The Cosmopolitan 1886-04: Vol 1 Iss 1

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THE COSMOPOLITAN. APRIL, 1886. A STRANGE HEART. FROM THE GERMAN OF HEYSE, BY PAUL J. SCHLICHT. 5] HE sun had not yet risen. Over Vesuvius there hovered great, broad masses of grayish clouds that stretched toward Naples and darkened the little towns along the coast. The sea was calm. Along the harbor, which lies in a narrow cove under the high cliffs of the Sorrentine coast, fishermen and their wives already moved about, busy with the fishing boats and nets that had been out all night and were now being hauled to the shore. Others were getting their boats in readiness, setting the sails to rights, and carrying oars and yards from the great cave- like places deep in the rocks, protected by wooden shutters, where the tackle was put over night for safety. No one was idle; for even the old people, who no longer went out to sea, joined the great throng that pulled at the nets, and here and there on the flat roofs stood an old grandmother with spindle, or looking after the little grandchildren, whom the daughter had left to help her husband. ‘*Look there, Rachela! There is our pas- tor,’’ said a little old woman to a ten-year- old child that stood beside her turning a little spindle. ‘‘Heis just getting into the boat ; Antonino is about to take him over to Capri. Holy Virgin! how sleepy the good man looks !’’ And, with these words, she pointed to a little, good-natured looking priest settling himself comfortably in the He had first carefully lifted the boat below. skirts of his black coat and spread them on the wooden seat. Those on shore stopped work to see their priest take his departure. He nodded and bowed graciously to all. ‘“Why must he go to Capri, grandma ?’’ asked the child. ‘‘Have the people over there no priest, that they must borrow ours ?”’ ‘*Don’t be so silly,’’ said the old woman. ‘‘Yes, indeed they .have, and the finest churches ; they have even a hermit, which is more than we can say. But a high-born lady is over there, who lived a long time in Sorrento and was very sick here; and the father was often obliged to bring her the Holy Eucharist, when it was thought she would not live the night through. But the Holy Virgin supported her and she is again fresh and rosy, and every day can take baths in the sea. When she went over to Capri she left behind a great pile of gold, as a gift to the church and the poor people, and would not go away, it is said, unless the father promised to visit her, so that she could make her confession to him. It is astonishing how much she thinks of him. And we should be thankful that we are blessed with a priest who has the gifts of an archbishop and is sought after by the great and noble. The Holy Mother be with him!’ And with these words she waved her hand toward the little boat that was about to be pushed from the shore. ‘*Shall we have clear weather, my son ?’’ asked the little priest, who looked reflect- ively in the direction of Naples.

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70 THE COSMOPOLITAN. ‘The sun has not yet come out,’’ replied the young man; ‘but it will soon drive away this bit of fog.’’ ‘‘ Well, then, let us make haste, that we may arrive before it gets warm.”’ Antonino took in his hand the long oar to push the boat out into the wates, when he suddenly stopped and looked up to the top of the steep path that leads from the town of Sorrento to the harbor. The slender form of a young girl, hurrying down the rocky pathway and waving a ker- chief, met his gaze. She carried a little bundle under her arm, and her clothes were old and worn. She had a haughty and somewhat wild manner of throwing back her head, which made the black braid that was coiled about her forehead look like a diadem. ‘‘ What are we waiting for?’’ asked the priest. ‘‘Surely no one is coming who wishes to go to Capri.”’ ‘‘ Pardon me, father, but the boat will not go any slower, for it is only a young crea- ture, scarcely eighteen years old.”’ At that moment the young girl stepped from behind the wall that borders the curved pathway. ‘‘Why, that is Laurella!’’ ex- claimed the priest. ‘‘What takes her to Capri ?”’ Antonino shrugged his shoulders. The young girl approached with rapid steps and looked about. ‘‘Good day, 1’Arrabiata!’’ called out several of the young boatmen. They would have said much more, but did not, on account of the presence of the priest; for the mute and scornful manner with which the girl re- ceived their greetings stung the imperti- nent young men. ‘‘Good day, Laurella,’’ also called out the priest. ‘‘Are you going along with us to Capri ?”’ ‘Tf you will allow me, father.’’ ‘* Ask Antonino, for he is the master of this craft. Heis lord of his own property, and God is Lord of us all.’’ ‘Here is a pieceof money,’’ said Laurella, without looking at the young boatman. “If that is enough ?’’ she added in a ques- tioning tone. ‘* You have better use for it than I,’’ mur- mured the youth, who began to move some baskets of oranges to make more room. He was to sell them in Capri, for the little island does not bear enough to supply the wants of the many visitors. “I will not go over without paying,”’ replied the girl, contracting her black eye- brows. ‘Come, child, never mind,’’ said the priest. ‘‘Heisa good youth and does not want to grow rich on your poverty. Here, getin.’”’ And he held out his hand to her. ‘* Sit down beside me. See, he has laid his coat here that you may have a softer seat. He hasn’t made it as comfortable as that for me; but that is the way with young people. There is more fuss made over a little maid than over ten doctors of divinity. Never mind, ’Tonino, no apologies are needed ; it is God’s own will that like seeks like.’’ In the meantime, Laurella, without saying a word, had taken her seat, after pushing aside the coat. The young boatman let it lie, and muttered something between his teeth. Then he pushed vigorously against the shore and the little bark darted out into the bay. ‘What have-you there in your bundle?’ asked the priest, as they were being borne over the water that was just beginning to be lit up by the first rays of the sun. ‘Silk, yarn, and a loaf, father. I am to sell the silk to a lady in Capri who makes ribbons, and the yarn to some one else.”’ ‘*Did you spin it yourself ?’’ ‘Ves, father.’’ ‘‘Tf I remember rightly, you also learned to make ribbons.”’ ‘Yes, father; but mother is again worse, so that I cannot get away from home, and we are not able to buy a loom.”’ ‘*Well, well, that’s bad. When I visited you at Easter, she was sitting up.”’ ‘*The spring is always the worst time for her. Since the great storms and earth- quakes, she has always been obliged to lie down from pain.”’ “Do not cease, my child, with your prayers and supplications to the Holy Virgin in your mother’s behalf. Be good and in- dustrious that your prayers may be heard.’’ After a pause, he continued: ‘‘As you reached the beach, I heard them call out to you, ‘Good day, l’Arrabiata.’ Why do they call you by that name? It is not a pretty name for a Christian maiden, who should study gentleness and humility.’’ The hot blood suffused the girl’s brown

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A STRANGE HEART. 71 face and her eyes flashed fire. ‘‘ They make sport of me because I do not dance and sing, and have not, like others, a great deal to say. They ought to let me alone; I don’t harm them.’’ ‘But you might, at least, be civil to everybody. It may be that others dance and sing who carry life’s burdens lightly ; but a kind word befits even those who have their sorrows.’’ She looked down and knit her brows more closely, as though to hide her black eyes. They rode on for a time in silence. The sun in his splendor looked down on the moun- tain. The crestof Vesuvius stood out above the masses of clouds that still hovered about its base, and the houses on the plain of Sorrento shimmered in their whiteness among the green orange groves. ‘‘Has that painter not let you hear from him, Laurella—that Neapolitan who wanted to make you his wife?’’ inquired the priest. She shook her head. ‘‘He came at that time to paint your pic- ture. Why did you refuse him ?’’ ‘‘What did he want it for? There are others prettier than I. And then, who knows what he would have done with it? He might have bewitched me with it and injured my soul, or he might have caused my death, my mother says.”’ ‘Do not believe such sinful things,’’ added the priest earnestly. ‘‘Are you not always in the hands of God, without whose will no hair falls from your head? And shall a man with a picture be stronger. than his God? Moreover, you might have known that he only wished you well; for would he have asked to marry you, if this were not so?’’ She was silent. ‘‘And why did you refuse him? He is said to be a good man, of gentle birth, and would have cared for your mother better than you can with your spinning and your silk winding.”’ ‘‘We are poor people,’’ she said bitterly ; ‘‘and my mother has been sick solong. We would only have been a burden to him, and, moreover, I never was born to be a lady. Had his friends visited him, he would have been ashamed of me.’’ ‘What nonsense youtalk! I tell you, he was, in every sense, a gentleman ; and, fur- thermore, he wanted to move to Sorrento. It will be a long time before another man like him will come. He seems to have been sent from heaven to help you in your troubles.’’ “‘T will never bind myself to any man— no, never!’’ she said obstinately, looking before her. ‘‘ Have you made a vow, or do you intend to enter a convent ?”’ She shook her head. ‘‘The people are right who reprove you for your obstinacy by giving you such a name, though it is anything but a pretty one. Do you not know that you are not alone in the world, and that, by your per- versity, you are adding bitterness to your sick mother’s life? What good reason can you give for thrusting aside every honest hand that offers its support to you and your mother? Answer me, Laurella!’’ ‘‘T have indeed a good reason,’’ said she in a faltering whisper; ‘but I cannot give it.’’ ‘“What! you cannot tell me? You can- not tell your confessor, in whom you always confide, knowing that he has only your good at heart? You surely mean you cannot tell strangers ?”’ She nodded. ‘‘Then lighten your heart, child. If you are right I will be the first to admit it. But you are young and know little of the world, and you might regret later in life having thrown away your happiness for some child- ish freak.’’ She shyly cast a hasty glance at the young man, who was industriously rowing in the back of the boat and had pulled his woolen cap low down on his forehead. He looked over the boat’s side into the sea and seemed lostin hisownthoughts. The priest noticed her glance and bent his ear nearer. ‘“You did not know my father?’’ she asked in a whisper, her eyes darkening. ‘Your father? But he died when you were barely ten years old. What has your father, whose soul may be in paradise, to do with your perversity ?”’ ‘“You did not know him, father; you do not know that he alone is the cause of my mother’s sickness.”’ ‘* How so?”’ ‘*Because he treated her so badly, and whipped her, and kicked her. I remember the nights when he would come home in.a

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72 THE COSMOPOLITAN. rage. She never said a word to him and always did his bidding. But he whipped her so, that he nearly broke my heart. I would pull the bed clothes over my head and pretend to be asleep, but cried all the night long. And then, when he would see her lying on the floor, his manner would sud- denly change. He would lift her up and kiss and embrace her, so that she would cry out for fear of being smothered. My mother forbade me to say a word of this to anyone, but it so affected her that, through all these long years since his death, she has never been well; and if she should die early, which heaven forbid, I would know who killed her.”’ The little priest rocked his head and seemed in doubt as to how far he should admit that the young girl was right. At last he said: ‘‘ Forgive him as your mother forgave him. Do not abandon yourself, Laurella, to these sad thoughts. Better times will come, and these things will all be forgotten.’’ ‘‘Never will I forget them,’ she said, shuddering. ‘‘And, father, it is for this reason that I wish to remain a maiden all my life, and never be subject to any one who will first abuse me and then caress me. I will give my love to no man to be sick and miserable on his account.”’ ‘“You are, indeed, a child, and speak like one who does not know what is going on in the world! Are, then, all men, like your poor father, the slaves of mood and passion, and who cause only suffering to their wives ? Have you not seen many good men in the neighborhood ? and have you not seen many women who live in peace and happiness with their husbands ?”’ ‘“No one knew about my father; no one knew how he was to my mother, for she would have died a thousand deaths rather than say anything about it to anyone, or complain; and all this because she loved him. If love locks the lips that should call out for help, and makes one powerless against such treatment as one’s mortal enemy would not, be guilty of, then I will give my heart to no man.”’ ‘*T tell you, you are a child and know not what you say. Your heart,’’ he said ironically, ‘‘ will be very likely to ask you whether you will or will not love, when the time comes; then all the strange fancies that you now have in your head will count for nothing.’’ After a pause, he added, ‘‘ And did you also believe that the painter would treat you harshly ?”’ ‘‘T saw in his eyes the very look I have seen in my father’s when he would ask for- giveness of my mother, and take her in his arms again to whisper loving words in her ear. That look I know too well. A man may have that look in his eyes and still have the heart to beat his wife, who never did him harm. How I shuddered when I saw those eyes again, with that same look.’’ She was silent. The priest, too, said nothing. He thought of many things he might tell the girl, but the presence of the young boatman; who, toward the end of the confession, became restless, sealed his lips. After two hours’ ride, they entered the little harbor of Capri. Antonino carried the good priest from his boat through the shal- low water and placed him reverently on the shore. Laurella would not wait until he waded back and took her up. She gathered together the skirts of her little dress, and took her little wooden slippers in her right hand and her bundle in her left, and, splash- ing through the water, ran hastily to the shore. ‘‘T will, perhaps, stay for some time at Capri,’’ said the priest, ‘‘and you need not wait for me. Perhaps I will only return home to-morrow; and you, Laurella, when you get home, give my respects to your mother. I will visit you this week. You are, of course, going back to-night ?”’ ‘‘If I can,’’ said the girl, busying her- self about her dress. ‘You know that I also must get back,’’ spoke Antonino, in a tone that was intended to be very careless. ‘‘I will wait for you until the Ave Maria. If you will come then, it will be all the same to me.”’ ‘‘You must come, Laurella,’’ said the little priest. ‘‘ You dare not leave your mother alone all night. Is it far to where you have to go?”’ ‘“To Anacapri; to a vineyard.’’ ‘‘And I must goto Capri. God preserve you, my child ; and you, my son.”’ Laurella kissed his hand, and gave a nod that was intended to be half for the priest and half for Antonino. Antonino, however, did not take any part of it for himself. He pulled off his cap to the priest, but did not even look at Laurella. .

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A STRANGE HEART. 73 When they had both turned their backs upon him, his eyes did not long follow the good man, who made his way with great difficulty along the pebbly road, but followed the girl, who had turned to the right and ~ was going up the heights, holding her hand before her eyes to shield them from the sun’s strong rays. Where the path between the walls ended, she stood still a moment, as if to catch breath, and looked around. The har- bor lay at her feet. About it towered the rugged cliffs. A rare blue gave the sea an air of unwonted splendor. It was truly a sight to hold her attention. Accident would have it that her eye, hastily sweeping past Antonino’s boat, caught the glance with which he had followed her. They both made movements, like people who wish to make apologies, and as though the meeting of eyes had happened by mistake. Then the girl, with a dark look, continued her way. It was one hour past midday, and Antonino had already been sitting two hours on the beach, near an inn frequented by the fisher- men. Something must have been passing in his mind, for every five minutes he sprang up, stepped out in the sun, and carefully looked along the paths that, to the left and the right, lead to the two little island towns. The weather seemed to him threatening, he said to the hostess of theinn. It was true, it was clear; but he understood this color of the sky and sea; it had looked just like this before the last great storm, when he had, with the greatest difficulty, brought the English family on land, she would re- member. ‘*No,’’ said the woman. Well, she would remember his warning, if the weather changed before night. ‘‘ Are many great people over there,’’ asked the hostess, after a short pause. ‘*They are just beginning tocome. Until now we had bad times. Those who came for baths, we had to wait for a long time.’’ ‘‘Spring came late. Have you earned more than we over here in Capri ?”’ ‘‘T wouldn’t have been able to buy macca- roni twice a week, if I had to depend upon my boat. Now and then to carry a letter to Naples, or to row a gentleman on the sea, who wanted to fish ; that’s about all I have done. But you know that my uncie owns large orange groves and is a rich man. ‘*Tonino,’ said he, ‘as long as I live you need not suffer, and after I am dead you will also be cared for.’ Thus, with God's help, I passed the winter.’’ ‘*Has your uncle children ?’’ ‘*No; he was never married, and was fora long time abroad, where he made quite a fortune. Now he intends starting a fishery, and wants to put me at the head of the busi- ness, to look after his interests.’’ ‘*Then you area made man, Antonino." The young man shrugged his shoulders. ‘*Every one has his own burden to bear,’’ he said. With this he sprang up and looked to the left and to the right to see how the weather was, although he should have known that there is only one direction in which the weather can be observed. ‘‘T will bring you another bottle; your uncle can pay for it,’’ said the hostess. ‘‘Only another glass, for you have a fiery kind of wine. My head is already quite heated.”’ “Tt wont do you any harm; you may drink as much as you like. There comes my husband; you must sit awhile and chat.’’ There came down the hill the stately mas- ter of the inn, with his net flung across his shoulder, his red cap pulled over his curly black hair. He had brought fish into town, which had been ordered by the high-born lady whom the little priest of Sorrento was visiting. As he caught sight of the young boatman, he greeted Antonino heartily, wav- ing his hand in welcome. He was soon seated on the bench beside him, and began to ask questions -and relate little anecdotes. His wife had just brought a second bottle of real, unadulterated Capri, when sounds as of footsteps on the beach to the left were heard, and Laurella appeared, coming along the way from Anacapri. She hastily nodded, and stood a moment in doubt. Antonino sprang up. ‘‘I must go,’’ said he. ‘It is a girl from Sorrento, who came this morning with our pastor, and who must get back to her sick mother.”’ ‘Well, well, it is a long time before night,’’ said the fisherman. ‘‘ She will have time to drink a glass of wine. Hey there, wife, bring another glass !’’ “T thank you, I do not drink,’’ said Laurella, who remained standing at a dis- tance. ,

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74 THE {COSMOPOLITAN. ‘Pour it out, wife, pour it out! She only needs a little coaxing.”’ ‘*Tet her alone!’’ said the young man; ‘‘she has a stubborn head. When she makes up her mind toa thing, not even a saint in heaven can change it!’ And with this he took a hasty leave, ran toward the boat, unfastened the rope, and stood await- ing the girl. She again greeted the keepers of the inn and proceeded, with hesitating steps, toward the boat. Before doing this, she looked on all sides, as though she awaited some one else. The harbor was deserted. The fishermen were asleep or were out with their nets and lines. Only a few women and children sat in the door- ways, sleeping or spinning; and the stran- gers, who in the morning had been brought over, awaited a cooler time of day to return. She did not have long to look about her, and, before she could resist, Antonino had taken her in his arms and carried her, like a child, tothe boat. Then he jumped in, and, with a few strokes, they were out on the open sea. She took her.seat in the front part of the boat, half turning her back upon him, so that he could only see her sideways. Her features were more earnest than usual. Over the low forehead fell the thick hair ; in the quivering of the delicate nostrils the trait of self-will, so prominent in her character, could be seen; the full mouth was tightly closed. After they had glided for a time in silence over the water, she felt the burning rays of the sun, and, taking the loaf of bread out of her kerchief, she put the latter on her head. Then she began to eat the bread for her noonday meal, having taken no food at Capri. Antonino did not look at her long. He took from the basket, which, in the morning, had been filled with oranges, two tempting ones, and said: ‘‘Here is something that will go nicely with your bread, Laurella. Don’t imagine I kept them for you. They rolled out of the basket into the bottom of the boat, and I found them when I put back the empty baskets.”’ ‘‘Eat them [yourself; my bread is all I care for.’’] ‘They are refreshing in this heat, and you have walked quite a distance.’’ ‘‘Up there, they gave me a glass of water, and that has quite refreshed me.”’ ‘ripple about the boat’s keel. ‘‘Suit yourself,’ said he, throwing the oranges back into the basket. Again there was silence. The sea was as smooth as a mirror and there was scarcely a The white sea gulls that had their nests in the cliffs uttered no sound, as they flew in quest of prey. ‘‘You might take the two oranges to your mother,’’ rejoined Antonino. ‘We have some at our house, and when they are all gone, I will buy more.”’ “Take them to her, with my compli- ments.’’ ‘*She does not know you.’’ ‘*You might tell her who I am.”’ ‘* But even I do not know you.”’ It was not the first time that she had thus denied him. About a year before, when: the painter had just come to Sorrento, it hap- pened that on a certain Sunday Antonino, with other young men of the place, was at play on a vacant spot near the principal street. It was not far from this spot that the painter first met Laurella, who, with a water jar on her head, passed by without noticing him. The Neapolitan, struck by her appearance, stood in the way of the players and looked after her, although by taking a step or two he might have got out of the way. The hard ball that struck him on the leg must have reminded him that that was not the place to lose one’s self in thought. He looked around, as though awaiting an apology. The young boatman, who had thrown the ball, stood silent and unconcerned in the midst of his friends, and the stranger found it advisable to avoid quar- reling, and went his way. This incident was often mentioned, and more particularly when the painter openly sought Laurella’s hand. ‘‘I donot knowhim,”’ said Laurella, when the painter asked if she refused him on account of that boorish youth. She knew of their meeting, and ever afterwards, whenever she met Antonino, certainly recog- nized him. And now they sat in the boat, like the bitterest enemies, the hearts of both beating violently. The ordinarily good-natured face of Antonino was very red; he splashed the waves so that the spray was thrown over him, and his lips trembied at times as though he muttered curses. She seemed to take no notice of him. Her face wore an air of unconcern. She bent over the side of

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A STRANGE HEART. 75 the boat and let the water run through her fingers. Then she took off her kerchief and arranged her hair, as if she were all alone in the boat. Her eyebrows twitched a little, and yet it was in vain that she held her wet hands against her burning cheeks to cool them. Now they were far out on the water and no sail wasinsight. The island was far behind; the coast was just visible behind the mists rising from the water ; not a sound disturbed the deep stillness. Antonino looked around. A thought seemed to have entered his mind. The redness suddenly left his cheeks and he dropped the oars. Laurella turned with an anxious but fearless look on her face. ‘‘I must make an end of this,’’ broke out the youth. ‘‘It has lasted already too long, and I wonder that I have stood it. You do not know you say? Have you not had opportunity to see me enough, when I have met you, with my foolish heart too full for utterance? Then that ugly look would come over your face, and you would turn your back on me.”’ ‘* What had I to talk with you about,”’ she said curtly. ‘‘I have seen very well that you sought me. I did not, however, want to be in people’s mouths for a mere nothing, because marry you I never would, nor any one else, for that matter !”’ ‘‘Or any one else? You will not always talk this way. Is it because you sent away the painter? Bah! You were then only a child. You will in time become lonely, and then, like the foolish girl you are, take the first man that comes along.”’ ‘“No one knows his future. It may be that I will change my mind; but how does that concern you ?”’ ‘* How does that concern me ?’’ he rejoined, and sprang from his seat, making the boat rock. it concern me? And that is the way you speak when you know how I feel toward you? A man had better die than be treated as shamefully as I have been by you.”’ ‘‘Did I ever make you any promises? Is it my fault that you lose your head? What claims have you on me?”’ ‘*Oh,’’ cried he, ‘‘it is not written; no document has been drawn up in Latin, with a seal, it is true; but this I know, that I have as much claim on you as I have on heaven, if I have always been a good man. me, ‘““How does Do you think that I want to witness the sight of another going with you to church, and have the girls pass me by and shrug Must I draw upon me this their shoulders ? shame ?”’ ‘*Do as you please. afraid, however much you threaten. will do as I please.’’ ‘You will not long speak so,’’ said he, boiling over with rage. ‘I am man enough not to allow my life to be embittered by such a stubborn thingas you. Do you know that you are here in my power, and I can do with you whatever I please ?”’ She drew back a little, but her eyes blazed. ‘* Kill me, then, if you dare !’’ she said slowly. ‘““Things must not be done by halves,” he said in a hoarse voice. ‘‘ There is room for both of us inthe sea. I cannot help you, child.’’ He now spoke in an almost sympa- thetic tone, like onein a dream. ‘‘ We must both go under, both at once and now!’’ he cried out in a loud voice, and caught her suddenly in both arms; but in the twinkling of an eye he drew back his hand, from which the blood spurted, for she had bitten him. ‘*Must I do your bidding ?”’ she cried out, and pushed him away from her. ‘Let us see if Iam in your power!’ With this she sprang over the boat’s side and disappeared in the deep. She came up at once, the skirt of her little dress floating about her; her hair had become unfastened by the waves and hung in heavy masses over her neck, but she swam quickly, without uttering a word, away from the boat toward the coast. In sheer fright, Antonino stood like one dazed. He looked after her with a strange gaze, as though a miracle were passing before his eyes. Then he shook himself, rushed for the oars, and pulled the boat with all his might, while the bottom of the boat was growing red with continued streams of blood. In a few seconds he was by her side, although she swam very quickly. ‘*By the most Holy Virgin !”’ ‘‘come into the boat. I was a fool. God only knows what clouded my brain. Like the lightning from heaven, the thought entered my mind and I was like one crazed, and did not know what I did or said. You need never forgive me, Laurella; but save your life and get in.”’ She swam on, as though she had heard nothing. You can’t make me I, also, cried he,

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76 THE COSMOPOLITAN. ‘*You cannot get to the land. We have yet two milestogo. Think of your mother. If an accident should befall you, she would die of grief.’ She measured with a glance the distance to the coast, then, without replying, swam to the side of the boat, catching hold of it with both hands. He stood up to help her, and his coat, that had lain on the seat, fell into the sea, as the weight of the young girl rocked the boat to one side. She quickly swung herself into the boat and took her former seat. When he again saw her seated, he caught hold of the oars. She arranged her soaking dress as best she could, and rang the water out of her heavy tresses. She looked at the bottom of the boat, and noticed the blood, and then threw a rapid glance at the hand, which, as though not wounded, plied the oar. ‘‘ Here,’’ said she, handing him her kerchief. He shook his head and rowed on.+ However, she soon stood up and stepped toward him; and with the cloth bound the deep wound. Then she took from him, much as he opposed it, the oar, and sat opposite. Without looking at him, her eyes rested on the oar, which was red with blood. With vigorous strokes, she made the boat leap forward. They were both pale and silent. When they came nearer to the land, they met fishermen about to cast their nets for the night. They called out to Antonino, and addressed tantalizing words to Laurella. Neither looked up nor answered. The sun stood high above Pro- cida as they reached the harbor. Laurella shook her little dress that had become nearly dry and sprang to the beach. The old spin- ning woman who saw them leave in the morning was again standing on the roof. ‘“What is the matter with your hand, ’Tonino ?”’ she called out. ‘‘ Our Saviour be with us ! the boat swims with blood !’’ ‘Tt is nothing, mother,’ replied the youth. ‘‘I tore my hand on a nail that stuck out too much. To-morrow it will be all over. This accursed blood makes it look more dangerous than it is.’’ ‘*T will come over with herbs to put on the wound, my son.”’ ‘Do not trouble yourself, mother; to- morrow everything will be over and for- gotten. I have a healthy skin and it will soon grow over the wound.”’ ‘* Addio !’’ said Laurella, turning toward the path that led up to the top of the heights. ‘*Good night,’’ called out the youth, with- out looking at her. Then he took the oars and the basket, and mounted the little stone steps that led to his hut. There was no one but himself in the two little rooms. Through the little open win- dows, guarded by their wooden blinds, there blew a gentle breeze; it was much more refreshing here than on the placid sea, and the solitude seemed grateful. He stood for a long time before the little image of the Mother of God, and looked attentively at the halo of stars, made of silver paper, pasted on it. It did not occur to him to pray. What had he to pray for, he who had nothing more to hope? The day seemed at a stand still. He looked anxiously for the night, for he was tired, and the loss of blood had weakened him more than he was willing to admit. He felt severe pain in his head, and sat down on a bench and unloosed the bandage. The blood that had been held back spurted out suddenly. The hand was much swollen around the wound. He washed it carefully, and cooled it from time to time. When he examined it again, he plainly distinguished the marks of Laurella’s teeth. ‘*She did right,’’ he said. ‘‘I was a brute and deserved nothing better. To-morrow, I willsend back her kerchief by Giuseppe ; for she shall not see me again.’’ Soon he washed the cloth carefully, and spread it out in the sun, after he had band- aged his hand as well as he could with his left hand and his teeth. Then he threw himself on his bed and closed his eyes. The bright moon and the pain in his hand, awoke him from his slumber. He sprang out of bed again to assuage the fevered throbbing of his wound with water. Hearing a noise at his door, he called out, ‘“Who is there ?”’ Laurella stood before him. Without any words, she stepped in. She threw down the kerchief that was flung over her head, and placed a little basket on the table. She then stopped to catch breath. ‘““You came to get your kerchief?’’ said he. ‘‘You might have spared yourself the trouble, because I would have sent Giu- seppe with it.’

