On the 24th of June, Mr. Van Ness rose at 5 A.M., but was forced to return to bed by a severe headache. At 9 A.M., after dressing, he said to his wife that he would not eat at home, but would stop at Mrs. Wharton's on his way to the office, to get a cup of her "nice black tea." A piece of toast was all he ate before his return to Mrs. Wharton's from the banking-house at 4 P.M. Mrs. Wharton then offered him some lager beer, and, partly at his own suggestion, put into it something out of a bottle labeled "Gentian Bitters." He found the liquid so bitter that he took but a part of it.[20]

Shortly afterward Mr. Van Ness became partially blind, and was "seized with the same feeling of giddiness" as on the day before. After this he had convulsions, with unconsciousness, for which large doses of chloroform and chloral were given. During the attack the patient repeatedly said it was of the same character as the preceding ones, and referred the trouble to the pit of the stomach and to indigestion.

The next morning (Sunday), about an hour after waking, he took some tea and toast, and in ten minutes was seized with nausea, followed by heartburn and retching, which lasted all day. On Monday morning some beef tea—two-thirds of a cupful—was given him, and in less than an hour as much more, which induced nausea with heartburn. In the evening he was roused, and more beef tea offered him, which he refused because the last dose had made him sick, and he was afraid this would have the same effect. He was, however, prevailed on to take it. After this he fell asleep, but in a short time woke up with violent nausea, burning at the pit of the stomach, and finally vomiting. Not until this occurred did he discover anything wrong with the beef tea: as he vomited it he found it had an acrid metallic taste.[21]

The circumstantial evidence in the case did not amount to any more than, or indeed as much as, in the previous trial. It was distinctly admitted that no motive could be found, Mr. Van Ness testifying that the relations between himself and Mrs. Wharton were most friendly; that he held four thousand dollars of her government bonds, for which she had not even a receipt; that she depended upon him for the completion of her pecuniary arrangements for a contemplated trip to Europe; or, in other words, that she had nothing to gain and much to lose by his death, and that there was no conceivable emotional motive, such as hate, revenge or envy.[22]

No attempt was made to prove that Mrs. Wharton had at any time in her possession strychnia, the poison alleged to have been used by her. As on the previous trial, the case centred upon the expert testimony, but there was no direct chemical evidence, neither the food, the matters vomited nor the bodily secretions having been examined. Some sediment found in a tumbler of punch was asserted by Dr. Aiken to consist largely of tartar emetic. This tumbler was not connected with Mrs. Wharton, except by being found at her house in a position where, in the language of one of the State's witnesses, "hundreds of persons" had access to it. It was carried about in the pocket of a lady inimical to Mrs. Wharton, and into at least one drug-store, before it reached Professor Aiken, whose analysis was as faulty as before. Any tartar emetic present in the sediment might have been procured in a pure form by the simple process of dialysis. The only apparatus necessary for this would have been a glass vessel divided into two compartments by a piece of hog's bladder stretched across it. These chambers having been partially filled with distilled water, and the sediment of the tumbler put into one of them, the tartar emetic would have left the other ingredients and passed into the second compartment. By taking the water out of this and evaporating it, the poison would have been obtained in a pure crystalline state, and might have been brought into court. But Dr. Aiken thought it sufficient for him to "satisfy himself:" as he stated on the witness-stand, he did not consider it his business whether other people were or were not satisfied. Consequently, the court was only favored with a memorized report of the color tests used by him, exactly as in the previous trial. One of the reactions which he said he obtained antimony does not conform to.

Drs. Williams and Chew unhesitatingly stated on the witness-stand that they recognized poisoning as early as the Saturday of Mr. Van Ness's illness.[23] Yet they gave no antidote. They employed on Monday and Tuesday a treatment which, although well adapted to a case of natural disease presenting such symptoms, would in a case of poisoning have materially increased the risk to life. They did not save the matters vomited: they did not save the secretions, which would certainly have contained antimony if Mr. Van Ness had been poisoned as alleged. According to their testimony, Mr. Van Ness received six doses of poison on as many different days, four of the doses administered under their eyes; yet they gave no warning to the unfortunate victim or to his friends. If the theory they upheld be correct, that Mrs. Wharton poisoned both General Ketchum and Mr. Van Ness, the extraordinary spectacle was presented of one man lying dead in the house from the effect of poison, of another receiving day after day the fatal dose with the knowledge of the attending physician, yet no antidote given, no warning word put forth, no saving of the evidences of guilt! It would seem as though silence at a trial would best become gentlemen with such a record, yet they were the only experts who asserted that strychnia was the sole possible cause for the attack of the 24th of June, and tartar emetic of the subsequent attacks.

The experts for the defence asserted that the convulsion of Saturday could not have been caused by strychnia or other known poison; that although the symptoms of the later attacks resembled those of tartar emetic poisoning, they were not identical with those usually produced by that drug; and that it was exceedingly improbable that these attacks were due to the poison named, because obvious natural causes for them existed.[24]

The impropriety and total insufficiency of our methods of criminal prosecutions were very strongly shown by this trial. One member of the jury could barely write his name, and not more than one or two of them were in the lowest sense of the term educated; no record of the testimony was kept by the court, and none, except in the very beginning, by the jury, who must therefore have been guided chiefly by impressions, lawyers' speeches or newspaper records; the feeling amongst the populace, with whom the jurymen freely mingled, was so bitter that one of the experts was barred out of his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, openly because he was for the defence of Mrs. Wharton; the newspaper which circulated most largely in the place misrepresented the testimony, and devoted its columns to scurrilous attacks upon the integrity and professional ability of the medical witnesses for the defence. Yet under these influences, mazed and confused by the subtleties and partial statements of the lawyers, these twelve honest but ignorant men were called upon to decide between physicians offering precisely opposite opinions. It is well when this so-called administration of justice ends as a monstrous farce and not as a tragedy.

The conduct of the Wharton-Van Ness trial would have been far different if the expert testimony had been what it ought to have been. If the excretions of Mr. Van Ness had been put in the hands of a properly-qualified chemist, by finding the metal antimony or by proving its absence he would at once have settled the case. As it is, there is no proper evidence of the guilt of Mrs. Wharton. The probabilities are in favor of her innocence, because the symptoms were certainly widely divergent from those induced by poison, if not, as I believe, absolutely incompatible with poisoning. The medical gentlemen who attended Mr. Van Ness, by destroying all the evidence, have made a just conviction and an absolute proving of innocence equally impossible.

If it were necessary, further illustrations of the deficiencies of our criminal processes could be detailed. Some little time since, upon the chemical evidence of Professor Aiken, a poor colored woman was hung in Anne Arundel county, Maryland. She died protesting her innocence, and the general impression appears to be now that she did not commit the crime. A prominent member of the Maryland Bar told me recently of a case tried in that State, in which the accused, as he stated, certainly did kill the deceased with arsenic, yet in which, by showing the insufficiency of Professor Aiken's analysis of the stomach, he obtained the acquittal of the prisoner.

It cannot be stated too strongly that the trouble is not in the science of toxicology, nor in the real students of it. So far as mineral poisons are concerned, any qualified expert will determine the question of poisoning with the unwavering step of a mathematical demonstration.

The legal recognition of the true character and position of the expert, and of certain principles of medical jurisprudence, would probably improve the present status, but it is doubtful whether some other method of reform may not be more available. Professor Henry Hartshorne, at the last meeting of the American Medical Association, suggested that the court should appoint in poisoning cases a commission to collect the scientific testimony and make report on the same. This seems at first sight practicable, but suppose the court had appointed, as is not at all improbable they would have done, Professors Aiken and Chew and Dr. Williams as the commission in Mrs. Wharton's case? The result would certainly have been an unjust conviction.

In Spain and some other countries of Europe the custom is to refer the case to the local medical society. If the opinion afterward given is unanimous, the court is bound by it; if any member object to the opinion, the case is referred to the medical society of the province; if the disagreement continue, the matter is brought before the chief society of the capital. Evidently, this plan would not work well here. In Prussia it was formerly, and may still be, the custom for an expert holding a fixed appointment under the government to investigate the case, and to send his report to the Royal Medical College of Prussia. A standing committee of this body, after investigating the matter, sent the original report, with their comments, to the ministry, by whom it was referred to a permanent commission of experts. The report of the latter body, with all the other papers, was finally sent to the criminal court. This method seems complicated, but it resulted in giving to Prussia the best corps of experts the world has ever seen, as well as the most eminent individual medical jurists.

It is not, however, the object of the present paper to urge any especial method of reform, but to call attention to the need of it, and to show that the present evils do not grow out of the imperfections of medical jurisprudence, but out of the methods of our criminal procedures. Certainly, the matter needs investigation, and it is hardly possible but that some practicable means of relief could be devised by the deliberations of a mixed commission of lawyers and medical jurists of eminence.

H.C. WOOD, JR., M.D.

