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 Swiss IDYLS. IV. D. McCrackan, '<?5 9 
 
 THE STORY OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL. R. C. Tuttle, 'g, . 21 
 
 WITH POET'S EYES. D. Willard, '95, 34 
 
 OVER THE COFFEE CUPS. L. W. Rogers, "97, ... 39 
 
 AMIEE. G. W. Ellis, '94, 44 
 
 " PITY THE BLIND." A. L. Green, '97, 55 
 
 A MARSH FLOWER. C. A. Home, '93, 59 
 
 THE SEA SPIDERS. A. L. Green, '97, 66 
 
 PIERRE'S RETURN. A. L. Green, '97, 67 
 
 A DECEPTIVE DINNER. R. C. Tongue, '95, .... 69 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF AN OLD PIPE. /. B, Birckhead, '94, 73 
 
 AN APOLOGUE OF PESSIMISM 77 
 
 AT A BUD GERMAN. G. W. Ellis, '94 82 
 
 THROUGH THE DROP CURTAIN. H. S. Candee, '93, . . 90 
 
 AN AFTERNOON TEA. R. C. Tuttle, } $g, .... 99 
 
 THE MAN WHO GOT CONVERTED. L. W. Rogers, '97, . 108 
 
 FOOTBALL AS IT is PLAYED. L. W. Rogers, '97, . . . 113 
 
 THE FORE-WHEEL OF TIME. C.F.Johnson, ... 115 
 
 THIS THANKLESS WORLD. L. W. Rogers, '97, . . . 122 
 
 A STROLL ABOUT THE COLLEGE. R. P. Bates, '93, . . 126 
 
 (5)
 
 SING, sing, loud let us sing. 
 Our cares away we fling. 
 For friends are dear and hearts are free. 
 Come, share our joy with song and glee. 
 Oh ! let the echoes ring 
 At Trinity ! 
 
 Sing, sing, sadly sing. 
 
 Some songs regret will bring. 
 Our hearts it rends to part from friends, 
 And time will never make amends. 
 
 Some songs regret will bring 
 At Trinity ! 
 
 Sing, sing, gladly sing. 
 Still let the echoes ring. 
 Well fear no storm while hearts are warm, 
 No shock can love or friendship harm. 
 Still let the echoes ring 
 At Trinity ! 
 
 Melville Knox Bailey 
 
 (6)
 
 HOEING POTATOES. 
 
 ALL the valleys hushed. The lakes black. 
 A mist in the hollows, smelling moist and 
 tasting smoky. 
 
 Then, on the top of the Jungfrau, a sudden 
 gleam alighted. The sun crept down the great 
 aretes, those arms of the goddess draped in mus 
 lin. It burnished the rounded snow slopes into 
 rich saffron, and cast mauve shadows into the ser- 
 acs and crevasses. The light chased the gloom 
 from the abyss where the avalanches fall, that 
 lap of the goddess. It stripped the darkness from 
 her sheer sides. 
 
 With this, the virgin seemed to wake and 
 stretch and smile. 
 
 She saw two women and a child hoeing pota 
 toes on the Almend of Unterseen. They were 
 dressed partly in brown homespun, partly in non 
 descript calicoes. Their feet stood in great un 
 gainly shoes with wooden soles. The grandmother 
 still wore her hair twined with white braid, Ober- 
 land-fashion, but the young woman tried to be 
 modern. As for the child, it played in the dirt. 
 
 And so the women toiled unmindful of the sur 
 passing magnificence of their surroundings.
 
 I0 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 The Jungfrau saw the turquoise of the lake of 
 Thun, the glowing slopes of St. Beatenberg, the 
 green-black firs on the Harder. She heard a man 
 sharpening his scythe among the field flowers, a 
 boy yodeling to his goats in the shrubs, a herd of 
 cows jingling their bells on the summer pasture. 
 She smelt the mown grass, the briar hedges nipped 
 by the goats, the flowers trodden by the cattle. 
 
 But the women neither saw, nor heard, nor 
 smelt. 
 
 At noon the Jungfrau looked again. The 
 grandmother was leaning for a moment on her 
 hoe, the young woman worked in a crude red pet 
 ticoat blown by the wind, the child still played in 
 the dirt. They all looked sordid, sullen, stupid. 
 
 Then the pitying Virgin turned to Mont Blanc, 
 full eighty miles away. How long must these 
 wrongs be ? But, before the answer came, the day 
 was over, and the women shuffled sadly homeward, 
 drawing their cart after them, wherein the little 
 girl sat holding tight to the sides. 
 
 And for the millionth time the Jungfrau 
 blushed, and then turned gray and slept. 
 
 DRESS REFORM IN THE ALPS. 
 
 The usual way to Champe'ry leads from the 
 Rhone valley through vineyards, chestnut and wal 
 nut groves, into the region of cherry trees and 
 grazing lands. But my first visit to this Val d'll- 
 liez was made from across the mountains in Savoy. 
 
 I had started early in the morning at Samoens, 
 with a knapsack on my back. The day was hot,
 
 SWISS IDYLS. U 
 
 even on the top of the Col de la Golhe and the Col 
 de Coux. As the afternoon waned, and the Cham 
 pe'ry was not yet in sight, I began asking my way 
 of the peasants. A young man stood by the road 
 side with his back towards me, and so I called : 
 " Monsieur, will you please tell me how much fur 
 ther it is to Champe'ry?" At that the young man 
 turned with a charming smile on his face, for he 
 was a young woman. 
 
 The trouble is, you cannot always tell the sexes 
 apart in the Val d'llliez, since the women have the 
 common sense and courage to wear men's clothes, 
 while at work tending cows. It is perhaps this 
 which preserves their figures and keeps their 
 cheeks rosy, long after the women in neighboring 
 valleys are bent and faded. The trousers and 
 jackets of black homespun are like those of the 
 men ; so are the big hob-nailed shoes. In fact, the 
 only concession to femininity is a brilliant scarlet 
 handkerchief, wound round the head in an alto 
 gether bewitching manner. There is nothing so 
 convenient as this costume, when the women ride 
 up to the Alps on their ponies, to milk the cows at 
 nightfall. 
 
 Unfortunately, Champe'ry is becoming such a 
 fashionable tourist resort that the women are get 
 ting a little shy, and no longer go about as freely 
 as they used to do, during the season. 
 
 THEIR GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 Old Reiser had been a fisherman all his life on 
 the lake of Thun, and he was now over seventy.
 
 I2 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Just because to-day happened to be the fiftieth anni 
 versary of his wedding was no reason for stopping 
 work. Besides, lake trout were scarce and in de 
 mand, and his fishing permit came high. So he 
 had spent the day as usual with his nets, off the 
 reeds, where the Aar rushes into the lake. 
 
 In the late afternoon Reiser rowed home, ob 
 liquely across, to the hamlet of Sundlauenen. It 
 was only a handful of dingy chalets, built on the 
 rubble which the Suldbach had brought down 
 through the ages, and inhabited by a wretched, 
 primitive population. As he neared, he turned his 
 boat, they always do in the Oberland, and rode 
 stern foremost under the rustic roof of his boat- 
 house. His wife, who was watching, came to meet 
 him from their cottage. 
 
 She wore the old-fashioned bodice of the Ber 
 nese costume and the wide sleeves. Her face was 
 puckered into weather-beaten wrinkles, her hands 
 hard and callous, her gait stooping and slouchy, 
 peasant-like. As she laid her hand on his arm and 
 pushed him affectionately, her little old eyes were 
 moist with happiness. She had said all along she 
 knew they would never live to celebrate their 
 golden wedding. It was an intuition, she insisted, 
 but now, after all, it was such a relief to know that 
 she was wrong. 
 
 Some young ladies from the Pension at the end 
 of the lake, who were fond of picnicking here, on 
 the grass by the water, nicknamed the old couple 
 the Duke and Duchess, probably because their 
 manners were so much finer than those of real
 
 SWISS IDYLS. j.j 
 
 Dukes and Duchesses. That morning those dear 
 young ladies had brought their wedding gift, she 
 told him. Four pounds of sugar, two of coffee (for 
 them both, you see), some cotton thread and a pa 
 per of pins for her. They had asked about tobacco 
 for old Reiser, but she told them proudly that he 
 never smoked. 
 
 Reiser's wife had never been farther from home 
 than Berne, some twenty- five miles away, and that 
 was in her youth. They had never had any chil 
 dren. He had fished ; she had worked in their 
 vegetable patch, and woven the hemp for his nets, 
 or helped him mend them. It was always a strug 
 gle to make both ends meet, but they had been 
 really happy through it all. "And to think," she 
 repeated, as they came out after supper, "that I 
 felt so sure we would never live to see this day." 
 
 They sat on the bench at the side of the cottage, 
 where the nets hang to dry. There was such a 
 calm on the lake, they could hear people talking 
 on the other shore. From the fringe of the woods 
 came the smell of cyclamen. A quiet light glowed 
 behind the Stockhorn, but the Niesen had already 
 become a purple pyramid turning black. An elec 
 tric light was turned on at the Darlingen steam 
 boat landing, and, soon after, a star appeared over 
 the shoulder of the range opposite. 
 
