"You and I have nothing to do with all that," returned Katie.

Elizabeth waited in despair of putting the case as she felt it.

"I was thinking," she said at last, "that if we have a whole land of forests to cut down and of cities to build up, somehow, everything will be different here from the Old England. I often wonder what it is to be in this New World. It must be unlike the Old," she repeated.

"I don't wonder," returned Katie, "and that's just what you shouldn't do. Wonder what you're going to wear to-morrow when we dine at Aunt Faith's, or whether Master Harwin will call this morning, or Master Waldo, or wonder about something sensible."

"Which means, 'or if it's to be Master Archdale,'" retorted Elizabeth, smiling into the laughing eyes fixed upon her face, and making them fall at the keenness of her glance, while a brighter rose than Katie cared to show tinted the creamy skin and made her bend a moment to arrange the rosette of her slipper. The movement showed her hair in all its perfection, for at this early hour it had not been tortured into elaborateness, but as she sat in her bedroom talking with her guest, was loosely coiled to be out of the way, and thus drawn back in its wavy abundance showed now burnished, and now a darker brown, as the sunlight or the shadow fell upon it.

"He's not always sensible," she answered, lifting her head again with a half defiant gesture, and smiling. Katie's smile was irresistible, it won her admirers by the score, not altogether because it gave a glimpse of beautiful teeth, or because her mouth was at its perfection then, but that it was an expression of childlike abandonment to the spirit of the moment, which charmed the gay because they sympathized with it and the serious because it was a mood of mind into which they would be glad to enter. "Stephen has not been quite himself lately, rather stupid," and she looked as if she were not unsuspicious of the reason.

"Too many of us admirers, he thinks?" laughed Elizabeth. "For he is bright enough when he takes the trouble to speak, but generally he doesn't seem to consider any one of sufficient importance to amuse."

"That is not so," cried Katie, "you are mistaken. But you don't know Stephen very well," she added. "What a pity that you are not living here, then you would, and then we should have known each other all our lives, instead of only since we went to school together. What good times we had at Madam Flamingo's. There you sit, now, and look as meekly reproving as if you had'nt invented that name for her yourself. It was so good, it has stood by her ever since."

"Did I? I had forgotten it."

"Perhaps, at least, you remember the red shawl that got her the nickname? It was really something nice,—the shawl, I mean, but the old dame was so ridiculously proud of it and so perpetually flaunting it, she must have thought it very becoming. We girls were tired of the sight of it. And one day, when you were provoked with her about something and left her and came into the schoolroom after hours, you walked up to a knot of us, and with your air of scorn said something about Madam Flamingo. Didn't it spread like wildfire? Our set will call that venerable dame 'Flamingo' to the end of her days."

"I suppose we shall, but I had no recollection that it was I who gave her the name."

"Yes, you gave it to her," repeated Katie. "You may be very sure I should not have forgotten it if I had been so clever. Those were happy days for all their petty tribulations," she added after a pause.

Elizabeth looked at her sitting there meditative.

"I should think these were happy days for you, Katie. What more can you want than you have now?"

"Oh, the roc's eggs, I suppose," answered the girl. "No, seriously, I am pretty likely to get what I want most. I am happy enough, only not absolutely happy quite yet."

"Why not?"

"Our good minister would say it was not intended for mortals."

"If I felt like being quite content I should not give it up because somebody else said it was too much for me."

"Oh, well," said Katie, laughing, "it has nothing to do with our good Parson Shurtleff, anyway."

"I thought not. What, then?"

The other did not answer, but sat looking out of the window with eyes that were not studying the landscape. Whether her little troubles dissolved into the cloudless sky, like mist too thin to take shape, or whether she preferred to keep her perplexities to herself is uncertain, but when she spoke it was about another reminiscence of school days.

"Do you remember that morning Stephen came to see me?" she began. "Madam thought at first that Master Archdale must be my father, and she gave a most gracious assent to my request to go to walk with him. I was dying of fun all the time, I could scarcely keep my face straight; then, when she caught a glimpse of him as we were going out of the hall, she said in a dubious tone, 'Your brother, I presume, Mistress Archdale?' But I never heard a word. I was near the street door and I put myself the other side of it without much delay. So did Stephen. And we went off laughing. He said I was a wicked little cousin, and he spelled it 'cozen;' but he didn't seem to mind my wickedness at all." There was a pause, during which Katie looked at her smiling friend, and her own face dimpled bewitchingly. "This is exactly what you would have done, Elizabeth," she said. "You would have heard that tentative remark of Madam's, of course you would, and you would have stood still in the hall and explained that Stephen was your cousin, instead of your brother, and have lost your walk beyond a doubt, you know the Flamingo. Now, I was just as good as you would have been, only, I was wiser. I, too, told Madam that he was my cousin, but I waited until I came home to do it. The poor old lady could not help herself then; it was impossible to take back my fun, and she could not punish me, because she had given me permission to go, nor could she affirm that I heard her remark, for it was made in an undertone. There was nothing left for her but to wrap her illustrious shawl about her and look dignified." "Do you think Master Harwin will come to-day?" Katie asked a few moments later, "and Master Waldo? I hope they will all three be here together; it will be fun, they can entertain each other, they are so fond of one another."

"Katie! Katie!"

The girl broke into a laugh.

"Oh, yes, I remember," she said, "Stephen is your property."

"Don't," cried Elizabeth, with sudden gravity and paleness in her face. "I think it was wicked in me to jest about such a sacred thing. Let me forget it."

