The striking of Lizay had never seemed so abhorrent to him as on this night, now that there was estrangement between them. She was already humiliated in his sight, and to raise his hand against her was like striking a fallen foe. She would think that he was no longer sorry—that he was glad to repay the wrong she had done him.

In the mean time, Edny Ann had told the story of the theft to one and another, and Lizay found at night the "quarter" humming with it. Taunts and jeers met her on every hand. Stealing from white folks the negroes regarded as a very trifling matter, since they, the slaves, had earned everything there was: but to steal from "a po' nigger" was the meanest thing in their decalogue.

"Stealin' from her beau!" sneered one negro, commenting on Little Lizay's offence.

"An' her sweet'art!" said another.

"An' her 'tendin' like her lubbed 'im!"

"An' Als'on can't pick cotton fas', nohow, kase he ain't use ter cotton—neber see'd none till he come yere—an' her know'd he'd git a cowhidin'. It's meaner'n boneset tea," said Edny Ann.

"A heap meaner," assented Cat. "Sich puffawmance's wusser'n stealin' acawns frum a blin' hog."

Over and over Little Lizay said, "I never stole Als'on's cotton;" and then she would make her explanation, as she had made it to Edny Ann and Alston. Often she was tempted to tell the whole story of how she had been all along helping Alston at her own cost, but many motives restrained her. She dreaded the jeers and jests to which the story would subject her, and everything was to be feared from Mr. Buck's retaliation should he learn that he had been tricked. Besides, she wished, if possible, to go on helping Alston. She doubted, too, if he would receive it well that she had been helping him. Might he not gravely resent it that through her action such a pitiable part in the drama had been forced on him? Then there was something sweet to Little Lizay in suffering all alone for Alston—in having this secret unshared: she respected herself more that she did not risk everything to vindicate herself, for this she could do: the steelyard to-morrow would demonstrate the truth of her story.

But the morrow came, and she went out to the field, her story untold, a marked woman. Yet she was not comfortless. The something that Alston had told her the previous day was making her heart sing. This is what he told her: "While yer wus stealin' from me, Lizay, I wus he'pin' yer. I put a ha'f er sack in yer baskit ter-day, an' a ha'f er sack yistiddy—kase I liked yer, Lizay."

She took her rows beside Alston's as usual, determined to watch for a chance to help him. But when he moved away from her and took another row, Lizay knew that the time had come. She couldn't stand it to have him strain and tug and bend to his work as no other hand in the field did, only to be disappointed at night. She could never bear it that he should be flogged after all she had done to save him from the shame. She could never live through it—the cowhiding of her hero by the detested overseer. Yes, the time had come: she must tell Alston.

She went over to where he had begun a new row. "Yer don't b'lieve the tale I tole yistiddy, Als'on: yer's feared I'll steal yer cotton ter-day," she said.

"I don't wish no talk 'bout it, Lizay," Alston said. His tone was half sad, half peremptory.

"Yer mustn't feel haud agin me ef I tells you somethin', Als'on. Yer's been puttin' cotton in my baskit unbeknownst ter save me some lashes, an' yer throw'd it up ter me yistiddy. Now, look yere, Als'on: I's been he'pin' yer all this week, ever since Mr. Buck said yer got ter git a hunderd. Ev'ry day I's he'ped yer git up ter a hunderd."

Alston had stopped picking, both his hands full of cotton, and stood staring in a bewildered way at the girl. "Lizay, is this a fac'?" he said at length.

"'Tis so, Als'on; an' ef yer don't lemme he'p yer now yer'll fall 'hin' an' have ter git flogged."

"An' ef yer he'p me, yer'll fall shawt an' have ter git flogged. Oh, Lizay, thar' never was nobody afo' would er done this yer fer me," Alston said, feeling that he would like to kiss the poor shoulders that had been scourged for him. Great tears gathered in his eyes, and he thought without speaking the thought, "My wife in Virginny wouldn't er done it."

"So yer mus' lemme he'p yer ter-day," said Little Lizay.

"I'll die fus'," he said in a savage tone.

"Oh, yer'll git a whippin', Als'on, sho's yer bawn."

"No: I won't take a floggin' from that brute."

"Oh, Als'on, yer jis' got ter: yer can't he'p the miserbulness. No use runnin' 'way: they'd ketch yer an' bring yer back. Thar's nigger-hunters an' blood-houn's all roun' this yer naberhood. Yer couldn't git 'way ter save yer life."

"Look yere, Lizay," Alston said with sudden inspiration: "le's go tell Mos' Hawton all 'bout it. Ef he's a genulman he'll 'ten' ter us. They won't miss us till night, an' 'fo' that time we'll be in Memphis. Yer knows the way, don't yer?"

"Yes," Lizay said; "an' I reckon that's the bes' thing we kin do—go tell moster an' mistis. But, law! I ought er go pull off this yere ole homespun dress an' put on my new cal'ker."

"I reckon we ain't got no time ter dress up," said Alston. "We mus' start quick: come 'long. Le's hide our baskits fus' whar' the cotton-stalks is thick."

This they did, and then started off at a brisk pace, their flight concealed by the tall cotton-plants. They reached Memphis about eleven o'clock, and found Dr. Horton at home, having just finished his lunch. They were admitted at once to the dining-room, where the doctor sat picking his teeth. He had never seen Alston, as the new negroes had been bought by an agent.

"Sarvant, moster!" Alston said humbly, but with dignity.

"Howdy, moster?" was Little Lizay's more familiar salutation.

"I's Als'on, one yer new boys from Ol' Virginny."

"You're a likely-lookin' fellow," said the doctor, who was given to dropping final consonants in his speech. "I reckon I'll hear a good report of you from Mr. Buck. You look like you could stan' up to work like a soldier. But what's brought you and Little Lizay to the city? Anything gone wrong?"

"Yes, moster," said Alston—"mighty wrong. Look yere, Mos' Hawton: when I come on yer plantation I made up my min' ter sarve yer faithful—ter wuck fer yer haud's I could—ter strike ev'ry lick I could fer yer. When I hoed cawn an' pulled fodder I went 'head er all the han's on yer plantation. But when I went ter pick cotton I wusn't use ter it. I wuckt haud's I could, 'fo' day an' arter dark. Mos' Hawton, I couldn't pick a poun' more'n I pick ter save my life. But I wus 'hin' all t'other han's. Then Mos' Buck wus goin' ter flog me ef I didn't git a hunderd: then Little Lizay, her he'ped me unbeknownst: ev'ry day she puts cotton in my baskit ter fetch it ter a hunderd, an' that made her fall 'hin' las' year's pickin'; then ev'ry night she was stripped an' cowhided; but she kep' on he'pin' me, an' kep' on gettin' whipped. I dun know what she dun it fer: 'min's me uv the Laud on the cross."

Dr. Horton knew what she did it for. His knightliness was touched to the quick. The story made him wish as never before to be a better master than he had ever been to his poor people. He asked many questions, and drew forth all the facts, Lizay telling how Alston was helping her while she was helping him. Dr. Horton saw that here was a romance in slave-life—that the man and woman were in love with each other.

"Well, if you can't pick cotton," he said to Alston, "what can you do?"

"Mos' anything else, moster. I kin do ev'rything 'bout cawn; I kin split rails; I kin plough; I kin drive carriage."

"Could you run a cotton-gin?"

"Reckon so, moster: the black folks says it's tolerbul easy."

"Well, now, look here: you and Lizay get some dinner, an' then do you take a back-trot for the plantation. I'll sen' Buck a note: no, he can't more'n half read writin'. Well, do you tell him, Alston, to put you to ginnin' cotton: Little Sam mus' work with you a few days till you get the hang of the thing; an' then I want you to show that plantation what 'tis to serve master faithfully. You see, I believe in you, my man."

"Thanky, moster. I'll wuck fer yer haud's I kin. Please God, I'll sarve yer faithful."

"Of cou'se, Lizay, you'll go back to pickin' cotton, an' don't let me hear any mo' of you' nonsense—helpin' a strappin' fellow twice you' size. An' tell Buck I won't have him whippin' any my negroes ev'ry night in the week. Confound it! a mule couldn't stan' it. If I've got a negro that needs floggin' ev'ry night, I'll sell him or give 'im away, or turn 'im out to grass to shif' for himself. I'll be out there soon, an' 'ten' to things. If anybody needs a floggin', tell Buck to send 'im to me. Tell the folks to work like clever Christians, an' they shall have a fus'-rate Christmas—a heap of Christmas-gifts."

"Yes, moster."

"Do you an' Lizay want to get married right away, or wait till Christmas?"

Alston and Little Lizay looked at each other, smiling in an embarrassed way.

"But, moster," said Alston, "I's got a wife an' fou' childun in Ol' Virginny, an' I promused I'd wait an' wouldn't git morred ag'in tell she'd write ter me ef her moster'd sell her; an' I was goin' ter ax yer ter buy 'er."

"You needn't pester yourself about that. I got a letter for you the other day from her," the doctor said, fumbling in his pockets.

"Yer did, sah?" Alston said with interest.