 Old Rieser and his wife sat hand in hand, like 
 lovers. She had brought out the Bible, as though 
 it were Sunday. At intervals, she still persisted 
 that she had always felt they would never live to 
 see this day. 
 2
 
 I4 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Just then a fish rose. The ripples parted slowly 
 in a circle across the calm, line after line, with 
 out pause, infinite, a symbol of immortality. 
 
 "But now I don't care what happens," said the 
 old woman. And they went in. 
 
 THE LANDSGEMEINDE. 
 
 It is the 6th of May, and Sunday. The whole 
 Canton of Uri is astir. From Goeschenen to 
 Fluelen the people are moving upon Altdorf, 
 walking, driving, or by train. The torrent of the 
 Reuss rumbles through the ravines, across the 
 fodder plains, between shelving stone banks, 
 straight into the lake of Luzern. There is a 
 sprinkling of snow on the summit of the Bristen- 
 stock ; the Gitschen wears a cap of clouds in sign 
 of fine weather. The grass in the orchards is 
 strewn with fragrant shadows. 
 
 Midday at Altdorf. In the market place a 
 procession is forming: first militiamen, then 
 magistrates, beadles in long cloaks, and voters of 
 all types. A tall man in black steps into his car 
 riage, the soldiers salute, the drums roll. With 
 that the march begins, out to the meadow of 
 Botzlingen and der Gand, by the dusty highway. 
 
 One o'clock. Two thousand voters are stand 
 ing in a circle on a wooden platform, with the 
 tall magistrate and a clerk in the center. There 
 are farmers in the ring, and monks from the 
 Capuchin monastery, herders and hotel proprie 
 tors. Almost everybody smokes. On the out 
 skirts the women and children watch and wait.
 
 SWISS IDYLS. 15 
 
 Indeed, there are even some baby carriages in the 
 shade, for the Landsgemeinde is the most patri 
 archal and immemorial assembly to be found the 
 world over. 
 
 But look, the voters bare their heads, and a 
 mighty hush follows, while they repeat their Ave 
 Marias, each to himself. A cuckoo calls from the 
 woods of Attinghausen, somebody at the drinking 
 booth laughs coarsely, the St. Gothard train 
 whistles as it passes. Then the business of the 
 meeting begins. 
 
 Two o'clock. At present the discussion is 
 about the new constitution. Tobacco smoke rises 
 in puffs from the assembly, to disappear in the 
 sunlight. The people on the hill are eating from 
 lunch baskets, mostly filled with hunks of bread 
 and cheese, or, for a treat, drinking from bottles 
 of sour wine. Others are crowding around the 
 refreshment booths, that are ranged along the 
 approach to the meadow, and there they jostle 
 one another awkwardly, trampling the grass in 
 heavy shoes, speaking a guttural dialect. After a 
 while, a vote is taken on the adoption of the con 
 stitution. It is done by a show of hands, but the 
 assembly murmurs and bellows like a bull, while 
 the clerk counts the ayes and nays. 
 
 Three o'clock. And now, the next order of 
 business is the election of officers. A beadle in 
 costume of orange and black rises after each 
 result, lifts his cocked hat, and wishes the new 
 magistrate "health and wealth." But the noise 
 from the outskirts at times interferes with the
 
 jg TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 speakers, so that a policemen is sent to protest, 
 and a man in his cups is marched off for resisting. 
 
 Along the further skyline the twin mountains 
 of Bauen grow dim with the increasing warmth. 
 It seems as though the sun were drawing the 
 scent from spring flowers and fruit blossoms for 
 no purpose, and the breeze scattering it in vain, 
 since the crowd talk, and eat, and drink all un 
 mindful. Perhaps these two young people stand 
 ing by the wall, looking sheepish and saying 
 nothing, feel this beauty, without knowing. 
 
 Four o'clock. The assembly adjourns. Every 
 body presses blindly on to the highway, where the 
 procession reforms and marches back to Altdorf, 
 while many people scatter in groups to every 
 country-side and valley of Canton Uri. After all, 
 it is a noble thing to make your own laws, under 
 God's sky, in sight of His mountains, as your 
 fathers did before you. 
 
 Yes, this Landsgemeinde is crude, with a 
 certain primeval, Germanic uncouthness. But it 
 does its work simply and openly ; in the sunlight. 
 It is democratic, it is the government of all men. 
 Its germ can never die. 
 
 SUMMER PASTURES. 
 
 That morning the cattle of Meiringen sniffed 
 for the free air of the mountains. After their 
 winter in warm pens, they pushed forward on the 
 road, bellowing and stamping the ground. Above 
 the din of their bells rose the cries of the herders, 
 running before and behind. A few horses went
 
 SWISS IDYLS. I7 
 
 along to carry kettles for making cheese, and 
 quite a company of frightened sheep and goats 
 scuttled after, driven by little boys who kept 
 up an altogether senseless cracking of whips. It 
 was the yearly migration of the cattle to the sum 
 mer pastures of the Gschwandenmad Alp. 
 
 The train turned a corner above the Reichen- 
 bach Falls. A trailing diminuendo vibrated in the 
 crystal air. At times a puff of wind would renew 
 the clamor for an instant, but slowly the tones of 
 the bells sank into faint tinklings, the herders' 
 calls sounded muffled, and the little boys grew too 
 tired to crack their whips. 
 
 As they climbed through the woods, the men 
 caught some last glimpses of the valley of Hasli, 
 where, in the patchwork of the plains, young oats 
 and clover stretched side by side in narrow strips. 
 Whenever they passed a chalet, children would 
 be there watching shyly on the steps, tow- 
 headed little things in patched clothes and might 
 shoes. 
 
 At last the beeches and brambles of the lower 
 woods gave way to firs. There was already the 
 keen tonic of the snow in the air, when lo ! at the 
 head of the narrowing valley, the Alp of Gsch 
 wandenmad lay smiling with many thousand 
 flowers. The white Wetterhorn rose on the right, 
 the black Wellhorn in the middle, the glacier of 
 Rosenlaui curled down to the left, and round 
 about the circling forests stood sentinel. It was 
 not long before the huts, deserted all winter, rang 
 from within, and the cattle trampled the soft 
 ground outside into mire and manure. 
 3*
 
 jg TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 At dawn next day a herder carried milk down 
 to Meiringin in a wooden hod fitted to his back. 
 He wore a tight canvas jacket with short sleeves, 
 leaving the arms to bronze in the sun. Where 
 the path was steep, he steadied himself with an 
 alpenstock. His shoes were soiled and iron shod, 
 his head covered with a leather skull cap, and a 
 curved pipe hung persistently from his lips. As 
 he slipped, he swore. 
 
 But in the afternoon his pack was empty, for 
 everything had gone well with him ; and so, when 
 he passed the chalet where Gretli lived, he could 
 not help jodling from a full heart. It was a rough, 
 manly outburst, re-echoing back and forth from 
 the cliffs of the Engelhorner ; in fact, it must have 
 carried Gretli's heart by storm, for later on when 
 the girls came to the Alp for the summer festival 
 of dancing and wrestling, he kept her to himself 
 all day and threw his rival in the ring. 
 
 At noon the herders used to sit down before a 
 bucket-full of boiled milk. Each had a wooden 
 spoon with which to dip in, the handle being 
 curved into a hook, so as to hang on the edge 
 of the bucket. All there was to eat was a piece of 
 bread and a slice of poor cheese. They talked 
 very little, and that in a surly, sing-song way, with 
 the stupid stare of their cattle in their eyes ; some 
 times complaining of their work, for the most part 
 of their poor pay ; cursing alternately the tourists, 
 the heavy air of the plains, or the cold of the 
 mountain nights. There was no sentimental 
 mountaineering cult about them.
 
 SWISS IDYLS. , 9 
 
 Making cheese was a daily task. First, they 
 poured milk into a vast kettle. A little rennet 
 was added to curdle the milk, and the mixture 
 allowed to stand some twenty minutes. Someone 
 then skimmed off the waste with a thin wooden 
 shovel, and stirred the whole with a pine stick, 
 bristling with the buts of the branches left on. 
 This preparation was boiled, poured into a form, 
 allowed to cool, and finally pressed until hard. 
 
 At the end of the summer, when all the hay on 
 the lower pastures was housed, three men climbed 
 beyond the utmost limits of the timber line to the 
 islets of green among the barren crags, where the 
 cows cannot go. They carried their scythes upon 
 the left shoulder, the little cup with the whetstone 
 fastened to the waist, and their broad felt hats 
 were exactly alike. As they climbed in single file, 
 they made their zigzags the same length, swung 
 their bodies to the same time, mounting sure 
 footed with a beautiful precision to the heights. 
 For days they mowed in upper solitudes above the 
 alpine roses, but among the gentians, and the soft 
 gray felt of the edelweiss. They mowed on the 
 brinks of precipices, unconcernedly. It was their 
 only grace, this art of unconscious equilibrium. 
 