[Footnote 13: The utter absurdity of Dr. Williams's assertion is shown by the fact that on the first and second trials of Mrs. Wharton he affirmed that the violent convulsions, the extreme muscular rigidity, the retentive stomach, seen in the last day of General Ketchum's life were due to tartar emetic, and that to tartar emetic were due the excessive vomiting, the motionless prostration and muscular relaxation of Mr. Van Ness on the Sunday and Monday of his illness. Tartar emetic the sole possible cause of precisely opposite symptoms!]

[Footnote 14: The parsimony of many legal authorities is an indication of their want of appreciation of the differences in men. Not rarely medical experts are forced to sue a borough or county for compensation, even when the fee has been agreed on beforehand. In Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, some time ago a woman was arrested on the charge of poisoning her mother-in-law, and the stomach of the deceased was sent to Professor Reese of this city for analysis. Warned by previous experience, he refused to make the analysis without a written agreement as to the fees. Nearly three months were spent by the authorities in vainly trying to get him to do it without such arrangement, and finally the stomach was returned unopened. During the whole of this time the poor woman, very probably innocent, was lying in prison with the dreadful charge hanging over her.]

[Footnote 15: A very forcible illustration occurs to me from my own experience. I was once summoned to see a woman in the Philadelphia Hospital to whom an assistant nurse of bad character had been seen to administer laudanum. At the time of my arrival she was apparently suffering from the advanced stages of opium poisoning. I spent about five hours in trying to restore her. The nurse protested that she had given only the medicinal dose ordered by the doctor, but was not believed. After death we found thrombosis of the brain—a rare affection, leaving such minute traces behind it that a careless examination will always fail to detect them. This was one of the affections which, as I had stated on the witness-stand some months before the occurrence just narrated, might have caused the death of Miss Stennecke with symptoms resembling those of opium poisoning.]

[Footnote 16: According to the testimony in both the cases of alleged poisoning by Mrs. Wharton, professional advice was called in at her request.]

[Footnote 17: I think the general opinion of the profession has endorsed the position of the defence. It is very probable that General Ketchum did die of the disease named, but there are other affections of which he I may have died; and certainly there were no sufficient grounds for asserting that the facts of his case were inconsistent with natural disease. The truth is, disease is often so hidden, its manifestations so obscure, its stamp upon the tissues so faint, that rarely is a physician justified in asserting from the symptoms and a partial negative post mortem, such as was performed on General Ketchum, that any given death could not have been due to a natural cause. Numerous cases of death from natural causes have occurred in which science has been apparently baffled. I have myself seen at least one sudden death in which a careful post mortem failed entirely to detect the cause.]

[Footnote 18: Since writing the present paper I have been shown a private letter of Judge Pierce, written last April in regard to the first trial of Mrs. Wharton. After considerable solicitation the judge has allowed the publication of an extract from it, which I insert here as the words of one of our most eminent criminal jurists, He says: "I had made up my mind, when Dr. Williams's first testimony was concluded, that the case would fail. When Professor Aiken's examination was concluded it was beyond recovery. All efforts to secure a conviction after that were a waste of time and money. The case could have been safely for the defendant given to the jury on the testimony of the prosecution alone. If I had been sitting as a judge in the case, I would have instructed the jury at the close of the case for the State, if there had been no other testimony, that the evidence would not warrant a conviction. And I would have set aside the verdict if the jury had found the defendant guilty. I do not know the lady who was so wantonly charged with this crime, and I do not know of any case in the annals of criminal jurisprudence which, from the evidence submitted in the case, had so baseless a foundation for so grave a charge."]

[Footnote 19: It is proper to state that Miss Wharton, in his presence, partook of the same claret, but perceived nothing peculiar either in its taste, as she told him at the time, or in its effects upon her afterward. According to Miss Wharton's testimony, Mrs. Wharton actually drank the claret left in the glass of Mr. Van Ness directly after he left the room.]

[Footnote 20: This bottle was found in the house after the arrest of Mrs. Wharton, with compound tincture of gentian in it.

I have outlined the circumstances as Mr. Van Ness told them. A peculiarity of this trial was the direct contradiction of witnesses. Mr. Van Ness for a long time refused to entertain the idea that Mrs. Wharton had poisoned him. Whilst he was being persuaded into this belief he sent for Mrs. Neilson, a prominent lady of Baltimore, with whom both he and Mrs. Wharton were very intimate, and dismissing his wife from the room had a private conversation with her. During this, according to Mrs. Neilson's testimony, he stated that Mrs. Wharton could not have poisoned him on the Saturday, because they had exchanged glasses when he complained of the bitterness of the one into which she had put the gentian. On the stand Mr. Van Ness flatly denied ever having said anything of the sort. In a point of such vital importance it is impossible to account for the contradiction by "failure of memory."

Miss Neilson also contradicted Mr. Van Ness, and the act was in this case especially impressive from the manner in which it was done. Miss Neilson being on the stand, a dispute arose as to whether Mr. Van Ness had or had not previously made a sufficient denial for contradiction. To settle this, Miss Neilson left the stand: Mr. Van Ness went up and took the oath. Then the question was put, "Did you say so and so?" He answered, "I certainly did not." Miss Neilson returning to the stand immediately after this, the question was put to her. The court-room was in the deepest silence while in a low but audible voice she replied, "He did say it." The testimony of these ladies was in no degree shaken by a severe cross-examination.]

[Footnote 21: An essential symptom of tartar emetic poisoning is purging as well as vomiting. Dr. Williams of course knows this. It is a singular circumstance that whilst Mr. Van Ness stated that his bowels were scarcely affected at all, Dr. Williams testified that there was frequent purging. No remedies calculated to arrest purging were employed by Dr. Williams, however, during the illness of Mr. Van Ness.]

[Footnote 22: Mrs. Wharton's trip to Europe had been arranged and her passage engaged months before the occurrence of these events. If the theory of the State of Maryland, that she poisoned General Ketchum, be true, by poisoning Mr. Van Ness she placed herself in the position of the criminal who voluntarily and without motive destroys his means of escape. Either she was insane, or the asserted crimes were not committed.]

[Footnote 23: It is well worthy of mention in this connection that Mr. I.G. Moale of Baltimore testified that he went for Dr. Chew on Sunday morning, on account of the sick stomach of Mr. Van Ness, and that Dr. Chew told him that the vomiting was the almost necessary result of the remedies used the day before—a truth which, previous to Mr. Moale's appearance in Annapolis, the experts for the defence had insisted upon. H. Clay Dallam also testified that Dr. Williams had told him on Saturday that the indisposition of Mr. Van Ness the day before had been a nervous attack from overwork. This opinion also was in absolute agreement with the opinion expressed by the experts for the defence.]

[Footnote 24: The detailed reasons for this opinion will be given in a medical journal at the proper time. It is allowable here to state, however, that not one of the symptoms laid down by authorities as characteristic of strychnia poisoning was present in the attack of the 24th of June, and that not one of the symptoms which characterizes the natural convulsion was absent. Further, there is a connection between the various portions of Mr. Van Ness's illness which is inconsistent with the theory advanced by the prosecution. Mr. Van Ness stated very positively that the attacks of the 19th, 20th and 24th of June commenced in the same way, with the same symptoms. Yet, according to the theory alluded to, they were the result of poisons which act in precisely opposite methods. On the other hand, the very simple natural explanation of the illness of Mr. Van Ness which was offered by the defence at the trial accounts for the unity and the diversity of the attacks, the basis of which, according to it, was over-susceptibility of the nervous system and of the stomach, produced by overwork and heat.]



THE SWEET WATERS.

The denizens of great cities, whose weary eyes are doomed to rest eternally on long rows of buildings, unrelieved by anything softer or fresher than brownstone or marble fronts, thirst for an occasional glimpse of Nature, so healing to jaded mind and wearied body. So universal is this sentiment that provision for gratifying it is not confined to the cities which our modern civilization has reared, nor do the capitals of Christendom alone boast of their parks and similar places of resort. In effete and uncivilized Turkey the "institution" has long been established, and still flourishes; and the "Sweet Waters of Constantinople" draw quite as well, as regards both male and female visitors, as either Fairmount, Central or Hyde Park, or even the Bois de Boulogne, to which far-famed resort of all that is wise, wicked or witty in Paris these Turkish parks most nearly assimilate.

One of the two "Valleys of the Sweet Waters" is on the European, the other on the Asiatic, side of the Bosphorus. The former is more frequented by the Greek and other Christian populations, while the latter is chiefly resorted to by the higher classes among the Turks and the veiled ladies of their hareems, and is often visited by the sultan himself.

To the Asiatic Sweet Waters you must go by boat, or rather by caique, a peculiar little frail cockle-shell of a conveyance, rowed by the most truculent-looking and unmitigated ruffians, Turkish or Grecian, to be found on any waters or in any land, Christian or heathen. Picturesque in costume and exceedingly ragged and dirty, with the most cut-throat expression of face possible to conceive of, when you entrust your person and purse to their tender mercies you involuntarily remember with satisfaction that you insured your life for a good round sum before leaving your native country, and that this is one of the risks it covers.

