lively. "Perhaps you left the front door open when you went out in the night. I'll warrant you did: it would be just like you." "I did not leave the door open," re- plied the doctor. "I found it locked when I got back, and opened it with my night-key. Besides, I was not out of the house more than forty minutes, and you told me when I got back that you hadn't been asleep." "I told you I had scarcely been asleep," said Mrs. Lively. All that day the Lively household was in extreme commotion. Every bedstead was stripped naked, and each article of bedding was separately shaken in the middle of the room; the contents of every drawer were turned out; every piece of furniture was moved; every floor was carefully swept. The house, in short, was turned inside out. Adver- tisements were put in the papers; hand- some rewards were offered; the police were notified of the loss. The detectives were of opinion that the house had been entered, but there was not the slightest clew to the burglars. It was Friday, the sixth of October, when the loss was discovered. On the seventh the house was again looked over, inch by inch. "You must have put that money some- where else than in my purse," said Dr. Lively to his wife. "Have you looked in the pockets of all your dresses?" "Don't say to me again that I didn't put that money in your purse," said Mrs. Lively vehemently: "I won't bear it. You might as well tell me that I don't see you this minute. There never was anything in this world that makes me so tearing mad as to be contradicted about something that I perfectly well know. I'd go into any court and swear that I put that money in your purse; and I don't want to hear any more of your insinuations. Do you think I've stolen the money? You've lost it out of the purse-that's all there is about it. This house has no more been entered than I've been burglaring." "Then where's the money?" "How in the name of sense do you think I know? I'd go and get it if I knew. Dear! dear! dear! dear! The savings of ten years gone in a night, after all my pinching! I've done my own work-" "When you couldn't get a girl," said Napoleon. "I've worn old-fashioned clothes; I've twisted and screwed in every possible way to save that money-" "Pa saved it," was Napoleon's emen- dation. "Well," retorted the lady, "he'd bet- ter not have saved it: he'd better have let his family have it. What's the use of saving money for burglars?" "You think now that the burglars have it?" said the doctor dryly. "Oh, for pity's sake, hush! I don't think anything about it. I believe I'm going insane. How in the universe we're ever going to live is more than I can conceive." "My dear, we are better off than we were ten years ago, for I yet have my practice, and we are as well off as you thought we were two days ago; and you were happy then." "Happy!"There was a volume of bitter scorn in the word as Mrs. Lively uttered it. "Oh, my dear!" said the husband in a tone of piteous remonstrance. The next evening, which was Sunday, Dr. Lively and wife went to church, and heard a sermon by the Rev. Charles Hilmer from the words, "Help one an- other." "What's the use of preaching such stuff?" said Mrs. Lively with petulance when they were out of church. "No- body heeds it. Who's going to help us in our loss?" "Our lesson from that sermon is, that we are to help others," said the doctor. "We help others! . I'd like to know what we've got to help others with! Five thousand dollars out of pocket!" "There's a fire somewhere," said the doctor as an engine whirled by them while they stood waiting for a car. The lady and gentleman proceeded to their home on the South Side, and went to bed, though the fire-bells were still ringing. About midnight they were roused by a violent ringing of the door- bell. Dr. Lively started up with a pa- tient on his mind. "There's a fire some- where," he exclaimed immediately, per- ceiving the glare in the room. Mrs. Lively was out of bed in an instant. "Where? where's the fire?" she cried. "Is the house afire? I believe in my soul it is." "No," said Dr. Lively, who had gone to the window; "but there's a tremen- dous fire to the south-west. The flames seem to be leaping from roof to roof. That was a policeman who rang us up. He seems to be waking all this neigh- borhood." They dressed hurriedly, called up Na- poleon, and went out at the front door, and on with the stream toward the fire. The street was crowded with people, the air thick with noises, and everywhere it was as light as day. They passed on under the lurid heavens, and reached a hotel which stood open. Two streams of people were on the stairs-one hurry- ing down, the other going up for a view of the fire. Our party followed the stream up the stairs and on to the roof. It was crowded with spectators, all great- ly excited. Making their way to the front of the roof, our couple stood spell- bound by a vision which once seen could never be forgotten. It was like a look into hell. The whole fire seemed below them, a surging, tempest-lashed ocean of flame, with mile-long billows, mile- high breakers and mile-deep shadows. All about the flaming ocean, except to the leeward, was a sea of faces, white and upturned, and rapt as with some unearthly vision. Stretching out for miles were housetops swarming with crowds, gazing appalled at the spectacle in which the fate of every man, woman and child of them was vitally involved. At times the gale, with a strong, steady sweep, would level the billows of fire, and bear the current northward with the majestic flow of a great river. Then the flames would heave and part as with earthquake throes, dash skyward in jets and spouts innumerable, and pile up to the north-east mountains of fire that seemed to touch the heavens. Clouds of smoke obscured at times the view of the streets below, without making inaudible the-roll of wheels, the beat of hoofs, the tramp of human feet, the cry of human voices, the scream of the en- gines, the thunder of falling buildings, the maniacal shriek of the gale, the Niagara-like roar of the fire; and ever and anon, striking through all the tumult, the deep, solemn voice of the great court-house bell, and the one word it seemed to say to the trembling city- "Doomed! doomed! doomed." "We must go home," said Mrs. Lively in a lost, bewildered way. "Yes," assented the doctor: "there is no safety this side the river. All the engines in creation couldn't stop that fire. Why in God's name don't they pull down houses or explode them? Come!" But the lady continued to gaze in a fascinated way at the unearthly specta- cle. It was all so wild, so awful, that the brain reeled. The doomed houses in the path of the fire seemed to her to be animate things-dumb, helpless, feeling page: 8-9[View Page 8-9] creatures, that trembled and shrank as the flames reached but cruel fingers for them. She shook off the bewildered, dazed feeling, but it came again as the tempest of flame and smoke went racing to the north. Street and house and steeple and the vast crowds seemed sail- ing away on some swift crescent river to a great, vague, yawning blackness beyond. They hurried down into the street. Momently the crowds, the tumult, the terror were growing. Every house stood open, the interior as clear as at noonday. Men, women and children were moving about in eager haste, tearing up car- pets, lifting furniture and loading trucks. Ruffians were pushing in at the open doors, snatching valuables and insulting the owners. There was a hasty seizing of goods, and a wild dash into the street from imperiled houses, a shouting for trucks and carriages, piteous inquiries for absent friends, distressed cries for absent protectors, screams of little chil- dren, swift, wild faces pushing eagerly in this direction and that; oaths and prayers and shoutings; women bowed beneath mattresses and heavy furniture; wheels interlocking in an inextricable mass; horses rearing and plunging in the midst of women separated firom their husbands and little children from their mothers; men bearing away their sick and infirm and their clinging little ones; the shorwer of falling brands, and the roar of the oncoming flood of destruc- tion. In the next block but one to our doctor's home a brand had lodged in the turret of a little wooden Catholic church, and, pinned there by the fierce gale, was being blown and puffed at as with a blowpipe. There was no time to lose. While he stopped on the street to secure a truckmlan, Mrs. Lively hur- ried in to get together the most valuable of their belongings. For a time she pro- cecded with considerable system, tying in sheets and locking in trunks the best of the bedding and other necessaries. Then she got together some family rel- ics, looked longingly at some paintings, took down a quaintly-carved Black- Forest clock from its shelf, and then set it back, feeling that something else would be more needed. But as the roar of the tempest came nearer she was seized with panic, and no longer knew what she did. When Dr. Lively came in to announce the dray at the door he found his wife making for a trunk with a tin baking-pan in one hand and a cloth. duster in the other. "For Heaven's sake, Priscilla, don't pack up such trash!" he cried. "Have you got up the parlor carpets?" "Oh dear! no: I never thought of them. Nappy might get them up if he would. Napoleon! Where under the sun is that boy? Napoleon!" she called. "Here," answered Napoleon through a mouthful of cake. He entered with a basket in his hand. "Why in the world don't you go to work and help?" "Am helping." "What are you doing?" "Packing." "Packing what, I'd like to know?" "Victuals." "Of course! I might have known without asking. What in the world shall we want with victuals, in the street with- out roof or bed?" But the father told him to hold on to his basket. "You may be sure he'll do that," said the mother. "What in the world are all those boxes you've got there?" she asked as she dragged a sheet full of articles to the front door. "Some things from my office," the doctor replied hurriedly. "I just know they're those plants and fossils and casts and miserable things that have been in my way everlastingly. I was in hopes they'd get burnt up." Without heeding his wife, Dr. Lively disappeared into the house for some- thing else. "Take those boxes off," she said to the drayman. "Blast my eyes if I'm going to be lift- ing boxes off and on here all night for any darned twenty-five dollars that ever was paid. Hurry your things on here, or, by Godfrey! I'll dump'em and be off. Blast me if I'll wait here a sec- ond beyond five minutes." Just then the doctor reappeared, and began to turn over the contents of a sheet before tying it. "Oh, my dear," he cried in a tone of mingled remon- strance and despair, "we can't spare room for these worthless traps;" and he pitched out a pair of vases, two pin- cushions, a dustpan, a sieve, a kitchen apron, a statuette of Psyche, a pair of plaster medallions, Our Mutual Friend in paper cover, a pink tarletan dress, a dirty tablecloth, an ice pitcher, a flat- iron, a mosquito-bar, a hoop-skirt, a backgammon-board and a bottle of hair restorative. "They're worth a thousand times more than those old rocks and things you've loaded up the dray -with," Mrs. Lively maintained. At last the truck moved off, followed by Dr. Lively, shouting to his wife to come on and not lose sight of him. Mrs. Lively seized a carpet-bag in which she had packed her silver and jewelry, and rushed into the street, screaming to Na- poleon to follow and not lose sight of her. Napoleon hung his basket of pro- visions on his arm and stuck his hat on his head. Then he went to the pantry and poked up cookies through a lift be- tween his hat and forehead, until there was no vacant space remaining in the top of his hat. Then he crammed a cake in his mouth, filled his pockets and both hands, and left the rest to their doom. The wind, which for a time had blown steadily to the north-east, was now seem- ingly bewildered. At times there would be a dead calm, as though the fierce gale had tired itself out; then it would sweep roaring down a street with the force of a hurricane, and go shrieking through an alley as though sucked through a tube; again, it seemed to strike from every quarter of the compass, while anon a vast whirlwind was formed, swirling and circling till one half expected to see the glowing masses of masonry lifted and whirled like autumn leaves. On went our party as fast as the press would permit. One bundle after an- other, as it took fire from falling brands, was pitched off the truck and left to burn out on the pavement; and to these bundle-pitchings Mrs. Lively kept up a running accompaniment of groans and ejaculations. When they had reached the corner of Washington and La Salle, the truckman signified his intention of throwing off his load. "They'll be safe here," he said. Dr. Lively, too, thought this, for he did not believe that the flames could pass the double row of fireproof buildings on La Salle street and others in the neighbor- hood. But as he was bound for a friend's house across the river, on the North Side, he would of course have preferred to take his goods with him, even if there had been no danger from pillagers. But no arguments or persuasions, even when offered in the shape of the gentleman's last five-dollar bill, could induce the drayman to cross the river. He dump- ed on the sidewalk all that remained of the Livelies' earthly possessions, and dis- appeared in the press. Again and again, but all in vain, Dr. Lively offered his forlorn hope, his one greenback, to procure the transporta- tion of his goods across the river. But that five-dollar bill was so scorned and snubbed by the ascendent truckmen that the doctor found himself smiling at his conceit that the poor, despised thing, when returned to his purse, went sneak- ingly into the farthest and deepest-corner. As he could not leave his goods, it was decided that Mrs. Lively and Na- poleon should cross the river without him. He sat down on Mrs. Lively's big Saratoga trunk to await developments. He did not have to wait long. The double row of fireproofs, which was to have held the fire at bay, was attack- ed and went down; then the Chamber of Commerce melted away; shortly after the court-house was assailed. Dr. Live- ly gave up his trunks and bundles as lost, and as too insignificant, in that wild havoc, to be worth a sigh. He did feel a desire, -however, for a clean shirt in which to face the heavens. Then, too, he wanted to bring something through the fire--to preserve something which page: 10-11[View Page 10-11] would serve as a memento of his ante- igneous life. The best thing in the way of a relic which he could secure was a case of sea-weeds mounted on cards. He made a hasty bundle of these and a few articles of underwear, tucked it under his arm, and then looked about him, considering which way he should go. The wind had again risen to a hurricane. All around him was a storm of fire- brands, as though the flakes in a snow- storm had been turned to flame. Great sheets of blazing felt-roofing were driving overhead. Everywhere timbers and ma- sonry were falling: walls a half square in length came down with the thunder's crash, and in such quick succession that the noise ceased to be noticed. Thou- sands of frantic people were pushing wildly in every direction. The crowds seemed bewildered, lost, frenzied. And what wonder? The world seemed to be burning up, the heavens to be melting: a star looked like a speck of blood, so that the whole canopy of heaven when visible seemed blood-spattered. As the doctor was gazing at the ter- rible spectacle the cry ran from mouth to mouth that all the bridges across the west branch of the river were burned. There were thousands of spectators from the West Division who had come over to witness the melting away of the South Side business-palaces. If the bridges were burned, there remained but one avenue by which they could reach their homes. There were cries of "The tun- nel! the tunnel!" a panic and a grand rush, in which everybody was borne westward toward Washington street tun- nel. Dr. Lively found himself forced into the tunnel. It was crowded with two streams of wildly-excited people moving in opposite directions. One was rushing to the rescue of property on the South Side or to see the fire-the other, to get away from it. Most of these lat- ter were carrying articles of furniture and bales of goods, or they were wheel- ing loaded barrows. Everybody was crowding and pushing. Our doctor had made his way through about one-third of the tunnel when suddenly every light went out. The great gasometer of the South Sidd gas-works had exploded. He was under the river, in the bowels of the earth, in the midst of that wild crowd of humanity, and in utter dark- ness. "There will be a panic," he thought: "all the weak will be overrun and trampled to death. God help them and help us all!"Then there came to him a flash of inspiration "Keep to the right!" he shouted, "to the right!" "Keep to the right!" repeated an abet- ting voice. "To the right!" "Keep to the right!" "Right! right!"The bless- ed words ran along from one end of the dark way to the other. Then a hush seemed to fall on the lips as though the hearts were at prayer, and the two streams moved along like processions through the dark valley of the shadow of death. Facing about, Dr. Lively squeezed his way through a dense throng on North Water street bridge till he gained the North Division. Here he sat down on the steps of a warehouse to take breath, and looked back on the scene he had left. The fire had reached the river, which reflected the lurid horror above, and seemed a stream of molten metal, or a current of glowing lava poured from some wide rent in the earth. Struggling human creatures in the blazing, hissing, sputtering waters realized Dante's im- aginings of tortured, writhing souls on the red floor of hell. Tired and faint, Dr. Lively pressed on to the north. He was not long in learn- ing that the fire was already raging in the doomed North Division, and that the waterworks were disabled. Reaching the house of his friend, where his family had taken refuge, he found them all in- formed of the peril to the North Side, and getting ready to move. His friend decided to take refuge on the prairies. "There we can keep up the race," he said. "I'm going where I can get water," said Dr. Lively: "it's the only thing under heaven that this fire-fiend won't eat. There isn't a suburb but may be burned. I'm going toward the lake." So he took possession of his wife and boy and started for Lincoln Park. There were lights in all the houses, and eager, swift-moving figures were seen through the doors and windows: everywhere people were getting their things into the streets. Shortly after, the flames, it was noticed, were beginning to pale. A weird kind of light began to creep over burn- ing house, blazing street and ruined wall. The day was dawning. With a kind of bewildered feeling our friends watched the coming on of the strange, ghostly morning, and saw the pale, sickly, shamefaced sun come up out of the lake. It was ten o'clock before they reached the old cemetery south of Lincoln Park. Hundreds had already arrived here with their belongings, representing every ar- ticle that pertains to modern civilization. Parties were momently coming in with more loads. Here our friends halted. Mrs. Lively dropped down in a fugitive rocking-chair, thinking what a comfort it would be to go off into a faint. But without a pillow or salts or camphor it was a luxury in which she did not dare to indulge, though she had a physician at hand. Right in front of her she noticed a besmutched, red-eyed woman who had something familiar in her appearance. "Why, it's myself!" she said to her hus- band, pointing to a large plate mirror leaning against an old headstone. "Yes," said the doctor smiling, "we all look like sweeps." Napoleon seated himself on a grave and opened his lunch-basket. "Did anybody ever?" cried the moth- er. "This boy's brought his basket through. There's nothing in all the world except something to eat that he would have devoted himself to in this way." "Nothing could have proved more op- portune," said the father. Then they ate their breakfast, sharing it with a little girl who was crying for her father, and with a lady who was car- rying a handsome dress-bonnet by the ribbons, and who in turn shared her portion with her poodle dog. They offered a slice of cake to a sad old gen- tleman sitting on an inverted pail with his hands clasped above a gold-headed cane, and his chin resting on them. He shook his head without speaking, and went on gazing in a dreary, abstracted way into the air, as though oblivious of everything around him. "'Though I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there,' " he said in slow measured solilo- quy. His lip began to quiver and the tears to stream down his furrowed face. Dr. Lively heard, and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand: he had nothing else to receive the quick tears. Just then a hearse with nodding black plumes came by loaded with boxes and bundles, on which were perched a woman and five children, the three youngest crowing and laughing in unconscious glee at their strange circumstances. This was followed by two buggies hitched togeth- er, both packed with women and chil- dren drawn by a single horse, astride of which was a lame man. "What is it, madam?" said Dr. Live- ly to a woman who was wringing her hands and crying piteously. "Why, you see," she said between her sobs, "me and Johnny made our livin' a-sellin' pop-corn; and last night we had a bushel popped ready for the Monday's trade; and now it's all gone: we've lost everything-all that beautiful corn: there wasn't a single scorched grain." "But think what others have lost- their beautiful homes and all their busi- ness-" She suddenly ceased crying, and, turning upon him, said sharply, "We lost all we had: did they lose any more'n they had?" A young man came pressing through the crowd, desperately clutching a pic- ture in a handsome gilt frame. Through the smoke and smutch which stained the canvas was seen a gray-haired, saintly woman's head. "The picture of his mother," thought the doctor with a swelling about his heart. "I saved dese," said a jolly-faced Ger- man, extending his two hands; "and dey is all I had when I come from de Faderland to Chicago. And saved you nothin'?" The man appealed to had about him page: 12-13[View Page 12-13] three children and a pale delicate wo- man. "I saved these," he said with a ges- ture that was an embrace. "All the baby-faces we left hanging on the walls in the home where all were born." Then the bearded lip quivered and the lids were dropped over the brimming eyes. The mother looked up with clear, unfaltering features, and with a light grateful, almost joyous, in her fine eyes, and said softly, "But all the real faces we've brought along." Then one of the little girls took up the story: "Oh, mother, Tommy's picture will be burned, and we can never get another. Tommy's dead, you know," she explained. The mother's eyes grew misty, and so did the German's and the doctor's, and many others. There they were in that old deserted cemetery, a company of strangers, not one of whom had ever seen the other's face before, exchanging their confidences and mingling their tears. All day long the fugitives poured into this strange encampment, and by night they numbered thirty thousand. There was shouting, swearing, laughing, weep- ing, waiting. There was pallid stupe- faction, sullen silence, faces of black despair--every kind of face except the happy variety. . The air was thick with frightful stories of arson; of men hang- ed to lamp-posts ; of incendiaries hurled headlong into the fires they had kindled; of riot, mobs and lawlessness. There was scarcely a suburb that was not reported to be burning up, and prairie-fires were said to be raging. The fate of Sodom was believed to have overtaken Chicago and her dependent suburbs. "There's no safety here," said Mrs. Lively nervously as the flames ap- proached the cemetery. "Do let's get out of this horrid place. What in the world do you want to stay here for?" "My dear," replied the doctor with a twinkle, "I don't want to stay here. We are not certainly safe, but I don't know of any place where our chances would be better." "Let's go down to the beach, get on a propeller and go out into the lake." "But, my dear, 'the Sands' and-the lake shore are already thronged. It is said that people were lying in the lake, and others standing up to their necks in water-women with children in their arms. The propellers have doubtless taken off fugitives to their entire ca- pacity." In the mean time the fire came on. Everywhere over the dead leaves and dry grass and piles of household goods, and against the headboards and wooden crosses, the brands were falling; and the people were running and dodging, and fighting the incipient fires. "Oh, we shall be burned to death here: I knew all the time we should," cried Mrs. Lively, dodging to the right to escape a torch, and then running backward over a grave, beyond the reach of a second. Dr. Lively stamped out the fires. "What under the sun are we going to do?" persisted the lady. "Dodge the brands-that's your work -and look out that Napoleon doesn't get on fire in one of his dreams." "Look there!" said Napoleon. "Look where?" cried Mrs. Lively, whirling around. "There." "Where is there?" "Dead-house." "The dead-house! Good Heavens! it's afire!" "This fire-demon," said the doctor, "isn't going to let any of us off. It strikes at the living through their dead." The dead-house, fortunately empty, was consumed, the headboards and crosses were burned, the trees were scorched and blackened, the graves were seared: all the life which the years had drawn from the entombed ashes was laid again in ashes. After a horrible suspense these grave- yard campers saw the fiery tide recede from their quarters and sweep on to the north. Then came on the weird, elfinish night, that mockery of day, when, except in the direction of the lake, great moun- tains of fire loomed up on every side against the horizon, so that one felt en- vironed, besieged, engirdled by horrors. "Try to get some sleep," said Dr. Lively to his wife when the torrent had swept by to the north. "Sleep!" said Mrs. Lively. "How can anybody sleep with these terrible fires all around? It seems to me as if I were in some part of the infernal regions. I shall always know after this how hell looks." "I don't think the fire will trouble us any more to-night, but I'll watch: there will be plenty of watchers, indeed, to give the alarm. Lie down and try to get some rest." "Where in the world is anybody to lie? On a grave? What in the world are you eating?" continued Mrs. Lively, turning on Napoleon. "Shoemake," answered the boy. "Want some?" Mrs. Lively took some of the crimson, acrid berries and put them in her mouth. "You're hungry," said the father com- passionately. "Awful," answered the lad. "Where are you going?" asked the mother as he started off. "To bed," he replied, and he stretch- ed himself out on a piece of carpet where half a dozen children were sleep- ing. "Now do, Priscilla, lie down and try to sleep," the husband insisted. "How under the stars do you suppose I could sleep with hunger and thirst gnawing at the pit of my stomach? Do let me alone: I want to try to think out something-to plan for the future. What under the sun is to become of us?" "My dear," said the doctor, "don't worry about the future. I'll take care of it some way, if the fire will ever let us out of our present prison. We have our lives, our hands and our heads, and we must thank God." "Heads! I feel as if I'd lost mine. I think sometimes that I'm insane." "Oh no: you ain't of the kind that go insane." "I suppose you mean by that I've got no feelings, no sensibility." "No, I don't mean that;" and Dr. Lively became silent, as though it was useless to prolong the conversation. They were sitting together on the ground, she leaning against a head- stone. "Let me sit there against that stone, and you put your head on my lap," the doctor proposed. "What in the world is the use of it?' she said. "Do you think I'm deaf that I could sleep with all this moaning around me? Just hear it! One would think all these graves had just been made, and that all these people were chief mourners for the dead." "The strangest bivouac ever seen un- der heaven!" said the doctor, looking around. "In a life liable to such vicissi- tudes," he continued softly, "it is im- portant that we possess our spirits." "Oh, for pity's sake, don't preach! What's the use?" said the wife. "What's the use, indeed?" said the husband in a saddened tone. "If one heed not the voice of the past twenty- four hours-"He left the sentence un- finished. "Oh, I know. Everybody, the world over, will be preaching about Chicago. She was so wicked. Sodom and Go- morrah and Babylon! That'll be the talk. I suppose we shall be told ten thousand times that riches have wings- just as though we hadn't seen the wings and couldn't swear to the color of them. But, dear me! I've been thinking that your story of losses by the fire is not worth telling. I wish to goodness we'd bought the house. If you hadn't lost the money, we might have now a respectable- sized story to tell of our losses. I shall be ashamed to tell that we lost just some clothes and household traps, when some people have lost millions. How much better it would sound to say that our house and everything in it was burned! People wouldn't know but it was a fifty-W thousand-dollar house. But a few chairs and bedquilts!-it's too small to talk about." - "We've lost enough to satisfy me," said the doctor. "All my practice that I've been ten years in building up! I'm exactly where I was when I began in. Chicago. We own but five dollars in the world-haven't even a change of clothes." page: 14-15[View Page 14-15] "I've a mind to say that we had just bought the house, and it was burned," said Mrs. Lively. "I'm sure it was just the same. But then you never would stand by me in the story: you'd be sure to let the cat out." "But what good would come of such a story?" asked the doctor. "Why, people would be so much sor- rier for us. Nobody could feel sorry for that old pop-corn woman you were talk- ing to, even if she did lose all she had; and just so it will be with us. It's just like you to be always missing a good thing. If you'd only bought the house before you lost the money!" "You're determined to saddle the loss of that money on me," the doctor said smiling. "Well, who lost it if you didn't?" "I'm sure I can't say." "Of course you can't. You might as well say that black isn't black as that you didn't lose that money." "I'll acknowledge, once for all, that I lost the money if you'll let the subject drop," said he wearily. "It's wasting time and breath to talk about it. There," he continued soothingly, "try to forget, and go to sleep." "It's wasting time and breath telling me to go to sleep," replied the wife. "Hurrah! here's a cigar!" said the doctor, producing one from his pocket. "Now, if I only had a match to light it!" "For patience' sake, you needn't be at a loss for a light for a cigar when all this universe is afire. Go and light it at that headboard over there, and then sit down and take your comfort while I'm starving. Why in the world doesn't it rain? I don't see why the Lord should have such a spite against Chicago: we ain't any worse than other people." And thus the woman continued to run on all night. Up to two o'clock she complained because it didn't rain, and after that she shivered and moaned be- cause it did. With the morning, water-carts and bakers' wagons began to arrive on the ground. These were quickly emptied among the hungry, thirsty people. Dr. Lively spent his five dollars to within fifty cents for the relief of the sufferers about him. Mrs. Lively obstinately re- fused to take anything. "I won't eat bread at twenty-five cents a loaf, and I won't drink water at ten cents a quart. I'll die first!" she declared. "I want you to take me to the West Division," Dr. Lively said to one of the bakers. He had already tried a dozen times to make terms with teamsters to this end. "I have a wife and child." "I'll do it for five dollars apiece," re- plied the man. "I haven't any money. Will you take a set of silver forks in pawn?" "He sha'n't have my forks," said Mrs. Lively violently.-"How dare you specu- late on our calamities?" she demanded of the baker. "You sha'n't have my forks: I'll stay here and starve first. I mean to stand this siege of extortion to the last gasp." "But, my dear," remonstrated the doctor, "there are people here who are already near their last gasp. There are the sick and infirm and little children. There are women now on this desolate ground in the pangs of childbirth, and infants not an hour old. These must have help. I must get over to the West Division. There are some hearts over there, I am sure." "I'll take you, sir," said the baker, "and I don't want none of your silver. I'm beat, sir: I never thought of women hit that way. I can't fight with sich, and with babies born in a graveyard. I'm whipped, sir. I ain't never had much of a chance to make a extry dollar: I thought this fire had give me a chance. My shop was left, full of flour. I was bakin' all night; but darn me if I kin put the screw onto babies, and women in childbed. You shall have my horse and cart and all my bakery for 'em. Come, load up." On their way through the burnt dis- trict, on the ill-fated Chicago Avenue, they passed a ruined wall where people were preparing to dig out two men. One was crying piteously in mixed German *It need scarcely be said that the incidents here related are literal facts, which came under the writer's observation in the midst of the scenes described. and English for help. The other, ex- cept his head and shoulders, was com- pletely buried beneath the ruins. As the people began to remove the rubbish he said in a tone expressive at once of pluck and agony, "Leave me, and go and get out that bawling Dutchman: he ain't dead, and I am." As it proved, he was broken all to pieces, both legs and both arms being fractured, one of the arms in two places. Of course Dr. Lively found the hearts he went to seek, not only among the favored few whom God had spared the bitter cup, but all over the world. We all know the beautiful story-how all the cities and villages and hamlets of the land were on the housetops, watching the burning of Chicago, marking her needs, and speeding the relief as fast as steam and lightning could bring it. We know of that message of love, the sweet- est, the most wonderful the world ever heard since Christ died for us. Through the pallid stupefaction, the sullen silence, the awful gloom, the black despair that were settling over Chicago's heart, it pierced, and from all the world it came: "We have heard thy cry, O our sister! Our hearts are aching for thee; our tears are flowing for thee; our hands are working for thee." Oh, how it electrified us in Chicago! If any refused, if any gave grudgingly, we saw it not, we knew it not. We saw only the eager out- stretched hand of love. And we know now the sequel of-the wonderful story-how Chicago has proved herself worthy of the great love wherewith the world hath loved her, and of the great faith wherewith the world hath believed in her. She has come up out of her bereavement strong through suffering, wearing yet her badge of mourning, her face subdued, but uplift- ed, wise and strong of purpose; her eye sad, but earnest and true; her figure less imperious, but majestic and regal; her spirit less arrogant, but just as brave, just as heroic, and more human. (END OP PART L.) page: 16-17[View Page 16-17] THE LIVELIES. IN TWO PARTS.