 From shelving rocks fringes of silver showers 
 dripped and drifted dust-like in mid air. It was 
 the trickle of the melting snow. The cold wind 
 sang in their ears, coming from a white winter up 
 there, that never turns to spring. Clouds, in torn 
 shreds floated ill-at-ease along the crags in tragic 
 discontent.
 
 20 
 
 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 A few days later the three men carried bales of 
 hay wrapped in canvas down paths hardly fit for 
 goats. With that their summer's work was over. 
 
 As the last afternoon waned, the flowers 
 quaked before the growing keenness of the wind. 
 A mountain bir,d uttered sudden, startled notes. 
 From all the pasture came the haphazard jingling 
 of cow-bells, as the descending cattle advanced 
 towards the hut. They stood about for awhile, 
 switching their tails, while the head herder passed 
 from one to the other with a bag of salt to give 
 each one a handful. When one by one the cows 
 had entered the stables with a last jerk of their 
 bells, a thin blue line rose from the hut where the 
 men were cooking their supper. Their violet veil 
 of twilight hung upon the further mountains, and 
 all was still, save that the torrent rumbled to 
 the night. 
 
 Next day the weather broke. 
 
 W. D. MCCRACKAN.
 
 of an @Uft0f (JJtobef. 
 
 i. 
 
 IT was late when I arrived at the Ecole des 
 Beaux-Arts that morning. Usually, I am 
 there early, for I like to have my easel ar 
 ranged before the model begins to pose. You see 
 artists are so greedy. Those first in the studio 
 select the best points of view, and as for the poor 
 fools who come afterwards ma foi ! they have to 
 put up with what they can find. Yes, I was very 
 late ; indeed it was after eleven when I rushed up 
 the great staircase and entered the long, brilliantly 
 lighted room. 
 
 The confusion which at once met my eyes was 
 bewildering. Instead of being quietly at work, I 
 found every man in the studio had left his easel 
 and was talking in the greatest excitement to him 
 self or to his neighbor. On all sides, disorder pre 
 vailed. Palettes, paints, brushes, were scattered 
 about on the floor in a confusion which made me 
 shudder. Jean Janois was even knocking over an 
 easel as he ran across the floor with a glass of 
 water in his hand. 
 
 " Has a whirlwind struck these mad artists or 
 what is the matter ? " I asked myself, not under-
 
 22 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 standing at all. Suddenly, however, I happened 
 to glance at the model's platform and everything 
 was explained. The model had fainted away. 
 
 "It is terrible exasperating," Sebastien cried 
 with a shrug as he saw me. "She is the most 
 wonderful model we have ever had and now she 
 faints ! Bah ! women should never pose ! " 
 
 " She may not be used to it," I answered care 
 lessly. I could not withdraw my eyes from the 
 beautiful, deathlike face. 
 
 "Very evidently she is not," sneered Sebastien. 
 
 " Will some of you men cease to jabber and 
 come and help me ? " exclaimed Jean Janois as he 
 bent down and pressed the water to the model's 
 lips, while the woman attendant rubbed her life 
 less hands. 
 
 I seized a large fan and went with it to the 
 platform, but Jean Janois took it from me. He 
 insisted on fanning her himself, and he arranged 
 the thick drapery which had been thrown over her 
 prostrate form, for it was chilly. 
 
 " She is my model," continued Sebastien, when 
 I came back. " You can thank me for discover 
 ing the most beautiful woman in the world ! Yes, 
 I found her and I was determined to paint her. 
 She is very poor and wanted the money. 
 
 " Did you say that she is married ? " asked a 
 little man who stood near us. 
 
 " Yes. The husband is dying. Starvation, I 
 imagine. She was glad enough to sign my papers, 
 for it meant bread, perhaps life, to the man she 
 loved. You see she didn't know she must pose 
 nude."
 
 THE STORY OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL. 33 
 
 " Didn't know ? " asked the little man, amazed. 
 
 " And I did not tell her. I had the papers, and 
 people are so foolish ! When will they get over 
 their absurd prejudices and learn to sacrifice 
 notions for art ? " 
 
 Sebastien left us and strode over to Jean Janois. 
 He was impatient for the model to revive, in order 
 that he might go on with his work. 
 
 " You should have been here before ! " declared 
 Ivan Isilei, a young Russian painter, coming up 
 to me. " Ah, but she was superb ! magnificent ! 
 I never saw such a form ! such features ! But she 
 seemed most unhappy, and I could not understand 
 why. That expression a look of agony see, 
 Sebastien has caught it. Sebastien is doing fine 
 work to-day." 
 
 The Russian's chatter might have continued 
 much longer, but at that moment the model, mov 
 ing slightly, opened her eyes and a hum of delight 
 went through the studio. As for me, I stood like 
 one transfixed, rooted to the spot. In all my life I 
 never had beheld such beauty. In all my life I 
 never had seen such hopeless despair. She seemed 
 like some pure spirit who was vainly seeking to 
 escape from torture. The warm blood rushed to 
 my face as I thought indignantly of Sebastien's 
 contemptible conduct in deceiving this delicate, 
 sensitive creature. In her frightened look and 
 helpless attitude, 1 read the anguish and suffering 
 she must have endured before her strength had 
 finally failed her ; the effort which such a sacrifice 
 must have cost one who was so manifestly proud 
 and womanly.
 
 24 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 " What ? " cried Sebastien fiercely, interrupting 
 my reflections. " Does she refuse to pose longer ? 
 Does she dare to refuse ? " 
 
 " She's not the ordinary kind," explained the 
 attendant, who was a rough, uncouth woman, 
 "and you know, monsieur, that she had a bad 
 turn a very bad turn." 
 
 Jean Janois was helping the model to rise, and 
 Sebastien stood before him like a lion, his power 
 ful frame trembling with anger. Sebastien is a 
 large man. 
 
 " You are breaking your promise the agree 
 ment which you signed yourself, woman ! " he 
 said, not heeding the attendant " and I tell you, 
 if you dare to do such a thing, not one sou shall 
 you receive for your pains. You can go back to 
 your dying husband and tell him where you have 
 been, but " 
 
 " Oh, heaven help me ! " the woman whispered 
 in despair, standing erect, as she pulled the soft 
 white drapery tightly about her, and looked in 
 every direction for some escape. 
 
 I started forward without waiting another in 
 stant. Directly behind the platform was a door 
 which led to the dressing room. Quickly opening 
 this, I made signs to the attendant, who at once 
 understanding my purpose, led her out without a 
 word. 
 
 When I came back to the studio, Sebastien was 
 walking up and down like a lunatic. Ma foi, how 
 his eyes blazed ! I joined a group of men who 
 stood admiring the full-length, life-size sketch on 
 his easel.
 
 THE STORY OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL. 25 
 
 " A marvelous beginning ! " said one. " He 
 has worked this morning as though inspired. 
 What a pity he could not have finished ! " 
 
 " It would have been cruelty. She was almost 
 killed as it was. But what a magnificent head ! " 
 
 " She might pose for Venus," the little man 
 declared enthusiastically, as he gazed at the half- 
 finished canvas. 
 
 Sebastien joined us. 
 
 " By heavens, she shall not get off so easily ! " 
 he declared, " I will paint that woman if I have to 
 drag her here again. I will tell her that her 
 effeminate husband shall learn of her little esca 
 pade, and that will probably bring her." 
 
 " But did not the husband know ? " 
 
 "I should rather think not. There was some 
 sentimental nonsense, and she made me promise 
 he should be kept in ignorance. But if worse 
 comes to worse," continued the man, " perhaps 
 each of you will let me have his sketch. I could 
 do something in that way, for I'm bound to paint 
 her ! and now I suppose we must hunt for 
 another model." 
 
 " Find one who does not faint, this time," 
 laughed Ivan Isilei. I was disgusted at Sebastien, 
 and so was Jean Janois. He put his arm through 
 mine and we left the studio. 
 
 Two days afterward I found out where she 
 lived. Sebastien had told Jean Janois, and the 
 latter came and took me off to an out-of-the-way 
 corner of Paris, to investigate the case, for we 
 were both interested. 
 3
 
 2 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 " If she is really in want, it should be seen to," 
 he had said, and I agreed with him. 
 
 The house was in a dark, narrow street, and it, 
 too, looked very dark and narrow as we entered. 
 One thing about it was bright, however, and that 
 was the hostess. She was a short, stout woman, 
 with a red, shining face, and much false hair. We 
 found her washing windows, and she dropped her 
 towel quickly as she turned and saw we had been 
 admitted. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Jean Janois with a 
 slight cough. 
 
 " Pray, what may I do for you, messieurs ? " she 
 asked, as Jean hesitated. 
 
 " We wish to render some assistance to a poor 
 lady, who, we are told, lives here and whose hus 
 band is ill." 
 
