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Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 86, February, 1875

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Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 86, February, 1875

Author: Various

Editor: John Foster Kirk


        
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LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE

February, 1875

Vol. XV, No. 86







TABLE OF CONTENTS.


   FOLLOWING THE TIBER.
     CONCLUDING PAPER.

   SIX MONTHS AMONG CANNIBALS.

   AN AMERICAN GIRL AND HER LOVERS. by Mary E. Blair.

   A JAPANESE MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE. by W.E. Griffis.

   THE LOST BABY. by Clara G. Dolliver.

   THREE FEATHERS. by William Black.
     CHAPTER XXIII.  SOME OLD SONGS.
     CHAPTER XXIV.   THE CUT DIRECT.
     CHAPTER XXV.    NOT THE LAST WORD.

   FEVER. by H.C. Wood, Jr., M.D.

   SONNET. by Charlotte F. Bates.

   SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF HIRAM POWERS. by T. Adolphus Trollope.

   CORN. by Sidney Lanier.

   GENTLEMAN DICK. by W. Mackay Laffan.

   A SINGULAR FAMILY. by Clelia Lega Weeks.

   THE MATCHLESS ONE:
     A TALE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY, IN FOUR CHAPTERS.
                                          by Ita Aniol Prokop.
     PROLOGUE.
     CHAPTER I.
     CHAPTER II.

   THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES OF PARIS. by Lucy H. Hooper.

   OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
     GYPSY MUSIC IN HUNGARY. by E.C.R.
     THE "GIORNO DEI MORTI." by T.A.T.
     MR. MILL'S MOTHER.

   NOTES.

   LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

   Books Received.

   FOOTNOTES




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

   TEMPLE OF THE CLITUMNUS.
   THE FALLS OF TERNI.
   ORVIETO.
   CIVITÀ BAGNOREA.
   THE TIBER, FROM ORTE.
   BORGHETTO.
   ST. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN, FROM THE FALLS OF THE TIBER.
   THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.
   ISLAND OF THE TIBER.
   CUPOLA OF ST. PETER'S.
   THE PINCIO, FROM THE VILLA BORGHESE.
   SORACTE.
   VEII, FROM THE CAMPAGNA.
   TIVOLI.
   CASTLE AT OSTIA.
   HEAD OF THE TRAJAN CANAL, NEAR OSTIA.




FOLLOWING THE TIBER.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE CLITUMNUS.]


One branch of the little river which encompasses Assisi is the
Clitumnus, the delight of philosophers and poets in the Augustan age.
Near its source stands a beautiful little temple to the divinity of the
stream. Although the ancients resorted hither for the loveliness of the
spot, they did not bathe in the springs, a gentle superstition holding
it sacrilege for the human body to lave itself in a stream near its
source.

[Illustration: THE FALLS OF TERNI.]

They came by the Via Flaminia, the old high-road from Rome to Florence,
which crosses the modern railroad hard by. Following its course, which
takes a more direct line than the devious Tiber, past Spoleto on its
woody castellated height, the traveler reaches Terni on the tumultuous
Nar, the wildest and most rebellious of all the tributaries. It was to
save the surrounding country from its outbreaks that the channel was
made by the Romans B.C. 271, the first of several experiments which
resulted in these cascades, which have been more sung and oftener
painted than any other in the world. The beauty of Terni is so hackneyed
that enthusiasm over it becomes cockney, yet the beauty of hackneyed
things is as eternal as the verity of truisms, and no more loses its
charm than the other its point. But one must not talk about it. The
foaming torrent rages along between its rocky walls until spanned by the
bridge of Augustus at Narni, a magnificent viaduct sixty feet high,
thrown from ridge to ridge across the ravine for the passage of the
Flaminian Way--a wreck now, for two of the arches have fallen, but
through the last there is a glimpse of the rugged hillsides with their
thick forests and the turbulent waters rushing through the chasm. Higher
still is Narni, looking over her embattled walls. It is one of the most
striking positions on the way from Florence to Rome, and the next half
hour, through savage gorges and black tunnels, ever beside the tormented
waters of the Nar until they meet the Tiber, swollen by the tributes of
the Paglia and Chiana, is singularly fine.

[Illustration: ORVIETO.]

Where the Paglia and Chiana flow together, at the issue of the charming
Val di Chiana, stands Orvieto on its steep and sudden rock, crowned with
one of the triumphs of Italian Gothic, the glorious cathedral. After
toiling up the ladder-like paths which lead from the plain to the summit
of the bluff, and passing through the grand mediæval gateway along the
slanting streets, where even the peasants dismount and walk beside their
donkeys, seeing nothing within the whole small compass of the walls save
what speaks of the narrowest and humblest life in the most remote of
hill-fastnesses, a few deserted and dilapidated palaces alone telling of
a period of importance long past, nothing can describe the effect of
coming out of this indigence and insignificance upon the silent,
solitary piazza where the incomparable cathedral rears its front,
covered from base to pinnacle with the richest sculpture and most
brilliant mosaic. The volcanic mass on which the town is built is over
seven hundred feet high, and nearly half as much in circumference: it
would be a fitting pedestal for this gorgeous duomo if it stood there
alone. But it is almost wedged in among the crooked streets, a few paces
of grass-grown stones allowing less than space enough to embrace the
whole result of proportion and color: one cannot go far enough off to
escape details. An account of those details would require a volume, and
one has already been written which leaves no more to be said;[1] yet
fain would we take the reader with us into that noble nave, where the
"glorious company of the apostles" stands colossal in marble beside the
pillars whose sculptured capitals are like leafy branches blown by the
wind; where the light comes rich and mellow through stained glass and
semilucent alabaster, like Indian-summer sunshine in autumn woods; where
Fra Angelico's and Benozzo Gozzoli's angelic host smile upon us with
ineffable mildness from above the struggle and strife of Luca
Signorelli's "Last Judgment," the great forerunner of Michael Angelo's.
It added greatly to the impressiveness that there was never a single
human being in the cathedral: except one afternoon at vespers we had it
all to ourselves. There is little else to see in the place, although it
is highly picturesque and the inhabitants wear a more complete costume
than any other I saw in Italy--the women, bright bodices, striped skirts
and red stockings; the men, jaunty jackets and breeches, peaked hats and
splendid sashes.

The discomfort of Perugia was luxury to what we found at Orvieto, and it
was no longer May but December, when it is nearly as cold north of Rome
as with us; and Rome was drawing us with her mighty magnet. So, one
wintry morning, soon after daybreak, we set out in a close carriage with
four horses, wrapped as if we were going in a sleigh, with a
_scaldino_ (or little brazier) under our feet, for the nearest
railway station on our route, a nine hours' drive. Our way lay through
the snow-covered hills and their leafless forest, and long after we had
left Orvieto behind again and again a rise in the road would bring it
full in sight on its base of tufa, girt by its walls, the Gothic lines
of the cathedral sharp against the clear, brightening sky. At our last
look the sun was not up, but broad shafts of light, such as painters
throw before the chariot of Phoebus, refracted against the pure æther,
spread like a halo round the threefold pinnacles: a moment more and
Orvieto was hidden behind a higher hill, not to be seen again. All day
we drove among the snow-bound hills and woods, past the Lake of Bolsena
in its forbidding beauty; past small valleys full of naked fruit trees
and shivering olives, which must be nooks of loveliness in spring; past
defiant little towns aloft on their islands of tufa, like Bagnorea with
its single slender bell-tower; past Montefiascone with its good old
story about Cardinal Fugger and the native wine.

[Illustration: CIVITÀ BAGNOREA.]

We stopped to lunch at Viterbo, a town more closely connected with the
history of the Papacy than any except Rome itself, and full of legends
and romantic associations: it is dirty and dilapidated, and has great
need of all its memories. Being but eight miles from Montefiascone, we
called for a bottle of the fatal Est, which we had tasted once at
Augsburg, where the host of the Three Moors has it in his cellar, in
honor perhaps of the departed Fugger family, whose palace has become his
hotel: there we had found it delicious--a wine as sweet as cordial, with
a soul of fire and a penetrating but delicate flavor of its own--how
different from the thin, sour stuff they brought us in the long-necked,
straw-covered flask, nothing to attest its relationship to the generous
juice at the Three Moors except the singular, unique flavor! After this
little disappointment we left Viterbo, and drove on through the same
sort of scenery, which seemed to grow more and more beautiful in the
rosy light of the sinking sun. But it is hard to tell, for nothing makes
a journey so beautiful as to know that Rome is the goal. As the last
rays were flushing the hill-tops we came in sight of Orte, with its
irregular lines of building clinging to the sides of its precipitous
cliff in such eyrie-wise that it is difficult to say what is house and
what is rock, and whether the arched passages with which it is pierced
are masonry or natural grottoes; and there was the Tiber--already the
yellow Tiber--winding through the valley as far as eye could follow.
Here we waited for the train, which was ten minutes late, and tried to
make up for lost time by leaving our luggage, all duly marked and ready,
standing on the track. We soon began to greet familiar sites as we
flitted by: the last we made out plainly was Borghetto, a handful of
houses, with a ruined castle keeping watch on a hill hard by: then
twilight gathered, and we strained our eyes in vain for the earliest
glimpse of Mount Soracte, and night came down before we could descry the
first landmarks of the Agro Romano, the outposts of our excursions, the
farm-towers we knew by name, the farthest fragments of the aqueducts.
But it was not so obscure that we could not discern the Tiber between
his low banks showing us the way, the lights quivering in the Anio as
the train rushed over the bridge; and when at length we saw against the
clear night-sky a great dark barrier stretching right and left, we knew
that the walls of Rome were once more before us: in a moment we had
glided through with slackening speed, and her embrace enfolded us again.

[Illustration: THE TIBER, FROM ORTE.]

[Illustration: BORGHETTO.]

[Illustration: ST. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN, FROM THE FALLS OF
THE TIBER.]

The Tiber, winding as it does like a great artery through the heart of
Rome, is seldom long either out of sight or mind. One constantly comes
upon it in the most unexpected manner, for there is no river front to
the city. There is a wide open space on the Ripetta--a street which runs
from the Piazza del Popolo, at the head of the foreign quarter, to
remoter parts--where a broad flight of marble steps descends to the
level of the flood, and a ferry crosses to the opposite bank: looking
over at the trees and fields, it is like the open country, yet beyond
are St. Peter's and the Vatican, and the whole of what is known as the
Leonine City. But one cannot follow the Tiber through the streets of
Rome as one may the Seine in Paris: in the thickly-built quarters the
houses back upon the stream and its yellow waves wash their foundations,
working wrath and woe from time to time, as those who were there in the
winter of 1870 will recollect. Sometimes it is lost to sight for half a
mile together, unless one catches a glimpse of it through the
carriage-way of a palace. From the wharf of the Ripetta it disappears
until you come upon it again at the bridge of St. Angelo, the Ælian
bridge of ancient Rome, which is the most direct passage from the
fashionable and foreign quarter to the Trastevere. It must be confessed
that the idle sense of mere pleasure generally supersedes recollection
and association after one's first astonishment to find one's self among
the historic places subsides; yet how often, as our horses' hoofs rang
on the slippery stones, my thoughts went suddenly back to the scene when
Saint Gregory passed over, chanting litanies, at the head of the whole
populace, who formed one vast penitential procession, and saw the
avenging angel alight on the mausoleum of Adrian and sheath his sword in
sign that the plague was stayed; or to that terrible day when the
ferocious mercenaries of the Constable de Bourbon and the wretched
inhabitants given over to sack and slaughter swarmed across together,
butchering and butchered, while the troops in the castle hurled down
what was left of its classic statues upon the heads of friend and foe,
and the Tiber was turned to blood!

[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.]

[Illustration: ISLAND OF THE TIBER.]

From the bridge of St. Angelo the river is lost again for a long
distance, although one can make one's way to it at various points--where
at low water the submerged piers of the Pons Triumphalis are to be seen,
where the Ponte Sisto leads to the foot of the Janiculum Hill, and on
the opposite bank the orange-groves of the Farnesina palace hang their
golden fruit and dusky foliage over the long garden-wall upon the
river--until we come to the Ponte Quatro Capi (Bridge of the Four Heads)
and the island of the Tiber. This is said to have been formed in the
kingly period by the accumulation of a harvest cast into the stream a
little way above, which the current could not sweep away: it made a
nucleus for alluvial deposit, and the island gradually arose. Several
hundred years afterward it was built into the form of a ship, as bridges
and wharves are built, with a temple in the midst, and a tall obelisk
set up in guise of its mast. In mediæval days a church replaced the
heathen fane, and now it stands between its two bridges, a huddle of
houses, terraces and gardens, whence one looks down on the fine mass of
the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), whose shattered arches pause in
mid-stream, and across to the low arch of the Cloaca Maxima and the
exquisite little circular temple of Vesta. From here down, the river is
in full view from either side until it passes beyond the walls near the
Monte Testaccio--on one side the Ripa Grande (Great Bank or Wharf), a
long series of quays, on the other the Marmorata or marble landing,
where the ships from the quarries unload. Here, on each side, all sorts
of small craft lie moored, not betokening a very extensive commerce from
their size and shape, but quaint and oddly rigged, making a very good
fore-or back-ground, according as one looks at the picture. The
Marmorata is at the foot of the Aventine, the most lonely and unvisited
of the Seven Hills. From among the vegetable-gardens and cypress-groves
which clothe its long flank rise large, formless piles, whose
foundations are as old as the Eternal City, and whose superstructures
are the wreck of temples of the kingly and republican periods, and
palaces and villas of imperial times, and haughty feudal abodes, only to
be distinguished from one another by the antiquary amid their
indiscriminate ruin and the tangle of wild-briers and fern, ivy and
trailers with which they are overgrown. On the summit no trace of
ancient Rome is to be seen. There are no dwellings of men on this
deserted ground: a few small and very early Christian churches have
replaced the temples which once stood here, to be in their turn
neglected and forsaken: they stand forlornly apart, separated by
vineyards and high blank walls. On the brow of the hill is the esplanade
of a modern fort, and within its quiet precincts are the church and
priory of the Knights of Malta--nothing but a chapel and small villa as
abandoned as the rest. After toiling up a steep and narrow lane between
two walls, our carriage stopped at a solid wooden gateway, and the
coachman told us to get out and look through the keyhole. We were
aghast, but he insisted, laughing and nodding; so we pocketed our pride
and peeped. Through an overarching vista of dark foliage was seen, white
and golden in a blaze of sunshine, the cupola of St. Peter's, which is
at the farthest end of the city, two miles at the least as the crow
flies. When the gate was opened we entered a sweet little garden full of
violets, traversed by an alley of old ilex trees, through which appeared
the noble dome, and which led from the gate to a terrace overhanging the
Tiber--I will not venture to guess how far below--more like two than one
hundred feet; perhaps still farther. On the edge of the terrace was an
arbor, and here we sank down enchanted, to drink in the view of the
city, which spread out under our eyes as we had never seen it from any
other point. But the custodino's wife urged us to come into the Priorato
and see the view from the upper story. We followed her, reluctant to
leave the sunshine and soft air, up a stiff winding staircase, through
large, dark, chilly, long-closed apartments, until we reached the top,
where there was a great square room occupying the whole floor. She flung
open the windows, and never did such a panorama meet my eyes. There were
windows on every side: to the north, one looked across the city to St.
Peter's, the Vatican, the Castle of St. Angelo, the Tiber with its great
bends and many bridges, and to lonely, far-away Soracte; westward, on
the other side of the river, rose the Janiculum with its close-wedged
houses, grade on grade, and on its summit the church of San Pietro in
Montorio and the flashing cataract of the Acqua Paola fountain, the
stone-pines of the Villa Dolia cresting the ridge above; eastward, the
Palatine, a world of ruins in a world of gardens, lay between us and the
Coliseum, and over them and the wall, the aqueducts, the plain, the eye
ranged to the snow-capped Sabine Hills, on whose many-colored
declivities tiny white towns were dotted like browsing sheep; southward,
we gazed down upon the Pyramid of Cestius, upon the beautiful Protestant
cemetery with its white monuments and dark cypresses where lie Shelley
and Keats, upon the stately Porta San Paolo, a great mediæval gateway
flanked with towers, and beyond, the Campagna, purple, violet,
ultramarine, oceanic, rolling out toward the Alban Hills, which
glittered with snow, rising sharply like island-peaks and sloping down
like promontories into the plain; and over all the sun and sky and
shadows of Italy.

[Illustration: CUPOLA OF ST. PETER'S.]

[Illustration: THE PINCIO, FROM THE VILLA BORGHESE.]

The prospect from the Priorato surpasses anything in Rome--even the
wonderful view from the Janiculum, even the enchanting outlook from the
Pincian Hill. But the last was at our very doors: we could go thither in
the morning to watch the white mist curl up from the valleys and hang
about the mountain-brows, and at noon, when even in January the cool
avenues and splashing fountains were grateful, and at sunset, when the
city lay before us steeped in splendor. That was the view of our daily
walks--the beloved view of which one thinks most often and fondly in
remembering Rome.

[Illustration: SORACTE.]

But it is in riding that one grows to feel most familiar with the Tiber
and all his Roman children, whether it be strolling somewhat sulkily in
a line with his banks by the Via Flaminia or the Via Cassia, impatient
to get away from their stones and dust to the soft, springing turf; or
hailing him from afar as a guide after losing one's self in the endless
undulations of the open country; or cantering over daffodil-sheeted
meadows beside the Anio at the foot of the grassy heights on which
Antemnæ stood; or threading one's way doubtfully among the ravines which
intersect the course of the little Cremera as one goes to Veii. The last
is a most beautiful and interesting expedition, for, what with the
distance--more than twelve miles--and the difficulty of finding the way,
it is quite an enterprise. As one turns his horse's head away from the
river, off the high-road, to the high grassy flats, the whole Campagna
seems to lie before one like a vast table-land, with nothing between
one's self and Soracte as he lifts his heavy shoulder from the
plain--not half hidden by intervening mountains, as from some points of
view, but majestic and isolated, thirty miles away to the north. But
here, as in every other part of the Campagna, one cannot go far without
finding hillocks and hollows, long steep slopes and sudden little dells,
and, stranger still, unsuspected tracts of woodland, for the general
effect of the Roman landscape is quite treeless. So there is a few
miles' gallop across the trackless turf, sometimes asking the way of a
solitary shepherd, who looms up against the sky like a tower, sometimes
following it by faint landmarks, few and far between, of which we have
been told, and hard to find in that waste, until we pass a curious
little patriarchal abode shaped like a wigwam, where, in the midst of
these wide pastures dwells a herdsman surrounded by his family, his
cattle, his dogs, his goats and his fowls--the beautiful animals of the
Campagna, long-haired, soft-eyed, rich-colored, like the human children
of the soil. Then we strike the Cremera, and exploring begins among its
rocky gullies, up and down which the spirited, sure-footed horses
scramble like chamois. Thick woods of cork-oak clothe their sides, and
copses of a deciduous tree which I never saw in its summer dress of
green, but which keeps its dead leaves all through the winter, a full
suit of soft, pale brown contrasting with the dark evergreens. Among
these woods grow all the wild-flowers of the long Roman spring from
January to May--flowers that I never saw in bloom at the same time
anywhere else. On banks overcanopied by faded boughs nodded myriads of
snowdrops; farther on we held our horses' heads well up as they slipped,
almost sitting, down the damp rocky clefts of a gorge whose sides were
purple with violets, mingling their delicious odor, the sweetest and
most sentimental of perfumes, with the fresh, geranium-like scent of the
cyclamen, which here and there flung back its delicate pinkish petals
like one amazed: then came acres of anemones--not our pale wind-shaken
flower, but brave asters of half a dozen superb kinds. Up and down these
passes we forced our way through interlacing branches, which drooped too
low, until we had crossed the ridges on either side the Cremera, and
gained the valley at the head of which is Isola Farnese, the
rock-fortress supposed to occupy the site of the citadel of Etruscan
Veii. It is not really an island, in spite of its name; only a bold
peninsula, round whose base two rivulets flow and nearly meet. It is
called a village, and so it is, with quite a population, but the great
courtyard of the fifteenth-century castle contains them all, and the
huts, pig-pens, kennels and coops which they seem to inhabit
indiscriminately. Except where the bluff overlooks the valley,
everything is closed and shut in by rocks and gorges, through one of
which a lovely waterfall drips from a covert of boughs and shrubbery and
wreathing ferns and creepers into a little stream, which with musical
clamor rushes at a picturesque old mill: through another the road from
the castle passes through a narrow issue to the outer world. And this
stranded and shipwrecked fortress in the midst of so wild a scene is all
that exists to mark where Veii stood, the powerful city which kept Rome
at bay for ten years, and fell at length by stratagem! Its site was
forgotten for nearly two thousand years, but in this century the
discovery of some tombs revealed the secret.

