This list of official honors is but little in comparison with the success which he had socially. Of a charming personality, he was admitted to the intimacy of all that Europe boasted of aristocracy and royalty. In 1815 he went to the congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, where his facile brush portrayed the august features of the allied sovereigns assembled there. He contributed, from 1787 to 1830 inclusive, three hundred and eleven pictures to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy.

It goes without saying that production of this quantity cannot be in every instance of the first quality. But the average merit of Lawrence's work is nevertheless of a high order. Of feminine charm (like many of his time and many of his predecessors) he was a master; no one has ever succeeded better in giving a certain aristocratic bearing to his sitters than he. It can be accounted a fault that this becomes somewhat stereotyped—that we feel that, were it wanting in the person before him, the amiable Sir Thomas could easily supply it. The English race has not changed so much in the short period which has elapsed since his time that the demeasurably large and liquid eyes, the swan-like necks, and the sloping shoulders, which mark it as his own in Lawrence's work, should be to-day of more rare occurrence. With this great and important limitation, among the pictures of Lawrence can be found a certain number of canvases, not always the most typical, of exceeding merit. Few men have ever conveyed better the impression of the depth and living quality of an eye, nor have many painters succeeded in giving to every part of their canvas the same qualities of color and brilliancy of execution as he.



Lawrence died in his beautiful house on Russell Square in London, surrounded by rare works of art which he had collected, on January 7, 1830. Nine years later Sir William Beechey, born at Burford in Oxfordshire in 1753, died in London at the age of eighty-six. He had come to London in 1772; and in 1798, having acquired consideration and a lucrative practice as a portrait painter, and after having painted a picture, now at Hampton Court, representing the king, George III., the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York at a review, he was knighted. The same year saw his election to the Academy, of which he had been an associate since 1793.

One of Beechey's distinctions is to have outnumbered even Lawrence in his contributions to the Academy, as three hundred and sixty-two of his works appeared on its walls. Of hasty execution or too great dependence on a dangerous facility, there is, however, little trace in his work. He was occupied exclusively with painting; he lived more than twenty years longer than Lawrence, and was never diverted by the claims of society upon his time. With his healthy, English color, recalling Reynolds, a sober style not devoid of charm, he is fairly typical of his time; and may fitly close this brief review of the earlier English portraitists. Their task has never been taken up by their successors in art, English portraiture to-day having much the same qualities and defects which mark the contemporaneous painters of all nations.



The exclusive choice of feminine portraits in this article has been dictated by a desire to show, in the space at command, the painting most typical of the time and people. While all these painters produced portraits of men, their work in this field was, as a rule, inferior to the art of France. Lawrence is perhaps an exception; as it would seem that occasionally in the presence of a masculine sitter he rose superior to his manner and, painting with all sincerity, gave his remarkable gifts full play. The lack, however, of serious training in drawing, the over-reliance on charm of color and sentiment, give to the English work a degree of weakness as compared with the thorough command of form and austere fidelity to resemblance that was preached to the French with "drawing is the probity of art" for a text.



THE TRAGEDY OF GARFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES AND RECORDS OF CONVERSATIONS.

BY MURAT HALSTEAD.

James A. Garfield, twentieth President of the United States, had the good fortune to be a boy long after he reached the years of manhood. This fact is the key to his character and the explanation of his career. His boyishness was not lack of manhood; it was a lingering youthfulness of spirit, a keen susceptibility of impression, an elasticity of mind, a hearty enjoyment of his strong life, a tenderness and freshness of heart, an openness to friend and foe, something of deference to others, and of diffidence, not without understanding of and confidence in his own powers. He was youthful with the noble youth of the fields and schools and churches, of the farms and villages of the West, when he became a member of the legislature of Ohio, from which he passed into the army, that was like a university to him. As a soldier he was typically a big, brave boy, powerful, ardent, amiable, rejoicing in his strength. In eastern Kentucky he led his regiment in its first fight. He found out where the enemy were, and pulling off his coat—the regulation country style of preparing for battle—headed a foot-race straight for "the rebs," and routed them. It was literally a case of "come on, boys." Those opposed, so to speak, thought the devil possessed the robust young man in his shirt-sleeves.



When Garfield was President, he was asked whether he ever thought, before his nomination for the office, that he was likely to fill it, and his answer was curious and characteristic of his manner of expression. He said he supposed all American young men reflected on that subject, and he had done so—not with any serious concern, but as a remote possibility. And he added, "I have fancied the great public personified and looking with an immense, a rolling, intense eye, over the millions of the nation, to pick out future Presidents, and thought as it swept along the ranks the eye might give me a glance, and that perhaps the meaning of it was: I may want you—some time."

It was my theory, as the editor of an important journal in Ohio during the time General Garfield served in Congress, that he needed a good deal of admonition; that he had a tendency to sentimentalism in politics that called for correction; that he required paragraphs to brace him up in various affairs; that he lacked a little in worldly wisdom, and maybe had a dangerous tendency to giving and taking too much confidence; and that he was disposed to dwell upon a mountain, and would be the better off for an occasional taking-down with a shade of good-humored sarcasm. He was still boyish about some things, and the speculative men in public life sought to beguile him. He was growing all the time, though. He was a student, and was brainy and generous, and laughed at "able articles" even if they had stings in them.



Cincinnati knew him best as the Christian orator—follower of Alexander Campbell—who preached with a big voice and great earnestness at the corner of Walnut and Eighth Streets. This was when he was a grand young man, sure enough. Some time after, Congress found it out. After a while the public knew Garfield as one of the half dozen strongest men in the country. Next to John Sherman he stood the most commanding figure in Ohio politics, and was elected Senator of the United States, his term commencing on the day on which, as it happened, he was inaugurated President. He was just realizing his ability, having had it measured for him in the House of Representatives, and knew he was a force in affairs. He enjoyed his dinners and dressed well, and was of imposing presence: a good-natured giant—no posing—no troublesome sense of grandeur—none of the pomp affected by public men too conscious of importance.



He suffered under the petty charge that he had been influenced by a scrap of stock whose value might be affected by Congressional action; and those who knew him well were aware that his innocence of knowledge to do what he was charged with doing, was absurd and itself proof that he was sound. He was, by virtue of superior capacity, at the head of the Ohio delegation to the Republican National Convention of 1880, and was charged with the management of the candidacy of John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, for the Presidency—the most competent man in the country for the office.

It had been thought for a time that the combination of important men for a third term of General Grant would succeed, as the glory of the General was very great and those who wanted him for President again were able and resolute. Blaine had hesitated for a moment whether to take the field; but learning that Sherman would be in the race whether there was or was not any other man a candidate in opposition to Grant, he made the fight, and he and Sherman were the representative leaders against the third term.

Their feeling was that they were not making war upon General Grant, but upon those who sought to use his fame for their own purpose, and they meant particularly Senator Conkling. General Grant, at Galena, wrote a letter to Senator Cameron, and gave it to John Russell Young, who handed it to Mr. Cameron, and it disappeared. This letter was a frank and serious statement that he desired not to be considered a candidate, and no doubt his preference was the nomination of Mr. Conkling.

The interest of the great convention early centred in the two tall men on the floor, the undoubted champions of the contending forces, Conkling and Garfield; and the latter got the first decided advantage in breaking the third term line when Conkling demanded that the majority of the delegation of a State should cast the entire vote. This was the famous unit rule, the defeat of which was the first event of the convention. Garfield and Conkling were foremost in the fray because they were the most masterful men of the vast assembly—nearly twenty thousand people under the roof.

The advocates of the Old Commander for a third term were in heavy force, and knew exactly what they wanted; and whenever the convention met, as Senator Conkling usually walked in late, he had a tumultuous reception. The opposition saw it was necessary to counteract this personal demonstration, and managed to hold Garfield back so that he should be later than Conkling, and then they gave him salutations of unheard-of exuberance far resounding; and this was the beginning of the end. Garfield, because he was in person, position, and transcending talent a leader, was transformed into a colossus before the eyes of the convention, and was an appeal to the imagination. When the nominating addresses were made, none was heard by the whole multitude but those by Conkling and Garfield. They stood on tables of reporters, and their voices rang clear, through their splendid speeches, carrying every word to the remotest corners; and the rivalry between the two men became emphasized. Each had the sense to admire the effort of the other, Conkling saying to the delegate by his side: "It is bright in Garfield to speak from that place," and it was a good deal for him to say. More and more Garfield loomed as the man who stood against Grant.