 " Ah, del, but you do come too late ! " she cried 
 with an engaging smile. " Madame and her hus 
 band are gone. They left yesterday, and I hope 
 by this time they are both feeling better, poor 
 things." 
 
 " What ! Gone ? Left Paris ? " I asked, stupe 
 fied. 
 
 " Yes, left Paris ! You see monsieur had a let 
 ter which brought good fortune and by this time 
 I dare say they are far away, under the skies of 
 Italy. Ah me ! I was in Italy once when I was 
 young." 
 
 " But we heard that he was dying ? " declared 
 Jean Janois. 
 
 " And he will die sometime, poor monsieur ! " 
 she answered softly, wiping her eyes.
 
 THE STORY OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL. 
 
 27 
 
 " Madame and her husband were very poor ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes ! " she said, while she settled her 
 self as a woman does who enjoys the prospect of 
 telling a sad story. 
 
 " You see," she continued, " monsieur was Eng 
 lish, and madame was an angel ! monsieur's 
 family objected to the match. You see, monsieur's 
 family in England are very fine, and madame, 
 though so good, is poor. They have been here six 
 months and monsieur has grown weaker every 
 day. Consumption, you see. I'm sure, if care and 
 devotion could do anything, monsieur should get 
 well, for in all that time madame has never left 
 him once till the other day." 
 
 Here the hostess paused a moment, for she was 
 scant of breath. " The other day," she went on, 
 " madame came to me early in the morning with a 
 happy face. ' I'm going to win us good fortune,' 
 she said, and then she told me how the doctor had 
 declared that the only way to save monsieur's life 
 was to go South. How she had been in despair 
 when she had heard this ; how happy she was now 
 since she had found a way to bring it about. 
 Would I stay with monsieur ? Of course I would. 
 ' It is so hard to leave Jack,' she said, monsieur is 
 Jack, you see, but I promised to take good care of 
 him and so she went. While she was gone the 
 letter came. It brought sunshine back to mon 
 sieur's pale face. For the first time in weeks he 
 was getting up to dress, when all at once madame 
 came back. Ah, messieurs, I never saw such a 
 wretched woman. Changed ? She was twenty
 
 2 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 years older ! When I opened the door, she fell 
 into my arms, and she dared not go to monsieur 
 for some time. Neither he nor I ever found out 
 what the trouble was. The letter put all other 
 thoughts out of his mind, you see, and yes, they 
 went yesterday. They have promised to write to 
 me," 
 
 " Then we can do nothing to help them ? " 
 asked Jean Janois regretfully. 
 
 " I think not. Do you know you are the second 
 here to-day, to enquire for madame ? Another 
 gentleman came this morning. He was really 
 angry, and would not believe me at first when I 
 said they were gone." 
 
 " Was he very tall very large ? " I enquired. 
 
 "Yes, very. He quite frightened me," she 
 declared with a shrug. 
 
 " It was Sebastien," said Jean Janois. 
 
 II. 
 
 Springtime in Paris. Where is the spring 
 more gay ? The brilliant sky, the laughing 
 crowds, the flowers, and best of all best for me 
 the Salon. 
 
 Jean Janois had his arm in mine as we made 
 our way through the throng and looked at the long 
 lines of pictures. We had been here for hours and 
 could not get away. There is a fascination about 
 the opening day which I never can outlive. It is 
 the great holiday for artists, and certainly all Paris 
 seems to enjoy it as much as we do. First one
 
 THE STORY OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL. 2 g 
 
 man, then another, had begged us to come and see 
 where his picture was hung. Of course, nobody 
 was satisfied with the hanging I say nobody, 
 but I am wrong. Sebastien was thoroughly satis 
 fied. He had obtained the Prix de Rome and his 
 picture was in the place of honor. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " I asked surprised, when 
 suddenly Jean Janois gave my arm a terrible pinch. 
 
 " See ! see ! he whispered excitedly, pointing 
 through the crowd, " It is oh, it is ! " 
 
 " Are you insane ? " I inquired, laughing, but 
 looking in the direction he had pointed, I instantly 
 became grave. Not six feet from us, a lady and 
 gentleman were standing, gazing with fixed atten 
 tion at an Eastern picture by Ge"rome. The pallid 
 face of the man told of weariness and ill health, 
 but he stood erect and smiled in light-hearted en 
 joyment as he listened to his wife's quiet words. 
 And the wife ? Could that beautiful woman, so 
 quietly but elegantly dressed, whose every move 
 ment breathed, a soft refinement, be our model ? 
 It certainly was, and both Jean Janois and I shud 
 dered as we thought of the terrible meaning of her 
 presence. 
 
 " How can we get them away ? " I whispered, 
 conscious that something must be done. 
 
 " There is the chance that they may not see," 
 said Jean. 
 
 " But they will see if they stay." 
 
 As I spoke, the fair-faced Englishman looked 
 down at his wife. We were so near I could not 
 help listening to their conversation. 
 3*
 
 - TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 "Why is it, Marie, that you do not care to look 
 at pictures any more ? " he was saying in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " And why is it that you think I do not ? " 
 
 "You really did not care to come to-day 
 confess. " 
 
 " I shall confess nothing. If you enjoy it, you 
 know I do." 
 
 " Ah ! Marie, I believe you would do anything 
 for me you never think of yourself. Do you 
 know," he went on, smiling, " I feel better already 
 since we have come back to Paris. I am a differ 
 ent man to-day. I shall soon be well, Marie, don't 
 you think I shall, dear ? " 
 
 They began to move slowly down the room. 
 Jean Janois and I followed them. 
 
 " See ! " said the Englishman, suddenly turn 
 ing " what is all that crowd doing over there ? By 
 Jove, Marie, we must go and see. It is probably 
 the gem of the collection, or it wouldn't attract so 
 many people. And we had almost missed it 
 come." 
 
 I looked at Jean Janois in terror. He actually 
 turned pale. Before we had time to think further 
 or seek some means of stopping them, both had 
 been lost from us in the crowd. 
 
 A curious murmur seemed to rise soon after 
 wards, and I saw the tall Englishman and his wife 
 slowly making their way through the surprised 
 throng, unobservant of the strange attention they 
 were attracting. 
 
 "What are they doing? Oh, what will hap-
 
 THE STORY OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL. $ l 
 
 pen ? " I cry in agony to Jean Janois. Then I 
 leap through the crowd, pushing my way like a 
 madman, not heeding how I go, but only intent on 
 preventing, if possible, the calamity which seems 
 so near. Men stare, women remonstrate, children 
 cry, but I care not. I only dash on with the wild, 
 unreasoning hope of snatching the pair in front of 
 me from a terrible revelation, but I am too late. 
 Even as I stretch out my hand to draw him back, 
 the man raises his eyes and sees. 
 
 A vision, so fair, so beautiful that one might 
 truly say, it is a spirit too pure for this rough 
 world, is on the wall before us. The portrait of 
 the woman who stands, perfectly nude, looking 
 down upon the throng, is a wonderful production 
 of art. Its beauty is enchanting, dazzling. The 
 face seems to breathe forth radiance, and yet, in 
 the proud turn of the head, the piercing eyes, one 
 can almost read a silent appeal for pity. Certainly 
 Sebastien has done his work well, and merits the 
 praise he is receiving on all sides. His picture is 
 true to the life, cruelly true, for every one here 
 can see its counterpart. 
 
 Shall I ever forget that cry ? It is so faint that 
 it scarcely reaches my ears, yet it is so full of 
 meaning it thrills every fibre of my body. Anguish, 
 reproach, despair, seem rending a man's heart in 
 shreds, and the broken words which come with 
 the cry do not speak half so plainly. 
 
 " A man has fallen senseless ! " soon I hear a 
 woman call out, but I am almost too dazed to heed 
 her.
 
 - 2 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 " Water ! air ! Oh, see his poor wife ! " declares 
 another. 
 
 In the awe-stricken silence, I look down at the 
 white face of the man before me. His eyes are 
 closed, his hands relaxed, and with horror I see a 
 bright stream issuing from his mouth. 
 
 " Oh, Jack ! Jack ! " sobs Marie, kneeling at 
 his side. " Only hear me, Jack, hear me ! It was 
 for you, Jack, for you ! Oh, darling, darling, say 
 you hear, it was all for you " 
 
 The eyes open for a moment, and seem to 
 smile. Then all is still ; and the desolate woman 
 who waits so long and silently for an answer, can 
 only guess that he has heard. 
 
 Sunshine and shadow, shadow and sunshine, 
 continually they chase each other across our lives, 
 and leave them never wholly colorless. However 
 sad the changing drama we call life may be, how 
 ever vivid the memory of a great and lasting sor 
 row, there still is here and there a gleam of cheer 
 which brings a short forgetfulness. 
 
 Jean Janois and I have been sketching in 
 Bretigny this summer. To-day, as we were draw 
 ing the moss-covered towers of an old convent, a 
 crowd of little charity children playing in the 
 court came to look over our shoulders. Suddenly, 
 the convent door opened, and the figure of a nun 
 appeared on the threshold. As I looked, the chil 
 dren left us, and ran joyfully towards her. 
 
