Godey's Magazine 1889-01: Vol 118 Iss 703
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Vout. CXVILIL. Zsv0— i No. 703. ODEYS | ADY'S BROOK. PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1889. After All. BY EMILY LENNOX. , ay yf. "s/s THE rain was falling softly, and a bevy of wee brown birds snuggled under the broad eaves that sheltered Court- ney Kenyon’s window. It was a bright, cheery window, whience a ruddy light streamed through bulls’ eyes of stained glass and rich, silken hangings. The occupant of the room within sat in his easy chair, with his heels resting on a table, where stood a half-emptied bottle of champagne. The perfume of Turkish tobacco filled the room, for between the pages of one of Balzac’s novels Courtney Kenyon was smoking an Eastern cigar. ‘*She couldn’t expect me, you know. By Jove! such a beastly night,’’ he mused, throwing his handsome head back on the cushions of the chair. ‘‘And yet Flossy is such a little fool! She always expects so much, and sometimes,’’ he added, with a yawn, ‘‘it’s a deuced ‘bore. A fellow can’t always be dangling after a woman, if he zs going to marry her.’’ He yawn- ed again at the very idea, and poured out a glass of champagne. ‘Fancy her crying her eyes out be- cause she hasn’t seen me for for- ty-eight hours,” he went on, sipping his wine in the lazy way in which hedid everything. ‘‘She must get over such eccentricity. I am rather afraid, though, that Flossy is a crank, with principles and all that rot, you know. Fancy her learning to cook, be- cause she’s going to marry a’ poor man !”” He began to laugh softly to himself ; for the idea that Courtney Kenyon, how- ever far gone in bankruptcy, could ever come down to small economies was quite absurd in his eyes. ««She’s a good cook, though, by Jove,” he admitted ; “capital bread we had the other day at luncheon, and I never ate better patés.”’ Nevertheless he laughed again, and blew sporting rings of smoke in a dis- dainful way. ‘Poor little thing,’”’ he said presently; ‘*T must write her a note. She will get it in the morning. And Rose—by Jove! This was the night I promised to take Rose to Jamborini’s. Oh, well, the rain excuses everything. I will write to them both, and then I’m going to bed. Glen- RSA-SC
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10 AFTER ALL. denning played the deuce with me last night; I never got in bed till six o’clock this morning.”’ The two notes were written hastily, sealed and sent off by a servant to post them. Then, with a glass or so more of his favorite champagne, Kenyon made good his word and went to bed: How was he to know, or what did he care— except that he hated scenes—that Flor- ence Weatherby was sobbing half the night away because he had not been to see her? True, she had his note early in the morning, before she had left her room; but what had ailed Courtney Kenyon the night before? Was it carelessness, haste, champagne cr insanity that made him blunder so fatally? ° ‘My sweet little Rosebud,’’ his note ran. ‘‘I cannot come for you to night as I promised. I am engaged at Miss Weatherby’s ; but do not fly into a jealous rage for I am not going there either. You upbraid me because I am going to marry her; but what can I do, mignonne? I haven’t a dollar and debts are pressing. A rich wife is my only hope of salvation. But do not be jealous, little one. No wife can ever take your place. I shall love you just the same whether I marry or not. On Friday night I shall be at the Comique to see you dance. Do your best and you shall have a nice bouquet. Yours devotedly, te Figg What a letter for a woman to read when she was going to marry the writer! Marry him! No, a thousand times. Flor- ence Weatherby sank upon her knees crushed by this sudden revelation of her lover’s baseness ; but, dearly as she loved him, she knew at once that her happy hopes were quite dead, and Courtney Kenyon was lost to her forever. But what agony she suffered in recognizing this, mere words would fail to express. But she was not a woman to hesitate ip any action. Ere the day closed Mr. Courtney Kenyon had received from her a letter of dismissal, brief but final. ‘Do not attempt to see me,”’ Florence concluded. ‘I shall not receive you under any pretense. Theenclosed letter, sent to me doubtless by mistake, is all the explanation I care to have from you.”’ When she had sent this letter, and she knew that it was all over—that the joyous romance of yesterday had ended in a tragedy, a wild unrest seized her.
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AFTER ALL. II ‘¢]. must go somewhere or I shall go mad !’’ she cried clenching her hands. «« But how can I escape from my thoughts? Everything reminds me of him. I may meet him face to face at any moment. Oh, I cannot bear it !”’ Her one resource was to ride, but peo- ple stared when they saw her driven rapidly along the streets, where carriages moved with elegant deliberation. She looked neither to the right nor to the left. She rode alone, silent and distraite. Kenyon had more tact than to come and see her. He knew it was useless. A week passed and she had heard nothing of him. She had forced her friends to be content with the simple statement that her engagement was broken. ‘¢] will tear his image out of my heart, if it kills me,’’ she said, and this pur- pose was in her mind that day when some- thing happened for her good. She was riding down the avenue, alone, sitting listlessly in the carriage absorbed in her own thoughts when suddenly she heard a shriek followed by shouts from people on thesidewalk. The carriage stopped, peo- ple ran out into the street, in a moment she was surrounded, and James, the coachman, cried excitedly. “I couldn’t help it! under the horse’s feet !’’ ‘‘What is the matter?” Florence de- manded, nervously. ‘¢ Why you’ve run over a woman and a baby, that’s what the matter is,’’ said a hard featured man who was standing in the crowd. ‘‘That’s.the way! Poor people can’t even walk the streets nowa- days without being trampled on or run =~ by folks that’s no better than they ‘‘Qh, this is frightful, James !’’ Flor- ence cried in distress. ‘‘How did it happen ?”’ ‘*She started across, ms’am, and I hauled up, and then she stood still and I started, and thenshe started again and the off-horse flung out its foot and—” Florence shuddered. “Tt is frightful,” she said. ‘Is she much hurt? Don’t tell me she is killed ! That is too horrible. And the baby— lift it up! Give it to me! Has some one gone for a doctor ?’’ ** We’ve rung for an ambulance,’’ said Vou. CXVITI—No. 2. She ran right the man in the crowd more softly, for Florence’s distress was quite evident. ‘‘Oh, you must not take her to the hospital !”’ she said. ‘She must go home with me—it is little enough for me to take care of her.”’ There was no one to gainsay her com- mand. The injured woman—a pale pretty creature still quite young—was taken in an unconscious state to the Weatherby’s, and there she lay dangerous- ly ill for weeks. No one came to ask for her—no one knew even her name. The baby was not hurt—only bruised slightly. It was a charming little chubby thing with wonderful eyes that looked at Flor- ence with a strange suggestiveness. Ina few days it was well and happy, crowing in Florence’s arms. For some time one could hardly tell what was to be the mother’s fate ; but the day came at last when the poor woman opened her eyes and looked inquiringly at Florence who was sitting by her bed. A few words of explanation set her at rest. ‘¢ You are Miss Florence,’’ she said, in a soft voice that had a distinctly foreign accent. ‘I heard that name often while I was sick—now and then I saw you quite plainly, and then everything would fade away.”’ ‘*You were very ill,’”’ Florence said, smoothing her wan little hands, ‘‘and I feel as though I wereto blame for it.’’ Oh, no! I am sure it was an accident,” said the woman, witha faint smile. ‘It didn’t make much difference. I should not have cared if it had killed me.” ‘¢Oh, you must not say that,’’ said Florence, quickly. ‘‘ You have baby to think of, and you must have friends somewhere. I have wanted to send them word, but I could not find out anything about you—not even your name. ‘« My name is Rose Michel,”’ said the woman turning away her face. ‘‘I have no friends here—that is, I am French, you know, and—” ‘¢Well, never mind!’’ said Florence gently, for she saw two big tears trem- bling on Rose’s lashes. ‘‘If I can do anything for you, you know I shall be glad to do it.”’ Another week went by and Rose was able to sit up. It was very pretty to see
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12 AFTER ALL. her in one of Florence’s cast-off tea- gowns sitting by the window with her baby in her arms. ‘‘He looks like his father,’’ she said one day when Florence came over to pat the little dimpled cheek resting so con- tentedly against his mother’s breast. ‘‘I —I—Miss Florence, I think I ought to tell you something about myself. It must seem strange to you that there is nobody—”’ She suddenly stopped in her hurried utterance and Florence took her hand. ‘« Never mind about that!’’ she said gently. ‘‘ You needn’t tell me anything, if you don’t care to, Rose—if it gives you pain.”’ ‘«But I want to tell you,’’ Rose per- sisted. ‘‘I am not married. I—I thought I was. I went through the cere- mony, but my husband deceived me. It was not a real clergyman who married us, and the marriage was not legal. My hus- band left me afterwards.”’ ‘¢Poor girl!’’ said Florence feelingly. ‘‘ How horribly wicked! He ought to be put in prison.” ‘‘T loved the father of my child,” Rose went on slowly—‘‘oh, you do not know how I loved him. I tried to bea good girl, Miss Florence—indeed I did! One can be good even if one is only a ballet-dancer.’’ Florence’s heart stood still. She could not have spoken if her life de- pended on st. ‘Yes! That is what I was—a ballet- dancer. I went on the stage when I was a child and didn’t know any better. My mother was a dancer, too, and when I grew up I did not see how to get away from it—until I met him. He was a handsome man, far above me in station; but he said he loved me and asked me to marry him. I became his wife—at least Ithought so; but after my baby was born, I learned the truth, and then he told me he was going to marry some one else—a rich lady who was to make his fortune.”’ ‘¢ What—what was this man’s name?”’ a A Zao Ss : — > = Per, 2 Florence cried hoarsely. A spasm of pain passed over Rose’s face. ‘‘T cannot tell it. I swore I would never speak it to any one, and I cannot break my word.”’ «But he was false to you!’’ Florence cried, excitedly. ‘*‘He deceived you— oh, what deception that was! You need not speak, Rose! I know his name. It was Courtney Kenyon.” Rose uttered a low c ‘¢ You know him ?”’ she exclaimed. ‘‘Know him!’ Florence echoed. ‘Rose, it was I whom he meant to marry—I who loved him even as you
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AFTER ALL. 13 loved him—lI who knew nothing of his baseness till chance revealed it to me and saved me from the awful fate of marrying such a man.” ‘You !’’ the poor girl cried. a Miss Weatherby—’”’ ‘‘Il am Florence Weatherby—not sim- ply Miss Florence. Did you not know— did you never guess?”’ Rose shook her head and burst into tears, but Florence threw her arms about her and drew her head down on her shoulder. ‘¢‘Don’t, Rose,”’ she said, gently. ‘It was not your fault. Iwill be your friend. We will both forget him.”’ ‘‘T wanted to leave him right away,” the poor girl sobbed, ‘‘ but my baby was born soon after, and I had no place to go, and now—”’ ‘¢] will take care of you,’’ Florence said—not with the hasty impulse of an emotional nature, but solemnly and firm- ly, for it was a promise which she never forgot. People wondered what this craze of Florence Weatherby’s was; but ail they knew was that Mrs. Michel and her baby had become a part of the Weatherby household. ‘*Rose,’’ Florence said one day, when her patient was quite well, ‘‘tellme about your mother. Is she still alive? Had you any sisters and brothers ?”’ ‘¢ My mother—I don’t know anything about her. It is three years sinceI heard from her. She was living at Hardscrab- ble then.’’ ‘* Where is that ?”’ ‘It is just outside of town—an awful place,” Rose said, with a shudder. ‘*My brother lived with her. I had a sister, too; but she married and went away.” ‘*Don’t you think you ought to go and see your mother?’’ Florence asked, sud- denly. ‘‘IT? Oh, Miss Florence! My mother doesn’t care for me. She always hated me because I was in the way.”’ ‘* But still she was your mother, and I think you ought to go. She may need you. I will go with youif you like. Can we drive there ?”’ ‘I think so. But it is a horrible place, Miss Florence.” ‘‘T should like to see a horrible place ** Tt was for once,’’ Florence persisted. ‘‘ Shall we go this afternoon ?”’ She had an object in trying to rouse Rose to take an interest in outside things. Rose was well of her injury ; but her pale face and hollow, mournful eyes haunted Florence. In the afternoon, they went to Hard- scrabble in quest of Rose’s mother. A dreadful place it was, indeed!—a few dilapidated shanties on a barren slope of land, alongside of a dirty little stream which carried the sewage and refuse of Hardscrabble. A tumble-down bridge spanned this stream, and the road led past an old mill whose wheel had once revolved in limpid water from a pond where water-lilies grew. But the dam was broken now, and the pond was dry, save for the dye-stained, greasy little stream that wandered through the other- wise dry basin, which was half-filled with ashes, tin cans and other refuse. ‘¢Shall we stop Here and inquire?’ Florence said, as she drew up her pony- phaeton bythe mill door. ‘‘ There seem to be people inside.” The old mill was practically idle and deserted. The clapboards were hanging awry on its weather-beaten sides, and a tumble-down chimney had crashed in the roof. Stillthe door stood open, and the hum of voices was plainly to be heard. Florence got out and knocked at the door. Some one came presently—a young man in plain, simple clothes, with a youthful, homely face; yet wearing a look in his clear grey eyes, and on his high, smooth forehead that inspired in- terest and respect. Hehad a mouth, too, which combined both firmness and sweet- ness in its curves. : ‘¢ Good-afternoon,”’ he said, in a full, pleasant voice. ‘‘Will you walk in? We have just begun our afternoon tasks, and we are always glad of visitors. The school is doing remarkably well. It is quite a pleasure to have any one come in who can appreciate it.’’ Florence had not a chance to reply before she found herself ushered into a large room where sat about twenty boys at desks improvised out of rude pieces of lumber laid on barrels. There was a blackboard, on which the master had been drawing, and there was also a map of the
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14 AFTER ALL. world. As the master presented her, he seemed so proud and pleased that Flor- ence had not the heart to tell him she had not come to see his school. She sat down when he brought her a chair, and looked about her with considerable curi- osity, while the master went on talking. ‘‘T have the boys in the afternoon, and the men in the evening,’’ he ex- plained. ‘¢And what do you teach them?” asked Florence, looking with a smile into his fine, earnest face, and thinking what strong, vigorous features he seemed to have. ‘«Oh, a little of everything,” he re- plied, lightly; ‘‘ but it is really a political economy school. I started it myself. It is my own idea. Iwas born a working- man. Iam a bricklayer by trade ; but I have other things to do now. When I came of age, eight years ago, and poli- ticians began to pester me about my vote, I began to think very seriously of the questions dependent upon the ballot-box of this country. The more I thought, the more I felt mixed up, until I finally realized that I knew nothing whatever, and that I was absolutely unfitted to form an intelligent opinion upon party merits. I refused to vote at all, but went to work to study the questions now put before the American people. ‘‘For eight years I have thought of nothing else, and, as I have read and thought, there has come to me an over- whelming sense of the ignorance of the masses upon the very subjects they are deciding by voluntary ballot. It has seemed to me shameful, as I have seen hundreds of men walk to the polls, and, under the prejudice of opinions which they have imbibed from the press and in the streets, cast their votes as I know they would not if they knew what I know. ‘¢Qur public schools ought to see to it that the boys and girls—for their time is coming, too—are better instructed in sub- jects that concern so intimately the future welfare of the American working class. But since they do not, I am teaching all whom I can reach. I am telling them what I know—making them ready to choose, by their own sense of justice, a party which they can conscientiously and intelligently support. They will not all choose alike,’’ he concluded ; “I do not think I desire them to, for then I should fear my teaching had been biased ; but I believe they will all make a careful and an honest choice.”’ He paused and glanced with a look of inquiry at Florence. She had followed him, he saw, for her eyes shone brightly, and she nodded as he spoke. ‘*I_ do not know much about such things,’’ she said quickly, ‘‘ but I have often felt what you say, and I think it is a fine thing to do.”’ He looked away, and said nothing. ‘You make it your work,’’ she went on eagerly. ‘‘How do you manage to get so much time for it? ”’ ‘¢Oh,’”’ he said carelessly, ‘‘ my brick- laying was not all to no purpose. I have a little patent that helps me live, and I manage very well. Would you like to hear the boys recite? ”’ Florence was intensely interested. The boys acquitted themselves well in an elaborate examination, during which they were questioned on political subjects, on the revenue laws, the tariff, foreign pol- icies, domestic and foreign government, and a host of things she herself did not understand. She could not help ad- miring the man who had brought these crude young intellects to such a useful point of culture. ‘¢ May I ask,”’ she said shyly, ‘‘ who it is who has worked this wonder ?”’ ‘*My name is Thomas Freeman,” he said, with a faint blush that looked oddly on his strong face. ‘‘No, no! I don’t want any money, madam.”’ ‘For the school,’’ Florence urged, ‘¢you need books, furniture and a host of things. Will you not allow me this pleasure ?”’ He bowed, and Florence rose to go. ‘And, by the way,” she said, ‘‘ can you tell me whether there is a woman living in this neighborhood known as Madame Michel ?”’ He did not, nor did any one in the school know of such a person. Florence left the old mill without finding out what she wished to know; but she had learned some other things. ‘‘Rose,”’ she said smiling, as she got in the phaeton, ‘‘did you think I was took the money.
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AFTER ALL. 15 never coming? Thank you! ’’ she added, with a bow to Freeman, who had helped herin. ‘* Good-afternoon.”’ As the phaeton rolled away she gave Rose a brief sketch of what she had seen. ‘‘That isa most extraordinary man,”’ she concluded. ‘‘ He is a bricklayer, and yet—he talks like an orator, and—did you notice how gracefully he handed me into the phaeton? It is very strange, Rose, don’t you think so?” ‘‘T thought he had a very nice face,’’ Rose replied cuddling her baby in herarms. ‘But he could not tell me anything about your mother,’’ Florence observed. ‘¢Let us ask here.”’ ») \ \S eee = ‘ | = ™ ; \ y aa ti dP al LB | They drew up in front of a wretched little shanty, with a decrepit roof and a shaky chimney. A few noisy geese cack- led away from the horse’s hoofs; a ple- beian hen gathered her brood about her as they drew near; a goat browsing on the traditional cans and bill posters sprinkled with ashes stopped its remarkable meal to gaze atthem. There were children, pigs and women everywhere—one old hag car- rying a bag of cinders and a fat Irish- woman in a dirty dress standing in the doorway. ‘‘Can you tell me where Madame Michel lives ?’’ Florence asked, politely. ‘*Oi don’t know nobody o’ that name in the squats,’’ the fat woman replied, her jaw falling in amazement she did not try to conceal. Ask Mrs. O’Flaherty two doors above. She knows ivery body, she does.”’ ‘¢ Gimme mea cent !’’ shouted a young Paddy, who came around the corner eat- ing a piece of bread and butter. The bread and butter seemed to fix Florence’s eyes. ‘¢ Rose,’’ she said, ‘*do look at the stuff that child iseating! I amsure you could make bullets out of it.” ‘«They do not know how to cook,’ Rose said with a shudder. ‘‘ They do not know how to do anything. They HAUL LUA LIM! My WAY live in rags and filth—it is horrible.’ ‘¢Gimme a cent!” persisted young Paddy, following the carriage, and Flor- ence met his demand so generously that half a dozen ragged children pursued her with the same request, hanging on behind the phaeton and showing their bare heels as they ran. ‘¢Ts this Mrs. O’Flaherty?’’ Florence asked a toothless, unkempt old body, who sat smoking her pipe in the rear of shanty number three. ‘‘I’m Bridget O’Flaherty, mum,” the untidy creature replied without taking the pipe from her mouth. ‘*Do you know of anybody by the
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16 AFTER ALL. name of Michel living about here?’ Florence continued. ‘¢ Mi—chel,”’ she repeated slowly, ‘‘Mi- chel—Michel. Lemme see!”’ It was evidently a disgrace in her eyes not to know everybody in the neighbor- hood and be able to discuss their affairs. There was Michaels as lived here last winter,”’ she suggested. ‘¢ Michel,’’ Florence explained. Michael.” ‘¢ There ain’t nobody by that name a- living ’round here, Granny,”’ said a voice from within, and through the open door Florence saw a sight that made her heart ache—a woman of extreme youth, but red haired and freckled unpleasantly, nursing at a breast that was far from clean a poor little wizened baby in a red flannel night- gown, while she sat prespiring over a stove stirring with one hand a mess of meat, potatoes, onions, cabbage, etc., etc. —the omnium gatherum of a poor house- hold. The young mother was barely seventeen, but haggard, dull, weary with the cares of maternity which, with her other duties, proved almost too much for her. ‘*You might ask Micky McSorley,”’ the girl suggested. ‘¢Ha!’’ snorted old Granny O’Flaher- ty. ‘*An’ what fur! Them that I don’t know in Hardscrabble tain’t likely Micky McSorley kin tell you much about. It’s nigh on to thirty years since—”’ Florence moved away dropping silver again and smiling her sweet good-byes. To Micky McSorley’s she went next—a five cent grocery where the O’ Tooles and Flani- gens, the Moriaritys and the McFlynns sat on old kits and barrels while they dis- cussed the fate of the nation. Diré and squalor pervaded everywhere. Vile to- bacco befouled the air, and Florence braved the brazen stares of a dozen loaf- ers only to learn that nobody had ever heard of a woman by the name of Michel. McSorley directed her to inquire at Widdy Rourke’s, and Widdy Rourke sent her on to the next house and so on. ‘I am afraid it is no use, Rose,” Flor- ence said when they had been in a dozen or more houses. Rose seemed rather relieved ; but there was one more place where they stopped to inquire. ‘* Not ‘¢ Mee—shell!”’ said Dominick Mc- Caffrey leaning over the gate of his poor little garden where a few potato vines struggled feebly with an army of weeds and anashy soil. ‘* A French woman, you mane? Yes! Well, she’s dead these eight months.”’ ‘¢ Did you know her ?”’ Florence asked quickly. ‘‘Well—yis. I rayther think I did know ; though ’twasn’t by ¢ha¢ name. She lived in my house fur two years,’’ he ex- plained, jerking his thumb backwards, ‘‘upstairs in theattic. Folks’round here called her Mrs. Brown, an’ I didn’t know no better till after she was dead.’’ ‘Is that all you know about her?” Florence asked. “Why? What do you ask me sicha quistion as that?’’ said Dominick with what seemed to Florence undue suspicion. ‘¢ Because,”” she explained, ‘this is her daughter and her grandchild, and we came to hunt her up; but, if she is dead, of course that ends the matter.”’ ‘«That’s her daughter, you say?”’ said Dominick with lively interest. ‘This is Rose Michel,’’ Florence re- plied. ‘If the woman you speak of is the person we are looking for, she is Rose’s mother. She was not very old I believe, and she had been a dancer.”’ ‘*In the theayter—yis!’’ said Domin- ick, nodding his head. ‘*That’s her. She had a son, but he went off to sea and was drowned, an’ her other daughter died o’small-pox. This is the only one— I say! What’s your name, lady, and where do yez live ?”’ Florence gave her name and address, which the Irishman seemed to put into his head by scratching. ‘*She’s buried over yonder,’’ he said, jerking his thumb again; but Rose had no tender feeling that drew her to her mother’s grave. ‘*Let us go, now,” she said, nervously. ‘*Dear Miss Florence, let us get away from this horrible place. Oh, to think of living here! Would not one die by inches?” The phaeton now went rolling out of Hardscrabble. On the way they met Thomas Freeman and some of the boys from his school. ‘*What a splendid thing it must be to
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AFTER ALL. do something for these wretched people,’’ Florence mused on their way home, and the first inkling of a purpose in her life came to her from the observations of that afternoon. The next week she took Rose and the baby to the seashore. They did very well till one morning, when Rose came in from wheeling the child in its coach and sank down in a flood of tears. ‘‘Why, Rose, what ails you?’ Flor- ence said in alarm. ‘¢T have seen him,”’ she gasped. ‘‘He is here.’’ Florence turned deadly pale. ‘‘Did he speak to you?” she asked quickly. ‘‘No. I hurried away, but he saw me, I am sure.”’ ‘There, there, dear,’’ Florence said soothingly. ‘‘Don’t disturb yourself. Why need you fear him ?”’ She spoke firmly, yet surprised at her own strength. After the first shock of knowing that Courtney Kenyon was near her, she suddenly grew calm and a feeling of profound indifference took possession of her. There was a knock at the door and some one asked for Mrs Michel. ‘‘He has followed you, Rose,’’ she said, crushing the small card in her hand. ‘¢ Will you see him, or shall I?” = ‘** No, no,’’ 2-=y said Rose, excited- “ly. “£1 cannot bear: it. It would only make ascene. Tell him—’”’ ‘He does not know I am with you, I suppose,”” Florence said, with a peculiar curlof her lip. ‘‘I will see him myself.”’ ‘« But I ought not to ask you,” poor Rose said tremulously. ‘‘It is selfish of me.’’ . ‘¢ No!’’ said Florence with a new feel- ing. ‘I want to see Courtney Kenyon. I have something to say to him.”’ There was some one else in the recep- tion room when she came down, and her greeting to Kenyon was merely formal and polite. Perhaps no one noticed how he changed color as she entered the room. He was a man who did not betray his feelings, but Florence saw he was over- whelmed by her presence. ‘¢ Shall we go out?’’ she said in a low tone, glancing around the room. ‘‘ Mrs. Michel begs to be excused, but—I have something to say to you.”’ ‘* As you like,’”’ he said bowing. ‘¢ We cannot talk here,’’ Florence said simply. ‘*Come!’’ It was a surprise to her to find herself on the beach with him, and Kenyon had a wild, bewildered feeling he had never known before. ‘¢ Flossy,”’ he began. ‘‘Hush !”’ she said. ‘‘ Never call me that again. The woman who is your wife in God’s sight at least, is under my protection. I am the god-mother of your child, and you, Courtney Kenyon, call yourself a gentleman !” The unutterable scorn in her voice stung him and his handsome face flushed. ‘¢ You cannot speak more strongly than I think,” he said presently. ‘I know [ have been a brute. I have wronged her, and—lI have wronged you !”’
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18 AFTER ALL. ‘“‘Do not speak of me,” she said quickly. ‘*I—I count myself fortunate in the way our relationship ended. But your conduct to Rose Michel has been unpardonable. You have ruined her life. You deceived her while you pretended to love and protect her. You have done the blackest thing a man can do. Itisas wicked as murder. If you had one spark of honor—”’ ‘‘Spare me!’ he said, bowing his head. ‘You do not deserve it,’’ she said boldly, and Kenyon was forced to listen to her while she denounced his conduct in the strongest terms. ‘‘ Well,” he said at last in desperation, ‘¢ God knows I am sorry for this thing. I will do anything I can for Rose.”’ ‘‘Will you marry her?’ Florence asked quickly. ‘Will you make her your wife in the sight of the world? Will you give her what you pretended to give her before ?”’ ‘‘ Marry her!” he gasped. ‘c Why, she is a ballet dancer.”’ ‘« She is infinitely better than you are. You can go away where nobody knows her.”’ ‘IT cannot,’’ he cried ; ruin me.”’ ‘“<TIf you do not, / will ruin you,” ‘¢it would said Florence, with flashing eyes. ‘‘ You - may marry her and leave her, if you like; but marry her you must.”’ ‘Pardon me, Miss Weatherby,’’ he said, with an attempt at dignity; ‘‘ but I will not. In the first place, I cannot afford to. I am penniless and in debt.”’ ‘¢ You shall not want,’’ Florence urged. “‘If you will do your best to make Rose happy, I will help you all I can, with money or anything.” He bowed his head; for he still had some sense of shame, and this offer over- whelmed him. ‘¢ But think what you ask !’’ he cried. ‘«Think what you have done!’’ she replied. Courtney Kenyon cannot dis- grace himself more than he has. Why,”’ she said, with energy, ‘‘ if I chose, I could send you to the penitentiary !”’ ‘«T will not be forced to do anything,”’ he said, sullenly. Florence stopped short in their walk. ‘¢ There is no use of our going further,’’ she said, abruptly. ‘‘I have said all | have to say to you. Rose Michel does not wish to see you, and I have but one statement to make. You must right her before the world, or I will publish your infamy.” She turned as she spoke and left him with a curt ‘good morning.”” He did not attempt to follow her. She walked briskly away ; but as she turned, she met a pair of clear grey eyes fixed upon her in a questioning manner. ‘The nature of her conversation with Kenyon must have appeared unusual to an outsider, for Thomas Freeman had quite forgotten him- self and was staring broadly. ‘¢Can that be her lover?’’ he thought, with a resentful feeling. ‘* That dude! Yes, it must be! They have had a quar- rel, and now—”’ He jumped up from the piling on which he sat; for, as Florence bowed to him, she gave a little flutter of the hand that summoned him to her side. He was conscious of a proud, happy feeling ; for Florence’s face, so lately clouded and severe, broke into a bright smile; and he walked back to the hotel with her. ‘¢T have been wanting to see you,”’ she said, briskly. ‘‘I was going to write to you, only I did not know your address. You see I have been thinking, ever since I went to Hardscrabble, about the women I saw there. It seems to me that you are doing all you can for the men; but what is to become of the women? Are they to go on in the same way, while-only the men progress? If you educate the men to think and turn their knowledge toa higher purpose, what sort of helpmeets will they find at home in their dirty, slovenly, ignorant wives ?”’ ‘«T have often thought of that,”’ said Freeman eagerly. ‘But one cannot do all at once.”’ ‘“You could not do it anyhow,”’ ‘said Florence in a business-like way, ‘‘but I could. Iam a woman. I have nothing to do, and I have more money than I ought to have. I have always wanted some kind of work to do, and I have made up my mind that, if you will help me and tell me what to do, I would like to undertake something of the sort—a kind of industrial school, you know, where women could be taught to sew and
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ww SOO SVS OP ee “~ Se | lied ‘¢ BYE-BYE, MAMMA DARLIN’.”’ 19 cook properly and learn something of a Jeasanter kind of housekeeping.’’ Freeman’s face had been growing brighter and brighter as she spoke. ‘«¢ You may count on me to help you in any way I can,’’ he said enthusiastically. «It is a splendid thought, Miss Weath- erby. Ihave wished oh, so often! that there were somebody who would do just what you suggest.”’ ‘¢ Well,’’ she said decidedly, ‘‘I have about made up my mind totry. Will you come and see me? We must talk it all over together.”’ They parted at the hotel steps. Free- man said he would come the next day, and Florence on her way up to the room was shocked to find that Courtney Ken- yon had passed entirely out of her mind. To Rose’s anxious inquiry she replied gently: ‘¢He will not trouble us, my dear. I have defined our position to him, and now you must try not to think of him any more.”’ Rose sighed. Her’s was not so strong a nature as Florence’s, and her fond, tender heart still loved Courtney Kenyon in spite of every thing. Florence felt this; but the next morning something happened that proved it conclusively. [TO BE CONCLUDED. ] “Bye=Bue, Hamma Darlin’. 9 BY FRANCES BURTON CLARE. YE-bye, mamma darlin’ !” rey, A sweet little voice did call. «“ Bye-bye, mamma darlin’, And don’t forget my doll.” She stood at the window, sadly, Holding a headless doll— Poor little lonely girlie, With tear-drops ready to fall. For partings came but seldom To Baby Lou and I; And I; as I left that morning, Half-sadly heaved a sigh. I had promised to bring her a dollie, One that would sleep and cry; And she thought of it too—little mischief! As she called her last good-bye. And all through the long day’s shopping, As I hurried along the street, I seemed to hear her childish voice, And her little pattering feet. So I went and bought her a dollie, With curls and deep blue eyes; And I smiled as I thought of her pleasure, And her look of glad surprise. “ Lou’s sleeping,” her aunty told me, “ And she’s been the best of girls.” So I tip-toed in beside her, And touched her golden curls. She unclosed her eyes for a moment— Sleep-weighted, lids ready to fall— Saying, “‘ Bye-bye time’s all gone, And mamma’s brought my doll.” She clasped it close in her tiny arms, With a sigh of pure content, Then sweetly slept, still holding fast, Her reward for a day well-spent. I sat by her cot in silence, And watched her baby face, So calm in its pure soul-whiteness, And unconscious childish grace. Then I thought how in our meted lives, Of succeeding loss and gain, Some days are lonely and some are glad, For we purchase pleasure with pain. My baby’s pain was our parting; Her pleasure, the waxen doll. Thus sorrow and gladness come all thro’ life Till its curtain at last shall fall, When around us shall roll mists of trouble, And hope’s light burns dimly red, We must brighten it up for a beacon, To show us the joy ahead. Then when pleasure beams o’er our pathway, And freedom from care we gain, By sorrow’s antidote strengthened, We are all brave before coming pain.
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Among the Aad. BY NELLIE BLY. Author of “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” “ Six Months in Mexico,” ete. I, Become insane? and through my own desire be confined as a lunatic in a mad- house; bring upon myself all the mental torture of being day and night with those staring, senseless creatures, whose prox- imity alone fills our souls with sickening horror? And to what end? In order to make for myself a position whereby I could earn a livelihood. A few months previous I had come to New York astranger. I had never been in the city before, and had not one acquaintance among its million and more inhabitants. ‘‘ We have more women now than we want,’’ was the invariable reply of- the editors to my plea for work, while some added, ‘‘ Women are no good, anyway.”’ At last my purse, containing all my money, was stolen from me, and I was penniless. I was too proud to return to the position I had left in search of new worlds to conquer. Indeed, I cannot say the thought ever presented itself to me, for I never in my life turned back from a course I had started upon. I borrowed ten cents from my landlady for car-fare, and in my desperation sought out Col. Cockerill, managing editor of the New York WorLD. I had to do a great deal of talking before I was allowed to enter the elevator which carries visitors to the sacred precints of the editor’s sanctum. An editor is always a hard-worked man, and if he saw every person who called with some crank notion, his life, which now lasts but half the allotted time, would reach but a quarter, and the newspaper would never be issued. I really think at last I gained admission by saying that I had an important subject to propose, and if the editor-in-chief could not see me, I would go to some other paper. I always say energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything. I accomplish- ed my purpose. Without wasting any time, I laid before Col. Cockerill some plans for newspaper work, as desperate as they were startling for a girl to attempt to carry out. He gave me twenty-five dollars to retain my services while he would think over my suggestions. When the time expired, | called for his decision. ‘*Do you think youcan work your way into an insane asylum?”’ he asked. ‘¢T can try,’’ I answered. ‘¢ You realize that it is a difficult thing to do,’’ he continued. ‘‘ The slightest false move means exposure and _ failure. The doctors are all clever experts. Do you think you can feign insanity well enough to pass them ?”’ “‘Yes, I believe I can,’”’ I replied. ‘At least I will make the attenipt. I don’t know what I can do until I try.” ‘‘ Weil, you can try; but if you can do it, it’s more than anyone would believe,” he said. We decided that I should call myself Nellie Brown, so he could keep track of me. ‘‘How will you get me out,” I ven- tured to inquire, as I started to go. “T don’t know,’’ was the answer, ‘‘only get in.’”’ Ismiled a little grimly at my hope for liberty; but, as I have said, I was desperate. That evening I paid twenty dollars on a past board-bill, packed my clothes away, and wrote some letters home, telling my friends not to write until they heard from me again, as I was going away for a week to do some work. I did not state where. That was known only to Col. Cockerill and myself. I felt sad as Isealed the let- ters, for naturally the thought came that perhaps they would be my last, as the nervous strain might make me mad. My only orders were simply to go to work as soon as I felt that I was ready. I was to remember faithfully the experiences I underwent, and, once within the walls of the asylum, to describe its inside work- ings, which are so effectually hidden by closed-mouthed doctors and nurses, as well as bolts and bars, from the knowledge of the public.