There had been a good many persons meantime saying that neither Blaine nor Sherman could beat Grant, and that Garfield was the man to do it. All who are familiar with our political methods are aware of the frantic desire of the average office-seeker, or practical politician, no matter what he wants, to find out early all the possibilities of the next Presidency; and it is esteemed a superb achievement to be among the first to pick the man. The number of far-sighted citizens on the subject of the eligibility of Garfield, as the convention progressed, grew large. Governor Foster of Ohio did not conceal his impression that the nomination of Garfield was certain. In his opinion Sherman was not in the race, and perhaps his judgment to that effect assisted the formation of the current that finally flooded the convention. One man, a delegate from Pennsylvania, voted for Garfield on every ballot, and kept him before the people. I had telegrams from correspondents of the Cincinnati "Commercial," at Chicago, several days before the nomination, evidently reflecting Governor Foster's opinions, and frequently repeated, until the event justified them, saying Garfield would be the nominee. I was that time slow to understand the situation, and protested, against putting the "nonsense" on the wires, in telegrams that after the event were held to signify lack of sagacity about Garfield.

The first man who held decidedly Garfield would be nominated was Mr. Starin of New York, who travelled with Senator Conkling in a special car from the national capital to the convention, and said on the way the nomination of Grant was not to be, and that Blaine and Sherman could not carry off the prize, and that therefore Garfield was to be the man. He made this point to the Hon. Thomas L. James, the Postmaster-General in Garfield's cabinet, between Harrisburg and Chicago. Mr. Blaine regarded beating Grant at Chicago as no loss to the General and no reflection on him, but rather as the best thing for him; and that the true policy and purpose was to beat Conkling, who committed the error in strategy, however gallant the sentiment that inspired him, of committing himself irretrievably to Grant—and though the contested votes were all against him, he was unchangeable. "No angle-worm nomination will take place to-day"—meaning nothing feeble—was Mr. Conkling's oracular remark the morning of the day when the Presidential destiny of the occasion was determined.

The drift toward Garfield was in so many ways announced before the decisive hour that he could not be insensible of its existence, and he was greatly disturbed. He said he would "rather be shot with musketry than nominated" and have Sherman think he had been unfaithful to his obligations as leader of the forces for him. That Senator Sherman was offended is well known; but so far as he felt that Garfield had been to blame, it was due to the gossip, widely disseminated, that Garfield was personally concerned in working his own "boom." All that was well threshed out long ago, and there is nothing tangible in it to-day. The fact is, Garfield could not have worked a personal scheme. He must have been defeated if he had tried it. A movement on his part of that kind would have been fatal. On the other hand, if he had got up to decline to be a candidate, it would have been easy to say that he was making a nominating speech for himself. It was not particularly difficult to call Garfield a "traitor," and the temptation to do it was because he was so sensitive regarding that imputation in politics—whatever hurts goes. He had no idea of concealing anything, and told such queer stories as this:

The morning of his nomination—the fact that this was from Garfield himself is certain—one of his relatives from Michigan saw him and said: "Jim, you are going to be nominated to-day. I had a dream about you last night, and thought I was in the hall and there was something happening, I could not tell what, when suddenly on every side the standards of the States [names of the States on staffs locating the delegations] were pulled from their places, and men ran to where you were sitting, and waved them over your head." Garfield stated that this was certainly told him on the way to his breakfast; and after the nomination the dreamer reappeared and said: "What did I tell you, Jim? Why, the very thing I saw in my dream last night, I saw in the convention to-day."

The inside truth about the nomination was freely given by Mr. Blaine, who, as the convention progressed, was studying the proceedings with the surprisingly clear vision he possessed for the estimation of passing events. He soon made up his mind that his nomination could not happen, and that Sherman also was impossible. They could not unite forces without losses. Evidently there was a crisis at hand. There is something in a convention that always tells the competent observer, near or far, that decisive action is about to be taken. The evidence appears of an intolerant impatience. Mr. Conkling was relying upon the absolute solidity of his three hundred and five. Mr. Blaine was a wiser man about the force of a tempest in a convention, and would have preferred Sherman to Conkling. But Conkling was quite as bitter toward Sherman as regarding Blaine, even more so in his invective; and this grew out of the custom-house difficulty that ultimately so deeply affected General Arthur's fortunes. There had to be a break somewhere—to Grant from Sherman and Blaine, or from him to them, or a rush to Conkling, or to Garfield, whose conspicuity had constantly suggested it; and Blaine resolved that the chance to rout the third-termers was to sweep the convention by going for Garfield, and overwhelming him with the rest, thus winning a double victory over Conkling.

It is a fact, and the one that makes certain the proposition that Sherman could not have been nominated, that the majority of the Blaine men from New York, turned loose by breaking the unit rule—there were nineteen of them—preferred Grant to Sherman. If the break by Blaine from himself had been attempted, for Sherman, Grant would have been nominated if one ballot had been decisive. But Blaine was able to transfer every vote cast for him to Garfield, with the exception of that of a colored delegate from Virginia; and this movement was managed so as to overthrow all who strove to stand against it. Grant was in the lead for thirty-four ballots, but on the thirty-fourth there were seventeen votes for Garfield. On the thirty-fifth ballot Garfield had three hundred and ninety-nine votes, twenty-one majority over all. Blaine by telegraph had outgeneralled Conkling, present and commanding in person.

The course of the proceedings of the convention from the first was a preparation for the final scenes, the putting of Garfield against Conkling and working up a rivalry between them having a marked effect; and this was not so much for Garfield as against Conkling. Garfield grieved to think Sherman would misunderstand him, and was apprehensive as to the feeling of the New York delegation. "How do your people feel about this?" Garfield asked a New Yorker, when he had returned to his hotel the nominee.

"Well, they feel badly and bitterly," was the reply.

"Yes," said Garfield, "I suppose they do. It is as Wellington said, 'next to the sadness of defeat, the saddest moment is that of victory.'" This remark was quite in Garfield's method and manner.

Mr. Sherman's failure was made inevitable in this, as in other conventions, by the strange absence, always observable in New York, of appreciation of the unparalleled services to the country of his public labors culminating in the resumption of specie payments. That is the real secret and chief fault of the convention.

Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio appeared at the headquarters of the New York delegation after the Garfield nomination, and Senator Conkling greeted him cordially. There Dennison said, so that the whole delegation heard, that he was the bearer of a message from the delegation of Ohio, that they would give a solid vote for any man New York would be pleased to name for Vice-President. "Even," said Senator Conkling promptly, in his finest cynical way, "if that man should be Chester A. Arthur?"

Dennison's answer was, after a moment, "Yes;" and Conkling put the question of supporting Arthur to a vote, making a motion that he was the choice of the delegation for the Vice-Presidency, and it was carried immediately. This was understood to be pretty hard on the Ohio people, including especially Sherman and Garfield. Of course, under the lead of New York and Ohio, the convention ratified the motion of Conkling, and the ticket was Garfield and Arthur. And so ample preparation was made for the bitterness of the coming time—for the troubled administration of Garfield and its tragic close.

GARFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION.

There have been limitations upon the candor of all persons who have undertaken to write the story of the tragedy of the administration of Garfield, and partisanism in personalities has had too much attention. Mr. Conkling seemed to be the storm centre, and it was difficult to deal with him and not to offend him. It is well remembered that in his speech placing Grant in nomination he quoted Miles O'Reilly:

If asked what State he hails from, Our sole reply shall be— He comes from Appomattox And the famous apple tree.

On the way home, Governor Foster of Ohio, called out at Fort Wayne, paraphrased the Senator thus:

If asked what State he hails from, Our sole reply shall be— He comes from old Ohio And his name is General G.

This was not startling in any way, but Mr. Conkling had the reputation of being very much offended by the parody.

It happens often in war, and sometimes in peace, that newspaper correspondents send the real news privately to the editor in charge, and give things as they ought to be in "copy" for the printers. There are before me private letters written by one well informed of that which was going on in the capital city of Ohio immediately after the nomination of Garfield, and a few extracts will turn the light on the inside of the affairs of the Republicans of the nominee's State at that time—the news then being too strong for newspapers.

"July 10.—The plan to have Garfield go through New York to Saratoga with Logan, Foster, and others has been given up.... Logan and Cameron are all right, but Conkling refuses to be pacified or conciliated, unless Garfield will make promises; and that he refuses to do. Conkling said he'd 'rather had to support Blaine.' Conkling never called upon Garfield, or returned Garfield's call, or answered Garfield's note. Sherman has been in cordial consultation with the committee, and promised to do all he can honorably in his position [Secretary of the Treasury]. Garfield appears well under fire, and is a more manly character than ever before. He says no man could be in a better position for defeat, if he has to get it. His behavior has won the respect of the workers since the convention."