[Illustration: VEII, FROM THE CAMPAGNA.]

[Illustration: TIVOLI.]

The scenery differs entirely on different sides of Rome. Here there is
not a ruin, not a vestige, except a few low heaps of stone-or brickwork
hidden by weeds: on the other, toward Tivoli, much of the beauty is due
to the work of man--the stately remnants of ancient aqueduct, temple and
tomb; the tall square towers of feudal barons, round which cluster low
farm-buildings scarcely less old and solid; the vast, gloomy grottoes of
Cerbara, which look like the underground palace of a bygone race, but
which are the tufa-quarries of classic times; the ruined baths of
Zenobia, where the rushing milky waters of the Aquæ Albulæ fill the air
with sulphurous fumes; and, as a climax, the Villa of Hadrian, less a
country-place than a whole region, a town-in-country, with palace,
temples, circus, theatres, baths amidst a tract of garden and
pleasure-ground ten miles in circumference. Even when one is familiar
with the enormous height and bulk of the Coliseum or the Baths of
Caracalla, the extent of the ruins of Hadrian's Villa is overwhelming.
Numerous fragments are still standing, graceful and elegant, but a vast
many more are buried deep under turf and violets and fern: large
cypresses and ilexes have struck root among their stones, and they form
artificial hills and vales and great wide plateaus covered with herbage
and shrubbery, hardly to be distinguished from the natural accidents of
the land. The solitude is as immense as the space. After leaving our
carriage we wandered about for hours, sometimes lying in the sunshine at
the edge of a great grassy terrace which commands the Campagna and the
Agro Romano--beyond whose limits we had come--to where, like a little
bell, St. Peter's dome hung faint and blue upon the horizon; sometimes
exploring the innumerable porticoes and galleries, and replacing in
fancy the Venus de Medici, the Dancing Faun, and all the other shapes of
beauty which once occupied these ravished pedestals and niches;
sometimes rambling about the flowery fields, and up and down among the
hillocks and dells, meeting no one, until at length, when completely
bewildered and lost, we fell in with a rustic belonging to the estate,
who guided us back. We left the place with the sense of having been in a
separate realm, another country, belonging to another age. The whole of
that visit to Tivoli was like a dream. The sun was sinking when we left
the precincts of the villa, and twilight stole upon us, wrapping all the
landscape on which we looked back in softer folds of shade, and
resolving its features into large, calm masses, as the horses labored up
the narrow, stony road into a mysterious wood of gigantic olives,
gnarled, twisted and rent as no other tree could be and live. The scene
was wild and weird in the dying light, and it grew almost savage as we
wound upward among the robber-haunted hills. Night had fallen before we
reached the mountain-town. Our coachman dashed through the dark slits of
streets, where it seemed as if our wheels must strike the houses on each
side, cracking his whip and jingling the bells of the harness. Under
black archways sat groups of peasants, their swart visages lit up from
below by the glow of a brazier, while a flaring torch stuck through a
ring overhead threw fierce lights and shadows across the scene. Sharp
cries and shouts like maledictions rose as we passed, and as we turned
into the little square on which the inn stands we wondered in what sort
of den we should have to lodge. We followed our host of the little
Albergo della Regnia up the steep stone staircase with many misgivings:
he flung open a door, and we beheld a carpeted room, all furnished and
hung with pink chintz covered with cupids and garlands. There were
sofas, low arm-chairs, a writing-table with appurtenances, a tea-table
with snowy linen and a hissing brass tea-kettle. Opening from this were
two little white nests of bed-rooms, with tin bath-tubs and an abundance
of towels. We could not believe our eyes: here were English comfort and
French taste. Were we in May Fair or the Rue de Rivoli? Or was it a
fairy-tale?

[Illustration: CASTLE AT OSTIA.]

The fairy-tale went on next day, when, after wending our way through the
dirty, crooked little streets, we crossed a courtyard and descended a
long subterranean stairway to emerge on a magnificent terrace with a
heavy marble balustrade, whence flights of steps led down to lower
grades, amid statues, urns, vases, fountains, reservoirs, camellias in
bloom mingled with laurel and myrtle and laurustinums covered with
creamy flowers, cypresses tall as cathedral spires, ilex avenues, and
broad straight walks between huge walls of box: the whole space was
filled with the song of nightingales, the tinkle of falling water, with
whiffs of aromatic shrubs and the breath of hidden roses and violets;--a
princely garden, a royal pleasaunce, but in exquisite disorder and
neglect; the shrubbery too thick and straggling, the flowers straying
beyond their rightful boundaries, the statues stained and moss-grown,
the balusters entangled in clinging luxuriance, the fountains dripping
through fern and maiden-hair--Nature supreme, as one always sees her in
this land of Art. It was the Villa d'Este, famous these three hundred
years for its fountains and cypresses. Nor did the wonder cease when we
forsook this enchanting spot for the mountain-road which overhangs the
great ravine. Opposite, backed by mountains, rose the crags topped by
the clustering town and all its towers, arches, niches, battlements,
bridges, long lines of classic ruins, and on the edge of the abyss the
perfect little temple of the Sibyl; rushing down from everywhere the
waterfalls, one great column plunging at the head of the gorge, and
countless frolic streams, the _cascatelle_, leaping and dancing
from rock to rock through mist and rainbow and extravagance of emerald
moss and herbage, down among sea-green, silvery olives, finally sliding
away, between softer foliage and verdure, through the valley into the
plain--the immense azure plain, with its grand symphonic harmonies of
form and color. O land of dreams fulfilled, of satisfied longing! when
across these thousands of miles I recall your entrancing charm, your
unimaginable beauty, I sometimes wonder if you were _not_ a dream,
if you have any place in this real existence, this lower earth: are you
still delighting other eyes with the rapture of your loveliness, or were
you only an illusion, a vision, which vanishes like the glow of sunset
or "golden exhalations of the dawn "?

The Campagna has one more aspect, different from all the rest, where the
Tiber, weary with his long wanderings, rolls lazily to the sea. It is a
dreary waste of swamp and sandhill and scrub growth, but with a forlorn
beauty of its own, and the beauty of color, never absent in Italy. The
tall, coarse grass and reeds pass through a series of vivid tones,
culminating in tawny gold and deep orange, against which the
silver-fretted violet blue-green of the Mediterranean assumes a magical
splendor. Small, shaggy buffaloes with ferocious eyes, and sometimes a
peasant as wild-looking as they, are the only inhabitants of this
wilderness. The machicolated towers of Castel Fusano among its grand
stone-pines stand up from the marshes, and farther seaward another
castle with a single pine; but they only enhance the surrounding
loneliness. Ostia, the ancient port, which sea and river have both
deserted, is now a city of the dead, a Pompeii above ground, whose
avenues of tombs lead to streets of human dwellings more desolate still.
It is no longer by Ostia, nor even by the Tiber, that one can reach the
sea: the way was choked by sand and silt seventeen centuries ago, and
Trajan caused the canal to be made which bears his name; and this is
still the outlet from Rome to the Mediterranean, while the river expires
among the pestilential marshes.

[Illustration: HEAD OF THE TRAJAN CANAL, NEAR OSTIA.]




SIX MONTHS AMONG CANNIBALS.


[Illustration: A HALT IN THE BRUSH.]

Perhaps as good an illustration of the purely absurd (according to
civilized notions) as can be imagined is a congregation of cannibals in
a missionary church weeping bitterly over the story of Calvary. Fresh
from their revolting feasts upon the flesh of their conquered enemies,
these gentle savages weep over the sufferings of One separated from them
by race, by distance, by almost every conceivable lack of the conditions
for natural sympathy, and by over eighteen hundred years of time! Surely
there must be hope for people who manifest such sensibility, and we may
fairly question whether cannibalism be necessarily the sign of the
lowest human degradation. A good deal of light is thrown upon the
subject by the writings of the young engineer, Jules Garnier, who was
lately charged by the French minister of the interior with a mission of
exploration in New Caledonia, the Pacific island discovered by Captain
Cook just one hundred years ago, and ceded to the French in 1853.

It is about three hundred and sixty miles from Sydney to New Caledonia,
a long, narrow island lying just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and
completely surrounded by belts of coral reef crenellated here and there,
and forming channels or passes where ships may enter. Navigation through
these channels is, however, exceedingly hazardous in any but calm
weather; and it was formerly thought that the island was on this account
practically valueless for colonization. Once inside them, however,
vessels may anchor safely anywhere, for there is in effect a continuous
roadstead all around the island. The passage through the narrow pass of
Dumbea, just outside of Noumea, affords a striking spectacle. On each
side of the ship is a wall of foam, and the reverberating thunder of the
waves dashing and breaking upon the jagged reefs keeps the mind in
breathless suspense.

The site of Noumea seems to be the most unfortunate that could be
chosen. It is a barren, rocky spot, divested of all luxuriance of
vegetation, and the nearest water, a brook called Pont des Français, is
ten miles away. The appearance of the town, which fronts the harbor in
the form of an amphitheatre, the houses and gardens rising higher and
higher as they recede from the sea, tended somewhat to reassure the
explorer, who had been wondering that human stupidity should have been
equal to selecting in a tropical country, and in one of the best-watered
islands of the world, such a situation for its capital. Wells are of
little account, for the water thus obtained is at the level of the sea,
and always salt. The population has to depend upon the rain that falls
on roofs, and as the cleanliness of these is of prime importance,
domesticating pigeons is strictly forbidden. This might not be much of a
deprivation in most places, but in New Caledonia, of all the world,
there is a kind of giant pigeon as large as a common hen! This is the
_noton_, (sic) the _Carpophage Goliath_ of the naturalist.

The hotel at Noumea was a kind of barracks, with partitions so slight
that every guest was forced to hear every sound in his neighbors' rooms.
M. Garnier, to escape this inconvenience, purchased a garden-plot, had a
cottage built in a few days, and so became a proprietor in Oceanica.
Before setting out on his exploring expedition into the interior he
tried to interest the government in a plan for cisterns to supply the
city with water--a project easy of execution from the natural
conformation of the locality. But his scheme received no encouragement
from the old-fogyish authorities. They were at that moment entertaining
one which for simplicity reminded Garnier of the egg problem of
Columbus. This was to distill the sea-water. He made a calculation of
the cost of thus supplying each of the sixteen hundred inhabitants with
five quarts of water a day, which showed that the proposition was
impracticable under the circumstances.

From the showing of official accounts, this French colony of New
Caledonia must be one of the most absurd that exists. The military and
naval force far exceeds in number the whole civil population; and this,
too, when the natives are quiet and submissive, few in number, and fast
dying out through the inordinate use of the worst kind of tobacco,
pulmonary consumption and other concomitants of civilization not
necessary to enumerate. Contrast this with the rich and populous
province of Victoria, which has only three hundred and fifty soldiers;
with Brisbane, which has only sixteen to a population of one hundred
thousand; and finally Tasmania, which has only seven soldiers for two
hundred thousand colonists!

It was believed formerly that New Caledonia was rich in gold-mines, and
the principal object of the expedition of M. Garnier was to discover
these. After one or two short excursions in the neighborhood of Noumea
he set out on an eight months' journey through the entire eastern
portion of the island. The plan which he adopted was to double the
southern extremity of the island, sail up the eastern coast between the
reefs and the mainland, as is the custom, stopping at the principal
stations and making long excursions into the interior, accompanied by a
guard of seven men. This plan he carried out, though some parts of the
country to be explored were inhabited by tribes that had seldom or never
seen a European. His testimony as to the almost unexceptionable kindness
of the natives, cannibals though they are, must be gratifying to those
who accept the doctrine of the brotherhood of man. Of the natives near
Balarde he says: "The moment you land all offer to guide your steps, and
in every way they can to satisfy your needs. Do you wish to hunt? A
native is ever ready to show you the marsh where ducks most abound. Are
you hungry or thirsty? They fly to the cocoanut plantation with the
agility of monkeys. If a swamp or a brook stops your course, the
shoulders of the first comer are ever ready to carry you across. If it
rains, they run to bring banana-leaves or make you a shelter of bark.
When night comes they light your way with resinous torches, and finally,
when you leave them, you read in their faces signs of sincere regret."

Captain Cook, in his eulogies of these gentle savages, probably never
dreamed that they were anthropophagi, and if he had known the fact, his
kindly nature would have found some extenuation for them. Cannibals, as
a rule--certainly those of New Caledonia--do not eat each other
indiscriminately. For example, they dispose of their dead with tender
care, though they despatch with their clubs even their best friends when
dying; but this is with them a religious duty. They only eat their
enemies when they have killed them in battle. This also, in their code
of morals, appears to be a duty. Toussenel, in his _Zoölogie
Passionelle_, has a kind word even for these savages: "Let us pity
the cannibal, and not blame him too severely. We who boast of our
refined Christian civilization murder men by tens of thousands from
motives less excusable than hunger. The crime lies not in roasting our
dead enemy, but in killing him when he wishes to live."

During M. Garnier's expedition he met the chief Onime, once the head of
a powerful tribe, now old and dispossessed of his power through the
revolt of his tribe some years previous. At that time a price had been
put upon his head, and he took refuge in the mountains. There was no
sign of discouragement or cruelty in his manners, but his face expressed
a bitter and profound sorrow. There was not a pig or a chicken on his
place--for he would have nothing imported by the _papalés_, or
Europeans--but he gave his guests a large quantity of yams, for which he
would accept no return except a little tobacco. When, however, Garnier
tied a pretty crimson handkerchief about the head of Onime's child, who
danced for joy at the possession of such a treasure, the old chief was
visibly moved, and gave his hand to the stranger. Two years later this
old man, being suspected of complicity in the assassination of a
colonist, was arrested, bound in chains and thrown into a dungeon. Three
times he broke his chains and escaped, and each time was recaptured. He
was then transported to Noumea. M. Garnier happened to be on the same
ship. The condition of the old man was pitiful. Deep wounds, exposing
the bones, were worn into his wrists and ankles in his attempts to free
himself from his chains. Three days later he died, and on a subsequent
examination of facts M. Garnier became convinced that Onime was innocent
of the crime charged against him. On the ship he recognized Garnier, and
accepted from him a little tobacco. Tobacco is more coveted by these
people than anything else in the world, and the stronger it is the
better. The child almost as soon as he can walk will smoke in an old
pipe the poisonous tobacco furnished specially for the natives, which is
so strong that it makes the most inveterate European smoker ill. "Gin
and brandy have been introduced successfully," but the natives as a rule
make horrible grimaces in drinking them, and invariably drink two or
three cups of water immediately _to put out the fire_, as they say.

These natives speak a kind of "pigeon English." It would be pigeon
French, doubtless, had their first relations been with the French
instead of the English. The government has now stopped the sale of
spirituous liquors to the natives, and recommended the chiefs to forbid
their subjects smoking until a certain age, but no precautions yet taken
have had much influence upon their physical condition. They are rapidly
dying out. The most prevalent disease is pulmonary consumption, which
they declare has been given them by the Europeans. Fewer and fewer
children are born every year, and in the tribes about Poöbo and some
others these are almost all males. Here is a curious fact for
scientists. Is not the cause to be found in the deteriorated physical
condition of the women? Mary Trist, in her careful and extensive
experimentation with butterfly grubs, has shown that by generous feeding
these all develop into females, while by starving males only appear.

M. Garnier believes that the principal cause of the deterioration and
decay of the natives in New Caledonia is the terrible tobacco that is
furnished to them. "Everybody pays for any service from the natives in
this poison." A missionary once asked a native convert why he had not
attended mass. "Because you don't give me any tobacco," replied this
hopeful Christian. To him, as to many others, says M. Garnier, going to
church means working for the missionary, just as much as digging in his
garden, and he therefore expects remuneration. The young girls in
regions where there are missions established all wear chaplets, for they
are good Catholics after a fashion, and generally refuse to marry
pagans. This operates to bring the young men under the religious yoke.
Self-interest is their strong motive generally. The missionary makes
them understand the value of his counsel in their tribes. It means their
raising cocoanuts for their oil, flocks of chickens and droves of hogs,
for all of which they can obtain pipes, quantities of tobacco, a gun,
and gaudy-colored cottons. When the chiefs find that their power is
gradually passing from them into the hands of the missionaries, they
only smoke more poisonous tobacco, expose themselves all the more to the
weather through the cheap fragmentary dress they have adopted, and so
the ravages of consumption are accelerated. Pious Christian women, who
have always given freely of their store to missionary causes, begin to
see that the results are not commensurate with their sacrifices--that
their charity, even their personal work among heathens, teaching them to
read and write and study the catechism, to cover their bodies with dress
and to love the arts of civilization, can avail little against the rum,
tobacco and nameless maladies legally or illegally introduced with
Christianity.

During one of M. Garnier's excursions into the interior he came across
one of the sacred groves where the natives bury their dead, if hanging
them up in trees can be so designated. His guides all refused to
accompany him, fearing to excite the anger of the manes of their
ancestors. He therefore entered the high grove alone. Numerous corpses,
enveloped in carefully-woven mats and then bound in a kind of basket,
were suspended from the branches of the trees. Some of these were
falling in pieces, and the ground was strewn with whitened bones. It
seems strange that this form of burial should be chosen in a country
where at least once a year there occurs a terrible cyclone that destroys
crops, unroofs houses, uproots trees, and often sends these
basket-caskets flying with the cocoanuts through the air.

In New Caledonia there are no ferocious beasts, and the largest animal
is a very rare bird which the natives call the kagon. When, therefore,
they saw the English eating the meat from beef bones they inferred that
these were the bones of giants, and naïvely inquired how they were
captured and what weapons of war they used. The confidence and
admiration of these children of Nature are easily gained, and under such
circumstances they talk freely and delight in imparting all the
information they possess. Among one of the tribes near Balarde, M.
Garnier noticed a young woman of superior beauty, and made inquiries
about her. This was Iarat, daughter of the chief Oundo. The hornlike
protuberances on her head were two "scarlet flowers, which were very
becoming in her dark hair."

[Illustration: IARAT, DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEF OUNDO.]

This poor little woman had a history. It is told in a few words: her
father sold her to the captain of a trading-vessel for a cask of brandy.
The "extenuating circumstances" in this case are that Oundo had been
invited on board the captain's ship, plied with brandy, and when nearly
drunk assented to the shameless bargain. When Oundo became sober he
repented of his act, and the more bitterly because the young girl was
betrothed to the young chief of a neighboring tribe. But he had given
his word, and was as great a moral coward as many of his betters are,
who think that honor may be preserved by dishonor. Nearly every coaster
has a native woman on board--some poor girl of low extraction, or some
orphan left to the mercy of her chief and sold for a hatchet or a few
yards of tawdry calico; but the daughters of chiefs are not thus
delivered over to the lusts of Europeans. The case of Iarat was an
exception. These coasters' wives, if such they may be called, are said
to be very devoted mothers and faithful servants. All day long they may
be seen managing the rudder or cooking in the narrow kitchen on deck.

The vessel in the service of M. Garnier left him at Balarde, near the
north-eastern extremity of the island, but, having determined to explore
farther north, he applied to Oundo, who furnished him with a native boat
or canoe and two men for the expedition. In this boat were stowed the
camping and exploring apparatus and cooking utensils, and three of his
men, who were too fatigued by late excursions to follow Garnier on foot.
The canoe was not very large, and this freight sunk it very low in the
water; yet as the sea was perfectly calm, no danger was apprehended
until, a slight breeze springing up, a sail was hoisted. The shore-party
continued their course, exploring, digging, breaking minerals, etc.,
generally in sight of the canoe, which M. Garnier watched with some
anxiety. Suddenly, Poulone, his faithful native guide, exclaimed,
"Captain, the pirogue sinks!" There was no time to be lost, for one of
the men could not swim at all, and the other two but indifferently.
Fortunately, the trunk of a tree was found near the water, some paddles
were improvised, and this primitive kind of boat was quickly afloat,
with the captain and Poulone on board. The canoe was some rods from the
shore, but the three men were picked up, having been supported meanwhile
by their dark companions. The latter did not swim ashore, but the moment
they were relieved from their charges, and without a word, set about
getting the canoe afloat. As to the cargo, it was all in plain sight,
but more than twenty feet under the limpid water. This was a great
misfortune. Some of the instruments were valuable, and could not be
replaced. If not recovered, the expedition to the north of the island
must be abandoned. In this strait Garnier despatched a messenger back to
Oundo, asking the old chief to come to the rescue with all his tribe. "I
did not count in vain," says he, "upon the generosity of this man, for
very soon I saw him approach, followed by the young people of his
tribe." He listened to the recital of the misfortune with every sign of
sympathy.

"Oundo," said M. Garnier, "I expect that you will once more show your
well-tried friendship for the French people by rendering me a great
service. Do you think you can recover these things for me?"