"I wont tease you if you really care. But if it was wicked, it was a great deal more my doing, and Master Waldo's, than your's or Stephen's. We wanted to see the fun. Your great fault, Elizabeth, is that you vex yourself too much about little things. Do you know it will make you have wrinkles?"

This question was put with so much earnestness that Elizabeth laughed heartily.

"One thing is sure," she said, "I shall not remain ignorant of my failings through want of being told them while I'm here. It would be better to go home."

"Only try it!" cried Katie, going to her and kissing her. "But now, Elizabeth, I want to tell you something in all seriousness. Just listen to me, and profit by it, if you can. I've found it out for myself. The more you laugh at other people's absurdities the fewer of your own will be noticed, because, you see, it implies that you are on the right standpoint to get a review of other people."

"That sounds more like eighty than eighteen."

"Elizabeth, it is the greatest mistake in the world, I mean just that, to keep back all your wisdom until you get to be eighty. What use will it be to you then? All you can do with it will be to see how much more sensibly you might have acted. That's what will happen to you, my dear, if you don't look out. But at eighteen—I am nineteen—everything is before you, and you want to know how to guide your life to get all the best things you can out of it without being wickedly selfish—at least I do. Your aspirations, I suppose, are fixed upon the forests and the Indian, and problems concerning the future of the American Colonies. But I'm more reverent than you, I think the Lord is able to take care of those."

Elizabeth looked vaguely troubled by the fallacy which she felt in this speech without being quite willing or able to bring it to light.

"But, remember, I was twenty-one my last birthday," she answered. "I ought to take a broader view of things."

"On the contrary, you're getting to be an old maid. You should consider which of your suitors you want, and say 'yes' to him on the spot. By the way, what has become of your friend, the handsome Master Edmonson?"

Elizabeth colored.

"I don't know," she answered. "Father has heard from him since he went away, so I suppose that he is well."

"And he has not written to you?"

"No, he has only sent a message." Then, after a pause, "He said that he was coming back in the autumn."

"I hope so," cried Katie, "he is a most fascinating man, and of such family! Stephen was speaking of him the other day. He was very attentive, was he not, Betsey?"

"Ye-es, I suppose so. But there was something that I fancied papa did not like."

"I'm so sorry," cried Katie. She rose, and crossing the little space between herself and her friend, dropped upon the footstool at Elizabeth's feet, and laying her arms in the girl's lap and resting her chin upon them, looked up and added, "Tell me all about it, my dear."

"There is nothing to tell," answered Elizabeth, caressing the beautiful hair and looking into the eyes that had tears of sympathy in them.

"I was afraid something had gone wrong, afraid that you would care."

Elizabeth sat thinking.

"I don't know," she said slowly at last, "I don't know whether I should really care or not if I never saw him again."

Her companion looked at her a moment in silence, and when she began to speak it was about something else.



CHAPTER IV.

GIRDING ON THE HARNESS.

Later that same morning a gentleman calling upon Mistress Katie Archdale was told that he would find her with friends in the garden. Walking through the paths with a leisurely step which the impatience of his mood chafed against, he came upon a picture that he never forgot.

Great stretches of sunshine lay on the garden and in it brilliant beds of flowers glowed with their richest lights, poppies folded their gorgeous robes closely about them, Arab fashion, to keep out the heat; hollyhocks stood in their stateliness flecked with changing shadows from the aspen tree near by. Beds of tiger lilies, pinks, larkspur, sweetwilliams, canterbury bells, primroses, gillyflowers, lobelia, bloomed in a luxuriance that the methodical box which bordered them could not restrain. But the garden was by no means a blaze of sunshine, for ash trees, maples, elms, and varieties of the pine were there. Trumpet-vines climbed on the wall, and overtopping that, caught at trellises prepared to receive them, and formed screens of shadows that flickered in every breeze and changed their places with the changing sun. But it was only with a passing glance that the visitor saw these things, his eyes were fixed upon an arbor at the end of the garden; it was covered with clematis, while two great elms met overhead at its entrance and shaded the path to it for a little distance. Under these elms stood a group of young people. He was unannounced, and had opportunity without being himself perceived, to scan this little group as he went forward. His expression varied with each member of it, but showed an interest of some sort in each. Now it was full of passionate delight; then it changed as his look fell upon a tall young man with dark eyes and a bearing that in its most gracious moments seemed unable to lose a touch of haughtiness, but whose face now was alive with a restful joy. The gazer, as he perceived this happiness, so wanting in himself, scowled with a bitter hate and looked instantly toward another of the party, this time with an expression of triumph. At the fourth and last member of the group his glance though scowling, was contemptuous; but the receiver was as unconscious of contempt as he felt undeserving of it. From him the gazer's eyes returned to the person at whom he had first looked. She was standing on the step of the arbor, an end of the clematis vine swaying lightly back and forth over her head, and almost touching her bright hair which was now towered high in the fashion of the day. She was holding a spray of the vine in her hand. She had fastened one end in the hair of a young lady who stood beside her, and was now bringing the other about her neck, arranging the leaves and flowers with skilful touches. Three men, including the new-comer, watched her pretty air of absorption, and the deftness of her taper fingers, the sweep of her dark lashes on her cheek as from the height of her step she looked down at her companion, the curves of her beautiful mouth that at the moment was daintly holding a pin with which the end of the spray was to be fastened upon the front of the other's white dress. It was certainly effective there. Yet none of the three men noticed this, or saw that between the two girls the question as to beauty was a question of time, that while the one face was blooming now in the perfection of its charm, the charm of the other was still in its calyx. The adorner intuitively felt something of this. Perhaps she was not the less fond of her friend that the charms she saw in her were not patent to everybody. Bring her forward as much as she might, Katie felt that Elizabeth Royal would never be a rival. She even shrank from this kind of prominence into which Katie's play was bringing her now. She had been taken in hand at unawares and showed an impatience that if the other were not quick, would oblige her to leave the work unfinished.

