Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by the Publishers of BeLtxs anp Bxavux, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

NEW YORK, MARCH 14,

  

Yearly, $4.00.
Quarterly, $1.00,

Prick 10 CEnts.

 

 

 

JEALOUSY ;

WOOT eb hel) iS Si At hes

 

BY MARY REED CROWELL.

 

J ERYL CHAMPNEY had escaped from

the glare of the lights and the fragrant
warmth of Mrs. De Guest’s ball-room, and now,
paler than the dead white lace dress she wore
cowered, like some hunted animal, further and
further into the recesses of the huge bay win-
dow, whose scarlet velvet curtains shut her
from the sight, at least of Florice May and
Theo De Guest. From their sight, but not
from the sound of their voices, that came to
her now and then, low, murmurous, musical,
framed in such words as made her eyes glisten
till they rivaled in brightness and coldness the
diamonds she wore; till, little by little, the
warm color surged from her perfect face, leav-
ing it whiter than the robe she wore.

She had not dreamed of such a blow; ten
minutes ago she would have sworn that of all
men on the face of God’s earth, Theo De Guest
was truest, fondest; that of all friends woman
ever had, Florice May was nearest, dearest.

Now, now—and she clenched her dainty
white hands in a mute agony—could it be pos-
sible she heard such words as Theo De Guest
was saying to Florice May? Or, was it an au-
yicular delusion, and she the subject of a bitter,

rful dream? :
ans ‘moment she smiled at her foolishness,
a smile that was the very concentration of suf-
fering, and then, without a blush on her face,

 

—__ ‘J ; -
DE GUEST WAS LOOKING AT FLORICE, AND FLORICE’S FACE WAS UPTURNED EAGERLY TO HIS.

she deliberately leaned nearer the open window
and listened to the two on the balcony without.
It was Theo De Guest’s voice that smote her
first—so low, so tender, so thrilling—that had
stirred her so strangely in the sweet bygone
days.

“How can I help it, Florice ? and does the
fact of its being so awfully wicked, as you
think, make me love you any less? Florice,
darling ! to think what I have lost!”

Beryl gave a low moan of acutest anguish;
Theo De Guest telling Florice May what he had
lost, and she his promised bride, to be his wed-
ded wife before twenty-four hours passed over
their heads.

She pressed her handkerchief over her mouth
to muffle the scream she feared would come;
she straightened her little figure again in steely
rigidness to hear what answer the girl would
make.

‘Tf you were I, I should say it was not too
late. If you loved me as you have so often
sworn—”

Beryl swayed when she heard that “‘ often,”
swayed like a rose-tree struck with a sud-
den gale, and sunk down, a heap of filmy
lace and marble flesh, and ebon floating hair,
to the carpet. He had been false so ‘ often,” and
she, in her wondrous pride and idolatrous love
and wild ecstasy of happiness had never dream-
ed her lover was the while kissing another
woman’s lips, caressing another woman’s hair
as he had hers, and whispering other love words
than those she listened to! Oh, it was horrible,
and yet not so horrible as pitiful, that she wha
had so gladly, freely given her heart’s affection
to this lover whom she so rejoiced to call her

 

 

lord, her king,was accounted as only something
who stood in the way between him and another
woman.

Within the brilliant saloon, she heard the
low melody of a waltz—she had Theo’s name
on her card for it, she was waiting for him, and
he was telling Florice May what he had lost.
Then, of a sudden, came a loud, jubilant burst
from the orchestra, as the music changed from
the dance to a grand promenade march, and
then, as the thrilling strains revivified her,
Beryl arose, slowly, painfully, and arranged
her elegant drapery with as concise an eye, as
deft a touch as if her heart had not been crush-
ed forever only a moment before.

She knew Theo De Guest and Florice May
had left the balcony ; she knew that Florice was
engaged to go in to supper with Mr. Lawrence,
and-she remembered, with frightful distinctness,
that Theo De Guest was coming to offer her
his arm for the preliminary march. Well, let
him come. There must inevitably be a first
meeting after this, and when better than now?
She would meet him as became Beryl Champ-
ney; after this once—

It made her shiver with soul-sickening hor-
ror as she thought of the ‘after this;” of the
weeks, the months, the years that stretched out
on every side like sandy deserts with no tiny
oases to break the barren, arid expanse.

She knew what an infinite blank, what a
speechless despair her life would be without
him, who had been her sun, her day, her ex-
ceeding happiness; and then, there surged over
her, close following on those realizations, a bit-
ter hatred for the girl who had dared come be-
tween her and her all.

 

 

Hate Florice May, who had, all her life
long, been such an intimately dear friend?
Hate pretty Florice, with her witchingly fair
face, her sunshiny hair, her eyes like June
skies?

And Beryl knew if it had not been for the
glorious eyes and the matchless beauty of form
and feature, Theo de Guest never would have
been so basely won from her side. Then she
saw him enter the door—so grand, so handsome,
so tender, so—false! and Florice May hung on
his arm as if she had better right there than
the woman whose guests were already bidden
to her marriage with Theo De Guest.

A better right! and in that one fleeting mo-
ment of outraged pride, seething jealousy,
murdered love, Beryl Champney marked out
her course.

And so he came on to her, a smile on his
beautiful face, and an outstretched hand for
the woman he had wronged:

“Beryl, come.”

Oh, his voice was so ineffably sweet; the
touch of his hand sent such shivers of wild
bliss through every vein in her body—and she
arose, cool, graceful, so like herself that no one,
even De Guest himself, would have dreamed of
the terrible command she had over herself.

“T am ready. I have been waiting some
time. Where have you been?” She laid her
hand on his sleeve, and looked up in his eyes
with her own dark, calm ones. She never fal-
tered in her question, and he—oh! it made her
very soul sick to hear, to see the ready, easy
lie in voice and face,

“T surely deserve no pardon for being so
derelict, but Stanley and I got out among the

 

 
ee elas het L

 

 

f
}

 

2 : BGHELLES AND BHAUX.

[Marcn 14, 1874,

 

 

 

 

fellows in the smoking-room, and—come, dear,
we will be tardy.”

Beryl shivered with horror as they walked
on, arm in arm, into the supper-room, where
Florice May sat just opposite them, flashing
her bright blonde beauty in their very faces.
But Beryl ate, and joked, and laughed; her
plan was ready and it behooved her to make
no difference outwardly until—

That night,” cowering beside the open win-
dow, with the midnight wind moaning through
the trees in the park, away from the lights, the
gay exhilaration of the crowd, and away from
Theo De Guest and Florice May, Beryl thought
it all over, calmly—calmly? With her head
whirling like a mill full of machinery, and her
heart throbbing and bounding with such an
awful pain! But, she thought she was calm;
because she could sit, like a statue, in her
dumb silence; because she could not cry a
single tear that might so have relieved her
burning eyeballs; because she did not rave,
and tear her long black tresses, Beryl thought
she was calm; and yet—

It seemed to her she would not have scrupled
to have clenched her fair small hands around
Florice May’s throat, and hold them there,
tighter, tighter, in her merciless grasp, until
the blue eyes should plead for the sweet life
the lips could not ask for.

“¢ And she’d marry him to-morrow if I’d let
her; and he—oh! Heaven, to think I shall be
the bride of a man who would rather have her
in his arms!”

Then she did spring from her seat, and pace
the floor in the still moonlighted midnight,
her breath coming in short, quick gasps, her
face flushing and paling in rapid succession.

“Can I do it? can I give it up, and bear the
sneers, the mysterious remarks, the disgusting
sympathies that will be sure to follow if Florice
May is his bride instead of me?”

She paused in her nervous promenade before
Theo De Guest’s picture, that her loving hands
had framed and hung in her room where she
might see it the first in the morning, the last at
night.

Now, a ray of dazzlingly clear moonlight
streamed through the open window, and touched
the picture with a grace almost unearthly.
With a low, bitter cry, Beryl snatched it from
its silver hook, and pressed it with frightfully
passionate eagerness to her lips, kissing the un-
conscious glass as she never had dared kiss
Theo. De Guest.

Then, the tears came—in a sudden, hot, blind-
ing torrent, and all the fountains of her great,
woman’s heart were broken up. She forgot Flor-
ice May, she forgot her beauty, her siren-like
witchery, and only remembered how she loved
this man—how she had given herself so unre-
servedly to him—how she felt, in every fiber
of her being, how thoroughly he was her soul’s
master, how perfectly attuned she was to him.

It was a wonderfully attractive face—Theo
De Guest’s. A broad, intellectual forehead,
with earnest, deep-set eyes beneath, of a change-
ful gray, that looked such unutterable love
at her so often; a mouth, so sweet in its tender
expressiveness, rather large, and disfigured by
no mustache; such a mouth as not one man in
ten thousand possesses, with regular, beautiful
teeth within, that Theo De Guest knew well
how to display to such perfect advantage.
Hair a soft, dark chestnut, nearly golden
brown, that he wore with loose, waving grace-
fulness; and soft, curling side whiskers, that
her hands had so often caressed, and with such
pride.

As she wept over his splendid face, alone in
the midnight, she remembered how often she
had told him, so worshipfully, so humbly, how
strange it was he had ever sought her; and she
remembered, with a keen pang at the sweet
imemory, how he had smiled so fondly down in
her face—he had been standing beside her
chair—and taken her chin in his hand and
forced her to meet his ardent gaze, while he said:

“Remember, my darling, true love knows
no condescension.”

Remember it!—would she ever cease to re-
collect a word he had said, a look he had given
her?

And now, now—

Then, with the returning memory of how he
loved Florice May better than her, came the
wild, excited determination to pursue her

lan.

a Why not? she asked herself, in sharp, angry
pain. Why not marry him, even if he did not
love her? To be sure, it would be an awful
position for her, but would she not punish
Florice May by keeping Theo De Guest from
her?

It had occurred to her the moment she saw
them enter the ball-room that night, and she
had nearly decided that, come what would, she
would keep her part of the contract—for on
her would devolve the responsibility of break-
ing the engagement on the eve of the marriage.

He had not hinted such a thing to her, not
even by his actions, and Beryl knew she was
deeply wounded that he was deceitful as well
as false.

Yes; false, treacherous though he was, she
would marry him—marry him to pique the
girl who would have given all her possessions
had the elegant bridal attire in the next room

_that awaited the bride when the sunlight shone
again been for her to wear to go down to Theo
De Guest.

It was early dawn when this now distracted
girl turned wearily from the window, and
poured, with white, trembling hands, a cham-
pagne glass of the fragrant liquor, and swal-
lowed it almost mechanically, and lay down
on a little, low couch, to await her. wedding
morn.

It was a perfect day—clear, cloudless; and
as Beryl suddenly started from a fitful slum-
ber, with a broad band of sunshine on her face

 

like a vail of golden tissue she smiled sadly,
derisively, at memory of the old adage, ‘‘ hap-
py is the bride the sun shines on.”

She awoke perfectly calm; her hands were
warm with vitality, her cheeks just interest-
ingly pale, but her heart seemed a lump of ice,
so dead and listless and chilled were all her
emotions.

She was dressed, and swept down into the
crowded parlors on her father’s arm, as beau-
tiful as an icicle, as fair as ever bride was seen,
and met Theo De Guest at the door witha smile
that drove the gentlemen guests into a state of
wildest admiration and envy.

Her white hand, bare and round, lay on her
lover’s arm as they walked down the long par-
lor, between rows of silently admiring guests,
and Beryl wondered if it was not a horrid
mockery, this, to which she had often looked
forward with such ecstatic joy. Was she
wrong in giving herself to a man who loved
another woman? Was it maidenly, was it—?
whatever it was it was too late to rectify it
now, even had she wished.

The rector had begun the impressive cere-
mony, and Beryl, moved by some strange
magnetism, looked up, and met Florice May’s
bright eyes, blue as heaven, steadily regarding
her; and then, with that awful surge of hate
filling her soul, with a wild thrill of triumph
that, at least, she had defrauded her false lover
of his love, poor Beryl Champney swore to
love, honor and obey the man by her side—her
husband, whom to love now would be for
Florice May to steep her soul in blackest sin.
So, in a cold, graceful way, she received her
husband’s first kiss ; received the congratula-
tions of friends; heard even Florice murmur
some unintelligible words, and saw her hus-
band grasp her hand warmly as he stooped to
kiss her.

But the wedding was over at last; the guests
had gone; the great house was quiet, and then,
on the threshold of their new life, Beryl and
Theo met as enemies.

They were alone in one of the rooms of their
suit—the one where his picture hung in its
elegant little frame over her writing-desk, and
Theo, as he walked up to it, laughed and turned
to Beryl.

““You have enshrined me, I see, my darl—”

The words were frozen on his lips as he
turned to her; she was standing midway of the
room, her eyes fixed on his face in an expres-
sion of such peculiarly speechless emotion that
it startled him.

“ Beryl! Beryl! what is the matter with
you?”

He sprung to her side, and put his arm
around her waist, tenderly, protectingly, but
she shrunk away, as if plague-stricken.

“Don’t touch me! never! never!”

Her eyes were bright now, her cheeks flush-
ed; and De Guest stared at her in utter sur-
prise.

“Don’t touch you! Why, Beryl, what are
you talking about? Are you ill?”

He took her hands in his—her tiny hands
that were so powerless in his strong, willful
grasp, and compelled her to stand before him.

“T want to know what is the reason you
talk so strangely, Beryl, my wife!”

“T am not your wife—I accept no such
title, except before the world. To you, I am
never more than I am this minute.”

Her flashing brown eyes bore evidence of
her excitement, and De Guest felt her fingers
thrill and tremble within his own.

“Not my wife! why, yes you are, my little
darling! You must be ill, or you would not
entertain such vagaries. Come, sit here, be-
side me, and tell me what you mean.”

He was so quiet, so gentlemanly about it;
he treated her as one would a child whom he
loves and is disposed to humor in its whims:
and every atom of strength in-Beryl’s frame
was gathered to wrench her hands from his
firm hold.

She stood before him in all her beauty, all
her jealous, outraged love, all the poor tri-
umph of her position; she met his quiet gaze a
moment, then it all burst forth—all the fury
that she had so wonderfully husbanded.

‘You think I don’t know? You think Iam
child enough to believe you care for me? Oh,
Theodore De Guest, what will you do now for
the love of Florice May, when I—I—your wife
in the eyes of the world, the veriest stranger to
you—stand between you and her?”

She waited for his answer in breathless
eagerness; not that he would deny it—he
might, of course, lie to her again, as he had
before, but what Beryl wanted now, in the
heat of her excited passion, was to see him
quail before her, hear his guilty voice, even if
in falsest defense of himself.

He looked at her a moment in grave sur-
prise; and Beryl almost screamed out at the
splendid dissimulation on every feature of his
face.

“What can Florice May or any woman be
to me who have such a darling wife as you?
Beryl, who has been trying to poison you? I
am not a man of many words, you know that,
Beryl, but I insist on knowing what this
means.”

‘“Who told me you were making love to
Florice May at your mother’s reception? I
heard you with my own ears, Mr. De Guest;
deny it if you dare!”

A deep flush began to gather around his
temples, and Beryl laughed aloud—a pitiful
mirth that had no mirthfulness in its jarring
chords, a laugh that told, plainer than words
had done or could do, the barren desolation of
her heart.

“Do not perjure yourself again. You told
me once you were not with her, when I had
heard you disgrace yourself and me by declar-
ing how you loved her, when I saw you, a mo-
ment later, arm-in-arm, enter the saloon.”

 

De Guest arose from the sofa, the flush gone
now; his face hard and white and set; his gray
eyes glittering steelily. He stepped directly in
front of Beryl, his arms folded, his head thrown
back.

“Tam to understand you refuse to believe
me when I positively deny the suspicion?
when I swear to you I care no more tor
Florice May than that marble Cupid yonder?
when I tell you— No; lama proud man, I
will tell you no more, not even to win back
the love you have seen fit to withdraw at the
eleventh hour.”

At the commencement of his defense, a sud-
den sharp thrill of hope had shot through
Beryl’s heart, almost taking her breath with
sweet ecstasy; then, as he went on, in his
gathering pride, augmented as he watched
her stern, sarcastic face, to which she would
not let the trembling light that was dawning
in her come, the floods surged over her, fiercer,
wilder than before.

“You are to understand it so; and besides,
that you have irrecoverably lost my affection,
my respect, my allegiance.”

She didn’t mean what she said, poor, tem-
pest-tossed child; but her husband’s hand-
some lips curled scornfully, as the hot retort
leaped to his tongue’s end, and forth, scathing
her awfully.

“T think a woman who would deliberately
marry herself to a man who, she avers,
loves another better than herself, can hardly
preach ‘respect’ to her unfortunate victim.”

Beryl bowed her head; a low, gasping sob
broke from her white lips, and De Guest turned
carelessly away toward the door.

‘“‘Good-night, Beryl. I hope to have the
pleasure of meeting you at breakfast.”

He walked out so coolly, so unconcernedly ;
closed the door leisurely, and Beryl heard him
lock the door between the rooms, on his side.

And this was her bridal eve! Poor Beryl!
She crouched in a low, wide chair, muffling her
wild sobs, proudly fearful lest he should hear
her; all the long night she sat thus, and in the
early morning, arose from the vigil, so stern,
so cold, that she knew she was done with love,
and love’s emotions forever.

She arranged her hair with faultless elegance;
attired herself in a morning robe of white cash-
mere, buttoned with great glaring agates; fas-
tened a geranium leaf at her throat, and one in
the heavy braids of her shiny brown hair, and
went down to the breakfast,

At the door, De Guest met her; pleasant,
natural as ever. He gave her his arm, and
she took it with a graceful expression of thanks,
and thus the pitiful farce commenced.

An hour later, they started on their wedding
tour—this widely separated pair, envied by
every one who saw them off, admired by every
one they saw; off for a year’s travel over the
ocean.

 

It was the perfection of a gentleman’s place.
‘‘Tdledell,” with its velvety lawns, its sloping
terraces gay with flowers, its far-spreading
trees that made such delicious shade that hot
June day, its gleaming statuary placed with
such correct taste in such suitable places, its
plashing fountains and bosky, dark dells.

Truly Idledell; a retreat where one could
wander for days in sweetest idleness, drinking
in the softness of the perfect summer weather,
and feeling very thankful that one’s lines were
cast in such decidedly pleasant places.

Idledell was full of company; since Mr. and
Mrs. Theo. De Guest had returned from abroad
and taken up their residence at their summer
home, friends from everywhere had thronged
to see them and Idledell.

And they were so charmed with their genial
host and hostess. Such devotion, so unosten-
tations too, from Mr. De Guest tohis wife; and
though Beryl was a trifle subdued, it became
her most charmingly, as it should the wife of a
year.

But behind the curtain—! Ah, well, Beryl
had become almost used to it; the estrangement
between them, that had never been bridged
over since the night De Guest thrust her so
keenly with the rapier of sarcastic contempt,
and then locked the doors between them.

Beryl De Guest was thinking of this, stand-
ing at the window of her room, looking out
over the landscape smiling in the summer sun-
shine; and wondering. with the habitual dull
pang at her heart, if ever it could be otherwise
with her—just as a servant tapped at the half-
open door, and handed her a note.

In a second she recognized Florice May’s
handwriting; her cheeks flushed, her fingers
trembled, but she tore it open, almost eagerly.

“ Beryl, dear, may I come to Idledell? You have
not asked me, or eyen remembered to write to me
Pe the while you were away; but may I come? Ask

heo.”’

Ask Theo? and she herself never condescend-
ed to address him, or speak of him, other than
as Mr. De Guest!

Yes, she’d ask him; of course he’d say have
her come, and then—and then—she’d see for
herself what they thought of each other.

It would be a glorious excitement—this
watching her husband and his—his—what
ought she to call Florice May, whom he had not
seen for a year?

But he might have written to her, and she to
him; how should she have known? ;

She was just a trifle moved beyond her or-
dinary cold composure as she rapped at the
door of the library where she knew he would
be.

A rather absent voice bade her enter, and
she entered, Florice May’s note in hand, to find
De Guest bending over a letter also in Florice
May’s handwriting, but closely written, and,
juidging by his deep interest, very entertaining.

Beryl smiled coldly as he turned, a little agi-
tated toward her.

 

““T see my poor little letter is cast in the
shade. Perhaps you had better finish what she
says to you, before you read what she wants
me to do in her behalf.”

She extended Florice’s note, but he would
not take it. -

‘No, thank you; I am fully aware that she
desires to visit us at Idledell; I have already
answered her letter with a cordial invitation to
come to us.”

‘Oh! you have saved me the trouble then.
Have you any particular commands to give me
regarding her entertainment?

Her eyes were brimming with contemptuous
scorn; and De Guest looked steadily at her, a
moment probably, before he replied.

‘When you lose that feeling, Beryl, and
come to me in the way a penitent woman
should, I will tell you what you ask. Till
then, I must beg you will not annoy me.”’

So proud, so—insolent. She, the outraged wo-
man come kneeling at his feet in tearful peni-
tence! Never, though the sky should fall there-
for. It was he whose place it was to confess
his sin, and sue for her pardon and love. Would
she give it? Ah, Beryl never dared let herself
contemplate that.

And now, the woman who had wrought ali
this was at hand, coming to establish her power
more fully over De Guest’s heart; while she,
the woman who bore his name—oh, pitiful
thought, only his name—must stand by and
look on, and smile, and live under it!

The old, old hate was surging over her; she
felt like pressing the breath out of Florice
May’s body when she saw her—was it murder
in her soul that made her so defiantly reck-
less?

She dressed for lunch that day with elegant
grace; if her rival came she should find her in
triumph, apparently, and Beryl knew the wo-
manly weapon of becoming attire.

She was determined to see them meet—and
she learned, very casually,it seemed,that Florice
was coming at five that night, and that the
phaeton was going to the depot for her.

At five! all-the long, dreary summer after-
noon Beryl watched the movements of De
Guest, her own hat and sacque ready donned
to go after him; and at half-past four, from
her window she saw him stroll leisurely along
the avenue of cedars. Beryl crept out—how
contemptibly mean she felt, skulking along the
low shrubbery, until—she heard the phaeton
wheels, and saw a radiant face, a pair of blue
eyes and a floating mass of sun-gold hair, and
then Florice May’s well-known voice.

“Oh, I’ stop here, right by the fountain,
please! I see Mr. De Guest coming, and I want
to speak with him.”

Beryl paused a moment; another step would
have brought her in full view; she glanced the
way Florice was looking, and there came her
husband, leisurely, gentlemanly as ever he
was.

Florice darted toward him, her hands out-
stretched; and Beryl, forgetful of caution,
stepped out in the path, her eyes flashing, her
face turned toward them in blazing contempt
and reproach, her graceful form half averted
as she witnessed their meeting.

But she was unseen; De Guest was looking
at Florice, and Florice’s face was upturned
eagerly to his.

“Tam so glad to see you once more,” Beryl
heard Florice say, ardently. ‘‘So much has
happened since you were married, and I had
no address so I could write. Oh, Theo, can I
ever thank you for your kindness to me?”

“T am repaid a thousandfold, Florice—self-
ishly, you know; and yet you, or no one on
earth can measure the deeps of agony I have
gone through to save him and keep your secret.
I had a letter only yesterday, and he is doing
well—very well, only the knowledge of his ex-
istence must not be told to any one as yet—
poor boy! even his mother does not know he
escaped at the last minute. You have been so
true, Florice!”

Beryl listened in perfect stony surprise.
Who were they talking about? She saw the
tears start to Florice’s eyes.

“How could I be false, Theo, when he loves
me so? Do you remember the night at your
mother’s reception when you arranged a meet-
ing for us on the balcony? He was so like you
that night, Theo! so like, that a gentleman
passed us and said to him, ‘Fine moonlight,
Theo.’ I was so terrified lest your mother
should learn he was there, Won’t she eve?
forgive him, Theo? I told him then it wasn’¢
too late to ask her pardon, but he’s very proud
and stubborn, like all you De Guests.”

Beryl saw his face grow so shadowed and
sad; she was growing dizzy and sick with such
strangely wild feelings. She seemed to have
grown to the ground, and yet she heard with
startling distinctness every word they said.

They were stubborn and proud,—those De
Guests; and she had been more than proud and
stubborn. She had deliberately believed these
two wickedly attached to each other, whereas
—oh! oh! was this the dream, this sudden
knowledge, or was the dream composed of all
that year of dull, dumb misery?

She tried to speak to them, but her tongue
clove to her mouth; her limbs seemed para-
lyzed with a cold numbness, while every sense
was keenly on the alert to hear it all.

“Tt has cost me now more than all the world
beside—that meeting of yours and my brother
Roy’s that night. Beryl never has believed it
was not me; she heard him from the window,
and—”

His voice broke down; Beryl never dreamed
he was so smitten in heart as that; and then
Florice took up the words in wild excitedness:

‘‘Let me go to her at once, poor, proud dar-
ling! When I tell her—Theo! Theo! here,
quick.” ;

Florice had turned sharply to go te the hause,

 

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OBA AEP Rios 82

so hia angnibi SH

 

 

 

 

_—

[sh eeenaenniceeeeteareng T

Marcu 14, 1874.]

 

 

GELLES AND BEAU.

 

 

and had almost fallen over the rigid form of
Beryl, who swayed and fell in her arms.

 

Oh, the wonderful reconciliation; the torrent
of. penitent tears; the prayers for unmerited
forgiveness,

Oh! the wondrous love, that, pent up so long,
burst over its barriers and revivified the waste
places of two lives made so desolate by pride
and obstinacy.

And Idledell is indeed a very paradise to
Beryland Theo; the birthplace of perfect trust;
the cemetery of wasting doubts and torments;
the “Sunshine” land where one long honey-
moon reigns uninterruptedly.

 

VIOLETS AND JEWELS

BY MARO 0, ROLFE,

 

 

The moon was shining softly, the fields were decked
in green,

The wind through the trembling branches sung a
vesper sweet and low;

And with dear Joy Landon, my sweetheart, my
love, my queen, ae

I wandered out beside the brooklet, with its calm,
Kee flow,

Across the stretch of meadow, to the elm-tree gray
and bare.

Stooping, I plucked a violet from the mossy-verdant

glow,
And with a kiss upon her forehead, I twined it in
her hair.

The sun was shining coldly, the fields were wrapt
in white,

The wind through the shiv’ring branches moaned a
requiem sad and drear;

And I wandered lonely, sadly, where I went with her
that night,

To alone grave ‘neath the elm-tree—grim sentinel,
old and sear;

And I Sees to think that Joy, my bride, was sleep-
in ere,

But I knew, while I mourned her truly, that God,
who held her dear,

Had kissed her on her forehead and twined his jew-
els in her hair.

 

GERMAINE’S DESTINY.

BY ARCHIE C, IRONS.

 

 

T was a grand, cozy room, with damask cur-
tains, richly-upholstered chairs, and flowers

in the carpet which it seemed almost a sacri-
lege to step on, so natural did they look, A
cheerful fire in the grate, and Frank Delroy
sitting in front, while opposite, in a huge arm-
chair, reclined his ‘‘ chum,” Mark Germaine.

They were very unlike, these two; Mark,
tall, dark, and manly-looking, with clustering
hair, and a quiet, sober air; while Frank was
exactly the reverse. Nineteen, or thereabouts,
with light hair and complexion to match, his
face smooth as a baby’s, and a quick, energetic
way, that reminded one of a young hurricane.

They were both reading, and Mark was
growing interested, when Frank bounded up,
and came over beside him.

“ Just the thing, Mark. Listen:

““* Any person sending thirty-five cents, with
name and age, will receive by mail, prepaid, a cor-
rect picture of their future husband, or wife.

“* Address Mi

“Well?” Mark asked, lazily.

“We'll send,” responded Frank, nodding.

“Oh, pshaw! It’s nothing but a humbug.”

“Of course!” retorted Frank. ‘‘ But we'll
send, just for fun. What do you say? Tl
write for you.”

“You'll get a picture of a Feejee Islander,”
said Mark, impressively.

But Frank, unheeding the warning, proceed-
ed to indite a couple of notes—one for himself
and one for his friend—and then rung the bell,
and dispatched a boy with them to the office.

 

 

 

“There, old fellow! If I had listened to

- your croaking, see what we would have miss-

ed!” and Frank Delroy burst into the room
where Mark sat, his boyish face all aglow
with excitement, and waved a pair of letters
above his head.

“Really, Frank, you seem to have worked
yourself up into a perspiration,” Mark said, as
he looked at his companion’s animated face,
“ What’s the fuss?”

Frank regarded him with cold disdain.

“Youll never make any thing, I’m afraid,
Mark,” he responded, with a sigh and a lugu-
brious look. ‘You never get excited over
any thing. But do you realize that it’s been a
week since I wrote to that syconoligist, or
whatever you call him? Look at that,” and
he tossed a letter into Mark’s lap, and then pro-
ceeded to pull up a chair, and look at his own.

“ Ahem!” thought Mark, as he broke the
seal. ‘I suppose now that I shall have the
immeasurable pleasure of seeing the future
Mrs. Germaine—probably a photograph of an
ancient spinster— Ah!”

There was a little astonishment in the single
word terminating his sentence, for the photo-
graph he held in his hand was not the picture
of an ancient spinster, by any means, but that
of a young lady of eighteen, or thereabouts,
Her face was rather plain in outline, but there
was a rare sweetness in the expression, that
struck Mark forcibly. In all his twenty-six
years of life he had never seen any thing that
came half as near his ideal as this. There
was grace in the poise of the head, too, and the
dark hair fell in rich, wavy masses to her
shoulders. E

He was so engrossed in looking at it that he
forgot Frank, but was suddenly brought to his
senses by a hand thrust before his face, and the
sound of an outraged, indignant voice.

“T say it’s a confounded shame, anyhow!
Just look at that!” "

Mark looked. He had only time fora glimpse
of a poorly-finished picture of an aged lady
with very long curls dangling in front of her
ears; a very large bunch of hair on the top of

 

her head; and a very sour expression on her
skinny face; and then it was snatched away,
and thrust into the grate, and the savage, in-
dignant face of Frank watched it as it hissed
and sputtered in the flames.

‘Frank, my boy, don’t get excited,” sug-
gested Mark, soothingly. ‘It doesn’t agree
with the constitution, you know, and is apt to
bring on dyspepsia. I suppose now that you
will be keeping house shortly. Did your letter
state where you could find the amiable damsel?”

“Oh, you can crow now, because you hap-
pened to get one that is a little better-looking
than mine,” retorted Frank. ‘But if I ever
see the chap that sent them, I’ll punch his head
for him, see if I don’t!”

 

It was a windy, disagreeable day a week
later, when Mark Germaine and Frank stepped
aboard the train bound for Peekskill. Frank
sat by the window, as the train steamed out
of the station, idly watching another that was
passing them, when, with a little exclamation,
he drew Mark’s attention.

“Look! It’s she, by Jove!”

It was only a glimpse Mark caught of a fair,
winsome face, lighted by a pair of clear, dark
eyes, framed in the car window, the very
counterpart of which was reposing snugly
against his breast, and then with a rush the
train passed them.

“There! Wasn’t it her?’ asked Frank, turn-
ing round.

“Tt certainly was, if one can believe their
own eyes. But it was a rather limited view.”

He leaned slightly out of the car window to
watch the receding train. He was getting in-
terested in the beautiful young lady whose
picture he had got in such an odd way. For
he had made up his mind that she was beauti-
ful, in spite of her rather plain face and Frank’s
occasional sarcastic hits. Perhaps Frank was
a little jealous; I hope not, however, and don’t
imagine that Mark was in love with the “ fair
unknown,” for he was far too sensible to fall
in love with a picture; but he had some curi-
osity (if he was a man) to know who she was,
and he fervently hoped that he might have the
pleasure of seeing her again, and of some-
time—

And then the cars steamed into the station,
and other thoughts crowded on his mind.

He had his wish a few days later. He had
jumped aboard a ferry boat and was standing at
the side looking over into the water when he
heard a sweet, musical voice, like the far-away
tinkling of silver bells. He looked up. Standing
a few yards distant on the wharf was a queenly
figure, while by her side stood a tall, handsome
gentleman, who was listening eagerly to her
words. Mark hardly noticed him, he was so
intent on watching the lady, who suddenly
turned toward him as the boat began to move,
revealing the face which he had seen in the
car window. He started forward to spring
ashore, but there was at least ten feet of water
between him and the wharf, and when he
looked again the lady had disappeared.

““T wish I had been two seconds quicker,” he
mused, as he watched the sea of faces on the
receding shore. ‘‘I believe I should have been
guilty of following her. I wonder who she
is?”

A week passed, and Mark was sitting in his
office, when a quick step was heard, and Frank
came up the stairs, two steps at a time, and
burst into the room.

“We're in luck, Mark!” he exclaimed; ‘‘here’s
an invitation from some friends of mine to
come up and spend the holidays with them.
They heard me tell about you when I was
down there, and they want me to hunt you up
and fetch you along. They’ve got a splendid
place, Elmwood, and are always full of com-
pany this time of year. Ain’t it jolly?” and
Frank executed an astonishing edition of the
‘‘pigeon wing” on the ringing oak floor.

“‘Here’s your Houri again, as I’m a sinner!”
he ejaculated, fetching up at the window and
looking down upon the street. —

Mark sprung up and joined him. Yes, it
was she, without a doubt, and the next instant
he was across the room and down the stairs at
a couple of bounds. Once out in the street, he
paused to look around him, but the face he

sought was nowhere visible, and after going |:

half a block among the dense crowd, he gave
it up and returned to his room.

‘“Where’d she go?” Frank asked, as he en-
tered.

“That's precisely what I should like to know,’
Frank said, with a grimace. ‘I tried to watch
the streak that went down the stairs, and when
I looked back, she was gone—vanished in mid-
air. She’s a spook, I guess.”

There was silence a few minutes, then Frank
again broached the subject of their visit.

