LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. _

MAY, 1873. 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by J. B. LIPPENCOTT & Co. , in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, atWashington. 

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes movedto the end of the article. 

THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA. 

THIRD PAPER. 

[Illustration: THE AMIN OF KALAA. ]

Emerging from these gloomy _caflons_, and passing the Beni-Mansour, thevillage of Thasaerth (where razors and guns are made), Arzou (full ofblacksmiths), and some other towns, we enter the Beni-Aidel, wherenumerous white villages, wreathed with ash trees, lie crouched likenests of eggs on the summits of the primary mountains, with themagnificent peaks of Atlas cut in sapphire upon the sky above them. Atthe back part of an amphitheatre of rocky summits, Hamet, the guide, points out a little city perched on a precipice, which is certainly themost remarkable site, outside of opera-scenery, that we have ever seen. It is Kalaa, a town of three thousand inhabitants, divided into fourquarters, which contrive, in that confined situation, to be perpetuallydisputing with each other, although a battle would disperse the whole ofthe tax-payers over the edges. Although apparently inaccessible but byballoon, Kalaa may be approached in passing by Bogni. It is hard to givean idea of the difficulties in climbing up from Bogni to the city, wherethe hardiest traveler feels vertigo in picking his way over a path oftenbut a yard wide, with perpendiculars on either hand. Finally, after manystrange feelings in your head and along your spinal marrow, you thankHeaven that you are safe in Kalaa. 

[Illustration: COURTYARD IN KALAA. ]

[Illustration: KALAA. ]

[Illustration: OURIDA, THE LITTLE ROSE. ]

The inhabitants of Kalaa pass for rich, the women promenade withoutveils and covered with jewels, and the city is clean, which is rare inKabylia. There are four amins (or sheikhs) in Kalaa, to one of whom webear a letter of introduction. The _anaya_ never fails, and we arereceived with cordiality, mixed with stateliness, by an imposing old manin a white bornouse. "_Enta amin?_" asks the Roumi. He answers by asign of the head, and reads our missive with care. Immediately we aremade at home, but conversation languishes. He knows nothing but the pureKabyle tongue, and cannot speak the mixed language of the coasts, calledSabir, which is the pigeon-French of Algiers and Philippeville. 

"_Enta sabir el arbi?_"--"Knowest thou Arabic?" asks our host. 

"_Makach_"--"No, " we reply. "_Enta sabir el Ingles?_"--"Canst thou speakEnglish?"

"_Makach_"--"Nay, " answers the beautiful old sage, after whichconversation naturally languishes. 

But the next morning, after the richest and most assiduousentertainment, we see the little daughter of the amin playing in thecourt, attended by a negress. The child-language is much the same in allnations, and in five minutes, in this land of the Barbarians, on thisterrible rock, we are pleasing the infant with wiles learnt to pleaselittle English-speaking rogues across the Atlantic. 

The amin's daughter, a child of six years, forms with her slave aperfect contrast. She is rosy and white, her mouth is laughing, herpeeping eyes are laughing too. What strikes us particularly is theEuropean air that she has, with her square chin, broad forehead, robustneck and sturdy body. A glance at her father by daylight reveals thesame familiar type. Take away his Arab vestments, and he would almostpass for a brother of Heinrich Heine. His child might play among thetowers of the Rhine or on the banks of the Moselle, and not seem to beoutside her native country. We have here, in a strong presentment, thetypes which seem to connect some particular tribes of the Kabyles withthe Vandal invaders, who, becoming too much enervated in a tropicalclimate to preserve their warlike fame or to care for retiring, amalgamated with the natives. The inhabitants on the slopes of theDjordjora, reasonably supposed to have descended from the warriors ofGenseric, build houses which amaze the traveler by their utterunlikeness to Moorish edifices and their resemblance to Europeanstructures. They make bornouses which sell all over Algeria, Morocco, Tunis and Tripoli, and have factories like those of the Pisans in theMiddle Ages. 

[Illustration: KABYLE SHOWING GERMANIC ORIGIN. ]

Contrast the square and stolid Kabyle head shown in the engraving onthis page with the type of the Algerian Arab on page 494. The more westudy them, or even rigidly compare our Arab with the amin of Kalaa, themore distinction we shall see between the Bedouin and either of hisKabyle compatriots. The amin, although rigged out as a perfect Arab, reveals the square jaw, the firm and large-cut mouth, the breadth aboutthe temples, of the Germanic tribes: it is a head of much distinction, but it shows a large remnant of the purely animal force which enteredinto the strength of the Vandals and distinguished the Germans ofCæsar's day. As for the Kabyle of more vulgar position, take away hishaik and his bornouse, trim the points of his beard, and we have aperfect German head. Beside these we set a representative Arab head, sketched in the streets of Algiers. See the feline characteristics, thepointed, drooping moustache and chin-tuft, the extreme retrocession ofthe nostrils, the thin, weak and cruel mouth, the retreating forehead, the filmed eye, the ennui, the terrestrial detachment, of the Arab. Heis a dandy, a creature of alternate flash and dejection, a wearer ofornaments, a man proud of his striped hood and ornamental agraffes. TheKabyle, of sturdier stuff, hands his ragged garment to his son like atattered flag, bidding him cherish and be proud of the rents made byRoumi bayonets. 

[Illustration: TYPE OF ALGERIAN ARAB. ]

It must be admitted that the Kabyles, with a thousand faults, are farfrom the fatalism, the abuse of force and that merging of individualismwhich are found with the Islamite wherever he appears. Whence, then, have come these more humane tendencies, charitable customs and movementsof compassion? There are respectable authorities who consider them, withemotion, as feeble gleams of the great Christian light which formerly, at its purest period, illuminated Northern Africa. 

It is the opinion of some who have long been conversant with the Kabylesthat the deeper you dive into their social mysteries the more traces youfind of their having once been a Christian people. They observe, forinstance, a set of statutes derived from their ancestors, and which, onpoints like suppression of thefts and murders, do not agree with theKoran. We have spoken of their name for the law--_kanoun_: evidently theresemblance of this to [Greek: _chanôn_] must be more than accidental. Another sign is the mark of the cross, tattooed on the women of many ofthe tribes. These fleshly inscriptions are an incarnate evidence of theChristian past of some of the Kabyles, particularly such as are probablyof Vandal origin. They are found especially among the tribes of theGouraya, are probably a result of the Vandal invasion, and consist inthe mark or sign of the cross, half an inch in dimension, on theirforehead, cheeks and the palms of their hands. It appears that all thenatives who were found to be Christians were freed from certain taxes bytheir Aryan conquerors; and it was arranged that they should professtheir faith by making the cross on their persons, which practice wasthus universalized. The tattooing is of a beautiful blue color, and ismore ornamental than the patches worn by our grandmothers. 

Our final inference, then, is, that the Kabyles preserve strong tracesof certain primitive customs, which in certain cases are attributable toa Christian origin. 

A true city of romance, a Venice isolated by waves of mountains, andbuilt upon piles whose beams are of living crystal, Kalaa, all butinaccessible, attracts the tourist as the roc's egg attracted Aladdin'swife. For ages it has been a city of refuge, a sanctuary for person andproperty in a land of anarchy. Nowhere else are the proud Kabyles soskillful and industrious--nowhere else are their women so much likeWestern women in beauty and freedom. 

[Illustration: KABYLE WOMEN]

The Kabyle woman preserves the liberty which the female of the Orientpossessed in the old times, before the jealousy of Mohammed made her abird in a cage, or, as the Arab poet says, "an attar which must not begiven to the winds. " In Kabylia the women talk and gossip with the men:their villages present pretty spectacles at sunset, when groups ofworkers and gossipers mingled are seen laughing, chatting and singing tothe accompaniment of the drum. Some of these women are really handsome, and are freely decorated, even in public, with the singular enamelswhich are their peculiar manufacture, and with threads of gold in theirgraceful _cheloukas_ or tunics. 

But Kalaa, like the picturesque "Peasant's Nest" described by Cowper inhis _Task_, pays one natural penalty for the rare beauty of its site. Itpants on a rock whose gorges of lime are the seat of a perpetual thirst. In vain have the suffering natives sunk seven basins in one alley of thetown, the cleft separating the quarter of the Son of David from that ofthe children of Jesus (_Aissa_). The water only trickles by drops, and, though plentiful in winter, deserts them altogether in the season whentheir air-hung gardens, planted in earth brought up from the plains, need it the most. As the mellowing of the season brings with it itsplague of aridity, recourse is had to the river at the bottom of theravine, the Oued-Hamadouch. Then from morning to night perpendicularchains of diminutive, shrewd donkeys are seen descending and ascendingthe precipice with great jars slung in network. 

[Illustration: KABYLE GROUP. ]

But the Hamadouch itself in the sultry season is but a thread of water, easily exhausted by the needs of a population counting three thousandmouths. Then the folks of Kalaa would die of thirst were it not for theforesight of a marabout of celebrity, whom chance or miracle caused todiscover a hidden spring at the bottom of the rock. By the aid ofsubscriptions among the rich he built a fountain over the sources of thespring. 

It is a small Moorish structure, with two stone pilasters supporting apointed arch. In the centre is an inscription forbidding to the piousadmirers of the marabout the use of the fountain while a drop remains inthe Hamadouch. To assist their fidelity, the spring is effectuallyclosed except when all other sources have peremptorily failed, in theunited opinion of three amins (Kabyle sheikhs). When the amins givepermission the chains which restrain the mechanism are taken off, andthe conduits are opened by means of iron handles operating on smallvalves of the same metal. In the great droughts the fountain of MaraboutYusef-ben-Khouia may be seen surrounded with a throng of astute, white-nosed asses, waiting in philosophic calm amid the excitement andstruggle of the attendant water-bearers. 

[Illustration: YUSEF'S FOUNTAIN. ]

Seen hence, from the base of the precipice, where abrupt pathways tracetheir zigzags of white lightning down the rock, and where no vegetationrelieves the harsh stone, the town of Kalaa seems some accursed city ina Dantean _Inferno_. Seen from the peaks of Bogni, on the contrary, thenest of white houses covered with red tiles, surmounted by a glitteringminaret and by the poplars which decorate the porch of the great mosque, has an aspect as graceful as unique. In a vapory distance floats offfrom the eye the arid and thankless country of the Beni-Abbes. On everylevel spot, on every plateau, is detected a clinging white town, encircled with a natural wreath of trees and hedges. They are allvisible one from the other, and perk up their heads apparently to signaleach other in case of sudden appeal: it is by a telegraphic system fromdistance to distance that the Kabyles are collected for theirincorrigible revolutions. Two ruined towers are pointed out, called bythe Kabyles the Bull's Horns, which in 1847 poured down from theirbattlements a cataract of fire on Bugeaud's _chasseurs d'Orléans_, whoclimbed to take them, singing their favorite army-catch as well as theycould for want of breath:

 As-tu vu la casquette, la casquette, As-tu vu la casquette du Père Bugeaud?

Far away, at the foot of the Azrou-n'hour, an immense peak lifting itsbreadth of snow-capped red into the pure azure, the populous town ofAzrou is spread out over a platform almost inaccessible. 

[Illustration: THE LATEST IMPROVED REAPER. ]

What a strange landscape! And what a race, brooding over its nests inthe eagles' crags! Where on earth can be found so peculiar a people, guarding their individuality from the hoariest antiquity, and snatchingthe arts into the clefts of the mountains, to cover the languid races ofthe plains with luxuries borrowed from the clouds! The jewelry and thetissues, the bornouses and haiks, the blacksmith-work and ammunition, which fill the markets of Morocco, Tunis and the countries toward thedesert, are scattered from off these crags, which Nature has forbiddento man by her very strongest prohibitions. 

We are now in the midst of what is known as Grand Kabylia. The coastfrom Algiers eastward toward Philippeville, and the relations of some ofthe towns through which we have passed, may be understood from thefollowing sketch:

[Illustration]

The scale of distances may be imagined from the fact that it iseighty-seven and a half miles by sea from Algiers to Bougie. The countryknown as Grand Kabylia, or Kabylia _par excellence_, is that part ofAlgeria forming the great square whose corners are Dellys, Aumale, Setifand Bougie. Though these are fictitious and not geographical limits, they are the nearest approach that can be made to fixing the nation on amap. Besides their Grand Kabylia, the ramifications of the tribe arerooted in all the habitable parts of the Atlas Mountains between Moroccoand Tunis, controlling an irregular portion of Africa which it isimpossible to define. It will be seen that the country of the tribe isnot deprived of seaboard nor completely mountainous. The two ports ofDellys and Bougie were their sea-cities, and gave the French infinitetrouble: the plain between the two is the great wheat-growing country, where the Kabyle farmer reaps a painful crop with his saw-edged sickle. 

In this trapezoid the fire of rebellion never sleeps long. As we writecomes the report of seven hundred French troops surrounded by tenthousand natives in the southernmost or Atlas region of Algeria. Thebloody lessons of last year have not taught the Kabyle submission. Itseems that his nature is quite untamable. He can die, but he is in hisvery marrow a republican. 

[TO BE CONTINUED. ]

OUR HOME IN THE TYROL

CHAPTER I

"Do not go to the Tyrol, " said some of our friends in Rome. "You will bestarved. It is a beautiful country, but with the most wretchedaccommodation and the worst living in the world. "

"Come to Perugia, where it is always cool in summer, " said a painter. "You can study Perugino's exquisite 'Annunciation' and other gems of theUmbrian school, and thus blend Art with the relaxation of Nature. "

"Come rather to Zemetz in the Engadine, where good Leonhard Wohlvend ofthe Lion will help us to bag bears one day and glaciers the next, "exclaimed a sporting friend, the possessor of the most exuberantspirits. 

[Illustration: SHRINE AT ADELSHEIM. ]

"But, " remarked the fourth adviser, a lady, "I recommend, after all, theTyrol. I went weak and ill last year to the Pusterthal, and returned toRome as fresh and strong as a pony. I found the inns very clean and theprices low; and if you can live on soup, delicious trout and char, fowls, veal, puddings and fruit, you will fare famously at an outsideaverage of five francs a day. "

As this advice exactly coincided with our own inclinations, we naturallyconsidered it the wisest of all, especially as the invitation tobear-hunts and glacier-scrambles was not particularly tempting to ourparty. The kind reader will perceive this for himself when he learnsthat it consisted of an English writer, who, still hale and hearty inspite of his threescore years and ten, regarded botany as the best ruralsport; his wife, his faithful companion through many years of sunshineand shadow, who had grown old so naturally that whilst anticipating ajoyful Hereafter she still clothed this present life with the poetichues of her girlhood; their daughter, the present narrator; and theirjoint friend, another Margaret, who, whilst loyal to her native country, America, had created for herself, through her talent, her love of truework and her self-dependence, a bright social and artistic life inItaly. As for Perugia, our happy quartette had plenty of opportunitiesfor studying the old masters in the winter months. Now we were anxiousto exchange the oppressive, leaden air of the Italian summer for theinvigorating breezes of the Alps. 

Yet how fresh and graceful Italy still looked as we traveled northwardin the second week of June! The affluent and at the same time gentlesunshine streamed through the broad green leaves of the vines, whichwere flung in elegant festoons from tree to tree. It intensified thebright scarlet of the myriad poppies, which glowed amongst the brilliantgreen corn. It lighted up the golden water-lilies lying on the surfaceof the slowly-gliding streams, and brought into still greater contrastthe tall amber-colored campanile or the black cypress grove cut in sharpoutline against the diaphanous blue sky. We knew, however, that fevercould lurk in this very luxury of beauty, while health was awaiting usin the more sombre scenes of gray mountain and green sloping pasture. Wetraveled on, therefore, by the quickest and easiest route, and alightingfrom the express-train to Munich at the Brixen station on the BrennerPass, were shortly deposited, bag and baggage, at that comfortable andthoroughly German inn, the renowned Elephant. 

We prided ourselves on being experienced travelers, and consequentlyimmediately secured four places in the Eilwagen, which was to start fromthe inn at six o'clock the next morning for our destination, Bruneck. Wehanded over our luggage to the authorities, partook of supper and thenretired contentedly to rest--in the case of the two Margarets to thesoundest of slumbers--until in the morning we were suddenly awoke, notby the expected knock of the chambermaid, but by a hurrying to and froof feet, and the sound of several eager voices resounding through theechoing corridors. Fortunately, it was not only perfectly light, butexhausted Nature had enjoyed its allotted spell of sleep; for we found, to our astonishment, that it was past five o'clock. The storm continuedoutside no whit abated, and in the midst of the human hubbub thefather's voice sounded clear and distinct. 

"The British lion is roaring, " exclaimed Margaret: then, snatching at myattire, I was in the midst of the disturbance in a very few minutes. 

My father stood at his door and held in his upraised hand a pair ofvillainous boots, old and "clouted, " fit for the Gibeonites, verydifferent from the substantial English aids to the understanding whichhe had placed in all good faith outside his door the previous night. Ameagre-faced chambermaid was wringing her hands beside him. Two waitersvociferated, whilst a third, whose eyes were still heavy with sleep, wasblindly groping at the other doors. 

"My excellent London boots, made on a special last, have disappeared, "said my father, trying to moderate his indignation, "and this vilerubbish has been substituted in their stead. --Where is your master?" hedemanded of the sobbing woman. "Fetch either your master or my boots. "

"Herr Je! Herr Je! I've hunted high and low, up stairs and down, "murmured the weeping maid, "and the gracious gentleman's boots arenowhere. "

"Sir, " said a little round-headed man, who seemed to have his wits abouthim, "I know very well that these are not your boots. I cleaned yourgrace's boots, and placed them at your door at four o'clock. It is somebeggarly Welschers who have crept up stairs and exchanged for them, unawares, their old leather hulks. "

"Ah yes, " said the wailing woman: "three Welschers, who came for thefair, slept in the barn, and had some bread and cheese before they left, an hour ago. "

In the midst of this explanation the door of No. 2 was slightly opened, and an arm in a shirt sleeve appeared and drew in a pair of boots. Hardly, however, was the door closed when the bell of No. 2 began toring violently. 

"Heavens! another pair gone!" exclaimed a waiter. Then with one accordthe whole bevy of distracted servants rushed to No. 2, declaring theirinnocence. 

"My good people, I cannot understand one word you say, " replied a mildEnglish voice. "I request you to be gone, and let one of you bring me myown proper boots. "

The British lion--who, it must be owned, had reason to roar--becamecalmed at the evident innocence of the servants and the gentle sounds ofthis British lamb. He therefore went to the rescue, and explained thematter to No. 2, who in his turn meekly expostulated: "Very vexatious!Dear me! My capital boots made expressly for Alpine climbing! But wemust make the best of it, my dear sir. "

Maids and men still remained in an excited group, when at this juncturethe head-waiter appeared, bringing with him the landlord, a respectablemiddle-aged man, who, bowing repeatedly, assured the gentlemen of hisextreme annoyance at the whole affair, especially as it compromised thefame of his noted house. Indeed, he would gladly refund the loss werethe two pairs of boots not forthcoming. 

Forthcoming! How could they be forthcoming when at this moment the clockwas striking six, and the Eilwagen (Margaret termed it the _oil-wagon_)was to start at once, and we with it, though minus breakfast? TheBritish lamb departed hurriedly, but we were detained to be told ofanother complication. Not only were the boots gone, but the royalimperial post-direction of Austria, after duly weighing and measuringour luggage, had adjudged it too heavy and bulky for the roof of itsmail-coach. It would, however, restore our money, and even suggestanother mode of conveyance, but take us by its Eilwagen it would not. 

"The delay is indeed advantageous, mein Herr, " said the landlord, addressing my father, who walked about in slippers, "as time willthereby be gained for a thorough investigation of the boot question. "

One trouble always modifies another. The disappearance of the boots madeus bear the departure of the Eilwagen philosophically. Nay, at theconclusion of a substantial breakfast of hot coffee, ham and eggs webegan greatly to enjoy ourselves. Rejected by the post-direction for theEilwagen, we felt at liberty to choose our time of departure. For thepresent, therefore, acting as our own masters, we leisurely saunteredout of doors, admired the clean, attractive exterior of the roomy inn, and smiled at the fresco of the huge elephant, which, possessed ofgigantic tusks and diminutive tail, carried a man, spear in hand, on hisback. A giant bearing a halbert, accompanied by two youths in tunics, completed the group. An inscription informed us that this was the firstelephant which had ever visited Teutschland, and that the inn derivedits name from the fact of the august quadruped sleeping there on itsjourney, which took place in the sixteenth century. The worthy landlordhad also ordered a fresco to be painted on his inn to the honor of theVirgin. She was depicted standing upon the crescent moon, and her aidwas invoked by the good man in rhyme to protect the house "fromlightning's rod, O thou Mother of God! From rain and fire, and sicknessdire;"--but, alas! there was no mention of thieves. 

We were deploring the fact when the worthy Wirth appeared in person, attended by a slim youth in blue-and-silver uniform, whom he introducedto us with considerable emphasis as representing the police. The officerof justice stepped forward and with a low bow took the length andbreadth of the Welschers' offending, and promised that the Austriangovernment would do its best to see the distinguished, very nobleHerrschaft righted. We cannot be quite certain that he promised that theemperor would seek the boots in person, but something was said aboutthat mighty potentate. At the assurance of governmental interference howcould the British lion fail of being pacified? He declared that thelandlord had acted as a gentleman, shook hands with him, and returningto the house exchanged his slippers for his second pair of boots--veryinferior in make and comfort to the missing treasures--and thenconferred with the landlord as to the best method for the continuance ofour journey. 

The Herr Wirth, with whom and the whole household we had now becomeexcellent friends, declared that with our unusual amount of luggage theonly plan was a "separat Eilfahrt, " which means a separateexpress-journey to Bruneck. It had, however, its advantages: we shouldtravel quickly and with the greatest ease. As we were willing to accedeto his proposition, he handed us over to his clerks in the royalimperial post-bureau, who, having received a round sum of florins, filled in and sanded an important document, which being delivered to usconveyed the satisfactory information that we four individuals, whoseages, personal appearance and social position the head-official hadmagnanimously passed over with a compassionate flourish, were, on thisfourteenth day of June, 1871, to be conveyed to the town of Bruneck inthe caleche No. 1990; which said vehicle would be duly furnished withcloth or leather cushions, one foot-carpet, two lamps, main-braces, axletree, etc. , including one portion of grease. So far, well and good, but on our inquiring when the said No. 1990 would be ready to start, thehead-official merely looked over his spectacles at his subordinate, whoin his turn, leaning back in his tall chair and stroking his beard, called out, "Klaus! Klaus!"--a call which was answered by a tall, stolid-looking man, also in livery, who seemed to occupy the post ofofficial hostler. 

"Klaus, " demanded the second chef, "the Herrschaft ask when the vehiclewill be ready. "

Klaus gave an astonished stare, and articulated some rapid sounds in adialect quite unintelligible to us. 

"Precisely, " returned the subordinate. "The horses are sent for, andwhen they arrive the Herrschaft will be expedited forthwith. "

Whereupon the clerks of the post-direction became suddenly immersed inthe duties of their office. We took the hint and good-naturedly retired. 

It certainly looked like business when outside we perceived Klausdragging forth with all his might and main, from a dark and dustycoach-house, a still dustier old coach. Darker it was not, for the colorwas that of canary, emblazoned with the black double-headed Austrianeagle. This, then, was the caleche No. 1990. It had the air of a veteranofficer in the imperial army who had not seen active service for many along day. 

Klaus was too busy to pay much attention to us. He pulled the piece ofantiquity into the street, and with an uneasy expression, as if he knewbefore-hand what he had to expect, he tried and tugged at one of thedoor-handles. "Sacrament!" he muttered as he at last let go and beganhunting in the boot of the coach, under the driver's cushion and insecret nooks and corners, which proved, at the best, mere receptaclesfor fag-ends of whipcord and cobwebs. 

"It is gone, sure enough, the key of the right-hand door. " I am afraidit had disappeared three years before, at least, to the fellow'sknowledge, for he added in an apologetic but hopeful tone, "It mattersnot the least, for, see you, all the inns are on the left-hand side. "

A glimpse into the coach-house had convinced us of the fact of thisvehicle alone being at our disposal; so we determined to manage as bestwe might, and bore even philosophically the smell of the musty, dust-filled cushions, which Klaus triumphantly pulled out of the opendoor and beat, as it were, within an inch of their lives. 

Briefly, to make two long hours short after several tedious quarters ofexpectation, a square-set, rosy-faced and middle-aged postilion appearedround the far corner of the village street, resplendent in silver laceand yellow livery, leading three gaunt but sturdy horses. In ten minutesmy father was seated on the box and we ladies inside, receiving the goodwishes of Klaus, of the landlord, the men and the maids, now all smilesand curtsies, and with the postilion blowing triumphantly his horn wedashed out of the quaint, dreamy little cathedral town of Brixen. 

The road speedily began to ascend, and we looked down from aconsiderable height on the vast Augustine monastery of Neustift, withits large church, its picturesque cluster of wings, refectories andseparate residences of every stage of architecture, lying snugly amongstvineyards, Spanish chestnuts and fig trees. Ever upward, by but abovethe waters of the rapid Brienz, until at the fortress of Mühlbach weentered the Pusterthal proper. 

This old fort commands the valley and spans the road. Our driver, who, according to Austrian regulation, went on foot wherever the ascent wasparticularly steep, could not enter into our admiration of its romanticposition. Hans--for such was his name--could not perceive any grace orbeauty in a scene which had often disturbed his imagination and awakenedhis fear. "Ah, " said he, "it is a God-forsaken spot. It is here thatmany slaughtered Bavarians wander about at night with candles, seekingfor their bodies or their souls--I know not which. Look you! Mygrandmother came from Schliers in Bavaria, and the two countries speakthe same language. However, in my father's day, in 1809, Emperor Franzdrove the Bavarians and French out of this part of the Tyrol. It was inApril, when the Austrian Schatleh came marching through the Pusterthalwith his soldiers, and drove the Bavarians before him. Though these wereonly a handful, they would not make truce, but broke down all thebridges in their retreat. They wanted to burn the bridge at Lorenzen, only the country-folks with blunderbusses, cudgels and pitchforksprotected it, and made them run; so they marched on, pursued by theLandsturm, to this fortress, where they fought like devils until manywere killed, and the others, at their wits' end, managed to push on toInnsbruck. Yes, glorious days, and long may the Tyrolese cry God, Emperor and Fatherland! But those wandering spirits make my fleshcreep. Ugh!"

The road now allowed of the horses being put to a lively trot, interrupting further conversation. We drove steadily on, stopping atcomfortable inns in large well-to-do villages, where even the poorestappeared to enjoy in their houses unlimited space. The landlordspolitely demanded our journey-certificate, solemnly inserted the hour ofour arrival and departure, and confirmed the important fact of ourremaining exactly the same number of travelers as at the beginning ofour journey. We exchange Hans for a youthful Jacobi, and Jacobi for anaged Seppl, who all agreed in their livery if not in their ages; eachstage also being at a slightly higher elevation, so that by degrees wehad changed the Italian vegetation, which had lingered as far as theneighborhood of Brixen, for the more northern crops of young oats andflax. Yet one prominent reminder of comparatively adjacent Italyaccompanied us the greater portion of the three hours' drive. Hundredsof agile, swarthy figures were busily boring, blasting, shoveling anddigging for the new railway, which is to convey next season shoals ofpassengers and civilization, rightly or wrongly so called, into thisgreat yet primitive artery of Southern Tyrol, the Pusterthal alreadyforming, by means of the Ampezzo, a highway between Venice and theBrenner Pass. As the morning advanced the busy sounds of labor ceased, and we saw groups of dark-eyed men reclining in the shade of the rocks, partaking of their frugal dinners of orange-colored polenta--_plenten_, as our Seppl called it. 

So onward by soft slopes bordered by mountain-ridges, all scarped andtwisted, having dark green draperies of pine trees cast round theirstrong limbs, with bees humming in the aromatic yet invigorating breezefresh from the snow-fields, and swallows wheeling in the clear blue air, until we reached a fertile amphitheatre. A confusion of flourishingvillages was scattered over its verdant meadows, and here and there on ajutting rock or mountain-spur a solitary mediaeval tower or imposingcastle stood forth, the most conspicuous of all being a fortresssituated on a natural bulwark of rock. Half around its base a littletown, which appeared stunted in its growth by the course of the river, confidingly rested. A hill covered with wood screened the other side ofthe castle, whilst exactly opposite a broad valley ran northward, hemmedin by lofty snow-fields and glaciers that sparkled in the noonday sun. Natural hummocks or knolls covered with wood broke the uniformity ofthis upland plain, which still ascended eastward to the higher, bleakerUpper Pusterthal. This valley continues to mount to yet more sterileregions, until, reaching the great watershed of the Toblacher Plain, which sends part of its streams to the Adriatic, the others to the moredistant Black Sea, it gradually dips down again to the fruitfulwine-regions of Lienz. 

[Illustration: BRUNECK. ]

We have now, however, to do with Bruneck, where our venerable 1990 hadsafely deposited us at the modern inn, the Post. We might almost styleit the fashionable inn, for it was kept by a gentleman of noble birthand the representative of the province, who, having a large family ofgrowing children, had wisely let his gentility take care of itself andpermitted his guests to be entertained at their own rather than at hisexpense. As the noble landlady was suffering from headache, the dapperwaitress took charge of us, provided us with rooms, and then installedus at the early _table-d'hôte_, where a number of the officers of thegarrison, with some other regular diners, whom we learnt to recognize intime as the town bailiff, the apothecary and the advocate, weredespatching, in the midst of great clatter and bustle, the inevitable_kalbsfleisch_ and _mehlspeis_. 

The lady who had recommended us to go to the Pusterthal had likewiseassured us that the Post at Bruneck would satisfy all our requirements. In this she was mistaken. It is true that tastes differ, especiallyamongst tourists, who may be divided into two classes--those who merelycare for the country, let them disguise it as they will, when they canendue it with the features of their town-life; and those who love thecountry for the sake of Nature, and thus endeavor to carry trails offreshness back with them to town. Now, it was all artificial dust anddin that we desired to get rid of. We had traveled in search of verdantmeadows, brawling streams and sweet-scented woods. We could not findsolace and relaxation in sitting at the windows of our respectable innto watch every passer-by on the dusty boulevard below, in spending halfthe day indoors, let it be ever so comfortably, or in merely turning outin the evening to shop in the puny town, whilst we bemoaned the want ofa circulating library and a brass band. It was even more intolerable, asthe Post had been built perversely with its back to the fine view of theglaciers. Moreover, the whole establishment was in the hands ofbricklayers, painters and glaziers, who were enlarging and repairing itfor the comfort and convenience of future but certainly not of presentvisitors. 

As trade was evidently flourishing, we had not the slightest hesitationin ringing for Maria, the _kellnerin_, and consulting with her about themode of our procuring country lodgings as soon as possible. Maria was agood-natured girl and willing to serve us, but our ideas could not be soeasily carried out as we had anticipated. One of us had the folly tosuggest vacant rooms being to let in the castle. 

"Gracious!" replied Maria, casting her eyes up to the sky. "In thecastle! Why, that's crown property, and filled with the military. Really, I don't know how I can help you, since the gentlemen officershave engaged for themselves every apartment inside or outside the town. "

We spoke of the many neighboring villages, which were filled with grandold houses. 

Maria declared they were better outside than inside, and that the Bauerswho dwelt in them could scarcely find bedding for their cattle, muchless for Christian gentlefolks. "There is the Herr Apotheker's house atUnterhofen, but he will not let that. There is the Hof at Adelsheim:it's out of the question. There is also Frau Sieger's in the samevillage, but that is let to the Herr Major for the season. Look you! youhad better go to Frau Sieger. Stay, I will send Lina with you. "

Lina proved to be one of the blossoms of the noble family tree. She ledmy mother and me to Frau Sieger, but what came of our afternoon'sexpedition deserves to be told in a fresh chapter. 

CHAPTER II. 

Now, this house-hunting was a piece of business to be got through assoon as possible. Nevertheless, three hours elapsed before we returnedto the hotel. We found the father and Margaret leaning their heads outof a corridor window, and when we asked them what they were about, shereplied, "We have been wishing that the grand old mansion in yondervillage were only a _pension_, where we could obtain rooms. But have youmet with any success?"

"A _pension_! That sounds like Meran or Switzerland, instead of thisprimitive Pusterthal. Only let us have tea, and we will tell you what wehave done. "

"Very good! We will be patient; but you do not look dissatisfied withyour afternoon, " said my father. 

Nor in truth were we. Sipping our mild tea, we related our adventures. The little girl Lina had taken us into the town, which consisted of onenarrow street in the shape of a half-moon, where houses of all ages andranks squeezed against each other and peeped into each other's windowswith the greatest familiarity. In one of the largest of these FrauSieger lived. Her husband was the royal imperial tobacco agent, and thehouse was crammed full of chests of the noxious and obnoxious weed, thepassages and landing being pervaded with a sweet, sickly smell ofdecomposing tobacco. In the parlor, however, where Frau Sieger satdrinking coffee with her lady friends, the aromatic odor of the beverageacted as a disinfectant. The hostess drew us aside, listenedcomplacently to our message, and then graciously volunteered to let usrooms under her very roof. 

We should have chosen chemical works in preference! There was, then, nothing to be done but to take leave with thanks. Accompanied by thelittle Lina, we passed under the town-gate, and whilst sorely perplexedperceived a pleasant village, at the distance of about a mile, lying onthe hillside in a wealth of orchards and great barns. The way thitherled across fields of waving green corn, the point where the pathdiverged from the high-road being marked by a quaint mediaeval shrine, one of the many shrines which, sown broadcast over the Tyrol, areintended to act as heavenly milestones to earth-weary pilgrims. 

[Illustration: ADELSHEIM--OUR HOME IN THE TYROL. ]

That was the village of Adelsheim, Lina said, where their owncountry-house was situated, and Freieck, belonging to Frau Sieger; andthere, at the farther extremity of the village, was Schönburg, where oldBaron Flinkenhorn lived. The biggest house of all on the hill was theHof, and that below, with the gables and turrets, the carpenter's. 

The bare possibility of finding a resting-place in that little Arcadiamade us determine to go thither. We would try the inn, and then thecarpenter's. 

The inn proved a little beer-shop, perfectly impracticable. A woman witha bright scarlet kerchief bound round her head, who was washing outsidethe carpenter's, told us in Italian that she and her husband, anoverseer on the new railway, occupied with their family every vacantroom, which was further confirmed by the carpenter popping his head outof an upper window, and in answer to Lina's question giving utterance toan emphatic "_Na, na, I hab koan_" ("No, no, I have none"). 

Lina was so sure that the Hofbauer would not let rooms, for he was awealthy man and owned land for miles around, that she stayed at arespectful distance whilst we approached nearer to at least admire thegrand old mansion, even if it were closed against us as a residence. Thevillage was full of marvelous old houses rich in frescoes, orielwindows, gables and turrets, but this dwelling, standing in a dignifiedsituation on an eminence, was a prince amongst its compeers. Thearchitecture, which was Renaissance, might belong to a bad style, butthe long slopes of roof, the jutting balconies, the rich iron-work onthe oblong façade, the painted sun-dial and the coats-of-arms now fadingaway into oblivion, the grotesque gargoyle which in the form of adragon's head frowned upon the world, --each detail, that had once beencarefully studied, helped to form a complete whole which it was apleasure to look upon. The grand entrance, no longer used, was guardedby a group of magnificent trees, the kings of the region. Traces of anold pleasure-garden and the dried-up basin of a fountain were visiblewithin. 

At this point in the narrative Margaret exclaimed, "None other than mywould-be _pension_! I have known it from the first, so pray do not keepme on tenterhooks. Were you or were you not successful? Yet all hope hasdied within me already, for such a treasure-trove we never could get. "

"Well, listen, " said the mother. "As we were admiring the house, ahandsome, fair-haired young man, one's perfect ideal of a peasant, camealong the road, bowed to us, and when we expressed our interest in themansion said that he was the son of the house, and that we might see therooms if we liked. Grand old rooms they are, with a great lack offurniture, but nevertheless perfectly charming. The young man, who isnamed Anton, thought his father would probably have no objection to letus rooms. At all events, we could all go over and see the Hofbauer atten o'clock to-morrow morning, when he would be in: he was in his fieldsthis afternoon. The whole, in fact, was a pastoral poem. "

The next day we were as punctual as clock-work. A pleasant, comely youngpeasant woman, who looked as if she had lived on fresh air all her life, met us in the great stone entrance-hall. She told us that her fatherwould soon be at liberty, and that, with our permission, she would againshow us the rooms if we wished to see them. This promised well. Fetchinga huge bunch of handsome iron-wrought keys, she conducted us into thegreat hall of the first floor, hung with large unframed pictures of theHoly Sacrament. Then unlocking a handsome door which had once been greenand gold, we entered the vast reception-room, almost bereft offurniture, but possessing a pine floor of milky whiteness and aremarkably fine stove of faience eight feet high. My father measured thelength of the apartment: it was forty feet, and could have seated ahundred guests. The casements were filled with old lozenge-shaped glassset in lead, and the fine old iron trellis-work on the outside of thewindows gave a wonderfully mediaeval look to the apartment. There was, moreover, a magnificent bay window, which formed a little room ofitself, besides a second room much less, which, with carved woodwainscot and ceiling, could have served as an oratory. 

Margaret's delight was unbounded. The father smiled quietly, and we thepioneers could scarcely refrain our pride and pleasure. But there wasmore to be seen. Crossing the great hall once more, we entered a largeand beautiful room overlooking the main entrance. This had otherfurniture besides its handsome porcelain stove and inlaid floor of darkwood. There was not only a comfortable modern bed, but chairs, sofa andtable; a chest of drawers too, which was covered with innumerablereligious knickknacks--little sacred pictures in glass frames, miniaturesaints, and artificial flowers in small china pots. Having dipped herfinger in a holy-water shell hanging on the wall, our guide drew back along chintz curtain which covered the end of the room, and showed us alarge and handsome chapel below. A fald-stool ran along the front of thewindow which, with an additional lattice of gilt and carved wood, separated the room from the church. This had evidently been in old timesthe apartment of the lord and his lady, and here they had knelt andlistened to the holy office without mingling with their dependantsbelow. This room, if we had the good fortune to obtain lodgings in themansion, was to belong to the poetess, for it was full of inspirationand old-world memories. 

Then out again into the hall and up another flight of stone stairs, through a second great lobby into a corridor, which communicated oneither side with two charming rooms, spotlessly clean and perfectlyempty, if I except the stoves; but still, if we chose, these two roomscould be Margaret's and mine, and the corridor as well, with a beautifulbalcony which commanded an enchanting view of the rich Pusterthal up anddown, right and left, with a row of jagged, contorted dolomite mountainsthrown into the bargain. All this was to be ours if only the Hofbauerwould have us. So down we went, casting longing looks around us--downinto the entrance-hall, where a crowd of poor people were streaming outof the _stube_, the parlor of the family, such as in the midlandcounties of England would be called the house-place, and so into thegrassy court in front, where we awaited with anxious hearts the fiat ofthe Hofbauer. 

We were not long kept waiting. In another minute the master of the housestood before us, a tall, thin, elderly man, dressed in the full costumeof the district--an embroidered cloth jacket, black leather breeches, which displayed a broad band of naked knee, green ribbed stockings, shoes and buckles, with a silver cord and tassel on his broad beaverhat. Saluting us with the grace and ease of a courtier, he apologizedfor keeping us waiting, but he had been entertaining the poor of theparish at dinner, according to an old custom of his. These simpleTyrolese dined, then, at ten o'clock in the morning!

An elderly woman, also tall and spare, now appeared in a bright bluelinen apron, that half hid her thickly-plaited black woolen petticoat, which was short enough to give full effect to scarlet knit stockings andlow, boat-shaped shoes. She carried in her hand a plate of large hot fatcakes, which she pressed upon us; then pitied the smallness of ourappetites, and urged two apiece at least. Two mouthfuls, however, weresufficient, as the cakes were not only extremely greasy, but filled withwhite curds, aniseed and chives. Having received in good part thisintended hospitality, we were rejoiced to hear the Hofbauer express hisperfect willingness that we should take up our abode at the mansion. Weneed merely pay him a trifle, but we must furnish ourselves the extrabedsteads. Moidel, his daughter, could cook for us, for she understoodmaking dishes for bettermost people, having been sent by him to Brixenfor a year to learn cooking; for what was a moidel (maiden) good forthat could not cook? He should not make any charge for her services. Also, if we saw any bits of furniture about the house that suited us wemight take them; and lastly, we could stay until Jacobi, the 25th ofJuly, but on that day the best bedroom must be given up, as it belongedto his son, the student, who would return from Innsbruck about that day. All this was charming. We promised to procure beds and bedding inBruneck, and arranged to take possession of our new quarters on thefollowing morning. 

I will not enter into the rashness of our promise respecting thebedsteads, merely hinting at the difficulties and complications whichbeset us. Some of these can be imagined when it is known that, firstly, there proved not to be an upholsterer, nor even a seller of oldfurniture, at Bruneck; and that, secondly, the officers and soldiers ofthe garrison now quartered there occupied by night every available sparebed in the township. So it seemed until in our embarrassment thelandlady of the Post arose from her bed to help us to procure some. Theinterview ended again with the prudent advice, "Go to Frau Sieger. " Wewent, and that incomparable lady, who bore us no malice for refusing herrooms, generously provided for a small sum three bedsteads and anamazing, and what appeared to us superfluous, amount of bolsters, pillows, feather beds, winter counterpanes; but she would hear no nay, declaring, "It often turned very chilly in the Pusterthal, and at suchtimes a warm bed was a godsend. "

We now began to dream of beds of roses, but we were mistaken: we werecrying before we were out of the wood. We arrived at the Hof thefollowing afternoon with our bag and baggage, and found Moidel, otherwise Maria, busily preparing the newly-erected bed in thestate-room. She received us cordially, until my mother, laying her shawlon the bedstead belonging to the house, remarked that she wished thatfor herself. 

Maria seemed suddenly thunderstruck. She turned a deep red, and with agesture of astonishment let drop a pillow, exclaiming, "Heavens alive!that is the Herr Student's bed!"