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AMONG THE MAD. 2 ‘‘Write up things as you find them, good or bad ; praise or blame as you think just; tell nothing but the truth,” said Col. Cockerill, and so I went away to plan the details of my delicate and diffi- cult mission. I had little hope in my ability to de- ceive the insanity experts and I knew my editor had less. Even if I did get into the asylum, I concluded my experience would not contain anything else but the single tale of asylum life. The many stories I had read of abuses in such insti- tutions I had regarded as wildly exagger- ated, and yet, the moreI thought of it, the stronger grew my desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God’s creatures were cared for kindly and properly. I shuddered when I thought how com- pletely the insane were in the power of their keepers. How one could weep, and wail, and plead for release—for bread— for kindness even, and allto no avail. I lost all thought of what I was bringing on myself in the new desire to know posi- tively the true life of asylum patients. By thinking of the greater misery of others, I forgot the sting of my own. I decided to begin my work at once. I had received no instructions or suggestions as to what course to pursue. I only knew I was to be crazy. Ihad never been near an in- sane person in my life, and I had not the faintest idea of what they were like. How then could Ihope to personate one, and to convince learned physicians who make insanity a speciality, and who daily come in contact with lunatics, that I was in- sane P It must be done. I flew to the mirror and examined my face. I remembered of reading that crazy people have staring eyes, so I opened mine as wideas possible, and stared unblinkingly at the reflection of myself. It was the dead of night, and my own eyes and streaming hair, as they were given back by the mirror, made me shudder. The weather was not cold; neverthe- less, thoughts of what was to come, ming- led with the effects of an impossible and improbable ghost story I was trying to read, made wintry chills chase up and down my spinal cord even in mockery of the perspiration which was slowly but surely taking the curl out of my bang. When morning dawned I felt that I was in a fit mood for my mission, and yet, like the condemned murderer, I had a craving for a breakfast I knew I could not relish. Quietly I bade farewell to a few of the most precious inventions of modern civilization. Slowly and sadly I took my morning bath. ‘Tenderly1 put my tooth- brush aside. ‘‘It may be for days, and it may be—for longer,’’ I murmured and took a final rub of toilet soap. Quietly I donned the old garments I had selected for the occasion. Every thought was dead. A calm and quiet feeling which I was un- able to analyze possessed me. I glanced, in silent farewell, at everything in my little room which was so closely associ- ated with my new life. I never expected to get back, yet not once did the idea come to me of abandoning my mission. IL. I had intended to go toa boarding- house, representing I was a poor girl in search of work, and while there assume a madness. Later,I decided thé scheme would be more successful if worked at a boarding-house for women only. For this purpose I selected the Temporary Home for Working Women, at 84 Second Avenue, New York. It was a tall, dark building, set back from the street, leaving a little paved space in front. I walked up and pulled the bell-knob. From the sound I con- cluded they used a cow-bell fastened to a wire in the hall to announce visitors. An original piece of humanity, long in legs, arms and feet, and short in hair, skirts, nails and speech, flung the greasy door back and stuck out her bushy, yellow head. To my faint inquiry for the ma- tron, she answered: ‘¢She’s in. She’s busy. Go to the back parlor.’ The hall was dark and uncarpeted, and the back parlor, into which I groped my way, was still darker. The only light that entered was through the window of a room in the rear and the windows of the front parlor. The furnishing was scant and cheerless, the surroundings altogether so uncomfortable that I decided to make my stay as short as possible. I would become insane at the first opportunity. The assistant matron, a slender woman, with a mild, care-worn face, came to me
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22 AMONG THE MAD. after some time, and told me that if I would share a room with another girl she could keep me. She charged thirty cents a night for a bed, and food was extra. At noon a large bell, such as is used on farms to call the harvesters to dinner, brought women from all parts of the house to the basement, where dinner was served. At the invitation of the matron I also went down. It was a dismal sight. Women of all ages and conditions were .crowded on benches, around bare, unpol- ished tables. Of napkins and _table- cloths there were none. The women ate hungrily of what they could afford, some being able to buy but a bowl of bread and milk. The afternoon was spent in the same way as the forenoon. ‘Towards evening the matron came to talk with me, and I began to utter all sorts of rambling things. It did not take much work to implant in her mind the impression of my insanity. I kept it up all the evening ina quiet way, and refused to goto bed. This I did for two reasons. The more sleep I lost the more insane I would look tothe doctors. This would make my second sleepless night. Even had it not been for that I was afraid to sleep, lest when they called me they would find—before I could collect myself —that I was sane. Finding the next morning that I did not intend to leave the house, the matron called in two policemen, and I was taken to a station house. From there the offi- cer and the matron were sent with me to the Essex Market Court. I felt ashamed of walking along the streets in the cus- tody of an officer ; yet the remarks the street children hurled after us amused as well as confused me. ‘‘Wha'’s she up fer?”’ ‘*Soy, kop, where’d ye git ’er?’’ ‘* Wher’d you pull er?’ **She’s a daisy!’’ ‘* Get onto her jags!’’ ‘* What did she swipe ?”’ Even men stopped to gaze at me, and one young fellow put a single glass in his eye and stared. So English, you know, that I had a great desire to yell ‘‘ Booh”’ at him. The entrance to the court-house was surrounded by a crowd of ill-looking, un- kempt creatures. I was led through their midst by the officer. -erable scene. The court-room presented a more mis. The spectator’s benches were occupied by a wretched mob, who had a morbid desire to see the battered, afflicted and criminal objects of humanity judged for inherited weaknesses, as well as for wrong doing. Other cases were stopped and I was taken before the high desk where sat Judge Duffy. The policeman told his story : He had been called into the Temporary Home to take away this girl whom they said was crazy. She would say nothing except tell her name, and when asked about her home, would answer that she had a headache, which made her forget all about it. She also said she had lost her trunks, and he had enticed her to the station-house by saying he could find them there for her. The judge then called me to him, and in a very kind tone endeavored to get me to tell something. I protested that my name was Nellie Brown, or in Spanish, Moreno. Then he asked me if I had not come from Cuba, and, instead of denying or affirming, I merely said, ‘‘ How do youknow ?”” This, with my slight accent, convinced them that I was a Spanish girl; so I determined to make no effort to tell astory. It is always easier to accomplish a thing by allowing the other people to tell the stories, do all the talking, while you listen. The decision of the judge was that I had been drugged and robbed. With the tenderest care he took me toa private office, and left the policeman in charge of me while an ambulance was sent for. How I dreaded thearrival of the doctor. I thought of my embarrassment, when after his examination he told them I was only shamming insanity. I wished I might escape before he came and reach the asylum by less difficult means. He came. The judge brought him to me and told my story, while the doctor's bright eyes never left my face. ‘¢ It’s no use,’’ I thought, ‘‘I can never deceive him.”’ ‘‘Put out your tongue,” he ordered briskly. I smiled at the thought of sticking my tongue out at a sanity expert. ‘* Put out you tongue, when I tell you,” he repeated.
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AMONG THE MAD. 23 «I don’t want to,’ I said truthfully, and I smiled. At last I cbeyed him. He examined it so minutely and with so much interest that it escaped my power and slipped back into my mouth as I broke out in a laugh. ‘They all smiled in sympathy, though they evidently thought, by the sad looks they gave me, that my laughter was but the evidence of a diseased brain. The judge, policeman and matron, maintained an unbroken silence, while the surgeon tried the effect of the light on my eyes, and listened to the beating of my heart, and then—he pronounced me —INSANE ! The judge blew his nose hastily as he said, with a deep sigh, ‘‘ poor child !” Mrs. Stanard wiped her eyes and the officer twirled his hat nervously in his - hands. ‘¢ Be kind to her, and tell the nurses to be kind to the poor child,”’ said the judge to the surgeon as he pressed my hand in asad good-bye. Between the officer and the surgeon, I was led out to the court-yard and put in the ambulance. I was forced to lie on the bottom of the conveyance, which was covered with a yellow blanket. The sur- geon got in at the end and the door was closed. It was backed out the gate and we started on a swift drive to the insane pavilion at Bellevue Hospital. I felt happier now and quite proud of myself. Ihad been pronounced insane by a sympathetic judge, a surgeon, and a number of different people. I felt more confidence now in my ability to reach the goal I was striving for. I had less re- spect for doctors, however, and was bound to lose all before the finish. The driver rang the ambulance-gong as we entered the gates to the hospital. It sounded most dismally. The heavy gates clanged shut after us and the ambulance stopped, the door was opened and the surgeon got out and assisted me to alight. A man who had come to meet us took me by the arm and half-led, half-dragged me into the office. I was saved all conver- sation there by the surgeon handing over the papers and saying I was too demented to tell anything of myself. He then gave me his arm and together we walked down the smooth paths, between bloom- ing flowers and velvety lawns, to the in- sane pavilion opposite the hospital. It was a low, one-storied building, with heavy doors and iron-barred windows. A nurse in white cap and apron, with a bunch of heavy keys strung to her waist, admitted us. The surgeon told her, for my benefit, that I was to wait there for the arrival of the boat which was to take me home, and then he left me. Pronounced insane! Locked with lunatics in an insane pavilion! I stood . with my back to the door, refusing to sit down, and contemplated the scene before me. I saw a long, bare hall, scrubbed to a cheerless whiteness characteristic of charity institutions. On eitherside were long rows of doors, which I knew instinc- tively opened into the cells where the in- mates slept. At the rear of the hall were heavy, iron, folding doors fastened with a padlock. Along the wall, and between the cell doors, were benches and willow chairs. On these sat some unhappy looking women patiently doing nothing. And they are to be my companions, I thought. Just then the most heart -rendering cries came from behind the iron doors. I shuddered as they grew louder, then muf- fled, and then fainter and fainter and at last ceased. It was hoon, and the patients were fed. A bench was drawn up toa bare table, and each woman was given a tin plate, holding some boiled fish and a cold pota- to. I refused it, so the woman brought me a glass of milk and a soda cracker. ‘‘Have ye any pennies with ye, dearie ?”’ she asked in a whisper. ‘¢ What ?”’ I asked in my surprise. ‘«¢ Give me your pennies, dearie; they’ ll take ’em from ye any way,”’ she said. I had no intention of buying kindness, so I denied having any money. During the afternoon I watched the other patients and thought over my posi- tion. By this time the evening papers had published my story. Did my editor know it by this time and was he pleased ? Had I done right, and had I been sent to the right place? Had I passed all the ex- aminations, or would there be more? I worried myself over these questions until one, at least, was answered by the arrival of a physician.
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24 AMONG THE MAD. He looked at me and listened to my story, which the nurse related. Then he asked me for my name and home, and if I knew what his watch chain was. I told himI did. He turned his back to me, and said significantly tothe nurse: ‘‘soften- ing of the brain.”” I smiled. At supper we were given a cup of tea, and a double slice of bread. Then, al- though it was not yet dark, we were told to go to bed, because the nurse wanted to go out. We were each given a room and a night-slip of cotton-flannel. After I had undressed, the nurse rolled all my clothing into a bundle, and labeling it ‘‘ Brown,”’ took it away with her. I heard the reporters who called to see me talking in the hall, but with two or three exceptions they were denied admission. One, who came into my cell with the nurse, leaned over the bed, and spoke to me in a very quiet, tender voice. ‘* Are you feeling better this evening? Are you comfortable? Does your head still ache?’’ were some of the pleasant things he asked, and, tucking the clothes closer in around me, he said, ‘‘ Good- night; try to sleep,’ so quietly and soothingly that I found a great big cor- ner in my heart for him, I was very tired and had just fallen to sleep when the nurse said: ‘Nellie Brown; here’s the doctor; he wants to see you.’’ 1 uncovered my head. My heart beat rapidly and my temples throb- bed. Such a late visit from the doctor could only mean some unpleasant thing, I thought, and I shuddered. Shall I en- dure it if the worst comes, or shall I tell who I am? I asked myself. It was nothing so bad. Only a hand- some young doctor accompanied by a friend. The doctor sat down on the side of the bed, and slipping his arm sooth- ingly around my shoulder endeavored to make me tell something of my home and friends. It is needless to add that I would not. Tired as I was I found it impossible to sleep on account of the noise made by the nurses. They walked up and down the bare halls as loud as a regiment of soldiers. At other times they read aloud to each other. Sunday was a tiresone day between the doctors, reporters, people in search of lost friends, and those who were curious to see the crazy Cuban girl. One of the doctors, who was to test my sanity, asked me if I saw faces on the wall ; if I heard voices, and if they called myname. The other doctor told me to stretch out my arm, move my fingers, and open and shut my eyes. I followed their orders as any rational person would do, and they both pronounced me incurably insane! These doctors are considered experts, and are often called to court to decide the sanity of people. ‘They examined the other patients in the same manner, and all were given the same condemnation as myself. On Monday the reporters and visitors were all denied admission to me. We . were waiting to be taken away, I knew not where, except that it was to a place less comfortable. I had complained of the bitter cold to the nurse, and she had retorted, ‘‘ You'll get it far worse where you’re going.”’ And indeed I did. At noon we were given our hats and then two men marched us out, one by one, and put us in the Black Maria, which was guarded lest we make a hopeless break for liberty. ‘A guard got in after the last woman, the doors were closed and locked, and we were driven to the pier. Then the aid of the police was called in order to make a passage for us to the boat. We were put on board just as we had been put in the wagon, one by one. I walked into the dirty cabin where my companions had been taken. Two women in bed-ticking dresses, who tried to out- do each other in chewing tobacco and ex- pectorating tobacco juice, had charge of us. We made two landings. At the second we were taken off, one at a time. As a rough fellow with a strong whiskey breath dragged me up the plank, I asked where we were being taken. This was his answer : ‘¢ A place you'll not get out of—Black- well’s Island Insane Asylum.”’ III. Although a year almost has passed since I spent the ten longest days of my life on Blackwell’s Island, I cannot even yet sit down and think of the helpless creatures confined there without feeling that I shall be punished for not awaken- ing the world to the wrongs done the in-
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AMONG THE MAD. 25 sane. If I could only show what dens of horror asylums are! I have but one con- solation. The grand jury investigated the truthfulness of my experience and not only upheld me, but recommended the changes I suggested. So through my work the State appropriated $1,000,000 more than ever given before for the bene- fit of the insane, and have adopted one of my suggestions, and appointed two women doctors to superintend the baths, beds and eating. We were first taken to the office on our arrival, where a doctor, assisted by a nurse, informed himself of our names, homes, height, weight, complexions and as much of our histories as he could glean from us. These facts, together with other details of our afflictions, he registered in a large book. Then we were taken to the sitting-room, where we made our first acquaintance with other patients. The room opened into the hall by two doors. On the other side it had iron- barred windows set about five and a half feet above the floor. The walls were white-washed and adorned with several lithographs. On the benches, which surrounded the room, were seated the patients. They presented anything but a prepossessing appearance. They wore dresses of gingham and different colored calicoes with straight waists and skirt at- tached. Their hair was braided in one strand. The nurses, sitting around a center table, wore large white aprons and caps, stiffly starched blue dresses closed with brass buttons, and from a green cord about their waists dangled large bunches of keys. Our meals were served in the basement, where we marched, two by two. A slice of bread and a bowl of tea was supper; a bowl of coffee and a slice of bread was breakfast, and occasionally, red-letter days, we got a spoonful of boiled rice covered with molasses. Boiled fish, un- salted, a potato and bread, or boiled meat, without coffee or tea, was dinner. We never had any salt and the food was cooked entirely without it. We were given stone plates, but no knives, forks or spoons. The tables were placed in long rows, With just enough room between to allow us to step over the benches and sit down. When patients found their stomachs re- volting against the unpalatable and often spoiled food, and were unable to eat of it, they were fed through a tube. The first night we new-comers were given a bath. I was put in the tub first and scrubbed with soft soap and brush by an insane woman, much to my dismay and the amusement of other patients and nurses, who gathered around to watch the proceedings. It was useless to beg even for privacy. Insane people are not supposed to have any feeling that should, in any way, be respected by nurses. The five other women were put in the tub after me without a change of water. After three buckets of cold water had been dashed over me, I was jerked from out the tub and put in a cotton slip la- belled on the wide part, in large black letters, ‘‘Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum, Hall 6.” Wet and cold, I was shown to bed all alone in asmall cell. The bed was hard, and the cold from a rubber sheet struck through the bones. The bed was the only piece of furniture in the cell, and it was iron. My clothing was all taken away from me. Idid not sleep much the first night. At intervals, two nurses with a lantern would unlock my door and enter to see if I was all right. This and their heavy walking along the bare halls was annoy- ing. Different sounds came from differ- ent cells. Some women cried, some swore, some raved, some prayed. At five o’clock the doors were unlocked, and the bed-clothing was pulled off me, accompanied by a harsh command to get up. A plain calico dress and a dark mus- lin skirt were given me to wear. I dressed and followed the other women to the bath- room, where fifty patients washed in four basins and dried on three towels! The nurses combed our hair and arranged it in the ugly braid. At half-past six o’clock we were taken to breakfast, and thus began the long days. So they pass life on the Island. The saner patients do all the work in the ward, and make all the garments worn by them. They very seldom get anything to read; but, when they do, it is greatly enjoyed. No one is permitted to walk
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26 AMONG THE MAD. about in the wards. Before half a day is past, they grow stiff from sitting still on the benches. Once a week there is a gen- eral bath given, and gowns are only changed when too dirty to be worn. When the days are pleasant, the patients are taken out fora walk. They are outa certain time, and then a gong rings to tell the nurses totake them back tothe building. I shall never forget the first sight of those fifteen hundred crazy women on a promenade. An unbroken double and treble line of women, walking two by two, extended from one end of the long prom- enade to the other, and at every other walk we saw long lines waiting their turn to walk out. They all looked alike in their straight dresses and cheap straw hats. Up and down, up and down they walked, chattering, screaming, crying, singing, fighting—one sickening mass of demented humanity. The worst was yet to come Two by two, locked with a leather belt to a chain, came fifty-two women. At the end of their line, dragged along by them, was a heavy iron wagon, on which was chained two screaming mad women. Some had blackened eyes and bleeding faces; some were encased in straight jackets; each one was shouting her own special craze. I heard the din while they were yet in the distance, my eyes riveted on them in all their misery as they drew nearer, and nearer, and finally passed. Old grey-haired women, tender young girls, ugly and pretty, straight and crip- pled, black and white, they went stagger- ing, pulling, jerking, screeching, crying, singing, preaching, swearing, praying past, like lost souls marching into a fur- nace in Hades. Where could Dante have gotten a truer description of the tortures of Hell? Where could Doré have found a greater illustration ? I learned later that they were usually confined in the Lodge, the bad-smelling, Aa Pana ak on bye isolated building, devoted to the most violent patients on the island. The patients who were not violent had times when the noisy spells came on them. Often, had one not realized the sad side of it, they would have been amusing in their delusions. I have seen them at these times treated very cruelly by the nurses, being choked, beaten and teased as it pleased the fancy of their torturers. They are continually dosed with chloral to keep them quiet, which results in stupifying what remnants of mind they have. With few exceptions they are obedient, but they are never so crazy but that they long for treedom. ‘They are kind and sympathetic to each other, and what little quarreling occurs among them is not of a serious nature, and is soon for- gotten. For six nights I was locked in a room where slept six insane women. They raved the whole night long, and one was always creeping about, hunting, she raved for the man who ruined her home, to kill him. I often thought, as I lay there awake, watching her never-ending search, how utterly impossible it would be to defend myself should her crazy fancy select me as the object of her mur- derous hatred. At last Colonel Cockerill sent a lawyer to get me out. I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving the place, and yet when the time came when I knew God’s sun- light would be free to me again, there was a pain in leaving. For ten days! had been one of them. Their sorrows were mine, mine were theirs, and it seemed intensely selfish to accept free- dom while they were in bondage. I felt a Quixotic desire to suffer with them if 1 * could not aid them. But only for a mo- ment. The bars were down and freedom never seemed so sweet. I bade them farewell. I left them in their living grave, their hell on earth—and once again I was a free girl, after ten days in the mad-house on Blackwell’s Island.
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- . -— ™~— OP er oO ee =—— te fF US See Oe CN eS SY OO MS & '_— we - 7 hme CD a OVS ee fee A fFlovern Winter's Tale. BY ADA MARIE PECK. CHAPTER III. OR atime Margaret felt encour- aged ; removal to cheaper lodg- ings and a sale of superfluous furniture added something to to the little sum her lawyer, Mr. Merton, handed to her after the business was set- tled—a sum which she had been increasing by filling orders for embroidery and dec- orative work. But these orders were un- certain; the demand for such work was fluctuating, and the time soon came when she saw by the decreasing sum total in her little book that she must seek some steadier employment. So she studied the newspaper advertisements and answered many of them ; but was peculiarly unfor- tunate in finding the vacancies already filled, or in being unsuitable to fill them. One lady frankly told her that she was altogether too young and beautiful for the position of daily or resident governess ; and another advised her to apply for a situation as saleswoman, for her attractive face and figure would almost ensure her getting such a position. How Margaret withered under this advice, well-meant, no doubt, but to her cruelly unjust; because she was fair to look upon, she must not quietly teach little children, but must seek to place herself where she could be gazed at. How could she know that in many of the houses where daily gov- ernesses were employed there were over- gallant sons and plain elder daughters! So she went home, after a day of rebuffs, which was finished by such advice, to look in her mirror, and wonder, with her charming freedom from vanity, if she were really so fatally fair, and to wisn that she had the countenance of the Erinyes. Robby stole up behind her as she sat looking in the little glass. ‘‘Why do you look as if you hated yourself? Don’t you think you are pretty? NowI think you are perfectly lovely, and so good ;” and he kissed her cheeks, her dimpled chin, and ended by throwing both arms VoLt CXVIIL—No. 3. 27 around her. ‘‘And just see here, if any- thing troubles you, give me some of it.’’ His ingenuous talk turned the current of her thoughts, and lightly touching upon the incidents of the day, she pre- pared their simple meal, and determined to make the next morning one more at- tempt to find suitable employment. It resulted in the usual rebuffs when she would wish to make an engagement, and in her acceptance of a position offered her in a variety store. Her steady salary made them very comfortable for a few weeks; then Robby outgrew his clothes, and her own became shabby, and there was the all-devouring rent to pay. Until this time Robby had been kept in school. Margaret was wil- ling to make any sacrifice for that; but when a quarter’s rent became due, and she saw that there was barely enough for food remaining, and that Robby posi- tively stood in need of clothing, she was obliged to act upon her landlady’s advice and look for a place as cash boy for him. He was full of elation at the idea of earning something. ‘‘I am going to be- gin to take care of you now;’’ and he straightened his slight little figure in the neatly patched and darned suit. Mar- garet looked fondly at him—from the fair, crisp curls, the frank, boyish face, to the slender arched feet, ‘‘a little gen- tleman,’’ she proudly thought; then she also thought how unfitted he was to battle with the world, and turned away to the window to hide her emotion. He was so young, so frail, so innocent; how sensitive he would be to harsh treatment. Then she swiftly came over to him and gathered him in her arms, and shed bitter tears, which made him look up at her in dismay. «Oh, Margie, you'll take all the starch out of my collar!” he exclaimed, re- proachfully, taking his little handkerchief out and wiping her eyes. ‘‘ And what in the world are you crying for? Don’t you know I’m going to earn a lot of money and buy you something just splendid. A
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28 A MODERN WINTER’S TALE. pair of big bright earrings, but perhaps— he added reflectively, ‘« it would be better to save up and buy a horse and carriage.’’ Poor Margaret, whose only thought was to provide necessaries for the long cold winter that would come by and by, smiled sadly at his opulent visions, and yet more sadly when she left him at the store where he was to be employed. At first, Robby bore the change very well, and was brave and made no com- plaints ; but Margaret’s heart ached, after a little, as she saw the wistful look in his eyes, and that his slight form was getting still thinner, and that he leaned against her in a weary, disheartened way, when they drew their chairs before the fire in the evening. ‘¢*What is it, my little bairn?’’ she asked one night as he sat with his head on her shoulder. ‘‘ Tell your sister what troubles you,’’ and she gently smoothed his soft curls. The pitying words and gentle touch was too much for Robby. He burst into an agony of tears and threw himself into Margaret’s arms. ‘¢] didn’t mean to tell you,’’ he sobbed, ‘¢but the boys bother me so; they call me aristocrat, and gentleman Bob, and lots of other names. You know you told me not to pitch pennies, and not to use bad words, and there’s one big boy who stands me up in the corner and tries to make me say ’em.”’ . The blood flew into Margaret’s cheek and her eyes flashed, but she only asked quietly, ‘‘And did you say them ?”’ ‘¢Never?’’ answered Robby, firmly, ‘¢and I never would, if I stood there a year.’’ Margaret bent to kiss him. ‘‘That is right—be firm, and try and bear it ; they will soon tire of such cowardly sport, and by and by who knows what will happen, something lovely, perhaps; our fairy god- mother may give us a dear little home out in the green fields.”’ A few nights after, Margaret asked him if the boys still annoyed him. ‘*No, just as you said; they are tired of it—and Margie, if you will believe it, the big boy is my great friend ; he won’t let the others bother me!’’ Then Rob- by’s eyes shone as he went on to tell that the big boy lay in a back room one after- noon with a headache, and that he carried him water, and wet his handkerchief ang put it on his head, and put a coat over him, and that the next morning he brought back the handkerchief to him, and told the boys that if there ever was a gentle- man, Grimlock was one, and if anybody said he wasn’t, he’d knock ’em down. ‘* So everything is all right now,”’ and Robby gave a little sigh of relief as he said it. Margaret’s position, for the first few weeks, was most unpleasant; but her quiet dignity, and unvarying courtesy could not help winning her the respect, if not the liking of her companions. Jean Duncan, the frank-faced Scotch girl who stood at the next counter, had expressed her admiration of Margaret from the beginning; then, as she was a com- patriot, she often did battle in her favor, “ You must know, girls,’’ she said one day, when exception had been taken be- cause Margaret refused to join a little party for a half-holiday outing, ‘‘that she cannot become one of us, and go off on our little excursions; to begin with, she is in trouble and doesn’t feel like it. Then she is a lady. My mother came from the same section of country, and she says the Grimlocks were the great people of that region once.”’ ‘* Well, what of it!’’ exclaimed one of the girls,.‘‘ that makes her no better—” ‘* Nor worse,’’ answered Jean dryly— ‘«but different.” And in every manner she endeavored to serve Margaret, setting her right when she made mistakes in her new routine of business ; and shyly offer- ing for her acceptance an occasional flower. So Margaret found life not altogether unbearable. Robby was comfortably clothed, and from their joint earnings she managed to save a small sum every week. Saturday afternoons they took long strolls in the parks or out in the suburbs, where they sat by the grassy roadsides and builded air- castles, which were most com- monly charming story and a half houses surrounded by a beautiful garden and lawn, and a little plot for the Jersey cow they meant to have, and always with a stable in the rear. ‘«My horse shall be a dapple grey,” Robby would declare, as earnestly as if
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A MODERN WIN1ER’S TALE. 29 he was just about to pay the purchase money; ‘‘and gentle shall be no name for him,—why he will rein this way and that, with just a touch of the lines.’”’ ‘¢ Oh let us have a livelier animal while we are about it,’’ Margaret would laugh. ‘«< Of course I mean gentle and—lively,”’ Robert would loftily declare. ‘* Head right up, and three miles a minute with- out breaking.”’ ‘«‘ And could you hold him?” ‘Yes, to be sure; look how big and strong my wrists are getting, and, feel my muscle—”’ and Robby would bend and unbend his little arm. While Margaret was glad to admit that he really was grow- ing larger and stronger. She no longer felt a sense of depression when she went to her place of employment in the morning ; and one lovely June day her spirits were particularly buoyant— the sky was so purely, softly blue, the air so fresh and invigorating ; the atmosphere of nature so quickly affects the human atmosphere, that unconsciously she hum- med a gay littlesong as she walked along, and then Jean Duncan had a deliciously fragrant spray of heliotrope waiting her. She fastened it in her dress and commen- ced her duties with a light heart, and had just finished making up a package for her first customer, when an exclamation from Jean caused her to look up. A stalwart policeman was coming to- wards her, bearing in his arms a slight form. Margaret instinctively divined the worst; every vestige of color left her cheeks ; she made no outcry, but swiftly left her place, holding her arms to receive the motionless figure, and her agonized eyes questioned what her lips could not utter. ‘¢ Oh, no, miss, he is not dead, thank God; but only fainted.”’ Then the burly fellow hesitated and looked at Mr. Kidman, who had accom- panied him to Margaret’s counter, then at Margaret again—‘‘But, miss,’’ he said, with sincere sympathy in his voice, ‘this leg is broken—he fell from the winding stairs, and I have come to see whether he is to be taken to your home or the hospital. ‘The ambulance has been sent for.”’ Jean Duncan was moistening Robby’s lips and bathing his forehead, and he began to cry feebly, ‘‘ Margie, I want Margie.”’ ‘Oh, mydarling boy, my little bairn,”’ moaned Margaret, trying to take him in her arms, but desisting when they told her it would only cause him pain to move him unnecessarily, and, instead, bending to kiss and weep over the pale sweet face. Then, wiping her eyes, she said witha pathetic air of apology for her tears: ‘* He is all I have, and it breaks my heart to see him suffer. I will take him home.” ‘«That is not best, Miss Grimlock,’’ hastily interposed Jean Duncan. ‘‘ Have him taken to the hospital, by all means,”’ she advised. ‘‘ He will have better care and medical attendance than you can give him,—and then,’’ she whispered, ‘‘can you afford to give up your place? You know you can go and see him every day.”’ ‘* Whatever is best for him,’’ responded Margaret in a despairing voice, hold- ing the delicate little hand, and averting her face now and then when Robby’s moans would make her tears come. ‘¢Here is the ambulance, now,”’ said Jean, ‘‘and here is your hat; I, will go with you.” The little group gathered on the side- walk stopped the way and Captain Mac- kenzie and Major Gray, who were slowly sauntering along, arm in arm, paused to learn its meaning. The policeman gave them a rapid sketch of the situation, and Mackenzie’s laughing face grew grave, as with hat in hand he said to Margaret, who had just been covering poor Robby with a light shawl: ‘‘Oh, I say now, this is a lot of trouble,’’ adding in his impulsive, eager fashion, ‘‘do let me help you some way.”’ Margaret thanked him, and Major Gray had in the meantime hailed a pass- ing cab, and was helping Jean Duncan in, and in his quiet, masterful way motion- ing Margaret to follow; and his hand- some dark eyes looked in hers with such respectful admiration, and such tender sympathy that she could not help giving him a grateful recognition. ‘« Odd that we should come across that young lady again,”” remarked Mackenzie reflectively, as he stood looking after the cab. ‘*T am interested in her because she is
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30 A MODERN so deucedly like my sister,’’ he further added, with a slight flush, in response to a keen, questioning look in Major Gray’s eyes. nce She has a lovely face—and you are always on the alert for lovely faces,” quietly responded the major. Mackenzie wheeled about a little with a very earnest look in his grey eyes. ‘¢ Hang it all,” he said, ‘‘that isn’t it. I don’t much care whether she is lovely or unlovely, but I’m sorry for her. How could a fellow help her without seeming an intruder.”’ ‘¢i do not advise you to try; it would place you in an unpleasant position,’’ re- turned the older man. But nevertheless, fruit and other delicacies found their way to Robby’s cot, and Margaret attributed them to Major Gray, especially as on more than one occasion he met her, and with the most respectful air, and an apol- ogy for addressing her, inquired with interest and sympathy for her brother. IV. The weeks that followed were full of pain for poor little Robby, and of sorrow and anxiety for Margaret, who spent many spare moments at his bedside. Usu- ally patient and uncomplaining, there were yet querulous moments when every- thing seemed wrong to the little sufferer. ‘Why was my leg broken, Margie?’ he asked one morning. ‘‘Why wasn’t somebody else picked out to lie and ache and ache?”’ ‘* Hush, hush !’’ Margaret would say ; ‘you mustn’t talk like this. It was an accident.”’ ‘« That’s easy enough to say; but why didn’t it happen to some other body— somebody big and strong and rich, who wouldn’t be losing time.”” Then Robby would look up with piteous appeal in his brown eyes. ‘I’m sure I always tried to be good.’’ ‘* You are good ; you are altogether the dearest boy in the whole world,”’ Marga- ret would hasten to assure him. Yet, in her heart of hearts, she would ask the same question: ‘*Was not Robby’s bur- den of poverty and a frail constitution enough to bear? Why should he have the additional weight of all this suffer- ing?’ It made her cynical and bitter. WINTER’S TALE. And when the surgeon in attendance told her as gently as possible that, despite all skill and care, Robert could never walk without a crutch, her cup was overflow- ing. She wrung her hands and sobbed. ‘*You are cruel to tell me so; every- body is cruel. I tell you I cannot bear it. It must not be so; something must be done.”’ ‘«T wish something could be done,”’ he responded, earnestly ; looking at her emo- tion with pitying eyes; ‘‘ but nothing can be. And you must calm yourself for the sake of the boy.”’ It was a bitter trial for both; but the pleasure of being at home with his sister somewhat lightened it for Robby, who did not yet realize the gravity of his mis- fortune. Then everybody was so good, he said. Jean Duncan was always bring- ing him a flower or some nice little dish which her good mother had prepared; and Major Gray had fallen into a fashion of often walking a block or two with Margaret on her way home, with the os- tensible excuse that he had an illustrated paper which would perhaps please Robby. Again, he would, in such an easy, infor- mal manner, offer for her acceptance a new magazine or the evening paper, that she could not well refuse; and his bearing towards her was always deferential, and his little courtesies were bestowed with a manner that implied the favor to be her acceptance, not his giving. One night she met two drunken roughs who were impertinently addressing her, and barring her way; when fortunately Major Gray appeared upon the scene, and, with some well-directed blows from his muscular arm, sent them reeling into the gutter. Margaret was pale and fright- ened ; but he took her trembling hand, and drew it closely in his arm, and held it firmly, and she somehow felt a delight- ful sense of safety. It was so pleasant to be protected, and it was so long since anyone had cared for her. So she smiled up at him gratefully through her long lashes, and he looked down upon her lovely face with his dark, magnetic eyes. ‘«Tell me,’’ he said anxiously, ‘‘ are you often annoyed this way? It is outrage ous ! the cowardly villains,’’ he exclaimed. ‘‘T am often frightened ; but I never was stopped before. I frequently meet
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are &T S&S Fr - = & 209 — eS Se A MODERN WINTER’S TALE. 3t rough people, and am afraid they will say something to me; but they never do.” Margaret did not know that her quiet dignity, and the look of sadness and puri- ty in her pale, beautiful face often saved her from insult. It was a most object- ionable neighborhood; but there was not aman or boy in it who did not respect Princess Margaret, as they had come to call her, and who would not have de- fended her. The men who accosted her were strangers. Once or twice, when Major Gray was walking with her, they met Captain Mack- enzie, who saluted his superior officer, and lifted his hat to Margaret with a very grave face. After one of these occasions, he said to Gray as they were smoking to- gether in the evening: ‘* Hanged if I think it’s just the right thing for you to do—to walk around so. much with that pretty shop girl. You'll get her talked about, don’t you know!’ Gray made a spiral of smoke with much deliberation, held his cigar a mo- ment between his shapely white fingers. ‘“You have always been famous,’’ he said coolly, *‘ for minding your own busi- ness. Do not damage that reputation on my account.’’ Then he replaced his cigar, and contemplated the ceiling. ‘Oh, of course, I don’t mean to in- sinuate that you are a villain or anything of that sort; but you see the girl might get fond of you, and you know very well that you wouldn’t marry her. Then there’s Lady Ethel, what would she say!” ‘You are an insufferable, presuming cad!’’ and Gray, pale with anger, left his seat. ‘If you were not a mere boy, and a friend, I would knock you over.”’ Mackenzie sprung up, flushed to the roots of his fair hair. ‘‘ Try knocking me over, if you think best,’’ he said, straightening his stalwart figure. ‘‘ But I tell you one thing which you may mark, if that girl comes to harm through you, I'll knock you over.’’ Major Gray was in a moment his usual imperturable self. ‘‘ Don’t get excited, Mackenzie; and don’t, above all things, be over-chivalrous,’’ he said, with asneer. ‘* We must take the world as it is, as we find it.” ‘¢ We find it just as we make it,”’ re- sponded Mackenzie, hotly. ‘‘ Full of all the devils in hell, or all the angels in heaven ; ” then he went out with a quick, firm stride, swinging the door together after him with a forcible bang, leaving Gray to smile in his slow, inscrutable fashion as he relit his cigar. It so happened that the very next night he again met Margaret—he met her by design, with a great bunch of loose roses in his hand. Would she take them to her brother ? he asked. ‘‘How beautiful they are!’’ she ex- claimed, her lovely face lighting with pleasure. ‘‘ Robby will be so delighted ! Only this morning he was sighing for a whole long day in the country, and these flowers will be the next best thing.’’ ‘¢T am so glad to hear you say this; it makes it easier for me to ask a favor of you. Will you let me drive you and your brother out into the country? Say on Saturday—you have a half holiday then, I think ; we might take a hamper of lunch, and picnic—I will see that my servant packs one. Dosay that you will go.” Margaret looked gratefully in the Major’s eager face. ‘‘lamsure you are more than kind to ask us,’’ she said, hes- itatingly, ‘‘ but I fear we cannot go.”’ ‘*Of course I did not suppose you would care about that sort of thing,” carelessly remarked Gray, with studied art, ‘‘ but your brother, who, you say, longs for the country—perhaps he would id : ‘¢Not without me.’”’ Then Margaret thought how happy it would make Rob- by. ‘‘ Why shouldn’t we go?’”’ she said to herself. ‘‘We never have any pleas- ure.” Then with an air of pride and indifference to cover her confusion: ‘I have re-considered,’’ she said. ‘‘ We will be glad to go.” The morning after, Jean Duncan said to Margaret: ‘‘My mother sends to ask if you will bring Robby to tea with us Saturday afternoon ?”’ ‘‘T am so sorry, but I cannot, for we are going to drive into the courftry with Major Gray.”’ Jean looked at her with consternation. ‘‘Don’t you do that, Princess Margaret,”’ she remonstrated, shaking her head grave- ly. ‘It will never do.”’
