A light jam had formed that morning at a place the drivers called a tournant d'eau, about a mile above. This was broken by getting a haul on it from the shore with a dog-warp. Thereby several thousand logs were liberated at once, and went down together into the rapids. The older drivers exclaimed that it would make mischief when it started; but nothing could be done; it broke and went out with a rush. We, who were ahead, ran on down the ledges to see it go through the falls, and we had to run fast to keep up. The instant the logs entered the rapids they left us behind. We could see them going down, however, end over end, and hear them "boom" against the sunken rocks. Turtlotte and a Welshman named Finfrock were ahead. I heard Turtlotte call out in French that the logs were jamming, and saw the butt ends of great sticks fly up, glittering, out of the water. The logs had struck and hung on one of the centre rocks, and on the shelving ledges upon the east side. The ends of three large sticks, three or four feet across, stood out fifteen feet or more. We ran on, clambering from crag to crag, till we came to a point looking down on the glut, sixty feet beneath; and that was about near enough, for the ends of the logs flew up almost on a level with our eyes, as they went over, and the spray drenched our faces. The ledges under our feet trembled as if an earthquake were shaking them, and not a word could be heard, even when shouted in the ear. The combined noises were louder than thunder, heavier, deeper. It was a warm forenoon, and the sun shone into the rock dazzlingly bright, making a vivid rainbow. It was the hottest, maddest chasm that can well be imagined; and to see that brilliant rainbow hanging there so still and motionless amidst all that uproar, gave one a queer sensation.

Old man Villate himself, with his red cap over his ears, came puffing down, shouting at the top of his lungs. We could see his lips fly. The hitch was betwixt the shelving ledges on the east side and one of the mid-channel rocks. It was not one log that had caught, else the weight of the water would have broken it out. It appeared that two large sticks had come down with the ends lying across each other, and a third log, perhaps several logs, overlying these. When the current sucked them through the rapid, between the centre rock and the shore ledges, the outward ends of the crossed logs struck on both sides. Instantly the current and the momentum of the overlying logs thrust the submerged ends of the cross among the rocks on the bottom of the channel, and the momentarily increasing weight of logs held them there—this at least was the theory at the time. When first we got down there, however, there were more than a thousand logs in the glut; and the ends stood up like a porcupine's quills, at every conceivable angle. The obstructing logs in the throat of the fall bore the pressure rather lengthwise than across the fibre. These sticks were of yellow spruce, fifty feet long, and fully three feet through. Such logs, when green, will bear an enormous strain. From the way the exposed ends sprang we knew they were buckling like steel rods, yet they held pertinaciously.

The river above was covered with logs. Scores came shooting down every minute, striking into the jam like arrows. The most of these stuck in it. Some few went clean over it, or through it, for the first ten minutes, into the hole below. Logs would glance from the slippery black rocks and go a hundred feet clear of the water, such was the strength of the rapid. I saw sticks of free pine—where they struck the rocks one half on—go in halves from end to end like split-beans—logs forty and fifty feet long; yet the owners never cease to wonder how the lumber gets so badly "broomed up;" for the ends of the logs resemble nothing so much as a paint-brush.

The warps were brought, and Villate called for volunteers to go down, or rather be let down, the ledges and prize off the shore ends of the jammed logs with "peevies." There were plenty of bold fellows; but every man hesitated. Murmurs of "certaine mort," "sur mort," "porte du tombeau," "porte d'enfer," arose and were repeated.

"It's a hard world, but I wants to tarry in it a spell longer, boss!" said one grizzled old Yankee from the Maine rivers, with a sage shake of his long head. We all knew that when the jam started it would go through like an avalanche. Whoever was down there would have to go with it—into the glut-hole.

In an hour the jam had grown enormously. For a hundred rods up the rapid the channel was full of lumber, "churning" and battering itself. The mass had swayed off to the west bank and was piling up against the ledges on the opposite side. The mighty pressure of the torrent kept rolling the logs, one over the other, till the top of the pile was in places thirty or forty feet out of the water. The bottom logs were wedged into the bed of the stream. The flood, thus dammed and held back, rose higher and higher, rushing through and among the mass with a strange hollow roar which changed the note of the fall. Where it hung in the throat of the pitch, the mass kept rising and falling with the peculiar rhythmic motion of the water. We expected each moment to see it break out and go down; but the tough spruce logs held.

By noon, all the crew had come up. The jam filled the whole river for a third of a mile back from the fall, so completely that during the afternoon the west bank gangs crossed on it to the east side. We lighted our fires on the ledges; and as the evening advanced it was a picturesque sight—a hundred and fifty red-shirted drivers camping there and sitting in messes about their coarse fare.

All the next day we worked with the warps. Nooses were dropped over the upright ends of the logs at the foot of the jam, and the whole gang was set to pull on them. Later in the day, a heavy capstan was rigged. The hawsers broke like twine. It was impossible to start a log, so tremendous was the weight of water and lumber combined.

Next day, the jam was mined with powder placed in water-tight molasses-casks and connected with fire at the top of the ledges by means of tarred fuses. The blasts blew out splinters freely, but failed to break or dislodge the large sticks. Villate fumed and sweated. Unless the drive went down to market, not a dollar would be paid to one of us; so he declared. "If you want your pay, break the jam," was his constant exhortation, enforced by vigorous curses; and, indeed, we had been hired on these terms; wages to be paid when the drive reached Montreal—not before. This is a common rule, or used to be; the men have thus a strong interest in the driving.

A plan was mooted among the messes that following night, to cut out the front logs. The same scheme has been often put in execution. It was argued that by stretching a warping-line across the rapids, from cliff to cliff, directly over the foot of the jam, a man might be lowered on it, with his axe, and cut away the logs. A large "basket"—so it was talked—might be swung on the cable. By slackening the line the axe-man could be lowered to the logs; and the instant the sticks cracked under the strokes, he could leap to the "basket" and be pulled out of harm's way, and let the jam go through under him. The idea gained favor. The following morning the end of one of the seven hundred foot lines was taken across on the jam to the ledges on the west bank. Fifty men went over with it, to handle it. With a hundred men there was no difficulty in lowering and raising it at will. When drawn taut, it hung sixty feet above the foot of the jam. One of the Indian drivers, named Lahmunt, had been at work weaving a "basket" of ash strip; and as soon as this novel carriage was finished and slung on the cable, the project was ready for trial. While the project was being talked over, several of the drivers had declared themselves willing to undertake the feat; but now that the basket was slung, and after seeing it drawn out over the abyss, they were less disposed to proffer their services. It needed strong nerves and a stout heart to gaze into that foaming gulf and not turn dizzy.

There was among us a youngster whom the old drivers called "Young Moll's Peevy." Young Moll was a half-breed (French and Indian) girl, or rather woman at this time, of thirty or thirty-three, and the mother of this boy. Some of the drivers said that his rightful patronymic was Skelly; but this was a rather obscure matter.

She lived at one of those little half-savage villages such as are only to be found in the backwoods of Canada; and her name was a far too commonly spoken one with the drivers, though not more so than many another. Society in these parts had not taken high orders. Nature had her own way pretty much; they deemed it little sin. Even the omnipresent Romish priest has somehow failed to get much control over the average river-driver, always too much a nomad to feel the continued influence of local sanctuaries.

The young woman realized the prevailing ideal of beauty; not a very refined one, perhaps; but the drivers deemed her fair.

"The Peevy," as he was half-humorously christened, must have been nearly or quite nineteen. The name was said to have come to him one day in boyhood, when a "peevy" was dropped off a glut into ten or a dozen feet of water. Several of the drivers were trying to hook it up, but kept missing it. The boy, then eleven or twelve years old, had come along unobserved. Presently, and without saying a word, he dropped off the logs, brought up the peevy, and ran away, dripping. The men laughed, and not knowing his name, called him "the peevy-boy." Afterward, when they had found out his mother, they named the urchin "Young Moll's Peevy." This sobriquet clung to him even after he had reached manhood and worked with the gang, particularly among the older men who remembered the circumstance. But his mother called him Lotte. A stranger would not easily have believed him the child of the fresh young person who had cared for him; for he was unusually stalwart and bronzed by exposure. Seen together, they rather resembled lad and lass. I thought so, at least, when first I saw her, coming to fetch him dry feeting and a clean shirt. She had walked twenty miles to bring them, through the woods, following our trail. And the way she kissed the young man, aside, was, or looked to be, rather lover-like than maternal. Afterward, on several similar occasions, I was much struck by the genre picture they made; the youth had the great black eyes and black curling hair of his mother. The drivers used to chaff the fellow unceasingly about Young Moll and the care she took of him, all of which he bore silently, with a troubled, resentful eye; though, otherwise, a great, noble-hearted boy, generous, and inclined to jollity. Really, the rough fellows thought the more of the young woman for this motherly affection and wealth of care for her boy. It was in their uncultured faces, all the while their tongues belied them.