“For you'll go, of course,” he said. ‘We
will want to start next Tuesday, and Y’ll call
for you then,” and after gaining Mark’s consent
to the plan, he took his leave,

 

It was a beautiful place, this Elmwood; but
the trees were bare and leafless now, and the
shrill December wind sighed through them with
a mournful sound, Fountains, lawns, drives,
parks and terraces, were everywhere visible,
and Mark thought that Frank had not exag-
gerated the beauty of the place as, in company
with him, he approached the house.

An accommodating servant showed them to
their room, at the same time offering an apology
for putting them together, saying that the
house was filled to overflowing.

An hour later-Frank came rushing into the
room, in his usual gusty style.

‘‘Tts just a little the oddest thing,” he said.
“Only to think, she’s here as sure as you live.”

‘‘She? Who?’ Mark asked.

“Why she, it—the unknown, the Houri, you
know,” Frank responded.

 

Mark roused up.
“ Arn’t you mistaken, Frank?”
“Mistaken? No-sir-ee! Why I met her in

the hall, face to face. I went and asked Burt
Chellis about her, and her name is Miss Ethel
Roslyn. Romantic, isn’t it? She’s a forty-
eleventh cousin of Burt’s, and one of the guests
here, until after the holidays,” and Frank stuck
his hands in his pockets, and regarded Mark
unwinkingly.

Mark got an introduction to her that even-
ing, and from being interested in the picture
he was fascinated with the original. He was
puzzled to define the charm, that drew him so
irresistibly toward her; and that night in the
privacy of their own room, he admitted to
Frank, that she was a very pleasant person,
and one whom he should be very glad to add
to his list of friends, and when Frank gave him
a peculiar, quizzical look, he merely turned his
attention to his paper, and became deeply in-
terested in the advertisements.

Days passed. The river near by afforded
them the amusement of skating, and nearly
every day saw some of them gliding along on
its glassy surface. Mark was a fine skater, and
accompanied by Frank, explored the river for
miles, his practiced eyes readily detecting the
dangerous places and treacherous air-holes,

It lacked but two days of Christmas, and a
gay company were on the ice, Mark and Frank
among the number. Miss Roslyn was there; a
splendid skater, an-l Mark watched her gliding
about, almost forgetful of where he was, and
at last started off for a skate by himself. There
was a slight bend in the river, and he was op-
posite this, when chancing to look toward the
party he saw Miss Roslyn coming nearly to-
ward him, with the fleetness of the wind.
Several ladies and gentlemen were in pursuit;
Mark saw at once that it was a race, and
watched it with interest. So intent was he,
that he did not notice that Miss Roslyn was
making directly toward a dangerous air-hole,
until she was within a few yards of it, and
then with a warning cry he started forward.
Unconscious of her danger, she came on, look-
ing laughingly back at her pursuers.

Mark strained every nerve, and flew onward
like the wind. At the very brink of the treach-
erous place, he threw his arm about her, and
despite the sudden check, the impetus of his
speed carried them both beyond danger.

Ethel was very pale, as he released her, and
the rest came crowding up. She tried to thank
him, but he protested that it was nothing, and
of course the skating ended for that day, and
the party returned to the house.

Mark was in the library that evening, just as
the shadows began to fall; standing by the
window, looking out upon the storm which was
driving along before the wind, and scurrying
against the windows with a ceaseless clatter.
He was thinking of Ethel, and his passionate
love for her, which had been growing day by
day, and which the little accident on the river
had strengthened a hundred fold. And then
there was a rustle of woman’s garments, and
the object of his thoughts entered the room,
and approached him, where he stood.

‘Pardon me, if I intrude,” she said, in that
sweet, musical voice, that almost intoxicated
his senses. ‘‘ But I want to thank you for sav-
ing my life.”

She stood before him in the dusky twilight, |

half hesitatingly, not knowing how to interpret
his silence, and the look upon his face. He
came closer, and took both her hands in
his.

“Ethel,” he said, and his voice was full of
passionate eagerness, “I don’t want your
thanks—I don’t deserve them. If you would
only grant me one favor, it is all I ask.”

Her face grew crimson, as she raised her
eyes to his.

“Well?” she said, almost inaudibly.

‘Give me the life that I have saved. Oh
Ethel,” with a sudden fear in his voice, ‘if
you knew how I loved you, you would grant
me this.”

It had come at last, and the man whom she
had almost worshiped, was asking her for her
love. ;

“It is too good to be true, Mark,” she whis-
pered, ‘I never thought you cared for me.”

You can imagine what followed. A servant
entered and lit the gas, but without noticing
the twain standing by the window, and an hour
afterward Frank burst in.

‘“‘Pve hunted the house from top to bottom
for you, Mark!” he exclaimed, ‘And here you
were as still as a mouse. And Miss Roslyn,
too,” he continued, with a mischievous twinkle
in his eyes, as he took in the position. ‘TI al-
ways had the faculty of getting where I wasn’t
wanted, but since I am here, I shall take the
liberty of congratulating you two, with all my
heart.”

He left the room, and Mark turned to Ethel.

‘*T would like to know,” he said, ‘‘how your
photograph came in the possession of the for-
tune-teller?”’

‘“‘Very easily explained,” she replied. ‘TI
ordered some of the artist, and as they did not
suit me, I never took them. He probably dis-
posed of them among others. There is no
knowing,” she said, laughing, ‘‘how many gen-
tlemen may have a duplicate of it—”

‘But as I have the original,” he interrupted,
“T am satisfied.”

 

Neither the secret depth of woods nor the.

top of mountains make man blessed, if he has
not within him solitude of mind, the sabbath
of the heart, and tranquillity of conscience.

It is certainly a very important thing to

learn how to enjoy ordinary things, and to be,
able to relish your being without the transport

of some passion or gratification of some appe-
tite.

 

SLEEP SWEETLY,

BY EBEN E, REXFORD,

 

 

Oh, sleep sweetly!
Never more shall griefs molest,
Nor a sorrow stir thy breast;
Sleep, and, sleeping, dear, forget
Every earthly care and fret.

Sleep, and o’er bec" grave shall grow
Pansies, that shall bloom and blow
In the summer’s storm and sun,

And beneath the winter’s snow.

Rest; the evening calm is sweet
After noon-tide’s toil and heat;

So thy rest, when griefs no more
In thy bosom throb and beat.

Dream, but not of care nor pain;

They shall grieve thee ne’er again;
Dream of all things glad and sweet

And thou shalt not dream in vain,

 

 

(COMMENCED In NoumBeEr 5.)

THE MADDEST MARRIAGE EVER WAS,

BY MRS. JENNIE DAVIS BURTON,

 

 

CHAPTER VII.
IN MARBLE HALLS.

“You will be pleased to remember that you
are now my wife, madame.”

““T might be pleased to forget the fact if left
to my own choice, sir.”

“By heaven! you have shown little enough
remembrance of it, of late. I tell you my leni-
ency has arrived at its limit, Mrs. Trelawney. I
will be master in my own house—master of you
in it or out of it, hereafter. I will not tolerate
such conduct as yours has been. I will not
have my wife’s name bandied as the most noto-
rious married flirt in the city.”

This fragment of connubial dialogue trans-
piring at the Trelawney breakfast-table six
months after that May bridal-day, will convey
more accurately than a detailed description
the degree of felicity carried through the honey-
moon into the subsequent more settled state.
The pair had very lately returned from an ex-
tended Northern and Western tour. Trelawney
palace opened its fair portal to receive them;
all the splendor of the place was redeemed from
the dusk shroud it had worn the summer
through, and the envied mistress lost no time in
entering upon the gay career she had marked
out for herself.

The palace was opened in a grand reception of

the elite to whom the Trelawneys belonged. Af-
terward Berenice went everywhere, eluding the
escort of her lord when she conveniently could—
not an easy matter as she soon found—and
making no secret of her preference for other
devotees. It was no part of her intention to
turn staid matron and exemplary wife. She
had sold herself for a price and she would take
a full benefit of the purchase-money. Under
the path of roses lurked the unsuspected thorn
which became painfully apparent at the first
pressure of her dainty foot aside from the
straight and narrow way. The green-eyed
monster was on the alert; Mr. Trelawney,
watchfully jealous, made his voice heard, and
the result was daily bickerings, the persistency
of the lady in her course, the strengthening of
the gentleman in his, until this morning a more
violent rupture occurred than any one preced-
ing.
This was the way it had come about: Natur-
ally, among the many admirers, old and new,
basking in the light of her gracious smile, Cecil
Bertram was the one whom Mr, Trelawney in
his heart of hearts raged against with his most
ferocious jealousy. His craftiness preserved
him from the blunder of making this fact
known at the very first. Inthe manner of real
love for his wife he had not so much. He was
notthe kind of man to lose head and heart
through love or hate, The one shrine he wor-
shiped was self, and he had married her as an
addition to his own importance; a necessary
piece of furniture in his great, grand house; a
fair, graceful, and costly article, which he had
chosen as he would have chosen a picture, or a
statue, or any other elegant adornment. She
stabbed his self-love deeply when she showed
herself indifferent to him and gave the benefit
of her smiles and graces to any other before
himself, and, above all others, to Cecil Ber-
tram.

The young artist saw but dimly what was
apparent to the husband’s eye, that Berenice
was holding him by her own will under the old
spell. He had loved and he had lost her, but
the ideal wearing her face had not been torn
from the consecrated niche where he had placed
it; he found at once his greatest pleasure and
his greatest pain in watching her, in now and
then touching her hand and hearing her voice,
and looking into her eyes that never failed to
grow pathetic and appealing before his.

All that was not so bad, except for Cecil
himself, but Berenice was piqued by the barrier
which the boy’s chivalrous sentiment had raised,
which repressed those signs she wanted to com-
plete her triumph. Not that Mrs, Trelawney
would be guilty of breaking the proprieties, les
convenances, but she would stretch their elas-
tic band to the further limit, Her liberal read-
ing of the social text resulted in a rose-tinted,
perfumed note addressed to Cecil, begging, as
a favor, that he would undertake the commis-
sion of her own portrait, mentioning the hour
she could devote to sitting. The step was taken
without any consultation with her husband;
Mrs, Trelawney was careful to spare him all
participation in her plans, great or small, and
to avoid his watchfulness was growing to be
her daily and hourly avocation. A speedy an-
swer was returned. The young artist, thrilled
with delight at the thought of so near an ap-
proach to his divinity, confined his rapturous
pleasure to a commonplace acceptance of the

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

fF

 

GELLES AND BHAUX.

 

[Marcu 14, 1874.

 

 

work, and appointing Goldwood’s studio for the
sittings. It occurred to him, after the reply
was dispatched, that he should have obtained
special permission of his friend, but the studio
had been placed freely at his service and he had
acted without forethought and with perfect
confidence. Nevertheless, he was a trifle
anxious as he mentioned the matter to his friend,
and the end justified his misgiving.

“Object? Yes, I do object,” said Goldwood,
emphatically. ‘‘You have never got over
making a fool of yourself for that woman,
Cecil, I shall not lend myself a party to your
senseless infatuation. No door of mine shall
open to gratify her caprice, or conduce to your
idiotic tendency.”

Bertram indulged in a high dudgeon of in-
jured dignity at that; with due thanks for past
favors he would not bear dictation, even from
him. Paint Mrs. Trelawney he would, in her
own home if agreeable, if not, an apartment to
serve the purpose could be found and fitted up.
Cecil, for himself, had only an attic, which
was living-room and painting-room in one.
Seeing how useless it would be to gainsay him,
Goldwood let the subject drop, and attacked
Mrs. Trelawney on the next available occasion.
It was at the opera, and he sauntered into their
private box to pay his respects, leaning over
her chair between the acts.

“Bertram has told me of your proposition,
and I have refused him the use of my studio,”
he said, pointedly. ‘Mrs. Trelawney, you are
not excusable for trifling with my young
friend’s weakness. I am earnestly enough his
friend to ask you to spare him. Make some
excuse for leaving the portrait undone, and dis-
courage his romantic folly.”

The lady lifted her eyes in cool displeasure.

““Mr. Goldwood may be pardoned his solici-
tule—uncalled-for, Iam sure—on the part of
his friend, but to tax me with a share of his folly,
whatever it may be, is an honor I must dis-
claim.”

_ ‘TI comprehend what a very small matter it
is to you, what an exceedinly vital one to him.
Bertram has genius; he is capable of great
things, and his disappointment through you has
given him a wrong turn, He is bound to make
either a notable success or a deplorable failure,
and you will be accountable for which in the
greatest measure. Mrs. Trelawney, I beg of
you to do what you can to set him right.
Charge me with a message retracting your
commission,”

‘‘ Thanks; but I decline to retract it.”

“Then you will force me to resort to a less
pleasant alternative,” said Goldwood, a trifle
grimly. ‘TI fancy Mr. Trelawney may be less
favorably disposed toward the move. I have
heard that he is jealous, and I will trust
that he may see some cause for preventing
such close association of his wife with a
former lover.”

With Bertram’s interest at heart he had car-
ried his implied threat into execution; hence
tne breakfast scene which opens the chapter.

“T will not have my wife’s name bandied as
the most notorious married flirt in the city,”
said Mr. Trelawney, with something more than
his usual heat,

The lady trifling over a chicken wing curled
her red lips in a slight contemptuous smile.
‘‘Help yourself if you can,” was its plain in-
terpretation.

“You hear me, madame!” He cooled im-
moliately before that evidence of her disdain.
“This portrait-business—I have learned of that
you see—shall be dropped. I have not been
very hard in my demands of you, up to this
time, but I will have my own way in this and
all similar matters for the future. I expect
my wife to do eredit to me and my position
rather than bring disgrace upon both.”

In her heart of hearts Mrs. Trelawney feared
her husband; in her heart of hearts knew she
would not dare to openly defy him. But she
had yet to learn the grace of submission; she
was inclined to rebel against the curb he was
bringing to bear upon her.

“People who are faultless themselves may
be excused for expecting much. Your infinite
trust in me certainly reflects great credit upon
yourself, sir—honi soit qui mal y pense! Liv-
ing in a glass house you shouldn’t throw stones,
Mr. Trelawney.”

“You choose to prevaricate, madam!”

‘*T choose to show you that I am not so to-
tally ignorant of your affairs as you doubtless
would prefer. Your exactions are absurd and
tyrannical! Idisgrace you! If all facts were
known, I fancy that might be found out of
the question!”

That blue ghastliness which had come into
his face upon her wedding-day came into it
again now. He gave her a strange intent look
that impressed her most unpleasantly, and put
out a hand to check her as she rose and would
have rung for the servants who had been sent
away.

“One moment, Berenice. Be kind enough
to explain what you have taken it upon your-
self to imply.”

She sunk back into her chair, meeting#his
eyes scornfully and defiantly. t

‘‘The explanation shall rest with you, sir, if
you choose to make it. For my part, I have
not the curiosity to ask it.”

She drew a slip of folded paper from her belt
and tossed it disdainfully across the table. He
glanced at and recognized it instantly. A note
in a sloping feminine hand which he had re-
ceived upon the previous day, over which he
had been disturbed and undecided to-an un-
usual degree. It read:

** Mr. ALFRED TRELAWNEY:

*: My dear sir: Even you must confess that I have
waited with exemplary patience for your return,and
settlement to domestic felicity. Now that you are
settled, I quite long to witness the joy which must
be yours; So pray consider me invited beneath your
diospitable roof, and prepare your charming wife ta

receive me as a guest and friend. I have her as-
surance of being welcome there given months ago.
Expect me to-morrow at six, and fancy what my
sensations must be in going as an interloper where
I should now be reigning, if not by right at least by
might. Once more expect me, and believe me sin-
cerely, JULIET BELL.”

He had no need to glance at the contents; they
were firmly enough impressed upon his mind.
He looked across at his wife instead, unmoved,
the bluish tint changing slowly to his natural
color.

“Tf you have read it, you will spare me the
request I was about to prefer, that you should
make arrangements to receive my friend.”

““Do you mean that such a person shall be
introduced here, sir?”

‘Pray, be moderate, Berenice. The person is
in every way eminently respectable. You will
receive her and entertain her as you would any
other guest. Just one thing more, madame!”
His black brows lowered upon her menacingly.
“You appear to have been emulating the
weakness of Bluebeard’s wives, looking for a
secret, and it might be well to take warning by
their fate.”

“You left the note upon your dressing-table
openly enough.” ‘

“The note is of not the slightest consequence.
You will acknowledge that when the lady
comes.”

‘‘ If she comes,” was on Berenice’s tongue to
retort, but her liege lord’s glance upon her de-
cided the question. Mr. Trelawney, feeling
it would be awkward to explain the identity of
the expected visitor with the seamstress Miss
Brown, left the fact to speak for itself. The
first subject merged into this of her coming
was not resumed, but that same morning Cecil
Bertram received a line where Berenice an-
nounced, through her husband, that certain
changes in her plans would prevent the sittings
she had proposed. And Mr. Trelawney, tri-
umphant in thus easily mastering the situation,
looked forward to the coming of Miss Bell with
less disquietude than he had before expe-
rienced.

The carriage containing her rattled up to the
door of the mansion at precisely six that after-
noon. Her luggage, so slight as to elicit a con-
temptuous glance from the footman, was taken
at once to the apartment awaiting her, but the
lady herself was shown into a side reception-
room until her involuntary host was apprised
of her arrival. He made an appearance with-
out delay and advanced to face her where she
was standing, her vail thrown back, her sharp
gray eyes coldly regarding him as he came.

“Well,” he demanded, ‘‘ what new freak is
this you are possessed of, Juliet? It has pleased
me to be compliant this once, but if you think
I am to be frightened into doing more, into an-
swering every whim of yours, you are apt to
find your mistake. If you have anything to
say to me say it now, and understand it as my
wish that your stay in my house shall be a
brief one.”

He was so accustomed to treating her slight-
ingly in the past that he had lost sight of how
great the change was in their relations now.
His own confident glance was met by one as
confident, and he bit his lips sharply asa slight
chill smile flitted across her bleak visage.

“How I have overrated your friendship,
Alfred, not to say gratitude. I was so sure
you would open your house willingly to me,
such a great, fine house,too. What immeasurable
satisfaction it must give you! And the pro-
perty, all that you gained through me, how
much it must content you!”

There was mockery in the face and tone that
cut him to the quick. For once in hig life Mr.
Trelawney’s assurance, which had been as a
plate of brass before it had received its gilding
through her aid, failed him. His black eyes
gleamed impotent rage, and his utterance was
choked to difficulty.

‘Why, in the name of all that is diabolical,
did you deceive me? You kept preciously
quiet for two years, and it isto your advantage
as much as mine to keep quiet still. Why do
you come taunting now any more than be-
fore?” ;

“Perhaps because it is so pleasant to know
my power, and such a temptation to exercise it,
I wonder if you can imagine how pleasant it is
for me, the despised tool, the ‘goose so gray’
that she was cast away, the one-time nurse
and housekeeper retired on an annuity of a
thousand a year, to have such a hold as I possess
upon you, a dweller in ‘marble halls,’ the en-
vied of all?
nor contented as you might be, my poor Al-
fred. I can see that, though the world may
not have detected it, and I doubtif even the
wife of your choice has noted the change in
you. Are you quite sure that was not a mis-
take of yours, Alfred? I am half inclined to
believe you would feel more secure and better
at ease if I were mistress here, instead of your
pretty, painted doll. I believeif my messenger
had gone to you in the hour before that cere-
mony in Grace church, instead of the hour
after it, and if I had demanded it, that I should
be mistress here instead of her.”

He was breathing heavily through his clench-
ed teeth, glowering upon her darkly. They
stood there face to face, more like two combat-
ants braced for battle than allies whose union
had won a victory. Their warlike aspect drop-
ped as the door swung back and Berenice ap-
peared upon the threshold, looking from one+to
the other in cold surprise.

“Miss Brown, you? I understood quite a
different person was in waiting.” ;

‘Miss Bell,” her husband amended, “ the
guest we were expecting.”

‘As the latter I hope to claim the welcome
you promised the former,” smiled Miss Bell, as
softly affable as it was possible for her to be.
‘Of course you are mystified by that whim of

 

mine, Mrs, Trelawney, but your husband will

.

   

And you are neither as careless |

 

 

tell you I am one of his oldest and closest
friends.”

And further than that the explanation for
which Berenice looked was not offered.

 

CHAPTER VIII.
THE SUBTLE VOICE,

THERE was a small, select party to dinner
that day, music and conversation and cards in
the drawing-room during the evening. Never
before had Berenice, in her role of hostess,
been more brilliant and gay. She was dressed
in pale pink silk, which took the light’wonder-
fully well, her ornaments fairy roses and pearls
—not the bridal pearls, they would have been
too marked for this costume, and Mrs. Trelaw-
ney had a very correct idea of perfect taste.
If she had wanted a striking offset to her style
no better could have been presented than in
the thin, neutral person of Miss Juliet Bell.
Dressed in silk also, one of those thin, rustling,
abominable grays, intensely respectable and
distressingly plain, the lady looked not her
character of “oldest and closest friend,” but
far more the poor relation or paid dependent,
companion, or something of the kind.

The gentlemen present gave her one look
and dropped her from all further notice; the
ladies gave her suspicious and arrogant glances,
and Miss Bell remained sublimely indifferent
to either.

‘What -does it mean, Berry?’ asked Mrs.
Athol in an aside, during the evening. ‘‘How
is it that Miss Brown comes out in a new char-
acter here?”

“Precisely what I can’t tell you, Edmonia.
I have nothing to do with it, you may be sure.
Such a dowdy scarecrow; do you suppose I
would set a figure like that in my drawing-
room?”

° But I don’t understand. Who is she? Half
a dozen have been asking me.”

“One of Mr. Trelawney’s earlier loves, I
fancy. I am no more enlightened than you
are, my dear, and I really don’t care to take
the trouble of going to the bottom of the mys-
tery. Either the seamstress affair was or this
is a masquerade, which probably the lovely
Miss Bell has her own reasons for undertaking.
You look scandalized, Edmonia, but if I am
not inclined to quarrel. with the creature’s
choice of amusement, surely you need not.
Here, Mr. Mortimer, answer for your delin-
quency, sir. You have not been near me for
—how many ages is it?

Mr. Mortimer, one of those pattern young
men of society, ‘‘ well blessed, well dressed,
and well caressed,” whose mission on earth
seemed to be to fondle a fluffy mustache and
to flirt with every pretty woman who. cared
for that sort of entertainment, answered the
call.

‘‘An immense number, a whole eternity to
me, I assure you. You can’t imagine how I’ve
languished. Quite lost my appetite; couldn’t
touch even a fricassee or an omelet for break-
fast with the prospect of felicity so close at
hand after your invitation broke like a rosy
gleam of hope upon my dulled horizon.”

“IT do hope a champagne supper over night
had nothing to do with it. You masculines
are such fickle beings that it is a wonder we
are ever persuaded to believe you at all.”

“Oh, now, ’pon honor, you know! You
ought to be kinder to the lot of us who have
been made to feel what

‘* Endless torments dwell about thee,

Yet who would live, and live without thee.”
That means the little we can have after lov-
ing and losing, the poor comfort of seeing
what is our loss another’s gain.. That makes
me think of poor Bertram now, who I see
hasn’t the luxury of that pain on the present
occasion.”

‘““Has he gone into retirement? Been won
to misanthropy, I presume, by that terribly
ogerish friend of his, though he doesn’t refuse
to favor us.” Mrs. Trelawney shot anything
but a friendly glance at Goldwood, on the op-
posite side of the room.

‘Something of the kind, and who can blame
him? Not I, who have felt the pangs—but of
that no more. Bertram has a different way of
taking disappointment, that is all. So cut up
as he was when he got your message this morn-
ing. I had just dropped into Goldwood’s
atelier, and found him there superintending
the removal of his effects. Really, I couldn’t
venture to assert how much you are responsi-
ble for in the way of reckless extravagance on
the part of that enthusiastic youth. For the
opening of a studio of his own I can vouch,
and a stock of extra colors laid in; fancy his
despair over the ‘derangement of your plans,
which would not permit,’ etc., etc. I’m not
selfish, Mrs. Trelawney; I’m quite willing to
have my misery shared by another; but when
that other falls from favor and from grace,
my heart bleeds for him.” J

The light badinage went on, but while ‘‘ non-
sense light as air” fell from her red lips, her
rebellion of the morning was stirring again.
She had received what she very bitterly re-
sented, an interference with her own sweet
will. Her husband was a jealous tyrant. If
she began by being brought to time for such
small provocation as that, how was she to
know what other preposterous exactions he
would be making next? He didn’t make par-
ticular love to her himself—thank goodness!—
and people nowadays expected to stop such
silly twaddle between themselves when they
were once married, but it was ridiculous for
him to deprive her of such entertainment as
she might get out of the masculine world at
large. Todo her justice, her somewhat giddy
brain never took Cecil’s danger into considera-
tion. Any very great depth of feeling was
beyond her comprehension; deeply as she
could like any one she liked him, but a fine es-

 

tablishment and good ‘living and plenty of
gayety were the first things in existence, and
these she had to gain by taking the less plea-
sant fixture of a husband along. In being
bought like a Circassian slave—the simile was
hardly appropriate, inasmuch as her voice had
concluded the barter—she had never bargained
to be treated as one. She would not submit to
it; if one way would not answer to gain her
point, another should. She was not even per-
mitted to act upon his expectations of her,
and she very assuredly would not be driven.

And as if to demonstrate her determination,
Mrs. Trelawney flirted most desperately with
every available masculine of the party, and
toiled up the wide stair at an hour past mid-
night, with the unsatisfactory reaction of so
much exertion upon her.

Mr. Trelawney, in no very enviable frame
of mind, had shut himself into the library,
with a dim light and a smoke-colored bottle
for company. There he was glowering into
the shadows as his wife sunk into the easiest
chair in her dressing-room, and submitted her-
self to the nimble fingers of her maid.. The
pink silk exchanged for a laced and ruffled un-
dress, her hair brushed in a rippling golden
vail over her shoulders, Berenice dismissed the
girland sat looking at the reflection of her
own fair face, from which the sparkle had de-
parted. She had the trait of most shallow na-
tures, the love of admiring herself. She an-
swered a tap at the door without moving from
her place, supposing some afterthought had
caused her maid’s return. It opened to Miss
Bell coming confidently forward as one who
had a perfect right, and seating herself unask-
ed under the cool stare the mistress of the
mansion brought to bear upon her.

“Your maid said you had not retired yet,
Mrs. Trelawney, and I yielded to the tempta-
tion of coming for a social little chat. So
long since we have seen each other, and you
were always very friendly, though we didn’t
meet then on such equal ground as now. You
can’t thiak what pleasure it gives me to re-
member your kind treatment of then, now
that we are to be better acquainted still.”

‘Really, I haven’t the inclination to think
of it, Miss Bell, if that is what you choose to
be called, and I am not in the habit of receiv-
ing guests in my dressing-room after one
o'clock at night.”

“Time and matrimony are apt to change
one’s habits, I suppose. I have had the plea-
sure of sharing your dressing-room at quite as
late an hour before this, if you remember.
‘You were both condescending and confidential
then, and though I’m past the age of romance
myself, I can appreciate all those frank divul-
gences of yours. How very happy you must
be with all gained you were expecting then!
I suppose you find your new position quite as
pleasant as you did expect, Mrs. Trelawney?”

“Your memory is so good, you should be
assured of it. I certainly have all I counted
on then, unless I might except the choice of
my company.”

Miss Bell was quite impervious to the point-
ed thrust.

“Two people bound to live together can’t al-
ways expect to be agreeable. One will weary
of one’s husband; I have always found it the
case under my observation, And you had
none of the school-girl sentiment to wear off.
No one can know better than I that Mr. 'Tre-
lawney is no more exempt from faults than
other men. I could have told you that, be-
forehand, and it sometimes is well to take the
man into consideration along with the: rest.
Not that I suppose it would have made any
difference in your case.”

‘Of course it would not. I have some in-
tention of retiring, Miss Bell, but if you pre-
fer my dressing-room to your own apartment,
you are at liberty to remain here. Such an
old friend of Mr. Trelawney may be pardoned
any impertinence,”

‘Must I beg that the fact may not prevent
our being friends? A judicious third party is
invaluable sometimes, and nothing would give
me greater pleasure than to be permitted to
serve you. You don’t ask me any thing re-
garding my previous knowledge of your hus-
band, and it is but natural you should have
some curiosity.”

“Tassure you I haven’t the slightest. My
husband is an odious brute, and if your friend-
ship prompts you to carry him that opinion
from me, I have not an objection to offer.”

Mrs. Trelawney swept up from her chair
scornfully. Miss Bell, her wintry smile just
touching her face, put out her hand to check
her, and leaning forward, spoke swiftly and
earnestly.

‘“Won’t you let me come to an understand-
ing with you, Mrs. Trelawney? There is no
love lost between your husband and you, cer-
tainly none between him and me. He treated
me detestably once. I don’t mind telling you
that he made a fool of me, and of all fools
there’s none like an old fool, you know, [I ad-
mit to being old enough to have known better,
but for a purpose of hisown he made me be-
lieve he meant to marry me; and afterward,
besides jilting, taunted me shamefully. I am
woman enough to want some revenge on him.
Nothing would suit me better than to give him
back like for like, than to play upon his cre-
dulity underhand as he did upon mine. He
will be a jealous tyrant if you let him. If
you care to keep your independence and have
your Own way in spite of him, I both can and
will be of use to you.”

Berenice, checked at her first step, hearing
the beginning haughtily, clasped her white
hands over the back of the chair she had oc-
cupied and looked distrustfully and searching-
ly into Miss Bell’s face as she progressed. In
her capacity of seamstress she had not given
hera thought beyond her work; as the self-

ee
ai i

 

t
{
i
|

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

-Marenel4, 1874]

 

invited guest she had disliked her cordially,
and that dislike fluttered in a warning not to
trust her too far. But Berenice had also a
fair share of obstinacy, and she would dare
much to have her own way. In very unwifely
willingness, then, she gave way to the other’s
proposal. "4

“T have almost a mind to take. you at your
word, Miss Bell. I have set my heart on
having Cecil Bertram paint my portrait. Ed-
monia’s absurd scruples prevented it before I
was married; my Bluebeard of a husband has
declared against it now. I am quite deter-
mined to have it done, though what I am to do
with the picture afterward I neither know nor
much care, The difficulty is to keep Mr. Tre-
lawney from knowing it, and he watches so
closely it will take maneuvering to escape him.
I am afraid he has a horrible temper; I feel in
my marrow that it’s as much as my life is
worth on the chance of his discovering I
haven’t regarded him. I don’t know; if he
hadn’t made himself so very officious and dis-
agreeable I would be tempted to give up my
purpose yet.”

“And have him follow this restriction by a
dozen others quite as bad. There’s everything
in keeping even with him if no one is to know
it but yourself. Have your own way from the
first, or make up your mind never to have it.”

“T believe you are right, Miss Bell,” said
Berenice, slowly. ‘‘I always said and I say
still that I will never be any man’s slave,”

 

CHAPTER IX.
“THERE IS A SPOT!”

DREARER than ever the old house outlying
Rockpoint stood against the gray November
sky. All the tints there were gray, reaches of
marshes fading into the flat of the sea gray in
the misty heavy atmosphere, even the deadened
leaves yet clinging to the parent stems that
elsewhere had a Rembrandt tint of red or brown
among them were of one uniform dullness.

It was not a cheering scene, and a foot-pass-
enger pursuing his way leisurely over the road
which led out from the town paused to take it
all in at a glance. The grim, dark, ugly out-
lines of the house lost at the base in the tangle
surrounding it, the weather stained wall crumb-
ling into decay but serving yet to shut the lit-
tle gloomy world within from the great gloomy
world without. The sun struggled behind the
mist but only succeeded in marking his majestic
position by an undefined yellowish glimmer
half-way down the west.

“The very ideal of a haunted house,” solilo-
quized the ‘‘ solitary traveler,” ‘if only ghosts
walked and fetters clanked and blue flames
danced in this prosaic age. Faith, but it’s the
dullest sort of a leaden casket to shut in a koh-
imoor. It looks as though it might be under
some ‘ prodigious ban” and yet it is known that
flesh and blood instead of unearthly shapes in-
habit it; it is even probable that the common
routine of sleeping and waking and eating goes
on within those walls. No state is proof against
adversity, and for opposite even that relic of
darker ages can be penetrated by prosperous
innovation. A world of ups and downs this,
and there is food for speculation in the action
of the see-saw that is bringing one to yonder
Castle of Despond.”

With a shrug of his shoulders be moved
briskly on, breaking into a ditty in a far-reach-
ing tender voice that rung over the dead flat
most incongruously. A shabby man in rusty
black was this lone traveler. A man with a
devil-me-care recklessness about him, a swag-
gering bravado manifesting itself in his swing
and look. In the days of Robin Hood and his
“merrie men” this man would have been an
outlaw through sheer deviltry and lawlessness;
as it was he bore the stamp of the well-to-do
vagabond. Five minutes walk brought him to
the one solid gate in the firmest part of the wall.
It was locked; it was kept always locked, in-
deed. If it had borne an inscription it should
have been—‘‘ Thus far shalt thou come and no
farther.”

Of visitors Miss Camilla Brand had none,
and those necessary evils, the butcher, the
baker, and the grocer’s boy, never came beyond
this ungracious barrier and old Esther’s grim,
waiting form. The gate was tall and spiked
at the top, the heavy posts a good eight feet
high. The stranger knocking loudly upon it
with the cane he carried, fell back and eyed it
leisurely while he waited. Minutes passed and
no answer came; all the racket he might make
there was not apt to reach the inmates of the
house as he apparently concluded for he did
not repeat his summons.

“Not.a hospitable set, I take it,” he mused.
‘Well, that for common politeness sake, and
now for a less ceremonious way of gaining en-
trance.”

An ordinary man would have found the bar-
rier difficult to scale, but the stranger drew
back a pace, with a run and spring swung him-
self to the top, avoiding the spikes and dropping
to. the other side nimbly as a squirrel. It was
the simplest of feats to him, with supple joints
and gymnastic training.