 " Come, oh come, ma soeur, and see the pic 
 tures ! " they cried, laughing as they nestled in 
 her black gown.
 
 THE STORY OF AN ARTIST'S MODEL. 33 
 
 The grave, sweet face looked down upon the 
 eager little ones and gave them a sad, lingering 
 smile ; then gently but quickly drawing them 
 within, she disappeared in silence. 
 
 Jean Janois and I looked at the closed door, 
 Speechless for a whole minute. 
 
 " You think Sister Maria is very beautiful, don't 
 you ? " asked a bright-eyed boy, close at my elbow. 
 
 " Very," I answered, as soon as I could speak. 
 
 "So do I so do we all. We love her !" he 
 announced, smiling as he gazed curiously into our 
 astonished faces. 
 
 Jean Janois returned his smile, and I grasped 
 the little fellow by the hand. 
 
 As he turned and ran across the courtyard, I 
 saw tears in Jean's eyes. 
 
 " Did you recognize her, too ? " I asked. 
 
 REUEL CROMPTON TUTTLE.
 
 t# tffeef 
 
 AND though the poet was one of that noisy 
 band of travelers that had sought shelter 
 at the inn for the night, yet he differed 
 from each and all, for he was a man who saw life 
 not as we see it, and, being a poet, looked he not 
 with poet's eyes ? 
 
 The snug room of the inn with its roaring fire 
 seemed cheerful, as the wind and rain played 
 havoc at the window casements, while, in sharp 
 contrast to the low hum of voices, came ever and 
 anon the snapping of some tree's branch in the 
 court, or a strange creaking sound as the sign of 
 the "White Horse" swung to and fro on its rusted 
 hinges. The candles burned dim, but the fire was 
 bright, and when one piled fresh logs upon the 
 hearth, and the flames leaped up and lighted all 
 the room, the poet drew aside from the circle of 
 wayfarers gathered round their mugs of ale, and 
 sat gazing upon the flames, thinking, for he was a 
 meditative man. And as he looked intently at the 
 blaze, and marked how the seething flames thrust 
 out long red arms that encircled every piece of the 
 wood, he saw a small log and a large log, from the 
 same tree, lying together apart from the rest.
 
 WITH POET'S EYES. 35 
 
 And when the flames reached them he noticed 
 that the large log burned quickly, and turned to 
 ashes, but the smaller one resisted and was slower 
 in consuming, yet it was also burned to ashes, at 
 the last. 
 
 Now the poet thought within himself of this, 
 and it seemed to him that the flame of the fire was 
 the flame of life, and that a drama had been played 
 out before his eyes. As he sat he mused upon the 
 thing, and musing spoke, while his companions 
 drew near that they might catch his words, for he 
 was of repute amongst them all. And the poet 
 told his tale, and said : 
 
 " Would that we could see return to us those 
 days of good Queen Bess who ruled our land so 
 wisely and so well, those days of chivalry, when 
 life and love were free, when bravery was its own 
 reward, and stainless honor ruled in the hearts of 
 men ! But the past is past ! Now in those days, 
 those golden days of which I speak, there lived a 
 sailor lad, brave and true as is every British sailor ; 
 and beneath his coat, his blue coat with its rows of 
 shining buttons, there was a heart that throbbed 
 with love for that dear country, his own native 
 land. And he longed for the coming time when 
 he could fight for her causes as for his causes, and 
 defend her honor as his own. 
 
 " The sailor was but a boy, yet he loved with 
 all the love of his boyish heart a maiden whom he 
 had known since the time, when years ago they 
 wandered through the dales of his dear home, 
 hand clasped in hand. Nor did he love and woo
 
 3 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 her in vain, for she gave her heart to him, and 
 joyfully she thought of her bonnie laddie who in 
 years to come would be her shield and stay, and 
 locked in whose protecting arms every grief could 
 be conquered and every fear defied. 
 
 "But happiness must have an end and the 
 sailor must face the stormy sea, and far from home, 
 and far from her whom he loved, must he fight 
 his country's battles till he could return again. 
 Yet ever in dreams would his spirit fly to the little 
 low-roofed cottage and linger with the loved ones 
 there. And the maiden left alone would pray to 
 the God above, that His watchful care might ever 
 surround her laddie, 'till he could come to her 
 from his wanderings on the sea. But why did the 
 God of love not hear her prayer, or, hearing, fail to 
 grant it? We cannot say time rules us all, and 
 fate is fate ! 
 
 " Deep down beneath the waves of the stormy 
 northern sea he found a grave. For three long 
 centuries have the winds dashed into whitened 
 foam the waters that surge above his breast. 
 While far from where he lies, far off in dear old 
 England, the land he loved so well, in the years 
 that came they laid to rest in a quiet churchyard 
 a gray-haired woman. Wearied and worn with 
 watching she sleeps with a peaceful smile upon 
 her face, awaiting the time when love shall meet 
 with love again. 
 
 "'Tis a simple tale, my friends, and one of 
 years long gone," the poet said, "but bear in mind 
 that hearts were truly hearts and faithful love was 
 faithful love three centuries ago."
 
 WITH POET'S EYES. 
 
 37 
 
 The poet, having spoken, turned and looked 
 upon his friends, but one was gone, and another 
 was not listening, and still another drowsed. So 
 he turned once more to the fire and pondered 
 with himself why they had shown no interest in 
 his tale. It was too long, the poet thought, or 
 mayhap it was too short, or yet because it hap 
 pened so many, many years ago they felt no interest 
 in it. Thus mused the poet with himself, for he was 
 a man who saw life not as we see it, and being a 
 poet, looked he not with poet's eyes ? 
 
 Ah, foolish man, 'twas not that thy tale was 
 long or that thy tale was short ; 'twas not that it 
 spoke of men and times now passed, nay, not for 
 these things did men fail to hear thee, or hearing, 
 gave no thought ! Hadst thou but spoken to them 
 of false and fickle vows, of broken hearts that 
 mend themselves, and love that dies and lives, and 
 dies and lives again, thou mightest have made thy 
 tale full twice as long, and men would still have 
 listened and even begged for more. Humanity 
 you know not, nor ever can, while you hold to 
 your simple views of a simple life. 'Tis not the 
 dove which, tame, feeds from the hands and builds 
 its nest and rears its young in quiet and secluded 
 spots, it is the vulture which, with loud cries and 
 hoarse shrieks of satisfaction, swoops down upon 
 the carrion only and claws it with its horrid talons, 
 and tears it with its sharpened beak, and is not 
 content until it lays bare a rotting and putrid 
 heart. 
 
 Oh, gentle-minded poet, such is the world you 
 live in, such are the men you meet ! 
 4 
 
 362026
 
 3 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Yet the poet thought not thus, but while the 
 wind still drove the rain against the casement, and 
 the huge trees in the court still swayed and tossed 
 their creaking branches, he sat by the dying glow 
 of the fire musing as ever, and blaming himself 
 that the tale had been too long, and the time and 
 place too far away. 
 
 DAVID WILLARD.
 
 ffle Coffee 
 
 A FARCE. 
 
 Scene. The breakfast table. 
 
 Dramatis Persona : 
 
 PAUL. An only son away at college. 
 
 CHARLES. Paul's father comfortable, complaisant ; 
 coffee cup in one hand, newspaper in the other ; head bald 
 as a billiard ball and gilded in patches by the sun shin 
 ing through geraniums. 
 
 EDITH. Paul's little cross-eyed sister with a yellow 
 pig-tail ; sullenly eating a big plate of oat-meal, which 
 she abominates with an utter abomination. 
 
 AUNT SUE. A grimly conscientious lady who was 
 never young and whose milk of human kindness she 
 would indignantly deny it is diluted. Her only real 
 pleasures lie in visiting the Chamber of Horrors and 
 reading the Old Testament. Estimable woman ! She 
 takes the place of a mother to the children, and is sitting 
 at the head of the table among shining urns. 
 
 GRANDPA. Deaf. 
 
 WAITRESS. 
 
 CURTAIN RISES. 
 
 AUNT SUE (in agitated falsetto] Charles, 
 Charles, do put up that paper and attend 
 to breakfast. You make it so hard for the 
 servant, and she's always complaining about it to 
 me. Come, don't be so disagreeable.
 
 ._ TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 4 
 
 CHARLES (absently and thoroughly absorbed in the 
 paper) Yes, dear, yes, dear. 
 
 AUNT SUE. Edith, if you can't sit up any 
 straighter Janet will get you a sofa pillow. There, 
 that will do ! I can't allow my little girl to lounge 
 at the table. 
 
 EDITH (sulkily) Please gimmy a fried cate ! 
 
 AUNT SUE. No, Edith, I don't approve of 
 greasy fried cakes (helping herself to one) for chil 
 dren. Grown-up people can eat with perfect pro 
 priety what would be very injurious to little girls. 
 
 EDITH (with a sob] Please gimmy a biscuit ! 
 