"Yes: here it is. Can you read? or shall I read it to you?"

"Ef yer please, moster."

Then Dr. Horton read:

"MY DEAR B'LOVED HUSBUN': Miss Marthy Jane takes my pen in han' ter let yer know I's well, an' our childun's well, an' all the black folks is tolerbul well 'cept Juno: her's got the polsy tolerbul bad. All the white folks 'bout yere is will 'cept mistis: her's got the dumps. All the childun say, Howdy? the black folks all says, Howdy? an' Pete says, Howdy? an' Andy says, Howdy? an' Viny says, Howdy? an' Cinthy says, Howdy? an' Tony Tucker says, Howdy? and Brudder Thomas Jeff'son Hollan' says, Howdy? Last time I see'd Benj'man Franklins Bedfud, he says, ''Member, an' don't fawgit, the fus' time yer writes, ter tell Als'on, Howdy?'

"Yer 'fectionate wife, CHLOE."

"P.S. Mistis says her can't spaw me, so 'tain't no use waitin' no longer fer me. 'Sides, I got 'gaged ter git morred: I wus morred Sundy 'fo' las' at quat'ly meetin'. Brudder Mad'son Mason puffawmed the solemn cer'mony, an' preached a beautiful discou'se. Me an' my secon' husbun' gits 'long fus'-rate. I fawgot ter tell yer who I got morred to. I got morred to Thomas Jeff'son Hollan'."

"So you're a free man," said Dr. Horton, folding the letter and handing it to Alston. "You an' Little Lizay can get married to-day, right now, if you wish to. Uncle Moses can marry you: he's a member of the Church in good an' regular standin': I don't know but he's an exhorter, or class-leader, or somethin'. What do you say? Shall I call him in an' have him tie you together?"

"Thanky, moster, ef Little Lizay's willin'.—Is yer, Lizay?"

"I reckon so," said Lizay, her heart beating in gladness. But she nevertheless glanced down at her coarse field-dress and thought with longing of the new calico in her cabin.

So Uncle Moses was called in, and Mrs. Horton and all the children and servants.

"Uncle Moses," said Dr. Horton, "did you ever marry anybody?"

"To be sho', Mos' Hawton. I's morred—Lemme see how many wives has I morred sence I fus' commenced?"

"Oh, I don't mean that;" and Dr. Horton proceeded to explain what he did mean.

"No," said Moses. "I never done any that business, but reckon I could: I's done things a heap hauder."

"Well, let me see you try your han' on this couple."

"Well," said Uncle Moses, "git me a book: got ter have a Bible, or hymn-book, or cat'chism, or somethin'."

The doctor gravely handed over a pocket edition of Don Quixote, which happened to lie in his reach.

Uncle Moses took it for a copy of the Methodist Discipline, and made pretence of seeking for the marriage ceremony. At length he appeared satisfied that he had the right page, and stood up facing the couple.

"Jine boff yer right han's," he solemnly commanded. Then, with his eyes on the book, he repeated the marriage service, with some remarkable emendations. "An' ef yer solemnly promus," he said in conclusion, "ter lub an' 'bey one 'nuther tell death pawts yer, please de Laud yer lib so long, I pernounces boff yer all man an' wife."

Then the mistress looked about and got together a basket of household articles for the new couple. Bearing this between them, Alston and Little Lizay went back to the plantation and to their unfinished rows of cotton, happy, poor souls! pathetic as it seems.

SARAH WINTER KELLOGG.



THE BASS OF THE POTOMAC.

Some twenty-five years ago Mr. William Shriver, a primitive pisciculturist, took from the Youghiogheny River eleven black bass, and conveyed them in the tank of the tender of a locomotive to Cumberland, in the coal-region of Western Maryland. There he deposited them in the Potomac, with the injunction which forms the heraldic motto of the State of Maryland—Crescite et multiplicamini. The first part of this excellent precept they obeyed by proceeding to devour all the aboriginal fish in the river, and waxing extremely hearty upon the liberal diet. The second they performed with a diligence so commendable that the name of them in the river became as legion, and the original possessors of the waters were steadily extirpated or took despairingly to small rivulets, and led ever after a life of undeserved ignominy and obscurity. There were bass in the river from the Falls of the Potomac, near Georgetown, to a point as near its source as any self-respecting fish could approach without detriment to the buttons on his vest by reason of the shallowness of the water. They were in all its tributaries, and in fact monopolized its waters completely. Had the supply of small fish for food held out, it is impossible to say to what extent they would have increased. They might in their numerical enormity have rivalled the condition of that famous river, the Wabash, which in a certain season of excessive dryness became so low that a local journal of established veracity described the fish as having to stand upon their heads to breathe, and while in that constrained attitude being pulled by the inhabitants like radishes in a garden.

It has been contended by some ichthyologists that the black bass does not eat its own kind, but the spectacle which I recently beheld of a four-pounder, defunct and floating on the water, with the tail and half the body of a ten-ounce bass sticking out of his distended mouth, affords but inadequate confirmation of their views. I sat upon the bass in question, and rendered a verdict of "choked to death, and served him right." He had swallowed the younger fish, who, for aught he knew to the contrary, or cared, might have been his own son; and his confidence in his capacity being ably supported by his appetite, he undertook a contract to which he was unequal in the matter of expansion. He couldn't disgorge, being in the predicament of the boa-constrictor who swallows a hen head first, and finds her go against the grain when he would fain reconsider the subject. The head of the inside fish was partially digested, but that process had imparted no gratification to either party, and both were defunct, mutually immolated upon the altar of gluttony. It is not an uncommon thing to find them dead in that condition, for their appetites are ravenous, and lead them into indiscretions more or less serious in their consequences.

There can be no doubt of their having regarded as a delicate attention the action some few years since of the Maryland Fish Commissioner in placing several thousand young California salmon in the river. Those salmon have never been seen or heard of since; but, although the bass for some time had a guilty look about them, it is hardly fair to let them remain under so grievous an imputation as is implied in the whole responsibility for the fate of the California emigrants. The fact is, that at Georgetown the Potomac River makes a very abrupt change in its grade, and the Great Falls, as they are called, are both picturesque and arduous of passage. The salmon, being of luxurious habit, betakes him each year to the seaside, and at the end of the season returns in a connubial frame of mind to the spot endeared to him by his early associations. It is quite possible that these particular salmon when on their way to the purlieus of marine fashion were somewhat discouraged at the jar and shock incident to their transit over the Falls. They may have concluded that the locality was unpropitious for the return trip, and then, consulting with salmon whose lines had been cast in more pleasant places, they may have ascended rivers of more conspicuous natural attractions and more agreeable to fish of cultivated habits.

The habits of the black bass may be described as generally bad. It is a fish devoid of any of the cardinal virtues. It is ever engaged in internecine war, and will any day forego a square meal for the sake of a fight. It gorges itself like a python, and when hooked is as game as a salmon, and quite as vigorous in proportion to size. In the Potomac it has been known to weigh as much as six pounds, but bass of that weight are very rare, from three to four pounds being the average of what are known as good fish. These afford excellent sport, and are taken with a variety of bait. The habitues of the river commonly employ live minnow, chub, catfish, suckers, sunfish—in fact, any fish under six inches in length. The bass has also a well-marked predilection for small frogs, or indeed for frogs of any dimensions. It sometimes rises well at a gaudy, substantial fly or a deft simulation of a healthy Kansas grasshopper; but fishermen have noticed that the largest fish despise flies, much as a person of a full roast-beef habit may be supposed to turn up his nose at a small mutton-chop. In other rivers they take the fly quite freely, but in the Potomac they have had that branch of their education greatly neglected. In the matter of vitality they are simply extraordinary: they cling to life with a tenacity that very few fish exhibit. In the spring or fall, when the water and the air are at a comparatively low temperature, a bass will live for eight or ten hours without water. The writer has brought fifty fish, weighing on an average two and three-quarter pounds, from Point of Rocks to Baltimore, a distance of seventy-two miles, and after they had been in the air six hours has placed them in a tub of water and found two-thirds of the number immediately "kick" and plunge with an amount of energy and ability that threw the water in all directions. These fish had been caught at various times during the day, and as each was taken from the hook a stout leather strap was forced through the floor of its mouth beneath its tongue, and the bunch of fish so secured allowed to trail overboard in the stream. They were thus dragged all day against a powerful current, but never showed any symptoms of "drowning." In the evening they were strung upon a stout piece of clothes-line, and after lying for some time on the railway platform were transferred to the floor of the baggage-car, and so transported to the city. It is quite evident that we do not live in the fear of Mr. Bergh. But what is one to do? The fish is not to be discouraged except by the exhibition of great and brutal violence. In fact, bass will not be induced to decently decease by any civilized process short of a powerful shock from a voltaic pile administered in the region of their medulla oblongata. Of course, one cannot be expected to carry about a voltaic pile and go hunting for the medullary recesses of a savage and turbulent fish. On the other hand, one may batter the protoplasm out of a refractory subject by the aid of a small rock, but it won't improve the fish's looks or cooking qualities. It may seem like high treason to mention, moreover, at a safe distance from Mr. Bergh, that euthanasia in animals designed for the table does not always improve their quality, and in fact that the linked misery long drawn out of a protracted dissolution imparts a certain tenderness and flavor to the flesh that it would not otherwise possess. Should that excellent and most estimable gentleman regard this statement with a sceptical eye, let it be here stated that the bass should be recently killed, split, crimped and broiled to a delicate brown, with a little good butter and a sprinkling of pepper, salt and chopped parsley. Should he pursue the subject upon this basis, he will not be the first gentleman who has surrendered his convictions and compounded a culinary felony upon favorable terms.