To the European Sweet Waters you may go by carriage, but if wise will go there also by caique; for even the corduroy roads of our Southern country, so famous for their dislocating qualities, can be paralleled by the so-called road over which once (and once only), for our sins, we suffered ourselves to be shaken, not driven. It is the fashion at Constantinople to visit the Asiatic Sweet Waters only on Friday (the Mussulman Sabbath), and the European Sweet Waters on Sunday; and on those days all that may be seen of Turkish ladies is on full exhibition.

If you select the Asiatic Sweet Waters for your visit, you go down to the wharf at Tophane, where the rival boatmen (caiquejees) raise as loud a din and make as fierce a fight for your person and piastres as you ever encountered on your arrival at New York in a European steamer from rival hack-drivers or hotel "touters." Pulled, pushed and shoved about in all directions as fiercely as ever was the body of Patroclus in the Iliad, when Greek and Trojan contended for possession of it, you are at last hustled into a caique, and deposited in the bottom on soft cushions, your back supported by the end of the boat, your face to the two boatmen. The caique is gayly ornamented and pretty to look at, but it is the crankiest and tickliest of all nautical inventions—more resembling a Canadian birch-bark canoe than any other craft you are acquainted with. Admiring the view, you partially rise up and lean your elbow on the side of the boat. A warning cry from your boatmen and a sudden dip of your frail bark, which almost upsets you head-foremost to feed the fishes of the Bosphorus, admonish you to sit quietly, and you can scarcely venture to stir again during the long row. The caique is long and very narrow, and sharp at both ends—pointed, in fact. It is boarded over at these ends to prevent shipping seas. These planks are prettily varnished, with gilded rails, which give the boat a gay look.

The men row vigorously, and the frail skiff skims along the water at a rate of speed equal to an express-train. But the rushing of the rippling waters past the boat is the chief indication of the rapidity of our progress, so smoothly do we glide along. One peculiarity of the caique is that there are no rowlocks for the oars, which are held by a loop of leather fastened on the boat.

All the senses are soothed and steeped in Elysium during this rapid transit. The eye lazily runs over the squat-looking red houses with flat roofs which line the shore, to rest on the dark cypress trees which fill the intervening spaces, with the gilded balconies of some pleasure-palace of sultan or high Turk catching the sight occasionally. Caiques similar to your own are darting about in all directions, following, passing or meeting you, until at length you reach your destination, indicated by the crowd of caiques tied up there, like cabs on a grand-opera night waiting for their customers. Those of high Turkish functionaries or foreign ambassadors are very different from yours—as different as a coach-and-four from a common cab. Many of these have twelve rowers, all in fancy uniforms—red fezzes and jackets embroidered with gold—while the larger caiques are profusely and expensively ornamented.

Stepping ashore, you see a long line of carriages drawn up in several rows, and of every conceivable variety—from the Turkish araba to the most coquettish-looking Parisian coupe—gilded and adorned in a style to make a French lorette stare with amazement at a lavishness of expenditure exceeding her own.

The fair ones to whom these carriages belong may be seen in the distance squatting down on rugs spread out beneath the trees, and sipping coffee or sherbert while listening to musicians or story-tellers. You stroll toward them as near as their attendant guardians—grim-looking black eunuchs armed to the teeth, and quite ready to use those arms with very little provocation on the persons of any "dogs of infidels" who may interfere or seem to interfere with their fair charges—will permit. You see bundles of the gayest colored silks worn by women whose veils are thin as gossamer, and generally permit a very fair view of their charms, not only of face, but of bust as well. The bold black eyes of the caged birds flash out unshrinkingly on the strangers, who inspire curiosity, and not always aversion, if the language of those eyes be interpreted according to the Western code. In fact, the women seem to take a malicious pleasure in annoying their guards by encouraging such advances as can be made by the mute language of looks and signs.

Every Friday in the year the same pantomime is performed. The women go to the Sweet Waters to sit and stare at men whom they do not and never will know or speak to, and the men go to walk or waddle about and stare back at the women in the same way. This monotonous and melancholy pastime is varied by much stuffing of sweetmeats and cakes and sipping of colored beverages by the fair ones, and endless smoking by the men. There are strolling jugglers and musicians plying their trades for the amusement and paras of the public, and they are liberally patronized in the dreary dearth of amusement on these pleasure-grounds.

To the foreigner, after the sight has been seen a few times and divested of its novelty, the whole thing becomes tedious in the extreme; but we must remember that in his tastes the Turk is the very opposite of the Western man, and what would be death to us is fun to him. His idea of true enjoyment is that it should be passive, not active: his highest happiness is in "keff," a perfect repose of mind and body—an exaggeration of the Italian dolce far niente. This keff he enjoys at these weekly meetings, and the women in their way enjoy it too as the only public exposition of themselves they are permitted to make, and as a break in the monotony of their dreary and secluded lives.

But there is another mode of killing time there, evidently borrowed, as are the carriages, from Europe. The conveyances at intervals are driven round a circular road in two long files, going and coming, to permit people to stare at each other, just as in London, Paris or New York, minus the salutations to friends or conversation. As the poet says of the stars—

In silence all Move round this dark terrestrial ball,

though the women, while sitting under the trees, chatter like magpies to one another. The etiquette is to recline languidly back in the carriage and speak through the eyes alone to the mounted cavaliers, who prance as near the carriages containing veiled inmates as the sable guards will permit, to the infinite amusement of Fatima and Zuleika, and boundless wrath and disgust of Hassan or Mustapha, "with his long sword, saddle, bridle, etc."

Two of these carriages are so peculiar to the place and people as to merit description. One of these, the "araba," is an heirloom from their old Tartar ancestry, and is only an exaggerated ox-cart with seats, and a scaffolding of poles around it. Over these poles there hangs a canopy of red to keep off the sun, and the seats are well-stuffed cushions, making a kind of bed of the bottom of the wagon. Into this curious conveyance are piled promiscuously the mother, children and slaves of the establishment—packed in as tightly as possible; and the contrast of costumes, faces, colors and ages between its occupants may be imagined, but cannot be described. For a genuine old-fashioned family carriage commend us to the araba.

This curious conveyance is drawn not by horses, but by white oxen, whose broad fronts are pleasingly painted between the eyes bright red with henna, the dye with which the Turkish ladies tinge their own fair hands and the soles of their feet. The oxen bear high wooden yokes covered with fringes and tassels, and their tails are often looped up with bright cords. Their pace, bearing their heavy burden of wood and flesh, is slow and stately, and the jolting of the springless wagon over the rough roads seemingly very severe. But the inmates seem used to their discomforts, and sit placidly and contentedly on their uneasy seats, apparently proud of their turn-out and the effect they are producing. These cumbrous vehicles are much affected by the elder ladies of the sultan's court, who constitute the Faubourg-Saint-Germain portion of society. True old-school Turks these, who look down with scorn on the new fashions, both in costume and carriage, stolen or adopted from the despised Franks.

Chief and most conspicuous of these latter is the small imitation brougham or coupe, termed a "teleki," and generally built at Paris regardless of cost, and resembling a Christian carriage about as nearly as the Turk resembles a European when he puts on a similar dress. The teleki is pumpkin-shaped, almost round, painted and gilded in the gayest colors, with large bunches of the brightest flowers painted on panels and on the glasses which shut it in all round. It is the most dazzling carriage the imagination of carriage-makers ever devised, and well adapted to the taste of the grown-up children it is intended for, who, clad in raiments of rose-color, pink, bright blue or scarlet, seem a fit lining for the gorgeous exterior. Unlike the French carriage, the teleki has no springs; so the exercise these fair ladies get is about equal to that of a ride on a hard-trotting horse.

Another peculiarity consists in the driver's dismounting from his box and walking gravely alongside the carriage, holding in his hands the colored silken reins to guide the well-bred horses.

On horseback alongside prance the ill-favored eunuchs, ready to swear at or smite the insolent Frank venturing too near the moon-eyed beauties in the teleki.

At these Sweet Waters the sultan has his own kiosk, a gilded monstrosity of architecture, and at its window, worn, pallid, haggard, gazing out with lacklustre and indifferent eye upon the scene below, this shadow of the Prophet might frequently be seen a few years since. It was etiquette for him to come sometimes, so he did it as a duty, not a pleasure; for the poor man had no pleasures, being the most utterly blase man in this wide world. The drawback on all his pomp and power is the condition annexed to it, that no one is worthy of his society, and he must be ever alone, in public as in private. A representative of the faith as well as of the loyalty of his people, no one can be supposed to meet or associate with him on terms approaching equality, and hence his isolation from human sympathy or society.[25]

The fountain is covered by a square roof, and all around it are marble slabs with Turkish inscriptions in gilt letters praising the virtues of the water. In that scriptural phraseology so common in the East you are notified that "These waters are as sweet as those of the well of Zemzem, of which Abraham drank, and like unto those of the rivers of Paradise to the hot and thirsty who come here to taste them." The water was really very good water, but its praises struck us as rather hyperbolical, possibly because the Frank at Constantinople generally drinks and prefers other and more potent beverages.

But drinking the water is the least part of the performance here, and, unlike Saratoga, "flirtation around the spring" is a thing undreamed of where the sexes, at peril of life and limb, dare not even approximate, much less exchange courtesies over the draught.

