C 
 
fcp 
 
 LOOKING BACKWARD. 2000-1887. 
 
 A Novel. New Edition, with a Biographical 
 
 Sketch of Mr. Bellamy by Sylvester Baxter, and 
 
 a Portrait. i2mo, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 
 MISS LUDINGTON S SISTER. 
 
 A Romance of Immortality. i6mo, $1.2$; 
 
 paper, 50 cents. 
 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD, AND OTHER 
 
 STORIES. With an Introductory Chapter by 
 
 W. D. Howells. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
THE 
 
 BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD BELLAMY 
 
 ;/ 
 WITH A PREFATORY SKETCH BY 
 
 W. D. HOWELLS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 , Cambri&0e 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY EMMA S. BELLAMY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 1 ^ 
 
 . AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 30 
 
 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 59 
 
 ,.THE COLD SNAP 89 Xpt 
 
 Two DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT . . . . 104 l^l^ 
 
 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 129 
 
 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE . . . . .157 
 
 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 192 
 
 DESERTED 237 V 
 
 HOOKING WATERMELONS . . . . . . 264 
 
 - A POSITIVE ROMANCE 295 
 
 LOST 315 \ 
 
 , WITH THE EYES SHUT 335 
 
 AT PINNEY S RANCH 366 > 
 
 , To WHOM THIS MAY COME 389 i 1 
 
 A ^>^ . ,*1 
 
 
 
 WS35897 
 
EDWAKD BELLAMY 
 
 26 MARCH, 1850 22 MAY, 
 
 THE first book of Edward Bellamy s which I read 
 was " Dr. HeidenhofFs Process," and I thought 
 it one of the finest feats in the region of romance 
 which I had known. It seemed to me all the 
 greater because the author s imagination wrought 
 in it on the level of average life, and built the 
 fabric of its dream out of common clay. The 
 simple people and their circumstance were treated 
 as if they were persons whose pathetic story he 
 had witnessed himself, and he was merely telling 
 it. He wove into the texture of their sufferings 
 and their sorrows the magic thread of invention so 
 aptly and skillfully that the reader felt nothing 
 improbable in it. One even felt a sort of moral 
 necessity for it, as if such a clue not only could 
 be, but must be given for their escape. It became 
 not merely probable, but imperative, that there 
 should be some means of extirpating the memory 
 which fixed a sin in lasting remorse, and of thus 
 saving the soul from the depravity of despair. 
 When it finally appeared that there was no such 
 means, one reader, at least, was inconsolable. No- 
 
vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 thing from romance remains to me more poignant 
 than the pang that this plain, sad tale imparted. 
 
 The art employed to accomplish its effect was 
 the art which Bellamy had in degree so singular 
 that one might call it supremely his. He does not 
 so much transmute our every-day reality to the 
 substance of romance as make the airy stuff of 
 dreams one in quality with veritable experience. 
 Every one remembers from " Looking Backward " 
 the allegory which figures the pitiless prosperity of 
 the present conditions as a coach drawn by slaves 
 under the lash of those on its top, who have them 
 selves no firm hold upon their places, and some 
 times fall, and then, to save themselves from being 
 ground under the wheels, spring to join the slaves 
 at the traces. But it is not this, vivid and terrible 
 as it is, which most wrings the heart; it is that 
 moment of anguish at the close, when Julian 
 West trembles with the nightmare fear that he has 
 been only dreaming of the just and equal future, 
 before he truly wakes and finds that it is real. 
 That is quite as it would happen in life, and the 
 
 jx>wer to make the reader feel this, like something 
 
 he has known himself, is the distinctive virtue of 
 that imagination which revived throughout Chris 
 tendom the faith in a millennium. 
 
 A good deal has been said against the material 
 character of the happiness which West s story 
 promises men when they shall begin to do justice, 
 and to share equally in the fruits of the toil which 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH vii 
 
 operates life ; and I confess that this did not at 
 tract me. I should have preferred, if I had been 
 chooser, to have the millennium much simpler, 
 much more independent of modern inventions, 
 modern conveniences, modern facilities. It seemed 
 to me that in an ideal condition (the only condition 
 finally worth having) we should get on without 
 most of these things, which are but sorry patches 
 on the rags of our outworn civilization, or only 
 toys to amuse our greed and vacancy. ^Estheti- 
 cally, I sympathized with those select spirits who 
 were shocked that nothing better than the futile 
 luxury of their own selfish lives could be imagined 
 for the lives which overwork and underpay had 
 forbidden all pleasures ; I acquired considerable 
 merit with myself by asking whether the hope of 
 these formed the highest appeal to human nature. 
 But I overlooked an important condition which 
 the other critics overlooked ; I did not reflect that 
 such things were shown as merely added unto 
 those who had first sought the kingdom of God 
 and his righteousness, and that they were no 
 longer vicious or even so foolish when they were 
 harmlessly come by. I have since had to own 
 that the joys I thought trivial and sordid did 
 rightly, as they did most strenuously, appeal to 
 the lives hitherto starved of them. In depicting 
 them as the common reward of the common en 
 deavor, Edward Bellamy builded better than we 
 knew, whether he knew better or not; and he 
 
viii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 builded from a thorough sense of that level of 
 humanity which he was destined so potently to 
 influence, that American level which his book 
 found in every Christian land. 
 
 I am not sure whether this sense was ever a full 
 consciousness with him ; very possibly it was not ; 
 but in any case it was the spring of all his work, 
 from the earliest to the latest. Somehow, whether 
 he knew or not, he unerringly felt how the average 
 man would feel ; and all the webs of fancy that he 
 wove were essentially of one texture through this 
 sympathy. His imagination was intensely demo 
 cratic, it was inalienably plebeian, even, that is 
 to say, humane. It did not seek distinction of 
 expression ; it never put the simplest and plainest 
 reader to shame by the assumption of those fine- 
 gentleman airs which abash and dishearten more 
 than the mere literary swell can think. He would 
 use a phrase or a word that was common to vul 
 garity, if it said what he meant ; sometimes he 
 sets one s teeth on edge, in his earlier stories, by 
 his public school diction. But the nobility of the 
 heart is never absent from his work ; and he has 
 always the distinction of self-forgetfulness in his 
 art. 
 
 I have been interested, in recurring to his ear 
 lier work, to note how almost entirely the action 
 passes in the American village atmosphere. It is 
 like the greater part of his own life in this. He 
 was not a man ignorant of other keeping. He was 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ix 
 
 partly educated abroad, and he knew cities both in 
 Europe and in America. He was a lawyer by 
 profession, and he was sometime editor of a daily 
 newspaper in a large town. But I remember how, 
 in one of our meetings, he spoke with distrust and 
 dislike of the environment of cities as unwhole- * 
 some and distracting, if not demoralizing (very 
 much to the effect of Tolstoi s philosophy in the 
 matter), and in his short stories his types are vil 
 lage types. They are often such when he finds 
 them in the city, but for much the greater part he 
 finds them in the village ; and they are alway_s. 
 
 therefore, distinctively American ; for we are vil 
 lage people far more than we are country people 
 or city people. In this as in everything else^we~ 
 are a medium race, and it was in his sense, if not 
 in his knowledge of this fact, that Bellamy wrote 
 so that there is never a word or a look to the 
 reader implying that he and the writer are of 
 a different sort of folk from the people in the 
 story. 
 
 " Looking Backward," with its material delights^ 
 its communized facilities and luxuries, eould not 
 appeal to people on lonely farms who scarcely 
 knew of them, or to people in cities who were tired 
 of them, so much as to that immense average of 
 villagers, of small-town-dwellers, who had read 
 much and seen something of them, and desired to-, 
 have them. This average, whose intelligence forms *> 
 the prosperity of our literature, and whose virtue I 
 
x BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 forms the strength of our nation, is the environ 
 ment which Bellamy rarely travels out of in his 
 airiest romance. He has its curiosity, its princi 
 ples, its aspirations. He can tell what it wishes 
 to know, what problem will hold it, what situation 
 it can enter into, what mystery will fascinate it, 
 and what noble pain it will bear. It is by far the 
 widest field of American fiction ; most of our finest 
 artists work preferably in it, but he works in it 
 to different effect from any other. He takes that 
 life on its mystical side, and deals with types 
 rather than with characters ; for it is one of the 
 prime conditions of the romancer that he shall do 
 
 .jthis. His people are less objectively than subjec 
 tively present ; their import is greater in what 
 
 ^happens to them than in what they are. But he 
 never falsifies them or their circumstance. He 
 ascertains them with a fidelity that seems almost 
 helpless, almost ignorant of different people, differ 
 ent circumstance ; you would think at times that 
 he had never known, never seen, any others ; but 
 of course this is only the effect of his art. 
 
 When it comes to something else, however, it is 
 still with the same fidelity that he keeps to the 
 small-town average, the American average. He 
 does not address himself more intelligently to the 
 mystical side of this average in " Dr. Heidenhoff s 
 Process," or " Miss Ludington s Sister," or any of 
 his briefer romances, than to its ethical side in 
 u Equality." That book disappointed me, to be 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xi 
 
 frank. I thought it artistically inferior to any 
 thing else he had done. I thought it was a mistake 
 to have any story at all in it, or not to have vastly 
 more. I felt that it was not enough to clothe the 
 dry bones of its sociology with paper garments 
 out of " Looking Backward." Except for that 
 one sublime moment when the workers of all sorts 
 cry to the Lords of the Bread to take them and 
 use them at their own price, there was no thrill 
 or throb in the book. But I think now that any 
 believer in its economics may be well content to let 
 them take their chance with the American average, 
 here and elsewhere, in the form that the author 
 has given them. He felt that average so wittingly 
 that he could not have been wrong in approach 
 ing it with all that public school exegesis which 
 wearies such dilettanti as myself. 
 
 Our average is practical as well as mystical ; it 
 is first the dust of the earth, and then it is a living 
 soul ; it likes great questions simply and familiarly 
 presented, before it puts its faith in them and 
 makes its faith a life. It likes to start to heaven 
 from home, and in all this Bellamy was of it, vol 
 untarily and involuntarily. I recall how, when we 
 first met, he told me that he had come to think of 
 our hopeless conditions suddenly, one day, in look 
 ing at his own children, and reflecting that he 
 could not place them beyond the chance of want 
 by any industry or forecast or providence ; and 
 that the status meant the same impossibility for 
 
xii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 others which it meant for him. I understood then 
 that I was in the presence of a man too single, too 
 sincere, to pretend that he had begun by thinking 
 of others, and I trusted him the more for his con 
 fession of a selfish premise. He never went back 
 to himself in his endeavor, but when he had once 
 felt his power in the world, he dedicated his life 
 to his work. He wore himself out in thinking and 
 feeling about it, with a belief in the good time fcoj 
 come that penetrated his whole being and animated 
 his whole purpose, but apparently with no manner 
 of fanaticism. In fact, no one could see him, or 
 look into his quiet, gentle face, so full of goodness, 
 so full of common sense, without perceiving that 
 he had reasoned to his hope for justice in the 
 frame of things. He was indeed a most practical, 
 a most American man, without a touch of senti- 
 mentalism in his humanity. He believed that 
 some now living should see his dream the dream 
 of Plato, the dream of the first Christians, the 
 dream of Bacon, the dream of More come true 
 in a really civilized society ; but he had the pa 
 tience and courage which could support any 
 delay. 
 
 These qualities were equal to the suffering and 
 the death which came to him in the midst of his 
 work, and cut him off from writing that one more 
 book with which every author hopes to round his 
 career. He suffered greatly, but he bore his suf 
 fering greatly ; and as for his death, it is told that 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xiii 
 
 when, toward the last, those who loved him were 
 loath to leave him at night alone, as he preferred 
 to be left, he asked, " What can happen to me ? ] 
 I can only die." 
 
 I am glad that he lived to die at home in Chico- 
 pee, in the village environment by which he in 
 terpreted the heart of the American nation, and 
 knew how to move it more than any other Ameri 
 can author who has lived. ! The theory of those 
 who think differently is that he simply moved the 
 popular fancy ; and this may suffice to explain the 
 state of some people, but it will not account for 
 the love and honor in which his name is passion 
 ately held by the vast average, East and West. 
 His fame is safe with them, and his faith is an ani 
 mating force concerning whose effect at this time 
 or some other time it would not be wise to pro 
 phesy. Whether his ethics will keep his esthetics 
 in remembrance I do not know ; but I am sure 
 that one cannot acquaint one s self with his merely 
 artistic work, and not be sensible that in Edward | 
 Bellamy we were rich in a romantic imagination j 
 surpassed only by that of Hawthorne. 
 
 W. D. HOWELLS. 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WOELD 
 
 THE narrative to which this note is introductory 
 was found among the papers of the late Professor 
 S. Erastus Larrabee, and, as an acquaintance of 
 the gentleman to whom they were bequeathed, I 
 was requested to prepare it for publication. This 
 turned out a very easy task, for the document 
 proved of so extraordinary a character that, if pub 
 lished at all, it should obviously be without change. 
 It appears that the professor did really, at one time 
 in his life, have an attack of vertigo, or something 
 of the sort, under circumstances similar to those 
 described by him, and to that extent his narrative 
 may be founded on fact. How soon it shifts from 
 that foundation, or whether it does at all, the 
 reader must conclude for himself. It appears cer 
 tain that the professor never related to any one, 
 while living, the stranger features of the experience 
 here narrated, but this might have been merely 
 from fear that his standing as a man of science 
 would be thereby injured. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR S NARRATIVE 
 
 At the time of the experience of which I am 
 about to write, I was professor of astronomy and 
 
2 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 higher mathematics at Abercrombie College. Most 
 astronomers have a specialty, and mine was the 
 study of the planet Mars, our nearest neighbor 
 but one in the Sun s little family. When no im 
 portant celestial phenomena in other quarters de 
 manded attention, it was on the ruddy disc of Mars 
 that my telescope was oftenest focused. I was 
 never weary of tracing the outlines of its continents 
 and seas, its capes and islands, its bays and straits, 
 its lakes and mountains. With intense interest I 
 watched from week to week of the Martial winter 
 the advance of the polar ice-cap toward the equator, 
 and its corresponding retreat in the summer ; testi 
 fying across the gulf of space as plainly as written 
 words to the existence on that orb of a climate like 
 our own. A specialty is always in danger of be 
 coming an infatuation, and my interest in Mars, at 
 the time of which I write, had grown to be more 
 than strictly scientific. The impression of the near 
 ness of this planet, heightened by the wonderful 
 distinctness of its geography as seen through a 
 powerful telescope, appeals strongly to the imagina 
 tion of the astronomer. On fine evenings I used 
 to spend hours, not so much critically observing as 
 brooding over its radiant surface, till I could almost 
 persuade myself that I saw the breakers dashing 
 on the bold shore of Kepler Land, and heard the 
 muffled thunder of avalanches descending the snow- 
 clad mountains of Mitchell. No earthly land 
 scape had the charm to hold my gaze of that far- 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 3 
 
 off planet, whose oceans, to the unpracticed eye, 
 seem but darker, and its continents lighter, spots 
 and bands. 
 
 Astronomers have agreed in declaring that Mars 
 is undoubtedly habitable by beings like ourselves, 
 but, as may be supposed, I was not in a mood to 
 be satisfied with considering it merely habitable. I 
 allowed no sort of question that it was inhabited. 
 What manner of beings these inhabitants might 
 be I found a fascinating speculation. The variety 
 of types appearing in mankind even on this small 
 Earth makes it most presumptuous to assume that 
 the denizens of different planets may not be char 
 acterized by diversities far profounder. Wherein 
 such diversities, coupled with a general resem 
 blance to man, might consist, whether in mere 
 physical differences or in different mental laws, in 
 the lack of certain of the great passional motors of 
 men or the possession of quite others, were weird 
 themes of never-failing attractions for my mind. 
 The El Dorado visions with which the virgin mys 
 tery of the New World inspired the early Spanish 
 explorers were tame and prosaic compared with 
 the speculations which it was perfectly legitimate 
 to indulge, when the problem was the conditions of 
 life on another planet. 
 
 It was the time of the year when Mars is most 
 favorably situated for observation, and, anxious 
 not to lose an hour of the precious season, I had 
 spent the greater part of several successive nights 
 
4 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 in the observatory. I believed that I had made 
 some original observations as to the trend of the 
 coast of Kepler Land between Lagrange Peninsula 
 and Christie Bay, and it was to this spot that my 
 observations were particularly directed. 
 
 On the fourth night other work detained me 
 from the observing - chair till after midnight. 
 When I had adjusted the instrument and took 
 my first look at Mars, I remember being unable 
 to restrain a cry of admiration. The planet was 
 fairly dazzling. It seemed nearer and larger than 
 I had ever seen it before, and its peculiar rud 
 diness more striking. In thirty years of obser 
 vations, I recall, in fact, no occasion when the 
 absence of exhalations in our atmosphere has coin 
 cided with such cloudlessness in that of Mars as 
 on that night. I could plainly make out the white 
 masses of vapor at the opposite edges of the lighted 
 disc, which are the mists of its dawn and evening. 
 The snowy mass of Mount Hall over against Kep 
 ler Land stood out with wonderful clearness, and 
 I could unmistakably detect the blue tint of the 
 ocean of De La Rue, which washes its base, a 
 feat of vision often, indeed, accomplished by star- 
 gazers, though I had never done it to my complete 
 satisfaction before. 
 
 I was impressed with the idea that if I ever 
 made an original discovery in regard to Mars, it 
 would be on that evening, and I believed that I 
 should do it. I trembled with mingled exultation 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 5 
 
 and anxiety, and was obliged to pause to recover 
 my self-control. Finally, I placed my eye to the 
 eye-piece, and directed my gaze upon the portion 
 of the planet in which I was especially interested. 
 My attention soon became fixed and absorbed much 
 beyond my wont, when observing, and that itself 
 implied no ordinary degree of abstraction. To all 
 mental intents and purposes I was on Mars. Every 
 faculty, every susceptibility of sense and intellect, 
 seemed gradually to pass into the eye, and become 
 concentrated in the act of gazing. Every atom of 
 nerve and will power combined in the strain to see 
 a little, and yet a little, and yet a little, clearer, 
 farther, deeper. 
 
 The next thing I knew I was on the bed that 
 stood in a corner of the observing-room, half raised 
 on an elbow, and gazing intently at the door. It 
 was broad daylight. Half a dozen men, including 
 several of the professors and a doctor from the 
 village, were around me. Some were trying to 
 make me lie down, others were asking me what I 
 wanted, while the doctor was urging me to drink 
 some whiskey. Mechanically repelling their offices, 
 I pointed to the door and ejaculated, " President 
 Byxbee coming," giving expression to the one 
 idea which my dazed mind at that moment con 
 tained. And sure enough, even as I spoke the 
 door opened, and the venerable head of the college, 
 somewhat blown with climbing the steep stairway, 
 
6 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 stood on the threshold. With a sensation of pro 
 digious relief, I fell back on my pillow. 
 
 It appeared that I had swooned while in the 
 observing-chair, the night before, and had been 
 found by the janitor in the morning, my head 
 fallen forward on the telescope, as if still observ 
 ing, but my body cold, rigid, pulseless, and appar 
 ently dead. 
 
 In a couple of days I was all right again, and 
 should soon have forgotten the episode but for a 
 very interesting conjecture which had suggested 
 itself in connection with it. This was nothing less 
 than that, while I lay in that swoon, I was in 
 a conscious state outside and independent of the 
 body, and in that state received impressions and 
 exercised perceptive powers. For this extraordi 
 nary theory I had no other evidence than the fact 
 of my knowledge in the moment of awaking that 
 President Byxbee was coming up the stairs. But 
 slight as this clue was, it seemed to me unmistak 
 able in its significance. That knowledge was cer 
 tainly in my mind on the instant of arousing from 
 the swoon. It certainly could not have been there 
 before I fell into the swoon. I must therefore 
 have gained it in the mean time ; that is to say, I 
 must have been in a conscious, percipient state 
 while my body was insensible. 
 
 If such had been the case, I reasoned that it was 
 altogether unlikely that the trivial impression as 
 to President Byxbee had been the only one which 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 7 
 
 I had received in that state. It was far more prob 
 able that it had remained over in my mind, on 
 waking from the swoon, merely because it was the 
 latest of a series of impressions received while out 
 side the body. That these impressions were of a 
 kind most strange and startling, seeing that they 
 were those of a disembodied soul exercising facul 
 ties more spiritual than those of the body, I could 
 not doubt. The desire to know what they had 
 been grew upon me, till it became a longing which 
 left me no repose. It seemed intolerable that I 
 should have secrets from myself, that my soul 
 should withhold its experiences from my intellect. 
 I would gladly have consented that the acquisi 
 tions of half my waking lifetime should be blotted 
 out, if so be in exchange I might be shown the 
 record of what I had seen and known during those 
 hours of which my waking memory showed no 
 trace. None the less for the conviction of its hope 
 lessness, but rather all the more, as the perversity 
 of our human nature will have it, the longing for 
 this forbidden lore grew on me, till the hunger of 
 Eve in the Garden was mine. 
 
 Constantly brooding over a desire that I felt to 
 be vain, tantalized by the possession of a clue 
 which only mocked me, my physical condition be 
 came at length affected. My health was disturbed 
 and my rest at night was broken. A habit of 
 walking in my sleep, from which I had not suf 
 fered since childhood, recurred, and caused me fre- 
 
8 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 quent inconvenience. Such had been, in general, 
 my condition for some time, when I awoke one 
 morning with the strangely weary sensation by 
 which my body usually betrayed the secret of the 
 impositions put upon it in sleep, of which otherwise 
 I should often Lave suspected nothing. In going 
 into the study connected with my chamber, I found 
 a number of freshly written sheets on the desk. 
 Astonished that any one should have been in my 
 rooms while I slept, I was astounded, on looking 
 more closely, to observe that the handwriting was 
 my own. How much more than astounded I was 
 on reading the matter that had been set down, the 
 reader may judge if he shall peruse it. For these 
 written sheets apparently contained the longed-for 
 but despaired-of record of those hours when I was 
 absent from the body. They were the lost chapter 
 of my life ; or rather, not lost at all, for it had 
 been no part of my waking life, but a stolen chap 
 ter, stolen from that sleep-memory on whose 
 mysterious tablets may well be inscribed tales as 
 much more marvelous than this as this is stranger 
 than most stories. 
 
 It will be remembered that my last recollection 
 before awaking in my bed, on the morning after 
 the swoon, was of contemplating the coast of Kep 
 ler Land with an unusual concentration of atten 
 tion. As well as I can judge, and that is no 
 better than any one else, it is with the moment 
 that my bodily powers succumbed and I became 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 9 
 
 unconscious that the narrative which I found on 
 my desk begins. 
 
 THE DOCUMENT FOUND ON MY DESK 
 
 Even had I not come as straight and swift as 
 the beam of light that made my path, a glance 
 about would have told me to what part of the 
 universe I had fared. No earthly landscape could 
 have been more familiar. I stood on the high 
 coast of Kepler Land where it trends southward. 
 A brisk westerly wind was blowing and the waves 
 of the ocean of De La Rue were thundering at my 
 feet, while the broad blue waters of Christie Bay 
 stretched away to the southwest. Against the 
 northern horizon, rising out of the ocean like a 
 summer thunder-head, for which at first I mistook 
 it, towered the far-distant, snowy summit of Mount 
 Hall. 
 
 Even had the configuration of land and sea been 
 less familiar, I should none the less have known 
 that I stood on the planet whose ruddy hue is at 
 once the admiration and puzzle of astronomers. 
 Its explanation I now recognized in the tint of the 
 atmosphere, a coloring comparable to the haze of 
 Indian summer, except that its hue was a faint rose 
 instead of purple. Like the Indian summer haze, 
 it was impalpable, and without impeding the view 
 bathed all objects near and far in a glamour not to 
 be described. As the gaze turned upward, how 
 ever, the deep blue of space so far overcame the 
 
10 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 roseate tint that one might fancy he were still on 
 Earth. 
 
 As I looked about rne I saw many men, women, 
 and children. They were in no respect dissimi 
 lar, so far as I could see, to the men, women, and 
 children of the Earth, save for something almost 
 childlike in the untroubled serenity of their faces, 
 unfurrowed as they were by any trace of care, of 
 fear, or of anxiety. This extraordinary youthful- 
 ness of aspect made it difficult, indeed, save by 
 careful scrutiny, to distinguish the young from the 
 middle-aged, maturity from advanced years. Time 
 seemed to have no tooth on Mars. 
 
 I was gazing about me, admiring this crimson- 
 lighted world, and these people who appeared to 
 hold happiness by a tenure so much firmer than 
 men s, when I heard the words, " You are wel 
 come," and, turning, saw that I had been accosted 
 by a man with the stature and bearing of middle 
 age, though his countenance, like the other faces 
 which I had noted, wonderfully combined the 
 strength of a man s with the serenity of a child s. 
 I thanked him, and said, 
 
 " You do not seem surprised to see me, though I 
 certainly am to find myself here." 
 
 " Assuredly not," he answered. " I knew, of 
 course, that I was to meet you to-day. And not 
 only that, but I may say I am already in a sense 
 acquainted with you, through a mutual friend, Pro 
 fessor Edgerly. He was here last month, and I 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 11 
 
 met him at that time. We talked of you and your 
 interest in our planet. I told him I expected you." 
 
 " Edgerly ! " I exclaimed. " It is strange that 
 he has said nothing of this to me. I meet him 
 every day." 
 
 But I was reminded that it was in a dream that 
 Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and on 
 awaking had recalled nothing of his experience, 
 just as I should recall nothing of mine. When will 
 man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the 
 marvels it sees in its wanderings ? Then he will 
 no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out 
 the secrets of the universe. 
 
 "Do your people visit the Earth in the same 
 manner ? " I asked my companion. 
 
 " Certainly," he replied ; " but there we find no 
 one able to recognize us and converse with us as I 
 am conversing with you, although myself in the 
 waking state. You, as yet, lack the knowledge we 
 possess of the spiritual side of the human nature 
 which we share with you." 
 
 " That knowledge must have enabled you to learn 
 much more of the Earth than we know of you," I 
 said. 
 
 " Indeed it has," he replied. " From visitors 
 such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse con 
 stantly, we have acquired familiarity with your 
 civilization, your history, your manners, and even 
 your literature and languages. Have you not 
 noticed that I am talking with you in English, 
 
12 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this 
 planet?" 
 
 " Among so many wonders I scarcely observed 
 that," I answered. 
 
 "For ages," pursued my companion, "we have 
 been waiting for you to improve your telescopes so 
 as to approximate the power of ours, after which 
 communication between the planets would be easily 
 established. The progress which you make is, 
 however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet." 
 
 " Indeed, I fear you will have to," I replied. 
 " Our opticians already talk of having reached the 
 limits of their art." 
 
 " Do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of 
 petulance," my companion resumed. " The slow 
 ness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as 
 that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a 
 disability so crushing that if we were in your place 
 I fear we should sit down in utter despair." 
 
 " To what disability do you refer ? " I asked. 
 " You seem to be men like us." 
 
 " And so we are," was the reply, " save in one 
 particular, but there the difference is tremendous. 
 Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of 
 the faculty of foresight, without which we should 
 think our other faculties well-nigh valueless." 
 
 " Foresight ! " I repeated. " Certainly you can 
 not mean that it is given you to know the future ? " 
 
 " It is given not only to us," was the answer, 
 " but, so far as we know, to all other intelligent 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 13 
 
 beings of the universe except yourselves. Our 
 positive knowledge extends only to our system of 
 moons and planets and some of the nearer foreign 
 systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts 
 of the universe may harbor other blind races like 
 your own ; but it certainly seems unlikely that so 
 strange and lamentable a spectacle should be dupli 
 cated. One such illustration of the extraordinary 
 deprivations under which a rational existence may 
 still be possible ought to suffice for the universe." 
 
 " But no one can know the future except by in 
 spiration of God," I said. 
 
 " All our faculties are by inspiration of God," 
 was the reply, " but there is surely nothing in fore 
 sight to cause it to be so regarded more than any 
 other. Think a moment of the physical analogy 
 of the case. Your eyes are placed in the front of 
 your heads. You would deem it an odd mistake if 
 they were placed behind. That would appear to 
 you an arrangement calculated to defeat their pur 
 pose. Does it not seem equally rational that the 
 mental vision should range forward, as it does with 
 us, illuminating the path one is to take, rather 
 than backward, as with you, revealing only the 
 course you have already trodden, and therefore 
 have no more concern with ? But it is no doubt a 
 merciful provision of Providence that renders you 
 unable to realize the grotesqueness of your pre 
 dicament, as it appears to us." 
 
 " But the future is eternal ! " I exclaimed. 
 " How can a finite mind grasp it ? " 
 
14 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 " Our foreknowledge implies only human facul 
 ties," was the reply. " It is limited to our indi 
 vidual careers on this planet. Each of us foresees 
 the course of his own life, but not that of other 
 lives, except so far as they are involved with his." 
 
 " That such a power as you describe could be 
 combined with merely human faculties is more than 
 our philosophers have ever dared to dream," I said. 
 " And yet who shall say, after all, that it is not 
 in mercy that God has denied it to us ? If it is 
 a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one s happi 
 ness, it must be most depressing to foresee one s 
 sorrows, failures, yes, and even one s death. For 
 if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anti 
 cipate the hour and manner of your death, is it 
 not so?" 
 
 " Most assuredly," was the reply. " Living 
 would be a very precarious business, were we unin 
 formed of its limit. Your ignorance of the time 
 of your death impresses us as one of the saddest 
 features of your condition." 
 
 " And by us," I answered, " it is held to be one 
 of the most merciful." 
 
 " Foreknowledge of your death would not, in 
 deed, prevent your dying once," continued my com 
 panion, " but it would deliver you from the thou 
 sand deaths you suffer through uncertainty whether 
 you can safely count on the passing day. It is not 
 the death you die, but these many deaths you do not 
 die, which shadow your existence. Poor blindfolded 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 15 
 
 creatures that you are, cringing at every step in ap 
 prehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fall 
 till old age, never raising a cup to your lips with 
 the knowledge that you will live to quaff it, never 
 sure that you will meet again the friend you part 
 with for an hour, from whose hearts no happiness 
 suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread, 
 what idea can you form of the Godlike security 
 with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of 
 those we love ! You have a saying on earth, / 
 To-morrow belongs to God ; but here to-morrow 
 belongs to us, even as to-day. To you, for some 
 inscrutable purpose, He sees fit to dole out life 
 moment by moment, with no assurance that each is 
 not to be the last. To us He gives a lifetime at 
 once, fifty, sixty, seventy years, a divine gift 
 indeed. A life such as yours would, I fear, seem 
 of little value to us ; for such a life, however long, 
 is but a moment long, since that is all you can 
 count on." 
 
 " And yet," I answered, " though knowledge of 
 the duration of your lives may give you an enviable 
 feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that 
 not more than offset by the daily growing weight 
 with which the expectation of the end, as it draws 
 near, must press upon your minds ? " 
 
 " On the contrary," was the response, " death, 
 never an object of fear, as it draws nearer becomes 
 more and more a matter of indifference to the mori 
 bund. It is because you live in the past that death 
 
16 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 is grievous to you. All your knowledge, all your 
 affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, 
 and on that account, as life lengthens, it strength 
 ens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more 
 precious possession. We, on the contrary, despise 
 the past, and never dwell upon it. Memory with 
 us, far from being the morbid and monstrous 
 growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudi 
 mentary faculty. We live wholly in the future 
 and the present. What with foretaste and actual 
 taste, our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, 
 are exhausted of interest by the time they are past. 
 The accumulated treasures of memory, which you 
 relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss 
 at all. Our minds being fed wholly from the 
 future, we think and feel only as we anticipate ; 
 and so, as the dying man s future contracts, there 
 is less and less about which he can occupy his 
 thoughts. His interest in life diminishes as the 
 ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last 
 death finds him with his mind a tabula rasa, as 
 with you at birth. In a word, his concern with life 
 is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called 
 on to give it up. In dying he leaves nothing be 
 hind." 
 
 " And the after-death," I asked, " is there no 
 fear of that ? " 
 
 "Surely," was the reply, "it is not necessary 
 for me to say that a fear which affects only the 
 more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to us, 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 17 
 
 and would be counted blasphemous. Moreover, as 
 I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives 
 on this planet. Any speculation beyond them 
 would be purely conjectural, and our minds are 
 repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty. To 
 us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be 
 called almost the same." 
 
 " But even if you do not fear death for itself," 
 I said, " you have hearts to break. Is there no 
 pain when the ties of love are sundered?" 
 
 " Love and death are not foes on our planet," 
 was the reply. " There are no tears by the bed 
 sides of our dying. The same beneficent law which 
 makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to; 
 mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us. 
 With you, it is the intercourse you have had with 
 friends that is the source of your tenderness for 
 them. With us, it is the anticipation of the inter 
 course we shall enjoy which is the foundation of 
 fondness. As our friends vanish from our future 
 with the approach of their death, the effect on our . 
 thoughts and affections is as it would be with you, 
 if you forgot them by lapse of time. As our dying y 
 friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we,/ 
 by operation of the same law of our nature, become] 
 indifferent to them, till at the last we are scarcely 
 more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about 
 the beds of those who regard us equally without! 
 keen emotions. So at last God gently unwinds in 
 stead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts 
 
18 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 U t0i 
 
 Vw 
 
 together, and makes death as painless to the sur 
 viving as to the dying. Relations meant to pro 
 duce our happiness are not the means also of tor 
 turing us, as with you.,/ Love means joy, and that 
 r alone, to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while 
 only to desolate them later on, compelling us to 
 pay with a distinct and separate pang for every 
 thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every 
 smile." 
 
 " There are other partings than those of death. 
 Are these, too, without sorrow for you? " I asked. 
 
 " Assuredly," was the reply. " Can you not see 
 that so it must needs be with beings freed by fore 
 sight from the disease of memory ? All the sorrow 
 of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the 
 backward vision which precludes you from behold 
 ing your happiness till it is past. Suppose your 
 life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship. 
 If you could know it beforehand, it would be a 
 joyous expectation, brightening the intervening 
 years and cheering you as you traversed desolate 
 periods. But no ; not till you meet the one who 
 is to be your friend do you know of him. Nor do 
 you guess even then what he is to be to you, that 
 you may embrace him at first sight. Your meeting 
 is cold and indifferent. It is long before the fire 
 is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already 
 time for parting. Now, indeed, the fire burns well, 
 but henceforth it must consume your heartXlNot 
 till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 19 
 
 dear your friends were and how sweet was their 
 companionship. But we we see our friends afar 
 off coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, 
 years before our ways meet. We greet them at 
 first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with 
 exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy. They enter 
 at once into the full possession of hearts long 
 warmed and lighted for them. We meet with that 
 delirium of tenderness with which you part. And 
 when to us at last the time of parting comes, it 
 only means that we are to contribute to each other s 
 happiness no longer. We are not doomed, like 
 you, in parting, to take away with us the delight 
 we brought our friends, leaving the ache of be 
 reavement in its place, so that their last state is 
 worse than their first. Parting here is like meet-"~\ 
 ing with you, calm and unimpassioned. The joys 
 of anticipation and possession are the only food 
 of love with us, and therefore Love always wears 
 a smiling face. With you he feeds on dead joys, 
 past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance 
 of sorrow. No wonder love and sorrow are so 
 much alike on Earth. It is a common saying among 
 us that, were it not for the spectacle of the Earth, 
 the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreci 
 ate the goodness of God to them ; and who can say 
 that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set 
 before us ? " 
 
 " You have told me marvelous things," I said, 
 after I had reflected. " It is, indeed, but reason- 
 
20 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 able that such a race as yours should look down 
 with wondering pity on the Earth. And yet, be 
 fore I grant so much, I want to ask you one ques 
 tion. There is known in our world a certain sweet 
 madness, under the influence of which we forget 
 all that is untoward in our lot, and would not 
 change it for a god s. So far is this sweet mad 
 ness regarded by men as a compensation, and more 
 than a compensation, for all their miseries that if 
 you know not love as we know it, if this loss be 
 the price you have paid for your divine foresight, 
 we think ourselves more favored of God than you. 
 Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, 
 its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incom 
 patible with a foresight which weighs and measures 
 every experience in advance." 
 
 / " Of love s surprises we certainly know nothing," 
 j was the reply. " It is believed by our philosophers 
 that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our 
 constitution like lightning ; though of course this 
 is merely theory, for it is only by the study of 
 Earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea 
 of what surprise is like. Your power to endure 
 the constant bufferings of the unexpected is a mat 
 ter of supreme amazement to us ; nor, according to 
 our ideas, is there any difference between what you 
 call pleasant and painful surprises. You see, then, 
 that we cannot envy you these surprises of love 
 which you find so sweet, for to us they would be 
 fatal. For the rest, there is no form of happiness 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 21 
 
 which foresight is so well calculated to enhance ajsJ 
 that of love. Let me explain to you how this be 
 falls. As the growing boy begins to be sensible of 
 the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare 
 say it is with you, preferring some type of face and 
 form to others. He dreams oftenest of fair hair, 
 or may be of dark, of blue eyes or brown. As the 
 years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to 
 it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly 
 adding to this dream-face, this shadowy form, traits 
 and lineaments, hues and contours, till at last the 
 picture is complete, and he becomes aware that 
 on his heart thus subtly has been depicted the 
 likeness of the maiden destined for his arms. 
 
 " It may be years before he is to see her, but 
 now begins with him one of the sweetest offices 
 of love, one to you unknown. Youth on Earth is 
 a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or 
 rioting in excess. But the very passion whose 
 awaking makes this time so critical"wlth you is 
 here a^reJpjniin^_^jid-jedttOtLiiig influence, to whose 
 gentle and potent sway 
 
 dren. The temptations which lead your young^ 
 men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy 
 planet. He hoards the treasures of his heart for _ 
 its coming mistress. Of her alone he thinks, and to 
 her all his vows are made. The thought of license 
 would be treason to his sovereign lady, whose 
 right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully 
 owns. To rob her, to abate her high prerogatives, 
 
22 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 would be to impoverish, to insult, himself ; for she 
 is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own. 
 Through all this time that he dreams of her by 
 night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion 
 is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of 
 her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden 
 heart his image is set up to receive the incense 
 of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself 
 through fear of possible cross or separation. 
 
 " In due time their converging lives come to 
 gether. The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each 
 other s eyes, then throw themselves each on the 
 other s breast. The maiden has all the charms 
 that ever stirred the blood of an Earthly lover, but 
 there is another glamour over her which the eyes 
 of Earthly lovers are shut to, the glamour of 
 the future. In the blushing girl her lover sees the 
 fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the 
 patient, pain-consecrated mother. On the virgin s 
 breast he beholds his children. He is prescient, 
 even as his lips take the first-fruits of hers, of the 
 future years during which she is to be his com 
 panion, his ever-present solace, his chief portion of 
 God s goodness. We have read some of your ro 
 mances describing love as you know it on Earth, 
 and I must confess, my friend, we find them very 
 dull. 
 
 " I hope," he added, as I did not at once speak, 
 "that I shall not offend you by saying we find 
 them also objectionable. Your literature possesses 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 23 
 
 in general an interest for us in the picture it pre 
 sents of the curiously inverted life which the lack 
 of foresight compels you to lead. It is a study 
 especially prized for the development of the imagi 
 nation, on account of the difficulty of conceiving 
 conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings 
 in general. But our women do not read your ro 
 mances. The notion that a man or woman should 
 ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other 
 than the one whose husband or wife he or she is 
 destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits 
 of thought. No doubt you will say that such 
 instances are rare among you, but if your novels 
 are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least 
 not unknown. That these situations are inevitable 
 under the conditions of earthly life we are well 
 aware, and judge you accordingly ; but it is need 
 less that the minds of our maidens should be 
 pained by the knowledge that there anywhere 
 exists a world where such travesties upon the 
 sacredness of marriage are possible. 
 
 " There is, however, another reason why we dis 
 courage the use of your books by our young people, 
 and that is the profound effect of sadness, to a race 
 accustomed to view all things in the morning glow 
 of the future, of a literature written in the past 
 tense and relating exclusively to things that are 
 ended." 
 
 " And how do you write of things that are past 
 except in the past tense ? " I asked. 
 
24 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 " We write of the past when it is still the future, 
 and of course in the future tense," was the reply, 
 f our historians were to wait till after the events 
 / to describe them, not alone would nobody care to 
 I read about things already done, but the histories 
 | themselves would probably be inaccurate ; for 
 ^nernory, as I have said, is a very slightly devel 
 oped faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to 
 be trustworthy. Should the Earth ever establish 
 communication with us, you will find our histories 
 of interest ; for our planet, being smaller, cooled 
 and was peopled ages before yours, and our astro 
 nomical records contain minute accounts of the 
 Earth from the time it was a fluid mass. Your 
 geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of 
 information here." 
 
 In the course of our further conversation it 
 came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some 
 of the commonest emotions of human nature are 
 unknown on Mars. They for whom the future 
 has no mystery can, of course, know neither hope 
 nor fear. Moreover, every one being assured what 
 he shall attain to and what not, there can be no 
 such thing as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort 
 of competition in any respect ; and therefore all 
 the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engen 
 dered on Earth by the strife of man with man, is 
 ^unknown to the people of Mars, save from the 
 study of our planet. When I asked if there were 
 not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 25 
 
 freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details before 
 hand, I was reminded that there was no difference 
 in that respect between the lives of the people of 
 Earth and of Mars, both alike being according to 
 God s will in every particular. We knew that will 
 only after the event, they before, that was alL^ 
 For the rest, God moved them through their wills 
 as He did us, so that they had no more sense of 
 compulsion in what they did than we on Earth 
 have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, 
 in cases where our anticipations chance to be cor 
 rect. Of the absorbing interest which the study 
 of the plan of their future lives possessed for the 
 people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently. 
 It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathe 
 matician of a most elaborate and exquisite demon 
 stration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the 
 glowing realities of life in place of figures and 
 symbols. 
 
 When I asked if it never occurred to them to 
 wish their futures different, he replied that such a 
 question could only have been asked by one frorn 
 the Earth. No one could have foresight, or clearly 
 believe that God had it, without realizing that the 
 future is as incapable of being changed as the 
 past. And not only this, but to foresee events 
 was to foresee their logical necessity so clearly 
 that to desire them different was as impossible as 
 seriously to wish that two and two made five in 
 stead of four. No person could ever thoughtfully 
 
26 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 wish anything different, for so closely are all 
 things, the small with the great, woven together 
 ! by God that to draw out the smallest thread would 
 , unravel creation through all eternity. 
 
 While we had talked the afternoon had waned, 
 and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the ro 
 seate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splen 
 dor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land 
 and sea scape, never paralleled by an earthly sun 
 set. Already the familiar constellations appearing 
 in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was 
 to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could 
 not detect the slightest variation in their position. 
 Nevertheless, there was one wholly novel feature 
 in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids 
 which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter 
 were vividly visible to the naked eye. But the 
 spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, 
 swimming low on the verge of the horizon. Its 
 disc, twice as large as that of any star or planet as 
 seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like 
 that of Venus. 
 
 " It is, indeed, a lovely sight," said my compan 
 ion, "although to me always a melancholy one, 
 from the contrast suggested between the radiance 
 of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhab 
 itants. We call it The Blindman s World. " As 
 he spoke he turned toward a curious structure 
 which stood near us, though I had not before par 
 ticularly observed it. 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 27 
 
 "What is that?" I asked. 
 
 " It is one of our telescopes," he replied. " I 
 am going to let you take a look, if you choose, at 
 your home, and test for yourself the powers of 
 which I have boasted ; " and having adjusted the 
 instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where 
 to apply my eye to what answered to the eye-piece. 
 
 I could not repress an exclamation of amaze 
 ment, for truly he had exaggerated nothing. The 
 little college town which was my home lay spread 
 out before me, seemingly almost as near as when 
 I looked down upon it from my observatory win 
 dows. It was early morning, and the village was 
 waking up. The milkmen were going their rounds, 
 and workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurry 
 ing along the streets. The early train was just 
 leaving the railroad station. I could see the puffs 
 from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylin 
 ders. It was strange not to hear the hissing of 
 the steam, so near I seemed. There were the col- 
 lege buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows 
 flashing back the level sunbeams. I could tell the 
 time by the college clock. It struck me that there 
 was an unusiial bustle around the buildings, con 
 sidering the earliness of the hour. A crowd of 
 men stood about the door of the observatory, and 
 many others were hurrying across the campus in 
 that direction. Among them I recognized Presi 
 dent Byxbee, accompanied by the college janitor. 
 As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, 
 
28 THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 
 
 passing through the group about the door, entered 
 the. building. The president was evidently going 
 up to my quarters. At this it flashed over me 
 quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my 
 account. I recalled how it was that I came to be 
 on Mars, and in what condition I had left affairs 
 in the observatory. It was high time I were back 
 there to look after myself. 
 
 Here abruptly ended the extraordinary docu 
 ment which I found that morning on my desk. 
 That it is the authentic record of the conditions of 
 life in another world which it purports to be I do 
 not expect the reader to believe] He will no doubt 
 explain it as another of the curious freaks of som- 
 
 . nambulism set down in the books. Probably it 
 was merely that, possibly it was something more. 
 I do not pretend to decide the question. I have 
 told all the facts of the case, and have no better 
 means for forming an opinion than the reader. 
 Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it the true 
 account it seems to be, that it would have affected 
 my imagination much more strongly than it has. 
 That story of another world has, in a word, put me 
 out of joint with ours. The readiness with which 
 my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of 
 view concerning the Earth has been a singular ex 
 perience. The lack of foresight among the human 
 
 i faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of before, 
 now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out 
 
THE BLINDMAN S WORLD 29 
 
 of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying* its 
 promise, a moral mutilation, a deprivation arbi 
 trary and unaccountable. The spectacle of a race 
 doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has 
 gone by, assured only of what is past and dead, 
 comes over me from time to time with a sadly fan 
 tastical effect which 1 cannot describe. I dream of 
 a world where love always wears a smile, where the 
 partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death 
 is king no more. I have a fancy, which I like to | 
 cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, 
 fancied though it may be, represent the ideal and 
 normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as 
 perhaps it may yet be again. 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 THE air was tremulous with farewells. The 
 regiment, recruited within sight of the steeples of 
 Waterville, and for three months in camp just 
 outside the city, was to march the next morning. 
 A series of great battles had weakened the Federal 
 armies, and the authorities at Washington had 
 ordered all available men to the front. 
 
 The camp was to be broken up at an early hour, 
 after which the regiment would march through the 
 city to the depot to take the cars. The streets 
 along the route of the march were already being 
 decorated with flags and garlands. The city that 
 afternoon was full of soldiers enjoying their last 
 leave of absence. The liquor shops were crowded 
 with parties of them drinking with their friends, 
 while others in threes and fours, with locked arms, 
 paraded the streets singing patriotic songs, some 
 times in rather maudlin voices, for to-day in every 
 saloon a soldier might enter, citizens vied for the 
 privilege of treating him to the best in the house. 
 No man in a blue coat was suffered to pay for 
 anything. 
 
 For the most part, however, the men were sober 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 31 
 
 enough over their leave-taking. One saw every 
 where soldiers and civilians, strolling in pairs, 
 absorbed in earnest talk. They are brothers, 
 maybe, who have come away from the house to be 
 alone with each other, while they talk of family 
 affairs and exchange last charges and promises as 
 to what is to be done if anything happens. Or 
 perhaps they are business partners, and the one 
 who has put the country s business before his own 
 is giving his last counsels as to how the store or 
 the shop shall be managed in his absence. Many 
 of the blue-clad men have women with them, and 
 these are the couples that the people oftenest turn 
 to look at. The girl who has a soldier lover is the 
 envy of her companions to-day as she walks by 
 his side. Her proud eyes challenge all who come, 
 saying, " See, this is my hero. I am the one he 
 loves." 
 
 You could easily tell when it was a wife and 
 not a sweetheart whom the soldier had with him. 
 There was no challenge in the eyes of the wife. 
 Young romance shed none of its glamour on the 
 sacrifice she was making for her native land. It 
 was only because they could not bear to sit any 
 longer looking at each other in the house that she 
 and her husband had come out to walk. 
 
 In the residence parts of the town family groups 
 were gathered on shady piazzas, a blue-coated fig 
 ure the centre of each. They were trying to talk 
 cheerfully, making an effort even to laugh a little. 
 
32 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 Now and then one of the women stole unobserved 
 from the circle, but her bravely smiling face as she 
 presently returned gave no inkling of the flood of 
 tears that had eased her heart in some place apart. 
 The young soldier himself was looking a little pale 
 and nervous with all his affected good spirits, and 
 it was safe to guess that he was even then think 
 ing how often this scene would come before him 
 afterwards, by the camp-fire and on the eve of 
 battle. 
 
 In ine village of Upton, some four or five miles 
 out of Waterville, on a broad piazza at the side 
 of a house on the main street, a group of four 
 persons were seated around a tea-table. 
 
 The centre of interest of this group, as of so 
 many others "that day, was a soldier. He looked 
 not over twenty-five, with dark blue eyes, dark 
 hair cut close to his head, and a mustache trimmed 
 crisply in military fashion. His uniform set off 
 to advantage an athletic figure of youthful slender- 
 ness, and his bronzed complexion told of long days 
 of practice on the drill-ground in the school of the 
 company and the battalion. He wore the shoulder- 
 straps of a second lieutenant. 
 
 On one side of the soldier sat the Rev. Mr. 
 Morton, his cousin, and on the other Miss Bertha 
 Morton, a kindly faced, middle-aged lady, who was 
 her brother s housekeeper and the hostess of this 
 occasion. 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 33 
 
 The fourth member of the party was a girl of 
 nineteen or twenty. She was a very pretty girl, 
 and although to-day her pallid cheeks and red and 
 swollen eyelids would to other eyes have detracted 
 somewhat from her charms, it was certain that they 
 did not make her seem less adorable to the young 
 officer, for he was her lover, and was to march with 
 the regiment in the morning. 
 
 Lieutenant Philip King was a lawyer, and by 
 perseverance and native ability had worked up a 
 fair practice for so young a man in and around 
 Upton. When he volunteered, he had to make up 
 his mind to leave this carefully gathered clientage 
 to scatter, or to be filched from him by less patriotic 
 rivals ; but it may be well believed that this seemed 
 to him a little thing compared with leaving Grace 
 Roberts, with the chance of never returning to 
 make her his wife. If, indeed, it had been for 
 him to say, he would have placed his happiness 
 beyond hazard by marrying her before the regi 
 ment marched ; nor would she have been averse, 
 but her mother, an invalid widow, took a sensible 
 rather than a sentimental view of the case. If he 
 were killed, she said, a wife would do him no good ; 
 and if he came home again, Grace would be wait 
 ing for him, and that ought to satisfy a reasonable 
 man. It had to satisfy an unreasonable one. The 
 Robertses had always lived just beyond the garden 
 from the parsonage, and Grace, who from a little 
 girl had been a great pet of the childless minister 
 
34 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 and his sister, was almost as much at home there 
 as in her mother s house. When Philip fell in 
 love with her, the Mortons were delighted. They 
 could have wished nothing; better for either. From 
 
 O 
 
 the first Miss Morton had done all she coidd to 
 make matters smooth for the lovers, and the pre 
 sent little farewell banquet was but the last of 
 many meetings she had prepared for them at the 
 parsonage. 
 
 Philip had come out from camp on a three-hours 
 leave that afternoon, and would have to report 
 again at half-past seven. It was nearly that hour 
 now, though still light, the season being midsum 
 mer. There had been an effort on the part of all 
 to keep up a cheerful tone ; but as the time of the 
 inevitable separation drew near, the conversation 
 had been more and more left to the minister and 
 his sister, who, with observations sometimes a little 
 forced, continued to fend off silence and the demor 
 alization it would be likely to bring to their young 
 friends. Grace had been the first to drop out 
 of the talking, and Philip s answers, when he was 
 addressed, grew more and more at random, as the 
 meetings of his eyes with his sweetheart s became 
 more frequent and lasted longer. 
 
 " He will be the handsomest officer in the regi 
 ment, that s one comfort. Won t he, Grace ? " 
 said Miss Morton cheerily. 
 
 The girl nodded and smiled faintly. Her eyes 
 were brimming, and the twitching of her lips from 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 35 
 
 time to time betrayed how great was the effort with 
 which she kept her self-command. 
 
 44 Yes," said Mr. Morton ; " but though he looks 
 very well now, it is nothing to the imposing appear 
 ance he will present when he comes back with a 
 colonel s shoulder-straps. You should be thinking 
 of that, Grace." 
 
 " I expect we shall hear from him every day," 
 said Miss Morton. " He will have no excuse for 
 not writing with all those envelopes stamped and 
 addressed, with blank paper in them, which Grace 
 has given him. You should always have three or 
 four in your coat pocket, Phil." 
 
 The young man nodded. 
 
 44 1 suppose for the most part we shall learn of 
 you through Grace ; but you must n t forget us 
 entirely, my boy," said Mr. Morton. "We shall 
 want to hear from you directly now and then." 
 
 44 Yes ; I 11 be sure to write," Philip replied. 
 
 44 1 suppose it will be time enough to see the regi 
 ment pass if we are in our places by nine o clock," 
 suggested Miss Morton, after a silence. 
 
 44 1 think so," said her brother. 44 It is a great 
 affair to break camp, and I don t believe the march 
 will begin till after that time." 
 
 44 James has got us one of the windows of Ray 
 & Seymour s offices, you know, Philip," resumed 
 Miss Morton ; 44 which one did you say, James ? " 
 
 44 The north one." 
 
 44 Yes, the north one," she resumed. 44 They say 
 
36 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 every window on Main Street along the route of 
 the regiment is rented. Grace will be with us, you 
 know. You must n t forget to look up at us as you 
 go by " as if the young man were likely to ! 
 
 He was evidently not now listening to her at all. 
 His eyes were fastened upon the girl s opposite 
 him, and they seemed to have quite forgotten the 
 others. Miss Morton and her brother exchanged 
 compassionate glances. Tears were in the lady s 
 eyes. A clock in the sitting-room began to strike : 
 
 " One, two, three, four, five, six, seven." 
 
 Philip started. 
 
 " What time is that ? " he asked, a little huskily. 
 No one replied at once. Then Mr. Morton said : 
 
 " I am afraid it struck seven, my boy." 
 
 " I must leave in ten minutes then," said the 
 young man, rising from the table. The rest fol 
 lowed his example. 
 
 " I wonder if the buggy will be in time ? " said 
 he. 
 
 " It is at the gate," replied Miss Morton. " I 
 heard it drive up some time ago." 
 
 Unmindful of the others now, Philip put his arm 
 about Grace s waist and drew her away to the end 
 of the piazza and thence out into the garden. 
 
 " Poor young things," murmured Miss Morton, 
 the tears running down her cheeks as she looked 
 after them. " It is pitiful, James, to see how they 
 suffer." 
 
 " Yes," said the minister ; " and there are a 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 37 
 
 great many just such scenes to-day. Ah, well, 
 as St. Paul says, we see as yet but in part." 
 
 Passing in and out among the shrubbery, and 
 presently disappearing from the sympathetic eyes 
 upon the piazza, the lovers came to a little summer- 
 house, and there they entered. Taking her wrists 
 in his hands, he held her away from him, and his 
 eyes went slowly over her from head to foot, as if 
 he would impress upon his mind an image that 
 absence should not have power to dim. 
 
 " You are so beautiful," he said, " that in this 
 moment, when I ought to have all my courage, you 
 make me feel that I am a madman to leave you 
 for the sake of any cause on earth. The future to 
 most men is but a chance of happiness, and when 
 they risk it they only risk a chance. In staking 
 their lives, they only stake a lottery ticket, which 
 would probably draw a blank. But my ticket has 
 drawn a capital prize. I risk not the chance, but 
 the certainty, of happiness. I believe I am a fool, 
 and if I am killed, that will be the first thing they 
 will say to me on the other side." 
 
 " Don t talk of that, Phil. Oh, don t talk of 
 being killed!" 
 
 " No, no ; of course not ! " he exclaimed. " Don t 
 fret about that; I shall not be killed. I ve no 
 notion of being killed. But what a fool I am to 
 waste these last moments staring at you when I 
 might be kissing you, my love, my love ! " And 
 clasping her in his arms, he covered her face with 
 kisses. 
 
38 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 She began to sob convulsively. 
 
 " Don t, darling ; don t ! Don t make it so hard 
 for me," he whispered hoarsely. 
 
 " Oh, do let me cry," she wailed. " It was so 
 hard for me to hold back all the time we were at 
 table. I must cry, or my heart will break. Oh, 
 my own dear Phil, what if I should never see you 
 again ! Oh ! Oh ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, darling," he said, crowding down the 
 lump that seemed like iron in his throat, and mak 
 ing a desperate effort to keep his voice steady. 
 " You will see me again, never doubt it. Don t I 
 tell you I am coming back ? The South cannot 
 hold out much longer. Everybody says so. I shall 
 be home in a year, and then you will be my wife, 
 to be God s Grace to me all the rest of my life. 
 Our happiness will be on interest till then ; ten per 
 cent, a month at least, compound interest, piling 
 up every day. Just think of that, dear ; don t let 
 yourself think of anything else." 
 
 "Oh, Phil, how I love you!" she cried, throwing 
 her arms around his neck in a passion of tender 
 ness. " Nobody is like you. Nobody ever was. 
 Surely God will not part us. Surely He will not. 
 He is too good." 
 
 " No, dear, He will not. Some day I shall come 
 back. It will not be long. Perhaps I shall find 
 you waiting for me in this same little summer- 
 house. Let us think of that. It was here, you 
 know, we found out each other s secret that day." 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 89 
 
 " I had found out yours long before," she said, 
 faintly smiling. 
 
 " Time s up, Phil." It was Mr. Morton s voice 
 calling to them from the piazza. 
 
 " I must go, darling. Good-by." 
 
 " Oh, no, not yet ; not quite yet," she wailed, 
 clinging to him. " Why, we have been here but a 
 few moments. It can t be ten minutes yet." 
 
 Under the influence of that close, passionate 
 embrace, those clinging kisses and mingling tears, 
 there began to come over Philip a feeling of weak 
 ness, of fainting courage, a disposition to cry out, 
 "Nothing can be so terrible as this. I will not 
 bear it ; I will not go." By a tyrannical effort of 
 will, against which his whole nature cried out, he 
 unwound her arms from his neck and said in a 
 choked voice : 
 
 " Darling, this is harder than any battle I shall 
 have to fight, but this is what I enlisted for. I 
 must go." 
 
 He had reached the door of the summer-house, 
 not daring for honor s sake to look back, when a 
 heartbroken cry smote his ear. 
 
 " You have n t kissed me good-by ! " 
 
 He had kissed her a hundred times, but these 
 kisses she apparently distinguished from the good- 
 by kiss. He came back, and taking her again in 
 his embrace, kissed her lips, her throat, her bosom, 
 and then once more their lips met, and in that kiss 
 of parting which plucks the heart up by the roots. 
 
40 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 How strong must be the barrier between one soul 
 and another that they do not utterly merge in 
 moments like that, turning the agony of parting to 
 the bliss of blended being ! 
 
 Pursued by the sound of her desolate sobbing, 
 he fled away. 
 
 The stable-boy held the dancing horse at the 
 gate, and Mr. Morton and his sister stood waiting 
 there. 
 
 " Good-by, Phil, till we see you again," said 
 Miss Morton, kissing him tenderly. " We 11 take 
 good care of her for you." 
 
 " Will you please go to her now ? " he said 
 huskily. " She is in the summer-house. For 
 God s sake try to comfort her." 
 
 "Yes, poor boy, I will," she answered. He 
 shook hands with Mr. Morton and jumped into 
 the buggy. 
 
 " I 11 get a furlough and be back in a few 
 months, maybe. Be sure to tell her that," he 
 said. 
 
 The stable-boy stood aside ; the mettlesome horse 
 gave a plunge and started off at a three-minute 
 gait. The boy drew out his watch and observed : 
 " He hain t got but fifteen minutes to git to camp 
 in, but he 11 do it. The mare s a stepper, and Phil 
 King knows how to handle the ribbons." 
 
 The buggy vanished in a cloud of dust around 
 the next turn in the road. The stable-boy strode 
 whistling down the street, the minister went to his 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 41 
 
 study, and Miss Morton disappeared in the shrub 
 bery in the direction of the summer-house. 
 
 II 
 
 Early next morning the country roads leading 
 into Waterville were covered with carts and wag 
 ons and carriages loaded with people coming into 
 town to see the regiment off. The streets were 
 hung with flags and spanned with decorated arches 
 bearing patriotic inscriptions. Red, white, and 
 blue streamers hung in festoons from building to 
 building and floated from cornices. The stores 
 and places of business were all closed, the side 
 walks were packed with people in their Sunday 
 clothes, and the windows and balconies were lined 
 with gazers long before it was time for the regi 
 ment to appear. Everybody men, women, and 
 children wore the national colors in cockades or 
 rosettes, while many young girls were dressed 
 throughout in red, white, and blue. The city 
 seemed tricked out for some rare gala-day, but the 
 grave faces of the expectant throng, and the sub 
 dued and earnest manner which extended even to 
 the older children, stamped this as no ordinary 
 holiday. 
 
 After hours of patient waiting, at last the word 
 passes from mouth to mouth, " They are coming ! " 
 Vehicles are quickly driven out of the way, and in 
 a general hush all eyes are turned towards the 
 
42 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 head of the street. Presently there is a burst of 
 martial music, and the regiment comes wheeling 
 round the corner into view and fills the wide street 
 from curb to curb with its broad front. As the 
 blue river sweeps along, the rows of polished bay 
 onets, rising and falling with the swinging tread 
 of the men, are like interminable ranks of foam- 
 crested waves rolling in upon the shore. The im 
 posing mass, with its rhythmic movement, gives 
 the impression of a single organism. One forgets 
 to look for the individuals in it, forgets that there 
 are individuals. Even those who have brothers, 
 sons, lovers there, for a moment almost forget 
 them in the impression of a mighty whole. The 
 mind is slow to realize that this great dragon, so 
 terrible in its beauty, emitting light as it moves 
 from a thousand burnished scales, with flaming 
 crest proudly waving in the van, is but an aggre 
 gation of men singly so feeble. 
 
 The hearts of the lookers-on as they gaze are 
 swelling fast. An afflatus of heroism given forth 
 by this host of self-devoted men communicates it 
 self to the most stolid spectators. The booming 
 of the drum fills the brain, and the blood in the 
 veins leaps to its rhythm. The unearthly gayety 
 of the fife, like the sweet, shrill song of a bird 
 soaring above the battle, infects the nerves till the 
 idea of death brings a scornful smile to the lips. 
 yes glaze with rapturous tears as they rest upon 
 the flag. There is a thrill of voluptuous sweetness 
 
 I 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 43 
 
 in the thought of dying for it. Life seems of 
 value only as it gives Tihe ""poorest something to 
 sacrifice. It is dying that makes the glory of the 
 world, and all other employments seem but idle 
 while the regiment passes. 
 
 The time for farewells is gone by. The lucky 
 men at the ends of the ranks have indeed an 
 opportunity without breaking step to exchange 
 an occasional hand-shake with a friend on the side 
 walk, or to snatch a kiss from wife or sweetheart, 
 but those in the middle of the line can only look 
 their farewells. Now and then a mother intrusts 
 her baby to a file-leader to be passed along from 
 hand to hand till it reaches the father, to be sent 
 back with a kiss, or, maybe, perched aloft on his 
 shoulder, to ride to the depot, crowing at the music 
 and clutching at the gleaming bayonets. At every 
 such touch of nature the people cheer wildly. 
 From every window and balcony the ladies shower 
 garlands upon the troops. 
 
 Where is Grace ? for this is the Upton company 
 which is passing now. Yonder she stands on a 
 balcony, between Mr. Morton and his sister. She 
 is very pale and the tears are streaming down her 
 cheeks, but her face is radiant. She is smiling 
 through her tears, as if there was no such thing 011 
 earth as fear or sorrow. She has looked forward 
 to this ordeal with harrowing expectations, only to 
 find herself at the trying moment seized upon and 
 lifted above all sense of personal affliction by the 
 
44 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 passion^pf self-devotion with which the air is elec 
 tric. Her face as she looks down upon her lover 
 is that of a priestess in the ecstasy of sacrifice. 
 "He is saluting with his sword. Now he has passed. 
 With a great sob she turns away. She does not 
 care for the rest of the pageant. Her patriotism 
 has suddenly gone. The ecstasy of .sacrifice is 
 over. She is no longer a priestess, but a broken 
 hearted girl, who only asks to be led away to some 
 place where she can weep till her lover returns. 
 
 in 
 
 There was to be a great battle the next day. 
 The two armies had been long manoeuvring for 
 position, and now they stood like wrestlers who 
 have selected their holds and, with body braced 
 against body, knee against knee, wait for the sig 
 nal to begin the struggle. There had been during 
 the afternoon some brisk fighting, but a common 
 desire to postpone the decisive contest till the mor 
 row had prevented the main forces from becoming 
 involved. Philip s regiment had thus far only 
 been engaged in a few trifling skirmishes, barely 
 enough to stir the blood. This was to be its 
 first battle, and the position to which it had been 
 allotted promised a bloody baptism in the morning. 
 The men were in excellent heart, but as night set 
 tled down, there was little or no merriment to be 
 heard about the camp-fires. Most were gathered 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 45 
 
 in groups, discussing in low tones the chances of 
 the morrow. Some, knowing that every fibre of 
 muscle would be needed for the work before them, 
 had wisely gone to sleep, while here and there a 
 man, heedless of the talk going on about him, was 
 lying on his back staring up at the darkening sky, 
 thinking. 
 
 As the twilight deepened, Philip strolled to the 
 top of a little knoll just out of the camp and sat 
 down, with a vague notion of casting up accounts 
 a little in view of the final settlement which very 
 possibly might come for him next day. But t"Ee"\ 
 inspiration of the scene around him soon diverted | 
 his mind from personal engrossments. Some dis 
 tance down the lines he could see the occasional 
 flash of a gun, where a battery was lazily shelling 
 a piece of woods which it was desirable to keep 
 the enemy from occupying during the night. A 
 burning barn in that direction made a flare on 
 the sky. Over behind the wooded hills where the 
 Confederates lay, rockets were going up, indicat 
 ing the exchange of signals and the perfecting of 
 plans which might mean defeat and ruin to him 
 and his the next day. Behind him, within the 
 Federal lines, clouds of dust, dimly outlined against 
 the glimmering landscape, betrayed the location 
 of the roads along which artillery, cavalry, infan 
 try were hurrying eagerly forward to take their 
 assigned places for the morrow s work. 
 
 Who said that men fear death ? Who concocted 
 
46 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 that fable for old wives ? He should have stood 
 that night with Philip in the midst of a host of 
 one hundred and twenty-five thousand men in the 
 full flush and vigor of life, calmly and deliberately 
 making ready at dawn to receive death in its most 
 horrid forms at one another s hands. It is in vain 
 that Eeligion invests the tomb with terror, and 
 Philosophy, shuddering, averts her face ; the nations 
 turn from these gloomy teachers to storm its portals 
 in exultant hosts, battering them wide enough for 
 thousands to charge through abreast. The heroic 
 instinct of humanity with its high contempt of death 
 is wiser and truer, never let us doubt, than super 
 stitious terrors or philosophic doubts. It testifies 
 to a conviction, deeper than reason, that man is 
 greater than his seeming self ; to an underlying 
 consciousness that his mortal life is but an accident 
 of his real existence, the fashion of a day, to be 
 lightly worn and gayly doffed at duty s call. 
 
 What a pity it truly is that the tonic air of 
 battlefields the air that Philip breathed that 
 night before Antietam cannot be gathered up 
 and preserved as a precious elixir to reinvigorate 
 the atmosphere in times of peace, when men grow 
 faint of heart and cowardly, and quake at thought 
 of death. 
 