"There," cried Katie, at last giving the leaves a final pat of arrangement, "that looks well, don't you think so, Master Waldo?"

"Good morning, Mistress Archdale," broke in a voice before Waldo could answer. "And you, Mistress Royal," bowing low to her. "After our late hours last night, permit me to felicitate you upon your good health this morning, and—" he was about to add, "your charming appearance," but something in the girl's eyes as she looked full at him held back the words, and for a moment ruffled his smooth assurance. But as he recovered himself and turned to salute the gentlemen, the smile on his lips had triumph through its vexation.

"My proud lady, keep your pride a little longer," he said to himself. And as he bowed to Stephen Archdale with a dignity as great as Stephen's own, he was thinking: "My morning in that hot office has not been in vain. I know your weak point now, my lofty fellow, and it is there that I will undermine you. You detest business, indeed! John Archdale feels that with his only son in England studying for the ministry he needs a son-in-law in partnership with him. The thousands which I have been putting into his business this morning are well spent, they make me welcome here. Yes, your uncle needs me, Stephen Archdale, for your clever papa is not always brotherly in his treatment, he has more than once brought heavy losses upon the younger firm. It's a part of my pleasure in prospect that now I shall be able to checkmate him in such schemes, perhaps to bring back a little of the loss upon the shoulders of his heir. Ah, I am safer from you than you dream." He turned to Waldo, and as the two men bowed, they looked at one another steadily. Each was remembering their conversation the night before over some Bordeaux in Waldo's room, for they were staying at the same inn and often spent an hour together. They had drunk sparingly, but, just returned from their sail, each was filled with Katie Archdale's beauty, and each had spoken out his purpose plainly, Waldo with an assurance that, if it savored a little of conceit, was full of manliness, the other with a half-smothered fierceness of passion that argued danger to every obstacle in its way.

"You've come at the very right moment, Master Harwin," broke in Katie's unconscious voice, and she smiled graciously, as she had a habit of doing at everybody; "We were talking about you not two minutes ago."

"Then I am just in time to save my character."

"Don't be too sure about that," returned Miss Royal.

Waldo laughed, and Katie exchanged glances with him, and smiled mischievously.

"No, don't be too sure; it will depend upon whether you say 'yes,' or 'no,' to my question. We were wondering something about you."

Harwin's heart sank, though he returned her smile and her glance with interest. For there were questions she might ask which would inconvenience him, but they should not embarrass him.

"We were wondering," pursued Katie, "if you had ever been presented. Have you?"

As the sun breaks out from a heavy cloud, the light returned to Harwin's blue eyes.

"Yes," he said, "four years ago. I went to court with my uncle, Sir Rydal Harwin, and his majesty was gracious enough to nod in answer to my profound reverence."

"It was a very brilliant scene, I am sure, and very interesting."

"Deeply interesting," returned Harwin with all the traditional respect of an Englishman for his sovereign. Archdale's lip curled a trifle at what seemed to him obsequiousness, but Harwin was not looking at him.

"Stephen has been," pursued Katie, "and he says it was very fine, but for all that he does not seem to care at all about it. He says he would rather go off for a day's hunting any time. The ladies looked charming, he said, and the gentlemen magnificent; but he was bored to death, for all that."

"In order to appreciate it fully," returned Archdale, "it would be necessary that one should be majesty." He straightened himself as he spoke, and looked at Harwin with such gravity that the latter, meeting the light of his eyes, was puzzled whether this was jest or earnest, until Miss Royal's laugh relieved his uncertainty. Katie laid her hand on the speaker's arm and shook it lightly.

"You told me I should be sure to enjoy it," she said. "Now, what do you mean?"

"Ah! but you would be queen," said Harwin, "queen in your own right, a divine right of beauty that no one can resist."

Katie looked at him, disposed for a moment to be angry, but her love of admiration could not resist the worship of his eyes, and the lips prepared to pout curved into a smile not less bewitching that the brightness of anger was still in her cheeks. Archdale and Waldo turned indignant glances on the speaker, but it was manifestly absurd to resent a speech that pleased the object of it, and that each secretly felt would not have sounded ill if he had made it himself. Elizabeth looked from Katie to Harwin with eyes that endorsed his assertion, and as the latter read her expression his scornful wonder in the boat returned.

"Why are we all standing outside in the heat?" cried the hostess. "Let us go into the arbor, there is plenty of room to move about there, we have had a dozen together in it many a time." She passed in under the arch as she spoke, and the others followed her. There in her own way which was not so very witty or wise, and yet was very charming, she held her little court, and the three men who had been in love with her at the beginning of the hour were still more in love at the end of it. And Elizabeth who watched her with an admiration as deep as their's, if more tranquil, did not wonder that it was so. Katie did not forget her, nor did the gentlemen, or at least two of them, forget to be courteous, but if she had known what became of the spray of clematis which being in the way as she turned her head, she had soon unfastened and let slip to the ground, she would not have wondered, nor would she have cared. If she had seen Archdale's heel crush it unheedingly as he passed out of the arbor, the beat of her pulses would never have varied.



CHAPTER V.

ANTICIPATIONS.