She fled from the chamber, bringing back her aunt to the rescue. Thelatter looked stern and aggrieved. "Never, never! no one must lay hishead on that pillow but the student, " she cried. Had my mother asked torepose on the altar of the chapel they could not have been moredumbfoundered. 

As Frau Sieger's beds were truly spare, and as she could merely providethree, this second complication ended in the family giving up a bed oftheir own--one which was adorned at the head and foot with a cross, ableeding heart and sacred monogram--one, in fact, which bore more marksof sanctity about it than the sacred bed of the student. It was obviousthat this mysterious individual was consecrated to the Church, and thateven before his ordination all that he touched was holy. 

The storm had again given place to sunshine, and the two quiet womenpassed gently to and fro with coarse but sweet-scented linen, which theyfetched from an old chest adorned with red tulips, a crown of thorns andthe legend "K. M. , 1820, " on a bright blue ground. Good old Kaetana!That chest had once been crammed full to overflowing with linen which, like other young women, she had spun for her own dowry, but when theHofbauerin died Kathi became the housekeeper and mother to the littlechildren. Thus the contents of the chest had gradually decreased, untilthe maiden aunt drew forth the four last pair of new sheets for thesepassing strangers. She felt it no sacrifice. It would have grieved hermore to touch the piles of fine new linen which she and Moidel had spunthrough many a long winter evening, and which were now safely hiddenaway in the great mahogany wardrobe, which the Hofbauer, in harmony withthe more luxurious ideas of the age, had given to his daughter. Itoccupied the place of honor in the great saloon, having three companionchests of drawers of lesser dimensions, which the father at the sametime had presented to each of his sons. That of the eldest, Anton, wasemptied by the owner and placed by him at our disposal; that of thesecond, the student, was carefully guarded from the sun by a coveringformed of newspapers; the third, belonging to Jacobi, the youngest, appeared to us filled with books. Jacob was shy, and some days elapsedbefore we became acquainted. Anton, however, appeared modestly ready toattend to our least beck and call. The first evening, perceiving that wehad no candlesticks, we conferred with Anton. 

"Freilich, " he said. "We have none of our own, but I am sure that, asyou will take care of them, there can be no great harm in lending yousome of the Virgin's. " We demurred at first, but with a smile on hisopen, ingenuous face he added, "The Herrschaft may be quite sure that Iwould not sin against my conscience. " He then brought half a dozenplated candlesticks from the little sacristy, which he committed to ourcare. 

The reader must not suppose that this was a disused chapel: far from it. In the dusk of the summer evening a murmuring chant like the musical humof bees pervaded the vast old mansion, which was otherwise hushed inperfect silence. It was the Rosenkranz (or rosary) repeated by thehousehold in the chapel. The Hofbauer knelt on one side near the altar, and led the service, his two sons, the four men-servants, the aunt andMoidel, with the three maid-servants, reciting the responses on theirrespective sides. The even-song over, the household quietly retired torest. 

Chance had graciously brought us to the Hof in the midst of preparationsfor the festival of the Holy Father. On Sunday, June 18, the wholeCatholic world was to celebrate the astounding fact of Pio Nono havingexceeded the days of Saint Peter. We, who had come from Rome, wherethirty upstart papers were denouncing time-honored usages and formulas, where many of the people had begun to sneer at the Papacy and to takegloomy views of the Church, were not prepared for the religious fervorand devotion to the Papal See which greeted us in the Tyrol, especiallyat Bruneck, where from time immemorial a race of the staunchestadherents to Rome had flourished. The mere fact that we came from theEternal City clothed us with brilliant but false colors. Endless werethe questions put to us about the health and looks of the Holy Father, whom they believed to be kept in a dungeon and fed on bread and water--adiet, however, turned into heavenly food by the angels. Perhaps the mostperplexing question of all was, whether the Herr Baron Flinkenhorn, whohad been born in exactly the same year as the Holy Father, bore thefaintest resemblance to that saintly martyr. We could but shake ourheads as the old nobleman was pointed out to us on the morning of thefestival. Decrepit and bent with age, he shuffled along by the side ofhis old tottering sister, an antiquated couple dressed in the Frenchfashions of 1810. They hardly perceived, so blind and old were they, thebows and greetings which they received. They knew, however, that it wasPio's festival, and they made great offerings to the Church and to thepoor. 

Deafness even has its compensations. Thus this old couple had not beenkept awake all night by the ringing of bells and the firing of smallcannon, which had continued incessantly since the setting of the sun hadushered in the festival on the previous evening. The firing lasted allday--a popular but very startling and disturbing mode of expressing joyand satisfaction. Bruneck wreathed and flagged its houses: there wereprocessions, the prettiest being considered that of the female pupils ofthe convent of the Sacred Heart, who walked in white, bearing lilies. Atnight the good Sisters made a grand display of sacred transparencies intheir convent windows--rhymes about the age of Saint Peter and the Pope;the Virgin rescuing the sinking vessel of the Church; Saint Peter seatedon his emblematic rock, with his present successor at his side; and soforth--all wondered, gaped at and admired by the people, until the greatspectacle of the evening commenced. As soon as night had fairly set in ahundred fires blazed upon the mountains--far as the eye could reach, formiles and many miles, one dazzling gigantic illumination. Papalmonograms, crosses, tiaras shone forth in startling proportions. Highup, far from any human habitation, on the verge of the snow, inclearings of the mountain forests, on Alpine pastures, these fieryletters had been patiently traced by toiling men and lads. Anton andJacobi were not behind-hand, and by means of two hundred little bonfireshad devised the papal initials on the upland common behind the house. The illumination, however, had not begun to reach its full splendor whenone quick flash of lightning succeeded another, followed by a rollingartillery of thunder, the precursors of heavy down-pouring rain. In fiveminutes the storm had extinguished every bright emblem, and plunged theilluminated mountains into impenetrable blackness. The weather, grimlytriumphant, drove lads and lasses drenched to their homes. So ended thefestival, but in the morning, in dry clothes, every one had the pleasureof imagining how beautiful the spectacle would have been but for therain. 

MARGARET HOWITT. 

[TO BE CONTINUED. ]

WILMINGTON AND ITS INDUSTRIES. 

CONCLUDING PAPER. 

[Illustration: OLD SWEDES' CHURCH. ]

We have pointed out the metropolis of Delaware as being a distinctlyNorthern city, planted in the distinct South. Among other things, thiscomplication has led to some singularities in its settlement. As acommunity regulated by the most liberal traditions of Penn, but placedunder the legal conditions of a slave State, it has held a positionperfectly anomalous. No other spot could be indicated where thecontrasts of North and South came to so sharp an edge; and there are fewwhere a skilled pen could set down so many curiosities of folk-lore andconfusions of race. The Dutch, the Swedes and the English Quakers formedthe substratum, upon which were poured the _émigrés_ of the FrenchRevolution and the fugitives from Santo Domingo. The latter sometimesbrought slaves who had continued faithful, and who retained theirserfdom under the laws of Delaware. The French _bonnes_ stood onwashing-benches in the Brandywine, and taught the amazed Quaker wivesthat laundry-work could be done in cold water. The names of grand oldFrench families, prefaced by the proprietarial forms of _le_ and _du_, became mixed by marriage with such Swedish names as Svensson and suchDutch names as Staelkappe. (The first Staelkappe was a ship's cook, nicknamed from his oily and glossy bonnet. ) As for the refugees fromSanto Domingo, they absolutely invaded Wilmington, so that the price ofbutter and eggs was just doubled in 1791, and house-rents rose inproportion. They found themselves with rapture where the hills were rosywith peach-blossoms, and where every summer was simply an extract fromParadise. 

We cannot linger, as we fain would do, over the quaint and amusing_Paris en Amerique_ which reigned here for a period following the eventsof '93. At Sixth and French streets lived a marchioness in a cot, whichshe adorned with the manners of Versailles, the temper of the FaubourgSt. Germain and the pride of Lucifer. This Marquise de Sourci wasmaintained by her son, who made pretty boxes of gourds, and afterwardboats, in one of which he was subsequently wrecked on the Delaware, before the young marquis was of age to claim his title. In a farm-house, whose rooms he lined with painted canvas, lived Colonel de Tousard. OnLong Hook Farm resided, in honor and comfort, Major Pierre Jaquette, sonof a Huguenot refugee who married a Swedish girl, and became a Methodistafter one of Whitefield's orations: as for the son, he served inthirty-two pitched battles during our Revolution. Good Joseph Isambrie, the blacksmith, used to tell in provincial French the story of hisservice with Bonaparte in Egypt, while his wife blew the forge-bellows. _Le Docteur_ Bayard, a rich physician, cured his compatriots fornothing, and Doctor Capelle, one of Louis XVI. 's army-surgeons, settheir poor homesick old bones for them when necessary. MonsieurBergerac, afterward professor in St. Mary's College, Baltimore, was ateacher: another preceptor, M. Michel Martel, an _émigré_ of 1780, wasproficient in fifteen languages, five of which he had imparted to thelovely and talented Theodosia Burr. Aaron Burr happened to visitWilmington when the man who had trained his daughter's intellect waslying in the almshouse, wrecked and paralytic, with the memory of allhis many tongues gone, except the French. Some benevolent Wilmingtoniansapproached Burr in his behalf, showing the colonel's own letter whichhad introduced him to the town. 

[Illustration: GRACE CHURCH. ]

"I wrote that letter when I _knew_ him, " said the diplomatic ColonelBurr, "but I know him no more. "

The day quickly came when Burr's speech of denial was reflected uponhimself, and those who then honored him "knew him no more. "

Another French teacher, by the by, was not of Gallic race, but that ofAlbion _le perfide_: this was none other than William Cobbett, with hisreputation all before him, known only to the Wilmington millers for theFrench lessons he gave their daughters and the French grammar he hadpublished. He lived on "Quaker Hill" from 1794 to 1796. He then went toPhiladelphia, and began to publish _Peter Porcupine's Gazette_. "I meanto shoot my quills, " said Cobbett, "wherever I can catch game. " With thesinews of Wilmington money he soon made his way back to England, becamea philosopher, and sat in the House of Commons. Another British exilewas Archibald Hamilton Rowan, an Irish patriot, and one of the "UnitedIrishmen" of 1797. Escaping from a Dublin jail in woman's clothes, hefound his way to Wilmington after adventures like those of Boucicault'sheroes; lived here several years in garrets and cottages, carryingfascination and laughter wherever he went among his staid neighbors; andafter some years flew back to Ireland, glorious as a phoenix, resumingthe habits proper to his income of thirty thousand pounds a year. 

[Illustration: WEST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. ]

A familiar figure on the wharves of Wilmington was the gigantic one ofCaptain Paul Cuffee, looking like a character in a masquerade. Hisathletic limbs forced into the narrow garments of the Quakers, and abrim of superior development shading his dark negro face, he talkedsea-lingo among the trading captains, mixed with phrases from RobertBarclay and gutturals picked up on the coast of Sierra Leone. CaptainCuffee owned several vessels, manned by sailors as black as shoemaker'swax, and he conducted one of his ships habitually to the African ports. Coming back rich from Africa, this figure of darkness has often led itscrew of shadows into port at the Brandywine mouth, passing modestlyamongst the whalers and wheat-shallops, dim as the Flying Dutchman andmum as Friends' meeting. It is possible that from some visit of hisarose the legend that Blackbeard, the terrible pirate, who always hidhis booty on the margins of streams, had used the Brandywine for thispurpose. At any rate, some clairvoyants, in their dreams, saw in 1812the glittering pots of Blackbeard's gold lying beneath the rocks ofHarvey's waste-land, next to Vincent Gilpin's mill. They paid fortythousand dollars for a small tract, and searched and found nothing; butJob Harvey hugged his purchase money. 

[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. ]

Latrobe the architect lived here in the first quarter of the century, midway between Philadelphia (where he was building waterworks and banks)and Washington (where he was seating a young nation in legislative hallsworthy of its greatness); using Wilmington meanwhile as a pleasantretirement, where he could wear his thinking-cap, educate his beautifulyoung daughter, and mix with the French and other cultured society ofthe place. Here, too, about fifty years ago, a pretty French girl usedto play and eat peaches, maintained by funds mysteriously supplied fromLouisiana, and ignorant of all connections except a peculating guardian. It was little Myra Clark (now Mrs. Gaines), who woke up one day to findherself the heroine of the greatest of modern lawsuits, and the creditedpossessor of a large part of New Orleans--the same who has recentlygained a million, while she expects to gain a million more, and to bericher than Lady Burdett-Coutts. 

Thus has the pretty city ever played its part as a storing-house wherethings and people and ideas might be set by to ripen. It is notwonderful that it now and then found itself, quite unintentionally, amuseum, where the far-brought rarities were living souls. In a heavenlyclimate, just where the winged songsters of the South held tryst withthose of the North, and where the plants of both latitudes embowered thegardens together, Nature arranged a new garden wherein were broughttogether almost all the races that had diverged from Babel. 

The antiquities we have been examining, however, yield in age to thevenerable walls which were built to shelter a worship no longerpromulgated among us. The Swedes' churches of Philadelphia andWilmington are among the oldest civilized fabrics to be found in thisnew country of ours. That of Wilmington was built in 1698, and that atWicaco in Philadelphia in 1700. Rudman, a missionary from Sweden, preached the first sermon to the Wilmingtonians in May, 1699; and afterhim a succession of Swedish apostles arrived, trembling at their owncourage, and feeling as our preachers would do if assigned to posts inNova Zembla or Patagonia. The salary offered was a hundred rixdollars, with house and glebe, and the creed was the Lutheran doctrines accordingto "the Augsburg Confession of Faith, free from all human superstitionand tradition. " Dutch ministers alternated peaceably with the Swedishones, who bore such Latinized names as Torkillus, Lokenius, Fabricius, Hesselius, Acrelius. The last wrote in his own language an excellenthistory of the Swedish settlements on the Delaware, only a part of whichhas been rendered into English by the New York Historical Society. William Penn proved his tolerance by giving the little church a folioBible and a shelf of pious books, together with a bill of fifty poundssterling. The building was planted half a mile away from the then city, in the village of Christinaham. Its site was on the banks of theChristine, and its congregation, in the comparative absence of roads, came in boats or sleighs, according to the season. The church was wellbuilt of hard gray stone, with fir pews and a cedar roof: iron lettersfixed in the walls spelled out such holy mottoes as "LUX L. I. TENEBR. ORIENS EX ALTO, " and "SI DE. PRO NOBIS QUIS CONTRA NOS, " andcommemorated side by side the names of William III. , king of England, William Penn, proprietary, and Charles XI. Of Sweden. Swedish serviceswere continued up to about the epoch of the Revolution, when, thelanguage being no longer intelligible in the colony, they were mergedinto English ones: the last Swedish commissary, Girelius, returned byorder of the archbishop in 1786, and the intercourse between theAmerican Swedish churches and the ecclesiastical see in the fatherlandceased for ever. The oldest headstone in the churchyard is that ofWilliam Vandevere, who died in 1719. Service was long celebrated bymeans of the chalice and plate sent over by the Swedish copper-miners toBiorch, the first missionary at Cranehook, and the Bible given by QueenAnne in 1712. The sexes sat separately. In our grandfathers' day the oldsanctuary used to be dressed for Christmas by the sexton, Peter Davis:he was a Hessian deserter, with a powder-marked face and murderoushabits toward the English language. Descending from their sledges andjumpers, the congregation would crowd toward the bed of coals raked outin the middle of the brick floor from the old cannon stove: to do thisthey must brush by the cedars which "Old Powderproof" had covered withflour, in imitation of snow; and then Dutch Peter, as they complimentedhim on his efforts, would whisper the astonishing invocation, "God betankful for all dish plessins and tings!"

[Illustration: CAR-BUILDING WORKS. ]

[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF JOB JACKSON, ESQ. ]

Modern improvement has a particular spite against the landmarks ofantiquity. The railroad to Baltimore slices off a part of the Swedishgraveyard--an institution much more ancient than the church which standson it. And the rock by old Fort Christina, upon which GovernorStuyvesant--Irving's Stuyvesant--stood on his silver leg and took thesurrender of the Swedish governor-general, is now quarried out andreconstructed into Delaware Breakwater. 

Doubtless we dwell too fondly on the old memories, but it appears thatthe souvenirs of this region are somewhat remarkable for their contrastof nationalities. Perhaps the colonization of other spots would yieldbetter romances than any we have to offer; yet we cannot help feelingthat a better pen than ours would find brilliant matter for literaryeffects in the paradise revealed to good Elizabeth Shipley by herdream-guide. 

Delawarean Wilmington is perhaps hardly known to the general publicexcept through two of its products. Everybody buys Wilmington matches, and everybody knows that Du Pont's powder is made in the vicinity. Ignoring the foundries and shipyards, the popular imagination recognizesbut these two commodities--the powder which could blow up theobstructions to all the American harbors, and the match which couldtouch off the train. A million dollars' worth of gunpowder and threehundred thousand dollars' worth of matches are the annual product. 

[Illustration: CAR-WHEEL CASTING WORKS. ]

Eleuthère Irenée Du Pont, a French gentleman of honorable family, appeared in Wilmington in 1802. The town had at that time hardly threethousand inhabitants. He amazed all the quidnuncs by buying, for fiftythousand dollars, Rumford Dawes' old tract of rocks on the Brandywine, which everybody knew was perfectly useless. The stranger was pitied ashe began to blast away the stone. Out of a single rock, separated intofragments, he built a cottage: it was a lonely spot, and the snakes fromthe fissures were in the habit of sharing the contents of hiswell-bucket. Such was the beginning of the Eleuthère Powder-works. M. DuPont, who died some forty years ago, was much beloved for hisbenevolence and probity. In 1825, La Fayette, during his celebratedvisit of reminiscence, was the guest of the brave old Frenchman forseveral days, during which he examined the battle-ground of Brandywine. He here received the ball with which he got his wound in that battle, from the hands of Bell McClosky, a kind of camp-follower and nurse, whohad extracted the bullet with her scissors and preserved it. Thegeneral wrote in the album of Mademoiselle Du Pont the followinggraceful sentiment:

 "After having seen, nearly half a century ago, the bank of the Brandywine a scene of bloody fighting, I am happy now to find it the seat of industry, beauty and mutual friendship. 

 "LA FAYETTE. 

 "JULY 25, 1825. "

While on a Revolutionary topic we may mention that among a great manyrelics of '76 preserved in the town is the sword of General Wayne--"MadAnthony"--a straight, light blade in leather scabbard, possessed by Mr. W. H. Naff. 

[Illustration: JESSUP & MOORE'S PAPER-MILLS. ]

The citizens of this pleasant town have ever been orderly and pious, just as they have ever been loyal. Their religious institutions havegrown and flourished. Godfearing and unspeculative, they have attachedthemselves to such creeds as appealed most powerfully to the heart withthe least possible admixture of form. "The words _Fear God_" saysJoubert, "have made many men pious: proofs of the existence of God havemade many men atheists. " Since the day when Whitefield poured out hiseloquence among the Brandywine valleys and touched the hearts of theFrench exiles, Methodism, with its almost entire absence of dogma, hashad great success in the community. This success is now indicated by arich congregation, and a church-building that would be called noble inany city. Grace Church, on Ninth and West streets, is a large Gothictemple, seating nearly eight hundred persons--warmed, frescoed andheavily carpeted inside, and walled externally with brownstone mixedwith the delicate pea-green serpentine of Chadd's Ford. The architectwas a native Wilmingtonian--Thomas Dixon--now of Baltimore. The windows, including a very brilliant oriel, are finely stained: the font is adelicate piece of carving, the organ is grand, and the accommodationsfor Sunday-schools and lectures are of singular perfection. Few shrinesin this country show better the modern movement of Methodism towardluxury and elegance, as compared with the repellant humiliations ofWesley's day. 

It is to be hoped that this advance in attractiveness does not indicateany lapse in the more solid qualities of spiritual earnestness. "Whenever this altar, " well said Bishop Simpson in dedicatingthe building on the centenary anniversary of the rise ofMethodism--"whenever this altar shall be too fine for the poorestpenitent sinner to kneel here, the Spirit of God will depart, and thatof Ichabod will come in. "

We have indicated the Swedish Lutheran missionaries exhorting under theroof of their antique church in a language which their congregationswere beginning to forget, and afterward in a broken English hardly moreintelligible. Their place is largely taken now by predicators of thefaith of John Knox, with a plentiful following of pious believers. Amongthe family of Presbyterian kirks in Wilmington the youngest is a largebrick edifice built in 1871, for sixty-one thousand dollars, on Eighthand Washington streets, able to seat nearly a thousand persons, mostcomfortably and invitingly furnished, and supplied with lecture-, infant- and Sunday-school-rooms, together with a huge kitchen, suggesting the _agapæ_ or love-feasts of the primitive Christians. Meantime, Anglicanism does not lack supporters. The descendants ofMonsieur Du Pont, cultured and influential, have done much to advancethe creed, and about fifteen years ago Mr. Alexis I. Du Pont, pullingdown a low tavern in the suburbs, prepared to erect a church upon thesite, to be built mainly through his own liberality. Unhappily, Mr. DuPont died from the effects of an explosion at the powder-works ten weeksafter the laying of the corner-stone; but the building was sooncompleted through the pious munificence of his widow, and the Bible ofSt. John's Protestant Episcopal Church now rests on its lectern upon thesite of the old liquor-bar, and the gambling-den of former days isreplaced by its pews. The rector is Mr. T. Gardiner Littell, a man ofeminent goodness and intelligence. St. John's has a beautiful open roof, stained windows and a fine organ: it can offer seats to seven hundredworshipers. 

[Illustration: "AT THE SIGN OF SHAKESPEARE. "]

These few specimen churches--and especially the last, which blots out agrogshop--are good instances, with the large congregations theyaccommodate, of the way in which a sane, flourishing manufacturingcommunity provides for the spiritual needs of its members. The tone andmoral well-being which Boz found, or thought he found, among theoperatives at Lowell are largely realized here. But our picture ofWilmington as a hive of industry is not yet complete, and before weenter upon the highly-interesting problem of its dealings with itsworking family, we should enter a few more of its sample manufactories. 

[Illustration: OFFICE OF THE DAILY COMMERCIAL. ]

Take car-building, for an example, in which the reputation of this townis known to the initiated of all the States and many foreign countries. Travelers are at this moment spinning in Wilmington-maderailway-carriages over the extremest parts of North and South America, admiring, through Wilmington-made windows, every possible variety ofwinter and tropical scenery, on which they comment in English, German, French, Spanish and all civilized languages. Such a migratory product asa rail-car is an active messenger of fame for the place of itsfabrication. We examine, as a fair type, the Jackson and Sharp Company'sworks, claimed to be the largest in the New World, and only exceeded bya few British and Continental establishments. The buildings havefrontage upon the Brandywine and Christine streams, as well as on theprincipal railroad. Here are a congeries of two-story buildings, whichare together fifteen hundred feet in length by a width of seventy feet. Five miles of heating-pipes warm the rooms for a thousand workmen. Thereis something logical and consecutive in the arrangement here, whichmakes it the best spot on the face of the earth for an enthusiast whoshould wish to demonstrate, what all loyal Americans believe in, thevast superiority of our form of railway-carriage. The cars proceed, inperfectly regular order, from raw material to completion with theprogressive march of a quadratic equation in algebra. They seem to bearranged to demonstrate a theory. First the visitor sees lumber instock, a million feet of it; then, across one end of a long room, themere sketch or transparent diagram of a car; then, a car broadly filledin; and so on, up to the last glorious result, upholstered with velvetand smelling of varnish. The cars are on rails, upon which they move, side on, as if by a principle of growth, the undeveloped onesperpetually pushing up their more forward predecessors, until the lastperfect carriage is ejected from the fifteen-hundredth foot of thebuilding's length. Each one, gathering material and ornament as it rollssteadily along in its crablike side-fashion, becomes at last a vehicleof perfect luxury; and then, with one final plunge into the open air, itleaves its diversely-destined neighbors, and changes for ever itssidelong motion for the forward roll which will carry it through a longexistence. A very large proportion of this company's work is on "palace"cars of the Pullman type, those extravagances of luxury of which Europeis just now applying to Wilmington to learn the lesson. Narrow-gaugecars for the West, in supplying which they are the pioneers, gaudy carsfor South America, and sturdy, solid ones for Canada, are all gentlyriding forward, side to side, in this inexorable chain of destiny, anddiverging at the front door on their widely-different errands. Besidesthe manufacture of cars, the company builds every sort of coasters andsteamers. The class of workmen it employs is often of a particularlyhigh grade. German painters quote Kotzebue and sing the songs of Uhlandas they weave their graceful harmonies of line and color over thepanels; and the sculptors who carve antique heads over the doorways ofpalace cars make the place merry with studio jokes from the BerlinAcademy. It is evident that a community of artists like this, furnishingthe æsthetic department to an immense manufactory, will also elevate thetone of the industrial society outside, if they can but be kept freefrom vice and supplied with means of culture; more of which anon. Meantime, as a kind of standard of what the manufacturers themselvesarrive at in prosecuting the amenities of life, we will quote the fineresidence of Mr. Job Jackson, a magnate of the company. 

The wheel on which the car is mounted is of course another specialty, turned off in another manufactory. We leave the rooms where the workgoes on with easy smoothness like a demonstration in a lecture-hall, andcome to raging, roaring, deafening furnaces and hammers. Thehollow-chested artists give way to cyclops. Here we are in the LobdellCar-wheel Company's premises. Negligently leaning up against each other, like wafers in the tray of an ink-stand, are wheels that will presentlywhiz over the landscapes of Russia, of Mexico, of England; wheels thatwill behave rashly and heat their axles; wheels that will lie turned upin the air at the bottoms of viaducts; and wheels that in various wayswill see astonishing adventures, because in railway-transit there aretelescopings and wheels within wheels. The English and the foreign tradeof the Lobdell Company is due to its manufacture of wheels in thematerial or process lately known as chilled iron. This manufacture hasnot yet penetrated the British intellect. Take the foreman of an Englishcar-manufactory, tell him that you will supply him a wheel about asdurable as a wheel with a steel tire at less than half the cost, and hewill laugh at you for an impudent idiot. But they _use_ our wheels. The"chilling" of iron, when poured into a mould partly iron-faced, is verysingular: as the melted metal hardens against the metallic boundary, itsgranulation changes to a certain depth, and the outside becomesexcessively strong: species of crystals seem to form, presenting theirends to the surface, and meeting the wear and tear there to beexperienced. The use of this fact secures, in many manufactures, ahardness approaching that of steel, without increase of cost. Thiscompany employs the process both for car-wheels and for the largecylinders (or "rolls") used in paper-mills. It is not to be supposedthat the work is all rude and rough, like ordinary iron casting. Thepolishing of the large cylinders almost suggests diamond-cutting, it isso fine. So true is the finish that a pair of these broad rolls, perhapsfive feet across, may be approached so near each other that the lightshowing between them is decomposed: a blade of blue or violet light, inexpressibly thin and of the width of the cylinders, passes through theentire distance. As for the "chilling" of iron, it was applied first towheels in Baltimore, in 1833, by Mr. Ross Winans; and then, during thesame year, Mr. Bonney and his nephew, George G. Lobdell, established thebusiness we see, which has gradually grown to its present capacity ofthree hundred wheels per day. 

[Illustration: FOUNTAIN. ]

[Illustration: "IN MEMORY OF THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS OF DELAWARE WHOFELL IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE UNION. "]

The use of such cylinders as we have just seen under the difficultprocess of polishing is only understood when we explore some largepaper-mill, where they take the place of the old-fashioned frame of wiregauze which produced the hand-made paper. We may select the splendidworks of Messrs. Jessup & Moore on the Brandywine. Our welcome is sureto be a cordial one, for among the largest customers of the firm are thepublishers of _Lippincott's Magazine_. The process of paper-making bythe Fourdrinier machine was so fully explained in our Number for lastNovember that it is useless now to repeat the details. But it wouldnever do to leave the Brandywine without a glance at least at one of itsprincipal manufactures. The mill of Jessup & Moore uses the strength ofthe torrent as an auxiliary to its steam-power of seven hundred andfifty horses. The machinery is made by Pusey, Jones & Co. , whose ironships and machine-shops we have already examined: the rolls of admirableaccuracy are from the shops of J. Morton Poole & Co. The paper-makingprocess--the vast revolving boiler of twelve feet by twenty-six; thecountless sacks of filthy rags, that have clothed peasants of the BlackForest, beggars on the steps of St. Peter's and Egyptian fellahs; theirreduction to purity, and hardening from pulp to snowy continuities ofendless, marginless paper, --all this is of rare interest in thewatching, but has been told until the public is satiated. We leave thebanks of the Brandywine and the wharves of Christine, and try to loseourselves in the thickly-built heart of the city. 

Even here the implacable business spirit exhibits itself at every turn. In place of the placid millers and quaint refugees of the last centuryat their doors, we see the shops, the storehouses of manufacturers'supplies, the hotel and the theatre; and, pervading all, the vast throngof artisans, providing such problems of local government and educationas the last century never dreamed of. 

[Illustration: HIGH-SCHOOL. ]

In almost all the industries of the city you are struck by the ancestralaspect of the trades, the continuance of a business from father to son, or the gradual change of firms by the absorption of partners. Boughman, Thomas & Co. , established in a handsome, modern-looking bookstore, represent a business as old as 1793, uninterrupted since the time whenthe founder, James Wilson, hung the sign of Shakespeare at his door. Theyoung girl of the period, who goes to their place from one of the modelseminaries of which Wilmington is so full to buy a little paper forconfidential notes or perhaps a delicate valentine, sees the old brownadvertisement framed against the wall, and behind it, in sign-paintingof her great-grandfather's time, the head of him who wrote _Romeo andJuliet_. 

While in this literary vein we would say a word of the newspapers. These, the true finger-posts of thought in a community, are apt inmanufacturing cities to be conservative and timid, as trade is timid. The very special attitude of Wilmington, however--a Yankee town inperpetual protest with a Bourbon State--has inspired its press withpeculiar political energy. No more vehement Republican organ can befound in the land, for instance, than the Wilmington _Commercial_: it isnot in its columns that you will see ingenious defences of thewhipping-post at Newcastle or of the crushing taxes levied at Dover, whereby a lazy State feeds greedily upon a hard-working metropolis. The_Commercial_ (Jenkins & Atkinson) is a staunch Administration sheet, sound on the subject of industrial protection, and highly appreciated bythe manufacturers. Founded in 1866, it was, we believe, the sole dailyuntil eighteen months ago, when some of the sober-sided weeklies beganto understand that they must bestir themselves and put forth a diurnalappearance. The _Gazette_ (C. P. Johnson), a paper nearly one hundredyears old, now appears daily, and expresses the opinions of the StateAssembly, where the Senate has but a single Republican member, and theHouse of Representatives stands fourteen Democrats to seven Republicans. Here the conservative thought of Kent and Sussex counties is kneaded upinto the requisite coherency and eloquence. _Every Evening_ (Croasdale &Cameron), a smart paper without political bias, flies around the city asthe shadows begin to lengthen, selling at one cent a sheet, and liked byeverybody. 

[Illustration: HOUSE OF COLONEL HENRY McCOMB. ]

To be candid, however, we do not suspect that this unique old citythinks through its newspapers. The circumstances here are so peculiar, the neighborhood so close, activity so concentrated, and thecircumjacent neighborhood so little congenial, that an order of thingshas been established unusual in modern times. Mind acts on mind bypersonal contact; the strong men meet and support each other; the Boardof Trade assembles daily in beautiful rooms, and discusses everyinterest as quickly as it arises. It is like the order of things of old, ere the press and telegraph undertook to express our views before we hadformed them ourselves. We are reminded of the guilds of labor in ancientFlanders or the _fondachi_ of Venice. The State of Delaware, meanwhile, comes up and looks in at the windows, only half satisfied with the rapidfortunes making by the civic trades. What the Delaware yeomen know is, that they have broad acres of sunny land, on which they are perpetuallywanting advances of money. They therefore instruct their legislators tofix a legal rate of interest, and to fix it low. The abuse whichnaturally follows on this blind policy is, that the wealth created bythe splendid industries of Wilmington is constantly leaving the State toseek investment where usury is not kept down by old-fashionedlegislation. Richard Burton, the Anatomist of Melancholy, saw a somewhatsimilar state of things among the unproductive and ale-tippling scholarswith whom he lived at Oxford, but he was keen enough to feel an envy ofthe livelier marts of commerce. "How many goodly cities could I reckonup, " says Burton, "that thrive wholly by trade, where thousands ofinhabitants live singular well by their fingers' ends! As Florence inItaly by making cloth of gold; great Milan by silk and all curiousworks; Arras in Artois by those fair hangings; many cities in Spain, many in France, Germany, have none other maintenance, especially thosewithin the land.... In most of _our_ cities" (continues the mortifiedEnglishman), "some few excepted, we live wholly by tippling-inns andale-houses. "

[Illustration: CLAYTON HOUSE. ]

The average Delawarean of 1873 is the average Oxford gossip of 1620, with the scholarship left out. But he has the unfortunate advantage formischief that he is in a position to enact laws over the producers of"all curious works. " These anomalies, however, must soon pass away withthe march of the age, leaving Wilmington less individual perhaps, butmore free. 

[Illustration: OPERA-HOUSE AND MASONIC HALL. ]

How deftly, by the by, Burton picks up the distinction between an inlandcity, living by handicraft, and a port city, handling weighty materialsand feeding freely on commerce! His livers by their finger-ends areespecially "those within the land. " Just so the great capital of France, arbitrarily concentred amongst her provinces, and deprived of a port, can only thrive by her exceptional genius in fine and easily-moved_articles de Paris_. The site now under our consideration, however, means to have no such one-sided success. If her horoscope be not castamiss, this American Glasgow will both make whatever human ingenuity canmake, and she will also distribute. One of the first things she intendsto do is to tap the stream of food, fuel and lumber destined for theSouth, and now laid up in the winter in Philadelphia by the closing ofthe Delaware, and send it to the Southern consumer by her cheapwater-transport. Connected with this enterprise will be themultiplication of her steam colliers, ultimately scattering the crop ofbreadstuffs to the South Atlantic and Gulf States (if not the Eastern), and coming home with ballast of the varied iron ores those States aboundin. When Delaware Bay begins to be whitened with the sails of returningcoal-vessels, or lashed with the wheels of steam carriers, bringing inthe oxides and magnetite ores of North Carolina and the hematite andother varieties of the extreme South, to mix with the rail-brought oresof interior localities, then Wilmington proposes to be the chosen centreof industry in cast iron. This production, it is now well understood, isno longer carried on most advantageously in the neighborhood of any onegreat natural deposit of ore. The important thing is to be at a meetingof all varieties of the metal: chemistry then selects the proportionsfor mixture, and the best stock is produced with scarcely any greaterexpense than the lowest grade. The situation at the head of Delaware Bayis one where every choice of the ores can be easily swept together byrail or water. It also controls fuel, by both means of carriage, fromeither of the great anthracite regions--a matter of special importancein this time of "strikes, " as the operatives of both districts rarelythrow up work at the same time. Wilmington thus proposes to obtain itsiron at three dollars per ton less than Pittsburg. 

[Illustration: PARLOR-MATCH FACTORY. ]

To properly digest these advantages, the city needs a large furnace, centrally located, to work for all the foundries and forges of theplace. This construction is now being earnestly advocated, and willdoubtless soon take form. 

Thus we see the northernmost of the slave-State cities leaping up tocatch first the advantages of perfect commercial union under the newregime. Affiliated with the South, inspired by the North, we shouldwatch her as a standard and a type. 

Meantime, her labor problem, as a city crammed with proletarians, shemeets with consummate tranquillity. The paternal relations between thegood old Brandywine millers and their journeymen are continued throughthe immense operations of the present day. A singular harmony has thusfar subsisted between employers and employed: the prosperity and calmwhich travelers used to praise among the operatives of New England millsare perhaps now best seen here. To this result both Nature and mancontribute. The country round about is so bounteous, is such a garden, that the pay of the workman represents a far higher grade of social lifethan anywhere else in manufacturing regions. Rents so far are low, but abeneficent system is in active operation amongst the working-classeswhich helps a man to own his own house, and avoid the teasing periodicaldrain of rent. 

This is the associative system, here in faultless operation, by whichthe fragments of a large piece of ground are paid for by degrees andcleared of all incumbrance in eight or nine years by the profit on thecontributed moneys. This plan is assisted by the best men in the town, who participate in the associations, receive themselves a reasonableprofit, and supply the credit and advantages necessary for the safetyof wholesale enterprises. They have thus far worked with their workmenfor the latter's profit, with perfect honor and without a stain ofscandal. The great advantage, after all, is to themselves; for a workmanowning his own home, accumulating comforts and a family, is indissolublytied to the city and its peaceful order. 

Various plans for the improvement of the workmen are afoot, including a"Holly-Tree Inn" for the supply of harmless refreshment and eveningrelaxation, the ground for which is bought and a stock-company forming. A public park, for which a beautiful stretch of the Brandywine, on Adamsstreet and north of Levering Avenue, is recommended, is already engagingthe attention of the citizens as a necessary provision. A "fountainsociety" is in active operation, offering cool, wholesome drink to thethirsty workman and the tired beast: the principal of itsfountain-structures forms a memorial monument to a young gentleman whohad distinguished himself by his liberality in preparing scientificlectures for the free entertainment of the working public. Shut up inthe public hall among the materials of his lecture, he was found deadfrom the result of some solitary experiment--slain by his own kindness. A rich monument to the soldiers and sailors slain in the civil war wasunveiled in 1871: it is formed of a pillar from the old United StatesBank, surmounted by an eagle cast from captured cannon. 

But the best thing a manufacturing town can do for her workman is toeducate his children. During the old aristocratic days of Wilmington shewas satisfied with the reputation of her private tutors and of her youngladies' seminaries, where "sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair"cultivated cheeks like the surrounding peaches, while they learnedShakespeare, musical glasses and the use of the globes. It was not until1852 that the Delaware Legislature chartered a board of education forthe town. In these twenty years fifteen schools have been put up, withfive thousand attenders. Schoolhouse No. 1, shown in the illustration, accommodates four hundred and thirty-six pupils, and furnishes aneducation, in the words of the late Bishop Potter, "good enough for therichest and cheap enough for the poorest. "

The choice streets of the city are filling up with tasteful residences. As a specimen we present the house of Colonel McComb, an old favorite ofWilmington, where his familiar appellation of "Harry McComb" is as oftenuttered day by day as it was at Washington during the exposure by itsowner of Congressional honesty and piety--or magpiety. 

A hotel of the first class has been erected, and baptized with thecommemorative name of the Clayton House. It has one hundred and fivechambers and every improvement. A very characteristic fact, showing thespirit of integrity and goodness which here travels hand in hand withmodern enterprise, is that the owners sacrificed full _three-quarters_of the rent they could have obtained, in order to keep it pledged as atemperance house. Another elegant building has been put up by theMasonic fraternity for their own purposes and those of the Board ofTrade, etc. , including a handsome opera-house on the ground floor. Theauditorium is praised for its acoustic properties by Parepa-Rosa, Wallack, Davenport and other performers, seats about fifteen hundred, and is furnished with the inevitable drop-curtain by Russell Smith. Faced with iron painted white, and very rich in mouldings and ornaments, the building presents as cheery a front to enter as any similar place ofattraction known to the American tourist. The Masonic rooms above, andthose of the Board of Trade, Historical Society, etc. , are provided withevery beauty and comfort. 

Here are the indications of a prospering, laboring, thinking, virtuouscity of the New World. We have tried to sketch it both as a city with apast and a city with a future. Could we have selected one forillustration that would be a better or sharper concentration of all thatis good in American life?

MARIE FAMETTE AND HER LOVERS. 

I. 

Marie Famette is the prettiest girl in the market-place of Aubette. Hereyes are of such a sweet, soft blue, deeply shaded by long black lashes:her eyebrows are not black, but they are of a much darker tint than herhair, which (so much of it as can be seen under her full whitecap-border) is a golden yellow. But it is not her eyes and her hair thatmake Marie so attractive: she has charmed young and old alike ever sinceshe came, a toddling damsel of two years, and took her place beside hermother in the market-place of Aubette. 

Madame Famette's was the best fruit-stall of the market. No one elsecould show such baskets of peaches and hampers of pears; and as to thecitrouilles and potirons, their reputation was so established that byten o'clock there was little to be seen of them among the glowingvegetables which decked the stall. Such radishes were not to be seenelsewhere--white and purple, as thick as carrots; and the carrotsthemselves like lumps of red gold, lying nestling beneath theirfeathered tops or setting off the creamy whiteness of the cauliflowersranged in a formal row in front of them. 

But Marie had always eclipsed all other beauty in the stall, and nowthat she had grown too big to be patted on the cheek and kissed bygrown-up admirers, she had a host of victims in the sturdy youngcountrymen who came in to Aubette--either to bring mothers and sisterswith their produce or to purchase for themselves. 

Madame Famette has weak health, and lately Marie comes often to themarket by herself, and is able to flirt to her heart's content, unchecked by her mother's presence. She is so bright, so arch, so readywith a sparkling answer, that it is no wonder her stall is alwaysthronged and that her fruit and her vegetables disappear so rapidly. 

There is an extra buzz in the market to-day. It is September, the epochof the Mascaret, for the dreaded flood-tide seldom visits the Seine morethan twice a year, and always draws dwellers in the neighboring towns tosee its autumn fury. There is an influx of strange faces in the littleplace beneath the richly-sculptured spire of Notre Dame--the cathedralof Aubette, as strangers call it, although it is only the parish churchof the quaint little town--and a certain extra excitement iscommunicated to the settlers under the canvas-covered booths and to thehumbler sellers of wares in baskets. Mademoiselle Lesage, a short, plumpyoung woman dressed in black, flits in and out of the chattering crowdmore busily than usual. Mademoiselle holds herself of a rank above thecountry-folk who bring in their poultry and garden produce to Aubette. In token of this she wears a round black mushroom-shaped hat, and aholland apron with two deep pockets in virtue of her office; forMademoiselle Lesage has an enterprising spirit. She found herself atthirty years old left alone in the world with an ugly face and with aninsufficient "dot. " Mademoiselle Lesage is ambitious: she does not careto marry a very poor man, and she has managed to give the town councilof Aubette such security that it allows her to farm the market yearlyfor some hundreds of francs. Watch her collecting her dues. She goesrapidly from stall to stall, jingling her pockets, laughing and chattingwith the farmers' wives, all the time keeping a hawk's eye on thebasket-carriers, not one of whom may presume to sell so much as an onionwithout the weekly toll of one sou. She darts in and out among them, andher pockets swell out in front as if they were stuffed with apples. 