There is a narrow road which leads you away from this busy spot to the sources of the fountains of these Sweet Waters. But road-making is not one of the triumphs of Turkish skill, and this is a very dirty and dusty road, full of holes which would smash the springs of any conveyances less primitive and strong than those in use. It is hedged in by fig trees growing to a size which would astonish those who have only seen the dwarf trees of the species which we possess. Passing along this road, we reach the inner valley. Here we find fewer people, but the same astonishing variety of race and costume which makes the other so curious and characteristic. The richness of the silk and satin dresses, all of the brightest colors, which adorn the women, and the gayly-embroidered jackets of the men, make the eyes ache which gaze upon them. Almost every specimen of the Eastern races may be seen here—all taking their pleasure in the same indolent way which distinguishes Eastern enjoyment. The Circassian and Georgian women are certainly very beautiful, as far as regularity of features, bold flashing eyes and great symmetry of form can make them; but they lack expression, the highest feminine charm, and softness is alien to those bold beauties. They remind you of Jezebel, and like her they "paint their faces" before going into public. Not only do they smear their faces freely with white and red, but they also join together their eyebrows by a thick black band of kohl, and with the same pigment blacken the lower lids of the eyes, giving a wicked and peculiar expression to the eyes. The tips of the fingers are stained red with henna; and without these appliances no Eastern woman deems her toilette complete. Many of them would doubtless be exceedingly lovely were they to let themselves alone, but Turkish taste requires these appliances, and an unpainted woman is a rarity.

It is an Eastern saying that a woman should be a load for a camel, and in deference to this taste they fatten themselves up until they become mountains of flesh. Where obesity is considered a charm, delicacy of outline ceases to be regarded, and a woman who has not rotundity is regarded as an unfortunate being. They are decidedly the greatest collection of well-fed females to be seen in the world.

The task of the black guards who accompany these houris is anything but a sinecure, and "nods and becks and wreathed smiles" are freely bestowed on the male passers-by in spite of etiquette and eunuchs. If the scandalous chronicles of the coffee-shops and bazaars are to be relied upon, "Love laughs at locksmiths" here as well as in more civilized lands, and Danger and Opportunity wink at each other. There is far less decorum and outward reserve of manner here than in our parks, but this freedom is all confined to looks and gestures, access and converse being both forbidden.

Frequently, however, the bad-tempered guardians of the hareem commit outrages on the persons of real or supposed aggressors in this way, and from these even members of the foreign embassies have not always been exempt. The difficulty of identifying the offender in such cases enhances the impunity of these wretches, for to arrest one on the spot would be impossible in the midst of a crowd which sympathizes with the offender, instead of the sufferer, and looks upon it as a proper punishment for the insolent Giaour. A private person unconnected with an embassy has still less chance for satisfaction, but must pocket the affront, even if smitten by whip or flat of sabre, considering himself fortunate to have escaped maiming or mutilation should he incautiously give a pretext for Ethiopian or Nubian intervention.

Few persons of foreign birth and training would go more than twice to visit the Sweet Waters of Asia, whose peculiarities and amusements have been thus briefly sketched. The spectacle at the European Sweet Waters differs somewhat from the routine already described. There, although you also meet the Turks, the greater proportion of the visitors are either Greeks or native Christians of different races. You see fewer arabas and telekis, and more carriages, or rather hacks, and men galloping along on raw-boned horses in a kind of imitation "Rotten-Row" style. The men wear the European dress, often surmounted by the red fez: the women dress in an insane imitation of French fashions, and glitter with jewelry—a passion with Eastern women of all races and creeds. Frequently a woman carries her whole fortune and her husband's in these ornaments, which, in a country where the difference between meum and tuum is so little observed by persons in authority, is regarded as the safest mode of investment.

The European Sweet Waters are rather more dull and less interesting than the Asiatic, owing to the causes already described, nor is compensation to be found in the superior beauty of the women; for, as a general rule, the Greek men are better looking than the women; and the intercourse between the sexes is regulated on the Eastern plan to a very great extent, though there is not the same absolute prohibition, nor the same peril attendant on the attempt to open an acquaintance. In all Eastern countries, however, the position and treatment of woman are modified by the prevailing prejudice, which places her on a much lower level than the man, and deprives her of most of the cherished privileges of her more favored Western sisters. If the Turk has failed in forcing his religious faith on his Christian vassals, he has succeeded in fixing the social status of their women on much the same basis as his own.

The day selected for visiting the European Sweet Waters by the native or Greek population is either Sunday or on the festival of some one of the many saints whose names are legion in the Greek calendar. Never was there a people so fond of holidays, or who take them oftener under religious pretexts. Yet they celebrate them in anything but a pious manner. Their fasts are much fewer and not so punctiliously observed.

As the restriction on intoxicating beverages is not such a cardinal article of faith at the European as at the Asiatic Sweet Waters, that element enters into the diversions at the former place, to the frequent scandal of the decorous and abstemious Turks. The fiery wines of Sicily and the Greek islands are freely indulged in, and tipsy cavaliers, caracoling on the hacks of Pera and Galata, are not infrequent accessories, aggravating the danger and discomfort to the stranger of the return in carriage or on horseback. The roughness of the road, its heat and dust, are bad enough; but to aggravate these discomforts you have a crowd of hacks and a swarm of cavaliers pursuing the same route, with all the collisions inevitable from unskillful coachmen and tipsy riders. It is a long, dreary drive too, with no scenery worth looking at on the route, even could you discern it through the dense clouds of dust which envelop you from its commencement to its close. When you reach your hotel you take a bath to refresh yourself, and go down to supper, exclaiming with a sigh of relief, "Well, thank Heaven! I have seen the Sweet Waters!"

EDWIN DE LEON.

[Footnote 25: This rule was observed by Abdul Medjid, the late sultan, of whom I speak. It is said that his successor has broken through this restriction to a considerable extent, and is a social being.]



MADEMOISELLE STYLITES.

I.

The discussion between Mr. John Woodstock and his sister was becoming animated, and their aunt, who never could understand the difference between a discussion and a quarrel, was listening anxiously, expecting every moment to see Marjory flounce out of the room at one door, and John at the other, in their respective furies. It began in this way: John had just read a notice of an extraordinary concert to come off the next week, and had pushed the paper over to Marjory, with the remark, "Like to go, Peg?"

She. Of course I should like to go! You don't mean to say you have tickets for it? (Excitedly.)

He. No, of course I don't: I am not a thief.

She. No, you are only the next thing to it—a shabby fellow. Why did you ask me in that way when you knew we couldn't go?

He. How you do jump at lame and impotent conclusions! Who said we could not go? I am sure I did not.

She. John Woodstock, if you don't stop this, and tell me what you mean, I will never make you another shirt!

He. Small loss! Of all mean things, a homemade shirt is the meanest; and why a man of my native nobility of character should be condemned to wear them—

Their aunt (distressedly). Children! children!—

He (soothingly). Never mind, aunty: she did not mean it. She would not put it out of her power to say that she had made every shirt I ever wore for all the mines of Golconda.

She. What a small potato you are!

He. Now, my dear Marjory, how often must I tell you that calling a fellow names is not arguing? If you could keep from being abusive for five minutes, you might hear of something to your advantage. I have a little money, for a wonder, but it is like the turkey—too much for one, and not enough for two. You cannot go by yourself, for it is an evening affair; but if you were not so frightfully vain about your personal appearance, I think we could manage it. I heard you say yesterday that you had the money for a new pair of gloves: if you will sacrifice them, we can go, and in two weeks I can give you the gloves besides. I can't before, for my princely income is at present heavily mortgaged. Can you furbish up your old ones till then, and thereby prove yourself sensible for once?

She. You are a pretty good boy, after all; but really I have not a decent pair to my name: that last pair of light ones got lemonade all over them, and it took the color out, of course.

He. Now I'll tell you what! I can take them for you on my way down town, and leave them to be dyed, and then you can do some fancy-work on their backs; and what more do you want?

She (doubtfully). But would black gloves do?

He (conclusively). Of course they would for a thing like that. Fetch them out, and be quick about it; and bring your money too, for I had better buy the tickets this morning, and then we shall have some choice as to seats.

So it was arranged. Marjory's lofty mind did wince a little at the idea of dyed gloves, but she tried not to think of it. John brought the objectionable kids home in time for elaborate decoration "on their backs;" but, as he watched her in the pauses of his reading aloud, they both observed with anxiety that the black "came off a little," and Marjory asked him to warn her if he saw her let them go anywhere near her face.

Two children never enjoyed a holiday more than these two enjoyed that concert. Dyed gloves and all other sublunary trials were forgotten: Marjory did not touch her face once; and when the happy evening was over, the gloves were put away with a loving pat on their backs, and John had risen ten degrees in Marjory's respect.

If those gloves had but rested on their laurels! But if people of genius will not do that, can you expect it of dyed gloves? Few are the authors who have not followed up a brilliant success with something very like a failure, and Marjory's gloves seemed to catch the spirit of the times.