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A STRANGE HEART. 77 ‘Tt is not on account of the kerchief that I came,’’ she replied quickly. ‘‘ I have been up on the mountain to get herbs for you, to stop the bleeding. Here they are,’’ and she lifted the cover from the little basket. “You have put yourself to too much trouble,’’ said he, and without any bitterness whatever in his voice, he added: ‘‘I am already much better, very much better; and if I were worse, why then it would only be what I have earned. What do you want here at such a time? Suppose some one should meet you here! You know how the people talk, although they do not often know what they say.”’ ‘*T don’t care about any of them,’’ she said boldly ; ‘‘but-that hand I want to see, and I want to put these herbs on it; for, with your left hand, you cannot do it.”’ ‘*T tell you, it is unnecessary.”’ ‘*Well, then, let me see, so that I can believe you.’’ She caught hold of the hand without another word. He was unable to She took off the bandage, and when she saw the large swelling she fell back and cried out: ‘‘ Holy Virgin !’’ ‘Tt is somewhat inflamed,’’ he said. resist. + i a little while it will be all right.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘ You cannot go out on the sea with such a hand as this. You must stay at home at least a week.”’ ‘*Oh, no; I think I will be able to get out day after to-morrow. What matters it, any- way ?”’ Meanwhile she had brought a basin, and again washed the wound, which he allowed her to do, as though he were a child. Then she laid leaves and herbs on the wound, which soon quieted the burning ‘pain, and bound up the hand with the strips of linen that she had brought with her. When she got through, he said: ‘‘I thank you. And listen, if you will do me a favor. Forgive the folly that I have been guilty of to-day, and forget everything that I have said or done. I do not know myself how it came about. You never gave me any cause for it; you certainly never did; and I shall never again say anything to you that will hurt your feelings in the least.’’ ‘It is I,’’ said she, who should ask your forgiveness. I should have spoken differ- ently ; I should not have made you angry by my stubborn way; and there, that wound!’ ‘It was high time that I should come to my senses, and, as I have said, it matters little. Speak not of the past. You have done me a kindness and Ithank you. Now, then, go and take your rest; and here is your kerchief; you can just as well take it with you now.”’ He handed it to her, but she stood in silence, and there seemed to be a conflict going on within her. At last she said: ‘“You lost your coat on my account, and I know that the money for the oranges you sold was init. I thought of all this on my way home. I cannot replace it for you, because we have not the means; and, if we had, everything is mother’s. But here, I have the silver cross that the painter laid on the table when he was at our house the lasttime. I have not looked at it since then, and do not care to have it longer in the bureau. If it is sold, it will be well wortha couple of silver pieces, my mother said; so your loss would be made good to that ex- tent, at least; and whatever might be still wanting I will try to earn with my spinning at night, while my mother is asleep.”’ ‘*T will take nothing,’’ he said curtly, and pushed the little cross that she had taken out of her pocket aside. “You must take it,’’ she said. ‘‘ Who knows how long before you will be able to earn anything with your wounded hand? There it lies, and I do not wish again to set eyes upon it.”’ ‘* Well, then, throw it into the sea.’’ ‘But it is no present that Iam making; it is but your just due, and nothing more.” ‘““You owe me nothing, and I have no claim ‘whatever on anything of yours. Should you ever meet me, do me the favor not to look at me, that I may not think that you remember me by what Iowe you. Well, then, good night ; and let it be the last good night !’’ He laid the kerchief in her basket, and the cross with it, and fastened the cover over them. Then, as he looked up into her face, he shrank back. Great heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. She let them flow. ‘Holy Virgin !”’ he cried, ‘‘are you sick? You tremble from head to foot.’’ ‘It is nothing,’’ said she; ‘‘I want to go home,’’ and turned toward the door. Her weeping overcame her, and she pressed her forehead against the door post and sobbed aloud. But before he could follow her to

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78 THE COSMOPOLITAN. hold her back, she turned around and sud- denly flung herself about his neck. ‘‘T cannot stand it any longer,’’ she cried, and clung to him as a dying person clings to life. ‘‘I cannot hear you utter fond words to me, and hear you bid me go from you with all the blame on my conscience. Beat me, kick me, curse me! Or, if it is true that you love me, after all the evil I have done you, take me and keep me, and do with me what you will, but do not send me away from you thus.’’ Speechless for a moment, he held her in his arms. ‘‘ You say that if I love you,” he cried at last. ‘‘Holy Mother of God! Do you think that all my heart’s blood has passed out through that little wound? Do you not feel it there in my breast, beating as though it would leap out to you? If you only say it to try me, or because you feel for me, go and I will also forget that. You must not think that you owe it to me, for you know how much I suffer for you.”’ ‘* No,’’ said she, as she looked up from hts shoulder into his face, her eyes yet full of tears. ‘‘I love you, and I have long feared and battled against this love. And now I will become different, for I cannot refuse to look at you when you pass me on the street. THE Now I will kiss you,’”’ said she; ‘‘and then you can say to yourself, if ever you are in doubt, that Laurella kissed you, and Laurella kisses no one except the one she will take for a husband.”’ She kissed him three times, and then dis- engaged herself and said, ‘‘ Good night, my beloved. Go to sleep, that your hand may soon get well. Do not come with me, be- cause I am afraid of no one, unless it be you.”’ With these words she passed out of the door and disappeared in the shadow of the wall, but he looked a long time through the window out on the sea, over which all the stars seemed to tremble. When the little priest came out of his confessional where Laurella had knelt, he quietly chuckled to himself. ‘‘Who would have thought,’’ said he, ‘‘ that God would so soon take pity on this strange heart. And I was angry with her myself for not having tried to quell the demon of self-will in her. But our eyes see not the ways of heaven. May the Lord bless them, and may I live to see the day when Laurella’s eldest boy shall take me, as his father did, across to Capri. > Yes, yes, l’Arrabiata ! CLOUDED MIND. Br B.C. G. [ R. IRELAND* defines an illusion to be an erroneous interpretation of a real sensation, and a hallucination to be a per- ception of a sensation arising from changes within the organism without any corre- sponding change in the outer world. All men are subject to hallucinations at times, and there is a grain of truth in the remark once made by an insane woman, that ‘‘every- body is insane.’’ There is no clearly defined dividing line sanity and insanity. This is a thing of several kinds and many degrees. The hereditary taint is potent, but can often be overcome. Passions, uncontrolled by the will, often lead to chronic insanity, in some between *THE BLoT UPON THE BRAIN: STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PsycHoLoGy. By William W’.. Ireland, M. D., Edin. New York : G. P. Putnam ’s Sons. form. But there be hallucinations habitually, without insanity. If the man recognizes the hallucination to be some- thing unreal, he may be sane; on the other hand, if he believes and acts upon it, he is insane. Dr. Ireland has grouped together a large number of facts in illustration of his sub- ject. Take one, representing a very large class of hallucinations: Dr. Kadinsky states that, during an illness, he saw sud- denly before him a statue of white marble, of middle size, in the attitude of a stooping Venus. After some seconds, the head of the statue fell off, leaving the stump of the neck, with the red muscles. The head, when it fell, broke in the middle, exposing the brain. The contrast between the white marble and the red blood was especially remarkable. may

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THE CLOUDED MIND. 79 Hallucinations of a similar character, mul- titudinous and minute in detail, and possess- ing all the vividness of reality, have been frequent among the sick, and are produced by stimulants and narcotics, and by psycho- logical means and mechanical devices. They come within the experience of every one, and many are described at length in Dr. Ireland’s book. There are two types of hallucination, often running into temporary or chronic insanity, which are of especial interest, and of these a few eminent and strikingly interesting examples may be selected. The first has reference to religious exaltation, or ecstacy, and the vicious propensities, or abnormal passions. Sprenger, a learned German writer, pro- ceeds, in his ‘‘ Life of Mohammed,’’ on the theory that he was subject to a nervous dis- ease, and became an epileptic. His revela- tions began when he was forty-two years old, with visions in his sleep, ‘‘ as bright as the dawn of morning.’’ He went to live in a cave, and spent several days and nights together in prayers and devotional exercises. Here an angel came to him and commanded him to ‘‘ read in the name of the Lord.”’ According to another tradition, as he was walking in the valleys about Mecca, every stone and tree greeted him with the words, ‘‘Hail to thee, O messenger of God!’ He looked around, and saw nothing but stones and trees. ‘‘The prophet heard these cries so long as it pleased God that he should be in this condition; then the angel Gabriel appeared, and announced to him the message of God in the mountain Hira.”’ It is related that when Mohammed was questioned upon the manner of his inspira- tion, he replied: ‘‘Inspiration descendeth upon me in two ways: sometimes Gabriel cometh and communicateth the revelation to me, as one man unto another, and this is easy; at other times it afflicteth me like the ringing of a bell, penetrating my .very heart, and rending me, as it were, in pieces ; and this it is that grievously afflicteth me.’’ Traditions indicating epilepsy, state that he made a noise like that of a young camel ; that he would fall with dangerous force, and would go into a coma, as if drunk. But be- hind all Mohammed’s illusions, says Dr. Ireland, ‘‘ was a keen and powerful intellect, well acquainted with the passions and mo- tives which most act upon men, and gifted with a wonderful power of forcible speech.’’ His hallucinations took definite shape and sequence, adapting themselves to difficulties, opposition, and criticism. The manner of Swedenborg’s revelations were like those of Mohammed. In describ- ing the first he received, he says he lay down on his bed, and, ‘‘an hour after, I heard a clamor under my head; I thought that then the tempter went away; imme- diately there came over me a rigor so strong from the head and the whole body, with some din, and this several times. I found that something holy was over me.’’ He describes, as another experience, that he felt as if ‘‘a mist streamed out at the pores of his body that was quite visible, and fell upon the ground, where a carpet appeared, upon which the mist gathered, and changed itself into worms of all species, which were instantly burnt up, when a fiery light ap- peared in their place, and a cracking was heard. In his voluminous works, remarks Dr. Ireland, he lets it be easily seen how all the faculties of his mind were allowed to conspire in the work of self-deception. Luther was subject to delusions about the devil. ‘‘One of the commonest sources of error in speculation is for men to attribute things they are unacquainted with to causes of which they know something, or think they know something.’’ Once, when a great storm was abroad, Luther said: ‘‘’Tis the devil who does this; the winds are nothing else but good or bad spirits. Hark ! how the devil is puffing and blowing.’’ His ‘*Table Talk’’ is full of delusions about the devil, to whom, like many other devoted men, he referred nearly all his evil thoughts. Another remarkable subject of religious hallucination was Joan of Arc, the ignorant peasant girl of Domremy, who became the victorious leader of the French army, and the restorer of King Charles to his throne. Her hallucinations began when she was thirteen years old, and she thought she often heard from heaven the words: ‘‘ Daughter of God, go! go! go! go! Iwillaid you; go!’’ Mich- elet says: ‘‘The originality of the Maid of Orleans, and what determined her success, was not so much her valor or her visions as her good sense. Through allher enthusiasm, this daughter of the people saw the question clearly, and was able to solve it.

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80 THE COSMOPOLITAN. We pass to the other type, or, rather, that part of it representing what Dr. Ireland terms ‘‘the insanity of power.’’ He says: ‘The first effect of absolute power seems to be a free indulgence in sensual pleasures, passing into immoderate lust and debauch- ery; then a capricious delight of domineer- ing over others, putting them into degrading positions, and making them execute painful tasks, passing into a contempt for their sufferings, or a positive pleasure in seeing them suffer. Unrestrained power always tends to abuse. Indeed, save to some rare and fine natures, the luxury of power con- sists in its abuse. Power is nothing, if it be conscientiously applied; the man who gives only to the deserving, who punishes only the guilty, who absolves only the inno- cent, whose testimony is inexorably true, has really no power at all. An imperious sense of duty rules his way.”’ The author means that'the man’s authority is passed over to the keeping of his con- Science. He further says: ‘‘If it be kept in mind that, besides its own degenerative in- fluence, absolute power is tempted to the indulgence of all alluring kinds of sensu- ality, without any stint, it will not be sur- prising that insanity has appeared in all great ruling families. In the earliest his- torical times, we see it in the Babylonian and Persian dynasties, in the Julian family, in that of Charlemagne, in the royal family of Spain, in the imperial house of Russia, and the sultans of Turkey. There is scarcely an existing dynasty of Europe in which there is not an hereditary neurosis ; and in- sanity and idiocy are very common among the princes of India.”’ The first illustrative example is Julius Czesar, who was addicted to venereal ex- cesses, and toward the close of his life had several epileptiform fits. Regarding the first Ceesars, Dr. Ireland asks: ‘‘ Where else can we find such experiments to gauge the limits of the possible depravity of human nature? Where else can we find such far- reaching and irresistible power over the civ- ilized world, such shameless passions, such contempt for the opinion of man, so little fear of retribution beyond the grave ?”’ Augustus was subject to neurosis, and was both cruel and cowardly. Julia, daughter of Augustus, was an impudent wanton, who ran from one indulgence to another, until she lost all restraint. Tiberius is described by Tacitus as naturally heartless, cruel, and licentious, and given to dissimulation. He was addicted to astrology, and was a fatalist. The monster Caligula was an epileptic when a boy, and in manhood was troubled by painful hallucinations. Messalina and Agrippina, the wives of Claudius, and the latter the mother of Nero, were steeped in the worst vices. The world is familiar with the astounding cruelties and horrors of the reign of Nero. Commodus was a glutton, drunkard, sensualist, and tyrant, and Helio- gobalus was no better. One of the most diabolical despots of his- tory was Mohammed Toglak, sultan of India, who, of ‘‘all men, loved most to make presents and shed blood,’’ whose life was spent pursuing visionary schemes, in total disregard of the sufferings of his sub- jects. His elephants were taught to throw men in the air and catch them with their trunks, tocut their bodies on knives fastened to their tusks, or to trample them under foot. He caused men to be killed and tortured daily. Iven the Terrible is considered the greatest tyrant ever known on earth. His tigerish impulses were not awakened until he was about twenty-seven years old, when he first tasted blood in the Crimean wars with the Tartars. He yielded himself, without re- morse, to his homicidal impulses and cruel- est fancies ; never seemed to enjoy anything more than seeing men and women tortured ; and, after reveling in blood and unmeasured indulgences during twenty-six of a nominal reign of fifty years, died in 1584, the undis- puted autocrat of the Russians. One of the many terrible stories related of him is, that he killed more than a hundred men in test- ing a poison that he had caused to be pre- pared for his use. Feodor, Ivan’s son, inherited his father’s cruel propensities, had epileptic fits, and was credulous and weak-minded. Peter the Great showed a tendency to convulsions, and was a singular medley of self-sacrifice and tyranny, humanity and cruelty. The un- blushing unchastity of Catherine II. is no- torious. Paul, her successor, was evidently deranged, and no one was safe from his fickle and furious disposition. The blood of the first kings of Spain has coursed in occupants of nearly all the thrones

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YOU AND HE. of Europe. The hereditary neurosis is traced from the founding of the Spanish monarchy, in 1469, for 350 years, sometimes passing over a generation and appearing in various forms and intensities as epilepsy, hypochon- dria, melancholia, mania, and imbecility, till, at last, the direct line became extinct by the death of the imbecile Charles IT. ‘‘In considering the insanity of power,’’ observes Dr. Ireland, ‘‘ we may look at it in two ways: the madness of the tyrant in abusing it, and the madness of the people in submitting toit.’’ Perhaps imbecility would be the better word in the latter clause. Insanity causes insanity by example, as well as by the infection of the blood, and epi- demics of hallucination and insanity have not been infrequent. Various other classes of phenomena are presented by Dr. Ireland, but we will follow him no further. YOU AND HE. By GEORGE C. BRAGDON. Your speech is smooth, with accent of the scholars, Your manners courtly, and your presence fine; You live in style, you have no lack of dollars ; You seem to keep within the moral line. He stutters sadly, and cannot uncover By wordy skill the thoughts that stir his soul ; Uncouth his garb and gait; yet, mark him lover Of all the virtues, and his conscience whole. We heard you stab him with your critic lances, Because not pleasing to your ear and eye, And saw you stab him with your scornful glances, So that he turned away, with blush and sigh. An hour before, with swift and noble daring, He rushed through flames to save a burning boy, Not pausing for himself, nor even caring, Then fled the crowd’s applause and mother’s joy. You have been known to praise the ancient heroes In sounding eloquence, redundantly, Nor less denounce the cowards and the Neroes Who blot the page of human history. But what are words that never fruit in action, And purpose high, and strong self-sacrifice ? That ill conceal a vain self-satisfaction, And insincerities akin to lies? Your life is show; his life is mostly hidden ; You please yourself; his conscience is his guide; And, though to him your graces are forbidden, Are those less precious ‘which his flesh-wraps hide? Do you, or he, see clearer, deeper, higher ? How does your glitter with his truth compare? Do you, or he, more struggle and aspire? Which unclothed spirit would appear more fair?

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UNCLE TOBY TOLLEY. By A. W. MOoRE. OW did I get my fortune, do you ask? Well, thereby hangs a tale. As old Jim Tolley uttered these words, he leaned back in his arm-chair and laughed until his sides shook. He was a fine old gentleman, with a bald head and a red face —not a tippler’s face, for he was quite tem- perate in all things; and that fresh-looking, healthy color was only indicative of out- door exercise and generous living. Oh, there’s no secret about it. You see, when I was a lad, I had a face as smooth and handsome as any girl’s; and many a time, just for a lark, I used to dress up in girl’s clothes and have great fun. We used to play charades at evening parties, and if there was ever a lack of girls to take the bolder parts, I was always chosen to fill the place. I little thought, in those foolish days, that my propensity to play pranks in female attire would be the cause of my losing, and then the means of gaining, the competency and comfort I have enjoyed fora half cen- tury ; but so it was. I was just eighteen then, short in stature, as I am now. My good father must have considered me quite smart; for he often sent me on long journeys to transact business for him. Though I enjoyed fun and frolic, I had no liking for vice of any kind, and I made it a rule to be honest and true in all my dealings. Well, on one occasion, my father sent me on the longest journey I had ever under- taken. It was to Havana, Cuba. I went by steamer from New York, and it was a most delightful trip. I completed my father’s business, and returned to Rattlesville one evening, a week earlier than I was expected. On entering the house, I found that the family, consisting of father, mother, and sister, had gone to a dinner party at Squire Burgess’, who lived a mile or so from our place. The servants were surprised to see me, and said they had not looked for my return so soon. I made up my mind to go to the dinner party, too; and, hastily putting on my dress suit, I started off. Now, Mrs. Burgess, the wife of the Squire, was one of the jolliest little women that ever brightened a home. Her face was wreathed with perpetual smiles; she loved young people, and always mingled with them when she could; and as for practical jokes, why she loved them almost as much as she did her young friends—I mean innocent, practical jokes. Whenever there was a chance for fun, she was ready to lend a hand. As I walked toward the Burgess mansion, it occurred to me that I might have sonie fun myself, and give much amusement to the guests at Mr. Burgess’. I must, however, before going further with my story, tell you something about my uncle Toby Tolley. He was a rich old bachelor, grumpy, andeccentric in his manners, though quite a favorite with many. He had great likes and dislikes, and did odd things occa- sionally, which caused his enemies to say he was ‘‘a little off.’’ He was particularly cautious in his dealings with the fair sex, and people said he was a woman hater, as he had never married, and so seldom went into the society of ladies. The only member of the opposite sex that he had ever taken kindly to was an orphan girl by the name of Bertha Snyder. She was the daughter of an old chum of Uncle Toby, who had died when the girl was a child. She had lived with an old aunt since the death of her parents, but out of love for his dead friend and real pity for the orphan, Uncle Toby clothed and educated her. She was, at the time I speak of, commencing to teach school. A pretty, charming creature ! I fancy I see her now, ‘with her rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and auburn hair. A lovelier girl it would be impossible to imagine. As he said this, Jim Tolley’s wife, who sat knitting near the fire-place, exclaimed: ‘‘Now, Jim Tolley, you stop; you area perfect old goose !’’ ‘It’s the truth, my dear; it’s the truth

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UNCLE TOBY TOLLEY. 83 I’m telling !’ cried he ; and he went on with his story : It me see, where wasI? Oh, yes; the pretty girl! As I said, Uncle Toby was generous toward her, and some of the people of the neighborhood, who liked to tease him, spread it abroad among the gossips that the old bachelor was educating Bertha Snyder with the intention of marrying her. I must tell you that; from the day of my birth, my parents had been given to under- stand by Uncle Toby that I was to be his heir, and this thought had been instilled into my mind from my earliest infancy, and it had been encouraged even by Uncle Toby himself on divers occasions. He often took me for long drives in the country, gave me instruction in the ways of the world, and did me many acts of kindness. He even went so far one time as to say that he hoped I would always be a steady, sober man, and put to a good use, and manage well, the valuable property he would leave me at his death. But to return to the dinner party at Squire Burgess’. As Ientered the beautiful grounds surrounding the mansion, I could see by the illuminations within that a large party was assembled. I had thought out a plan for my lark, and, instead of going to the prin- cipal entrance, I went to the housekeeper’s door in the rear. I wasinstantly recognized by the servant, who admitted me. She ex- pressed surprise at my appearance, saying that the visitors had been talking about me at the dinner table, and hoping that I would have a prosperous voyage to Cuba and back. ‘Don’t tell anyone I’m here,’’ I said, ‘‘but ask Mrs. Burgess if she will step into the library for a moment.”’ I entered the room, in which the light had been turned low. Presently, Mrs. Burgess, genial and smiling, came toward me. As soon as she recognized me (for the servant had not told her it was I who wished to see her), she looked at me a moment, dumb with surprise, and then exclaimed : ‘Why, bless us! we thought you were in Cuba! Oh, how glad I am to see you; pray, come into the drawing-room ; we have such a charming party.”’ ‘‘Is Uncle Toby here ?’’ I asked. ‘*Oh, yes,’’ replied Mrs. Burgess. ‘* Who else ?’’ I inquired. ‘*Well, there are the Wilmotts, the Lills, the Lingfords, the Musselmans, the Husons, and the minister, Mr. Day, who makes more fun than anybody else. Do come in ; it will be such a surprise! Tell us all about Cuba and the curious things you saw there.”’ ‘* Wait a moment,”’ said I, as Mrs. Burgess was about to draw me from the room. ‘‘I want to play a little joke on Uncle Toby. Can you dress me up as a girl ?”’ ‘Oh, how delightful! Yes, of course I can, replied the motherly dame. ‘‘Come up stairs.’ I went up into a large room containing wardrobes, from which Mrs. Burgess and her maid soon selected an outfit, from the stylish hat to the dainty shoes. When dressed, the artificial auburn curls placed around my temples, and the light veil thrown over my features to complete the deception, I looked like a beauty, and, as every one who saw me said, the very image of Bertha Snyder. I then descended to the hall, went out at a side door, and walked around to the prin- cipal entrance, where I gave the bell a vigor- ous pull. According to arrangement, the servant who opened the door took me into the library, and then went to the drawing- room and announced in a clear voice, so that every one could hear: ‘‘A young lady wishes to speak with Mr. Toby Tolley in the library.’’ My mother told me afterwards what a commotion this announcement made in the drawing-room. The company made it un- comfortable for Uncle Toby by coughing significantly, ‘‘Ahem!’’ ‘‘Oh, dear!’ “A young lady, indeed!’ ‘‘Fie! Uncle Toby,”’ while the gentlemen indulged in such remarks as, ‘‘ Now, Uncle Toby, make aclean breast of it !’’ ‘‘ Murder will out!’ ‘“‘He’s going to confess !’’ ‘‘ The bride elect !’’ ‘‘Is it one of the foolish virgins, Uncle Toby ?”’ He said there must be some tnistake, ag no lady in all Rattlesville could, by any possi- bility, have an excuse for calling him out from company ina friend’s house. He declared that he had no business whatever with females. Mrs. Burgess then went out of the room, ostensibly to ascertain particulars. She soon returned, saying that most certainly there was no mistake. A young lady was

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84 THE COSMOPOLITAN. in the library and seemed in trouble. She begged Mr. Toby Tolley to come to her. Very reluctantly, Uncle Toby arose from his seat, his face twitching with excitement, and his fingers nervously working a pair of spectacles that he had removed from his nose. When he entered the library and saw me sitting on the sofa with a handkerchief at my eyes, as though I had been crying, he seemed perfectly stupefied, and, for a few moments, he did not speak. At length, he ‘‘ Madam, you say you wish to speak to me. May I ask whom I have the honor of addressing ?”’ ‘“Oh, Toby Tolley—my own Toby!’ I cried, in a falsetto voice; ‘‘ how can you ask who I am ?”’ ‘‘T ask because I do not know you. I cannot see your face,’’ he replied earnestly. ‘‘ And yet you have made love to me ever so long! Oh—oh—oh! my heart! My heart will break! Oh, false and fickle Toby !’ and, uttering a piercing shriek, I pretended to faint. My cries brought Mrs. Burgess to my side, and she, though laughing inwardly, man- aged to say something about the inconstancy of man, and the broken hearts that that brute was responsible for. To which Uncle Toby responded by saying the young woman was either crazy or an impostor, and that he had never in his life made love to anybody. Mrs. Burgess had, woman-like, the moment Uncle Toby left the drawing-room, whis- pered to several ladies the truth concerning the fair visitor, and it was, therefore, not surprising that most of the company came out into the hall and stationed themselves near the library door, to enjoy the discom- fiture of poor Uncle Toby. Feigning to recover from my fainting fit, I arose from the sofa and struck a dramatic attitude, and, wringing my hands, as if appealing to heaven to witness the truth of my words, broke forth with such disjointed sentences as these : ‘*To think that my darling Toby should have proved untrue !—my own darling Toby! Do not cast me aside! Pity me! Protect me! Oh !—oh!—oh! Toby! Toby! Toby! What have I done?’’ And then I sobbed hysterically. While I was sobbing, some ladies at the door made such remarks as, ‘‘ Poor girl ! her heart is breaking !’’ ‘‘ Oh, fie! Uncle Toby, where is your manhood?’’ ‘It is the old, old, story !’’ ‘‘ Yes ; woiman’s love and man’s perfidy !’’ ‘* Ladies,’’ cried the bewildered man, ‘‘I know nothing about this young woman. She must be mad—deranged—to act in this way !”’ Then, turning to me, he cried out fiercely: ‘“How dare you commit the outrage of thrusting yourself into the house of my friend and holding me up to dishonor and ridicule? Wretch, begone! before I have you arrested as an impostor !’’ Here I drew myself up majestically, gazed at Uncle Toby a moment, pointed my finger heavenwards, and then towards him, in tragic style, as though to intimate that the heavens above would shower upon him innumerable curses. Then I fell upon the neck of Mrs. Burgess, and began to sob like a school girl. ‘* Don’t cry, Bertha dear,’’ exclaimed Mrs. Burgess, in a loud voice. ‘Did you say her name was Bertha ?’’ cried Uncle Toby, excitedly. ‘Oh, dear! It really is poor Bertha!’ said some one at the door. ‘* Yes, it must be !’’ said another. ‘“Who would have thought it ?’’ put in a third. “This is indeed a shocking affairs !’’ cried a solemn voice. state of

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THE MELON EATE After E. B. Murillo.