Below Harper's Ferry there is one of the most picturesque reaches of the Potomac River. From the rugged heights that frown upon that historic and lovely spot, where the Shenandoah strikes away through the pass that leads to the broad and beautiful Valley of Virginia, and where John Brown's memory struggles through battered ruins and the invading smoke of the unhallowed locomotive, the river chafes from side to side of the stern defile that hems it in and curbs its restless waters. Great walls of dark rocks, crested by serried ranks of solemn pines, stand guard above its fitful, surging flood, and against the dark blue calm and misty depth of its gorge the pale smoke rises in a quiet column above the mills and houses that nestle by the river's bed. Huge boulders stem the current, and the rocks stand out in shelves and rugged ridges, around which the stream whirls swiftly and sweeps off into broad dark pools in whose green, mysterious depths there should be noble fish. Below, the river widens and has long placid reaches, but for the most part its banks are precipitous, and the deep water runs along the trunks and bares the roots of great trees whose branches stretch far out over its surface. Occasionally, the mountains recede and form a vast amphitheatre, clad in primeval forest, and there are islands on which vegetation runs riot in its unbridled luxury, and weaves festoons of gay creepers to conceal the gaunt skeletons of the endless piles of dead drift-wood. All is in the most glorious green—a very extravagance of fresh and brilliant color—relieved with the bright purples and tender leafing of the flowering shrubs and vines that intertwine among its heavy jungle. Upon the broad, flat rocks one may see dozens of stolid "sliders," or mud-turtles, some of great size, basking in the sun like so many boarders at a country hotel. They crowd upon the rocks as thickly as they can, and blink there all day long unless disturbed by the approach of a boat, when they dive clumsily but quickly. Occasionally, one sees an otter, with seal-like head above the surface of the water, swimming swiftly from haunt to haunt in pursuit of the bass; and small coteries of summer ducks fly swiftly from sedge to sedge.

The acoustic properties of the river would make an architect die with envy. The light breeze bears one's conversation audibly for half a mile; one hears the splash of a fish that jumps a thousand yards away; and the grim cliffs at the foot of which the canal winds in and out take up the profanity of the towpath and hurl it back and forth across the river as if it was great fun and all propriety. The stalwart exhortations and clean-cut phraseology of the mule-drivers and the notes of the bugles go ringing over to Virginia's shore, and fill the air with cadences so sweet and musical that they sound like the pleasant laughter of good-humored Nature, instead of the well-punctuated and diligent ribaldry of the most profane class of humanity in existence. It is perfectly startling and frightful to hear an objurgation of the most utterly purposeless and ingeniously vile description transmitted half a mile with painful distinctness, and then seized by a virtuous and reproachful echo and indignantly repelled in disjointed fragments.

"Y'ill take care, sorr, an' sit fair in the middle of the shkiff," said Mr. McGrath as I got into his frail craft at five o'clock in the morning on the bank of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal near Point of Rocks. "It's onconvanient to be outside of the boat whin we're going through them locks. There were a gintleman done that last year, an' he come near lavin' a lot of orphans behind him."

"How was that, McGrath?" said I.

"Begorra! the divil a child had he," he replied.

"But do you mean that he was drowned?" I asked.

"Faith, an' he was that, sorr—complately."

I promised Mr. McGrath that I would observe his instructions carefully, and that gentleman, after placing the rods, live-bait bucket, luncheon-basket and other articles on board, took his seat in the bow, and we proceeded. We had two boats for my companion and myself, and an experienced man in each. Mr. McGrath had fallen to my lot, and my companion had a darkey named Pete. We were to go up the canal some four miles, and then, launching the boats into the river, were to fish slowly down with the current. We had a horse and tow-rope, and a small boy, mounted on the animal, started off at a smart trot. It was quite exhilarating, and the boats dashed along merrily at a capital rate. A gray mist hung low on the river, and thin wraiths of it rose off the water of the canal and crept up the mountain-side, shrouding the black pines and hiding the summit from view. Beyond, the tops of the hills on the Virginia shore were beginning to blush as they caught the first rays of sunrise, and the fish-hawk's puny scream echoed from the islands in the stream. It was a lovely morning, and promised a day, as Mr. McGrath observed, on which some elegant fish should die. After a few delays at locks, in which canal-boats took precedence of us, we reached our point of transshipment, hauled the boats out on the bank, and our horse drew them sleigh-fashion across field and down to and out into the water.

I had a light split bamboo rod, a good silk line and a fair assortment of flies. Mr. McGrath had a common bamboo cane, a battered old reel, and the value of his outfit might be generously estimated at half a dollar. In his live-bait bucket were about a hundred fish, varying in length from two to six inches. He did not prepare to fish himself, but was watching me with the deepest attention. He held the boat across the stream toward the opposite shore, and by the time we dropped down on a large flat rock I was ready. I got out, and there being a pleasant air stirring, I made my casts with a great deal of ease and comfort. There was a deep hole below the rocks, bordered on both sides by a swift ripple—as pretty a spot as ever a fly was thrown over. I sped them over it in all directions, casting fifty and sixty feet of line, and admiring the soft flutter with which they dropped on the edge of the ripple or the open water. Mr. McGrath was surveying the operation critically, nodding his head in approval from side to side, and uttering short ejaculations of the most flattering nature. I kept whipping the stream assiduously, so satisfied with my work and the style of it as to feel confident that no well-regulated fish could resist it. But there was no appearance of a rise: not a sign appeared on the water to show even the approach of a speculative fish. I was about to note the fact to Mr. McGrath when that gentleman remarked, "Begorra! but it's illigant sport it'd be if the bass 'ud only bite at them things!"

"Bite at them?" said I, turning round: "of course they'll bite at them."

"Sorra bit will they, sorr. It's just wondherin' they are if them things up above is good to ate, but they're too lazy to step up an' inquire. Augh, be me sowl! but it's the thruth I tell you. Now, if it was a dacent throut that were there, he'd be afther acceptin' yer invite in a minit; but them bass—begorra! they're not amaynable to the fly at all."

Now, if there is anything that I have been brought up to despise, it is fishing with "bait." Fly-fishing I have learned to regard as the only legitimate method of taking any fish that any sportsman ought to fish for, and fishing with a worm and a cork I always looked upon as equal to shooting a partridge on the ground in May. I did not believe Mr. McGrath, and I told him, as I resumed my graceful occupation, that I didn't think there were any fish there to catch. The idea of their rejecting flies served up as mine were was too preposterous.

"Well," said he, "ye may be right, sorr: there may be none there at all; but I'll thry them wid a bait, anyhow."

In another minute Mr. McGrath was slashing about right and left a bait which to my disordered vision looked as big as a Yarmouth bloater. He threw it in every direction with great vigor and precision, and, as I could not help noticing, with very little splashing. I turned away with emotion, and continued my fly-fishing. Presently I heard an exclamation from Mr. McGrath, quickly succeeded by an ominous whirring of his reel.

"Luk at the vagabone, sorr! luk at him now! Run, ye divil ye! run!" he cried as he facilitated the departure of the line, which was going out at a famous rate. "Bedad! he's a fine mikroptheros! Whisht! he's stopped.—Take that, ye spalpeen ye!"

As he said this he gave his rod a strong jerk, that brought the line up with a "zip" out of the water in a long ridge, and the old bamboo cane bent until it cracked. At the same moment, about a hundred and fifty feet away, a splendid fish leaped high and clear out of the water with the line dangling from his mouth. Mr. McGrath had struck him fairly, and away he went across stream as hard as he could tear.

"Take the rod, sorr, while I get the landing-net. Kape a tight line on him, sorr: niver let him deludher ye. It's an illigant mikroptheros he is, sure!"

He returned from the boat in a moment with the landing-net, but absolutely refused to take back his rod: "Sorra bit, sorr: bring him in. It's great fun ye'll have wid the vagabone in that current! No, sorr: bring him in yerself, sorr: ye'll niver lay it at my door that the first fish hooked wasn't brought in."

