As sound is the symmetrical aerial motion, if our atmosphere embraced our sun, and extended throughout space, we should perhaps hear in the ambient the fundamental chord, resolvable into the diatonic scale—as we look upon the beam of white which the prism decomposes into the solar spectrum, and in the ghostly watches of the night, we might recognize the 'music of the spheres' as the planets rushed around their airy orbits, with a noise like the 'noise of many waters,' no longer a poetic illusion, but a harmonic fact.

Light, whether white or colored, is transmitted through ether in waves of measurable length: each atom of the medium, when disturbed, moves around its place of rest in an orbit of variable dimension and eccentricity. On the character of the orbit depends the character of the light; and on the velocity of orbit motion, its intensity. Like the gentle pulsations which circle from the point where fell the pebble in the purple lake, come the grateful twilight waves, red with the last kiss of day; like the fierce struggles of the storm-beaten ocean floods come the lightning waves, blazing through the thunder clouds, howling in riven agony: so great is the variety of character in these orbicular disturbances, which, acting upon the optic nerves, produce the sensation of multiform light and color.

Waves of light, like waves of sound, are of different lengths, and while the eye prefers some single waves to others, it recognizes a harmony in certain combinations, which it cannot discover in different ones.

While, however, the constitution of individual eyes acknowledges one color more pleasing than another, there is none, perhaps, which does not prefer the coldest monochromatic to entire absence of color, as in blank white, or to an absolute vacancy of light, as in black.

Sepia pieces are more agreeable than the neatest drawings in China ink, or the most graceful curves done in chalk upon a blackboard. But however the eye may admire a severe and simple unity, it relishes still more a harmonious complexity; and a very mediocre little pensee in water colors, will prove more generally attractive than the monochromatic copies in the Liber Veritatis.

But to this complexity there must be limits—an endless and incongruous variety teases and revolts; the discordant effect of innumerable tints, among which some are sure to be uncongenial to each other, is always extremely irritating. There ought, then, to be a scale of color, it would seem, within whose limits the purest harmonies are to be found, and beyond which subdivisions should be no more allowed than in constant musical notes. When this idea strikes, as it must have, many artists, reason, consideration, instinct, and all, refer at once to the solar spectrum as such an one. The analogy between this scale, which governs the chromatics of the sunset and thunderstorm, and that which the science of man has established, empirically, for harmonies, is remarkable, and we shall try to make it patent. They are both scales of seven: the tonic, mediant, and dominant, find their types in red, yellow, and blue, while the modifications on which the diatonic scale is constructed, resemble, numerically and esthetically, the well-known variations in the spectrum.

The theory of harmonies in optics is the same as in acoustics, the same as in everything—it is based on simplicity. Those colors, like those notes, the number of whose vibrations or waves in the same time bear some simple ratio to each other, are harmonious; an absolute equality produces unison; and a group of harmonies is melody both in music and in color. At this point we cannot but hint at the analogy already discovered between the elements of music and the elements of form. Angles harmonize in simple analysis, or intricate synthesis, whose circular ratios are simple.

Numerical proportions are the roots of that shaft of harmony which, springing from motion, rises and spreads into the nature around us, which the senses appreciate, the spirit feels, and the reason understands. Beauty is order, and the infinity of the law is testified in the ever-swelling proofs of an unlimited consonance in creation, of which these analogies are the smallest types. But the idea of numerical analogy is not new to our age, now that the atomic theory is established, and people are turned back to the days when the much bescouted alchemist pored with rheumy eyes over the crucible, about to be the tomb of elective affinity, and whence a golden angel was to develop from a leaden saint: when they are reminded of the Pythagorean numbers, and the arithmetic of the realists of old, they may very well imagine that the vain world, like an empty fashion, has cycled around to some primitive phase, and look for the door of that academy 'where none could enter but those who understood geometry.'

But to return. When the ear accepts a tone, or the eye a single color, it is noticed that these organs, satiated finally with the sterile simplicity, echo, as it were, in a soliloquizing manner, to themselves, other notes or tints, which are the complementary or harmony-completing ones: so that if nature does not at once present a satisfaction, the organization of the senses allows them internal resources whereon to retreat. 'There is a world without, and a world within,' which may be called complementary worlds. But nature is ever liberal, and her chords are generally harmonies, or exquisite modifications of concord. The chord of the tonic, in music, is the primal type of this harmony in sound; it is perfectly satisfactory to the tympanum; and the ear, knowing no further elements (for the tonic chord combines them all), can ask for nothing more.

This chord, constructed on the tonic C, or Do, as a key note, and consisting of the 1st, 3d, and 5th of the diatonic scale, or Do, Mi, Sol, is called the fundamental chord. The harmony in color which corresponds to this, and leaves nothing for the eye to desire, is, of course, the light that nature is full of—sunlight. White light is then the fundamental chord of color, and it is constructed on the red as the tonic, consisting of red, yellow, and blue, the 1st, 3d, and 5th of the solar spectrum.

This little analogy is suggestive, but its development is striking.

The diatonic scale in music, determined by calculation and actual experiment on vibrating chords, stands as follows. It will be easily understood by musicians, and its discussion appears in most treatises on acoustics:

Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do

C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, &c.

1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2.

The intervals, or relative pitches of the notes to the tonic C, appear expressed in the fractions, which are determined by assuming the wave length or amount of vibration of C as unity, and finding the ratio of the wave length of any other note to it. The value of an interval is therefore found by dividing the wave length of the graver by that of the acuter note, or the number of vibrations of the acuter in a given time by the corresponding number of the graver. These fractions, it is seen, comprise the simplest ratios between the whole numbers 1 and 2, so that in this scale are the simple and satisfactory elements of harmony in music, and everybody knows that it is used as such. Now nature exposes to us a scale of color to which we have adverted; it is thus:

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Let us investigate this, and see if her science is as good as mortal penetration; let us see if she too has hit upon the simplest fractions between 1 and 2, for a scale of 7. We can determine the relative pitch of any member of this scale to another, easily, as the wave lengths of all are known from experiment.

The waves of red are the longest; it corresponds, then, to the tonic. Let us assume it as unity, and deduce the pitch of orange by dividing the first by the second.

The length of a red wave is 0.0000266 inches; the length of an orange wave is 0.0000240 inches; the fraction required then is 266/240; dividing both members of this expression by 30, it reduces to 9/8, almost exactly. This is encouraging. We find a remarkable coincidence in ratio, and in elements which occupy the same place on the corresponding scales. Again, the length of a yellow wave is 0.0000227 inches; its pitch on the scale is therefore 266/227; dividing both terms by 55, the reduced fraction approximates to 5/4 with great accuracy, when we consider the deviations from truth liable to occur in the delicate measurements necessary to determine the length of a light vibration, or the amount of quiver in a tense cord. A green wave is 0.0000211 inches in length; its pitch is then 266/211, which reduced, becomes 4/3; in like manner the subsequent intervals may be determined, which all prove to be complete analogues, except, perhaps, violet, whose fraction is 266/167, which reduces nearer 16/9 than 15/8. But these small discrepancies, which might be expected in the results of physical measurements, do not cripple the analogy which appears now in the two following scales:

DIATONIC OR NATURAL SCALE OF MUSIC.

C, D, E', F, G, A, B, C' D' E', &c.

1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2 18/8 10/4

DIATONIC OR NATURAL SCALE OF COLOR.

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. 1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 16/9

Thus orange is to red what D is to C; and to resume the proportion we used before, red is to eye as C is to ear; yellow: eye: Mi: ear; and so on the proportion extends, till the analogy embraces chords, harmonies, melodies, and compositions even.

We have already mentioned the chord of the tonic, and the corresponding eye-music, red, yellow, and blue; let us consider the chord of the dominant or 5th note, whose analogue is blue. This chord is constructed on the 5th of the diatonic as a fundamental note, and consists of the 5th, 7th, and 9th, or returning the 9th an octave, the 5th, 7th, and 2d. The parallel harmony among the spectral colors is blue, violet, and orange. The name 'dominant' indicates the nature of this chord; its often recurring importance in harmonic combinations of a certain key make it easily recognized, and it is even more pleasing than the tonic in its subdued character.

Out of doors this chord is preeminent in the sunset key, and the western skies ever chant their evening hymn in the 5th, 7th, and 2d of the ethereal music. The correspondence of the sub-dominant would be red, green, and indigo; of the chord of the 6th, red, yellow, and indigo; and so on, the curious mind may elicit the symmetrical to any notes, half notes, or combinations of notes. It is evident that as a note may be interpolated between any two of the scale, for reach or variety, and called, e.g. [sharp]-F or [flat-]G, so a half tint between green and blue is a kind of analogical [sharp]green or [flat]blue.

It seems to us that the elementary angles which Mr. Hay conceives to be the tonic, mediant, and dominant, in formal symmetry, will soon be proved to decompose into a scale of linear harmony, forming another beam in this glory of natural analogy. These angles are the fundamental ones of the pentagon square, and equilateral triangle—respectively 108 deg., 90 deg., and 60 deg.. Some such scale it is known existed when art was at its culmination in buried Greece, and it was less the stupendous genius of her designers than the soul of the universe which their rules taught them how to infuse into form, which rendered the marbles of Hellas synonymes for immortality.