"Oundo will try," replied the chief simply. He then addressed his people
and gave his commands. In a moment, and with a loud cry of approbation
and good-will, they dashed into the water and swam out to the scene of
disaster.

It is a fine sight to see these natives of Oceanica, the best swimmers
in the world, darting under the water like bronze tritons. They
generally swim beneath the surface, coming up from time to time to
breathe, and shaking the water from their thick curly hair. M. Garnier
followed the natives on the log that had served as a lifeboat, and to
encourage them by example undressed and threw himself into the water.
The work commenced. Twenty or thirty feet is not much of a dive for a
South Sea Islander. Every minute the divers brought up some object with
a shout of triumph. They were in their element, and so spiritedly did
they undertake the task that women, and even the children, dived to the
bottom and constantly brought up some small object. The three guns of
the men, their trappings, the heavy box of zoological specimens, all the
instruments, were brought up in succession. Even the sole cooking-pot of
the expedition and the tin plates were recovered. The work occupied some
six hours. M. Garnier thanked the chief and his brave people, who when
the work was finished returned to their huts as quietly as they came.
And this chief was the man who had sold his daughter for a keg of
brandy!

Another chief, named Bourarte, the head of a great tribe near Hienguène,
deserves a few words. He was a chief of very superior experience and
intelligence. He had studied civilization diligently, enjoyed the
society of Europeans and knew that his people were barbarians. His story
is a most touching one. He said: "I always loved the English. They
treated me as a chief, and paid me honestly for all they received. One
day I consented to go with them to their great city of Sydney. It was
there that I learned the weakness of my people. I was well received
everywhere, but I longed to return. It was with pleasure that I saw
again our mountains and heard the joyful cries of welcome from my tribe.
About that time your people came. I paid little attention to them at
first, but because one of my men killed a Kanacka who was a protégé of
the missionaries there came a great ship (the Styx) into my port. The
captain sent for me. I went on board without fear, but my confidence was
betrayed. I was made a prisoner and transported to Tahiti. It was six
years before I saw my tribe again: they had already mourned me as dead.
I will tell you what happened in my absence. My people prepared for
vengeance: the French were apprised of the fact. They came again. And as
my people, filled with curiosity, flocked to the shore, the French fired
their cannon into the crowd. My people were frightened and fled into the
woods. Your soldiers landed, and for three days they burned our huts,
destroyed our plantations and cut down our cocoa trees. And all this
time," added the old chief with a heavy sigh, "I was a prisoner at
Tahiti, braiding baskets to gain a little food, and the grief that I
suffered whitened my head before the time."

[Illustration: A KANACKA FAMILY TRAVELING.]

After a long pause, during which the old Bourarte seemed lost in
thought, he said, "It is true that my people revenged themselves. They
killed a good many, and among them one of your chiefs. What is most
strange about this war is, that three English colonists, who lived
peacefully among us by their commerce and fishing, were taken by the
French and shot. Another Englishman, Captain Paddon, to whom I had sold
many a cargo of sandal-wood, on learning the fate of his compatriots,
fled on board a little boat with one Kanacka and a few provisions, got
out to sea, and, as I have been told, actually gained the port of
Sydney." This, it seems, is a historical fact. It was a boat without a
deck, and the distance is three hundred and sixty marine miles!

The result of the exploring mission of M. Garnier was not a discovery of
gold-mines, as so many had hoped. He is of the opinion that gold
deposits are scarce in the island. His report of the natives is on the
whole favorable, and confirms the testimony of missionaries and others,
that they are superior savages, easily civilized and Christianized, but
from some cause or combination of causes fast dying out before the
advance of civilization. In some respects they are less rude than other
South Sea Islanders, but they treat their women in much the same way. M.
Garnier gives us a photograph of a New Caledonia family on the road, the
head of the family, a big, stolid brute apparently, burdened only with
his club, while his wife staggers along under the combined load of
sugar-canes, yams, dried fishes and other provisions.

A more revolting, but also, happily, a far rarer sight, was that of a
cannibal banquet, of which M. Garnier was a concealed witness. The scene
was a thicket in the wildest portion of the country, and only the chiefs
of the tribe, which had just gained a victory over its enemies, took
part in the feast. A blazing fire threw its bright glare on a dozen
figures seated around huge banana-leaves, on which were spread the
smoking viands of the diabolical repast. A disgusting odor was wafted
toward the spot where our Frenchman and his companions lay perdu,
enchained by a horrible fascination which produced the sensation of
nightmare. Directly in front of them was an old chief with long white
beard and wrinkled skin, who gnawed a head still covered with the singed
hair. Thrusting a pointed stick into the eye-sockets, he contrived to
extract a portion of the brain, afterward placing the skull in the
hottest part of the fire, and thus separating the bones to obtain a
wider aperture. The click of a trigger close to his ear recalled M.
Garnier to his senses, and arresting the arm of his sergeant, who,
excited to indignation, had brought his musket to his shoulder, he
hurried from a scene calculated, beyond all others, to thrill the nerves
and curdle the blood of a civilized spectator.




AN AMERICAN GIRL AND HER LOVERS.


In the spring of 1869 I was induced, for the sake of rest and
recreation, to take charge of a young American girl during a tour in
Europe. This young girl was Miss Helen St. Clair of Detroit, Michigan.
We two were by no means strangers. She had been my pupil since the time
when she was the prettiest little creature that ever wore a scarlet
hood. I have a little picture, scarlet hood and all, that I would not
exchange for the most beautiful one that Greuze ever painted. Not that
her face bore any resemblance to the pictures of Greuze. It had neither
the sweet simplicity of the girl in "The Broken Pitcher," nor the
sentimental graces which he bestows on his court beauties. It was an
exceedingly piquant, animated face, never at rest, always kindling,
flashing, gleaming, whether with sunlight or lightning. Her movements
were quick and darting, like those of a humming-bird. Her enunciation,
though perfectly distinct, was marvelously rapid. The same quickness
characterized her mental operations. Her conclusions, right or wrong,
were always instantaneous. Her prompt decisiveness, her talent for
mimicry and her witchery of grace and beauty won her a devoted following
of school-girls, to whom her tastes and opinions were as authoritative
as ever were those of Eugénie to the ladies of her court. School-girls,
like college-boys, are very apt in nicknames, and Helen's was the
"Little Princess," which her pretty, imperious ways made peculiarly
appropriate.

I do not know how her parents dared trust her to me for a year beyond
the sea, but they did. We set off in high enthusiasm, and Helen was full
of mirth and laughter till we were fairly on board the steamer in New
York harbor, when she threw herself on her father's breast with a
gesture of utter abandonment that would have made the fortune of a
débutante on any stage in the world. It was so unlooked-for that we all
broke down, and Mr. St. Clair was strongly inclined to take her home
with him. But so sudden was she in all her moods that his foot had
scarcely touched the shore before she was again radiant with
anticipation.

I will not linger on the pleasant summer travel, the Rhine majesty, the
Alpine glory. September saw us established in the city of cities--Paris.
Everywhere we had met throngs of Americans. Neighbors from over the way
in our own city greeted us warmly in most unexpected places. But we had
not crossed the ocean merely to see our own countrymen. In Paris we were
determined to eschew hotels and pensions and to become the inmates of a
French home. Everybody told us this would be impossible, but I find
nothing so stimulating as the assertion that a thing can't be done. Two
weeks of eager inquiry, and we were received into a family which could
not have been more to our wish if it had been created expressly for us.
It was that of Monsieur Le Fort, a professor in the Medical College, a
handsome elderly man with the bit of red ribbon coveted by Frenchmen in
his buttonhole. Madame Le Fort, a charming, graceful woman midway
between thirty and forty, and a pretty daughter of seventeen, completed
the family. With great satisfaction we took possession of the pretty
rooms, all white and gold, that overlooked the Rond Point des Champs
Élysées.

My little princess had found a prince in her own country, and,
considering the laws of attraction, his sudden appearance in Paris ought
not to have been a surprise to her. But, to his discomfiture, and even
anger, Helen refused to see him. She had bidden him good-bye at home,
she said; they would not be married for three years, if they ever were:
she was going to devote herself to her music; and she did not wish to
see him here. When he had completed his studies and their engagement was
announced (it was only a mutual understanding now) there would be time
enough to see each other at home. Excellent reasoning! but a fortnight
later a tiny hand slipped between my eyes and the _Figaro_ a little
note on which I read:

"DEAR FRED: I think I should like to say good-bye again.

"Yours, HELEN."

The dark eyes looked half shyly, half coaxingly into mine.

"Well," said I, "Katrine will mail it for you."

The next day I saw for the first time Mr. Frederic Denham. He was tall
and slender; with a sallow complexion, rather dull gray eyes and black
hair, by no means handsome, but sufficiently well-looking to please a
friendly eye. In his manners there was a coldness and reserve which
passed for haughtiness. He was said to possess great talents and
ambition, and Helen had the fullest belief in his genius and success.
Not Goethe himself was a greater man in her eyes.

I had frequent opportunities of seeing them together, for, according to
French ideas, nothing is more improper than to leave a young man and
woman a moment by themselves. Was it my fancy that he seemed too much
absorbed in himself, too little sensible of the rare good-fortune which
made him the favored lover of the beautiful Miss St. Clair? It might be
so, but others shared it.

"What ails the American?" asked Madame Le Fort. "Is it possible that he
is not in love with that fascinating young creature? Or are all your
countrymen so cold and inanimate? Elle est ravissante, adorable! I
cannot comprehend it."

"Probably," I replied, "he has too much reserve and delicacy to make a
display of his feelings in the presence strangers."

But I was not satisfied. The more I watched them, the more I perceived a
lack of deference to her opinions and respect for her judgment--an
irritating assumption of superior wisdom, as if he had worn the visible
inscription, "I will accept homage, but not suggestions. Offer incense
and be content." Would the little princess be content? I saw symptoms of
rebellion.

"Do _you_ think I am a little fool, Madame Fleming?" she asked with
heightened color and impetuous tone, turning suddenly to me while they
were conversing apart one evening.

November came, and we were launched on the full tide of Parisian
society. Mr. Denham had gone to Germany to complete certain scientific
studies, and he left his fair betrothed with a parting injunction not to
dance with any foreigner. As well shut her up in a cell! Nowhere is
there such a furore for dancing as in Paris. Every family has its weekly
reception, and every card of invitation bears in the corner, "On
dansera." These receptions are the freest and gayest imaginable. Any
person who has the entrée of the house comes when he feels inclined.
Introductions are not indispensable as with us: any gentleman may ask a
lady to dance with him, whether he has been formally presented or not,
and it would be an affront to decline except for a previous engagement.
The company assemble about ten, and often dance till three or four in
the morning. In any one house we see nearly the same people once a week
for the whole winter, and such frequent companionship gives a feeling of
intimacy. It is surprising how many French men and French women have
some special artistic talent, dramatic or musical, and with what ready
good-humor each contributes to the entertainment of the rest. In every
assembly, with all its sparkle of youth and gayety, there is a
background of mature age; but though a card-room is generally open, it
never seems to draw many from the salons de danse.

In these salons the little princess entered, at once upon her royalty.
Her dancing was the poetry of motion. She sang, and the most brilliant
men hung over her enraptured. "She was like Adelina Patti," they said,
"but of a more perfect and delicate type of beauty. What wonderful eyes,
with the long thick lashes veiling Oriental depths of liquid light! How
the music trickled from her fingers, and poured from her small throat
like the delicious warble of a nightingale! What a loss to art that her
position precluded her from singing in the opera! Not Malibran or Grisi
ever had triumphs that would equal hers." Eminent painters wished to
make a study of her face. Authors who had received the prizes of the
Academy for grave historical works sent her adulatory verses. "May
I--flirtation--wid you--loavely meess?" asked one of "the immortal
forty," displaying his English.

It grew rather annoying. I was importuned with questions, such as "Will
you receive proposals of marriage for Miss St. Clair?" "What is her
dowry?" "Are you entrusted to find a husband for her abroad?" I was
tired of answering, "Miss St. Clair will probably marry in her own
country." "Her parents would be very reluctant to consent to any foreign
marriage." "I cannot tell what Mr. St. Clair will give his daughter. It
is not the custom to give dowries with us, as with you."

One evening we saw at Madame Le Fort's reception a young man so
distinguished in appearance that he was known as "le beau Vergniaud." He
was six feet in height and well made, with abundant chestnut hair, dark
hazel eyes, clearly-cut, regular features, and a complexion needlessly
fine for a man. From that time he was invariably present, not only at
Madame Le Fort's, but wherever we went.

One day Helen said to me, "I made a silly speech last evening. I was
dancing with M. Vergniaud, and we were talking of that charming Madame
de Launay. I said, 'I should think she might be happy, having an elegant
house in Paris, a château in the country, and such a handsome husband so
devoted to her.' And he rejoined instantly, very low, 'My dear Miss St.
Clair, can I not give you all this?' It was not fair to take advantage
of me in that way."

"What did you say?"

"Oh, I laughed it off. I did not think he was in earnest, but he spoke
to me again before he went away."

That afternoon Madame Le Fort came into my room with the look of one who
has something important to communicate. "I have been wishing to see
you," she said. "M. Vergniaud has taken me into his confidence. He has
formed a serious attachment to Miss St. Clair, and wishes to make her
his wife. It is a splendid alliance," she continued, warming with her
theme: "if he had asked for my daughter I would give her to him
blindfold. He belongs to one of our old families. You should see his
house on the Avenue de Montaigne. Have you never seen him driving with
his superb horses in the Bois de Boulogne? He has an estate with a fine
old château in Touraine, a family inheritance. His character and habits
are unexceptionable too," she added by way of parenthesis. "It is not
often that you find all that in a man of twenty-six. So handsome
besides!"

"True," said I, "but you forget Mr. Denham."

"On the contrary, I remember him too well to conceive the possibility of
his being a rival to René Vergniaud."

"But did you mention him to M. Vergniaud?"

"Yes, and he was greatly disturbed at first, but when I told him that he
had no expectation of marrying for two or three years to come, he
laughed and said it was of no importance. M. Vergniaud would like to be
married in a few weeks, as is the custom with us, but I suppose it will
take longer to adjust the preliminaries on account of her parents being
across the Atlantic. What dowry has my little jewel?" (The inevitable
question, always put with as much simplicity and directness as if one
were asking the time of day.)

"I do not know," I replied. "It is so contrary to all our notions. I do
not think there is a man in America who in asking a father for the hand
of his daughter would inquire how much money he was to have with her. It
would be considered an insult."

"Perhaps Mr. St. Clair would prefer to settle an annuity on his
daughter. Is that the way the thing is managed in your country?"

"It is not managed at all. A man gives his daughter what he likes, or he
gives her nothing but her bridal outfit. It is never a condition of the
marriage."

"How strange all that is! One can hardly believe it in France. We set by
a sum of money for Clarice's dowry almost as soon as she was born, and
it would be a hard necessity that could compel us to diminish it by a
single sou. If you would like it, in a couple of days I can give you an
exact inventory of all M. Vergniaud's property and possessions. I could
guarantee that it will not vary twenty napoleons from the fact. We do
everything so systematically here."

"Thanks! I think it will hardly be necessary. I do not know that Helen
likes him particularly."

"Nobody admires that little paragon more than I--I should be frantically
in love with her if I were a man--but she had better think twice before
rejecting such a _parti_ as René Vergniaud, especially if she has
no dowry. You will surely not permit her to do so without communicating
with her father? He will understand her interests better."

"In this case I shall let her do just as she pleases, as her father
would if he were here."

Madame Le Fort's look of amazed incredulity was truly comical. What
ought I to do? I queried. On the whole, I decided to do the easiest
thing--wait.

The next day I was honored with a call from M. Vergniaud. He believed
that Madame Le Fort had spoken to me of his profound attachment to the
lovely Miss St. Clair--the most passionate, the most devoted. Might he
hope for my influence with her father and mother? The matter of dowry
was indifferent to him: his income was sufficiently large, and, alas! he
had no parents to consult. Would I favor him with Mr. St. Clair's
address and a few words of introduction to him? He should be under
everlasting obligations to me, and if there was anything he could do to
show his gratitude, his appreciation--

I interrupted these protestations: "I doubt if Mr. St. Clair would
consent to any marriage which would separate him from his daughter,
however advantageous it might be in other respects."

"My dear madame, who asks it? I have no business or profession: we could
easily spend a part of every year in America if it were desirable."

"That would certainly make it easier, but it will be better to defer
writing till we have some intimation of Miss St. Clair's sentiments. Her
father will be guided chiefly by her inclination."

"It is a nice country for young girls, America," said he with a smile.
"I shall do all that is possible to win Miss St. Clair's favor, for life
would be worthless without her." And he bowed himself gracefully out.

Is it possible that Helen will be indifferent to this young Antinous?
thought I. Poor Mr. Denham would have small chance with me if I were in
her place.

An hour later the concierge sent up to me an exquisite bouquet of
violets and white camellias, with the card of René Vergniaud and a
folded note: "If Madame Fleming does not think it improper, will she be
so kind as to give these flowers to my beautiful queen?"

M. Vergniaud had asked Madame Le Fort's permission to call on Miss St.
Clair. "Certainly not," she replied. "I am astounded at such
presumption! But you may call to see _me_. To-morrow evening we go
to the opera, and Wednesday to Madame Perier's, and Thursday is my
reception, and Friday we have tickets to _Phèdre_ at the Français.
Saturday, then: it is the first evening we have free."

We were all assembled in the salon as usual after dinner when M.
Vergniaud was announced. The little princess was radiant. She had never
been merrier in a school-girl frolic or more ready with gibe and jest
and laughter. She sang her best songs, putting her whole soul into
them--"Si tu savais comme je l'aime." René Vergniaud was so dazed that
he came near bidding farewell to his senses for ever. He evidently
thought that all this brilliancy was for him, and was in such a rapture
of delight that he never noticed Madame Le Fort's repeated glances at
the clock, and was only roused by the polite invitation to come
_again_. He was not too disconcerted to make a charming apology,
like a true Parisian, and tore himself away.

Late as it was, as soon as we were in our own little parlor I could not
forbear saying, "I was surprised at you to-night, Helen. How
_could_ you run on so? Madame Le Turc there, too! and you know the
young French girls never open their lips to say more than 'Oui,
monsieur'--'Non, monsieur,' to a gentleman. What will M. Vergniaud
think?"

"I don't care what he thinks," flinging herself down on an ottoman with
her head in my lap; "but I _do_ care what you think, Madame
Fleming. Did I behave so very badly? I didn't mean to, but I was
resolved he should not get a chance to talk any nonsense to-night; and
he _did_, after all. I hate being made love to before a whole room
full. I _had_ to laugh or else cry." And the little fairy dissolved
in a shower of tears, like another Undine.

Another week went by. On Saturday afternoon Helen asked, "Will you be so
kind as to take me to the little Protestant church beyond the Arc
d'Étoile this evening, Madame Fleming? I should like so much to hear
that good M. Bercier."

"So should I. But you have not forgotten that M. Vergniaud will be
here."

"I am under no obligation to entertain Madame Le Fort's callers."

"But you know, Helen, that he comes for your sake. It is well for you to
consider that the future Madame Vergniaud will have in some respects a
more brilliant position than perhaps any man in our country could offer
you."

"I know all that, and I don't pretend to say that I should not like it.
I am ashamed of being so worldly, but to have a superb establishment and
all this charming Parisian society, and give a grand ball whenever I
liked, would be just paradise. And to have it all in my grasp, and not
be able to take it, is too aggravating. It is so vexatious that the
right man never has the right things."

We went to church. M. Vergniaud called, but recollected an engagement
which took him away early. Monday evening he dropped in again just after
dinner: "Do not let me derange you in the least, je vous en prie,
madame. I come early because I am engaged to three balls to-night."

Miss St. Clair could hardly have been more mute and statue-like if she
had been born and bred in France, where in the presence of gentlemen
young girls silently adhere to their brilliant mothers, whose wit and
grace and social tact make the charm of the Parisian salons. Apparently,
the French consider that the combined attractions of youthful faces and
sprightly conversation would be too much for any man, and mercifully
divide the two. And this leaves them helpless before a little American
girl, laughing, talking, jesting, teasing, till, bewildered by such a
phenomenon, they are swept down so easily that one is reminded of
Attila's taunt to the Romans, "The thicker the grass, the quicker it is
mowed."

This social etiquette was very irksome to my little firefly, who seemed
always opening and shutting her wings. In the course of the evening M.
Vergniaud slipped into her hand, unperceived by any of us, a closed
envelope with the whisper, "Put it in your pocket. Do not let any one
see you."

She opened it deliberately: "M. Vergniaud is so kind as to give me his
photograph, Madame Fleming. Do you think it a good likeness?"

The mystery which French people are fond of attaching to harmless
trifles is inconceivable. One evening, in the earlier part of our stay
in Paris, a cousin of Miss St. Clair's, who was in the same hotel with
Mr. Denham, called on us, and when he was taking leave she held out an
unsealed note: "Will you give this to Fred? Don't forget it."