Esther was knitting before the kitchen fire,
with no sound for a long hour in the room ex-
cept the steady clicking of her needles, and the
occasional crackling of . the sticks as they
burned. Miss Brand was taking her afternoon
doze in her chamber above, Madelon was some-
where out in.the desolate prison-yard.

Suddenly a thunderous knocking fell upon
the door, continued blows that threatened the
demolishment of a panel if not speedily an-
swered.

“As well be positive about it,” the shabby
stranger said to himself as he applied his stick in
that unqualified summons. “That might raise
the dead I fancy; the living hereabouts must
be preciowsly blessed to withstand it long.”

.

 

The door opening as suddenly in the midst of
the belaborment he was giving it, he was pre-
cipitated forward almost into the very arms of
Esther, but adroitly changed the involuntary
motion into the profoundest salaam.

‘““Who may you be that you should bring the
house down about our ears in that way?” she
asked, sharply.

‘‘T haven’t the convenience of a card about
me unfortunately, but yowll oblige me very
much by taking in my name, George Fitz-
George, if you please. I wish to see Miss Tre-
lawney.”

The door was all but violently slammed in
his face, but Mr. George Fitz-George skillfully
inserted a leg into the aperture, following it by
a shoulder and in that agreeable position put
forth a protest.

“See here now, my lovely creature! never
had one of your gentle sex treat me quite so
jammingly before, ’pon my word. If you
wouldn’t squeeze so tight by just a morsel—
that’s better, thank you. Now if you'll be so
kind as to deliver my message—”

“*Nosuch person here,” cut in Esther, shortly.

‘With the very greatest consideration for so
fair a lady’s word I chance to know better.
See here, my good woman!” A decided change
came into Mr. Fitz-George’s manner which,
sorely against the woman’s will, made her hear
and heed him, ‘‘I have come for the purpose
of making some inquiries regarding Miss Tre-
lawney; if the result be as I anticipate, to
make known a possibly surprising piece of
good fortune. You'll oblige me by taking my
message to either the young lady herself or
Miss Camilla Brand.”

‘My mistress sees no one,” she demurred,
hesitatingly. ‘‘Tell your business to me if you
like, and Pll know better what to try to do for
you.” In her second’s indecision Esther gave
way, and the visitor with a turn of his shoulder
set against the door forced himself bodily past
her into the long dim hall.

“Pll not trouble you for anything further
than a hint of where I may find Miss Brand,”
he said, coolly. ‘‘ Come, just look sharp, will
you?”

“Tf you will you will, I suppose,” grumbled
the woman, sourly. ‘‘ You aren’t apt to get
much good from it I tell you.”

“Some one else may, however. How would
it be if I were to tell you that there is a fortune
in the affair, the Trelawney fortune if you ever
heard of that.”

‘You spoke that name before, Mr. Fritz-
Grog—”

‘* Ritz-George, ma’am.”

“Tt hasn’t been mentioned under this roof
for a matter of years and years. It won’t gain
you anything in the way of welcome to bring
it up now; I tell you it must not be brought up
before my mistress, Pll take your message to
her but there isn’t the chance of you seeing her
any the more. Go in there and wait.” She
pushed open the door and then went slowly up
the winding stair.

Miss Brand sat in her chair before a smol-
dering fire in the chamber she very rarely left,
a morbid invalid who had been ‘doing penance
for seventeen long years by shutting herself
away from the world, by glooming her sur-
roundings as her life was gloomed, and forever
brooding over that dark past. She spoke with-
out looking around.

“You haven’t been letting any one in again,
Esther, don’t tell me so. Haven’t I suffered
enough to be left in peace? I don’t want to
look upon any human face but yours. I depend
upon you to see to it.”

“*T don’t let you be annoyed when I can help,
Miss Brand. I wouldn’t disturb you now but
there’s a person who has forced his way in be-
low and insists on seeing you. Wait for a
minute, mistress. I think you had better hear
what he has to say. I think it is something
which will be for the benefit of Madelon.”

“Don’t talk to me of her! Is it not enough
that my roof covers her, that I have sheltered
and protected her? Let me forget her further
than that, if Ican. Keep her and every one
away; I will see no one.”

“You will see me, Miss Brand, insinuated a
voice. ‘‘ Sorry to intrude, I assure you, against
any lady’s will; but necessity knows no law,
and business is business. Truth to tell if it
were pleasure I’d go a different way for it.”

“Send the man away, Esther,” interrupted
Miss Brand, turning her white face and hollow
eyes upon him for an instant.

“There’s no accounting for tastes,” he pro-
ceeded, discursively ignoring the interruption,
“but if this style of living funeral is your
fancy for amusement, ma’am, it’s not so much
wonder the place has picked up a bad name.
And such a waste of dramatic force too! With-
out flattery, you would make such a sleep-
walking Lady Macbeth as the boards have sel-
dom seen, provided that’s an expression at will.
Nothing could go. better with—‘ Out, damned
spot! out, I say! and again—‘ All the perfumes
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!’ and
yet, all this has nothing to do with Trelaw-
ney.”

Mr. George Fitz-George cast a disapproving
eye about the black-draped room, and struck a
position to declaim his latter clause.

“‘Send the man away, Esther,” Miss Brand
had said monotonously again, but with that
change to a charnel-house tone quick horror
sprung into her eyes as they were dropped in-
voluntarily to her own wasted hands. Then
she threw up her arms with a gurgling, terri-
fied cry.

“That name, those words! Oh, God of
Heaven!” The fierce convulsion of her features
was terrible to behold.

“JT hope-I didn’t come it too strong,” thought
Mr. Fitz-George a little remorsefully. ‘‘ Hope
the old lady isn’t subject to fits or anything of
that kind; might make a hitch in this affair on

BGHLLES AND BHAUX.

hand if she was to collapse—end her career on
this mundane globe at this present moment.”

“Now are you satisfied with what you’ve
done?” demanded Esther, harshly. ‘I knew it
would be so—I knew it.”

“T see; troubled with nerves, poor creature!
She wouldn’t make a Lady Macbeth, after all.
Bring her round, my beauty, and I’ll go below
and wait. I think she’ll see me yet.”

 

Nineteen years before, the sisters Camilla
and Madelon Brand had lived together in this
old house by the sea. I have described Camilla
Brand as time had left her changed. Even
then, with the first flush of youth yet upon her,
she had been unlike other girls. She was not
beautiful; she had a moody, strong and some-
what masculine face; she was tall, raw-boned,
ungraceful; and she felt all her lack of out-
ward attractions in her deep, morbid nature
with an intensity no one about her suspected.
Madelon, one year younger, differed from her
as calm, rosy morning differs from tempestuous
midnight. She was a creature of dimples and
smiles, open-hearted and all lovable, and for
this her sister hated her. A hate which, lying
dormant for years, or only feebly and occa-
sionally stirring, blazed into a consuming pas-
sion, nineteen years before.

It is a story old as the hills, pitiful and sor-
rowful and sinful.

A lover came to Madelon, young, fair, and
debonair; an impetuous, romantic, dreaming
lover, who saw nothing but sunshine in the
world; whose happy confidence speeded his
wooing; who gained her promise and found
heaven in her presence as only a dreamer
might do.

Seeing and knowmg it, the uark, secretive
spirit of Camilla Brand suffered torments.
This lover of her sister was as a young god to
her sight; she loved him with a misguided fer-
vor, a misery thrown back to feed upon itself,
while her pride hid her secret from all but one.
That one was Esther, who had been the chil-
dren’s nurse, and later, when they were doubly
orphaned, attendant, adviser, companion, in
one. Strangely, Camilla had been her favorite.
She had been jealous of the younger sister’s
beauty, of the notice and favors lavished upon
her while the elder was slighted or unobserved.

The bridal day was set; the bridal robe was
prepared; the bridegroom came down to claim
the bride. And, at the last moment, the bride
was missing. Wonder and conjecture and sus-
pense were all set at rest soon. Madelon had
repented of her bargain; she had found another
who suited her better. She was

‘*Ower the border and awa’
Wi’ Jock o’ Hazeldean.””

Her Jock was young Miles Trelawney, a
Lara-looking man, the handsomest, wildest and
most desperate wreck of manhood at twenty-
seven that injudicious indulgence in boyhood
ever spoiled, that the maddest course of dissi-
pation and folly ever rujned. He had plunged
into his marriage unthinkingly as he did every-
thing. Old Miles, the father, who had for-
given him everything up to that, refused to
forgive this latest folly. His son he received
again on stated terms; the young, pretty and
helpless bride he would neither see nor have
mentioned in his hearing. Young Trelawney
was not willing to quite cut loose from his
father’s favor; what passing tenderness he had
for Madelon was not sufficient to break one
link in the chain of evil habit with which he
had bound himself. He found her a quiet lodg-
ing; for a few months was, by turns, attentive
and forgetful. But with him one course was
inevitable—passion, satiety, disgust.

At last one day Madelon found herself shel-
terless in the streets. Sick and footsore and
suffering she found her way back to the old
home. It was.not closed against her. Deadly
bitter was the elder sister through all. A blow
struck at her own life would not have rankled
as did that fallen upon the only man she ever
loved, who had never one thought for her in
return. He faded from her knowledge when
Madelon was lost to him; in all the time since
he had never faded from her heart.

In this cold refuge, then, the wanderer crept,
and here, not many weeks later, Miles Trelaw-
ney followed her. The finale, long withheld,
had come at last; his father had utterly repu-
diated so disreputable a son, and upon Made-
lon’s submissive head the fury of the latter fell.
To his marriage with her he attributed the
well-deserved result of his own evil course.

Unasked he installed himself at the house.
He carried his orgies into it; he abused his
wife, and treated Camilla with indifferent civ-
ility or open contempt.

The latter never lifted her hand in trying to
make peace or spare the wretched wife. As
she had made her bed she should lie in it, she
said bitterly. But she found means of reveng-
ing herself upon the miserable wreck; she re-
proached and taunted and maddened him in a
hundred ways. One night he came rushing
into the presence of the two, disheveled, wild
with drink, with a devil that had long looked
out of his eyes there at its hight. Camilla
stood a volley of vituperation from his tongue,
and flung back her retort as bitterly.

“Visit your ruin upon yourself and upon
yonder poor cowardly creature of your will,”
she said. ‘Miserable dependents upon my
bounty, you had better both be dead than the
living disgrace you are to me. I wish you
were, from my heart I wish you were.”

He swore an oath too terrible to write, as he
shouted, ‘‘ You shall have your wish!”

A wicked-looking blade flashed in his hand;
she saw him with his throat bare and a deep
broad gash in it fall forward at her feet; his
life-blood spurted in great accusing stains upon
her garments.

 

That night little Madelon came into the
world, and suffering Madelon passed out, and

from that night began the expiation of Camilla
Brand, f

 

Had Mr. George Fitz-George known the
whole story he could not have chosen words
better suited to his purpose.

An hour passed during which he aired his
impatience and toasted his heels in the bare
room below. Then Esther appeared.

‘She'll see you now, and see you to being
more careful another time. She'll die in some
such spell as that yet. Follow!”

Miss Brand sat in her chair as before. Her
eyes on the door dwelt with him as he entered.
“You had something to say regarding my
niece who is known as Madelon Brand,” she
said quietly and at once. ‘‘ What is it?”

With a little stumbling at being brought so
immediately to time, Mr. Fitz-George delivered
himself of his mission. If this Madelon was
the granddaughter of old Miles Trelawney
there was a fortune waiting to be proved to
her.

‘Tf the money is to come it can’t be helped,
I suppose,” said Miss Brand, coldly. ‘‘ Esther,
show him such papers as belonged to Madelon’s
father.”

“Upon my life,” reflected the messenger,
“unless the girl has the spirit to slip that
sphinx’s thumb the fortune might as well go to
the bottom of the sea.”

_ (To be continued.)

 

BELLES AND BEAUX.

BY HAP HAZARD.

 

 

On, such a witching flutter
Eestatically thrills

To glowing lips and finger-tips
And throbbing bosom fills

With joy, the fair ones utter
Delight in ah’s! and oh’s!

Then meet their eyes in glad surprise
The charming ‘‘ Belles and Beaux.”

Oh, how their eager fingers
Flit o’erthe rustling page !
And when some tale of wreath and vail,
Or flowing rhymes engage,
The eye all fondly lingers
To trace another's woes ;
Swift sympathy doth dim the eye
At griefs of belles and beaux,

And when, with varied courses,
Delight hath supped her fill;

The banquet’s round is fitly crowned
With music’s magic thrill,

That out from hidden sources
Of rosewood sweetly flows;

And ah! how fell the siren spell!
Beware! ye belles and beaux!

 

CATHERINE, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA,

 

BY MRS, E, F. ELLET,

 

N the 19th of February, 1712, Peter the
Great, Czar of Russia, had his wife Cath-
erine Alexiewna proclaimed Czarina in regular
form, He had previously acknowledged the
marriage.

The whole country knew the obscurity of
Catherine’s origin. They knew that less than
ten years before, when Marienburg was besieg-
ed and surrendered, a young and beautiful girl
had been discovered by the Russian soldiers,
concealed in an oven, She was brought, with
two others who formed the family of a Lu-
theran minister, before General Bauer, the
lieutenant of Sheremetoff, the commander of
the besieging army. The Lutheran declared
her the daughter of a poor quartermaster in
Livonia; her name Martha Rabe or Alfendey,.
He had taken care of her when her mother
died, and brought her up with his own glaugh-
ters.

General Bauer dismissed the pastor with his
family, but detained Martha, whom he sent as
aslave to Sheremetoff. The latter presented
her to Prince Menzicoff, who had seen and
greatly admired her, One day Menzicoff en-
tertained the Czar, who wore his coat of coarse
cloth at the prince’s sumptuous table, loaded
with gold-plate, sparkling crystal and the finest
linen of Holland and Saxony, trimmed with
Brussels lace. Wine was poured for the guest
by a young girl, so beautiful, so elegantly at-
tired, that Peter gazed in fascinated wonder at
the glorious creature. Menzicoff at once beg-
ged his majesty’s acceptance of the fair slave.

When this young girl embraced the tenets of
the Greek church in 1703, she assumed the
name of Catherine Alexiewna. When she be-
came the property of the Czar, a glimpse of
her future greatness prompted her to bring in-
to action the full energy of her genius. She
was lodged in a remote part of Moscow, and
Peter visited her occasionally. Soon he became
so deeply interested that he could not live a
day without her presence: and finally he con-
sulted her on the greatest difficulties in the busi-
ness of the State. He took the miristers of
his empire to ask her advice in knotty matters,
Her cheerfulness, her mildness, her energy and
clear-sightedness, with the congenial tone of
her mind, obtained complete ascendancy over
him, and consoled him for-other disappoint-
ments. Before long he persuaded his lovely
slave to consent to a private marriage.

Catherine bore him two daughters, born in
1708 and 1709. By this time her power was
acknowledged throughout all Russia; and ske
was looked on as the savior of Peter’s life. He
was subject to attacks of convulsions, during
which his sufferings were intense, and they
were succeeded by fits of deep despondency. His
wife’s voice and presence charmed away these
horrible pains, and her affectionate devotion
dissipated his gloom. He soon found that she
could do even more than soothe him; that she
had a soul of dauntless heroism, and could

 

help to save his honor and his throne,

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BGELLES AND BHAUX.

[Marcu 14, 874

 

 

 

Peter was in the zenith of his military glory
when the Sultan of Turkey commence hostili-
ties against him. Before setting out on his ex-
pedition to meet this foe, the Czar constituted
a senate of regency, and called upon the Rus-
sian nation to acknowledge as his consort the
fair captive of Marienburg. She accompanied
him when he went against the Turk, and re-
doubled her soothing attentions on the march,
during several attacks of his old complaint.
She became the pride and delight of the army.
She was usually on horseback beside Peter, and
endured the same privations as the lowest offi-
cer. Her kind attentions to the sick were un-
remitting. But the Russian army seemed
doomed to disaster. Peter’s communications
were cut off, and his provisions were exhaust-
ed. Swarms of locusts destroyed all vegeta-
tion, and the water had to be drawn from the
river, under a heavy fire from the Turkish ar-
tillery. Peter failed in his endeavors to ac-
complish a retreat. The Russians were at
length surrounded. The Czar perceived that
the noble army on which his fortunes depended,
had no other prospect than starvation or
slavery.

In this emergency Catherine came forward
to save her husband and his people. She sent
her jewels as a present to the Grand Vizier,
and dictated a letter from Sheremetoff to the
Sultan.

While awaiting the reply she was active in
soothing and encouraging the Czar, officers and
soldiers. She presided at a council of war held
by ten of the oldest Generals, and proposed the
resolution, if their strait became desperate, to
cut their way through the enemy’s ranks. But
the Grand Vizier published a suspension of
arms, and a treaty of peace honorable to the
Russians, was concluded on the banks of the
Pruth.

Catherine continued the consoling angel of
her husband. She accompanied him to Carls-
bad, and never left him. It was without any
urging or solicitation from her that Peter is-
sued the solemn proclamation to which refer-
ence has been made.

Catherine at length became the mother of a
son. But the Czar’s son by his first wife, the
Czarowitz Alexis, was his heir, and his union
with the Princess of Wolfenbuttel was also
blessed with the birth of a boy; so that Cath-
erine could not look forward for hers to the
succession. She accompanied Peter to Copen-
hagen, Prussia, and several of the German
principalities. She was with him at Amster-
dam, and they remained three months in Hol-
land. Peter was obliged to go to Paris; and
as the rigorous etiquette of the French court
would have interfered with the proper reception
of the Czarina, Catherine remained in Holland,
giving the Czar her judicious advice in all com-
plications. She was at this period only thirty-
three, and in the prime of her beauty.

Important affairs called Peter back to
Russia. His son and heir had been embittered
against him by his marriage with Catherine,
against whom the repudiated wife continually
intrigued. Alexis abandoned himself to a
brutal and degraded life, and his young wife
died from ill usage. Peter became alarmed
for the future prospects of Russia. If the na-
tion, scarcely emancipated from its savage
state, fell under the rule of his son, his plans
of improvement would be utterly annihilated.
He caused the rebellious Alexis to be arrested
and brought to Moscow, where the profligate
tendered a voluntary renunciation of his
claims to the throne. But this availed him
nothing. He was condemned to death; and
shortly after receiving his sentence, fell into
convulsions, which terminated in fatal apo-
plexy.

In important political events that followed,
Catherine managed various delicate matters,
and displayed wonderful address and diplo-
matic tact. Her exertions contributed more
to bring about the peace at Neustadt, in Fin-
land, Sept. 10th, 1721, than the united talents
of the statesmen composing the congress.
This peace left Peter free to employ his armies
in cutting roads and canals, and in works for
the improvement of the country. Russia now
conferred on Peter the title of ‘‘ Great,” ‘“‘the
Emperor,” and “‘ Father of his Country.” He
was saluted by those titles in the Great
Cathedral, and received a similar honor from
the English, "German, Danish, and Swedish
embassadors. He was now acknowledged Em-
peror throughout Europe; and expressed his
obligations to Catherine for the position he oc-
cupied. ‘‘ She is not only my tutelary angel,”
said he, “‘but that of the Russian empire.
She shall be anointed and crowned Empress.”

Catherine’s coronation took place in the
cathedral at Moscow, May i8th, 1724. The
Emperor stated that he wished to acknowledge
the eminent services she had rendered, especi-
ally in the war with Turkey, by this public
proclamation of her imperial dignity. She ap-
peared, on this august occasion, resplendent in
gold and jewels, with a retinue worthy a great
sovereign. The Emperor walked before her
on foot, as captain of a company of new body-
guards called “Knights of the Empress.”
When the procession reached the church, he
placed himself at her side, and put the crown
on her head. The crown and scepter were
borne before her on their return. Catherine
had reason to be proud of the greatness to
which her genius and devotion had elevated
her. But reverses, brought about by her own
folly, came only too soon.

Offended at a slight punishment awarded by
Peter to a man who had insulted her, she con-
tracted an imprudent intimacy with her young
chamberlain, Moens de la Croix. This became
known to Peter, who was frantic with jeal-
Madame de Balk, the sister of Moens, was
lady of the bedchamber to Catherine. In her

OU

youth Peter had paid his addresses to her; but
she had refused to become Czarina. She had
first married the Prussian minister, Kayserlin-
gen, and after his death, Lieutenant-General
Balk. Peter’s suspicions of his wife were first
excited by the report of one of his favorites,
and he resolved to watch and see for himself.
Entering a secret gallery at midnight, he found
the Empress in conversation with Moens, his
sister being present. He struck Catherine a
furious blow with his cane, and rushed like a
madman from the palace. He burst into the
house and the bedroom of Prince Repnin, and,
dashing to pieces every thing within his reach,
swore that by daybreak he would be aveng-
ed.

The Emperor was persuaded by Prince Rep-
nin to spare the Empress, against whom he had
no absolute proof of guilt and whom he could
not behead without dishonor; but Moens and
his sister were condemned; the first to be be-
headed. Peter witnessed the execution, held
up the severed head with ferocious exultation;
and a few hours afterward compelled the Em-
press to take a drive with him. He drove her
himself to the foot of the pole to which the head
of her late chamberlain was nailed. She had
enough self-control to feign indifference to this
sight of horror; but on her return to the palace,
when left alone, fell in a fainting-fit on the
floor.

Madame de Balk had been compelled to re-
ceive eleven blows with the knout. Both her
sons were degraded and banished. Catherine
threw herself at the Emperor’s feet to obtain
the pardon of the lovely- Anna Moens, whom he
had once adored. But Peter pushed her back,
in his fury breaking a large Venetian looking-
glass with a blow of his fist. He looked at his
wife significantly, bidding her take note how
easily he could reduce the glass to its original
dust. She returned his glance with one of
profound anguish, and answered that it was
true that he had destroyed one of the greatest
ornaments of his palace; but would the pal-
ace be improved by its destruction. If the
Emperor meant to remind her of his power to
crush the being he had raised to the highest dig-
nity of the land, her reply was most appropri-
ate. He could not destroy her whom he had
so lately crowned, without forever tarnishing
his own fame.

This remark calmed the furious monarch,
but he refused to grant the pardon entreated
by his consort. The utmost she could obtain
was that the condemned lady should receive
five instead of eleven blows with the knout.
These Peter inflicted with his own hand.

The whole affair shows the barbarism of de-
spotic sovereignty. The spectacle of an Em-
peror creeping into his palace at midnight as a
spy upon his consort, rudely assaulting her with
his cane, and himself officiating at the punish-
ment of those he accused, shows that he was
quite as much of a savage as the lowest of his
subjects whom he had striven to elevate by his
beneficent plans and improvements, carried on
during a lifetime of labor. Surely as the
Scriptures say: ‘‘ He who ruleth his own spirit
is greater than he who taketh a city.” Here is
one to whom a vast empire submitted as abso-
lute master—proved incapable of restraining
his passions, when they betrayed him into the
most unbecoming violence.

From that time till the Emperor’s last illness
the imperial pair never met except in public.
Catherine had a strong party at the Russian
court, and was extremly popular throughout
the empire. She was the idol of the army.
Had Peter obeyed his mad impulse, to immure
her in a convent, his own power. would have
been endangered. Menzicoff, an able and clear-
sighted statesman, was at the head of the Em-
press’s party, and ready to support her in any
measures for her personal safety.

The shock which the Emperor’s enfeebled
constitution had sustained, and his violent agi-
tation, brought on another of those paroxysms
which had so often endangered his life. The
soothing influence that had formerly driven
away the malady—as David’s minstrelsy had
charmed the evil spirit away from the afflicted
Saul, was no longer at hand. The convulsions
succeeded each other with frightful rapidity,
and soon it became evident to all around him
that the life of Peter the Great could not be
saved by human skill.

The Empress was informed of the illness of
her estranged husband. She forgot their quar-
rel in her solicitude for him, and at once re-
paired to his bedside. Nothing could induce
her to leave him, Again by her tender minis-
trations she strove to bring him ease and return-
ing strength. She sat up for three successive
nights with him, taking no rest during the day.
He must have been sensible of her loving care
and attention; at least he did not ask for other
nursing. On the 28th of January, 1725, he ex-
pired in the arms of his consort.

The imperial patient had been unable to
speak from the moment his complaint took a
fatal turn. He made several attempts to write:
but could not succeed in making known his
wishes. He could only scrawl the almost ille-
gible words: ‘‘ Let everything be delivered
to—"

How affecting such an instance of weakness
and helplessness, in contrast to his despotic
sway while life and health were spared!

The question of the succession to the throne
was now important. Peter had avowed his
resolution to appoint Catherine, but her son
had died—six years before. Menzicoff had
taken his measures, in advance, to secure the
crown for Catherine. Peter’s death was con-
cealed for some time; and the moment it was
announced, Menzicoff seized upon the treasury
and the citadel, and proclamed the Empress
sovereign, under the name of Catherine I.

But little opposition was made to her acces-
sion; for the great majority of the nation

 

 

hailed her as a benefactress, and the blessing
and glory of her people.

Perhaps the world does not afford such
another example of one raised from the hum-
blest birth and abject poverty to reign absolute
mistress over a vast empire. Under the order-
ing of the Providence who setteth down and
lifteth up whomsoever He pleaseth, the good
fortune of Catherine Alexiewna was wrought
out by her brilliant genius and consummate
tact.

She commenced her reign gloriously: religi-
ously carrying out the beneficent designs of the
Emperor. The order of St. Alexander Newski,
which he had instituted, she conferred: the
Academy he had resolved to establish, she took
care to found, Every other plan was fulfilled
as far as her power extended. The rebellion
of the Cossacks was vigorously suppressed by
her. Had she lived long enough Russia would
have owed much to her supremacy, and her
reign would have been chronicled as magnifi-
cent and grand beyond the average of sover-
eigns. But she was not destined to long life;
scarcely to reach middle age. Her health be-
came impaired shortly after her accession; and
she died on the 17th of May, 1727, at the age of
thirty-eight.

Her daughter Elizabeth afterward became
Empress of Russia, and Anne was the mother
of ‘Peter ITI.

The lack of education caused Catherine’s
abilities to appear in a yet more striking light.
At the time she dictated the letter to the Sul-
tan on the banks of the Pruth, she knew not
how to write. How great, then, must have
been the mind and genius that accomplished so
much! Her perceptions were as quick as light-
ning; her intellect was strong and capacious.
She had also greatness and nobility of soul.
With her origin and her wonderful success, it
is not strange that she should have had bitter
enemies, who strove to detract from her fame.
She was accused of being an artful and cruel
stepmother; but there is no proof that she fo-
mented discord between Alexis and his father.
It was but natural that she should fear for her
own children, if Alexis came to the throne, but
she was not proved to have embittered Peter
against him. The Czar had never loved his
son, and could not help knowing his brutalized
character.

Nor was there any truth in the imputation—
so triumphantly refuted by Voltaire—that
Catherine hastened Peter’s death. This rumor
was raised by her foes, who were hostile, also,
to the improvements introduced by the Em-
peror. No doubt this most extraordinary wo-
man was not free from faults; but she would
have risen to eminent distinction in any sta-
tion.

 

DESPAIR NOT.

BY J. H. H.

 

 

Cheer thee up, man! look before thee! .
Brood not on thy cheerless lot!

Fortune’s zephyrs shall pass o’er thee,
When thou dost expect them not.

Near thee are thy children playing,
Speaking in their childish prate,
While thy heart is for them praying,
They unconscious of their state.

Poets talk of human weakness,
Erring is but mortal’s part;

Ay, but still there’s much of meekness,
Self-denial in the heart.

Man, thy babes shall be protected,
Shalla speedy aid be given

By the One who has selected
Such as they for heirs of heaven,

Why despond, then, if Luck fails thee?
Why not labor to o’ercome

Fierce Despair, that now assails thee,
Mocks thee in thy cheerless home?

 

(COMMENCED IN No. 1.)

ALIDA BARRETT;

oR,
THE DOOR IN THE HEART.

BY MRS. E. F. ELLET,

AUTHOR OF ‘THE COURT OF THE REPUBLIC,” “‘ wo-
MEN OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION,” ‘* THE
BRIDES AND WIDOWS OF THE BIBLE.”

CHAPTER XX.
THE NEFARIOUS COMPACT.

ScaRCELY had the two gentlemen left the
library, than the slender figure we have seen
enter by the window, hastily came forth from
the concealment of the damask curtains and
pushed open the sash. As she stepped outside,
she turned toward the light, and the hood fell
partially back from her face.

It was a handsome face, glowing as it was
with an expression of sinister triumph. The
black eyes sparkled; the full red lips were
slightly curved with scorn; the dark cheek
was flushed.

‘‘T have got more than I came for!” she said,
exultantly, to herself. ‘This is better than
humbling myself before the man who thinks
me not fit to be his wife! ‘Fraud the law
would take hold of! The State prison! I have
you—proud rich man! And I can make you
glad to make me the wife of your son! Don’t
let me forget the names and dates! I will set
them all down when I get home!”

She glided down the steps, and across the
garden, seeking the shelter of shrubbery and
bushes till she gained the back gate. This was
locked; but she ran along under the palings till
she came to a small door in the brick wall, in
the lock of which the key was sticking. Pass-
ing through, she locked the door on the out-
side, pocketed the key, and went on to the sta-
tion where the cars stood.

Charlotte Le Brun had done her part toward
fulfilling her threat of exposing Alida as an ad-

 

 

 

venturess, and procuring her expulsion from
“West End.” She had gone next evening to
call upon Mrs. Burke. But that lady was
dressing for dinner, and declined seeing a
stranger, who appeared to have no particular
claim on her attention.

Then she asked for Miss Barrett, and learned
that she had left the house, and was not ex-
pected to return.

Charlotte sent up a message to the mistress,
asking for the girl’s address.

This was refused. Charlotte was very angry
at the refusal; but pleased to hear that the
offending seamstress had been dismissed. No
doubt the love passage between her and Leon
had come to the knowledge of his parents, and
they had promptly sent the girl away. She
resolved, as soon as she could find her, to send
her further out of the way of her foolish lover.
She determined to apply to Leon himself, and
at least ascertain if he knew where she was, or
if his hopes were still in the ascendant.

She had faith still in her power of cajoling
Leon, if she were given the opportunity.

This she had watched for, and it was her er-
rand on this eventful evening. She had enter-
ed the grounds after the carriage drove away
with the young people, and had made her way
to the great bay-window of the library, when
she saw two dusky figures enter, scarcely de-
fined in the gaslight. She took them to be the
father and son. Making her entrance as a spy
seeking a hold of some sort, chance had thus
favored her.

It was with a beating heart and brain con-
fused with wild thoughts, that the girl regained
her own room at her lodgings. The moon shone
in brightly at her window, and she had no need
of a lamp while she undressed.

“There is a hollow under all this show of
grandeur!” she muttered to herself, smiling
scornfully. ‘‘ I have sounded one of the shams,
and can expose it at my pleasure. How many
more are there? Plenty—I'll be bound. The
rich man shall buy me as well as his confeder-
ate, who wound him round his finger so clever-
ly! I will reign in thatsplendid establishment
yet!”

The girl rolled her luxuriant, raven curls
around her fingers, smoothed the tresses across
her forehead, and gave an admiring look at her
own reflection in the glass. She was certainly
handsome enough for the good fortune she
coveted. With this agreeable consciousness
swelling her bosom, she sought repose.

 

The banker merchant, after the departure of
his visitor, walked out to seek relief from dis-
tracting thoughts in the cool night and beauti-
ful scene. He walked down the slope, crossed
the avenue, and went on to the bank of the
river.

How peacefully flowed the deep, clear
waters, with the moonlight like a flood of sil-
ver, shimmering in the soft ripple of the cur-
rent! The wooded shores opposite were dark
with foliage, and the pebbly beach crisped by
the small waves curling over it. Itwasan ex-
quisite picture.

On the other side, the villa, the residence of
wealth and luxury, loomed up against the soft
blue of the sky. The tender leaves of the trees
and shrubbery were sufficiently put forth to
give the place much of its summer aspect. The
flowering vines and early roses were in full
luxuriance. The grounds were bright with
verdure. The picturesque mansion, with state-
ly tower and gables, was still lighted, though
not brilliantly as for a festival. It looked like
the home of peace and happiness.

The owner of all this beauty sighed deeply.
He wiped his forehead with his cambric hand-
kerchief, and opened his vest to the cool air.
Then he pursued his walk by the river bank.

In that brief hour of reflection, the scenes of
his past life swept in a dim panorama before
his remembrance. The darkest were the trans-
actions to which Hammond had referred. They
had made him rich; but they had branded him
with the crime of fraud, and had made him
liable to the vengeance of outraged law. The
agent, who had perpetrated what he had de-
vised and planned, and whom he had bribed to
bear the odium, sheltering his good name, he
had now discovered to be ready to drag him into
the abyss, if he failed to submit to his terms.
In this retrospect of sin, and the humiliation it
brought, the injuries inflicted on others gave
him little uneasiness. He thought not of the
poor whose pittance he had swept away; of the
many humble homes he had ruined. His repent-
ance was only for himself. He clung to the
eminent respectability to which he had attain-
ed, to the power his wealth and station gave,
and feared the loss of these. Such penitence
availeth not!

While he stood by the river side, a boat was
drifting down with the tide, in the middle of
the stream. All at once its course was changed,
and it slowly approached the shore. Mr. Burke
perceived it, and noticed that it contained two
men, one of whom was rowing.

As the craft crossed the line of moonlight,
the man at the helm took one of the oars, fas-
tened it, and changed his seat. As he did so,
by asudden movement he swung himself on
one side so as to overset the skiff.

Both the men fell into the water. The man
who had been pulling the oars clung to the boat;
the other struck out boldly for the shore. This
he reached in a few minutes, coming up the
bank a short distance from where the banker
was standing.

He drew something like a parcel from his
coat pocket, pressed out the water it had im-
bibed, and dried it carefully on the leaves, tak-
ing out the contents fer that purpose. The ex-
amination seemed to satisfy him that they had
sustained no injury; for he chuckled audibly
as he rose from the ground.

