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1899
Geo. Kict &■ dons, t,Xne.)
Loe Hngeles
Cable of Contents
Cbc feast of San luan, an adventure in two parts
part X..- Grace Aiherion Bennett
^laeterlinck's plays Anna. % Boynton
0old-of-Opbir Roses (a poem) Grace At herton Dtnnen
Driftwood, a serial story, parts XX. and X.
FrankUna. Gray Barileit
Spain and her Hrt Cecilia A, White
Xtist^ikeCbis F.
editorial Department; Books and JVIusic JS^otes
ebell INfotes
Copyrighted, 1899, by Grace Atherton Dennen
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Entered at the Los Angeles Post Ofl&ce as second-class mail matter.
GRACE ATHERTON DENNEN, Editor
1922 Grand Avenue - - - . |- Los Angelks. Cal.
ero >!i 'u 3
f
^^i^^^^^^^i,^^!!^
COMRADES
fflIERCE glowed the mid-summer sun. Its level ^g^St of
rays blistered the adobe of the old mis- ^ '^uatl
sion walls and the white glare fell mercilessly
on road and field and focussed in the square where the tw^pafw!""^ l!
old San Gabriel Mission stood. Gilbert Ford threw him-
self from his foam-flecked horse and retreated into the
shade, gasping. It was San Juan's day. The plaza be -
fore the mission was alive with gay colors and moving
forms. The last tones of the Mass resounded from the
open windows of the mission and a motley crowd was
pouring forth from its doors. Swarthy faces, gleaming
eyes and bits of brilliant color lit up these sons and
daughters of New Spain into the semblance of their gay '
progenitors, and the broad plaza with its glare of white
sunlight and eager revellers celebrating the festal day of
San Juan might have been a corner of old Toledo,
breathed upon by the soft airs of Mother Spain and
shadow-haunted by spirits of by-gone centuries.
"Picturesque," muttered Gilbert, wiping his fore-
head. *' Romantic — it has possibilities, if I were a
writer instead of a politician. I wonder if that black
old duffer there sells his votes for a glass of whiskey.'*
The *'black old duffer" turned at this moment and
seeing Gilbert regarding him curiously, approached with
a flashing smile. "The Senor is warm," he said in Span-
ish, "he has ridden far?"
"From Los Angeles," answered Gilbert haltingly in
the same tongue. "I heard you were making merry
here and stopped off to see."
"Ah, the Senor would pay his respects to the blessed
San Juan? We make merry in his honor."
"You dol" exclaimed Gilbert.
A certain vague excitement was communicating
5
itself to him out of that gay, shifting crowd. He had
heard of San Juan's day, the famous old Mexican festi-
val, was it not the day of miracles? His pulses thrilled
unexpectedly. He fastened his horse under the shade of
the drooping pepper tree where he stood and turned to
his swarthy companion.
"Yes,'' he said, ''I've come to pay my respects to the
blessed San Juan. And now, have you anything cool to
drink?"
"That booth yonder, beneath the trees. Pepita will
serve you."
"Pepita will serve me," muttered Gilbert striding
out into the white sunshine. "I hope Pepita is as pretty
as her name. That will add a flavor to what she serves."
In another moment he was in the midst of the merry-
makers, elbowing and jostling his way good-humoredly
across the crowded plaza. New Spain was in holiday
attire. Dashing caballeros had donned their best velvet
jackets and newest sashes, with silver trimmed som-
breros held by a strap beneath the chin. Demure little
dark-eyed maidens had wound the lace rebosa about
their heads with a more perfect grace, a rose or gay pom-
granate blossom caught in its folds. Curious glances fell
upon Gilbert as he passed; admiration flashed from soft
eyes, resting upon his stalwart figure. The noon was
still and hot, the air heavy with the intoxicating scent
of orange blossoms. The outer edge of the plaza was
flanked with gay booths where flowers, fruits and sweet-
meats were displayed. Toward these he made his way
and stopped where a drooping pepper tree formed a cool
background of green. A clinking of glasses sounded
6
from this corner where a group of men had gathered.
Gilbert entered the group. A pair of flashing eyes set
in a perfect face and framed in the green background
met his for a moment, then vanished as its owner turned
aside.
"Pepita, by Jovel'* exclaimed Gilbert half aloud,
"and a thousand times prettier than her name.'* A slim
young fellow at her elbow turned and looked at him curi-
ously. Then he spoke in Spanish across the green bar-
rier to the gifl and laughed a little. The effect was sud-
den. The girl turned and fixed her glorious eyes full on
Gilbert. Her slim, young figure clothed in red was
beautiful as a slender lambent flame is beautiful, all
crimson changing lights and swift movements with an
inner glow that warns and yet allures. About her neck
hung a curious golden chain that rose and fell with her
quick breathing.
Gilbert stared at her in open admiration. She was
a type outside his ordinary experience of women. Again
that vague excitement thrilled through his veins. It was
San Juan's day. After all he took a holiday so seldom —
he would sieze all this one had to offer.
He pushed his way close to the counter and spoke
to her in his most engaging tones, lifting his hat high.
*'Senorita, I pray for a glass of something cool from
that fair hand for a thirsty man who has ridden far."
The girl looked at him a moment and then answered
coolly: "All m your turn, Senor. Many a man with
better manners is awaiting his before you."
A shout of laughter went up from the listening
group as they looked from Gilbert's flushed face to the
'\ ^ R A ,^y*
girl who had turned her back and was calmly washing a
mug. Stragglers from the square outside hearing the
laughter strolled up to learn the cause and stayed to
watch until quite a crowd surrounded them.
Gilbert's blood quickened its pace. He was amused
and yet disconcerted by this rebuff, and while he ac-
knowledged the justice of it, a sudden masterful impulse
came over him to conquer this girl's resistance. De-
liberately he turned and seated himself on the green
counter where the mugs were placed, facing calmly the
grinning circle that hedged him about, and tapping his
boot with his riding whip. The swarthy fellows watch-
ing him seemed to divine his purpose and moved nearer
with delighted interest.
The girl had brought a pitcher of thin, red wine to
the counter and mixed it with cool water from the olla
hanging beneath the green branches. Then she came
forward bearing two mugs brimming with the cool, red
liquid.
"Here, Jose," she called, "these are yours.'*
Gilbert swung around quickly and laid a restrain-
ing hand on the mug nearest him. She looked at him
with a brilliant flash of anger from the dark eyes.
"I am waiting," he said.
"You shall wait until you are tired," she retorted
with a quick gesture toward the mug.
"I am tired now," said Gilbert, never removing his
hand, "and very hot," he added pleadingly, keeping hie
steady gaze fixed upon the angry face before him. She
paused, irresolute, and he drew the mug slowly toward
him.
8
"You would not be cruel?" he said insinuatingly.
Anger and anQusement struggled in her eyes at his
unexpected audacity. Finally, with the unwilling but
giijiceful submission of some half-tamed forest creature,
she pushed the mug petulantly toward him. Amid the
laughter of the surnpunding group he raised the glass to
his lips and bowing low to her drank it.
"Sapristi," exclaimed a gay voice at his elbow, "it
is well Martinez did not see that."
Martinez — the name struck with a curious sense of
familiarity on Gilbert's ear. He turned to see who had
spoken, but the restless crowd, its curiosity satisfied, was
moving away. He stood almost alone beside Pepita.
The girl's face was flushed, her eyes resentful and she
busied herself among the mugs and pitchers.
Gilbert leaned forward with a desire to propitiate
her. "You are not angry?" he asked gaily. **No, Sen-
or," she answered shortly. *'Ah, but I think you are,"
said he, studying her down cast face.
She answered nothing, but raised her eyes and
looked at him, still with that curious expression of un-
willing amusement and resentment.
Gilbert's desire to propitiate her increased. He
wanted to see her smile before he left her.
"Yes, you are angry," he exclaimed decidedly, "for
you won't talk to me. I am an unfortunate fellow. This
was to have been my holiday."
"And why not now?" she was surprised into asking.
"Because I have made you angry and you won't talk
to me."
"I am busy, Senor."
9
**Then you wonH toll me what I want to know?"
"What can I tell you?" she asked impatiently.
He moved nearer. "This is San Juan's day. What
do they do on San Juan's day?"
"Go to Mass and then make merry."
"But how do you make merry?"
"We eat our dinner under the trees, we visit the
booths and have music and at sunset we dance in the
plaza."
"That sounds festive I"*exclaimed Gilbert, "why it's
almost like our Fourth of July."
The girl looked up with some show of interest and
Gilbert, siezed with a sudden inspiration, began to de-
scribe the recent celebration in San Francisco, of the
flags flying and the bells ringing and the soldiers parad-
ing in the streets, even mentioning incidentally that he
had been the orator of the day and had made a speech
in the city hall to thousands of people, at w hich she
seemed far less impressed than she should have been.
But he succeeded in interesting her. Long practice had
taught him how to hold the attention once gained and
both were equally surprised when a sudden call rang out:
'Barbecue, barbecue, all to the tables!"
They both looked up. The shifting crowd was mov-
ing rapidly to the rear of the mission where rude tables,
hastily constructed, were heaped with varied foods,
while a circle of leaping flames and clouds of smoke
showed where the great ox was roasting whole and fill-
ing the air with savory odors.
"It is the barbecue! We have talked long," ex-
claimed Pepita moving quickly in the direction of the
mission.
10
"What do you do at the barbecue?" asked Gilbert*
"Come and see."
Gilbert quickly overtook her and put a detaining
band on her arm. "Let me follow you,'* he said appeal-
ingly. "Be my guide through the mysteries of San
Juan's day. I am a stranger and alone. Prove to me
that you are not angry with me and let me put myself
under your protection." He had counted cunningly on
the well known Mexican hospitality in making this ap-
peal and not without reason. The girl hesitated and
looked at him a moment with her curiously unwilling
glance.
"Come, then," she said briefly and moved swiftly
away. A warm, langorous breath, heavy with the scent
of orange blossoms, drifted across the sunny plaza.
Gilbert smiled a little to himself and followed the lithe,
beautiful figure of his guide into the restless crowd.
Curious looks followed them and again there came to
his ear a half formed murmur:
"If Martinez should see — "
It was late afternoon. The intense, tropical day was
drawing to its close. From distant, purple seas a cool
wind was trailing its spray-washed wings across the
languid earth, heralding the approach of twilight. All
the dreamy, golden afternoon, Gilbert had made holiday
amid his novel surroundings as he followed with ever
growing interest, the revels of New Spain on this, her
festival. With a calm audacity born of his holiday
spirit and bis desire to enjoy all that this new expe-
rience had to offer, he had appropriated Pepita to him-
self and in her office of guide had claimed her entire
attention.
11
As for the girl, eome subtle change had crept into
her manner. She no longer rebelled at his companion-
ship but accepted it with a calm which matched his own
It was as if her look said to him, "You wish to amuse
yourself and choose me as your instrument. Very well,
you are playing with fire and it is a dangerous sport but you
have chosen it." In fact there seemed a lurking element
of danger somewhere that constantly stimulated Gil-
bert's interest and enjoyment. Otherwise he might have
wearied earlier in the day and betaken himself to his
journey's end. But Pepita's companions were evidently
uneasy and looked after the two with apprehensive
glances. Once or twice, eome one in pasting, caught
her by the arm and whispered what seemed to be a re-
monstrance into, her ear, but she replied briefly in a sin-
gle sentence, " Let him have it." And ^more than once
he caught the muttered word that accompanied a cur-
ious glance, " Martinez."
He had bought trinkets for her at the booths, he
had filled her hands with flowers, and now they were
dancing. A rosy light filled the plaza and fell upon
picturesque groups of varied forms and colors. Soft
music from guitar and violin floated out on the evening
air. With a smile, Gilbert led his beautiful partner into
the center while the other dancers formed a ring about
them. His Saxon length of limb ill fitted him for the
supple, sinuous windings of this southern dance.
Pepita, half smiling, pushed him and pulled him along
and he stumbled gcod-humoredly after her. He was
thoroughly enjoying himself and his imperfect Spanish
tumbled out unceasingly in a mixture of queer idioms to
12
answer the music of her low speech. He asked innu-
merable questions, as curious as a schoolboy. He made
pretty speeches to her and laughed at his own flattery,
he caught up the tune of the violins and whistled a joy-
ous obligate and followed his companion through the
dance with an abandon and an air of complete posses-
sion of her that made the dark-browed Mexicans about
them open their eyes in wonder, in short, he was amus-
ing himself.
But on a sudden the twilight fell. A thin line of
fog crept up the horizon and the air grew chill. The
music died away and the dance came to an end. As the
last note sounded, Pepita turned with a sudden motion
and glided away among the group of dancers gathered
at the steps of the mission.
Gilbert found himself alone in the center of the
square. He loeked about for Pepita and not seeing her
shrugged his shoulders with a sudden sense of cold and
drew his watch from his pocket. Then he crossed the
plaza to where his horse was impatiently pawing up the
ground beneath the drooping pepper tree. ** Well, my
girl," he said untying her, "you're anxious to be off, are
you? It is time. One holiday, as all good things will,
has come to its end.'* He drew the bridle rein across
his arm and led the horse out into the plaza toward the
group at the foot of the mission steps. Pepita was
standing in their midst, her hair loosened, her face still
flushed with dancing. The leaping flames of the huge
bonfire just kindled near by threw a wierd light over the
group and lit up her form with a red glow. The curious
golden chain about her neck caught the reflection of the
13
flames until it seemed to surround her with a circle of
fire. At no time had she seemed bo beautiful, so dan-
gerously alluring.
Gilbert's eyes noted the details of this picture as he
led his horse across the plaza. He noted the flaming
chain about her neck and a certain daring resolve
brought a smile to his lips and eyes. He approached
her and stood before her. " My holiday is ended, Senor-
ita," he said bowing low "but I cannot go without
thanking her who has been my guiding star through the
mysteries of this day. Frommy heart, Senorita, you
have my gratitude. Without you, I had been indeed
lost."
The girl regarded him with sombre eyes and an-
swered briefly, "The senor is over-grateful."
Her companions pressed curiously nearer.
"I cannot bear to think," continued Gilbert, slowly,
"that my happy day is really at an end, and that in a
few moments more I shall have only the memory of it
to assure me that it has been. I can not hope that you
will think of me again;" he drew closer to her, * 'but
I is there not some little thing you can give me to
carry away as a memento of these past hours? Some
little thing this chain for instance " and he
ou ched the flaming circle with his finger.
A moment of what seemed utter consternation fol-
lowed these bold words. A half suppressed exclamation
ran through the group that surrounded Pepita. They
held their breath and turned their gaze upon her. The
girl had grown perfectly white, her eyes narrowed to
gleaming points and she cast upon Gilbert a look that
14
chilled him for a tDoment. He felt that he had gone too
far and with a quick instinct of repentance would have
recalled his words. But his time for repentance was
brief. Amid a low, but gradually swelling murmer,
the girl, with a swift movement, stepped forward and
unwinding the chain from her own neck flung it over
his shoulders. "Take it," she cried, in a voice that rang
like a deep-toned bell — "you wished something to re-
mind you of me — it is yours. Rest content, senor, I
promise you that you shall not forget Pepita."
A storm of what seemed to be remonstrance from
her excited companions followed this act, but the girl
turned upon them with a mocking laugh, '* Let him have
it," she cried, and again her laugh stung him with its
sharp mockery — "let him have it." Then turning, she
darted up the steps and disappeared within the door of
the mission.
Amid an uneasy and ominous silence Gilbert mounted
his horse and gathered in the rein. "Adios, senors and
senoritas," he called cheerfully and waving his hand to
the watching group he rode away into the gathering
dusk. And from the heart of the plaza a low, awed
murmer was borne to his ears, " What will Martinez
say!"
As the steady beat of his horses hoofs resounded
from the hard road, Gilbert settled back in his saddle^
the exprcBsion of his face became alert and serious.
*' Well, that piece of foolishness is over," he said to him-
self." " I suppose we are all fools once in a while. A
holiday is so rare a thing with me that it goes to the
15
head like wine. Come, old girl, we must be at the ranch
house within half an hour."
He unwound the golden chain from his neck and
buttoned it carefully into his coat pocket. ** I wonder,"
he said with a smile, " I wonder who Martinez may be."
Grace Atherton Dennbn.
M
j^aeterlinck's
AETERLINCK,the head of the symbolistic school Olaw
is an undoubted genius. He has written plays
that are unique in thought and treatment,
strong in their compression of much meaning into a few
words, beautiful for originality.
He is the most remarkable of our modern dramat-
ists, and the wonder is how this peculiar genius can be
the outgrowth of our rapid, artificial, surface-brilliant
century at all. He seems to have nothing in common
with our fin-de-siecle civilization, but looms up amid the
little card houses of our clever writers as stern and un-
compromising as a block of granite. He is a cosmopol-
itan, a frequenter of the most brilliant, capricious, fas-
cinating city of the modern world, the center of intellect,
the home of the nineteenth century Muses — Paris, the
magnificent. Yet he produces pictures of life that for
their fantastic strength and sternness are fairly mediae-
val.
Maeterlinck's plays are about seven in number. Of
these two are representative of his best work. The
Princess Maleine, and The Blind. Each differs widely
from the other, and the two cover the whole range of his
genius.
Of The Princess Maleine the Paris Figaro says: *' It is
equal to if not superior to the best in Shakspeare,
stronger than Macbeth, fuller of suggeation than Ham-
let.'»
The plot is as follows;
Hjalmar, the old king of northern Holland, has
received into his court Queen Anne, the unscrupulous
wife of the deposed king of Jutland. By her superior
17
^'^RA 1^
mental strength she gains complete ascendancy over the
old king, and determines to become queen of Holland, in
fact at least, in name if possible, and to seat her daughter
Uglyane on the throne at her death. When she comes
to Holland she finds Prince Hajlmar betrothed to
Princess Maleine, the daughter of the king of Southern
Holland, by whose marriage the two old kings hoped to
see the country united. Queen Anne's first move is to
break up this marriage. She inflames King Hjalmar
against the rival ruler by the relation of fancied slights
and war is declared between them. This war ia long
and deadly. Queen Anne in persen conducts the cam-
paign, and at its close there is neither stick nor stone
left of the beautiful city of Marcellus. A desolate, ru-
ined country alone remains to bear witness to the recent
conflict, while of all Marcellus' household not one is left
alive but poor little Princess Maleine and her old nurse.
Maleine, once married to Prince Hjalmar, cannot forget
him, and longs in her desolation to be within sight of his
face and sound of his voice. She and her nurse wander
to old Hjalmar's court. They find Queen Anne in full
possession of the reins of government, and bending all
her energies to bring about the marriage of Prince Hjal-
mar with her own daughter, Uglyane. Maleine conceals
her identity and enters the palace as waiting maid to the
queen. But once there she finds that Hjalmar still
loves her, and discloses herself to him. He receives her
joyfully, and places her at once in the court as his future
bride. The rage of Queen Anne at seeing her careful
schemes thus overthrown is silent but terrible. She
takes counsel with the king, her complete slave. They
18
dare not coerce Prince Hjalmar, whose distrust and
scorn they have already been made to feel, so they de-
termine that Maleine must die. Anne procures a slow
poison and secretly mixes it with the food of the little
princess, whose innocent soul suspects no evil. But
here the old king weakens. He has grown fond of Ma-
leine, and his nerves will not endure the strain of wit-
nessing her slow torture. He becomes almost imbecile,
and his actions and unguarded words threaten to disclose
the whole secret. Anne decides to act at once, and in
the midnight hour, during a terrific storm, she leads the
old king to Maleine's room, in an obscure corner of the
castle, where she lies sick and alone, and together they
strangle her and leave her lying dead. The storm roars
on. After a while Prince Hjalmar and the nurse come
to the door of Maleine's room. No noise of calling or
knocking brings an answer, and at last they open the
door and discover the dead princess. In the corner of
the room is a red cloak which they recognize as belong-
ing to the queen. Hjalmar's cry of despair brings the
court quickly to the spot, and among them the king and
queen. The old king, at sight of the assembled throng
and the dead princess, loses his head entirely and con-
fesses the whole crime. The queen in alarm declares
him mad, but Prince Hjalmar, desperate with grief,
charges her with the murder, and shows her the red
cloak. She hesitates, falters, and with a sudden fury
he plunges his dagger into her heart and then into his
own.
The tragedy is complete, and the old king is led
away moaning like a stricken child.
19
This mere outline of the plot will serve to give a gen-
eral idea of the purpose of the play. Many scenes are
remarkable for strength and beauty.
The play opens, as does Hamlet, with a night watch
on the palace ramparts. Two soldiers, Stephano and
Vanox, are keeping guard in the gardens of the castle of
Marcellus. Within the castle a feast is in progress.
King Marcellus is entertaining Hjalmar in honor of the
betrothal of Prince Hjalmar and Princess Maleine. A
supernatural storm rages without, and the shadow of
coming trouble seems to brood over all.
Scene — Gardens of the Castle.
Vanox — What time is it ?
Stephano — It must be midnight, judging by the
moon. . . . Oh, oh, Vanox!
[A comet appears over the castle.]
v.— What 18 it ?
S. — Again the comet of the other night.
V. — It is enormous.
S. — It looks as though it dripped blood over the
castle.
[Here a shower of stars seems to fall upon the castle.]
V. — The stars are falling on the castle. Look,
look !
S. — You would say heaven wept over this betrothal.
V. — They say all this presages disaster.
S. — They say — they say many things.
V. — Princess Maleihe will dread the future.
S. — I dare not say all I know
V. — Then poor little princess !
20
S. — 0, 1 do not like the looks of this betrothal. See;
it is raining already.
V. — The sky is turning black . the moon is
strangely red.
S, — It rains in torrents.
In the palace of Ysselmonde Anne applies all the
arts of which she is mistress, to win Prince Hjalmar's
friendship and pushes his betrothal to her daughter.
But he has caught a glimpse of Maleine in her disguise
and it stirs strange memories in his heart. Anne ap-
points a meeting between him and her daughter in
the park at sunset. With a sort of careless desper-
ation he goes hither, hardly caring to struggle
against his fate, but weary of his life. And there in
shadow of the woods where the moon scarcely penetrates
he finds awaiting him, not the proud, ambitious Uglyane
with the kitchen maid^s soul at the bottom of her green
eyes — but Maleine — little Maleine, his own early love
whom he never thought to see again. The scene between
them is beautiful in its tenderness.
Hjalmar — I cannot see you ; come this way, there
is more light here. Throw back your head a little to the
sky. One would say my eyes had just opened to-night —
one would say my heart was opening to-night — Oh, you
are strangely beautiful, Uglyane, I think I must never
have looked at you till now. There is something about
you — let us go somewhere into the light, come !
Mai^eine — I am afraid.
21
H. — You are sad ; what are you thinking of,
Uglyane ?
M. — I am thinking of Princess Maleine.
H. — Do you know Princess Maleine ?
M. — I am Princess Maline.
H. — You are Princess Maleine? You are Princess
Maleine! But she is dead!
M. — I am Princess Maleine (the moon comes from
the clouds and reveals her face.)
H. — Oh, Maleine! — whence come you? How have
you come so far? How can you have come so far?
M. — I do not knowl
H. — Godl God! What have I escaped to-day!
What a stone you have rolled away to-night 1 Maleine!
— Maleine! I believe I am in Heaven up to the heart.
M. — Oh — and I, too.
The suggestion of Macbeth comes quite spontane-
ously as one reads the fifth act, only that for strength,
rapidity and accumulation of horror, the murder of
Duncan is less remarkable than the death of Maleine,
and even Shakespeare has conceived no woman so strong
in evil as this murderous queen of Jutland — even Lady
Macbeth weakened under the pangs of a tortured con-
science, but not so ^with Anne. Like the She- Wolf of
France, she knows neither pity nor remorse. As in the
first act, a terrible storm is brewing and to put the fin-
ishing touch to a picture complete in horror, the day is
Sunday.
The first^scenes are studies of the workings of con-
science and remorse in the breast of the feeble old king
as he tries to play his part before the court. It is a mas-
22
terly analysis, perhaps the cleverest touch of the whole^
play though it delays the action a little and we are co
scious of the heavy events still crowding in the back^
ground. It is with the last scene that the climax is
reached and a more tragic ending to a perfect tragedy, I
have never found in literature. King Lear is perhape
as sad but at least the curtain falls upon a struggle that
is ended, a life that has done with sorrow, while here
the picture of the imbecile old king, tottering away in
all the anguish of a never ending torment, seems to
stamp indelibly upon the reader an impression of hope-
less gloom, of the awful retribution of an outraged
Heaven.
Thus ends the play, the masterpiece of a genius
whose work is doubtless scarce begun.
The play called The Blind, deals with the downfall
of the church and isjprobably more complete in its sym-
bolism than any Maeterluick has written. The symbol
is that of a blind world, lost in the dark forest of doubt
and ignorance with its ancient guide, the church, sitting
dead in the midst of its blind devotees who have sub-
stituted for the clear vision of faith the uncertain grop-
ings of reason, trying expedient after expedient to bring
them to the light but failing in all. The play seems to
be intended as a study of society and the church and
could not be designed for presentation. The setting is
wierd and unusual to an extreme and the opening scene
and dialogue are worthy of consideration.
(An ancient Norland forest with an eternal look
under a sky of deep stars.)
First Blind Man — He hasn't come back yet?
23
H. — You are sad ; what are you thinking of,
XJglyane ?
M. — I am thinking of Princess Maleine.
H. — Do you know Princess Maleine ?
M. — I am Princess Maline.
H. — You are Princess Maleine? You are Princess
Maleine I But she is dead I
M. — I am Princess Maleine (the moon comes from
the clouds and reveals her face.)