It was early in December. The months had brought serious changes to all but one of the group that the August morning had found in Mr. Archdale's garden. Two had disappeared from the scene of their defeat, and to two of them the future seemed opening up vistas of happiness as deep as the present joy. Elizabeth Royal alone was a spectator in the events of the past months, and even in her mind was a questioning that was at least wonderment, if not pain.

Kenelm Waldo was in the West Indies, trying to escape from his pain at Katie Archdale's refusal, but carrying it everywhere with him, as he did recollections of her; to have lost them would have been to have lost his memory altogether.

Ralph Harwin also had gone. His money was still in the firm of John Archdale & Co., which it had made one of the richest in the Colonies; its withdrawal was now to be expected at any moment, for Harwin did not mean to return, and Archdale, while endeavoring to be ready for this, saw that it would cripple him. Harwin had been right in believing that he should make himself very useful and very acceptable to Katie's father. For Archdale who was more desious of his daughter's happiness than of anything else in the world, was disappointed that this did not lie in the direction which, on the whole, would have been for his greatest advantage. Harwin and he could have done better for Katie in the way of fortune than Stephen Archdale with his distaste for business would do. The Archdale connection had always been a dream of his, until lately when this new possibility had superseded his nephew's interest in his thoughts. There was an address and business keenness about Harwin that, if Stephen possessed at all, was latent in him. The Colonel was wealthy enough to afford the luxury of a son who was only a fine gentleman. Stephen was a good fellow, he was sure, and Katie would be happy with him. And yet—but even these thoughts left him as he leaned back in his chair that day, sitting alone after dinner, and a mist came over his eyes as he thought that in less than a fortnight his home would no longer be his little daughter's.

"It will be all right," he said to himself with that sigh of resignation with which we yield to the inevitable, as if there were a certain choice and merit in doing it. "It is well that the affairs of men are in higher hands than ours." John Archdale's piety was of the kind that utters itself in solitude, or under the breath.

Katie at the moment was upstairs with her mother examining a package of wedding gear that had arrived that day. She had no hesitation as to whom her choice should have been. Yet, as she stood holding a pair of gloves, measuring the long wrists on her arm and then drawing out the fingers musingly, it was not of Stephen that she was thinking, or of him that she spoke at last, as she turned away to lay down the gloves and take up a piece of lace.

"Mother," she said, "I do sometimes feel badly for Master Harwin; he is the only man in all the world that I ever had anything like fear of, and now and then I did of him, such a fierceness would come over him once in a while, not to me, but about me, I know, about losing me. He was terribly in earnest. Stephen never gets into these moods, he is always kind and lovable, just as he has been to me as far back as I can remember, only, of course more so now."

"But things have gone differently with him and with poor Master Harwin," answered Mrs. Archdale. "If you had said 'no' to Stephen, you would have seen the dark moods in him, too."

The young girl looked at her mother and smiled, and blushed a little in a charming acknowledgment of feminine power to sway the minds of the sterner half of humanity. Then she grew thoughtful again, not even flattery diverting her long from her subject.

"But Stephen never could be like that," she said. "Stephen couldn't be dark in that desperate sort of way. I can't describe it in Master Harwin, but I feel it. Somehow, he would rather Stephen would die, or I should, than have us marry."

"Did he ever say so?"

"Why, no, but you can feel things that nobody says. And, then, there is something else, too. I am quite sure that sometime in his life he did something, well, perhaps something wicked, I don't know what, but I do know that a load lies on his conscience; for one day he told me as much. It was just as he was going away, the day after I had refused him and he knew of my engagement. He asked permission to come and bid me goodby. Don't you remember?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Archdale.

"He looked at me and sighed. 'I've paid a heavy price,' he said half to himself, 'to lose.' Then he added, 'Mistress Archdale, will you always believe that I loved you devotedly, and always have loved you from the hour I first saw you? If I could undo'—then he waited a moment and grew dreadfully pale, and I think he finished differently from his first intention—'If I could undo something in the past,' he said, 'I would give my life to do it, but my life would be of no use.'"

"That looks as if it was something against you, Katie."

"Oh, no, I don't think so. Besides, he wouldn't have given his life at all; that's only the way men talk, you know, when they want to make an impression of their earnestness on women and they always think they do it that way. But the men that are the readiest to give up their lives don't say anything about it beforehand. Stephen would die for me, I'm sure, but he never told me so in his life. He don't make many protestations; he takes a great deal for granted. Why shouldn't he; we've known one another from babyhood? But Master Harwin knew, somehow, the minute after he spoke, if he didn't at the time, that he wouldn't die for his fault at all, whatever it was. And then, after he spoke it seemed to me as if he had changed his mind and didn't care about it in any way, he only cared that I had refused him, and that he was not going to see me any more. I am sorry for a man like that, and if he were going to stay here I should be afraid of him, afraid for Stephen. But he sails in a few days. I don't wonder he couldn't wait here for the next ship, wait over the wedding, and whatever danger from him there may have been sails with him. Poor man, I don't see what he liked me for." And with a sigh, Katie dismissed the thought of him and his grief and evil together, and turned her attention again to the wedding finery.

"Only see what exquisite lace," she cried, throwing it out on the table to examine the web. "Where did Elizabeth get it, I wonder? She begged to be allowed to give me my bridal veil, and she has certainly done it handsomely, just as she always does everything, dear child. I suppose it came out in one of her father's ships."

"Everything Master Royal touches turns into gold," said Mrs. Archdale, after a critical examination of the lace had called forth her admiration. "It's Mechlin, Katie. There is nobody in the Colonies richer than he," she went on, "unless, possibly, the Colonel."