Meanwhile the attention of Mr. Burke was

.

ee ha

ee valid

 

nner

 

 
 

re

 

 

Secure

 

~ Marcu 14, 1874.]

fixed on the man who seemed in danger of
drowning. Evidently he could not swim; and
his cries for help were mingled with furious
profanity.

He got the boat righted at last, climbed in
and commenced bailing her out. He sent a
volley of threats and curses after his late com-
panion; then, having thrown out the water,
resumed the oars, and went on his way.

Mr. Burke quite lost all sympathy for his
peril, when he heard his violent language. He
turned, and, seeing the other man at a little
distance along the avenue, walked after him,
and presently overtook him.

To his surprise, he recognized the stranger
who had visited him for the purpose of return-
ing the money drawn from the bank by forged
checks.

“So,” he said, as he came alongside the
stranger; ‘‘I should like to know what all this
means?”

The man stopped, and surveyed him coolly.

“‘Good-evening, Mr. Burke,” he said.

“T saw all that passed,” continued the bank-
er, without replying to his salutation.

“Indeed!”

‘“‘T did; and I saw that you capsized the boat
on purpose.”

“Very well.”

“Tt is not ‘very well’—an attempt at mur-
der! You knew the fellow could not swim!
Why did you want to drown him?”

“TJ did not want to drown him; if I had, I
could easily have done it.”

‘Why did you overset the boat?”

“¢T had my reasons.”

‘““No doubt. Have you objections to men-
tioning them?”

“Don’t know that I have. The man had
robbed me; I had recovered my property, and
wanted to secure it.”

“Why not take proper means?”

“‘ Because he had taken a cowardly advant-
age of me in robbing me. He was one of the
gang that forced me to commit the forgeries I
told you of.”

“You should have given him up to the au-
thorities. What you did might have killed
him, and you would have been his murder-
er.
‘‘T should have been justified by the circum-
stances,” he replied in the smooth, soft tone he
often assumed. ‘‘ He and the others have owed
me a grudge since I restored your money; my
life was not safe with them.”

“ But he was doing you no harm.”

‘“‘He threatened me after I had got the pa-
pers out of his pocket; and he and his men
would have attacked me as soon as we got
ashore. Better to dispose of him than lose my
own property or life.”

“‘-You think so?” said the banker, musingly.

“ The law gives every man the right of self-
defense, and he was an outlaw. If I had
drowned the rascal, it would have been no
more than he deserved.”

“You were not the judge of his deserts.”

“T am, when his revenge puts me in peril.”

Again Mr. Burke mused.

“You think self-protection above law,
then?”

“TJ do, in all such cases. If a man can slay
or ruin you, you are right in putting him out
of the way for your own security.”

‘Not unless assaulted.”

“Tf he bides his time for the sake of having
you at a disadvantage, you must be beforehand
with him.”

“And such men as you,” said the banker,
surveying the dark stranger carefully, ‘‘ think
little of restraint of any sort, in carrying out
your schemes.”

“Not much, where our interests are con-
cerned,” responded the man, in a smooth tone,
and with a low laugh. s

‘‘Yet you brought me back the money you
had drawn out of the bank.”

“Don’t give me credit for that. Ihad been
compelled to commit the crime; I didn’t want
the penalty hanging over me; I had other plans
for bettering my fortune.” Again he laughed.

There was a long pause, while the two men
walked on slowly, side by side.

The banker stopped, and his companion
seemed to expect some particular communica-
tion, for he stood still also, looking earnestly at

im,

“Tf I understand you,” said Mr. Burke,
‘you are more ready to better your fortune,
as you say, than scrupulous as to the means of
doing it.”

Gideon Drake bowed, for he saw to what the
conversation was tending.

“You would not hesitate todo what might
be termed—a little irregular, if it were made
well worth your while?”

“Certainly, I would not.”

‘¢ What some people might call robbery—for
instance—”

‘<Tf there was danger in it I should want pro-
portionate pay—”

“Exactly. And if it involved—blood-shed-
ding?”

_ ‘©The pay would have to be heavy. I don’t
like running such risks. I hope you have
nothing of that sort, that you want done.”

“Me! what do you mean?’ exclaimed the
gentleman. He looked around, startled.

“Nobody within hearing,” said the other.
“Come; we may as well understand each
other. You can make me useful; I am in need
of funds. I am ready to enter any profitable
service, and you can trust me,”

The banker stirred the turf with his cane,
making hieroglyphics in the sand,

“Tsay you can trust me. Iam sure to be
true to my own interests. You know of some
fellow who has robbed or threatened you.
Will you have him removed?”

“JT don’t want bloodshed,” replied Mr. Burke,
in a low tone.

 

BELLES AND BHAUX.

“JT understand — unless it should be neces-
sary.”

“Unless—it—should—be necessary.”

“Give me instructions, and name the re-
ward.”

“You are acquainted with the city?”

“Passably well. I have had considerable
dodging to do, within a few weeks, too.”

“You may come to my study,” said the
banker, after a few moments’ hesitation.

“Your clothes are wet; you can dry them by
the fire, if you like.”

“All right, sir,” said Gideon, touching the
tuft on his forehead in lieu of a hat.

They walked in silence to the rear gate of the
“West End” grounds. Mr. Burke. unlocked it
and passed through with his companion.

They passed quietly through the shrubbery to
the door of the small study on the ground floor,
which the owner unlocked with his key. A
bright coal fire burned in the grate, and the
gas was alight, though turned low.

At his invitation, Gideon drew off his coat
and spread it and his vest to dry. He also un-
folded some of his papers and dried them in the
grateful warmth.

In the meantime his host took from a private
closet beside the chimney, a flask of costly wine
and two glasses. He filled these, and offered
the refreshment to his guest.

Then a confidential conversation took place.
The rich gentleman saw in his disreputable as-
sociate an assistant who might procure for him
from Hammond the papers he held which
threatened his safety. The reward promised
was princely; Gideon Drake undertook the en-
terprise, receiving a considerable sum to defray
the preliminary expenses.

 

CHAPTER XXI.
THE ‘‘ SILVER WEDDING.”

Hammonp did what he had promised in aid
of the banker, whom his timely loan saved from
the danger of failure.

Again Mr. Burke could breathe freely in the
midst of financial wrecks around him.

Leon did not fulfill his injunction to propose
an alliance with the heiress, but he was troubled.
by no more entreaties or complaints. The tide
of fortune seemed to have turned.

His father introduced a new guest, who dined
with them at least three times a week, and was
presented as a favored friend to all their visi-
tors,

There was nothing in the dress or deportment
of Erastus Hammond to mark him as unfit for
the refined society in which he mingled at
‘West End;” but his face and manner were de-
cidedly unprepossessing.

There was something furtive about him; and
the attention he paid Clara was extremely
offensive to her. She could not shake him off
without rudeness, and of that she could not be
guilty. :

She complained to Mrs. Burke, and that lady
expressed to her husband her unfavorable opin-
ion of his new and intimate associate. He was
so different from their “set;” he did not seem
to be accustomed to society; but, on the con-
trary, to have passed his life in business pur-
suits. Really, it was presuming in him to
monopolize the young lady of the house so per-
severingly when there was other company. Of

-course Miss Burke could not look on him asa

suitor, and he always contrived to he in the
way.

“Why not as a suitor?” asked the father,
somewhat dryly.

“At his age? Preposterous!”

“ Matches of that sort are made every day,
and very happy ones.

“Ridiculous, Stanley! And what sort of
person is he for a young lady’s admirer?”

“He is a fine -looking man, And he has
what is better than good looks; what was my
chief recommendation to your favor, my dear
Laura.”

“ What is that?”

“A capital bank account, and documents
representing large properties.”

“You are humble, indeed, if you thought
that your chief claim to my favor.”

“Was it not, Laura?’

A reproachful look, and a sad expression of
the dark eyes.

“«T never thought you loved me, Laura. To
be candid, I thought you married me for my
wealth.”

“You could think that?” .

“You were a beautiful but penniless school-
girl; I was a man of rising fortunes. You were
ambitious, and loved luxury,without the means
of gratifying your tastes. I did not expect
love; I hoped that would come after mar-
riage—”

“As it did,” said the lady, with an effort at
playfulness.

“Tell me, Laura,” added the husband assum-
ing, suddenly, a more serious tone, ‘‘ did you
ever love any man?” ‘

‘What a singular question!”

“T have sometimes thought you had loved
and been disappointed before I met you. You
were often sad and thoughtful. There seemed
a mystery about you—”

“Hush, Stanley; you are talking nonsense,”
cried the wife, tapping his mouth with her fan,
while her cheeks blanched. She always winced
at any allusion to her early life.

“JT repeat it—you never told me anything
of consequence concerning your antecedents.
You were very young; but you had not been
long at school, and you might have had a ro-
mance. I have sometimes thought—”

‘‘ Will you stop this, Stanley? The carriage
must have waited some time, and we are
1 ”»

“Tf I thought you cared for any man more
than me, Laura,” the husband said, while he
wrapped her shawl about her, ‘“‘I should be

 

mad with jealousy ; I believe I should kill
him!”

‘«Be silent! I will not hear such talk!”

‘You know how nearly I killed you, my
darling, that evening in the conservatory. I
meant the blow for that man.”

“And you managed to make him suspected
of the attempt on my life!” Mrs, Burke shud-
dered as she spoke. ‘

“Tt was all in an instant, I snatched up the
knife and should have buried it in his breast
but for you.”

“Don’t speak of that dreadful night! You
promised me—”

“Don’t let that man cross my path again,”
muttered the husband, while his eyes glowed.

“The strangest part of all was his forbearing
to deny the charge.”

Mrs. Burke forced herself to answer, while
she linked her arm in her husband’s and drew
him toward the stairway.

“That was because he was a true gentle-
man and wished to avoid scandal. What
would people say of me if it were known that
my husband was jealous to that extent?”

“‘ And he had such a care for you!” groaned
Mr, Burke, his face darkening. ‘‘A stranger,
too!—”

‘““Come; I will not hear another word! I
want to forget that horror! It stabbed me
worse than the knife.”

“You must forgive me, Laura! But I
could not love you as I do and not be ready to
kill any man who aspired to your favor,”

They went out, and the banker helped his
elegant wife into the carriage. Clara was al-
ready there, and Leon on the box seat. Their
father promised to follow them at a later hour,

They were engaged to a large “silver wed-
ding” in Fifth avenue, where there was to be
dancing, and they were splendid in party cos-
tume,

Clara wore a fleecy cloud of pale blue tissue,
with white misty overskirt of double tulle;
pearls in her hair, and on her neck and arms.

Mrs. Burke had on a mauve corded silk,
with flounces of point applique, and a point
lace shawl to cover the low corsage, She
wore diamonds, but not the full set.

It was a brilliant party; and in an hour
Clara was promenading the rooms, leaning on
the arm of a distinguished-looking man whom
she had met at nearly every ball during the
season.

The Hon. Cyril Hampton, a younger son of
the Earl of Fitzherbert, had been spending
several months in the United States. He had
“done” the continent to California and back;
but had found nothing half so attractive as the
banker’s soft-eyed daughter.

Of late his attentions had been so marked as
to give her father no little uneasiness, as men-
acing the overturning of his plans.

The two young people were slowly making
the circuit of the drawing-rooms, when a sud-
den start of the young lady directed the atten-
tion of her escort to some new arrivals. They
both saw Mr. Burke, side by side with another
gentleman, greeted by the ladies of the house.
The companion of the banker was Erastus
Hammond, and his eyes were already sweeping
the rooms in search of Clara.

“‘ Quick, this way,” she exclaimed, and passed
with young Hampton into a side-room, where
a table was set out containing the gifts in silver
plate, brought by various guests.

There was also a large china bowl of claret
punch, lemonade, and other light refreshments.

Clara did not heed her escort’s invitation to
take something, but hurried him through the
open door at the end of the room, down car-
peted steps into the garden.

This, though of small extent, was filled with
orange and lemon trees, and flowering shrub-
bery, kept all winter in hot-houses, and now
set forth to adorn the premises.

The trees were illuminated, and several pairs
of the guests were walking about.

“T wanted to escape that man,” said Clara,
when they stopped beside an aquarium and a
fountain throwing aloft its silvery spray.
“Papa seems infatuated with him.”

“Who is the stranger? I have seen him so
often at your house,” said the young English-
man,

“A Mr. Hammond; some commercial person
who has recommended himself to papa. He
has lately come from Europe or the West, I
understand.”

‘And he has hopes of gaining your favor,
Miss Burke; I can see that.”

“Tecan not fancy your seeing any thing so
absurd!” pouted Clara, ‘‘He is as old as my
father.”

“ But he is a very handsome man, and cer-
tainly not more than middle-aged. Your fa-
ther likes him vastly; that is a long step to-
ward a prosperous suit.”

‘‘Fathers do not dispose of their daughters
or find them wooers, in this country,” observed
the girl.

“Do they not?”

“Certainly not. That absurd custom be-
longs to your land, Mr, Hampton. Girls are
free to choose, in America.”

“A valuable privilege. But fathers and
mothers have influence?”

“None at all, if exercised in such quarters;
and only suitors who can make no way for
themselves invoke their aid.”

“A young lady, then, is the arbitress of her
own destiny.”

“ Yes.”

‘“‘And you are so, Miss Burke, though so
young. He willbe a happy man who can win
your favor.”

Clara was busy poking at the aquarium and
made no immediate reply.

When she looked up, at length, she made a
movement, as if to follow some of the other
stragglers.

 

“Stay, Clara!” said the young man, seizing
her hand. ‘‘TI can not lose this opportunity of
telling you what has been filling my heart for
a long while past. I am bold, I know; over-
bold, perhaps; for I have little to offer beyond
the truest and most fervent affection; but—”

The girl dew her hand away, and averted
her face.

“You turn from me, Clara; is it that you
scorn my love? Perhaps I have offended you
by my abruptness.”

“No, no,” murmured the girl, again stoop-
ing to the aquarium.

“T have sought an opportunity of asking
your father’s consent to address you. Iam of
honorable birth, but I have no wealth; only a
moderate competence. That might be an ob-
jection with your father; would it be fatal to
my hopes of winning you? Clara, give me
some hope! Say at least you do not dislike
me!”

“Dislike you, Mr. Hampton! How could
I?” replied the girl, innocently, iifting her eyes
to his face.

“Dearest, I ask more than that assurance.
If I could hear you say you love me!”

He had taken her hand again, and passed
the other around her waist. Her head droop-
ed lower, but she offered no resistance.

“Could you return my love, Clara?” he ask-
ed, passionately gazing into her face.

She gave him one shy look, but it was elo-
quent with feeling. He clasped her in his
none and pressed the kiss of betrothal on her
ips.

“My own, my dearest! My bride!” he mur-
mured, again and again embracing her. She
drew herself from his arms and glanced timid-
ly round.

“We must go in,” she said, ‘‘and find Mrs.
Burke. You shall see my father to-morrow.”

“‘Give me ten minutes more of rapture to-
night,” cried the impassioned young lover, once
more pressing her to his heart. .

Neither of them saw two dark figures de-
scending the steps behind them. They heard
nothing, till Mr. Burke took his daughter’s arm,
and sternly drew her away.

‘“‘This is no place for you, Clara,” he said,
angrily. ‘Iam surprised and displeased.”

“Oh, sir, Mr. Burke,” exclaimed the English-
man, ‘‘do not be offended! Clara has made me
so happy! We only want your approval—”

‘Which you shall never have, young gentle-
man!” returned the father, in his sternest tones.
‘“‘My daughter will dispense with your escort,
Mr. Hampton. I will take her back into the
house, My dear, your mother was asking for
you!”

Hammond stood at the foot of the steps. He
had not advanced when the tableau met his view.

“ But you will hear me,” persisted the lover.
‘*T have a claim to her now; the right of mu-
tual affection. She is my affianced wife.”

Mr. Burke drew the girl further away.

“My daughter,” ‘he replied, ‘‘is affianced to
no man without her father’s consent, and I
have chosen her husband.”

“Yes, myself,” added Hammond, boldly ad-
vancing, and extending his hand toward Clara.
She recoiled from him terrified.

‘Oh, papa!” was her piteous protest.

“Clara, my love,” pleaded the young English-
man, ‘‘I appeal to you. Will you be made
faithless to me?”

‘No, no!” exclaimed the girl, wrenching her
arm from her father’s grasp, and giving her
hand to her lover. ‘‘ Papa will not separate us.
Lam yours.”

She cast a look of loathing on her elderly
suitor, who smiled triumphantly. Mr. Burke
again took her arm.

“This is no place for such a scene,” he cried.
“Clara, Icommand you to come with me. I
shall take you home.”

He compelled her to go up the steps, but she
turned and gave Cyril Hampton a look that
was reassuring. The next moment she was in
the cloak room, It was yet early, and but a
few guests were departing.

“May we not stay to supper, papa?” the girl
asked. ‘See, the company is going into the
supper-room.”

‘* Allow me to escort Miss Burke,” put in
Hammond, offering his arm. But she shrunk
from him,

‘No, sir; papa will take me.”

“You have displeased me, Clara,” said the
father. ‘If you wish to make some atone-
ment, and show that my wishes are sacred, you
will go with Mr. Hammond.”

‘7 would prefer not.”

“Then we will return home immediately, I
will come back for your mother.”

In silent sorrow Clara put on her cloak and
hood, and took her father’s arm, not noticing
the offered attention of the other gentleman,
But he entered the carriage with them, and she
did not remonstrate.

(To be continued.)

 

 

BEAUTY OF THE ATLANTIC Wavzs,—Noth-
ing can be more superb than the green of the
Atlantic waves when the circumstances are
favorable to the exhibition of the color. As
long as a wave. remains unbroken no color ap-
pears; but when the foam just doubles over
the crest, like an Alpine snow-cornice; under
the exquisite green, it is metallic in its brillian-
cy. But the foam is necessary to its produc-
tion. The foam is first illuminated, and it
scatters light in all directions; the light which
passes through the higher portion of the wave
alone reaches the eye, and gives to that por-
tion its matchless color. The folding of the
wave, producing, as it does, a series of longi-
tudinal protuberances and furrows, which act
like cylindrical lenses, introduces variations
in the intensity of the light and materially en-
hances its beauty.

 

 

 

==

eo

ae ae

|

 
 

 

i

 

 

=

ae

 

 

 

 

BGHELLES AND BHAUX.

 

[Marcu 14, 1874.

 

 

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1874.

 

 

Terms to Subscribers:
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fe cts atemnonihige Sent oe eee ea
«three months, - - - - - - - 1.00
To Ciuss :—Five copies for one year for $20.00, and one extra copy
to the person remitting.
Single copies, 10 cents. Specimen numbers sent, prepaid, for 10
cents.
Address all remittances and communications to
BELLES AND BEAUX,
98 William Street, New York.

 

 

AccreptEp: ‘‘ The Heart’s Call;” ‘“‘ Just in Time;’’
* A Novice in Flirting;” ‘‘ The True Life;” ‘‘ A Dou-
ble Faith; ‘‘ The Pretty Fortune-Teller;’’ ‘‘ Rob,

My Friend;’’ Miss Lamont’s Best Conquest.”

 

DeEcLINED: ‘‘The Doomed Ship;” ‘‘ The Last of
the Smiths; ‘‘A Big Meal; ‘* Henry Manners;”’
‘*I See Her Now;”’ “A Spirit-Face;” ‘‘Met and
Won;” ‘‘ Hope and Hope;” ““Tf "were So;” ‘‘ Max
Romer’s Little Affair.’

 

Sunshine Papers.
DON’T DO IT.

IRLS, don’t do it!
‘e Gentlemen say that we women are
contrary creatures—if so, we are very
like them, eh?—and when their eyes scan this
column, they will doubtless exclaim:

“<¢Don’t do it!’ just as if the girls will not
be sure to do it after reading that.”

But they are unjust. Weare not contrary,
like them, for the mere sake of being contrary,
but only when we are assured of the correct-
ness of a position and are determined to main-
tain it When you have read this to the end,
and thoroughly canvassed the pros and cons of
the subject it suggests, by the light of your
own experience, kind-heartedness, and good
sense, I am sure there will be scores—nay,
hundreds—of girls who will concur heartily in
my ‘‘don’t do it;” and laugh triumphantly at
their gentlemen friends who have dared to as-
sert that femininism is synonymous with con-
trariety.

Don’t do it! Don’t make a fancy-dress show
ot the school-room., The girl who attends a
seminary or academy for the sake of exhibiting
her dresses and jewelry will get equal good,
and do most good, by remaining at home. If
she attends for the purpose of really gaining
knowledge, she will be quite as happy, quite
as able to study, in a neat, inexpensive dress
as in a flounced silk.

‘You will.answer that you wear what is pro-
vided for you. True, and possibly—in not
many cases probable, however—you may have
had no voice in the matter of your costume;
still, were you to ask to have your school-dress
made of plain alpaca or plaids, would not your
mother readily consent?

Elegant and showy dress in the school-room
is offensive to good taste, detrimental to ear-
nest efforts after intellectual culture, and a
breach of the Golden Rule.

An American lady recently traveling in Eu-
rope brings back this discreditable report con-
cerning the girls of our own land. In Ger-
many several fine seminaries have refused ad-
mission to American girls, because these young
ladies dress so showily, and devote so much
time to their personal appearance, that they
distract the attention of the other pupils, and
are not able to make equally rapid and thor-
ough advancement in the higher grades of
study.

Girls, will you shut yourselves out from high
intellectual attainments by false taste concern-
ing school-dress? While reading the above
fact, I earnestly wished, for the sake of my
country’s honor, and her daughters’ future de-
velopment, that all school-girls had as sensible
a mother as had two classmates of mine. We
attended a large and fashionable school, but
Rachel and Rosa were always dressed with ex-
ceeding plainness. Sometimes, when I looked
at their dark suits, almost devoid of trimming;
plain linen collars fastened with a neat gold
pin; and smoothly-hanging braids of hair, I
marveled at their simple costume, for they
were Jewesses and children of very wealthy
parents. I knew that in variety and costliness
of jewelry they could have exceeded most of
their mates; yet they never displayed even a
ring at school. One day, Rosa and I, entering
the laboratory arm-in-arm, overheard the re-
mark:

‘‘Tsn’t it queer Rosa and Rachel Linderhoff
dress so meanly when they are so rich, and
wear such elegant clothes and jewels else-
where?”

Rosa answered, quietly:

‘‘Ladies, the reason we dress ‘so meanly’ is,
because my mother says that school is not the
proper place to display jewelry. That we
meet here on one level, to seek for knowledge;
and that it is very bad taste for one girl to try
to dress better than her schoolmates.”

Sensible mother, and noble daughters, who
fully acquiesced in her views.

To-day, Rachel and Rosa, school-girls no lon-
ger, grace the most fashionable gatherings of
this city in robes suited to their style and
wealth.

In a certain French class, in that same school,
were girls who could describe every piece of
jewelry worn by their fellow students, and the
amount and kind of trimming on each dress,
but who stumbled outrageously over the gender
of the simplest nouns. If our minds are filled
with the respective merits of pleatings and
flounces; silks and merinos; amethysts and em-
eralds; we are not likely to be equally well up

 

in rhetoric and history, literature and lan-
guages.

While we are school-girls we must either ex-
clude ‘‘ the styles ” from the school-room, or be
content with a superficial knowledge of the lan-
guages and sciences we attempt to master.

In a fashionable school, in a large and
wealthy city, nearly two hundred pupils gather
daily. The principal earnestly endeavors to
discourage showy and costly dress; yet many
of the young ladies, regardless of his wishes,
vie with each other in the elegance of their
toilets and the costliness of their jewelry. It
is a first-class school. Any pupil entering it,
with a firm determination to acquire knowl-
edge, can obtain a thorough school education.
Thus it happens that there are often among its
pupils girls who have not been reared in opu-
lence, and who, not seldom, have entered the
school at the cost of many home sacrifices.
They cannot dress like their mates; and, some-
times, that one outward evidence of monetary
differences renders their school life a series of
wounds, daily and hourly received at the hands
of their fortune-favored fellow students.

Girls, you know—and I know—that there
are no saints among us. A careless, sneering
scrutiny of our appearance; a haughty stare; a
withheld recognition; a scornful, patronizing
acknowledgment of our presence; will wound,
even the best of us. We may be ever so reso-
lute in our intention to care for study alone;
we may be self-conquerors to a degree that
shall enable us to move quietly on our way,
despite neglect and scorn; we may marbleize
our manners and features until we can bear
slights and coldness without an added or de-
creased tinge of coloring in our cheek, a. flash
of our eye, a trembling lip, or an unsteady
nerve. But we cannot marbleize our rudely
touched sensibilities, and quivering, wounded
hearts.

I doubt not many a girl, strong of will, but
delicately sensitive to scornful treatment, has
broken down beneath ‘the strain under which
she was forced to work in a fashionable school.

Iremember a friend, a dear little creature
she was, whose memories of a year passed in a
large boarding-school, where the pupils were
better dressed than she, forms a very dark
spot in her life. She wrote home, at last, for
a dress, a new dress, to wear at examination.
The answer came:

“My child, we cannot afford it.”

It was a bitter, bitter day when she wore
the old, best, dark-blue-stuff dress the girls
had smiled at so often, among their costly silks
and snowy organdies.

Another school-girl’s life comes back to me.
At sixteen she entered a high-priced seminary,
and became an earnest student. Sweet tem-
pered, petite, and pretty, she was beloved by
all the teachers and many of the pupils. Out-
wardly her school life seemed pleasant. But
there were many who passed her coldly and
neglectfully; lacking that true politeness the
exercise of which would have taught them to
care for her for what she was, and not for
what she wore.

In vain she told herself such friendships were
worthless; the cuts would wound; and the
wish would come, that her cheap and slightly
outre garments were more like their handsome-
ly trimmed robes. But her school-bills were a
heavy item in the home economy; and she
never breathed a word of regret, nor a request
for one additional cent to be expended on her
meager wardrobe.

Perseveringly she conquered, alike, herself
and her studies; winning, at last, the princi-
pal’s encomium:

“Hers was the most beautiful school-life I
ever knew.”

She succeeded where many have failed.
You, girls, can do much toward aiding such as
she. Will you not?

Do you, my dear girl, aim at genuine woman-
liness, true nobility, high intellectual culture,
for yourself and your young American sister-
hood? Then resolve that you will frown upon
the uselessness of showy dress among students.
I say of such manner of adorning, ‘‘ Don’t do
it!” F

Will not a vast chorus of voices respond—
“We will not do it!”

A Parson’s DAUGHTER.

COULEUR DE ROSE.
HEN dawn first opens her sleepy eyes,
And looks drowsily over the world
below,
Where the Alps tower proudly toward the skies,
A beautiful blush rests with rosy glow
On their topmost summits; the ruddy snow
Gleams rich and warm, as the shadows fade
And soften in sunshine, smiling low
*Neath the dull, cold glacier, whose icy shade
Not even the noon-light may dare to invade.

In an eastern sea, where the wavelets curl
Softly and lovingly over the strand,

’Neath the self-same billow that hides the pearl,
Lies a lovely shell, such as Northern land
Ne’er chanced to imagine, nor mortal hand

Could venture to paint; for the wondrous hue
Of that tender carmine, the fairy wand

Of our mother nature, so old, so new,

Has tinted alone ’neath the salt sea-blue.

Where the bulrush bows lowly his turbaned
head,
And the fern droops soft by the streamlet’s
side, j
Where the shallow glides lazily over its bed,
’Tis there that the kingfisher loves to hide
Her rose-pink eggs; there the timid bride
With loving instinct prepares her nest;
While her mate, swift skimming above the
tide,
Dips his azure winglets and russet breast,
As he, arrow-like, darts on his finny quest,

 

 

Oh! full and warm is the fairy glow
Which the shell’s rich color brings out of the

sea;
And pure and soft is the roseate snow,
As it glimmers on high when the shadows
flee;
And the kingfisher’s egg, pink as pink can be,
Is fair to behold; but a lovelier sight
Have I seen this eve, when, beneath the tree,
She gave me a rosebud, and, blushing bright
With a rosier red, whispered: ‘‘ Love! good-
night!” Cay,

 

The Letter-Box.

[All inquiries to be answered by the editor of this department
should be directed to “‘ Letter-Box,”’ BELLES anD Bzaux, 98 William
Street, New York.

The department is open to inquiries after information upon all sub-
jects appertaining to the Household, the School-Room, the Garden, the
Nursery, ete.

It is equally open to persons of both sexes, who, in “affairs of the
heart,” wish counsel and direction. The editor’s eminent qualifica-
tions for such confidences the publishers are sure none will question.

The end and aim being to render Tue Letter Box useful, in the
highest degree, gives to correspondents the widest latitude in their in-
quiries upon all subjects or matters proper for reply.]

 

 

G. P. E. The dealer always makes the trump in
euchre, unless he ‘‘passes,’’ when the next one
makes it.

Satire D. 8. Have answered by mail.
Essrz. A plain gold ring will cost you $2.50,

ARTFUL. There is no mode of redress. If the
lady has ‘‘ jilted ’’ you, scorn to notice her. If she
has believed lies it is her own great mistake,

BEssiz G. Simplicity in dress compels you to use
superior material for the dress, for you must re-
member that any article devoid of all trimmings is
admired for the beauty of its quality alone. ‘he
material must, therefore, be irreproachable on that
score; while any toilet, elegantly trimmed, will at-
tract admiration, without necessitating so great an
expenditure for the material itself.

James L. (Rochester, N. Y.) You will find the
work you want in any good library. The extract
would be too long for us to give it entire, and you
already have the sense of it. You had better refer
to the book.

G. F. N. (New York) writes:

‘*Please inform me of a receipt that will remove
all freckles and roughness from my face. Am rather
slim, good health, dark complexion, skin never
chaps, but wish to make it clearer, if I can, without
injury.”

As arule we are opposed to the use of cosmetics,
believing air, exercise, and clear, cold water to be
the best lotions for every complexion, but we give
two receipts that are good, if you wish to try them:

ah out an ounce and a half of the best leaf-lard.
add half an ounce of spermaceti and two ounces of
oil of almonds. Melt all together over a slow fire,
oe while melting; add three ounces of onion
juice, fresh, and stir, off the fire, till cool. Scent
with oil of bergamot or lavender. Use freely on the
skin, putting on a little to remain overnight, and
wash off in the morning with clear lukewarm water,
A still more simple remedy is to shake together in a
bottle equal parts of liquid glycerine and rose-water,
till well-mixed. Apply to the skin overnight, and
wash off in clear, lukewarm water in the morning.
If your skin roughens or freckles easily, you should
always wear a vail or broad-rimmed hat in very sun
ny, or in very windy weather. The winds of March
and November are very trying to the skin.

G. E. H. Our advice to you would be to settle
down and convince the lady in question that you
are sincere in your premises of reform and future
steadiness. You are.young enough to allow her to
test your resolution and sincerity for a year or two
before you urge her again to answer your suit.

GENIE writes :

‘*T have been keeping company for some time past
with a young man, who insulted me the other even-
ing by calling me a flirt; he would neither prove it or
take his words back; therefore, I called our ac-
quaintance to a finale. Will you tell me if I did
right, for I still think a great deal of him, and
whether or no I should ask for the return of my pic-
ture, which he has. He is very independent, and 1,
thinking of it, acted on the impulse of the moment,
to claim independence also. I hope you will not
cast this aside and call it foolish, as it may seem
to you.’

ou should have been less hasty, if you had a real
tenderness for your friend, in terminating the ac-
quaintance so abruptly. As matters stand, it is
certainly his place to apologize for using the words
that annoyed you. If you are really desirous of
ending your acquaintance, you should certainly
have your picture restoredto you. The demand for
its return may prove to him that he has really
offended you, and bring the desired apology. Are
you quite sure you gave him no reason to think you
were flirting?

Country Girt (Barrington, Mass.) asks:

“If I am making a call and have been only a mo-
ment seated, but know from sounds outside the door
that my hostess is needed, should I ge away, or tell
her not to let me detain her. Which is etiquette?”

Etiquette, strictly speaking, will allow you to do
either one or the other. If your hostess is an old
friend you might tell her you will wait her return,
but if a recent acquaintance, it is better to shorten

our call, If you hear the servant calling that the
itchen boiler has burst, or the baby has fallen in a
tub of water, you may be quite sure qa". hurried

leave-taking and departure will be readily excused.

SNowpDROP ao Del.) We give you the desired
receipt for Essence of Jockey Club, at the same
time advising you to procure the perfume already
prepared from any first class druggist:

To half a pint of extract of tuberose add one gill
of éxtract of cassia, two ounces of extract of civet,
half a pint of the best rose-water, and two ounces
of extract of jasmine. Mix well together and strain
through flannel.

MaxrIitan (Wheeling, Va.) asks:

‘“* What is the meaning of the phrase, ‘Dum spiro
spero,’ upon the seal of a letter? and where can I
find the lines:

‘*** Where ignorance is bliss,
Tis folly to be wise.’”’

‘* Dum spiro spero” is a Latin phrase, and signi-
fies (on the seal of a letter, or anywhere else),
‘* While I breathe, I hope.”

The lines quoted are from Gray’s ‘Ode on a dis-
tant prospect of Eton College.”

Mo..iz (Pittsburg, Pa.) asks for a cure for very ten-
der corns. One of the,simplest remedies in use, and
which soothes, while it cures, is pure Castor oil.
Pare the corns closely every night, and bind them
up in linen rags saturated in the oil. In time the
corns will soften and become like the flesh around
them. Persevere and the corn will disappear.

Bessie (Newcastle, Del.) asks:

‘Ts jet and bead trimming still worn?’

Yes. We all glitter like a jeweler’s shop with the
gimps, fringes and embroideries of beads and jets.
One of the economies practiced since the panic is
the covering of defaced braid and velvet trimmin,
with a and beads set on in a pattern; black
and steel being both used. When neatly done, the
effect is very good, and as it is rapidly done and the
beads are not expensive, a new trimming is thus ob-
tained from an old one. The hats exhibit all kinds
of jet and steel ornaments.