"July 11.—They all stand around and watch Conkling as little dogs watch their master when he is in a bad mood—waiting for him to graciously smile, and they will jump about with effusive joy. A strong letter was written urging Conkling, in the most flattering way, and appealing to him in the most humble manner, to come to Ohio and deliver a speech in the Cincinnati Music Hall, and promising no end of thousands of people and bands and guns and things, till you couldn't rest. I opposed sending such a missive, advocating such a simple and cordial invitation as it is customary to extend to a leader and honest, earnest party man. But they looked upon me (probably rightly, too) as a fool who would rush in where angels fear to tread. And now Jewell writes that he has not dared to give the letter to Conkling yet, as he has not 'deemed any moment yet as opportune.' Meanwhile Conkling and Arthur have gone off on a two or three weeks' fishing trip. Dorsey humbly and piously hopes Conkling can be induced to make a speech in Vermont, and if the Almighty happens to take the right course with him, he may condescend to come to Ohio."

This is a true picture of the way the campaign opened. Mr. Sherman said something in an interview that was less cordial than was expected and caused some temper, but the fault found was not that he was accusative but reserved. Colonel Dick Thompson made a ringing speech pledging the Hayes administration without reserve; and that gave encouragement, and was said to be for a time the only inspiration the Republicans got to go for Garfield with good will and confidence.

It was arranged to have General Garfield appear in New York City, and it was expected that he would there meet Mr. Conkling. There was to be a consultation of Republicans, and the plan of the campaign perfected. The question of special exertion in the Southern States was up. The conference came off, and Mr. Conkling did not attend it. Mr. Arthur seemed very much grieved about that. Mr. Logan was unwilling to speak in the presence of reporters, and Mr. Blaine said he would be very much disappointed if his speech was not reported. Thurlow Weed made the speech of the occasion. The real object of the meeting was to bring Garfield and Conkling together without making the fact too obvious; and the disturbance of the candidate was manifest in his references to the absent Senator as "my Lord Roscoe."

"I have," said Garfield next day, "an invitation to make a trip to Coney Island, and it means that I may there have a pocket interview with my Lord Roscoe; but if the Presidency is to turn on that, I do not want the office badly enough to go;" and he did not go. The words are precisely Garfield's; and the next thing was the journey over the Erie line, and speeches by Garfield, accompanied by General Harrison and Governor Kirkwood, at every important place from Paterson to Jamestown. That the General was capable of warm resentment, this letter testifies:

MENTOR, OHIO, September 20, 1880.

I notice —— is parading through the country devoting himself to personal assaults upon me. Why do not our people republish his letter, which a few years ago drove him in disgrace from the stump, and compelled the Democracy to recall every appointment then pending? Of all the black sheep that have been driven from our flock, I know of none blacker than he, and less entitled to assail any other man's character.

Very truly yours,

J.A. GARFIELD.

The speaking on the line of the Erie road by Garfield, Harrison, and Kirkwood was of a very high and effective character. The man who did more to make peace than any other was General Grant. Conkling had a genuine affection for him, and consented to go with him to Mentor; and yet there was some trifle always in the way of a complete understanding with the old guard of the Third-Term Crusaders.

Garfield was very sensible of and grateful for the work done by Grant and Conkling, and did not stint expression of his feeling. The State of New York was carried by the Republicans, and Garfield indisputably elected President of the United States. There was a vast amount of worry in making up the cabinet, and Mr. Conkling's hand appeared, but not with a gesture of conciliation. He and Garfield were of incompatible temper. Each had mannerisms that irritated the other; and when they seemed to try to agree, the effort was not a success.

As soon as the administration was moving the President was under two fires: one in respect to the attempted reforms in the postal service, and the other about the New York appointments. Mr. Conkling did not seem able to understand that anything could be done that was not according to his pleasure, without personal offence toward himself. He was a giant, and that was his weakness. It was Garfield's ardent desire to be friendly with the senior New York Senator; but one position he avowedly maintained. It was that he was not to blame for being President of the United States; that he had taken the oath of office, and was the man responsible to the people for the administration, and he could not, dare not, shift that obligation; and, more than that, he must give the "recognition" due friends to the men who had aided him in breaking down Mr. Conkling's policy at Chicago. If that was a crime he was a criminal. He was President, and he would be true to his friends; and surely he should not be expected to serve another man's purpose by humiliating himself.

Conkling had taken part in the campaign at last, but that was his duty at first. It is needless to refer to questions of veracity—to what practical politicians call "promises." A polite phrase is twisted, by the many seized with fury to be officers, to mean what is desired, though it may be but a mere civility—the more marked probably because the President knows he has only good words to give! There are always such issues when there is patronage to be distributed, for, of course, there is dissatisfaction. Everybody cannot be made happy, with or without civil service reform; and it is no effort, when the President says "Good morning," and seems to be obliging, and says he will take a recommendation into consideration and if possible read the papers, and adds, "I shall be glad to see you again," to say, when he appoints another to the coveted place, that he has falsified.

Mr. Conkling's friends relate that he was about to go to the White House and hold a consultation in which Mr. Arthur and Mr. Platt were to participate, when he received a telegram in cipher from Governor Cornell which, when translated, turned out to be an urgent request that the Senator should vote to confirm Robertson; and that this was regarded as insulting, and Mr. Conkling refused to go to the White House, with a burst of scorn about the dispensation of offices! This is not consistent with the accusations that Garfield was influenced to be perfidious. There are those who think there would have been peace if it had not been for that Cornell telegram; but they are of the manner of mind of the peacemakers of 1861, who thought another conference would heal all wounded susceptibilities. The source of discordance was not near the surface; it was in the system of "patronage" and "recognition," and deep in the characteristics of the individuals.

It is not true that Mr. Blaine was fierce for war upon Conkling; he thought a fight was inevitable, and that the time for the President to assert himself was at the beginning; and said so. "Fight now if at all," said Blaine then to Garfield, "for your administration tapers!" As to his personal wishes, he was often overruled in the cabinet, and took it complacently. But he was warlike on the point that the President was entitled to be friendly with his friends, and must not be personally oppressed.

One day Mr. Conkling in the Senate had one of the New York appointments pleasing to him taken up and confirmed, leaving half a dozen others, about evenly divided between his own and the President's favorites. Then came a crisis; and it was represented to the President that he should pull those appointments out of the Senate at once, before Conkling's power was further exhibited; and that if he did not, the bootblacks at Willard's would know that the Senator, and not the President, was first in affairs. The appointments were withdrawn, and it was perfectly understood that this withdrawal signified that the President would not allow men to be discriminated against because they were opposed to Conkling at Chicago. A letter came from General Grant in Mexico, addressed to Senator Jones of Nevada, and was published, reflecting upon Garfield's course; and at once the President wrote to the Old Commander defending his administration. This was done as a matter of personal respect. General Grosvenor of Ohio happened to be in the President's room when he mailed a copy of his letter to General Grant, and read the duplicate that was reserved. It was a very respectful and decisive statement. This letter was personal to General Grant, and the rush of events caused it to be reserved and finally forgotten, except by the few who knew enough of it to value it as an historical document.

There were but a few days of the four months between the inauguration of President Garfield and his assassination that he could be said to have had any enjoyment out of the great office. It brought him only bitter cares, venomous criticisms, lurking malice, covert threats ambushed in demands that were unreasonable if not irrational. He felt keenly the accusation that he had been nominated when his duty was due another; and he was aware that friends had given color to accusation by a zeal that was unseemly. He was pathetic in his anxiety to be very right; and only the assurance that Conkling was implacable took the sting out of the haughty presumption he encountered in that severe gentleman, whose egotism was so lofty it was ever imposing, when it would have been absurd in any one else.

During the summer and autumn of the campaign and the winter following, President Garfield was subject to attacks of acute indigestion that were distressing; and it was remembered with concern that he had at Atlantic City suffered from a sunstroke while bathing, and fallen into an insensible condition for a quarter of an hour. The question whether his physical condition might not be one of frailty was serious. Then Mrs. Garfield became ill, and the situation was gloomy.

THE GARFIELDS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

There was one evening at the White House—just when Mrs. Garfield's indisposition was at first manifested, and then was only apparent in a slight chill, that caused a rather unseasonable wood fire to be lighted—that none of those present can have forgotten; for there were not many bright hours in the midst of the dismal shadowing of the drama hastening to the tragic close. Mrs. Garfield was, with the privilege of an invalid, whose chilly sensation was supposed to be trivial, seated before the fire, the warmth of which was to her pleasant; and she was pale but animated, surrounded by a group among whom were several very dear to her. General Sherman arrived, and was—as always when his vivacity was kindly, and it was never otherwise with ladies—fascinating. The scene was brilliant, and had a charming domestic character. The President was detained for half an hour beyond the time when he was expected, and came in with a quick step and hearty manner, and there was soon a flush of pleasure upon his face, that had been touched with the lines of fatigue, as he saw how agreeable the company were. A lady, who had never before seen him, voiced the sentiment of all present, saying in a whisper: "Why, he is the ideal President! How grand he is! How can they speak about him so? What a magnificent gentleman he is! Talk about your canal boys!" He was well dressed, of splendid figure, his coat buttoned over his massive chest, his dome-like head erect, adequately supported by immense shoulders, and he looked the President indeed, and an embodiment of power. He was feeling that the dark days were behind him, that he was equal to his high fortune, that the world was wide and fair before him. It was a supreme hour—and only an hour—for the occasion was informal, and there was a feeling that the lady of the White House should not be detained from her rest; and the good-night words were trustful that she would be well next morning; but then she was in a fever, and after some weeks was taken to Long Branch, and returned to her husband, called, to find him stricken unto death.