Before the two weeks were up which were to restore John to comparatively easy circumstances, and Marjory to respectability so far as her hands went, John asked her to go with him to hear a lecture. Just about that time he was rather wild concerning natural history, for which, I am sorry to say, Marjory did not care a pin. She indignantly repelled the idea of a gorilla somewhere toward the top of her family tree, asserting that she preferred to believe that she had descended from so mean a man as Adam, and so curious a woman as Eve, to that: furthermore, she was indifferent upon the subject. But there was not much she would not do to please John; so when he asked her to go with him to hear a lecture about the gorilla, she made a face to herself, and said certainly she would.

She consented with rather better grace from the fact that Mr. Pradamite—such was the lecturer's euphonious name—undertook to prove conclusively that man was not descended from the gorilla; but when the little old gentleman walked briskly upon the stage, she whispered John that he would have been a valuable advocate of the theory held by the other side: he wanted nothing but a little pointed felt hat, with a feather in it, to look very much like a small edition of the original gorilla reduced to earning his living by assisting a hand-organist.

The lecture, to John, was delightful—so clear, so logical, went so far back, and so deep down, and so high up. "Walked all around that fellow I heard last week on the other side," John said. But Marjory, who had herself taken a long walk that afternoon, thought the whole thing unutterably stupid: her eyelids would drop, her neck felt double-jointed and would not stay erect. Fortunately, their seats were far back, not very brilliantly lighted, and Marjory's had the advantage of being next a pillar. John, however, considered this fact unfortunate, for he could not obtain a good view of the remarkable figures with which the old gentleman was illustrating his lecture, talking in spasmodic jerks as he drew, and when John saw a dear and scientific friend on a front seat, with a vacant place beside him, he could not resist the temptation to take it. He looked at Marjory: she was half asleep, but still contending bravely for the other half. He surveyed their immediate neighbors—three strong-minded-looking women just behind them; a fatherly-looking old gentleman in the seat next his own; a pillar protecting Marjory on the other side, and two highly respectable-looking young men in the row of seats before them, who appeared to be listening intently and occasionally taking notes; at least, one of them was, and he submitted his note-book to the criticism of the other, who smiled approvingly. The seats immediately in front of his own and Marjory's were vacant.

"Would you mind, Peggy," said John, deprecatingly, "if I left you for a few minutes? I can't half see what he is drawing, and there is a vacant front seat. I'll only stay five minutes."

"Certainly, dear," said Marjory with sleepy amiability: "stay up there till he has finished, and then come back for me. I am not at all afraid."

"Oh no: I will not do that," answered John, considerately, "but I do want to go for a few minutes." So away he went, and, once up there, he of course "took no note of time," and Marjory was left to her own devices. These were few and simple, but small causes sometimes produce great effects. She had on those gloves, of course.

She never could recall that part of the evening very distinctly. A confused recollection that she found the pillar very comfortable for a while; that finally the ridges in it hurt her cheek; that she had one or two lucid intervals between her naps, in one of which she concluded that it would be better to take those gloves off for fear of marking her face; and that while she was doing so she caught a sentence or two of the lecture—something like this: "This one essential point of difference is in itself convincing proof of the theory which I hold. The difference in the formation of the hands is a difficulty which no theory of development can overcome." These few insignificant items were all which remained in her memory: then the little gentleman's voice gradually took to her ears the form of a chant: his "theory," as the simple rustic said about a matter less abstruse, "might be wrong, but it was awful soothin'," and pleasant dreams of having four hands, all available, and not of the objectionable sort whose bones the professor was dangling, beguiled the time for Marjory—how long she knew not.

What woke her? Surely somebody laughed? She started up: the lecture was over at last; John, with a penitent face, was hastening back to her; the people who had sat nearest her were gone, and so were her gloves!

"What, in thunder—" said John forcibly, looking at her face in blank amazement.

"Oh, I didn't mind," she answered mildly, thinking he was apologizing. "I believe I have had a little nap, Jack, but I can't find my gloves: will you look under the next seat, please?"

"My dear child," said John, shaking with suppressed laughter, "your face has 'found your gloves' with a vengeance! It's as black as—anything. Can't you put your veil down till we get out of this?"

Obediently hiding her countenance, Marjory, bewildered and still not quite awake, followed John after a few minutes' further and fruitless search for the missing gloves.

The brisk walk home through the frosty air restored her consciousness, and when John led her up to the looking-glass, kindly removing her veil at the same time, consciousness took the form of wrath.

"I never could have done all that myself," she exclaimed indignantly. "Why, I took those hateful gloves off, and put them on the cushion; and it is just my belief that one of those dreadful boys in front of us—"

"Boys!" interrupted John. "Those fellows were enough older than you—or I either, for that matter."

"I don't care," said Marjory, with tears of vexation in her brown eyes. "They behaved like boys, for when I woke—I mean just before you came for me—I thought I heard somebody laugh, and then they were gone, and my gloves were gone too; and I just believe they managed to blacken my face somehow, and then stole my gloves."

"If I thought that—" exclaimed John savagely; and then added in a puzzled tone, "But how could they have done it, Peg, unless you were sleeping like a rock?"

"Well, I believe I was," answered the young woman candidly, "for I was tired to death, and couldn't understand half the gorilla said."

"It was all my fault for dragging you there, and then leaving you," said John, his penitence making him overlook this glaring disrespect to his hobby and its rider. "But those fellows looked like gentlemen; and besides, I know who that old man was who sat next me, and I am sure he would not have let any such trick be played right under his nose without stopping it."

"You can think what you please," said Marjory, a little crossly, for her naturally good temper had been severely tried, "but nothing will ever make me believe it was not those boys."

II.

Some weeks had elapsed since that sorrowful result of praiseworthy economy. Marjory's feelings had been soothed by a pair of tan-colored kids, three-buttoned, stitched on the backs, accompanied by a glove-buttoner and a hug from John. The mention of dyed gloves still raised a flush on her round cheeks and painful recollections in her heart, but she was beginning to banish the sore subject from her mind, and to half smile to herself when she did think of it; for, in spite of the enormity of the supposed offence, the vision of her remarkable appearance when John raised her veil before the glass was too much for her risibles as it grew more and more retrospective. For she was one of those happy mortals who cannot help seeing a joke, even when it points their way.

She came down stairs one evening arrayed in her best bib and tucker, and was speedily joined by John, whose appearance likewise indicated some approaching festivity—all but his face, which wore a rather disgusted expression. "What a bore parties are!" said that world-weary individual from the height of his twenty-third year.

"That depends," answered Marjory with the superior wisdom of eighteen. "If one meets bright people, they are not a bore. And I'll give you some advice, Jack: don't always take it for granted that the girls can only talk gossip and fashions. Take it for granted that they have at least as much sense as you have, and talk about something worth while."

"The descent of man, for instance?" suggested John, somewhat mischievously. "From the interest you take in that, I've no doubt the rest of the girls would be charmed."

"What is that thing somebody said about the man of one book?" asked Marjory, looking abstracted.

"Don't know," replied John—"never met him."

The party was about as lively and about as stupid as parties generally are. There was a little pleasant music, a little innocent "square dancing," a very well-ordered supper, and a good deal of conversation.

Toward the close of the evening the hostess came to Marjory. "My dear," she said, "I have a young friend here whom I wish to introduce to you and your brother: he told me he had heard of John's interest in scientific matters, and as he has just come to live in the city, he has not many acquaintances. He is a very nice fellow. I know all about him, and I want him to have a few pleasant visiting-places: I always feel so sorry for a young man away from his family in a large city. May I bring him and introduce him to you?"

"Certainly, if he is not stupid," said Marjory, smiling. "There is John: I will make him come here before you have captured your young man, and then we can be introduced together.".

John, however, was talking biology or protoplasm or something else to an interested listener on the other side of the room, and was blind to all Marjory's "nods and becks and wreathed smiles." So, when the amiable old lady returned with her prize, whom she appeared to have "captured" without either difficulty or delay, Marjory had the introduction all to herself. She was not one of those wonderful inventions, a girl who can meet a man's eyes with a steady stare, and for the first few minutes after their hostess left them she only noticed that her new acquaintance looked and spoke like a gentleman, that he had a very pleasant voice, and that, without being pedantic, he was not talking nonsense. Imagine the sensation which took place in her head when, at some bright speech from her antagonist—for they had immediately fallen into an argument—she raised her laughing eyes to his face, and saw—one of the youths who had fallen under her righteous indignation on the memorable night of the gorilla lecture! Marjory had what are called "speaking eyes." It afflicted her greatly that, no matter what the emergency, her feelings would appear in her face; so—although she struggled hard to go on as if nothing had happened, resolving, after a hasty mental review of the situation, to behave as if she had never seen him before, and upon better acquaintance demand the truth if she liked him, and let him severely alone if she did not—anybody could have seen her countenance change, and to her intense chagrin she felt herself blushing. To make matters worse, he blushed too, and over his intelligent face flitted just the shadow of a smile.

This was too much! Marjory fanned herself vigorously, and hazarded an original observation in a constrained voice. "Don't you think it is very warm here?" she said.