"I dare say I ought to pretend not to care that Stephen will have ever so much money," returned the girl, taking up a broad band of India muslin wrought with gold, and laying it over her sleeve to examine the pattern, at which she smiled approvingly. "But then I do care. Stephen is a great deal more interesting rich than he would be poor; he is not made for a grub, neither am I, and living is much better fun when one has laces like cobwebs, and velvets and paduasoys, and diamonds, mother, to fill one's heart's desire."

As she spoke she looked an embodiment of fair youth and innocent pleasure, and her mother, with a mother's admiration and sympathy in her heart, gave her a lingering glance before she put on a little sternness, and said, "My child, I don't like to hear you talk in that light way. Your heart's desires, I trust, are set upon better things, those of another world."

"Yes, mother, of course. But, then you know, we are to give our mind faithfully to the things next to us, in order to get to those beyond them, and that's what I am doing now, don't you see? O, mother, dear, how I shall miss you, and all your dear, solemn talks, and your dear, smiling looks." And winding her arms about her mother, Katie kissed her so affectionately that Mrs. Archdale felt quite sure that the laces and paduasoys had not yet spoilt her little daughter.

"Now, for my part," she said a few minutes later as she laid down a pair of dainty white kid shoes, glittering with spangles from the tip of their peaked toes to their very heels,—high enough for modern days,—"These fit you to perfection, my dear. For my part," she repeated, "you know that I have always hoped you would marry Stephen, yet my sympathies go with Master Waldo in his loss, instead of with the other one, whom I think your father at last grew to like best of the three; it was strange that such a man could have gotten such an influence, but then, they were in business together, and there is always something mysterious about business. Master Waldo is a fine, open-hearted young man, and he was very fond of you."

"Yes, I suppose so," answered the girl, with an effort to merge a smile into the expression accompanying a sympathetic sigh. "It's too bad. But, then, men must look out for themselves, women have to, and Kenelm Waldo probably thinks he is worth any woman's heart."

"So he is, Katie."

"Um!" said the girl. "Well, he'd be wiser to be a little humble about it. It takes better."

"Do you call Stephen humble?"

Katie laughed merrily. "But," she said, at last, "Stephen is Stephen, and humility wouldn't suit him. He would look as badly without his pride as without his lace ruffles."

"Is it his lace ruffles you're in love with, my child?"

"I don't know, mother," and she laughed again. "When should a young girl laugh if not on the eve of her marriage with the man of her choice, when friends and wealth conspire to make the event auspicious?"

"I shall not write to thank Elizabeth for her gift," she said, "for she will be here before a letter can reach her. She leaves Boston to-morrow, that's Tuesday, and she must be here by Friday, perhaps Thursday night, if they start very early."

"I thought Master Royal's letter said Monday?"

"Tuesday," repeated Katie, "if the weather be suitable for his daughter. Look at this letter and you'll see; his world hinges on his daughter's comfort, he is father and mother both to her. Elizabeth needs it, too; she can't take care of herself well. Perhaps she could wake up and do it for somebody else. But I am not sure. She's a dear child, though she seems to me younger than I am. Isn't it funny, mother, for she knows a good deal more, and she's very bright sometimes? But she never makes the best of anything, especially of herself."

It was the day before the wedding. The great old house was full of bustle from its gambrel roof to its very cellar in which wines were decanted to be in readiness, and into which pastries and sweetmeats were carried from the pantry shelves overloaded with preparations for the next day's festivities. Servants ran hither and thither, full of excitement and pleasant anticipations. They all loved Katie who had grown up among them. And, besides, the morrow's pleasures were not to be enjoyed by them wholly by proxy, for if there was to be only wedding enough for one pair, at least the remains of the feast would go round handsomely. Two or three black faces were seen among the English ones, but though they were owned by Mr. Archdale, the disgrace and the badge of servitude had fallen upon them lightly, and the shining of merry eyes and the gleam of white teeth relieved a darkness that nature, and not despair, had made. In New England, masters were always finding reasons why their slaves should be manumitted. How could slavery flourish in a land where the wind of freedom was so strong that it could blow a whole cargo of tea into the ocean?

But there were not only servants going back and forth through the house, for it was full of guests. The Colonel's family living so near, would not come until the morning of the ceremony, but other relatives were there in force. Mrs. Archdale's brother,—a little patronizing but very rich and gracious, and his family who having been well patronized, were disposed to be humble and admiring, and her sister who not having fed on the roses of life, had a good deal of wholesome strength about her, together with a touch of something which, if it were wholesome, was not exactly grateful. Cousins of Mr. Archdale were there also. Elizabeth Royal, at Katie's special request, had been her guest for the last ten days. Her father had gone home again the day he brought her and was unable to return for the wedding and to take his daughter home afterward, as he had intended; but he had sent Mrs. Eveleigh, his cousin and housekeeper. It seemed strange that the father and daughter were so companionable, for superficially they were entirely unlike. Mr. Royal was considered stern and shrewd, and, though a well-read man, eminently practical, more inclined to business than scholarship, while Elizabeth was dreamy, generous, wholly unacquainted with business of any kind, and it seemed too much uninterested in it ever to be acquainted. To most people the affection between them seemed only that of nature and circumstances, Elizabeth being an only child, and her mother having died while she was very young. It is the last analysis of character that discovers the same trait under different forms. None of her friends carried analysis so far, and it was possible that no effort could have discovered subtle likeness then. Perhaps it was still latent and would only hereafter find some outward expression for itself. It sometimes happens that physical likeness comes out only after death, mental not until late in life, and likeness of character in the midst of unlikeness is revealed usually only in the crucible of events.