The "basket" was slung and ready. The gang on the other side were gesticulating, with random tugs at the line. There was something whimsical in the way the proposers of the project shrank the one behind the other, with assumed bravado and covert glances at each other's faces.

"I shall have to go myself!" Villate exclaimed, with his characteristic French oath, "I will go myself, fat as I am!" when, rather bashfully, as if afraid of giving offense, young Lotte said he would go "if no better man wanted the job." There were at first muttered "non, nons" of dissuasion in the crowd, but nobody claimed the "job," and Villate was but too glad to get a man to go. In a moment the young man had stripped to his shirt and red drawers, taken his axe and stepped to the basket, but it was found to be insecurely attached; and afterward several better modes of handling the line were suggested, in all causing a delay of an hour or two.

And now, as if the birds of spring, just flitting past, had carried the word, or some presentiment of evil had found its way to the Peevy's mother, she inopportunely made her appearance. Rad Cates privately touched my elbow and nodded back, up the bank. I then saw young Moll standing partly in the cover of a shrub fir, a hundred yards off, intently watching the gang and the extended warp.

Several of the men saw her, but did not look or notice her after the first glance. "Parbleu! a pity she's here!" one said, and they closed in about Lotte to prevent his seeing her. But the woman soon came nearer, going partly around the crowd, keeping aloof. She had a new plaid shawl, gayly colored, pinned closely about her neck, and her long, black, Indian-like curls showed beneath a beaded scarlet hood. There was an intently anxious look in her eyes; she appeared worn and tired.

"The Peevy" was much too tall a man to be shut up in the crowd. Presently he espied her, and his eye fell. After a time he casually, as it were, made his way back to her. None of us heard what was said. The most instinctively kept their eyes to themselves. The gang on the other side was staring across the chasm. Villate ripped out an oath, and I saw Lotte push the girl aside so roughly that she caught at a shrub to save herself. He walked straight to the brink of the cliff.

"Je suis ici," said he. I never saw him look so manly. We knew his eye was quick and his hand sure. I had little doubt that he would cut the front logs and come up safe. We did not know what the danger was till afterward. He stood upright in the "basket," with one hand on the hawser, to steady himself, and his axe in the other.

At a signal the gang on the west side straightened the line. We paid it out slowly. They drew him out from the brink of the ledge, till the basket was directly over the centre rock. Then gradually we slackened it, and let him down foot by foot, down under the rainbow, where the hot, mad mist flew up in fierce gusts, bearing the strong odor of crushed spruce fibre. He seemed to bear the deafening roar without confusion, and glanced about him quite coolly, as it looked.

Our attention was given closely to his signals and to our task, yet I saw Young Moll coming forward, step by step, as the "basket" went deeper and deeper into the gorge, her eyes riveted on it. She was very pale, and her hands were tightly clenched. The drivers cast ominous glances at her.

"I don't half like the looks of the jade!" I heard muttered, and I think the sight of her filled every one with a sense of foreboding.

As soon as the basket was down to the logs we saw him step out upon them, and thence to the rock. From moment to moment the mist hid him, and transient jets of water, from betwixt the logs, squirted high over his head. Guardedly he planted one boot, shod with the sharp corks, upon one of the large front logs—the one he judged it best to cut away first; the other foot rested on the rock. The "basket" he had placed at his back. We were holding it steady from both banks, ready to pull it up when signaled. Before and beneath him raged the cataract. We saw him raise his axe and strike it into the log. The bright steel flashed in the narrow chasm. At the fourth stroke the great log cracked. He threw the axe and clutched the basket. A mighty crash rang up. The jam had started—was moving—going down—madly splintering—thundering into the glut-hole! The wet splinters all along the rapids went up a hundred feet in air. On both sides the gangs were running backward, hoisting the "basket." It rose twenty feet a second! A hundred and fifty strong men pulled with might and main! As he rose he waved his hand to us.

Ah, God! we were too slow! It was all done in a trice. One great stick, ending over like a fagot, barely missed the basket. Another longer log, whirling up, struck the warp farther out, and hurled him down with it! The cable was torn from our hands! Gone like a flash, into the gulf below! From the one great rough human heart on either bank a groan of pity blended with the roar. "Too d——n bad!" they cried out, in all sincerity, and stood staring.

Then all eyes turned toward the poor fellow's mother. She had thrown up her hands when the timber swept him down, as if to shut out the sight, then dropped them on a sudden, with a moan.

"Catch her!" someone shouted. Half-a-dozen standing nearest sprang forward—for she was standing on the very verge of the rocks. Her eyes had fallen on old man Villate. They were like the eyes of one in some mortal agony. The blotched and bloated old rum-butt turned his face aside and downward, and thrust out his hands as if to fight off flame. For their lives the men durst not lay hold of her. She seemed to waver in soul betwixt grief and fury.

A moment after, the men gave a loud shout! She was gone from where she had stood, and the echo of a smothered shriek—tribute of a woman's heart to death—came to our ears. We sprang to look over. There was a glimpse of the bright shawl whirled amid the foam.

"Did she fall?" some one cried out.

"Throwed herself down!" said those who saw it.

We never found trace of either of them. But the jam went out, to the last log. Two hours later the gangs were following the drive down the stream—on to Montreal! But the men had turned sullen. Scarce a laugh or a cheery shout was heard for three days.



MANMAT'HA.

BY CHARLES DE KAY.

Atlantic Monthly, February, 1876.

I.

One day the breeze was talking of grand and simple things in the pines that look across the lower bay at Sandy Hook. The great water spaces were a delicious blue, dotted with the white tops of crushed waves; to the left, Coney Island lay mapped out in bleached surfaces, while beyond and seaward, from the purple sleeve formed by the hills of the Navesink, the Hook ran a brown finger eastward. A hawk which nests among the steep inclines of Todt Hill shot out from a neighboring ravine and hung motionless, but never quiet, in the middle distance.

Birds and beasts will make closer approach to a person clothed in dun-colored garments; therefore it was not odd that the hawk should not notice my presence on the pine needles near the crest of the hill. After steering without visible rustle of a feather through the lake of air before me, he stooped all at once, grasped a hedge-sparrow that had been shaking the top of a bush far down the slope, and, rising, bore it to the low branch of a pine not far from my resting-place.

The sun had fallen in a Titanic tragedy of color beyond Prince's Bay. The fierce bird, leisurely occupied in tearing to pieces the little twitterer, was a suitable accompaniment to the bloody drama in the clouds. Watching keenly, I gradually began to picture to myself the sensation of walking unseen to the murderous fowl and suddenly clasping his smooth back with both hands. How startled he would be! But in truth the thought was only a continuation of another that had been floating through my mind while the hawk was wheeling. Unconsciously I had been mumbling to myself from the Nibelungen,—

"About the tameless dwarf-kin I have heard it said, They dwell in hollow mountains; for safety are arrayed In what is termed a tarn-kap, of wondrous quality; Who hath it on his body preserved is said to be From cuttings and from thrustings; of him is none aware When he therein is clothed. Both see can he, and hear According as he wishes, yet no one him perceives."

The magic cloak, the tarn-kap, I reasoned, with my eyes on the cruel bird, was only a symbol after all, something physical to make real that invisibility which we cannot readily conceive. But suddenly—could my wish have been felt?—the hawk gave a hoarse croak of fright, dropped his prey, and, springing heavily into the air, was gone.

He had not looked at me, he had not seen or heard me, nor could I see, far or near, the slightest cause for his terror. But—I heard! Sh-sh-sh—I was aware of a light step in the needles under the tree he had left. Straining my eyes to watch the ground, surely, surely, in a line passing close to my couch, the needles and thin grass were pressed down, as if by a weight applied at even distances! I had remained motionless as a figure of stone, but when a tuft of hepatica, blooming late where the shade was deepest, fell crushed near my hand, I reached out. As luck would have it I was too conscious, too much ashamed at my own folly to act decisively. I did not grasp, I reached out—and touched a living thing.