The most beautiful and conclusive, and yet most mysterious sign, that points the seeker to the prosecution of this last analogy, remains yet for us to remark, and for some investigator yet to take advantage of. It is the nodal figures which arrange themselves upon an elastic plate (as of glass), when it is made to vibrate (strewed with sand) by a fiddle bow drawn across its edge, so as to produce a pitch of some intensity. These have been investigated, and found subject to certain laws, which link into the chain of symmetry that philosophers have already grasped. Among these figures, of which the simplest arise from the deepest pitches, the angles mentioned occur.

But however interesting it might be to follow out these episodical instances, they would lead us too far from our original compass.

We have plainly exhibited the identity of principle which governs the bases of sound and color, and might fairly write Q.E.D. to our proposition; but the fact so determined has a farther bearing upon art, which it may not be out of place to enlarge upon.

The painter's palette, charged with color, is the instrument with which he thrills a melody to the eye, even as the magniloquent organ or the sigh-breathing flute speak to the ear. And just as the compass of all instruments is constructed on the diatonic scale, so should the range of the palette depend upon the tinges of the spectrum.

While artists of a certain school pretend to imitate Nature, who paints literally with a pencil dipped in rainbow, they make use of a complication of tints, at which their goddess would shudder. In mixing and mixing on the groaning palette, they generate an unhappy brood of misformed tones, which never can agree upon the canvas; while the pigments, impure at best, become doubly so by amalgamation, the ramifications of contrast which such differences superinduce are sure to prove sometimes repulsive.

Contrast is nature's charm, the bubbling source that she exhausts for her prettiest harmonies and varieties.

But earthen pitchers are easily broken at the brink, and if the slippery streams thence flowing are not judiciously checked, they merge into a harsh flood that sweeps away all grace, like the magic fountain in the German myth, whose fairy tricklings, uncovered for a single night, burst into a curbless flood, that drowned the sleeping landscape ere the dawn. The small reactions of contrast in infinitesimal tints, are perhaps neglected or unforeseen, but their influence is fearfully apparent in the end.

The simplicity of beauty is very limited, and he who dabbles in infinite decompositions of color will be certain to encounter turbid and unnatural tones, whose ultimate result will be an inharmonious and disunited whole.

It is true that in the landscape, and cloudscape, and waterscape, there are wonderful extremes of chromatic gradation, for it is the hand and mind of nature that adorns herself; she can see unerringly, and lay on divinely, the remotest intricacies of shade, and her colors are pure light, swimming in ether.

But these media do not come bottled up in tin tubes, and to this gift a mortal hand ought not to presume. It might as well aspire to draw infinitely as to tint infinitesimally; for before it can find use for all the colors in nature, it ought to have all nature upon the canvas. But finally, we hold that reproductive art is as much part and parcel of human nature as the appreciative, or sensation of beauty; and that any one can learn to copy and color a landscape or design, as well as to perform upon a musical instrument. Let genius still wield the creative wand, but in the wide domain of art, over his grotto alone be it written, Procul o procul este profani.



ONE OF THE MILLION.

Shoemaker Scheffer opened his shop within sight of the college buildings, and expected to live by trade. He was young and skilful, obliging, and prompt, and acquired, ere long, a substantial reputation. Prosperity did not mislead him; he applied his income to the furtherance of his business, abhorred debt, squandered nothing, was exact and persevering.

At work early and late, he seemed the model of contentment, as he was of industry. Prompt, obliging, careful, he made the future easy of prediction.

But though the ruddy firelight shines well on the window panes, what griefs, what agonies, what discords, are developed around the hearthstone. Scheffer's quiet demeanor was, in some degree, deception. One woman in the world knew it was so—no other being did.

The immediate excitant of his unrest was found in the college students, who passed his place of business at all hours of the day. He remembered that he might have worked his way into the ranks of those fellows. Nothing vexed him so much as to see a lounger among them; for he must needs think of the time when, a stripling, he agonized over his choice, and said to himself, thinking of his mother (dead now, when the comfort he toiled for was secured), 'Time enough for books when I am sure of bread; flesh is needy and perishing, spirit is eternal.' He had walked out of school to the counter of his uncle, and stood behind it seven years, doing with earnest might what his hand found to do.

And here he was now, on his own ground, wistfully looking over his barriers into the college yard, and, shall we say it, envying the career of every studious lad—most of all that of the scholarly Harry Cromwell, and the broad-browed, proud young Mitchell, who came into his shop now and then, in remembrance of old days; for these lads could all remember when they stood in one straight line among the social forces, and neither had marched out of the old division to take rank in the new.

One day Paul Mitchell strolled into Scheffer's shop. Scheffer, at the moment, was reading a newspaper, and he did not instantly throw the sheet aside: he thought it unlikely that Paul required his service. But at last, laying the paper away, and going up to Mitchell, he asked:

'What will you have, this morning?'

Paul's bright eyes smiled, full of fun.

'I'll have fifty thousand dollars, straight, and a library like that in the Atheneum.'

'You want shoeing more,' was Scheffer's dry response; and, turning from the youth, he went back to his counter, and emptied thereon a large box of patent leathers, which he began to assort.

Gradually Paul approached, and at last he took up a pair of the boots, and asked the price. Scheffer named it; Paul threw them down again.

'You might as well ask fifty dollars as three. It's you fellows who have all the money.'

'Do you think so?' answered Scheffer; and he began to collect his goods again, and to pack them in separate boxes. He was careful, however, to throw aside the pair that had tempted Mitchell to confess a truth.

At last, when the counter was cleared, he took the boots, and said to the boy, pointing to one of the sofas:

'Sit down there, my man.'

Paul did as bidden. Scheffer untied his shoestring, drew off the dusty, worn-out shoe, and tried the pair in his hand. The fit was perfect.

Then Scheffer looked up, and, without rising, asked:

'How long have you to study before you graduate?'

'Five years.'

'Why do you speak in that way?'

'How did I speak?' asked Paul.

'Discouraged like.'

'You're mistaken.'

'Am I? Then why look so solemn? I'd like your chance.'

'You would!' exclaimed Paul, incredulous. 'Why, you had such a chance yourself once, and you didn't accept it, if they know the facts at home.'

Scheffer stood up.

'Who says that?' he asked, quietly. Still, the question had a hurried sound to Paul. 'Did any one in that house remember!'

'Josephine told me so. She thinks you made a wise choice. So do I. I wish I was as well off as you are, doing something for a support. And it was on account of your mother you made the choice! But my mother insists on my having a profession. Stuff! But nobody seems satisfied. That's one kind of consolation.'

Scheffer was silent for a moment. Half of Paul's words were unheard; but enough had struck through sense to spirit, and he said:

'Do you want to be shod for the next five years? I'll strike a bargain with you, Paul.'

'What can I do for you?' asked the astonished lad.

'I'll tell you, and if you don't like it, why, no matter—that's all.' And Scheffer added, in an earnest tone: 'I don't know but it's living near the college, hearing the bell ring, and seeing the fellows with their books, has bewitched me; any way, I'm thinking I must have an education, and I wish to get it systematically. I always thought I could have it when I chose; but if I don't bestir myself, I shall not be able to choose much longer.'

August wiped his forehead as he spoke; but he had said it. Gravely, anxiously he looked at Paul. He could have forgiven him even a smile. But Paul did not smile. Neither did he hesitate too long to rob his words of grace.

'What will you study?' he asked.

'Whatever you set me at.'

'Latin?'

'They say a fool is not a perfect fool till he has studied Latin. No, I thank you. Five years, did you say?'

'Five years,' repeated Paul, this time without sighing.

'Well, get the books I need. You know what they are. Bring the bill to me. Have it made out in your name, though, I'll settle the account. Mum's the word, Paul. I won't have snobs laughing at the learned shoemaker. The secret is mine.'

Paul promised. Scheffer thereupon picked up the student's worn-out shoes, and tossed them into a distant heap of rubbish, and the lad went on his way rejoicing. He was a widow's son, and poor; and to be shod as a gentleman should be was a serious matter to him.

II.

But, as to the secret, there was Josephine, who shared the family burden of poverty and pride; Josephine, who was a beauty, and not spoiled at that, but light of heart and cheerful, disposed to make the best of things; laughing lightly over mishaps which made her mother weep; Josephine, of whose fair womanhood as much was hoped in a worldly way as of Paul's talents; Josephine, to whom Paul told everything: how could he withhold from her August Scheffer's curious secret?

That afternoon, when he went home, Paul found her in the porch. She had a book; of course, it was one of Cromwell's. Paul discovered that when he had settled himself near her, with a book in his own hand. He had come to her so conscious of his late bargain, and the immediate benefit he had derived therefrom, that he expected an instant leaning toward discovery on her part. But Josephine was absorbed in her occupation, and though she looked up and smiled when she saw Paul coming, she looked down again and sighed the next instant, and continued reading with a gravity that soon attracted his notice. Her looks troubled him. Of late, a shadow seemed to have fallen darkly over her; she was, though Paul understood it not, in the struggle of youth with life. Do you know what that struggle is? Not all who pass through it go on their way rejoicing, over the everlasting blessedness won from the 'good and great angel.' For then this earth more manifestly were the world of the redeemed ones.