She has left Marie Famette's stall till the last. She crosses over to itnow as quickly as she can go, but there is no means of darting in andout here, as there was just now among the basket-women. Old FlorisMarceau has covered a good-sized space with his heap of green and yellowmelons, and he stands behind these marchandéing, gesticulating, brandishing the knife with which he slices his citrouilles andinveighing against the folly of his customers. "Will mam'selle believe, "he says, addressing her as she approaches, and wiping his knife on hisoften-patched blouse, "they come to buy fruit of a respectablevegetable-seller and they don't know the price of a melon? Ten sous fora cantaloupe like that!" His blue eyes gleamed furiously under hisfrowning gray eyebrows. "Ten sous! I told them to be off and buychickens. " He broke into a laugh, and pointed to a tall, bent oldgentleman, who seemed covered with confusion at this public rebuke, andsidled his way out of the throng without attempting an answer. 

"Buy a turkey, m'sieur?" A smiling, dark-eyed woman in a close-settingwhite cap went on with the joke and pointed to her basket, but the oldgentleman had had enough: he hurried away with a rueful glance at thebasket in which, divided only by the handle, sat two fat turkey poultsand two chickens. One of the turkeys stirred and got a wing free, but itwas remorselessly tucked in again and reduced to passive endurance, with"Keep quiet then, ne soyez pas bête. "

Mademoiselle Lesage approaches Marie's stall at a leisurely pace: shewishes to see her ground before she speaks. By the extra sweetness ofher smile one might suppose that mademoiselle loved the gay littlebeauty: "Bonjour, Marie. Madame Famette trusts you alone again, I see?"

Marie does exactly that which Mademoiselle Lesage intended to make herdo: she starts violently and she looks annoyed. 

Elise Lesage glances quickly from Marie to the two young men who standbeside her. One of these, tall, well-dressed, with a Jewish face, and asparkling pin in his brilliant blue scarf, is Alphonse Poiseau, the sonof Monsieur Poiseau of the large clockmaker's and jeweler's shop at thecorner of the place next the church: the other is Nicolas Marais, ahandsome, gypsy-looking fellow with no decided occupation. He issometimes at work on his uncle's farm at Vatteville, and when he fallsout with his uncle and tires of Vatteville he comes across the Seine andgets employed by Léon Roussel, the chief timber-merchant of Aubette. 

People say that old Marais, the miser of Vatteville, means to makeNicolas his heir; but Nicolas takes no pains to please the old man: hegoes here and there at his pleasure, a favorite wherever he shows hishandsome dark eyes and his saucy smile. The men like him as much as thewomen do, he has such a ready, amusing tongue, and he never says aspiteful word; so that more than one of the keen, observantpoultry-sellers standing beside their baskets near Marie's stall havecommented on the scowl with which for full five minutes Léon Roussel hasregarded Nicolas. Léon Roussel is a middle-sized, in no wayremarkable-looking person, with honest brown eyes and a square, sensibleface. His father, the wealthy timber-merchant on the Yvetôt road, diedwhen he was a boy, and Léon is one of the most prosperous citizens ofAubette, and well thought of by all. Léon is ostensibly in consultationwith Monsieur Houlard, tailor and town councillor, but as he stands atthe worthy's shop-door he is raised above the level of the place, and isexactly opposite the stall of Marie Famette. 

"Nicolas is out of favor with Monsieur Roussel: he has worked badly inthe lumber-yard, " says La Mère Robillard. 

"Chut! chut!" says her gossip, Madelaine Manget, and she gives at thesame time a pat to a refractory chicken. "Nicolas looks too hard atMarie Famette. Ma foi! there are men in the manger as well as dogs. IfMonsieur Léon wants Marie to be for his eyes only, why does he not askfor her and marry her, the proud simpleton?"

"Ah, but look you, Madelaine, Léon is not proud: he never turns a poorman from his door without a morsel to quiet hunger, and he must beclever or his business would not prosper. "

La Mère Manget shrugs her shoulders. "Will you then not buy turkeys ateleven francs the couple, ma belle dame?" she cries shrilly to apasser-by. 

While Marie Famette recovers herself, Nicolas answers Mam'selle Lesage. "Pardon, Mam'selle Lesage, but Mam'selle Marie is not alone, " he says, raising his hat with exquisite politeness--Alphonse Poiseau tries tofollow suit, but his bow is stiff and pompous--"the whole market is herbody-guard, and she permits Monsieur Poiseau and myself to act assentinels. " He throws an insinuating glance at Marie, which deepens thegloom on Léon Roussel's face. 

Elise Lesage has taken in the whole situation, and she knows exactlywhere to look for the timber-merchant. An uneasy consciousness makesMarie follow her glance: she looks red and confused when she sees Léon'sstern, disapproving face. His eyes are fixed on her as she looks across, but he withdraws them instantly and turns to Monsieur Houlard. 

Marie bites her pretty red under-lip: she can hardly keep from crying:"If we were alone and he scolded me, I would not mind; but he has noright to frown at me before the whole town. It is enough to compromiseme. It will be said presently that I am a bold girl, while I only amusemyself, and never move a step from my stall to speak to any one. It istoo bad!"

She gulps down a lump in her throat, and gives Nicolas Marais a smilethat makes the clockmaker long to knock his rival's head against thegray buttress of the old church. 

"Sentinels!" Elise Lesage laughs. "Is Marie afraid, then, that some onewill steal her?"

"Marie is afraid of nothing, Mademoiselle Lesage. " The little beauty isglad to be able to vent her vexation on some one. "What right has she tocall me Marie?" she says to Nicolas in a very audible under-tone. 

Mademoiselle's black eyes close till they look like lines: Marie doesnot see her face, but Nicolas Marais shivers, he hardly knows why. 

A restraint has come over the merry trio, and Nicolas abhors restraint. "Tiens!" he says carelessly, "there is a fresh bevy of basket-women, Mam'selle Lesage. "

Elise darts off like a greyhound, and Marie forgets her vexation andlaughs out merrily at Nicolas's ruse: "She is such a busybody!" The girlglances across to see what has become of Léon: he is talking toMademoiselle Lesage. 

Alphonse Poiseau has kept silence, but he has observed. "I should notlike to offend mam'selle, " he says, "her eyes are so like a snake's. "

II. 

Market has come and gone again. Marie Famette was not happy as she wenthome last Saturday, but to-day her heart aches sorely as she goes alongthe dusty road to St. Gertrude. Last Saturday was the first market-daythis year that Léon Roussel has not helped her into her cart and taken afriendly leave of her; but he disappeared before market was over, andto-day he was not there at all. 

"And he might have walked home with me!" Tears are in poor littleMarie's eyes. Léon Roussel has seemed her own special property, and hehas not been to her mother's house for a fortnight. "And if he had beenat market to-day, he would have been content with me: poor Nicolas mustbe ill indeed to stay away from market. Ma foi! I have been dull alone. Elise Lesage was civil, for a wonder: I hope she will give old Marais'snote safely to his nephew. I wonder why she goes to see Nicolas?"

As she says the word a strange foreboding seizes Marie: she cannot tellwhat causes it, but her old dislike to Elise rises up, mingled with akind of fear. "I ought to have given Nicolas the note myself; and yet--"

The road is very long and very dusty to-day: it is never an interestingway out of Aubette, except that being cut on the hillside it is raisedhigh, the little river meandering through the osier meadows on the left, and also commands a fine view of the beautiful old church. But Mariedoes not turn back to look at the church: her heart is too heavy to takeinterest in anything out of herself. She has left the cart behind tobring out crockery and some new chairs which she has purchased for hermother, and she wishes she had stayed in Aubette till her cargo waspacked. All at once a new thought comes, and her eyes brighten. A woodclothes the hilly side of the road, but on the left there is a steepdescent into the valley, and the road is bordered either by scatteredcottages or by an irregular hawthorn hedge. A little way on there is agap in this hedge, and looking down there is a long steep flight ofsteps with wooden edges. At the foot stands a good-sized house dividednow into several cottages. The walls are half-timbered with wood setcrosswise in the plaster between two straight rows. Ladders, iron hoopsand a bird-cage hang against the wall, and over the door is a woodenshelf with scarlet geraniums. There is a desolate garden divided intothree by a criss-cross fence and a hedge, and over the last a hugeorange citrouille has clambered and lies perched on the top. 

Marie knows that Nicolas Marais sometimes lodges in one of the cottages, but she knows too that the property belongs to Léon Roussel, and that helives close by. A blush comes to the girl's cheeks: she may see Léonthere. She stops and looks down: Elise Lesage is coming out of thedoorway, but she is talking over her shoulder to some one behind her. Marie sees her put her fingers into one of the brown holland pockets, pull out a note and give it to her companion. 

Marie draws a deep breath: "How I wronged her! Ever since I gave herthat note I have felt anxious and troubled. She seems so spiteful to methat I feared she might somehow get me into trouble with it, and yet Idon't know how. "

There were footsteps coming along the road, but Marie did not lookround: in the quick revulsion of feeling toward Elise she was eager tomake atonement. She leaned on the hand-rail that went down the steps, waiting for Mademoiselle Lesage: if she had listened she would havenoticed that the footsteps had come nearer and had suddenly ceased. 

Nicolas Marais came forward out of the cottage, and then Elise looked upand saw Marie. She smiled and nodded. "I am coming, " she called up inher rasping voice; and she did seem in high haste to get to MarieFamette, but Marie saw that she looked beyond her at some one orsomething else. The girl looked over her shoulder, and there was LéonRoussel, but he did not care to look at her. His eyes were fixed sternlyon Nicolas Marais, but Nicolas did not seem to care for his employer'sanger: he was smiling rapturously up at Marie, and as she now looked athim he first kissed his hand and then put the note to his lips andkissed it twice. 

Marie grew crimson. Elise, who had just reached the top of the steps, laughed, and Léon Roussel stood an instant pale and defiant, and thenturned back toward Aubette. 

"Stay, stay, Monsieur Léon!" Elise darted after him; then, stoppingsuddenly, she nodded back at Marie: "Stop and talk to Nicolas, monenfant: I will make it all right for you with Monsieur Roussel;" and shehurried on in pursuit. 

But Marie was too angry with Nicolas to give him even a moment: "Howdare he kiss his hand to me? And oh, Léon will think that I wrote thatnote to him, and how can I ever tell him the truth? Will Elise Lesagetell him?"

She had just a faint hope; and then she reproached herself. Why shouldnot Mademoiselle Lesage tell the truth? She was cross and spiteful, butthen, poor thing! she was old and ugly. "And it may be, " Marie thought, "that one is not half thankful enough for one's gifts, and that it isvery irritating to be plain. It is Alphonse Poiseau who has made methink evil of Elise, and one should not cherish evil thoughts. "

Marie went home happier and lighter-hearted: that little glimpse ofLéon had quieted the sore longing at her heart, and at first the joy ofhaving seen him made her dwell less on his stern looks and his avoidanceof herself. 

She came to the broad grassed turning that leads off the main road toSt. Gertrude. A saddled donkey was grazing on one side, and on the otheran old woman sat on a stone post. She jumped up when she saw Marie. Shehad looked tall as she sat: she was as broad as she was long now shestood erect in her dark striped gown and black jacket, and white capwith its plain border and lappets pinned together over her forehead. 

"Well, well, well!" She spoke in a short bustling voice--a voice thatwould have been cheering if it had been less restless. "Hast thou thenseen Léon Roussel, Marie? Hast thou learned the reason of his absence?"

Marie's tender, sweet look vanished: she tossed her pretty head andpouted: "Léon was not at the market, but I saw him as I came home; onlyhe was not close to me, so we did not speak. "

"Didst thou see that vaurien Nicolas?"

"Yes, I saw him. "

Marie blushed, and her mother burst out into angry words: "Foolish, trifling child that thou art! thou lovest that black-eyed gypsy boy; andfor him, the idle vagabond, thou hast flung away the best _parti_ inAubette. Ciel! what do I say? In Bolbec itself there is no one withbetter prospects than Léon Roussel. " Madame Famette always failed inmanaging her daughter. 

Marie smiled and kept down her indignation. "I hardly know that, " shesaid: "old Marais will make Nicolas his heir, and there is no saying howrich a miser is. " She crossed the road, caught the donkey by the bridle, and held him ready for her mother to mount. 

Madame Famette went on grumbling, but Mouton the donkey soon drew heranger on himself; and by the time the three reached the triangle ofgray, half-timbered cottages which surround the old church of St. Gertrude, the easy, sieve-like nature of the woman had recovered fromits vexation. 

"Holà, Jeanne, Jeanne! run there and take Mouton from Mam'selle Marie, who is tired with the market. Come, thou, mon cher, and tell me thenews. " Madame Famette rolled off her donkey, and then rolled on into thehouse. 

III. 

Marie Famette was ill--much too ill to go to market. 

"I will go. Do not vex thyself, my child, and I will see our good doctorand bring thee back a tisane. " The bustling woman, with her blue eyesand light eyelashes, bent down and kissed Marie's forehead, and thendeparted. 

"A tisane!" The bright blue eyes were so dull and languid now, halfclosed by the heavy white eyelids. "I wonder if even Doctor Guéroult iswise enough to cure the heart when it aches like mine? Ah, Léon, I didnot think you could be so hard, so cruel; and how could he know, howcould he see into my heart, while I stood laughing so foolishly withNicolas and Monsieur Poiseau? If Elise Lesage had not teased me aboutLéon, it might have been different, but I could not let her think Icared for him after what she said. " She leaned back her head and criedbitterly. 

Madame Famette was more serious than usual on her way to the market. Matters were getting tangled, she thought. Léon Roussel had begun to bea regular Sunday visitor at the cottage, and now three weeks and morehad gone by and he had not come; and a gossip who had walked home fromchurch with her overnight had told Madame Famette that Mam'selle Lesagewas going to marry a Monsieur Roussel: whether it was Léon or a MonsieurRoussel of some other place than Aubette her gossip could not affirm;and in this uncertainty the mother's heart was troubled. She was veryproud of Marie's beauty and graceful ways, and she had thought it a justtribute when the young timber-merchant had asked her permission to callat the cottage; and now, just when she had been expecting that his aunt, La Mère Thérèse, the superior of the Convent du Sacré Coeur in Aubette, would send for her in order that the demand for her daughter's hand andthe preliminaries of the marriage might be settled, had come first LéonRoussel's strange absence and the visits of Nicolas Marais, and now thegossip about Elise Lesage. 

"I will know the right of it to-day, " Madame Famette thinks, and shelashes out at Mouton in an unusual fashion. 

The first customer at her stall is Madame Houlard, the wife of thetailor and town councillor. "How is Marie?" she says: "the market doesnot seem itself without Marie Famette. "

Madame Famette smiles, but she sighs too: "My poor little girl is ill;"and then her eyes rove round the market, and fix on Mademoiselle Lesagebustling in and out among her clients. "Have you then heard that EliseLesage is to be married?" she says in a low, cautious voice. 

Madame Houlard's flat, good-tempered face grows troubled: "Ah yes, Ihave heard some talk; and listen to that noisy fellow;" then she pointsto Floris Marceau, who is gesticulating and vehement as usual. 

She is surprised to find her arm tightly grasped by the large hand ofthe fruit-seller: "Madame Houlard, tell me the truth: who is to marrywith Elise Lesage?"

Madame Houlard leads a very tranquil life: her husband is the mostplacid man in Aubette, and she has never had any children to disturb thecalm of existence. She is ruffled and shocked by Madame Famette'svehemence. She bridles and releases her plump arm: "Ma foi, my friend!what will you? Gossip comes, and gossip goes. I believe all I hear--thatis but convenable--but then, look you, I am quite as willing to believein the contradiction which so frequently follows. One should neverexcite one's self about anything: be sure of this, my friend, it is badfor the nerves. What is salsify a bundle to-day?"

Madame Famette, as has been said, has a sieve-like nature with regard tothe passing away of wrath, but still her anger is easily roused. "Itwould be simpler to tell me what you have heard, " she says in a verysnappish accent. "When I want a lecture I can get it from monsieur lecuré. "

Madame Houlard had felt unwilling to tell her news, but this aggravatingsentence goaded it out of her mouth: "It is to Monsieur Roussel, thetimber-merchant, that Elise Lesage is to be married: see, he is talkingto her now. " There is a slight tone of satisfaction in Madame Houlard'ssmooth voice, and yet in her heart she is sorry for her friend'sdisappointment. All the market-place of Aubette had given Léon Rousselto the charming Marie. 

"Léon Roussel! Why, she is as old as he is--older; and, ma foi! howugly! and her parents--no one knows where they came from; and she--sheis nothing but a money-grubber. "

The day was tedious to Madame Famette. She tried to speak to Léon, buthe avoided her with a distant bow. There was not even Alphonse Poiseauto help her: only little Pierre Trotin came and carried her baskets tothe donkey-cart. She called at the doctor's house, but she could not seehim. Madame Famette's heart had not been so heavy since her husbanddied. "It is that serpent"--she wiped her eyes on a huge blue-and-yellowpocket handkerchief--"who has done it all; and my poor unsuspectingchild has flirted with Nicolas, and made the way easy. Ciel! what do Iknow? It is possible that Marie loves Nicolas, and is willing to throwherself away on a vaurien with a pair of dark eyes; and the news willnot grieve her as it has grieved me. "

She met her servant Jeanne at the entrance of the road, and gave up thedonkey-cart to her care. Then she went on sorrowfully and silently tofind Marie. The door stood ajar, just as she had left it. She went inmore quietly than usual, but Marie heard her. The girl sat just whereher mother had left her: the loaf of bread lay untouched. It was plainthat Marie had gone without breakfast. Her face was very pale, and hereyes fixed strainingly on her mother, but she did not speak. 

Madame Famette's vexation had made her cross, and Marie's pale faceincreased her trouble: "How naughty thou art then, Marie! I set thee aknife and a plate: thou hadst but to stretch out thy hand. Ciel! but themarket tires!" She cut a slice of bread for her daughter, and then sheseated herself. 

"Mother"--Marie bent forward and shaded her eyes with her hand--"didstthou see Léon Roussel?"

Madame's shoulders went up to her ears in a heave of disgust: "Thoumayest as well know it, Marie: Léon Roussel is promised to Elise Lesage, and they were together in the market. See what thy folly has caused!"

But Marie scarcely heard her mother's reproaches. The blood flew up toher face, and then it left her paler than before. She bent lower--loweryet, until she overbalanced and fell like a crushed lily at her mother'sfeet. 

IV. 

"How is Marie Famette?" Monsieur Houlard the tailor asks of MonsieurGuéroult the doctor of Aubette, as he meets him hurrying through the Ruede la Boucherie. 

"She is better, the poor child! but she must be careful this winter. "Then, seeing Houlard look anxious, the good doctor says, "But she is sofar better that I have discontinued my visits: I have given Marie leaveto come to Aubette. "

"That is good news, " says Houlard as the doctor shoots past him, and thetailor tells the next person he meets that Marie Famette is as well asever, and is coming to market as usual. 

It is Léon Roussel to whom he tells this, and Monsieur Houlard is painedat the young man's want of interest. 

"One would have thought, " he says to his wife when he reaches his shop, "that Roussel was displeased with Marie for recovering her health. "

"Perhaps he thinks she will make a fool of herself, now she is wellagain, by marrying Nicolas Marais: I hear they are lovers. "

"It is a pity, " says the dutiful husband. "Girls should not choose forthemselves. You did not, my dear, and that is why our life has gone soeasily. "

But Marie is not really as strong as the doctor pronounces her to be:her cheeks are hollow, and the color on them is feverish and uncertain. If she could get away from home she would have more chance of mending. Madame Famette's sorrow at her daughter's changed looks expands itselfin querulous remonstrance on the folly of flirting and on thegood-for-nothing qualities of Nicolas Marais. Nicolas has come toinquire for Marie, but Madame Famette has received him so uncourteouslythat the poor fellow contents himself with hovering about on the chanceof meeting Marie alone. But he never sees her, although the rumor growsstrong in St. Gertrude, and is wafted on to Aubette, that Nicolas andMarie will be married as soon as she gets well enough to see aboutwedding-clothes. 

It is the beginning of October, a bright clear morning. The red andyellow leaves come swiftly to the ground with a sudden snap from thetwigs that held them: the rabbits move about briskly, and a couple offield-mice in search of winter stores run across the road nearly underMarie's feet. Marie's cheeks are rosy with the fresh, crisp air, but shedoes not look gay or happy. Life seems to have got into a hard knotwhich the poor little girl finds no power to untie. Market-day used tobe a fête to Marie, but to-day she considers it a penance to be sent into Aubette. She is not going to hold her stall--ah no, she is not nearlystrong enough for such a task--but Madame Famette has a severe attack ofrheumatism, and Jeanne cannot be trusted to buy the weekly provision ofgroceries. Marie shrinks as she goes along at the thought of meetingLéon Roussel. There is another thought, which she will not face--that itis possible Léon and Elise Lesage will be together in the market-place. "I need not go into the Grande Place at all, " the poor child says. "Ican get all I want in the Rue des Bons Enfants;" and she goes there whenshe reaches Aubette. 

But Marie has miscalculated her strength. She grows suddenly so whitethat Monsieur le Blanc, the épicier of the Rue des Bons Enfants, takesher into his daughter's room and makes her lie down on the little sofa. Marie lies there with widely-opened eyes, wondering how she shall getback to St. Gertrude. 

"You are to lie still till Thérèse comes back from market, " the old mansays, "and then she will arrange about your going home. "

Marie lies gazing dreamily at the blue-papered ceiling. "I used to thinkThérèse le Blanc a cross old maid, " she ponders: "shall I be a cross oldmaid too?" And then the pale, stricken girl holds up her thin hand andsighs: "I shall not be old: I shall die soon. Poor mother! she willforgive Nicolas when I am gone away. "

There is a bustle in the shop, but Marie does not heed it. She smileswhen Thérèse comes in, but she is too weak to talk--too weak to make anyobjection when she hears that a farmer who lives some miles beyond St. Gertrude has undertaken to convey her in his huge green-hooded wagon asfar as the cross-road. 

Thérèse stands over her while she eats a piece of bread and drinks aglass of wine, and then the farmer, a stout old Norman in a gray blouse, helps her into the back of the wagon, and makes a resting-place for heron some of the hay still left unsold, under the lofty arched roof. 

V. 

"Get up my friend, get up: you will reach Yvetôt sooner if I give you alift than if you wait. The diligence does not leave Aubette till sixo'clock, remember, and my old horses get over the ground surely if notquickly. "

Marie rouses from a sort of doze, but she cannot see the farmer or thewayfarer to whom he speaks: a pile of new fruit-baskets fills up themiddle of the huge vehicle, and makes a wall between Marie and thedriving-seat. 

"Well, mon gars, it is a long time since I saw you, and the town-gossipof Aubette tells me more of your affairs than you ever condescend toinform your cousin of. Your mother was different, Léon. Dame! I couldnever pass her door after your father died but she would stop my wagonand ask me for just five minutes' counsel. But you young ones are allalike: the world has got a new pivot, it seems, for this generation, andit will move round more easily when we graybeards are all kicked out. "

"I don't think so, for one. " Marie had known she must hear LéonRoussel's voice, and yet her heart throbbed at his first words. "But, mycousin, what is the news that thou hast learned about me in Aubette?"

"Well, the news varies: sometimes I hear thee coupled with one girl, andthen again with another, till I do not know what to think, Léon. I amafraid thou art fickle. "

There was a pause. Marie raised herself on one elbow and listenedbreathlessly: it never came to her mind that she was listening to talknot intended for her ears. 

"Well, man"--the farmer seemed nettled--"why not speak out and say thouart promised to old Lesage's daughter?"

"Because I am not promised to her. "

Marie stifled a sob. It seemed as if her heart could not much longerhold in its agitation, she longed so intensely for the farmer's nextquestion and for Léon's answer. 

"Art thou promised to the beauty of the market, the little Marie?"

There was no pause this time. Léon's words came out rapidly with bitteremphasis: "Marie Famette is going to marry Marais of Vatteville. "

"Marry! Ma foi! I hear the girl is very ill. I forget--there is a sickgirl in the wagon now. "

It seemed to the listener that Léon spoke heedless of the farmer's lastwords: "Once again the town-gossip has deceived you, Michel. I heard aweek ago, and Houlard had just learned it from the Doctor Guéroult, thatMarie Famette is as well and gay as ever. I believe she has come back tothe market. "

No reply. The silence that followed oppressed Marie: a sense ofguilt stole over her. It was not likely that old Michel Roussel knew whoshe was when he helped her into the wagon: she remembered now that Léonhad told her of his rich cousin at Yvetôt; she knew she must get outsoon, and then Léon would see her and know that she had heard him. Shefelt sick with shame. Would it not have been more honest to havebetrayed her presence? It was too late now. "And I could not--I have notthe courage. " Marie crouched closer under the wall of baskets. 

Suddenly, Léon spoke. "Well, Michel, I will get out here, " he said. 

The wagon stopped. Marie heard farewells exchanged, and then on theyjogged again to St. Gertrude. 

Marie's heart was suddenly stilled: its painful throbbing and flutteringhad subsided--it sank like lead. Léon was gone, and she had flung awayher only chance of telling him that Nicolas Marais never had been--nevercould be--more to her than a friend. 

"Oh what a fool I am! I may often see him, but how can I say this? Andjust now the way was open!"

When Farmer Roussel stopped the wagon again, and came round to the backto help Marie out, he found her sobbing bitterly. 

"Here we are at St. Gertrude, but--Ma foi! but this is childish, mabelle, " he said kindly, "to go spoiling your pretty eyes because youfeel ill. Courage! you will soon be well if you eat and drink and keep alight heart. " He helped her down tenderly, and shook both her hands inhis before he let her go. "Well, " he said as he rolled up on to theseat, "I wonder I had not asked for a kiss. She is rarely pretty, poorchild!"

Marie stood still just where she had found her mother seated on thatevening which it seemed to the girl had begun all her misery; but tillnow through all there had been hope--the hope given by disbelief inLéon's engagement to Elise Lesage. Now there was the sad, terriblecertainty that Léon believed her false. Marie knew that though she hadnever pledged faith, still her eyes had shown Léon feelings which noother man had seen in them. For a moment she felt nerved to a kind ofdesperation: she would go and seek Léon, and tell him the truth thatsome one had set on foot this false report of her promise to NicolasMarais. She turned again toward the high-road, and then her heart sank. How could she seek Léon? He did not love her, and if she made thisconfession would it not be a tacit owning of love for himself? Theweight at her heart seemed to burden her limbs: she dragged on towardhome wearily and slowly. 

The road turns suddenly into St. Gertrude, and takes a breathing-spaceat a sharp angle with a breadth of grass, bordered by a clump of nuttrees. Before Marie reached the nut trees she saw Léon Roussel standingbeside them. She stopped, but he had been waiting for her coming: hecame forward to meet her. 

When he saw her face he looked grieved, but he spoke very coldly: "Ihave been to your cottage to inquire for you"--he raised his hat, but hemade no effort to take her hand--"and then I heard you were expectedhome from Aubette. I did not know how ill you had been till to-day, Marie: I had been told you were quite recovered. "

His cold, hard manner wounded her: "Oh, I am better, thank you;" but asshe spoke her sight grew dizzy: she would have fallen if Léon had notcaught her in his arms. She felt that he clasped her closely for aninstant, and then he loosed his hold. 

"Thank you!" She freed herself. "I am better. I will go home now, Monsieur Roussel. "

He took off his hat mechanically, and Marie turned toward St. Gertrude. 

But she did not move: she had no power to go forward. An impulsestronger than her will was holding her. She looked round: Léon had notmoved--he stood with his eyes fixed on the ground. 

"I must tell you something, " she said. Léon started: he had never heardMarie speak in such a humble tone. "I was in the wagon just now, and Ilistened to your talk with Monsieur Michel. " Her cheeks grew crimson. "But, Monsieur Roussel, you are in error about me. Nicolas Marais is myfriend"--Léon's face grew so stern that her eyes drooped and her voicefaltered--"but he will never be more to me. He has always been myfriend. "

Léon came close to her and took her hand: "Marie"--his voice was soharsh and severe that she shrunk from him--"you must tell the truth, andyou must not be angry if I doubt you. My child, did I not see Nicolaskiss the letter you sent him, and look at you as he kissed it?"

"Did Elise Lesage tell you I wrote that letter?" But Marie's fear hadleft her. She smiled up at her lover, once more his own arch, brightMarie: "How dared you believe her, Léon? I have a great mind not to tellyou the truth. "

But Léon Roussel was satisfied, for while she spoke his arm had foldedround her again, and he was much too happy to trouble himself aboutNicolas Marais. 

 * * * * *

Léon and Marie are to be married in November, and Mam'selle Lesage hasbeen so indisposed that for two consecutive Saturdays she has sent adeputy to collect sous in the market of Aubette. 

KATHARINE S. MACQUOID. 

SALMON FISHING IN CANADA. 

Fifty years ago, when the manners and habits of the Americans were verydifferent from what they now are, there lived in Boston two gentlemen sofar in advance of their age as to devote much time to shooting andfishing. These pursuits were denounced by the Puritans and theirdescendants as a sinful waste of time, and there is a letter extant fromone of the early Massachusetts governors, in which he reproaches himselffor indulging in "fowling, " the rather because, as he confesses, hefailed to get any game. These two bold Bostonians were wont to go toScotland for salmon-fishing, having a belief that the salmon of theAmerican rivers were too uncultivated in their taste to rise at a fly. However this may have been in 1820, the salmon of the Dominion areto-day as open to the attractions of a well-tied combination of feathersand pig's-wool, as those of the rivers of Norway or Scotland; and as, under the protection which the Canadian rivers now enjoy, the fish arebecoming plentiful, sport is offered in the numerous streams which flowinto the St. Lawrence, the Bays of Chaleur and Miramichi, and the Gulfof St. Lawrence, probably superior to any now to be found elsewhere. 

Having last year paid a visit to one of these beautiful rivers, Ipropose to give an account of my introduction to the art and mystery ofsalmon-fishing, to the end that other anglers, whose exploits havehitherto been confined to the capture of a pound trout or a four-poundpickerel, may know the joy of feeling the rush of a twenty-pound salmonfresh run from the sea--the most brilliant, active and vigorous of thefinny tribes, the king of the river, using the term in its originalsense--the strongest, the ablest, the most cunning. A late writer onEnglish field-sports says: "I assert that there is no single moment withhorse or gun into which is concentrated such a thrill of hope, fear, expectation and exultation as that of the rise and successful strikingof a heavy salmon. "

And first, let me say something of the system of protection to thesefisheries adopted by the Canadian government, which renders this sportpossible. Finding that under the constant slaughter of salmon and trout, by the Indians with spears and by the whites with nets, the fish werebecoming not only scarce, but in danger of extinction, the governmentinterfered, and a few years ago passed laws the effects of which arealready apparent. Certainly, a paternal government is sometimes a goodthing. On our side the line a ring of wealthy men, with a large capitalin nets, seines, pounds, etc. , will, as has been seen in Rhode Island, depopulate a coast in a few years of its food-fishes, leaving nothingfor increase; and when the poor fishermen, whose living depends on thesefree gifts of God, ask for protection from the legislature, the ring istoo powerful, one of its members being perhaps governor of the State. 

In the year 1858 the colonial government resumed possession of all thesalmon and sea-trout fisheries in Lower Canada, and after the enactmentof a protective law offered them for lease by public tender. A list isgiven of sixty-seven salmon rivers which flow into the St. Lawrence andthe Saguenay, and of nine which flow into the Bay of Chaleur. There arealso tributaries of these, making over one hundred rivers which by thistime contain salmon, and many of them in great abundance. Licenses aregranted by the government for rod-fishing in these rivers on payment ofsums ranging from one hundred to five hundred dollars the season for ariver, according to its size, accessibility, etc. These rivers aregenerally taken by parties of anglers, but of late I learn that licensesfor single rods have been granted, so that all may be accommodated. Applications for a river or part of one can be made to Mr. William F. Whitcher of Ottawa, who is at the head of the Fisheries Department. Ourparty of four persons had obtained, through the courtesy of Messrs. Brydges and Fleming of the Intercolonial Railway of Canada, the upperpart of the Restigouche, a river flowing into the Bay of Chaleur, andone of the best in the Dominion. Three of us had never killed a salmon, though we were familiar with other kinds of fishing. We had, however, for teacher one who for fifty years had been a salmon-fisher--first as aboy in Ireland, and since that for many years in Canada, in most ofwhose rivers he had killed salmon. As an angler he was a thoroughartist, as a woodsman he was an expert, and as a companion he was mostagreeable. Among the Indians, who have the habit of naming every personfrom some personal trait, he was known as "the Kingfisher, " and by thatname I shall call him. The second of our party, who procured the rightof fishing the Restigouche, and made up the party, I shall call Rodman, which suits him both as fisherman and in his professional character ofengineer. The third, being a tall man of rather military aspect, we knewas "the Colonel;" and the fourth, who writes this narrative, shall becalled "the Scribe. "

Behold us, then, at Quebec in the last week of June, making ourpreparations--laying in stores for camping out, and buyingfishing-tackle, which for this kind of sport is best procured in Canada. On the 25th of June our thirty-one packages were on board the steamerMiramichi, piled on the upper deck, with many more of the sameappearance--tents, buffalo robes, camp-chests, salmon-rods andgaff-handles--belonging to other parties bound on the same errand asourselves. Three were British officers going to the Upsalquitch, men ofthe long-whiskered, Dundreary type, who soon let us know with manyhaw-haws that they had fished in Norway, and had killed salmon on theestate of my Lord Knowswho in Scotland, while guests of that nobleman. There were two Londoners in full suits of tweed, with Glengarry bonnets, who were bound to the Cascapediac: they tried to imitate the bearing ofthe military men; and why not? As Thackeray says, "Am I not a snob and abrother?" There was a party of Americans on their way to a Gaspériver--veteran anglers, who had frequented these rivers for some years. The rest of the company was made up of Canadians from Montreal andQuebec, many of them pleasure-seekers--stout elderly men, with equallyfull-fed, comfortable-looking wives, and rosy-faced daughters withstraight, slender figures, by and by to emulate the rounded proportionsof their mammas. The young men were mostly equipped with white canvasshoes and veils twisted round their hats--for what purpose I have notbeen able to discover, but it seems to be the correct thing for theCanadian tourist. 

Four hundred and fifty miles from Quebec we reach the entrance of GaspéBay, at the head of which fine sheet of water, in a landlocked harbor, stands the town of Gaspé, distinguished as the place where JacquesCartier landed in 1534. It is now a great fishing-station, employingthousands of men along the coast in the cod-fishery. Here are finescenery, clear bracing air, good sea-bathing, excellent salmon- andtrout-fishing and a comfortable hotel. What more can a well-regulatedmind desire? Into Gaspé Bay flow the Dartmouth, the York and the St. John--good salmon-rivers, while both they and the smaller streams aboundwith sea-trout and brook-trout. Thirty miles south of Gaspé is thelittle town of Perce, also a fishing-station. Near this stands a rock ofred sandstone, five hundred feet long and three hundred high, with anopen arch leading through it, under which a boat can pass. It stands amile from the shore in deep water, and its top affords a securebreeding-place for hundreds of sea-fowl. 

South of Gaspé Bay we pass the mouths of the Bonaventure and the Grandand Little Cascapediac--rivers well stocked with salmon--and reachDalhousie on the Bay of Chaleur about midnight on the 28th. We land in asmall boat in the darkness, and soon find ourselves at the comfortabletavern of William Murphy, where we breakfast the next morning onsalmon-trout and wild strawberries. The town contains about six hundredinhabitants, and has a pleasant seat along the bay. Its principalindustry seems to be lumber, or deals, which mean three-inch plank, inwhich shape most of the pine and spruce exported from the Dominion findtheir way to England. Here they also put up salmon and lobsters for theAmerican market--America meaning the United States. Two steamers touchhere weekly, and there is a daily mail and telegraphic communicationwith the outside world. A few tourists, mostly from Montreal and Quebec, fill two or three small boarding-houses. 

The next morning we started in wagons for Matapedia, thirty miles up theriver, where we expected to secure canoes and Indians for our trip tothe upper waters of the Restigouche. Our road was good, following aterrace about fifty feet above the river, which here is about a mile inwidth, and flows placidly through a wide valley, with high hills on bothsides covered with a growth of spruce and cedar. Fifteen miles aboveDalhousie, at the head of navigation for large vessels, lies the villageof Campbellton. Here the character of the river changes: it becomes morenarrow and rapid, the hills come down closer to the shore, and itassumes the features of a true salmon-river. It was formerly one of themost famous in the provinces, and the late Robert Christie, for manyyears member for Gaspé, used to take two thousand tierces of salmonannually from the Restigouche. 

Here we fall in with the Intercolonial Railway, which has its westernterminus at Rivière du Loup, below Quebec, and its eastern at Halifax. The line is to cross the river at Matapedia on an iron bridge, andfollow down the valley. About 1 P. M. We crossed the ferry in arow-boat, just below Fraser's hotel. The river is deep, swift and veryclear, with a rocky bank, from which they are getting out stone for theabutments of the bridge. This bridge, and another similar one where theline crosses the Miramichi, are building at Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and we saw at Campbellton a large bark discharging her cargo, consistingof the bridge-work ready to set up. 

We arrived at Fraser's in time to partake of a fine boiled salmon, andwe observe a constant improvement in this fish. Those in Montreal werebetter than those in the States; those in Quebec still better; those weate on board the Gulf steamer a shade finer still. At Dalbousie wethought that salmon had reached perfection, but were undeceived by thoseupon Fraser's table, which far surpassed all that we had yet tasted insucculence and flavor. 

We had hoped to go up the river on the morrow, Saturday, but found itwas a great festival of the Catholic Church, and the Indians would notstart till Monday. Great was the indignation of the British officers whowere preparing to go up the other river. To be delayed by the religiousscruples of an Indian was too absurd. But even the "superior race" hadto submit. So the next day we all went down the river trout-fishing. 

I went about two miles to the "flat lands, " and fished some pretty poolsand rapids: the day was very bright and hot, so that I thought the troutwould not rise to a fly, and I put on a small spoon, which I droppedinto the rapids at the end of a long rod. After catching three or fourthey grew suspicious, and I changed my lure for an artificial minnow, and with it I had better success, though I have often tried it inWestern trout-streams ineffectually. I got about a dozen, from fourounces to a pound weight: they were sea-trout, _Salmo Canadensis_, andthe first of that species that I ever saw. They are handsome and activefish, lighter in color than the brook-trout, with silvery sides andbelly. The flesh is red like a salmon, and is of higher flavor, I think, than that of _Salmo fontinalis_. My companions, Rodman and Kingfisher, both used the fly, and got, I think, more fish than I did. 

The next day, June 30th, was Sunday, and the law of the Dominionprohibits fishing on that day. The weather was intensely hot, and westayed in the house and enjoyed the fine scenery all about us. At nighta heavy thunder-storm cooled the air for our next day's journey. 

_July 1. _ Our canoes and Indians arrived this morning about ten o'clock, and instead of being shepherds of the forest, with their blankets tiedwith yellow strings, they had no blankets at all, but wore coats andtrowsers--yea, even boots, which I had always been told had no businessin a canoe. There were four bark canoes and eight Mic-macs--one boat foreach of us--and as we had a large amount of baggage and provisions, itwas thought best to send off the canoes with these, while we went inwagons across a great bend of the river to the house of Mr. John Mowatt, the river overseer. We crossed the Matapediac in a dug-out: this is atributary of the Restigouche, which comes in at Fraser's. On the otherside we found wagons which took us to Mowatt's, seven miles over thehills, arriving at 4 P. M. The canoes arrived about sunset, having cometwelve miles since noon against a strong current. 

_July 2. _ Starting in the morning at sunrise, the canoes took us sixmiles by seven o'clock, when we stopped in the woods for breakfast. Theriver has a very strong current, and from two to three miles an hour isall that can be done against it with setting-poles when there is a heavyload in the canoe. In places the water was too shallow even for a bark, and the men stepped over-board and lifted her along. The Restigouche isa beautiful river, with few islands or obstructions of any kind: thewater is perfectly transparent, and very cold--the chosen haunt of thesalmon. We see few houses or farms: rounded hills, from three to ninehundred feet high, border the stream, leaving only a narrow strip ofbeach, which is free from bushes or fallen trees. These are probably allswept away by the ice in the spring freshets. The hills somewhatresemble those on the Upper Mississippi, except that here there are noneof those cliffs of yellow limestone which are remarkable on the greatriver of the West. About eight miles farther on we stopped for dinnernear a cold brook, from which I took half a dozen trout. In theafternoon we proceeded five or six miles, and then camped for the nightupon a rocky beach, and, though somewhat annoyed by the sand-flies, weslept well upon our beds of spruce boughs. 

_July 3. _ Broke camp at 5 A. M. , and went up six miles to a placecalled Tom's Brook, where we breakfasted. Here I killed a dozen troutwith the spoon. Six miles from Tom's Brook we came to the firstsalmon-pool, of which there were six in the portion of the riverassigned to us--viz. : First, Big Cross Pool; second, Lower Indian-housePool; third, Upper Indian-house Pool; fourth, Patapediac Pool, called bythe Indians Paddypajaw; fifth, Red Bank Pool; sixth, Little Cross Pool. These pools are the places where the salmon rest in their journey fromthe sea to the headwaters of the river. They are usually in spots wherethere is a strong but not violent current, perhaps six or eight feetdeep, running off to shoal water on one side of the river. The poolshave been found by the Indians, who search for them by night withtorches, which show the fish as they lie near the bottom, and they donot differ materially in appearance from other parts of the river whereno salmon are to be found. 