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32 A MODERN WINTER’S TALE. ‘¢I do not see why!’’ And Margaret looked at her with astonishment. ‘¢ Because you will get yourself talked about,”’ returned Jean frankly. ‘ Every- body will notice you and inquire; you see you are so pretty and elegant.”’ ‘¢ You are talking foolishly, Jean.” ‘¢] know very well what I am saying. Major Gray is a fine gentleman, and when his regiment is ordered away, as it will be in a few months, you will see no more of him.” ‘*I do not see what all this has to do with it; I’m sure I should not care where he went, except, of course, that Iam very grateful to him on Robby’s behali.”’ ‘But you might come tocare. He might lead you tocare. Then you see, although you are a lady, you are poor and obscure, and he is—well, they do say that he is none too good.”’ ‘¢T am sure he has been very good to Robby,’’ replied Margaret innocently. «< And I must go, for I have promised.’’ Margaret made Robby as smart as possible and brushed and re-brushed her one presentable black dress; and as it fitted her exquisite figure to perfection, and her little turban sat like a crown on her smali, stately head, and her hands were neatly gloved, and one half opened white rose earelessly thrust in a button- hole—Major Gray could not help saying, under his breath; ‘‘She is thorough- bred, and carries herself like an em- press.’’ While his servant wondered why a lady should live in that out-of-the-way place, and decided that she was a poor relation. Margaret and Robby were comfortably placed on the back seat. ‘‘ But I thought you were going to drive us,’’ remarked Margaret, with a questioning look, as Gray followed and seated himself opposite. ‘*To the contrary, I am going to be driven,” he laughed, reaching over to tuck the dust robe about Margaret’s feet. ‘*Oh, what fun this is!’’ exclaimed Robby, whose pale little face was aglow with pleasure as they bowled rapidly along. -‘*You must be very good to think to do this;’’ and he looked up gratefully at Major Gray. ‘*T am anything but good,’’ returned Gray, a flush spreading over his clear cut features. ‘¢ Please don’t say that;’’ said Marga. ret with a charming little smile; ‘<I pro. test against it, for I think you are won- derfully unselfish and kind.”’ ‘‘There is a house I should like,” declared Robby, looking back at a little cottage surrounded by flowers, and nestled among the trees. ‘‘ But I don’t believe it would suit Margie,’”’ he said reflectively. ‘‘She wants something grand.” ‘*Do you?’’ questioned Gray with a quizzical look. ‘*Yes,”” answered Margaret in her simple, direct fashion. ‘‘Though just now, we,’’ looking down at Robby, ‘would be glad of the humblest home. Yet I have always sighed for a fine large house—the house fate defeated me of.” ‘*Fate!’’ repeated Gray. ‘*Do you believe in fate?”’ ‘* How can I help it!’’ Margaret re- plied bitterly. ‘It has been to me the hardest, most cruel thing! How could all these things happen by accident ?”’ she said, with a little quiver in Mer voice, as she glanced at Robby’s crutches leaning against the opposite seat. ‘You are right. Fate is hard—is cruel; it sometimes binds man in hope- less bondage, and sometimes binds woman—it places insurmountable _bar- riers between people—it decrees this and that—almost always something antagon- istic to one’s real nature. Fate must be crushed.”” Major Gray said the last through shut teeth, in a low voice, but with a vehemence that startled Margaret. Then, with ready tact and grace, he changed the subject, and talked of a dozen airy nothings in a manner which interested and amused both his compan- ions, until their picnic ground was reached. ‘‘There is a ‘sweet doing nothing’ spot,’ he said, indicating a grove of maple and oak trees on an undulating rise of ground. ‘The battalion band concert is held just over there—but you would, perhaps, prefer this ?”’ ‘« By all means. I dislike a crowd; then the distant music will be lovely.” So Robby roamed at his will, and Mar- garet rambled about and picked ferns from the bank of a little stream, and an early Cardinal flower.
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A MODERN WINTER'S TALE. ~ 33 «‘ Decorateme,”’ requested Gray, pointing to his coat lapel, and handing her his light _ helmet hat. ‘It is part of an outing to surround one’s hat band with green leaves —it is the satyr blood stirring in one’s veins —with you, the instincts of a nymph.” ‘«* You shall have the very first flower I found,” returned Margaret, gayly, stand- ing on tiptoe to shyly fasten it in his but- tonhole. Then she looked at him in sud- den amaze—the rich red of the flower lent its glow to his clear, dark skin, his eyes, now deep and inscrutable, his fea- tures clearly cut, and his heavy moustache was slightly pointed at the ends. ‘‘Do you know of what you remind me? A pic- ture | have somewhere seen of Cardinal Mephisto.”’ Gray looked at her keenly and uneasily. ‘A dubious compliment ;”’ he said, with his slow smile. ‘‘Now let us go and lunch. I see my servant is ready for us.’’ All the delicacies which might tempt the daintiest appetite were spread before them, and, when the repast was finished, they repaired to a grassy slope at the foot of a great oak, where Margaret rested, while Gray walked back and forth with the cigar which she had given him per- mission to smoke. A book lay in Margaret’s lap. ‘‘ Did you expect to read ?”’ he_ asked. ‘‘T shall not let you. I wish you to talk to me.’’ Then he picked the book up and turned its leaves; it was a volume of Rossetti’s poems, and, as he idly turned its pages, a scrap of verse clipped from some paper fell out. “« And this?” ‘‘Oh, nothing; please give it to me,”’ and with a pretty show of confusion Mar- garet reached for it. ‘*Let me read it,’’ and he gently put back her hand. “ Love’s height is easy scaling; skies allure ; Who feels the day-warmth, needs must find it fair ; Strong eagles ride the lofty, sunlit air. Risking no rivals while their wings endure. Yet, is thy noblest still thy least secure And failing thee—shall then thy love despair? Shall not thy heart more holily prepare Some depth unfathomable—perfect pure. Say that to thee there come love’s dreadful call, The downward swiftness of thy best to see; Say that he sin or sicken, what of thee ? Are thine arms deeper yet to stay his fall ? Scarcely love’s utmost may in heaven be; To hell it reacheth so ’tis love at all.” Margaret’s color came and went as he read the lines with deep, impassioned voice. Histones trembled a little, as with a searching glance he studied her face with its lovely fluctuations of pink and white. ‘*Do you believe this? you believe love to be ?”’ ‘‘Oh, don’t ask me,’’ she pleaded, with an imploring, irightened look in her beautiful blue eyes; while the rose tint spread even to her snowy throat. ‘I have scarcely thought about it.”’ ‘*But you must think of it: the day will come when you will have to think of it !’’ and with an imperative glance he com- pelled an answering look. ‘‘ Tell me— you know weare just pleasant friends, and you can talk to me freely—what is your idea of love ?”’ Margaret was re-assured by his little subterfuge. ‘*‘The only description of love which meets with my ideal,’’ she answered shyly, ‘‘ is Mrs. Browning’s:”’ Is this what ««Unless you can muse in a crowd all day On the absent face that fixed you, Unless you can love as the angels may With the breadth of heaven betwixt you—’ All else is simply liking.” ‘But you, Margaret,”’ he said eagerly, “¢ you—could you love that way ?”’ Then there was silence between them. He had, somehow, obtained possession of her hand, and it lay unresistingly in his —the wind sighed in the leaves above them, and as it rose and fell there came with it the throbbing, pulsing sound of music ; low languorous strains, soft and persuasive, which changed to the rhythmic measures of a gavotte. Mar- garet was dimly conscious—had she en- tered upon a new existence? Would that all time might pass away thus! those dark eyes thrilling her very soul with their magnetic glances { the intoxicating notes of the dance measure seeming to float nearer and nearer to circle around them and bind them together! Gray lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a fervent kiss upon it, and the spell was broken; she blushed and trembled and faltered out something incoherent about Robby who just then came in sight. The ride home through the silvery, glorious moonlight was strangely silent ; Robby fell asleep, and neither Margaret
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NO LOVE LIKE MOTHER-LOVE UNDER THE SUN. nor Major Gray seemed inclined for conversation. ‘‘I thank you for giving us a pleasant day,’’ said Margaret at parting. ‘« Instead, I thank you,” returned Gray with emphasis. ‘‘And I trust this may be the prelude to many more such days.”’ So on half holidays it was a common occurrence for them to take these drives ; in fact, it was Gray’s only way to secure Margaret’s society, for she firmly refused to permit him to come to her rooms. One day they met Mackenzie riding; he wore his uniform and was mounted on a magnificent horse. Margaret looked back after him. ‘‘Isn’t he superb?” she exclaimed. ‘‘How I do like military trappings—all pageantry, in fact, which makes me think I have never seen you in gala-dress.”’ Both noticed, but neither remarked this beyond the necessary salute. Mac- kenzie gave no recognition, and Margaret wondered why he looked so stern. (TO BE CONTINUED.) No Love like Mother-Love under the Sun! BY B.C. LEECH. HE little child sees o’er its head The pretty, bright-winged butterfly; Away those tiny feet are led— Its dazzling beauties fill the eye, He follows on to grasp the prize, Regardless whence his footsteps roam. Pursued, the insect onward flies And leads him from mafnma and home, He seeth not the dangerous way O’er which the gaudy wings have flown. With eyes upraised still on doth stray— Till tripping, falls upon a stone. The little darling’s cries are heard, The brothers, sisters, all appear. Each one doth speak some kindly word— And try to soothe the baby dear. Father arrives—with sweet caress He tries to sooth his little Fred. But fails to ease the deep distress— Darling cannot be comforted. Now, mother comes—with words of cheer. What solace to the wounded dove ; Naught else could soothe the baby dear— None other but a mother’s love!
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The Ghost of New Pear’s Lode. BY SOUTHWORTH SHELLEY. ONATHAN FLEECEM, senior member of the firm of ‘*‘ Catchem, Crowdem and Fleecem,’’ brokers and money lenders, sat in a very comfortable leather chair, in a very comfortable room, before a very comfortable fire, with a very comfortable bowl of punch within easy reach of his claw-like right hand. The first draught of the steaming liquor, as it gurgled down his skinny throat and brought the ‘‘ Adam’s apple”’ into greater prominence, had the effect of softening the stern and rigid lines of the face ; the second produced a smile that for the moment effaced the webs of crow-feet at corners of the eyes and mouth ; the third made him stretch his legs and hands to- ward the genial warmth of the fire and purr like a cat; and the fourth—but we anticipate. Jonathan Fleecem was in high good humor with himself upon this especial New Year’s eve, the remarkable cause be- ing that he was six shillings odd out of pocket by reason of having performed the accustomed annual act of charity, which, from his standpoint; squared his debt to humanity, and silenced the faint remon- strances of what small remnant of con- science he still possessed after nearly fifty years of neglect and abuse. Just as the devout Musselman makes a yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of Maho- met, so the senior member of the firm of “‘Catchem, Crowdem and Fleecem,’’ in ‘‘ Brokers’ Row,’’ performed this act of penitence and retribution to allay some ghost of the past. He made a point, also, of doing it al- ways on the eve of New Year, and it was a noticeable fact—if any one had cared to observe—that though for fifty one weeks of the year he would grind and pinch and screw his victims in cold blood, on the fifty-second he seemed to relent a little, was restless and strange in his ways until New Year had come and passed, when he took up again the thread of his unscrupu- lous actions and applied the thumb-screw with the old unction. Yet Jonathan Fleecem was proud of his reputation among men. Hadn’t he heard what they said of him times without number: ‘‘ Fleecem ‘square,’ did you say? Oh, Lord bless you, yes; a little hard, but square and honest as the day is long,”’ ‘* What makes him look solike a shark?” ‘Why, my dear fellow, a man can’t help the fashion of his building, don’t you know? But for honesty—well, re- commend me to the senior member.”’ And the senior member had hugged himself many a time on hearing the good opinion of his fellows, and did all in his power to preserve it untarnished. In fact, owing to his finesse and long- sightedness, in making it one of the points of co-partnership that his name should appear last, although he was in reality the moneyed man, and in every other sense the head and front of the firm, he stood a good chance of preserving the fiction of his honesty and square-dealing. When any little close shave or foreclos- ure under distressing circumstances did come to light, it was always the names of Catchem and Crowdem that appeared as principals in the transaction, Fleecem re- maining an unknown quantity in the firm equation, and by that means preserving his renown. But for all this—as I have ample means of knowing—there is not a doubt but that for some reason Jonathan Fleecem had mental twinges of some sort at the ap- proach of the annual holiday. On this special New Year’s eve, he put his well-brushed silk hat on his well-oiled grey head, and taking his stick had gone forth as dusk fell, in search of some ob- ject upon which to shower his alms and oblations, and lull his conscience for fifty-one other weeks. For it was a peculiar feature of the act, that one beggar was as good as another, so long as the self-imposed propitiation was made and over for the time. The streets were brilliant, the shops crowded, the windows a harmonious sym- phony of good things. There were rich
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36 THE GHOST OF NEW YEAR’S EVE. buyers with servants and very big baskets ; people of moderate means minus the ser- vants, with middle sized baskets, and others who bore the unmistakable marks of poverty, with very small baskets in- deed. There were some even so very poor that they had no baskets at all, but carried such little purchases as they dared make in their arms; yet went their ways happy that it was even so good as this with them. It was a little singular that so retiring a man as the senior member should elect to be hustled by the crowd, struck in the ribs by provision hampers, and have his broadcloth sleeves smeared by the pro- truding necks of decapitated poultry; but it was part of the yearly offering which he never failed to observe; possibly be- cause it went so very much against the grain. ‘¢ He wove in and out, and hitched his thin figure through impossible places,, all the time his steel grey eyes wandered hither and yon, above the heads and be- neath the baskets in search of some chari- table object. At last he espied it, or rather had it brought to his attention by hearing these words spoken ina childish voice: ‘*Qh, sister, don’t you just wish we could buy a bottle of that wine ?”’ Jonathan Fleecem stopped behind the children, who stood looking wistfully in- to a window, as the girl replied witha sigh too deep for her years: ‘¢ Yes, indeed, I do, Bobby.”’ ‘¢ Would it make father well, sister ?’’ ‘¢ The doctor says so,”’ she answered. ‘‘ Then, sister, I mean to ask the man to give me a bottle.” ** Oh, Bobby!” cried the girl, and at the same moment Jonathan Fleecem laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. But as he spoke to the children, the two pairs of eyes that looked into his face stag- gered the man of cold calculations. He remembered just such eyes as these look- ing up at him with trust and love and entreaty away back in the dead and for- gotten years. Dead ? No, not dead ; for it was a pair of eyes so like these in expression and color that they seemed the same on ac- count of which the yearly offering was made. But he got at the simple story of sick. ness and want, and made his New Year offering in the shape of two bottles of wine at six shillings odd, after which he was about to go his way, when the girl, who was perhaps fifteen years of age, said: ‘¢ Please, sir, who shall I tell father sent the wine?” ‘¢ Oh, it makes no difference, child.” ‘¢ But, sir, 1 want father to know that we got it honestly,’’ she answered flushing, ‘Well, then, Fleecem, Jonathan Flee- cem is my name. Good-night.”’ ‘¢Thank you, sir, and good-night,” said the children in unison. Then Jonathan Fleecem went home, and after a very comfortable and sub- stantial dinner, with conscience eased, settled himself with a bowl of punch before the grate in his own drawing-room. The first three glasses had, as I have already told the reader, exerted so mel- lowing an influence upon him that Catchem and Crowdem, had they been present, would scarcely have recognized their usually austere partner. He was sipping the fourth glass leisurely and considering the advisability of ring- ing for a little more hot water, when suddenly something in the grate attracted his attention. He set down the glass, passed his shriveled hand across his eyes to make sure that though the liquor wasa little more heady than usual, he was not asleep, and, finding that he was not, leaned a little forward and began staring into the fire. ‘* Deuce take it, what sort of a thing is it, anyhow ?” he asked after due delibera- tion and examination. The ‘‘ thing,” as Fleecem described it, was a comical little creature no bigger than your hand, who sat perched on a blazing lump of coal, and wore a cocked hat, with knee breeches, and a cloak thrown jauntily over one shoulder, though the necessity of a wrap of any sort under the circumstances was a mere ma‘ter of taste. One little leg, which was crossed overt the other, he kept in place by holding on to the long point of his shoe, which was of the fashion of those worn by King Arthur’s jesters When the senior member asked what
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‘THE GHOST OF NEW YEAR’S EVE. 37 sort of a thing i was, the tiny goblin let go his hold on the shoe loug enough to place the thumb of his tiny left hand against his nose, and the thumb of his right hand against the little finger of his left, after which he wiggled the whole ex- pressively while accompanying the action with the most horrible grimaces. ‘‘ Bless my soul !”’ ejaculated the sur- prised broker. ‘‘ Better bless your bones, you old skinflint ; you haven’t any soul,’’ said the goblin lowering his hands and getting a fresh hold of the elongated toe of his shoe. ‘‘Wh-wh-at did you say?” asked Jonathan, fidgeting in his chair. ‘‘You’re a nice fellow, you are,” quoth the goblin sarcastically, picking up a tiny coal and flinging it with so good an aim that it struck its mark square on the high cheek bone. Though the senior member winced, he was dumb with astonishment and absolute- ly beyond the power of resenting the insult by so much as a word; at the sight of which the little creature burst into a fit of uproarious laughter, throwing himself into such contortions that the lump of coal rocked like a cradle. When it seemed on the very point of tipping over, he kicked up his heels, dex- terously recovered his equilibrium, and pointing his sharp little fore-finger at Jonathan Fleecem, asked : ‘¢What became of your sister, old fellow ?”’ ‘‘Eh? What—became of—of—” The goblin nodded. ‘¢ That’s what I said. Out with it, old dry bones; what became of—’’ Thus prompted, and being bored through, as it were, by the awl-like fore- finger which continued to point at him, Jonathan Fleecem finished with a gasp: ‘¢ Of my sister? She—she died !” ‘You le /’’ shouted the goblin with such angry vehemence that Jonathan Fleecem threw up his hands as if to ward off an attack from his tormentor. ‘*Don’t try that again on me, you whited sepulcher,’’ continued the sprite. ‘‘That sort of thing may pass in your money-sharing, heart-grinding business ; but it won’t with me. If I chose I could tell you every act of your life from the first moment you were laid in your cradle till now, at fifteen minutes after nine, December 31, 1886.” Fleecem lowered his hands and raised his eyes to the clock over the mantel. The goblin had told the time to the second, yet he could not possibly see the clock ; and the fact seemed to strike the man with fear, for he trembled visibly, able to do nothing but stare abjectly at the tiny creature so skilfully balancing his small weight on the blazing lump of coal. Having gloated over the effect of his words for atime, the goblin again con- tinued. ‘*T have come for a purpose, which purpose fulfilled, you will be left in peace; unfulfilled, I will hound your footsteps, disturb your sleep, ruin your digestion and rob you of health.” Jonathan looked around as if for some weapon to defend himself by annihilating this diabolical creature. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the poker, and he half arose and reached toward it, but was stopped by the words: ‘No use of that, old Mortgage. If you ran me through with the poker, I would be perched on the arm of your chair before you could take your seat. I am immortal; the ghost of men’s con- sciences, with power to come to them only when truth and honor and fidelity are lost; when they acknowledge no ob- ject but self, and live as if the world was created for them alone. But I told you I came with a purpose.” ‘‘What purpose?’’ asked Jonathan Fleecem, who had recovered himself in a measure. “ Restitution! Res-ti-tu-tion !’’ shouted the goblin, emphasizing every syllable by stabbing a blue flame with his tiny fore- finger. ‘¢ Restitution to whom? ’’ inquired the senior member, with more courage, now that he was beginning to take in the sit- uation. ‘¢ To your sister!”’ answered the gob- lin, evidently pleased to see that Fleecem winced at the words. ‘‘ Restitution full and complete to your sister, whom you have wilfully defrauded for fifteen years. Don’t deny the charge,” he said, shak- ing his little fist threateningly at the
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38 THE GHOST OF NEW YEAR'S EVE. senior member, who was evidently about to speak, but gave up the intention when the goblin assumed this warlike atti- tude. ‘‘Don’t deny the charge, Jonathan Fleecem, before you hear my proof. By keeping silent you will have one less lie to answer for. Now, then, listen: ‘¢Once upon atime there was a good man and just, but puritanical and hard. Of acres and worldly goods he possessed full share, with also a wife, a son and daughter. ‘The latter was the apple of his eye, as well she might have been, so beautiful and good and tender as she was. For eighteen years she made light and music in the grim New England house ; then came a change. A rich man sought her for his son, and, without a word to her, the father pledged her faith. But when he called her to him, and told her of his choice, ascene of anguish followed. She could not yield her hand without her heart, she said, and that was given to another long ago, one with whom she had gone to school, and sung with in the village choir, a brave and fearless youth whom all knew only to esteem. “ Every loving art so effective hereto- fore she used to overrule her father’s op- position and win him to her side. But the man was stern and implacable, and a scene of storm and rebellion followed. ‘*A week later she disappeared, with her lover, and to all her mother’s en- treaties for the forgiveness and restora- tion of her child, the stern husband re- plied : ‘¢She is no longer a daughter of mine; I will forgive her only when I die.”’ Here the goblin paused to look at the senior member of the firm of Catchem, Crowdem and Fleecem. He sat as im- movable as a statue, with his long, bony fingers clutching the arms of his chair, and his steel grey eyes staring beyond the goblin, seeing him not, while his features worked convulsively. Seemingly well pleased with what he saw, the sprite went on: ‘*I forget to say that this tender daugh- ter and loving sister appealed to her only brother to entreat her father in her be- half; but even he failed her in her hour of need and cast her off.”’ Here Jonathan Fleecem seemed to shrivel and sink lower in his chair, at which the goblin chuckled wickedly. ‘‘ Years passed ; her name was no longer a household word; her mother died and was buried; yet no word was sent to the daughter whom she loved. At last the stern man came also to his death- bed. ‘‘Then the deeps were broken up, and he called upon the name of the daughter he had forsaken, day and night, in his de- lirium entreating forgiveness. But the avaricious and obdurate son took no heed of the dying man’s cries, and, when reason. returned at the last hour, it was too late for anything save to bind that son by oath to seek until he found his sister and restore to her the half of the property. This happened on New Year's Eve, fiteen years ago !"’ Lower and lower sank the broker in his chair; but when the goblin shouted: ‘¢Jonathan Fleecem! I call upon you to say whether that restoration has been made?’’ he started up trembling like a leaf, staggered to his feet, and whispered hoarsely: ‘*No! but it shall be!” ‘* You to be honored and esteemed by men, who lied to a dying father, and followed up the lie with perjury! You to be proud of your good name and pres- tige, who have taken poor men’s proper- ty, broken widows’ hearts and made or- phans penniless! You to covet the honor of your fellows, who have shaved men’s notes so close that there was nothing left to the victims but the paper; who have secured trifling loans with mortgages that swept their homes into your greedy hands; who have beggared hundreds that you might hoard; and, lastly, have lived luxuriously, been well fed and daintily clothed, while your only sister and her family have had want and sickness and sorrow as their portion. You, Jonathan Fleecem!’’ screamed the goblin, spring- ing to his feet, and making as if about to throw himself bodily upon him, whereat the senior member determined to make a final effort to defend himself, struck out vigorously with his right hand. There was a crash and a fall, and the next mo- ment he opened his bewildered eyes to see no one more formidable than his housekeeper, who was standing by the table from which he had struck the
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(FF ee SSS were Ss BS CO ewes * « 1 Weer ef WY sev. se we NU THE GHOST OF NEW YEAR’S EVE. 39 punch-bowl, and calling in her familiar nasal voice : ‘‘Mr. Fleecem! Mr. Fleecem! Wake up! There isa lady waiting downstairs to see you.” The senior member of the firm sat up, rubbed his eyes, took out his silk hand- kerchief and wiped the liquor from his clothes, then said, with a deliberation and coolness that made the housekeeper think she had been mistaken as to his having been asleep: ‘Very well, Mrs. Thompson ; gather up the pieces and show the lady up.”’ He had gotten upon his feet, and taken astride or two across the room, to shake off the effects of what he concluded was a. very ugly dream, and one he would do his best to forget as soon as possible, when, as he turned again, the door opened and a lady entered. He stopped where he stood, staggered and shocked ; but she, with one sobbing cry, came toward him swiftly with out- stretched hands, saying: ‘‘Jonathan! Jonathan! My dear bro- ther! Will you not forgive me now? Have we not suffered enough? Can you not take me back into your heart again ? It was my little children to whom you gave the wine to-night. I have never had courage to come till now when we are in sickness and want. Can you not forgive me, dear ?’’ she asked, looking into his face with the same wonderful, violet eyes he had seen in the two children a few hours before, the same sweet eyes, he remem- bered with a pang, that had looked into his nearly twenty years ago, entreating him to plead for her. The same beautiful face, with its deli- cately arched eyebrows and tender mouth, and white brow, shadowed by luxurious brown hair, just as he remembered them all in the past, save that now the features expressed that divine look of submission and sorrow worn by the mother of Christ. For the first moment, the senior mem- ber was too shaken and startled to reply, oreven unclasp his hands from behind his back, but stood looking at her dumb- ly, stonily, trying in a dazed sort of way to find some connecting link between his act of charity, the dream just past—for so he called it now—and the coming of his sister. She came a step closer, and laid her hand upon his arm, saying sorrowfully : ‘¢ Oh, my brother, can you not forgive me even now ?”’ The touch of her hand awoke him to a realizing sense of the situation ; the better nature of the man, aroused at last from lethargy, fought fiercely for ascendancy, and won, and the next instant the arms of Jonathan Fleecem were around his sister, and he was whispering hoarsely : ‘* Marian! Marian! It is I, not you, who must ask forgiveness; I, who cast you off and defrauded you of your prop: erty; who have grown hard and unscru- pulous and mean, and am well-nigh lost to all honor and truth. But it is for you to say whether all my sins of omission and commission are to be forgiven and for- gotten; whether, with the restoration of your rights, your brother is also to be restored to the place in your love he held so long ago and last—’”’ ‘¢ Hush, dear,’’ Marian said, lifting her head from his breast and laying her hand on his lips ; hush, it is I who need to be for- given. 1 was disobedient and undutiful and suffered for it; but I loved my hus- band, and lovehim still so well that if need were I would do the same again; but, dear, never in all these years have you lost your place in my heart. The past is dead, let it be buried and forgotten, or remembered only as the link that will bind us closer for the Test of life.”’ With that she put her arms about his neck and lifting her beautiful face drew his head down till their lips touched. And Jonathan Fleecem, senior member of the firm of Catchem, Crowdem, and Fleecem, brokers and money lenders, of ‘¢ Brokers’ Row,”’ hard, unscrupulous and mean as he had called himself: miser, skinflint and whited sepulcher, as he had been called by the goblin, for the first time in twenty years lost control of him- self and wept at the touch of Marian’s soft cheek against his wrinkled one. Could I tell you of the happy group that gathered abort a loaded board on New Year’s day, of the sick husband who left his room for the first time in many weeks to sit at its head and smile into the lovely face of Marian at its foot; of Jon- athan Fleecem in the seat of honor at the right hand of his boyhood’s friend,
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40 RESTORATION. radiant and beaming first on his sister, then on his brother, and next at the sturdy boy at his side, or the delicate girl oppo- site ; of how he watched the efforts of the invalid to carve the huge turkey, until his heart swelled with pity and remorse, and he gently took the knife from the weak hands, and completed the work ; of how he climbed upon a chair to place the ‘‘wish bone’’ above the door for his pretty niece, and helped his nephew clap when the plum pudding was brought in in a blaze of lighted spirits; of how, when it was all over, and the host standing thanked God for his mercy and goodness in remembcring them in their time of need. Jonathan Fleecem prayed silently for forgiveness; could I tell all this as it should be told, I am sure you would be. lieve with me that the senior member of the firm of ‘‘Catchem, Crowdem, and Fleecem,’’ as we knew him first, was dead and buried, and from his grave had risen a new man who will be honored and re- vered and loved, and pointed to in years to come, as an example of that divine charity and humility which first came up- on the earth eighteen hundred years ago, Restoration. BY LILLIAN GREY, All fair in the morning’s golden light, A sweet rose bloomed in a garden-bed; At noon a wind swept over the place, And the rose was dead. A glad bird sang in the morning hours, And the melody all through the air was shed; But a sportsman passed with his cruel gun, And the bird was dead. A ship spread all of her snowy wings, And sailed away in the rosy dawn; But her keel was pierced by a sunken rock, And the ship was gone. I had a joy, so treasured, so sweet, And its radiance over my life was shed; But the spoiler passed with his blighting hand, And my joy lay dead. O rose! Obird! O stately ship! There is naught to show ye have ever been; O beautiful things that I loved so well! Ye are long unseen, I had a hope, so precious and bright, And the love of it deep in my heart had lain; But a storm swept over life’s garden-bed, And my hope was slain. All, all are vanished; yet this I know, Though my joy is dead, and my hope is slain; That sometime, somewhere, in God’s good time, They shall live again!
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That Christmas Cree. * sy FRED, COMMINS EDWARDS. WAS the wonderful thing of the age, Undreamed of by science or sage. In vain you might look Through the most learned book And carefully con every page— ’T was not there. Yet ’twas done by a maiden of four, In a ten-penny tub from the store; Which at her demand They had filled full of sand And placed on the dining-room floor, On Christmas Eve. At the last stroke of eight, all alone She planted a turkey’s wish bone, Saying slowly ‘‘ Hip noddy, Fee fi fum, Tom Toddy!” Then drenched it with Eau de Cologne Three times. Wise Johnny cried, “ Fiddle-de-dee,” But there the next morn grew a tree, That reached to the ceiling; Its branches revealing ; Such a crop as you never did see, She knew it! There were parcels of queer-looking things, There were doll babies hanging on strings: Useful axes and saws, A cat with real claws, And lovely blue angels with wings— Besides a big drum for Johnny. To say nothing of candy untold, Some said with an eye hardly single, And oranges yellow as gold, That ’twas plainly the work of Kris Kringle; With apples like pumpkins, But we know that alone And all by a dumpkins, With her spell and wish bone Of a missy not four years old, Elsie did it—and there ends the jingle. But of course. Good-Bye. Owing to the press of Christmas matter, this poem expressly prepared for the little folks for December number was crowded out.—EDITorR. 4!
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an Dumicinite ADS coils acon Wp hee CO: Foe FRANZ GRILLPARZER. I. »CHILLER, the ‘* “ebling ) Dichter,’ had been twelve years in his grave, and Goethe, an old man of seventy, still held his court in Weimar, as king of German letters, when a new star appeared in the literary horizon. The fa- therland joyfully hailed this star, and Franz Grill- parzer was ere long pro- nounced second only to Goetheamong living poets. As a young man of twenty-five, he gave the world his first tragedy, Die Ahnfrau, a work original in conception and artis- tic in treatment, involving subtle mys- teries of life and fate beyond the usual domain of dramatic literature. The drama won immediate success upon the German stage, and soon made a triumphal tour of the principal German theatres. Other works followed in rapid succession, and for twenty-one years Grill- parzer was the most prolific of poets. Then a strange spell came over him; he wrapped himself in silence as in a mantle, and, to the day of his death, he lived in Vienna, a mute singer, a poet-king with- out a crown or court, save for the little band of loyal subjects, who still gathered about him, acclaiming him a sovereign by the divine birthright of genus, a poet by the grace of God. The son of a prosperous lawyer, Grill- parzer had been reared in ease and luxury. Educated by private tutors, and left to choose his own curriculum, he decided upon language and the de//es lettres, early entering upon that study of ancient and modern tongues, which ended only with his life. Heread incessantly, and, aided by a retentive memory, made all he read his own. He could, with equal facility, quote the lightest 0” mot of a modern French rhymer, or the most profound passage from a classic Greek poet. Napoleon’s wars caused the financial Walf-Wours with Classic Authors. BY FRANCES A. SHAW. 42 ruin of the Grillparzer family. In the darkest hour of the conflict, the father died insolvent, and the support of the widow and younger children henceforth devolved upon Franz, the eldest son. He took the best place that offered, that of private tutor, and attained ere long a humble post in the public service. He had studied law with his father, more for recreation than as a possible means of support, and he rose slowly, first to a place in the Treasury, later to one in the Archives. He was retiring and sensitive, and could not push his way in the world; he met consequently the usual fate of modest genius, and remained in the back- ground, while others less worthy were ad- vanced to places of honor and profit. Poetry and politics are antagonistic, and Grillparzer, the poet, stood in the way of Grillparzer,the aspirant for public office. With mingled hope and fear, he one day read his drama, Die .dhnfrau, to a. relative, by whose decision he had re. solved to abide. ‘* Ah Franz, have done with this nonsense; you are no poet!” was the disheartening verdict. The cha. grined author’s first impulse was to destroy the unlucky manuscript ; but even unsuccessful poets have a fondness for their rythmic offspring,—and Franz locked the verses in his desk, resolved that no eye but his own should ever see them. Sometime after, Schreyvogel, a theat- rical manager, suspecting that the young treasury clerk occasionally wrote, begged to see one of his productions. With many misgivings, Franz drew the manu- script of Die Ahnfrau from its hiding place. Schreyvogel read it carefully, and then grasping the young man’s hand, he said: ‘If I had been that relative of yours, I should have said,—‘*Go on, Franz, for, by heaven, you are a poet!” In this just critic, the struggling author found a generous patron. ‘* Sappho, a Tragedy,” appeared two years later, and placed Grillparzer in the front rank of German poets. In this po- etic triology of love, genius and sorrow,
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HALF-HOURS WITH CLASSIC AUTHORS. 43 he reached the heights of ideal tragedy, resuscitating for the German stage, that mournful drama enacted in Hellas two thousand years ago. A year from the date of this brilliant success, the now famous poet set out for Italy, that home of every art, that goal of every artist. Starting on this poetic pilgrimage, his poet soul thus poured forth its joy in triumphant song :— Now God be praised the hour is come, With pilgrim staff in hand, I seek thy shores, fair Italy, Thou glorious Promised Land! As pious pilgrims on’ their breasts, Bear sacred relics home, So holiest spoils I’ll win and wear From thy great past, proud Rome! One drop from out that wonder-fount Of rapt, pure minstrelsy, One spark Apollo, from thy shrine Of heaven-lit poesy. Some impress great world-ruler Jove, Of thy high might and power ; From Maro’s grave a laurel-leaf, From Dante’s tomb, a flower. Thine image, lofty spotless soul, Peerless Di Medicis! Thy land oft reddened o'er with gore, Need never blush for thee. And I will kneel, O vanished time, Before thy sculptures old, Dreaming myself a part of thee And of thine age of gold. And from thee I will learn how high Man’s thought and deed may rise, Winged by the god within the soul That seeks its native skies. Then with proud heart, I’ll homeward turn, And weave, God helping me, Some nobler song, for this brief stay, Blest land of song, in thee! He brcught home with him many fair iyric blossoms, the most beautiful among them being ‘‘The Cross upon the Colise- um,’’ and ‘‘The Ruins of the Campo Vacci.”’ “The Golden Fleece,”” founded upon the well-known story of Medea, appeared in 1822. Grillparzer’s ‘‘ Medea”? is said to surpass that of any other dramatist. This part, enacted by the gifted and idea- _ ally beautiful Sophia Schroeder, won new laurels for the poet, and gave him an Vor. CXVIII—No. 4. assured place among the world’s great dramatists. Two characters can offer no more ex- treme contrasts than Grillparzer’s Sappho and Medea. Sappho is the finest blos- som of Hellenic culture; Medea is an un- tutored savage. Sappho sacrifices her- self; Medea sacrifices others. In these two characters, Grillparzer strikes every note in the gamut of passion. ‘‘King Ottokar’s Fortune and End,” which some critics have pronounced Grillparzer’s greatest work, appeared in 1824. This drama fell under the ban of the censorship to which its author was a frequent martyr. He often threw away the pen in despair and indignation, only to take it up again; for his genius was a demon which goaded him on. Austria possessed no more patriotic son than Grill- parzer, and yet never was poet more wounded in the house of his friends. Both parties blamed him; the liberals could not forgive his conservatism, the conservatives could not forgive his love of progress. During the revolution of 1848, he rejoiced in the triumph of liberal principles, while he condemned the ex- travagances of the revolutionists. Grillparzer’s next tragedy appeared four years after ‘‘Ottokar.”” It was en- titled “4 True Friend of his Master,’’ and did not prove asuccess, ‘‘ The Waves of Love and of the Sea,’’ founded upon the story of Hero and Leander, a story old and yet forever new to youthful hearts, was presented upon the stage with great applause. It was followed by ‘‘ Zhe Dream of Life,” a drama so popular that it still holds its place upon the Vienna stage. Other dramas and numerous lyrics came in rapid succession from the facile pen of the admired poet, who at length surprised his friends with a comedy which was condemned in advance, and proved a failure. Its humor was too subtle and refined for the comprehension of the multitude. After this unlooked-for humiliation, Grillparzer relapsed into an obstinate si- lence. But while he withdrew more and more from the world, he formed the cen- tre of a select circle composed of those who loved, honored and understood him. He still wrote, but productions which might have given him world-wide fame
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44 HALF-HOURS WITH CLASSIC AUTHORS. remained year after year in the obscurity of his desk, and few dreamed of their existence. He erred in choosing his dramatic sub- jects almost wholly from the past. The remoteness of his scenes and characters has always marred their success upon the stage, which, to appeal to the masses, must mirror the present era, and reflect the actual life of the people. Il. Grillparzer delighted in travel both for its own sake and for its opportunities of gesthetic culture. Authorshiphad vrought him but small returns, and yet, from his slender savings, he found means for much journeying bot at home and abroad. He made long sojourns in the principal German cities, and aiso in London and Paris. Wherever he went, his renown had preceded him, and he was assured of a hearty welcome from authors and scholars. His published works contain many interesting reminiscences of travel. Through some strange fatality, he never visited Spain, the country which of all others he most desired to see, and whose literature had been his life long study. In 1848, he made an extended tour of Greece and the Orient, bringing home with him from the morning-land of song and inspiration, rich material for new poetic works. Grillparzer was a man versed in law and science as well as in literature; few equalled him in profound and varied learning. ‘The Vienna Academy of Arts and Sciences enrolled him as one of its earliest members. This Academy requires an autobiography of each member, and, in obedience to this rule, Grillparzer wrote a sketch, brief and unsatisfactory, and entering into but few details of his personal history. Among the private papers left at his death, is found a fuller record. Here the story of his one, life-long love is told without evasion or concealment. The object of his lasting affection, the muse of his finest dramas and the inspiration of his sweetest lyrics, was Katherine Frohlich, a lady in all respects worthy of his choice. This love, which was fully returned, and which endured for half a century, was never crowned by marriage. From youth until long past middle life, our poet was harassed by his own poverty and by that of his family. He was ad- vanced in years when relieved at last from pecuniary embarrassment. A home artistically beautiful, and free from the petty, sordid cares which narrow means entail, had never been within his reach, and he would install the lady of his love into no home he deemed unworthy of her. Katherine Fréhlich, a woman with a warm, true heart, a cultured mind, and an unusual share of sterling common sense, possessed also a calm, equable tem perament, which rendered her the exact counterpart of her morbidly sensitive lover. Knowing that the burdens and anxieties of a domestic life, such as their united means could afford, would be torture to his proud spirit and a clog to his genius, she decided that a single life would be best for both. So wisely or unwisely, these two kih- dred souls lived apart year after year, until both fell into the sere and yellow leaf. It was no transient affection that had united this gifted pair, and they remained faithful unto death. Grillparzer, in his fine lyric, entitled ‘‘The Ban,’ gives the reader a glimpse into the motives which had led him to renounce the sweets of domestic life, and confesses that ambition was the haunting demon of his existence. No translation can do justice to this beautiful poem, which I have sought to render as literally as possible : Farewell, farewell! The blissful dream is ended, Driven by an unseen power, a haunting voice, I leave the heaven that to my world descended, Leave the dear maiden of my young heart’s choice. For know, love, when thine arms were round me twining, Thou in thy clasp wast holding no free man; A spell past thy pure soul’s ken or divining, Was round me thrown, I lived beneath a ban! In youth’s vain strength upon myself relying, Nature, the world’s high sovereign, I defied, Staking all else to win fame’s wreath undying— And thus she mocked me in her wrath and pride: «Dost thou despise the precious gifts I offer? Dost thou esteem my wealth of little worth? Love and love’s joy no more to thee I protier, Heaven-stormer, thou art free from ties of earth!