On such occasions there comes at first the exuberance of joy; then doubt. I had long debated the possibility of invisibles. As far back as I can remember, elfin tales produced an awful wonderment upon my imagination. On long May nights have I not often stolen from the house to watch for elves? A moon after a rain was to my thinking the best for such mysterious beings, when everything was hazy with an imperceptible mist, when the dogwoods had flooded the landscape with sheets of reflected white, and somebody was drawing one veil after another slowly past a golden shield in the sky. On such nights, more than once, a boy might have been seen creeping on tiptoe through the open woods, over the great clearing, to the hill-top, where, if anywhere, brownies must play. But none did he espy, nor did the chance-flung cap ever fall upon his eager, outstretched hands. And if in later years the subject still fascinated me, it made me feel what the grown man realizes always more clearly, that fables and fairy tales rest on a solid groundwork of fact. Why, when so many other legends have been verified, should this universal tradition of vanishers and invisibles prove entirely false?

It occurs to one very soon that animal life does exist of so transparent a texture that to all intents and purposes it is invisible. The spawn of frogs, the larvae of certain fresh-water insects, many marine animals, are of so clear a tissue that they are seen with difficulty. In the tropics a particular inhabitant of smooth seas is as invisible as a piece of glass, and can be detected only in the love season by the color which then mingles in its eyes. On reflection a thousand instances arise of assimilation of animal life to their surroundings, of mimicry of nature with a view to safety. Why, then, by survival of the most transparent, should not some invisible life of a high grade hold a secure position on the earth?

Pondering thus, I had been startled not a little by coming now and again on facts that seemed to bear this out. Strange tracks through untrodden grass suggested footsteps of the unseen. Flattened spaces of peculiar shape in the standing rye, where human beings could not have intruded, looked marvellously like human visitation. Or I lay concealed and watched the crows in a road-side field. What was it caused them to look up suddenly and flap away on sooty-fringed wings? No bird, beast, or man came. Then the rats, scampering about under a dock like so many gaunt Virginia swine: all at once came a flurry of whisking tails, and they were off! Yet I had not stirred, nor did anything move on the dock above. Nevertheless all seemed to realize a common danger, a noise of some kind,—perhaps a step? Again, you sit like a block while a snake basks unconscious in the sun, and may watch many hours without event; but sometimes it happens that he raises his head, quivers for an instant his double tongue, and slides off the stump into a bush. At such times put your ear to the earth. Do you not distinguish—or is it all imagination—a sound, a brushing?

It availed me little, then, that I should have considered the subject, or have even gone the length of debating how a man might attain invisibility. Now that I had a tangible proof of the existence of such beings, I was crushed by misgivings. Like many a man before the supposed impossible, I questioned my own sanity. As to the impression, however, the object I had touched or fancied I had touched was at once hard and soft, smooth and rough; I recalled it as each of these in turn, for it was moving, and at the moment of contact bounded away as if at the shock of a galvanic current. To my excited mind the dusky woods were becoming oppressive, and so, like the hawk, but slowly and pondering, I betook myself home.

Who that has walked or run through autumn woods at night has not sometimes looked curiously over his shoulder at the sound of following steps? It always proves to be dry leaves whirled after you in your rapid course; but this evening my gait was slow, and the leaves of last year were hard to find; nor could I account, except on the ground of nervous illusion, for the pattering that followed in my rear. Yet there it was, albeit so gentle that had I not stretched every sense to the utmost I am confident no sound would have penetrated to my consciousness. And it was evident that I was thoroughly imposed upon by it, for when the small, irregular pond was reached, which, with a cypress-scattered hillock, occupies the highest point of the main hill to the westward, I halted a moment and considered. How, thought I, will this unseen attendant cross a piece of water? Throwing off my shoes I waded over a shallow arm of the pond, and sat down to watch. Presently in the twilight two wedges of ruffled water were discerned advancing swiftly across the surface,—just such tracks as serpents make in swimming,—a light touch was heard on the bank, and all was still. But then a sudden disgust, unreasoning and childish, mastered me completely; a wave of doubt greater than before filled me with disdain of my own imbecility, and I hastened through the orchard to my home, and flung myself into an arm-chair near the window.

The place I had selected long ago as a quiet refuge was a low veranda farm-house, hidden away from north winds under the crest of a hill, and crept over by many rods of honey-suckle. Events had so affected me that I considered nothing left in life but an alternation of hard work and of utter retreat from humanity, and had disposed me favorably toward the ancient apple orchard, and the meagre vegetable and flower garden, which alone remained of a former farm. The barns, the plowed lands, and the fences had disappeared. Only a heavy stone wall with flagged top, which protected the garden from the road, reminded one of a former powerful owner. From the veranda no house was visible; the eye had to travel many miles across the flat lower country to the bay before the distant ships recalled a busy world.

Here, beside myself, lived no one save Rachel, a woman whose Indian origin made it impossible to guess her age. Although she claimed for herself the purest descent from an Indian tribe of a headland a hundred miles to the eastward, and although her features were not without strong marks of her claim, yet in strict truth she was so much mixed with African blood that with most persons she would pass for a negress. Rachel had a talent for cooking breakfasts and suppers from little apparent supply; she was taciturn to speechlessness, hence our intercourse was never marred by discord; and while her box was kept supplied with strong tobacco, a slender meal of some kind was never wanting; and it was served in silence.

For two years Rachel and I had lived in this silent, limited partnership. My home was cool and soundless as the grave, a place in which the mind could stretch its shriveled wings, where everything could be done mechanically and without fear of a sudden jar into disagreeable reality. When of an afternoon I stepped from the hurrying world into the first quiet woods on the way to my home, a great door swung to behind me and another life began, in which Rachel's figure and swarthy, heavy-featured face had long ceased to interfere with my meditation.

This night, however, before the meal was served, the kitchen door opened and my housekeeper's inscrutable dull eyes rolled around the walls of the room; then it closed. What had happened? Why on this night had Rachel noticed my arrival? At supper I broke our unspoken compact and addressed her.

"Rachel, what made you look in just now? Has anything happened?"

The woman made no reply, yet there was evidence in her manner that she was groping for an answer. Presently to a second demand she made a reply that startled me:—

"Heard two of you."

So, another ear had detected the steps as well as my own! Then the being, whatever it was, must be in the room, possibly at my elbow; or, seated perchance on that chair before me, was regarding me steadfastly! Except for the excitement bred of a new sensation, it was not a pleasant thought; nevertheless, I pulled a second chair to the table and filled a second plate with food; then, with my eyes fixed on the plate, continued the meal. It was all in vain. Nothing further was seen or heard.

This was my first definite encounter with that unseen which I would have called a spirit had I been a spiritualist. But I could not force myself to the gross materialism of calling this invisible existence a spirit, for tangibility was a quality I could not associate with pure spirit, and I had touched it.

Having once followed me, it seemed thenceforth to take up quarters in my house, at least for the evening and morning hours of the day, and strange as it was, I soon learned to regard the presence of a third person as an established fact; indeed, I came to believe that in some instances a faint breathing might be detected. Nevertheless I would not leave anything to the possibilities of imagination, but was always experimenting, with a view to prove still more clearly that there was no illusion possible. To this end a brass and steel rod, fitted between the floor and a projection from the wall, was connected with an indicator which moved in a large arc when the slightest touch shook the floor. By this means my ears were reinforced by sight.

I also began systematically to conceal from the unknown guest the fact that I suspected its presence; but at last the point was reached where, to protect my own reason, it must be settled whether it was all a series of illusions or a sober truth.

For by dint of thought a scheme had been perfected, and on a Sunday morning, when as usual Rachel had disappeared, no man has ever known whither; when, according to its custom, the strange visitant had also, to all appearance, withdrawn,—on a Sunday morning I hastened to put my plan in action. On the main floor in the rear of the house was a chamber, into which the sounds had sometimes intruded, which was small, bare, and lighted by one deep window looking directly out on the orchard. This window I had grated strongly with heavy wire on the outside, where the orchard hill rose steeply from the house; and over against the window, in the wall between chamber and dining-room, was a high closet, in which I had stored a strong net, such as fishermen use for their seines. Fastening stout wires to the ceiling from one end of the room to the other, to be used for slides, and rigging several small blocks above the window and near the floor, I stretched the necessary ropes from closet to blocks and back again, laid everything ready for instant use, cleared the room of furniture, and awaited events.

There was no fear of interruption from Rachel, for during the years we had lived together I had never seen her on a Sabbath. Every Monday she was at her post, although laboring under some excitement, which showed itself in mutterings and a certain wild gesture that I had learned to attach no importance to. There was no fear that I should not have the invisible to myself.