-II. WHEN Dr. Lively had accomplish- ed his part toward relieving im- mediate suffering, when he saw system growing gradually out of the chaos, when he saw that he could be spared from the work, he began to consider his personal affairs. "I can't start again here," he said to Mrs. Lively. "Office and living rooms that would answer at all cannot be had for less than one hundred and fifty dol- lars a month, and that paid in advance, and I haven't a cent." "What in the world are we going to do?" "I'll tell you what I've been thinking about: I met in the relief-rooms yester- day an old college acquaintance - Ed- ward Harrison. He lives in Keokuk, Iowa, now-came on here with some money and provisions for the sufferers. He would insist on lending me a few dollars. He's a good fellow: I used to like him at college. Well, he told me of a place near Keokuk where a good physician and surgeon is needed-none there except a raw young man. It has no railroad, but it's all the better for a doctor on that account." "No railroad! How in the world do the folks get anywhere?" "It's on the Mississippi River, and boats are passing the town every few hours." "The idea of going from Chicago to where there isn't even a railroad! What place is it?" "Nauvoo," "Nauvoo! That miserable Mormon place?" "Harrison says there is only an oc- casional Mormon there now-that it's largely settled by Germans engaged in wine-making." "Grapes?" asked Napoleon. "That boy never comes out of his dreaming except for something to eat. Dear me! the idea of living among a lot of Germans!" said Mrs. Lively, re-. turning to the subject. "There's a French element there, the remnants of the Icarians-a colony of Communists under Cabet," the doctor explained. "What! those horrid Communists that turned Paris upside down?"Mrs. Lively exclaimed. "Oh no," said the doctor. "They settled in Nauvoo some twenty years ago, I believe." "Dear! dear! dear! it's very hard," said the lady. "My dear, I think we are very fortu- nate. Harrison says there's plenty of work there, though it's hard work-rid- ing over bad roads. He promises me letters of introduction to merchants there, so that I can get credit for the house- hold goods we shall need to begin with and for our pressing necessities. He has already written to a man there to rent us a house, and put up a kitchen stove and a couple of plain beds, and to have a few provisions on hand when we arrive. I purpose leaving here to- morrow, or the day after at farthest." "But how are we ever to get there without money?" "We can get passes out of the city. So, my dear, please try to feel grateful. Think of the thousands here who can't turn round, who are utterly helpless." "Well, it never did help me to feel better to know that somebody was worse off than I. It doesn't cure my headache to be told that somebody else has a raging toothache. Grateful! when I haven't even a change of clothes!" "Go to the relief-rooms and get a change of under-garments," Dr. Lively advised. "I won't go there and wait round like a beggar, and have them ask me a mil- lion of prying questions, and all for somebody's old clothes," Mrs. Lively declared. "Now, my dear," her husband remon- strated, "I have been a great deal in the relief-rooms, and I believe there are no unnecessary questions asked- only such as are imperative to prevent im- position." "The things don't belong to them any more than they do to me." "Perhaps not as much. They were sent to the destitute, such as you, so you shouldn't mind asking for your own," the doctor argued. "Think what a mean little story I should have to tell! I do wish you'd bought that house. If we'd lost fifty thousand! -but a few bed-quilts and those old frogs and bugs and dried leaves of yours! The most miserable Irish woman on DeKoven street can tell as big a story of losses as we can." "I'll go to the relief-rooms and get some clothes for you," said the doctor decidedly: "I'm not ashamed." "I won't wear any of the things if you bring them," said Mrs. Lively. "Oh, wife," said the doctor, his face pallid and grieved, "you are wrong, you are wrong. Are you to get no kind of good out of this calamity? Is the chas- tisement to exasperate only? to make you more perverse, more bitter?" "You are very complimentary," was the wife's reply. The doctor was silent for a moment; then he took up his hat. "I'm going to try to get passes out of the city," he said. He had a long walk by Twelfth street to the rooms of the committee on trans- portation. Arrived at the hall, he found two long lines of waiting humanity reach- ing out like great wings from the door, the men on one side, the women on the other. He fell into line at the very foot, and there he waited hour after hour. For once, the women held the vantage- ground. They passed up in advance of the .men to the audience-room, being admitted one by one. The audience consumed, on the average, five minutes to a person. At length all the women had had their turn: then, one by one, the men were admitted. Slowly Dr. Lively moved forward. He had attain- ed the steps and was feeling hopeful of 2 a speedy admission, when the business- session was pronounced ended for the day, and the doors were closed. He went back drooping, and related his ex- perience to his wife. "You don't mean to say you've beon gone all this afternoon and come back without the passes?" she exclaimed. "That's just how it is," answered the doctor. "Well, I'll warrant I would have got in if I'd been there," she said. "Yes, you'd have got an audience, for, as I have said, the women were admit- ted before the men. My next neighbor in the line said he had been there three days in succession without getting into the hall." "Well, I'll go in the morning, and I'll come home with a pass in an hour, I promise you." The next morning Mrs. Lively started for the hall at eight o'clock, determined to procure a place at the head of the line. But, early as was the hour, she found the doors already besieged. There were at least three dozen women ahead of her. She took her place very un- graciously at the foot of the line. At nine the doors were opened, and the first comers admitted. Ten o'clock came, and Mrs. Lively was still in the street- had not even reached the stairs. Eleven o'clock came-she stood on the second step. At length she had reached the top step but one, and it was not yet twelve. "It doesn't seem fair," she said to the doorkeeper, "that the men should have to wait, day after day, till all the women in the city are served." "No," assented the keeper, "it is not fair. Now, there are men in that line who have been here for four days. They'd have done better and saved time if they'd gone to work in the burnt dis- trict moving rubbish, and earned their railroad passage." Mrs. Lively's suggestion of unfairness proved an unfortunate one for her, for the keeper conceived the idea of acting on it. "It isn't fair," he repeated, "and I mean to let some of those fellows in." page: 18-19[View Page 18-19] "Oh, do let me in first," she cried, but the keeper had already beckoned to the head of the other line, and was now marching him into the hall. "No use for you to try for a pass," said the inner doorkeeper after a few words with the petitioner. "You must have a certificate from some well-known, responsible person that your means were all lost by the fire, or you cannot get an audience. Must have your certificate, sir, before I can pass you to the com- mittee." The man thus turned back went sor- rowfully down the steps into the street, and the next man passed in-doors. "You want a pass for yourself," said the inner keeper. "The committee re- fuse in any circumstances to issue passes to able-bodied men. If you are able to work, you can earn your fare: plenty of work for willing hands. No use in arguing the matter, sir," he continued resolutely: "you can't get a pass." "But I haven't a dollar in the world," persisted the man. "Plenty of work at big prices, sir. Women and children and the sick and helpless we'll pass out of the city, but we need men, and we won't pass them out." He turned away from the petitioner and beckoned the head woman to enter. This one had her audience, and came back crying. Mrs. Lively was now at the head of the line. Her turn had at last come. "Session's over," announced the keep- er, and closed the doors. Some scores of disconsolate people dispersed in this direction and that. Mrs. Lively and a few others sat down on the steps, determined to wait for the reopening of the doors. After a weary waiting in the noon sun, which was not, however, very oppressive, the doors were again opened, and Mrs. Lively was ad- mitted to the audience-room. At the head of one of the long tables sat George M. Pullman, to whom Mrs. Lively told her small story. Then she asked for passes to Nauvoo for herself, husband and son. She was kindly but closely questioned. Didn't she save some sil- ver and jewelry? didn't her husband save his watch? etc. etc. Mrs. Lively acknowledged it. "But," she added, "we haven't a change of clothes -we haven't money enough to keep us in drinking-water." "Buy water!" said Mr. Pullman with a decided accent of impatience. "Don't talk about buying water with that great lake over there. Wait till Michigan goes dry. I've brought water with my own hands from Lake Michigan. Money for water, indeed!" "So has my husband brought water from the lake," replied the lady with spirit;" he brought two pails yesterday morning, and it took him three hours and a half to accomplish it. I presume your quarters are nearer the lake than ours." " ell, well, I can't give your husband a pass. He can raise money on his watch, can get a half-fare ticket, or he can work his way out. We don't like to see our men turning their backs on Chicago now: some have to, I suppose. I ought hardly to give you a pass, but I'll give you one, and your child;" and he gave the order to the clerk. In another moment she was on her way to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy ticket-office to get the pass coun- tersigned. At three o'clock she reached her quarters with the paper, having been absent seven hours. As the pass was good for three days only, despatch was necessary in getting matters into shape and in leaving the city. Dr. Lively pawned his watch-a fine gold repeater-for twenty dollars, and the next day, with an aching heart but smiling face, turned his back on the city whose bold challenges, splendid successes and dramatic career made it to him the most fascinating spot, the most dearly loved, this side of heaven. In due time these Chicago sufferers were landed at Montrose, a miserable little village in Iowa, at the head of the Keokuk Rapids. Just across the won- derful river lay the historical Nauvoo, fair and beautiful as a poet's dream, though the wooded slopes retained but shreds of their autumn-dyed raiment. Mrs. Lively was pleased, the doctor was enthusiastic. They forgot that "over the river" is always beautiful. They crossed in a skiff at a rapturous rate, but when they had made the landing the disenchantment began. A two-horse wagon was waiting for passengers, and in this our friends embarked. The driver had heard they were coming, and knew the house that had been engaged for them-the Woodruff house, built by one of the old Mormon elders. The streets through which they drove were silent, with scarcely a sound or sight of human life. It all looked strange and queer, unlike anything they had ever seen. It was neither city nor village. The houses, city-like, all opened on the street, or had little front yards of city proportions, and to almost every one was attached the inevitable vineyard. It was indeed a city, with nineteen out of every twenty houses lifted out of it, and vineyards established in their places; and all the houses had an old-fashioned look, for almost without exception they antedated the Mormon exodus. The Livelies were set down in a street where the sand was over the instep, be- fore a stiff, graceless brick building, standing close up in one corner of an acre lot. On one side, in view from the front gate, was a dilapidated hen- house-on the other, a more unsightly stable with a pig-sty attached. All the space between the house and vineyard, in every direction, was strewn with corn- cobs and remnants of haystacks, while straw and manure were banked against the house to keep the cellar warm. In front was a walled sewer, through which the town on the hill was drained, for the Livelies' new home was on "the Flat," as the lower town is called. The view from the front took in only a dreary hillside covered with decaying corn- stalks. The doctor moved a barrel-hoop which fastened the gate, and it tottered over, and clung by one hinge to the worm- eaten post, from which the decaying fence had fallen away. A hall ran through the house, and on either side were two rooms. The second floor was a duplicate of the first, so that the house contained eight small rooms, nine by eleven feet, exactly alike, each with a huge fireplace. There was not a pantry, a closet, a clothes-press, a shelf in the house. Not a room was papered: all were covered with a coarse whitewash, smoked, fly-specked and momently fall- ing in great scales. The floors were rough, knotty and warped; the wash- boards were rat-gnawed in every direc- tion; all the woodwork was unpainted and gray with age. Two beds and a kitchen stove had been set up on the bare floors. On a pine table in the cramped kitchen were a few dishes, tins and pails, a loaf of bread, a ham, some coffee and sugar. Mrs. Lively sat down in the kitchen on a wooden chair with a feeling of utter desolation in her heart. Napoleon look- ed longingly at the loaf of bread. The doctor flew round in a way that would have cheered anybody not foregone to despondency. He brought in some cobs from the yard and kindled a fire in the stove, filled the tea-kettle, and put some slices of ham to fry and some coffee to boil. "Go up stairs, dear," he said to Mrs. Lively, " and lie down while I get supper ready. You are tired: I feel as smart as a new whip. I haven't been a soldier for nothing: I'll give you some of the best coffee you ever drank. Nappy, run across the street and see if you can't get a cup of milk: I see the people have a cow. Won't you lie down?" he con- tinued to his wife. She looked so in- effably wretched that his heart ached for her. "I think I shall feel better if I do something," she said drearily; "but," she continued, firing with something of her old spirit, "how in the world is any- body to do anything here? Not even a dishcloth!" "Oh, never mind," laughed the doctor, piling the dusty dishes in a pan for wash- ing, " we'll just set the crockery up in this cullender to drain dry." "We'd better turn hermits, go and winter in a cave, and be done with it. How are we ever to live?" page: 20-21[View Page 20-21] "Why, my dear, I never felt so plucky in my life, We mustn't show the white feather: we must prove ourselves worthy of Chicago. Come, now, we'll work to get back to Chicago. We can live eco- nomically here, and when we get a little ahead we can start again in Chicago. Only think of these eight rooms and an acre of ground, three-fourths in grapes, for six dollars a month! Ain't it in- spiriting? I've seen you at picnics eat- ing with your fingers, drinking from a leaf-cup, making all kinds of shifts and enjoying all the straits. Now we can play picnicking here-play that we are camping out, and that one of these days, when we've bagged our game, we're going home to Chicago. Now, we'll set the table;" and he began moving the dishes, pans and bundles off the pine table on to chairs and the floor. "Isn't this sweet," said Mrs. Lively, "eating in the kitchen and without a tablecloth?" "We'll have a dining-room to-morrow, and a tablecloth," said the doctor cheer- fully. Thanks to his friend Harrison's letters, Dr. Lively readily obtained credit for imperative family necessities. If ever anybody merited success as a cheerful worker, it was our doctor. ) He did the work of ever-so-many men, and almost of one woman. Pray don't despise him when I tell you that he kneaded the bread, to save Mrs. Lively's back; that he did most of the family washing-that is, he did the rubbing, the wringing, the lifting, the hanging out-and once a week he scrubbed. When he wasn't "doing housework " he was in his office, busy, not with patients, but in writing articles for magazines and papers. Then he set to work upon a book, at which he toiled hopefully during the dreary winter, for he was almost ignored as a physician, although there seemed to be considerable sickness. He heard of the other doctor riding all night. Indeed, if one could believe all that was said, this physician never slept. True, this man was not a graduate of medicine. He had been a barber, and had gone directly from the razor to the scalpel; but that did not matter: he had more calls in a week than Dr. Lively had during the winter. "The idea of being beaten by a bar- ber!" exclaimed Mrs. Lively. "Why don't you advertise yourself?" "There's no paper here to advertise in." "Then you ought to have a sign to tell people what you are-that you were surgeon of volunteers in the army ; that you had a good practice in Chicago; that you're a graduate of two medical schools; that you write for the medical journals and for the magazines. Why don't you have these things put on a big sign?" "It would be unprofessional." "To be professional you must sit in that miserable office and let your family starve. Why don't you denounce this upstart barber? - tell people that he hasn't a diploma-that he doesn't know anything-that he couldn't reduce that hernia and had to call on you?" "That's opposed to all medical ethics." "Medical fiddlesticks! You've got to sit here like a maiden, to be wooed and won, and can't lift a finger or speak a word for yourself. Then there's that wo- man with the broken arm-Joe Smith's wife. Why shouldn't you tell that the barber didn't set it right, and that you had to reset it? I saw some of Joseph Smith's grandchildren the other day," she continued, suddenly changing the subject, "and I must say they don't look like the descendants of a prophet." For a brief period in the unfolding spring Mrs. Lively experienced a little lifting of her spirits. The season was marvelously beautiful in Nauvoo: one serious expense, that for fuel, was stay- ed, and there was the promise of in- creased sickness, and thus increased work for the doctor. But this gleam was followed almost immediately by a shadow: a scientific paper which he had despatched to a leading magazine came back to him with the line, "Well written, but too heavy for our purposes." "I knew it was," said Mrs. Lively. * [While desirous of affording full scope to a talent for realistic description, we must protest against al- lusions bordering on personality.-ED.] "You write the driest, long-windedest things that ever I read." Dr. Lively sighed, took his hat and went out, while Mrs. Lively, after some moments of irresolution, set about get- ting dinner. "Now, where's your father?" she im- patiently demanded when the dinner had been set on the table. "Dunno," answered Master Napoleon through the potato by which his mouth was already possessed. The Little Corporal, as he was some- times called by virtue of his illustrious name, was a lean-faced lad with no friendly rolls of adipose to conceal the fact that he was cramming with all his energies. "Why in the name of sense can't he come to his dinner?" Napoleon gave a gulping swallow to clear his tongue. "Dunno," he man- aged to articulate, and then went off into a violent paroxysm of choking and coughing. "Why don't you turn your head?" cried the mother, seizing the said mem- ber between her two hands and giving it an energetic twist that dislocated a bone or snapped a tendon, one might have surmised from the sharp crick- crack which accompanied the move- ment. "What in the name of decency makes you pack your mouth in that manner? Are you famished?" "A'most," answered the recovered Napoleon, resettling himself, face to the table, and resuming the shoveling of mashed potato into his mouth. "That's a pretty story, after all the breakfast you ate, and the lunch you had not two hours ago! Where under the sun, moon and stars do you put it all?" "Mouth," responded Napoleon, de- scribing with his strong teeth a semicircle in his slice of brown bread. "Tell me what can be keeping your father," said Mrs. Lively, returning to her subject. "Can't." "He'll come poking along in the course of time, I suppose, when all the hot things are cold, and all the cold things are hot. Just like him. And I worked myself into a fever to get them on the table piping hot and ice-cold. From stove to cellar, from cellar to well, I rushed, but if I'd worked myself to death's door, he'd stay his stay out, all the same." "Reason for stayin', I s'pose," sug- gested Napoleon. "Yes, of course you'll take his part- you always do. For pity's sake, what has your mother ever done that you should side against her?" "Dunno." "Dunno! Of course you don't. I'll tell you: She tended you through all your helpless infancy; she nursed you through teething, and whooping-cough and mea- sles, and scarlet fever, and chicken-pox, and mercy knows what else. Many's the time she watched with you the livelong night, when your father was snoring and dreaming in the farthest corner of the house, so he mightn't hear your wailing and moaning. She's toiled and slaved for you like a plantation negro, while he-" "He's comin'," interrupted Napoleon, without for a moment intermitting his potato-shoveling. "Walkin' fast," con. tinued the sententious lad, swallowing immediately half a cup of milk. Dr. Lively came hurrying into the dining-room. "For pity's sake, Hthink it's about time," the wife began pettishy. "Have you seen my purse anywhere about here?" the gentleman asked with an anxious cadence in his voice. "Your purse!" shrieked Mrs. Lively, turning short upon her husband and glaring in wild alarm. "Lost it?" asked Napoleon, digging his fork into a huge potato and trans- ferring it to his plate. "Go, look in the bed-room, Nappy: I think I must have dropped it there," said the father. Napoleon rose from his chair, but stop- ped halfway between sitting and stand- ing for a farewell bite at his bread and butter. "For mercy's sake, why don't you go along?"Mrs. Lively snapped out. "What do you keep sitting there for?" page: 22-23[View Page 22-23] "Ain't a-settin'," responded Nappy, laying hold of his cup for a last swallow. "Standing there, then?" "Ain't a-standin'." "If you don't go along-" and Mrs. Lively started for her son and heir with a threat in every inch of her. "Am a-goin'," returned the son and heir; and, sure enough, he went. During this passage between mother and child Dr. Lively had been keeping up an unflagging by-play, searching per- sistently every part of the dining-room -the mantelpiece, the clock, the cup- board, the shelves. "In the name of common sense," ex- claimed the wife, after watching him a moment, "what's the use of looking in that knife-basket? Shouldn't I have seen it when I set the table if it had been there? Do you think I'm blind? Where did you lose your purse?" "If I knew where I lost it I'd go and get it." "Well, where did you have it when you missed it?" "As well as I can remember I didn't have it when I missed it." "Well, where did you have it before you missed it?" "In my pocket." "Oh yes, this is a pretty time to joke, when my heart is breaking! I shouldn't be surprised to hear of your laughing at my grave. Very well, if you won't tell me where you've been with your purse, I can't help you look for it; and what's more, I won't, and you'll never find it unless I do, Dr. Lively: I can tell you that. You never were known to find anything." "Not there," said Napoleon re-enter- ing the room and reseating himself at the table. "Milk, please," he continued, extending his cup toward his mother. "You ain't going to eating again?" cried the lady. "Am." "Where (do you put it all? I believe in my soul- Are your legs hollow?" "Dunno." "Do, my dear," remonstrated Dr. Lively, "let the child eat all he wants. You keep up an everlasting nagging, as though you begrudged him every mouth. ful he swallows." "Oh, it's fine of you to talk, when you lose all the money that comes into the family-five thousand dollars in Chica- go, and sixty dollars now, for I'll warrant you hadn't paid out a cent of it; and all those accounts against us! Had you paid any bills? had you? You won't answer, but you needn't think to escape and deceive me by such a shallow trick. If you'd paid a bill you'd been keen. enough to tell it: you'd have shouted it out long ago. Pretty management! Just like you, shiftless! Why in the name of the five senses didn't you pay out the money before you lost the purse? You might have known you were going to lose it: you always lose everything." "Bread, please," called Napoleon, who had taken advantage of the con- fusion to sweep the bread-plate clean. "In the name of wonder!" exclaimed the mother, snatching a half loaf from the pantry. "There! take it and eat it, and burst.-Do," she continued, turning to Dr. Lively, "stop your tramp, tramping round this room, and come and eat your dinner. There's not an atom of reason in spending your time looking for that purse. You'll never see it again. Like enough you dropped it down the well: it would be just like you. I just know that purse is down that well. Careless- ness! the idea of dropping your purse down the well!" Without heeding the rattle, Napoleon went on eating and Dr. Lively went on searching-now in the dining-room, now in the kitchen, now in the hall. Mrs. Lively soon returned to her life- work: "What's the sense in poking, and poking, and poking around, and around, and around? Mortal eyes will never see that purse again. I've no question but you put it in the stove for a chip this morning when you made the fire. Who ever heard of another man kindling a fire with a purse? Will you eat your dinner, Dr. Lively, or shall I clear away the table? I can't have the work stand- ing round all day." Notwithstanding his worry, the doctor was hungry, so he replied by seating himself at the table. "There's nothing here to eat," he said, glancing at the empty dishes and plates. "If that boy hasn't cleared off every dish!" cried the housekeeper. "Why didn't you lick the platters clean, and be done with it?" and she seized an empty dish in either hand and disap- peared to replenish it. While her husband took his dinner she went up stairs and ransacked the bed-room for the missing purse. "What are you sitting there for?". she exclaim- ed, suddenly re-entering the dining-room, where Dr. Lively was sitting with his arms on the table. "Why don't you get up and look for that purse you lost T" "No use, you said," Napoleon put in by way of reminder. "For pity's sake, arn't you done eat- ing yet?" "Just am," answered the corporal, rising from his seat, yet chewing indus- triously. Mrs. Lively began to gather the dirty dishes into a pan. "What are you going to do about it, Dr. Lively?" she asked meanwhile. "I don't know what we can do about it, except to cut off corners-live more economically." "As if we could!" cried Mrs. Lively, all ablaze. "Where are there any cor- ners to cut off? In the name of charity, tell me. I've cut and shaved until life is as round and as bare as this plate." With a mighty rattle and clatter she threw the said plate into the dish-pan and jerked up a platter from the table. Holding it in her left hand, she proceed- ed: "Do you know, Dr. Lively, what your family lives on? Potatoes, Dr. Lively-potatoes; that is, mostly. How much do I pay out a month for help? A half cent? Not a quarter of it. How much is wasted in my housekeeping? Not a single crumb. It would keep any common woman busy cooking for that boy. I tell you, Dr. Lively, I can't economize any more than I do and have done. I might wring and twist and screw in every possible direction, and at the year's end there wouldn't be a nickel to show for all the wringing and twisting and screwing. There's only one way in which the purse can be made up-there's only one way in which economy is pos- sible. You can save that money, Dr. Lively: you're the only member of the family who has a luxury." "Hang me with a grapevine if I've got any luxury!" said the doctor with something of an amused expression on his face. "Tobacco," suggested Napoleon. "Yes, it's tobacco. You can give up the nasty weed, the filthy habit." "Do it?" asked Napoleon. "Don't think I shall," replied the doc- tor coolly. "Then I'll save the money," respond- ed Mrs. Lively with heroic voice and manner. "I had forgotten: there is one other way. Dr. Lively, I'm housekeep- er, laundress, cook, everything to your family. And what do I get for it? Less than any twelve-year-old girl who goes out to service. I have the blessed priv- ilege of lodging in this old Mormon rat- hole, and I have just enough of the very cheapest victuals to keep the breath in my body; and one single, solitary thing that is not absolutely necessary to my existence-one thing that I could pos. sibly live without." "What?" asked Napoleon, gaping and staring. "It is sugar-sugar in my coffee. I'll drink my coffee without sugar till that sixty dollars is made up. I'll never touch sugar again till that money is made good-never!" and into the kitch- en sailed Mrs. Lively with her pan of dishes. "Sugar, please," demanded Napoleon the next morning at the breakfast-table. Dr. Lively passed over the sugar-bowl. "How can you have the heart to take so much?" said the mother, watching Napoleon as he emptied one heaping spoonful and then another into his cof- fee-cup. "But I might have known you'd leave your mother to bear the burden all alone. All the economizing, all the self-denial, must come on my shoulders. And just look at me!-noth- ing but skin and bones. I've got to make up everybody's losses, every- page: 24-25[View Page 24-25] body's wasting. It's a rare thing if I get a warm meal with the rest of you: I'm all the while eating up the cold victuals and scraps and burnt things that nobody else will eat." "I'd eat 'em," said Napoleon. "Of course you'd eat them. There's nothing you wouldn't eat, in the heav- ens above or the earth beneath. And all the thanks I get is to be taunted with stinginess." "Take some?" asked Napoleon, pass- ing the sugar-bowl to his mother. "Never!" she exclaimed, drawing back as though a viper had been ex- tended to her. "Take the thing away- set it down there by your father's plate. I said I'd use no more sugar till that money was made good. When I say a thing I mean it." "Now, Priscilla," remonstrated the doctor, "what is the use of breaking in on your lifelong habits? You'll make yourself sick, that's all." "Dr. Lively, you're trying to tempt me: why can't you uphold me? It will be hard enough at best to make the sacrifice. Yes, I shall make myself sick, but it won't hurt anybody but me. I can get well again, as I've always had to." "Perhaps so, after a druggist's bill and hired girl's wages. Every spoonful of sugar you save may cost you ten dollars." "Then, why don't you give up that vile tobacco? I won't use any sugar till you do. All you care about is the money my sickness will cost-my suffering is nothing." Mrs. Lively raised her cup to her lip, then set it back in the saucer with a haste that sent the contents splash- ing over the sides. "Bitter?" asked Napoleon. "Bitter! of course it's bitter-bitter as tansy. It sends the chills creeping up and down my backbone, and the top of my head feels as if it was crawling off. I believe I shall lose my scalp if I don't use sugar." "To stick it on?" asked Napoleon with a stolid face. "Oh, it's beautiful in my only child to laugh at a mother's discomfort!" "Ain't a-laughin'," he replied. "What are you doing if you ain't laughing?" "Eatin'." "Of course: you're always eating." Again Mrs. Lively essayed her coffee, but fell back in her chair with an unutter- able look. "Oh, I can't!-I cannot do it!" she exclaimed. "Don't," Napoleon advised. Mrs. Lively with a sudden jerk sat bolt upright, as straight as a crock. "Who asked you for your advice?" she demanded sharply. The young Lively swallowed three times distinctly, and then replied, while shaking the pepper-box over his potato, "Nobody." "Then, why can't you keep it to your- self?" "Can." "Then, why don't you do it?" "Do." "You exasperating boy! Wouldn't you die if you didn't get the last word?" "Dunno." "Look here, Napoleon Lively: you've got to stop your everlasting talking. Your chatter, chatter, chatter just tries me to death. I'm not-" Here Dr. Lively, overcome with the absurdity of this charge, did a very un- usual thing. He broke into laughter so prolonged and overwhelming that Mrs. Lively, after some signal failures to edge in a word of explanation, left the table in the midst of the uproar and dashed up stairs, where she jerked and pounded the beds with a will. The next day Mrs. Lively was canning some cherries which the doctor had taken in pay for a prescription. The air was filled with the mingled odor of the boil- ing fruit and of burning sealing-wax. The cans were acting with outrageous perversity, for they were second-hand and the covers ill-fitting. Her blood was almost up to fainting heat, and she was worried all over. She had to do all her preserving in a pint cup, as she ex- pressed it in her contempt for the dimin- utive proportions of the saucepan which she was using. "Here 'tis," said Napoleon, suddenly appearing at the kitchen-door. "Here what is?" demanded Mrs. Live- ly shortly, without looking up. Her two hands were engaged-one in pressing the cover on a can, the other in pour- ing wax where a bubble persistently ap- peared. "This," answered Napoleon. "What?" "Purse." "Purse!" she screamed. "Is the money in it?"She dropped her work and took eager possession of it. "Where did you find it?" "Big apple tree," replied Napoleon. "Under the apple tree?" "Fork," was the lad's emendation. "Why in the name of sense do you have to bite off all your sentences? They are like a chicken with its head off. Do you mean to say that you found the purse in the fork of the big apple tree?" "Do; and pipe." "Pipe! of course. One might track your father through a howling wilderness by the pipes he'd leave at every half mile. Don't let him know you've found the purse, and to-morrow morning I'm going to see if I can't have some of his bills paid before the money is lost, as it would be if he should get it in his hands." The next morning Mrs. Lively felt under her pillow, as on a former occa- sion, and, as on that former occasion, found the purse where she had put it the night before. She gave it into Na- poleon's hands after breakfast, and de- spatched him to settle the bills. In less than half an hour he was back. "Did you pay all the bills?" she asked. "No." "How many?" "None." "Why don't you go along and pay those bills, as I bade you?" "Have been." "Then, why didn't you settle the bills?" "Couldn't." If you don't tell me what's the mat- ter- Why couldn't you?" "No money!" "No money? Where's the purse?" "Here 'tis;" and he handed it to her. She opened it and found it empty. "Where's the money?" she demanded in great alarm. "Dunno." "What did you do with it?" "Nothin'." By dint of a few dozen more ques- tions she arrived at the information that when he had opened the purse to pay the first bill he found it empty. "Why didn't you look on the floor?" "Did look." "And feel in your pocket?" "Did." "I suppose you couldn't be satisfied till you'd opened the purse to count the money. You're a perfect Charity Cock- loft with your curiosity. And then you went off into one of your dreams, and forgot to clasp the purse. Go look for it right at the spot where you counted the money." "Didn't count it."' "Well, where you opened the purse in the street." "Didn't open it in the street." "The money just crawled out of the purse, did it?" "Dunno." The house was searched, the store, the street, but all in vain. Dr. Lively was questioned; Iid he take the money from the purse when it was under her pillow? He didn't even know before that the purse had been found. The house had been everywhere securely fastened, and the bed-room door locked. "Well, it's very mysterious," said Mrs. Lively. "That money went just as the other did in Chicago. We must be haunted by the spirit of some burglar or miser." Cards were posted in the stores and post-office, offering five dollars reward for the lost money. "A pretty affair," said Mrs. Lively, "to pay out five dollars just for some- body's shiftlessness!" "To recover sixty we can afford to pay five," said the doctor. Shortly after this an express package from Chicago was delivered for the doc- tor at his door. Mrs. Lively was quite excited, hoping she scarce knew what page: 26-27[View Page 26-27] from this arrival. The half hour till the doctor came home to tea seemed inter- minable. She sat by watching eagerly as the doctor cut the cords and broke the seals and unwrapped-what? Some things very beautiful, but nothing that could answer that ceaseless, persistent cry of the human, "What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" "Nothing but some more of those miserable sea-weeds!" exclaimed Mrs. Lively, "and the express on them was fifty cents." "They are beautiful," cried the doctor with enthusiasm. "Beautiful! What have we got to do with the beautiful? We've done with the beautiful for ever. I feel as if I never wanted to see anything beautiful again. And you'll have to spend your time collecting geodes to send back for the miserable trash. I hate those old sea-weeds. You left everything we own- ed to perish in that fire, and brought away only that case of sea-weeds. I'll take it some time to start the fire in the stove. Beautiful! What right have you to think of the beautiful? It's a dis- grace to be as poor as we are. The very bread for this supper isn't paid for, and never will be. Come to supper!"She snapped out these last words in a way inimitable and indescribable. "Priscilla," said the husband in a sad, solemn way, "I never knew anybody in my life who seemed so utterly exasper- ated by poverty as you." "You never knew anybody else that was tried by such poverty." "I saw thousands after the Chicago fire." "Yes, when they had the excitement all about them." "And who is the object of your exas- peration? Who is responsible for your circumstances? Who but God?" "God didn't lose that sixty dollars, and He didn't lose that money in Chi- cago." "Well, now, my dear, I'm working hard at my book, and I think I'm mak- ing a good thing of it, I hope it'll bring us a lift." "A book on that horrid subject isn't going to sell. I wouldn't touch it with a pair of tongs: I'd run from it. No- body'll read it but a few old long-haired geologists. I'd like to know what good all your geology and botany and those other horrid things ever did you. You couldn't make a cent out of all them put together. You're always paying ex- pressage on fossils and bugs and sea- weeds and trash. All that comes of it is just waste." "Does anything but waste come of your fault-finding?" "Now, who's finding fault?" Dr. Lively left the table and took down his case of sea-weeds, and turned it over in his hand. "The only thing that came through the fire," he said musingly. "And of what account is it?" said Mrs. Lively. "It may prove to be of value," he said. "To-night's addition will make my collection very fine. I may take some premiums on it at fairs." He sat down and began to compare the speci- mens just received with his previous collection. "What is the use of looking over those things-miserable sea-weeds? You'd better bring in some wood and draw some water: it nearly breaks my back to draw water up that rickety-rackety well." "Good Heavens!" cried Dr. Lively, springing to his feet like one electrified. "What does it mean?" Mrs. Lively gazed at him: his hand was full of money, greenbacks. "I found them here, among the sea- weeds in the case." He counted them out on the table, Mrs. Lively standing by watching him, for once speechless. "It's just the amount we lost, and the same bills. See here: ten five-hundred- dollar bills, and this change that we lost in Chicago; and four ten-dollar bills and four fives that were lost here. They are the same bills. Who put them here?" "I don't know," replied Mrs. Lively in a low tone: "I didn't." She spoke as though she was dealing with some- thing supernatural. In the case of sea-weeds, the only thing that came through the fire! How often had she pronounced it worthless! What a spite she had conceived against it! How the sight of it had all along exasperated her! "It is very strange," said the doctor, believing in his secret soul that his wife had put the money there and forgotten it. "Have you no recollection of putting the money here?" he said cautiously. "Try to think." "I never put it there," she said in a subdued, dazed way; "I know I never did." Napoleon came in eating an apple. He was informed of the discovery, and closely questioned. "Don't know noth- in' 'bout it," he declared. "Go back to Chicago?" he asked. "Yes," answered the doctor. "The money's here, however unaccountably: we'll accept the fact and thank God." The doctor's lip quivered, and Mrs. Lively burst into tears. "We will go back home, to the most wonderful city in the world. If possible, we'll buy the very lot where we lived, and build a little house. Many of those who lived in the neighborhood, my old patients, will return, and so I shall have a prac- tice begun. I shall start for Chicago in the morning. You can make an auc- tion of the few traps we have here, and follow as soon as possible. You'll find me at Mrs. B-'s boarding-house on Congress street." There was some further planning, so that it was eleven o'clock before they retired. Napoleon went to bed hungry that night, if indeed since the Chicago fire he had ever gone to bed in any other condition. He dropped off to sleep, however, and - all through his dreams he was eating-oh such good things!