That day, Elizabeth, from her window overlooking the garden, had seen a picture that she never forgot. It was about noon, all the warmth that was in the December sun filled the garden (which the leafless trees no longer shaded). There was no snow on the ground, for the few stray flakes premonitory of winter which had fallen from time to time in the month had melted almost as soon as they had touched the ground. The air was like an Indian summer's day; it seemed impossible that winter could be round the corner waiting only for a change of wind. The tracery of the boughs of the trees and of all their little twigs against the blue sky was exquisite, the stalks of the dead flowers warmed into a livelier brown in the sunlight. Yet it may have been partly the figures in the foreground that made the whole picture so bright to Elizabeth, for to her the place was filled with the lovers who were walking there and talking, probably saying those nothings, so far as practical matters go, which they may indulge in freely only before the thousand cares of life interfere with their utterances. Stephen had come to the house, and Katie and he were taking what they were sure would prove to be their last opportunity for quiet talk before the wedding. They went slowly down the long path to the clematis arbor, and then turned back again, for it was not warm enough to sit down out of doors. Elizabeth watched them as they walked toward the house, and a warmth came into her own face in her pleasure. "Dear Katie," she said to herself, "she is sure to be so happy." The young girl's hand lay on Archdale's arm, and she was looking up at him with a smile full of joyousness. Archdale's head was bent and the watcher could not see his eyes, but his attitude of devotion, his smile, and Katie's face told the story.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

* * * * *

GLORIFYING TRIAL BY JURY.

By CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D.

Twice within two years representatives of the highest courts of Massachusetts have published in the North American Review, panegyrics of jurics and jury trials. The late Judge Foster and Judge Pitman both concede—what indeed is too notorious to be denied—that there are frequent and gross miscarriages of justice; but they touch lightly on this aspect of the question. Being personally identified with the institution which they extol, their self-complacency is neither unnatural nor unpardonable. It seems not to have occurred to them, that if a reform of our judiciary is really needed, they are "a part of the thing to be reformed." But in weighing their testimony to the advantages of trial by jury, allowance must be made for the bias of office and for the bias of interest. In the idolatrous throng which drowned the voice of St. Paul with their halcyon and vociferous shouts, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" there was no one who shouted louder than the thrifty silversmith, Demetrius, who added the naive remark, "By this craft we live."

In the outset of his presentation of the beauties of jury trials, Judge Pitman says that "certain elementary rules of law are so closely associated with this system that change in one would require alteration of the other." Now, these rules of law are either good or bad. If they are bad, they should be revised; and the fact that they are so closely associated with trial by jury, that they can not be amended without injury thereto, adds little lustre to that time-honored institution. One the other hand, if these "elementary rules of law" are good, it is presumed that courts will be able to appreciate and apply them quite as well as juries.

Judge Pitman then proceeds to argue that criminal trials without juries would be attended with disadvantages, because he thinks that judges would have, oftener than juries, that "reasonable doubt" which by law entitles the accused to an acquittal. This warrants one of two inferences: either the writer would have men convicted whose guilt is involved in "reasonable doubt," or he fears that the learning and experience of the bar and the bench tend to unfit the mind to weigh the evidence of guilt or innocence. It is curious that in a former number of the same Review, another learned writer expressed exactly the contrary opinion.[A] Mr. Edward A. Thomas thinks that "judges are too much inclined to convict persons charged with criminal offences," and that juries are too much inclined to acquit them. And Judge Foster seemingly agrees with Mr. Thomas upon this point.

[Footnote A: N.A. Review, No. CCCIV, March, 1882.]

Again: Judge Pitman argues that a jury is better qualified than a judge to determine what is "due care." And Judge Foster, going still further, says, "common men belonging to various walks in life, are, in most cases, better fitted to decide correctly ordinary questions of fact than any single judge or bench of judges." There are, unquestionably, many cases in which the main questions are so entirely within the scope of ordinary men's observation and experience that no special knowledge is required to decide them. With respect to such cases, it is true that

"A few strong instincts and a few plain rules Are worthy all the learning of the schools."

But where the questions involved are many in number, intricate and complicated in character, and enveloped in a mass of conflicting testimony requiring many days to hear it, is it not manifest that a jury,—not one of whom has taken a note during the trial, some of whose members have heard as though hearing not, and seen as though seeing not, the testimony and the witnesses,—deals with such a case at a great disadvantage, as compared with a judge whose notes contain all the material testimony, and who has all the opportunity for rest and relaxation that he may require before filing the finding which is his verdict? With respect to such cases, it is clear that, as a learned English judge has said, "the securities which can be taken for justice in the case of a trial by a judge without a jury, are infinitely greater than those which can be taken for trial by a judge and jury."[A] A judge may be required to state what facts he finds, as well as the general conclusion at which he has arrived, and to state upon what views of the legal questions he has acted.

[Footnote A: Stephen's History of the Criminal Law, 568.]

Judge Foster most justly remarks: "There can be no such thing as a good jury trial without the co-operation of a learned, upright, conscientious and efficient presiding judge, ... holding firmly and steadily the reins, and guiding the entire proceedings." This is what Judge Foster was, and what Judge Pitman is, accustomed to do. But if the jury requires such "guiding" from the court, and if the court is competent thus to guide them, it is clear that the court must know the way and must be able to follow it; otherwise it could not so guide the jury.

Judge Pitman also argues that the jury can eliminate "the personal equation" better than the judge. But is this so? Does education count for nothing in producing that calm, firm, passionless state of mind which is essential in those who determine causes between party and party?