 AUNT SUE (wearily) Edith, you make it very 
 hard for me. If my little girl wants to suffer 
 agonies from indigestion after she becomes a young 
 lady, why (in sudden passion) just take a hot biscuit ! 
 Take it ! Take it and make yourself sick ! Make 
 me sit up with you all night ! Me an invalid ! 
 (Calmly) You can't have a thing till you stop 
 your snivelling. 
 
 ( Waitress enters with a letter for " Charles Endi- 
 cott, Esq." and lays it by his plate. 
 
 CHARLES (buried in newspaper) Humph ! 
 (glances at envelope) Ha ! (reads) : " If not called 
 for in three days return to Dr. Hogg, President of 
 Suspension College." (Drops newspaper?) Why, its 
 about Paul ! I hope he hasn't been doing any 
 thing. 
 
 AUNT SUE (with stinging sarcasm) Doing any 
 thing ! Of course he hasn't been doing anything ! 
 I wonder that you send him to college, Charles. 
 I know he's only flinging his time away with evil
 
 OVER THE COFFEE CUPS. 4 ! 
 
 associates and learning wicked habits, and if I 
 only had my way 
 
 EDITH (thrusting her devoted head between the open 
 jaws of a lioness) Paul is a good boy ! He is not 
 wicked ! And I love him ! 
 
 AUNT SUE. Let me hear another word from 
 you, and you go upstairs to bed ! 
 
 (Charles dashes letter to the table with a slam ; cloth 
 becomes a morass of coffee. Then silence. 
 
 CHARLES. I am bitterly disappointed in that 
 boy, bitterly disappointed. He has been sus 
 pended from college a son of mine ! and is 
 coming home. 
 
 AUNT SUE. Well, I hope you're satisfied now ! 
 I always said so ! I always expected something of 
 the kind always! Am surprised that it didn't 
 happen long ago ! If I were you I'd just shut the 
 door in 
 
 GRANDPA (deaf as an adder but wiser) Charles, 
 the sooner you buy that boy a shovel and wheel 
 barrow and set him to work, the better ! 
 
 EDITH (passionately) Paul isn't wasting his op 
 portunities and he shan't go to work ! 
 
 AUNT SUE. Edith Endicott, look me straight 
 in the face ! 
 
 (Dead silence ; clock ticks patiently; exit Edith 
 from the room in tears. 
 
 AUNT SUE. There now! This has brought 
 on my palpitation again. (Idly) Oh no, it's of no 
 consequence, Charles, none in the least. No, I 
 shall not have the doctor ! Charles Endicott, if 
 you send up the doctor I shall refuse to see him ! 
 4*
 
 42 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 I shall suffer patiently and in silence, as I always 
 do. Oh, certainly, you were perfectly right ! You 
 kept right on indulging him, and pampering him, 
 and letting him fritter money away. I thought 
 sure you wanted to see him come home disgraced ! 
 Women don't know anything about bringing up 
 children ! Don't you think it's about time you 
 took my advice for once? Don't you think it's 
 about time you pulled Paul up short like an omni 
 bus horse, and made him work ? Don't you think 
 that a little firmness, a little severity, before it's 
 too late ga, ga. (Looks toward the door with eyes of 
 agate. Collapses?) 
 
 Enter Paul clad in a little London hat, the sublime 
 airiness of whose pose is just short of the miraculous, a 
 coat that was apparently constructed for the Siamese 
 Twins, wicked looking gaiters, and a wreathing smile. 
 He staggers under the weight of a dress-suit case, gun 
 case, racquet case, walking sticks, etc., and leads a little 
 sporting terrier by a string. 
 
 Charles stands pawing the ground like an angry 
 bull who has sighted a red rag then bursts forth : 
 
 By Jupiter, I'll go for you! I'll ugh! ugh! 
 
 ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! 
 
 (chokes in a fit of coughing.) 
 
 GRANDPA. What a shocking overcoat he's got 
 on, Charles! Thoroughly Bowery! I hope its 
 paid for. 
 
 CHARLES. I hope it is ! (To Paul, who is about 
 to speak) Don't you dare to interrupt me, sir! 
 Don't you open your mouth ! So you have come 
 back here with your shame, have you, in the dress
 
 OVER THE COFFEE CUPS. 43 
 
 of a gambler, and the character of one. Do you 
 realize, sir, that I'd rather see you come home 
 in your coffin than like this ! Suspended from 
 college ! (Snorts) Do you know what that means ? 
 So do I I went to college once myself hold 
 your tongue ! It means that you have been drag 
 ging your name and mine through every gin shop 
 and den of vice in the city and squandering your 
 money with low people, and by George, sir, it 
 makes me want to think I never had a son. Go to 
 your room. 
 
 EDITH. (Clattering down stairs and across the 
 hall) O o ! Oh, Paul ! you dear thing ! (hugs 
 him] O e! 
 
 (CURTAIN.) 
 LUCIAN WATERMAN ROGERS.
 
 (glmiee. 
 
 [Reprinted from Short Stories.] 
 
 September 77, 1793. 
 
 LA FORCE. 
 
 MY Dear Eugene, you would be grieved if you 
 could see me now as I sit writing to you 
 by the dim light of a feeble candle. 
 
 Does it shock you this heading of mine that 
 stares so boldly in your startled eyes from the top 
 of the page? Does it say that I am disgraced, 
 and do you believe it ? If so, pardon me for the 
 sake of old times and old friendships. But in the 
 old times the King ruled, and we sang "O Rich 
 ard, O mon Roi ! " but now the people gone mad 
 must have their say and we must suffer and en 
 dure and listen to the people sing "Ca Ira." 
 
 You would ask how came I here. When I 
 have answered, you will say, what a fool to have 
 gone back. Just so. Yet listen. 
 
 You know that when the rest of us fled my 
 brother remained behind. He had done much for 
 the people and trusted to their gratitude. You 
 cry out, "How foolish!" Exactly. He thought 
 they would not harm him. He was mistaken. 
 They would have torn a dog to pieces if it had 
 borne my name.
 
 AMIEE. 4S 
 
 They seized and condemned him to death. I 
 heard of his imprisonment and went back to save 
 him. It was unjust that he should suffer for my 
 sins. I came too late. From a sheltering door 
 step I saw the mad mob rush past me and in their 
 midst, on a pike held high in the air, was my 
 brother's head. I tried to get across the frontier 
 and escape, hiding in the woods and under dung 
 hills by day, and dragging myself along the road 
 by night, living on refuse that the dogs would not 
 eat. In vain. I was discovered by a vile ditch- 
 digger from Rouen, who, meeting me on the road, 
 recognized me, and, urged to patriotism by the re 
 membrance of what he was pleased to call his 
 daughter's wrongs, he betakes himself to the vil 
 lage and reports his discovery, and so this worthy 
 patriot, with a score of equally worthy patriots, lie 
 in wait and seize me as I stagger wearily along. 
 
 The peasants have become virtuous, my 
 friends, or desire to appear so, and have tenacious 
 memories for former trifles that were better for 
 gotten. A strange time is this when the cattle are 
 become hypocrites and we nobles in sackcloth and 
 ashes pose for martyrs. 
 
 They placed me in charge of an escort armed 
 with pikes and old muskets, and sent me off to 
 Paris to the court of condemnation. I could tell 
 you of things that I saw en route that would make 
 your blood run cold, but I spare you. And yet, 
 this word of warning. If you value your heads 
 keep away from here, for the people are gone mad, 
 and our blood flows freer in the present than ever 
 did our wine in the past.
 
 4 5 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 To make a long story short, we reached Paris 
 the next morning, and my trial came off without 
 delay. When my worthy friend, the patriot from 
 Rouen, told how he knew me and ended up his re 
 marks with a burst of tears, it was all over with 
 me. The galleries howled and stormed : " Down 
 Lamoutte, Down ! To the guillotine, Lamoutte ! " 
 You shoiild have heard them ! 
 
 The judge rang his bell and the jurors voted 
 separately, and at every vote the galleries roared 
 anew. Decreed in the name of the Republic one and in 
 divisible : The prisoner is an enemy of the People. 
 Back to La Force with him, and death within the 
 week. 
 
 Cattle ! 
 
 Picture to yourself a long, low hall with hard 
 wooden benches nailed to the stone walls, long, 
 narrow windows with great iron gratings, hardly 
 admitting a ray of light. This is our prison I 
 say ours, for there are some six score of us to 
 gether. Fair-haired girls and grandmothers, 
 courtiers, nobles, waiting to look out of the little 
 window. 
 
 The whole company rose and bowed to me as 
 the jailor thrust me into the room, and a tall, ele 
 gantly formed man, with white hair and face like a 
 Greek philosopher, stepped forward. 
 
 " May I ask," said he, bowing most courteously, 
 "to what cause we owe the pleasure of your com 
 pany ? " 
 
 "The Republic is displeased with its humble 
 servant." 
 