-juicy steaks, feathery biscuits, flaky pies, baked apples and cream. He awoke with an empty feeling, an old familiar feeling, which had often caused him to awake contemplating a midnight raid on the cupboard. But poor Napoleon had been restrained by conscientious scruples and by the fear of his mother's tongue, for he appre- ciated the altered condition of the fam- ily. But now they were all rich again there was no longer any necessity for pinching his stomach. There were in the cupboard some biscuits intended for breakfast, and some cold ham. He re- membered how tempting they had look- ed as his moth-er set them away. Now they fairly haunted him as he lay think- ing how favorable the moonlight was to his contemplated burglary. He left his bed, not stealthily: he was not of a nature to be specially mortified by dis- covery. He made his way to the dining- room. In one of the recesses made by the chimney Dr. Lively had constructed a kind of cupboard, and in the other recess he had put up some shelves, where their few books and the case of sea-weeds lay. Napoleon cut some gen- erous slices of ham, and with the bis- cuits constructed several sandwiches. Then he seated himself by the window for the benefit of the moonlight. This brought him within a few feet of the shelves where the sea-weeds were. There he sat in his night-dress, his bare feet on the chair-round, vigorously eating his sandwiches. Suddenly he heard a soft, stealthy, gliding noise in the hall. It was as though trailing drapery was sweeping over the naked floor. He gave a gulping swallow, paused in his eating and listened intently. The still- ness of death reigned through the house. He crammed half a sandwich in his mouth and began a cautious chewing. Again the trailing sound, and again his jaws were stilled. At the door entered a tall figure in flowing white robes. Steadily it advanced upon him, seeming to walk or glide on the air. For once there was something in which he was more interested than in eating. At last the ghost stood close beside him, and he saw with his staring eyes that it wore a veil and carried its left hand in its bosom. The boy sat rooted with horror, his tongue loaded, his cheeks puffed with his feast, afraid to swallow lest the noise of the act should reveal him. The figure withdrew its hand from its bosom: it held a roll of bankbills. It reached out for the case of sea-weeds, laid the page: 28-29[View Page 28-29] bills carefully between the cards, return- ed these to the case and the case to the shelf. It stood a moment in the broad moonlight, then lifted the veil, and re- vealed to the astonished boy the face of his mother. She stood within two feet of him, her eyes on his face, but she did not speak. "Mother! mother!" he cried with a sense of the supernatural on him, "what's the matter?"He seized her by the arm: he shook her. "What is it? what do you want? where am I? what does this mean?" were questions she asked like one newly awakened. "What are you doing here, Napoleon?" "Eatin'." "Eating! what for?" "Hungry." "What time is it?" "Dunno." "What am I doing here?" "Hidin' money;" and Napoleon took a bite from his long-neglected sandwich. "What do you mean?" "Mean /tat." "Stop bobbing off your sentences. Tell mc what it all means." Napoleon stood up, laid his sand- wiches on the chair, took down the sea- weeds and showed her the bills among them. "Who put these here?" "You." "When?" "Just now." "I did not." "You did." By this time Dr. Lively, who had been restless and excited, was awake, and down he came to the family gathering. By dint of persistent inquiries he at length arrived at the facts in the case, and drew the inevitable conclusion that his wife had been walking in her sleep, and that to her somnambulism were to be referred the mysterious emptyings of his purse. Mrs. Lively was mortified and sub- dued at being convicted of all the mis- chief which she had so persistently charged to her husband. And she said this to him with her arms in a very un- usual position-that is, around her hus- band's neck. "Oh, you needn't feel that way," he said, choking back the quick tears. "If you hadn't hid that money maybe we never could have got back home. But I'll hide my own money, after this, while I'm awake: I sha'n't give you another chance to hide money in sea-weeds. Strange, I should have snatched just those sea-weeds, and left everything else to burn! All these things make me feel that God has been very near us." "Yes;" said the wife, "He has whip- ped me till He's made me mind." The husband kissed her good-bye, for he was starting for Chicago. Then he stepped out into the dewy morning, and hurried along the silent streets, wit- nesses of the crushed aspirations of the thousands who had gone out from them. But he thought not of this. A gorgeous Aurora was coming up the eastern heights: his lost love was found. He was going home: all earth was glorified. DESHLER & DESHLER; OR, MY LIFE AS A BOOK-AGENT. TWO PARTS.-I. I HAD been summoned to the princi- pal's office, and the summons set my heart fluttering. True, it was the end of the month, when the teachers re- ceived their wages: of course that was why I had been called; and yet the fear of discovery kept me all the while ner- vous and suspicious. I was composition-teather in the sem- inary, and fifty dollars a month is what I earned. Doubtless it seems to many women, with their pitiful wages or no wages, that with fifty dollars a month I must have been happy and independent. But wait: out of this fifty dollars there had to be taken forty for board of self, baby and nurse-girl, and I had to bear the humiliating consciousness that favor, if not charity, was shown me in these figures, for the school was one of high grade, where the arrangements were ex- pensive and where the boarders fared well. Then, too, it was just at the close of the rebellion, when prices were ex- ceedingly high. Out of the ten dollars which the principal handed to me at the month's end there remained to be taken the nurse's wages, two dollars per week. Less than two dollars a month was all that I cleared. And my salary was for ten months only: during the summer vacation my income would cease. How I ever contrived to dress myself and child in that stylish young ladies' school I do not know. I suppose it was by darning and scouring, turning and piecing, and all the other innumerable shifts that only decayed gentlefolks know of. Yet such people generally have some wardrobe of better days on which to exercise these innumerable shifts. I had not even this: I had part- ed with mine, piece by piece, as I was closer and closer beleaguered. My last silk dress-it was an apple-green-had helped to pay my passage on a block- ade-runner to Halifax. I was at the South, you see, during the war. I had been called to the principal's office, I was saying. He wanted to pay me ily month's wages, that was all; so I breathed again. And yet there was a steel., averted look about his eyes which kept me from breathing with perfect free- dom. Well, the month's hard work was ended, and I held my wages in my hand. How was I ever to lay up anything for Baby at this rate? How were we to live through the coming vacation, now but one month removed? How, indeed, to come nearer, were the pressing wants of this very day to be met? There were things that Baby must have. Weeks be- fore I had been notified by the house- authorities that she was unpresentable, shabby. As if I hadn't known it loig before they! My own last pair of gaiters were brown and frayed, and next Sun- day soiled kids must keep me from church. These questions came to me as I sat in my room, looking vacantly at the ten- dollar bill which the principal had hand- ed me. And it was not the first time they had come to me. At every month's end through all the nine they had pos- sessed me. No day, indeed, had passed that they had not rapped importunately at my brain, and in the nights I would wake suddenly with two cruel, haunting dreads-of Want and Discovery-like ghostly hands on my heart. There was not in all the world the person to whom I could look for help. Why I was thus isolated it need not concern you to know. A gulf had come between me and those who once sheltered and cherished me. I can recall now the feeling with which in those sheltered days I read and heard about the wolf at the door. It was all so vague and meaningless. I never could make it seem real to me that any- page: 30-31[View Page 30-31] body was suffering from poverty, just as I could not believe when a child that it hurt my playmate when I pinched her as her pinches hurt me. And did the dread of the wolf ever hurt and drag another soul into the depths as it did mine? Is it gnawing at the hearts of the countless sad-eyed women and chil- dren and men who pass me in the crowd- ed streets? Well, something must be done. I had said this a thousand times before, but now the summer vacation was only a month off, and Baby and I had no hole in the earth where we could hide away and die to the world, as the happy snakes do when life grows uncomfortable. Then, too, my teacher's place I held by a thread. Of what account would be my ability, my faithful service, against the odds on the other side? Something must be done. I had questioned, over and over, if I must continue to teach-if there was not some work in which I could make more money or spend less-some work in which no one need trouble himself about my past life. I doubt if anybody ever read news- paper advertisements as industriously as I did during the following three weeks. I was seeking an avenue, an escape. From my reading it seemed that all the States were ringing with calls for agents. I read and studied, and wondered what this and that extraordinary business could be. I didn't see, if the advertisers were stating facts about the money to be made in their various agencies, why there should be any work-hunters or want-pursued people left. Ladies and gentlemen were assured that they could earn more mon- ey during their leisure hours at this and that agency than in any other earthly business. It appeared to me that the advertisers had better give themselves the profitable agencies that had more money in them than any other earthly business. I believed in my heart that these wonderful businesses were all, or the most of them, humbugs, and yet I studied the advertisements with a vague, hun- gry, fascinated interest, though without arriving at any decision. About a week before the school was to close for the year I was summoned to an- other interview with the principal. Now indeed there was fear and trembling in my heart. My first glance at the prin- cipal's face satisfied me that I was over- taken--that the grave of my secret had been found and laid open. First, he settled with me for the month, not quite ended. "Read this," he then said, hand- ing me an open letter. I read it through, and in the writing I recognized the cruel hand that had struck me. "Is this true?" the principal asked transfixing me with a look. "It is," I answered in a voice trem- bling in spite of a fierce resolve to keep it steady. "Then, of course, your services will not be needed another year. I have spoken with no one about your unfortu- nate history: I am the only one here acquainted with the facts, and for the sake of avoiding scandal I desire to have you remain until the close of the school. I received that letter nearly a month ago, but I did not wish to embarrass your short stay in the seminary; and I would not have spoken of my discovery till the last moment but that I wished to give you time to plan for the future. I might have excused the facts, but I cannot overlook the deception in your course, even to the concealment of your name." "And yet," I had the boldness to say, "you are purposing to continue the de- ception and the concealment till the close of your term. Why not publish a card giving the world my name and telling the story of my shame?" "It would create scandal and bring the school into disrepute," he answered. "And am I bound to bring myself into disrepute with all I meet and through all time? Before I may ask a man for work must I lay open my history to his gaze? Is it never to be permitted to my heart to know its own bitterness? Must every stranger intermeddle with it?" "No, no," said the man with some feeling: "matters are not so hopeless. You are not bound to lay open your life to every employer. There are many kinds of work available to you in which present fidelity is all that can concern an employer. But a young ladies' school is a different matter entirely. You have given me very faithful service. As a teacher of composition you have excep- tional ability. I shall not readily fill your place. I should be glad to retain you, but it is out of the question. I hope you may find another situation, but you have no right to engage with a school without giving your employer your full confidence. If you do make an engage- ment without this, it is a swindle, just as truly as when a man sells knowingly a diseased horse as sound." He spoke incisively. "I think you are right," I replied, "and I thank you for setting things in this sharp light. I have been sorely be- wildered: I was so environed." "Yes," he said, "these fatal steps take us always into hedged places, where escape costs a struggle." "Yes, yes," cried my impatient spirit, "I know it-oh, I know it all!" This interview decided me to investi- gate some of those calls for agents which I had been studying; but which? I de- cided against all those that called for money or postage-stamps: I would run no risks. While hesitating between one guaranteeing three hundred dollars per month, and another ten dollars a day, I came upon a notice which decided my fate: "WANTED-Agents for Horace Greeley's American Conflict," etc. etc. Now, I had heard of Horace Greeley -he was a reality: here was something tangible. A sight of his name was like encountering a friend in a land of stran- gers and in a sea of perplexities. This call was surely honest and trustworthy. I immediately despatched a letter of in- quiry to the Hartford publishers. One morning shortly after the Latin teacher handed mewith a sharp look a bulky post-office package, which brought the color in a tingling flood to my cheek. The envelope was stamped with the very call for agents which I had answered. I hurried off to my room and eagerly tore open the package. It contained a bewildering number of circulars, one of which, "Confidential Terms to Agents," fairly dazed me. Forty per cent. com- mission the agent was allowed. The in- formation excited me greatly. I had supposed that on the sale of a five-dollar volume, for instance, there would be a commission of fifty or sixty cents to the agent; but two dollars! This profit seemed so enormous that I began to sus- pect the publishers of proposing some swindling business to me. And this feeling was strengthened by the reading of a lengthy circular, "Instructions to Agents," which they were earnestly rec- ommended to commit to memory before starting out to canvass, with the assur- ance that in the practice of these "In- structions" success was certain. I felt humiliated in reading this circular-not that anything dishonest was proposed: this I was forced to acknowledge-but there was a system of tactics marked out for the use of the agent against an un- suspecting public. The truth is, I was getting a glimpse of the strategies, if not the tricks, of trade, and I was startled. And yet there it was, printed in great emphasized letters, that without a close observance of the "Instructions" failure inevitably awaited the book-agent. I was sorely perplexed, but I happily de- cided to take my perplexities to a lady acquaintance, a mother of daughters, a wise, discreet woman in whose judgment I could confide. She at once set my conscience at rest on the subject of the forty-per-cent. matter, assuring me that it was a common-profit in traffic with any goods. "A, hundred per cent. is no very un- usual profit," she continued. "You'll earn your money twice over, poor dear! You'll find getting subscriptions and delivering these great volumes pitiless work. I wouldn't do it for the money that everybody together will make in the whole enterprise." "You wouldn't do it for the money's sake, but you would to get a deathly weight off your heart," I replied. "I could never leave my shelter till pushed out," she said: "I would cling till the last moment to the roof above me. I could never, never step out in the storm as you are proposing to do." page: 32-33[View Page 32-33] I did not tell her that I had been pushed out. I was growing very weak, and was trembling in every fibre. I hastened to divert my thoughts. "Read this dreadful circular," I said, handing her the "Instructions to Agents," "and tell me what you see in it." "I see nothing dreadful," she answered when she had run it over. "If I were to send you out on any mission that would bring you in contact with people -to solicit aid for the poor or for an or- phan asylum or for our wounded sol- diers-I should have to give you in- structions much like these to ensure your success. You would need to be cau- tioned against pushing in the faces of people's prejudices, against self-asser- tion, against impatience. I should have to advise you to humor people's harm- less whims; to make the most of any prominent name you might capture; to use every honest argument and endea- vor, and, in short, to do essentially what you are instructed in this circular to do." So my conscience was relieved. Then I asked the lady's advice about under- taking the work. "You must counsel with your own heart," she answered. "You know what courage there is in you. As for me, I would sooner the earth should open and swallow me than to undertake such a thing." "And so should I." Yet in less than an hour thereafter I had mailed a letter to the publisher ac- cepting the agency for Greeley's Amer- ican Conflict. When the school was closed I put my child to board in the country with a woman who was a stran- ger to me, but who had been recom- mended as motherly and trustworthy. I could never write it here how I suffered when I turned my back on the little hands outstretched to me, and ran along the village street to the station with my hands over my ears to shut out my ba- by's crying, my veil drawn to hide my own. I climbed into the car just mov- ing off, where I cried till it seemed to me that I never could stop crying. A ride of three hours brought me to the city to which I had been appointed agent for The American Conflict. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and very warm. I had never been in the city before, and did not know the name of a person in it; so when I found myself amid the bustle and hurry of the great railroad dep6t, jostled and crowd- ed, where everybody was full of self, I felt more of a nobody than ever. I was nobody to all the world except Baby: I was all the world to her. This thought made me strong to turn my back on self and to brave all things for her sweet sake. I turned to one of the importunate hackmen and inquired if he knew of a quiet, respectable boarding - house of moderate terms and convenient to the business of the city. Yes, he knew just the place. Who ever heard of a hack- man who didn't know just the place? In due time I was set down before a dilapidated-looking wooden house, de- cayed and gray with age, which was, however, finely located for my purpose. I was shown into a cheerless sitting- room, where I was soon joined by a man of more sombre aspect even than the house. He was very tall and very thin, with a bald head and a faded blue eye. I asked him if I could get hoard in the house, and he asked me if I could give him city references, adding, "We never take lady-boarders into the house without references." I wondered if he took men-boarders without references. I hadn't learned then that the first atti- tude of the mind toward an unprotected woman is one of suspicion-that it is a sin for a woman to be friendless. And surely the case must be exceptional: somebody must be at fault when a wo- man has no hand she can grasp. I had supposed that I had gone into a business where there would be no raking up of the dead past, yet here I was in trouble at the very start. City references were demanded, I did not know a per- son in the city, and of course did not wish to. I had meant to earn what money I could, and then to go to some new place where nobody had ever known me, and live as much away from the world as was possible. "Can you give me references out of the city?" he asked when I had told him that I was a stranger in the place- "the name of your pastor, for instance? I suppose you're a member of some Church: it's your duty to be." "Yes," I answered, "a member of the Presbyterian Church." "Ah!" he said, smiling in a repressed way, as if afraid of smiling, "that is my Church. I used to be a Presbyterian preacher when I was a young man." My heart warmed toward him, and I thought his must toward me; so with an outhurst I said, "I am about to engage in a work which is out of my sphere: I would rather my friends did not know about it." This was true as far as it went. There came a cold, blue look into his face: "What work is it?" "I am abook-agent," I answered, my face burning as the confession for the first time passed my lips. "Oh, you needn't be ashamed of that," he replied. "I've been a book-agent my- self." Here was another bond of sympathy between us. If he had suffered as I was suffering, racked by misgivings and hu- miliations, he must feel for me. But, alas! he had not suffered as I was suf- fering: he was of a different nature; and then, too, he was not a woman for the first time facing the world. "Did you make anything at the busi- ness, and is it very hard?"I knew that my eyes must have an eager, hungry look in them as these questions came, forced out by my vague fears. "Some people can make money at a book-agency, and some can't. I did very well, for I chose a book that I knew the Lord would bless-one that he would like to see in the hands of all the people. It was Mr. Headley's Sacred Mountains. Then, besides, I was used to men and their ways, and knew how to feel for their weak spots, and how to overper- suade them. If I fell in with a religious man, I would tell him about the sweet piety of the book and its devotional spirit. If the man wasn't religious, I'd recommend it for something else. I re- 3 member a man once swore at me and. ordered me out of his office-said he didn't want any of that religious twad- dle. 'This book is not religious any- thing,' I said. 'It's solid history and geography, presented in such a fasci- nating way that it will create in your children a taste for reading and study.' Then I turned to a part that was simply descriptive and read it to him. Well, that man took two copies for a pair of twin boys he had. Yes, I did very well in the book business, but I should say that you wouldn't do much. Women can't. They ain't strong enough for the walking and the standing around and the talking: it takes a sight of talking and arguing and persuading. Sometimes a man has got to be just worried into sub- scribing-teased into it. And then a woman can't go into men's offices and shops: 'tain't proper. No, God intend- ed woman to be the vine, and He intend- ed man to be the upholding tree: He never intended woman to go out into the world." He told me much more about God's intentions, which I only half heard. I was trying to think out something for myself. I did, however, listen as he went on to tell about a woman, a book- agent, who had been stopping with him last week. "She was agent for a med- ical book," he said. "She didn't make enough to pay her board: I had to keep her trunk and clothes. You'd better find some other business." I tried to speak, but found myself crying. "Oh, you needn't feel downhearted: you can find some other work." "What?"I managed to articulate. "Well, you can go out as sewing-girl. Don't you understand dressmaking?" "No." "Well, you can learn it." Oh, what did he know about the pres- ent pressure and my empty purse, and about Baby? Three dollars a week I was paying for her board. "And you ought to learn it, so as to make your own dresses. A person in your circumstances ought not to hire her dressmaking: she ought to understand page: 34-35[View Page 34-35] doing everything for herself. You'll al- ways be hard pressed until you learn to do all sorts of work for yourself, instead of hiring. Now, we need a dining-room girl: ours left day before yesterday, and we pay good wages-two and a half a u'eek to a first-rate girl." Ah! well, again, how was he to know what I had been? and indeed what did my had-beens have to do with the matter? "Our dining-room work is very light -nothing but play: everything's very convenient. I try to make everything comfortable for my servants: they have feelings as well as other people. But I don't believe you're strong enough for the work: you look sickly." I was too much tired then to remark the inconsistencies in his words. I was feeling so disheartened and fearful about my venture that had he said three dol- lars a week for a first-rate girl, or if Ba- by's board had been two and a half a week, I think I should have engaged for the dining-room place at once. "No," I said, "I must try the agency: I have spent money for the outfit, and I mean to try it." "What book are you agent for?" "Greeley's Amnerican Conflict." "That is a very fine work, I have un- derstood. There ought to be patriotism enough in the country to sell that. If you can succeed with any book, you can with that. Every loyal man who loves his country will take a copy. Get good names to start with." "Will you subscribe for it?"I had the courage to ask. "Your name will be an introduction to the boarders of the house and in this neighborhood." "No, no, I couldn't subscribe," he an- swered, looking nervous and uneasy. "I'd like to help you along, I believe in charity: I always help everybody I can, but-" "I will board out the subscription," I suggested. "That wouldn't help the matter any: I'd have to pay cash for what you'd eat, and for the wear and tear of things. I have to buy every mouthful that's eaten in this house, and provisions are very high: steak's eighteen cents a pound, and I have to give all my boarders good fare. I've given my best days to the service of the Lord, and now I'm left, like the old wornout dray-horse, to shift for myself." I almost expected to hear him add, "The Lord is very ungrateful." "No," he continued, "I can't subscribe; and there's no use in my subscribing. It's likely some of the boarders will take it: it's their duty to, and I'll have a chance to read it all I wish." "Can you give me board?"I again asked. "Well, I suppose I must. I always like to help a person along, especially an unprotected female: and you're a sister in the Church. I suppose you haven't any too much money;" and he smiled as though he had made a good joke. "A room on the third floor would likely suit you." I recalled the low, smothered look the house had presented from the exterior, and I could easily conjecture what a room on the third floor was like. But the days when I was allowed a choice were passed. "For the rooms on that floor I get ten dollars a week-in advance." That last word sent my heart into my throat. I had but two dollars and fifty cents in the world. I ought to have known that my board would be demand- ed in advance, but I did not: I had hoped that I should have a chance to earn it before the end of the week. "Can't you give me a little time to earn my board? You can hold my trunk in pledge. If I have any success whatever I shall earn my week's board." I wish I could show you how that ex- minister received this suggestion. He screwed himself this way and that on his chair; he ran his fingers through his scant hair; he rubbed his hands to- gether; he buttoned his black alpaca coat and unbuttoned it; he crossed his legs; he uncrossed them; he stood up; he sat down. "No, no, I couldn't do anything of the kind: it's no way to do business at all. I've got my store-room full of pawned trunks already. If you were a man, you might have something I could wear, but your ribbons and fixings wouldn't be of any use to me: Ilost my daughter years ago. Besides, it's against my rules and principles to take in women without ref- erences. I don't want to be hard on you, you understand, but I've got to look out for myself. 'He that provides not for his own household is worse than an infidel.' You'll have to go somewhere else. Put your trust in the Lord and you've nothing to fear; but you can't get board anywhere in this city on credit." I took out my purse and handed him the two dollars and a half. "This is all I have," I said: "I suppose it will pay my way till morning.", "Well, I don't want to strain matters with you: you can stay till after break- fast to-morrow." I rose, drew down my veil and left the house. Now indeed I felt that I was pursued: the wolf was verily on my track. I must do something, and that at once. I walked along the street blindly, trying to recall something of the "Instructions to Agents." I had sup- posed that I knew them by heart, but they had all gone from me. On I walked, because I knew not what else to do. I looked at the magnificent trade- palaces on either hand, filled with the products of every clime and people, and questioned why I was walking those strange streets penniless, utterly wretch- ed except for my love of Baby and the feeling that I must brave everything for her. I looked again, and I was passing between magnificent residences. "Ah!" I thought, "if the women in these beau- tiful homes knew of the wretched spirit passing by their steps, how the doors right and left would fly open!" But I hadn't time for such thoughts. By persistent effort I succeeded at length in recalling something in the "Instruc- tions " about getting influential names to start with-the names of ministers and pastors of churches. Then I stepped into a corner grocery and asked to see a city directory. Turning to the churches, I took down the names of the city pas- tors, laughing a little at what I was plot- ting against them as they sat perhaps, in quiet unconsciousness, in their studies. I found that I was in Washington street, and one of my victims, a Presbyterian minister, lived in Washington street, about five blocks up the street I conjec- tured by comparing numbers-six and a half I found when I had walked the dis- tance. I never contemplated any house with such trepidation as that minister's. I think I know how a condemned criminal feels at the first viewof his prison. I never marched into the cannon's mouth, but I believe I could do the thing with a happy heart compared with the one I carried up the steps of that minister's house. He was at home, and I was shown at once to his study. There, printed on the air between my face and his, were some lines from the "Instruc- tions:" "Call the gentleman by name; introduce yourself with a respectful but fearless voice and manner, as though you were proud of your business." How was I to do this when I was ready to sink into the floor? I spoke. My voice sounded strange, and seemed to come from I know not what quarter. I was ready to cry, as, indeed, it seemed to me I always was in those days. "And what do you wish of me?" ask- ed the minister in a voice oh so cold! I wondered if that was the voice with which he dispensed consolation to his flock. "I should like to have you subscribe for this book." "I can't afford it," he replied briefly. "I mean, of course, that I will present you with a copy of the book," I ex- plained. "You can't afford to do that." "The influence of your name will more than compensate me." "I cannot endorse a book that I have not examined. I cannot lend my name blindly: I might mislead others." I respected the justice of his position, and turned to go, forgetting all the ready- made arguments in the "Instructions." The minister followed me to the door. How contemptibly sheepish I felt! "One of my elders lives in that house page: 36-37[View Page 36-37] just across the street," the minister said. "He is one of the most benevolent men in the city, and one of the most influen- tial. If you can get his name, it will go much farther than mine." As I crossed the street to a grand house with a stone front, I saw the mas- sive door closing on a gentleman who had just gone in. The bell was answer- ed immediately by the same gentleman. If this is the most benevolent man in the city, he does not advertise his benevo- lence in his face, I thought. It was thin, and caution was its prominent expres- sion. Politely but coldly I was invited to a parlor. With a statuesque face he heard my story. Then he handed me a card. "Come to the bank to-morrow morn- ing at nine o'clock," he said. There remained nothing for me to do but to leave the house. Mindful of the instructions to start my list with influen- tial names, I decided to abide my in- terview with the banker, and to return to my boarding-place, for it was now nearly five o'clock, and I was faint and hungry. But in the nman time I was not idle. There was a map of the city in the house, and I studied it faithfully. The next morning, at a few minutes before nine, I found myself at the bank, and punctually at nine the gentleman whom I was to meet came into the office, said good-morning to me in a reserved way, carefully inspected his office for a few moments, and then sat down at his desk. How could I hope for anything from that marble man? "I will subscribe for your book," he said. My heart gave a sudden leap, and I tried to say "Thank you," but not a sound passed my lips. I opened the subscriition-look, laid it before him, and stood by watching as he wNrote "John S. Waddell " in queer, cramped letters. I saw the name in the same qlueer, cramp- ed letters many a time after this on bank- cheques, and never without an inclina- tion to carry it to my lips. lie dried it with blotting-paper and handed the book back to me. I received it in silence, though feeling as if I should like to go down on my knees at his feet. I turned to leave. "Wait, madam," he said, writing on a card that he handed me. "Go to Mr. Perkins: this is his address. You may say that I sent you. He'll subscribe. And this is Mr. Tomlinson's address: he'll subscribe. Good-morning." I could have hugged the man, but I did not even say "Thank you." Of course I was crying. Mr. Perkins's number was near by, and I found the gentleman in his office. I had the tact to make Mr. Waddell's name the first word in my petition: "I am so- liciting subscribers for Mr. Greeley's his- tory of the rebellion." I didn't need to remember the ready-made arguments in the "Instructions." Mr. Perkins said promptly, "Very well, I'll give you my name;" which he did in a brisk, nervous way. "There! use it wherever you think it will be of advantage to you. I am pretty well known in the city, and I am glad to en- courage woman in any honest work, for there are very few avenues open to her, and those are crowded. This work is something that women can do, and I consider it a perfectly legitimate busi- ness; but there are people who do not. You'll meet with a great man)y rebuffs, more refusals than acceptances by a great many; but put a hard face on and keep at work, and you'll succeed." Mr. Perkins liked to hear himself talk, and I also liked to hear him when he talked such words of cheer. Just at this point a tall, heavily-beard- ed man entered the office. "Dennison," said Mr. Perkins, "here's a book you ought to have for your boy-Greeley's history of the rebellion. Sit down here and write your name. It's sold only by subscription." Mr. Dennison gave me a hasty glance, sat down in the indicated seat and wrote his name. Each of these three orders was for a copy in half-calf binding, at fifteen dol- lars for the two volumes; so that I had made eighteen dollars in half an hour, though the books, it is true, yet remain- ed to be delivered. I began to credit the stories of three hundred dollars a month. My spirits were up among the hundreds. My next move brought me into a law- yer's office, for I thought I would can- vass the building before going to Mr. Tomlinson, whose address the banker had given me. As I entered the law- yer's office a youngish man sprang to his feet, bowed in a polite, winning way, and wheeling an easy-chair about said, "Pray be seated, madam. The sight of a lady this dull, sultry morning is very refreshing." I felt that he took me for a client. I dreaded to tell him my errand, and I ought to have known better than to do it. When I did, I can't tell you how dis- gusted and injured he looked. My next interview was with a doctor, on whose office-door was the title of my story-"Desher & Desher." Both gen- tlemen were in. I addressed myself to one seated near the door. "You haven't a patient in me," I said, wishing to avoid a repetition of the law- yer's disappointment, and smiled as well as I could. "What, then?" asked the gentleman, returning my smile with one very cheery. "Oh," I answered, keeping up the play, "I am one of those horrid creatures that are permitted on earth to teach peo- ple patience." "To what genus of the plagues do you belong?" "I'm a book-agent, and of course I have the very best book that ever came from the press." "To be sure you have," he assented, "but what's the name of it?" "Greeley's American Conflict." "But it's too early for a good history of the rebellion: in the year three thou- sand and one there may be a well-sifted, unbiased history of the war." "In which," I added, emboldened and brightened by his good-nature, "General Grant may be shown to have been a pure invention, and the identity of Abraham Lincoln with the founder of the Jewish nation be clearly demonstrated. But, unfortunately, you may not be living then to subscribe for that history." "Perhaps not, but you and I may talk it over in heaven." "But you'll never go to heaven if you don't subscribe for this book." "I don't believe it's worth subscribing for. Greeley couldn't write an honest history: he's a partisan." "I'm sorry for the American who is not a partisan-who could maintain neu- trality in these momentous days," I said warmly. Glancing toward the lower end of the room, I caught a look of approval in the eyes of the younger brother, for such I afterward found he was. "But a partisan can't write a history," said the elder Desher. "All histories have been written by partisans," I maintained. "Every his- torian draws his testimony from parti- sans: he but weighs it, and strikes the balance of probabilities. Mr. Greeley's history contains a very careful analysis of the causes of the war. This makes the book valuable, let the history of the rebellion be what it may." "Mr. Greeley ought to be able to write well concerning the causes of the war: he had more to do with bringing it on than any other man in America," laugh. ed the doctor. "That is very high praise," I answer. ed, "and if it is true it entitles Mr. Gree- ley to the gratitude of us all. So I'll make an appeal for the brave old editor. You see, I'm working for him as well as for myself: he has a percentage on every sale I make. Subscribe for Mr. Greeley's sake." "Well, Greeley is an object of charity, and I'll subscribe for his history, but not this morning." "The sooner I get a good show of names the better for me and for Mr. Greeley. Your name will get me dozens of others among your patients," I argued. "If it were a bottle of cough-medicine you were selling, my name might help a little." "You understand that'you are not to pay for the books till delivered," I ex- plained, thinking his delay might be a matter of money. "I Ivish influential names to begin with;" and I opened the subscription-book. page: 38-39[View Page 38-39] "No, I shall not subscribe now," he persisted. "Call here to-morrow morn- ing." "Very well," I answered, wondering what difference it could make to any mortal whether he wrote his name to- day or to-morrow. "Why do you wish to give the lady the trouble of coming again?" asked the younger brother, glancing up from his book. "Well, I should like to hear how she's getting along," replied the elder gentle- man. I don't know what kind of a look it was that came into the younger man's face at this reply, and I don't know whether it was meant for me or his brother. It was such a look as made me shrink from asking for his subscription, and I left the office. In the hall my eye caught the sign "Agents Wanted" on a neighboring door. I made a call in the room, feel- ing interested to investigate anything germane to my business. When I had proposed to the young man whom I found within to subscribe for Greeley's history his interest seemed immediately engaged. He looked over the prospectus attentively, and asked me a multitude of questions about my experience in the business, my success, etc. Then he said, "I'll tell you what: when you come to deliver the books to your subscribers, you'll wish you'd never heard of Hor- ace Grceley. You'll find it an awful job, the hardest work a lady ever undertook. I've known ladies who had taken a large list of subscribers get so discouraged when they came to delivering the books that they'd sell out for a song, or maybe they'd throw the whole thing overboard. I'd advise you to give up the business at the start. Did you ever canvass for books issued in parts? Well, it's ten times easier than working with volumes. Now, I run subscription-books that are delivered in parts-one part a fortnight. And it's no work at all to deliver them. A part doesn't weigh much more than a sheet of music;" and he took down some "parts" from a shelf in confirmation of his words. "And it's easier to get sub- scriptions for a work in parts. Men are frightened at the thought of paying ten dollars in a lump for a book, but almost anybody can pay twenty-five cents a fortnight, and never miss it. Now, I can give you the agency for a history of the war that's published in parts; and it's a better history than Greeley's." He talked until I was persuaded to try