The salmon is what is called _anadromous_--that is, though an inhabitantof the ocean for most of the year, it ascends the fresh-water rivers insummer to spawn. In this function it is guided by curious instincts. Thefemale deposits her eggs in swift shallow water at the heads of streams, in trenches dug by herself and the male fish in the gravelly bottom; butit must not be fresh gravel: it must have been exposed to the action ofwater for at least two years, or they will have none of it; and if afreshet should bring new gravel from the banks, they will abandon theplace and seek for new spawning-grounds. It is only when the salmon areresting in these pools that they will take a fly. 

The first pool was at a point where the river made a short turn around alarge rock: the current was swift, with a hole at the foot of the rapidperhaps twenty feet deep, with a rock bottom. Here our leader, Kingfisher, rigged his salmon-rod, put on two flies and began to cast. Itrolled in the swift water as we proceeded, and with my spoon took a fewsmall trout. A salmon rose to the fly of Kingfisher, but was nothooked; this was the first fish that we saw. (The term "fish" is alwaysapplied to the salmon by anglers: other inhabitants of the water arespoken of as "trout" or "bass;" a salmon is a "fish. ") Although we hadseen none before, our keen-eyed Indians had seen many as we came up theriver. 

We then went on to the Lower Indian-house Pool, two miles farther, andKingfisher made a few casts; but raising no fish, we went up a milefarther to our camping-ground, an island between the two pools, havingplenty of wood upon it, with a cold spring brook close by--an old andfamous camping-place for salmon-fishers--and here we intended to makeour permanent quarters. We had four tents--one to sleep in, fitted withmosquito-bars; one for an eating-tent, with canvas top and sides ofnetting: in it was a rough table and two benches, hewed out with an axeby one of our men. There was also a tent for storing provisions and forthe cook, for we had brought with us a man for this important office. Afourth tent for the Indians, and a cooking-stove with camp-chests andequipage, completed our outfit, which all belonged to Kingfisher, andrepresented the results of many years' experience in camping out. Thecooking-stove is made of sheet iron and packs in a box, and is one ofthe most valuable utensils in the woods. 

It took the rest of the day to make the camp, and in the eveningKingfisher and the Colonel went in their canoe to the lower pool, andthe former killed two salmon, weighing eighteen and twenty-two pounds. These, our first fish, were objects of much interest to us new hands. The Colonel took his first lesson in salmon-fishing, and thought hecould do it himself. 

_July 4. _ We proposed to celebrate this day by each of us killing asalmon, but I thought it would be prudent first to go out withKingfisher and see how he did it, before attempting it myself. So I gotinto his canoe, and the Indians paddled us to Upper Pool, within sightof our camp but for a bend in the river. Kingfisher had the canoeanchored within casting distance of the channel, and there, as he satin the bottom of the boat, he made his casts with a nineteen-foot rod, first about twenty-five feet, and rapidly letting out more line heincreased the length of his casts to sixty feet perhaps, the bigsalmon-flies falling lightly on the water, first across the channel tothe right; then letting the current take the flies down to the end ofthe line, he drew them round to the left in a circle; then raising themslowly from the water, he repeated the process, thus fishing over allthe water within his reach. Now the Indians raise the anchor and let thecanoe drop down a few feet. At the first cast after this change ofground a bulge in the water showed where a salmon had risen at the flyand missed it. "We will rest him for five minutes, " said Kingfisher, andlighted his pipe for a smoke. Then he changed his fly for a larger andmore brilliant one, and at the first cast a big fish rolled over at thefly and went off with a rush, making the reel whiz. 

"I've got him, " said Kingfisher, calmly putting up his pipe and bringinghis rod to a nearly perpendicular position, which threw a great strainon the mouth of the salmon from the spring of the rod. He ran abouttwenty-five yards, and then leaped six feet into the air. Kingfisherdropped the point of his rod as the fish leaped, and then raised it asthe salmon went away with twenty yards more of line. 

"Up anchor, Hughey: we must follow him. " So they plied their paddlesafter the salmon, who was making down stream, Kingfisher reeling up hisline as fast as possible. Up went the salmon again, striking at the linewith his tail as he came down; but this trick failed, and he thensulked, by diving into the depths of the river and remaining theremotionless for half an hour. Suddenly he rose and made for the heavycurrent, from which Kingfisher tried to steer him into the still waternear the shore, where it was about three feet deep, and where he couldbe played with more safety. After about forty minutes' play the fish wascoaxed alongside the canoe, evidently tired out and having lost hisforce and fury, when Hughey struck the gaff into him near the tail, andlifted him into the canoe, where he struggled very little, so nearlybeaten was he. 

"About nineteen pounds, I think, " said Kingfisher, who from longexperience could name the weight of a fish very correctly. 

Returning to the spot where he had hooked the fish, Kingfisher after afew casts rose and hooked another, which he killed in twenty-fiveminutes--a fish of twelve pounds. After seeing the method of this artistI was presumptuous enough to suppose that I could do it also, and Idetermined to open the campaign the next day. 

_July 5. _ Bent on salmon-killing, I was off this morning at five, hopingto bring home a fish for breakfast. The Upper Indian-house Pool is forRodman and me to-day, the others going to Patapedia, three miles above. Kingfisher fitted me out with a Castle Connell rod, quite light andpliable, with which he has killed many a fish; a click reel, whichobliges the fish to use some force in getting out the line: of this Ihave one hundred yards of oiled silk, with a twelve-feet gutcasting-line, to the end of which is looped a brilliant creature almostas large as a humming-bird--certainly the likeness of nothing inhabitingearth, air or water. Mike and Peter, my Indians, took me to the pool, and I began casting at the place where Kingfisher got his salmonyesterday, while Rodman took the upper end of the pool, which was threeor four hundred yards in length. I had fished for trout in a bark canoe, and knew how crank a vessel it is; so I did not attempt to stand up andcast, but seated myself upon the middle cross-bar with my face turneddown stream, and began to imitate the casting of Kingfisher as well as Icould. I had fished but a few yards of water when the quick-eyed Petercried, "Lameau!" which is Mic-mac for salmon. He had seen the rise ofthe fish, which I had not. And here I may observe that good eyes arenecessary to make a salmon-fisher, and a near-sighted person like theScribe can never greatly excel in this pursuit. All the salmon which Ihooked fastened themselves: I had only this part in it, that I was thefool at one end of the rod. I waited five minutes, according to rule, and cast again. "Habet!" There can be no mistake this time: my eyes weregood enough to see the savage rush with which he seized my fly andplunged with it down to the depths. 

"Hold up your rod!" cries Peter, who saw that, taken by surprise, I wasdropping the point of it. I raised it nearly upright, and this, with thefriction of the reel, caused the fish, which had started to run after hefelt the prick of the hook, to stop when he had gone half across theriver, and make his leap or somersault. 

"A twenty-pounder, " said Mike. 

When he leaped I ought to have dropped my point, so that he should notfall on the line, but I did nothing of the sort. I felt much as I oncedid in the woods of Wisconsin when a dozen deer suddenly jumped up fromthe long grass all about me, and I forgot that I had a gun in my hands. I had so much line out that, as it happened, no bad consequencesfollowed, and the fish started for another run, at the end of which hemade his leap, and coming down he struck my line with his tail, and wasgone! Slowly and sadly I wound up my line, and found the gut brokenclose to the hook, and my beautiful "Fairy" vanished. 

Then I looped on another insect phenomenon, and went on casting. Rodman, I perceived, was engaged with a salmon on the other bank. Presently Iraise and hook another, but he directly shakes out the hook. 

I move slowly down the pool, casting on each side--which I find is hardwork for the back and shoulders--when, just opposite the big rock whereKingfisher raised his second fish yesterday, I feel a pluck at my flyand see a boil in the water. The robber runs away twenty yards andleaps, then turns short round and comes at me, as if to run down thecanoe and drown us all. I wind up my line as fast as possible, but, alas! it comes in, yard after yard, so easily that I perceive allconnection between the fish and me is at an end. 

"He got slack line on you, " said Peter. 

By this time it was seven o'clock, and I returned home to breakfast withwhat appetite I had, a sadder if not a wiser man. Rodman brought in anine-pound fish, and Kingfisher had three--thirteen, ten and twenty-onepounds. The Colonel had made a successful _début_ with a fifteen-poundfish. 

As we sat at breakfast Rodman asked, "How many salmon did you ever killin a day, Kingfisher?"

_Kingfisher. _ "I once killed thirty-three in one day: that was in theMingan, a North Shore river, where the fish are very numerous, butsmall--not over ten pounds on an average. I knew a man once to killforty-two in a day there, but he had extra strong tackle, with doubleand treble gut, and being a big strong fellow he used to drag them outby main force. "

_The Colonel. _ "If he had played his fish as you do here, there wouldnot have been time in the longest day to kill forty-two. You averagehalf an hour to a salmon, which would have taken twenty-one hours forhis day's work. "

_Kingfisher. _ "True enough, but those little fellows in the Mingan canbe killed in ten or fifteen minutes. "

_Rodman. _ "And what was the longest time you ever spent in killing asalmon?"

_Kingfisher. _ "Once fishing in the Moisie, where the fish are verylarge, I hooked a salmon at five in the morning and lost him at six inthe evening: he was on for thirteen hours, but he sulked at the bottommost of the time, and I never saw him at all. "

_Scribe. _ "Perhaps it was no fish at all. "

_Kingfisher. _ "It might have been a seal, but Sir Edmund Head, who waswith me, and I myself, thought it was a very large salmon and hookedfoul, so that I could not drown him. I think from his play that it was asalmon: he ran many times round the pool, but swam deep, as heavy fishare apt to do. How do you like the cooking of this salmon?"

_Scribe. _ "I think it is perfect. The salmon have been growing betterever since we entered the Dominion, but we have reached perfection now. Is this the Tweedside method?"

_Kingfisher. _ "It is. Put your fish in boiling water, well salted, boila minute to a pound, and when done serve it with some of the water itwas boiled in for sauce. You can't improve a fresh-caught salmon withWorcestershire or Harvey. "

The day proving very hot, we stayed in camp till evening, whenKingfisher and the others went to the nearest pool for salmon, and Iwent trout-fishing to the little rapids and took a dozen of moderatesize. Kingfisher brought in four fish--seven, ten, seventeen andeighteen pounds; Rodman got two--twelve and sixteen pounds; the Colonelfailed to secure one which he had hooked. 

_July 6. _ To-day Kingfisher and the Colonel take the Upper Indian-housePool, and Rodman and I go to the Patapedia. We start at 4 A. M. , so asto get the early fishing, always the best. It takes an hour to pole upthe three miles, the current being very strong, and when we arrive thepool is yet white with the morning mist. It is a long smooth rapid, witha channel on one side running close to the high gravelly bank, evidentlycut away by spring freshets. On the other side comes in a rushing brookor small river called the Patapedia. Rodman took the head of the pool, and I the middle ground. I fished down some fifty yards without movinganything, when, as I was bringing home my fly after a cast, it was takenby a good fish. Away he went with a wicked rush full forty yards, inspite of all I could do, then made a somersault, showing us his hugeproportions. A second and a third time he leaped, and then darted away, I urging my men to follow with the canoe, which they did, but notquickly enough. This was a terribly strong fish: though I was giving himall the spring of the rod, I could not check him. When he stoppedrunning he began to shake his head, or, as the English fishing-bookssay, "to jigger. " In two minutes he jiggered out the hook and departed. 

I had changed rods and lines to-day, having borrowed one from Rodman--aMontreal rod, larger and stiffer than the other: although heavier, Icould cast better with it than with the Irish rod. Unluckily, there wereonly about seventy yards of line on the reel, and the next fish I hookedproved to be the most furious of all, for he first ran out forty yardsof line, and before I could get much of it wound up again, he madeanother and a longer run, taking out all my line to the end, where itwas tied to the reel: of course he broke loose, taking away my fly andtwo feet of casting-line. By this time the sun was high in the heavens, and we returned to camp--Rodman with a salmon of seventeen pounds and agrilse of five pounds. 

A salmon has properly four stages of existence. The first is as a"parr, " a small bright-looking fish, four or five inches long, withdark-colored bars across the sides and a row of red spots. It is alwaysfound in the fresh water, looks something like a trout, and will take afly or bait eagerly. The second stage is when it puts on the silverycoat previous to going to sea for the first time: it is then called a"smolt, " and is from six to eight inches long, still living in the riverwhere it was hatched. In the third stage, after its return from the seato its native river, it is called a "grilse, " and weighs from three tosix pounds. It can be distinguished from a salmon, even of the samesize, by its forked tail (that of the salmon being square) and theslight adhesion of the scales. The grilse is wonderfully active andspirited, and will often give as much play as a salmon of three timeshis size. After the second visit of the fish to the sea he returns asalmon, mature, brilliant and vigorous, and increases in weight everytime he revisits the ocean, where most of his food is found, consistingof small fish and crustacea. 

As we dropped down the stream toward the camp we saw a squirrel swimmingacross the river. Paddling toward him, Peter reached out his pole, andthe squirrel took refuge upon it and was lifted on board--a prettylittle creature, gray and red, about half the size of the common graysquirrel of the States. He ran about the canoe so fearlessly that Ithink he must have been unacquainted with mankind. He skipped over us asif we had been logs, with his bead-like eyes almost starting from hishead with astonishment, and then mounting the prow of the canoe, On the bows, with tail erected, Sat the squirrel, Adjidaumo. 

Presently we paddled toward the shore, and he jumped off and disappearedin the bushes, with a fine story to tell to his friends of having beenferried across by strange and friendly monsters. Kingfisher got elevensalmon to-day, and the Colonel one. 

_July 7_ was Sunday, and the pools were rested, as well as ourselves, from the fatigues of the week. Kingfisher brought out his materials andtied a few flies, such as he thought would suit the river. This he doesvery neatly, and I think he belongs to the old school of anglers, whobelieve in a great variety of flies. 

It may not perhaps be generally known that there are two schools amongfly-fishers. The "formalists" or entomologists hold that the naturalflies actually on the water should be studied and imitated by thefly-maker, down to the most minute particulars. This is the old theory, and whole libraries have been written to prove and illustrate it, fromthe _Boke of St. Albans_, written by the Dame Juliana Berners in 1486, down to the present day. The number of insects which we are directed toimitate is legion, and the materials necessary for their manufacture areof immense variety and difficult to procure. These teachers are theconservatives, who adhere to old tradition. On the other side are the"colorists, " who think color everything, and form nothing: they are buta section, though an increasing one, of the fly-fishing community. Theirtheory is, that all that a fish can distinguish through the waterymedium is the size and color of the fly. These are the radicals, andthey go so far as to discard the thousand different flies described inthe books, and confine themselves to half a dozen typical varieties, both in salmon- and trout-fishing. Where learned doctors disagree, I, for one, do not venture to decide; but when I remember that on some daysno fly in my book would tempt the trout, and that at other times theywould rise at any or all flies, it seems to me that the principalquestion is, Are the trout feeding or not? If they are, they will takealmost anything; if not, the most skillful hand may fail of temptingthem to rise. As to salmon, I think no one will pretend that thesalmon-flies commonly used are like anything in Nature, and it isdifficult to understand what the keen-eyed salmon takes them for. Until, then, we can put ourselves in the place of the salmon and see with hiseyes, we must continue to evolve our flies from our own consciousness. My small experience seems to show me that in a salmon-fly color is themain thing to be studied. 

But to return to Kingfisher, who has been all this time softening somesilk-worm gut in his mouth, and now says in a thick voice, "Do you know, colonel, I lost my chance of a wife once in this way?"

_Colonel. _ "How was that? Did you steal some of the lady's feathers?"

_Kingfisher. _ "No, it was in this way: I was a lad of about seventeen, but I had a sweetheart. I was at college, and had but little time forfishing, of which I was as fond as I am now. One evening I was hasteningtoward the river with my rod, with my mouth full of flies and gut, whichI was softening as I am now. Turning the corner of a narrow lane, I metmy beloved and her mother, both of whom were precise persons who couldnot take a joke. Of course I had to stop and speak to them, but my mouthwas full of hooks and gut, and the hooks stuck in my tongue, and I onlymumbled. They looked astonished. Perhaps they thought I was drunk:anyway, the young lady asked what was the matter. 'My m--m--mouth isfull of guts, ' was all that I could say; and the girl would never speakto me afterward. "

_Rodman. _ "That was lucky, for you got a wife better able to bear withyour little foibles. "

_Kingfisher. _ "I did, sir. "

_July 8. _ Rodman and I were to take the Upper Indian-house Pool to-day, the others going to the Patapedia. Kingfisher and I exchanged Indians:he, having a man who was a better fisherman than either of mine, kindlylent him to me, that I might have a better chance of killing a salmon, Ibeing the only one of the party who had not succeeded in doing so. Ifound in my book a casting-line of double gut: it was only two yardslong, but I thought I had better trust to it than the single gut whichthe fish had been breaking for me the last two days. I also found in mybook a few large showy salmon-flies tied on double gut: with these Istarted, determined to do or die. I was on the pool at 5 A. M. , and hadraised two salmon, and caught two large trout, which often took ourflies when we were casting for bigger fish. At 6. 30 I raised and hookeda big fish, which ran out twenty yards of line, and then stopped. Idetermined to try the waiting method this time, and not to lose my fishby too much haste; so I let him have his own way, only holding him witha tight hand. Joe, I soon saw, understood his part of the business: hekept the canoe close behind the fish, so that I should always have areserve of line upon my reel. My salmon made two runs without showinghimself: he pulled hard, and was evidently a strong fish. He now triedto work himself across the river into the heavy current. I resistedthis, but to no purpose: I could not hold him, and I thought he wasgoing down the little rapid, where I could not have followed, when hesteered down through the still and deep water, and went to the bottomnear the camp. There he stayed, sulking, for more than an hour, and Icould not start him. The cook came down from his fire to see theconflict; Joe lighted his pipe and smoked it out; old Captain Merrill, who lived on the opposite bank, came out and hailed me, "Reckon you'vegot a big one this time, judge;" and still my line pointed to the bottomof the river, and my hands grew numb with holding the rod. 

 They have tied me to the stake: I cannot fly, But, bear-like, I must fight the course. 

Suddenly, up from the depths came the salmon, and made off at full speeddown the river, making his first leap as he went, which showed him to bea twenty-pounder at least. We followed with the canoe. On the west sideof the island ran the main channel, wide and deep, gradually increasingin swiftness till it became a boiling torrent. Into this my fishplunged, in spite of all my resistance, and all we could do was tofollow. But I soon lost track of him and control of him: sometimes hewas ahead, and I could feel him; sometimes he was alongside, and theline was slack and dragging on the water, most dangerous of positions;sometimes the canoe went fastest, and the salmon was behind me. My menhandled the canoe admirably, and brought me through safe, fish and all;for when we emerged into the still pool below, and I was able to reelup, I felt him still on the hook, but unsubdued, for he made another runof thirty yards, and leaped twice. 

"That's good, " said Joe: "that will tire him. "

For the first two hours of the struggle the fish had been quiet, and sohad saved his strength, but now he began to race up and down the pool, trying for slack line. But Joe followed him up sharply and kept him wellin hand. Now the fish began to jigger, and shook his head so hard and solong that I thought something must give way--either my line or hisspinal column. After about an hour of this kind of work I called toRodman, who was fishing not far off, and asked him to come alongside andplay my fish for a few minutes, so that I might rest my hands, whichwere cramped with holding the rod so long; which he did, and gave mefifteen minutes' rest, when I resumed the rod. The fish now seemedsomewhat spent, for he came to the surface and flounced about, so thatwe could see his large proportions. Still, I could not get himalongside, and I told Joe to try to paddle up to him, but he immediatelydarted away from us and headed up stream, keeping a parallel courseabout fifty feet off, so that we could see him perfectly through theclear water. After many efforts, however, he grew more tame, and Louispaddled the canoe very carefully up to him, while Joe stood watching hischance with the gaff, which he put deep in the water. At last I got thefish over it, when with a sudden pull the gaff was driven into him justbehind the dorsal fin; but he was so strong that I thought he would havetaken the man out of the canoe. The water flew in showers, and the bigsalmon lay in the bottom of the boat!

I could hardly believe my eyes. That tremendous creature caught with aline no thicker than a lady's hair-pin! I looked at my watch: it waseleven o'clock, just four hours and a half. "Well, I have done enoughfor to-day, Joe: let us go home to breakfast. " Arrived at the camp, weweighed the salmon and measured him--twenty-four pounds, and fortyinches long--a male fish, fresh run from the sea, the strongest and mostactive of his kind. It had been my luck to hook these big ones: I wishedthat my first encounters should be with fish of ten or twelve pounds. Rodman came in with two--fourteen and sixteen pounds. 

That evening I went again to the same pool, and soon hooked another goodfish with the same fly; but though he was nearly as large as the first, weighing twenty-two pounds, I killed him in thirty minutes. He foughthard from the very first, running and vaulting by turns without anystop, so that he soon tired himself out. Rodman got another thisevening, and Kingfisher brought seven from the Patapedia, and theColonel one. Thirteen is our score to-day. 

_July 9. _ Rodman and I went this morning to the Patapedia, but raised nosalmon. Either some one had been netting the pool that night, orKingfisher had killed all the fish yesterday. I got a grilse of fourpounds, which made a smart fight for fifteen minutes, and Rodman hookedanother, but lost him. That evening we went again to the pool, and Ikilled a small but very active salmon of nine pounds, which fought menearly an hour: Rodman got a grilse of five pounds. Strange to say, neither Kingfisher nor the Colonel killed a fish to-day, so that I wasfor once "high line. "

Having killed four salmon, I concluded to retire. I found the work toohard, and determined to go to Dalhousie and try the sea-trout fishing inthat vicinity. So, after an hour's fly-fishing at the mouth of the brookopposite our camp, in which I got a couple of dozen, hooking two at acast twice, and twice three at a cast, I started at seven o'clock on the10th, and ran down with the current and paddles forty miles to Fraser'sin seven hours--the same distance which it took us two days and a halfto make going up stream. 

Of all modes of traveling, to float down a swift river in a bark canoeis the most agreeable; and when paddled by Indians the canoe is theperfection of a vessel for smooth-water navigation. Where there arethree inches of water she can go--where there is none, a man can carryher round the portage on his back. Her buoyancy enables her to carry aheavy load, and, though frail, the elasticity of her material admits ofmany a blow and pinch which would seriously damage a heavier vessel. Therifle and axe of the backwoodsman, the canoe and the weapons of theIndian, are the result of long years of experiment, and perfectly meettheir necessities. 

The rest of the party remained and fished five days more, making tendays in all, and the score was eighty-five salmon and five grilse, theunited weight of which was fourteen hundred and twenty-three pounds. Thesalmon averaged sixteen and a half pounds each: the three largestweighed thirty, thirty, and thirty-three pounds. Nearly two-thirds ofthe whole were taken by Kingfisher, and our average for three rods wasthree fish per day each. 

It is asserted by Norris in the _American Angler's Book_ that the salmonof the American rivers are smaller than those of Europe, that in theScottish rivers many are still taken of twenty and twenty-five poundsweight, and that on this side of the Atlantic it is as rare to take themwith the rod over fifteen pounds. If this statement was correct whenNorris wrote, ten years ago, then the Canadian rivers have improvedunder the system of protection, for, as above stated, our catch in theRestigouche averaged over sixteen pounds, and nearly one-third of ourfish were of twenty pounds or over. 

Yarrel, in his work on British fishes, says that in 1835 he saw 10salmon in the London market weighing from 38 to 40 pounds each. SirHumphry Davy is said to have killed a salmon in the Tweed that weighed42 pounds: this was about 1825. The largest salmon ever seen in Londonwas sold there in 1821: it weighed 83 pounds. But with diminishednumbers the size of the salmon in Scottish waters has also diminished. In the _Field_ newspaper for August and September, 1872, I find thefollowing report of the fishing in some of those rivers: TheSevern--average size of catch (considered very large) is 16 pounds; fishof 30, 40 and 50 pounds have been taken. The Tay--one rod, one day inAugust, 7 fish; average weight, 18 pounds. The Tweed--two rods, oneday's fishing, 12 fish; average, 20 pounds. The Eaine--fish run from 12to 20 pounds. 

In Lloyd's book on the _Sports of Norway_ we find the following reportsof the salmon-fishing in that country, where the fish are supposed to bevery large: In the river Namsen, Sir Hyde Parker in 1836 killed in oneday 10 salmon weighing from 30 to 60 pounds. This is considered the bestof the Norwegian rivers, both for number and size of fish. TheAlten--Mr. Brettle in 1838 killed in fifteen days 194 fish; average, 15pounds; largest fish, 40 pounds. Sir Charles Blois, the most successfulangler, in the season of 1843 killed in the Alten 368 fish; average, 15pounds: largest fish, 50 pounds. The Steenkjaw--one rod killed intwenty days 80 salmon; average, 14 pounds. The Mandall--one rod killed35 fish in one day. The Nid--two rods killed in one day 19 fish; largestfish, 38 pounds. 

The following records are from Canadian rivers prior to 1871:Moisie--two rods in twenty-five days, 318 fish; average 15-1/7 pounds;three largest, 29, 29 and 32 pounds. Godbout--three rods in forty days, 194 fish; average, 11-1/8 pounds; three largest, 18, 19 and 20 pounds. St. John--two rods in twenty-two days, 199 fish; average, 10 pounds. Nipisiquit--two rods, 76 fish; average, 9-1/2 pounds. Mingan--three rodsin thirty-two days, 218 fish; average, 10-1/5 pounds. Restigouche, 1872--three rods in ten days, 85 fish; average, 16-1/2 pounds; threelargest, 30, 30 and 33 pounds. 

The greatest kill of salmon ever recorded was that of Allan Gilmour, Esq. , of Ottawa, who killed in the Godbout in 1867, in one day, 46salmon, averaging 11-1/2 pounds, or one fish about every fifteenminutes. 

The largest salmon taken with the fly in an American river have been outof the Grand Cascapediac, on the north shore of the Bay of Chaleur. In1871, by the government report, there were 44 salmon killed with thefly--two of 40 pounds, one of 38, and four others of over 30 pounds;average weight, 23 pounds. In the same river in 1872, Mr. John Medden ofToronto, with three other rods, killed 2 fish of 45 pounds, 4 of between40 and 45, 5 of between 35 and 40 pounds, 7 of between 30 and 35 pounds, 15 of between 25 and 30 pounds, 16 of between 20 and 25, besides smallerones not enumerated. 

From these data it would seem that the average size of the Canadiansalmon is as great as those of Norway, and very nearly equal to those ofthe Scottish rivers; while the number of fish taken in a day in theCanadian rivers, particularly in those on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, surpasses the best catch of either the Scottish or Norwegianrivers. 

S. C. CLARKE. 

A PRINCESS OF THULE. 

BY WILLIAM BLACK. 

CHAPTER VI. 

AT BARVAS BRIDGE. 

Very soon, indeed, Ingram began to see that his friend had spoken to himquite frankly, and that he was really bent on asking Sheila to becomehis wife. Ingram contemplated this prospect with some dismay, and withsome vague consciousness that he was himself responsible for what hecould not help regarding as a disaster. He had half expected that FrankLavender would, in his ordinary fashion, fall in love with Sheila--forabout a fortnight. He had joked him about it even before they camewithin sight of Sheila's home. He had listened with a grim humor toLavender's outbursts of admiration, and only asked himself how manytimes he had heard the same phrases before. But now things were lookingmore serious, for the young man had thrown himself into the prosecutionof his new project with all the generous poetic enthusiasm of a highlyimpulsive nature. Ingram saw that everything a young man could do to winthe heart of a young girl Lavender would do; and Nature had dowered himrichly with various means of fascination. Most dangerous of all of thesewas a gift of sincerity that deceived himself. He could assume anopinion or express an emotion at will, with such a genuine fervor thathe himself forgot how recently he had acquired it, and was able toconvince his companion for the moment that it was a revelation of hisinmost soul. It was this charm of impetuous sincerity which hadfascinated Ingram himself years before, and made him cultivate theacquaintance of a young man whom he at first regarded as a somewhatfacile, talkative and histrionic person. Ingram perceived, for example, that young Lavender had so little regard for public affairs that hewould have been quite content to see our Indian empire go for the sakeof eliciting a sarcasm from Lord Westbury; but at the same time, if youhad appealed to his nobler instincts, and placed before him thecondition of a certain populace suffering from starvation, he would havedone all in his power to aid them: he would have written letters to thenewspapers, would have headed subscriptions, and would have ended bybelieving that he had been the constant friend of the people of Indiathroughout his life, and was bound to stick to them to the end of it. 

As often as not he borrowed his fancies and opinions from Edward Ingramhimself, who was amused and gratified at the same time to find hishumdrum notions receive a dozen new lights and colors when transferredto the warmer atmosphere of his friend's imagination. Ingram would evenconsent to receive from his younger companion advice, impetuously urgedand richly illustrated, which he had himself offered in simpler termsmonths before. At this very moment he could see that much of Lavender'sromantic conceptions of Sheila's character was only an exaggeration ofsome passing hints he, Ingram, had dropped as the Clansman was steaminginto Stornoway. But then they were ever so much more beautiful. Ingramheld to his conviction that he himself was a distinctly commonplaceperson. He had grown reconciled to the ordinary grooves of life. Butyoung Lavender was not commonplace: he fancied he could see in him anoccasional flash of something that looked like genius; and many and manya time, in regarding the brilliant and facile powers, the generousimpulses and the occasional ambitions of his companion, he wonderedwhether these would ever lead to anything in the way of production, oreven of consolidation of character, or whether would merely remain thepassing sensations of an indifferent idler. Sometimes, indeed, hedevoutly wished that Lavender had been born a stonemason. 

But all these pleasant and graceful qualities, which had made the youngman an agreeable companion, were a serious danger now; for was it notbut too probable that Sheila, accustomed to the rude and homely ways ofthe islanders, would be attracted and pleased and fascinated by one whohad about him so much of a soft and southern brightness with which shewas wholly unfamiliar? This open-hearted frankness of his placed all hisbest qualities in the sunshine, as it were: she could not fail to seethe singular modesty and courtesy of his bearing toward women, hisgentle manners, his light-heartedness, his passionate admiration of theself-sacrifice of others, and his sympathy with their sufferings. Ingramwould not have minded much if Lavender alone had been concerned in thedilemma now growing imminent: he would have left him to flounder out ofit as he had got out of previous ones. But he had been surprised andpained, and even frightened, to detect in Sheila's manner some faintindications--so faint that he was doubtful what construction to put onthem--of a special interest in the young stranger whom he had broughtwith him to Borva. 

What could he do in the matter, supposing his suspicions were correct?Caution Sheila?--it would be an insult. Warn Mackenzie?--the King ofBorva would fly into a passion with everybody concerned, and bringendless humiliation on his daughter, who had probably never dreamed ofregarding Lavender except as a chance acquaintance. Insist upon Lavendergoing south at once?--that would merely goad the young man intoobstinacy. Ingram found himself in a grievous difficulty, afraid to sayhow much of it was of his own creation. He had no selfish sentiments ofhis own to consult: if it were to become evident that the happiness ofSheila and of his friend depended on their marrying each other, he wasready to forward such a project with all the influence at his command. But there were a hundred reasons why he should dread such a marriage. Hehad already mentioned several of them to Lavender in trying to dissuadethe young man from his purpose. A few days had passed since then, and itwas clear that Lavender had abandoned all notion of fulfilling thoseresolutions he had vaguely formed. But the more Ingram thought over thematter, and the further he recalled all the ancient proverbs and storiesabout the fate of intermeddlers, the more evident it became to him thathe could take no immediate action in the affair. He would trust to thechapter of accidents to save Sheila from what he considered a disastrousfate. Perhaps Lavender would repent. Perhaps Mackenzie, continually onthe watch for small secrets, would discover something, and bid hisdaughter stay in Borva while his guests proceeded on their tour throughLewis. In any case, it was not at all certain that Lavender would besuccessful in his suit. Was the heart of a proud-spirited, intelligentand busily-occupied girl to be won in a matter of three weeks or amonth? Lavender would go south, and no more would be heard of it. 

This tour round the island of Lewis, however, was not likely to favormuch any such easy escape from the difficulty. On a certain morning thelarger of Mr. Mackenzie's boats carried the holiday party away fromBorva; and even at this early stage, as they sat at the stern of theheavy craft, Lavender had arrogated to himself the exclusive right ofwaiting upon Sheila. He had constituted himself her companion in alltheir excursions about Borva which they had undertaken, and now, on thislonger journey, they were to be once more thrown together. It did seem alittle hard that Ingram should be relegated to Mackenzie and histheories of government; but did he not profess to prefer that? Like mostmen who have got beyond five-and-thirty, he was rather proud ofconsidering himself an observer of life. He stood aside as a spectator, and let other people, engaged in all manner of eager pursuits, passbefore him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed agood-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but as shy-faced childrento be humored. Were not their love-affairs a pretty spectacle? As forhimself, he was far beyond all that. The illusions of love-making, thedevotion and ambition and dreams of courtship, were no longer possibleto him, but did they not constitute on the whole a beautiful andcharming study, that had about it at times some little touches ofpathos? At odd moments, when he saw Sheila and Lavender walking togetherin the evening, he was himself half inclined to wish that somethingmight come of the young man's determination. It would be so pleasant toplay the part of a friendly counselor, to humor the follies of the youngfolks, to make jokes at their expense, and then, in the midst of theirembarrassment and resentment, to go forward and pet them a little, andassure them of a real and earnest sympathy. 

"Your time is to come, " Lavender said to him suddenly after he had beenexhibiting some of his paternal forbearance and consideration: "you willget a dreadful twist some day, my boy. You have been doing nothing butdreaming about women, but some day or other you will wake up to findyourself captured and fascinated beyond anything you have ever seen inother people, and then you will discover what a desperately real thingit is. "

Ingram had a misty impression that he had heard something like thisbefore. Had he not given Lavender some warning of the same kind? But hewas so much accustomed to hear those vague repetitions of his ownremarks, and was, on the whole, so well pleased to think that hiscommonplace notions should take root and flourish in this goodly soil, that he never thought of asking Lavender to quote his authority forthose profound observations on men and things. 

"Now, Miss Mackenzie, " said the young man as the big boat was drawingnear to Callernish, "what is to be our first sketch in Lewis?"

"The Callernish Stones, of course, " said Mackenzie himself: "it issmore than one hass come to the Lewis to see the Callernish Stones. "

Lavender had promised to the King of Borva a series of water-colordrawings of Lewis, and Sheila was to choose the subjects from day today. Mackenzie was gratified by this proposal, and accepted it with muchmagnanimity; but Sheila knew that before the offer was made Lavender hadcome to her and asked her if she cared about sketches, and whether hemight be allowed to take a few on this journey and present them to her. She was very grateful, but suggested that it might please her papa ifthey were given to him. Would she superintend them, then, and choose thetopics for illustration? Yes, she would do that; and so the young manwas furnished with a roving commission. 

He brought her a little sepia sketch of Borvabost, its huts, its bay, and its upturned boats on the beach. Sheila's expressions of praise, theadmiration and pleasure that shone in her eyes, would have turned anyyoung man's head. But her papa looked at the picture with a criticaleye, and remarked, "Oh yes, it is ferry good, but it is not the color ofLoch Roag at all. It is the color of a river when there is a flood ofrain. I have neffer at all seen Loch Roag a brown color--neffer at all. "

It was clear, then, that the subsequent sketches could not be taken insepia, and so Lavender proposed to make a series of pencil-drawings, which could be washed in with color afterward. There was one subject, indeed, which since his arrival in Lewis he had tried to fix on paper byevery conceivable means in his power, and that was Sheila herself. Hehad spoiled innumerable sheets of paper in trying to get some likenessof her which would satisfy himself, but all his usual skill seemedsomehow to have gone from him. He could not understand it. In ordinarycircumstances he could have traced in a dozen lines a portrait thatwould at least have shown a superficial likeness: he could havemultiplied portraits by the dozen of old Mackenzie or Ingram or Duncan, but here he seemed to fail utterly. He invited no criticism, certainly. These efforts were made in his own room, and he asked no one's opinionas to the likeness. He could, indeed, certify to himself that thedrawing of the features was correct enough. There was the sweet andplacid forehead with its low masses of dark hair; there the short upperlip, the finely-carved mouth, the beautifully-rounded chin and throat;and there the frank, clear, proud eyes, with their long lashes andhighly-curved eyebrows. Sometimes, too, a touch of color added warmthto the complexion, put a glimmer of the blue sea beneath the long blackeyelashes, and drew a thread of scarlet round the white neck. But wasthis Sheila? Could he take this sheet of paper to his friends in Londonand say, Here is the magical princess whom I hope to bring to you fromthe North, with all the glamour of the sea around her? He feltinstinctively that there would be an awkward pause. The people wouldpraise the handsome, frank, courageous head, and look upon the bit ofred ribbon round the neck as an effective artistic touch. They wouldhand him back the paper with a compliment, and he would find himself inan agony of unrest because they had misunderstood the portrait, and seennothing of the wonder that encompassed this Highland girl as if with agarment of mystery and dreams. 

So he tore up portrait after portrait--more than one of which would havestartled Ingram by its truth--and then, to prove to himself that he wasnot growing mad, he resolved to try a portrait of some other person. Hedrew a head of old Mackenzie in chalk, and was amazed at the rapidityand facility with which he executed the task. Then there could be nodoubt as to the success of the likeness nor as to the effect of thepicture. The King of Borva, with his heavy eyebrows, his aquiline nose, his keen gray eyes and flowing beard, offered a fine subject; and therewas something really royal and massive and noble in the head thatLavender, well satisfied with his work, took down stairs one evening. Sheila was alone in the drawing-room, turning over some music. 

"Miss Mackenzie, " he said rather kindly, "would you look at this?"

Sheila turned round, and the sudden light of pleasure that leapt to herface was all the praise and all the assurance he wanted. But he had morethan that. The girl was grateful to him beyond all the words she couldutter; and when he asked her if she would accept the picture, shethanked him by taking his hand for a moment, and then she left the roomto call in Ingram and her father. All the evening there was a singularlook of happiness on her face. When she met Lavender's eyes with hersthere was a frank and friendly look of gratitude ready to reward him. When had he earned so much before by a simple sketch? Many and many aportrait, carefully executed and elaborately framed, had he presented tohis lady friends in London, to receive from them a pretty note and a fewwords of thanks when next he called. Here with a rough chalk sketch hehad awakened an amount of gratitude that almost surprised him in themost beautiful and tender soul in the world; and had not this princessamong women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressingher thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more helooked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able toput down the magic of them in lines and colors. 

At length Duncan got the boat into the small creek at Callernish, andthe party got out on the shore. As they were going up the steep pathleading to the plain above a young girl met them, who looked at them inrather a strange way. She had a fair, pretty, wondering face, withsingularly high eyebrows and clear, light-blue eyes. 

"How are you, Eily?" said Mackenzie as he passed on with Ingram. 

But Sheila, on making the same inquiry, shook hands with the girl, whosmiled in a confidential way, and, coming quite close, nodded andpointed down to the water's edge. 

"Have you seen them to-day, Eily?" said Sheila, still holding the girlby the hands, and looking at the fair, pretty, strange face. 

"It wass sa day before yesterday, " she answered in a whisper, while apleased smile appeared on her face, "and sey will be here sa night. "

"Good-bye, Eily: take care you don't stay out at night and catch cold, you know, " said Sheila; and then, with another little nod and a smile, the young girl went down the path. 

"It is Eily-of-the-Ghosts, as they call her, " said Sheila to Lavender asthey went on: "the poor thing fancies she sees little people about therocks, and watches for them. But she is very good and quiet, and she isnot afraid of them, and she does no harm to any one. She does not belongto the Lewis--I think she is from Islay--but she sometimes comes to payus a visit at Borva, and my papa is very kind to her. "

"Mr. Ingram does not appear to know her: I thought he was acquaintedwith every one in the island, " said Lavender. 

"She was not here when he has been in the Lewis before, " said Sheila;"but Eily does not like to speak to strangers, and I do not think youcould get her to speak to you if you tried. "

Lavender had paid but little attention to the "false men" of Callernishwhen first he saw them, but now he approached the long lines of bigstones up on this lonely plateau with a new interest; for Sheila hadtalked to him about them many a time in Borva, and had asked his opinionabout their origin and their age. Was the central circle of stones analtar, with the other series marking the approaches to it? Or was it thegrave of some great chieftain, with the remaining stones indicating thegraves of his relations and friends? Or was it the commemoration of somebattle in olden times, or the record of astronomical or geometricaldiscoveries, or a temple once devoted to serpent-worship, or what?Lavender, who knew absolutely nothing at all about the matter, wasprobably as well qualified as anybody else to answer these questions, but he forbore. The interest, however, that Sheila showed in suchthings he very rapidly acquired. When he came to see the rows of stonesa second time he was much impressed by their position on this bit ofhill overlooking the sea. He sat down on his camp-stool with thedetermination that, although he could not satisfy Sheila's wistfulquestions, he would present her with some little sketch of thesemonuments and their surroundings which might catch up something of themysterious loneliness of the scene. 

He would not, of course, have the picture as it then presented itself. The sun was glowing on the grass around him, and lighting up the tallgray pillars of stone with a cheerful radiance. Over there the waters ofLoch Roag were bright and blue, and beyond the lake the undulations ofmoorland were green and beautiful, and the mountains in the south grownpale as silver in the heat. Here was a pretty young lady, in a roughblue traveling-dress and a hat and feather, who was engaged in pickingup wild-flowers from the warm heath. There was a gentleman from theoffice of the Board of Trade, who was sitting on the grass, nursing hisknees and whistling. From time to time the chief figure in theforeground was an elderly gentleman, who evidently expected that he wasgoing to be put into the picture, and who was occasionally dropping acautious hint that he did not always wear this rough-and-ready sailor'scostume. Mackenzie was also most anxious to point out to the artist thenames of the hills and districts lying to the south of Loch Roag, apparently with the hope that the sketch would have a certaintopographical interest for future visitors. 