Madame Le Fort was thunderstruck: "Is it possible? Send a note to a
young gentleman right before Madame Fleming and all of us!"

"Why," said I, "do young people never write notes to each other in
France?"  "Not openly like that--little three-cornered notes to slip
into the hand while dancing."

"This is the way to fold them," said Clarice, taking up a small sheet of
paper. "You see that will just fit into the hollow of the hand, and
nobody could ever see it."

"I like our way much better. What is done openly is not half so
mischievous."

"Nor half so interesting," rejoined Clarice.

The nimble hours danced on, as they had a trick of doing in Madame Le
Fort's salon. "I am afraid you forget the three balls, M. Vergniaud."

"How can you be so cruel, mademoiselle? I shall only make my compliments
to the hostess and dance one set at each. I never do more except when I
come here."

A few days later I asked Helen, "Have you made up your mind what answer
to give M. Vergniaud? He intends to write to your father. He was
speaking to me about it again to-day."

"I won't have him writing to my father," she replied with her wonted
impetuosity. "I will not have my father worried about nothing. It would
be a month before I could set it right."

"He seems to be very much in love with you. He says he shall be in
despair, wretched for ever, if you reject him."

"So they all say. I don't believe a word of it, and I can't help it if
they are. I can't marry more than one of them, and I don't believe I
shall ever marry anybody. I won't be persecuted to death."

The little princess was irritated. Something had evidently gone wrong.
It soon came out: "I had a letter from Fred this morning--a very
disagreeable letter."

"Indeed! You have not yet answered it, I suppose."

"No: he will have to write differently from that before he gets any
answer from me. I am not going to be lessoned and scolded as if I were a
little girl. Father never does it, and I will not submit to it from
_him_" After a pause: "He is not so much to blame. It is that
odious Mr. Wilkins, who keeps writing to him how much attention I
receive, and all that. As if I could help it! Poor old Fred! We have
known each other ever since we were children."

That explains it, I thought. "Helen, if you have decided to say no to M.
Vergniaud, the sooner you say it the better."

"I have said it, and he doesn't mind it in the least. I wish you would
tell him: you always speak so that people know you are in earnest and
can't help believing you."

"Very well, Helen. I will ask Madame Le Fort to tell him that his suit
is hopeless, and that he must not annoy you by persisting in it."

Early in February the Belgian ambassador, M. le comte de Beyens, and
Madame la comtesse, kindly took charge of Miss St. Clair to the imperial
ball at the Tuileries. She had never looked more charming than in the
exquisite costume of pale rose-colored faille, with a floating mist of
white tulle, caught here and there by rosebuds that might have grown in
Chrimhild's garden. The airy figure, so graceful in every motion, the
well-poised head with its flutter of shining curls, the wonderful dark
eyes, the perfect eyebrows, the delicious little mouth where love seemed
to nestle--when she had vanished "it seemed like the ceasing of
exquisite music." Madame la comtesse congratulated me on her appearance,
and afterward on her success. The emperor had distinguished her in a
very flattering manner, and Eugénie, looking earnestly at her, said to
the comtesse, "Nothing is so beautiful as youth," perhaps beginning to
regret her own. No one had made so decided a sensation.

At Madame Le Fort's next reception there was a sudden influx of new
guests--a young Belgian baron of old historic name, slim and stiff as a
poker; a brisk French viscount, who told me that he had been connected
with the embassy at Washington, and had quite fallen in love with our
institutions; an Italian chevalier, a Russian prince.

Ugliness has its compensations, thought I. Nobody makes such a fuss over
a pretty girl at home (they are not so uncommon), and I will never bring
one to Paris again. Thank Heaven! we are going to Italy soon.

       *       *       *       *       *

The piercing Tramontane came down upon us in the Bay of Naples with so
fierce a blast that we doubted if we were not in Iceland, and were glad
to make our escape to Rome, where we found an asylum in the Hôtel de
Minerve, not far from the Pantheon. Many of the old palaces and convents
of Italy have been transformed into hotels. This was the ancient palace
of the princes of Conti. I was so captivated by the superb dining-room
that the quality of the dinners made but a faint impression. What! eat
in the presence of all those marble goddesses, looking down upon us,
serene and cold, as if from their thrones on the starry Olympus! Or if I
turned my eyes resolutely away from Juno, Ceres and Minerva, they were
sure to be snared by the dancing-girls of Pompeii stepping out from the
frescoed walls, or inextricably entangled in the lovely garlands of
fruit and flowers that wound their mazy way along the borders.

One evening, while we were waiting for one of the endless courses of a
table-d'hôte dinner, my wandering eyes were caught by the most perfect
human head I had ever seen. It seemed that of the youthful Lord Byron,
so well known in busts and engravings--the same small head with high
forehead and clustering dark-brown curls, the perfectly-moulded chin,
the full, ripe beauty of the lips. The eyes were a deep blue, but I
thought them black at first, they were so darkly shaded by the thick
black lashes. I am convinced that Byron must have had just such eyes,
for some of his biographers describe them as black and others as blue.
When he rose from the table I saw a slight, well-knit figure of
exquisite proportions, like the Greek god of love. (Not Cupid with his
vulgar arrows, but the true heavenly Eros. I saw him once in the Museum
at Naples, and again in the Vatican. Is it Love, or Death, or
Immortality? I queried, and then I knew it was the three in one.) I soon
learned that the youth whose ideal beauty had impressed me so strongly
was the Count Francisco de Alvala of Toledo in Spain. I fancy that his
eyes were as easily attracted to beauty as mine, for the next day he was
my _vis-à-vis_ at table; not for the sake of looking at me, I was
well aware, but on account of my beautiful neighbor. However, he sought
my acquaintance with the grave courtesy becoming a grandee of Spain, and
naturally gained that of Miss St. Clair also.

It is the most natural thing in the world to make acquaintances in Rome.
People talk together of the things they have seen or wish to see: they
go to the same places by day, and in the evening they meet in the
ladies' parlor to compare their impressions. The young count never
failed to join us in the evening. He had always something to show
us--prints of his home in Spain, articles of _virtù_ that he had
bought, sketches that he had made, for he was a good amateur artist.

A group of young people of different nations generally collected on
these occasions, and the conversation often turned on the usages
peculiar to their respective countries.

"In Spain I could not greet a lady with a simple good-evening," said the
count. "I should say, 'Permit the humblest of your servants to lay
himself at your feet,' or something like that."

"Why do you not say it to us?" asked a bright-eyed Canadian girl.

"Well, it might be a little awkward if you should happen to take it
literally. In Spain it is the merest commonplace."

"If such exaggerated phrases are frittered into commonplaces, and the
most impassioned words grow meaningless, what can a Spanish gentleman
find to say when his heart is really touched?" I inquired.

"I fancy we should find some very simple words to say it in," said the
boy, flushing like a girl. "But I do not know--I have never learned."

"Talk some more," commanded the little princess.

"If a pretty young lady is walking in our streets a mantle is often
flung suddenly in her way, and proud and happy is its owner if she
deigns to set her dainty foot upon it."

"What do they do that for? Because the streets are so muddy?" inquired
an obtuse young woman. But nobody volunteered to enlighten her.

"Cannot we go to Spain?" asked Miss St. Clair. "I should like to see a
modern Sir Walter Raleigh."

"If the señorita should appear in our streets they would be strewn with
mantles," said the young count gallantly.

"Would you throw down yours for me to step upon?"

"Surely, señorita."

"I'll come, then. It must be of velvet, mind."

"Yes, studded with jewels."

I loved the beautiful youth. His presence was like a poem in my life,
and if it ever occurred to me that the familiar intercourse of the young
people might not be altogether prudent, I dismissed it with the thought,
He is only a boy.

There was to be an illumination of the Coliseum. We were going of
course, and Count Alvala begged that I would honor him by making use of
his carriage on this occasion. "Thank you, but I have already spoken to
Piero to come for us."

"Oh, but we can send him away. You will find my carriage more
comfortable, and it will be in every way pleasanter," he urged
beseechingly; but my negative was peremptory.

Eight o'clock came. Miss St. Clair and I descended to the court of the
hotel, but where was Piero? "It is singular. He was never late before,
but I am confident that he will be here presently. We have only to wait
a little."

The minutes went by, and they were long minutes. It was awkward waiting
in so public a place. The count had joined us with his friend, an
Italian marquis some thirty years of age, with whom we had a slight
acquaintance. The count's handsome equipage was drawn up near us. There
was no Piero.

"I really think you had better accept my young friend's carriage. It
would be a pity to miss so grand a spectacle," said the marquis.

We entered the carriage. The count wrapped us in a magnificent feather
robe, such as the Montezumas wore, for the April nights in Rome are
chill, however hot the sunshine. It was strange to see the Forum,
ordinarily solitary and desolate, now thronged with an eager multitude
on foot and with numerous open carriages, in which were seated ladies in
full dress as at the opera with us. Arriving at the Coliseum, we left
the carriage and passed through the huge portal. The gloomy arches were
obscurely seen in the dusky Roman twilight, when suddenly, as if by
magic, every arch and crevice of the gigantic ruin glowed, incarnadined,
as if dyed with the blood of the martyrs that had drenched its soil.
There were salvos of artillery, bursts of military music and a few vivas
from the multitude. A brilliant spectacle, but the tender beauty of
moonlight harmonizes better with the solemnity of ruins.

Rapt in the memories that the scene awakened, I paid little attention to
the monologue of my Italian friend, when I was suddenly roused by the
question, "Did you ever see a prettier couple?"

"Who?" I asked absently.

"There," he rejoined, pointing to the count and Miss St. Clair, who
preceded us.

"He is too young," I replied, but the question was asked so
significantly that it disturbed me a little, and I resolved to be more
cautious than heretofore.

The next morning Piero appeared with his carriage to take us to the
Baths of Caracalla. He hoped madame did not lose the illumination. He
was wretched to disappoint madame: he begged a thousand pardons. His
little boy was taken violently ill: he was forced to go for the doctor;
madame was so good.

The truth flashed upon me: "Piero, how much did the count give you to
stay away last night?"

A gleam of humor twinkled in his black eyes, but it was speedily
quenched: "I do not understand what madame wishes to say."

It happened that a friend and country-woman at our hotel was taken ill
with typhoid fever, and amid the anxieties of her sick room the
incipient love-affair was almost forgotten. I no longer spent the
evenings in the parlor. One day Miss St. Clair showed me a tiny satin
bag beautifully embroidered, with a soft silken chain to pass around the
neck. "What can it be for?" she asked.

"Why, Helen, it is an amulet. Where did you get it?"

"The count gave it to me. He had the loveliest set of Byzantine mosaics
and pearls which he wished to give me; and when I would not accept them
he seemed so hurt that I did not like to refuse this trifle. What do you
suppose is in it."

"A relic of some saint, without doubt. He thinks it will protect you
from fever perhaps."

Like most Americans, we were desirous of seeing the pope, and Count
Alvala obtained for us the necessary permission. We were to be received
on a Saturday at eleven. We went in the prescribed costume, black silk,
with the picturesque Roman veil thrown over the head. From the foot of
the Scala Regia, (Royal Staircase) one of the papal guard, in a motley
suit which seemed one glare of black and yellow, escorted us to the door
of a long corridor, known as the Loggia of Raphael, where we were
received by a higher official in rich array of crimson velvet. About
seventy persons were seated in rows, facing each other, along this
gallery, nearly all laden with rosaries to be blessed by the Holy
Father. We waited till my neck ached with looking up at the exquisite
frescoes, fresh and tender in coloring as if new from the hand of the
master, when the pope appeared, attended by a cardinal on each hand. We
fell on our knees instantly, but not till I had seen an old man's face
so sweet and venerable as to make this act of etiquette a spontaneous
homage. He passed slowly down the line, saying a word or two to each,
and extending his hand, white and soft like a woman's, to be kissed.

Pausing by the young count, who was kneeling beside me, he said
impressively, "Courage and faith have always been attributes of the
house of Alvala. Your fathers were good children of the Church, and you,
my son, will not be wanting in any of the qualities of your race."

When he had passed us we rose from our knees, and I could observe him
more closely. He wore a close-fitting white cap on his finely-shaped
head; a long robe of white woolen cloth buttoned up in front, with a
small cape of the same material; a white sash, gold-embroidered at the
end; a long gold chain around his neck, to which was attached a large
golden cross; a seal ring on the third finger of his right hand; and red
slippers. Soft snowy locks fell from under the white skull-cap over a
noble forehead, which years and trials had left unwrinkled. Black
eyebrows and the soft dark eyes made a pleasant contrast to the
whiteness of hair and brow, and his smile was so sweet and winning that
I scarcely wondered to see two Catholic ladies prostrate themselves and
kiss his feet and the hem of his white garment with a rapture of
devotion from which his attendants with difficulty rescued him. He
lingered longest by a pretty boy four or five years old, and there was a
pathos in the caressing, clinging touch of his hand as it rested on the
child's head that called to mind an old love-story of the handsome Count
Mastai Ferretti when he wore the uniform of an officer of the guards,
and had not yet thought of priestly robe or papal crown. I wonder if he
remembers the fair English girl now?

Having completed the round, he made a brief address, the purport of
which was that he was about to give us his blessing, and he wished that
it might be diffused to all our families and friends, and be not for the
present moment only, but extend through our whole lives and abide with
us in the hour of death; "But remember," said he with a kind of paternal
benignity, "that the gates of paradise open rarely to any who are
without the communion of the Holy Catholic Church. Sometimes
perhaps--sometimes--but with great difficulty." He extended his hands.
We dropped on our knees and received the blessing of this benign old
man, whom the larger part of Christendom revere as the earthly head of
the Church.  As we were making our way through the stately columns of
the colonnade which forms the approach to the Vatican I saw the count
glance at the amulet which Helen wore. "What is in it?" I asked.

"A relic of the blessed Saint Francis, my patron," he replied.

"It will lose its efficacy on the neck of a little heretic like Miss St.
Clair," said I with a purpose.

"It will do her no harm," said he coldly.

Monday I was at the table d'hôte the first time for a week. I found the
count seated next to Miss St. Clair. It was very simple, she explained
to me afterward. A lady occupied his seat one day, and he came round to
the only vacant one, which happened to be next hers. I am a very
guileless person, but I think Vincenzo had an excellent reason for
letting it happen. Helen was on my left hand as usual, and the Italian
marquis on my right.

"I am sorry for that boy," said he to me: "he is very unhappy."

"The young count? What is the matter?"

"Don't you see? He is madly in love with your bewitching little
American. It is his first impression, and he takes it hard. Well, he
will have to learn like the rest of us."

"I hope you are mistaken;" and I glanced uneasily at my young neighbors,
who were too much absorbed in their own conversation to heed that
between the marquis and myself.

"That is impossible. He raves to me about her. It is very pretty too--a
perfect idyl, all poetry and romance--eternal, unchangeable, and all
that boyish nonsense. We older men know better. But monsignore will be
here soon, and he will look after him."

"Who is monsignore?"

"The archbishop of Toledo, his guardian. He has been here, but some
diocesan matter called him home. He will be back anon, and then the
count will dine at home. As to that, he does now, and delicious dinners
they are, too. He only makes a pretence of eating here, just to have a
chance to see his little divinity."

"He was here when we came."

"True, but only for a day or two while his house was put in order. The
house is well worth seeing--one of the finest on the Corso. It is not
open to strangers, but if you would like to see it--"

"Certainly not," I interrupted, a little irritably, the more so from the
consciousness of having been a somewhat careless chaperone. I was coming
sharply up to the line of duty now, at all events.

"Helen," said I when we rose from the dinner-table, "do not go into the
parlor now. Come into my room a little while, please.--Well, Helen," I
resumed when we were seated by the pleasant window, "I have seen so
little of you for a week past that you must have a great deal to tell
me."

"I do not know," she replied. "I have been out every day with the
Glenns, just as you arranged for me, and I have been in the parlor in
the evenings, and sometimes I sang, and one night there was a French
gentleman--"

"How about the young count? The Italian says he is very much in love
with you. Do you know it?"

"He has told me so often enough, if that is knowing it," with a quick,
impatient toss of the small, graceful head.

"Oh, Helen!" I cried in real distress, "and what did you say to him?"

"Why, what _could_ I say in that great parlor, with everybody
looking on? I just hushed him up as well as I could. There is the tall
English girl and that sharp-eyed Miss Donaldson, who are watching us the
whole time. It is real mean in them," excitedly. "And the count doesn't
mind letting everybody know how much he admires me. In fact, he is proud
of it, like one of the old knights, who used to wear their ladies'
favors as openly and proudly as they bore their knightly banners."

"This will never do, Helen. Don't you see that this boy is not like the
gay Frenchman that you danced with last winter? René Vergniaud was a man
of the world: he could take care of himself. But this beautiful boy,
with his intensity of feeling, his ideal passionate love--You must not
play with him," I exclaimed vehemently.

"I am not playing with him: I never do anything to make him like me. He
comes and talks to me, and I just make myself as agreeable to him as I
can, that is all."

That is all, is it, you little mischief? thought I. As if that were not
the very refinement of coquetry! But I prudently refrained from saying
it, for a tempest of hot tears began to fall, and she sobbed, "Oh,
Madame Fleming, I did not think I was going to forfeit your good
opinion. What can I do? I can't help his liking me. I like him too, and
that makes me feel so badly."

"Do you like him better than Mr. Denham?"

"Better than Fred?" in a tone of surprise. "Why no, of course not: I
have known Fred always."

"The best thing will be to tell him of Mr. Denham."

"Oh no, I never can."

"_I_ will, then."

"Don't, I beseech you. We shall go away soon, and that will be the end
of it. Promise me you will not. I would rather tell him myself if I ever
have a chance."

I looked in to see my invalid friend, and then descended to the parlor,
where I found the young count almost alone. He looked up eagerly as I
entered: "I thought Miss St. Clair was with you. I have been waiting for
her all the evening."

"Indeed!"

"I told her at table that I wished to see her particularly this
evening."

"Perhaps she did not understand you."

"Oh yes, she did. You would not let her come?" with a sudden lighting up
of the expressive face.

"I did not forbid her coming: I did not know that you were waiting for
her."

Then with sudden boyish candor and a happy smile on his animated
countenance "I thought you might have observed that I come here so often
because I like to talk with Miss St. Clair. But you never can know how
dearly I love her."

"I am sorry."

"Why?" with a naïve surprise.

"She is older than you."

"How old is she?"

"She will be twenty in May."

"And I am nineteen this very week. What is one poor little year?--not a
year," gleefully.

"But the difference in religion?"

"An obstacle, I grant, but not an insuperable one. My uncle married an
English lady, a Protestant, and they have been very happy together."

"But I think there is another man," I stammered, surprised at finding my
outposts carried so easily.

"You do not mean to say that she is compromised with any man?" almost
fiercely.

"I do not know what meaning you attach to that word," for the count's
imperfect French was not always intelligible. "There is a young man, the
son of a neighbor, who has admired her a long time."

"Oh, he admires her?" with a curl of the exquisite lips, as if to say,
"Who does not?"

"But I think she may like him a little."

"Why do you torture me so? Tell me at once that they are betrothed,"
cried he, pale with concentrated anger.

He thought she had trifled with him, I knew instantly, but quietly said,
"I cannot tell you exactly in what relation they stand to each other,
but I think Miss St. Clair would if she found an opportunity to speak
with you."

"You do not know how I have tried to make opportunities. I go
everywhere, hoping to see you, and I have never met you--not once. Won't
you ask her to come down to-night?" coaxingly, like a child.

"Not to-night: it is too late."

"I _must_ see Miss St. Clair to-night."

"Impossible."

"I _must_ see Miss St. Clair. Find out for me when I can see her. I
will go with you," in a white heat of passion. (We had been alone for
some little time.)

I took the arm which he held out, not a little agitated by the excess of
emotion which thrilled and quivered through his youthful frame, as he
hurried me up the broad stone staircase and along the wide corridors
that led to our rooms. What business had I to meddle? How should an old
fogy like me know anything of the love-affairs of this generation? The
girl would have managed more wisely than I, I reflected, by no means
jubilant over the result.

"Wait here;" and I walked on to Miss St. Clair's door, opened it, and
there sat Helen in her pretty white wrapper, bathed in the moonlight,
serene as a star, as if there were no passionate young heart breaking in
waves of anguish at her feet. "Helen, the count is in the corridor, and
he will not go till I have told him when you will see him."

"How can I? You must think for me."

A hasty consultation. The count was standing where I had left him: "We
shall be at the Sistine Chapel to-morrow at two o'clock."

He bowed and was gone.