It happened on the last day of June, 1881, that I stopped in Washington on the way to New York; and in the evening—it was Thursday—walked from the Arlington to the White House, and sent my card to the President, who was out. Then I strolled, passing through Lafayette Square and sitting awhile there, thoughtful over the President's troubles, and recalling the long letters I had written to him at Mentor, urging that Levi P. Morton should be Secretary of the Treasury, wondering whether things would have been better if that had been done; for a good deal of the tempest that broke over Garfield was because he sustained Thomas L. James in postal reforms. The testimony taken during the trial of Guiteau shows that he was that night in that square; and, knowing the President had left the White House, was on the look-out, with intent to murder him. The incarnate sneak was lying in wait, a horrible burlesque, to take his revenge because he thought he had been slighted, and was so malignant a fool he believed public opinion might applaud the deed. One of the dusky figures on the benches was probably his.

At the Arlington, a few minutes after ten o'clock, I met Postmaster-General James; and when told that I was going to New York in the morning, he asked: "Have you seen the President?"

I had not, and General James said quite earnestly: "Go over and see him now;" and he added: "The President, you know, is going to Williams College the day after to-morrow, and I know he is not going to bed early, and is not very busy, and will be glad to see you. He and I have been out dining with Secretary Hunt; and the President left me here a few minutes ago. Go over and see him. He has had a good deal of disagreeable business this afternoon relating to my department, and I am sure he would be glad to talk with you, and have something very interesting to say."

LAST INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

Returning to the White House, arriving there about a quarter before eleven, after I had waited a few minutes in one of the small parlors, the President came down the stairs rapidly, and I took note that his movements were very alert. I had not seen him since the night when Mrs. Garfield had notice of the illness that had become alarming, and from which she was now convalescent, and said first: "Mrs. Garfield is much better?"

"Yes, much better," said the President, "and getting health out of the sea air. She has enjoyed it intensely, and will be able to join me day after to-morrow at Jersey City, on the way to Williams College—the sweetest old place in the world. Come and go with us; several of the cabinet are going, and we shall have a rare time; come and go with us. Have you ever seen the lovely country there?"

I answered, "No, I have not seen it; and, thanking you for the invitation, shall not go; have too much to do. You will have a vacation?"

"Yes," the President said, "and I am feeling like a schoolboy about it. You should go. You were along with Harrison, Kirkwood, and me to Chautauqua, you know. That was a great day's ride. Do you remember those watermelons? They would have been first-rate if they had been on ice a few hours."

"You had a hard day of it," I said; "forty speeches, weren't there? And you will have another lot of speeches to make."

He said he did not mind the speeches.

"And how is your health," I asked; "any more indigestion? Ever try Billy Florence's remedy, Valentine's meat juice, made in Richmond, Virginia—great reputation abroad, little at home?"

He said he had never tried it, had forgotten it. Then, turning with an air half comic, but with something of earnestness, he said, naming me by way of start: "You have been holding a sort of autopsy over me ever since I tumbled over at Atlantic City. I exposed myself there too long both in the water and in the sun, but it was not so bad as you think."

I said he might pardon a degree of solicitude, under all the circumstances, and he said he did not want any premature autopsies held over him; and I put it that they had much better be premature. Then the President said, with the greatest earnestness: "I am in better health—indeed, quite well. It is curious, isn't it? My wife's sickness cured me. I got so anxious about her I ceased to think about myself. Both ends of the house were full of trouble. My wife's illness was alarming, and I thought no more of the pit of my stomach and the base of my brain and the top of my head; and when she was out of danger, and my little troubles occurred to me—why, they were gone, and I have not noticed them since. And so," said the President, uttering the short words with deliberation, and picking them with care, "and so, if one could, so to say, unself one's self, what a cure all that would be!"

"The other end of the White House is better, is it not?" I asked.

"Not so much change there," said the President; "but one becomes accustomed to heavy weather."

"Lord Roscoe is feeling happier, I hope," said I.

The President answered, dropping the "Lord Roscoe" comicality, and speaking rapidly and seriously, with a flush of excitement: "Conkling, after ten years of absolute despotism in New York—for Grant did everything for him, and Hayes tried to comfort him—got the elephantiasis of conceit. We read that gentlemen in Oriental countries, having that disease in its advanced stage, need a wheelbarrow or small wagon to aid their locomotion when they go out to walk—and the population think there is something divine in it. Conkling thought if he should go on parade in New York, and place the developments of his vanity fully on exhibition, the whole people would fall down and worship the phenomenon. But he was mistaken, for they soon saw it was a plain, old-fashioned case of sore-head."

Then the President, having exhausted the elephantiasis as a divine manifestation, expressed regrets that there had been such contentions among those who should be friends of the administration; and repeated his view of that which was due to the actual trust the people had placed in him, and of which he could not honorably divest himself. He thought the people already understood the case fairly well and would be more and more of the opinion that he had tried to do the things that were right, "with malice toward none and charity for all." We talked until midnight. It was a Friday morning, and the President was doomed to be shot the next day. The assassin had been on his path that night. The President had gone out dining for the last time.

"And you will not go to Williams College with me?" he said.

I said: "Mr. President, you have forgotten you were assailed for being in my company to Chautauqua; and I have been so fortunate since as to gather a fresh crop of enemies, and do not want them to jump on to you on my account—for there are enough upon you already."

That, the President said, was "curious and interesting," and he laughed about my "fresh crop," and said something about cutting hay; and I told him I had been invited to meet him Saturday night at Cyrus W. Field's country place, where a dinner party was appointed; and jumping up, hurried away. The light in the hall shone down on the President's pale, high forehead, as he walked toward the stairway leading to his apartments, and I saw him no more.

Something familiar struck me in the appearance of the watchman at the door of the White House, and stopping, I said: "Did you hold this position here in Lincoln's time?"

"Yes," said he, "I did."

"And did you not look after his safety sometimes?"

"I did, indeed," was the answer; "many a time I kept myself between him and the trees there," pointing to them, "as we walked over to the War Department to get the news from the armies. I did not know who might be hidden in the trees, and I would not let him go alone."

"Did it ever occur to you," I asked, "that it would be worth while to have a care that no harm happened here?"

"What, now?"

"Yes, now."

"Oh, it is different now—no war now."

"No," said I, "no war, but people are about who are queer; and there are ugly excitements; think of it."

Of course, this conversation at the door of the White House the midnight morning of the day before the President was shot, is accounted for by the sensibility that there was a half-suppressed public uneasiness that could mean some fashion of mischief, and it might be of a deadly sort to the President, because he was so formidably conspicuous. Nearly a year afterward, walking by General Sherman's residence, I saw him sitting under a strong light, with his back to the street, writing—doors and windows all open. I walked in, saying: "General, I wouldn't sit with my back to an open window late at night, under a light like this, if I were you. Some fool will come along with a bull-dog pistol and the idea that death loves a shining mark."

"Pooh!" said the old soldier. "Nobody interested in killing me. They will let me well alone with their bull-dog pistols."

The White House shone like marble in the green trees as I drove from the Arlington to the Potomac depot, July 1st, to take the train corresponding to the one that had the President's car attached on the following morning, when he meant to have a holiday of which he had the most delightful anticipation, as one throwing off a brood of nightmares. He was going back the President to the scene of his struggles in early manhood for an education, going to what he called the "sweetest place in the world," having reached the summit of ambition, confident in himself, assured of the public good will, happy to meet his wife restored to health, himself robust and to be, he thought, hag-ridden no more; rejoicing to meet the dearest of old friends, kindling with the realization of his superb and commanding position, glowing with his just pride of place; no heart beating higher, no imagination that exalted this mighty country more than his, no brain that conceived with greater splendor the glory of the nation than his, no American patriotism more true, brighter, broader, deeper, more abounding than his; and all was shattered at a stroke by a creature like a crawling serpent with a deadly sting.

All over the land the flags flew at half mast, and the woful news was told: "The President is shot!" The man had fallen who, when Lincoln was murdered, spoke the memorable words from the Treasury building, on the spot where Washington was inaugurated: "The President is dead—but God reigns and the Republic lives." There were nearly three months of torture reserved for the second martyred President, and he bore them with marvellous fortitude; and then, on a September night, the throbbing of the bells from Scotland to California told, that the dark curtain of death had fallen on the tragic drama of the Presidency of Garfield.