No: Lavender was content at that moment to take down the outlines of thegreat stones and the configuration of lake and hill beyond, but by andby he would give another sort of atmosphere to this wild scene. He wouldhave rain and darkness spread over the island, with the low hills in thesouth grown desolate and remote, and the waters of the sea covered withgloom. No human figure should be visible on this remote plain, wherethese strange memorials had stood for centuries, exposed to westerngales and the stillness of the winter nights and the awful silence ofthe stars. Would not Sheila, at least, understand the bleakness anddesolation of the picture? Of course her father would like to haveeverything blue and green. He seemed a little disappointed when it wasclear that no distant glimpse of Borva could be introduced into thesketch. But Sheila's imagination would be captured by this sombrepicture, and perhaps by and by in some other land, amid fairer scenesand in a more generous climate, she might be less inclined to hunger forthe dark and melancholy North when she looked on this record of itsgloom and its sadness. 

"Iss he going to put any people in the pictures?" said Mackenzie in aconfidential whisper to Ingram. 

Ingram got up from the grass, and said with a yawn, "I don't know. If hedoes, it will be afterward. Suppose we go along to the wagonette and seeif Duncan has brought everything up from the boat?"

The old man seemed rather unwilling to be cut out of this particularsketch, but he went nevertheless; and Sheila, seeing the young man leftalone, and thinking that not quite fair, went over to him and asked ifshe might be permitted to see as much as he had done. 

Lavender shut up the book. 

"No, " he said with a laugh, "you shall see it to-night. I havesufficient memoranda to work something out of by and by. Shall we haveanother look at the circle up there?"

He folded up and shouldered his camp-stool, and they walked up to thepoint at which the lines of the "mourners" converged. Perhaps he wasmoved by a great antiquarian curiosity: at all events, he showed asingular interest in the monuments, and talked to his companion aboutall the possible theories connected with such stones in a fashion thatcharmed her greatly. She was easily persuaded that the Callernish"Fir-Bhreige" were the most interesting relics in the world. He had seenStonehenge, but Stonehenge was too scattered to be impressive. Therewas more mystery about the means by which the inhabitants of a smallisland could have hewn and carved and erected these blocks: there was, moreover, the mystery about the vanished population itself. Yes, he hadbeen to Carnac also. He had driven down from Auray in a rumbling oldtrap, his coachman being unable to talk French. He had seen thehalf-cultivated plain on which there were rows and rows of small stones, scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls of the adjoiningfarms. What was there impressive about such a sight when you went into ahouse and paid a franc to be shown the gold ornaments picked up aboutthe place? Here, however, was a perfect series of those strangememorials, with the long lanes leading up to a circle, and the tallestof all the stones placed on the western side of the circle, perhaps asthe headstone of the buried chief. Look at the position, too--the silenthill, the waters of the sea-loch around it, and beyond that thedesolation of miles of untenanted moorland. Sheila looked pleased thather companion, after coming so far, should have found something worthlooking at in the Lewis. 

"Does it not seem strange, " he said suddenly, "to think of young folksof the present day picking up wild-flowers from among these old stones?"He was looking at a tiny bouquet which she had gathered. 

"Will you take them?" she said, quite simply and naturally offering himthe flowers. "They may remind you some time of Callernish. "

He took the flowers, and regarded them for a moment in silence, and thenhe said gently, "I do not think I shall want these to remind me ofCallernish. I shall never forget our being here. "

At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Duncan appeared, and came alongtoward the young people with a basket in his hand. 

"It wass Mr. Mackenzie will ask if ye will tek a glass o' whisky, sir, and a bit o' bread and cheese. And he wass sayin' there wass no hurry atall, and he will wait for you for two hours or half an hour whatever. "

"All right, Duncan: go back and tell him I have finished, and we shallbe there directly. No, thank you, don't take out the whisky--unless, Miss Mackenzie, " added the young man with a smile, "Duncan can persuadeyou. "

Duncan looked with amazement at the man who dared to joke about MissSheila taking whisky, and without waiting for any further commandsindignantly shut the lid of the basket and walked off. 

"I wonder, Miss Mackenzie, " said Lavender as they went along the pathand down the hill--"I wonder what you would say if I happened to callyou Sheila by mistake?"

"I should be glad if you did that. Every one calls me Sheila, " said thegirl quietly enough. 

"You would not be vexed?" he said, regarding her with a little surprise. 

"No: why should I be vexed?" she answered; and she happened to look up, and he saw what a clear light of sincerity there was shining in hereyes. 

"May I then call you Sheila?"

"Yes. "

"But--but--" he said, with a timidity and embarrassment of which sheshowed no trace whatever--"but people might think it strange, you know;and yet I should greatly like to call you Sheila; only, not before otherpeople perhaps. "

"But why not?" she said with her eyebrows just raised a little. "Whyshould you wish to call me Sheila at one time and not at the other? Itis no difference whatever, and every one calls me Sheila. "

Lavender was a little disappointed. He had hoped, when she consented inso friendly a manner to his calling her by any name he chose, that hecould have established this little arrangement, which would have hadabout it something of the nature of a personal confidence. Sheila wouldevidently have none of that. Was it that she was really so simple andfrank in her ways that she did not understand why there should be such adifference, and what it might imply, or was she well aware ofeverything he had been wishing, and able to assume this air ofsimplicity and ignorance with a perfect grace? Ingram, he reflected, would have said at once that to suspect Sheila of such duplicity was toinsult her; but then Ingram was perhaps himself a trifle too easilyimposed on, and he had notions about women, despite all hisphilosophical reading and such like, that a little more mingling insociety might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed tohimself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thoroughmistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered italmost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand, how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savageisland, a species of histrionicism which women in London circles strovefor years to acquire, and rarely acquired in any perfection? At allevents, he said to himself, while he reserved his opinion on this point, he was not going to call Sheila Sheila before folks who would know whatthat meant. Mr. Mackenzie was evidently a most irascible old gentleman. Goodness only knew what sort of law prevailed in these wild parts; andto be seized at midnight by a couple of brawny fishermen, to be carrieddown to a projecting ledge of rock--! Had not Ingram already hinted thatMackenzie would straightway throw into Loch Roag the man who shouldoffer to carry away Sheila from him?

But how could these doubts of Sheila's sincerity last? He sat oppositeher in the wagonette, and the perfect truth of her face, of her frankeyes and of her ready smile met him at every moment, whether he talkedto her or to Ingram, or listened to old Mackenzie, who turned from timeto time from the driving of the horses to inform the stranger of what hesaw around him. It was the most brilliant of mornings. The sun burned onthe white road, on the green moorland, on the gray-lichened rocks withtheir crimson patches of heather. As they drove by the curiousconvolutions of this rugged coast, the sea that lay beyond theserecurring bays and points was of a windy green, with here and there astreak of white, and the fresh breeze blowing across to them temperedthe fierce heat of the sun. How cool, too, were those little fresh-waterlakes they passed, the clear blue and white of them stirred intowavelets that moved the reeds and left air-bubbles about thehalf-submerged stones! Were not those wild-geese over there, flapping inthe water with their huge wings and taking no notice of the passingstrangers? Lavender had never seen this lonely coast in times of gloom, with those little lakes become sombre pools, and the outline of therocks beyond lost in the driving mist of the sea and the rain. It wasaltogether a bright and beautiful world he had got into, and there wasin it but one woman, beautiful beyond his dreams. To doubt her was todoubt all women. When he looked at her he forgot the caution anddistrust and sardonic self-complacency his southern training had givenhim. He believed, and the world seemed to be filled with a new light. 

"That is Loch-na-Muirne, " Mackenzie was saying, "and it iss the Loch ofthe Mill; and over there that is Loch-a-Bhaile, and that iss the Loch ofthe Town; but where iss the loch and the town now? It wass many hundredsof years before there will be numbers of people in this place; and youwill come to Dun Charlobhaidh, which is a great castle, by and by. Andwhat wass it will drive away the people, and leave the land to the moss, but that there wass no one to look after them? 'When the natives willleave Islay, farewell to the peace of Scotland. ' That iss a goodproverb. And if they have no one to mind them, they will go awayaltogether. And there is no people more obedient than the people of theHighlands--not anywhere; for you know that we say, 'Is it the truth, asif you were speaking before kings?' And now there is the castle, andthere wass many people living here when they could build that. "

It was, in truth, one of those circular forts the date of which hasgiven rise to endless conjecture and discussion. Perched up on a hill, it overlooked a number of deep and narrow valleys that ran landward, while the other side of the hill sloped down to the sea-shore. It was astriking object, this tumbling mass of dark stones standing high overthe green hollows and over the light plain of the sea. Was there nothere material for another sketch for Sheila? While Lavender had goneaway over the heights and hollows to choose his point of view a roughand ready luncheon had been spread out in the wagonette, and when hereturned, perspiring and considerably blown, he found old Mackenziemeasuring out equal portions of peat-water and whisky, Duncan flickingthe enormous "clegs" from off the horses' necks, Ingram trying topersuade Sheila to have some sherry out of a flask he carried, andeverybody in very good spirits over such an exciting event as a roadsideluncheon on a summer forenoon. 

The King of Borva had by this time become excellent friends with theyoung stranger who had ventured into his dominions. When the oldgentleman had sufficiently impressed on everybody that he had observedall necessary precaution in studying the character and inquiring intothe antecedents of Lavender, he could not help confessing to a sense oflightness and vivacity that the young man seemed to bring with him andshed around him. Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing thathad particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had amost distinct dislike to Gaelic songs. He could not bear the monotonousmelancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing thesestrange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room, probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in hisinmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authorsto the infernal gods. Why should people be for ever saddening themselveswith the stories of other folks' misfortunes? It was bad enough forthose poor people, but they had borne their sorrows and died, and wereat peace. Surely it was better that we should have songs aboutourselves--drinking or fighting, if you like--to keep up the spirits, tolighten the serious cares of life, and drown for a while theresponsibility of looking after a whole population of poor, half-ignorant, unphilosophical creatures. 

"Look, now, " he would say, speaking of his own tongue, "look at thisteffle of a language! It has no present tense to its verbs: the peoplethey are always looking forward to a melancholy future or looking backto a melancholy past. In the name of Kott, hef we not got ourselves tolive? This day we live in is better than any day that wass before or issto come, bekass it is here and we are alive. And I will hef no more ofthese songs about crying, and crying, and crying!"

Now Sheila and Lavender, in their mutual musical confidences, had at anearly period discovered that each of them knew something of the olderEnglish duets, and forthwith they tried a few of them, to Mackenzie'sextreme delight. Here, at last, was a sort of music he couldunderstand--none of your moanings of widows and cries of luckless girlsto the sea, but good common-sense songs, in which the lads kissed thelasses with a will, and had a good drink afterward, and a dance on thegreen on their homeward way. There was fun in those happy Mayfields, andgood health and briskness in the ale-house choruses, and throughout themall a prevailing cheerfulness and contentment with the conditions oflife certain to recommend itself to the contemplative mind. Mackenzienever tired of hearing those simple ditties. He grew confidential withthe young man, and told him that those fine, common-sense songs recalledpleasant scenes to him. He himself knew something of English villagelife. When he had been up to see the Great Exhibition he had gone tovisit a friend living in Brighton, and he had surveyed the country withan observant eye. He had remarked several village-greens, with theMay-poles standing here and there in front of the cottages, emblazonedwith beautiful banners. He had, it is true, fancied that the May-poleshould be in the centre of the green; but the manner in which the wavesof population swept here and there, swallowing up open spaces and soforth, would account to a philosophical person for the fact that theMay-poles were now close to the village-shops. 

"Drink to me only with thine eyes, " hummed the King of Borva to himselfas he sent the two little horses along the coast-road on this warmsummer day. He had heard the song for the first time on the previousevening. He had no voice to speak of; he had missed the air, and thesewere all the words he remembered; but it was a notable compliment allthe same to the young man who had brought these pleasant tunes to theisland. And so they drove on through the keen salt air, with the seashining beside them and the sky shining over them; and in the afternoonthey arrived at the small, remote and solitary inn of Barvas, placednear the confluence of several rivers that flow through Loch Barvas (orBarabhas) to the sea. Here they proposed to stop the night, so thatLavender, when his room had been assigned to him, begged to be leftalone for an hour or two, that he might throw a little color into hissketch of Callernish. What was there to see at Barvas? Why, nothing butthe channels of the brown streams, some pasture-land and a few huts, then the unfrequented lake, and beyond that some ridges of white sandstanding over the shingly beach of the sea. He would join them atdinner. Mackenzie protested in a mild way: he really wanted to see howthe island was to be illustrated by the stranger. There was a greaterprotest, mingled with compassion and regret, in Sheila's eyes; but theyoung man was firm. So they let him have his way, and gave him fullpossession of the common sitting-room, while they set off to visit theschool and the Free-Church manse and what not in the neighborhood. 

Mackenzie had ordered dinner at eight, to show that he was familiar withthe ways of civilized life; and when they returned at that hourLavender had two sketches finished. 

"Yes, they are very good, " said Ingram, who was seldom enthusiasticabout his friend's work. 

But old Mackenzie was so vastly pleased with the picture, whichrepresented his native place in the brightest of sunshine and colors, that he forgot to assume a critical air. He said nothing against therainy and desolate version of the scene that had been given to Sheila:it was good enough to please the child. But here was somethingbrilliant, effective, cheerful; and he alarmed Lavender not a little byproposing to get one of the natives to carry this treasure, then andthere, back to Borvabost. Both sketches were ultimately returned to hisbook, and then Sheila helped him to remove his artistic apparatus fromthe table on which their plain and homely meal was to be placed. As shewas about to follow her father and Ingram, who had left the room, shepaused for a moment and said to Lavender, with a look of frank gratitudein her eyes, "It is very good of you to have pleased my papa so much. Iknow when he is pleased, though he does not speak of it; and it is notoften he will be so much pleased. "

"And you, Sheila?" said the young man, unconscious of the familiarity hewas using, and only remembering that she had scarcely thanked him forthe other sketch. 

"Well, there is nothing that will please me so much as to see himpleased, " she said with a smile. 

He was about to open the door for her, but he kept his hand on thehandle, and said, earnestly enough, "But that is such a small matter--anhour's work. If you only knew how gladly I would live all my life hereif only I could do you some greater service--"

She looked a little surprised, and then for one brief second reflected. English was not wholly familiar to her: perhaps she had failed to catchwhat he really meant. But at all events she said gravely and simply, "You would soon tire of living here: it is not always a holiday. " Andthen, without lifting her eyes to his face, she turned to the door, andhe opened it for her and she was gone. 

It was about ten o'clock when they went outside for their eveningstroll, and all the world had grown enchanted since they had seen it inthe colors of the sunset. There was no night, but a strange clearnessover the sky and the earth, and down in the south the moon was risingover the Barvas hills. In the dark green meadows the cattle were stillgrazing. Voices of children could be heard in the far distance, with therumble of a cart coming through the silence, and the murmur of thestreams flowing down to the loch. The loch itself lay like a line ofdusky yellow in a darkened hollow near the sea, having caught on itssurface the pale glow of the northern heavens, where the sun had gonedown hours before. The air was warm and yet fresh with the odors of theAtlantic, and there was a scent of Dutch clover coming across from thesandy pastures nearer the coast. The huts of the small hamlet could butfaintly be made out beyond the dark and low-lying pastures, but a long, pale line of blue smoke lay in the motionless air, and the voices of thechildren told of open doors. Night after night this same picture, withslight variations of position, had been placed before the stranger whohad come to view these solitudes, and night after night it seemed to himto grow more beautiful. He could put down on paper the outlines of anevery-day landscape, and give them a dash of brilliant color to lookwell on a wall; but how to carry away, except in the memory, anyimpression of the strange lambent darkness, the tender hues, theloneliness and the pathos of those northern twilights?

They walked down by the side of one of the streams toward the sea. ButSheila was not his companion on this occasion. Her father had laid holdof him, and was expounding to him the rights of capitalists and variousother matters. But by and by Lavender drew his companion on to talk ofSheila's mother; and here, at least, Mackenzie was neither tedious norridiculous nor unnecessarily garrulous. It was with a strange interestthe young man heard the elderly man talk of his courtship, his marriage, the character of his wife, and her goodness and beauty. Was it not likelooking at a former Sheila? and would not this Sheila now walking beforehim go through the same tender experiences, and be admired and loved andpetted by everybody as this other girl had been, who brought with herthe charm of winning ways and a gentle nature into these rude wilds? Itwas the first time he had heard Mackenzie speak of his wife, and itturned out to be the last; but from that moment the older man hadsomething of dignity in the eyes of this younger man, who had merelyjudged of him by his little foibles and eccentricities, and would havebeen ready to dismiss him contemptuously as a buffoon. There wassomething, then, behind that powerful face, with its deep-cut lines, itsheavy eyebrows and piercing and sometimes sad eyes, besides a mereliking for tricks of childish diplomacy. Lavender began to have somerespect for Sheila's father, and made a resolution to guard against theimpertinence of humoring him too ostentatiously. 

Was it not hard, though, that Ingram, who was so cold andunimpressionable, who smiled at the notion of marrying, and who wasprobably enjoying his pipe quite as much as Sheila's familiar talk, should have the girl all to himself on this witching night? They reachedthe shores of the Atlantic. There was not a breath of wind coming infrom the sea, but the air seemed even sweeter and cooler as they satdown on the great bank of shingle. Here and there birds were calling, and Sheila could distinguish each one of them. As the moon rose a faintgolden light began to tremble here and there on the waves, as if somesubterranean caverns were lit up and sending to the surface faint andfitful rays of their splendor. Farther along the coast the tall banks ofwhite sand grew white in the twilight, and the outlines of the darkpasture-land behind grew more distinct. 

But when they rose to go back to Barvas the moonlight had grown full andclear, and the long and narrow loch had a pathway of gold across, stretching from the reeds and sedges of the one side to the reeds andsedges of the other. And now Ingram had gone on to join Mackenzie, andSheila walked behind with Lavender, and her face was pale and beautifulin the moonlight. 

"I shall be very sorry when I have to leave Lewis, " he said as theywalked along the path leading through the sand and the clover; and therecould be no doubt that he felt the regret expressed in the words. 

"But it is no use to speak of leaving us yet, " said Sheila cheerfully:"it is a long time before you will go away from the Lewis. "

"And I fancy I shall always think of the island just as it is now--withthe moonlight over there, and a loch near, and you walking through thestillness. We have had so many evening walks like this. "

"You will make us very vain of our island, " said the girl with a smile, "if you will speak like that always to us. Is there no moonlight inEngland? I have pictures of English scenery that will be far morebeautiful than any we have here; and if there is the moon here, it willbe there too. Think of the pictures of the river Thames that my papashowed you last night--"

"Oh, but there is nothing like this in the South, " said the young manimpetuously. "I do not believe there is in the world anything sobeautiful as this. Sheila, what would you say if I resolved to come andlive here always?"

"I should like that very much--more than you would like it, perhaps, "she said with a bright laugh. 

"That would please you better than for you to go always and live inEngland, would it not?"

"But that is impossible, " she said. "My papa would never think of livingin England. "

For some time after he was silent. The two figures in front of themwalked steadily on, an occasional roar of laughter from the deep chestof Mackenzie startling the night air, and telling of Ingram's being in acommunicative mood. At last Lavender said, "It seems to me so great apity that you should live in this remote place, and have so littleamusement, and see so few people of tastes and education like your own. Your papa is so much occupied--he is so much older than you, too--thatyou must be left to yourself so much; whereas if you had a companion ofyour own age, who could have the right to talk frankly to you, and goabout with you, and take care of you--"

By this time they had reached the little wooden bridge crossing thestream, and Mackenzie and Ingram had got to the inn, where they stood infront of the door in the moonlight. Before ascending the steps of thebridge, Lavender, without pausing in his speech, took Sheila's hand andsaid suddenly, "Now don't let me alarm you, Sheila, but suppose at somedistant day--as far away as you please--I came and asked you to let mebe your companion then and always, wouldn't you try?"

She looked up with a startled glance of fear in her eyes, and withdrewher hand from him. 

"No, don't be frightened, " he said quite gently. "I don't ask you forany promise. Sheila, you must know I love you--you must have seen it. Will you not let me come to you at some future time--a long wayoff--that you may tell me then? Won't you try to do that?"

There was more in the tone of his voice than in his words. The girlstood irresolute for a second or two, regarding him with a strange, wistful, earnest look; and then a great gentleness came into her eyes, and she put out her hand to him and said in a low voice, "Perhaps. "

But there was something so grave and simple about her manner at thismoment that he dared not somehow receive it as a lover receives thefirst admission of love from the lips of a maiden. There had beensomething of a strange inquiry in her face as she regarded him for asecond or two; and now that her eyes were bent on the ground it seemedto him that she was trying to realize the full effect of the concessionshe had made. He would not let her think. He took her hand and raised itrespectfully to his lips, and then he led her forward to the bridge. Nota word was spoken between them while they crossed the shining space ofmoonlight to the shadow of the house; and as they went indoors he caughtbut one glimpse of her eyes, and they were friendly and kind toward him, but evidently troubled. He saw her no more that night. 

So he had asked Sheila to be his wife, and she had given him some timidencouragement as to the future. Many a time within these last few dayshad he sketched out an imaginative picture of the scene. He was familiarwith the passionate rapture of lovers on the stage, in books and inpictures; and he had described himself (to himself) as intoxicated withjoy, anxious to let the whole world know of his good fortune, and aboveall to confide the tidings of his happiness to his constant friend andcompanion. But now, as he sat in one corner of the room, he almostfeared to be spoken to by the two men who sat at the table with steamingglasses before them. He dared not tell Ingram: he had no wish to tellhim, even if he had got him alone. And as he sat there and recalled theincident that had just occurred by the side of the little bridge, hecould not wholly understand its meaning. There had been none of theeagerness, the coyness, the tumult of joy he had expected: all he couldremember clearly was the long look that the large, earnest, troubledeyes had fixed upon him, while the girl's face, grown pale in themoonlight, seemed somehow ghost-like and strange. 

CHAPTER VII. 

AN INTERMEDDLER. 

But in the morning all these idle fancies fled with the life and colorand freshness of a new day. Loch Barvas was ruffled into a dark blue bythe westerly wind, and doubtless the sea out there was rushing in, green and cold, to the shore. The sunlight was warm about the house. Thetrout were leaping in the shallow brown streams, and here and there awhite butterfly fluttered across the damp meadows. Was not that Duncandown by the river, accompanied by Ingram? There was a glimmer of a rodin the sunshine: the two poachers were after trout for Sheila'sbreakfast. 

Lavender dressed, went outside and looked about for the nearest way downto the stream. He wished to have a chance of saying a word to his friendbefore Sheila or her father should appear. And at last he thought hecould do no better than go across to the bridge, and so make his waydown the banks of the river. 

What a fresh morning it was, with all sorts of sweet scents in the air!And here, sure enough, was a pretty picture in the early light--a younggirl coming over the bridge carrying a load of green grass on her back. What would she say if he asked her to stop for a moment that he mightsketch her pretty costume? Her head-dress was a scarlet handkerchief, tied behind: she wore a tight-fitting bodice of cream-white flannel andpetticoats of gray flannel, while she had a waistbelt and pouch ofbrilliant blue. Did she know of these harmonies of color or of thepicturesqueness of her appearance as she came across the bridge in thesunlight? As she drew near she stared at the stranger with the big, dumbeyes of a wild animal. There was no fear, only a sort of surprisedobservation in them. And as she passed she uttered, without a smile, some brief and laconic salutation in Gaelic, which of course the youngman could not understand. He raised his cap, however, and said"Good-morning!" and went on, with a fixed resolve to learn all theGaelic that Duncan could teach him. 

Surely the tall keeper was in excellent spirits this morning. Longbefore he drew near, Lavender could hear, in the stillness of themorning, that he was telling stories about John the Piper, and of hisadventures in such distant parts as Portree and Oban, and even inGlasgow. 

"And it wass Allan M'Gillivray of Styornoway, " Duncan was saying as heindustriously whipped the shallow runs of the stream, "will go toGlasgow with John; and they went through ta Crinan Canal. Wass youthrough ta Crinan Canal, sir?"

"Many a time. "

"Ay, jist that. And I hef been told it iss like a river with ta sides o'a house to it; and what would Allan care for a thing like that, when hehass been to America more than twice or four times? And it wass when hefell into the canal, he was ferry nearly trooned for all that; and whenthey pulled him to ta shore he wass a ferry angry man. And this iss whatJohn says that Allan will say when he wass on the side of the canal:'Kott, ' says he, 'if I wass trooned here, I would show my face inStyornoway no more!' But perhaps it iss not true, for he will tell manylies, does John the Piper, to hef a laugh at a man. "

"The Crinan Canal is not to be despised, Duncan, " said Ingram, who wassitting on the red sand of the bank, "when you are in it. "

"And do you know what John says that Allan will say to him the firsttime they went ashore at Glasgow?"

"I am sure I don't. "

"It wass many years ago, before that Allan will be going many times toAmerica, and he will neffer hef seen such fine shops and ta big housesand hundreds and hundreds of people, every one with shoes on their feet. And he will say to John, 'John, ef I had known in time I should hef beenborn here. ' But no one will believe it iss true, he is such a teffle ofa liar, that John; and he will hef some stories about Mr. Mackenziehimself, as I hef been told, that he will tell when he goes toStyornoway. But John is a ferry cunning fellow, and will not tell anysuch stories in Borva. "

"I suppose if he did, Duncan, you would dip him in Loch Roag?"

"Oh, there iss more than one, " said Duncan with a grim twinkle in hiseye--"there iss more than one that would hef a joke with him if he wasto tell stories about Mr. Mackenzie. "

Lavender had been standing listening, unknown to both. He now wentforward and bade them good-morning, and then, having had a look at thetrout that Duncan had caught, pulled Ingram up from the bank, put hisarm in his and walked away with him. 

"Ingram, " he said suddenly, with a laugh and a shrug, "you know I alwayscome to you when I'm in a fix. "

"I suppose you do, " said the other, "and you are always welcome towhatever help I can give you. But sometimes it seems to me you rush intofixes, with the sort of notion that I am responsible for getting youout. "

"I can assure you nothing of the kind is the case. I could not be soungrateful. However, in the mean time--that is--the fact is, I askedSheila last night if she would marry me. "

"The devil you did!"

Ingram dropped his companion's arm and stood looking at him. 

"Well, I knew you would be angry, " said the younger man in a tone ofapology. "And I know I have been too precipitate, but I thought of theshort time we should be remaining here, and of the difficulty of gettingan explanation made at another time; and it was really only to give hera hint as to my own feelings that I spoke. I could not bear to wait anylonger. "

"Never mind about yourself, " said Ingram somewhat curtly: "what didSheila say?"

"Well, nothing definite. What could you expect a girl to say after soshort an acquaintance? But this I can tell you, that the proposal is notaltogether distasteful to her, and that I have her permission to speakof it at some future time, when we have known each other longer. "

"You have?"

"Yes. "

"You are quite sure?"

"Certain. "

"There is no mistake about her silence, for example, that might have ledyou into misinterpreting her wishes altogether?"

"Nothing of the kind is possible. Of course I could not ask the girl forany promise, or anything of that sort. All I asked was, whether shewould allow me at some future time to ask her more definitely; and I amso well satisfied with the reply that I am convinced I shall marry her. "

"And is this the fix you wish me to help you out of?" said Ingram rathercoldly. 

"Now, Ingram, " said the younger man in penitential tones, "don't cut uprough about it. You know what I mean. Perhaps I have been hasty andinconsiderate about it; but of one thing you may be sure, that Sheilawill never have to complain of me if she marries me. You say I don'tknow her yet, but there will be plenty of time before we are married. Idon't propose to carry her off to-morrow morning. Now, Ingram, you knowwhat I mean about helping me in the fix--helping me with her father, youknow, and with herself, for the matter of that. You can do anything withher, she has such a belief in you. You should hear how she talks ofyou--you never heard anything like it. "

It was an innocent bit of flattery, and Ingram smiled good-naturedly atthe boy's ingenuousness. After all, was he not more lovable and moresincere in this little bit of simple craft, used in the piteousness ofhis appeal, then when he was giving himself the airs of aman-about-town, and talking of women in a fashion which, to do himjustice, expressed nothing of his real sentiments?

Ingram walked on, and said in his slow and deliberate way, "You know Iopposed this project of yours from the first. I don't think you haveacted fairly by Sheila or her father, or myself who brought you here. But if Sheila has been drawn into it, why, then, the whole affair isaltered, and we've got to make the best of a bad business. "

"I was sure you would say that, " exclaimed the younger man with abrighter light appearing on his face. "You may call me all the hardnames you like: I deserve them all, and more. But then, as you say, since Sheila is in it, you'll do your best, won't you?"

Frank Lavender could not make out why the taciturn and sallow-faced manwalking beside him seemed to be greatly amused by this speech, but hewas in no humor to take offence. He knew that once Ingram had promisedhim his help he would not lack all the advocacy, the advice, and eventhe money--should that become necessary--that a warm-hearted anddisinterested friend could offer. Many and many a time Ingram had helpedhim, and now he was to come to his assistance in the most serious crisisof his life. Ingram would remove Sheila's doubts. Ingram would persuadeold Mackenzie that girls had to get married some time or other, and thatSheila ought to live in London. Ingram would be commissioned to breakthe news to Mrs. Lavender--But here, when the young man thought of theinterview with his aunt which he would have to encounter, a cold shiverpassed through his frame. He would not think of it. He would enjoy thepresent hour. Difficulties only grew the bigger the more they werelooked at: when they were left to themselves they frequentlydisappeared. It was another proof of Ingram's kindliness that he had noteven mentioned the old lady down in Kensington who was likely to havesomething to say about this marriage. 

"There are a great many difficulties in the way, " said Ingramthoughtfully. 

"Yes, " said Lavender with much eagerness, "but then, look! You may besure that if we get over these, Sheila will know well who managed it, and she will not be ungrateful to you, I think. If we ever should bemarried, I am certain she will always look on you as her greatestfriend. "

"It is a big bribe, " said the elder man, perhaps a trifle sadly; andLavender looked at him with some vague return of a suspicion that sometime or other Ingram must himself have been in love with Sheila. 

They returned to the inn, where they found Mackenzie busy with a heap ofletters and newspapers that had been sent across to him from Stornoway. The whole of the breakfast-table was littered with wrappers and big blueenvelopes: where was Sheila, who usually waited on her father at suchtimes to keep his affairs in order?

Sheila was outside, and Lavender saw her through the open window. Wasshe not waiting for him, that she should pace up and down by herself, with her face turned away from the house? He immediately went out andwent over to her, and she turned to him as he approached. He fancied shelooked a trifle pale, and far less bright and joyous than the ordinarySheila. 

"Mr. Lavender, " she said, walking away from the house, "I wish very muchto speak to you for a moment. Last night it was all a misfortune that Idid not understand; and I wish you to forget that a word was ever spokenabout that. "

Her head was bent down, and her speech was low and broken: what shefailed to explain in words her manner explained for her. But hercompanion said to her, with alarm and surprise in his tone, "Why, Sheila! You cannot be so cruel! Surely you need not fear anyembarrassment through so slight a promise. It pledges you to nothing--itleaves you quite free; and some day, if I come and ask you then aquestion I have not asked you yet, that will be time enough to give mean answer. "

"Oh no, no!" said the girl, obviously in great distress, "I cannot dothat. It is unjust to you to let you think of it and hope about it. Itwas last night everything was strange to me--I did not understandthen--but I have thought about it all the night through, and now Iknow. "

"Sheila!" called her father from the inside of the inn, and she turnedto go. 

"But you do not ask that, do you?" he said. "You are only frightened alittle bit just now, but that will go away. There is nothing to befrightened about. You have been thinking over it, and imaginingimpossible things: you have been thinking of leaving Borva altogether--"

"Oh, that I can never do!" she said with a pathetic earnestness. 

"But why think of such a thing?" he said. "You need not look at all thepossible troubles of life when you take such a simple step as this. Sheila, don't be hasty in any such resolve: you may be sure all thegloomy things you have been thinking of will disappear when we get closeto them. And this is such a simple thing. I don't ask you to say youwill be my wife--I have no right to ask you yet--but I have only askedpermission of you to let me think of it; and even Mr. Ingram sees nogreat harm in that. "

"Does _he_ know?" she said with a start of surprise and fear. 

"Yes, " said Lavender, wishing he had bitten his tongue in two before hehad uttered the word. "You know we have no secrets from each other; andto whom could I go for advice but to your oldest friend?"

"And what did he say?" she asked with a strange look in her eyes. 

"Well, he sees a great many difficulties, but he thinks they will easilybe got over. "

"Then, " she said, with her eyes again cast down and a certain sadness inher tone, "I must explain to him too, and tell him I had nounderstanding of what I said last night. "

"Sheila, you won't do that!" urged the young man. "It means nothing--itpledges you to nothing. "

"Sheila! Sheila!" cried her father cheerily from the window, "come inand let us hef our breakfast. "

"Yes, papa, " said the girl, and she went into the house, followed by hercompanion. 

But how could she find an opportunity of making this explanation?Shortly after breakfast the wagonette was at the door of the littleBarvas inn, and Sheila came out of the house and took her place in itwith an unusual quietness of manner and hopelessness of look. Ingram, sitting opposite to her, and knowing nothing of what had taken place, fancied that this was but an expression of girlish timidity, and that itwas his business to interest her and amuse her until she should forgetthe strangeness and newness of her position. Nay, as he had resolved tomake the best of matters as they stood, and as he believed that Sheilahad half confessed to a special liking for his friend from the South, what more fitting thing could he do than endeavor to place Lavender inthe most favorable light in her eyes? He began to talk of all thebrilliant and successful things the young man had done as fully as hecould before himself. He contrived to introduce pretty anecdotes ofLavender's generosity; and there were plenty of these, for the youngfellow had never a thought of consequences if he was touched by a taleof distress, and if he could help the sufferer either with his own orany one else's money. Ingram talked of all their excursions together, inDevonshire, in Brittany and elsewhere, to impress on Sheila how well heknew his friend and how long their intimacy had lasted. At first thegirl was singularly reserved and silent, but somehow, as pleasantrecollections were multiplied, and as Lavender seemed to have beenalways the associate and companion of this old friend of hers, somebrighter expression came into her face and she grew more interested. Lavender, not knowing whether or not to take her decision of thatmorning as final, and not wholly perceiving the aim of this kindly chaton the part of his friend, began to see at least that Sheila was pleasedto hear the two men help out each other's stories about their pedestrianexcursions, and that she at last grew bold enough to look up and meethis eyes in a timid fashion when she asked him a question. 

So they drove along by the side of the sea, the level and well-made roadleading them through miles and miles of rough moorland, with here andthere a few huts or a sheepfold to break the monotony of the undulatingsky-line. Here and there, too, there were great cuttings of thepeat-moss, with a thin line of water in the foot of the deep blacktrenches. Sometimes, again, they would escape altogether from any tracesof human habitation, and Duncan would grow excited in pointing out toMiss Sheila the young grouse that had run off the road into the heather, where they stood and eyed the passing carriage with anything but afrightened air. And while Mackenzie hummed something resembling, butvery vaguely resembling, "Love in thine eyes sits beaming, " and whileIngram, in his quiet, desultory, and often sardonic fashion, amused theyoung girl with stories of her lover's bravery and kindness anddare-devil escapades, the merry trot of the horses beat time to thebells on their necks, the fresh west wind blew a cloud of white dustaway over the moorland behind them, there was a blue sky shining allaround them, and the blue Atlantic basking in the light. 

They stopped for a few minutes at both the hamlets of Suainabost andTabost to allow Sheila to pay a hurried visit to one or two of the huts, while Mackenzie, laying hold of some of the fishermen he knew, got themto show Lavender the curing-houses, in which the young gentlemanprofessed himself profoundly interested. They also visited theschool-house, and Lavender found himself beginning to look upon atwo-storied building with windows as something imposing and a decidedtriumph of human skill and enterprise. But what was the school-house ofTabost to the grand building at the Butt? They had driven away from thehigh-road by a path leading through long and sweet-smelling pastures ofDutch clover; they had got up from these sandy swathes to a table-landof rock; and here and there they caught glimpses of fearful precipicesleading sheer down to the boiling and dashing sea. The curiouscontortions of the rocks, the sharp needles of them springing inisolated pillars from out of the water, the roar of the eddying currentsthat swept through the chasms and dashed against the iron-bound shore, the wild sea-birds that flew about and screamed over the rushing wavesand the surge, naturally enough drew the attention of the strangersaltogether away from the land; and it was with a start of surprise theyfound themselves before an immense mass of yellow stone-work--walls, house and tower--that shone in the sunlight. And here were thelight-house-keeper and his wife, delighted to see strange faces and mosthospitably inclined; insomuch that Lavender, who cared little forluncheon at any time, was constrained to take as much bread and cheeseand butter and whisky as would have made a ploughman's dinner. It was astrange sort of meal this, away out at the end of the world, as it were. The snug little room might have been in the Marylebone road: there werephotographs about, a gay label on the whisky-bottle, and other signs ofan advanced civilization; but outside nothing but the wild precipices ofthe coast, a surging sea that seemed almost to surround the place, thewild screaming of the sea-birds, and a single ship appearing like a merespeck on the northern horizon. 

They had not noticed the wind much as they drove along; but now, whenthey went out on to the high table-land of rock, it seemed to be blowinghalf a gale across the sea. The sunlight sparkled on the glass of thelighthouse, and the great yellow shaft of stone stretched away upwardinto a perfect blue. As clear a blue lay far beneath them when the seacame rushing in among the lofty crags and sharp pinnacles of rock, bursting into foam at their feet, and sending long jets of white sprayup into the air. In front of the great wall of rock the sea-birdswheeled and screamed, and on the points of some of the islands stoodseveral scarts, motionless figures of jet black on the soft brown andgreen of the rock. And what was this island they looked down upon fromover one of the bays? Surely a mighty reproduction by Nature herself ofthe Sphynx of the Egyptian plains. Could anything have been morestriking and unexpected and impressive than the sudden discovery of thisgreat mass of rock resting in the wild sea, its hooded head turned awaytoward the north and hidden from the spectator on land, its giganticbulk surrounded by a foam of breakers? Lavender, with his teeth set hardagainst the wind, must needs take down the outlines of this strangescene upon paper, while Sheila crouched at her father's side forshelter, and Ingram was chiefly engaged in holding on to his cap. 

"It blows here a bit, " said Lavender amid the roar of the waves. "Isuppose in the winter-time the sea will sometimes break across thisplace?"

"Ay, and over the top of the lighthouse too, " said Mackenzie with alaugh, as though he was rather proud of the way his native seas behaved. 

"Sheila, " said Ingram, "I never saw _you_ take refuge from the windbefore. "

"It is because we will be standing still, " said the girl with a smilewhich was scarcely visible, because she had half hidden her face in herfather's great gray beard. "But when Mr. Lavender is finished we will godown to the great hole in the rocks that you will have seen before, andperhaps he will make a picture of that too. "

"You don't mean to say you would go down there, Sheila?" said Ingram, "and in this wind?"

"I have been down many times before. "

"Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind, Sheila, " said her father: "youwill go back to the lighthouse if you like--yes, you may do that--and Iwill go down the rocks with Mr. Lavender; but it iss not for a younglady to go about among the rocks, like a fisherman's lad that wants thebirds' eggs, or such nonsense. "

It was quite evident that Mackenzie had very little fear of his daughternot being able to accomplish the descent of the rocks safely enough: itwas a matter of dignity. And so Sheila was at length persuaded to goacross the plain to a sheltered place, to wait there until the othersshould clamber down to the great and naturally-formed tunnel through therocks that the artist was to sketch. 

Lavender was ill at ease. He followed his guide mechanically as theymade their way, in zigzag fashion, down the precipitous slopes and overslippery plateaus; and when at last he came in sight of the mighty arch, the long cavern, and the glimmer of sea and shore that could be seenthrough it, he began to put down the outlines of the picture as rapidlyas possible, but with little interest in the matter. Ingram was sittingon the bare rocks beside him, Mackenzie was some distance off: should hetell his friend of what Sheila had said in the morning? Strict honesty, perhaps, demanded as much, but the temptation to say nothing was great. For it was evident that Ingram was now well inclined to the project, andwould do his best to help it on; whereas, if once he knew that Sheilahad resolved against it, he too might take some sudden step--such asinsisting on their immediate return to the mainland--which would settlethe matter for ever. Sheila had said she would herself make thenecessary explanation to Ingram, but she had not done so: perhaps shemight lack the courage or an opportunity to do so, and in the mean timewas not the interval altogether favorable to his chances? Doubtless shewas a little frightened at first. She would soon get less timid, andwould relent and revoke her decision of the morning. He would not, atpresent at any rate, say anything to Ingram. 

But when they had got up again to the summit of the rocks, an incidentoccurred that considerably startled him out of these vague and anxiousspeculations. He walked straight over to the sheltered spot in whichSheila was waiting. The rushing of the wind doubtless drowned the soundof his footsteps, so that he came on her unawares; and on seeing him sherose suddenly from the rock on which she had been sitting, with someeffort to hide her face away from him. But he had caught a glimpse ofsomething in her eyes that filled him with remorse. 

"Sheila, " he said, going forward to her, "what is the matter? What areyou unhappy about?"

She could not answer; she held her face turned from him and cast down;and then, seeing her father and Ingram in the distance, she set out tofollow them to the lighthouse, Lavender walking by her side, andwondering how he could deal with the distress that was only too clearlywritten on her face. 

"I know it is I who have grieved you, " he said in a low voice, "and Iam very sorry. But if you will tell me what I can do to remove thisunhappiness, I will do it now. Shall I consider our talking together oflast night as if it had not taken place at all?"

"Yes, " she said in as low a voice, but clear and sad and determined inits tone. 

"And I shall speak no more to you about this affair until I go awayaltogether?"

And again she signified her assent, gravely and firmly. 

"And then, " he said, "you will soon forget all about it; for of course Ishall never come back to Lewis again. "

"Never?"