canvassing for his history. So, equipped with "Part First," I found myself again in the hall, and again I was attracted by a sign, "Agents Wanted." I found th'is. call was for picture-agents. "Hurrah!" said the picture-man when he saw "Part First" in my hand, "you don't mean to say that you've gone into this business? You'll find it the most tedious, picayunish work that was ever concocted. You can see yourself how it is. Suppose you always find your sub- scriber at home with the change ready, you've got to call on him twenty-four times to collect five or six dollars. But you're more likely not to find him in, and so you may have to call thirty or forty times to make that collection. And it's all nonsense about its being easy to deliver these parts. I've tried it. If you took along just one part at a time, it would do to talk. But to make the thing pay at all you've got to take two or three dozen parts when you start out, and that makes a big weight. You'll get awful tired of the work, I tell you. Now," continued the speaker, "the picture-busi- ness is the prettiest business for a lady in the world. You can start out with seven or eight pictures, and deliver as you get subscribers, and the whole work is fin- ished at one stroke. And the profits are immense. Here's a picture--' Washing- ton's Prayer at Valley Forge'-sells for two dollars and a half, and your com- mission is a dollar. Now, a man knows what he's getting when he takes a pic- ture, but when he subscribes for a book he is buying in the dark: he's got to take the agent's word for everything; and people suspect every agent of being a swindler." "I get the same commission on Gree- ley's history." "Yes, but you've got to take the ex- pressage and the packing-boxes out of that; and you've got to rent room some- where for receiving your books: they are very bulky. Then there comes in the work of delivering them; so you'd be safer in calling your commission twenty per cent., instead of forty." And so he argued his cause until I was again persuaded to change my work. My next call was on a real-estate agent. When I told him my business, showing him the engraving, he broke into a coarse laugh, and declared he wouldn't give two dollars and fifty cents for all the pic- tures in the world unless he could sell them again. Then I asked him to sub- scribe for Greeley's Conflict. He wouldn't have the book as a gift-wouldn't lumber up his house with' books. I'd better go to selling real estate-could make lots more money than at books. Nobody wanted books except a few literary folks, and literary folks never had any money: they were always poor, wore other peo- ple's old clothes, and were out at the el- bows at that. "Now, real estate is some- thing that everybody knows about, and wants-rich and poor, the wise and the fools. I've got a hundred and odd lots out at Riverside, the finest suburb of this city. I'll give you fifty dollars on every lot you sell." He brought forth maps and diagrams and photographs, and showed me a beautiful city, with parks, boulevards, rustic bridges, fountains, churches, seminaries, hotels, etc. Then he told me of a young man who had made a hundred dollars a day working in Riverside real estate. "It's no trick at all to sell two lots a day. Why, there was a young fellow came in here the other day-played out-told me he didn't know where to get his dinner. I urged him to try real estate. Well, in one hour after leaving my office he came back with a woman to have a deed made for a Riverside lot he had sold her, and he actually paid for his dinner out of the fifty dollars commission he got on the sale." Fifty dollars at a stroke was very daz- zling, and then, as the Riverside-man had said, one didn't have to "lug" the lots round, as one must the books one sold. He filled my hands with descriptive cir- culars, maps, photographs, price-list, etc., and I left his room. I next found myself in the office of an insurance-agent, and offered to sell him, a lot at Riverside. He smilIe: I was encouraged. I showed him We maps and photographs and price list, and talk- ed about the boulevards, the groves, the parks, the bridges, the seminaries, the churches, the hotels. The more I talked the more he smiled. "You're a good talker," he said at length, "but do you know that this beau- tiful city of Riverside is under water- that there isn't a house there except some shanties occupied by wharf-rats? Riv- erside is a paper city, a swindle. Now, let me tell you something just in a busi- ness way. I don't mean any flattery, you understand. You are one of the best talkers I ever met; you are evident- ly a lady; you are easy and graceful in your manners; you are handsome-ex- cuse me, I am talking business; there is an alternating brightness and pensive- ness in your face and manner very taking; your voice is music; you're a Southerner, I suspect; your manner is at once shy and brave; there is an ap- peal in your plain black dress. Please don't resent what I am saying: I am invoicing your stock in trade, and it's tremendous. Your very weakness is strength: men will listen to you when they'd turn a man out of doors. So get hold of the right thing, and you'll make about the best agent that ever I saw, and I've seen a great many in my life. Now, life insurance is a legitimate business, understood and admitted to be so by business-men the country over. Almost every man means to get his life insured some day, and needs only to be ap- proached in the right way to be secured. Now, just let me show you;" and he took out a pencil and drew a card to him. "I pay you ten per cent. commis- sion. Say you get an insurance policy for fifty thousand dollars; say the pre- mium on that is three thousand; ten per cent. on that is three hundred dollars at one stroke. Then I give you five per cent. on renewals-and almost every man page: 40-41[View Page 40-41] renews-and you have one hundred and fifty dollars a year steady income as long as the policy is kept up. Now, you might get a fifty-thousand-dollar policy by a half hour's talk. Suppose you get ten such policies a month-and you can do it-there you've got three thousand dollars in hand for your month's work, and an income of fifteen hundred a year on renewals." "Oh, Baby! if we only could!" cried ny heLart. "And even if you get only one such a month, at the year's end you're rich. Just try it. I'll tell you how to work it." He produced circulars, books, etc., and began a bewildering talk about average of life, non-forfeiting policies, premiums, dividends, endowmenit plans, stock com- pany, etc. "I don't understand it at all," I said. "But you will with a little study," he assured me. "Just take these papers along and study them at your leisure "- I filled my pockets and hands-" and be sure you come to see me again." I left the office, and of course was de- cided to go into the life-insurance busi- ness. I followed it for about two hours, and insurance-agents will perhaps not be surprised to learn that I did not hook a fifty-thousand-dollar fish. At the end of that time I encountered a second in- surance-man, who clearly explained to me my want of success: I had under- taken to represent the most expensive, the most unreliable, the most unpopu- lar company in the United States. He proved by figures-and figures can't lie -that his company was at the head of insurance companies-that the insured saved twenty - five per cent., solicitors were sure of success, etc. etc. I heard the great court-house clock striking twelve. This was the dinner- hour at my boarding-house, and I was hungry: I had breakfasted at six. But my purse was empty. I decided to work on, because I knew not what else to do. Something might happen before tea-time. I went out into the street, and walked on till I came to a church. I had a feeling that I was off the track-that I ought to think over matters and get my mind settled. So I sat down on the church- steps, and I said to myself, "This morn- ing you were doing well: you made eighteen dollars in half an hour, but you allowed yourself to be f-ightened and coaxed into trying one thing and another until you were bewildered and lost your- self. Now, the first thing that you've got to do is to relieve present pressure. Perhaps there is more money in the in- surance business, but there is more wait- ing, and it's more complicated. You don't understand it: your brain is in a whirl now about it. To save your life, you don't know the difference between a policy and a premium. Do you stick to Horace Greeley's Anmerican Conflict -for the present at least, until you can find breathing-time." And myself an- swered, "I'll do it." Then I left my seat on the church- steps and went on, growing hungrier and fainter every moment; and I felt sheep- ish and guilty. It was not simply because I was hungry - that I had often been in my life-but that I was walking the street like any beggar, hungry and with no means of getting a dinner. I worked on from one door to another, entering every one on my way, finding myself ever and anon in some uncomfortable situation- in a b)arber's shop or a billiard-room or a cigar-store, and once in a saloon. I was unused to a crowded city, and was not familiar with the characteristic shop- markings. In a carpet-store I caught a subscriber. After a while I stumbled into a restau- rant thronged with gentlemen. I was making a hasty retreat when I met Dr. Desher, Sr., entering the eating-room. "Why!" he said in a tone of surprise as he recognized me: then he added in- stantly, as if comprehending that I had missed my way, "This is the way you want to go." He put my hand under his arm and led me through a side door, and before I was aware of his design we were seated at a private table in a ladies' eating-room, and he was asking me what he should order. I was greatly confused, and I don't know what I said, except that I couldn't, and I tried to move back my chair. "Sit still a moment," he said. "You haven't had your dinner, have you?" "No," I had to acknowledge. "You must be careful to take your meals regularly. We doctors know the ill effects of irregular eating. It's nearly three o'clock. Where do you board?- Why, that's old Bennett's!" he said when I had given him the number. "My dear madam, my heart aches for you. That old skinflint will starve you to death. Nothing less than the stomach of an ostrich could digest the delicacies of his table. I had a patient there once, and I always had to take along something in my pocket for him to eat." Again I tried to leave my seat, saying I must go. "One moment, madam," he said: "it will save you considerable time, a tedious trip, a poor dinner, and, it may be, an attack of sickness, to dine here to-day; and it will give me a great pleasure. We'll take salt together, and then we shall be friends." "I'm greatly obliged to you, but-but -I am a stranger." By this time I had left my seat. Dr. Desher also rose, and accompanied me to the door, saying, "Please let me order some trifle to refresh you. This morn- ing you looked fresh and bright: now you are absolutely haggard." I stepped into the street and walked away without speaking, and of course I cried behind the veil I had drawn. I thought I had left the doctor in the res- taurant, but he was still at my side. "If you will go to old Bennett's, you must ride," he said: "I will stop a car for you." I wished Dr. Desher in Jericho. How was I to pay my car-fare? I tried to banish the tears from my voice as I said, "I don't wish to ride." But he heard the tears, as anybody but a deaf man would. "My dear madam," he said, "pray forgive me. I do not wish to intrude, but you're in trouble. What is the matter? Perhaps I can help you. Pray tell me your trouble." "You're a stranger," I managed to say. "That is true. If you have friends in the city, by all means take your trouble to them." "I have no friends." "Then tell me your trouble. Believe me, I will respect your confidence. Is it about money?" The thought flashed upon me that I should have to tell somebody, so I said, "Yes." "Here is my office," he said: "come in, and perhaps we can contrive some- thing." The younger brother was in the main office, so I was conducted to one of the consultation-rooms. "Now tell me all about it," said my companion. "This is all there is about it," I an- swered, trying to smile: "I haven't any money, not a single cent, and I've no business to live." "And have you no friends to look to?" he asked. "No." "That is strange.- You are a delicate, refined woman: it is very strange for such a one to be completely friendless. I don't understand it. You must have had friends some time." "Yes, I have had friends." "Are they all dead?" "No." "Estranged?" "Yes." "You married against their wishes, perhaps." "No," I answered, resenting his ques- tions. He felt the resentment in my voice doubtless, for he said hastily, "I beg your pardon. I haven't questioned you from idle curiosity, but I am interested, and I want to help you. How can I? Can't I do something more than offer you money?" "I will tell you how you can help me: you can subscribe for this book. Write your name now." This he did, and then turned to me with "Well?" "Please indicate the style of binding you wish," I continued-" cloth, sheep, half-calf, or Turkey morocco." "Which will give you the best com- page: 42-43[View Page 42-43] mission?" he asked, not having noticed the printed prices. "The highest priced of course-the Turkey morocco. That's expensive- ten dollars a volume, and there will be two volumes;" and I pointed to the publishers' prices. "That's the kind I wish," he replied, making the entry. "What next?" he asked. "I have forty-per-cent. commission, so that I shall make eight dollars on your subscription, as you will see from these terms to agents;" and I showed him the circular. "If you choose, you may advance me five dollars on your subscription. You will know that I shall deliver the books, as it will be for my interest to secure the remaining three dollars." He took out his purse and handed me eight dollars: "Let me at least do so much." "Believe me, I appreciate your kind- ness," I said. "And believe me, I appreciate the fa- vor you have done in allowing me to do this little thing." "Now I'll go and get my dinner," I said between laughing and tears. "It is incredible!" and the doctor re- garded me with steadfast eyes. "Won't you come in here sometimes and let me know how you are doing?" "Perhaps so: I should like to." "And if you get into trouble, will you come to me before any one else?" he asked. "It will be easier to come to you than to any one else," I answered. , "And you may fall sick--I'm afraid you will in this work: remember I am a doctor." Well, I went into the street, cried of course, stopped a car and went to Mr. Bennett's-paid my board for a week, and sat down to a dinner of stewed beef and rice pudding. My interview with Dr. Desher was a grateful relief: I felt an outstretched hand. I worked that after- noon till six o'clock. I had all sorts of things said to me, kind and unkind. I cried at the kind things and at the un- kind. I did not get a single subscription. (END OF PART 1.) DESHLER & DESHLER; OR, MY LIFE AS A BOOK-AGENT. TWO PARTS.-II. AS soon as I had taken my tea I went out to work. This time I went up the street among the residences, think- ing that the shops and offices would be, in the main, deserted. But I found poor fishing: almost invariably I was told that the ladies were riding. The day had been intolerably warm, and every- body was out for a breath of fresh air. At last I found a lady who was not out riding. She was very pretty and very affable. She heard all I had to say about the book, looked at all the engravings, and asked numberless questions about this general and that engagement. Were all the pictures good likenesses of the generals, or hadn't I ever seen all the generals? Didn't I think this one per- fectly horrid-looking, and that one per- fectly splendid? La! was that the way a battle looked? had I ever seen a battle? and didn't I think it must be perfectly splendid? Did I have to work for a liv- ing? Wasn't it awful tiresome this warm weather? But of course I didn't mind it, I was so used to it: it would just kill her, etc. She looked at the styles of binding-cloth, sheep, calf and Turkey morocco. "La!" she said, "I never knew before that they made leather out of turkey-hide." Then she handed me back the subscription-book, with the re- mark that it must be a real nice history. Would she subscribe for it? I asked. "Oh dear! no. I never read histories, they're so awful stupid. It's terrifically warm." She yawned, rang a bell and ordered her fan and an ice. A second lady whom I found was more encouraging. She asked just as many questions, but they were not so irrelevant-said she wanted the history, and when I thought she had fully deter- mined to subscribe for it referred me to her husband, giving me his office ad- i dress, and explaining that once she and her husband both bought the same pic- ture: if she should subscribe for the his- tory, he might do the same thing at his office. "I have only five names on my list: you can see if your husband's is there." No, it wasn't there. I supposed of course she was satisfied, and would enter her name. "If I were to subscribe, he might not think to look at the list, and might put his name down too." "But you can tell him when he comes in this evening that you have ordered the book, and of course he will not." "Oh, you might go to his office and get his name before he comes in: book- agents are up to all sorts of tricks." "I assure you, madam," I said smiling, "I could never do such a thing. If by any possibility such a mistake should occur in any family, I should certainly release one subscriber." "Everybody can promise. You're a stranger to me, and the best way for you to do is to go to his office and let him sign for the book. Then, if it isn't good, he'll have nobody to blame but himself. Just take the car and go right down this street to No. I20, and you'll be sure to catch him. There's a car now." I rushed out of the house to catch it. When I reached No. I20 I found the door locked and all the business streets, deserted. I took the car back to Mr. Bennett's boarding-house. I went up to my attic-room. It was directly under the roof, and was stifling. I went to bed, though it was not yet dark, and tossed there all night without five minutes' sleep, as it seemed to me. I was up with the first gleam of the morning, unrefreshed and weary. I dressed and stole down stairs, for nobody was stirring. Unbolt- ing the front door, I sat down on the steps. The twilight and hush of the page: 44-45[View Page 44-45] sleeping city were very impressive, and moved my spirit as its wild Babel never could. There came to me an intense realization of human weakness. Man can rear massive piles of masonry, he can make bold challenges and achieve splendid successes, but how soon is he wearied and worn! For hours these im- posing streets which he has built pulsate with enterprise, passion and hope, the tide of life sweeps up in majestic strength, but God's law is over all. As surely as the tide of life rises, so surely it must ebb and drop back in the ocean of rest, while above, through the ages, watches the Eye that never slumbers. This day proved one of considerable success. It was intensely warm, and the men kept to the shadow of their offices and shops, so that I had no trouble in securing interviews. "A woman who can work through this heat ought to be en- couraged," was the sentiment expressed by more than one subscriber. On a cer- tain door I encountered a dispiriting notice: "No insurance-agents or book- agents wanted here." I wondered if the poster of the card knew of something discreditable in the nature of the busi- ness of which I was ignorant. I might be forced to pursue a poor or shabby business-if, indeed, a woman can find any other-but I could never continue in any that was really wrong. I deter- mined, if possible, to find out the nature of the objection to book-agents enter- tained by that bill-poster. I found the gentleman in: he was a broker. "I am a book-agent," I said, "and I wish to ask you, in all courtesy, the na- ture of your objection to my business." He looked at me as if he wondered at me-my audacity or something else. "I am anxious to know, for I will not pursue any business that is intrinsically wrong. Will you tell me your objection?" "It would be offensive to you." "No, your objection must be to the business. You could have no objection to me if I came to contract for a thou- sand hogsheads of sugar. So pray tell me," I urged. "Very well," he said. "Book-agents are peddlers, and peddlers are cheats. Book - agents don't show their wares: they ask a man to buy in the dark." "We show samples of everything that's to make up the book-printing, paper, engravings, bindings. When you sell coffee, what more do you show than a handful of berries?" "But I warrant satisfaction to the buyer." "And so does the publisher. In the obligation to which you subscribe it is stipulated that if the book does not prove as represented by the agent the sub- scriber is released from the obligation to take the book." "Well, I don't want to be told what books I ought to buy. When I want a book I'll go to the book-store." "If somebody didn't tell you in one way or another, you'd never know what books to buy. In the first place, you wouldn't know what was published, and of that which was published you wouldn't know what was good. Book-triers are as necessary as tea-triers." "Well, I hate a peddler. If you want to sell books, why don't you open a book-store?" "I haven't the capital." "Well, go at something else-some in- door work. By Jove! I hate to see a woman pushing about among men for a living. By every woman there ought to stand a man." "But you can't argue out of existence the women who have to push about among men for a living, neither can you talk men into places beside friendless women. Men don't want such women for wives. They want the nestling whose feathers have never been ruffled, the but- terfly whose down is undisturbed." "Well, I don't want any." "And," I added, "there are a great many men who don't want any, and numberless women who prefer not to marry; so marriage is not, to every wo- man, the way out." He went into the hall, and came back with the posted card which had attracted my attention, tore it in two and threw it into the waste-basket. "If all book- agents were like you, I'd put up a card inviting them to walk in," he said; and then added, "I suppose to you the way out lies through a big subscription-list." "As far as I can at present see it does," I answered. "Well, I'm bound to help you out. Hand over your subscription-book." In my next call I failed utterly. The gentleman interviewed was a cool, quiet man who replied to everything I had to say, "I shall not subscribe for the book." He wouldn't argue, he wouldn't state his objections; so I had no chance whatever. I commend his course to people wish- ing to get rid of book-agents and insu- rance-solicitors. In the next office I found a man mov- ing about in a petulant way, his face in a snarl. My impulse was to leave the room without making known my busi- ness, but he spoke before I had time to act: "I suppose you've got a book there that you want me to subscribe for?" "Yes," I answered-"Greeley's His- tory of the Rebellion." "I wouldn't subscribe for the angel Gabriel's history of the rebellion in heaven, or Satan's either," he said. "Then you'd miss a good thing, doubt- less." "I've got enough to do to read up the history of my own affairs. Everything has gone wrong to-day. Just look at-that inkstand!" It was on the carpet, broken to frag- ments and in a pool of ink, and the car- pet was a pretty Brussels. The man got down on his knees and was going at the ink with his pocket handkerchief. "Let me manage it," I said, arresting his operations. With blotting-paper, a basin of water and an old towel I soon had almost every trace of the accident removed. "I said I wouldn't subscribe for your book, and I won't," the man said when I had washed my hands and was pre- paring to take my departure; "but I'll tell you where you can get half a dozen subscribers." He wrote a line to "Dear Walton,'" gave me the address, and said, "Good luck to you!" I went to "dear Walton:" he was in a telegraph office. "Of course I'll sub- scribe," said "dear Walton." "Any- thing in the world to accommodate the ladies and Jim Wheeler!" Then he asked me to wait, and he'd telegraph to a friend in another part of the State: said friend had been high private in the army, and was sure to want "a history of the war in which he had fought, bled and died." Click, click, went the busy wires, "dear Walton" wearing a smile meanwhile that looked as if it might any moment explode into roaring laughter. In a few moments the answer to his despatch came back. "Hurrah! he'll subscribe!" and then the smile did explode into laughter, and the smile .of a fellow-operator likewise exploded. "You'll have to go to another part of the State to. get the subscription," said "dear Walton." "There's the high private, that handsome fellow with au- burn hair over there;" and he pointed to the other smiler across the room. "Take him the subscription-book." So I went over and secured the high pri- vate's subscription, which had been so- licited by telegraph, the despatch having made a circuit of eight hundred miles to reach an operator in the same room. This incident put everybody in a good humor, and in a few minutes I had left the office with seven new names on my list. I had now orders for fifteen copies of the history. It was advisable that I should as soon as possible deliver the books. I hadn't any money, I was a stranger to the publishers, yet I should need over a hundred dollars in ordering the fifteen copies. I went to the office of Desher & Desher: it was all I could do. Both gentlemen were in: I wished the younger had not been. "Dr. Desher, it seems hard that I must come for help to a stranger, but you have made it as easy as possible for me. I must send to the publishers for books. I am a stranger to them: of course I must command some cash. I shall need over a hundred dollars. Now, may I, for just once, have the books ex- pressed to you'C. O. D.,' and delivered as you may direct, so that I can't run away with them? And will you lend me the hundred dollars for a few hours? page: 46-47[View Page 46-47] for I can deliver the books and collect all the money in a half day, I think." "Certainly! certainly!" said Dr. Desh- ler cordially. "We'll have the books delivered right here-there's plenty of room-and we'll save time by telegraph- ing the order." He sat down at a table and wrote while I dictated. In due time the books arrived, and I entered zealously upon the work of delivering them. But not a single copy did I succeed in delivering at the first trial. I called at Mr. Perkins's office four times before finding him in. And this is an illustration of how the matter went. It took more than a week of hard work to deliver those fifteen copies. Later, I learned how to manage better. But during this week I was run- ning in and out of Desher & Desher's office, every hour growing more and more nervous and embarrassed about the way in which matters dragged, and more solicitous to escape from my an- noying position. I had expected to clear the office of the books in a few hours, and to reim- burse Dr. Desher in the same time: in- stead, I had been using the office and the money for a week. In this flitting in and out I of course frequently met both the brothers-the younger oftener, for he was the office-physician: the older did the outside work. When I did find the elder brother, William Desher, in the office, he made things very comfortable for me; inquired in an interested way how I was getting along; urged me earnestly to rest; cautioned me against overwork, etc. He would help me get out my books, and would " load me up," as he expressed it, following me to the door with words of sympathy and en- couragement. The work was too hard for me -I was delicate, and needed somebody to look after me, he would say. Dr. Desher, Jr., never said a word about the hard work, and he never help- ed me about it. He would invariably turn his back and look out of the window when I was "loading up" and starting off. There were times when I felt very sharply that I was in some way a griev- ance to this gentleman; yet occasionally he would open a conversation with me, and pursue it persistently and exhaust- ively, with evident enjoyment of some nature. I used to think it was the en- joyment of the explorer and discoverer, for I always came from one of these in- terviews with the consciousness that he had found out something about me. Try ever so hard, I couldn't keep my- self hid. Well, the books were at length deliv- ered. I settled with Dr. Desher, and had nearly fifty dollars in my purse. The first pinching necessity was met. I had scarcely found time before to think of Baby. Now my heart began to cry for her. My pretty bud was unfolding and I was not there to see it. She was developing so rapidly, I felt I could not be from her a day without missing some sweetness that could never come again. In maturity, years come between friends and they meet unaltered, but in a child each day brings some pretty change. The mother-yearning grew so intolerable that I conceived the design of bringing my baby to the city, though my judcg- ment warned me that the country was safer for the summer. So, while I work- ed I was on the lookout for a boarding- place where my child could be cared for during my absence, and also for a place to store my books. Twenty-nine new names were on my list, but my purse was getting low, and it had become necessary that I should, as soon as possible, get on another sup- ply of books. It seemed that I should be forced again to ask help of Dr. Desh- ler. I hadn't been in his office since I had moved out the last of my books, and I hadn't seen either of the brothers since that time. Indeed, I had avoided their locality, lest I might seem to be seeking some favor of them, About this time I learned, through a servant at my boarding-house, that a gentleman had called and inquired if I was sick. The next morning I found myself sick-not alarmingly so, but there were some symptoms that gave me serious solici- tude. It had been an ever-present dread that I might fall sick in that great strange city. I dressed myself, and after a fruit- less attempt to swallow some breakfast took a car to Dr. Desher's office. The younger brother, Gilbert Desher, was in. He started up in a confused way at see- ing me, and shook hands with me. "You haven't been here for nine days," he said. "My brother has feared you were sick." Then it was he who had called at my boarding-house, I thought. "I am sick now," I answered, "and I have come to you to cure me." "Ah!" and he looked at me in an earnest way, "tell me what the matter is." I stated my symptoms. He in- quired about my sleeping-room and the boarding-house fare. "Of course you're sick with such living and with this con- founded work you're at. I've seen you start out into the noon heat with six or eight of those great books, and I've wish- ed sometimes that you'd-you'd- Nev- er mind. Wait here, and I'll step into a drug-store and get something for you." He came back with a liquid mixture in a bottle, which he set on the table. I handed him a five-dollar bill: he pre- tended not to see it. I called his atten- tion to it. "I don't want any money," he said. "I accept the prescription from you, Dr. Desher," I said, "and thank you, but not the medicine." "Then you sha'n't have it, that's all." "Well, if I die my blood will be on your head!"I returned, laughing. "You must think me a graceless fel- low if you can't accept this trifling favor at my hands." "I can and do accept it," I answered, extending my hand for the medicine. "And now I want you to do me another favor. Do you know a Mr. Henchman at 79 Sycamore street?" "Yes. Why?" "Because I'm negotiating for storing- room for my books in his office." "You aren't going there," said the gentleman bluntly-" that is," he added quickly, "if you'll take my advice." "Why?" "Because I know the man to be a scamp: he'd steal your books if he could. Besides, it will be an unneces- sary expense for you. Why can't you make this office your head-quarters?" "I and my books might be in the way of your patients." "We've two consultation-rooms besides this: a box of bpoks couldn't be in the way; and as for you, you're such an outrageous worker you're never here but a minute at a time." "Your brother has not invited me to make this my head-quarters," I sug- gested. "He likes to have you here." "But you don't." "What makes you think so?" he asked. The entrance of Dr. Desher, Sr., pre- vented my reply.' "I'm delighted to see you," he cried in a cheery way that was most comforting. "I've thought several times of calling at Bennett's to inquire about you, but I've been driven to death." Then it wasn't he who had called, after all. "Well, how are you getting along with the Co;flict? How many subscribers have you caught? Good!" he said when I had told him. "Oughtn't you to be sending for more books? Have them delivered right here, and I'll pay for them just as before," he added, so cordially that my last scruple disappeared. I escaped the threatened sickness, los- ing but that one day from my work. Dr. Gilbert Desher called that even- ing to inquire about his patient, and or- dered me to change my room at what- ever cost. So I took one on the second floor, for which I was to pay twelve dol- lars a week. I was in the midst of delivering my second installment of books when I one day went into Desher & Desher's, very tired. While resting I employed myself in writing a letter to Baby full of mother- talk: I was so afraid she would forget me. As I finished the letter I looked up, and my eyes met Gilbert Desher's. "What made you think I didn't like to have you here?" he asked abruptly. "Because, you always turn your back on me when I come in for books." "I hate to see you at this wretched work," he said vehemently. "I can't page: 48-49[View Page 48-49] see an Irishwoman bowed under her bag of shavings without feeling ashamed of myself that I don't take it on my own back." "Do you expect me to credit all this chivalrous talk?"I said laughing. "You sit there, and look out of the window, and smoke your cigar, without ever offer- ing to help me, as your brother does." "I can't help you," he answered. "I could never stand and pile those great books in your arms, and see you go into the street for men to stare at and wonder at. If I started to help you I'd get a wheelbarrow and deliver the books for you; and when I had done that you wouldn't be helped: your greatest need wouldn't be met." "And what is that greatest need?" "Such shelter, such hedging, as pre- serves to woman the delicacy that is her supreme charm." I felt my face flush. Did he think that I had lost or was losing this del- icacy? He seemed to understand the application I had made of his words, for he added hastily, "I do not say that it is impossible for a woman to preserve this delicacy in a public life that brings her into intercourse with strange coarse men, but I do say that it is thus en- dangered." "And is it not as really imperiled in the kind of intercourse maintained be- tween men and women in fashionable life? Think of the drawing-room flirt- ations, the dances, the familiarities of watering-places, the frecdom and license that mark every kind of travel in this country! Publicity is not necessarily demoralizing to a woman, nor is a legiti- mate intercourse with strange rough men. Many a hospital-nurse is witness to this. A woman may meet in a business way the roughest men in this city and receive no harm. It is half-loves-if I may coin a word-familiarities without esteem, that break down womanly delicacy. How- ever, I am not quarreling with your words. No one can despise this scram- ble for money more than I, or more cordially hate a life that dispels the idealized atmosphere through which man should regard woman, and woman man. I thank God for the illusions of my ex- istence. I don't want to know human nature. I never want the romance taken from my idea of man: I want to believe him a hero, a knight-strong, brave and noble." "Yes, yes," the gentleman answered, "Iet's keep all the halos. Now, I don't be- lieve in educating girls and boys together; it does away with the glories. If these glories are moonshine, then moonshine is better than sunlight. If I'm enjoying a village landscape, I want to eat the fool alive who comes reminding me that the peaceful cemetery in the picture is over- grown with mayweed-that the cottages are squalid and the children ragged." "One would scarcely take this for a physician's talk. Doctors deal so much with the material, we scarcely expect to find the ideal in them," I said. "It is because I deal with the material and know its nothingness that I try to believe in the glory elsewhere. Man is happy in worship." He had come up to the table where I was sitting, and where my letter was ly- ing ready for mailing, addressed, "Mrs. Caroline Shepherd. For my Baby." I saw him glance at the letter inadvert- ently, as it were, then he looked with arrested interest, and raised his eyes to my face in a quick surprised way. He saw that I knew he had read the ad- dress. "Have you a baby?" and he regarded me with steadfast eyes. "Then you're a married woman?" "What's the matter?" said Dr. Desh- ler, Sr., entering the office. "Why, Gil, you look as though you'd been struck by lightning." The gentleman appealed to looked flushed and confused. "He's surprised to hear that I have a baby, as if there could be any other rea- son why I am here at this work." Desher & Desher were both looking at me now, as though they meant to look me through. "Is your husband dead?" asked the elder. "He was killed in the war," I answer- ed, coloring with alarm as they approach- ed the grave of my secret. "Then you have a pension," persisted the elder doctor. I was ready to sink through the floor, and I was conscious of showing the em- barrassment I felt. I did not reply. "You're entitled to a pension," the speaker continued. "Have you ever applied for one?" I had to answer him. "No," I said. "Well, you must have a pension. I'll take you right up to my lawyer's now. Come along." "No," I answered evasively, "I must go to work now: there's a subscriber near by that I want to catch." "Never mind the subscriber. I have leisure now to see my lawyer: he's just overhead, and he's in now. It won't take- but a few minutes for him to tell you what you'll have to do." "I can't go now," I said, growing mo- mently more embarrassed, and seizing my subscription-book I hurried from the office. Again I walked blindly along the street with the familiar hunted feel- ing. I wished that I needed never go back to Desher & Desher's office; but I had two hundred dollars' worth of books there. Perhaps that inquisitor might nev- er think of the pension-matter again, or at least might never mention it. But he did mention it again the follow- ing morning, and both the brothers were )pesent. "Well, shall we go for the pension this morning?" is what he said. "I shall not apply for a pension, and I beg that you will not allude to the sub- ject again." This was certainly not a speech to allay suspicion. I knew that both gentlemen were scanning my face, but I "loaded up " and went away, won- dering what they were thinking and say- t ing about me. "It's no matter what they think," I decided. "I'll work hard and make all the money I can here; then I'll go away with Baby into a retreat where I shall not bother people nor be 1 bothered by them." 1 After this talk about the pension with I the brother-doctors, when my burning c cheek, evasive manner and faltering tongue warned them away'from the for- c bidden ground, I perceived, even at our d 4 1 