THE VICTORY OF THE GRAND DUKE OF MITTENHEIM.

THE LAST ROMANCE OF THE PRINCESS OSRA.

BY ANTHONY HOPE,

Author of "The Prisoner of Zenda," "The Dolly Dialogues," etc.

King Rudolf, being in the worst of humors, had declared in the presence of all the court that women were born to plague men and for no other purpose whatsoever under heaven. Hearing this discourteous speech, the Princess Osra rose, and said that, for her part, she would go walking alone by the river outside the city gates, where she would at least be assailed by no more reproaches. For since she was irrevocably determined to live and die unmarried, of what use or benefit was it to trouble her with embassies, courtings, or proposals, either from the Grand Duke of Mittenheim or anybody else? She was utterly weary of this matter of love—and her mood would be unchanged, though this new suitor were as exalted as the King of France, as rich as Croesus himself, and as handsome as the god Apollo. She did not desire a husband, and there was an end of it. Thus she went out, while the queen sighed, and the king fumed, and the courtiers and ladies said to one another that these dissensions made life very uncomfortable at Strelsau, the ladies further adding that he would be a bold man who married Osra, although doubtless she was not ill-looking.

To the banks of the river outside the walls then Osra went; and as she went she seemed to be thinking of nothing at all in the world, least of all of whom she might chance to meet there on the banks of the river, where in those busy hours of the day few came. Yet there was a strange new light in her eyes, and there seemed a new understanding in her mind; and when a young peasant-wife came by, her baby in her arms, Osra stopped her, and kissed the child and gave money, and then ran on in unexplained confusion, laughing and blushing as though she had done something which she did not wish to be seen. Then, without reason, her eyes filled with tears; but she dashed them away, and burst suddenly into singing. And she was still singing when, from the long grass by the river's edge, a young man sprang up, and, with a very low bow, drew aside to let her pass. He had a book in his hand, for he was a student at the University, and came there to pursue his learning in peace. His plain brown clothes spoke of no wealth or station, though certainly they set off a stalwart straight shape, and seemed to match well with his bright brown hair and hazel eyes. Very low this young man bowed, and Osra bent her head. The pace of her walk slackened, grew quicker, slackened again; she was past him, and with a great sigh he lay down again. She turned, he sprang up; she spoke coldly, yet kindly.

"Sir," said she, "I cannot but notice that you lie every day here by the river, with your book, and that you sigh. Tell me your trouble, and if I can I will relieve it."

"I am reading, madam," he answered, "of Helen of Troy, and I am sighing because she is dead."

"It is an old grief by now," said Osra, smiling. "Will no one serve you but Helen of Troy?"

"If I were a prince," said he, "I need not mourn."

"No, sir?"

"No, madam," he said, with another bow.

"Farewell, sir."

"Madam, farewell."

So she went on her way, and saw him no more till the next day, nor after that till the next day following; and then came an interval when she saw him not, and the interval was no less than twenty-four hours; yet still he read of Helen of Troy, and still sighed that she was dead and he no prince. At last he tempted the longed-for question from her shy, smiling lips.

"Why would you not mourn, sir, if you were a prince?" said she. "For princes and princesses have their share of sighs." And with a very plaintive sigh Osra looked at the rapid-running river, as she waited for the answer.

"Because I would then go to Strelsau, and so forget her."



"But you are at Strelsau now!" she cried with wonderful surprise.

"Ah, but I am no prince, madam!" said he.

"Can princes alone—forget in Strelsau?"

"How should a poor student dare to—forget in Strelsau?" And as he spoke he made bold to step near her, and stood close, looking down into her face. Without a word she turned and left him, going with a step that seemed to dance through the meadow and yet led her to her own chamber, where she could weep in quiet.

"I know it now, I know it now!" she whispered softly that night to the tree that rose by her window. "Heigh-ho, what am I to do? I cannot live; no, and now I cannot die. Ah me! what am I to do? I wish I were a peasant-girl—but then perhaps he would not—Ah yes, but he would!" And her low, long laugh rippled in triumph through the night, and blended with the rustling of the leaves under a summer breeze, and she stretched her white arms to heaven, imploring the kind God with prayers that she dared not speak even to His pitiful ear.

"Love knows no princesses, my princess." It was that she heard as she fled from him next day. She should have rebuked him. But for that she must have stayed, and to stay she had not dared. Yet she must rebuke him. She must see him again in order to rebuke him. Yet all this while she must be pestered with the court of the Grand Duke of Mittenheim! And when she would not name a day on which the embassy should come, the king flew into a passion, and declared that he would himself set a date for it. Was his sister mad, he asked, that she would do nothing but walk every day by the river's bank?

"Surely I must be mad," thought Osra, "for no sane being could be at once so joyful and so piteously unhappy."

Did he know what it was he asked? He seemed to know nothing of it. He did not speak any more now of princesses, only of his princess; nor of queens, save of his heart's queen; and when his eyes asked love, they asked as though none would refuse and there could be no cause for refusal. He would have wooed his neighbor's daughter thus, and thus he wooed the sister of King Rudolf. "Will you love me?" was his question—not, "Though you love, yet dare you own you love?" He seemed to shut the whole world from her, leaving nothing but her and him; and in a world that held none but her and him she could love unblamed, untroubled, and with no trembling.

"You forget who I am," she faltered once.

"You are the beauty of the world," he answered smiling, and he kissed her hand—a matter about which she could make no great ado, for it was not the first time that he had kissed it.

But the embassy from the Grand Duke was to come in a week, and to be received with great pomp. The ambassador was already on the way, carrying proposals and gifts. Therefore Osra went pale and sad down to the river bank that day, having declared again to the king that she would live and die unmarried. But the king had laughed again. Surely she needed kindness and consolation that sad day; but Fate had kept by her a crowning sorrow, for she found him also almost sad. At least, she could not tell whether he were sad or not; for he smiled and yet seemed ill at ease, like a man who ventures a fall with fortune, hoping and fearing. And he said to her:

"Madam, in a week I return to my own country."

She looked at him in silence with lips just parted. For her life she could not speak; but the sun grew dark, and the river changed its merry tune to mournful dirges.

"So the dream ends," said he. "So comes the awakening. But if life were all a dream!" And his eyes sought hers.

"Yes," she whispered, "if life were all a dream, sir?"

"Then I should dream of two dreamers whose dream was one, and in that dream I should see them ride together at break of day from Strelsau."

"Whither?" she murmured.

"To Paradise," said he. "But the dream ends. If it did not end—" He paused.

"If it did not end?" a breathless longing whisper echoed.

"If it did not end now, it should not end even with death," said he.

"You see them in your dream? You see them riding—"

"Aye, swiftly, side by side, they two alone, through the morning. None is near, none knows."

He seemed to be searching her face for something that yet he scarcely hoped to find.

"And their dream," said he, "brings them at last to a small cottage, and there they live—"

"They live?"



"And work," he added. "For she keeps his home while he works."

"What does she do?" asked Osra, with smiling, wondering eyes.

"She gets his food for him when he comes home weary in the evening, and makes a bright fire, and—"

"Ah, and she runs to meet him at the door—oh, further than the door!"

"But she has worked hard and is weary."

"No, she is not weary," cried Osra. "It is for him!"

"The wise say this is silly talk," said he.

"The wise are fools, then!" cried Osra.

"So the dream would please you, madam?" he asked.

She had come not to know how she left him. Somehow, while he still spoke, she would suddenly escape by flight. He did not pursue, but let her go. So now she returned to the city, her eyes filled with that golden dream, and she entered her home as though it had been some strange palace decked with new magnificence, and she an alien in it. For her true home seemed now rather in the cottage of the dream, and she moved unfamiliarly through the pomp that had been hers from birth. Her soul was gone from it, while her body rested there; and life stopped for her till she saw him again by the banks of the river.

"In five days now I go," said he; and he smiled at her. She hid her face in her hands. Still he smiled; but suddenly he sprang forward, for she had sobbed. The summons had sounded, he was there; and who could sob again when he was there and his sheltering arm warded away all grief? She looked up at him with shining eyes, whispering:

"Do you go alone?"

A great joy blazed confidently in his eyes as he whispered in answer:

"I think I shall not go alone."

"But how, how?"

"I have two horses."

"You! You have two horses?"

"Yes. Is it not riches? But we will sell them when we get to the cottage."

"To the cottage! Two horses!"

"I would I had but one for both of us."

"Yes."

"But we should not go quick enough."

"No."

He took his hand from her waist, and stood away from her.

"You will not come?" he said.

"If you doubt of my coming, I will not come. Ah, do not doubt of my coming! For there is a great horde of fears and black thoughts beating at the door, and you must not open it."

"And what can keep it shut, my princess?"

"I think your arm, my prince," said she; and she flew to him.