"Very!" replied the student of nature. "Shall we walk in the hall for a few minutes?" and he offered her his arm. She rested the tips of her fingers on his sleeve, and they proceeded to walk up and down the hall, she being saved only by her escort from collision with various other couples similarly employed. This interesting exercise lasted for some minutes, varied by attempts at conversation which were about as natural as spasms. Marjory took a desperate resolution. This absurd state of things should not last much longer, if she could help it. "I never could act as if nothing was the matter when something was," she began, "and I can't help it if this is not polite; but I think, from what Mrs. Grove said about you, that you will tell me the truth if I ask you something. Will you?" and she looked up once more.

"Certainly I will," he answered gravely, meeting her glance with steady, honest eyes, and somehow, short as their acquaintance had been, she believed him.

She had meant to ask him deliberately if he or his companion, or both, had stolen her gloves and decorated her face, but she felt unable to do that with those eyes on hers; so she changed her tactics, and said, rather meekly, considering what her former feelings had been: "Will you please tell me exactly what happened the evening that man lectured about the gorilla, and you sat nearly in front of my brother and me?"

"That was your brother, then?" he said quickly, and then stopped, looking a little foolish.

"Yes," she answered, with a surprised glance at his face; "but you said you would answer."

"I beg your pardon," he replied. "I will, of course, and I know you will believe me. After your brother left you, you leaned your head against the pillar, and then, as if the grooving hurt your face, you put your hand between; and then—I must apologize for my apparent impoliteness, but I promised to tell the truth;" and he smiled a little—"then you seemed to fall fast asleep. A mosquito lit on your nose, and woke you. When you raised your head, your cheek was quite black from your glove; you rubbed your nose and made that black too; then you went to sleep again, and directly a curl of your hair fell over your other cheek, and woke you again, and you gave your cheek a little slap, thinking, I suppose, that the mosquito had come back: that left the mark of your fingers, and you rubbed it a little and made it yet blacker. Then you took your gloves off and fell asleep again; and then—you will believe now that I am telling you 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' for I am risking your displeasure by telling what came next;" and he flushed up to his hair—"I made up my mind that it was my duty to secure those gloves, and prevent thereby the possibility of such an accident in the future. So I put my arm over the back of the seat carelessly, and when nobody was looking I picked them up and pocketed them. It was not I who laughed, but my brother, who did not notice your face—after you had blackened it, that is—until he rose to go, when he laughed involuntarily, and I collared him and took him off. Now you know all about it, and I await my sentence. Can you forgive me for stealing your gloves? The motive at least was good."

Marjory's face had cleared as this highly circumstantial narrative progressed, and when it was finished she looked up smiling. "Yes," she said, "I quite forgive you: the motive is everything. But do please tell me, were you really so interested in what that little gorilla said as you seemed to be? You were taking notes, you know—I saw that before I went to sleep. Now what was there that was worth making a note of? I am sure I heard nothing."

"Would you like to see my notes?" he asked, drawing a little book from his waistcoat pocket.

"Yes, if they are not long," she answered doubtfully; "but Jack will tell you how stupid I am on all such subjects as that."

He placed the book in her hand, open, and she saw a clever sketch of herself and the pillar: underneath was written, "Mademoiselle Stylites."

"Did you draw that?" she asked, smiling in spite of herself.

"Yes," he replied, answering her smile. "I am fond of sketching from nature." Then, as he glanced at the picture, he added hastily, "I forgot that absurd inscription: George, my brother, did that."

Marjory did not look deeply offended, even at the "absurd inscription;" and the conversation continued, upon different and indifferent subjects, until John bethought himself of his duty, and came to find her. She introduced her squire to him, and after a few minutes more of pleasant conversation they separated, Mr. Owen—such was the natural philosopher's name—having received John's assurance of a speedy call upon him, and given his address with an alacrity which proved, John thought, that they were kindred spirits.

As they walked home, John suddenly exclaimed, "You know I never remember faces, Peg, but somehow I feel as if I had seen that fellow before. He's an uncommonly good fellow, and Mrs. Grove says he is very fond of my hobby, as you call it, so I shall go to see him soon."

Of course Marjory gave him an outline of her evening's adventure "upon this hint," and he laughed heartily at the whole thing, assuring her that he had never believed for a moment in such an absurd possibility as she had fancied.

Well, what of it all? Nothing particular. Mr. Owen and John are fast friends by this time. Marjory is beginning to take an interest in natural history. Also, she has lost all faith in conviction upon circumstantial evidence. She is "o'er young to marry yet," her aunt thinks, and so do I of course, for this is not a love-story: I wish that to be distinctly understood.

MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.



THE MYSTERY OF MASSABIELLE.

It was a mild and pleasant day in the middle of February, and the bright sunlight streamed through the windows of the poor little room where Madame Soubirons sat alone. The table, with its dishes neatly arranged for the noonday meal, stood in the middle of the room. A pot hung in the large fireplace, and a skillet sat upon the few remaining coals. There was nothing with which to replenish the fire, and Madame Soubirons sat gazing at the flickering embers with a rueful face. "A cold hearth is more chilling than the mountains," she said; and she rose and went out of the poor little apartment, which, with all its poverty, would not have been cheerless had a bright fire glowed upon the neatly-kept hearth, and sat down upon the doorstep, where the sunlight fell warmly.

From this position was afforded a view of a picturesque and romantic landscape, presenting in the foreground a portion of the quaint village of Lourdes, with the cross of the old church brightly gleaming in the sunlight above the thickly-clustered cottage roofs. Farther away stood the great mill, and grimly from its rocky seat frowned the ancient castle, of which the people of Lourdes never wearied of telling that it had been besieged by Charlemagne centuries ago. In the distance glanced the river Gave, fighting its rock-riven way to the sea. The prospect, growing continually more grand as it receded, was finally hedged about by the majestic Pyrenees, which lifted their glimmering snows against the pale winter sky.

But Madame Soubirons was familiar with these scenes, and had no eyes for them. She sat leaning her cheek upon her hand, and as she glanced down the crooked walk she murmured, "They have had time to get back, if they hurried as I charged them." Presently a cheery whistle rang out upon the air, and looking up she saw a man in miller's dress approaching. It was Jean Soubirons, her husband, coming home to dinner. She waited until he arrived, and they then went into the house together.

"Can you eat a cold dinner to-day, Jean?" she asked. "I have only bread and milk to give you."

"Yes, with thanks, Louise," he replied; "but where are Bernadette and Marie?"

"They went with Jeanne Abadie to gather fagots, but they should have been back long since. You might then have had a warm dinner."

"All is well if they come to no harm, but it is somewhat chilly for our Bernadette."

"I gave her a pair of stockings to wear. She can't go like Marie, poor child! who can hardly endure her sabots, even in winter. But I do not see what detains them."

They sat down and ate in silence, the two vacant places seeming to fill them with a feeling of desolation.

"I am sorry," said Jean Soubirons as he rose from the table, "that I am so poor a man that my little girls must bring the wood for the pot."

"Perhaps we shall be richer some day, Jean," said Louise, as if she had hope.

"Perhaps so—in heaven," said he sadly, "where there are no poor;" and he went back to his work.

Meantime the three girls had been wandering. Of the two sisters, Marie was rosy and strong, but Bernadette pale and delicate, being afflicted with asthma. Bernadette appeared to be only ten years old, but was fourteen. Previous to this time almost all her life had been passed away from home, she having lived at Bastres with a friend of her mother, where she had been provided with a home for the small sum of five francs a month and her service in tending the sheep: she was not strong enough for more laborious work. Here Bernadette lived a calm and uneventful life, her duties causing her to be much in solitude, which she whiled away in petting her lambs. Very often the time had been set when she was to return home, but it was as often postponed. Her friends at Bastres could not bear to give her up, and year after year she had lingered with them. She had been at home only two weeks upon that day when she went with Jeanne and Marie to gather sticks.

The three girls, dressed in their black woolen frocks, white capulets and wooden shoes—Bernadette alone having stockings, in consideration of her health—trudged on, enjoying the pure air. They crossed the bridge of the Gave, passed the mill and went on through the meadow, turning their steps toward the grotto of Massabielle, which was not far distant. There are, properly speaking, several grottoes in the rocks of Massabielle, which consist of numerous excavations formed by Nature in the great crags. One of these, however, is usually referred to as "The Grotto," and is a cavern of quite extensive dimensions, being about thirteen feet high by fifty wide. There are two other excavations in the rock above this cavern, one of which rudely resembles the broken window of a ruined church—suggesting that idea the more forcibly perhaps from the fact that it admits light into the lower cavern.

Before reaching the entrance of the grotto, however, there was a small stream to be crossed. There was no bridge, but this was only a slight hindrance to Jeanne and Marie, who took off their shoes, and, springing from stone to stone, were soon over. They were in advance of Bernadette, who stopped frequently to cough, and when she came up to the stream they were putting on their wooden shoes.