I didn't need any instructions, and as the fish ran for a rock some distance off, I brought him up sharply, and he jumped again as wickedly as he could full three feet out of the water, and came straight toward us with a rush. It was no use trying, I couldn't reel up quick enough, and he was under the eddy at our feet before I had one-third of the line in. Fortunately, he was securely hooked, and there was no drop out from the slacking of the line. He was in about twelve feet of water, and as I brought the line taut on him again he went off down stream as fast as ever. I had the current full against him this time, and I brought him steadily up through it, and held him well in hand. I swept him around in front of Mr. McGrath's landing-net, but he shied off so quickly that I thought he would break the line. Away down he went as stiffly and stubbornly as possible, and there he lodged, rubbing his nose against a rock and trying to get rid of the hook. Half a dozen times I dislodged him and brought him up, but he was so wild and strong I did not dare to force him in. At last he made a dash for the ripple, and I gave him a quick turn, and as he struck out of it Mr. McGrath had his landing-net under him in a twinkling, and he was out kicking on the rock. He weighed four pounds six ounces, and furnished conclusive evidence that a bass of that weight can give a great deal of very agreeable trouble before he will consent to leave his element.

"What was it," said I, "that you called him when you struck him just now?"

"What did I call him, sorr? A mikroptheros, sorr."

"And for Goodness' sake, McGrath, what is a mikroptheros?"

"Begorra! that's what it is," said Mr. McGrath, throwing the bass overboard to swim at the end of its leathern thong.

"Well!" said I in amazement. "I never heard such a name as that for a fish in all my life!—a mikroptheros!"

"Divil a more or less!" said Mr. McGrath decidedly. "The Fish Commissioner wor up here last week, an' sez he to me, sez he, 'It's a mikroptheros, so it is.'—'What's that?' sez I.—'That!' sez he; and he slaps him into an illigant glass bottle of sperrits, as I thought he was goin' to say to me, 'McGrath, have ye a mouth on ye?' an' I as dhry as if I'd et red herrin's for a week. 'Yis,' sez he to me, 'that's the right name of him;' and wid that he writes it on a tag, and he sends it off, this side up wid care, to the musayum. Sure I copied it: be me sowl, an' if ye doubt me word, here it is."

Mr. McGrath handed me a piece of paper torn off the margin of a newspaper, on which he had written legibly enough, "Micropteros Floridanus" I read it as gravely as I could, smiled feebly at my own ignorance, and returned it to him, saying, "Upon my word, McGrath, you are perfectly right. What a blessing it is to have had a classical education!"

"Sorra lie in it," said he proudly as he replaced the slip in the crown of his hat; "an' it's meself that's glad of it."

I can but throw myself upon the mercy of every respectable disciple of the art before whom this confession may come when I say that during this conversation I was employed in taking off my flies and in substituting therefor a strong bass-hook and a cork, after the effective fashion of Mr. McGrath. When this never-to-be-sufficiently-despised device was ready I took from the bucket a small and unhappy sunfish, immolated him upon my hook by passing it through his upper and lower lips, and cast him out upon the stream. The red top of the cork spun merrily down the current and out among the oily ripples of the deep water below, but Mr. McGrath could beat me completely in handling his. I noticed that I threw my fish so that it struck hard upon the water, "knocking the sowl out of it," as he said, while he threw his hither and thither with the greatest ease, always taking care to do it with the least possible amount of violence, and keeping it alive as long as possible. However, it was not long before my cork disappeared with a peculiar style of departure abundantly indicative of the cause, to which I replied by a vigorous "strike." My cork came up promptly, and with it my hook, bare. The sunfish had found a grave within the natural enemy of his species, and I had missed my fish.

"Divvle a wondher!" said Mr. McGrath in reply to a remark to that effect—"being, sorr, that ye're not familiar wid their ways. Ye see, sorr, he comes up an' he nips that fish be the tail, an' away wid him to a convanient spot for to turn him an' swallow him head first, by rason of his sthickles an' fins all p'intin' the other way. Whin he takes it, sorr, jist let him run away wid it as far as he likes, but the minit he turns to swallow it, an' says to himself, 'What an illigant breakfast this is, to be sure!' that minit slap the hook into his jaw, an' hould on to him for dear life."

These excellent instructions I obeyed with no little difficulty. My cork came up in the back water under the rock on which I stood, and there, almost at my very feet, it disappeared. I could not believe that a bass had taken it, but all doubt on the subject was dispelled by the shrill whir of my reel as the fine silk line spun out at a tremendous rate. The fish had darted across the current, and only stopped after he had taken out over two hundred feet of line.

"Now, sorr, jist make a remark to him," whispered Mr. McGrath; and I struck as hard as I could. "Illigant, begorra!" said he as the fish, maddened and frightened, leaped out of the water. "Look at him looking for a dentist, bedad!"

It was peculiarly delightful to feel that fish pull—to get a firm hand on him, and have him charge off with an impetuosity that involved more line or broken tackle—to feel that vigorous, oscillating pull of his, and to note the ease and strength with which he swam against the powerful current or dashed across the boiling eddy below.

It did not last long, however: he soon spent himself, and Mr. McGrath received him with a graceful swoop of his landing-net and secured him. Four more soon followed, all large fish—two to the credit of Mr. McGrath and two to myself. When caught they are of a dark olive-green on the back and sides, the fins quite black at the ends, and the under side white. They change color rapidly, and as their vitality decreases become paler and paler, turning when dead to a very light olive-green. The mouth in general form resembles that of the salmon family, but the size is much larger in proportion to the weight of the fish, and the arrangement of the teeth is different. With its great strength and its "game" qualities it is not surprising that it should afford a good deal of what is known as "sport."

An attribute of man which is equivalent to a strong natural instinct is his disposition to "do murder." This may account for his love of "sport," or it may only be an hereditary trait derived from the period when he had not yet concerned himself with agriculture, but slew wild beasts and used his implements of stone to crack their bones and get the marrow out. The instinct to slay birds, beasts and fishes is certainly strong within us, whatever be its remote origin, and it is very little affected by what we are pleased to call our civilization. Indeed, it is hardly to be believed that one of the primitive lords of creation, stalking about in the condition of gorgeous irresponsibility incident to the Stone Period, would have lowered himself to the level of the kid-gloved example of the present stage of evolution who fishes in Maine. It cannot be supposed that the pre-historic gentleman would have disgraced himself by catching fish he could not use. He never caught ten times as many of the Salmo fontinalis as he and all his friends could eat, and then threw the rest away to rot. This kind of thing has prevailed to a great extent, but natural causes have nearly brought it to an end. The wholesale slaughter of the fish has reduced their numbers, and a surfeit of indecent sport can no longer be indulged in. Such fishermen should be confined by law to a large aquarium, in which the fish they most affected could be taught to undergo catching and re-catching until the gentlemen had had enough. The fish might grow to like it eventually, and submit as a purely business matter to being caught regularly for a daily consideration in chopped liver and real flies. But how our ancestor, just alluded to, would despise the sport of this progressive age! With his primitive but natural acceptation of Nature's law of supply and demand, what would he think of the gentlemen who killed fish to rot in the sun or drove a few thousand buffaloes over a precipice—all for sport? It is probably the propensity to "do murder" which accounts for these things, for "sport," within decent and proper limits, is a good thing, and has been favored by the best of men in all ages—fishing particularly, because it predisposes to pleasant contemplation, to equity of criticism in the consideration of most matters of life, and to no little self-benignancy. No one knew this better (although Shakespeare himself was a poacher) than Christopher North, and where more fitly could the brightest pages of the Noctes Ambrosianae have been conceived or inspired than when their author was, rod in hand, on the banks of a brawling Highland trout-stream?

The fish had ceased to bite where we were, and at Mr. McGrath's suggestion we dropped down the stream to where my friend and his darkey were. His experience with the flies had been similar to mine, but he had too much regard for his fine fly-rod, he said, to use it for "slinging round a bait as big as a herring." He had taken it to pieces and put it away. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and a brier-root pipe in his mouth, content in every feature, a perfect picture of Placidity on a Boulder.

"Given up fishing?" I asked.

"Not much," he replied: "I've caught nine beauties. Pete does all the work, and I catch the fish."

Sure enough, he had Pete, who was one of the best fishermen on the river, fishing away as hard as he could. Whenever Pete hooked a fish my friend would lay down his pipe and play the fish into the landing-net. "It's beastly sport," he said: "if I wasn't so confoundedly lazy I couldn't stand it at all.—Hello, Pete! got him?"

"Yes, sah—got him shuah;" and Pete handed him the rod as the line spun out. We watched the short struggle, and started down stream, leaving him to his laziness just as he was settling back in the boat for a nap and telling Pete not to wake him up unless the next was a big one.

By noon we had thirty-two fish—a very fair and satisfactory experience. We were about to change our position when we were detained by a tremendous shouting from the other boat, about half a mile above us.

"What's the matter with them, McGrath?" said I.

"Bedad, sorr! I think it must be that bucket there in the bow," he replied, pointing to the article, which contained our luncheon.

I was quite satisfied that it was, and there being a cool spring about forty feet above us on the bank on the Virginia side, we disembarked. In the excitement of fishing I had not thought of luncheon, but now I found I had a startling appetite. So had my friend and his assiduous darkey when they came in and reported twenty fish.

"Yes," he said, "I know we ought to have a good many more, but Pete is so lazy. It was all I could possibly do to catch those myself."