next meeting, a change in the manner of the two gentlemen, and the change grew more evident as the days went by. The younger, who had ever been reticent with me, became still more reticent. He rarely looked at me, and more rarely spoke to me, though when he did it was gently. He never asked about my work, he never gave me a word of sympathy or encouragement. He seemed every day to be getting farther away from me. Dr. Desher, Sr., on the contrary, drew near- er to me-each day drew nearer in spite of my effort to keep my distance. He inquired daily how I was getting along with my work, often looked over my subscription-list, telling me something about this man and warning me against that one. He frequently gave me a line to the head of some establishment that would lead, perhaps, to my securing ten or a dozen subscriptions. "Which way are you going this morning?" he would ask. "I've got a call off that way," he would probably add, "and I can take you right along in my buggy, and any books that you wish to deliver;" and thus he often lightened my way. As the acquaintance progressed he became com- municative, telling me, at one time and another, considerable about himself and his brother. He acknowledged one day that he was a rich man-had always been rich: he practiced medicine because he liked an active life; his practice was worth twelve thousand dollars a year; his brother was a third partner; meant to give him a full partnership in January, and make him work more. "Gil doesn't take as well with people as I do, but he's a better doctor. There's no half-knowledge with him: he knows things to the very bottom. He's the best anatomist I ever knew; there's a splendid surgeon in him; he has just the prudence and the pluck that a surgeon needs. But people don't know him, and they do know me, and so they run after me and let him sit in the office. But I mean to bring him out, and then I shall be laid on the shelf." "That's my house," he said to me an- other day, as we passed a handsome resi- dence with all those attractive surround. page: 50-51[View Page 50-51] ings that wealth and culture can procure. "I keep bachelor's hall there." These last words quickened my heart-beat- ings. I had never known before whether or not he was married. "I'm looking for a housekeeper now: mine hasn't a single home-instinct. What kind of a house- keeper are you?" "I'm no housekeeper at all," I answer- ed, coloring, though trying hard not to. "I can't make bread, and bread-making stands at the head of the rudiments." "Oh, the cook can make the bread. I mean, what kind of a home-maker are you? There are some women who make a man's home a rest, a very haven, while others, just as neat and orderly and provi- dent, render his house more fatiguing than the tumultuous street. Which kind are you?" "I'm sure I don't know. I'm not very quiescent, and I like to talk. I don't think I am very resting." "The resting woman is not necessari- ly quiescent or silent. A dumb woman would be very fatiguing. The resting woman says and looks appreciation: she is suggestive - a picturesque talker, per- haps. She is- Well, I can't paint her portrait, but I recognize it whenever I see it. She isn't necessarily very wise or very learned or very handsome, but she is very refreshing. I think you are a resting woman. I like to hear you talk: I like to watch your movements. A man could no more tire of you than of a live book. I think you could make a home." He turned himself on the seat and looked in my face, and I looked in his. I don't know what he saw in my eyes. I was conscious that they were telling something of what was in my heart, but I didn't know then, and I don't know now, just what was in my heart. "I am sure I don't know," I answered because I had to say something: "I nev- er tried to make a home." "What do you mean by that speech?" he demanded a little sharply. "You made a home for some happy man, though you may not have had a roof over )our head. Many a gypsy-tent has doubtless been a true home." "I must stop here," I said, glad and sorry to leave him. This conversation was a bitter-sweet one to me: I wished it ended and want- ed it continued. The past, with its brief joy and long heartache, was growing more and more misty, and the shadows were gathering about the man to whom was linked the supreme happiness and tic supreme anguish of that past life. I was beginning to live in the present, not alone in my work-this engaged me- but something else was come into my life. The realities to me in that teeming city were Dcsher & Desher. The scores of other people whom I encountered were so many automatons grinding out bread and weaving clothing for Baby and me. Desher & Desher, I have said, were the only realities. They were both in my thoughts; and one was not pre-em- inent. Yes, one was pre-eminent, and it was the reticent, inscrutable, evasive younger brother. He shut himself from me, and this kept him in my thoughts. Once I had snatched a view of his spirit -had seen that it was knightly, and then the trail was lost to me. I own I was greatly bewildered by the attitudes of the two brothers in regard to me- both very pronounced and in marked contrast. I cannot convey in words what I felt those attitudes to be. Were I a painter I think I could sketch a picture that would exactly tell the story, for, all appearances to the contrary, I felt- But what is the use of trying? I never can tell anybody what I felt. I never would have asked Gilbert Desher to carry a book for me, but I knew that I could trust him to peril his life for mine, and that any other woman might so trust him. Yet I felt, more than ever, that I was a grievance to him. So things came to be very uncomfort- able and embarrassing for me at Desh- ler & Desher's. I could not go freely in and out when one brother was turn- ing his back on me, and the other seem- ed each day to be getting nearer. I can- not tell you how I knew this. Friend- ship, affection, love grow insensibly as a flower grows. You do not see the change from day to day, but when you think back to the dry seed, and then turn to the swollen bud, you feel that soon there will be a blossom of some nature. I could not continue about that dear room, which had come to be a kind of home, a rest to me, after the words and looks I had received from William Desher. Yet how I hated to go, to break the only tie I had in the great city! How my heart begged to stay! One morning, however, when they were both in, I gathered courage and spoke: "I have engaged storing room for my books elsewhere." My voice was very shaky, and a baby could have wrung tears out of it with the least little squeeze. I was ashamed and so vexed at the be- trayal of my feelings that I went on in a savage tone: "You gentleman have been very kind: I thank you." Then I forgot to be fierce, and said, "I can never for- get your-" and then I broke down. The younger Desher picked up his hat and went out of the office without a word. The elder brother came up to me with hands outstretched. I suppose I put mine in his: I found them there. I was feeling so utterly lonely, so ineffa- bly wretched, that I was ready to catch at a straw. His face was beaming, his eyes overflowing with passionate light. "Oh, I love you!" he cried, kissing my hands. "Come and make my home." He opened his arms. I sat down in a chair beside a desk: "You don't mean what you say: I am a stranger to you." "No," he answered eagerly, drawing a chair beside mine. "I know your sto- ry: I have guessed your secret. I hold you guiltless. You trampled on man's laws, it is true, but the laws of a nature which God implanted in you are above man's legislation, as the growth of the oak is above it. You are innocent, while I am guilty. You were a wife, though unbound by man's laws: I am bound by man's laws, yet I am no husband." Now, Dr. Desher, Sr., was no fool: he was a leading physician in a large city, yet those are the very words he spoke to me. In one of those flashes that come to women, and I suppose to men, I saw how it all was. I did not J- rise up in indignant scorn and say to Dr. Desher that he had wronged and insulted me. He had put together some suspicious, inexplicable things in the life of a strange woman, had misconstrued them, and made erroneous deductions. That was all. I put my head down on the desk be- side me. I was so disappointed in him! A friendship, or affection, or something -I know not precisely what the feeling was, but it was a warm and grateful in- terest in him-had received a blow. I grieved as for the dead. I lifted my head, but I could not look at him: I feared to find the face which had been generous and manly to me changed, with something ignoble in it. "Dr. Desher," I said, "you have mis- interpreted the reserve and embarrass- ment with which I have received your inquiries in reference to my past life. You could not understand why I did not apply for a pension. I will tell you, painful as it may prove to me: My hus- band was in the rebel army, and was executed as a spy. That is all. I shall endeavor to forget everything but the many, many kindnesses you have done me. God bless you!" Then I went out into the street, and walked on, block after block, going over this new unhappiness and relieving the old agony, my veil drawn to shut out the world, but too utterly wretched this time for tears. It was not simply my disap- pointment in William Desher. Grievous as this was, I knew that something else had befallen me. I made my way back to my little room, and sat down on the carpet with my arms and face on the solitary wooden chair. Now, again, my little shallop was drifting in mid-ocean. Not a sail could I signal, be the storm ever so pitiless. This is how it all came about. Until seventeen years of age I had been rear- ed at the South, and life had been so easy, so delicious, so dreamy, that I had never thought of slavery as a wrong. The relation of master and slave was as unquestioned, seemed as natural, as that of parent and child. I was sent to New England, where I spent two years at page: 52-53[View Page 52-53] school. There I received my first sug- gestion of the sin in slavery. There I took my first lessons in life's realities. There, indeed, I began to live: before I had been dreaming. I came to hate sla- very as the most abominable lie that man ever invented. I returned to the South in the midst of the war, and married a man to whom I had been three years promised. He was with the rebel sol- diers. I knew they were fighting for a lie: I pitied them as I pitied the blind, for I remembered how ignorant I had once been, and how ignorant I should have remained but for those two years in New Haven. I married a rebel, for I loved the man, and I could not let poli- tics have anything to do with it. He believed so in his cause! He gave his all and his wife's all, even to his dear life, to prop a lie, and that made it so much the harder for me. The friends whom I had made in New England could never understand how if I hated slavery I could marry one who was fighting for it. They brought out in evidence against me the apologies I had made for my dear native land, and the words of love they had heard me speak for it when their denunciations would grow unbear- able. They decided that I was two- faced, and so I lost those friends. I found my Southern friends so blinded, so intoxicated with their zeal, so bitter, so unfair to the North, that I could not always maintain a prudent silence. I had to speak for the North sometimes: surely the very stones would have cried out if I had held my peace. Then I was taunted as traitor, abolitionist, spy! When my husband met his untimely death he was exalted to martyrdom. Then more than ever unpardonable seemed my apostasy. And so I lost my Southern friends. I was crushed between the upper and nether millstones. We were all of us made penniless by the war. I remembered the busy, free North, where people dared to work. I ran the block- ade. To my surprise and joy, I found almost immediately a teacher's place in a seminary, and I turned the key on my past life. But my secret was discovered and my place lost. And now again my place was lost. Once more I was nobody to all the world except Baby; but, said my heart, I am all the world to her. My pretty bird! my sweet darling! God helping me, I will serve you to the death! I can make money for us at this work: I have de- monstrated this. I have money in bank. We shall have comfort yet, my pretty one! If I can make three thousand dollars by this year's work, we can live on the interest, and perhaps I may find some womanly work that will not come between us, and which will add some- thing for a rainy day. "You must make three thousand dol- lars this year," I said to myself. "You must let no day pass over your head without getting three subscriptions: that will give you twelve dollars a day, and a margin for the time to be taken out in delivering the books. You must lay aside all feeling, and, as Mr. Perkins ad- vised you, put on a hard face. You've got to stop crying. If people say hard things to you, remember that you will perhaps never meet them again in this world. You are never to be sick, and there are to be no rainy days in your life. But first you must get your baby." I got up from the floor, washed my face with a will, brushed my hair neatly, put on my little black hat and veil, went down to the sitting-room and ran over the advertisements in the morning paper. I started straight out to answer one. And I was in luck. I found a place for Baby and myself together with a motherly widow-woman, who would undertake the care of Baby during the day. So I took the first train into the country to get her, and returned the same day in triumph with my treasure. It was a very humble house I had engaged. Our bed-room was small, but it was airy and neat: we ate at a little square table with a patched tablecloth. But how juicy and tender our little steaks were! how mealy the smok- ing potatoes! how white and sweet the homemade bread! and what fragrant amber coffee was poured from that bright little tin pot! And oh what sweetness it was to wake with my darling's sunny head on my bosom and her soft little hands on my cheek! She had learned to talk in the weeks she had been from me, and that made me cry because I had not been there to catch her first word. The next day I entered upon a line of such uncompromising work as few women have ever pursued. It was the middle of August, and the city was in- tolerably warm, for it was environed by hills. But I never stopped for the noon heat. I worked straight through it, eating my lunch in the street-car or on a pile of lumber or on church steps, wherever the dinner-hour might overtake me. I took my breakfast early, and went among the residences to catch the gentlemen before they could start for their offices and shops. And such expeditions sel- dom proved fruitless. I remember one morning a gentleman opening the front door, his eyes sleepy, his hair uncombed, in slippers, without coat or vest. He stood in the hall while I made known my business. I knew my ring had call- ed him out of bed, and I expected he would resent it. "You're an early bird," he said, "and you shall have your worm." I handed him a pencil, and he wrote his name in the subscription-book. I had a copy of the history with me: I delivered it on the spot, and received the cash. I one morning made twelve dollars before sev- en o'clock. And I worked late into the night. The gentlemen sitting on their porches and doorsteps made a hearing certain. In spite of all resolutions not to care what people thought and said, I found it like crucifixion to walk up a flight of steps in the face of gentlemen and fine ladies fresh from their baths and toilets, and I so dusty and worn. Then would come a reminder of the days when I had sat on some cool verandah, in attire dainty and chaste and picturesque, and watched some poor creature climb the steps as I had now to do. I could remember how all such creatures, all who worked, had seemed-God forgive me!--to belong to a race and a world with which I had nothing to do. How shadowy, how like a dream, all that now seemed! After a few trials among the ladies I ceased trying to accomplish anything with them. It was seldom I could get an interview with one. They were lying down, or canning fruit, or pickling, or riding, or had a dressmaker or a sick headache. And when I did secure an interview, the lady was no judge of books, or she had no money, or she never encouraged peddlers, or she'd ask her husband. Women showed me little sympathy-nothing like what men man- ifested. I do not think it was because the women had less kindliness or were of less sympathetic natures; but the men knew what down-town life meant, knew what it was to be in the whirl of busi- ness, and they pitied the woman who was forced into it, as a soldier who knows the hardships of war would compassion- ate a woman in camp. The ladies were not unkind: they did not know. Well, I did not lose a single day from my work-nay, not a single hour. No weather was ever so unkind that I did not face it. I have been out in storms when the streets were deserted, not a woman to be seen for the day perhaps, while occasionally, at intervals of hours, I encountered a solitary man, who stared at me as if wondering what the emer- gency could be to bring out a woman in such a storm. Indeed, I learned to wel- come these stormy days as my harvest- seasons. The men kept to the shelter of their shops and offices, and I was sure to find them in, with leisure to give me a hearing, welcoming perhaps the diver- sion I created. One day, when there was a persistent soaking drizzle from dawn to bedtime, I obtained fourteen subscriptions and delivered eight copies of the history. My commission on that day's work was over sixty dollars, thirty- eight of which I carried home in my purse. But I hadn't a dry thread on me. "Yes, I'll subscribe for the book be- cause you're so plucky;" "I'll help you along if I never help another mortal while the world turns round;" "I'll give you a lift if it bursts me,"-such were some of the things that were said to me. "I've seen you pass our store about a thousand times," said a young man in a wholesale establishment opposite the page: 54-55[View Page 54-55] room where I stored my books, "and we boys have wondered and wondered what in the world you're working so hard for." Baby and I knew for what. And I went everywhere-to factories, and foundries, and mills, and lumber- yards, and pork-houses, and court-rooms, and dockyards. I have passed day after day without the sight of a woman's face in all my work. Indeed, I think no oth- er woman's foot had ever trod some of the places I visited. And yet through it all would ring the words Gilbert Desher had said about sheltering and hedging a woman's delicacy. I felt that the men who applauded my pluck and industry, and who called me brave, would have liked me better in a sheltered life-that while they said Bravo! they held as out of place the woman who was pushing her way among men. But I kept on, push- ing as for my life, though I often walked the streets with eyes streaming behind my black veil, to be dried and cleared up as I turned on a venture into some strange door. I gave myself no quarter. Three subscriptions a day I pitilessly exacted. I seldom failed of four, and often ran up in the neighborhood of ten. It was very hard-too hard to be ever told-but I made money-for a woman, a great deal of money. I was in a work in which courage and industry won, and not sex. As September was approach- ing its close I found myself square with all the world, seven hundred and twenty dollars in the savings bank, and over two hundred dollars in books. At teach- ing it would have taken me about seven hundred and twenty years to lay up that amount. I was bound to make the three thousand by the year's end, provided Baby and I could keep well. 'The fear of Baby's falling ill while I was away from her was a ceaseless anxiety to me, for I was away all day, never going home to dinner. I knew Mrs. Allerton to be careful, but whose eyes can watch as a mother's? In particular, I feared the croup, to which Baby had all her life seemed disposed. I became especially nervous as the damp, chill autumn ad- vanced. So I arranged that if she should ever be taken sick during my absence, a boy next door should bring word to the room where I was receiving my books, and where all my letters were addressed. This office, which I made my business head-quarters, was down town, and I went in and out there every day. October was now half gone, and I had not seen either of the Desher brothers, or heard one word from them. Though I was so busy, I had moments of heart- ache and longing and dreaming. I had often a yearning to go by the office, and yet had my way led by it beyond escape, I know I should have hurried past it as by a haunted graveyard. There was one thing that gave me a start when I heard it, and frequently recurred to my mind: Mrs. Allerton showed me one day a let- ter advertised for me, but it was in a pa- per five weeks old. I had no correspond- ents except my publishers, and their let- ters were always delivered at my busi- ness-place. I inquired immediately at the post-office for the advertised letter, but of course did not get it. I thought often about this letter. I did not believe it was from my publishers,jand nobody else that could have any interest in me knew I was in the city-nobody except the Deshers. Of course, from what I haveisaid, you are prepared to hear that Baby did fall ill. One afternoon I went into mv office for some books and found a note from Mrs. Allerton: "Baby seems very sick with something like croup. She ought to have a doctor. Let me know if I must send for one, or if you will bring one." The boy was waiting to take back my answer. I sat down and wrote a line to Dr. Gilbert Desher, and sent the boy off with it while I took a car home. I had scarcely got Baby in my arms before I knew that this was very different from any previous attack. She tried to say "Mamma," but could only whisper it. Her face was flushed, her breathing hard, and she coughed in a tight, strug- gling way. I was greatly alarmed, and, feeling the need of immediate help, I had just asked Mrs. Allerton to run for some physician in the neighborhood when a carriage stopped at the door and there were swift steps on the stairs. Mrs. Al- lerton's rooms were on the second floor. I laid Baby on the bed, opened the door into the hall, and my eyes met Gilbert Desher's. "My baby!"I said: "you must not let her die." He walked immediately to the bed, felt her pulse and put his ear down to hear her breathing. He did not show any anxiety in his face when he lifted it, neither did he speak any alarming words. He didn't say anything, but his silence was sufficiently alarming, for I felt that he would have said something reassuring if he could. I knew too, by the prompt, decided way in which he worked, that there was danger. And I worked with him as only a mother can whose love is the strongest thing about her. When the doctor had applied his rem- edies, and I was dreading to see him leave, he sat down by the bed. "I will watch the child to-night," he said. Shall I confess it? I wanted to put my arms about his neck: I longed to kiss the hand interposed to avert from me this threatened woe. So he and I watched together through the silent hours -I with a restful, grateful feeling that, poor and alone as I was in the world, I was to have all the help of science and skill which riches and friends could bring to any woman. There was supreme com- fort in the thought, yet I never forgot that the contest was very unequal-Man against impassive Nature. It was about two o'clock in the morn- ing when I knew, from the way the doc- tor fought, that Baby was worse. I was hanging over her, aching with every breath she drew, and trembling with each lest she might never be able to draw another. I lifted her, thinking if she must die she should die in my arms. I sat down on a low chair, feeling that if she went I could not stay. Suddenly she threw up her little hands in a way that yet haunts my dreams. I thought I must die with the anguish in my dar- ling's face: "Oh, doctor! help!" lHe was kneeling beside us: "Keep quiet! don't be alarmed! Don't touch me," he answered in firm, calm tones. I saw the gleam of a knife, and the next moment it was crimsoned with her blood. I don't know how I kept on living, I was so frightened, but Baby was immediately relieved. The doctor quietly wiped away the blood, adjusted a silver tube, watched till breakfast-time, and then went away. But he came again that morning, and again at six o'clock. Of course Baby got well, though she was full two weeks about it. And how shall I ever tell about all the bliss that was crowded into those two weeks as we were coaxing back the bloom to her cheek and the radiance to her eyes? It was such happiness to tend Baby; to watch for Gilbert Desher's coming; to see her go into his arms; to watch him lay her in his bosom and caress her with. womanly tenderness; to hear his strong words with an undertone that puzzled and thrilled; to look into his eyes, that always made mine waver! Ah! it was all so sweet that I dreaded the day when the witchery must be broken. I almost trembled to see Baby getting well so fast. It seemed to me that I could never go back to my life of drudgery and toil: the burden seemed too heavy for me ever again to take it up. I didn't argue against the imprudence of giving my soul this feast. What if it must some day starve? Let it now, at least, take its fill of joy. We hdn't much chance for private conversation during the doctor's visits, for Mrs. Allerton was generally running in and out. But he told me one day that he had writ-ten to me soon after I left Desher & Desher's, and that the letter came back to him from the Dead- letter Office, and he thought then that he had lost me. "What was the letter about?"I asked. "Oh, I wrote because I was conscience- stricken. I had been such a bear to you, and you our guest! I had just heard your story from my, brother. I would have given a great deal then if I could have gone down on my knees to you, and I am bound yet to confess it-the infernal interpretation I had put upon things. You know the matter about the pension; and then there was this blessed page: 56-57[View Page 56-57] baby, and everything had such a strange look, so suspicious, that- Oh, perdi- tion! I can't tell you what." "You need not tell me -I know: I gathered it from your brother. The cir- cumstances warranted all your suspi- cions. I was a stranger-there was no life-record, as with an acquaintance, that you were bound to respect. You were not to blame: I was simply unfortunate." "I was bound to respect my intuitions and the magnetism of spirit and spirit." Another day he told me that his bro- ther was married-that his wife was a good woman and a handsome woman. "But they couldn't adjust themselves to each other, and they separated by mu- tual consent." The dreaded day at length came. Dr. Desher pronounced Baby entirely cured. I knew this already. There was not the shadow of an excuse for his coming again and for my shirking my drudgery. Yet I heard the doctor's decision with a stifled heart. This delicious intercourse must end. He kissed Baby good-bye. If he had been starting for Kamtchatka, I couldn't have felt more like death. He shook hands with me. "I'm glad I've found you," he said. "Promise me that you won't go away without letting me know. I shall want you to settle my bill as soon as you think you can meet it." This was a very strange, coarse speech, that came to me like a stab. "I can pay it at any moment," I said hotly, throwing a haughty look at his impassive face. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I shall demand a large fee." "What is your bill?"I asked. "I will give you an order on the bank where I make my deposits." I was conscious of having made a sounding speech, yet I trembled for my few hurndreds that I had worked so hard for: the whole might go at one sweep. He had performed a surgical operation, and I knew that city surgeons made large charges. "But I'll pay his bill if I have to work all the rest of my life for it," I thought. He sat down beside me, took out his pocket memorandum-book and a pen- cil: "Let me see: there's the operation and twenty-six visits. Well, you must give me that blessed baby: I saved her life, and I ought to have her. Then I shall want you to take care of her; so you must give me yourself. And you will: I've read my happiness in your sweet eyes-the sweetest eyes man ever kissed." He had us both in his arms, Baby and me, kissing by turns her bright head and my lips and eyes. Baby crowed and cooed, and Hof course I cried. "You bad doctor," I said when I could speak, "to scare me so! I thought you were going to take all my money and Baby's. Of course Baby's life is worth it a thousand times, and I could have paid it to anybody else and not been hurt, but it would have killed me to feel that you could be willing to spend it for your comfort. That money, somehow, seems to have my tears and my heart's blood in it." "Poor little woman! And what are you ever going to do with it? There's no use good enough for it," said the doctor. "Yes, I know a use for it. I mean to keep it on interest as a book-agents' fund," I said laughing. "I shall sub- scribe for every book that is brought along, if it's a good book: if not, I'll give the agent his forty per cent. There now! You see I know how one suffers." "All book-agents are not like you. I saw the glories about you that first day you came into our office, and the halo is yet here." He smoothed my hair and kissed it softly. WHEN I WAS A BOARDER. IBOARDED with Miss Burritt. She was a cousin or niece or relative of some sort of the Learned Blacksmith. She had a mission, or conceived that she had. It was to introduce people to one another, and no incongruity of time, place or circumstance ever discouraged her or damped her missionary zeal. Everybody that came into her house was sure to be presented to everybody else in it. During the seven months that I was a boarder I think Miss Burritt cer- tainly introduced me to representatives of every State in the Union, of every rank in society, and of every sect in Christendom, the Mormon not excepted. Miss Burritt's house, you must under- stand, was conveniently situated in ref- erence to the great union depot, and also to the business portion of the city, and many varieties of people floated into it, although it was not hotel-like in its proportions or appointments. The Down-easter from the banks of the Pe- nobscot going to settle in Florida, and "stopping off" for a suit of summer clothes perhaps, and an Oregon con- sumptive returning from a winter in Florida, and stopping to have a prescrip- tion renewed, intersected each other's paths at Miss Burritt's, and were pre- sented to each other with the conscien- tious .painstaking that an inveterate matchmaker manifests in bringing two victims together. One evening I was at the tea-table, as were most of the regular boarders, when I saw Miss Burritt in the adjoining sitting- room take the arm of an elderly woman in a brown mering dress trimmed with the inevitable black velvet. This per- sonage, as I afterward learned, was stop- ping off for a night's rest, and was to leave by the five A. M. train. They narched, arm in arm, into the dining- room: I knew what was impending. At the head of the table Miss Burritt halted her companion: "Mrs. Springer, Mrs. Weaver, Miss Batchelder, Dr. Skinner, Rev. Mr. Ashey, Mrs. Ashey, Miss Ashey, Mr. Arthur Ashey, Mr. Alex- ander," etc. etc.; and Mrs. Springer, whom none of us then presented will ever see, or ever wish to see again, this side of heaven, went bobbing her wigged head to some three dozen strange people, until pretty little giggling Miss Dayton hummed to me in a whisper, "'We're all a-nodding, nid, nid, nodding.' If Miss Burritt were keeper of a railroad dining-room, I believe she would be wor- ried into insanity because she couldn't introduce everybody to everybody else. Oh, there's Mr. Abernethy!" she ex- claimed. "Do watch him!" Mr. Abernethy, a pale, student-like, abstracted young man, was just enter- ing the dining-room. You would have conjectured that he was calculating a solar eclipse. He had made about half the distance across the room to his seat, which was beside Miss Dayton, when Miss Burritt from the head of the table fired a pistol-shot after him: "Mr. Aber- nethy, Mrs. Springer." Mr. Abernethy halted in the middle of the room; he glanced at me in a start- led way; he stared at Miss Dayton; he turned and looked along the length of the table on the right. "Right face!" said Miss Dayton with an audible laugh. Then Mr. Abernethy described an- other quadrant ("About face!" interpo- lated Miss Dayton) toward Miss Burritt, who was standing, having risen to per- form the ceremony of introducing the gentleman to Mrs. Springer. Mr. Ab- ernethy bowed impressively to her, his hostess for two months, calling her Miss Springer, notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. Springer was keeping up an un- flagging nodding. Everybody laughed, I not excepted, though I felt a pity for the target. "Did anybody ever see such an idiot?" said Miss Dayton with an ill-suppressed titter. page: 58-59[View Page 58-59] "Mr. Abernethy is no idiot," I replied warmly: " he knows more than any man I ever talked with." "He doesn't know an earthly thing out of books," asserted Miss Dayton. "He hasn't a grain of out-door sense. Miss Burritt says he always strips the towel off the washstand to wipe with, and leaves the others hanging on the rack, and that when he goes to bed he never takes off the hypocrites, as I call them -those things, you know, that folks put over pillows to hide the dirty cases. I don't believe he'd know what to eat if I didn't sit here and pass things to him. I actually think he doesn't know the taste of a thing he eats. He is the queerest mortal!" "Hush!"I said anxiously, for Mr. Abernethy was taking his seat by her side. "He doesn't know a thing we're say- ing," she declared. "We might talk about him till midnight and he'd never hear a word." "Please stop!"I whispered nervously. "Well, to oblige you I will, but your anxieties are tulite unnecessary." "Mr. Abernethy," shouted a servant, "have tea or coffee?" The student was sensitive to the sound of his name. It acted like a pinch on the arm to arouse his attention. The servants had discovered this. "Have tea or coffee?" repeated the servant. "Coffee," he answered. "Don't you mean tea, Mr. Abernethy?" Miss Dayton asked. "You told me you never drank coffee." "I don't: yes, yes, I mean tea." -Ic helped himself to a hot biscuit. "Mr. Abernethy, here's bread," Miss Dayton said, setting it before him. "Yes, thank you-I prefer the bread." "Hand Mr. Abernethy the butter, and bring him a plate of apple-sauce," Miss Dayton said to a servant, as though she were caring for a child. "I've got him fixed now," she continued, turning to me and proceeding to sweeten her tea. Across the table from us sat Mr. Dim- ick, a rotund, ruddy man, who always emitted odors of the barber-shop. Though inclined to baldness, he had a heavy moustache, which he twirled incessantly when his hands were at leisure for twirl- ing. "Mr. Abernethy," said Mr. Dimick (before the speaker continued he admin- istered a vigorous bite to his bread, which, by the way, had the buttered side turned down out of the way of his moustache), "what do you think of this Paraguayan war?"The boarders went to Mr. Ab- ernethy, not for companionship, but for information, as to a dictionary or ency- clopadia. "Your question is very general," re- plied the gentleman appealed to, laying down his knife and fork. "Of course, but what do you think will be the upshot of the matter? That's what I mean." "I think it will end in the extermina- tion of the Paraguayan people." "That's just what I think; but what in the world are they fighting about? I can't make head or tail of the thing." "To find the head of this quarrel one must go back to within a year of the discovery of America, when a papal bull of Alexander VI. divided the New World between the crowns of Spain and Portu- gal. The question of the boundary-line between their respective territories has never been permanently closed." "Now, he'll forget to eat his supper," said Miss Dayton quite audibly. She treated Mr. Abernethy as a sleeper who could neither see nor hear till she had shaken him up. "The proximate cause of the war be- tween Paraguay and the allies," con- tinued Mr. Abernethy, "is undoubtedly the ambition of Lopez to make Paraguay a great military power, with a view to the ultimate enlargement of her bound- aries." "Just my opinion," said Mr. Dimick. "The events that occurred in 1864 in Uruguay, as you remember" (Mr. Dim- ick, quickly recovering from a yawn, in- timated by repeated nods that he did re- member: I was sure he didn't), " furnish- ed him with the ostensible pretext for entering upon his long-cherished plan." "Miss Dayton, are you going to the opera this evening?" asked Mr. Dimick, evidently bored by this talk about history which he had provoked. Mr. Abernethy prosecuted his subject, turning to me, though entirely uncon- scious, I was satisfied, that there had been any shifting in his audience. Miss Dayton was sitting back in her chair, and I was leaning forward greatly inter- ested. The speaker's eyes were fixed on my face, but he saw it only as one sees the words he reads, heeding them not, but grasping the idea beyond, or as the musician touches the keys of his instru- ment, but is conscious of the music alone. His thoughts played about his hearer as the waves about a rock. I had talked much with him, for on every sub- ject he could offer something new, at least to me, and yet I doubted not he would pass me unrecognized in the street. The thought of this, I acknow- ledge, piqued me at times, for I was rather good-looking, a fluent talker, and used to making impressions on gentle- men-not very profound perhaps, but veritable impressions. "Mr. Abernethy," said Belle Dayton, breaking in on his discussion of the Paraguayan question, "do you know Mrs. Springer?" Mr. Abernethy looked hopelessly be- wildered. "Mrs. Springer? Mrs. Spring- er?" he repeated, like one in a dream. "Yes, Mrs. Springer. You were in- troduced to her when you first came into the dining-room. I want you, if you please, to tell me which one of the ladies is Mrs. Springer. She's a new- comer." "I ought to know-her," he said, like a child trying to recall his lesson. He ran his eye up and down the length of the table. "I think Mrs. Springer is that lady in the blue dress at the end of the table," he said at length. "Now, Mr. Abernethy," responded Miss Dayton, her eyes brimming with archness, "I know you are making be- lieve now. You know that pretty girl in blue is Miss Batchelder. You've seen her every day since you've been here, and I've been thinking for the last two weeks that you're in love with her-you look at her as though you were-and now you pretend to think she's a new- comer!" Mr. Abernethy looked at Miss Dayton. It was the first time I had ever seen him really look at any one. He seemed amused. "I am a graceless fellow," he said with a smile. "I ought to be a her- mit or a monk." "Yes, I think you ought," assented the merciless Miss Dayton. We soon after left the table. In the adjoining sitting-room, Mr. Abernethy paused at a-what-not to examine some shells which had been placed there that morning. "What makes the holes in those shells?"Belle asked, advancing to his side. He held in his hand a large Achatina. "These holes?" he said. "Oh, the natives of Africa fill these with honey, string them about their necks, and bring them across the country to the sea-ports, where they are exchanged for salt or other articles of traffic." "Is that it?" said Miss Dayton. "Well, now, when I was