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HALF-HOURS WITH CLASSIC AUTHORS. 45 «From wish to wish, fancy to fancy roving, As thou art row, remain thy whole life long; Never to know the sweet content of loving, The dear home-hearth, the dulcet cradle-song. «A mocking demon day and night shall haunt thee, A syren voice shall lure thee evermore; Ambition now shall torture, now enchant thee— Till all the peace and rest of life are o’er, «When slumber throws its spell round happier mortals, On Fancy’s pinions thou shalt mount and soar, To knock oft vainly at the fast-closed portals Of that dream-world whence comes the poet’s lore. «Thy speech will change to one so strange that never The throng will heed or seek to understand; Far from the goal shall fall thy best endeavor— Forever twain remain thy heart and hand! “Go hence, then, cheated of thy life’s best treasure, Go seek in fame to still thy yearning heart, And learn what bliss, what wealth past count or measure— What love, what truth, thou hast renounced for Art!” Thus fell her words, like night and storm around me, Too late I feel their truth—regret is vain, No power can lift the spell fate weaves around me, Or give my soul its olden peace again. And so o’er earth I wander, banned, forsaken, Beguiling others, as beguiled by Art; Thou weep’st, dear one, thy love through all unshaken— But vain thy tears—we must forever part! In his drama of Sappho, our poet says, pursuing the same vein of thought: “He whom the gods have chosen for their own, May not consort with citizens of earth; The mortal lot ani heavenly cannot mingle In the same cup; but thou must choose between them. Hast thou once chosen, there is no receding; One drop of the immortal fruit of fame, Like to Proserpina’s pomegranate seeds, Ranks thee forever with the quiet shades, And to the living thou belong’st no more.” * _ Katherine Fréhlich and her two sisters lived in a modest tenement upon the Spiegelgasse. In his old age, Grillparzer shared their dwelling, occupying a suite of rooms on the upper floor, and dining at a restaurant near by. Here he found the care and sympathy so grateful to * Miss Frothingham’s translation. declining years ; here he formed the centre of a select literary and musical circle. The Frohlich sisters, who were women of the finest culture, had made music an especial study. Their little soirees were frequen- ted by a chosen few, embracing the foremost artistic and literary people of the capital. In this circleof elect spirits, the usually silent, introspective Grillparzer surpassed all in charm of manner and brilliancy of conversation. ‘¢He would never be an orator,”’ writes one who knew him well, ‘‘ and yet the richest material for speech was always at his command. He was a rare talker, and talked as he wrote, dealing much in aphorisms, yet with more frequent flashes of humor.”’ He was devoid of literary jealousy, and never withheld the meed of praise from a deserving rival. An ardent disciple of Kant, he could be satisfied with nothing short of absolute perfection. He regarded poetry as a fine art requiring as much culture as music, sculpture or painting. ‘*Culture is many sided,”’ he said in one of his familiar conversations; ‘‘ but art is one-sided, and demands forgetfulness of everything in the world outside itself.” He was a connoisseur in all the arts, in music, sculpture, painting and the drama. The most unassuming of men, he was yet conscious of his own merit. Return- ing from a visit to Weimar, he said, ‘Next after Goethe and Schiller, at a proper distance comes Grillparzer.’’ Although ne-er a politician, he was a life-long student of public affairs, and proved himself a progressive, far-seeing man. He believed in his fellow-men, and demanded for others, the same free- dom of thought he claimed for himself. He loved simplicity and retirement. His manner of life was frugal and tem- perate, and no shadows ever fell upon his fair fame. In youth and middle life, his figure was erect and graceful, his hair blonde, his complexion fair, his face one that he came transfigured in moments of inspira- tion. He possessed that exquisite refine- ment of speech and manner which seem inseparable from the idea of poet. Death came to him without the slight- est warning just after his eighty-first anni- versary. He was sitting in his arm-chair
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46 HALF-HOURS WITH CLASSIC AUTHORS. carefully dressed as usual, when all at once, he ceased to breathe. ' His will was made. He had left everything to Kath- erine Fidhlich, and had appointed Dr. Preyes, an old and tried friend, his liter- ary executor. Katherine Frohlich sur- vived him twelve years. Austria, haunted by a late remorse for her unjust treatment of her greatest poet, had made him some tardy reparation. At the age of seventy, he was retired from office with the title and emoluments of Imperial Counsellor, and for the first time in his life, allowed to taste the sweets of pecuniary independence. His eightieth birthday was worthily celebrated in his native city. All Vienna, from the royal family to the humblest citizen, vied in doing him honor. ‘Time fails to dwell upon the grand banquet, the orations, the floral and other offerings. The Vienna ladies celebrated the day by founding a ‘‘Grillparzer Institution’’ for the aid of struggling authors. In this demonstration, Vienna and all Austria raised upon their shield the name of Grillparzer, as the one national poet. When the great writer, whose mental powers had suffered no decline, died a year later, the whole land mourned. Nev- er had poet such a burial. The broad streets and suburbs of the imperial capital were thronged, the windows all along the line of the procession lined with spectators. One hundred thousand people were out that day in Vienna to pay the last honors to Austria’s greatest poet. He was laid to rest in the Wahringer cemetery, that sacred spot already hallowed by the pre- cious dust of Beethoven, Mozart, Schu- bert and other artists and poets of world wide renown. This national outpouring of reverence and sorrow was not alone for Grillparzer, the poet ; it was for Grillparzer, the ven- erated citizen, the good and honorable man who had never desecrated his high art to unworthy uses. The learning, wisdom and lofty character of the venera- ble poet, had made him almost a prophet among his people. He had also his literary apotheosis. Soon after his death, his works were is- sued in Stuttgard in an edition of ten handsome volumes. Miss Ellen Froth- ingham has rendered his Sappho into choice English verse, and an excellent translation of his tragedy of Aledea has appeared in London. These two dramas, and some of his lyrics, rendered by va- rious hands, are all the English student can at the present enjoy of the works of this prolific writer, unless he is able to read him in the original. Count von Auersperg, the German poet, who under the name of ‘ Anasta- tius Griin,’’ has achieved a wide popular. ity, thus writes ot Grillparzer and his influence upon the development of his own genius :— Far in the silent night-time, A score of years ago, A thoughtful boy sat reading, With eye and cheek aglow. And now the wondrous volume, He presses to his heart, Then reads on ’till hot tear-drops From out his blue eyes start. “ Ah this, this is a poet, Might I but reach his goal!” He cries, and o’er his future, That wish holds firm control. Ask you what was the volume Dowered with such magic power, Or who the youth it fettered Past midmght’s ghostly hour ? Grillparzer was the poet, Die Ahnfrau,the book’s name,— He who devoured its pages, And writes this, is the same. *Twas I, O weird eachanter, Who read thy wondrous lay, From whom thy magic numbers, Stole rest and sleep away. If after years of striving, ’Tis given at last, to me, Thy steps afar to follow In realms of poesy,— If I, in my own bosom, Have felt the poet’s might,— This power comes as an echo Of the boy’s cry that night,— “ This, this is a true poet / Might I but reach his goal!” And still the lad’s ambition, Has o’er the man, control. ‘¢Grillparzer will never hold among us the place of a poet popular in the com- mon acceptation of that term,’’ writes Heinrich Laube, the editor of his dra- matic works. ‘‘ But as poet, true, origi- nal and independent, he: will stand for- ever in our literature, a figure of granite. It does not glitter, but it endures.” k u mitte with acco succt and, plun wate love:
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III. THE TRIAL. ARVEY was, at first, so over- come by horror on recognizing the face of Ellen Garnett: in that of the drowned woman that he sub- mitted mepeactiag to his arrest, hearing, without comprehending, the words that accompanied it. But a reaction quickly succeeded that first overwhelming horror ; and, rousing himself, he would have plunged into the pond to rescue from its watery grave the dead form of his lost love—but at the attempt to do so he found himself a prisoner. ‘“‘What does this mean?’’ he de- manded, endeavoring to free himself, ‘what does this mean? And what do you want of me?”’ The former speaker siraply repeated the words he had just spoken, and tightened his grasp on the prisoner. -“ You arrest me for the murder of Ellen Garnett?’’ Harvey asked, in- credulously. ‘*Are you mad? I adored her. She was my betrothed wife—her loss is worse, far worse, than a sentence of death would be to me.”’ ‘*We only obey orders, sir,’’ said the man, with a kind of gruff respect, ‘‘and our orders were to watch your move- ments, and to arrest you if we saw rea- son—”’ ‘‘And in Heaven’s name what is your reason?’’ Harvey interrupted. ‘*Well, sir, I do suppose it would be better to leave all questions and answers on this subject till the proper time—but seeing you’re a gentleman we’ve all known for years, I will say this much— well, sir, the last time Miss Garnett was seen alive she left Joe Hurlbut’s to go to call on you. She never returned, nor was any word from her received, and after a day or two a rumor of. foul play got about, and we—my mate and me— were ordered to watch you. And we’ve done it, though without seeing anything suspicious till to- night— -but now we find you here, a-stoopin’ over a pond where a ———) @ Woman's Gap. BY ELSIE SNOW. young woman lies drowned, and the looks of the young woman corresponds with our description of Miss Garnett—” ‘¢It zs Miss Garnett! ’’ Harvey cried out in a voice of despair. ‘‘Oh, would to God there was room to doubt it! — Ellen, Ellen, my darling, come back to me—or let me die and go to you!”’ ‘¢Come, sir! come!’’ said the officer, in a quick, sharp tone, but not unkindly. ‘¢We must report every word you say; and least said the better in such cases. Come quickly! and we'll treat you as* well as we know how.” ‘‘T will go with you,”’ said Lovell, calmly and with dignity. ‘I had no thought of resisting your authority. I have nothing to fear from an accusation so bold that it carries its own refutation. But one favor, I implore you! Let me take her body from the water !”’ ‘‘ Impossible, sir. Sorry to refuse you ; but we really couldn’t do it. All that will be attended to by the proper authori- ties,”’ Harvey turned a last despairing look of mute farewell on his dead bride—for his bride he had always called her in his heart—and, with a groan of anguish he was powerless to suppress, accompanied his captors back toward the town. As soon as the exciting news reached Chester, a crowd of people followed the policemen who were sent to the pond in the woods, and the body of the dead woman was taken from the water and re- ceived proper care; Lovell having, in the meantime, been lodged in the county jail. On the following day an inquest was held, and half a dozen persons swore to the identity of the drowned woman with the missing Ellen Garnett. A verdict to that effect was returned; the body was buried in the pretty, old-fashioned ceme- tery, beside the grave of Mrs. Garnett ; and Harvey Lovell was fully committed for trial on suspicion of a most cruel mur- der. The trial began almost immediately, having been set down for the earliest date possible, and being hurried on by popular 47
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48 A WOMAN’S WAY. indignation. In his imprisonment, Lov- ell’s deepest grief, apart from that caused by the loss of his betrothed, was the bitter knowledge that he could not follow her body to the grave, and mourn for her as a bereaved husband. It seemed at first impossible to rouse him to a sense of his own danger. To him the accusation was so outrageous as to seem trivial ; he could not regard it as serious; while in his in- most soul he half wished that he might be found guilty; because, in paying the pen- alty with his life, he would thus be en- abled to rejoin his dead love. But his counsel was unceasing in the effort to rouse him, and at Jength succeeded in imbuing him with a fitting horror of the terrible stigma attached to him by the suspicion of such an atrocious crime. Harvey roused himself, and became in- terested in the effort to prove his in- nocence—since it was really doubted. His chief accuser, and chief witness against him on the trial, was Mr. Morley— the man who called himself Ellen Gar- nett’s cousin. To Lovell’s mind—and of course he communicated his thoughts to his counsel—the circumstance of astranger and a foreigner claiming relationship with Ellen Garnett, (an adopted child, and supposed to have neither relatives nor friends out of the place where she had passed her life) was in itself suspicious. But Morley explained his relationship to Ellen, or, rather, his discovery of it, in a very simple manner. He had met the young lady accidentally, and being struck with her extraordinary resemblance to a member of his family, he had made bold to introduce himself, and inquire her name and antecedents, and by her answers he had become convinced of her relationship to himself, as she had, also, been convinced of the same on listening to his story. Shortly afterward she had announced her attention to return to Chester, in order to tell Harvey Lovell the secret of her parentage, and to break off her engagement with him, which that secret had rendered an impossibility. As her nearest relative, Morley added, he had insisted on accompanying her. During the voyage, Morley went on to say, Miss Garnett had confessed to him that she had already written to Lovell ; of the contents of her letter he was ig- norant, but judged of its nature from the despair she experienced in having written it, and she had told him, further, tha she so feared its effect on Mr. Lovell tha she felt it necessary to come in person and explain more fully her motives for breaking off the engagement. Arrived in Chester, her sole and imme. diate desire was for a personal interview with Lovell; and, against her cousin's advice, she had insisted on setting forth with that object in view on the very evening of their arrival. From that hour she had not been seen alive. Joe Hurlbut’s testimony corroborated all that Morley had said regarding Ellen Garnett from the time of her arrival until her subsequent going out and dis- appearance. It was clear, even to Harvey Lovell, that Morley’s story, corroborated as it was in its most important details by Joe Hurlbut’s testimony, and strengthened by other matters, trifling in themselves, formed, when added together, an appall- ing chain of circumstantial evidence. Morley’s testimony was, of course, most injurious to the prisoner; but Harvey felt that in everything this man said or did, in the expression of his face, even in the sound of his voice, there was malignant personal enmity towards him; and the certainty that this was so helped to strengthen his determination to prove his own innocence. At the inquest it had been proven that the body of the drowned woman had lain in the water a long time—therefore the suspicion that Harvey had murdered her but a short time previous to his arrest was successfully combatted at once. The servants of Judge Plunkett, and _ that gentleman himself, testified that Ellen Garnett had not come to Judge Plunkett's house, and that Harvey had not left the house at any time during the evening when she was said to have sought him; and as Lovell kept a journal almost every hour of his time could be satisfactorily accounted for from the time of Miss Garnett’s disappearance up to the period of his arrest. The accused man was ably defended ; and at the end of a trial which was the longest and most intensely interesting that had ever taken place in Chester,
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A WOMAN'S WAY. 49 Harvey was honorably acquitted, and restored to liberty. For a time Harvey’s liberty oppressed him. He felt that he would rather have died to rejoin his dead; and although his acquittal had been full and entire he could not free himself from the fear that he was regarded with suspicion, and the thought that perhaps some persons even still believed him a murderer, grew into a haunting, morbid fancy. He knew that there was but one way to root this feeling from his mind, and that was to bring home the crime to its real perpetra- tor. Justice, also, demanded this from him, for to whom, if not to him, belong- ed the task of discovering the foul murderer of his dead darling? Another mystery required to be made clear, also ; and that was to find an explanation of the last letter received from her—that long-wished for, anxiously expected letter which had come when she was already cold and dead ; and which had stricken him with a blow only less terrible than the subsequent finding of her dead body. Harvey’s first step was to seek out Morley, and acquaint himself with all the particulars of his alleged relationship with Miss Garnett, together with the reason why she had desired to break off her engagement with himself. That this was true he knew from Ellen’s own letter, or he would not have believed it merely on Morley’s assertion; but when he sought this interview it was already too late—Morley was gone, and had left no clue by which he might have been traced. IV. ON THE SAD SEA WAVES. This was a blow to Harvey, and for the time he was crippled in the carrying out of his intentions. But one day Judge Plunkett died ofa fit of apoplexy, and by his death Lovell suddenly found himself raised to affluence. Everyone in Chester knew Judge Plunkett to be in particularly easy circumstances; but no one had sup- posed him to be the possessor of great wealth, which turned out to be the case. Everything was left to Harvey, uncon- ditionally ; and by a letter especially ad- dressed to him it appeared as if the old gentleman had anticipated a sudden death. In this letter, after enjoining Harvey to use his new wealth precisely as he might wish, he particularly desired that every possible effort might be made to penetrate the mystery of Ellen Garnett’s death. Harvey Lovell put his affairs in order— regularity and methcd being a portion of his existence—and, in less than a month after his uncle’s death, he was on the deck of a steamer, outward-bound. Up to this time the necessity for action had sustained him ; but now that he was tem- porarily deprived of the opportunity for effort—now that he had to remain passive, and for days and days glide along life’s pathway without exertion, the varied and painful events that had recently marked his existence, began to tell on his physical condition. On the third day out he completely succumbed, and took to his bed. As the physician emerged from Har- vey’s state-room, on the second day of his illness, he was met, almost at the door, by a tall and brilliant American girl. This young lady was Miss Frances Lor- rimer, known among her intimate friends as Frank Lorrimer, because the name fitted her so well; for she was so thoroughly frank and outspoken in man- ner, so entirely above board and inde- pendent in character. Miss Lorrimer was a Boston girl, a great heiress and a belle. Without being strictly handsome she had always borne the reputation of a beauty ; and she possessed the rare merit of becoming handsomer and more attrac- tive the oftener she was seen, and the longer she was known. She was above the usual height, of a somewhat slender, but admirably proportioned figure ; her hair, of a bright, brownish auburn, was long, abundant, and, when unbound, rippled softly into waving curls ; her brows and eyelashes were very dark; her eyes large and of the most clear and brilliant blue, looking like sapphires with the light shining through them. Her complexion was a clear brunette, brightly suffused with color on the rounded cheeks, and still further contrasted by the vivid crim- son of the lips, rendered in their turn more brilliant by the flashing of teeth like orient pearls. The nose was the nonde- script feature of her face—it was not straight, neither was it rétroussé; but, charmingly and _ characteristically ir-
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50 A WOMAN'S WAY. regular, it gave an expression of great piquancy to the face. ‘¢Dr. Gordon,’’ said Miss Lorrimer, with her customary directness, ‘‘I am afrafd that gentleman is very ill. I observed him some days ago, and his looks alarm me. The more so as his face interests me.” ‘¢You are right in your surmises, Miss Lorrimer. The gentleman is very ill. However, I feel certain he will rally. He is a man with an object in view, and that is a great sustainer of life. At pres- ent he is suffering chiefly from being obliged to keep quiet—he can do noth- ing in furtherance of his object on board of this vessel.’”’ ‘¢But how do you know all this?” Miss Lorrimer interrupted, witha smile. ‘¢ Has he made you hisconfidant, or have you learned it merely by your medical faculty for detecting maladies ?”’ ‘¢ He has confided nothing to me, ex- cept a description of his physical sensa- tions. But, knowing who he is, I have been able from close observation to guess at much in regard to his private feelings and intentions.’’ Afteramoment’s pause headded: ‘‘ His name is Lovell—Harvey Lovell. You have probably heard of him ?”’ Miss Lorrimer started violently, and her interest was more strongly evident; although she became quite pale on first hearing Lovell’s name. ‘<I have heard thename,”’ she answered, promptly. ‘But can this be the same person ?”’ ‘The same—the hero of the Chester trial. It made an unusual sensation, so, no doubt, you are familiar with the par- ticulars.”’ ‘* Yes, I read the newspaper reports with great interest; and, from the first, I was strongly impressed with a belief in Mr. Lovell’s innocence. I was almost morbid on the subject. And this, then, is Mr. Lovell—poor fellow.” From that day Miss Lorrimer was an anxious enquirer after Harvey’s health ; and as soon as he had rallied from his prostration sufficiently to appear on deck again, she asked Dr. Gordon to present his interesting patient. When Frank Lorrimer took a fancy for anyone, it seldom happened that she failed to inspire an answering regard for herself. The one woman of Harvey Lovell’s whole life had been Ellen Garnett. Un.’ til the event happened which caused them to understand their feelings, and changed them at once from friends to passionate lovers. They had been such close confi. dants that almost every thought they pos- sessed was held in common; and, on making the acquaintance of Miss Lorri- more, Harvey found that she attracted him somewhat in the same way. But when he took himself to task for permit. ting his feelings to become interested in any woman, save his dead love, he soon acquitted himself of any blame. For, on cross-examination, he found that it would be impossible for him ever to entertain any feeling warmer than friendship for her or for any woman, save the one to whom his heart and troth had been plighted. For that very reason he drifted into a more rapid friendship for Miss Lorrimer than he would otherwise have : done. Indeed, it would have been chur- lish to have received the young lady’s advances in any spirit save that in which they were offered—that of frank but deli- catesympathy. Andashe wasstill weak, ill, and nervous, the sisterly kindness of Miss Lgrrimer’s manner was doubly grateful. With exquisite tact she had managed to make him feel that she knew his story, and accepted the verdict of his innocence as a matter of course. And Harvey, who was far from being a gushing person, or one given to sudden confidence, felt his customary reserve depart from him in this instance. Although he entered into no detailed narrative regarding himself, it followed, naturally enough, that he re- ferred frequently to his peculiar experi- ence, and Miss Lorrimer thus became familiar with the names of all those per- sons who had exercised any influence upon his life. We are nearing Queenstown, Mr. Lo- vell, Frank Lorrimer said, on the last day of their voyage together. I hope this will not be the end of our acquaintance. _ Papa likes you so much, and I feel as a sister to you—”’ **T am sure you have proved that, Miss Lorrimer, and I can never forget it, or feel sufficiently grateful.”’
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A WOMAN'S WAY. . 51 Many friendly remarks, somewhat in the nature of farewell, were then ex- changed. The Lorrimers intended to remain in Ireland for some time, while Harvey pro- posed to go direct to Liverpool, and thence to London. So they parted at Queens- town, and much as they had learned to esteem and regard each other, neither Frank Lorrimer nor Harvey Lovell had any presentiment telling how closely their future lives would be woven together. V. SIR ROBERT WILFORD, That the young Countess of Beresford was a very clever woman had become an accepted fact in the aristocratic circle of English society. As a pretty country girl, with her fair face and graceful figure for her only dower, she had captivated the fancy, and won the respect and love of the Earl of Beresford, who had -mar- ried her, notwithstanding the entreaties of the whole Beresford tribe that he must ‘refrain from casting so dark a shadow on the fair escutcheon of his spotless house. Having married pretty Mary Fairbanks, the Earl of Beresford carried his bride to Paris, where she was presented to the Emperor and Empress of the French, ard where, by virtue of her matchless complexion—which excelled in beauty even that of the then peeriess Eugénie— her golden hair, and the easy, simple grace of her manners, she at once became the reigning belle. Before they returned to England the Earl of Beresford took his young countess on a somewhat ex- tended tour of the Continent; and when, after an absence of nearly two years, they returned to their native land, the noble dames who came forward condescendingly to patronize the plebeian Countess were fain to fall back on their old names and long ancestry as a shield against the beauty, brilliance, grace and wit of this dazzling intruder in their ranks. The men adored Lady Beresford ; her beauty and sweetness took them captive at once; and the women very soon ac- knowledged her power, for to her other gifts she added a rare tact, and before the end of her first: London season she had, by common consent, taken the lead, and she soon showed herself clever enough to keep it. Lady Beresford was the fashion, and to possess the entrée to her drawing-room was a letter of introduction to every other house in London. It was toward the end of the season, and Lady Beresford was entertaining a select and brilliant assemblage compris- ing many of the highest rank and fashion of her own aristocratic set, together with celebrities, native and foreign, men and women of genius in the fine arts, anda few American friends who had come to her with letters of introduction from mutual acquaintances. Among these latter were Mr. Lorrimer and his daugh- ter; they were, indeed, friends of some years’ standing, having met the young Countess in Switzerland when she was abroad on her wedding tour. On occa- sions like the present they were always to be found among Lady Beresford’s guests, the two ladies being of an age on the occasion of their first meeting, having entered into a romantic friend- ship which had never cooled in its ardor since both parties to it were of an equally warm and loyal nature. Miss Lorrimer was looking brilliantly handsome as she leaned on her father’s arm while they made a tour of the room after saluting their hostess. Asa belle and an heiress Miss Lorrimer might have had an extensive choice of cavaliers; but she showed an old-fashioned preference for her father. Asthey proceeded slowly on their way, receiving and returning greetings, and occasionally stopping for some minutes’ conversation with some friend, Miss Lorrimer suddenly gave her father’s arm a gentle pinch, while she whispered hurriedly. ‘¢ Look, papa, dear—there is our fellow- passenger! I didn’t expect to meet him here; but I’m sure I am not mistaken in that pale, handsome face and sad brow.”’ ‘¢ Where, my dear ?—of whom are you speaking? O, I see—the gentleman now talking to Lady Beresford. Yes, it és Mr. Lovell, and he sees us too—I am very glad we should meet again. He’s a fine young fellow !”’ Harvey had seen and recognized the Lorrimers almost at the same moment that they had discovered him; and as soon as his greeting with his hostess had been exchanged he sought his friends;
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52 A WOMAN’S WAY. and the three shook hands with all the eager heartiness peculiar to Americans who meet abroad. ‘Is this your first appearance at Lady Beresford’s?’’ Miss Lorrimer inquired. ‘Yes, I brought a letter of introduction from some charming people I met in Paris, and her ladyship was good enough to ask me to-night. I have spent a couple of weeks on the continent, since we parted at Queenstown.”’ ‘‘Ah—I have often wondered that we had not met you somewhere before now— that accounts for it. But I understood that you intended going direct to London when we bade you good-bye.” ‘I did so. I think I mentioned to you that I was in search of a lady—a Mrs. De Grey. But perhaps you have forgotten—and I must not bore you with my private affairs, especially here and now.” Frank Lorrimer raised her star-like eyes with a look of eloquent reproach, and her father said, heartily, ‘‘You can never bore us in any way, Mr .Lovell—neither myself or Frank—on the contrary, we are proud of your confidence.”’ ‘*You are very good, sir,’’ Harvey re- turned; and his eyes mutely thanked Miss Lorrimer, who answered the look half-playfully. ‘‘ Ungrateful man! so far from being bored, or having forgotten the lady’s name, I bore it in mind, and made inqui- ries regarding Mrs. De Grey of my friend, Lady Beresford, who knows every one. But tell me, first, did you find the lady? for I suppose it was in quest of her that you went abroad.’’ ‘‘It was in quest of her, and, unhap- pily, I did not find her, nor any trace of her.”’ ‘Well, don’t be discouraged. Any one can be found in these days, especially a person of sufficient consequence to be known to the Countess of Beresford.” ‘But does the Countess know this lady ?”’ ‘¢ She knows a Mrs. De Grey, an inva- lid lady, who travels much, accompanied by a confidential maid and a companion. Now that seems, in part, a description of the lady you told me of. The same name, too.’’ ‘*O pray, Miss Lorrimer,”’ said Har- vey, ‘‘ allow me to call on you to-morrow, as early as you can receive me. I cannot speak on the subject so near to my heart here, among this crowd of strangers.”’ ‘¢Of course, you shall come to me to. & morrow, at any hour you please. I shall remain at home all day, and no other visitor shall be admitted. Papa, give Mr, Lovell our address.”’ Mr. Lorrimer obeyed, and Harvey poured forth his eager, grateful thanks, He then shook hands with father and daughter, and was about to turn away to leave them for the moment, when, in the crowd, he was suddenly propelled with some violence against a gentlemen a step or two in front of him. Harvey hastened to apologize, and was proceeding to explain the cause of his seeming awkwardness, when the person to whom his words were addressed turned— apparently at the sound of Harvey’s voice —and the young man was ahsolutely ap- palled at the expression of the man’s face —the savage scowl of the heavy brows, the look of fury in the eyes, which actu. ally glared upon him. He was _ half. inclined to laugh at the same time at having aroused such a tempest of rage by an accident so trivial, so unavoidable in acrowd. His natural politeness triumphed, however; and he hastened to add some words of explanation to his hurried apology. The only reply vouchsafed him was a half-audible curse, as the man turned his back upon him in the most ungracious manner. Harvey glanced quickly at Miss Lorti- mer, hoping she had not observed, or, at least, had not heard the extreme inciv- ility of this boorish person. But the flush upon her cheek, and the expression of her face, told him at once that she had both seen and heard all that passed. Harvey returned to her side at once, and expressed his regret for having been the innocent cause of such an unpleas- antness. ‘¢T am shocked,’’ Miss Lorrimer said, as her glance followed the man, who presently disappeared in the throng of people. ‘‘I could not have supposed it possible that Sir Robert Wilford could be guilty of such ill-breeding. I have hith- erto known him only asa model of polite- ness and fine manners.”’
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A WOMAN’S WAY. 53 «¢ Oh, then you know the—gentleman ?”’ ‘ Yes, he is quite an old acquaintance.”’ ‘‘On that ground, then, I will forgive him,’”’ Harvey said lightly. ‘‘No doubt something quite out of the common run of things has put your friend out of temper. But what did you call him? For do you know, Miss Lorrimer, the odd thing about the matter is, to me, that there is something strangely familiar in that man’s face and voice. And yet I cannot remember ever having met him anywhere before this evening.” ‘‘I scarcely think you can have met him before,’’ Miss Lorrimer replied, and as she spoke she dropped her father’s arm . —leaving him in conversation with some one who just then claimed his attention —and slipping her slender gloved hand within Harvey Lovell’s arm they pro- ceeded on a slow promenade while she continued to speak. ‘‘His name is Sir Robert Wilford, and he is not acommon- place person—you would have been likely to remember him if you had ever met before. He's rather a favorite with papa —a man’s man, you know, and rathera favorite with ladies, too, though you would scarcely think so from what you have seen of him to-night. He often dines with us, and when we were in Europe last we visited at his place in the country. A lovely place—a regular old- fashioned English country seat. It is called Oakley Manor, and Miss Wilford —a perfectly lovely old maid sister of Sir Robert’s—presides over the establish- ment, for the Baronet is unmarried, al- though so rich and already middle-aged.” ‘‘Then his conduct is more than ever extraordinary,’’ Harvey said, with a half laugh, and disposed to dismiss a perplex- ing and disagreeable topic. ‘‘ But of course he didn’t recognize you, Miss Lorrimer—perhaps he didn’t even see that I was in company with a lady at the unlucky moment of our encounter.”’ ‘¢But he did, Mr. Lovell—that is what makes his conduct more inexcusa- ble. He looked directly in my face as he turned away from you. I even thought he bowed to me, but of course I did not return it.” ‘¢Then he must have taken some very sudden antipathy to me to have so utterly forgotten himself. And, for the matter of that, I more than reciprocate the sen- timent. I never saw any face, save one! which inspired in me such instantaneous dislike, and he strangely resembles—ah ! good Heavens! Can it be possible? Yes, I am zo¢ mistaken, it is—Lovell paused strangely, pressing his compan- ion’s arm so tightly within his own as almost to force an exclamation of pain from her. ‘*Are you ill?’ she asked, in alarm, noting his changing countenance and sudden extreme pallor. ‘‘No, I am not ill. you said was —”’ ‘¢ Sir Robert Wilford—but never mind him. You are not well—how pale you are, and you tremble.” ‘¢No, Miss Lorrjmer, no, I am not ill. But I have had a shock,”’ he continued speaking, but more to himself, than as if addressing his companion. ‘‘ True, the name is different, and he wore a beard ; but the eyes, the expression—I could swear it is the same.” ‘*You are raving, Mr. Lovell,’’ said the young lady, herself vaguely agitated. ‘« But, come, let us return to papa—pray control yourself. People are staring at us, and no wonder.”’ ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Lorrimer, I am to blame,” and, with a great effort, Lovell assumed a manner of indifference, and outward calm, which he was very far from feeling, while he continued in a low voice, ‘* I know you will forgive me when you understand the reason of my emotion. You know my painful story, and perhaps you recollect that at the time of my trial the principal evidence against me was furnished by a man named Morley. Since then I have felt convinced that this man was himself, directly or otherwise, the perpetrator of the fiendish crime for which I was arrested and put on trial. I have sought him unceasingly, wherever I have set foot since then, and you will understand my almost uncontrollable feel- ings when I tell you that in this man, whom you call Sir Robert Wilford, I rec- ognize my bitterest enemy, my relentless persecutor, Morley, the murderer of Ellen Garnett.” ‘Mr. Lovell, it is impossible.” ‘No, dear friend,’’ Harvey replied in a low, most earnest voice, ‘‘it is not im- This man’s name
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COLUMBIA, possible, although to you I know it must seem very incredible. But I feel—I know, that Iam not mistaken. When I last saw that villain he was disguised, but his voice and eyes; ah! they have be- trayed him. But I will say no more just now. Indeed, I could not control myself if I were to go more deeply into the sub- ject. You have promised to see me to- morrow, and I will say nothing more till Columbia, THE FREE. then. Adieu for to-night. I will take you to Mr. Lorrimer; and, for myself, I will seek out our hostess and say good- bye. Iam unfit to remain longer in this gay, bright scene. And having threaded their way through the crowd till they reached Mr. Lorrimer, Harvey left Frank in her father’s care. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Che Free, BY DACE GOODELL. CgeAIR England hath its sunny homes, of. Where care and trouble seldom comes; ©} >__ And on the hills of vine-c ad France, The happy shepherds sing and dance; In bright Italia’s sunny glade, That seem for love and friendship made, Full many a fair and lovely one, Joys when at last her labor’s done; But none so happy there I ween, As in Columbia’s joyous scene. E’en Araby, the blessed land, Hath not upon its desert strand More maidens fair, or warriors brave, Than thou, America, dost have. But though the islands of the sea, Of Ind, or land-girt Caribee, May richer be in gems and gold, In wealth unnumbered and untold, Yet still our homes more happy are, Than aught in foreign lands afar. But happier far than bird or bee, Than fish, or insect gay and free, Is he who claims for his sweet home, The land of our brave Washington. Though others claim more fame of war, Peace reigns throughout our every law. No prison walls or dungeon deep Holds in its never-ending sleep The form and name of those who dared To mourn the tyranny he shared. Our fathers brave here fought and bled, That on their children might be shed, That which with neither lands or gold, Can e’er be bought, or ever sold; The right our conscience to obey, To seek ourselves the heavenly way, To live as God has meant we should, In striving still to do some good ; To be to all around as just As we’d have others be to us, The insects lead a joyous life, No toil or trouble, sin or strife ; And little birds who, all the spring, From spray or branch forever sing ; The cattle on the thousand hills, Who seek at noon the shady rills, Enjoy sweet converse all the day, And sadly wait the sun’s last ray ; E’en crawling reptiles on the ground, In lively moods are sometimes found. All hail! Columbia, happy land! And sisters of our union band! In friendship’s chain so closely bound, Whose like on earth shall ne'er be found! We love thy hills and pleasant vales, Thy rivers, and thy snow-white sails, Flying before the evening breeze, Thy towns, thy cities, and thy fields, And more than all the freedom given, When the fell tyrant’s chain was riven. Hail to thy statesmen bold and brave, Thy scholars and thy rulers grave, Thy artists and thy poet band, Renowned in every foreign land! But most of all thy founder’s sage, Who freely opened learning’s page, That all might turn from folly’s side, And drink from wisdom’s living tide Long may thy. children happy be, And thou thyself from tumult free!