I did not sleep well that night. A pretty person I am to take charge of
a young girl! I wonder what Mr. St. Clair would think if he knew I had
made an appointment for his daughter to meet a young Spaniard? On the
way, however, I admonished Helen, as if no misgiving of my own wisdom
had ever crossed my mind: "You must be firm with him. Tell him so
decidedly that he cannot doubt you really mean it."

"Yes," said she, "but I do dread it so. I can't bear his thinking that I
encouraged him."

"Then you _did_?"

"I didn't mean to, but I do like him; and I didn't think of his taking
it so to heart. Men are so strange! You think you have a charming
friend, and then they _will_ go on just so, boys and all, and you
have to take them or lose them; and you can't take them. It is too bad!"

We were at the door. The keeper opened it, and there stood the count
waiting for us. It was not the first time we had been in the wonderful
chapel. Fortunately, there were very few persons there on this
afternoon--none that we knew. I sat down to look at the grand frescoes:
Helen and the count walked on to the farthest corner. I looked at the
Cumæan Sibyl, the impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I
glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance,
but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart
to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the
Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the
angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the
darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, rising from the earth, because
the outstretched finger of his Creator gave him a conscious strength. I
looked at "The Last Judgment," grown dim with years, till every figure
started out in intensity of life, and it seemed as if the faces would
haunt me for ever.

And yonder still progressed the old, ever-new drama of love and anguish,
with its two actors, who seemed scarcely to have changed their position
or taken their eyes from each other. At length they walked slowly toward
me with more serenity of aspect than I had dared to hope.

"Shall we go into the picture-gallery?" asked the count.

"I think we may have time to walk through it," I answered. "It is
half-past three."

"Is it possible that we have kept you waiting so long?" they asked
simultaneously.

"An hour and a half is a short time in a place like the Sistine Chapel,"
I remarked sententiously.

As soon as we were alone I drew Helen to the confessional: "Did you tell
him about Mr. Denham?"

"Yes, everything, and he was so noble. I am so sorry. The tears stood in
his eyes, and he said, 'I suffer, but I am a man. I can bear it.' Then
he thanked me for dealing so openly with him. He never once hinted a
reproach. And I deserved it," she said with unwonted humility. "I never
felt before how wicked it is to flirt just a little. He is not selfish,
like some people that I know;" and my thought followed hers. "I don't
know but I am a little goose to let him go so. If he were only
twenty-three years old, and I were free--"

The next day we saw nothing of the count, but early Thursday morning
Vincenzo knocked at my door with a note, in which Count Alvala informed
me that he was my son, and begged earnestly to see the beautiful Miss
St. Clair once more: he would never trouble me again. It was the only
day on which we could see the Palace of the Cæsars, and would I be so
good as to permit him to meet us there? I hastily penciled a few words:
"I am waiting for Dr. Valery. I shall probably stay with my sick friend
to-day, and Miss St. Clair will not go out without me," and sent the
line by Vincenzo, happy to be rid of the importunate boy for this time.

Two hours later, when the doctor had pronounced my friend better, and I
had promised Helen a walk amid the ruins of the Palatine, which I did
not like to leave Rome without seeing, I went down to the roll, coffee
and eggs which constitute an Italian breakfast, and there sat the count
as vigilant as a sentinel. "You will go?" said he with a smile.

"I think we may," curtly.

"I shall perhaps meet you there."

When we reached the Farnese gate he was waiting there, which made the
"perhaps" superfluous. We had a long ramble over the lonely hill,
stretching out like a green New England pasture, but where from time to
time we came unexpectedly upon flights of steps which led to massive
substructures of stone, foundations of ancient palaces, and to excavated
halls paved with mosaics and lined with frescoes more beautiful than
those of Pompeii. There were many statues, more or less mutilated, and
stately brick arches laden with a wealth of flowering shrubs, and here
and there thickets of tall dark cypress trees, harmonious with ruins. My
young companions were rather silent, but I fancy their thoughts were not
engrossed with old historic lore. I made a conscientious effort to force
mine into the ruts of association which I had supposed to be inevitable
in such a spot, but the bright sunshine, the delicate blue of the
distant Campagna, the living gladness of earth and air were too strong
for me, and I inwardly applauded a lively American girl who interrupted
her droning guide with the incisive "I don't care a snap for Cæsar."

On reaching the gate after our three hours' ramble I consigned Miss St.
Clair to some friends who were waiting for her, and stepped into the
count's carriage. He seemed to feel bound in honor not to speak of love
to Miss St. Clair since the revelation of the Sistine Chapel, but he
must have a little solace in talking to me about it. "It would be easy,"
said he, "if she were not _fiancée_, but that makes it difficult--very
difficult indeed. I am glad it is not going to be for three years: that
is a long time, a very long time." Then, with a sudden illumination of
face and a delicious intonation of the musical voice, "Perhaps they will
never marry: perhaps it will be another man--I." (Blessed infatuation of
youth, with its wonderful _perhapses_, which never come to maturer
years!)

"One of these years I shall hope to hear that you are married to a
beautiful lady of your own country and your own religion."

"You never will."

"Oh yes, you will be astonished to find how easy it is to forget."

"I come of a constant race," said he proudly. "My father loved my
mother, and they sent him all over the world to forget her, but he came
home in five years and married her."

"Even if it were otherwise possible (which it is not), the difference in
religion ought to prevent it. How could so good a Catholic as you
distress your family by marrying a heretic?"

"Perhaps she would be a Catholic." (I noticed that he did not say,
"Perhaps I shall become a Protestant.") "Don't you think her father
would let her marry a Catholic?"

"No," I replied stoically.

He was silent and dejected.

"You must forget her," said I kindly. "It is only a little while since
you first saw her."

"A little while! It is my whole life!" "Only a few weeks," I continued.
"We shall soon be across the ocean, and you will see other ladies."

"There is only one Miss St. Clair."

"I beg your pardon--there are three of them." But the boy was too
miserable to notice this poor little sally.

We were approaching the hotel. "I shall not see you again at present,"
said he. "Monsignore will arrive this evening, and I must be at home to
receive him. But I shall be in Paris by the middle of May, and I shall
see you there: farewell till then."

The next morning Miss St. Clair and I were on our way to Florence. A
week later, on our return from the convent of San Marco, where we had
seen the cell of Savonarola and many lovely but faded frescoes of Fra
Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo, whom should we find waiting for us in our
temporary home on the Via Pandolfini but Count Alvala? I felt annoyed,
and my face must have revealed it, for he said deprecatingly, "You ought
to be glad to see your boy, Madame Fleming, for I have come this long
journey only for a day, expressly to see you."

"Well," said I, "you took me so by surprise that I had not my welcome
ready. I did not expect the pleasure of seeing you till after our
arrival in Paris."

"That is why I am here. I shall not be able to go to Paris. I am
bitterly disappointed, but monsignore has made other plans for me. I am
to go to Vienna to visit my aunt, whose husband is our ambassador there.
The tour to Paris is postponed till the autumn."

Evidently monsignore had heard of the little heretic maiden, and he was
going to remove his ward from temptation. I was infinitely obliged to
him.

A desultory conversation followed, carried on principally by the young
people, and then the count said, "Miss St. Clair tells me that you have
visited the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. May I not go with you somewhere
to-morrow?--to La Certose or San Miniato, for instance?"

"Thank you," I replied: "we are so exhausted with sight-seeing, Miss St.
Clair and I, that we shall stay in all day to-morrow, and we shall be
happy to see you _once_ in the afternoon or evening, as may be most
convenient for you."

I did not like to be hard and cross to the dear boy whom my heart
yearned over, but I felt as much bound to "make an effort" as if I had
been a veritable Dombey.

The call lasted afternoon _and_ evening: it was only the change of
a particle. I could not reproduce the innocent talk, half gay, half sad,
of this long interview, but before he went away the count drew me aside:
"Will you give this to Miss St. Clair when I am gone?"

I unfolded the package: it contained a photograph of himself and a small
painting which he had executed of the Coliseum on the night of the
illumination. "Yes."

"And will you send me her photograph from Paris? I will have it copied
by the best miniature-painter in Rome and put in a locket set with
diamonds," said the boy enthusiastically.

"I cannot promise."

"Do you think I could be of any use to her father? Not to win his favor,
you understand, but I should be so happy to do anything to serve her or
her friends. Can't you tell me now?"

"No. Mr. St. Clair does not need assistance in any way that I know."

In spite of the boy's earnestness, the idea of his offering patronage to
the mature and independent American struck me as irresistibly ludicrous.

"But you will tell him all about me."

"Yes."

"I shall learn to speak English--I have begun already--and in a year I
shall be in America. Will you write your address for me on this card?"

I did so.

"If you ever come to Spain, remember that my house and all that is in it
are yours."

"I shall never go to Spain."

"Perhaps you will one day to see Miss St. Clair," looking up in my face
with a bright smile of inextinguishable hope. "Good-bye for a year."

A few more days in Florence, a week in Venice, a day or two in Milan,
and we bade adieu to Italy. Land of beauty and mystery! when I recall
thy many forms of loveliness, the glorious shapes of gods and heroes,
serene and passionless in their white majesty of marble, the blessed
sweetness of saints and Madonnas shining down into my soul, I seem to
have been once in heaven and afterward shut out.

       *       *       *       *       *

We were once more at home. Almost the first news that came to us from
abroad was of the terrible war between France and Germany. During the
protracted siege of Paris we were full of anxieties, but at its close we
received long letters from Madame Le Fort, giving many details of the
sufferings and privations of the siege, sorrowful enough for the most
part, but enlivened here and there with touches of the gay French humor
that nothing can subdue. There was a lively sketch of a Christmas dinner
ingeniously got up of several courses of donkey-meat. At New Year's the
choicest gift that a gentleman could make a lady was a piece of wheaten
bread. Afterward there was nothing in the house but rice and chocolate
bonbons, which they chewed sparingly, a little at a time. But they kept
up their courage--they were even gay. Hardships were nothing, but that
Paris should be surrendered at last--that was a humiliation which
nothing could compensate. Many of the gay dancers whom we had known had
fallen in battle, among them, René Vergniaud. He was shot in the heart
in an engagement with the Prussians in the environs of Paris.

I spent my next summer vacation with Miss St. Clair in Detroit.

"When is Mr. Denham coming home?" I asked one evening when we were alone
together.

"I do not know: he does not speak of coming home. I am a little puzzled
about Fred. He has written me a great deal lately about a certain
Fräulein Teresa, the daughter of one of his professors, who takes such
excellent care of her younger brothers and sisters, and who is such a
wonderfully economical, housewifely little body--just a new edition of
Werther's Charlotte. I do not think that he really likes her," she
continued after musing a little: "he just holds her up as a model for me
to copy. I shouldn't wonder if she was only imaginary, to make me feel
how far I come short of his ideal. Fred says that he worships the very
ground I tread on--slightly hyperbolical and very original, you
perceive," with a satirical curve of her pretty lips--"but he never
seems half satisfied with me. He ought to know by this time that I must
be just my own little self, and not a second-hand imitation of somebody
else."

The next day came a letter with a German postmark, which was so eloquent
on the subject of Fräulein Teresa that it elicited the following reply:

    "DETROIT, August 5, 1871.

    "DEAR FRED: I despair of emulating Fräulein Teresa's many
    excellencies. You know what a useless little thing I am. Happily, it
    is not too late to make another choice. Thinking it may please you,
    I hereby release you from all your promises to me. We may never be
    anything more to each other perhaps, but I hope that we shall always
    be dear friends. I shall never forget that we grew up together, and
    I wish you all possible happiness.

    "Your little friend, HELEN."

In due time this answer came:

     "HEIDELBERG, August 27, 1871.

     "MISS ST. CLAIR: Your somewhat singular letter of August 5th was
     duly received. If I believed that you had written it, or ever could
     or would do anything, with proper deliberation, I should accept
     your decision at once. But as I have good reason to know your habit
     of acting from sudden impulses which you afterward regret, I give
     you three months to reconsider this hasty step.

     "I have the honor to be your obedient servant,

     "F. A. DENHAM."

Helen held to me the open sheet, with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks:
"Three months! I don't need three minutes: I wouldn't change in three
centuries. I am so glad to be free!" she cried, sobbing and laughing at
the same moment. "He has worried me so--a poor little thing like me!"

The next morning I started on my return to Boston.

Early in October a servant handed me a card bearing the name Francisco
Alvala. I had ceased to think of the boy, not having heard a word from
him; but here he was, looking very manly, browned with the sun and sea,
and beautiful as Endymion when Diana stooped to kiss him and all the
green leaves in the white moonshine were tremulous with sympathy.

After the first greeting he asked, "How is Miss St. Clair? and when did
you see her last?"

I told him of my recent visit.

"She is not married, then?"

"On the contrary, she is free. The engagement with Mr. Denham has been
broken."

"What did I tell you? Did I not say it would be _I_?" in a burst of
triumph.

As a good Boston woman I am chagrined to record that Bunker Hill and all
the local lions, which I was at some pains to impress on his memory, did
not prove so attractive as the earliest Western train.

Why make a long story of what every one foresees? In the course of the
autumn and winter the count made flying visits to Washington,
Philadelphia, New Orleans, and even San Francisco, but it was noticeable
that the way to all these places lay through Detroit. He spoke English
marvelously well now, and so won upon the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. St.
Clair that on the 23d of April, being his twenty-first birthday, the
marriage of the conde de Alvala and Helen St. Clair was duly celebrated.
I could not leave my school to be present at the wedding, but the young
couple came to Boston to take leave of me before sailing for Europe.
They were radiant with happiness, and I could hardly tell which I loved
best, my boy or my girl; but if the Italian had been there to ask if I
ever saw a more beautiful couple, I should have answered no with great
emphasis.

I will copy Helen's first letter in order to prove that a château en
Espagne is not always a castle in the air:

     "ALVALA, near Toledo, June 20, 1872.

     "DEAR MADAME FLEMING: You have heard from mother of our voyage and
     safe arrival. We are now at home, Francisco and I, if I can ever
     learn to feel at home in such a grand place, where I can hardly
     find my way round. It is like one of the old palaces at Rome, the
     Borghese or Colonna, that we used to admire so much, with vast
     halls opening into one another, hangings of tapestry and Cordovan
     leather, marble statues and old paintings--family portraits by
     Titian and Velasquez, one or two Murillos, and--but I cannot write
     a catalogue. You must come to see us and the pictures. I am not
     sure which you will like the best. Francisco is very good to me,
     and so are all his friends. His sister and her husband were here to
     welcome us.

     "One of the first things we did was to go down the rose-tree walk,
     along the banks of the Tagus, for more than a mile--white and
     delicate pink and deep-red roses blossoming above our heads and
     dropping their petals at our feet all the way. Francisco said he
     would make my life like that walk among the roses, all sweetness
     and beauty, but that he cannot tell.

     "There is the old cathedral, with a wonderful head of Saint Francis
     and a whole forest of columns; and when you come we will bribe the
     sacristan not to lock you in, as they did at St. Roch. I shall
     never be a Roman Catholic, but I go to mass sometimes, for there is
     no Protestant service here, and one cannot be quite a heathen where
     everybody is so devout. What I dislike most is to have a chaplain
     in the house, walking about in his black petticoat, but of course I
     never say a word to Francisco.

     "By and by we are going to our house in Madrid. _Our house in
     Madrid_! does not that sound very strange? It all seems so unreal
     that I am afraid of waking up and finding it a dream.

     "Do, dear Madame Fleming, give up slaving in that old school and
     come and live with Francisco and me. He says he wishes you would,
     and it would make everything seem more real if I had you here.
     Think of it, now. You will, won't you? As ever, your dear child,

     "HELEN ALVALA."

This true story suggests a little sermon in two heads: 1st. To all
possible and probable lovers: It was not the count's rank or wealth, but
the fervor and constancy of ideal love and his whole-souled, exclusive
devotion, that won the heart of the American girl. 2d. To all sensible
American parents: Do not permit your pretty young daughters to make a
tour in Europe unless you are willing to leave them there.

       MARY E. BLAIR.




A JAPANESE MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.


In describing a Japanese marriage in high life we do not intend to soar
_too_ high. It is not for our alien pen to portray the splendors of such
a marriage as that of the princess of Satsuma to Iyesada, the thirteenth
Shô-gun of the Tokugawa dynasty, when all Yedo was festal and
illuminated for a week. Neither shall we describe that of the imperial
princess Kazu, the younger sister of the Mikado, who came up from Kioto
to wed the young Shô-gun Iyemochi, and thus to unite the sacred blood of
twenty-five centuries of imperial succession with that of the Tokugawas,
the proud family that ruled Japan, and dictated even to her emperors,
for two hundred and fifty years. We leave the description of those royal
nuptials to other pens. Ours aspires only to describe a marriage such as
has happened in old Yedo for the thousandth time in the samurai
class--the gentry of Japan.

Were you with us in Tokio (the new name of the capital of Japan) we
should take you, were you inclined to go, to the place where once stood
the mansion of Yamashiro Kan, a high retainer of the prince of Echizen,
and a lineal descendant of the great Iyeyasu, the founder of the dynasty
of the Shô-guns. Were you to seek for Yamashiro's mansion now, you would
not find it, but instead several very vulgar evidences of the Western
civilization which is now changing the Land of the Gods into a paradise
of beef, bread, butter, milk and machinery. We walked past the old
mansion-grounds a few days ago, and lo! we saw a milk-shop and dairy, a
butcher's stall, a sewing-machine store, a printing-office, a school in
which Japanese boys were learning A, B, C's, a photographer's "studio,"
a barber-shop with an English sign, and a score or more Japanese shops
of all kinds. This is of to-day. Five years ago a long wall of
diamond-shaped tiles laid in white cement extended round the spacious
grounds of the homestead of the Yamashiro family. Inside were
fish-ponds, mimic hills, miniature mountain-scenery, dense
flower-bushes, dwarfed arboreal wonders, solemn shade trees and a garden
laid out according to the very best Japanese style. The fine old
_yashiki_ of Yamashiro, with its porter's lodge, stone path,
entrance-porch, vestibule and the family homestead, was within. No
wonder, then, that the aged man, who firmly believes that Japan is going
to the dogs, the devil or the foreigners--he does not know which--shakes
his head as he now passes by the milk-and butcher-shops, around which
the lazy dogs sleep or wait for bones, and sighs as he remembers the
grand old mansion.

About two miles farther north, in the great _rus urba_ of Yedo, was
another house of humbler pretensions, and yet one with a gate and garden
of dimensions betokening the residence of a man of rank. It was the home
of Nakayama, one of the eighty thousand _hatamoto_ (vassals) of the
Shô-gun, a studious gentleman whose greatest pride was in his two sons
and his only daughter. The former were not only manly and expert in the
use of the sword and spear, but had the best education that the classics
of Confucius and the Chinese college and literati in Yedo could give
them. Next to them in his love was his only daughter Kiku, seventeen
years old, and as fair as the fairest of Yedo's many fair daughters. No
vain doll was Kiku, but, inheriting her mother's beauty, she added to it
the inner grace of a meek and dutiful spirit. Besides being deft at
household duties, her memory was well stored with the knowledge of
Japanese history and the Chinese classics. She had committed to memory
the entire books of the _Woman's Great Learning_, and had read
carefully five other works on etiquette and morals which her father had
presented to her on successive birthdays. Kiku was a remarkably
well-educated maiden, and would have been a prize for the richest daimio
in the empire.

Faithfully following Japanese etiquette, Kiku had been carefully kept
from the company of any of the male sex since her eighth year. She never
talked with any young man except her brothers. Occasionally at family
parties she was addressed by her uncles or cousins. Sometimes, when
gentlemen called to see her father, Kiku would bring tea to the guest,
and was thus made the subject of compliments; but as to "receiving" male
company, she never did it. Kiku never went out unless accompanied by her
mother or the maid, who was like her shadow.

The gods of Japan meet together at the great temples in Ise during the
eleventh month and tie all the nuptial knots for the following year.
Kiku's marriage-knot had been tied by the gods six months before she
even suspected the strings had been crossed. How happened it?

In Japan only the people in the lower classes are acquainted with and
see each other frequently before marriage. The business of selection,
betrothal and marriage is attended to by the parents or friends of the
pair, who carry on negotiations by means of a third factor, a middleman
or go-between. Children are often betrothed at birth or when on their
nurses' backs (there are no cradles in Japan). Of course the natural
results, mutual dislike and severance of the engagement at mature age,
or love and happy marriage, or marriage, mutual dislike and subsequent
divorce, happen, as the case may be. In general, when the parents make
the betrothal of grown-up children, it is not probable that the feelings
of son or daughter are outraged, or that marriages are forced against
the consent of either, though this does sometimes take place. In Asiatic
countries, where obedience to parents is the first and last duty, and in
which no higher religion than filial obedience exists, the betrothal and
marriage of children is not looked upon as anything strange. The
prevalence of concubinage as a recognized institution in Japan makes it
of no serious importance whether the husband loves his wife or not.