Are not juries quite as often as judges swayed by popular clamor, by prejudice, by appeals to their passions, and by considerations foreign to the merits of the case? As Mr. Thomas asks in the article before quoted: "How many juries are strictly impartial? How many remain entirely uninfluenced by preference for one or the other of the parties, one or the other counsel, or the leaning of some friend to either, or by political affiliations, or church connections, or relations to secret societies, or by what they have heard, or by what they have read? Can they be as discerning and impartial as a bench of judges, or if inclined to some bias or prejudice, can they as readily as a judge divest their minds of such an impression?" If it be true that juries composed of such material as Judge Pitman shows our juries to be largely composed of, are as capable of mastering and determining intricate questions of fact as judges trained to that duty, then we may truly say—

"Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, And naught is everything, and everything is naught."

According to Judge Pitman, the system which prevails in some of the states, of trials by the court without juries (with the provision that the trial shall be by jury if either party demand it), "works satisfactorily." The testimony of lawyers and litigants in Massachusetts, Connecticut and other states where this system prevails, is to the same effect. For ourselves, while far from desiring the abolition of trial by jury, whether in civil or in criminal causes, we are by no means disposed to "throw glamour" (as the Scotch say), over an instrumentality for ascertaining legal truth, which is so cumbersome in its operation, and so uncertain in its results. A jury is, at best, a means, and not an end; and although much may be said about the incidental usefulness of jury service on account of its tendency to enlarge the intellectual horizon of jurors, all that is beside the main question.

Whether a particular occurrence took place or not, is a question which, whether it be tried by a judge or by a jury, must be decided upon evidence; which consists, in part, of circumstances, and, in part, of acts, but in part also, and very largely, of the sworn statements of individuals. While falsehood and corruption prevail among all classes of the community so extensively as they now do, it is useless to claim that decisions based upon human testimony are always or generally correct. Perjury is as rife as ever, and works as much wrong as ever. To a conscientious judge, like Judge Pitman, "the investigation of a mass of tangled facts and conflicting testimony" cannot but be wearisome, as he says it is; and, in many cases, the sense of responsibility "cannot but be oppressive;" but he has so often repeated a dictum of Lord Redesdale that he must be presumed to have found solace in it—"it is more important that an end be put to litigation, than that justice should be done in every case." There is truth in that dictum; but, like other truths, it has often been abused, especially by incompetent or lazy or drowsy judges. More unfortunate suitors have suffered as martyrs to that truth than the judges who jauntily "cast" them would admit.

Judges may do their best; juries may do their best; they will often fall into error; and instead of glorifying themselves or the system of which they are a part, it would be more modest in them to say, "We are unprofitable servants." Not many judges have been great enough to say, "I know I sometimes err," but some have said it. The lamented Judge Colt said it publicly more than once, and the admission raised, rather than lowered, him in the general esteem. When he died the voice of the bar and of the people said, "Other judges have been revered, but we loved Judge Colt."

Massachusetts gives her litigants the choice of a forum. All trials in civil causes are by the courts alone, unless one party or the other claims a jury. If the reader has a case of much complexity, either with respect to the facts, or with respect to the law, perhaps he would like to have our opinion as to which is the better forum. The answer is the same that was given by one who lived at the parting of the ways, to a weary traveller who inquired which fork of the road he should take: "Both are full of snags, quagmires and pitfalls. No matter which you take, before you reach the end of your journey you will wish you had taken the other." In the trial by jury, and in the trial by the court, just as in the trial by ordeal, and in the trial by battle in the days of old, the element of chance is of the first magnitude.



PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT.

SENEFELDER, THE INVENTOR OF LITHOGRAPHY AND CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHY.—HIS ART IN BOSTON DEVELOPED BY L. PRANG & CO.—COLOR-PRINTING ON SATIN, ETC.

A century ago the world knew nothing of the art of lithography; color-printing was confined to comparatively crude products from wooden blocks, most of which were hardly equal to the Japanese fan pictures now familiar to all of us. The year 1799 gave us a new invention which was destined to revolutionize reproductive art and add immensely to the means for education, culture and enjoyment.

Alois Senefelder, born 1771, at Prague (Austria), started life with writing plays, and too poor to pay a printer, he determined to invent a process of his own which should serve to print his manuscript without dependence upon the (to him) too costly types.

A born inventor, this Alois Senefelder, a genius, supported by boundless hope, immense capability for hard, laborious work, and an indomitable energy; he started with the plan of etching his writings in relief on metal plates, to take impressions therefrom by means of rollers. He found the metal too costly for his experiments; and limestone slabs from the neighboring quarries—he living then in Munich—were tried as a substitute. Although partly successful in this direction, he continued through years of hard, and often disappointing trials, to find something more complete. He hit upon the discovery that a printed sheet of paper (new or old) moistened with a thin solution of gum Arabic would, when dabbled over printers' ink, accept the ink from the dabbler only on its printed parts and remain perfectly clean in the blank spaces, so that a facsimile impression could be taken from this inked-in sheet. He found that this operation might be repeated until the original print gave out by wear. Here was a new discovery, based on the properties of attraction and repulsion between fatty matters (printers ink), and the watery solution of gum Arabic. The extremely delicate nature of the paper matrix was a serious drawback, and had to be overcome. The slabs of limestone which served Senefelder in a previous emergency were now recurred to by him as an absorbent material similar to paper, and a trial by making an impression from his above-mentioned paper matrix on the stone, and subsequent gumming, convinced him that he was correct in his surmise. By this act lithography became an established fact.