With a flat rock for a table, the grass to sit upon, and the bubbling music of the little stream that flowed from the spring as an accompaniment, the ham and bread and butter, the pickles and the hard-boiled eggs, and even the pie with its mysterious leather crust and its doubtful inside of dried peaches, tasted wonderfully well. We did not venture out upon the river again until three o'clock, our worthy guides agreeing that the fish do not bite well between noon and that hour, and both of us being disposed to rest a little. My friend stretched himself on the thick grass, and when his pipe was exhausted went fast asleep, and snored with great precision and power to a mild sternutatory accompaniment by Mr. McGrath and Pete. I employed myself in bringing up my largest bass from the boat to sit for his picture in a little basin in the rock under the spring. After he had floundered himself into a comparatively rational and quiet condition, much after the fashion of a gentleman reluctant to have his portrait taken under the auspices of the police, I succeeded in committing him to paper. He was a handsome fish, and eminently deserving of the distinction thus conferred upon him.

Sleeping in the grass on a summer afternoon is a bucolic luxury I never fully appreciated. When I stirred up my friend he was red, perspirational and full of lively entomological suspicions. He slapped the legs of his pantaloons vigorously in spots, moved his arms uneasily, took off his shirt-collar and implored me to look down his back.

"There's nothing there," I reported. "I know how it is myself: a fellow always feels that way when he goes to sleep in the grass."

"Any woodticks here?" he asked.

"Begorra! plenty," said Mr. McGrath, sitting up. "They et a child," he added with perfect seriousness of manner, "down here below last summer." McGrath's eyes twinkled when my friend began to talk of peeling off and jumping into the river after a general search. He was finally reassured, and we started out. We had even better sport than in the morning, and accumulated a splendid string of fish each. On the way down we passed two boats in which were some gentlemen, evidently foreigners, engaged in throwing flies with apparently the same results that we had attained in the morning.

"Do you know who those people are?" I asked McGrath.

"I dunno, sorr," said he, "but I think they are from one of the legations at Washington. They come up for a day's fishin' all along of the illigant fishin' a party from the same place had one day last week I suppose;" and he smiled.

"How was that, McGrath?"

"It wor last week, sorr; and I wor up the river be meself, an' I had thirty illigant fish thrailin' undher the boat comin' down. It wor just where they are I seen two boats full of gintlemen, an' I dhropped alongside. They wor swells, sure. They had patint rods, an' patint reels, an' patint flies, an' patint boots, an' patint coats, an' patint hats, an' the divil knows what. Bedad! they wor so fine that sez I to meself, sez I, 'Bedad! if I wor a bass I'd say, "Gintlemen, don't go to no throuble on my account: I'll git into the boat this minit."'—'Been fishin', me man?' sez one of them to me. 'Sorra much, yer honor,' sez I.—'It's very strange, you know,' sez he, 'that they don't bite at all to-day. You haven't caught any, have you?'—'Well, sorr,' sez I, 'I did dhrop on a few little ones as I come down.'—'Oh, did you, really?' sez another one, puttin' a glass in his eye and standin' up excited like. 'Why, my good man,' sez he, 'be good enough to 'old them up, you know. We'd like so much to see them!'—Wid that, sorr, I up wid the sthring as high as I could lift it, an' it weighin' nigh onto a hundred pound. Well, they were that wild they didn't know what to make of it. One of them sez, sez he, 'The beggar's been a hauling of a net, he has.'—'Divvle a bit more than yerself,' sez I. 'There's me impliments, an', what's more, if ye wor to stay here till next week the sorra fish can ye ketch, because, bedad! ye dunno how.' Wid that they put their heads together, and swore it ud disgrace them to go home to Washington without a fish, you know; an' how much would I take for the lot? Sez I, 'I have twenty-five more down here in a creel in the river: that's fifty-five,' sez I. 'Ye can have the lot for twinty dollars.'—'It's a go,' sez he; an' ever since that there's letters comin' up from Washington askin' if the wather is in good ordher, and what is the accommodations? Bedad! I'm wondherin' if them as we passed wouldn't be likin' a dozen or two on the same terms?"

Nothing finishes up a day's bass-fishing better than a good hot supper of broiled bass, country sausage, fried ham and eggs, and coffee. The cooking can generally be managed, and the appetite is guaranteed. Experto crede.

W. MACKAY LAFFAN.



THE CHRYSALIS OF A BOOKWORM.

I read, O friend, no pages of old lore, Which I loved well, and yet the winged days, That softly passed as wind through green spring ways And left a perfume, swift fly as of yore, Though in clear Plato's stream I look no more, Neither with Moschus sing Sicilian lays. Nor with bold Dante wander in amaze, Nor see our Will the Golden Age restore. I read a book to which old books are new, And new books old. A living book is mine— In age, two years: in it I read no lies— In it to myriad truths I find the clew— A tender, little child; but I divine Thoughts high as Dante's in its clear blue eyes.

MAURICE F. EGAN.



A LAW UNTO HERSELF.

CHAPTER X.

Miss Fleming arrived that evening while Jane was on the water. She was in the habit of coming out to the Hemlock Farm for a day's holiday, and went directly to her own room as though she were at home. When she stepped presently out on the porch, where the gentlemen had gone to smoke, a soft black silk showing every line of her supple figure, glimpses of the rounded arms revealed with every movement of the loose sleeves, one or two thick green leaves in her light hair—ugly, quiet, friendly—they all felt more at home than they had done before. There was a pitcher of punch by the captain's elbow: she tasted it, threw in a dash of liquor, poured him out a glass and sat down beside him, and he felt that a gap was comfortably filled.

"You have turned your back on Philadelphia, they tell me, Miss Fleming," complained Judge Rhodes. "New York sucks in all the young blood of the country—the talent and energy."

"Oh, I came simply to sell my wares. New York is my market, but Philadelphia will always be home to me," in her peculiar pathetic voice. "I left good friends there," with one of her bewildering glances straight into the judge's beady eyes, at which his flabby face was suffused with heat.

"You do not forget your friends, that's certain," he said, lowering his voice. "That was a delicate compliment, sending my portrait back to the Exhibition. I felt it very much, I assure you."

Cornelia bowed silently. Neither she nor the judge said anything about the round-numbered cheque which he had sent her for it. In the moonlight they preferred to let the affair stand on a sentimental basis.

Mr. Van Ness meanwhile eyed Miss Fleming's pose and rounded figure with a watery gleam of complacency.

"An exceptional woman," was his verdict. He turned the conversation to art, and asked innumerable questions with a profound humility. Cornelia replied eagerly, until the fact crept out from the judge that there was not an aesthetic dogma nor a gallery in the world with which he was not familiar. Then to pottery, in which field his modesty was as profound, until the judge pushed him, as it were, to a corner, when he acknowledged himself the possessor of a few "nice bits."

"I have some old Etruscan pieces which I should like you to see, Miss Fleming," with his mild, deprecating cough, "and a bit of Capo di Monte, and the only real specimen of Henri Deux in the country."

"I must see them," emphatically. "Where are your cabinets?"

"Oh, nowhere," with a shrug. "My poor little specimens have never been unpacked since I returned to this country. They are boxed up in a friend's cellar."

"God bless me, Cornelia!" cried the captain in a muffled tone, "how could Mr. Van Ness spend his time koo-tooing to cracked pots? He has, as I may say, the future of Pennsylvania in his hand. When I think what he is doing for the friendless children—thousands of'em—" The punch had heated the captain's zeal to the point where words failed him.

After that the friendless children swept lighter subjects out of sight. Mr. Van Ness, whose humility in this light rose to saintly heights, had all the statistics of the Bureaux of Charity at his tongue's end. He had studied the Dangerous Classes in every obscure corner of the world. He could give you the status quo of any given tribe in India just as easily as the time-table on the new railway in Egypt. No wonder that he could tell you in a breath the percentage of orphans, deserted minors, children of vicious parents, in his own State, and the amount per capita required to civilize and Christianize them. As he talked of this matter his eyes became suffused with tears. The great Home for these helpless wards of the State he described at length, from its situation on a high table-land of the Alleghanies and the dimensions of the immense buildings down to the employments of the children and the capacity of the laundry—a perfect Arcadia with all the modern improvements, where Crime was to be transformed wholesale into Virtue.

"Where is this institution?" asked Miss Fleming. "It is strange I never heard of it."

"Oh, it is not built as yet: we have not raised the funds," Mr. Van Ness replied with a smothered sigh.

The judge patted one foot and looked at him compassionately. It was a devilishly queer ambition to be the savior of those dirty little wretches in the back alleys. But if a man had given himself up, body and soul, to such a pursuit, it was hard measure that he must be thwarted in it.

Miss Fleming also bent soft sympathetic eyes on her new friend. The Home was not built, eh? Not a brick laid? She wondered whether that box with the priceless treasures existed in his friend's cellar or in his brain: she wondered whether he had not seen those pictures of the old masters in photographs, or whether he had travelled in Japan and the obscure corners of the earth in the flesh or in books. There was more than the wonted necessity upon her to establish sympathetic relations with this new man: she had never seen a finer presence: the beard and brow quite lifted his masculinity into aesthetic regions; she caught glimpses, too, of an unfamiliar mongrel species of intellect with which she would relish Platonic relations. Yet with this glow upon her she regarded the reformer's noble face and benignant blond beard doubtfully, thinking how she used to stick pins in brilliant bubbles when she was a child, and nothing would be left but a patch of dirty water.