 The soldiers huddled in their blankets on the 
 ground slept far more soundly that night before 
 the battle than their men-folk and women-folk in 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 47 
 
 their warm beds at home. For them it was a 
 night of watching, a vigil of prayers and tears. 
 The telegraph in those days made of the nation an 
 intensely sensitive organism, with nerves a thou 
 sand miles long. Ere its echoes had died away, 
 every shot fired at the front had sent a tremor to 
 the anxious hearts at home. The newspapers and 
 bulletin boards in all the towns and cities of the 
 North had announced that a great battle would 
 surely take place the next day, and, as the night 
 closed in, a mighty cloud of prayer rose from 
 innumerable firesides, the self-same prayer from 
 each, that he who had gone from that home might 
 survive the battle, whoever else must fall. 
 
 The wife, lest her own appeal might fail, taught 
 her cooing baby to lisp the father s name, think 
 ing that surely the Great Father s heart would not 
 be able to resist a baby s prayer. The widowed 
 mother prayed that if it were consistent with God s 
 will he would spare her son. She laid her heart, 
 pierced through with many sorrows, before Him. 
 She had borne so much, life had been so hard, her 
 boy was all she had to show for so much endured, 
 might not this cup pass? Pale, impassioned 
 maids, kneeling by their virgin beds, wore out the 
 night with an importunity that would not be put 
 off. Sure in their great love and their little know 
 ledge that no case could be like theirs, they be- 
 seeched God with bitter weeping for their lovers 
 lives, because, forsooth, they could not bear it if 
 
48 AN ECHO OP ANTIETAM 
 
 hurt came to them. The answers to many thou 
 sands of these agonizing appeals of maid and wife 
 and mother were already in the enemy s cartridge- 
 boxes. 
 
 IV 
 
 The day came. The dispatches in the morning 
 papers stated that the armies would probably be 
 engaged from an early hour. 
 
 Who that does not remember those battle-sum 
 mers can realize from any telling how <bo fathers 
 and mothers, the wives and sisters and sweethearts 
 at home, lived through the days when it was known 
 that a great battle was going on at the front in 
 which their loved ones were engaged ? It was 
 very quiet in the house on those days of battle. 
 All spoke in hushed voices and stepped lightly. 
 The children, too small to understand the meaning 
 of the shadow on the home, felt it and took their 
 noisy sports elsewhere. There was little conver 
 sation, except as to when definite news might be 
 expected. The household work dragged sadly, for 
 though the women sought refuge from thought in 
 occupation, they were constantly dropping whatever 
 they had in hand to rush away to their chambers 
 to face the presentiment, perhaps suddenly borne 
 in upon them with the force of a conviction, that 
 they might be called on to bear the worst. The 
 table was set for the regular meals, but there was 
 little pretense of eating. The eyes of all had a 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 49 
 
 far-off expression, and they seemed barely to see 
 one another. There was an intent, listening look 
 upon their faces, as if they were hearkening to the 
 roar of the battle a thousand miles away. 
 
 Many pictures of battles have been painted, but 
 no true one yet, for the pictures contain only men. 
 The women are unaccountably left out. We ought 
 to see not alone the opposing lines of battle writh 
 ing and twisting in a death embrace, the batteries 
 smoking and flaming, the hurricanes of cavalry, 
 but innumerable women also, spectral forms of mo 
 thers, wives, sweethearts, clinging about the necks 
 of the advancing soldiers, vainly trying to shield 
 them with their bosoms, extending supplicating 
 hands to the foe, raising eyes of anguish to Heaven. 
 The soldiers, grim-faced, with battle-lighted eyes, 
 do not see the ghostly forms that throng them, but 
 shoot and cut and stab across and through them 
 as if they were not there, yes, through them, for 
 few are the balls and bayonets that reach their 
 marks without traversing some of these devoted 
 breasts. Spectral, alas, is their guardianship, but 
 real are their wounds and deadly as any the com 
 batants receive. 
 
 Soon after breakfast on the day of the battle 
 Grace came across to the parsonage, her swollen 
 eyes and pallid face telling of a sleepless night. 
 She could not bear her mother s company that day, 
 for she knew that she had never greatly liked 
 Philip. Miss Morton was very tender and sym- 
 
50 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 pathetic. Grace was a little comforted by Mr. 
 Morton s saying that commonly great battles did 
 not open much before noon. It was a respite to 
 be able to think that probably up to that moment 
 at least no harm had come to Philip. In the early 
 afternoon the . minister drove into Waterville to 
 get the earliest bulletins at the " Banner " office, 
 leaving the two women alone. 
 
 The latter part of the afternoon a neighbor who 
 had been in Waterville drove by the house, and 
 Miss Morton called to him to know if there were 
 any news yet. He drew a piece of paper from his 
 pocket, on which he had scribbled the latest bulle 
 tin before the " Banner " office, and read as fol 
 lows : " The battle opened with a vigorous attack 
 by our right. The enemy was forced back, stub 
 bornly contesting every inch of ground. General 
 
 s division is now bearing the brunt of the 
 
 fight and is suffering heavily. The result is yet 
 uncertain." 
 
 The division mentioned was the one in which 
 Philip s regiment was included. " Is suffering 
 heavily," those were the words. There was 
 something fearful in the way the present tense 
 brought home to Grace a sense of the battle as 
 then actually in progress. It meant that while she 
 sat there on the shady piazza with the drowsy hum 
 of the bees in her ears, looking out on the quiet 
 lawn where the house cat, stretched on the grass, 
 kept a sleepy eye on the birds as they flitted in the 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 51 
 
 branches of the apple-trees, Philip might be facing 
 a storm of lead and iron, or, maybe, blent in some 
 desperate hand-to-hand struggle, was defending his 
 life her life against murderous cut and thrust. 
 
 To begin to pray for his safety was not to dare 
 to cease, for to cease would be to withdraw a sort 
 of protection all, alas ! she could give and 
 abandon him to his enemies. If she had been 
 watching over him from above the battle, an actual 
 witness of the carnage going on that afternoon on 
 the far-off field, she could scarcely have endured a 
 more harrowing suspense from moment to moment. 
 Overcome with the agony, she threw herself on the 
 sofa in the sitting-room and lay quivering, with her 
 face buried in the pillow, while Miss Morton sat 
 beside her, stroking her hair and saying such 
 feeble, soothing words as she might. 
 
 It is always hard, and for ardent temperaments 
 almost impossible, to hold the mind balanced in 
 a state of suspense, yielding overmuch neither to 
 hope nor to fear, under circumstances like these. 
 As a relief to the torture which such a state of ten 
 sion ends in causing, the mind at length, if it can 
 not abandon itself to hope, embraces even despair. 
 About five o clock Miss Morton was startled by an 
 exceeding bitter cry. Grace was sitting upon the 
 sofa. " Oh, Miss Morton ! " she cried, bursting 
 into tears which before she had not been able to 
 shed, " he is dead ! " 
 
 " Grace ! Grace ! what do you mean ? " 
 
52 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 " Pie is dead, I know he is dead ! " wailed the 
 girl ; and then she explained that while from 
 moment to moment she had sent up prayers for 
 him, every breath a cry to God, she suddenly had 
 been unable to pray more, and this she felt was a 
 sign that petition for his life was now vain. Miss 
 Morton strove to convince her that this was but 
 an effect of overwrought nerves, but with slight 
 success. 
 
 In the early evening Mr. Morton returned with 
 the latest news the telegraph had brought. The 
 full scope of the result was not yet known. The 
 advantage had probably remained with the Na 
 tional forces, although the struggle had been one 
 of those close and stubborn ones, with scanty lau 
 rels for the victors, to be expected when men of 
 one race meet in battle. The losses on both sides 
 had been enormous, and the report was confirmed 
 that Philip s division had been badly cut up. 
 
 The parsonage was but one of thousands of 
 homes in the land where no lamps were lighted 
 that evening, the members of the household sitting 
 together in the dark, silent, or talking in low 
 tones of the far-away star-lighted battlefield, the 
 anguish of the wounded, the still heaps of the 
 dead. 
 
 Nevertheless, when at last Grace went home she 
 was less entirely despairing than in the afternoon. 
 Mr. Morton, in his calm, convincing way, had 
 shown her the groundlessness of her impression 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 53 
 
 that Philip was certainly dead, and had enabled 
 her again to entertain hope. It no longer rose, 
 indeed, to the height of a belief that he had es 
 caped wholly scathless. In face of the terrible 
 tidings, that would have been too presumptuous. 
 But perhaps he had been only wounded. Yester 
 day the thought would have been insupportable, 
 but now she was eager to make this compromise 
 with Providence. She was distinctly affected by 
 the curious superstition that if we voluntarily con 
 cede something to fate, while yet the facts are 
 not known, we gain a sort of equitable assurance 
 against a worse thing. It was settled, she told 
 herself, that she was not to be overcome or even 
 surprised to hear that Philip was wounded, 
 slightly wounded. She was no better than other 
 women, that he should be wholly spared. 
 
 The paper next morning gave many names of 
 officers who had fallen, but Philip s was not among 
 them. The list was confessedly incomplete ; nev 
 ertheless, the absence of his name was reassuring. 
 Grace went across the garden after breakfast to 
 talk with Miss Morton about the news and the 
 auspicious lack of news. Her friend s cheerful 
 tone infused her with fresh courage. To one who 
 has despaired, a very little hope goes to the head 
 like wine to the brain of a faster, and, though still 
 very tremulous, Grace could even smile a little 
 now and was almost cheerful. Secretly already 
 she was beginning to play false with fate, and, in 
 
54 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 flat repudiation of her last night s compact, to 
 indulge the hope that her soldier had not been 
 even wounded. But this was only at the bottom 
 of her heart. She did not own to herself that she 
 really did it. She felt a little safer not to break 
 the bargain yet. 
 
 About eleven o clock in the forenoon Mr. Morton 
 came in. His start and look of dismay on seeing 
 Grace indicated that he had expected to find his 
 sister alone. He hastily attempted to conceal an 
 open telegram which he held in his hand, but it 
 was too late. Grace had already seen it, and what 
 ever the tidings it might contain, there was no 
 longer any question of holding them back or ex 
 tenuating them. Miss Morton, after one look at 
 her brother s face, silently came to the girl s side 
 and put her arms around her waist. " Christ, our 
 Saviour," she murmured, " for thy name s sake, 
 help her now." Then the minister said : 
 
 " Try to be brave, try to bear it worthily of him ; 
 for, my poor little girl, your sacrifice has been 
 accepted. He fell in a charge at the head of his 
 men." 
 
 Philip s body was brought home for burial, and 
 the funeral was a great event in the village. Busi 
 ness of all kinds was suspended, and all the people 
 united in making of the day a solemn patriotic fes 
 tival. Mr. Morton preached the funeral sermon. 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 55 
 
 "Oh, talk about the country," sobbed Grace, 
 when he asked her if there was anything in par 
 ticular she would like him to speak of. 
 
 " For pity s sake don t let me feel sorry now 
 that I gave him up for the Union. Don t leave 
 me now to think it would have been better if I had 
 not let him go." 
 
 So he preached of the country, as ministers 
 sometimes did preach in those days, making it 
 very plain that in a righteous cause men did well 
 to die for their native land and their women did 
 well to give them up. Expounding the lofty wis 
 dom of self-sacrifice, he showed how truly it was 
 said that " whosoever will save his life shall lose it : 
 and whosoever will lose his life . . . shall find it," 
 and how none make such rich profit out of their 
 lives as the heroes who seem to throw them away. 
 
 They had come, he told the assembled people, 
 to mourn no misadventure, no misfortune; this 
 dead soldier was not pitiable. He was no victim 
 of a tear-compelling fate. No broken shaft typified 
 his career. He was rather one who had done well 
 for himself, a wise young merchant of his blood, 
 who having seen a way to barter his life at incredi 
 ble advantage, at no less a rate indeed than a man s 
 for a nation s, had not let slip so great an oppor 
 tunity. 
 
 So he went on, still likening the life of a man 
 to the wares of a shopkeeper, worth to him only 
 what they can be sold for and a loss if overkept, 
 
56 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 till those who listened began to grow ill at ease 
 in presence of that flag-draped coffin, and were 
 vaguely troubled because they still lived. 
 
 Then he spoke of those who had been bereaved. 
 This soldier, he said, like his comrades, had staked 
 for his country not only his own life but the earthly 
 happiness of others also, having been fully empow 
 ered by them to do so. /Some had staked with 
 their own lives the happiness of parents, some that 
 of wives and children, others maybe the hopes of 
 maidens pledged to them. In offering up their 
 lives to their country they had laid with them upon 
 the altar these other lives which were bound up 
 with theirs, and the same fire of sacrifice had con 
 sumed them both. A few day& before, in the storm 
 of battle, those who had gone forth had fulfilled 
 their share of the joint sacrifice. In a thousand 
 
 -^^^fc-*V " 
 
 homes, with tears and the anguish of breaking 
 hearts, those who had sent them forth were that 
 day fulfilling theirs. Let them now in their ex 
 tremity seek support in the same spirit of patriotic 
 devotion which had upheld their heroes in the hour 
 of death. As they had been lifted above fear by 
 the thought that it was for their country they were 
 dying, not less should those who mourned them 
 find inspiration in remembering it was for the na 
 tion s sake that their tears were shed, and for the 
 country that their hearts were broken. It had 
 been appointed that half in blood of men and half 
 in women s tears the ransom of the people should 
 
AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 57 
 
 be paid, so that their sorrow was not in vain, but 
 for the healing of the nation. 
 
 It behooved these, therefore, to prove worthy of 
 their high calling of martyrdom, and while they 
 must needs weep, not to weep as other women 
 wept, with hearts bowed down, but rather with 
 uplifted faces, adopting and ratifying, though it 
 might be with breaking hearts, this exchange they 
 had made of earthly happiness for the life of their 
 native land. So should they honor those they^ 
 mourned, and be joined with them not only in sac 
 rifice but in the spirit of sacrifice. 
 
 So it was in response to the appeal of this 
 stricken girl before him that the minister talked 
 of the country, and to such purpose was it that the 
 piteous thing she had dreaded, the feeling, now 
 when it was forever too late, that it would have 
 been better if she had kept her lover back, found 
 no place in her heart. There was, indeed, had she 
 known it, no danger at all that she would be left 
 to endure that, so long as she dreaded it, for the 
 only prayer that never is unanswered is the prayer 
 to be lifted above self. So to pray and so to wish 
 is but to cease to resist the divine gravitations ever 
 pulling at the soul. As the minister discoursed of 
 the mystic gain of self-sacrifice, the mystery of 
 which he spoke was fulfilled in her heart. She 
 appeared to stand in some place overarching life 
 and death, and there was made partaker of an ex 
 ultation whereof if religion and philosophy might 
 
58 AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM 
 
 but catch and hold the secret, their ancient quest 
 ere over. 
 
 Gazing through streaming eyes upon the coffin 
 of her lover, she was able freely to consent to the 
 sacrifice of her own life which he had made in 
 giving up his own. 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PAETY 
 
 " AND now what shall we do next Wednesday 
 evening?" said Jessie Hyde, in a business-like tone. 
 " It is your turn, Henry, to suggest." 
 
 Jessie was a practical, energetic young lady, 
 whose blue eyes never relapsed into the. dreaminess 
 to which that color is subject. She furnished the 
 " go " for the club. Especially she furnished the 
 " go " for Henry Long, who had lots of ideas, but 
 without her to stir him up was as dull as a flint 
 without a steel. 
 
 There were six in the club, and all were present 
 to-night in Jessie s parlor. The evening had been 
 given to a little music, a little dancing, a little 
 card-playing, and a good deal of talking. It was 
 near the hour set by the club rule for the adjourn 
 ment of its reunions, and the party had drawn their 
 chairs together to consult upon the weekly recur 
 ring question, what should be done at the next 
 meeting by way of special order of amusement. 
 The programmes were alternately reading, singing, 
 dancing, whist; varied with evenings of miscel 
 laneous sociality like that which had just passed. 
 The members took turns in suggesting recreations. 
 To-night it was Henry Long s turn, and to him 
 
60 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 accordingly the eyes of the group turned at Jessie s 
 question. 
 
 " Let s have an old folks party," was his an 
 swer. 
 
 Considering that all of the club were yet at 
 ages when they celebrated their birthdays with the 
 figure printed on the cake, the suggestion seemed 
 sufficiently irrelevant. 
 
 " In that case," said Frank Hays, " we shall 
 have to stay at home." 
 
 Frank was an alert little fellow, with a jaunty 
 air, to whom, by tacit consent, all the openings for 
 jokes were left, as he had a taste that way. 
 
 "What do you mean, Henry?" inquired George 
 Townsley, a thick-set, sedate young man, with an 
 intelligent, but rather phlegmatic look. 
 
 " My idea is this," said Henry, leaning back in 
 his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, 
 and his long legs crossed before him. "Let us 
 dresa up to resemble what we expect to look like 
 fifty years hence, and study up our demeanor to 
 correspond with what we expect to be and feel like 
 at that time, and just call on Mary next Wednes 
 day evening to talk over old times, and recall 
 what we can, if anything, of our vanished youth, 
 and the days when we belonged to the social club 
 at C ." 
 
 The others seemed rather puzzled in spite of the 
 explanation. Jessie sat looking at Henry in a 
 brown study as she traced out his meaning. 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 61 
 
 "You mean a sort of ghost party," said she 
 finally ; " ghosts of the future, instead of ghosts of 
 the past." 
 
 " That s it exactly," answered he. " Ghosts of 
 the future are the only sort worth heeding. Appari 
 tions of things past are a very unpractical sort of 
 demonology, in my opinion, compared with appari 
 tions of things to come." 
 
 " How in the world did such an odd idea come 
 into your head?" asked pretty Nellie Tyrrell, 
 whose dancing black eyes were the most piquant 
 of interrogation points, with which it was so de 
 lightful to be punctured that people were gen 
 erally slow to gratify her curiosity. 
 
 " I was beginning a journal this afternoon," said 
 Henry, " and the idea of Henry Long, aetat. seventy, 
 looking over the leaves, and wondering about the 
 youth who wrote them so long ago, came up to 
 my mind." 
 
 Henry s suggestion had set them all thinking, 
 and the vein was so unfamiliar that they did not 
 at once find much to say. 
 
 " I should think," finally remarked George, 
 " that such an old folks party would afford a 
 chance for some pretty careful study, and some 
 rather good acting." 
 
 " Fifty years will make us all not far from 
 seventy. What shall we look like then, I wonder ? " 
 musingly asked Mary Fellows. 
 
 She was the demurest, dreamiest of the three 
 
62 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 girls ; the most of a woman, and the least of a 
 talker. She had that poise and repose of manner 
 which are necessary to make silence in company 
 graceful. 
 
 " We may be sure of one thing, anyhow, and 
 that is, that we shall not look and feel at all as we 
 do now," said Frank. " I suppose," he added, 
 " if, by a gift of second sight, we could see to 
 night, as in a glass, what we shall be at seventy, 
 we should entirely fail to recognize ourselves, and 
 should fall to disputing which was which." 
 
 " Yes, and we shall doubtless have changed as 
 much in disposition as in appearance," added 
 Henry. " Now, for one, I ve no idea what sort 
 of a fellow my old man will turn out. I don t 
 believe people can generally tell much better what 
 sort of old people will grow out of them than 
 what characters their children will have. A little 
 better, perhaps, but not much. Just think how 
 different sets of faculties and tastes develop and 
 decay, come into prominence and retire into the 
 background, as the years pass. A trait scarcely 
 noticeable in youth tinges the whole man in 
 age." 
 
 " What striking dramatic effects are lost because 
 the drama of life is spun out so long instead of 
 having the ends brought together," observed 
 George. "The spectators lose the force of the 
 contrasts because they forget the first part of 
 every role before the latter part is reached. One 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 63 
 
 fails in consequence to get a realizing sense of the 
 sublime inconsistencies of every lifetime." 
 
 " That difficulty is what we propose, in a small 
 way, to remedy next Wednesday night," replied 
 Henry. 
 
 Mary professed some scruples. It was so queer, 
 she thought it must be wrong. It was like tempt 
 ing Providence to take for granted issues in his 
 hands, and masquerade with uncreated things like 
 their own yet unborn selves. But Frank reminded 
 her that the same objection would apply to any 
 arrangement as to what they should do next week. 
 
 " Well, but," offered Jessie, " is it quite respect 
 ful to make sport of old folks, even if they are 
 ourselves ? " 
 
 "My conscience is clear on that point," said 
 Frank. " It s the only way we can get even with 
 them for the deprecating, contemptuous way in 
 which they will allude to us over their snuff and 
 tea, as callow and flighty youth, if indeed they 
 deign to remember us at all, which is n t likely." 
 
 " I m all tangled up in my mind," said Nellie, 
 with an air of perplexity, " between these old peo 
 ple you are talking about and ourselves. Which 
 is which? It seems odd to talk of them in the 
 third person, and of ourselves in the first. Are n t 
 they ourselves too ? " 
 
 " If they are, then certainly we are not," replied 
 Henry. " You may take your choice. 
 
 " The fact is," he added, as she looked still 
 
64 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 more puzzled, "there are half a dozen of each 
 one of us, or a dozen if you please, one in fact for 
 each epoch of life, and each slightly or almost 
 wholly different from the others. Each one of 
 these epochs is foreign and inconceivable to the 
 others, as ourselves at seventy now are to us. It s 
 as hard to suppose ourselves old as to imagine 
 swapping identities with another. And when we 
 get old it will be just as hard to realize that we 
 were ever young. So that the different periods of 
 life are to all intents and purposes different per 
 sons, and the first person of grammar ought to be 
 used only with the present tense. What we were, 
 or shall be, or do, belongs strictly to the third 
 person." 
 
 " You would make sad work of grammar with 
 that notion," said Jessie, smiling. 
 
 "Grammar needs mending just there," replied 
 Henry. " The three persons of grammar are 
 really not enough. A fourth is needed to distin 
 guish the ego of the past and future from the pre 
 sent ego, which is the only true one." 
 
 " Oh, you re getting altogether too deep for 
 me," said Jessie. " Come, girls, what in the world 
 are we going to get to wear next Wednesday?" 
 
 " Sure enough ! " cried they with one accord, 
 while the musing look in their eyes gave place to 
 a vivacious and merry expression. 
 
 " My mother is n t near as old as we re going 
 to be. Her things won t do," said Nellie. 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 65 
 
 " Nor mine," echoed Jessie ; " but perhaps 
 Mary s grandmother will let us have some of her 
 things." 
 
 "In that case," suggested Frank, "it will be 
 only civil to invite her to the party." 
 
 " To be sure, why not? " agreed Jessie. " It is 
 to be an old folks party, and her presence will 
 give a reality to the thing." 
 
 " I don t believe she 11 come," said George. 
 " You see being old is dead earnest to her, and 
 she won t see the joke." 
 
 But Mary said she would ask her anyway, and 
 so that was settled. 
 
 " My father is much too large in the waist for 
 his clothes to be of any service to me," said George 
 lugubriously. 
 
 But Frank reminded him that this was a hint 
 as to his get-up, and that he must stuff with pil 
 lows that the proverb might be fulfilled, "Like 
 father like son." 
 
 And then they were rather taken aback by 
 Henry s obvious suggestion that there was no tell 
 ing what the fashion in dress would be in A. D. 
 1925, " even if," he added, " the scientists leave us 
 any A. D. by that time," though Frank remarked 
 here that A. D. would answer just as well as Anno 
 worst came to worst. But it was 
 
 decided that there was no use trying after pro 
 phetical accuracy in dress, since it was out of the 
 question, and even if attainable would not suggest 
 
66 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 age to their own minds as would the elderly weeds 
 which they were accustomed to see. 
 
 " It s rather odd, is n t it," said Jessie gravely, 
 " that it did n t occur to anybody that in all prob 
 ability not over one or two of us at most will be 
 alive fifty years hence." 
 
 " Let s draw lots for the two victims, and the 
 rest of us will appear as ghosts," suggested Frank 
 grimly. 
 
 " Poor two," sighed Nellie. " I m sorry for 
 them. How lonely they will be. I m glad I 
 have n t got a very good constitution." 
 
 But Henry remarked that Jessie might have 
 gone further and said just as truly that none of 
 them would survive fifty years, or even ten. 
 
 " We may, some of us, escape the pang of dying 
 
 / as long as that," said he, " but that is but a trifle, 
 
 / and not a necessary incident of death. The essence 
 
 of mortality is change, and we shall be changed. 
 
 Ten years will see us very different persons. 
 
 What though an old dotard calling himself Henry 
 
 Long is stumping around fifty years hence, what 
 
 is that to me? I shall have been dead a half 
 
 ( century by that time." 
 
 " The old gentleman you speak so lightly of will 
 probably think more tenderly of you than you do 
 of him," said Jessie. 
 
 "I don t believe it," answered Henry. "In 
 fact, if we were entirely true to nature next 
 Wednesday, it would spoil the fun, for we prob- 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 67 
 
 ably should not, if actually of the age we pretend, 
 think of our youth once a year, much less meet to 
 talk it over." 
 
 Oh, I don t think so," protested Nellie. " I m 
 sure all the story-books and poetry say that old 
 folks are much given to reviewing their youth in a 
 pensive, regretful sort of way." 
 
 " That s all very pretty, but it s all gammon in j 
 my opinion," responded Henry. " The poets are 
 young people who know nothing of how old folks 
 feel, and argue only from their theory of the 
 romantic fitness of things. I believe that remi 
 niscence takes up a very small part of old persons 
 time. It would furnish them little excitement, for 
 they have lost the feelings by which their mem 
 ories would have to be interpreted to become vivid. 
 Remembering is dull business at best. I notice 
 that most persons, even of eventful lives, prefer 
 a good novel to the pleasures of recollection. It 
 is really easier to sympathize with the people in 
 a novel or drama than with our past selves. We 
 lose a great source of recreation just because we I 
 can t recall the past more vividly." 
 
 "How shockingly Henry contradicts to-night," 
 was the only reply Nellie deigned to this long 
 speech. 
 
 "What shall we call each other next Wednes 
 day ? " asked Mary. " By our first names, as 
 now?" 
 
 " Not if we are going to be prophetically accu- 
 
68 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 rate," said Henry. "Fifty years hence, in all 
 probability, we shall, most of us, have altogether 
 forgotten our present intimacies and formed others, 
 quite inconceivable now. I can imagine Frank 
 over there, scratching his bald head with his spec 
 tacle tips, and trying to recall me. Hen. Long, 
 Hen. Long, let me think ; name sounds familiar, 
 and yet I can t quite place him. Did n t I know 
 
 him at C , or was it at college ? Bless me, how 
 
 forgetful I m growing ! 
 
 They all laughed at Henry s bit of acting. Per 
 haps it was only sparkles of mirth, but it might 
 have been glances of tender confidence that shot 
 between certain pairs of eyes betokening something 
 that feared not time. This is in no sort a love 
 story, but such things can t be wholly prevented. 
 / The girls, however, protested that this talk about 
 growing so utterly away from each other was too 
 dismal for anything, and they would n t believe it 
 anyhow. The old-fashioned notions about eternal 
 constancy were ever so much nicer. It gave them 
 the cold shivers to hear Henry s ante-niortem dis 
 section of their friendship, and that young man 
 was finally forced to admit that the members of 
 the club would probably prove exceptions to the 
 general rule in such matters. It was agreed, there 
 fore, that they should appear to know each other at 
 the old folks party. 
 
 " All you girls must, of course, be called Mrs. 
 instead of Miss, " suggested Frank, " though you 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 69 
 
 will have to keep your own names, that is, unless 
 you prefer to disclose any designs you may have 
 upon other people s ; " for which piece of imperti 
 nence Nellie, who sat next him, boxed his ears, 
 for the reader must know that these young people 
 were on a footing of entire familiarity and long 
 intimacy. 
 
 "Do you know what time it is ? " asked Mary, 
 who, by virtue of the sweet sedateness of her dis 
 position, was rather the monitress of the company. 
 
 " It s twelve o clock, an hour after the club s 
 curfew." 
 
 " Well," remarked Henry, rousing from the fit 
 of abstraction in which he had been pursuing the 
 subject of their previous discussion, " it was to be 
 expected we should get a little mixed as to chrono 
 logy over such talk as this." 
 
 " With our watches set fifty years ahead, there 11 
 be no danger of overstaying our time next Wednes 
 day, anyhow," added Frank. 
 
 Soon the girls presented themselves in readiness 
 for outdoors, and, in a pleasant gust of good-bys 
 and parting jests, the party broke up. 
 
 "Good-by for fifty years," Jessie called after 
 them from the stoop, as the merry couples walked 
 away in the moonlight. 
 
 The following week was one of numerous consul 
 tations among the girls. Grandmother Fellows s 
 wardrobe was pretty thoroughly rummaged under 
 that good-natured old lady s superintendence, and 
 
70 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 many were the queer effects of old garments upon 
 young figures which surprised the steady-going 
 mirror in her quiet chamber. 
 
 " I m afraid I can never depend on it again," 
 said Mrs. Fellows. 
 
 She had promised to be at the party. 
 
 " She looked so grave when I first asked her," 
 Mary explained to the girls, " that I was sorry I 
 spoke of it. I was afraid she thought we wanted 
 her only as a sort of convenience, to help out our 
 pantomime by the effect of her white hair. But in 
 a minute she smiled in her cheery way, and said, as 
 if she saw right through me : 4 1 suppose, my child, 
 you think being old a sort of misfortune, like being 
 hunchbacked or blind, and are afraid of hurting 
 my feelings, but you need n t be. The good Lord 
 has made it so that at whichever end of life we are, 
 the other end looks pretty uninteresting, and if it 
 won t hurt your feelings to have somebody in the 
 party who has got through all the troubles you 
 have yet before you, I should be glad to come. 
 That was turning the tables for us pretty neatly, 
 eh, girls?" 
 
 The young ladies would not have had the old 
 lady guess it for worlds, but truth compels me to 
 own that all that week they improved every oppor 
 tunity furtively to study Mrs. Fellows s gait and 
 manner, with a view to perfecting their parts. 
 
 Frank and George met a couple of times in 
 Henry s room to smoke it over and settle details, 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 71 
 
 and Henry called on Jessie to arrange several con 
 certed features of the programme, and for some 
 other reasons for aught I know. 
 
 As each one studied his or her part and strove 
 in imagination to conceive how they would act and 
 feel as old men and old women, they grew more 
 interested, and more sensible of the mjngled pathos 
 and absurdity of the project, and its decided gen 
 eral effect of queerness. They all set themselves 
 to make a study of old age in a manner that had 
 never occurred to them before, and never does 
 occur to most people at all. Never before had 
 their elderly friends received so much attention at 
 their hands. 
 
 In the prosecution of these observations they 
 were impressed with the entire lack of interest gen 
 erally felt by people in the habits and manners of 
 persons in other epochs of life than their own^yln 
 respect of age, as in so many other respects, the 
 world lives on flats, with equally little interest in 
 or comprehension of the levels above or below 
 them. And a surprising thing is that middle age 
 is about as unable to recall and realize youth as to 
 anticipate age. Experience seems to go for nothing 
 in this matter. 
 
 They thought they noticed, too, that old people 
 are more alike than middle-aged people. There is 
 something of the same narrowness and similarity 
 in the range of their tastes and feelings that is 
 marked in children. The reason they thought to 
 
01 
 
 til 
 
 72 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 be that the interests of age have contracted to 
 about the same scope as those of childhood before 
 it has expanded into maturity. The skein of life 
 is drawn together to a point at the two ends and 
 spread out in the middle. Middle age is the period 
 of most diversity, when individuality is most pro 
 nounced. The members of the club observed with 
 astonishment that, however affectionately we may 
 regard old persons, we no more think of becoming 
 like them than of becoming negroes. If we catch 
 ourselves observing their senile peculiarities, it is 
 in a purely disinterested manner, with a complete 
 and genuine lack of any personal concern, as with 
 a state to which we are coming. 
 
 They could not help wondering if Henry were 
 not right about people never really growing old, 
 but just changing from one personality to another. 
 They found the strange inability of one epoch to 
 understand or appreciate the others, hard to recon 
 cile with the ordinary notion of a persistent iden 
 tity. 
 
 Before the end of the week, the occupation of 
 their minds with the subject of old age produced a 
 singular effect. They began to regard every event 
 and feeling from a double standpoint, as present 
 and as past, as it appeared to them and as it would 
 appear to an old person. 
 
 Wednesday evening came at last, and a little be 
 fore the hour of eight, five venerable figures, more 
 or less shrouded, might have been seen making 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 73 
 
 their way from different parts of the village toward 
 the Fellows mansion. The families of the members 
 of the club were necessarily in the secret, and 
 watched their exit with considerable laughter from 
 
 O 
 
 behind blinds. But to the rest of the villagers it 
 has never ceased to be a puzzle who those elderly 
 strangers were who appeared that evening and were 
 never before or since visible. For once the Argus- 
 eyed curiosity of a Yankee village, compared with 
 which French or Austrian police are easy to baffle, 
 was fairly eluded. 
 
 Eight o clock was the hour at which the old 
 folks party began, and the reader will need a fresh 
 introduction to the company which was assembled 
 at that time in Mary Fellows s parlor. Mary sat 
 by her grandmother, who from time to time re 
 garded her in a half-puzzled manner, as if it re 
 quired an effort of her reasoning powers to reassure 
 her that the effect she saw was an illusion. The 
 girl s brown hair was gathered back under a lace 
 cap, and all that appeared outside it was thickly 
 powdered. She wore spectacles, and the warm 
 tint of her cheeks had given place to the opaque 
 saffron hue of age. She sat with her hands in her 
 lap, their fresh color and dimpled contour con 
 cealed by black lace half -gloves. The fullness of 
 her young bosom was carefully disguised by the 
 arrangement of the severely simple black dress she 
 wore, which was also in other respects studiously 
 adapted to conceal, by its stiff and angular lines, 
 
74 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 the luxuriant contour of her figure. As she rose and 
 advanced to welcome Henry and Jessie, who were 
 the last to arrive, it was with a striking imitation 
 of the tremulously precipitate step of age. 
 
 Jessie, being rather taller than the others, had 
 affected the stoop of age very successfully. She 
 wore a black dress spotted with white, and her 
 whitened hair was arranged with a high comb. 
 She was the only one without spectacles or eye 
 glasses. Henry looked older and feebler than any 
 of the company. His scant hair hung in thin and 
 long white locks, and his tall, slender figure had 
 gained a still more meagre effect from his dress, 
 while his shoulders were bowed in a marked stoop ; 
 his gait was rigid and jerky. He assisted himself 
 with a gold-headed cane, and sat in his chair lean 
 ing forward upon it. 
 
 George, on the other hand, had followed the hint 
 of his father s figure in his make-up, and appeared 
 as a rubicund old gentleman, large in the waist, 
 bald, with an apoplectic tendency, a* wheezy asth 
 matic voice, and a full white beard. 
 
 Nellie wore her hair in a row of white curls on 
 each side of her head, and in every detail of her 
 dress and air affected the coquettish old lady to 
 perfection, for which, of course, she looked none 
 the younger. Her cheeks were rouged to go with 
 that style. 
 
 Frank was the ideal of the sprightly little old 
 gentleman. With his brisk air, natty eye-glasses, 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 75 
 
 cane and gloves, and other items of dress in the 
 most correct taste, he was quite the old bean. His 
 white hair was crispy, brushed back, and his snowy 
 mustache had rather a rakish effect. 
 
 Although the transformation in each case was 
 complete, yet quite enough of the features, expres 
 sion, or bearing was apparent through the disguise 
 to make the members of the party entirely recog 
 nizable to each other, though less intimate ac 
 quaintances would perhaps have been at first 
 rather puzzled. At Henry s suggestion they had 
 been photographed in their costumes, in order to 
 compare the ideal with the actual when they should 
 be really old. 
 
 "It is n t much trouble, and the old folks will 
 enjoy it some day. We ought to consider them a 
 little," Henry had said, meaning by " the old 
 folks " their future selves. 
 
 It had been agreed that, in proper deference to 
 the probabilities, one, at least, of the girls ought to 
 illustrate the fat old lady. But they found it im 
 possible to agree which should sacrifice herself, for 
 no one of the three could, in her histrionic enthusi 
 asm, quite forget her personal appearance. Nellie 
 flatly refused to be made up fat, and Jessie as flatly, 
 while both the girls had too much reverence for the 
 sweet dignity of Mary Fellows s beauty to consent 
 to her taking the part, and so the idea was given up. 
 
 It had been a happy thought of Mary s to get her 
 two younger sisters, girls of eleven and sixteen, 
 
76 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 to be present, to enhance the venerable appearance 
 of the party by the contrast of their bloom and 
 freshness. 
 
 " Are these your little granddaughters ? " in 
 quired Henry, benevolently inspecting them over 
 the tops of his spectacles as he patted the elder of 
 the two on the head, a liberty she would by no means 
 have allowed him in his proper character, but which 
 she now seemed puzzled whether to resent or not. 
 
 " Yes," replied Mary, with an indulgent smile. 
 * They wanted to see what an old folks party was 
 like, though I told them they would n t enjoy it 
 much. I remember I thought old people rather 
 dull when I was their age." 
 
 Henry made a little conversation with the girls, 
 asking them the list of fatuous questions by which 
 adults seem fated to illustrate the gulf between 
 them and childhood in the effort to bridge it. 
 
 "Annie, dear, just put that ottoman at Mrs. 
 Hyde s feet," said Mary to one of the little girls. 
 " I m so glad you felt able to come out this even 
 ing, Mrs. Hyde! I understood you had not en 
 joyed good health this summer." 
 
 " I have scarcely been out of my room since 
 spring, until recently," replied Jessie. "Thank 
 you, my dear " (to the little girl) ; " but Dr. San- 
 ford has done wonders for me. How is your 
 health now, Mrs. Fellows? " 
 
 " I have not been so well an entire summer in 
 ten years. My daughter, Mrs. Tarbox, was saying 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 77 
 
 the other day that she wished she had my strength. 
 You know she is quite delicate," said Mary. 
 
 " Speaking of Dr. Sanford," said Henry, looking 
 at Jessie, "he is really a remarkable man. My 
 son has such confidence in him that he seemed 
 quite relieved when I had passed my grand climac 
 teric and could get on his list. You know he takes 
 no one under sixty-three. By the way, governor," 
 he added, turning around with some ado, so as to 
 face George, " I heard he had been treating your 
 rheumatism lately. Has he seemed to reach the 
 difficulty?" 
 
 " Remarkably," replied George, tenderly strok 
 ing his right knee in an absent manner. " Why, 
 don t you think I walked half the way home from 
 my office the other day when my carriage was late ? " 
 
 "I wonder you dared venture it," said Jessie, 
 with a shocked air. " What if you had met with 
 some accident ! " 
 
 " That s what my son said," answered George. 
 " He made me promise never to try such a thing 
 again ; but I like to show them occasionally that 
 I m good for something yet." 
 
 He said this with a " he, he," of senile compla 
 cency, ending in an asthmatic cough, which caused 
 some commotion in the company. Frank got up 
 and slapped him on the back, and Mary sent 
 Annie for a glass of water. 
 
 George being relieved, and quiet once more 
 restored, Henry said to Frank : 
 
78 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 " By the way, doctor, I want to congratulate yon 
 on your son s last book. You must have helped 
 him to the material for so truthful a picture of 
 American manners in the days when we were 
 young. I fear we have not improved much since 
 then. There was a simplicity, a naturalness in 
 society fifty years ago, that one looks in vain for 
 now. There was, it seems to me, much less regard 
 paid to money, and less of morbid social ambition. 
 Don t you think so, Mrs. Tyrrell? " 
 
 " It s just what I was saying only the other 
 day," replied Nellie. " I m sure I don t know 
 what we re coming to nowadays. Girls had some 
 modesty when I was young," and she shook her 
 head with its rows of white curls with an air of 
 mingled reprobation and despair. 
 
 " Did you attend Professor Merryweather s lec 
 ture last evening, Mrs. Hyde ? " asked Frank, ad 
 justing his eye-glasses and fixing Jessie with that 
 intensity of look by which old persons have to make 
 up for their failing eyesight. " The hall was so 
 near your house, I did n t know but you would feel 
 like venturing out." 
 
 " My daughters insisted on my taking advantage 
 of the opportunity, it is so seldom I go anywhere 
 of an evening," replied Jessie, u and I was very 
 much interested, though I lost a good deal owing 
 to the carrying on of a young couple in front of 
 me. When I was a girl, young folks did n t do 
 their courting in public." 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 79 
 
 Mary had not heard of the lecture, and Frank 
 explained that it was one of the ter-semi-centennial 
 course on American society and politics fifty years 
 ago. 
 
 " By the way," remarked George, " did you ob 
 serve what difficulty they are having in finding 
 enough survivors of the civil war to make a respect 
 able squad. The papers say that not over a dozen 
 of both armies can probably be secured, and some 
 of the cases are thought doubtful at that." 
 
 " Is it possible ! " said Henry. " And yet, too, it 
 must be so ; but it sounds strangely to one who re 
 members as if it were yesterday seeing the grand 
 review of the Federal armies at Washington just 
 after the war. What a host of strong men was 
 that, and now scarcely a dozen left. My friends, 
 we are getting to be old people. We are almost 
 through with it." 
 
 Henry sat gazing into vacancy over the tops of 
 his spectacles, while the old ladies wiped theirs and 
 sniffed and sighed a little. Finally Jessie said : 
 
 " Those were heroic days. My little grand 
 daughters never tire of hearing stories about them. 
 They are strong partisans, too. Jessie is a fierce 
 little rebel and Sam is an uncompromising Union 
 ist, only they both agree in denouncing slavery." 
 
 " That reminds me," said Frank, smiling, " that 
 our little Frankie came to me yesterday with a 
 black eye he got for telling Judge Benson s little- 
 boy that people of his complexion were once slaves. 
 
80 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 He had read it in his history, and appealed to me 
 to know if it was n t true." 
 
 " I m not a bit surprised that the little Benson 
 boy resented the imputation," said George. "I 
 really don t believe that more than half the people 
 would be certain that slavery ever existed here, 
 and I m sure that it rarely occurs to those who do 
 know it. No doubt that company of old slaves at 
 the centennial that is, if they can find enough 
 survivors will be a valuable historical reminder 
 to many." 
 
 " Dr. Hays," said Nellie, " will you settle a ques 
 tion between Mrs. Hyde and myself ? Were you in 
 
 C , it was then only a village, along between 
 
 1870 and 80, about forty or fifty years ago? " 
 
 " No and yet, come to think let me see 
 when did you say ? " replied Frank doubtfully. 
 
 "Between 1870 and 80, as nearly as we can 
 make out, probably about the middle of the dec 
 ade," said Nellie. 
 
 " I think I was in C at about that time. I 
 
 believe I was still living with my father s family." 
 
 " I told you so," said Nellie to Jessie, and, turn 
 ing again to Frank, she asked : 
 
 " Do you remember anything about a social club 
 there?"* 
 
 " I do," replied Frank, with some appearance of 
 interest. "I recall something of the sort quite 
 distinctly, though I suppose I have n t thought of 
 it for twenty years. How did you ever hear of 
 it, Mrs. Hyde?" 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 81 
 
 " Why, I was a member," replied she briskly, 
 " and so was Mrs. Tyrrell. We were reminded of 
 it the other day by a discovery Mrs. Tyrrell made 
 in an old bureau drawer of a photograph of the 
 members of the club in a group, taken probably 
 all of fifty years ago, and yellow as you can ima 
 gine. There was one figure that resembled you, 
 doctor, as you might have looked then, and I 
 thought, too, that I recalled you as one of the mem 
 bers ; but Mrs. Tyrrell could not, and so we agreed 
 to settle the matter by appealing to your own 
 recollection." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said Frank, " I now recall the 
 club very perfectly, and it seems to me Governor 
 Townsley was also in it." 
 
 " Yes, I think I was a member," assented 
 George, " though my recollections are rather 
 hazy." 
 
 Mary and Henry, being appealed to, failed to 
 remember anything about the club, the latter sug 
 gesting that probably it flourished before he came 
 
 to C . Jessie was quite sure she recalled 
 
 Henry, but the others could not do so with much 
 positiveness. 
 
 " I will ask Mrs. Long when I get home," said 
 
 Henry. " She has always lived at C , and is 
 
 great for remembering dates. Let s see ; what 
 time do you think it was ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Tyrrell and I concluded it must have 
 been between 1873 and 1877," said Jessie ; adding 
 
82 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 slyly, " for she was married in 1877. Mrs. Tyrrell, 
 did you bring that old photograph with you ? It 
 might amuse them to look at it." 
 
 Nellie produced a small picture, and, adjusting 
 their spectacles and eye-glasses, they all came for 
 ward to see it. A group of six young people was 
 represented, all in the very heyday of youth. The 
 spectators were silent, looking first at the picture, 
 and then at each other. 
 
 " Can it be," said Frank, " that these were ever 
 our pictures ? I hope, Mrs. Tyrrell, the originals 
 had the forethought to put the names on the back, 
 that we may be able to identify them." 
 
 " No," said she, " we must guess as best we can. 
 First, who is that? " pointing to one of the figures. 
 
 " That must be Mrs. Hyde, for she is taller than 
 the others," suggested Grandma Fellows. 
 
 " By the same token, that must be Mrs. Tyrrell, 
 for she is shorter," said Jessie ; " though, but for 
 that, I don t see how we could have told them 
 apart." 
 
 " How oddly they did dress in those days ! " 
 said Mary. 
 
 " Who can that be? " asked Frank, pointing to 
 the finest-looking of the three young men. " If that 
 is one of us, there was more choice in our looks 
 than there is now, eh, Towiisley ? " 
 
 " No doubt," said George, " fifty years ago 
 somebody s eye scanned those features with a very 
 keen sense of proprietorship. What a queer feel- 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 83 
 
 ing it would have given those young things to have 
 anticipated that we should ever puzzle over their 
 identities in this way ! " 
 
 They finally agreed on the identity of Jessie, 
 Nellie, and Frank, and of George also, on his as 
 suring them that he was once of slender figure. 
 This left two figures which nobody could recog 
 nize, though Jessie insisted that the gentleman was 
 Henry, and Mary thought the other young lady 
 was a Miss Fellows, a girl of the village, who, she 
 explained, had died young many, many years ago. 
 
 "Don t you remember her?" she asked them, 
 and her voice trembled with a half-genuine sort of 
 self-pity, as if, for a moment, she imagined herself 
 her own ghost. 
 
 " I recall her well," said Frank ; " tall, grave, 
 sweet, I remember she used to realize to me the 
 abstraction of moral beauty when we were study 
 ing Paley together." 
 
 " I don t know when I have thought so much 
 of those days as since I received cards for your 
 golden wedding, Judge," said Nellie to Henry, 
 soon after. " How many of those who were 
 present at your wedding will be present at your 
 golden wedding, do you suppose ? " 
 
 " Not more than two or three," replied Henry, 
 " and yet the whole village was at the wedding." 
 
 " Thank God," he said a moment after, " that 
 our friends scatter before they die. Otherwise 
 old people like us would do nothing but attend 
 
84 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 funerals during the last half of our lives. Parting 
 is sad, but I prefer to part from my friends while 
 they are yet alive, that I may feel it less when 
 they die. One must manage his feelings or they 
 will get the better of him." 
 
 " It is a singular sensation," said George, " to 
 outlive one s generation. One has at times a 
 guilty sense of having deserted his comrades. It 
 seems natural enough to outlive any one contem 
 porary, but unnatural to survive them as a mass, 
 a sort of risky thing, fraught with the various 
 vague embarrassments and undefined perils threat 
 ening one who is out of his proper place. And 
 yet one does n t want to die, though convinced he 
 ought to, and that s the cowardly misery of it." 
 
 44 Yes," said Henry, 44 1 had that feeling pretty 
 strongly when I attended the last reunion of our 
 alumni, and found not one survivor within five 
 classes of me. I was isolated. Death had got 
 into my rear and cut me off. I felt ashamed and 
 thoroughly miserable." 
 
 Soon after, tea was served. Frank vindicated 
 his character as an old beau by a tottering alacrity 
 in serving the ladies, while George and Henry, by 
 virtue of their more evident infirmity, sat still and 
 allowed themselves to be served. One or two 
 declined tea as not agreeing with them at that 
 hour. 
 
 The loquacious herb gave a fresh impulse to the 
 conversation, and the party fell to talking in a 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 85 
 
 broken, interjectory way of youthful scenes and 
 experiences, each contributing some reminiscence, 
 and the others chiming in and adding scraps, or 
 perhaps confessing their inability to recall the 
 occurrences. 
 
 " What a refinement of cruelty it is," said 
 Henry at last, " that makes even those experiences 
 which were unpleasant or indifferent when pass 
 ing look so mockingly beautiful when hopelessly 
 past." 
 
 " Oh, that s not the right way to look at it, 
 Judge," broke in Grandma Fellows, with mild 
 reproof. " Just think rather how dull life would 
 be, looking forward or backward, if past or coming 
 experiences seemed as uninteresting as they mostly 
 are when right at hand." 
 
 " Sweet memories are like moonlight," said 
 Jessie musingly. " They make one melancholy, 
 however pleasing they may be. I don t see why, 
 any more than why moonlight is so sad, spite of 
 its beauty ; but so it is." 
 
 The fragile tenure of the sense of personal iden 
 tity is illustrated by the ease and completeness 
 with which actors can put themselves in the place 
 of the characters they assume, so that even their 
 instinctive demeanor corresponds to the ideal, and 
 their acting becomes nature. Such was the expe 
 rience of the members of the club. The occupa 
 tion of their mind during the week with the study 
 of their assumed characters had produced an im- 
 
86 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 pression that had been deepened to an astonishing 
 degree by the striking effect of the accessories of 
 costume and manner. The long-continued effort 
 to project themselves mentally into the period of 
 old age was assisted in a startling manner by the 
 illusion of the senses produced by the decrepit 
 figures, the sallow and wrinkled faces, and the 
 white heads of the group. 
 
 Their acting had become spontaneous. They 
 were perplexed and bewildered as to their identity, 
 and in a manner carried away by the illusion their 
 own efforts had created. In some of the earlier 
 conversation of the evening there had been occa 
 sional jests and personalities, but the talk had now 
 become entirely serious. The pathos and melan 
 choly of the retrospections in which they were in 
 dulging became real. All felt that if it was acting 
 now, it was but the rehearsal of a coming reality. 
 I think some of them were for a little while not 
 clearly conscious that it was not already reality, 
 and that their youth was not forever vanished. 
 The sense of age was weighing on them like a 
 nightmare. In very self-pity voices began to trem 
 ble and bosoms heaved with suppressed sobs. 
 
 Mary rose and stepped to the piano. It indi 
 cated how fully she had realized her part that, as 
 she passed the mirror, no involuntary start testi 
 fied to surprise at the aged figure it reflected. She 
 played in a minor key an air to the words of 
 Tennyson s matchless piece of pathos, 
 
THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 87 
 
 " The days that are no more," 
 
 herself with a voice rich, strong, 
 and sweet. By the time she had finished, the girls 
 were all crying. 
 
 Suddenly Henry sprang to his feet, and, with 
 the strained, uncertain voice of one waking him 
 self from a nightmare, cried : 
 
 " Thank God, thank God, it is only a dream," 
 and tore off the wig, letting the brown hair fall 
 about his forehead. Instantly all followed his 
 example, and in a moment the transformation was 
 effected. Brown, black, and golden hair was fly 
 ing free ; rosy cheeks were shining through the 
 powder where handkerchiefs had been hastily ap 
 plied, and the bent and tottering figures of a 
 moment ago had given place to broad-shouldered 
 men and full-breasted girls. Henry caught Jessie 
 around the waist, Frank Nellie, and George Mary, 
 and with one of the little girls at the piano, up 
 and down the room they dashed to the merriest 
 of waltzes in the maddest round that ever was 
 danced. There was a reckless abandon in their 
 glee, as if the lust of life, the glow and fire of 
 youth, its glorious freedom, and its sense of bound 
 less wealth, suddenly set free, after long repres 
 sion, had intoxicated them with its strong fumes. 
 It was such a moment as their lifetime would not 
 bring again. 
 
 It was not till, flushed and panting, laughing 
 and exhausted, they came to a pause, that they 
 
88 THE OLD FOLKS PARTY 
 
 1^ 
 thought of Grandma Fellows. She was crying, 
 
 and yet smiling through her tears. 
 
 " Oh, grandma," cried Mary, throwing her arms 
 around her, and bursting into tears, " we can t 
 take you back with us. Oh, dear." 
 
 And the other girls cried over her, and kissed 
 her in a piteous, tender way, feeling as if their 
 hearts would break for the pity of it. And the 
 young men were conscious of moisture about the 
 eyes as they stood looking on. 
 
 But Grandma Fellows smiled cheerily, and 
 said : 
 
 " I m a foolish old woman to cry, and you 
 must n t think it is because I want to be young 
 again. It s only because I can t help it." 
 
 Perhaps she could n t have explained it better. 
 
THE COLD SNAP 
 
 IN the extremes of winter and summer, when 
 the weather is either extraordinarily cold or hot, I 
 confess to experiencing a peculiar sense of help 
 lessness and vague uneasiness. I have a feeling 
 that a trifling additional rise or fall of tempera 
 ture, such as might be caused by any slight hitch 
 in the machinery of the universe, would quite 
 crowd mankind out of existence. To be sure, the 
 hitch never has occurred, but what if it should? 
 Conscious that I have about reached the limit of 
 my own endurance, the thought of the bare con 
 tingency is unpleasant enough to cause a feeling 
 of relief, not altogether physical, when the rising 
 or falling mercury begins to turn. The conscious 
 ness how wholly by sufferance it is that man exists 
 at all on the earth is rather forcibly borne in 
 upon the mind at such times. The spaces above 
 and below zero are indefinite. 
 
 I have to take my vacations as the fluctuations 
 of a rather exacting business permit, and so it 
 happened that I was, with my wife, passing a fort 
 night in the coldest part of winter at the family 
 homestead in New England. The ten previous 
 days had been very cold, and the cold had " got 
 
90 THE COLD SNAP 
 
 into the house," which means that it had so pene 
 trated and chilled the very walls and timbers that 
 a cold day now took hold of us as it had not ear 
 lier in the season. Finally there came a day that 
 was colder than any before it. The credit of dis 
 covering and first asserting that it was the coldest 
 day of the season is due to myself, no slight dis 
 tinction in the country, where the weather is al 
 ways a more prominent topic than in the city, and 
 the weather-wise are accordingly esteemed. Every 
 one hastened to corroborate this verdict with some 
 piece of evidence. Mother said that the frost had 
 not gone off the kitchen window nearest the stove 
 in all the day, and that was a sign. The sleighs and 
 sledges as they went by in the road creaked on the 
 snow, so that we heard them through the double 
 windows, and that was a sign ; while the teamsters 
 swung their benumbed arms like the sails of a wind 
 mill to keep up the circulation, and the frozen 
 vapor puffed out from the horses nostrils in a man 
 ner reminding one of the snorting coursers in sen 
 sational pictures. The schoolboys on their way 
 from school did not stop to play, and that was a 
 sign. No women had been seen on the street since 
 noon. Young men, as they hurried past on the 
 peculiar high-stepping trot of persons who have 
 their hands over their ears, looked strangely anti 
 quated with their mustaches and beards all grizzled 
 with the frost. 
 
 Toward dusk I took a short run to the post- 
 
THE COLD SNAP 91 
 
 office. I was well wrapped up, but that did not 
 prevent me from having very singular sensations 
 before I got home. The air, as I stepped out 
 from cover, did .not seem like air at all, but like 
 some almost solid medium, whose impact was like 
 a blow. It went right through my overcoat at 
 the first assault, and nosed about hungrily for my 
 little spark of vital heat. A strong wind with the 
 flavor of glaciers was blowing straight from the 
 pole. How inexpressibly bleak was the aspect of 
 the leaden clouds that were banked up around the 
 horizon ! I shivered as I looked at the sullen 
 masses. The houses seemed little citadels against 
 the sky. I had not taken fifty steps before my 
 face stiffened into a sort of mask, so that it hurt 
 me to move the facial muscles. I came home on 
 an undignified run, experiencing a lively sense of 
 the inadequacy of two hands to protect two ears 
 and a nose. Did the Creator intend man to in 
 habit high latitudes ? 
 
 At nightfall father, Bill, and Jim, the two latter 
 being my younger brothers, arrived from their 
 offices, each in succession declaring, with many 
 " whews " and " ughs," that it was by all odds the 
 coldest night yet. Undeniably we all felt proud 
 of it, too. A spirited man rather welcomes ten or 
 fifteen degrees extra, if so be they make the tem 
 perature superlatively low ; while he would very 
 likely grumble at a much less positive chilliness 
 coupled with the disheartening feeling that he was 
 
92 THE COLD SNAP 
 
 enduring nothing extraordinary. The general ex 
 altation of spirit and suspension of the conven 
 tionalities for the time being, which an extraordi 
 narily hot or cold snap produces in a community, 
 especially in the country, is noteworthy. During 
 that run of mine to the post-office every man I met 
 grinned confidentially, as if to say, " We re hearty 
 fellows to stand it as we do." We regarded each 
 other with an increase of mutual respect. That 
 sense of fellowship which springs up between those 
 associated in an emergency seemed to dispense with 
 ordinary formalities, and neighbors with whom I 
 had not a bowing acquaintance fairly beamed on 
 me as we passed. 
 
 After tea Ella (Ella was a sister) got the even 
 ing paper out of somebody s overcoat, and was 
 running it over in the dainty, skimming fashion 
 peculiar to the gentler sex when favoring the press 
 with their attention. It reminds one of sea-birds 
 skimming the water, and anon diving for a tidbit. 
 She read aloud : " Old Prob. reports another cold 
 wave on the way East. It will probably reach the 
 New England States this evening. The thermo 
 meters along its course range from 40 below zero 
 at Fort Laramie, to 38 in Omaha, 31 in Chicago, 
 and 30 in Cleveland. Numerous cases of death 
 by freezing are reported. Our readers will do well 
 to put an extra shovelful on the furnace over 
 night." 
 
 " Don t forget that, Jiin," said father. 
 
THE COLD SNAP 93 
 
 A gentleman friend called to take Ella out to a 
 concert or something of the sort. Her mother was 
 for having her give it up on account of the cold. 
 But it so happens that young people, who, having 
 life before them, can much better afford than their 
 elders to forego particular pleasures, are much less 
 resigned to doing so. The matter was compro 
 mised by piling so many wraps upon her that she 
 protested it was like being put to bed. But, be 
 fore they had been gone fifteen minutes, they were 
 back again, half frozen. It had proved so shock 
 ingly cold they had not dared to keep on, and 
 persuaded themselves accordingly that the enter 
 tainment had probably been postponed. The 
 streets were entirely deserted ; not even a police 
 man was visible, and the chilled gas in the street 
 lamps gave but a dull light. 
 
 Ella proposed to give us our regular evening 
 treat of music, but found the corner of the room 
 where the melodeon stood too cold. Generally the 
 room is warm in every part, and Jim got upbraided 
 for keeping a poor fire. But he succeeded in prov 
 ing that it was better than common ; the weather 
 was the matter. As the evening wore on, the 
 members of the family gradually edged around the 
 register, finally radiating from it as a centre like 
 the spokes of a wheel, of which the collected feet 
 of the group made the hub. 
 
 My wife is from the Southern States, and the 
 huge cold of the North had been a new and rather 
 
94 THE COLD SNAP 
 
 terrifying experience to her. She had been grow 
 ing nervous all the evening, as the signs and por 
 tents of the weather accumulated. She was really 
 half frightened. 
 
 " Are n t you afraid it will get so cold it will 
 never be able to get warm again, and then what 
 would become of us ? " she asked. 
 
 Of course we laughed at her, but I think her 
 fears infected me with a slight, vague anxiety, as 
 the evidences of extraordinary and still increasing 
 cold went on multiplying. I had so far gotten 
 over my bravado earlier in the evening that I 
 should have been secretly relieved if the thermo 
 meter had taken a turn. 
 
 At length, one by one, the members of the 
 family, with an anticipatory shiver over the regis 
 ter, went to their rooms, and were doubtless in bed 
 in the shortest possible time, and I fear without 
 saying their prayers. Finally my wife suggested 
 that we had better go before we got too cold to 
 do so. 
 
 The bedroom was shockingly cold. Going to 
 bed is a test of character. I pride myself on the 
 fact that generally, even when my room is cold, I 
 can, with steady nerve and resolute hand, remove 
 the last habiliment, and without undignified pre 
 cipitation reach for and indue the nocturnal gar 
 ment. I admit, however, that on this occasion I 
 gave way to a weak irresolution at the critical 
 instant and shivered for some moments in con- 
 
THE COLD SNAP 95 
 
 stantly increasing demoralization, before I could 
 make up my mind to the final change. Then 
 ensued the slow and gradual conquest of the frozen 
 bed to a tolerable warmth, a result attained only 
 by clever strategic combinations of bedclothes and 
 the most methodical policy. As I lay awake, I 
 heard the sides of the house crack in the cold. 
 " What," said I to myself with a shiver, " should 
 I do if anything happened that required me to 
 get up and dress again ? " It seemed to me~T~~ 
 should be capable of letting a man die in the next 
 room for need of succor. Being of an imaginative 
 temperament, not to feel prepared for possible 
 contingencies is for me to feel guilty and misera 
 ble. The last thing I remember before dropping 
 off to sleep was solemnly promising my wife never 
 to trust ourselves North another winter. I then 
 fell asleep and dreamed of the ineffable cold of 
 the interstellar spaces, which the scientific people 
 talk about. 
 
 The next thing I was sensible of was a feeling 
 of the most utter discomfort I ever experienced. 
 My whole body had become gradually chilled 
 through. I could feel the flesh rising in goose 
 pimples at every movement. What has happened? 
 was my first thought. The bedclothes were all 
 there, four inches of them, and to find myself 
 shivering under such a pile seemed a reversal of 
 the laws of nature. Shivering is an unpleasant 
 operation at best and at briefest; but when one 
 
96 THE COLD SNAP 
 
 has shivered till the flesh is lame, and every quiver 
 is a racking, aching pain, that is something quite 
 different from any ordinary shivering. My wife 
 was awake and in the same condition. What did 
 I ever bring her to this terrible country for ? She 
 had been lying as still as possible for an hour or 
 so, waiting till she should die or something ; and 
 feeling that if she stirred she should freeze, as 
 water near the freezing point crystallizes when 
 agitated. She said that when I had disturbed the 
 clothes by any movement, she had felt like hating 
 me. We were both almost scared, it must be con 
 fessed. Such an experience had never been ours 
 before. In voices muffled by the bedclothes we 
 held dismal confab, and concluded that we must 
 make our way to the sitting-room and get over the 
 register. 
 
 I have had my share of unpleasant duties to face 
 in my life. I remember how I felt at Spottsylvania 
 when I stepped up and out from behind a breast 
 work of fence rails, over which the bullets were 
 whistling like hailstones, to charge the enemy. 
 Worse still, I remember how I felt at one or two 
 public banquets when I rose from my seat to reply 
 to a toast, and to meet the gaze of a hundred ex 
 pectant faces with an overpowering consciousness 
 of looking like a fool, and of total inability to do or 
 say anything which would not justify the presump 
 tion. But never did an act of my life call for so 
 much of sheer will-power as stepping out of that 
 
THE COLD SNAP 97 
 
 comfortless bed into that freezing room. It is a 
 general rule in getting up winter mornings that the 
 air never proves so cold as was anticipated while 
 lying warm in bed. But it did this time, probably 
 because my system was deprived of all elasticity 
 and power of reaction by being so thoroughly 
 chilled. Hastily donning in the dark what was 
 absolutely necessary, my poor wife and myself, 
 with chattering teeth and prickly bodies, the most 
 thoroughly demoralized couple in history, ran down 
 stairs to the sitting-room. 
 
 Much to our surprise, we found the gas lighted 
 and the other members of the family already gath 
 ered there, huddling over the register. I felt a 
 sinking at the heart as I marked the strained, anx 
 ious look on each face, a look that asked what 
 strange thing had come upon us. They had been 
 there, they said, for some time. Ella, Jim, and 
 Bill, who slept alone, had been the first to leave 
 their beds. Then father and mother, and finally 
 my wife and I, had followed. Soon after our 
 arrival there was a fumbling at the door, and the 
 two Irish girls, who help mother keep house, put 
 in their blue, pinched faces. They scarcely waited 
 an invitation to come up to the register. 
 
 The room was but dimly lighted, for the gas, 
 affected by the fearful chill, was flowing slowly and 
 threatened to go out. The gloom added to the 
 depressing effect of our strange situation. Little 
 was said. The actual occurrence of strange and 
 
98 THE COLD SNAP 
 
 unheard-of events excites very much less wonder 
 ment than the account of them written or re 
 hearsed. Indeed, the feeling of surprise often 
 seems wholly left out of the mental experience of 
 those who undergo or behold the most prodigious 
 catastrophes. The sensibility to the marvelous 
 is the one of our faculties which is, perhaps, the 
 soonest exhausted by a strain. Human nature 
 takes naturally to miracles, after all. " What can 
 it mean ? " was the inquiry a dozen times on the 
 lips of each one of us, but beyond that, I recall 
 little that was said. Bill, who was the joker of the 
 family, had essayed a jest or two at first on our 
 strange predicament, but they had been poorly re 
 ceived. The discomfort was too serious, and the 
 extraordinary nature of the visitation filled every 
 mind with nameless forebodings and a great, un 
 formed fear. 
 
 We asked each other if our neighbors were all 
 in the same plight with ourselves. They must be, 
 of course, and many of them far less prepared to 
 meet it. There might be whole families in the 
 last extremity of cold right about us. I went to 
 the window, and with my knife scraped away the 
 rime of frost, an eighth of an inch thick, which 
 obscured it, till I could see out. A whitish-gray 
 light was on the landscape. Every object seemed 
 still, with a quite peculiar stillness that might be 
 called intense. From the chimneys of some of the 
 houses around thick columns of smoke and sparks 
 
THE COLD SNAP 99 
 
 were pouring, showing that the fires were being 
 crowded below. Other chimneys showed no smoke 
 at all. Here and there a dull light shone from 
 a window. There was no other sign of life any 
 where. The streets were absolutely empty. No 
 one suggested trying to communicate with other 
 houses. This was a plight in which human con 
 course could avail nothing. 
 
 After piling all the coal on the furnace it would 
 hold, the volume of heat rising from the register 
 was such as to singe the clothes of those over it, 
 while those waiting their turn were shivering a few 
 feet off. The men of course yielded the nearest 
 places to the women, and, as we walked briskly up 
 and down in the room, the frost gathered on our 
 mustaches. The morning, we said, would bring 
 relief, but none of us fully believed it, for the 
 strange experience we were enduring appeared to 
 imply a suspension of the ordinary course of 
 nature. 
 
 A number of cats and dogs, driven from their 
 accustomed haunts by the intense cold, had gath 
 ered under the windows, and there piteously 
 moaned and whined for entrance. 
 
 Swiftly it grew colder. The iron casing of the 
 register was cold in spite of the volume of heat 
 pouring through it. Every point or surface of 
 metal in the room was covered with a thick coating 
 of frost. The frost even settled upon a few fila 
 ments of cobweb in the corners of the room which 
 
100 THE COLD SNAP 
 
 had escaped the housemaid s broom, and which 
 now shone like hidden sins in the day of judgment. 
 The door-knob, mop-boards, and wooden casings 
 of the room glistened. We were so chilled that 
 woolen was as cold to the touch as wood or iron. 
 There being no more any heat in our bodies, the 
 non-conducting quality of a substance was no ap 
 preciable advantage. To avoid the greater cold 
 near the floor, several of our number got upon the 
 tables, presenting, with their feet tucked under 
 them, an aspect that would have been sufficiently 
 laughable under other circumstances. But, as a 
 rule, fun does not survive the freezing point. 
 Every few moments the beams of the house 
 snapped like the timbers of a straining ship, and 
 at intervals the frozen ground cracked with a noise 
 like cannon, the hyperborean earthquake. 
 