H. — Oh, Maleine! — whence come you? How have
you come bo far? How can you have come so far?
M. — I do not knowl
H.— Godl Godl What have I escaped to-day!
What a stone you have rolled away to-night 1 Maleine!
— Maleine! I believe I am in Heaven up to the heart.
M. — Oh — and I, too.
The suggestion of Macbeth comes quite spontane-
ously as one reads the fifth act, only that for strength,
rapidity and accumulation of horror, the murder of
Duncan is less remarkable than the death of Maleine,
and even Shakespeare has conceived no woman so strong
in evil as this murderous queen of Jutland — even Lady
Macbeth weakened under the pangs of a tortured con-
science, but not so -with Anne. Like the She- Wolf of
France, she knows neither pity nor remorse. As in the
first act, a terrible storm is brewing and to put the fin-
ishing touch to a picture complete in horror, the day is
Sunday.
The first^Bcenes are studies of the workings of con-
science and remorse in the breast of the feeble old king
as he tries to play his part before the court. It is a mas-
22
terly analysis, perhaps the cleverest touch of the whole/r^
play though it delays the action a little and we are co
scious of the heavy events still crowding in the back
ground. It is with the last scene that the climax is
reached and a more tragic ending to a perfect tragedy, I
have never found in literature. King Lear is perhaps
as sad but at least the curtain falls upon a struggle that
is ended, a life that has done with sorrow, while here
the picture of the imbecile old king, tottering away in
all the anguish of a never ending torment, seems to
stamp indelibly upon the reader an impression of hope-
less gloom, of the awful retribution of an outraged
Heaven.
Thus ends the play, the masterpiece of a genius
whose work is doubtless scarce begun.
The play called The Blind, deals with the downfall
of the church and isjprobably more complete in its sym-
bolism than any Maeterluick has written. The symbol
is that of a blind world, lost in the dark forest of doubt
and ignorance with its ancient guide, the church, sitting
dead in the midst of its blind devotees who have sub-
stituted for the clear vision of faith the uncertain grop-
ings of reason, trying expedient after expedient to bring
them to the light but failing in all. The play seems to
be intended as a study of society and the church and
could not be designed for presentation. The setting is
wierd and unusual to an extreme and the opening scene
and dialogue are worthy of consideration.
(An ancient Norland forest with an eternal look
under a sky of deep stars.)
First Blind Man — He hasn't come back yet?
23
Second Blind Man — You have awakened me.
F. B. M. — I was Bleeping too.
Third Blind Man — I was sleeping t«o.
F. B. M.— He hasn't come yet?
S. B. M. — I hear nothing coming.
T. B. M. — It is time to go back to the asylum.
F. B. M. — We ought to find out where we are.
S. B. M. — It has grown cold since he left.
Very Old Blind Woman — You do not know where
we are?
T. B. M. — I am afraid when we are not speaking.
S. B. M. — Do you know where the priest went?
T. B. M. — I think he leaves us for too long a time.
Very Old Blind Man — He has gone a long way. I
think he said so to the women.
T. B. M. — It must be very late.
Fifth Blind Man — Pity the blind!
The hours wear away and their guide does not re-
turn. They wait and hope and long for his footsteps
and the sound of his voice, but he comes not, and at last
in their impatient groping, they discover him sitting
dead in their midst. Just so the world Maeterlinck
would say, waits and hopes for a second revelation
while the church to which they look even while they
scorn its teachings is dead and cold because of their lack
of faith.
Thus in a few lines does Maeterlinck give a vivid
symbol of the tendency of one half the century to doubt
and question. It is not a flattering picture. The
24
healthy young Maurice himself, bicycling and skating
in the keen air of his Belgian home, is far enough from
an example of the weary, blase, helpless and doubting
denizen of his gloomy forest. We object to being classed
with this melancholy company, we revolt from his bold
generalizations, but the very attitude of revolt does us
good. It wakes us up and rouses us from the state of
mental stagnation into which we too often fall. The
very excess of his pessimism stings us back into health-
ier views of life, and the more disagreeable the picture
the more careful will we be to avoid giving it a sem-
blance of truth. The symbol is strong and does its work
well, leaving an indelible impression on the minds of
those who read.
This, in brief, is the outline of Maeterlinck^s two
most famous plays. I have read lately that Maeter-
linck intends to drop symbolism as overdone. Certainly
he is a wise young man. In that case, if he will only
consent to turn his attention to the brighter, gayer as-
pects of things, he may yet sound some of those master
strings that are necessary to complete harmony, and
prove still more forcibly his power in his chosen art.
For apart from the monotony of his work and its vague,
impersonal character, there is no writer of our age so
strong nor upon whom the seal of genius is more plainly
set than upon Maurice Maeterlinck. Let him throw off
the outer husk of symbolism that hampers the free flow
of his thought with the too evident purpose; let him
give us real, living and breathing men and women, such
as are foreshadowed in the Princess Maleine and then
indeed may he lay claim to that title which the world
concedes to him — The Belgian Shakespeare.
Anna R. Boynton.
25
r''
m
GOLD-OF-OPHIR ROSES
I.
FLOWER of pasBion, rocked by balmy gales,
Flushed with life's ecstasy,
Before whose golden glow the poppy pales
And yields her sovereignty,
Child of the ardent south, thy burning heart
Has felt the sun's hot kiss,
Thy creamy petals, falling half apart
Quiver with recent bliss.
For joy at thy unequalled loveliness,
He wooB with fierce delight,
And thy glad soul, half faint with his caress.
Yet glories in his might.
Thy sighs go out in perfume on the air,
Rich incense of thy love,
And mystic lights, an opalescence rare,
Play round thee from above.
11.
So dost thou riot through these glad spring days,
Sun-wooed and revelling in eager life,
Till all the shadowed fragrance of the ways
With thy rich tints is rife.
A joyous smile that hides a secret tear,
A note of music with a minor strain,
A heart of gold where crimson stains appear.
Thou breathest all love's sweetness and its
pain.
Yet suddenly, e'en at thy loveliest,
ThoU' palest with thine own intensity.
Ah, Passion's child, thou art most truly blest,
To bloom one perfect day, and then to die.
Grace Atherton Dennen.
Driftwood
a Serial
Story
1=1 ^'^•
VWVO MOST sensitive people there is an inalienable
■Ail thought of sadness connected with the autumn
UHLjI of the year. The falling of the leaves suggests
only images of decay and death to their mind? while the
sighing of a November wind through the denuded tree
tops seems a requiem of youth and gladness. But even
to the most morbid there can be little sadness associated
with this season in semi-tropic climes. It is simply the
harvesting time of the year's rich fuitions. The sun
keeps his summer fervor all through the September days.
The slow breeze flutters the leaves of the vines only to
reveal a wealth of purple and waxen fruit. The bees
are still, honey-gathering; the roses bloom untiringly.
Great wagons, ladened with grapes, leave a trail of per-
fume behind them as they go their creaking way toward
the wineries or the railway. The silence of the orchards
is broken all day by the cheerful voices of fruit gatherers
and at night by the occasional thud of an over ripe
peach or fig returning to the ground whence it came.
The shorter days of October smile upon vast beds of
grapes slowly curing in the sun; and the white tents of
attendant Chinamen dot the vineyards. The near hills
sit in a brown dream. The distant mountains are al-
most withdrawn from sight, awaiting the first rain ta
clear and cool the atmosphere. November brings a golden
shower of Poplar and Locust leaves — poor, faithless
leaves which cannot believe that winter will not come !
Coy clouds haunt the horizon and seem afraid to mount
the steep blue vault so long a stranger to their shadow-
ing. There have been scurrying showers ere this, but
now comes the first refreshing rain. A fairy godmother,
2»
truly! The world is painted anew; the very air iB
washed to crystaiine clearness. Winter has come with
garments of tender green I
October was still in its early glow when the Bartons
returned to their village home. Therese, working in her
vegetable garden, straightened her bent back and shaded
her eyes to watch them arrive. The voices and laughter
of the children reached her where she stood. Two horses
came clattering by, adding Arthur and Mrs. Barton's
guest to the group. Therese watched him swing himself
from the saddle and putting Ned on his shoulder pass
through the shadow of the porch into the house. If any
one had asked Mr. Howard why after all these weeks he
was again in the village he would have been unable to
answer very clearly. He had enjoyed the hunting and
bathing; had grown to covet idleness, he said in excues
for his long lingering. Now he must move on again once
he had seen his friends established in their home. And
yet this home was not an easy place to leave. It seemed
to this restless man a very island of peace in the sea of
the world's turmoil. But was peace without progress
enough to satisfy a man's soul? No, not for long.
"A.re you walking for a wager Lysle," asked Mr.
Barton as his friend paced the veranda that evening.
"Yes, walking against time. I am planning to leave
your quiet nest and start on my way once more."
"Whither now?" ased Mr. Barton briefly.
*'I am not sure. My scheme of travel has some way
lost its zest. I sometimes think I will go back and begin
work in earnest. I have idled a great deal. John are
you always satisfied to plod along quietly this way? You
loved excitement in the old days."
29
''Satisfied is rather a comprehensive word Lysle. Its
true equivalent is rarely found; but this quiet life suits
me for the present. By and by when the children are
older we may seek other things. But it seems to me
that you are restless because you have set yourself no
definite aim, no goal which you are determined to reach.
Is it not so?"
"I suppose it's rather premature to call myself a
failure at thirty-five, but so far it is true. My life has
been a succession of mistakes through no particular fault
of mine either. First there was Dick " Mr. Howard
stopped suddenly as though surprised at what he found
himself saying.
"Yes, there was Dick," said Mr. Barton quietly. ''I
have wanted to ask you about him. You know he left
college the year I entered it so I knew him only through
the veil of awe which hangs between a freshman and a
senior. He was called the brightest man in his class."
**If science would penetrate the law of inherited ten-
dencies it would explain many mysteries," said Howard
moodily. "Dick left college with the most brilliant pros-
pects a fellow ever had. He had money, education
talents and a host of friends. It must have been a
streak of madness which led him to forge a friends name
for money he did not need. Dick would have never been
suspected, but circumstantial evidence pointed the blame
to an innocent person and he confessed voluntarily. The
matter was hushed up, but the shame of it killed our old
father. Dick went away suddenly and has not since
been heard of. He had secretly married a young shop
girl, and after he had been gone for some time she ap-
30
peared upon the scene a baby in her arms, and proved
beyond doubt her identity. I had just left college when
this happened; father had been dead but a few months,
and I was the only one left to shoulder this burden, so I
established her in the empty home with the old servants
there to wait for her husband's return; and then I went
abroad. You know I have wandered about ever since.
Dibk's wife died two years ago, and the boy is at school
now. Did you ever hear of such willful, gratuitous bad-
ness?
"What kind of a woman was his wife?"
Lysle Howard's voice softened and the bitterness
passed from his face.
*'One who had a genius for love and endurance.
What she would have been had she been happy I do not
know; sorrow has a wonderful refining power. As it was
she locked her heart in silence and lived and died the
gentlest, sweetest woman I ever knew. Her boy is like
me in looks, poor little chap! I hope he'll not take after
either his father or me in character."
There was silence between these two friends for sev-
eral moments. The warm still air seemed aglow with
stars, the lute of a waking bird touched the silence, a light
shone in the window of the cottage opposite. Mr. How-
ard stopped his restless walk to look at it.
"Isn't that where your will-o-the-wisp school mis-
tress lives," he asked suddenly. "I ought in justice to
have a look at her before I go."
''Time enough for that, Lysle, you are not going yet,
suppose we walk to the post office and see if the world
remembers us, at least to the extent of some newspapers."
31
seemed an aureole about the fair face, whose eyes were
brimming with unshed tears, as she looked down at the
child upon her breast. She sang softly, rocking slowly
and changing the air whenever the child moved restless-
ly. She was quite unconscious of the other presence in
the room, and of the dark gaze in which surprise, pain
and anger were strangely mingjed. It was only when
Ned seemed at last asleep that she stopped her song, and
raising his little hand to her lips kissed it softly. Then
looking up she met Lysle Howard's gaze. All the holy
tenderness left her face in a flash; scorn, pride, defiance
usurped its place. The man before her raised his arm as
though to strike, then dropped it to his side and laughed.
"One can not strike a woman nor crush her under
foot like a worm," he said slowly. "But one may ques-
tion and demand an answer for
"Not now,'' said Mrs. Alford calmly, although she
trembled visibly at the sound of his voice. "No bitter
words shall be spoken over this young head. If your
conscience has not power to keep you silent, I will an-
swer any question you dare ask me at some other time."
"He is asleep now, Doctor, and I hope that you will
find that I have been unnecessarily alarmed," said Mrs.
Barton's calm voice, smiting strangely upon the strained
nerves of the two excited people in the room. Mr. How-
ard stepped through the window to the veranda. Mrs.
Alford, as is common in woman's lot, found no escape
from her necessity for self control. As soon as she
moved to give little Ned to his mother, he clung to her
with cries and could only be calmed by her promise to
stay with him. Not that night only bat for many more
34
1
was Mrs. Alford needed to soothe the delirious child. An
obstinate fever had seized upon him and disordered the
little brain. And so this woman put aside her own anxi-
eties to sing to the baby and aid his gentle mother to
bear the care and pain of nursing. She never left his
bedside saying when urged to go out for exercise and air.
*'Ab long as he needs me I will stay. When I go I can
not come back again." A hush fell on this merry, hap-
py household. The children came in and out on tip toe.
Little Ethel nursed her doll just outside the sick room
door watching for her mother to beg for a kiss or just
one look at Ned. The home life, so sweet and orderly,
was quite broken up. Ahl how tight is the hold of baby
hands upon the heart strings. Yet mothers part with
them and live! God help them!
On the tenth day little Ned's illness reached its
crisis. "If he sleeps to-night he will live,'' said the doc-
tor. The little curly head turned ceaselessly upon the
pillow, the fluttering hands were never still. The slow
hours of the night seemed endless to the watching house-
hold. But the Father's will was mercy, for the morning
light found little Ned asleep, one hand clasped fast in
Mrs. Alford's.
X.
When Lysle Howard stepped out onto the veranda
leaving Mrs. Alford to face the light which Mrs. Barton
held in her hand, he paused a moment and looked at
the face thus clearly revealed to him, the face which had
once waked within him the only love of his life. It was
upturned now and every line of its fragile beauty accen-
tuated by the down fallintj; light. "She keeps her Ma-
36
donna look," he thought, "not a trace of falsehood shows
in it; a mask of beauty laid upon a will of iron. And
yet—"
The group within the room had changed. Mrs. Bar-
ton took her child and with the doctor moved to the
bed. Mrp. Alford stood where they had left her. She
was clasping and unclasping her hands in an uncon-
scious movement of pain; her face seemed rigid with the
struggle for self control; her very lips blanched. The
man watching her felt a great yearning rise suddenly in
his heart, a passion which was half love, half anger.
With an impatient movement he swung himself over the
railing to the ground and walked off into the night, He
did not care where he went, he nev^^r afterwards could
remember; only motion was necessary to his life. A
woman finds vent in tears, a man uses his muscles.
Lysle Howard was one of those unfortunate creatures
only too common in this world of contrarieties whose
nature had always been at war with his circumstances.
Morbidly sensitive in pergonal matters and endowed
with an unusual capacity for loving, he had never known
a mother and was brought up by a reserved, self-ab-
sorbed father and over-indulgent servants. With a pas-
sion for study, he was but fairly launched in college life
when his older brother overwhelmed him with disgrace
by his inexplicable propensity to badness. Lysle refused
to raise his head again among his old companions, and
having seen his father die broken-hearted, rushed abroad
to hide his shame among strangers, Here he studied or
amused himself as the mood was upon him, but quite
without object or ambition. "What is the use of plan-
36
ning a career when I can only hope to be pointed at a&
the brother of Dick Howard, the forger. The old name
had better die now." He was etill in this mood when
he accidentally fell in with the Bartons and yielded for a
while to the sunny charm of their society. It was a
new delight to belong to a circle where his coming was
expected, his presence desired. His friend's young wife
never knew the intense pleasure he took in her fresh pret-
tiness, radiant in bridal finery. To see her brewing tea
from the braes bouilloire set on a shabby table in their
lodgings; moving about the room in her graceful youth,
putting a feminine atmosphere of home into whatever
quarters their travels led them: ready to welcome them
on their return from long tramps; this was an exquisite
joy to the moody young man who had never known a
home. When the Bartons returned to America he felt a
lonely longing to follow them. He did, indeed, go back
for a short time, but Dick's patient wife was a constant
and intolerable reminder to him of tne unworthy brother
who had so blighted the lives of all connected with him;
so he took up his wanderings once more. If he had been
poor he would have found an object in work, but his
father's ample fortune had descended undivided into his
aimless keeping. For a year or two he studied steadily
at a German University, but when he began to be re-
marked upon as a genius he suddenly packed up his be-
longings and started off, deeply despondent, to seek for
some life more congenial than that of a student. "I have
no object in attainment; I do not care to be famous. I
want to be amused," he said to himself, as he sped away
southward. He was not going anywhere in particular.
37
He went south because others did in winter. It was on
this journey that he met with a man who largely in-
fluenced his future life, although the meeting was a mere
incident. Lysle had been some weeks in Venice, lodging
in one of those magnificently shabby old palaces which
shelter only ^'foristiere" now. He was getting weary of
floating about the Lagunes and dreaming over pictures;
he was considering where next to turn his idle steps,
when one day his Padrona informed him that a com-
patriot of his was ill on the floor above and had asked to
see him. He obeyed the summons the more willingly as
he had nothing else to do and followed the woman up
the marble stair case to one of those lofty apartments
which banishes comfort from Italy and establishes digni-
ty in its stead. In a large gilt mounted chair, hovering
over a brazier of coals sat one of the handsomest men
Lysle Howard had ever seen. Even the inroads of dis-
ease, which were very marked, had not robbed the splen-
did form of its dignity nor the fine eyes of their flash.
"You will pardon the liberty I have taken in send-
ing for you," he said courteously waiving his visitor to a
chair, "when I tell you that I am dying of loneliness in
this dreary prison. I was taken ill here on my way to
the Riviera, and hope soon to start on again. Hearing
from my servant that there was an American in the
house I ventured to intrude upon you to beg an hour of
your society.'*
So began an acquaintance which grew into an in-
timacy of a certain kind. Howard was amused and
charmed by the brilliant man whose conversation was
always witty and entertaining. They played cards occa
38
eionally, and the younger man was always the loser in
a moderate way, but this was a mere incident of the ac-
quaintance. It seemed quite natural at last when the
sick man grew better that he should invite Howard to
accompany him to San Remo where he made his winter
home. '*Dull little hole," he said, ''but great in scenery
and pretty women. You are at an age to appreciate that.
If my own daughter were a little older I would not vent-
ure on the invitation, but she's just out of pinafores, at
the age most uninteresting to all mankind." Howard
was vaguely surprised to find that his friend had femi-
nine belongings of any age, as this was the first mention
of any; but he was "conscious of many peculiarities in
this acquaintance of his. That he maintained his com-
fortable ease by moderate and gentlemanly gambling he
was already aware, but the man was so altogether fasci-
nating to him that this seemed for the moment but an
amiable weakness. He did not actually accompany this
new friend to San Remo, but within a week he followed
him thither, and leaving his baggage at an hotel made
his way at once to the villa whose address was carefully
jotted in his note book. The servant who admitted him
showed him unannounced into a room where a young
girl sat by an open window reading. Lysle Howard
stood a moment in the doorway undeniably staring at
her. Her fair young head was outlined against a patch
of vivid blue sky. A white dress fell away from her
supple throat, leaving it bare. She seemed to Lysle'
astonished gaze a Santa Margarita just stepped from
some old canvas. If this was the girl in pinafores, sure-
ly pinafores weredivine. Lysle did not guess that this
39
surprise had been deliberately planned for him in the old
Venetian palace when his charming acquaintance had
possessed himself of all the necessary facts concerning
the young man's birth and fortune. "The girl's of an
age to become a nuisance to me; I had better provide her
with a husband and be rid of her. She has always been a
tiresome burden with that rigid old duenna of hers.'»
and so he had refrained from playing much with his
younc; acquaintance, but had invited him to the villa in
San Remo. Quite unconscious of all this Lysle Howard
went on to meet his fate. A queenlier woman than this
girl, in all the qualities of heart and person which crown
a woman queen, never stood upon the verge of woman-
hood. In her lonely life, neglected by her father, un-
cherished by any love except that of her old nurse, she
had fed her heart on dreams. She was as untouched by
consciousness of evil as when she lay a babe upon her
mother's bosom. Her grave and tender nature had
grown strong by repression. Unloved, she loved all
things; a primrose in a forest grows as she grew. Is the
flower less lovely because no loving eye bends over it? or
because a careless foot will by and by crush it to the
ground? This girl's intense nature found but one ex-
pression, and that was song, ghe sang as the birds sing,
for very love of sound. She had the best of masters, but
she seemed to owe little to them. Her voice was her
soul, and it was altogether lovely.
Such was the girl who rose up from beside the open
window to welcome Lysle Howard to the villa at San
Remo. In the two months which followed the young
man spent part of every day in that sunny salon over-
40
looking the little grey town and the vast blue sweep of
the sea. He brought great bunches of purple hyacinths
to perfume the room and to lie sometimes in the gold of
the girPs hair. The father was seldom there. He came
and went apparently quite unconcerned as to their move-
ments, nor did he object to their long walks up the stony
steeps of the lemon groves, gathering wild flowers and
fancies. He was too clear sighted not to see he could
trust the man he had introduced into his household.
For two months this quiet intercourse went on. There
was no love-making between this grave-eyed girl and her
companion. They were living in a paradise of dreams into
which facts had not yet forced their way. Marriage
seemed to associate itself as little with thoughts of this
calm young maid as with one of the exquisite painted
saints she resembled. But an interruption to this state
of things came at last. The father whose parental duties
had set so lightly on him during life, felt them heavy
when he found himself suddenly on his death bed. He
had been ill for some days when he sent for Howard to
come to his bedside. * 'The doctor tells me I have but a
few hours to live," he said abruptly. "I can not leave
my daughter unprotected. Do you intend to marry her?"
Marry her? This snow maiden weaving dreams in
an ice palace. Lysle felt his heart leap with sudden fear
and longing at the thought.
"I intend?" he said with a hot flush. "Had I not
better ask if your daughter will marry me?"
**This is no time for formalities," said th# sick man.
impatiently. "She will do as she is bid. I must see her
married before I die."
41
*'I will not take her from any hand but her own,"
eaid the young man. **Let me speak to her."
He sought her in the little salon where his flowers
lay upon the piano. She was sitting by the window as
he saw her first. He was too agitated to approach her
calmly and win her gently. He asked his question
briefly with only his eyes to tell of the love he bore her.
*'Ilse will you give yourself to me? Will you be my
wife?"
She raised her calm, unshadowed eyes to his, a flush
growing slowly in her face as she read the story written
in his. He saw her child-heart burst its chrysalis in
that moment and awoke a woman's. For answer she
laid her hand in his.
A few hours later she was fatherles8,but her husband's
arm piotected her and held her close.
Howard and his young wife lingered for some
months in San Remo The spell which bound them was
too exquisite to make them wish for change. The long
need of love which had hungered him all his life had at
last met its fulfillment. He gave himself up to it utterly.
The girl he had chosen was rich in reserves. She gave
of her sweetness freely, yet she left always more for him
to desire. Life was no longer dull to him but full of de-
licious surprises. At last business called him home. "We
will be back in San Remo before another winter," he said
when he saw tears in his wife's eyes at parting. "I do
not care where we are, so it be together," she had replied.
They had been at home three months when, returning
from a few days trip to a neighboring city, he found for
bis only greeting a note upon his dressing stand contain-
42
ing these words: ''I have left your home forever. To
follow me will be but to cause me to end the life you
have ruined." He rang for a servant.
'*When did Mrs. Howard leave and who went with
her?"
*'She went two days ago with the old French woman.
Master Richard is here, Sir, when you like to see him."
"Not tonight; tomorrow; some other time," said
Lysle Howard, feeling his senses reel.
The next time he looked into his wife's face she was
singing little Ned to sleep.
These were some of the scenes Lysle Howard re-
viewed as he tramped across the fields through the bouy-
ant stillness of the southern night. A hundred long
forgotten details rose to mock him. He remembered the
first time he had passed his hand through the silken
sheen of her hair. It was the night of their marriage
when her father lay newly dead. She was weeping with
her head bowed upon the table by which she eat — tears
which found their source more in weariness and fright
than in grief, for she could not remember a tender word
that her father had ever spoken to her. Lysle longed to
comfort her, and yet a strange embarrassment held him
silent. She was still a dream maiden to him, unap-
proachable to a caress. Her hair fell about her shoulders.
He touched it softly with a strange timidity. So would
he have touched the hem of an angel's garment. "And
yet she proved false to such a love as that," cried the
man as he plunged through the darkness. Never once
in the blackness of his first dispair had he doubted his
wife's purity. Having known her he knew that not for
love of any man had she left his roof. He believed that
love was impossible to her and she had fled from the bur-
den of hypocrisy which had become intolerable to her.
The sweet feigning which had duped him found its limit
and she escaped. This had been his solution of this
mystery which he had never tried to probe. Faith and
love died within him as he shut his bitter heart in
silence. The world was told that Mrs. Howard had re-
turned to friends in Europe and her husband would
follow her immediately. Soon after he shut up his
deserted home, dismissed the servants and went his
way, few even suspecting that there was anything
strange in the history of his leaving.
And after three years they met upon this western/
shore.