"How cold the water is!" she heard one say, and she hesitated to step into the cold stream. Jeanne saw her pausing upon the brink, and called out, "Cross as we did: give long leaps and come over." She called to them then to throw stones in for her to step upon, but they were busily engaged piling up sticks, and paid no attention to her, so she began to pull off her shoes and stockings. When she bent down she heard a great rushing sound, as of the water and the wind. It seemed as if a great storm were breaking, but when she looked up all was calm. The leaves scarcely stirred in the breeze, and the trails of ivy that hung over the rocky windows of the grotto swayed gently to and fro. So she proceeded to pull off her stockings unalarmed. After a few seconds the noise increased, and when Bernadette again looked up she saw a beautiful vision standing in the window or upper entrance of the grotto, which was filled with the lustre of its halo. The apparition was dressed in pure white, and bore a chaplet upon its arm, and had no resemblance to Bernadette's ideal of the Virgin. The child was filled with awe, but felt no fear, and reverently kneeling she continued to gaze at the vision, which smiled upon her and made the sign of the cross. Bernadette did likewise. The appearance then vanished, and for some time Bernadette remained spell-bound and still kneeling and gazing abstractedly into the grotto, from which the luminous quality had faded. After a short time she recovered from her transport, and looking around her found the appearance of nothing changed. The stream rushed on, the trees were the same, and in the hollow of the grotto the wild brier grew in its accustomed place, and the clinging moss and the ivy trails were unchanged.

Bernadette made her way across the stream as quickly as she could, and hastening onward soon overtook Marie and Jeanne, who looked up in surprise at her haste. When she had reached them their surprise deepened into wonder as they observed the emotion depicted in her face.

"Have you seen nothing?" inquired Bernadette, her eyes all aglow with excitement.

"No: what is it?" said Marie.

"It is something strange," said Bernadette.

"It could not have been stranger than you look now, with your staring eyes and your flying hair," said Jeanne.

"What have you seen, Bernadette?" asked Marie.

"Some one in white, bright and gleaming," said Bernadette.

"What did it do? Describe it," exclaimed Jeanne.

"I cannot describe it. If you haven't seen it, I can't tell you what it was like," she said.

The two other girls were frightened. "Will it hurt us?" asked Marie.

"I am afraid of such things," said Jeanne: "let us hurry home as fast as we can."

Bernadette was not afraid, but, habitually passive, she hurried with them without protest. When they arrived at home she told her mother her experience, and Madame Soubirons, being incredulous, attempted to convince Bernadette that her vision was only a creature of her fancy; but with no avail. The child was silenced, but not convinced. Madame Soubirons said she would not allow her daughter to go to the grotto any more, as it filled her with such ideas; and she expected to hear no more about the matter. But the next day Bernadette talked incessantly of her "Dame," and on the following day, when some one inquired what her vision was like, she replied that she had seen such a face at church; and on the third day, which was Sunday, she prevailed upon her mother to allow her to go to the grotto again.

Marie and Jeanne accompanied her as before. Having arrived at the grotto, Bernadette knelt before the aperture: Marie and Jeanne followed her example, and when they turned to look at her they were amazed at her appearance. She seemed to be transfigured. Her face was radiant. With her eyes fixed, her lips partly open and her hands clasped, she appeared to listen with the greatest attention. Her companions were frightened by her strange behavior, and implored her to rise and go home with them.

"Bernadette, get up! Come: we are afraid of you when you look so strange."

She seemed to hear them no more than if she had been a statue, and for a few moments the group remained silent and motionless. There was no sound except the swirling of the stream and the rustling of the leaves, and to Marie and Jeanne the very silence seemed to be a spell of enchantment. Presently the rapturous light died out of the face of Bernadette, and she appeared as usual, much to the relief of the others.

Upon their arrival at home the same story was told by Bernadette as before, and again it was disbelieved. No restriction was placed upon her going to the grotto, however, and she continued to visit it, when her vision arose before her again and again. In course of time the singular event became much talked about, especially among the peasantry of that vicinity, who believed implicitly that the Virgin Mary appeared to the child.

People began to accompany Bernadette upon her visits to the grotto, and the number and interest of her observers daily increased. Many who were entirely skeptical went for the purpose of gratifying their curiosity. Among this class were Madame Millet and Mademoiselle Antoinette Peyret, who accompanied the little girl one day with the intention of questioning her after they had studied her conduct. On this occasion she excited their suspicions by leading them by an unaccustomed route down a steep and rocky path, where they had great difficulty in following her. They finally arrived at the grotto, and were astounded to observe the change that came over her. She seemed to be in a state of ecstatic awe.

The ladies were so solemnly impressed by her appearance that they felt deep regret for having intruded upon so reverent a scene.

"It is a profanation for us to be here," said one.

"You must remain," said Bernadette immediately, as if she had been directed to stop them.

"Ask who she is," exclaimed Madame Millet, greatly excited. "Here, take this card and pencil, and beg of her that she will write down her wishes."

Bernadette took them, and the ladies heard her repeat the request as she approached the excavation and the divine radiance lighted up her face. She paused, and for several moments remained in an apparent state of rapture: then she returned to them, and in reply to their inquiries said that her "Dame" had said that she saw no necessity to write her wishes, for she knew Bernadette would obey.

"Obey what?" asked Mademoiselle Peyret. "What did she command you to do?"

"To come to meet her at the grotto every day for fifteen days."

"Why?"

"I don't know why."

"But did she not say anything more?"

"Yes, madame."

"What?"

"She promised that if I did so I should be happy in a future world."

Madame Millet and Mademoiselle Peyret went home mystified. The story of their futile attempt to discover deception in Bernadette got abroad, "and still the wonder grew." The interest in the visions intensified, and vast crowds, numbered not by tens, but by hundreds, assembled to watch Bernadette during the appointed fifteen days. The entire population of Lourdes appeared to be included in the crowd. The presence of this observing multitude exerted no influence whatever upon Bernadette, who passed among them as they made way for her without looking to the right or to the left, as if she had too great thoughts on her mind to give any heed to the people. Day after day she repeated her visits, kneeling in her accustomed place and giving herself up to a state of ecstasy.

About this time, so great had become the popular excitement over the child, the attention of the authorities was attracted by it. Accordingly, M. Massy, prefect of the commune, and M. Jacomet, commissaire de police, conferred together, and decided to arrest Bernadette as an impostor. It was on the 11th of February, 1858, when the girl had her first vision, and about ten days thereafter, in the presence of a great crowd, a police-officer approached her, and laying his hand upon her shoulder took her to the commissaire for examination.

Imagine this simple and artless child boldly confronting the commissaire, who must have been, in her eyes, a person of high dignity! M. Jacomet plied her with questions and cross-questions, and used all his power to implicate her in some inconsistency or contradiction; but his efforts were futile, and he was obliged to confess that he could not make out any case against the child, whom he allowed to go home. Still, his dignity required some show of authority; so he commanded Jean Soubirons that he should not permit Bernadette to go to the grotto of Massabielle, under penalty of imprisonment. Then he wrote to M. Rouland, minister of public instruction, for advice.

Soubirons kept his daughter at home for a day or two: then, observing her to grieve under the restraint, decided to risk the wrath of M. Jacomet, and allowed her to go where she wished. The people upheld Soubirons, and the crowds at the grotto assembled again. It was then proposed by some to consult Peyramale, the cure, who was known to discredit the stories of Bernadette, and it was thought might disabuse her mind of its illusions or detect her imposture, as the case might be; but Peyramale would not make any efforts in that direction. However, Bernadette, of her own accord, came to him one day, saying she wished to speak to him.

"Are you the daughter of the miller Soubirons?" asked Peyramale.

"Yes, monsieur le cure," she said.

"What is it you wish?"

"I came to say that the Lady who appears to me in the grotto of Massabielle—"

"Hush, child!" interrupted Peyramale. "Do not repeat this foolish tale to me. You have stirred the whole country round with the story of your vision, but do not bring such tales to me. What do you mean by this? I tell you, child, the Virgin sees you now, and if you practice imposture the door of heaven will be for ever shut against you."

Bernadette was in no wise disturbed, and resumed her narrative without faltering.

"What, then, is the name of your vision?" asked Peyramale when she had told him the story of her experience.

"I don't know," she replied.

"Was it the Virgin?"

"I do not say that it was the Virgin," said Bernadette, "but I know that I see her as plainly as I see you now, and she speaks to me distinctly; and she commanded me to say to you that she wishes a church to be built on the rock of Massabielle."

Peyramale was astonished at the strange language and the firmness of the child, and replied: "Your story, Bernadette, is beyond reason: still, your manner is honest. Do not give yourself up, I pray you, to an illusion of your mind. You have some fancy, it may be, that deceives you. The Virgin could command me as well as yourself. You say there is a brier growing in the grotto: if your vision wants me to build a church on the cliff, tell her she must first cause that brier to bring forth roses in this winter season."