"Jane is out on the river, as usual?" she asked presently.

"Yes," said her father: "Mr. Neckart is with her. Neither of them will ever stay under a roof if they can help it. They ought to have a dash of Indian blood in their veins to account for such vagabondizing."

"Is Bruce Neckart here?" with a change in her tone which made the captain look up at her involuntarily.

"Yes."

"I thought he was in Washington: I did not expect to meet him."

The judge puffed uneasily at his cigar. He was a family man, with a stout wife and married son. He did not meet Miss Fleming once a year, but he felt a vague jealousy of Neckart.

"By the way, you must be old acquaintances?" he said abruptly. "Both from Delaware? Kent county?"

"Oh yes," with a shrill womanish laugh, very different from her usual sweet boyish ha! ha! "Many's the day we rowed on the bay or dredged for oysters together, dirty and ragged and happy. There is not very much difference in our ages," seeing his look of surprise. "I look younger than I am, and Bruce has grown old fast. At least, so I hear. I have not seen him for years."

She was silent after that, and preoccupied as her admirers had never seen her, and presently, hearing Jane's and Neckart's steps on the path, she rose hastily and bade them good-night. They each shook hands with her, that being one of the sacred rites in the Platonic friendships so much in vogue now-a-days among clever men and women. Mr. Van Ness offered his hand last, and Cornelia smiled cordially as she took it. But it was clammy and soft. She rubbed her fingers with a shudder of disgust as she hurried up to her own room. There she walked straight to her glass and turned up the lamp beside it, looking long and fixedly at her face. She knew with exactness the extent of its ugliness and its power.

"It is too late now even if it ever could have been," she said quietly, and put out the light. Then she went to the window. Mr. Neckart had left Jane inside, and, not joining the other men, turned back to the garden. She saw the bulky dark figure as it passed under her window.

She stretched out her hands as if for a caress, with the palms pressed close. "Oh, Bruce!" she said under her breath. "Bruce!"

After he had passed out of sight she stood thinking over all the men who had made a comrade of her since she saw him last—how they had handled her fingers and looked into her eyes; how her every thought and fancy had grown common and unclean through much usage; how she had dragged out whatever maidenly feeling she had in the old times, and made capital of it to bring these companions to her who were neither lovers nor friends.

"When I could not have the food which I wanted. I took the husks which the swine did eat," she said, leaving the window, with a short laugh. "Well, I could not die of starvation."



CHAPTER XI.

When Jane woke the next morning a bluebird was singing outside of the window: she tried to mimic him before she was out of bed, and sang scraps of songs to herself as she dressed. The captain heard her in his room below, but pretended to be asleep when she came down as usual to lay out his clothes, for, although she insisted that her father should have Dave as a valet, she left him but little to do.

Watching her from under the covers, the captain saw that she had left off the black snood and tied her hair with a band of rose-colored ribbon. Her lips were ruddy and her eyes alight: once or twice she laughed to herself.

"What high day or holiday is it, Jane?"

"Oh, every day is a high day now!" running to kiss him. "I was just thinking how comfortable money is, and how glad I am that we have it," glancing about delighted at his luxurious toilet appointments before the low wood-fire. Then she spread out his dressing-gown and velvet smoking-cap, and eyed with her head on one side the fine shirt and its costly studs.

"Do you remember the rag-carpet in your room which we thought such a triumph? and the old tin shaving-cup? Now, my lord, look out upon your estate!" opening the window. "Your musicians have come to waken you, and your servitors stand without," as Buff tapped at the door with hot water.

"He is as comfortable as a baby wrapped in lamb's wool," she thought as she ran down the stairs. "And this air is so pure and the sun so bright! Oh, he must grow strong here! Anybody would be cured here—anybody!"

The captain followed her to the barnyard. It was one of her inexorable prescriptions for him that he should drink a glass of warm milk-punch before breakfast, and smell the cow's breath during the operation. She was milking the white cow herself, while the pseudo sempstress, Nichols, waited with the goblet, and the bandy-legged shoemaker, Twiss, stood on guard, eyeing Brindle's horns suspiciously.

"Now the glass! These are the strippings. Oh you'll soon learn, Betty! You'll make butter as well as you used to make dresses badly."

The little widow and Twiss laughed, as they always did at Jane's weak jokes, and took the punch to the captain. She was the finest wit of her day in their eyes. The hostler's boy ran down from the stable to speak to her. She thought he had as innocent a face as she had ever seen. No doubt he would have gone to perdition if Neckart had not rescued him. She stopped to talk to him with beaming eyes, and meeting Betty's toddling baby took it up and tossed it in the air, and then walked on, carrying the soft little thing in her arms. The farm was like the Happy Valley this morning! God was so good to her! She could warm and comfort all these people. Then she turned into the woods and sat down on a fallen log. It was the place where they had stopped to rest yesterday, Neckart lying at her feet. There was the imprint still in the dead moss where his arm had lain. She looked guiltily about, and then laid her hand in the broken moss with a quick passionate touch. The baby caught her chin in its fingers. She hugged it to her breast, and kissed it again and again. From the hemlock overhead a tanager suddenly flashed up into the air with a shrill peal of song. Jane looked up, her face and throat dyed crimson. Did he know? She glanced down at the grass, at the friendly trees all alive with rustling and chirping. The sky overhead was so deep and warm a blue to-day. It seemed as if they all knew that he loved her.

The captain found Mr. Neckart standing on the stoop listening to some sound that came up from the woods.

"It is Jane singing," he said. "You would not hear her once in a year. Hereditary gift! In the old Swedish annals we read of the remarkable voices of the Svens."

"I never heard her sing before." Yet he had known at once that it was she. It was the most joyous of songs, but there was a foreboding pathos in the voice which moved him as no other sound had ever done.

"You are not going before breakfast?" cried the captain.

"Yes, and I shall not be able to come again for a long time. Say to Miss Swendon—But no. I will go and bid her good-bye."

He met her as she was crossing the plank thrown across the brook, and they stopped by the little hand-rail, not looking directly at each other: "I came to bid you good-morning."

"Do you take the early train, then?"

"Yes." He did not mean to tell her that he would not come again. The more ordinary their parting the sooner she would forget it and him. He had thought the matter out during the night, and being a man who was apt to under-rate himself, was convinced that the feeling which she had betrayed was but that transient flush of preference which any very young and innocent girl is apt to give to the first man of whom she makes a companion.

"There is nothing in me likely to win enduring love from her. A more intellectual woman, indeed—" He had gone over the argument again and again. When he was out of sight her fancy would soon turn to this new lover, so much better suited to her in every respect. For himself—But he had no right, to think of himself. He struck that thought down fiercely again as they stood together on the bridge. No more right than he would have, were he dead, to drag down this young creature into his grave.

He patted the child on the head as it clung to her dress, and talked of the chance of more rain with perfect correctness and civility; and when Jane managed to raise her eyes to his face she found it grave and preoccupied, as it usually was over the morning papers. He saw Van Ness coming smiling to meet her.

"It is time for me to go," he said, his eyes passing slowly over her: then with a hasty bow, not touching her hand, he struck through the woods to the station, thinking as he went how she was standing then on the bridge in the sunshine, with the man whom she would marry beside her. She looked after him, her eyes full of still, deep content. He loved her. She had forgotten everything else.

"A perfect morning, Miss Swendon," said Mr. Van Ness, stroking his magnificent golden beard. "You see just this deep azure sky above the Sandwich Islands. Now, I remember watching such a dawn on Mauna Loa. Ah-h, you would have appreciated that. Our friend has gone, eh? Most active, energetic man! I heard him tell your father he should not return soon again."

"Not return?" stopping in her slow walk.

"No. It really must be impossible for an editor to spare time often for visits to even such an Arcadia as this. No stock market or political news in Arcadia, eh?" with a benevolent gurgle of a laugh. "Business! business! Miss Swendon. Ah, how it engrosses the majority of men!" shaking his head ponderously.

She said nothing. It was as if she had been suddenly wakened out of a dream in the crowd of a dusty market-place. He had gone back to the world, to his real business and his real trouble. She, with her love and her intended cure for him, was a silly fool wandering in a fantastic Arcadia.

Miss Fleming was walking up and down on the porch as they came up, more carefully dressed than usual. The captain had just told her that Neckart had gone.

"Ah? I'm very sorry," carelessly. "I should have been glad to see him again. Though no doubt he has forgotten me."

She went forward to meet Jane with a smile, but a withered gray look under her eyes. "I have been making a tour of your principality," she said as they went in to breakfast. "I see you have brought out a colony of Philadelphia paupers. Twiss, and Betty, and the rest."

"They were not paupers," said Jane, taking her place behind the urn. "Did you see into what a great boy Top has grown? And Peter?" It gave her a warm glow at heart to remember these people just now. At least, there her care had not been fantastic or thrown away.