 A ruddy light shone against the windows. Bill 
 went and rubbed away the ice. A neighbor s 
 house was burning. It was one of those whose 
 chimneys were vomiting forth sparks when I had 
 looked out before. There was promise of an ex 
 tensive conflagration. Nobody appeared in the 
 streets, and, as there were intervening houses, we 
 could not see what became of the inmates. The 
 very slight interest which this threatening confla 
 gration aroused in our minds was doubtless a mark 
 of the already stupefying effect of the cold. Even 
 our voices had become weak and altered. 
 
 The cold is a sad enemy to beauty. My poor 
 
THE COLD SNAP 101 
 
 wife and Ella, with their pinched faces, strained, 
 aching expression, red, rheumy eyes and noses, and 
 blue or pallid cheeks were sad parodies on their 
 comely selves. Other forces of nature have in 
 them something the spirit of man can sympathize 
 with, as the wind, the waves, the sun ; but there is 
 something terribly inhuman about the cold. I can 
 imagine it as a congenial principle brooding over 
 the face of chaos in the aeons before light was. 
 
 Hours had passed, it might have been years, 
 when father said, " Let us pray." He knelt down, 
 and we all mechanically followed his example, as 
 from childhood up we had done at morning and 
 evening. Ever before, the act had seemed merely 
 a fit and graceful ceremony, from which no one had 
 expected anything in particular to follow, or had 
 experienced aught save the placid reaction that 
 commonly results from a devotional act. But now 
 the meaning so long latent became eloquent. The 
 morning and evening ceremony became the sole 
 resource in an imminent and fearful emergency. 
 There was a familiar strangeness about the act 
 under these circumstances which touched us all. 
 With me, as with most, something of the feeling 
 implied in the adage, " Familiarity breeds con 
 tempt," had impaired my faith in the practical effi 
 cacy of prayer. How could extraordinary results 
 be expected from so common an instrumentality, 
 and especially from so ordinary and every-day a 
 thing as family prayer? Our faith in the present 
 
102 THE COLD SNAP 
 
 instance was also not a little lessened by the pe 
 culiar nature of the visitation. In any ordinary 
 emergency God might help us, but we had a sort 
 of dim apprehension that even He could not do 
 anything in such weather. So far as humbleness 
 was concerned, there was no lack of that. There 
 are some inflictions which, although terrible, are 
 capable of stirring in haughty human hearts a 
 rebellious indignation. But to cold succumb soul 
 
 O 
 
 and mind. It has always seemed to me that cold 
 would have broken down Milton s Satan. I felt 
 as if I could grovel to be vouchsafed a moment s 
 
 O 
 
 immunity from the gripe of the savage frost. 
 
 Owing to the sustaining power there is in 
 habit, the participation in family devotions proved 
 strengthening to us all. In emergencies, we get 
 back from our habits the mental and moral vigor 
 that first went to their formation, and has since 
 remained on interest. 
 
 It is not the weakest who succumb first to cold, 
 as was strikingly proved in our experience. The 
 prostration of the faculties may be long postponed 
 by the power of the will. All assaults on human 
 nature, whether of cold, exhaustion, terror, or any 
 other kind, respect the dignity of the mind, and 
 await its capitulation before finally storming the 
 stronghold of life. I am as strong in physique as 
 men average, but I gave out before my mother. 
 The voices of mother and Bill, as they took coun 
 sel for our salvation, fell on my ears like an idle 
 sound. This was the crisis of the night. 
 
 *j3fi+ 
 
THE COLD SNAP 103 
 
 The next thing I knew, Bill was urging us to eat 
 some beefsteak and bread. The former, I after 
 ward learned, he had got out of the pantry and 
 cooked over the furnace fire. It was about five 
 o clock, and we had eaten nothing for nearly twelve 
 hours. The general exhaustion of our powers had 
 prevented a natural appetite from making itself 
 felt, but mother had suggested that we should try 
 food, and it saved us. It was still fearfully cold, 
 but the danger was gone as soon as we felt the 
 reviving effect of the food. An ounce of food is 
 worth a pound of blankets. Trying to warm the 
 body from the outside is working at a tremendous 
 disadvantage. It was a strange picnic as, perched 
 on chairs and tables in the dimly lighted room, we 
 munched our morsels, or warmed the frozen bread 
 over the register. After this, some of us got a 
 little sleep. 
 
 I shall never forget my sensations when, at last, 
 I looked out at the eastern window and saw the 
 rising sun. The effect was indeed peculiarly splen 
 did, for the air was full of particles of ice, and the 
 sun had the effect of shining through a mist of dia 
 mond dust. Bill had dosed us with whiskey, and 
 perhaps it had got into our heads, for I shouted, 
 and my wife cried. It was, at the end of the weary 
 night, like the first sight of our country s flag when 
 returning from a foreign world. 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 MR. JOSEPH KILGORE was suffering from one 
 of those spring influenzas which make a man feel 
 as if he were his own grandfather. His nose had 
 acquired the shape of a turnip and the complexion 
 of a beet. All his bones ached as if he had been 
 soundly thrashed, and his eyes were weak and 
 watery. Your deadly disease is oftener than not 
 a gentleman who takes your life without mauling 
 you, but the minor diseases are mere bruisers who 
 just go in for making one as uncomfortable and 
 unpresentable as possible. Mr. Kilgore s influenza 
 had been coming on for several days, and when he 
 woke up this particular morning and heard the 
 rain dripping on the piazza-roof just under his bed 
 room-window, he concluded, like a sensible man, 
 that he would stay at home and nurse himself over 
 the fire that day, instead of going to the office. So 
 he turned over and snoozed for an hour or two, 
 luxuriating in a sense of aches and pains just pro 
 nounced enough to make the warmth and softness 
 of the bed delightful. 
 
 Toward noon, the edge of this enjoyment becom 
 ing dulled, he got up, dressed, and came down 
 stairs to the parlor, where his brother s wife (he 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 105 
 
 was a bachelor, living with a married brother) had 
 considerately kindled up a coal-fire in the grate for 
 his benefit. 
 
 After lying off in the rocking-chair till past din 
 ner-time, he began to feel better and consequently 
 restless. Concluding that he would like to read, 
 he went rummaging about the bookcases for a 
 likely-looking novel. At length he found in the 
 upper shelf of a closet a book called " Roles of a 
 Detective," containing various thrilling accounts 
 of crimes and the entanglement of criminals in the 
 meshes of law and evidence. 
 
 One story in particular made a strong impres 
 sion on his mind. It was a tale of circumstantial 
 evidence, and about how it very nearly hung an 
 innocent man for a murder which he had no thought 
 of committing. It struck Joseph rather forcibly 
 that this victim of circumstantial evidence was as 
 respectable and inoffensive a person as himself, 
 and probably had never any more thought of being 
 in danger from the law. Circumstances had set 
 their trap for him while he was quite unconscious 
 of peril, and he only awoke to find himself in the 
 toils. And from this he went on to reflect upon 
 the horrible but unquestionable fact that every 
 year a certain proportion, and perhaps a very con 
 siderable proportion, of those who suffered the 
 penalties of the law, and even the death-penalty, 
 are innocent men, victims of false or mistaken 
 evidence. No man, however wise or virtuous, can 
 
106 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 be sure that he will not be taken in this fearful 
 conscription of victims to the blind deity of justice. 
 " None can tell," thought Joseph, with a shudder, 
 " that the word he is saying, the road he is turn 
 ing, the appointment he is making, or whatever 
 other innocent act he is now engaged in, may not 
 prove the last mesh in some self-woven death-net, 
 the closing link in some damning chain of evidence 
 whose devilish subtlety shall half convince him that 
 he must be guilty as it wholly convinces others." 
 
 Timidity is generally associated with imagina 
 tiveness, if not its result, and Joseph, although he 
 concealed the fact pretty well under the mask of 
 reticence, was constitutionally very timid. He had 
 an unprofitable habit of taking every incident of 
 possible embarrassment or danger that occurred to 
 his mind as the suggestion for imaginary situations 
 of inconvenience or peril, which he would then 
 work out, fancying how he would feel and what he 
 would do, with the utmost elaboration, and often 
 with really more nervous excitement than he would 
 be likely to experience if the events supposed 
 should really occur. So now, and all the more 
 because he was a little out of sorts, the suggestions 
 of this story began to take the form in his mind 
 of an imaginary case of circumstantial evidence 
 of which he was the victim. His fancy worked 
 up the details of a fictitious case against himself, 
 which he, although perfectly innocent, could meet 
 with nothing more than his bare denial. 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 107 
 
 He imagined the first beginnings of suspicion ; 
 he saw it filming the eyes of his acquaintances, 
 then of his friends, and at last sicklying over the 
 face even of his brother Silas. In fancy he made 
 frantic attempts to regain the confidence of his 
 friends, to break through the impalpable, impene- I 
 trable barrier which the first stir of suspicion had \ 
 put between their minds and his. He cried, he 
 begged, he pleaded. But in vain, all in vain. Sus 
 picion had made his appeals and adjurations sound 
 even to his friends as strange and meaningless as 
 the Babel-builders words of a sudden became to 
 each other. The yellow badge of suspicion once 
 upon him, all men kept afar, as if he were a fever- 
 ship in quarantine. No solitary imprisonment in a 
 cell of stone could so utterly exclude him from the 
 fellowship of men as the invisible walls of this dun 
 geon of suspicion. And at last he saw himself giv 
 ing up the hopeless struggle, yielding to his fate 
 in dumb despair, only praying that the end might 
 come speedily, perhaps even reduced to the abject- 
 ness of confessing the crime he had not committed, 
 in order that he might at least have the pity of 
 men, since he could not regain their confidence. 
 And so strongly had this vision taken hold on him 
 that his breath came irregularly, and his forehead 
 was damp as he drew his hand across it. 
 
 As has been intimated, it was Mr. Joseph Kil- 
 gore s very bad habit to waste his nervous tissue 
 in the conscientiously minute elaboration of such 
 
108 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 painful imaginary situations as that above de 
 scribed, and in his present experience there was 
 nothing particularly novel or extraordinary for 
 him. It was the occurrence of a singular coinci 
 dence between this internal experience and a wholly 
 independent course of actual events, which made 
 that waking nightmare the beginning of a some 
 what remarkable comedy, or, more properly, a 
 tragedy, of errors. For, as Joseph lay back in his 
 chair, in a state of nervous exhaustion and moral 
 collapse, the parlor-door was thrown open, and 
 Mrs. Silas Kilgore, his sister-in-law, burst into the 
 room. She was quite pale, and her black eyes 
 were fixed on Joseph s with the eager intensity, as 
 if seeking moral support, noticeable in those who 
 communicate startling news which they have not 
 had time to digest. 
 
 The effect of this apparition upon Joseph in his 
 unstrung condition may be readily imagined. He 
 sprang up, much paler than Mrs. Kilgore, his lips 
 apart, and his eyes staring with the premonition of 
 something shocking. These symptoms of extraor 
 dinary excitement even before she had spoken, and 
 this air as if he had expected a shocking revela 
 tion, recurred to her mind later, in connection with 
 other circumstances, but just now she was too full 
 of her intelligence to dwell on anything else. 
 
 " A man was murdered in our barn last night. 
 They ve found the body ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 As the meaning of her words broke on him, Jo- 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 109 
 
 seph was filled with that sort of mental confusion 
 which one experiences when the scene or circum 
 stances of a dream recur in actual life. Was he 
 still dreaming that ghostly vision of suspicion and 
 the death-trap of circumstances ? Was this a mere 
 continuation of it ? No, he was awake ; his sister- 
 in-law standing there, with pallid face and staring 
 eyes, was not an apparition. The horrid, fatal 
 reality which he had been imagining was actually 
 upon him. 
 
 " I did not do it ! " dropped from his ashen lips. 
 
 " You do it ? Are you crazy ? Who said any 
 thing about your doing it ? " cried the astounded 
 woman. 
 
 The ring of genuine amazement in her voice was 
 scarcely needed to recall Joseph to the practical 
 bearing of his surroundings, and break the spell of 
 superstitious dread. The sound of his own words 
 had done it. With a powerful effort he regained 
 something like self-control, and said, with a forced 
 laugh : 
 
 " What an absurd thing for me to say ! I don t 
 know what I could have been thinking of. Very 
 odd, was it not ? But, dear me ! a man murdered 
 in our barn ? You don t tell me ! How terrible ! " 
 
 His constrained, overdone manner was not cal 
 culated to abate Mrs. Kilgore s astonishment, and 
 she continued to stare at him with an expression 
 in which a vague terror began to appear. There 
 are few shorter transitions than that from panic to 
 
110 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 anger. Seeing that her astonishment at his recep 
 tion of the news increased rather than diminished, 
 he became exasperated at the intolerable position 
 in which he was placed. His face, before so pale, 
 flushed with anger. 
 
 " Damnation ! What are you staring at me that 
 way for?" he cried fiercely. 
 
 Mrs. Kilgore gave a little cry, half of indig 
 nation, half of fright, and went out of the room, 
 shutting the door after her. 
 
 Joseph had ample opportunity to review the 
 situation before he was again disturbed, which, in 
 deed, was not till some hours later, at dusk, when 
 Silas came home, and the tea-table was set. Silas 
 had been promptly summoned from his shop when 
 the discovery of the body was made, and had been 
 busy all the afternoon with the police, the coroner, 
 and the crowds of visitors to the scene of the 
 tragedy. 
 
 The conversation at the tea-table ran entirely 
 upon the various incidents of the discovery, the in 
 quest, and the measures of the police for the appre 
 hension of the criminal. Mrs. Kilgore was so full 
 of questions that she scarcely gave Silas time to 
 answer, and Joseph flattered himself that his com 
 parative silence was not noticeable. Nevertheless, 
 as they rose from the table, Silas remarked : 
 
 " You don t seem much interested in our mur 
 der, Joseph ; you have n t asked the first question 
 about it." 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 111 
 
 Mrs. Kilgore was just leaving the room, and she 
 turned her head to see how he would answer. But 
 he, too, turned off the matter by saying something 
 about Maria s loquaciousness having left him no 
 chance. After tea the little family circle was gath 
 ered in the parlor. Mrs. Kilgore was sewing; 
 Silas read the newspaper, and Joseph sat up by 
 the fire. From time to time, as he glanced around, 
 he caught Mrs. Kilgore s eyes studying him very 
 intently. Her manner indicated that her indigna 
 tion at his behavior and language earlier in the 
 afternoon had been quite neutralized by her curi 
 osity as to its cause. 
 
 " There s nothing in the paper to-night but the 
 murder, and I know that already," exclaimed Silas, 
 finally. " Maria, where s there something to read ? 
 Hullo! what s this?" 
 
 He had taken up from the table the story of 
 circumstantial evidence which Joseph had been 
 reading that morning. 
 
 " Why, Maria, here s that murder-book you 
 would n t let me finish last summer for fear I d 
 murder you some night. Who on earth hunted 
 up that book of all books, to-day of all days ? " 
 
 " I did," replied Joseph, clearing his throat, in 
 order to speak with a natural inflection. 
 
 " You did ? " exclaimed Silas. 
 
 " You must have looked the house over to find 
 it, for I hid it carefully," said Mrs. Kilgore, look 
 ing sharply at him. " What made you so anxious 
 to get it ? " 
 
112 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 " I was not particularly anxious. I was merely 
 looking for something to read," said Joseph, mak 
 ing a pretense of yawning, as if the matter was a 
 very trivial one. 
 
 " I suppose the murder brought it to his mind," 
 said Silas. 
 
 u Why, no ! " exclaimed Mrs. Kilgore quickly. 
 " You must have been reading it before the mur 
 der. Now that I remember, I saw it in your 
 hands." 
 
 " Before the murder, were you, Joseph ? Why, 
 that s almost enough to make one feel supersti 
 tious," said Silas, turning around in his chair, so 
 as to look fairly at him. 
 
 Joseph had half a mind to make a clean breast 
 of the matter then and there, and explain to them 
 how curiously the reading of that book had affected 
 him. But he reflected that Silas was rather unim 
 aginative, and would probably be more mystified 
 than enlightened by his explanation. 
 
 " I do believe it was reading that book which 
 made you act so queerly when I brought you in the 
 news of the murder," pursued Mrs. Kilgore. 
 
 "How is that? How did he act queerly?" 
 asked Silas. 
 
 " I am not aware that I acted queerly at all," 
 said Joseph doggedly. 
 
 He knew well enough he had acted queerly, and 
 did not mean to deny that ; but, as children and 
 confused persons often do, he answered to the 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 113 
 
 underlying motive rather than the language. He 
 only thought of denying the inference of suspicion 
 that her words seemed to him to suggest. But to 
 Mrs. Kilgore he very naturally seemed to be pre 
 varicating. 
 
 " Why, Joseph ! " said she, in a raised voice, and 
 with a slight asperity ; " you know how you jumped 
 up, looking like a ghost, the moment I opened the 
 door, and the first thing you said after I d told you 
 that they d found a murdered man in the barn, 
 was Why, Joseph, what s the matter ? " 
 
 But I must go back a little. When the conver 
 sation turned on the book and Joseph s connection 
 with it, a minute or so previous, Silas had quite 
 naturally glanced over at his brother, and, as the 
 talk went on, his glance had become a somewhat 
 concentrated gaze, although expressive of nothing 
 but the curiosity and slight wonder which the cir 
 cumstances suggested. It would not do to have 
 Silas think that he avoided his eyes, and so Joseph 
 had, as soon as he felt this gaze, turned his own face 
 rather sharply toward it. He had njeant merely 
 to meet his brother s look in a natural and unaf 
 fected manner. But, although never more sensible 
 of just what such a manner would be, he was utterly 
 unable to compass it. He was perfectly aware that 
 the expression of his eyes was much too serious and 
 challenging, and yet he could not, for the soul of 
 him, modify it. Nor did he dare to withdraw his 
 gaze after it had once met his brother s, although 
 
114 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 knowing that it was fast becoming a fierce stare, 
 and perceiving that Silas had already noticed some 
 thing peculiar in it. For to drop his eyes would 
 be utter discomfiture and rout. As Mrs. Kilgore 
 alluded to his queer demeanor when she told him 
 the news, his face began to flush with the anticipa 
 tion of the revelation that was coming at this most 
 unfavorable moment, even while his eyes were 
 locked with the already startled ones of Silas. As 
 she went on, the flush covered the lower part of his 
 face, and rose like a spring-tide up his cheeks, and 
 lent a fierce, congested glare to his eyes. He felt 
 how woeful and irretrievable a thing it would be 
 for him just then to lose his countenance, and at 
 the thought the flush burned deeper and merged 
 higher. It overspread his high, bald, intellectual 
 forehead, and incarnadined his sconce up to the 
 very top of it. At this moment it was that Mrs. 
 Kilgore broke off her narrative with the exclama 
 tion, " Why, Joseph, what s the matter ? " 
 
 At her words it seemed as if every drop of blood 
 in his bodypoured into his face. He could endure 
 it no longer. He rose abruptly, strode out of the 
 parlor, and went to his room, although it was but 
 eight o clock, and he had no fire there. If he had 
 staid another moment he must have brained Silas 
 and his wife with the poker, such an ungovernable 
 anger boiled up in him with the sense of his cause 
 less, shameful discomfiture. 
 
 As Joseph left the parlor the eyes of Silas and 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 115 
 
 his wife met each other, his dull with bewilder 
 ment and terror at a spectral fear ; hers keen with 
 a definite suspicion. But even her loquacity was 
 subdued by a real fright. She had nothing to say. 
 Her sensation was like that of one who, hunting a 
 hare, stumbles upon a wolf. She had been both 
 offended and made curious by Joseph s demeanor 
 that afternoon, but the horrid idea that within a 
 moment had been suggested to both their minds 
 had so little occurred to her as a serious possibility 
 that she was even on the point of rallying Joseph 
 on it before her husband. Some time after he had 
 left the parlor Silas asked, with averted face : 
 
 " What was it that he said when you told him 
 the news? " and then she repeated his words. 
 
 And Joseph, sitting wild-eyed upon his bed in 
 the darkness in the room above, red no longer, but 
 pale as death, heard the murmur of the voices, and 
 knew that she was telling him. No one of the 
 household slept much that night, except Mrs. Kil- 
 gore. Whenever she awoke she heard her husband 
 tossing restlessly, but she dared not ask him what 
 was the matter. In vain did Silas rehearse to him 
 self all through the night-hours how petty were the 
 trifles in Joseph s demeanor which had disturbed 
 him. They were of the sort of trifles which create 
 that species of certainty known as moral certainty, 
 the strongest of all in the mind it occupies, al 
 though so incapable of being communicated to 
 others. It mattered little how much evidence there 
 
116 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 was, if it sufficed to lodge the faintest trace of sus 
 picion in his mind. For, like some poisons, an 
 atom of suspicion is as fatal as the largest quantity, 
 Nay, perhaps, even more surely so, for against 
 great suspicion the mind often takes arms and 
 makes valiant head ; but a little doubt, by its timid 
 and hesitant demeanor, disarms opposition, and is 
 readily entertained. And all that night, lying 
 awake, and knowing that Silas was sleepless just 
 the other side of the partition, and that the fungus 
 of suspicion was moment by moment overgrowing 
 his mind, he could hardly wait for morning, but 
 would fain have rushed, even now in the darkness, 
 to his bedside to cry : " I did not do it ! Believe 
 me, brother, I did not do it ! " 
 
 In the morning, however, the sun shone brightly 
 into his room, and last night s events and misun 
 derstandings seemed like a bad dream. He went 
 downstairs almost cheery. He did not find Silas, 
 but Mrs. Kilgore was about. He was rather 
 startled to observe the entire change in her de 
 meanor. Yesterday she was constantly following 
 him up with her sharp black eyes and brisk ques 
 tions and exclamations, but now she seemed fright 
 ened, acted in a constrained manner, and avoided 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Where is Silas ? " he asked, as they sat down 
 to table. 
 
 " He said that there was something he must see 
 to at the shop before work began, so he had an 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 117 
 
 early breakfast," replied Mrs. Kilgore, with her 
 eyes on her plate. 
 
 Had she been looking up, she would have seen a 
 piteous constriction in the muscles of Joseph s face. 
 His heart was sick, and all his regained courage 
 sank away. It was no bad dream. Silas was afraid 
 to meet him. He left his meal untasted, and went 
 to the office. A dozen acquaintances stopped him 
 on his way down-street to ask about the murder ; 
 and all day long somebody was dropping in to 
 pester him on the same subject. He told them 
 with a dull, abstracted air all the fresh details he 
 knew, but felt all the time as if he cheated each 
 auditor of the vital part of the matter, in that he 
 failed to shout after him : 
 
 " Silas suspects me of it ! " 
 
 Silas had, indeed, left the house early for the 
 purpose of avoiding his brother. He was in a con 
 dition of mind and nerve in which he did not dare 
 to meet him. At tea the brothers met for the first 
 time since the night previous. There was a con 
 straint between them like that between strangers, 
 but stronger and more chilling far than ever that 
 is. There is no chill like that which comes between 
 friends, and the nearer the friends the more deathly 
 the cold. Silas made a little effort to speak of 
 business-matters, but could not keep it up, and soon 
 a silence settled over the party, only broken by the 
 words of table-service. Mrs. Kilgore sat pale and 
 frightened all through the meal without venturing 
 
118 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 a single phrase, and scarcely looking up from her 
 plate. 
 
 The silence was of that kind which all felt to be 
 more expressive than the loudest, most explicit lan 
 guage could be, more merciless than any form of 
 verbal accusation. Such silence is a terribly perfect 
 medium, in which souls are compelled to touch each 
 other, resent as they may the contact. Several 
 times Joseph was on the point of rising and rush 
 ing from the table. How many more such meals 
 could he stand or could they stand ? All of them 
 recognized that the situation had become percepti 
 bly more serious and more pronounced on account 
 of that silent tea-table. 
 
 There was in particular not the slightest allusion 
 made by any one to the murder, which, seeing that 
 it had happened but yesterday, and would naturally 
 still have been an engrossing topic, was an omission 
 so pointed as to be an open charge of guilt. There 
 is such a thing as emphasizing a topic by suppress 
 ing it, as letters are sunk into stone. The omission 
 impressed Silas as it did Joseph, but, regarding 
 it from his point of view, it did not occur to him 
 but that Joseph was the one solely responsible for 
 it. He, Silas, had refrained from reference to it 
 because his suspicions in regard to Joseph made the 
 topic unendurable. But he could not imagine that 
 Joseph could have had any other motive for his 
 silence on the subject but a guilty conscience, 
 some secret knowledge of the crime. Thus regarded, 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 119 
 
 it was a terrible confirmation. That a perception 
 that he was suspected might cause an innocent 
 man to act very much as if he were conscious of 
 guilt did not occur to Silas, as, perhaps, it would 
 have failed to occur to most persons in just his 
 position. 
 
 After leaving the tea-table the brothers went to 
 gether into the parlor, according to the family cus 
 tom. They took their accustomed seats on opposite 
 sides of the fireplace, but there was no conversation. 
 A veil was between them. Both were thinking of 
 the same thing, thinking of it intensely, and 
 each knew that the other was thinking of it, and 
 yet neither for worlds could have commanded the 
 courage to speak of it. The suspicion had grown 
 definite in Silas s mind, and yet, whenever he 
 brought himself to the point of putting it in words, 
 it suddenly seemed impossible, cruel, and absurd. 
 But if Silas found it impossible to speak, far more 
 so it seemed to Joseph. 
 
 To charge another with suspecting us is half to 
 confess ourselves worthy of suspicion. It is demor 
 alizing, it is to abandon the pride of conscious 
 rectitude. To deny an accusation is to concede to 
 it a possibility, a color of reason ; and Joseph 
 shrank with unutterable repugnance from that. 
 He felt that he could be torn limb from limb sooner 
 than betray by a word that he recognized the exist 
 ence of suspicion so abominable. Besides, of what 
 avail would be a denial without evidence to dis- 
 
120 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 prove a suspicion which had arisen without evi 
 dence ? It was a thing too impalpable to contend 
 with. As well fight a fog as seek to destroy by 
 mere denial suspicion so vague, unsubstantial, and 
 subtile, as that which enveloped him. Silas would, 
 of course, eagerly accept his denial ; he well knew 
 how he would spring to his side, how warm and 
 firm would be his hand-clasp, and how great, per 
 haps, his momentary relief. But he was, after all, 
 but human, and no man can control his doubts. 
 Silas would still be unable, when he thought the 
 matter over, to help the feeling that there was, 
 after all, something very strange about his conduct 
 from first to last. It is the subtiler nature of doubt 
 to penetrate the heart more profoundly than confi 
 dence, and to underlie it. No generous St. George 
 of faith can reach the nether den where it lurks. 
 Or, rather, is it like the ineradicable witch-grass 
 which, though it be hewed off at the surface, still 
 lives at the root, and springs forth luxuriantly again 
 at the first favoring season ? 
 
 Moreover, Joseph hoped that some circumstance, 
 the detection of the murderer, or a healthier moral 
 tone, might dissipate the cloud of suspicion between 
 them, and then it would be far better not to have 
 spoken, for, once put in words, the hateful thing 
 would ever remain a mutual memory, never again 
 to be denied, and which might come up to their 
 minds whenever they looked each other in the eye 
 thereafter. And so the brothers sat opposite each 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 121 
 
 other in silence, their faces growing grayer as the 
 clock ticked. 
 
 " The weather is growing cooler again," said 
 Joseph, at last, rising to go to his room. 
 
 It was at least two hours before his usual bed 
 time, but he could sit there no longer. 
 
 " Yes, I think we shall have a frost," replied 
 Silas, and the brothers parted. 
 
 After Joseph had gone, Mrs. Kilgore came into 
 the parlor and sat down with some sewing. She 
 waited for her husband to speak and tell her if Jo 
 seph had said anything. But he sat there staring 
 at the wall, and took no notice of her. Although 
 she knew so well what had been preying upon his 
 mind since last evening, yet he had not once 
 referred to the matter, and she had not dared to 
 do so. It was hard for a talkative little lady like 
 her to understand this reticence about a matter so 
 deeply felt. She could not comprehend that there 
 may be griefs so ghastly that we dare not lift from 
 them the veil of silence. She wanted to " talk it 
 over " a little. She felt that would do Silas good, 
 because she knew it would be a relief to her. Nor 
 was she insensible to the gratification it would 
 afford her vanity to discuss so serious a matter 
 with her husband, whose general tone with her was 
 one of jest and pleasantry, to the disparagement of 
 her intellectual powers, as she thought. So, after 
 glancing up several times timidly at Silas s still set 
 profile, she said, in a weighty little voice : 
 
122 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 " Don t you think Joseph behaves very strangely 
 about the murder ? " Her words seemed to be sev 
 eral seconds in making an impression on Silas s 
 mind, and then he slowly turned his face full upon 
 her. It was a terrible look. The squared jaw, the 
 drawn lips, the dull, distant stare, repulsed her 
 as one might repulse a stranger intermeddling 
 with a bitter private grief. Who was she, to come 
 between him and his brother ? He did not seem 
 to think it worth while to say anything to explain 
 so eloquent a glance, but immediately faced about 
 again, as if dismissing the interruption from his 
 mind. Mrs. Kilgore did not try to make any more 
 conversation, but went to her bedroom and cried 
 herself to sleep. 
 
 But Silas sat in his chair in the parlor, and took 
 no note of the hours till the lamp spluttered and 
 went out. All through the evening, in Joseph s 
 room, which was directly above, he had heard 
 him walking to and fro, to and fro, sitting down 
 awhile, and then starting again ; and if the pac 
 ing had not finally come to an end, Silas could not 
 have gone to bed, for his heart went out to his 
 brother wrestling there alone with his dreadful 
 secret, and he could not rest till he thought that 
 he, too, was at rest. 
 
 Indeed, for the very reason that Joseph was so 
 dear to him, and he felt nothing could change that, 
 he actually hesitated the less to admit these horri 
 ble suspicions. Love is impatient of uncertainty, 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 123 
 
 and would rather presume the guilt of a friend 
 from its longing to pour itself out in pity and ten 
 derness, than restrain itself while judgment scru 
 tinizes evidence and decides by a straw s weight. 
 
 A practical reflection, moreover, had occurred to 
 Silas. 
 
 If Joseph had really he did not dare to say to 
 himself what then it was of the utmost impor 
 tance that they should quickly understand each 
 other, so as to take steps to place him in safety. 
 His desire to share Joseph s horrible secret was 
 like the feeling with which one would fain uncover 
 a friend s loathsome disease in order to help him. 
 Before he went to sleep that night he resolved, 
 therefore, that he would win his confidence by let 
 ting him see in every possible way, short of actual 
 words, that he suspected the true state of things, 
 and that Joseph might still confide in him as a 
 faithful brother who would stand by him in the 
 worst emergency. 
 
 On first meeting him the following morning 
 he began to carry out this project so worthy of 
 fraternal devotion. He sought occasion to shake 
 hands with Joseph, and gave a meaning pressure to 
 his clasp. At breakfast he was the only one who 
 talked, and endeavored by his manner to let Jo 
 seph understand that he perfectly comprehended 
 the situation, and was talking to cover his embar 
 rassment and prevent Mrs. Kilgore from suspecting 
 anything. Several times also he managed to catch 
 
124 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 his brother s eye, and give him a glance implying 
 sympathy and mutual understanding. This de 
 meanor added the last touch to Joseph s exaspera 
 tion. 
 
 Evading Silas s evident intention of walking 
 down-street, he got away alone, and took both din 
 ner and tea at a restaurant, to put off meeting his 
 brother and sister-in-law as long as possible. He 
 lingered long over his tea in the darkest, loneliest 
 corner of the eating-house, for the prospect, no 
 longer to be avoided, of returning home to con 
 front his sister-in-law s frightened face and Silas s 
 pathetic glances appeared intolerable. Wild ideas 
 of flying from the city and returning never, or not 
 until the truth about the murder had come to light, 
 occurred to him. He even began to arrange what 
 sort of a letter he should write to Silas. But men 
 of forty, especially of Joseph s temperament, who 
 have moved in the same business and domestic ruts 
 all their lives, do not readily make up their minds 
 to bold steps of this sort. To endure suffering or 
 inconvenience is more natural than to change their 
 settled habits. So it all ended in his going home 
 at about eight o clock, and being greatly relieved 
 to find some callers there. 
 
 All three of this strangely stricken family, in 
 deed, shared that feeling. It was such a rest from 
 the nervous strain whenever either or both were 
 left alone with Joseph ! The earnestness with 
 which Mrs. Kilgore pressed her guests to stay a 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 125 
 
 little longer was so unusual and apparently uncalled 
 for that I fancy Mr. and Mrs. Smith had a vague 
 suspicion that they were being made game of. 
 But they would have been disabused of that im 
 pression could they have appreciated the sinking 
 of heart with which their hosts heard the front 
 door close, and realized that they were again left to 
 themselves. Only one thing had occurred to mar 
 the relief which the call had afforded. The topic 
 of the murder had been exhausted before Joseph 
 entered, but, just as she was leaving, Mrs. Smith 
 made a return to it, saying : 
 
 " Mrs. Kilgore, I was telling my husband I 
 should think you must be scared to be in the house, 
 for fear the murderer might still be . hanging 
 around." 
 
 Mrs. Kilgore shuddered, and cast an instanta 
 neous, wholly involuntary glance at Joseph. Her 
 husband intercepted it, and, catching his eye, she 
 saw an expression in it as if he could strangle her 
 for what was really only the fault of her nerves. 
 She stammered something, and the bustle of the 
 retiring guests covered her confusion well enough. 
 
 Unfortunately, Joseph, too, had caught that sud 
 den, terrified glance of his sister-in-law s at him, 
 and it affected him more than anything that had 
 occurred in either of the two days since the murder. 
 As the guests took their leave, his head dropped 
 on his breast, and his arms fell by the sides of 
 his chair. Mr. Kilgore wanted to send his wife 
 
126 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 from the room, but his voice stuck in his throat, 
 his tongue refused to move. They waited a mo 
 ment, and then Joseph said : 
 
 " Send for the police ! For God s sake, take me 
 out of this ! I can t stand it any longer ! " 
 
 It was not yet nine o clock, and a boy came by 
 in the street crying : 
 
 " Extra ! The Kilgore barn murderer captured ! 
 Full confession ! " 
 
 Although the words were perfectly audible 
 through the lowered windows to all in the room, 
 Mrs. Kilgore was the only one who took any men 
 tal cognizance of them. Nor did either of the men, 
 who sat there like stones, take note of her as she 
 left the room. A minute later they heard her 
 scream, and she ran back with the open paper in 
 her hands. 
 
 " He did not do it ! He is crazy ! They have 
 found the murderer ! " 
 
 Silas fixed an incredulous, questioning stare 
 upon his wife, and then turned quickly toward his 
 brother. As for Joseph, at first and for several 
 moments, he gave no sign that he had heard at all. 
 Then he slowly raised his eyes to his brother s face 
 with a deliberate, cruel gaze of contemptuous sar 
 casm and cold aversion. The first effect of this 
 great relief was to flood his mind with bitter wrath 
 at those who had done him the great wrong from 
 which, no thanks to them, he had been rescued. 
 
 Mrs. Kilgore hastily read aloud, in a breathless 
 
TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 127 
 
 voice, the newspaper account. It seemed that two 
 tramps had taken refuge in the barn from the 
 storm that had raged the night of the murder, and 
 getting into some quarrel before morning, one 
 had stabbed the other and fled, only to be captured 
 two days later and confess everything. When Mrs. 
 Kilgore ceased reading, Joseph said : 
 
 " It must be a great disappointment for you that 
 they are not going to hang me for it. I sincerely 
 condole with you." 
 
 Mrs. Kilgore cried, "Oh, don t!" and Silas 
 made a gesture of deprecation, but both felt that 
 Joseph had a right to revile them as he chose, and 
 they had no right to complain. But he, even while 
 he could not deny himself the gratification of a 
 little cruel reproach, knew that they were not to be 
 blamed, that they had been as much the victims of 
 a fatality as himself, and that this was one of those 
 peculiarly exasperating wrongs which do not leave 
 the sufferer even the satisfaction of being angry. 
 Soon he got up and walked across the room, 
 stretched himself, drew his hand over his forehead, 
 and said : 
 
 " I feel as if I had just been dug up after being 
 buried alive." 
 
 At this sign of returning equanimity, Silas took 
 courage and ventured to say : 
 
 " I know we ve been a pair of crazy fools, Joe, but 
 you re a little to blame. What s made you act so 
 queerly ? You won t deny that you have acted so ? " 
 
128 TWO DAYS SOLITARY IMPRISONMENT 
 
 Joseph smiled, one does n t appreciate the pure 
 luxury of a smile until he has been deprived of it 
 for a while, lit a cigar, sat down with his legs 
 over the arm of his arm-chair, he had not indulged 
 in an unconstrained posture for two days, and 
 told his side of the story. He explained how, 
 thanks to that tale he was reading, and the ghastly 
 reverie it suggested, his nerves were all on edge 
 when Mrs. Kilgore burst in with a piece of news 
 whose extraordinary coincidence with his train of 
 thought had momentarily thrown him off his bal 
 ance ; and he tried to make them see that, after 
 that first scene, all the rest was a logical sequence. 
 
 Mrs. Kilgore, by virtue of her finer feminine ner 
 vous organization, understood him so readily that 
 he saw he had made a mistake in not unbosoming 
 
 O 
 
 himself to her at first. But Silas evidently did not 
 so easily take his idea. 
 
 " But why did n t you just tell us that you had n t 
 done it, and end the misunderstanding at one 
 blow?" he asked. 
 
 " Why, don t you see," replied Joseph, " that to 
 deny a thing before you are distinctly suspected of 
 it is to suggest suspicion ; while to deny it after 
 ward, unless you have proof to offer, is useless? " 
 
 " What should we have come to but for the cap 
 ture of the real murderer ? " cried Mrs. Kilgore, 
 with a shudder. 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 IT is a village street, with great elms on either 
 side, while along the middle stands another row 
 set in a narrow strip of grassy common, so that the 
 street and roadway are in reality double. The 
 dwellings on either side are not only widely parted 
 by the broad street, but are still further isolated, 
 each in its large garden of ancient fruit trees. It 
 is four o clock of a sunny August afternoon, and 
 a quiet, Sabbath-like but for its lazy voluptuous 
 ness, broods over the scene. No carriage, or even 
 pedestrian, has passed for an hour. The occa 
 sional voices of children at play in some garden, 
 the latching of a gate far down the street, the dy 
 ing fall of a drowsy chanticleer, are but the punc 
 tuation of the poem of summer silence that has 
 been flowing on all the afternoon. Upon the tree- 
 tops the sun blazes brightly, and between their 
 stems are glimpses of outlying meadows, which 
 simmer in the heat as if about to come to a boil. 
 But the shadowed street offers a cool and refresh 
 ing vista to the eye, and a veritable valley of refuge 
 to the parched and dusty traveler along the high 
 way. 
 
 On the broad piazza of one of the quaint old- 
 
130 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 fashioned houses, behind a needless screen of 
 climbing woodbine, two girls are whiling away the 
 afternoon. One of them is lounging in a lazy 
 rocking-chair, while the other sits more primly and 
 is industriously sewing. 
 
 " I suppose you 11 be glad enough to see George 
 when he comes to-night to take you back to the 
 city ? I m afraid you find it pretty dull here," 
 said the latter, with an intonation of uneasy respon 
 sibility sufficiently attesting that the brilliant-look 
 ing girl opposite was a guest. 
 
 That young lady, when addressed, was indulging 
 in a luxurious country yawn, an operation by no 
 means to be hurried, but to be fully and lazily 
 enjoyed in all its several and long-drawn stages, 
 and as thus practiced a wonderfully calming and 
 soporific relaxation wholly unknown to the fretted 
 denizens of cities, whose yawn is one of irritation 
 and not of rest. "I do so enjoy your Plain field 
 yawns, Lucy," she said when she had quite fin 
 ished. " Were you saying that it was a little 
 dull ? Well, perhaps it is, but then the trees and 
 things seem to be enjoying themselves so hugely 
 that it would be selfish to make a fuss, even if it 
 is n t exactly my kind of fun." 
 
 " Your kind of fun is due by the six-o clock 
 stage, I believe." 
 
 The other laughed and said, "I wish you 
 would n t make another allusion to George. I 
 think of him so much that I m ashamed, as it is. 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 131 
 
 I m sure this is a very aggravating place for an 
 engaged girl to be at. One gets so dreadfully 
 sentimental with nothing to take up the mind, 
 especially with such monstrous moons as you have. 
 I got fairly frightened of the one last night. It 
 drew me out through my eyes like a big plaster." 
 
 "Mabel French! " 
 
 " I don t care ; it did. That was just the 
 feeling." 
 
 There was no hurry about talking, for the rich, 
 mellow summer silence had a body to it that pre 
 vented pauses from seeming empty, and it might 
 have been half an hour afterward that Mabel 
 suddenly leaned forward, putting her face close 
 to the vine - trellis, and cried in a low voice, 
 " Who s that ? Do tell me ! They re the very 
 first persons who have gone by this afternoon, I 
 do believe." 
 
 A pretty phaeton was slowly passing, containing 
 an elderly gentleman and lady. 
 
 " Oh, that is only Lawyer Morgan and old Miss 
 Rood," replied Lucy, just glancing up, and then 
 down again. " They go out driving once a week 
 regularly, and always at about this time in the 
 afternoon." 
 
 " They look like afternoon sort of people," said 
 Mabel. " But why does n t Lawyer Morgan take 
 out his wife ? " 
 
 " He has n t got any. Miss Rood comes nearest 
 to that. Oh, no, you need n t open your eyes ; 
 
132 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 there s not a properer old maid in town, or old 
 bachelor either, for that matter." 
 
 "Are they relatives ?" 
 
 " No, indeed." 
 
 " How long has this Platonic romance been 
 going on, pray? " 
 
 " Oh, ever since they were young, forty years, 
 perhaps. I only know by tradition, you see. It 
 began ages before my day. They say she was 
 very pretty once. Old Aunty Perkins remembers 
 that she was quite the belle of the village as a 
 girl. It seems strange, does n t it ? " 
 
 " Tell me the whole story," said Mabel, turning 
 round so as to face Lucy as the phaeton passed out 
 of sight. 
 
 "There s not much to tell. Mr. Morgan has 
 always lived here, and so has Miss Rood. He lives 
 alone with a housekeeper in that fine house at the 
 end of the street, and she entirely alone in that 
 little white house over there among the apple-trees. 
 All the people who knew them when they were 
 young are dead, gone away, or moved off. They 
 are relics of a past generation, and are really about 
 as much shut up to each other for sympathy as an 
 old married couple." 
 
 " Well, why on earth are n t they married ? " 
 
 44 People hereabouts got tired of asking that full 
 thirty years ago," replied Lucy, with a little shrug. 
 " Even the gossips long since wore out the subject, 
 and I believe we have all of us forgotten that 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 133 
 
 there is anything peculiar about their relations. 
 He calls on her two or three times a week, and 
 takes her out driving on pleasant days ; escorts her 
 to places of amusement or social gatherings when 
 either of them cares to go, which is n t often ; and 
 wherever they are, people take it for granted they 
 will pair off together. He is never seen with any 
 other lady." 
 
 " It s very strange," said Mabel thoughtfully, 
 " and I m sure it s very romantic. Queer old 
 couple! I wonder how they really feel toward 
 each other, and whether they would n t like to be 
 married ? " 
 
 Awhile after she suddenly demanded, "Don t 
 you think Miss Rood looks like me ? " 
 
 Lucy laughed at first, but upon closer inspection 
 of the fair questioner admitted that there might 
 be some such resemblance as the shriveled apples 
 brought up from the cellar in spring bear to the 
 plump, rosy-cheeked beauties that went down in 
 October. 
 
 If Mr. Morgan and Miss Rood, as they rode 
 past, had chanced to overhear Mabel s question 
 why they had not married, it would have affected 
 them very differently. He would have been 
 startled by the novelty of an idea that had not 
 occurred to him in twenty years, but the blush on 
 her cheek would have been one of painful con 
 sciousness. 
 
 As boy and girl they had been each other s 
 
134 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 chosen companion, and as young man and maiden 
 their childish preference had bloomed into a recip 
 rocal love. Thanks to the freedom and simplicity 
 of village life, they enjoyed as lovers a constant 
 and easy familiarity and daily association almost as 
 complete in sympathy of mind and heart as any 
 thing marriage could offer. There were none of 
 the usual obstacles to incite them to matrimony. 
 They were never even formally engaged, so wholly 
 did they take it for granted that they should 
 marry. It was so much a matter of course that 
 there was no hurry at all about it ; and besides, so 
 long as they had it to look forward to, the fore 
 ground of life was illuminated for them : it was 
 still morning. Mr. Morgan was constitutionally 
 of a dreamy and unpractical turn, a creature of 
 habits and a victim of ruts ; and as years rolled 
 on he became more and more satisfied with these 
 half -friendly, half-loverlike relations. He never 
 found the time when it seemed an object to marry, 
 and now, for very many years, the idea had not 
 even occurred to him as possible ; and so far was 
 he from the least suspicion that Miss Rood s ex 
 perience had not been precisely similar to his own, 
 that he often congratulated himself on the fortu 
 nate coincidence. 
 
 Time cures much, and many years ago Miss 
 Rood had recovered from the first bitterness of 
 discovering that his love had become insensibly 
 transformed into a very tender but perfectly peace- 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 135 
 
 ful friendship. No one but him had ever touched 
 her heart, and she had no interest in life besides 
 him. Since she was not to be his wife, she was 
 glad to be his lifelong, tender, self-sacrificing 
 friend. So she raked the ashes over the fire in 
 her heart, and left him to suppose that it had gone 
 out as in his. Nor was she without compensation 
 in their friendship. It was with a delightful thrill 
 that she felt how fully in mind and heart he leaned 
 and depended upon her, and the unusual and ro 
 mantic character of their relations in some degree 
 consoled her for the disappointment of womanly 
 aspirations by a feeling of distinction. She was 
 not like other women : her lot was set apart and 
 peculiar. She looked down upon her sex. The 
 conventionality of women s lives renders their 
 vanity peculiarly susceptible to a suggestion that 
 their destiny is in any respect unique, a fact that 
 has served the turn of many a seducer before now. 
 To-day, after returning from his drive with Miss 
 Rood, Mr. Morgan had walked in his garden, and 
 as the evening breeze arose, it bore to his nostrils 
 that first indescribable flavor of autumn which 
 warns us that the soul of Summer has departed 
 from her yet glowing body. He was very sensitive 
 to these changes of the year, and, obeying an im 
 pulse that had been familiar to him in all unusual 
 moods his life long, he left the house after tea and 
 turned his steps down the street. As he stopped 
 at Miss Rood s gate, Lucy, Mabel, and George 
 
136 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 Hammond were under the apple-trees in the gar 
 den opposite. 
 
 " Look, Mabel ! There s Mr. Morgan going to 
 call on Miss Rood," said Lucy softly. 
 
 " Oh, do look, George ! " said Mabel eagerly. 
 " That old gentleman has been paying court to an 
 old maid over in that little house for forty years. 
 And to think," she added in a lower tone, in 
 tended for his private ear, " what a fuss you make 
 about waiting six months ! " 
 
 " Humph ! You please to forget that it s easier 
 to wait for some things than for others. Six 
 months of my kind of waiting, I take it, require 
 more patience than forty years of his or any 
 other man s," he added, with increased emphasis. 
 
 " Be quiet, sir ! " replied Mabel, answering his 
 look of unruly admiration with one of half pique. 
 "I m not a sugar-plum, that s not enjoyed till it s 
 in the mouth. If you have n t got me now, you 11 
 never have me. If being engaged isn t enough, 
 you don t deserve to be married." And then, see 
 ing the blank expression with which he looked 
 down at her, she added with a prescient resigned- 
 ness, " I in afraid, dear, you 11 be so disappointed 
 when we re married, if you find this so tedious." 
 
 Lucy had discreetly wandered away, and of how 
 they made it up there were no witnesses. But it 
 seems likely that they did so, for shortly after 
 they wandered away together down the darkening 
 street. 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 137 
 
 Like most of the Plainfield houses, that at which 
 Mr. Morgan turned in stood well back from the 
 street. At a side window, still further sheltered 
 from view by a syriiiga-bush at the house corner, 
 sat a little woman with a small, pale face, the still 
 attractive features perceptibly sharpened by years, 
 of which the half-gray hair bore further testimony. 
 The eyes, just now fixed absently upon the dusk 
 ing landscape, were light gray and a little faded, 
 while around the lips there were crow s-feet, espe* 
 cially when they were pressed together, as now, 
 in an unsatisfied, almost pathetic look, evidently 
 habitual to her face when in repose. There was 
 withal something in her features that so reminded 
 you of Mr. Morgan that any one conversant with 
 the facts of his life-romance would have at once 
 inferred though by just what logic he might not 
 be able to explain that this must be Miss Rood. 
 It is well known that long-wedded couples often 
 gain at length a certain resemblance in feature and 
 manner ; and although these two were not mar 
 ried, yet their intimacy of a lifetime was perhaps 
 the reason why her face bore when in repose some 
 thing of that seer-like expression which commun 
 ion with the bodiless shapes of memory had given 
 to his. 
 
 The latching of the gate broke up her depressing 
 reverie, and banished the pinched and pining look 
 from her features. Among the neighbors Miss 
 Rood was sometimes called a sour old maid, but 
 
138 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 the face she kept for Mr. Morgan would never 
 have suggested that idea to the most ill-natured 
 critic. 
 
 He stopped at the window, near which the walk 
 passed to the doorway, and stood leaning on the 
 sill, a tall, slender figure, stooping a little, with 
 smooth, scholarly face, and thin iron-gray hair. His 
 only noticeable feature was a pair of eyes whose 
 expression and glow indicated an imaginative tem 
 perament. It was pleasant to observe the relieved 
 restlessness in the look and manner of the two 
 friends, as if at the mere being in each other s 
 presence, though neither seemed in any haste to 
 exchange even the words of formal greeting. 
 
 At length she said, in a tone of quiet satisfac 
 tion, " I knew you would come, for I was sure this 
 deathly autumn s flavor would make you restless. 
 Is n t it strange how it affects the nerves of mem 
 ory, and makes one sad with thinking of all the 
 sweet, dear days that are dead ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," he answered eagerly ; " I can think 
 of nothing else. Do they not seem wonderfully 
 clear and near to-night? To-night, of all nights 
 in the year, if the figures and scenes of memory 
 can be reembodied in visible forms, they ought to 
 become so to the eyes that strain and yearn for 
 them." 
 
 " What a fanciful idea, Kobert ! " 
 
 u I don t know that it is ; I don t feel sure. No 
 body understands the mystery of this Past, or what 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 139 
 
 are the conditions of existence in that world. These 
 memories, these forms and faces, that are so near, 
 so almost warm and visible that we find ourselves 
 smiling on the vacant air where they seem to be, 
 are they not real and living? " 
 
 " You don t mean you believe in ghosts ? " 
 
 " I am not talking of ghosts of the dead, but of 
 ghosts of the past, memories of scenes or per 
 sons, whether the persons are dead or not of our 
 own selves as well as others. Why," he continued, 
 his voice softening into a passionate, yearning ten 
 derness, " the figure I would give most to see just 
 once more is yourself as a girl, as I remember you 
 in the sweet grace and beauty of your maidenhood. 
 Ah, well! ah, well!" 
 
 " Don t ! " she cried involuntarily, while her fea 
 tures contracted in sudden pain. 
 
 In the years during which his passion for her 
 had been cooling into a staid friendship, his imagi 
 nation had been recurring with constantly increas 
 ing fondness and a dreamy passion to the memory 
 of her girlhood. And the cruelest part of it was 
 that he so unconsciously and unquestioningly as 
 sumed that she could not have identity enough 
 with that girlish ideal to make his frequent glow 
 ing references to it even embarrassing. Generally, 
 however, she heard and made no sign, but the sud 
 denness of his outburst just now had taken her off 
 her guard. 
 
 He glanced up with some surprise at her ex- 
 
140 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 clamation, but was too much interested in his sub 
 ject to take much notice of it. " You know," he 
 said, " there are great differences in the distinct 
 ness with which we can bring up our memories. 
 Very well! The only question is, What is the 
 limit to that distinctness, or is there any ? Since 
 we know there are such wide degrees in distinct 
 ness, the burden of proof rests on those who would 
 prove that those degrees stop short of any particu 
 lar point. Don t you see, then, that it might be 
 possible to see them ? " And to enforce his mean 
 ing he laid his hand lightly on hers as it rested on 
 the window-seat. 
 
 She withdrew it instantly from the contact, and 
 a slight flush tinged her sallow cheeks. The only 
 outward trace of her memory of their youthful 
 relations was the almost prudish chariness of her 
 person by which she indicated a sense of the line 
 to be drawn between the former lover and the pre 
 sent friend. 
 
 " Something in your look just now," he said, re 
 garding her musingly, as one who seeks to trace 
 the lineaments of a dead face in a living one, 
 " reminds me of you as you used to sit in this very 
 window as a girl, and I stood just here, and we 
 picked out stars together. There ! now it s gone ; " 
 and he turned away regretfully. 
 
 She looked at his averted face with a blank pite- 
 ousness which revealed all her secret. She would 
 not have had him see it for worlds, but it was a 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 141 
 
 relief just for a moment to rest her features in the 
 sad cast which the muscles had grown tired in 
 repressing. The autumn scent rose stronger as 
 the air grew damp, and he stood breathing it in, 
 and apparently feeling its influence like some Del 
 phian afflatus. 
 
 " Is there anything, Mary, is there anything 
 so beautiful as that light of eternity that rests on 
 the figures of memory? Who that has once felt 
 it can care for the common daylight of the present 
 any more, or take pleasure in its prosaic groups ? " 
 
 "You ll certainly catch cold standing in that 
 wet grass ; do come in and let tiie shut the blinds," 
 she said, for she had found cheerful lamplight the 
 best corrective for his vagaries. 
 
 So he came in and sat in his special arm-chair, 
 and they chatted about miscellaneous village topics 
 for an hour. The standpoint from which they can 
 vassed Plainfield people and things was a pecul 
 iarly outside one. Their circle of two was like 
 a separate planet from which they observed the 
 world. Their tone was like, and yet quite unlike, 
 that in which a long-married couple discuss their 
 acquaintances ; for, while their intellectual inti- 
 macy was perfect, their air expressed a constant ; 
 mutual deference and solicitude of approbation not : 
 to be confounded with the terrible familiarity of 
 matrimony ; and at the same time they constituted 
 a self-sufficient circle, apart from the society around 
 them, as man and wife cannot. Man and wife are 
 
142 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 so far merged as to feel themselves a unit over 
 against society. They are too much identified to 
 find in each other that sense of support and coun 
 tenance which requires a feeling of the exteriority 
 of our friend s life to our own. If these two should 
 marry, they would shortly find themselves impelled 
 to seek refuge in conventional relations with that 
 society of which now they were calmly independ 
 ent. 
 
 At length Mr. Morgan rose and threw open the 
 blinds. The radiance of the full harvest-moon so 
 flooded the room that Miss Rood was fain to blow 
 out the poor lamp for compassion. " Let us take 
 a walk," he said. 
 
 The streets were empty and still, and they walked 
 in silence, spelled by the perfect beauty of the 
 evening. The dense shadows of the elms lent a 
 peculiarly rich effect to the occasional bars and 
 patches of moonlight on the street floor ; the white 
 houses gleamed among their orchards ; and here 
 and there, between the dark tree-stems, there were 
 glimpses of the shining surface of the broad out 
 lying meadows, which looked like a surrounding 
 sea. 
 
 Miss Rood was startled to see how the witchery 
 of the scene possessed her companion. His face 
 took on a set, half-smiling expression, and he 
 dropped her arm as if they had arrived at the 
 place of entertainment to which he had been es 
 corting her. He no longer walked with measured 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 143 
 
 pace, but glided along with a certain stealthiness, 
 peering on this side and that down moony vistas 
 and into shadow-bowers, as if half-expecting, if he 
 might step lightly enough, to catch a glimpse of 
 some sort of dream-people basking there. 
 
 Nor could Miss Eood herself resist the impres 
 sion the moony landscape gave of teeming with 
 subtle forms of life, escaping the grosser senses of 
 human beings, but perceptible by their finer parts. 
 Each cosy nook of light and shadow was yet warm 
 from some presence that had just left it. The 
 landscape fairly stirred with ethereal forms of 
 being beneath the fertilizing moon-rays, as the 
 earth-mould wakes into physical life under the 
 sun s heat. The yellow moonlight looked warm 
 as spirits might count warmth. The air was elec 
 tric with the thrill of circumambient existence. 
 There was the sense of pressure, of a throng. It 
 would have been impossible to feel lonely. The 
 pulsating sounds of the insect world seemed the 
 rhythm to which the voluptuous beauty of the 
 night had spontaneously set itself. The common 
 air of day had been transmuted into the atmo 
 sphere of reverie and Dreamland. In that magic 
 medium the distinction between imagination and 
 reality fast dissolved. Even Miss Rood was con 
 scious of a delightful excitement, a vague expec 
 tancy. Mr. Morgan, she saw, was moved quite 
 beyond even his exaggerated habit of imaginative 
 excitement. His wet, shining, wide-opened eyes 
 
144 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 and ecstatic expression indicated complete aban 
 donment to the illusions of the scene. 
 
 They had seated themselves, as the concentra 
 tion of the brain upon imaginative activity made 
 the nerves of motion sluggish, upon a rude bench 
 formed by wedging a plank between two elms that 
 stood close together. They were within the shadow 
 of the trees, but close up to their feet rippled a lake 
 of moonlight. The landscape shimmering before 
 them had been the theatre of their fifty years of 
 life. Their history was written in its trees and 
 lawns and paths. The very air of the place had 
 acquired for them a dense, warm, sentient feeling, 
 to which that of all other places was thin and raw. 
 It had become tinctured by their own spiritual 
 emanations, by the thoughts, looks, words and 
 moods of which it had so long received the impres 
 sion. It had become such vitalized air, surcharged 
 with sense and thought, as might be taken to make 
 souls for men out of. 
 
 Over yonder, upon the playground, yet lingered 
 the faint violet fragrance of their childhood. Be 
 neath that elm a kiss had once touched the air with 
 a fire that still warmed their cheeks in passing. 
 Yonder the look of a face was cut on the viewless 
 air as on marble. Surely, death does but touch the 
 living, for the dead ever keep their power over us ; 
 it is only we who lose ours over them. Each vista 
 of leafy arch and distant meadow framed in some 
 scene of their youth-time, painted in the imperish- 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 145 
 
 able hues of memory that borrow from time an ever 
 richer and more glowing tint. It was no wonder 
 that to these two old people, sitting on the bench 
 between the elms, the atmosphere before them, 
 saturated with associations, dense with memories, 
 should seem fairly quivering into material forms, 
 like a distant mist turning to rain. 
 
 At length Miss Rood heard her companion say, 
 in a whisper of tremulous exultation, " Do you 
 know, Mary, I think I shall see them very soon." 
 
 " See whom ? " she asked, frightened at his 
 strange tone. 
 
 " Why, see us, of course, as I was telling you," 
 he whispered, " you and me as we were young, 
 see them as I see you now. Don t you remember 
 it was just along here that we used to walk on 
 spring evenings ? We walk here no more, but they 
 do evermore, beautiful, beautiful children. I come 
 here often to lie in wait for them. I can feel them 
 now; I can almost, almost see them." His whisper 
 became scarcely audible and the words dropped 
 slowly. " I know the sight is coming, for every 
 day they grow more vivid. It can t be long before 
 I quite see them. It may come at any moment." 
 
 Miss Rood was thoroughly frightened at the 
 intensity of his excitement, and terribly perplexed 
 as to what she should do. 
 
 " It may come at any time ; I can almost see 
 them now," he murmured. " A h ! look ! " With 
 parted lips and unspeakably intense eyes, as if his 
 
146 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 life were flowing out at them, he was staring across 
 the moonlit paths before them to the point where 
 the path debouched from the shadow. 
 
 Following his eyes, she saw what for a moment 
 made her head swim with the thought that she too 
 was going mad. Just issuing from the shadows, 
 as if in answer to his words, were a young man 
 and a girl, his arm upon her waist, his eyes upon 
 her face. At the first glance Miss Rood was im 
 pressed with a resemblance to her own features in 
 those of the girl, which her excitement exaggerated 
 to a perfect reproduction of them. For an instant 
 the conviction possessed her that by some impossi 
 ble, indescribable, inconceivable miracle she was 
 looking upon the resurrected figures of her girlish 
 self and her lover. 
 
 At first Mr. Morgan had half started from his 
 seat, and was between rising and sitting. Then he 
 rose with a slow, involuntary movement, while his 
 face worked terribly between bewilderment and 
 abandonment to illusion. He tottered forward a 
 few steps to the edge of the moonlight, and stood 
 peering at the approaching couple with a hand 
 raised to shade his eyes and a dazed, unearthly 
 smile on his face. The girl saw him first, for she 
 had been gazing demurely before her, while her 
 lover looked only at her. At sight of the gray- 
 haired man suddenly confronting them with a look 
 of bedlam, she shrieked and started back in terror. 
 Miss Rood, recalled to her senses, sprang forward, 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 147 
 
 and catching Mr. Morgan s arm endeavored with 
 gentle force to draw him away. 
 
 But it was too late for that. The young man, 
 at first almost as much startled as his companion 
 at the uncanny apparition, naturally experienced 
 a revulsion of indignation at such an extraordinary 
 interruption to his tete-a-tete, and stepped up to 
 Mr. Morgan as if about to inflict summary chas 
 tisement. But perceiving that he had to do with 
 an elderly man, he contented himself with demand 
 ing in a decidedly aggressive tone what the devil 
 he meant by such a performance. 
 
 Mr. Morgan stared at him without seeing him, 
 and evidently did not take in the words. He merely 
 gasped once or twice, and looked as if he had 
 fainted away on his feet. His blank, stunned ex 
 pression showed that his faculties were momentarily 
 benumbed by the shock. Miss Rood felt as if she 
 should die for the pity of it as she looked at his 
 face, and her heart was breaking for grief as she 
 sought to mollify the young man with some inar 
 ticulate words of apology, meanwhile still endeav 
 oring to draw Mr. Morgan away. But at this 
 moment the girl, recovering from her panic, came 
 up to the group and laid her hand on the young 
 man s arm, as if to check and silence him. It was 
 evident that she saw there was something quite 
 unusual in the circumstances, and the look which 
 she bent upon Mr. Morgan was one of sympathy 
 and considerate interrogation. But Miss Rood 
 
148 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 could see no way out of their awkward situation, 
 which grew more intolerable every moment as they 
 thus confronted each other. It was finally Mr. 
 Morgan s voice, quite firm, but with an indescriba 
 ble sadness in the tones, which broke the silence : 
 " Young people, I owe you an apology, such as it 
 is. I am an old man, and the past is growing so 
 heavy that it sometimes quite overbalances me. 
 My thoughts have been busy to-night with the days 
 of my youth, and the spell of memory has been so 
 strong that I have not been quite myself. As you 
 came into view I actually entertained the incredible 
 idea for a moment that somehow I saw in you the 
 materialized memories of myself and another as we 
 once walked this same path." 
 
 The young man bowed, as Mr. Morgan ended, in 
 a manner indicating his acceptance of the apology, 
 although he looked both amazed and amused. But 
 the explanation had a very different effect upon the 
 girl at his side. As she listened, her eyes had filled 
 with tears, and her face had taken on a wonderfully 
 tender, pitiful smile. When he ended speaking, 
 she impulsively said, " I m so sorry we were not 
 what you thought us ! Why not pretend we are, 
 to-night at least? We can pretend it, you know. 
 The moonlight makes anything possible ;" and then 
 glancing at Miss Rood, she added, as if almost 
 frightened, " Why, how much we look alike ! I in 
 not sure it isn t true, anyway." 
 
 This was, in fact, an unusually marked example 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 149 
 
 of those casual resemblances between strangers 
 which are sometimes seen. The hair of the one 
 was indeed gray and that of the other dark, but the 
 eyes were of the same color by night, and the fea 
 tures, except for the greater fullness of the younger 
 face, were cast in the same mould, while figure and 
 bearing were strikingly similar, although daylight 
 would doubtless have revealed diversities enough 
 that moonlight refused to disclose. 
 
 The two women looked at each other with an 
 expression almost of suspicion and fear, while the 
 young man observed, " Your mistake was certainly 
 excusable, sir." 
 
 " It will be the easier to pretend," said the girl, 
 as with a half-serious, half-sportive imperiousness 
 she laid her hand on Mr. Morgan s arm. " And 
 now it is thirty years ago, and we are walking to 
 gether." He involuntarily obeyed the slight pres 
 sure, and they walked slowly away, leaving the 
 other .two, after an embarrassed pause, to follow 
 them. 
 
 For some time they walked in silence. He was 
 deliberately abandoning himself to the illusion, sup 
 ported as it was by the evidence of his senses, that 
 he was wandering in some of the mysterious be- 
 tween-worlds which he had so often dreamed of, 
 with the love of his youth in her youth-time charm. 
 Did he really believe it to be so ? Belief is a term 
 quite irrelevant to such a frame as his, in which 
 the reflective and analytical powers are for a time 
 
150 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 purposely held in abeyance. The circumstances of 
 her introduction to him had dropped from his mind 
 as irrelevant accidents, like the absurdities which 
 occur in our sweetest and most solemn dreams with 
 out marring their general impression in our memo 
 ries. Every glance he threw upon his companion, 
 while on the one hand it shocked his illusion in 
 that she seemed not likely to vanish away, on the 
 other strengthened it with an indescribable thrill 
 by the revelation of some fresh trait of face or 
 figure, some new expression, that reproduced the 
 Miss Rood of his youth. Not, indeed, that it is 
 likely his companion was thus perfectly the double 
 of that lady, although so much resembling her, 
 but the common graces of maidenhood were in Mr. 
 Morgan s mind the peculiar personal qualities of 
 the only woman he had ever much known. 
 
 Of his own accord he would not have dared to 
 risk breaking the charm by a word. But his com 
 panion who, as is tolerably evident by this time, 
 was Mabel French had meanwhile formed a 
 scheme quite worthy of her audacious temper. 
 She had at once recognized both Mr. Morgan and 
 Miss Rood, and had gone thus far from a mere ro 
 mantic impulse, without definite intentions of any 
 sort. But the idea now came into her head that 
 she might take advantage of this extraordinary sit 
 uation to try a match-making experiment, which 
 instantly captivated her fancy. So she said, while 
 ever so gently pressing his arm and looking up 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 151 
 
 into his face with an arch smile (she was recog 
 nized as the best amateur actress in her set at 
 home), " I wonder if the moon will be so mellow 
 after we are married? " 
 
 His illusion was rudely disturbed by the shock 
 of an articulate voice, softly and low as she spoke, 
 and he looked around with a startled expression that 
 made her fear her role was ended. But she could 
 not know that the eyes she turned to his were mir 
 rors where he saw his dead youth. The two Miss 
 Roods the girl and the woman, the past and the 
 present were fused and become one in his mind. 
 Their identity flashed upon him. 
 