That evening King Rudolf swore that if a man were only firm enough, and kept his temper (which, by the way, the king had not done, though none dared say no), he could bring any foolish girl to reason in good time. For in the softest voice, and with the strangest smile flitting to her face, the Princess Osra was pleased to bid the embassy come on the fifth day from then.

"And they shall have their answer then," said she, flushing and smiling.

"It is as much as any lady could say," the court declared; and it was reported through all Strelsau that the match was as good as made, and that Osra was to be Grand Duchess of Mittenheim.

"She is a sensible girl, after all," cried Rudolf, all his anger gone.

The dream began, then, before they came to the cottage. Those days she lived in its golden mists that shut out all the cold world from her, moving through space that held but one form, and time that stood still waiting for one divine unending moment. And the embassy drew near to Strelsau.

It was night, the dead of night, and all was still in the palace. But the sentinel by the little gate was at his post, and the gate-warden stood by the western gate of the city. Each was now alone, but to each, an hour ago, a man had come, stealthily and silently through the darkness, and each was richer by a bag of gold than he had been before. The gold was Osra's—how should a poor student, whose whole fortune was two horses, scatter bags of gold? And other gold Osra had, aye, five hundred crowns. Would not that be a brave surprise for the poor student? And she, alone of all awake, stood looking round her room, entranced with the last aspect of it. Over the city also she looked, but in the selfishness of her joy did no more than kiss a hasty farewell to the good city folk who loved her. Once she thought that maybe some day he and she would steal together back to Strelsau, and, sheltered by some disguise, watch the king ride in splendor through the streets. But if not—why, what was Strelsau and the people and the rest? Ah, how long the hours were before those two horses stood by the little gate, and the sentry and the gate-warden earned their bags of gold! So she passed the hours—the last long lingering hours.

There was a little tavern buried in the narrowest, oldest street of the city. Here the poor student had lodged; here in the back room a man sat at a table, and two others stood before him. These two seemed gentlemen, and their air spoke of military training. They stroked long mustaches, and smiled with an amusement that deference could not hide. Both were booted and wore spurs, and the man sitting at the table gave them orders.

"You will meet the embassy," he said to one, "about ten o'clock. Bring it to the place I have appointed, and wait there. Do not fail."

The officer addressed bowed and retired. A minute later his horse's hoofs clattered through the streets. Perhaps he also had a bag of gold, for the gate-warden opened the western gate for him, and he rode at a gallop along the river banks, till he reached the great woods that stretch to within ten miles of Strelsau.

"An hour after we are gone," said the man at the table to the other officer, "go warily, find one of the king's servants, and give him the letter. Give no account of how you came by it, and say nothing of who you are. All that is necessary is in the letter. When you have given it, return here, and remain in close hiding till you hear from me again."

The second officer bowed. The man at the table rose, and went out into the street. He took his way to where the palace rose, and then skirted along the wall of its gardens till he came to the little gate. Here stood two horses and at their heads a man.

"It is well. You can go," said the student; and he was left alone with the horses. They were good horses for a student to possess. The thought perhaps crossed their owner's mind, for he laughed softly as he looked at them. Then he also fell to thinking that the hours were long; and a fear came suddenly upon him that she would not come. It was in these last hours that doubts crept in, and she was not there to drive them away. Would the great trial fail? Would she shrink at the last? But he would not think it of her, and he was smiling again, when the clock of the cathedral struck two, and told him that no more than one hour now parted her from him. For she would come; the princess would come to him, the student, led by the vision of that cottage in the dream.

Would she come? She would come; she had risen from her knees, and moved to and fro, in cautious silence, making her last preparations. She had written a word of farewell for the brother she loved—for some day, of course, Rudolf would forgive her—and she had ready all that she took with her—the five hundred crowns, one ring that she would give her lover, some clothes to serve till his loving labor furnished more. That night she had wept, and she had laughed; but now she neither wept nor laughed, but there was a great pride in her face and gait. And she opened the door of her room, and walked down the great staircase, under the eyes of crowned kings who hung framed upon the walls. And as she went she seemed indeed their daughter. For her head was erect and her eye set firm in haughty dignity. Who dared to say that she did anything that a king's daughter should not do? Should not a woman love? Love should be her diadem. And so with this proud step she came through the gardens of the palace, looking neither to right nor left nor behind, but with her face set straight for the little gate, and she walked as she had been accustomed to walk when all Strelsau looked on her and hailed her as its glory and its darling.

The sentry slept, or seemed to sleep. Her face was not even veiled when she opened the little gate. She would not veil her proud face. It was his to look on now when he would; and thus she stood for an instant in the gateway, while he sprang to her, and, kneeling, carried her hand to his lips.

"You are come?" he cried; for though he had believed, yet he wondered.

"I am come," she smiled. "Is not the word of a princess sure? Ah, how could I not come?"

"See, love," said he, rising, "day dawns in royal purple for you, and golden love for me."

"The purple is for my king, and the love for me," she whispered, as he led her to her horse. "Your fortune!" said she, pointing to them. "But I also have brought a dowry—fancy, five hundred crowns!" and her mirth and happiness burst out in a laugh. It was so deliciously little, five hundred crowns!

She was mounted now, and he stood by her.

"Will you turn back?" he said.

"You shall not make me angry," said she. "Come, mount."

"Aye, I must mount," said he. "For if we were found here the king would kill me."

For the first time the peril of their enterprise seemed to strike, into her mind, and turned her cheek pale.

"Ah, I forgot! In my happiness I forgot. Mount, mount! Oh, if he found you!"

He mounted. Once they clasped hands; then they rode swiftly for the western gate.

"Veil your face," he said; and since he bade her, she obeyed, saying:

"But I can see you through the veil."

The gate stood open, and the gate-warden was not there. They were out of the city; the morning air blew cold and pure from the meadows along the river. The horses stretched into an eager gallop. And Osra tore her veil from her face, and turned on him eyes of radiant triumph.

"It is done," she cried; "it is done!"

"Yes, it is done, my princess," said he.

"And—and it is begun, my prince," said she.

"Yes, and it is begun," said he.

She laughed aloud in absolute joy, and for a moment he also laughed.

But then his face grew grave, and he said:

"I pray you may never grieve for it."

She looked at him with eyes wide in wonder; for an instant she seemed puzzled, but then she fell again to laughing.

"Grieve for it!" said she between her merry laughs.

King Rudolf was a man who lay late in the morning; and he was not well pleased to be roused when the clock had but just struck four. Yet he sat up in his bed readily enough, for he imagined that the embassy from the Grand Duke of Mittenheim must be nearer than he had thought, and, sooner than fail in any courtesy towards the prince whose alliance he ardently desired, he was ready to submit to much inconvenience. But his astonishment was great when, instead of any tidings from the embassy, one of his gentlemen handed him a letter, saying that a servant had received it from a stranger with instructions to carry it at once to the king. When asked if any answer were desired from his majesty, the stranger had answered, "Not through me," and at once turned away, and quickly disappeared. The king, with a peevish oath at having been roused for such a trifle, broke the seal and fastenings of the letter, and opened it; and he read:

"Sire—Your sister does not wait for the embassy, but chooses her own lover. She has met a student of the University every day for the last three weeks by the river bank." (The king started.) "This morning she has fled with him on horseback along the western road. If you desire a student for a brother-in-law, sleep again. If not, up and ride. Do not doubt these tidings."

There was no signature to the letter; yet the king, knowing his sister, cried:

"See whether the princess is in the palace. And in the meanwhile saddle my horse, and let a dozen of the guard be at the gate."

The princess was not in the palace; but her woman found the letter that she had left, and brought it to the king. And the king read: "Brother, whom I love best of all men in the world save one, I have left you to go with that one. You will not forgive me now, but some day forgive me. Nay, it is not I who have done it, but my love which is braver than I. He is the sweetest gentleman alive, brother, and therefore he must be my lord. Let me go, but still love me—Osra."

"It is true," said the king. "And the embassy will be here to-day." And for a moment he seemed dazed. Yet he spoke nothing to anybody of what the letters contained, but sent word to the queen's apartments that he went riding for pleasure. And he took his sword and his pistols; for he swore that by his own hand, and that of no other man, this sweetest gentleman alive should meet his death. But all, knowing that the princess was not in the palace, guessed that the king's sudden haste concerned her; and great wonder and speculation rose in the palace, and presently, as the morning advanced, spread from the palace to its environs, and from the environs to the rest of the city. For it was reported that a sentinel that had stood guard that night was missing, and that the gate-warden of the western gate was nowhere to be found, and that a mysterious letter had come by an unknown hand to the king, and lastly, that Princess Osra—their princess—was gone; whether by her own will or by some bold plot of seizure and kidnapping, none knew. Thus a great stir grew in all Strelsau, and men stood about the street gossiping when they should have gone to work, while women chattered in lieu of sweeping their houses and dressing their children. So that when the king rode out of the courtyard of the palace at a gallop, with twelve of the guard behind, he could hardly make his way through the streets for the people who crowded round him, imploring him to tell them where the princess was. When the king saw that the matter had thus become public, his wrath was greater still, and he swore again that the student of the University should pay the price of life for his morning ride with the princess. And when he darted through the gate, and set his horse straight along the western road, many of the people, neglecting all their business, as folk will for excitement's sake, followed him as they best could, agog to see the thing to its end.