TO BE CONTINUED
m
[ EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER.] SpaiTl ^.TICl
Gibraltar, March 12, 1899. ber Hrt
E have had a perfectly delightful time, from the
moment whon we landed in Gibraltar, on
Washington's Birthday, until now that we
are obliged to leave. We are the first Ameri-
cans to really make the tour of Spain since the war, for
the few others who have landed have only been to Se-
ville and Grenada, with the exception of a few gentlemen
on business errands. We are the recipients of a great
deal of praise for our courage, which we accept, although
totally undeserved, for our trip has been one round of
pleasure, unmarred by a single disagreeable incident.
To be sure I think we have generally been taken for
English — (we have taken a great deal of tea, and then
the Europeans are not able to distinguish as deftly as
we can between the broad accents of our British cousins
and our more clearly cut words) — but even when onr na-
tionality has been clearly shown there has been no
change in the uniform courtesy of all with whom we have
come in contact. We find the Spaniards very delightful
people — eo affable, polite and really kind, finding it no
trouble to go several blocks out of their way to show us a
direction.
Instead of having stones thrown at us, as some of
our friends predicted, we have rather been inclined to
throw them ourselves, at the beggars, who have really
been our only source of annoyance. Such swarms of
them as there are in every city, hanging about the art
galleries, lining the church entrances, lying in wait for
you when you get into a carriage and when you get out,
always with the same whining '^Senorita, senorita!"
45
SPRING
with such a painful drawl on the third syllable. The
lame, the halt, the blind, are all here, especially the
blind. I have seen more blind people here in one day
than in all my life put together, but still they seem to
know just how to reach you and at just the right mo
ment. An English gentleman tried to make me think I
ought to give generously, especially to the lame, as our
country was so largely responsible ; — he considered that
a huge joke ; — but the lame ones are usually young boys
or dreadfully decrepit old men. Some way the beggars
have been a very interesting subject with me, disgusting
as they are ; but if I tell you anything of the pictures in
Spain I must; certainly begin.
Every city that we have visited has its own intensely
interesting features. At Gibraltar are the wonderful
subterranean passages cut in the great rock, and the for-
tifications, to say nothing of the regiments of fine English
soldiers who swarm everywhere, making bright spots
with their fiery red coats. Over three hundred of them
marched past here a few minutes ago like one man, and
we were lost in admiration over the man with the big
drum, for he was gorgeousnes?* itself, robed in a whole
tiger skin, the back hanging in front like a big apron,
and the great head forming a shield in the center of his
back.
In Grenada there is the Alhambra, perfectly unap-
proachable in its own fairylike elegance, but it is not
until you reach Seville that you begin to find the art
treasures of Spain. Seville was the home of Murillo ;
there he produced his greatest works, and there is really
the best place to study his different periods and styles.
47
The first one we saw was in a chapel of the immense ca-
thedral, where it was too dark to be really appreciated.
It was the Guardian Angel, a glorious seraph with
spreading wings leading a lovely little child by the
hand — a picture that is said to have caused the tears to
flow from more mothers' eyes than any other in the
world.
It is so rarely that the great masters' pictures can
be seen hanging in the places they were designed for, but
almost all of the Murillos in Seville are in situ, and I
expected a great deal of satisfaction from that fact ; but
really I think it is better after all to have them collected
in art galleries, where the light is good, for in the
churches it is often too dark to really do them any jus-
tice. The celebrated *' St. Anthony of Padua" hangs in
the Baptistry of the same cathedral, a horribly dark
place, but not so dark but that one goes away feeling
that he has had a vision himself. The little Christ de-
scending in the midst of a group of angels throws out a
heavenly light, that seems to illuminate the whole chapel,
and the kneeling St. Anthony is looking up with an ex-
pression of fervor that once seen can never be forgotten.
It is an immense canvas, and it is impos^sible to detect
where the portion enclosing St. Anthony (which was
taken out by a thief and taken to New York), was re-
placed.
The celebrated pictures in the chapel of th=^ home for
old people, known as the Caridad, are too high up and
too badly lighted to be appreciated ; and it is too bad,
for they are of his best period. The Museum contains
twenty-three of his choice works, among them the one
48
that he considered his best, where St. Thomas of Villa-
nueva, an archbishop, is standing at his door giving
alms to a group of horrible beggars. The contrast be-
tween the refinement of the archbishop and the sickening
poverty of the beggars is as strong as the contrast of
lights and shadows in Rembrandt. He often balances
his pictures in that way by contrasts of sentiment. The
idea is much the same in his " St. Elizabeth " at Madrid,
where the royal lady is delicately bathing the sores of
the poor aflicted ; but this picture is more attractive,
from the loveliness of the queen and her suite.
The museum of the Prado in Madrid certainly con-
tains the choicest collection of paintings of any gallery
in the world, aud no one can really know all the old
masters unless he has been there. This is emphatically
so as regards Murillo, Velasquez, Titian, Rubens, Le-
niers and others. There are sixty-five there by Velas-
quez and forty-six by Murillo, all of such power that to
but once go through the gallery is to impress them on
your mind as few others do. And they are not such as
demand the eyes and knowledge of a connoisseur to be
enjoyed, for they appeal to every class and to every
age.
It is interesting to watch the common people, to see
how they are interested and detained before some of the
great pictures.
I tried to make a conscientious study of the Span-
ish school, including Ribalta, Ribera, Zurburan and the
others, but in the face of all those magnificent canvases
of Murillo and Velasquez it required more moral force
than 1 could bring forth, and I found myself constantly
49
(•
going back to some favorite picture. Murillo is called
the Painter of Immaculate Conceptions, because he
painted at least sixty of them, and there are four most
lovely ones in the;^ Prado, two of which are simply be-
yond any attempt at description. One of these is rather
small — half length — and the crescent is about the waist
instead of at her feet, as usual. The upturned face is of
surpassing beauty, and it was before this picture that De
Amicis, the great Italian writer, acknowledged that he
had never before been so impressed or overcome, and so
helped to a better life, as before this wonder of art. He
wrote that his heart softened and his mind rose to a
height which it had never attained before. This Con-
ception would be better known if it photographed better,
for instead of the black background I have always seen,
her head really seems to rest in the fleecy clouds of a
golden sunset, with the dearest of little angel heads
peeping out all about.
The other Conception is a large full-length one, and
differs from all others that I have ever seen in that here
Mary is pictured as more youthful and girlish, and is
the absolute personification of innocence and modesty,
startled by the great revelation that has come to her.
Her face is said to be the purest expression of girlish
loveliness possible in art, and no one can ever stand be-
fore the *' Purissima " unmoved, or go away without
feeling a step higher.
I have no time nor space to write of the master-
pieces of Velasquez, before whom I spent so many hours of
delight. Almost the opposite of Murillo, but so fascin-
ating ! He paid little attention to the ideal, but simply
60
held up ** the mirror of nature," and the result is that
to-day in the Prado we know Philip IV., his numerous
wives and children, his courtiers, his warriors, and all
about him, almost as intimately as if we had lived
in the palace with them. There is a whole gallery
of dwarfs, beggars, imbeciles and drunkards, all as liv-
ing and natural as if we were just looking at them
through glasses. His colors are just as crisp and fresh
as if laid on yesterday, for both he and Murillo under-
stood the art of doing work that would last.
Cecilia A. White.
It 19
UheCbis
Chinese
politeness
1
UR friends across the western ocean are now two
thousand years ahead of us in the development
of that flower of civilization termed urbanity.
They have cultivated to its extremest limit the desire to
be agreeable, and because of such long continuance the
idea may be imagined even to have gone to seed.
Since we of the Occident are many years younger,
we may not hope to equal the finish of their breeding
for centuries to come; but we are beginning to grasp the
principles of their behavior and to conform somewhat in
speech, at I'^ast, to the excellent example laid out for us.
We, too, are governed by the fear of giving offense and
by the desire to put ourselves out for people, through
showing the courtesy which is their due. But far as we
have gone in language we are still unlettered children in
action.
When two Chinese gentlemen see one another as
they go abroad in their Sedan chairs (they usually look
the other way), each must instantly descend and offer to
the other his own vehicle; furthermore they must be
urgent and persistent, so that in mutual tenderings and
refusings a half hour is condumed, after which each re-
tires to bis own chair and goes his way. This is being
truly polite, and any one in China omitting such a cere-
mony is rated at once a boor. What if a half hour of
valuable time has been wasted, time is of no consequence
before courtesy.
The same method is pursued at a dinner. The
Laws of the Medes and Persians are ropes of sand as
compared with the fixed rules of precedence and each
man knows his own rank perfectly; but no one ever
52
dreams of the vulgarity of taking his own seat and keep-
ing it. As each guest enters all the others already-
seated must rise and olfer to the late comer their places,
after which, when courtesy is satisfied, all settle down
in the seats provided for them a thousand years ago.
In the manner of these high bred squabbles we are
far behind; our performances being limited as yet to the
payment of car fare and a few other things equally un-
important. But even in the matter of urging guests to
stay longer the Chinese are ahead of us though it is part
of the game never to accept such invitations. The cousin
of a mandarin once dared to presume on his relationship
to break this rule and remain, but for hia ill-breeding
he was at once forcibly ejected from the house.
These laws are all crystalized among the Celestials
and perfectly understood by them; they know exactly
how much to discount and so make a fair average guess
at the fact. But with us we are not always certain. The
Anglo-Saxon, being still somewhat savage, is inclined to
take statements at their face value; so that when a
woman says to a man "Charmed to see youl'* he imagines
she is; which makes some women think a man can be
easily fooled.
We are learning, however, and I have frequently
heard the proper thing said in the proper tone and with
the most deliciously automatic manner; but this accom-
plishment is seen at its best, as a rule, when the conversa-
tion takes place bQtween two women, since they are con-
sidered more refined than men. Yet in this country
there are some women, still somewhat barbarous, who
fancy that truth is easier than fiction, in society; and it
no doubt is, for them.
53
But in spite of this there has gone abroad the notion
that we are so far on the road toward emulating the ex-
quisite high bred courtesy of the oriental that only buds
and parvenues are supposed to be ingenuous. The law
of society is to avoid giving offense, now why is it that
so soon as one becomes skilled in urbanity his reputa-
tion for truthfulness suffers? The Chinese nation have
been said to have lost their credit as a people of integrity
chiefly on account of that principle of their social code:
"Do not give offense.'^
One would be inclined to argue from this that the
thoughts concealed must have been disagreeable, if the
truth uttered would have broken that rule. This neces-
sity for extreme care in dealing with the susceptibilities
of our fellow creatures elevates the subject to a position
of such delicacy that needle pricks become national cal-
amities. In that way one might tell who are truly re-
fined by the suffering they endure at the touch of
cobwebs.
People who have not attained this perfection reveal
their coarseness of fiber by insisting that a needle, pro-
vided that it is clean, does not count for much as a
weapon, and they fancy that a brusque manner is not
necessarily brutal. To these unenlightened ( nes a stiff
bit of censure is often nothing but a needed reproof and
not a venomous tirade; and what would drive a celes-
tially refined person into hysterics is regarded by them
as a mere brush.
These people are assuredly barbarians; by being un-
suspicious of their fellow men they overlook many signs
of civilization, but they are comfortable, and so are
blind to the pitfalls which will be likely to beset the
paths of their more knowing descendents, if those are
tempted to follow too closely the laws of oriental
courtesy. F.
€ditoml Department ^
We have heard much in the last ten years of the
tardiness of development of American art and literature.
We have been told that we are mere copyists of the work
of our English cousins, that our individual growth was
a plant exceedingly small in size and stunted by[nature.
Whether this may b© considered true of the present is
an open question. With the wealth of literary and ar-
tistic material stored away in the nooks and corners of
America's great, teeming distances, it should not be true
nor possible.
There is one feature lacking in the development of
American art which we must envy countries older and
farther developed than we, the support and encourage-
ment of our government. Other countries have govern-
ment schools and academies where the child who shows
unusual talent for art, music or literature may be
trained and developed. Other countries have prize con-
tests appointed by the government and rewards and
medals presented by the government to stimulate and
encourage vigorous effort. Other countries have their
court theatres and music halls.
The Elizabethan age of literature, the glory of Eng-
land, was fostered and developed by the patronage of
Elizabeth, to whom all the finest compositions were ded-
icated, before whom they received their first rendition
and by whom their composers we re pensioned.
In France the revolution first gained headway when
the brush and pen, divorced from the court, sought ref-
uge in the salon among the people.
When the government takes an active, discriminat-
ing interest in the literature and art of the people, de-
55
manding and rewarding the brightest, will not the people
respond? And what are the artjand literature if not
the best expression of the life of the nation?
among the books
There seenas to be but one book engaging the atten-
tion of the reading world in these days and that book is
David Harum. Everybody is reading David Harum.
But when one has followed the example of the rest of
the world and has read David Harum one is conscious
of a little wonderment as to the reasons for this univer-
sal interest. The book is a good character study, intro-
ducing another of those rough but keen and generous-
hearted "self-made" men of the middle class. All of
the story that has to do with David is well told and in-
teresting but there is nothing novel in material or treat-
ment.
A pretty and bright little story for a summer day is
Miss Archer Archer. It is the usual love romance, told
with some clever variations of the ordinary methods and
will amuse if it does not instruct. Such books have
their uses.
When Knighthood Was in Flower seems to be gain-
ing increasing favor and commendation as the months
pass. It has won an enviable reputation as a strong and
sweet story and one that holds its place.
It is unnecessary to comment upon the overwhelm-
ing popularity of Kipling developed by his recent
illness. Such a demand for his books has
resulted however that they head the list in the month's
sales. The Day's Work especially is breaking the record
for phenomenal sales.
56
Among the magazines, Lippincotts offer an interest-
ing array of fiction and poetry with another of its bright
novelettes, The Princess Nadine.
The Ladies* Home Journal begins a promising ro-
mance by Anthony Hope, The Countess Emilia, and
contains a most interesting sketch of Helen Keller.
We take pleasure in announcing that a new serial
will make its appearance in the June issue of The Ebell.
This serial is from the pen of Harryet Strong, whose clever
sketches have frequently appeared in the columns of The
Ebell and eastern publications. The serial is called
The Tower at Velandro, and is a strong, stirring ro-
mance of mediaeval Italy.
Cooking and drawing in the public schools were the
subjects considered Thursday afternoon at the general
meeting of the Ebell Club. The economic section was in
charge of the program, and Mrs. G. Aubrey Davidson
gave a resume of the recent lecture on school decoration
that was delivered before the club by C. C. Davis,
president of the board of education. Mr. Davis had
suggested that women who are interested in artistic
school room decoration should contribute something
toward rendering the room attractive. If the women
did not feel able to give works of art Mr. Davis said they
could lend them to the schools.
A discussion followed Mrs. Davidson's report. Mrs.
Sumner P. Hunt suggested that women might undertake
the decoration of school rooms in their own wards, each
looking out for the work that is nearest home. At the
close of the discussion, Miss Ada Laughlin of the Nor-
mal school gave a talk on drawing.
*'Clay modeling," she said, "is carried through all
the grades. The child's artistic qualities should be de-
veloped through the senses. He should be taught form
and color as early as possible. When the child's atten-
tion is at first called to the difference in the primary
colors, he can usually distinguish only three."
Miss Laughlin said that she had never known a
case of total color blindness. Two boys in her school
experience had not been able to distinguish red from
green, but they could readily recognize the difference
between all other colors. So-called color blindness, she
said, is want of education in most cases.
58
"The best part of training in the different depart-
ments of drawing," said the speaker, *'is lost if the crea-
tive genius of the child is not developed."
Miss Laughlin illustrated her talk with samples of
work done by the Normal School students. The course
in drawing begins with clay modeling, in which the
children are taught to make many intricate articles.
When this part of the study is completed, they begin to
cut designs from paper. Thus they advance to free-hand
drawing. Some clever work was exhibited.
Mrs. Grace Button, the teacher of cooking at Throop
Institute in Pasadena, followed with a paper on "Do-
mestic Science." "Fifty years ago," said Mrs. Dutton,
"food was prepared in a palatable and attractive man-
ner without regard to the effect that it might have on
the digestive organs of the body."
Even in the imperfect domestic training that had in
former years partially fitted the girl to become a home-
maker was now neglected. Today many are crowded
into stores and ofl&ces and live on poorly cooked food
that robs them of the clear, beautiful complexion that
should be the possession of all healthy women. "Is it
any wonder," concluded Mrs. Dutton, "that we have so
many pale faces among us, and that so many women
break down ?"
In the discussion that followed Mrs. Dutton ex-
plained much about her methods of teaching.
Mrs. C. P. Bartlett rendered several vocal selections
and after the close of the program, tea was served by
members of the Economic section.
59
PROGRAM FOR THE MONTH OF MAY
Thursday, May 11, not assigned.
Thursday, May 25, Report of Social Development
Section.
Literature Section — Each Monday, 2:30 p. m.
Story Tellers' Section — Second Tuesday, 2:30 p. m.
Economics — Fourth Tuesday, 2 p. m. |
Conversation Section — Second Saturday, 10:30 a. m.
Music Section — First and third Mondays, 3:30 p. m.
Current Event Section — First and third Tuesdays,
10:30 a. m.
Tourist Section — First and third Saturdays, 10 a. m.
The Australian
Nightingale — Melba
and all the visiting
Prima Donnas, al-
ways prefer our
K N A B E piano for
private rehearsals.
No one is a better
judge of a sweet
toned, melodious in-
strument than the
queens of the operatic
stage and their pref-
erence is all in favor of a KNABE.
60
iS^^(i;lfCiil.';|;a::|^iJl.V^l¥
m mm Mmmmmmmm
iim
I
lifPi
^m-:.^^.H
Cbe Ebell
H jMontbly jfourtial of Literature
and Current Bvents
r*
June
SubscHptloii price Sfngle Copy
1 1.00 per tear lo Cento
^
1899
6eo. Rice & 80ns, iXnc.)
Los Hngeles
Cable of Contents
Xbc Cower at Tclandro, (H Serial) Chapter X
Edited by Ha.rryei Strong
Cbopiti*9 Nocturnes (a poem) CB, Benson
'Che f^east of San luan^an adventure in two parts
part XX Grace Aiherton ^ennen
Bernardin de Saint pierre Louise Y, Praii
Driftwood, a serial story, parts XX. and XXX.
Franklina. Gray Bartteti
Xt is i;^ike Cbis F.
editorial Department; Books and Nusic JVotes
ebell Notes
Copyrighted, 1899, by Grace Atherton Dennen
The Ebell will be published on the 29th of each month. It will be sent
postpaid for one year on receipt of §1.00. Single numbers 10 cents. Sub-
scriptions may begin at anytime.
Money may be sent by Express Money Order, P. O . Money Order, Bank
Draft, or Registered Letter. Money sent in letters is at sender's risk.
All communications should be addressed to Grace Atherton Dennen,
1922 Grand ave., Los Angeles. Notice of change of address should be sent
mmediately by subscribers.
Entered at the Los Angeles Post Office as second-class mail matter.
GRACE ATHERTON DENNEN, Editor
-1922 Grand Avenue ..... Los Angeles. Cai .
An Adventure Therein During The Life of Magna, Cowcr of
Grand Duchess of Ferezza. 'XfA^nArcs
a
I.
The Beginning of the Wedding Journey.
JOHN AMBROSE, Earl of Courtmoor, in the
County of Cumbria, England, being stout of
heart and sound of limb, am now about to
write down the most remarkable adventure of
my life, which took place, and in truth is still taking
place, in this, the land of Italy; first at Ferezza, but
chiefly in my Tower of Velandro, where now we rest.
My wife sits opposite me at the table knitting, while
our infant daughter, another Magna, sleeps above ; and
I hereby chronicle, perchance for my daughter's benefit,
what now occurs, since it may be that I shall see her
no more after childhood, so that she may know these
things came not by any adventurous ambition of her
father, but through his wish to serve his sovereign dut-
eously and with loyalty.
I am English, my father being Earl of Courtmoor;
but am claimed also to be Italian through my mother,
the Contessa di Velandro, the only daughter of
his old companion in arms, whom he married in middle
life.
This Italian mother of mine I little remember, but I
do recall much of the first ten years of my life spent
in the old castle and in the hunting tower on the Vel-
andrian estates.
It was a pretty story in its day, this marriage of the
old campaigner with the young countess, but nothing
to mine. I, too, being sent from home Hke my father,
5
with my king; for it seems to be fate that the Ambrose
family are doomed to constant exile for their religion,
and with the Stuarts they must go pack.
Well, that is what came to me, one year and some
months ago ; when I followed the king across the Chan-
nel, stopping a bit with His Majesty in France, until
he started for Ireland ; and afterwards went on to Italy,
where I was to take the lands and titles left me by my
grandfather, I being his only heir; which estates lay
partly in Ferezza, and partly in the territories of the
Duke of Altramontagna. Although I had spent much
time here when a child, and had chattered in Italian
with the best, I came back in doubt to a half-forgotten
land and a rusty tongue. And well it was, too, that
the saints should have sent me at this time, for events
quickly polished my speech and sharpened my memory
and my wits, till I could use both in the service of my
Lady, whom to save I needed all I could lay my hand to.
The reason why I and no other should be the husband
of the then reigning duchess of Ferezza, and touch
through her the thrones of France and Lombardy,
comes like a dream in the midst of dreams. And thus
I protest for my vindiction, that it was none of my de-
signing, this mad prank of fortune; but all was done
at the command of the lady herself, both to save her life
and to extricate her from a predicament painful as em-
barrassing.
Ferezza is the city lying nearest to my Italian es-
tates; the grand castle of our family being not more
than fifteen leagues to the northeast. Ten leagues due
north from thence into the mountains, but in Altra-
montagna, stands this small tower, built, no doubt, by
bandits, as a stronghold in the middle ages, but kept
for many years by the lords of Velandro as a hunting
lodge.
I had but reached the ducal city late in the day from
Genoa, where I had come by ship from Marseilles ; and
had taken lodging at an inn, attended by my confessor,
Father Aurelian, my gentleman, Thomas Humes, and
my servant, Jock.
This hostelry was built on arches, after an Italian
manner, and lay by the side of the ducal palace, where,
I had been told, the grand duchess, just out of the con-
vent, had been two days before installed. I had noted,
when we changed money at the borders of the duchy,
that the coins given me were new, and bore the profile,
very good, of a young woman; and I looked at the face
of my future sovereign with some interest and curios-
ity till I got the features well in mind.
I travelled as befitted a gentleman of quality but late-
ly come from the court of the French king, though so-
berly withal ; having a seemly array of clothing fine and
new, and all in the latest fashion, and with a goodly as-
sortment of the best periwigs and laces. The steward of
my Ferezzan estates, Giacomo, an honest Lombard, as
was my grandmother, had forwarded to me at Paris
a large sum of m.oney by bill of exchange, which I had
turned into gold, partly that I might save the return
rate, and partly that I might indulge in a boyish pleas-
ure of handling coin. But of this sum I had not con-
sumed the half in expenses, and I was therefore, in my
own eyes, quite the fine gentleman, assured of a lordly
welcome at the castle of Velandro, and prepared to ful-
fil my part in both array and manners.
Being mindful of many wild tales concerning Ferez-
zan treachery told me in my childhood and after, I had
taken care that my passport should be made, not to con-
ceal my quality, but still sufficiently vague to guard
my rank and fortune; it granted permission to John
Ambrose, a gentleman of the English king, with a train
of three persons, to travel through Italy to Rome and
back, and to cross Ferezza without molestation.
The journey up from the port having been hot and
tedious, I directed that a fresh relay of horses should
be ready at five of the clock next morning, hoping by
an early start to escape both dust and heat.
The four of us then, being fatigued from our jour-
ney, and having little faith in any strong arm of gov-
ernment to protect us in the event of brawls, the land
having been long under a regency, retired early to our
rooms, and in fear of this expected lawlessness, we
even ordered our supper served therein, soon after
which we composed ourselves for sleeping.
The two apartments which had been assigned us, ad-
joined, and were on the first floor in the corner; in one
lay my gentleman and the priest, in the inner and the
one next the palace wall, I slept, with Jock on a pallet
across the door for safety. This inner room opened
on a balcony, from which to the ground was a pretty
leap for all but the boldest, though not impossible to
a man who might stand six feet two inches in his stock-
ings as do I. All this we noted before we slept; also
the strength of the locks and bars. For quickness and
safety I had ordered that we should undress only in
part; I laying off but my riding boots, with coat and
periwig, my sword and cloak being placed near my
hand ; while Jock saw to it that his pistols, well primed,
should lie in easy reach.
With all these preparations against surprise com-
plete, I yet found myself, clad only in half-shirt and
breeches, sword in hand, dropping over that same bal-
cony about three of the clock, next morning, before I
had wrestled with and conquered sleep, because? — Be-
cause I had heard a woman's loud scream just beneath
the window
What I leaped into when I reached my feet and wits,
was a struggle between two ruffians and the woman,
whom they were attempting to drag under the arches
of our inn, and to muffle as well.
My light was the waning moon, but it proved suffic-
ient, for the men, hampered by their burden and
caught with surprise, made not the best resistance, and
I was easily enabled to dispatch one, while the other
made good his escape by flight; leaving us, the woman
and 1, standing breathless and alone under the shadow
of my balcony, the grayness of dawn beginning to be
felt about us
Then I perceived that near by, at the corner of the
palace, was a small street door, that it was open, and
that from behind it came a shadow gliding towards us.
I quickly resumed my guard to be ready against attack,
when the woman near me whispered, '' A friend," and
moved towards the shadow, in which I now recognized
the figure of another woman. They spoke a few w^ords
together, and then the second comer stepped up to me
and merely breathed a whisper, "Can you not hide us,
Signore, and quickly?"