To tell an ordinary Japanese that in America people often marry against
their parents' consent is to puzzle him, and make him believe Carlyle's
saying about Americans without having heard it. If a man who marries
against his parents' wish is not a triple-dyed ingrate, he must be a
downright fool. Beyond this idea the normal Japanese cannot go; and you
might as well try to make a blind man understand that "celestial rosy
red" was "Love's proper hue" as to convince him that a good man ever
marries against his parents' wishes. Such ideas and practices are
convincing evidences to him of the vast moral inferiority of Western
nations when compared with that of the people descended from the gods.

Resuming our narrative, we must mention that Kiku's father had once had
an offer from one Matsui, a wealthy retainer of the Wakasa clan, through
that young nobleman's middleman or agent, which he refused, to the
disgust of both middleman and suitor. The latter had seen Kiku walking
with her mother while going to the temple at Shiba, and, being struck
with her beauty, inquired who she was. Having come of age and wishing a
wife, he had sued for Kiku to her father, who, for reasons of his own,
refused the request, on the ground that Kiku was too young, being then
but fifteen years old. The truth was, that the Wakasa samurai was a wild
young fellow, and bore a reputation for riotous living that did not
promise to make him a proper life-companion for Nakayama's refined and
cultured daughter. Between Nakayama, Kiku's father, and Yamashiro, the
retainer of the Echizen clan, whose home we spoke of in the opening of
our sketch, had long existed a warm friendship and a mutual high regard.
Yamashiro, though more fond of society and good living than Nakayama,
was nevertheless, like him, a high-spirited and well-read man. He had
four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest son, named Taro,
was now twenty years old, of manly figure, diligent in study, and had
lately acted as a high page, attending daily upon the person of
Hitotsu-bashi, the then reigning Shô-gun, and the last of his line that
held or will hold regal power in Japan. Taro, being the oldest son of
his father, was the heir to his house, office, rank and revenue. Taro
wanted a wife. He wished to taste the sweets of love and wedded joy. He
had long thought of Kiku. Of course he asked his father, and his father
"was willing." He told Taro to go to Nakayama's house. Taro went. He
talked to Nakayama, and hinted faint compliments of his daughter. It was
enough. Nakayama was keen of scent, and he also "was willing." Clapping
his hands, the maid-servant appeared and falling down and bowing her
head to the floor, listened: "Make some tea, and tell Miss Kiku to serve
it."

Had you been in the back rooms of that house, you would have seen Kiku
blush as the maid told her who was in the front room and what her father
had said. Her heart beat furiously, and the carnation of health upon her
cheeks was lost in the hot blushes that mantled her face and beautiful
neck when her mother, reproving her, said, "Why, dear child, don't be
excited: perhaps he has come only on some every-day business, after all.
Be composed, and get ready to take in the tea."

Nevertheless, Kiku took out her metal mirror while the maid made the
tea, smoothed a pretended stray hair, powdered her neck slightly, drew
her robe more tightly around her waist, adjusted her girdle, which did
not need any adjusting, and then, taking up the tray, containing a tiny
tea-pot, a half dozen upturned cups, and as many brass sockets for them,
hastened into the front room, bowed with her face on her hands to the
floor, and then handed cups of tea to her parent and his guest. This
done, she returned to her mother. Whether Taro looked at Kiku's cheeks
or into her glittering black eyes we leave even a foreign reader to
judge.

Let it not be thought, however, that a single word relating to marriage
in the concrete passed between the two men: no such breach of etiquette
was committed. The visit over, the two friends parted as friends, and
nothing more, either in fact or in visible prospect.

But, to be brief, not long afterward, Taro, having selected a trusty
friend, sent him as a go-between to ask of Nakayama the hand of his
daughter in marriage. The proposal was accepted, and when the go-between
came the second time to Kiku's home it was in company with two servants
bearing bundles. These, being opened, were found to contain a splendidly
embroidered girdle, such as Japanese ladies wear, about twelve feet long
and a foot wide when doubled; a robe of the finest white silk from the
famous looms of Kanazawa; five or six pieces of silk not made up;
several kegs of _saké_ or rice-beer; dried fish, soy, etc. These
were for the bride-elect. For her father was a sword with a richly
mounted hilt and lacquered scabbard, hung with silken cords. The blade
alone of the sword was worth (it isn't polite to speak of the cost of
presents, but we will let you into the secret, good reader) one hundred
dollars, and had been made in Sagami from the finest native steel.
Kiku's mother was presented with a rich robe, which she recognized at
once as being woven of the famous Derva silk. The ceremonious reception
of these presents by the parents signified that the betrothal was
solemnly ratified, and that the engagement could not be broken.
Nakayama, the intended father-in-law, afterward sent to Taro a present
of a jar of the finest tea from his own plantation in Shimosa, a pair of
swords, and a piece of satin, such as that of which the _hakama_ or
trousers which indicate the rank of the samurai are made.

The betrothal was now published in both families, and in both houses
there were festivities, rejoicing and congratulation. The marriage-day,
a fortunate or good-omened one, was fixed upon as the twenty-seventh
from the day of betrothal.

Was Kiku happy? Nay, you should ask, Can that word express her feelings?
She had obeyed her parents: she could do nothing higher or more fraught
with happiness. She was to be a wife--woman's highest honor and a
Japanese woman's only aim. She was to marry a noble by name, nature and
achievement, with health, family, wealth and honor. Kiku lived in a new
world of anticipation and of vision, the gate of which the Japanese call
_iro_, and we _love_. At times, as she tried on for the twentieth time
her white silk robe and costly girdle, she fell into a reverie, half sad
and half joyful. She thought of leaving her mother alone with no
daughter, and then Kiku's bright eyes dimmed and her bosom heaved. Then
she thought of living in a new home, in a new house, with new faces.
What if her mother-in-law should be severe or jealous? Kiku's cheek
paled. What if Taro should achieve some great exploit, and she share his
joy as did the honorable women of old? What if his former position of
beloved page to the Shô-gun should give her occasional access to the
highest ladies in the land, the female courtiers of the castle? Her eyes
flashed.

The wedding-night came, seeming to descend out of the starry heavens
from the gods. Marriages rarely take place in the daytime in Japan. The
solemn and joyful hour of evening, usually about nine o'clock, is the
time for marriage--as it often is for burial--in Japan. In the starlight
of a June evening the bride set forth on her journey to her intended
husband's home, as is the invariable custom. Her toilet finished, she
stepped out of her childhood's home to take her place in the _norimono_
or palanquin which, borne on the shoulders of four men, was to convey
her to her future home.

Just as Kiku stands in the vestibule of her father's house let us
photograph her for you. A slender maiden of seventeen, with cheeks of
carnation; eyes that shine under lids not so broadly open as the
Caucasian maiden's, but black and sparkling; very small hands with
tapering fingers, and very small feet encased in white mitten-socks; her
black hair glossy as polished jet, dressed in the style betokening
virginity, and decked with a garland of blossoms. Her robe of pure white
silk folds over her bosom from right to left, and is bound at the waist
by the gold-embroidered girdle, which is supported by a lesser band of
scarlet silken crape, and is tied into huge loops behind. The skirt of
the dress sweeps in a trail. Her under-dress is of the finest and
softest white silk. In her hands she carries a half-moon-shaped cap or
veil of floss silk. Its use we shall see hereafter. She salutes her
cousin, who, clad in ceremonial dress with his ever-present two swords,
is waiting to accompany her in addition to her family servants and
bearers, and steps into the norimono.

The four bearers, the servants and the samurai pass down along the
beautiful Kanda River, whose waters mirror the stars, and whose depths
of shade re-echo to the gurgling of sculls, the rolling of ripples and
the songs of revelers. The cortége enters one of the gate-towers of the
old city-walls, passes beneath the shade of its ponderous copper-clad
portals, and soon arrives at the main entrance of the Yamashiro
_yashiki_. Here they find the street in front and the stone walk
covered with matting, and a friend of Taro's, in full dress, waiting to
receive the cortége. Of course the gazers of the neighborhood are
waiting respectfully in crowds to catch a glimpse of the coming bride.

The go-between and a few friends of the bridegroom come out to receive
the bride and deliver her to her own servant and two of her own young
maiden friends, who had gone before to the Yamashiro mansion. The room
in which the families of the bride and groom and their immediate friends
are waiting, though guiltless of "furniture," as all Japanese rooms are,
is yet resplendent with gilt-paper screens, bronzes, tiny lacquered
tables and the Japanese nuptial emblems. On the wall hang three pictured
scrolls of the gods of Long Life, of Wealth and of Happiness. On a
little low table stands a dwarf pine tree, bifurcated, and beneath it
are an old man and an old woman. Long life, a green old age, changeless
constancy of love and the union of two hearts are symbolized by this
evergreen. In the _tokonoma_ (or large raised recess) of the room are
the preparations for the feast, the wine-service consisting of kettles,
decanters and cups. On two other tables are a pair of white storks and a
fringed tortoise. All through the rooms gorgeously painted wax candles
burn. The air of the apartment is heavy with perfume from the censer, a
representation in bronze of an ancient hero riding upon a bullock. All
the guests are seated _à la Japonaise_--upon the floor. Two or three
young ladies, the bridesmaids, go out to meet the bride and lead her to
her dressing-room. Here she finds her own property, which has been
brought to her future home during the day. Toilet-stands and cabinets
and the ceremonial towel-rack are prominently displayed. On a tall
clothes-horse of gilt lacquer are hung her silk robes and the other
articles of her wardrobe, which are bridal gifts. Over the doorway, in a
gilt rack, glitters the long spear or halberd to the dexterous use of
which all Japanese ladies of good family are trained. In a box of finest
wood, shining with lacquer and adorned with her family crest, are the
silk sleeping-dresses and coverlets, which are to be spread, as all
Japanese beds are, on the floor. The articles above mentioned constitute
the trousseau of a Japanese bride.

Here Kiku rearranges her dress, retouches her lower lip with golden
paint and puts on her hood of floss silk. This is of a half-moon shape,
completely covering her face. She does not lift it until she has drunk
the sacramental marriage-cup. Many a Japanese maiden has seen her lord
for the first time as she lifted her silken hood. Kiku is all ready, and
she and the groom are led into the room where the ceremony is to be
performed, and assigned their positions.

With a Japanese marriage neither religion nor the Church has anything to
do. At the wedding no robed priest appears officially among the guests.
The marriage is simply a civil and social contract. In place of our bans
is the acceptance of the suitor's presents by the family of the sought,
the announced betrothal and intimation of the marriage to the police of
the ward. In place of our answer, "Yes," is the sacramental drinking of
wine. We may say "wine," because we are talking of high life, and must
use high words. _Saké_, the universal spirituous beverage of Japan,
is made from fermented rice, and hence is properly rice-beer. It looks
like pale sherry, and has a taste which is peculiarly its own. Sweet
saké is very delicious, and it may be bought in all the degrees of
strength and of all flavors and prices. As the Japanese always drink
their wine hot, a copper kettle for heating saké is a necessity in every
household. On ceremonial occasions, such as marriages, the saké-kettles
are of the costliest and handsomest kind, being beautifully lacquered.
Bride and groom being ready, the wine-kettles, cups and two bottles are
handed down. Two pretty servant-maids now bring in a hot kettle of wine
and fill the bottles. To one bottle is fastened by a silken cord a male
butterfly, and to the other a female. The two girls also are called
"male" and "female" butterflies. The girl having the female butterfly
pours out some saké in the kettle, into which the girl with the male
butterfly also pours the contents of her bottle, so that the wine from
both bottles thus flows together. Then the saké is poured again into
another gilt-and-lacquered bottle of different shape.

Now the real ceremony begins. On a little stand three cups, each
slightly concave and having an under-rest or foot about half an inch
high, are set one upon another, like a pagoda. The stand with this
three-storied arrangement is handed to the bride. Holding it in both
hands while the saké is poured into it by the male butterfly, the bride
lifts the cup, sips from it three times, and the tower of cups is then
passed to the bridegroom and refilled. He likewise drinks three times,
and puts the empty cup under the third. The bride again sips thrice from
the upper cup. The groom does the same, and places the empty cup beneath
the second. Again the bride sips three times, and the bridegroom does
the same, and they are man and wife: they are married. This ceremony is
called san-san-ku-do, or "three times three are nine."

Like a wedding at once auspicious and _distingué_, the nuptials of Kiku
and Taro passed off without one misstep or incident of ill omen. In the
dressing-room and in the hall of ceremony Kiku's self-possessed demeanor
was admired by all. After drinking the sacramental wine she lifted her
silken hood, not too swiftly or nervously, and smiled blushingly on her
lord. The marriage ceremony over, both bride and groom retired to their
respective dressing-rooms. Kiku exchanged her white dress for one of
more elaborate design and of a lavender color. The groom, removing his
stiffly-starched ceremonial robes, appeared in ordinary dress. Meanwhile
refreshments had been served to all the bridesmaids and, maid-servants.
Husband and wife now took their seats again, and the whole company
joined in the supper, during which apparently innumerable courses were
served. Neither ices, oranges nor black-cake appeared on the table at
Kiku's wedding. The bill of fare contained many decidedly recherché
items which it requires a Japanese palate thoroughly to appreciate. Let
us enumerate a few. There were salmon from Hakodate, tea from Uji, young
rice from Higo, pheasants' eggs, fried cuttle-fish, _tai, koi, maguro_
and many another sort of toothsome fish from the market at Nihon Bashi.
There were sea-weed of various sorts and from many coasts, bean-curd,
many kinds of fish-soups, condiments of various flavors, eggs in every
style and shellfish of every shape. A huge maguro-fish, thinly sliced,
but perfectly raw, was the _pièce de résistance_ of the feast.
Sweetmeats, candies of the sort known to the Japanese confectioners and
castera (sponge-cake) crowned the courses.

Now, having briefly described Kiku's wedding, perhaps we should stop
here. Although fairly married, however, Kiku was not through the
ceremonies of the night. Before her own parents left the house she was
taken by the attendant ladies before her parents-in-law, and with them
drank cups of wine and exchanged gifts. All the bridal presents were
displayed during the evening in her dressing-room, and the whole of her
trousseau was open to the inspection of all the ladies present. Feasting
and dancing were the order of the hours until midnight, and then Kiku's
parents bade her farewell, and she was left a bride in a new home.

"Where did the young couple go?" "What was the route of their
bridal-tour?" "Perhaps they made a late wedding-journey?" "Of course
Japan has many fine watering-places to which married couples resort?"
These are American questions. The fashion of making bridal-tours is not
Japanese. Many a lovely spot might serve for such a purpose in
everywhere beautiful Japan. The lake and mountains of Hakone; the
peerless scenery, trees, waterfalls and tombs of Nikko, where sleeps the
mighty Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line; the spas of
Atami,--all these are spots which if in America would be thronged with
bridal-parties. Caucasians in Japan even make Fusiyama's summit the goal
of their wedded steps, but our Kiku and Taro went nowhere.

"At home" for three days is the general rule in Japan. All their friends
came to see them, and presents were showered on the happy pair. The
great Shô-gun, remembering his former page, sent Taro a present of a
flawless ball of pure rock-crystal five inches in diameter. Prince
Echizen, his feudal lord, presented him with a splendid saddle with gilt
flaps and a pair of steel stirrups inlaid with gold and silver and
bronze, with the crest of the Echizen clan glittering in silver upon it.
From his own father he received a jet-black horse brought from the
province of Nambu, and an equine descendant of the Arab sire presented
by the viceroy of India to the Japanese embassy to the pope in 1589. On
the delightful wonders of the gifts to Kiku our masculine pen shrinks
from expatiating. On the third day after her marriage Kiku visited her
parents, and after that spent many days in returning the visits of all
who had called on her.

Now, like the "goosie gander" of nursery memory, we must wander again
into the lady's chamber. Were you to wander to such a place after a
Japanese maiden became a wife, you would see, as we have often seen, how
the outward form of a Japanese maiden assumes that of a Japanese matron.
First, then, the maiden wears a high coiffure that always serves as a
sacred symbol of her virginity. It is not easy to describe its form, but
even foreigners think it very beautiful, and will regret the day when
the Japanese _musume_ wears her hair like her sisters across the ocean.
Indeed, it would be no strange thing were Queen Fashion to ordain that
American maidens should adopt the style of dressing the hair now in
universal vogue in Japan. The _shimada_ or virginal coiffure, however,
is changed after marriage, and Kiku, like the rest of her wedded
friends, now wore the _maru-mage_, or half-moon-shaped chignon, which is
wound round an ivory, tortoise-shell or coral-tipped bar, and is the
distinguishing mark of a Japanese wife. So far, however, the transition
from loveliness to ugliness has not been very startling: Kiku still
looked pretty. The second process, however, robbed her of her eyebrows,
and left her without those dark arches that had helped to make the
radiant sun of her once maidenly beauty. With tweezers and razor the
fell work, after many a wince, was done. With denuded brows and changed
coiffure surely the Japanese Hymen demands no more sacrifices at his
shrine? Surely Kiku can still keep the treasures of a set of teeth that
seem like a casket of pearls with borders of coral? Not so. The fashion
of all good society from remotest antiquity demands that the teeth of a
wife must be dyed black. Kiku joyfully applied the galls and iron, and
by patience and dint of polishing soon had a set of teeth as black as
jet and as polished as the best Whitby. Not strange to tell to a
Japanese, either, the smile of her husband Taro was a rich reward for
her trouble and the surrender of her maiden charms. Japanese husbands
never kiss their wives: kissing is an art unknown in Japan. It is even
doubtful whether the language has a word signifying a kiss. No wonder
Young Japan wishes to change his language for the English! Henceforth in
public or private, alone or in company, Kiku's personal and social
safety was as secure as if clothed in armor of proof and attended by an
army. The black teeth, _maru-mage_ and shaven eyebrows constitute a
talisman of safety in a land which foreigners so like to believe
licentious and corrupt beyond the bounds of conception.

Now that we have Kiku married, we must leave her to glide into the cool,
sequestered paths of a Japanese married lady's life. Only one thing we
regret, and that is that her marriage could not have happened in the
year of our Lord 1874 and of "Enlightened Peace the seventh, and of the
era of Jimmu, the first Mikado, the two thousand five hundred and
thirty-fourth." Had she been married during the present year, her
coiffure would need no alteration, her eyebrows would still knit with
care or arch with mirth, and her teeth would still keep their virgin
whiteness, unsoiled by astringent galls or abhorred vitriol.

The leader of feminine fashion in Japan, the young empress Haruko, has
set her subjects the example by for ever banishing the galls and iron,
appearing even in public with her teeth as Nature made them. Kiku and
Taro, though once proud to own allegiance to the Shô-gun, are now among
the staunch supporters of the lord of the Shô-gun, the Mikado, the only
true sovereign of the Sunrise Kingdom.

     W.E. GRIFFIS.




THE LOST BABY.


She wandered off one dismal day;
No one was by to bid her stay:
The earth was white, the sky was gray,
When the poor little baby wandered away.

The sun went down with crimson crown
Behind the clouds and the tree-tops brown:
The cold road stared with a colder frown
When the poor little feet went wandering down.

Her mother lived up in the shining sky,
Thought poor little baby, wondering why,
As hours and days and weeks went by,
She never came down at her baby's cry.

If the crimson wave in the west led true,
The skyward road she surely knew:
She heeded not that the sharp winds blew,
Or her cold little feet sore tired grew.

She hummed some broken baby song,
And talked to herself as she trudged along:
She feared no failure, recked no wrong,
But she thought that the way was lone and long.

Tired and cold, she lingered to rest
Under a snow-drift's treacherous crest:
She cuddled herself in a tiny nest,
White and cold as her mother's breast.

They found her there on the snowy ground,
Her silky hair with snowflakes crowned.
She made no sign, she breathed no sound,
But the skyward road she had surely found.

     CLARA G. DOLLIVER.




THREE FEATHERS.

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE."




CHAPTER XXIII.

SOME OLD SONGS.


"Are you dreaming again, child?" said Mrs. Rosewarne to her daughter.
"You are not a fit companion for a sick woman, who is herself dull
enough. Why do you always look so sad when you look at the sea, Wenna?"

The wan-faced, beautiful-eyed woman lay on a sofa, a book beside her.
She had been chatting in a bright, rapid, desultory fashion about the
book and a dozen other things--amusing herself really by a continual
stream of playful talk--until she perceived that the girl's fancies were
far away. Then she stopped suddenly, with this expression of petulant
but good-natured disappointment.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, mother," said Wenna, who was seated at an open
window fronting the bay. "What did you say? Why does the sea make one
sad? I don't know. One feels less at home here than out on the rocks at
Eglosilyan: perhaps that is it. Or the place is so beautiful that it
almost makes you cry. I don't know."