"The horses are weary," said the student to the princess, "we must let them rest; we are now in the shelter of the wood."

"But my brother may pursue you," she urged; "and if he came up with you—ah, heaven forbid!"



"He will not know you have gone for another three hours," smiled he. "And here is a green bank where we can rest."

So he aided her to dismount; then, saying he would tether the horses, he led them away some distance, so that she could not see where he had posted them; and he returned to her, smiling still. Then he took from his pocket some bread, and, breaking the loaf in two, gave her one-half, saying:

"There is a spring just here; so we shall have a good breakfast."

"Is this your breakfast?" she asked, with a wondering laugh. Then she began to eat, and cried directly, "How delicious this bread is! I would have nothing else for breakfast;" and at this the student laughed.

Yet Osra ate little of the bread she liked so well; and presently she leaned against her lover's shoulder, and he put his arm round her; and they sat for a little while in silence, listening to the soft sounds that filled the waking woods as day grew to fulness and the sun beat warm through the sheltering foliage.

"Don't you hear the trees?" Osra whispered to her lover. "Don't you hear them? They are whispering for me what I dare not whisper."

"What is it they whisper, sweet?" he asked; and he himself did no more than whisper.

"The trees whisper, 'Love, love, love.' And the wind—don't you hear the wind murmuring, 'Love, love, love'? And the birds sing, 'Love, love, love.' Aye, all the world to-day is softly whispering, 'Love, love, love!' What else should the great world whisper but my love? For my love is greater than the world." And she suddenly hid her face in her hands; and he could kiss no more than her hands, though her eyes gleamed at him from between slim white fingers.

But suddenly her hands dropped, and she leaned forward as though she listened.

"What is that sound?" she asked, apprehension dawning in her eyes.

"It is but another whisper, love!" said he.

"Nay, but it sounds to me like—ah, like the noise of horses galloping."

"It is but the stream, beating over stones."

"Listen, listen, listen!" she cried, springing to her feet. "They are horses' hoofs. Ah, merciful God, it is the king!" And she caught him by the hand, and pulled him to his feet, looking at him with a face pale and alarmed.

"Not the king," said he; "he would not know yet. It is some one else. Hide your face, dear lady, and all will be well."

"It is the king," she cried. "Hark how they gallop on the road! It is my brother. Love, he will kill you; love, he will kill you!"

"If it is the king," said he, "I have been betrayed."

"The horses, the horses!" she cried. "By your love for me, the horses!"

He nodded his head, and, turning, disappeared among the trees. She stood with clasped hands, heaving breast, and fearful eyes, awaiting his return. Minutes passed, and he came not. She flung herself on her knees, beseeching heaven for his life. At last he came along alone, and he bent over her, taking her hand.

"My love," said he, "the horses are gone."

"Gone!" she cried, gripping his hand.

"Aye. This love, my love, is a wonderful thing. For I forgot to tie them, and they are gone. Yet what matter? For the king—yes, sweet, I think now it is the king—will not be here for some minutes yet, and those minutes I have still for love and life."

"He will kill you!" she said.

"Yes," said he.

She looked long in his eyes; then she threw her arms about his neck, and, for the first time unasked, covered his face with kisses.

"Kiss me, kiss me," said she; and he kissed her. Then she drew back a little, but took his arm and set it round her waist. And she drew a little knife from her girdle, and showed it him.

"If the king will not pardon us and let us love one another, I also will die," said she; and her voice was quiet and happy. "Indeed, my love, I should not grieve. Ah, do not tell me to live without you!"

"Would you obey?" he asked.

"Not in that," said she.

And thus they stood silent, while the sound of the hoofs drew very near. But she looked up at him, and he looked at her; then she looked at the point of the little dagger, and she whispered:

"Keep your arm round me till I die."

He bent his head, and kissed her once again, saying:

"My princess, it is enough."

And she, though she did not know why he smiled, yet smiled back at him. For although life was sweet that day, yet such a death, with him and to prove her love for him, seemed well-nigh as sweet. And thus they awaited the coming of the king.



II.

King Rudolf and his guards far out-stripped the people who pursued them from the city; and when they came to the skirts of the wood, they divided themselves into four parties, since, if they went all together, they might easily miss the fugitives whom they sought. Of these four parties, one found nothing; another found the two horses which the student himself, who had hidden them, failed to find; the third party had not gone far before they caught sight of the lovers, though the lovers did not see them; and two of them remained to watch and, if need be, to intercept any attempted flight, while the third rode off to find the king and bring him where Osra and the student were, as he had commanded.

But the fourth party, with which the king was, though it did not find the fugitives, found the embassy from the Grand Duke of Mittenheim; and the ambassador, with all his train, was resting by the roadside, seeming in no haste at all to reach Strelsau. When the king suddenly rode up at great speed and came upon the embassy, an officer that stood by the ambassador—whose name was Count Sergius of Antheim—stooped down and whispered in his excellency's ear, upon which he rose and advanced towards the king, uncovering his head and bowing profoundly. For he chose to assume that the king had ridden to meet him out of excessive graciousness and courtesy towards the Grand Duke; so that he began, to the impatient king's infinite annoyance, to make a very long and stately speech, assuring his majesty of the great hope and joy with which his master awaited the result of the embassy; for, said he, since the king was so zealous in his cause, his master could not bring himself to doubt of success, and therefore most confidently looked to win for his bride the most exalted and lovely lady in the world, the peerless Princess Osra, the glory of the court of Strelsau, and the brightest jewel in the crown of the king, her brother. And having brought this period to a prosperous conclusion, Count Sergius took breath, and began another that promised to be fully as magnificent and not a whit less long. So that, before it was well started, the king smote his hand on his thigh and roared:

"Heavens, man, while you're making speeches, that rascal is carrying off my sister!"

Count Sergius, who was an elderly man of handsome presence and great dignity, being thus rudely and strangely interrupted, showed great astonishment and offence; but the officer by him covered his mouth with his hand to hide a smile. For the moment that the king had spoken these impetuous words he was himself overwhelmed with confusion; for the last thing that he wished the Grand Duke's ambassador to know was that the princess whom his master courted had run away that morning with a student of the University of Strelsau. Accordingly he began, very hastily, and with more regard for prudence than for truth, to tell Count Sergius how a noted and bold criminal had that morning swooped down on the princess as she rode unattended outside the city, and carried her off—which seemed to the ambassador a very strange story. But the king told it with great fervor, and he besought the count to scatter his attendants all through the wood, and seek the robber. Yet he charged them not to kill the man themselves, but to keep him till he came. "For I have sworn to kill him with my own hand," he cried.

Now Count Sergius, however much astonished he might be, could do nothing but accede to the king's request, and he sent off all his men to scour the woods, and, mounting his horse, himself set off with them, showing great zeal in the king's service, but still thinking the king's story a very strange one. Thus the king was left alone with his two guards and with the officer who had smiled.

"Will you not go also, sir?" asked the king.

But at this moment a man galloped up at furious speed, crying:

"We have found them, sire, we have found them!"

"Then he hasn't five minutes to live!" cried the king in fierce joy; and he lugged out his sword, adding: "The moment I set my eyes on him, I will kill him. There is no need for words between me and him."

At this speech the face of the officer grew suddenly grave and alarmed; and he put spurs to his horse, and hastened after the king, who had at once dashed away in the direction in which the man had pointed. But the king had got a start and kept it; so that the officer seemed terribly frightened, and muttered to himself:

"Heaven send that he does not kill him before he knows!" And he added some very impatient words concerning the follies of princes, and, above all, of princes in love.

Thus, while the ambassador and his men searched high and low for the noted robber, and the king's men hunted for the student of the University, the king, followed by two of his guard at a distance of about fifty yards (for his horse was better than theirs), came straight to where Osra and her lover stood together. And a few yards behind the guards came the officer; and he also had by now drawn his sword. But he rode so eagerly that he overtook and passed the king's guards, and got within thirty yards of the king by the time that the king was within twenty of the lovers. But the king let him get no nearer, for he dug his spurs again into his horse's side, and the horse bounded forward, while the king cried furiously to his sister, "Stand away from him!" The princess did not heed, but stood in front of her lover (for the student was wholly unarmed), holding up the little dagger in her hand. The king laughed scornfully and angrily, thinking that Osra menaced him with the weapon, and not supposing that it was herself for whom she destined it. And, having reached them, the king leaped from his horse and ran at them, with his sword raised to strike. Osra gave a cry of terror. "Mercy!" she cried. "Mercy!" But the king had no thought of mercy, and he would certainly then and there have killed her lover had not the officer, gaining a moment's time by the king's dismounting, at this very instant come galloping up; and, there being no time for any explanation, he leaned from his saddle as he dashed by, and, putting out his hand, snatched the king's sword away from him, just as the king was about to thrust it through his sister's lover.