Evening came to close a sultry day with growls of distant thunder and sudden flares of light behind Navesink Hills; the bushes drooped languidly; only the tree-toads were clamorous, and their jubilee was a mournful one on every side. I was sitting by the west window with my head on my breast, and, now that the crisis had come, almost apathetic to the presence itself, when its approach took place. It seemed to stop near my chair, as if it regarded me closely. I had been before in singular predicaments, but it seemed to me this was the most trying. I felt that I must look very pale, but with an affectation of indifference I arose, walked across the room and entered the bed-chamber. In a moment I understood that the unseen had likewise passed the sill and had entered the room; then I slammed the door, locked it, and put the key in my pocket.

Everything had been made ready to cope with a material and not a supernatural being; still it was purely a venture, and at no previous time had there seemed so little hope of success. Nevertheless not a moment was lost in hauling out the net and placing it in position across the room so that it hung straight, filling the space between wall and wall, and ceiling and floor. Then I began to draw it down the room by means of the ropes, and on the axis of the chamber, so that its edges passed smoothly along ceiling, walls, and floor. The anxious moment was at hand.

All the running gear had to be worked evenly; at the same time every nerve was strained in order to detect the slightest bulge in the upright net, should it come in contact with a tangible body.

Until three quarters of the room had been sifted nothing occurred. Then I saw the edge against the left-hand wall carefully drawn aside; to spring forward and close the opening was the instinctive work of a second. Terror combining with a fierce delight lent me an extraordinary force; I drew with convulsive power on the ropes. Every moment an invisible hand seemed to lift the net at some point, but each attempt was luckily frustrated. At last the movements ceased, and I drew the net flat against the farther wall. With feverish haste my hand travelled over its entire surface; the net was scanned in profile for the impression of a body, but there was none. The game had either escaped or withdrawn into the deep window-seat.

Now came a moment for breath, and for reflection. Again the cynical cloud of doubt folded me in. Dupe of my own morbid imagination, I should stand convicted of monomania in the eyes of any reasonable being who should see my actions. Then it was best, was it not? to tear the net away; or should I deliberately pursue to the utmost a plan begun? Never before had I so clearly felt a dual existence urging to opposite courses of action, as if the body's instinct commanded an advance, while the mind, assailing the whole proceeding with ridicule, was for giving up the game. But for all that it was a good sign that I began to feel a slight awe at the near possibility of a discovery. For I retreated to the door, unlocked it, and stood irresolute; then returned again to the window, without strength to come to a decision.

But while I pondered, a low, chuckling noise startled me, and Rachel stood by my side, erect and with features full of energy, her dull eyes blazing, and her short straight hair tossed about; in her hand she brandished with exultation a carved rod hung with bright claws and shells, with lappets of fur and hair; and at her and it I gazed with speechless amazement. Had she too gone mad? She took a few steps, as if in a rude dance, and shook the stick, and while her eyes glared into mine she nodded her head to the time.

"Bad spirit!" she muttered. "I have known, I have heard. But this is strong Wabeno."

As she shook the talisman, which clinked and rattled like the toy of a devil, I snatched the medicine stick from her hand and motioned her to the door. Thither she retreated, muttering words of an unknown tongue, and when it closed upon her I flung the stick angrily on the floor. But hope had come, and decision as well, although from a despised quarter; I was resolved to finish the undertaking at all hazards.

The wild flames of the distant storm still lighted everything at intervals with an intensity now greater and now less. When the sheet lightning flashed strong, the square cage formed by the wire outside the window-seat and the fish-net within stood out clear against the northern sky. With dilated pupils I began to examine the inclosed cube of air. During one particularly long and vivid flash,—there, in that corner, was there not a heap, a translucent shape, indistinguishable in quality or form? It was enough. Swiftly as wild beasts when they spring, I raised the net, leaped into the window, and grasped toward the corner where I thought I saw the mass.

II.

A thrill runs through the nerves of an entomologist when he puts his hand on a specimen unknown, undescribed. The hunter trembles when he espies in the thicket the royal hart whose existence has been called a fable. My emotion was all of this, intensified; nearer, perhaps, to the feeling of the elected mortal who has discovered a new continent. For I had discovered a new world.

Had I not cause for exultation? I sat on the window-seat in the alternate light and darkness, with one hand clenched, the other arm curved in the air; my left held fast a slender wrist, while my right was cast about a pair of delicate shoulders; the invisible but tangible figure was crouched away into the smallest space in the corner of the window.

With awe I now realized that my capture was a woman. The delicate moulding of the shoulders and hand was proof enough, but I also felt on my arm a light flood of the silkiest hair. This was a shock to one who had lived apart from women for several years, and had good cause to expect nothing but disaster from their influence. For a moment the impulse was strong to release the captive; luckily reason prevailed, and I tightened my grip on the frail prize, whose frame was shaken with sobs and whose bearing denoted the most abject despair. I gave many timid reassurances by word and hand before the sobs came slower and fear began to loose its hold. As she raised her head I took occasion to pass my right hand lightly over her face. Rendered sensitive by strong excitement, my palm read her features as the blind read the raised print of their books, and of this at least I was sure: the features were human, straight, the eyes large; a full chin and a mouth of unspeakable fineness were divined rather than felt by my flying touch; but I found no trace of tears.

After this I do not know how long we sat. It seemed peaceful and homelike, so that I wondered how it was possible so quickly to forget wonder. A protective warmth toward the creature whose soft breathing came and went slower and slower near my face took a quiet hold on all my senses. At last the gentle head drooped like a tired child's, the delicate shoulders heaved in a long, peaceful sigh, and to my amazement the strange captive fell asleep in my arms.

So while she slept I sat motionless and thinking, thinking. Who was she? whence and of what order of beings? What was her language; how and how long did she live. Was she really alive in our sense of the word, that is, human with the exception of her transparency? and was her shape like that of ordinary mortals, or did she end in some monstrosity like a mermaid? Such were the questions agitating me when interruption came with a knock at the door. My captive awoke and instinctively started away, at the same time giving a low, articulate cry; but I held her firmly, and called to Rachel to bring me a certain relic of slavery which had been brought from the South. I had profited by the discovery my prisoner's awakening furnished: the invisible, I argued, could articulate, then why should she not understand and speak the language of the people among whom she was found? Accordingly a few rapid questions were put to her, which were unanswered. Then I bethought me of a proof that at any rate she understood my words.

"My dear child, it is mere perverseness in you to refuse an answer. I am sure you understand. You are in my power for good or evil, and if you refuse to speak I must consider you worthy of the following treatment: you shall be made an example to the crowd of the reality of invisible life."

Under cruel treatment of this kind, conjecture became certainty; I felt her shudder at the idea, and she laid her hand appealingly on mine. This was all I wanted; speech was now a mere affair of time.

Rachel entered with the rusty handcuffs and handed them to me as if she were conscious and acquiescent in what I did. Not a feature moved, only her eyes shone with inner excitement, in a way I had seen before, while I clasped one link about the unseen wrist.

"Pardon," I whispered, "I do not know you yet. I cannot trust you."

My daily work ceased. To the few inquiries from the great city Rachel had evasive answers ready; they were soon over, and I was left to experience the fascination of a beautiful woman whom I had never seen nor could hope ever to see. To be sure, in certain lights and under certain angles of reflection an indistinct outline of a not large, slender girl, which told of pure contours, could be made out, but this was like following the glassy bells that pulsate far down in the waves of northern seas, or the endeavor to catch the real surface of a mirror. Moreover, the slim captive herself resented any attempt to gain acquaintance with her through the eyes. But by degrees the reserve which had taken the place of her terror melted away before gentle and respectful management, and from her own lips I learned much concerning her marvelous race, before the love which presently overwhelmed us put an end to the cooler interests of reason. Thus she astonished me by speaking of her race as widely spread through almost every inhabited land. They never work or educate their children; their food, which is chiefly in liquid form, is taken from the stores laid up by human beings, and such education as they get is picked up by continual contact with mortals. While their passions would seem to be calm, their only laws relate to the observance of secrecy as to their presence on the earth. To secure this end they meet at stated periods and renew their solemn vows, keep a watch upon each other, and disperse again to a settled or wandering life, but one always dependent on the labors of other beings. This alone would explain the paramount importance attaching to secrecy. And as it is impossible to keep always all hint of their existence from human beings, the penalties for disclosure in the latest days have increased to far greater severity than was used in simpler ages; Manmat'ha could not be brought to tell me the fate which awaited her should it be discovered that she had revealed the great secret of her nation, and the very quiet with which she gave me to understand how vast was the danger impressed me more than the most violent words.