A few short years of intelligent experimenting revealed to him all the possibilities of this new discovery. Inventions of processes followed each other closely until in 1818 he disclosed to the world in a volume of immortal interest not only a complete history of his invention and his processes, but also a reliable description of the same for others to follow. Nothing really new except photo-lithography has been added to this charming art since that time; improvement only by manual skill and by chemical progress, can be claimed by others.

Chromo-lithography (printing in colors from stone) was experimented on by the great inventor. He outlined its possibilities by saying, that he verily believed that printed pictures like paintings would sometimes be made thereby, and whoever has seen the productions of our Boston firm, L. Prang & Co., will bear him out in the verity of his prediction.

When Prang touched this art in 1856 it was in its infancy in this country. Stray specimens of more or less merit had been produced, especially by Martin Thurwanger (pen work) and Fabronius (crayon work), but much was left to be perfected. A little bunch of roses to embellish a ladies' magazine just starting in Boston, was the first work with which the firm occupied its single press. Crude enough it was, but diligence and energy soon developed therefrom the works which have astonished not only this country but even Europe, and the firm, which took thereby the lead in their speciality of art reproduction in color, has succeeded in keeping it ever since from year to year without one faltering step, until there is no single competitor in the civilized world to dispute its mastery. This is something to be proud of, not only for the firm in question, but even for the country at large, and to crown its achievements, the firm of L. Prang & Co. have this year made, apart from their usual wonderful variety of original Christmas cards and other holiday art prints, a reproduction of a flower piece of the celebrated Belgian flower painter, Jean Robie, and printed it on satin by a process invented and patented by Mr. Prang. For truthfulness as a copy this print challenges the admiration of our best artists and connoisseurs. The gorgeous work as it lies before our eyes seems to us to be as perfect as if it left the very brush of the master, and even in close comparison with the original it does not lose an iota of its charms.

Of the marvellous excellence of this, the latest achievement of this remarkable house, thousands who visited the late exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic's Association and saw Messrs. L. Prang & Co.'s, extensive exhibit, can bear witness. Everybody who looked at the two pictures, the original masterpiece by Robie and its reproduction by Prang, side by side, was puzzled to distinguish which was which, many pointing to the reproduction as the better, and in their eyes, therefore as the original picture. The same was true with regard to many more of this justly celebrated firm's reproductions, which they did not hesitate to exhibit, alongside of the original paintings. Altogether, their exhibit with its large collection of elegant satin prints, its studies for artists, its historical feature, showing the enormous development of the firm's work since 1856, its interesting illustration by successive printings of how their pictures are made, and its instructive and artistic arrangement of their collection, made it one of the most attractive features of the fair.

What more can we say but that we are proud ourselves of this achievement within our city limits; it cannot fail to increase the fame our beloved Boston as a town of masters in thought and art. Honor to the firm of L. Prang & Co.



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THE VOYAGE OF THE "VIVIAN" to the North Pole and Beyond, or Adventures of Two Youths in the Open Polar sea. By COLONEL THOMAS W. KNOX, the author of "The Boy Travellers in the Far East," "The Young Nimrods," etc. Illustrated; 8vo.; cloth, $3. Harper & Brothers, New York.

A fascinating story for boys, into which is woven by the graceful pen of the author the history of Arctic exploration for centuries past. The young readers who have followed the "Boy Travellers in the Far East" will welcome this addition to the literature of adventure and travel.

LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE AIR, By the authors of "Little Playfellows." Illustrated; 8vo., $1. D. Lothrop & Co., Boston.

A series of pretty stories of feathered songsters, for little men and women, alike interesting to the young and children of an older growth.

POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS. By CHARLES NORDHOFF, author of "The Communistic Societies of the United States," etc. Popular edition; paper, 12mo., 400. Harper and Brothers, New York.

A series of essays in the form of letters, calculated to instruct the youth of this country in their duty as American citizens.

A PERILOUS SECRET. By CHARLES READE. Cloth, 12mo.; 75 cents. Harper and Brothers, New York.

This volume forms one of Harper's Household editions of the works of this popular novelist.

THE ICE QUEEN. By ERNEST INGERSOLL, author of "Friends Worth Knowing," "Knocking Around the Rockies," etc. Illustrated; Cloth, 16mo., $1. Harper and Brothers, New York.

A story for boys and girls of the adventures of a small party storm-bound in winter, on a desolate island in Lake Erie.

GOD AND THE FUTURE LIFE; or the Reasonableness of Christianity. By CHARLES NORDHOFF, author of "Politics for Young Americans," etc. 16mo., cloth, $1. Harper and Brothers, New York.

Paley's "Natural Theology," familiar to students, is supplemented by this volume, which brings the argument down to the present developement of science. It is a book for thoughtful men and women, whose faith in the immortality of the soul needs strengthening.

MOTHERS IN COUNCIL. 16mo., cloth, $1. Harper and Brothers, New York.

A series of essays and discussions of value to the family circle, teaching how sons can be brought up to be good husbands, and daughters to be contented and useful old maids, and many other valuable lessons.

GOOD STORIES. By CHARLES READE, 16mo., cloth, $1. Harper and Brothers, New York.

These short stories by Mr. Reade, some of which have appeared from time to time in the Bazar, are here gathered in one volume. They are "The History of an Acre," "The Knightsbridge Mystery," "Single Heart and Double Face," and many others.

I SAY NO; or, the Love Letter Answered. By WILKIE COLLINS; 16mo., cloth,$1. Harper and Brothers, New York.

The announcement that a new novel from the pen of Mr. Collins has appeared is enough to insure a large and steady demand for it.

THE END