"I hardly expected you to take up the role of guardian angel. It requires study, after all, to play it successfully," pursued Cornelia with an amiable smile, cutting her butter viciously.—"Very young girls are apt to be impetuous in their charities, and damage more than they help," turning to the judge. "These poor people, for instance. Betty had her kinsfolk about her in Philadelphia, her church and her gossips. She complained bitterly to me this morning that she 'had no company here but the cows: Miss Swendon might as well have whisked her off into a haythen desart.'"

"She complained to you!" cried the captain. "Why, the trouble and money which Jane has given to that woman and her family! They were starving, I assure you!"

Jane listened at first with her usual quiet good-humor. Miss Fleming's waspish temper generally amused her, as it would have done a man (if he was not her husband). But she began to grow anxious.

"You really think Betty is not contented here?" her hand a little unsteady as she poured the cream into the cups.

"Contented? She seems miserable enough. Home is home, you know, if it is only a cellar and starvation. But perhaps"—with a shrug—"that class of Irish are never happy without a grievance. Now, Twiss, it appears to me, has just ground for complaint.—A shoemaker," turning to the judge a face beaming with fun, "whom this young lady has transported and set down in charge of gardens and hot-houses. He does not know a hoe from a mower, and he is too old to learn. He had a good trade: now he has nothing."

"But he could not live by his trade," cried Jane.

"Well, cobbling is looking up now. In any case, you have pauperized him."

"That's bad—bad! Now, in Virginia we used to feed everybody who came along!" said the judge, shaking his head. "But I've learned wisdom in the cities. Every bit of bread given to a beggar degrades human nature and rots society to the core."

"But suppose he is starving?" urged the captain. "The Good Samaritan wasn't afraid of pauperizing that poor devil on the road."

"Let him starve. He will have preserved his self-respect. The Good Samaritan knew nothing of political economy, sir."

Jane left her breakfast untasted. She understood nothing about political economy, but she saw that she had done irreparable injury to these people whom she had tried to serve—God knew with what anxiety and tenderness of heart. In one case, at least, there had been no mistake.

"Did you see Phil?" she said, turning with brightening countenance to Miss Fleming. "We intend to have Phil educated. He is such a keen-witted little fellow."

Miss Fleming laughed outright now: "Mr. Neckart's protege? Yes, I saw him. He has been stealing tobacco and money from Dave, it appears, ever since he came, and was found out this morning. There was a horrible row in the stable as I passed."

"Of course he stole!" said the judge triumphantly. "I tell you, the more efforts you make to reform the dangerous classes the more hardened you will grow. It's hopeless—hopeless!"

Her other listeners each promptly presented their theory. Like all intelligent Americans, they were provided with theories on every social problem, and were ready to hang it on an individual stable-boy or any other nail of a fact which might offer. Jane alone sat silent. She did not hear when her father spoke to her once or twice.

"You are disappointed," Mr. Van Ness's soft soothing voice murmured in her ear. "I know how these baffled efforts chill the heart. I will explain to you the machinery which I propose to bring to bear on these classes."

"I don't know anything about machinery or classes. Twiss and Betty were friends of mine, and I tried to help them, and have failed."

Miss Fleming, who was watching her furtively, saw her dull eyes raised presently and rest on the captain, who with a red face and bursts of laughter was telling one of his interminable stories.

"This girl," Cornelia said to herself, "has everything which I have not—beauty, wealth, Bruce Neckart's love. Yet she looks at that weak old man as if he were all that was left her in the world." She had put Jane before on the general basis of antipathy which she had to everything in the world that was not masculine, but the feeling had kindled since last night into active dislike.

When breakfast was over and their guests had gone to their rooms to make ready to meet the train, Jane decoyed the captain away to Bruno's kennel, where he was tied during Mr. Van Ness's stay. Once out of sight she retied his cravat, arranged his white hair to her liking, stroked his sunken cheeks. Here was something actual and real. She knew now that she had never had anything that was truly her own but the kind foolish face looking down on her. She never would have anything more. Only an hour ago life had opened for her wide and fair as the dawn: now it had narrowed to this old hand in hers, to his breath, that came and went—O God, how feebly!

"You are looking stronger to-day, father. You are gaining every day. Oh that is quite certain! Very soon we shall have you as well and strong as you were at forty."

What if she had not had money this last year? He never could have lived through it. God had been kind to her—kind! She pressed his hand to her breast with a quick glance out to the bright sky. The Captain saw her chin quivering. His own thoughts ran partly in the same line as hers.

"Oh, I'm gaining, no doubt of it. Though I never could have pulled through this year if we had had to live in the old way. God bless Will Laidley for leaving the money as he did!"

"It was not his to leave otherwise!" she cried indignantly.

"Tut, tut, Jane! Of course it was his. By every law. He could have flung it away where he chose; and he had a perfect right to do it."

It was not God who had been kind to her, then: it was only that she had stolen the money?

"Come, Jenny: we must go back to the house."

"In a moment, father. Go on: I will follow you."

She walked up and down the tan-bark path for a while. She was sure of nothing. Wherever she had done what seemed to her right and natural, she was barred and checked by the world's laws and experience. She had brought these starving wretches out of a hell upon earth into this paradise, and even they laughed at her want of wisdom: the very money which was her own in the sight of God, and which had lengthened her father's life, ought to be given back to-day to the poor, its rightful owners. If there was any other cause for her to fight blindly against the narrow matter-of-fact routine which ruled her life, she did not name it even to herself.

Looking toward the house, she saw her father escorting their guests to the gate, where the carriage waited, David resplendent on the box. The captain walked with a feeble kind of swagger: his voice came back to her in weak gusts of laughter. She laid her hand on a tree, glancing about her with a firm sense of possession. "The property is mine," she said, "and I'll keep it as long as he lives, if all the paupers in the United States were starving at the gates!"



CHAPTER XII.

Mr. Van Ness returned to the Hemlock Farm at stated periods during the summer. He had, to be plain, sat down before Jane's heart to besiege it with the same ponderous benign calm with which he ate an egg or talked of death. There was a bronze image of Buddha in the hall at the Farm, the gaze of the god fixed with ineffable content, as it had been for ages, on his own stomach.

Jane went up to it one day after an hour's talk with Mr. Van Ness. "This creature maddens me," she said. "I always want to break it into pieces to see it alter."

Little Mr. Waring, who had come with Van Ness, hurried up as a connoisseur in bronzes, adjusting his eye-glasses. "Why, it is faultless, Miss Swendon!" he cried.

"That is precisely what makes it intolerable."

Much of Jane's large, easy good-humor was gone by this time. She had grown thin, was eager, restless, uncertain of what she ought or ought not to do, even in trifles.

Mr. Waring and Judge Rhodes were both at the Farm now. They ran over to New York every week or two. Phil Waring was not a marrying man, but it was part of his duty as a leader in society to be intimate with every important heiress or beauty in the two cities. Out of sincere compassion to Jane's stupendous ignorance he would sit for hours stroking his moustache, his elbows on his knees, his feet on a rung of the chair, dribbling information as to the nice effects in the Water-Color Exhibition, or miraculous "finds" of Spode or Wedgwood in old junk-shops, or the most authentic information as to why the Palfreys had no cards to Mrs. Livingstone's kettledrums, while Jane listened with a quizzical gleam in her eyes, as she did to the little bantam hen outside cackling and strutting over its new egg.

"We must have you in society this winter," he urged. "It is a duty you owe in your position. You have no choice about it."

"You are right, Mr. Waring," called the captain from the corner where he sat with Judge Rhodes. "The child must have friends in her own class." He dropped his voice again: "The truth is, Rhodes, she has no ties like other girls. Her dog and two or three old women and some children—that is all she knows of life. It's enough while she has me. But I shall not be here long, now. Not many months."

The eyes of the two men met.

"Does she know?" asked the judge after a while.

"No." The captain's gaunt features worked: he trotted his foot to some tune, looking down from the window and whistling under his breath. "It was for this I sent for you," he added presently. "If I could only see her settled, married, before I go! She is no more fit to be left alone in the world than Bruno."

The judge shook his head in gloomy assent. His own opinion was that Jane would follow her own instincts in a dog-like fashion if her father was out of the way, and God only knew where they would lead her! He had brought his own girls, Rose and Netty, with him to visit her, in order that she might have a domestic feminine influence upon her. They found, accidentally, that she did not know a word of any catechism, and, terrified, loaned her religious novels to convert her: she took them graciously, but never cut the leaves. There were to them even more heathenish indications in her hoopless straight skirts: the good little creatures zealously cut and trimmed a dress for her from the very last patterns. She put it on, and straightway went through bog and brake with Bruno for mushrooms, coming back with it in tatters. They chattered in their thin falsetto voices the last Culpepper gossip into her patient ear—the story of Rosey's balls at Old Point, and Netty's lovers, all of whom were "splendid matches until impohverished by the war." She listened to their chirping with amused eyes, tapping them, when they were through, approvingly on the head as though they were clever canaries. The girls told their father that they "feared her principles leaned toward infidelity, and that it was never safe to be intimate with these original women," and had gone home the next day, not waiting for the judge. They washed their hands of her, and gloved them again, but he still felt responsible for her. After he left the captain he went to her, fatherly interest radiant in every feature: "Mr. Waring is right, Jane. It is high time that you were taking your part in society. Your father wishes it."