Detos (New York,) writes :

“T have seen lately avery fine oil painting of the
scene between Alexander the Great and Diogenes,
but Ido not know what the scene signifies. Will
you kindly inform me?”

We presume the picture represents the celebrated

scene in which Alexander sought the Cynic. Plu-
tarch relates the anecdote: ‘“‘ Alexander, when in
Corinth, after being appointed to command the
army of the Greeks against the Persians, received
the congratulations of the populace. Haying heard
much of Diogenes, he was anxious to see him, but
the cynic did not present himself. Finding he was
not coming, Alexander went to seek him, and found
him sitting in the sun beside his tub.

‘‘T am Alexander the Great,” he said.

“And I am Diogenes the Cynic,” was the reply.

“What service can I render you?” the monarch
asked.

“Stand from between me and the sun,” was the
remarkable reply.

Turning from him, Alexander exclaimed to the
Bron of courtiers who were listening:

“Were I not Alexander I would wish to be Dio-
genes!”’

.Any good biographical or classical dictionary will
give you a fuller account than our space permits.

Lawton (Portland, Vt.) writes:

“Will you give me the play, act and scene in Shaks-
peare, where the line, ‘When Greek encounters
Greek, then comes the tug of war,’ occurs? Ihave
looked and looked, and cannot find it.”

No wonder, if you confined your search to Shaks-
peare. The line is not there. In Lee’s ‘* Alexander,”
you will find the line, ‘‘ When Greeks joined Greeks
then was the tug of war.”

CREIGHTON (Cincinnati, O.) writes:

‘I am sincerely attached to a young lady whom I
have known from childhood, and Ithink she loves
me. Iam ina good situation, but my salary is in-
sufficient for the support of two. So not wishing
to enter into a long engagement, I have waited until
my worldly prospects improved before declaring
myself. But I am in trouble now. About two
months ago the lady’s uncle-died and left her thirty
thousand dollars. Having waited so long, I am
afraid if I speak now, she will think the money influ-
ences me, while its only value to me would be that
we could marry without fear of want. I think she
expects me to propose, for she talks of the money
leaving her unchanged and says she don’t see what
difference it makes whether a man or his wife is the
richest. Will you advise me what to do?”

Our advice would be to state your case to the
lady’s father or guardian, with the request that, if
your addresses are accepted, the money be solely
under the control of the lady. Ifyou have been
constant in your love for so many years, and she
knows your means have not authorized you to mar-
ry, she will not suspect you of any mercenary
motive.

Frankness and truth will generally carry their
own weight in all love affairs, and are the very life
of all sincere, true affection.

MaAseEt (St. Paul, Minn.) writes:

‘Will you help a country lassie who is too far
from any scouring establishment to send her goods
to be cleaned? have several white feathers that
are very much soiled, and 1 want some directions
for cleansing and curling them.”

Procure quarter of a pound of the best white soap
and grate it upon a bread-grater. Put it in a basin
and paar over it three pints of boiling water. Stir
it till the soap is all dissolved, and let it stand until
warm enough to feel pleasant to the hand; then beat
ittoalather. Tiethe ends of your feathers into a
bunch, and put the tips and feathers into the lather,
squeezing and pressing with the hands, avoiding
any rubbing or a Rinse in clear hot water.
Repeat this process till the feathers are thoroughly
cleansed. Dry the feathers and prepare a solution
of Spanish white and hot water. Plunge the fea-
thers into this two or three times, and rinse in clear
hot water. While the feathers are still damp, curl
them over the blunt edge of a knife.

The process requires great care and patience, but
we have seen feathers so cleaned that were as white
and beautiful as when they were new. It prevents
the straggling look cleaned feathers are apt to have,
to clean them in bunches, instead of separately, and
to press together, instead of apart when squeezing.

CLavupE MELNoTTE (Macon, Ga.) There is a play
called ‘Zara,’ by Aaron Hill, (a tragedy,) but we
believe it is in little use inmodern dramatic repre-
sentations.

JARED (Jefferson, O.) You can obtain what you
require at any hardware store. An order sent to
the city would probably be filled for you.

C. C. T. (Elizabeth, N. J.) C. O. D. means Cash on
Delivery or Collect on Delivery, and is put upon par-
cels, whose value is to be collected when the goods
are delivered, whether in the same city or at a dis-
“tance.

Mrs. B. (Peekskill.) Try Camphor Ice.

Minnrz (Boston, Mass.) You do not state whether
the ivory box you wish to clean is simply soiled; or
discolored by siains. Ifit is only dirty, make alath-
er of white soap, lukewarm water, and spirits of
ammonia, and scrub it with a soft brush. If it is
stained, put it while damp, after cleaning, under a
glass shade, and expose it to the sun. Wet it occa-
sionally with clear water and ae it in the sun.
After a few days the stains will bleach out.

Ifthe ivory has a plain surface, use soft flannel
instead of a brush, but if it is carved the brush is
necessary.

BELLE (New Haven.) Yes, the straight linen col-
lar, with turn-down ends, is worn here with the
morning dress, and heavy street wraps, though the
ruffle is still inhighfavor. Striped and dotted linen
is very fashionable for these collars, and the cuffs
sa oor have turn-down corners as well as the
collars.

D. T. (Harrisburg, Pa.) Consulta physician. The
trouble is far too serious to be neglected or left to
unprofessional advice. We should think the child
needed the best treatment at once, and are of
deme that you treat the matter too lightly in ap-
plying to us.

Pya@mMaion (Tompkinsville, Ky,) writes:

‘*Can you tell me the meaning of the word ‘ The-
atins?? I find reference to it in a work I am inter-
ested in as a religious order, and would like to know
the exact definition.”

Theatins, according to Webster, were an order of
Italian monks, established in 1524, expressly to op-
pose the Reformation, and to raise the tone of
piety among Roman Catholics: They hold no prop-
erty, nor do they beg, but depend on what Provi-
dence sends. Their chief employment is preaching
and giving religious instruction. At one time, they
attempted missions to Tartary and Georgia, in Asia,
but soon abandoned them. Their name, Theatins,
is derived from Theale, or Chiete, a city of Naples,
the archbishop of which was the principal founder
of the order. But they bore various names, as—
Regular Clerks of the Community, Pauline Monks,
Apostolic Clerks, and Regular Clerks of the Divine
Providence. The order never flourished much out
of Italy.

ReeuLus (Pennington, N. J.) asks:

“Who settles the question when the Senate and
House of Representatives disagree about the proper
time of meeting after adjourning? Doesit depend
upon majority of votes, or how is it decided?”

It rests in such a case with the President. Sec-
tion 3, 4
United States, provides:

‘* When the two Houses of Congress cannot, them-
selves, agree upon the time to which they shall ad-
journ, the President is authorized to adjourn them
to such time as he may think proper.”

CapET (Tarrytown) asks:

‘« What tactics are used in the United States Ma-
rine Corps?”

Upton’s Tactics, the same as are used for the In-
fantry drill in the United States Army.

Eee, (Harlem, N. Y.) asks:

“Where can I find the verse:

‘““*Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shal)
come in.’ I knowit is in the Psalms, but I want the

 

exact verse?”
You will find it in Psalm xxiy,, 9th verse,

 

aragraple 446, of the Constitution of the.

 

 

 

seense cereal iy

a

*

\
 

 

 

;

aassrnennengeca ences

mae mt

saciid

 

Marcu 14, 1874.]

BGHELLES AND BEAUX.

 

THE SPELL OF DEATH.

BY L, C. GREENWOOD,

 

 

Break not the spell that holds me now;
A fever burns upon my brow;

And oh, a breath of sweet perfume
Comes fioating softly in my room.

As were a thousand censers swung,

I hear notes lisped by cherub tongue,
And all the stars that long have shone
Seem but to shine on me alone;

The brightest ones have formed a crown,
Sweet angels seem to bear it down;

Jt throws a halo ’round my brow—
Break not the spell that holds me now.

- I feel myself a rising up,
To me is held the blissful cup
Of everlasting life above,
By angels gentle as a dove.

Farewell, with earth I now am done:

My life’s hour-glass has ceased to run;
Be calm but weep a tear for me,

And I will weep mine ail for thee.

Break not the spell; the cross laid down,
Has placed wpon my brow a crown!

 

KATE DARLING;

THE BELLE OF THE SCHOOL.

CHAPTER XIV.—Continuxp.

AS the boy had intimated, at a short distance
from where Kate stood, there was a tall heap
of sheep hurdles that stood just out of tho
cart-track in the lane.

It was evident that, if Miss Savernake was
coming that way, she must pass through the
lane, and unless she
adopted Pepper’s sug-
gestion, she must in-
evitably be discover-
ed.

Quick as thoug ht
she darted across the
lane and gained the
hurdle-heap, narrowly
escaping a slip into a
deep and ugly-looking
pool of black and stag-
nant water as she did
So.

 

The hurdles were
loosely packed, and
she could see through
the crevices without
herself being seen.

In a few moments
she heard footsteps.

Hurried steps, and
at the same time
breathing quick and
short, as of one who
makes hasty flight
with a burden.

Peeping through the
hurdles, Kate watched
her coming with won-
der and alarm.

She had seen Miss
Savernake in a passion
before now, but the
expression of her face
as. it then was, was
angelic compared with
it now.

To a stranger it
might have appeared
that she was a mad-
woman, recently es-
caped from some asy-
lum, or, at least, that
she was an individual
laboring under the in-
fluence of alcoholic
stimulant: J

Muttering to herself,
she came along at a
half-run.

Every step she took
she staggered and
stumbled.

As for her face, it
was as white as paper,
and her eyes were F
bloodshot, and her thin lips were closely
clenched together, as if in cruel, deadly deter-
mination.

But this was not the most remarkable part
of her appearance.

She eke a burden of some kind.

Apparently a heavy burden. ‘

What its nature was Kate strained her eyes
in vain to discover.

The ample gray cloak she wore effectually
covered it, and as she hurried forward she ner-
vously clutched and held together the folds of
it, as though it were something too precious to
be for a moment let loose.

Something that she prized even more dearly

wn life.
emai at that moment, and filled
with devilish spite as she was, such was indeed
the case. m

A something for the possession of which she
had risked her liberty.

Something in which was concentrated all the
pent-up hatred of her venomous breast; all her
hopes of vengeance.

Susan Kavanah’s child!

This it was that Miss Savernake hugged so
jealously beneath her gray cloak and bore off
with all the bloodthirsty triumph of a tigress
who has at length captured the prey she had

g hungered for.
= nea sudden impulse that had prompted
ri wicked deed. :
ee stated, the little thing was at
slay in the garden just at the other side of the
hedee at which she was lurking and watching.
It was lying on a grass mound, at play with

. toy.

 

 

So absorbed was Miss Savernake in watch-
ing with deadly malice the meeting between
the long-severed husband and wife that she
took no notice of the child.

It was not until that last moment, when
poor Dick whispered his woeful story into his
wife’s pitying ears, when after all had been
told, she clasped him to her heart, eager only
now to have him safe. with her in her little ark
of refuge, that Miss Savernake, benumbed
with fury, roused to action.

How could she wreak vengeance—swift, sure
vengeance, on the pair that had so successfully
baffled her villainous machinations?

Her first idea was that she should avail her-
self of the important fact that had leaked out
in the course of poor Dick’s confession, and
seek the constables at once and have him ar-
rested.

It was plain his term of imprisonment was
as yet unexpired.

That he had escaped from some convict sta-
tion, and was now illegally at liberty.

He might be easily arrested on such a
charge.

He might be taken now.

He might be dragged, by the inexorable
hands of the law, literally from her arms.

Miss Savernake licked her lips at this pro-
ject.

It was exactly according to her savage ideas
of what vengeance should be, and she half
started from her crouching position with the
intention of running off at once and seeking
the constable of Denham.

But a sudden thought checked her.

What would John Savory say?

The man whom she hated so deeply, and
who, at the same time, she had such terrible
reasons for fearing.

Would he tamely submit to such an exercise
of her spite and malice on the man who was
his bosom friend?

Did she dare brave and defy him?

No!

Not just yet, at all events.

Her life would be inevitably sacrificed if she
attempted it, and Miss Savernake was not yet
tired of her existence, bitter sweet as was the
fruit it had at present yielded her.

No, she must abandon the precious scheme
she had at first conceived.

In favor of what other?

How else could she adequately repay herself
for the bitter disappointment she had suf-
fered? .

At that very moment her eyes, hungering
for vengeance, lighted on the little child at the
other side of the hedge, and_at once she was
resolved.

There was not a moment to lose.

With a strength that. seemed impossible to
her small white hands, she noiselessly put aside
the tough undergrowth until she had made a
gap sufficiently large for her purpose.

The child’s feet were toward her and within
easy reach. i i

At present it was not in the least aware of
the impending danger.

Miss Savernake stretched out her arms and
with a swift movement drew the child toward
her. It uttered a brief, amazed cry. No more.
It had no time. 2

Dragging the affrighted little fellow through

 

NOW, INDEED, HER PURPOSE COULD NO LONGER BE DOUBTED.

 

the gap in the hedge, Miss Savernake dealt it
a blow on the temple with her clenched hand,
and it at once became insensible,

Then she hurried it under her cloak, and,
with the reckless desperation of a madwoman,
darted by the cottage, and ran.

 

CHAPTER XV.
THE QUEAN’S DEFEAT.

As has been shown, Kate Darling, hiding
behind the hurdle heap, saw her coming.

What could be her purpose? Was it one of
vengeance against her? Had she espied her,
and, in her headlong fury, was about to fall on
and assail her?

This seemed not impossible, and courageous
as she was, Kate felt her heart beat fearfully,
as through the loosely-piled heap of hurdles she
noted the insane glare of the woman’s eye, and
the working of her features.

But in a few moments the daring that was
implanted in her nature asserted itself superior
to her fears, and she grew calm.

“Let her come,” said Kate to herself, reso-
lutely, ‘‘I am younger than she is, but she may
possibly find me her match in strength. If the
worst comes, I think I can make my voice
heard at the cottage yonder, and there is little
fear but poor Dick Kavanah will prove my
friend.”

It was not more than two hundred yards to
the cottage, and Miss Savernake, staggering
under the weight of the mysterious bundle,
drew closer,

What it was that she was carrying Kate
had not the least idea.

 

One thing became speedily apparent. Miss
Savernake was not in quest of her.

At a half-run, and still panting, she got as
far as the hurdle heap, and then paused, and
looking hastily back to make quite sure she
was not pursued, slunk with her load to one
side of it.

Kate rapidly and noiselessly shifted her posi-
tion, so as to put as much distance as possible
between them.

The side on which Miss Savernake was stand-
ing, was the pool before mentioned. A pool,
stagnant and black and deep, and fringed with
elder trees, that cast their shadows into it.

Presently Kate’s ears were greeted with a
low, chuckling laugh of triumph.

‘Ah! a friend in need, a good friend, a safe,
silent friend that will not blab. Curse you
both, convict and convict’s wife; now I may be
quits with you.”

The voice sounded so harsh and diabolical,
that it seemed impossible that it could have
proceeded from the lips of the woman within
twenty feet of her. But there could be no
doubt of it.

Through a chink between the hurdles, Kate
could make out the woman’s figure distinctly.

Could observe her movements. They were
somewhat inexplicable. Her back was toward
the young girl, and Kate could see she rapidly
unfastened the cloak from the neck part, and
let it fall from her shoulders onto the ground,
where it lay in a heap, completely concealing
what she had carried beneath it.

Whatever it was, she stood over it for sev-
eral seconds, as though uncertain as to what
should be the next step,

 

 

 

“Tt must be weighted,” she muttered at
length; ‘it will not lie snug in its muddy bed,
else.”

And then, to Kate’s amazement, she left the
cloak, and went hunting about the black pool.

After some amount of searching, she ap
peared to have discovered what she wanted—
three large and heavy stones.

She brought them in her hands, and laid
them by the heap the gray cloak made on the
ground,

She seemed at a loss for a few moments, but
Kate, closely watching her, saw her then take
her dainty white cambric from her pocket, and
proceed to pack the muddy stones in it, tying
them up, and looping the ends of the handker-
chief,

“That will do, I think,” she muttered, as
she weighed the load in her hand; ‘ there will
be no fear of the convict’s brat rising against
me with this pretty necklace about its throat.”

Then, with the same terrible light in her
eyes, but increased tenfold, she approached the
cloak,

Kate’s eyes had never once ceased to watch
her keenly,

She saw her raise the garment, and then a
cry almost escaped her quivering lips.

There, on the ground, pallid and insensible,
and still as death, lay a little child.

Kate would have rushed out from her hid-
ing-place, but horror kept her spellbound.

She would have screamed aloud for assist-
ance, but her tongue clove to the roof of her
mouth, and she could not articulate a sound.

It was terrible to remain there a silent wit-
ness of such a scene, but she was helpless to do
otherwise. All that
she could do was to
crouch there with her
eyes at the crevice be-
tween the hurdles, and
her hands clasped,
watching.

For a few moments
Miss Savernake stoop-
ed over the prostrate
child, intently regard-
ing it, as though the
task before her was
y too enjoyable to be
\ A wh proceeded with with

-/7 too much haste,

Presently, however,
she went at her devil-
ish work in earnest..

She brought the
stones in the handker-
chief, and by means
of the loop she had
previously tied in it,
she attached it to the
child’s throat, and
made a knot hard and
fast.

This done, she gave
a hasty glance about
her, to make sure that
she was not observed,
and then catching up
the insensible child in
her arms, advanced
with it to the verge of
the black and_ silent
pool.

Now, indeed, her
diabolical purpose
could no longer be
doubted,

It was the dreadful”
suspicion that Miss
Savernake’s fell pur-
pose was murder, that
had held Kate Darling
helpless,

Now that she was
convinced that such
was the fact, however,
the spell was broken,

With one shrill cry
she sprung forward.

Not an instant too
soon,

Already had the
would-be murderess raised the poor little thing
above her head, so as to make sucha fling with
it as should insure its alighting in the very
center of the deep, stagnant water.

In another moment it would have been gone,

In that moment the brave girl sprung for-
ward, and with a hard, nervous grip, caught
Miss Savernake round the throat, with both
her hands, and with desperate strength, flung
her backward. :

Next moment the still insensible child was
safe in Kate’s arms.

With a little penknife she always carried,
she cut the weighted handkerchief from its
neck, and pressed it to her bosom.

Ina flash, as it were, the real state of the
case appeared to be revealed to her.

This was Susan Kavanah’s child,

The poor little thing she had heard spoken
of so frequently by the girls at the school, ;

Was it already dead ?

Had Miss Savernake already finished her '
murderous design before she approached the
pool, and was her object in sinking it there
only a convenient way of concealing the body?

Thank God, however, it was not so badeas*
that.

As Kate pressed the little creature to her
warm bosom, and kissed its pale lips, it stirred
to life, and opening its eyes, began to cry,

: From first to last, the frustration of Miss
Savernake’s fiendish purpose, and the rescue of
the child, had not occupied ten seconds, and
the baffled woman still lay on the ground, half
stunned and bewildered with the suddenness ©
in cad of the attack that had been made _
on her,

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pre

ZO

 

BELLES AND BHAUYX.

 

 

 

“God be praised, the crime of murder has
been spared you,” exclaimed Kate, addressing
Miss Savernake, who, with gathering rage fill-
ing her staring eyes, was hatefully regarding
her. ‘You inhuman woman! think not that
this act of infamy shall go unpunished. You
shall be speedily placed in the hands of the
law, and I will bear witness against you.”

And she rose to her feet, and was hurrying
away to restore the ¢hild to its parents,

Miss Savernake’s harsh, croaking voice, how-
ever, commanding her to stay, brought her to
a standstill.

Hitherto she had not spoken a word, or ut-
tered a sound.

It would be difficult to picture anything
more appalling than the expression of her face
as she addressed Kate Darling.

“Tt is you again, eh? I might have expected
no other. You will not be warned, then?”

“Warned of what?’ Kate asked, indignant-
ly.
“Of the danger of thwarting me or crossing
my path,” returned Miss Savernake, slowly ris-
ing. ‘‘ Where are you going? What are you
about to do?”

‘Can you ask? What, but to restore to its
parents this poor babe, of which your murder-
ous hands would, but for me, have robbed
them.”

“ Ay, there you speak truth,” returned Miss
Savernake, vindictively.

“You confess it?’ And, pressing the child
closer to her, Kate recoiled from the terrible
woman. ‘Great Heaven! surely you must be
mad.”

“Ay, as mad as vengeance unappeased can
make one,” said Miss Savernake, grimly. ‘‘I
repeat frankly to you, Miss Darling, that, had
it not been for your interference, the child you
now hold in your arms would, by this time,
have been lying in the oozy bed of this black
ditch. You see, I am not afraid to speak my
mind, Miss Darling, to you.”

She laid such stress on the last word, at the
same time fixing her eyes on the young girl so
meaningly, that Kate was amazed.

** And why not to me?” she asked, indignant-
ly.
“ Because, Miss Darling, beautiful Miss Dar-
ling, I know that I run no risk in doing so.”

“ How?”

“You will keep my secret.”

“There you are mistaken,” returned Kate,
speaking hurriedly. ‘‘Should you, base wo-
man, imagine that I am so weak and timid—”

Miss Savernake laughed a brief, ugly laugh,
that gave an expression to her thin-lipped
mouth, that was curiously cat-like.

“Tt is neither on your weakness nor your
timidity that I rely for security as regards
your betraying me,” she remarked, sneeringly.

“On what, then?’

“You are young, but you are sensible and
shrewd. You are not the girl to run your head
into danger with your eyes open. I beg par-
don, I should rather have said after your eyes
have been opened.”

“ Well. ”

“‘T am about to open your eyes, Miss Dar-
ling.”

“To what?”

“To the folly, to the danger of saying one
word to my detriment of what you have just
witnessed.”

The woman spoke with such perfect calm-
ness, and in a tone that betokened such perfect
confidence that she would be able to maintain
the position she had assumed, that Kate grew
more frightened even than before.

“You are endeavoring to work on my
fears,” she replied. ‘‘I do wrong in staying
here for a moment to listen to you. Bear in
mind that your threats will have no effect on
me, and that I will, as speedily as I can, do as I
have already declared.”

“And what is that?”

“Give you up to justice.”

And she turned away, and took a few hur-
ried steps in the direction of the cottage.

But Miss Savernake’s coolness and confidence
had not yet deserted her.

‘‘ Just one last word,” said she, mockingly.
‘Since you are so cruelly disposed, Miss Dar-
ling, I may not have the opportunity of speak-
ing freely to you again.”

** But one word, then.”

“Have you forgotten the few brief words
that passed between us this morning?”

“The words—what words?”

“T will tell you. We each have our se-
crets.”

Kate turned away contemptuously.

“T am not a child, to be terrified by the
empty threats of so vile a woman as yourself.”

“Then you will denounce me?”

“* Ay, most surely I will.”

“You will tender your testimony against
me?”

“ Rely on it.”

“Have you calculated what its value will
be?”

Kate’s face flushed indignantly, and she was
about to reply when Miss Savernake, who had
been gradually approaching her, laid a hand on
her arm, and stopped her.

‘“‘Shall I tell you a secret, Miss Darling ?”
said she. ‘Shall it be discussed quietly be-
tween us, or will you fetch your police consta-
ble, and compel me to make it known to those
that’ would shun and despise you if they knew
it?”

Kate trembled violently.

Again, as though she saw it pictured in Miss
Savernake’s malicious eyes that were fixed on
her, she saw that strange scene she had that
night witnessed in the governess’s room, the
shattered window, and the abject terror of the
robber, if robber he was, when he heard her—
ee and saw her face looking in on

m.

 

“Say on, but speak quickly,” she said, faint-
ly. ‘‘Should you seek to harm me, I have
friends who will protect me. Fatherless and
motherless through I am, there are those who
will take care that harm does not befall me.”

Miss Savernake approached yet a little closer.

‘What if you are not fatherless?’ said she,
in a whisper.

Kate started and trembled, but was silent.

“What if you still have a father, I repeat,
Miss Darling? What if it is in my power to
prove it to you that he is still alive, and in my
power?”

She sunk her voice so low, thatit was almost
inaudible, as she uttered these last words,
whispering them into Kate’s very ear.

“Tt is false. I cannot believe you,” stam-
mered the affrighted girl. ‘‘ If my father were
alive, I should ere this have known it. I should
have seen him.”

‘“¢You have seen him,” replied Miss Saver-
nake, deliberately; ‘‘you have seen him, and
he has spoken to you within the last twenty-
four hours.”

‘“Where—where?”

“Tn my room, at the school-house,
your dull wits are sharpened at last.
say more?”

Kate clasped her disengaged hand over her
eyes.

“Oh, Heaven !” she exclaimed, ‘‘is it true
that my father, whom I have been taught to
honor, is not dead, but living, and—and—”

“Infamous. A felon, a villain, whose name
is recorded, with many a black mark against
it, Pll dare be sworn, in the books of the con-
vict establishment, that was so many years his
home, and from which he has been but recent-
ly released,” rapidly uttered Miss Savernake,
with emphasis, on every word.

Poor Kate Darling was like to have dropped
the little child she held in her arms, as her tin-
gling ears drank in this terrible revelation.

“God help me!” she faintly ejaculated; ‘‘is
this indeed true?”

“ As true as that you stand there alive before
me; as true as that he is my husband, and may
Heaven’s heaviest curse cleave to him!

‘¢ Listen, and take good heed,” she continued,
speaking rapidly, as the beautful girl, pale as
death, stood appalled before her. ‘I have
much more to say, but this is not the time; all
that I have told you is true as that Cuthbert
Deane loves you—as true as that he would de-
spise, shun you, if was revealed to him the de-
grading fact that your father has for years
been familiar with the hulks and all their hor-
rible belongings. Do you hear, handsome Kate
Darling? :

‘* Will you keep my secret now, or will you,
by betraying me, compel me to consign him
again to a convict’s irons and slavery, as I can
by opening my mouth against him—I swear
it!”

There was no time for Kate to consider what
her answer should be.

A loud and piercing cry in the direction of
the cottage was heard, by which both women
knew that the children had been missed.

“Quick ! your answer,” exclaimed Miss
Savernake. ‘‘It will be too late if you delay
a moment.”

‘“‘Oh, God forgive you, wicked woman, for
the cruel blight you have brought on my bright
hopes this day,” wailed poor Kate, in agony.

‘“Your answer, quick; your answer. There
is no time for whining and fooling. Will you
keep my secret, or shall I—”

‘No, no, my father must be spared; it is a
strange, a terrible story that you tell me, but
my heart tells me that there must be some
truth in it. Yes, I will keep your secret, but
how—”

‘* Back to the cottage with the child at once.
There is a gap in the hedge of my making that
will afford plausible evidence. The brat may
have crawled through and been caught up by
a Gipsy woman, whom you suspected and pur-
sued,” continued Miss Savernake, speaking
very rapidly. ‘‘ Now you have the thread of
a plausible story, work it into shape as you
run. Quick, and remember that I have your
promise, and what depends on it.”

And before Kate could reply, Miss Saver-
nake, hastily casting the shabby gray cloak
over her shoulders, darted into the wood and
disappeared.

Aha!
Need I

 

CHAPTER XVI.
THE PURLOINED LETTER.

AFTER the startling events narrated in the
last chapter, try all she could to conceal it, the
change in poor Kate’s demeanor was so marked
that all who knew her observed it.

Her school companions, including lively
Prissy Sharp, noticed it, and it was the subject
of frequent discussion among them.

Her high spirit seemed suddenly to have
abandoned her, and she seemed converted in a
day as it were from a blooming girl into a wo-
man, grown grave with care and anxiety.

How else could it be?

Surely, never before was one sO young bur-
dened with a secret so perplexing and terrible.

A secret the extent of which she was scarcely
yet aware, but which had already betrayed
her into an act of deceit and duplicity, the
possible consequences of which were her dread
by day, her dismal haunting through the dark
hours of night.

The perilous compact to which Miss Saver-
nake had forced her when she so opportunely
discovered and prevented her murderous design
against Susan Kavanah’s little boy.

Bewildered with affright and terrible appre-
hension, on account of what Miss Savernake
had told her respecting the man now declared
to be her father, she had followed her advice
when she hurried back and restored the poor
little thing to its parents,

 

i

She was loitering near the woods, she said,
when there came hurrying toward her a wo-
man, dressed Gipsy fashion, who, as soon as she
saw her, appeared anxious to conceal some-
thing that she carried under her cloak,

That, scarcely knowing why, she suspected
and hastily followed her, and that the woman,
perceiving this, first attempted to escape with
what she carried by running, but that finding
this was impossible, she dropped the child and
fled.

Kate’s cheeks and forehead burned and
flushed scarlet, as she uttered those falsehoods
in which she had been tutored, and her lips,
unaccustomed to deceitful utterances, trembled
and turned pale. .

Had either Susan or her husband but asked
her a single doubting question, or even eyed
her suspiciously, she must have faltered, and
imploring their pardon, told them the appalling
truth at once.

But they were too overjoyed at the discovery
of their missing darling, and both too grateful
to Kate, and too confident in her generosity to
doubt her for a moment, even had she come to
them with a story ten times more improbable.

It was this knowledge that added to the
poignancy of the sorrow the poor girl felt.

They trusted her implicitly and entirely, and
she had deceived them.

She had been instrumental, possibly, in lull-
ing them to a false sense of security, when all
the time the firm ground they relied on for
their standing was as the treacherous and
crumbling crust that covers the volcano, and
which, at any moment, might give way beneath
their feet and ingulf them.

That Miss Savernake’s deadly spite against
Susan and her husband was now appeased for
good and all, she could not hope.

Her vengeance had achieved nothing as yet.

Her hatred had been baffled, not beaten,

Although Kate strove hard to reason other-
wise, there would recur over and over again to
her mind the certainty that such diabolical
malice as the woman who called herself Miss
Savernake had exhibited would hunt down its
victims, even though it waited months—years
first.

And she so helpless to prevent it.

There was no one of whom she could seek
counsel—no one of whom she dare ask advice.

A week had elapsed since that terrible con-
ference with her enemy by the pond in Denham
Wood, and once in that time she had heard
from Cuthbert.

Here was a mystery that not even Tom
Pepper could solve, although, to be sure, he
knew more about it than anybody.

In order that the great savage dog Turk
might get to be familiar with the boy who
tended and fed him, it had occurred to Miss
Gritty that it would be a good plan to permit
the animal to accompany Master Pepper occa-
sionally when he went on errands to the village.
' Pepper was nothing averse. It afforded him
a splendid opportunity for extending those
welcome spells of liberty, to say nothing of the
pride he felt in impressing his juvenile ac-
quaintance of Clovernook that he was a person
of importance at last. People noticed the
huge mastiff.

On the second occasion, one gentleman in
particular noticed him, and, strange to say,
Turk appeared equally anxious to notice the
gentleman. :

“Any one would think as how he knowed
you, sir,” Pepper remarked, as the huge brute
reared up on his hind legs, and placed them on
the stranger’s shoulder.

“Thad adog of exactly the same breed once,
my lad,” the young gentleman goodhumoredly
replied, ‘“‘and this may be a distant relative,
and perhaps that may account for it.”

‘“‘Werry likely, sir,” said Pepper, who was
following with his eyes a promising movement
of the gentleman’s hand toward his waistcoat
pocket rather than his argument.

“The dog I used to know would eat biscuits,
a shilling’s worth at a time. Suppose we try
if this one will? Run off to the baker’s and
buy them. Here is a half-crown. You can
keep the change. He’ll stay here with me un-
til you come back.”

It was just at the outskirt of the village
where this encounter took place, and as Pep-
per hurried off, the young gentleman’s face
wore an expression of delight that during the
conversation he had contrived to subdue.

‘‘Thank heaven for this favorable chance,”
he muttered, as he patted the mastifi’s head
affectionately.

At the same time, like one who knew the
secret of it, he inserted his fingers inside the
dog’s broad collar, and slipped back the tiny
sliding lid that was there.

“Empty, of course,” he said, with something
like a sigh. ‘It wouldn’t have been, Pll be
bound, had my darling for a moment dreamt
that this would happen.

“‘T wonder how often my little puss peeps
into her canine post-office. I hope it will not
be long first this time.” ‘i

“Turk, you villain, I wish you could speak;
you should take a message. Wish you could
speak? No, I don’t,” continued the handsome
young fellow, with a smile, ‘‘ because, if ever
you should find your way back to Uncle Na-
than’s palatial abode, you might make revela-
tions that would be awkward for some parties.”

And as he spoke, he withdrew from his
pocket a neatly-folded and already written
note, which, after adding a hasty postscript,
written in pencil, he placed in the snug recep-
tacle.

And by the time Pepper returned with the
biscuits, the dog was lying at his feet, as
though nothing in the least unusual had hap-
pened.

If that ‘other dog” the gentleman spoke of
could put away a shilling’s worth of biscuits in

 

less time than Turk performed the interesting
feat, he was a wonder to behold.

“He will know me again, I shouldn’t won-
der,” said the gentleman.

“‘T shall, if he don’t,” Pepper remarked, with
a grin. ‘I s’pose you don’t often come this
way, sir?”

‘‘ Not very often ; sometimes,” returned the
gentleman, still caressing Turk. ‘I expeci,
now, that you have to keep this dog pretty
tightly tied up when he is at home, eh?”

“We let him loose of nights.”

“Of course, but in the daytime it wouldn’t
do to let him run loose where timid girls and
women were, for instance.”

Pepper chuckled.

““There’s no fear of his biting the women at
our place,” said he; ‘‘ leastways, if he’s the
sensible dawg I takes him to be, he wouldn’t
try it a second time.”

“Why not?”

“Cos he’d get the toothache; awfully tough
the old women are at our ’cademy,” continued
the disrespectful young rascal; ‘“ they’d make
jolly good missionaries to go to, them savage
parts what I hears about; the cannibals would
never eat ’em!”

“But there are other females at the academy
besides old ones.” ;

“Oh, yes; scrumptious ones too, I can tell
you,” replied the precocious youth in a confi-
dential whisper, and with the wink of a middle-
aged libertine. ‘‘There’s one of ’em—a new
one she is—”

And Pepper smacked his lips as though he
was speaking of raspberry tart.

“* Ah! if I was growed up, it wouldn’t do for
me to stop at that there ’cademy where she
was!”

““There’d be an elopement, eh?’ and the gen-
tleman still bent over the mastiff to hide his
amused face. ‘‘ What sort of a young lady is
this that takes your fancy so, young fellow?”

“Oh, a reg’lar hangel! Tall she is, and she’s
got curly hair and eyes that’s bright as stars
on a frosty night. And as for her cheeks, ’m
blowed if I don’t wonder that the birds don’t
come down and peck ’em, thinking that they’re
ripe peaches. If I was a bird, I’d be down on
’em in no time! :

“‘T tried to make a werse on her the other
day, but I couldn’t think of no word but ‘ cake’
that rhymed with ‘ Kate.’ ”

“You insolent young villain!” the gentleman
broke out, with a suddenness that caused Pep-
per to start back a step or two in amazement.

But then suddenly recollecting himself, he
added with a laugh:

““You’ll get yourself into trouble, my young
friend, if you are not careful; you take my ad-
vice, and give over your attempts at making
‘“werses,’ as you call them, on your mistress’s
pupils. Besides, what do you suppose the
young lady would think?”

“ But it wasn’t a comic werse as I was mak-
ing, it was sentimental, all about hanging my-
self for love of her, and—”

But a sudden outburst of laughter on the
part of the gentleman cut short Pepper’s confi-
dential communications.

“Once more, I should advise you to be care-
ful, my man,” said he.

And forbidding the mastiff to follow him,
the gentleman walked away still laughing,
and the delighted, though puzzled Pepper, his
errands completed, took. a leisurely walk back
to the academy.

As fate willed it, the first person Master
Pepper met as he entered the garden by the
side gate was Kate, who for policy sake affected
to be much alarmed as the great dog barked
with joy at sight of her.

“Don’t be frightened, Miss, he won’t eat
yer,” remarked Pepper assuringly; ‘‘it must
‘be something wery nice that tempts him to
bite ’em this morning.”

“Why?” Kate asked.

“Cos he’s just had such a bu’ster of a break-
fast.”

And Kate being a favorite of his, and to
some extent in his confidence, Master Pepper
briefly related the story of the gentleman and
the biscuits.

Despite her low spirits and melancholy, Kate
could have hugged him for the news.

All that she asked was the simple ques-
tion:

‘“‘ Was hea grave gentleman or a good-tem-
pered gentleman?”

‘*Oh, a jolly kind of chap, a chap that any
dog might take to,” returned Pepper, with
eighteenpennyworth of good opinion of the
liberal stranger in his pocket.

That was enough for Kate.

That it was dear Cuthbert she had no
doubt, and judging from Pepper’s opinion of
his manner, he had sent her no alarming news.

That he had sent her some she had not the
least doubt.

But she had to wait her opportunity ere she
could assure herself as to its quality.

Toward the evening her burning curiosity
was gratified.

She stole from the house into the garden,
and extracted the letter from the dog’s collar.

Eagerly she seized it, and pressed it fondly
to her lips and bosom.

But Cuthbert’s welcome missive brought her
material for puzzling as well as comfort.

(To be continued.)

 

AN acorn suspended by a piece of thread
within half an inch of the surface of water in
a hyacinth glass, will, in a few months, burst
and throw a root down into the water, and
shoot upward its straight and tapering stem,
with beautiful little green leaves. A young
oak tree, growing in this way on the mantile-
shelf of a room, is a very elegant and interest-
ing object.

————A

saree

 

setececanaecsnnnntncasnanmcnnes,. Ms.

scatesnianelees teeter

 

 

mg
\ a

A

 

 

 

 

Marcu .14, 1874.]

BGELLES AND BHAUX.

Pek

 

 

TRIFLES.

There’s a story old,
By wise ones told,
How a heart was once by young love broken;
But when the feat
He’d vain repeat,
This kind advice, by Venus spoken,
Withheld the careless urchin’s blow;
“ Softly, my boy, for well you know
Your touch upon the fairy things—
Time must efface it with his wings.

 

‘* Hearts were not made ”
(So Venus sa)
“ For such as you to trample o’er;
Just lightly play,
Then steal away
And leave them lovely as hefore!””
‘“* Mother,” he sighed, ‘*’tis vain: for see,
However light my touci may be,
The lines that once my fingers trace
Time never, never can efface!””

BAL LOVELY PAG Hoe

 

BY MRS. BELLE WILSON STAPP.

 

66 HY you any engagement for this af-

ternoon, Hart?” asked pretty little
Mrs. Payne of her brother, Hart Riversdale, as
he sat with her in her quiet boudoir one bright
spring morning, looking over the newspapers
and occasionally commenting aloud upon some
of the leading articles.

“Yes,” answered the gentleman, somewhat
absently, ‘‘I promised to dine with the Shel-
tons at three o’clock, but Iam at your service
for several hours yet, my fair sister, if you
have any demands to make on my time.”

“No, I was only going to askif you wouldn’t
drive out with me after awhile to make some
calls, but I amso glad to know that you are
going to dine at the Sheltons, they are such
charming people, and I think Dora one of the
loveliest girls I ever knew.”

“Miss Shelton is certainly very beautiful,”
murmured Hart Riversdale, as a sudden vision
of Dora Shelton’s fair, fresh face, smiling blue
eyes and sunshiny hair, rose before him.

“Yes, and more than that, Hart, I believe
she has a sweet, amiable disposition, and is a
true, tender woman,” responded Mrs. Payne,
fervently.

“T wish you would marry Dora Shelton,
Hart,” she said, after a slight hesitation, and
with a half-frightened glance at her brother’s
grave face.

“T have been thinking of it, Nellie,” he re-
plied, quietly, ‘‘ and you speak as if you thought
the lovely prize quite within my reach,” he con-
tinued, half smiling at the pleased surprise with
which his sister listened to his words.

“Oh! Hart, I can scarcely believe my own
ears,” she cried, delightedly. ‘I really and
truly think that Dora loves you, and I believe
you couldn’t help being happy with this dear,
sweet girl for your wife.”

“Sometimes I think so myself, Nellie, and
almost begin to hope there may be brighter
days in store for me. If 1 could only blot out
all the bitter past—forget that Ihave loved be-
fore, the weary wretchedness of the life I have
lived so long, might, perhaps, terminate to-
day,” and a flush of emotion rose to Hart
Riversdale’s pale face as he spoke.

‘Oh! my precious brother,” said his sister,
feelingly, ‘‘ I do tell you this ceaseless grieving
over the irretrievable past will ruin you, if in-
dulged in much longer,mentally and physically.
If you would only resolve to lay all this aside
now, let ‘the dead past bury its dead,’ and
live once more in the future that is ready to
blossom so brightly for you, you cannot know
how much you would do for my happiness as
well as your own.”

‘“‘Well, Nellie,” he said, gravely, after a long
pause, ‘‘if I should ever ask Miss Shelton to be
my wife, I shall give her all my past history—
shall tell her how I have ‘loved and lost,” and
tell her, too, that while I would tenderly cher-
ish her and strive to make her happy, I could
never lay at her feet all the wealth of affection
I lavished on my darling Isabel. I must do
this in justice to her, however painful the sub-
ject to me.” : :

Five years before the time at which our story
opens, Hart Riversdale had gone to Europe,
the happy affianced lover of bonnie, brown-
eyed Isabel Everton, rejoicing in the blissful
assurance that he should claim her as his bride
immediately upon his return, one year from
the day of starting.

He hn away 3 with life and health

and hope, and, for six months, long, ender let-

ters were regularly interchanged between him-
self and his beloved Isabel, and then Hart
Riversdale was suddenly seized with a virulent
fever, contracted at a little German village
where he had stopped to rest and ruralize for
awhile, and for a long time he lay fearfully,
dangerously ill, raving with the wild delirium
of fever, and when, at last, his young, robust
constitution had triumphed over the disease,
and he was able to sit up in bed and glance
over the pile of mail that had accumulated dur-
ing his illness, he found, to his astonishment,
but one letter from Isabel. This, he perceived
from the post-mark, had been mailed eight
weeks before. He hastily tore it open, and
almost at a glance the brief contents burned
themselves into his brain.

‘“‘Mr. RIVERSDALE: You will learn from the letters
of your friends, as well as from the newspapers
that must reach you by the same mail that carries
this from me, all the sad story that I dare not my-
self attempt to write.

‘*T know that the loss of my father’s wealth would
have been nothing to you, and that my poverty
would only cause you to clasp me that much more
closely to your noble, generous heart, but I feel,
alas! that your high, proud spirit could never brook
the thought of wenelins a felon’s daughter, and so I
release you from your engagement to me, hop-
ing that you may sometime find another who will be
to you all that I have ever dared hope I might be in

the years that, a month ago, were so full of joy and

proinise to us both. IsaABEL EVERTON.”

 

This was all; and over and over again Hart
Riversdale read the words before his bewilder-
ed brain could fully fathom their terrible mean-
ing.

Then, sick at heart, he read the long letter
from his sister Nellie, which gave him all the
fearful history of old Mr. Everton’s ruin and
disgrace; his failure in business, and his trial
and conviction of felony.

“And now, my dear brother,” she wrote in
conclusion, ‘‘ Isabel tells me that she too writes
you by this mail, releasing you from your en-
gagement to herself.

“Of course I know just what the generous
impulses of your grand nature would prompt
you to say and do, but I can not think, if our
proud father and mother were living now,
that they would be willing for you to bring
disgrace upon the Riversdale name by marry-
ing the daughter of Robert Everton.”

But these worldly-wise words of his sister
only served to strengthen tenfold the purpose
she had designed to weaken, and only caused
her brother to yearn that much the more
eagerly to gather his darling to his breast and
shield her with his own strong arm from all
this rude storm of sorrow and adversity that
had fallen upon her. And even before the
physician would give his consent and pro-
nounce him able to travel, Hart Riversdale
started on his homeward journey.

He reached his native city only to find old
Mr. Everton dead, and the family of the
wretched man gone, no one could say whither;
and from that time Hart Riversdale had en-
tered upon a ceaseless search—traveling far
and near, but never finding a trace of his lost
Isabel; his grief rendered all the more bitter
by the torturing thought that she must have
believed he had coldly accepted, without even
a word of remonstrance, the release she had
given him, and cruelly deserted her in her
hour of direst need.

One year previous to the beginning of our
sketch, he had chanced to meet with the old
family physician of the Evertons, who had
told him that he had learned a short time be-
fore, through a brother physician who attend-
ed her in her last illness, of the death of Isa-
bel; and that the family were in very desti-
tute circumstances, but he could not remem-
ber where they were living at the time of Isa-
bel’s death.

Then it was that Hart Riversdale, with a
heart almost breaking ’neath its weight of sor-
row, found his way to the distant city where
his sister Nellie, who had been lately married,
was now making her home.

Her heart was deeply touched by the visible
wretchedness of her loved brother, and while
she tenderly prevailed upon him to make her
house his home, she gave him sweet sisterly
sympathy in his mourning for Isabel.

For many long months he secluded himself
entirely from all society, absolutely refusing
to meet any of the many guests who were of-
ten assembled beneath her roof.

At last, however, to gratify his sister, he
consented to make the acquaintance of the
Sheltons, and, gradually, almost without his
own knowledge, he had been drawn within the
charmed circle of the beautiful Dora’s fascina-
tions, and for the last week or so had even
been led to seriously ask himself if this girl
might not at least occupy a place second in his
affections to that which must ever be sacred to
the memory of his lost love, and brighten, by
her sunny presence, the loneliness of his dark-
ened life.

He did not pause to consider how little he
really knew of Dora Shelton’s true character
and home life,

So far as he had seen she was the incarnation
of amiability and sweetness and innocence, and
it did not once occur to him that he had never
yet had a glimpse behind the curtain of her
parlor stage.

Her mother was a haughty, purse-proud wo-
man, who could ill conceal her anxiety for her
only daughter to win for a husband the weal-
thy, aristocratic Hart Riversdale.

She and Dora had gone out to do a little
morning shopping, on this day that the young
man was to dine with them, thinking, of course,
to be at home in time to receive him. But
they met with some unexpected detention, and
Mrs. Shelton was startled, upon consulting her
watch, to find that it was already waning
toward the dinner hour.

She hastily informed Dora of the fact, but
while the young lady lingered yet one moment
longer over a lovely set of jewelry she was
longing to possess, Hart Riversdale, who had
gone early, hoping to have a few moments’
conversation with Dora before dinner, was
ushered into the darkened parlor to await the
arrival of the ladies.

He had scarcely found a seat when he heard
a child’s voice asking for Miss Shelton, and the
boy who had answered the door-bell tell her
that she might wait in the hall till Miss Dora
came home.

A few minutes later the carriage rolled up
to the door, and there was a rustle of silken
robes as Miss Shelton and her mother swept
into the hall; and he heard the child say,
pleadingly, “‘Miss Shelton, sister says please
send her the money for the dress she made for
you last week, and you can deduct what you
think proper for the little rent in the piece of
lace left of the trimming.”

He could not see the speaker’s face, but he
readily recognized Dora’s voice as she said,
harshly: ‘‘ No, indeed, not one cent will I pay
your sister for her work; and I’m half a mind
to make her pay me for the half yard of lovely
lace ruined through her carelessness.”

“Oh! Miss Shelton,” said the child, implor-
ingly, “please send ja part of the money any-
how; we can’t get the medicine mamma needs,

without it.”

 

“That’s not my fault, I guess; go now, and
let this be the last time you come to me for
work,” was the unfeeling response, and the
child went slowy and sobbingly out of the open
door.

“Now, mamma, wasn’t that splendidly man-
aged! There’s ten dollars saved on the making
of the dress, and my piece of lace not injured
beyond use, either,” Miss Dora said, gayly, as
she and her mother swept up the grand stair-
way to their own rooms to make their dinner
toilets.

Every word she uttered had fallen full upon
the ear of her unseen guest.

As soon as they were out of hearing, Hart
Riversdale walked out of the parlor, and, leav-
ing his excuses with the butler whom he en-
countered in the hall, he took his hat and
quietly left the house.

When he gained the street he found the lit-
tle girl, who must have lingered on the steps,
slowly wending her way down the broad pave-
ment.

He hastened to overtake her, and a few words
of tender sympathy and inquiry drew from the
sobbing child a touching story of suffering, toil
and want. And without even asking her name
the young man clasped her little thin hand
closely in his own and told her he would go
with her to her home, assuring her that her sick
mother should have medical attention and all
else that she needed.

It was a long walk before they reached the
remote narrow street and paused before the
humble dwelling.

As the child opened the front door, a lovely,
sad-faced, brown-eyed girl, with her finger on
her lips, stepped softly into the hall from the
sick room inside, and Hart Riversdale stood
face to face with Isabel Everton!

“‘Tsabel! my precious lost darling! and they
told me you were dead!” ;

It was all he said. But the eager tenderness
of his tone was enough, and with a low, glad cry
she crept into his arms.

In the explanation that followed Hart under-
stood how the death of a younger sister had
given rise to the mistake in regard to Isa-
bel.

Immediately upon the decease of Mr. Ever-
ton, his family wishing to free themselves from
the combined censure and pity of all who knew
them in their native place, had quietly moved
away, and Isabel with lofty heroism toiled
faithfully through all, managing to eke out
with her needle, a scanty support.

Finding that the wretched story of their
misfortunes followed them, they had at last
moved to their present home under Mrs, Ever-
ton’s maiden name of Howard,

Here, Isabel, known only as Miss Howard,
had sewed steadily on, and been able until ill-
ness attacked her mother to keep want from
their door.

But her struggles were all ended now, and a
few weeks later, after a quiet wedding in the
church, she was installed mistress of the prince-
ly mansion which was also to be the future
home of her mother and sister. ~

Among the eager throng who hastened to
call on the beautiful Mrs. Riversdale the dis-
appointed Sheltons were soon numbered, for as
Mrs. Shelton wisely said, ‘‘it would never do
for people to think that Dora was hurt by the
unexpected event,”

Dora could not help fancying, as she looked
upon the fair bride, that she had seen her face
before; but no suspicion of the truth was arous-
ed, and she and her mother wondered 1nuch
when the bridal calls were returned why theirs
was quietly ignored.

Some weeks later Isabel and her husband
chanced to meet with Dora Shelton at the
house of Mrs. Payne, who, having just returned
from a shopping tour, enthusiastically display-
ed some rare lace she had purchased. Miss
Shelton languidly remarked that she had had
“some of a similar pattern ruined, not long
since, through the carelessness of a dress-
maker.”

“Since I, myself, was that unfortunate
‘ dressmaker,’ permit me to hope, Miss Shelton,
that your loss was in some measure retrieved
through your non-payment of my charge for
the work,” said Mrs. Riversdale.

“Let me assure you, my darling, that Miss
Shelton was only benefited by your ‘ careless-
ness,’” said her husband smilingly; ‘‘I was an
involuntary listener to her self-gratulations
upon her good management in earning ten dol-
lars in the making of her dress, when, after all,
her ‘lovely lace’ was not irreparaby injured,”
he added, as he turned a half-pitying glance
upon the discomfited and crimson face of the
hapless Dora, who was only too glad to hastily
make her way to her waiting carriage.

 

 

Occupation.—What a glorious thing occu-
pation is for the human heart! Those who
work hard seldom yield to fancied or real sor-
row. When grief sits down, folds its hands,
and mournfully feeds upon its own tears,
weaving the dim shadows that a little exertion
might sweep away into a funeral pall, the
strong spirit is shorn of its might, and sorrow
becomes our master. When troubles flow
upon you dark and heavy, toil not with the
torrent; rather seek by occupation to divert
the dark waters that threaten to overwhelm
you, with a thousand channels which the
duties of life always present. Before you
dream of it, those waters will fertilize the
present, and give birth to fresh flowers, that
will become pure and holy in the sunshine
which penetrates to the path of duty in spite
of every obstacle. Grief, after all, is but a
selfish feeling, and most selfish is the man
who yields himself to the indulgence of any
passion which brings no joy to his fellow
men,

 

ATISS ME!

 

BY A. P, M., JR.

 

(Kiss me! Kiss me!) Twine your arms,
Full of dimples, jewels, charms,

Round my neck—there (Miss me /) oh!
How unkind delaying so!

Won’t you listen? (Avissme/) Now,
Here embracing, brow to brow,

Lash to lash, and (issme /) lips
Moving, whispering, touching tips;

Closer (Kiss me ! Kiss me, sweet !)
Eager, and yet shy to meet,
Struggling, panting (iss me now /)
Don’t know ?—come, I’ll show you how!

Thus: nee ! Kisses !) gently, pet ;
Make them dewy, moist and wet;
Softly, quivering, (Aiss me !) and
Keep away that naughty hand !
(Kisses!) Now then, lip to lip
Gathering (iss me /) there the sip

Of honeyed nectar. (Kisses /) Wait—
Thousands will not satiate
Thirst like (iss me /) mine and thine!
Keep the tissues glued to mine!
So, now: (Itisses ! Iisses/) 'This
Surely is that sea of bliss
Of which poets (Jviss me /) sing,
Paradise of every thing! 3

Kisses !) Oh! how sweet!—how rare!

eld in myriad raptures there!

Kiss again!) I fain would give

en years of life if I could live
A holy hour kissing thus,
With such glad tremors blissing us!
What!—notdone? (Aisson! Aiss on!)
For every one another one!
(Another kiss!) Ob! heaven, what joy!
Was Cupid e’er more slyly coy?
And kissing (iss me !) yes, for aye—
Kiss me till Eternity!

 

THE BELLES OF BELLE VUL
ACADEMY,

CHAPTER I.
THE TWENTY-EIGHT.
or oe duties of the establishment will be
4. resumed on Monday, January Ux
29th, ae

Miss Tottenham bowed to those who formed
her audience, and resumed her seat. There
was a faint hum, supposed to signify applause,
or, at least, approval of all that Miss Totten-
ham had been talking about for the last ten
minutes, and then was heard the sound of
much whispering, and an occasional giggle re-
pressed with difficulty, but still repressed.

Belle Vue House stood within walled grounds.
It was a square, solid mansion of red brick;
large wings had been added to it on either side.

Snow had been falling for days; the ponds
and rivers were frozen. It was the eighteenth
day of December, and every thing bid fair
for an old-fashioned, freezing, festive Christ-
mas, when lads and lasses might trip lightly
under the mistletoe, and little folks watch the
round, rich pudding through blue flames, con-
scious that outside the bitter wind was driving
every thing before it, and snow-flakes spread-
ing fast a wide white carpet over the breadth
and length of merry England.

Lads and lasses might trip ere long in light-
ed ball-rooms, mistletoes might hang, puddings
might flame—all of these possibilities might
come to pass in twenty-eight cases out of thirty;
but there were likely to be these two excep-
tions.

There were thirty pupils at Belle Vue House,
and twenty-eight were going home for Christ-
mas; twenty-eight young hearts beat high with
expectation; twenty-eight pairs of bright eyes
grew brighter with anticipation; twenty-eight
tongues prattled joyously in correct English or
school-girl French of the coming joys.

Two young voices were tuned in a minor
key; two pairs of eyes were sometimes wetted
with tears at the very time that twenty-eight
other pairs were closed in happy sleep; two
young ladies were going to pass the Christmas
holidays at Belle Vue House establishment.

Augustine La Harpe*was from Normandy.
She was French pupil-teacher at Miss Totten-
ham’s. Her parents were too poor to afford
the expenses of her journey from and to Belle
Vue House; thus she was compelled to make
the best of a painful necessity.

Gertrude Gordon was an orphan, and Engli»,.
pupil-teacher at Belle Vue House. This young
lady was, in fact, so poor and so friendless that
Miss Tottenham often gave her to understand
that she was not half grateful enough for the
shelter and warmth and food which she was
permitted to enjoy at her establishment.

It was the last day of examinations; th,
prizes had been distributed; the reproofs ana
advice administered. Presently dinner woula
be announced; after that the young ladies
would have the afternoon and evening to them-
selves, The next morning the twenty-eight
pupils and the two teachers would depart to
their homes. Miss Tottenham would retire to
her cosy dining-room, and spend the holidays
comfortably by herself. The two pupil-teacher:
would remain in the desolate school-room, tc
amuse each other as well as circumstances would
allow; and it appeared to both of them that
circumstances did not seem inclined to allow
them any thing very agreeable,

 

 

CHAPTER II. ;
THE TWO.

Snow, snow, snow—falling, falling, falling.
The trees look ghostly against the leaden sky,
the voice of the wind is heard, and anon a
great gust comes, and seems to shake the white
trees in a rage, or in the roughest of play, and
the feathery spray falls in showers and mingles
with the driving storm.

A girl, with a dark, handsome, sullen face,
watches the desolate scene, and her black eye-
brows meet in what looks very like a scowl.
The fire is small, the room is large. Before the
fire sits another girl. A book lies on her knee.
Her eyes are on the book, but her soul is away
from the dreary school-room and all it con:

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

te

GHELLES AND BHEAUX.

 

tains. Gertrude Gordon has rich brown hair,
and a fair, thoughtful face. Wise brown eyes
are those which rest on the book without read-
ing it; wise and wistful, soft and sad.

All at once the girl at the window turns
round, and begins to pace up and down before
the small fire, like a lioness ina cage. Part of
her dark hair has escaped from its pins and
ribbons, and flows on her shoulders like a mane.
It looks tangled and unkempt, despite its beau-
ty and sunny luster. An untidy young maiden
is this Norman lassie, but beautiful, notwith-
standing that her dress is of shabby brown
stuff, and her collar and cuffs are dingy.

“T don’t think I can endure six weeks of this
misery!” cried Augustine. ‘I have heard of
your English Christmas, and this is a specimen,
is it?” she smiled, scornfully. ‘‘Shut up like
two birds in a cage, and fed on bread-crumbs
and water! You call your hot water tea here
in England, do you? You should come to
France and drink our rich brown coffee, fresh
roasted every morning, and mixed with cream.”
Augustine was a little of a gourmande. “ Din-
ner to-day was cold boiled mutton, watery po-
tatoes, and hasty rice pudding. When one has
nothing else to amuse one, one begins to think
of one’s meals; but here they afford one no
manner of comfort. If I thought all my life
was to be like this, I would fling myself into
madam’s duck-pond in the lower garden.”

“Tt’s frozen now,” said Gertrude, with a
smile. :

, Augustine laughed a dreary laugh, and sat
down on a little wooden footstool. She speed-
ily fell into her old attitude, and embraced
her knees with her arms.

‘All the benches empty, all the chatterers
gone. Their ghosts must come back to peep
at us; for, like those who go to heaven, they
are too happy to wish to return. Selfish
creatures! They most of them talked of in-
viting us home, but none of them did.”

“Their parents, Augustine, on hearing that
we were poor pupil-teachers, made excuses,
perhaps. It is the way of the world. The
girls who knew us were sorry enough for us;
but their parents did not know us.”

“T hope some of them will take cold and
coughs at their parties, and go bark, bark,
bark all night long, and have to eat nasty
lozenges.” d

Augustine spoke not entirely as if she meant
the naughty things she said.

Gertrude did not begin to preach at her.
She only said:

“Tf they all took cold, we should be no
warmer, and no merrier.”

“Mon Dieu! when I think of their holly
trees, and their balls, and bands of music play-
ing, playing, playing all night long, Frances
Canmerline told me; when I think of their
great plum-pudding—” She turned about hast-
ily. ‘‘I wonder if madam will give us a pud-
ding? I never tasted one. We know them not
in France.”

“Miss Tottenham is going to London for
Christmas. If she remained here, I daresay
she would send us a slice of her pudding.”

“Tm glad she’s going. It would be sucha
shabby, stingy little slice, I had rather have
none.”

Restless Augustine rose, and went to the
window.

‘*Snow—snow—snow,” said she; ‘‘and it’s
getting dark, and—I see a man on the lawn,
under the monkey-tree! His arms are folded.
Gertrude—Gertrude, there isa man. It must
be a beggar. Oh! if madame knew. But she
can’t, for the window of her warm sitting-
room looks into the fruit garden. I wonder
what he wants? Why does he not go to the
servants, round the back way, and ask for
something? Ah! if he only knew! There will
not be much in the larder. He is watching
this room; he is watching me: his eyes are
fixed, I am certain, on my face. He can see
into this room, for the fire lights itup. He
can see you pretending to read of Mademois-
elle Jones and the tiresome governess. He can
see me with my hair streaming on my shoul-
ders. Thank goodness! he sees not how soiled
are my collar and cuffs, and my skirt torn
from the gathers!”

“Pull down the blind,” said Gertrude, lan-
guidly.

She was not at all excited by the excitement
of Augustine. Her thoughts were in the dead
past; her sweet eyes were full of tears. The
rattle and prattle of the French maiden jarred
upon her nerves at that moment.

“Indeed I will pull down no blind! I am
delighted if he is arobber. Let him come on;
we have nothing to lose—you and I. True,
you have your little gold watch, and a black
silk dress. Put on the dress, and place the
watch in your pocket. For me, I have noth-
ing save a locket of gold, and a thimble of
silver, and three shillings and two francs. He
sha’n’t have those; but if he wants madame’s
silver spoons, and great gold chain, and all
the money out of her strong box, not paid yet
into the bank, let him come on; and he is com-
ing on!”

Augustine spoke in a tone now in which
mingled an element of fear.

““He is approaching slowly—slowly. Oh!
ciel! he has reached the shrubs. Now he
pauses. How dim grows the light! I cannot
tell how he is dressed. He is tall.”

She paused, and now seemed to be talking
to herself.

‘He hangs his head, as if he did not wish to
be recognized. Gertrude, itis arobber! An-

‘ other moment, and he will be here close to the
window!”

‘* Pull down the blind!”

The element of fear had been subtly con-
veyed by the tremulous voice of Augustine to
the nerves of Gertrude.

She rose up, and came hastily to the win-

 

dow. A dainty form, in neat mourning garb,
fair brown hair, burnished by brushing; the
snowiest of collars; the whitest of hands.

None of these details could be discerned in
the firelight; but the effect of the dainty figure,
compared with the robust form of the Norman,
was expressive of order, refinement, and all the
home virtues.

“JT see a man, indeed!” cried Gertrude.
‘Oh! shut the shutters;” and she began to un-
fold them.

Before she could manage this—for they were
cumbersome and heavy—the intruder, with
hasty strides, crossed the path, and put his face
close to the pane—a face dark and hairy, and
it looked savage to the girls.

They actually clashed the shutters together,
placed the bar across, and then stood staring at
each other, and both of them trembled.

‘Tn another moment he would have been in,”
said Augustine.

“ And he is outside now,” Gertrude.

Augustine, who had spoken so daringly,
rushed to the bell, and rung it loudly. Imme-
diately was heard the sound of footsteps in the
long passage which led from the house to the
school-room. A servant-maid, all soap-suds,
appeared.

““ What ever is the matter, ladies? There, I
am scrubbing that great long music-room—the
dirtiest place in England after all their feet—
and you two ladies most frighten one out of
one’s wits for nothing.”

‘“There’s a man in the garden, Hannah. He
is outside the window. We were frightened,
and shut the shutters.”

“* A pack of fancies!” said Hannah,contemptu-
ously. ‘‘ What should a man want out in the
snow, with the wind like knives cutting one’s
face and hands?”,

“T think he was a beggar, driven desperate
by want,” said Gertrude.

‘“‘Then he will find he’s come to the wrong
shop, if he’s a beggar,” said the soapy damsel,
coarsely. ‘‘ Wedon’t never give nothing here.”

“It’s odd he does not ring or knock,” said
Gertrude.

Then she saw Augustine making the funniest
faces and signs at her from behind Hannah, and
she looked at her school-fellow in amaze.

“‘T suppose you wants your teas?” asked Han-
nah, sulkily.

“We want our teas, and nice hot cakes, and
toast,” said Augustine, saucily.

“You'll have to want, -Miss,” said Hannah,
with alaugh. ‘This ain’t the place for nice
things.” %

* But you might make us some toast, if you
were good-natured,” said Augustine.

“T ain’t good-natured,” said Hannah.

Both the young ladies laughed.

“Well, please let us have tea soon,” pleaded
Gertrude, with a sunny smile.

‘*Miss Gordon knows how to ask pretty,”
said Hannah. ‘‘Some day she'll be coaxing
all sorts of nice presents out of her husband, I
expect.”

“*T don’t think I shall ever have a husband,”
said pretty Gertrude.

Whereupon the volatile Norman laughed, and
cried out:

“Old maid!—old maid! ‘You shall have a
cat, and a tea-kettle, and a bird inacage. I
would not be an old maid for twenty thousand
worlds!”

Hannah simpered and left the room.

“Don’t you see what it is?” cried Augustine.
“‘ It’s Hannah’s sweetheart outside.”

“What a savage looking creature!’ said
Gertrude.

But it was not Hannah’s sweetheart.

 

 

CHAPTER III.
AFTER TEA. ;

THE meal came in: two mugs filled with hot
water, sweetened with brown sugar, softengd
by a little milk, and colored—not flavored—
with tea; two plates, a thick round of bread on
each, cut into four square pieces, and spread
over with salt butter. i

“‘Where’s the toast?” asked Augustine.

“‘There ain’t none; but there’s a plain seed
as cook made for we. You are welcome to
half.”

Hannah retired, and soon returned, carrying
the half of a plain seed cake ona plate. Volu-
ble thanks greeted her.

““Tt smells nice; but it’s heavy as lead,” said
Augustine, when Hannah was gone.

“Tt will give us bad dreams if we eat it,”
said Gertrude.

Notwithstanding, each of these pretty young
schools-girls ate a piece of the cake.

Augustine’s solution of the mystery of the
man was received by Gertrude without much
questioning.

The girls’ thoughts dwelt not long on unpleas-
ant subjects of the alarming sort. After tea,
Gertrude brought out some needle-work.”

‘« Since we can’t amuse ourselves, Augustine,
I shall employ myself this Christmas.”

‘‘Bah! I have no work to do,” the French
girl said, sinking into her old attitude upon the
footstool.”

“Your stockings want mending, my dear
child.”

““That is true; but when my father sends me
money, I will buy new ones.”

“ And meanwhile?’ :

‘‘ And meanwhile wear themin holes. I like
holes,” she added, daringly. ‘‘I hate your
prim, mincing, neat folks.”

Gertrude laughed.

“Meaning me?”

“No. You are a good girl, and miserable,
like me.”

‘‘More unfortunate, Augustine. You are
obliged to spend a dull, sad Christmas, because
your parents live at a distance, and they can-
not well afford six pounds traveling expenses,

 

 

 

[Marcn 14, 1874,

 

Still, you have parents—kind ones, too—and a
happy little home in a sunny little Norman
village, all blooming with apple-blossoms in the
spring, as you have told me; and then your pa-
pa is acountry doctor, and your mamma is
good and handsome,and you have little brothers,
and a pleasant garden.”

“And we have nice little dinners and sup-
pers,” said Augustine, nodding her head, ‘‘ and
loads of fruit and cream.”

“ But your papa, thinking that his handsome
Augustine might easily earn a large salary as a
governess, and see good society, and, perhaps,
marry well, if he gave her a good education,
and had her taught languages, sent her to Eng-
land, and she already speaks the language
prettily ; but I wish she would mend her stock-
ings.”

“T hate mending!” said Augustine.

“As for me,” continued Gertrude, ‘‘my
mamma died when I was born. Papa was a
poor doctor; and he and a dear old nursey
brought me up. We lived in a Devon village,
as full of fruit-blossoms as your St. Aubine’s,
and I was happy. Papa taught me Latin and
English, and I learned music from the old or-
ganist, ten years ago. Papa died suddenly,
from fever, and our little home passed into
strangers’ hands.” Gertrude passed her hand
over her beautiful face, and hid it for a mo-
ment. When she glanced up again, the lus-
trous brown eyes were wet with tears, but
there was a smile upon the sweet, red lips.
“‘Poor papa, he is happier now! He had so
many cares, Augustine—so many anxieties—
that his hair turned white long years before its
time. Darling papa—dearest love!”—she clasp-
ed her hands passionately—‘‘how you loved
me! How, at this Christmas time, your love
used to show itself in a dozen different ways—
all of them charming, pretty, fantastical ways!
When I awakened,on Christmas morning, once,
I heard a lovely old tune sweetly played—it
was my favorite air: ‘Where the Bee Sucks ’—
I started up, for it sounded to me as if the
Snow Fairies, of which one has read in one’s
childhood, were at their gambols, and a fairy
band were playing. I looked above; at last,
I found a beautiful musical box—a charming
Christmas gift. He gave me pretty dresses,
and my gold watch; he took me all the way to
London, to show me the wonders of it. It is
sad to think of those dead days, Augustine! I
never wished for any other human love than his
love—it filled m¥ whole life!” She broke now
into gentle, patient weeping.

The dark, dilating eyes of the French girl
watched her intently; but there glittered no
tear of sympathy under the long lashes of Ma-
demoiselle Augustine. She was not a senti-
mental young lady; she was nota hard-hearted
one, either. She was, as ‘‘ Black-eyed Bessie,”
the wit of the school, called her, a frisky, frivo-
loys Frank, loving pleasure very much, and
herself even better—vain, warm-hearted, hon-
orable, and gifted with a peculiar, furtive com-
mon sense, which made her most amusing at
times.

“Well, now, ma chere,” said Augustine, ‘I
would not spoil my eyes with thinking of those
past Christmas days. As for me, I knew not
your good papa, whose hair turned white be-
fore its time. What a pity he did not dye it!
My father would; but we French hate to seem
old. He is in Heaven, no doubt; and I don’t
see why we should not go there some day also.
I always pray night and morning, and so do
you; and I pray from my heart, and so do you,
and so did your poor papa; and we—you and
I—are good girls, after all, although we are to
have such a wretched Christmas; so, I believe,
some day things will turn up better.”

This was Augustine’s way of comforting her
friend. If queerly expressed, the sentiments
conveyed were kindly; and Gertrude bent over
her work, and dried her eyes, and said:

“What a funny child you are, Augustine!”

“But what made you come to this house,
where they give us so many rice-puddings, and
such little fires?”

“‘T have one uncle—mamma’s brother. He
is a poor curate, with a large family. He is
my guardian, and the little money papa left
was only enough to pay for my being fed and
educated here for three years. I have learned
French, and Italian, and drawing. When I
leave here, I shall become a governess.”

“‘T would rather become the wife of a rich
man, for my part,” said Augustine. ‘Had
your papa no relations?”

‘One brother, who quarreled with him, ter-
ribly; a wicked man who never loved papa.
He went abroad, and was drowned.”

“Tt was a good thing!” said Augustine,
crossing over to the fire, and stirring it sav-
agely. ‘Bad people are better out of the
way!”

The school-room door opened, and a girl en-
tered bearing a flat candlestick, in which
burned a wretched tallow candle.

“Young ladies, ’tis eight o’clock. Missis says
you ain’t to sit up after eight during the holi-
days.”

‘‘Oh, how I wish these horrid holidays were
over!” cried Augustine, viciously.

 

CHAPTER IV.
A FACE AT THE WINDOW.

A GRAND old mansion of Norman type: a
house with a gloomy, proud face and many
windows—stone terraces, leading down to a
lawn, and a small fish-pond, frozen on the _bit-
ter day following the breaking-up of Belle
Vue.

Calthorpe Hall stood about a mile from Belle
Vue; both mansions were situate in the fair
county of Surrey. Calthorpe Hall had been
the seat of the Calthorpes for centuries. The
present owner of the estate, and head of the
family, was a handsome young man of twenty-

 

three. Sir Arthur Calthorpe had just break-
fasted; a large fire burned in the low grate of
the dining-room—a splendid old room, where
the furniture was massive, but faded. The
snowy cloth and the antique plate spoke of
luxury and refinement. Arthur leaned against
the marble chimney-piece, and his dark face
was gloomy as the outer sky. Upon a couch
sat a fair, faded, fashionable woman, knitting
rapidly with large needles in scarlet wool.

‘‘ As for expecting us to find thirty thousand
pounds in a fortnight, it’s absurd! The mort-
gage alone is quite that amount, without the
unpaid interest, and he threatens to foreclose
if we can’t find the money; and then, mother,
Calthorpe Hall is his, and I am a beggar.”

“Tt’s monstrous—it’s absurd! Such a thing
was never heard of!” said the lady, knitting
away more rapidly than ever.

“Heard. of or not, it comes to the same
thing. He has lent the money, and he wants
it again, and we can’t pay him, and Calthorpe
Hall must go. How cruel of my father!”

“Yes, poor man! We must not speak
against the dead, they say; but Heaven knows
we have to suffer for their faults!”

“T must run up to London,” said Sir Arthur,
gloomily, ‘‘and see Groombridge, and ask him
to get us this money by hook or by crook; but
it’s only patching up a falling house. Some
day it must topple about our ears, and why
not now, while Iam young, and can work? I
must set myself to study law, and in time I
may buy back this estate from this man.”

“He is the most odious man!” said Lady
Calthorpe, fastening off her wool.

“T should like to throw him out of thé win-
dow!” said Arthur, hotly. ‘‘ Oh, what a Christ-
mas this will be! Laughter on the lip, and
death in the heart!”

“Keep up, my boy! Think, there are your
young sisters to amuse, and your guests to en-
tertain. Let us put off dark thoughts till
Christmas Day is past.”

“Mamma,” said Arthur, suddenly, ‘‘I’m in
love.”

His mother stared at him.

“Tf it were with Mary Beecher, she has fifty
thousand pounds, and would marry you. True,
she squints; but she can’t help that.”

““No; she can’t help that, or being thirty-
three, and stout as her mother. But it’s not
Mary Beecher. It’s one of those two girls who
are left at school, and miserable, for the holi-
days. I watch her in church; and the two
hours’ service seems like ten minutes,”

““What folly!” cried my lady.

“Well, mother dear, I have put our servants
to watch, and to talk to the servants of the
ogress of Belle Vue. And the girl is French
and poor, and so vivacious! If I lose Cal-
thorpe, and she will share my poverty, I will
ask her to marry me.”

“ Boy’s madness,” thought her ladyship—‘“‘ a
fever which will pass off as measles and whoop-
ing-cough pass from children. I will not fan
this foolish flame by opposition.”

“Mother, will you invite the pretty French
girl, and her friend, who is likewise pretty, to
spend a few days with us at Christmas?”

Lady Calthorpe’s eyes widened in surprise.

“ Arthur!”

“¢ Mother !”

“My dear boy!”

“My dear mother!”

“Why, Belle Vue House is only a school for
middle-class people: professional men’s children,
and so on.”

“What of that? Belle Vue holds within its
grim precincts the loveliest girl in England: a
type for a poet’s heroine, or a painter’s most
heavenly conception. Invite her, mother. She
eats thick, dry bread, and moistens it with her
tears. She sits and sighs. She sometimes
stands at the window and dreams. What
would I give to speak to her! They tell me her
voice is like a peal of wedding-bells—all har-
mony, sweetness, merriment, with a plaintive
note here and there.”

“ Arthur, nobody ever told you that.”

‘“No human being told me; but I guessed.”

“You have read poetry until you have
clouded your reason.”

He passed his hand over his forehead, as if to
drive away perplexed thought.

“Mother, dear, let us reduce it to common
sense. Jam very unhappy, and I wish to for-
get my misery fora few days. I have taken
a violent fancy to a girl whom I have only seen
in church. She is as innocent as the angels of
all share or knowledge of this love, I pledge
you my honor.” .

* And your word is your bond, my son.”

“Well, mother, invite the poor, desolate
children here to spend Christmas.”

“ Arthur, it shall be as you wish.”

“Thank you, mother,” and he kissed her.

 

“The day after to-morrow will be Christmas
Day,” said Augustine, who sat before the small
fire upon the little footstool, embracing her
knees as usual; ‘‘and Hannah says we are to
have a rabbit-pie, and a cheap hasty pudding,
and a glass of sour sherry with a sour orange
afterward. I wish mamma would send us
some cakes.”

Gertrude was knitting by the firelight. She
laughed. E

“You think of nothing but meals, Augus-
tine.” d

“There is nothing else to think of; and I~

hate work,” she yawned. ‘‘I wonder when
they'll light the gas.”

She turned her head, and uttered a short cry
of terror,

‘* Qh! look.”

Gertrude looked. Against the pane was
pressed a man’s face; the firelight shone upon
it—a face swarthy and hairy, a pair of eyes
which flashed savagely upon the large carpet-
less room, the green-baize covered benches,

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[onal <canenoonansineeenasennmepenes

Marcon 14, 1874.]

 

GELLES AND BHAUX.

 

 

L3

 

 

 

the small fire, and the two young girls; the
brows met in a scowl, the teeth were clenched,
“Shut the shutters,” said Augustine, who
seemed to have lost all of her hardihood.
Gertrude arose, and faced the man, The
French window was locked inside. Unless he
broke the glass, the man could not enter.
‘““T wonder what he wants?” said Gertrude.
The man’s eyes were fixed on her with a
searching, wild, wolfish expression; and yet
her courage seemed to rise to the occasion.
She approached the window, and called through
it:

“Do you wish so see Miss Tottenham?”

The man broke into the oddest laugh, the
hardest, strangest, saddest sound the girls had
ever heard. Then he turned and fled.

“He must be an escaped lunatic,” cried the
Norman girl. ‘‘ Shut the shutters.”

And they shut them. Hannah brought in
tea and amessage, summoning the young ladies
to Miss Tottenham’s room when they should
have finished that repast.

Full of curiosity, they hurried through the
meal, and obeyed the summons.

“She knows about the man,” said Augus-
tine.

But it was not so. Miss Tottenham sat in
her cosy back sitting-room. Dessert and wine
were on her table. She helped each of the girls
to a glass of ginger-wine and a tiny biscuit;
and then she said, smiling:

‘“A pleasant surprise for you, young ladies.
Lady Calthorpe has invited you to spend Christ-
mas at Calthorpe Hall. The carriage will come
for you to-morrow afternoon. You are not to
return till Saturday.”

“‘Ma robe! cried Augustine. ‘ My green

“silk is torn.”

“We will mend it,” said Gertrude, cheer.
fully.

“How Lady Calthorpe became acquainted
with the fact that you were at Belle Vue for
the holidays, I know not. Ineed not caution
you to speak of the arrangements of Belle Vue
with respect.”

“We would neither of us speak against the
roof that shelters us,” said Gertrude.

Happy was that evening, and the next morn-
ing, while thetorn green silk was mended, and
the clean collars and cuffs packed up.

Gertrude wore a black rep, and took with her
a handsome black silk, which had a high and a
low body, the latter trimmed with white lace.

The carriage called, and the girls drove off
in high spirits,

Nothing could exceed the warmth of the wel-
come which Lady Calthorpe gave them. The
school-girls were shown into a large, handsome
chamber, where candles in silver candlesticks
stood on the elegant toilet-table. There was a
bedstead of rich carved wood, hung with silken
curtains.

The Norman lass looked splendid in her green
silk, with a white rose in her black hair, and
her golden locket on her neck,

Gertrude in her black silk and white lace,
was simply charming.

They entered the drawing-room, already filled
with guests.

The young baronet came forward, and with
a hasty bow to Augustine, pressed on to the
side of Gertrude. All dinner-time he devoted
himself to the maiden, and during the evening
he danced five times with Miss Gordon.

His mother said to him, when everybody was
gone to bed, and the two stood before the
fire: :

““My boy, you told me it was the French girl
you admired.” ,

“Those stupid servants whom I sent to ferret
out the truth made the mistake. I would not
marry that hoiden, handsome as she is, for the
world. I should think not. But Gertrude
Gordon is to be my wife.” He looked hard at
his mother, “She has almost promised she
will love me. Oh! how she will love me! Now
she is half afraid.”

Lady Calthorpe said nothing.

The next morning, as they sat at breakfast,
a servant entered and announced:

““Mr. Gordon.”

“‘Preposterous!” cried Sir Arthur. ‘On
Christmas morning!”

The young baronet turned pale; and then
with heavy strides there came into the room a
tall, swarthy man, with a black beard.

Augustine and Gertrude uttered a simultane-
ous cry. It was the man of the window.

When he saw Gertrude, he folded his arms;
he smiled. Light broke over the sad, swarthy
face like sunshine through leaden clouds.

“Like—like in every feature!” he said.
‘Like her mother, whom I loved with such a
burning love as man seldom bestows on woman.
My child, I am your uncle William.”

“Papa’s brother, who was drowned?’ said
Gertrude.’

““Who was not,drowned. I sent home word
Iwas dead. Idid not wish them to think of
me. Then I heard that he was dead, and had
left a girl; and I said to myself, if she is like
Fanny, she shall be my heiress. I have made
two hundred thousand pounds by merchandise
and toil in the East, Calthorpe Hall will be
mine. While I was away my lawyers lent
money of mine to this young man’s father. He
cannot repay me. Thus Calthorpe Hall will be
mine and yours.” ;

Gertrude looked at Arthur. wl
won her heart, though she was eae id Sonne
She looked at Arthur, and burst into tears,

“Is this so?” said William Gordon. “Do you
love him, then?”

“Yes,” said Gertrude.

‘‘Heaven bless her!” sobbed Lady Calthorpe.”

“I came and looked at you through the
school-room window, my child, to see if you
were like your mother. If you had not been
like her I would have given you five thousand
pounds as a marriage portion, and gone away,

As it is, you are my heiress. Calthorpe Hall
shall be settled upon you.”

“Upon Sir Arthur,” said Gertrude,

“Upon Sir Arthur, then,” said William Gor-
don. ‘He is a good youth after all, and it is
not right he should suffer for his father’s faults,
Let us all shake hands. Let me spend Christ-
mas day with you.”

Even Lady Calthorpe was happy before the
day was over; for William Gordon told her
how ancient was his pedigree, and she discoy-
ered that Gertrude came of gentle blood.

Augustine was invited to spend all the holi-
days at Calthorpe.

Sir Arthur’s love for Gertrude was so intense
that it conquered his pride, and he was not
pained at regaining his estates through her
agency. The wedding was fixed for J uly.

 

 

THE STUDIO KEY.

 

BY HARRIET IRVING.

 

U the broad stairs of the studio building

went Agnes Farle. Her pretty feet
tripped lightly, but the heart under the silken
bodice was heavy as lead. Up and up to the
very highest floor, to the tiny sky-lighted room
where old Jacob Strauss carved away indus-
triously at the pretty frames and ornaments
which were his delight as well as his means of
livelihood.

An heiress in her own right, Agnes Earle
had her own ideas of munificence. ‘There was
always some object among old Jacob’s stores
that particularly delighted her, that was worth
twelve times what he asked for it, a real work
of art, and so, with mingled flattery and
bounty, she laid her own valuation upon it.

A smile brightened old Jacob’s face as the
dainty little lady entered the dusty room.
She sat and chatted awhile with him, forget-
ting her heaviness of heart for a time. Poor
Agnes! it was her very first sorrow that op-
pressed her. Her parents had died before she
was old enough to know her loss. All her life
she had been surrounded by friends, and in
later years by suitors.

Life was all a pretty pastime to her until she
first met Edwin Lee, and wakened into sudden
womanhood, She had thought his heart her
own, although no words of love ever had
passed between them; for there are looks and
tones that seem to need no aid from speech,
And then a vail had fallen; how or whence she
could not tell. She saw him sometimes, but in
place of the long, cosy talks, there were a few
stiff words of greeting—conversations such as
strangers might carry on together,

Of ‘his life ‘she knew nothing, only that he
was a plain young man, with noble sentiments
and grand ideas; a quiet, unpretending gentle-
man. She had cared to know no more, except
the secret -half-revealed that had trembled on
his lips and in his eyes, then vanished, as if
forever.

Old Jacob had been talking glibly, and
waited vainly for an answer, for the girl’s
thoughts were far away. She blushed and
laughed a little uneasily as she returned to con-
sciousness.

‘Pm afraid you’re not so well, Miss Agnes,”
said the old man. ‘‘ You look a little pale. I
hope you take good care of yourself, for the
world hasn’t many like you. Now I wonder if
you wouldn’t like a little amusement to-day,
though, perhaps, it’s the dancing has made you

le.”

““The sculptor down-stairs has gone out and
left his key with me, and he has a many beau-
tiful things in there, far finer than my poor
little frames. It’s just one short flight.” And
he pointed to an open door.

“Go, look around a bit, while I finish the
center-piece. It’s but dull amusement watch-
ing an old man work.”

Agnes started up with delight. A sculptor’s
studio was to her a region of romance.

‘Be sure you: lock the door again, Miss
Agnes,” said the old man, “for Mr. Lee is very
particular. He wouldn’t like to think that any
one had seen his work, but I’m sure it can not
do any harm.”

The girl’s heart was beating in fierce thumps.
She bit her lips to stay the exclamation that
had almost escaped them.

“What is his other name?” she said, care-
lessly.

“Edwin—Edwin Lee. But you’ll not know
him, for he’s not a famous sculptor yet, though
I say he will be some day.” ,

Agnes hesitated. It seemed to her she had
no right to enter Edwin Lee’s studio without
his express invitation. He was the soul of
honor. What would he think of her if he were
ever to know of her visit. But she was a wo-
man, with all a woman’s curiosity, and that
conquered.

“You must never, never tell the gentleman
that I have seen his room, Jacob, and please
never mention my name.”

“Trust me,” said Jacob, with a sly twinkle
in his eye which meant something or nothing,
though which of the two remains a mystery to
‘this day. :

She was alone in the room that Edwin Lee
had hallowed by his presence, for to her the
room was sacred. A barren apartment, truly,
for it contained only a chair, a table, and a
few rude shelves; Yet not barren, for the art-
ist soul was there. Medallionsin plaster, small

statuettes, and half-formed models in clay stood .

about. Agnes examined each and all with

delight. ee nig nee
But the principal object in the room was a

sculptor’s stand, about breast high, over which
hung a white cloth. Agnes hesitated; but, as
before, curiosity conquered, and she lifted the

 

covering.
With a cry of pleasure she started back, Tt

 

 

 

was a bust that stood there, an exquisite female
head bent sidewise, looking out with a tender,
questioning look, Agnes stood and gazed, and
as she gazed a revelation came to her, slowly,
filling her with a joy so keen that it was almost
pain.

Regardless of the dust and litter of the studio
floor, she leaned toward the pedestal and flung
her arms around it.

“Ts this beautiful creature myself?’ she said,
kissing cheek and chin and brow again and
again. ‘Yet there was no vanity in the girl’s
heart of hearts; only pure thankfulness that he
had seen her so, that in his heart of hearts he
loved her. .

She understood his story now. He was a
sculptor with his fortune yet to make. She
was an heiress, and he was poorand proud. It
was love, only love, that had shown him every
lineament of her face there in his lonely studio.

With a lightened heart she locked the door
and turned away. She gladdened old Jacob’s
heart by playful words and more than usual
bounty, and went her way flushed with a new
joy and pride.

The end of the story is easier to guess than
Edwin Lee’s confession was to win, for where
there is a will there is a way. Love conquers
pride, and Agnes Earle had opened the inner-
most sanctuary of her lover’s heart with his
studio key.

 

 

A GOSSIP ABOUT NAMES.

EADERS of The Book of Days will re-
member, in the first volume, a collection
of verses brought together as illustrations of
“‘Rhythmical Puns on Names.” Such a sub-
ject, to a diligent searcher, would prove almost
as endless as the kindred one of epitaphs. A
few more specimens gathered since the publica-
tion of the above, have been selected for inser-
tion in these pages, together with other fantas-
tic exemplifications of the fertile theme of
nomenclature, It is, indeed, quite hopeless to
be able to set down anything on such a matter
which shall be quite new to all readers; still,
one frequently falls into companies in which
the very best, and even the very oldest of such
things are unknown, and we may reasonably
suppose that to some of our readers many. of
these will yet be new.

On Lord Rockingham’s becoming minister
during our disputes with America, a declara-
tory bill being brought into the House of Com-
mons which was judged to be too tame a
measure by the adverse party, the following
distich appeared in the papers:

You had better declare, which you may without

shocking “em,

That the nation’s asleep, and the minister Rock-

ing ’em.

An old gentleman of the name of Gould
having married a very young wife, wrote a
poetical epistle to a friend to inform him of it,
and concluded it thus: :

So you see, my dear sir, though I’m eighty years

 

A aibad eighteen is in love with old Gould.

To which his friend replied:

A girl of eighteen may love Gould, it is true;

But believe me, dear sir, it is Gold without U!

Punning upon names in epitaphs has been
common enough. Here are three specimens;
one on the Earl of Kildare:

Who killed Kildare? Who dared Kildare to kill?

Death killed Kildare, who dares kill whom he will.

On John Penny:

Reader! of cash, if thou’rt in want of any,
Dig four feet deep, and thou shalt find a penny.

The celebrated Dr. Parr attended for a short
time upon Queen Caroline, to read prayers, etc.
His place was afterward supplied by a gentle-
man of the name of Fellowes. Upon which the
following epigram was written:

There’s a difference between
Dr. Parr and the Queen;
For the reason you need not go far;
The doctor is jealous
Of certain little Fellowes,
Whom the Queen thinks much above Par.

On being told that Bishop Goodenough was
appointed to preach before the House of Lords,
a wag wrote:

*Tis well enough that Goodenough
Before the Lords should reach;

For sure enough they’re bad enough
He undertakes to teach.

When the above most respectable prelate was
made a bishop, a certain dignitary, whom the
public had expected would get the appointment,
being asked by a friend how he came not to be
the new bishop, replied, * Because I was not
Goodenough.” This pun is perfect in its way.

We have somewhere met with the following,
which is more in the style of word-twisting of
our modern burlesque writers. It is on the
bankruptcy of a person of the name of Homer:

That Homer should a bankrupt be,
Is no so very Odd, D’-ye See,

If it be true, as I’m instructed,

So Ill-he-had his books conducted.

The pulpit has been not seldom occupied by
confirmed punsters. The following cases may be
cited without offense as instances of name-pun-
ning: At Bedford election once, Mr. Whit-
bread and Mr. Howard were opposed by a Mr,
Sparrow. The clergyman, a warm supporter
of the former party, during the heat of the
election, on Sunday morning took for his text:
“* Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?”
in order to draw from it this encouragement to
his friends: ‘‘ Fear ye not, therefore; ye are of
more value than many sparrows.”

A clergyman of the name of Friend, who had
got possession of a living in a way that ren-
dered it doubtful whether it might not be re-
garded as a simoniacal contract, was imprudent
enough to ask a neighboring clergyman to
preach for him on the day he was to read him-
self in, as it is called. The clergyman, who
remonstrated with him in the course of the ne-

 

 

gotiation, being humorously inclined, to the
great consternation of the new incumbent, sit-
ting at the desk below him, chose for his
text: ‘‘ Friend, how camest thou in hither?”

The story of Dr. Mountain and the witty
Charles II. is strongly characteristic of the
times, and very applicable to our subject. A
bishopric being vacant, Charles happened to
ask his chaplain, Dr. Mountain, whom he should
appoint. ‘Why, sire,” said the latter, ‘“ If
your Majesty had but faith, I could tell
you whom.” ‘‘ How so,” said the king, “if I
had but faith?’ ‘“ Why, in that case,” said the
doctor, “your Majesty might say to this moun-
tain, be thou removed into the sea.”

James the First of England and Sixth of
Scotland was, as every one knows, not remark-
able for vigor and steadiness. Having heard
of a famous preacher who was very witty in
his sermons, and peculiarly so in his choice of
texts, he ordered this clergyman to preach be-
fore him. With all suitable gravity, the
learned divine gave out his text in the follow-
ing words: ‘“ James, first and sixth, in the lat-
ter part of the verse, ‘He that wavereth is like
a wave of the sea driven by the wind and
tossed.’ ”

The Cavaliers, during the Protectorate, were
accustomed in their libations to put a crumb of
bread into a glass of wine, and before they
drank it, say: “God send this Crumb-well
down.”

Southey, in his Life of Wesley, cites a pas-
sage from Fuller’s Grave Thoughts, which
shews that even the most solemn occasions and
subjects cannot always exclude this punning
propensity. ‘‘ When worthy Master Hern, fa-
mous for his living, preaching, and writing,
lay on his deathbed (rich only in goodness and
children), his wife made such womanish lamen-
tations, what should become of her little ones?
‘Peace! sweet-heart,’ said he; ‘that God who
feedeth the ravens will not starve the herns ee:
speech censured as light by some, observed by
others as prophetical; as indeed it came to pass
that they were all well disposed of.”

“The trivial prophecy which I heard,”
writes Lord Bacon, ‘‘ when I was a child, and
Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years,
was:

When Hempe is spun,

England’s done;
whereby it was generally conceived that after
the princes had reigned which had the princi-
pal letters of that word Hempe (which were
Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth),
England should come to utter confusion; which,
thanks be to God, is verified in the change of
the name; for that the king’s style is now no
more of England, but of Britain.”

Though not perhaps to be reckoned among
puns, yet the names of things as well as persons
are liable to very odd perversion. On this ac-
count, many years ago, an anonymous writer
declared his objection to our gold coin, the sov-
ereign, ‘‘We need be careful,” says he, “ of
not incurring the charge of high treason, by
our common expressions concerning it. How
strangely the following must sound. to any loyal
ear; ‘T have got a dreadfully bad sovereign ’—
‘I wish I could change my sovereign ’—‘I am
sure the sovereign I have got is not worth
twenty shillings.’ And how many of Her Ma-
jesty’s most devoted subjects, if they were to
speak their minds freely, must cordially and
daily wish to have more sovereigns than one.
And to console the friends of monarchy, we
may be just as certain that every person in
Her Majesty’s dominions would rather have
one than none.”

About fifty years ago, an ingenious writer
contributed several stanzas to a magazine with
an object thus expressed at the conclusion of
them:

Now, i facwe you'll acknowledge I’ve made it quite
clear
That surnames ever go by contraries,
The line of argument he adopts to support his
somewhat fanciful theory will be sufliciently
laid bare by the following specimen;
Mr. Barker ’s as mute as a fish in the sea;

Mr, Miles never moves on a journey ;

Mr. Gotobed sits up till half after three;
Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney;

Mr. Gardener can’t tell a fiower froma root;
Mr. Wilde with timidity draws back;

Mr. Ryder performs all his journeys on foot;
Mr. Foote all his journeys on horseback,

To the student of nomenclature, the follow-
ing medley, condensed from an article which
appeared in a weekly paper fully forty years
back, will be acceptable:

Put away chronology—“ a fig for your
dates,” as qa punster would say—and see what a
pretty confusion the world would be in about
the heroes and sages of antiquity, by a refer-
ence to the door-plates in the metropolis at the
present time! For instance, Homer is a’ coal-
merchant at Paddington; Cesar, a grocer and
tea-dealer in Cripplegate; Alexander makes
trumpets near Leadenhall; Regulus is a toy-
man in Newport Street, Long Acre; Nero
keeps a hotel at the west end of the town;
and Cato the Elder makes meat-safes and wire.
cages on Holborn Hill; Mars is a leather-dres-
ser in Snowfields; and Bacchus is a manutfac-
turer of decanters and wine-glasses in Thames
Street; Thomas a Becket is an attorney in
Bond Street; the Admirable Crichton is physi-
cian to the Emperor of All the Russias.

In searching after the characters immortal-
ized by the Bard of Avon, one would perhaps
be surprised to find the blind Lear an optician
in Fetter lane, while Edgar sells ale in Fen-
church street; Macbeth and his wife are set up
in a fruit-stall in Vinegar yard, Drury lane;
the melancholy Jacques is established as an
apothecary in Warwick street, Golden square ;
Angelo is celebrated as a fencing-master in the
Albany; Romeo, having been promoted to a
captaincy, is beating up for volunteers in the
cause of liberty; Paris is in full practice as a
popular physician. Otway is major-general in

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

14

CHLLES AND BEAUX.

 

[Marcu 14, 1874.

 

 

the army; Milton breaks in horses in Piccadil-
ly; Rowe and Waller are in partnership as
stationers in Fleet street; and Isaac Newton
flourishing as a linen-draper in Leicester square.
Alexander Pope, made straight and fattened
up, acts tragedy at Drury lane; Addison sells
globes in Regent street; Richardson and Swift
keep lottery-offices in the city; Congreve’s
pieces (which continue to go off remarkably
well) are cannon, not comedies; and Farquhar,
instead of a poor author, is a rich banker in St.
James’ street. Gay, “‘in wita man, simplicity
a child,” makes dolls in Goswell street; Cowley
is a blacksmith; Phillips is poetical only in his
prose; Prior till very lately was an ensign of
the twelfth regiment of foot; Collins, instead
of odes, makes glass chandeliers; Butler grinds
Greek at Harrow; and Cowper may be seen
writing his Task at the table of the House of
Lords any day during the sitting of Parlia-
ment.

 

 

ROSE LEAVES.

We stood beside the sleeping bay;

She held my gifted rose in her hand;
It was the last sweet trysting day,

And then, ho! for a strange, far land.
She plucked each tender leaf apart,

And each leaf told its tale to me—
Each leaf a pops torn from my heart;

The leaves fell fluttering by the sea.

And oft in far-off lands I thought
Of one who never could be mine;
Who must be loved, but be unsought—
*Twas hard to love and not repine.
Those rose leaves withered on the sand,
But other roses bloom for thee;
Oh lost love in the distant land,
Oh rose leaves withered by the sea!

Random Reading.

AN ODD CATASTROPHE.

MILWAUKEE sleighing party had a
very queer denouement. It seems that,
in that section of country, sleighing is such a
“dead sure thing” that sleighs are fitted up
very elaborately. Among other ‘“ new-fangled
notions” was an apparatus of boiler and hot-
water pipes, located under the driver’s seat of
a large livery sleigh called the ‘‘ Alcott.” Into
this sleigh bundled a large party, for a trip to
Oak Creek, a dance there, and a ride back by
early dawn. All went well enough for a
while, when, with a sputter and a sharp re-
port, the tank burst and flooded the occupants
with water, which the cold night air so chilled
before it reached them as to take the scald out
of it. Drenched to the skin, they all had to
forage for dry clothes, at their place of destin-
ation, and presented an odd appearance in the
ball-room. We are told by the veracious Wis-
cousin that ‘the sprightly-looking old lady in
a torn calico dress proved, upon close scrutiny,
to be the beautiful Miss The lively old
chap in a pair of Noah’s pantaloons (and his
everyday ones at that) was found to be the ex-
quisite beau, B——, and so on throughout the
list. But the young people were determined
to have a good time, and they had it—and de-
layed their departure until an early-late hour
in the morning. Of course strict secrecy was
enjoined upon every member, Miss telling
Mr. that if he ever told how she looked
in the dress and cap, she’d “be awful mad at
him.” Naturally, he won’t mention it. But
the more closely such things are kept, the more
we know about them—for our reporter writes
short hand, you know.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWO “LEADING” LADIES.

Of two leaders just now very prominent in
Washington City social circles, we have this
interesting ‘‘personal” from a correspondent
who, speaking of the bride of Secretary of
War Belknap, says:

When you get inside of Mrs. Belknap’s door
you involuntarily listen a little, and are re-
lieved at the sound of good, plain English.
Perhaps you are none the less dazzled in this
drawing-room ; but it is your eyes and -not
your ears that get confused. Mrs. Belknap is
one of the few ladies in society here who can
afford to have pretty girls around her, and it
is enough to say that, after a perplexing series
of fascinations, you find her face the finest and
sweetest of them all; moreover, even a man
eould tell how incomparable her toilets are. I
said Miss Fish was the sensation of the season.
I don’t know, after all, but it is this bride who
holds that place; as Mrs. Bowers, she kept the
house of her brother-in-law, and did the honors
till all Washington was at her feet; last year
she was abroad, and now she comes back again
a bride to her new home—very elegant in all
its appointments, but evidently no less a home.
Her parlors are crowded, and everybody is at
the hight of enjoyment; but if you watch her
ever so closely, you cannot see but that she is
just as gracious to those very common-looking
people, who are apparently strange to society
of any kind, as she is to Sir Edward Thornton,
who has followed them in.

And of the wife of the gentleman whom the
Senate wouldn’t make Chief Justice, he writes:

Mrs. Attorney-General Williams is also a
sensation this winter. I imagine somebody
might like to know how she looks. Tall and
stout, with a beautiful skin, black hair and
eyes, she has been in every sense a brilliant
woman; moreover, she knows thoroughly how
to dress herself so as to highten the effect; she
studied her own style, she affected the barbaric
somewhat, and she was quite right; she looked
like a queen, albeit an oriental queen. On
Wednesday, standing in the vast spaces of her
elegant new mansion, in a faultless dress of
cherry and gray, she, nevertheless, looked
worn and blase; she seemed nervous and de-
fiant, and she lacked the old-time, never-fail-
lug, adaptable brilliancy, We said to one

 

another, Mrs. Williams is a woman after all,
and not personified ambition, as it seemed
sometimes. Her house looked like concrete
ambition, truly ; the drawing-room, large
enough for a presidential mansion (or the house
of a chief-justice, perhaps), has twice the ele-
gance of the east-room, and in some inexplica-
ble way the dining-room, where you go always
at receptions for the inevitable chocolate and
cake, ‘‘or its equivalent,” to use the Roman
phrase—being, in this instance, in Rome—the
dining-room unites size with a certain coziness
that does not preclude daily living in it.

 

THE TRUE STORY AT LAST.

James W. Hale, of New York, the instruc-
tor of the late Siamese twins, writes a long
letter to correct newspaper misstatements and
inventions regarding the two brothers.

It would appear from his statements that
their mother did not have ‘‘seventeen children,
six being twins of the usual sort,” but had onTy
two other children besides Chang and Eng.

The story of their wooing and wedding two
‘‘ Lancashire lasses” is pronounced all a fable.
Their wives were two North Carolina girls,
who never were outside of the Old North State.

And of their intelligence we have this pleas-
ing account: “They were taught to write by
me in 1830, and their earnest desire for know-
ledge led them to purchase such works as those
of Byron, Scott, Burns, Montgomery, Cooper,
Shakspeare, Dickens and others; and they

| were better posted, by observation and read-

ing, on the general affairs of the world at large
than are the people of New York, to-day; much
better, certainly, than the writer of the article
which I have in part corrected.”

Of their dispositions, love for one another,
likeness of tastes, etc., we are now informed:
‘The twaddle about the differences of opinions,
quarrels, fighting, etc., are all bosh, so far as
relates to their early lives. What may
have happened more recently I am not pre-
pared to say. But up to the time of their
marriage they were genial, pleasant compan-
ions, affable in their intercourse with the hun-
dreds of thousands who visited them, unless
they were insulted by some unthinking or ig-
norant person, and then they usually turned
away and said nothing. They had strong tem-
pers, but not vicious dispositions. When quite
young there was little or no apparent difference
in their temperaments, but in later years Chang
has been less genial than formerly. In twenty
years I never heard an unkind or unpleasant
word between them. They rarely spoke to
each other, from the fact that neither of them
had any ideas to communicate to the other, as
both always heard and saw the same things,
and the impressions made upon their minds
were generally the same. Inever knew of any
person, or of an article of food which one liked
and the other did not. But one might be eat-
ing beefsteak while the other was finishing a
chicken; they were fond of both those articles.
Since their marriage they may (or ought to)
have changed somewhat in this respect.”

Another singular fact is now announced.
They were not Siamese but Chinese, their
father, mother, and their ancestors all being
from China. The twins were, however, born
in Siam, in 1811. Their parents were poor,
and the boys obtained a livelihood by fishing,
manufacturing cocoanut oil and other arts, at
which they were remarkably expert. While
thus engaged they were discovered by a British
merchant named Robert Hunter, who, with
Captain Coffin, brought them to America in
1829,

 

A SUNBEAM.

The greatest of physical paradoxes is the sun-
beam. It is the most potent and versatile
force we have, and yet it behaves itself like the
gentlest and most accommodating. Nothing
can fall more softly or more silently upon the
earth than the rays of our most great lumin-
ary—not even the feathery flakes of snow which
thread their way through the atmosphere as if
they were too filmy to yield to the demands
of gravity like grosser thiags. The most delicate
slip of gold leaf, exposed as a target to the
sun’s shafts, is not stirred to the extent of a
hair, though an infant’s faintest breath would
set it in tremulous motion. The tenderest of
human organs—the apple of the eye—though
pierced and buffeted each day by thousands of
sunbeams, suffers no pain during the process,
but rejoices in their sweetness, blesses the use-
ful light. Yet a few of those rays insinuating
themselves into a mass of iron, like the Britan-
nia Tubular Bridge, will compel the closely-
knit particles to separate, and will move the
whole enormous fabric with as much ease as a
giant would astraw. The play of these beams
upon our sheets of water lifts up layer after
layer into the atmosphere, and hoists whole
rivers from their beds, only to drop them again
in snows upon the hills or in fattening showers
upon the plants. Let but the air drink in a
little more sunshine at one place than another,
and it desolates a whole region in its lunatic
wrath. The marvel is that a power which is
capable of assuming such a diversity of forms,
and of producing such stupendous results, should
come to us in so gentle, so peaceful, and so un-
pretentious a manner.

 

HISTORICAL MARRIAGES.
“Old Adam slept, and from his side
A woman in her magic beauty rose;
Dazzled and charmed, he called her bride,
And his first sleep became his last repose.
Lot’s wife got into a pretty pickle.
Mr. Windsor’s wives were said to be merry.
King Arthur’s wife loved him a little, and
Launce a lot.
Mrs. MacStinger would have made Captain
Cuttle a spicy spouse

   

Did Anne, of Austria, marry Mazarin? is the
great conundrum.

Jack Spratt could have married better if he
had read ‘‘ Counterparts.”

The trouble with Blue Beard’s last wife was
that she dropped the key to the situation.

There is no record of Satan’s marriage, which
makes us blush to mention that he’s the father
of Lies.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater, presented his
wife with a snug residence. He understood
the situation.

Buckingham called Milton’s wife a rose.
“Yes,” said the poet, sadly, ‘‘and you can’t
get your nose in between the thorns!”

Albert Durer couldn’t endure her, so he ran
away. But she fetched him back, and made
him make her bed every morning.

Socrates’ antipathy to Xantippe theologized
him. (The reader will please observe the play
or words, for there was no other play about it
—it was business.)

Ulysses’s wife came near running away from
him during his twenty years’ absence, from
which she was called Penelope (from pene,
almost, and elope, to run away).

Solomon the Wise married seven hundred
times. It is asserted that this was carrying the
thing, to an extreme, but the example of his
father and Bathsheba was before him.

 

WHY UMBRELLAS ARE NON-RETURN-
ABLE.

The Danbury News man has solved a riddle.
He writes: ‘‘ If we study closely into the mat-
ter we will cease to wonder why more borrow-
ed umbrellas are not returned. Did you ever
undertake to return a borrowed umbrella?
You got this umbrella the night before. It
was raining in torrents at the time, and you
could not very well do without the shelter. It
was to be returned the next morning. So you
promised and so you honestly intended. The
next morning breaks with a clear sky, the sun
comes forth and floods the earth with its radi-
ance. There is not a fleck of cloud visible any-
where; there is not the faintest indication in
the atmosphere of an approaching disturbance.
But the change in nature, great as it is, is no
greater than the transformation in that um-
brella. The night before in the dashing rain it
was a most appropriate companion. At every
step through the dismal wet you thought of it
with keen pleasure. But now it is a strikingly
awkward contrivance, bristling with animosity
toward all out doors, and you eye it with un-
disguised disfavor. The more you think of es-
corting this object down street through the
bright sunshine, of obtruding it like a noisome
shadow among a grateful and delighted peo-
ple, the more repulsive it appears to you. In
desperation you look about for a cloud—some-
thing that will in the eyes of impartial men,
at least, save you from contempt—but you do
not find it. Then you look about for a boy
anxious to distinguish himself as a scape-goat,
but don’t find him. With a heavy sigh you
turn your back upon the obnoxious umbrella,
and go to business. , It needs rare courage, in-
deed, to return an umbrella in the glare of a
bright sun. A man may manipulate Con-
gresses, capture countries, conquer disease,
control the elements, and yet lack the nerve to
propel a borrowed umbrella through the rip-
pling and dancing sunshine.”

 

VENTILATION OF SLEEPING ROOMS.

Fresh air should be introduced into sleeping
rooms so as not to fall upon the beds.or create a
draft across them. In building houses the pro-
per ventilation of the bedrooms should be care-
fully provided for, but this we are sorry to say
is not always done, so that in many chambers
it is difficult to introduce fresh air, without en-
dangering health. If a window can be lowered
and there is a stove-pipe opening in the room,
a good circulation of air may be obtained. Or
the lower sash may be raised several inches
and a nicely-fitting board close the aperture.
This will allow air to enter between the sashes
and yet keep it from falling directly on a bed
near the window.

As one weighs a pound less when he rises in
the morning than when he goes to bed at night,
and this pound is diffused through the bedding
and the air of the room in the shape of carbonic
gas and insensible perspiration, it is evident
that unless constant supplies of fresh air are
admitted to the sleeping room, the atmosphere
will become very foul and unwholesome. It
appears from this fact that daily airing of the
bedding is requisite to cleanliness, and the more
thorough this airing is, the greater will be the
power of the blankets and comforts to retain
in the bed the warmth of the sleeper and keep
out the cold.

While on this subject we must add a word
about the position of the bed with regard tothe
admission of light from the window. The bed
should be so placed that the eyes may be pro-
tected from moonlight, or from the light of the
early morning. A window at the foot of the
bed should be carefully curtained, and light
should enter the room without falling directly
upon the eye of the reclining occupant. With

necessary, as they may suffer great inconveni-
ence, and even injury, from opening their eyes
when in bed directly toward the sky.

 

THE TOMB OF A LOVELY LADY.

_ Anna Brewster writes that the gem of monu-
ments in the Lucca Cathedral is ‘‘ by Jacopo
della Quercia (1388-1438), the master of the
Donatello. It is of the wife of one of the rulers
of Lucca in the early part of the fifteenth cen-
tury. Her husband was that Paolo Guinigi
who gave premiums to every peasant that
planted a chestnut tree in the Lucchese Pro-

 

vince, The Guinigi was a powerful family

regard to children, these precautions are quite’

 

that ruled Lucca wisely from 1380 to 1430,
This tomb is of the second wife of Lord Paolo,
and the figure on it is said to have been a por-
trait. Her name was Ilaria del Carretto, The
figure, life-size, lies as if sleeping on a couch,
dressed in the costume of the day. The gown,
a long robe which covers the pointed shoes, is
bound in at the waist by a belt; it has a high
ruff, buttoned by a long row of small buttons,
which run from the pretty chin down, follow-
ing the slope of the throat to the breast; the
cuffs at the wrist are buttoned in the same
manner. The head-dress is very peculiar; it
is a turban or thick fillet, divided off by nar-
row bands of little flowers. I fancy this thick
roll must have been covered with some sort of
rich stuff, velvet or satin, and that these bands
of flowers were gems, a sort of chain or band
of jeweled flowers wrapped around the roll.
But the beauty of the face is enchanting; the
features are delicate and refined; the: mouth
and chin delicious; the eyelids soft and ex-
quisitely shaped; the brow almost infantile.
Part of the fine nose has been injured, for this
beautiful tomb was thrown into a cellar and
forgotten for centuries. At the feet is a short-
haired dog who looks as if placed there to
watch his sleeping mistress. Her husband
must have prized her beauty as well as her
memory; for, after her death, he ordered Jaco-
po della Quercia to make this tomb, and when
it was completed he placed it in the center of
one of the great halls of the Guinigi palace.
After the downfall of the Guinigi, and during
other warrings and civil distractions in Lucca,
this masterpiece of della Quercia was, as I said
above, tumbled away, neglected, into a subter-
ranean chamber. The base of the tomb was
separated, and part of it, by some chance, went
to Florence, where you may see it in the Affizi
gallery. It has on it a bas relief of winged
genii holding a long rich garland of festoons of
flowers. The Academia della Belle Arti of
Lucca wish to buy back the remaining slabs of
this fine base and place the tomb in the center
of the left transept of the Duomo; now it
stands against the wall, with but one slab of
the bas relief in front. The sacristan gave me
a photograph of the monument, which I shall
have framed and hung somewhere near my
writing table. I shall like to look at the face
and form of the lovely young lady Maria,
whose name sounds so joyful, and whose mar-
ble face and form are so graciously beautiful;
and while I enjoy her beauty, I shall try to
hunt out in old books something of the history
of this lovely lady of Lucca.”

 

HOW HE SCALPED HER.

That accidents will happen, even to the best
regulated heads, is strikingly proven by thestory
that comes to us from a certain section where
“Kissing Games” are all the rage this winter.
The story, as told by the local chronicler, runs:

“Tn a family up-town, where dancing is not
allowed, there was a bussing-bee the other
night, and among those in attendance was a
young a who had recently recovered from
a severe illness. When the pawns were sold
and it came her turn to be kissed, she evinced
a good deal more muscular strength by her re-
sistance than was expected from one so weak
as she was supposed to be. The young lady
and gentleman skirmished up and down the
room a couple of times, and he seemed to be in
a fair way to get the dulce osculorum, when,
by some sudden movement, the poor girl’s
head was completely denuded, and she appeared
before that company with a pate as bald as a
druggist’s globe, while her luxuriant tresses
hung gracefully from a button on the young
man’s coat. Some of the girls yelled and
others tittered, but the poor girl thus shorn
grabbed at her wig, and slid perceptibly out of
the room. Her hair having come out during
her illness, she had it made into a wig, and so
artistically was the job performed and the wig
adjusted that no one knew the difference, It
is a couple of weeks since this occurred, and the
young man felt so bad about it that he made
the only amends in his power by offering his
hand to replace the wig.”

She ought to accept, if for no other reason
than to have the opportunity of helping him to
grow bald.

 

THE LANGUAGE OF SIGNS.

Many persons are, no doubt, under the im-
pression that the deaf and dumb talk to each
other by means of the finger-alphabet; but the
use of this presupposes a knowledge of the
meaning of words, which the deaf and dumb
child can hardly be taught till intelligible com-
munication has been established with it. Al-
phabetical communication is slow and clumsy,
whereas the deaf mute speaks to his comrades
as rapidly, if not as precisely, as we do by
means of vocal speech. He uses a copious and
expressive language of words and signs, indi-
cating words and ideas by means of simple mo-
tions and gestures. This language has the ad-
vantage of being natural and universal. En-
glish, French, and German children, to a great
extent, understand each other, and even a
North-American Indian would be able to talk
with them all, it being a curious faet that
many of the signs used by the Indian tribes
are identical with those of the deaf-and-dumb
schools of Europe; and Mr. Tylor states that a
Sandwich-Islander and a Chinese both made
themselves understood in an American deaf-
and-dumb institution. The “gesture-language ”
is also connected with spoken language in two
remarkable ways. Among low savage tribes
‘there are cases in which speech has to be sup-
plemented by gesture to make it intelligible,
and it is, perhaps, reasonable to suppose that
at an earlier stage of civilization the proportion
of gestures to words would be greater than it
is now,

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Marcn 14, 1874.]

A QUEER SOCIETY.

Society in Brazil, if we can credit what is
said of it by recent observers, is not particular-
ly captivating or interesting. Of the Brazilian
women we are told that the face is very plain—
often decidedly ugly, and so rare is real beauty
of face that when it does exist it is not appre-
ciated! Then the complexion, we are inform-
ed, is ‘usually sallow, never clear and fresh,
and by no means improved by the abundant
use of cosmetics. If any single feature deserves
notice it is the eyes, and yet these do not pos-
sess that quality which makes even the plainest
eyes brilliant; there is no soul looking at you
or speaking to you through them. Childhood
seems to cover the whole period of physical
beauty, and some of the children are most in-
teresting; yet even then the habits and tastes

- of ignorant and commonly negro nurses are

fixed, in place of the impressions of a mother’s
devoted life. The excessive vanity of girlhood,
which seems to be encouraged by the parents
rather than restrained; the gratification of the
palate with all manner of sweets and condi-
ments; the entire absence of any physical ex-
ercise, and, what is more, nothing but weak-
ness inherited, cannot assure any perfect
womanliness.”

Not a very encouraging picture, certainly,
but confirmed by what a lady correspondent of
the Providence Journal reports. She writes:

“Foreign ladies who teach in the schools
(private and select schools) have told me that
school-girl life in Brazil is in a most lament-
able moral condition. A knowledge of French,
music, and dancing is all that is considered
worth obtaining, and then until marriage—
which doesn’t come at all to many of them, or
if it does come is an arrangement of the par-
ents, and simply changes the place of idleness
—they wait, doing nothing, week, month, and
year, nothing; they neither study, nor read,
nor sew, they do nothing. In the forenoon, in
a state of slothful dishabille, they dawdle and
lounge around the house; in the afternoon they
look out of the windows; and this is a national
custom, most striking to a stranger, to see
them, white and black, high and low, educated
and illiterate, hanging out of the windows
through the afternoon; indeed, the window
seats are filled with cushions that the arms may
not become bruised by the continual leaning
upon them. In the evening, dressed—and I
really believe the taste displayed would give
Madame Demarest convulsions if not paralysis
—they sit and sit, and do nothing else again.
Sometimes they speak, and it’s wonderful what
commonplaces can be uttered and how little
can be said when the Brazilian mouth does
open.

So far as female employment is concern-
ed, a Brazilian girl labor for her support? No,
indeed! She would rather have but one dress
and turn it on holidays. Her father would
sell his shirt first, and then button up his seedy
coat. Her mother would die of mortification.
And so they live, poor and vain, aping an aris-
tocracy by mock attempt at show, the cheap
and tawdry emptiness of what is ridiculous.
The wealthier, and not less vain, are surround-
ed with an atmosphere of frigid hauteur,
through which only members of the clique have
the courage to attempt to penetrate. The Bra-
zilian woman develops and matures young, and
becomes old while still young. Her moral sen-
sibilities become obscured by the life which
exists about her, and into which she may pos-
sibly at times get a glance through the customs
of her father or her brothers,”

None of our readers will care to emigrate to
Brazil!

 

The Mau-Bag.

Silver gray will be the leading mode shade.

Bridesmaids are no longer necessary at fash-
ionable weddings.

The editor of a Texas paper acknowledges
the receipt of two beautiful Indian scalps.

The Duke of Edinburgh gets with his Rus-
sian wife $375,000 in cash, and #50,000 a year
besides.

On dit, that silks will be all the ‘‘rage”
next season, and particularly black and striped
silks.

Some of the prettiest aigrettes seen this sea-
son are of spun glass, tinted every imaginable
hue and color.

Mrs. Maxwell is. engrossing clerk, Mrs.
Elliott is postmaster, and Mrs. Quixon is
paper-folder for the Iowa Legislature.

If the new proposition to burn the dead pre-
vails, what are the medical men to do for sub-
jects for the dissecting-table?

New Orleans has been having weather that,
according to the Picayune, leads to the cultiva-
tion of ornamental profanity.

It is said that more than half the students in
the California University support themselves
by working at various trades.

“Emergency” hotels are talked of for the
Philadelphia Centennial. They will, doubtless,
be good things to emerge from.

Don’t talk to us any more about retribution
in this world! A sewing-machine agent has
just inherited. $3,000,000 from a Scotch uncle.

In Carthage, Ill., boys under the age of six-
teen are, by a city ordinance recently passed,
prohibited from chewing tobacco.

' Tis true two million bushels of peanuts are
annually devoured in the United States, most
of them by pale, broken-hearted young ladies.

The Christian Union thinks ‘ ” build a the-
ol ly by the logical faculty is as irra-
anal ae to ae a flower with carpen-
ter’s toals,”

 

 

Not a dollar has ever been missing from the
Department of the Controller of Currency,
where ladies are exclusively employed as
clerks.

Miss Jewell, eldest daughter of our Minister
at St. Petersburg, is said to have been the
prettiest skater in the rink at a festival over
there.

Silver-gray camel’s hair cloth will form the
fashionable fabric for promenade top-garments.
This, worn over a handsome black silk, will
make an elegant toilet,

A young lady of spirit, in Indiana, was so
disgusted with her young man for running at
the sight of a ghost, that she is making prepa-
rations to marry the ghost.

The child of Kate Fox, now Mrs. Jencken,
the original spirit rapper, though only three
years old, is wonderfully developing as a medi-
um in London. Poor child!

The demand for silk in France has latterly
largely increased, but ever since the silk worm
disease first showed itself, in 1849, the supply
of cocoons has steadily diminished.

The fame of the Iowa girl who wears pants
and runs her own farm, has been extinguished
by a Louisiana boy of seventeen, who cleared
$1,106 from a rented farm of thirty acres.

The United States Bureau of Education is
collecting statistics of police expenditures in
the different cities of the Union as compared
with the expenditures for educational pur-
poses. ;

Many of the Connecticut farmers will aban-
don the cultivation of tobacco. Last summer's
crop did not properly mature, and still remains
on the hands of the producers, although in some
cases offered at half the usual price.

An indignant matron winds up a philippic
against sleeping-cars with the clinching accusa-
tion that the system forces young girls to be-
come ‘familiarized with that unattractive
object, a sleepy and unwashed man.”

From the opening of the New Hampshire
State prison, about sixty years ago, there has
not been among the inmates one clergyman,
lawyer, physician, nor deacon, steward, church
warden, class leaders, nor son of a clergy-
man.

Of all the devices for ventilation, nothing
equals the open grate. No working family can
afford to be without one. It will contribute
additional health and working capacity
enough to more than make up for its addition-
al cost.

A disappointed American writing from Flor-
ence, says: ‘‘We hear a great deal about the
blue skies of Italy, but never a word about its
rainy ones, or of its heavy mists and damp,
chilly days that often merge into weeks, nay,
sometimes into months.”

Mr. J. Mortimer Delancy, of Kentucky, fell
into a tank of sour mash last week, and had a
narrow escape from suffocation. The incident
is noteworthy, as showing that, sooner or later,
Providence gets even with a man who parts his
name.in the middle,

The San Francisco Bulletin says there are
two or three thousand outlaws in the mount:
ains of California, who live by gobbery and
violence. They occasionelly make a raid on
some village and strip it of valuables, They
are quite secure from arrest in their mountain
fastnesses.

The Congregationalists of the far West have
decided to locate their central university at
Colorado Springs, Colorado. The institution is
already partly endowed, and subscriptions are
being vigorously pushed. The aspiration of
churches is to make this the “‘ Harvard of the
West.” ;

An important discovery of art objects in

gold, silver, bronze, and iron, belonging to a
period previous to the introduction of Chris-
tianity in Russia, has been made in Alexandro-
pol, in the Province of Erivan; and close upon
Alexandrianople itself, a pagan temple of . vast
dimensions has come to light.
A London literary paper says of George
Eliot, that on her manuscript she toils tremen-
dously, working on an average six hours a day,
and rarely accomplishing in that time more
than three or four hundred words. Her labors
are so exhausting that she devotes all the re-
mainder of the time to recreation and rest,

A new plan is to be tried with Michigan con-
victs. The striped garments are to be abolish-
ed. The prisoners are to be allowed to corre-
spond with their friends. Those who are
uneducated are to be taught; and, when libera-
ted, each man is to receive a new suit of clothes
and ten dollars, with whatever he has earned
by overwork.

Thirty-seven of the seventy-two senators in
Washington are accompanied by their wives,
and nineteen have their daughters with them.
Of the two hundred and ninety-eight represen-
tatives and delegates, one hundred and twenty-
nine have their own wives with them, and
many of the others are accompanied by daugh-
ters and lady friends.

Some of the books which went through the
late Springfield fire indicate the peculiarities of
ink. Where Arnold’s and one or two other
black inks were used, the entries stand out clear
as the hour when first written, but the beauti-
ful violet inks have vanished utterly, on some
pages not a trace being left of the words and
figures covering them.

Japanese silk has come up again for notice.
On dit, that it will be very much worn this
spring by both old and young. The aged and
“sweet sixteen” can wear the new mode
shade, Silver-gray is a very beautiful color,

 

and has the peculiar knack of suiting blondes,

BGELLES AND BEAUX.

 
 
 

brunettes, and the others—in fact, becoming
everybody.

There are four women decorated with the
French Cross of the Legion of Honor: Rosa
Bonheur, the painter; Madame Dubar, Su-
perior of the Convent of the Sceurs de l’Esper-
ance at Nancy; Lady Pigott, for her devoted-
ness to the wounded during the Franco-Prus-
sian war, and Mile. Bertha Rocher, of Havre,
for founding a hospital.

The most original phase of society life in
Washington is the card announcement of birth,
One of these tiny cards is an infinitesimal drab-
colored affair, with a small rabbit’s head and
ears on the flap of the envelope, and a cor-
responding one inside, at the top of a bit of a
sheet making the announcement. It reads:
‘“Compliments of Mr. and Mrs. Blank and son,
January 30, 5 P. M.”

A fortune-telling adventuréss has just been
arrested in Baltimore, and her tricks, by their
success, forcibly indicate the weakness of mind
of her customers. One witness testified to
having at various times paid an aggregate of
$600 to have her husband’s love restored; and
a case of a family quarrel came to light where
a wife had paid $15 for a preparation to poi-
son her husband, and the husband had given
$20 for an antidote. Each prescription was a
harmless powder.

The Washington belle is a hard worker dur-
ing the season. She rises at noon because she
was out late the night before. She breakfasts
in her room and dresses herself for the after
noon round; she enters her carriage and drives
to reception after reception, dancing at the
last one until night has fairly come, when she
goes home, dresses herself in evening toilet,
and again enters her carriage to make a round
of three balls and a German, ending up at the
last somewhere about three a. M. Then she
goes to bed, sleeps till noon, and is up and at
it again.

 

Fun Flashes.

 

Suet is the lawyer’s favorite dish.
The best cure for dirt is a water-cure.

Felt slippers—those felt by children in their
rude young days.

A circuit court—the longest way home from
singing-school.

“Kiss me,” was all she said.—(Modern
novel.) That was ‘“‘enough said” to any
young man.

The ladies—God bless ’em—wear so many
bugles on their dresses that we fear overtures
from them.

A “flirtatious” young lady in Washington
says she knows a great many young gentlemen
who belong to the Signal Service.

A dress worn at a brilliant wedding in a
Western city is described by a reporter as
“decollete at the bottom and the sides,”

Imagine John Bull’s feelings in case he dis-
covers that. our much- vaunted American
sleeping-coach is a little buggy.

A wave on which many a poor fellow has
been carried away is the wave of a lace-edged
cambric handkerchief.

A Milwaukee paper recently announced
that ‘‘lilac-bushes are budding.” ‘You lilac
Satan,” responded a matter-of-fact reader.

A man in Duluth is so mean that he quarrels
with his wife about the politics of the paper
she expands her bustle with.

A Vermont man warns Boston epicures that
eating frogs produces warts; which he thinks
may be because they’re warter reptiles.

Au Irishman, being asked what he would
charge per day for his labor, replied, ‘‘ A dol-
lar and a half if I eat myself, and one dollar if
you eat me.”

An instructor asked a Freshman girl why
beer in French was feminine. She replied that
it was probably owing to the fact that the
boys liked it so well.

Atarevival meeting in Montgomery county,
recently, a young convert forgave all his
enemies, ‘“ especially the fellow who threw his
pup into a yellow jackets’ nest,”

An applicant for a pair of boots at one of
our shoe shops was asked what number he wore,
and replied, as soon as he could recover from
his surprise, ‘‘ Why two, of course.”

An impertinent fellow wants to know if you
ever sat down to tea where skimmed milk
was on the table without being asked, ‘‘Do
you take cream?”

At a recent dinner of shoemakers the follow-
ing toast was given: ‘‘May we have all the
women in the country to shoe, and all the men
to boot, and all the children to slipper.”

Any boy can learn to chew tobacco by be-
ing hopeful and persevering, but unless his hips
are fully developed he cannot wear pants with-
out suspenders, and have his shirt foam jaunt-
ily out over the top.

A sailor passing through a graveyard, saw
on one of the tombstones, ‘‘I still live.” This
was too much for Jack, who, shifting his quid,
ejaculated, ‘‘ Well, I’ve heard say there are
cases in which a man may lie, but if I was
dead I’d own it.”

A school-girl, in order to convince a jealous
boy that she loved him better than some other
urchin, exclaimed: ‘Of course I like you better
than I do Bill, for don’t I miss the words in
my spelling lesson on purpose so as to be at
the foot of the class where you are?”

A lady friend once put a conundrum to her
rheumatic old nurse, asking her, ‘““Why are

 

you like a church window, Sally?” and gave

 

the answer, ‘‘ Because you are so full of pains,”
Whereupon the old colored woman pityingly
replied, ‘Oh, dear, somebody’s been a-foolin’
of ye, honey. Dem’s anudder sort o’ panes,
Dey’s been foolin’ ye, chile.”

The first thing a young man does when he
sees a friend with a new hat on is to take it off
and try it on his own head. When a young
lady sees one of her acquaintances with a new
bonnet, she just lifts up her nose and serenely
—— “‘where the thing got that fright

rom.

At a recent funeral in Danbury, where
several organizations were in attendance, no
crape badges were provided for a female so-
ciety. The president, after fidgeting about in
@ manner peculiar to her unfortunate and un-
happy sex, suddenly blurted out, ‘I declare!
I don’t enjoy the funeral one bit!” The an-
nouncement cast a gloom over the entire
gathering.

A Pennsylvania practitioner of medicine has
a Partingtonian patient. He asked her one
morning recently if she had experienced any
relief in the night. She said she had. First
the relief was in one shoulder, and then in the
other, and then ’peared to settle in her back,
but she put a mustard plaster between her
shoulders, and the relief left her, and now she
felt better.”

Every person who has ever met a commer-
cial tourist, with his little satchel, will appre-
ciate the following: ‘The drummers came
down like wolves on the fold, their toes were all
frosted, their noses all cold. Their weather-
peeled bugles soon shown through the town,
they gobbled the money and salted it down,
then took a few orders and lit out of here, with
their heads full of business and skins full of
beer.” ,

A recent advertisement contains the follow-
ing startling information: ‘If the gentleman
who keeps a shoe store with a red head will re-
turn the umbrella of a young lady with the
ivory handle to the slate roofed grocer’s shop, he
will hear of something to his advantage, as the
same is the gift of a deceased mother, now no
more, with the name engraved upon it.” The
man who would keep an umbrella after such an
appeal is unfit to live. We would surrender a
circus-tent upon a slighter provocation.

 

 

TO ADVERTISERS.
EE A few Advertisements will be inserted on this
page at the rate of fifty cents per line, nonpareil
measurement,

NEW EMBROIDERIES,

ARNOLD, CONSTABLE & CO,

Have just opened a full assortment of -
HAMBURG EDGINGS AND INSERTINGS,
To Marcu, ALL WIDTHS.

Also a splendid line of FRENCH EMBROIDERED

DOUBLE LINEN CHEMISE BANDS, and PER-
CALE NIGHT DRESS SETS,

NOVELTIES.

MIXED ECRU and WHITE CLUNY LACES,
MIXED WHITE LINEN and SILK LACES,
BEADED BLACK FRENCH TRIMMING LACE.
BLACK STRIPED GUIPURE NET.

FOULARD FINISHED CAMBRICS. PERCALES
and FRENCH CAMBRICS, New Designs in FIG-
| Soe ge and STRIPED SHIRTING CAMBRICS, Ete.,

te

WHITE GOODS, LINENS,
AND

GENERAL HOUSEKEEPING GOODS, ETO.

Also, a fine line of

PLAIN BLACK DRESS SILKS,

MUCH BELOW REGULAR PRICES

Broadway, cor. 19th St., N. Y,

New and Rare Plants

FOR SPRING OF 1874.

JOHN SAvu’s Catalogue of New and Beautiful
Plants will be ready in February, with a Colored
Plate, mailed to all my Customers; to others, price
10 cents. A Plain Copy to all applicants free.

JOHN SAUL,

Washington City, D.C.

GOLDEN HAIR.
Aurora; or, Golden Fluid

FOR QUICKLY MPARTING A RICH GO
FLAXEN SHADE TO HAIR OF ANY COLOR

WM. JAY BARKER,

after repeated experiments, has succeeded in pro-
ducing a preparation which, though harmless as
pure water, has the astonishing power of gahly
imparting a_ rich Golden Flaxen Shade to Hair of
any Color. Unlike other preparations,it has neither
Spirit nor Alkali in its composition, so that it can
with confidence be recommended for use in the
nursery; and, by its occasional pep ntion asa Hair
Wash, the much-admired Golden Tint of Children's
Hair may be restored and retained,
PRICE, $2.50 PER BOTTLE.

PREPARED ONLY BY WM. JAY BARKER
1275 BROADWAY, near Thirty-fourth St., N. ¥.

FRENCH STAMPING PATTERNS.
LATEST STYLES. DIRECT FROM PARIS,

Wholesale and Retail. Send for Circular. (Say in
what paper this met your eye.)

ME. L. CENDRIER,
636 Broadway, New-York,

MEN MAKE MONEY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lgdies make money, every one makes money, sell-"

ing Webster’s new and improved Patent Button-hole

orkers and Cutters, Sample set sent prepaid for

5c., or send stamp for particulars, A, W. ‘ebster
Co., Bridgeport, Conn,

4

 

  
   
   
  
    
    
   
      
  
    
   
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
    
   
    
    
 
 
  
  
    
   
   
  
   

 

   
  
   
   
    
  
   
 
      
   
  
  
  
   
   
  
    
   
  
  
   
   
   
      
  
 
   
   
  
  
    
   
   
    
  
  
   
  
  
    
   
  
  
  
   
 
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
  
  
   
   
  
  
  
   
    
 
   
    
   

 

      
     

 

 

 

 
16 BGELLES AND BHAUX. [Manow 14, 1874

 

AN OLD MAN’S DREAM.

Words by CAROLINE BERNARD. Music by EMILE DURAND.
Andantino. %

   
  

 

ae

Voice.

i The“ fair sun bright - ly rose, na - ture. with smiles a - dorn

 

 

Piano. , p legato.

sempre legato.

accellerando. crese.

 

- roll’d forth fond wel -

on

— —
ao - o -
accellerando.  cresc.

 

 

  

 

 

a |
|
rallentando.
'
woods, i - pling streams, In hall ;
rallentando. ;
e
And evn Sned. swallols oss joy - ous

+ Pay eyecare fy wild. +... 255 one can sing! capovdre Tee i gan s4 joy -,ous.. . t00,..:..... Spring, 32%. Sang a

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——
2 A fair maid then I saw across the stream advancing ;— 3 Next morn to my charm’d sight that vision was repeated ;—
Words vain were to describe that form and face entrancing !— Beneath an old, old elm, I saw that maiden seated !—
None who that maid beheld, in swan-like beauty moving, I saw that there sat to, whom Cupid had united !—
And mark’d her angel smile, could view her without loving! Two young hearts, fond and true, who vows of love had plighted !—
Even I, who stood by—for a moment did seem And then I, in my joy to see them Spring-time keep,—
Dreaming—just as at twenty years old one does dream t Well—I avept—as at twenty years old one would weep!

 

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