It must have been the pain that the thought of any harm befalling her produced in me, which opened my eyes to the strength of my passion. The time for questions had passed, and the days were long only that we might love. One day glided after another unheeded, while we strolled about the neighboring woody hills to catch a broad glimpse of the sea from this point, or to examine in that swampy valley the minute wonders of life in plants and insects. At an early stage of our intimacy I had begged to free her wrist from the handcuffs, but she had implored me to continue at least the appearance of slavery, to serve, in case of need, as a partial excuse for violation of her vows. This did not prevent her daily disappearance during the middle hours when the sun was strongest; but these absences only served to give a time for reflection on her beauties and to involve me deeper in the love which now mastered all my thoughts. There was one subject which was long in broaching, but when the necessary courage was summoned, found in Manmat'ha neither objection nor response. She did not comprehend its force. The subject was our marriage.

I had resolved on legal marriage, even if it were necessary to be content with only one witness to the ceremony; that witness could be no one except Rachel. My housekeeper had regarded my preparations and subsequent conduct with a consistent interest and without the least shadow of surprise, and once I remarked that she had caught sight in the twilight of a cup raised without hands; yet no hint fell from her lips to make me feel she was intruding on my affairs. The old blur was in her eyes; the only change in manner was her treatment of me: she regarded me with a kind of awe. And after it had proved abortive to tell her something and not all, because the pleasure of unbosoming myself of so much love was too great to restrain, I found Rachel not only full of faith, but even surpassing me. She looked upon Manmat'ha as a supernatural being, and plainly invested me with reflected holiness. Some sort of worship she thought due to Manmat'ha, whilst I, as high priest and mortal consort, was entitled to a share; and indeed it was with some difficulty that I persuaded her not to show her faith by uncouth rites. It was as if her life had been a preparation for some such affair as this, and found her enthusiastic, but not astonished.

Our favorite resort was the couch of pine needles looking south from the hillside where we first met. The same hawk, to me the most blessed of birds, would often sail as before in the middle distance, or night-hawks would cut their strange curves in the evening sky. Far out beyond, sea-gulls, mere specks of white, would wheel and plunge into the bay, and at our backs the woodcock, shy enough in any other presence, would whir fantastically through the woods. All nature was the same, but I was no longer its solitary admirer, for I held in my arms a gentle framework of delight such as no other man before or since has known. She was finer than the finest silk, smoother than the smoothest glass, as if the rays of light, falling on the amazing texture of her skin, found no inequalities from which to reflect.

One evening we had been drawing in long breaths of that delight of which the woods and the great bowl of landscape before us were so full, and I had been trying to convince Manmat'ha of the importance of the marriage ceremony. "What," I asked with some trouble in my heart, "what will they do to you in case members of your nation discover your position? I do not mean to ask you what you would not tell me before, but what would be their first step?"

"They would imprison me somewhere under a guard," said Manmat'ha. "It would be many months before a tribunal could be collected together, and still longer before I should be judged. What my fate would be then, it is not well to say."

Had I desired, there is little doubt that I could have compelled Manmat'ha to tell me all she knew, for I had found that my will was much the stronger. But what was curiosity compared with the delight of warming her into responsive love? When I now covered her delicious lips with kisses, she returned the pressure, instead of merely suffering me, as at first, with a mild surprise.

"My first love and my last!" I whispered. "They shall not get you from me while I am alive, if they will only give us warning; but if they rob me of you, I shall follow your trace and rescue you, if it be to the bottom of the sea!"

Manmat'ha laughed a pleased laugh. We both started at an echo, a moment after, which seemed to come from the lower hill, below where we sat. There was no echo possible in that direction.

"Manmat'ha!" I whispered, "tell me quickly! Is some one coming?"

She sat apparently unable to speak, but trembling and cold to the touch. I had enough presence of mind to take her up and place her on the other side of the pine, on the ground, and throw my coat carelessly over her. As once before I heard passing steps, but now my more practiced ear caught them distinctly. They came lightly up the steep hill and stopped a moment at a little distance from the tree. With eyes fixed on the ocean I waited in an agony of suspense, assuming the most unconscious air of which I was capable. The steps hesitated only a moment; then they passed lower and lower into the upper wood. For half an hour neither of us moved; at last, taking heart, we stole home.

The event set me thinking. If at any moment we were liable to be discovered and separated, the marriage must take place at once. A consumptive hastens his wedding, a wounded tree is quick to bear, and the fright we had experienced taught me how slight was the thread on which my happiness hung; but Manmat'ha was calm with a maidenly content with little, which in my hasty resentment at even a suspicion of opposition to my plan, I was ready to call indifference.

When we entered I could tell by the unfailing sign of Rachel's eye that she was agitated. Later in the evening I heard her chanting in a discordant undertone an ancient formula of her savage ancestors, and therefore it was with some misgivings that I called and informed her that to-night she was to be the sole witness, by touch, if not by sight, of the lawful ceremony of wedlock between Manmat'ha and me. She listened in an awestruck silence, and left the room abruptly. As no calling was of any avail, we were compelled to wait her pleasure, which I did with great impatience; and when at last she did return, it was in a shape grotesque almost beyond recognition. Her face and arms were painted white and red in broad bands of coarse pigments; an old embroidered robe fastened over one shoulder, with a close-fitting skirt of buckskin, formed her whole attire. She had put feathers in her hair, and with flaming eyes shook her favorite talisman, the medicine-stick. At one bound she had returned to her ancient state of savagery.

Finding Manmat'ha regarding her with interest, I did not oppose the further proceedings. It struck me that it was not displeasing to my invisible love to receive divine honors even in this wild rite, so I held my peace. She seemed to receive them as her due.

The moon had risen, and gave light to the room through window and open door; flooded by its rays, Rachel moved slowly across the room, uttering in guttural tones a broken chant whose meaning I might have once interpreted, but could not now. On a different occasion I might not have been an entirely unsympathetic observer of the singular sight, but here passion had overcome curiosity. I was an impatient lover. With my arm about Manmat'ha, and filled with earnest emotions, I could not help a feeling of disgust at the monotonous discord and frantic gestures of the last of a superstitious race.

"This must end, Manmat'ha," I groaned. "I can wait no longer."

As I spoke, the Indian woman grew ungovernable in wild excitement.

"They are on you! They are here!" she screamed.

I felt Manmat'ha stiffen in my arms with deadly terror. Resistless hands dragged us apart and held me absolutely motionless in spite of the deadly agony which filled me, while Manmat'ha's stifled shriek arose from midway across the room.

"Rachel!" I cried. "For God's sake, Rachel, bar the door!"

My cry roused the woman from a stupor; she sprang to the door. I heard the noise of many light feet, the sound of a blow, a heavy fall; then a deep silence came.

Bounding from the spot to which unseen hands up to that moment had pressed me, I sprang from the room and followed into the night. The earth reeled past me in my swift flight, until I suddenly stopped myself to ask where I was going. Where indeed? As well follow the wind. Wild as was the hope that moved me to return, I hurried back again to the house. Rachel alone, clad in her poor Indian finery, the medicine-stick broken by her side, lay stretched out dead in the moonlight.



A DARING FICTION.

BY H. H. BOYESEN.

N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, November, 1884.

I.

Leipsic is a grim old town with no sentimental associations. Schiller, to be sure, once lived there, but he had a bad time of it, in spite of the slippers and things with which Dora and Minna Stock tried to mollify his existence. The smoke which hangs over the Leipsic chimney-tops is dense, prosaic smoke, which refuses to fashion itself into fairy forms or airy castles in obedience to romantic fancy. Mr. Leonard Grover actually swore (in Latin, of course, for he was too well-mannered to swear in English), that it was the most irritating and pestiferous smoke he had ever encountered since he left his native town of Pittsburg, where a man, by the way, has a fine chance of studying the effects of smoke both upon linen and temperament. Mr. Grover was, however, cheerful by nature and refused to be permanently depressed. He was in Leipsic for a practical purpose, and could not afford to indulge in sentimental moods. And yet, in spite of his determination to stick to his science and his laboratory practice, he had unaccountable fits of loneliness, when from sheer despair he went to call upon Professor Bornholm, to whom he had had a letter of introduction and whose family had received him with much cordiality. He would have liked to call upon somebody else occasionally, but the fact was, during the six months he had been at the University he had made no acquaintance outside of his student circle, except the Bornholms. They seemed to like him so much that they refused to share him with anybody else; they even refrained from introducing him to the friends who might happen to call during his visits. Minchen, who was the artistic daughter and made wax-flowers, usually found some way of disposing of him when inconvenient callers of the gentler sex made their appearance. She usually brought a fictitious message from the Professor, who, having entrapped the young man into his study, proceeded to bore him to death with oxalates and chlorides and sulphuric acids.