And indeed Penzance Bay on this still, clear morning was beautiful
enough to attract wistful eyes and call up vague and distant fancies.
The cloudless sky was intensely dark in its blue: one had a notion that
the unseen sun was overhead and shining vertically down. The still plain
of water--so clear that the shingle could be seen through it a long way
out--had no decisive color, but the fishing smacks lying out there were
jet-black points in the bewildering glare. The sunlight did not seem to
be in the sky, in the air or on the sea; but when you turned to the
southern arm of the bay, where the low line of green hills ran out into
the water, there you could see the strong clear light shining--shining
on the green fields and on the sharp black lines of hedges, on that bit
of gray old town with its cottage-gardens and its sea-wall, and on the
line of dark rock that formed the point of the promontory. On the other
side of the bay the eye followed the curve of the level shores until it
caught sight of St. Michael's Mount rising palely from the water, its
sunlit grays and purple shadows softened by the cool distance. Then
beyond that again, on the verge of the far horizon, lay the long and
narrow line of the Lizard, half lost in a silver haze. For the rest, a
cool wind went this way and that through Mrs. Rosewarne's room, stirring
the curtains. There was an odor of the sea in the air. It was a day for
dreaming perhaps, but not for the gloom begotten of languor and an
indolent pulse.

"Oh, mother! oh, mother!" Wenna cried suddenly, with a quick flush of
color to her cheeks, "do you know who is coming along? Can you see? It
is Mr. Trelyon, and he is looking at all the houses: I know he is
looking for us."

"Child! child!" said the mother. "How should Mr. Trelyon know we are
here?"

"Because I told him," Wenna said simply and hurriedly. "Mother, may I
wave a handkerchief to him? Won't you come and see him? he seems so much
more manly in this strange place; and how brave and handsome he looks!"

"Wenna!" her mother said severely.

The girl did not wave a handkerchief, it is true, but she knelt down at
the open bay-window, so that he must needs see her; and sure enough he
did. Off went his hat in a minute, a bright look of recognition leapt to
his eyes, and he crossed the street.

Then Wenna turned, all in a flutter of delight, and quite unconscious of
the color in her face: "Are you vexed, mother? Mayn't I be glad to see
him? Why, when I know that he will brighten up your spirits better than
a dozen doctors? One feels quite happy and hopeful whenever he comes
into the room. Mother, you won't have to complain of dullness if Mr.
Trelyon comes to see you. And why doesn't the girl send him up at once?"

Wenna was standing at the open door to receive him when he came up
stairs: she had wholly forgotten the embarrassment of their last
parting.

"I thought I should find you out," he said when he came into the room,
and it was clear that there was little embarrassment about him; "and I
know how your mother likes to be teased and worried. You've got a nice
place here, Mrs. Rosewarne; and what splendid weather you've brought
with you!"

"Yes," said Wenna, her whole face lit up with a shy gladness, "haven't
we? And did you ever see the bay looking more beautiful? It is enough to
make you laugh and clap your hands out of mere delight to see everything
so lovely and fresh."

"A few minutes ago I thought you were nearly crying over it," said the
mother with a smile, but Miss Wenna took no heed of the reproof. She
would have Mr. Trelyon help himself to a tumbler of claret and water.
She fetched out from some mysterious lodging-house recess an ornamented
tin can of biscuits. She accused herself of being the dullest companion
in the world, and indirectly hinted that he might have pity on her mamma
and stay to luncheon with them.

"Well, it's very odd," he said, telling a lie with great simplicity of
purpose, "but I had arranged to drive to the Land's End for luncheon--to
the inn there, you know. I suppose it wouldn't--Do you think, Mrs.
Rosewarne--would it be convenient for you to come for a drive so far?"

"Oh, it would be the very best thing in the world for her--nothing could
be better," said Wenna; and then she added meekly, "if it is not giving
you too much trouble, Mr. Trelyon."

He laughed: "Trouble! I'm glad to be of use to anybody; and in this case
I shall have all the pleasure on my side. Well, I'm off now to see about
the horses. If I come for you in half an hour, will that do?"

As soon as he had left Mrs. Rosewarne turned to her daughter and said to
her, gravely enough, "Wenna, one has seldom to talk to you about the
proprieties, but really this seems just a little doubtful. Mr. Trelyon
may make a friend of you--that is all very well, for you are going to
marry a friend of his--but you ought not to expect him to associate with
me."

"Mother," said Wenna with hot cheeks, "I wonder how you can suspect him
of thinking of such foolish and wicked things. Why, he is the very last
man in all the world to do anything that is mean and unkind, or to think
about it."

"My dear child, I suspect him of nothing," Mrs. Rosewarne said; "but
look at the simple facts of the case. Mr. Trelyon is a very rich
gentleman; his family is an old one, greatly honored about here; and if
he is so recklessly kind as to offer his acquaintanceship to persons who
are altogether in a different sphere of life, we should take care not to
abuse his kindness or to let people have occasion to wonder at him.
Looking at your marriage and future station, it is perhaps more
permissible with you; but as regards myself, I don't very much care,
Wenna, to have Mr. Trelyon coming about the house."

"Why, mother, I--I am surprised at you!" Wenna said warmly. "You judge
of him by the contemptible things that other people might say of him. Do
you think he would care for that? Mr. Trelyon is a man, and like a man
he has the courage to choose such friends as he likes; and it is no more
to him what money they have or what their position is than the--than the
shape of their pocket-handkerchiefs is. Perhaps that is his folly,
recklessness--the recklessness of a young man. Perhaps it is. I am not
old enough to know how people alter, but I hope I shall never see Mr.
Trelyon alter in this respect--never, if he were to live for a hundred
years. And--and I am surprised to hear you, of all people, mother,
suggest such things of him. What has he done that you should think so
meanly of him?"

Wenna was very indignant and hurt. She would have continued further, but
that a tremulous movement of her under lip caused her to turn away her
head.

"Well, Wenna, you needn't cry about it," her mother said gently. "It is
of no great consequence. Of course every one must please himself in
choosing his friends; and I quite admit that Mr. Trelyon is not likely
to be hindered by anything that any person may say. Don't take it so
much to heart, child: go and get on your things, and get back some of
the cheerfulness you had while he was here. I will say this for the
young man, that he has an extraordinary power of raising your spirits."

"You are a good mother, after all," said Wenna penitently; "and if you
come and let me dress you prettily, I shall promise not to scold you
again--not till the next time you deserve it."

By the time they drove away from Penzance the forenoon had softened into
more beautiful colors. There was a paler blue in the sky and on the sea,
and millions of yellow stars twinkled on the ripples. A faint haze had
fallen over the bright green hills lying on the south of the bay.

"Life looks worth having on such a day as this," Trelyon said: "doesn't
it, Miss Wenna?"

She certainly seemed pleased enough. She drank in the sweet fresh air;
she called attention to the pure rare colors of the sea and the green
uplands, the coolness of the woods through which they drove, the profuse
abundance of wild flowers along the banks; all things around her seemed
to have conspired to yield her delight, and a great happiness shone in
her eyes. Mr. Trelyon talked mostly to Mrs. Rosewarne, but his eyes
rarely wandered away for long from Wenna's pleased and radiant face; and
again and again he said to himself, "And if a simple drive on a spring
morning can give this child so great a delight, it is not the last that
she and I shall have together."

"Mrs. Rosewarne," said he, "I think your daughter has as much need of a
holiday as anybody. I don't believe there's a woman or girl in the
county works as hard as she does."

"I don't know whether she needs it," said Miss Wenna of herself, "but I
know that she enjoys it."

"I know what you'd enjoy a good deal better than merely getting out of
sight of your own door for a week or two," said he. "Wouldn't you like
to get clear away from England for six months, and go wandering about in
all sorts of fine places? Why, I could take such a trip in that time! I
should like to see what you'd say to some of the old Dutch towns and
their churches, and all that; then Cologne, you know, and a sail up the
Rhine to Mainz; then you'd go on to Bâle and Geneva, and we'd get you a
fine big carriage, with the horses decorated with foxes' and pheasants'
tails, to drive you to Chamounix. Then, when you had gone tremulously
over the Mer de Glace, and kept your wits about you going down the
Mauvais Pas, I don't think you could do better than go on to the Italian
lakes--you never saw anything like them, I'll be bound--and Naples and
Florence. Would you come back by the Tyrol, and have a turn at Zurich
and Lucerne, with a long ramble through the Black Forest in a trap
resembling a ramshackle landau?"

"Thank you," said Wenna very cheerfully. "The sketch is delightful, but
I am pretty comfortable where I am."

"But this can't last," said he.

"And neither can my holidays," she answered.

"Oh, but they ought to," he retorted vehemently. "You have not half
enough amusement in your life: that's my opinion. You slave too much for
all those folks about Eglosilyan and their dozens of children. Why, you
don't get anything out of life as you ought to. What have you to look
forward to? Only the same ceaseless round of working for other people.
Don't you think you might let some one else have a turn at that useful
but monotonous occupation?"

"But Wenna has something else to look forward to now," her mother
reminded him gently; and after that he did not speak for some while.

Fair and blue was the sea that shone all around the land when they got
out on the rough moorland near the coast. They drove to the solitary
little inn perched over the steep cliffs, and here the horses were put
up and luncheon ordered. Would Mrs. Rosewarne venture down to the great
rocks at the promontory? No, she would rather stay indoors till the
young people returned; and so these two went along the grassy path
themselves.

They clambered down the slopes, and went out among the huge blocks of
weather-worn granite, many of which were brilliant with gray, green and
orange lichens. There was a low and thunderous noise in the air: far
below them, calm and fine as the day was, the summer sea dashed and
roared into gigantic caverns, while the white foam floated out again on
the troubled waves. Could anything have been more magical than the
colors of the sea--its luminous greens, its rich purples, its brilliant
blues, lying in long swaths on the apparently motionless surface? It was
only the seething white beneath their feet and the hoarse thunder along
the coast that told of the force of this summer-like sea; and for the
rest the picture was light and calm and beautiful; but there the black
rocks basked in the sunlight, the big skarts standing here and there on
their ledges, not moving a feather. A small steamer was slowly making
for the island farther out, where a lighthouse stood. And far away
beyond these, on the remote horizon, the Scilly Isles lay like a low
bank of yellow fog under the pale-blue skies.

They were very much by themselves out here at the end of the world, and
yet they did not seem inclined to talk much. Wenna sat down on the warm
grass; her companion perched himself on one of the blocks of granite;
they watched the great undulations of the blue water come rolling on to
the black rocks and then fall backward seething in foam.

"And what are you thinking about?" said Trelyon to her gently, so that
she should not be startled.

"Of nothing at all: I am quite happy," Wenna said frankly. Then she
added, "I suppose the worst of a day like this is that a long time after
you look back upon it, and it seems so beautiful and far away that it
makes you miserable. You think how happy you were once. That is the
unfortunate side of being happy."

"Well," said he, "I must say you don't look forward to the future with
any great hope if you think the recollection of one bright day will make
you wretched."

He came down from his perch and stood beside her. "Why, Wenna," said he,
"do you know what you really need? Some one to take you in hand
thoroughly, and give you such an abundance of cheerful and pleasant days
that you would never think of singling out any one of them. Why
shouldn't you have weeks and months of happy idling in bright weather,
such as lots of people have who don't deserve them a bit? There's
something wrong in your position. You want some one to become your
master and compel you to make yourself happy. You won't of yourself
study your own comfort: some one else ought to make you."

"And who do you think would care to take so much trouble about me?" she
said with a smile, for she attached no serious meaning to this random
talk.

Her companion's face flushed somewhat--not with embarrassment, but with
the courage of what he was going to say. "I would," he said boldly. "You
will say it is none of my business, but I tell you I would give twenty
thousand pounds to-morrow if I were allowed to--to get you a whole
summer of pleasant holidays."

There was something about the plain-spoken honesty of this avowal that
touched her keenly. Wild and impossible as the suggestion was, it told
her at least what one person in the world thought of her. She said to
him, with her eyes cast down, "I like to hear you speak like that--not
for my own sake, but I know there is nothing generous and kindly that
you wouldn't do at a mere moment's impulse. But I hope you don't think I
have been grumbling over my lot on such a day as this? Oh no: I see too
much of other people's way of living to complain of my own. I have every
reason to be contented and happy."

"Yes, you're a deal too contented and happy," said he with an impatient
shrug. "You want somebody to alter all that, and see that you get more
to be contented and happy about."

She rose: he gave her his hand to help her up. But he did not surrender
her hand then, for the path up the slope was a deep and difficult one,
and she could fairly rely on his strength and sureness of foot.

"But you are not content, Mr. Trelyon," she said. "I always notice that
whenever you get to a dangerous place you are never satisfied unless you
are putting your life in peril. Wouldn't you like to ride your black
horse down the face of this precipice? or wouldn't you like to clamber
down blindfold? Why does a man generally seem to be anxious to get rid
of his life?"

"Perhaps it ain't of much use to him," he said coolly.

"You ought not to say that," she answered in a low voice.

"Well," he said, "I don't mean to break my neck yet a while; but if I
did, who would miss me? I suppose my mother would play half a dozen a
day more operas or oratorios, or stuff of that sort, and there would be
twenty parsons in the house for one there is at present. And some of the
brats about the place would miss an occasional sixpence; which would be
better for their health. And Dick--I suppose they'd sell him to some
fool of a Londoner, who would pound his knees out in the Park--he would
miss me too."

"And these are all," she said, "who would miss you? You are kind to your
friends."

"Why, would you?" he said with a stare of surprise; and then, seeing she
would not speak, he continued with a laugh, "I like the notion of my
making an object of general compassion of myself. Did the poor dear
tumble off a rock into the sea? And where was its mother's apron-string?
I'm not going to break my neck yet a while, Miss Wenna; so don't you
think I'm going to let you off your promise to pay me back for those
sewing-machines."

"I have told you, Mr. Trelyon," she said with some dignity, "that we
shall pay you back every farthing of the price of them."

He began to whistle in an impertinent manner. He clearly placed no great
faith in the financial prospects of that sewing club.

They had some light luncheon in the remote little inn, and Mrs.
Rosewarne was pleased to see her ordinarily demure and preoccupied
daughter in such high and careless spirits. It was not a splendid
banquet. The chamber was not a gorgeous one, for the absence of ornament
and the enormous thickness of the walls told of the house being shut up
in the winter months and abandoned to the fury of the western gales,
when the wild sea came hurling up the face of these steep cliffs and
blowing over the land. But they paid little attention to any lack of
luxury. There was a beautiful blue sea shining in the distance. The
sunlight was falling hotly on the green sward of the rocks outside, but
all the same a fresh, cool breeze came blowing in at the open window.
They let the time pass easily, with pleasant talk and laughter.

Then they drove leisurely back in the afternoon. They passed along the
moorland ways, through rude little villages built of stone and by the
outskirts of level and cheerless farms, until they got into the
beautiful woods and avenues lying around Penzance. When they came in
sight of the broad bay they found that the world had changed its colors
since the morning. The sea was of a cold purplish gray, but all around
it, on the eastern horizon, there was a band of pale pink in the sky. On
the west again, behind Penzance, the warm hues of the sunset were
shining behind the black stems of the trees. The broad thoroughfare was
mostly in shadow, and the sea was so still that one could hear the
footsteps and the voices of the people walking up and down the Parade.

"I suppose I must go now," said the young gentleman when he had seen
them safely seated in the small parlor overlooking the bay. But he did
not seem anxious to go.

"But why?" Wenna said, rather timidly. "You have no engagement, Mr.
Trelyon. Would you care to stay and have dinner with us--such a dinner
as we can give you?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I should like it very much," he said.

Mrs. Rosewarne, a little surprised, and yet glad to see Wenna enjoying
herself, regarded the whole affair with a gentle resignation. Wenna had
the gas lit and the blinds let down: then, as the evening was rather
cool, she had soon a bright fire burning in the grate. She helped to lay
the table. She produced such wines as they had. She made sundry visits
to the kitchen, and at length the banquet was ready.

What ailed the young man? He seemed beside himself with careless and
audacious mirth, and he made Mrs. Rosewarne laugh as she had not laughed
for years. It was in vain that Wenna assumed airs to rebuke his
rudeness. Nothing was sacred from his impertinence--not even the
offended majesty of her face. And at last she gave in too, and could
only revenge herself by saying things of him which, the more severe they
were, the more he seemed to enjoy. But after dinner she went to the
small piano, while her mother took a big easy-chair near the fire, and
he sat by the table, looking over some books. There was no more reckless
laughter then.

In ancient times--that is to say, in the half-forgotten days of our
youth--a species of song existed which exists no more. It was not as the
mournful ballads of these days, which seem to record the gloomy
utterances of a strange young woman who has wandered into the magic
scene in _Der Freischütz_, and who mixes up the moanings of her passion
with descriptions of the sights, and sounds she there finds around her.
It was of quite another stamp. It dealt with a phraseology of sentiment
peculiar to itself--a "patter," as it were, which came to be universally
recognized in drawing-rooms. It spoke of maidens plighting their troth,
of Phyllis enchanting her lover with her varied moods, of marble halls
in which true love still remained the same. It apostrophized the shells
of ocean; it tenderly described the three great crises of a particular
heroine's life by mentioning her head-dress; it told of how the lover of
Pretty Jane would have her meet him in the evening. Well, all the world
was content to accept this conventional phraseology, and behind the
paraphernalia of "enchanted moon-beams" and "fondest glances" and
"adoring sighs" perceived and loved the sentiment that could find no
simpler utterance. Some of us, hearing the half-forgotten songs again,
suddenly forget the odd language, and the old pathos springs up again,
as fresh as in the days when our first love had just come home from her
boarding-school; while others, who have no old-standing acquaintance
with these memorable songs, have somehow got attracted to them by the
mere quaintness of their speech and the simplicity of their airs. Master
Harry Trelyon was no great critic of music. When Wenna Rosewarne sang
that night "She wore a wreath of roses," he fancied he had never
listened to anything so pathetic. When she sang "Meet me by moonlight
alone," he was delighted with the spirit and half-humorous, half-tender
grace of the composition. As she sang "When other lips and other
hearts," it seemed to him that there were no songs like the
old-fashioned songs, and that the people who wrote those ballads were
more frank and simple and touching in their speech than writers
now-a-days. Somehow, he began to think of the drawing-rooms of a former
generation, and of the pictures of herself his grandmother had drawn for
him many a time. Had she a high waist to that white silk dress in which
she ran away to Gretna? and did she have ostrich feathers on her head?
Anyhow, he entirely believed what she had told him of the men of that
generation. They were capable of doing daring things for the sake of a
sweetheart. Of course his grandfather had done boldly and well in
whirling the girl off to the Scottish borders, for who could tell what
might have befallen her among ill-natured relatives and persecuted
suitors?

Wenna Rosewarne was singing "We met, 'twas in a crowd, and I thought he
would shun me." It is the song of a girl (must one explain so much in
these later days?) who is in love with one man, and is induced to marry
another: she meets the former, and her heart is filled with shame and
anguish and remorse. As Wenna sang the song it seemed to this young man
that there was an unusual pathos in her voice; and he was so carried
away by the earnestness of her singing that his heart swelled and rose
up within him, and he felt himself ready to declare that such should not
be her fate. This man who was coming back to marry her--was there no one
ready to meet him and challenge his atrocious claim? Then the song
ended, and with a sudden disappointment Trelyon recollected that he at
least had no business to interfere. What right had he to think of saving
her?

He had been idly turning over some volumes on the table. At last he came
to a Prayer-book of considerable size and elegance of binding.
Carelessly looking at the fly-leaf, he saw that it was a present to
Wenna Rosewarne, "with the very dearest love of her sister Mabyn." He
passed his hand over the leaves, not noticing what he was doing.
Suddenly he saw something which did effectually startle him into
attention.

It was a sheet of paper with two slits cut into it at top and bottom. In
these a carefully-pressed piece of None-so-pretty had been placed, and
just underneath the flower was written in pencil, "From H.T. to W.R.,
May 2, 18--." He shut the book quickly, as if his fingers had been
burned, and then he sat quite silent, with his heart beating fast.

So she had kept the flower he had put in the basket of primroses! It had
carried its message, and she still remained his friend!




CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CUT DIRECT.


"Well, mother," Miss Wenna said deliberately after he had gone, "I never
did see you so thoroughly enjoy a whole day."

"I was thinking the same about you, Wenna," the mother answered with an
amused look.

"That is true enough, mother," the girl confessed in her simple way. "He
is so good-natured, so full of spirits and careless, that one gets quite
as careless and happy as himself. It is a great comfort, mother, to be
with anybody who doesn't watch the meaning of every expression you use:
don't you think so? And I hope I wasn't rude: do you think I was rude?"

"Why, child, I don't think you could be rude to a fox that was eating
your chickens. You would ask him to take a chair and not hurry himself."