 An artesian well sunk from the desert surface 
 through the underlying strata, the layers of ages, 
 strikes some lake long ago covered over, and the 
 water welling up converts the upper waste into a 
 garden. Just so at her words and her look his 
 heart suddenly filled, as if it came from afar, with 
 the youthful passion he had felt toward Miss Eood, 
 but which, he knew not exactly when or how, had 
 been gradually overgrown with the dullness of fa 
 miliarity and had lapsed into an indolent affection 
 ate habit. The warm, voluptuous pulse of this new 
 feeling new, and yet instantly recognized as old 
 brought with it a flood of youthful associations, 
 and commingled the far past with the present in 
 a confusion more complete and more intoxicating 
 than ever. He saw double ^again. " Married ! " 
 he murmured dreamily. " Yes, surely, we will be 
 married." 
 
152 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 And as he spoke, he looked at her with such a 
 peculiar expression that she was a little frightened. 
 It looked like a more serious business than she had 
 counted on, and for a moment, if she could have 
 cut and run, perhaps she would have done so. 
 But she had a strain of the true histrionic artist 
 about her, and with a little effort rose to the diffi 
 culty of the role. " Of course we will be married," 
 she replied, with an air of innocent surprise. " You 
 speak as if you had just thought of it." 
 
 He turned toward her as if he would sober his 
 senses by staring at her, his pupils dilating and 
 contracting in the instinctive effort to clear the 
 mind by clearing the eyes. 
 
 But with a steady pressure on his arm she com 
 pelled him to walk on by her side. Then she said, 
 in a soft, low voice, as if a little awed by what she 
 were telling, while at the same time she nestled 
 nearer his side, " I had such a sad dream last night, 
 and your strange talk reminds me of it. It seemed 
 as if we were old and white-haired and stooping, 
 and went wandering about, still together, but not 
 married, lonely and broken. And I woke up feel 
 ing you can t think how dreary and sad, as if a 
 bell had tolled in my ears as I slept ; and the feel 
 ing was so strong that I put my fingers to my face 
 to find if it was withered ; and when I could not 
 tell certainly, I got up and lit my lamp and looked 
 in the glass ; and my face, thank God ! was fresh 
 and young ; but I sat on my bed and cried to think 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 153 
 
 of the poor old people I had left behind in my 
 dream." 
 
 Mabel had so fallen into the spirit of her part 
 that she was really crying as she ended. Her tears 
 completed Mr. Morgan s mental confusion, and he 
 absolutely did not know whom he was addressing 
 or where he was himself, as he cried, " No, no, 
 Mary ! Don t cry ! It shall not be ; it shall never 
 be." 
 
 Lightly withdrawing her hand from his arm, she 
 glided like a sprite from his side, and was lost 
 in the shadows, while her whispered words still 
 sounded in his ear, " Good-by for thirty years ! " 
 
 A moment after, three notes, clear as a bird s 
 call, sounded from the direction whither she had 
 vanished, and Miss Rood s companion, breaking 
 off short a remark on the excessive dryness of the 
 weather, bowed awkwardly and also disappeared 
 among the shadows. 
 
 When Miss Rood laid her hand on Mr. Mor 
 gan s arm to recall him to the fact that they were 
 now alone together, he turned quickly, and his eyes 
 swept her from head to foot, and then rested on her 
 face with an expression of intense curiosity and a 
 wholly new interest, as if he were tracing out a sud 
 denly suggested resemblance which overwhelmed 
 him with emotion. And as he gazed, his eyes began 
 to take fire from the faded features on which 
 they had rested so many years in mere complacent 
 friendliness, and she instinctively averted her face. 
 
154 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 Long intimacy had made her delicately sensitive 
 to his moods, and when he drew her arm in his 
 and turned to walk, although he had not uttered 
 a word, she trembled with agitation. 
 
 44 Mary, we have had an extraordinary experi 
 ence to-night," he said. The old dreaminess in his 
 voice, as of one narcotized or in a trance, sometimes 
 a little forced, as of one trying to dream, to which 
 she had become accustomed, and of which in her 
 heart of hearts she was very weary, was gone. In 
 its place she recognized a resonance which still 
 further confused her with a sense of altered rela 
 tions. His polarity had changed : his electricity 
 was no longer negative, but positive. 
 
 Her feminine instinct vaguely alarmed, she re 
 plied, "Yes, indeed, but it is getting late. Hadn t 
 we better go in ? " What lent the unusual intona 
 tion of timidity to her voice ? Certainly nothing 
 that she could have explained. 
 
 " Not quite yet, Mary," he answered, turning his 
 gaze once more fully upon her. 
 
 Her eyes dropped before his, and a moment after 
 fluttered up to find an explanation for their be 
 havior, only to fall again in blind panic. For, 
 mingling unmistakably with the curiosity with 
 which he was still studying her features, was a new 
 born expression of appropriation and passionate 
 complacency. Her senses whirled in a bewilder 
 ment that had a suffocating sweetness about it. 
 Though she now kept her eyes on the ground, she 
 
A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 155 
 
 felt his constant sidewise glances, and, desperately 
 seeking relief from the conscious silence that en 
 veloped them like a vapor of intoxicating fumes, 
 she forced herself to utter the merest triviality she 
 could summon to her lips : " See that house." The 
 husky tones betrayed more agitation than the ruse 
 concealed. 
 
 He answered as irrelevantly as she had spoken, 
 " Yes, indeed, so it is." That was their only at 
 tempt at conversation. 
 
 For a half hour it might have been much 
 more or much less they walked in this way, 
 thrilling with the new magnetism that at once at 
 tracted and estranged them with an extraordinary 
 sense of strangeness in familiarity. At length they 
 paused under the little porch of Miss Rood s cot 
 tage, where he commonly bade her good-evening 
 after their walks. The timidity and vague alarms 
 that had paralyzed her while they were walking 
 disappeared as he was about to leave her, and she 
 involuntarily returned his unusual pressure of her 
 hand. 
 
 A long time after, behold her still encircled in 
 his arms, not blushing, but pale and her eyes full 
 of a soft, astonished glow ! " Oh, Robert ! " was 
 all she had said after one first little gasp. 
 
 They never met George or Mabel again. Mrs. 
 Morgan learned subsequently that two young peo 
 ple from the city answering their description had 
 been guests at the opposite house, and had left 
 
156 A SUMMER EVENING S DREAM 
 
 Plainfield the morning after the events hereinbe 
 fore set forth, and drew her conclusions accordingly. 
 But her husband preferred to cherish the secret be 
 lief that his theory that memories might become 
 visible had proved true in one instance at least. 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 " MUST you go up to that tiresome old college 
 again to-night ? " 
 
 Pouting lips and delicate brows fretted in pretty 
 importunity over the troubled eyes enforced the 
 pleading tones, and yet the young man to whom 
 they were addressed found strength to reply : 
 
 " I m afraid I can t get rid of it. I particularly 
 promised Sturgis I would look in on him, and it 
 won t do for me to cut my acquaintance with the 
 class entirely just because I m having such a jolly 
 time down here." 
 
 " Oh, no, you don t think it jolly at all, or you 
 would n t be so eager to go away. I m sure I must 
 be very dull company." 
 
 The hurt tone and pretended pique with which 
 she said this were assuredly all that was needed to 
 make the petite teaser irresistible. But the young 
 man replied, regarding her the while with an admi 
 ration in which there was a singular expression of 
 uneasiness : 
 
 " Can t, Annie, pon honor. I m engaged, and 
 you know 
 
 " I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
 Loved I not honor more ! " 
 
158 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 And transferring her hand to his lips he loosed its 
 soft, lingering clasp and was gone, stopping at the 
 gate to throw back a kiss to her as she stood in the 
 porch, by way of amends for his hasty parting. 
 
 44 George Hunt, you re an infernal scamp ! " 
 
 These were the opprobrious words he muttered 
 to himself as he passed out of earshot. The bene 
 ficent common law does not condemn a man merely 
 on his own confession unless circumstances in evi 
 dence lend probability to his self -accusation. Be 
 fore we coincide in Mr. Hunt s opinion of himself, 
 let us therefore inquire into the circumstances. 
 
 He was in the last term of senior year at 
 
 college. For the past year he had been boarding at 
 the Giffords , and Annie and he had fallen in love. 
 The fall on his part had been quite voluntary and 
 deliberate. He had fallen in love because it was 
 the correct thing for a young collegian, engaged in 
 the study of the humanities, to be in love, and 
 made him feel more like a man than smoking, 
 drinking, or even sporting a stove-pipe hat and 
 cane. Vanity aside, it was very jolly to have a 
 fine, nice girl who thought no end of a fellow, to 
 walk, talk, and sing with, and to have in mind 
 when one sang the college songs about love and 
 wine with the fellows. And it gave him also a 
 very agreeable sense of superior experience as he 
 mingled in their discussions of women and the ten 
 der passion. 
 
 But withal he was a conscientious, kind-hearted 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 159 
 
 young fellow enough, and had suffered occasional 
 qualms of conscience when little words or incidents 
 had impressed him with the knowledge that Annie s L 
 love for him was a more serious matter than his for/ 
 her. He felt that by insisting on exchanging the 
 pure gold of her earnest affection for the pinch 
 beck of his passing fancy, she was making a rogue 
 of him. He should be in no position to marry for 
 years, nor did he want to ; and if he had wanted 
 to, though he felt terribly hard-hearted when he 
 owned it to himself, his feeling toward Annie was 
 not quite so deep as to be a real wish to marry her. 
 As his last year in college approached its end, he 
 had thought more and more of these things, and 
 had returned from his last vacation determined to 
 begin to draw gradually away from her, and with 
 out any shock to bring their relations back to the 
 footing of friendship. The idea seemed a very 
 plausible one, but it is scarcely necessary to state 
 that, living in the same house, and frequently alone 
 with her, it took about a week and a few dozen re 
 proachful glances from grieving eyes to melt this 
 artificial ice with a freshet of affection, and when, 
 a couple of months later, he calmly reviewed the 
 situation, he found himself involved perceptibly 
 deeper than ever, on account of the attempt at ex 
 trication. 
 
 Only two or three weeks of the term remained, and 
 it was too late to repeat the unsuccessful experiment. 
 He had tried his best and failed, and nothing re- 
 
160 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 mained but to be as happy as possible with her in the 
 short time left. Then she must get over her disap 
 pointment as other girls did in like cases. No 
 doubt some woman would hurt his feelings some day, 
 and so make it square. He took much satisfaction in 
 this reflection. But such cynical philosophy did not 
 lull his conscience, which alternately inspired his 
 manner with an unwonted demonstrativeiiess and 
 tenderness, and again made him so uncomfortable in 
 her presence that he was fain to tear himself away 
 and escape from her sight on any pretext. Her 
 tender glances and confiding manner made him 
 feel like a brute, and when he kissed her he felt that 
 it was the kiss of a Judas. Such had been his 
 feelings this evening, and such were the reflections 
 tersely summed up in that ejaculation, 
 " George Hunt, you re an infernal scamp ! " 
 On arriving at Sturgis s room, he found it full 
 of tobacco smoke, and the usual crowd there, who 
 hailed him vociferously. For he was one of the 
 most popular men in college, although for a year 
 or so he had been living outside the buildings. Sev 
 eral bottles stood on the tables, but the fellows had 
 as yet arrived only at the argumentative stage of 
 exhilaration, and it so happened that the subject 
 under discussion at once took Hunt s close atten 
 tion. Mathewson had been reading the first vol 
 ume of Goethe s autobiography, and was indulging 
 in some strictures on his course in jilting Frederica 
 and leaving the poor girl heartbroken. 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 161 
 
 " But, man," said Sturgis, " lie did n t want to 
 marry her, and seeing he didn t, nothing could 
 have been crueler to her, to say nothing of himself, 
 than to have done so." 
 
 " Well, then," said Mathewson, " why did he go 
 and get her in love with him ? " 
 
 " Why, he took his risk and she hers, for the fun 
 of the game. She happened to be the one who 
 paid for it, but it might just as well have been he. 
 Why, Mat, you must see yourself that for Goethe 
 to have married then would have knocked his art- 
 life into a cocked hat. Your artist has just two 
 great foes, laziness and matrimony. Each has 
 slain its thousands. Hitch Pegasus to a family cart 
 and he can t go off the thoroughfare. He must 
 stick to the ruts. I admit that a bad husband may 
 be a great artist ; but for a good husband, an ux 
 orious, contented husband, there s no chance at all." 
 
 " You are neither of you right, as usual," said 
 little Potts, in his oracular way. 
 
 When Potts first came to college, the fellows used 
 to make no end of fun of the air of superior and 
 conclusive wisdom with which he assumed to lay 
 down the law on every question, this being the 
 more laughable because he was such a little chap. 
 Potts did not pay the least attention to the 
 jeers, and finally the jeerers were constrained to 
 admit that if he did have an absurdly pretentious 
 way of talking, his talk was unusually well worth 
 listening to, and the result was that they took him 
 
162 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 at his own valuation, and, for the sake of hearing 
 what he had. to say, quietly submitted to his as 
 sumption of authority as court of appeal. So when 
 he coolly declared both disputants wrong, they man 
 ifested no resentment, but only an interest as to 
 what he was going to say, while the other fellows 
 also looked up curiously. 
 
 " It would have been a big mistake for Goethe to 
 have married her," pursued Potts, in his deliberate 
 monotone, " but he was n t justified 011 that account 
 in breaking her heart. It was his business, having 
 got her in love with him, to get her out again and 
 leave her where she was." 
 
 "Get her out again?" demanded Mathewson. 
 " How was he to do that ? " 
 
 " Humph ! " grunted Potts. " If you have n t 
 found it much easier to lose a friend than to win 
 one, you re luckier than most. If you asked me 
 how he was to get her in love with him, I should 
 have to scratch my head, but the other thing is as 
 easy as unraveling a stocking." 
 
 " Well, but, Potts," inquired Sturgis, with inter 
 est, " how could Goethe have gone to work, for in 
 stance, to disgust Frederica with him ? " 
 
 " Depends on the kind of girl. If she is one of 
 your high-steppers as to dignity and sense of honor, 
 let him play mean and seem to do a few dirty 
 tricks. If she s a stickler for manners and good 
 taste, let him betray a few traits of boorishness or 
 Philistinism ; or if she has a keen sense of the ridic- 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 163 
 
 ulous, let him make an ass of himself. I should 
 say the last would be the surest cure and leave 
 least of a sore place in her feelings, but it would be 
 hardest on his vanity. Everybody knows that a 
 man would rather seem a scamp than a fool. " 
 
 " I don t believe there s a man in the world who 
 would play the voluntary fool to save any woman s 
 heart from breaking, though he might manage the 
 scamp," remarked Mathewson. "And anyhow, 
 Potts, I believe there s no girl who would n t choose 
 to be jilted outright, rather than be juggled out of 
 her affections that way." 
 
 " No doubt she would say so, if you asked her," 
 replied the imperturbable Potts. " A woman 
 always prefers a nice sentimental sorrow to a 
 fancy-free state. But it isn t best for her, and 
 looking out for her good, you must deprive her of 
 it. Women are like children, you know, our nat 
 ural wards." 
 
 This last sentiment impressed these beardless 
 youths as a clincher, and there was a pause. But 
 Mathewson, who was rather strong on the morali 
 ties, rallied with the objection that Potts s plan 
 would be deceit. 
 
 " Well, now, that s what I call cheeky," replied 
 its author, with a drawl of astonishment. " I sup 
 pose it wasn t deceit when you were prancing 
 around in your best clothes both literally and figu 
 ratively, trying to bring your good points into such 
 absurd prominence as to delude her into the idea 
 
164 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 that you had no bad ones. Oh, no, it s only deceit 
 when you appear worse than you are, not when 
 you try to appear better. Strikes me that when 
 you ve got a girl into a fix, it won t do at that time 
 of day to plead your conscience as a reason for not 
 getting her out of it. Seeing that a man is gener 
 ally ready to sacrifice his character in reality to 
 his own interests, he ought to be willing to sacri 
 fice it in appearance to another s/ 
 
 Mathewson was squelched, but Sturgis came to 
 his relief with the suggestion : 
 
 " Would n t a little genuine heartache, which I 
 take it is healthy enough, if it isn t pleasant, be 
 better for her than the cynical feeling, the disgust 
 with human nature, which she would experience 
 from finding her ideal of excellence a scamp or a 
 fool?" 
 
 The others seemed somewhat impressed, but 
 Potts merely ejaculated, 
 
 " Bosh ! " Allowing a brief pause for this ejac 
 ulation to do its work in demoralizing the oppo 
 sition he proceeded. " Sturgis, you remember 
 Midsummer Night s Dream, and how Titania, on 
 the application of Puck s clarifying lotion to her 
 eyes, perceives that in Bottom she has loved an 
 ass. Don t you suppose Titania suffered a good 
 deal from the loss of her ideal ? " 
 
 There was a general snicker at Sturgis s ex 
 pense. 
 
 " Well, now," continued Potts gravely, " a wo- 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 165 
 
 man who should fall in love with one of us fellows 
 and deem him a hero would be substantially in 
 Titania s plight when she adored Bottom, and 
 about as much an object of pity when her hero 
 disclosed an asininity which would be at least as 
 near to being his real character as the heroism she 
 ascribed to him." 
 
 "That s all very well," said Merril dryly, "but 
 it strikes me that it s middling cheeky for you 
 fellows to be discussing how you 11 jilt your sweet 
 hearts with least expense to their feelings, when 
 the chances are that if you should ever get one, 
 you 11 need all your wits to keep her from jilting 
 you." 
 
 " You are, as usual, trivial and inconsequential 
 this evening, Merril," replied Potts, when the 
 laughter had subsided. " Supposing, as you sug 
 gest, that we shall be the jilted and not the jilters, 
 it will be certainly for our interest that the ladies 
 should spare our feelings by disenchanting us, 
 saying, as it were, the charm backward that first 
 charmed us. He who would teach the ladies the 
 method and enlist their tender hearts in its behalf 
 would be, perhaps, the greatest benefactor his 
 much-jilted and heart-sore sex ever had. Then, 
 indeed, with the heart - breakers of both sexes 
 pledged to so humane a practice, there would be 
 no more any such thing as sorrow over unrequited 
 affections, and the poets and novelists would beg 
 their bread." 
 
166 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 " That is a millennial dream, Potts," responded 
 Merril. a You may possibly persuade the men to 
 make theUjsetyes disagreeable for pity s sake, but 
 it is quite too much to expect that a woman would 
 deliberately put herself in an unbecoming light, 
 if it were to save a world from its sins." 
 
 " Perhaps it is," said Potts pensively ; " but 
 considering what perfectly inexhaustible resources 
 of disagreeableness there are in the best of us and 
 the fairest of women, it seems a most gratuitous 
 cruelty that any heart should suffer when a very 
 slight revelation would heal its hurt. We can t 
 help people suffering because we are so faulty and 
 imperfect, but we might at least see that nobody 
 ever had a pang from thinking us better than we 
 are." 
 
 " Look at Hunt ! " said Sturgis. " He does n t 
 open his mouth, but drinks in Potts s wisdom as 
 eagerly as if he did n t know it was a pump that 
 never stops." 
 
 There was a general laugh among those who 
 glanced up in time to catch the expression of close 
 attention on Hunt s face. 
 
 " Probably he s deliberating on the application 
 of the Potts patent painless cure to some recent 
 victim of that yellow mustache and goatee," sug 
 gested Merril, with the envy of a smooth-faced 
 youth for one more favored. 
 
 Hunt, whose face had sprung back like a steel- 
 trap to its usual indifferent expression, smiled non- 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 16? 
 
 chalantly at Merril s remark. One whose reticent 
 habit makes his secrets so absolutely secure as 
 Hunt s private affairs always were is stirred to 
 amusement rather than trepidation by random 
 guesses which come near the truth. 
 
 " If I were situated as Merril flatteringly sug 
 gests, I should enjoy nothing better than such an 
 experiment," he replied deliberately. " It would 
 be quite a novel sensation to revolutionize one s 
 ordinary rule of conduct so as to make a point of 
 seeming bad or stupid. There would be as much 
 psychology in it as in an extra term, at least. A 
 man would find out, for instance, how much there 
 was in him besides personal vanity and love of 
 approbation. It would be a devilish small residue 
 with most of us, I fancy." 
 
 The talk took a new turn, and the fun grew fast 
 and furious around Hunt, who sat puffing his pipe, 
 absorbed in contemplation. At about half -past 
 nine, when things were getting hilarious, he beat 
 a retreat, followed by the reproaches of the fel 
 lows. He was determined to administer the first 
 dose of Potts s painless cure to his interesting pa 
 tient that very evening, if she had not already 
 retired. He was in high good humor. Potts was 
 a brick ; Potts was a genius. How lucky that he 
 had happened to go up to college that night ! He 
 felt as if an incubus were lifted off his mind. No 
 more pangs of conscience and uncomfortable sense 
 of being a mean and cruel fellow, for him. Annie 
 
168 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 should be glad to be rid of him before he had 
 ended with her. She should experience a heart 
 felt relief, instead of a broken heart, on his depar 
 ture. He could n t help chuckling. He had such 
 confidence in his nerve and his reticent habit that 
 his confidence and ability to carry out the scheme 
 were undoubting, and at its first suggestion he had 
 felt almost as much relief as if he had already 
 executed it. 
 
 On arriving home, he found Annie sewing alone 
 in the parlor, and a little offish in manner by way 
 of indicating her sense of his offense in leaving her 
 to spend the evening alone. 
 
 " Really, Annie," he said, as he sat down and 
 unfolded the evening paper, " I try to give you all 
 the time I can spare. If, instead of sulking, you 
 had taken a piece of paper and calculated how 
 many hours this week I have managed to give you 
 my company, you would scarcely have felt like 
 repining because you could n t see me for an hour 
 or two this evening." 
 
 That was the first gun of the campaign. She 
 looked up in blank surprise, too much astonished, 
 for the moment, to be indignant at such a vulgarly 
 conceited remark from him. Without giving her 
 time to speak, he proposed to read the newspaper 
 aloud, and at once began, making a point of select 
 ing the dullest editorials and the flattest items and 
 witticisms, enlivening them with occasional com 
 ments of studied insipidity, and one or two stories, 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 169 
 
 of which he carefully left out the " nubs." He 
 was apparently making an unusual effort all the 
 while to be entertaining, and Annie, finding no 
 opening for expressing her vexation, finally ex 
 cused herself and went upstairs, with no very 
 angelic expression of countenance. 
 
 " Pretty well for a beginning," was Hunt s mut 
 tered comment as he laid down the paper. 
 
 At breakfast Mr. Gifford asked him : 
 
 " Shall I give you some tongue ? " 
 
 Looking around with the air of one saying a 
 good thing, he replied : 
 
 " Thank you, I have enough of my own." 
 
 The silence was painful. Mr. Gifford looked 
 as if he had lost a near friend. Mrs. Gifford at 
 length, remembering that Hunt was a guest, forced 
 a momentary, ghastly smile. Annie was looking 
 melancholy enough before, but a slight compres 
 sion of the lips indicated that she had received the 
 full effect. Certain degrees of badness in jokes 
 stamp the joker as a natural inferior in the eyes 
 of even the most rabid of social levelers. Scarcely 
 any possible exhibition of depravity gives quite 
 the sickening sense of disappointment in the per 
 petrator imparted by a genuinely bad or stale 
 joke. Two or more similar sensations coming near 
 together are multiplied by mutual reverberations 
 so as to be much more impressive than if they 
 occurred at considerable intervals. Hunt s tongue 
 joke not only retroacted to deepen the impression 
 
170 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 of vulgarity which his last evening s performance 
 had given Annie, but in turn was made to appear 
 a far more significant indication of his character 
 on account of its sequence to that display. 
 
 That evening he made her a little present, hav 
 ing selected as a gift a book of the day of which 
 he had chanced to overhear her express to a third 
 person a particularly cordial detestation. It was 
 decidedly the best book of the year, he said ; he had 
 read it himself. She was obliged to thank him 
 for it, and even to tell one or two polite fibs, which 
 wrenched her terribly, and the memory of which 
 lent a special spite to the vehemence with which 
 she threw the book into a corner on reaching her 
 room. Then she went remorsefully and picked it 
 up again, and after holding it awhile irresolutely, 
 proceeded to hide it away in a far corner of one 
 of the least used drawers of her bureau. 
 
 Not sleeping very well that night, she came 
 downstairs next morning just as Hunt was leav 
 ing. He kissed his hand to her and called out 
 " Aw revore." At first she was merely puzzled, 
 and smiled, and then it occurred to her that it was 
 doubtless the barbarous way he pronounced au 
 revoir, and the smile gave place to au expression 
 of slight nausea. As Hunt well knew, her pet 
 aversion was people who lugged mispronounced 
 French phrases into their conversation under the 
 impression that they imparted a piquant and grace 
 ful effect. It was a touch of vulgarity which 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 171 
 
 inspired her with a violent contempt absurdly 
 disproportioned to the gravity of the offense. It 
 had always been a cherished theory of hers that 
 there were certain offenses in manners which were 
 keys to character. If persons committed them, it 
 implied an essential strain of vulgarity in their 
 dispositions. Judged by this theory, where would 
 her lover come out? 
 
 Hunt managed to get into a political discussion 
 with Mr. Gifford at table that noon, talking in 
 a rather supercilious tone, and purposely making 
 several bad blunders, which Mr. Gifford corrected 
 rather pointedly. Annie could not help observing 
 that her lover s conceit and ignorance of the sub 
 jects discussed seemed about equal. 
 
 " How do you like your book ? " he asked that 
 evening. 
 
 She murmured something confusedly. 
 
 " Have n t begun it yet ? " he inquired in sur 
 prise. " Well, when once you do, I m sure you 11 
 not lay it down till it s finished. And, by the 
 way, your judgment in literary matters is so good, 
 I d like to get your opinion on the essay I m get 
 ting up for Commencement. I think it s rather 
 the best thing I Ve written." 
 
 He proceeded to read what purported to be a 
 sketch of its argument, which proved to be so flat 
 and vapid that Annie blushed with shame for his 
 mental poverty, and was fain to cover her chagrin 
 with a few meaningless comments. 
 
172 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 Her mind was the theatre of a struggle between 
 disgust and affection, which may be called ghastly. 
 Had he been openly wicked, she would have known 
 how to give a good account of all disloyal sugges 
 tions to desert or forget him. But what could she 
 do against such a cold, creeping thing as this dis 
 gust and revulsion of taste, which, like the chills 
 of incipient fever, mingled with every rising pulse 
 of tender feeling? Finally, out of her despera 
 tion, she concluded that the fault must be with 
 her ; that she was fickle, while he was true. She 
 tried hard to despise herself, and determined to 
 fight down her growing coldness, and reciprocate 
 as it deserved the affection with which he was so 
 lavish. The result of these mental exercises was 
 to impart a humility and constrained cordiality to 
 her air very opposite to its usual piquancy and 
 impulsiveness, and, by a sense of her own short 
 comings, to distract her mind from speculation, 
 which she might otherwise have indulged, over the 
 sudden development of so many unpleasant quali 
 ties in her lover. Though, indeed, had her specu 
 lations been never so active and ingenious, the 
 actual plan on which Hunt was proceeding would 
 probably have lain far beyond the horizon of her 
 conjecture. 
 
 Meanwhile, Hunt was straitened for time ; only 
 eight or ten days of the term were left, and in that 
 time he must effect Annie s cure, if at all. A slow 
 cure would be much more likely to prove a sure 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 173 
 
 one, but he must do the best he could in the time 
 he had. And yet he did not dare to multiply 
 startling strokes, for fear of bewildering instead 
 of estranging her, and, possibly, of suggesting sus 
 picion. Stimulated by the emergency, he now 
 began to put in some very fine work, which, al 
 though it may not be very impressive in descrip 
 tion, was probably more effective than any other 
 part of his tactics. Under guise of appearing 
 particularly attentive and devoted, he managed to 
 offend Annie s taste and weary her patience in 
 every way that ingenuity could suggest. His very 
 manifestations of affection were so associated with 
 some affectation or exhibition of bad taste, as al 
 ways to leave an unpleasant impression on her 
 mind. He took as much pains to avoid saying 
 tolerably bright or sensible things in his conver 
 sation as people generally do to say them. In 
 all respects he just reversed the rules of conduct 
 suggested by the ordinary motive of a desire to 
 ingratiate one s self with others. 
 
 And by virtue of a rather marked endowment 
 of that delicate sympathy with others tastes and 
 feelings which underlies good manners, he was 
 able to make himself far more unendurable to 
 Annie than a less sympathetic person could have 
 done. Evening after evening she went to her 
 room feeling as if she were covered with pin-pricks, 
 from a score of little offenses to her fastidious 
 taste which he had managed to commit. His 
 
174 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 thorough acquaintance with her, and knowledge 
 of her aesthetic standards in every respect, enabled 
 him to operate with a perfect precision that did 
 not waste a stroke. 
 
 It must not be supposed that it was altogether 
 without sharp twinges of compunction, and occa 
 sional impulses to throw off his disguise and enjoy 
 the bliss of reconciliation, that he pursued this 
 cold-blooded policy. He never could have carried 
 it so far, had he not been prepared by a long and 
 painful period of self-reproach on account of his 
 entanglement. It was, however, chiefly at the out 
 set that he had felt like weakening. As soon as 
 she ceased to seem shocked or surprised at his dis 
 closures of insipidity or conceit, it became com 
 paratively easy work to make them. So true is it 
 that it is the fear of the first shocked surprise of 
 others, rather than of their deliberate reprobation, 
 which often deters us from exhibitions of unwor- 
 thiness. 
 
 In connection with this mental and moral mas 
 querade, he adopted several changes in his dress, 
 buying some clothes of very glaring patterns, and 
 blossoming out in particularly gaudy neckties and 
 flashy jewelry. Lest Annie should be puzzled to 
 account for such a sudden access of depravity, he 
 explained that his mother had been in the habit 
 of selecting some of his lighter toilet articles for 
 him, but this term he was trying for himself. 
 Did n t she think his taste was good ? He also 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 175 
 
 slightly changed the cut of his hair and whiskers, 
 to affect a foppish air, his theory being that all 
 these external alterations would help out the effect 
 of being a quite different person from the George 
 Hunt with whom she had fallen in love. 
 
 Lou Roberts was Annie s confidante, older than 
 she, much more dignified, and of the reticent sort 
 to which the mercurial and loquacious naturally 
 tend to reveal their secrets. She knew all that 
 Annie knew, dreamed, or hoped about Hunt ; but 
 had never happened to meet him, much to the 
 annoyance of Annie, who had longed inexpressibly 
 for the time when Lou should have seen him, and 
 she herself be able to enjoy the luxury of hearing 
 his praises from her lips. One evening it chanced 
 that Lou called with a gentleman while Hunt had 
 gone out to rest himself, after some pretty arduous 
 masquerading, by a little unconstrained intercourse 
 with the fellows up at college. As he returned 
 home, at about half-past nine, he heard voices 
 through the open windows, and guessed who the 
 callers were. 
 
 As he entered the room, despite the disenchant 
 ing experiences of the past week, it was with a cer 
 tain pretty agitation that Annie rose to introduce 
 him, and she looked blank enough when, without 
 waiting for her offices, he bowed with a foppish 
 air to Lou and murmured a salutation. 
 
 " What, are you acquainted already ? " exclaimed 
 Annie. 
 
176 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 " I certainly did not know that we were," said 
 Lou coldly, not thinking it possible that this 
 flashily dressed youth, with such an enormous 
 watch-chain and insufferable manners, could be 
 Annie s hero. 
 
 " Ah, very likely not," he replied carelessly, 
 adding with an explanatory smile that took in all 
 the group : " Ladies faces are so much alike that, 
 pon my soul, unless there is something distin 
 guished about them, I don t know whether I know 
 them or not. I depend on them to tell me ; fortu 
 nately they never forget gentlemen." 
 
 Miss Roberts s face elongated into a freezing 
 stare. Annie stood there in a sort of stupor till 
 Hunt said briskly : 
 
 " Well, Annie, are you going to introduce this 
 lady to me?" 
 
 As she almost inaudibly pronounced their names, 
 he effusively extended his hand, which was not 
 taken, and exclaimed : - 
 
 " Lou Roberts ! is it possible ? Excuse me if 
 I call you Lou. Annie talks of you so much that 
 I feel quite familiar." 
 
 " Do you know, Miss Roberts," he continued, 
 seating himself close beside her, " I m quite pre 
 pared to like you ? " 
 
 " Indeed ! " was all that young lady could man 
 age to articulate. 
 
 " Yes," continued he, with the manner of one 
 giving a flattering reassurance, " Annie has told 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 177 
 
 me so much in your favor that, if half is true, 
 we shall get on together excellently. Such girl 
 friendships as yours and hers are so charming." 
 
 Miss Roberts glanced at Annie, and seeing that 
 her face glowed with embarrassment, smothered her 
 indignation, and replied with a colorless " Yes." 
 
 " The only drawback," continued Hunt, who 
 manifestly thought he was making himself very 
 agreeable, " is that such bosom friends always tell 
 each other all their affairs, which of course involve 
 the affairs of all their friends also. Now I sup 
 pose," he added, with a knowing grin and some 
 thing like a wink, "that what you don t know 
 about me is n t worth knowing." 
 
 " You ought to know, certainly, said Miss 
 Roberts. 
 
 " Not that I blame you," he went on, ignoring 
 her sarcasm. " There s no confidence betrayed, 
 for when I m talking with a lady, I always adapt 
 my remarks to the ears of her next friend. It 
 prevents misunderstandings." 
 
 Miss Roberts made no reply, and the silence 
 attracted notice to the pitiable little dribble of 
 forced talk with which Annie was trying to keep 
 the other gentleman s attention from the exhibi 
 tion Hunt was making of himself. The latter, 
 after a pause long enough to intimate that he 
 thought it was Miss Roberts s turn to say some 
 thing, again took up the conversation, as if bound 
 to be entertaining at any cost. 
 
178 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 " Annie and I were passing your house the other 
 clay. What a queer little box it is ! I should 
 think you d be annoyed by the bowlings of that 
 church next door. The are so noisy." 
 
 " I am a myself," said Miss Roberts, re 
 garding him crushingly. 
 
 Hunt, of course, knew that, and had advisedly 
 selected her denomination for his strictures. But 
 he replied as if a little confused by his blunder : 
 
 " I beg your pardon. You don t look like one." 
 
 " How do they usually look ? " she asked 
 sharply. 
 
 " Why, it is generally understood that they 
 are rather vulgar, I believe, but you, I am sure, 
 look like a person of culture." He said this as if 
 he thought he were conveying a rather neat com 
 pliment. Indignant as she was, Miss Roberts s 
 strongest feeling was compassion for Annie, and 
 she bit her lips and made no reply. 
 
 After a moment s silence, Hunt asked her how 
 she liked his goatee. It was a new way of cutting 
 his whiskers, and young ladies were generally close 
 observers and therefore good judges of such matters. 
 Annie, finding it impossible to keep up even the 
 pretense of talking any longer, sat helplessly staring 
 at the floor, and waiting in nerveless despair for 
 what he would say next, fairly hating Lou because 
 she did not go. 
 
 " What s come over you, Annie ? " asked Hunt 
 briskly. " Are you talked out so soon ? I sup- 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 179 
 
 pose she is holding back to give you a chance to 
 make my acquaintance, Miss Roberts, or do let me 
 call you Lou. You must improve your opportu 
 nity, for she will want to know your opinion of me. 
 May I hope it will prove not wholly unfavorable ? " 
 This last was with a killing smile. 
 
 " I had no idea it was so late. We must be 
 going," said Miss Roberts, rising. She had been 
 lingering, in the hope that something would happen 
 to leave a more pleasant impression of Hunt s 
 appearance, but seeing that matters were drifting 
 from bad to worse, she hastened to break off the 
 painful scene. Annie rose silently without saying 
 a word, and avoided Lou s eyes as she kissed her 
 good-by. 
 
 " Must you go ? " Hunt said. " I m sure you 
 would not be in such haste if you knew how rarely 
 it is that my engagements leave me free to devote 
 an evening to the ladies. You might call on Annie 
 a dozen times and not meet me." 
 
 As soon as the callers had gone, Hunt picked up 
 the evening paper and sat down to glance it over, 
 remarking lightly as he did so : 
 
 " Rather nice girl, your friend, though she 
 does n t seem very talkative." 
 
 Annie made no reply, and he looked up. 
 
 " What on earth are you staring at me in such 
 an extraordinary manner for ? " 
 
 Was he then absolutely unconscious of the 
 figure he had made of himself ? 
 
180 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 " You are not vexed because I went out and 
 left you in the early part of the evening?" he 
 said anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, no, indeed," she wearily replied. 
 
 She sat there with trembling lip and a red spot 
 in each cheek, looking at him as he read the paper 
 unconcernedly, till she could bear it no longer, 
 and then silently rose and glided out of the room. 
 Hunt heard her running upstairs as fast as she 
 could, and closing and locking her chamber door. 
 
 Next day he did not see her till evening, when 
 she was exceedingly cold and distant, and evidently 
 very much depressed. After bombarding her with 
 grieved and reproachful glances for some time, he 
 came over to her side, they two having been left 
 alone, and said, with affectionate raillery : 
 
 " I d no idea you were so susceptible to the 
 green-eyed monster." 
 
 She looked at him, astonished quite out of her 
 reserve. 
 
 " What on earth do you mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, you need n t pretend to misunderstand," 
 he replied, with a knowing nod. " Don t you sup 
 pose I saw how vexed you were last night when 
 your dear friend Miss Roberts was trying to flirt 
 with me? But you need n t have minded so much. 
 She is n t my style at all." 
 
 There was something so perfectly maddening in 
 this cool assumption that her bitter chagrin on his 
 account was a fond jealousy, that she fairly choked 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 181 
 
 with exasperation, and shook herself away from 
 his caress as if a snake had stung her. Her thin 
 nostrils vibrated, her red lips trembled with scorn, 
 and her black eyes flashed ominously. He had 
 only seen them lighten with love before, and it 
 was a very odd sensation to see them for the first 
 time blazing with anger, and that against himself. 
 Affecting an offended tone, he said : 
 
 " This is really too absurd, Annie," and left the 
 room as if in a pet, just in time to escape the out 
 burst he knew was coming. She sat in the parlor 
 with firm-set lips till quite a late hour that even 
 ing, hoping that he would come down and give 
 her a chance to set him right with an indignant 
 explanation. So humiliating to her did his misun 
 derstanding seem, that it was intolerable he should 
 retain it a moment longer, and she felt almost 
 desperate enough to go and knock at his door 
 and correct it. Far too clever a strategist to risk 
 an encounter that evening, he sat in his room 
 comfortably smoking and attending to arrears of 
 correspondence, aware that he was supposed by 
 her to be sulking desperately all the while. He 
 knew that her feeling was anger and not grief, and 
 while, had it been the latter, he would have been 
 thoroughly uncomfortable from sympathy, he only 
 chuckled as he figured to himself her indignation. 
 At that very moment, she was undoubtedly clench 
 ing her pretty little fists, and breathing fast with 
 impotent wrath, in the room below. Ah, well, let 
 
182 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 her heart lie in a pickle of good strong disgust 
 overnight, and it would strike in a good deal more 
 effectually than if she were allowed to clear her 
 mind by an indignant explanation on the spot. 
 
 The following day he bore himself toward her 
 with the slightly distant air of one who considers 
 himself aggrieved, and attempted no approaches. 
 In the evening, which was her first opportunity, 
 she came to him and said in a tone in which, by 
 this time, weariness and disgust had taken the 
 place of indignation : 
 
 " You were absurdly mistaken in thinking that 
 Miss Roberts was trying to flirt " 
 
 " Bless your dear, jealous heart ! " interrupted 
 Hunt laughingly, with an air of patronizing af 
 fection. " I d no idea you minded it so much. 
 There, there ! Let s not allude to this matter 
 again. No, no ! not another word ! " he gayly in 
 sisted, putting his hand over her mouth as she was 
 about to make another effort to be heard. 
 
 He was determined not . to hear anything, and 
 she had to leave it so. It was with surprise that 
 she observed how indifferently she finally acqui 
 esced in being so cruelly misunderstood by him. 
 In the deadened state of her feelings, she was not 
 then able to appreciate the entire change in the 
 nature of her sentiments which that indifference 
 showed. Love, though rooted in the past, depends 
 upon the surrounding atmosphere for the breath of 
 continued life, and he had surrounded her with the 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 183 
 
 stifling vapors of disgust until her love had suc 
 cumbed and withered. She found that his exhi 
 bitions of conceit and insipidity did not affect her 
 in the same way as before. Her sensations were 
 no longer sharp and poignant, but chiefly a dull 
 shame and sense of disgrace that she had loved 
 him. She met his attentions with a coldly passive 
 manner, which gave him the liveliest satisfaction. 
 The cure was succeeding past all expectation ; but 
 he had about time for one more stroke, which 
 would make a sure thing of it. He prepared the 
 way by dropping hints that he had been writing 
 some verses of late ; and finally, with the evident 
 idea that she would be flattered, gave out that his 
 favorite theme was her own charms, and that she 
 might, perhaps, before long receive some tributes 
 from his muse. Her protests he laughed away as 
 the affectations of modesty. 
 
 Now Hunt had never actually written a line of 
 verse in his life, and had no intention of beginning. 
 He was simply preparing a grand move. From the 
 poet s corner of rural newspapers, and from comic 
 collections, he clipped several specimens of the crud 
 est sort of sentimental trash in rhyme. These he 
 took to the local newspaper, and arranged for their 
 insertion at double advertising rates. A few days 
 later, he bustled into the parlor, smirking in his 
 most odious manner, and, coming up to Annie, 
 thrust an open newspaper before her, marked in 
 one corner to call attention to several stanzas 
 
184 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 " Written for the Express. 
 " To A E G D." 
 
 With sinking of heart she took the paper, after 
 ineffectually trying to refuse it, and Hunt sat down 
 before her with a supremely complacent expression, 
 to await her verdict. With a faint hope that the 
 verses might prove tolerable, she glanced down the 
 lines. It is enough to say that they were the very 
 worst which Hunt, after great industry, had been 
 able to find; and there he was waiting, just the 
 other side the paper, in a glow of expectant vanity, 
 to receive her acknowledgments. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of it ? You need n t 
 try to hide your blushes. You deserve every word 
 of it, you know, Miss Modesty," he said gayly. 
 
 " It s very nice," replied Annie, making a des 
 perate effort. 
 
 " I thought you d like it," he said, with self- 
 satisfied assurance. " It s queer that a fellow can t 
 lay on the praise too thick to please a woman. By 
 the way, I sent around a copy to Miss Roberts, 
 signed with my initials. I thought you d like to 
 have her see it." 
 
 This last remark he called out after her as she 
 was leaving the room, and he was not mistaken in 
 fancying that it would complete her demoraliza 
 tion. During the next week or two he several 
 times brought her copies of the local paper con 
 taining equally execrable effusions, till finally she 
 mustered courage to tell him that she would rather 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 185 
 
 he would not publish any more verses about her. 
 He seemed rather hurt at this, but respected her 
 feelings, and after that she used to find, hid in her 
 books and music, manuscript sonnets which he had 
 laboriously copied out of his comic collections. It 
 was considerable trouble, but on the whole he was 
 inclined to think it paid, and it did, especially 
 when he culminated by fitting music to several of 
 the most mawkish effusions, and insisting on her 
 playing and singing them to him. As the poor 
 girl, who felt that out of common politeness she 
 could not refuse, toiled wearily through this mar 
 tyrdom, writhing with secret disgust at every line, 
 Hunt, lolling in an easy-chair behind her, was gen 
 erally indulging in a series of horrible grimaces 
 and convulsions of silent laughter, which some 
 times left tears in his eyes, to convince Annie, 
 when she turned around to him, that his sentiment 
 was at least genuine if vulgar. Had she happened 
 on one of these occasions to turn a moment before 
 she did, the resulting tableau would have been 
 worth seeing. 
 
 Hunt had determined to both crown and cru 
 cially test the triumph of Potts s cure in Annie s 
 case by formally offering himself to her. He cal 
 culated of course that she was now certain to reject 
 him, and that was a satisfaction which he thought 
 he fairly owed her. She would feel better for it, 
 he argued, and be more absolutely sure not to re 
 gard herself as in any sense jilted, and that would 
 
186 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 make his conscience clearer. Yes, she should cer 
 tainly have his scalp to hang at her girdle, for he 
 believed, as many do, that next to having a man s 
 heart a woman enjoys having his scalp, while many 
 prefer it. Six weeks ago he would have been hor 
 rified at the audacity of the idea. His utmost am 
 bition then was to break a little the force of her 
 disappointment at his departure. But the unex 
 pected fortune that had attended his efforts had 
 advanced his standard of success, until nothing 
 would now satisfy him but to pop the question and 
 be refused. 
 
 And still, as the day approached which he had 
 set for the desperate venture, he began to get very 
 nervous. He thought he had a sure thing if. ever 
 a fellow had, but women were so cursedly unac 
 countable. Supposing she should take it into her 
 head to accept him ! No logic could take account 
 of a woman s whimsies. Then what a pretty fix 
 he would have got himself into, just by a foolhardy 
 freak ! But there was a strain of Norse blood in 
 Hunt, and in spite of occasional touches of ague, 
 the risk of the scheme had in itself a certain fas 
 cination for him. And yet he could n t help wish 
 ing he had carried out a dozen desperate devices 
 for disgusting her with him, which at the time had 
 seemed to him too gross to be safe from suspicion. 
 
 The trouble was that since he loved her no more 
 he had lost the insight which love only gives into 
 the feelings of another. Then her every touch and 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 187 
 
 look and word was eloquent to his senses as to the 
 precise state of her feeling toward him, but now 
 he was dull and insensitive to such direct intuition. 
 He could not longer feel, but could only argue as 
 to how she might be minded toward him, and this it 
 was which caused him so much trepidation, in spite 
 of so many reasons why he should be confident of 
 the result. Argument as to another s feelings is 
 such a wretched substitute for the intuition of sym 
 pathy. 
 
 Finally, on the evening before the day on which 
 he was to offer himself, the last of his stay at the 
 Giffords , he got into such a panic that, determined 
 to clinch the assurance of his safety, he asked her 
 to play a game of cards, and then managed that 
 she should see him cheat two or three times. The 
 recollection of the cold disgust on her face as he 
 bade her good-evening was so reassuring that he 
 went to bed and slept like a child, in the implicit 
 confidence that four horses could n t drag that girl 
 into an engagement with him the next day. 
 
 It was not till the latter part of the afternoon 
 that he could catch her alone long enough to trans 
 act his little business with her. Anticipating, or 
 at least apprehending his design, she took the great 
 est pains to avoid meeting him, or to have her mo 
 ther with her when she did. She would have given 
 almost anything to escape his offer. Of course she 
 could reject it, but fastidious persons do not like 
 to have unpleasant objects put on their plates, even 
 
188 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 if they have not necessarily to eat them. But her 
 special reason was that the scene would freshly 
 bring up and emphasize the whole wretched history 
 of her former infatuation and its miserable ending, 
 an experience every thought of which was full 
 of shame and strong desire for the cleansing of 
 forgetfulness. He finally cornered her in the par 
 lor alone. As she saw him approaching and real 
 ized that there was no escape, she turned and faced 
 him with her small figure drawn to its full height, 
 compressed lips, pale face, and eyes that plainly 
 said, " Now have it over with as soon as possible." 
 One hand resting on the table was clenched over 
 a book. The other, hanging by her side, tightly 
 grasped a handkerchief. 
 
 " Do you know I Ve been trying to get a chance 
 to speak with you alone all day ? " he said. 
 
 " Have you ? " she replied in a perfectly inex 
 pressive tone. 
 
 " Can t you guess what I wanted to say?" 
 
 " I m not good at conundrums." 
 
 " I see you will not help me," he went on, and 
 then added quickly, " it s a short story ; will you 
 be my wife ? " 
 
 As he said the words, he felt as the lion-tamer 
 does when he puts his head in the lion s jaws. He 
 expects to take it out again, but if the lion should 
 take a notion His suspense was, however, of 
 the shortest possible duration, for instantly, like a 
 reviving sprinkle on a fainting face, the words fell 
 on his ear : 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 189 
 
 " I thank you for the honor, but I m sure we 
 are not suited." 
 
 Annie had conned her answer on many a sleep 
 less pillow, and had it by heart. It came so glibly, 
 although in such a constrained and agitated voice, 
 that he instantly knew it must have been long cut 
 and dried. 
 
 It was now only left for him to do a decent 
 amount of urging, and then acquiesce with digni 
 fied melancholy and go off laughing in his sleeve. 
 What is he thinking of to stand there gazing at 
 her downcast face as if he were daft ? 
 
 A strange thing had happened to him. The 
 sweet familiarity of each detail in the petite figure 
 before him was impressing his mind as never be 
 fore, now that he had achieved his purpose of put 
 ting it beyond the possibility of his own possession. 
 The little hands he had held so often in the old 
 days, conning each curve and dimple, reckoning 
 them more his hands than were his own, and far 
 more dearly so ; the wavy hair he had kissed so 
 fondly and delighted to touch ; the deep dark eyes 
 under their long lashes, like forest lakes seen 
 through environing thickets, eyes that he had 
 found his home in through so long and happy a 
 time, why, they were his ! Of course he had 
 never meant to really forfeit them, to lose them, 
 and let them go to anybody else. The idea was 
 preposterous, was laughable. It was indeed the 
 first time it had occurred to him in that light. He 
 
190 POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 
 
 had only thought of her as losing him ; scarcely at 
 all of himself as losing her. During the whole 
 time he had been putting himself in her place so 
 constantly that he had failed sufficiently to fully 
 canvass the situation from his own point of view. 
 Wholly absorbed in estranging her from him, he 
 had done nothing to estrange himself from her. 
 
 It was rather with astonishment and even an 
 appreciation of the absurd, than any serious appre 
 hension, that he now suddenly saw how he had 
 stultified himself, and come near doing himself a 
 fatal injury. For knowing that her present es 
 trangement was wholly his work, it did not occur 
 to him but that he could undo it as easily as he 
 had done it. A word would serve the purpose and 
 make it all right again. Indeed, his revulsion of 
 feeling so altered the aspect of everything that he 
 quite forgot that any explanation at all was neces 
 sary, and, after gazing at her for a few moments 
 while his eyes, wet with a tenderness new and 
 deliciously sweet, roved fondly from her head to 
 her little slipper, doating on each feature, he just 
 put out his arms to take her with some old familiar 
 phrase of love on his lips. 
 
 She sprang away, her eye flashing with anger. 
 
 He looked so much taken aback and discomfited 
 that she paused in mere wonder, as she was about 
 to rush from the room. 
 
 " Annie, what does this mean ? " he stammered. 
 " Oh, yes, why, my darling, don t you know, 
 
POTTS S PAINLESS CURE 191 
 
 did n t you guess, it was all a joke, a stupid 
 joke ? I ve just been pretending." 
 
 It was not a very lucid explanation, but she 
 understood, though only to be plunged in greater 
 amazement. 
 
 "But what for?" she murmured. 
 
 " I did n t know I loved you," he said slowly, as 
 if recalling with difficulty, and from a great dis 
 tance, his motives, " and I thought it was kind to 
 cure you of your love for me by pretending to be 
 a fool. I think I must have been crazy, don t 
 you? " and he smiled in a dazed, deprecating way. 
 
 Her face from being very pale began to flush. 
 First a red spot started out in either cheek ; then 
 they spread till they covered the cheeks ; next her 
 forehead took a roseate hue, and down her neck the 
 tide of color rushed, and she stood there before him 
 a glowing statue of outraged womanhood, while in 
 the midst her eyes sparkled with scorn. 
 
 " You wanted to cure me," she said at last, in 
 slow, concentrated tones, " and you have succeeded. 
 You have insulted me as no woman was ever in 
 sulted before." 
 
 She paused as if to control herself ; for her voice 
 trembled with the last words. She shivered, and 
 her bosom heaved once or twice convulsively. Her 
 features quivered ; scorching tears of shame rushed 
 to her eyes, and she burst out hysterically : 
 
 " For pity s sake never let me see you again ! " 
 
 And then he found himself alone. 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 THE golden hands of the parlor clock point glim- 
 meringly to an hour after midnight, and the house 
 is still. The gas is turned almost out, but the 
 flickering of the dying sea-coal fire in the grate fit 
 fully illumines the forms and faces of two young 
 women, who are seated before it, talking earnestly 
 in low tones. It is apparent from their costumes 
 that they have been spending the evening out. 
 
 The fair girl in the low chair, gazing pensively 
 into the fire, is Maud Elliott, the daughter of the 
 house. Not generally called handsome, her fea 
 tures are good and well balanced, and her face is 
 altogether a sweet and wholesome one. She is 
 rather tall, and the most critical admit that she has 
 a fine figure. Her eyes are blue, and their clear, 
 candid expression indicates an unusually sincere 
 and simple character. But, unfortunately, it is 
 only her friends who are fully conversant with the 
 expression of her eyes, for she is very shy. Shy 
 ness in little people is frequently piquant, but its 
 effect in girls of the Juno style is too often that 
 of awkwardness. Her friends call Maud Elliott 
 stately ; those who do not like her call her stiff ; 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 193 
 
 while indifferent persons speak of her as rather too 
 reserved and dignified in manner to be pleasing. 
 In fact, her excess of dignity is merely the cloak 
 of her shyness, and nobody knows better than she 
 that there is too much of it. Those who know her 
 at all well know that she is not dull, but with mere 
 acquaintances she often passes for that. Only her 
 intimate friends are aware what wit and intelli 
 gence, what warmth and strength of feeling, her 
 coldness when in company conceals. 
 
 No one better understands this, because no one 
 knows her better or has known her longer, than 
 her present companion before the fire, Lucy Mer- 
 ritt. They were roommates and bosom friends at 
 boarding-school ; and Lucy, who recently has been 
 married, is now on her first visit to her friend since 
 that event. She is seated on a hassock, with her 
 hands clasped over her knees, looking up at Maud, 
 an attitude well suited to her petite figure. She 
 is going home on the morrow, or rather on the 
 day already begun ; and this fact, together with 
 the absorbing nature of the present conversation, 
 accounts for the lateness of the session. 
 
 " And so, Maud," she is saying, while she regards 
 her friend with an expression at once sympathetic 
 and amused, " and so that is what has been mak 
 ing your letters so dismal lately. I fancied that 
 nothing less could suggest such melancholy views 
 of life. The truth is, I came on this visit as much 
 as anything to find out about him. He is a good- 
 looking fellow, certainly ; and, from what little 
 
194 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 chance I had to form an opinion to-night, seems 
 sensible enough to make it quite incredible that he 
 should not be in love with such a girl in a thou 
 sand as you. Are you quite sure he isn t?" 
 
 " You had a chance to judge to-night," replied 
 Maud, with a hard little laugh. " You overheard 
 our conversation. 4 Good-evening, Miss Elliott ; 
 jolly party, is n t it ? That was all he had to say 
 to me, and quite as much as usual. Of course we 
 are old acquaintances, and he s always pleasant 
 and civil : he could n t be anything else ; but he 
 wastes mighty little time on me. I don t blame 
 him for preferring other girls society. He would 
 show very little taste if he did not enjoy Ella 
 Perry s company better than that of a tongue-tied 
 thing like me. She is a thousand times prettier 
 and wittier and more graceful than I am." 
 
 " Nonsense," exclaimed Lucy. " She is a flirt 
 and a conceited little minx. She is not to be men 
 tioned the same day with you ; and he would think 
 so, if he could only get to know you. But how in 
 the world is he ever going to ? Why, you seem to 
 be shyer than ever, poor dear. You were actually 
 distant, almost chilling, in your manner towards 
 him to-night, although I know you didn t mean 
 to be." 
 
 " I know it. Don t I know it ! " groaned Maud. 
 " I always am shyer and stiifer with him than with 
 any one else. O Lucy! you can t guess what a 
 dreadful thing it is to be shy. It is as if you were 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 195 
 
 surrounded by a fog, which benumbs you, and chills 
 all who approach you. I dare say he thinks that I 
 actually dislike him. I could not blame him if he 
 did. And I can t help it. I could never .make 
 him understand anything else, unless I told him in 
 so many words." 
 
 The tears filled her eyes as she spoke, and hung 
 heavy on the lashes. Lucy took one of her hands 
 in both of hers, and pressed and stroked it caress 
 ingly. 
 
 " I know you could n t, poor dear, I know you 
 could n t," she said ; " and you cannot tell him in 
 so many words because, forsooth, you are a woman. 
 I often think, Maud, what a heap of trouble would 
 be saved if women, when they cannot make them 
 selves understood in other ways, were allowed to 
 speak out as men do, without fear or reproach. 
 Some day they will, when the world gets wiser, 
 at least I think so. Why should a woman have 
 to hide her love, as if it were a disgraceful secret ? 
 Why is it any more a disgrace to her than to a 
 man?" 
 
 " I can t quite see what good it would do me," 
 said Maud, " even if women could speak out, as 
 you say. If a man did n t care for one already, I 
 can t see how it would make him know that one 
 cared for him. I should think she would prefer to 
 keep her secret." 
 
 " That is n t what men do," replied Lucy. " If 
 they have such a secret, they tell it right away, and 
 
196 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 that is why they succeed. The way half the women 
 are induced to fall in love is by being told the men 
 are in love with them ; you know that." 
 
 " But men are different," suggested Maud. 
 
 " Not a bit of it : they re more so, if anything," 
 was the oracular response of the young wife. 
 " Possibly there are men," she continued, " the 
 story-tellers say so, anyhow, who are attracted 
 by repulsion and warmed by coldness, who like re 
 sistance for the pleasure of overcoming it. There 
 must be a spice of the tyrant in such men. I 
 wouldn t want to marry one of them. Fortu 
 nately, they re not common. I ve noticed that 
 love, like lightning, generally takes the path of 
 least resistance with men as well as women. Just 
 suppose now, in your case, that Mr. Burton had 
 followed us home, and had overheard this conver 
 sation from behind that door." 
 
 " No, no," she added laughing, as Maud looked 
 around apprehensively ; " he is n t there. But if 
 he had been there and had overheard you own that 
 you were pining for him , what a lucky chance it 
 would have been ! If he, or any other man, once 
 knew that a magnificent girl like you had done him 
 the honor to fall in love with him, half the battle 
 would be won, or I m no judge of men. But such 
 lucky eavesdropping only happens in stories and 
 plays ; and for lack of it this youth is in a fair way 
 to marry a chit of a girl who does not think half 
 so much of him as you do, and of whom he will 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 197 
 
 never think a quarter what he would of you. He 
 is not, probably, entirely stupid either. All he 
 wants, very likely, is just a hint as to where his 
 true happiness lies : but, being a woman, you can t 
 give it in words ; and, being Maud Elliott, you 
 can t give it in any other way, if you died for it. 
 Really, Maud, the canon which makes it a woman s 
 duty to be purely passive in love is exasperating, 
 especially as it does not represent what anybody 
 really believes, but only what they pretend to 
 believe. Everybody knows that unrequited love 
 comes as often to women as to men. Why, then, 
 should n t they have an equal chance to seek re 
 quital ? Why have not they the same right to 
 look out for the happiness of their lives by all hon 
 orable means that men have ? Surely it is far more 
 to them to marry the men they love than to a man 
 to marry any particular woman. It seems to me 
 that making suitable matches is not such an easy 
 matter that society can afford to leave the chief 
 part of it to the stupider sex, giving women merely 
 the right of veto. To be sure, even now women 
 who are artful enough manage to evade the pro 
 hibition laid on their lips and make their prefer 
 ence known. I am proud to say that I have a royal 
 husband, who would never have looked my way if 
 I had not set out to make him do so ; and if I do 
 say it, who should n t, I flatter myself he has a 
 better wife than he could have picked out without 
 my help. There are plenty of women who can say 
 
198 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 the same thing ; but, unluckily, it is the best sort 
 of women, girls like you, simple, sincere, noble, 
 without arts of any sort, who can t do this. On 
 them the etiquette that forbids women to reveal 
 their hearts except by subterfuge operates as a 
 total disability. They can only sit with folded 
 hands, looking on, pretending not to mind, while 
 their husbands are run away with by others." 
 
 Maud took up the poker and carefully arranged 
 the coals under the grate in a heap. Then she 
 said : " Suppose a girl did what you Ve been speak 
 ing of. I mean, suppose she really said such a 
 thing to a man, said that she cared for him, or 
 anything like that, what do you suppose he 
 would think of her ? Don t you fancy she would 
 be in danger of making him think very cheaply of 
 her?" 
 
 " If she thought he were that kind of a man," 
 replied Lucy, " I can t understand her ever falling 
 in love with him. Of course, I m not saying that 
 he would necessarily respond by falling in love 
 with her. She would have to take her chance of 
 that ; but I m sure, if he were a gentleman, she 
 need have no fear of his thinking unworthily of 
 her. If I had spoken to Dick in that way, even 
 if he had never wanted to marry me, I know he 
 would have had a soft spot for me in his heart 
 all the rest of his life, out of which even his wife 
 would not have quite crowded me. Why, how do 
 we think of men whom we have refused ? Do we 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 199 
 
 despise them ? Do we ridicule them ? Some girls 
 may, but they are not ladies. A low fellow might 
 laugh at a woman who revealed a fondness for him 
 which he did not return ; but a gentleman, never. 
 Her secret would be safe with him." 
 
 " Girls ! " It was the voice of Mrs. Elliott speak 
 ing from the upper hall. " Do you know how late 
 it is ? It is after one o clock." 
 
 " I suppose we might as well go to bed," said 
 Lucy. " There s no use sitting up to wait for 
 women to get their rights. They won t get them 
 to-night, I dare say ; though, mark my word, some 
 day they will." 
 
 " This affair of yours may come out all right 
 yet," she said hopefully, as they went upstairs to 
 gether. " If it does not, you can console yourself 
 with thinking that people in general, and especially 
 girls, never know what is good for them till after 
 ward. Do you remember that summer I was at 
 the beach, what a ninny I made of myself over 
 that little Mr. Parker ? How providential it was 
 for me that he did not reciprocate. It gives me 
 the cold shivers when I think what might have 
 become of me if he had proposed." 
 
 At the door of her room Lucy said again : " Re 
 member, you are to come to me in New York for a 
 long visit soon. Perhaps you will find there are 
 other people in the world then." 
 
 Maud smiled absently, and kissed her good-night. 
 She seemed preoccupied, and did not appear to 
 
200 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 have closely followed what her lively friend was 
 saying. 
 
 The following afternoon, as she was walking 
 home after seeing Lucy on the cars, she met a gen 
 tleman who lifted his hat to her. It was Arthur 
 Burton. His office was on the one main street of 
 the small New England city which is the scene of 
 these events, and when out walking or shopping 
 Maud often met him. There was therefore nothing 
 at all extraordinary in the fact of their meeting. 
 What was extraordinary was its discomposing ef 
 fect upon her on this particular afternoon. She 
 had been absorbed a moment before in a particu 
 larly brown study, taking no more notice of sur 
 rounding objects and persons than was necessary 
 to avoid accidents. On seeing him she started per 
 ceptibly, and forthwith became a striking study 
 in red. She continued to blush so intensely after 
 he had passed that, catching sight of her crimson 
 cheeks in a shop window, she turned down a side 
 street and took a quieter way home. 
 
 There was nothing particularly remarkable about 
 Arthur Burton. Fortunately there does not need 
 to be anything remarkable about young men to in 
 duce very charming girls to fall in love with them. 
 He was just a good-looking fellow, with agreeable 
 manners and average opinions. He was regarded 
 as a very promising young man, and was quite a 
 favorite among the young ladies. If he noticed 
 Maud s confusion on meeting him, he certainly did 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 201 
 
 not think of associating it in any way with himself. 
 For although they had been acquaintances these 
 many years, and belonged to the same social set, 
 he had never entertained the first sentimental fancy 
 concerning her. So far as she had impressed him 
 at all, it was as a thoroughly nice girl, of a good 
 family, not bad-looking, but rather dull in society, 
 and with very little facility in conversation ; at 
 least he had always found it hard to talk with her. 
 
 Ten days or a fortnight after Lucy Merritt s de 
 parture there was a little party at Ella Perry s, and 
 both Arthur Burton and Maud were present. It 
 was the custom of the place for the young men to 
 escort the girls home after evening entertainments, 
 and when the couples were rightly assorted, the walk 
 home was often the most agreeable part of the 
 evening. Although they were not engaged, Arthur 
 imagined that he was in love with Ella Perry, and 
 she had grown into the habit of looking upon him 
 as her particular knight. Towards the end of the 
 evening he jestingly asked her whom he should go 
 home with, since he could not that evening be her 
 escort. 
 
 " Maud Elliott," promptly suggested Ella, select 
 ing the girl of those present in her opinion least 
 likely to prove a diverting companion. So it 
 chanced that Arthur offered his company to Maud. 
 
 It struck him, as she came downstairs with her 
 wraps on, that she was looking remarkably pale. 
 She had worn a becoming color during the even- 
 
202 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 ing, but she seemed to have lost it in the dressing- 
 room. As they walked away from the house Arthur 
 began, to the best of his ability, to make himself 
 agreeable, but with very poor success. Not only 
 was Maud, as usual, a feeble contributor of ori 
 ginal matter, but her random answers showed that 
 she paid little attention to what he was saying. 
 He was mentally registering a vow never again to 
 permit himself to be committed to a tete-a-tete 
 with her, when she abruptly broke the silence 
 which had succeeded his conversational efforts. 
 Her voice was curiously unsteady, and she seemed 
 at first to have some difficulty in articulating, and 
 had to go back and repeat her first words. What 
 she said was : 
 
 " It was very good in you to come home with me 
 to-night. It is a great pleasure to me." 
 
 " You re ironical this evening, Miss Elliott," 
 he replied, laughing, and the least bit nettled. 
 
 It was bore enough doing the polite to a girl 
 who had nothing on her mind without being gibed 
 by her to boot. 
 
 " I m not ironical," she answered. " I should 
 make poor work at irony. I meant just what I 
 said." 
 
 " The goodness was on your part in letting me 
 come," he said, mollified by the unmistakable sin 
 cerity of her tone, but somewhat embarrassed 
 withal at the decidedly flat line of remark she had 
 chosen. 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 203 
 
 " Oh, no," she replied ; " the goodness was not 
 on my side. I was only too glad of your company, 
 and might as well own it. Indeed, I will confess 
 to telling a fib to one young man who offered to 
 see me home, merely because I hoped the idea of 
 doing so would occur to you." 
 
 This plump admission of partiality for his society 
 fairly staggered Arthur. Again he thought, " She 
 must be quizzing me ; " and, to make sure, stole 
 a sidelong glance at her. Her eyes were fixed 
 straight ahead, and the pallor and the tense ex 
 pression of her face indicated that she was labor 
 ing under strong excitement. She certainly did 
 not look like one in a quizzing mood. 
 
 " I am very much flattered," he managed to say. 
 
 " I don t know whether you feel so or not," she 
 replied. "I m afraid you don t feel flattered at 
 all, but I I wanted to tell you." 
 
 The pathetic tremor of her voice lent even 
 greater significance to her words than in them 
 selves they would have conveyed. 
 
 She was making a dead set at him. There was 
 not a shadow of doubt any longer about that. As 
 the full realization of his condition flashed upon 
 him, entirely alone with her and a long walk be 
 fore them, the strength suddenly oozed out of his 
 legs, he felt distinctly cold about the spine, and 
 the perspiration started out on his forehead. His 
 tongue clung to the roof of his mouth, and he could 
 only abjectly wonder what was coming next. It 
 
204 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 appeared that nothing more was coming. A dead 
 silence lasted for several blocks. Every block 
 seemed to Arthur a mile long, as if he were walk 
 ing in a hasheesh dream. He felt that she was ex 
 pecting him to say something, to make some sort 
 of response to her advances ; but what response, 
 in Heaven s name, could he make! He really 
 could not make love. He had none to make ; and 
 had never dreamed of making any to Maud Elliott, 
 of all girls. Yet the idea of letting her suppose 
 him such an oaf as not to understand her, or not to 
 appreciate the honor a lady s preference did him, 
 was intolerable. He could not leave it so. 
 