Roeschen, the poetic daughter, whose slippers were a little down at the heel, displaying to advantage the holes in her stockings, was wont to employ her mother as an accomplice and, on some pretext or other, lured the American into her garden, where there was the most delightful privacy for sentimental confidences. Gretchen, the youngest daughter, who was obliged to devote herself to domesticity, on account of the inconvenient talents of her sisters, was even at less pains to disguise her designs upon him, but told him frankly that Minchen and Roeschen were—well, not at all as nice as they might be.

In one of these bursts of frankness Gretchen also confided to him that Roeschen had written to a lady friend in America—a former pupil at the Conservatory who had boarded in the family—and had received from her a complete biography of his humble self, besides a computation of his income and economic prospects. It then required very little ingenuity, on his part, to conjecture why the sisters, in spite of their somewhat ostentatious amiability, frequently appeared to have been at loggerheads just as he entered. He had often heard the word Phoenix pass mysteriously between them, and much as his modesty rebelled, he was forced to the conclusion that he was, himself, the brilliant bird Phoenix, for the possession of which these fair enchantresses were privately contending. He had never before had the audacity to regard himself as a brilliant parti, and he had even had a grudge of long standing against Fate for having equipped him so poorly. Measured by the German standard, however, his modest patrimony suggested princely opulence; and its possessor became conscious of a certain agreeable expansion, peculiar to capitalists. Smile as he might at the smallness of the social conditions which allowed him to play the role of a Croesus in the fancy of love-sick maids, he could not deny that he found it a pleasant thing to be the object of such tender rivalry. It seemed to add a cubit to his height and two to his self-esteem. He revelled in the sense of his desirability and watched with amusement the innocent manoeuvres by which his fair entertainers checkmated each other, and in their zeal occasionally forgot that he, too, was a rational being, endowed with the faculty of criticism. There was another, however, who made this reflection for them; and that was their mamma—the Frau Professorin. She was becoming alarmed at the discord which prevailed in the family; for, being behind the scenes, as it were, she knew a good deal which Grover could not know, and which perhaps it would not have been well for him to know. Thus she found one day in Minchen's room a drawing in which the American, in the character of Paris, was holding above his head an apple, with the inscription "$5,000 a year;" while three lovely goddesses in scanty attire were stretching out their hands and jumping frantically to reach it. The likenesses were unmistakable and the situation sufficiently pointed to need no commentary. The Frau Professorin was much impressed by it, and her interest, it is needless to say, was enlisted in behalf of the goddesses. She resented the reserved attitude of the shepherd, and was yet anxious to assist him in arriving at a decision. Minchen, now, with her charming talent for making counterfeit cucumbers in wax and sections of hard-boiled eggs, would be just the wife for a practical man like him. She would invest his home with an artistic flavor which he himself would be capable of appreciating, though powerless to supply. And yet Roeschen, with her beautiful verses, her nonchalant toilets and her poetic sympathy for improprieties which, in practice, she was careful to shun, might be even more fitted than her sister to lift and ennoble a sordid American soul. It only remained to be considered whether Gretchen, who could grow enthusiastic over the decline of one cent in the price of butter, might not, after all, be a more kindred nature, and therefore suit him best of all.

The Frau Professorin was deeply engaged in these meditations when the maid handed her a small card, upon which was engraved the name, Leonard Grover. To conceal her agitation she threw a glance into the mirror and gave a few decorative touches to her person, before admitting the visitor. Then she put on her company smile and seated herself in a defensive attitude in the large, leather-covered easy-chair. She gave her hand graciously, without rising, to Grover as he entered.

"I hope your buffalo herds are prospering," she said, after the exchange of a few preliminary civilities.

"My buffalo herds!" exclaimed the young man, laughing. Then, as it suddenly struck him that it might be a joke, he continued with zest: "Oh, yes, indeed, thank you; they are doing famously. They made quite a sensation as they were driven through the streets of New York, the other day, on their way from Chicago to the Kansas plains."

"Indeed," replied Mrs. Bornholm effusively; "allow me to congratulate you."

"Thank you," he stammered helplessly.

She had been serious after all.

A minute or two elapsed, during which he did not muster courage to make any further remarks.

"Are the young ladies at home?" he finally essayed, just as the pause was threatening to become awkward.

"The young ladies," repeated the Frau Professorin, beaming with maternal benevolence; "permit me to ask to which of them do you refer in particular?"

"To all three of them," replied the American cheerfully.

"That is very kind of you," she retorted, without, however, the faintest tinge of sarcasm. "I know, even though it is their own mother who says it, that my daughters all deserve the admiration which you so impartially bestow upon them. But the fact is, Mr. Grover—why should I not be perfectly frank and open with you?—the fact is—no man can marry three girls," she finished rather lamely. She evidently lacked courage to make the revelation which she at first contemplated.

"I am well aware of that, Frau Professorin," was Grover's somewhat aimless response; "and I assure you," he went on heartily, "that I wouldn't think of such a thing; no, not for all the world."

He had an uncomfortable sensation about his ears, after having made this laudable announcement, and he began to cast about for a pretext for taking his leave. His hostess was, however, not disposed to let him escape so easily.

"The Professor and I," she remarked, blandly, "have observed with much satisfaction your devotion to our daughters. We know you to be a man of character, and we know that it would be far from your intentions to trifle with the feelings of the dear, innocent and unsophisticated creatures. But our German custom, as you may not be aware, is to confine one's courtship to one, and not to scatter one's devotion among too many. In other countries that may be different, but as you have come here to learn German manners, I thought I would call your attention to this, and ask you to tell me, in strict confidence, of course, to which one of my daughters you are paying your addresses."

If the ceiling had tumbled down over his head, Grover could not have been more astonished. It was a fact, he had been almost a daily visitor in the Professor's house; he had very likely, in unguarded moments, in order to practice his imperfect German, made complimentary speeches to the three young ladies, individually and collectively; and in all probability he had, from a German point of view, given the Frau Professorin the right to talk to him as she did. And yet, to submit readily to the consequences of his rash conduct did not for a moment occur to him. His instinct bade him rather resort to a stratagem, which, as he concluded, the dire necessity would justify.

"Frau Professorin," he began solemnly, "I need scarcely assure you that I feel greatly honored by what you have told me. But the fact is, I am not free. I am engaged."

"Engaged!" cried the Frau Professorin, starting forward in her chair. "Why, then, did you not tell me that?"

"It is a secret engagement."

"A secret engagement! And do your parents know of it?"

"They do not."

"And the lady's name?"

"Miss—Miss—Jones."

Grover had no genius for mendacity and he was already beginning to repent of his daring fiction. But Mrs. Bornholm, suddenly possessed with some luminous idea, proceeded mercilessly in her cross-examination, feeling that her position, as the wronged party, gave her a right to trample upon conventionalities.

"Is this Miss Jones musical?" she queried eagerly.

"Yes," he replied vaguely; "that is, I believe so."

"You will excuse me," she went on; "but I am naturally much interested in this unknown person, because of my interest in you. Would you mind telling me if she is dark or a blonde?"

"She is dark."

"One thing more; have you written to her recently?"

"No; not very recently."

"And has she ever said anything to you about coming here?"

"Not a word."

The Professorin arose with a triumphant nod and began to pace the floor.

"Miss Jones is a brunette, musical and rich—I suppose she is rich?" she repeated, with an interrogative glance at Grover.

"She is not poor," he responded feebly.

"Good," said his tormentor fiercely, and nodding again with great emphasis, "very good."

Grover began to feel apprehensive that she had taken leave of her senses. The disappointment, the shock to her cherished hopes, had perhaps been too much for her. He arose a little tremblingly and offered her his hand.

"I am your most obedient servant, Frau Professorin," he remarked, bowing deeply, and backing toward the door.

"We shall no doubt have the pleasure of seeing you soon again, Mr. Grover," she observed, eyeing him with curious significance.

"You are very kind," he murmured, and made haste to vanish.