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UNCLE TOBY ‘‘Bertha? Can it be possible?’ cried Uncle Toby, striking his forehead with his hands. ‘‘ Yes, it is Bertha. She is mad! I will go to her aunt. Give me my hat—my hat, immediately !”’ He rushed from the room, elbowed his way through the little crowd in the hall, found a hat, and speedily made his exit through the front door; and, in a few minutes, he knocked at the dwelling of Bertha Snyder’s aunt. ‘‘Oh, dear! here’s Mr. Toby Tolley,”’ cried that lady, as she opened the door. ‘*‘Come in Mr. Tolley. You are always wel- come.”’ But Uncle Toby was out of breath and very excited. Seeing that, the old lady became quite alarmed ; for she had heard it rumored that he was, at times, ‘‘a little peculiar,’’ and the thought occurred to her that he might at last be really insane, and that, perhaps, her own safety was in jeop- ardy. ‘‘Mrs. Wilkins,”’ cried Uncle Toby, when able to speak, ‘‘ Bertha Snyder has gone mad, and is making a scene down at Mr. Burgess’ house. I have just come from there, and I want you to go and get her away, and place her under restraint.’’ ‘*‘Good gracious me! Mr. Toby Tolley, what do you mean? Why, my dear sir, you must be dreaming; for she’s in the parlor yonder studying botany.’’ ‘Studying botany!’ exclaimed Uncle Toby, utterly bewildered, and stroking his bald head as though to make sure it was fast on his shoulders. ‘Yes, studying botany. for yourself.’’ Mrs. Wilkins, with fear and trembling, showed the man into the parlor, where, indeed, sat Bertha, with her book before Come and see her. ‘* Have you been in all the evening ?”’ asked Uncle Toby, addressing Bertha. Bertha looked at her kind benefactor with amazement, and said, ‘‘Why, Mr. Tolley, what is the matter? In all the evening? Of course, I have. I am always at. home after school.’’ ‘“Then I have seen your ghost!’’ cried Uncle Toby. Mrs. Wilkins, who stood behind Mr. Tolley’s chair, made a sign to Bertha by placing her forefinger on her own forehead, TOLLEY. 85 and then pointed to the head of Uncle Toby, as though to indicate a vacancy there. Ber- tha seemed to comprehend her aunt’s sign, and turned very pale. ‘‘T have either seen your ghost or some one that is your very image in voice and appearance,’’ said Uncle Toby. He then gave a long and rambling account of the occurrence at Squire Burgess’. But the story, as he told it, seemed so absurd to Mrs. Wilkins and her niece that they were confirmed in their belief in Uncle Toby’s insanity, and a great dread came over them that he might become violent. Mrs. Wil- kins, thinking to pacify him, began to address him by saying : ‘“‘Dear Mr. Tolley—’. . ‘*Pray don’t ‘dear’ me, Mrs. Wilkins,’’ cried Uncle Toby, irritably; ‘‘I’ve had enough of that for one night. That wretched creature, spirit, or lunatic, ‘or whatever it was, had the impudence to call me her own darling Toby. How is that for a man who never yet saw the woman he would give the snap of his finger for.’’ Here Uncle Toby snapped his fingers vigorously. ““T was merely going to suggest,’’ con- tinued Mrs. Wilkins, ‘‘that if you were just to lie down and take a nap—’”’ “Take a nap!’ roared Uncle Toby. ‘‘Never! I'll not sleep until I get at the bottom of this mysterious outrage. I'll go back to Burgess’ at once.’’ ‘* Bertha,’ he went on, ‘‘I’m glad I was wrong in thinking it was you. Good girl! Heaven bless you !’’ He said good night, took his hat, and went back to Mr. Burgess’ house. I must confess that when I saw him come into the drawing-room and caught his eye, I felt frightened. There was a look of desperation in his twitching face that seemed to affect all present. He stood at the door, with his back to it, as though he intended to bar the way of exit to every one, until he had redeemed his character in the eyes of the company. He began to make a speech, but had hardly finished a sentence, when every body in the room, except me, burst into laughter. I trembled in every limb. By a sort of intuition, I became conscious that a great misfortune was about to befall me, and that, for once, I had carried my joking too far. Uncle Toby, standing there, the

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86 THE COSMOPOLITAN. laughing stock of the whole company, who thought an old bachelor fair game for ridi- cule, became very angry. His brows knitted and his eyes glittered like steel. Seeing that matters were becoming un- comfortable, Mrs. Burgess thought that the best thing to do was to explain the whole matter to Uncle Toby in the presence of: the company ; and this she did, pointing me out as the chief actor in the comedy, fully ex- pecting to see Uncle Toby join in the laugh against himself. The result, however, was quite different ; for, giving me a withering look, and pointing his finger straight at me, he said : ; ‘‘James Tolley, you have had your fun, and I hope you have enjoyed it. I am going to have my fun now. I shall makea new will. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you good night.’’ Saying which, Uncle Toby took his leave. Of course, everybody felt sorry for me, though a few whispered that it served me right. It was generally agreed that I had come home from Cuba just a week too soon. But I was a plucky lad, and I determined to make my own way inthe world. I had already done good work in the study of law. I felt confident of my future success, afid soon dismissed the matter of my disinherit- ance from my mind. Of course, the joke got noised about Rat- tlesville, but what made me feel it most was the association of Bertha Snyder’s name with the affair. I was but slightly ac- quainted with her; still, I thought it right and manly to call on her, and, after making an explanation, to apologize to her. I, therefore, called one evening, and, in a tim- orous, bashful manner, explained the object of my visit. Whether or not I looked un- commonly foolish and ridiculous, or whether my motives in telling my story appeared too absurd, I cannot say; but certain it is that Miss Snyder burst out laughing, while I was demurely pleading for absolution ; and, sud- denly recognizing the absurdity of the whole thing, I blushed and began to laugh, too. Mrs. Wilkins joined in the merriment, and spoke to me with great kindness. “Ts it true,’’ she asked, ‘‘that your Uncle Toby disinherited you for this foolish freak ?”’ ‘‘Quite true,’’ I replied. ‘‘I have been formally notified by him that I must not build any hopes on receiving one cent from him at his death. But that is not so dis- tressing to me as people imagine. I am quite capable of earning my own | living, being young, strong, and hopeful.’’ As I said this, my eyes rested on those of Bertha, who was looking at me in a dreamy, thoughtful way. That mutual gaze fixed my fate! A wonderful feeling thrilled me; a new light shone in my sky. At the same moment Bertha, as though suddenly collect- ing her senses, cast her eyes on the floor, while a deep blush tinged her cheeks. I knew then that she read my thoughts. I know now that they did not make her un- happy. A remark that fell from Mrs. Wilkins as Bertha looked away from me seemed exceed- ingly propitious. “You will succeed!’’ the aunt said, re- ferring to my determination to earn my own living ; but her reply chimed in so well with the other thought in both our minds that I was sure I knew the cause of Bertha’s blushes. At this point in Jim Tolley’s story his good wife cried, ‘‘Jim Tolley, you are a goose !”’ ‘‘T know it, mother; but I’m telling the truth,’’ replied he. Well, I spent a most delightful evening with Mrs. Wilkins and her niece. I made myself asagreeableas possible. Itold them stories, talked of my travels, and promised to take Miss Bertha some pressed flowers I had brought from Cuba. After that, my calls were frequent, and I never left the house without making some excuse to call again. Each visit increased my love for Bertha ; and, at last, she made me happy by promising to be my wife. I had so managed matters that but few people in Rattlesville had any idea of my love affair. Bertha went daily to teach school, and I to study and work in a law office. At this time, Uncle Toby disappeared from Rattlesville. He went to Europe, leaving his property in charge of an agent. The old gentleman left home, no doubt, to avoid the humiliation that he would feel whenever his friends and neighbors alluded to the cruel joke that I had played on him. In the meantime, I worked with such zeal

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UNCLE that, at the age of twenty-one, I was admit- ted to the bar, and very soon after, Bertha and I were married. We were both poor enough, heaven knows, I having only three hundred dollars in the wide world; but Aunt Wilkins was more than a mother to us; she was an angel. The good soul gave up to our use her largest room, and told us to consider her house our home as long as we wished. After we were married, we went to a quiet village by the sea to spend our honeymoon ; and, although we were not rich in this world’s goods, and the future seemed uncertain, we were very happy. We made our own beautiful world, as we rambled in the woodlands and shady lanes near the sea. A few days after our arrival, as we were sitting on the sands, watching the incoming tide, with its ever recurring wave breaks, a boy suddenly disturbed our day dreams by rushing up to us with a telegram for my wife. It read thus: RATTLESVILLE, Aug. 2. To Mrs. James Tolley: Toby Tolley died suddenly yesterday. You are re- quested to be present at the funeral, which takes place URIAH SHARP, Counselor at Law. on Thursday next. The message, so abrupt and unexpected, made my wife ill, I was indignant at law- yer Sharp for not having addressed his mes- sage to me, so that I might have broken gently to Bertha the distressing news of her benefactor’s death. It was very painful to have our peace and happiness so rudely interrupted. We returned to Rattlesville as speedily as possible. Of course, we went directly to Aunt Wilkins’. She was ill, also, but was delighted to see us. The fact was, she had experienced a very severe shock, Uncle Toby having expired suddenly in her presence. ‘“You see,”’ said Aunt Wilkins, in giving us an account of the sad occurrence, ‘‘he came here to call on Bertha. Hesaid he had just returned from Europe. When he heard of Bertha’s absence, he became suspicious and began to question me more closely, so that I became confused. I know I felt very guilty, TOBY TOLLEY. 87 and, noticing my embarrassment, he ex- claimed : ‘** Now what’s the trouble, Mrs. Wilkins ? Something has happened to Bertha !’ ““*Well, sir,’ I replied, becoming quite desperate and wishing to put an end to all secrecy, ‘she’s married !’ ***Married! To whom?’ he shrieked. : ‘“«*James Tolley, your nephew,’ I replied. ‘*Mr. Tolley’s face turned very red and his breathing was short and hard. He became purple, and I noticed that he tried to say something. Then he suddenly fell, face foremost, to the floor. When the doctor came, he said Mr. Tolley had died of apo- plexy. Oh, dear! it was terrible !”’ After laying poor uncle Toby in his last resting place, we returned to his pretty house, where were assembled a number of the Tolley family. Uriah Sharp was there, and read the will. He did it with a malignant twinkle in his eye, as he looked occasionally over his spectacles from one Tolley to another, not one of whom was left anything. The original will was read over; in which Uncle Toby had left all his prop- erty to me. Then came a clause revoking all this, stating the reason why, and leaving all of the property to Bertha Snyder, the child of his late lamented friend and com- panion, Zachariah Snyder. Most of the Tolley family left the house of mourning carrying their noses very high in the air, and thinking hard things about the dead bachelor. Lawyer Sharp shook hands with me, and, winking his eye solemnly, said, ‘‘If you conduct all your cases as well as you have this one, you will soon be on the bench.”’ So, you see, I not only secured the hand- somest and best wife in the country, but, by her gentle grace, I now enjoy the benefits of my good Uncle’s handsome fortune, which, could he have spoken just before he died, he might, to revenge himself upon Bertha for marrying me, have given to some one else. almost The old lady in the corner at this moment exclaimed : ‘‘Jim, you are an old goose!’’

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A SONG AND A SAUCE. By W. H. W. CAMPBELL. fe is not generally known, perhaps, that the sauce wherewith Mr. Pickwick’s immortal ‘‘chops’’ were made palatable, came into celebrity in company with a famous French patriotic song; but such is the case. On the 22d of June, 1792, a company of twenty-four sat down to a banquet in the city of Marseilles. It was at a modest res- taurant on the Rue du Tubaneau. The ban- queters were a revolutionary club, called ‘‘ The Friends of the Constitution.’’ Two of the guests were from Montpelier. They had come to confer with their Marseilles friends about the battalion that it was proposed to dispatch to Paris. Among the edibles at this feast was the pomme d'amour, or love apple, now known as the tomato; but at that time, it was grown chiefly as a curiosity. It was, however, esteemed by epicures in Italy and in the south of France, but in Paris it was scarcely known, and was believed to be poisonous. On this festive and patriotic occasion, one of the visitors, a man named Mireur, an ardent patriot, of imposing figure, fiery ges- tures, and magnificent voice, arose and began to sing the stanzas of a new and inspiring battle hymn. So thrilling was the effect that the assembled group were swept away by passion, and vehemently joined voices in the tumultuous refrain. The next day, all Marseilles echoed with this wonderful The revolutionary clubs were opened and closed with it. The journals published it, giving it the title, ‘‘War Song of the Frontier Armies: Air from ‘Sargines,’’’ a well known opera. It came out in pamphlets, in one of which the air was attributed to the ‘‘Caravan of Cairo,’’ by Grétry. Evidently, Marseilles had never seen the original Strasburg edition, the title of which was ‘Battle Hymn of the Army of the Rhine: Dedicated to Marshall Luckner.”’ No doubt, the song was brought to Mont- pelier by the active commercial travelers of that day. As first published in Marseilles, it differed in some respects from the original, and one stanza was completely changed. song. A few days after the banquet, a call was made for volunteers to march to Paris. There was a tremendous rush; and, after much difficulty, the committee selected five hundred, ‘‘the flower of the young Revolu- tionists of Marseilles,’’ we are assured, and not a horde of bandits and galley slaves, as stated by some historians. On the 2d of July, an immense multitude assembled in what is now the Cours Saint Louis. The recruits were ready to march. The mayor presented them with a cap of liberty. The tri-color was unfurled, the drums rattled, the battalion was put in motion, and its five hundred sonorous throats shouted the refrain, ‘‘To arms, citi- zens! Form your battalions!’ This was caught up and echoed, with frantic enthu- siasm, by the multitude, as the five hundred marched away. During all that historic progress of twenty- eight days to Paris, the battle song re- sounded, calling the people to combat. The battalion entered the towns along its route beneath triumphal arches, the entire popula- tion tramping after it and catching up the strains of the new hymn. This stirring hymn was, of course, the ‘*Marseillaise,’’ of Rouget de l’Isle, that native of the Jura, that enthusiastic musi- cian, that wretched versifier, and lukewarm patriot, who died, ignored and forgotten, in the service of the Bourbons, but who wrote better than he knew, and lives immortal in his battle chant. The hymn received its final title in Paris. The seventh stanza was added during the halt of the battalion at Vienne, and was composed by Antoine Pes- sonneux, professor of rhetoric in the college of that place. ‘* What is this revolutionary hymn,’’ wrote the royalist mother of Rouget de I’Isle, ‘‘which a horde of brigands is singing through France, and with which your name is associated ?’’ Later on, Lamartine answered the question, when he wrote: ‘‘ Like the sacred flags suspended in the vaults of our temples and brought out only on important days, so we guard the national anthem for the extreme necessities of the country.”’

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A SONG AND A SAUCE. 89 Although the stanzas of the ‘‘Marseillaise’’ had been published in a Paris journal, the capital did not hear it sung until the 30th of July, when the battalion defiled into the Place de la Bastile. There all revolutionary Paris had gathered to welcome the coming warriors. The bronzed faces of the volun- teers from Marseilles, their martial bearing, their red Phrygian caps, their flashing eyes and ferocious gestures, their dusty uniforms, and the curious weapons which they bore, added to the roar of the strange hymn in their provincial accents, kindled a fierce emotion in the bosoms of the multitude. As the battalion marched through that his- toric square, banners waving, drums beat- ing, and guns and sabers flourishing wildly overhead, the populace caught up the thun- derous refrain with shouts and tears, and its menacing strains went echoing from mouth to mouth, till all Paris resounded with them. From that moment, the battle hymn became national. The triumphal march of the five hundred thus ended, the battalion was seized upon with frantic hospitality by its Parisian friends. From restaurant to restaurant they swarmed, on banqueting intent; and every- where arose the hoarse clamor of the provin- cials for their fomme d’amour. The cooks were baffled for the time; but they soon dis- covered what it was, and they began to vie with one another in devising methods of cooking it and making it into elaborate sauces. Wherever the strains of the ‘‘ Marseillaise’’ echoed, the tomato was in eager demand. The grandames wore the yellow blossoms on their bosoms and in their hair. Barras turned the orangeries of the Luxembourg into forcing gardens for the new dainty. The tomato became the fashionable rage, and made the fortune of more than one enterpris- ing master of cuisine. So the song and the sauce were born together, owing their renown to that delirium of revolution that contrib- uted the most startling and sanguinary pages to modern history. THE SWALLOWS. FROM THE FRENCH OF FLORIAN, BY PAUL J. SCHLICHT. How I love to see the swallows At my window every year, Bringing me the joyful tidings That the gentle spring is near. And they say that soon each nest Shall its former lovers see, Faithful lovers, yes, these only Shall of spring the heralds be. When return the frosts of autumn, And the leaves forsake the trees, On the roofs the swallows gather And the words they speak are these: ‘Let us, let us fly together, Fly from snows and frosts that sting. Faithful hearts can know no winter ; They must live in joyous spring.”’ On this journey, if a swallow, Victim of a cruel fate, Is encaged by wicked children, Failing thus to join its mate, Then that most unlucky swallow Pines away from bitter grief, While its true and constant lover Lingers days that are but brief.

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| hae a marble mantle, made in the semblance of the beautiful shell petri- factions that sometimes stand as framework for rich men’s fire-places, rests a crisp, un- withering and fadeless sprig of fern, that affords a subject of absorbing study. Though it neither fades nor withers, still it is not green ; nor does its perpetuity require the moisture of mould about its roots, or ashady spot in an even temperature, to nourish the tender life that gave it delicacy of outlines. It was planted by the Gardener of the Uni- verse, thousands of years ago. Away back in the early ages of the world, it lived out its little life as a plant, and then sank, as if to sleep, into the sod whence it had sprung, there to leave its impress on the world, as part and parcel of the everlasting rocks. Solid stone though it is to-day, and jagged though its edges be, its delicacy of lines upon each leaf, its beauty, save in the dead, leaden hue it has taken on, is almost perfect. To me, it seems to be an everlast- ing imprint of the everlasting purpose that preserves intact the harmony of the uni- verse. Does the reader ask where such ferns grow? The one that serves to introduce this sub- ject came out with me from a coal mine. It was from the roof rock that had for cen- turies covered masses of just such bitumin- ous fuel as that which blazes cheerily in the grate before us. This rocky botanical speci- men was from one of the mines in the Bloss- burg region, in northern Pennsylvania; and, while neither the tree-trunks of primeval forests, nor the ferns that grew in prehistoric peat-bogs, are to be recognized in any of the mining products of the Pittsburg region, still the common origin of that fern and this fuel is suggested, as we sit and watch the flames leap up the chimney. It was evening. Lights and shadows chased each other in fantastic fashion to and from the fire-place, and across the musing features of the group about the hearth. From the lump of coal that blazed away in the grate, the fancy could easily draw a A LUMP OF COAL. By NATHAN B. HEATH. panorama, a sort of charcoal sketch. The solidified shadow of yesterday, of a million yesterdays, lay hidden within the big black lump. Whence came this darkness? Was it res- urrected from yon grave in the hillside, a hundred yards deep in the ground? Aye, ‘resurrected’ is the word; for there, the little spark of life that smouldered while the centuries transformed it from a state of growth to one of cold, dead carbon, has been kindled, till it leaped from out its shadow and began to live again. In the foreground of the living scene that the living spark illumined, we could see, revolving slowly, the great wheels of the car of progress, moved chiefly by the power of coal, and freighted with the civilization of to-day. Such was the subject of our fire-place pano- rama; and across its moving face seemed to be the glowing letters of this motto: ‘Life springs eternal from the deadest forms of death.” Now, such a lump of coal as that which blazed away for the evening panorama is but a little fragment of the very large lump consumed in Pittsburg annually. The measurement of the latter, if reduced to a cube, would be 47,380,000 cubic feet. This allows for 1,000,000 tons to be annually reduced to ashes in this city. The figures were 1,600,000 tons in 1879, and the consum- ing capacity has increased by probably 4o0,- ooo tons since then; so that, allowing for 1,000,000 tons as having been displaced by natural gas, we still have 1,000,000 tons to burn. Exaggeration has no relation whatever to these figures. On the contrary, their close alliance to moderation may be judged when it is stated that an eastern journal recently computed Pittsburg’s displacement of coal by natural gas to be 3,000,000 tons. The place has no capacity for consuming over 2,000,000 tons a year, and fully half that quantity is still burned within its borders. There are 47.08 cubic feet of coal in a ton, a cube measuring a trifle more than three and one-fourth feet on each of its six sides.