 Finally, with a vague idea of a compromise be 
 tween the impossible alternative of making love to 
 her, which he could n t, and seeming an insensible 
 boor, which he would n t, he laid his disengaged 
 hand upon hers as it rested on his arm. It was 
 his intention to apply to it a gentle pressure, which, 
 while committing him to nothing, might tend to 
 calm her feelings and by its vaguely reassuring 
 influence help to stave off a crisis for the remainder 
 of their walk. He did not, however, succeed in 
 carrying out the scheme ; for at the moment of 
 contact her hand eluded his, as quicksilver glides 
 from the grasp. There was no hint of coquettish 
 hesitation in its withdrawal. She snatched it 
 away as if his touch had burned her ; and although 
 she did not at the same time wholly relinquish 
 his arm, that was doubtless to avoid making the 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 205 
 
 situation, on the street as they were, too awk 
 ward. 
 
 A moment before only concerned to evade her 
 apparent advances, Arthur found himself in the 
 position of one under rebuke for offering an un 
 warranted familiarity to a lady. There was no 
 question that he had utterly misconstrued her pre 
 vious conduct. It was very strange that he could 
 have been such a fool ; but he was quite too dazed 
 to disentangle the evidence just then, and there 
 was no doubt about the fact. 
 
 "Pardon me," he stammered, too much over 
 come with confusion and chagrin to be able to 
 judge whether it would have been better to be 
 silent. 
 
 The quickness with which the reply came showed 
 that she had been on the point of speaking her 
 self. 
 
 " You need not ask my pardon," she said. Her 
 tones quivered with excitement and her utterance 
 was low and swift. " I don t blame you in the 
 least, after the way I have talked to you to-night. 
 But I did not mean that you should think lightly 
 of me. I have said nothing right, nothing that I 
 meant to. What I wanted to have you under 
 stand was that I care for you very much." Her 
 voice broke here, but she caught her breath and 
 went right on. "I wanted you to know it some 
 how, and since I could not make you know it by 
 ways clever girls might, I thought I would tell 
 
206 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 you plainly. It really amounts to the same thing ; 
 don t you think so ? and I know you 11 keep my 
 secret. You need n t say anything. I know you ve 
 nothing to say and may never have. That makes 
 no difference. You owe me nothing merely be 
 cause I care for you. Don t pity me. I m not 
 so much ashamed as you d suppose. It all seems 
 so natural when it s once said. You needn t be 
 afraid of me. I shall never say this again or 
 trouble you at all. Only be a little good to me ; 
 that sail." 
 
 She delivered this little speech almost in one 
 breath, with headlong, explosive utterance, as if it 
 were something she had to go through with, cost 
 what it might, and only wanted somehow to get 
 out the words, regardless, for the time, of their 
 manner or effect. She ended with an hysterical 
 sob, and Arthur felt her hand tremble on his arm 
 as she struggled with an emotion that threatened 
 to overcome her. But it was over almost instantly ; 
 and without giving him a chance to speak, she 
 exclaimed, with an entire alteration of tone and 
 manner : 
 
 " Did you see that article in the 4 Gazette this 
 morning about the craze for collecting pottery 
 which has broken out in the big cities ? Do you 
 suppose it will reach here ? What do you think 
 of it?" 
 
 Now it was perfectly true, as she had told him, 
 that Arthur had nothing whatever to say in re- 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 207 
 
 sponse to the declaration she had made ; but all 
 the same it is possible, if she had not just so 
 abruptly diverted the conversation, that he would 
 then and there have placed himself and all his 
 worldly goods at her disposal. He would have 
 done this, although five minutes before he had had 
 no more notion of marrying her than the Emperor 
 of China s daughter, merely because every manly 
 instinct cried out against permitting a nice girl 
 to protest her partiality for him without meeting 
 her half-way. Afterward, when he realized how 
 near he had come to going over the verge of matri 
 mony, it was with such reminiscent terror as chills 
 the blood of the awakened sleep-walker looking up 
 at the dizzy ridge-pole he has trodden with but a 
 hair s breadth between him and eternity. 
 
 During the remainder of the way to Maud s 
 door the conversation upon pottery, the weather, 
 and miscellaneous topics was incessant, almost 
 breathless, in fact. Arthur did not know what he 
 was talking about, and Maud probably no better 
 what she was saying, but there was not a moment s 
 silence. A stranger meeting them would have 
 thought, " What a remarkably jolly couple ! " 
 
 " I m much obliged for your escort," said Maud, 
 as she stood upon her doorstep* 
 
 " Not at all. Great pleasure, I m sure." 
 
 " Good-evening." 
 
 " Good-evening." And she disappeared within 
 the door. 
 
208 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 Arthur walked away with a slow, mechanical 
 step. His fallen jaw, open mouth, and generally 
 idiotic expression of countenance would have jus 
 tified his detention by any policeman who might 
 have met him, on suspicion of being a feeble-minded 
 person escaped from custody. Turning the first 
 corner, he kept on with the same dragging step till 
 he came to a vacant lot. Then, as if he were too 
 feeble to get any farther, he stopped and leaned 
 his back against the fence. Bracing his legs be 
 fore him so as to serve as props, he thrust his 
 hands deep in his pockets, and raising his eyes 
 appealingly to the stars, ejaculated, " Proposed to, 
 by Jove ! " A period of profound introspection 
 followed, and then he broke forth : " Well, I 11 
 be hanged ! " emphasizing each word with a slow 
 nod. Then he began to laugh, not noisily ; 
 scarcely audibly, indeed ; but with the deep, unc 
 tuous chuckle of one who gloats over some exqui 
 sitely absurd situation, some jest of many facets, 
 each contributing its ray of humor. 
 
 Yet, if this young man had tremblingly con 
 fessed his love to a lady, he would have expected 
 her to take it seriously. 
 
 Nevertheless, let us not be too severe with him 
 for laughing. It was what the average young man 
 probably would have done under similar circum 
 stances, and it was particularly stated at the outset 
 that there was nothing at all extraordinary about 
 Arthur Burton. For the rest, it was not a wholly 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 209 
 
 bad symptom. Had he been a conceited fellow, 
 he very likely would not have laughed. He would 
 have stroked his mustache and thought it quite 
 natural that a woman should fall in love with him, 
 and even would have felt a pity for the poor thing. 
 It was, in fact, because he was not vain that he 
 found the idea so greatly amusing. 
 
 On parting with Arthur, Maud rushed upstairs 
 and locked herself in her room. She threw her 
 self into the first chair she stumbled over in the 
 dimly lighted apartment, and sat there motionless, 
 her eyes fixed on the empty air with an expression 
 of desperation, her hands clinched so tightly that 
 the nails bit the palms. She breathed only at con 
 siderable intervals, with short, quick inhalations. 
 
 Yet the act which caused this extraordinary re 
 vulsion of feeling had not been the result of any 
 sudden impulse. It was the execution of a delib 
 erate resolve which had originated in her mind on 
 the night of Lucy Merritt s departure, as she sat 
 with her before the fire, listening to her fanciful 
 talk about the advantages which might be expected 
 to attend franker relations in love affairs between 
 men and women. Deeply in love, and at the same 
 time feeling that in the ordinary course of events 
 she had nothing but disappointment to look for 
 ward to, she was in a state of mind just desperate 
 enough to catch at the idea that if Arthur Burton 
 knew of her love, there would be some chance of 
 his returning it. It seemed to her that if he did 
 
210 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 not, she could be no worse off than she was already. 
 She had brooded over the subject day and night 
 ever since, considering from every point of view of 
 abstract right or true feminine propriety the ques 
 tion whether a woman might, without real preju 
 dice to her maidenly modesty, tell a man that she 
 cared for him, without waiting for him to ask her 
 to marry him. Her conclusion had been that there 
 was no reason, apart from her own feelings, why 
 any woman, who dared do it, should not ; and if 
 she thought her life s happiness dependent on her 
 doing it, that she would be a weak creature who 
 did not dare. 
 
 Her resolve once taken, she had only waited 
 an opportunity to carry it out; and that evening, 
 when Arthur offered to walk home with her, she 
 felt that the opportunity had come. Little wonder 
 that she came downstairs from the dressing-room 
 looking remarkably pale, and that after they had 
 started, and she was trying to screw up her courage 
 to the speaking point, her responses to his conver 
 sational efforts should have been at random. It 
 was terribly hard work, this screwing up her cour 
 age. All the fine arguments which had convinced 
 her that her intended course was justifiable and 
 right had utterly collapsed. She could not recall one 
 of them. What she had undertaken to do seemed 
 shocking, hateful, immodest, scandalous, impossible. 
 But there was a bed-rock of determination to her 
 character ; and a fixed, dogged resolve to do the 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 211 
 
 tiling she had once made up her mind to, come 
 what might, had not permitted her to draw back. 
 Hardly knowing what she was about, or the words 
 she was saying, she had plunged blindly ahead. 
 Somehow she had got through with it, and now she 
 seemed to herself to be sitting amidst the ruins of 
 her womanhood. 
 
 It was particularly remarked that Arthur Bur 
 ton s laughter, as he leaned against the fence a 
 square away in convulsions of merriment, was noise 
 less, but it was perfectly audible to Maud, as she 
 sat in the darkness of her chamber. Nay, more : 
 although his thoughts were not uttered at all, she 
 overheard them, and among them some which the 
 young man, to do him justice, had the grace not to 
 think. 
 
 The final touch to her humiliation was imparted 
 by the reflection that she had done the thing so 
 stupidly, so blunderingly. If she must needs tell 
 a man she loved him, could she not have told him 
 in language which at least would have been forcible 
 and dignified ? Instead of that, she had begun with 
 mawkish compliments, unable in her excitement to 
 think of anything else, and ended with an incoher 
 ent jumble that barely escaped being hysterical. 
 He would think that she was as lacking in sense 
 as in womanly self-respect. At last she turned up 
 the gas, for very shame avoiding a glimpse of her 
 self in the mirror as she did so, and bathed her 
 burning cheeks. 
 
212 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 II 
 
 Meanwhile Arthur had reached home and was 
 likewise sitting in his room, thinking the matter 
 over from his point of view, with the assistance of 
 a long-stemmed pipe. But instead of turning the 
 gas down, as Maud had done, he had turned it up, 
 and, having lighted all the jets in the room, had 
 planted his chair directly in front of the big look 
 ing-glass, so that he might enjoy the reflection of 
 his own amusement and be doubly entertained. 
 
 By this time, however, amazement and amuse 
 ment had passed their acute stages. He was con 
 sidering somewhat more seriously, but still with 
 frequent attacks of mirth, the practical aspects of 
 the predicament in which Maud s declaration had 
 placed him ; and the more he considered it, the 
 more awkward as well as absurd that predicament 
 appeared. They had the same acquaintances, 
 went to the same parties, and were very likely to 
 meet whenever they went out of an evening. 
 What if she should continue to pursue him ? If 
 she did, he either would have to cut society, which 
 had promised to be unusually lively that winter, or 
 provide himself with a chaperon for protection. 
 For the first time in his life he was in a position to 
 appreciate the courage of American girls, who, 
 without a tremor, venture themselves, year in and 
 year out, in the company of gentlemen from whom 
 they are exposed at any time to proposals of a 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 213 
 
 tender nature. It was a pity if lie could not 
 be as brave as girls who are afraid of a mouse. 
 Doubtless it was all in getting used to it. 
 
 On reflection, he should not need a chaperon. 
 Had she not assured him that he need not be 
 afraid of her, that she would never repeat what she 
 had said, nor trouble him again? How her arm 
 trembled on his as she was saying that, and how 
 near she came to breaking down ! And this was 
 Maud Elliott, the girl with whom he had never 
 ventured to flirt with as with some of the others, 
 because she was so reserved and distant. The 
 very last girl anybody would expect such a thing 
 from ! If it had been embarrassing for him to 
 hear it, what must it have cost such a girl as 
 Maud Elliott to say it ! How did she ever muster 
 the courage ? 
 
 He took the pipe from his mouth, and the ex 
 pression of his eyes became fixed, while his cheeks 
 reddened slowly and deeply. In putting himself 
 in Maud s place, he was realizing for the first time 
 how strong must have been the feeling which had 
 nerved her to such a step. His heart began to beat 
 rather thickly. There was something decidedly 
 intoxicating in knowing that one was regarded in 
 such a way by a nice girl, even if it were impossi 
 ble, as it certainly was in this case, to reciprocate 
 the feeling. He continued to put himself mentally 
 in Maud s place. No doubt she was also at that 
 moment sitting alone in her chamber, thinking the 
 
214 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 matter over as he was. She was not laughing, 
 however, that was pretty certain ; and it required 
 no clairvoyant s gift for him to be sensible that her 
 chief concern must be as to what he might be at 
 that moment thinking about her. And how had 
 he been thinking about her ? 
 
 As this question came up to his mind, he saw 
 himself for a moment through Maud s eyes, sitting 
 there smoking, chuckling, mowing like an idiot 
 before the glass because, forsooth, a girl had put 
 herself at his mercy on the mistaken supposition 
 that he was a gentleman. As he saw his conduct 
 in this new light, he had such an access of self- 
 contempt that, had it been physically convenient, it 
 would have been a relief to kick himself. What 
 touching faith she had shown in his ability to take 
 a generous, high-minded view of what she had 
 done, and here he had been guffawing over it like 
 a corner loafer. He would not, for anything in the 
 world, have her know how he had behaved. And 
 she should not. She should never know that he 
 was less a gentleman than she believed him. 
 
 She had told him, to be sure, that he owed her 
 nothing because she loved him ; but it had just 
 struck him that he owed her at least, on that ac 
 count, a more solicitous respect and consideration 
 than any one else had the right to expect from him. 
 
 There were no precedents to guide him, no rules 
 of etiquette prescribing the proper thing for a 
 young man to do under such circumstances as 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 215 
 
 these. It was a new problem he had to work out, 
 directed only by such generous and manly instincts 
 as he might have. Plainly the first thing, and in 
 fact the only thing that he could do for her, seeing 
 that he really could not return her affection, was to 
 show her that she had not forfeited his esteem. 
 
 At first he thought of writing her a note and as 
 suring her, in a few gracefully turned sentences, 
 of his high respect in spite of what she had done. 
 But somehow the gracefully turned sentences did 
 not occur to his mind when he took up his pen, 
 and it did occur to him that to write persons that 
 you still respect them is equivalent to intimating 
 that their conduct justly might have forfeited your 
 respect. Nor would it be at all easier to give such 
 an assurance by word of mouth. In fact, quite 
 the reverse. The meaning to be conveyed was too 
 delicate for words. Only the unspoken language 
 of his manner and bearing could express it without 
 offense. It might, however, be some time before 
 chance brought them together in society, even if 
 she did not, for a while at least, purposely avoid 
 him. Meantime, uncertain how her extraordinary 
 action had impressed him, how was she likely to 
 enjoy her thoughts ? 
 
 In the generous spirit bred of his new contrition, 
 it seemed to him a brutal thing to leave her weeks 
 or even days in such a condition of mind as must 
 be hers. Inaction on his part was all that was 
 required to make her position intolerable. Inac- 
 
216 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 tion was not therefore permissible to him. It was 
 a matter in which he must take the initiative, and 
 there seemed to be just one thing he could do 
 which would at all answer the purpose. A brief 
 formal call, with the conversation strictly limited 
 to the weather and similarly safe subjects, would 
 make it possible for them to meet thereafter in so 
 ciety without too acute embarrassment. Had he 
 the pluck for this, the nerve to carry it through ? 
 That was the only question. There was no doubt 
 as to what he ought to do. It would be an awk 
 ward call, to put it mildly. It would be skating 
 on terribly thin ice a little thinner, perhaps, than 
 a man ever skated on before. 
 
 If he could but hit on some pretext, it scarcely 
 mattered how thin, for of course it would not be 
 intended to deceive her, the interview possibly 
 could be managed. As he reflected, his eyes fell 
 on a large volume, purchased in a fit of extrava 
 gance, which lay on his table. It was a profusely 
 illustrated work on pottery, intended for the vic 
 tims of the fashionable craze on that subject, which 
 at the date of these events had but recently reached 
 the United States. His face lighted up with a 
 sudden inspiration, and taking a pen he wrote the 
 following note to Maud, dating it the next day : 
 
 Miss ELLIOTT : 
 
 Our conversation last evening on the subject of 
 old china has suggested to me that you might be 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 217 
 
 interested in looking over the illustrations in the 
 volume which I take the liberty of sending with 
 this. If you will be at home this evening, I shall 
 be pleased to call and learn your impression. 
 
 ARTHUR BURTON. 
 
 The next morning he sent this note and the 
 book to Maud, and that evening called upon her. 
 To say that he did not twist his mustache rather 
 nervously as he stood upon the doorstep, waiting 
 for the servant to answer the bell, would be to 
 give him credit for altogether more nerve than he 
 deserved. He was supported by the consciousness 
 that he was doing something rather heroic, but he 
 very much wished it were done. As he was shown 
 into the parlor, Maud came forward to meet him. 
 She wore a costume which set off her fine figure to 
 striking advantage, and he was surprised to per 
 ceive that he had never before appreciated what a 
 handsome girl she was. It was strange that he 
 should never have particularly observed before 
 what beautiful hands she had, and what a dazzling 
 fairness of complexion was the complement of her 
 red-brown hair. Could it be this stately maiden 
 who had uttered those wild words the night before ? 
 Could those breathless tones, that piteous shame- 
 f acedness, have been hers ? Surely he must be the 
 victim of some strange self-delusion. Only the 
 deep blush that mantled her face as she spoke his 
 name, the quickness with which, after one swift 
 
218 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 glance, her eyes avoided his, and the tremor of her 
 hand as he touched it, fully assured him that he 
 had not dreamed the whole thing. 
 
 A shaded lamp was on the centre-table, where 
 also Arthur s book on pottery lay open. After 
 thanking him for sending it and expressing the 
 pleasure she had taken in looking it over, Maud 
 plunged at once into a discussion of Sevres, and 
 Cloisonne, and Palissy, and tiles, and all that sort 
 of thing, and Arthur bravely kept his end up. 
 Any one who had looked casually into the parlor 
 would have thought that old crockery was the 
 most absorbing subject on earth to these young 
 people, with such eagerness did they compare 
 opinions and debate doubtful points. At length, 
 however, even pottery gave out as a resource, es 
 pecially as Arthur ceased, after a while, to do his 
 part, and silences began to ensue, during which 
 Maud rapidly turned the pages of the book or pre 
 tended to be deeply impressed with the illustra 
 tions, while her cheeks grew hotter and hotter 
 under Arthur s gaze. He knew that he was a 
 detestable coward thus to revel in her confusion, 
 when he ought to be trying to cover it, but it was 
 such a novel sensation to occupy this masterful 
 attitude towards a young lady that he yielded 
 basely to the temptation. After all, it was but 
 fair. Had she not caused him a very embarrassing 
 quarter of an hour the night before ? 
 
 " I suppose I shall see you at Miss Oswald s 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 219 
 
 next Thursday," he said, as he rose to take his 
 leave. 
 
 She replied that she hoped to be there. She 
 accompanied him to the door of the parlor. There 
 was less light there than immediately about the 
 table where they had been sitting. " Good-even 
 ing," he said. " Good-evening," she replied ; and 
 then, in a lowered voice, hardly above a whisper, 
 she added, "I appreciate all that was noble and 
 generous in your coming to-night." He made no 
 reply, but took her hand and, bending low, pressed 
 his lips to it as reverently as if she had been a 
 queen. 
 
 Now Arthur s motive in making this call upon 
 Maud, which has been described, had been entirely 
 unselfish. Furthest from his mind, of all ideas, 
 had been any notion of pursuing the conquest of 
 her heart which he had inadvertently made. Never 
 theless, the effect of his call, and that, too, even 
 before it was made, if this bull may be par 
 doned, had been to complete that conquest as no 
 other device, however studied, could have done. 
 
 The previous night Maud had been unable to 
 sleep for shame. Her cheeks scorched the pillows 
 faster than her tears could cool them ; and alto 
 gether her estate was so wretched that Lucy Mer- 
 ritt, could she have looked in upon her, possibly 
 might have been shaken in her opinion as to the 
 qualifications of women to play the part of men in 
 love, even if permitted by society. 
 
220 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 It had been hard enough to nerve herself to the 
 point of doing what she had done in view of the 
 embarrassments she had foreseen. An hour after 
 she uttered those fatal words, her whole thinking 
 was summed up in the cry, " If I only had not 
 done it, then at least he would still respect me." 
 In the morning she looked like one in a fever. Her 
 eyes were red and swollen, her face was pallid but 
 for a hard red spot in each cheek, and her whole 
 appearance was expressive of bodily and mental 
 prostration. She did not go down to breakfast, 
 pleading a very genuine headache, and Arthur s 
 note and the book on pottery were brought up to 
 her. She guessed his motive in a moment. Her 
 need gave her the clue to his meaning. 
 
 What was on Arthur s part merely a decent sort 
 of thing to do, her passionate gratitude instantly 
 magnified into an act of chivalrous generosity, 
 proving him the noblest of men and the gentlest 
 of gentlemen. She exaggerated the abjectness of 
 the position from which his action had rescued her, 
 in order to feel that she owed the more to his 
 nobility. At any time during the previous night 
 she gladly would have given ten years of her life 
 to recall the confession that she had made to him ; 
 now she told herself, with a burst of exultant tears, 
 that she would not recall it if she could. She had 
 made no mistake. Her womanly dignity was safe 
 in his keeping. Whether he ever returned her 
 love or not, she was not ashamed, but was glad, 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 221 
 
 and always should be glad, that he knew she loved 
 him. 
 
 As for Arthur, the reverence with which he bent 
 over her hand on leaving her was as heartfelt as it 
 was graceful. In her very disregard of conven 
 tional decorum she had impressed him the more 
 strikingly with the native delicacy and refinement 
 of her character. It had been reserved for her to 
 show him how genuine a thing is womanly modesty, 
 and how far from being dependent on those con 
 ventional affectations with which it is in the vulgar 
 mind so often identified, with the effect of seeming 
 as artificial as they. 
 
 When, a few evenings later, he went to Miss 
 Oswald s party, the leading idea in his mind was 
 that he should meet Maud there. His eyes sought 
 her out the moment he entered the Oswald parlors, 
 but it was some time before he approached her. 
 For years he had been constantly meeting her, but 
 he had never before taken special note of her ap 
 pearance in company. He had a curiosity about 
 her now as lively as it was wholly new. He took 
 a great interest in observing how she walked and 
 talked and laughed, how she sat down and rose up 
 and demeaned herself. It gave him an odd but 
 marked gratification to note how favorably she 
 compared in style and appearance with the girls 
 present. Even while he was talking with Ella 
 Perry, with whom he believed himself in love, he 
 was so busy making these observations that Ella 
 
222 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 dismissed him with the sarcastic advice to follow 
 his eyes, which he presently proceeded to do. 
 
 Maud greeted him with a very fair degree of 
 self-possession, though her cheeks were delightfully 
 rosy. At first it was evidently difficult for her to 
 talk, and her embarrassment betrayed uncertainty 
 as to the stability of the conventional footing which 
 his call of the other evening had established be 
 tween them. Gradually, however, the easy, non 
 chalant tone which he affected seemed to give her 
 confidence, and she talked more easily. Her color 
 continued to be unusually though not unbecomingly 
 high, and it took a great deal of skirmishing for 
 him to get a glance from her eyes, but her embar 
 rassment was no longer distressing. Arthur, in 
 deed, was scarcely in a mood to notice that she did 
 not bear her full part in the conversation. The 
 fact of conversing on any terms with a young lady 
 who had confessed to him what Maud had was so 
 piquant in itself that it would have made talk in 
 the deaf-and-dumb alphabet vivacious. All the 
 while, as they laughed and talked together quite as 
 any other two young people might do, those words 
 of hers the other night : " I care for you very much," 
 " Be a little good to me," were ringing in his ears. 
 The reflection that by virtue of her confession of 
 love she was his whenever he should wish to claim 
 her, even though he never should claim her, was 
 constantly in his mind, and gave him a sense of 
 potential proprietorship which was decidedly heady. 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 223 
 
 " Arthur Burton seems to be quite fascinated. I 
 never supposed that he fancied Maud Elliott before, 
 did you?" said one of the j^oung ladies, a little 
 maliciously, to Ella Perry. Ella tossed her head 
 and replied that really she had never troubled 
 herself about Mr. Burton s fancies, which was 
 not true. The fact is, she was completely puzzled 
 as well as vexed by Arthur s attentions to Maud. 
 There was not a girl in her set of whom she would 
 not sooner have thought as a rival. Arthur had 
 never, to her knowledge, talked for five minutes 
 together with Maud before, and here he was spend 
 ing half the evening in an engrossing tete-a-tete 
 with her, to the neglect of his other acquaintances 
 and of herself in particular. Maud was looking 
 very well, to be sure, but no better than often be 
 fore, when he had not glanced at her a second time. 
 What might be the clue to this mystery? She 
 remembered, upon reflection, that he had escorted 
 Maud home from the party at her own house the 
 week before, but that explained nothing. Ella 
 was aware of no weapon in the armory of her sex 
 capable of effecting the subjugation of a previously 
 quite indifferent young man in the course of a ten- 
 minutes walk. If, indeed, such weapons there had 
 been, Maud Elliott, the most reserved and diffident 
 girl of her acquaintance, " stiff and pokerish," 
 Ella called her, was the last person likely to 
 employ them. It must be, Ella was forced to con 
 clude, that Arthur was trying to punish her for 
 
224 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 snubbing him by devoting himself to Maud ; and, 
 having adopted this conclusion, the misguided 
 damsel proceeded to flirt vigorously with a young 
 man whom she detested. 
 
 In the latter part of the evening, when Arthur 
 was looking again for Maud, he learned that she 
 had gone home, a servant having come to fetch 
 her. The result was that he went home alone, 
 Ella Perry having informed him rather crushingly 
 that she had accorded the honor of escorting: her- 
 
 O 
 
 self to another. He was rather vexed at Ella s 
 jilting him, though he admitted that she might 
 have fancied she had some excuse. 
 
 A few days later he called on her, expecting to 
 patch up their little misunderstanding, as on pre 
 vious occasions. She was rather offish, but really 
 would have been glad to make up, had he shown 
 the humility and tractableness he usually mani 
 fested after their tiffs ; but he was not in a humble 
 frame of mind, and, after a brief and unsatisfac 
 tory call, took his leave. The poor girl was com 
 pletely puzzled. What had come over Arthur? 
 She had snubbed him no more than usual that 
 night, and generally he took it very meekly. She 
 would have opened her eyes very wide indeed if 
 she had guessed what there had been in his recent 
 experience to spoil his appetite for humble-pie. 
 
 It was not late when he left Ella, and as he 
 passed Maud s house he could not resist the temp 
 tation of going in. This time he did not pretend 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 225 
 
 to himself that he sought her from any but entirely 
 selfish motives. He wanted to remove the unplea 
 santly acid impression left by his call on Ella by 
 passing an hour with some one whom he knew 
 would be glad to see him and not be afraid to let 
 him know it. In this aim he was quite success 
 ful. Maud s face fairly glowed with glad surprise 
 when he entered the room. This was their second 
 meeting since the evening Arthur had called to 
 talk pottery, and the tacit understanding that her 
 tender avowal was to be ignored between them 
 had become so well established that they could 
 converse quite at their ease. But ignoring is not 
 forgetting. On the other hand, it implies a con 
 stant remembering ; and the mutual consciousness 
 between these young people could scarcely fail to 
 give a peculiar piquancy to their intercourse. 
 
 That evening was the first of many which the 
 young man passed in Maud s parlor, and the be 
 ginning of an intimacy which caused no end of 
 wonder among their acquaintances. Had its real 
 nature been suspected, that wonder would have 
 been vastly increased. For whereas they supposed 
 it to be an entirely ordinary love affair, except in 
 the abruptness of its development, it was, in fact, 
 a quite extraordinary variation on the usual social 
 relations of young men and women. 
 
 Maud s society had in fact not been long in 
 acquiring an attraction for Arthur quite independ 
 ent of the peculiar circumstances under which he 
 
226 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 had first become interested in her. As soon as she 
 began to feel at ease with him, her shyness rapidly 
 disappeared, and he was astonished to discover 
 that the stiff, silent girl whom he had thought 
 rather dull possessed culture and originality such 
 as few girls of his acquaintance could lay claim to. 
 His assurance beyond possibility of doubt that she 
 was as really glad to see him whenever he called 
 as she said she was, and that though his speech 
 might be dull or his jests poor they were sure of a 
 friendly critic, made the air of her parlor wonder 
 fully genial. The result was that he fell into a 
 habit whenever he wanted a little social relaxation, 
 but felt too tired, dispirited, or lazy for the effort 
 of a call on any of the other girls, of going to 
 Maud. One evening he said to her just as he was 
 leaving, " If I come here too much, you must send 
 me home." 
 
 " I will when you do," she replied, with a bright 
 smile. 
 
 " But really," he persisted, u I am afraid I bore 
 you by coming so often." 
 
 " You know better than that," was her only 
 reply, but the vivid blush which accompanied the 
 words was a sufficient enforcement of them ; and 
 he was, at the bottom of his heart, very glad to 
 think he did know better. 
 
 Without making any pretense of being in love 
 with her, he had come to depend on her being in 
 love with him. It had grown so pleasing to count 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 227 
 
 on her loyalty to him that a change in her feelings 
 would have been a disagreeable surprise. Getting 
 something for nothing is a mode of acquisition 
 particularly pleasing to mankind, and he was en 
 joying in some respects the position of an engaged 
 man without any of the responsibilities. 
 
 But if in some respects he was in the position 
 of an engaged man, in others he was farther from 
 it than the average unengaged man. For while 
 Maud and he talked of almost everything else 
 under heaven, the subject of love was tabooed be 
 tween them. Once for all Maud had said her say 
 on that point, and Arthur could say nothing unless 
 he said as much as she had said. For the same 
 reason, there was never any approach to flirting 
 between them. Any trifling of that sort would 
 have been meaningless in an intimacy begun, as 
 theirs had been, at a point beyond where most 
 flirtations end. 
 
 Not only in this respect, but also in the singu^" 
 lar frankness which marked their interchange of 
 thought and opinion, was there something in their 
 relation savoring of that of brother and sister. It 
 was as if her confession of love had swept away by 
 one breath the whole lattice of conventional affec 
 tations through which young men and women usu-, 
 ally talk with each other. Once for all she had 
 dropped her guard with him, and he could not do 
 less with her. He found himself before long talk 
 ing more freely to her than to any others of his 
 
228 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 acquaintance, and about more serious matters. 
 They talked of their deepest beliefs and convic 
 tions, and he told her things that he had never 
 told any one before. Why should he not tell her 
 his secrets ? Had she not told him hers ? It was 
 a pleasure to reciprocate her confidence if he could 
 not her love. He had not supposed it to be possi 
 ble for a man to become so closely acquainted with 
 a young lady not a relative. It came to the point 
 finally that when they met in company, the few 
 words that he might chance to exchange with her 
 were pitched in a different key from that used 
 with the others, such as one drops into when greet 
 ing a relative or familiar friend met in a throng of 
 strangers. 
 
 Of course, all this had not come at once. It 
 was in winter that the events took place with 
 which this narrative opened. Winter had mean 
 time glided into spring, and spring had become 
 summer. In the early part of June a report that 
 Arthur Burton and Maud Elliott were engaged 
 obtained circulation, and, owing to the fact that 
 he had so long been apparently devoted to her, 
 was generally believed. Whenever Maud went 
 out she met congratulations on every side, and had 
 to reply a dozen times a day that there was no 
 truth in the story, and smilingly declare that she 
 could not imagine how it started. After doing 
 which, she would go home and cry all night, for 
 Arthur was not only not engaged to her, but she 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 229 
 
 had come to know in her heart that he never 
 would be. 
 
 At first, and indeed for a long time, she was so 
 proud of the frank and loyal friendship between 
 them, such as she was sure had never before ex 
 isted between unplighted man and maid, that she 
 would have been content to wait half her lifetime 
 for him to learn to love her, if only she were sure 
 that he would at last. But, after all, it was the 
 hope of his love, not his friendship, that had been 
 the motive of her desperate venture. As month 
 after month passed, and he showed no symptoms 
 of any feeling warmer than esteem, but always in 
 the midst of his cordiality was so careful lest he 
 should do or say anything to arouse unfounded 
 expectations in her mind, she lost heart and felt 
 that what she had hoped was not to be. She said 
 to herself that the very fact that he was so much 
 her friend should have warned her that he would 
 never be her lover, for it is not often that lovers 
 are made out of friends. 
 
 It is always embarrassing for a young lady to 
 have to deny a report of her engagement, espe 
 cially when it is a report she would willingly have 
 true ; but what made it particularly distressing 
 for Maud that this report should have got about 
 was her belief that it would be the means of bring 
 ing to an end the relations between them. It 
 would undoubtedly remind Arthur, by showing 
 how the public interpreted their friendship, that 
 
230 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 his own prospects in other quarters, and he might 
 even think justice to her future, demanded the 
 discontinuance of attentions which must necessa 
 rily be misconstrued by the world. The public had 
 been quite right in assuming that it was time for 
 them to be engaged. Such an, intimacy as theirs 
 between a young man and a young woman, unless 
 it were to end in an engagement, had no precedent 
 and belonged to no known social category. It was 
 vain, in the long run, to try to live differently 
 from other people. 
 
 The pangs of an accusing conscience completed 
 her wretchedness at this time. The conventional 
 proprieties are a law written on the hearts of re 
 fined, delicately nurtured girls ; and though, in 
 the desperation of unreciprocated and jealous love, 
 she had dared to violate them, not the less did 
 they now thoroughly revenge themselves. If her 
 revolt against custom had resulted happily, it is 
 not indeed likely that she would ever have re 
 proached herself very seriously ; but now that it 
 had issued in failure, her self-confidence was gone 
 nd her conscience easily convicted her of sin. 
 The outraged Proprieties, with awful spectacles 
 and minatory, reproachful gestures, crowded 
 nightly around her bed, the Titanic shade of Mrs. 
 Grundy looming above her satellite shams and 
 freezing her blood with a Gorgon gaze. The feel 
 ing that she had deserved all that was to come 
 upon her deprived her of moral support. 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 231 
 
 Arthur had never showed that he thought 
 cheaply of her, but in his heart of hearts how 
 could he help doing so? Compared with the 
 other girls, serene and unapproachable in their 
 virgin pride, must she not necessarily seem bold, 
 coarse, and common ? That he took care never to 
 let her see it only proved his kindness of heart. 
 Her sense of this kindness was more and more 
 touched with abjectness. 
 
 The pity of it was that she had come to love him 
 so much more since she had known him so well. 
 It scarcely seemed to her now that she could have 
 truly cared for him at all in the old days, and she 
 wondered, as she looked back, that the shallow 
 emotion she then experienced had emboldened her 
 to do what she had done. Ah, why had she done 
 it ? Why had she not let him go his way ? She 
 might have suffered then, but not such heart-break 
 ing misery as was now in store for her. 
 
 Some weeks passed with no marked change in 
 their relations, except that a new and marked con 
 straint which had come over Arthur s manner to 
 wards her was additional evidence that the end was 
 at hand. Would he think it better to say nothing, 
 but merely come to see her less and less frequently 
 and so desert her, without an explanation, which, 
 after all, was needless ? Or would he tell her how 
 the matter stood and say good-by ? She thought 
 he would take the latter course, seeing that they 
 had always been so frank with each other. She 
 
232 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 tried to prepare herself for what she knew was 
 coming, and to get ready to bear it. The only re 
 sult was that she grew sick with apprehension when 
 ever he did not call, and was only at ease when he 
 was with her, in the moment that he was saying 
 good-by without having uttered the dreaded words. 
 
 The end came during a call which he made on 
 her in the last part of June. He appeared preoc 
 cupied and moody, and said scarcely anything. 
 Several times she caught him furtively regarding 
 her with a very strange expression. She tried to 
 talk, but she could not alone keep up the conversa 
 tion, and in time there came a silence. A hideous 
 silence it was to Maud, an abyss yawning to swal 
 low up all that was left of her happiness. She 
 had no more power to speak, and when he spoke 
 she knew it would be to utter the words she had 
 so long expected. Evidently it was very hard for 
 him to bring himself to utter them, almost as 
 hard as it would be for her to hear them. He was 
 very tender-hearted she had learned already. Even 
 in that moment she was very sorry for him. It 
 was all her fault that he had to say this to her. 
 
 Suddenly, just as she must have cried out, una 
 ble to bear the tension of suspense any longer, he 
 rose abruptly to his feet, uttering something about 
 going and an engagement which he had almost for 
 gotten. Hastily wishing her good-evening, with 
 hurried steps he half crossed the room, hesitated, 
 stopped, looked back at her, seemed to waver a 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 233 
 
 moment, and then, as if moved by a sudden deci 
 sion, returned to her and took her gently by the 
 hand. Then she knew it was coming. 
 
 For a long moment he stood looking at her. She 
 knew just the pitifulness that was in his expression, 
 but she could not raise her eyes to his. She tried 
 to summon her pride, her dignity, to her support. 
 But she had no pride, no dignity, left. She had 
 surrendered them long ago. 
 
 " I have something to say to you," he said, in 
 a tone full of gentleness, just as she had known 
 he would speak. " It is something I have put off 
 saying as long as possible, and perhaps you have 
 already guessed what it is." 
 
 Maud felt the blood leaving her face ; the room 
 spun around ; she was afraid she should faint. It 
 only remained that she should break down now to 
 complete her humiliation before him, and appar 
 ently she was going to do just that. 
 
 " We have had a most delightful time the past 
 year," he went on ; " that is, at least I have. I 
 don t believe the friendship of a girl was ever so 
 much to a man as yours has been to me. I doubt 
 if there ever was just such a friendship as ours has 
 been, anyway. I shall always look back on it as 
 the rarest and most charming passage in my life. 
 But I have seen for some time that we could not 
 go on much longer on the present footing, and to 
 night it has come over me that we can t go on even 
 another day. Maud, I can t play at being friends 
 
234 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 with you one hour more. I love you. Do you care 
 for me still ? Will you be my wife ? " 
 
 When it is remembered that up to his last words 
 she had been desperately bracing herself against 
 an announcement of a most opposite nature, it will 
 not seem strange that for a moment Maud had dif 
 ficulty in realizing just what had happened. She 
 looked at him as if dazed, and with an instinct of 
 bewilderment drew back a little as he would have 
 clasped her. " I thought," she stammered "I 
 thought I " - 
 
 He misconstrued her hesitation. His eyes dark 
 ened and his voice was sharpened with a sudden 
 fear as he exclaimed, " I know it was a long time 
 ago you told me that. Perhaps you don t feel the 
 same way now. Don t tell me, Maud, that you 
 don t care for me any longer, now that I have 
 learned I can t do without you." 
 
 A look of wondering happiness, scarcely able 
 even yet to believe in its own reality, had succeeded 
 the bewildered incredulity in her face. 
 
 " O Arthur ! " she cried. " Do you really mean 
 it ? Are you sure it is not out of pity that you say 
 this? Do you love me after all? Would you 
 really like me a little to be your wife ? " 
 
 " If you are not my wife, I shall never have 
 one," he replied. " You have spoiled all other 
 women for me." 
 
 Then she let him take her in his arms, and as 
 his lips touched hers for the first time he faintly 
 
A LOVE STORY REVERSED 235 
 
 wondered if it were possible he had ever dreamed 
 of any other woman but Maud Elliott as his wife. 
 After she had laughed and cried awhile, she said : 
 
 " How was it that you never let me see you cared 
 for me ? You never showed it." 
 
 " I tried not to," he replied ; " and I would not 
 have shown it to-night, if I could have helped it. I 
 tried to get away without betraying my secret, but 
 I could not." Then he told her that when he found 
 he had fallen in love with her, he was almost angry 
 with himself. He was so proud of their friendship 
 that a mere love affair seemed cheap and common 
 beside it. Any girl would do to fall in love with ; 
 but there was not, he was sure, another in America 
 capable of bearing her part in such a rare and deli 
 cate companionship as theirs. He was determined 
 to keep up their noble game of friendship as long 
 as might be. 
 
 Afterward, during the evening, he boasted him 
 self to her not a little of the self-control he had 
 shown in hiding his passion so long, a feat the 
 merit of which perhaps she did not adequately 
 appreciate. 
 
 " Many a time in the last month or two when 
 you have been saying good-by to me of an evening, 
 with your hand in mine, the temptation has been 
 almost more than I could withstand to seize you in 
 my arms. It was all the harder, you see, because 
 I fancied you would not be very angry if I did. In 
 fact, you once gave me to understand as much in 
 
236 A LOVE STORY REVERSED 
 
 pretty plain language, if I remember rightly. Pos 
 sibly you may recall the conversation. You took 
 the leading part in it, I believe." 
 
 Maud had bent her head so low that he could 
 not see her face. It was very cruel in him, but he 
 deliberately took her chin in his hands, and gently 
 but firmly turned her face up to his. Then, as he 
 kissed the shamed eyes and furiously blushing 
 cheeks, he dropped the tone of banter and said, 
 with moist eyes, in a voice of solemn tenderness : 
 
 " My brave darling, with all my life I will thank 
 you for the words you spoke that night. But for 
 them I might have missed the wife God meant 
 for me." 
 
DESEKTED 
 
 " WHAT a glorious, all-satisfying country this 
 Nevada desert would be, if one were only all eyes, 
 and had no need of food, drink, and shelter! 
 Would n t it, Miss Dwyer ? Do you know, I ve 
 no doubt that this is the true location of heaven. 
 You see, the lack of water and vegetation would 
 be no inconvenience to spirits, while the magnifi 
 cent scenery and the cloudless sky would be just 
 the thing to make them thrive." 
 
 " But what I can t get over," responded the 
 young lady addressed, " is that these alkali plains, 
 which have been described as so dreary and unin 
 teresting, should prove to be in reality one of the 
 most wonderfully impressive and beautiful regions 
 in the world. What awful fibbers, or what awfully 
 dull people, they must have been whose descrip 
 tions have so misled the public ! It is perfectly 
 unaccountable. Here I expected to doze all the 
 way across the desert, while in fact I ve grudged 
 my eyes time enough to wink ever since I left my 
 berth this morning." 
 
 " The trouble is," replied her companion, " that 
 persons in search of the picturesque, or with much 
 eye for it, are rare travelers along this route. The 
 
238 DESERTED 
 
 people responsible for the descriptions you com 
 plain of are thrifty business-men, with no idea that 
 there can be any possible attraction in a country 
 where crops can t be raised, timber cut, or ore dug 
 up. For my part, I Jhank the Lord for the beau 
 tiful barrenness that has consecrated this great 
 region to loneliness. Here there will always be a 
 chance to get out of sight and sound of the swarm 
 ing millions who have already left scarcely stand 
 ing-room for a man in the East. I would n t give 
 much for a country where there are no wilder 
 nesses left." 
 
 " But I really think it is rather hard to say in 
 just what the beauty of the desert consists," said 
 Miss Dwyer. " It is so simple. I scribbled two 
 pages of description in my note-book this morning, 
 but when I read them over, and then looked out 
 of the window, I tore them up. I think the won 
 derfully fine, clear, brilliant air transfigures the 
 landscape and makes it something that must be 
 seen and can t be told. After seeing how this 
 air makes the ugly sagebrush and the patches of 
 alkali and brown earth a feast to the eye, one can 
 understand how the light of heaven may make the 
 ugliest faces beautiful." 
 
 The pretty talker is sitting next the window of 
 palace-car No. 30 of the Central Pacific line, which 
 has already been her flying home for two days. 
 The gentleman who sits beside her professes to be 
 sharing the view, but it is only fair I should tell 
 
DESERTED 239 
 
 the reader that under this pretense he is nefa 
 riously delighting in the rounded contour of his 
 companion s half-averted face, as she, in unfeigned 
 engrossment, scans the panorama unrolled before 
 them by the swift motion of the car. How sweet 
 and fresh is the bright tint of her cheek against 
 the ghastly white background of the alkali-patches 
 as they flit by ! Still, it can t be said that he is n t 
 enjoying the scenery too, for surely there is no 
 such Claude-Lorraine glass to reflect and enhance 
 the beauty of a landscape as the face of a spirituelle 
 girl. 
 
 With a profound sigh, summing up both her 
 admiration and that despair of attaining the per 
 fect insight and sympathy imagined and longed 
 for which is always a part of intense appreciation 
 of natural beauty, Miss Dwyer threw herself back 
 in her seat, and fixed her eyes on the car-ceiling 
 with an expression as if she were looking at some 
 thing at least as far away as the moon. 
 
 " I m going to make a statue when I get home," 
 she said, "a statue which will personify Nevada, 
 and represent the tameless, desolate, changeless, 
 magnificent beauty and the self-sufficient loneli 
 ness of the desert. I can see it in my mind s eye 
 now. It will probably be the finest statue in the 
 world." 
 
 " If you d as lief put your ideal into a paint 
 ing, I will give you a suggestion that will be origi 
 nal if nothing else," he observed. 
 
240 DESERTED 
 
 " What s that ? " 
 
 " Why, having in view these white alkali- 
 patches that chiefly characterize Nevada, paint her 
 as a leper." 
 
 " That s horrid ! You need n t talk to me any 
 more," she exclaimed emphatically. 
 
 With this sort of chatter they had beguiled the 
 time since leaving San Francisco the morning of 
 the day before. Acquaintances are indeed made 
 as rapidly on an overland train as on an ocean 
 steamship, but theirs had dated from the preceding 
 winter, during which they had often met in San 
 Francisco. When Mr. Lombard heard that Miss 
 Dwyer and Mrs. Eustis, her invalid sister, were 
 going East in April, he discovered that he would 
 have business to attend to in New York at about 
 that time; and oddly enough, that is, if you 
 choose to take that view of it, when the ladies 
 came to go, it turned out that Lombard had taken 
 his ticket for the selfsame train and identical 
 sleeping-car. The result of which was that he had 
 the privilege of handing Miss Dwyer in and out at 
 the eating-stations, of bringing Mrs. Eustis her 
 cup of tea in the car, and of sharing Miss Dwyer s 
 seat and monopolizing her conversation when he 
 had a mind to, which was most of the time. A 
 bright and congenial companion has this advantage 
 over a book, that he or she is an author whom you 
 can make discourse on any subject you please, in 
 stead of being obliged to follow an arbitrary selec- 
 
DESERTED 241 
 
 tion by another, as when you commune with the 
 printed page. 
 
 By way of peace-offering for his blasphemy in 
 calling the Nevada desert a leper, Lombard had 
 embezzled a couple of chairs from the smoking- 
 room and carried them to the rear platform of the 
 car, which happened to be the last of the train, 
 and invited Miss Dwyer to come thither and see 
 the scenery. Whether she had wanted to pardon 
 him or not, he knew very well that this was a 
 temptation which she could not resist, for the rear 
 platform was the best spot for observation on the 
 entire train, unless it were the cowcatcher of the 
 locomotive. 
 
 The April sun mingled with the frosty air like 
 whiskey with ice-water, producing an effect cool 
 but exhilarating. As she sat in the door of the 
 little passage leading to the platform, she scarcely 
 needed the shawl which he wrapped about her 
 with absurdly exaggerated solicitude. One of the 
 most unmistakable symptoms of the lover is the 
 absorbing and superfluous care with which he 
 adjusts the wraps about the object of his affec 
 tions whether the weather be warm or cold : it is 
 as if he thought he could thus artificially warm 
 her heart toward him. But Miss Dwyer did not 
 appear vexed, pretending indeed to be oblivious 
 of everything else in admiration of the spectacle 
 before her. 
 
 The country stretched flat and bare as a table 
 
242 DESERTED 
 
 for fifty miles on either side the track, a dis 
 tance looking in the clear air not over one fifth as 
 great. On every side this great plain was circled 
 by mountains, the reddish-brown sides of some of 
 them bare to the summits, while others were robed 
 in folds of glistening snow and looked like white 
 curtains drawn part way up the sky. The whitey- 
 gray of the alkali-patches, the brown of the dry 
 earth, and the rusty green of the sagebrush filled 
 the foreground, melting in the distance into a 
 purple-gray. The wondrous dryness and clearness 
 of the air lent to these modest tints a tone and 
 dazzling brilliance that surprised the eye with a 
 revelation of possibilities never before suspected 
 in them. But the mountains were the greatest 
 wonder. It was as if the skies, taking pity on 
 their nakedness, had draped their majestic shoul 
 ders in imperial purple, while at this hour the 
 westering sun tipped their pinnacles with gilt. In 
 the distance half a dozen sand-spouts, swiftly-mov 
 ing white pillars, looking like desert genii with too 
 much " tanglefoot " aboard, were careering about 
 in every direction. 
 
 But as Lombard pointed out the various features 
 of the scene to his companion, I fear that his chief 
 motive was less an admiration of Nature that 
 sought sympathy than a selfish delight in making 
 her eyes flash, seeing the color come and go in her 
 cheeks, and hearing her charming unstudied excla 
 mations of pleasure, a delight not unmingled 
 
DESERTED 243 
 
 with complacency in associating himself in her 
 mind with emotions of delight and admiration. It 
 is appalling, the extent to which spoony young 
 people make the admiration of Nature in her 
 grandest forms a mere sauce to their love-making. 
 The roar of Niagara has been notoriously utilized 
 as a cover to unlimited osculation, and Adolphus 
 looks up at the sky-cleaving peak of Mont Blanc 
 only to look down at Angelina s countenance with 
 a more vivid appreciation of its superior attrac 
 tions. 
 
 It was delicious, Lombard thought, sitting there 
 with her on the rear platform, out of sight and 
 sound of everybody. He had such a pleasant sense 
 of proprietorship in her ! How agreeable flat 
 teringly so, in fact she had been all day ! 
 There was nothing like traveling together to make 
 people intimate. It was clear that she understood 
 his intentions very well : indeed, how could she 
 help it ? He had always said that a fellow had 
 shown himself a bungler at love-making if he were 
 not practically assured of the result before he came 
 to the point of the declaration. The sensation of 
 leaving everything else so rapidly behind that peo 
 ple have when sitting on the rear platform of a 
 train of cars makes them feel, by force of contrast, 
 nearer to each other and more identified. How 
 pretty she looked sitting there in the doorway, her 
 eyes bent so pensively on the track behind as the 
 car-wheels so swiftly reeled it oft ! He had tucked 
 
244 DESERTED 
 
 her in comfortably. No cold could get to the 
 sweet little girl, and none ever should so long as 
 he lived to make her comfort his care. 
 
 One small gloved hand lay on her lap outside 
 the shawl. What a jolly little hand it was ! He 
 reached out his own and took it, but, without even 
 a moment s hesitation for him to extract a flatter 
 ing inference from, she withdrew it. Perhaps 
 something in his matter-of-course way displeased 
 her. 
 
 To know when it is best to submit to a partial 
 rebuff, rather than make a bad matter worse by 
 trying to save one s pride, is a rare wisdom. Still, 
 Lombard might have exercised it at another time. 
 But there are days when the magnetisms are all 
 wrong, and a person not ordinarily deficient in 
 tact, having begun wrong, goes on blundering like 
 a schoolboy. Piqued at the sudden shock to the 
 pleasant day-dream, in which he had fancied him 
 self already virtually assured of this young lady, 
 a day-dream which she was not really accountable 
 for spoiling, since she had not been privy -to it, 
 what should he do but find expression for his 
 mingled vexation and wounded affection by re 
 minding her of a previous occasion on which she 
 had allowed him the liberty she now denied? 
 Doubtless helping to account for this lack of tact 
 was the idea that he should thus justify himself 
 for so far presuming just now. Not, of course, 
 that there is really any excuse for a young man s 
 
DESERTED 245 
 
 forgetting that ladies have one advantage over 
 Omniscience, in that not only are they privileged 
 to remember what they please, but also to ignore 
 what they see fit to forget. 
 
 44 You have forgotten that evening at the Cali 
 fornia Theatre," was what this devoted youth 
 said. 
 
 " I m sure I don t know to what you refer, sir," 
 she replied freezingly. 
 
 He was terrified at the distant accent of her 
 voice. It appeared to come from somewhere be 
 yond the fixed stars, and brought the chill of the 
 interstellar spaces with it. He forgot in an in 
 stant all about his pique, vexation, and wounded 
 pride, and was in a panic of anxiety to bring her 
 back. In a moment more he knew that she would 
 rise from her chair and remark that it was getting 
 cold and she must go in. If he allowed her to de 
 part in that mood, he might lose her forever. He 
 could think of but one way of convincing her in 
 stantaneously of his devotion ; and so what should 
 he do but take the most inopportune occasion in 
 the entire course of their acquaintance to make his 
 declaration. He was like a general whose plan of 
 battle has been completely deranged by an utterly 
 unexpected repulse in a preliminary movement, 
 compelling him to hurry forward his last reserves 
 in a desperate attempt to restore the battle. 
 
 " What have I done, Miss Dwyer ? Don t you 
 know that I love you ? Won t you be my wife ? " 
 
246 DESERTED 
 
 " No, sir," she said flatly, her taste outraged and 
 her sensibilities set on edge by the stupid, blunder 
 ing, hammer-and-tongs onset which from first to 
 last he had made. She loved him, and had meant 
 to accept him, but if she had loved him ten times 
 as much she couldn t have helped refusing him 
 just then, under those circumstances, not if she 
 died for it. As she spoke, she rose and disappeared 
 within the car. It is certainly to be hoped that the 
 noise of the wheels, which out on the platform was 
 considerable, prevented the recording angel from 
 getting the full force of Lombard s ejaculation. 
 
 It is bad enough to be refused when the delicacy 
 and respectfulness of the lady s manner make 
 "No" sound so much like "Yes" that the re 
 jected lover can almost persuade himself that his 
 ears have deceived him. It is bad enough to be 
 refused when she does it so timidly and shrinkingly 
 and deprecatingly that it might be supposed she 
 were the rejected party. It is bad enough to be 
 refused when she expresses the hope that you will 
 always be friends, and shows a disposition to make 
 profuse amends in general agreeableness for the 
 consummate favor which she is forced to decline 
 you. Not to put too fine a point upon it, it is 
 bad enough to be refused anyhow you can arrange 
 the circumstances, but to be refused as Lombard 
 had been, with a petulance as wounding to his dig 
 nity as was the refusal itself to his affections, is to 
 take a bitter pill with an asafoatida coating. 
 
DESERTED 247 
 
 In the limp and demoralized condition in which 
 he was left, the only clear sentiment in his mind 
 was that he did not want to meet her again just at 
 present. So he sat for an hour or more longer out 
 on the platform, and had become as thoroughly 
 chilled without as he was within when at dusk the 
 train stopped at a little three-house station for sup 
 per. Then he went into one of the forward day- 
 cars, not intending to return to the sleeping-car 
 till Miss Dwyer should have retired. When the 
 train reached Ogden the next morning, instead of 
 going on East he would take the same train back 
 to San Francisco, and that would be the end of 
 his romance. His engagement in New York had 
 been a myth, and with Miss Dwyer s " No, sir," the 
 only business with the East that had brought him 
 on this trip was at an end. 
 
 About an hour after leaving the supper-station, 
 the train suddenly stopped in the midst of the 
 desert. Something about the engine had become 
 disarranged, which it would take some time to put 
 right. Glad to improve an opportunity to stretch 
 their legs, many of the passengers left the cars and 
 were strolling about, curiously examining the sage 
 brush and the alkali, and admiring the ghostly 
 plain as it spread, bare, level, and white as an ice 
 bound polar sea, to the feet of the far-off moun 
 tains. 
 
 Lombard had also left the car, and was walking 
 about, his hands in his overcoat pockets, trying to 
 
248 DESERTED 
 
 clear his mind of the wreckage that obstructed its 
 working ; for Miss Dwyer s refusal had come upon 
 him as a sudden squall that carries away the masts 
 and sails of a vessel and transforms it in a moment 
 from a gallant bounding ship to a mere hulk drift 
 ing in an entangled mass of debris. Of course she 
 had a perfect right to suit herself about the kind 
 of a man she took for a husband, but he certainly 
 had not thought she was such an utter coquette. 
 If ever a woman gave a man reason to think him 
 self as good as engaged, she had given him that 
 reason, and yet she refused him as coolly as she would 
 have declined a second plate of soup. There must 
 be some truth, after all, in the rant of the poets 
 about the heartlessness and fickleness of women, 
 although he had always been used to consider it 
 the merest bosh. Suddenly he heard the train 
 moving. He was perhaps fifty yards off, and, 
 grumbling anathemas at the stupidity of the con 
 ductor, started to run for the last car. He was 
 not quite desperate enough to fancy being left 
 alone on the Nevada desert with night coming on. 
 He would have caught the train without difficulty, 
 if his foot had not happened to catch in a tough 
 clump of sage, throwing him violently to the 
 ground. As he gathered himself up, the train was 
 a hundred yards off, and moving rapidly. To 
 overtake it was out of the question. 
 
 " Stop ! ho ! stop ! " he yelled at the top of his 
 lungs. But there was no one on the rear platform 
 
DESERTED 249 
 
 to see him, and the closed windows and the rattle 
 of the wheels were sufficient to render a much 
 louder noise than he could make inaudible to the 
 dozing passengers. And now the engineer pulled 
 out the throttle-valve to make up for lost time, and 
 the clatter of the train faded into a distant roar, 
 and its lights began to twinkle into indistinctness. 
 
 " Damnation ! " 
 
 A voice fell like a falling star : " Gentlemen do 
 not use profane language in ladies company." 
 
 He first looked up in the air, as on the whole 
 the likeliest quarter for a voice to come from in 
 this desert, then around. Just on the other side 
 of the track stood Miss Dwyer, smiling, with a 
 somewhat constrained attempt at self-possession. 
 Lombard was a good deal taken aback, but in his 
 surprise he did not forget that this was the young 
 lady who had refused him that afternoon. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he replied, with a stiff 
 bow; "I did not suppose that there were any 
 ladies within hearing." 
 
 " I got out of the car supposing there was plenty 
 of time to get a specimen of sagebrush to carry 
 home," she explained ; " but when the cars started, 
 although I was but a little way off, I could not re 
 gain the platform ; " which, considering that she 
 wore a tie-back of the then prevalent fashion, was 
 not surprising. 
 
 " Indeed ! " replied Lombard, with the same for 
 mal manner. 
 
250 DESERTED 
 
 " But won t the train come back for us ? " she 
 asked, in a more anxious voice. 
 
 " That will depend on whether we are missed. 
 Nobody will miss me. Mrs. Eustis, if she has n t 
 gone to bed, may miss you." 
 
 " But she has. She went to bed before I left 
 the car, and is asleep by this time." 
 
 " That s unfortunate," was his brief reply, as he 
 lit a cigar and began to smoke and contemplate the 
 stars. 
 
 His services, so far as he could do anything for 
 her, she should, as a lady, command, but if she 
 thought that he was going to do the agreeable 
 after what had happened a few hours ago, she was 
 mightily mistaken. 
 
 There was a silence, and then she said, hesitat 
 ingly, " What are we going to do ? " 
 
 He glanced at her. Her attitude and the 
 troubled expression of her face, as well as her voice, 
 indicated that the logic of the situation was over 
 throwing the jaunty self-possession which she had 
 at first affected. The desert was staring her out 
 of countenance. How his heart yearned toward 
 her ! If she had only given him a right to take 
 care of her, how he would comfort her ! what pro 
 digies would he be capable of to succor her ! But 
 this rising impulse of tenderness was turned to 
 choking bitterness by the memory of that scornful 
 " No, sir." So he replied coldly, " I m not in the 
 habit of being left behind in deserts, and I don t 
 
DESERTED 251 
 
 know what it is customary to do in such cases. I 
 see nothing except to wait for the next train, which 
 will come along some time within twenty-four 
 hours." 
 
 There was another long silence, after which she 
 said, in a timid voice, " Had n t we better walk to 
 the next station ? " 
 
 At the suggestion of walking he glanced at her 
 close-fitting dress, and a sardonic grin slightly 
 twitched the corners of his mouth as he dryly an 
 swered, " It is thirty miles one way and twenty the 
 other to the first station." 
 
 Several minutes passed before she spoke again, 
 and then she said, with an accent almost like that 
 of a child in trouble and about to cry, " I m cold." 
 
 The strong, unceasing wind, blowing from snowy 
 mountain-caverns across a plain on which there 
 was not the slightest barrier of hill or tree to check 
 its violence, was indeed bitterly cold, and Lom 
 bard himself felt chilled to the marrow of his bones. 
 He took off his overcoat and offered it to her. 
 
 " No," said she, " you are as cold as I am." 
 
 "You will please take it," he replied, in a per 
 emptory manner ; and she took it. 
 
 "At this rate we shall freeze to death before 
 midnight," he added, as if in soliloquy. " I must 
 see if I can t contrive to make some sort of a shel 
 ter with this sagebrush." 
 
 He began by tearing up a large number of bushes 
 by the roots. Seeing what he was doing, Miss 
 
252 DESERTED 
 
 Dwyer was glad to warm her stiffened muscles by 
 taking hold and helping ; which she did with a 
 vigor that shortly reduced her gloves to shreds and 
 filled her fingers with scratches from the rough 
 twigs. Lombard next chose an unusually high 
 and thick clump of brush, and cleared a small 
 space three feet across in the centre of it, scattering 
 twigs on the uncovered earth to keep off its chill. 
 
 " Now, Miss Dwyer, if you will step inside this 
 spot, I think I can build up the bushes around us 
 so as to make a sort of booth which may save us 
 from freezing." 
 
 She silently did as he directed, arid he proceeded 
 to pile the brush which they had torn up on the 
 tops of the bushes left standing around the spot 
 where they were, thus making a circular wall about 
 three feet high. Over the top he managed to draw 
 together two or three bushes, and the improvised 
 wigwam was complete. 
 
 The moonlight penetrated the loose roof suffi 
 ciently to reveal to each other the faces and figures 
 of the two occupants as they sat in opposite corners, 
 as far apart as possible, she cold and miserable, he 
 cold and sulky, and both silent. And, as if to 
 mock him, the idea kept recurring to his mind 
 how romantic and delightful, in spite of the cold 
 and discomfort, the situation would be if she had 
 only said Yes, instead of No, that afternoon. Peo 
 ple have odd notions sometimes, and it actually 
 seemed to him that his vexation with her for de- 
 
DESERTED 253 
 
 stroying the pleasure of the present occasion was 
 something quite apart from, and in addition to, his 
 main grievance against her. It might have been so 
 jolly, and now she had spoiled it. He could have 
 boxed her pretty little ears. 
 
 She wondered why he did not try to light a fire, 
 but she would n t ask him another thing, if she 
 died. In point of fact, he knew the sagebrush 
 would not burn. Suddenly the wind blew fiercer, 
 there came a rushing sound, and the top and walls 
 of the wigwam were whisked off like a flash, and 
 as they staggered to their feet, buffeted by the 
 whirling bushes, a cloud of fine alkali-dust envel 
 oped them, blinding their eyes, penetrating their 
 ears and noses, and setting them gasping, sneezing, 
 and coughing spasmodically. Then, like a puff of 
 smoke, the suffocating storm was dissipated, and 
 when they opened their smarting eyes there was 
 nothing but the silent, glorious desolation of the 
 ghostly desert around them, with the snow-peaks 
 in the distance glittering beneath the moon. A 
 sand-spout had struck them, that was all, one of 
 the whirling dust-columns which they had admired 
 all day from the car-windows. 
 
 Wretched enough before, both for physical and 
 sentimental reasons, this last experience quite 
 demoralized Miss Dwyer, and she sat down and 
 cried. Now, a few tears, regarded from a practi 
 cal, middle-aged point of view, would not appear 
 to have greatly complicated the situation, but they 
 
254 DESERTED 
 
 threw Lombard into a panic. If she was going to 
 cry, something must be done. Whether anything 
 could be done or not, something must be done. 
 
 " Don t leave me," she cried hysterically, as he 
 rushed off to reconnoitre the vicinity. 
 
 " I 11 return presently," he called back. 
 
 But five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes 
 passed, and he did not come back. Terror dried 
 her tears, and her heart almost stopped beating. 
 She had quite given him up for lost, and herself 
 too, when with inexpressible relief she heard him 
 call to her. She replied, and in a moment more 
 he was at her side, breathless with running. 
 
 " I lost my bearings," he said. " If you had 
 not answered me, I could not have found you." 
 
 "Don t leave me again," she sobbed, clinging 
 to his arm. 
 
 He put his arms round her and kissed her. It 
 was mean, base, contemptible, to take advantage of 
 her agitation in that way, but she did not resist, 
 and he did it again and again, I forbear to say 
 how many times. 
 
 " Is n t it a perfectly beautiful night ? " he ex 
 claimed, with a fine gush of enthusiasm. 
 
 " Is n t it exquisite ? " she echoed, with a rush of 
 sympathetic feeling. 
 
 " See those stars : they look as if they had just 
 been polished," he cried. 
 
 " What a droll idea ! " she exclaimed gleefully. 
 " But do see that lovely mountain." 
 
DESERTED 255 
 
 Holding her with a firmer clasp, and speaking 
 with what might be styled a fierce tenderness, he 
 demanded, " What did you mean, miss, by refus 
 ing me this afternoon ? " 
 
 "What did you go at me so stupidly for? I 
 had to refuse," she retorted smilingly. 
 
 " Will you be my wife ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I meant to be all the time." 
 
 The contract having been properly sealed, Lom 
 bard said, with a countenance curiously divided 
 between a tragical expression and a smile of fatu 
 ous complacency, " There was a clear case of poeti 
 cal justice in your being left behind in the desert 
 to-night. To see the lights of the train disappear 
 ing, leaving you alone in the midst of desolation, 
 gave you a touch of my feeling on being rejected 
 this afternoon. Of all leavings behind, there s 
 none so miserable as the experience of the rejected 
 lover." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! so he should n t be left behind. 
 He shall be conductor of the train," she said, with 
 a bewitching laugh. His response was not verbal. 
 
 " How cold the wind is ! " she said. 
 
 " Shall I build you another wigwam ? " 
 
 " No ; let us exercise a little. You whistle The 
 Beautiful Blue Danube, and we 11 waltz. This 
 desert is the biggest, jolliest ball-room floor that 
 ever was, and I dare say we shall be the first to 
 waltz on it since the creation of the world. That 
 will be something to boast of when we get home. 
 
256 DESERTED 
 
 Come, let s dedicate the Great American Desert 
 to Terpsichore." 
 
 They stepped out from among the ruins of their 
 sagebrush booth upon a patch of hard, bare earth 
 close to the railroad track. Lombard puckered 
 his lips and struck up the air, and off they went 
 with as much enthusiasm as if inspired by a first- 
 class orchestra. Round and round, to and fro, 
 they swept until, laughing, flushed, and panting, 
 they came to a stop. 
 
 It was then that they first perceived that they 
 were not without a circle of appreciative spectators. 
 Sitting like statues on their sniffing, pawing ponies, 
 a dozen Piute Indians encircled them. Engrossed 
 with the dance and with each other, they had not 
 noticed them as they rode up, attracted from their 
 route by this marvelous spectacle of a pale-face 
 squaw and brave engaged in a solitary war dance 
 in the midst of the desert. 
 
 At sight of the grim circle of centaurs around 
 them Miss Dwyer would have fainted but for 
 Lombard s firm hold. 
 
 " Pretend not to see them ; keep on dancing," 
 he hissed in her ear. He had no distinct plan in 
 what he said, but spoke merely from an instinct of 
 self-preservation, which told him that when they 
 stopped, the Indians would be upon them. But 
 as she mechanically, and really more dead than 
 alive, obeyed his direction and resumed the dance, 
 and he in his excitement was treading on her feet 
 
DESERTED 257 
 
 at every step, the thought flashed upon him that 
 there was a bare chance of escaping violence, if 
 they could keep the Indians interested without 
 appearing to notice their presence. In successive 
 whispers he communicated his idea to Miss Dyer : 
 " Don t act as if you saw them at all, but do every 
 thing as if we were alone. That will puzzle them, 
 and make them think us supernatural beings, or 
 perhaps crazy : Indians have great respect for 
 crazy people. It s our only chance. We will stop 
 dancing now, and sing awhile. Give them a bur 
 lesque of opera. I 11 give you the cues and show 
 you how. Don t be frightened. I don t believe 
 they 11 touch us so long as we act as if we did n t 
 see them. Do you understand ? Can you do your 
 part?" 
 
 " I understand ; I 11 try," she whispered. 
 
 "Now," he said, and as they separated, he threw 
 his hat on the ground, and, assuming an extrava 
 gantly languishing attitude, burst forth in a most 
 poignant burlesque of a lovelorn tenor s part, roll 
 ing his eyes, clasping his hands, striking his breast, 
 and gyrating about Miss Dwyer in the most ap 
 proved operatic style. He had a fine voice and 
 knew a good deal of music ; so that, barring a cer 
 tain nervousness in the performer, the exhibition 
 was really not bad. In his singing he had used a 
 meaningless gibberish varied with the syllables of 
 the scale, but he closed by singing the words, " Are 
 you ready now ? Go ahead, then." 
 
258 DESERTED 
 
 With that she took it up, and rendered the prim a 
 donna quite as effectively, interjecting " The Last 
 Rose of Summer " as an aria in a manner that 
 would have been encored in San Francisco. He re 
 sponded with a few staccato notes, and the scene 
 ended by their rushing into each other s arms and 
 waltzing down the stage with abandon. 
 
 The Indians sat motionless on their horses, not 
 even exchanging comments among themselves. 
 They were evidently too utterly astonished by the 
 goings on before them to have any other sentiment 
 as yet beyond pure amazement. Here were two 
 richly-dressed pale-faces, such as only lived in 
 cities, out in the middle of an uninhabitable desert, 
 in the freezing midnight, having a variety and 
 minstrel show all to themselves, and, to make the 
 exhibition the more unaccountable, without appar 
 ently seeing their auditors at all. Had they started 
 up the show after being captured, Indian cunning 
 would have recognized in it a device to save their 
 lives, but the two had been at it before the party 
 rode up, had, in fact, first attracted attention by 
 their gyrations, which were visible for miles out on 
 the moony plain. 
 
 Lombard, without ever letting his eyes rest a 
 moment on the Indians so as to indicate that he 
 saw them, had still managed by looks askance and 
 sweeping glances to keep close watch upon their 
 demeanor, and noted with prodigious relief that 
 his wild scheme was succeeding better than he had 
 
DESERTED 259 
 
 dared to hope. Without any break in the enter 
 tainment he communicated his reassurance to Miss 
 Dwyer by singing, to the tune of "My Country, 
 t is of Thee," the following original hymn : 
 
 "We re doing admir blee 
 They re heap much tickledee : 
 Only keep on. 
 
 To which she responded, to the lugubrious air of 
 " John Brown s Body : " 
 
 " Oh, what do you s pose they 11 go for to do, 
 Oh, what do you s pose they 11 go for to do, 
 Oh, what do you s pose they 11 go for to do, 
 When we can sing no more ? " 
 
 A thing may be ridiculous without being amus 
 ing, and neither of these two felt the least inclina 
 tion to smile at each other s poetry. After duly 
 joining in the chorus of " Glory, Hallelujah ! " Lom 
 bard endeavored to cheer his companion by words 
 adapted to the inspiriting air of " Rally Round the 
 Flag, Boys." This was followed by a series of 
 popular airs, with solos, duets, and choruses. 
 
 But this sort of thing could not go on forever. 
 Lombard was becoming exhausted in voice and 
 legs, and as for Miss Dwyer, he was expecting to 
 see her drop from moment to moment. Indeed, to 
 the air of " Way down upon the Swanee River" 
 she now began to sing : 
 
 " Oh, dear ! I can t bear up much longer : 
 
 I m tired to death ; 
 My voice s gone all to pie-ee-ee-ces, 
 My throat is very sore." 
 
260 DESERTED 
 
 They must inevitably give out in a few minutes, 
 and then he and, terribly worse, she would be 
 at the mercy of these bestial savages, and this seem 
 ing farce would turn into most revolting tragedy. 
 With this sickening conviction coming over him, 
 Lombard cast a despairing look around the horizon 
 to see if there were no help in their bitter extrem 
 ity. Suddenly he burst forth, to the tune of " The 
 Star-Spangled Banner : " 
 
 " Oh, say can you see, 
 Far away to the east, 
 A bright star that doth grow 
 Momentarily brighter ? 
 Tis the far-flashing headlight 
 Of a railroad-train : 
 Ten minutes from now 
 We shall be safe and sound." 
 
 What they did in those ten minutes neither could 
 tell afterward. The same idea was in both their 
 minds, that unless the attention of the Indians 
 could be held until the train arrived, its approach 
 would only precipitate their own fate by impelling 
 the savages to carry out whatever designs of mur 
 der, insult, or capture they might have. Under 
 the influence of the intense excitement of this crit 
 ical interval it is to be feared that the performance 
 degenerated from a high-toned concert and variety 
 show into something very like a Howling-Dervish 
 exhibition. But, at any rate, it answered its pur 
 pose until, after a period that seemed like a dozen 
 eternities, the West-bound overland express with a 
 
DESERTED 261 
 
 tremendous roar and rattle drew up beside them, 
 in response to the waving of Miss Dwyer s hand 
 kerchief and to Lombard s shouts. 
 
 Even had the Indians contemplated hostile inten 
 tions, which they were doubtless in a condition 
 of too great general stupefaction to do, the alac 
 rity with which the two performers clambered 
 aboard the cars would probably have foiled their 
 designs. But as the train gathered headway once 
 more, Lombard could not resist the temptation of 
 venting his feelings by shaking his fist ferociously 
 at the audience which he had been so conscien 
 tiously trying to please up to that moment. It was 
 a gratification which had like to have cost him 
 dear. There was a quick motion on the part of 
 one of the Indians, and the conductor dragged 
 Lombard within the car just as an arrow struck 
 the door. 
 
 Mrs. Eustis had slept sweetly all night, and was 
 awakened the next morning an hour before the 
 train reached Ogden by the sleeping-car porter, 
 who gave her a telegram which had overtaken the 
 train at the last station. It read : 
 
 Am safe and sound. Was left behind by your 
 train last night, and picked up by West-bound 
 express. Will join you at Ogden to-morrow morn 
 ing. 
 
 JENNIE DWYER. 
 
 Mrs. Eustis read the telegram through twice 
 
262 DESERTED 
 
 without getting the least idea from it. Then she 
 leaned over and looked down into Jennie s berth. 
 It had not been slept in. Then she began to 
 understand. Heroically resisting a tendency to 
 scream, she thus secured space for second thought, 
 and, being a shrewd woman of the world, ended by 
 making up her mind to tell no one about the mat 
 ter. Evidently, Jennie had been having some de 
 cidedly unconventional experience, and the less 
 publicity given to all such passages in young ladies 
 lives, the better for their prospects. It so hap 
 pened that in the bustle attending the approach to 
 the terminus and the prospective change of cars 
 everybody was too busy to notice that any passen 
 gers were missing. At Ogden Mrs. Eustis left 
 the train and went to a hotel. The following 
 morning, a few minutes after the arrival of the 
 Central Pacific train, Jennie Dwyer walked into 
 her room, Lombard having stopped at the office to 
 secure berths for the three to Omaha by the Union 
 Pacific. After Jennie had given an outline ac 
 count of her experiences, and Mrs. Eustis s equi 
 librium had been measurably restored by proper 
 use of the smelling-salts, the latter lady remarked, 
 * 3.nd so Mr. Lombard was alone with you there 
 all night ? It s very unfortunate that it should 
 have happened so." 
 
 " Why, I was thinking it very fortunate," re 
 plied Jennie, with her most childlike expression. 
 " If Mr. Lombard had not been there, I should 
 
DESERTED 263 
 
 either have frozen to death, or by this time been 
 celebrating my honeymoon as bride of a Piute 
 chief." 
 
 " Nonsense, child ! You know what I mean. 
 People will talk ; such unpleasant things will be 
 said ! I would n t have had it happen for anything. 
 And when you were under my charge, too ! Do 
 hand me my salts." 
 
 " If people are going to say unpleasant things 
 because I am out of an evening alone with Mr. 
 Lombard," remarked Jennie, with a mischievous 
 smile, " you must prepare yourself to hear a good 
 deal said, my dear, for I presume this won t be the 
 last time it will happen. We re engaged to be 
 married." 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 THE train slackened, a brakeman thrust his 
 head in at the door and shouted " Bah," a mys 
 terious formality observed on American trains as 
 they enter towns, and an elderly lady, two drum 
 mers, and a young man with a satchel got out, fol 
 lowed by the languid envy of the other passengers, 
 who had longer or shorter penances of heat and 
 dust before them. The train got under way again, 
 while the knot of loafers about the station pro 
 ceeded to eye the arrivals as judicially as if they 
 were a committee of safety to protect the village 
 from invasion by doubtful characters. The old 
 lady, apparently laboring under some such im 
 pression, regarded them deferentially, as nervous 
 travelers on arriving in strange places generally 
 do regard everybody who seems to feel at home. 
 The drummers briskly disappeared down the main 
 street, each anxious to anticipate the other at the 
 stores. The young man with the satchel, however, 
 did not get away till he had shaken hands and 
 exchanged a few good-natured inquiries with one 
 of the loungers. 
 
 " Who s that, Bill? " asked one of the group, star 
 ing after the retreating figure with lazy curiosity. 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 265 
 
 " Why, did n t you know him ? Thought every 
 body knew him. That s Arthur Steele," replied 
 the one who had shaken hands, in a tone of cor 
 diality indicating that his politeness had left a 
 pleasant impression on his mind, as Arthur Steele s 
 politeness generally did. 
 
 " Who is he, anyhow ? " pursued the other. 
 
 " Why, he s a Fairfield boy " (the brakeman 
 pronounced it "Bah"), "born and brought up 
 here. His folks allers lived right next to mine, and 
 now he s doin a rushin lawyer trade down New 
 York, and I expect he s just rakin the stamps. 
 Did yer see that diamond pin he wore ? " 
 
 " S pose it s genooine ? " asked a third loafer, 
 with interest. 
 
 " Course it was. I tell you he s on the make, 
 and don t you forgit it. Some fellers allers has 
 luck. Many s the time he n I ve been in swim- 
 min and hookin apples together when we wuz 
 little chaps," pursued Bill, in a tone implying a 
 mild reproach at the deceitf ulness of an analogy 
 that after such fair promise in early life had failed 
 to complete itself in their later fortunes. 
 
 " Why, darn it all, you know him, Jim," he 
 continued, dropping the tone of pensive reminis 
 cence into which he had momentarily allowed him 
 self to fall. " That pretty gal that sings in the 
 Baptis choir is his sister." 
 
 After a space of silent rumination and jerking 
 of peanut shells upon the track, the group broke 
 
266 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 up its session, and adjourned by tacit understand 
 ing till the next train was due. 
 
 Arthur Steele was half an hour in getting to 
 his father s house, because everybody he met on 
 the street insisted on shaking hands with him. 
 Everybody in Fairfield had known him since he was 
 a boy, and had seen him grow up, and all were 
 proud of him as a credit to the village and one of 
 its most successful representatives in the big out 
 side world. The young man had sense and senti 
 ment enough to feel that the place he held in the 
 esteem of his native community was a thing to feel 
 more just pride in than any station he could win 
 in the city, and as he walked along hand-shaking 
 with old friends on this side and that, it was about 
 his idea of a triumphal entry. 
 
 There was the dear old house, and as he saw it 
 his memory of it started out vividly in his mind 
 as if to attest how faithfully it had kept each 
 detail. It never would come out so clearly at 
 times when he was far away and needed its com 
 fort. He opened the door softly. The sitting- 
 room was empty, and darkened to keep out the 
 heat and flies. The latched door stood open, and, 
 hearing voices, he tiptoed across the floor with a 
 guileful smile and, leaning through the doorway, 
 saw his mother and sister sitting by the cool, lilac- 
 shaded window, picking over currants for tea, and 
 talking tranquilly. Being a provident young man, 
 he paused a minute to let the pretty, peaceful scene 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 267 
 
 impress itself upon his mind, to be remembered 
 afterward for the cheer of bleak boarding-house 
 Sunday afternoons. Then there was a sudden 
 glancing up, a cry of joyful consternation, and the 
 pan of currants rolled from Amy s lap like a 
 broken necklace of rubies across the uncarpeted 
 floor, while Arthur held mother and sister in a 
 double embrace. And when at length the kissing 
 had all been done, he established himself in his 
 familiar boyish attitude on the window-seat, kick 
 ing his heels against the mopboard, with his 
 elbows on his knees, and the three talked away 
 steadily till the shop-bell rang, and Mrs. Steele 
 sprang up in a panic, exclaiming : " Father will be 
 here in five minutes, and the currants are on the 
 floor. Come, Amy, quick ; we must pick some 
 more, and you shall help, Arthur." 
 
 But though he went out into the garden with 
 them readily enough, it was quite another thing to 
 make him pick currants, for he insisted on wander 
 ing all over the place and demanding what had 
 become of everything he missed, and the history 
 of everything new. And pretty soon Mr. Steele 
 also appeared in the garden, having found no one 
 in the house on reaching home. He had learned 
 on the street that Arthur had arrived, and came 
 out beaming. It was good to see the hearty affec 
 tion with which the two shook hands. 
 
 The transition of the son from the pupilage of 
 childhood and youth to the independence of man- 
 
268 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 hood is often trying to the filial relation. Neither 
 party fully realizes that the old relation is at an 
 end, or just what the new basis is, or when the 
 change takes place. The absence of the son for 
 two or three years at this period has often the best 
 results. He goes a boy and returns a man ; the 
 old relation is forgotten by both parties, and they 
 readily fall into the new one. So it had fared 
 with Arthur and his father. 
 
 " You ve got a splendid lot of watermelons," 
 said the former, as they arrived at the upper end 
 of the ample garden in their tour of inspection. 
 
 " Yes," replied Mr. Steele, with a shrug ; " only 
 thus far they ve been stolen a little faster than 
 they ve ripened." 
 
 " What made you plant them so near the fence ? " 
 
 " That was my blunder ; but you see the soil is 
 just the thing, better than lower down." 
 
 " Why don t you buy a bulldog ? " 
 
 " I think it s more Christian to shoot a man 
 outright than to set one of those devils on him. 
 The breed ought to be extirpated." 
 
 " Put some ipecac in one or two. That 11 fetch 
 em. I know how sick it made me once." 
 
 " I did ; but more were stolen next night. I 
 can t afford to medicate the whole village. Last 
 night I sat up to watch till twelve o clock, when 
 mother made me go to bed." 
 
 "I ll watch to-night," said Arthur, "and give 
 em a lesson with a good load of beans from the 
 old shotgun." 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 269 
 
 " It would n t pay," replied his father. " I con 
 cluded last night that all the melons in the world 
 were n t worth a night s sleep. They 11 have to go, 
 and next year I 11 know more than to plant any." 
 
 " You go and help Amy pick currants, and let 
 me talk to the boy a little," said Mrs. Steele, 
 coming up and taking Arthur off for a promenade 
 up the broad path. 
 
 "How pretty Amy has grown," said he, glan 
 cing with a pleased smile at the girl as she looked 
 up at her father. " I suppose the young men are 
 making sheep s eyes at her already." 
 
 " It does n t do them any good if they are," said 
 Mrs. Steele, decisively. " She s only sixteen and 
 a little girl yet, and has sense enough to know it." 
 
 " What had she been crying for when I arrived ? 
 I saw her eyes were as red as the currants." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " replied Mrs. Steele, with a sigh of 
 vexation, " it was her troubles at the Seminary. 
 You know we let her go as a day scholar this sum 
 mer. Some of the girls slight and snub her, and 
 she is very unhappy about it." 
 
 " Why, what on earth can anybody have against 
 Amy ? " demanded Arthur, in indignant surprise. 
 
 " I suppose it s because some of the little hussies 
 from the city have taken the notion that they won t 
 associate with a mechanic s daughter, although 
 Amy is very careful not to say it in so many 
 words, for fear of hurting my feelings. But I 
 suspect that s about where the shoe pinches." 
 
270 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 Arthur muttered something between an oath and 
 a grunt, expressing the emphasis of the one and 
 the disgust of the other. 
 
 " I tell Amy it is foolish to mind their airs, but 
 I m really afraid it spoils the poor girl s happi 
 ness." 
 
 " Why don t you send her away to boarding- 
 school, if it is so serious a matter as that ? " 
 
 " We can t afford it," said his mother, whereto 
 Arthur promptly replied : 
 
 " I 11 pay her expenses. I m making a good deal 
 more money than I know what to do with, and 
 I d really like the chance of doing a little good." 
 
 His mother glanced at him with affectionate 
 pride. 
 
 " You re always wanting to pay somebody s ex 
 penses, or make somebody a present. It s really 
 unsafe, when you re around, to indicate that one 
 is n t perfectly contented. But you caught me up 
 too quickly. I was going to say that we could n ? t 
 spare her from home, anyhow. She s the light of 
 the house. Besides that, if it comes to objections, 
 I ve my notions about boarding-schools, and I d 
 trust no girl of mine at one that was n t within 
 sight of her home. No, she ll have to keep on 
 here and bear it as she can, though it s pretty 
 hard, I know. The trouble to-night was, that Lina 
 Maynard, who is one of the older girls, has invited 
 nearly everybody at the Seminary except Amy to 
 a birthday party to-morrow. Little minx, I could 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 271 
 
 shake her. And the worst of it is, Amy thinks 
 there s nobody like Lina Maynard." 
 
 After tea it was still light, and Arthur and 
 Amy went out to walk. In spite of the ten years 
 difference in their ages, he always enjoyed her 
 company as well as anybody s in the world, be 
 cause she was so refreshingly childlike and nat 
 ural. Every chord of feeling answered so true and 
 clear to the touch, that to talk with her was like 
 playing on a musical instrument, only far more 
 delightful. Arthur had looked forward to walks 
 and talks with Amy as among the jolliest treats 
 of his vacation. She tried her best now to seem 
 light-hearted, and to entertain him with the local 
 gossip, for which he always depended on her. But 
 she could n t simulate the vivacious and eager air 
 that had been the chief charm of her talk. As he 
 glanced down, he was grieved to see the sad set of 
 the pretty child face at his side, and how still had 
 grown the fountain of smiles in the hazel eyes that 
 were wont to send their ripples outward in con 
 stant succession. It is to be feared that under his 
 breath he applied some very ungentlemanly lan 
 guage to Lina Maynard and her clique, whose 
 nonsenical ill-nature had hurt this little girl s feel- 
 
 O 
 
 ings so sorely, and incidentally spoiled half the 
 fun of his vacation. 
 
 " There, there, you need n t talk any more," he 
 finally said, rather rudely, half vexed with her, as 
 helpful people are wont to be with those they can 
 do nothing to help. 
 
272 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 She looked up in grieved surprise, but before he 
 could speak again, they came face to face with a 
 party of girls coming from the direction of the 
 Seminary. 
 
 There were six or seven of them, perhaps, but 
 Arthur only got the impression of one and a lot 
 of others. The one was a rather tall girl of lithe 
 figure and unusually fine carriage. Her olive com 
 plexion was lighted with great black eyes that 
 rested on you with an air of imperturbable assur 
 ance, as penetrating as it was negligent. She was 
 talking, and her companions were listening a-nd 
 laughing. As they came face to face with Arthur 
 and Amy, he saw that they barely noticed her, 
 while glancing at him rather curiously, with the 
 boldness of girls in a crowd of their own sex. 
 They evidently observed that he was a stranger 
 to the village, and of quite a different style from 
 that of the country bumpkins and rural exquisites 
 they were accustomed to meeting. There was in 
 the big black eyes, as they had met his a moment, 
 a suggestion of interest that was strangely flatter 
 ing, and left a trace of not unpleasant agitation. 
 
 "Who was that ? " he asked, as they passed out 
 of hearing. 
 
 He only thought of asking for one, although 
 there were six, nor she apparently of answering 
 differently. 
 
 " Lina Maynard. They are Sem. girls." 
 
 It was a dulled voice she spoke in, quite unlike 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 273 
 
 her usual eager way of giving information. She, 
 poor thing, was terribly afraid he would ask her 
 why they did not seem acquainted with her, and it 
 would have been a painful humiliation to have ex 
 plained. Arthur was conscious that he no longer 
 had exactly the same feeling of merely contemptu 
 ous annoyance toward Lina Maynard, on account 
 of her treatment of Amy. He sympathized as much 
 with his sister, of course, but somehow felt that to 
 be recognized by Lina Maynard was not such a 
 childish ambition as he had taken for granted. 
 
 It was dusk when they reached home and found 
 Mr. and Mrs. Steele on the piazza, which served 
 as an out-door parlor in summer, with a neighbor 
 who had dropped in to see Arthur. So he got out 
 his cigar-case and told stories of city life and inter 
 esting law cases to an intent audience till the nine 
 o clock bell rang, and the neighbor " guessed he d 
 go home," and forthwith proved that his guess was 
 right by going. 
 
 " Gad, I d forgotten all about the watermelons ! 
 Perhaps they re at em already ! " cried Arthur, 
 jumping up and running around the end of the 
 piazza to the garden. 
 
 When he returned, it was to meet a combined 
 volley of protestations against his foolish project 
 of keeping watch all night, from his father, his 
 mother, and Amy. But he declared it was no use 
 talking ; and where were the gun and the beans ? 
 So they adjourned from the piazza, a lamp was lit, 
 
274 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 the articles were hunted up, and the gun duly 
 loaded with a good charge of powder and a pint of 
 hard beans. It was about ten o clock when Arthur, 
 with a parting protest from his mother, went out 
 into the garden, lugging his gun and a big easy- 
 chair, while Amy followed, bringing one or two 
 wraps, and a shocking old overcoat hunted up in 
 the garret, for the chill hours after midnight. 
 
 The front of Mr. Steele s lot abutted on one of 
 the pleasantest and most thickly housed streets 
 of the village ; but the lot was deep, and the rear 
 end rested on a road bordered by few houses, and 
 separated from the garden by a rail fence easy to 
 climb over or through. The watermelon patch was 
 located close to this fence, and thus in full view 
 and temptingly accessible from the road. 
 
 Undoubtedly the human conscience, and espe 
 cially the boyish article, recognizes a broad differ 
 ence between the theft of growing crops of apples 
 on the trees, for instance, or corn on the stalk, or 
 melons in the field and that of other species of 
 property. The surreptitious appropriation of the 
 former class of chattels is known in common par 
 lance as " hooking," while the graver term " steal 
 ing " describes the same process in other cases. 
 The distinction may arise from a feeling that, so 
 long as crops remain rooted to the ground, they are 
 nature s, not man s, and that nature can t be re 
 garded as forming business contracts with some 
 individuals to the exclusion of others, or in fact as 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 275 
 
 acceding to any of our human distinctions of meum 
 and tuum, however useful we find them. Ethical 
 philosophers may refuse to concede the sanction 
 of the popular distinction here alluded to between 
 "hooking" and stealing; but, after all, ethics is 
 not a deductive but an empirical science, and what 
 are morals but a collection of usages, like orthogra 
 phy and orthoepy ? However that may be, it is the 
 duty of the writer in this instance merely to call 
 attention to the prevalent popular sentiment on the 
 subject, without any attempt to justify it, and to 
 state that Arthur Steele had been too recently a 
 boy not to sympathize with it. And accordingly 
 he laid his plans to capture the expected depreda 
 tors to-night from practical considerations wholty, 
 and quite without any sense of moral reprobation 
 toward them. 
 
 Closely adjoining the edge of the melon-patch 
 was a patch of green corn, standing ten feet high, 
 and at the fullest perfection of foliage. This 
 Arthur selected for his ambush, its position being 
 such that he could cut off the retreat to the fence 
 of any person who had once got among the melons. 
 Hewing down a hill of corn in the second row from 
 the front, he made a comfortable place for his easy- 
 chair. Amy lingered for a while, enjoying the 
 excitement of the occasion, and they talked in 
 whispers ; but finally Arthur sent her in, and as 
 her dress glimmered away down the garden path, 
 he settled himself comfortably for his watch. 
 
276 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 In the faint moonlight he could just descry the 
 dark shapes of the melons on the ground in front 
 of him. The crickets were having a high time in 
 the stubble around, and the night air drew sweet 
 autumnal exhalations from the ground ; for autumn 
 begins by night a long time before it does by day. 
 The night wind rustled in the corn with a crisp 
 articulateness he had never noticed in daytime, and 
 he felt like an eavesdropper. Then for a while he 
 heard the music of some roving serenaders, down 
 in the village, and grew pensive with the vague 
 reminiscences of golden youth, romance, and the 
 sweet past that nightly music suggests, vague 
 because apparently they are not reminiscences of 
 the individual but of the race, a part of the con 
 sciousness and ideal of humanity. At last the 
 music was succeeded by the baying of a dog in 
 some distant farmyard, and then, ere the ocean of 
 silence had fairly smoothed its surface over that, 
 a horse began to kick violently in a neighboring 
 barn. Some time after, a man chopped some kin 
 dlings in a shed a couple of lots off. Gradually, 
 however, the noises ceased like the oft-returning 
 yet steadily falling ebb of the tide, and Arthur ex 
 perienced how many degrees there are of silence, 
 each more utter than the last, so that the final and 
 absolute degree must be something to which the 
 utmost quiet obtainable on earth is uproar. One 
 by one the lights went out in the houses, till the 
 only ones left were in the windows of the Seminary, 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 277 
 
 visible over the tree-tops a quarter of a mile 
 away. 
 
 " The girls keep late hours," thought Arthur. 
 And from that he fell to thinking of Lina Maynard 
 and the careless, almost insolent, grace of her man 
 ner, and that indifferent yet penetrating glance of 
 hers. Where did she come from ? Probably from 
 California, or the far West ; he had heard that the 
 girls out there were of a bolder, more unconven 
 tional type than at the East. What a pity she did 
 not fancy Amy ! 
 
 What was that moving across the melon-patch? 
 He reached for his gun. It was only a cat, though, 
 after all. The slight noise in the corn-patch at 
 tracted the animal s attention, and it came across 
 and poked its head into the opening where Arthur 
 sat. As the creature saw him, its start of surprise 
 would have shattered the nervous system of any 
 thing but a cat. It stood half thrown back on its 
 haunches, its ears flattened, its eyes glaring in a 
 petrifaction of amazement. Arthur sat motionless 
 as marble, laughing inwardly. For full two min 
 utes the two stared at each other without moving 
 a muscle, and then, without relaxing its tense atti 
 tude, the cat by almost imperceptible degrees with 
 drew one paw and then another, and, thus backing 
 out of the corn-patch, turned around when at a 
 safe distance and slunk away. 
 
 A few minutes later a dog, that enthusiast in per 
 fumes, jumped through the fence and trotted across 
 
278 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 the melon-patch, his nose to the ground, making a 
 collection of evening smells. Arthur expected 
 nothing but that he would scent his neighborhood, 
 find him out, and set up a barking. But, chancing 
 to strike the cat s trail, off went the dog on a full 
 run with nose to the ground. 
 
 Such were the varying humors of the night. 
 After the episode of the dog, feeling a little chilly, 
 Arthur enveloped himself in the tattered old over 
 coat and must have dropped into a nap. Suddenly 
 he awoke. Within ten feet of him, just in the act 
 of stooping over a huge melon, was a woman s fig 
 ure. He saw the face clearly as she rose. Immor 
 tal gods ! it was But I am anticipating. 
 
 The discipline at Westville Seminary had been 
 shockingly lax since the long illness of the princi 
 pal had left the easy-going first assistant teacher at 
 the head of affairs. The girls ran all over the rules, 
 had private theatricals, suppers, and games of 
 all sorts in their rooms at all hours of day or 
 night. In the course of the evening whose events in 
 another sphere of life have been narrated, several 
 girls called at Lina Maynard s room to notify 
 her of the " spread " at Nell Barber s, No. 49, at 
 eleven o clock. They found her sitting in a low 
 rocking-chair, with an open letter in her hand and 
 a very pensive, discontented expression of counte 
 nance. 
 
 " Does he press for an answer, Lina ? We re 
 just in time to advise you," cried Nell Barber. 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 279 
 
 " Don t say Yes unless his eyes are blue," drawled 
 a brunette. 
 
 " Unless they re black, you mean," sharply 
 amended a bright blonde. 
 
 " Make him elope with you," suggested Nell. 
 " It will be such fun to have a real rope-ladder 
 elopement at the Seminary, and we 11 all sit up 
 and see it." 
 
 " Oh, do, do, Lina ! " chorused the others. 
 
 But Lina, apparently too much chagrined at 
 something to be in a mood for jests, sat with her 
 eyebrows petulantly contracted, her feet thrust 
 out, and the hand holding the letter hanging by her 
 side, her whole attitude indicating despondence. 
 
 " Still pensive ! It can t be he s faithless ! " 
 exclaimed Nell. 
 
 " Faithless to those eyes ! I should say not," 
 cried the blonde, whom Lina called her sweetheart, 
 and who claimed to be " engaged " to her accord 
 ing to boarding-school fashion. 
 
 " Don t mind him, dear," she went on, throwing 
 herself on the floor, clasping her hands about 
 Lina s knee, and leaning her cheek on it. " YoA 
 make me so jealous. Have n t you got me, and 
 ain t I enough ? " 
 
 " Plenty enough, dear," said Lina, stroking her 
 cheek. " This is only from my brother Charley." 
 
 " The one at Watertown 4 Sem. ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Lina ; " and oh, girls," she went 
 on, with gloomy energy, " we don t have any good 
 
280 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 times at all compared with those boys. They do 
 really wicked things, hook apples, and carry off 
 people s gates and signs, and screw up tutors 
 doors in the night, and have fights with what he 
 calls townies, I don t know exactly what they 
 are, and everything. I thought before that we 
 were doing some things too, but we re not, com 
 pared with all that, and I shall be so ashamed 
 when I meet him at home not to have anything to 
 tell except little bits of things." 
 
 A depressing pause followed. Lina s disparag 
 ing view of achievements in the way of defying 
 the proprieties, of which all the girls had been 
 very proud, cast a profound gloom over the circle. 
 The blonde seemed to voice the common sentiment 
 when she said, resting her chin on Lina s knee, 
 and gazing pensively at the wall : 
 
 " Oh, dear ! that comes of being girls. "We 
 might as well be good and done with it. We 
 can t be bad so as to amount to anything." 
 
 " Good or bad, we must eat," said Nell Barber. 
 " I must go and get the spread ready. I forgot 
 all about it, Lina ; but we came in just to invite 
 you. Eleven sharp, remember. Three knocks, a 
 pause, and another, you know. Come, girls." 
 
 The brunette followed her, but Lina s little 
 sweetheart remained. 
 
 " What have they got ? " demanded the former 
 listlessly. 
 
 " Oh, Nell has a jar of preserves from home, and 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 281 
 
 I smuggled up a plate of dried beef from tea, and 
 cook let us have some crackers and plates. We 
 tried hard to get a watermelon there was in the 
 pantry, but cook said she did n t dare let us have 
 it. It s for dinner to-morrow." 
 
 Lina s eyes suddenly became introspective ; then 
 after a moment she rose slowly and stood in her 
 tracks with an expression of deep thought, absent- 
 mindedly took one step, then another, and after a 
 pause a third, finally pulling up before the mirror, 
 into which she stared vacantly for a moment, and 
 then muttered defiantly as she turned away : 
 
 " We 11 see, Master Charley." 
 
 " Lina Maynard, what s the matter with you? " 
 cried the blonde, who had watched the pantomime 
 with open mouth and growing eyes. 
 
 Lina turned and looked at her thoughtfully a 
 moment, and then said with decisiveness : 
 
 " You just go to Nell s, my dear, and say I m 
 coming pretty soon ; and if you say anything else, 
 I 11 I 11 never marry you." 
 
 The girls were in the habit of doing as Lina 
 wanted them to, and the blonde went, pouting 
 with unappeased curiosity. 
 
 To gain exit from the Seminary was a simple 
 matter in these lax days, and five minutes later 
 Lina was walking rapidly along the highway, her 
 lips firm set, but her eyes apprehensively recon 
 noitring the road ahead, with frequent glances to 
 each side and behind. Once she got over the 
 
282 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 stone wall at the roadside in a considerable panic 
 and crouched in the dewy grass while a belated 
 villager passed, but it was without further adven 
 ture that she finally turned into the road leading 
 behind Mr. Steele s lot, and after a brief search 
 identified the garden where she remembered seeing 
 some particularly fine melons, when out walking 
 a day or two previous. There they lay, just the 
 other side the fence, faintly visible in the dim light. 
 She could not help congratulating herself, by 
 the way, on the excellent behavior of her nerves, 
 whose tense, fine-strung condition was a positive 
 luxury, and she then and there understood how 
 men might delight in desperate risks for the mere 
 sake of the exalted and supreme sense of perfect 
 self-possession that danger brings to some natures. 
 Not, indeed, that she stopped to indulge any psy 
 chological speculations. The coast was clear ; not 
 a footfall or hoof-stroke sounded from the road, 
 and without delay she began to look about for a 
 wide place between the rails where she might get 
 through. Just as she found it, she was startled 
 by an unmistakable human snore, which seemed 
 to come from a patch of high corn close to the 
 melons, and she was fairly puzzled until she ob 
 served, about ten rods distant in the same line, an 
 open attic window. That explained its origin, and 
 with a passing self-congratulation that she had 
 made up her mind not to marry a man that snored, 
 she began to crawl through the fence. When 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 283 
 
 halfway through the thought struck her, wasn t 
 it like any other stealing, after all ? This crawling 
 between rails seemed dreadfully so. Her attitude, 
 squeezed between two rails and half across the 
 lower one, was neither graceful nor comfortable, 
 and perhaps that fact shortened her scruples. 
 
 " It can t be really stealing, for I don t feel like 
 a thief," was the logic that settled it, and the next 
 moment she had the novel sensation of having both 
 feet surreptitiously and feloniously on another 
 person s land. She decidedly did n t relish it, but 
 she would go ahead now and think of it afterward. 
 She was pretty sure she never would do it again, 
 anyhow, experiencing that common sort of repent 
 ance beforehand for the thing she was about to do, 
 the precise moral value of which it would be inter 
 esting to inquire. It ought to count for some 
 thing, for, if it doesn t hinder the act, at least it 
 spoils the fun of it. Here was a melon at her 
 feet ; should she take it ? That was a bigger one 
 further on, and her imperious conscientiousness 
 compelled her to go ten steps further into the 
 enemy s country to get it, for now that she was 
 committed to the undertaking, she was bound to 
 do the best she could. 
 
 To stoop, to break the vine, and to secure the 
 melon were an instant s work ; but as she bent, 
 the high corn before her waved violently and a big 
 farmer-looking man in a slouch hat and shocking 
 old coat sprang out and seized her by the arm, 
 
284 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 with a grip not painful but sickeningly firm, ex 
 claiming as he did so : 
 
 " Wai, I swan ter gosh, if t ain t a gal ! " 
 
 Lina dropped the melon, and, barely recalling 
 the peculiar circumstances in time to suppress a 
 scream, made a silent, desperate effort to break 
 away. But her captor s hold was not even shaken, 
 and he laughed at the impotence of her attempt. 
 In all her petted life she had never been held a 
 moment against her will, and it needed not the 
 added considerations that this man was a coarse, 
 unknown boor, the place retired, the time mid 
 night, and herself in the position of a criminal, to 
 give her a feeling of abject terror so great as to 
 amount to positive nausea, as she realized her utter 
 powerlessness in his hands. 
 
 " So you ve been a-stealin my melons, hey ? " 
 he demanded gruffly. 
 
 The slight shake with which the question was 
 enforced deprived her of the last vestige of dignity 
 and self-assertion. She relapsed into the mental 
 condition of a juvenile culprit undergoing correc 
 tion. Now that she was caught, she no longer 
 thought of her offense as venial. The grasp of her 
 captor seemed to put an end to all possible hair 
 splitting on that point, and prove that it was no 
 thing more nor less than stealing, and a sense of 
 guilt left her without any moral support against 
 her fright. She was only conscious of utter humil 
 iation, and an abject desire to beg off on any terms. 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 285 
 
 " What do you go round stealin folks s melons 
 for, young woman ? Don t yer folks bring yer up 
 better n that ? It s a dodrotted shame to em, ef 
 they don t. What did ye want with the melons ? 
 Don t they give yer enough to eat ter home, 
 hey?" 
 
 " We were going to have some supper, sir," 
 she replied, in a scared, breathless tone, with a 
 little hope of propitiating him by being extremely 
 civil and explicit in her replies. 
 
 "Who was havin supper to this time er 
 night ? " he snorted incredulously. 
 
 " We girls," was the faint reply. 
 
 " What gals ? " 
 
 Had she got to tell where she came from and be 
 identified ? She could n t, she would n t. But 
 again came that dreadful shake, and the words 
 faltered out : 
 
 " Over at the Seminary, sir." 
 
 "Whew! so ye re one er them, are ye ? What s 
 yer name ? " 
 
 Cold dew stood on the poor girl s forehead. 
 She was silent. He might kill her, but she 
 would n t disgrace her father s name. 
 
 " What s yer name ? " he repeated, with another 
 shake. 
 
 She was still silent, though limp as a rag in his 
 grasp. 
 
 " Wai," said he sharply, after waiting a half min 
 ute to see if she would answer, " I guess ye 11 
 
286 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 be more confidin like to the jedge when he inquiries 
 in the mornin . A night in the lock-up makes 
 folks wonderful civil. Now I 11 jest trouble ye to 
 come along to the police office," and he walked 
 her along by the arm toward the house. 
 
 As the horrible degradation to which she was 
 exposed flashed upon Lina, the last remnant of 
 her self-control gave way, and, hanging back with 
 all her might against his hand, she burst into 
 sobs. 
 
 "Oh, don t, don t! It will kill me. I ll tell 
 you my name. It s Lina Maynard. My father 
 is a rich merchant in New York, Broadway, No. 
 743. He will give you anything, if you let me go. 
 Anything you want, Oh, please don t ! Oh, 
 don t ! I could n t ! I could n t ! " 
 
 In this terror-stricken, wild-eyed girl, her face 
 streaming with tears, and every lineament con 
 vulsed with abject dread, there was little enough 
 to remind Arthur Steele of the queenly maiden 
 who had favored him with a glance of negligent 
 curiosity that afternoon. He stopped marching 
 her along and said reflectively : 
 
 " Lina Maynard, hey ! Then you must be the 
 gal that s down on Amy Steele and would n t ask 
 her to the party to-morrow. Say, ain t yer the 
 one?" 
 
 Lina was too much bewildered by the sudden 
 change of tack to do more than stammer inarticu 
 lately. I am afraid that in her terror she would 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 287 
 
 have been capable of denying it, if she had thought 
 that would help her. Her captor reflected more 
 deeply, scratched his head, and finally, assuming a 
 diplomatic attitude by thrusting his hands in his 
 pocket, remarked : 
 
 " I s pose ye d like it dummed well ef I was to 
 let yer go and say nothin more about it. I reelly 
 don t s pose I d orter do it ; but it riles me to see 
 Amy comin home cryin every day, and I 11 tell 
 ye what I 11 do. Ef you 11 ask her to yer fan 
 dango to-morrer, and be friends with her arterward 
 so she 11 come home happy and cheerful like, I 11 
 let ye go, and if ye don t, I 11 put ye in jug over 
 night, sure s taxes. Say Yes or No now, quick ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " Lina cried, with frantic eagerness. 
 
 There was scarcely any possible ransom he could 
 have asked that she would not have instantly given. 
 She dared not credit her ears, and stood gazing at 
 him in intense, appealing suspense, as if he might 
 be about to revoke his offer. But instead of that, 
 he turned down the huge collar of the old overcoat, 
 took it off, threw it on the ground, and, turning 
 up the slouch of his hat, stood before her a very 
 good-looking and well-dressed young gentleman, 
 whom she at once recognized and at length iden 
 tified in her mind as the one walking with Amy 
 that afternoon, which now seemed weeks ago. 
 He bowed very low, and said earnestly enough, 
 though smiling : 
 
 " I humbly beg your pardon." 
 
288 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 Lina stared at him with dumb amazement, and 
 he went on : 
 
 " I am Arthur Steele. I came home on a vaca 
 tion to-day, and was sitting up to watch father s 
 melon-patch for the pure fun of it, expecting to 
 catch some small boys, and when I caught you, I 
 couldn t resist the temptation of a little farce. 
 As for Amy, that only occurred to me at the last ; 
 and if you think it unfair, you may have your 
 promise back." 
 
 Lina had now measurably recovered her equa 
 nimity, and, ignoring his explanation, demanded, 
 as she looked around : 
 
 " How am I to get out of this dreadful place ? " 
 mentally contemplating meanwhile the impossibil 
 ity of clambering through that fence with a young 
 gentleman looking on. 
 
 " I will let down the bars," he said, and they 
 turned toward the fence. 
 
 " Let s see, this is your melon, is it not ? " he 
 observed, stooping to pick up the booty Lina had 
 dropped in her first panic. " You must keep that 
 anyhow. You ve earned it." 
 
 Since the tables turned so unexpectedly in her 
 favor, Lina had recovered her dignity in some 
 degree, and had become very freezing toward this 
 young man, by whom she began to feel she had 
 been very badly treated. In this reaction of indig 
 nation she had really almost forgotten how she 
 came in the garden at all. But this reference to 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 289 
 
 the melon quite upset her new equanimity, and as 
 Arthur grinned broadly she blushed and stood 
 there in awful confusion. Finally she blurted 
 out: 
 
 " I did n t want your stupid melon. I only 
 wanted some fun. I can t explain, and I don t care 
 whether you understand it or not." 
 
 Tears of vexation glittered in her eyes. He 
 sobered instantly, and said, with an air of the 
 utmost deference : 
 
 " Pardon me for laughing, and do me the jus 
 tice to believe that I in in no sort of danger of mis 
 understanding you. I hooked too many melons 
 myself as a boy not to sympathize perfectly. But 
 you must really let me carry the melon home for 
 you. What would the girls say, if you returned 
 empty-handed ? " 
 
 " Well, I will take the melon," she said, half 
 defiantly ; " but I should prefer not to have your 
 company." 
 
 He did not reply till he had let down the bars, 
 and then said : 
 
 " The streets are not safe at this hour, and you ve 
 had frights enough for one night." 
 
 She made no further objections, and with the 
 watermelon poised on his shoulder he walked by 
 her side, neither speaking a word, till they reached 
 the gate of the Seminary grounds. There she 
 stopped, and, turning, extended her hands for the 
 melon. As he gave it to her their eyes met a 
 
290 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 moment, and their mutual appreciation of the 
 humor of the situation expressed itself in an 
 irrepressible smile that seemed instantly to make 
 them acquainted, and she responded almost kindly 
 to his low " Good-evening." 
 
 Amy came home jubilant next day. Lina May- 
 nard had invited her to her party, and had been 
 ever so good to her, and there was nobody in the 
 world like Lina. Arthur listened and said no 
 thing. All the next week it was the same story 
 of Lina s beauty, good-nature, cleverness, and per 
 fections generally, and, above all, her goodness to 
 herself, Amy Steele. Lina was indeed fulfilling 
 her promise with generous over-measure. And after 
 once taking up with Amy, the sweet simplicity and 
 enthusiastic loyalty of the child to herself won her 
 heart completely. The other girls wondered, but 
 Lina Maynard s freaks always set the fashion, and 
 Amy, to her astonishment and boundless delight, 
 found herself the pet of the Seminary. The little 
 blonde, Lina s sweetheart, alone rebelled against 
 the new order of things and was furiously jealous, 
 for which she was promptly snubbed by Lina, and 
 Amy taken into her place. And meanwhile Lina 
 caught herself several times wondering whether 
 Arthur Steele was satisfied with the way she was 
 keeping her pledge. 
 
 It was Wednesday night, and Arthur was to re 
 turn to New York Thursday morning. Although 
 he had walked the street every afternoon and had 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 291 
 
 met nearly all the other girls at the Seminary, he 
 had not seen Lina again. His mother, whom he 
 took about a good deal on pleasure drives, seriously 
 wondered if the eagerness of city life was really 
 spoiling his faculty for leisurely pleasures. He 
 always seemed to be looking out ahead for some 
 thing, instead of quietly enjoying the passing sights 
 and scenery. He had consented to accompany 
 Amy to a little church sociable on the evening 
 before his departure. It was a species of enter 
 tainment which he detested, but he thought he 
 might possibly meet Lina there, as Amy had said 
 some of the Seminary girls would be present. 
 
 At once, on entering the vestry, he caught sight 
 of her at the other end of the room among a group 
 of girls. At the sound of the closing door she 
 glanced up with an involuntary gesture of expec 
 tancy, and their eyes met. She looked confused, 
 and instantly averted her face. There was plenty 
 of recognition in her expression, but she did not bow, 
 the real reason being that she was too much embar 
 rassed to think of it. But during the week he had 
 so many times canvassed the chances of her recog 
 nizing him when they should meet that he had 
 become quite morbid about it, and manifested the 
 usual alacrity of persons in that state of mind in 
 jumping at conclusions they wish to avoid. He 
 had been a fool to think that she would recognize 
 him as an acquaintance. What had he done but 
 to insult her, and what associations save distress- 
 
292 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 ing ones could she have with him? He would 
 exchange a few greetings with old friends, and 
 then quietly slink off home and go to packing up. 
 He was rather sorry for his mother ; she would 
 feel so badly to have him moody and cross on the 
 last evening at home. Just then some one touched 
 his sleeve, and looking around he saw Amy. She 
 put her flushed little face close to his ear and 
 whispered : - 
 
 "Lina said I might introduce you. Isn t she 
 beautiful, though, to-night ? Of course you 11 fall 
 in love with her, but you must n t try to cut me 
 out." 
 
 Arthur was Amy s ideal of gentlemanly ease and 
 polish, and she had been very proud of having so 
 fine a city brother to introduce to the girls. Ima 
 gine her astonishment and chagrin when she saw him 
 standing before Lina with an exaggeration of the 
 agitated, sheepish air the girls made such fun of in 
 their rural admirers ! But if that surprised her, 
 what was her amazement to see Lina looking 
 equally confused, and blushing to where her neck 
 curved beneath the lace, although the brave eyes 
 met his fairly ! A wise instinct told Amy that 
 here was something she did n t understand, and 
 she had better go away, and she did. 
 
 " The melon was very good, Mr. Steele," said 
 Lina demurely, with a glimmer of fun in her 
 black eyes. 
 
 " Miss Maynard, I don t know how I shall beg 
 
HOOKING WATERMELONS 293 
 
 pardon, or humble myself enough for my out 
 rageous treatment of you," burst forth Arthur. " I 
 don t know what I should have done if I had n t 
 had an opportunity for apologizing pretty soon, and 
 now I scarcely dare look you in the face." 
 
 His chagrin and self-reproach were genuine 
 enough, but he might have left off that last, for he 
 had n t been looking anywhere else since he came 
 into the room. 
 
 " You did shake me rather hard," she said, with 
 a smiling contraction of the black eyebrows. 
 
 Good heavens ! had he actually shaken this 
 divine creature, this Cleopatra of a girl, whose 
 queenly brow gave her hair the look of a coronet ! 
 He groaned in spirit, and looked so self -reproachful 
 and chagrined that she laughed. 
 
 " I don t know about forgiving you for that, but 
 I m so grateful you did n t take me to the lock-up 
 that I suppose I ought not to mind the shaking." 
 
 " But, Miss Maynard, you surely don t think 
 I was in earnest about that?" he exclaimed, in 
 strenuous deprecation. 
 
 " I don t know, I m sure," she said doubtfully. 
 " You looked as if you were capable of it." 
 
 He was going on to protest still farther when she 
 interrupted him, and said laughingly : 
 
 " You take to apologizing so naturally that I d 
 nearly forgotten that it was not you but I who was 
 the real culprit. I must really make a few excuses 
 myself before I hear any more from you." 
 
394 HOOKING WATERMELONS 
 
 And then she told him all about her brother 
 Charley s letter, and the spirit of emulation that 
 had got her into trouble. It was easy enough to 
 joke about certain aspects of the matter ; but when 
 she came to talk in plain language about her per 
 formances that night, she became so much embar 
 rassed and stumbled so badly that Arthur felt very 
 ill at ease. 
 
 " And when I think what would nave happened 
 if I d fallen into anybody s hands but yours, you 
 seem almost like a deliverer." At which Arthur 
 had another access of humiliation to think how un- 
 chivalrously he had treated this princess in disguise. 
 How he would like to catch somebody else abusing 
 her that way ! And then he told her all that he 
 had thought and felt about her during the stealing 
 scene, and she gave her side of the drama, to their 
 intense mutual interest. 
 
 " Is n t it about time we were going home, 
 Arthur ? " said Amy s voice. 
 
 He glanced up. The room was nearly empty, 
 and the party from the Seminary were waiting for 
 Lina. 
 
 " Miss Maynard, may I call upon you in New 
 York during vacation ? " 
 
 " I should be happy to see you." 
 
 " Au revoir, then ! " 
 
 " Au revoir /" 
 
A POSITIVE KOMANCE 
 
 MY friend Hammond is a bachelor, and lives in 
 chambers in New York. Whenever we meet on 
 my occasional visits to the city, he insists on my 
 spending the night with him. On one of these oc 
 casions we had been at the opera during the even 
 ing, and had witnessed an ovation to a beautiful 
 and famous singer. We had been stirred by the 
 enthusiasm of the audience, and on our walk home 
 fell to discussing a theme suggested by the scene ; 
 namely, the tendency of man to assume a worship 
 ful attitude towards woman, and the reason for it. 
 Was it merely a phase of the passional relation 
 between the sexes, or had it some deeper and more 
 mysterious significance ? 
 
 When I mentioned the former idea, Hammond 
 demanded why this tendency was not reciprocal 
 between the sexes. As a matter of fact, while wo 
 men showed endless devotion and fondness for men, 
 their feeling was without the strain of adoration. 
 Particular men s qualities of mind or heart might 
 excite the enthusiastic admiration of women, but 
 such admiration was for cause, and in no way con 
 founded with the worshipful reverence which it was 
 man s instinct to extend to woman as woman, with 
 
296 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 secondary reference to her qualities as a particular 
 person. No fact in the relations of men and wo 
 men, he declared, was more striking than this con 
 trast in their mutual attitudes. It was the femi 
 nine, not the masculine, ideal which supplied the 
 inspiration of art and the aroma of literature, which 
 was found enshrined in the customs and common 
 speech of mankind. To this I replied that man, 
 being the dominant sex, had imposed his worship 
 on the race as a conquering nation, its gods on the 
 conquered. He, not woman, had been the creator 
 of the art, the literature, and the language which 
 were dedicated to her. Had woman been the dom 
 inant sex, the reverse might have happened, and 
 man been obliged to stand upon a pedestal and be 
 worshiped. 
 
 Hammond laughed, but declared that I was all 
 wrong. Man s tendency to worship woman, while 
 naturally blending with his passional attraction 
 towards her, did not spring from the instinct of 
 sex, but from the instinct of race, a far deeper 
 and generally unrecognized impulse. Even though 
 woman should become some day the dominant sex, 
 man need suffer no apprehension of being wor 
 shiped. His modesty would be respected. 
 
 Some time later, when we had cozily established 
 ourselves before a sea-coal fire in Hammond s quar 
 ters, with divers creature comforts at hand for one 
 of our usual symposiums, the subject came up 
 again ; and under conditions so favorable to dis 
 cursiveness our talk took a wide range. 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 297 
 
 " By the way," said I, apropos of some remark 
 he had made, " talking about the adoration of 
 woman, did not that crack-brained Frenchman, 
 Auguste Comte, propose something of the sort as 
 a feature of his 4 Religion of Humanity ? " 
 
 Hammond nodded. 
 
 " I wonder," I said, " whether that feature of his 
 scheme was ever actually practiced by his followers. 
 I should like to get a chance to ask a Positivist 
 about that, if indeed there are any in America." 
 
 Hammond smoked in silence for some time, and 
 finally said, quietly, " Possibly I might tell you 
 something about it myself." 
 
 " Hello ! " I exclaimed. " How long since you 
 have been a Positivist ? " 
 
 " About twenty-five years," was the matter-of- 
 fact reply. 
 
 " A Positivist of twenty-five years standing," I 
 ejaculated, " and never told of it ! Why have you 
 hid your light under a bushel all this while ? " 
 
 " I said that it was twenty-five years since I had 
 been a Positivist," replied Hammond ; " as long, 
 in fact, as it is since I have been a sophomore. 
 Both experiences belonged to the same year of my 
 college course, and, perhaps you may infer, to the 
 same stage of intellectual development. For about 
 six months at that time I was as ardent a convert, 
 I fancy, as the Religion of Humanity ever had." 
 
 " I thought you had told me all about yourself 
 long ago," I said. " How is it that you have kept 
 
298 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 so mum about this experience ? I should fancy it 
 must have been a decidedly odd one." 
 
 " It was a very odd one," replied Hammond, 
 " the strangest passage, on the whole, I think, in 
 my life. I have never spoken of it, because it is 
 one of those emotional experiences which no man 
 likes to relate unless he is sure of being understood. 
 To tell it to most men would be casting pearls 
 before swine. I have always meant to tell you 
 when a suitable opportunity came up." 
 
 " You know," he said, when I had signified my 
 eagerness to hear, " that I graduated at Leroy Col 
 lege. It was a little one-horse institution, but blue 
 as a whetstone in its orthodoxy ; and with my 
 father, who was a clergyman of a very strait sect 
 and staid views, that fact covered a multitude of 
 shortcomings. I was nineteen when I entered, and 
 consequently twenty when, at the beginning of 
 sophomore year, I came under the charge of Pro 
 fessor Regnier. He was a Frenchman, but spoke 
 English with perfect ease and precision and a very 
 slight accent. At the time I knew him, he was 
 probably sixty. His hair was quite gray, but his 
 mustache and imperial were still dark. It was 
 rumored among the students that he had left his 
 native land for political reasons, having played for 
 too high stakes at the national game of revolution. 
 True or not, the report naturally heightened the 
 interest which his personality had for us. 
 
 " He made it his business to know personally all 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 299 
 
 the students in his classes ; and as it is not easy 
 for a man of sixty, especially if he is also their 
 teacher, to become really acquainted with students 
 of twenty, the fact may be taken as evidence of his 
 unusual tact. He was, I think, the most fascinat 
 ing man I ever saw. His insight into character 
 was like magic, his manners were charming, and 
 his Gallic vivacity made him seem like a boy. 
 Gradually, while still remaining to the rest of the 
 students a genial and friendly instructor, he sin 
 gled out a smaller circle of particular intimates. 
 Of these I was one, and I believe the most trusted. 
 
 " Of course we boys were immensely flattered by 
 the partiality of such a man ; but equally of course 
 the pursuit of his own pleasure could scarcely have 
 been the motive which impelled him to seek our 
 companionship. It was, in fact, a motive as un 
 selfish as that of the missionary who leaves the 
 comforts and refinements of civilization and exiles 
 himself among savages that he may win them to 
 his faith. He had been a personal friend and 
 disciple of Auguste Comte, then but lately dead, 
 and on coming to America had sought his present 
 employment, not merely as a means of livelihood, 
 but equally for the opportunity it offered for pro 
 pagating the new gospel among young men. Do 
 you know much about what Positivism is ? " 
 
 I confessed that I knew next to nothing, 
 scarcely more than that there was such a thing. 
 
 " I shall not bore you with an account of it," 
 
300 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 resumed Hammond, " further than to say that it is 
 a scheme for the perfection of the human race. It 
 rejects as idle all theories of superhuman intelli 
 gences, and declares the supreme object of the 
 individual love and devotion should be humanity. 
 The rational demonstration of the truth of this 
 system is sought in the course of history, which 
 is claimed to prove Positivism the finality of social 
 evolution. You will find anything else you want 
 to know about it in the books. I dare say you will 
 not be converted ; but if you were nineteen instead 
 of twice that, with Hippolyte Regnier to indoctri 
 nate you, I fancy the result would be about what it 
 was in my case. 
 
 " His personal influence over us, and the intoxi 
 cating flattery implied in being seriously reasoned 
 with on themes so lofty by a man whom we so 
 greatly admired, would have gone far, no doubt, to 
 commend to us any form of opinions he might have 
 taught ; but there were not lacking other reasons 
 to account for his success in converting us. As for 
 Comte s dogmatic denial of superhuman existence, 
 and his fanciful schemes of new society, we were 
 too young and crude to realize how unphilosophic 
 was the former, how impossible and undesirable 
 was the latter. While accepting them as facts of a 
 new creed, they meant little to us, nor did Regnier 
 much insist upon them. What most he did insist 
 on was the ethical side of Positivism, the idea of 
 the essential unity of the individual with the im- 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 301 
 
 mortal race of man, and his obvious duty to forget 
 self in its service. What could be better adapted 
 to affect generous and impassioned boys than 
 an appeal like this ? The magnificent audacity of 
 it, the assumption of man s essential nobleness, 
 the contemptuous refusal to make any terms with 
 selfishness, captivated our imaginations. I know 
 now, indeed, that this enthusiasm of humanity, this 
 passion of self-abnegation, which I thought a new 
 religion, was the heart of the old religions. In its 
 new-fangled disguise the truth and virtue of the 
 doctrine were still operative, and the emotional 
 crisis through which I passed I found was as 
 essentially religious as it was in form unorthodox. 
 
 " At the end of sophomore year there were a 
 half-dozen very positive young Positivists in our 
 class. The pride of intellect which we felt in our 
 new enlightenment was intoxicating. To be able 
 to look down from a serene height, with compas 
 sion frequently tempered by contempt, upon the 
 rest of the world still groping in the mists of child 
 ish superstition, was prodigiously to the taste of 
 youths of eighteen and twenty. How, to be sure, 
 we did turn up our noses at the homely teachings 
 in the college chapel on Sundays ! Well do I re 
 member attending my father s church when at home 
 on vacation, and endeavoring to assume the mental 
 attitude of a curious traveler in a Buddhist temple. 
 Together with the intellectual vanity which it fos 
 tered, our new faith was commended to us by its 
 
302 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 flavor of the secret, the hazardous, and the for 
 bidden. We were delightfully conscious of being 
 concerned in a species of conspiracy, which if it 
 came to light would convulse the college and the 
 community, have us expelled, and cause no end of 
 scandal to the public. 
 
 " But the more I took my new faith in earnest 
 and tried to make of it the religion it claimed to 
 be, I was troubled by a lack that seemed to be 
 inherent. Humanity, the object of our devotion, 
 was but an abstraction, a rhetorical expression for 
 a mass of individuals. To these individuals I 
 might indeed render affection, service, compassion, 
 tenderness, self-sacrifice ; but their number and 
 pettiness forbade me the glow of adoration with 
 which service was touched in religions which of 
 fered a personified object of adoration. When, 
 finally, I confided these troubles to Regnier, I ex 
 pected to be rebuked ; but on the contrary, and to 
 my great discomfiture, he embraced me effusively 
 after the Gallic manner. He said that he had 
 been waiting for the time when in the course of 
 my development I should become conscious of the 
 need I had confessed before explaining to me the 
 provision made for it by Positivism. 
 
 " To start with, he put in, as a sort of special 
 plea for Positivism, that it was not singular among 
 religions in recognizing as the object of devotion 
 an abstraction, the mode of the existence of which 
 was a mystery. As a solace to their votaries and 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 303 
 
 an aid to their faith, nearly all religions recognized 
 sacred emblems ; not indeed to be confounded in 
 clear minds with the original object of devotion, 
 but worthy of reverence in its place, as its special 
 representative and reminder. In precisely this 
 sense the sacred emblem of humanity was woman. 
 
 " Of course, Positivism claiming to be a creed 
 of demonstration, not of faith, Regnier did not ask 
 me to receive this proposition as his mere state 
 ment, but proceeded to establish its reasonableness 
 by logic. I am going to give you what I remem 
 ber of his argument, because I believe still, as I 
 did when I heard it, that it is the only philoso 
 phical explanation of the instinctive reverence of 
 man for woman which we have been talking about 
 to-night. It was given to me, of course, as a doc 
 trine peculiar to Positivism ; but I don t know of 
 any form of religious belief inconsistent with the 
 recognition of the sacred quality of womanhood on 
 the grounds given by Regnier. Indeed, I am by 
 no means sure whether the doctrine as I received 
 it is orthodox Positivism at all. I have reason to 
 think that Regnier was quite too original a char 
 acter for a very good interpreter, and should be 
 interested to know how far his ideas were his own 
 and how far his master s. 
 
 " First he pointed out to me as matter of fact 
 that there was no more striking feature of the 
 modern and humane as compared with the ancient 
 and barbaric world than the constantly growing 
 
304 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 tendency of the most civilized races to apotheosize 
 womanhood. The virgin ideal had been set up by 
 the larger part of Christendom as the object of 
 divine honors. The age of chivalry had translated 
 for all time the language of love into that of wor 
 ship. Art had personified under the feminine 
 form every noble and affecting ideal of the race, 
 till now it was in the name of woman that man s 
 better part adjured his baser in every sort of strife 
 towards the divine. Is it alleged that it is man s 
 passion for woman that has moved him thus in a 
 sort to deify the sex ? Passion is no teacher of 
 reverence. Moreover, it is as the race outgrows 
 the dominion of passion that it recognizes the wor- 
 shipfulness of woman. The gross and sensual 
 recognize in her no element of sacredness. It is 
 the clear soul of the boy, the poet, and the seer 
 which is most surely aware of it. Equally vain is 
 it to seek the explanation in any general superior 
 ity of woman to man, either moral or mental. Her 
 qualities are indeed in engaging contrast with his, 
 but on the whole no such superiority has ever been 
 maintained. How, then, were we to account for 
 a phenomenon so great in its proportions that 
 either it indicates a world-wide madness infecting 
 the noblest nations while sparing the basest, or 
 else must be the outcome of some profound moni 
 tion of nature, which, in proportion as man s up 
 ward evolution progresses, he becomes capable of 
 apprehending ? Why this impassioned exaltation 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 305 
 
 by him of his tender companion ? What is the 
 secret spring that makes her the ceaseless fountain 
 of lofty inspiration she is to him ? What is the 
 hint of divinity in her gentle mien that brings 
 him to his knees ? Who is this goddess veiled in 
 woman whom men instinctively reverence yet can 
 not name ? 
 
 "The adoration of woman, which may almost 
 be called the natural religion of the modern man, 
 springs from his recognition, instinctive when not 
 conscious, that she is in an express sense, as he is 
 not, the type, the representative, and the symbol 
 of the race from which he springs, of that immor 
 tal and mystical life in which the secret of his own 
 is hid. She is this by virtue, not of her personal 
 qualities, but of the mother-sex, which, overbearing 
 in part her individuality, fconsecrates her to the 
 
 interests of the race! and makes her the channel 
 7 
 
 of those irresistible attractions by which humanity 
 exists and men are made to serve it. As compared 
 with woman s peculiar identification with the race, 
 man s relation to it is an exterior one. By his 
 constitution he is above all an individual, and that 
 is the natural line of his development. The love 
 of woman is the centripetal attraction which in due 
 time brings him back from the individual tangent 
 to blend him again with mankind. In returning 
 to woman he returns to humanity. All that there 
 is in man s sentiment for woman which is higher 
 than passion and larger than personal tenderness 
 
306 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 all, that is to say, which makes his love for her 
 the grand passion which in noble hearts it is is 
 the fact that under this form his passion for the 
 race finds expression. Mysterious ties, subtending 
 consciousness, bind him, though seemingly sepa 
 rate, to the mighty life of humanity, his greater 
 self, and these are the chords which, when 4 Love 
 took up the harp of life, . . . passed in music 
 out of sight. In woman humanity is enshrined 
 and made concrete for the homage of man. This is 
 the mighty indwelling which causes her to suggest 
 something more august than herself, and invests 
 her with an impersonal majesty commanding rev 
 erence. 
 
 "You may imagine with what power such a 
 doctrine as this, set forth by an enthusiast like 
 Regnier, appealed to the mind of an impassioned 
 boy of twenty, as yet pure as a girl, but long 
 vaguely stirred by the master passion of our na 
 ture. The other tenets of the Religion of Human 
 ity had been impressed upon me by argument, but 
 at the mere statement of this my heart responded, 
 ODea Certe! 
 
 " Subsequently, in response to my questioning, 
 Regnier explained to me how the master had re 
 commended his disciples to give practical effect to 
 the cult of womanhood. I must remember that it 
 was nothing new and nothing peculiar to Positiv 
 ism for men to adore women to the point even of 
 idolatry. Lovers constantly were doing it. But 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 307 
 
 in these cases the worshipers did not look beyond 
 the personality of the idol. Possibly, no doubt, 
 some dim apprehension of the true grounds of 
 woman s worshipfulness might mingle with the 
 lover s sentiment, but it was very far from being 
 the clear and distinct sense necessary to redeem 
 his homage from the charge of extravagance. On 
 the other hand, the spirit in which women received 
 the homage men rendered them was usually as 
 mistaken as that in which it was offered. Either, 
 on the one hand, from an impulse of personal mod 
 esty they deprecated it, or, on the other hand, they 
 accepted it as a gratification to their personal van 
 ity. In either case, they equally misapprehended 
 their true and valid title to worship, which, while 
 personal qualities might enhance or partially ob 
 scure it, was itself in root more than personal, and 
 consisted in the martyr and mother sex which so 
 peculiarly sacrificed and consecrated them to the 
 interests of humanity as to draw to them the hom 
 age and loyalty of all men who loved their race. 
 It had been the counsel of his master, Kegnier 
 said, that, while his disciples should hold all wo 
 men in exalted reverence, they should peculiarly 
 address this general sentiment to some particular 
 woman, who, being of the same faith, should be 
 able to accept it worthily and without self-exalta 
 tion, in the spirit in which it was offered. 
 
 " Of course the reflection was obvious that in 
 the existing conditions of the Positivist propaganda 
 
308 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 in America it would be impossible to find a woman 
 capable of understanding, much less of accepting, 
 such a relation, and, therefore, that to me the cult 
 which I had been taught must remain entirely 
 theoretical. Homage from men which did not 
 insure to the titillation of the vanity would seem to 
 women, as usually educated, equally incomprehen 
 sible and unprofitable. 
 
 " It was in recognition of this situation that 
 Kegnier ended by making a proposition which tes 
 tified, more strongly than anything else could have 
 done, both to the enthusiasm and sincerity with 
 which he himself held the faith he preached, and 
 to his confidence in my own equal singleness of 
 heart. He had never before spoken of his personal 
 history or home life. Several times I had spent 
 the evening at his house, but on these occasions I 
 had seen only himself. Certain womanly belong 
 ings, however, which I had noticed, and the sound 
 of a piano once or twice, had suggested that the 
 house might not be without a feminine presence. 
 The professor now told me that long ago in France, 
 for a few short, blissful years, he had been the hus 
 band of the sweetest of women. She had left be 
 hind a daughter, the sole companion of his life and 
 the apple of his eye. She lived in complete seclu 
 sion, rarely even leaving the house. He did not 
 desire her to make acquaintances in this country, 
 nor indeed was she able to speak a word of any 
 language but her own. There was no question of 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 309 
 
 my making her acquaintance in the ordinary sense, 
 or even of meeting her a second time, but if I de 
 sired to testify my new appreciation of the sacred 
 quality of womanhood, it was possible that she 
 might consent to receive my homage in the name 
 of her sex. He could not be sure what she would 
 say, but he would speak with her about it. 
 