Having received this reply, Bernadette withdrew. When she next saw her vision she delivered the message of Peyramale, but it was not regarded. The apparition commanded her to go as far as she could on her hands and knees, and when Bernadette had done so, to the great wonder of her observers she was commanded to drink. She rose, and was about to go to the stream, when the vision called her back and told her to drink of the fountain, not of the stream. Now, there was no fountain, but Bernadette instinctively dug a small hole in the earth with her hands, and a very small stream of water flowed forth from the earth and filled it. She dipped some up with her hands and drank. This little stream continued to flow, and increased in size. On the following day it was many times its original size. Travelers are to this day shown the stream near the grotto of Massabielle, which, it is declared, thus sprang from a miraculous source. Three hundred people are declared to have seen this miracle, and in different regions of France many people may still be found who declare that they were present upon that occasion.

After this, still greater crowds flocked to the grotto of Massabielle, and again the authorities interfered. MM. Massy and Jacomet for a long time waged their war with the people until the emperor telegraphed, ordering that all interference should be stopped. Thus the people were left in peaceful possession of their fountain, and reports of its marvelous cures filled all the papers, and visitors came from far and near, bringing cans and bottles to fill at the wondrous stream.

It will be remembered that Peyramale had demanded that the brier should blossom before a church should be built. In spite of his decision there now stands not far from the grotto a church that has already cost two and a half millions of francs, though not completed, and numerous convents are projected to occupy sites in the vicinity. A statue of the Virgin stands in the grotto where the vision appeared, and on the rock are hung numerous crutches and staffs, which it is claimed were left there by those cripples whom the waters of the spring have healed.

Bernadette became day by day an object of still greater interest—in some cases of reverence. Many offers were made to provide for herself and her family, but they were declined, and both her parents died poor, her mother so late as December 18, 1866. Marie Soubirons and a brother, it is said, still live at Lourdes, but Bernadette became a Sister of Charity, and is now an inmate of the Hospice of Nevers, under the name of Sister Marie Bernard. At this institution she took the veil, and she occupies herself, when health admits, in tending the sick. She lives a life of great seclusion, and is almost utterly ignorant of all that occurs outside the hospice walls. From the letter of a graphic writer I quote as follows: "She is now twenty-five. She is not beautiful in feature, but in expression. Her look has a soft, melting attraction. She is a great sufferer, and is tried by cruel pains in her chest, which she bears very patiently, saying the Virgin told her she should be happy in heaven."

Early in October, 1872, a cable despatch from Paris appeared in all the dailies, announcing that fifty thousand pilgrims were then journeying through France toward Lourdes. Their object was to assemble at the grotto of Massabielle to pray for the salvation and regeneration of France, so lately desolated by war. A large proportion of the pilgrims came from Paris, where their journey had been inaugurated by services at Notre Dame des Victoires. Indeed, it may be said that their entire journey was one long religious service, for litanies were chanted unceasingly upon the route. The grand service at the grotto took place October 6th, when five bishops conducted mass and vespers at five altars reared among the rocks; and other services were conducted at numerous chapels and shrines among the mountains for miles around by various pilgrim priests. A sermon was delivered to the great host by the bishop of Tarbes, the subject being the disasters of the nation. He closed by exhorting them to patriotism. Raising his arms to the multitude, he asked, "Will you promise to serve and love your country as I mean?"

"Yes! yes! yes!" answered the vast host in thunderous response.

"Will you cry 'Vive la France!' as children should who have been nurtured from the breast of a cherishing mother?"

"Vive la France!" resounded from rock and valley.

Then turning toward the statue of the Virgin, the bishop cried, "Vive the Church, the Rock of Ages!" Again the mighty voice of the crowd responded, and with the final cry of "Vive the Holy Father, Pius IX.!" the assemblage broke up.

Probably there were no scenes incidental to the pilgrimage more imposing than its processions, formed in the public square of Lourdes. One of them was a mile long, and the van had entered the meadow before the rear had left the square. It was composed of people of all classes, who sang hymns as with one mighty voice. It bore banners of violet, green, rose, blue and other colors, magnificently decorated with gilding, paintings and embroidery. These banners numbered nearly three hundred, and came from various parts of the country. Even far-off Algeria was represented. The banner of Alsace and Lorraine was in mourning, and was borne by girls in white. As it passed many persons pressed forward to kiss its hanging tassels. The banner from Nantes was so profusedly embellished with gold and other decorations that six strong men labored to support it; and those from Paris, Bordeaux, Rheims, Lille, etc. were not greatly inferior to it in elegance. The sun shone brightly, and with the grandeur of the banners and the pomp of the prelates in their rich sacerdotal robes formed a scene of indescribable splendor.

At the farther end of the meadow or valley an altar had been erected. Here the banners drew up in a vast semicircle enclosing the great audience, and vespers were sung, after which the fifty thousand worshipers knelt and received the benediction, which was pronounced by eight bishops simultaneously. The services before the altar being thus concluded, the bearers of the banners again formed in procession for the purpose of carrying them to the church upon the rock, in which they were to be placed. At this time the sun was sinking behind the blue Pyrenean peaks, and as it threw its last red gleams upon the splendid train that wound in and out along the craggy mountain-path it lighted up a picture of resplendent glory. As fast as the banners arrived at the church they were placed upon its walls, which were soon completely covered with their gorgeous hangings. Owing to the length of the procession, it was after sunset when the last banner had been placed in the church, which, with its brilliant adornments flashing in the blaze of wax tapers, was one grand glow of glittering splendor. After a brief service of thanksgiving the congregation withdrew, and descended the mountain in the light of bonfires that burned upon numerous cliffs.

A spectacle of equal brilliancy, though less pompous, was presented by the grand torchlight procession which formed one evening in the square of Lourdes, where all were provided with candles. Thirty thousand persons were in this procession. They marched to the grotto of Massabielle and to the church upon the rock, moving slowly and singing hymns. As they moved they formed a great stream of glittering light, which rolled on and on and up and up, across the meadow and up the sinuous mountain-path. This impressive display lasted until midnight, when the greater number of the lights had died out and their bearers retired. But a goodly company still remained in the crypt of the church at prayer, in some instances fighting off sleep by marching up and down in companies, chanting night-prayers.

Thus a nation's ardent worshipers assembled in devotion at the spot sanctified by the visions of Bernadette Soubirons. And what shall we say of her? Her professed visions cannot be set aside as impostures against the voice of thousands whose skepticism, as great as ours, has been abashed. It could not have been in the nature of this artless child, unencouraged and alone, to have been an impostor. Such would have been a role thoroughly foreign to her character. Perhaps there may have been illusion, a self-nourished fancy, evoked from the silent reveries of those solitary days at Bastres, when her mind was for long periods given up to undisturbed imaginings. Who can say?

WILLIAM D. WOOD.



BENEDICTION.

Good-bye, good-bye, my dearest! My bravest and my fairest! I bless thee with a blessing meet For all thy manly worth. Good-bye, good-bye, my treasure! My only pride and pleasure! I bless thee with the strength of love Before I send thee forth.

Mine own! I fear to bless thee, I hardly dare caress thee, Because I love thee with a love That overgrows my life; And as the time gets longer Its tender throbs grow stronger: My maiden troth but waits to be The fondness of the wife.

Alas! alas! my dearest, The look of pain thou wearest! The kisses thou dost bend to give Are parting ones to-day! Thy sheltering arms are round me, But the cruel pain hath found me. What shall I do with all this love When thou art gone away?

Ah well! One poor endeavor Shall nerve me while we sever: I will not fret my hero's heart With piteous sobs and tears. I send thee forth, my dearest, My truest and my rarest, And yield thee to the keep of Him Who blessed our happier years.

Once more good-bye! and bless thee! My faltering lips caress thee. When shall I feel thy hand again Go kindly o'er my hair? Let the dear arms that fold me One last sweet moment hold me: In life or death our love shall be No weaker for the wear!

HOWARD GLYNDON.



A NIGHT IN BEDFORD, VIRGINIA.

"The general has been sending his ambulance"—Bless these ambulances! they are as common in Virginia as hen-nest grass or clumps of sassafras—"to the depot every morning for three or four days for you."

"The deuce he has! Then why didn't he let me know by letter, as I asked him to do?"

"Can't say, really."

This conversation took place in the main street of the extraordinary city of Lugston—a city so very peculiar that I must give it an entire article some day.

Repairing forthwith to a newspaper office, I wrote to the general how sorry I was that he had been put to so much trouble—I had not received the letter which he must have written—obliged to go home in the morning—hoped at some future time to have the pleasure, etc., etc. Then I went to my lodgings on Federal Hill, and, behold! there was the letter. "Although the ambulance"—ever blessed!—"had been so often to the depot, it would be there on Monday morning, and again on Tuesday evening. Don't fail to," etc. Whereupon I called for paper and wrote the general that, in spite of the necessity for my returning home the next day, I would be at Blank Station on Tuesday evening and meet that ambulance—blessed ambulance!—or die in the struggle. Go I would, and go I went—if that is grammar.

A newspaper editor—there is no end of editors in Virginia: wherever there is a tank, a tan-yard or a wood-pile, there you find one—a learned professor who had a flourishing school a few miles up the road (public instruction is playing hob with most of the private schools in Virginia), and a judge on a lecturing-tour (how is a Virginia judge to support his family without lecturing, wood-sawing or other supplementary business?) entertained me most agreeably on my way to the station.