'T have no place but that window, Madame," I re-
plied as softly as she had spoken.
"Then hide us there at once !"
The two withdrew under the shadow of the arches;
on the balcony above stood Jock, peering down upon
us. I motioned to him ; he took in the turn of affairs
and disappeared. In about a minute he had swung a
large chair over the raiHng by a cord from our lug-
gage, which he made fast to the iron work; and then,
when I had stood upon the chair as a base, the rope
formed a firm holding place. When our ladder was
ready the younger of the two women came forward
and I grasped her arms to lift her upon the back of
the chair. As I swung the girl into the light I saw her
for the first time clearly, and her face in profile was the
profile of the coins !
I was startled, but I slackened not my speed, and I
assisted her from the chair-back to my shoulders, the
rope steadying her until she could reach the out-
stretched hands of my servitor. After a deal of
scrambling and balancing the young lady made shift to
reach the balcony and to be pulled over the side. Next
the older woman, with more difficulty, and then I,
clambering up the rope, and the chair last of all, were
landed on the balcony without mishap. All this hap-
pening in the public street, of an early morning, and
in plain view of any one that might chance to pass;
though luckily there were none, and not so much as an
eye that we could know of, peering from behind the
closely barred shutters, — and that wild scream seeming-
to go unheeded. I wondered much at this silence after-
wards.
When we had all reached the balcony and so inside,.
I w^as asked by the elder woman, the duenna, as I sup-
posed, if I was English (our conversation being held
in Italian).
I said ''yes" — and married? I answered "No."
Then she begged me to tell her of a safe retreat^
10
where they might lie quiet for a few weeks, until they
communicated with friends.
I replied that I knew of none in the city, but that on
my estate, about twenty-five leagues to the northward,
I bethought me of my old hunting tower, and that, too,
on Altramontagnan soil, where they could, no doubt,
rest for a few days unmolested.
All these answers I had made in dullish tones, being
dazzled with what seemed to be the startling facts; but
wishing to make sure that what I thought I saw was
true, I stepped to the window and furtively turned a
coin to the dim light, and the profile on it was that of
the girl. Then was I certain that I stood in the pres-
ence of the Grand Duchess herself, in whose territory
there appeared to be no hand to guard her save that of
a stranger Englishman at an inn.
Then the lady herself spoke. ''Can you take us
thence, and now?"
And I answered, "Yes, Your Highness, so soon a^
the horses are made ready."
''He knows me," whispered she to the other; and
then the two ladies conversed apart, while I stood help-
less, awaiting their pleasure, and Jock, although he un-
derstood no word, busied himself about the room, tying
and strapping, as making ready for instant departure.
He also brought my coat and periwig and offered to
assist me with my riding boots. I then awoke from
my daze, and while my guests were deep in talk, I per-
mitted him to make me somewhat more presentable.
When that was finished — it occupied an hour, to my
imagining — the older woman came forward, while the
Duchess, with her face averted, lingered in the shadow.
11
I was now put through a rigid catechising.
"Are you of our Holy ReHgion ?"
Reverently I answered "Yes."
"And your name?"
"John Ambrose, Earl of Courtmoor."
"Your business here?"
"To take possession of my grandfather's estates."
"Who was he?"
"Giovanni, Conte di Velandro."
"Ah," said the waiting woman, "show me your pass-
port, also your seal."
I took my ring from my finger and handed it to her,
and likewise produced my passport. She retired to the
window, and, after a careful scrutiny, she resumed her
whispered consultation with her mistress, still holding
my seal.
They stood silent an instant, and then the older
woman put into my hand the self same ring that I had
given her (as I supposed), but when she whispered,
"Look at it;" I saw that it bore the arms of the ducal
family of Ferezza.
"Do you still believe that you stand in the presence
of the Grand Duchess?" she demanded.
"I do," I answered.
"Do you consider that seal sufficient proof ?"
"It is sufficient proof," I said.
"Absolutely?"
"Absolutely."
"Will you back your faith with your honour and
your life if need be?"
"I will," was my confident reply.
The woman hesitated another moment, then she
12
said in Italian so rapid that I scarcely caught the
words :
"Did the Signore but know a priest, it were better
that Her Highness marry the Signore at once, before
he takes her away—that is, if the Signore is willing-
there could then be no untowardness in his rescue of
her."
I could not credit what the duenna said to me, I an-
swered her, however, that my Confessor lay but in the
next room and if the Duchess desired such a move —
my astonishment was so boundless I hardly realized the
words I was whispering.
The two women conversed apart but a moment long-
er; then the duenna turned to me yet again, ''Her
Highness wishes me to signify her assent to an imme-
diate marriage. The Signore may summon the priest,"
she commanded.
I looked at the Duchess. ''Do you desire this, my
lady?" I questioned.
She inclined her head slightly. There seemed noth-
ing for it but instant acquiescence on my part. "It is
to save my life that I ask it," she said.
I therefore, on the instant, sent Jock to awaken Fath-
er Aurelian, and a mightily dumfounded man he was,
when, rudely shaken out of a sound sleep, he was sum-
moned to marry the Master to a strange woman, who
was said to be Her Highness, Magna, Grand Duchess
of Ferezza, in an inn chamber at three of the clock
the morning following his entrance into her ducal city.
The priest was for demurring, but after I showed
him all that happened, and also the ring and the coin to
establish the lady's identity, I finally induced him to
perform the ceremony.
13
The thing was done in few words. My Lady
knew no EngHsh and the priest no ItaHan, but the
knowledge of Latin by us three sufficed for the compre-
hension of those hastily spoken vows, in that gray
dawn, which made us man and wife, and for which I
now thank God.
I wedded the Duchess with that seal ring which 1
had plucked from my smallest finger, and promised
fealty to her and she to me, who had, but one short
half hour before, been strangers to sight and hearing.
After the matter of the marriage had been disposed
of came the manner of getting out. There were now
two more in our party than had been the night befort,
and the sky was growing so light that we could not use
our balcony ladder, but were forced to essay the court-
yard.
I sent Jock about this delicate business at once,
knowing that what could be done he would do, in spite
of his lack of language, such trust I put in his sagacity.
I gave him much gold to ease matters, in case he should
find any awake and likely to hinder his preparations,
also a stout hunting knife, should he be forced to try
conclusions with a Ferezzan dagger in the hand of
some suspicious attendant.
He was ordered to resaddlethe post horses which had
carried us from Genoa, since they were proven doughty
travellers, being strong and gentle, though not unduly
mettlesome, and thus were safer in a ticklish job of the
sort, with women concerned, than would have been
fresh steeds, untried, which might be apt to cause us
trouble on the road. I also charged my serving man
to find a couple of women's saddles, or pillions, if it
14
were possible, since our new passengers being women,
we had need to transport them somewhat more carefully
than bags of meal. All these matters in detail I left
to him to accomplish as quickly as might be, consider-
ing the fact that he was to work in a strange stable in
the darkness.
My gentleman, Thomas Humes, I also sent to act
under Jock's instructions, he being slow of wit; and
for this reason I proposed to leave him behind, and to
give his horse over to the use of one of the women. I
nistructed him, therefore, to pay our count when it
should grow light, and the price of the post horses, and
to make as though he were to follow us at once to
Rome, whence we purported to be summoned in haste,
since our passports had been seen to be made out for
that place; but, plainly, to go there and await our com-
ing. I gave him the charge of all our baggage too bulky
to be taken by us into the mountains, which therefore
included all my fine wardrobe. I also left with him
gold sufficient for a long stay, and ordered him that if
I came not soon, he was to find his way back to our ex-
iled queen at Paris. Such was all I thought to do with
him, in our haste of departure, but had I known more,
I should have sent him direct to His Majesty, the King
of France, and at once.
This parting with my goodly apparel was done but
somewhat ruefully, and proved to be my first grievance,
when I had leisure to give thought to grievances.
After the departure of the gentleman and the ser-
vitor, the priest and I were left to arrange for the com-
fort of our guests. We needed, assuredly, to smuggle
them out of the inn in a manner that they should re-
main unknown, and as they had no riding masks we
15
were put to it to provide a sufficient disguise. At
length, after some pulling over of the luggage in the
outer room, Father Aurelian appeared, dressed in a
complete suit of the clothes of Thomas Humes, with
periwig, (the two being about of a size) ; while over his
arm he carried two cassocks of his own and his two per-
ruques d'abbe, which he had bought in France. Al-
though these garments, being a priest's habit, had been
blessed, he granted a dispensation to the women to
wear them, and I advised my charges to put them on at
once. When they had complied with my desire and we
were summoned to mount, the three, thus transformed,
would have baffled a shrewder brain than our sleepy
porter's in attempting to discover their identity.
We found Jock in the dim courtyard holding four
steeds, already saddled, but only one carrying a pillion,
w^hich would compel one woman to ride alone on a
man's saddle. This the waiting woman declined to
do. She had never been on a horse, she said, in all her
life before; which left nothing for it but to mount the
Duchess on the steed which had been ridden by the
priest, as being the most docile. When the lady had
seated herself sidewise the matter appeared not diffi-
cult, since her saddle rose high, front and rear; al-
though the strangeness of it proved so great that for
the moment I feared lest our whole design should fail ;
but directly, with lips set firm, Her Highness signed for
us to proceed.
We then awakened the porter, who undid the gate,
and while I in a dark corner attracted his notice by
the clink of coin, Jock slipped three horses out the gate,
hiding as best he could behind the others, that one bear-
ing a double burden. I then mounted and followed.
16
Before we started I had learned from the maid that
she knew a route which led first south and then towards
the east gate, through a course of winding streets; by
which way we could avoid passing the palace and also
give colour to a story of journeying towards Rome.
I therefore placed Jock in the lead, behind whom the
waiting woman rode, with instructions that she should
touch his arm, right or left, when she wished to change
direction.
We set out at a sober pace, lest haste should excite
question, and also to save our steeds. Upon these good
fellows and their strength of limb, our lives and safety
lay; and I therefore hastened their speed with the
greatest caution. We had yet nearly two hours before
sunrise, and I hoped by careful travelling, and allowing
for rest and hindrances, to make my castle about noon,
my only hope against pursuit being the time gained by
our early departure and the uncertainty as to our des-
tination.
We did not count much on our stubbornness of re-
sistance; for although we were well provided with
swords and pistols, and muskets for deer shooting, only
two of us could fight, so we prayed for a peaceful pass-
age.
Before we reached the gate of the city. Her Highness
whispered me the password, given out by herself the
evening before. When, therefore, the guard gave the
challenge *'Who goes there?" I answered readily
enough, "A friend."
''What is the word ?" he demanded.
" 'Ever faithful Ferezza !' " I gave with a brave
heart.
For a wonder this appeared sufficient. The sleepy
17
guard said nothing about passports, but let us through
without question, and I began to fancy it rather an easy
matter to kidnap a grand duchess, or indeed any one,
in the midst of such indifference, which I could not at
all comprehend — no one seeing, no one questioning,
and so we passed out into the open country.
(Edited by) HARRYET STRONG.
Copyright 1899 ^7 Harry et Strong.
Cbopin^s JVocturnes
m
A Memory of the Symphony Concerts.
CSTATIC breath of melody divine!
Within thy keeping
Lurk haunting tones compact of rapture fine
And passion sleeping :
The mighty yearning of an infinite pain
Too deep for any tears,
A moment's awe, a startled, sweet surprise
That lies beyond all fears.
C. B. Benson.
m
INNER was over at the ranch. In spite of ^is Cbc
delay, Gilbert had been in time to enjoy the f'lcast of
cosy meal by the light of the candelabra that gan Ifuail
always seemed to him to frame his impressions
of Margaret. He had seen her first in the glow of suc>. ^" Hdvcnturc
a light and it seemed to him ever afterwards to float ^ two parts
about her face as a sort of halo. ^^^ ^^*
They had talked over old times tonight, she and her
mother and the brothers, and following the road of
memory had wandered very far from the present. Then
they had music and he had sung to her the gondolier's
song. He was humming over the refrain now as he lay
back in the easy chair of the large central room, smok-
ing a last cigar.
The house was quiet, all but himself apparently bur-
ied in slumber. From without the occasional night
song of the mocking-bird filled the air with melody. A
magazine lay open on his knees, but he was not read-
ing. He was lost in thought and so far away that he
did not hear a slight movement behind him nor even
look up when a board creaked with a sudden snap. For
some moments longer his thoughts held him oblivious
to outside impressions, then he stirred, yawned a lit-
tle, shook the ashes off the end of his cigar and turned
to find a dark face confronting him at the other end of
the table. Gilbert stared at this apparition in undis-
guised amazement. The man who had so suddenly
appeared out of the surrounding darkness was a tall,
slender fellow, bronzed with exposure, whose clear-cut
features contradicted with the hard lines of mouth and
chin, a certain something noble about the brow. As he
sat there quietly puffing a cigarette, in his velvet
jacket heavily embroidered with silver, he suggested a
handsome toreador.
21
"You were deeply absorbed, senor," he remarked
coolly. ''Don't let me disturb you.''
"But who are you and how did you get here?" de-
manded Gilbert. The other laughed musically.
"It was quite simple," he said. "You should really
have a guardian. I have been here — let me see — " he
drew a large silver watch from his pocket. "Yes, fifteen
minutes. It is well you roused yourself. Time presses."
"What do want of me?" asked Gilbert.
"Your company on a short trip I am about to take."
"My company? What have you to do with me?"
"The fact is," drawled the other smilingly, "you
have something that belongs to me."
"I " said Gilbert.
"Yes," moving nearer, "in your inside pocket — a
chain, a golden chain."
"Oh!" exclaimed Gilbert, the events of the day re-
turning to his mind with a rush, "a golden chain!"
Then, with an amused smile, "So you are Martinez."
"Yes, I am Martinez. I have come for that chain."
"And what if I refuse?" asked Gilbert smiling more
broadly. He was beginning to enjoy the situation.
"You see," he added insinuatingly, placing his hand
over the pocket in question, "this chain represents some
very pleasant hours to me. I should be sorry to part
with it."
A sharp, steely gleam flashed into Martinez' eyes for
a moment. Then he smiled brilliantly.
"You will not refuse," he answered pleasantly.
"You will not be so foolish."
"But if I should?"
"You will not. First you will give me the chain and
then you will take your hat yonder and come with me
22
for we have some distance to go before morning.'*
"Go? Where? I am sorry to dedine your pressing
invitation, but really "
"You will not decline," said Martinez, throwing
away the end of his cigarette and straightening him-
self with a sudden movement. His careless languor
vanished entirely.
Gilbert retreated a little, throwing away his cigar
also. The aspect of things had somehow changed.
"My dear sir," he said with an imperceptible move-
ment of his hand toward his hip pocket, "possibly you
intend this as a high compliment and if you will kindly
explain your grounds for these requests we may come
to some conclusion."
"We may," assented Martinez, quietly, following
the motion of Gilbert's hand with a glance. "As for
the chain, I placed it last Christmas day about the
neck of the girl who is to marry me."
"Oh, in that case," said Gilbert with a sudden sense
of shame, "I can only return it to you with a very in-
adequate apology for having it at all. I didn't think
" he unbuttoned his coat and taking the chain
from his pocket put it into the other's hand.
Martinez' face softened. He ran the chain lightly,
caressingly through his fingers. "That is well, senor.
And now for the hat. We waste time." Gilbert's face
flushed angrily and he set his teeth. "See here," he
said shortly, "this thing has gone far enough. I took
the chain foolishly, I acknowledge it. I have apolo-
gized and given it back to you. Now let us call the
affair ended. As for going anywhere with you "
he suddenly drew his revolver from his pocket.
With a motion as swift and sudden as a panther's
23
Martinez sprang upon him. The two men, locked to-
gether, struggled for a moment, then the revolver flew
half across the room while Martinez pinned Gilbert
against the w^all with arms of steel.
"Pah, you are easy prey," he said contemptuously,
and uttered a low, peculiar call. Instantly there sprang
into the room through the open window three men.
Martinez uttered a sharp command and they leveled
three revolvers at Gilbert's head. Martinez turned to
him with a smile. ''Will you come with us ?" he asked.
"Who are you?" exclaimed Gilbert, breathing hard.
""Martinez, — where have I heard that name?"
"Perhaps in connection with the late robbery at Ca-
huenga Pass," suggested Martinez pleasantly. "I was
somewhat prominent in that affair. Or the looting of
the San Fernando banks."
"Yes, by Jove!" exclaimed the astonished Gilbert.
"What, are you that notorious highwayman who is
said to haunt these mountains? Why I never sup-
posed he existed except in the minds of the people."
"He stands before you," answered the other draw-
ing his lips into an unpleasant curve. "You have big-
ger game to deal with than you thought, young man.
And now, I desire your company. I am accustomed to
gratify my wishes. I give you five minutes to be
mounted."
Five minutes later a group of horsemen rode quietly
down the long aisles of the orange orchard and out
into the road. At their head rode Martinez on a hand-
some, powerful black horse, with Gilbert by his side.
The moon lit up grove and field with a soft radiance,
the hush of night was upon the land. Gilbert wondered
if he were dreaming. So absurd, so impossible a situ-
24
:ation he could not make himself realize. Captured by
highwaymen at this end of the civilized Nineteenth
Century, and that, too, not in Greece, not in Italy, but
in California, within forty miles of a populous city —
the whole thing was preposterous! The lights in the
house they had just left were burning peacefully.
Within were safety, comfort, the woman he loved,
while every step took him further away, unseen, un-
missed, into the darkness — whither? Involuntarily
he reined in his horse and looked back. The sharp
click of a pistol sounded at his ear and a swarthy face
confronted his. At the same moment Martinez called
him from the darkness, ''Hasten, senor, I lack your
company." He spurred ahead once more, but as he did
so it seemed to him that he heard a subdued noise from
the house, and that the lights flickered to and fro as
if somebody moved them.
For a little while they rode in silence; then Gilbert
spoke : 'T suppose I am your prisoner." ''Don't call it
by so hard a name," answered Martinez, gaily. "Say
my guest. It sounds better," and he began to hum a
little tune.
"What are you going to do with me?" persisted Gil-
bert.
"You are going to visit me in the mountains for a
short time," answered Martinez, coolly, "until your
friends find out if they value your society as highly as
I do."
"That is, you demand a ransom, and how much?"
"Surely so valuable a man must be worth to society
five thousand dollars at least."
"Five thousand dollars !" exclaimed Gilbert, "why, it
will take weeks to realize it. Martinez, you are a vil-
lain, a deep-dyed, unmitigated villain !"
25
Martinez smiled. ''If you stay with me long enough
you will learn to know me better than that."
'Tive thousand dollars!" groaned Gilbert, "and the
elections coming on!" and he relapsed into a gloomy
silence.
They had just reached a turn of the road where the
rising land begins when Martinez suddenly halted, mo-
tioning his men. They all stood listening. In the sud-
den silence that followe d the beat of horses' hoofs was
distinctly audible in the distance, and drawing rapidly
nearer. A clump of trees grew by the roadside, cast-
ing heavy shadows. Martinez gave a sharp command,
threw a hair lariat about the neck of the horse that Gil-
bert rode and plunged into the shadows behind the
trees. Then he drew two pistols from his belt and
stood waiting. The sound of the hoofs drew nearer.
In the soft moonlight the road was plainly visible for
a quarter of a mile and galloping toward them there
now appeared two figures on horseback. Gilbert
watched them with interest. They came from the di-
rection of the ranch. What if he should call out to
them as they passed ? A look at Martinez showed him
the futility of the thought. He stood there, mostly
concealed by the shadows, a picturesque figure, but in-
stinct Avith dangerous vitality. The gleam in his eyes
matched the gleam along the barrels of the pistols he
held. Gilbert shrugged his shoulders resignedly and
turned to watch the approaching horsemen. As he did
so, he started, and a sudden thought turned him sick
with terror. One of the approaching figures was that
of a woman. Could it be — was it possible — was she so
rriad? Yes, it was she beyond a doubt or a question.
She must have heard the noise of their departure and
26
was riding now for help, brave, brave that she was,
but, oh, how fatally rash! For Martinez saw her, he
would divine her purpose, he would stop her of course
— his ''rare, pale Margaret" in the power of those reck-
less men! He turned to Martinez with desperate, im-
ploring eyes ! he could have flung himself at his feet
in passionate supplication, failing that, he could have
killed him where he stood. Martinez laid a restraining
hand on his arm and gave him a steady look. *'Be
calm, senor," he said low, but distinctly, ''I never mo-
lest a woman."
Almost as the words left his lips the two were upon
them. Gilbert saw her pass, he saw her sweet face up-
lifted a little in an intense, forward gaze and her hair
blown by the wind as they swept by; then the moonlit
darkness absorbed them and they were lost to view
again. Gilbert looked after them and raised his hat.
"There goes the woman I am to marry," he said turn-
ing to Martinez. 'T shall not forget."
Martinez gave him a long look. ''Women are sacred
to me," he said slowly, "for the sake of the mother who
bore me and the girl whose chain you wore." Gilbert
understood the rebuke. With a sudden impulse he held
out his hand. "It was a piece of childish folly," he ex-
claimed. "I am properly shamed and your debtor in
generosity."
Martinez took his hand with a glance in which a
frank kindliness gleamed for a moment. "The woman
you love rides to bring you help, senor. She has more
faith in the highwaymen than you, it seems. And since
it is so, we must hasten. They took the further road,
then we take this. Forward to the mountains! We
must be in safety ere the moon sets." He dug the spurs
27
into his horse and sprang forward at a gallop. His
companions, talking volubly among themselves gal-
loped after. So they struck out into the open coun-
try.
For more than an hour the steady beat of the horses'
hoofs had echoed from the sun-baked ground rising
steadily beneath their feet. The country now lay far
below; they were approaching the highest point of the
mesa and the great, solemn mountains towered above
them. The canyon whose shelter they were rapidly ap-
proaching, seemed to yawn before them like the open-
ing to regions of outer darkness. Martinez and his
band now felt themselves secure; they were on the
threshold of home. They chatted and laughed and
told anecdotes in a Spanish too idiomatic for Gilbert to
understand. They rolled and lighted cigarettes and
puffed them contentedly. Martinez seemed the gayest
of the gay. Gilbert had resigned all lingering hope of
pursuit and resolved to take this new experience philo-
sophically. Believing that he should fare better by
gaining the good will of his captors he exerted him-
self to seem cheerful and even essayed a joke or two
of his own. And as he thus became more at ease with
his captors, his wonder grew how Martinez, so fine and
handsome a fellow, with so much genius for command
should be engaged in such a profession. Martinez him-
self answered the unspoken thought. Reining in his
horse on the summit of a steep slope, he looked back
over the moonlit country while an expression of in-
tense bitterness distorted his features. "A fair and
lovely country," he exclaimed, ''an earthly paradise and
all ours, ours by right! Do you wonder, senor, that
28
I hate these strangers who come here to rob and plun-
der us of the fairest land God ever created ? Is it not
justice that I, who have lost all, should force mine own
from them again!" The band stood in silence for a
moment, looking whither he pointed. Suddenly one of
them clutched his arm. ''Captain, look yonder! We
are followed."
Martinez turned in his saddle, looked and uttered a
ringing oath. There, a hundred feet below them, as
if they had sprung from the ground, so noiselessly and
swiftly had they come, rode a band of horsemen. The
light glinted on rifle barrels and stocks. They ap-
proached swiftly, steadily. Martinez' expression
changed to one of concentrated fury; all the wildness
of his nature blazed to the surface. Perhaps none but
he realized how nearly they were trapped. He seized
with a grip of iron Gilbert's lariat and dashed the spurs
into his own powerful horse. "Ride for the canyon,"
he shouted, and away they went at a pace that took Gil-
bert's breath. An answ^ering shout from below told
them that they had been seen and understood, and now
the race began, over rock and hill, crashing down into
rain-washed gullies, jumping the trunks of fallen trees,
headlong, blindly, madly. Gilbert clung tight to his
saddle in desperation. The noise of their own wild rush
deadened all sounds else. It might have been a mo-
ment or an hour that they raced thus headlong into the
darkness and then Martinez slackened pace to listen
and look. Loud and clear close behind them rose the
thundering beat of other hoofs. Wild as their flight
had been, their pursuers had gained upon them, while
still a few yards distant loomed the canyon. Martinez
looked about in desperation. Suddenly his eye caught
29
a faint line of white which ran zigzag across the wall
of rock that faced them. It was the trail that lead to
the head of the canyon. He turned in his saddle.
''Make for the trail/' he cried. Then reining in his
horse he called sharply to Gilbert: ''Dismount!" Gil-
bert obeyed mechanically. With a swift movement
Martinez, covering him with his revolver, loosened the
hair lariat from the neck of the horse and cast it once,
twice, thrice about Gilbert, pinning his arms to his
sides. "Now," he said still more sharply, "Mount here
behind me and hold on to my belt for your life!" But
from his men arose a chorus of remonstrance. "Across
the trail ! Are you mad, captain ! You will be in plain
sight, they will shoot you!" "Not with him behind
me," said Martinez grimly. "It is that or this," lifting
his pistol significantly. "I will never be taken alive."