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Gossip. BY HENRY BARTRO, JR. ” die Nov. 23, 1887. SA) EAREST LIL: } What ridiculous fad do » yousuppose Dr. Eaton has gotin his head now! Why, he says that I ‘* havetrans- gressed the laws of health and common sense,”’ and I am to be forced to re- main here in the strictest seclusion for three months! Iam to go to bed at nine and get up at eight. I am not tohave company. Iam not to go to parties, balls, dinners, teas; not even to achurch sociable. Iamtoeat only what this Grand Mogul willallow. Iam even to be deprived of chocolate creams, with- out which I am not! O, truly the way of the ‘* transgressor’’ is hard! Why, I shall be melancholy mad before the end of three months ! And as if my woes were not already greater than mortal could bear, there must needs come a summonsfor Jack to go over to London at once to wind up the affairs of some inconsiderate old relative who has taken this highly inconvenient time to wind up his career ! . O, what shall I do without my sweet- heart! Pity me. I am too wretched to write any more. MARGARET. REDGATE, Nov. 30, 1887. Dear Lit: There is a legend extant in our family of a school friend of mamma’s, who remarked to her on the occasion of the departure of her other half for China, ‘‘O, Mary, were it not for pens, ink and paper, separation from Mr. Smith would be intolerable.’’ So I can remark that separation from Mr. Prince would be intolerable, were it not for Charles Augustus. Sounds odd, does it not, to hear the two names used in full? But he belongs to an old fashioned race, and they cling to old customs and manners. His mother is an old friend of the family ; he has been with us some little time now, but I was so taken up with the wedding that I forgot to mention his presence. You can’t think what a blessing he is in this benighted place where a man would as soon think of walking the ridge- pole of his barn as calling on a woman. But I don’t know but it is just as well, considering. He is very dark, and “inclined to be stout.’”” He is younger than myself, I am sorry to say; but he is so grave and sedate one would hardly notice the cif- ference in our ages. He is a mining engineer, and pursues his studies with particular reference to tunneling. He is perfectly adorable, and I do wish you might behold him. I don’t conform strictly to Dr. Eaton’s rules. We have a little dinner party every Wednesday, just a few friends out from town, or a neighborhood gathering with dinner atone. We have great larks. It is very seldom that we admit any men, so we cannot always have the presence of dearest Charles Augustus; but men or no men, we make the house ring. Mason does the cooking one week, and Mollie’s Frenchman the next, that being the only way we could secure any peace. As each triesto out do the other, you may imagine that we have many dainty dishes that are fitto set before the king. I eat every thing that is set before me, and ask no questions, regardless of Dr. Eaton’s injunctions. Then once in a while I steal into town of an evening to a quiet little card-party, or some nice concert. The Dr. caught me at a concert night before last, and I had to take a most fearful lecture in con- sequence of my rash act. Did I tell you that Miss Griswold is staying with us? You know it is simply impossible for mamma to exist here for any length of time, so she sent for Miss Griswold and feels perfectly safe in leaving me under her protecting wing when she flits off to Boston or Brooklyn. Will you observe how I converse of chaperones. Would not one think me
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56 GOSSIP. seventeen instead of twenty-seven? Alas! how difficult it is for us poor spinsters to understand and accept the fact that we have left many foot-prints on the sands of time! Miss Griswold has her eye on Dr. Eaton. He is here constantly,so she has many opportunities to try her fascinations upon him. Miss Griswold doesn’t know any- thing about Jack, and evidently considers me a dangerousrival. Asa consequence, it affords me infinite amusement to flirt with, or rather at the doctor; for one might as well try to flirt with a stone post. Sheis aware of my predilection for men who have passed their first youth, so to her this grave dark man of forty-five seems eminently calculated to engage my affections. Poor thing! I’ll tell her about Jack presently. I really thought my heart was broken when Jack went; but he has been gone for four days now, and [still live. Ihave had two letters from him, and he is to write every day. He writes charming letters. I am advised to take much exercise in the open air, and as the snow has thus far kept off in the most accommodating man- ner, [imbibe muchoxygendaily. Charles Augustus is my constant companion in my tramps about the farm. He com- bines pleasure and profit, on same oc- casions by applying his mining tactics on asmall scale. I dare say we shall turn up a gold-mine some fine day. He is very agreeable company, but sometimes there creeps over me a sense of something wanting. Now, to-day, I was wondering, as we wandered through the Lower Field (you remember?) if he were able to appreciate the beautiful views everywhere around us. I don’t kno-v quite what to think of him yet. He is not mich of a talker, and so one does not learn much of his innermost thoughts and feelings. I can fancy Tom saying just here, with his usual brotherly frank- ness, that the fact that Charles Augustus is not much of a talker is doubtless the reason of my apparent affection for him, in that I can therefore do all the talking myself! I shall treat his ill-timed levity with the silent contempt that it deserves. Good-bye, dear. Do write soon to your loving sister, MARGARET STORER. REDGATE, Dec. 7, 1887. DEARLY BELOVED: I seem to live in an atmosphere of romance. The air is oppressive at times, so heavily is it charged with the same. I am really be- ginning to be alarmed. The devotion of Charles Augustus to myself is appalling. He is with me on every possible occa- sion, and gazes at me by the hour to- gether, with all his soul in his eyes. I supposed of course he had seen how the land lay between Jack and myself; but it seems, from what I can gather from him, that he has no knowledge whatever of my engagement! O, do you suppose it is my duty to undeceive him? To nip his tender passion in the bud? I fear it will look very marked, as if I thought him seriously in love, when after all it may be only a passing amusement with him as with me. My pride and vanity has received a most terrific blow in the certainty that Dr. Eaton is really quite smitten with my most excellent duenna, when all the time I had been flattering myself that it was J who led him captive. This is ro- mance number two. And now another pretty little idyl is being enacted before my eyes in the shape of a most ‘‘ affectionate attachment ’’ be- tween my own dear Jane and John, the coachman. She has promised to be his, and at no very distant day, either. I have begged and implored her not to desert me in my hour of need; but my entreaties are of no avail. «¢Q, I shall feel so badly to leave you, Miss Margaret,’’ says Jane; ‘‘for you know how I have always loved you. And l assure you, Miss, were it not for the importunities of John I would never leave you.” I collapsed completely after that, and dared say no more. So now I have de- cided to accept the inevitable and help John in his pet project of opening a liv- ery stable in town. He has always been a ‘*good and faithful servant” and de- serves to be helped to help himself. He has a man in training to take his place, and he takes the utmost pains to acquaint him with every one of our whims and crotchets, so that we may not be annoyed by any mistakes and blunders. It will break my heart to lose Jane.
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i Oo na @ —S 8B ee You remember what a sweet and ladylike girlshe is? She was brought up ina convent and her language and manners are really elegant. However, I think it will interest me extremely to get her clothes and her wedding gown; and as I am to furnish a little house for them in town, I have concluded that there is no great loss without some gain in the way of amusement. O, did I tell you that Geoffrey Belden has come? In some miraculous manner he was saved and has come back to his own true love. I believe that Mrs. Craven has surrendered at discretion, and that they are soon to be the happiest of the happy! Doesn’t it seem too good to be true? And still another affair of the heart re- mains to be chronicled. I have had a visit from my little dude that I met at Maud Hyatt’s luncheon. He established himself at the hotel in town, and came here first one afternoon about five o’clock. Of course he stayed to dinner, and dur- ing the evening he made himself very entertaining, and I really enjoyed seeing him. He was here quite constantly for three or four days, and just as I was de- pending upon him to vary the monotony of my existence he spoiled it all by tell- ing me the ‘‘old, old, story.” I was very sorry for him. He was very manly and straightforward, and as he forgot to drawl I found that he had a very sweet voice. But then I don’t doubt he will soon get over it. Charles Augustus has just come in and sits quite silent waiting for me to finish my writing. He certainly has most pol ished manners. Oh, I feel that it is wicked of me to let this go on, if he really loves me as I think he does! True, he has never told me his love; but the language of the eyes is stronger and more impressive than any mere vocal utterance. But why this flut- tering of my own heart at the bare thought of his loving me! Oh,can it be that in his absence my heart is being turned from its allegiance to Jack! I have feared that I do not take the interest that I should in hisletters. Perhaps it is because they are not as nice as they were, he having hurt his right hand, and being, therefore, obliged to dictate them to his GOSSIP. 57 man. Yes, of course, that is the reason— there can be no other. Charles Augustus has just seated him- self by my side with a sigh born of con- tentment, seemingly happy only to be near me. Oh, where is it all to end! Yours lovingly, MARGARET. REDGATE, Dec. 15, 1887. Dear Liu:—What an awfully reprov- ing little letter I received from you yester- day, my dear infant. One would take you to be lecturing me from the exalted platform of half a century of experience instead of not quite a quarter. And where, pray, did you gain all this worldly wisdom? Surely your heart can never have been torn by such doubts and fears? Ah ! Lil, I most sincerely wish I could profit by your good advice; but I fear that matters have gone too far for me to turn back now. The thought of blighting Jack’s life grieves me to the heart; but think how much greater the ruin I should bring upon Charles Augustus! And hesoyoung and happy now ! O, why can we not control these way- ward hearts of ours! I have eased Miss Griswold’s mind as to my designs upon Dr. Eaton. She ac- tually wept for joy when I announced to her my engagement to Jack, and she in turn confided to me the secret of her affection for Dr. Eaton. I have promised to aid her in every possible way, so don’t say that I am utterly heartless. She is a dear old thing, after all—not so very much older than myself, either—and, if she succeeds in capturing her elderly admirer I willgive them my blessing most heartily. The true love of John and Jane is run- ning smoothly thus far. They are to be married at Christmas, and everything is to be done in the highest style. On Thursday I eluded the eternal vigilance of Dr. Eaton and went to Boston to finish my purchases for the new house. It cer- tainly is an awfully cute little place, if I did do it myself. Of course there’s nothing elegant or expensive in it, but it’s all neat and pretty and fresh. I really shouldn’t mind living in it myself. I took Jane with me on Thursday and we
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58 GOSSIP. had the gayest time buying the things. It was all for the kitchen that we got them. If there’s anything I adore it’s new tins. They shine and sparkle so I wanted to keep them myself, and I told Jane I didn’t believe I should let her have them after all. Well she has certainly a good kitch- en outfit, if nothing more. I am going to dine with her the week after she is mar- ried. , I hope Tom behaves with the dignity becoming the head of the family. ‘Train him up in the way he should go; I beg of you. Good. bye, little sister-in-law, and don’t write me any more scolding letters. The subject of my next discourse will be Jane’s nuptials. Yours always, MARGARET STORER. REDGATE, Dec. 31, 1887. DearEsT Lit: I have safely married off another of my proteges, and now I am resting on my laurels. Everything went off beautifully. Jane looked as sweet and pretty as could be in a hand- some brown satin and velvet, with velvet jacket and hat to match. They were married at church in town at twelve, and held a reception afterward in their new abode, during which I flirted with his holiness the priest in the most desperate manner. Don’t be shocked, dear. He was certainly very nice—young, hand- some and an American. He _ knows everything under the sun, I think, and he does speak French like an angel. I wonder if that zs the celestial language ? I was there all the day before, and went over that morning, coming home only in season to dress. The house looked verynice. The parlor is furnished in red, and has an open fireplace. I had a bright blaze, and I brought over lots of flowers and plants from the conserva- tory, so that the effect was charming on a bright, sharp day. The dining-room is about as big as one of my Saratogas; but we managed toserve from it a ‘‘ bountiful collation” of bread, tongue, ham, ices and cake. It seemed as if all Ireland were there, and the way the edibles vanished from mortal gaze was a caution. Fortunately, I had provided about six times as much as one would naturally consider enough, and I assure you that very few ‘‘ fragments” remained to be gathered up when the feast was over. I fancy that most of the company were very much disgusted be- cause the only liquids ‘‘ on tap’’ were tea and coffee. I heard one old woman remark that ‘‘ the stinginess of some folks is outrageous. ’’ Jane had some very pretty presents, both useful and ornamental. A great many of our friends who stay here so much sent her something, for every one likes her. And then you know we keep open carriage, if I may be allowed the expression, for so many people, that all our intimates know John. By the way, Aunt Jane sent her six nice blankets. She seems to have blankets on the brain, but I only hope she will do as well by me as she did by Mollie, for there’s nothing like a lot of blankets after alli. The afore-mentioned dissatisfied old woman went poking and sniffing about among the presents to see whom they were from, and she found no card bear- ing the name of Storer. ‘Sure and is yer misthresses that stingy that they niver give yez a’thing at ahl?’”’ All this at the top of her voice, you will under- stand. Poor Jane was so angry! She informed her forcibly but politely—for Jane is nothing if not polite—that we gave them the house, and all there was in it, and bought more than half John’s stock for him. The old woman sank down, quite breathless with astonishment ; but all the same she never will forgive me for not providing them with a ‘‘ dhrop of the crathur.”’ Jane is jubilant over the fact that the ‘¢ Republican ’’ devoted nearly a column to an account of the ‘‘ brilliant wedding.”’ I believe she has ordered about a hundred copies to send home to Ireland. I think that was the very nicest Christ- mas I ever passed. I had some very pretty presents, a lovely bracelet from Jack among them. . Charles Augustus made no offering at my shrine. I suppose he has no heart for such things since recent develop- ments. Yes, dear Lil, my better self has at last gained the ascendancy, and I have told him the facts of the case. I invited him to ride with me one day. He
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THE BAY MARE. 59 objected at first, and most strenuously ; but I overruled his objections and he went. Ifear he did not enjoy himself much however, especially after I told him about Jack. And he took itso strangely, too. He was quite calm, and answered never a word when I made my confession. But O, the expression of hopeless misery in his eyes! I have hardly seen him lately, I have been so busy; but mother says he is looking old and careworn. I really think that Miss Griswold’s ef- forts will be crowned withsucce's. The doctor is surely succumbing to her bland- ishments which are a study, even for me. I think he finds her quite irresistible, and there is every prospect that I shall have the opportunity to preside at another wedding before long. I have arrived at the conclusion that I have a most decided talent for weddings. Ifever I were to suffer reverses and de- sired to find some means to retrieve my fallen fortunes, I think I should set my- self up as a sort of wedding undertaker. Now don’t turn up your nose at that— why not an undertaker of weddings as well as an undertaker of funerals? Lots of love to you and dear old Tom, MARGARET STORER, REDGATE, Jan. 15, 1888. My Dearest GIRL: I am too happy to write you more than a few words. My own darling Jack has come home! He insists that we be mar- ried within a month; so it will not be very long before we meet, my dear. ‘¢ And Charles Augustus?’’ you ask. O, they killed him yesterday, and we had some of his liver fried for breakfast this morning. It broke my heart to have him die. He was very tame and intelli- gent, and we frequenty had him in the house; but Bennett insisted that he was the only one that was fit to kill. Yes, dear Lil, I have been romancing alittle for your benefit and my amuse- ment, during my temporary retirement from the wo1ld—Charles Augustus is, or rather was, a very handsome black pig. Yours penitently, MARGARET STORER, the last time that I shall sign that name for you. The Bay Mare. BY I. L. JONES. HAT, sell the old bay mare! Well, what do you takeme for? Why, I wouldn’t let her go For India’s gold, and more, YY) The reason? well then listen— My wife just loved that horse *Bove everything upon the place ; You knew my wife, of course? What, no? You knew I’d lost her? Ani—and—well, who can say How dear one’s wife is to him, Until she’s taken away. Vou. CXVIII—No. 5. Mine might have married higher ; The ’squire was real possessed To win the little woman, But she said she loved me best And I tried to make her happy, But now, what wouldn’t I give, If I’d only kissed her oftener While the good Lord let her live. There—there—forgive my weakness, I oughtn’t give in so; But the old bay mare,—you know how ’tis, I couldn’t let her go,
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Wictor Worton’s New Wears Gor. BY ELIZABETH CAMPBELL. T was New Year’s eve, and the weather was the right kind for the season. A coid, cutting wind was blowing from the north, laden with a fine snow that stung like needle points as it struck the faces of the men and women who thronged the streets, notwithstanding the bitter cold. But Victor Norton felt neither wind nor snow as he plunged along through the wintry storm ; for within his heart raged a fiercer storm, and the fire of indignation that coursed through his veins and tingled to the very tips of his fingers seemed hot enough to ward off the bitterest cold. Suddenly he stumbled against something, and only by an effort saved himself from falling headlong. An angry exclamation burst from him, and he would have hur- ried on, but for the words of apology that fell on his ear. ‘Forgive me, sir; but I couldn’t help it. I am so miserable !”’ The voice seemed to proceed from a shapeless bundle that was huddled on the sidewalk, and it trembled so that only the last word was quite audible to Mr. Norton. ‘¢ Miserable !’’ he repeated, scornfully, ‘¢is any one else miserable?’ They say misery loves company, so stand up brother in misery, if so you are, and tell me what is the matter. Perhaps we can comfort each other,’’ he added, with a sarcastic laugh. By this time the shapeless bundle had begun to move, and, slowly rising to its full height, looked up at Victor with a pair.of despairing eyes, and the young man fell back a pace and stared at it, almost as if an apparition had risen before him. ‘‘ Good Heavens!’’ he murmured, in a deeply shocked voice. ‘‘A little girl! Alone and homeless in the street on such anight. My poor child, have you lost your way? Tell me where you live and I will take you home.” ««T have no home,”’ said the little waif between her chattering teeth. ‘‘I ’spose the perlice will have to take me. I most wish they would, tho’ I’m mortal ’fraid of’em. But “’mso cold and so hu I hoped you was a perlice at first, tho’ I’m kinder glad now that you ain’t.” ‘¢Cold and hungry?”’ repeated Victor, ‘*Well, thank God! I can soon cure that,’’ and taking off his warm overcoat he wrapped it about the girl, covering her up from head to foot, and then as he caught sight of an empty carriage ap. proaching he hailed the driver, and with. out waiting for him to dismount tore open the door, lifted the child, half smothered in her warm wrap, into the carriage, and bade the driver take them to the nearest restaurant. It chanced to be a cheap but quiet and respectable eating-house before which the driver stopped, for he had already re- marked to himself, that ‘‘he believed the gent was a kidnappin’ the little gal, and he meant to keep an eye on him for fear it wasn’t all right.”” But his opinion of Victor considerably improved when the young man bade him wait, and subse- quently told him to drive to the house of a lady whose name was well known throughout the city for kindness and be- nevolence of every kind. Meantime, Victor had taken the little girl into the restaurant, and placed her at a table at the further end of the room, where they were comparatively isolated. ‘‘Now, you are to order everything you can think of,’’ he said kindly, as he freed the child’s hands from the overcoat, but left it still wrapped about the scantily covered shoulders. The little creature was bare-headed, save for her own lux- uriant but unkempt hair that fell over her forehead and eyes, though it was twisted in a loose, rough knot on the back of her head. Her wretched dress, such as it was, scarcely reached to her ankles, and her feet were at the mercy of cold and wet in their broken, tattered shoes. Victor, although a rich and elegant youth, was country-bred; and in all his life he had never seen such a picture of wretchedness. His heart ached to see it, and a moisture that did credit to his — re os Oo CO st mia oO sos oO @&
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VICTOR NORTON’S feelings, dimmed his eyes as they rested on the forlorn child, and the expression of eager delight that came into her face at the words he had just spoken. «Everything?”’ she repeated; ‘‘Oh, my! May I begin with an oyster stew, hot—boiling hot?”’ «Of course you may; but first tell me your name,”’ answered Victor with a new sense of enjoyment,—that of feeding the hungry. ‘‘Emmelyn,” returned the child; ‘‘I spose I have another name; but I never knew any other, and folks gener’ly calls me Emmy.”’ ‘“‘A pretty little name, too,”’ said Vic- tor, ‘‘ but I’m going to call you Emmelyn ; it has a strange musical sound, and fits you. And for the other name, suppose we say Hope; that’s a beautiful name, and you may hope for all sorts of pleasant things from this time forward; and now for the oysters to begin with; ’’ and sum- moning a waiter, he gave the little girl’s order, and added various suggestions which she was too timid or too inexperi- enced to think of for herself. Never in her wildest dreams of ban- quets—dreams to which she often gave way to beguile the hungry reality—had Emmelyn imagined such a dinner as that which she now consumed. Victor, sitting opposite, watched her with an interest and pleasure that, for the time, dulled the edge of his own suffering, whatever it was; but which he had thought was keener and more humiliating than man had ever known before ; and when the child at last leaned back in her chair, unable to eat another morsel, she met the gaze of this elegant young man fixed kindly though halt laughingly, on her happy face. ‘**Q, sir,’’ she exclaimed, sitting up- right as soon as she met his eyes, ‘I don’t know how tothank you ; but I'll live for years on the mem’ry of this supper.’’ ‘* Not a bit of it, Emmelyn,”’’ said Vic- tor, laughing, “ you shall have as good a one every day of your life from this time forward,—and now come along. The lady to whom Victor took. his ‘‘ find,’ as he called her, was his aunt ; and after he had told the child’s story, as well as he knew it, to her, he added: “‘She’s to be my charge, Aunt Julia, remember. It will be one good way of NEW YEAR’S BOX. 61 spending at least a part of the fortune a kind fate has given me—and if I rescue this girl from misery and add one good woman to the thousands of empty-hearted creatures who go by that name I shall feel that I have not lived quite in vain. But you must keep an account of all her ex- penses, mind, and I am to be charged with everything, if it is only a pair of gloves. And under your care I know she will grow up worthy of all I can do for her.” ‘¢Thank you, my dear; but what makes youso bitter against my poorsex to-night ?”’ ‘« Only that I have learned the truth of your words, Aunt Julia. You warned me against Edith May; but I would not listen to you. Well she has cured me of my in- fatuation to-night by a few laughing words. You know how I adored her—I told her so, altho’ she knew it too well already—I asked her to be my wife, and she laughed at me, saying she had only been amusing herself,—that I was no lon- ger amusing since I had grown tragic, and then she bade me “‘ good-night,”’ and went to dress for the opera.’ ‘¢ Well,” said Mrs. Malcom, gravely, and I can’t say.I am sorry, Victor. She was not the right sort of girl for your wife, and you’ll live to be glad she refused you to-night. ‘«Perhaps so, Aunt Julia,’’ said the young man with a sigh, and a bitter laugh ; ‘< but that’s too far in the future to com- fort me now. Good-night, and good- bye !”’ ‘‘ Where are you going?’’ asked Mrs. Malcom, anxiously. ‘‘O not to the riv- er, dear aunt—it’s toc cold—nor to any fcrm of dagger or poison. Don’t fear for me; though I was mad enough for any- thing until I stumbled over that dear lit- tle girl. She thinks I saved her life—I know she saved mine. And now good- bye, indeed.”’ Mrs. Malcom drew the angry, flushed, handsome face down to a level with her own, and then kissed it affectionately ; she said: ‘‘ You have my blessing, dear Victor, wherever you go, and good-bye.’’ It was a good-bye, too, but that bless- ing still clung to Victor through the many years that passed till he came back to the dear old aunt again. It was on another New Year’s Eve, five years later,
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VICTOR NORTON’S 62 a clear, cold, freezing afternoon, and the bells were ringing merrily along the street; but not more merrily and joyously than Victor Norton’s heart was beating as he clasped his Aunt Malcom to his heart, and kissed her as if he had been her son. *¢ How well you look !’’ she exclaimed, gazing with admiration into the bronzed and bearded face of the traveler, ‘‘ and how happy, and oh, my! Victor, how handsome! I must tell you so. Isup- pose it will turn your head to reccive such compliments from a gushing creature like me; but I can’t help it, dear.”’ “‘T’ll try to bear it, Aunt Julia,” laughed Victor. ‘‘And now whiere’s Emmelyn—where’s my little waif? You can’t think how interesting the thought of her has become! I have pictured her to myself a thousand times, and each time different, for you know all this time she has refused to send me the frintest sugges- tion of a picture of herself. But what letters she writes—ah! they were better than photographs! They seemed living, glowing paintings of herself and all about her—lI never read such letters in my life. I was half ashamed to ansyver them ; mine seemed so cold and commonplace by comparison.” ‘¢ Yes, she is wonderful,” said Mrs. Malcom, with a sigh of deep content. ‘«No human being has been so complete- ly satisfactory to me as Emmelyn. But you can’t see her now, Victor. This is New Year’s Eve, and we are giving a little party in honor of your return; and there is, I ¢hink there is a New Year’s box for you upon the tree.”’ ‘¢ Ah, well, I suppose I must wait,” sighed Victor. ‘Since I have waited so long, 1 supposeI can wait an hour longer.” And he accompanied his aunt into the front drawing-ruom, where a goodly num- ber of the guests had already assembied. The first familiar face on which Victor Norton’s gaze fell was that of Edith May. More beautiful than ever she looked ;_ but she might have been a figure in a fashion- plate for any effect she produced on him now. It was her heart that leaped with joy, and her eyes that flashed with glad- ness at meeting his gaze. But the flash faded, and her heart ached with a sudden mysterious pain at his quiet and unem- barassed greeting. Like many another NEW YEAR’S BOX. girl who had ‘‘ played with fire,” Edith had found herself worse scorched than she had gues.ed at first. But she thought she had only to smile on Victor, and bring him to her feet again with a glance since ‘¢the heart that loves truly never forgets,” and so forth. All true enough when the heart dces love truly; but Vic. tor had never really loved Euith at all, He soon bezan to suspect that such was the case, when the wound to his vanity healed, and contact with the world had worn off his morbid sensibility; and now he knewit. Of cour:e, in the first reac- tion, he had forsworn all love of woman, save what was fraternul and paternal; he declared to himself that all the really sweet and loveable girls whom he met now were as sisters to him, and toward one in particular, whom he only remembered as a great, dark-eyed, forlorn child of about twelve years, he anticipated deep and sacred pleasure in acting the part of father. As he often assured himself— and indeed he required a great deal of assuring—Victor felt very old. He was just twenty-eight, and if he could have found a grey hair or twoamong his sunny locks some morning it would have given him real pleasure. Ile was thinking this and other things of similar import while he made himself agreeable to his aunt’s guests, when suddenly the folding doors were thrown open, and the lights fell upon a magnificent cedar tree, reach- ing almost to the ceiling, brilliant with gas-jets protected by tiny glass globes, and laden down with gifts for all present, and many others beside. Mrs. Malcom distributed the gifts, call- ing out the various names, and bestowing on each recipient something she had man- aged to find out as being the chief desire of those receiving the gifts. Victor's name was called last, purposely, and one of the folding-doors was artfully closed, in order to make the ceremony a little more private in his case; and then his aunt drew him to the farther cide of the illuminated tree, and bade him accept his New Year’s box. It s-emed to Victor like a scene in fairyland. There, in a per- fect bower of roses, palms, and gicwing tropical plants, stood what looked likea veritable fairy princess. Her gown of clinging white Chinese crépe showed the
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COMPENSATION. 63 figure of a nymph; bracelets of pearls jeamed on slender arms not less white than their own pure lustre; a necklet of arls clasped a neck like alabaster ; and eyes that far outshone the single diamond that glittered in her dark hair gave back his gaze of admiration with one of love and gratitude that sparkled through joy- ful tears ‘‘Emmelyn !’’ murmured Victor, in a hushed voice, recognizing a familar look in that lovely face through all the magic change, ‘‘Emmelyn! can it be pos- sible ?”’ ‘¢ Just Emmelyn, and none other, papa,’’ said the girl coming forward. ‘‘ Do you like me ?”’ ‘Papa !”’ exclaimed Victor, in a tone of dismay, and remembering in triumph that he never Aad found that ‘‘ grey hair,’’ and that he was only twenty- eight ! ‘««Didn’t you say I was to regard you as a father?’’ asked Emmelyn, and Victor detected a roguish smile about the rose red lips. ‘‘Well, yes, for just now,” he said, «since fathers have special privileges, and drawing her toward him he pressed one light and fleeting kiss upon her cheek, that glowed crimson beneath his touch. ‘¢But another time we will settle more definitely on our relationship.”’ And the wooing was not a long one— ‘*had he not known her for five years and loved her forever ?’’ said Victor; and as love has an unanswerable logic of its own, Emmelyn never called him ‘‘papa” after that evening, and very soon agreed to the new relationship. Compensation BY SARAH J, JONES. tb 4Y lonely heart hath nowhere for its yy C rest, 9 Since she went Home.” When I go Home— She will not sit beside my dying bed, With sorrow stricken soul and grief bowed head, dr hear from far the message, “She is dead,” When I go Home, When I go Home— She will not note my absence day by day, And with a tremor in her dear voice say, « How sad, how lonely since she went away!” When I go Home. When I go Home— She will not treasure little things I claim, And hold them sacred while they give her pain, And wet them with her tears like drops of rain, When I go Home. When I go Home— She will not strive and pray to school her heart In patient agony to bear the smart, Of losing from her life so large a part, When I go Home. When I go Home— When my worn spirit fades from time and sense, She’ll come to meet me on my journey hence, Of sorrow’s crown, Oh double recompense! When I go Home.