The word had escaped her unwillingly, and it was accompanied by a quickupturning of the face and a frightened look in the beautiful eyes. 

"Do you wish me to come back?" he said. 

"I should not wish you to go away from the Lewis through any fault ofmine, and say that we should never see you again, " said the girl inmeasured tones, as if she were nerving herself to make the admission, and yet fearful of saying too much. 

By this time Mackenzie and Ingram had gone round the big wall of thelighthouse: there were no human beings on this lonely bit of heath butthemselves. Lavender stopped her and took her hand, and said, "Don't yousee, Sheila, how I must never come back to Lewis if all this is to beforgotten? And all I want you to say is, that I may come some day to seeif you can make up your mind to be my wife. I don't ask that yet: it isout of the question, seeing how short a time you have known anythingabout me, and I cannot wish you to trust me as I can trust you. It is avery little thing I ask--only to give me a chance at some future time, and then, if you don't care for me sufficiently to marry me, or ifanything stands in the way, all you need do is to send me a single word, and that will suffice. This is no terrible thing that I beg from you, Sheila. You needn't be afraid of it. "

But she was afraid: there was nothing but fear and doubt and grief inher eyes as she gazed into the unknown world laid open before her. 

"Can't you ask some one to tell you that it is nothing dreadful--Mr. Ingram, for example?"

"I could not. "

"Your papa, then, " he said, driven to this desperate resource by hisanxiety to save her from pain. 

"Not yet--not just yet, " she said almost wildly, "for how could Iexplain to him? He would ask me what my wishes were: what could I say? Ido not know. I cannot tell myself; and--and--I have no mother to ask. "And here all the strain of self-control gave way, and the girl burstinto tears. 

"Sheila, dear Sheila, " he said, "why won't you trust your own heart, andlet that be your guide? Won't you say this one word _Yes_, and tell methat I am to come back to Lewis some day, and ask to see you, and get amessage from one look of your eyes? Sheila, may not I come back?"

If there was a reply it was so low that he scarcely heard it; butsomehow--whether from the small hand that lay in his, or from the eyesthat sent one brief message of trust and hope through their tears--hisquestion was answered; and from that moment he felt no more misgivings, but let his love for Sheila spread out and blossom in whatever light offancy and imagination he could bring to bear on it, careless of anyfuture. 

How the young fellow laughed and joked as the party drove away againfrom the Butt, down the long coast-road to Barvas! He was tenderlyrespectful and a little moderate in tone when he addressed Sheila, butwith the others he gave way to a wild exuberance of spirits thatdelighted Mackenzie beyond measure. He told stories of the odd oldgentlemen of his club, of their opinions, their ways, their dress. Hesang the song of the Arethusa, and the wilds of Lewis echoed with achorus which was not just as harmonious as it might have been. He sangthe "Jug of Punch, " and Mackenzie said that was a teffle of a goodsong. He gave imitations of some of Ingram's companions at the Board ofTrade, and showed Sheila what the inside of a government office waslike. He paid Mackenzie the compliment of asking him for a drop ofsomething out of his flask, and in return he insisted on the Kingsmoking a cigar which, in point of age and sweetness and fragrance, wasreally the sort of cigar you would naturally give to the man whose onlydaughter you wanted to marry. 

Ingram understood all this, and, was pleased to see the happy look thatSheila wore. He talked to her with even a greater assumption than usualof fatherly fondness; and if she was a little shy, was it not becauseshe was conscious of so great a secret? He was even unusuallycomplaisant to Lavender, and lost no opportunity of paying him indirectcompliments that Sheila could overhear. 

"You poor young things!" he seemed to be saying to himself, "you've gotall your troubles before you; but in the mean time you may makeyourselves as happy as you can. "

Was the weather at last about to break? As the afternoon wore on theheavens became overcast, for the wind had gone back from the course ofthe sun, and had brought up great masses of cloud from the rainysouth-west. 

"Are we going to have a storm?" said Lavender, looking along thesouthern sky, where the Barvas hills were momentarily growing blackerunder the gathering darkness overhead. 

"A storm?" said Mackenzie, whose notions on what constituted a stormwere probably different from those of his guest. "No, there will be nostorm. But it is no bad thing if we get back to Barvas very soon. "

Duncan sent the horses on, and Ingram looked out Sheila's waterproof andthe rugs. The southern sky certainly looked ominous. There was a strangeintensity of color in the dark landscape, from the deep purple of theBarvas hills, coming forward to the deep green of the pasture-landaround them, and the rich reds and browns of the heath and thepeat-cuttings. At one point of the clouded and hurrying sky, however, there was a soft and vaporous line of yellow in the gray; and underthat, miles away in the west, a great dash of silver light struck uponthe sea, and glowed there so that the eye could scarcely bear it. Was itthe damp that brought the perfumes of the moorland so distinctly towardthem--the bog-myrtle, the water-mint and wild thyme? There were no birdsto be heard. The crimson masses of heather on the gray rocks seemed tohave grown richer and deeper in color, and the Barvas hills had becomelarge and weird in the gloom. 

"Are you afraid of thunder?" said Lavender to Sheila. 

"No, " said the girl, looking frankly toward him with her glad eyes, asthough he had pleased her by asking that not very striking question. Andthen she looked round at the sea and the sky in the south, and saidquietly, "But there will be no thunder: it is too much wind. "

Ingram, with a smile which he could scarcely conceal, hereupon remarked, "You're sorry, Lavender, I know. Wouldn't you like to shelter somebodyin danger or attempt a rescue, or do something heroic?"

"And Mr. Lavender would do that if there was any need, " said the girlbravely, "and then it would be nothing to laugh at. "

"Sheila, you bad girl! how dare you talk like that to me?" said Ingram;and he put his arm within hers and said he would tell her a story. 

But this race to escape the storm was needless, for they were justgetting within sight of Barvas when a surprising change came over thedark and thunderous afternoon. The hurrying masses of cloud in the westparted for a little space, and there was a sudden and fitful glimmer ofa stormy blue sky. Then a strange soft yellow and vaporous light shotacross to the Barvas hills, and touched up palely the great slopes, rendering them distant, ethereal and cloud-like. Then a shaft or two ofwild light flashed down upon the landscape beside them. The cattle shonered in the brilliant green pastures. The gray rocks glowed in theirsetting of moss. The stream going by Barvas Inn was a streak of gold inits sandy bed. And then the sky above them broke into great billows ofcloud--tempestuous and rounded masses of golden vapor that burned withthe wild glare of the sunset. The clear spaces in the sky widened, andfrom time to time the wind sent ragged bits of yellow cloud across theshining blue. All the world seemed to be on fire, and the very smoke ofit, the majestic masses of vapor that rolled by overhead, burned with abewildering glare. Then, as the wind still blew hard, and kept veeringround again to the north-west, the fiercely-lit clouds were driven overone by one, leaving a pale and serene sky to look down on the sinkingsun and the sea. The Atlantic caught the yellow glow on its tumblingwaves, and a deeper color stole across the slopes and peaks of theBarvas hills. Whither had gone the storm? There were still some banks ofclouds away up in the north-east, and in the clear green of the eveningsky they had their distant grays and purples faintly tinged with rose. 

"And so you are anxious and frightened, and a little pleased?" saidIngram to Sheila that evening, after he had frankly told her what heknew, and invited her further confidence. "That is all I can gather fromyou, but it is enough. Now you can leave the rest to me. "

"To you?" said the girl with a blush of pleasure and surprise. 

"Yes. I like new experiences. I am going to become an intermeddler now. I am going to arrange this affair, and become the negotiator between allthe parties; and then, when I have secured the happiness of the whole ofyou, you will all set upon me and beat me with sticks, and thrust me outof your houses. "

"I do not think, " said Sheila, looking down, "that you have much fear ofthat, Mr. Ingram. "

"Is the world going to alter because of me?"

"I would rather not have you try to do anything that is likely to getyou into unhappiness, " she said. 

"Oh, but that is absurd. You timid young folks can't act for yourselves. You want agents and instruments that have got hardened by use. Fancy thecondition of our ancestors, you know, before they had the sense toinvent steel claws to tear their food in pieces--what could they do withtheir fingers? I am going to be your knife and fork, Sheila, and you'llsee what I shall carve out for you. All you've got to do is to keep yourspirits up, and believe that nothing dreadful is going to take placemerely because some day you will be asked to marry. You let things taketheir ordinary course. Keep your spirits up--don't neglect your music oryour dinner or your poor people down in Borvabost--and you'll see itwill all come right enough. In a year or two, or less than that, youwill marry contentedly and happily, and your papa will drink a goodglass of whisky at the wedding and make jokes about it, and everythingwill be as right as the mail. That's my advice: see you attend to it. "

"You are very kind to me, " said the girl in a low voice. 

"But if you begin to cry, Sheila, then I throw up my duties. Do youhear? Now look: there goes Mr. Lavender down to the boat with a bundleof rugs, and I suppose you mean me to imperil my precious life bysailing about these rocky channels in the moonlight? Come along down tothe shore; and mind you please your papa by singing 'Love in thine eyes'with Mr. Lavender. And if you would add to that 'The Minute Gun at Sea, 'why, you know, I may as well have my little rewards for intermeddlingnow, as I shall have to suffer afterward. "

"Not through me, " said Sheila in rather an uncertain voice; and thenthey went down to the Maighdean-mhara. 

[TO BE CONTINUED. ]

AT ODDS. 

 The snow had lain upon the ground From gray November into March, And lingering April hardly saw The tardy tassels of the larch, When sudden, like sweet eyes apart, Looked down the soft skies of the spring, And, guided by alluring signs, Came late birds on impatient wing. 

 And when I found a shy white flower-- The first love of the amorous sun, That from the cold clasp of the earth The passion of his looks had won-- I said unto my brooding heart, Which I had humored in its way, "Give sorrow to the winds that blow: Let's out and have a holiday!"

 My heart made answer unto me: "Where are the faint white chestnut-blooms? Where are the thickets of wild rose-- Dim paths that lead to odorous glooms?" "They are not yet. But listen, Heart! I hear a red-breast robin call: I see a golden glint of light Where lately-loosened waters fall. "

 I waited long, but no reply Came from my strangely silent heart: I left the open, sunlit mead, And walked a little way apart, Where gloomy pines their shadows cast, And brown pine-needles made below A sober covering for the place, Where scarce another thing could grow. 

 And then I said unto my heart, "Now, we are in the dark, I pray What is it I must do for thee That thou mayst make a holiday? Was ever fresher blue above? Was ever blither calm around? The purple promise of the spring Is writ in violets on the ground. 

 "Comes, blown across my face, the breath Of apple-blossoms far away: Hast thou no memories, my heart, As sweet and beautiful as they?" And while I spoke I stood beside A low mound fashioned like a grave, And covered thick with last year's leaves, Set in the forest's spacious nave. 

 And there I heard a little sound, The flutter of a feeble wing, And saw upon the grave-like mound A bird that never more would sing. I took it up, and first I laid The quivering plumage to my cheek, Then tenderly upon my breast, And sorrowed, seeing it so weak. 

 Up spoke my sore reproachful heart: "And now how happens it, I pray, Thou dost not press the wounded bird To sing and make a holiday?" I made no answer then, but went Into the dark wood's darkest deep, And on my breast the bird lay dead, And all around was still as sleep. 

 "There be that walk among the graves, " At length, "repining heart, " I said-- "Who carry slain loves in their breasts, Yet smile like angels o'er their dead. And thou! Why wilt thou shame me thus, Saying, for ever, Nay and Nay?" Then said my heart, "To conquer pain Is not to make a holiday. 

 "And they who walk upon the heights, Not hurtled by the passing storm, Have carried long in lower lands The grievous burdens that deform The small of faith, the weak of heart, The narrow-minded and untrue, Who doubt if any heaven is left When clouds are blown across its blue. 

 "And they are not of those who seek To put unsolvèd things away, Too early saying to their hearts, 'Come out, for it is holiday!' And often 'tis the shallowest soul That makes unseemly laughter ring, That dares not bide amid its ghosts, And, lest it weep, must try to sing. 

 "Wait till the tooth of pain is dulled; Wait till the wound is overgrown: Not in a day the moss hath made So fair this once unsightly stone. " Then was I silent, but less wroth, Content my heart should have its way. Believing that in God's fit time We yet should keep our holiday. 

HOWARD GLYNDON. 

PHILADELPHIA ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 

Zoological gardens for Philadelphia have been a dream for many years, and spasmodic efforts have been made from time to time to produce thereality, but as yet nothing tangible has resulted. The idea has been tooinchoate to develop much enthusiasm, and year after year our citizenshave returned from enjoying the delights of foreign gardens, and mildlywondered, in the true Philadelphia style, why we should not have them. Nor is this marvelous when we consider the present condition of theproposed Centennial Exhibition, which, it is mortifying to confess, languishes for want of proper support. It cannot be denied that in thisundertaking an opportunity is presented that would be eagerly seized, with all its attendant labor and expense, by any one of the States, andthat it was with great difficulty, and only because of the self-evidentincongruity of holding it elsewhere, that we were permitted by thenational authorities to celebrate the anniversary in Philadelphia. It isin connection with this, and as a part thereof, that the ZoologicalGardens deserve immediate attention, as an additional, and next to thegrand exhibition itself the principal, attraction to the hundreds ofthousands who will visit the City of Brotherly Love on the Fourth ofJuly, 1876. The plan on the next page shows the ground which has beengranted by the Commissioners of the Fairmount Park to the PhiladelphiaZoological Society. The gentlemen who have taken the matter in hand arewell known for their energy and breadth of view, and if sustained intheir endeavors will carry out the scheme in a manner worthy of thisgreat and growing city. 

In undertaking this work the managers have the advantage of theexperience and counsel of similar societies in the Old World, andparticularly of the magnificent London Zoological Gardens, the officersof which are extremely interested in the success of the enterprise here, and are prepared to aid, by advice and contributions, the PhiladelphiaGarden. A description of the English society may be useful in forming anopinion of the feasibility and advantages of the proposed scheme. TheLondon Zoological Society was organized in 1826, under the auspices ofSir Humphry Davy, Sir Stamford Raffles and other eminent men, for theadvancement of zoology and animal physiology, and for the introductionand acclimatization of subjects of the animal kingdom. By the charter, granted March 27, 1829, Henry, marquis of Lansdowne, George, LordAuckland, Charles Baring Wall, Joseph Sabine and Nicholas AylwardVigors, Esqs. , were created the first fellows. These gentlemen wereempowered to admit such other persons to be fellows, honorary members, foreign members and corresponding members as they might think fit, andto appoint twenty-one of the fellows to be the council, which shouldmanage the entire affairs of the society and elect members thereof untilthe 29th of May following; at which time and annually thereafter thesociety should hold a meeting, and by ballot remove five of thiscouncil, and elect five others in their place, being fellows of thesociety, who, with those remaining, should constitute the council forthe ensuing year. It will thus be seen that every year five of thecouncil are voted out, and five others elected in their stead, thusretaining a large proportion of managers acquainted with the workings ofthe organization. 

[Illustration: PLAN OF THE PROPOSED ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. ]

By the by-laws fellows are required to pay twenty-five dollarsinitiation fee and fifteen dollars per annum, or one hundred and fiftydollars at once in lieu of such dues. Annual subscribers pay the sameamount yearly, but no initiation fee, and they are not permitted to voteat elections. Ladies are admitted as fellows upon the same terms andwith the same privileges; with the addition, however, that they areallowed to vote by proxy. 

Fellows have personal admission to the Gardens, with two companions, daily, and receive orders, to be signed by them, admitting two personson each Saturday and Sunday in the year. They are also entitled totwenty free tickets of admission. Sundays are set apart specially forfellows and their friends, the general public not being admitted. 

The society has business and scientific meetings--the lattermonthly--and these are very largely attended and of the most interestingcharacter. New and remarkable subjects of zoology are exhibited, papersand communications on animal physiology and zoology are read, andanimated discussions carried on. An abstract of the proceedings isregularly forwarded to the scientific journals and newspapers. Thesociety also publishes a large variety of zoological matter, which isfurnished to fellows at one-fourth less than the price to strangers. Every addition to the collection of the society has its picture takenupon its entrance, and very handsome colored plates of those which arerare or curious are inserted in these publications. The sales from thissource realized last year over thirty-seven hundred dollars. 

In 1871 the income of the society was $123, 101, of which $69, 000 werefrom admissions to the Gardens, $9507 from Garden sales and rent ofrefreshment-rooms, $3750 from the society's publications, and $39, 415from dues of fellows and annual subscribers. The expenses for the sameyear were $106, 840, the principal items being--salaries, wages andpensions, $21, 790; cost and carriage of animals, $10, 560; provisions, $20, 430; menagerie expenses, $10, 480; Garden expenses, $3465. The annualincome has so much exceeded the expenses during the last ten years thatthe society has been able to devote over two hundred and thirty thousanddollars of such surplus to the permanent embellishment of its Gardens, and still retain some fifty thousand dollars as a reserve fund. 

In the collection of the society are 590 quadrupeds, 1227 birds and 255reptiles--altogether 2072. The quantity and various kinds of food--theknowledge of the tastes and necessities of the animals--the temperature, ventilation, habitations and so on of such a large assortment ofdifferent species--necessitate the employment of trained and skillfulservants and scientific officers. It has been seen that the provisionsand menagerie expenses alone exceed $30, 000, and it must be rememberedthat the most difficult part, the brain-work, the knowledge--withoutwhich the whole would be a failure--is furnished the society by itscouncil entirely free. 

The collection of living animals is the finest in existence, and isdaily increasing. Scattered everywhere are its corresponding members, keeping it advised of every opportunity to augment its stores: itsagents have penetrated and are still exploring the desert and thejungle, braving the heats of the equator, and the terrible winters ofthe ice-bound regions of the globe, to furnish every possible link inthe grand procession of organized life. 

A large proportion of the most wonderful and valuable part of thecollection has been presented by crowned heads and governors ofdifferent countries, British consuls, other zoological societies, British naval and military officers stationed in foreign ports andposts, Englishmen of wealth and travelers. The donations to the societyfor the year 1871 would alone be sufficient to establish a Garden atFairmount Park which would be the finest in America. They amounted toover five hundred in number, and include almost every description ofanimal, from a tiger to a monkey, and from an imperial eagle to ahumming-bird. With our present connection by rail and steamer with theEast and West Indies, and other distant regions, let it only begenerally known that such a Garden as is now proposed exists inPhiladelphia, and it will receive contributions from all parts of theworld. The Philadelphia society has already had numerous offers ofanimals, birds and reptiles, and the promise of any number for the merecost of transportation. The officers of the Smithsonian Institution atWashington have expressed their willingness and desire to hand over toany proper association the many curious animals constantly offered it. The societies of Europe, many of whose managers have been incommunication with the one started here, are extremely anxious that acollection of American animals, birds, reptiles and fishes shall bemade. It will be wholly unique, and will attract zoologists from everypart of the world, permitting them, for the first time, to study thehabits of many new species. This continent has a wealth of subjects ofthe animal kingdom as yet almost unexplored. The birds are absolutelyinnumerable, and the immense rivers produce fishes of the most marvelouscharacter and but little known. In the Berlin Garden, rapidly becoming arival to the one in London, one of the greatest attractions, if not thechief, is the American beaver: an assemblage of a number of these on thebanks of the Schuylkill, giving an opportunity of witnessing theirastonishing sagacity, would of itself be an attractive exhibition. 

The Zoological Society of Philadelphia was incorporated by act of theLegislature of Pennsylvania, approved March 21, 1859. The site selectedat that time, and approved by City Councils, was five acres of theextreme south-eastern corner of the then Park, consisting of Sedgeleyand Lemon Hill, and containing about two hundred acres. A meeting ofcertain prominent and influential citizens interested in the subject washeld, and the matter carefully discussed. At subsequent meetings aconstitution and by-laws were adopted, officers elected and plansproposed for raising the necessary funds. The officers of the society atthat time were as follows: President, Dr. William Camac;Vice-Presidents, William R. Lejée and James C. Hand; RecordingSecretary, Fairman Rogers; Corresponding Secretary, Dr. John L. LeConte;Treasurer, P. Pemberton Morris; Managers, Frederick Graeff, ThomasDunlap, Charles E. Smith, John Cassin, William S. Vaux, J. DickinsonSergeant, Dr. Wilson C. Swann, W. Parke Foulke, Francis R. Cope andSamuel Powel; Trustees of the Permanent Fund, Evans Rogers, CharlesMacalester and James Dundas. [A]

Soon after this the rebellion broke out, and in the clash of arms, theterrible anxieties of the times, and the fevered pursuit of wealth thatfollowed the inflation of the currency, the subject of zoologicalgardens entirely disappeared. Many of those whose names appear asofficially connected with the association, and whose purses andinfluence would now be warmly exerted in its favor, have passed away, tothe irreparable loss of the society. Those who remain have revived theproject with sanguine hopes of its accomplishment. The increased wealthsince the inception of the idea in 1859, the enlarged size of the Park, the growth of the city and the prospect of the Centennial, have widenedthe views of the society, and it is confidently anticipated that aGarden will be established, with a collection and all the necessaryappurtenances, that will equal in a few years the superb one of London. The strangers that will flock here in 1876 will one and all visit theZoological Gardens if in any sort of condition for display at that time. In 1851, the year of the great Exhibition of London, the number ofvisitors to the Zoological Gardens increased from 360, 402 in the yearbefore to 667, 243; and in 1862, the time of the second andInternational Exhibition, it leaped from 381, 337 in 1861 to 682, 205. Thenumber of visitors to the London Garden has been steadily on theincrease since its foundation. In 1863 the largest number up to thattime, except the Exhibition years, was 468, 700, and by regularprogression annually it reached in 1871 the large amount of 595, 917persons. 

The situation of our proposed Gardens is most admirable in every way. Stretching along the west bank of the Schuylkill for nearly a third of amile; opposite the principal entrance to the Park on one side, and theWest Philadelphia approach by Thirty-fifth street on the other; directlyon the route to the Centennial Exhibition; contiguous to the greatrailroad artery of the United States, the Pennsylvania Central, asideling from which will enter the receiving-house of the society(marked D on the plan), and thus enable animals and curiosities from allparts of the United States to be carried without change of cars directlyto the Gardens, or from the East Indies, China, Japan, South America andthe Pacific islands with but one trans-shipment, while the canalalongside enables freights of all kinds and from any part of the worldto be deposited at the very entrance-gates; the ground rolling andfertile, rising in the centre, and sufficiently elevated to be away fromthe floods of the river; larger by some acres than the Zoological Gardenof London; interspersed with handsome trees, many of them of noble size, planted by John Penn, whose family mansion, "Solitude, " still stands(35) within the proposed enclosure, and with slight alterations willmake a handsome museum for the society; the old West PhiladelphiaWaterworks (20) only needing an engine to force the water into the lake, around which will be the abodes of the aquatic animals, and from whencethe natural slope of the land will permit the irrigation of the wholetract; the great sewer for the use of the western portion of the city, now in process of construction, passing through the southern end of theGarden, and running along the bank of the river to empty below the dam;convenient to all parts of the city by means of the city railways andthe Reading Railroad;--these and many other advantages, which anexamination of the illustration of the grounds will naturally suggest, produce a combination unsurpassed and unsurpassable anywhere. Is itexaggeration to say that the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, onceproperly established, would not only be regarded with pride andaffection by the citizens, but very materially benefit the whole city?Imagine the grounds handsomely laid out in walks and drives, borderedwith grass and flowers, terraced from the river; tables and chairsscattered about on the green sward under the trees; a band of music; thecool breezes from the Schuylkill; opposite, the beautiful Lemon HillPark, with its broad drive alongside the bank: could anything be moreattractive and wholesome to the hundreds of thousands who through thehot months of this uncommonly hot city are obliged to remain within itslimits?

Assuming, then, the advantages of a Zoological Garden in Philadelphia, what is necessary for success and what business inducements (to considerit in that light) can the society hold out to obtain sufficient money toprocure its collection of living animals, and provide for their suitableaccommodation and increase? The number of members is now two hundred, who pay five dollars initiation and the same amount annually, whichgives them continual admission to the proposed Garden. Fifty dollarssecures a life-membership free from any further subscription. The sumnow in the treasury is two thousand dollars, and although at the lastmeeting twenty-one new names were proposed, and many more persons haveannounced their intention of joining, it is apparent that by this meansthe society will never accomplish its object. Begging subscriptions, without offering a pecuniary return therefor, is repugnant to theofficers, and the following plan has been adopted for procuring thenecessary funds. Certificates of stock are to be issued of not less thanfifty dollars each. All receipts derived from the Gardens andcollections of the society are to be applied annually--first, to themaintenance of the establishment; second, to the payment of six percent. On the stock; and third, any balance remaining to go to thegradual extension of the collections of the society and the improvementof its grounds. 

It will be observed that stockholders can never receive a largerdividend than six per cent. Per annum, and this only in case thereceipts exceed the expenditures. There are therefore two points to beconsidered by those willing to invest--first, the character of themanagers, and second, the prospect of the pecuniary success of theenterprise. The first is a matter of acquaintance and reputation: thesecond can be demonstrated in favor of the society, if honestly andefficiently managed, with almost mathematical accuracy. 

The main entrance to our Gardens will be directly opposite the Lansdownedrive, at the west end of Girard Avenue Bridge. The Park Commissioners'Report for 1872 gives the recorded number of pleasure carriages andsleighs entering the Park at this point and at the Green street gate, during the year, as 363, 138, of equestrians 26, 255, and of pedestrians385, 832. These, in the words of the report (p. 60), "allowing threepersons for each vehicle, will make a total of one million five hundredand one thousand four hundred and ten visitors passing these twoentrances; and supposing the number of persons coming by the other tenentrances to be not more than those recorded at these two, we shall havethree millions as the approximate number of visitors. "

It will hardly be asserted that there is any prospect of this numberdiminishing, nor will it be denied that it is most probable it willsteadily increase, and during the year of the Centennial be more thanquadrupled. It is reasonable to believe that few would resist thepleasure of driving, riding or walking through the Zoological Gardens, so invitingly at hand. Saturdays should be cheap days, say at halfprice, and the money that would be received at the admission-gates uponthat one day alone would dissolve any fears of their six per cent, inthe minds of stockholders. 

Relieved of the expense of securing the ground, a sum of three or fourhundred thousand dollars would enable the society to secure a solidbasis, and to open the Gardens upon a scale that would make them thegreat feature of Philadelphia. In a very few years it could buy up allits certificates of stock and own its collections free. The handsomesurplus, before alluded to, accruing annually to the London societyshows that this is not chimerical. The city railways are interested inthis movement, and should subscribe liberally. It is proposed in theLegislature to charter a railroad running north and south in WestPhiladelphia, and if this be done it will render the Garden still moreaccessible. 

The Commissioners of the Park warmly advocate its establishment, and donot hesitate to say it will be a most magnificent addition and the mostentertaining resort at Fairmount. City Councils have already endorsedit, and devoted space for its location. There remains nothing but theassistance of the moneyed and public-spirited men of Philadelphia toaccomplish the undertaking. The stock books of the society are now openfor subscriptions, and to prevent the loss of another year ground mustbe broken in the coming spring. It is most desirable that upon June 1stthe society may be in a condition to throw open to the public thenucleus of a collection. Once actually begun, public interest will bearoused, and, the people convinced that there is a prospect of success, it will not be permitted to fail. Certain it is that too much time hasalready been wasted in such a needed improvement, and that theZoological Gardens of Philadelphia will be permanently established nowor never. 

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Since this article was written the vacancies in the board ofmanagers have been filled by the election of Messrs. George W. Childs, Anthony J. Drexel, Henry C. Gibson, J. Vaughan Merrick, Clarence H. Clark and Theodore L. Harrison. 

BERRYTOWN. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Mrs. Guinness up stairs in her closet gave thanks every day to Heavenfor the blessed result: down stairs she nagged and scolded Kitty frommorning until night. Peter supposed it was in order to maintain herauthority, but it appeared there were other reasons. 

"The girl disappoints me, now that one looks at her as a woman, " shesaid to her husband at breakfast one day, while Kitty sat oppositeplacidly eating a liberal supply of steak and cakes. She looked upinquiringly. "Yes, " vehemently, "at your age I could not have eaten ameal a week after I was engaged. Whenever I heard your father's step Iwas in a tremor from head to toe. You receive Mr. Muller as though youhad been married for years. Not a blush! As cool as any woman of theworld!"

"But I don't feel any tremor, " helping her father to butter. 

"It's immodest!"

Kitty blushed now, but whether from anger or shame no one could tell;for she remained silent. She laid down her knife and fork the nextmoment, however, and rose. 

"What I fear is this, " said her mother, raising her voice--"Mr. Muller'sdisappointment. He looks for a womanly, loving wife--"

"And I'm not one?" Poor Kitty stood in the doorway swinging hersun-bonnet. She was just then certainly not a morbid, despairing woman, who had made a terrible mistake: nothing but a scared child whom anybodywould have hurried to comfort and humor. "I want to do what's right, I'msure;" and her red under lip began to tremble and the water to gather inher eyes. She sat down to hear the rest of the lecture, but her motherstopped short. Presently, when the chickens came clucking, she went tomix their meal as usual, very pale and dolorous. 

In an hour she put her head in at the shop-window, her eyes sparkling:"There's two new chicks in the corn-bin nest, and they're full-bloodedbantams, I'm sure, father. "

"She's not fit to be married!" cried Mrs. Guinness excitedly. "She isboth silly and unfeeling. God only knows how I came to be the mother ofsuch a child! The great work before her she cares nothing about; and asfor Mr. Muller, she doesn't value him as much as a bantam hen. It's hernarrow intellect. Her brain is small, as Bluhm said. "

It was his wife's conscience twitting her, Peter knew. "I would not beuneasy, " he said with a cynical smile. "You can't bring love out of herby that sort of friction. " But he was himself uneasy. If Catharine hadbeen gloomy, or even thoughtful, at the prospect of her marriage, hewould have cared less. But she came in that very day in glee at thesour, critical looks with which some envious young women of the churchhad followed her; and when her mother called her up stairs to look at atrunkful of embroidered under-clothing which she had kept for thiscrisis, he could hear Kitty's delighted chatter and giggle for an hour. Evidently her cup of pleasure was full for that day. Was his little girlvulgar, feeble in both heart and mind, as her mother said?

Kitty was on trial that day. Miss Muller called and swept her off to theWater-cure in the afternoon. She meant to interest her in theReformatory school for William's sake. She began by explaining thebooks, and the system of keeping them. "It is my brother's wish youshould keep the accounts, " she said. 

"Accounts! oh yes, of course. "

The tone was too emphatic. Miss Muller looked up from the long lines offigures and found Kitty holding her eyes open by force. Evidently shehad just had a comfortable nap. 

Whereupon Maria began to patiently dilate on the individual cases ofthe boys to be reformed; and terrible instances they were of guilt andmisery. 

"She whimpered a little, " she said afterward to her brother. "I'll doher justice: she did, a little. But they ought to have brought tearsfrom a log; and the next minute, seeing those wonderful eyes of hersfixed on me with a peculiar thoughtfulness, I asked her what was shethinking of, and found she was studying 'how I did that lovely Frenchtwist in my back hair. ' No. There's nothing in her--nothing. Not anidea; but that I did not expect. But not even a feeling or principle totake hold of. Take my word, William. You are going to marry fine eyesand pink cheeks. Nothing more. "

Mr. Muller cared for nothing more. If there had been an answering hintof fire in eyes or cheeks to the rush of emotion he felt at the sight ofthem, he would have been content. But Catharine's face was very like adoll's just now--the eyes as bright and unmeaning, the pink asunchanging. In vain he brought her flowers; in vain, grown wiser bylove, led her out in the moonlight to walk, or, flushed and quakinghimself, read in a shrill, uncertain voice absurd fond little sonnets hehad composed to her. Kitty was always attentive, polite and indifferent. She never went to her old seat during the whole summer, never opened oneof the old books over which she and Peter used to pore. He showed her anew edition of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ one day, with illustrations:"See what Bell and Daldy have done for our old friend, Catharine. "

"This allegory all seems much ado about nothing, " she said presently, filliping over the leaves. "Really, I can't see that there is anywilderness in the world, or devils to fight in or out of pits. At leastfor me. "

Speculations on life from Kitty! A month ago she would have gone nofarther than the pictures. "There's nothing worse for me than nicedresses and a wedding, and three hundred children to bring up for theLord, with a smell of beef-and-cabbage over it all. Good gracious!Don't you know I'm joking, father?" seeing his face. She laughed andhugged him, and hugged him again. "As for the children, I love them ofcourse, poor little wretches!"

Peter scowled over her back as she hung on him. Was it sheer silliness?Or had certain doors in her nature never been opened, even enough forher to know all that lay behind them? He pushed her off, holding her byboth wrists: "Are you quite willing to marry Mr. Muller? Do you lovehim? Think what it is to marry without love. For God's sake tell me, Catharine!"

"Yes, I love him. Certainly. Why, " kindling into animation, "I've wornhis ring for a month. Haven't you seen it?" turning her hand about andlooking at the blue turquoise against the white dimples with a delightedchuckle. 

There was a storm that evening: the thunder was deafening; the raindashed heavily against the little square windows of the Book-house. Catharine was alone. As soon as she made sure of that, Peter having goneto the city and her mother to a meeting, she put on her waterproof cloakand overshoes, and sallied out. Not by any means as heroines do who rushout into the tempest to assuage fiercer storms of rage or despairwithin. But there was something at this time in Kitty's blood which, though it would not warm her cheeks at Mr. Muller's approach, was onfire for adventure. To go out alone in the rain was to thechicken-hearted little simpleton what a whaling-voyage would be to arunaway boy. She came in after an hour drenched to the skin, went upstairs to change her clothes, and ran down presently to cuddle beforethe fire. Now was the time to think rationally, she thought, her elbowon a chair, her chin pillowed in her soft palm. Here was her marriagejust at hand. She had looked forward to marriage all her life. Fiveminutes she gave to the long-vexed question of whether her wedding-veilshould cover her face or not, "It would shade my nose, and in frostyweather my nose always will be red. " What queer little hooked noses theMullers all had! and that reflection swung her mind round to her loverand his love-making, where it rested, until suddenly the fire grew ahazy red blotch and her head began to bob. 

"I did not use to be so thick-headed, " rousing herself, and staringsleepily at the rain-washed window and the crackling fire. She sang alittle hymn to herself, that simplest of all old ditties:

 I think, when I hear that sweet story of old. 

It made her tender and tearful, and brought her feet close to herSaviour, as those other children upon whose head He laid his hands. "Iought to be thankful that I have work for Him, " she thought. "How Ienvied Mary McKean when she sailed to India as a missionary! And hereare the heathen ready-made for me, " proceeding very earnestly to thinkover the state of the wretched three hundred. But her head began to nodagain, and the fire was suddenly dashed out in blackness. She started upyawning. It was all so dreary! Life--Then and there our wholesome Kittywould have made her first step toward becoming the yearning, misplacedWoman of the Time, but for a knock which came at the door. 

There had been an occasional roll of thunder, and the rain beat steadilyupon the roof. The first knock failed to rouse her. At the second a manburst in, and stopped as suddenly in the dark end of the shop, shadinghis eyes from the glare: then he came tiptoeing forward. Even in thisabrupt breaking in out of the storm there was something apologetic anddeprecating about the man. As he came up, still sheltering his eyes, asthough from the surprise of Kitty's loveliness, and not the fire, he hadthe bearing of a modest actor called before the curtain for bouquets. 

"I had not expected--_this_" with a stage wave of the hand towardCatharine. 

Now Kitty's pink ears, as we know, were always pricked for a compliment, and her politeness was apt to carry her over the verge of lying; but shewas hardly civil now: she drew coldly back, wishing with all her heartthat her lover, fat, simple, pure-minded little Muller, were here toprotect her. Yet Mrs. Guinness, no doubt, would have said this man wasmade of finer clay than the clergyman. Both figure and face were smalland delicate: his dress was finical and dainty, from the fur-toppedovershoes to the antique seal and the trimming of his gray moustache. Hedrew off his gloves, holding a white, wrinkled hand to the fire, butCatharine felt the colorless eyes passing over her again and again. 

"Your business, " she said, "is probably with my father?"

"Your father is Peter Guinness? No. My business hardly deserves thename, in fact, " leisurely stopping to smooth and fold the yellow glovesbetween his palms, in order to prolong his sentences. "It was merely toleave a message for his son, for Hugh Guinness. "

"Hugh Guinness is dead. "

"Dead!" For an instant the patting of the gloves ceased, and he lookedat her steadily; then, with a nod of comprehension, he went on: "Oh, itis not convenient for Hugh to be alive just now? We are old comrades, you see: I know his ways. I know he was in Delaware a year ago. But Ihave no time now to go to Delaware. The message will no doubt reach himif left with you. " He had made the gloves into a square package by thistime, and, flattening it with a neat pat or two, put it in his pocket, turning to her with a significant smile. 

"Hugh Guinness is dead, " said Catharine. "He died in Nicaragua fiveyears ago. Your business with him ended then. "

"And yet--" coming a step nearer, "yet if Guinness were in his gravenow, I fancy he would think my business of more importance to him thanlife itself would be. " He was talking against time, she saw--talkingwhile he inspected her to see whether she were willfully lying orbelieved what she said. He was a man who by rule believed the worst: thedisagreeable, incredulous smile came back. "These are the days whenghosts walk, as you know. " After a moment's pause: "And Hugh may cometo rap and write with the rest. So, even admitting that he is dead, itwould be safer for you to receive the message. It matters much to him. "

"What is it?" she said curiously. "There is no use in wasting so manywords about the matter. "

"Tell him--" lowering his voice. "No, " with a sudden suspicious glanceat her. "No need of wasting words, true enough. Give him this. There'san address inside. Tell him the person who sent it waits for him there. "He took out of his pocket a small morocco case, apparently containing aphotograph, and laid it down on the table. 

"Take it back. Hugh Guinness has been dead for years. I will not takecharge of it. "

"No, he's not dead, " coolly buttoning his coat again. "I suppose youbelieve what you say. But he was in Delaware, I tell you, last October. If he asks about me, tell him I only acted as a messenger in the matter. I've no objection to doing him that good turn. "

He nodded familiarly, put on his hat, and went out as suddenly as he hadcome. When he was gone she heard the rain drenching the walnuts outside, dripping, dripping; the thunder rolled down the valley; the firecrackled and flashed. There, on the table, in the dirty morocco case, lay a Mystery, a tremendous Life-secret, no doubt, of which she, Kitty, held the clue. It was like Pepita when she found the little gold keythat unlocked the enchanted rooms. Hugh Guinness living? To be restoredto his father? She was in a fever of delight and excitement. When sheopened the case she found a beautiful woman's face--a blonde who seemedsixteen to Kitty, but who might be sixty. The Mystery enlarged: it quitefilled Kitty's horizon. When she put the case in her pocket, and satdown, with red cheeks and bright eyes, on the rug again, I am sure shedid not remember there was a Reform school or a Muller in the world. 

At last Peter was heard in the porch, stamping and shaking: "Oh, I'mdry as a toast, Jane, what with the oil-skin and leggings. Yes, takethem. Miss Vogdes wants tea in the shop, eh? All right! Why child, "turning up her face, "your cheeks burn like a coal. Mr. Muller beenhere?"

"Oh dear, no!" pushing him into a chair. "Is there nothing to think ofbut Mullers and marrying?"

She poured out the tea, made room for the plates of cold chicken andtoast among the books, and turned the supper into a picnic, as she haddone hundreds of times, gossiping steadily all the while. But Mr. Guinness saw that there was something coming. 

When the tea was gone she sat down on the wooden bench beside him, leaning forward on his knee: "Father, you promised once to show mebefore I went away all that you had belonging to--your other child. "

Guinness did not speak at once, but sat smoking his cigar. It went outin his mouth. He made a motion to rise once or twice, and sat downagain. "To-night, Kitty?"

"Yes, to-night. We are alone. "

He got up at last slowly, going to a drawer in the oak cases which shehad never seen opened. Unlocking it, he took out one or two Latinschool-books, a broken fishing-rod, a gun and an old cap, and placedthem before her. It was a hard task she had set him, she saw. He liftedthe cap and pointed to a long red hair which had caught in the button, but did not touch it: "Do you see that? That is Hugh's. I found it therelong after he was gone. It had caught there some day when the boy jerkedthe cap off. He was a careless dog! Always jerking and tearing!"

Catharine was silent until he began putting the things back in thedrawer: "Father, there's no chance, is there? You could not be mistakenin that report from Nicaragua? You never thought it possible that yourson might yet be alive?"

"Hugh's dead--dead, " quietly. But his fingers lingered over the book andgun, as though he had been smoothing the grave-clothes about his boy. 

"The proof was complete, then?" ventured Kitty. 

He turned on her: "Why do you talk to me of Hugh, Catharine? I can tellyou nothing of him. He's dead: isn't that enough? Christian folks wouldsay he was a man for whom his friends ought to think death a safeending. They have told me so more than once. But he was not altogetherbad, to my mind. " He bent over the drawer now. Kitty saw that he tookhold of the red hair, and drew it slowly through his fingers: his facehad grown in these few minutes aged and haggard. 

"'Behold, how he loved him!'" she thought. He had been the old man'sonly son. Other men could make mourning for their dead children, talk ofthem all their lives; but she knew her mother would not allow Peter toeven utter his boy's name. 

"I'm sure, " she said vehemently from where she stood by the fire, "hewas not a bad man. _I_ remember Hugh very well, and I remember nothingthat was not lovable and good about him;" the truth of which was thatshe had a vague recollection of a freckle-faced boy, who had tormentedher and her kittens day and night, and who had suddenly disappeared outof her life. But she meant to comfort her father, and she did it. 

"You've a good, warm heart, Kitty. I did not know that anybody but meremembered the lad. "

She snuggled down on the floor beside him, drawing his hand over herhair. Usually there is great comfort in the very touch of a woman likeKitty. But Peter's hand rested passively on her head: her cooing andpatting could not touch his trouble to-day. 