 He smiled quietly. " It is a breach of good
 
 AMIEE. 47 
 
 manners that needs correcting ; we are all, I fear, 
 sufferers from the same rudeness," was his com 
 ment. There was a laugh. He then asked my 
 name and condition, with the remark that it would 
 be rude made elsewhere, but the time and place 
 permitted it. My reply was evidently satisfactory, 
 for he turned to the others and said : 
 
 "This gentleman, the Marquis of Lamoutte, 
 has had the good fortune to be sent among us for 
 a short time, and I hope you will all strive to 
 make his stay as pleasant as possible. And you, 
 Monsieur, will, I hope, take part in all of our gay- 
 eties and be cheerful and entertaining, forgetting 
 your own misfortunes and striving to make others 
 forget theirs. This is the only duty required of 
 you." He then took me by the hand and led me 
 around the circle, introducing me to all in the 
 room. 
 
 What astonished me most was the perfect com 
 posure and even gayety pervading all their actions. 
 I hardly noticed an anxious look or a nervous 
 movement among them, yet like myself they are 
 all condemned to death. 
 
 There is one person to whom I am quite at 
 tracted, a sweet young girl of some twenty years, 
 with long, brown hair and very dark blue eyes. I 
 imagine I hear you laugh. " Up to the old tricks 
 again," you say. You are mistaken. This is not 
 the time nor place. Man goes to his death better 
 than he goes through life. 
 
 September i8th. 
 
 Our life here is a constant round of theatrical
 
 .g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 entertainments, readings, game playing, and even 
 dancing. Anything to make the time pass quickly, 
 and keep our minds from the thoughts of what the 
 future has in store for us all. Last night we had 
 a little play written by Madame Duron, which was 
 well presented by the Dramatic Club. You would 
 be surprised to have seen how well the parts were 
 taken. We are to have another performance to 
 night. If it were not for the gloomy surroundings, 
 wooden benches, and cold stone walls, with their 
 little windows, you would think to see us that we 
 were attending a levee at the Tuilleries. Our 
 clothes are somewhat in need of repairing and 
 brushing, but our manners are, as ever, au fait. 
 
 The Count and I have become quite friendly 
 since he took me in charge yesterday. He com 
 manded the French Guard at the palace on the 
 loth of August his accounts of the affair are 
 most interesting. I asked him, if, in his opinion, 
 the King could have crushed the revolution if he 
 had placed himself at the head of the Swiss and 
 other faithful troops. He shook his head. " It 
 might have been ; there was every chance of it 
 succeeding. Even if the King had trusted Du- 
 mouriez, all would have been well, but the King 
 was weak, pitifully weak. Poor Louis, he was an 
 honest man, but the hand of fate was against him. 
 There was nought for him but to die as a King 
 should." 
 
 "I cannot see," I said, "how you bear yourself 
 so calmly amid such scenes as these about us, for 
 you always appear gay as if there was nought but
 
 AMIEE. 49 
 
 happiness in the world." He looked at me keenly, 
 and an amused smile lighted up his features. 
 " My dear Marquis," he said, placing his arm in 
 mine, as we began to walk toward the end of the 
 room. "A man should forget himself in times 
 like these, and live only for others. I have faced 
 death too often in the service of my king to fear 
 it now when I am in the service of my f ellowmen. 
 There are frail girls and weak women here, and I 
 strive to make them forget there is such a thing as 
 to-morrow, but teach them to live only in the 
 present. And they are willing to laugh at any 
 thing, that they may forget to weep." He is a true 
 and noble man, this Count ; if I were a Christian I 
 would say " God bless him." 
 
 After the play last night I danced the minuet 
 with the little girl I spoke of in yesterday's entry. 
 Her name is Amie'e Dumont, and she is of Prov 
 ence. 
 
 "Monsieur," she said, when we had taken our 
 place for the dance, "you are from Provence, are 
 you not ? " "I have that pleasure," I replied. 
 " And may I ask if you are a relation of Richard 
 Lamoutte ? " " We are one and the same person." 
 Her eyes met mine and I saw in them a look 
 almost of hate, and certainly full of scorn. She 
 lowered them immediately, and said sarcastically, 
 "I have heard of you before." "You might add 
 that you have never heard any good of me ; that 
 would have been nearer what you really meant." 
 " I have heard, Monsieur, that you took advantage 
 of the laws and that only recently. It was a 
 6
 
 e TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 cruel thing to do and one that has caused much 
 bloodshed and hatred in this poor country." 
 
 She had continued to keep her eyes upon the 
 floor, but suddenly looking up into my face added, 
 "I hope they slandered you, Monsieur." I meant 
 to say they did, but those deep eyes fixed full upon 
 me, made me hesitate. " Alas, Mademoiselle, it is 
 but too true." "And did you tell the starving 
 people who came to you, that you cared not 
 whether they lived or died as long as they payed 
 the faille ; I heard this told of you, too." I had re 
 covered myself somewhat, and answered meekly 
 as if I were one bitterly wronged : 
 
 " In that, they slandered me. I was sorry to 
 see them dying, but what could I do ? They hated 
 and would not trust me ; I did all in my power, 
 and yet they would have torn me to pieces last 
 year had I not escaped." 
 
 She folded her hands before her, and leaned 
 forward with upturned face as if interested. 
 " Why, then, did you return if you were in safety ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 My voice trembled at the memory of that 
 dreadful scene at Rouen, and she noticed it, for 
 she looked at me as if astonished at my show of 
 feeling, and her face seemed kindlier. 
 
 " I had a brother who was in their hands. I 
 came back to save him, to give myself if need 
 be to their vengeance if they would spare him." 
 "And you saw him?" "He was dead, Madem 
 oiselle, I had come too late." 
 
 Just then the dancing began, but I noticed that
 
 AMIEE. 5 z 
 
 she kept glancing at me continually throughout 
 the dance. After we had finished she bade me 
 good night without another word, and went down 
 to the other end of the corridor, singing the old 
 royalist refrain, "O Richard, O mon Roi, 1'un- 
 iverse 'ti abandonne." 
 
 September 2Oth. 
 
 O sleep, thou that comest to us all in the silence 
 of the night, bearing to the heart weary of toil 
 and of vain struggles a certain rest and quiet from 
 daily temptations, thou that art a sign and promise 
 of a deeper and everlasting peace that shall be 
 ours when the curtain falls upon the comedy of 
 our vanity and folly, how hast thou betrayed me ? 
 Through all the night hast thou been summoning 
 before me the phantoms of past misdeeds, and 
 hast awaked to resurrection the voice of a con 
 science long slumbering. But yet there has been 
 this alleviation for thy betrayal ; for through the 
 blackness of these voiceless shadows thy face, O 
 Amiee, shines upon me, and I hear your voice sing 
 ing softly, " O, Richard, O mon Roi." 
 
 Restless and unstrung, I could not sleep last 
 night, so I walked up and down the room to 
 rid myself of this vague feeling of unrest. I had 
 been walking perhaps half an hour when, as I ap 
 proached the lower end of the hall, I heard some 
 one call me. Turning around, I found myself face 
 to face with Mademoiselle. 
 
 " You are restless to-night, Monsieur, or is it 
 the cold ? " " The cold, surely are you suffering 
 from the same cause ? "
 
 5 2 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 She looked down shyly and her voice was very 
 grave when she answered, " Yes, Monsieur, but a 
 little nervous, too. You know I go to-morrow." 
 
 I nodded thoughtfully. She sat down on the 
 bench just under the window and motioned me to 
 sit beside her. 
 
 " May I ask you a question, Monsieur ? " 
 
 "Whatever you wish." 
 
 She leaned forward resting her head on her 
 hand. 
 
 " Have you any brothers or sisters or parents 
 living, Monsieur?" 
 
 "No, they are all dead." "And have you no 
 wife nor children who will miss you ? " " No, I 
 am alone, there will be few to care, thank God." 
 
 She looked up suddenly, her hand on my knee. 
 
 " Hush, Monsieur ! That word is never spoken 
 here but in jest " ; her voice grew wistful, I 
 thought, from eagerness. " Are you a Christian, 
 Monsieur, may I ask?" "No, Mademoiselle," I 
 replied. "I am so sorry." Her voice quivered, 
 seemed almost sad. 
 
 " Will you over there on the bench keep still ? 
 Pity a man can't sleep in peace and the last night, 
 too. Go to sleep, you, or keep still." 
 
 It was the querulous voice of old Hulot, the 
 farmer-general, one of the morrow's victims. We 
 spoke no more, but sat silent, waiting for daylight. 
 Only once she leaned over and whispered : 
 
 "Monsieur, you will forgive me for what I said 
 the other night? I am sorry." 
 
 I pressed her hand gently, and we both were
 
 AMIEE. t 3 
 
 still. A little later she fell asleep, her head sink 
 ing upon my shoulder. I took off my coat and 
 wrapped it around her, then leaned back against 
 the wall, to wait for the dawn. To-morrow, 
 thought I, looking down upon that fair, sweet face, 
 she will be far from here. She will have reached 
 the goal. The voice of some one speaking aroused 
 me ; it was the Count. He, too, was restless. 
 