at school I asked my teacher, and he said those were bullet- holes, where the hunters had shot the animals; and to think I was goose enough to believe him! though I always knew he was a humbug, pretending to know everything. But this kind," she continued, taking up a sea-shell, "is so small I shouldn't think it would pay to transport honey in them." "These holes are of a different nature," answered Mr. Abernethy: "they are bored by the teredo. It often bores holes in the bottoms of vessels at anchor." "How curious! How in the world did you ever learn so much, Mr. Abernethy? What kind of animal lives in this?" she continued, without waiting for the gentle- man to inform her how in the world he had learned so much. "If you should see the animal alive on the sea-shore you would scarcely rec- ognize it from this shell. It looks like a lump of fat, but when opened this beautiful polished shell is found. In all cases of shells with a high natural pol- ish, the animal mantles the shell, se- creting it." page: 60-61[View Page 60-61] Then he proceeded to discuss other shells. I wanted to go over and hear him, but I was buttonholed in an oppo- site corner by Miss Burritt, who was en- tertaining Mrs. Springer and me with a dissertation on the troublesome charac- ter of lady boarders. "I never mean to take another into my house," she said; "they are ten times the bother that gentlemen are. Of course I don't mean come-and-go boarders like you, Mrs. Springer, and I don't mean them that are like you, Miss Tiffaine," she added, turning to me. "You are no more trouble than the gentlemen board- ers. You just take your meals and go oft' to your telegraphing, and are out of the way just like the men." "Bless my soul! can she work a tele- graph?" a-ked Mrs. Springer, looking at me in admiration. "Yes, indeed she can," answered Miss Burritt, as if she was proud of her board- er. "If all my lady-boarders were like Miss Tifihine, I'd just as lief have them as gentlemen, and a good deal liever, for I'm fonder of my own sex than of the opposite sex. But the ladies ain't all like AMiss Tiffaine. They are always wanting hot water to wash their laces, or something or other. Then they are al- ways making over dresses and cloaks and things, and they must have flat- irons to press them out. They are all the time tinkering at something, doctor- ing themselves or their children. They take off the dishes and pails and spoons and tumblers and everythingl then when we come to set the table we've got to race all over the establishment. Now, to-day Norah searched the kitchen and dining-room and pantries high and low for the quart measure, and find it she couldn't anywhere. And she was mak- ing a pudding, too, for dinner, so she just had to guess at the quantity of flour." "Jist so," said Mrs. Springer. "And the consequence was, that the pudding was heavy and soggy." Miss Burritt's puddings were apt to be heavy and soggy. "Of course," assented Mrs. Springer. "But I'll tell you what you milht ha' done, Miss Burritt: that's your name, ain't it? You might ha' measured your flour in the pint measure. I often do that way; but then you must take two of the pint to one of the quart. For in- stance, if it's two quarts, you must take four pints, and if it's three quarts, you must take six pints; and the puddin'll come out just as good." "Of course," said Miss Burritt, "but my pint measure was at the bottom of the flour barrel: they'd emptied a sack of flour on it, and there it was, you see. Well, I didn't finish my story. I was going round putting clean towels in the rooms-for I put a clean towel in every room of this house every day of my life-and there, in Miss Dayton's room, large as life, was the missing quart measure!" "Well done!" said Mrs. Springer. "Miss Dayton is the most troublesome boarder in the house," said Miss Burritt. "I mean to tell her next month that I can't board her." I was rather startled to find that I felt a slight satisfaction at this announce- ment, and yet Miss Dayton and I were on quite friendly terms. "Carrying off the quart cup and spoil- ing the dinner! Nobody could stand it." "That they couldn't!" assented Mrs. Springer. "But if I was in your shoes I'd have that pint measure outen that flour barrel: then, by takin' two meas- ures to the quart, you kin most ginerly hit it. Law! I can't cook fit for a can- nibal without I measure everything. I've hearn of people going by their head; but when folks talk to me about puttin' judgment into my vittals, I tell 'cm to go 'lonzg." "I don't believe you," I heard Miss Dayton say saucily to Mr. Abernethy. I glanced across the room and saw him smiling in her face. Miss Burritt's next words brought me precipitately back to my own side of the room. "I needn't talk about lady boarders, though. Mr. Abernethy is more trouble than any six I ever saw. I wouldn't board him another month for a hundred- dollar bill." "Why?"I said. "He never carries off the quart measures and things, does he?" "Indeed he does, and gets them all smeared up with paint or some sort of musses. He's the most troublesome hu- man being I ever saw in my life. You just ought to look into his room." (I wished I could.) "He's got rocks and mosses, and leaves and dried flowers, and roots and bugs, and butterflies and birds' eggs, and bottles of messes-" "Why, I wonder he don't git the cholery a- sleepin' with them nasty things?" said Mrs. Springer. "And don't you believe," here Miss Burritt lowered her voice, "he's got a skeleton up there?" "You don't say!" said Mrs. Springer with distended eyes- "a dead man's skiliton? Well, ef I was you, Miss Bur- ritt, I wouldn't have sich sackerligious things going on in my house." "Oh, he's always got something going on all the time. He's everlastingly per- forming some experiment or other. He's just ruined the carpet-spilled all sorts of things on it, and burnt great holes in it. And don't you think! one day some machinery he had exploded, and come within one of setting the house afire." "Did a body ever hear the like?" cried Mrs. Springer, leaning forward anxiously. "No indeed," said Miss Burritt, "you little know what a life I lead. I don't expect anything else in the world but that he'll some day blow us all up or burn us up." "Well, I must say, marm, you had oughter told me that afore I paid my bill; then I could a-went to a house what's safe, where a lone woman could sleep in peace. I daren't shet my eyes all night, what with explodings and skilitons and .sich. In course, you'll give back the money for the lodgin'. I'm perfectly willin' to pay for the vittals, though it's a mighty small eater I be, but it ain't Christian-like to ask a lone woman to pay for sleep what she doesn't git." Miss Burritt bristled at once. "There isn't a quieter or better-ordered house in this whole city than mine," she declared. "Of course I shouldn't keep anybody in the house that wasn't safe: of course I wouldn't. I'd have more to lose than anybody else by a fire. Mr. Abernethy is one of the most peaceable gentlemen I ever had to board with me, and if H" Here Miss Burritt was summoned out of the room. "Ain't that gentleman Mr. Abernethy?" Mrs. Springer asked. When I had an- swered her question she put on her brass- bowed glasses and inspected him as though he had been some curious species of animal, as who shall say he was not? Then she went over to him and touched his arm: "I wanted to ask you, please, not to be carryin' on any of your abra- cadabras tell I git outen this house." Mr. Abernethy stared at her in mute astonishment. Miss Dayton laughed: that's what she generally did. "This lady," I explained, "has heard that you are given to experimenting, and is alarmed lest some accident may occur while she is here." Mr. Abernethy smiled and assured her that her fears were unnecessary. "What in the world are you experi- menting about, anyhow?" inquired Miss Dayton. I wondered at her easy audacity toward this man, whose reticence and learning inspired me with unmitigated awe. "My most recent experiments have been directed to reclaiming the waste sulphuric acid that is used in refining petroleum, and to .utilize it in the manu- facture of chemicals," he replied simply. Mrs. Springer threw back her head and gazed through her glasses at him as at a speaker of an unknown tongue. "It does beat all," she said, coming back to me, "what queer people a body meets a-travelin', and what sights of folks there be on the move, to be sure. I thought as how there must be some- thing or other gwine on-a big show or 'lection or something. You don't know ef there is or not?" "Nothing unusual, I think." "Dear me! When I got down in that big dUp6t 'peared to me everybody was crazy-such runnin' and hollerin'! I was clean beat. I never was worse scared in my life. I didn't know which way to go. I asked everybody, but, law! I couldn't git no satisfaction outen no- page: 62-63[View Page 62-63] body. Byme-by a man teched me on the arm and said he'd take me to a nice boarding-house ef I'd get in his kerridge. I thought he was mighty kind, and he was a nice-lookin' man, and so I put in my carptt-bag and bandbox, and he fetched me here. Well, I got outen the kerridge, made a curtsey to him and thanked him, when he said,' Fifty cents, mam ;' anid, bless your heart! it wasn't mor'n a hundred yards I rode." On and on Mrs. Springer went in her talk, I half listening to her as my mind kept wandering toward the other couple in the room. At length my companion left me, andt shortly after I went to my room and to bed, where I lay awake a long time thinking of Mr. Abernethy and Miss Dayton. But it was not till the next evening that I again saw them together. We were sitting in the parlor, Miss Dayton and I, for the evenings were growing cool and our rooms were not yet warmed. I was reading: Miss Dayton sat by a table with a pile of school-girl compositions before her: she was composition-teacher in the Rushford Academy. The door opened and Mr. Abernethy entered. Miss Dayton immediately took possession of him: "Oh, Mr. Abernethy, do, I)leac, come here and help me cor- rect these stiupid compositions: I shall never get through with them. You've no idea lhow myi eyes ache. Come along! You've got to help me: I won't let you off." Mr. Abernethy went over with a little smile on his face, and sat down by the table. It wouldn't be fair for a stranger to look into these, would it?" he said. "Oh, you don't know the writers, and you won't remember for five minutes that you ever saw the compositions. Here, now, go to work: here's a pencil. Hcre are six pages of foolscap about the steam-engine. Now, I don't know an earthly thing about the steam-engine: I never could understand it. I shouldn't know it if there was an error in each sentence. So of course you must correct this. And as a rest after those six pages you may have this composition-a de- scription of Niagara Falls in seven lines. And here's another essay for you. You'll read in it,' A little knowledge is a danger- ous thing.' You needn't take the trou- ble to correct the quotation: I've cor- rected it a score of times, for the lady gets it into every composition of hers, no matter what her subject is. And here is just one more I wish you to take charge of. This writer's essays are nerve-ex- hausting drains on the sympathies: in every composition she kills off a golden- haired, cerulean-eyed infant." "I advise you to turn her over to the chief of police," said Mr. Abernethy with a sober countenance. Miss Dayton clapped her hands. "Oh," she exclaimed, "I'm so glad you can be funny! I've been afraid that you hadn't any ticklish spot. I was thinking that you were just my counterpart. A finger can't be crooked at me but I gig- gle. I'm glad of it: I thank God every day for all the laughable folks he sends in my way." Mr. Abernethy took the pencil and commenced on "The Steam-Engine." "How do you correct a young lady's composition?" he asked. "Oh, I dot the i's, and cross the f's, and underscore the misspelled words, and then shake a sieve of punctuation points over the page." "Is that all? Don't you alter such a sentence as this?" and he read from the composition: "' The steam-engine is one of the most useful but at the same time hideous things in Nature.'" "Well, I suppose I'd scratch out'Na- ture,' and write 'on earth,' or 'in the universe,' or'in the solar system.' Oh, I forgot to tell you there's one word I never leave alive in any composition: I always stab it with my steel. It's 'streamlet.'" Mr. Abernethy addressed himself again to "The Steam-Engine." "Here," he said, "is a string of nine adjectives in one sentence, and not a monosyllable among them. What shall I do with them?" "Just what seemeth unto thee best." "Then, I'll draw my pencil through them." "Hold thy sacrilegious hand, O Van- dal!"Miss Dayton cried with mock heroics, grasping Mr. Abernethy's wrist. "Would you break that young woman's heart? Her adjectives are her idols. Ah," she continued with a pathetic shake of the head, "you'll never make a com- position-teacher for young ladies." "I think you are right," replied the gentleman. "I hope, therefore, you will excuse me from any further work." "Well, wait: I must read you this first. Do, Miss Tiffaine," and Miss Day- ton turned to me, "stop reading a mo- ment and listen to this composition." Then she read in school-girl style: "'Animals.-There are a great many different kinds of animals. In the sec- ond place, I will proceed to mention some: The horse, the cow, the dog, the cat, the gorilla, the snake, the tadpole, dears, sheeps, swines, a boy, a girl, a ant, a uncle, a alligator, a boar-constric- tor, a whale, a sardine, a catfish, a thrush, a elephant, a 'possum-' And thus it goes on, through these four pages of fools- cap, lilthe catalogue of a menagerie. It ends-' a musquitoe and myself. MARY JANE STRINGER.' Now, what do you think of that, Mr. Abernethy?" "I think it is good," was the reply. "The writer says what she knows, and doesn't attempt the impossible." "I think that if Miss MaryJane Stringer had attempted something beyond her, she might, it is true, have fallen short of her aim- Well, really, that speech is worthy of any Irishman!" laughed Miss Dayton. "I meant to say that, though she would have failed of her aim, she might have achieved more than she las." "But failures are such distressing things. The unambitious are spared much heart-burning." Here I was called away, much to my r discontent, for I felt a growing interest in the progress of matters between Mr. Abernethy and Miss Dayton. Miss Day- ton, it seemed to me, was simply amus- ing herself with one of the laughable a people whom God had brought in her way, but what would be the effect on n Mr. Abernethy? I doubted if any other o - woman had ever so closely approached k this singular man, if any other had dared to enter his privacy and compel him to s hold converse with a personality rather than an abstraction. She had roused him from his somnambulism, but to her presence alone did he appear awake. All other people were indefinite to him e as an audience of strangers to a speaker. 1 More and more keenly did the convic- tion come to me that, in all his thoughts I was not; yet how superior I felt my- self to the laughing, flippant Miss Day- ton! How much better able I was to estimate him! Had I not been the very first in that boarding-house to speak a word for him? to perceive that in him which was worth standing up for, when Miss Dayton and all the rest were only laughing at him? I felt the right of a discoverer in him, and when, therefore, I perceived that Miss Dayton was taking possession of him, I was aggrieved: I was being supplanted. And I resented it that this, to me, unapproachable man permitted to this saucy girl a look into himself that he denied to me. As I have said, I held Mr. Abernethy in awe. I do not know that he was a very learn- ed or remarkable man judged by a critical standard, but he was to me very learned and very remarkable. I felt sure he was a genius who would some day make a stir in the world. But did I care for him in a special way? The question came often to me. The next morning, which was Sunday, Mr. Abernethy was late at breakfast, as he was apt to be. When he entered it was evident that he had been giving un- usual attention to his toilet. "Do see how he's fixed up!" said Miss Dayton to me as he came to his seat. "You must be careful how you speak," I said. "Do not suppose that Mr. Aber- nethy is as oblivious of all the world as he used to be." She colored slightly, and began after her usual manner to order his breakfast. "Are you going to church to-day?" she asked when he was seated. To my surprise he said yes. I had never known him to go to church. "An old college chum is to preach at the Sec- page: 64-65[View Page 64-65] ond Presbyterian Church to-day, and I wish to see how he'll do it," he explained. "Why, that's my church! May I have the pleasure of your company?" said Miss Dayton with a courtly bow. "I'm obliged to say no," Mr. Aber- nethy replied simply, "for I promised to call for my friend." Miss Dayton seemed greatly amused. "Isn't that a good joke, Miss Tiffaine?" she laughed, " refused by a gentleman! Where is your friend stopping?" Mr. Abernethy's face took on an ex- pression of helpless bewilderment. Then it became suddenly blank. "Why, I for- got to ask him," he acknowledged with a refreshing straightforwardness. "Oh, I amt so glad!" cried Miss Iayton merrily. "Now you've got to go with me. You can't think of another excuse, can you?" "No," he said. "God hath wrought good out of my stupidity." I wondered if he meant anything by this, or if it was only a polite speech. When church-time arrived I saw them from my chamber-window walk off churchward together. And I saw them when they returned, for I had not moved my seat. My heart had been sorely stirred in the period between their de- parture and their return. When the dinner-bell rang I wecnt dowrn to the dining-room with a dreary feeling. How radiant Miss Dayton looked! Her cheeks were like blush roses, her eyes were brimming with light. That new forest- green silk, with those soft laces about the throat and hands, how becoming it was! I was scarcely seated at the table before Miss Burritt called out, to my an- noyance, to inquire if I had been to church. I said no, and blushed as I thought of the wicked feeling I had been cherishing during the morning. "You ain't sick, are you?" persisted Miss Burritt. "No, not sick, only tired." "Well, for my part, I can rest better at church than anywhere else," she said. "I should think so," assented bliss Dayton in an under tone, "from the way she sleeps through the sermon." "And I think it my duty to go to church twice a Sunday unless I am sick," continued Miss Burritt. "We did have such a splendid sermon to-day. I should be sorry if I had lost it." "What was the text?" inquired one of the gentlemen. Bliss Burritt colored and looked very silly. "Well, now, I can't recall the ex- act words," she said. "What was the subject?" persisted the merciless inquisitor. "The fact of the matter is, I didn't half hear the sermon," Miss Burritt owned. "There were some ladies in the seat just ahead of me who kept up such a perpetual fidget, twisting and turning and smoothing down their silk dresses and buttoning their gloves and arranging their ribbons, that I couldn't think of a single thing but them. Then there was Mrs. Desher in the next seat. That woman's enough to make the preacher himself forget the text. Just for the cl- riosity of the thing, I counted the colors she had on. How many do you suppose there were? Only thirteen! And her bonnet! Did you notice it, Miss Day- ton? She had flowers and feathers and blonde lace and thread and bead-trim- ming: such a mix! Now, how can a woman with all that furbelowing and thirteen colors think of the sermon or join in the prayers? And such horrid taste!" "The question with me is, How can a man with corns on his toes and tight boots on his corns say his prayers?" said Dr. Skinner. "I thought that Reverend Pink never would come to his ' lastly.' I found half a dozen splendid stopping- places for him, but he'd get a new relay every time and be off again. Such a preacher ought to have a relay of audi- tors, four times at least, on one of his trips from text to amen." "Would not a change of subject be advisable?" asked the Reverend Mr. Ashey with quiet severity. A silence fell on the table. Miss Dayton broke in on the silence. "Mr. Abernethy, what's the name of your friend who preached this morning?" "His name?" said the gentleman aI)- pealed to, starting a little-"his name? Barton? No, it isn't Barton." Mr. Abernethy gazed profoundly at his plate. "Parton! William Parton is his name. Did you like him?" "Not a bit," replied Miss Dayton. "He's too pert: he hasn't an atom of reverence. He talks to God as to a street acquaintance. His prayers are little else but gossip: they made me think of the local column of a daily newspaper, interspersed with editorial comments on the telegrams. And his sermon was a series of conundrums proposed to the audience." "The style of the sermon was cha- racteristic of the man. The boys at college used to call him 'Interrogation Point.' Whether asking information or giving it, he employed the interrogative form. And he really has no reverence; so that here, again, his manner is in har- mony with his character. There is, at least, no affectation about him. He is not afraid of God, and he makes no pretence of being. He thinks he has a right to live, so he doesn't go to Heaven with an apology that he exists, or that he is a man and not an angel or a god. I am inclined to think that the Hearer of prayers is much more interested in the chatting and gossip, if you choose, of this honest man than in a vast deal that He hears in what are called prayers. A father had surely rather hear his child prattle about its toys and games than have it attempt metaphysics. God is doubtless often much amused at the sketches that are held up to His children as portraits of their Father." "Amused!" cried Miss Dayton. "People do not conceive of God as being amused or desiring amusement. Now, I have no question but that He has a boundless enjoyment of the humorous. Isn't such a Being more lovable than a divinity creating worlds for his own glory? Each mind has its God as each t eye has its horizon, and each mind t stamps on its conception the attributes most admirable to itself, and excludes I everything that is distasteful. Now, I i am of such a sombre cast that I have a dread of the shadows in others: hence a my God is a joyous divinity. I can con- n 6 ceive Him as laughing heartily at the laughable things in my life." Miss Dayton colored: she evidently made a personal application of Mr. Ab- ernethy's remarks. "Well, that is the strangest idea of God that I ever heard t expressed," she said. e "If God frowns, why shouldn't he laugh? The first thing demanded in religion is a recognition of the person- ality of God. God has every attribute * of personality," said Mr. Abernethy; and then he went on, deeper and deeper, into metaphysics, which I did not compre- hend then, and which I cannot recall now. I went up to my room unhappy and distracted. Mr. Abernethy, the man whom I most cared for in all the world, seemed to be drifting farther and farther from me. I was sure of this, but I could do nothing, would do nothing, to bridge the gulf between us; for along with everything else which interposed was my own pride. When we were all alike vague to him-lay figures on which to try his. arguments or disquisitions - I could talk with him without feeling my remoteness. But now another's near- ness had crowded me to the background,. and my pride kept me there. I studious- ly refrained from bringing myself to his, notice, if indeed it would have been possible for me to command his atten- tion in the sense in which Miss Dayton had secured it, and yet I did not feel sure that he loved Miss Dayton or that she loved him. I dropped to sleep with my mind full of the subject. Some hours later I was roused by the fire-bells and by loud talking in our halls. I started up in bed: my room was as light as day. I rushed to the window: a brick house across the street was on fire. I stood for some moments watching the fascinating horror- saw the flames creeping up and up toward the roof, licking up every bit of wood- work. Suddenly a woman's shriek pierced the air: a child was in that burn- ing house. There were not two dozen people on the ground, and no sound of an engine coming to our aid. Oh, how my heart throbbed! I wondered if there page: 66-67[View Page 66-67] were one hero there to attempt the rescue. How I longed for the cheering noise of the engine, for a score of brave firemen! I saw a long ladder placed against the wall. I saw a man on its rounds mount- ing into that fiery furnace, and my heart was thrilled. Suddenly it stood still: I had recognized the hero. It was Mr. Abernethy. I did not shriek or scream or swoon, but watched with fascinated gaze as up and up, through smoke and flame, went the man whom in all the world I most cared for. I saw him dis- appear through the window into that flaming building, and then I saw little more for the tears that were blinding me and the fear that was devouring me. With trembling hands I dressed myself. Faint and dizzy, I staggered down the stairs. In the hall I heard a cry of agony that went through my heart. I rushed to the parlor, whence it had proceeded. The room was thronged with people. Some men were arranging on a sofa the body of a man. It was Mr. Abernethy's. Some others were bearing away another body with white face and with long fair hair streaming over the shoulders. This was Belle Dayton. I can never tell how awestruck, how guilty, how wretched I felt at that moment, as if a lightning's flash had revealed in my path a yawn- ing abyss. Oh how I worked with the doctors for those two lives! Sir. Aber- nethy revived first, and soon after Miss Dayton opened her fine eyes. I was kneeling beside her as she did so. Put- ting down my lips to kiss her cheek, I whispered, "Sr. Abernethy is very little hurt : he was only stunned by the fall. lie leaped from the window, it seems." 1Her cheek flushed crimson. She sat up, and would have left the room, but the physician gently reseated her. "Keep quiet a few moments," he said. "\hat did I do with it?" we heard Mr. Abernethy say in a bewildered way. "Let me see. \Well, it's strange, but I cannot remember what I did with that baby." "Recll all the circumstances," said a bystander: "that may help you to re- member. Where was the child when you climbed through the window?" "It was on a bed asleep," replied Mr. Abernethy. "Yes, yes, now I remember. I rolled the baby up in the feather bed. tied a sheet round it, and dropped it from the window; and I'm afraid it's tied up there yet." At this Belle Dayton suddenly burst out laughing and left the room. I quickly followed, almost equally amused at the comical aspect the affair had assumed. We ran up to her bed-room. I thought we should never stop laughing, for I was happy enough now to laugh. "Did you ever, in your life, know any- thing so funny?" she said between her outhursts. "The idea of forgetting what he did with that baby!" and off she went into another laugh. "Why, suppose the baby has been smothered?" she said, suddenly sobering. "Wouldn't that be dreadful, after he had risked his life to save it, too? Let's go and see if we can hear anything of it." Yes, the baby had been found quietly sleeping in the feather bed, although this had been piled on a wagon with chairs, tables, etc., and moved three blocks. Mr. Abernethy's burns, too, had been dressed, and he was comfortable. So Belle and I had another laugh together. Then she cried, and so did I. Well, that night's experience was a revelation to me. It showed me that envy, the meanest of the mean things that defile the heart, had got into mine. Perhaps I should not be so free to con- fess this if I had not also a victory to re- cord. I had beein nigh hating my friend, and that without the poor excuse of lov- ing the man who had come between us; for another thing that stood revealed to me by the events of that night was, that I did not love Mr. Abernethy, and that Miss Dayton did. Mine was not a pa- thetic case of disappointed affections: my vanity simply had been wounded. And when I that night stood in the pres- ence of the holy thing which mortals have named love, and of a love doubly holy from impending shadows, I seemed the guilty wretch who had committed sacrilege, for had I not in thought, which might have blossomed into deed, med- dled with the sacred thing? Miss Dayton grew shy toward Mr. Abernethy. At table she had little to say to him, and did not render her usual service, leaving him to the care of the servants, though he stood more in need of help than before, for his right hand was badly burned. Her old banter and charming playfulness were gone: there was a perceptible toning down in hervoice and manner. Did he miss the grateful ministry? and did the sense of priva- tion enlighten him as to his own feeling for this woman? He also had changed, I could hardly tell how, but he seemed more like other people. He was more in the parlor. Was it because he had leisure from his writings since the phy- sicians had passed some prohibitions against his using his eyes? or did he hope to encounter Miss Dayton? If so, he was fated to disappointment, for the lady studiously kept out of his way until I was almost angry. I proposed one evening, as he sat in the parlor in forlorn helplessness, to read something to him; for I too had changed: my awe had passed away, and I felt for him an honest and warm friendship. He seemed pleased with my proposition, and when I asked him to select the reading he went up to his room and brought me 7vtrdgld on Cast Iron. I was appalled, but I plunged bravely in, and read and read, on and on, till it grew as meaning- less to me as the grinding of a coffee- mill. After a time I began to blunder, for I was actually nodding as I read. I closed the book. The pause in the reading brought the listener's attention to the reader. Seeing this, I let fly an arrow I had long had strung for him: "Mr. Abernethy, I have bad news: we are going to lose Miss Dayton." I saw by the quick start and the sud- den eagerness in his eyes that my shot had reached its mark. Where is she going?" To another boarding-house." I had heard Miss Burritt reiterate her resolve 1 not to board Miss Dayton after the close of the month. "Has she said why she will leave?" "No." He became silent. "I am very sorry she is going," I said. "She is a fine woman." "Yes," he assented. "She is very emotional." Then look- ing him straight in the eyes, I added: "When you were brought in the night of the fire she was completely overcome, and fell to the floor insensible." "Is that true?" he asked with a light in his eyes and a tremor in his voice. I felt that I had brought down my game. I showed him no mercy. "Mr. Abernethy, were you ever in love?"I asked with an audacity worthy of Belle Dayton in her sauciest days. "You're in love now," I continued, feel- ing that I had firm earth beneath my feet. "You love Miss Dayton. Have you ever told her so?" "No. Why should I? I ought never to ask her to marry me, and she ought never to marry me if I should ask her. I can never make a married man," he said smiling. "Why not?" "I am wanting in adaptability. I've always been a trial to my mother, my sisters, my landlady, to every woman who has had any responsibility about me." He smiled in a pathetic way. "But can't you mend your ways for the sake of one you love?" "I could never be sure that my patch- work would hold. I should be all the while commiserating my wife that she had such a husband. Miss Dayton, too, is born to shine: she is beautiful and sparkling. I am a very dullard in society. I have no business in the parlor: my place is the closet. She could never like my closet:' I could never like her salon. Besides, I am a poor man. She must marry a rich husband. Two thousand dollars a year is the utmost I can make at my translating and essaying." "Mr. Abernethy, suppose the matter rested entirelywith you, would you choose a two-thousand-dollar life with Miss Day- ton or a ten-thousand-dollar one with an- other?" He smiled, but beyond the smile I caught the gleam of tears. "Now, sir," I went on, "you are assuming that you page: 68-69[View Page 68-69] are superior to the woman you love. In your case you are sure that the higher nature would triumph-in hers it would go under. Perhaps Miss Dayton's choice would be the same as yours. I think you should, at least, allow her an option and yourself a chance. Do you dread a refusal?" "No. I am afraid of being selfish." That same evening Miss Dayton came to my room. Her cheeks and eyes indi- cated excitement. "What do you think?" she said. "Miss Burritt has given me warning. She had the impertinence to tell me that she could not board me another month. She says I carry off her quart cup." Here she burst into a laugh. "I suppose I de- serve the penitentiary." "Well, never mind," I replied: "I think she's going to give Mr. Abernethy warning too. You and he can leave and go to housekeeping together." She blushed scarlet. "Why not? You love each other. Don't be offended. I have good authority for what I say. Mr. Ab- crnethy told me not half an hour ago that he loved you." "Did he say so?"She put her head on the table. "I'm not certain, though, that he'll ever tell you so unless you help him to do it." "What do you mean?" she asked, suddenly lifting her head. "I mean that some men are so dis- trustful of themselves that a woman must-" "I'll never coax a man to offer me liarriage," she said haughtily. "You don't understand me," I hasten- ed to explain, but I only made matters worse. The next morning she came into the telegraph-office where I was at work. "Have you found a boarding-place?" I asked. She smiled archly. "We are going to take your advice," she said: "we're going to housekeeping together." Of course, I knew what that little word "we " comprehended. "Then Mr. Abernethy has asked you to marry him?" "Oh no, indeed," she laughed: "he begged me not to marry him. It was very funny, but oh so sweet!" and the quick tears came to her eyes. "Do you know, I think he's better suited to me than anybody else in the world could be. You see, I don't know a thing about housekeeping, especially cooking. Most men are so particular about what they eat. I can imagine a man after a month at my table going from it to the lunatic asylum. But Mr. Abernethy will never know even when house-cleaning days come. Of course I mean to learn house- keeping-I've bought a cook-book-but I feel certain there'll be sad mistakes for a while." "I feel sure you will be very happy together," I said. "Happy! I'm sure there is nothing he would not do for me. Why, he offer- ed to dispose of his collections of fossils and shells and plants-they'd be in my way, he thought, the dear soul!-after he's tramped all over creation to collect them. I tell you the mortal doesn't live who is good enough to own those things that have so much of his devotion and dear life in them. I feel as if I loved every one of the blessed things for his sake. I'm going to help him fix them up in frames and cases, and we'll take care of them together. You'll come to the wedding-won't you?-at the pa:- sonage of the Second Presbyterian, at four o'clock this afternoon. Then we're going straight home, and begin house- keeping as soon as we get there. Did I tell you? I bought a furnished cottage this morning with my little savings, a perfect little bird's nest in Sycamore street." Well, I went round to the parsonage and saw them married. Then, while they drove off to their dove-cot, I walked back to the old boarding-house. In the hall I met Miss Burritt. "Well," she said, when I had told her all about it, "I don't like Miss Dayton, but I'm soTry for any woman who's got that man with all his rocks and bugs and traps to look after." As for me, I didn't feel an atom-of pity for either of them. HER CHANCE. MARY TRIGILLGUS tucked the money away in her purse. It was a very small sum, but it was the utmost that could be spared for the evening out- fit: she and her mother had talked it all over, and such was the decision. "Now, Mary," said her mother, "don't get a tarletan, or anything exclusively for evening wear: you so seldom go to parties that you can't afford such a dress. I would try to get a nice silk. Some- thing that's a little out of style by being made up fashionably might answer very well." Mary gave a sigh and turned her face toward the shops, feeling how difficult it would be to purchase a fashionable outfit with the scanty sum in her purse. And she sighed many another time that afternoon as she went from shop to shop. The goods were too expensive for her slender purse, or they were poor or old- fashioned. Twilight was settling down on the gay streets; window after window was flashing into light, revealing misty laces with gay ribbons and silks stream- ing like banners; the lamplighters on every hand were building their walls of flame; and yet Mary wandered from store to store, each moment more bewildered and undecided as to the best investment for her money. She approached a brilliant store, pass- ed it with lingering step, then paused, turned back, and stood looking down the glittering aisle. The large mirror at the farther end seemed scarcely broader than the little cracked bureau-glass in her humble room before which she dress- ed her hair in the mornings. The clerks were hurrying to and fro, eager and business-like, while fine ladies were com- ing and going, jostling her as she stood Just outside the door. Among the hur- rying forms her eye sought one familiar and loved: not a woman's, I need scarcely say, else why does she stand in the shadow there, with her veil half i drawn over her face, trembling and I frightened? Why else does her cheek glow with shame? Poor Mary! You feel like a guilty thing in thus seeking a man who has never declared his love; but let me whisper a word in your ear: True love is woman's blue ribbon of honor: with- out it her nature is the rose tree without the rose-the dead egg among the cliffs: quickened by the grand passion, it is the eagle soaring to the stars. Your heart is a grander thing now than ever before. Next to loving God, the best thing for woman is to love a good man. Take the comfort of this thought, and leave the humiliation to the heart too hard or too light for loving. Were I looking into your eyes, my reader, telling my story by word of mouth, I can fancy we might hold some- thing like this dialogue: "Whom was Mary Trigillgus, this keeper of a small day-school --whom was she seeking in this brilliant store? One of the under- clerks, perhaps?" "No." "The book- keeper?" "No." "The confidential clerk?" "You must guess again." "The junior partner?" "No, it was Christian Van Pelt, the sole proprietor of that fine establishment, one of the merchant princes of the city." "But what right had Mary Trigillgus, this obscure school- teacher, to love this man of fortune? How did she ever come to his acquaint- ance?"And then I should tell you a very long story, and a tedious one per- haps, of. two Hollanders, close friends, who settled in New Amsterdam; of how fortune had prospered the one until Christian Van Pelt, his lineal descend- ant, was among the leaders in the dry- goods trade of New York City; of how various disasters had befallen the family of the other, until the daughter of the house, and its only lineal descendant, Mary Trigillgus's mother, had married an intemperate spendthrift, who had at his death left her penniless, though the grandchild, Mary Trigillgus, had in- page: 70-71[View Page 70-71] herited the small house in which mother and daughter found a home. In the back parlor Mary kept a school for small children: the front chamber was let to a quiet man, who went down town at eight and returned at five, and whom they seldom saw except when he rapped at the sitting-room door on the first day of every month to hand in the three five-dollar bills which covered his rent. Besides these sources of revenue there were a few day-boarders, who sometimes paid for their keeping and sometimes did not. An intercourse and a show of friend- ship had all along been maintained be- tween the families of these Hollanders; and now Mrs. Van Pelt, the young mer- chant's mother, was to give a large par- ty. Mary Trigillgus had been invited, and her mother had insisted on an ac- ceptance of the invitation. "They are quite friendly to you, Mary, and you can't afford to throw away such friends," the mother said. So it was for Christian Van Pelt's broad, square figure that Mary's eager eyes were seeking; but in vain they sought: it was nowhere to be seen. A choking feeling of disappointment rose in her heart-a disappointment very un- equal to the occasion, since she had meant nothing more than to get a sight of the loved figure and then to go on her way. Having satisfied herself that he was not in the store, a yearning desire possessed her to enter the place where he every day walked- a place to her invested with romance, haunted by his presence-a place to which her thoughts often wandered as some stupid child stood by her side in the little school- room spelling out his reading-lesson. She had not for months entered the store-not since that evening when, in her poor parlor, Christian Van Pelt, the rich young merchant, had looked into her eyes with a look that thrilled her for many a day, and spoken some nothings in tones that set her heart throbbing. Indeed, since that day she had avoided passing the store, lest she might seem, even to herself, to be seeking him. And yet her poor eyes and heart were ever seeking him in the countless throngs that passed up and down the busy streets. "I'll get my dress from his store," she said mentally. "I shall wear it with the greater pleasure that he has handled it. My patronage will be to him but as the drop to the ocean," she said with a little bitterness, "but it will be a sweet thought to me that I have contributed even one drop to the flood of his prosperity." So she entered Christian Van Pelt's trade-palace, and said, in answer to the smart clerk's look of inquiry, "I am looking for a silk that will do for the evening and also for the street-some- thing a little out of style, perhaps, might answer." "We have some bargains in such silks-elegant dress-patterns at a third of what they cost us in Paris. Step this way;" and Mary found herself going back and back through the spacious building, with her image advancing to meet her. In a few seconds the counter was strewn with silks at most enticing figures, and the clerk showed them off to such advantage, gathering them so dexterous- ly into elegant folds, shifting them so skillfully in the brilliant gas-light, per- suading the lady, in the mean while, in such a clever, lawyer-like way: "These cost us in Paris three times the money I am offering them for, and they are but very little passe; there is an extraordi- nary demand for them; they are going like wildfire; country merchants are or- dering them by the score; we sent eighty pieces to Chicago, to one house, yester- day, and fifty patterns to Omaha this morning; one hundred and ten we last week shipped to the South; the whole lot will perhaps be sold by to-morrow," etc.