"Your mother will need you, my dear, " he said at last, as soon as thatlady's soft steady step was heard in the hall. Kitty understood and lefthim alone. 

"Mother, " she said, coming into the chamber where Mrs. Guinness, herpink cheeks pinker from the rain, lay back in her easy-chair, herslippered feet on the fender--"mother, there is a question I wish to askyou. "

"Well, Catharine?"

"When did Hugh die? How do you know that he is dead?"

Mrs. Guinness sat erect and looked at her in absolute silence. Astonishment and anger Kitty had expected from her at her mention of thename, but there was a certain terror in her face which wasunaccountable. 

"What do you know of Hugh Guinness? I never wished that his name shouldcross your lips, Catharine. "

"I know very little. But I have a reason for wishing to know when andhow he died. It is for father's sake, " she added, startled at theincreasing agitation which her mother could not conceal. 

Still, Mrs. Guinness did not reply. She was not a superstitious woman:she felt no remorse about her treatment of her stepson. There had beenevil tongues, even in the church, to lay his ruined life at her door, and to say that bigotry and sternness had driven him to debauchery and adrunkard's death. She knew she had done her duty: she liked best tothink of herself as a mother in Israel. Yet there had always been adull, mysterious terror which linked Hugh Guinness and Catharinetogether. It was there he would revenge himself. Some day he would putout his dead hand from the grave to work the child's destruction. Shehad reasoned and laughed at her own folly in the matter for years. Butthe belief was there. Now it was taking shape. 

She would meet it face to face. She stood up as though she had beengoing to throttle some visible foe for ever: "I shall tell you thetruth, Catharine. Your father has never known it. He believes his sondied in Nicaragua fighting for a cause which he thought good. I let himbelieve it. There was some comfort in that. "

"It was not true, then?"

"No. " She rearranged the vases on the mantel-shelf, turned over theilluminated texts hanging on the wall, until she came to the one for theday. She was trying to convince herself that Hugh Guinness matterednothing to her. 

"He died, " she said at last, "in New York, a reprobate, as he lived. "

"But where? how?"

"What can that matter to you?" sharply. "But I will tell you where andhow. Two winters ago a poor, bloated, penniless wretch took up hislodging in a cheap hotel in New York. He left it only to visit thegambling-houses near. An old friend of mine recognized Hugh, and warnedme of his whereabouts. I went up to the city at once, but when I reachedit he had disappeared. He had lost his last penny at dice. "

"Then he _is_ still alive?"

"God forbid! No, " correcting herself. "A week later the body of asuicide was recovered off Coney Island and placed in the Morgue. It washorribly mutilated. But I knew Hugh Guinness. I think I see him yet, lying on that marble slab and his eyes staring up at me. It was no doingof mine that he lay there. "

"No, mother, I am sure that it was not, " gently. "If your consciencereproaches you, I wish he were here that you could try and bring himinto the right path at last. "

"My conscience does not trouble me. As for Hugh--Heaven forbid that Ishould judge any man!--but if ever there was a son of wrath predestinedto perdition, it was he. I always felt his day of grace must have passedwhile he was still a child. "

Kitty had no answer to this. She went off to bed speedily, and to sleep. An hour or two later her mother crept softly to her bedside and stoodlooking at her. The woman had been crying. 

"Lord, not on her, not on her!" she cried silently. "Let not my sin belaid up against her!" But her grief was short-lived. Hugh was dead. Asfor his harming Kitty, that was all folly. Meanwhile, Mr. Muller and thewedding-clothes were facts. She stooped over Kitty and kissedher--turned down the sheet to look at her soft blue-veined shoulder andmoist white foot. Such a little while since she was a baby asleep inthis very bed! Some of the baby lines were in her face still. It washard to believe that now she was a woman--to be in a few days a wife. 

She covered her gently, and stole away nodding and smiling. The ghostwas laid. 

As for Kitty, she had gone to bed not at all convinced that HughGuinness was dead. It was a more absorbing Mystery, that was all. But itdid not keep her awake. She did not spin any romantic fancies about himor his dark history. If he were alive, he was very likely asdisagreeable and freckle-faced a man as he had been a boy. But thesecret was her own--a discovery; a very different affair from thismarriage, which had been made and fitted on her by outsiders. 

CHAPTER VII. 

"Gone! You don't mean that your mother and Mr. Guinness have gone toleave you for a month!" Mr. Muller was quite vehement with annoyance andsurprise. 

"At least a month, " said Catharine calmly. "Mrs. Guinness always goeswith my father on his summer journey for books, and this year shehas--well, things to buy for me. "

It was the wedding-dress she meant, he knew. He leaned eagerly in at thewindow, where he stood hoping for a blush. But none came. "Purl two andknit one, " said Kitty to her crochet. 

"I certainly do not consider it safe or proper for you to be leftalone, " he blustered mildly after a while. 

"There is Jane, " glancing back at the black figure waddling from thekitchen to the pump. 

"Jane! I shall send Maria up to stay with you, Catharine. "

"You are very kind! It is so pleasant to be cared for!" with a littlegush of politeness and enthusiasm. "But dear Maria finds the house damp. I will not be selfish. You must allow me to be alone. "

He looked at her furtively. Was there, after all, an obstinate, unbendable back-bone under the soft feathers of this his nestling dove?He was discomfited at every turn this evening. He had hoped that Kittywould notice that his little imperial had been retrimmed; and hehad bought a set of sleeve-buttons, antique coins, at a ruinous price, in hopes they would please her. She looked at neither the one nor theother. Yet she had a keen eye for dress--too keen an eye indeed. Onlylast night she had spent an hour anxiously cutting old Peter's hair andbeard, and Mr. Muller could not but remember that he was a handsomeyoung fellow, and do what she would with Peter, he was old and beakedlike a parrot. "Besides, he is only her stepfather, " he reasoned, "and Iam to be her husband: she loves me. "

_Did_ she love him? The question always brought a pain under his plumpchest and neat waistcoat which he could not explain; he thrust ithastily away. But he loitered about the room, thinking how sweet itwould be if this childish creature would praise or find fault withbuttons or whiskers in her childish way. Kitty, however, crocheted oncalmly, and saw neither. The sun was near its setting. The clover-fieldsstretched out dry and brown in its warm light, to where the melancholyshadows gathered about the wooded creeks. 

Mr. Muller looked wistfully out of the window, and then at her. "Supposeyou come and walk with me?" he said presently. 

Kitty glanced out, and settled herself more comfortably in herrocking-chair. "It is very pleasant here, " smiling. 

He thought he would go home: in fact, he did not know what else to do. The room was very quiet, they were quite alone. The evening light fellon Catharine; her hands had fallen on her lap; she was thinking sointently of her Mystery that she had forgotten he was there. How whiteher bent neck was, with the rings of brown hair lying on it! There was adeeper pink than usual on her face, too, as though her thoughts werepleasant. He came closer, bent over her chair, touched her hair with onechubby finger, and started back red and breathless. 

"Did you speak?" said Kitty, looking up. 

"I'm going home. I only wanted to say good bye. "

"So soon? Good-bye. I shall see you to-morrow, I suppose?" taking up herwork. 

"Yes, Kitty--"

"Well?"

"I have never bidden you good-bye except by shaking hands. Could I kissyou? I have thought about that every day since you promised to marryme. "

The pleasant rose-tinge was gone now: even the soft lips, which weredangerously close, were colorless: "You can kiss me if you want to. Isuppose it's right. "

The little man drew back gravely. "Never mind; it's no matter. I hadmade up my mind never to ask for it until you seemed to be able to giveme real wifely love. "

She started up. "I can do no more than I have done, " vehemently. "AndI'm tired of hearing of myself as a wife. I'd as soon consider myself asa grandmother. "

Mr. Muller waited a moment, too shocked and indignant to speak: then hetook up his hat and went to the door. "Good-night, my child, " he saidkindly, "To-morrow you will be your better self. "

Kitty knew nothing of better selves: she only felt keenly that twomonths ago such rudeness would have been impossible to her. Why was shegrowing vulgar and weak?

The air stirred the leaves of the old Walnuts outside: the black-coated, dapper figure had not yet passed from under them. He was so gentle andpious and good! Should she run after him? She dropped instead into herchair and cried comfortably till a noise in the shop stopped her, andlooking through the dusky books she saw a man waiting. She got up andwent in hastily, looking keenly at his face to find how long he had beenthere, and how much he had seen. It wore, however, an inscrutablegravity. 

Most of Peter's old customers sold to themselves during his absence, butthis was a stranger. He stood looking curiously at the heaped books andthe worn sheepskin-covered chair, until she was close to him: then helooked curiously at her. 

"I have had some correspondence with Mr. Guinness about a copy ofQuadd's _Scientific Catalogues_. "

"Mr. Guinness is not at home, but he left the book, " said Kitty, alertlyclimbing the steps. Bringing the book, she recognized him as DoctorMcCall, who had once before been at the shop when her father was gone. He was a young man, largely built, with a frank, attentive face, redhair and beard, and cordial voice. It was Kitty's nature to meet anybodyhalfway who carried summer weather about him. "My father hoped you wouldnot come for the book until his return, " she said civilly. "Your lettersmade him wish to see you. You were familiar, he told me, with some oldpamphlets of which few customers know anything. "

"Probably. I could not come at any other time, " curtly, engrossed inturning over the pages of his book. Presently he said, "I will look overthe stock if you will allow me. But I need not detain you, " glancing ather work in the inner room. Kitty felt herself politely dismissed. Nor, although Doctor McCall stayed for half an hour examining Peter'sfavorite volumes as he sat on his high office-stool and leaned on hisdesk, did he once turn his eyes on the dimpling face making apicturesque vignette in the frame of the open window. When he hadfinished he came to the door. "I will call for the books I have chosenin an hour;" and then bowed distantly and was gone. 

He had scarcely closed the gate when the back door creaked, and MissMuller came in smiling, magnetic from head to foot, as her disciples inBerrytown were used to allege. 

"And what is our little dove afraid of in her nest?" pinching Kitty'scheek as though she had been a dove very lately fledged indeed. She hadalways in fact the feeling when with Kitty that through her she sufferedto live and patted on the back the whole ignoble, effete race ofdomestic women. Catharine caught sight of her satchel, which portended avisit of several days. 

"Pray give me your hat and stay with me for tea, " she said sweetly. 

Miss Muller saw through her stratagem and laughed: "Now, that is justthe kind of finesse in which such women delight!" she thoughtgood-humoredly, going into the shop to lay off her hat and cape. Thenext moment she returned. Her face was bloodless. The muscles of thechin twitched. 

"Who has been here?" she cried, sitting down and rubbing her handsviolently on her wrists. "Oh, Catharine, who has been here?"

Now Kitty, a hearty eater with a slow brain, and nerves laid quite outof reach under the thick healthy flesh, knew nothing of the hystericalclairvoyant moods and trances familiar to so many lean, bilious Americanwomen. She ran for camphor, carbonate of soda and arnica, bathed MissMuller's head, bent over her, fussing, terrified, anxious. 

"Is it a pain? Is it in your stomach? Did you eat anything thatdisagreed with you?" she cried. 

"Eat! I believe in my soul you think of nothing but eating!" tryingresolutely to still the trembling of her limbs and chattering of herteeth. "I was only conscious of a presence when I entered that room. Some one who long ago passed out of my life, stood by me again. " Thetears ran weakly over her white cheeks. 

"Somebody in the shop!" Kitty went to it on tiptoe, quaking at thethought of burglars. "There's nobody in the shop. Not even the cat, "turning back reassured. "How did you feel the Presence, Maria? See it, or hear it, or smell it?"

"There are other senses than those, you know, " pacing slowly up and downthe room with the action of the leading lady in a melodrama; but herpain or vision, whatever it was, had been real enough. The cold dropsstood on her forehead, her lips quivered, the brown eyes turned fromside to side asking for help. "When _he_ is near shall I not know it?"she said with dry lips. 

Kitty stole up to her and touched her hand. "I'm so glad if you are inlove!" she whispered. "I thought you would think it foolish to care forlove or--or babies. I used to care for them both a great deal. "

"Pshaw! Now listen to me, child, " her step growing steadier. "Oh dear!Haven't you any belladonna? Or coffea? That would set me right at once. As for a husband and children, they are obstructions to a woman--nothingmore. If my head was clear I could make you understand. I am a freesoul. I have my work to do. Marriage is an accident: so ischild-bearing. In nine cases out of ten they hinder a woman's work. Butwhen I meet a kindred soul, higher, purer than mine, I give allegianceto it. My feeling becomes a part of my actual life; it is a spiritualaction: it hears and sees by spiritual senses. And then--Ah, there issomething terrible in being alone--_alone_! She called this out loudly, wringing her hands. Kitty gave a queer smile. It was incredible to herthat a woman could thus dissect herself for the benefit of another. 

"But she's talking for her own benefit, " watching her shrewdly. "Ifthere's any acting about it, she's playing Ophelia and Hamlet and theaudience all at once. --Was it Doctor McCall you fancied was in theshop?" she asked quietly. 

Miss Muller turned, a natural blush dyeing her face and neck: "He hasbeen here then?--Oh, there! there he is!" as the young man came in atthe gate. She passed her hands over her front hair nervously, shook downher lace sleeves and went out to meet him. Kitty saw his start ofsurprise. He stooped, for she was a little woman, and held out both hishands. 

"Yes, John, it is I!" she said with a half sob. 

"Are you really so glad to see me again, Maria?" She caught his arm forher sole answer, and walked on, nestling close to his side. 

"It may be spiritual affinity, but it looks very like love, " thoughtKitty. It was a different love from any she had known. They turned andwalked through the gate down into the shadow of the wooded creeks, thebroad strong figure leaning over the weaker one. Kitty fancied thepassion in his eyes, the words he would speak. She thought how she hadnoticed at first sight that there was unusual strength and tenderness inthe man's face. 

"There will be no talk there of new dresses or reformatory schools, I'msure of that, " she said, preparing to go to bed. She felt somehowwronged and slighted to-night, and wished for old Peter's knee to reston. She had no friend like old Peter, and never would have. 

REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. 

[TO BE CONTINUED. ]

OVERDUE. 

 The beads from the wine have all vanished, Which bubbled in brightness so late; The lights from the windows are banished, Close shut is the gate Which yesterday swung wide in joyance, And beckoned to fate. 

 The goblet stands idle, untasted, Or, tasted, is tasteless to-night; The breath of the roses is wasted; In sackcloth bedight, The soul, in the dusk of her palace, Sits waiting the light. 

 Ah! why do the ships waft no token Of grace to this sorrowful realm? Must suns shine in vain, while their broken Rays clouds overwhelm? Tender Breeze, if some sail bear a message, Rule thou at the helm!

 But if haply the ruler be coming, Drug the sea-sirens each with a kiss: Stroke the waves into calmest of humming Over ocean's abyss: Speed him soft from the shore of the stranger To the haven of this. 

 And the soul-bells in joyous revival Shall peal all the carols of spring; The roses and ruby wine rival Each other to bring, In the crimson and fragrance of welcome, Delight to the king. 

MARY B. DODGE. 

QUEEN VICTORIA AS A MILLIONAIRE. 

Queen Victoria either is or ought to be a very wealthy woman. Her incomewas at the beginning of her reign fixed at £385, 000 a year. This sum, itwas understood, would, with the exception of £96, 000 a year, be dividedbetween the lord steward, the lord chamberlain and the master of thehorse, the three great functionaries of the royal household. Of theresidue £60, 000 were to be paid over to the queen for her personalexpenses, and the remaining £36, 000 were for "contingencies. " It isprobable, however, that the above arrangements have been much modified, as time has worked changes. 

The prince-consort had an allowance of £30, 000 a year. The queenoriginally wished him to have £100, 000, and Lord Melbourne, then primeminister, who had immense influence over her, had much difficulty inpersuading her that this sum was out of the question, and gaining herconsent to the government's proposing £50, 000 a year to the House ofCommons, which, to Her Majesty's infinite chagrin, cut the sum downnearly one-half. 

During the happy days of her married life the expenditure of the courtwas very much greater than it has been since the prince's death. Emperors and kings were entertained with utmost splendor at Windsor. During the emperor of Russia's visit, for instance, and that of LouisPhilippe, one or two hundred extra mouths were in one way or another fedat Her Majesty's expense. The stables, too, were formerly filled withhorses--and very fine ones they were--whereas now the number is greatlyreduced, and many of those in the royal mews are "jobbed"--_i. E. _ hiredby the week or month, as occasion requires, from livery stables. Thispoverty of the master of the horse's department excited much angrycomment on the occasion of the princess Alexandra's state entry intoLondon. 

But besides the previously-mentioned £60, 000 a year, and what residuemay be unspent from the rest of the "civil list, " as the £385, 000 iscalled, Queen Victoria has two other sources of considerable income. Sheis in her own right duchess of Lancaster. The property which goes withthe duchy of Lancaster belonged originally to Saxon noblemen who roseagainst the Norman Conqueror. Their estates were confiscated, and in1265 were in the possession of Robert Ferrers, earl of Derby. Thisnobleman took part with Simon de Montfort in his rebellion, and wasdeprived of all his estates in 1265 by Henry III. , who bestowed them onhis youngest son, Edmund, commonly called Edmund Crouchback, whom hecreated earl of Lancaster. From him dates the immediate connectionbetween royalty and the duchy. In 1310, Thomas, second earl ofLancaster, son of Edmund Crouchback, married a great heiress, the onlychild of De Lacy, earl of Lincoln. By this alliance he became thewealthiest and most powerful subject of the Crown, possessing in rightof himself and his wife six earldoms, with all the jurisdiction whichunder feudal tenure was annexed to such honors. In 1311 he becameinvolved in the combination formed by several nobles to induce the kingto part with Piers de Gaveston. The result of this conspiracy was thatthe unhappy favorite was lynched in Warwick Castle. The king, EdwardII. , was at first highly incensed, but ultimately pardoned theconspirators, including the earl of Lancaster; but that very imprudentpersonage, subsequently taking up arms against his sovereign, wasbeheaded. 

In 1326 an act was passed for reversing the attainder of Earl Thomas infavor of his brother Henry, earl of Lancaster. Earl Henry left a son andsix daughters. The son was surnamed "Grismond, " from the place of hisbirth. He greatly distinguished himself in the French wars under EdwardIII. , and was the second knight companion of the Order of the Garter, Edward "the Black Prince" being the first. Ultimately, to reward hismany services, Edward III. Created him, about 1348, duke of Lancaster, and the county of Lancaster was formed into a palatinate orprincipality. This great and good nobleman who seems to have been thesoul of munificence and piety, died in 1361, leaving two daughters toinherit his vast possessions, but on the death of the elder withoutissue the whole devolved on the second, Blanche, who married John ofGaunt (so called because born at Ghent in Flanders, in March, 1340), sonof Edward III. He was created duke of Lancaster, played a prominent partin history, and died in 1399, leaving a son by Blanche--HenryPlantagenet, surnamed Bolingbroke, from Bullingbrook Castle inLincolnshire, the scene of his birth. He became King Henry IV. , and thusthe duchy merged in the Crown, and is enjoyed to-day by Queen Victoriaas duchess of Lancaster. 

Her revenue from this source has been steadily increasing. Thus in 1865it was £26, 000; in 1867, £29, 000; in 1869, £31, 000; in 1872 £40, 000. Thelargest of these figures does not probably represent a fifth of thereceipts of John of Gaunt, but the duchy of Lancaster, like that ofCornwall, suffered far a long time from the fraud and rapacity of thosewho were supposed to be its custodians. Managed as it now is, it willprobably have doubled its present revenue before the close of thecentury. [B]

The other source is still more strictly personal income. On the 30th ofAugust, 1852, there died a gentleman, aged seventy-two, of the name ofJohn Camden Neild. He was son of a Mr. James Neild, who acquired a largefortune as a gold- and silversmith. Mr. James Neild was born at SirHenry Holland's birthplace, Knutsford, a market-town in Cheshire, in1744. He came to London, when a boy, in 1760, the first year of GeorgeIII. 's reign, and was placed with one of the king's jewelers, Mr. Hemming. Gradually working his way up, he started on his own account inSt. James's street, a very fashionable thoroughfare, and made a largefortune. In 1792 he retired. He appears to have been a man of rarebenevolence and some literary ability. He devoted himself to remedyingthe condition of prisons, more especially those in which persons wereconfined for debt: indeed, his efforts in this direction would seem tohave rivaled those of Howard, for in the course of forty years Mr. Neildvisited most of the prisons in Great Britain, and was for many yearstreasurer, as well as one of the founders, of the society for the reliefof persons imprisoned for small debts. He described his prisonexperiences in a series of papers in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, whichwere subsequently republished, and highly praised by the _EdinburghReview_. Mr. Neild had three children, but only one, John Camden Neild, survived him. This gentleman succeeded to his father's very largeproperty in 1814. 

Mr. James Neild had acquired considerable landed estate, and was sheriffof Buckinghamshire in 1804. His son received every advantage in the wayof education, graduated M. A. At Trinity College, Cambridge, and wassubsequently called to the bar. He proved, however, the very reverse ofhis benevolent father. He was a miser born, and hid all his talents in anapkin, making no use of his wealth beyond allowing it to accumulate. From the date of the death of his father, who left him £250, 000, besidesreal estate, he had spent but a small portion of his income, and allowedhimself scarcely the necessaries of life. He usually dressed in a bluecoat with metal buttons. This he did not allow to be brushed, inasmuchas that process would have worn the nap. He was never known to wear anovercoat. He gladly accepted invitations from his tenantry, and wouldremain on long visits, because he thus saved board. There is a story ofhow a benevolent gentleman once proffered assistance, through a chemistin the Strand, in whose shop he saw what he supposed to be a broken-downold gentleman, and received for reply, "God bless your soul, sir! that'sMr. Coutts the banker, who could buy up you and me fifty times over. " Sowith Mr. Neild: his appearance often made him an object of charity andcommiseration, nor would it appear that he was at all averse to being soregarded. Just before railway traveling began he had been on a visit tosome of his estates, and was returning to London. The coach havingstopped to allow of the passengers getting refreshment, all entered thehotel except old Neild. Observing the absence of the pinched, poverty-stricken-looking old gentleman, some good-natured passenger senthim out a bumper of brandy and water, which the old niggard eagerlyaccepted. 

A few days before his death he told one of his executors that he hadmade a most singular will, but that he had a right to do what he likedwith his own. When the document was opened it was found that, with theexception of a few small legacies, he had left all "to Her Most GraciousMajesty Queen Victoria, begging Her Majesty's most gracious acceptanceof the same, for her sole use and benefit, and that of her heirs. "Probably vanity dictated this bequest. To a poor old housekeeper, whohad served him twenty-six years, he left nothing; to each of hisexecutors, £100. But the queen made a handsome provision for the former, and presented £1000 to each of the latter; and she further raised amemorial to the miser's memory. 

The property bequeathed to her amounted to upward of £500, 000; so that, supposing Her Majesty to have spent every penny of her public and duchyof Lancaster incomes, and to have only laid by this legacy and theinterest on it, she would from this source alone now be worth at least£1, 000, 000. Be this as it may, even that portion of the public whichsurvives her will probably never know the amount of her wealth, for thewills of kings and queens are not proved; so that there will be noenlightenment on this head in the pages of the _Illustrated LondonNews_. 

Both Osborne House in the Isle of Wight, and Balmoral, were bought priorto Mr. Neild's bequest. These palaces are the personal property of HerMajesty, and very valuable: probably the two may, with their contents, be valued at £500, 000 at the lowest. The building and repairs at thesepalaces are paid for by the queen herself, but those of all the palacesof the Crown are at the expense of the country, and about a million hasbeen expended on Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle during the presentreign. 

The claims made on the queen for charity are exceedingly numerous. Theyare all most carefully examined by the keeper of her privy purse, andhelp is invariably extended to proper objects. But whilst dulyrecognizing such calls upon her, the queen has never been regarded asopen-handed. Her munificence, for example, has not been on the scale ofthat of the late queen Adelaide, the widow of William IV. It is to beremembered that her father suffered all his life from straitenedcircumstances, and indeed it was by means of money supplied by friendsthat the duchess of Kent was enabled to reach England and give birth toits future sovereign on British soil. Although the duke died when hisdaughter was too young to have heard from him of these pecuniarytroubles, she was no doubt cautioned by her mother to avoid all chanceof incurring them; and a circumstance in itself likely to impress theirinconvenience on her memory was that one of the first acts of her reignwas to pay off, principal and interest, the whole of her father'sremaining liabilities. 

A good deal of sympathy is felt in England for the prince of Wales inreference to his money-matters. His mother's withdrawal fromrepresentative functions throws perforce a great deal of extra expenseupon him, which he is very ill able to bear. He is expected to subscribeliberally to every conceivable charity, to bestow splendid presents(here his mother has always been wanting), and in every way to vie with, if not surpass, the nobility; and all this with £110, 000 a year, whilstthe dukes of Devonshire, Cleveland, Buccleuch, Lords Westminster, Bute, Lonsdale and a hundred more noblemen and gentlemen, have fortunes doubleor treble, no lords and grooms in waiting to pay, and can subscribe ordecline to subscribe to the Distressed Muffin-makers' and Cab-men'sWidows' Associations, according to their pleasure, without a murmur onthe part of the public. 

About five years ago the press generally took this view of the subject, and a rumor ran that the government fully intended to ask for anaddition to the prince's income; but nothing was done. We have reason tobelieve that the hesitation of the government arose from thewell-grounded apprehension that it would bring on an inquiry as to thequeen's income and what became of it. Opinion ran high among both Whigsand Tories that if Her Majesty did not please to expend inrepresentative pomp the revenues granted to her for that specificpurpose, she should appropriate a handsome sum annually to her son. Itmay be urged, "Perhaps she does so, " and in reply it can only be saidthat in such case the secret is singularly well kept, and that thosewhose position should enable them to give a pretty shrewd guess at thestate of the case persist in averring the contrary. However, it will nodoubt be all the better for the royal family in the end. The queen is asagacious woman. She no doubt fully recognizes the fact that the Britishpublic will each year become more and more impatient of being requiredto vote away handsome annuities for a succession of princelings, whilstat the same time it may look with toleration, if not affection, upon anumber of gentlemen and ladies who ask for nothing more than the cheapprivilege of writing "Royal Highness" before their names. If, then, Queen Victoria be by her retirement and frugality accumulating a fortunewhich will make the royal family almost independent of a parliamentarygrant in excess of the income which the Crown revenues represent, she isno doubt acting with that deep good sense and prudence which are a partof her character. And here we may just explain that the Crown revenuesare derived from the property which has always been the appanage of theEnglish sovereign from the Norman Conquest. For a long time past thecustom has been to give this up to the country, with the understandingthat it cannot be alienated, and to accept, in lieu thereof, aparliamentary grant of income. This Crown property is of immense value. It includes a large strip of the best part of London. All the clubs inPall Mall, for instance, the Carlton, United Service, Travelers', Reform; Marlborough House, The Guards Club, Stafford House, CarltonHouse Terrace, Carlton Gardens--which pay the highest rents inLondon--stand on Crown land; as do Montague House, the duke ofBuccleuch's, Dover House, etc. But this property suffers very much fromthe fact of its being inalienable. It can only be leased. The whole ofthe New Forest is Crown land, and it is estimated that if sold it wouldfetch millions, whereas it is now nearly valueless. If the royal familycould use their Crown lands, just as those noblemen who have receivedgrants from sovereigns use theirs, it would be the wealthiest inEngland, and would have no need to come to Parliament for funds. 

Half of the people who howl about the expense of royalty know nothingabout these Crown lands, which really belong to royalty at least as muchas the property of those holding estates originally granted by kingsbelongs to such proprietors, and if exception were taken to such tenuresscarcely any title in England would be safe. 

Taking her, then, for all in all, Queen Victoria is not only the best, but probably the cheapest, sovereign England ever had; and her people, although inclined, as is their wont, to grumble that she doesn't spend alittle more money, feel that she has so few faults that they can wellafford to overlook this. Deeply loved by them, she is yet morerespected. 

REGINALD WYNFORD. 

FOOTNOTES:

[B] How the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall have grown under theadmirable management instituted by the late prince-consort, whodiscovered that peculation and negligence were combining to dissipatehis eldest son's splendid heritage, the following will show. In 1824 thegross revenue had fallen to £22, 000: in 1872 it was nearly £70, 000! Loudwere the howls of the peculators against "that beastly German" when HisRoyal Highness took it in hand. But "he knew he was right, " and had hisreward. When the prince of Wales came of age, instead of having from£13, 000 to £14, 000, net, a year from his duchy, as the last prince ofWales had, there was a revenue of £50, 000 a year clear, and cash enoughto buy Sandringham. The income is now increasing at the rate of about£3000 a year, on the average. By net revenue is meant the clear sumwhich goes into the prince's pocket. Of course his father's prudence andenergy saved the country a large sum, which it would otherwise have beencompelled to vote for maintaining the prince's establishment. 

George IV. Had on his marriage, when prince of Wales, £125, 000 a year, besides his duchy revenues, £28, 000 for jewelry and plate, and £26, 000for furnishing Carlton House. The present prince of Wales has nothingfrom the country but £40, 000 a year, and his wife has £10, 000 a year. Noapplication has ever been made for money to pay his debts or to assisthim in any way. 

CRICKET IN AMERICA

Cricket is the "national game" of England, where the sport has avenerable antiquity. Occasional references to the game are found in oldbooks, which would place its origin some centuries back. The mostancient mention of the game is found in the _Constitution Book ofGuildford_, by which it appears that in some legal proceedings in 1598 awitness, then aged fifty-nine, gave evidence that "when he was a scholarin the free schoole at Guldeford he and several of his fellowes didrunne and plaie there at _crickett_ and other plaies. " The author of_Echoes from Old Cricket Fields_ cites the biography of Bishop Ken toshow that he played cricket at Winchester College in 1650, one of hisscores, cut on the chapel-cloister wall, being still extant; and thesame writer reproduces as a frontispiece to his "opusculum" an oldengraving bearing date 1743, in which the wicket appears as a skeletonhurdle about two feet wide by one foot high, while the bat is the Saxon_crec_ or crooked stick, with which the game was originally played, andfrom which the name cricket was doubtless derived. 

In England the game is universally played: all classes take equalinterest in it, and it is a curious fact that on the cricket-ground thelord and the laborer meet on equal terms, the zest of the gameoutweighing the prejudice of caste. The government encourages it as aphysical discipline for the troops, and provides all barracks withcricket-grounds. Every regiment has its club, and, what is odd, the navyfurnishes many crack players. It is the favorite _par excellence_ at allschools, colleges and universities; every county, every town and everyvillage has its local club; while the I Zingari and its host of rivalsserve to focus the ubiquitous talent of All England. The public enjoyit, merely as spectators, to such a degree that a grand match-day atLord's is only second in point of enthusiasm to the Derby Day. Specialtrains carry thousands, and the field presents a gay picture framed in aquadrangle of equipages. It is sometimes difficult, even by charginglarge admission-fees, to keep the number of spectators within convenientlimits. Notwithstanding the motley assemblage which a match alwaysattracts, so unobjectionable are the associations of the cricket-fieldthat clergymen do not feel it unbecoming to participate in thediversion, either as players, umpires or spectators. 

In this country, while cricket is known in a few localities, it hasnever been generally adopted. In New York a few English residents havefor years formed the nucleus of a somewhat numerous fraternity, and theannouncement that an _American Cricketer's Manual_ will be published inthat city during the present season indicates that home interest in thesport is on the increase. But the chief thriving-place of nativeAmerican cricket is conceded to be Philadelphia, and it will beinteresting, perhaps, to take a retrospect of the progress of the gamein this city. 

Tradition carries us back as far as the year 1831 or 1832, when cricketwas first played on the ground of George Ticknor, Esq. , west of the oldbridge below Fairmount, by a few Englishmen, who shortly afterwardorganized themselves under the name of the Union Club. Some of our oldernative cricketers remember taking their first lessons from the threebrothers, George, Prior and John Ticknor, who, with Joseph Nicholls, William Richardson, John M. Fisher, John Herrod, George Parker, SamuelDingworth, Jonathan Ainsworth, John Kenworthy and George Daffin, met onSaturday afternoons and holidays. In subsequent years a few enthusiasticspirits practiced with home-made bats on the Camden common, and thencewe trace the feeble but growing interest in the game, until in 1854 thePhiladelphia Cricket Club was organized, with J. Dickinson Sergeant(who still fills the office) as president, William Rotch Wister assecretary, and Hartman Kuhn (third), James B. England, Morton P. Henry, Thomas Hall, Thomas Facon, Dr. Samuel Lewis, William M. Bradshaw, HenryM. Barlow, R. Darrell Stewart, S. Weir Mitchell and (last, but notleast) Tom Senior among its founders. Then came the Germantown Club, ofnative American boys, organized in 1855, whose highest ambition, formany years, was to play the Philadelphia Club, "barring Tom Senior, "then the only fast round-arm bowler in the country. Next came theOlympian, the Delphian, the Keystone Cricket Clubs, and a host of lesserlights, whose head-quarters were at West Philadelphia; and soon afterthe now famous Young America Cricket Club was formed by the lamentedWalter S. Newhall, partly as a training-club for the Germantown. Welldid it fulfill its purpose until the breaking out of the war, when themembers of the Germantown Club changed the bat for the sabre almost in abody, and the club went out of existence. 

With calmer times the old love of cricket came back, and through theenergy of Mr. Charles E. Cadwalader the Germantown Club was reorganized, and the _esprit de corps_ was such that before the club had taken thefield the roll showed more than twice its former numbers. Through thespirit of its patrons, and especially by the kindness of H. PrattMcKean, Esq. (part of whose country-seat was tendered for acricket-ground), the new life of the Germantown Cricket Club wassuccessfully inaugurated on the 17th of October, 1866, by a victory inits opening match with the St. George Club of New York. That was ared-letter day, when Major-General Meade, on behalf of the ladies ofGermantown, and amid the huzzas of thousands of its friends, presentedto the club a handsome set of colors, and, hoisting them to the breeze, alluded in his own graceful style to the memories of the past, and theachievements which he predicted the future would witness on thismagnificent cricket-field. 

But what is cricket? Descriptions of lively things are apt to be dull, and it is indeed no easy task to render a detailed description ofcricket intelligible, much less entertaining, to the uninitiated. Theveriest enthusiast never thought the forty-seven "laws of cricket" lightreading, and, resembling as they do certain other statutes whose onlyapparent design is to perplex the inquiring layman, they would, if citedhere, be "caviare to the general. "

But come with us, in imagination, on a bright May-day to a greatmatch--say on the Germantown cricket-ground. You will find a gloriousstretch of velvet turf, seven acres of living carpet, level and green asa huge billard-table, skirted on the one hand by a rolling landscape, and hedged on the other by a row of primeval oaks. Flags flaunt from theflag-staffs, and the play-ground is guarded by guidons. The pavilion isappropriated to the players, and perchance the band: the grand stand isalready filling with spectators. Old men and children, young men andmaidens, are there--the latter "fair to see, " and each predictingvictory for her favorite club. For it must be known that on theGermantown ground party spirit always runs high among the belles, manyof whom are good theoretical cricketers, and a few of whom always comeprepared with blanks on which to keep the neatest of private scores. During the delay which seems inseparable from the commencement of acricket-match some of the players, ready costumed in cricket apparel, "take care, " if they do not "beware, " of the aforesaid maidens; others, impatient for the call of "time, " like jockeys cantering before therace, disport themselves over the field, practicing bowling, batting, and, in ball-players' parlance, "catching flies. " The whole picture isone of beauty and animation, and that spirit must indeed be dull whichdoes not yield to the exhilarating influences of such a scene. 

Cricket is usually played by eleven players on each side, the tactics ofeach party being directed by a captain. Two umpires are appointed, whosedecrees, if sometimes inscrutable, are always irreversible, and whosefirst duty it is to "pitch the wickets. " Having selected the ground, they proceed to measure accurately a distance of twenty-two yards, andto erect a wicket at either extremity. Each "wicket" consists of threewooden "stumps, " twenty-eight inches long, sharpened at the bottom, whereby they may be stuck perpendicularly in the ground, and grooved atthe top, in order to receive two short sticks or "bails, " which restlightly across their tops. When pitched, the wickets face each other, and each presents a parallelogram twenty-seven inches high by eightinches broad, erect and firm-looking, while in fact the lightest touchof the ball or any other object would knock off the bails and reduce itto its elements. Each of these wickets is to be the _locus in quo_ notonly of a party rivalry, but also of an exciting individual contestbetween the bowler and the batsman, the former attacking the fortresswith scientific pertinacity, and the "life" of the latter depending onits successful defence. The "popping-crease" and the "bowling-crease"having been white-washed on the turf--the one marking the batsman'ssafety-ground, and the other the bowler's limits--all is now ready forplay. The captains toss a copper for choice of innings, and the winnermay elect to send his men to the bat. He selects _two_ representativesof his side, who, having accoutred themselves with hand-protectinggloves and with leg-guards, take position, bat in hand, in front of eachwicket. All the eleven players on the _out_ side are now marshaled bytheir captain in their proper positions as fielders, one being deputedto open the bowling. For a few moments the new match ball--than which, in a cricketer's estimation, A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art, Were not a richer jewel--

is passed round among the fielders, just to get their hands in; whichball, we may mention, is nine inches in circumference, weighs five and ahalf ounces, is in color not unlike a carbuncle, and nearly as hard. Theumpires take their respective position, and at the word "Play!" thewhole party, like a pack of pointers, strike attitudes of attention, more or less graceful, and the game begins. 

The _bowler_, stepping briskly up to his crease, delivers the ball, and, whether it be a "fast round-arm" or a "slow under-hand, " his endeavor isso to bowl it that the ball shall elude the batsman's defence and strikethe wicket. The _batsman_ endeavors, first and foremost, to protect hiswicket, and, secondly, if possible, to hit the ball away, so that he maymake a run or runs. This is accomplished when he and his partner at theother wicket succeed in changing places before the ball is returned tothe wicket by the fielders. 

The several ways in which a batsman may be put out are these: 1. "Bowledout, " if the bowler succeeds in bowling a ball which evades thebatsman's defence and strikes the wicket. 2. "Hit wicket, " if thebatsman, in playing at the ball, hits his wicket accidentally with hisbat or person. 3. "Stumped out, " if the batsman, in playing at a ball, steps out of his ground, but misses the ball, which is caught by thewicket-keeper, who with it puts down the wicket before the batsmanreturns his bat or his body within the popping-crease. 4. "Caught out, "if any fielder catches the ball direct from the striker's bat or handbefore it touches the ground. 5. "Run out, " if the batsman, inattempting to make a run, fails to reach his safety-ground before thewicket to which he is running is put down with the ball. 6. "Leg beforewicket, " if the batsman stops with his leg or other part of his body abowled ball, whose course in the opinion of the umpire was in a linewith the wickets, and which if not so stopped would have taken thewicket. 

At every ball bowled, therefore, the batsman must guard against allthese dangers: he must, without leaving his ground, and avoiding "legbefore wicket, " play the ball so that it will not strike the wicket andcannot be caught. Having hit it away, he can make a run or runs only ifhe and his partner can reach their opposite wickets before the ball isreturned by the fielders and a wicket put down. All the fielders are inactive league against the batsman, whose single-handed resistance willbe of little avail unless he exceeds mere defence and adds his quota ofruns to the score of his side. To excel in this requires, in addition toa scientific knowledge of the game, cool presence of mind, a quick eye, a supple wrist, a strong arm, a swift foot and a healthy pair of lungs. Thus the nobler attributes of the man, mental and physical, are broughtinto play. As the Master in _Tom Brown's School-days_ remarks: "Thediscipline and reliance on one another which cricket teaches are sovaluable it ought to be an unselfish game. It merges the individual inthe eleven: he does not play that he may win, but that his side may. "

Four balls, sometimes six, are said to constitute an "over, " and at thecompletion of each over the bowler is relieved by an alternate, whobowls from the opposite wicket, the fielders meantime crossing over orchanging places, so as to preserve their relative positions toward theactive batsman for the time being. Any over during which no runs areearned from the bat is said to be a "maiden" over, and is scored to thecredit of the bowler as an evidence of good bowling. In addition to theruns earned on hits there are certain "extras, " which, though scored asruns in favor of the _in_ side, are not strictly runs, but are imposedrather as penalties for bad play by the outs than as the result of goodplay by the ins. Thus, should the bowler bowl a ball which, in theopinion of the umpire, is outside the batsman's reach, it is called a"wide, " and counts one (without running) to the batsman's side; shouldthe bowler in delivering a ball step beyond the bowling-crease, or if hejerks it or throws it, it is a "no ball, " and counts one (withoutrunning) to the batsman's side; but if the batsman hits a no ball hecannot be put out otherwise than by being "run out. " If he makes one ormore runs on such a hit, the no ball is condoned, and the runs so madeare credited as hits to him and his side. The umpire must take especialcare to call "no ball" instantly upon delivery--"wide ball" as soon asit shall have passed the batsman, and not, as a confused umpire oncecalled, "No ball--wide--out. " Again, should a ball which the batsman hasnot touched pass the fielders behind the wicket, the batsmen may make arun or runs, which count to their side as "byes:" should the ball, however, missing his bat, glance from the batsman's leg or other part ofhis body, and then pass the fielders, the batsmen may make a run orruns, which count to their side as "leg-byes. "

The game thus proceeds until each batsman of the _in_ side is in turnput out, except the eleventh or last, who, having no partner to assumethe other wicket, "carries out his bat, " and the innings for the side isclosed. The other side now has its innings, and, _mutatis mutandis_, thegame proceeds as before. Usually two innings on each side are played, unless one side makes more runs in one innings than the other makes inboth, or unless it is agreed in advance to play a "one-innings match. "

So much for the matter-of-fact details of the game of cricket. To enterinto the more interesting but less tangible combination of science, chance and skill to which cricket owes not a little of its fascination, would extend this article far beyond its assigned limits. The science of"length-balls" and "twisting lobs, " the skill in "forward play" or "backplay, " the chances of "shooters" and "bailers, " are balanced in a happyproportion, and to a cricketer form a tempting theme. But we mustcontent ourselves by referring those disposed to pursue the subject tosuch books as _The Cricket Field_, _The Theory and Practice of Cricket_, _Felix on the Bat_, _Cricket Songs and Poems_, and to other similar Englishpublications on the game, which are so numerous that if collected theywould make quite a cricket library. 