Not long before, Paul had heard Josephine say that she would not live on in this idle way. She must find some work to do. Perhaps, he thought, the sense of a necessity her mother instantly and constantly denied when Josephine spoke of it, is now again oppressing her. However occasioned, Paul's face saddened when he looked at her. The maddening impatience he had felt many times—impatience for the strength and efficiency of manhood—once more tormented him; it grew an intolerable thought to him that so many years must pass before he should be prepared to do a man's work, earn a man's wages—do as August Scheffer was doing.

Such sombre reflections as these absorbed him, when he became suddenly conscious of the eyes of Josephine. She sat looking upon him; disturbed anew, it seemed, by the show of his disturbance. His eyes met hers, and she said:

'What is it, Paul? What has gone wrong with you?'

'Nothing. But it is enough to give one the horrors to see you looking so like destruction. Something has happened, Josephine; what is it?'

'What fine shoes you have on, Paul!' she said, quickly, pretending to be absorbed in the discovery she had only that instant made.

Paul laughed, and blushed.

'I earned them,' said he.

'Earned them!' Josephine's beautiful eyes were full of surprise, of admiration even, as she now fixed them on her brother. 'I wish I could earn anything—a row of pins, or a loaf of bread.'

'If you did, you wouldn't eat all the loaf yourself. But I spent all my wage on myself, you see! But I did earn them—at least, I'm going to, before I get through.'

'How in the world did you do it, Paul?'

'I am a tutor, Josephine,' said he, with mock gravity. She answered, earnestly:

'You're a good fellow, any way, tutor or not. It's a secret, then, this business?'

'Yes, the deadest kind of a dead secret. But I shall tell you. I made a mental reservation of you. August Scheffer——'

Josephine started, trembled, looked away from Paul, recovered herself in an instant; then looked back again, and straight into his eyes. Paul saw nothing strange in this; he went on quietly:

'Scheffer is getting ambitious! If I had a shop and such a business as his, catch me bothering about books!'

'He was always fond of reading,' answered Josephine. 'You know what a reader his mother was? No, you don't know. You were too young. Well, he wants you to help him, and you are to be shod.'

'Yes, that's the whole of it. Why don't you laugh, or be surprised. I shall do my best with him.'

'I should hope you would do better than your best. Be punctual and steady in this business; for, really, you owe August Scheffer more than a shop full of shoes is worth. You will get as much good as you can possibly give. I wish I had your chance!'

'To teach him, Josephine?'

'To be a helpful man, dear Paul.'

'As far as I can see, everybody in these days is wishing that he was somebody else. That's what's the matter with Scheffer.'

'No,' said Josephine, quietly; 'it isn't. Not that. He wouldn't take any man's place that lives. Ask him.'

'Of course he would say 'No.' He is proud as Lucifer.'

'I like his spirit.'

'Yes, and you like Cromwell's spirit, too. What in the world do you suppose he is going to do?'

'What?' asked Josephine, as if she did not know.

Paul surveyed her for a moment. Did she not know? He could not decide. He could look through most people, simple, earnest, penetrating fellow that he was; but not through Josephine.

'Cromwell is going abroad,' he said, finally. 'He's been talking with a sea captain for a month back. It's all out now. He's going to quit his class, and take deck passage for Havre; going to the school of mines in Paris, and, when through with that, on a mineral hunt from Africa to Siberia. And he hasn't a cent of money! Perhaps that's the spirit you like. Perhaps you won't object to my going with him.'

Josephine looked at Paul; she was not in the least alarmed. 'I like the spirit well enough,' she said, 'but it isn't your kind; it would be misery to do a thing in that way, for you. He has another 'fervor.''

'Yes, he has,' said Paul, with a deeper meaning than his sister guessed.

'You say I like a queer kind of spirit,' said she. 'I like independence. But there's some great lack in me, there must be. I'm what you call too prudent, I suppose. I seem unable to put out of sight the chances of failure; and it can't be that people who venture a great deal think much of them. I wish, as you do, that Harry had a little money—ever so little—to fall back on. He never seems to think of accidents, or sickness; but he is going to a strange country, and, to be sure, if he is able to do exactly what he expects, he will succeed; and in the end he will, I know, whatever happens. But it would be dreadful for him to meet with misfortunes, though he laughs at my croaking. Everything is to turn out just as he wants! But do things often, I wonder?'

'Yes, with August Scheffer—the only one I know of.'

'But you never can know the struggle he passed through; it was terrible. You call him a philosopher; he is so, because he found out early how to fight the good fight. Nothing will ever look so alluring to him as the career he might have had by choosing the thing he did not choose.' Ceasing to speak aloud and to Paul, Josephine added, in a voice no one could hear: 'I was in the midst of that struggle; I understand him as no one else does. And—he knows it.'

'Tell me about it,' said Paul. 'You don't know how much I admire Scheffer.'

'Well you may,' she answered; 'but there is nothing to tell. He had the opportunity to keep at school, or to go into his uncle's shop—and he chose the shop on his mother's account.'

'And I chose a profession on my mother's account,' said Paul bitterly.

Josephine laid her hand on his; it was a gentle touch, but it recalled him.

'The best choice in both cases,' said she. 'Any one can see you are not expert enough to make a successful trader. Ask August if a man must not have a talent for trade, just as an artist must have a genius for painting.'

'Then you think August a born trader?'

'I know he can do more than one thing well,' she answered.

'If you think so well of August,' said he, 'I don't see how you can think better of another fellow. The town couldn't contain him if he heard what you said just now.'

Josephine turned a page of her book.

'He knows perfectly well what I think of him, Paul.'

The very frankness of her words and manner misled the boy. The curious suspicion that for a moment had beset him fled fast before his laughter.

She went on reading—seemed to do so. But an image for which the writer of that book was not responsible stood, all the while, clear and immovable in her memory. Before her, in a rude shed, were a boy and a girl. The girl had a basket in her hand, filled with chips, which she had raked from the sawdust; the boy was offering her assistance; but he knew well enough there was no wood to be sawn or split. It was growing dark and cold within the house, and still more dismal without it. The hearts of these two are warmer than their hands.

'I've done it,' said the boy. 'I brought my books home last night, Josey, and I'm going to my uncle in the morning.'

'What did he say?'

'He wouldn't say a word. It was my choice, and I must stand by it,' he answered. 'It's for my mother! If I had only you, and was working for you, I would take the other track. But, you see, it is for her; and I'm her only son.'

'You will be August Scheffer, whatever you may do,' she said, in a soft, sweet voice.

—And did August Scheffer ever stand for less among powers and places, than when, in the darkening wood shed, he spoke these words:

'But, Josey, will things always be the same with us?'

—Things had changed, indeed. The whole world had changed since then. Had the changing world rolled in between them? Since then the widow Mitchell had worked her way out of the worst of her distresses. Josephine had become a beautiful woman. Paul was striding on toward a profession. The family had removed to one of those box-like dwellings opposite the college grounds, and the fair face of Mrs. Mitchell's daughter was the theme of many a student's dreaming—of Harry Cromwell's, most conspicuous among students—of his dreaming, day and night. It was his book she held.

III.

It happened, of course, that Paul dropped into Scheffer's shop the next day. August was on the lookout, and conducted him forthwith into a quiet corner. The books were there delivered, but the package remained unopened. Scheffer had his reasons. He wanted leisure to examine them—above all, privacy. He also saw, or thought he saw, that Paul was in haste to be gone; and there was something on his mind of which he desired to be free.

Paul was only disturbed about a proposal he wished to make to Scheffer.

He was electrified when Scheffer himself broached the subject, and transacted it half, at a stroke, though all unconsciously, by asking:

'What has become of Hal Cromwell? He took so many prizes last year.'

Paul's eyes brightened strangely, his whole countenance became luminous. Scheffer surveyed the change as if it were not half agreeable to him. 'Harry is here yet, but he won't be long. That's a secret, though. He's going to France. Guess how.'

'In a balloon, I suppose. He hasn't any money.'

'No,' said Paul, half offended at the tone in which this was spoken. 'He's going to work his passage. He's one of the fellows who can do without money.'

'Indeed!' said Scheffer.

Paul went on: 'He hasn't more than twenty dollars. He sold all his prizes long ago.'

'Is he going to travel?' asked Scheffer, quietly.

'Travel! no. Not yet awhile, I mean. He's mad, just now, on minerals and geology. He's going to school in Paris, where he can learn all about such things. Then he's going to hunt up specimens for cabinets; then he'll be sending curiosities over here by the ship load. If any one wanted to speculate, he'd pay an enormous interest on the money lent him. But catch him asking the loan of a threepenny bit of any man! You know him.'