 " The following day, a note from him requesting 
 that I should call at his house that evening inti 
 mated that he had succeeded in carrying his point. 
 When I called at the time set, he told me that he 
 had found it more difficult than he had anticipated 
 to gain his daughter s consent to see me. She had 
 been very reluctant to assume the attitude required 
 of her, and only her respect for his wishes and the 
 good of the cause, and the assurance he had given 
 her of the entire ingenuousness of my own motive, 
 had induced her finally to yield. After some talk 
 as to the significance of the interview before me, 
 which I was too much agitated to comprehend, he 
 bade me follow him. 
 
 " As may readily be supposed, my fancy, from 
 the moment Regnier had suggested this interview, 
 had been exceedingly busy with conjectures as to 
 the sort of scene it would prove, and especially as 
 to the personality of her who was to be the cen 
 tral figure. Except his intimation that the inter 
 view would be necessarily without interchange of 
 speech and presumably brief, scarcely more, prob 
 ably, than a confrontation, he had told me nothing. 
 
310 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 Of course, however, my fancies had not failed to 
 take some form. I think I had a general expecta 
 tion of finding myself in the presence of a beautiful 
 woman, statuesquely shaped and posed. I imagine 
 that I rather expected her to be enthroned or stand 
 ing upon some sort of dais, and I am sure that I 
 should not have been surprised had there been 
 some artificial arrangement of lights as in a the 
 atre to add effectiveness to the figure. 
 
 " I followed Regnier through several rooms with 
 out raising my eyes. Presently he paused and 
 said, My daughter. 
 
 " Thrilling with the premonition of a vision of 
 imperious or melting loveliness which should com 
 pel my homage by its mere aspect, I raised my 
 eyes to find myself facing a plain-featured, plainly 
 dressed young woman, not ill-looking certainly, 
 but destitute of a single trait striking enough to 
 have won a second glance from me had I met her 
 on the street. 
 
 " Her father need not have told me of her reluc 
 tance to assume the part his wishes had imposed 
 upon her. For the fraction of an instant only, a 
 pair of black eyes had met mine, and then she had 
 bent her face as low as she could. The downcast 
 head, the burning cheeks, the quick heaving of the 
 breast, the pendent arms, with tensely interlacing 
 fingers and palms turned downward, all told the 
 story of a shy and sensitive girl submitting from 
 a sense of duty to a painful ordeal. 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 311 
 
 " The sudden and complete wreck of all my 
 preconceptions as to her appearance, as well as 
 the accessories of the scene, left me for a few 
 moments fairly dazed. Not only were my highly 
 wrought expectations as to the present interview 
 brought to humiliating discomfiture, but the influ 
 ence of the disillusionment instantly retroacted 
 with the effect of making the entire noble and ro 
 mantic cult which had led up to this unlucky con 
 frontation seem a mere farrago of extravagant and 
 baseless sentiment. What on earth had Kegnier 
 been thinking of, to plan deliberately a situation 
 calculated to turn a cherished sentiment into ridi 
 cule ? If he had seriously thought his daughter 
 capable of supporting the role he had assigned 
 her, had there ever been a like case of parental 
 fatuity ? 
 
 "But even as I indignantly asked myself this 
 question, I saw a great light, and recognized that 
 the trouble was neither with Regnier s fatuity 
 nor with his daughter s lack of charms, but with 
 myself, and a most unworthy misconception into 
 which I had fallen as to the whole object and pur 
 port of this interview. What had the beauty or 
 the lack of beauty of this girl to do with the pre 
 sent occasion ? I was not here to render homage 
 to her for the beauty of her sex, but for its per 
 petual consecration and everlasting martyrdom to 
 my race. The revulsion of feeling which followed 
 the recognition of the grossness of the mistake I 
 
312 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 had made had no doubt the effect of greatly inten 
 sifying my emotions.y^T was overcome with con 
 trition for the unworthiness with which I had 
 stood before this girl who had so trusted to my 
 magnanimity, appraising her like a sensualist when 
 I should have been on my knees before her. A 
 reaction of compunctious loyalty made my very 
 heartstrings ache. I saw now how well it had 
 been for a weak-minded fool like myself that she 
 had not chanced to be beautiful or even pretty, for 
 then I should have cheated myself of all that dis 
 tinguished this solemn meeting from the merest 
 lover s antics. I won in that moment an impres 
 sion of the tawdriness of mere beauty which I 
 have never gotten over. It seemed to me then, 
 and more or less has ever since, that the beauty of 
 women is a sort of veil which hides from superficial 
 eyes the true adorableness of womanhood. 
 """** Unable longer to resist the magnetism of my 
 gaze, her eyes rose slowly to mine. At their first 
 meeting, her face became crimson ; but as she did 
 not avert her eyes, and continued to look into 
 mine, the flush paled swiftly from her face, and 
 with it all the other evidences of her embarrass 
 ment passed as quickly away, leaving her bearing 
 wholly changed. It was plain that through my 
 eyes, which in that moment must have been truly 
 windows of my soul, she had read my inmost 
 thoughts, and had perceived how altogether im 
 pertinent to their quality self-consciousness on her 
 
A POSITIVE ROMANCE 313 
 
 part would be. As with a gaze growing ever 
 more serene and steadfast she continued to read 
 my thoughts, her face changed, and from the look 
 of a shy and timid maiden it gradually took on 
 that of a conscious goddess. Then, as still she 
 read on, there came another change. The soft 
 black eyes grew softer and yet softer, and then 
 slowly filled with tears till they were like brim 
 ming vases. She did not smile, but her brows 
 and lips assumed a look of benignant sweetness 
 indescribable. 
 
 " In that moment no supernatural aureole would 
 have added sacredness to that head, or myth of 
 heavenly origin have made that figure seem more 
 adorable. With right good-will I sank upon my 
 knees. She reached forth her hand to me and I 
 pressed my lips to it. I lifted up the hem of her 
 dress and kissed it. There was a rustle of gar 
 ments. I looked up and she was gone. 
 
 " I suppose immediately after that I must have 
 left the house. I only know that the dawn found 
 me miles out of town, walking aimlessly about and 
 talking to myself." 
 
 Hammond poured himself a glass of wine, drunk 
 it slowly, and then fell into a profound reverie, 
 apparently forgetful of my presence. 
 
 " Is that all ? " I asked at last. " Did you not 
 see her again ? " 
 
 " No," he answered, " I never saw her again. 
 Probably, as her father had intimated, he did not 
 
314 A POSITIVE ROMANCE 
 
 intend that I should. But circumstances also pre 
 vented. The very next day there was an explosion 
 in college. There had been a Judas among my 
 fellow-disciples, and the faculty had been informed 
 of the Positivist propaganda going on under their 
 noses. I was suspended for six months. When 
 I returned to college, Kegnier had disappeared. 
 He had of course been promptly dismissed, and it 
 was rumored that he had gone back to France. 
 He had left no trace, and I never heard of him 
 again or of his daughter. I don t even know the 
 name of the woman I worshiped." 
 
LOST 
 
 t 
 
 THE 25th of May, 1866, was no doubt to many 
 a quite indifferent date, but to two persons it was 
 the saddest day of their lives. Charles Randall 
 that day left Bonn, Germany, to catch the steamer 
 home to America, and Ida Werner was left with 
 a mountain of grief on her gentle bosom, which 
 must be melted away drop by drop, in tears, be 
 fore she could breathe freely again. 
 
 A year before, Randall, hunting for apartments, 
 his last term at the university just begun, had seen 
 the announcement, " Zimmer zu vermiethen" in 
 the hall below the flat where the Werners lived. 
 Ida answered his ring, for her father was still at 
 his government office, and her mother had gone 
 out to the market to buy the supper. She would 
 much rather her mother had been at home to show 
 the gentleman the rooms ; but, knowing that they 
 could not afford to lose a chance to rent them, she 
 plucked up courage, and, candle in hand, showed 
 him through the suite. When he came next day 
 with his baggage, he learned for the first time 
 what manner of apartments he had engaged ; for 
 although he had protracted the investigation the 
 previous evening to the furthest corner, and had 
 
316 LOST 
 
 been most exacting as to explanations, he had 
 really rented the rooms entirely on account of a 
 certain light in which a set of Madonna features, 
 in auburn hair, had shown at the first opening of 
 the door. 
 
 A year had passed since this, and a week ago a 
 letter from home had stated that his father, indig 
 nant at his unexplained stay six months beyond 
 the end of his course, had sent him one last remit 
 tance, barely sufficient for a steamer ticket, with 
 the intimation that if he did not return on a set 
 day, he must thenceforth attend to his own ex 
 chequer. The 25th was the last day on which he 
 could leave Bonn to catch the requisite steamer. 
 Had it been in November, nature at least would 
 have sympathized ; it was cruel that their autumn 
 time of separation should fall in the spring, when 
 the sky is full of bounteous promise and the earth 
 of blissful trust. 
 
 Love is so improvident that a parting a year 
 away is no more feared than death, arid a month s 
 end seems dim and distant. But a week, a week 
 only, that even to love is short, and the begin 
 ning of the end. The chilling mist that rose from 
 the gulf of separation so near before them over 
 shadowed all the brief remnant of their path. 
 They were constantly together. But a silence had 
 come upon them. Never had words seemed idler, 
 they had so much to say. They could say nothing 
 that did not mock the weight on their hearts, and 
 
LOST 317 
 
 seem trivial and impertinent because it was exclu 
 sive of more important matter. The utmost they 
 could do was to lay their hearts open toward each 
 other to receive every least impression of voice, 
 and look, and manner, to be remembered after 
 ward. At evening they went into the minster 
 church, and, sitting in the shadows, listened to the 
 sweet, shrill choir of boys whose music distilled 
 the honey of sorrow ; and as the deep bass organ 
 chords gripped their hearts with the tones that 
 underlie all weal and woe, they looked in each 
 other s eyes, and did for a space feel so near that 
 all the separation that could come after seemed but 
 a trifling thing. 
 
 It was all arranged between them. He was to 
 earn money, or get a position in business, and 
 return in a year or two at most and bring her to 
 America. 
 
 " Oh," she said once, " if I could but sleep till 
 thou comest again to wake me, how blessed I 
 should be ; but, alas, I must wake all through the 
 desolate time ! " 
 
 Although for the most part she comforted him 
 rather than he her, yet at times she gave way, and 
 once suddenly turned to him and hid her face 
 on his breast, and said, trembling with tearless 
 sobs : 
 
 " I know I shall never see thee more, Karl. 
 Thou wilt forget me in thy great, far land and wilt 
 love another. My heart tells me so." 
 
818 LOST 
 
 And then she raised her head, and her stream 
 ing eyes blazed with anger. 
 
 "I will hover about thee, and if thou lovest 
 another, I will kill her as she sleeps by thy side." 
 
 And the woman must have loved him much who, 
 after seeing that look of hers, would have married 
 him. But a moment after she was listening with 
 abject ear to his promises. 
 
 The day came at last. He was to leave at three 
 o clock. After the noontide meal, Ida s mother 
 sat with them and they talked a little about Amer 
 ica, Frau Werner exerting herself to give a cheer 
 ful tone to the conversation, and Randall answer 
 ing her questions absently and without taking his 
 eyes off Ida, who felt herself beginning to be 
 seized with a nervous trembling. At last Frau 
 Werner rose and silently left the room, looking 
 back at them as she closed the door with eyes full 
 of tears. Then, as if by a common impulse, they 
 rose and put their arms about each other s necks, 
 and their lips met in a long, shuddering kiss. 
 The breath came quicker and quicker ; sobs broke 
 the kisses ; tears poured down and made them salt 
 and bitter, as parting kisses should be in which 
 sweetness is mockery. Hitherto they had con 
 trolled their feelings, or rather she had controlled 
 him ; but it was no use any longer, for the time 
 had come, and they abandoned themselves to the 
 terrible voluptuousness of unrestrained grief, in 
 which there is a strange, meaningless suggestion of 
 
LOST 319 
 
 power, as though it might possibly be a force that 
 could affect or remove its own cause if but wild 
 and strong enough. 
 
 " Herr Randall, the carriage waits and you will 
 lose the train," said Frau Werner from the door, 
 in a husky voice. 
 
 " I will not go, by God ! " he swore, as he felt 
 her clasp convulsively strengthen at the summons. 
 The lesser must yield to the greater, and no loss 
 or gain on earth was worth the grief upon her 
 face. His father might disinherit him, America 
 might sink, but she must smile again. And she 
 did, brave, true girl and lover. The devotion 
 his resolute words proved was like a strong nervine 
 to restore her self-control. She smiled as well as 
 her trembling lips would let her, and said, as she 
 loosed him from her arms : 
 
 " No, thou must go, Karl. But thou wilt re 
 turn, nicht wdhr ? " 
 
 I would not venture to say how many times he 
 rushed to the door, and, glancing back at her as 
 she stood there desolate, followed his glance once 
 more to her side. Finally, Frau Werner led him 
 as one dazed to the carriage, and the impatient 
 driver drove off at full speed. 
 
 It is seven years later, and Randall is pacing 
 the deck of an ocean steamer, outward bound from 
 New York. It is the evening of the first day out. 
 Here and there passengers are leaning over the 
 
320 LOST 
 
 bulwarks, pensively regarding the sinking sun as 
 it sets for the first time between them and their 
 native land, or maybe taking in with awed faces 
 the wonder of the deep, which has haunted their 
 imaginations from childhood. Others are already 
 busily striking up acquaintances with fellow-pas 
 sengers, and a bridal pair over yonder sit thrilling 
 with the sense of isolation from the world that 
 so emphasizes their mutual dependence and all- 
 importance to each other. And other groups are 
 talking business, and referring to money and mar 
 kets in New York, London, and Frankfort as 
 glibly as if they were on land, much to the secret 
 shock of certain raw tourists, who marvel at the iii- 
 sensitiveness of men who, thus speeding between 
 two worlds, and freshly in the presence of the 
 most august and awful form of nature, can keep 
 their minds so steadily fixed upon cash-books and 
 ledgers. 
 
 But Randall, as, with the habit of an old voy 
 ager, he already falls to pacing the deck, is too 
 much engrossed with his own thoughts to pay 
 much heed to these things. Only, as he passes a 
 group of Germans, and the familiar accents of the 
 sweet, homely tongue fall on his ear, he pauses, 
 and lingers near. 
 
 The darkness gathers, the breeze freshens, the 
 waves come tumbling out of the east, and the mo 
 tion of the ship increases as she rears upward to 
 meet them. The groups on deck are thinning out 
 
 
LOST 321 
 
 fast, as the passengers go below to enjoy the fear 
 some novelty of the first night at sea, and to com 
 pose themselves to sleep as it were in the hollow of 
 God s hand. But long into the night Eandall s 
 cigar still marks his pacing up and down as he 
 ponders, with alternations of tender, hopeful glow 
 and sad foreboding, the chances of his quest. Will 
 he find her ? 
 
 It is necessary to go back a little. When Ean- 
 dall reached America on his return from Germany, 
 he immediately began to sow his wild oats, and 
 gave his whole mind to it. Answering Ida s let 
 ters got to be a bore, and he gradually ceased 
 doing it. Then came a few sad reproaches from 
 her, and their correspondence ceased. Meanwhile, 
 having had his youthful fling, he settled down as 
 a steady young man of business. One day he was 
 surprised to observe that he had of late insensibly 
 fallen into the habit of thinking a good deal in a 
 pensive sort of way about Ida and those German 
 days. The notion occurred to him that he would 
 hunt up her picture, which he had not thought of 
 in five years. With misty eyes and crowding 
 memories he pored over it, and a wave of regret 
 ful, yearning tenderness filled his breast. 
 
 Late one night, after long search, he found 
 among his papers a bundle of her old letters, al 
 ready growing yellow. Being exceedingly rusty 
 in his German, he had to study them out word by 
 word. That night, till the sky grew gray in the 
 
322 LOST 
 
 east, he sat there turning the pages of the diction 
 ary with wet eyes and glowing face, and selecting 
 definitions by the test of the heart. He found 
 that some of these letters he had never before 
 taken the pains to read through. In the bitter 
 ness of his indignation, he cursed the fool who had 
 thrown away a love so loyal and priceless. 
 
 All this time he had been thinking of Ida as if 
 dead, so far off in another world did those days 
 seem. It was with extraordinary effect that the 
 idea finally flashed upon him that she was prob 
 ably alive, and now in the prime of her beauty. 
 After a period of feverish and impassioned excite 
 ment, he wrote a letter full of wild regret and 
 beseeching, and an ineffable tenderness. Then he 
 waited. After a long time it came back from the 
 German dead-letter office. There was no person 
 of the name at the address. She had left Bonn, 
 then. Hastily setting his affairs in order, he 
 sailed for Germany on the next steamer. 
 
 The incidents of the voyage were a blank in his 
 mind. On reaching Bonn, he went straight from 
 
 the station to the old house in strasse. As 
 
 he turned into it from the scarcely less familiar 
 streets leading thither, and noted each accustomed 
 landmark, he seemed to have just returned to tea 
 from an afternoon lecture at the university. In 
 every feature of the street some memory lurked, 
 and, as he passed, threw out delaying tendrils, 
 clutching at his heart. Rudely he broke away, 
 
LOST 323 
 
 hastening on to that house near the end of the 
 street, in each of whose quaint windows fancy 
 framed the longed-for face. She was not there, he 
 knew, but for a while he stood on the other side of 
 the street, unmindful of the stares and jostling of 
 the passers-by, gazing at the house-front, and letting 
 himself imagine from moment to moment that her 
 figure might flit across some window, or issue from 
 the door, basket in hand, for the evening market 
 ing, on which journey he had so often accompanied 
 her. At length, crossing the street, he inquired 
 for the Werner family. The present tenants had 
 never heard the name. Perhaps the tenants from 
 whom they had received the house might be better 
 informed. Where were they? They had moved 
 to Cologne. He next went to the Bonn police-office, 
 and from the records kept there, in which pretty 
 much everything about every citizen is set down, 
 ascertained that several years previous Herr Wer 
 ner had died of apoplexy, and that no one of the 
 name was now resident in the city. Next day he 
 went to Cologne, hunted up the former tenants of 
 the house, and found that they remembered quite 
 distinctly the Werner family, and the death of the 
 father and only breadwinner. It had left the 
 mother and daughter quite without resources, as 
 Randall had known must probably have been the 
 case. His informants had heard that they had 
 gone to Diisseldorf. 
 
 His search had become a fever. After waiting 
 
324 LOST 
 
 seven years, a delay of ten minutes was unendura 
 ble. The trains seemed to creep. And yet, on 
 reaching Diisseldorf, he did not at once go about 
 his search, but said to himself : 
 
 " Let me not risk the killing of my last hope till 
 I have warmed myself with it one more night, for 
 to-morrow there may be no more warmth in it." 
 
 He went to a hotel, ordered a room and a bottle 
 of wine, and sat over it all night, indulging the 
 belief that he would find her the next day. He 
 denied his imagination nothing, but conjured up 
 before his mind s eye the lovely vision of her fair 
 est hour, complete even to the turn of the neck, the 
 ribbon in the hair, and the light in the blue eyes. 
 So he would turn into the street. Yes, here was 
 the number. Then he rings the bell. She comes 
 to the door. She regards him a moment indiffer 
 ently. Then amazed recognition, love, happiness, 
 transfigure her face. " Ida ! " " Karl ! " and he 
 clasps her sobbing to his bosom, from which she 
 shall never be sundered again. 
 
 The result of his search next day was the dis 
 covery that mother and daughter had been at Diis 
 seldorf until about four years previous, where the 
 mother had died of consumption, and the daugh 
 ter had removed, leaving no address. The lodg 
 ings occupied by them were of a wretched char 
 acter, showing that their circumstances must have 
 been very much reduced. 
 
 There was now no further clue to guide his 
 
LOST 325 
 
 search. It was destined that the last he was to 
 know of her should be that she was thrown on the 
 tender mercies of the world, her last friend gone, 
 her last penny expended. She was buried out of 
 his sight, not in the peaceful grave, with its tender 
 associations, but buried alive in the living world ; 
 hopelessly hid in the huge, writhing confusion of 
 humanity. He lingered in the folly of despair 
 about those sordid lodgings in Diisseldorf, as one 
 might circle vainly about the spot in the ocean 
 where some pearl of great price had fallen over 
 board. 
 
 After a while he roused again, and began put 
 ting advertisements for Ida into the principal news 
 papers of Germany, and making random visits to 
 towns all about to consult directories and police 
 records. A singular sort of misanthropy possessed 
 him. He cursed the multitude of towns and vil 
 lages that reduced the chances in his favor to so 
 
 O 
 
 small a thing. He cursed the teeming throngs of 
 men, women, and children, in whose mass she was 
 lost, as a jewel in a mountain of rubbish. Had he 
 possessed the power, he would in those days, with 
 out an instant s hesitation, have swept the bewilder 
 ing, obstructing millions of Germany out of exist 
 ence, as the miner washes away the earth to bring 
 to light the grain of gold in his pan. He must 
 have scanned a million women s faces in that weary 
 search, and the bitterness of that million-fold dis 
 appointment left its trace in a feeling of aversion 
 
326 LOST 
 
 for the feminine countenance and figure that he 
 was long in overcoming. 
 
 Knowing that only by some desperate chance he 
 could hope to meet her in his random wanderings, 
 it seemed to him that he was more likely to be suc 
 cessful by resigning as far as possible all volition, 
 and leaving the guidance of the search to chance ; 
 as if Fortune were best disposed toward those who 
 most entirely abdicated intelligence and trusted 
 themselves to her. He sacredly followed every 
 impulse, never making up his mind an hour before 
 at what station he should leave the cars, and turn 
 ing to the right or left in his wanderings through 
 the streets of cities, as much as possible without 
 intellectual choice. Sometimes, waking suddenly 
 in the middle of the night, he would rise, dress 
 with eager haste, and sally out to wander through 
 the dark streets, thinking he might be led of Provi 
 dence to meet her. And, once out, nothing but 
 utter exhaustion could drive him back ; for how 
 could he tell but in the moment after he had gone, 
 she might pass ? He had recourse to every super 
 stition of sortilege, clairvoyance, presentiment, and 
 dreams. And all the time his desperation was 
 singularly akin to hope. He dared revile no seem 
 ing failure, not knowing but just that was the ne 
 cessary link in the chain of accidents destined to 
 bring him face to face with her. The darkest hour 
 might usher in the sunburst. The possibility that 
 this was at last the blessed chance lit up his eyes 
 
LOST 327 
 
 ten thousand times as they fell on some new 
 face. 
 
 But at last he found himself back in Bonn, with 
 the feverish infatuation of the gambler, which had 
 succeeded hope in his mind, succeeded in turn by 
 utter despair! His sole occupation now was re 
 visiting the spots which he had frequented with 
 her in that happy year. As one who has lost a 
 princely fortune sits down at length to enumerate 
 the little items of property that happen to be at 
 tached to his person, disregarded before but now 
 his all, so Randall counted up like a miser the little 
 store of memories that were thenceforth to be his 
 all. Wonderfully, the smallest details of those 
 days came back to him. The very seats they sat 
 in at public places, the shops they entered together, 
 their promenades and the pausing-places on them, 
 revived in memory under a concentrated inward 
 gaze like invisible paintings brought over heat. 
 
 One afternoon, after wandering about the city for 
 some hours, he turned into a park to rest. As he 
 approached his usual bench, sacred to him because 
 Ida and he in the old days had often sat there, he 
 was annoyed to see it already occupied by a plea 
 sant-faced, matronly looking German woman, who 
 was complacently listening to the chatter of a cou 
 ple of small children. Randall threw himself upon 
 the unoccupied end of the bench, rather hoping 
 that his gloomy and preoccupied air might cause 
 them to depart and leave him to his melancholy 
 
328 LOST 
 
 reverie. And, indeed, it was not long before the 
 children stopped their play and gathered timidly 
 about their mother, and soon after the bench tilted 
 slightly as she relieved it of her substantial charms, 
 saying in a cheery, pleasant voice : 
 
 " Come, little ones, the father will be at home 
 before us." 
 
 It was a secluded part of the garden, and the 
 plentiful color left her cheeks as the odd gentle 
 man at the other end of the bench turned with a 
 great start at the sound of her voice, and trans 
 fixed her with a questioning look. But in a mo 
 ment he said : 
 
 " Pardon me, madame, a thousand times. The 
 sound of your voice so reminded me of a friend I 
 have lost that I looked up involuntarily." 
 
 The woman responded with good-natured assur 
 ances that he had not at all alarmed her. Mean 
 while Randall had an opportunity to notice that, in 
 spite of the thick-waisted and generally matronly 
 figure, there were, now he came to look closely, 
 several rather marked resemblances to Ida. The 
 eyes were of the same blue tint, though about half 
 as large, the cheeks being twice as full. In spite 
 of the ugly style of dressing it, he saw also that the 
 hair was like Ida s ; and as for the nose, that fea 
 ture which changes least, it might have been taken 
 out of Ida s own face. As may be supposed, he 
 was thoroughly disgusted to be reminded of that 
 sweet girlish vision by this broadly moulded, com- 
 
LOST 329 
 
 fortable-looking matron. His romantic mood was 
 scattered for that evening at least, and he knew 
 he should not get the prosaic suggestions of the 
 unfortunate resemblance out of his mind for a 
 week at least. It would torment him as a humor 
 ous association spoils a sacred hymn. 
 
 He bowed with rather an ill grace, and was about 
 to retire, when a certain peculiar turn of the neck, 
 as the lady acknowledged his salute, caught his eye 
 and turned him to stone. Good God ! this woman 
 was Ida ! 
 
 He stood there in a condition of mental paraly 
 sis. The whole fabric of his thinking and feeling 
 for months of intense emotional experience had 
 instantly been annihilated, and he was left in the 
 midst of a great void in his consciousness out of 
 touching-reach of anything. There was no sharp 
 pang, but just a bewildered numbness. A few fila 
 ments only of the romantic feeling for Ida that 
 filled his mind a moment before still lingered, float 
 ing about it, unattached to anything, like vague 
 neuralgic feelings in an amputated stump, as if to 
 remind him of what had been there. 
 
 All this was as instantaneous as a galvanic shock 
 the moment he had recognized let us not say 
 Ida, but this evidence that she was no more. It 
 occurred to him that the woman, who stood staring, 
 was in common politeness entitled to some expla 
 nation. He was in just that state of mind when, 
 the only serious interest having suddenly dropped 
 
330 LOST 
 
 out of the life, the minor conventionalities loom up 
 as peculiarly important and obligatory. 
 
 " You were Fraiilein Ida Werner, and lived at 
 No. strasse in 1866, nicht wahr ? " 
 
 He spoke in a cold, dead tone, as if making a 
 necessary but distasteful explanation to a stranger. 
 
 " Yes, truly," replied the woman curiously ; 
 " but my name is now Frau Stein," glancing at 
 the children, who had been staring open-mouthed 
 at the queer man. 
 
 " Do you remember Karl Randall ? I am he." 
 
 The most formal of old acquaintances could 
 hardly have recalled himself in a more indifferent 
 manner. 
 
 " Herr Gott im Himmel!" exclaimed the wo 
 man, with the liveliest surprise and interest. 
 " Karl ! Is it possible ? Yes, now I recognize you. 
 Surely ! surely ! " 
 
 She clapped one hand to her bosom, and dropped 
 on the bench to recover herself. Fleshy people, 
 overcome by agitation, are rather disagreeable ob 
 jects. Randall stood looking at her with a singular 
 expression of aversion on his listless face. But, 
 after panting a few times, the woman recovered her 
 vivacity and began to ply him vigorously with ex 
 clamations and questions, beaming the while with 
 delighted interest. He answered her like a school 
 boy, too destitute of presence of mind to do other 
 wise than to yield passively to her impulse. But 
 he made no inquiries whatever of her, and did not 
 
LOST 331 
 
 distantly allude to the reason of his presence in 
 Germany. As he stood there looking at her, the 
 real facts about that matter struck him as so ab 
 surd and incredible that he could not believe them 
 himself. 
 
 Pretty soon he observed that she was becoming 
 a little conscious in her air, and giving a slightly 
 sentimental turn to the conversation. It was not 
 for some time that he saw her drift, so utterly with 
 out connection in his mind were Ida and this com 
 fortable matron before him ; and when he did, a 
 smile at the exquisite absurdity of the thing barely 
 twitched the corners of his mouth, and ended in a 
 sad, puzzled stare that rather put the other out of 
 countenance. 
 
 But the children had now for some time been 
 whimpering for supper and home, and at length 
 Frau Stein rose, and, with an urgent request that 
 Eandall should call on her and see her husband, 
 bade him a cordial adieu. He stood there watch 
 ing her out of sight, with an unconscious smile of 
 the most refined and subtle cynicism. Then he sat 
 down and stared vacantly at the close-cropped grass 
 on the opposite side of the path. By what handle 
 should he lay hold of his thoughts ? 
 
 That woman could not retroact and touch the 
 memory of Ida. That dear vision remained intact. 
 He drew forth his locket, and opening it gazed pas 
 sionately at the fair girlish face, now so hopelessly 
 passed away. By that blessed picture he could 
 
332 LOST 
 
 hold her and ^de^jtliajKoman. Remembering that 
 fat, jolly, comfortable matron, he should not at 
 least ever again have to reproach himself with his 
 cruel treatment of Ida. And yet why not? What 
 had the woman to do with her ? She had suffered 
 as much as if the woman had not forgotten it all. 
 
 <j 
 
 His reckoning was with Ida, was with her. 
 Where should he find her ? In what limbo could 
 he imagine her ? Ah, that was the wildering cruelty 
 of it. She was not this woman, nor was she dead 
 in any conceivable natural way so that her girlish 
 spirit might have remained eternally fixed. She 
 was nothing. She was nowhere. She existed only 
 in this locket, and her only soul was in his heart, 
 far more surely than in this woman who had for 
 gotten her. 
 
 Death was a hopeful, cheerful state compared to 
 that nameless nothingness that was her portion. 
 For had she been dead, he could still have loved her 
 soul ; but now she had none. The soul that once 
 she had, and, if she had then died, might have kept, 
 had been forfeited by living on, and had passed to 
 this woman, and would from her pass on further 
 till finally fixed and vested in the decrepitude of 
 age by death. So, then, it was death and not life 
 that secured the soul, and his sweet Ida had none 
 because she had not died in time. Ah ! had not he 
 heard somewhere that the soul is immortal and 
 never dies ? Where, then, was Ida s ? She had 
 disappeared utterly out of the universe. She had 
 
LOST 333 
 
 been transformed, destroyed, swallowed up in this 
 woman, a living sepulchre, more cruel than the 
 grave, for it devoured the soul as well as the body. 
 Pah ! tins prating about immortality was absurd, 
 convicted of meaninglessness before a tragedy like 
 this ; for what was an immortality worth that was 
 given to her last decrepit phase of life, after all its 
 beauty and strength and loveliness had passed soul 
 less away ? To be aught but a mockery, immortal 
 ity must be as manifold as the manifold phases of 
 life. Since life devours so many souls, why sup 
 pose death will spare the last one ? 
 
 But he would contend with destiny. Painters 
 should multiply the face in his locket. He would 
 immortalize her in a poem. He would constantly 
 keep the lamp trimmed and burning before her 
 shrine in his heart. She should live in spite of the 
 woman. 
 
 But he could now never make amends to her for 
 the suffering his cruel, neglectful youth had caused 
 her. He had scarcely realized before how much 
 the longing to make good that wrong had influ 
 enced his quest of her. Tears of remorse for an 
 unatonable crime gatherecf in his eyes. He might, 
 indeed, enrich this woman, or educate her children, 
 or pension her husband ; but that would be no 
 atonement to Ida. 
 
 And then, as if to intensify that remorse by show 
 ing still more clearly the impossibility of atone 
 ment, it flashed on him that he who loved Ida was 
 
334 LOST 
 
 not the one to atone for an offense of which he 
 would be incapable, which had been committed by 
 one who despised her love. Justice was a meaning 
 less word, and amends were never possible, nor can 
 men ever make atonement ; for, ere the debt is paid, 
 the atonement made, one who is not the sufferer 
 stands to receive it ; while, on the other hand, the 
 one who atones is not the offender, but one who 
 comes after him, loathing his offense and himself 
 incapable of it. The dead must bury their dead. 
 And, thus pondering from personal to general 
 thoughts, the turmoil of his feelings gradually 
 calmed, and a restful melancholy, vague and tender, 
 filled the aching void in his heart. 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 RAILROAD rides are naturally tiresome to per 
 sons who cannot read on the cars, and, being one 
 of those unfortunates, I resigned myself, on taking 
 my seat in the train, to several hours of tedium, 
 alleviated only by such cat-naps as I might achieve. 
 Partly on account of my infirmity, though more on 
 account of a taste for rural quiet and retirement, 
 my railroad journeys are few and far between. 
 Strange as the statement may seem in days like 
 these, it had actually been five years since I had 
 been on an express train of a trunk line. Now, 
 as every one knows, the improvements in the con 
 veniences of the best equipped trains have in that 
 period been very great, and for a considerable 
 time I found myself amply entertained in taking 
 note first of one ingenious device and then of 
 another, and wondering what would come next. 
 At the end of the first hour, however, I was pleased 
 to find that I was growing comfortably drowsy, 
 and proceeded to compose myself for a nap, which 
 I hoped might last to my destination. 
 
 Presently I was touched on the shoulder, and a 
 train boy asked me if I would not like something 
 to read. I replied, rather petulantly, that I could 
 
336 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 not read on the cars, and only wanted to be let 
 alone. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir," the train boy replied, " but 
 I 11 give you a book you can read with your eyes 
 shut. Guess you have n t taken this line lately," 
 he added, as I looked up offended at what seemed 
 impertinence. " We ve been furnishing the new- 
 fashioned phonographed books and magazines on 
 this train for six months now, and passengers have 
 got so they won t have anything else." 
 
 Probably this piece of information ought to 
 have astonished me more than it did, but I had 
 read enough about the wonders of the phonograph 
 to be prepared in a vague sort of way for almost 
 anything which might be related of it, and for the 
 rest, after the air-brakes, the steam heat, the elec 
 tric lights and annunciators, the vestibuled cars, 
 and other delightful novelties I had just been ad 
 miring, almost anything seemed likely in the way 
 of railway conveniences. Accordingly, when the 
 boy proceeded to rattle off a list of the latest 
 novels, I stopped him with the name of one which 
 I had heard favorable mention of, and told him 1 
 would try that. 
 
 He was good enough to commend my choice. 
 " That s a good one," he said. " It s all the rage. 
 Half the train s on it this trip. Where 11 you 
 begin?" 
 
 "Where? Why, at the beginning. Where 
 else?" I replied. 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 337 
 
 " All right. Did n t know but you might have 
 partly read it. Put you on at any chapter or 
 page, you know. Put you on at first chapter with 
 next batch in five minutes, soon as the batch that s 
 on now gets through." 
 
 He unlocked a little box at the side of my seat, 
 collected the price of three hours reading at five 
 cents an hour, and went on down the aisle. Pre 
 sently I heard the tinkle of a bell from the box 
 which he had unlocked. Following the example 
 of others around me, I took from it a sort of two- 
 pronged fork with the tines spread in the simili 
 tude of a chicken s wishbone. This contrivance, 
 which was attached to the side of the car by a 
 cord, I proceeded to apply to my ears, as I saw the 
 others doing. 
 
 For the next three hours I scarcely altered my 
 position, so completely was I enthralled by my 
 novel experience. Few persons can fail to have 
 made the observation that if the tones of the 
 human voice did not have a charm for us in them 
 selves apart from the ideas they convey, conversa 
 tion to a great extent would soon be given up, so 
 little is the real intellectual interest of the topics 
 with which it is chiefly concerned. When, then, 
 the sympathetic influence of the voice is lent to 
 the enhancement of matter of high intrinsic inter 
 est, it is not strange that the attention should be 
 enchained. A good story is highly entertaining 
 even when we have to get at it by the roundabout 
 
338 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 means of spelling out the signs that stand for the 
 words, and imagining them uttered, and then ima 
 gining what they would mean if uttered. What, 
 then, shall be said of the delight of sitting at one s 
 ease, with closed eyes, listening to the same story 
 poured into one s ears in the strong, sweet, musical 
 tones of a perfect mistress of the art of story-tell 
 ing, and of the expression and excitation by means 
 of the voice of every emotion ? 
 
 When, at the conclusion of the story, the train 
 boy came to lock up the box, I could not refrain 
 from expressing my satisfaction in strong terms. 
 In reply he volunteered the information that next 
 month the cars for day trips on that line would be 
 further fitted up with phonographic guide-books 
 of the country the train passed through, so con 
 nected by clock-work with the running gear of the 
 cars that the guide-book would call attention to 
 every object in the landscape, and furnish the 
 pertinent information statistical, topographical, 
 biographical, historical, romantic, or legendary, as 
 it might be just at the time the train had 
 reached the most favorable point of view. It was 
 believed that this arrangement (for which, as it 
 would work automatically and require little at 
 tendance, being used or not, according to pleasure, 
 by the passenger, there would be no charge) would 
 do much to attract travel to the road. His expla 
 nation was interrupted by the announcement in 
 loud, clear, and deliberate tones, which no one 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 339 
 
 could have had any excuse for misunderstanding, 
 that the train was now approaching the city of my 
 destination. As I looked around in amazement to 
 discover what manner of brakeman this might be 
 whom I had understood, the train boy said, with 
 a grin, " That s our new phonographic annunci 
 ator." 
 
 Hamage had written me that he would be at the 
 station, but something had evidently prevented 
 him from keeping the appointment, and as it was 
 late, I went at once to a hotel and to bed. I was 
 tired and slept heavily ; once or twice I woke up, 
 after dreaming there were people in my room talk 
 ing to me, but quickly dropped off to sleep again. 
 Finally I awoke, and did not so soon fall asleep. 
 Presently I found myself sitting up in bed with 
 half a dozen extraordinary sensations contending 
 for right of way along my backbone. What had 
 startled me was the voice of a young woman, who 
 could not have been standing more than ten feet 
 from my bed. If the tones of her voice were any 
 guide, she was not only a young woman, but a 
 very charming one. 
 
 "My dear sir," she had said, "you may possi 
 bly be interested in knowing that it now wants 
 just a quarter of three." 
 
 For a few moments I thought well, I will not 
 undertake the impossible task of telling what ex 
 traordinary conjectures occurred to me by way of 
 accounting for the presence of this young woman 
 
340 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 in my room before the true explanation of the 
 matter occurred to me. For, of course, when my 
 experience that afternoon on the train flashed 
 through my mind, I guessed at once that the solu 
 tion of the mystery was in all probability merely 
 a phonographic device for announcing the hour. 
 Nevertheless, so thrilling and lifelike in effect 
 were the tones of the voice I had heard that I con 
 fess I had not the nerve to light the gas to investi 
 gate till I had indued my more essential garments. 
 Of course I found no lady in the room, but only a 
 clock. I had not particularly noticed it on going 
 to bed, because it looked like any other clock, and 
 so now it continued to behave until the hands 
 pointed to three. Then, instead of leaving me to 
 infer the time from the arbitrary symbolism of 
 three strokes on a bell, the same voice which had 
 before electrified me informed me, in tones which 
 would have lent a charm to the driest of statistical 
 details, what the hour was. I had never before 
 been impressed with any particular interest attach 
 ing to the hour of three in the morning, but as I 
 heard it announced in those low, rich, thrilling 
 contralto tones, it appeared fairly to coruscate with 
 previously latent suggestions of romance and poe 
 try, which, if somewhat vague, were very pleasing. 
 Turning out the gas that I might the more easily 
 imagine the bewitching presence which the voice 
 suggested, I went back to bed, and lay awake 
 there until morning, enjoying the society of my 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 341 
 
 bodiless companion and the delicious shock of her 
 quarter-hourly remarks. To make the illusion 
 more complete and the more unsuggestive of the 
 mechanical explanation which I knew of course was 
 the real one, the phrase in which the announce 
 ment of the hour was made was never twice the 
 same. 
 
 Right was Solomon when he said that there 
 was nothing new under the sun. Sardanapalus 
 or Semiramis herself would not have been at all 
 startled to hear a human voice proclaim the hour. 
 The phonographic clock had but replaced the 
 slave whose business, standing by the noiseless 
 water-clock, it was to keep tale of the moments as 
 they dropped, ages before they had been taught to 
 tick. 
 
 In the morning, on descending, I went first to 
 the clerk s office to inquire for letters, thinking 
 Hamage, who knew I would go to that hotel if 
 any, might have addressed me there. The clerk 
 handed me a small oblong box. I suppose I stared 
 at it in a rather helpless way, for presently he 
 said : " I beg your pardon, but I see you are a 
 stranger. If you will permit me, I will show you 
 how to read your letter." 
 
 I gave him the box, from which he took a device 
 of spindles and cylinders, and placed it deftly 
 within another small box which stood on the desk. 
 Attached to this was one of the two-pronged ear- 
 trumpets I already knew the use of. As I placed 
 
342 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 it in position, the clerk touched a spring in the 
 box, which set some sort of motor going, and at 
 once the familiar tones of Dick Hamage s voice 
 expressed his regret that an accident had pre 
 vented his meeting me the night before, and in 
 formed me that he would be at the hotel by the 
 time I had breakfasted. 
 
 The letter ended, the obliging clerk removed 
 the cylinders from the box on the desk, replaced 
 them in that they had come in, and returned it 
 to me. 
 
 " Is n t it rather tantalizing," said I, " to receive 
 one of these letters when there is no little machine 
 like this at hand to make it speak? " 
 
 " It does n t often happen," replied the clerk, 
 " that anybody is caught without his indispensable, 
 or at least where he cannot borrow one." 
 
 " His indispensable I " I exclaimed. " What 
 may that be ? " 
 
 In reply the clerk directed my attention to a 
 little box, not wholly unlike a case for a binocular 
 glass, which, now that he spoke of it, I saw was 
 carried, slung at the side, by every person in 
 sight. 
 
 " We call it the indispensable because it is indis 
 pensable, as, no doubt, you will soon find for your 
 self." 
 
 In the breakfast-room a number of ladies and 
 gentlemen were engaged as they sat at table in 
 reading, or rather in listening to, their morning s 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 343 
 
 correspondence. A greater or smaller pile of little 
 boxes lay beside their plates, and one after another 
 they took from each its cylinders, placed them in 
 their indispensables, and held the latter to their 
 ears. The expression of the face in reading is so 
 largely affected by the necessary fixity of the eyes 
 that intelligence is absorbed from the printed or 
 written page with scarcely a change of counte 
 nance, which when communicated by the voice 
 evokes a responsive play of features. I had never 
 been struck so forcibly by this obvious reflection 
 as I was in observing the expression of the faces 
 of these people as they listened to their correspond 
 ents. Disappointment, pleased surprise, chagrin, 
 disgust, indignation, and amusement were alter 
 nately so legible on their faces that it was perfectly 
 easy for one to be sure in most cases what the 
 tenor at least of the letter was. It occurred to me 
 that while in the old time the pleasure of receiv 
 ing letters had been so far balanced by this drudg 
 ery of writing them as to keep correspondence 
 within some bounds, nothing less than freight 
 trains could suffice for the mail service in these 
 days, when to write was but to speak, and to listen 
 was to read. 
 
 After I had given my order, the waiter brought 
 a curious-looking oblong case, with an ear-trumpet 
 attached, and, placing it before me, went away. I 
 foresaw that I should have to ask a good many 
 questions before I got through, and, if I did not 
 
344 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 mean to be a bore, I had best ask as few as neces 
 sary. I determined to find out what this trap was 
 without assistance. The words " Daily Morning 
 Herald " sufficiently indicated that it was a news 
 paper. I suspected that a certain big knob, if 
 pushed, would set it going. But, for all I knew, 
 it might start in the middle of the advertisements. 
 I looked closer. There were a number of printed 
 slips upon the face of the machine, arranged about 
 a circle like the numbers on a dial. They were 
 evidently the headings of news articles. In the 
 middle of the circle was a little pointer, like the 
 hand of a clock, moving on a pivot. I pushed this 
 pointer around to a certain caption, and then, with 
 the air of being perfectly familiar with the ma 
 chine, I put the pronged trumpet to my ears and 
 pressed the big knob. Precisely ! It worked like 
 a charm ; so much like a charm, indeed, that I 
 should certainly have allowed my breakfast to cool 
 had I been obliged to choose between that and my 
 newspaper. The inventor of the apparatus had, 
 however, provided against so painful a dilemma by 
 a simple attachment to the trumpet, which held it 
 securely in position upon the shoulders behind the 
 head, while the hands were left free for knife and 
 fork. Having slyly noted the manner in which 
 my neighbors had effected the adjustments, I imi 
 tated their example with a careless air, and pre 
 sently, like them, was absorbing physical and men 
 tal aliment simultaneously. 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 345 
 
 While I was thus delightfully engaged, I was not 
 less delightfully interrupted by Hamage, who, hav 
 ing arrived at the hotel, and learned that I was in 
 the breakfast-room, came in and sat down beside 
 me. After telling him how much I admired the 
 new sort of newspapers, I offered one criticism, 
 which was that there seemed to be no way by which 
 one could skip dull paragraphs or uninteresting 
 details. 
 
 " The invention would, indeed, be very far from 
 a success," he said, " if there were no such provi 
 sion, but there is." 
 
 He made me put on the trumpet again, and, hav 
 ing set the machine going, told me to press on a 
 certain knob, at first gently, afterward as hard as 
 I pleased. I did so, and found that the effect of 
 the " skipper," as he called the knob, was to quicken 
 the utterance of the phonograph in proportion to 
 the pressure to at least tenfold the usual rate of 
 speed, while at any moment, if a word of interest 
 caught the ear, the ordinary rate of delivery was 
 resumed, and by another adjustment the machine 
 could be made to go back and repeat as much as 
 desired. 
 
 When I told Hamage of my experience of the 
 night before with the talking clock in my room, he 
 laughed uproariously. 
 
 " I am very glad you mentioned this just now," 
 he said, when he had quieted himself. " We have 
 a couple of hours before the train goes out to my 
 
346 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 place, and I 11 take you through Orton s establish 
 ment, where they make a specialty of these talking 
 clocks. I have a number of them in my house, and, 
 as I don t want to have you scared to death in the 
 night-watches, you had better get some notion of 
 what clocks nowadays are expected to do." 
 
 Orton s, where we found ourselves half an hour 
 later, proved to be a very extensive establishment, 
 the firm making a specialty of horological novelties, 
 and particularly of the new phonographic time 
 pieces. The manager, who was a personal friend 
 of Hamage s, and proved very obliging, said that 
 the latter were fast driving the old-fashioned strik 
 ing clocks out of use. 
 
 " And no wonder," he exclaimed ; " the old-fash 
 ioned striker was an unmitigated nuisance. Let 
 alone the brutality of announcing the hour to a re 
 fined household by four, eight, or ten rude bangs, 
 without introduction or apology, this method of 
 announcement was not even tolerably intelligible. 
 Unless you happened to be attentive at the moment 
 the din began, you could never be sure of your count 
 of strokes so as to be positive whether it was eight, 
 nine, ten, or eleven. As to the half and quarter 
 strokes, they were wholly useless unless you chanced 
 to know what was the last hour struck. And then, 
 too, I should like to ask you why, in the name of 
 common sense, it should take twelve times as long 
 to tell you it is twelve o clock as it does to tell you 
 it is one." 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 347 
 
 The manager laughed as heartily as Hamage had 
 done on learning of my scare of the night before. 
 
 " It was lucky for you," he said, " that the clock 
 in your room happened to be a simple time an 
 nouncer, otherwise you might easily have been 
 startled half out of your wits." I became myself 
 quite of the same opinion by the time he had shown 
 us something of his assortment of clocks. The 
 mere announcing of the hours and quarters of hours 
 was the simplest of the functions of these wonder 
 ful and yet simple instruments. There were few 
 of them which were not arranged to " improve the 
 time," as the old-fashioned prayer-meeting phrase 
 was. People s ideas differing widely as to what 
 constitutes improvement of time, the clocks varied 
 accordingly in the nature of the edification they 
 provided. There were religious and sectarian 
 clocks, moral clocks, philosophical clocks, free- 
 thinking and infidel clocks, literary and poetical 
 clocks, educational clocks, frivolous and bacchana 
 lian clocks. In the religious clock department 
 were to t be found Catholic, Presbyterian, Metho 
 dist, Episcopal, and Baptist time-pieces, which, in 
 connection with the announcement of the hour and 
 quarter, repeated some tenet of the sect with a proof 
 text. There were also Talrnage clocks, and Spur- 
 geon clocks, and Storrs clocks, and Brooks clocks 
 which respectively marked the flight of time by 
 phrases taken from the sermons of these eminent 
 divines, and repeated in precisely the voice and 
 
348 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 accents of the original delivery. In startling prox 
 imity to the religious department I was shown the 
 skeptical clocks. So near were they, indeed, that 
 when, as I stood there, the various time-pieces an 
 nounced the hour of ten, the war of opinions that 
 followed was calculated to unsettle the firmest con 
 victions. The observations of an Ingersoll which 
 stood near me were particularly startling. The 
 effect of an actual wrangle was the greater from 
 the fact that all these individual clocks were sur 
 mounted by effigies of the authors of the sentiments 
 they repeated. 
 
 I was glad to escape from this turmoil to the 
 calmer atmosphere of the philosophical and literary 
 clock department. For persons with a taste for 
 antique moralizing, the sayings of Plato, Epictetus, 
 and Marcus Aurelius had here, so to speak, been 
 set to time. Modern wisdom was represented by a 
 row of clocks surmounted by the heads of famous 
 maxim-makers, from Rochefoucauld to Josh Bil 
 lings. As for the literary clocks, their number 
 and variety were endless. All the greati authors 
 were represented. Of the Dickens clocks alone 
 there were half a dozen, with selections from his 
 greatest stories. When I suggested that, captivat 
 ing as such clocks must be, one might in time grow 
 weary of hearing the same sentiments reiterated, 
 the manager pointed out that the phonographic 
 cylinders were removable, and could be replaced by 
 other sayings by the same author or on the same 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 349 
 
 theme at any time. If one tired of an author alto 
 gether, he could have the head unscrewed from the 
 top of the clock and that of some other celebrity 
 substituted, with a brand-new repertory. 
 
 "I can imagine," I said, "that these talking 
 clocks must be a great resource for invalids espe 
 cially, and for those who cannot sleep at night. 
 But, on the other hand, how is it when people want 
 or need to sleep? Is not one of them quite too 
 interesting a companion at such a time ? " 
 
 "Those who are used to it," replied the manager, 
 " are no more disturbed by the talking clock than 
 we used to be by the striking clock. However, to 
 avoid all possible inconvenience to invalids, this 
 little lever is provided, which at a touch will throw 
 the phonograph out of gear or back again. It is 
 customary when we put a talking or singing clock 
 into a bedroom to put in an electric connection, so 
 that by pressing a button at the head of the bed a 
 person, without raising the head from the pillow, 
 can start or stop the phonographic gear, as well 
 as ascertain the time, on the repeater principle as 
 applied to watches." 
 
 Hamage now said that we had only time to catch 
 the train, but our conductor insisted that we should 
 stop to see a novelty of phonographic invention, 
 which, although not exactly in their line, had been 
 sent them for exhibition by the inventor. It was a 
 device for meeting the criticism frequently made 
 upon the churches of a lack of attention and cor- 
 
350 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 diality in welcoming strangers. It was to be placed 
 in the lobby of the church, and had an arm extend 
 ing like a pump-handle. Any stranger on taking 
 this and moving it up and down would be welcomed 
 in the pastor s own voice, and continue to be wel 
 comed as long as he kept up the motion. While 
 this welcome would be limited to general remarks 
 of regard and esteem, ample provision was made 
 for strangers who desired to be more particularly 
 inquired into. A number of small buttons on the 
 front of the contrivance bore respectively the words, 
 " Male," " Female," " Married," " Unmarried," 
 " Widow," " Children," " No Children," etc., etc. 
 By pressing the one of these buttons correspond 
 ing to his or her condition, the stranger would be 
 addressed in terms probably quite as accurately 
 adapted to his or her condition and needs as would 
 be any inquiries a preoccupied clergyman would 
 be likely to make under similar circumstances. I 
 could readily see the necessity of some such substi 
 tute for the pastor, when I was informed that every 
 prominent clergyman was now in the habit of sup 
 plying at least a dozen or two pulpits simultane 
 ously, appearing by turns in one of them personally, 
 and by phonograph in the others. 
 
 The inventor of the contrivance for welcoming 
 strangers was, it appeared, applying the same idea 
 to machines for discharging many other of the 
 more perfunctory obligations of social intercourse. 
 One being made for the convenience of the Presi- 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 351 
 
 dent of the United States at public receptions was 
 provided with forty-two buttons for the different 
 States, and others for the principal cities of the 
 Union, so that a caller, by proper manipulation, 
 might, while shaking a handle, be addressed in 
 regard to his home interests with an exactness of 
 information as remarkable as that of the traveling 
 statesmen who rise from the gazetteer to astonish 
 the inhabitants of Wayback Crossing with the 
 precise figures of their town valuation and birth 
 rate, while the engine is taking in water. 
 
 We had by this time spent so much time that 
 on finally starting for the railroad station we had 
 to walk quite briskly. As we were hurrying along 
 the street, my attention was arrested by a musical 
 sound, distinct though not loud, proceeding appar 
 ently from the indispensable which Hamage, like 
 everybody else I had seen, wore at his side. Stop 
 ping abruptly, he stepped aside from the throng, 
 and, lifting the indispensable quickly to his ear, 
 touched something, and exclaiming, " Oh, yes, to 
 be sure ! " dropped the instrument to his side. 
 
 Then he said to me : "I am reminded that I 
 promised my wife to bring home some story-books 
 for the children when I was in town to-day. The 
 store is only a few steps down the street. As 
 we went along, he explained to me that nobody 
 any longer pretended to charge his mind with the 
 recollection of duties or engagements of any sort. 
 Everybody depended upon his indispensable to 
 
352 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 remind him in time of all undertakings and re 
 sponsibilities. This service it was able to render 
 by virtue of a simple enough adjustment of a 
 phonographic cylinder charged with the necessary 
 word or phrase to the clockwork in the indispen 
 sable, so that at any time fixed upon in setting the 
 arrangement an alarm would sound, and, the indis 
 pensable being raised to the ear, the phonograph 
 would deliver its message, which at any subsequent 
 time might be called up and repeated. To all 
 persons charged with weighty responsibilities de 
 pending upon accuracy of memory for their correct 
 discharge, this feature of the indispensable ren 
 dered it, according to Hamage, and indeed quite 
 obviously, an indispensable truly. To the rail 
 road engineer it served the purpose not only of 
 a time-piece, for the works of the indispensable 
 include a watch, but to its ever vigilant alarm he 
 could intrust his running orders, and, while his 
 mind was wholly concentrated upon present duties, 
 rest secure that he would be reminded at just the 
 proper time of trains which he must avoid and 
 switches he must make. To the indispensable of 
 the business man the reminder attachment was not 
 less necessary. Provided with that, his notes need 
 never go to protest through carelessness, nor, how 
 ever absorbed, was he in danger of forgetting an 
 appointment. 
 
 Thanks to these portable memories it was, more 
 over, now possible for a wife to intrust to her 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 353 
 
 husband the most complex messages to the dress 
 maker. All she had to do was to whisper the 
 communication into her husband s indispensable 
 while he was at breakfast, and set the alarm at an 
 hour when he would be in the city. 
 
 " And in like manner, I suppose," suggested I, 
 " if she wishes him to return at a certain hour 
 from the club or the lodge, she can depend on his 
 indispensable to remind him of his domestic duties 
 at the proper moment, and in terms and tones 
 which will make the total repudiation of connubial 
 allegiance the only alternative of obedience. It is 
 a very clever invention, and I don t wonder that it 
 is popular with the ladies ; but does it not occur 
 to you that the inventor, if a man, was slightly 
 inconsiderate ? The rule of the American wife 
 has hitherto been a despotism which could be tem 
 pered by a bad memory. Apparently, it is to be 
 no longer tempered at all." 
 
 Hamage laughed, but his mirth was evidently a 
 little forced, and I inferred that the reflection 
 I had suggested had called up certain reminis 
 cences not wholly exhilarating. Being fortunate, 
 however, in the possession of a mercurial tempera 
 ment, he presently rallied, and continued his praises 
 of the artificial memory provided by the indispen 
 sable. In spite of the criticism which I had made 
 upon it, I confess I was not a little moved by his 
 description of its advantages to absent-minded men, 
 of whom I am chief. Think of the gain alike in 
 
354 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 serenity and force of intellect enjoyed by the man 
 who sits down to work absolutely free from that 
 accursed cloud on the mind of things he has got to 
 remember to do, and can only avoid totally forget 
 ting by wasting tenfold the time required finally 
 to do them in making sure by frequent rehearsals 
 that he has not forgotten them ! The only way 
 that one of these trivialities ever sticks to the 
 mind is by wearing a sore spot in it which heals 
 slowly. If a man does not forget it, it is for the 
 same reason that he remembers a grain of sand in 
 his eye. I am conscious that my own mind is full 
 of cicatrices of remembered things, and long ere 
 this it would have been peppered with them like a 
 colander, had I not a good while ago, in self-de 
 fense, absolutely refused to be held accountable for 
 forgetting anything not connected with my regular 
 business. 
 
 While firmly believing my course in this matter 
 to have been justifiable and necessary, I have not 
 been insensible to the domestic odium which it has 
 brought upon me, and could but welcome a device 
 which promised to enable me to regain the esteem 
 of my family while retaining the use of my mind 
 for professional purposes. 
 
 As the most convenient conceivable receptacle 
 of hasty memoranda of ideas and suggestions, the 
 indispensable also most strongly commended itself 
 to me as a man who lives by writing. How con 
 venient when a flash of inspiration comes to one 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 355 
 
 in the night-time, instead of taking cold and wak 
 ing the family in order to save it for posterity, 
 just to whisper it into the ear of an indispensable 
 at one s bedside, and be able to know it in the 
 morning for the rubbish such untimely concep 
 tions usually are ! How often, likewise, would 
 such a machine save in all their first vividness 
 suggestive fancies, anticipated details, and other 
 notions worth preserving, which occur to one in 
 the full flow of composition, but are irrelevant to 
 what is at the moment in hand ! I determined 
 that I must have an indispensable. 
 
 The bookstore, when we arrived there, proved 
 to be the most extraordinary sort of bookstore I 
 had ever entered, there not being a book in it. 
 Instead of books, the shelves and counters were 
 occupied with rows of small boxes. 
 
 " Almost all books now, you see, are phono- 
 graphed," said Hamage. 
 
 " The change seems to be a popular one," I said, 
 " to judge by the crowd of book-buyers." For the 
 counters were, indeed, thronged with customers as 
 I had never seen those of a bookstore before. 
 
 " The people at those counters are not purchas 
 ers, but borrowers," Hamage replied ; and then he 
 explained that whereas the old-fashioned printed 
 book, being handled by the reader, was damaged 
 by use, and therefore had either to be purchased 
 outright or borrowed at high rates of hire, the 
 phonograph of a book being not handled, but 
 
356 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 merely revolved in a machine, was but little in 
 jured by use, and therefore phonographed books 
 could be lent out for an infinitesimal price. Every 
 body had at home a phonograph box of standard 
 size and adjustments, to which all phonographic 
 cylinders were gauged. I suggested that the 
 phonograph, at any rate, could scarcely have re 
 placed picture-books. But here, it seemed, I was 
 mistaken, for it appeared that illustrations were 
 adapted to phonographed books by the simple plan 
 of arranging them in a continuous panorama, 
 which by a connecting gear was made to unroll 
 behind the glass front of the phonograph case as 
 the course of the narrative demanded. 
 
 " But, bless my soul ! " I exclaimed, " every 
 body surely is not content to borrow their books ? 
 They must want to have books of their own, to 
 keep in their libraries." 
 
 " Of course," said Hamage. " What I said 
 about borrowing books applies only to current 
 literature of the ephemeral sort. Everybody wants 
 books of permanent value in his library. Over 
 yonder is the department of the establishment set 
 apart for book-buyers." 
 
 The counter which he indicated being less 
 crowded than those of the borrowing department, 
 I expressed a desire to examine some of the phono- 
 graphed books. As we were waiting for attend 
 ance, I observed that some of the customers 
 seemed very particular about their purchases, and 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 357 
 
 insisted upon testing several phonographs bearing 
 the same title before making a selection. As the 
 phonographs seemed exact counterparts in appear 
 ance, I did not understand this till Hamage ex 
 plained that differences as to style and quality of 
 elocution left quite as great a range of choice in 
 phonographed books as varieties in type, paper, 
 and binding did in printed ones. This I presently 
 found to be the case when the clerk, under Ham- 
 age s direction, began waiting on me. In succes 
 sion I tried half a dozen editions of Tennyson by 
 as many different elocutionists, and by the time I 
 had heard 
 
 " Where Claribel low lieth " 
 
 rendered by a soprano, a contralto, a bass, and a 
 baritone, each with the full effect of its quality and 
 the personal equation besides, I was quite ready to 
 admit that selecting phonographed books for one s 
 library was as much more difficult as it was incom 
 parably more fascinating than suiting one s self 
 with printed editions. Indeed, Hamage admitted 
 that nowadays nobody with any taste for literature 
 if the word may for convenience be retained 
 thought of contenting himself with less than half a 
 dozen renderings of the great poets and dramatists. 
 " By the way," he said to the clerk, " won t you 
 just let my friend try the Booth-Barrett Company s 
 4 Othello ? It is, you understand," he added to me, 
 " the exact phonographic reproduction of the play 
 as actually rendered by the company." 
 
358 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 Upon his suggestion, the attendant had taken 
 down a phonograph case and placed it on the 
 counter. The front was an imitation of a theatre 
 with the curtain down. As I placed the transmit 
 ter to my ears, the clerk touched a spring and the 
 curtain rolled up, displaying a perfect picture of 
 the stage in the opening scene. Simultaneously 
 the action of the play began, as if the pictured 
 men upon the stage were talking. Here was no 
 question of losing half that was said and guessing 
 the rest. Not a word, not a syllable, not a whis 
 pered aside of the actors, was lost ; and as the play 
 proceeded the pictures changed, showing every 
 important change of attitude on the part of the 
 actors. Of course the figures, being pictures, did 
 not move, but their presentation in so many succes 
 sive attitudes presented the effect of movement, 
 and made it quite possible to imagine that the 
 voices in my ears were really theirs. I am exceed 
 ingly fond of the drama, but the amount of effort 
 and physical inconvenience necessary to witness a 
 play has rendered my indulgence in this pleasure 
 infrequent. Others might not have agreed with 
 me, but I confess that none of the ingenious appli 
 cations of the phonograph which I had seen seemed 
 to be so well worth while as this. 
 
 Hamage had left me to make his purchases, and 
 found me on his return still sitting spellbound. 
 
 " Come, come," he said, laughing, " I have 
 Shakespeare complete at home, and you shall sit 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 359 
 
 up all night, if you choose, hearing plays. But 
 come along now, I want to take you upstairs before 
 we go." 
 
 He had several bundles. One, he told me, was 
 a new novel for his wife, with some fairy stories 
 for the children, all, of course, phonographs. 
 Besides, he had bought an indispensable for his 
 little boy. 
 
 " There is no class," he said, " whose burdens 
 the phonograph has done so much to lighten as 
 parents. Mothers no longer have to make them 
 selves hoarse telling the children stories on rainy 
 days to keep them out of mischief. It is only ne 
 cessary to plant the most roguish lad before a pho 
 nograph of some nursery classic, to be sure of his 
 whereabouts and his behavior till the machine runs 
 down, when another set of cylinders can be intro 
 duced, and the entertainment carried on. As for 
 the babies, Patti sings mine to sleep at bedtime, 
 and, if they wake up in the night, she is never too 
 drowsy to do it over again. When the children 
 grow too big to be longer tied to their mother s 
 apron-strings, they still remain, thanks to the chil 
 dren s indispensable, though out of her sight, within 
 sound of her voice. Whatever charges or instruc 
 tions she desires them not to forget, whatever 
 hours or duties she would have them be sure to 
 remember, she depends on the indispensable to 
 remind them of." 
 
 At this I cried out. " It is all very well for the 
 
360 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 mothers," I said, "but the lot of the orphan must 
 seem enviable to a boy compelled to wear about 
 such an instrument of his own subjugation. If 
 boys were what they were in my day, the rate at 
 which their indispensables would get unaccounta 
 bly lost or broken would be alarming." 
 
 Hamage laughed, and admitted that the one he 
 was carrying home was the fourth he had bought 
 for his boy within a month. He agreed with me 
 that it was hard to see how a boy was to get his 
 growth under quite so much government ; but his 
 wife, and indeed the ladies generally, insisted that 
 the application of the phonograph to family gov 
 ernment was the greatest invention of the age. 
 
 Then I asked a question which had repeatedly 
 occurred to me that day, What had become of 
 the printers ? 
 
 " Naturally," replied Hamage, " they have had 
 a rather hard time of it. Some classes of books, 
 however, are still printed, and probably will con 
 tinue to be for some time, although reading, as 
 well as writing, is getting to be an increasingly 
 rare accomplishment." 
 
 " Do you mean that your schools do not teach 
 reading and writing ? " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, yes, they are still taught ; but as the pupils 
 need them little after leaving school, or even in 
 school, for that matter, all their text-books being 
 phonographic, they usually keep the acquire 
 ments about as long as a college graduate does his 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 361 
 
 Greek. There is a strong movement already on 
 foot to drop reading and writing entirely from the 
 school course, but probably a compromise will be 
 made for the present by substituting a shorthand 
 or phonetic system, based upon the direct interpre 
 tation of the sound-waves themselves. This is, of 
 course, the only logical method for the visual inter 
 pretation of sound. Students and men of research, 
 however, will always need to understand how to 
 read print, as much of the old literature will prob 
 ably never repay phonographing." 
 
 " But," I said, " I notice that you still use 
 printed phrases, as superscriptions, titles, and so 
 forth." 
 
 " So we do," replied Hamage, " but phonographic 
 substitutes could be easily devised in these cases, 
 and no doubt will soon have to be supplied in 
 deference to the growing number of those who 
 cannot read." 
 
 " Did I understand you," I asked, " that the 
 text-books in your schools even are phonographs ? " 
 
 " Certainly," replied Hamage ; " our children 
 are taught by phonographs, recite to phonographs, 
 and are examined by phonographs." 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " I ejaculated. 
 
 " By all means," replied Hamage ; " but there 
 is really nothing to be astonished at. People learn 
 and remember by impressions of sound instead of 
 sight, that is all. The printer is, by the way, not 
 the only artisan whose occupation phonography has 
 
362 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 destroyed. Since the disuse of print, opticians have 
 mostly gone to the poor-house. The sense of sight 
 was indeed terribly overburdened previous to the 
 introduction of the phonograph, and, now that the 
 sense of hearing is beginning to assume its proper 
 share of work, it would be strange if an improve 
 ment in the condition of the people s eyes were 
 not noticeable. Physiologists, moreover, promise 
 us not only an improved vision, but a generally 
 improved physique, especially in respect to bodily 
 carriage, now that reading, writing, and study no 
 longer involves, as formerly, the sedentary attitude 
 with twisted spine and stooping shoulders. The 
 phonograph has at last made it possible to expand 
 the mind without cramping the body." 
 
 " It is a striking comment on the revolution 
 wrought by the general introduction of the phono 
 graph," I observed, " that whereas the misfortune 
 of blindness used formerly to be the infirmity 
 which most completely cut a man off from the 
 world of books- which remained open to the deaf, 
 the case is now precisely reversed." 
 