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Lily's Wolidsay Lesson. BY ULRICH FRANK. F you love me, mamma, do grant me this one wish. Let me go into the country and spend the coming Holidays.”’ Passionate sobs accompanied these words, and, kneeling by Frau Von Hart- egg’s side, Lily hid her head in the folds of her mother’s soft winter dress. ‘« For pity’s sake, child, calm yourself. What can have happened to you? What is the meaning of this excitement, and of such an absurd wish! Have you and Kurt been quarreling again ?”’ ‘* Yes, mamma, again—and—for the last time,’’ replied the young girl, draw- ing herself up and suddenly regaining her calmness and self-possession. ‘I have had enough of his tyranny, and I have told him so at last. Do you call that a happy engagement? Qh, how zery dif- ferent—how delightful and—lovely, I thought everything would be—!”’ Then she began to cry again. ** And now, just see how itis! Ihaven’t had a dit of all the happiness I dreamed of —nothing but vexation and quarreling— endless vexation!” And with an im- petuous gesture, she stamped on the floor with her little foot. ‘* Why, Lily, how can you give way to your temper so! How many times have you quarreled before ?”’ ‘* A thousand and one, but this is the Zast one. I told you so before, mamma, the very fast time. I told Kurt here an hour ago that I intended to break off my engagement. I will not be made the sport of his temper; of his sovereign caprices. Every word, every look, gives him occasion for the most ridiculous lecturing.” ‘¢You are too impetuous, Lily.” ‘‘But he vexes me. If I wrap myself round in the greatest humility, if I ap- proach him almost meekly, there is always something in his manner that jars on me —his calm superiority, his immense dignity—”’ ‘« But that was just what delighted you so in Kurt; that made you fall in love with him, child. How proud you were, 64 and how you always praised his nobk manliness ! ”’ ‘¢But he shouldn’t show his self-con. sciousness, his excess of wisdom towards me, his betrothed. I cannot bear to seem always so small, so frightfully small beside him’’—again a burst of tears— ‘now, mamma, I hate him, yes—I hate him—and I am going away from here, from these rooms where everything re- minds me of him, away from this city, where they will laugh and sneer when they hear we have separated—they, every one of them envied me—oh, please, mamma, my dear, good mamma, Zo let me go tothe Eberts, to our house in the country.” ‘‘In the middle of winter, Lily? What an idea! You must calm yourself, child. It’s folly and nonsense to ask such a thing! Kurt will come back again—”’ ‘‘T will not see him again—never— never.” ‘‘ But what was the matter, then?’”’ ‘*T will tell you, mamma; but on one condition. Promise me to grant my wish.”’ ‘*But, Lily, my darling, it is almost impossible what you ask. Just consider, now the time, and just before the festival that we are going to celebrate so bril- liantly, and doubly so, because it is the last that you are going to pass in your old home.”’ ‘¢ It will not be the last now, mamma, since I am not going to marry Kurt— and you must consider too that I am un- happy—very unhappy, and I can only recover myself in seclusion and solitude.” And then she clasped her hands ap- pealingly and looked at her mother with such an imploring glance, in which, in spite of her passionate grief there was so much of girlish petulance and childish caprice, that Frau von Hartegg felt quite helpless, and at length resigned herseif to listen on the condition made by Lily that she should not oppose her winter excursion. : Amid many tears she told her mother —prnadgdoeoQ. — = -
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= w ee | & LILY’S HOLIDAY LESSON. 65 of the lover’s quarrel which she had had with her betrothed ; and insignificant as the affair was in itself, yet it seemed like- ly to attain to wide proportions. Lily was the only and spoiled daughter of very rich parents. She had had a very peculiar education ; that is, she had only profited by those lessons which had af- forded her entertainment. She had energetically protested against the usual discipline of the mind. She learned what she liked, and what amused her. As her sense of beauty was strongly developed, fortunately, she was interested in art, literature, and music, and even these she pursued ina fashion entirely her own. So the fact was, that Lily was a little self-willed child, and grew up to bea great self willed girl. It is true that much courage and de- cision were needed to contradict such a charming creature, and to deny her wish- es, thoughtless and foolish as they often were; so Lily had everything that she wanted, and Frau von Hartegg knew very well that she would go into the country if she wished, so that her refusal was nothing but a pretence. But she felt something like anger towards her future son-in-law. What could this Herr Kurt Hornstein be thinking of, that he could treat his be- trothed in this manner, whose beauty, riches, and peculiar charm, everybody might envy him? But, on the other hand, what did Lily mean by it? Was it not she who had chosen him quite independently and alone, almost in fact against the will of her parents? Her parents did not wish their child to marry so young. She was indeed scarcely eighteen years old. : They had met in summer in a fension in Pontresina. They made excursions together; they talked and chatted, and she listened with wonderful patience to his instructive con- versation upon the formation of the moun- tains, upon giaciers, in short upon things which she had never thought of occupying her mind with before; and one day she surprised her parents with the eagerly ex- pressed wish to marry Kurt. No one, not even her parents, had ever learned what had passed between Kurt and Lily before she declared her love for him and her desire to be his wife. They had come to an understanding on an excursion which they had made on a sunny afternoon. On the way home, he had told her how much he loved her; but no word would ever have crossed his lips if she had not shown him her liking for him. It made him uneasy that she was so rich and so spoiled, because at his side her life would be sober and simple. She assured him, again and again, that she wished and hoped for nothing, except for the happiness that he would bestow upon her. ; ‘‘These giants with their threatening heads do not terrify me,’’ she repeated, and she nestled tenderly up to him, as if to say, ‘*I feel safe with you.” On their return Kurt Hornstein had an interview with Herr von Hartegg. Lily had a passionate agitated conversation with her parents, and Lily and Kurt went back to Berlin an engaged couple. The first weeks passed in unclouded happiness. The brilliant youthfulness of the pas- sionate girl dazzled the thoughtful man ; but he soon saw the necessity of moderat- ing this excess of feeling. Kurt Hornstein was a stern, conscien- tious, proud character. He had made his way by hard and painstaking labor. Ina comparatively short time he had gained a distinguished position. He was considered one of the most in- tellectual and able officers of his regi- ment, and he knew that he had gained the attention of his superiors. A position so hardly won by his own might must be preserved and main- tained. And now he saw it endangered through the sweet wiles and affectionate claims of his bride. She wanted him to be always with her. She was angry when his duty called him from her. She was envious of the hours which belonged to his studies. Like a foolish, spoiled child, she would not understand that anything could exist in his life except herself. As he entirely and completely satisfied
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66 LILY’S her, so she wished to be all the world to him. With calm tenderness he tried to make it clear to her that love was mof every- thing in the life of a man—that it ought not to be everything—that action, work, duty, had equal claims. - She did not understand him. She would not understand him. She was jeal- ous of his career, of his success, and tor- mented him with her caprices and her folly. She was rich and independent. Why need he work and struggle? He ought only to belong to her. She listened impatiently when he tried to give her an idea of that higher disci- pline to which we must all submit. What did she’care for the claims of the State, of society? She only recognized one claim, that of her love. But he could not surrender discretion to this exacting affection, his ambition, his pride, and the conviction that he was capable of great things, and that he owed his life to his country, must stand higher with him than the happiness which he had found in love. And yet how deéply he loved the charming girl who every day seemed to grow more beautiful and more charming ! But he must not let himself be beguiled. He owed this to himself, to her, to the world. Thus the dissension grew more and more violent. The more she tried to bind him, the more energetically he felt that he must break loose. There were tears, angry words, pas- sionate upbraidings on her part; cool, wise, and dignified arguments on his. The cooler, calmer, and more superior he showed himself, the more violent was her petulance. ‘¢For the last time,’’ she had called out angrily, and broken loose from him, ‘* for the last time, I have endured this torture which you make me suffer when- ever I try to keep you with me. Choose between me and your fancied duty.” He had gone from her without a word in reply. Then followed the scene with her mother. She knew that he would not come back to her, nor would she call him as she had often done before in simi- HOLIDAY LESSON. lar cases, and so she wished to go away from Berlin, away from the dan which his presence in the city brought her, Kurt Hornstein had a very long inter. view with Lily’s parents. Frau von Hartegg cried a good deal, and Herr von Hartegg looked more and more thoughtful. When they. separated they all looked very grave, but quite satisfied, and Lily went into the country the next day. No one accompanied her but her maid. They telegraphed to Ebert, the house-steward, that the young lady was to stay some time in the villa, and that he was to make ready three rooms for her reception in the first story. The good people wondered not a little at the whim of the gracious young lady to come out there alone in the Holiday Season; but they were heartily glad, because they were very fond of the young lady, who always had something nice and pretty for them when she came out to the villa in summer. So they gladly made preparations for her reception. They built great fires in the fire-places to warm the pretty, pleas- ant rooms, so she might find it comforta- ble in spite of the loneliness, and not miss the elegant and stately city house. Villa Hartegg was half an hour’s drive from Freinwalde, on the edge of the forest, standing almost alone, there being only a few villas which were either unin- habited, or, like the Harteggs, occupied by the house-stewards alone, and a few peasants’ houses, which made up the neighborhood. In summer, when it was all green and fresh, it was not lonely here, but zow! How astonished Lily was when she left the sleigh which brought her here. She had never seen winter in the country before. The great white fields, the trees which stretched out their bare black boughs, on which the snow had nestled white and fleecy like swansdown, or the delicate twigs, which glistened like a thousand diamonds when a benevolent sunbeam fell upon them, amazed her. The motionless icy, winter landscape fur a moment almost filled her with terror. Must she stay here in her self-chosen banishment?
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LILY’S HOLIDAY LESSON. 67 But when she saw the happy faces of the old Eberts, when she looked about the warm, comfortable room, and knelt down before the great open fire-place, the o'd courage and defiance came back again. «¢ We’ll make ourselves quite comfort- able in this voluntary Siberia,’’ she said laughing, and she chatted quite gaily with Frau Ebert, who bustled about, bringing whatever the gracious young lady could desire. She ate with a good appetite, and when at nine o’clock—an unusually early hour—she went to bed, her slumbers were sound and deep. Even the great disappointment in her affections could not rob her vigorous youth of appetite and sleep. Lily was still like a child who had cried itself to sleep. The next morning shelooked about her with wondering eyes. Where was she? She had had a lovely dream of Kurt —ah, yes, now she knew everything; she had parted from him forever. The thought made her rather melan- choly; but why had she done it? Be- cause he had had manliness and strength of will enough to refuse to be made the sport of her whims. Because he wished to consecrate his powers and his high intellectual gifts to a great work—oh, Lily! Quickly she tried to drive away these thoughts. Again a quiet wonderful loneliness. Some black crows fluttered up from the white fields). Two boys were wading through the snow well wrapped up. They were coming towards the house. A dog began to bark. On the boughs of the trees she saw several sparrows which sat chirping and shivering, and out yonder there was a little life—a man sawing wood. Holiday-greens were being carried by on heavily laden wagons. A light smoke was curling up above the peasant’s houses —a winter idyl into which you have brought your hateful defiance, your wicked temper. And why were you angry? Again the same words passed through her mind. Because he wished to consecrate his powers and his high intellectual gifts to a great work. How did these thoughts come so suddenly? And could she nev- er get rid of them? Like a mysterious melody, now loud, now low, they accompanied her every- where—everywhere she heard the words, whether she sat pensive and dreaming by the fireside, gazing into the crackling flames, or chatting with the Eberts, gazing out upon the snowy landscape, or when she went in pursuit of distraction, skating upon the snow, the thoughts with which she awoke on the first morning were persistently recurring. She tried to resist their influence. Her passionate nature, her obstinacy, her humbled pride, rose up in arms—nothing would silence the warring voice. Not a sound penetrated to her seclusion from the outer world. She had begged her parents not to write to her. When she felt calm enough she would come home. Until then she wished to be left to herself. All her wishes had been respected. She did not know that her anxious parents recejyed a daily report of her from the E Every day was like every other in its never-varying monotony. She tried. to read, to occupy herself; but she found no pleasure in it, and still she was not dull. She had began to follow out the thoughts which forced themselves upon her every- where. This gave her a chain of quite new ideas. She also gave her attention to her sur- roundings. Work, strict attention to duty reigned also in this narrow little snowed- up world, and that made glad, and satisfied and contented. Everything that she observed led her to the source of all being—action. And she would have made him who had such distinguished power, inactive! She would have withdrawn him from his career, his duty—a Hercules with a distaff—a hor- rible picture! But her contradictory spirit would not give up so easily. Very well, then let him fulfill his life’s mission—work, cre- ate—it should be without her. What had the foolish silly girl to do with him?
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68 MY LOVE. New Year’s-eve had come. Lily had been about in the afternoon with Frau Ebert, carrying little gifts of ginger nuts and apples into the cottages. The gratitude and rejoicings of the recipients had touched her and had given her a feeling of melancholy. The merry business with which they made ready for the festival struck her greatly. So everywhere, even in these poor cottages, the holy spirit of peace and joy would penetrate. The whole year through, these poor men worked hard. They were unwearied in the exercise of their hard duty. How wonderful is life, of which she had hitherto known nothing! Like the tune of an organ it seemed to resound in her ears as she entered her room on re- turning from her round. Work, duty, high intellectual gifts, distinguished pow- ers, belong to a great life; belong to the world. That was Lily’s New Year’s maxim. She had begged Frau Ebert not to be vexed if she spent the evening quite alone. ‘ She had her room festooned with New Year-greens, and with lighted tapers on the table, prepared to watch the goirg out of the old year. And as she sat there, her face lighted up with the red glow of the great open fire, and thought of the brilliant Holi- day festival in her father’s house. All the luxury and brilliancy and the gayety seemed to pass before her eyes. She remembered the love and tender- ness of her parents, and seemed to see them alone and sad this night, without her—their child whom they loved—and in spite of that, in spite of all, she was not sorry that she had gone away. What she had lost there might be re. placed, but here she had found herself— and he? A passionate longing rose up in her heart. To morrow she would tell it to him, all this that she had discovered, penitently, courageously, truthfully. Tears streamed from her eyes as she rose to her feet. The low, soft tones of the piece which the Eberts below were singing, came up to her ears. ‘*Happy New Year to All!” She listened with bowed head. Her tear-stained face was lighted up witha ray of mildness, softness, and humility. All traces of her girlish defiance and wild impetuosity had vanished. She listencd breathless to the beautiful old words, and so she did not see that some one had noiselessly entered the room through the portiére. She did not know that a glance of sympathy, ten- derness and of deep affection rested upon her—a glance of an eye that perceived with surprise and gladness the change which had taken place in her. Under ice and snow the closed bud had unfolded to a splendid blossom. Suddenly a slight shiver shook the deli- cate frame. The magnetic influence which is given out from a beloved pres- ence began to have its effect. She started up; but two strong arms had closed round her. From smiling lips came the words: «¢ And you do love me a little, Lily?” fly Love. BY HELEN HALL TAYLOR. VY Love is fair, The sunshine ripples on her silken hair A golden sheen, And with sweet art She sits enthroned within my loyal heart A worshipped queen. Her eyes of blue, With the soft tender love light shining through Are stars to bless. And lite to me, Without her flower like face, and smile would be A wilderness. Fly fast ye hours, And bring that night laden with breath of flowers When at her side I'll proudly stand, To clasp the dainty ring-encircled hand And claim my bride.
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Aunt Jane’s Practical fortune Telling. BY EMMA J. GRAY. VII. ND so that is to be a buffet cover! It presents a great deal of work. The poppy looks perfectly gor- geous; natural enough to pick; bu‘ aren’t you afraid, Beth, the first time it is washed, the colors will fade, and look abominably ?”’ ‘‘No, indeed; for while I was at the seashore last year I was fortunate enough to meet a lady who gave me some advice regarding colored embroideries, which I have since tested and found to be cor- rect. Always to wash them in bran water.”’ ‘I’m afraid,’”’ said Nettie, ‘‘that I don’t quite understand you.”’ ‘Well, put the bran on to boil, as if you were making tea ; let it stand where it will boil steadily, but not too hard, for fifteen minutes; the water will then be in condition to insure your colors from run- ning. Some embroidery silks are said to be proof against fading; but my friends always try them by dipping in water be- fore using; it is then however more diffi- cult to produce smooth, even work.”’ ‘**Youshould be very careful in the use of silks, neither to ruffle or tangle them. The best way is to wind every skein be- fore using, and the next best to make a braid not too tight, as then the silk is in- jured by too much severity in removal. Every detail in embroidery must receive careful attention, if pretty work is pro- duced. The only reason why some peo- ple never succeed is because they are careless and slovenly, thinking anything will do; the poppy you so much admire, I carefully studied from the natural flower before working, and then tried to copy exactly.”’ _ “Sometimes stamped patterns can be improved, soit is well to follow nature when you can. Don’t you think so, Aunt Jane?”’ ‘Yes, indeed, my dear; besides, I am too old fashioned to admire the so-called conventional patterns. I saw the other day a most intricate one, a mass of moss 69 rose buds and water lilies. I would not attempt to describe it, but to me it seemed unnatural. They are each beau- tiful flowers, but have such different habits it is impossible to truthfully unite them, and so they each lost their opportunity. But, Beth, you must put away your pretty work now, vacation time is half over, and we have yet several, if homely, necessary matters to discuss. ‘¢This morning our talk will be about soap making, the washing.of blankets, and the washing in general, and we will take them up in the order I have men- tioned. ‘¢ Always loox after your odds and ends; it will save many a penny; so to make laundry soap, if you will put your left over bits of fat in the oven, and when the grease melts strain through a cheese cloth, the drippings will be clear. When you have a sufficient supply to work with, say about five pounds, put it on to boil slowly in ten quarts of water; to the same add one pound of potash; the materials should be well mixed, and occasionally stirred, during the five hours allowed for boiling. The soap will by that time have a stringy appearance, to which you must then put about half a pound of borax; when thoroughly dis- solved remove from the fire and pour into long, narrow tin pans, in which cold water has previously stood, thus prevent- ing the soap from sticking. The follow- ing day you will find your soap hard and clear, and amply repay you for all trou- ble in money saved. If the pans or moulds mentioned are not convenient, you will find an old tub or boiler answer the same purpose; the soap will then require to be carefully cut into bars before using. ‘¢ Regarding our next topic, the washing of blankets, I would preface it by remind- ing you of what I said the other morning about the comfort and health to be found when having them for a bed covering, so it is most necessary to know best how to cleanse them. ‘¢Never commit the blunder of mixing
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7o AUNT JANE’S PRACTICAL FORTUNE TELLING. new blankets with old at the time of washing. As the new are filled with grease, you must give them what might be termed heroic treatment, not allowing them to come in contact with the old, but wash each separately. ‘¢ To properly attend to them, two pairs of hands are required, and never attempt to wash them in a double form; they are also much easier managed if put on the bed singly. ‘¢ You will need warm water in which plenty of soap has been dissolved ; also a large spoonful of borax. Wash in as many waters as will be required to remove all the oil. When no streaks are indi- cated, and they seem quite clean, then put once more in very hot suds, after which rinse until they are entirely freed from soap. Having been well wrung, one pair of hands should take hold of one end, and one pair of the other, and shake; then carefully place on the line, and when dry fold in shape. Old blan- kets are treated in a similar manner, but will not require as many waters. Care also should be taken regarding the day; if blankets are too long drying they will shrink. When the sun shines, and you have a moderate wind, it is the best weather possible. ‘* As to the week’s ordinary washing, by common consent the majority of house- keepers consider Monday the most conve- nient day; occasionally, some preferring Tuesday. When this is the case, Monday is used to straighten and polish up things generally, wherever need is most felt, and gather and prepare the clothes, so as to get started with them early the following morning. Each day has its advantages, experience testing what for you would be best. ‘¢ The tubs should always be kept clean, and free from leaks. When. they acci- dentally occur, it may be well to remem- ber that a little Indian meal, pressed in the crevices, will absorb the water, and prevent further dripping ; whenthe crack is so large the meal would fall through, a small piece of paper, or a little grass, previously pushed in, will support the meal; and so you can mend your own tubs if necessary, the meal forming a cement. ‘¢« The wash: board and boiler should be clean, and free from rust, and the clothes. pins and line should have their own par. ticular place, thus saving time when the clothes are ready to put out. The line should never be left in the yard; besides looking disorderly, the action of the atmosphere is such as to cause rot; the line soon, therefore, becomes brittle, and has to be replaced with new. Rain-water is the best for washing; but as it cannot always be obtained, we have to do the best we can, and, if proper care is taken, the clothes will generally give satisfaction. ] do not advise the use of soda, or what are called washing fluids, excepting in rare instances, as they are more or less injuri- ous to the material. Clothing is too expensive to suffer through wrong methods of washing. ‘«¢ The clothes should always be critically examined before commencing to wash, and where stains exist they should be particularly treated. Too often the care- less servant pays no heed to this, often skipping the part requiring most need. Wine stains can generally be removed by rubbing in wet salt, and then rinsing. Mildew, and a variety of stains, by ‘care- fully using a little oxalic acid. Fruit stains, by pouring on boiling water, be- fore wetting. ‘¢ Some people never boil their clothes, and others never blue them. Too much boiling turns them yellow, and too much bluing is worse than none at all; ser- vants often using this as a cover to the improper cleansing. ‘‘Clothes should be wrung as tight as possible, otherwise they are apt to dry streaked. ‘‘ Starching can be done before or after clothes are dry; to most garments it is easier, as well as better, to apply when they are wet. A good starch is made by putting into one pint of cold water a liberal cupful of starch; to this add two pints of boiling water, and a little salt; boil together fifteen minutes, then strain, and slightly blue. Laces should be put in very thin starch, and heavy materials, such as collars and cuffs, should have the starch well rubbed in. In order to prevent colored garments from fading, they should be dried in theshade. Black pepper, also salt, liberally used in the water will often set color ; so also ox
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HAST THOU FORGOT THE TIME?—A GOOD HOUSEWIFE. 71 is found excellent in this direction. Woolen garments should be dried as rapidly as possible after washing, on ac- count of their tendency to shrinkage. ‘‘When the clothes are known to be dry, they should be carefully removed from the line, evenly sprinkled, tightly rolled, and so made ready forironing.”’ ‘Aunt Jane,’”’ said Nettie, ‘‘do yor think we can ever keep house ? The more you tell us, the more there seems to be to learn. I used to think housekeeping was nothing at all. The house jst ran itself.”’ excellent management. Nothing jars or annoys, and so far you have lived in the enjoyment of her experience I feel as- sured both you and Beth will some day laugh over the question you have just given. You each know far more than I did in my early married life. The re- membrance of that unhappy experience makes me lenient with all beginners, and the motive power to make housekeeping easier for some. To have perfection, however, would require much self-denial, as well as constant thought, vatience and forbearance.” ‘‘That is because your mothe” Aas such fjast Thou Forgot the Gime? BY CHARLES KIELY SHETTERLY. 4NEAR friend, hast thou forgot the time Thy hand I took, And said: Thou art forever mine? Thy love-lit look As fair as dawn of the sun-rise To me did bring Sweet bliss—as if ’twere from the sky. A lovelier thing Hath been my life for knowing thee. If when a-near Or when afar to me thou be An angel dear, To gather less life’s journey part, While love expands And grows more true with heart in heart And hand in hand. Oh, friend! when thou art dead—the light Of thy presence sweet Will haunt me still—like stars the night Or pearls the deep. A Good Housewife. BY G. E,. J. , By the way she keeps her brooms; Or the peeping At the “keeping” Of her back and unseen rooms; By her kitchen’s air of neatneis, And its general completeness ; Where in cleanliness and sweetness The rose of order blooms. sow can I tell her? By her cellar, Cleanly shelves and whitened wall, I can guess her By her dresser; By the back staircase ard hall, And with pleasure Take her measure.
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The Fashions. fi Monthly Resume of Practical Matters Relating to Dress and Social Events. Ane —a—eeee HE fashions have Y not been prettier in years than they are this winter. All the disturbing exag- gerations of recent times have been toned down. Too high hats are low- ered, and the features bor- rowed from different periods produce a variety and diversity which charm and interest the beholder. French taste and imagina- tion are not yet on the wane. Toilettes are desig- nated Empire or Direc- toire, according to their distinguishing features, but these designations must not be taken too seriously. What we see before us is rather a modern adaption than a limited copy of these periods. Neither Directoire nor Em- pire dresses are actually copied ; but details are borrowed and incorporated with the modern stock of ideas, and the result is seen in styles that are novel, original, and altogether pretty, Directoire wedding gowns worn recently are made of white brocaded satin, with large designs that are not repeated more than once in each width. The very long trained breadths, four in number, are continued with the back of the waist, while the flat side breadths extend upwards to form part of the front and side gores of the bodice. Directly in front, white embroidered gauze drapery is put on in many cross folds, and is finished at the top of the waist by short revers 72 of the brocade, while knife plaited frills of the gauze, scalloped deeply, trim the side of the skirt in lengthwise rows. Similar frills form the large French cravat which is now so much in favor, and also the cuffs on the elbow sleeves, Velvet train dresses, with petticoats of brocade, are worn by the mother of the bride and by wed- ding guests this season. Grey, mouse color, and electric blue velvet are fashionable colors for such gowns, with white skirts brocaded with gold or with silver, or else, for short figures, the brocade is in stripes of many colors, or, vine stripes. This skirt is quite plain, and is seen only in the front, and on each side, just back of the side breadth of velvet, which descends from the waist to the foot, and is fully faced with silk or satin. Many varieties of fur are fashionable this win- ter, some more so than others, although no kind of fur, provided it be good and genuine, need be discarded as démodé. Blue fox is still the first favorite; but black and brown fox are both much worn, especially as mantle trimmings, together with sable, skunk, raccoon, and other long-haired furs, and seal, otter, and beaver in short-haired furs. Astrakhan is largely em- ployed in trimming young ladies’ cloth jackets, and for the brim of the felt toque that accom- panies the jacket as a rule. Fur-trimmed costumes, more especially those in redingote style, abound, and are amongst the most stylish of the new modes. They are made in various ways, and a very large number are of colored cloth, with ornaments of black moiré silk in addition to the fur. An excellent example is a costume of terra-cotta cloth in a rich bright shade, with a narrow flat tablier of the same, braided to the waist with narrow black braid. The redingote corsage fastens diagonally under
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THE FASHIONS. 13 a band of blue fox fur from the right side of the neck; this side is braided; the left side has q large revers of black moiré silk. The side panels of the redingote are bordered all around with fox fur, the bands of fur meeting above the back plaits, and in front, between the fur and the braided tablier is a portion of an underpanel of black moiré. The neck and sleeves are trimmed with fur, and a band of fur edges the front of the rounded basque of the corsage above the tablier. The only entirely plain outside garments for mid-winter wear are those of sealskin in the handsomest quality of that beautiful fur. The elegance of such wraps consists in the style or shape, the correct fit, and the lining, which in most instances is often the richest silk or satin, elaborately quilted in all manner of original and intricate designs. Such high-class hidden merits are, however, unappreciated by ladies in general, who favor the more showy cloak or redingote of sealskin, finished with beaver, sable, and even lynx, put- ting the price of the grand lining into the costly border of fur. The drapery or flowing sleeve is seen in the mantle, or short back visite, and also in the long cloak, but in the cloak a close sleeve is invari- ably placed inside of the open sleeve, which is entirely for show, and gives no protection to the arm below the elbow. Another point to be noted is the fact that feath- ers are quite as, much used as fur, as decorative features of elegant opera cloaks, and handsome wraps and costumes, also as trimmings for even- ing gowns, the most brilliant results being at- tained by the application of bands and various designs in the luminous plumage of tropical birds. Two superb examples of the use of fur and feathers consist first, of a robe of magnificent faille Francaise in a shade of green that might easily be mistaken for black. This dress is lavishly adorned with cut jet and beads in deep, rich colors, with incandescent or fire light gleams embroidered on velvet, in conjunction with silks in Persian hues. These velvet bands are placed between a double border of Impayan feathers. The other robe is of velvet in a perfect blue shade, with embroidery in steel and blue beads, and trimming of Chinchilla bands, the soft grey Shades of the fur harmonizing beautifully with the rich blue bloom of the fur. Cleghorn novelties in cotton cloths show effect- ive combinations of the shades hithérto illustra- ted in silk and woolen materials, such as sage and serpent green, the odd greys, old rose, gob- elin blue, garnet, and fruit or russet brown. De- cidedly novel is a specimen in a peculiar weave with body or stripe in irregular dashes in an- o'her color, or darker shade making the cloth as if covered with tiny twigs from a dead tree. Very fine zephyrs in stripes, checks and plaids in most attractive varieties, are this season’s choice Cleghorn productions. The Gotham is the coming cap for skating and driving: Itis in seal-skin and has an adjustable band at the back and at sides, which can be pulled down to protect the ears from the extreme cold. The visor in front of this cap can be re- versed to form an ornament or to shield the eyes from sunlight or sleet. Long cloth redingotes are also being made with Directoire revers of either black fox or un- dyed lynx; but on the whole there seems to be a preference to wear fur apart from the cloth redingote, that is, pélerine or shaped tippet and cufis of fur are slipped on over the jacket, which, with simple cloth collar and stitched sleeves, can be worn without any fur at all. This is very convenient, and makes a long jacket much more useful; it can be worn earlier in the autumn and later in the spring, at times when no one would think of wearing a fur-trimmed garment. The fur tippet and cuffs are nicely lined with quilted satin. To use the whole fur-bearing animal as a trim- » ming is novel this winter; for instance, Zide/- ine, or sable, with its head, paws, and tail intact is mounted along one side of a black velvet hat, with the head poised cunningly among loops of ribbon on the front of the crown, and the tail drooping down at the back. A muff of brown and green velvet folds has a whole sable resting upon it, and another smaller sable furnishes the collar to wear with it, the head being passed through a loop on the left side of the neck. Applique trimmings are now so fashionable that they are seen on furs, those short fleece, like Astrakhan or seal-skin, having plush designs of leaves or flowers sewed upon them, as green plush leaves on a black Astrakhan capote, and also on muffs. The figures cut out of cloth, with silk placed under the open spaces, are also used on the crowns of turbans and on bonnets as well as cloaks, A stylish turban of green cloth has black moiré underlaying in open arabesque spaces that are cut out of the cloth and richly corded ; black
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"4 THE FASHIONS. Persian lamb fur binds the edges, and the trim- ming is large, soft loops of moiré ribbon, Figaro jackets, short as zouave jackets, square cornered and sleeveless, are among the new things made of furs of short fleece—sable, seals beaver or Persian—to be easily put on over a velvet or cloth costume. Shoulder capes have gained rapidly in favor; they are made of all kinds of fur, and, while to a tall, slender figure they are exceedingly becoming, by a short, stout person they should not be worn. A new veil, which is both coquettish and comfortable, is made to fall below the face, and is drawn backward under the chin, and also at the top, by the narrowest ribbon run through the lace which edges it. It is made of black dotted net, edged with Chantilly lace all around, and is large enough to meet in the back, where it is much shortened, and long enough to reach above the rim of the round hat or bonnet. Tan, grey, black and white gloves are the only colors used in a fashionable woman’s outfit, and it is quite possible for her to be well-gloved with all her various kinds of gloves in tanshades, very dark tan-color being used for the street in the daytime, and very light tan for evening. Grey gloves are worn with grey gowns, as are black also; white gloves are now fashionable with white gowns, but light tan shades are more fre quently used, even by bridesmaids. The un- dressed kid of light quatity, with corded backs, are most worn; but heavier kid gloves have wide stitching of self-co!or or of black, and are most ’ used with walking and tailor-made gowns. Some of these are fastened with four large gilt buttons, while others are in the sae shape, without an opening at the wrist. Evening gloves are as long as ever, and again reach to the lower edge of the short sleeves; they are in mousquetaire shape, ani must be quite plain on the back, being very simply corded there. The “drawn seams,” with edges of the kid showing, are on Stylish gloves, and are quite new on black gloves, showing white edges of the kid. Bonnets are exceedingly pretty this season, pretty in shape and trimming, especially those in small capote form draped with cloth, velvet, or silk and finished off with bands of curled ostrich feathers forming the brim. Directoire chapeaux are toa certain extent in vogue with Directoire costumes, but the preference is generally given either to a very wide-brimmed hat or to a min- ute capote, draped in the manner referred to above and trimmed with a small plume of feath- ers and aigrette. Embroidered galloons are also much used in trimming capotes, which, al though still very small, are longer at the back this season, A charming model is in willow. green velvet with a band of Oriental galloon between the crown and the brim, which is covered with Chantilly lace, put on flat at the sides, but in full plaits at the top. A plume of green feathers and pink aigrette rises above the lace, and the short velvet strings are tied under the left ear. Another of these smal! capotes has the crown covered with a draped square of em. broidered grey cloth; folds of wood-browr. velvet form the brim, the strings are of satin ribbon to match, and the only ornament is a small plume of white and wood-colored quill feathers. The most fashionable felt hats are those with immensely wide brims bordered with ostrich feather trimming and low crowns enveloped in feathers, or else the toques, which go to the other extreme, Laving the brim turned up quite flat against the crown, which is draped with cloth or velvet or covered with feathers, those of the wild duck, black-cock, and turkey being the most fashionable, Plush, although not worn so much as last win- ter, is not yet démodé, especially the dark-brown plush with a deep pile that closely resembles sealskin, and sometimes takes the place of the more costly fur. Costumes of brown material, in a lighter shade than the plush or in the same color, are trimmed with this p'ush, and then the plush. mantle and chapeaux to match form the most lady-like finish to the costume. No color requires this complete treatment so much as brown; for whereas a costume that is brown from head to foot is always stylish and lady-like, one that is only partially brown, such as a brown dress with a black mantle and colored bonnet is exactly the reverse. The only color that blends harmoniously with brown is gold color; but if much of this is used the dress loses in distinction what it gains in brilliancy. A stylish brown cloth dress has the skirt mounted in very wide triple box-plaits in front and at the sides, and plain plaits at the back, The polonaise is fastened at the waist only with a gold clasp, the fronts of the corsage are turned back with dark-brown plush revers, ending in a point at the waist over crossed plaited draperies of plush, which disclose a very small part of the cloth plastron at the neck, The skirt opens in front and falls to the edge of the foundation skirt; the open fronts have a lining and narrow ones, type, a boc of a « is oft it is 1 Bl rever high white also ¢ leath have Jac ionat upon often very rial fichu front W
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ss ewrlUcrermlUCU HOC TCUlUC OlhlUhh/ lh THE FASHIONS. 3 porder of plush, which is continued round the lower edge and becomes wider towards the back, where the skirt is draped in a box-plait from the waist, and slightly caught up to show the edge of the skirt. Pointed epaulettes and long pointed cuffs of plush ornament the sleeves, The draping of this gown is so simple, that the polonaise might equally well be called a redingote ; the two styles are, in fact, so very much alike that it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between them; a draped redin- gote, as many of these are now made, differs in no essential respect from a polonaise, and in either case the back may be in straight plaits, the style generally adopted, or very slightly puffed in the centre. The newest bodices for indoor gowns are very short on the hips, and have a rounded point in front, but short, sharp point at the back. The plaited or gathered skirt is mounted on the bodice, which is ornamented with revers only and molds the figure most accurately. The wide sash is made of surah or some soft descrip- tion of silk; stiff, harsh ribbons being unsuitable for the purpose, and is folded in three*flat plaits, very much wider and lower in front than at the sides. From the hips it follows the line of the corsage to the back, being still quite narrow, and is there tied in a large wide-spreading bow. The back needs to be well curved, as the point is rather below the real waist line. Bodices are now but seldom plain tight fitting ones, either they have loose fronts, or of blouse type, or they are much trimmed; in fact, whereas a bodice used to be looked upon merely as part of a dress, it has now a distinct individuality, and isoften a separate idea from the dress with which it is worn. Blouse bodices have collars turning back as revers, or coat collars, to show a habit-shirt with high neckband, the latter being most often of white material; others have a full loose vest, also of white, while to draw these in at the waist, leather belts with old-fashioned silver buckles have superseded the bands of silk or ribbon. Jacket bodices with open fronts are very fash- ionable, and with these much taste is expended upon the under-vest or bodice. When this, as it often is, is a separate affair fastening behind, very pretty vests are formed with folds of mate- rial crossing and recrossing transversely, or by fichus of soft muslin or silk drawn over the fronts to fit closely to the figure. When these open-fronted bodices are made VoL. CX VIII—No. 6. of cloth, a good effect is gained by having the edges pinked, while those of the lining, also cloth of a contrasting color or a lighter shade of the same, and pinked, too, are allowed to show about a quarter of an inch beyond. A ruche of the same cloth arranged in the same way forms a good trimming for the skirt. Epaulettes of lace or passementerie are much worn by slim people, as are also bretelles and loosely tied sashes, and full sleeves. A very large percentage of the costumes both for indoor and outdoor wear have the skirts plain. Nearly all the winter cloth gowns are tailor made, and one great charm of these well- cut, well-fitting garments is their simplicity; therefore, the well hung plain skirts are ‘1 favor; plain skirts, however, not devoid of trimming, for both braiding and panels of dif- ferent material are used for them. Few but tailors can make the gowns look well, it being difficult to make the skirts hang perfectly even with sufficient at the back, now that so little dress-improver is worn. A pretty style in favor for home-gowns is that of a skirt set in narrow tucks from the waist into the form of a short apron in front, from thence expanding into a full skirt or tunic, the back being made with a slight puffing at the waist. A smocked upper part of a skirt is also often to be seen, or a panel treated in the same way. FASHION. er Winter Fashions For The Little Ones. There is nothing, perhaps, that mothers are more given to going to extremes about than children’s clothes. While one mother renders her children’s lives a burden to them by elabora- ting everything they put on, and in the endeavor to keep a sash ina place nature never intended it to occupy, another, professing to aim at nothing but what is useful, disregards the becoming to such an extent that her children, instead of look- ing as well as they can, seem to be possessed of everything unsuitable. The tendency in the fashion of children’s clothes of late years has been distinctly good. The natural figure is now more considered, and ridiculous ornamentation discarded. Huge sashes and shoulder knots are things of the past. Soft woolen materials are chosen, and hang loosely from smocking or gauging on the shoulders, allowing plenty of room for play, and falling in graceful folds when they are still. When intended for very young children, these should be made entirely of white
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76 THE FASHIONS. materials; but for those a little older there are charming art shades, which, smocked in silk, either matching or contrasting with the frock, make sweet little pictures of a child. A favorite style of frock to be made in heavy material is a plaited skirt with front panel of braided or embroidered material to match. The double breasted Directoire corsage fastens with four buttons, and is open with braided Directoire revers over a braided plastron. A belt of ribbon is draped about the waist, tying on the right. The collar and cuffs are also braided. Fashion is letting the waist rise towards the armpits, 4 la Directoire, For picturesque chil- dren these are charming, but an ordinarily plain child is apt to look old fashioned in them. Not that “old-fashioned ” appearance is objection- able now-a-days, hut the old fashion must be pretty to be tolerated. A pretty street costume fora little girl of six or seven years old consists of a plain coat of cadet- blue velvet, box plaited to form the skirt at the back, opening from the waist in front to show a full silk petticoat of the same tint. The coat turns back from the throat with lappels, one being continued down to the waist, where it is fastened one side with ribbon bows, and a silk vest match- ing the petticoat is gathered round the neck. A velvet hat of the same shade completes this pret ty costume. | Charming little double-breasted coats for boys and girls under five years are made of coarse cream color cloth, trimmed with natural iynx, the soft fleecy hair of which, combined with its creamy color, makes a capital trimming for chil- dren’s wear. It makes delightfully fleecy little caps, a soft ball of fur clinging to the hair with becoming insistence. It is not an expensive fur, and is exceedingly light, two very important considerations. Long cloth coats, with double or triple peler- ine, the largest of which barely covers the shoulders, are good models for girls of ten to fif- teen; they are made in cloth of a good neutral tint, and have usually a toque or felt hat to match, A pretty coat is of green cloth, shaped in the Directoire style, open over a plaited front of Sici- lienne. The cloth fronts are edged with beaver a band of beaver forming a collar. An Empire sash of ribbon is folded about the waist; it passes beneath the fur bands, and ties in front near the left band of fur. A green felt hat, the brim turned up at the back and peaked in front, com- pletes an exceedingly styish costume. Pardessus are neither very long o either they totally conceal the dress simply very short jackets. For your ter jackets are being made in eve grey cloth, hooking down the front, with rich hussar shoulder-knots in coi These are very stylish, and accon dresses of any color. There is quite a new departure in hats children this season; small toques matching costumes, with wings or quills at one side, ; the favorite headgear at present. Acloak made of a new shade of heliotrope cloth, with three capes pinked out round their edges, anda charm. ing little toque in the same material, full and high in front, and one white wing a: the side, looked as if it would suit some fair-haired little daughter to perfection. There is also a shell-shaped de. sign, which can be made into either a hat ora bonnet, and as the front stands out in flute-like plaits, it is particularly becoming to some chil dren who do not look their best in a closely fit. ting hat. A. M. G.