'Yes,' he said; 'we've had many a rough day together. About the time his father got into trouble, my father did more than one good turn for him. But that's neither here nor there.'

'Yes, it is,' said Paul, quickly; 'if your father helped his father, it's a token that you will help him.'

Scheffer was not so clear on that point: his reply might have chilled Paul's enthusiasm, could anything have done that.

'I can tell you what, Mitchell,' he said, 'I don't wonder at Cromwell, and I don't blame him. I believe it's better to go hungry on your own earnings than full fed at another man's expense. One can starve at home with a better grace than he can among strangers. That's my mind. It mayn't be his.'

'It's mine, though,' said Paul. 'If I had the money—if I had a hundred dollars, I should insist on his taking them. I wish my mother had put me to a trade: it's all nonsense, this slaving for the sake of position—what you call it.'

'Don't talk so,' said Scheffer. 'If Harry Cromwell wants anything of me, I should be ashamed of him if he wouldn't ask it. As to wishing that you had a trade, if there's a mechanical turn in you, you'll twist into it yet. But I don't believe there is. Go on as you have begun. It will all come out right.'

Paul scanned the fine face of the speaker in a spirit of inquiry unguessed of August. He was thinking of Josephine, and of her words. Then he said, 'So you always say. But I can't see it. If I could, then I'd be a philosopher like you. Do you mean I should speak to Harry?'

Scheffer hesitated.

'I see him every day,' said he. 'Sometimes he comes in here. Don't you think he would be better pleased if it should happen of itself, you know—not as if we had talked over his affairs. He is such a proud fellow.'

Paul readily acceded to this plan. He told Josephine what he had done, and she worked on with a lighter heart. She was thinking of Scheffer. How slowly he had grown up into her sight again! Man and woman, if they looked at each other now, must it be across a great gulf? What had education done for her! Could she thank the teaching that had brought her to see in her womanhood something beyond the reach of a man like Scheffer? Could she thank the culture that gave her a position for which nature and habits like his were all unfit? This maturity seemed unnatural to the heart of that remembered childhood, which, in its brave, loving generosity, could trust a boy to any work or station, feeling that in the workman would be securely lodged himself.

Even more than she suspected, Josephine had been moved by the secret Paul had confided to her—of Scheffer's new ambition. No new ambition was it, she could testify. In the fulness of time the bud had come to flower, and on the same stem fair fruits were ripening.

And now, it was he who would relieve her of the anxiety she felt on Cromwell's behalf. She kept these things in her heart.

IV.

Cromwell strolled into Scheffer's shop within the week. When Scheffer saw him coming, he satisfied himself at a glance that the visit was an unsuggested one.

There was only one other person in the world whose appearance within his doors could so much disturb the master of the place as Harry Cromwell's. That one was Josephine. Let her but come, and it was a day indeed.

But the disturbance created by her presence was very different from that excited by the entrance of this student. He, inadvertently, or otherwise, and it mattered not which, set Scheffer's heart into such a fume of jealousy, as perhaps the heart of philosopher never knew before. For, it was generally supposed among those who were interested in the affairs transacted on the point of space occupied by these people, that Cromwell's ambition was less undefined than that of young men generally. In short, that he was already, though alone in the world, burdened in mind with family cares—looking upon himself, even then, as the oldest son of the widow Mitchell.

He had said frankly, that he could not afford to give so much of his life to preparatory study as would be required if he chose any one of the professions open to him. He must go to work in some direction where the rewards of labor were sooner obtained.

When Cromwell came into the shop, August advanced to wait upon him. Cromwell was in a cheerful mood. He stretched his hand across the counter, and shook hands with his old acquaintance, as if he were thinking of days when the little white house of Daniel Scheffer stood between two cottages, occupied respectively by families of equal poverty and condition—the Cromwells and the Mitchells.

It wasn't often that they met in these days, he said; and he looked about him with a sort of surprise not disagreeable to Scheffer, for there was nothing offensive in it. Scheffer was always ready to make allowance for the little vanities and weaknesses of others. He was not surprised that Cromwell, handsome as he was, and brilliant intellectually, as he was proving himself to be, should overlook old times and old friends. Present times, and cares, and neighbors, would, of course, engage him to the neglect of what was past and gone.

'Prospering as usual!' said Harry, 'How do you manage it, August? for I am going to launch out into the world, and I can't expect to succeed more suddenly than you have.'

August answered, taking the praise as if it were well meant, and he knew it was well earned:

'By sticking to a thing, when I have made up my mind it is best. It's the only way I know of, Harry. I thought, from all I had heard, that you had found that out.'

'Don't trust report. I've done little yet to satisfy a man; got a few prizes; what do you suppose I care for them?'

'You care for what they mean to other folks,' said Scheffer.

'Not much, I assure you. A little praise, like music, is pleasant. But a man can't live on sound. Show me your seven-league boots, Scheffer; I'm going to take a stroll around the world.'

'What do you mean?' asked Scheffer, without moving.

'I'm going over the ocean.'

'India rubber soles?' asked Scheffer, again speaking in his quietest manner, but really feeling great excitement.

Cromwell laughed. 'I suppose they have iron-bound boots, even in Paris; but I thought I'd like to take something out of your shop with me; something of your own make, if possible. Do you know, Scheffer, you've had more to do with me, a vast deal, than you ever supposed? I've had the feeling that you were watching me as often as ever I got into lazy ways, just as if you stood by that window and searched me out across the grounds, no matter where I was lurking. I shall take my time when I am well rid of you. But I'll have the boots for a token; and when I am tired and sick of my work, as I shall be a hundred times, I'll pretend that you put some magic into the soles. Give them to me with a strong squeak.'

Cromwell laughed, but he was at least two thirds in earnest.

Still August did not stir. 'Are you really going away?' he asked.

'If I'm a live man, next week.'

'Going to France?'

'To France. To Paris for one year. In five years I shall be home again, and I mean to bring with me two or three cabinets of minerals, worth thousands of dollars apiece.'

Cromwell's eyes flashed; they fell on Scheffer, who stood silent, motionless, a cold shiver running over him from his head to his feet.

'What, then, brave fellow?' asked August. It was well to know the worst, and Harry seemed to be in a communicative mood.

'Why, what are you working for?'

'Because I've nothing else to do,' said Scheffer, with a shrug. 'I hate to be idle.'

'No; you are making your fortune; you'll have a house and a family some day. It's written, a hundred girls would think the chance beyond their desert; or they might think so.'

'Yes; well—I don't want a hundred girls.'

'Nor one, I suppose.'

Behind this idle talk the gravest and sharpest scrutiny was bestowed by each man on his fellow. Both were thinking of Josephine, but neither would name her.

'You're a philosopher, Paul says,' continued Cromwell. 'Paul is always talking about you. I don't like to leave that boy; but knowing that you are his friend should make me comfortable. Beside, I couldn't do anything for the lad, if he stood in need of a ten-penny bit.'

Cromwell laughed, but not in recklessness—in pride.

'How can you afford to travel, then?' asked Scheffer.

'Oh, I shall go as some other good fellows have gone—on foot; for I shall work my passage, and get somehow from Havre to Paris.'

'What next?'

'Hard work, you know.'

'Yes; I know what hard work means. But do you? Such hard work as this will be?'

'Do you take me for a dunce? Of course I know; and I shall tell you how I did it, five years from now.'

Then Scheffer said, not hesitating—for anything like a doubtfulness of manner on his part would have defeated his design:

'I want to invest some money, Harry. Take a couple of hundred for me, and buy some of the specimens; or find them, if you like that better. You shall sell them, when you get back, and pay me a percentage, whatever you can afford.'

There was no delay in the answer. It had all the readiness, and the sound, of sincerity.

'Sooner from you, August, than from any other man; but not from any man. I should feel that I was mortgaged. I must begin my own master, as I told Josephine Mitchell. What I bring to her shall be fruit from the tree of my own planting.'

August, for a moment, was like a man struck dumb; but when he spoke, he was the philosopher again.

'That's all foolishness,' he said, in a gentle voice; but there was no tenderness in it: it was but the firmness of self-control that made the voice so mild, and the expostulation, so deliberate. 'It's like using an old tool, when you have a new invention that would save half the labor. You'd laugh at a man for that.'

'Laugh away! But I must go out my own man, Scheffer. You'd do the same thing. Don't talk about it. Have you any of those boots I asked for?'

Scheffer found a pair. He named the price. Cromwell paid for them, and shook his hand when they separated; for, in the press of business, he said, it might be he should not find time to call on his old friend again.

The young men did not meet again. But a fortnight after Cromwell sailed, Scheffer was called upon to pay a note at the bank; a note that bore his own signature, and stated that, for 'value received, I promise to pay to the order of Henry Cromwell, four hundred dollars.'

The demand was made in such a manner, and at such a time, as to vex Scheffer to the utmost.

Cromwell, it seemed, could not consent to accept a favor at his hands; yet he could condescend to make that manner of use of him! He paid the sum due on the note, but at the same time was beset by a sore temptation.

This was the temptation, and this his resistance: If Harry had gone, leaving anywhere, in any woman's heart, a hope in him, should he not dispel it? Should he not convince her that it rested on a foundation looser than the sand? He did not do so! When Paul spoke now and then of Cromwell, and prophesied proudly of him, August took the words as an echo of Josephine's thought, and said to himself:

'Oh! well; it makes no difference.'

But, for all that, he kept on with his studies, and sometimes on Sunday would walk past the college grounds on Monumental square; for that was also walking past the cottage occupied by Josephine.

V.

The college, in those days, could have produced no student more industrious than August.

He advanced with rapid strides through the elementary books, for he chose to begin at the beginning, and he was proud of his progress. But he kept his studies secret. He would risk nothing by reporting his own progress. No man should honor his future to the prejudice of his past. The story of Minerva, born to the prerogatives of wisdom, was more attractive to him than that life which 'grew in grace, and in favor with God and man.'

He had no plans in reference to future studies. His tutor was fairly puzzled; for he was not long in discovering that it was not the delight of knowledge, but the ends which knowledge may serve, that prompted to such industry.

One evening Paul threw himself on one of the red-plush sofas Scheffer had transferred to his private apartment. He was in one of those serious moods that had become frequent since Cromwell went away; or, rather, since he had come into this near relation with a working and prosperous man.

'It's easy enough to be poor for one's self,' said the anxious youngster; 'but whether one ought to be poor, when money is to be honestly made, and at only a trifling risk, though by desperate hard work—that's the question.'

'H'm!' said Scheffer.

'Well,' said Paul, irritated by his seeming indifference, 'a fellow is in a deuced bad plight, if he has to plead poverty, when he ought to be able to help one or two beside himself! I envy you, Scheffer. I envy you every time I come here. You can do so much! You could leap all the college gates in no time, if you were fool enough to try.'

'I'm not,' said Scheffer. 'I know I can't work with many irons in the fire—never could. And I've nothing to complain of. I'm prospering, as you say. That's the chief thing, I suppose. Folks seem to think so. I'm one of the million; I must do as the rest—build a house, and marry a wife some day. But not till I can support her like a lady, I tell you, Paul.'

There was the difference of many years between the man and the boy, but to no other person was Scheffer in the habit of saying such things.

'I'd like to see Madam Scheffer,' said Paul, with a quiet laugh. Scheffer was indulgent toward that mirth; he smiled as he said:

'Be patient, as I am, and you shall see her. There was a Mrs. Scheffer once—my mother that was; if there's another like her—I believe there is!'

'Can't you draw me her portrait?'

'Perhaps I could, if I cared.'

'But you don't care. Well, I can get it out of Josephine; she remembers your mother.'

Paul looked so much like his sister when he named the name of Josephine and of his mother in one breath, that Scheffer could not refuse him.

'Medium size,' he said, 'and built to last. Graceful, as any mother would have been—if—as she was, in spite of hard work—it was her nature, and her nature was a strong one. She has light hair, that curls as if it liked to, and her eyes are blue. It is a fair face, Paul, and she has a kind smile.'

'But tell me her name; for you need not say it's a fancy sketch.'

'May be not; but that, you see, is my secret.'

There was no such thing, in reality, as intruding further on this ground. Still, half embarrassed, Mitchell persisted:

'Where is she, though?'

'Where? I can't tell that.'

'With Cromwell?'

'It may be.'

'Would you trust her with him?'

'Is he not to be trusted?' asked August, so quickly as to startle Paul.

If Paul was to be startled—but he was not. The teller in the bank had told him—(Paul was one of those persons with whom acquaintances of every quality lodge their secrets)—of the note Scheffer had taken up with so little fuss and so much amazement. He saw that August for a moment suspected that he knew the facts, but he was not yet prepared to confess such knowledge; for he knew as well as Scheffer what Harry Cromwell was to Josephine. So he answered:

'I should say so, August—if any man on earth could be.'

'So I supposed,' said Scheffer, quietly; and Paul hurried back to the old queer topic, and said, half in jest: 'You mean to keep house, Scheffer, I'll be bound.'

Scheffer's dark face brightened; he would share with Paul his pleasant dream—the pleasant dream he cherished, though his sober sense denied its possibility, and his consistent realism charged upon him the special folly of fools.

'Aye,' said he; 'there'll be a library in it—but more select than that of the Atheneum you were wishing for! You shall have the freedom of my house, lad—I'll not forget how kind you've been to me. I shall have a flower garden, and a yard deep enough for shade trees like those—but you don't remember the place.'

Scheffer got up and walked away to the window.

'I've not the slightest doubt that you'll do everything you say! I vow I wouldn't like to be the man to stand in your way to anything.'

Scheffer came back, and sat on the sofa beside Paul. His voice had an almost fatherly tenderness in it when he began to speak, and it took no colder tone.

'You were saying something about an improvement you could suggest in some of the tools we use. Here they are. What did you mean?' He pulled out a box from underneath the sofa.

Paul took the box, and looked over its contents; but it was easy to see that he was in search of nothing. He was soon through his investigation, and restored the box to its place. Then he looked at Scheffer, and laughed.

But Scheffer answered the look by one that seemed to say that he expected an explanation; whereupon Paul, now grave enough, stirred by a sudden confidence, pulled from his pocket a box much smaller than that which held August's tools, and passed it into his friend's hands. Scheffer took it, but he did not attempt to loosen the cord that secured the cover. Then Paul said:

'You do not really suppose that I am the only idle person in the world. I have been at work longer than Josephine, though you might not believe it; but what I have done, no one has yet seen. If I had the money, Scheffer! I'd—well—look at the thing! I want you should study it, of course.'

August, however, was in no haste. He was more desirous to learn the meaning of what Paul had said about Josephine. But that could not be asked by him; and so he unfastened the cord, opened the box, and beheld within a miniature machine, whose meaning no one in the world, Paul Mitchell excepted, could explain. That was Paul's thought of pride.

'That's my secret,' said he. 'That's my beauty! and I'd build a house for it, if I had the money, to be sure, as you are going to do for yours. How do you like it?'

'Explain; then I can tell you.' It was still the father-voice that spoke; but the tone was that of a man whose son has forestalled hope, and justified the most vague of ambitious wishes.

'That, Scheffer, is a contrivance for printing. Will you please to examine it? It's to be used henceforth, for all time, understand! by bankers in their banks, and by all men of great business. See—'

He arose, and brought near to the sofa a small table, on which he placed the machine. Then he set it in motion. 'For numbering notes, and so on. Does it work, August?'

Scheffer, though admiring and amazed, said not a word, but sat down before the machine, and studied it in every part.

His judgment was satisfied when at last he gave it.

'It's worth money to you, Mitchell.'

'Do you believe it, Scheffer? Worth money. Oh, my goodness!'

'Paul, you expected that.'

'I knew it; but to hear you say so, makes me feel like a man. Then I shall do for my mother what you did for yours, and get Josephine out of that school-teaching freak of hers. She has actually gone and done it, Scheffer.... Worth money, eh? Then I shall do some things as well as others, Mr. Scheffer.'

Scheffer smiled. He understood this exultation too well not to share it and to be deeply moved by it.

'I suppose so,' said he. 'I always believed in you.'

'Well, then, look here.'

Paul's voice broke; he looked on the floor, and was a long time in producing the second box. When he had fairly drawn it forth, he gave a sudden and wonderful look at Scheffer, that penetrated like fire to the heart of the man.

'There,' said he, 'that's my pet. That's the Rachel of this Jacob. Look close, and see what you'll do with it, supposing you turn lockpick some day.'

It was a veritable lock. He drew out a chain of keys, a hundred of them.

'Now,' said he, in a low voice, 'you may ransack the town, as I've done, and get all your keys together. I want to see if you can find one, or contrive one with any locksmith's help, that will fit into that lock. I'll give you a month to try it. I'd give another man six. But you'll do the work of six in a sixth of the time. It's a lock on a new principle, and the principle is mine, because I applied it first. Eh? Hang it! If I had the money I wouldn't be so beggarly poor as I am. But I've had to beg and borrow, and almost steal, to get these things, that were in my brain, into a decent shape, as you see them. When I get started, Scheffer, you shall inspect all my inventions.'

'Then you are started,' said August. 'Don't say that again, I'd mortgage my stock but you should have what you need to help you. Have you any tools to work with, my son?'

'Oh, yes; that is, my neighbor has. He keeps a carpenter's shop, you know. I'm a capital hand at borrowing.'

'Have you got a room at home where you can work?'

'Acres of room! You've seen the house.'

'I've walked past it sometimes,' answered Scheffer, with a smile.

'Well, it isn't such a mite of a place as you'd think. There's room enough.'

'It looks pretty and snug. I have often admired those flower beds; the place don't look much like others in the same row: one might know that. Paul, I've seen the time when I'd thought the man who offered me help was an angel. I'm older than you are. Of course you must experiment, and where's the merit of carrying plans about in your head a dozen years, waiting a chance to prove whether they're worth anything or not? Tell me now, do you want any money?'

'No,' Paul answered quickly, yet with inward hesitation. 'I'll come to you, though,' he added, 'when I do. I'll let you know the very day. But I I have something to study out yet. I'm going to get patents, you know.'

VI.

Paul returned home, and in a musing mood seated himself under the grapevine that grew on the brick wall in the rear of the cottage, the sole ornament and pride of the narrow yard. He may have been here an hour, when he heard strange noises in the house, then a heavy closing of the street door, and the voice of Josephine calling him. In the lobby stood an open iron-bound chest. A glance at the box explained it to Paul; but he said nothing—not a word—in explanation to Josephine or his mother, who stood expressing surprise and wonder, while he found the key and opened the heavy lid. They saw it was a tool chest.

Paul was the first to speak; for when he exhibited the contents, a deeper silence seemed to fall upon the women.

'It's no mistake,' he said to his mother. 'This belongs to August Scheffer. He has lent it to me. Isn't it kind of him? For I told him I had to borrow when I worked.'

'No,' said Paul's mother. 'It's anything but kind. You could waste time enough in such doings, Paul, without getting a tempter into the house. What do you want of tools? Do you get along with your books so fast you don't know what to do with your time? August Scheffer is just like his father, he never, as long as he lived, found out the use of money; if he had, his wife wouldn't have been left a beggar.'

'And August would never have been himself,' said Paul. 'That would have been a pity.'

'No,' said Josephine; 'he would always have been himself.'

'Don't talk like a simpleton, child. You are old enough to see that August might have been a very different man from what he is, if his father before him hadn't always this same ridiculous way of throwing the money he earned about like dust.'

'Well, mother—' began Paul: he hesitated, but a glance at Josephine decided him. 'I can tell you that if Harry Cromwell comes to any good, you and every one else will have to thank Scheffer for it.'

Josephine looked at Paul with serious, curious interest; but he saw that she was not greatly excited by what he had said. He looked at his mother, and resolved to say no more. And by that resolution he would have held, but for his mother's words.

'We shall never hear the end of that,' said she. 'Scheffer's father signed for Oliver Cromwell; but what of that? he lost his money. Better men have done as much for worse; but I don't know that it deserved to be talked of to all generations.'

'It was a generous act,' said Paul. 'But August has beat his father at that, I can tell you, if you want to hear.'

'Some slander, I suppose,' said the mother. 'I suppose every young man within fifty miles is jealous of Harry; it's well he has gone far enough to get rid of it all.'

'Well, mother, keep your good opinion of him. It isn't from Scheffer I heard it. You don't want to know what a noble fellow he is;' and he wound up with August's frequent saying, 'it makes no difference.'

'I want to hear what you are going to do with this box, though,' said Mrs. Mitchell. 'There's not a room in the house big enough to hold it.'

Paul plead for a corner of his own room; a startling proposal, indeed, for those who heard it, the 'room' being hardly an apology for a closet. He pleads well, however, for he carried the point, and space was in some way provided; and Mrs. Mitchell, who had hopes of a future for her children that should throw a glory round their unfolding and her closing years, heard the boy say, with, some sort of faith: 'Oh, mother, you don't know yet what a genius you've got in your boy;' and when she left him he was still laughing over the boast. But Josephine saw that as he stooped over the chest there were tears in his eyes.

For that reason she did not leave him to rejoice alone over his treasure. And for the reason that she did not leave him, he said to her, observing with what interest she took up one bright tool after another from its place:

'Scheffer has bought this box for me. You see, don't you, the tools were never used before? Not one of them.'

'Yes,' said Josephine, 'that's easy to be seen.'

'I must keep them and use them, I suppose!'

'You intend to do it, Paul. Are you trying to deceive me? Do you suppose I don't know that of course he had a reason for sending them to you! People are not in the habit of sending such things to boys who don't know how to use them.'

'But, Josephine, I shall pay him for them.'

'Yes, or else I shall, Paul. But let him enjoy the gift; for I know how it pleased him to send it.'

'And I won't serve him as another fellow did, too proud to accept a favor of him till he should get beyond sight and sound, so stingy of his thanks. That's what your Cromwell did! I hate the hateful fellow.'

'My Cromwell? Did he that?' But Josephine neither swooned, nor cried, nor blushed; was not overwhelmed with shame, nor indignation, nor distress. Some such exhibition, that should be as a confession, Paul had looked for, trembling, when the daring deed was done, of exposing a lover's baseness to the woman he loved.

'Yes,' said Paul, cooled somewhat by his sister's calmness. 'I knew I ought to let you know. But I thought I never could. He wouldn't take the money August offered him, but he got it from the bank, on a forged note.'

'Paul!' exclaimed Josephine. The lad looked again at his sister; but he now saw through her horrified surprise; there was really no danger in continuing this revelation; elated, he went on:

'Forged and paid! so the young fellow told me. That's not Scheffer, understand. He don't know that I have got wind of it; he thinks it is safe with him; and you never would have known anything but for me! August thinks too much of you, I've found that out, to tell you, or me either, that Cromwell is a scamp.'

'What have I to do with all this, Paul?' asked his sister, with a well-assumed indifference. She had time now to consider whether she had not betrayed too much interest in the affairs of these young men, the scientific forger and the man of trade.

'Why,' answered Paul, with no less composure, inwardly rejoicing in what he considered his triumph, 'you have to make the best of it, I suppose—satisfy mother—marry Cromwell when he comes back, rich as Croesus, with ship-loads of treasure. That's what the handsome girls are for, to marry off to rich men, isn't it?'

Paul had had his say, but that was his only consolation. Whatever answer Josephine might have made was prevented by the voice of her mother calling from the foot of the stairs. Yet he chose to consider that sufficient confession, in regard to some of his suspicions, was given in her words as she went down; though what she said was merely,

'Paul, if you don't join the detectives, you'll fail of your mission.'

VII.

Scheffer's uniform good luck took a sudden turn one day. The fine row of buildings that faced the college grounds took fire one morning, and his shop was burned with the rest. He saved but little of his stock, and it was but recently that he had greatly added to it. His loss was a severe one.

Toward nightfall of that day, Paul looked for Scheffer, and found him in a room to which he had removed the remnants of his goods. He was alone there, and trying to come to an understanding with himself, singing meanwhile, but, it must be said, in not the most straightforward and perfectly musical manner.

Paul came expressly deputed by his mother to bring Scheffer home to tea with him. The news of his disaster had set August before her in a different light from that in which he had stood in the days of his vulgar prosperity. Calamity restored him to his place again—the son of an old neighbor, the son of a good woman—one of the heirs of misfortune: and who might not have expected this event, that knew in August's veins the Scheffer blood was flowing? Yes; the mother of Josephine was this day disposed to compassion, helped, may be, to that gentleness by the letter she had recently received from Cromwell, in which he detailed his successes in a manner that made the heart of the prophetess to rejoice.

Scheffer hesitated for a moment, only one, over that invitation. But he did hesitate. And Paul, the lynx-eyed, saw it. Scheffer might invent whatever excuse seemed best to his own kindliness of heart: Paul was convinced that his friend felt no confidence in the impulse that had obtained for him an open door in the house that he had seen, in spite of Josephine's friendliness, was closed on him all these years.

Paul did not urge the invitation. Instead, he produced a purse—sole purse of the house of Mitchell, that had not, in a generation, held as many bank notes as this now contained. He put this purse into Scheffer's hands, and said, moving back from him a pace:

'That is yours. I knew you fibbed about the tool chest. You had no use for it. So we have bought it. Look if I have counted the money right. I knew you would never tell me the truth about the cost, so I've been to the maker, and asked him a civil question. No dodging, Mr. Scheffer.'

Mr. Scheffer did not 'dodge.' He emptied the purse, counted the bills, put them into his own leather pocket-book; then he handed the purse to Paul.

Paul did not expect this. It was plain that he did not. He thought that Scheffer would have 'stood' against receiving the payment for his gift. He had said so to Josephine; but Josephine had replied, 'You are mistaken, Paul. You don't know him, after all. But, if you are right, insist on his taking the money. Do not go too far, however. If he should seem to be offended, bring it back to me, and I will attend to it.'

Was he offended? Paul was in doubt. The doubt made him desperate, and he exclaimed:

'I meant that for a present. Josephine worked it.'

Scheffer's eye fell on the light and pretty trifle; a change came over him. He would have struggled hard and long before he would have surrendered that little tissue of floss, but now less than vanity to him. 'Josephine worked it.' What are words?

'I suppose,' he began; but he did not conclude what he had on his tongue; he did not say to Paul that he supposed it was Josephine's money too—her earnings—that paid for the chest.

There came an awkward silence into the confused and dismal room. Scheffer stood among his ruins, not like a ruined man: he could not talk, however. He could say nothing whatever in continuance, about the fire. It was never his habit to boast; as little his practice to lament.

'Paul,' he said at last, resuming his dismal endeavor to arrange and assort the chaotic remnant of his goods, 'I got your box under weigh last night. There's a friend of mine going to see it; and you needn't be worrying on account of this—this fire; for I shall have money enough to push your business pretty soon; and there are two good fellows standing ready to buy your rights to the patent in this State, on your own terms, I guess, if you are tolerably reasonable. You can have five thousand dollars, if you will be easy with them about the payments. They are as safe as the best in town. I settled all that last night. All you have to do is to come to an agreement.'

Paul's heart beat as fast as any young man's heart beats when the result of secret toil, of wakeful nights, and patient endurance of home misconception, is before him in the form of honorable success. But instead of thanks, these words escaped him in a tumult:

'Scheffer, have you heard the news from Cromwell?'

Scheffer considered ere he answered; he was puzzled, looking at Paul, such a contradiction and confusion of signs he read in the lad's face.

'I heard that your family had great tidings from him,' he answered finally.

'He is dead!'

'Poor Josephine!'

What was it that brought so low the head of the man who had stood all day bravely erect, enduring the condolence of people, sustaining himself in the shock of integrity? Scheffer sat down when he heard this news, and wept.

And Paul wept with him. There, in that chamber of ruins, they deplored the loss of the proud, ambitious, brilliant, and dishonest wordling, who had long ago gone out of their world with a lie on his soul.

Then Paul produced the foreign letter he had brought with him from the mail, as he came in his search for Scheffer. The letter he read aloud. It was written by one of Harry's fellow students, his companion in that notable journey Cromwell made to the Ural, and the Zavods of Siberia. He had returned to Paris, and thence had written of his various successes to his friends: they knew it was his purpose to sail at once for Alexandria. His preparations, wrote this correspondent, were complete; but, on the day when the vessel sailed, he died—sickened and died in one morning; his disease was of the heart.

'Poor Josephine!' groaned August again; this time his pity had comment.

'It's awful!' said Paul. 'Josephine cried when she heard of your misfortune. She won't do more when she sees this letter.' Paul was entirely reckless of consequences. He was determined Scheffer's fire should serve a private purpose of illumination, 'It is so rare a thing, her crying,' he continued, 'I should have thought the fire would have been put out by it.'

Scheffer's tears ceased falling. But he spoke in a low voice, somewhat broken, too:

'It's enough to wipe out my regrets. If she cared that much, I don't consider it a misfortune. Tell her so, Paul.'

'I will, after you have told her yourself, Scheffer,' said Paul. Then casting all their fortunes on a word, speaking hurriedly, impetuously, driven on by admiration and gratitude toward Scheffer, and a determination to end all misunderstandings at once and forever, he continued: 'I found it all out, myself, without prying. The young fellow in the bank told me. I knew that you never would. It made me love you, that did. I told Josephine, but not till I thought I might safely. He didn't get that money from the bank till Josephine had told him she could not promise herself to him before he went away. Poor fellow! It made him mad, I think.'

'Paul,' said Scheffer, with reproof, and yet the mildest, in his voice, 'he is dead. That was an ugly twist, but it wasn't his nature to grow in a crooked fashion. Harry will come out straight yet. He is in better circumstances now than ever before. I could forgive a man for worse things than he had the wit to do, if he loved Josephine.'

'There! I'm glad we are back on that ground! I hate mysteries,' exclaimed Paul.

'Except in locks,' said Scheffer.

'Why wouldn't she promise Harry? It is what mother expected. And I was fool enough to wonder. You are wiser than we; so tell me, Scheffer, did anything ever happen in old times that binds her yet? Do you suppose she ever loved a lad when she was a child?'

'I know she did,' said Scheffer, looking not away from Paul, neither busying himself any longer with the endeavor to bring order out of chaos. 'I know she did.'

Then Paul laughed again, as he had not laughed in many a day; but it was laughter that did not jar the silence of the room—such laughter as formed a fit prelude for words like these:

'Find out if the lad is alive yet. There is a piece of business worthy of Scheffer himself! I'm tired of hunting out secrets. Promise me, August—promise before you leave this room—before you breathe again.'

Scheffer did.

Mrs. Mitchell waited tea that evening for at least an hour. Josephine was sure that if August could be found, Paul would bring him home. At last they came. Home at last! The darkness might besiege the house, it could not enter the hearts there; rain might fall on Scheffer's ruins, it could not prevent the rising of the Phoenix. Not recognized altogether as the household's eldest son, he stood under the roof of the little house on Cottage Row. But enough! he was satisfied: he saw two women smiling on him—one from her heart. And from the circle that night Paul, triumphant and joyful, excluded the vision of death.



LAS ORACIONES.

I moved among the moving multitude In old Manila, when the afternoon Releases labor, and the scorching skies Are tempered with the coming on of night. Above the 'ever loyal city,' rose The surging sound of unloosed tongues and feet, As the encompassed town and suburbs vast, The boated river and the sentinelled bridge Swarmed, parti-colored, with the populace. The sovereign sun, that through the toilsome day No eye had seen for brightness, now subdued, Stepping, like Holy Pontiff, from his throne, Neared to the people, and, with level rays, As hands outstretching, benedictions shed. Full the effulgence flashed upon the walls Which girt the city with a strength renowned, Rimming them with new glory: bright it gleamed Upon the swarthy soldiery, as they filed A dazzling phalanx through the gaping crowd With martial intonation, and it played Softly upon the evening-breathing throng On the Calsada's broad and dashing drive, On gay, armorial equipage, wherein Dozed dowagers: on unbonneted dames In open chariots, toying daintily With dark hidalgos, as they sipped the scene In languishing contentment, and between Responsive glances, showing hidden fire, With fluent breath of Spanish repartee. There lounged senoras, fat officials' wives, From their soft cushions casting cool disdain On the mestiza, who, in hired hack, Blooming in beauty of commingled blood, And robed in slippery tissue, rainbow-bright, Sat, in her sandal-footed grace, a queen Among her fellows, they who yesterday Whirled her lithe figure in the tireless dance, And now, with airy compliment, kept bright The flame she yet may quench in wedlock dull. Thus rolled the wealthy in their liveried ease, 'Mid walking peasantry and pale Chinese, And curious-shirted Creole; while, tight swathed Up to their shrivelled features, mummy like, The Indian women filled the motley scene. Meanwhile, the sovereign sun had crowned the palms Standing in stately clusters; and from thence Scaled the high walls and climbed the citadel, Pouring a parting radiance on the tower Of San Sebastian: mounting to its goal, It swept the public dial plate and lay, E'en in the face of stern recording time Smiling significance; thence slowly crept Up to the turret, blazing, momently, Thence reached the dizzy ball; and, last of all, Kissed with its dying lips the sacred cross.

Then pealed the solemn vesper bell to prayer, And suddenly—completely—with a hush, As if a god-like voice had stricken it dead, Stood still the city!

Motionless the life That but an instant off stirred the warm air With murmurs multifarious, and the waves Of great humanity, sunk silenced there, With stillness so supreme, that pulses beat More quickly from the contrast, and the soul Hearkened to listen, humbled and subdued As when the Saviour uttered 'Peace, be still.' The tardy laborer, walled within the town, Brought the uplifted hammer noiseless down, And stood in meek confession, tool in hand. The mother hushed the baby lullaby, And o'er her sleeping innocence exhaled Voiceless thanksgiving. Children ceased to play, Feeling an awe they comprehended not, And stood, unconscious of their beauty's pose, As those Murillo's pencil glorifies. Upon the airy esplanade the steed No longer pawed the air in wantonness, But, like his compeer of the fabled song, Stood statued with his rider, while below The beggar ceased his cry importunate, And to a Higher Almoner than man Sent up a dumb appeal. In folly's court The laugh was hushed, and the half-uttered jest Fell witless into air, and burning thought Cooled, as it flowed, unmoulded into speech. As throbbed the distant bell with serious pause,— Standing bareheaded in the dewless air, Or prostrate in their penitence to earth, Or bending with veiled lids,—the people prayed. Then was that moment, in its muteness, worth The laboring day that bore it, for all sense Seemed filtered of its grossness; what was earth Sunk settling with the dust to earth again, As through the calm, pure atmosphere, arose One mingling meditation unto Heaven. Oh, beautiful is silence, when it falls On housed assemblies bowed in voiceless prayer: But when it lays its finger on the heart Of a great city, stilling all the wheels Of life's employment, that to Heaven may turn Its many thousand reverend breathing souls With gesture simultaneous; when proud man Like multitudinous marble, moveless stands With God communing, then does silence seem, In its unworded eloquence, sublime. Therein, doth Romish worship point rebuke To him who doth ignore it, for therein It rises to a majesty of praise O'erspanning huge cathedrals, for it makes The censer, candle, rosary, and book But senseless mockeries.

So sunk the sun Till on its amber throne, like drapery doffed, Lay piled th' imperial purple. Then the stir Of an awakened world swept through the crowd, As forest leaves are wind-swept after lulls, And, with the sense of a renewing joy, The murmurous people turned them to their homes.

MANILA, 1856.



MY MARYLAND!

THE SEPTEMBER RAID.

They took thy boots, they took thy coats, My Maryland! And paid for them in 'Confed' notes, My Maryland! They gobbled down thy corn like goats, And rooted up thy truck like shoats, But then—they didn't get thy votes Or volunteers—my Maryland!



A MERCHANT'S STORY.

'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'

CHAPTER V.

On the cleared plot in front of the store were assembled, as I have said, about a hundred men, women, and children, witnessing a 'turkey match.' It was a motley gathering. All classes and colors and ages were there. The young gentleman who boasted his hundred darkies, and the small planter who worked in the field with his five negroes; the 'poor trash' who scratched a bare subsistence from a sorry patch of beans and 'collards,' and the swearing, staggering bully who did not condescend to do anything; the young child that could scarcely walk alone, and the old man who could hardly stand upright; the brawny field hand who had toiled over night to finish his task in time for 'de shootin;' and the well-dressed body servant who had roused 'young massa oncommon airly' for the same purpose; all, white, black, and yellow—and some neither white, black, nor yellow—were there; scattered over various parts of the ground, engaged in lounging, playing, drinking, smoking, chewing, chatting, swearing, wrangling, and looking on at the turkey match.

A live turkey was fastened to an ordinary bean pole, in a remote quarter of the ground, and when I emerged from the cabin, seven or eight 'natives' had entered for 'a shot.' The payment of a 'bit,' 'cash down,' to Tom, who officiated as master of ceremonies, secured a chance of hitting the turkey's head with a rifle bullet at 'long distance.' Any other 'hit' was considered 'foul,' and passed for nothing. Whoever shot the mark took the prize, and was expected to 'treat the crowd.' As 'the crowd' seemed a thirsty one, it struck me that turkey would prove expensive eating to the fortunate shots; but they were oblivious to expense, and in a state of mind that unfitted them for close financial calculations.

Nearly every marksman present had 'carried off his poultry,' and Tom had already reaped a harvest of dimes from the whiskey drinking. 'Why, bless ye,' he said to me, 'I should be broke, clean done up, if it warn't fur the drinks; I haint got more'n a bit, or three fips, fur nary a fowl; the fust shot allers brings down the bird; they're all cocksure on the trigger—ary man on 'em kin hit a turkey's eye at a hundred paces.' This was true; and in such schools were trained the unerring marksmen who are now 'bringing down' the bravest youth of our country, like fowls at a turkey match.

A disturbance had broken out on a remote part of the ground, and, noticing about twenty negro men and women seated on a log near by, I went in that direction, in hopes of meeting the negro trader. It was a dog fight. Inside an imaginary ring about ten feet in diameter, two dogs were clenched in what seemed a life-and-death struggle. One was holding the other down by the lower jaw, while a man, evidently the owner of the half-vanquished brute, was trying to separate them. Outside this ring about twenty other brutes—men, women, and children—were cheering the combatants, and calling on the meddler to desist. It was strange how the peacemaker managed to stand up against the volleys of oaths they showered on him; he did, however, and persisted in his laudable efforts, till a tall, rawboned, heavy-jawed fellow stepped into the ring, and, taking him by the collar, pulled him away, saying: 'Let 'em be—it's a fair fight; d—— yer pictur—let 'em alone.'

'Take thet! you whelp,' said the other, planting a heavy blow between the intruder's eyes. Blow followed blow; they clenched; went down; rose up; fought on—at one end of the ring the canines, at the other the humans; while the rest looked on, shouting, 'Let 'er rip! Go in, Wade! Hit 'im agin! Smash his mug! Pluck the grizzly! Hurrah fur Smith! Drown his peepers! Never say die! Go in agin!' till the blood flowed, and dogs and men rolled over on the ground together.

Disgusted with this exhibition of nineteenth-century civilization, I turned and walked away. As I did so, I noticed, following me at a short distance, a well-dressed man of about thirty-five. He wore a slouched hat, a gray coat and lower garments, and enormous high-top boots, to one of which was affixed a brass spur. Over his shoulder, holding the two ends in his hands, he carried a strong, flexible whip, silver mounted, and polished like patent leather. He was about six feet high, stoutly built, with a heavy, inexpressive face, and a clear, sharp gray eye. One glance satisfied me that he was the negro trader.

As he approached he held out his hand in a free, hearty way, saying: 'Cunnel, good evenin'.'

'Good evenin',' I replied, intentionally adopting his accent; 'but yer wrong, stranger; I'm nary cunnel.'

'Well, Major, then?'

'No, Gin'ral; not even a sargint.'

'Then ye're Squire——,' and he hesitated for me to fill up the blank.

'No; not even Squire——,' I added, laughing. 'I've nary title; I'm plain Mister Kirke; nothin' else.'

'Well, Mister Kirke, ye're the fust man I've met in the hull Suthern country who wus jest nobody at all; and drot me ef I doan't like ye for't. Ev'ry d——d little upstart, now-a-days, has a handle ter his name—they all b'long ter the nobility, ha! ha!' and he again brought his hand down upon mine with a concussion that made the woods ring.

'Come,' he added; 'let's take a drink.'

'Glad ter drink with ye, stranger; but I karn't go Tom's sperrets—it's hard ter take.'

'That's a fact, but I keeps the raal stuff. That's the pizen fur ye;' he replied, holding up a small willow flask, and starting toward the bar. Entering a cloud of tobacco smoke, and groping our way over groups of drunken chivalry, who lay 'loosely around,' we approached the counter.

'Har, you lousy sorrel-top,' said the trader to the red-faced and red-headed bar tender; 'har, give us some mugs.'

'Sorrel-top' placed two glasses on the counter, and my new acquaintance proceeded to rinse them thoroughly. They were of a clear grass-green color, and holding one up to the light, the trader said: 'Now luk a' them. Them's 'bout as green as the fellers that drink out on 'em—a man's stumac's got ter be of cast iron ter stand the stuff they sell har.'

'It's better'n you kin 'ford ter drink,' exclaimed the bar tender, in high dudgeon.

'Who spoke ter ye—take thet!' rejoined the trader, discharging the contents of the glass full in the man's face. The sorrel-crowned worthy bore the indignity silently, evidently deeming discretion the better part of valor.

'Buy'n ony nigs, Kirke?' said the trader, inserting his arm in mine, and leading me away from the shanty: 'I've got a prime lot—prime;' and he smacked his lips together at the last word, in the manner that is common to professional liquor tasters. He scented a trade afar off, and his organs of taste, sympathizing with his olfactories, gave out that token of satisfaction.

'Well, I doan't know. What ye got?'

'Some o' the likeliest property ye ever seed—men and wimmin. All bought round har; haint ben ter Virginny yit. Come 'long, I'll show ye;' and he proceeded toward the group of chattels. He was becoming altogether too familiar, but I called to mind a favorite maxim of good old Mr. Russell—Necessitus non arbit legum—and quietly submitted.

The negroes were seated on a fallen pine, in a remote quarter of the ground, and were chained together by the wrists, in gangs of four or five, the outside one having one hand secured by a cord bound about the waist. The men wore woollen hats, and the women neat Madras turbans, and both had thick linsey clothing, warm enough for any weather. Their dusky faces were sleek and oily, and their kinky locks combed as straight as nature would permit. The trader had 'rigged them up,' as a jockey 'rigs up' his horses for market.

Pausing before a brawny specimen of the yellow species, he said: 'Thar, Kirke, luk o' thar; thar's a boy fur ye—a nig thet kin work—'tend ten thousand boxes (turpentine) easy. He's the sort. Prime stuff thet—(feeling of his arms and thighs)—hard—hard as rock—siners like rope. Come o' good stock, he did—the old Devereaux blood—(a highly respectable family in those parts)—they's the raal quality—none on yer shams or mushrooms; but genuwine 'stockracy—blamed if they haint. What d'ye say ter him?'

'Well, he moight do, p'raps—but I rather reckon ye've done him up sum; 'iled his face, greased his wool, and sech like. It's all right, ye know—onything's far in trade; but ye karn't come it over me, ole feller. I'm up ter sech doin's. I am, Mr.——,' and I paused for him to finish the sentence.

'Larkin,' he added quickly and good-humoredly; 'Jake Larkin, and yours, by——,' and he gave my hand another shake. 'Yer one on 'em, I swar, and I own up; I hev 'iled em' a trifle—jest a trifle; but ye kin see through thet; we hev ter do it ter fix the green 'uns, ye knows.'

'Yes, I knows—'iled 'em inside and out, haint ye?'

'No, on my soul—only one glass ter day—true as preachin'.'

'Boy,' I said to the yellow man, 'how much whiskey hev ye drunk ter day? Now, tell the truth.'

'Nary drop, massa; hed a moufful o' sperrets—a berry little moufful—dat's all.'

'Taint 'nough, Larkin! Come, now, doan't be mean with nigs. Give 'em sum more—sum o' thet tall brandy o' your'n; a good swig. They karn't stand it out har in the cold without a little warmin' up.'

'Well, I'm blamed ef I won't. Har, you, Jim,' speaking to a well-dressed darky standing near. 'Har, go ter thet red-headed woodpecker, thar at the cabin, and tell him I'll smash his peepers if he doan't send me sum glasses ter onst—d'ye har? Go.'