-that poor Mary felt like a specula- tor on the verge of a great chance. So she decided on a light-green brocade, and could not gainsay the smooth- tongued clerk as he assured her, while tying the bundle, that she had secured a very handsome and elegant dress at a great bargain. The next day Mary and her uthder spent in studying and discussing the a test fashion-plates, but the elaborate descrip tions of expensive costumes plunged the girl into another state of bewilderment and slough of despond. She heartily regretted having accepted the invitation. She began to dread the party as an exe- cution-to shrink from exhibiting herself to Christian with the fine ladies and gen- tlemen who would form the company at Mrs. Van Pelt's. However, the dress was cut and made, and in this there was a fair degree of success, for neces- sity had taught these women consider- able skill in the use of the scissors and needle. The dress was trimmed with some handsome old lace that had been in the mother's'.fiamily for years. Mrs. Trigillgus pronounced the dress very handsome as she spread it on the bed and stepped off to survey it, and even the despondent Mary took heart, and as she surveyed her image in the mirror at the conclusion of her toilet for the important evening, she felt a degree of complacency toward herself-a feeling of admiration even. "You look like a snowdrop, dear," said the mother fondly; and the com- parison was not inapt, for the young girl's Saxon complexion and fair hair were in pretty contrast with the lace- decked silk of delicate green falling about her. As she had no attendant, she went early to Mrs. Van Pelt's, feeling at lib- erty to be unceremonious; and she thought, with a beating heart, that Chris- tian would be her escort home. Mrs. Van Pelt was not in the parlor when Mary entered, but Christian received her kindly, though with a slight embarrass- ment that embarrassed her. She tried to keep the love-flicker from her eyes and the love-tremor from her voice as she sat there alone with the man she loved, trying to reply indifferently to his indifferent remarks, and wondering if he could not hear the beating of her heart. She was greatly relieved at the entrance of Mrs. Van Pelt. When this lady had kissed her guest, she stepped off a few paces and looked the girl over. "Your dress is very becoming, my dear," she said, "but why did you get a brocade? Don't you know that bro- cades are out of style? Nobody wears brocades; and they are not trimming with lace at all. I wish you had advised with me." The blood rushed to Mary's face. Though she did not turn her eyes to Christian's, she knew that they were looking at her-that he was noting her confusion and comprehending its cause. "He knows why I have bought this bro- cade," was her thought, "and he knows that I am humiliated in having my pov- erty held up to his view. Of course Christian knows that I am poor, and he must know, as a consequence, that I wear poor clothes. I can endure that he should know this in a general way, while I shrink from having the details . of my poverty revealed to him. would not wish my patched gaiters and arne stockings held up for his inspection'. Mary hesitated a moment befor e- plying to Mrs. Van Pelt's criticism. Then, with a feeling that it was better to acknowledge a poverty of which both her companions were cognizant than an ignorance of style, she said, with a slight kindling of the eye, "I decided on this dress from economical consider- ations, and the lace is some which my mother's great - grandmother brought from Holland.-I have reminded them, at least, that I had a grandfather," she thought. As she finished speaking she lifted her eyes to Christian's. She could not understand the expression she saw there. But the poor girl's satisfaction in her dress was all gone. She was ready to reproach her mother for the reassuring words that had helped to generate it. "What if it is pretty? it is old-fash- ioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my grand- mother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I am the silly moth in the candle." If these were Mary's thoughts as she sat there with her two friends, what must they have become as the regally-dressed ladies, one after another, were an- page: 72-73[View Page 72-73] nounced? There were the majestic sweep of velvet, the floating of cloudlike gossamer, the flashing diamond, the starry pearl, the flaming ruby, the blaz- ing carbuncle. There were marvelous toilets where contrast and harmony and picturesqueness-the effect of every col- or and ornament-had been patiently studied as the artist studies each shade and line on his canvas. And when the laugh and the jest and the wit were sounding all about her, and the intoxi- cating music came sweeping in from the dancing-room, there came over Mary a lost feeling amid the strange faces and voices-a bewildered, dizzy feeling, such as the semi-conscious opium-eater might have, half real, half dreaming. It was all so strange, so separate from her, as though, herself invisible, she was watch- ing a festival among a different order of beings. Everybody was coming and going, continually varying his pastime, while she sat as unobserved as though invisible. Occasionally an eye-glass was leveled at her, or some lady accidentally placed beside her superciliously inspect- ed the lace and green brocade. Mrs. Van Pelt found her in the course of the evening, and insisted that she should go to the dancing-room and see the dancing. Mary begged to remain seated where she was. She dreaded any move that would render her more con- spicuous, and dreaded especially being recalled to Christian's mind. But the hostess insisted, so the wretched girl crept out of her retreat, and with a dizzy step traversed the parlors and halls to the dancing-rooms. The band was play- ing a delicious waltz, and graceful ladies and elegant gentlemen were moving to its measures. Mary's eyes soon discov- ered Christian waltzing with a young girl in a rose-colored silk. She was not a marked beauty, but the face was re- fined and pretty, and was uplifted to Christian's with a look of listening in- terest. A pang of jealousy shot through Mary's heart as she saw this and noted the close embrace in which Christian held his partner, with his face bent down to hers. Soon they came whirling by. "There is Christian with Miss Jerome," said Mrs. Van Pelt. "Her father is said to be wort4 four millions." The next moment Mrs. Van Pelt was called away, and Mary was again left to her isolation. With a dread of having Christian see her there, old-fashioned and neglected, a stranger to every in- dividual in the assemblage of wealth and fashion, she slipped quietly oway into the library, where some elderly peo- ple were playing whist. She would have gone home, but she lived in an obscure street some distance away. With a sense of suffocation she now remembered that she would have to recall herself to Chris- tian's mind, for she must depend upon him to see her home. "He has not thought of me once this evening," she said bitterly. Soon supper was an. nounced. Gentlemen and ladies began to pair off, not one mindful of her. She was hesitating between remaining there in the library and going unattended to the refreshment-room, when a white- haired gentleman entered from the par- lor. He glanced at Mary, and was pass- ing on when he paused and looked again. A moment of hesitation ensued while the young girl and the old gentleman gazed at each other. "Miss Trigillgus, I believe?" he said, finally. "My name is Ten Eyck. I knew your mother when she was a girl, and I knew her father. Allow me the pleasure of escorting you to supper." Mary took the proffered arm with the feeling of one who unexpectedly en- counters a friend in a foreign land. As he reseated her in the library after supper he said, "Present me kindly to your mother: if ever I can serve her, I should be glad to do so." At length the party was ended. Every guest had gone except Miss Trigillgus. "I'm afraid I shall have to trouble you to see me home, Mr. Van Pelt," she said to Christian with a burning at her heart. "Allow me the pleasure, you mean to say," replied Christian with a bow. This was but a passing pleasantry, and Mary should not have allowed it to bring the color to her cheek, and that peculiar, half-disdainful look to her eye and lip. "I fear you haven't had a pleasant evening," said Mrs. Van Pelt as Mary took leave of her hostess. "It was not to be expected that I should, being an entire stranger." "Well, dear, come and spend a quiet evening with me soon; and give my love to your mother." Mary went up to the dressing-room, and soon reappeared, looking demure and nun-like in her white hood and black-and-white plaid shawl. How she dreaded the ride home with Christian! and yet for a whole week she had been longing for this very thing. The thought of the party had always brought the throbbing anticipation of the ride with Christian after the party. How near he had seemed then, and ever since the memorable evening when they had sat together over that book of engravings! How happy she had been then! how hopeful of his love! But now, what a gulf there seemed between them! What had she to do with this atmosphere of wealth and luxury and fashion where Christian dwelt? He had been pleased to amuse himself for a brief space with looking into her eyes, with making some silly speeches, which he had straightway forgotten, but which she-poor fool -- had laid away in her heart. Thus she was thinking as Christian handed her into the carriage. She won- dered what he would talk about. For a time there was a constrained and painful silence, and Mary tried to think of some- thing to say, that she might hide her aching heart from his merciless gaze. Finally she remarked that the streets were quiet, and he that the night was fine; and in such commonplaces the ride was passed. Mary found her mother up, eager to learn her impressions of the first large party she had ever attended. "I am' very tired, mother," she said, determined to end the torturing inqui- sition, "and am aching to get to bed. I'll tell you about the party to-morrow. Don't call me early: let me have a good sleep." With a feeling of sickening disgust she laid off the silk and lace and flowers which a few hours before had so pleased her. The pale face which met her as she stood before her mirror was very un- like the happy, expectant face she had seen there in the early evening. Turn- ing from the piteous image, she hurried- ly put the mean dress away, longing to have the sheltering darkness about her. Soon she had laid her head on the pillow, where, with eyes staring into the dark- ness, it throbbed for a weary while. "What am I to Christian Van Pelt?" This was the question the poor heart argued and re-argued. One sweet de- licious evening Stood over against this last, so full of heartache. The next morning Mary felt weary with all the world. Her home seemed poorer and meaner than ever; the board- ers disgusted her with their coarseness; teaching was unrelieved drudgery; ev- erything was distasteful. To her moth- er's renewed inquiries about the party she replied wearily, "My dress was poor and mean, mother; and had I spent our year's income on my toilet, it would have still been poor, compared with those I saw last night. For such as I there is nothing in fashionable life but heart- burning and humiliation." A few days after this there came from Mrs. Van Pelt to Miss Trigillgus an in- vitation to tea. She at once longed and dreaded to meet Christian; so the invi- tation was declined on the plea of indis- position. It was renewed two evenings later, and she was obliged to accept it. Mary never looked better than on that evening. She wore a -blue empress- cloth, which heightened the fairness of her complexion and of her bright hair. After tea she and Mrs. Van Pelt were looking at some old pictures. They were discussing an ambrotype of herself, taken when she was thirteen, when a servant announced guests in the parlor. "You were a pretty child, my dear," said Mrs. Van Pelt, rising to go to the parlor, "and you are a handsome wo- man-a beautiful woman, I may say-- your beauty ought to be a fortune to you -but you lack style. I must take you in hand," she continued, talking all the way to the door. "I shall need some amusement after Christian's marriage, to page: 74-75[View Page 74-75] keep me from being jealous of his little wife ;" and she disappeared through the door, little dreaming of the arrow she had sent to the poor heart. Mary caught her breath, and Christian saw her stagger at the shot. Taken by surprise, completely off his guard, he opened his arms and received the strick- en girl in his bosom, and pressed his lips to hers. But Mary had not lost her consciousness. Quickly recovering, she disengaged herself and reached a chair. She was more self-possessed than he. He sat down beside her, quivering in every fibre. "Mary! Mary!" he cried in passion- ate beseechment, "I never meant to win your love to betray it. We have both been surprised into a confession of our love for each other, and now let me lay open my heart to you. I do love you, as you must have seen, for I have not been always able to keep the love out of my eyes and voice. You will recall one evening-I know you must remem- ber it -when I was near declaring my love and asking you to be my wife. I don't know why I did not -why I left my story but half told. I sometimes wish that I had declared myself fully, and that we were now pledged to each other. But the very next morning I sus- tained heavy losses in my business, and others soon followed, and to-day I am threatened with utter ruin. If I cannot raise a hundred thousand dollars this week, and as much in another week, I am a bankrupt. And now you will un- derstand why in two days I am to mar- ry Miss Jerome." Mary started again. Was the execu- tion, then, so near? She drew a long breath, as though gathering her strength for a hard struggle. "Christian," she said in a low tone that trembled with the energy underlying it, "my poor Chris- tian, you are bewildered. These trou- bles have shut the light away from your path, and you have lost your way in the darkness. If this is true which you have told me, do you not see that when you have delivered yourself from this threat- ened bankruptcy, you are yet a bank- rupt- a bankrupt in heart and happi- ness? How can you weigh wealth and position against the best good than can ever come to either of us? I am not afraid of poverty, for I have known nothing else; and surely you do not dread it for yourself. This love is the one good thing which God has permit- ted in my pitiless destiny. Am I unwo- manly? If I plead for my life, who can blame me? And shall that which is more than life go from me without a word? Oh, I cannot smile and look cold as though I was not hurt; I am pierced and torn. Yet, Christian, for your sake, rather than for mine, I en- treat. You would bring desolation into both our lives. I might endure it, but how could you bear through the years the memory of your deed? You are trampling on your manhood. You are giving to this woman's hungry heart a stone: you are buying with a lie the holiest thing in her womanhood." "For four generations my house has withstood every financial storm. The honorable name which my ancestors bequeathed to me I will maintain at every hazard," Christian replied with gloomy energy. "And you will marry Miss Jerome?" "Yes: it is my only hope." "Then God help you, Christian. Youw lot is harder than mine. At the worst, my life shall be true: I shall hide no lie in my heart, to fester there." Her words, begun in tenderness, ended in a tone of scorn. "And now I must ask you to see me home." She left the, room, and soon returned cloaked and hooded, to find Christian waiting in overcoat and gloves and with hat in hand. With her arm in his they walked in perfect silence through the gay, bustling streets, passing God knows how many other spirits as sad as their own. When they came to the humble little house which was Mary's home, Christian stopped on the step as though he would say something, but Mary said "Good-night," and passed into the hall. We magazine-writers have no chance in the space allotted to a short story for a quantitative analysis of emotions and situations, or for following the processes by which marked changes come about in the human heart. We must content ourselves with informing the reader that certain changes or modifications ensued, trusting that he will receive the state- ment without requiring reasons or the modus oqerandi. For a time it seemed to Mary Trigill- gus that the sun would never shine for her again, but a certain admixture in her feeling of scorn and contempt for Christian prevented her from sinking inte a total despondency. As she re- volved day after day the strange sepa- ration of two lives which should have flowed on together, there grew in her heart a kind of bitterness toward the society which had demanded the sepa- ration. And then the diffused bitterness gathered, and was concentrated on the woman and the man who had robbed her of her happiness. Especially did her heart rise against Christian Van Pelt. Gold had won him from her: he had made his ch6ice between gold and her love; and then she would chafe against the poverty which from her earliest recollection had fettered her tastes and aspirations, and at every step had been her humiliation. And then she would feel a wild, unreasoning long- ing to win gold. What a triumph to earn gold beyond what his wife had brought him-beyond what they would together possess! From the time this thought first occurred to her it never left her except for brief intervals. Day after day, hour after hour, it recurred to her, until she became possessed with it. It was in her dreams by night, and with the day she seized and revolved it, until her brain whirled with delirium. A hun- dred wild schemes and projects came and went in scurrying confusion. With hungry eyes she read the daily adver- tisements of "Business Chances," "Part- ners Wanted," etc., and in answering some of these was led into some strange discoveries and adventures. "I am mad! I am losing my reason! More gold than their millions! I can- not even make a living for myself, lunatic!" she would say; and straight- way in fancy would read in the papers the announcement of a fortune being left to Mary Trigillgus-of great and marvelous riches coming to her-and would thrill with her triumph over Chris- tian Van Pelt. She would even pen these announcements to see how they looked, and read them aloud to study their sound. Mrs. Trigillgus grew alarmed at her daughter's unaccountable moods. A physician was summoned, who decided that she was overworked, and advised a few months in the country. But Mary refused to leave the city, and continued to search for her "chance." One day she was reading the New York Tribune, when her eye caught a little paragraph in relation to the eclipse of the sun which was to occur on the twentieth of August, and of the prepa- rations that were being made in the scientific world for its observance-of the universal interest it was exciting, etc. etc. Mary thought of the amount of smoked glass which would be prepared for the day, then of the soiled fingers, then of a remedy for this, and then-her chance flashed upon her. For a time she sat there, with kindled eyes, with throbbing heart and brain, revolving and shaping her thought. Then she put on her hat and took the omnibus for Mr. Ten Eyck's office. "Mr. Ten Eyck," she said, after the customary commonplaces, "you once said that you would be glad to serve my mother. Are you as willing to serve her daughter?" "Certainly," replied Mr. Ten Eyck, growing a little uneasy; "that is, if I can, you understand." "I have urgent need for money." Mr. Ten Eyck began to fidget visibly. "I own a house and lot on Thirty- second street. How much money can you lend me on it? It is a house of seven rooms." "I know the house," answered Mr. Ten Eyck. "Your mother's father left it to you. There is no encumbrance on it?" "None." "Allow me to suggest, Miss Trigillgus, page: 76-77[View Page 76-77] as your mother's old friend, that this step should be well considered before it is decided upon. The necessity should be very urgent before you mortgage your home. As your mother's old friend, may I inquire how you intend using this money? Do not answer me if you have any hesitancy in giving me your confi- dence." The old gentleman looked at her with such kindly, fatherly solicitude that, after a moment of confused hesitation, she answered: "I will give the confidence you invite, Mr. Ten Eyck. I have a plan by which I can make a fortune in a few days. I propose to manufacture glasses for the great eclipse-say three millions of eclipse-glasses-and distrib- ute them throughout the United States and the Canadas." Mr. Ten Eyck stared at her through his golden-bowed glasses: "What kind of glasses? Explain yourself more fully." "I shall buy up all the common glass in New York and Pittsbnrg, and in other cities perhaps, at the lowest possible fig- ure. Much of the refuse glass will an- swer my purpose. I shall have it cut three inches by five, stain it, put two stained surfaces together, and bind with paper. At ten cents apiece the gross pro- coeds of three millions will be three hun- dred thousand dollars." "And how will you distribute them?" "Through the news agents," she an- swered promptly, "and on the same terms at which they push the newspa- pers. By this great system I shall se- cure a simultaneous distribution through- out the whole country." Mr. Ten Eyck had laid off his glasses and assumed an attitude of deep atten- tion: "Suppose it should rain on eclipse- day?" "I have thought of that contingency. I should anticipate it by having the glasses in the market for two or three days pre- ceding the eclipse. To give the glass additional value, I should paste on it a printed slip stating the hour when the eclipse will begin, the period of its dura- tion, and the moment of total obscura- tion." Then she started and glowed with a sudden revelation that came flashing through her brain. "I will make the glasses an advertising medium," she continued eagerly. "I will make the advertisements pay all the expenses, and much more. Can I not find a man in New York City, or somewhere in the United States, who would pay a hundred thousand dollars to have three millions of people reading in one moment the merits of his wares or of his remedies! And if such a man cannot be found. one who will purchase the exclusive right to advertise with me, I'll parcel it out. Yes, I can pay all expenses with the ad- vertisements; but I must have some ready money to begin with-to initiate the enterprise. Will you lend me the money on my house and lot?" Mr. Ten Eyck resumed his glasses, and sat for a long time staring into a pigeon-hole of his desk in profound meditation. "My dear Miss Trigillgus, allow ine, as your mother's old friend, to speak plainly to you. You are planning an enterprise of such proportions that no woman could go through with it. In the most skillful hands great risk would at- tend it, even with abundance of money to back it; and let me assure you that a woman without business education and with cramped means could have no chance whatever in the arena of experts. Her defeat would be inevitable. I would gladly serve you, Miss Trigillgus, and I think, pardon me, that my surest way of doing this is to decline making the loan you ask, and to advise you, as your mother's old friend, to abandon this scheme." "I shall consider your advice, Mr. Ten Eyck," said Miss Trigillgus, "and I thank you for it, whether I act upon it or not;" and she gave a cold bow that contradicted her words. Mary made many other attempts to raise money, but all were unsuccessful. A few mornings after this her advertise- ment appeared in the Tribune, calling for a partner with ten thousand dollars to take a half interest in an enterprise which was sure to net a quarter of a million within a month. It had such an extravagant sound that it was set down as a humbug, and few answered it. She had interviews with two young men of such suspicious appearance that she did not dare reveal her scheme to them. Day after day the card appeared with no satisfactory result; and Mary per- ceived with a kind of frenzy the short time in which her great work was to be accomplished growing shorter and shoit- er. She moved cautiously, lest her grand idea should be appropriated, but she left no stone unturned for raising the money. Finally, on the ninth of August, impa- tient, anxious, nervous, she had six thousand dollars in hand, and only ten days intervened before the day of the eclipse. She went immediately to an eminent solicitor of patents, who had influence at Washington, and made ap- plication for a patent for advertising on eclipse-glasses. The solicitor thought there was no doubt but that the patent could be secured, so that she might free- ly proceed with her enterprise. She next contracted with a glass-factory for five thousand dollars' worth of glass, and engaged one hundred men to cut and stain it and put up the eclipse- glasses. Then she made several en- deavors to see the president of the news agency, and after repeated failures she opened a correspondence by letter with him, briefly outlining her plan, and ask- ing him to undertake through the news agents the distribution of the glasses. The next morning she received in re- sponse, through the post-office, these lines: "Miss TRIGILLGUS: You have been anticipated in your enterprise. We are engaged to distribute eclipse-glasses for another party." As Mary read the cruel words that ended all her hopes, she fell lifeless to the floor, and was thus discovered by her mother. The following day there came a con- firmatory note from the solicitor of pat- ents, stating that she had been antici- pated also in her application for a patent. From this period Mary's moods be- came indescribable. From a state of unrelieved despondency she issued so merry, in such exhilaration, that her mother was glad to welcome back the shadowed mood which soon succeeded. The sagacity of physicians, of her most familiar acquaintances, of her mother, was all at fault. No one could decide whether or not her mind was unhinged, whether or not Mary Trigillgus was in- sane; for it must be, remembered that her friends were ignorant of the events we have been narrating-her love for Christian Van Pelt, her disappointment, her grand scheme, the sacrifice of her home and the failure of her enterprise. The nineteenth of August came, the day preceding the grand event of the century. Mary Trigillgus and her moth- er were lingering at the breakfast-table. The girl seemed wild and hawk-like, startling her mother with her unnatural merriment, commenting with weird bril- liancy and grotesqueness and sparkle on the various items as Mrs. Trigillgus read them. At length she read a para- graph about the eclipse. "'And we would advise every reader,'" she con- tinued, "'to furnish himself with an eclipse-glass, which he can procure at any of the news d6psts for the sum of ten cents. The glass is nicely finished, and is very perfect for the purpose intend- ed. We understand that five millions of these glasses have been put into the market, for which the country is indebt- ed to the genius and enterprise of our young fellow-citizen, Mr. Christian Van Pelt, assisted by Mr. W. V. Ten Eyck.'" "He has done it! he has again stabbed me!" cried Mary Trigillgus, with the maniac's glare in her eyes. "The gold is his-his and hers! Piles of gold! and they have cut it out of my heart, dug it out of my brain! I have nothing left! Don't you see, mother, I am only an empty shell? Stab me here in the heart, where he has stabbed me: it won't hurt. There's nothing there! nothing! it's all hollow." There was no longer any doubt that Mary Trigillgus's mind was unhinged. During all that day men and children were crying the eclipse-glasses in the street, selling them at every door. "Hear them! hear them!" the poor page: 78-79[View Page 78-79] maniac would cry. "They are selling millions of them! they are piling the gold all about him and her! They are to have a palace of gold, and Mary's to have only the ashes. Poor Mary! poor Mary! All the good's for them, all the pain's for Mary!" and then she would weep her- self into a quiet mood of despondency. The next day, the day of the eclipse, Mary demanded one of the glasses, and would not be diverted from her desire. She read the advertisement on the eclipse- glass: "Babcock's Fire- Extin- guisher will put out any fire! Get one!" "Mother, get me one: I have a fire here ;" and she pressed her hand to her brow. She examined the glass again and again, looking it over and over, and reading the advertisement aloud: "Bab- cock's Fire-Extinguisher will put out any fire! Get one!"All day long, at short intervals, she was running to the window and looking through the glass at the sun. And when the grand hour arrived for the wonderful phenomenon, when the five million glasses were raised to witness the obscuration, and the weird twilight had settled over all nature, this young life too had passed into a total eclipse, from which it has never for a moment emerged. The poor lunatic never rages. She is sweet and harmless as a child. She makes frequent visits to the glass-fac- tories and to the news-rooms to inquire after the progress of her enterprise, and over and over again makes her contract to advertise the "Babcock Fire-Extin- guisher," and comes back with promises to her mother of the boundless riches which are to flow in upon them. MR. TWITCHELL'S INVENTIONS. i" ANDY, where can I find a clean V1 shirt?" Mr. Twitchell had been overtaken on his way home by a sudden summer- shower. He was bewildered by the un- expected discomfort in which he found himself. Mrs. Twitchell's popgun reply was not at all nerve-calming: "Down in the cellar, or up in the attic, or under the bed, or in the parlor on the centre-table." There was a short pause for reloading, during which Mrs. Twitchell looked like a personified exclamation-point. Mrs. Twitchell continued the popping: "You always ask that question, as if I were in the habit of hiding your shirts from you, or as if I had no system or order, so that your shirts might be here and there, and anywhere and every- where. Your shirts have never, since the day we were married, been put any- where but in the second drawer of the mahogany bureau; and I have told you so a thousand times." In the mean time, Mr. Twitchell had been sauntering awkwardly and un- easily between the washstand and the bureau. Catching at the information in his wife's words, he hastily opened a drawer, and stood gazing with a helpless, bewildered air into the profound of laces, ruffles and ribbons; Mrs. Twitchell, without turning her head, was watching him out of the corners of her eyes. She was a masked battery of adjectives, ready to open fire when the enemy should be fairly exposed. Beyond the laces and ruffles Mr. Twitchell caught sight of a sleeve: that must be the shirt! Cautiously he advanced his fingers. You would have thought he was getting ready to snatch something from a fiery furnace. Through the half-opened draw- er the awkward hand soon emerged, dragging by one sleeve Mrs. Twitchell's white muslin waist, and with it laces, ribbons and ruffles. Now was the wife's opportunity: "There! you clumsy creature! you've done it now!"She fastened with a rap- id, dexterous movement the glancing needle in the handkerchief she was hem- ming, with a quick snap removed the thimble from her finger and set it on the window-sill out of Baby's reach, and hastened to the rescue. "Get away, blunderer: there's no use trying to teach you anything. You are as helpless as the baby, and give ten times more both- er. If you'd got into this drawer and danced, you couldn't have done more mischief. This is my drawer: your shirts have never, since the Creation, been in this drawer." "Well now, Mandy, I'm sure you said in the second drawer-" "Of the mahogany" (syllables pro- nounced staccato) "bureau. Look at this bureau: is it mahogany? I dare say you never knew before that it's walnut." Mr. Twitchell was whipped, but he accepted his defeat good-humoredly, for he had some good news which he was as anxious to get rid of as of his damp clothes. So he sat looking on with a quiet air as his brisk, nervous little wife refolded her muslin waist and returned the ribbons and ruffles to their places. This being done, she reseated herself at her sewing, rocking back and forth, her needle clicking impatiently against the thimble, while now and then she snap- ped the thread between her teeth. "He may wait on himself!" she muttered. But Mr. Twitchell was aching to com- municate the good news to his wife: he had no idea of keeping up the quarrel. "Oh come, Mandy," he said, coaxingly, "get my shirt for me." "Why can't you get it?" asked the wife, turning her sharp brown eyes upon him. "You are sitting there doing nothing. You expect me to do the sew- ing of the family, and take care of the children and house, and wait on you be- sides. I've spoiled you: I've just made a slave of myself for you; and you-you can't do a little errand for me." "Why, my dear, I am always ready to do anything for you." "It looks so. Why couldn't you send me that salt, as I asked you to? Here I was waiting and waiting for it: I got the cream all ready, paid a quarter for a quart of cream, and got it into the freezer, and then waited and waited for the salt, But I might have known I couldn't de- pend on you, though I told you over and over, and you promised and promised. And I took a double quantity of ice this morning, too, and that'll just be wasted. And I promised that poor sick minister that I'd send him some ice-cream for his dinner, and he dotes so on my cream. And what do you suppose he'll think of us? Oh how I hate such doings! It looks so shiftless, so unreliable, to prom- ise a thing and then not do it! I'm a woman of my word. If I promise a thing, I'll do it, or die trying; but you-" Mrs. Twitchell suddenly stopped, as though words failed her. But Mr. Twitchell was in a good humor with the world and himself. There was a knowing look in his smile as he said, "I forgot the salt, I own, for I was ab- sorbed-" "Yes, that's it: you're always absorb- ed. If you'd get unabsorbed, and mix more with people, and make yourself more popular, your family might be obliged to you. But you go a-mancing and a-trancing through the world, and Goodness knows what'd become of you if you didn't have my eyes to see for you, and my ears to hear for you, and my head to plan for you." "Don't fret yourself, my dear: your good-for-nothing husband will yet make a living for you. I've just invented something that'll make our fortunes. Doctor Hollister says its'worth a hun- dred thousand dollars to me. He's de- lighted with it.',' Mrs. Twitchell's chair stopped rock- ing: her hands and work dropped in her lap: she looked at her husband with astonished and eager eyes. "In- vented something! What?" "I've invented a pump, which I in- tend to call the 'Rural Fountain,' or the 'Perpetual Stock Fountain'-I haven't decided which." "Is that all?"Mrs. Twitchell was disappointed: she was expecting I don't know what announcement-neither did she know. page: 80-81[View Page 80-81] "'All!' Wait till you hear about it. Here is a drawing of my invention;" and he produced a card from his pocket and began explaining the diagram. "The pump is to be wound up like a clock, so that it will run as long as a body wants it to, so that cattle won't have to be waited on to water like ba- bies. It's to be applied to wells where the supply is inexhaustible and the waste of no consequence." There was a talk of wheels and springs and levers and valves, etc., very bewildering to Mrs. Twitchell's brain, but she never- theless said, "Yes, yes! I see, I see," in answer to the inventor's inquiries and explanations. "Well, what do you think of it?" "I don't know. I don't think I quite understand it." "Oh, women have no heads for me- chanics and machinery: a woman never invented anything. I'll make a model of the pump, and then you'll understand it. Where are those pine blocks Sissy had here last night?" "But first, dear, you'd better get wash- ed and get your shirt changed: you might take cold ;" and going to the sec- ond drawer of the mahogany bureau, she took out a shirt and collar and laid them on the bed. She was now in one of her pleasant moods. Not satisfied with her usual service, she half filled the bowl with water, and hung a couple of her red-bordered company towels on the rack. Mr. Twitchell was no longer a mancing, trancing, good-for-nothing: he was an inventor, holding the key to a hundred thousand dollars. While he was changing his linen, Mrs. Twitchell went in search of the pine blocks. "Well, now, where's your knife, Man- dy?