Nor can we here refer to the incidental pleasures which a cricket-matchaffords independently of participation in the game itself. These aredepicted, from a lady's point of view, by Miss Mitford in _OurVillage_; where a pretty bit of romance is interwoven with a descriptionof a country cricket-match, the very recollection of which draws fromthe graceful authoress this admission: "Though tolerably eager andenthusiastic at all times, I never remember being in a more deliciousstate of excitation than on the occasion of that cricket-match. Whowould think that a little bit of leather and two pieces of wood had sucha delightful and delighting power?"

And this sentiment is echoed by scores of the fair spectators at ourhome matches. When, for example, during the last international match atGermantown, one of the English Gentlemen Eleven said to a lady, "We weretold we should have a fine game at Philadelphia, but, really, I had noidea we should be honored by the presence of so many ladies, " her replyexpressed the sentiments of a numerous class: "Oh, I used to come to amatch occasionally _pour passer le temps_. At first the cricket seemedto me more like a solemn ceremonial than real fun, but now that Iunderstand the points I like the game for its own sake; and as for amatch like this, I think it is perfectly lovely!" Another of the EnglishEleven--a handsome but modest youth--on being escorted to the grandstand and introduced to a party of ladies, became so abashed byunexpectedly finding himself in the midst of such a galaxy of beauties(and, as a matter of course, the conscious cynosure of all eyes) that, blushing to suffusion, and forgetting to lift his hat, he could onlymanage to stammer out, "Aw, aw--I beg pardon; but--aw--aw--I fancythere's another wicket down, and I must put on my guards, you know;"whereupon he beat a hasty retreat. [C]

A game which has for centuries in England afforded healthful recreationto all classes must needs possess some value beyond that of merephysical exercise. Not that we would undervalue the latter advantage. Improvement in health usually keeps pace with improvement in cricket. Mr. Grace, the "champion cricketer of the world, " is hardly less achampion of muscular physique: he sought in vain for a companion to walkto town, late at night, from the country-seat of the late Mr. JoshuaFrancis Fisher, where the cricketers, after a long day's play, had beenentertained at dinner--a distance of more than ten miles. We heartilyconcur in the favorite advice of a physician, renowned alike for hissocial wit and professional wisdom, who prescribed "a rush of blood tothe boots" to all professional patients and head-workers--men who, happening to possess brains, are prone to forget that they have bodies. In no way can this inverse apoplexy be more healthfully or pleasantlyinduced than by a jolly game of cricket. That the sport is adapted toAmerican tastes and needs we are convinced, and that it may find a_habitat_ throughout the length and breadth of our land is an end towardwhich we launch this humble plea in its interest. 

Now we hardly expect all the readers of _Lippincott's Magazine_forthwith to become cricketers, but we venture to suggest, by way ofmoral, that some of them may take a hint from Mr. Winkle, who, whenasked by Mr. Wardle, "Are you a cricketer?" modestly replied, "No, Idon't play, _but I subscribe to the club here_. "

ALBERT A. OUTERBRIDGE. 

FOOTNOTES:

[C] The following extract from the diary of Mr. Fitzgerald, captain ofthe English Gentlemen Eleven of 1872, has been published in England, andwill be read with interest:

"_Sept 21, 1872. _ Philadelphia, seventh match. Lost the toss. Groundfair to the eye, and immense attendance. The bowling and fielding onboth sides quite a treat to the spectators. Total for the English Twelve(first innings), 105. Not considered enough, but a good score againstsuch bowling and fielding--quite first-class. 

"_Sept. 24. _ Second innings. With but 33 to get, the Twelve looked sureof victory, but a harder fight was never yet seen. Bowling and fieldingsplendid; excitement increasing. Fall of Hadow--ringing cheers. Adventof Appleby--fracture of Francis. Seven down for 29. Frantic state ofYoung America. The English captain still cheerful, but puffing ratherquickly at his pipe. Six 'maidens' at each end. The spell broken bysplendid hit of 'the tormentor. '

"This was the best and most closely-contested match of the campaign, andthe scene presented at the finish would lose nothing in excitement andinterest by comparison with 'Lord's' on a grand match-day. "

A book of _Transatlantic Cricket Notes_ has been announced in England asin preparation by Mr. Fitzgerald. 

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. 

IRISH AGENTS. 

The Irish papers mentioned a few months ago the death of Mr. StuartTrench, whose _Realities of Irish Life_ excited so much attention threeyears ago. Mr. Trench was the most eminent of a class of men peculiar toIreland, and growing out of the unfortunate condition of that country. He was an agent, which means overlooker and manager of the estates ofabsentee landlords. 

In England, except on very extensive properties, landlords do not employan agent of this sort, and even where they do his duties are of a verydifferent character. There the landlords, being nearly always in thecountry, if not on their estates, look after their business themselves, and have merely an overlooker, who does not occupy the position of agentleman, to superintend and report to them what may be needful, whilstthe rents are collected by a solicitor. This is the case in Scotlandalso. 

But in Ireland this would never do. Even where the landlord is residenthe almost always has an agent, to save himself the great trouble whichwould otherwise be entailed on him, while to the non-resident an agentis imperatively necessary. 

Most Irish property is still subdivided into very small farms, and thisis in itself a source of constant trouble. The tenants get into arrearor become hopelessly insolvent: they very often refuse to quit theirholdings nevertheless, and have to be coaxed, bought or turned out, asthe case may be; which several processes have to be accomplished by theagent. Then he is compelled to see in many cases that they don't exhaustthe land by a repetition of the same crops, and in fact to superintend, either by himself or his sub-agents, in a hundred ways which would neverbe necessary in England, where the farms are large and their holders ofa different class. 

He also represents the landlord socially, and is frequently the greatman of the district, duly invested with magisterial and other countyoffices. The office of agent has therefore in Ireland had a high socialstanding, and agencies are eagerly sought by the younger sons ofgentlemen, and even noblemen. 

There are three or four estates whose agencies are regarded as specialprizes, and of these Mr. Trench held one, the marquis of Lansdowne's. That nobleman--who is descended from the ancient Fitzmaurices, earls ofKerry, and the celebrated _savant_ Mr. William Petty, who first surveyedIreland, and took the opportunity of helping himself pretty freely tosome very nice "tit-bits" as "refreshers" by the way--has a veryextensive property in Queens county and the wild maritime county ofKerry, in which his ancestors were in bygone days a sort of kings. 

Probably Lord Lansdowne's agency was worth to Mr. Trench quite $5000 ayear, equal in Kerry, where living is still very cheap, to $15, 000 inNew York City; and he had two or three other agencies in addition. 

On the smaller properties the agent is usually paid five per cent. , onthe large by fixed salary. The best agency of all is that of LordPembroke, who owns the most valuable portion of Dublin and a great dealof adjoining land. 

When the duties and risks of an agent are considered, he can by no meansbe regarded as highly paid. Very many agents have lost their lives, andothers are exposed to continual danger. They are sometimes harsh, tyrannical and overbearing, but far less so now, when railroad, pressand telegraph let light in upon all parts of the country, than formerly, when they were left to themselves, and as long as the rents were dulypaid no heed was taken of their operations. 

To do an agent's work well great firmness and knowledge of the Irishcharacter is required, and in some districts in the West a knowledge ofthe Irish language is very desirable and absolutely requisite. 

When an agency becomes vacant a proprietor receives innumerableapplications for the vacant office, often from persons ludicrouslyignorant of its duties. Thus, some time ago a seeker of such an officeaccompanied his application--he was a retired army officer--by a sketchof a sort of watch-tower whence he proposed to watch the tenantry, andfire upon them as occasion required! With few exceptions the agents onlarge estates are gentlemen bred to the business, whose fathers havebeen agents, and have thus early become initiated into the mysteries ofthe office. 

Many Irish landlords are, and still more used to be, very much in thehands of their agents, of whom they have borrowed money, and furtherdepend on for support in elections. Instances are by no means wanting ofmen now holding high rank as country gentlemen whose fathers andgrandfathers grew rich out of estates confided to them to manage bynegligent, reckless landlords, who gradually fell completely into themeshes of their managers. 

RANDOM BIOGRAPHIES. 

JULIUS CÆSAR. An ancient Roman of celebrity. He advertised to the effectthat he had rather be first at Rome than second in a small village. Hewas a man of great muscular strength. Upon one occasion he threw anentire army across the Rubicon. A general named Pompey met him in whatwas called the "tented field, " but Pompey couldn't hold a Roman candleto Julius. We are assured upon the authority of Patrick Henry that"Cæsar had his Brutus. " The unbiased reader of history, however, willconclude that, on the contrary, Brutus rather _had_ Cæsar. This Brutusnever struck me as an unpleasant man to meet, but he did Cæsar. Afteraddressing a few oral remarks to Brutus in the Latin language, Cæsarexpired. His subsequent career ceases to be interesting. 

JOHN PAUL JONES. An American naval commander who sailed the seas duringthe Revolution, with indistinct notions about gold lace or what heshould fly at the main. He was fond of fighting. He would frequentlybreak off in the middle of a dinner to go on deck and whip a Britishfrigate. Perhaps he didn't care much about his meals. If so, he musthave been a good _boarder_. 

LUCREZIA BORGIA. Daughter of old Mr. Borgia, a wealthy Italiangentleman. Lucrezia was one of the first ladies of her time. Beautifulbeyond description, of brilliant and fascinating manners, she created anunmistakable sensation. It was a burning sensation. Society doted uponher. Afterward it anti-doted. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. A philosopher and statesman. When a boy he associatedhimself with the development of the tallow-chandlery interest, andinvented the Boston dip. He was lightning on some things, also aprinter. He won distinction as the original _Poor Richard_, though hecould not have been by any means so poor a Richard as McKean Buchananused to be. Although born in Boston and living in Philadelphia, he yetmanaged to surmount both obstacles, and to achieve considerable note inhis day. They show you the note in Independence Hall. 

MARK TWAIN. A humorous writer of the nineteenth century. As yet, I havenot had the honor of his acquaintance, but when I do meet him I shallsay something jocose. I know I shall. I have it. My plan will be toinveigle him into going over a ferry to "see a man. " As we pass up theslip on the other side, I shall draw out my flask, impromptu-like, withthe invitation, "Mark, my dear fellow, won't you take something?" Hewill decline, of course, or else he isn't the humorist I take him for. Ishall then consider it my duty to urge him. Fixing my eye steadily uponhim, so he can understand that I am terribly in earnest, I shall proceedto apostrophize that genial victim as follows:

 "Take, I give it willingly, For invisibly to thee, Spirits, Twain, have crossed with me. "

Then I presume we shall go and "see a man. "

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. The man who discovered America two points off theport-bow. One day, in his garden, he observed an apple falling from itstree, whereupon a conviction flashed suddenly through his mind that theearth was round. By breaking the bottom of an egg and making it stand onend at the dinner-table, he demonstrated that he could sail due west andin course of time arrive at another hemisphere. He started a line ofemigrant packets from Palos, Spain, and landed at Philadelphia, where hewalked up Market street with a loaf of bread under each arm. Thesimple-hearted natives took him out to see their new Park. On his secondvoyage Columbus was barbarously murdered at the Sandwich Islands, orrather he would have been but for the intervention of Pocahontas, alovely maiden romantically fond of distressed travelers. After thislittle incident he went West, where his intrepidity and masterlyfinancial talent displayed itself in the success with which he acquiredland and tobacco without paying for them. As the savages had no railroadof which they could make him president, they ostracized him--sent him tothe island of St. Helena. But the spirit of discovery refused to bequenched, and the next year we find him landing at Plymouth Rock in ablinding snow-storm. It was here that he shot an apple from his son'shead. To this universal genius are we indebted also for the explorationof the sources of the Nile, and for an unintelligible butcorrespondingly valuable scientific report of a visit to the valley ofthe Yellowstone. He took no side in our late unhappy war; but during theRevolution he penetrated with a handful of the _garde mobile_ into themountain-fastnesses of Minnesota, where he won that splendid series ofvictories which, beginning with Guilford Court-house, terminated in theglorious storming of Chapultepec. Ferdinand and Isabella rewarded himwith chains. Genoa, his native city, gave him a statue, and Boston hasnamed in his honor one of her proudest avenues. One day he rushed nakedfrom the bath, exclaiming, "Eureka!" and the presumption is that he wasright. He afterward explained himself by saying that he cared not whomade the laws of a people, so long as he furnished their ballots. Columbus was cruelly put to death by order of Richard III. Of England, and as he walked to the scaffold he exclaimed to the throng that stoodaround him, "The world moves. " The drums struck up to drown his words. Smiling at this little by-play, he adjusted his crimson mantle about himand laid his head upon the block. He then drank off the cup of hemlockwith philosophic composure. This great man's life (which, by the way, was not insured) teaches the beautiful moral lesson that an excess ofvirtue is apt to be followed by a redundancy of happiness, and that hewho would secure the felicity of to-day must disdain alike theevanescent shadows of yesterday and the intangible adumbrations of themorrow. 

S. Y. 

THE CRIES OF THE MARCHANDS. 

The other morning I was lying quietly in bed, waiting for the bonne tofetch my café noir, when a most extraordinary sound caught my ear. Thecries of Paris marchands early in the morning are curious enoughusually, but this one exceeded in quaintness all that I had heard sincemy arrival. Between the words "Chante, chante, Adrienne!" a horriblebraying broke forth, resounding through our quiet faubourg in a mannerwhich brought many a _bonnet de nuit_ to the windows. I got up to seewhat was the matter. 

"Chante, chante, Adrienne!" re-echoed again over the smooth asphalte. 

By this time a crowd of gamins--the gamins are always up, no matter howearly--had gathered in the middle of the street around the object of thedisturbance. It was a marchand of vegetables in a greasy blouse, leadingan ass. There was a huge pannier on the ass's back full of kitchenvegetables, which the marchand was crying and praising to our sleepyfaubourg. With an economy worthy of Silhouette, the scamp had taughtAdrienne--for that was the beast's name--to bray every time he said"Pommes de terre, de terre--terre!" As often as he said this, or"Chante, Adrienne, chante!" Adrienne would switch her tail and _chante_lugubriously, setting the whole neighborhood in commotion. So adroitlyhad he trained the creature--with her thigh-bones sticking in peaksthrough her hide, and a visage of preternatural solemnity--that when hermaster but lifted his finger Adrienne would go through her part withadmirable gravity, thus helping her lord to get his daily bread. Ilaughed till the bonne came with my coffee, and was glad to see thepannier gradually emptying as the grotesque procession defiled throughour street, with a rear-guard of exhilarated urchins poking at poor meekAdrienne in a manner the most _méchant_. And so on they went till thepeasant and his invaluable assistant were quite out of hearing. 

There is no end to the originality of the Parisians. If you but go to akiosque to get a _Figaro_, the white-capped marchande has somethingclever to say. The rain, the air, the clouds, the sun are full of_esprit_ for her--are to her banques de France, upon which she has anunlimited credit--_credit fonder_, if you will, _credit mobilier_, orwhat not. The _conducteur_ who stands behind his omnibus and obliginglyhelps you in, says _Merci_! with an accent so exquisite that it is likewit or poetry or music, utterly throwing you into despair after yourmonths and months of travail and dozens and dozens of louis lavished onincompetent professors. 

"Pronounce that for me, please, " said I one day to a gentleman who hadjust spoken some word whose secret of pronunciation I had been trying tofilch for weeks--some delicate little jewel of a word, faint as aperfume, expressive as only a tiny Parisian word can be--and he did soin the politest manner in the world, adding some little witticism whichI do not recall. Whereupon I went home and instantly dismissed my"professor. "

But to return to our theme, the cries of the marchands. It would take apen like Balzac's, as curiously versatile, as observant, as full ofindividual ink, to catch all the shades of these odd utterances. You mayrecollect as you lay in your sweet English bed in London, just as thefog was lifting over the great city early in the morning, the distinctindividuality of the voices which, although you did not see theirowners, told each its story of sunrise thrift and industry as it criedto you the early peas or the wood or the melons of the season. You mayremember, too, how perplexing, how fantastic, many of those cries were, making it impossible for you to understand what they meant, or why awood-huckster, for example, should give vent to such lachrymosesentimentality in vending his fagots. But quite different is the Parismarchand. With a physiognomy of voice--if the expression bepardoned--quite as marked as the cockney's, what he says is yetperfectly clear, often shrewd, gay, cynical, sometimes even spiced withjocularity, as if it were pure fun to get a living, and the world wereall a holiday. 

Some years ago a marchand was in the habit of visiting our neighborhoodwhose specialty it was to vend _baguettes_, or small rods for beatingcarpets, tapestry and padded furniture. His cry was--"Voilà desbaguettes! Battez vos meubles, battez vos tapis, battez vos _femmes_pour UN sou!"

It is said that as this gay chiffonnier went one morning by thefish-markets uttering this jocose cry, a squad of those formidable_poissardes_, the fishwomen of Paris, got after him, and administered asound thrashing with his own baguettes. Such is the vengeance of theFrench-woman!

But there is a curious pathos in many of these cries--queer searchingtones which go to the heart and set one thinking; tones that come againin times of revolution, and gather into the terrible roar of theCommune. I sometimes wonder if they ever sell anything, those strangesad voices of the early morning struggling up from the street. They arethe voices of Humanity on its mighty errand of bread and meat. Somedozen or so traverse our quarter through the day--some of feeble oldwomen, full of sharp complaint; some of strong, quick-stepping men; someof little children with faint modest voices, as if unused to the cruelwork of getting a living. It is these poor people who walk fromMontmartre to Passy in the morning, and in the evening fish for drowneddogs or pick up corks along the canal of the Porte St. Martin. For a dogit is said they get a franc or two, and corks go at a few sous ahundred. 

Such is an inkling of the life-histories wafted through our summerwindows by the voices of the street. Well, the sun is brilliant, theChamps are crowded with the world, the jewelers of the Palais Royal aredriving a thriving trade, the great boulevards are margined by longlines of absinthe drinkers. Who cares? Only it is a little disagreeablein the early morning to have one's sleep broken by the pathos of life. Let us sleep well on our wine, and dine to-morrow at the Grand Hotel. Weshall forget the misery of these patient voices which visit us withtheir prayer for subsistence every day. 

G. F. 

THE ANGEL HUSSAR. 

I think some of the best talks I have had in my life have been withchance companions on whom I have happened in the course of a rovinglife--sometimes in a restaurant, sometimes in the railroad-car orsteamboat, and not unfrequently in the smoking-room of a hotel. 

If you have ever been in Dublin, you know Dawson street, and in Dawsonstreet the Hibernian Hotel. I am not prepared to endorse all thearrangements of that hostelry, nor indeed of any other in that part ofthe United Kingdom called Ireland: I have suffered too much in them. Still, I will say that the Hibernian is to be praised for a reallycomfortable and handsome smoking-room, containing easy-chairs deservedlyso called, and a capital collection of standard novels. One rawevening in the spring of 1871 I sauntered in, and found somegentlemanlike-looking fellows there, who proved pleasant company, andpresently a remarkably _distingué_-looking young man, with anunmistakably military cut, came in and sat down near me. We fell totalking. He was quartered at the Curragh, and was up in Dublin _enroute_ for the Newmarket spring meeting. He told me that he made some£700 a year by the turf. "I've a cousin, you see, who is a greatsporting man, and thus I'm 'in with a stable, ' and get put up to tips, "he said. "But for this the turf would be a very poor thing to dabblein. " And this led to a talk about officers' lives and theirmoney-affairs. "Oh, " he said, "you've no notion of the number who go toutter grief. Why now, I'll tell you what happened to me last season inLondon. I was asked to go down and dine with some fellows at Richmond;and being awfully late, I rushed out of the club and hailed the firsthansom I could see with a likely horse in Pall Mall. I scarcely lookedat the man, but said, 'Now I want to get down to the Star and Garter byeight: go a good pace and I'll pay you for it. ' Well, he had a stunninggood horse, and we rattled away at a fine rate; and when I got out I wasputting the money into his hand, when he said, 'Don't you know me, B----?' I looked up in amazement, and in another moment recognized a manwhom I had known in India as the greatest swell in the ---- Hussars, thesmartest cavalry corps in the service, and who, on account of hissplendid face and figure, went by the sobriquet of 'the Angel Hussar. '

"Well, it gave me quite a shock. 'Good Heavens, H----!' I said, 'what inthe world does this mean?' 'Mean, old fellow? It means that I'd not afarthing in the world, and didn't want to starve. It's all my own cursedfolly. I've made my bed, and must lie on it. ' I pressed a couple ofsovereigns into his hand, and made him promise to call on me next day. He came and gave me the details of his descent, the old story ofcourse--wine and its alliterative concomitant, conjoined with utterrecklessness. " "Well, and could you help him?" "I'm glad to say I could. I got him the place of stud-groom to a nobleman in the south ofIreland: he's turned over a new leaf, is perfectly steady, and doing aswell as possible. "

 * * * * *

NOTES. 

There is an old story that Augustus, being once asked by a veteransoldier for his aid in a lawsuit, told the petitioner to go to a certainadvocate. "Ah, " replied the soldier, "it was not by proxy that I servedyou at Actium!" So struck, continues the tradition, was Augustus withthis response, that he personally took charge of the soldier's cause, and gained it for him. Possibly it may be on the theory that hissubjects "do not serve him by proxy" when he needs their services thatthe Austrian kaiser even to this day holds personal audiences with hispeople regarding their private desires or grievances. Evidentlytraditional, this custom is so singular as to merit a more generalnotice than it habitually receives: indeed, its existence might bedoubted by the foreign reader, did not a Hungarian journal, _Der Osten_, furnish a detailed description of it. The only prerequisite to anaudience would seem to be the lodging of the subject's name and rankwith one of the emperor's secretaries, who thereupon appoints the dayand hour for his appearance at the palace. If the emperor has been longabsent from Vienna, his next audience-day is always a trying one, as thewaiting-room is then crowded with hundreds of both sexes, and all ranksand ages. They are in ordinary dress, too, so that the imperialante-chamber presents a motley and picturesque scene--the gold-broideredcoat of the minister of state and the brilliant uniform of the armymingling with the citizen's plain frock, with the Tyrolean or Styrianhunter's jacket, with the _bunda_ of the Hungarian, with the long, furlined linen overcoat of the Polish peasant; while the rustling silks ofthe elegant city lady are side by side with the plain woolen skirt ofthe farmer's wife. Each of these in regular turn, as written on the listfrom which he calls them, a staff-officer ushers into the emperor'sstudy. There the petitioner states his case. The emperor listenswithout interruption, then receives the written statements anddocuments, sometimes asks a question, but generally dismisses thevisitor with a simple formula of assurance that a decision will be dulyrendered. There is evidently much form in the matter, as if it were butthe empty perpetuation of some ancient ceremony designed to show thatthe monarch is the father of all his people, and hence is personallyinterested in their individual troubles. But yet it appears that theemperor _does_ listen to the harangues, for he is occasionally known toaffix his initials to some documents; which act is always interpreted asa good sign, it being equivalent to a special recommendation to thesecretaries, indicating that _primâ facie_ the cause has seemed to thesovereign to be just. However, the precaution of a written statement isalways taken, because it would be impossible for him to remember all theoral explanations. Only a few weeks after each of these audiences thesuitors are individually notified of the result. The emperor's sense ofetiquette does not allow him to give any sign of impatience during theinterview, though some of the visitors are as long-winded andimportunate as Mark Twain pretends to have been at one of PresidentGrant's receptions. The emperor answers the German, Hungarian, Tzech, Croat or Italian each in the suitor's own tongue. It is quite possiblethat in the preliminary registry of the names and condition of suitorscare is taken that the emperor shall not be subjected to too greatannoyance from any abuse of this curious and interesting privilege. 

Among the canonizations of the past few months a notable place must beassigned to that of the beatified Benoît Labre. That he was faithful indoctrine needs hardly be said, but it was his manner of life whichprocured him this posthumous honor, in order that those who read of hiscareer may rank him among those saints who, as in Tickell's line, haveboth "taught and led the way to heaven, " and may seek to imitate hisexample. The decree of canonization, in reciting his characteristicvirtues, says that though of very honorable birth, yet, scorning earthlythings as dross, he clothed himself in rags, and ate and drank only whatchanty gave him. His shelter was the Coliseum or the doorways or desertplaces of Rome. He washed not, neither did he yield to the effeminacy ofthe comb; his hair and nails grew to what length Nature wished: in short(for some of the additional details are better fancied than described), he so utterly neglected his person that he became an object of avoidanceto many or all. But his neglected body was after death placed under aglass shrine in the church of the Madonna del Monti. The decree callsupon others to follow the example of the blessed Benoît, or at least asfar as the measure of spiritual strength in each will allow; but weapprehend that many will modestly confess that the peculiar virtues ofthe saint are inimitable. 

LITERATURE OF THE DAY. 

Little Hodge. By the author of "Ginx's Baby. " New York: Dodd & Mead. 

The pamphlet has changed since the days of Swift and Dr. Johnson, andthe modern method, which seeks to influence opinion by means of a short, pointed story, is certainly a gain in persuasiveness and pictorialvigor. It is hard to say what the dean of Saint Patrick's would havethought of _The Battle of Dorking_, or _Ginx's Baby_, or _Lord Bantam_, or _Little Hodge_, by the author of the last two of these. The dean'sferocity of expression no modern writer can allow himself; and theengine of a tremendous intellect is by no means apparent, as it was inhis work, behind the efforts of our modern pamphleteers. But the nervesof pity, when exquisitely touched, are as apt to influence action as thefeelings of hate or scorn, and Swift's proposal, from the depths of hisbleeding heart, to fat and eat the Irish children, was no more adaptedto produce reformed legislation than is the picture in _Little Hodge_ ofthe ten deserted children starving under the thatch, the eldest girlfrozen and pallid, the father shot by a gamekeeper, after having failedto support his motherless brood. Swift would have put in some matchlesstouches, but the picture seems adapted to our day of average, mechanicalcommonplace. It has a nerve of tenderness in it which will work upon thegentler souls of our communities. The father of _Little Hodge_ isrepresented as an honest field-laborer, working for Farmer Jolly at nineshillings a week. The birth of his manikin baby and the accompanyingdeath of his wife increase his cares past bearing. He thereupon commitsthree crimes in succession: he applies to Jolly for an increase of pay, he joins the agrarian movement of a year ago, and he attempts to runaway and find work elsewhere. He is inexorably, minutely and witheringlypunished for these several acts, and at last gets his only chance ofcomfort in a violent death, leaving his poor problems unsolved and hischildren naked and starving. Such a picture, if drawn by a foreigner, would arouse English indignation from shore to shore; but it ishome-drawn. The only foreign delineation is in the author's JehoiachinSettle, a stage Yankee, whose avocation is planting English children inCanada after the manner of Miss Rye. Settle is a preposterous failure, but every other limb of the writer's argument is strong and operative. 

At His Gates. By Mrs. Oliphant. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 

The author of _Miss Marjoribanks_, who is said to keep writing first agood novel and then a poor novel in careful alternation, will leave herfriends in some doubt as to which category she means her last story tobe placed in, for it is impossible to call it poor, andconscience-rending to call it good. It is long, and depicts manypersons, of whom only one, Mr. Burton's cynical wife, is at alloriginal. Mr. Burton aforesaid, a pompous business-man, places "at hisgates, " just outside his villa walls, the widow of a man whom he hasused as a catspaw. The catspaw was a guileless artist, whom Burton hastempted to take a directorship in his bank when the latter was about tobreak, he himself retiring in time. The poor painter, in despair, jumpsinto the water, and his wife, who is proud and aristocratic, iscondemned to be the pensioner and neighbor of a vulgar villain, everyfavor from whom is a conscious insult. Presently the tables are turned. Whether the asphyxiated artist really comes undrowned again, and returnsrich from America, nothing could persuade us to tell, as we disapproveof the premature revelation of plots. But the tiresome Burton, at anyrate, is bound to come to grief, and his headstrong young daughter torun off with his partner in atrocity, a man as old as her father, andhis wife to adapt her cold philosophy to a tiny house in the best partof London. There is one scene, worth all the rest of the book, wherethis lady tries to bargain with her son, whom she is really fond of, fora manifestation of his love: she is about to yield to his opinion thatshe should give up her own private settlement to the creditors of herruined husband, and then, just as she is consenting to this sacrifice, not disinterestedly but maternally, the boy blurts out his passion for a_parvenu_ girl, the lost painter's daughter in fact--a rival whom heintroduces to her in the moment of her supreme tenderness. She simplyobserves, "You have acted according to your nature, Ned--like the rest. "If there were ten such chapters in the book as the one containing thisscene, the novel would be something immortal, instead of what itis--railway reading of exceptional merit. It forms the first of a"Library of Choice Fiction" projected by Messrs. Scribner, Armstrong &Co. , of which it forms a very encouraging standard of interest. 

Memoirs of Madame Desbordes-Valmore. By Sainte-Beuve. With a Selectionfrom her Poems. Translated by Harriet W. Preston. Boston: RobertsBrothers. 

Sainte-Beuve, with whom the art of female biography seems to have died, and who has given us so many softly touched and profoundly understoodportraits, is here engaged with one of his own personal friends andcontemporaries. This is no study of a heroine long dead, and draped inthe obsolete and winning costume of the Empire or the Revolution, but ofan anxious woman concerned with the hardship and grime of our own day, "amid the dust and defilement of the city, on the highway, always inquest of lodgings, climbing to the fifth story, wounded on every angle. "Only sympathy and a poetic touchstone could bring out the essence andsweetness of a nature so unhappily disguised; but Sainte-Beuve, discarding with a single gesture her penitential mask and hood, findsMadame Desbordes-Valmore "polished, gracious, and even hospitable, investing everything with a certain attractive and artistic air, hidingher griefs under a natural grace, lighted even by gleams of merriment. "The poor details of her life he contrives to lose under a purposedartlessness of narrative and a caressing superfluity of loyal eulogy. Welearn, however, that Mademoiselle Desbordes was born at Douai in 1786, and died in Paris in 1859. Daughter of a heraldic painter, thenecessities of her family obliged her to make a voyage, as a child, toGuadeloupe, in the hope of receiving aid from a rich relative, and alittle later to go upon the stage. In the provinces, and occasionally atParis, she played in the role of _ingénue_ with an exquisite address, succeeding because such a part was really a natural expression ofherself: she thus won the abiding friendship of the great Mars, whoturned to the young comédienne a little-suspected and tender side of herown character. Mademoiselle Desbordes' artistic charm was infinite, andshe controlled with innocent ease the fountain of tears, whitening thewhole parterre with pocket-handkerchiefs when she appeared as theEveline, Claudine and Eulalie of French sentimental drama. But she feltkeenly the social ostracism which was still strong toward the stage of1800, and bewailed in her poetry the "honors divine by night allowed, byday anathematized. " In 1817 she married an actor, M. Valmore, whosubsequently disappeared into obscure official life, accepting with joya position as catalogue-maker in the National Library. Her relatives, and even her eldest daughter, received small government favors, whileher own little pension, when it came, was so distasteful that for along time she could not bring herself to apply for the payments. She wasa confirmed patriot, shrank from the favors of the throne, was ill forsix weeks after Waterloo, and hailed with delight the revolution of '48, which for some time stopped her pension and impoverished her. Aftertwenty years of the stage she retired into the greater privacy ofliterature, and published various collections of verse which struck anote of pure transparent sentiment rare in the epoch of Louis Philippe. She had, in an uncommon degree, the gift of intelligent admiration: heraddresses to the great men of her time appear to be as far as possiblefrom a spirit of calculation or self-interest, but they secured her ananswering sympathy all the more valuable as it was never bargained for. Michelet said, "My heart is full of her;" Balzac wrote a drama at hersolicitation; Lamartine, taking to himself a published compliment whichshe had intended for another, replied with twenty beautiful stanzas;Victor Hugo wrote to her, "You are poetry itself;" Mademoiselle Mars, when past the age of public favor, took from her the plain counsel toretire with kindness and actual thanks; Dumas wrote a preface for her;Madame Recamier obtained her pension; the brilliant Sophie Gay, nowMadame Émile de Girardin, wrote of her poetry, "How could one depictbetter the luxury of grief?" M. Raspail, the austere republican, calledher the tenth muse, the muse of virtue; and Sainte-Beuve himself, thinking less of her literary life than of her family life and manifoldcompassions, terms her the "Mater Dolorosa of poetry. " His memoir, however, is valuable for its own grace as much as for the modestsweetness of its subject: without his friendly eloquence the name ofMadame Desbordes-Valmore would not have got beyond a kind of personalcircle of native admirers, nor the present translator have rendered forforeign ears the whispering story of her pure deeds and the plaintivenumbers of her verse. 

Memoir of a Brother. By Thomas Hughes, Author of "Tom Brown'sSchool-days. " London: Macmillan & Co. 

Here is a book that was never meant to be dissected and analyzed bycritics and reviewers. It is not hard to imagine the "discomfort andannoyance" which the writer has (he tells us) felt in consenting togive to the public a memoir compiled for a private family circle. Still, on the whole, it is altogether well, and there is good reason to callattention to it, for there is much benefit in the book for many readers. It is the loving record of a life that, from first to last, neverchallenged the world's attention--that was connected with no greatmovement or event, political, theological or social; but a life, all thesame, that was lived with a truth, an earnestness and a straightnessthat won the affection and respect of all who came within its influence, and will, or we are much mistaken, glow warmly in the hearts andmemories of just all whose eyes now light upon this story of it. 

How many boys--ay, and grown men and women too--got up from _Tom Brown'sSchool-days_ consciously the better from the reading of it! But therewas withal a vague feeling of incompleteness, an unsatisfied longing. The story left off too soon. One wanted to know more of Tom after hisschool-days. And then, it was, after all, a novel, a fiction. One wouldhave liked to come across that Tom, and perhaps felt half afraid that hemight not readily be found outside the cover of the volume. It is truethat that longing to know something of the hero's after-life which isone accompaniment of the perusal of a thoroughly good work of fictionwas, in the case of Tom Brown, partially gratified. Everybody had thechance of seeing _Tom Brown at Oxford_, and watching their oldfavorite's course through undergraduate days to that haven and finalgoal of fiction-writers, marriage. But there he is lost to view for goodand all, and one is left to the amiable hypothesis that he lived happyall his days, without being either shown how he managed to do so, ortaught how we might manage to do likewise. 

Now this _Memoir of a Brother_ may be said just to supply the want thatwe have here endeavored to indicate. It is the whole life--the childlife, the school-boy life, the college life and the adult, responsiblelife in the world and as a family head--of a real flesh-and-blood, actualized Tom Brown; and it stands out depicted with an intensenaturalness of coloring that charms one more than the laborious effectsof imaginative biography. 

George Hughes, the subject of the memoir before us, was the eldest sonof a Berkshire squire, and little more than a year older than hisbrother and biographer. Very pleasant is the glimpse of child life in anEnglish county forty years ago that is given in the story of his firstyears. From the first he showed the calm fearlessness, the practicalityand the helpfulness which seem to have been among his most prominentcharacteristics. These qualities, and with them a rigorousconscientiousness, a sensitive unselfishness, and--no trifling advantagein these or any other days--a splendid _physique_, he took with him, andpreserved alike unaltered, through Rugby, Oxford and after years. Littlewonder that the possessor of such gifts became a Sixth-form boy andfootball captain at his public school, and achieved boating andcricketing successes, an honorable degree, and the repute of being themost popular man of his day at the university. Most people who take aninterest in boat-racing, and many who do not, have heard of that famousrace upon the Thames at Henley, in which a crew of _seven_ Oxfordoarsmen snatched victory from a (not _the_) Cambridge "eight;" but noteverybody knows--for the feat was done now thirty years ago, and namesare lost while the memory of a fact survives--that George Hughes pulledthe stroke-oar of that plucky seven-oared boat. 

Oxford days over, and after a three-years' spell of private tutoring--anot uncommon temporary resort of English graduates while they are makingup their minds as to what profession or business to take up for life--wefind George Hughes settled in London, reading law in Doctors' Commons. By this time his biographer, who has been close by his side, andfollowing his lead in work and play, through all the years of school andcollege life, is at work in London too, and the two brothers are againtogether under one roof. The similarity, one may almost sayidenticality, of the circumstances of their bringing up might, but thatsuch things, luckily, don't always go by rule, have led one to expect tofind in them, now full-grown and thoughtful men, something like acoincidence of sympathies and opinions. Nothing of the sort. George isby temperament and conviction a Tory of the kindly, old-fashionedschool: his younger brother has become an advanced Liberal, anenthusiastic promoter of workingmen's associations, and a leadingspirit among the so-called Christian Socialists. Needless to add that, though never for one moment sundered one from the other in heart oraffection by differences of opinion, the two could not work together inthis field. Downright, practical George has his objections, and statesthem. Listen: "'You don't want to divide other people's property?' 'No. ''Then why call yourselves Socialists?' 'But we couldn't help ourselves:other people called us so first. ' 'Yes, but you needn't have acceptedthe name. Why acknowledge that the cap fitted?' 'Well, it would havebeen cowardly to back out. We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, ofassociation as opposed to competition, as the true law of industry andof organizing labor--of securing the laborer's position by organizingproduction and consumption--and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interestedin the competitive system of trade, who believe or say that a desire todivide other people's property is of the essence of Socialism. ' 'Thatmay be very true, but nine-tenths of mankind, or, at any rate, ofEnglishmen, come under one or the other of these categories. If you arecalled Socialists, you will never persuade the British public that thisis not your object. There was no need to take the name. You have weightenough to carry already, without putting that on your shoulders.... Thelong and short of it is, I hate upsetting things, which seems to be yourmain object. You say that you like to see people discontented withsociety as it is, and are ready to help to make them so, because it isfull of injustice and abuses of all kinds, and will never be better tillmen are thoroughly discontented. I don't see these evils so strongly asyou do, don't believe in heroic remedies, and would sooner see peoplecontented, and making the best of society as they find it. In fact, Iwas bred and born a Tory, and I can't help it. '" However, our biographertells us, "he (George) continued to pay his subscription, and to get hisclothes at our tailors' association till it failed, which was more thansome of our number did, for the cut was so bad as to put the sternestprinciples to a severe test. But I could see that this was done out ofkindness to me, and not from sympathy with what we were doing. "

After a few years of law-work in the ecclesiastical courts, the call ofa domestic duty took George Hughes--not, one may well imagine, without asevere struggle--from the active practice of his profession, and badehim be content thenceforward with home life. Idle or inactive of coursea man of prime mental and bodily vigor could not be. The violoncello, farming, volunteering, magistrate's work, getting up laborers'reading-rooms and organizing Sunday evening classes for the big boys inhis village, gave outlets enough for his superfluous energies. Andmeanwhile he was now become a pater-familias, and had boys of his own tosend to Rugby, and to encourage and advise in their school-life byletters which--and it is paying them a high compliment to say so--arealmost as good as those which his father had, thirty years before, addressed to him at the same place. It is impossible to overestimate theadvantage to a school-boy of having a father who can appreciate andsympathize with boyish thoughts and aims, and knows how to use hisnatural mentorship wisely. We shall be much surprised if readers do notfind the letters from George's father to him, and his to his own boys, among the most attractive parts of this book. Like most men who careheartily for anything, George Hughes always continued to feel a stronginterest in public affairs, though circumstances had "counted him out ofthat crowd" who do the outside working of them. He had a considerablegift of rhyming, and that incident of the ex-prince imperial's "baptismof fire" with which the late Franco-Prussian war opened drew from himsome vigorously indignant lines. Here are a few of them:

 By! baby Bunting, Daddy's gone a-hunting, Bath of human blood to win, To float his baby Bunting in, By, baby Bunting, What means this hunting? Listen, baby Bunting-- Wounds--that you may sleep at ease, Death--that you may reign in peace, Sweet baby Bunting. 

 Yes, baby Bunting! Jolly fun is hunting. Jacques in front shall bleed and toil, You in safety gorge the spoil, Sweet baby Bunting. 

 Perpend, my small friend, After all this hunting, When the train at last moves on, Daddy's gingerbread _salon_ May get a shunting. 

It is not our place here to do more than record how that suddenly, inthe early summer of last year, the true strong man was struck down byinflammation of the lungs and passed away. What the loss must be to allwhom his influence touched the pages before us sufficiently attest. Itis perhaps well, though, that no life can be faithfully lived in theworld without leaving such sore legacies of loss behind it. 

 * * * * *

_Books Received. _

The Relation of the Government to the Telegraph; or, a Review of the TwoPropositions now Pending before Congress for Changing the TelegraphicService of the Country. By David A. Wells. With Appendices. New York. 

The Country Physician. An Address upon the Life and Character of thelate Dr. Frederick Dorsey. By John Thomson Mason. Second edition. Baltimore: William K. Boyle. 

Addresses delivered on Laying the Cornerstone of an edifice for theAcademy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, October 30, 1872. Philadelphia: Collins. 

Mysteries of the Voice and Ear. By Prof. O. N. Rood, Columbia College, New York. With Illustrations. New Haven: C. C. Chatfield & Co. 

The Poems of Henry Timrod. Edited, with a Sketch of the Poet's Life, byPaul H. Hayne. New York: E. J. Hale & Son. 

Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches. By JustinMcCarthy. New York: Sheldon & Co. 

The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. Householdedition. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 

The Earth a Great Magnet. By Alfred Marshal Mayer, Ph. D. New Haven:C. C. Chatfield & Co. 

The Two Ysondes, and Other Verses. By Edward Ellis. London: BasilMontagu Pickering. 

Jesus, the Lamb of God. By Rev. E. Payson Hammond. Boston: Henry Hoyt. 

Social Charades and Parlor Operas. By M. T. Calder. Boston: Lee &Shepard. 

The Yale Naught-ical Almanac for 1873. New Haven: C. C. Chatfield & Co. 

Julia Reid: Listening and Led By Pansy. Boston: Henry Hoyt.