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If Pittsburg’s 1,000,000 tons a year could be cut into cubes weighing one ton each, they would form a bituminous monument a little over 615% miles high. Transformed into a single cube, this coal would measure some- thing more than 361 feet in height, breadth, and thickness, and would contain 25,000,000 bushels, weighing 80 pounds each, and worth 7% cents a bushel at retail. And yet, the writer has seen poor women and ragged urchins on the streets of Pittsburg, during the coldest days of winter, picking up enough fragments of coal from the pave- ments to keep them warm for a little while. Pittsburg’s lump coal, together with the proportion of natural gas already indicated, furnishes fuel for the now nearly 400,000 people of the Smoky City and her twin sister, Allegheny. It yields, also, the larger part of the fuel employed to operate the county’s thirty-two iron rolling mills and sixteen blast furnaces, which, in conjunction with the various other iron and steel indus- tries of the city, employ 49,885 men, and yield an annual product of $101,100,000 when running at their full capacity. This lump of coal helps, likewise, to run twenty-nine win- dow-glass factories here, with an exclusive annual product of $3,000,000 at their best, and it isa large factor in the melting of glass that is here transformed into 42,500,- ooo lamp chimneys and 85,000,000 bottles and vials per year, employing 6,700 glass work- ers, whose product has run as high in value as $7,620,000 a year. ‘That is coal well used for all there is in it,’’ I fancy I hear some reader say, as he catches the full significance of these figures. That is coal vot *‘ well used for all there is in it.’’ Scientific tests have shown that from sixty to eighty per cent. of the bitumin- ous coal burned is wasted by incomplete combustion. There should be a mighty force in a ton of coal. The latent energy in a pound of it is said to be equal to the aver- age day’s work of a man ; so that the miner who digs two tons a day adds by his labor to the industrial forces of the world an equiva- lent to the labor of 4,000 men. There are 2,600 square miles of coal, of an average thickness of one foot, in Allegheny county, or 2,496,000,000 tons. These figures make our cube, with its 361 linear feet on But suppose that a ‘‘black diamond,’’ with its every side, seem small. even such A LUMP OF COAL. gl 25,000,000 bushels, should be loaded on a wagon, with axles a million times as strong, if not a million times as large, as those of the coal cart that dumps its tun at our cellar door; suppose it had wheels, and felloes, and spokes to match; suppose that, instead of the motive power which draws one load of coal to the door, a sufficient number of mules, one to a ton, could be hitched tandem, so as to draw this wagon; suppose that each mule covered but six feet of ground, from the spot where his heels rested to the point directly beneath the shadow of his ears ; suppose the mule at the thills should stand so close to his leader that you couldn’t see daylight between them, and that the same closeness might, in some manner, be pre- served throughout the line of the whole million pairs of heels and ears. ‘“ Well, what of it?’’ does the reader say, impatiently. The object is only to convince thoroughly the reader that Pittsburg’s yearly allowance of coal is large. Why, the mules alone would measure 1,136% miles, and then be standing closer together than mules wete ever known to stand before, without serious danger to all behind them. Now, having figured out a sufficiently long line of mules to draw our wagon load, perhaps we had better not attempt to compute the size of the first few hundred thousand harnesses re- quired to haul such a car of Juggernaut. The very traces of the wheel mule’s harness would have to be broader than the boule- vards, in order to stand the strain. Castle-building, wagon-making, and mule- driving, such as the foregoing computations have developed, may be quite unsatisfactory to persons of a more practical turn of mind. If the reader has no taste for this, perhaps the writer can help him to more of the realities in the realm of King Coal. We will take a little excursion together, if he pleases. Crossing to the south side of the Monon- gahela river, we enter (in what was once Birmingham, but is now a part of the great Smoky City) alittle car at the foot of a quite steep inclined cable railroad. The man in the engine house at the top of the hill hears the ting-a-ling of an electric bell, starts his engine, and draws our little car up the mountain side to the Castle Shannon rail- way station.

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92 THE COSMOPOLITAN. Here we change cars, taking seats aboard a narrow-gauge train. Our tickets read ‘Pittsburg to Fair Haven,’’ but half of the six miles covered by the route will be suffi- cient for our excursion party. A tunnel through a hill higher than that at the base of which we started; a horse-shoe curve around a gorge that separates the miners’ homes, in a suburb of Mt. Washington, from the hills beyond; a whirling dive around the bases of half a dozen mountains; a winding run across a trestle, with the forward part of the train looking very like a frightened cat- erpillar humping itself across the top strand of a spider’s web, hung in mid-air, with its broadside to the breeze; a stop or two, and— nere we are, at Oak Station. There is a shanty for a depot, a coal tipple for an architectural and industrial monu- ment; a long side-track, covered with little laden coal cars; and all the toilers of this town are sheltered alike, under the roof-rock of their common factory, inside the hill. We have made our little journey before noon ; because, if we had come after dinner, not a miner could have been found at work. They are all ‘‘ on half turn,’’ as they call it. Although they are only paid in exact pro- portion to the quantity of coal they mine, the unyielding law of demand and supply has deprived these men of the poor privi- lege of digging all day long for their little stipend. From a slab-sided shanty near the entrance to two of the mines, curls skyward a line of imky smoke, such as only a bituminous fire might emit. Inside the shanty we meet the ‘‘ pit boss,’’ a grizzled old fellow, with a sooty face, behind a penny pipe of blackened clay, and wearing a little coffee-pot-shaped oil lamp, hooked upon the front of his grimy hat. ‘Gude marnin’, mon,’’ says the “pit to the foremost of our party, as we entered. And he doesn’t need to tell us that he is of Scottish extraction. Without preliminaries, we invite ourselves to become his guests in exploring the dark recesses of one of the mines, and soon find ourselves comfortably seated in a couple of the little coal cars, behind him and a mule, moving up toward the mouth of the western slope. ‘I doot ye'll find it ower clean, gin ye git weel doon the slope,’ said old Alex, apol- boss’’ ogetically, as, seated on the edge of the end- board, he turned his face towards us. Being reassured, however as to our will- ingness to find it unclean, he turned to the little mule, with a lusty ‘‘ H’ yup, yar !’’ and we find ourselves entering the yawning, black hole in the hill; marveling, mean- while, that a mule, supposed to be the em- bodiment of all stubbornness, should un- questioningly draw his load up into the very bowels of the earth, into a darkness toward which you could hardly drive any other species of unreasoning brute. We have scarcely penetrated the darkness, and dampness, and place of resounding noises, where every footfall sounds like the clanging of cymbals, before old Alex has scratched a match on the hob-nailed sole of his boot, lighted the little lamp, and made a sort of halo above his hat. How very weird and fantastic it all seems, to be sure! We see each other through a torch-like redness which looks little better than a spark in the darkness; we look upon our Mephistophelian guide; we hear the clattering hoof-beats of the mule, whose faith in this instance would, indeed, be dead without works; we see the two unending lines of black and glistening substance that form the walls on either side, and wonder at the regularity of coal and slate strata be- neath, and slate and coal strata above, the main vein; and then we Ah! what was that? A rumble, like the grinding to powder of the very hill beneath which we ride ! and then long, reverberating echoes, in which we recognize distinctly the sound of every mine disaster we ever read about, gave us time in which to ask: ‘* Wh—what under the earth was that ?”’ ‘“Nought but Jem Shinkle,’’ said our guide, all undisturbed; ‘‘joost made a fall, ye see, of ooper layer, in the third niche aboove, to the right.’’ And, sure enough, we soon round a curve, to behold shaggy, ragged Jem at work around the top of the last of his posts, to make another ‘‘ fall’’ of ‘‘ upper layer.’’ He has been working, with six or eight posts to brace and hold the roof of his niche, while he undermined and cleared away the four- foot stratum of the main vein. Old Alex tells us that few miners are ever crushed beneath these “ falls,’’ though they might be, easily enough. They simply

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A LUMP OF COAL. 93 work with caution, taking care that the remotest posts shall be loosened first, and that the crumbling shall begin in front of, and not behind, them. We watch Jem buta few moments, for his digging is very like that of any other digger, and the substance upon which he plies his pick is as soft and brittle as so much chalk. There are a little over a hundred men working in these mines. They may only work half of each working day. They could each dig two full car-loads of coal, or nearly fifty-five bushels, if they worked full time; and they are paid two and one-half cents per bushel for clean coal. But, remember, they only work half time, and clean coal is only that which, being dumped upon the great screen at the tipple below, will not pass through the two-inch meshes of the screen. That which does pass through the meshes is called ‘‘ nut coal’’ and ‘*slack,’’ and there are two car-loads of it taken out of every nine car-loads mined. It goes to the mine owner, and he pays the miner nothing whatever for it, though it sells for three cents a bushel, or over $4.60 for each two car-loads. That is a big royalty for the poor miner to pay for the simple privilege of digging in his employer’s mine half of each day. True, the mining territory costs the employer something, though probably little over $100 an acre, without purchasing the surface soil. Perhaps the reader is now prepared to sc believe old Alex, the ‘‘ pit boss,’’ when the latter assures him that— ‘“The boys canna weel average ower fefty cents a dee. They keep fra’ starvin’, though.”’ We shake a dozen big, black, brawny hands, after emerging from the slope, and bid the miners good-bye. Down the hill again we start, toward the shanty station; and, as we go, the echoing screech of the little locomotive’s whistle away up through the valleys, announces to us that the train is coming to take us back to Pittsburg. A train of thought comes in advance, however, and here it is: Two young men, tall, strong, and hand- some in their well-developed muscular man- hood, stand side by side, while the Fates award to each his task for life. They seem to be equally capable, and equally suscepti- ble to further development. A man of means approaches them. The Fates have sent him. They have told him these young men seek a chance, each to carve for himself a little notch, where, by experience, he may be able to stand against the very side of the rugged mountain of obstacles confronting him. To one, the man of means says: ‘*John, I have a situation for you in my office; a poor place to remain in, but a good one in which to begin; for, from it you may rise.’’ To the other young man, our Croesus says : ‘William, I want you to work in my coal mine. You look, certainly, as strong as John; and, for both of you, I will have hard work from the start. Your wages, from to- day, will be at the rate of a dollar for each full day you work, and so will John’s. See, now, I have started you just alike in pay and privileges; have given you equal chances to carve your way through the world.”’ The little train from up the valley has not reached us yet; and so the train of thought moves on : Ten years have passed over the heads of Croesus, and John, and William. John is now a partner in the coal mining firm of Creesus & Co.; William is toiling at ‘‘ half turn’’ in the coal mine. John has just made a pooling contract with a competing firm, to secure their mutual profits for years tocome; William has just resolved with his fellow- miners to pool issues, and prevent, if possi- ble, another cut in wages or hours. John’s is called ‘‘a straightforward, legitimate busi- ness transaction’’; William’s, ‘‘the act of a dangerous Communist, whose class of men menace the rights of the people in thus banding together.”’ John goes home to a well-provided, hand- _ somely-housed, and happy family ; William goes to the shanty, leased by Croesus & Co. to him and his wife and little ones, at a profit of fifty per cent., and with the distinct understanding that, if they buy their little supply of bread and clothing at any store but that of Croesus & Co., there will be one less miner at the works, and one less shanty occupied. John, as he steps into his bou- doir and changes his patent leather boots for gorgeous slippers, hugs himself, happy in the thought that he is a self-made man, and that the world knows him only as a wise and generous gentleman, who has earned the right to walk across the velvet carpets he

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94 THE COSMOPOLITAN. has laid for himself through life ; William, as he eats plain bread with his little brood, sadly reflects upon the unfairness of the great world over beyond the hills, which calls one class of poolers simply “ capital- ists,’’ and the other class ‘‘ dangerous Com- munists.”’ What made these two, so like beginning, to differ as they do now? in the What {ISS VAN ANTWERP’S gave to the one broadcloth, purple, and fine linen, and to the other the patchwork panta- loons, hob-nail boots, and stooping figure? What caused the one to be called capitalist, and the other Communist ? The only answer I am able to find is revealed in the different modes by which these two have worked at and upon a lump of coal. HAT. By BESSIE CHANDLER. ISS SUSAN VAN ANTWERP would never have bought that hat, if it hadn’t been for her nose. All her life, she had been accustomed to buying, not only her hats, but the rest of her wardrobe, to suit that particular feature. It was not a bad in fact, it had started out in life as a very amiable, inoffen- sive one; but Miss Van Antwerp had early conceived the idea that it was much too prominent. As a girl, she had been morti- fied and humiliated by it. grew older, she accepted it defiantly ; and, at last, having thought so much about it, she was actually proud of it, in a scornful way. All this had had its effect upon the nose ; and now it habitually wore an agreeable ‘* T-am-monarch-of-all-I-survey’’ sort of an expression. Miss Van Antwerp’s face was not a lovely one. It was too much like her character for that ; both were strong, resolute, hard. The only thing she had ever loved was her She had brought him up, His little fat hands had petted that defiant nose without a symptom of fear, and the whole strength of this lovely old woman's heart had gone out to him, as he grew from childhood to manhood. Of course, she meant to leave him all her money ; whom should she leave it to but Fred? She had looked forward to his marry- ing and bringing his wife home, and to an old age made bright by Fred’s children. But this was just where the trouble came in. She wanted him to marry Margaret Steuben; she had picked her out especially. nose ; As she nephew, Fred. from a baby. Margaret was a nice girl, of a good old family, with plenty of money. ‘‘And, be- sides,’’ said Miss Van Antwerp, as she sum- med her up to Fred, one night, ‘‘ her nose is a little like mine.”’ Fred had laughed at this, and Miss Van Antwerp hastened to modify it. ‘*Not much like mine,’’ she said; ‘‘ only they won’t look badly together.’’ But, in spite of this, and all her other excellent reasons, Fred obstinately refused to marry Margaret Steuben. Miss Van Ant- werp was angry with him, more angry than she had ever been with Fred; but it was as nothing to her anger when she found that he was engaged to, and actually going to marry, Nellie Martin, ‘‘a miserable little snub- nosed nobody.’ After she had called her that, Fred arose. He looked very tall and white. ‘*Very well, Aunt Susan,’’ he said; ‘‘ we will not discuss the matter. I cannot have Miss Martin insulted, even by you. You have been very kind to me; but, unless you can think differently about this, we had better go our separate ways now.”’ ‘*Fred!’’ cried the old woman in a fury, ‘‘T shall never think differently; and I will never forgive you, if you marry that girl !”’ The dash would have been filled in with adjectives, but something in Fred’s face restrained her. She had never meant it, poor old woman. She would have forgiven Fred anything. Was he not her dead sister’s child, and the only human being that she really loved?

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MISS VAN ANTWERP'S HAT. 95 But Fred had taken her at her word, and had gone away. It was over a year ago that all this hap- pened, and Miss Van Antwerp’s nose had grown more and more belligerent, and she was harder and harder to suit in the matter of bonnets and hats. She was trying to find one that pleased her when my story opened. She had tried on seventeen, and the obliging but much fatigued salesman heard her say, with delight, of the eighteenth, ‘‘I like that hat; it suits my nose.’’ She turned round and round, in front of the long mirror, holding up a hand-glass and surveying herself. ‘“Yes,’’ she said, decidedly, ‘‘I like that hat. You can send it up.”’ Searcely had it left the store, when a young woman, plainly dressed, hurried in, and walked rapidly to the millinery depart- Going directly to the forewoman, she ment. said : ‘‘Oh, Miss Allen, can you let me see that brown bonnet that I trimmed for you yester- day. I want it only for a moment.’’ ‘“We have just sent it home, I am sorry to say. Old Miss Van Antwerp bought it.”’ ‘‘Old Miss Van Antwerp!’’ echoed the younger woman. Oh, I am so sorry!’’ she added, her lips trembling. ‘Did you want it for anything especial ?”’ inquired the forewoman, kindly. ‘‘T’m afraid—I know it sounds perfectly ridiculous, but I’m afraid there’s a twenty- dollar bill in the crown. You see,’’ she added hurriedly, ‘‘my husband threw it down in my lap, just as I was gathering the crown lining. I knewI must finish the hat, so I worked on, and when I was through I couldn’t find the money anywhere. It seems perfectly absurd to think it may be inside of that crown lining, and I don’t believe it is; but I’ve hunted everywhere else, and I thought I would like to look, for I need the money very much.”’ ‘‘T would go to Miss Van Antwerp, if I were you, and tell her all about it,’’ said the forewoman. ‘‘ You see, we can hardly do anything, it not being our money.”’ Go to Miss Van Antwerp, to Fred’s aunt, and tell her they were so poor that she, his wife, was trimming hats for a living, and thought she had accidentally lost all her money in the crown of this particular bon- net! It would be an interesting tale, cer- tainly. Nellie laughed hysterically to her- self, as she thought of it. Oh, why, of all the people in the world, need Fred’s aunt have bought that hat, and why had she been so careless as to lose that money? She needed itso! Fred had come home sick the day he gave her the bill, and it was all the money she would have for some time. She hadn’t told Fred yet of this last ridiculous piece of ill-luck. ‘I might go to the house and see if she’s in,’’ thought Nellie; ‘‘and, if she’s out, I could say there was some mistake about the hat, and ask to see it. I could find out in a second, whether my bill is there.’’ So, slowly and with a heavy heart, she walked to Miss Van Antwerp’s house, to Fred’s old home; but there her heart failed her, and she was about to retrace her steps, when suddenly the door opened, and who should come out but old Miss Susan herself, and wearing that very identical hat Nellie watched it, as if fascinated by it. Miss Van Antwerp did not see her, and walked down the avenue, while Nellie fol- lowed, her eyes fixed upon the hat, which she felt she must not let go out of her sight. ‘Oh, if a wind would only blow it off,’ she sighed. ‘‘If she’d only run against a sign or something.”’ But nothing of the kind happened. Miss Van Antwerp walked on at a dignified pace, and presently entered a large dry goods store. Nellie breathlessly followed. Miss Van Antwerp took the elevator to the story, and Nellie climbed up the stairs and looked around till she saw her. Could it be—yes—she really was buying breakfast caps, and the brown bonnet lay quite unguarded on the counter. Nellie’s heart beat so that she was nearly smothered. She crept softly up to the bon- net. No one was looking. She put one hand in it and adroitly broke the gathering- string of the lining. She slipped her fingers inside, and felt a soft something. Yes, it was her ragged old bill ! Fairly quivering with excitement, she drew it out, when, ‘‘ Young woman! what are you doing with my bonnet ?’’ sounded an awful voice in her ears. Poor Nellie! She gave a little scream and dropped the hat, still clutching her bill. ‘‘T only wanted my money,”’ she faltered.

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96 THE COSMOPOLITAN. “Tt got in the crown by mistake when I was trimming the hat. I am very sorry. I didn’t mean—’’ Then she stood and trem- bled like a culprit, and wished Fred’s awful aunt would turn her beak-like nose another way. By this time, Miss Van Antwerp had recognized ‘‘that little snub-nosed thing.”’ She grew a little stiffer, and her voice was a shade harsher, as she said : “You trimmed that hat— you—why, where is—’’ ‘Fred is sick,’’ said Nellie simply. Then, having recovered herself by this time, she added, holding up her precious bill : ‘Tt was such a comical, stupid thing todo I can laugh, now that I have found it, but I am very sorry to have annoyed you,” and, with a little bow, she walked away. Miss Van Antwerp looked after her. It was her turn to follow now. She caught up with Nellie just as she left the store. ‘‘Tell me about Fred,’’ she said, in an anxious voice, and Nellie noticed that her face was pale and drawn, and that even her nose, that invincible feature, had a subdued look. ‘‘Fred has been well,’’ said Nellie, with dignity, until yesterday. I am going home to him now.”’ The elder woman clasped her hands nerv- ously. ‘*Can I—would you—would he like to see me ?’’ she exclaimed. ‘*T know he would be very glad,’’ answered Nellie heartily. They walked along in silence. THE DAVID J. HILL, LL. yan present may be justly called the Era of Woman. She does not, indeed, appear for the first time as an important actor in the affairs of life; for this, in her own way, she has always been. But in some sense this is the age of her ‘‘ emanci- pation,’’ whatever that may mean; and, amidst the vague and nebulous uses of the term, it may be worth while to inquire what it does mean. EMANCIPATION ‘*Ts he—are you very poor?’’ asked Miss Van Antwerp awkwardly, after a little pause. Nellie colored, and then answered steadily: ‘‘It was very hard at first; but, after a little, Fred found a place as reporter. I trimmed hats, because I could do it easily, and because they would let me do it at home. I was trimming that hat of yours when Fred came home. He had just been paid, and he tossed this twenty-dollar bill down in my lap ; and, I’m sure I don’t see how I ever did it, but I gathered it up in the crown. I wouldn’t have tried to find it, but I wanted the money for medicines and things for Fred. I had no idea of thrusting myself in your way.”’ The little woman drew herself up proudly, but old Miss Van Antwerp scarcely heard her. ‘‘Poor Fred! My poor, dear boy !’’.she murmured to herself, with all the pent-up love and longing of a year. They nearly surprised Fred out of his senses, when they came walking in together; and how he laughed when he heard about the lost bill and the found bonnet ! Of course, they went home to live with Aunt Susan ; and, except for a slight change in the dramatis persone, her old age was just what she always expected it would be, and she grew so fond of Nellie and Nellie’s children that she quite forgot all about Mar- garet Steuben. Nellie has always kept a certain old brown bonnet. ‘‘It is the talisman,’’ she says, ‘that brought us all together,’’ and she always trims all Aunt Susan’s hats for her. ‘* Because,’’ says that lady, ‘‘ noone has ever suited my nose so well.”’ OF WOMAN. D., PRESIDENT OF LEWISBURG UNIVERSJTY. The idea of emancipation is to be sought in a custom of the old Roman times pre- served to us in the history of the Roman law. In the earliest ages all property seems to have been transferred by violence, by an actual physical contest for possession, in which the stronger became the possessor and the owner of the property. This bar- barous custom survived after the time when voluntary contracts were recognized by the

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THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMAN. 97 civil law in the form of a mimic hand-grap- ple, which in dumb show recalled the earnest contest of the earlierday. In the presence of witnesses, the buyer asserted his right to the object purchased, at the same time laying his hand upon it, thus going through the form of capture. The Latin for this literal hand seizure is mancipatio. Finally, this act of emancipation, or hand-grappling, came to be performed by the use of a balance held in the hand of a judge, in recognition of the equity of the transaction. The pur- chaser struck the balance with a piece of bronze, which was transferred to the seller sign of the purchase money. This method of sale was applied to slaves. The old language continued in use after the hand-grapple was discontinued, and man- cipium was employed to indicate that form of subjection which rendered a slave liable to sale. The same word was used to desig- nate the patria potestas, or absolute right of a father over his child. To pass out of this condition by legal process was called eman- ctpatio. Understanding, then, by the word ‘‘ eman- cipation,’’ liberation from a previous condi- tion of servitude, we can trace the outlines of the emancipation of woman. Her first form of servitude was that of In the earliest times of which we have knowledge, marriage was contracted by the parents for a fixed sum, on the principle that a daughter had cost so much to bring up to the condition of woman- hood, involved so much investment of pro- perty, ceased to be of use to her father on passing into the hands of her husband, and became his chattel. Questions of equity did not perplex the brains of these simple peo- ple of antiquity, any more than they do those of the Orientals of our day. No re- sistance was offered, and, if it had been, it would have been ineffectual; and so, com- pulsory marriage became a custom so nearly universal, so sanctioned by time, so com- mended by the wise men, so satisfactory to the masculine portion of the human species, that women themselves made no objection to the arrangement, and sought their happi- ness in such forms as were compatible with its existence and authority. But in the course of time that ethical instinct which lies so deeply imbedded in human nature that no external power or abuse of usage can as a compulsory marriage. quite uproot it, initiated a movement of re- form. Gradually the time-honored custom of putting brides in the market was discon- tinued. The parent who refused to put his child forward for sale at a fixed price still ex- ercised his property right, however, by re- quiring her to marry a man selected with ref- erence to his wife-supporting capacity. This was by no means the extinction of compul- sory marriage. The daughter was forced by various means to make herself a sacrifice to that personage of the male sex who possessed the largest fortune or the chance of making one, or the highest civil or military position or the prospect of acquiring one. but in our times even this form of compulsion has fallen into disfavor; so that now, the parent who would compel his child, in opposition to her voluntary preference, to marry a man for nis money or his name, would be univer- sally condemned as a heartless brute, un- worthy of a place in civilized society. The patria potestas, once regarded as an absolute property right, is now limited by usage and public opinion to a prudential oversight that has for its object the preservation of the child’s happiness. Such has been the evo- lution of ethical sentiment that now the public condemns in parents even that ambi- tion which exposes their daughters to the highest bidder—not in the shameless man- ner of an earlier age, but in that quest for substantial alliances which aim at wealth rather than happiness. ’ A second form of servitude to which wo- man has been subjected is the limitation of her property rights. While she herself was considered a mere chattel, she could not be esteemed a fit person for the possession of property. But long after this first form of slavery was substantially abolished, when it was conceded that she might withhold or grant her hand in marriage according to her own will, the memory of what she had been considered, prevented the perception of her natural right to the holding and management of estates. The recognition of this right made but slow and creeping pro- gress, but at last it has become general; and in most of our American States her right to hold, in her own name, even in the married relation, and to use and bequeath, independ- ently of her husband, such property ‘as she may obtain either by inheritance or industry, is established by legal statute.

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98 THE COSMOPOLITAN. A third form of servitude from which woman is now undergoing emancipation is that of the intellect. Every form of objec- tion has been urged against her education, and isstill urged by those who represent a stu- pid conservatism. Sometimes it is said that education is not needed to enable her to dis- charge the duties devolving upon her sex, these duties by a foregone circumscription being confined to the labors of housekeeping and the manufacture of clothing. Some- times it is alleged that education would absolutely unfit her for domestic duties, creating in her a disdain of the menial offices which have been traditionally assigned to her. Sometimes it is pleaded that she has not the capacity to acquire knowledge, even if she had use for it ; that she is lack- ing in the faculties necessary to sound scholarship, and that at best she is only made conceited and pedantic by such educa- tion as she is capable of acquiring. But opportunity has enabled woman to refute every one of these objections by the irresisti- ble logic of facts. She has so embraced and utilized the advantages which a larger com- prehension of her abilities has offered her, that to-day there can hardly be any man so unobserving that he has not personally known women who are’ faithful to all the obligations of life that the most astute con- servatism can assign to woman; whose homes are models of neatness, beauty, and refine- ment ; whose acquisition of knowledge and brilliancy of intellect render their society the delight of the most cultivated men, who possess no suggestion of conceit or pedantry, and who, nevertheless, have been exposed to all the deteriorating and damaging influ- ences which education can infuse into life by having pursued their studies side by side with men, equaling them in all their attain- ments, and sometimes surpassing them in the very branches in which it has been claimed that men have a monopoly. The result of all this is that, to-day, in all respec- table circles, it is as absurd to speak of the inferiority of woman, or of refusing her any intellectual advantages open to men, as it would be to justify compulsory marriage or the abrogation of the property right. If there are other forms of servitude to which woman is subjected, it is not necessary to mention them in order to understand what is meant by the expression, ‘‘ the emancipa- tion of woman.’’ Happily, we live in an age when every form of bondage is detested, when the whole sentiment of the civilized races of mankind is violently opposed to any form of oppression, and the surest way to excite public interest is to discover some instance of attempted thralldom. The time will come when woman will be so completely liberated from every form of servitude that there will be nothing in her condition to excite sympathy; and the constitutional agitators, the predestined reformers, of which every age has a small quota, will turn their ‘attention to the wrongs of man, instead of the rights of woman, and societies will be organized for the protection of hen-pecked husbands. But what will woman do when she is com- pletely emancipated, when she is free from every shadow of oppression, when all her wrongs have been righted and all her rights have been established? Will the population then consist exclusively of maids and bach- elors, arrayed against each other like hostile camps, each devoting itself to the protection of its rights, with a death-line drawn be- tween, which cannot be passed by either sex without the danger of a clash of broom- sticks? If one listened only to the vocifer- ous declaimers who represent man as the natural enemy and oppressor of woman, it might be supposed that this would be the case. But will not the instincts and affec- tions that now sway the lives and destinies of human beings continue to prevail and to determine their actions? The relations of the sexes are a part of the Divine order, as much above the reach of theories, and specu- lations, and legal enactments as the stars in their courses. More than half the literature in the world relates to love, in one form or another. More than half the exertions put forth by the human species on any one day have relations to home life, and the efforts of one sex to please the other. The organic and social laws and impulses of humanity, Divine decrees inwrought into the constitu- tion of human nature and part of the order of things in which we live, will never be abrogated by the emancipation of woman. That emancipation will open before her a larger freedom and a larger responsibility. It will expand and ennoble her nature and render her more truly and completely a com- panion for man, a helpmeet for him, who

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AN ADVENTURE IN THE DISMAL SWAMP. 99 can share his joys and sorrows, his toils and aspirations, his defeats and successes. It will enable her to understand him, to sympathize with him, to assist him, and to inspire him for loftier aims and more heroic exertions. Any eman- cipation that would result in the eradication of the instincts of sacred wifehood and motherhood, links that connect the individ- ual with the species and the common life of humanity, would result in new forms of slavery more destructive of character than the old. But there is no well grounded fear of such acalamity. Let the life of woman be as free as that of man, free to choose her own vocation, her own sphere of action, her own companionships, her own rewards. Let her be free to live and love as she desires. Then she will find that some of her im- agined wrongs are incidental to man also; that the life we live upon the earth is not for either sex a wholly ideal life, and this will make her stronger and sweeter, more lovely and more loving, more complete in her own development and more competent to aid in man’s. AN ADVENTURE IN THE DISMAL SWAMP. A STORY OF THE REBELLION. AKE up, wake up! Report to the adjutant at once, with sixty rounds and three days’ rations,’’ said the captain, who, half in and half out of my tent, was shaking me out of my slumber. ‘* All right! Where are we ordered to ?’’ “Don’t know. Blair has charge. He’ll tell you when he gets ready. Good luck to you !”’ I was left to get ready. Five minutes later I reported to the adjutant,-who was sitting in his tent writing at a small table made of a board thrown across a barrel head. ‘‘Report for duty, adjutant !’’ ‘Form in line! Corporal Blair, this way !’’ Blair entered the tent. together in a lowtone. I could catch but fragments of the conversation: ‘‘ By Jones’ woods. Trust him? Look sharp for guerillas. Yes, he’s taken the oath.”’ ‘‘Front !’’ said Blair, just above a whisper. “* Are you all loaded ?’’ ‘“Yes,’’ was the reply from twenty of us, who stood shivering in the midnight air. ‘Boys, we have serious business to-night. You have been selected because we thought we could depend on you. If any of you wish to stay here, now’s your time to say so.’’ Silence was the only answer. ‘‘Right face!’ added the officer. ‘‘ Right shoulder shift, arms! Forward, march !’’ Away, with quick step, we moved. ‘“‘ File right |’ Down through the company street The two spoke and across the parade ground, the little band went. Thesluggish river lay before us. In the distance it went winding among the trees. ‘‘Halt! Who goes there ?’’ came from the sentinel at the little wharf. ‘‘Friends, with the countersign,’’ said Blair. ‘“* Stand ! sign !’’ ‘*Correct! Pass on !’’ We passed to the river side, where we saw a boat, and in it a large negro. ‘Is this George ?’’ inquired Blair. ‘““Yes, massa; ’spects it am. You de officer, I reckon, what’s gwine wid dis nig- ger. But you uns ain’t nuff fur dis busi- ness.”’ ‘“‘Tt’s all right, darkey ; pull round.’’ ‘‘First four files, forward! Squad, halt! Eight of you go over and wait for the rest. Keep your guns down out of sight! Push off, George !”" F We heard the plash of the oars, and ex- pected to see the flash of rifles from the opposite shore. Longstreet’s men were re- ported to be in the vicinity. The guerillas certainly were near. We knew they were ever watchful. We had, therefore, taken advantage of the deep darkness to feel our way across the river into the depths of the far-famed Dismal Swamp. We heard the boat’s keel grate on the opposite bank. Still no rifle shot. Five, ten minutes passed, Advance one with the counter-

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100 and Blair spoke hardly above a whisper: ‘* George !’’ he said, ‘*Heah, massa, heah! Darn ’f I can find de way, massa !’’ : ‘*To your left! There! Six of you come with me, and the rest in the next load. Careful! Off!’ We soon reached the opposite shore. Our comrades were standing motionless, waiting for us. The boat was sent back by one man. Soon we were all together again. ‘* Pull the boat into these bushes. There! Now attend to what I say. George, you must march by my side, and I shall keep you covered with my revolver. If I think you are betraying us, whiff goes your soul into eternity !’’ ‘‘*Fore God, massa, I—’’ ‘Silence! On the least sign of treachery, shoothim! Take him aside, McNall. Boys, I will whisper the countersign to each of you. You may need it. For to-night, it is ‘Jackson,’ and to-morrow it will be ‘ Holly Springs.’ Keep your eyes open. Weare to capture a lot of men on furlough from Lee’s army. They are visiting some girls out here. The guerillas will make short work of us, if we don’t look out for them. Mc- Nall, fetch him here! Now, then, two ranks, right face! Forward, march !’’ Up the wet road, for a mile or more, we marched steadily on, when, all at once, there was a sharp click, crack, and a hot bullet went soughing through the trees at our right. Instinctively, I clutched my rifle with a firmer grasp, expecting to hear an order. None came. On we went. The rebel picket, after firing, had retreated. The water grew deeper. We saw the hazy out- line of an old mill, and drew near to exam- ine it, when the whole ridge beyond became fringed with forked tongues of blue and red flame. The guerillas were before us ! ‘‘Deploy as skirmishers! Advance and fire at will! Drive the devils out! Close up on the left! Forward! Forward! Steady! Steady! Not too fast. Halt! Cease fir—i—ing !”’ Blair was in his element. So was every lad we had. “The skirmish was over. The rebels had retreated, and we were masters of the field. But there was no glory in such a field. Not a. man of our party was hurt, and prob- ably the same report would have come from THE COSMOPOLITAN. No man could take aim in We could only fire at ran- the other- side. that darkness. dom. ‘File, right! George, did you have any- thing to do with this picket ?”’ ‘*’Fore God, massa captain, dey wasn’t heah when I comed over to you uns dis afternoon.”’ Blair relapsed into silence... Nearly an hour passed, and it must have been not far from two or half past, when we turned into a short lane. Before us was a house, and beyond it were other buildings. A light was burning dimly within. Twochildren, a boy of eight and a girl of eleven, perhaps, were sleeping by the side of the fire-place, while near them was an old man asleep in his chair. At the table, loaded with food, were still seated three uniformed rebels and two young women. On the side of a bed at one end of the room, half reclining, and chatting gayly, were an officer and another woman. Where the other rebel was, whom we afterwards found, I do not know. He may have been up stairs. I did not then see him. I took in this scene at a glance; and, in obedience to a motion from my corporal, I knocked at the door. ‘* Who's there ?’’ asked one of the women, in response to my knocking. ‘‘Open, in the name of the United States of America,’’ I answered, changing my rifle to strike with the breech and standing quickly to one side. ‘‘ Wait a moment,’’ was the reply. Crash went the door beneath my blow, and bang! bang! bang! bang! in rapid succession, went the shots of revolvers. But I was not standing. Divining the course that my enemy would take, I had dropped to my knees, and, with my rifle at a ‘trail arms,’’ I rushed across the room. In an instant I had seized one, who stood opposite the door, with his back against thee wall, and emptying his revolver into space. I caught him by the legs, and he came to the floor. A violent struggle now ensued between us. I did not wish to fire my rifle unless positively necessary. The report of pistols might not be heard far, but of a rifle, who could tell what a horde of guerillas it might bring upon us? In his fall, my antagonist had dropped one revolver. I held the wrist of the hand that held the other revolver. I could not ”

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MARSH SCENE IN THE THAMES VALLEY After the painting of Cecil La

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AN ADVENTURE [IN hold it long. I felt the prick of a knife, and kicked it from his hand just as he wrenched loose from me. But, at that instant, four of my comrades were upon him, and, almost before he realized it, he was bound with a strong rope. I had but just sprung to my feet, when I heard a rush, and saw a tall rebel dash through a side door. ‘* Halt !’’ shouted Blair, and fired. Down on his own door-step (for he was the old man’s son) sank the rebel cavalryman. I rushed tothe door. The fallen man rolled over, face upward, and looked me in the eye, as his form quivered and his soul took its flight. Daylight was breaking mistily, and I could see the form of a man running from the house. I raised my rifle, but, before I could fire, McNall shouted out, ‘‘ Halt! Halt, or I fire!’ I saw the runner leap for the fence, reach the top, sit there a second, and then pitch, face forward, as McNall’s rifle rang out on the morning air. ‘‘Go and see if he’s dead,’’ said Blair. ‘“Mac’’ ran quickly. Soon he returned, bringing a revolver and some confederate money, which he had taken from the dead man. Two were dead, four were prisoners; and, at the word, we fell into ranks. The father and the little children were weeping, the women were screaming, the guerillas were undoubtedly gathering, and we hastened back to camp. The sun was just appearing in the east, when Sergeant Hinman roused me again from slumber, saying, ‘‘See here, you must go back and get the old man. Report to the colonel at once.”’ THE DISMAL SWAMP. 101 The old man had taken the oath of allegi- ance, but had broken it. His son had joined the army of Northern Virginia, but a fur- lough had been granted to him and several of his-comrades. His father had harbored them, giving them food and lodging. For this he was to be arrested. When we arrived at the house, the neigh- bors were assembled. On the table lay the dead body of the son, covered with a sheet. The three older sisters were moaning most piteously. The father was rocking back and forth in agony, while the little chil- dren were crying as if their hearts would break. I think the mother was dead or away. It was like killing another to take the old man, but he had to go with us. The daughters forgot all but their distress. They begged, they cried, they pleaded in behalf of their gray-haired father; they knelt and implored ; they put their arms about rough soldier necks, and bravely pushed aside unwilling bayonets. Finding their efforts unavailing, their conduct changed. They railed at us; they followed us for nearly a mile, heaping upon us shocking epithets, and calling down upon us all the curses of the calendar; but war, cruel, inexorable war, would not listen, would not stay its work. God give us, in the Dismal Swamp as everywhere else, white- winged peace forevermore! What became of the old man or the family? You knowas well as I. Soldiers are taught to obey, not to question ; “ Their’s not to reason why ; Their’s but to do and die.” FRAGMENTS FROM GOETHE. WouvuLp’st thou ever happy be, Let the past ne’er trouble thee ; Make the present hour thy joy; Let no trifles thee annoy ; Thy fellow-man do not aggrieve ; To thy God thy future leave. WHoO never ate in tears his bread, Who never, through the sad night hours, Sat weeping on his lonely bed, He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers.

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% ' a go ieee 8 “Soke, at : “3 n hips = 7 Be: 4 Se ‘ isin VESUVIUS FROM THE CAFE. UP AND DOWN VESUVIUS. By WILLIAM T. HORNADAY. [* ever two travelers got more enjoyment out of a day at Vesuvius than did the professor and the deponent, I would like to know how they did it. Of course, there were ‘‘specimens’’ at the bottom of it, as there were in nearly all the ups and downs ofthat memorabletrip. It was ‘‘specimens’”’ that led to my being boycotted in the north of Ireland, a short time previous, and it was only fair that they should give me a red let- ter day of a different sort as an offset to that doleful experience. ‘* To-morrow, we may as well do the great ash-pile,’’ said the professor, reflectively. We were sitting ata table in a low Nea- politan café, lunching on shell-fish soup and maccheroni, with a bottle of rather sour Capri Blanca as an accompaniment. It was about as low as any café could be, and have any standing at all, only a foot above the level of the bay, and, from a little distance, it seemed to float upon the water, against the stony face of the quay. The railing of the café, the awning, and the two posts that supported it, made a rustic frame for a grand picture. Straight before us, almost from our feet, stretched the placid waters of the bay, with a ruching of white buildings set all along the shore. In the middle distance, Vesuvius loomed up, like a Giant Grim, a thick volume of white smoke pouring out of his apex and floating off over Monte Somma, which, like a faith- ful ally, seemed ready to aid and abet the treacherous old volcano in whatever nefari- ous business he might choose to undertake.

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UP AND DOWN VESUVIUS. The upper third of Vesuvius was of a dead, uniform gray color, and the lower third, next to the bay, was white with towns, villas, and cultivated fields. The middle third, however, had a black appearance, and from it curious capes and peninsulas ran down into the white belt. Half way between the shore and the volcano’s top, there shone against the black background a little spot of pure white, a building evidently, and the professor said it was the Observatory. THE OBSERVATORY. ‘*But what is it that looks so black up there, and runs down so curiously into the white ?’’ I demanded next. ‘“To-morrow you will see,’’ answered my monitor, significantly, as he arose from the table and reached for his hat. In those days, the swell way to reach Vesuvius was to take a votfure and pair and drive up to the Observatory in stately grand- eur: all well enough for grandés and family parties, but for rough-and-ready tourists, or collectors on the war-path for ‘‘ specimens,”’ it was rather slow. The best way to see natural scenery is to view it afoot, and the next best is to see it from the saddle; an in- different way is to goin a carriage, and the worst of all is to go by rail. Tourists of to-day, who are content to be hauled up to the edge of the crater by the mountain rail- way, which has been in operation since 1880, must make up their minds to miss the best part of the whole picnic. A start in the early morning, and fifteen minutes by rail along the shore of the bay, brought us to the village of Resina, the starting point for all that make the ascent otherwise than byrail. At the station where we alighted, we were met, quite as if by ’ 103 appointment, by a deputation of guides and hangers-on, who straightway escorted us to the dureau des guides. There we signed the articles of war and ordered our equip- ment. First came an official guide, who engaged with the municipality to bring us back alive, and in as good bodily condition as he found us, for the very moderate consideration of éight lira. Then came a long staff for each of us, and, lastly, the horses we were to ride. They were plump, well-fed little animals, scarcely larger than ponies, and I must do the authorities the justice of recording the fact that they were the most spirited animals I ever saw kept for hire. The little gray rat that I chose would scarcely stand still long enough for me to get my foot into the stir- rup, while the professor’s bay and the guide’s white steed were equally anxious to be off. A moment later we were mounted, staff in hand, in lieu of riding whip, and clattering up the narrow street. When we started, a piratical hanger-on undertook to sail in our wake by holding to the tail of the professor’s horse as he ran. They were just ahead of me, and the native was running very well, except that his strides were growing dangerously long, when I sang out to my file leader: ‘* Whip behind !’’ The professor glanced backward, let out a reef in his reins, and, as the cavalcade swept suddenly around the next corner, the stern chaser refused to obey his helm, and drove helplessly on, straight toward the stone wall at the farther side of the turn. It was thus the professor started. Very soon we left the village behind us, and, striking the open country, began to wind our way up a long, narrow lane, full of loose rocks and pebbles, wretchedly rough and toilsome, and barely possible to pass. Our little horses did their work nobly, how- ever, and we soon saw that our stony lane was only a short cut to something better. After a mile and a half of slow toiling, we emerged upon a broad, smooth carriage road, and instantly our horses sprang off at a gallop. It was the government road up to the Observatory, winding upward in a most tortuous way, with a straight incline for every curve, and a wall of lava thoughtfully built along its lower side, to prevent acci- dents.

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104 It is all wrong to let a horse run up hill; but it was of no use trying to hold ours back, for they would run in spite of us. After vainly trying to make my gray rat go slow, I surrendered with a sad sigh, gave him rein enough, and hada wild race with the professor. It was all the fault of those unruly horses, but for a time we went up fairly flying. We had struck into the black belt soon after reaching the government road, and when, at last, we drew rein to breathe and look about us, we beheld a truly awful scene. It was a glacier of iron (at least, it looked THE COSMOPOLITAN. nature before the world was born. It was chaos come again, incapable of description, incomparable, distracting. In it all there is not an atom of anything that strikes us as familiar, or belonging to the earth that we are accustomed to; not a shrub, a blade of grass, or even a friendly pebble. It is all from another world, and it could not be more foreign if it had fallen from Saturn. Whether it came from one mile’s depth or a hundred, whether the fires that melted it and cast it up have burned ever since the world was young, or have been lately kindled, we know not. We only THE PROFESSOR’S START. like iron) many square miles in extent, which had flowed sluggishly down the side of the mountain until it cooled, stiffened, and stood still. Glacier,didI say? Thatis not a good comparison. There is nothing about it half so regular as the most chaotic glacier the sun ever saw. On every side, and for a long distance off, the bare, shiny, black lava surrounded us, piled in rugged hills, depressed into great basins, and again heaved upward in huge billows, like a stormy ocean of iron, cooled at the height of its fury. Its surface sug- gested the writhings and contortions of know it lies there, just as it stopped in its downward flow, black, grim, and terrible. Danté and Doré will never know how much they lost by not putting such a scene as this ’ in their ‘‘Inferno.’’ But then, how could they have done it? Not even Danté could have adequately described this awful waste, and, as for the artist, the drawing of such chaotic details would have driven him quite to distraction. This belt of lava is like the rapids above Niagara, which should always be viewed before the falls themselves. It prepares the mind of the beholder for the contemplation

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UP AND DOWN VESUVIUS. BEDS OF of nature’s grander works, by bringing him face to face with less weighty, yet awe- inspiring evidence of her supreme power. Winding upward through the miniature mountains of lava, we presently reached the Observatory, at an elevation of 2,080 feet. It is a very substantial, and by no means ugly-looking, stone building, perched on the lower end of a high, sharp ridge, Monte Contaroni, they call it, which runs straight back until it disappears in the ashy side of the voleano. The Observatory is safe, so far as any ordinary flow of lava is concerned ; for the current is either divided by the ridge, or deflected down one side or the other. From this point of comparative safety, Pro- fessor Palmieri and a corps of trained ob- servers are constantly watching the moods and movements of Vesuvius, and making general meteorological observations as well. ‘‘comparative safety,’’ because, around Vesuvius, it is always the unex- pected that happens. Still, the meteorolo- gists stick to their post, even during the troublous times of great eruptions, and thus far there have been no disasters, although I say LAVA. during the great disturbance of 1872 their lives were in great danger. So long as the eruptions are not too violent, the observers can observe ; but if Vesuvius should decide to get in some of his best work, and throw out a hint to Monte Contaroni in the form of a single mass of rock one hundred and eight feet in circumference and seventeen feet high, like that described by Sir William Hamilton, in 1779, the impression it would make on the inhabitants of the Observatory would be a very painful one. But all this is parenthetical and very much ‘‘by the way.’’ Ever since we dismounted at the Hermitage, a modest adjunct to the Observatory, at which travelers halt for an omelette, a bottle of wine, and rest for both man and beast, we have been looking back at the picture below. The majesty of the great volcano is entirely forgotten, while we gaze in rapture on the lovely panorama spread out before us. To my mind, the view from the Hermitage is more charming than that from the top of Vesuvius ; for at the former place one is just high enough, and not too high. Yonder is

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106 Naples, white as chalk, lying like a crescent of burnished silver around the beautiful bay; the bay itself, calm and placid, like a sheet of frosted silver, set with tiny toy ships ; on the left, the plain of Pompeii, and the blue mountains behind Sorrento rising steeply from the shore of the bay ; Ischia and Capri in the distance ; on our right, level plains, dotted here and there with white hamlets and villas; at our feet, and all around us, grim, black hills and valleys of lava. Far below, at the foot of the mountain, stands a stone church, with the lava flow just on a level with its eaves. ‘Look there !’’ said the professor. ‘‘ For once, the Lord has done just what the old Scotch deacon told the lightning-rod peddler He never would do.”’ ‘* What was that ?’’ ‘** Hoot mon !’ sezzee; ‘and do you think the Lord’s a-goin’ to dunder on His ain hoose ?’”’ The roof and the belfry were as good as new, seemingly, and what remained of the walls looked very white against the black field of lava. This church was overwhelmed during the eruption of 1872, so the guide said, which also destroyed two villages, Massa and San Sebastiano, and many lives. Familiarity breeds contempt, even for a voleano in good running order. With that church spire before their very eyes, looming up above the lava, like a mournful danger signal, the people below live on in their fool’s paradise, and build their villages, and cultivate their vineyards up to the very edge of the lava belt. They forget, or seem to forget, that Vesuvius has ways of his own for punishing such impertinence. Pompeii was buried, with neatness and dispatch, under twenty feet of pumice stone, ashes, The flourishing and populous village of Resina now stands ninety feet above old Herculaneum, which was buried under a torrent of mud. only seven miles from Naples, has been destroyed and rebuilt four or five times, and yet its population to-day is in the neighbor- People forget that the elder Pliny was suffocated by sulphurous gas, as far away as the shore of the bay. The bill of fare served up by Vesuvius offers variety enough to suit the taste of the most fastidious. It includes hot water and mud for the first course ; sand, stones, ashes, and scoriz. Torre. del Greco, hood of 20,000. THE COSMOPOLITAN. scoriz, lava to order, and hashed pumice stone for the intermediate courses; with fire, smoke, earthquakes, and sulphurous vapor by way of dessert. The carriage road ends at the Hermitage, and for the rest of the way there is only a rugged pathway over the lava beds. We mounted our horses once more, and rode along the top of the Observatory ridge until we reached the upper end, close to the well- known A/frio del Cavallo, between Somma and Vesuvius, where we turned off abruptly to the right, and rode toward the foot of the cone. Up and down, around and about, the rough pathway led us, over sheets of lava and great beds of ashes, until, after three- quarters of an hour from the Hermitage, we reached the foot of the cone, at the point of ascent. Dismounting, we gave our horses in charge of some myrmidons of the duveau des guides, and prepared to climb. Immediately upon alighting, we were beset by a mob of enterprising natives, who very kindly offered to carry our royal highnesses in sedan chairs up to the summit for a mere trifle—about ten dollars each, I think it was. The chairs were there, but the professor would not put up the money. ‘‘No, my friends,’’ said he, suavely, ad- dressing the whole company; ‘‘this part of I’m sorry I can’t take you all with me; but the the pilgrimage must be made on foot. best of friends must part. Young man, my friends say that climbing mountains is one of the few things I can do well; so good- bye for the present; I’ll wait for you at the top.”’ A boast that in the face of a trial is entitled to respect. But the professor forgot the practice I had just been having in the cathedral spires of Europe; and, thanks to that, I was able to keep step with the procession. When you start to climb up the cone, you realize that the slope is about forty degrees, but by the time you area third of the way up, it seems more like eighty. It is nothing more nor less than climbing a conical ash- pile eighteen hundred feet high, and very steep. At every step, you sink into the loose, dry ashes six inches, and slip back six so that the distance gained amounts to about the same as the distance lost. It is very laborious work, and painfully slow. I would rather husk corn in cold is made more ;

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UP AND DOWN weather with chapped hands, than climb Vesuvius every day, as these guides do. Seeing that we were laboring hard, the sedan-charioteers hastened up to us, and tried hard to entrap us into displaying sig- nals of distress. One of them got directly in front of me, and dangled the end of a strap within a few inches of my hand, hop- ing I would be tempted to take hold of it and be pulled up, for a consideration to be named at the top. ‘*Get thee behind me, satan !’’ I cried out to my tempter, very resolutely. He obeyed me instantly. He got behind me, put his hand against the small of my back, and began to push me ahead of him, This was too much, and I told him so. Half way up the steep, we came toa hole in the ashes, and a native in it, shivering in the chilly wind that swept across the face of the mountain. ‘“Well, what’s to pay this time ?’’ queried the professor. ‘“Wine, gentlemen; wine off Vesuvio,’ cried the shivering one from the pit, holding up a bottle of dark-colored liquid and a tumbler. ‘“Well, well! If such enterprise as this don’t meet with success, where is the reward of industry ?”’ ‘‘Verra good wine, gentlemen,’’ said the guide. ‘‘ Wine make on ze side off Vesuvio. He name called Lachryme Christi.”’ The professor bought it, the cork was drawn, and he handed me a tumblerful of liquid from the bottle. ‘*There, young man, you drink that; and if it don’t throw you into convulsions, I’ll have some.”’ I put it to my lips and began to drink. It was as sour as vinegar, and about as astrin- gent as a salt and alum bath; but I was thirsty, and it went down. ‘Is it really good ?’’ asked the professor, with sudden interest. ‘“Good? You just try it!’ assuringly. He drank off half a tumblerful without tasting it, as a man sometimes swallows carbolic acid by mistake, and then he paused to taste. ’ I answered, Good !’’ he echoed, with a very black and pursed-up scowl at me. ‘‘That was bottled at a tan-yard, and it’s nothing but VESUVIUS. 107 pure tannin! Oh, my dyspepsia! Let us leave this fatal spot.’’ Staff in hand, we struggled on. Chilly clouds swept by from the north and envel- oped us in their misty folds, while they blotted out from view the whole of the lower world, from our feet downward. At times I could not see my companions twenty yards below me. Fifty minutes from the foot of the cone found us at the top, standing on the narrow rim of the crater. Although the rim was nowhere more than fifteen feet wide, it was perfectly firm, and at the edge the bare rocks cropped out. At our feet yawned a great circular abyss; nearly a thousand feet across, a bottomless pit in reality, from which there rolled upward unceasingly a great volume of steamy-white vapor. ‘*Leesten!’’ said the guide. ‘‘ Hear ze fire.’’ We listened. Far below, from whence the vapor came, we could hear the flames of subterranean fire rolling and surging against the red-hot walls, as we had often heard the ocean’s waves dashing against rocky cliffs. Now and then, we heard masses of rock fall from the walls and dash to pieces, the frag- ments of which kept rattling for some sec- onds afterward. We stood at the gateway to the regions of Pluto, and could have entered by asingle bound. But where is the would- be suicide bold enough to take just one step beyond the spot on which we stood ? The rim of the crater was rather irregular in outline, its highest point being on the southern side, from which it rapidly sloped away toward the north. For some years prior to 1872, the circular rim was unbroken; but, during the eruption of that year, the whole crater filled with molten lava, which finally caused a terrific explosion at the weakest point, as the whole north side was blown out. Through the great gap thus formed, twice a stone’s throw in width at the top and about ninety feet deep, the lava poured out and ran down the side of the cone toward the Observatory. We can but faintly imagine the tremendous force that was required to burst through a wall of solid rock forty feet thick ! From the bottom of this notch, a shelf of lava, covered with ashes, sulphur, and scorize, extended, like a diaphragm, across the crater for nearly half its width, until it ended abruptly at the fiery pit on the north

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THE COSMOPOLITAN. A VIEW OF side. The walls of the crater were rugged precipices of bare rock, cracked and seamed by previous convulsions, yellow with sul- phur in varying tints, while jets of steam issued from the cracks. The professor is an experienced geologist, and, therefore, of a very inquiring turn of mind, especially when amongst rocks. It cropped out then and there, on the top of Vesuvius, in a way that was rather startling. I shudder even now, as I recall it, and think what a scrape it might have got us into. I think of the professor as a bold, bad man to travel with, and myself I regard as a fool of the same type.as the sheep that jumps over a precipice because his leader does. We walked down to the notch where the rim of the crater ended in a rocky steep, and wished we could only get down to that shelf, and actually into the crater. We wondered if there was an impassable chasm at the foot of our precipice ; we speculated, calculated, and rolled big stones down to test the mat- ter. Finally, one of the stones rolled in sight at the bottom. We argued the ques- tion briefly, but finally agreed. The guide had stopped some distance above, and was sitting down like a Turk, chewing the cud of reflection, while he waited for us to look to our heart’s content, and then come back THE CRATER. to him. In point of fact, he had expressly enjoined us not to go below the spot where he sat. We saw that he was paying no attention tous. The geologist said he could do it if I could; and I told him I would if he would go first. That settled it. We mapped out a line of descent as far down as we could see, slipped off our overcoats, and swung off, the professor leading the way. ‘*Now, be careful, young man, and don’t loosen any rock that would roll down on me; it would be unpleasant, and might cause a coolness between us.”’ " It was a matter of cool head, careful eye, steady foot, and firm hand. The professor glided like a lizard backward and forward across the face of the precipice, in zigzag lines, but always going down. I would not have led the way for a decoration; but fol- lowing a man who knew what he was about was a different thing. Before the guide awoke to the situation, we were half way down. Then he hurried to the notch, and came as far down as he dared, shouting and gesticulating, and en- deavoring to scare us off our footing by the assurance that what we were doing was ‘*verra dangereuse !’’ But we were giving our undivided atten-

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UP AND DOWN tion to the business in hand, and had no breath to wasteon him. We reached the tug of war, passed it safely, and presently stood in the bottom of the notch. As we looked up at the wall, nearly, if not quite, a hun- dred feet high, the route we had traversed seemed utterly impracticable. After a few hasty glances about us, we immediately started in toward the center of the crater. And the guide far above us raved and almost tore his hair. His wailing in broken English and swear words in good Italian are even yet ringing in my ears. He said again, it was ‘‘ verra dangereuse,”’ and, much more, not all to our credit; but the professor only shouted back to him, in choice French, the assurance that we knew what we were about, and kept bravely on. The crust was very thin in those days, and visitors were prohibited from going upon it until it thickened and became really safe. ‘* Keep close to the big rocks!’’ shouted the professor, over his shoulder. ‘‘If the lava will bear them, it will bear us.”’ On he went, and although, by that time, I would not have gone alone, or gone first, for a round million, I followed, over beds of yellow sulphur, so hot we could not hold it in our hands, and across many a crevice, from which the hot, sulphurous vapor poured upward. We went over one long stretch of clean lava, where the thin crust rumbled at every step we took, and we stepped very gingerly, too, Iassure you. It gave me the queerest feeling, and the most of it, I ever felt in my life. My leader actually had the nerve to go up to the edge of the lava shelf upon which we were standing and look over into that bot- tomless pit of fire and brimstone! I didn’t. My passport had not been viséed, and, be- sides that, I wasn’t ready. Talk about cool- ness and nerve! No wonder the poor guide was struck dumb, and gave us up as not worth worrying over. In truth, at the climax of the professor’s audacity, he never uttered a word of protest, at least not in our hearing. It is needless to say that the center of the crater was a sublime and awful place. We could distinctly feel the surge of the fiery waves beneath our feet, and the hot spray that came up from them. In front of us was the great pit; behind us, the immense V- shaped notch ; around us loomed up the yel- VESUVIUS. 109 low walls, cracked, seamed, and steaming at every pore; while far above all circled the ragged rim of the crater. On the way out, I filled every pocket I had with chunks of sulphur; and, in the course of my search for shapely specimens, I found, last of all expected things, a dead quail, lying on the lava. It had been dead some time; and, although its under side was quite decomposed, it had no odor. How it ever got into the crater is a mystery, for Vesuvius is over four thousand feet high, and quails have no business to go up there, save in tourists’ lunch baskets. With a last, long look inward, we passed out at the notch, and were ready to descend. We climbed up the western face of the cone, but we were then on the north side, next to Monte Somma; and, in order to reach the horses, it was necessary to swing a quarter way round. The descent was where the fun came in. Like experienced mariners, we planned to make all our longitude near the top, where the degrees were shortest ; and, leaving our guide to bring our overcoats, we started. The start was all that was necessary ; for, from that point, our progress rivaled that of the Flying Dutchman. If we did not actu- ally fly, we came as near it as human beings ever did. At every stride we stepped four feet and slid four more, sinking knee deep in the loose scoriz, plowing it up and sending it rolling and rattling down in a great sheet, thirty feet wide. We ran in spite of ourselves, slanting downward toward the horses, and a wilder race I never ran. We went at such a terrific pace it made our heads swim, and it took sharp work to keep from pitching headlong down the side of the cone. At times it seemed as though some of my limbs would surely fly off into space. The descent was accomplished in about four minutes, Observatory time, and the track we left around the side of the cone would be a puzzle to future geologists, if it could only be preserved. Fatigued and breathless, we sat down by the horses to rest and empty about a quart of lava out of each of our shoes. In a few moments more our guide swooped down upon us, “‘ breathing strange oaths,” as well as bad words we had heard before. He was as mad a man as I ever saw. Shak-

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IIo ing his fist at us, he declared we were not gentlemen, but ruffians, to disobey him so, and even defy him, and he should report our conduct to the authorities. He said that if either of us had been lost in the crater, he would have been imprisoned, and, in a truly Italian manner, he held his hand before his face and glared at us between his fingers, in suggestion of prison bars. As soon as the guide opened fire on us, the professor started in to argue the case with him on its merits, and from that moment I knew his opponent’s doom was sealed. I believe he could argue a burglar out of his house empty-handed, if he could AN IGNORANCE THE COSMOPOLITAN. once get a discussion started. In less than five minutes, the guide was convinced that we had not only done quite the proper thing, but would have been very foolish had we done otherwise. His final surrender was so unconditional as to excite surprise in all the bystanders, save one. As for him, he had had experience, and knew what to expect. Mounting our horses, we rode back down the mountain to Resina, tired enough, but well satisfied. Thus ended our ups and downs at Vesuvius; and may his shadow never grow less. With the geologist to lead the way, I would willingly risk my neck in the crater again to-morrow. CLUB. By JANE MARSH PARKER. NCE on a time, and in our time, the woman, no matter her social position or intellectual superiority, who let it be known that she ‘‘ belonged’’ to a woman’s club, was looked upon as in sympathy with all that was revolutionary and atheistical. She had uplifted her hand in defiance of the long-established and venerated in religion and society. She had enlisted under a ban- ner steadily moving forward to assail and overthrow home life, the marriage tie, and the teachings of St. Paul. Woman might twirl on her toe tips before the footlights, ride round the circus ring, swing from a trapeze, impersonate the disreputable char- acters of a disreputable drama; but going to club! When that came to pass, then let civilization bring forth its sackcloth and seek its ash-heaps. Surely, the outlook was about as black as could be. That was yesterday. To-day the country village lacking a woman's club, call it guild, reading class, missionary society, or what you will, is a social Sahara indeed ; while in our cities, clubs are as numerous as the women who enjoy them, profit by them, and wonder what the world would be like without classes for the study of favorite authors, societies for the pursuit of science, circles for the free discussion of philosophical schools, each and all composed of women never to be rele- gated again to ‘“‘ fancy work’”’ and pet cana- ries. Women’s clubs are a sign’ of the times, a prophecy of what is coming upon the earth. Women’s clubs, as a rule, have each some attractive characteristic, an individuality, the outcome of the personality of one or more of the members. Let it be understood that we are not considering the social clubs, those organizations for other than intellec- tual development, for the promotion of ‘high teas,’’ ‘‘excellence in whist,’’ etc.; but the woman’s club proper, founded upon an Idea, with a capital I, an organization in which social position is secondary, if not ignored, and mental excellence para- mount. There are women’s clubs and women’s clubs. Success does not depend upon a full treasury, magnificent club rooms, and grand receptions, to which the masculine element is admitted, as a sortof reward of merit for both parties. The proof of success is the attaining of the end for which the genuine woman’s club is ordained : The development in its members of a consciousness of intel- lectual ability, a faith in that ability, and the sense of duty in regard to it; and,

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AN IGNORANCE CLUB. III finally, the development of a cohesive force among women as women, the lack of which is their pitiable weakness. An insight into the work of women’s clubs would be helpful in many ways. So the sketch of a certain organization of women called the Fortnightly Ignorance Club, may not be considered untimely. It is a club that represents, as fairly as any, perhaps, an association of women, whose membership may not exceed forty, who are averse to publicity, unnecessary parliament- ary harness, financial taxation, and mental strain at club meetings, at least; and who seek, in their semi-monthly meetings in a pleasant law office, recreation rather than labor, a restful time rather than an impress- ively intellectual one; a club that has an influence, without aiming to be influential; that is social, without social ambitions and exclusiveness; whose members are disci- plined in formulating opinions upon the important questions of the day, and in ex- pressing the same with distinctness and brevity. Keeping to the subject under discussion, if that subject be a worthy one, is perhaps the fundamental idea of the F. I. C., unless it be the ‘‘Ignorance Book,’’ considered the foundation stone. Little did a certain contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, some six years ago, think that in giving out his idea for an ignorance book, he was founding a woman’s club. The suggestion was that every house have its ignorance book, wherein should be writ- ten the hard-to-answer, the book to be pro- duced as a salvation for many an otherwise dull evening. That was the thought germ of the F, I. C. When forty thinking women keep an ignorance book in common, squaring the account semi-monthly, the range of their interrogation points is simply unlimited. by some At each meeting, after the special paper, discussion and oral summary of some cur- rent topic in the political world, the book is opened for questions, the secretary reading from the slips presented what may be an- swered at once, or referred to some member for future presentation, and made the subject for discussion after an opening by carefully prepared papers. Long and bitter was the contest after the question, ‘‘ Is vivisection in the interest of humanity and science?’’ and that later one, ‘‘ May the state justly dis- establish the Church of England?’’ Puritan, Roman Catholic, Agnostic, and High Church women joining in the fray. One characteristic of the F.I. C. is that its discussions begin in a confession of igno- rance, rather than an assumption of knowl- edge, the telling of what the members don’t know, rather than what they do; a magnifi- cent beginning, as a rule, leading the search where the darkness is densest, letting in the light where the need is sorest. That makes all things comfortable for the lowliest at the outset, is an inspiration for those whose poverty of information is greatest. A vigi- lant pronunciation committee is heard from, before the meeting adjourns at ten o’clock precisely, when the members go to their homes, comfortable in the consciousness that each of them is watching the world with forty pairs of eyes, and that there is little that can happen in literature, politics, theology, etc., that some one of the F. I. C.’s will not ‘‘bag’” for the general feast. We have never gone outside the fold for lecturesor papers. As long as our ignorance holds out, is replenished by new members, the lamp of our club will burn. We have had many distinguished visitors, who have contributed to our entertainment, and we to theirs. It makes such a difference, it will be seen, whether a club depends upon ignorance or knowledge for its support.

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THE GOOD OLD UNCLE. FROM THE GERMAN OF SEIDEL. ’'M the good old uncle. If any one should ask why, I can only say that a kind Providence undoubtedly so intended. I am well pleased with my lot. He who has never experienced it does not know how pleasing it is to be an old uncle. But this I must say : It is necessary to have just such brothers and sisters as I have— four brothers, all of whom are married, and four sisters, likewise all married. All have children, and several of these, in turn, have children. Under such circumstances, it is, indeed, well worth while to be an uncle. I have never married, because, I suppose, I never could. There was a time when I often thought of doing so, and I pictured to myself so beautifully how it would be. In my fancy, I saw a little house, very homelike and pretty, that sat in a garden, like a nest in the grass. And in the house everything was so prettily and charmingly arranged, as is really the case only in the ideal houses that do not exist. In imagination, I had here a very cozy and pretty study, with a bay window, in which were flowers. In the center there stood a large, dark brown, carved writing table, that was covered with writing mate- rials of every description. Dark brown carved bookcases stood against the walls, and they were filled with handsomely bound books that contained the best that had been thought and written. Connected with the study was a smaller room, that contained my collections and papers. Here were brilliant crystallizations of all sorts, archzeological specimens with- out number, butterflies, and the newest and earliest forms of animal life, all carefully arranged in handsome cabinets. Near the study, there was an extension containing an aviary. The door could be opened, and through the light wire screen I could look out from my writing table into the green, sunny space in which a fountain murmured, and where the little birds flitted about and sang. When I had worked enough, I would go into other rooms that bore the unmistakable traces of a woman’s hands ; for everything here seemed more elegantly and tastefully arranged, and. an atmosphere of peace and quiet grace pervaded the whole. And I would meet my wife, very hand- somely but plainly dressed, with something of a delicate white material about her neck, and she would put on her yellow straw hat with the blue band over her light hair, and, leaning on my arm, walk out into the garden. There we would look at the rare and beau- tiful flowers that we cared for in common, and make all sorts of plans for the future, and be very happy. Yes, thus I had seen it all in imagination. The appearance of my future wife was also very well defined. Very pretty she was, but not that sunny beauty before which all things must bow; but mild and gentle, with a face in which were mirrored the goodness of her heart and the sincerity of her char- acter. She was of medium height, with form and features softly rounded, with a pleasing voice, in perfect harmony with the well-tempered sprightliness of her nature. She was like the sun when I came, and like the moon when I departed. But these creations of the: imagination are strange things. There was, in reality, a young girl who had very little of all this, but she was as lively as a butterfly, and sang and hummed the live-long day. She had laughing brown eyes, and dark, curly hair, and she liked to shake her curls about her head, and when she came into the room, it seemed to me as though the sun had suddenly come out from behind the clouds. On her account, I had almost altogether forgotten the wife of my imagination ; but just as I thought the pretty butterfly was mine, it spread its wings and flew to an- other. This was really a sad occurrence, and I often grow quite gloomy when I think of it. But these are dreams and things that are past. Suffice it to say, I did not succeed in getting married, and it appears to me that, after all, marriage is not as easy as it looks.

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THE GOOD OLD UNCLE. I have, however, valiantly enlisted my heart, that once thirsted so much for love, in the happiness of others. And I thank God that ample opportunities are afforded me for this. I have passed through the ordeal of seven first-borns that were all the most won- derful prodigies in the sight of God and man. And then there came other children, not quite such wonders ; for their predeces- sors had monopolized so many of these qualities that there were few left. But they were, after all, very remarkable children, who, in the eyes of their mothers, possessed great perfection, and were looked upon as quite uncommon children. I was the good uncle of all these children, and, as the oldest are grown up, and some already have children, I have become the good ‘“‘old”’ uncle. There are the girls, dark-haired and light- haired, little ones who laughingly press my knees, larger ones that joyously run to meet me, and those grown up that formally greet me. There are the boys, from the creeping youngster to the earnest man, all having a family resemblance, but all as much unlike as one can imagine. And all of these grow up around me, knowing me, loving me, and belonging to me, my joy, my care, my How can I, under such circum- pride. stances, help being happy ! Yes, and I have plenty to do. times has not my counsel been taken about the first short dresses, the first little trousers, How many and the first picture books. In fact, I have become quite an authority in such matters, and my word has now great weight with all the mothers. ‘‘ Uncle Louis said so,’ is generally a pretty decisive argument, and often settles a question when papa’s consent is wanting. I thank my Maker for having given me such an excellent memory for the games of my childhood. Can any one make such kites, or build such windmills, water wheels, or sandmills as I? Does any one know so many jolly games, so many children’s pranks and jokes, so many legends and fairy tales as I? ‘‘Uncle,’’ recently said my little nephew, Fred, with earnest look, ‘‘I think there is nothing worth knowing that you don’t know.”’ I have, indeed, become celebrated ! As I have just seven married brothers and 113 sisters, I need never be at a loss where to spend my evenings, for I have but to go to one each evening in the week, and to the oldest, who is the head of the family, on Sundays. But this I do not do; for Aunt Veronica would be offended at me for my lack of domestic virtue. You must not conclude that Aunt Veronica isreally my aunt; for she is not even a rela- tive, but is a fine old lady, who manages my household. An excellent proof of my good luck is the fact that I succeeded in getting Aunt Veronica fora housekeeper. She is a very neat and robust old lady, and has a tosy face with a good many good-natured wrinkles and two little white locks that peep out from under her snow white cap. She is always dressed in light drab, and always has a Sunday or holiday look about her, even when she has her hands full of work. In her room are flowers, a canary bird, very ancient furniture, a snow-white bed, with white curtains, and about everything there is an air of extreme cleanliness. When the sun shines in, it is, indeed, a sight! Aunt Veronica knows as much about my family affairs as Ido. All the nephews and nieces of every size that come running up the stairs, for advice, with a request, or with a ‘‘I only wanted to pay you a little visit, uncle,’’ she can place, but she is often in doubt about their names, and often calls out every name before she hits the right one. There comes a light footstep up the stairs; there isa ring, and Aunt Veronica runs to open the door. ‘‘ Louise—Minchen—Frieda —Clara—no ! Hedwig, what is it?’’ I hear her ask. ‘* Auntie,’’ answers a joyous child’s voice, ‘‘don’t you know that last week I was twelve, and that to-day the ‘ Magic Flute’ is to be played ?”’ And in jumps my little niece, Hedwig, all expectation and joyous excitement ; for she is to go with me, forthe first time in her life, to the theater. There is in our family a time-honored observance that no child shall go to the theater before its twelfth year, and as the first piece the grandfather and father saw played was the ‘‘Magic Flute,”’ it has become an honored custom to see this play on this occasion. I have made it an inva- riable rule to introduce each child at the

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114 proper time into this new world of wonder myself. It is always a source of new pleasure to observe how the young, inexperienced mind receives its first impressions here. They are all different. There is Adolph, who takes everything for granted, and if it is snakes, fire, or water, only asks how they are made; Louis, who stands mute and staring with astonished rapture, and who for days is like one in a dream ; Herman, the naturalist of the family, who makes the remark that snakes do not do this, and in Africa many chiefs have tame lions; Clara, who, trem- bling with fear, or ecstatic with joy, follows the whole play; and Minnie, who takes par- ticular pleasure in the beautiful costumes, etc. I have, in consequence, seen the ‘‘ Magic Flute’ thirty-seven times, and know it by heart. In the nursery, the ‘‘ Magic Flute’’ is a favorite subject for conversation. It is nearly of the importance of Christmas. Christmas is, indeed, a grand time. For nothing in the world would I miss it. I experience all the sweet rapture and all the delightful fancies that I experienced when a child. What planning, and thinking, and plotting, and shopping! All my boyhood skill is called into use, and everything goes on more and more in secret at my house, so that my little visitors are only admitted after the practice of great foresight. And then comes the distribution of pres- ents among the whole circle. With every family I remain during the last days of the old year, and seven times does this joyous day return, each one with its new delights. And I also am given presents in each family. I have twenty-three chair tidies that, in truth, are my despair, but over which I express indescribable satisfaction. Among them are seven with cats, and four with dogs, and three with ‘Rest Gently.”’ Gently they rest ; for I have a trunk, which is now nearly full, amd there are also table mats enough to cover a whole room ; and if I were to paper my rooms with the drawings I have received at Christmas, I would have enough left for the poor and needy. Among these are many with landscapes, with trees in which, as Stifter says, ‘‘ mittens grow.”’ I have twenty-one cigar-cases, although I seldom smoke, and seventeen comb-cases, although my head is as smooth as a rink. THE COSMOPOLITAN. Of key-pockets, I can use a new one every day in the week, and of the scratched and painted cups, with ‘‘ Remember me,”’ “ To our good Uncle,’’ and other drinking uten- sils, I will not speak, for their number is legion. Some parts of my dream about the ideal home have been fulfilled. It is true that it is a back dwelling, but it looks upon a pretty garden. Two pretty rooms and a sleeping- room I call my own, and many a fine piece of furniture, on which my eye rests with pleasure, is to be found therein. Many good books are my silent friends ; of noisy ones I have plenty, and of the dreamed of collec- tions; several neat chests are filled. An aviary, with rare stuffed birds, amid flowers and foliage, stands near my writing table, which, although not elegantly carved, is, after all, quite comfortable and satisfactory. A man must not ask for too much. It is thus, then, that I live, happy and gay, and thankful to my Maker that He has so well provided for me. Often I ask myself how it will all continue and how it will all end. Well, I trust, God willing, that it may continue a longtimethus. But Iam always growing older, and my beard is getting grayer, and soon the day will come when I shall be no longer of the living. They will then take me to the grave with much pomp, and bury me in the spot in the old churchyard that I have picked out, and where I often took such pleasure in sitting and looking down on the town, which, despite the tumult, and excitement, and mirth that are in it, looks so peaceful in the blue mist. They will also place many garlands on my grave, and plant roses on it, because I loved the roses so much. Then the garlands will wither, and the grave grow green, and the roses will grow up and every spring will be in bloom. Now and then, others will come and place fresh garlands on my grave; but the years go by, and the number will grow less and less, and at last no one will come. Then the roses will grow into bushes, so that in the spring my grave will look like a blooming hillock. Some evening a little bird will alight on a branch all in bloom, and in the quiet of the red sunset will sing its little song. And then ‘‘the good old uncle’’ will be forgotten.

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THE LITTLE BEE-MISTRESS. By Mary A. GRISWOLD. iy was midday in sunny France. Away from the great, bustling city, a pretty village, with its trim little gardens and quaint, poplar-shaded cottages, nestled among the hills. The birds in Dorel’s garden were almost wild with joy. The greedy sunbeams were drinking the dew in the cups of the flowers. Butterflies were whirling madly round the rosebuds, and even flitting into the cottage to court the wall-flowers on the window ledges, whose breath was so sweet that it perfumed the whole morning. SaAleg > in’> ' te 7 5 F 1 Ps At HA asm Low7 ~ <\_ ow av Mw. Dorel was standing beside her one thatched beehive, with a puzzled and anxious face. She was sure that the bees were behaving very strangely ; and, not having been a bee- mistress for many months, she could not understand this sudden change in the habits of her industrious little friends. In the first place, they were idle. Many of them were hanging in clusters round the entrance to the hive. But who ever saw or heard of idle bees when the warm sun was shining, and just-opened bean flowers and honey-sweet clover blossoms were beckoning from every direction? Then those that were flying abroad over the garden soared high in the blossomless branches of the trees, and were quite silent, though they usually hummed and gossiped so busily. The blue sage flowers and sweet mignon- ette put their heads together in the beds below and wondered, too, what was the matter. ‘What is it, dear bees,’’ inquired Dorel, who talked to them as if they were human beings, as her friend, the old school-master, who gave them to her, had done in his life- time. ‘‘I am sure no snail has got into the hive; I have been so careful that not one of the vagabonds should creep into the garden even, and only yesterday I stopped up every little crevice under the hedge.”’ But the bees did not change their positions in the least. ‘* Well, then,’’ went on Dorel, after a little pause,‘‘ has anything happened to your queen? Or, stay, perhaps you would like some fresh water to drink. It hasn’t rained for days, to be sure; but there’s dew enough in the garden to drown every one of you.”’ So she hastened to fill a little shallow pan with pure, cold water, placing pebbles within it, so that the bees might drink without wet- ting their wings or feet. But they scorned even to notice this little attention. ‘‘Perhaps they don’t like it because there

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116 are SO many roses opening in the garden,”’ she thought, with anxiety. The school- master had told her that bees visited only the little five-petaled brier roses that nodded to them along the hedge-rows. ‘*But, then,’’ she reflected, ‘‘ there are so many bluelets, and so much thyme and mignonette, and they have all the bean flowers and clover fields for miles, too; and, as all the other bees are away, they surely ought to be satisfied.’’ There are a great many bees in this section of France. Nearly every cottager has his cluster of hives. The farmers and the country gentlemen, as a general thing, keep bee-masters, or bee-shepherds, and even the curate himself, if he be of a thrifty disposi- tion, has a colony of his own behind the row of gooseberry bushes in his garden. As the pasturage in Dorel’s neighborhood would be exceedingly scant for so many bees, the hives were floated softly down the river in boats at night, and anchored in the morning where there were wide farm fields, or rich tracts of heather and clover, and other honey-yielding wild flowers. Then, at even- ing the bees were called back to the hives by the ringing of a bell, as the farm workmen are called home to supper, and at about the same time. The bees are said to become accustomed to the sound and know its mean- ing, though it is probable they would return to the hive without any call whatever. ‘*Perhaps they know that the other bees have gone down to the river and are offended because they could not have gone, too,’’ continued Dorel, at the same time making a hasty search for spiders or some other wicked bee enemy around the hive. But there was nothing of the kind to be found, only a polite white butterfly was waving his wings from the thatch on the roof of the little domicile. Then, suddenly, two their appearance within the doorway, bearing in triumph the body of a wasp that had forced its way into the family circle and had been stung to death for its impertinent intrusion. Believing that the wasp had been the cause of the strange behavior of her insect friends, Dorel experienced a great relief; but it was only momentary ; for, after the little com- motion which this ejection caused, they clustered together in the same manner, and seemed to have no more idea of improving bees made THE COSMOPOLITAN. the shining hour than the great lazy pussy- cat that was sleeping on the door-steps of the cottage. ‘* Oh, bees !”’ she exclaimed, ‘‘if you only knew the trouble I was in already, I am sure that you wouldn’t act in such strange, queer ways. You see, I think a great deal of you, because you used to belong to the dear old school-master, and he gave you to me when he died, because he liked me, and you were all he had to give, just this one hive. He was obliged to sell all the others, because it was a wet year, and you didn’t make honey enough to keep him in bread. The other hives were newer than yours ; so a bee-mas- ter down the river took them, and paid him enough to keep him comfortable the few weeks he lived. ‘*You must know that since grandfather died, grandmother and I have been very poor; and now grandmother is ill and can make no more lace. There isn’t a penny in the purse or a bite in the cupboard, and we're all alone, with nobody to help us. I tried to sell you, you know; it broke my heart to think of such a thing, even. I would almost rather have starved myself: but grandmother must not go hungry. Then Jean Morel peeped into your house, and said it wasn’t worth anything. He said you were not worth anything, either, and that the honey you had saved up was all dark and couldn’t be sold.

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‘‘And now, what can I do? If you only had just a little pure honey to spare me, I could sell it to the two old ladies who live by . the bridge. They were always ready to buy it of the school-master, and—’’ ‘My little girl,’’ said a kindly voice from the other side of the hedge, ‘‘I hope I do not startle you ; but I am sure your bees are going to swarm, and, with your permission, I will send my bee-master, who is at home to-day, to assist you. Have you an empty hive? If not, I’ll have him bring one.”’ ‘Oh!’ thought Dorel, with great agita- tion, ‘‘it’s the English gentleman from the chateau, and he has heard every word I said.”’ ‘‘Thank you, sir,’’ she stammered, grow- ing as crimson as one of the roses; ‘‘I have no hive, but—”’ . She stopped in confusion, but the gentle- man did not seem to heed it. He was watch- ing the bees, headed by the queen, that were already flying, in geat numbers, toward a chestnut tree that leaned over the gate. ‘Very well, there is no time to lose; you will have a fine swarm. I am glad I hap- pened to walk this way; for Iam very much interested in bees.”’ The gentleman hurried away; but soon returned, bringing with him the bee-master, who bore on his shoulders a light straw hive. Dorel danced up and down in wild excite- ment. The little, drooping chestnut bough was heavy and black with bees. It looked as if it had been covered with mucilage and then dipped in bee snuff. ‘“My own bees know me, and I am not afraid that they will sting; but with strange bees it is wise to be careful, I suppose,”’ said the bee-master, arranging a sort of veil over the broad brim of his hat, and drawing on thick gloves with long gauntlets at the wrist. ‘‘ Now the thing is to find the queen.”’ ‘“What will you do with her?’’ inquired Dorel, who was watching him with breath- less interest. ‘‘Why, we want to get the swarm into the new hive, you know. The bees will always follow the queen.”’ So he looked very carefully among the clustering bees, and soon captured the queen. She is easily distinguished from the others by her longer body and royal elegance of person. Uncovering the hive, the bee-mas- THE LITTLE BEE-MISTRESS. 117 ter placed her within, and all the other bees came flying after. They surrounded her as attendant bodies might surround any queen; and there was a great humming and buzz- ing, as if the most important conversation were being carried on. ‘*T declare,’ said he, ‘‘that’s a splendid swarm; real Italian bees, the best kind. Now let us see about theold hive. I wonder how they are getting along in there.’’ ‘‘Haven’t they all left it?’’ asked Dorel, whose timidity was overcome by the excite- ment of the occasion. ‘‘Why, no,” said he, cautiously lifting the cover and peering into the private apart- ments of the agitated family. ‘‘A young queen has ascended the throne here, and those that remain are her loyal subjects. When a swarm leaves a hive, the old queen always heads it. But here is a lot of honey that ought to be taken up. The glasses are brimful; it is fine honey, too; white as haw- thorne blossoms.”’ Dorel fairly danced for joy. ‘‘ Jean Morel said that the honey was good for nothing, and that the bees and hive were good for nothing, too.’’ ‘*Jean Morel knows nothing about bees,”’ said the bee-master contemptuously, as he took out the beautifully-filled glasses. ‘‘ Did you ever see finer honey, sir?’’ he asked, turning to the gentleman, who was watching the scene from a little distance. ‘Never. It has the fragrance of lilies.’’ ‘‘Oh, sir, if the bees are fine, won’t you please buy the swarm?’’ asked Dorel, eagerly. ‘‘I should be very happy to do so, pro- vided you will take care of them for me, and allow them to remain in your garden. It would hardly do to move them at present.” Dorel’s eyes sparkled with delight. Then they suddenly became clouded with a little doubt. ‘I’m afraid I shouldn’t take care of them just right,’’ she said. ‘‘ The school-master told me a good deal about bee-keeping, but I don’t know how to get the honey, and per- haps I couldn't find the queen at all, if they swarmed.”’ ‘*Qh, I am sure that you are a very accom- plished little bee-mistress, judging from the condition of your hive. Bees that were not well cared for would never have made such honey as this. I shouldn’t wonder if you

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118 THE COSMOPOLITAN. made your fortune in this way,”’ he added, laughingly. Then he took from his purse so large a roll of bank notes to place in her hand that Dorel was astonished. ‘‘You are very good, sir,’’ she faltered ; ‘‘but this is surely too much. The hive is your own, you know.”’ But he protested that it was not too much, and bade her good morning, promising to visit her again in a few days, to see how his bees were getting on. Dorel rushed breathlessly into the cottage, to carry the good news to the poor old grand- mother, who was so much strengthened and refreshed thereby that she was able, for the first time in many long weeks, to come out into the garden, and she and Dorel ate bread and honey very happily together, on the sunny bench amid the rose bushes. After that, the wolf of hunger and poverty prowled no more about the cottage door. The dear old grandmother’s tremulous fin- gers rested from their labors as long as they pleased. Dorel prospered in her bee-keeping. Hive after hive was added to her stock in the course of a year or two, and the honey of the THE FOUR ‘*little bee-mistress,’’ as she was called in all the region, became quite famous for its sweetness and fragrance. O’CLOCKS. By SUSAN HARTLEY SWETT. PrAy, Four O’clocks just waking, Now night is almost here, Why wait you in the shadow, And lose so much of cheer? The fairest of the day you miss, Gay friends, sweet songs, a kiss. ‘*Oh, we keep the time so truly For country folk,’’ they say. The dear old clock in the kitchen Will often go astray ; The dial on the garden wall, In sunshine only, moves at all. ‘‘When out we peep, the house-maid Knows when her pail to bring And fill with crystal water From the bubbling orchard spring, To set the kettle merrily A singing for the early tea. ‘‘The weary little teacher Knows, when our petals glow, That lesson time is over, And her shouting troop may go. And grandma times her spinning hour When Four O’clock begins to flower. ‘‘The vagrant in the highway, The shepherd with his flock, The farmer in the meadow, May always have a clock ; The wild birds and the insects, too, Until the frosts have pierced them through. ‘‘We’re plain and homely blossoms ; But we do the good we may, And surely helping others The little while we stay Is better than a whole day’s bliss Within a weary world like this.”’

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HOW ‘‘THE HOPPERS” FOOLED SAM PERKINGS. A FIRST OF APRIL STORY. By JANE MARSH PARKER. HEY didn’t make much of Christmas at Hopper’s Landing, on Lake On- tario, or of Fourth of July; but April first was always a high day, and old Sam Perkings the hero. Sam was to Hopper’s Landing what Napoleon Bonaparte was to the island of St. Helena, or Sam Patch to the Genesee Falls. He had lived in his fisherman’s shanty, on the lake beach, ever since the oldest pioneers could remember, and he had never failed to earn enough by mending boats, digging bait, and haul- ing in big fish when nobody else could get a bite, to keep himself supplied with whisky and tobacco. As long as whisky and to- bacco held out, Sam was above fretting about minor matters, like bread and cloth- ing ; and, as he was seldom more than mer- rily exhilarated, and a capital story-teller in his droll way, the Hoppers, as folks at the landing were called, would have had just nothing at all for giving them a chance of getting into a story but for old Sam Per- kings. The steamboats never stopped at Hopper’s. Bless you, no! There was not even a dock. It was an old Indian landing, where the French once tried to build a fort. It was always a mystery why Sam Perkings had ‘‘squatted’”’? where he did; such a lonely place, no road but the railroad track ; but then, it was whispered, he knew something about the locality, some secret the Indians had told him, something he had never told, and never would. You could trust Sam for that, even in his cups. He was a great favorite with the boys the country round. They liked to play cards on rainy days before his driftwood fire, help him fry and eat fish, and make his little garden in the spring. Hewas getting shaky with old age, but he was a boy with the boys, when any fun was going on, particularly on the first of April, the great day in the year for him. ‘Thur isn’t aman norra boy here’bouts thet gets ahead of me on Fool’s Day,’’ he would be saying in the middle of March. “Tl gin ye all nutis now,” he would add, holding on to his short-stemmed black pipe with his toothless gums, ‘‘ ye can’t fool old Sam Perkings. He'll get yer every time,”’ slapping his ragged knees with his un- steady hands, and waiting for somebody to take issue with him. But nobody ever did ; no, not until the boys of Hopper’s Landing, only last year, thought they would get even with Sam Perkings. Patsy Ryan’s scheme was the best one. ‘We'll get an old tin box; granny’s got one with an Injun on it. We’ll wrap horse hair, black horse hair, all round it. We’ll put some blood on the hair; then we'll put a let- ter in the box, and nuthin’ in that letter but ‘April Fool for Sam Perkings.’ Then we'll bury it in Sam’s garden. He’il be diggin’ bait ‘fore long. I know jes whur he’ll begin. He won't get it on April Fool’s day, but he’ll get it sometime.’’ ‘‘He couldn’t read yer letter,’ thrust in Micky Flanigan. ‘*He’d get some buddy to read it fur him. That’s whur we'd find out about it, don’t ye see ?”’ The boys liked the plan. They improved it straightway. Sam should find the box on April Fool’s.day. They’d send somebody to set him to digging. They thought they could think that plan out, if they tried. They would put a bottle of molasses water in the box, and some tobacco sprinkled with pepper. They capered and shouted, think- ing of the sport they would have. They could watch him from behind his boat house. They could pretend they had found some- thing out there themselves, and act as if they were going to make off with it. They buried the box one dark night, when they had reason for believing that Sam was smoking his pipe and telling his stories at the Landing grocery. There was a good deal of frost in the ground, and for all there had been several warm, sunny days, that piece of digging in the dark was about as hard work as they ever did, seeing they wanted to goas

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120 deep as they could. Then they waited some time for Sam to come: home, lest they should meet him on the railroad ‘track. That kept them out late, which brought unpleasant consequences to the most of them. They went to sleep, thinking how the town was going to laugh at Sam Perkings’ April Fool. About the middle of the next forenoon (Sam was known to be a late riser), they sent a big Canadian boy they had found looking for work to ask him if he might spade his garden for him. They made the poor fellow believe that if he dug in a certain place, he’d be likely to find atreasure. They waited a long time for the Canadian to come out of Sam’s shanty. “The old man is laid up,’ he said. ‘I made a fire for him and put on his kettle. Run hum with yez and bring him something to eat. He'll not get up to-day, or any other, I’m thinking.”’ Old Sam was sitting up in bed, not an hour after, dipping Patsy Ryan’s doughnuts into Micky Neligan’s coffee, a plenty of good things on the table beside him, and six boys eager to wait on him. After looking about the room in a bewildered way, not seeming to see one of them, he began talk- He had said almost nothing They thought him ing to himself. since the boys came in. low, very low, indeed. ‘It’s your last winter outen th’ poorhouse, Sam,’’ he said to himself, sinking down on his limp pillow and shutting his eyes. ‘‘Tt’s no use whimpering agin that. There's no one but yourself to blame, Sam Perkings, that you ain’t rolling in gold‘and dimerns this minute.”’ The boys were staring at each other in a half frightened way. ‘Going to die, are you,’’ he went on talking to himself, ‘‘ before digging up that old treasure chest, before letting a soul know where it is? Yu're a fool, Sam Per- kings! Mighty ’fraid of alittle hard work at digging, mighty savin’ of that rhumatizy old back.”’ A deep groan, and, only for Patsy, who shook his head significantly, every boy would have made for home as fast as he could. ‘Too lazy to dig for it, Sam,’’ he was muttering; ‘‘too lazy. Always to-morrer and to-morrer, and millions and millions waiting for your spade.”’ Then he began chuckling and laughing. THE COSMOPOLITAN. ‘‘ Nobody knows. Nobodyknows. It’s safe as a bank. What’s the use of digging? That old Injun didn’t know.”’ ‘*You jes go for the doctor, Jack Riddle,”’ said Patsy, taking Jack by the shoulder and shoving him towards the door. ‘No you don’t.’’ And Jack drew closer to Sam, who was muttering again under his breath. Patsy Ryan need not think hecould get the better of him like that. Suddenly Sam opened his eyes wide, and looked from one alarmed face to the other. ‘* Have I told anything ?”’ and he clutched Patsy’s hand. ‘‘ Have I been talking in my sleep ?”’ Before the boys could answer, and each was waiting for another to speak, the old man dropped into a seeming doze again, and was whispering what they could not make out. One boy spelled ‘‘g-o’’ in the sign language, and pointed toward the Landing, but no one went. Sam was carrying on a dialogue with some one, whose words he repeated in a very gruff voice. ‘* How do you know where the Frenchmen buried it ?”’ That was Sam. ‘* Big Sword, Bright Buttons, big Injun, he say where? Big Sword, Bright Buttons say there. Brandee.’’ And there was a smack- ing of lips. The old man breathed heavily and moaned. ‘*Pale face forget?’’ the gruff voice was asking. ‘*Never !’’ That was Sam Perkings. ‘*Pale face ’fraid of words with Injun. Pale face say it over with Injun. Say it three times.’’ And then Sam slowly re- peated what every boy knew by heart before he was done: ‘Ten feet from the water, ten feet from big tree ; Red cross on the stone; turn it over and see.” One by one they slipped out into the sun- shine. Sam seemed sleeping quietly. Be- fore he woke up, they had better look round a little. Patsy made them all swear, with their hands crossed over their hearts, that they would never tell what Sam had said, and if Sam died before night, as they be- lieved he would, that they would share the contents of the treasure chest together. If Sam lived, of course, things would be differ- ent, but lucky for them, all the same. He should have a palace, and everything fine, and they would see that he did not dig bait in the rain any more.

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HOW “THE HOPPERS” Big tree was plain enough. That was the old pine on the bluff, of course. The full interpretation of the verse was another thing. Ten feet from the lake, as Patsy strode it, and ten feet from the big tree, brought them to Sam’s boat house. It was the only plausible place to look for the treasure. Of course, it wasn’t under the railroad track, or at the bottom of the swampy ravine. One of the boys had con- sented to go and sit beside Sam, and advise the others from the window. They wouldn’t like him to know what they were looking for; it might give him a start, and Sam Per- kings was not the man they would care to make angry, and that when he was dying. Poor old Sam! There were some hot words over which boy should have the only spade to be found; but Patsy, as usual, carried the day, and the other boys must dig with sticks, or whatever they could find, Jack Riddle clawing away with his two hands. Patsy was the first to strike a stone, a big How the dirt flew out of the hole. Could they stone. Yes, a stone with a red cross! believe their eyes? FOOLED SAM PERKINGS. 121 ‘*Call Bill,’ gasped Patsy. And Billy came hurriedly from the bedside. They would not turn the stone over without Billy; nor were they going to touch the chest to open it unless Sam should die. It was easier turning the stone than they thought. And there, in a hollow under a piece of old fish net, was their little tin box ! They stood looking at each other in a dazed kind of way, when Sam’s laughter broke in. His gray head was darkening the little window. ‘‘April fool on Sam Perkings is it, boys? Jes you hand mea pocketful of them gold dollars. Come down and get breakfast for me next first of April, won’t you! Hi, yi!”’ And away he hobbled, to tell his new story to a merrier group. The boys found some satisfaction in re- burying the box under the red cross stone and stamping down the earth above it. How did I learn their secret? Never mind; but one of these days some one of the historical societies of western New York may be study- ing that Arklfol. Fe and then some of you can explain.

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THE KING OST of our young readers have seen the lion, caged and tamed, at exhibi- He looks and acts differently there from what he does in his native jungles and rocky lurking places of South Af- rica. In his free, wild state he is in- deed a king among beasts. He is, how- ever, not quite such a fearless and ma- jestic animal as he has often been repre- sented. Modern travelers and hunters tell us many stories conceriing the real charac- ter of the lion. They say that it is only when sorely pressed for food and famishing with hunger, that he will go boldly forth to attack his prey. It is seldom that he carries his head erect in his native haunts. He goes skulking along with his nose near the tions. OF THE ACG, ‘We Lh) + had A ARYAN NN \ SAAN \ Ni ; FOREST. ground, growling, whenever he is seen abroad by daylight ; and if he meets a human being he will get out of the way as quickly as he can. In order to capture his prey, he hides himself in the low bushes or tall, rank grass that grow along the side of streams and near springs, crouching down like a cat, until some animal approaches, when he will spring upon it suddenly and kill it. The night is the period of his greatest activity. It is then that his roar is chiefly heard. The roar of the lion is thus de- scribed by Gordon Cumming, the celebrated hunter: ‘‘One of the most striking things connected with the lion is his voice, which is extremely grand. It consists at times of low, deep moaning, repeated five or six

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THE KING OF THE FOREST. times, ending in faint, audible sighs. At other times he startles the forest with loud, deep-toned, solemn roars, repeated in quick succession, each increasing in loudness to the third or fourth, when his voice dies away in five or six low, muffled sounds, resembling distant thunder. Frequently a troop may be heard roaring in concert, one assuming the lead, and two, three, or four more regularly taking up their parts, like persons singing a round. They roar loudest on cold, frosty nights; but on no occasion are their voices to be heard in such perfection or so intensely powerful as when two or three strange lions approach a fountain to drink at the same time. When this occurs, every member of each troop sounds a bold roar of defiance at the opposite parties, and, when one roars, all roar together; and each seems to vie with his comrades in the intensity and power of his voice.”’ The food of the lion consists of the larger herbivorous animals, such as the buffalo, antelope, zebra, giraffe, and sometimes the young of the elephant and the rhinoceros, though the adults of the latter they dare not attack. Old lions, whose teeth have become decayed or injured, generally become ‘‘ man- eaters.’’ An unarmed man is about the easiest prey a lion can get hold of, his strug- gle for life being very feeble in comparison with that of the ox or buffalo. The great power of man lies in his intellect; and, usually, when man overcomes a lion it is by the use of his intellect, not by his physical strength. A full-sized South African lion measures about eleven feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, following the curves of the body. The internal structure of the body is such as to fulfill, in the most perfect degree yet attained, an active mode of existence in which the overpowering and killing of prey is the chief characteristic. Look at the en- graving, showing the formation of his teeth. See those tusk-like ones, with which he seizes his prey! With them the lion will cling to an enormous ox, drag it over rocks and through the dense thickets to his hiding place, despite the fierce struggles of his victim. The large teeth, which are called canines, are sharp-pointed and sharp-edged. As the engraving shows, they are placed wide apart, having a number of small teeth between, so 123 placed as not to interfere with the working of the great teeth. This arrangement gives the lion great power with his jaws, which are short and strong. With such teeth and jaws he can break bones of large size. The tongue is long and flat, and remarkable for the development of papillz@, which resemble SKULL OF LION, SHOWING TEETH. long, compressed, re-curved spines or claws, which, near the middle, attain the length of one-fifth of an inch, giving that part of the tongue on which they occur the appearance and feeling of a coarse rasp. It is by the use of these fapil/e@ that the lion is able to remove all the flesh from the bones of ani- mals on which it feeds. The vertebral column of the lion is composed of thirty strong bones, divided as follows: Seven cervical, thirteen dor- sal, seven lumbar, and three sacral. The tail contains twenty-six bones, called caudal vertebree. The limbs are digiti- grade, which means that the animal rests upon round, soft pads, or cushions, covered with thick, naked skin, one under the sur- face of each of the principal toes, and a larger one of peculiar form.« The fore feet have five toes, the hind feet only four. The claws are all large, strongly compressed, very sharp, and can be drawn backwards into a sheath in a state of repose, but become excited by muscular action when the animal strikes its prey. By a peculiar piece of mechanism, the points of the claws are always kept sharp and unworn. At the age of four years, the lion is fully matured and possessed of a long, flowing, shaggy mane,

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124 which hangs from his shoulders, neck, and chin, The African lion is of a tawny, yellowish color, having on the tips of the ears and end of the tail tufts of black hair; and, notwith- standing some cowardly and mean traits of character, he is a very magnificent look- ing animal when he stands erect, his head high, his tail sweeping to and fro, as he appears when aroused suddenly by approach- ing danger. He isa good father, and never deserts the mother of his cubs until the latter know how to take care of themselves. The female lion differs from the male in having no mane and being of a milder dis- position. She can, however, become very ferocious when she and her little ones are attacked, or require food. Chased and sorely pressed, the lion will turn upon his pursuer, and then all the valor A LITTLE AMUEL LONGFELLOW, who has writ- ten a charming book about his cele- brated brother, Henry W. Longfellow, relates an interesting story about the first verses of the poet, that were published when he was a boy of thirteen. Mr. Longfellow says that ‘‘the boy’s first printed verses were, to him at least, of vast interest. He recalled, in after years, the tremblings and misgivings of heart with which he ran down to Mr. Shirley’s printing office, at the foot of Exchange street, and cautiously slipped his manuscript into the letter box. The evening before the publica- tion of the paper and stood shivering in the November air, casting many a glance at the windows, as they trembled with the jar of the ink balls and the press, afraid to venture in. No one but his sister, the receiver of all his con- fidences, had been let into his secret, and she shared with him the excited expectation with which the appearance of the paper was looked for the next morning. ‘‘We may imagine the impatience with which they watched the unfolding of the damp sheet in their father’s methodical hands, and the rising vapor as he held it before the wood fire to dry. Slowly he read the paper and said nothing, perhaps saw he went again THE COSMOPOLITAN. and fierceness that has been attributed to the animal will be displayed. When thoroughly aroused by pursuit or wounds, or in protect- ing his female and cubs, there is nothing so big and strong that he will not attack with all the ferocity of his nature. He will spring upon a full-grown elephant in order to reach men riding upon his back, and not until killed will he relax his fearful grasp or cease his desperate efforts to destroy his enemies. The lion can run swiftly. His usual gait however, is a walk, but even this is a rapid * movement, as his length of body enables him to get over great stretches of ground in a short time. It is when the animal gallops away that the pursuer should exercise great caution; for, when the hunter least expects, the lion will suddenly turn and spring upon him with terrific force. BOY’S FIRST POEM. nothing, of the verses; and the children kept their secret. But when they could get the paper, the poem was there! Inexpressi- ble was the boy’s delight and innumerable the times that he read and re-read his per- formance, each time with increasing satis- faction. ‘‘In the evening, he went to visit at the house of Judge Mellen, his father’s friend. In the circle gathered about the fire, the talk turned upon poetry. The judge took up the morning’s Gazette. ‘Did you see the piece in to-day’s paper? Very stiff! Remarkably stiff! Moreover, it is all bor- rowed, every word of it.’ ‘‘The boy’s heart shrunk within him, and he would gladly have sunk through the floor. He got out of the house as soon as possible without betraying himself. Shall we blame him that there were tears on his pillow that night? It was his first encounter with the critic."’ This boy, as all our young readers know, afterwards became a great poet. Although he was often severely criticised, he never became discouraged. When he died, a few years ago, he was greatly beloved by the readers of his poetry throughout the civil- ized world.