-I've mislaid mine." Mr. Twitch- ell's knife was usually mislaid. Mrs. Twitchell brought forth from the pocket of her neat apron a white-hand- led knife with a half blade in it, and the inventor began whittling at the blocks. The wife very quietly spread a couple of newspapers by his chair to catch the splints and shavings, without feeling any inclination to administer the customary scolding about the litter. Then, with her sewing in her hand, her mind busied itself with the hundred thousand dollars which the new pump was to bring. She thought of her sister Margaret with her family of little children, and of her aunt Kemble with her half-idiot Willie. "Mar- garet shall have a snug little house of her own, and I'll send the children some flannels and warm cloaks for the winter. I'll pay off the mortgage on aunt's place, and poor Willie shall have the drum he's teasing for. I'll get a new carpet for the minister's study, and Sissy's talent shall be cultivated: she shall study in Italy, and-" "I wish I could have a little piece of wire," the inventor interrupted. Mrs. Twitchell produced from a calico bag a twist of bonnet-wire, tied with a soiled blue ribbon. "Well, that is hardly stiff enough: haven't you something else?" "I can give you a piece of steel from a hoop-skirt." "Well, that will do." Mrs. Twitchell lifted her skirts, dis- playing a dilapidated-looking hoop. "If we ever do get the hundred thousand dollars, I'll have a new skirt," she said. One of the numerous ends pressing outward she broke off, and stripping the covering from it gave it into the invent- or's hands, and then went on handker- chief-hemming, and dreaming that some day Mr. James Parton would write an ac- count of the "Twitchell Perpetual Stock Fountain," and would state the interest- ing fact that a portion of Mrs. Twitchell's hoop-skirt entered into the consti rction of the first model. "Well, now you'll understand it," said the inventor, holding up his model for his wife's inspection; and after a little explanation she did understand it. It seemed so simple, and so perfect in its working and structure, that she began to think the hundred thousand dollars were a certainty, especially as Mr. Twitchell announced that his friend Doctor Hol- lister had already made the application for a patent. 'Twas weary waiting for the decision from Washington. "It's a shame," said Mrs. Twitchell, "that we have to wait so, when we might be making money by the pump, and taking the comfort of the money! Here it is nearly Christmas, and I had thought that I should be able to send Margaret's children a nice Christ- mas-box, and poor Willie a drum. And I want Sissy to begin to take drawing- lessons. I don't believe you know what a talent that child has for drawing. Why, she just draws everything, and she's per- fectly happy'if she can get a pencil and paper." "So is any child. They all like to mark and scribble. When I was a boy my grandmother-" "But Sissy's faculty is something very uncommon: it's very remarkable. Why, if I set her to paring apples or potatoes, she cuts girls and boys and dogs and all sorts of things; and she moulds dough into every conceivable shape. You needn't laugh. Why, that child cuts her meat into figures, and bites her bread- and-butter into the shapes of birds and beasts. The other day I saw her work- ing away at her mashed potato until she got it to looking exactly like a terrapin. I'm determined to have her go to Italy and study art there. And that is the principal reason why I rejoice at our prospect of wealth." Three months after this Mr. Twitchell came home with a formidable-looking document. "They have denied me a patent," he said abruptly. Mrs. Twitchell dropped her dishcloth as suddenly as though a cannon-ball had taken off both her arms: she gazed in stupefaction at her husband: "What a loss! what a loss!-a hundred thou- sand dollars! What shall we do?" "Oh, I had long ago given up making anything on the pump," replied the in- ventor with such evident nonchalance that Mrs. Twitchell's dismay changed to indignation. "Some months ago, I con- sulted Mr. Truscott, who is the most scientific mechanic here, about applying my invention to oil-springs as well as to stock-wells, and he said then that it would take a pretty good supply of stock to keep it wound up. He satisfied me that the thing was impracticable, and 6 Doctor Hollister ought to have known it." "Well, why couldn't you tell me this before? If I had known it I shouldn't have bought the brown empress cloth, though I hadn't a single decent dress, and Sissy should have done without her furs, though the child was actually suffer- ing from the want of them. And she'll have to give up her drawing-lessons' We'll just have to pinch in every possi- ble way, to make up for the money sent to the Patent Office, and for that two hundred dollars that you let that rascal- ly Robertson cheat you out of. And I've gone and written to Margaret and Aunt Kemble that we had hopes, and that I intended to help them; and I've positively promised Willie the drum." "Well, dear, never cry over spilt milk, but find my slippers for me." "I can't spend my time waiting on you: I've got to work now harder than ever ;" and she picked up the forgotten dish-towel from the floor, "Well, I've got another invention- one that will pay. I've got a certain thing on this." Mrs. Twitchell's hopes went up to a surprising height, considering that she was a rather practical woman. But then she was very ignorant of the history of inventions. Again she thought of her sister Margaret and her aunt Kemble, and of Sissy's art-studies. She was sor- ry she had refused to get the slippers, and while inquiring what this second in- vention was, quietly brought them. "It's a fly-trap-the simplest and most ingenious thing, Doctor Hollister says, that he has ever seen." "You can't make anything worth while on such an insignificant thing as a fly- trap." "Little things are the very things one can make money on, because, you see, it's so easy to introduce them." "But perhaps you'll fail to get a patent on it." "Hollister says there's no doubt about the patent: he's already making out the application. Hotchkiss is manufactur- ing some samples, and I mean to start right out to selling them and to selling page: 82-83[View Page 82-83] rights. I'll bring you one to-morrow, and you'll soon clear the whole house of flies." "It'll be a comfort to do that. They rise in such swarms whenever I go in the pantry that I really believe if I should throw up a pint cup, I'd catch a quart." "A quart in a pint cup! Well, this trap'll just gobble them all up." The next morning a fly-trap was set on Mrs. Twitchell's kitchen table, much to Baby's delight, and Sissy was set to tend it. "You needn't expect to make any for- tune on that fly-trap," said Mrs. Twitch- ell that night. "It's caught only three flies this whole day, and the baby has poked my sleeve-buttons into it, so that you'll have to take it all to pieces to get them out." "You haven't kept it baited, as I told you. "Yes, I have, and Sissy's reversed it every ten minutes." "Well, now, your meddling has scared the flies away, I'll try it myself to-mor- row, and see if I can't make it work." "I'm glad I found it out before apply- ing for a patent," said the inventor the next day. "It don't catch the flies." "Poor Sissy!" ejaculated his wife. "But," he went on without noticing the interruption, "I've got another in- vention-a capital thing, Doctor Hollis- ter says." The spring of Mrs. Twitchell's hopes was impaired by much wear, but she nevertheless found her mind wandering to Sister Margaret, Aunt Kemble and Italy. "You see, I was yesterday watching I'aby as she was trying to walk, and my mind got to running on the thing, and this morning, as I lay in bed, I invented a baby-walker. There is to be a pyra- mid of hoops that go on rollers, and the top one grasps the child." "Why, I saw a picture of just such a one in an advertisement." "You didn't?" "Yes, I did-in the Cincinnati Com- mercial." "When?" "A few weeks ago." "You are sure?" "Yes, for I remember thinking that I might have had one for Baby if you hadn't lost that money at the Patent Office, and hadn't spent so much in getting those fly-traps made." "Oh don't, Mandy, worry any more about that money. I'll strike a vein yet. The more I think about it, the more I'm satisfied I have a talent for invention. There are a number of things running in my head now. One plan is to warm cars by the heat generated by the fiic- tion in their motion. I haven't got it quite worked out yet, but I'll get it clear- ed up after a while. There is too much waste in the forces of Nature. We ought to economize these forces. The sunlight, for instance-we ought to store its force for future use. I've been ex- perimenting in chemistry some. I think a cheap method might be contrived for separating the salt from sea-water, so as to make it drinkable. How often do whole crews perish at sea for want of water! The discovery of an easy meth- od of freshening sea-water would make my everlasting fortune." "Well, I hope you'll make money enough to pay these everlasting bills. We arc running behind terribly, with the money you lost by that sneak Rob- ertson, and by the Perpetual Stock Fountain and the fly-traps. And that empress cloth isn't paid for yet, and I'll never wear it until it is." "The settling of the bills of this fam- ily is my business, and I should be glad if you'd keep your nose out of it;" and Mr. Twitchell seized his hat and rushed from the house, leaving Mrs. Twitchell nearer a defeat than she had ever known herself, for never before had she failed to get the last word. And the thought that he had secured the last word against such a tongue as Mrs. Twitchell's made the gentleman feel quite like a hero, and soon put him in a good humor. "I'll tell you a thing I've been work- ing at," he said the next morning at the breakfast-table, oblivious of the fact that he hadn't helped anybody except him- self to the scrambled egg. "Papa never helps me to anything," said Sissy. "It is," pursued Mr. Twitchell, uncon- scious of the interruption, "to discover a cheap and effectual method of charg- ing or impregnating timber." Mrs. Twitchell continued her coffee- pouring, wondering what the man was after now, and, from a kind of habit, running over in her mind her plans con- cerning Sister Margaret, Aunt Kemble and Sissy. "F6r a long time efforts have been made to saturate timber with antiseptic solutions, to prevent their decay. Bou- cherie's method is the best, and is much used, but I'm on the track of something better." "Well, I'm tired of hearing of your ideas: they won't feed us or clothe us. You'd better go to work. I don't see how we're ever to catch up-all that hard-earned money gone to enrich that villain Robertson, and those office-hold- ers at Washington, and that patent fel- low Hollister, while I and my children have to deny ourselves everything!" "The money'll come some day -I know it will." "The 'some day' will be too late to do us any good, if it should ever come. Sissy's talents will have rusted out, will be past cultivation; Aunt Kemble will be in her grave; and Margaret's chil- dren will have grown into irreclaimable ignoramuses." A few months after this, Mr. Twitchell came in with a hurried air: "I want you to pack my satchel, Mandy: I expect to be gone some weeks." "Where are you going?" "I'm going to take a ride through the country." "Well, I'd like to know what this is for: what tomfoolery have you got in your head now? You'll go and spend ever-so-much money, and we shall get farther behind than ever." "Well, my dear, I know what I'm about; so please pack my satchel." "You can do it better, as you know where you're going, and what for, and what you'll need." "Come, Mandy, don't be cross, just as I'm going away. Perhaps I shall strike some lucky mine." "Oh, do stop this talk about luck. There's no luck for you: if any man ever was born to bad luck, you're the man. So, if you're going off to look for luck, you're going on a fool's errand: that's all I've got to say." "Well, you've said it, and now get my satchel ready, for the buggy'll be here in twenty minutes, and I must have a lunch." "This caps the climax! Poor little Sissy! She might as well have been born a fool." Where has he gone? what is he about? These questions were ever in Mrs. Twitchell's mind, and very often in the minds and on the tongues of her ac- quaintances. Mrs. Proudfoot, her next- door neighbor, was particularly uneasy. From her front chamber window she had seen Mr. Twitchell drive off in a new buggy: she had interrogated Sissy. Sissy had answered, "He wouldn't tell mother where he was going." So, after interchanging conjectures with the sher- iff's wife, her neighbor on the left, and with Mrs. Shaffer, in the cottage over the way, and with Miss Slimmings, the minister's wife's sister, Mrs. Proudfoot one afternoon took her sewing in to Mrs. Twitchell's, on a tour of investigation: "I thought you must be very lonely, Mrs. Twitchell, so I've brought in my sewing to sit an hour with you. I had to steal away from Baby: he's teething, and is very exacting." Mrs. Twitchell suspected that her ami- able neighbor's errand was to interview her on the subject of her husband's ab- sence: "You are kind. I hope, how- ever, that you will not inconvenience yourself or your baby on my account. I have so much to do that I haven't time to be lonely." Mrs. Proudfoot was delighted: she was brought directly and naturally to her point: "Sure enough, you must be very busy without Mr. Twitchell to help you. He must have had important busi- ness, or he would not have left you all alone to take care of the house, and the children, and the cow, and everything." page: 84-85[View Page 84-85] "Oh, I get along quite comfortably. I have Sissy to help me, and when there's no man about, there's less cook- ing and less work generally to be done." "How long will he be gone?" "Some weeks, perhaps." "It seems so odd in these days to have a man start off on a journey in a buggy: but perhaps there's no railroad to- I forget where you said he'd gone." Mrs. Proudfoot looked very indifferent. "I did not state where he'd gone." "Oh, didn't you? Then I heard it from some one else. Let me see: where did I hear he'd gone? Come to think of it, I've heard ever so many different reports about it. One says one thing, and another says another." Mrs. Twitchell's shell of reserve un- closed somewhat. She heartily wished to hear what people were saying on this subject. "Where do they say he has gone?" "Well, Mrs. Shaffer told me that her husband heard that Mr. Twitchell had gone off into the villages around to ped- dle some kind of traps that he'd invented -bedbug traps, I think. But Sam Hem- ingway says that your husband gave up the traps a long time ago, and that he's gone off to work some plan for econo- mizing the forces of--the universe, I think he said. And somebody else says- Oh, well, you'll think I'm un- kind to tell you things I've heard." "I don't mind their talk, but I'd just like to know what it is." "People are so ready to think and say unkind things! I've been so mad at some things I've heard that I didn't know what to do." "Well, what have you heard?" "Well, I really think you ought to know what Miss- But I won't men- tion names-I never do; but it's some- body you've always considered one of your warmest friends; and she ought to know enough to hold her tongue, for the sake of her brother-in-law. And now I might as well tell you who it is, for of course you know it's Miss Slimmings. But for pity's sake don't ever mention that I told you; but she said that Mr. Twitchell had to go out peddling baby- jumpers because of your extravagance. Then she went on to say that you had bought an empress cloth, and furs for Sissy, and had put Sissy to taking draw- ing-lessons, and had sent your sister a Christmas-box, and your aunt's idiot boy an accordion, and had bought your baby a drum, and I don't know what besides." "It passes everything that anybody should say I'm extravagant!" "Oh, that's amiable compared with some of their talk. I heard one gentle- man say that Mr. Twitchell had run away from his wife's tongue." "I'd like to show him what her tongue can do," said Mrs. Twitchell, flushing. "To which of my warm friends do I owe this?" "No, I never mention names. But I think the gentleman had better look at home when he's talking about women's tongues. My girl came from his house to me, and she says that Mrs. - used to have such tantrums that they some- times had to send for the doctor." "And Mrs. Shaffer is always sending over here to borrow things, and every year I help her about her jelly! Of course I know you mean the Shaffers." "I mention no names. I have been indignant enough at hearing these things, and have felt so sorry that I didn't know where Mr. Twitchell was, and what he was doing, so that I might contradict these mean stories. As your nearest neighbor, people seem to expect me to know all about the matter, and they are suspicious of something wrong and mys- terious when I own, as I have to, my ignorance about it." Mrs. Twitchell was wondering how she was to evade the communication thus urged, when the baby was obliging enough to tumble off the bed, calling the mother to the bed-room, and terminating the conversation. But the following day Mrs. Proudfoot resumed it, plunging at once in medias res: "Mrs. Twitchell, you ought not to be so reserved and mysterious concern- ing Mr. Twitchell's whereabouts: you make people suspicious. Why, you've no idea how they are talking. They are saying every imaginable thing. Some report that he's gone off to the Shaker settlement, and is going to turn Shaker." Mrs. Twitchell's heart rose in her mouth: "What if this should prove true?" "Then there is another report, that he's gone off to the Mormons, and a lady, a friend of yours, told me that she knew it to be a fact that Mr. Twitchell is a Spiritualist, and she'd no doubt but that he's gone off after an affinity. ' Mr. Twitchell's a quiet man, not given to gallantries,' I said. 'It's these quiet men that take unaccountable freaks about women,' she said. Why, they are saying all manner of things-that he's insane, and that he has committed sui- cide. But he's got his life insured- hasn't he?-so you'll have something to fall back upon, if yu can only get the body." Mrs. Twitchell began to shed tears. These were not evoked by the thought of her husband with blood across his throat, for she didr't believe his throat had any blood across it; but her friends and neighbors were bandying her name and that of the father of her helpless children from mouth to mouth. She was a targetior all the arrows of fortune and the world. And now the versatile Mrs. Proudfoot assumed the part of the compassionate friend; "Dear Mrs. Twitchell, do relieve your heart by telling me your troubles. You'll find me a faithful friend, who will never betray your confidence. You are sad-let me comfort you." And Mrs. Twitchell opened her heart. She acknowledged that she was not only ignorant of her husband's whereabouts aid business, but was very anxious con- cerning them. She enlarged on the va- rious losses he had sustained, and the pecuniary embarrassments which har- assed them-on her plans for Sissy, and their disappointment. In the midst of the recital, and of tears which increased to torrents at certain pa- thetic passages, both ladies were startled by a voice almost in their ears: "Good- afternoon, Mrs. Proudfoot. How d'ye do, Mandy?"At the open window stood Mr. Twitchell. "Where under the canopy have you been?" asked Mrs. Twitchell on the departure of Mrs. Proudfoot, who, after lingering at this first interview between husband and wife as long as decency would allow, went to give Mrs. Shaffer and Miss S!mmings an account of her conversation with Mrs. Twitchell. "Oh, I've been everywhere through the country." "And what have you been doing?" "I've been seeing what I could see, and hearing what I could hear." And all Mrs. Twitchell's cross-questioning could elicit nothing further. "The meat-bill and the grocer's bill are in that table drawer, and Mr. Shep- herd has been here for the rent; and the bills came in for your suit of clothes, and for Sissy's furs, and for the empress cloth; an'd the cow hasn't had any bran for days." Mrs. Twitchell enjoyed giving this information, or rather she enjoyed the thought of her husband's embarrassment in hearing it. "We'll catch up now. I'm engaged to keep books for Jewett & Anderson at eighty dollars a month." "Well, that sounds sensible: I can understand that. And with my econo- my and management we can live on eighty dollars. I don't mind working and pinching if we can only keep our ground-are not slipping back all the while." Gradually the bills were all settled; the empress cloth was at last paid for, the financial wounds madeby Mr. Twitchell's inventions were healed over and forgot- ten; and Mrs. Twitchell might have been a moderately happy woman, but that there was one thing she could not forget: her husband had been away for weeks, she knew not where, and engaged she knew not how; and she was mad- to use a good Saxon word, warranted by Shakespeare-every time she remem- bered the quiet persistence with which he withheld his confidence from her. "I would never let him rest till I found out," said Mrs. Proudfoot, as much pro- voked by Mr. Twitchell's obstinacy as the wife was. "It isn't treating you like page: 86-87[View Page 86-87] a wife to withhold his confidence in this way. Why, I should go crazy if my husband had a secret from me. And there's something rotten in Denmark when a husband has secrets from his wife." June again rolled round, and with it, according to Mrs. Twitchell, Mr. Twitch- ell's lunacy, for he one evening an- nounced his intention of taking a sec- ond ride through the country. Mrs. Twitchell almost lost her breath at the announcement. She felt like tearing her hair, or, better still, Mr. Twitchell's. "Mr. Twitchell, are you insane?"Mrs. T. panted in asking the question-her eyes glared. Mr. Twitchell might have retorted, "Mrs. Twitchell are you insane?"-"I think not," he answered. "Then what do you mean?" "I can explain more satisfactorily when I return." "Mr. Twitchell, you certainly are the most provoking man I ever knew-the most unreasonable-the most exaspe- rating. You are enough to drive any woman frantic. We are just beginning to make up for all that money you fool- ed away, and here you're going to give up a good situation, and wander off, (oodness only knows where or what for. You need to have a guardian appointed: you certainly are deranged. And it's no good that's taking you off, or you wouldn't keep it a secret from me." "Well, just get my things put up, please, and have me an early breakfast." "I won't put up your things, and I'm not going to run myself breathless to get your breakfast. Indeed, there's nothingi in the house for breakfast. I suppose' you were so full of this insane or wicked project that you forgot the cutlets I ask- ed you to bring. And it's very well you did-we shall not be able to have steak and cutlet breakfasts after this. You'll have to breakfast to-morrow on bread and coffee." "Very well: 'Better is a dinner of herbs,' etc.-you know the rest." "Fiddlesticks!" It was Monday morning: Mrs. Twitch- ell was examining the poifets of her husband's linen coat, previous to putting it in the wash. She came upon an en- velope, addressed in a dainty feminine chirography to "T. Twitchell, Esq. :" it contained a sheet of fine paper. Mr. T. Twitchell's wife opened it: she glanced at the signature-"Nettie." Her eyes ran back to the "Dear T--" with which the letter opened, and hungrily they devoured it to the end: "DEAR T--: It seems like an eter- nity since our last fond meeting. Do you remember the words you breathed into my ear in our clinging farewell, as you kissed my eyes and lips: 'This Net has completely ensnared me'? I am dying to see you. You must not let this month of sunshine, birds and flowers pass without making me a visit. I can- not send you a long letter, but write these few lines that you may not miss the cus- tomary reminder of your devoted Nettie. I am to have a large party to-night. I do not wish it, but mother insists. I would gladly give all I shall enjoy this evening for one look into your dear eyes. Come soon to your loving NETTIE." "This explains the mystery! He's gone to this wicked girl. Oh, I wish I knew where to find them! I'd go and shoot them both. The wretches! the villain! He hasn't kissed my eyes since before Sissy was born. 'Clinging fare- well!' He didn't even say good-bye to me and his children. The cruel, heart- less, merciless wretch! He's actually taking the bread out of his children's mouths to spend in his love-making. I'll never live with him again! I'll drown the children, and then drown myself! I'll never live with him again -never!" She repeated the final declaration over and over during the sultry, oppressive days of July and August while Mr. Twitchell was away, and the table-draw- er was becoming plethoric with unreceipt- ed bills, and the children were living on bread and milk, and Sissy was teasing for a new summer hat, and Mrs. Twitch- ell was doing her own washing, and the kitchen was left unscrubbed, and the parlor undusted, and the fly-specked windows unwashed, and Mrs. Proudfoot and the neighbors were talking. The pressure was sore on brain and heart and hands, and the once so tidy little woman was growing careless in the weary weeks. One stifling morning, the twenty-sev- enth of August, Mrs. Twitchell was con- ducting a baking. Her face was flushed, her hair disheveled-the waving brown hair that used to be dressed so neatly. Sissy, set to keep the baby away from the stove, was watching her mother's movements with hungry eyes, though there was no savory odor of pies and cookies and doughnuts, so grateful to children's olfactories. In the oven there were no gingerbread men or birds or ele- phants or thimble-biscuits on little pans, smuggled between the mother's larger ones. It had been a long time since Sissy had exercised her skill in model- ing her ideals in cake-dough. None of the Twitchell aspirations ever rose now beyond plain yeast-bread, and even Sissy's young eyes had noticed with vague uneasiness the sinking of the flour-mark in the barrel. Baby had just pulled a pitcher of milk from the table, the mother had burn her right thumb, and the bread wafrun- ning over in the oven, which was below baking-heat-a result of Mrs. Twitch- ell's effort to economize fuel. So her thoughts were fortunately preoccupied when Mr. Twitchell appeared at the door. And he was in a very cheerful mood. "Halloo, Sissy!" he cried; and he cracked his whip about her ears en- thusiastically, but with some degree of awkwardnf s, which the child showed her perception of by dodging. "Well, Mandy, I've got back. Come, Baby, and kiss your papa." The wife had planned, when her rec- reant husband should come into the house, to hold the Nettie letter before his eyes, to hiss in his ear, "Wretch! vil- lain! perjurer! fiend!" and then to bid him go his way and leave his dishonor- ed, ruined family to themselves. But the letter was locked in a bureau-drawer up stairs; the children were climbing over papa; she couldn't very well tear them from his knee; she didn't choose that Sissy should witness the settling-up interview; Mr. Twitchell looked so hap- py, so innocent of having done any wrong, so unconscious of the impending storm; the spilt milk, the burnt thumb, the low fire, the imperiled bread made a bewildering complication. The injured wife was for the time being disarmed. "Your bread smells good: let me have something to eat, for I'm as hun- gry as a wolf." "I can't leave my baking to get an extra meal: it's only about an hour till dinner-time. Indeed, there's nothing in the house to eat until this bread is baked. Your children have lived on bread for two months: I suppose you've been enjoying the fat of the land." "And you and Sissy and Baby," he cried, snatching up the little one and kissing the mottled face, "shall hence- forth live on the fat of the land. The good-for-nothing old fellow has made some money at last, and a good pile of it too; and that by one of his worthless iaqentions." The injured wife, who had studiously kept her eyes averted from her faithless husband, now turned them surprised and inquiringly toward his face. For the moment she forgot her wrongs. "What do you mean?" "I mean that I've got money and notes to the amount of fifty-seven thou- sand dollars, which I've collected in these eight weeks. You're a rich wo. man, Mrs. Twitchell. See here, Sissy, take these to mother. That's yours, my little woman, to buy you a home. There are twenty of them: did you ever count money before in that way-five hundred dollars in a breath?" Then you should have heard Mrs. Twitchell and Sissy-their exclamations and questions. "I'll tell you all about it when I get something to eat. I'm hungry: won't that ten thousand dollars buy me a dinner?" "But first get washed and put on some clean clothes. Sissy, look after Baby while I wait on your father." When dinner was announced the table page: 88-89[View Page 88-89] was spread with a fresh white cloth, and by each plate was a glossy white napkin folded to a perfect square, which made Sissy ask if they were going to have company. There were hot biscuits, fragrant coffee, a juicy steak and crisp sliced cucumbers, the collecting of which viands had cost Sissy much running. "Now, this is tempting. We'll have good things to eat after this, won't we, Sissy?" Mrs. Twitchell had now sufficiently recovered herself to remember that she was an injured woman. She could not yet bring herself to sit at the table with the man who had wronged her. But then fifty-seven thousand dollars! those twenty five-hundred-dollar bills! the children! She must take time to weigh carefully the whole matter before com- mitting herself to any course. So she busied herself about the bread and with washing the bread-pan, etc., until Mr. Twitchell had sufficiently appeased his hunger to enter upon his story, which he did somewhat after this fashion: "You know when I went away last summer on that fool's errand, as you called it, Mandy, I went in a buggy? By a simple contrivance, which I had invented, I could detach that vehicle at an instant's notice from the horse. It gives the driver, you see, complete ad- vantage over fractious horses and peril- ous situations. With a motion of the thumb and finger ie can free the horse." "Well, now, I can see the sense of that invention." "Well, I drove off with a plan in my head, and at the first wagon-shop began to put it in operation. I stopped on the pretext of getting my horse shod. The wagonmaker stood watching me as I re- hitched the horse to the buggy. 'Why, what kind of a contrivance have you got there?' he asked, and he came out to the carriage. 'A very simple con- trivance of my own invention,' I said, 'for detaching the carriage from the horses;' and I went on to explain it to him. 'It's so simple that any smith can easily manufacture it and adapt it to any vehicle.'" "'Why were you so imprudent as to tell him about it? He might go and get it patented." "I had already secured my patent on it." "But he could go to work and use your invention without paying for it, whereas you might have sold him a right." "I knew he could use it, and that's just the thing I found he had done on my visit to him this summer. I had an officer with me, and we compromised with the carriage-maker for an infringe- ment of my patent to the tune of five hundred dollars. I drove all around, everywhere, stopping at every carriage- shop, and managing to draw attention, without any parade, to my contrivance, and to explain its working: and it's so simple, you see, so easily adapted to any vehicle, and at such a small expense, that it just took right along. There were only three men, out of the whole number I saw on the first round, who had not infringed my patent, and those three wanted to buy the right; so I just went round and gathered in the green- backs by the handful. And this isn't the last of it: I shall go on making money by this patent for years to come." "It's splendid!" said Mrs. Twitchell; and in her admiration of her husband's cleverness, and her pleasure in the gold- en-paved path opened before her, she almost lost sight of his guilt. She brought him a plate of hot buscuit, and asked to help him to another cup of coffee. "I've come to ask your advice, Mrs. Proudfoot," said Mrs. Twitchell that afternoon. "You've always found mea true friend, Mrs. Twitchell-glad to help you in any way possible." Mrs. Proudfoot had heard of Mr. Twitchell's fortune, and was on the qui vive for any advantage which might accrue from being Mrs. Twitchell's very good friend. Having told of her husband's success, Mrs. Twitchell, under the seal of stuict secresy, confided to her neighbor the story of the love-letter found in Mr. Twitchell's coat-pocket- a procedure rather surprising, the reader must own, for Mrs. Twitchell was a moderately prudent woman. But she was in sore perplexity, and she believed in Mrs. Proudfoot. The confidante was indignant, horri- fied: she shed tears of sympathy, but secretly she was pleased-just a little- at this skeleton in the house whose good fortune she could not see without some vexation and envy. "Now, what would you do?" "Do? I wouldn't stay under the same roof with the man for a single night, and I'd apply for a divorce to-morrow." Mrs. Proudfoot was very decided. "Through good and evil report," "till death shall us part," would have been her rule (I believe) had the case been hers. Fifty- seven thousand dollars will out-argue a great deal of heartache. Wouldn't it have been an enjoyable sight, Mrs. Proudfoot, the wreck of that fine Twitch- ell ship, which was sailing away with such prosperous winds? "That's just my feeling about it," re- plied Mrs. Twitchell. "Oh, I feel some- times as if I'd like to strangle him. The wretch! I don't believe I ever can live with him. But then the children!- they'll be brought to poverty and shame. When I think of them I almost make up my mind to feign ignorance of the whole matter." "Well, I never could do that," said Mrs. Proudfoot: "I couldn't keep such a thing shut up in my bosom. I'd have the satisfaction of telling him about it- of letting him know that I knew of his rascality. And you and the children won't be brought to poverty: he'll be compelled to provide to some extent for you. And anyhow, everybody is talk- ing of the way in which the money was made-by sharp practice. Mr. Twitchell put temptation in the way of these men, and drove hard bargains with them, every one is saying. So, if you should leave him, you'll only be giving up ill- gotten gains." "I never thought of that before." "And you'll never be able to keep your secret from Mr. Twitchell: you'll some day get into one of: your--I mean you'll get excited-and let it all out. You'll talk of it in your sleep: it'll leak out by hints and unguarded words, and little admissions and denials. And by living with him you'll get the credit of being as mean as he is." The wife gave a long sigh: "I shall decide the matter finally to-night. As to his being mean," she continued on second thought, flushing and her eye kindling, "he's no worse than many of his neighbors, if the truth was known." Mr. Twitchell after tea went down street: Sissy was on the sidewalk enter- taining Celia Shaffer with accounts of her father's fabulous wealth. Mrs. Twitchell got the baby to sleep at an early hour, and seating herself by its cradle in the dark, she resolved to look her trouble in the face, and by hard thinking to work into the light-to satisfy herself as to her best course. She thought over all that Mrs. Proudfoot had said, and more besides, and thought it over a great number of times. She put herself in every position that the combination of her circumstances could evolve. She was a rich woman, a poor woman; her children were courted, they were scorned; she was a strong, proud champion for integrity and the honor of the marriage bond-she was weak, mean, abject. Amid great perplexity she finally work- ed her way to an ultimate resolve: "I must hold on to the money for the chil- dren's sake." Another period of hard thinking, and another resolve stood out defined: "I must speak to him about this." The final compromise: "I'll let him understand that I know of his in- fidelity, but I'll forgive him on his prom- ise never again to see this wicked girl." "Mandy!"Mr. Twitchell was call- ing. She groped her way into the din- ing-room, for the 1; mps were unlighted and the twilight had deepened into night. "What under the stars are you moping in this darkness for? Most wo- men in your shoes would illuminate the house. You don't seem to me half glad enough over your fortune. Why, you ought to see how polite people are to me! And there are notices of my in- vention in both the evening papers; but don't you believe, the Tribune at- tributes the whole thing to Thomas page: 90[View Page 90] Twitchell, instead of Timothy!"As Mrs. Twitchell made no reply, but went on lighting the lamps, he continued: "Thomas Twitchell is a young man, a teller in a National bank, and we are often confounded. He gets my letters, and I get his, and letters addressed to T. Twitchell are as apt to go wrong as right. I once opened a letter to him from his sweetheart, andrI do believe I forgot to remail that letter. Let me see: it was just before I left home, and I was so absorbed-who knows but I've made trouble between the lovers?" "Oh, Tim!"Mrs. Twitchell put her face in her hands and cried. She hadn't called him Tim since the first year of their marriage. Mr. Twitchell went over and sat down beside her; "Well, now, this looks more appreciative. Poor little wife! you've had some hard times, but they are over now. I kept telling you I'd strike a mine some day." "Where did you get the idea?" asked the wife, wiping her eyes and nose. Mr. Twitchell tapped his forehead with his right forefinger: "You didn't believe in me, though. You didn't be- lieve I'd ever strike oil." "Yes I did, too. Don't you remember that I wrote to Margaret and Aunt Kem- ble that I meant to help them, and I bought the empress cloth and Sissy's furs on the strength of my faith?" "Well, what is it you want to do for Margaret and Aunt Kemble? How much money do you want?" and Mr. Twitchell took out his pocket-book. "Well, let me reckon up a little: I think we'd better call the house fifteen thousand -we'll hardly find a place to suit us for less; then I shall want at least three thousand for furniture-that's eighteen thousand; then you must de- posit five thousand for each of the chil- dren - twenty - eight thousand. That leaves only twenty-nine thousand, and what's the interest on that? Naught's naught, naught's naught,naught's naught -six times nine is fifty-four-six times two is twelve, and five is seventeen- seventeen hundred and forty dollars! Why we can't possibly live on that, and I'm determined that Sissy shall go to Italy. I don't see how we can do any- thing for Margaret and aunt. You see when I wrote I expected the pump would bring a hundred thousand. I'll make up a box for Margaret - I've a good many things that I sha'n't want to take into the new house-and I'll send aunt a nice cap, and Willie the drum." "Oh no, Mandy: we must do better than that. We'll send a hundred-dollar cheque to each family." "Perhaps it is best, though I think fifty dollars is plenty for aunt- she has only Willie to support."