46> <oPr Fashionable Wedding Toilettes. The wedding dress of Miss Endicott, now Mrs. Joseph Chamberlain, was as simple as it was be- coming, and consisted of grey camel’s-hair and silk of the same color. It was cut high in the neck and relieved by a white tie. Her bonnet was of dark grey velvet, with white bows and strings, its only ornament a jewelled pin to hold it in place. The groom was dressed in a black frock-coat, which was re‘ieved by a large bunch of white violets in the button-hole. Directoire coats of brocaded satin were wom by the bridemaids at a recent fashionable wed- ding above skirts of white silk muslin, plainly gathered at the top, then hemmed at the foot, and a border made above the hem of tucks through which colored ribbon is passed. Old rose brocade was worn by two bridemaids, and moss green brocade by two others. The coats had revers below the neck, opening over an Empire vest of white silk muslin, widely belted, and with a jabot dropping down very full on the fronts. Large hats the color of the satin coats were made of plush, and trimmed with plumes to match. Another set of four bridemaids wore yellow brocaded satin made up with round waists, laced behind and half-low in the neck, with full short puffed sleeves and full vest of gathered yellow crape, The satin and brocade formed the straight breadths of the back and sides of the skirt, with crape in front.
ig, FIG ver 2 on let Wide FIG with | Fic encirc of nb Fic son; | comes FIG shade Fic made the b the pl bows. bodic with | on th de so right Fic made with in ple CTOSs- Point front, ing w d’esp’ in thr Fic made with the 1¢ head the | Fr girl cashr tibbo plait the 1 silk « corsa A ¢:
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THE FASHIONS. 77 ESCRIPTION OF FASHIONS. 1. Walking costume, cloak of dark blue wih braided revers, and edged with a i of fur. Blue velvet hat, trimmed with ig, feathers and fur band. Fic. 2. House gown of figured silk, made yer an underskirt of velvet. The bodice is full on left shoulder, fastened with a velvet bow. Wide velvet belt and collar. Fic. 3. Hat of terra-cotta velvet, trimmed vith loops of surah and ribbon. Fic. 4. Hat of dark green felt, with feathers encircling the brim, and upright loops and ends of ribbon forming a bow in front. Fic. 5. Hat of black velvet, faced with crim- son; feathers trim the front, and one long one comes around the front and forms a boa. fic. 6. Hat of dark garnet felt, trimmed with shaded feathers. Fic. 7-8. Back and front of evening costume, made of shot-green peau de soie. The bodice, the back of the dress, the short overskirt and the plaited folds are caught and ornamented with bows. The overskirt and the left side of the bodice are_ in open work, embroidered, lined with nasturtium-yellow satin. The plaited folds on the overskirt are caught together with peau de soie bows, lined with capucine silk. The right side of the bodice is of folded silk. Fic. 9-10. Back and front of house costume made of plain blue satin and blue velvet checked with cream lines. The satin skirt is mounted in plaits, and the demi outskirt is draped on the cross-checked velvet forming the other side, Pointed bodice opening over a plaited satin front, crossed with bars of satin ribbon fasten- ing with bows, The small chemisette is of point desprit net. The basque at the back terminates in three points. Fic. 11. Bonnet for lady with turned up brim made of mouseé colored velvet. It is trimmed with pale pink feather wings and ornaments at the left side and loops of ribbon. A breast and head of white and grey feathers is fastened at the le‘t side and goes across the front of brim. Fic. 12-13. Front and back of costume for girl of fourteen years made of “café au lait” cashmere trimmed with silk to match and faille tibbons. Cashmere skirt mounted on alpaca, plaited in front and very full at the back. On the left side of the front falls a plaited panel of silk drawn into a tassel end with ribbon, Fancy corsage, with open fronts and added silk basques, A cashmere drapery covers the left front and crosses the right front to the hips, where it fin- ishes beneath a ribbon bow. Draped siceves of cashmere plaited over a silk cuff. Silk collar, finished with a bow. Silk plastron. Quantity of m&terial required for a girl of fourteen, cash- mere ten yards. Fic, 14-15. Front and back of costume for girl of twelve years made of red and grey wool- en goods. Polonaise of the material with yoke and panel, back and front, of closely plaited red The sleeve has an epaulette and pointed cuft of the plaited surah. Plaited surah collar. Quantity of materiai required fora girl of twelve: Woolen material, nine yards; surah, four yards. Fic. 16. Embroidered glove of light grey Danish Kid, embroidered in silk of the same shade. Fic. 17. Ladies’ breakfast jacket made of pale blue cashmere with a blouse front of the same length as the jacket of surah silk. It is made to fit at the back, and the front, which are without darts, are drawn in by the sash band of pale blue ribbon. A trimming of embroidery or lace goes all around the edges of the jacket. The cuffs are formed with two frills of embroid- ery, between which come bands and bows of ribbon, a similar one being found at the neck- band. The blouse should be made up on an under bodice, which would serve as a petticoat one, the surah being gathered to this top and bottom, the fastening being put at the tack. One of the pretty striped flannels would make up prettily in this style with a vest of one of the colors and bows of the same. Quantity of cash- mere or flannel required, 3% yards, surah 1 yard, Fic. 18. Sleeve, made of silk, arranged in broad folds over the shoulders, and caught up below the elbow in four gatherings, terminating in a broad plaiting, which fall over an under- sleeve insilver-grey Bulgarian embroidery, Fic. 19. This sleeve may be made in silk or any woolen material. It is plaited from the shoulder to the elbow on the outside of the arm, and ornamented at the top and on the cuff with an embroidered band. Fic. 20. Coat for child of four years made of beige color cloth. Fic 21. Muff made of sealskin cloth trim- med with lace and moiré ribbon bows. Fic. 22. Coat for girl of three years made of cream color cloth, trimmed with three capes of brown cloth pinked upon the edge and double band of the same down the front. surah.
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78 THE FASHIONS. Fic. 23. Muff made of fancy grey feathers trimmed with ribbon bows, Fic, 24. Wrap of sealskin plush, with fur and jetted passementerie. Fic. 25. Hat for girl of seven years, made of felt, turned up in front, faced with drawn surah and trimmed with feathers and ribbon bows. Fic. 26. Hat for child of two years, with turned up brim, made of white felt, trimmed with ostrich tips and satin ribbon bows. Quilled ruche inside with small bow at one side. Fic. 27. Scotch cap made of black velvet, trimmed with feathers and ornament. Fic, 28. Large hat for girl, trimmed with ribbon and silk pompons. Fic. 29. Large hat of brown velvet trimmed with ostrich feathers, one also laid against the velvet facing the brim. Fic. 30. Hat of brown plush turned up on one side, trimmed with ribbon and feathers. Fic. 31. Cap for child one year old, made of cream color lace and trimmed with lace, ribbon, trimmed and feather. Fic. 32. Walking hat of dark green felt, trimmed with feathers and an aigrette. Fic. 33. Frock for girl of ten years, made of blue serge, with a sash at the back. Double- breasted cloth jacket, with gilt buttons. Movable hood, lined with red surah. Fic. 34. Suit for girl of twelve years, made of grey eashmere and white cloth. The front of the skirt is white cloth, as are the revers on the jacket. The cashmere is plaited at the side and draped at the back, Hat of grey felt trim- med with velvet and feathers. Fic. 35, 39. Back and front of costume for girl of eleven years, made of pink cashmere. The skirt is ornamented with narrow tucks, The sash fastens at the side with a moire rosette and ends. Full bodice, with yoke of Irish guipure lined with silk. Sleeve, with bouil- lonne at the top. Hat of white felt trimmed with feathers and ribbon, A long sacque covers the costume when worn in the street. Fic. 36, 38. Outdoor pelisse for a girl of twelve years in garnet or claret lady’s cloth, The bodice forms a yoke piece in front, below which there are gatherings. A silk ruche of the same color is carried down the front, round the throat and cuffs. The bonne femme hood is lined in silk. The back of the pelisse is plaited in the centre. Hat of felt trimmed with ribbon and feathers. Fic. 37, 40. Costume for girl of 1 years made of striped velvet and cloth. skirt is blue, striped with velvet, The over is plain blue cloth. The blouse front is 1 surah, and has narrow bouillonnes at the te The jacket has revers in front and tabs at th back. The sleeves are full at the top. The sash is blue silk. Hat of blue velvet trimmed with surah and small birds. A blue cloth jacket can be worn with this costume in cold weather, Fic. 41. Walking costume for lady. Under. skirt of grey velvet embroidered in steel and silk. Redingote of cloth with double plaits upon the skirt, and large buttons. Revers upon the front showing a vest to correspond with skirt, Hat of velvet with long feather trimming it. Fic. 42. Walking costume—the under-dress is of olive-green bourette. Redingote of choco. late-colored fine diagonal, with trimming of feathers up the front, around the neck and sleeves. The overpiece fastened into the arm holes goes down the side seams of cloak and falls over the sleeves; they are heavily braided and edged with a fringe. Bonnet of chocolate- colored velvet, with plume to match, gold pins and ribbon bows. Fic. 43. Handkerchief with embroidered border of birds. Fic. 44. Fancy comb with tortoise shell and gold top. FIG. 45. stones. Fancy pin for hair, set with Rhine Fic, 46. Scarf ring set with diamonds and rubies. Fic. 47. Chatelaine of gold and enamel. Fic. 48. Collarette made of black lace plaited, surah and surah bow, with fancy jets upon the ends. Fic. 49. Fichu made of white crépe plaited and edged with embroidered gold lace. Fic. 50. Collar and jabot of lace, finished at waist with a ribbon bow. Fic. 51. Lace jabot trimmed with narrow velvet. Fig. 52. Aigrette for the hair composed with a large poppy-red velvet bow, with an aigrette of gold and brilliant green wheat. Fic. 53. Morning cap of lace trimmed with wide ribbon, and with the narrower kind called cométe. Fic. 54. Fashionable shape collar and cuff made of linen edged with lace. | | coun its e a m¢ gay keer own the danc of tl with and wide tiére - fhigur also and | laid the. velve silve finis] be e: requ curi¢ ages, chai in th some acces bows flowe cord: a lar date, wing with galle the 1 must of D a lar; estry is an musi:
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Foreign Gossip. PARIS. HE SHORT DAYS and long eve- nings make charades, tableaux vt- vants, proverbs, comedies, etc., in great vogue among those who still remain in the country houses and chateaux. Fontainebleau and its environs—where those who possess villas pass a month or two before coming to Paris—is very gay just now. The talented Duc de Bellune keeps his private theatre well supplied with his own pieces, and charades follow the comedies of the author and host. After the performance a dance takes place in the wide gallery at the side of the house, which is arranged as a ball-room, with the theatre atone end. The conservatories and drawing-rooms open on to this gallery with wide arched doorways, closed with heavy por- tiéres in tapestry representing old-fashioned ‘figures and people. The first floor of the house also makes one with this gallery, which is lofty, and the high windows are ornamented with in- laid Moorish work, which harmonizes well with the panels of Spanish origin, and made of red velvet, with arabesques embroidered in gold and silver in high relief and exquisite workmanship, finished off with rich gold fringe, The theatre can be easily put up or taken down, as occasion may require, and the rest of the gallery is full of curious and rare works of art of all times and ages, artistic and historic, There is a Sedan chair of the last century, in good preservation, inthe Vernis Martin style. On the panels are some female heads, beautifully painted, with the accessories of the epoch Louis) XV-—quivers, bows, arrows, musical instruments, wreaths of flowers—all united with ribbons and bows ac- cording to the taste of the period. There is also a large sledge in Vernis Martin of the same date, drawn by a golden swan with outspread These two works of art are in keeping with the general aspect and decoration of the gallery, which is one of the finest I know among the many chateaux I have visited at or seen. I must not forget to mention a splendid collection of Dresden china and brass repoussé work, and a large clock ina high case of old Flemish tap- On the right side of the theatre there is an annex to the gallery, which serves as a music-room, and contains pianos, harmoniums, wings. estry. harps, guitars, etc., and in which the orchestra is placed during the theatrical representations. At one of the recent performances I noticed a very handsome gown of velours frappé, gold ground with pattern in deep shade of grenat, trimmed with gold lace; pouf of similar lace mixed with grenat feathers as head-dress. Two pretty girls (sisters) had white gauze dresses over blue silk, and white blue moiré scarfs, fastened on the right shoulder with an enameled orna- ment, crossing the bodice, and tied on the left side with wide ends falling on the skirt—these scarfs were confined at the waist by a narrow blue moiré waistband, fastened with enameled buckles to match the shoulder ornament; pale blue shoes and stockings, with moiré bows and enameled buckles on the shoes; bows of same moiré ribbon, mixed with small white roses, in the hair; low bodices and short puffed sleeves ; long, light-colored Suéde gloves, coming above the elbow, and bracelets were worn over the gloves. Two other very young girls wore pale pink silk gowns made with wide plaits; their fair hair was arranged in long curls, with little pink bows here and there; pink shoes and stockings, and long white Suéde gloves. We all admired these gowns for their simplicity. Com- tesse de Chabrillan wore a dress made with light grey tablier embroidered in old gold; long grey plush train, lined with old-gold satin; the plastron of the half-high bodice was made of grey lampas embroidered in old gold like the tablier; sleeves also of lampas; the back of bodice was plush like the train; the plastron in front was pointed and trimmed with grey lace worked with gold, which also went round the half open bodice, and edged the elbow sleeves. The hair was dressed Louis XV style, but without powder, and with a bunch of chrysanthemums fastened with a diamond spray. As regards the garments wherewith we are to clothe ourselves this winter, the Directoire style still decidedly prevails. Feathers as trim- mings are appearing on everything, and white, pink, and blue boas of feathers to accompany evening dress have become quite the rage. At the representation of “Orfeo” the other night I noticed a foremost member of society in a pale blue silk costume, with a very wide, loosely fold- ed sash of rose color brought up so high as to
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80 FOREIGN GOSSIP. give almost the effect of a short-waisted dress, and a large boa of white ostrich feathers loosely laid upon the shoulders. Tea gowns for all sorts of informal social gatherings in the evening seem likely to become a permanent fashion. They have little in com- mon with the old idea of sucha garment. It is under this name that the individuality of the wearer is allowed by fashion to occasionally de- clare itself, and originality of design and quaint- ness of coloring may be indulged in without be- ing considered either ou¢ré or esthetic, A cel- ebrated modiste is just finishing a most artistic gown of this kind. Over a high white inner dress of thick silk gauze, with broad stripes di- vided into many finer ones in delicate shades of blue, pink, fawn, and grey, is worn a long robe of pale blue brocade, cut low at the neck, with a turn down collar of blue velvet, which is fasten- ed by an antique silver clasp, and from which the robe falls open to the feet, showing the inner gown in the front, which is held into the waist by a medizval girdle of silver. The sleeves are tight and plain, with a small puff very high on the shoulder. Redfern, Rue de Rivoli, is using plain and fancy striped cloth, and also vigogne for prom- enade costumes. The colors most in vogue are dark and bottle-green, brick-red or terra-cotta, grey, and mastic. The following are some of the new patterns for the season: For traveling dress, mastic cloth made with a jacket closed at the neck, opening over a waistcoat of the same with brown buttons; this jacket is loose in front, but close-fitting at the back; straight skirt like a riding habit, very slightly draped. Costume of vigogne striped with three shades of beige, made with a large polonaise, draped and fas- tened on one side in front; near the collar three tabs of gold and brown braid, the same at the waist as half waistband; collar, cuffs, and un- derskirt of brown plush. Slate colored cloth made with open square jacket, trimmed with brandebourgs of slate braid mixed with copper and gold; waistcoat, collar, cuffs of brick-colored cloth, with flat gold buttons placed very close together; skirt open at the side over brick cloth, with two long revers of light slate color, one trimmed with gold buttons, the other with brandebourgs like the jacket. Long mantle of reddish terra-cotta cloth, close fitting, fastening on one side; plastron braided with thick black braid, and bordered the whole length with curled Persian Astrakhan; the braiding comes down the front en guille, edgej with this fur; the back of the skirt is one wide flat plait, braided in the same way; coppey satin lining. Young girls are wearing, in town, felt hats either light grey, black, blue, or moss color, turned up on one side and trimmed with a long feather to match placed round the crown, falling at the back and going round the neck like; long boa of curled feathers, and fastened witha bow of narrow ribbon at the throat, Boas are worn made of fur, feathers, lace, and fancy fur. For instance, one of the leaders of society wore these hats and boas in light grey, with grey dresses and white cloth jackets, the bow of the boa of watered grey ribbon. The fashionable dress sensation this winter is buttons, and large buttons are going to be most popular. The larger they are without appear. ing clumsy the more fashionable. ‘The designs are very elaborate. Ladies will wear them on dresses, sacquesand ulsters. In many cases they are only for ornament, and in a few are really for use. The large steel, bronze and carved but.” tons are the most popular. This fashion has been started in Paris and the buttons are verita ble works of art. A fair American who lef Paris lately for her native shore took with her some very beautiful buttons, They were as large as a silver dollar and were made of pearl Each button presented an elaborate floral display and no twowere alike. The flowers were work- ed on the pearl with a fine gold wire which was inlaid. The effect was beautiful. The buttons were made bya Parisian jeweler and each one cost $7.50. She ordered two dozen costing $18 Soon buttons will be accorded a position in jewel cases. Tortoise-shell buttons, wooden ones beautifully carved, the designs mostly represent the heads of ancient warriors. Bronze medallions also rep resenting the ancients are very fashionable. The Italians are making some very beautiful buttons by hand in Venice. Some of them are made of shell. This shell is a shrimp pink in color and is a piece cut out of the inside of # large shell called the King shell. The coloring is perfectly natural and the shading is lovely. These are cut into varions shapes, the most pop- ular being square, round and octagonal, Corals are used as buttons. They are made round and sometimes beautifully carved. They are worth $5 each. Cameo buttons are also made in Venice. The work on them is very
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FOREIGN GOSSIP. 81 fine, and they are very expensive. Oiher but- tons are made of lava from Mt. Vesuvius. They are made in all kinds of designs and are very pretty. ‘The most popular style is the cameo. These buttons are worth $30a dozen. Buttons of filagree silver work are also made and will be worn occasionally. ‘They are very delicate and soon break, so that they are not likely to become very popular, Just as the season for flowers, within anything like reasonable limits, is passing from us, a pop- ular tirp have introduced a new table decora- tion, daintily reproducing the roses which a short whue since trailed in ail their beauty over weillappointed dinner tables. Sprays of ex- quisitely coiored roses, though sightiy conven- tiona'ized as artistic hands can arrange their own style of table decoration, whether they choose to reproduce the hostess’ monogram or some conventional figure, or oniy remind us of the trailing wreaths of the summer. The large sprays consist of one fully developed flower and a bud; the smaller ones are so arranged that whilst they can be utilized with the larger ones in any set pattern, they can also answer the pur- pose of menu holders as well, while the dainty coloring of the open calices, which serve also as receptacles for flowers, render any great quan. tity of blossoms unnecessary, and makes the pretty ornaments as decorative when not in use as when filled with leaves and flowers; and, moreover, their graceful shapes allow of artistic treatment as readily and as satisfactorily as the natural flowers themselves. So far these winter blossoms are only to be had in delicate pink and soft yellow, or else in white, either plain or touched lightly with gold; but the colored spec- imens have decidedly the newest and lightest effect. Later on, other flowers may be pro- duced; but for the present we must be satisfied with the rose, alone. How they look really pretty is, with some brown feather grasses and green fern fronds arranged as a background, Two buds are cleverly contrived, so that the menu card can be slipped down between them, and the grasses arranged so as to frame it care- lessly and gracefully, Another novelty is palm leaf grass. This is made into differently sized vases, with palm leaves drooping round the brim of each in purest crystal. A table for Christmas arranged with frosted holly and scarlet berries in these icicle-like vases would be simply charm- ing and most novel. Very pretty table decorations are also arranged with baskets of willow-plait, silvered over and filled with glasses of cut flowers or pots of grow- ing ferns, One basket only, as a centre-piece, is used in an ordinary way; but, when the table is large enough to admit it, baskets are also placed on each side at intervals; they are in quite plain shapes, without handles. When cut flowers are used they are generally all of one kind, though ! different colors are admissible; but-many ladies arrange their table decorations to correspond | with their own toilette, and in this case only one kind of flower, and in one color only, appears on their table. The lamp-shades correspond with | the flowers; thus, supposing the hostess to have selected yellow flowers for her personal adorn- ment, the table will be decorated with similar flowers, and the lemp-shades will be of yellow silk. Naturally, the guests are anxious to dis- cover beforehand, if possible, the color under which they and their toilettes are to be seen. The table glass which is certain to find favor with those who can afford to have it is cut crys- tal set in gilt metal. A table witha large orna- ment of this kind in the centre, a dish for fruit at the top, surrounded by six specimen glasses filled with scarlet geranium and maiden-hair fern, and with a tiny fountain playing musically into a cut crystal dish below; four small cut crys- tal lamps, mounted with gilt metal, with scarlet silk lace edged shades, and a little gilt mounted crystal vase, with one spray of geranium, and a single fern frond, and with the service of glass all cut to correspond, would be very difficult to improve upon or, as our American cousins more tersely put it, ‘‘hard to beat.” More lingerie is worn again, the result of a vain effort to return to linen collars and cuffs ; but on the other hand there are numbers of parures prepared of colored silks and laces, a parure consisting of a very deep color with two tabs appended to trim the entire front of the corsage. It is fashionable, but, it must be con- fessed, an ugly and ungraceful, way of embelish- | ing the front of a bodice. Some of the laces are’ wrought with gilt thread, thus painting the lily. It is to be expected that with the rage for gold ornaments, ball dresses of all fabrics would glis- ten with metallic embroideries, Light gauzes have threads of gold and silver; cream crépe, white tulle, and cream silk are covered with gold embroidery. The impulse in this direction is said to have been given by Madame Sarah Bernhardt with her Tosca toilettes in the Em- pire style. MARIGOLD.
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THE SHOPPER.
MAGINE astore occupying an entire block, with the hundreds of sections on each floor in holiday array, showing every article one can possibly want for dress, home use, or for decorative purposes, and you can only have a faint idea of how John Wanamaker’s beautiful establishment looks just now. Every procurable novelty from all parts of the world may be found there, and every help for the house- hold is presented for trial, Rare, lovely and serviceable dress goods from foreign and domes- tic looms, in silk, wool, linen and cotton, cos- tumes, robes and wraps, with choice millinery, add to the grandeur of the exhibition. To the good house-keeper no department is more pleasing than that of china and glassware, with wonderful varieties of unique and useful articles for the table service, while children grow wild with delight over the marvellous toys, and the beautiful, life-like dolls. Ladies who want to know the prices of any needful articles should write for the winter cata- logue, while those who want only books for the holidays, or for every day reading, will do well to write for price list of holiday books to John Wanamaker, Chestnut & Market Sts, Philadel- phia, Pa., and be sure and mention GoDEy’s LapDy’s Book in letter. Of the many candidates among the European perfumery manufacturers for the favor of the American public, we venture to assert that none have produced such a delicate, refined and last- ing odor as that of the Crown Perfumery Com- pany’s Crab Apple Blossom. It will, without doubt, quickly take its place in the front rank of America’s favorite perfumes, They have also prepared a most refreshing and delightful accession to the toilet known as Lay- ender Salts. It is the best article in the line of smelling salts on the market. Thousands of mothers are at this season puzzled to know what material to buy for school frocks for their growing girls, and for house dresses for themselves. In cotton goods about the most durable and attractive fabrics in new fast colors, that the ‘‘Shopper” has found, are the cloths known as Toile du Nord. These materials come in odd and stylish ccmbinations of new tones in popular colors, in checks, plaids and stripes; they make up prettily, and having extra substantial body they wear well, and do up beautifully. For samples of serviceable Toile du Nord write direct to Denny, Poor & Co., agents for manufacturers, 114 Worth street, New York, and be sure and mention Gopky’s LabDy’s Book in letter asking for samples, Our readers who want specialties in beautj. ful books, dainty miniatures, art books, and stories for children, should write to Lee and Shepard, Publishers, No. 10 Milk street, Boston, Mass,, for the new illustrated catalogue with full list of holiday publications. Mention Gopgy’s Lapby’s Book in letter to Lee and Shepard. After the holiday festivities are past the busy housewife resumes her practical cares, and is naturally on the lookout for the best articles for daily use in the kitchen and the laundry, for the knowledge of what is best proves most important in household economy. The toilet soaps of Col- gate & Co, are known to be the purest, finest and hardest soaps made, and the laundry Soap manufactured by the same producers have quite as many desirable qualifications, being made of the very best and cleanest materials, If near-by grocers do not keep this choice Laundry Soap, write for it to Colgate & Co., 55 John Street, New York. Pond’s Extract is used in the household of the President as well as that of the humblest citizen, Members of the army and the navy, the Bar and the Bench, the pulpit and the press —all ranks and classes of people—have sent their personal experience and thanks for the the last forty years, until their letters have filled volumes, testifying to the wonderful cures of all kinds of Pain and Inflammation, effected by Pond’s Extract. Avoid imitations. For fancy ball dresses, and costumes for the- atricals, public and private, Velutina is far more desirable than the Lyons silk velvet it so closely resembles, It comes in all the new colors, has exquisite bloom, or lustre, is exceedingly dur- able, and is comparatively inexpensive. Sam- ples of Velutinas at $1.25 a yard can be obtained from Sharpless Brothers, Chestnut and Eighth Streets, Philadelphia, Pa. . CATARRH CuRED.—A clergyman, after years of suffering from that loathsome disea<e, catarrh, and vainly trying every known remedy, at last fuund a recipe which completely cured and saved him from death. Any sufferer from this dreadful disease sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to Prof. J. A. Lawrence, 88 Warren St, New York City, will receive the recipe free of charge.
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Chat With Our Neighbors on Home Topics. BY LENA RIVERS. » efrain thy foot from thy neighbor’s house, least he weary of thee and so hate thee.” We read this injunction in Holy Writ, and there is very sound truth in it; we are all apt to demand too much of our neighbors ; too much of their time and affection, too, if they are friends as well as neighbors. We may have the pleasantest possible rela- tions with them and not prove annoying. They may have many more duties to attend to, and not always be ready to receive us, not from any lack of kindly feeling, but simply for want of leisure, we should try and find out their ways and time our visits when we know they are certain to be at leisure, and at the hours they like best to receive visitors. To bea really good neighbor demands the possession of many excellent qualities—tact, temper, discernment, and consideration for other people’s feelings ; and if we possess all or some of these qualities, innumerable and never end- ing are the benefits we may confer on each other, and'a great deal of pleasure will be the result. But because we are near neighbors, we need not necessarily be close friends; we may be friendly enough to enjoy the pleasure of doing them little kindnesses, and receiving the same inreturn. Being kindly disposed to all by no means implies that our homesare always to be open to visitors. A little quiet dignity of manner will at alltimes suffice to prevent our time being too much encroached upon;we can be friendly without being too intimate ; we can have a few friends, but must have many ac- quaintances, “Ifyou want to like people, don’t know them too well,” said a friend of mine to me once, andit is certainly true that the average do not bear knowing well. Very many shy, reserved people, are only known and really appreciated when they become our near neighbors ; they unbend then, and show by a hundred kindly acts that beneath that cold exterior lies a warm heart ever ready to do a kindness and to be a help to any one and every- one; they love to do good “by stealth,” and are painfully uncomfortable if it is found out or even known to their most intimate friends. They shine particularly as neighbors, never interfering nor making themselves of great importance ; not touchy, nor apt to imagine slights were offered when none were intended ; but quiet, gentle, un- assuming, they may fill a very important position, perhaps in a way that the more you know of them the more you like them, and find their society always welcome and pleasant. In the city our neighbors are not as near to us as in the country where a good neighbor is a real boon; but, wherever we are, we all have duties, and are bound.-to interest ourselves in the affairs and troubles of our poorer neighbors. The more we concern ourselves with them the better, and a large portion of our time, if possi- ble, should be spent in ministering to their needs. We need ask “who is my neighbor?” Every- one who is in trouble or need has a claim on us: people who have seen better days, the broken- down lady (and how many there are in these times), cf devant governesses and others, who would be all the better for, and gratefully appre- ciate, a little attention from those whom circum- stances have treated more kindly. A few flowers, books, a newspaper, music lent, a drive occasionally, all these are real boons to them, and it gives us very little trouble; so many would do so much, and do it gladly, only they never think of it. Life is too hurried, too full of gayeties or business, to let us think of many besides ourselves, and thus we lose the happiness of giving pleasure to others. The “poor we have always with us” and it is a great and para- mount duty to try and find out their needs. Let us at the commencement of the New Year try to do some good to others; it will give us fresh interests, fresh pleasures in life, and we can prove ourselves to be indeed neighbors, in the best sense of the term, inasmuch as we “ showed mercy” on them. How to frost a Christmas tree which will gladden the hearts of the little folks is often a perplexing question, as so many desirable methods are recommended; each one in the eyes of some person being better than the one previously proposed. The following I know to be an admirable method for “frosting” a Christmas tree: First, simply sprinkle the tree all over with water, shaking off any superfluous quantity, and then dredge it with flour. If there is too much water on the branches the flour will
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84 CHAT WITH OUR NEIGHBORS ON HOME TOPICS. cake. In a few minutes it becomes hard, and will last for weeks, Any novelties in fancy work is especially attractive at this season, and those which can be made with a small outlay frequently are most desirable. A new way of decorating screens in the Japanese style is very effective, and yet so easy that the least competent artists may succeed in making very presentable screens of their own manufacture. The ground is either black or colored paper; red and blue are good colors, but gold paper may also be used. The panels of the screen are covered with this paper, and then Japanese designs, traced from screens, fans, boxes, trays, etc., are either traced on the panels or on white paper, a thin, fine drawing paper being the best kind to use. The designs are painted in Japanese fashion, without shading, in water-colors, mixed with Chinese white, and, if drawn on the panel, must of course be grouped and arranged before they are painted. If drawn on separate sheets of paper they may be painted first and then cit out, grouped on the panel and stuck in place with paste. All kinds of designs may be employed, flowers, leaves, animals, birds, figures, etc.;and all are painted in bright flat colors; the edges may be outlined with a line of gold paint, but this should only be put on after the cut out designs are stuck in place and have dried on. The centres of flow- ers may also be filled in with dots of gold paint. Ladies living in small towns often find them- selves obliged to use various substitutes for simple articles that might be readily purchased at a city store. One of the most difficult articles to obtain at a small store is cord of a desired shade, The one you want is sure to be the one theylack. A very good substitute may be made in this way. Get crewel, yarn or knitting silk of the desired shade. Take a large spool, and drive six pins in at equal distances around the hole. Make a loop stitch over each pin and let a short end of yarn extend down through the spool; draw the other end of the yarn around the pins to the left, above the stitches, and hold with the lefi hand. Insert a darning-needle into the first stitch, draw it over the pin, and drop on the side next the hole in the spagl, leaving the yarn you are hold- ing over the pin; this forms another stitch. Work in this way until your cord is as long as you desire. This can also be made into pretty lamp mats, etc., and is somethirg which even the little ones can do very nicely. I made a pretty shaving case out of two pieces of pasteboard 2bout twelve by five inches, or as large as you wish, and a piece of looking-glass which should be at least six inches by four. My pasteboard was about two inches bigger than the glass allaround. Fasten the pasteboards witha piece of cloth as tablets are bound. To this cloth fasten leaves to wipe the razor on. Cuta hole in the front board about half an inch small- er than the glass all around. Cover it with silk or velvet, padding it. To the wrong side glue the glass and also paste a piece of strong cloth over the back of the glass. For a shaving-inug cover, take a round box larger than the mug, or any piece of pasteboard. Make it somewhat cone shaped. Cover with sheet wadding, but. ton-hole on the bottom for skirt, shape a piece for head, pinching up a bit to make a nose, red yarn for mouth, beads for eyes. Make a bonnet and circular of the same material. Dust bags are useful, step-saving contrivances that are now quite fashionable. They are to be hung on the back of a chair or inany convenient place in the library, dining-room, or sitting-room, and hold an old silk handkerchief for a duster, to be used when the dust gathers during the day after the morning’s work has been done. Pretty dust bags may be made from cretonne,the figures outlined with tinsel, and a row of bronze or cop- per crescents sewed on the bottom of the bag, Ribbon or cord of a contrasting color should be used for drawing strings. A pretty box for collars was made from an old olive, rough straw hat. The hat was ripped apart, and the straw soaked te straighten it, and then it was resewed inthe desired shape. The cover was made from the crown of the hat, which was tied to the bex with quarter inch satin ribbon of a yellow-green shade. ‘The edge of the straw was touched up with bronze paint, and on the cover was fastened a bunch of cherries and leaves taken from last year’s hat. To make a nice receptacle for scraps take an old paint keg, scrape the outside smooth and paint it to harmonize with your room, gilding the hoops or painting them black. Line with silesia, first tacking it on the edge, then turning. Gather the end and then push down into the keg just as you line the crown of a hat. I made a pretty scarf for a wicker chair out of a yard and a half of cream-colored bunting that had once been part of adress sash. I cut it the desired width and then hemstitched it all around, having the hem an inch and a half in width. On one end I embroidered pinks in shaded red crewels, with their leaves and stems in greet The ends were finished with tassels of olive and green crewels. omy 4 a as QagaRrnse eos y
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ose PrP ee & ES ee aver SS Pow to Make and Keep our Homes Wealthy and Happy. BY MRS. I. D. HOPE, Teacher of Cookery in the Public Schools of New York and several Fifth Avenue Academies. EGINNING with that most neglected and despised portion of the home, the cellar, I purpose giving in this p= series of articlessuch hints as may be of value to housekeepers in conducting household affairs, with the least expenditure of time and money. r Ilave you ever stood by a stove and noticed the peculiar shimmer and quiver of the air just above it? If so, have you ever thought of the reason? The heated air generated by the fire within passes out from ‘the stove, and being light- er than the surrounding air, it seeks at oncea higher level; the cooler air around the stove fa- ciliating this process. Here we find one of the fixed laws of nature—air on becoming heated will always rise. The earth on which we live is heated by subterranean fires and the air which is entangled between the particles of matter, when so heated, must ascend. The idea that the ground contains.air may be new to you; but if you will step out of the house some morning in spring, when the frost is coming out of the ground, you will notice the same waving mo- tion of the air that you see around the stove ; or pour water into a pot of dry dirt and notice how much the earth will absorb in the place before occupied by air, moreover the air which circu- lates in the ground differs in no particular from that around and above it. It affiliates with and carries on its wings the same pleasant or noxious vapors and gases and the same germs of health . or disease, When I remind you of these facts you will at once see why I attach such import- ance to the care of the cellar. Ihave heard it said that the cellar in the country house has greater opportunities for taking and retaining filth than its city cousin, but hav- ing had experience with both, it seems to mea case of six of one to a halfa dozen of the other. Having given much attention and thought to the subject I have striven to keep my cellar in ac- cordance with my ideas, and -have been reward- ed for my pains. Only a short time ago my housewifely instincts were gratified by a remark made by the dapper young man, who each month drops in to inspect my gas meter. “ Madam,” said he. “there is not a cellar on my route that is as neat and orderly as yours; in the majority of them I am obliged to pick my way among heaps of vegetables, step between barrels and boxes, or wade over piles of coal. I always carry with me a supply of matches; bu: your cellar is light, and so well arranged, that I can go in a straight line from the cellar steps to the meter.” His was acharacteristic description. I have nodoubt you haveall seen just such, Now shou'd this be? If we wish to keep our children, our husbands and ourselves healthy, will we allow sources of disease to exist and continue to exist in our homes; yet if we have but a few decayed vegetables in the cellar, they will infect the air, which must pass up into the dwelling-room; whenever the cellar door is opened, and the germs so carried and inhaled will surely become the foundation of throat and lung troubles, typhoid and low fevers, which drain the system of strength and imperil life itself. Now, to remedy these evils, we must endeavor to secure for our cellar light, pure air, and dryness. If the house is built so that the beams are laid from three to six feet above the ground, we will have a cellar which is only half or two thirds underground. If the first floor is higher than this, so muck the better, The windows should be at least two in number, and so placed as to secure a draught when opened, The situation of the house itself has much to do with the dryness of the cellar. It built on rising ground, be sure that the drains are numerous and perfect, that all surface water may be carried away. If on alow or marshy spot, the most unceasing vigilance can hardly keep it from being damp; when, however, the house is built on a light sandy soil, it is a com- paratively easy task to have a dry cellar. Have the floor of cement, if possible, and the ceiling and walls whitewashed. The light striking on the walls will be reflected, and so aid in lighting the place. If you have such a cellar as this, dry and well lighted, 4eep z¢# so; you have a sure foundation on which to build, But the super- structure (otherwise the contents) may prove your ruin. If you have allowed your vigilance to lapse, degin again now—remove all the use- less household odds and ends which have been allowed to accumulate. Have the walls and ceiling whitewashed, and remember to repeat 85
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86 RECIPES. this operation at least once a year ; twice a year would be better; the lime contained in the whitewash will assist in the process of purifica- tion. Clean the glass in the windows, and leave a space in your household schedule of work for its frequent repetition, Make it a daw that your cellar is to be kept in as good order as your kitchen Have the floor, if of cement or boards, scrubbed once a week; if of earth rammed down, swept thoroughly. At the same time clean ail shelves which are used for hold- ing food, and also the cellar steps. If possible, keep the vegetables and fruits in a separate cellar; but whether there or in the main cellar, do not allow them to lay in heaps on the floor. Keep in barrels and sort fre- quently, remembering that one decayed potato or apple will infect every other potato or apple with which it comes in contact. See that the coal is kept in its bin; not scattered from there to the cellar steps; and the wooed piled in an orderly fashion. Keep the windows open as much as possible in summer, and in winter allow the fresh air access for a few moments every warm day. Insist on this order being main- tained, and there will be no necessity for the grand yearly upheaval which strikes terror to the heart of every housewife, and greatly dis- turbs the masculine element in the family. Have the refrigerator placed in a position where the light is good, so that it can be care- fully looked into. Wash thoroughly with hot water twice a week and dry carefully. Have the ice placed near the centre so that all the eata- bles will equally receive benefit from it. If the ice is kept wrapped in a blanket it saves much waste. Keepthe pan emptied containing the drips so that no overflow happens in the cellar causing dampness. In putting away food, never allow it to be left upon good china. Have common plates, which use for the purpose so that there is not the risk of breakage. Butter, cream or milk should never be kept in the same refrigerator with fish, or fruit, as they will readily take any taste with which they are thrown. If possible have a small one, especially for butter, etc. It pays in the end, as poor butteris but poor economy and destroys whatever cooking in which it is used. The butter pot and pitchers or earthen pans holding cream or milk should be kept well scalded. If care is not exercised they soon become greasy, and have a heavy odor which is imparted to any contents placed in them. ~<or -——___— RECIPES. BY MRS. I. D. HOPE, A Company Breakfast. Macaulay said: “Dinner parties are mere formalities; but you invite a man to breakfast because you wish to see him.” The custom of giving breakfast parties is becoming more popu. lar every year. It is true that much of the suc. cess of the breakfast will depend upon the skill of the cook; but there is a certain indescribable charm of the hostess for which no excellence of the cuisine can compensate. She, by her grace- ful tact, knows how to harmonize the different elements to draw out the special talents of her guests, encouraging the timid to talk freely and suggesting topics for conversation without seem- ing to do so. It is she who gives tone to the whole affair, making it in the highest sense en. joyable to ali. The hours for serving a fashionable breakfast are between ten and twelve o’clock. The dishes should be as simple as possible; but perfectly cooked and served in courses. The silver ser- vice is allowed to remain on the table for tea and coffee, Breakfast Menu. Fruit. Fried Smelts. Tartare Sauce. Rolls. Sweetbreads garnished with French Peas. Tenderloin Steak. Mushroom Sauce. Potato Puffs. Oyster Omelet. Pop-overs. Waffles. Lemon Syrup. Tea. Coffee. Fried Smelts. The fish should be washed, dried, and sea- coned ; then rolled in cracker-dust and left about fifteen minutes; after which, dip them in beaten egg; then cracker-dust again. Fry in deep, smoking-hot fat one minute, no longer; drain on brown paper, and serve with Tartare Sauce. Tartare Sauce. One tablespoonful of mustard ; one teaspoonful of powdered sugar; one scant teaspoonful of salt; quarter of a saltspoonful of Cayenne pepper; yolks of three raw eggs; three-quarters of a cup- ful of butter; three tablespoonfuls of vinegar; two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice; one large tablespoonful each of chopped pickles, olives and capers. Cream the butter ina warm bowl; put the egg yolks and the dry ingredients in another bowl, and beat rapidly for six minutes with egg-beater; then add the creamed butter, a teaspoonful at a time, beating well with each addition of the but- ter. When all the butter has been used, add vinegar and lemon juice, very slowly beating all the time. When the mixture is smooth and light, add the chopped ingredients.