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LITTLE BAREFOOT. After the painting of F. von Thelen-Ruden

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INDIVIDUALITY IN HOMES. By JANE CAMPBELL. “THERE is an individuality that attaches itself to every home. Fashion and custom, it is true, assert themselves in the furnishing, but the touch that makes one home different from another is that of the woman who reigns there. The love of order or of comfort is quite as apparent on enter- ing some houses as in others, the eye for color that has placed a drapery of olive here, or ascarf of garnet there, so that our homes may well be said to be the expressions of our feelings. And in this age of beautiful colors, of fabrics within the reach of all, there seems to be no excuse for unattractive surroundings. In furnishing a house, be it large or small, it is well that the hall, which affords the first glimpse we have of the interior, should have an air of welcome. Thiscan easily be main- tained, if the hall has breadth, and need not be entirely lost sight of in the narrower halls. The coloring in halls should be rich, and the light subdued. If gas is used, let the globes of the fixtures be of deep coloring —the olives, deep red, and orange. These all make good tints, and combinations of them are delightful. In broad halls with high ceilings, tapestry hangings, and heavy pieces of metal work are beautifully decora- tive, and in good keeping, if the house is large. If the hall has unusual breadth, an open fire-place is desirable, especially in the country house, as there the hall may have a domestic air. If the hall is very narrow, and the stairs near the front door, it will prove to be an obstinate affair. Portiers can be hung under the casings of the doors, and if it has a ves- tibule entrance and the inner doors have glass panels, shirrs of soft China or India silk, figured or plain, will help furnish. If there are double doors and only one is to be open at a time, there may be space in the corner for a small stand and a large vase or bow] of flowers. In such a hall the hat rack should not be the prominent feature. A small one is much more attractive. The expanse of a long drawing-room may be relieved by a cozy grouping of chairs and tables in the front, and perhaps a desk and piano, and thus leave the lower end for the more secluded /é/e-a-/éte. If the piano is an upright, it will break the length of the room by being drawn out at a slight angle from the wall, and ascarf in light material thrown over it, not festooned. Square parlors are much more homelike and better suited to people of moderate means. The light being usually stronger, the effect of color is more apparent. A room finished in cherry, or with wood painted dark red, may be papered with olive slightly blended with light blue, and a deep cream ceiling. One painted in dark green may have the same shade in paper, with a frieze of salmon, and a garnet ceiling. The same colors may predominate in the rugs. Madras curtains are in good taste in small parlors, with or without heavier ones. The tone of the dining-room should be warm and genial; that which comes through the rose-stained upper sashes of windows, or chandeliers, or by means of candles with small red shades, is soft and pleasing. Where there is no stained glass, a very good effect is gained by a sort of patchwork, con- trived with the decorated pieces of crinkled Japanese material that are found in almost all the fancy stores now-a-days. They are about five by seven inches in size, brilliant

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126 in coloring, and, when put together with satin ribbons two inches wide, of any color desired (deep red or purple perhaps), and tacked securely to the casing of the window, the result is marvelously pretty. The dining-room, of all rooms in the house, should be comfortable. An oriental couch, without ends, and with big pillows at the back, may afford an after-dinner rest, and easy chairs on each side of the open fire- place, give an opportunity for a half hour with the morning paper, or a snug corner to plan the day’s work. It is unfortunate to load the room with decorative china and tiers of placques, and a great display of sil- ver is vulgar. THE SPRING THE COSMOPOLITAN. The beautiful colors that are brought out in the heavy materials are repeated in goods of lighter weight. Silesias and sateens come in every possible shade and color, and the heavier sateens, such as upholsterers use to line heavy draperies, make in them- selves attractive hangings. These can be trimmed with the small tassel fringe. This cannot always be purchased in the shade desired, but any woman with deft fingers can make it at odd moments, by forming tassels about one and one-half inches long of crew- els, and crocheting a tiny border to hold them together, which can be sewed to the edge of the curtain. NOVELTIES. By MRs. HELEN HOOKER. HE variety of fabrics that may be found for summer gowns discloses a very ‘‘poverty of riches.’’ There are foulards, sateens, German linens, lawns, chambéry, plain and embroidered, crazy cloth or cotton crapes, seersuckers, cotton canvas robes in pattern dresses, embroidered in scarlet, blue, and brown; and beautiful ginghams, domes- tic and imported. Sateens are finer and have a more silky finish than ever before. They resemble so closely China silks, in finish, color, and pat- tern, that it is hardly worth while to pay the difference in the prices asked for them. Fig- ured sateens have plain goods to combine with them, and may be found in both dark and light shades. The figures are small dots, cubes, squares, ovals, circles, and Per- sian designs. Some pattern dresses in this material have stripes for the petticoat of the dress, with a figured or plain overdress. A straw color and brown striped underskirt has an overdress of straw color, sprinkled with tiny brown figures. A light blue sateen has tiny dots of scarlet, a dark blue has scarlet rings, and a bright tan color has tiny fans and hieroglyphics in brown and olive. Among the prettiest and most substantial novelties are the German linens. They laundry beautifully, and imitate summer silks so perfectly that they will, no doubt, be much liked. These goods come in beau- tiful shades of pink, blue, and lavender; also in pin-head checks in gray and white, and dark blue and white. Ginghams are plaided, plain, and striped. A lovely novelty in gingham has tufted and bouclé stripes, with plain goods to match. One that we have seen has a plain dark blue stripe about two inches wide, alternating with a bouclé stripe of the same width, com- posed of hair lines of light blue, white, and cardinal. An écru ground has the bouclé stripes of brown, cardinal, and blue. Thin white dress goods come again with the same old names and faces. Nainsook, India linen, lawns, and organdies, trimmed with laces and embroidery, make charm- ingly, airy, cool-looking dresses. Yet they are so frail and fair, so expensive, and often such a failure when laundried, that the dress of white wool becomes more popular every year. These wools are said to be as cool as lawns, and certainly, in many cases, they are far more graceful and becoming. White wools come in three shades, moire (a cloudy white), blanc (a blue white), and créme. Serges, camel’s hair, veilings, bouclé and grenadines, in beautiful patterns, are some of the noticeable white wool fabrics dis- played. A blue silk grenadine has a petticoat of plain dark blue stripes, in large mesh, alter-

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THE SPRING nating with scarlet velvet stripes. The drapery and waist of this gown are of plain blue grenadine. A pattern dress of intense gray blue veiling has to combine with it several yards of veiling plush of the same color, overshot with a deep white nap, giv- ing it a frosty look. Old-fashioned summer silks are to be worn less than usual. In their place will be worn soft surahs, or combinations of soft wool, over silk and moire, and striped silk and velvet petticoats. And if these stuffs do not please, crapes, after the make of Canton, but of lighter weight, to combine with silk, may be found. Plush, too, in combination with silk, is still good style, and may be worn till midsummer. So, while Dame Fash- ion grants great latitude in the choice of gowns, it is believed that the tiresome tyrant looks with most favor on the wearer of stripes; that at her court they will be worn more and more, though always in moderation. All wraps for the next six months, prob- ably for the next year (except for stormy days) will be worn short. The favorite wrap at present is the short jacket, longer in the front than in the back. Most of the jackets are single-breasted, with revers on each The side, held in place by large buttons. back is cut full enough to accommodate a large tournure. The fullness is disposed of in two stiff box pleats, or by lapping in the middle seam like a man’s coat. The jackets are finished with an edge of braid put on tailor fashion. Rough and smooth cloths, in bouclé, cheviot, tweed, and billiard, are suitable material for these jackets. Gray and tan color are the shades most service- able. Braiding, passementerie, frogs and cords will be used to ornament more dressy jackets. Elegant short mantles of velvet or lace are to be made elaborate with Cantilly and guipure lace. Dresses will continue to be made with underskirt, draped overdress, and basque, or with polonaise overdress. Dress skirts will be worn longer, the skirts of street dresses being just long enough to escape the ground. The skirt jis also made somewhat wider than in the winter, two yards and a half being the average width. Draperies are both long and short, and, in either case, very bouffant. A narrow foot pleating is ‘still used for the back and front of the skirt. The drapery is NOVELTIES. 127 left open on both sides nearly to the waist, thus disclosing the side breadths of the underskirt. These side breadths are some- times made of striped or figured material, when the rest of the dress is of plain; or they are pleated in wide pleats on one side, the other having a braided panel, narrow pleatings, or lace ruffles, to the waist. Dress waists are made in round and pointed basques. The waist darts are high, and the collars very tall. The fashionable button requires so large a button hole that silk covered hooks and eyes are used to fasten many waists. The buttons are used merely for ornament. Re- vers, pleated and gathered vests of silk, gal- loons put on to outline a square neck, and V-shaped trimmings in front and back, are some of the many ways of finishing basques. Plain coat sleeves, with a simple cuff, are still most liked for street gowns. More elaborate gowns have leg-of-mutton sleeves. Coat sleeves, laced up the back as far as the elbow, with a silk cord of con- trasting color, or V-shaped trimmings put on in folds, or in frills of lace, are a lovely novelty. When the laced sleeve is used, it is a pretty idea to add laced pieces to the basque just below a full vest, and a laced panel at the side of the skirt. Flowers, ribbons, beads, and ostrich tips ornament the new bonnets and hats. Bon- nets are trimmed with high long bows, made of loops of ribbon. These bows some- times hold a bunch of flowers of contrasting color. The bow is often made of two, or even three, shades of ribbon. The only other trimming needed for a bonnet is a pair of strings of either velvet or gros grain rib- bon. A preference is shown for gros grain feather-edged ribbons. Another pretty bonnet trimming is of several large rosettes, made of ribbon about one-fourth of an inch wide. if, in the midst of the rosette, a bunch of heron feathers be set, a pretty ornament for either bonnet or hair may be had. Beaded bonnets, of fine- cut beads, both in black and colors, are shown again. In the latest importations, the beads are confined to the ornaments and coronets of the bonnet, while the crown is of straw, crape, or tulle. A bonnet of red, écru, or brown straw may be trimmed with several bright colors that harmonize with it, and in

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128 this way can be worn with a number of toilettes. Round hats have the trimming massed either at the front or back, with a simple band passing around the crown. The French hats have the trimming massed at the back. As this fashion is not universally becoming, THE COSMOPOLITAN. it is best, with the aid of a hand-mirror, to find what effect it has on the profile, before deciding. Ribbon bows, with many short ends, ostrich tips, and aigrettes, and English crape in large, soft loops, will be used to trim round hats. THE SPRING HOUSE CLEANING. By Mrs. M. E. HUNGERFORD. “THE gospel of soap and water is made easy in practice now by the establish- ment of a Co-operative House Cleaning Com- pany. For a reasonable consideration, this company enters a house, and, assuming full possession for a short time, takes up carpets, cleans paint, washes windows, abolishes all the accumulated dirt and leaves the prem- ises shining with the quality that is piously considered to be next to godliness. But this putting out house cleaning, as one might say, is a luxury that can only be indulged in by the affluent. There are housekeepers (and they are among the neatest and best), who do not torture their families with the semi-annual domestic upheaval known as house cleaning; but, with wise clemency toward the long- suffering head of the family, they spread the process over many weeks, taking a room at a time (instead of dashing at a whole floor), and accomplishing the work ‘‘ unbe- knownst,’’ to borrow a word. Such a plan saves wear and tear of nerves and temper, and saves money, too; for ser- vants resent the idea of being expected to spend a week or two at scrubbing and clean- ing, and will insist on professional assist- ants being called in, while they can hardly rebel, if they are asked to give one day, or part of a day, to extra work in the middle of each week for a limited time. In asking this favor of servants, for it is a favor, a diplomatic mistress will promise them a certain sum above their wages. Even a small consideration will make them work better and more cheerfully, and if the work they accomplish saves the not very small expense of board and day wages of house cleaners, they are surely entitled to a small proportion of the amount saved. When a room is to be cleaned, the first thing to do is to remove all the furniture that can be conveniently handled ; the next is to take up the carpet. This may perhaps be done by the man who may have been hired to shake it. In acountry house, where this has to be done by men who work on the place, the mistress must see that the dust is properly driven out by beating, and shaking, and sweeping, while the carpet is laid upon the clean grass. One housekeeper of some reputation advises dragging the cleaned carpet over wet grass; but, as showers do not always have the presence of mind to fall at the appropriate moment, this does not seem to be an always practicable plan. As soon as the carpet is taken from the room, the floor must be swept twice : once to take off the ‘‘big dirt’’ and once to take off the remaining dust. The pictures should be taken down and put into another room. Ornaments and all sorts of bric-a-brac should be taken from the room and washed, wiped, or polished, each according to its kind. With the room as nearly empty as possi- ble, it will be an easy thing to wipe the walls with soft, clean towels, dry, if they are paper hung; slightly dampened, if the walls are painted. If the woodwork is hard wood polished or varnished, it will only need wip- ing carefully with cloths dampened in water softened with borax, not soap. But it will not do to be lavish with water. -The cloths must be wrung till nearly dry. If the wood- work is painted, then provide the cleaners with two buckets of water, a cake of good soap, not the cheap quality that reeks with strong alkali. In one bucket make suds with the soap ; dip a flannel in it, and with it rub the paint all one way, in straight lines, not scouring

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GOOD CHEER IN THE HOUSE. around in circles. Then, before the water dries, wipe it off with a cloth dipped in the bucket of clean water, and dry with a soft towel. If there are stains upon the paint, an application of ammonia will probably remove them. After the woodwork, the windows, from which shades and curtains should have been removed when the room was dismantled, should be washed. It will hardly be neces- sary to explain such an every-day process, but it may be well to say, in passing, that very fine glass can be made brilliant by rub- bing the panes, after washing, with fine whiting, wiping it off afterward with buck- skin or old linen. The floor may be scrubbed after every other part of the room has been cleaned. If it has been covered by a carpet, it will not be a very arduous process. If it is an inlaid floor, it must be wiped with a slightly dam- pened cloth; and waxed or polished, accord- ing to the habit of the owner. 129 The upper part of the house should be the first cleaned, and the halls and stairs should be taken in the same order. In these days of paper and kalsomine, little whitewashing is done ; but in homes where it is still the coating for ceilings, it will be well to use another preparation than the old-fashioned one that was prone, after drying, to fall on the heads of the unconscious indwellers, in flakes of more or less magnitude. A pint of white varnish, added to a pail of whitewash, will correct most of its defects and give it a very desirable smoothness and brilliancy. Before scrubbing the steps of a staircase, the balusters should be very carefully cleaned and rubbed with any good furniture polish On the fateful day when the kitchen is cleaned, the family must consent to partake of a frugal meal, but in the gradual house cleaning here advocated, they may, with this one exception, fare as they usually do every day. GOOD CHEER IN THE HOUSE. By Mrs. EMMA J. BABCOCK. HE woman who, on Monday, March 8th, read the Emerson calendar must have gone about her work more thoughtfully than is usual withher. ‘‘ Power dwells with cheerfulness,’’ says the Concord philoso- pher. Widely as this may be applied to the life and work of man in the outdoor world, it is full of the deepest meaning in a woman's life and work in the indoor world. If she contemplates for a few moments the possi- bilities here unfolded, how far-reaching she sees that they are ! Cheerfulness is the power that sends the children happy and bright from the break- fast table to the school-room, instead of sending frowning little rebels that will in- vite warfare with companions and teacher. It will help her to guide the machinery of the kitchen in such a way that very little fric- tion is generated. Almost any wise house- keeper can tell, if she will, of times when a word fitly spoken, of hearty good will, to a domestic has changed the whole current of her thoughts, and has brightened toil, has helped to lift the round of duties that must be gone through with (without which home life is impossible), out of mere drudgery. Probably there are few girls in our kitchens that would not gladly exchange for uniform good cheer in the kitchen all those gifts of handkerchiefs, papers of pins, and even calico dresses, with which she seeks to heal wounds caused by unreasonable and unjusti- fiable fault finding. An unsuspected mission of this power is that of keeping the heart young, and of making old faces lovely. If I were to write a novel, its heroine should be a woman of eighty years old, whose serene spirit, fed by the well-spring of cheerfulness, triumphed over the infirmities of age, over intense pain, and over grief itself, and shed a pure light in the household, and affected all that lived in the neighborhood of that home. Ernest Rénan, in his ‘‘ Recollections of Youth,’’ speaks of his mother as of one who was always full of years and very ready to

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130 laugh; and when, later on, he says, ‘‘ I often fancy that the judgments passed upon us in the Valley of Jehosophat will be neither more nor less than those of women, counter- signed by the Almighty,’’ who can doubt that the bright, sympathetic nature of the mother was an interpreter to him, not only of herself, but of all good women. To laugh with our children is sometimes better for them and for us than anything else; to THE COSMOPOLITAN. know that seeming folly is sometimes truest wisdom, is the province of the mother. To promote cheer in the household, then, is a duty that no woman can evade. To cultivate the calm power, of which Emerson thought, cannot be held to be as a small work ; to be sure, it cannot be done on a platform, as so much of woman’s work seeks to be done at the present day ; but it is none the less tangible and important. A TROUBLESOME VEGETABLE. A LETTER FROM AN OLD HOUSEKEEPER. YOUNG housekeeper said to me, not long ago, ‘‘ What shall I have for din- ner to-day? I cannot make anything new. There is no use of cooking potatoes ; no one eats them.’’ On inquiry, I found that the potatoes, as they were ‘‘ only potatoes,’’ had been ordered direct from the grocer’s without testing, and cooked by an inexperienced ser- vant as she thought best. I fear that to neither mistress nor maid had come the thought of the important part this trouble- some vegetable has in a healthful diet, or any idea of the many appetizing dishes that can be made from them. Thinking this case might not be a solitary one, I venture to send you what I have learned of the riches of the potato during twenty years of house- keeping. You remember that about one-seventh of the potato is nutritious, and this part lies in the form of starch or meal next the skin; hence the importance of paring them thin, or this portion is lost. Much of the potato is salty matter, consisting largely of pot- ash. This part prevents scurvy and aids in the digestion of animal food. To test your potatoes, take one that looks sound, cut it in two crosswise, and examine the surface. If drops of water rise on it, it is not good, as aside from being disagreeable for food, the juice is slightly poisonous. In color, the potato should, if good, be a light cream. The presence of starch, which should be abundant in a good potato, may be deter- mined by rubbing one-half on the other. If it froths and the parts cling to each other, you may conclude that you have a good article. For boiling, select potatoes of about the same size, that they may finish cooking at the same time. Pare very thin, with a sharp knife, and place in a pan of cold water. If the potatoes are new, let them remain in the water an hour; if old, two or three hours will not injure them. When ready to cook, put them in boiling water, in which a small table-spoonful of salt has been dissolved. The salt will prevent their cooking to pieces. Let them boil steadily for half an hour; then try them with a fork; if it passes through easily, take the kettle from the fire, and at once drain off every drop of water. Set the kettle, without the cover, in a warm place on the range, to dry off the moisture that may remain. This will make the potatoes mealy. Take a fork or potato spoon and mash quickly, being careful to remove every lump. Add alarge spoonful of butter, and salt to taste. Add a cup of hot milk, and beat with a wooden spoon lightly and thoroughly; this will make the potatoes creamy. Place in awarm dish, mould into a dome shape, and serve. A nice-looking dish is made by beating the whites of three eggs to a froth, spreading over the potatoes, and browning for fifteen minutes in the oven. Potatoes are no more improved by standing than are coffee, tea, or beef steak. New potatoes are best served whole. When very small, they are im- proved by pouring over them a cup of cream or rich milk, slightly thickened, two ounces of butter, and pepper. For the benefit of young housekeepers, I add several recipes that will be found useful.

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A SKIRT PROTECTOR. 131 Stewed potatoes may be easily prepared. Chop fine a number of cold boiled potatoes. Put into a saucepan with salt, three ounces of butter, a large cup of cream or milk, thickened with a very small table-spoonful of flour and a little chopped parsley. Stir gently until they come to a boil; then let them boil gently five minutes ; they are then ready to serve. Mashed potato balls make a dainty dish. Take the mashed potato left from dinner, warm it, and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, or nutmeg. Add two beaten eggs and three table-spoonfuls of melted butter. Mix thoroughly and form into small balls. When ready to use them, fry a delicate brown in a little butter. Scalloped potatoes may be made by taking small cold boiled potatoes and slice one layer into a pudding dish. Salt, pepper, and add small pieces of butter. Add another layer of potatoes, season as before, and so on until the dish is full. Pour over the potatoes enough milk to just cover them. Bake thirty minutes in a quick oven. If you like, grate cheese over the last layer. Send to the table on the dish in which they are baked. Santeed or fried potatoes, are often con- demned as indigestible, but they are so only when allowed to soak in fat. If made as follows they are not objectionable: Slice cold boiled potatoes. Put them into a frying pan with four ounces of butter. Let them brown slightly over a quick fire. Shake the pan occasionally to keep them from burning. Shape them, turn upon a warm platter, and season with chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and butter. For Lyonnaise potatoes, you need only add a small onion, cut into small bits, and fry brown. Those who are fond of a salad without meat will find potato salad very palatable. Take eight cold boiled potatoes and one- third the quantity of celery. Cut the potatoes and celery into small bits and mix. For the dressing, take a small tea-spoonful of dry mustard, one egg, one tea-spoonful of salt, one of powdered sugar, and one-half tea-spoonful of white pepper. Mix the sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard well with the yolk of the egg. Add two table-spoon- fuls of salad oil, four of vinegar, lastly the beaten white of the egg. Pour over the potato, and garnish the dish with parsley. A SKIRT PROTECTOR. “T°HE great exposure from which women suffer in going about in stormy weather with wet skirts, has led some ingenious per- son to invent a device to overcome this evil, that is so simple and inexpensive that almost any woman can make and own one. Two waist bands, made either of black linen or silesia, are required. To each one are attached, at equal distances, eight bands of the same material of an inch and a half in width, and reaching to within fifteen inches of the bottom of the skirt. The other end of these long bands are then stitched at equal distances to another band of the same width or wider, say two or three inches, and two yards in length. At each point where the long band and the wider one meet, there is a button-hole to be made. Take waterproof gossamer, such as is used for ladies’ cloaks, and cut in lengths of thirty inches, allowing a width of two and one- quarter yards. Slightly gore the front and side breadths for a distance of fifteen inches, and let the remaining fifteen take in the full width. Having sewed the breadths together, face them on each edge with an inch of silesia. Through one facing run a tape fora drawing string. Next sew eight buttons on each faced side of the gossamer at equal dis- tances. On the edge, where there is a draw- ing string, put them below its course. Now button the gored part of the gossa- mer to one of the broader bands attached to the long ones. Put this waist band under the skirts to be protected, and then, placing the other waist band, with long bands attached, outside of skirts, draw the gossamer from underneath, pull the drawing string, and button the gossamer to the broader band. Over this put the gossamer cloak, and under it the gossamer leggins, and a woman is quite as well protected as a man.

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AN ENGLISH OX-ROASTING ANY English manners and customs seventy-five years ago were decidedly rude and repulsive. As an example of the gastronomic taste of the times, Mr. John Ashton describes, in his book, ‘‘ The Dawn of the XIX. Century,’’ an ox-roasting at Windsor. The event was in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of George III. The contemporary account given by Mr. Ashton states, first, that the ox was put to roast at two o’clock in the morning. Later, a number of sheep were added to the ox. ‘The apparatus made use of on this occa- sion,’’ says the account, ‘‘consisted of two ranges set in brickwork, and so contrived that a fire could be made on each side of the ox, and on the outer side of each fire was the nec- essary machinery for roasting the sheep. A sort of scaffolding had been erected, consist- ing of six poles, three of which, fixed in the earth and united at the top, bore a seventh, from which descended the pulley by means of which the ox was placed between the ranges when put down, and raised again when roasted. Over the animal a long tin dish was placed, in which large quantities of fat were thrown, which, melting, the beef was basted with it, a ladle at the end of a long pole being used forthe purpose. An immense spit was passed through the body of the animal, the extremity of which THE ODDS SINCE it has been said by some ‘of the wisest men that ‘‘economy mixes itself with morals,’’ and since this wisdom has somewhat leavened the dull and lifeless loaf of household economics, it is becoming more and more the fashion for the mistress of the house to look after the odds and ends, and to see that waste does not go on under her roof. It was a step in the right direction when a lady of culture and wealth provided a rocking-chair for herself in the kitchen. Going in one morning, she said to the girls who held sway there, ‘‘I am coming in every morning, to make sure that nothing is wasted, and to see particularly that the SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. worked in a groove at each end. A bushel and a half of potatoes were placed in his belly and roasted with him.”’ The ox and sheep were considered suffi- ciently done at one o'clock in the afternoon to be taken up. They were then viewed by the Queen, the Duke of York, and other mem- bers of the aristocracy. ‘‘Shortly after the carving had begun,’’ continues the account, ‘‘and the pudding had begun to be distributed, the efforts of the Bachelors to keep off the crowd became useless; some of the Royal Blues on horseback assisted in endeavoring to repel them, but without effect. The pud- ding was now thrown to those who remained at a distance, and now a hundred scrambles were seen in the same instant. The bread was next distributed in a similar way ; and, lastly, the meat. A considerable quantity of it was thrown to a butcher, who, elevated above the crowd, catching large pieces in one hand, and holding a knife in the other, cut smaller pieces off, letting them fall into the hands of those beneath, who were on the alert to catch them. The pudding (the Bachelors provided about twenty bushels of plum pudding), meat, and bread being thus distributed, the crowd was finally regaled with what was denominated a sop in the pan; that is, with having the waste pota- toes, gravy, etc., thrown over them.”’ AND ENDS. potatoes and apples are not pared away.”’ The girls were sensible; they had experi- enced too much kindness from her not to respect the new departure. This act was of equal value to mistress and maid, for lessons in the value of raw material are greatly needed by the servants, who, without knowing anything of the cost, are given an unlimited amount to use, and then are not called to account in regard to the disposal of it, unless, in some moment of spasmodic retrenchment. To use up the bits left over is becoming an art that is gaining students everywhere.

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Oo Rae CARNIVAL. Gay. gof W. ny >) c & 4 sl be After the paintin GOING