And as Gilbert scrambled up behind him he turned his
horse and dashed straight for the wall of rock. The
wind whistled by them and from behind a rifle shot
awakened the echoes. A moment's mad gallop and
they reached the trail. Then began a ride that Gilbert's
experience never equalled. Up, up, up, over rocks and
boulders, past chasms that turned him sick and dizzy,
rounding corners so sharp that their jagged edges
threatened to hurl Gilbert from his seat to the depths
yawning below. He clung with the strength of des-
peration and shut his eyes to avoid the sick horror of
those chasms. On, on, on, up, ever up! But the
strength even of the fiery animal they rode was not
equal to such superhuman effort. He lagged, he fal-
tered, and Martinez unwillingly drew rein to breathe
him for a moment. Only a moment and yet 'twas Gil-
bert's chance. The awful jolting of their wild ride had
30
loosened his bonds. Slowly, carefully he worked one
elbow free. The gleam of a pistol stuck into Martinez'
riding-boot caught his eye, and in an instant his plan
was formulated. He leaned over to seize it. Martinez
alarmed by the movement leaned over also, throwing
back his other foot to catch the spur into the saddle as
a brace. As he did so, the knife and pistol concealed as
Gilbert had hoped in this other boot were right beneath
Gilbert's hand. He seized them and quick as a cat
slipped to the ground. Martinez turned to find himself
covered with his own weapon. ^'If you stir a finger,"
said Gilbert, "I'll shoot the horse and his fall will land
you down there." He pointed to the black depths be-
low them. Martinez turned his head and saw that
he spoke the truth. He also felt in his voice the ring
of a determination that would not flinch. Behind them
they heard hoof-beats. He gave a sudden call : ''J^an,
Manuel, Gonzales!" There was no answer. "They
deserted you at the foot of the trail," said Gilbert.
"The cowards!" muttered Martinez. "The hoofs you
hear are not theirs," continued the other.
Martinez drew in his breath with a sudden hiss, then
shrugged his shoulders. "You have won, senor," he
said softly. "But I will not be taken alive." A sharp
pang smote Gilbert's heart. He caught at the bridle.
"Martinez," he said. There was something in his voice
that made Martinez quickly turn his head. The eyes
of the two men met again and in the one there gleamed
for a moment a proud appeal. Gilbert spoke again.
"Heaven knows I am doing a foolish, perhaps a
wicked thing, but you spared her there on the road and
'twas my own folly that brought all this about. Ride
for your life!" and he lowered the pistol. Martinez
31
stoop up in his saddle for a second, then he raised his^
hat and calHng gaily, "Adios, senor," disappeared
around the next turn.
In another moment Gilbert was accosted by an eager,
breathless group of horsemen, but to all their questions
he answered simply, ''He is gone."
Just as the sun rose over the eastern hills, Gilbert,
pale and unutterably weary, rode up to the ranch house
where Margaret awaited his coming on the rose-cov-
ered veranda.
Grace Atherton Dennen.
n
HERE is no French writer whose genius has
given to the world the reahties of Hfe in a more
marked degree than Bernardin de Saint Pierre.
His Hfe is so unusual, interesting, suggestive
and amusing, that no series of great French writers
would be complete which did not contain the name of
the author of Paul and Virginia.
Born at Havre, on the 19th of January, 1837, he, at
an early age, took a fancy to the sea, and his uncle
being a sea captain, gave him the opportunity of grati-
fying this desire. But a single trip to Martinique dis-
pelled the charm, and he returned home and entered
the Jesuit college. Here he became friendly with one
of the priests, Father Paul, and often took long walks
with him, visiting the sick and the needy. At the
close of his school life he wished to become a mission-
ary priest, but his parents, who had probably taken the
measure of his enthusiasm from his sea experience,
strongly objected and persuaded him to study engin-
eering, which for a time he followed as a profession,
establishing himself at Rouen. Being dismissed for in-
subordination, and having quarreled with his parents,
he became a rolling stone, visiting Malta, Warsaw,
Dresden and Berlin, where he held brief commissions,
and rejoiced in romantic adventures.
At the age of thirty he returned to Paris, poorer than
when he set out. It was at this time he began his lit-
erary career, his wanderings supplying him with what
might be called his stock in trade.
His nature being very sensitive, he was easily offend-
ed, and formed few intimate friends among literary
men, the exception being Rousseau, of whom he saw
much, and from whom he formed his own character
and style of writing.
33
OF THB
■OTNIVERSITY
Bernardin
dc Saint
pierre
His first work of any importance, The Voyage to the
Isle of France, appeared in 1773, and gained him some
reputation. It is the most sober of his writings and
consequently the least characteristic.
The "Studies of Nature," which made his fame and
assured him of literary success, did not appear until ten
years later, and his masterpiece, Paul and Virginia,
not until 1787.
In 1792 he married a young girl, Felicite Didot,
whose father, being a rich man, bought for his son-in-
law a small island off the coast of France, where Saint
Pierre and his wife and two children, Paul and Virgin-
ia, lived until he was appointed superintendent of the
Jardin des Plantes at Paris, when the family returned
and took up their residence at a villa near the city.
His wife having died, he again married, his second
wife being his junior by many years. But this union
seems to have been even happier than the first, his young
wife ministering to his declining years and he reaping
the benefits of literary fame. He still continued to
publish and became a great favorite with Napoleon,
who admired his genius, and is said to have asked him
''When are you going to give us more Pauls and Vir-
ginias?"
His death occurred at his country seat, near Paris,
in the year 18 14.
Saint Pierre was no ordinary person, either as man
or writer; his was a strong and original character,
more bent on action than on literature. His writings
breathe the air of the country, the woods and the songs
of birds. His poetic nature observed the circling of
the doves above the cathedral spires rather than the
architectural design of the building.
U
He is a painter of words rather than a builder of sen-
tences.
A theorist who Hved up to his theory, which was
that Providence had fashioned the whole world with
one intent only, the happiness of man.
He admitted that man was not happy, but there was
no reason whatever save his own folly why he should
not be as happy as the days are long.
In other words, Saint Pierre believed that God creat-
ed man an innocent being, and that he became evil
through environment.
The sombre view of life which drove Voltaire into
revolt never affected the imagination of Saint Pierre,
who none the less had a tender heart and had often laid
down his head with the poor and miserable.
Such was the man who has given to the world the
whisperings of nature as he heard them in the open
fields and the unfolding of the human soul, unbiased by
the opinions of his countrymen, and numoved by the
taunts of his enemies.
Let us forget the faults of Saint Pierre in the pres-
ence of his great genius.
Louise Y. Pratt.
^^BrnW
^.l;^^.^^ .^
'PflHw^ t'" ''*^^
Driftwood
HEN little Ned awoke refreshed from his first ^ Serial Story
natural sleep, Mrs. Alford returned to the grey P**^ ^'' " ^^^'
cottage under the sycamore trees. Therese
greeted her with anxious care. She brought
her a cup of chocolate and placed a cushion under her
feet as she sat in the red chair, quite passive from weari-
ness. The French woman brushed out the sunny hair
which she had cared for ever since it clustered in rings
about the baby brow. She told her the village news,
and how many eggs she had saved and sold during her
mistress' absence. ''There is some good in everything
and four eggs a day are not bad," said the cheerful
economist. "I have laid by quite two francs a day by
your being away. Those violets were brought by one
of your scholars. He said they were the first of the
season. That young man has been here twice — Mr.
Leith, I think he is called. He left some papers; they
are there on your desk." Mrs. Alford closed her eyes
and listened to Therese's chat in the language she loved
above all others. She did not follow what she said, but
she liked the voice which held always a caress for her
whatever the words. Presently she felt her troubles
slipping away from her and a vague consciousness of
the perfume of violets upon which she floated, floated.
Mrs. Alford was asleep in the big chair, with her shin-
ing hair pillowed upon the satin. A calamity dreaded
rouses every sense; one accomplished brings ever the
relief of exhaustion. Therese slipped out of the room
leaving her to rest.
The sun was dropping low in the Western sky when
Mrs. Alford awoke with every sense quickened and
refreshed. She took her hat and went out into the cool
air. Her plans grew clear as she walked away from
37
the village toward the hills. She would go away. She
had been very happy here, very full of hope for the fu-
ture. But that was over now and flight was again be-
fore her. She began to calculate her resources; they
were very slender. Therese had doubtless a little fund
saved in housekeeping, and she had one hundred dol-
lars. There was the piano, but how could she dispose
of so costly an article without attracting more atten-
tion than she desired ? Should she confide in Mrs. Bar-
ton? No, she was his friend; what sympathy could
she have with her? Deeply absorbed in this problem,
she was not conscious of an approaching figure until
it stood quite at her side, when looking up she recog-
nized Lysle Howard. He raised his hat courteously,
and addressed her calmly.
"I saw you leave the village and followed you for
a few words of explanation," he said. ''Shall we walk
on, or do you prefer to stand?"
"I will stand here," she said. "I think our conversa-
tion will not be long."
"You will grant that it is natural for me to have
some curiosity concerning the motives which have ac-
tuated your singular course," he said. "I have re-
spected entirely your desire to be left unmolested, but
since accident has thrown us together, I "
"Do not dare to ask me that question," cried the wo-
man before him, suddenly losing her self control as
women do, and finding her voice tremble with the emo-
tions which swayed her. "Ask your own heart if I
could have been true to myself and done aught else."
"You can well imagine that I have asked myself that
question many times during these three years," replied
Howard. "I acknowledge that the bond you found so
unendurable was in a measure forced upon you by the
38
circumstances of your father's death, but even that can
scarcely excuse the manner in which you broke it. You
should at least have appealed to me for freedom, before
bringing dishonor and ridicule upon my name. I have
not come here to reproach you. The wrong you hav :
done me lies too deep for words. You have crusht
under foot the purest love a man ever lavished upon :.
woman. I only ask your reasons. Surely you owe me
that."
Mrs. Alford's dark eyes grew large with amaze-
ment; she stood speechless looking into the darkening
face before her.
"Do you think I was a man to force the bond of a
loveless marriage upon you? Could you not have
taken some gentler means of proving I was odious to
you?"
''You look as though you were speaking the truth,"
said the woman with a gasp as though for breath. ''Is
it possible you think it was lack of love for you which
drove me from your roof?"
"What other reason could there have been?" asked
Lysle Howard.
A hot flush rose slowly to her very brow, as she
turned her eyes from him toward the golden sunset.
Her hands were loosely clasped before her; her noble
head was lifted proudly.
"How blind a man must be to ever call a woman
wife, and so misjudge her. You found me an unloved
child, and won from me all the accumulated tenderness
of my life time. It dominated my whole being until I
looked into that child's face and knew you false to me.
No hand but your own could have slain it."
"'That child?' what do you mean Use?" he de-
manded shaken in his turn by amazement.
39
She did not seem to hear his question as she con-
tinued.
''When the woman told me the story I did not be-
Heve it until she brought me the boy and said his
mother was to be under the same roof with me. Was
I the woman to brook such an insult ? How little you
knew me."
Lysle seized her rudely by the arm in a frenzy of im-
patience.
"Use, of whom are you speaking? Can it be of lit-
tle Richard ? Who told you this story ?"
She trembled with a great fear as she looked into his
face.
"The child's nurse told me and showed me the boy's
eyes in proof. I asked no other. I dared not wait to
see you, lest my love should conquer my pride. I felt
you needed no word from me, with her in the house."
He looked at her for a moment in silence then flung
her arm from him with sudden passion.
''Your love?'' he said. "You talk of love, and yet
believed such a thing of me from the lips of a servant ?
Had an angel from Heaven accused you, I should have
defied him; and you believed a nursery maid's lie ! That
my brother's child had eyes like mine was proof enough
for you ! I had bowed down before you as a saint, and
you believed this !"
Blanching, trembling, the unhappy woman stood be-
fore him silent. She w^as grasping slowly the terrible
/act that she had ruined her own life and his, through
a mistake. The man she had learned to loathe stood
before her a judge. The wrong she had done him was
irreparable. A cry escaped her lips, one of such an-
guish as is rarely heard. She felt her fault was greater
than he as yet knew.
40
"1 robbed you not only of your wife but of your
child." she said slowly. ''My baby died when he was
six months old." And then she sank down on the
ground at his feet.
Lysle Howard stood looking at the bowed head a
moment, wrestling with an overwhelming impulse to
strike it to the earth. And then he walked away hast-
ily, leaving her where she lay.
Night had fallen before she stirred, and then it was
the memory of Therese which brought her to her feet.
''She will raise an alarm if I do not come in soon," she
thought. Her limbs trembled as she moved; she felt
ill and broken. What tears so hopeless as those we
weep over our own mistakes ! And yet this woman's
sorrows grew out of her training rather than her
faults. Entirely ignorant of the world, full of impos-
sible ideals ; supremely uncompromizing in her ideas of
right and wrong, altogether ungoverned in judgment,
she had been left quite without advice in the moment
of her trial. Impulse ruled her now as then. She be-
lieved him without proof, just as she had doubted him.
She was not stirred to tenderness but to intensest pity
and remorse. Her young dream was dead within her;
all her thoughts were for him; she had robbed him of
everything; was there no atonement possible!
"Make a fire Therese. I am chilled to the bone," she
said when she entered her house. The astonished
French woman did as she was bid, asking no questions.
She could guess how deeply her mistress was suffer-
ing. She needed no knowledge of details. So she still
held her peace when next morning she entered Mrs.
Alford's room and found her sitting before the ashes
of last night's fire.
41
''Here is a note that was left for you this morning,"
she said, setting down a breakfast tray.
The well known writing thrilled Mrs. Alford with
strange dread, but its contents was but a line. It read :
"I request you to remain here until I can see you
again."
When Lysle Howard left his wife crouching on the
ground he was conscious only of a desire to get out of
her presence, and think of this thing which had befal-
len. He must adjust himself to a new aspect of the cir-
cumstance over which he had so long brooded. To
think her unloving; to believe all her pretty tenderness
a lie, — this he had taught himself slowly and painfully.
In the great need for love in which this man stood by
nature, he found himself thrilled by a bitter joy that
he had not been deceived in the girl who had put her
hand in his that day in the Villa at San Remo. "She at
least loved me then,'' he said to himself; and then he
remembered how that love had failed at the first test,
and how his child had died without his knowledge of
its existence, and a great bitterness blotted out every
other thought. This he never could forgive her ; never.
How like the old Use she looked as she faced the sun-
set and flushed at the mere mention of the love she had
borne for him. Her hair had the same sheen as when
he touched it first ; he thought of that, even in that ter-
rible moment when he had seen her head bowed at his
feet. She had been falser than he had ever dreamed,
for she had betrayed her own heart as well as his. How
she must have suffered when she had felt her faith in
him outraged and shattered ! With what courage had
she braved the world to save her womanhood! And
yet she had understood him so little as to believe this
42
thing possible; had never relented towards him, when
his child lay upon her bosom ! No, he could never for-
give her! And yet that golden head must not lie
bowed to the ground; he would go back and see that
she had protection to her home.
Thus pain, anger, tenderness, wrestled in this man's
breast, proving how infinitely stronger he was to love
and endure than the woman who had wrecked his fate.
It is not often so; it is rarely so; but God has made a
few men with power to love as a mother loves, forget-
ting all faults, forgiving all wrongs; natures whose
depths are fathomless. Lysle Howard was neither a
good nor a great man; but the love he had once given
this woman was great and good beyond all human
measurements. He could never forgive her, he said,
but he walked back over fields to see that the dews of
night should not fall on her curls. But she had al-
ready started wearily homeward and he did not find
her. Returning to Mr. Barton's he penned her the few
words we have read; he had no plan; he must think
this problem out in quiet. How could best be remedied
the terrible wrong of the past?
xn.
Winter had come in the great South land; a winter
of tender greens and succulent growths. The sun-
burned hills and plains had been cooled by showers ; the
dusty, golden atmosphere had been washed to crystal-
ine clearness through which the purple bulk of the
mountains shone with deceptive nearness. Every ravine
in their rugged sides was sketched in tree-fringed shad-
ows, and a single patch of snow capped the loftiest
summit. In the dark-green groves the oranges were
beginning to yellow ; but the vineyards were as ragged
and dis bevelled as though the days gone by had been
43
spent in a long carousal. Young barley was springing
in the fields, where an occasional meadow lark cleft the
silence with a liquid gurgle of song. The wild ducks
flew in wedge-shaped phalanxes high over head, seek-
ing the neighboring marshes. The chrysanthemums
shamed the roses in the gardens, and the violets sent
forth their fragrance. The sun had lost its fervor and
indoors cheerful wood fires burned morning and even-
ing. Later in the season the clouds would gather in
lowering force, and the rain would fall for days to-
gether, but as yet winter had come in name alone.
There seemed scarcely a hint of chill in the air which
fanned Mrs. Alford's cheek as she came down the
schoolhouse steps, and after a moment's hesitation
turned up the road which led away from the village to-
ward the plain. She walked rapidly, but her restless
eyes sought the familiar beauty of the scene with an
absent look, showing that her thoughts had out-traveled
her steps. The passing months had left heavy lines
about her mouth and brought an anxious look into her
face. The long day's teaching in a crowded school
room was trying to strained nerves; she was seeking
relief in exercise, and the stillness of a wide horizon.
To get beyond the human and catch a glimpse of the
illimitable, this is what she always sought on the plain
which undulated in purple vastness, eastward of the
village to the distant hills which bound the sea. She
was growing impatient of this long suspense. She was
not conscious of hoping or wishing for anything; every
emotion seemed dulled by the sudden shock which had
changed her view of life. The one thing she had al-
ways been sure of was the perfect right and justice of
her own conclusions and subsequent acts. Now she
alone of all around her seemed in the wrong, and the
44
revulsion of attitude bewildered her.
Mrs. Alford had walked scarcely half a mile when
her strength seemed suddenly to fail her and with lag-
ging step she turned homeward. The setting sun shone
in a golden glow level with the orchards; the air was
growing chill. As she entered the village Mr. Leith
joined her. The schoolmistress smiled him an indiffer-
ent welcome; she was too self-absorved to realize how
often he met her when she went to walk.
"I was going to the schoolhouse in the hope of meet-
ing you/' he said eagerly. I want to tell you that my
book is finished."
"1 am both sorry and glad," she said rousing herself
to interest. 'Tt has been such a good friend to you;
how can you bear to part with it?"
'T have never succeeded in anything in all my life;
but I feel I have conquered at last. Can you under-
stand the joy of it? No, I fancy success has always
been easy with you."
Mrs. Alford smiled bitterly. "What will you do
next?" she asked.
'T don't know yet. When the book is published and
is talked about, I believe I will go away from here. I
am tired of solitude; tired of thought. I'll begin life
over again." He spoke quite gaily with an eager light
in his face.
'T hate small things," he continued as she made no
reply. 'T was made for a large field, and some way. I
have never found it. The world has been always
against me.
"Do you call yourself the world?" Mrs. Alford asked
gently. He looked at her a moment in silence.
"You mean that I am that despicable wretch we hear
45
of so often — 'my own worst enemy.' And yet Ihave
shown my best self only to you."
There was such despondency in his tone, that Mrs.
Alford looked up to see the happiness quite gone from
his face, and a sullen misery there, which filled her with
regret for her words. She was thinking so little of him
and his moods, that she had uttered them almost un-
consciously. ^'Forgive me. I did not intend to wound
you," she said. "It seemed strange to me that a strong
man could not conquer the world. I think a woman
often over-rates the advantages of being a man."
"Indeed she does," he affirmed hastily. "You, for
instance.
You have only to be yourself; to look beautiful and
speak kindly, to vanquish all opposition. I too could
be strong if I had you to help and inspire me. Mrs. Al-
ford "
They had reached Sycamore Cottage as he spoke^
and stood at the gate under the bare mottled branches
of the great tree. He had taken her hand to say good
night, for he knew he would be asked to go no farther.
His hat was lifted and his head was bent to finish his
eager plea, when a quiet voice from the door step
startled them.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Alford, if I interrupt; I was wait-
ing to see you."
From the deepening shadow of the fast descending
twilight, Lysle Howard came forward, his face very
stern and white. He turned to Leith with a bearing
and look which seemed a challenge, and then he started
as though from a blow. Leith reddening with anger
met his gaze w^ith a surprised stare. It was but an in-
46
stant before Howard exclaimed in a strangely agitated
tone, "Is it possible that we meet here, at last." Leith
looked at Mrs. Alford as if for explanation, and then
back to his interlocutor.
"You have the advantage of me," he said in a tone of
inquiry. "I unfortunately forget faces easily."
"Unfortunately you forget everything easily," said
Lysle in a hard tone. "First, you forgot your wife and
child, and now you have forgotten the man who in un-
happy enough to be your brother."
A look of pleasure rose in Leith's face.
"By Jove !" he exclaimed joyfully, "this can't be lit-
tle Lysle ! Why, I left you such a kid you can't won-
der I didn't know you. I haven't changed half as much
as you have. I was just thinking of seeking you and
here we meet at the ends of the earth. Shake hands old
fellow; I am awfully glad to see you."
Leith was a handsome man at all times; now with
his face bright with pleasure, his dark eyes glowing, he
was good to look at, and the stern face before him soft-
ened a little, although the outstretched hand was not
taken.
"Unfortunately I do not forget easily," Howard re-
plied wearily; then turning to Mrs. Alford, "May we
go inside, where we can talk at ease. You are already
shivering."
Even in this moment of excitement Leith resented,
and wondered at, the ease with which his brother
claimed the favor so long denied him, and he felt a sul-
len anger succeeding his first emotion of pleasure. "It
was always so," he thought; "as a child Lysle hated me
and never would accept an advance from me."
Mrs. Alford led the way into the little sitting room,
where a bright fire was crackling, throwing long shad-
ows and half lights upon the ceiling. Lysle felt a thrill
as he entered this poor little room with its dainty fur-
nishings which reminded him strangely of other days.
He pushed a chair near the fire and motioned Mrs. Al-
ford to it. Then he stood leaning on the tall back look-
ing down at her. Leith standing on the other side of
the fire was devouring her with his eyes. She had
thrown off her hat on entering, and her fair hair, some-
what disordered, gleamed in the firelight against the
red cushions. She sat thus between the two brothers,
who had played so tragic a part in her life, and whom
she had so unconsciously led together.
Lysle, raising his eyes suddenly to his brother's face,
caught the love light in it and felt his heart turn to
stone. All this time that he had been wandering Dick
had been here winning that of which he had first robbed
him.
''Perhaps," he said in a cool, level tone, ''you would
like to inquire for your wife and child."
"Poor little lad, where is he?" said Dick Howard
easily. "I m.eant soon to go back and claim him. I
heard of his mother's death soon after it occurred. She
was another of my mistakes ; though that was more her
fault than mine. All that is over, Lysle, and you'll be
proud of me yet. Mrs. Alford may I see you tomorrow
and explain this strange interview ?"
"No," said Lysle Howard harshly, "my wife has no
need of explanations except such as I can give her."
Dick Leith looked from the one to the other with di-
lating eyes. He felt like a drowning man, who, having
just touched shore, was swept back again into the
waves. Mrs. Alford had half risen and made a gesture
of protest; but before she could speak he burst forth.
''Yotir Wife? I do not understand. And yet it is
48
fate. In all my life, Lysle, whatever I have wanted you
have gotten. Your saintship always formed a lumin-
ous background to my sinning; you stole my father's
love from me, you inherited the fortune which should
have been mine; and now "
"That will do," said Lysle with a strange sadness
in his voice. ''Don't envy me, Dick; I never got any-
thing until after you had ruined it. Fate has been very
even-handed to us. It has all been a maze of wrong-
doing and mistakes, and I do not see that I have come
out much ahead. It was your sin which parted me and
my wife three years ago and gave you a chance to woo
her in my absence."
'That is false," said Mrs. Alford with a proud
glance into her husband's eyes; ''your brother has
never wooed me and I did not know until tonight that
he thought he loved me. Your happiness I took little
care of, but your honor was safe in my hands. I never
for one moment forgot the bonds which held me."
Lysle's face blanched at her last words, but he re-
turned her look with such sad tenderness that her eyes
fell, and the flush of indignation faded.
"Forgive me," he said gently. "I never doubted that
even in the years when appearances were most against
you. I cannot doubt it now."
Richard Leith stood looking at the two who for
the moment had forgotten him. Like a vision he sud-
denly saw before his mind's eye the years of his squan-
dered life; for the first time he realized what it had
meant to himself and others; the splendid possibilities
wasted ; the opportunities passed by, the ruin wrought.
Why had it been ? "And yet it could not have been dif-
ferent and I have been myself," he thought with the in-
tense self pity which was his natural mental attitude.
49
"But I will bring no shadow on her path — the only
creature who ever made it possible for me to do a noble
thing."
''Lysle, you have nothing to reproach her with/' he
said. ''If I did the indirect wrong you intimate, for-
give me; I repent for her sake. It is the last time you
will be harmed by me. Give me your hand, Lysle, be-
fore I go. We were one mother's sons; we cannot part
in anger."
Lysle took the extended hand almost mechanically.
It was always so ; he had often been called upon to for-
give Dick — until next time.
''Good-b3^e, Mrs. Alford. Always remember the
good you have done me. I owe you the one accom-
plishment of my life."
He walked to the door, but on the threshold he
turned and looked back. His glance took in the drooped
golden head with the fire light playing upon it; the
tall figure by her chair bent towards her, the warmth
and brightness; then he went out into the night, and'
the shadows closed about him.
50
THE SOCIETY WOMAN VS. THE WORKER. Xt 19
Like Cbis
HOR some time I have been observing what mag-
nificent successes many women have been mak-
ing of themselves in other Hnes of effort wiio
not so long ago were eking out a miserable ex-
istence in society; and the more I considered the case
of these former ^'social misfits," the more I wondered
if it really required less ability to run an opera company
than to reign one season as a belle. But after observ-
ing the quality of the success in either instance, and the
environment of each I have been forced to the conclu-
sion that the failure socially is due to an excess of abil-
ity rather than to a lack thereof.
The art of succeeding in society requires the adapta-
tion of oneself to the ways of persons more or less com-
monplace, and often more or less uncongenial, and this
smoothness of manner is gained, as in pebbles, by con-
stant attrition. This is very desirable as far as it
goes, but it is only to pebbles that we permit such treat-
ment. The precious stone we cut to increase its angles,
and we keep it by itself to preserve them.
Therefore, when we find a girl, sometimes an older
woman, who sees too much, or feels too much, or im-
agines too much to play happily with her fellows, so
that by her actions she excites ridicule or commissera-
tion, and thus comes to heartbreak, it may be that she
is really a faceted gem and no pebble; and for this rea-
son belongs in a different environment.
Granted that fine fathers hand down their genius to
their daughters, a woman inheriting the fitness to com-
mand an army will not be content with nothing but so-
cial obligations ; she must find something worthy of her
or The only thing is how to reach her proper place
51
where the excess of energy which has made her
wretched can be employed.
Many a fine painter, actress, journaHst, or opera
singer has been jolted out of her social sorrows by ma-
terial misfortune; a few women have stepped out of
line voluntarily and have sought and found in hard
work a satisfaction for their needs. However the thing
has been achieved, it still remains a fact that if a woman
recognizes that her own forcefulness is the cause of her
social unrest, she should without delay seek until she
finds her metier if only as the leader of a club, thereby
saving herself much heartburn, and it may be depriving
captious criticism of a subject for ridicule.
But it must be said that "society" has often gotten
the worst of it in the tussle with unruly members ; for it
has happened that much of the writing on such matters
has been done by people who had been socially misun-
derstood and so dealt not kindly with the foibles of
their set. F.
editorial Department ^
nHE contribution of the Nineteenth Century to
literature is the Short Story. An outgrowth
of the novel, it has grown and developed and
added new forms year by year, until it has
reached the high state of perfection with which we of
the present are familiar. It predominates our litera-
ture; it holds the nearest place in the public heart; it
is the form which best satisfies author and public, tak-
ing the literary world as a whole.
The Short Story originated with our century because
it is the best expression of Nineteenth Century life in
all its phases. In the days of our great-grandfathers,
or even of our grandfathers, when men and women
lived out their three-score years and ten, when travel
was by stage-coach, and a shopping expedition was an
affair of village importance, then, during the long, quiet
evening that followed the day's labor, there was time
to read the twelve volumes of Clarissa Harlowe or the
seven of Sir Charles Grandison. But fancy such an
undertaking in these days! It would be a curious
study to discover how the world ever came to
be in such a hurry. But the fact is not to
be disputed, and a people who cross a con-
tinent in six days, talk around the globe with
ease, and read the morning news from every part of
the known world with their coffee, must take its litera-
ture in small, if frequent doses. In the multitude of
new interests every day crowding upon us, each must
be divided and sub-divided to make a whole : a bit of an
interior, the meeting of the man and the woman, the
clash of opposing passions, the supreme moment of a
life — these are what we crave, what refresh us. The
53
details our grandfathers loved are wearisome, intolera-
ble to us — we have no time for them. We would com-
press our w^hole complex civilization into one sparkling,
delicious draught, and drain it at a sitting. The Short
Story satisfies this craving. It is to the complete novel
as the sketch to the finished picture. It is a little water
color, a pastel, an impressionist bit, full of delicate col-
oring, graceful form, but blended and blurred into a
misty suggestiveness that charms by its very incom-
pleteness. The strength of the short story lies in this
very suggestiveness. Where so much of thought and
feeling is compressed into so little space many details
must be merely implied or left entirely to the fancy of
the reader. And wherever much is expressed in a few
words, there is gain in intensity, in force. The most
perfect picture is that which the imagination paints for
itself. No strength or beauty of language, no care-
ful finish of detail, can give the delight of that swift in-
tuitive flash in which we see what the author leaves
unwritten. The pause, the eloquent silence full of un-
utterable things, the simple act that covers an emotion
too deep for words, these are strong and suggestive.
They stimulate the mind, they economize force and
offer a wide range of beautiful possibilities.
AMONG THE BOOKS.
ND still David Haram holds the first place in
the month's sales, while the Day's Work of
Kipling pushes it hard ! It seems to be a deep
and abiding interest that the reading public
feels for these books and perhaps the fact that the au-
thor of the first will write for us no more makes us
doubly value and cherish the work he has left behind,
54
while the renewed vigor of the author of The Day's
Work gives us the greater cause for rejoicing. Apart
from the great popularity of these books and the inter-
est roused in Kipling's suit with the Putnams', the lit-
erary month has been quiet. Special feasts of good
things are promised in summer editions of he maga-
zines, Century, Harper and Scribner's leading with an-
nouncements of new material from widely-known pens.
The Ladies' Home Journal is publishing an interesting
serial by Anthony Hope, which promises to be widely
read.
m
EBELL NOTES.
MOST interesting and instructive program
was rendered by the Ebell members for the gen-
eral meeting on May 25th. The subject dis-
cussed was What has America done for the
Nineteenth Century in Literature, Art, Music, Science
and the Drama. Very able and comprehensive sketches
of the achievements of America in each line were given
by different members, and an animated discussion fol-
lowed each paper. It was a surprise to find how much
America had to be proud of, what great and noted
names she had added to the annals of poetry and fiction
and philosophy, to science and art and music, enough
surely to confute the fiction that American art does
not yet exist. This program made a most excellent
resume of the year's work, and was much enjoyed.
PROGRAM FOR JUNE.
GENERAL MEETINGS.
Thursday, June 8, Social Thursday.
Thursday, June 29, Annual business meeting.
55
Literature Section — Each' Monday, 2 p. m.
Story Teller's Section — Second Tuesday, 2 130 p. m.
Economics — Fourth Tuesday, 2 p.m.
Conversation Section — Second Saturday, 10:30 p.m.
Music Section — First and third Mondays, 3 130 p. m.
Current Events Section — First and third Thursdays,
10:30 a. m.
Tourist Section — First and third Saturdays, 10 a.m.
The near approach of the National Educational Con-
vention in our city is a cause of congratulation for us
all. The Ebell will celebrate the great gathering of
our educators with a special convention issue, consisting
of a double summer number, containing many articles
of interest to convention members visiting California.
This double issue will appear about June 28th, and
offers special inducements to advertisers wishing to
reach the eyes of our visitors.
The a ustr alian
Nightingale— Melba
and all the visiting
Priraa Donnas, al-
ways prefer our
Knabe Piano for pri-
vate rehersals. No
one is a better judge
of a sweet toned, me-
lodious instrument
than the queens of
the operatic stage and
their preference is all
in favor of a KNABE
56
Cbe Ebell
/#
}\ IDontblv Journal of Literature
and Current Events
3ulv-/IU9U$t
DouWt Summer number J^ 1 s
Subscription Price Single C«py
$1.00 per Year IOCent$
1899
lorb Smm ^ %MfU do.
Tabic of Contents
Cbc Cciaer at Vclandro. Chapters II. and III. . Harryei Strong
The Violin IDaker of ilbsam . Ada M. Trotter
The Ulbite Gull's $ong R. W.
Driftu^OOd (concluded) . • . Franktina Gray Barttett
It is Like This F.
University Extension in Southern California
Robert Hieronymus
J\ Railroad for /Ingels and Saints . . George W. Parsons
Editorial Department; Book Dotes ....
Ebell Dotes
(Copyrighted, 1899, by Grrace Atherton Dennen.)
The EBEiiii will be published on the 29th of each month. It will be sent
postpaid for one year on receipt of $1.00. Single numbers 10 cents. Sub-
scriptions may begin at any time.
Money may be sent by Express Money Order, P. O. Money Order, Bank
Draft or Registered Letter. Money sent in letters is at sender's risk.
All communications should be addressed to Grace Atherton Dennen,
1922 Grand ayenue, Los Angeles. Notiee of change of address should be sent
immediately by subscribers.
Entered at the Los Angeles Post Office as second-class mail matter.
GRACE ATHERTON DENNEN, Editor.
1922 Grand Avenue. Los Angeles, Cal.
^
A
^^:^x:
...U- i J i i JlL-^ i JUu.-.«i , a. ju. innJM^it iiK
II.
OUR FIRST TERRORS.
'HE moon had set and the dawn gave little help to
our journeyings, but we made shift to keep
the northern road ; and I confess that in those
next two hours before the brave sun rose, as we rode
along in the silence, I had an abundance of time for
gloomy and disgusted thoughts.
Aside from leaving my fine wardrobe, and the failure
of all my brilliant plans, there came a feeling of suspi-
cion and uneasiness lest I might be the sport of a girl's
caprice ; and the more I dwelt on this the more I seemed
the one aggrieved, and a victim of high-handed proceed-
ings. I then bitterly repented of my hastiness, and
wished more than once that I had been more ready to
heed my confessor's protest, as I had been wont to do in
the times gone by. My sulkiness sat with me all the
morning, that I, a great lord, should be stealing into my
ancestral home like a felon, rather than entering like a
grand seigneur, as had been my intention. The thrill
of adventurousness that I, a youth of twenty-one years,
should really be carrying off a grand duchess from her
own domain, for her safety and by her wish, a thing
which would try the wits and courage of a man of fifty,
only partly assuaged my displeasure.
Indeed, however, the thing had happened so quickly,
and with such ease, I had not as yet had time fully to
realize the situation, or to regard it from any other
standpoint than that of dazed acquiescence. But now,
when the circumstances presented themselves to me in
detail, the more angry with myself I grew and more dis-
5
The
Toipcr
at
Velandro.
(Continued)
posed to quarrel with my fate ; as though the old lady
Clotho han set a trap and, opening the door, had showed
us in for her own whimsies. I then began to view the
duchess as a sham, until, with the coming of the light
and the need for greater caution, I was in a fine way
indeed.
Had the duchess been to my eyes beautiful, with
the brilliant skin and golden locks as the lady of my
dreams, I could have thrown myself into her service
with all the romantic ardour of my youth ; but as it was
I cared not for these little brown women with their sel-
fish ways, though it seems from my mother's portraits
that my father had fancied this type and had been caught
by such an one.
However, I relaxed not one whit of my caution,
although in such a fume, but urged the steeds, or slack-
ened them as seemed needful. I also peered about me
for old landmarks ; although I had been absent eleven
years, a country can not change as does a child, out of
remembrance. In my glancings around and back, I
discovered just as the sun rose, a cloud of dust also
rising behind us. Should it prove a rescue all was over
for us, we could make little resistance with two women
and a priest, and flight would be useless since there was
nowhere to fly. I carefully surveyed my party in the
first rays of sunlight and, seeing that with their excel-
lent disguises even in broad day they might bid fair to
pass for peaceable pilgrims, we pursued our journey
soberly.
When the party approached us, we could hear the
clank and rattle of men at arms ; and in a mighty fear
we were, lest they be a rescue ; but as they came out
of the dust, the duchess, glancing back, recognized
them by their dress. " Pope's guards! " she whispered
to me, which caused me a new uneasiness. We halted
to let them pass, when the leader drew rein. He was a
big, good-humoured looking man enough, and he just
whipped off his hat and asked the maid, who was near-
est to him, for a blessing.
Quick as thought, from the other side, where rode
the duchess, came a neat blessing in as good lyatin as
you ever heard given in a priestly tone, deep but low
and mellow, with fingers raised and all ; and then was
added, also in Latin, but in a different voice and after a
slight pause, addressing the captain directly: *' We be
English pilgrims, signore, and that other priest is under
a vow of silence."
The captain stared. He perceived by the change
of tone that he was being addressed, but his knowledge
of Latin did not include conversations ; so he turned to
me as if for translation.
I repeated as much of the duchess's speech as I
knew to be true, and then I asked him (all this in very
bad Italian) which way they had come ; and found as I
had hoped that they had turned into our highway from
a road not far back, which led north from Florence, and
so had not passed near Ferezza. The leader also in-
formed me that they had been sent in much haste to join
the Duke of Savoy, who is now at war with the King
of France ; so they had but little time to parley with us,
and we soon saw, with much thankfulness, their backs
hidden in a dusty cloud.
7
It was now time to urge our horses to their best
going, since the hour of pursuit should be approaching
nearer and nearer.
Of a sudden , a familiar look in the hills to the east
put me in mind of a short bridle road only used in time of
drought on account of the dangerousness of a stream to
be crossed, which I had traveled twice with my grand-
father. We had left the highway, I dimly remembered,
by a stone hut behind which had stood three huge pop-
lar trees. I had passed as yet no hut resembling at all
one of the sort, but now that I minded me of it, I kept
a sharp look-out for the place, and about a mile beyond
we discovered a small building which might be the one
I sought. As I recalled the spot, however, there should
have been a gate close by the cottage, but now the wall
was filled up and there were but two poplar trees be-
hind.
I dismounted, however, and by dint of a broken
place in the wall farther on, found the stump of the
missing tree, and traces of a path. The absence of a
suflScient opening promised mightily to hinder our ad-
vance, but we found that by dislodging a couple' of stones
and all dismounting, we could lead the horses over and
scramble through the breach ourselves, I carrying the
duchess ; since we did not care to enlarge the gap un-
duly. After we were all come safely to the other side,
Jock built up the breach in a workmanlike manner,
strewing leaves and rubbish about to hide our passage.
Once inside, our way lay straight across a field ;
then by a number of twists and turns, through hedges
and over other walls, where we were more than once
8
delayed in finding openings for our steeds ; until I all
at once lost complete remembrance of any way out of a
blind alley, as it were, into which we at last stumbled.
We stopped directly that I might collect myself, and as
I gazed about me, in a vain endeavor to hasten recollec-
tion, I caught myself carelessly humming a tune, and I
thought persistently of the taste of figs.
When I stopped my roving search of the landscape
and gave heed to my own doings, like a flash I remem-
bered that we had made the turn by an old fig tree
where my grandfather had picked me some figs and
where we had rested at noon-tide as we came down on
our last j ourney together ; and all the while he had
hummed a little tune, the very one I now was haunted
with. Then again I made a search for a tree, and soon
I found it all battered and broken in the midst of a
clump of olives. It was green, however, and even yet
bore a few figs, some of which I gathered and ofiered to
Her Highness. There, then, under that old tree, my
bride and I, in the same spot where I had last eaten
with my grandfather, broke our first fast together, on
this our curious wedding j ourney.
After discovering this second tree and with the
tune still in my ears, I ventured on more confidently ;
for although many more of the landmarks were nearly
gone, I had but to close my eyes and hum the song to
see myself as the child on his pony ambling along
through these solitudes, and so the whole scene would
lie plain as in my childhood — thus is music oft the key
whereby we may unlock our memories.
9
III.
MY HUMILIATION.
I may stop a moment to tell what added not a little
to my wrath of mind at this unseemly turn of fortune.
But shortly after our passage with the guards I discov-
ered Jock to be surveying me and then himself con-
tinuously.
'• What see you?" I asked.
"My lord," said the serving man, '* were we two
changed like they ahead, folk would think us all other-
wise."
It was even so, my riding clothes though simple
enough, bespoke the man of quality and I, being big
and fair and the only one who knew the language, made
too bright a shaft for notice and suspicion ; whereas
Jock's plain dark face and his form, though big, were
not such as to cause undue comment, even though at-
tired in gentle apparel. There was nothing better than
for me to change with him.
I glanced at his leathern riding coat, his plain
perruque, his heavy boots, and then at my lace ruffles
(of the most costly point de France), and my gorge rose
rebellious. I had given my name, my honour, my hopes
in life, and now, to give my pride of rank — to play the
servitor — it seemed too much to demand of me.
Then I considered, looking out for landmarks the
while, that soon we would reach my castle and how
could a yellow-haired Englishman, resembling the boy
no doubt, only larger, and the very image of his father,
and being every day anxiously awaited withal, how
could he feign to be any other gentleman than himself
10
successfully ? And how could he enter these domains
in his own person when all demanded haste and secrecy?
Had I dared trust my steward I might have ventured,
but how could I know his mind in these days of doubt
and confusion ? It was plain then that I too must as-
sume some disguise, and it were well that I should prac-
tise my new part and speedily.
I drew rein therefore, and with a black look, gave
the order to change. I doffed my fine three-cornered
castor chapeau, my costly perruque-in-folio, my hand-
some embroidered just-au-corps, and handed them over,
one by one, to Jock, who gave me in return his riding
cap, his plain periwig — worlds too small for me — and his
buff leathern coat, made new and of good quality for
which I thanked the Saints. I also parted from my
lace cravatte, but not my ruffles ; those my dearest item
of expense, I stood firm at ; I merely tucked them in ;
but when we had changed horses and I, now mounted
in front of the waiting woman, saw myself, that is my
finery, ahead on my own stout steed, I thought bitterly
that fortune could not do much worse if she stripped
me of everything, i could catch Jock, out of the tail
of my eye, surveying himself furtively before and be-
hind, somewhat in doubt, but with an air of satisfaction,
at all this fine array ; whilst I, not in the least well
pleased at the vision must needs ride sulking in the
back-ground.
The duchess and the priest riding ahead, had
not observed this little by-play, until one, looking
back and noting the distance between, turned to await
our coming. Then Her Highness, with a glance of
11
utter bewilderment, took notice of our change, but said
nothing ; while I deigned not to offer any reason for its
occurrence. In fact I chose to interpret her expression
as dismay ; and in my present mood it gave me a grim
pleasure at the fancy that her Ladyship might be filled
with confusion lest she had chanced to marry the ser-
vant.
•' She may imagine so," thought I maliciously ; "If
she can tell no difference betwixt master and man but
by the periwig." And in my angry desire to twit Her
Highness I rather over-played the part of servitor.
Her perplexity lay not for long, however, when she
perceived that the others payed me the same deference
as before, and that Jock, although arrayed in gentle-
man's attire, ceased not to perform menial oflSces as
previously ; and when I saw her fears allayed, for the
first time came sober thoughts, both of my duty and of
the task thus placed before me.
We were now in the hills, and by winding tracks,
around a bend and through a pass, we at length reached
the river whose steep banks and swift current made
fording it in any but the lowest water quite impossible.
This early week in September sesmed dry enough to
make the trial, the dust lay all about ; and, furthermore,
the older woman assured me that there had been no rain
whatever for many weeks ; I therefore changed horses
with my servant, and with the more confidence, ven-
tured to test the crossing. The river flowed dark and
strong ; I thanked my patron Saint it had a rocky bot-
tom ; I remembered the rule: "Four steps ahead,
three to the left, five to the right, then the remainder of
12
the way up stream," in order to avoid the downward
pressure of the current. I could not hope that during
the freshets of eleven years such nicety of footing could
be preserved ; but I made the venture and found that
the rocky bridge still remained ; but by a couple of mis-
steps whereby I got a lively wetting, I learned where it
had been washed out on the left ; so that, veering to the
right a little, I avoided the holes and so guided my train
safely over, — ^Jock leading the Duchess' horse lest he be
frightened by the swirling of the water.
The crossing being thus accomplished I thought best
to find a place for rest and breakfast. Such a spot was
discovered behind a small hill in an oak thicket and un-
seen from the bridle track. Here we all dismounted,
loosened the girths of our horses, and ate some of the
bread and cheese and other portables with which, the
night before, Jock had filled our saddle bags.
I noted in this collation that whatever was given
to the women was first nibbled at by the maid before
being offered to the mistress, and this proceeding an-
gered me, x\t first I stared and said naught ; then the
ceremony continuing, I stopped my meal, hungry though
I had been, and touched nothing, until it had been first
tasted by the serving woman. Seeing then that they
took no heed, I at length observed coldly: "It were
easier, Madame, and quicker, to make way with you by
cold steel than to choose the slow way of poison. By
Heaven, Madame," I cried, waxing wroth, "I answer
for your safety with my life ! My servant answers for
your safety with bis life ! I want none of your tasting 1"
13
and I strode away to eat, where I could still keep watch,
but without further humiliation.
After our meal I thought best that we should still
linger in this hidden spot for the space of an hour, since
for the present at least we seemed secure, as no one not
knowing would dare attempt that ford. The passing of
the Pope's Guards had obliterated all trace of our foot-
steps for some distance ; and should our foes hazard a
shrewd guess and send at once to search Velandro, we
hoped by tarrying here to outstay pursuit.
Then we finally took up our journey, the road
wound about among the hills, and the land now began
to show signs of cultivation in place of the gloomy des-
olation we had before passed through. Fields of maize
appeared here and there, brown and dry, waiting for the
harvest, and an occasional stubble field offered a slight
contrast to the bareness of the plains. I could hardly
believe this to be the same country which I had left
eleven years before, with the huts all deserted or torn
down, and in the ground, save a few stunted olives and
neglected hedgerows, there was now nothing — nothing !
Since the coming of the regent, what must the people
have suffered to cause such desertion of their firesides !
As I thus mused, we descended to the crossing of a
little stream where we drank and watered our horses,
and where I was startled to remember that this brook
bounded the territories of Velandro. As we descended
the further bank I stopped and, hat in hand, bowed be-
fore the Duchess. " Madame, " I said, ' ' I make you wel-
come to my estates." My tone and manner were digni-
fied enough, although I felt Jock's too-small perruque
14
to be greviously unbecoming. Her Highness also
bowed, but then as always replied nothing ; though I
fancied that her glance met mine somewhat timidly.
Father Aurelian told me later that directly I left
them at breakfast, the Duchess spoke a few hasty words
to her woman, after which he observed that the objec-
tionable process of tasting ceased ; the lady even deign-
ing to accept some olives from the priest's own hand.
But now within the limits of Velandro, what a con-
trast to the lands below ! The fields well tilled and
heavy with the harvest, or covered with yellow stub-
ble, trees to the tops of the hills, olive hedges red
with ripe pomegranates, and now and again on the dis-
tant uplands we caught gimpses of chestnut forests.
As we approached the castle we entered the vine-
yards where the grape gathering had begun, and we
then learned the reason why we had met no one either
on the plains or on my estates ; all were employed in
this harvest. We now passed groups of grape pickers
as we neared the wine presses, laden down with over-
flowing baskets of purple fruit. They appeared cheer-
ful and well-clothed, and laughed as they offered us
grapes, or asked blessings from our priest-like passen-
gers. I pondered as I gazed at them upon their prosper-
ous condition and wondered what magic formula my
steward must use in this country of misrule, to protect
my lands from Pope or Duke intact. These were my
estates, those we had passed were hers ; I mused upon
the difierence in our heritage ; yet the country's deso-
lateness had this morning been her salvation, still the
15
Duchess' helplessness must be the cause of such desola-
tion, or so it seemed to me.
The grapes near the road had all been gathered, and
it proved easy to slip up a lane between rows of climb-
ing vines, without meeting more peasants, till we reached
an abandoned wine press, where I had played castle
when a child. Here we hid one horse and left the
women to take a noon rest, while Jock, the priest and I
rode boldly up to the castle.
I borrowed my wife's wedding ring, which as I
have said was my seal, and advanced to the home of my
ancestors in the garb of a serving man. Here, after
much difl&culty, I summoned my steward, towards whom
I could have but the kindest feelings. I showed him
the ring, which he recognized, and asked as though in-
terpreting for my lord, for a change of horses and a stock
of food ; all in the name of his master at Paris who had
supposedly loaned us the ring. I added that we were
traveling in such haste that we could not pause for any
refreshment. I explained nothing, not wishing to lie,
but I would eat naught under that roof in my mean dis-
guise, nor did I permit Jock to play there the gentleman
and be served before me.
I further spoke to the honest I,ombard of his faith-
fulness, and upon the fine state of my territories, and he,
taking us for his master's friends, gave us what we
needed.
Then returned we to our charges, who had slept
during our absence. When we knocked cautiously,
Fiammetta, that is the maid, unbarred the door. I
warned her to hasten as every moment now spent in
16
lingering brought danger near to us. Each peasant we
had seen might babble and bring death to the five
strangers on four horses riding towards the north.
'* But the Duchess sleeps," said the woman, " and
I dare not awaken her ; her fatigue is too extreme."
" But be roused she must," I insisted.
** Do you awaken her yourself, signor, that I can-
not," protested the maid.
In a fit of irritation I tore oiGf the periwig, in which
I resolved no more to appear ridiculous, and in my own
short locks, strode past the woman, towards the pile of
straw where lay the Duchess, her disguise off, and her
dark hair tumbled about her ears. I stopped to gaze a
moment, — such a small, pale face, that of a tired child.
What hideous danger threatened her that could force
her to undertake a journey, so unaccustomed and ex-
hausting ? — And that danger still stalking behind us.
I knelt beside her.
" Awake, madame," I said softly, in a low growl
as it were, ** you stay too long." She moved not.
" Madame, your Highness, hasten! Your life urges
instant departure. Arise, awake, I beseech you !" But
she in the sleep of utter exhaustion and weariness heard,
or answered nothing.
Then I lifted one of her loose locks and dropped it
gently across her face. At this she stirred and opened
her eyes, too big they seemed to me, and fixed them
upon my face as I knelt beside her, with a look, not
startled or fearful, but filled with wonderment. Again
I urged her danger and the need of haste.
She gave me her hand, and I, still kneeling, helped
17
her to arise, which she did, staggering from weakness,
and uttering a long sigh of pain. With the vision of
this real suffering vanished my suspicions of tricks and
shams. Whatever her dilemma might be it must be
true and menacing and to be understood ; though I could
not, in my ignorance of Ferezzan politics, guess its sig-
nificance, and the lady herself had offered me no expla-
nation.
But after the going of my anger there leaped into
my heart a feeling of exultation that in my hand lay a
sovereign and a dukdom ; whereat my surliness gave
way to a host of intoxicating dreams. Granted that I
was the husband of a reigning Duchess, who should be
restored to my strong arm, what might not I do ? With
what skill might I not carry things ? How might I not
force events ! What artful alliances, what wise.and pow-
erful friends might arise ! Did I not see before me the
glitter of a kingly crown — ' ' by virtue of my wife, ' ' I
thought.
This giddiness, which nearly carried me off my feet
as such visions pressed close and fast upon me, over-
whelmed me not enough to lose sense and direction.
We mounted our steeds, three of them magnificent and
fresh from the stable, and my own. The fourth I left at
a farm house where I found a horse standing in a stable,
and no one about ; I, therefore, merely exchanged ani-
mals, and no harm done.
We were now nearing the mountains where the
ways began to be steeper and more difficult, and as we
rode in the same order as before, the Duchess was still
mounted on a steed alone. I, in a happy daze the while,
18
did not observe that she, grown white and whiter, had
begun to reel in the saddle ; till the priest came up and
touched my arm.
" You little maid," he said, with grave lips, ** must
needs have succor, or she falls."
I halted the train ; Fiammetta I directed to be
placed in the Duchess' saddle and fastened there for
safety, Jock leading her horse ; whereas I, lifting her
weary little Highness from the seat, placed her behind
me that she might have the benefit of my strength of
back, as I rode sidewise, holding her with my left arm
the while. This new arrangement eased her mightily,
and now placed her under my own protecting care. In
this manner we journeyed on.
Then my father's training rose up and steadied me.
He had held a hatred to all Italians, in his latter years :
" I know them too well, John," he had said many
times. "They are all for treachery." And he had
spent his whole time admonishing me and creating in
me a desire for truth and honour. Furthermore, he had
placed me in the hands of Father Aurelian, a secular
priest, who lived with us in our castle many years, and
had bidden him admonish me likewise ; fearing above
all things, lest my birth and Ferezzan upbringing, which
he had perforce submitted to, might cause an outbreak
of the foreign spirit above my sturdy English ancestry.
For this reason he had brought me to his Cumbrian
estates, and had left me to a wild hardy life in care of
the priest ; so that women and cities were for years but
strange to me. Yet here, at one stroke of the sword,
were all his pains undone, and fortune had skilfully
19
entangled me within all three Ferezza, city, and woman,
and that woman a prince.
My previous sulkinesss had prevented the first nat-
ural embarrassment at the situation ; my few months'
training at the court of the French King had likewise
opened my eyes somewhat, where my severe discipline
and the heritage of my father's cool head had kept me
from whirling off my feet ; nay had even steadied me
for the game which was coming, and had made it the
easier to withstand the shock of that dukedom which,
it seemed, was being forced upon my shoulders. In
fact, both my servant and I had come through the
Paris episode with our wits about us and our nerve un-
shaken .
As the Duchess lay there in the shelter of my arm,
lips pallid and eyes closed, I braced myself. When I
had become a little calmed, I resolved that I would put
from me the dazzling dream, and I thus decided : To
advantage myself nothing in the turn things had taken ;
to serve her Highness truly as my sovereign ; to protect
her life while it should lie in my power ; after that to
place her in such hands as should of right protect her,
and — to leave her there.
The priest had noted my self-conflict. He gave me
meanwhile, only kindly glances. He was a wise man,
this Father Aurelian , he had guided me from child-
hood. He had held the reins over me as over a mettle-
some steed, not pulling too tight, nor yet giving me my
head . and when he saw by my stern look and set mouth
how I purposed to carry the thing through, he rode up
20
and nodding his head approvingly, said softly in En-
glish :
' ' Wise lad ! Wise lad ! Thou need'st a cool head
and a steady nerve. Thou hast both, and thou wilt
come through all with honour, — aye with honour, lad,"
he repeated significantly.
We then had some little talk together on the situa-
tion ; for so to wed and carr)^ off a grand Duchess and
to restore her to her seat again, were matters exciting
and full enough of risk for the most daring ; but we de-
termined that there would be no more dizziness, but
that nothing should shake us in our resolve to do all
that was possible, as the priest had said, with honour.
With my new intention returned somewhat my dis-
taste for the business, yet I set myself to the task, with
the grim determination to be faithful but firm, and when
I had set my truant lady in her ducal seat, if popes
looked not kindly upon matches made in haste with
foreign noblemen, to renounce all matrimonial claims
and so to go about my business in some other land —
(Austria, no doubt) — where neither Italian nor Catholic
squabbles should shake my peace of living.
Some may think in after events that I paid the
Duchess more respect than was due a woman and my
wife. But I never forgot that she was sovereign first
and woman afterwards, and I gave her what was due
her blood and rank.
Harryet Strong.
(Copyright, 1899, by Harryet StroDg.)
21
"7n silvis viva 8ilui,jam mortua canto! "
When I lived in the forest I was silent, dead, I sing.
— Martius.
The ^^y^^^ centuries and a half ago, at the obscure vil-
ViAlin C^i ^^^^ ^^ Absam, in the Gleirshthal (Bavarian
^ ^^ Alps), one Jacob Stainer, the father of the Ger-
ir/ilKCr jjj^j^ violin, was born.
^" Stainer was a peasant, and the opportunities of
ilbsain peasants in those days for seeing the world, or of learn-
ing aught of arts or science, were extremely limited, de-
pending almost wholly on the displays of wares at the
annual fairs. Some enthusiasts declare that Stainer
thought out the form of his violin without being indebt-
ed for any of his ideas to the famous Cremona's and
Amati's found at these important fairs. In support of
this position they give the following suggestive story :
A young peasant with dreamy, thoughtful counte-
nance was observed haunting the pine-clad slopes of the
Alps above the village. What could he want there in
that waste? Curious onlookers were not lacking, who
doubtless gave report that the young man was demented.
His actions were strange enough to perplex even wiser
judges than the simple folk of Absam. Carefully se-
lecting some tree whose withered twigs announced its
dying condition, he would tap the trunk with his ham-
mer, and listen to the tone it gave back with critical
ear. If this proved satisfactory, Stainer marked the
tree and afterwards bought it. Did he find a pine cut
down, he examined the rings which told its age to see
if they were regularly marked, and finding it sound set
his own mark upon the trunk. Sometimes the trees in
22
falling, rolled from the steep slope over the edge of the
precipice to the valley below. Stainer sought such trees,
tapped them and listened with strained attention to the
responsive tones, enrapt with delight at the whirring of
the fibers which thrilled with the violent shock of the
descent from the Alps above, thus voicing their pain.
In this way Stainer is supposed to have stolen his
secrets of acoustics, which he put in practice in build-
ing his violin, without recourse to the ideas of other
violin makers. Although the story cannot be taken
seriously, it shows the popular belief that Stainer's
work was the outcome of painstaking, deep study in the
very heart of nature.
Inventions grew slowly into recognition in the 17th
century, since the means of advertising were so primi-
tive, one desiring to make known a discovery in the
narrow limits of the Gleirshthal, must either carry it
forth to the world on his own back, or depend on ped-
dlers to do it for him. Stainer's violin in course of time
reached Hall (near Innsbruch) and was seen by a shrewd
peasant from the Mittenwald, one Mathew Klotz, who,
recognizing its value, made a pilgrimage to Absam, and
offered himself as a pupil to the " father " of the violin.
To this man the wider recognition of the merits of the
German violin is greatly due, for after becoming an ex-
pert in its manufacture, he returned to his home in the
Mittenwald, and collected skilled men about him whom
he instructed in the art.
The Mittenwald (a region lying close to the Tyrol)
owing to a century of quarrel between the Venetians
and the Erzherzog at Botzen, had become the most im-
23
portant market in South Germany. No Napoleon as
yet had hewn a road across the Simp Ion ; no wonderful
tunnel bored the St. Gothard; thus the Brenner Pass,
less mountainous and less ice-bound than the other
passes, was the most accessible route to Italy. The
Venetian merchants obliged to withdraw from their
business center, Botzen, chose the Mittenwald for their
transactions, making this region their headquarters
until the old quarrel forgotten, they could with dignity
return to Botzen with their wares.
It was to the Mittenwald that tte shrewd peasant
carried the manufacture of the German violin, and
thanks to this industry thus introduced by Mathew
Klotz, the Mittenwald becafiie independent of the pat-
ronage of the Venetian merchants.
The art of violin making was carried on in the most
primitive manner during the first years of its existence.
A man having made some violins, carried them on his
back from place to place, until he sold them, when he
returned to make a fresh supply. The cloisters always
opened their doors hospitably to the knock of these ped-
dlars of musical wares, and fairs in the cities proved
also a means of advertising the merits of the new violin.
Shrewd minds in the Mittenwald, however, realized
that the violin must travel further afield, or remain in
obscurity hedged in by the Bavarian Alps. In 1730,
one Johann Nenner, brought the art to England and
made violins in lyondon. In 1762, his son Matthias
pushed his way with his violin right into the heart of
Russia.
Finally, descendants of this family established a
24
manufactory in the Mittenwald, already so famous in
the art of violin making. No peddlar is now required
to advertise the wares, the manufacturers have only to
receive the orders in their counting-houses, exporting
their violins by tens of thousands.
Nenner, chief of one of the great violin houses in
the Mittenwald, wrote to the botanist Martins for a
motto suitable for stringed instruments, and received in
response the beautiful words given at the beginning of
this article :
"When I lived in the forest I was silent, dead, I
sing."
Little did the curious folk who watched Jacob
Stainer sounding the tones of the trees in the heart of
the pine forest, realize that here was a prophet whom
they should honour !
Did Stainer reap honor and glory from his inven-
tion ? Alas ! poor man, he died insane. He was per-
secuted for heretical tendencies, neglected by the
Kaiser to whom he appealed in his extremity, and at
last lost his reason. The bench before his house at
Absam has a hole bored through it, through which it is
said the cord was drawn that was necessary to bind the
unhappy man to his seat. A melancholy end this to
the genius which had created the German violin; whose
wizard's wand had raised an obscure region into im-
portance, and sown seeds for the harvest of gold which
was to be reaped by generations to come in the region
of the Mittenwald.
Ada M. Trottbr.
25
mi)jte 1^1 Neath the warm, blue skies ;
I* .,♦ >S^ My cradle, the ocean-foam.
""" ' I dip my breast
$0119 In its snowy crest,
As the waves come rushing home.
Neath the emerald cliffs,
Where the gray fog rifts,
When the noon-day shadows are blue,
I wheel and rest
Near my grass-built nest
And my mate, so brave, so true.
And the burden of my song.
The misty cliffs along.
Is " free, free and strong."
Where the silver lightens
The wave as it whitens.
There the fish play hide-and-seek ;
While the salt spray flies,
I plunge and rise
With the silver fish in my beak.
And the burden of my song.
The sun-baked sands along,
Is "glad, glad and strong."
Oh, I dip and rise,
Neath the evening skies.
And the arch of the sunset's dome ;
When the cliffs turn gold,
And the breeze blows cold
And the waves come rushing home.
RSDONDO Beach, Cai,. R. W.
26
Driftioood
XIII.
HEN Richard Howard closed the outer door
behind him, his brother began pacing the
little room in silence. This unlooked-for fl Scilal
meeting had disconcerted all his thoughts. $tory
The conviction had been growing upon him that Dick
was dead ! that the phantom which had for so long
dogged his steps, was forever laid ; now it had risen be-
fore him in the one way most intolerable to him. For
the past few weeks his thoughts had been concentrated
on the unraveling of the problems of his omn life. Be-
fore that fateful night, when he found Mrs. Alford sing-
ing to baby Ned, he had told himself that she had be-
come only a memory to him ; that he could meet her
without the quickening of a pulse. But after he had
heard from her own lips the unimagined reason for her
flight, after he had looked into her eyes and heard her
voice, the old spell returned upon him with unwelcome
force. He told himself that he could never forgive,
much less love the woman who had so wronged him ;
but that it was impossible to leave her unprotected and
unprovided for. Some plan of mutual independence
must be devised, which yet would relieve her of the life
she was leading. The solution of this problem had be-
come daily more difficult, as memory painted her image
more distinctly, and he had at last determined to dis-
cover, if possible, her wishes in the matter. And now
that they were alone together, a thousand associations
were confusing his brain and robbing him of his usual
27
coolness. This interview had seemed a simple thing
or which he was quite prepared ; but now — !
Mrs. Alford, watching his restless walk, was rally-
ing her forces to meet the crisis which she felt was com-
ing. She had settled her course in the long night vigils
following his departure, and for once the woman's part
was easy. She owned him a great debt ; she would pay
it in any way he demanded. She felt no fear that he
would ask her to return to her allegiance ; she had
wronged him too deeply for that.
Presently, the silence becoming intolerable, she
rose, and lighted a lamp upon the table, and drew the
window shades. Lysle came to the fire-place and stood
watching her slender figure in the black draperies ; she
was taller than he remembered her ; she carried her
head in the old way though. As she came back to her
chair, he noticed that she seemed quite calm and her
voice was steady when she spoke.
"There is one question, — only one I wish to ask
you," she said. " Why did you never tell me of your
brother's existence, nor of his story?
** It does seem strange now," he answered, " but I
was so bitterly ashamed of it all ; I could not bear that
even the knowledge of it should touch you. I put it
off from time to time, never dreaming it would reach
you as it did. ' '
" That was a mistake, and the only excuse I have
for my error," she said. " Remember it, please, in
judging me- I had not been brought up as other girls
are. I knew something of the world, or of the life men
lead in it. I could not outlive what seemed to be the
28
shattering of my ideal. This is a poor defense, but it is
the best I have to offer. ' '
*' I have not asked for any," he replied ; '* the past
cannot be recalled ; it concerns us only as it bears upon
our present. And yet I would like to know how you
have spent these years ; they must have gone hard
with you, poor girl."
She paused some moments before replying ; the
memories he recalled seemed too painful for easy utter-
ance.
*' When I was a child," she said at last, " I used
to wish above all things for a child companion. In my
lonely life I used to ' make believe * most things, which
other children did or had ; among other things, I imag-
ined myself a friend. This boy playmate was always
with me ; he shared my sports, and to him I told my
griefs. He was as real to me as any of the children on
the street under my window. I could shut my eyes and
see him any time. He kept pace with me in age and
taste ; we never wearied of each other. Then you came
into my life, and he faded out of it. I tried to recall
him sometimes to tell him how happy I was ; but in
vain. Your face had taken his place in my imagina-
tion. One night— after baby died — when I had lost
everything, and it seemed that I would die of desola-
tion, he came back to me in my dreams. I saw him
alone in the little salon at San Remo, and he was weep-
ing. When I awoke I smiled at my childish vision,
but it haunted me. Finally, to keep from thinking, I
sat down and wrote to him. It comforted me to even
imagine friendship, love, confidence. I tried to fancy
29
him coming to see me ; but I could not ; he was always
in San Remo, where I left my girlhood. So each week
I wrote to him and warmed my heart with his compan-
ionship. I think the childish expedient saved me from
insanity. I have those letters, and if you care to know
how time has dealt with me, will give them to you.
They will picture my life far better than I can tell it."
She spoke in a low tone, looking into the fire, and
did not see the emotion in the earnest eyes bent so pity-
ingly upon her. The pathetic story of a life-long lone-
liness, so simply sketched, touched his heart with a
great yearning to comfort her, which thrilled his voice
as he asked.
* * And did your heart never soften to me in such
hours of sorrow ? ' '
* * Oh yes ! Often I felt my resolution faith ; but then
I hardened when I remembered that boy's eyes. Can
you ever forgive me I<ysle, I cannot live with bitterness
between us ! I will do anything I can to atone. I will
go away and leave you free from every reminder of the
past. Men are different from women ; all is not over
for them when love dies. And yet it hurts me bitterly
to feel I cannot make you free to win some better
woman's love."
She rose as she spoke, and stood before him with
clasped hands, the tears gathering and falling slowly.
He met her pleading glance steadily.
" There is but one way you can atone," he said.
" Now as ever there is only one woman in the world
for me. Come back to me my wife, and we will to-
gether forget the past."
30
She started in surprise, and was silent. He watchep
the flush rise from throat to forehead and die away to
deadly pallor. She could scarcely command herself to
speak.
" It would not do," she said at last. " You could
never trust me fully ; you doubted me an hour ago !
And I should dread your unhappiness so, I should al-
ways be afraid."
" I am not afraid," he answered. ** I love you as
never before. Have you outlived the need of being
loved? Have not these cruel years rather taught us
both that life is not worth having without it ? " As he
spoke, in his mind rose a memory of one night, when
she was still a bride, he had come up behind her as she
stood before a long mirror giving the last fluttering
touches women like to give to an evening toilette. He
stood rejoicing in her beauty, noting the rounded grace
of her sweet figure, when she laughingly sank back-
wards into his arms, raising her face to his kisses. "Oh !
it is so good to be loved," she cried, "I have longed
for it all my life." And yet with what determination
she had thrust it from her ! Never again should she be
without its shelter! With passionate longing to feel
once more her clinging clasp about his neck, he held
out his arms to her. She did not move, but still studied
him with startled eyes, which slowly sank before the
glow in his. As he drew her towards him, she suddenly
yielded as completely as on that happy night his mem-
ory had recalled, but when his first kiss had touched her
lips, he found it was not the abandon of love. She had
fainted in his arms.
31
XIV.
When Mrs. Alford regained consciousness, she was
lying on the bed in her own room, and her started glance
revealed to her that Therese was bending over her. "II
est parti," said the French woman grimly. Mrs. Alford
turned her face away in silence ; she had no desire for
an explanation then ; he was gone and she had time to
think. She felt intense relief that the strain was over,
and a decision reached. No more fighting against fate ;
she had vowed to have no will but his, and he had de-
cided in a way she had not once anticipated. The strug-
gle for daily bread; the shrinking from the world's
notice; the long loneliness, these were past. She who
had deserved nothing was to have everything. She was
deeply thankful ; Heaven was indeed merciful.
' * I will sleep now Therese ; I am so tired . All is
well now, mon amie, let me sleep."
'* Le scilerat!" Said Therese, growing beligerent
now that her fright as to her mistress' condition was
over. What did he do to you ? Did he strike you ? I
ran when he called ; I knew no good could come of his
presence."
Mrs. Alford laughed, a soft little rippling laugh,
which startled her. When had she laughed before?
"Go now Therese, I will tell you tomorrow. But
misfortune is tired of following us ; and I intend to be
good and happy all the rest of my life, ma bonne,"
Therese snified aggressively, but she took the lamp
and went out as she was bidden. Her mistress had
laughed, that at least was good.
32
The winter sun was high above the grey cottage
when Mrs. Alford wakened. She remembered with re-
lief that it was Saturday and no school awaited her. As
she slowly dressed, many anxieties began to weigh upon
her. She looked at her pale face in the glass with a
sinking at the heart. '* I wish I was not so thin and
hollow-eyed," she thought as she gathered her hair
above her head, ' ' Lysle cares so much for beauty ; it
would be easier to satisfy him if I had that. I w^onder
if he will demand much of me ; I seem to have so little
left." The life before her looked very difiBcult to her,
as she stood eyeing herself critically ; it was so long
since she had cared to please anyone !
Therese came in presently with her coffee and roll,
and looked at her approvingly.
"That is well; you are better. You will drink
this, and then go to the salon to see the lady from across
the way."
*' Is Mrs. Barton here so early! " Mrs. Alford ex-
claimed, with a flush of excitement, "I will see her at
once. ' '
Therese brought her a white woolen dressing gown
which the French woman's deft fingers had recently
fashioned for her, and trimmed with soft folds of lace.
Therese adjusted it with pride.
" There, madanie is young again," she said with a
smile. The words some way comforted Mrs. Alford,
and she stopped suddenly and kissed the old nurse.
• * I wish I could be young and strong and beautiful
today, Therese, for I have need of all that," she said.
Mrs. Alford advanced to meet her visitor with a
33
beating heart, for she did not doubt that Lysle had sent
her. Mrs. Barton's face was so grave that although
her hand was taken in a cordial clasp, Mrs. Alford felt
a chill growing over her. This friend of her husband's
would judge her harshly — good women were always
hard in such things ! She waited coldly for Mrs. Bar-
ton to speak, wondering a little at her distress and em-
barrassment.
" I am so happy and thankful dear, at what L<ysle
told me last night about you," Mrs. Barton said with a
nervous break in her voice, ' ' but I had almost forgotten
it today, in the news he has asked me to bring you. He
met his brother Richard here last night, and when he
left you he went out to Mr. Murray's to see him."
Mrs. Barton paused, and seemed to await some
help from the mistress, but she sat silent, watching her
with quiet interest. She did not feel stirred by any
news of her husband's brother ; why should Mrs. Barton
find it a matter of such importance to her.
'* Mr. Murray was away from home, and as no one
answered his knock, he opened the door and went in.
Dick was lying forward on the table, his head upon a
pile of manuscript. A pistol lay upon the floor and he
was quite dead."
Mrs. Alford started with a cry of surprise and
anguish, then she sat quite still again trying to realize
the words. Dick dead ! Impossible ! She reviewed
their evening walk ; his happiness at his success ; his
interview with his brother ; she put aside half contemp-
tuously his words of love to herself; such a nature could
never love anyone but himself. In this conclusion she
34
was right, but she did not measure the power of
wounded self love. To be suddenly revealed as base in
the eyes of the woman who, he believed, thought him
noble, this was a pang stronger than lost love. Mrs.
Barton drew a sigh of relief as she studied Mrs. Alford's
startled face ; the village gossip was wrong ; she would
never have looked so, if Henry Leith had been dear to
her.
" Lysle did not come to you now, as he felt it would
be easier if all this story were not known here. Dick
will be Henry I^eith to the end ; old wrongs are easier
buried so."
Mrs. Alford shuddered and put her hand over her
€yes.
" I cannot realize it ; he was so alive last night. It
is all a bitter mistake. Did he leave no word for
Lysle?"
•'Nothing. Poor Dick ! Sad as is the manner of
his death, Mrs. Alford, it is the only solution of his life.
I fear worse sorrow would have come from his living.
The only kindness Richard Howard ever did his family
was in thus relieving them of his presence. You think
me hard ; if you had seen his home as I did, after he
had disgraced and desolated it ; if you had known
Lysle 's struggle to repair his wrongs to wife and child,
you would be relieved, as I am, that he has ended it."
Mrs. Alford shook her head. "I never knew
Richard Howard, but in Henry Leith I saw much to
hope for. The future might have been good despite the
past."
"At least Lysle needs all your sympathy now,"
35
Mrs. Barton said waiving the question, **he is deeply
grieved that he was not kinder last night ; he reproaches
himself bitterly ; you must comfort him."
" If we had only known ! He was always so easy
to cheer ! He would have forgotten his purpose for one
word of kindness!" mourned Mrs. Alford. Oh! that
hapless "if," how it dominates life !
Mrs. Barton rose with an impulse of impatience.
"Such regrets will not help Lysle to bear his
burden. It is but in keeping with his life's story that
Dick's death should seem a martyrdom at his hands.
Have you any message for your husband ? ' '
Mrs. Alford felt a sharp pang at this gentle wo-
man's lack of sympathy; never in her lonely life had
she felt more alone than at this moment ; I^ysle had
friends and health and youth ; the dead man at the cot-
tage on the hill had only her tears ! She caught Mrs.
Barton's hand in hers and cried.
* ' Have you no pity for the sinning as well as the
sinned against ? Can you imagine it is easy for me to
feel for I^ysle when I know that my own burden is so
much more intolerable than his ? He has nothing to
blame himself for ; I have everything ! "
It was the weak cry of a hurt soul, and Mrs. Barton
threw her arms around the trembling figure in quick re -
spouse. From the midst of her sheltered, blameless life
she felt the bitterness of this self-reproachful sorrow,
and for the first time made room in her sympathies for
Lysle 's wife. For a long time the two women talked
heart to heart, and when at last, her visitor left, Mrs.
36
Alford, comforted and uplifted, thanked God for the
unfamiliar boon of friendship.
It was the evening of the second day after Dick's
death that Lysle Howard again sought his wife. A rain
storm had been drenching the village. The streets
were deserted ; the pepper trees glistened as though
their leaves were newly varnished, swaying over empty
sidewalks. The wind roared in the tall, majestically
bowing eucalyptus tops. The bare branches of the
sycamore tree grated back and forth upon the roof of
the little grey cottage, as the rain dashed against the
windows. Altogether such a rare night as makes a
Californian hug the fire and congratulate himself upon
prospective crops !
Mrs. Alford was arranging a tea tray which Theresa
had just set upon the table, and the French woman was
kneeling by the hearth toasting some bread over the
coals. Mrs. Alford wore her white gown and her face
was almost as colorless as the lace about her throat.
Lysle had admitted himself and stood a moment un-
noticed taking in the picture which was in such cheer-
ful contrast with the darkness and storm without. Tired
and depressed, the suggestion of home thrilled through
every sense. Was it possible that such a haven of rest
could ever be his ! His wife set down the cup she was
holding and came forward to meet him with an anxious
look. Therese rose abruptly and left the room. He
sat dbwn in a chair by the fire and leaned his head back.
' ' I should like a cup of tea of your brewing ; I am
very tired," he said. What he really wanted was time
to enjoy the scene, and steady his shaking nerves. He
37
sat with half closed eyes watching her lift the kettle
from the hearth and prepare the tea ; and he waited
-with strange emotions for the moment when she should
stand before him serving him — to him the little domestic
act was a sacrament, the consecration of a home.
** Thank you for this," he said touching her white
sleeve as she handed him the cup. * ' I never again want
to see you in black. We leave the shadows from this
night. I think this has been one of the darkest days of
my life, Use ; please God the dawn of happiness is at
hand."
"Is it all over I^ysle ? " she asked. Happiness
someway seemed a long way off tonight, and her
thoughts were still with Dick.
' * Yes ; we buried Henry I,eith in the little grave
yard on the hillside. He had one sincere mourner in
Mr. Murray. That is a noble man ; Dick will have
done me one good turn if he bequeath me his friendship.
He had faith in Dick too, and told me many things
which made me grieve for him. The future might have
held something for Dick ; perhaps. How could I dream
that words of mine would have moved him, when I have
seen his father plead with him with tears, in vain. God
knows I would have borne anything ; given up any-
thing, could I have foreseen." He stopped with a sigh
which was almost a groan, and abruptly changed the
subj ect.
**Now for the future. When will you go away
with me Use ? Inaction is intolerable now. I must be-
gin to live again. Oh ! my love ! do you know what
this means to me, to walk no more alone with a bitter
38
heart, but to have you by my side, never to wander
again! Why do you tremble Use? Is there any doubt
of me in your mmd ? Are you afraid to trust yourself
tome?"
He took her face in his hand and turned it up that
he might look into her eyes.
'* I am not afraid for myself," she faltered, ''but I
am afraid for you. I left you a child ; I am a sad
hearted woman now. Will the change satisfy you?
Can you find in me what you lost ? ' *
* ' It will be a new heaven and a new earth to us
both," he said solemnly drawing back from her ; "but
you are free to choose. I have been too sure of my own
wish to question yours. Ask your own heart where
your happiness lies."
He leaned against the mantle with crossed arms,
looking down at her, pain and doubt darkening his face.
Her happiness ? There had been so little question of
that in her mind that she had not even thought of it ;
but she felt a thrill of joy as she realized that his happi-
ness was still in her keeping, it was possible for her to
atone. For the second time in her life, she gave him
her answer by placing her hands in his ; but even then
she felt a fierce j ealousy of that first time, a longing to
recall and live again the moment when Paradise had
opened before her. Now she could only take up tenderly
the life she had marred and maimed. Beautiful, and
even happy it might become, but she realized bitterly
that it must ever be "a bird with a broken wing," a
song with a silent note ; a paean, hushed by an if.
FrankIvIna Gray Bartlett.
[the knd]
39
HUMOR IN THE WORLD FEMININE.
NCK, when I asserted that women had some sense
of fun I was asked: "How can you prove any-
thing that does not exist?"
Possibly such may appear true when you
consider that the middle-aged, married woman is gener-
ally meant when "women" are mentioned; but, since
all women were once girls, as all sober nags were once
colts, I can confidentially say that you will find the in-
stinct to frisk in them as well as in other young animals.
Most girls are called "silly," they giggle, tell jokes and
play pranks. When they become women they too often
put away girlish things, the "giggles" with the rest,
and come to be serious and dignified and settled down,
about as enlivening and attractive as a respectable bossy
cow. It surely is a lamentable sight, the turning of
a witty girJ into a sane woman with an edge, but not
much worse than the development of dullness.
People then, who gage women as of the unlively
class, are thus right so far as they go, but they are
wrong in their inference that the lack of humor is in-
herent. If a man sits in his office habitually and drinks
beer, without taking exercise, the chance is he will grow
fat; so too, if a woman contemplates too much the serious
side of life, the dignity of v/omanhood, or her narrow,
monotonous existence, and her intense responsibility,
she is likely to become a model of all the virtues but her
natural sense of fun will all be trained out of her, so
that a woman's club, for instance, may have all the
40
solemnity of a cathedral, where a joke becomes a his-
toric accident.
It must be said that this intense sense of decorum
has been developed too far when a person, a nice lady,
says *'how can a joke be thrown?"
Still, women can and do laugh sometimes among
themselves. They frequently appreciate the jokes
of their husbands, so that they laugh in the right place
not once but many times, and they have even been
known to repeat the best, and they also have been seen
to read the comic papers. But they do not sufficiently
train themselves in the making of their own jokes, to
lighten up the strain and stress of some situation which
must otherwise go to the point of "breaking. Men
under the same circumstances would remove a tension
by a laugh or a swear word, which is often of itself
comical, where a woman might have an attack of nerves.
I am of the opinion that the joke-cure ought to be
tried for neurasthenia. Although it may seem absurd to
tell a sedate matron that she, a perfect model in her
serious dignity, is a mistake, and must let herself down
to making puns in order to ward off nervous prostration.
Such a course might be recommended to her with
advantage: Set aside one hour each day to be devoted
to a careful study of some witty author, Sidney Smith
for example, who, by the way, says the humorous habit
may be cultivated. Then try to imagine a fat woman
sitting down suddenly on a slippery sidewalk; then re-
member how you felt when you saw her expression as
you stuffed your handkerchief into your mouth and
41
rushed into the nearest store. Next write down all the
absurd things you have heard said by children ; after
that try to make a pun — all by yourself, mind you !
Lastly, try to imagine how ridiculous it seems to go
and be funny all by yourself! Then, when you feel the
risibles well started, go out and find some one to enjoy
the joke with you.
After a short course of this, the cure will be com-
plete, and there will be another refutation of the charge
that there is no sense of humor in woman.
F.
Hotel del Coronado.
YEAR ago a few educators met at the Van Nuys
Hotel to discuss the possibility of University
extension work in Southern California. Three
problems presented themselves at that first
meeting : ( i) Uniting those already interested in the
work of higher education, (2) providing some means of
support, (3) arousing the interest of the people to be
benefited by the movement. The work of the year j ust
closed has been an attempt to solve these problems.
It seemed clear from the start that the direction of
the movement ought to be in the hands of those already
at work in the stronger educational institutions. A
Board of Control was formed consisting of six members,
representing six schools and chosen by the schools them-
selves.
The board for 1898-9 has been Samuel T. Black, State
Normal School, San Diego; B. P. Brackett, Pomona
College, Claremont ; Melville Dozier, State Normal
School, Los Angeles; W. A. Edwards, Throop Poly-
technic Institute, Pasadena ; O. P. Phillips, University
of Southern California, Los Angeles. The officers of
this board are W. A. Edwards, President ; F. P. Brack-
ett, Vice-President ; Robert E. Hieronymus, Secretary
and Superintendent; A. P. West, Treasurer, Columbia
Savings Bank, Los Angeles. There has also been an
Advisory Board consisting of President David Starr Jor-
dan, Leland Stanford Junior University ; Dr. E. B. Mc-
Gilvary, University of California ; Frederick B. Miles,
Treasurer American Society for the Extension of Uni-
versity Teaching, Philadelphia.
The lecturers of the association are chosen from
three sources. Each school represented is free to select
such members of its faculty as extension lecturers as it
43
University
Extension
in
Southern
California
chooses. On approval of the Board of Control any man
or woman of liberal education fitted by nature and by
training for extension may be added to the lecture
staff, whether connected with any school or not. It is
also the aim to bring each year a few of the strongest
men and women of the country here for courses of lec-
tures. The presence of these specialists from time to
time will do much to keep alive and to quicken the
interest in various fields of knowledge.
The name of the organization formed for carrying
on this work is the Southern California Educational
Extension Association. Any one may become a mem-
ber of this. While the local work at any given place is
supported by the sale of tickets to the courses offered,
the general association does not share this. Higher edu-
cation seldom * ' pays ' ' in the sense of an immediate
return in dollars and cents for the necessary outlay in
carrying it on. University extension is no exception to
the rule. It is therefore necessary to provide some
means of support for any organization attempting such
work. In the case of universities with large endow-
ment the question is already settled. The American
Society of Philadelphia has raised a special fund for
carrying on its work. The liberality of two hundred or
more people has made possible the work of the Southern
California association this year. One of the most en-
couraging things of the work thus far is the willingness
of so many to help by becoming members of the associ-
ation without asking or expecting any other return than
the general improvement of their fellow men. The
44
business side of every successful enterprise has to be
cared for. Money wisely expended becomes means.
The people generally will come to know university
extension through the work done in each community.
A local center is simply an association of men and wo-
men banded together for the purpose of availing them-
selves of some of the benefits of the work ofiered by the
general society. The organization is made and kept as
simple as possible. It consists usually of a president,
vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and executive com-
mittee. On these officers and an efficient lecturer de-
pends largely the success of the center. There may of
course be in a given locality obstacles too great to be
overcome. The co-operation of every one is needed at
all times. In nearly every one of the dozen centers
founded during the year, a very general interest has been
shown toward the movement.
Thus the difficulties which seemed so great at the
beginning of the year have lessened as the work has
gone on. While there are disadvantages and will con-
tinue to be, there are advantages as well. The evenness
of the climate here makes continuous work easy during
half the year or more. Scarcely an evening in the
whole extension year is broken into by unfavorable
weather. The presence in each locality of a number of
cultivated people is also a great help to the movement.
Graduates of the best colleges and universities are found
in every community. And then the willingness of the
best lecturers in the country to spend a few weeks here,
particularly in the winter, renders the work far easier
than in many other places.
45
However great the advantages or disadvantages of
extension work may be the need of it is such as to call
forth tl e best efforts of all who are looking and work-
ing for a higher social order. It is needed to arouse
and direct the interests of young men and women j ust
coming to years of maturity. It is needed to prevent
those who have been in the past in touch with the better
things from falling into intellectual decay. It is needed
to save us all from serious and fatal lapses of taste for
all that is helpful and inspiring.
Almost a century ago Wordsworth in one of his pref-
aces defending his poetry had this to say :
' ' The human mind is capable of being excited with-
out the application of gross and violent stimulants ; and
he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and
dignity who does not know this, and who does not
further know, that one being is elevated above another,
in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has
therefore appeared to me that to endeavor to produce or
enlarge this capability is one of the best services in
which, at any period, a writer can be engaged ; but this
service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the
present day. For a multitude of causes, unknown to
former times, are now acting with a combined force to
blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, un-
fitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a
state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of
these causes are the great national events which are
daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of
men in cities, where the importunity of their occu-
pations produces a craving for extraordinary incident,
46
which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly
gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the
literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have
conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our
elder writers. I had almost said the works of Shake-
speare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic
novels, sickly and stupid . . . tragedies, and
deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse. When
I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous
stimulation . . . ; reflecting upon the magnitude
of the general evil, I should be oppressed with no dis-
honorable melancholy, had I not a deep impression of
certain inherent and indestructible qualities of the
human mind, and likewise of certain powers in the great
and prominent objects that act upon it, which are
equally inherent and indestructible ; and were there not
added to this impression a belief, that the time is ap-
proaching when the evil will be systematically opposed
by men of greater powers, and with far more dis-
tinguished success.
The poet's argument applies to the conditions on
the Pacific Coast today. University extension is by no
means a panacea for all human ills. It is, however, one
of several important factors in the solution of serious
problems confronting us. It is a very effective means
of scattering ' ' sweetness and light ' ' in many of the
darkened places of earth.
Robert E. Hieronymus.
47
for
/In^els
'HERE are probably thousands of the citizens of fl
Los Angeles who are not aware of the fact that Pajlroild
the first line of railroad from Santa Monica to
this city was intended to be built into Inyo
county, and that the old name of that line was the Los
Angeles and Independence Railroad. To U. S. Senator '^^^
John P. Jones belongs the credit of starting the line and SdilllS
having it built to this city, one great obj ect in view be-
ing the extension of the road into Owen's valley, Inyo
county, in an effort to reach the rich mines discovered
at Cerro Gordo, and develop that very intensely and
promising region. The project was started at a very
unseasonable period, when great financial depression
overspread the country causing disastrous failures later
and the abandonment of many meritorious enterprises, so
that when the country recovered from the crisis of 1873,
many new propositions of a purely local character had
sprung into existence and the original idea, a 1 oeitn
Salt Lake City, seems to have been entirely lost sight of.
Much has been written and said about the wonder-
ful resources of the country which a railroad must
traverse with the City of the Saints as its objective
point, and it may be interesting to note first its bound-
aries with respect to other lines of transportation. This
line when built would pass through the longest tract in
the United States yet untouched by a railroad, extend-
ing from Milford on the north to the old Atlantic and
Pacific on the south, now part of the Santa Fe system,
and from the Carson and Colorado Railroad on the west to
the Sevier valley branch of the Rio Grande on the east,
a territory 300 by 325 miles in area, rich in minerals of
49
all kinds and pregnant with agricultural possibilities, be-
sides which there would be tributary to it an immense
area of countrj^ estimated as follows:
Utah, . . . 45,000 square miles.
South Nevada, 50,000 " "
So. California, 50,000 " "
Arizona, . . 55,000 " **
Total, 200,000
This territory is a little less in area than all of New
England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Dela-
ware, Maryland and Virginia combined, or nearly
130,000,000 acres.
The proposed road with its connections would make
a through line from San Diego to Lithbridge on the
Canadian Pacific railroad 1740 miles in length and would
make the distance from eastern points to Los Angeles
some 400 miles less than by any other route. It would
cross and make connections with eight main trunk lines
Vv'est of the Missouri river as follows: At Los Angeles
with the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific ; at Provo with
the Rio Grande Western ; at Ogden with the Central
Pacific and the Union Pacific ; at Helena with the
Northern Pacific ; at Great Falls with the Great North-
ern and at Lithbridge with the Canadian Pacific. It
would be an entirely new route and would open up
some of the greatest iron and coal fields in the world
which are situated in Iron county in the southern part
of Utah.
It will be in order now to follow in a general way
the lines of road projected and already partly built.
50
Low gradients with no rivers to wash out road beds and
no snows to contend with, would seem to constitute this
the par excellence of railroad building propositions and
one which should be of easy and ready financiering as
well. The Union Pacific Railroad Company now has
in operation a line of railroad from Ogden to Milford, a
point in the Escalante valley, 221 miles south of Salt
Lake City and about 600 miles from Los Angeles.
There is also an extension of this line westward from
Milford about 16 miles to the mining town of Frisco,
but this branch does not enter into consideration in the
matter of a road to this city. From Milford, Utah, the
line passes through Pioche, Nevada, Clover Valley,
Nevada, Cattamound, Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada,
Locust Valley, Nevada, and is contiguous to other min-
ing districts, rich in silver, lead and gold. Several
lines of survey have been discussed by those interested
in the railway connection between Salt Lake City and
Los Angeles. One route proceeds west from the pres-
ent terminus through Tovele county and the Deep Creek
mining district into Nevada. The preferred line how-
ever is the one which goes south through the counties
of Tovele, Juab, Millard, Beaver and Iron and on into
the southeastern corner of Nevada and already con-
structed as far as Bullimville just beyond Pioche, Ne-
vada, so that in the matter of mileage we would then
have the following table of distances: From Salt Lake
City to Milford 221 miles to the state line, estimated 60
miles, from that point to Bullimville 20 miles and from
this point a southerly course would undoubtedly be fol-
lowed to the Great Bend of the Great Canyon of the
51
Colorado, distant about 113 miles. From this point
would probably be a distance of 65 miles to Vanderbilt,
17 miles across the Nevada state line in California
where is the present terminus of a road 34 miles in
length with its starting point Blake on the Santa Fe
route, distant 279 miles from I,os Angeles or in round
numbers, a total distance between Los Angeles and Salt
Lake City of 760 miles.
The Great Canyon of the Colorado seems to be the
objective point of three small roads now building from
Williams, Ash Fork and Kingman, Arizona. Great
interest centers upon the Grand Canyon of the Colorado
from the various standpoints of interest to the tourist,
health to the health seeker and untold and undeveloped
mineral wealth to the prospector, and this continually
increasing and ever growing interest points to a not far
distant day when the grandeurs of the famous old west-
ern land mark will become available to all through the
rapid development of that lonely locality by the several
roads mentioned, all pointing that way. The slow but
seemingly sure march of the Vanderbilts to the sea is
being watched with great interest through the Oregon
Short Line which controls all approaches to Pioche,
Nevada, and their admit will be welcomed as the
harbinger of great things in store for us of the Pacific
coast and principally Los Angeles, when a third trans-
continental line will bring us at least 400 miles nearer
to New York. When these connections are made, the
trip from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City can be made in
a little more than 20 hours instead of two days and
three nights as now, Both summer and winter the
52
traveler will find the route pleasant. There are no
steep grades and in railroad phraseology " it is almost a
water grade " the whole distance, so that the road will
be comparatively smooth, free from dust and washouts
and the fact that direct sleeping cars from the east,
Utah, Idaho, Montana and Oregon will be attached will
undoubtedly make this a very popular line. Among
the leading beneficiaries of this new line will be the
fruit growers of Southern California who will save many
hours in shipping their perishable products to eastern
markets. Salt Lake City is the distributing point for
all of Utah and much of Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming
and Montana and her supply of oranges, lemons, grapes
and other semi-tropical fruits comes in a roundabout,
unsatisfactory route from Southern California. With
such a road the mining output would be double and the
demand for agricultural and horticultural products corre-
spondingly increased. Salt Lake City at the other end
of the contemplated route is the tourists' rendezvous of
the intermountain west. Thousands of travelers from
the east and west and foreign lands annually visit this
Utah Metropolis. A majority of tickets read Los Ange-
les via Portland or San Francisco and in the mad com-
petition for immigration we know what this means when
a totality of 20 small pox patients in a city of nearly
120,000 inhabitants was swelled into a raging epidemic
by the cheerful liars who are plagues themselves.
When the line connecting the two cities is completed it
will become at once the greatest tourist route of the
world.
The Utahnians will spend their winters in Cali-
63
fornia, while the citizens of perpetual summer will visit
the land of the mountains and bathe in the great dead
sea of America. Cedar City in Inn county, Utah, is a
point towards which many railroad builders are gravi-
tating. Here ' * are vast deposits of iron ' ' and ' ' coal
measures of almost unlimited extent." Everyone
familiar with the conditions expects that with a railroad
to the coast by way of Cedar, the greatest manufactur-
ing city in the west will spring up amidst the moun-
tains of iron and coal. The manufacturies which
naturally will be constructed could supply Southern
California with iron and steel products, while the un-
limited coal fields would furnish abundance of cheap
fuel. It is claimed that the immense bodies of iron ore
will assay 7^ per cent, metallic iron, making it almost
pure pig iron and with cheap coal and limestone, pig
iron should be made as cheap there as anywhere in the
United States. Hard wood can be brought from Mexico
and Central America for the manufacture of furniture
and with iron and coal placed in this market as they
will be for normal prices as compared with the past, and
iron and petroleum we can then manufacture agricul-
tural implements and machinery of all kinds for export.
In the mountain ranges of this general country I have
been discussing, are found lodes and veins containing
gold, silver, copper, lead, iron and other minerals, and
in the Alkaline flats are found deposits of salt, borax,
soda, etc. Immense sulphur deposits have been dis-
covered and in Iron county 50 miles of iron and bitum-
inous and anthracite coal estimated at 130,000,000 tons.
I^arge copper fields reaching down into Arizona as an
54
immense belt have also been discovered. Numbers of
mines are being worked despite high prices for trans-
portation but the development of the country in some
particularly rich sections has been necessarily much re-
tarded by this fact. A great deal of the land has been
held for many years by non-resident owners who are
anxiously awaiting the time when transportation at
reasonable rates will enable them to improve and make
their lands productive.
The general topography is as follows: In Cali-
fornia, south and west of the Nevada line the country is
comparatively fiat, consisting of stretches of sage brush
and grease root flats and a few alkaline marshes inter-
spersed with short ranges or groups of mineral bearing
mountains. After crossing the Nevada line the topo-
graphy of the country changes to some extent. The
mountain ranges are somewhat larger than in Cali-
fornia and the general direction is north and south.
The mountains are also considerably higher ; those in
Southern California in no place exceeding an altitude
of 7000 feet, while in Nevada several peaks are 11,000
to 12,000 fee; high.
The main agricultural districts are the Pahrump,
I^as Vegas, Muddy Meadow and Fahramagat valleys,
the first two being in I^incoln and Nye counties, Nevada,
and containing together about 200,000 acres of arable
land. The climate in the valley is very good, the
atmosphere is clear and bracing and the temperature is
not so hot in summer as in most parts of this region.
Crops of grain, fruit and alfalfa are raised at several
points in these valleys by means of irrigation. Prices
55
of land vary from $5 to $io per acre in these valleys. I
have endeavored to place before you some general in-
formation gathered from various sources, most of it quite
authentic and received as such by one of our leading
commercial organizations, touching a very interesting
part of our coming country, and as I have stated, a sec-
tion as yet untouched by railroads and which from its
geographical position, in its leaning upon our own im-
mediate section plays a most important part. It is not
for me to say what the future holds in store for us in
this favored portion of the globe, with the building of
the railroad to Salt Lake City, the completion of the
great harbor at San Pedro, upon which) the whole rail-
road proposition rested, the construction of the
Nicaragua canal, when this whole country in point of
transportation will be moved as far east as the Missis-
sippi river, and the vast possibilities of an iron trade,
and the Phillipines as the newest market; but it is safe
to predict amongst the certanties to follow from the
present status of affairs, with a future budding with so
much promise, that the day is not far distant when the
eyes of the whole world will be upon us as a highly
famed and most fortunate and prosperous people, promi-
nent let us hope not only for all that goes to make us
financially independent but prominent as well for all of
the public virtues which must be the basis of lasting
prosperity.
Georgk W. Parsons.
66
SOME SUGGESTIONS ABOUT WRITING SHORT STORIES.
yO give any definite rules for the short story is very
difficult. It has been entirely natural in its
birth and development, and yet every form of
art discovers certain rules in the course of time
which tend to raise it to perfection. The best short
story, true to its name, avoids all introductory details.
It plunges at once into the action and introduces hero or
heroine without further ceremony. Often the entire in-
troduction of time, place, characters and the circum-
stances that give rise to the plot is told in the first para-
graph.
As in a play, the curtain rises, disclosing the char-
acters, grouped and ready for action, and the first words
spoken give the key-note for the whole. It is the situa-
tion, the circumstances in which the characters find
themselves that determine the plot. Because of the sit-
uation, the plot follows.
A poor, struggling young artist is painting a pic-
ture beside a country road. A man walks slowly along
the winding path, stops and looks over his shoulder.
Something in the picture strikes a responsive chord in
his heart — and the rest is easy.
A man stands in a dimly lighted room. He holds
in his hand a paper. His face is haggard, his hand
trembles. He looks long at the paper. Then, very
slowly, he dips a pen into the ink and affixes to it his
signature. The crime is committed. Its results are
certain.
Editorial
Department
67
A young girl throws herself wearily into a chair
and twirls a ring on her finger. She has accepted his
offer, it means escape from poverty, from the monotony
of a cramped life. She will be rich, brilliant — why not
happy ? Ah, shut away in her heart is another face,
another form, and that face will never leave her.
The action of the short story must be rapid ; follow-
ing close upon the circumstances of the introduction.
The characters meet and intermingle — they love and
hate, rejoice and sorrow, betray or save in rapid alterna-
tion. There must be no delay, no dragging of the plot,
no lack of intensity, every word should count, for so
much is compressed into so little space, every sentence
should bring nearer the climax of the whole.
In the short story, however, as in most things, all
is not strength and beauty. There are elements of weak-
ness too palpable to escape notice, and perhaps signifi-
cant of its future. The charm of delicate, yet intense
coloring, the misty, blurred outlines, the very absence
of details, contains an element of danger.
There grows up a temptation to slur over doubtful
points, to jump at conclusions, to strive for effects and
sacrifice the truth, the impressionist style seems so easy,
so possible, that one forgets the perspective values, the
study of lights and shadows that make it, not daubs and
splashes of color, but art.
So the short story writer is tempted to strive for
easy and dazzling effects, forgetting or omitting, ar-
rangement, coherence, climax. Passion becomes mere
sentiment, the dramatic dwindles into the sensational,
bits of narrative, episodes and descriptions, sprinkled
58
plentifully with dialect, are strung together and called
stories until newspapers, magazines and a long-suffering
public are surfeited. For as the short story has great
possibilities and much inherent strength, so it is capable
of becoming the weakest, flattest, and most utterly un-
profitable sort of literature in unskillful hands.
BOOK NOTES.
Mr. Hknry Seaton Merriman in his latest novel,
'* Young Mistley," takes his readers across the Ural
Mountains and into Central Asia, among the Russian
nihilists, in the company of a most courageous and
attractive Englishman, for whom the work is named.
The plot, for romance and adventure is fascinating,
as Mr. Mkrriman's stories always are. Yet the book
does not seem quite as spontaneous as some of his
others, and lacks the brilliancy of the author's usual
epigrams ; in fact, it seems a trifle hurried.
Still, he has given us a beautiful type of woman-
hood in lycna Wright, one who can love and wait,
and help others in the waiting. The hero is one of
those men whom we all love for his faith in the nobility
of others. It is a wholesome and thoroughly enjoyable
story.
Mr. HowEi.i.'s latest novel, " Ragged Lady," is an
improbable but entertaining romance. The story has no
precept or moral, but is simply the life of a illiterate
girl whose natural graces, with the halo of a wealthy
59
woman's support, carry her into English society with
ease.
Her love afiairs are numerous but disappointing, as
she is always in love with the wrong man, and when
at last she marries the hero (if he is the hero ?) The
author is inconsiderate enough to kill him suddenly.
And even after Mr. H0WK1.1.S kindly marries her a
second time for the sake of the reader's feelings one
lays down the book unsatisfied.
E. M. J.
EBELL NOTES.
The business meeting of the society, for the election
of officers, closes the year's work for 1898-9. This has
been an interesting and instructive year in the history
of our organization for the number of delightful pro-
grammes presented at the general meetings ; for the
active and interesting work in the various sections, and
the growing interest manifested by members in practical
reforms in philanthropic and educational work. It is
the hope of all that this practical sympathy with such
reforms, may lead to such results as will make the society
a still more active power for good in this southern
country, which is its home.
The regular meetings suspended through the sum-
mer will be resumed on the last Thursday in September.
A large membership and active interest promise well for
the new year.
60
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