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RECIPES. 87 Rolls. One pint of milk ; two eggs; quarter of a cake of compressed yeast; half a cupful of butter; one teaspoonful of salt; two tablespoonfuls of sugar; two quarts of flour. Sift dry ingredients, and rub in the butter until fine, like meal. Dissolve the yeast in a little warm milk. Beat the eggs; add milk and yeast, and stir all into the flour mixture. Knead one- half hour; let it rise until light, and make into small rolls. Let them stand until very light, and bake in a quick oven. When done, brush over with white of egg; shut the oven-door one min- ute to glaze them. Sweetbreads. The moment they come from market, put in cold water. Soak them one hour, Cook in boil- ing salted water for twenty minutes; then drop in cold water to harden. Lard them, and bake until brown, basting with butter and water. Larding. Larding is drawing small strips of salt pork through the surface of the meat. For sweet breads, cut the pork in strips about the size of a match, and with a larding needle (which comes for this purpose) draw these through the sweet- breads, using about four strips for each one. French Peas. Wash canned French peas in cold water, and heat them with salt, pepper and butter. Put the peas in the centre of the dish, with the sweet- breads around. Tenderloin Steak. Cut slices from the tenderloin about an inch thick, in even shapes, round or oval, one for each plate. Broil over clear coals eight minutes, turning every ten seconds; season and serve im- mediately. Brown Mushroom Sauce. One small can of mushrooms, one pint of stock, three rounded tablespoonfuls of butter, two heaping tablespoonfuls of flour, one table- spoonful of lemon-juice, salt and pepper to taste. Melt the butter, add the flour, and stir until a very dark brown, then gradually add the stock. Let it boil one minute; add the liquor from the mushrooms, season, and simmer fifteen minutes; add the mushrooms and simmer five minutes longer; add the lemon juice and serve imme- diately. The stock for brown sauce may be made from bones and remnants of any kind of meat, by soaking them in cold water, and then simmering slowly until all the nutriment is extracted. Let it stand until cold, and remove every particle of fat before using. Potato Puffs. Fiveheaping tablespoonfuls of mashed pota- toes; five even tablespoonfuls of flour; half a tea- spoonful of baking powder; one teaspoonful of salt; half a cupful of milk; two eggs. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Mash potatoes, and mix them with the well- beaten eggs. Whip up toa cream, adding the milk gradually. Add all together and beat hard for one minute. Drop by spoonfuls in smoking- hot fat, and fry about eight minutes. Oyster Omelet. Heat one quart of oysters to the boiling-point in, their own liquor. Stir in one large table- spoonful of butter mixed with one even table- spoonful of flour. Season with salt and pepper. Beat six eggs, and season with salt and pep- per; add to them three tablespoonfuls of water. Put a tablespoonful of butter in a hot omelet-pan, and, when it becomes white and frothy, pour the eggs into it. Shake over a hot fire until the eggs begin to thicken; then pour in the oysters. Roll up the omelet, turn out on a hot dish, and serve immediately. Pop-overs. Two and a half cupfuls of flour ; one teaspoon- ful of salt; three eggs; two cupfuls of milk, Beat the eggs until light-colored and thick; add the milk and salt, and stir lightly into the flour. Bake in round gem pans, in hot oven, about twenty minutes. Waffles. . Two cupfuls of flour; one even teaspoonful of baking powder ; half a teaspoonful of salt ; three eggs; one large cupful of milk; one tablespoon- ful of butter. Sift dry ingredients together. Beat whites and yolks separately. Add milk to the beaten yolks, and stir into the dry mixture; then the melted butter, and, lastly, the whites of eggs stirred in very lightly. Lemon Syrup. One cupful of sugar; quarter cupful of water; one teaspoonful of butter; two tablespoonfuls of ‘lemon juice. Boil the water and sugar five minutes; add butter and lemon juice. Serve as soon as the butter is melted.
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Se SE A ge Yar MB! ~ Skee WORK TABLE. Fig. 1, Lamp Screen. Pretty screens to shade the light are shown in a variety of styles so beautiful that it is difficult to select from the number. Our model has a sliding panel, with its painted glass or silk ground, and its lace bordering, is suitable for the drawing-room table. It has a plush stand decorated with scrolls in feather stitch to cor- respond with the large side bow in corded ribbon. - sr a ’ oy te Se Fic. 1, The frame can easily be made at home, and if the maker does not understand painting, em- broidery in silk can be substituted. Fig. 2, Knitted Bed-room Slipper. These slippers are so useful and appropriate for a gift. They are knit with grey and red dou- ble zephyr wool, the grey forming the body of the slipper, and the red a looped lining inside, with short dashes of color outside, Take a pair of suitable steel needles, and with the grey wool cast on 14 stitches for the toe. Kunit the 1st 88 row in plain knitting. 2d row.—Fasten on the red wool; slip the first stitch, then bring the red wool over itacross the frout, and between this first stitch and the next to the back; * now purl 2 stitches with the grey; take a thick pencil or other round stick an inch in circum. ference, put the red wool around it and between the stitch last knitted and the next to the front of the work, purl another grey stitch, then bring the red wool across it and between it and the next stitch to the back; repeat from *, and at the end of the row draw the pencil out of the red loops and fasten off the red wool. 34 row.—Purl with grey throughout. 4th row.— Plain knitting with grey. Repeat the Iste 4th rows 16 more times; in the first 12 repeti- tions widen at the beginning and end of the Ist row; to widen, knit 1 and purl 1 out of the first stitch and the last; in the last 4 repetitions widen at the beginning and end of the Ist and 3d rows of each pattern. There will be 54 stitches at the clcse of the 17th pattern; of these use the 25 at each end for the sides of the slipper, which are knitted separately, ard cast off the middle 4. On the 25 stitches on each side knit 119 rows in the same pattern; in the 2d, 4th, and 6th widen at the edge adjoining the sole, so that there will be 28 stitchesto knit the rest on. Crochet the ends together at the heel. Around the top crochet a row of scallops in red as follows: a single crochet between 2 ribs of the knitting, pass 3 ribs, 4 double crochet on the space between the last and the next, pass 3 ribs; repeat; close with a slip stitch on the firstsingle. 2d row.—With grey, 4 double crochet on the oe pea? 4a 5 SMCS et enh Fic. 2, single, a single crochet between the middle 2 of the next 4 double. Run a red crochet cord through the Ist row, to be tied on the instep. The slippers are completed by a pair
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WORK TABLE. 89 satin, are introduced,a detail of which is shown in Fig. 4. Inser- , 3 tions and lower border are worked a en oe ccc ts = 1 with olive brilliant cotton. It is 2, shown when made up in Fig. 3, iH aa PS Hh y Hit) ON i} ‘i 4 i ] of soles lined with scarlet lamb’s-wool, which Figs. 6, 7.—Dress Trimmings. are sold for the purpose at shoe-stores.. M. C. Fancy designs for dress trimmings are now Fig. 3, 4, 5.—Fancy Cushions. - very fashionable; those illustrated are made of Fancy cushions are very fashionable now to Cloth, stamped out in various forms, overcast hang on chairs of every form, The one illus- and alternated with embroidery stitches in silk trated is prettily made in two halves. One-half of the same color, or fine gold thread, These of the olive plush cover is embroideredinthe 4” be made very beautiful at the expease of a style shown in Fig. 5, with tea-green, olive, and little labor. reddish-brown silk in satin and stem stitch, the outlines being worked with Chinese gold thread, the French knots in bright yellow silk. On the second half, crochet insertions, mounted on olive AIG < ea Bix my \ PRA , ~~ fo — y, 4 ARIAS CNG i — A Bye VAIN Aas SA SALTS. wee ee Figs. 8, 9.—Irish Crochet Lace Plastron and Cuffs. So many pretty additions to the toilette can be made with slight expense if care is only exer- cised in the selection. This plastron, with collar and cuffs to match, is worked in crochet with
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WORK TABLE. Fic. 8. cream-colored crochet thread. The pattern consists of rosettes, which are connected to one another in the course of the work. Cut a stiff paper pattern of the plastron according to Fig. 8. The rosette is shown in full size in Fig. 9. Make a foundation of 12 chain stitches, and connect the ends with aslipstitch. Ist round.— Crochet 4 chain to begin; * for a wound cro- chet wind the thread loosely around the needle 12 times, pull the last of the 12 coils through allthe rest and, through the stitch that was on the needle, take a loop around the centre and with it make 2 chain, work off the 2 loops now on the needle together, work a double crochet around the centre, I chain; repeat from * 11 times; close with a slip on the 3d of the 4 chain at the beginning; the back of the work is the right side of the rosette. 2d round.—Turn the work. so that it will be above the needle, and, going back over the preceding stitches, work 7 chain, connect to the 3d of them to form g picot, 3 chain, a slip stitch op the following 3d stitch; repeat 11 times, This completes a rosette. When working the rest, connect them to the pre. ceding ones as required to shape the plastron by the pat. tern. In the model there are 53 rosettes in the plastron; the collar is a straight band com. posed of 11 rosettes, and the cuffs consist of two rows. L. P. Scarf for Back of Easy Chair. The design shown in Figs, 10-11 is embroidered on a foundation of écru congress canvas in satin-stitch with olive, bright yellow and copper-col ored filoselle, as indicated by the gradation of the shading in illustration. To the embroid- ered centre part three bands of olive, old-gold and copper- colored rep are added on both sides, and the scarf finished off with a tassel fringe, which is to match the colors of the em- broidery, as shown in Fig, 10, which is completed. Fig. 12.—Gaiter for } - ~s of Two Years of Crocheted in Berlin wool. Beginning at the top with a chain of 40 stitches closed in a ring, and work 2 rows, I double crochet in each stitch. Rows 3 to 47, as before; but to form the knee gusset, after the 25th stitch of row 4th, return upon the last Io stitches, then work back- wards and forwards 14 short rows, after the
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WORK TABLE. second of which, at the end of each following row take up 2 stitches from those remaining on both side (excepting the 5th to 7th rows, in which only 1 stitch is to be taken up), I stitch from that of the 3d or 4th row in which the last double crochet in the row before the last was crocheted, and 1 in the next, join these together, 1 double crochet in the next of the stitches that were left. In rows 5th to 9th decrease for the gusset, crocheting the following stitches together, in row sth, 3d and 4th; row 7th, 2d and 3d; row 6th, 4th and 3d; row 8th jd and 2d, and in row gth, 2d and ist. After the end of row 47, having fastened the thread and joined on freshly, crochet on the last and first 8 stitches of the last row going always one way, 7 rows double crochet for the heel; at the last of these 7 rows for the side gussets and front of the foot, 16 rows worked all the same way, 7 stitches in the edge of the previous 7 rows of the heel, then tin each of the free stitches of row 47; join BALD OTD KOA ROD + YOO yO OEITETE TET EPULE ETE PT PVC ETT EER ESS Fic. 11. the last 2 stitches together, 7 double crochet in the edge stitches at the other side of the heel. In the following, and then in every 3d row, join 2 stitches together immediately above those joined previously, and from the 34 of these last 16 rows join 2 at the beginning and end of each 2d following row. Border the lower edge with a row of double crochet, then make a scallop as follows: Row 1st: * 1 double crochet in the first stitch of the previous row, 2 chain, 3 treble in the same stitch as the previous double crochet, miss 1, repeat from *; lastly, 1 single in the Ist double crochet, of this row. 2d row (with silk): * 1 double crochet in the first double crochet, 2 chain, 1 double crochet in the following 2 chain, 3 chain, repeat from *; lastly, 1 single in the Ist double crochet. Trim the upper part in the same way; forthe strap under the sole, crochet 12 rows double crochet, backwards and forward on a chain of 6 stitches. Cc. W. Fig. 13.—Seent Sachet in the Form of a Co- saque or Cracker. This is embroidered upon a delicate shade of green satin, in gold thread and colors. The perfume is put upon cotton inside, and the ends tied with narrow ribbon and edged with lace,
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WORK TABLE. Embroidered Tea Cosy. (See colored folted sheet in front part of book.) Tea cosys are very fashionable now, and are universally used; our model is made of plush, velveteen, or felt, with large embroidered sprays on one or both sides, The full sized design for embroidery is given with this number. ; It is outlined with gold thread and filled in with colored embroidery silk. The design is full size; it is lined with quilted satin, and is used over the teapot upon the table to keep it hot. HATTIE. Novelties in Decoration. The present craze seems to be for small arti- cles made of rough drawing-paper and decorated with water-colors. The designs chosen are bold and effective, rather than delicate and correct. Some’of these look as though they were copied from wall paper and cretonne patterns instead of from nature. Among the articles so made and decorated are blotters, note-books, tablets, book-markers, etc. Some of these last are folded over like a three-cornered hat. Some of the “booklets,” to use a new word, are composed of several Jeaves of the paper simply folded together, and held loosely in place by a ribbon bow, or silk or tinsel cord and tassel. The decoration is on the upper or outside page. Sometimes a row of leaves or single flowers, like sumach leaves or pansies, is painted along the edge of this upper page, and the paper cut out aronnd the flowers or leaves to form a regular succession of scallops. The white or sometimes colored inner leaf then shows between the scallops. An ap- propriate motto, sentimental or comic, may be painted upon the decorated leaf, in silver or gilt lettering, if desired. Sometimes in place of the upper leaf of drawing-paper is substituted a tablet of ivory or celluloid. This takes oil colors as well as satin does. Sometimes the ivory is cut in slits, and a piece of painted satin ribbon run _ through. Sometimes an opening is made large enough to show a satin square underneath. A piece of bolting-cloth is laid over this, and upon it is painted a spray of flowers of the same color as the satin showing through. Ivory and drawing-paper are both combined with heavy silk or satin in the same way that — board was some years ago. A hand- erchief-case may be of puffed gros grain silk, per or ivory with a large square of drawing- laid directly and flatly down on it, like the top of a box lid. This may or may not be scal- loped all around with, or without, a painted pansy or daisy in every scallop. Tinsel or ribbon bows, gilt or silver lettering, may be added according to taste, Little bags for various uses, which would once have been made of satin of plush, are now largely made of chamois or buckskin. These soft skins will take painting and embroidery as well as an material will Chamois and buckskin are also used to cover pincushions, and per. fume-bottles, and to make larger bags to hold dust cloths or fancy work. The latest use for a chamois-skin is to form a table or chair scarf It has the écru tint so much admired in linen, and it forms an effective background for floss, tinsel or rope-silk embroidery. All the finish necessary is a pinked edge, or strips cut to make fringe. Speaking of embroidery—the latest fancy is for the gobelin stitch, in soft, tinted silk. The stitch itself, and the dull, half-faded colors in which it is executed are derived from the old tapestries, The stitch is a straight line, either long or short, perpendicular or horizontal; but all the stitches in the same piece of work must run parallel showing a line of light between, Thus, the finished work appears semi-transparent, like the gauzy flowers in Madras draperies, Gobelin embroidery can be executed on piqué, rep, toweling, or any material having regular lines or threads ; but particularly on old-fashion- ed canvas, which is then filled up with leviathan, chain, tent or cross-stitch, themselves old tapes- try stitches, Cross-stitch upon canvas is again in vogue. But the designs now used are arabesques, and conventional patterns which do not pretend to imitate nature, Crewel-embroidery is revived. The same old- fashioned crewels are used upon linen as before. But a new stitch appears, which may be de- scribed as a lattice or large cross-stitch. Thisis effective in open-work borders. Much the same effect is seen upon decorated toweling; that is when the toweling chosen for decoration is of the kind covered with crossing lines, in red or blue, forming regular squares, It is the practice to take red or blue embroidery- cotton and work crossing diagonals to these squares, with two long, loose stitches, running from opposite corners. If desired, a small cross- stitch or French knot can be worked in the cen- tre, where the threads cross, to hold them firm. Another way of decorating toweling is run- ning parallel threads of colored cotton or silk along the crosswise threads of the material. This forms a deep heading for the fringe, or border for the end, if intended for a chair-scarf. If flowers are desired in such a border, or back- ground, they are simply outlined with coarse silk or cotton, and the filling made to consist merely of the foundation-material left bare. A pretty chair-scarf had a row of what might be called negative or intaglio iris flowers and buds across the end; the background was of parallel gold- colored silk lines, and the whole was caught to the chair by gold-colored satin bows. MARGARET B, HARVEY.
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Mur Arm Chair. JANUARY. At the opening of the New Year, when all our hearts are, or should be, full of hopes, good- fellowship and affection, how many hands the LabDy’s Book will meet in the close grasp that only associations of “Auld Lang Syne” can give. What a circle it would make if indeed they could all join hands, and what a chorus if every voice joined in the time-honored melody. But since this cannot be, we send greeting to all, hoping that bright eyes will grow brighter, happy hearts be lighter, old memories be stronger, as the Lapy’s Boox’s Happy New Year greeting is of- fered to old and young, our thousands of new friends and, those who so dearly love our pages for the sake of “Auld Lang Syne.” With this number we commence a new volume and everything has been done to make it full of attractions for our subscribers, We are receiv- ing upon all sides, from every One connected with the magazine business, friends, and the press com- mendations for our beautiful Christmas number, many publishers would feel that after so lately issuing such an attractive book, they could afford to rest for a few months and not continue the feast of good things. Suchis not the basis of the present management ; ever onward and trying to add new attractions is the watchword which is faithfully carried forward. Inall the years of its long life, the many, many months of its regular issue, it has never once disappointed its subscribers; but goes on improving with each number. We think our readers will agree with us that the present issue of the Lapy’s Book is the best that has been made for many years. Both in its illustrations and letter-press we have striven to make it a val- uable companion to each member of the home circle, Our colored fashion plates have long ago taken the premium in America, but we think those in this number can safely be placed in competition with the French plates for artistic coloring. Can anything be better executed than our fashions upon the different pages? Although not colored, they certainly excel those of the colored ones in other fashion magazines. Then we have two beautiful illustrations; besides all these, our pages as before stated are full of novelties and new features, If our subscribers will kindly show this num- ber to their friends, we are sure it will induce many of them to become subscribers, and thus confer a great pleasure to many additional homes, and enable us to add greater attractions.—EDITOR. —<op A NEW SERIAL. The publishers of GoDEy’s LADY’s Book have made arrangements fora serial, “A model Ameri- can Girl,” from the pen of the talented author of “The Representative From Raccoon,” which has elicted so many comments from the press throughout the country. Our readers have a rare treat in store for them in the perusal of this story.
—_—_——-~<or BOOK TABLE. “The Adventures of a Chinaman in China,” from the French of Jules Verne, by Virginia Champlin. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadel- phia, Pa. Jules Verne is perhaps the only writer of the period who would think of making the tribula- tions of a Chinaman the theme of a work of fic- tion. It is handsomely illustrated. “ Manners—Happy Homes and Good Soci ety.” By Mrs. Sarah J. Hale. Lee and Shepard Boston, Mass. This is a reprint of the articles which origin- ally appeared in the HoME WEEKLY, of this city. Many good suggestions are given. «‘The Last of the Huggermuggers.” By Chris- topher Pearse Cranch. With Illustrations. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. A giant story full of strange adventures, quaint conceits, and odd situations. It is ina modern style after the curious Gulliver’s Travels, and is very interesting reading. The illustrations are numerous. “« Kobboltozo,” a sequel to “The Last of the Huggermuggers,” with illustrations, by Christo- pher Pearse Cranch. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass, For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. Here comes in the moral of the Cranch stories ; first the jealous envy of the dwarf causes disaster to the good giant and his wife; then the search for shell-fish causes the heretofore contented colony of dwarfs to desert their usual avocation, and turn to oyster hunting. Hence, neglect follows, and a bad state of society. Little Jacky and his friend Nabbum came in time to check
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94 OUR ARM CHAIR. this morbid desire to grow into giant statue, and to restore a better state of morality. The books are very interesting and finely illustrated. “ The King of the Golden River, or The Black Brothers,” by John Ruskin, M. A. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. For sale by J. B. Lip- pincott Cempany, Philadelphia, Pa. This is an allegorical story in a bright and witty vein by this matter of artistic prose. It has to do with the fortunes and misfortunes of three brothers who reside in Treasure Valley. Two of them are cruel and morose men, the third is a sort of male Cinderella, the drudge of his brothers. The story, like all of the famous author’s books, is charmingly written, and finely illustrated with wood cut pictures by famous English artists. “ Days Serene.” Illustrated From The Origi- nal Designs of Margaret MacDonald Pullman. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. Price, $5.00. An exquisite gift book, with beautiful illustra- tions and quotations from favorite authors. It is elegantly printed upon handsome paper. “All Around The Year.” Illustrated by J. Pauline Sunter. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. Price, 50 cents. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. A dainty calendar with choice illustrations for each month in the year. “A Christmas Carol.” By Dinah Marie Mu- lock, author of ¥ohkn Halifax. Leeand Shep ard, Boston, Mass, Price, $1.00. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. This is gotten up in the beautiful style that this house is noted for. It isa charming memento of the Christmas season. “A Friend Stands at the Door.” By Dinah Marie Mulock. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. Price, $1.co, For sale by J. B. Lippin- cott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. A Psalm for New Year’s eve handsomely illus trated with original designs upon heavy card- board. A pretty gift for the season. a “Fighting Phil.” The Life and Military Career of Philip Henry Sheridan. By Rev. P. C. Headley. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass, Price, $1.50. Forsale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa, An interesting account of the life of the hero of the late war, pleasingly written. “Chapters from Jane Austen.” By Oscar Fay Adams. Illustrated. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. Price, 75 cents. J. B. Lippincott Com- pany, Philadelphia, Pa. These are selections from different books written by the author, whose works are too wel known to need any praise, The selections ay well arranged for readings in schools, etc, “ Readings From The Waverly Novels,” By Albert F. Blaisdell, A. M. Illustrated. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. Price, 75 cents, For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. This book is arranged for reading in schools or homes, the best parts of the different books having been selected. “A Start in Life.” By J. T. Trowbridge. JL. lustrated. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass, Price, $1.00. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Com. pany, Philadelphia, Pa. An attractive book for boys who could gain much good by following in the footsteps of the hero. “Biding His Time.” By }. T. Trowbridge. Il lustrated. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass, Price, $1.00. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Com. pany, Philadelphia, Pa. A cleverly written story full of stirring inter. est throughout. “Little Miss Weezy’s Brother.” By Pem Shirley. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass, For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa, The author knows well how to cater to the childish mind, and has made “ Little Miss Wee- zy’s Brother” as full of attractions for the little folks as the previous one of Miss Weezy was. The Blue and Gray Series, “« Taken by the Enemy.” By Oliver Optic. With illustrations Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. Price, $1.50. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadel phia, Pa. This is the first of a series of books which, 3 their name indicates, are to treat of the civil war. Facts are related from the union stand- point in an interesting form. “Travellers and Outlaws.” By Thomas Went worth Higginson. Lee and Shepard, Boston, Mass. For sale by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. A collection of valuable articles, some, ¢f which have been reprinted from different mag zines, and form an attractive book collected te gether. “The Stories Mother Nature Told.” By Jane Andrews. Illustrated. Lee and Shepard, Bos ton, Mass. Price, $1.00. For sale by J. B. Lip pincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa.
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OUR ARM CHAIR. 95 WHAT THE PRESS SAY OF US. Gopey’s Lapy’s Book is one of the best of fhe class of magazines that furnishes fashion- plates that come from first-class authority, home and foreign gossip, fashion notes, shopping hints and practical household information. The Christmas number is a superb one, the fashion plates, printed in colors, are of the latest styles in Europe, and there are ample directions for making tasteful and elegant garments. The exquisite steel engraving, “The Parting Promise,” illustrates the bright story, «A Turn of the Wheel,” by M. V. Weyde. Another illus- trated story, ““Reggy Did It,” by Emily Len- nox, isa gem in its way. “Inasmuch” is very touching, and “A Woman’s Way” is equally clever; while “A Stratagem,” “A Social Dagger,” and ‘A Modern Winter’s Tale” are nearly as interesting. —Morth American, Phila- delphia. The popularity of Gopry’s Lapy’s Book, a favorite, long-established monthly, is richly earned. Free from sensationalism, full of every- thing that is refining, interesting and that con- tributes to domestic felicity, Gopry’s Lapy’s Book is worthy of a hearty welcome in every household, .The literary departments are first- class, while as a fashion guide this monthly sat- isfies the requirements of the most exacting lady. At the price GopEy should be in every home in the land. —State Fourna/, Topeka, Kan. The December number of Gopgy’s Lapy’s Book closes the 107th volume, It is an especial Christmas number, and under the management of the present Editor has certainly found the fountain of youth. The book is full of fashion plates and all the et cetera dear to a woman’s heart; but a special attraction for the coming year is a serial by Ada Marie Peck, a most charming writer, as the opening chapters of “A Modern Winter’s Tale” attest.—/os¢, Water- town, N. Y. Every lady wants to know what to wear and how to make it. Gopry’s Lapy’s Book tells all that, and much more. The Deeember num- ber is peculiarly rich, both with illustrations and literary matter, fashions, stories, poetry, shop- ping hints, and all that a refined and practical lady wants to know. —/ndefendent, Harrisburg, Pa. The moral influence of such a pure and refin- ed magazine as Gopgy’s LADy’s Book are invaluable for every household. Richly illustrat- ed and full of capital Christmas stories and other choice literary matter, the December number is now before us. As a fashion guide, the ladies know the worth of the favorite old publication. The attractions for 1888 were all that anybody could expect for the price. But for 1889 arrange- ments are made providing far more. Write to «GopEy’s LADy’s Book,” Philadelphia, Pa,— Evening Item, Lynn, Mass. The following is clipped from the leading Pittsburg, Pa., journals : J. S. Ogilvie & Co., of New York, will issues in book form, “The Representative from Rac- coon,” a serial by David Lowry, of this city, just completed in GopEy’s Lapy’s Book. The attention of the publishing house was attracted to the story in the magazine. The work will be illustrated, Gopey’s will shortly publish another serial by Mr. Lowry, entitled «A Model Amer- ican Girl.” The story to be given to the public in book form isa clever, carefully written one, abounding in the touches of human nature that flow so vividly from Mr. Lowry’s pen. The gentleman’s literary ability is becoming widely and favorably known, and the appearance of his first book is a matter of interest to his many friends. GopDEyY’s LADy’s Book, for December, aside from its very full and instructive fashion plates, is crammed with stories, sketches, and valuable information for the ladies, This number is just such a one as should be published in Christmas times.—LZvening Star, Philadelphia. Gopey’s Lapy’s Book is out witha brave array of fashion plates, musical verse, and capi- tal fiction.— Press, Philadelphia. Gopey’s Lapy’s Book is the oldest and best known of magazines for the entertainment and instruction of ladies. In the matter of fashions it stands at the head of the list. Its manager has made arrangements with leading fashion houses in Berlin, Paris and London for advance proofs of new styles. Besides the fashions there are stories, sketches and poems from the best writers, and much of interest in the conduct of the household. The magazine is only two dol- lars a year. Every lady should have it. Ad- dress GopEy’s Lapy’s Book, Philadelphia.— Evening News, Danbury, Conn.
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96 GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK. EXTRAORDINARY PREMIUMS OFFERED _ To + CLUB « RAISERS. FULL DESCRIPTION AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF OUR FIVE SPECIAL PREMIUMS, "@ ) A™ person sending eighteen subscrib- ers at our regular price of two dollars a year each, will receive one of these popular Boudoir organs, manufactured ex- pressly for us. All im- provements being incor- porated in this instru- ment, Wi J u I The case is solid kiln- dried walnut. Sliding lid, lamp stands, han- dles, music pocket, and rollers. “SS Contains one Five- Octave Set of Reeds, Divided Octave Coupler, seven Stops and two Knee Swells. MOO Te >} STOPS.—Treble Coupler, Dulciana, Echo, Melodia, Viol de Gamba, Diapason, and Bass Coupler. Added to these are the latest improvements of Mezzo knee swell, Maes- tosso percussion. Height, 64 inches. Width, 21 inches. Length, 47 inches. Weight, boxed, 250 lbs. THIRTY SUBSCRIBERS, at our regular price of Soa HSACH, We give as a premium a beau- tiful Gold Hunting Case Ladies’ Watch. Perfect for time, beauty and workmanship, stem winder, air tight, damp-tight and dust- tight.
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GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK. 97 HE MOST ELEGANT PRE- MIUM, the forty, inch long sacque of Alaska Seal skin, is given with 75 subscribers at $2.00 each. This warm winter wrap is of the best seal skin, in the latest and most accep- table shape, is lined throughout with satin, and finished in the most careful manner. Only one hundred subscribers, at $2.00 each, will secure the Black Silk Dress and Alaska Skin Sacque, both of which are illustrated on the figure. THE SECOND PREMIUM con- sists of a Black Silk Dress} Pattern of Twenty Yards, for twenty-five subscribers at $2.00 each. With only a little work many ladies can secure this premium dress of royal wearing, handsome black silk, with the Oriental finish that causes silk to retain its beauty and adapts it to a \ general family service. The twenty ef - yards will make a most elaborate toil- For Forty Subscribers at our regular price of $2 EACH, Our premium is a SINGER IMPROVED SEWING MAGHINE made by the June Manufacturing Co., and warranted by them for five years. Freight to be paid by the receiver. ette, with plaited skirt, or a dress in any fashionable style, with or without draperies.
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ARCHITECTURAL. a Ae, Nee (11 om ee NEF gees “Hing ") fa “mm H u (ashil : Mr thes ill ae Ch amber Myf (Sat : Sau’ wages ~~ - ce how hew Chan ber 1A" O" x 1356" 12e-6"mi7 ' Sitting R Biyips cory ~ 1956" uete 136 ar7s0" ay . (Sdambe te'S°xIS! First Ploer Second Floor” T 1s more advisable to build a house than to buy one already built. It is seldom that the buying of a house | thoroughly satisfies, either in arrangement, Icoks or cost, from the fact that the house was built to suit the t aste and comply with the outlay of scme one else. It always costs less tobuild fot oneself, and is4 satisfaction to feel that the house is arranged specially to one’s own requirements. The special features of our design are a cellar under the whole house. The parlor and dining-room are connected by sliding M The opening from dining-rcom to sitting-room and from parlor to hall are intended to be furnished with ortiéres, no doors. The dining-rcom is connected with kitchen through good sized pantry and service wil- ow, The attic contains three gocd rooms. The heighth for stories are, viz. : first story, 9 ft. 6 in., second story, 9 ft., third story, 8 ft., all in clear of joists. second floor. The roof is intended to be o in The construction is of frame, covered with shingles above : slate. We estimate this house to cost about $3500. Any commt nications in reference to this hcuse addressed to Samuel Milligan, Architect, 708 Chestnut Street, delphia, will receive prompt attention.
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<x 4 —s 4 ep Fan, ’ P _ os ot el . ae <i s ar ES , x ‘ Bee, Sie eT Lene ae SSS IE AES NaS ape a — Vs +3 Ze Sey, a" * ’ Se: . GODEYS FASHIONS. FOR DESCRIPTION SEE FASHION DEPARTMENT :
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For Description see Fashion Department.
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For description see Fashion Department.
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gn Ie VRC AK A aA PILLS ES \ Pr CODERS, > WML aa 5 Fig. 17. Fig. 16. “3 ¢ f g : * 3 ¢ 3 2 +) 5 ia,
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Fig. 23. For description see Fashion.Department.
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oe) c ® e of iss} Qo oO Q c S & n iss} cs oO ® ” ¢c 9 For Descript Fig. 27.
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“ i A) 5 > 8 VAN: \ ly “ie PUNO ITY TI er y ING WP. Ve Poe f AN. Oe NS aKS eX Nak Pi x ly“ WAY Di, ) \ A; iS 1 war BSG Aol a Phas ae (eee) ARAB \ ib} i eA MA Wh Pisa | For description see Fashion Department.
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oy
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a Pei het ECOL OTT) Ry | t. Jf Mtl Ss bDMbbidbed/. ~ SQ \ WN RR 0 c i) E £ is] 2. oy) Qa ¢ 9 ce n i) ce 3 Cc 2) » a. . Oo 7) @O Ke) = ie) te ———
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GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK.