"Othello" bears throughout the marks of the same maturity of intellect, and the same mastery of dramatic effect, that appear in "Hamlet" and in "King Lear"; but from the nature of its subject it is not so profoundly thoughtful as the others. It is a drama of action, which "Hamlet" is not in a high degree; and although a grand example of the imaginative dramatic style, it has the distinction of being the most actable of all Shakespeare's tragedies. It is difficult to conceive any age or any country in which "Othello" would not be an impressive and a welcome play to any intelligent audience. Highly poetical in its treatment, it is intensely real in its interest; and it must continue so until there is a radical change in human nature.

In the first of these articles I proposed to analyze and compare the jealousy of Othello, Claudio, and Leontes; but I have abandoned the design, partly because I find that it would require another article in itself, and partly because it would necessarily lead me into a psychological and physiological discussion which would hardly be in keeping with the purpose with which I am now writing, which is merely to offer such guidance and such help as I can give to intelligent and somewhat inexperienced readers of Shakespeare. But I will remark that Othello's jealousy is man's jealousy (so called) raised to the most intense power by the race and the social position of the person who is its subject. The feeling in man and that in woman, called jealousy, are quite different in origin and in nature, although they have the same name. In woman the feeling arises from a supposed slight of her person, the spretae injuria formae of Virgil, to which he attributes Juno's enmity to Troy; and however it may be sentimentally developed, it has this for its spring and its foundation. But a man, unless he is the weakest of all coxcombs, and unworthy to wear his beard, does not trouble himself because a woman admires another man's person more than his own. His feeling has its origin in the motherhood of woman, a recognition of which is latent in all social arrangements touching the sex, and in all man's feeling toward her. Man's jealousy is a mingled feeling of resentment of personal disloyalty, and of grief at unchastity on the part of the woman that he loves. Man is jealous much in the same sense in which it is said, "The Lord thy God is a jealous God"; which saying, indeed, is a consequence of the anthropomorphic conception of the Deity, notwithstanding the exclusion from it of the idea of sex. But it is impossible to conceive of such a feeling as feminine jealousy being referred to in the passage in the second commandment. The "jealousy" of Othello and Leontes, and of Claudio, will be found on examination to be at bottom the same. In Claudio it is correct, gentlemanly, princely, and somewhat weak; in Leontes it is morbid, unreasonable, hard, and cruel; in Othello it is perfectly pure in its quality, and has in it quite as much of tenderness and grief as of wrath and indignation; and it rages with all the fierceness of his half-savage nature. The passion in him becomes heroic, colossal; but it is perfect in its nature and in its proportions, and from the point to which he has been brought by Iago, perfectly justifiable. Hence it is that it is so respected by women. Nothing was more remarkable at Salvini's admirable performance of Othello than the acquiescence of all his female auditors in the fate of Desdemona. They were sorry for the poor girl, to be sure; but they seemed to think that Desdemonas were made to be the victims of Othellos, and that a man who could love in that fashion and be jealous in that style of exalted fury was rather to be pitied and admired when he smothered a woman on a misunderstanding. She should not have teased him so to take back Cassio; and what could she have expected when she was so careless about the handkerchief and told such lies about it! It is somewhat unpleasant to be smothered, to be sure, but all the same she ought to be content and happy to be the object of such love and the occasion of such jealousy. They mourned far more over his fate than over hers. This representation of manly jealousy, so elemental and simple, and yet so stupendous, is one of Shakespeare's masterpieces. I mean not merely in its verbal expression, but in its characteristic conception of the masculine form of the passion. Compare it with the jealousy of any of his women—of Adriana, of Julia, of Cleopatra, of Imogen, of Regan—and see how different it is in kind; I will not say in degree; for Shakespeare has not exhibited woman as highly deformed by this passion; that he left for inferior dramatists, with whom it is a favorite subject.

In two of these tragedies we have Shakespeare's most elaborate and, so to speak, admirable representations of villany: Edmund in "King Lear" and Iago in "Othello." These vile creations cannot, however, be justly regarded as the fruit of a lower view of human nature consequent upon a longer acquaintance with it. They were merely required by the exigencies of his plots; and being required, he made them as it was in him to do. For in nothing is his superiority more greatly manifested than in the fact that monsters of baseness, or even thoroughly base men, figure so rarely among his dramatis personae. They are common with inferior dramatists and writers of prose fiction, whose ruder hands need them as convenient motive powers and as vehicles of the expression of a lower view of human nature. Not so with him. He has weak and erring men—men who are misled by their passions, ambition, revenge, selfish lust, or what not; but Iago, Edmund, and the Duke in "Measure for Measure" are almost all his characters of their kind. In "Richard III." he merely painted a highly colored historical portrait; and Parolles, in "All's Well that Ends Well," and Iachimo, in "Cymbeline," do not rise to the dignity of even third-rate personages. Iago, it need hardly be said, is the most perfect of all his creatures in this kind, and indeed he is the most admirably detestable and infamous character in all literature. Edmund is equally base and cruel; but compared with Iago he is a coarse, low, brutal, and rabid animal. In Iago all the craft and venom of which the human soul is capable is united with an intellectual subtlety which seems to reach the limit of imagination or conception. There are some who see in the making the bastard son in "Lear" the monster of ingratitude and villany and the legitimate a model of all the manly and filial virtues an evidence of Shakespeare's judgment and discrimination. But this is one of those fond and over-subtle misapprehensions from which Shakespeare has suffered in not a few instances, even at the hands of critics of reputation. It suited Shakespeare's plot that the villain should be the bastard; that is all; and Lear's legitimate daughters Goneril and Regan are as base, as bad, and as cruelly ungrateful as Gloucester's illegitimate son. Shakespeare knew human nature too well, and handled it with too just and impartial a hand, to let the question of legitimacy influence him in one way or the other. In "King John" we have, on the contrary, the mean-souled Robert Faulconbridge and his gallant and chivalrous bastard brother Philip.

About the same time, or if not in the same time, perhaps in the same year which saw the production of "King Lear," "Macbeth" was written. But its date is not certain within four or five years. It was surely written before 1610, in which year a contemporary diary records its performance on the 20th of April. The Cambridge editors, in their annotated edition of this play, in the "Clarendon Press" series, prefer the later date; but notwithstanding my great respect for their judgment, I hold to my conclusion for the earlier, for the reasons given in my own edition. The question has not in itself much pertinence to our present purpose, as there is no doubt that the tragedy was produced in this period, and its general style, both of thought and versification, is that of Shakespeare in its fullest development and vigor. But with the question of date there is involved another of great interest to the thoughtful reader—that of mixed authorship. In the introductory essay to my edition of this play (published in 1861) attention was directed to the internal evidence that it was hastily written and left unfinished.[H] Subsequent editors and critics, notably the Cambridge editors and the Rev. F. G. Fleay, in his "Shakespearian Manual," starting from this view, have gone so far as to say that "Macbeth," as we have it, is not all Shakespeare's, but in part the work of Thomas Middleton, a second or third-rate playwright contemporary with Shakespeare, who wrote a play, called "The Witch," which is plainly an imitation of the supernatural scenes in this tragedy. The Cambridge editors believe that Middleton was permitted to supply certain scenes at the time of the writing of Macbeth: Mr. Fleay, that Middleton cut down and patched up Shakespeare's perfected work, adding much inferior matter of his own, and that he did this being engaged to alter the play for stage purposes. The latter opinion I must reject, notwithstanding Mr. Fleay's minute, elaborate, and often specious argument; but the opinion of the Cambridge editors seems to me to a certain extent sound. I cannot, however, go to the length which they do in rejecting parts of this play as not being Shakespeare's work. This study of Shakespeare's style and of what is not his work at a certain period of his life being directly to our purpose, let us examine the tragedy for traces of his hand and of another.

And first let the reader turn to Scene 5 of Act III., which consists almost entirely of a long speech by Hecate, beginning:

Have I not reason, beldames as you are, Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth In riddles and affairs of death: And I, the mistress of your charms, The close contriver of all harms, Was never called to bear my part, Or show the glory of our art?

This speech is surely not of Shakespeare's writing. Its being in octosyllabic rhyme is not against it, however; although he abandoned rhyme almost altogether at or before this period. The fact of the business of the scene being supernatural would account for its form. But it is mere rhyme; little more than an unmeaning jingle of verses. Any journeyman at versemaking would write such stuff. Read the speech through, and then think of the writer of "Hamlet," and "Lear," and "Othello," producing such a weak wash of words at the same time when he was writing those tragedies. And even turn back and compare it with the rhyming speeches of his other supernatural personages, of Puck and Titana and Oberon in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," which he wrote at least ten or twelve years earlier, and you will see that it is not only so inferior, but so unlike his undoubted work that it must be rejected. Turn next to Scene 3 of Act II., and read the speeches of the Porter. Long ago Coleridge said of these, "This low soliloquy of the Porter and his few speeches afterward I believe to have been written for the mob by some other hand." That they were written for the mob is nothing against them as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare wrote for the mob. He made a point of putting in something for the groundlings[I] in every play that he wrote. But with what a mighty hand he did it! so that those who have since then sat in the highest seats in the world's theatre have laughed, and pondered as they laughed. "Lear" is notably free from this element; but even in the philosophical "Hamlet" we have the much elaborated scene of the Gravediggers, which was written only to please Coleridge's "mob."[J] But let the reader now compare these Porter's speeches in "Macbeth" with those of the Gravediggers in "Hamlet," and if he is one who can hope to appreciate Shakespeare at all, he will at this stage of his study see at once that although both are low-comedy, technically speaking, the former are low-lived, mean, thoughtless, without any other significance than that of the surface meaning of the poor, gross language in which they are written; while the latter, although, far more laughable even to the most uncultivated hearer, are pregnant with thought and suggestion. There can be no question that these speeches in "Macbeth" were written by some other hand than Shakespeare's.

Having now satisfied ourselves that some part of "Macbeth" is not Shakespeare's (and I began with those so manifestly spurious passages to establish that point clearly and easily in the reader's apprehension), "we are in a proper mood of mind to consider the objections that have been made by the Cambridge editors to other parts of the tragedy. The whole second scene of Act I. is regarded as spurious because of "slovenly metre," too slovenly for him even when he is most careless; "bombastic phraseology," too bombastic for him even when he is most so; also because he had too much good sense to send a severely wounded soldier with the news of a victory. I cannot reject this scene for these reasons. The question of metre and style is one of judgment; and the one seems to me not more irregular and careless, and the other not more tumid, than Shakespeare is in passages undoubtedly of his writing; while there is a certain flavor of language in the scene and a certain roll of the words upon the tongue which are his peculiar traits and tricks of style. The point as to the wounded soldier seems to me a manifest misapprehension. He is not sent as a messenger. Nothing in the text or in the stage directions of the original edition gives even color to such an opinion. The first two scenes of this act prepare one's mind for the tragedy and lay out its action; and they do so, as far as design is concerned, with great skill. The first short scene announces the supernatural character of the agencies at work; the next tells us of the personages who are to figure in the action and the position in which they are placed. In the second scene King Duncan and his suite, marching toward the scene of conflict, and so near it that they are within ear-shot, if not arrow-shot, meet a wounded officer. He is not sent to them. He is merely retiring from the field severely wounded—so severely that he cannot remain long uncared for. The stage direction of the folio is "Alarum within," which means (as will be found by examining other plays) that the sound of drums, trumpets, and the conflict of arms is heard. Then, "Enter King, etc., etc., meeting a bleeding Captaine." The King, then, does not greet or regard him as a messenger, but exclaims, "What bloody man is that?" and adds, "He can report, as seemeth by his plight, the condition of the revolt." Plainly this is no messenger, but a mere wounded officer who leaves the field because, as he says, his "gashes cry for help."

In Act IV., Sc. 1, this speech of the First Witch after the "Show of Eight Kings," is plainly not Shakespeare's:

Ay, sir, all this is so; but why Stands Macbeth thus amazedly? Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites, And show the best of our delights. I'll charm the air to give a sound, While you perform your antic round, That this great king may kindly say Our duties did his welcome pay.

This is condemned by the Cambridge editors, and I agree entirely with them. Moreover it seems to be manifestly from the same hand as Hecate's speech (Act III., Sc. 5), previously referred to. The style shows this, and the motive is the same—the introduction of fairy business, dancing and singing, which have nothing to do with the action of the tragedy, and are quite foreign to the supernatural motive of it as indicated in the witch scenes which have the mark of Shakespeare's hand.

In Act IV., Sc. 3, the passage in regard to touching for the King's Evil, from "Enter a Doctor" to "full of grace," was, we may be pretty sure, an interpolation previous to a representation at court, as the Cambridge editors suggest, and it is probably not Shakespeare's; but I would not undertake to say so positively. The same editors say they "have doubts about the second scene of Act V." I notice this not merely to express my surprise at it, but to let the reader see how difficult it is to arrive at a general consent upon such points which are merely matters of judgment. To me this scene is unmistakably Shakespeare's. Who else could have written this passage, not only for its excellence but for its peculiarity?

Caithness.—Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies: Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him, Do call it valiant fury; but for certain He cannot buckle his distempered cause Within the belt of rule.

Angus.— Now does he feel His secret murders sticking on his hands; Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach; Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love; now does he feel his title Hang loose about him like a giant's robe Upon a dwarfish thief.

I am sure that I should have suspected those lines to be Shakespeare's if I had first met them without a name, in a nameless book. Still more surprising is it to me to find these editors saying that in Act V., Sc. 5, lines 47-50 are "singularly weak." Here they are:

If this which he avouches does appear, There is no flying hence or tarrying here. I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun, And wish the estate of the world were now undone.

The first two have no particular character, nor need they have any, as they merely introduce the last two, which contain an utterance of blank despair and desolation which seems to me more expressive than any other that I ever read.

The last passage of the play, that after line 34, when Macbeth and Macduff go off fighting, and Macbeth is killed, are probably, as the Cambridge editors suggest, by another hand than Shakespeare's. Their tameness and their constrained rhythm are not Shakespearian work, particularly at this period of his life, and in the writing of such a scene. "Nor would he," as the Cambridge editors say, "have drawn away the veil which with his fine tact he had dropped over her [Lady Macbeth's] fate by telling us that she had taken off her life 'by self, and violent hands.'"

The person who wrote these un-Shakespearian passages was probably Middleton. Shakespeare, writing the tragedy in haste for an occasion, received a little help, according to the fashion of the time, from another playwright; and the latter having imitated the supernatural poets of this play in one of his own, the players or managers afterward introduced from that play songs by him—"Music and a song, Come away, come away," Act III., Sc. 5, and "Music and a song, Black spirits," etc., Act IV., Sc. 1. This was done to please the inferior part of the audience. These songs and all this sort of operatic incantation are entirely foreign to the supernatural motive of the tragedy as Shakespeare conceived it. And I will here remark that the usual performance of "Macbeth" with "a chorus" and "all Locke's music" is a revolting absurdity.

My next paper will close this series with an examination of some of Shakespeare's least known dramas.

RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote G: Since 1854.]

[Footnote H: For the convenience of readers to whom my edition is not accessible I quote the following passage:

"I am more inclined to this opinion from the indications which the play itself affords that it was produced upon an emergency. It exhibits throughout the hasty execution of a grand and clearly conceived design. But the haste is that of a master of his art, who, with conscious command of its resources, and in the frenzy of a grand inspiration, works out his conception to its minutest detail of essential form, leaving the work of surface finish for the occupation of cooler leisure. What the Sistine Madonna was to Raphael, it seems that 'Macbeth' was to Shakespeare—a magnificent impromptu; that kind of impromptu which results from the application of well-disciplined powers and rich stores of thought to a subject suggested by occasion. I am inclined to regard 'Macbeth' as, for the most part, a specimen of Shakespeare's unelaborated, if not unfinished, writing, in the maturity and highest vitality of his genius. It abounds in instances of extremest compression and most daring ellipsis; while it exhibits in every scene a union of supreme dramatic and poetic power, and in almost every line an imperially irresponsible control of language. Hence, I think, its lack of formal completeness of versification in certain passages, and also of the imperfection in its text, the thought in which the compositors were not always able to follow and apprehend. The only authority for the text of 'Macbeth' is the folio of 1623, the apparent corruptions of which must be restored with a more than usually cautious hand. Without being multitudinous or confusing, they are sufficiently numerous and important to test severely the patience, acumen, and judgment of any editor."—"The Works of William Shakespeare." Vol. X., P. 424.]

[Footnote I: So called because they stood on the ground. The pit was then a real pit, and its floor was the bare earth. There were no benches. It was so in the French theatre until a much later period. Hence the French name parterre for the pit—par terre, upon the ground. The name parquet, which is given to that part of a theatre in America, is not French, and is no word at all, but a miserable affected nonentity of sound.]

[Footnote J: The reader who cares to do so will find something upon this point in my essay on Shakespeare's genius, "Life and Genius of Shakespeare," pp. 280, 281.]



APPLIED SCIENCE.

A LOVE STORY IN TWO CHAPTERS.



CHAPTER I.

The village of Salmon Falls, in eastern New England, consists of a number of mills and factories, the railroad station, a store or two, and two hundred dwellings. Among these is the Denny mansion at the top of the hill, where the road climbs up from the station and the river. It is a large square house in the old colonial fashion, with two wings at the rear and a garden in front.

It was a warm July morning when Mr. John Denny, mill owner and proprietor of the homestead, had his chair rolled out to the porch, and with some assistance from the servants, reached it on his crutch and sat down in the shadow of the great house and out of the glare of the hot sun. The vine-covered porch and the wide piazza opened directly upon the garden and gave a full view of the road. Beyond there was an outlook over the open fields, the mills, the stream, and the village in the valley. By the road there was a stone wall and a wicker gate opening upon the grassy sidewalk outside. A table had been laid with a white cloth in the porch, and Mr. Denny sat by it and waited for the coming of his daughter and breakfast. While he sat thus he turned over a number of papers, and then, after a while, he began to talk to himself somewhat in this wise:

"Expense! expense! expense! There seems no end to it. Bills coming in every day, and every one larger than was expected. In my young days we built a shop and knew to a dollar what it would cost. Now the estimates are invariably short. The batting mill has already gone a thousand dollars beyond the estimates, and the roof is but just put on. Even the new chimney cost four dollars a foot more than was expected. Thank Heaven, it is done, and that expense is over. Could I walk, I might look after things and keep them within bounds. With my crushed foot I sit a prisoner at home, and must leave all to Lawrence. It is fortunate that I have one man I can trust with my affairs."

Just here Alma, his only child, a bright and wholesome girl of nineteen, appeared from the house. Fairly educated, sensible, and affectionate, but perhaps a trifle inexperienced by reason of her residence in this quiet place, she is at once the pride and the light of the house.

"Good morning, father. Are you well this happy summer's day?"

The old gentleman kissed her fondly, and asked did she pass a quiet night.

"Oh, yes. I didn't sleep much, that is all—for thinking."

"Thinking of what?"

"The expected guest. To-day is the 9th of July, and cousin Elmer comes."

"Ah, yes—Elmer Franklin. I had almost forgotten him."

"How does he look, father? Is his hair dark, or has he blue eyes? I hardly know which I like best."

"I do not remember. I've not seen the boy since he was a mere child, years ago. He has been at school since."

"He must be a man now. He is past twenty-one, and, as for school, why, it's the Scientific School, and I'm sure men go to that."

"You seem greatly interested in this unknown relative, Alma."

"He is to be our guest, father—for a whole month. Come! Will you have breakfast out here in the porch?"

"Yes, dear. It is quite comfortable here, and it will save the trouble of moving."

Thereupon Alma entered the house in search of the breakfast, and a moment after Mr. Lawrence Belford entered the garden at the street gate. The son of an old friend of Mr. Denny's lamented wife, Mr. Belford had been admitted to the house some months since as confidential clerk and business man. He was a rather commonplace person, about thirty years of age, and his education and manners were good if not remarkable. During his residence with the Dennys he had found time to fall in love with Alma, and they had been engaged—and with Mr. Denny's consent.

"Good morning, Lawrence. You're just in time for breakfast."

"Good morning, sir. Thank you, no. I have been to breakfast. I am just up from the station."

"Seen anything of the railroad coach? The train is in, and it is time for the coach to pass. Our guest may be in it."

"No, sir, but I saw the express coming up the hill with an extra large load of baggage."

Just here Alma returned from the house bearing a large tray of plates and breakfast things. The young people greet each other pleasantly, and Alma proceeds to lay the table.

"Now for breakfast, father. Everything waits upon a good appetite. Will you not join us, Lawrence?"

Mr. Belford replies that he has been to breakfast. Mr. Denny takes a cup of coffee, and while sipping it remarks:

"How many more window-frames shall you require for the new mill, Lawrence?"

"Ten more, sir. There is only a part of the fourth story unfinished."

"Alma, dear, do you remember how high we decided the new chimney was to be? Yes, thank you, only two lumps of sugar. Thank you. You remember we were talking about it when the Lawsons were here."

"Don't ask me. Ask Lawrence. I never can remember anything about such matters."

Just at that moment the express pulled up at the gate, and there was a knock. Alma rose hastily, and said:

"Oh! That must be Elmer."

She opened the gate, and young Mr. Elmer Franklin of New York entered. A man to respect: an open, manly face, clear blue eyes, and a wiry, compact, and vigorous frame. A man with a sound mind in a sound body. He was dressed in a gray travelling suit, and had a knapsack strapped to his back; in his hand a stout stick looking as if just cut from the roadside, and at his side a field glass in a leather case. Immediately behind him came a man bending under the load of an immense trunk. Alma smiled her best, and the young stranger bowed gallantly.

"Mr. Denny, I presume?"

"Welcome, cousin Franklin," said Mr. Denny from his chair. "I knew you at once, though it is years since any members of our families have met. Pardon me if I do not rise. I'm an old man, and confined to my chair."

Mr. Franklin offered his hand and said politely:

"Thank you, sir, for your kind reception. I am greatly pleased to—— Hullo! Look out there, boys! That baggage is precious and fragile."

Another man appeared, and the two brought in trunks and boxes, bundles and parcels, till there was quite a large heap of baggage piled up on the grass. Alma and Lawrence were properly amazed at this array of things portable, and Mr. Denny laid aside the breakfast things to look at the rather remarkable display.

The young man seemed to think apologies essential.

"I do not wonder that you are alarmed. I do not often take such a load of traps. I wrote you that my visit would be one of study and scientific investigation, and I was obliged to bring my philosophical apparatus and books with me."

"It is indeed a wonderful train of luggage for a man. One would have thought you intended to bring a wife."

Then Mr. Denny bethought him of his duty, and he introduced his newly found relative to his daughter and to Mr. Lawrence Belford, and then bade him draw up to the table for breakfast. The young man made the motions suitable for such an occasion, and then he turned to pay his expressman. This trifling incident deserves record as happily illustrating the young man's noble character.

"Thank you, sir. Breakfast will be a cheerful episode. I've a glorious appetite, for I walked up from the station."

"There's a coach, Mr. Franklin, and it passes our door."

"I knew that, sir, but I preferred to walk and see the country. Fine section of conglomerate you have in the road cutting just above the station."

"Eh! What were you saying?"

"I said that I observed an interesting section of conglomerate—water-worn pebbles, I should say—mingled with quartz sand, on the roadside. I must have a run down there and a better look at it after breakfast."

Mr. Denny was somewhat overwhelmed at this, and said doubtfully,

"Ah, yes, I remember—yes, exactly."

"Are you interested in geology, Miss Denny?"

Alma was rather confused, and tried hard to find the lump of sugar that had melted away in her coffee, and said briefly,

"No. I didn't know that we had any in this part of the country."

Mr. Belford here felt called upon to say:

"My dear Alma, you forget yourself."

"Why will you take me up so sharply, Lawrence? I meant to say that I didn't know we had any quartz conglomerate hereabouts."

Mr. Franklin smiled pleasantly, and remarked to himself:

"My dear Alma! That's significant. Wonder if he's spooney on her?"

Then he said aloud:

"The pursuit of science demands good dinners. Pardon me if I take some more coffee."

"Yes, do—and these rolls. I made them myself—expressly for you."

"Thank you for both rolls and compliment."

Mr. Lawrence took up some of the papers from the table and began to read them, and the others went on with their breakfast. Presently Mr. Denny said:

"I presume, Mr. Franklin, that you are greatly interested in your school studies?"

"Yes, sir. The pursuit of pure science is one of the most noble employments that can tax the cultivated intellect."

"But you must confess that it is not very practical."

Before the young man could reply Alma spoke:

"Oh! cousin Elmer—I mean Mr. Franklin—excuse me. You haven't taken off your knapsack."

Taking it off and throwing it behind him on the ground, he said:

"It's only my clothes."

"Clothes!" said Mr. Denny. "Then what is in the trunks?"

"My theodolite, cameras, chains, levels, telescopes, retorts, and no end of scientific traps."

Alma, quite pleased:

"How interesting. Won't you open one of the trunks and let us see some of the things?"

"With the greatest pleasure; but perhaps I'd better take them to my room first."

"Anything you like, Elmer—Mr. Franklin, I mean. Our house is your home."

Lawrence Belford here frowned and looked in an unpleasant manner for a moment at the young stranger, who felt rather uncomfortable, though he could scarcely say why. With apparent indifference he drew out a small brass sounder, such as is used in telegraph offices, and began snapping it in his fingers.

In his mind he said:

"Wonder if any of them are familiar with the great dot and line alphabet!"

Alma heard the sounder and said eagerly:

"Oh! cou—Mr. Franklin, what is that?"

"It is a pocket sounder. Do you know the alphabet?"

"I should hope so."

"I beg pardon. I meant Morse's."

"Morse's?"

"Yes. Morse's alphabet."

"No. You must teach it to me."

Thereupon he moved the sounder slowly, giving a letter at a time, and saying:

"A - — L - — - - M — — A - —.

That's your name. Queer sound, isn't it?"

"Let me try. Perhaps I could do it."

"My dear Alma, your father is waiting. You had best remove the things."

"Yes, Lawrence. I'll call Mary."

The maid soon appeared, and the breakfast things were removed. Then Mr. Denny drew Mr. Franklin's attention to the new factory chimney that stood in plain sight from where they sat.

The young man promptly drew out his field glass, and, mounting one of the steps of the porch, took a long look at the new shaft.

"Not quite plumb, is it?"

"Not plumb! What do you mean?"

"It is impossible," said Mr. Belford with some warmth.

"It looks so," said the young man with the glass still up at his eyes.

"I tell you it is impossible, sir. I built it myself, and I ought to know."

"Oh! Beg pardon. You can take the glass and see for yourself."

"I need no glass. I took the stage down only yesterday, and I ought to know."

"Allow me to take your glass, cousin Franklin," said Mr. Denny. He took the glass, but quickly laid it down with a sigh.

"My eyes are old and weak, and the glass does not suit them. I am very sorry to hear what you say. I would not have one of my chimneys out of line for the world."

"I am sorry I said anything about it, sir. I did not know the chimney belonged to you."

Alma was apparently distressed at the turn the conversation had taken, and tried to lead it to other matters, but the old gentleman's mind was disturbed, and he returned to the chimney.

"I designed it to be the tallest and finest chimney I ever erected, and I hope it is all correct."

"It is, sir," said Mr. Belford. "Everything is correct to the very capstones."

"It is my tallest chimney, Mr. Franklin—eighty-one feet and six inches; and that is two feet taller than any chimney in the whole Salmon Falls valley."

Mr. Franklin, in an innocent spirit of scientific inquiry, put his glass to his eyes and examined the chimney again. Alma began to feel ill at ease, and Lawrence Belford indulged in a muttered curse under his black moustache.

"Eighty-one feet and six inches—the tallest chimney in the valley."

No one seemed to heed the old gentleman's remark, and presently Mr. Franklin laid his field glass on the table, and taking out his brass sounder, he idly moved it as if absently thinking of something.

Alma suddenly looked up with a little blush and a smile. Her eyes seemed to say to him:

"I heard you call? What is it?"

He nodded pleasantly, and said, "Would you like to see some of my traps?"

"Oh, yes. Do open one of your trunks."

Mr. Franklin took out a bunch of keys and went to one of the trunks. As he did so he said to himself:

"Deuced bright girl! She learned my call in a flash. I must teach her the whole alphabet, and then will have some tall fun and circumvent that fool of a clerk."

This remark was applied to Mr. Belford, and was eminent for its touching truth.

While the young people were opening the trunk, Mr. Denny and Mr. Belford were engaged in examining the business papers spread on the table, and for several minutes they paid no attention to things done and said almost under their eyes.

Such a very strange trunk. Instead of clothing, it contained the most singular assortment of scientific instruments. Each was carefully secured so that no rude handling would harm it, and all shining and glistening brilliantly as if kept with the most exquisite care. Mr. Franklin unfastened a small brass telescope, mounted upon a stand, with a compass, levels, plumb line, and weight attached.

"That's my theodolite. There's a tripod in one of my boxes. I'll get it and mount it, and we'll have a shot at the chimney.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing! I'm going to measure it. Wouldn't you like to help me?"

"With all my heart. Tell me what to do."

"Presently. Wait till I've screwed things together; then I'll tell you what to do. Oh! By the way, I must tell you an amusing episode that happened at the railroad station while I was waiting for my luggage. There was a young man sending off a message at the little telegraph station, and I overheard the message and the comments of the operator."

Alma didn't appear to enjoy this incident.

"Not listening intentionally, you know. It was the telegraph I heard, not the people."

Alma felt better.

"It was all by mere sounds, and it ran this way: 'The old fool is here again.' That's what she said—the operator, I mean. 'To Isaac Abrams, 1,607 Barclay street, New York. I have secured the will. Foreclose the mortgage and realize at once. Get two state rooms for the 25th.—L. B.' That was the message, and it was so very strange I wrote it out in my—— Oh! Beg pardon, Miss Denny. Are you ill?"

Alma's face had assumed a sudden pallor, and she seemed frightened and ill at ease.

"'Tis nothing—really nothing! I shall be better presently."

Then, as if anxious to change the conversation, she began to ask rapid questions about the theodolite and its uses.

Mr. Franklin was too well bred to notice anything, but he confessed to himself that he had said something awkward, and, for the life of him, he could not imagine what it might be. He replied briefly, and then went on with his preparations for some time in silence, Alma meanwhile looking on with the greatest interest. The theodolite having been put together, Mr. Franklin opened another box and took out a wooden tripod, such as are used to support such instruments. He also took out a fine steel ribbon, or measuring tape, neatly wound up on a reel.

"You shall carry that, Miss Denny, and I'll shoulder the theodolite."

"Wait till I get my hat and the sun umbrella."

"To be sure; it will be warm in the fields."

Alma was soon arrayed in a dainty chip. At least she called it a chip, and the historian can do naught but repeat her language. Besides this, it was not bigger than a chip, and it looked very pretty tied under her chin. Over her head she carried its real protection, an immense Japanese paper umbrella, light, airy, and generous.

"Where are you going, Alma?" said Mr. Denny.

"Oh! only to the fields for a little walk. We'll be back presently."

The confidential clerk thought it strange that the daughter of the house should be so free with the stranger. But the young people were distant cousins, and it wouldn't have been polite in him to have objected to the little walk.

So the two, under the friendly shade of the big paper umbrella, went out to see the new chimney, while Mr. Denny and the confidential clerk staid behind to talk business.

The new chimney stood at the southeast corner of the great four-story mill, and close beside the little brick engine house. Alma led the youthful son of science out of the gate, down the road a few rods, and then they passed a stile, and took the winding path that straggled over the pastures to the mill.

Of course they talked volubly. This being the stern and prosy record of applied science, it becomes us not to report the chatterings of these two till they reached the base of the vast brick chimney, towering nearly eighty feet into the air above them. Its long shadow lay like a stiffened snake upon the fields, and Elmer, observing it, said:

"Good! We can use the shadow, too, and have double proof."

"How?" said the bright one, in a beautiful spirit of inquiry.

"If an upright stick, a foot long, casts a shadow three feet long, the shadow of another stick beside it, at the same time, is proportionally long."

"I knew that before. That isn't very high science."

"Why did you say 'how'?"

"Because I didn't think. Because I was a goose."

"Such terms are not choice, and are devoid of truth. Here! stern duty calls. Do you hold one end of the tape at the foot of the chimney, and I'll measure off the base line of our triangle."

Alma was charmed to be of use, and sat on a stone with the brass ring of the tape on her ring finger next her engagement ring, and her hand flat against the first course of bricks. Trifles sometimes hint great events. Little did she think that the plain brass ring on her finger was the hard truth of science that should shiver her gold ring to fragments and pale its sparkling diamond. Being a wholesome creature, and not given to romance, she thought nothing about it, which was wise. Her cousin, the knight of the theodolite, set his instrument upright upon the grass, and then ran the measuring line out to its full length.

"All right! Let the tape go."

Alma took off the brass ring, and the steel ribbon ran like a glittering snake through the grass, and she slowly followed it and joined her knight.

"Once more, please. Hold the ring on this bit of a stake that I've set up in the ground."

Alma, like a good girl, did as she was bid, and the ribbon ran out again to its full length. Another stake was set up, and the theodolite was placed in position and a sight obtained at the top of the tall chimney. A little figuring in a note-book, and then the son of high science quietly remarked:

"Seventy-six feet four inches—short five feet two inches."

Just here several urchins of an inquiring turn of mind drew near and began to make infantile comments, and asked with charming freedom if it was circus.

"No!" said Alma, from under her paper tent. "No! Run away, children, run away."

It was too warm for so much exertion, and they wouldn't move.

"Oh! never mind them. They don't trouble me; and if it amuses them, it's so much clear gain."

"They are some of the factory children, and I thought they might bother you."

"Inelegant, but thoughtful." He didn't say so. He only thought it, which was quite as well.

During this little episode the impressive facts that all this scientific exertion had brought out concerning the chimney were lost upon Alma. It was small consequence. She knew it well enough before night.

Now for the shadow by way of proof. The theodolite, paper umbrella, and admiring crowd of children trotted severally and collectively over the grass till they reached the chimney again.

"The tape-measure, Alma. You hold the ring, and I'll unreel the string."

It was surprising how quickly these two made each other's acquaintance. By the time the long shadow was measured, a stake set up, and the two shadows compared, they seemed to have known each other for weeks. Such is the surprising effect of pure science when applied to love.

Had it come to this already? She was engaged to the confidential, the chimney-builder. His ring glittered on her finger. True—all of it!

See them sauntering slowly (the thermometer at 87 deg.) homeward under the friendly shade of an oiled paper umbrella. They are indeed good friends already. They enter the house together, and the cheerful dinner bell greets their ears. She folds her oiled paper tent and he sets his instrument up in a corner of the great shady hall. She leads the way to the chamber that is to be his room during his stay, and then retires to her own to prepare for the frugal noontide meal.

The exact truth records that the meal was not severely frugal. It was otherwise, and so much nicer.

The entire family were assembled, and conversation was lively, considering the weather. Near the close of the meal it grew suddenly warm. The innocent son of science, proud of his accomplishments, made a most incautious statement, and the result was peculiar.

"Oh, uncle, you were saying this morning that my science was not very practical. I tried a bit of it on your chimney this morning, and what do you think I found?"

"I'm sure I can't tell," said Mr. Denny.

"I measured it, and it is exactly seventy-six feet, four inches high."

If he had dropped a can of nitro-glycerin under the table, the effect couldn't have been more startling. Mr. Lawrence Belford dropped his fruit knife with a ruinous rattle, his face assumed the color of frosted cake (the frosting, to be exact), and he seemed thoroughly frightened. Mr. Denny looked surprised, and said,

"What?"

Alma said nothing, but fished for the sugar in her strawberries and cream.

"What did you say, Mr. Franklin?"

"I said that I measured the new chimney, just for the fun of the thing, and found that it is exactly seventy-six feet, four inches high."

"It's an abominable lie."

"Lawrence!" said Alma, with an appealing glance.

"Are you sure, Mr. Franklin? Have you not made some mistake?"

"You are utterly mistaken, Mr. Franklin. I measured that chimney with a line from the top, and I know your statement is entirely incorrect."

"I hope so," said the old gentleman.

"It is so, sir," added Mr. Belford; and then, waxing bolder, he said, "How could this young person, just from school, know anything of such matters? Did he build a staging, or did he climb up the inside like a chimney sweep?"

Young Mr. Franklin saw that he had in some innocent fashion started a most disagreeable subject. Why Mr. Denny should be so disturbed and Mr. Belford so angry was past his comprehension. At the same time Mr. Belford's language was offensive, and he replied with some spirit:

"There is no need to climb the chimney, or use a line. It is a trifling affair to ascertain the height of any building with a theodolite, as you probably know."

"I tell you, sir, it is false—utterly false. Besides, you have made some mistake in the figures. You—you—but I've no patience with such boy's play. It's only fit for school children."

"Lawrence," said Alma, "you are unkind. I'm sure we meant no harm. I helped Mr. Franklin, and I'm sure he's right; besides, we measured the chimney by its shadow, and both statements were alike."

"Oh, if you've turned against me, I've nothing more to say."

Mr. Denny meanwhile seemed lost in deep study, and he hardly heeded what was going on.

"What can that boy know about such things? I tell you, it's——"

"It seems to me, Mr. Belford, you are unnecessarily excited," said Mr. Denny. "Mr. Franklin is a much younger man than you, but he showed a knowledge of this matter, and if his figures are correct——"

"They are, sir," said Elmer warmly. "I can show you the base line, and the theodolite is still at the same angle. Alma saw me measure the base, and she can tell you its length. There are the figures in my note-book."

Mr. Denny took the note-book and examined the figuring out of this problem, and Elmer went to the hall for his instrument. He returned with the theodolite still secured at the angle at which the sight had been taken. As he laid the instrument on the dining table, he said:

"I am very sorry, uncle, that I did anything about this matter. It was done in mere sport, and I wish I had said nothing concerning it. I would not had not Mr. Belford used the language he did."

Mr. Denny ran his eye over the figures in the book, and then, with a pained expression, he said briefly,

"Everything seems to be correct."

"Damnation! I'll break his head for him, the intermeddling fool." This language was not actually used by Mr. Belford, but he thought as much. His eyes flashed, and he clenched his fists under the table. Alma's presence alone restrained him from something more violent. He appeared calm, but inwardly he was angry. This unexpected announcement concerning the chimney he had built cast a heavy shadow over him, and his conscience awoke with a sudden smart.

Alma was greatly disturbed, and ready to cry for shame and vexation. She did not, for she felt sure this was only the beginning of a new trouble, and she well knew that heavy sorrows had already invaded the house. They needed no more.

Mr. Franklin glanced from one to another in alarm. He saw that he was treading upon uncertain ground, and he wisely held his peace. After a brief and awkward pause, Mr. Belford rose, and pleading the calls of business, went out, and the unhappy interview came to an end.

* * * * *

It was a strange room. Its belongings stranger still. A large square chamber, with windows on three sides and a door and a fireplace on the other. Just now the fireplace had fallen from its high estate and had become a catch-all for the wrecks of much unpacking. There was a small single bed, two chairs, and an indefinite number of tables. Impossible to say how many, for they were half obscured by numberless things scientific: microscopes, a retort, small furnace, two cameras, galvanic battery, coils of wire and rubber tubing, magic lantern, books, photographs, and papers; on a small desk a confused pile of papers; on the walls a great number of pictures and photographs.

The very den of a student of science. Hardly room to walk among the wilderness of traps, boxes, and trunks. At the window, the young man, just dressed, and taking a view of the mill and its new chimney.

"Gad! how mad the fellow was over my little measurements. Wonder what it all means? The girl's in trouble, the father has a grief, and the clerk—I can make nothing of him. What matter? My duty is with my books, that I may pursue pure science. The moment things become practical I drop 'em."

Then he turned and looked out of the next window.

"Fine view of the river. I must have another try at it with the camera."

He crossed the room, and standing in the bright morning sunshine, he looked about to examine the other L that had been thrown out from the back of the main building.

"That's Alma's room, and the next is the clerk's, the chimney man. The window is open, and the place looks as dark as a cave. I've a mind to light it up."

So saying he took a small hand mirror from a table near by. Holding it in the full sunlight, he moved it slowly about till the dancing spot of reflected light fell upon the open window and leaped in upon the opposite wall of the room. The observer with steady hand moved the spot of light about till he had probed the room, and found all it contained, which was nothing save a bed and two chairs.

"Applied science reports the man is fit for treason, spoils, and that sort of thing. He has no pictures. His room is a sleeping den. The man is a——Hallo! Steady there!"

The door in the room opened, and the student of applied science turned quickly away with his back to the wall beside his window. Cautiously raising the mirror, he held it near the window in such a way that in it he could see all that went on in the other room, without being himself seen.

Suddenly he saw something in the glass. Some one appeared at the window, looked out as if watching for something, and then withdrew into the bare little sleeping room. Then the figure in the mirror went to the bed and carefully turned all the clothes back. The student of science watched the mirror intently. The figure bent over the uncovered mattress and quietly opened the sacking and took something out. It sat down on the edge of the disordered bed and proceeded to examine the box or bundle, whatever it might be, that it had found in the bed.

Just here there was the sound of a distant door opening and closing. The figure crouched low on the bed, as if fearing to be seen, and waited till all was quiet again. Then it slowly opened the box or package, and took out a folded paper. The student bent over the mirror with the utmost interest. What did it mean? What would happen next? Nothing in particular happened. The figure closed the box, returned it to its hiding place in the bed, and then crept out of the range of reflected vision.

Why should the confidential clerk hide papers in his bed? What was the nature of the documents? A strange affair, certainly, but it did not concern him, and perhaps he had better drop the subject. He turned to his books and papers, and for an hour or more was too much occupied with them to heed aught else.

Suddenly there was a brisk series of taps at his door, like this:

- - — - - — — - - — —

"I'm here. Come in."

Alma, the bright one entered.

"What a room! Such disorder, Elmer."

"Yes. It is quite a comfortable den. I've unpacked everything, and—mind your steps—feel quite at home—thank you."

"I should say as much. Do look at the dust. I must have Mary up here at once."

"Madam, I never allow any female person to touch my traps. Mary may make the bed, but she must not sweep, nor dust, nor touch anything."

"Oh! really. Then I'll go at once."

"Better not."

"Why?"

"Because I've many things to show——"

"Oh, Elmer! What is that—that queer thing on the table? May I look at it?"

"That's my new camera."

"How stupid. I might have known that. Do you take pictures?"

"Photos? Yes. Will you sit?"

"Oh, dear, no. I hate photographs. It's so disagreeable to see oneself staring with some impossible expression, and sitting in an impossible palace, with a distant landscape and drapery curtains."

"Then I'll take a view for you. Find a seat somewhere while I rig things. See those two people sitting on the little bridge that crosses the race beyond the mill? I'll photograph them without their permission."

Alma looked out of the window when Elmer had raised the curtain, but declared she couldn't see anything.

"They are very far off. Take the field glass, and you'll see them."

Alma took the glass from the table, and looked out on the sunny landscape.

"I see what you mean, but I can't make out who they are, even with the glass. It's a man and a woman, and that's as much as I can see."

"You shall see them plain enough in a moment."

So saying, Elmer placed a long brass telescope upon a stand by the open window, and through it he examined the couple on the bridge. Meanwhile Alma gazed round the room and examined its strange contents with the greatest interest.

The moment the focus of the glass was secured, Elmer hastily took the little camera, and adjusting a slide in it from a table drawer, he placed it before the telescope on the table and close to the eye hole. Then, by throwing a black cloth over his head, he looked into it, turned a screw or two, and in a moment had a negative of the distant couple.

"Aren't you almost ready?"

"In one moment, Alma. I must fix this first. I'll be right back."

So saying he took the slide from the little camera, and went out of the room into a dark closet in the entry.

Alma waited patiently for a few moments, and then she took up the field glass, and looked out of the window. Who could they be? They seemed to be having a cosy time together; but beyond the fact that one figure was a woman she could learn nothing. She wanted to take a look through the telescope, but did not dare to move the little camera that stood before it.

"Here's the picture," said Elmer as he entered the room.

Alma took the bit of glass he offered her, but declared she couldn't see anything but a dirty spot on the glass.

"That's the negative. Let me copy it, and then I'll throw it up with the stereopticon."

He selected another bit of glass from a box, and in a few minutes had it prepared and the two put together and laid in the sun on the window-seat.

"What's in that iron box, Elmer?"

"Nitrous oxide."

"The same thing that the dentists use?"

"Yes. Would you like to try a whiff? It's rather jolly, and will not hurt you in the least."

Elmer caught up a bit of rubber pipe, secured one end to the iron chest and inserted the other in a mouthpiece having the proper inhalation and exhalation valves.

"Put that in your mouth for a moment."

Alma, with beautiful confidence, put the tube in her mouth, and in a moment her pretty head fell back against the back of the chair in deep sleep. With wonderful speed and skill Elmer rolled a larger camera that stood in a corner out into the centre of the room, ran in a slide, adjusted the focus, and before the brief slumber passed had a negative of the sleeping one.

"Oh, how odd! What a queer sensation to feel yourself going and going, off and off, till you don't know where you are!"

"It is rather queer. I've often taken the gas myself—just for fun. Now, Alma, if you will let down the curtains, and close the shutters, and make the room dark, I'll light the lantern and show you the picture."

Alma shut the blinds, drew down the curtains, and closed all the shutters save one.

"Won't it be too dark?"

"No. It must be quite dark. You can stand here in the middle of the room and look at that bit of bare wall between the windows. I left that space clear for a screen."

Alma eagerly took her place, and said with a laugh:

"If this is the pursuit of pure science, it is very amusing. I'd like to study science—in this way."

"Yes, it is rather interesting——"

"Oh, Elmer, it's pitch dark."

"Never mind. Stand perfectly still and watch the wall. There—there's the spot of light. Now I'll run in the positive."

A round spot of white light fell on the unpapered wall, and then two dusky shadows slid over it, vague, obscure, and gigantic.

"There are your people. Now I'll adjust the focus. There—look."

A heavy sob startled him.

"Oh! It's that hateful Alice Green!"

Elmer opened the door of the lantern, and the light streamed full upon Alma. She was bathed in tears, and her shoulders, visible through her light summer dress, shook with sobs.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing! Oh, it's—nothing—let me—go——"

With an impatient gesture she tried to brush the tears from her eyes, and then, without a word, she hastily ran out of the room.

The student of pure science was surprised beyond measure. What had happened? What new blunder had he committed? With all his deep study of things material he was ignorant of things emotional and sentimental. This exhibition of anger and grief in his pretty cousin utterly disconcerted him. He did not know what to do, nor what to think, and he stood in the glare of his lantern for a moment or two in deep thought.

Then he closed the lantern and turning round, examined the shadowy picture thrown upon the wall. It represented a young man and a young woman seated upon the wooden rail of the bridge in the open air, and in most loving embrace. His arm was about her waist, and he was looking in her face. His straw hat hid his features, but the face of the young woman was turned toward the camera that had so perfectly mirrored them both. She seemed to be a young and pretty girl in the more lowly walks of life, and her lover seemed to be a gentleman. What a pity he hadn't looked up! Who could he be? And she? Alma's remark plainly showed that she at least knew the girl, and for some reason was hotly indignant with her.

Thinking he had made trouble enough already, Elmer took one more good look at the picture, and then prepared to destroy it. Something about the young man's hat struck him as familiar. It was a panama hat, and had two ribbons wound round it in a fanciful manner that was not exactly conventional.

He silently opened a shutter, and the picture faded away. He drew up the curtains and looked out on the bridge. The young couple had disappeared. Poor innocents! They little knew how their pictures had been taken in spite of themselves, and they little knew the tragic and terrible consequences that were to flow from the stolen photograph so strangely made. Elmer took the little slide from the lantern, and was on the point of shivering it to fragments on the hearthstone, when he paused in deep thought. Was it wise to destroy it? Had he not better preserve it? Perhaps he could some day solve the mystery that hung about it, and find out the cause of Alma's grief and anger. Perhaps he might help her; and there came a softening about his heart that seemed both new and wonderfully unscientific.

Shortly after this the dinner bell rang, and he went down to the dining-room. Alma sent word that she had a severe headache and could not appear. Mr. Belford was already there, and he looked at Mr. Franklin with an expression that made the young man uncomfortable in spite of himself. Mr. Denny was unusually thoughtful and silent, and conversation between the younger men was not particularly brilliant or entertaining. At last the dreary meal was finished. Mr. Belford rose first and went out into the hall. Mr. Franklin followed him, and saw something that quite took his breath away.

There lay the hat of the photograph, double ribbons and all. Mr. Belford quietly took it up and put it on, and it fitted him perfectly. Elmer stopped abruptly and looked at the man with the utmost interest. The confidential, the chimney builder paid no attention, and quickly passed on out of the front door.

"E. Franklin, you have made a discovery. The pursuit of pure science never showed anything half so interesting as this. You had better raise a cloud on the subject. Gad! It's cloudy enough already!"

This to himself as he slowly went up stairs to his room. Selecting a pipe, he filled it, and finding a comfortable seat, he fired up and prepared to examine mentally the events of the day.

"It was the confidential, making love to some village beauty, supposed to be 'Green,' by name, if not by nature. Alma loves him. That's bad. Perhaps she's engaged to him. Has she a ring? Yes—saw it the other day. The affair is cloudy—and—Gad! Blessed if I don't keep that lantern-slide! It may be of use some day. Come in."

This last was in response to a knock at the door. Mr. Belford entered, panama hat with two ribbons in hand.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Franklin. I thought I might find you here.".

"Yes, I'm at leisure. What can I do for you? Smoke?"

"No; I can't to-day. The fact is, I've a bad tooth, and smoking troubles it."

"Indeed? Let me see it. I'm a bit of a dentist."

"Are you? That's fortunate, for it aches sadly, and our nearest dentist is five miles away."

"Sit right here by the window, where I can have a good light."

Mr. Belford, a physical coward, could not bear pain; and though he was unwilling to be under obligations to one whom he considered a mere boy, he sat down in the proffered chair, and opened his mouth dutifully.

"Ah, yes—dentes sapentia. It's quite gone. Shall I take it out for you?"

"Will it be painful?"

"No. I'll give you nitrous oxide. Without it it might be very painful, for the tooth is much broken down."

Mr. Belford hesitated. Had he better place himself so utterly at the mercy of this young man?

"It will pass off in a moment, and leave no ill effects behind. You had better take it."

"Well, I will; but make it very mild, for I am afraid of these new-fangled notions."

"You need have no fear," said Elmer, bringing up his iron box of nitrous oxide, and selecting a pair of forceps from the mass of instruments in one of his trunks.

"It's very odd. It's the merest chance that I happened to have a pair of forceps. Are you ready now? Put this tube in your mouth, and breathe easily and naturally."

The patient leaned back in the chair, and the amateur stood silently watching him.

"It's a fearful risk, but I'm going to try it. I succeeded with Alma, and I fancy I can with this fool. He was a fool to run right into my arms in this fashion. No wonder his wisdom tooth was rotten. I'll have it out in a moment."

All this to himself. The patient closed his eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

"Take it strong. It will not hurt you, and I must keep you quiet till the deed is done."

High science was to be brought to bear upon rascality, and he must move cautiously and quickly. The instant the patient was unconscious, Elmer bent over him and turned back his coat, and from the inside pocket he drew forth a folded paper. He had caught a glimpse of it when he looked in the man's mouth, and on the spur of the moment he had conceived and put into practice this bold stroke of applied science. Making the man comfortable, and giving him a little air with the gas, he opened the paper and spread it wide open before a pile of books in the full sunlight. The patient stirred uneasily. With a breathless motion Elmer plied him with more gas, and he sighed softly and slumbered deeper than ever. With a spring he reached the camera, rolled it up before the paper, and set in a new slide. It copied the paper with terrible certainty, and then, without reading it, Elmer folded the paper up again and restored it to his patient's pocket.

The patient revived. He put his hand in his mouth. The tooth was still there.

"Why, you didn't touch it?"

"No. I was delayed a bit. Take the gas again."

The man submitted, and inhaled more gas. At the instant he slumbered the forceps were deftly plied and the tooth removed. Bathing the man's face with water, the young dentist watched him closely till he revived again.

"Do you feel better?"

"Better! Why, I'm not hurt! Is it really out?"

"Yes. There it is in the washbowl."

"You did very well, young man. Excellently. I'm sure I'm much obliged."

"You're welcome," replied Mr. Franklin. "It was a trifling affair."

Repeating his thanks, the visitor put on his hat with its two ribbons and retired.

For an hour or more the youthful son of science worked over his new negatives, and then he quietly closed the shutters and lighted his stereopticon. The first picture he threw upon the wall greatly pleased him. With half-parted lips, a placid smile, and closed eyes, the sleeping Alma lived in shadowy beauty before him.

"Queer such a charming girl should belong to such a fool!"

Not choice language for a son of pure-eyed science, but history is history, and the truth must be told.

"Now for the paper."

He took Alma's stolen picture from the lantern, and inserted in its place a positive copy of the paper he had captured from her lover. Suddenly there flashed upon the wall a document of the most startling and extraordinary character. He read it through several times before he could bring himself to understand the peculiar nature of the important discovery he had made. Long and earnestly he gazed upon the gigantic writing on the wall, and then he slowly opened one of the shutters, and the magic writing faded away in the rosy light of the setting sun.

A moment after, the tea-bell rang. This over, young Mr. Franklin said he, must go out for his evening constitutional. He wished to be alone. The events of the day, the discoveries he had made, and, more than all, Alma's grief and silence at the supper-table, disturbed him. He wished more air, more freedom to think over these things and to devise some plan for future action.

Alma. What of her? Was he not growing to like her—perhaps love her? And she was engaged to that—that—he could not think of him with patience. The chimney, the two in the photo, and the strange paper: what did they all mean? Why were both father and daughter in such evident distress? He pondered these things as he walked through the shadowy lanes, and then, about eight o'clock, he returned, in a measure composed and serene.

There was a light in the parlor, and he went in and found Alma alone.

"Oh, Elmer! I'm glad you've come. It's very lonely here. Father has gone to bed quite ill, and Lawrence asked me to sit up till he returned. He's gone down to the village on some business. I can't see why he should. The stores are closed and the last train has gone."

She made a place for him on the sofa, and he sat down beside her. For some time they talked indifferently upon various matters—the weather, the heat of the day, and like trivialities.

Suddenly she turned upon him, and said, with ill-suppressed excitement:

"What did you do with it, Elmer?"

"Do with what?"

"The picture."

"Oh, yes—the lantern slide. I wish I had never made it. It's up stairs in my room."

"You didn't know it was Alice Green?"

"No. How should I? I did not know who either of the people was till the picture was thrown upon the wall."

"Do you know now—know both of them, I mean?"

"Yes—I think I do. One was Mr.——"

"Yes, Elmer, you may as well say it. It was Lawrence."

Elmer could think of nothing to say, and wisely said nothing. After a brief pause Alma said slowly, as if talking to herself:

"It was a cruel thing to do."

"I did not mean to be cruel."

"Oh, my dear—cousin, don't think of it in that way. It was Lawrence who was so cruel."

"Yes. It was not very gentlemanly; but perhaps he does not care for—for this person."

"He does. The picture was only confirmation of what I had heard before. I've done with him," she added in a sort of suppressed desperation. "I'm going to break our engagement this very night. I know it will nearly break my heart, and father will be very angry; but, Elmer, come nearer; let me tell you about it. I'm afraid of him. He has such an evil eye, and you remember the chimney—the day you came—I thought he would kill you, he was so angry."

Evidently she was in sore trouble. Even her language was marked by doubt and difficulty.

"Advise me, Elmer. Tell me what to do. I hardly know which way to turn, and I'm so lonely. Father is busy every day, and I can't talk to him. And Lawrence—I dare not trust him."

Here she began to cry softly, and hid her face in her handkerchief. The son of science was perplexed. What should he do or say? All this was new to him. That a young and pretty girl should appeal to him with such earnestness disconcerted him, and he did not know how to act. A problem in triangulation or knotty question in physics would have charmed him and braced him up for any work. This was so new and so peculiar that he said, "Don't cry, cousin," and repented it at once as a silly speech.

"I must. It does me good."

"Then I would."

Thereupon they both laughed heartily and felt better. He recovered his wits at once.

"Do you think you really love him?"

The man of science is himself again.

"No, I don't."

"Then—well, it's hardly my place to say it."

"Then break the engagement. That's what you mean. I intend to do so; but, Elmer, I wish you could be here with me."

"It would be impossible. Oh! I've an idea."

"Have you? There! I knew you would help me. You are so bright, Elmer, and so kind——"

He nipped her enthusiasm in the bud.

"Do you think you could telegraph to me from your pocket?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You know the letters now perfectly, and if you had your hand on an armature, you could send off messages quickly?"

"Yes. You know I learned the alphabet in one day, and it's nearly a week since you put up that line to my room. Think how we have talked with it already. And you remember the tea table, when the Lawsons and the Stebbens were here. Didn't I answer all your questions about Minna Lawson while I was talking with her by tapping on the table with a spoon?"

"Yes. So far so good; but now I'm going to try a most dangerous and difficult piece of scientific work, and you must help me. My plan is for you to keep in telegraphic communication with me while the interview goes on. Then, if he is insulting or troublesome, you can call me."

"How bright of you, Elmer. If Lawrence had been half so good and kind and bright—if he knew half as much—I might have loved him longer."

"Wait a bit, and I'll get the lines."

"May I go too?"

"Oh, yes; come."

The two went softly up the hall stairs, through the long entry to the L, and into Elmer's room. They set the lamp on a table, and Elmer dragged forth from the scientific confusion of the place a collection of telegraphic apparatus of all kinds.

"There's the battery. That I'll keep here. There is the recording instrument. That I'll keep here also. Now you want a small armature to open and close the current. Wait a bit! I'd better make one."

Alma sat down on a box, and her new Lohengrin set to work with shears and file to make something that would answer for an armature and still be small enough to hide in the hand. Cutting off two small pieces of insulated copper wire, he bound them together side by side at one end. The loose ends he separated by crowding a bit of rubber between them, and then with the file and his knife he removed a part of the insulating covering till the bright copper showed at the tips of each wire.

"There! You can hide that in the pocket of your dress, or hold it in your hand even. When you wish to close the circuit, pinch the wires, and they will touch each other. When you withdraw the pressure the rubber will push them apart."

Alma declared she could do it easily, and the armature having been connected with the wires and the battery, they both prepared to go to the parlor.

Down the stairs they crept, slowly unwinding two delicate coils of insulated wire as they went, and pushing them back against the wall well out of sight. When they came to the mats Alma lifted them up, and Elmer laid the wires down, and then the mats covered them from sight.

"Now, you sit here, in a comfortable chair, and hide the wires in the folds of your dress. I'll lead them off over the carpet behind you, and unless the——Lawrence is brighter than I think he is, he'll not find them."

These mysterious operations were hardly completed before the door bell rang and Lawrence came in. He did not seem particularly pleased to find Mr. Franklin sitting up with Alma, and the meeting was not very cordial. After a few unimportant remarks Mr. Franklin said that he must retire.

"I'd like to know, miss, what that puppy said to you. He's been here all the evening, I dare say."

"He has, Lawrence; but I will not have my friends spoken of in that way."

"Your friends indeed! What do you intend to do about it?"

Meanwhile her hand, persistently kept in her pocket, nervously moved the electric armature, and a sudden twinge of pain startled her. Her finger, caught between the wires, felt the shock of a returning current. Suddenly the pain flashed again, and she understood it. Elmer was replying to her. She forced herself to read his words by the pain the wires caused her, and she spelled out:

"Keep cool. Don't fear him."

"Seems to me you're precious silent, miss."

"One might well keep silence while you use such language as you do, Lawrence Belford."

"Who's a better right?"

"No man has a right not to be a gentleman, and as for your right, I have decided to withdraw it."

"What do you mean?" he cried in sudden anger.

She drew her hand out of her pocket, slowly took off her engagement ring, and said,

"That."

"Oh! We'll have none of that. You may put your ring on again."

"I shall never wear it again."

"Yes, you will."

"I shall not."

"Look here, Miss Denny. We'll have no nonsense. You are going to marry me next week. I suppose you know that mortgage is to be foreclosed on Monday, and you and your father will be beggars. I know how to stop all this, and I can do it. Marry me, and go to New York with me on Wednesday, and the mortgage will be withdrawn."

"We may find the will before that."

"Oh! You may, you may. You and your father have been searching for that will these ten years. You haven't found it yet, and you won't."

Alma under any ordinary circumstances would have quailed before this man. As it was, those trails of copper wire down her dress kept her busy. She rapidly sent off through them nearly all that was said, and her knight of the battery sat up stairs copying it off alone in his room, and almost swearing with anger and excitement.

Suddenly the messages stopped. He listened sharply at the door. Not a sound. The old house was as still as a grave. Several minutes passed, and nothing came. What had happened? Had he cut the wires? Had Alma fainted? Suddenly the sounder spoke out sharp and clear in the silent room:

"Elmer, come!"

He seized a revolver from the bureau, and thrusting it into his pocket, tore off the white strip of paper that had rolled out of the instrument, and with it in his hand he went quickly down stairs. He opened the door without knocking, and advanced into the middle of the room.

The moment he entered, Alma sprang up from her seat, pulling out the two wires as she did so, and throwing her arm about the young man, she cried out in an agony of fear and shame:

"Oh, Elmer, Elmer! Take me away! Take me to my father!"

He supported her with his right arm, and turned to face her assailant with the crumbled ribbon of paper still in his hand.

"What does this mean, sir? Have you been ill treating my cousin?"

"Go to bed, boy. It's very late for school children to be up."

"Your language is insulting, sir. I repeat it. What have you said or done to Miss Denny?"

"Oh! Come away! come away, Elmer!"

"None of your business, you puppy."

"There is no need to ask what you said, sir. I know every word and have made a copy of it."

"Ah! Listening, were you?"

"No, sir. Miss Denny has told me. Do you see those wires? They will entangle you yet and trip you up."

"Come away, Elmer. Come away."

"For the present I will retire, sir; but, mark me, your game is nearly up."

"By, by, children. Good night. Remember your promise, Miss Denny. The carriage will be all ready."

Without heeding this last remark, Elmer, with his cousin on his arm, withdrew. As they closed the door the telegraph wires caught in the carpet and broke. The man saw them, and picking one up, he examined it closely.

Suddenly he dropped it and turned ashen pale. With all his bravado, he quailed before those slender wires upon the carpet. He did not understand them. He guessed they might be some kind of telegraph, but beyond this everything was vague and mysterious, and they filled him with guilty alarm and terror.

CHARLES BARNARD.



FROM NORMANDY TO THE PYRENEES.

The other day, before the first fire of winter, when the deepening dusk had compelled me to close my book and wheel my chair closer, I indulged in a retrospect. The objects of it were not far distant, and yet they seemed already to glow with the mellow tints of the days that are no more. In the crackling flame the last remnant of the summer appeared to shrink up and vanish. But the flicker of its destruction made a sort of fantastic imagery, and in the midst of the winter fire the summer sunshine seemed to glow. It lit up a series of visible memories.



I.

One of the first was that of a perfect day on the coast of Normandy—a warm, still Sunday in the early part of August. From my pillow, on waking, I could look at a strip of blue sea and a section of white cliff. I observed that the sea had never been so brilliant, and that the cliff was shining like the coast of Paros. I rose and came forth with the sense that it was the finest day of summer, and that one ought to do something uncommon by way of keeping it. At Etretal it was uncommon to take a walk; the custom of the country is to lie all day upon the pebbly strand watching, as we should say in America, your fellow boarders. Your leisurely stroll, in a scanty sheet, from your bathing cabin into the water, and your trickling progress from the water back into your cabin, form, as a general thing, the sum total of your peregrination. For the rest you remain horizontal, contemplating the horizon. To mark the day with a white stone, therefore, it was quite sufficient to stretch my legs. So I climbed the huge grassy cliff which shuts in the little bay on the right (as you lie on the beach, head upward), and gained the bleak white chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, which a lady told me she was sure was the original of Matthew Arnold's "Little Gray Church on the Windy Hill." This is very likely; but the little church to-day was not gray; neither was the hill windy.

I had occasion, by the time I reached the summit, to wish it had been. Deep, silent sunshine filled the air, and the long grass of the downs stood up in the light without a tremor. The downs at Etretal are magnificent, and the way they stretched off toward Dieppe, with their shining levels and their faintly-shaded dells, was in itself an irresistible invitation. On the land side they have been somewhat narrowed by cultivation; the woods, and farms, and grain fields here and there creep close enough to the edge of the cliff almost to see the shifting of the tides at its base. But cultivation in Normandy is itself picturesque, and the pedestrian rarely need resent its encroachments. Neither walls nor hedges or fences are anywhere visible; the whole land lies open to the breezes and to his curious footsteps. This universal absence of barriers gives an air of vastness to the landscape, so that really, in a little French province, you have more of the feeling of being in a big country than on our own huge continent, which bristles so unconsciously with prohibitory rails and stone-piles. Norman farmhouses, too, with their mossy roofs and their visible beams making all kinds of triangles upon the ancient plaster of their walls, are very delightful things. Hereabouts they have always a dark little wood close beside them; often a chenaie, as the term is—a fantastic little grove of tempest-tossed oaks. The trees look as if, some night, when the sea-blasts were howling their loudest and their boughs were tossing most wildly, the tumult had suddenly been stilled and they had stopped short, each in the attitude into which the storm was twisting it. The only thing the storm can do with them now is to blow them straight. The long, indented coast line had never seemed to me so charming. It stretched away into the light haze of the horizon, with such lovely violet spots in its caves and hollows, and such soft white gleams on its short headlands—such exquisite gradations of distance and such capricious interruptions of perspective—that one could only say that the land was really trying to smile as hard as the sea. The smile of the sea was a positive simper. Such a glittering and twinkling, such a softness and blueness, such tiny little pin-points of foam, and such delicate little wrinkles of waves—all this made the ocean look like a flattered portrait.

The day I speak of was a Sunday, and there were to be races at Fecamp, ten miles away. The agreeable thing was, of course, to walk to Fecamp, over the grassy downs. I walked and walked, over the levels and the dells, having land and ocean quite to myself. Here and there I met a shepherd, lying flat on his stomach in the sun, while his sheep, in extreme dishabille (shearing time being recent), went huddling in front of me as I approached. Far below, on the blue ocean, like a fly on a table of lapis, crawled a little steamer, carrying people from Etretal to the races. I seemed to go much faster, yet the steamer got to Fecamp before me. But I stopped to gossip with a shepherd on a grassy hillside, and to admire certain little villages which are niched in small, transverse, seaward-sloping valleys. The shepherd told me that he had been farm-servant to the same master for five-and-thirty years—ever since the age of ten; and that for thirty-five summers he had fed his flock upon those downs. I don't know whether his sheep were tired of their diet, but he professed himself very tired of his life. I remarked that in fine weather it must be charming, and he observed, with humility, that to thirty-five summers there went several rainy days.

The walk to Fecamp would be purely delightful if it were not for the fonds. The fonds are the transverse valleys just mentioned—the channels, for the most part, of small water-courses which discharge themselves into the sea. The downs subside, precipitately, to the level of the beach, and then slowly lift their grassy shoulders on the other side of the gully. As the cliffs are of immense height, these indentations are profound, and drain off a little of the exhilaration of the too elastic pedestrian. The first fond trike him as delightfully picturesque, and he is down the long slope on one side and up the gigantic hump on the other before he has time to feel hot. But the second is greeted with that tempered empressement with which you bow in the street to an acquaintance with whom you have met half an hour before; the third is a stale repetition; the fourth is decidedly one too many, and the fifth is sensibly exasperating. The fonds, in a word, are very tiresome. It was, if I remember rightly, in the bottom of the last and widest of the series that I discovered the little town of Yport. Every little fishing village on the Norman coast has, within the last ten years, set up in business as a watering-place; and, though one might fancy that Nature had condemned Yport to modest obscurity, it is plain that she has no idea of being out of the fashion. But she is a miniature imitation of her rivals. She has a meagre little wood behind her and an evil-smelling beach, on which bathing is possible only at the highest tide. At the scorching mid-day hour at which I inspected her she seemed absolutely empty, and the ocean, beyond acres of slippery seaweed, looked very far away. She has everything that a properly appointed station de bains should have, but everything is on a Lilliputian scale. The whole place looked like a huge Nueremburg toy. There is a diminutive hotel, in which, properly, the head waiter should be a pigmy and the chambermaid a sprite, and beside it there is a Casino on the smallest possible scale. Everything about the Casino is so harmoniously undersized that it seems a matter of course that the newspapers in the reading-room should be printed in the very finest type. Of course there is a reading-room, and a dancing-room, and a cafe, and a billiard-room, with a bagatelle board instead of a table, and a little terrace on which you may walk up and down with very short steps. I hope the prices are as tiny as everything else, and I suspect, indeed, that Yport honestly claims, not that she is attractive, but that she is cheap.

I toiled up the perpendicular cliff again, and took my way over the grass, for another hour, to Fecamp, where I found the peculiarities of Yport directly reversed. The place is a huge, straggling village, seated along a wide, shallow bay, and adorned, of course, with the classic Casino and the row of hotels. But all this is on a very brave scale, though it is not manifest that the bravery of Fecamp has won a victory; and, indeed, the local attractions did not strike me as irresistible. A pebbly beach of immense length, fenced off from the town by a grassy embankment; a Casino of a bold and unsociable aspect; a principal inn, with an interminable brown facade, suggestive somehow of an asylum or an almshouse—such are the most striking features of this particular watering-place. There are magnificent cliffs on each side of the bay, but, as the French say, without impropriety, it is the devil to get to them. There was no one in the hotel, in the Casino, or on the beach; the whole town being in the act of climbing the further cliff, to reach the downs on which the races were to be held. The green hillside was black with trudging spectators and the long sky line was fretted with them. When I say there was no one at the inn, I forget the gentleman at the door who informed me positively that he would give me no breakfast; he seemed to have staid at home from the races expressly to give himself this pleasure. But I went further and fared better, and procured a meal of homely succulence, in an unfashionable tavern, in a back street, where the wine was sound, the cutlets tender, and the serving-maid rosy. Then I walked along—for a mile, it seemed—through a dreary, gray grand rue, where the sunshine was hot, the odors portentous, and the doorsteps garnished with aged fishwives, retired from business, whose plaited linen coifs looked picturesquely white, and their faces picturesquely brown. I inspected the harbor and its goodly basin—with nothing in it—and certain pink and blue houses, which surround it, and then, joining the last stragglers, I clambered up the side of the cliff to the downs.

The races had already begun, and the ring of spectators was dense. I picked out some of the smallest people, looked over their heads, and saw several young farmers, in parti-colored jackets, and very red in the face, bouncing up and down on handsome cart-horses. Satiated at last with this diversion, I turned away and wandered down the hill again; and after strolling through the streets of Fecamp, and gathering not a little of the wayside entertainment that a seaport and fishing town always yields, I repaired to the Abbey church, a monument of some importance, and almost as great an object of pride in the town as the Casino. The Abbey of Fecamp was once a very rich and powerful establishment, but nothing remains of it now save its church and its trappistine. The church, which is for the most part early Gothic, is very stately and picturesque, and the trappistine, which is a distilled liquor of the Chartreuse family, is much prized by people who take a little glass after their coffee. By the time I had done with the Abbey, the townsfolk had slid en masse down the cliff again, the yellow afternoon had come, and the holiday takers, before the wine-shops, made long and lively shadows. I hired a sort of two-wheeled gig, without a board, and drove back to Etretal in the rosy stage of evening. The gig dandled me up and down in a fashion of which I had been unconscious since I left off baby-clothes; but the drive, through the charming Norman country, over roads which lay among the peaceful meadows like paths amid a park, was altogether delightful. The sunset gave a deeper mellowness to the standing crops, and in the grassiest corner of the wayside villages the young men and maidens were dancing like the figures in vignette illustrations of classic poets.



II.

You may say there is nothing in this very commonplace adventure to sentimentalize about, and that when one plucks sentimentally a brand from the burning one should pick out a more valuable one. I certainly call it a picked day, at any rate, when I went to breakfast at St. Jouin, at the beautiful Ernestine's. Don't be alarmed; if I was just now too tame, I am not turning wild. The beautiful Ernestine is not my especial beauty, but every one's, and to contemplate her charms you have only to order breakfast. They shine forth the more brilliantly in proportion as your order is liberal, and Ernestine is beautiful according as your bill is large. In this case she comes and smiles, really very handsomely, around your table, and you feel some hesitation in accusing so well-favored a person of extortion. She keeps an inn at the end of a lane which diverges from the high road between Etretal and Havre, and it is an indispensable feature of your "station" at the former place that you choose some fine morning and seek her hospitality. She has been a celebrity these twenty years, and is no longer a simple maiden in her flower; but twenty years, if they have diminished her early bloom, have richly augmented her musee. This is a collection of all the verses and sketches, the autographs, photographs, monographs, and trinkets presented to the amiable hostess by admiring tourists. It covers the walls of her sitting-room and fills half a dozen big albums which you look at while breakfast is being prepared, just as if you were awaiting dinner in genteel society. Most Frenchmen of the day whom one has heard of appear to have called at St. Jouin, and to have left their homages. Each of them has turned a compliment with pen or pencil, and you may see in a glass case on the parlor wall what Alexandre Dumas, Fils, thought of the landlady's nose, and how several painters measured her ankles.

Of course you must make this excursion in good company, and I affirm that I was in the very best. The company prefers, equally of course, to have its breakfast in the orchard in front of the house; which, if the repast is good, will make it seem better still, and if it is poor, will carry off its poorness. Clever innkeepers should always make their victims (in tolerable weather) eat in the garden. I forget whether Ernestine's breakfast was intrinsically good or bad, but I distinctly remember enjoying it, and making everything welcome. Everything, that is, save the party at the other table—the Paris actresses and the American gentlemen. The combination of these two classes of persons, individually so delightful, results in certain phenomena which seem less in harmony with appleboughs and summer breezes than with the gas lamps and thick perfumes of a cabinet particulier, and yet it was characteristic of this odd mixture of things that Mlle. Ernestine, coming to chat with her customers, should bear a beautiful infant on her arm, and smile with artless pride on being assured of its filial resemblance to herself. She looked decidedly handsome as she caressed this startling attribute of quiet spinsterhood.

St. Jouin is close to the sea and to the finest cliffs in the world. One of my companions, who had laden the carriage with his painting traps, went off into a sunny meadow to take the portrait of a windmill, and I, choosing the better portion, wandered through a little green valley with the other. Ten minutes brought us to the edge of the cliffs, which at this point of the coast are simply sublime. I had been thinking the white sea-walls of Etretal the finest thing conceivable in this way, but the huge red porphoritic-looking masses of St. Jouin have an even grander character. I have rarely seen anything more picturesque. They are strange, fantastic, out of keeping with the country, and for some rather arbitrary reason suggested to me a Spanish or even African landscape. Certain sun-scorched precipices in Spanish Sierras must have very much the same warmth of tone and desolation of attitude. A very picturesque feature of the cliffs of St. Jouin is that they are double in height, as one may say. Falling to an immense depth, they encounter a certain outward ledge, or terrace, where they pause and play a dozen fantastic tricks, such as piling up rocks into the likeness of needles and watch-towers; then they plunge again, and in another splendid sweep descend to the beach. There was something very impressive in the way their evil brows, looking as if they were all stained with blood and rust, were bent upon the blue expanse of the sleeping sea.