But the officer's horse was going so furiously that he could not stop it for hard on forty yards, and he narrowly escaped splitting his head against a great bough that hung low across the grassy path; and he dropped first his own sword and then the king's; but at last he brought the horse to a standstill, and, leaping down, ran back towards where the swords lay. But at the moment the king also ran towards them; for the fury that he had been in before was as nothing to that which now possessed him. After his sword was snatched from him he stood in speechless anger for a full minute, but then had turned to pursue the man who had dared to treat him with such insult. And now, in his desire to be at the officer, he had come very near to forgetting the student. Just as the officer came to where the king's sword lay, and picked it up, the king, in his turn, reached the officer's sword and picked up that. The king came with a rush at the officer, who, seeing that the king was likely to kill him, or he the king, if he stood his ground, turned tail and sped away at the top of his speed through the forest. But as he went, thinking that the time had come for plain speaking, he looked back over his shoulder and shouted:

"Sire, it's the Grand Duke himself!"

The king stopped short in sudden amazement.

"Is the man mad?" he asked. "Who is the Grand Duke?"

"It's the Grand Duke, sir, who is with the princess. And you would have killed him if I had not snatched your sword," said the officer; and he also came to a halt, but he kept a very wary eye on King Rudolf.

"I should certainly have killed him, let him be who he will," said the king. "But why do you call him the Grand Duke?"

The officer very cautiously approached the king, and, seeing that the king made no threatening motion, he at last trusted himself so close that he could speak to the king in a very low voice; and what he said seemed to astonish, please, and amuse the king immensely. For he clapped the officer on the back, laughed heartily, and cried:

"A pretty trick! On my life, a pretty trick!"

Now Osra and her lover had not heard what the officer had shouted to the king, and when Osra saw her brother returning from among the trees alone and with his sword, she still supposed that her lover must die; and she turned and flung her arms round his neck, and clung to him for a moment, kissing him. Then she faced the king, with a smile on her face and the little dagger in her hand. But the king came up, wearing a scornful smile, and he asked her:

"What is the dagger for, my wilful sister?"

"For me, if you kill him," said she.

"You would kill yourself, then, if I killed him?"

"I would not live a moment after he was dead."

"Faith, it is wonderful!" said the king with a shrug. "Then plainly, if you cannot live without him, you must live with him. He is to be your husband, not mine. Therefore, take him, if you will."

When Osra heard this, which indeed for joy and wonder she could hardly believe, she dropped her knife, and, running forward, fell on her knees before her brother, and, catching his hand, she covered it with kisses, and her tears mingled with her kisses. But the king let her go on, and stood over her, laughing and looking at the student. Presently the student began to laugh also, and he had just advanced a step towards King Rudolf, when Count Sergius of Antheim, the Grand Duke's ambassador, came out from among the trees, riding hotly and with great zeal after the noted robber. But no sooner did the count see the student than he stopped his horse, leaped down with a cry of wonder, and, running up to the student, bowed very low and kissed his hand. So that when Osra looked round from her kissing of her brother's hand, she beheld the Grand Duke's ambassador kissing the hand of her lover. She sprang to her feet in wonder.

"Who are you?" she cried to the student, running in between him and the ambassador.

"Your lover and servant," said he.

"And besides?" she said.

"Why, in a month, your husband," laughed the king, taking her lover by the hand.

He clasped the king's hand, but turned at once to her, and said humbly:

"Alas, I have no cottage!"

"Who are you?" she whispered to him.

"The man for whom you were ready to die, my princess. Is it not enough?"

"Yes, it is enough," said she; and she did not repeat her question. But the king, with a short laugh, turned on his heel, and took Count Sergius by the arm and walked off with him; and presently they met the officer and learned fully how the Grand Duke had come to Strelsau, and how he had contrived to woo and win the Princess Osra, and finally to carry her off from the palace.

It was an hour later when the whole of the two companies, that of the king and that of the ambassador, were all gathered together again, and had heard the story; so that when the king went to where Osra and the Grand Duke walked together among the trees, and, taking each by a hand, led them out, they were greeted with a great cheer; and they mounted their horses, which the Grand Duke now found without any difficulty—although when the need of them seemed far greater the student could not contrive to come upon them—and the whole company rode together out of the wood and along the road towards Strelsau, the king being full of jokes and hugely delighted with a trick that suited his merry fancy. But before they had ridden far, they met the great crowd which had come out from Strelsau to learn what had happened to the Princess Osra. And the king cried out that the Grand Duke was to marry the princess, while his guards who had been with him and the ambassador's people spread themselves among the crowd and told the story. And when they heard it, the Strelsau folk were nearly beside themselves with amusement and delight, and thronged round Osra, kissing her hands and blessing her. But the king drew back, and let her and the Grand Duke ride alone together, while he followed with Count Sergius. Thus, moving at a very slow pace, they came in the forenoon to Strelsau; but some one had galloped on ahead with the news, and the cathedral bells had been set ringing, the streets were full, and the whole city given over to excitement and rejoicing. All the men were that day in love with Princess Osra; and, what is more, they told their sweethearts so, and these found no other revenge than to blow kisses and fling flowers at the Grand Duke as he rode past with Osra by his side. Thus they came back to the palace whence they had fled in the early gleams of that morning's light.

It was evening, and the moon rose, fair and clear, over Strelsau. In the streets there were sounds of merriment and rejoicing; for every house was bright with light, and the king had sent out meat and wine for every soul in the city, that none might be sad or hungry or thirsty in all the city that night; so that there was no small uproar. The king himself sat in his armchair, toasting the bride and bride-groom in company with Count Sergius of Antheim, whose dignity, somewhat wounded by the trick his master had played upon him, was healing quickly under the balm of King Rudolf's graciousness. And the king said to Count Sergius:

"My lord, were you ever in love?"

"I was, sire," said the count.

"So was I," said the king. "Was it with the countess, my lord?"

Count Sergius's eyes twinkled demurely; but he answered:

"I take it, sire, that it must have been with the countess."

"And I take it," said the king, "that it must have been with the queen."

Then they both laughed, and then they both sighed; and the king, touching the count's elbow, pointed out to the terrace of the palace, on to which the room where they were opened. For Princess Osra and her lover were walking up and down together on this terrace. And the two shrugged their shoulders, smiling.



"With him," remarked the king, "it will have been with—"

"The countess, sire," discreetly interrupted Count Sergius of Antheim.

"Why, yes, the countess," said the king; and, with a laugh, they turned bank to their wine.

But the two on the terrace also talked.

"I do not yet understand it," said Princess Osra. "For on the first day I loved you, and on the second I loved you, and on the third, and the fourth, and every day I loved you. Yet the first day was not like the second, nor the second like the third, nor any day like any other. And to-day, again, is unlike them all. Is love so various and full of changes?"

"Is it not?" he asked with a smile. "For while you were with the queen, talking of I know not what—"

"Nor I, indeed," said Osra hastily.

"I was with the king, and he, saying that forewarned was forearmed, told me very strange and pretty stories. Of some a report had reached me before—"

"And yet you came to Strelsau?"

"While of others, I had not heard."

"Or you would not have come to Strelsau?"

The Grand Duke, not heeding these questions, proceeded to his conclusion:

"Love, therefore," said he, "is very various. For M. de Merosailles—"

"These are old stories," cried Osra, pretending to stop her ears.

"Loved in one way, and Stephen the Smith in another, and—the Miller of Hofbau in a third."

"I think," said Osra, "that I have forgotten the Miller of Hofbau. But can one heart love in many different ways? I know that different men love differently."

"But cannot one heart love in different ways?" he smiled.

"May be," said Osra thoughtfully, "one heart can have loved." But then she suddenly looked up at him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "No, no," she cried; "it was not love. It was—"

"What was it?"

"The courtiers entertained me till the king came," she said with a blushing laugh. And looking up at him again, she whispered: "Yet I am glad that you lingered for a little."

At this moment she saw the king come out on to the terrace, and with him was the Bishop of Modenstein; and after the bishop had been presented to the Grand Duke, the king began to talk with the Grand Duke, while the bishop kissed Osra's hand and wished her joy.

"Madam," said he, "once you asked me if I could make you understand what love was. I take it you have no need for my lessons now. Your teacher has come."