"Well, I must write to Mabyn now," Wenna said with a business-like air,
"and thank her for posting me this Prayer-book. I suppose she didn't
know I had my small one with me."

She took up the book, for she was sitting on the chair that Harry
Trelyon had just vacated. She had no sooner done so than she caught
sight of the sheet of paper with the dried flower and the inscription in
Mabyn's handwriting. She stared, with something of a look of fear on her
face. "Mother," she said in quite an altered voice, "did you notice if
Mr. Trelyon was looking at this Prayer-book?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," Mrs. Rosewarne said. "I should think he went
over every book on the table."

The girl said nothing, but she took the book in her hand and carried it
up to her own room. She stood for a moment irresolute: then she took the
sheet of paper with the flowers on it, and tore it in a hundred pieces
and threw them into the empty grate. Then she cried a little, as a girl
must; and finally went down again and wrote a letter to Mabyn which
rather astonished that young lady.

     "MY DEAR MABYN" (so the letter ran): I am exceedingly angry with
     you. I did not think you were capable of such folly: I might call
     it by a worse name if I thought you really meant what you seem to
     mean. I have just torn up the worthless scrap of flower you so
     carefully preserved for me into a thousand pieces; but you will be
     glad to know that in all probability Mr. Trelyon saw it on the
     paper, and the initials too which you put there. I cannot tell you
     how pained and angry I am. If he did place that flower
     intentionally among the primroses, it was most impertinent of him;
     but he is often impertinent in joking. What must he think of me
     that I should seem to have taken this seriously, and treasured up
     that miserable and horrid piece of weed, and put his initials below
     it, and the important date? You put thoughts into my head that
     cover me with shame. I should not be fit to live if I were what you
     take me to be. If I thought there was another human being in the
     world who could imagine or suspect what you apparently desire, I
     would resolve this moment never to see Mr. Trelyon again; and much
     harm that would do either him or me! But I am too proud to think
     that any one could imagine such a thing. Nor did I expect that to
     come from my own sister, who ought to know what my true relations
     are with regard to Mr. Trelyon. I like him very much, as I told him
     to his face two days before we left Eglosilyan; _and that will
     show you what our relations are_. I think he is a very frank,
     generous and good young man, and a clever and cheerful companion;
     and my mother has to-day to thank him for about the pleasantest
     little trip she has ever enjoyed. But as for your wishing me to
     preserve a flower that he sent, or that you think he sent to me,
     why, I feel my face burning at the thought of what you suggest. And
     what can I say to him now, supposing he has seen it? Can I tell him
     that my own sister thought such things of me? Perhaps, after all,
     the simplest way to set matters right will be for me to break off
     the acquaintance altogether; and that will show him whether I was
     likely to have treasured up a scrap of London pride in my
     Prayer-book.

     "I am your loving sister,

     "WENNA ROSEWARNE."

Meanwhile, Harry Trelyon was walking up and down the almost empty
thoroughfare by the side of the sea, the stars overhead shining clearly
in the dark night, the dimly-seen waves falling monotonously on the
shelving beach. "To keep a flower, that is nothing," he was saying to
himself. "All girls do that, no matter who gives it to them. I suppose
she has lots more, all with the proper initials and date attached."

It was not an agreeable reflection; he turned to other matters: "If she
were to care for me a little bit, would it be mean of me to try to carry
her off from that man? Is it possible that he has the same feeling for
her that I have? In that case it would be mean. Now, when I think of
her, the whole world seems filled with her presence somehow, and
everything is changed. When I hear the sea in the morning I think of
her, and wonder where she is; when I see a fine day I hope she is
enjoying it somewhere; the whole of Penzance has become magical. It is
no longer the same town. I used to come to it and never see it in the
old days, when one was busy about stables and the pilchard fishing and
the reports of the quarries. Now the whole of Penzance has got a sort of
charm in it since Wenna Rosewarne has come to it. I look at the houses,
and wonder if the people inside know anybody fit to compare with her;
and one becomes grateful to the good weather for shining round about her
and making her happy. I suppose the weather knows what she deserves."

Then he began to argue the question as to whether it would be fair and
honorable to seek to take away from another man the woman who had
pledged herself to marry him; and of course an easy and definite
decision is sure to be arrived at when counsel on both sides and jury
and judges sitting _in banco_ are all one person, who conducts and
closes the case as it suits himself. He began by assuming such facts as
suited his arguments, and ended by selecting and confirming such
arguments as suited himself. Wenna Rosewarne cared nothing for Mr.
Roscorla. She would be miserable if she married him: her own sister was
continually hinting as much. Mr. Roscorla cared nothing for her except
in so far as she might prove a pretty housewife for him. The selfishness
that would sacrifice for its own purposes a girl's happiness was of a
peculiarly despicable sort which ought to be combated, and deserved no
mercy. Therefore, and because of all these things, Harry Trelyon was
justified in trying to win Wenna Rosewarne's love.

One by one the people who had been strolling up and down the dark
thoroughfare left it: he was almost alone now. He walked along to the
house in which the Rosewarnes were. There was no light in any of the
windows. But might she not be sitting up there by herself, looking out
on the starlit heavens and listening to the waves? He wished to be able
to say good-night to her once more.

How soon might she be up and out on the morrow? Early in the morning,
when the young day was rising over the gray sea, and the sea-winds
coming freshly in as if they were returning from the cold night? If he
could but see her at daybreak, with all the world asleep around them,
and with only themselves to watch the growing wonders of the dawn, might
not he say something to her then that she would not be vexed to hear,
and persuade her that a new sort of life lay before her if she would
only enter it along with him? That was the notion that he continually
dwelt on for self-justification when he happened to take the trouble to
justify himself. The crisis of this girl's life was approaching. Other
errors might be retrieved--that one, once committed, never. If he could
only see her now, this is what he would say: "We can only live but once,
Wenna; and this for us two would be life--our only chance of it.
Whatever else may happen, that is no matter: let us make sure of this
one chance, and face the future together--you full of sweetness and
trust, I having plenty of courage for both. We will treat objectors and
objections as they may arise--afterward: perhaps they will be prudent
and keep out of our way." And indeed he convinced himself that this,
and this only, was Wenna Rosewarne's chance of securing happiness for
her life, assuming, in a way, that he had love as well as courage
sufficient for both.

He was early up next morning and down on the promenade, but the day was
not likely to tempt Wenna to come out just then. A gray fog hung over
land and sea, the sea itself being a dull, leaden plain. Trelyon walked
about, however, talking to everybody, as was his custom; and everybody
said the fog would clear and a fine day follow. This, in fact, happened,
and still Wenna did not make her appearance. The fog over the sea seemed
to separate itself into clouds: there was a dim, yellow light in the
breaks. These breaks widened: there was a glimmer of blue. Then on the
leaden plain a glare of white light fell, twinkling in innumerable stars
on the water. Everything promised a clear, bright day.

As a last resource he thought he would go and get Juliott Penaluna, and
persuade that young lady to come and be introduced to the Rosewarnes. At
first Miss Penaluna refused point-blank. She asked him how he could
expect her to do such a thing. But then her cousin Harry happened to be
civil, and indeed kind, in his manner to her, and when he was in one of
those moods there was nothing she could refuse him. She went and got
ready with an air of resignation on her comely face.

"Mind, Harry, I am not responsible," she said when she came back. "I am
afraid I shall get into awful trouble about it."

"And who will interfere?" said the young man, just as if he were looking
about for some one anxious to be thrown from the top of the tower on St.
Michael's Mount.

"I shall be accused of conniving with you, you know; and I think I am
very good-natured to do so much for you, Harry."

"I think you are, Jue: you are a thoroughly good sort of girl when you
like to be--that's a fact. And now you will see whether what I have said
about Miss Rosewarne is all gammon or not."

"My poor boy, I wouldn't say a word against her for the world. Do I want
my head wrenched off? But if any one says anything to me about what I
may do to-day, I shall have to tell the truth; and do you know what that
is, Harry? I do really believe you are in love with that girl, past all
argument; and there never was one of your family who would listen to
reason. I know quite well what you will do. If she cares ever so little
for you, you will marry her in spite of everybody, and probably against
her own wish: if she doesn't care for you, you will revenge yourself on
the happy man of her choice, and probably murder him. Well, it isn't my
fault. I know what your mother will say."

"Ah, you don't know, Jue, what my mother thinks of her," he said
confidently.

"Oh yes, mothers think very well of a girl until they discover that she
is going to marry their son."

"Oh, stuff! why the inconsistency--"

"It is the privilege of women to be inconsistent, Harry. Your mother
will detest that girl if you try to marry her."

"I don't care."

"Of course not. No man of your family cares for anything that interferes
with his own wishes. I suppose there's no use in my trying to show you
what a fearful amount of annoyance and trouble you are preparing for
yourself?"

"None. I'll take it as it comes: I'm not afraid."

They got down to the promenade; the forenoon was now bright and
cheerful; a good many folks had come out to enjoy the sunlight and the
cool sea-breeze. Miss Juliott was not at all disinclined to walk there
with her handsome cousin, though he had forgotten his gloves and was
clearly not paying her very special attention.

"Jue," he said suddenly, "I can see Miss Rosewarne right at the end of
this road: can't you?"

"I haven't got the eyes of a hawk, you stupid boy!" his cousin said.

"Oh, but I can recognize her dress a dozen times as far away. These are
her pet colors at present--a soft cream-color and black, with bits of
dark red. Can you see now?"

"I never saw you pay the least attention before to a lady's dress."

"Because you don't know how _she_ dresses," he said proudly.

She was coming along the Parade all alone.

"Well, it _is_ a pretty dress," Miss Juliott said, "and I like the look
of her face, Harry. You can't expect one girl to say any more than that
of another girl, can you?"

"This is a very nice way of being able to introduce you," he said. "I
suppose you will be able to chaperon each other afterward, when her
mother isn't able to go out?"

Wenna was coming quietly along, apparently rather preoccupied. Sometimes
she looked out, with her dark, earnest and yet wistful eyes, at the
great plain of water quivering in the sunshine: she paid little heed to
the people who went by. When at length she did see Harry Trelyon, she
was quite near him, and she had just time to glance for a moment at his
companion. The next moment--he could not tell how it all happened--she
passed him with a slight bow of recognition, courteous enough, but
nothing more. There was no especial look of friendliness in her eyes.

He stood there rather bewildered.

"That is about as good as the cut direct, Harry," his cousin said. "Come
along--don't stand there."

"Oh, but there's some mistake, Jue," he said.

"A girl never does a thing of that sort by mistake. Either she is vexed
with you for walking with me--and that is improbable, for I doubt
whether she saw me--or she thinks the ardor of your acquaintance should
be moderated; and there I should agree with her. You don't seem so vexed
as one might have expected, Harry."

"Vexed!" he said. "Why, can't you tell by that girl's face that she
could do nothing capricious or unkind? Of course she has a reason; and I
will find it out."




CHAPTER XXV.

NOT THE LAST WORD.


As soon as he could decently leave his cousin at home, he did; and then
he walked hastily down to the house in which Mrs. Rosewarne had taken
rooms. Miss Rosewarne was not at home, the small maid-servant said. Was
Mrs. Rosewarne? Yes; so he would see her.

He went up stairs, never thinking how his deep trouble about so
insignificant an incident would strike a third person.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said right out, "I want you to tell me if Wenna
wishes our acquaintance to end. Has she been speaking to you? Just now
she passed me in the street as if she did not wish to see me again."

"Probably," said Mrs. Rosewarne, amused as well as surprised by the
young man's impetuosity, "she did not see you then. Wenna often passes
people so. Most likely she was thinking about other things, for she had
another letter from Jamaica just before she went out."

"Oh, she has had another letter from Jamaica this morning?" Trelyon
said, with an angry light appearing in his eyes. "That is it, is it?"

"I don't understand you," Mrs. Rosewarne was saying, when both of them
heard Wenna enter below.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said with a sudden entreaty in his voice, "would
you mind letting me see Wenna alone for a couple of minutes? I want to
ask her if she is offended with me: you won't mind, will you?"

"Not in the least," she said, good-naturedly; and then she added, at the
door, "Mind, Mr. Trelyon, Wenna is easily hurt. You must speak gently to
her."

About a minute afterward Wenna, having laid her hat and shawl aside,
came into the room. When she found Trelyon there alone, she almost
shrank back, and her face paled somewhat: then she forced herself to go
forward and shake hands with him, though her face still wore a
frightened and constrained look.

"Wenna," he said, "don't go away: I want to speak to you for a minute.
You are offended with me about something, and I want you to tell me why.
If you wish our friendship to cease, say so, and I will obey you; but
you must tell me why first."

"I am not offended with you, Mr. Trelyon," she said in a low and nervous
voice. "Do not think that. But--but I think it will be better if you
will let our friendship cease, as you say."

"Oh no," he said, "I will not in this fashion. You've got to tell me
what is the matter first. Now remember this. Not very long ago you chose
to quarrel with me about nothing--absolutely about nothing. You know
quite well that I meant no harm to you by lending Mr. Roscorla that
money, yet you must needs flare up and give it me as hot as you could,
all for nothing. What could I do? Why, only wait until you saw what a
mistake you had made."

"It was very wrong of me," she said: "I ask your forgiveness. But now it
is quite different: I am not angry with you at all. I should like to
remain your friend, and yet I think it better not. I--I cannot explain
to you, Mr. Trelyon, and I am sure you won't ask me when I say so."

He looked at her for a moment, and then he said, gently and yet firmly,
"Look here, Wenna. You think I am only a boy--that may or may not
be--but I am going to talk reasonably to you for once. Come over to this
chair by the window and sit down."

She followed him in passive obedience. She took the one chair, he the
other.

"Perhaps I am only a boy," he said, "but I have knocked about a good
deal, and I have kept my eyes as wide open as most folks. I suppose
ill-natured people might say that as I had nothing to do at Eglosilyan,
I wanted to have a flirtation with the only girl who was handy. I know
better. Year after year I saw more and more of you, bit by bit, and that
after I had been abroad or living in other places in England from time
to time. I got to believe that I had never seen anywhere any girl or
woman who was so honest as you are, and good in a dozen secret ways that
needed a deal of discovering. I found out far more about you than you
imagined. I heard of you in cottages that you never knew I was in; and
everything I heard made me respect you more and more. Mind this, too. I
had no sort of personal liking for the sort of thing you were doing. I
don't admire beastly little rooms and poverty and sick people as
appealing to a fine sentiment. There never was anything of the parson or
the benevolent old lady about me. I would rather give half a crown to an
impertinent little boy who had just whopped another boy bigger than
himself than give a halfpenny tract to a sickly child in its mother's
arms: that's original sin in me, I suppose. But all that squalid sort of
work you were in only made the jewel shine the more. I used to think I
should like to marry a very grand woman, who could be presented at court
without a tremor, who would come into a drawing-room as if she was
conferring a favor on the world at large; and I certainly never thought
I should find the best and finest woman I had ever seen in back kitchens
sewing pinafores for children. And then when I found her there, wasn't
it natural I should put some store by her friendship? I suppose you
didn't know what I thought of you, Wenna, because I kept chaffing you
and Mabyn? I have told you something of it now; and now I want you to
say whether you have a right to shunt me off like this, without a word
of explanation."

She sat still, silent and nervous. The rude and impetuous eloquence of
his speech, broken by many a hesitating stammer, had touched her. There
was more thoughtfulness and tenderness in this wild lad than she had
supposed.

"How can I explain?" she burst out suddenly. "I should cover myself with
shame!"

"And what have you to be ashamed of?" he said with a stare. The distress
she was obviously suffering was so great that he had almost a mind to
take her at her word and leave the house without further ado.

Just at this moment, when he was considering what would be the most
generous thing to do, she seemed to nerve herself to speak to him, and
in a low and measured voice she said, "Yes, I will tell you. I have had
a letter this morning from Mr. Roscorla. He asks me if it is true that
you are paying me such attention that people notice it; and he asks me
if that is how I keep my promise to him."

Something like a quiver of rage passed through the young man at this
moment, but his teeth were kept firmly together. She did not look up to
his face.

"That is not all. I must tell you that I was deeply shocked and grieved
by this letter; but on looking back over the past six weeks I think a
suspicious person might have been justified in complaining to Mr.
Roscorla. And--and--and, Mr. Trelyon, did you see that dried flower in
my Prayer-book last night?"

Her resolution was fast ebbing away: he could see that her hands were
clasped piteously together.

"Yes, I did," he said boldly.

"And oh what could you have thought of me?" she cried in her distress.
"Indeed, Mr. Trelyon, it was all a mistake. I did not keep the flower--I
did not, indeed. And when I thought you had seen it I could have died
for shame."

"And why?" he said in a way that made her lift up her startled eyes to
his face. There was a strange look there, as of a man who had suddenly
resolved to dare his fate, and yet was imploringly anxious as to the
result. "For you have been frank with me, and so will I be with you. Why
should you not have kept that flower? Yes, I sent it to you, and with
all the purpose that such a thing could carry. Yes, you may be as angry
as you please; only listen, Wenna. You don't love that man whom you are
engaged to marry; you know in your heart that you do not believe in his
love for you; and are you surprised that people should wish to have you
break off an engagement that will only bring you misery?"

"Mr. Trelyon!"

"Wenna, one minute: you must hear me. Do with my offer what you
like--only here it is: give me the power to break off this engagement,
and I will. Give me the right to do that. Don't mind me in the matter.
It is true I love you--there, I will say it again: there is nothing I
think of from morning till night but my love for you--and if you would
say that some time I might ask you to be my wife, you would give me more
happiness than you could dream of. But I don't wish that now. I will
remain your friend if you like, Wenna; only let me do this thing for
you, and when you are free you can then say yes or no."

She rose, not proud and indignant, but weeping bitterly. "I have
deserved this," she said, apparently overwhelmed with mortification and
self-reproach. "I have earned this shame, and I must bear it. I do not
blame you, Mr. Trelyon: it is I who have done this. How many weeks is it
since the man left England to whom I promised to be faithful? and
already--But this I can do, Mr. Trelyon: I will bid you good-bye now,
and I will never see you again."

Her face was quite pale. She held out her hand.

"No," he said firmly. "We don't part like that, Wenna. First, let me say
that you have nothing to accuse yourself of. You have done nothing and
said nothing of which any man, however mean and suspicious, could
complain. Perhaps I was too hasty in speaking of my love for you. In
that case I've got to pay for my folly."

"And it is folly, Mr. Trelyon," she said passionately, and yet with
nothing but tenderness in her face. "How could you have thought of
marrying me? Why, the future that ought to lie before you is far more
than you can imagine yet; and you would go and hamper it by marrying an
innkeeper's daughter! It is folly indeed, and you will see that very
soon. But--but I am very sorry all this has occurred: it is another
grief to me that I have troubled you. I think I was born to bring grief
to all my friends."

He was anxiously debating what he should do; and he needed all his wits
at that moment, for his own feelings were strong within him, and
clamoring for expression. Should he insist? Should he bear down all
opposition? Happily, quieter counsels prevailed, for there was no
mistake as to the absolute truthfulness of what the girl had said.

"Well, Wenna," he said, "I will do anything you like, only to remain
your friend. Is that possible? Will you forgive all that I have said if
I make you a promise not to repeat it, and never again to mention your
engagement to Mr. Roscorla?"

"No, we must part now altogether," she said slowly. Then by haphazard
she glanced up at his face for a moment, and there was a great sadness
in her eyes. "It is a hard thing to part. Perhaps it will not be
necessary that you should never come to see me. But we must not be
friends as we have been, for I have my duty to do toward him."

"Then I may come to see you sometimes?"

She hesitated: "You may come to see my mother sometimes. And I will
always think of you as a dear friend, whether I see you or not."

He went outside, and drew a long breath. "I had to keep a tight grip on
the reins that time," he was thinking to himself--"a precious tight
grip; but I did it."

He thought of the look there was in her eyes when she finally bid him
goodbye. His face grew the happier as he thought of it. He was clearly
not at all down-hearted about his rejection: on the contrary, he went
and told his cousin Juliott that the little affair of the morning had
been quite satisfactorily arranged, that Miss Wenna and he were very
good friends again, and that it was quite a mistake to imagine that she
was already married to Mr. Roscorla.

"Harry," said his cousin, "I strictly forbid you to mention that
gentleman's name."

"Why, Jue?" he said.

"Because I will not listen to the bad language you invariably use
whenever you speak of him; and you ought to remember that you are in a
clergyman's house. I wonder Miss Rosewarne is not ashamed to have your
acquaintance, but I dare say you amend your ways when you are in her
presence. She'll have plenty to reform if ever she takes you for a
husband."

"That's true enough, Jue," the young man said penitently. "I believe I'm
a bad lot, but then look at the brilliant contrast which the future will
present. You know that my old

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