"I will do whatever he wishes," quietly.—"You did not know us when we lived in the old house in Southwark, Mr. Waring. We invented our patents then. Sometimes we could afford to go to the gallery at the theatre when the play was good. Father and the newsboys would lead the clapping. And we went once a year in our patched shoes a-fishing for a holiday. Those were good times."

"Perfect child of Nature!" telegraphed Mr. Waring uneasily to the judge. "How Mrs. Wilde will rejoice in you, Miss Swendon! Nature is her specialty. She is coming to call this morning.—Miss Swendon," turning anxiously to the judge, "can have no better sponsor in society than Mrs. Wilde. She only can give the accolade to all aspirants. No amount of money will force an entrance at her doors. There must be blood—blood. 'Swendon?' she said when I spoke to her about this call. 'The Swedish Svens? I remember. Queen Christina's gallant lieutenant was her great-grandfather. Good stock. None better. The girl must belong to our circle.' So, now it is all settled!" rubbing his hands and smiling.

"Jane is careless," said the captain eagerly. "People of the best fashion have called, and she has not even left cards. Her dress too—Now a Paris gown, fringes and—"

The three men looked at her at that with a sudden imbecile despair, at which she laughed and went out.

The captain found her presently down by the boat in which she had heard Neckart's story. She bailed it out and cleaned it carefully every day, but she had never gone on the river in it since that night.

"Father," stepping ashore, "what have I done that I must be turned into another woman?"

"Now, Jenny, making models and crabbing were well enough for you as a child. But, as Waring justly observes, the society to which you belong is inexorable in its rules for a woman."

She flung out her arms impatiently, and then clasped them above her head. It seemed as if a thousand fine clammy webs were being spun about her.

"If you had any especial talent, as Waring says—if you were artistic or musical, or concerned in some asylum-work—you could take your own path, independent of society. But—" looking down at her anxiously.

"I understand. I don't know what I was made for."

It was the first time in her life that she had been driven in to consider herself. She stood grave and intent, saying nothing for some time. Every other woman had some definite aim. The whole world was marching by, keeping step to a neat, orderly little tune. They made calls, they gave alms, they dressed, all of the same fashion.

"Why not be like other people?" her father was saying, making a burden to her thought.

"I don't know why," drearily.

"What would you have, Jenny?" taking her hand in his.

"Father, I never loved but one or two people in the world. You and Bruno and—not many others. I can do nothing outside of them."

"Nonsense! You cannot be a law to yourself, child. God knows I want to see you happy!" his voice breaking. "But," straightening his eye-glasses, "Waring says, very justly, you are out of the groove which all other girls are in." He stopped inquiringly, but she did not answer. She was a strongly-built woman in mind and body, and just then she felt her strength. The blood rushed in a swift current through her veins. Why should she be hampered with these thousand meaningless, sham duties? She was fit for but one purpose—to serve two men whom she loved. Her father was ill, and he pushed her from him into Society; and Bruce Neckart was alone, and with a worse fate than death creeping on him, and he—

"Why does not Mr. Neckart come to us?" she asked abruptly. "It is months since I have seen him."

"His health is failing. There is some trouble of the brain threatened. I hear that he is going to give up the paper, and is settling up his business to go to Europe." Her question startled him: he watched her with a new keen suspicion.

"If this must come on him, why should he not come here to bear it? I can nurse you both. Surely, that is as good work as returning calls or learning to dress in Parisian style," with a short laugh.

The captain's face gathered intelligence as he listened. He knew her secret now. For a moment he felt a wrench of pity for her. But love, with the captain, had been a sentimental fever ending in a cold ague: he had experienced light heats and chills of it many a time since. This wild fancy of the girl's would speedily burn itself out if judiciously damped. He would at once take the matter in hand.

"Neckart," he said deliberately, eying her to gauge the effect of his words, "is a man of sense and knowledge of the world. He knows his condition, and in the little time left to him he attends to his business and important political affairs, instead of nursing a romantic friendship which cannot serve him, and would only compromise you."

"Compromise me? I don't understand you, father."

"A woman could not render such service as you offer except to her betrothed lover or husband."

"Why, he would understand."

"But Society, child—"

"Oh, Society!" with a laugh. "But you do not remember!" clasping her hands on his shoulder. "If this thing comes upon him—he has looked forward to it all his life—he has nobody. He is quite alone."

"At least," impatiently, "you will not be involved. I did not understand before why Bruce had deserted us lately. I see now that he has acted very properly. It was not his fault nor yours—this flirtation—preference—or whatever you may choose to call it. But Bruce knows the world, and knows just how long-lived such fancies are, and he intends that it shall be no hinderance to your marriage—making an excellent match."

"I marry? Make an excellent match?"

"Yes. Certainly. What else should you do? Don't look in that way, my darling. It frightens me. I'm not strong. It is not death that is coming to you, but a good husband. You need not turn so white."

"And Mr. Neckart planned this for me?"

"N-no. I can't say 'planned,' to be accurate. But he agreed in our plan. Why, Bruce has common sense. He knows it is the way of the world that a woman should marry, and he will be much happier to know that you are the wife of a good man—good and good-looking too. Much more presentable than Bruce, poor fellow!"

The captain watched her closely as he gave this home-thrust. How a woman could turn from that magnificent, devout reformer to any lean, irascible politician! Her foot was on the edge of the little skiff. She pushed it into the water. While he sat in the boat there that night, with the moonlight white about them, while he told her that he loved her, he had been planning this good match for her! There was no such thing as love, then, in the world? Or truth? But there was Society and common sense and the inexorable rules of propriety. Bruce Neckart represented to her Strength itself, and he submitted to these rules cheerfully. He was happy to think of her as the wife of a good, presentable man!

When she had thought of him as going alone with his terrible burden away from her into the wilderness, true to her until the last breath of reason was gone, there had been a thrill of delight in the intolerable pain. But planning, like finical little Waring, that she should fall snugly into a fashionable set, Parisian gowns, a suitable marriage!

Jane had not the womanish faculty of thinning every fact or thought that came to her into tears or talk. Neckart had gone out of her life. She accepted the fact at once, without argument. What the loss imported to her would assuredly be known only to her own narrow, one-sided mind, and the God who had given it to her.

"Shall we go to the house, father? Can't you laugh again, and look like yourself? Why, I will give myself up, body and soul, to Society or Philanthropy—anything you choose—rather than see you so shaken." She hung on his arm as they went up the path, talking incessantly, and laughing more, as even the captain felt, than the jokes would warrant. The moment was favorable for introducing the subject he had at heart.

"The last train brought out a dozen men to consult Mr. Van Ness," he began—"deputations from church and charitable organizations. 'Pon my soul, I don't know what Christianity in this country would do without that man!"

"It would wear a very different face," absently.

"I went with Rhodes to a great revival-meeting in town one night lately, and Van Ness, of course, was called up on the platform. Rhodes thought he looked like one of the apostles in modern dress; and all the ladies near me said that his face beamed with heavenly light. It would have made anybody devout to look at him. Are you listening?" glancing at her abstracted face. "You certainly think him remarkably handsome? As to his nose, now?"

"I don't suppose anybody could find fault with his nose," smiling.

"Nor with his manner?"

"Nor with his manner."

"And yet you are not friends, eh?" holding his breath for her answer.

"No," carelessly. "Mr. Van Ness and I could not be friends."

"Why? why?"

"How could I tell?" with a shrug, and looking at Bruno, who was fighting a cat just then without cause.

The captain looked and sighed. It was of no use, he thought, to try to account for the prejudices or likings of any of the lower animals.

Mr. Waring met them at the moment in an anxious flutter: "Mrs. Wilde is here. She is coming down the path."

Mrs. Wilde was a small, plump old lady with a sober, tranquil face framed in soft puffs of white hair; her dress never rustled or brought itself into any notice; her language never fell uneasily out of its quiet gait; when she spoke to you, you felt that something genuine and happy dominated you for the moment.

"I followed Mr. Waring here," holding out her hand. "One makes acquaintance so much more quickly out of doors. I must begin ours by asking for your arm, Miss Swendon. I am fat and scant o' breath, and apt to forget it."

Jane drew the puffy hand eagerly through her arm. She would have liked to say outright how welcome the motherly presence and the honest voice were to her just then.

Mrs. Wilde dismissed the captain and Mr. Waring, and the two women sat down in the arbor, and at once were at ease and at home with each other. Bruno came up, eyed and smelled the new-comer, and snuggled down on her skirts to go to sleep.

"He vouches for me," she said nodding. "You must take me at his valuation."

"He makes no mistakes."

"Nor do you, I suspect. That reminds me, Miss Swendon. I brought a friend with me, and now that I have seen you I mean to bespeak your good-will for her. She needs just such healthy influence as yours would be."