 " Yes," said Hamage, " it is certainly a curious 
 reversal, but not so complete as you fancy. By 
 the new improvements in the intensifier, it is ex 
 pected to enable all, except the stone-deaf, to enjoy 
 the phonograph, even when connected, as on rail 
 road trains, with a common telephonic wire. The 
 stone-deaf will of course be dependent upon printed 
 books prepared for their benefit, as raised-letter 
 books used to be for the blind." 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 363 
 
 As we entered the elevator to ascend to the 
 upper floors of the establishment, Hamage explained 
 that he -wanted me to see, before I left, the process 
 of phonographing books, which was the modern 
 substitute for printing them. Of course, he said, 
 the phonographs of dramatic works were taken at 
 the theatres during the representations of plays, 
 and those of public orations and sermons are either 
 similarly obtained, or, if a revised version is de 
 sired, the orator re-delivers his address in the im 
 proved form to a phonograph ; but the great mass 
 of publications were phonographed by professional 
 elocutionists employed by the large publishing 
 houses, of which this was one. He was acquainted 
 with one of these elocutionists, and was taking me 
 to his room. 
 
 We were so fortunate as to find him disengaged. 
 Something, he said, had broken about the machin 
 ery, and he was idle while it was being repaired. 
 His work-room was an odd kind of place. It was 
 shaped something like the interior of a rather short 
 egg. His place was on a sort of pulpit in the mid 
 dle of the small end, while at the opposite end, 
 directly before him, and for some distance along 
 the sides toward the middle, were arranged tiers 
 of phonographs. These were his audience, but by 
 no means all of it. By telephonic communication 
 he was able to address simultaneously other con 
 gregations of phonographs in other chambers at any 
 distance. He said that in one instance, where the 
 
364 WITH THE EYES SHUT 
 
 demand for a popular book was very great, he had 
 charged five thousand phonographs at once with it. 
 
 I suggested that the saving of printers, pressmen, 
 bookbinders, and costly machinery, together with 
 the comparative indestructibility of phonographed 
 as compared with printed books, must make them 
 very cheap. 
 
 " They would be," said Hamage, " if popular 
 elocutionists, such as Playwell here, did not charge 
 so like fun for their services. The public has taken 
 it into its head that he is the only first-class elocu 
 tionist, and won t buy anybody else s work. Con 
 sequently the authors stipulate that he shall inter 
 pret their productions, and the publishers, between 
 the public and the authors, are at his mercy." 
 
 Playwell laughed. " I must make my hay while 
 the sun shines," he said. " Some other elocution 
 ist will be the fashion next year, and then I shall 
 only get hack-work to do. Besides, there is really 
 a great deal more work in my business than people 
 will believe. For example, after I get an author s 
 copy " 
 
 " Written ? " I interjected. 
 
 " Sometimes it is written phonetically, but most 
 authors dictate to a phonograph. Well, when I 
 get it, I take it home and study it, perhaps a couple 
 of days, perhaps a couple of weeks, sometimes, if 
 it is really an important work, a month or two, 
 in order to get into sympathy with the ideas, and 
 decide on the proper style of rendering. All this 
 is hard work, and has to be paid for." 
 
WITH THE EYES SHUT 365 
 
 At this point our conversation was broken off 
 by Hamage, who declared that, if we were to catch 
 the last train out of town before noon, we had no 
 time to lose. 
 
 Of the trip out to Hamage s place I recall no 
 thing. I was, in fact, aroused from a sound nap / 
 by the stopping of the train and the bustle of the 
 departing passengers. Hamage had disappeared. 
 As I groped about, gathering up my belongings, 
 and vaguely wondering what had become of my 
 companion, he rushed into the car, and, grasping 
 my hand, gave me an enthusiastic welcome. I 
 opened my mouth to demand what sort of a joke 
 this belated greeting might be intended for, but, on 
 second thought, I concluded not to raise the point. 
 The fact is, when I came to observe that the time 
 was not noon, but late in the evening, and that the 
 train was the one I had left home on, and that 
 I had not even changed my seat in the car since 
 then, it occurred to me that Hamage might not 
 understand allusions to the forenoon we had spent 
 together. Later that same evening, however, the 
 consternation of my host and hostess at my frequent 
 and violent explosions of apparently causeless hi 
 larity left me no choice but to make a clean breast 
 of my preposterous experience. The moral they 
 drew from it was the charming one that, if I would 
 but oftener come to see them, a railroad trip would 
 not so upset my wits. 
 
AT PINNEY S KANCH 
 
 JOHN LANSING first met Mary Hollister at the 
 house of his friend Pinney, whose wife was her 
 sister. She had soft gray eyes, a pretty color in 
 her cheeks, rosy lips, and a charming figure. In 
 the course of the evening somebody suggested mind- 
 reading as a pastime, and Lansing, who had some 
 powers, or supposed powers, in that direction, al 
 though he laughed at them himself, experimented 
 in turn with the ladies. He failed with nearly every 
 subject until it came Mary Hollister s turn. As 
 she placed her soft palm in his, closed her eyes, and 
 gave herself up to his influence, he knew that he 
 should succeed with her, and so he did. She proved 
 a remarkably sympathetic subject, and Lansing 
 was himself surprised, and the spectators fairly 
 thrilled, by the feats he was able to perform by her 
 aid. After that evening he met her often, and there 
 was more equally remarkable mind-reading ; and 
 then mind-reading was dropped for heart-reading, 
 and the old, old story they read in each other s 
 hearts had more fascination for them than the new 
 science. Having once discovered that their hearts 
 beat in unison, they took no more interest in the 
 relation of their minds. 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 367 
 
 ears ) 
 
 t, 
 
 The action proper of this story begins four years 
 after their marriage, with a very shocking event, 
 nothing less than the murder of Austin Flint, who 
 was found dead one morning in the house in which 
 he lived alone. Lansing had no hand in the deed, 
 but he might almost as well have had ; for, while 
 absolutely guiltless, he was caught in one of those 
 nets of circumstance which no foresight can avoid, 
 whereby innocent men are sometimes snared help 
 lessly, and delivered over to a horrid death. There 
 had been a misunderstanding between him and the 
 dead man, and only a couple of days before the 
 murder, they had exchanged blows on the street. 
 When Flint was found dead, in the lack of any 
 other clue, people thought of Lansing. He real 
 ized that this was so, and remained silent as to a 
 fact which otherwise he would have testified to at 
 the inquest, but which he feared might now imperil 
 him. He had been at Austin Flint s house the 
 night of the murder, and might have committed it, 
 so far as opportunity was concerned. In reality, 
 the motive of his visit was anything but murderous. 
 Deeply chagrined by the scandal of the fight, he 
 had gone to Flint to apologize, and to make up 
 their quarrel. But he knew very well that nobody 
 would believe that this was his true object in seek 
 ing his enemy secretly by night, while the admis- , 
 sion of the visit would complete a circumstantial / 
 evidence against him stronger than had often_j 
 hanged men. He believed that no one but the 
 
368 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 dead man knew of the call, and that it would never 
 be found out. He had not told his wife of it at the 
 time, and still less afterward, on account of the 
 anxiety she would feel at his position. 
 
 Two weeks passed, and he was beginning to 
 breathe freely in the assurance of safety, when, like 
 a thunderbolt from a cloud that seems to have 
 passed over, the catastrophe came. A friend met 
 him on the street one day, and warned him to es 
 cape while he could. It appeared that he had been 
 seen to enter Flint s house that night. His con 
 cealment of the fact had been accepted as corrobo 
 rating evidence of his guilt, and the police, who 
 had shadowed him from the first, might arrest him 
 at any moment. The conviction that he was guilty, 
 which the friend who told him this evidently had, 
 was a terrible comment on the desperateness of his 
 position. He walked home as in a dream. His 
 wife had gone out to a neighbor s. His little boy 
 came to him, and clambered on his knee. " Papa, 
 what makes your face so wet ? " he asked, for there 
 were great drops on his forehead. Then his wife 
 came in, her face white, her eyes full of horror. 
 " Oh, John ! " she exclaimed. " They say you were 
 at Mr. Flint s that night, and they are going to 
 arrest you. Oh, John, what does it mean ? Why 
 don t you speak ? I shall go mad, if you do not 
 speak. You were not there ! Tell me that you 
 were not there ! " The ghastly face he raised to 
 hers might well have seemed to confess everything. 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 369 
 
 At least she seemed to take it so, and in a fit of 
 hysterical weeping sank to the floor, and buried her 
 face in her hands upon a chair. The children, 
 alarmed at the scene, began to cry. It was grow 
 ing dark, and as he looked out of the window, Lan 
 sing saw an officer and a number of other persons 
 approaching the house. They were coming to 
 arrest him. Animal terror, the instinct of self- 
 preservation, seized upon his faculties, stunned and 
 demoralized as he was by the suddenness with 
 which this calamity had come upon him. He 
 opened the door and fled, with a score of men and 
 boys yelling in pursuit. He ran wildly, blindly, 
 making incredible leaps and bounds over obstacles. 
 As men sometimes do in nightmares, he argued with 
 himself, as he ran, whether this could possibly be 
 a waking experience, and inclined to think that it 
 could not. It must be a dream. It was too fan 
 tastically horrible to be anything else. ^^^^___ 
 
 Presently he saw just before "him the eddying, 
 swirling current of the river, swollen by a freshet. 
 Still half convinced that he was in a nightmare, and, 
 if he could but shake it off, should awake in his 
 warm bed, he plunged headlong in, and was at once 
 swirled out of sight of his pursuers beneath the 
 darkening sky. A blow from a floating object 
 caused him to throw up his arms, and, clutching 
 something solid, he clambered upon a shed carried 
 away by the freshet from an up-river farm. All 
 night he drifted with the swift current, and in the 
 
370 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 morning landed in safety thirty miles below the 
 village from which he had fled for life. 
 
 So John Lansing, for no fault whatever except 
 an error of judgment, if even it was that, was ban 
 ished from home, and separated from his family 
 almost as hopelessly as if he were dead. To return 
 would be to meet an accusation of murder to which 
 his flight had added overwhelming weight. To 
 write to his wife might be to put the officers of the 
 law, who doubtless watched her closely, upon his 
 scent. 
 
 Under an assumed name he made his way to the 
 far West, and, joining the rush to the silver mines 
 of Colorado, was among the lucky ones. At the 
 end of three years he was a rich man. What he 
 had made the money for, he could not tell, except 
 that the engrossment of the struggle had helped 
 him to forget his wretchedness. Not that he ever 
 did forget it. His wife and babies, from whose 
 embraces he had been so suddenly torn, were always 
 in his thoughts. Above all, he could not forget 
 the look of horror in his wife s eyes in that last 
 terrible scene. To see her again, and convince her, 
 if not others, that he was innocent, was a need 
 which so grew upon him that, at the end of three 
 years, he determined to take his life in his hand 
 and return home openly. This life of exile was 
 not worth living. 
 
 One day, in the course of setting his affairs in 
 order for his return, lie was visiting a mining camp 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 371 
 
 remote from the settlements, when a voice addressed 
 him by his old name, and looking around he saw 
 Pinney. The latter s first words, as soon as his 
 astonishment and delight had found some expres 
 sion, assured Lansing that he was no longer in 
 danger. The murderer of Austin Flint had been 
 discovered, convicted, and hanged two years previ 
 ous. As for Lansing, it had been taken for granted 
 that he was drowned when he leaped into the river, 
 and there had been no further search for him. His 
 wife had been broken-hearted ever since, but she 
 and the children were otherwise well, according to 
 the last letters received by Pinney, who, with his 
 wife, had moved out to Colorado a year previous. 
 
 Of course Lansing s only idea now was to get 
 home as fast as steam could carry him ; but they 
 were one hundred miles from the railroad, and the 
 only communication was by stage. It would get 
 up from the railroad the next day, and go back 
 the following morning. Pinney took Lansing out 
 to his ranch, some miles from the mining camp, to 
 pass the interval. The first thing he asked Mrs. 
 Pinney was if she had a photograph of his wife. 
 When she brought him one, he durst not look at it 
 before his hosts. Not till he had gone to his room 
 and locked the door did he trust himself to see 
 again the face of his beloved Mary. 
 
 That evening Mrs. Pinney told him how his wife 
 and children had fared in his absence. Her father 
 had helped them at first, but after his death Mary 
 
372 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 had depended upon needlework for support, finding 
 it hard to make the two ends meet. 
 
 Lansing groaned at hearing this, but Mrs. Pin- 
 ney comforted him. It was well worth while having 
 troubles, she said, if they could be made up to one, 
 as all Mary s would be to her when she saw her 
 husband. 
 
 The upcoming stage brought the mail, and next 
 day Pinney rode into camp to get his weekly news 
 paper, and engage a passage down the next morning 
 for Lansing. The day dragged terribly to the lat 
 ter, who stayed at the ranch. He was quite unfit 
 for any social purpose, as Mrs. Pinney, to whom 
 a guest in that lonely place was a rare treat, found 
 to her sorrow, though indeed she could not blame 
 him for being poor company. He passed hours, 
 locked in his room, brooding over Mary s picture. 
 The rest of the day he spent wandering about 
 the place, smiling and talking to himself like an 
 imbecile, as he dreamed of the happiness so soon 
 to crown his trials. If he could have put himself 
 in communication with Mary by telegraph during 
 this period of waiting, it would have been easier 
 to get through, but the nearest telegraph station 
 was at the railroad. In the afternoon he saddled 
 a horse and rode about the country, thus disposing 
 of a couple of hours. 
 
 When he came back to the house, he saw that 
 Pinney had returned, for his horse was tethered to 
 a post of the front piazza. The doors and windows 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 373 
 
 of the living-room were open, and as he reached the 
 front door, he heard Pinney and his wife talking 
 in agitated tones. 
 
 " Oh, how could God let such an awful thing 
 happen ? " she was exclaiming, in a voice broken 
 by hysterical sobbing. " I m sure there was never 
 anything half so horrible before. Just as John 
 was coming home to her, and she worshiping him 
 so, and he her ! Oh, it will kill him ! Who is 
 going to tell him? Who can tell him ? " 
 
 "He must not be told to-day," said Pinney s 
 voice. " We must keep it from him at least for 
 to-day." 
 
 Lansing entered the room. " Is she dead ? " he 
 asked quietly. He could not doubt, from what he 
 had overheard, that she was. 
 
 " God help him ! He 11 have to know it now," 
 exclaimed Pinney. 
 
 "Is she dead?" repeated Lansing. 
 
 " No, she is n t dead." 
 
 " Is she dying, then ? " 
 
 " No, she is well." 
 
 " It s the children, then? " 
 
 " No," answered Pinney. " They are all right." 
 
 " Then, in God s name, what is it ? " demanded 
 Lansing, unable to conceive what serious evil could 
 have happened to him, if nothing had befallen his 
 wife and babies. 
 
 " We can t keep it from him now," said Pinney 
 to his wife. " You 11 have to give him her letter." 
 
374 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 " Can t you tell me what it is ? Why do you 
 keep me in suspense ? " asked Lansing, in a voice 
 husky with a dread he knew not of what. 
 
 " I can t, man. Don t ask me ! " groaned Pinney. 
 " It s better that you should read it." 
 
 Mrs. Pinney s face expressed an agony of com 
 passion as, still half clutching it, she held out a 
 letter to Lansing. " John, oh, John," she sobbed ; 
 " remember, she s not to blame ! She does n t 
 know." 
 
 The letter was in his wife s handwriting, ad 
 dressed to Mrs. Pinney, and read as follows : 
 
 You will be surprised by what I am going to 
 tell you. You, who know how I loved John, must 
 have taken it for granted that I would never marry 
 again. Not that it could matter to him. Too 
 well I feel the gulf between the dead and living 
 to fancy that his peace could be troubled by any 
 of the weaknesses of mortal hearts. Indeed, he 
 often used to tell me that, if he died, he wanted 
 me to marry again, if ever I felt like doing so ; 
 but in those happy days I was always sure that I 
 should be taken first. It was he who was to go 
 first, though, and now it is for the sake of his chil 
 dren that I am going to do what I never thought 
 I could. I am going to marry again. As they 
 grow older and need more, I find it impossible for 
 me to support them, though I do not mind how 
 hard I work, and would wear my fingers to the 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 37, 
 
 bone rather than take any other man s name after 
 being John s wife. But I cannot care for them 
 as they should be cared for. Johnny is now six, 
 and ought to go to school, but I cannot dress him 
 decently enough to send him. Mary has outgrown 
 all her clothes, and I cannot get her more. Her 
 feet are too tender to go bare, and I cannot buy 
 her shoes. I get less and less sewing since the 
 new dressmaker came to the village, and soon shall 
 have none. We live, oh so plainly ! For myself 
 I should not care, but the children are growing 
 and need better food. They are John s children, 
 and for their sake I have brought myself to do 
 what I never could have done but for them. I 
 have promised to marry Mr. Whitcomb. I have 
 not deceived him as to why alone I marry him. 
 He has promised to care for the children as his 
 own, and to send Johnny to college, for I know 
 his father would have wanted him to go. It will 
 be a very quiet wedding, of course. Mr. Whit- 
 comb has had some cards printed to send to a 
 few friends, and I inclose one to you. I cannot 
 say that I wish you could be present, for it will be 
 anything but a joyful day to me. But when I 
 meet John in heaven, he will hold me to account 
 for the children he left me, and this is the only 
 way by which I can provide for them. So long 
 as it is well with them, I ought not to care for my 
 self. Your sister, 
 
 MAKY LANSING. 
 
?>76 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 The card announced that the wedding would 
 take place at the home of the bride, at six o clock 
 on the afternoon of the 27th of June. 
 
 It was June 27 that day, and it was nearly five 
 o clock. " The Lord help you ! " ejaculated Pinney, 
 as he saw, by the ashen hue which overspread 
 Lansing s face, that the full realization of his 
 situation had come home to him. " We meant to 
 keep it from you till to-morrow. It might be a 
 little easier not to know it till it was over than 
 now, when it is going on, and you not able to lift 
 a finger to stop it." 
 
 " Oh, John," cried Mrs. Pinney once more ; 
 " remember, she does n t know ! " and, sobbing 
 hysterically, she fled from the room, unable to 
 endure the sight of Lansing s face. 
 
 He had fallen into a chair, and was motionless, 
 save for the slow and labored breathing which 
 shook his body. As he sat there in Pinney s 
 ranch this pleasant afternoon, the wife whom he 
 worshiped never so passionately as now, at their 
 home one thousand miles away, was holding an 
 other man by the hand, and promising to be his 
 wife. 
 
 It was five minutes to five by the clock on the 
 wall before him. It therefore wanted but five 
 minutes of six, the hour of the wedding, at home, 
 the difference in time being just an hour. In the 
 years of his exile, by way of enhancing the vivid 
 ness of his dreams of home, he had calculated 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 377 
 
 exactly the difference in time from various points 
 in Colorado, so that he could say to himself, " Now 
 Mary is putting the babies to bed ; " " Now it is 
 her own bedtime ; " " Now she is waking up ; " or 
 "Now the church-bells are ringing, and she is 
 walking to church." He was accustomed to carry 
 these two standards of time always in his head, 
 reading one by the other, and it was this habit, 
 bred of doting fondness, which now would compel 
 him to follow, as if he were a spectator, minute 
 by minute, each step of the scene being enacted so 
 far away. 
 
 People were prompt at weddings. No doubt 
 already the few guests were arriving, stared at by 
 the neighbors from their windows. The compla 
 cent bridegroom was by this time on his way to 
 the home of the bride, or perhaps knocking at the 
 door. Lansing knew him well, an elderly, well- 
 to-do furniture-maker, who had been used to ex 
 press a fatherly admiration for Mary. The bride 
 was upstairs in her chamber, putting the finishing 
 touches to her toilet ; or, at this very moment, it 
 might be, was descending the stairs to take the 
 bridegoom s arm and go in to be married. 
 
 Lansing gasped. The mountain wind was blow 
 ing through the room, but he was suffocating. 
 
 Pinney s voice, seeming to come from very far 
 away, was in his ears. " Rouse yourself, for God s 
 sake ! Don t give it all up that way. I believe 
 there s a chance yet. Remember the mind-read- 
 
378 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 ing you used to do with her. You could put 
 almost anything into her mind by just willing it 
 there. That s what I mean. Will her to stop 
 what she is doing now. Perhaps you may save 
 her yet. There s a chance you may do it. I 
 don t say there s more than a chance, but there s 
 that. There s a bare chance. That s better than 
 giving up. I ve heard of such things being done. 
 I ve read of them. Try it, for God s sake ! Don t 
 give up." 
 
 At any previous moment of his life the sugges 
 tion that he could, by mere will power, move the 
 mind of a person a thousand miles away, so as to 
 reverse a deliberate decision, would have appeared 
 to Lansing as wholly preposterous as no doubt it 
 does to any who read these lines. But a man, 
 however logical he may be on land, will grasp at 
 a straw when drowning, as if it were a log. Pinney 
 had no need to use arguments or adjurations to 
 induce Lansing to adopt his suggestion. The 
 man before him was in no mood to balance proba 
 bilities against improbabilities. It was enough 
 that the project offered a chance of success, albeit 
 infinitesimal ; for on the other hand there was 
 nothing but an intolerable despair, and a fate that 
 truly seemed more than flesh and blood could bear. 
 
 Lansing had sprung to his feet while Pinney 
 was speaking. " I m going to try it, and may God 
 Almighty help me ! " he cried, in a terrible voice. 
 
 "Amen ! " echoed Pinney. 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 379 
 
 Lansing sank into his chair again, and sat lean 
 ing slightly forward, in a rigid attitude. The 
 expression of his eyes at once became fixed. His 
 features grew tense, and the muscles of his face 
 stood out. As if to steady the mental strain by 
 a physical one, he had taken from the table a 
 horseshoe which had lain there, and held it in a 
 convulsive grip. 
 
 Pinney had made this extraordinary suggestion 
 in the hope of diverting Lansing s mind for a 
 moment from his terrible situation, and with not 
 so much faith even as he feigned that it would be 
 of any practical avail. But now, as he looked 
 upon the ghastly face before him, and realized the 
 tremendous concentration of purpose, the agony 
 of will, which it expressed, he was impressed that 
 it would not be marvelous if some marvel should 
 be the issue. Certainly, if the will really had any 
 such power as Lansing was trying to exert, as so 
 many theorists maintained, there could never arise 
 circumstances better calculated than these to call 
 forth a supreme assertion of the faculty. He 
 went out of the room on tiptoe, and left his friend 
 alone to fight this strange and terrible battle with 
 the powers of the air for the honor of his wife and 
 his own. 
 
 There was little enough need of any preliminary 
 effort on Lansing s part to fix his thoughts upon 
 Mary. It was only requisite that to the intensity 
 of the mental vision, with which he had before 
 
380 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 imagined her, should be added the activity of the 
 will, turning the former mood of despair into one 
 of resistance. He knew in what room of their 
 house the wedding party must now be gathered, 
 and was able to represent to himself the scene 
 there as vividly as if he had been present. He 
 saw the relatives assembled; he saw Mr. Daven 
 port, the minister, and, facing him, the bridal 
 couple, in the only spot where they could well 
 stand, before the fireplace. But from all the oth 
 ers, from the guests, from the minister, from the 
 bridegroom, he turned his thoughts, to fix them 
 on the bride alone. He saw her as if through 
 
 O 
 
 the small end of an immensely long telescope, dis 
 tinctly, but at an immeasurable distance. On this 
 face his mental gaze was riveted, as by conclusive 
 efforts his will strove to reach and move hers 
 against the thing that she was doing. Although 
 his former experiments in mental phenomena had 
 in a measure familiarized him with the mode of 
 addressing his powers to such an undertaking as 
 this, yet the present effort was on a scale so much 
 vaster that his will for a time seemed appalled, 
 and refused to go out from him, as a bird put 
 forth from a ship at sea returns again and again 
 before daring to essay the distant flight to land. 
 He felt that he was gaining nothing. He was as 
 one who beats the air. It was all he could do to 
 struggle against the influences that tended to deflect 
 and dissipate his thoughts. Again and again a 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 381 
 
 conviction of the uselessness of the attempt, of the 
 madness of imagining that a mere man could send 
 a wish, like a voice, across a continent, laid its 
 paralyzing touch upon his will, and nothing but a 
 sense of the black horror which failure meant 
 enabled him to throw it off. If he but once ad 
 mitted the idea of failing, all was lost. He must 
 believe that he could do this thing, or he surely 
 could not. To question it was to surrender his 
 wife ; to despair was to abandon her to her fate. 
 So, as a wrestler strains against a mighty antago 
 nist, his will strained and tugged in supreme stress 
 against the impalpable obstruction of space, and, 
 fighting despair with despair, doggedly held to its 
 purpose, and sought to keep his faculties unre 
 mittingly streaming to one end. Finally, as this 
 tremendous effort, which made minutes seem hours, 
 went on, there came a sense of efficiency, the feel 
 ing of achieving something. From this conscious 
 ness was first born a faith, no longer desperate, 
 but rational, that he might succeed, and with faith 
 came an instantaneous tenfold multiplication of 
 force. The overflow of energy lost the tendency 
 to dissipation and became steady. The will ap 
 peared to be getting the mental faculties more 
 perfectly in hand, if the expression may be used, 
 not only concentrating but fairly fusing them to 
 gether by the intensity with which it drove them 
 to their object. It was time. Already, perhaps, 
 Mary was about to utter the vows that would give 
 
382 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 her to another. Lansing s lips moved. As if he 
 were standing at her side, he murmured with 
 strained and labored utterance ejaculations of ap 
 peal and adjuration. 
 
 Then came the climax of the stupendous struggle. 
 He became aware of a sensation so amazing that 
 I know not if it can be described at all, a sensa 
 tion comparable to that which comes up the mile- 
 long sounding-line, telling that it touches bottom. 
 Fainter far, as much finer as is mind than matter, 
 yet not less unmistakable, was the thrill which told 
 the man, agonizing on that lonely mountain of 
 Colorado, that the will which he had sent forth to 
 touch the mind of another, a thousand miles away, 
 had found its resting-place, and the chain between 
 them was complete. No longer projected at ran 
 dom into the void, but as if it sent along an estab 
 lished medium of communication, his will now 
 seemed to work upon hers, not uncertainly and 
 with difficulty, but as if in immediate contact. 
 Simultaneously, also, its mood changed. No more 
 appealing, agonizing, desperate, it became insist 
 ent, imperious, dominating. For only a few mo 
 ments it remained at this pitch, and then, the 
 mental tension suddenly relaxing, he aroused to a 
 perception of his surroundings, of which toward the 
 last he had become oblivious. He was drenched 
 with perspiration and completely exhausted. The 
 iron horseshoe which he had held in his hands was 
 drawn halfway out. 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 383 
 
 Thirty-six hours later, Lansing, accompanied by 
 Pinney, climbed down from the stage at the rail 
 road station. During the interval Lansing had 
 neither eaten nor slept. If at moments in that 
 time he was able to indulge the hope that his tre 
 mendous experiment had been successful, for the 
 main part the overwhelming presumption of com 
 mon sense and common experience against such a 
 notion made it seem childish folly to entertain it. 
 
 At the station was to be sent the dispatch, the 
 reply to which would determine Mary s fate and 
 his own. Pinney signed it, so that, if the worst 
 were true, Lansing s existence might still remain 
 a secret ; for of going back to her in that case, to 
 make her a sharer of his shame, there was no 
 thought on his part. The dispatch was addressed 
 to Mr. Davenport, Mary s minister, and merely 
 asked if the wedding had taken place. 
 
 They had to wait two hours for the answer. 
 When it came, Lansing was without on the plat 
 form, and Pinney was in the office. The operator 
 mercifully shortened his suspense by reading the 
 purport of the message from the tape : " The dis 
 patch in answer to yours says that the wedding did 
 not take place." 
 
 Pinney sprang out upon the platform. At sight 
 of Lansing s look of ghastly questioning, the tears 
 blinded him, and he could not speak, but the wild 
 exultation of his face and gestures was speech 
 enough. 
 
384 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 The second day following, Lansing clasped his 
 wife to his breast, and this is the story she told 
 him, interrupted with weepings and shudderings 
 and ecstatic embraces of reassurance. The reasons 
 which had determined her, in disregard of the 
 dictates of her own heart, to marry again, have 
 been sufficiently intimated in her letter to Mrs. 
 Pinney. For the rest, Mr. Whitcomb was a 
 highly respectable man, whom she esteemed and 
 believed to be good and worthy. When the hour 
 set for the marriage arrived, and she took her 
 place by his side before the minister and the 
 guests, her heart indeed was like lead, but her 
 mind calm and resolved. The preliminary prayer 
 was long, and it was natural, as it went on, that 
 her thoughts should go back to the day when she 
 had thus stood by another s side. She had ado to 
 crowd back the scalding tears, as she contrasted 
 her present mood of resignation with the mingling 
 of virginal timidity and the abandon of love in her 
 heart that other day. Suddenly, seeming to rise 
 out of this painful contrast of the past and the 
 present, a feeling of abhorrence for the act to 
 which she was committed possessed her mind. 
 She had all along shrunk from it, as any sensitive 
 woman might from a marriage without love, but 
 there had been nothing in that shrinking to com 
 pare in intensity with this uncontrollable aversion 
 which now seized upon her to the idea of holding a 
 wife s relation to the man by her side. It had all 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 385 
 
 at once come over her that she could not do it. 
 Nevertheless she was a sensible and rational wo 
 man as well as a sweet and lovely one. What 
 ever might be the origin of this sudden repug 
 nance, she knew it had none in reason. She was 
 fulfilling a promise which she had maturely con 
 sidered, and neither in justice to herself nor the 
 man to whom she had given it could she let a 
 purely hysterical attack like this prevent its con 
 summation. She called reason and common sense 
 to her aid, and resolutely struggled to banish the 
 distressing fancies that assailed her. The moisture 
 stood out upon her forehead with the severity of 
 the conflict, which momentarily increased. At 
 last the minister ended his prayer, of which she 
 had not heard a word. The bridal pair were bid 
 den to take each other by the hand. As the bride 
 groom s fingers closed around hers, she could not 
 avoid a shudder as at a loathsome contact. It 
 was only by a supreme effort of self-control that 
 she restrained from snatching her hand away with 
 a scream. She did not hear what the minister 
 went on to say. Every faculty was concentrated 
 on the struggle, which had now become one of 
 desperation, to repress an outbreak of the storm 
 that was raging within. For, despite the shudder 
 ing protest of every instinct and the wild repul 
 sion with which every nerve tingled, she was de 
 termined to go through the ceremony. But though 
 the will in its citadel still held out, she knew that 
 
386 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 it could not be for long. Each wave of emotion 
 that it withstood was higher, stronger, than the 
 last. She felt that it was going, going. She 
 prayed that the minister might be quick, while 
 yet she retained a little self-command, and give 
 her an opportunity to utter some binding vow 
 which should make good her solemn engagement, 
 and avert the scandal of the outbreak on the verge 
 of which she was trembling. u Do you," said the 
 minister to Mr. Whitcomb, " take this woman 
 whom you hold by the hand to be your wife, to 
 honor, protect, and love while you live ? " "I do," 
 replied the bridegroom promptly. " Do you," said 
 the minister, looking at Mary, "take the man 
 whom you hold by the hand to be your husband, 
 to love and honor while you live ? " Mary tried 
 to say " Yes," but at the effort there surged up 
 against it an opposition that was almost tangible 
 in its overpowering force. No longer merely 
 operating upon her sensibilities, the inexplicable 
 influence that was conquering her now seized on 
 her physical functions, and laid its interdict upon 
 her tongue. Three times she strove to throw off 
 the incubus, to speak, but in vain. Great drops 
 were on her forehead ; she was deadly pale, and 
 her eyes were wild and staring; her features 
 twitched as in a spasm, while she stood there 
 struggling with the invisible power that sealed her 
 lips. There was a sudden movement among the 
 spectators ; they were whispering together. They 
 
AT PINNEY S RANCH 387 
 
 saw that something was wrong. " Do you thus 
 promise ? " repeated the minister, after a pause. 
 "Nod, if you can t speak," murmured the bride 
 groom. His words were the hiss of a serpent in her 
 ears. Her will resisted no longer ; her soul was 
 wholly possessed by unreasoning terror of the man 
 and horror of the marriage. " No ! no ! no ! " she 
 screamed in piercing tones, and snatching her 
 hand from the bridegroom, she threw herself upon 
 the breast of the astonished minister, sobbing 
 wildly as she clung to him, " Save me, save me ! 
 Take me away ! I can t marry him, I can t ! 
 Oh, I can t ! " 
 
 The wedding broke up in confusion, and that 
 is the way, if you choose to think so, that John 
 Lansing, one thousand miles away, saved his wife 
 from marrying another man. 
 
 " If you choose to think so," I say, for 
 perfectly competent to argue that the influence 
 which Mary Lansing yielded was merely an hystei 
 ical attack, not wholly strange at such a moment in 
 the case of a woman devoted to her first husband, 
 and reluctantly consenting to second nuptials. On 
 this theory, Lansing s simultaneous agony at Pin- 
 ney s ranch in Colorado was merely a coincidence ; 
 interesting, perhaps, but unnecessary to account 
 for his wife s behavior. That John and Mary 
 Lansing should reject with indignation this simple 
 method of accounting for their great deliverance 
 is not at all surprising in view of the common pro- 
 
338 AT PINNEY S RANCH 
 
 clivity of people to be impressed with the extraor 
 dinary side of circumstances which affect them 
 selves ; nor is there any reason why their opinion 
 of the true explanation of the facts should be given 
 more weight than another s. The writer, who has 
 merely endeavored to put this story into narrative 
 form, has formed no opinion on it which is satis 
 factory to himself, and therefore abstains from any 
 effort to influence the reader s judgment. 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 IT is now about a year since I took passage at 
 Calcutta in the ship Adelaide for New York. We 
 had baffling weather till New Amsterdam Island 
 was sighted, where we took a new point of depar 
 ture. Three days later, a terrible gale struck us. 
 Four days we flew before it, whither, no one knew, 
 for neither sun, moon, nor stars were at any time 
 visible, and we could take no observation. Toward 
 midnight of the fourth day, the glare of lightning 
 revealed the Adelaide in a hopeless position, close 
 in upon a low-lying shore, and driving straight 
 toward it. All around and astern far out to sea 
 was such a maze of rocks and shoals that it was 
 a miracle we had come so far. Presently the ship 
 struck, and almost instantly went to pieces, so 
 great was the violence of the sea. I gave myself 
 up for lost, and was indeed already past the worst 
 of drowning, when I was recalled to consciousness 
 by being thrown with a tremendous shock upon 
 the beach. I had just strength enough to drag 
 myself above the reach of the waves, and then I 
 fell down and knew no more. 
 
 When I awoke, the storm was over. The sun, 
 already halfway up the sky, had dried my cloth- 
 
390 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 ing, and renewed the vigor of my bruised and 
 aching limbs. On sea or shore I saw no vestige 
 of my ship or my companions, of whom I appeared 
 the sole survivor. I was not, however, alone. A 
 group of persons, apparently the inhabitants of 
 the country, stood near, observing me with looks of 
 friendliness which at once freed me from appre 
 hension as to my treatment at their hands. They 
 were a white and handsome people, evidently of 
 a high order of civilization, though I recognized 
 in them the traits of no race with which I was 
 familiar. 
 
 Seeing that it was evidently their idea of eti 
 quette to leave it to strangers to open conversa 
 tion, I addressed them in English, but failed to 
 elicit any response beyond deprecating smiles. I 
 then accosted them successively in the French, 
 German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese 
 tongues, but with no better results. I began to 
 be very much puzzled as to what could possibly be 
 the nationality of a white and evidently civilized 
 race to which no one of the tongues of the great 
 seafaring nations was intelligible. The oddest 
 thing of all was the unbroken silence with which 
 they contemplated my efforts to open communica 
 tion with them. It was as if they were agreed not 
 to give me a clue to their language by even a 
 whisper ; for while they regarded one another with 
 looks of smiling intelligence, they did not once 
 open their lips. But if this behavior suggested 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 391 
 
 that they were amusing themselves at my expense, 
 that presumption was negatived by the unmistak 
 able friendliness and sympathy which their whole 
 bearing expressed. 
 
 A most extraordinary conjecture occurred to 
 me. Could it be that these strange people were 
 dumb ? Such a freak of nature as an entire race 
 thus afflicted had never indeed been heard of, but 
 who could say what wonders the unexplored vasts 
 of the great Southern Ocean might thus far have 
 hid from human ken ? Now, among the scraps of 
 useless information which lumbered my mind was 
 an acquaintance with the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, 
 and forthwith I began to spell out with my fingers 
 some of the phrases I had already uttered to so 
 little effect. My resort to the sign language over 
 came the last remnant of gravity in the already 
 profusely smiling group. The small boys now 
 rolled on the ground in convulsions of mirth, 
 while the grave and reverend seniors, who had 
 hitherto kept them in check, were fain momen 
 tarily to avert their faces, and I could see their 
 bodies shaking with laughter. The greatest clown 
 in the world never received a more flattering trib 
 ute to his powers to amuse than had been called 
 forth by mine to make myself understood. Nat 
 urally, however, I was not flattered, but on the 
 contrary entirely discomfited. Angry I could not 
 well be, for the deprecating manner in which all, 
 excepting of course the boys, yielded to their per- 
 
392 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 ception of the ridiculous, and the distress they 
 showed at their failure in self-control, made me 
 seem the aggressor. It was as if they were very 
 sorry for me, and ready to put themselves wholly 
 at my service, if I would only refrain from reduc 
 ing them to a state of disability by being so ex 
 quisitely absurd. Certainly this evidently amiable 
 race had a very embarrassing way of receiving 
 strangers. 
 
 Just at this moment, when my bewilderment 
 was fast verging on exasperation, relief came. 
 The circle opened, and a little elderly man, who 
 had evidently come in haste, confronted me, and, 
 bowing very politely, addressed me in English. 
 His voice was the most pitiable abortion of a voice 
 I had ever heard. While having all the defects 
 in articulation of a child s who is just beginning 
 to talk, it was not even a child s in strength of 
 tone, being in fact a mere alternation of squeaks 
 and whispers inaudible a rod away. With some 
 difficulty I was, however, able to follow him pretty 
 nearly. 
 
 " As the official interpreter," he said, " I extend 
 you a cordial welcome to these islands. I was 
 sent for as soon as you were discovered, but being 
 at some distance, I was unable to arrive until this 
 moment. I regret this, as my presence would 
 have saved you embarrassment. My countrymen 
 desire me to intercede with you to pardon the 
 wholly involuntary and uncontrollable mirth pro- 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 393 
 
 voked by your attempts to communicate with them. 
 You see, they understood you perfectly well, but 
 could not answer you." 
 
 " Merciful heavens ! " I exclaimed, horrified to 
 find my surmise correct ; " can it be that they are 
 all thus afflicted ? Is it possible that you are the 
 only man among them who has the power of 
 speech ? " 
 
 Again it appeared that, quite unintentionally, 
 I had said something excruciatingly funny ; for 
 at my speech there arose a sound of gentle laugh 
 ter from the group, now augmented to quite an 
 assemblage, which drowned the plashing of the 
 waves on the beach at our feet. Even the inter 
 preter smiled. 
 
 " Do they think it so amusing to be dumb ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " They find it very amusing," replied the inter 
 preter, "that their inability to speak should be 
 regarded by any one as an affliction ; for it is by 
 the voluntary disuse of the organs of articulation 
 that they have lost the power of speech, and, as 
 a consequence, the ability even to understand 
 speech." 
 
 " But," said I, somewhat puzzled by this state 
 ment, " did n t you just tell me that they under 
 stood me, though they could not reply, and are 
 they not laughing now at what I just said ? " 
 
 "It is you they understood, not your words," 
 answered the interpreter. " Our speech now is 
 
394 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 gibberish to them, as unintelligible in itself as 
 the growling of animals ; but they know what we 
 are saying, because they know our thoughts. You 
 must know that these are the islands of the mind- 
 readers." 
 
 Such were the circumstances of my introduction to 
 this extraordinary people. The official interpreter 
 being charged by virtue of his office with the 
 first entertainment of shipwrecked members of the 
 talking nations, I became his guest, and passed a 
 number of days under his roof before going out to 
 any considerable extent among the people. My 
 first impression had been the somewhat oppressive 
 one that the power to read the thoughts of others 
 could be possessed only by beings of a superior 
 order to man. It was the first effort of the inter 
 preter to disabuse me of this notion. It appeared 
 from his account that the experience of the mind- 
 readers was a case simply of a slight acceleration, 
 from special causes, of the course of universal 
 human evolution, which in time was destined to 
 lead to the disuse of speech and the substitution 
 of direct mental vision on the part of all races. 
 This rapid evolution of these islanders was ac 
 counted for by their peculiar origin and circum 
 stances. 
 
 Some three centuries before Christ, one of the 
 Parthian kings of Persia, of the djmasty of the 
 Arsacidae, undertook a persecution of the sooth 
 sayers and magicians in his realms. These people 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 395 
 
 were credited with supernatural powers by popular 
 prejudice, but in fact were merely persons of spe 
 cial gifts in the way of hypnotizing, mind-reading, 
 thought transference, and such arts, which they 
 exercised for their own gain. 
 
 Too much in awe of the soothsayers to do them 
 outright violence, the king resolved to banish 
 them, and to this end put them, with their fami 
 lies, on ships and sent them to Ceylon. When, 
 however, the fleet was in the neighborhood of that 
 island, a great storm scattered it, and one of the 
 ships, after being driven for many days before 
 the tempest, was wrecked upon one of an archipel 
 ago of uninhabited islands far to the south, where 
 the survivors settled. Naturally, the posterity of 
 the parents possessed of such peculiar gifts had 
 developed extraordinary psychical powers. 
 
 Having set before them the end of evolving a 
 new and advanced order of humanity, they had 
 aided the development of these powers by a rigid 
 system of stirpiculture. The result was that, 
 after a few centuries, mind-reading became so gen 
 eral that language fell into disuse as a means 
 of communicating ideas. For many generations 
 the power of speech still remained voluntary, but 
 gradually the vocal organs had become atrophied, 
 and for several hundred years the power of articu 
 lation had been wholly lost. Infants for a few 
 months after birth did, indeed, still emit inarticu 
 late cries, but at an age when in less advanced 
 
396 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 races these cries began to be articulate, the chil 
 dren of the mind-readers developed the power of 
 direct vision, and ceased to attempt to use the 
 voice. 
 
 The fact that the existence of the mind-readers 
 had never been found out by the rest of the world 
 was explained by two considerations. In the first 
 place, the group of islands was small, and occupied 
 a corner of the Indian Ocean quite out of the 
 ordinary track of ships. In the second place, the 
 approach to the islands was rendered so desperately 
 perilous by terrible currents, and the maze of out 
 lying rocks and shoals, that it was next to impos 
 sible for any ship to touch their shores save as a 
 wreck. No ship at least had ever done so in the 
 two thousand years since the mind-readers own 
 arrival, and the Adelaide had made the one hun 
 dred and twenty-third such wreck. 
 
 Apart from motives of humanity, the mind-read 
 ers made strenuous efforts to rescue shipwrecked 
 persons, for from them alone, through the inter 
 preters, could they obtain information of the out 
 side world. Little enough this proved when, as 
 often happened, the sole survivor of the shipwreck 
 was some ignorant sailor, who had no news to 
 communicate beyon(J_Jbhe latest varieties of fore 
 castle blasphemy^ My hosts gratefully assured 
 me that, as a person of some little education, they 
 considered me a veritable godsend. No less a 
 task was mine than to relate to them the history 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 397 
 
 of the world for the past two centuries, and often 
 did I wish, for their sakes, that I had made a more 
 exact study of it. 
 
 It is solely for the purpose of communicating 
 with shipwrecked strangers of the talking nations 
 that the office of the interpreters exists. When, 
 as from time to time happens, a child is born with 
 some powers of articulation, he is set apart, and 
 trained to talk in the interpreters college. Of 
 course the partial atrophy of the vocal organs, 
 from which even the best interpreters suffer, ren 
 ders many of the sounds of language impossible 
 for them. None, for instance, can pronounce w, J\ 
 or s ; and as to the sound represented by th, it is 
 five generations since the last interpreter lived 
 who could utter it. But for the occasional inter 
 marriage of shipwrecked strangers with the island 
 ers, it is probable that the supply of interpreters 
 would have long ere this quite failed. 
 
 I imagine that the very unpleasant sensations 
 which followed the realization that I was among 
 people who, while inscrutable to me, knew my 
 every thought, were very much what any one 
 would have experienced in the same case. They 
 were very comparable to the panic which accidental 
 nudity causes a person among races whose custom 
 it is to conceal the figure with drapery. I wanted 
 to run away and hide myself. If I analyzed my 
 feeling, it did not seem to arise so much from the 
 consciousness of any particularly heinous secrets, 
 
398 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 as from the knowledge of a swarm of fatuous, ill- 
 natured, and unseemly thoughts and half thoughts 
 concerning those around me, and concerning my 
 self, which it was insufferable that any person 
 should peruse in however benevolent a spirit. 
 But while my chagrin and distress on this account 
 were at first intense, they were also very short 
 lived, for almost immediately I discovered that the 
 very knowledge that my mind was overlooked Try 
 others operated to check thoughts that might be 
 painful to them, and that, too, without more effort 
 of the will than a kindly person exerts to check 
 the utterance of disagreeable remarks. As a very 
 few lessons in the elements of courtesy cures a 
 decent person of inconsiderate speaking, so a brief 
 experience among the mind-readers went far in my 
 case to check inconsiderate thinking. It must not 
 be supposed, however, that courtesy among the 
 mind-readers prevents them from thinking point 
 edly and freely concerning one another upon seri 
 ous occasions, any more than the finest courtesy 
 among the talking races restrains them from speak 
 ing to one another with entire plainness when it 
 itjlesirable to do so. Indeed, among the mind- 
 readers, politeness never can extend to the point 
 of insincerity, as among talking nations, seeing 
 that it is always one another s real and inmost 
 thought that they read. I may fitly mention here, 
 though it was not till later that I fully understood 
 why it must necessarily be so, that one need feel 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 399 
 
 far less chagrin at the complete revelation of his 
 weaknesses to a mind-reader than at the slightest 
 betrayal of them to one of another race. For 
 the very reason that the mind -reader reads all 
 your thoughts, particular thoughts are judged with 
 reference to the general tenor of thought. Your 
 characteristic and habitual frame of mind is what 
 he takes account of. No one need fear being mis 
 judged by a mind-reader on account of sentiments 
 or emotions which are not representative of the 
 real character or general attitude. Justice may, 
 indeed, be said to be a necessary consequence of 
 mind-reading. 
 
 As regards the interpreter himself, the instinct 
 of courtesy was not long needed to check wanton 
 or offensive thoughts. In all my life before, I 
 had been very slow to form friendships, but before 
 I had been three days in the company of this 
 stranger of a strange race, I had become enthusias 
 tically devoted to him. It was impossible not to 
 be. The peculiar joy of friendship is the sense 
 of being understood by our friend as we are not 
 by others, and yet of being loved in spite of the 
 understanding. Now here was one whose every 
 word testified to a knowledge of my secret thoughts 
 and motives which the oldest and nearest of my 
 former friends had never, and could never, have 
 approximated. Had such a knowledge bred in 
 him contempt of me, I should neither have blamed 
 him nor been at all surprised. Judge, then, whether 
 
400 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 the cordial friendliness which he showed was likely 
 to leave me indifferent. 
 
 Imagine my incredulity when he informed me 
 that our friendship was not based upon more than 
 ordinary mutual suitability of temperaments. The 
 faculty of mind-reading, he explained, brought 
 minds so close together, and so heightened sym 
 pathy, that the lowest order of friendship between 
 mind-readers implied a mutual delight such as 
 only rare friends enjoyed among other races. He 
 assured me that later on, when I came to know 
 others of his race, I should find, by the far greater 
 intensity of sympathy and affection I should con 
 ceive for some of them, how true this saying was. 
 
 It may be inquired how, on beginning to mingle 
 with the mind-readers in general, I managed to 
 communicate with them, seeing that, while they 
 could read my thoughts, they could not, like the 
 interpreter, respond to them by speech. I must 
 here explain that, while these people have no use 
 for a spoken language, a written language is need 
 ful for purposes of record. They consequently all 
 know how to write. Do they, then, write Persian ? 
 Luckily for me, no. It appears that, for a long 
 period after mind-reading was fully developed, not 
 only was spoken language disused, but also writ 
 ten, no records whatever having been kept during 
 this period. The delight of the people in the 
 newly found power of direct mind-to-mind vision, 
 whereby pictures of the total mental state were 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 401 
 
 communicated, instead of the imperfect descrip 
 tions of single thoughts which words at best could 
 give, induced an invincible distaste for the labori 
 ous impotence of language. 
 
 When, however, the first intellectual intoxica 
 tion had, after several generations, somewhat so 
 bered down, it was recognized that records of the 
 past were desirable, and that the despised medium 
 of words was needful to preserve it. Persian had 
 meanwhile been wholly forgotten. In order to 
 avoid the prodigious task of inventing a complete 
 new language, the institution of the interpreters 
 was now set up, with the idea of acquiring through 
 them a knowledge of some of the languages of the 
 outside world from the mariners wrecked on the 
 islands. 
 
 Owing to the fact that most of the castaway 
 ships were English, a better knowledge of that 
 tongue was acquired than of any other, and it 
 was adopted as the written language of the people. 
 As a rule, my acquaintances wrote slowly and labo 
 riously, and yet the fact that they knew exactly 
 what was in my mind rendered their responses so 
 apt that, in my conversations with the slowest 
 speller of them all, the interchange of thought was 
 as rapid and incomparably more accurate and satis 
 factory than the fastest talkers attain to. 
 
 It was but a very short time after I had begun 
 to extend my acquaintance among the mind-readers 
 before I discovered how truly the interpreter had 
 
402 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 told me that I should find others to whom, on 
 account of greater natural congeniality, I should 
 become more strongly attached than I had been 
 to him. This was in no wise, however, because I 
 loved him less, but them more. I would fain write 
 particularly of some of these beloved friends, com 
 rades of my heart, from whom I first learned the 
 undreamed-of possibilities of human friendship, 
 and how ravishing the satisfactions of sympathy 
 may be./ Who, among those who may read this, has 
 not known that sense of a gulf fixed between soul 
 and soul which mocks love ! Who has not felt that 
 loneliness which oppresses the heart that loves it 
 best ! Think no longer that this gulf is eternally 
 fixed, or is any necessity of human nature. JLLbas 
 no existence for the race of our fellow-men which 
 I describe, and by that fact we may be assured 
 that eventually it will be bridged also for us. Like 
 the touch of shoulder to shoulder, like the clasping 
 of hands, is the contact of their minds and their 
 
 _sensation of sympathy. 
 
 I say that I would fain speak more particularly 
 of some of my friends, but waning strength forbids, 
 and moreover, now that I think of it, another con 
 sideration would render any comparison of their 
 characters rather confusing than instructive to a 
 reader. This is the fact that, in .common with the 
 
 [rest of the mind-readers, they had no names. Every 
 one had, indeed, an arbitrary sign for his desig 
 nation in records, but it has no sound value. A 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 403 
 
 register of these names is kept, so they can at any 
 time be ascertained, but it is very common to meet 
 persons who have forgotten titles which are used 
 solely for biographical and official purposes. For 
 social intercourse names are of course superfluous, 
 for these people accost one another merely by a 
 mental act of attention, and refer to third persons 
 by transferring their mental pictures, something 
 as dumb persons might by means of photographs. 
 Something so, I say, for in the pictures of one 
 another s personalities which the mind-readers con 
 ceive, the physical aspect, as might be expected 
 with people who directly contemplate each other s 
 minds and hearts, is a subordinate element. 
 
 I have already told how my first qualms of mor 
 bid self-consciousness at knowing that my mind 
 was an open book to all around me disappeared as 
 I learned that the very completeness of the disclos 
 ure of my thoughts and motives was a guarantee 
 that I would be judged with a fairness and a sym 
 pathy such as even self -judgment cannot pretend 
 to, affected as that is by so many subtle reactions. 
 The assurance of being so judged by every one 
 might well seem an inestimable privilege to one 
 accustomed to a world in which not even the ten- 
 derest love is any pledge of comprehension, and yet 
 I soon discovered that open-mind edness had a still 
 greater profit than this. How shall I describe the 
 delightful exhilaration of moral health and clean 
 ness, the breezy oxygenated mental condition, which 
 
t 
 
 L 
 
 404 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 resulted from the consciousness that I had abso 
 lutely nothing concealed ! Truly I may say that I 
 enjoyed myself. I think surely that no one needs 
 to have had my marvelous experience to sympa 
 thize with this portion of it. Are we not all ready 
 to agree that this having a curtained chamber where 
 we may go to grovel, out of the sight of our fellows, 
 troubled only by a vague apprehension that God 
 may look over the top, is the most demoralizing 
 incident in the human condition ? It is the exist 
 ence within the soul of this secure refuge of lies 
 which has always been the despair of the saint and 
 the exultation of the knave. It is the foul cellar 
 which taints the whole house above, be it never 
 so fine. 
 
 What stronger testimony could there be to the 
 instinctive consciousness that concealment is de 
 bauching, and openness our only cure, than the 
 world-old conviction of the virtue of confession for 
 the soul, and that the uttermost exposing of one s 
 worst and foulest is the first step toward moral 
 health ? The wickedest man, if he could but some 
 how attain to writhe himself inside out as to his 
 soul, so that its full sickness could be seen, would 
 feel ready for a new life. Nevertheless, owing to 
 the utter impotence of the words to convey mental 
 conditions in their totality, or to give other than 
 mere distortions of them, confession is, we must 
 needs admit, but a mockery of that longing for 
 self-revelation to which it testifies. But think 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 405 
 
 what health and soundness there must be for souls 
 among a people who see in every face a conscience 
 which, unlike their own, they cannot sophisticate, 
 who confess one another with a glance, and shrive 
 with a smile ! Ah, friends, let me now predict, 
 though ages may elapse before the slow event shall 
 justify me, that in no way will the mutual vision 
 of minds, when at last it shall be perfected, so en 
 hance the blessedness of mankind as by rending 
 the veil of self, and leaving no spot of darkness in 
 the mind for lies to hide in. Then shall the soul 
 no longer be a coal smoking among ashes, but a 
 star in a crystal sphere. 
 
 From what I have said of the delights which 
 friendship among the mind-readers derives from 
 the perfection of the mental rapport, it may be 
 imagined how intoxicating must be the experience 
 when one of the friends is a woman, and the subtle 
 attractions and correspondences of sex touch with 
 passion the intellectual sympathy. With my first 
 venturing into society I had begun, to their extreme 
 amusement, to fall in love with the women right 
 and left. In the perfect frankness which is the 
 condition of all intercourse among this people, 
 these adorable women told me that what I felt was 
 only friendship, which was a very good thing, but 
 wholly different from love, as I should well know 
 if I were beloved. It was difficult to believe that 
 the melting" emotions which I had experienced in 
 
 fa^^^^f^l^^0q^^pt^0tl^ 
 
 their company were the result merely of the friendly 
 

 406 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 and kindly attitude of their minds toward mine ; 
 but when I found that I was affected in the same 
 way by every gracious woman I met, I had to make 
 up my mind that they must be right about it, and 
 that I should have to adapt myself to a world in 
 which, friendship being a passion, love must needs 
 be nothing less than rapture. 
 
 The homely proverb, " Every Jack has his Gill," 
 may, I suppose, be taken to mean that for all men 
 there are certain women expressly suited by mental 
 and moral as well as by physical constitution. It 
 is a thought painful, rather than cheering, that this 
 may be the truth, so altogether do the chances pre 
 ponderate against the ability of these elect ones to 
 recognize each other even if they meet, seeing that 
 speech is so inadequate and so misleading a medium 
 of self-revelation. But among the mind-readers, 
 the search for one s ideal mate is a quest reasona 
 bly sure of being crowned with success, and no one 
 dreams of wedding unless it be ; for so to do, they 
 consider, would be to throw away the choicest bless 
 ing of life, and not alone to wrong themselves and 
 their unfound mates, but likewise those whom they 
 themselves and those undiscovered mates might 
 wed. Therefore, passionate pilgrims, they go from 
 isle to isle till they find each other, and, as the 
 population of the islands is but small, the pil 
 grimage is not often long. 
 
 When I met her first we were in company, and 
 I was struck by the sudden stir and the looks of 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 407 
 
 touched and smiling interest with which all around 
 turned and regarded us, the women with moistened 
 eyes. They had read her thought when she saw 
 me, but this I did not know, neither what was the 
 custom in these matters, till afterward. But I 
 knew, from the moment she first fixed her eyes on 
 me, and I felt her mind brooding upon mine, how 
 truly I had been told by those other women that 
 the feeling with which they had inspired me was 
 not love. 
 
 With people who become acquainted at a glance, 
 and old friends in an hour, wooing is naturally not 
 a long process. Indeed, it may be said that between 
 lovers among mind-readers there is no wooing, but 
 merely recognition. The day after we met, she 
 became mine. 
 
 Perhaps I cannot better illustrate how subordi 
 nate the merely physical element is in the impression 
 which mind-readers form of their friends than by 
 mentioning an incident that occurred some months 
 after our union. This was my discovery, wholly 
 by accident, that my love, in whose society I had 
 almost constantly been, had not the least idea what 
 was the color of my eyes, or whether my hair and 
 complexion were light or dark. Of course, as soon 
 as I asked her the question, she read the answer in 
 my mind, but she admitted that she had previously 
 had no distinct impression on those points. On the 
 other hand, if in the blackest midnight I should 
 
408 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 come to her, she would not need to ask who the 
 comer was. It is by the mind, not the eye, that 
 these people know one another. It is really only 
 in their relations to soulless and inanimate things 
 that they need eyes at all. 
 
 It must not be supposed that their disregard 
 of one another s bodily aspect grows out of any 
 ascetic sentiment. It is merely a necessary con 
 sequence of their power of directly apprehending 
 mind, that whenever mind is closely associated 
 with matter the latter is comparatively neglected 
 on account of the greater interest of the former, 
 suffering as lesser things always do when placed in 
 immediate contrast with greater. Art is with them 
 confined to the inanimate, the human form having, 
 for the reason mentioned, ceased to inspire the 
 artist. It will be naturally and quite correctly in 
 ferred that among such a race physical beauty is 
 not the important factor in human fortune and 
 felicity that it elsewhere is. The absolute open 
 ness of their minds and hearts to one another makes 
 their happiness far more dependent on the moral 
 and mental qualities of their companions than upon 
 their physical. A genial temperament, a wide- 
 grasping, godlike intellect, a poet soul, are incom 
 parably more fascinating to them than the most 
 dazzling combination conceivable of mere bodily 
 graces. 
 
 A woman of mind and heart has no more need 
 of beauty to win love in these islands than a beauty 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 409 
 
 elsewhere of mind or heart. I should mention 
 here, perhaps, that this race, which makes so little 
 account of physical beauty, is itself a singularly 
 handsome one. This is owing doubtless in part to 
 the absolute compatibility of temperaments in all 
 the marriages, and partly also to the reaction upon 
 the body of a state of ideal mental and moral health 
 
 and placidity. 
 
 Not being myself a mind-reader, the fact that 
 my love was rarely beautiful in form and face had 
 doubtless no little part in attracting my devotion. 
 This, of course, she knew, as she knew all my 
 thoughts, and, knowing my limitations, tolerated 
 and forgave the element of sensuousness in my pas 
 sion^ But if it must have seemed to her so little 
 worthy in comparison with the high spiritual com 
 munion which her race know as love, to me it be 
 came, by virtue of her almost superhuman relation 
 to me, an ecstasy more ravishing surely than any 
 lover of my race tasted before. The ache at the 
 heart of the intensest love is the impotence of 
 words to make it perfectly understood to its object. 
 But my passion was without this pang, for my 
 heart was absolutely open to her I loved. Lovers 
 may imagine, but I cannot describe, the ecstatic 
 thrill of communion into which this consciousness 
 transformed every tender emotion. As I consid- 1 
 ered what mutual love must be where both parties 
 are mind-readers, I realized the high communion 
 which my sweet companion had sacrificed for me. 
 
410 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 She might indeed comprehend her lover and his 
 love for her, but the higher satisfaction of knowing 
 that she was comprehended by him and her love 
 understood, she had foregone. For that I should 
 ever attain the power of mind-reading was out of 
 the question, the faculty never having been devel 
 oped in a single lifetime. 
 
 Why my inability should move my dear com 
 panion to such depths of pity I was not able fully 
 to understand until I learned that mind-reading is 
 chiefly held desirable, not for the knowledge of 
 others which it gives its possessors, but fojr the 
 
 . self-knowledge which is its reflex effect. Of all 
 they see in the minds of others, that which con 
 cerns them most is the reflection of themselves, the 
 photographs of their own characters. The most 
 obvious consequence of the self-knowledge thus 
 forced upon them is to render them alike incapable 
 of self-conceit or self -depreciation. Every one must 
 needs always think of himself as he is, being no 
 more able to do otherwise than is a man in a hall 
 of mirrors to cherish delusions as to his personal 
 appearance. 
 
 But self-knowledge means to the mind-readers 
 much more than this, nothing less, indeed, than 
 
 i a shifting of the sense of identity. When a man 
 sees himself in a mirror, he is compelled to dis 
 tinguish between the bodily self he sees and his 
 real self, which is within and unseen. When in 
 turn the mind-reader comes to see the mental and 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 411 
 
 moral self reflected in other minds as in mirrors, 
 the same thing happens. He is compelled to dis 
 tinguish between this mental and moral self which 
 has been made objective to him, and can be con 
 templated by him as impartially as if it were 
 another s, from the inner ego which still remains 
 subjective, unseen, and indefinable. In this inner 
 ego the mind-readers recognize the essential iden- " 
 ~trty~ iand "being, the noumenal self, the core of the 
 soul, and the true hiding of its eternal life, to 
 which the mind as well as the body is but the 
 garment of a day. 
 
 The effect of such a philosophy as this which, 
 indeed, with the mind -readers is rather an in 
 stinctive consciousness than a philosophy must 
 obviously be to impart a sense of wonderful supe 
 riority to the vicissitudes of this earthly state, and 
 a singular serenity in the midst of the haps and 
 mishaps which threaten or befall the personality. 
 They did indeed appear to me, as I never dreamed 
 men could attain to be, lords of themselves. 
 
 It was because I might not hope to attain this 
 enfranchisement from the false ego of the apparent 
 self, without which life seemed to her race scarcely 
 worth living, that my love so pitied me. 
 
 But I must hasten on, leaving a thousand things 
 unsaid, to relate the lamentable catastrophe to 
 which it is owing that, instead of being still a 
 resident of those blessed islands, in the full enjoy 
 ment of that intimate and ravishing companionship 
 
412 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 which by contrast would forever dim the pleasures 
 of all other human society, I recall the bright pic 
 ture as a memory under other skies. 
 
 Among a people who are compelled by the very 
 constitution of their minds to put themselves in 
 the places of others, the sympathy which is the 
 inevitable consequence of perfect comprehension 
 renders env^y, hatred, and uncharitableness im 
 possible. But of course there are people less 
 genially constituted than others, and these are 
 necessarily the objects of a certain distaste on the 
 part of associates. Now, owing to the unhindered 
 impact of minds upon one another, the anguish of 
 persons so regarded, despite the tenderest consid 
 eration of those about them, is so great that they 
 beg the grace of exile, that, being out of the 
 way, people may think less frequently upon them. 
 There are numerous small islets, scarcely more 
 than rocks, lying to the north of the archipelago, 
 and on these the unfortunates are permitted to 
 live. Only one lives on each islet, as they cannot 
 endure each other even as well as the more happily 
 constituted can endure them. From time to time 
 supplies of food are taken to them, and of course, 
 any time they wish to take the risk, they are 
 permitted to return to society. 
 
 Now, as I have said, the fact which, even more 
 than their out-of-the-way location, makes the islands 
 of the mind-readers unapproachable, is the violence 
 with which the great antarctic current, owing 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 413 
 
 probably to some configuration of the ocean bed, 
 together with the innumerable rocks and shoals, 
 flows through and about the archipelago. 
 
 Ships making the islands from the southward 
 are caught by this current and drawn among the 
 rocks, to their almost certain destruction ; while, 
 owing to the violence with which the current sets 
 to the north, it is not possible to approach at all 
 from that direction, or at least it has never been 
 accomplished. Indeed, so powerful are the currents 
 that even the boats which cross the narrow straits 
 between the main islands and the islets of the 
 unfortunate, to carry the latter their supplies, are 
 ferried over by cables, not trusting to oar or sail. 
 
 The brother of my love had charge of one of 
 the boats engaged in this transportation, and, being 
 desirous of visiting the islets, I accepted an invi 
 tation to accompany him on one of his trips. I 
 know nothing of how the accident happened, but 
 in the fiercest part of the current of one of the 
 straits we parted from the cable and were swept 
 out to sea. There was no question of stemming 
 the boiling current, our utmost endeavors barely 
 sufficing to avoid being dashed to pieces on the 
 rocks. From the first, there was no hope of our 
 winning back to the land, and so swiftly did we 
 drift that by noon the accident having befallen 
 in the morning the islands, which are low-lying, 
 had sunk beneath the southwestern horizon. 
 
 Among these mind-readers, distance is not an in- 
 
414 TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 
 
 superable obstacle to the transfer of thought. My 
 companion was in communication with our friends, 
 and from time to time conveyed to me messages of 
 anguish from my dear love ; for, being well aware 
 of the nature of the currents and the unapproach- 
 ableness of the islands, those we had left behind, as 
 well as we ourselves, knew well we should see each 
 other s faces no more. For five days we continued 
 to drift to the northwest, in no danger of star 
 vation, owing to our lading of provisions, but 
 constrained to uninterrnitting watch and ward by 
 the roughness of the weather. On the fifth day 
 my companion died from exposure and exhaustion. 
 He died very quj^Jtly^ indeed, with great appear 
 ance of relief. The life of the mind-readers while 
 yet they are in the body is so largely spiritual that 
 the idea of an existence wholly so, which seems 
 vague and chill to us, suggests to them a state only 
 slightly more refined than they already know on 
 earth. 
 
 After that I suppose I must have fallen into 
 an unconscious state, from which I roused to find 
 myself on an American ship bound for New York, 
 surrounded by people whose only means of commu 
 nicating with one another is to keep up while to 
 gether a constant clatter of hissing, guttural, and 
 explosive noises, eked out by all manner of facial 
 contortions and bodily gestures. I frequently find 
 myself staring open-mouthed at those who address 
 me, too much struck by their grotesque appearance 
 to bethink myself of replying. 
 
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME 415 
 
 I find that I shall not live out the voyage, and I 
 do not care to. From my experience of the people 
 on the ship, I can judge how I should fare on land 
 amid the stunning Babel of a nation of talkers. 
 And my friends, God bless them ! how lonely I 
 should feel in their very presence ! Nay, what 
 satisfaction or consolation, what but bitter mockery, 
 could I ever more find in such human sympathy 
 and companionship as suffice others and once suf 
 ficed me, I who have seen and known what I have 
 seen and known ! Ah, yes, doubtless it is far bet 
 ter I should die ; but the knowledge of the things 
 that I have seen I feel should not perish with me. 
 For hope s sake, men should not miss the glimpse 
 of the higher, sun-bathed reaches of the upward 
 path they plod. So thinking, I have written out 
 some account of my wonderful experience, though 
 briefer far, by reason of my weakness, than fits the 
 greatness of the matter. The captain seems an 
 honest, well-meaning man, and to him I shall con 
 fide the narrative, charging him, on touching shore, 
 to see it safely in the hands of some one who will 
 bring it to the world s ear. 
 
 NOTE. The extent of my own connection with 
 the foregoing document is sufficiently indicated 
 by the author himself in the final paragraph. 
 E. B. 
 
STfce Htoersfoe 
 
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