II.

It was only three days later that Grover received an invitation to dine at Professor Bornholm's. He had spent the intervening period in meditation concerning Mrs. Bornholm's curious behavior. That she had something on her mind was obvious, and he had no doubt that he would to-day discover what it was. He felt confident that she had been plotting against him and had some dramatic surprise in store for him. As he rang the door-bell he had need of all his sang froid to quiet his turbulent heart. He was admitted to the inner sanctuary and was greeted with studious cordiality by the three goddesses. They seemed all agitated and expectant, though they were striving to appear unconcerned. They lounged and chatted as people do in the introductory scene of a play, with hidden reference to some plot which has yet to be disclosed. To all appearances the plot had some connection with the door to the Professor's study, which, contrary to custom, was closed. Minchen repeatedly threw furtive glances at it, and Roeschen made her determination not to look at it equally conspicuous; only Gretchen was frankly curious and made no effort to disguise it. A strange sense of the unreality of the whole scene, himself included, crept over the young man; he felt like a man in a play who can murder or make love with equal irresponsibility. He was about to indulge in the latter diversion, when suddenly the mysterious door opened, and the Frau Professorin entered with much dramatic eclat, leading a lovely dark-eyed young girl by the hand. The eyes of the three goddesses grew as big as saucers, and Roeschen pressed her hand to her heart and nearly fainted from excitement.

"Mr. Grover," said the Frau Professorin, making a most elaborate bow, "allow me to present—Miss Jones."

Under ordinary circumstances the introduction to Miss Jones would have been an agreeable incident in Mr. Grover's career, and nothing further. He had met, he did not know how many hundred charming young ladies, several of whom had borne the name of Jones, and he had never been in the least disconcerted. In the present instance, however, he showed but imperfect control of his emotions. A guilty blush sprang to his cheeks, and he groped vainly in his embarrassment for the proper phrase wherewith to express his pleasure at making the lady's acquaintance. Miss Jones, too, somehow, seemed ill at ease, and gazed at him with flaming cheeks and a puzzled, half-anxious look in her eyes. The Frau Professorin, who had probably expected a different denouement, looked disappointed, and the goddesses whispered to each other and tittered.

"You will excuse me for a few moments," said the Frau Professorin; "the house needs my attention."

Having learned all that she wished to know, she could afford to be generous. It was plain that the goddesses had displaced Miss Jones in her lover's heart. Hence his annoyance and embarrassment. She could well appreciate his position and in her heart she began to relent toward him. Miss Jones had evidently, under the pretence of studying music, come to Leipsic, to look after her recreant adorer, whose silence had begun to alarm her. The goddesses, too, who had been initiated into the secret, arrived at similar conclusions, and proceeded to dislike the innocent Miss Jones with much vehemence. It was but with reluctance that they heeded their mother's significant scowl and withdrew in her wake.

"Perhaps," said Miss Jones, drawing a breath of relief as the last of the trains vanished in the doorway, "perhaps you would now have the kindness to tell me what this comedy means."

Grover lifted his eyes and gazed at her; she was surpassingly lovely. A pair of frank, dark American eyes, half humorously challenging, put at once his embarrassment to flight, and made him feel a delicious nearness and kinship to their fair possessor.

"Miss Jones," he said, answering promptly the humorous gleam in her eyes, "I shall have to make you a regular confession. I didn't have the remotest idea of your existence."

"Nor I of yours," she responded quickly; "but what has that got to do with the comedy?"

"Everything. You know, I invented you."

"You invented me?"

"Yes, in my dire need, in order to escape from matrimonial persecutions, I invented a fiancee in America named Miss Jones. But to be frank, I did not expect you to take me at my word, and turn up over here, in order to regulate my conduct."

"Oh, I see it all," cried Miss Jones, merrily. "You are in the position of a novelist whose heroine suddenly steps out of the book and takes him to task for his fictions."

"But I hope you won't prove a hard task-master," he retorted, gayly. "In consideration of my generosity in making you beautiful and rich, you ought not to betray me."

"Do you mean that I ought to remain your fiancee?" she asked, laughing. "I think that is to ask too much of my indulgence."

"You are at liberty to break with me whenever you choose; but until further notice allow the family to suppose that they are right in their conjecture. You need simply say nothing about it. You know our engagement is secret, and we are not expected to show how fond we are of each other."

"That is very fortunate. However," she continued, lightly, as if pleased with the absurdity of the thought, "my fondness for you will probably never demand any very extravagant expression."

"No, but mine may," was his daring reply; "therefore, perhaps, as a measure of self-defence, you ought to break with me at once. Make a scene of some sort, revile me; do anything you choose, only so that the eavesdroppers, who are sure to misunderstand everything except vehemence, get a notion that we have been engaged, but are so no more."

Miss Jones, who had seated herself in the sofa-corner, leaned her head in her hand and meditated.

"Do you know," she said, raising the same pretty head abruptly, "your proposition is a very original one? I wonder if a girl was ever before requested to break with a man to whom she had never been engaged. However, Mr. Grover, I am not quite as accommodating as you think. On the whole it suits my purpose very well to be engaged. I have come here for study and have no desire to be courted by students or musicians, of whom there is said to be quite a colony here."

It was now Grover's turn to be amazed. He stared at the sweetly demure and sensible little face in bewilderment.

"Then you mean to—you mean to say——" he stammered.

"Yes, I mean to say," she finished, suppressing the little mischievous gleam in her eye, "that I prefer not to break with you. We will remain engaged."

The young man's countenance fell. He began to look unhappy; perhaps Miss Jones was an unscrupulous adventuress who would turn the joke into earnest and sue him for breach of promise after they got home. To be sure, she looked as innocent as an angel, but it is a notorious fact that women are just the most dangerous in that guise. In escaping Scylla he had plunged headlong into Charybdis. He got up with a painful sense of indecision, walked toward the window, and concluded, after a moment's thought, that he could not, as a man of honor, withdraw from a bargain which he had himself proposed. It would be wiser to abide by it, and to trust to his own ingenuity to extricate him at the proper moment.

"Miss Jones," he said, rather ceremoniously, "I thank you for your kindness."

"Not at all," she retorted, carelessly; "it is an arrangement for mutual convenience. But remember," she added, lifting her index finger in playful threat, "that we are extremely well-bred and undemonstrative."

III.

The goddesses found it a harder task than they had anticipated to hate Miss Jones. Scarcely twenty-four hours had passed before Gretchen was at her feet, and vowed that she was the German equivalent for a "perfect darling." In return Miss Jones taught her how to make quince jelly, flavored with the kernels in the stones. Two days sufficed to conciliate Roeschen; and when she discovered that Miss Jones did not positively and unequivocally condemn the homicidal eccentricities of Lucrezia Borgia, she declared with noble enthusiasm that Miss Jones was "a grand soul." As for Minchen, she held out heroically against Miss Jones's blandishments; but at the end of a week she too succumbed. Miss Jones had complimented her in imperfect German, but with the sweetest of accents, on her wax flowers, and had drawn new designs for her, full of animation and dash. Presently they said "thou" to each other, and Miss Jones, who had been Lulu at home, was metamorphosed into Luischen. Even the Frau Professorin, who at first had put her down as an artful little minx, began to forget her grudge against her. The Professor found it a positive hardship that he was not at liberty to kiss her. But the most amusing thing of the whole affair was that they all became her partisans against her recreant lover, Grover, who had trifled so wantonly with her feelings. They made cautious overtures to condole with her, but, in spite of the tenderest sympathy, found her singularly uncommunicative on this subject. Now the goddesses, who in external charm did not profess to compete with her, had in the first flush of their enthusiasm been quite disposed to sacrifice themselves upon the altar of their devotion; but, although they could have forgiven any other form of maltreatment, Lulu's apparent distrust of them wounded them deeply. They had looked forward to delicious nocturnal confidences, when, half disrobed, each should visit the other's boudoir and discuss the fascinating topic from all possible and impossible points of view. That Lulu had proved impervious to all hints of this nature was a slight which could not be pardoned, at least not without due penance on her part. Moreover, to add to their mortification, there seemed daily to be less occasion for sympathy. Lulu was winning Mr. Grover back to his allegiance slowly but surely. He called, now, almost every afternoon, took long walks with her through the Rosenthal, and barring a certain Anglo-Saxon reserve (which in Germany is thought perfectly incomprehensible) behaved in every way as an engaged man should. It was scarcely to be wondered at that the goddesses found such an exhibition of devotion a little bit irritating, and voted Lulu, the happy and victorious, as odious as Lulu, the abandoned, the secretly-grieving, had been lovely and interesting. It was especially Roeschen, the admirer of daring unconventionally, who took it into her head that she had been wronged and deceived by the false and heartless Lulu, and she swore—that is to say, she vowed solemnly—that she should yet get even with that sly and demure little arch-fiend. The coveted opportunity did not, however, present itself as soon as her impatience demanded, and while the winter dragged along slowly, alternating delightfully between frozen mud and liquid mud, Grover's devotion went on steadily deepening, until Miss Jones even interfered with his laboratory practice, mixed herself up in his chemicals, and on one occasion precipitated an explosion which singed his whiskers and damaged his complexion for a month to come. From this experience he drew the wise deduction that love and chemistry are antagonistic forces, and therefore irreconcilable; but as he could not persuade himself to give up either, it occurred to him to effect a compromise. He would, as far as possible, devote the forenoons to chemistry and the afternoons to love—that is to say, he would devote himself to Miss Jones, and try gently to lure her on to the forbidden topic.

I believe I have said before that demonstrations of affection were strictly prohibited; but I have not remarked that in the by-laws subsequently drafted by Miss Jones for the regulation of their abnormal relation, oral references to the same interesting topic were likewise forbidden. When Miss Jones had her own way, she usually talked music, and talked intelligently and well. She seemed to find a kind of humorous satisfaction in confining her adorer strictly to practical topics and in ignoring sentimental allusions. If he rebelled against this sort of maltreatment, and became silent and moody, she aggravated the offence by not appearing to notice it. She would then find employment in separating little boys who fought in the street, or in eliciting confidences from old apple-women. There was something almost fiercely virginal about her, something bordering upon enthusiasm in the way she repelled an attempted incursion upon the forbidden ground. And withal she was so tender and sympathetic toward all mankind, that her wilful obtuseness on the subject of love bore to him the appearance of wanton cruelty. It did not occur to him that she might be acting in self-defence, fearing to give the slightest rein to a feeling which might, on very slight provocation, run away with her. She was the kind of girl which one does not readily think of in connection with the tender passion; and whose love, perhaps, for this very reason, seems so ineffably precious to him who is trying to win it.

"Did it ever occur to you," he said to her one day, as they were walking together under the leafless arches of the Rosenthal, "that when God saw all that He had made, and 'behold it was very good,' He left woman out?"

"No, I didn't know it," she said, with a gleam of amusement.

"Nevertheless, it is so," he went on. "When He said it was all very good, woman was not yet created. After she was made, God said nothing at all."

"That was because she was so nice that she needed no commendation," rejoined Miss Jones promptly.

"For all that, history shows that she has made a deal of mischief in the world," said Grover lugubriously; he was feeling piqued and abused at her want of responsiveness to his undisguised admiration.

"History was written by men," was Miss Jones's response.

"But made by women," ejaculated Grover, eager to hold his own in the tilt.

"As you like. I don't think the man was far wrong who said that there was a woman at the bottom of every important event."

"You talk like a book."

"I only wish I had the wit to make one. I would make you men stare if I published my version of the world's history."

"You can do that better without the wit," he retorted recklessly; then, seeing a little cloud, as of pained surprise, pass over her countenance, he made a motion to seize her hand, but succeeded, instead, in knocking her parasol into the middle of the road. The necessity of recovering it cooled for the moment the passion which had threatened to overmaster him.

"Pardon me," he murmured penitently, as he was again at her side. "I did not mean to hurt your feelings; but the fact is, I am on such a constant strain to keep my sentiment below the boiling point that I lose my self-control and say things the effect of which I only see after I have said them."

"Don't apologize, please," she said, hurrying on so rapidly that he could only with difficulty keep pace with her; then as a perfect godsend, there crossed her line of vision two small boys who were pulling each other's hair and pummelling each other lustily.

"You naughty boy," she ejaculated with much animation, seizing the bigger one by the arm and forcing him to face her, "why do you strike that poor little fellow?"

"He mixes himself up in my affairs," responded the culprit, defiantly; then discovering a considerable tuft of his antagonist's hair in his hand, he turned about shame-faced and tried to dispose of it, unperceived. Miss Jones, however (though she was not without sympathy for any one whose affairs were becoming mixed), dexterously caught the descending tuft on the point of her parasol and held it up as proof of his guilt. "What a dreadful little boy you are," she said, reprovingly.

"But I will pummel Anton again," retorted the dreadful little boy, "if he plays 'engaged' with Tilly Heitmann."

"Plays 'engaged!' Ah, then I beg your pardon," said Miss Jones, airily, with a sly little glance at her companion. "Little boys who play engaged deserve to be pummelled."

IV.

If Prince Bismarck or his big dog had come to town, there could not have been more excitement in the Bornholm family. The three young ladies sat upon a bed, with their hair done up in curl papers, and looked intense. They had hatched a plot of revenge which was worthy of three blonde heads done up in curl-paper. It had been ascertained that Mr. Grover had invited Miss Jones to the artists' carnival, and that Miss Jones had accepted the invitation. He had, moreover, asked the Frau Professorin to chaperone Miss Jones for the occasion, and the Frau Professorin, who was as fond of excitement as a girl, did not have the strength of mind to show him that she resented the slight he had put upon her daughters. She tried to make the daughters believe, of course, that she had; and they would undoubtedly have taken her word for it, if they hadn't been listening at the key-hole. When taken to task, the Frau Professorin was in such an indulgent mood that she would readily have consented to anything; and when Roeschen proposed that she, too, should go to the masquerade and in exactly the same costume as Miss Jones, her mother only interposed a vague demurrer which was easily overridden. The interesting complications which might arise, if Grover should mistake one Daughter of the Rhine for the other, stimulated her romantic fancy and made her eager as a girl to have the plot carried into effect. What was to be accomplished by it, she did not trouble herself to define; it only gave her a kind of confused satisfaction to think that she was mystifying somebody who had for a long time been mystifying her. Roeschen was exactly of Miss Jones's height and their figures closely resembled each other. So when they were masked a microscope would be required to tell them apart.

Roeschen, who was full of blissful anticipations, went about during the day embracing people promiscuously from sheer excess of happiness. She could almost have embraced Grover, foe though he was, for having afforded her such a glorious opportunity for playing a trick on him. Her adventurous spirit had long yearned for some monumental enterprise, and this had somehow a mysterious atmosphere about it which made it doubly attractive to the admirer of Lucrezia Borgia. As for Miss Jones, she was unsuspicious as a new-born babe, which circumstance heightened the joy of the conspirators, thrilling them with sensations of deep and delightful villainy.

The week before Lent came at last and the reign of Prince Carnival was proclaimed through the streets by medieval heralds in gorgeous attire. The procession was watched from windows and balconies, and at last came the evening with its alluring festivities, including the bal masque. The Frau Professorin, as she flitted from Miss Jones's boudoir to that of her daughter, taking notes of the former's costume for the benefit of the latter, felt like an arch conspirator upon whose coolness and address the fate of empires hung. Miss Jones had had her costumes designed by an expert costumer, and the difficulty was to make Roeschen's home-made finery as trim and dazzling as the products of professional skill. This feat was, however, happily accomplished, thanks to Minchen's artistic taste and Gretchen's nimble fingers. The Frau Professorin then slipped with a sigh of relief into her black domino and took her seat at Miss Jones's side in the carriage. Grover, in the guise of King Gunther in the Nibelungen Lay, sat opposite, arrayed in a splendid helmet and scarlet cloak, endeavoring to make his legs as unobtrusive as possible. The drive to the Schuetzenhaus was not long, and Miss Jones, muffled up to her very eyes, hopped out of the carriage as lightly as Cinderella from her metamorphosed cucumber. The Frau Professorin, likewise muffled, allowed Grover to assist her up the stairs, and was conducted by him to the door of the dressing-room, where there stood a female Cerberus whose business it was to keep away male intruders. When King Gunther, after doing sentinel duty for half an hour, again caught sight of the swan-maiden, the daughter of Father Rhine, she was so surpassingly lovely that he forgot to inquire for her chaperone. The chaperone, therefore, without difficulty, effected a clandestine retreat, found her way to a carriage and drove home as fast as the spavined droschke horse would convey her. Twenty minutes later she slipped into the dressing-room at the Schuetzenhaus, accompanied by a second daughter of Father Rhine, whom that worthy parent himself could scarcely have told from her lately-arrived sister.