 "So Cupid has squeezed in even here," he said 
 gallantly, placing his hand over his heart, bowing 
 mockingly to me. " She is asleep," I said, " speak 
 softly." He came a little nearer and looked down 
 into her face. There was a real kindness and ten 
 derness in his voice when he again spoke. " Poor 
 little girl ! How much the Republic would suffer 
 if she lived. Don't move," he said as I shifted my 
 position, " let her sleep ; the time flies swifter and 
 the agony of suspense will be the shorter. She 
 goes to-morrow, does she not ? " I nodded. " By 
 the way," he added, "I shall have the pleasure of 
 your company the day after. The jailer told me 
 last night." He bent over and kissed her hand 
 like the old chevalier that he was, and with a " Bon 
 soir, Monsieur," he turned and walked away. 
 
 The night seemed very long. I dared not move 
 lest I should wake her, so I sat still and waited. 
 Her fair young head, with its wealth of long, brown 
 hair rested quietly on my shoulder, her breath 
 came regular and soft. 
 
 It must have been almost morning when she 
 awoke. "Have you been awake all night?" she 
 said, looking up into my face. " Yes." " And you 
 5*
 
 -. TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 54 
 
 are shivering with cold, and have wrapped me in 
 your cloak to keep me warm ; you are very kind. I 
 can never repay you." "You owe me just one 
 thing," I replied, "you will let me kiss you." She 
 smiled and hesitated. " Monsieur, you may, just 
 once." 
 
 It was eight o'clock when the jailer came in 
 and called but the names of those set apart for the 
 day. I stood beside her when her name was read, 
 and she never winced. There was the usual silent 
 grasp of the hand as friend parted from friend ; 
 sometimes a last kiss was given and taken as they 
 went to their places against the wall. 
 
 She came back to me when she had gone the 
 rounds. " It is time to say good bye," she said. 
 
 I nodded, not daring to trust my voice. 
 
 She looked full in my face when I did not 
 answer. She must have read my thoughts. " Did 
 you care forme so much?" There was a pause 
 
 " Monsieur, you may kiss me just once more." 
 
 There was the rumbling of the tumbrils in the 
 court below, the harsh, monotonous voice of the 
 jailer calling out the names of the doomed as they 
 passed separately through the gate. A last lin 
 gering pressure of the hand and she goes. The 
 heavy gate swung back upon its hinges, and I see 
 her no more, shall never see her again in all this 
 world, never. The tumbrils creak and rumble as 
 they pass through the street. I listen until the 
 rumbling dies away in the distance. 
 
 This to Eugene Saint Aubert of Coblentz by the 
 jailer, Fourmaire. Let him be rewarded. 
 
 GEORGE WILLIS ELLIS.
 
 ffc 
 
 i. 
 
 THEY are crying their mellow wares, the 
 swarthy fruit venders, carelessly swaying 
 under huge baskets, gushing over with great 
 clusters of purple and amber, amid tawny oranges 
 and mandarines that glow like gold pale gold 
 and dusky gold in the chill, keen air of red 
 autumn. 
 
 By the gray, foot-worn steps of the cathedral 
 of the Holy Name and our Lady of the Seven Sor 
 rows, a shriveled, white-haired, old beggar, grind 
 ing out a lawless fanfare on his discordant instru 
 ment, lifts his sightless eyeballs to a cold, smiling 
 sky, and cries, in a cracked, monotonous voice, 
 " For the sake of Our Lady, pity the blind ! " 
 
 Along the long promenade rolls the slow surge 
 of glistening carriages ; imperturbable coachmen 
 in front ; discreet lackeys behind. 
 
 Here, crushing soft, violet-scented cushions, 
 muffled in splendor of fur, and glow of velvet, 
 drive those whom the world envies rancorously, 
 and loves well and beneath those masks with 
 the painted smile, lurk features that are jaded 
 with the weariness of ever same days, and distorted
 
 5 6 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 with pride, avarice, and the other five of the seven 
 sins that are deadly. 
 
 On the doors of deep-paneled ebony, are em 
 blazoned, here the gold coronet of a fat English 
 duchess, in red ; there, a gilt cupid, the significant 
 emblem of Lola, the commedienne ; and now the 
 proud arms of the cadaverous, painted, old Marquis 
 of Montbazon sweep disdainfully by. 
 
 In yonder carriage with the saffron-hued liver 
 ies, drawn by the black horses that fret beneath 
 the soft jangle of their silver trappings, drives the 
 young son and heir of that feeble old dotard His 
 Grace of Coela-Ferriers. By his side a woman in 
 black sable, the languid insolence of whose flam 
 ing beauty dismays. 
 
 Then the carriage passes on, and a vision of a 
 scarlet smile, half hidden under a film of veil, 
 lingers behind. 
 
 Far out, the indolent, sleepy sea sparkles like 
 the tremulous sapphires on the white, fluttering 
 throat of a prima donna ; nearer, it rolls shore 
 ward in long, lazy, undulating swells that break, 
 and laps against the crumbling, gray pier, softly, 
 like the crafty purr of a demure, fierce beast. 
 
 II. 
 
 On the broad, white pavement, ragged, dusky- 
 eyed peasant boys, with bare, brown legs, and 
 naked, sun-bronzed chests, are shrilly crying their 
 fragrant merchandise ; their big baskets heaped 
 high with the sullen purple of violets and the crim-
 
 "PITY THE BLIND." 57 
 
 son of roses that glow like smouldering coals in 
 the crisp, sharp air of the early spring-time. 
 
 By the gray, foot-worn steps of the Cathedral 
 of the Holy Name and Our Lady of the Seven 
 Sorrows, a shriveled, white-haired old beggar, 
 grinding out a monotonous air on his wheezy 
 instrument, lifts his dead eyeballs to a cold, smil 
 ing sky, and cries, in a cracked, feeble voice, " For 
 the love of Our Lady, pity the blind ! " 
 
 Along the long promenade, rolls the same slow 
 surge of glistening carriages ; but the fat English 
 duchess in red is missing ; Lola no longer drives ; 
 deeper furrows mar the youthful pink of the old 
 Marquis of Montbazon's cheeks ; and sleek grays 
 now draw the carriage in which the young Duke 
 of Coela-Ferriers coachman and lackeys decor 
 ously liveried in demure gray sits, with an air of 
 chastened resignation, by the side of his young 
 bride, a slim girl with steady gray eyes. 
 
 " The Coela-Ferriers has sown his wild oats. 
 They say that three years ago he Holy Mother! 
 what was that ? " 
 
 Out from the turmoil of the paved street rings 
 a woman's cry ; and then, the inevitable crush of 
 the indifferently curious. A woman, haggard 
 and worn, in shabby sables, lies upon the stone 
 pavement. The indignant grays are brought to a 
 halt by the gathering throng. 
 
 Then the woman rises, hurries swiftly into the 
 parting crowd and is lost. The curiously indiffer 
 ent go on their several ways ; the episode is over ; 
 and the restive grays once more prance on to the 
 soft jangle of their silver trappings.
 
 eg TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 His Grace of Coela-Ferriers yawns just a little 
 behind a perfectly gloved hand ; deliberately re 
 moves his glass, and then remarks : " Only a 
 swoon, my love. The crowd, perhaps ; or," he 
 adds reflectively, "the woman may have been 
 drinking." 
 
 III. 
 
 Into those sparkling waters the suicide leapt. 
 Beneath their laughing waves her wan face lies 
 with dead, upturned eyes, that once mirrored the 
 love of his own. 
 
 Her last sin committed, her last temptation 
 victorious, she has found at the last it may be 
 rest. 
 
 Still, along the long promenade, the eternal 
 surge of carriages rolls, and there, by the gray, 
 foot-worn steps of the Cathedral of the Holy Name 
 and Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, the shriveled, 
 white-haired old beggar, grinding out a dreary 
 waltz on his wailing instrument, lifts his unseeing 
 eyes to a pitiless, smiling sky, and plaintively cries 
 as her dumb, dead lips cannot cry " For the 
 love of Our Lady, pity the blind ! " 
 
 Far out, the indolent, sleepy sea sparkles like 
 the tremulous sapphires on the white, fluttering 
 throat of the prima donna ; nearer, it rolls shore 
 ward in long, lazy, undulating swells that break, 
 and laps against the crumbling, gray pier, softly, 
 like the contented purr of a sly, fierce beast. 
 
 ARTHUR LESLIE GREEN.
 
 i. 
 
 THE August sun made the clear waters of the 
 lower Cocheco look invitingly cool. The 
 marsh grass along the shores rustled in the 
 breeze, and a sea crow, which had been dreaming 
 on the top of a long spar-buoy, took flight with a 
 hoarse croak. It was not the coming of one of the 
 three-masted schooners that were sometimes towed 
 up the river, like bound captives from the ocean, 
 that had disturbed him. The only craft in sight 
 was a white canvas canoe with paddle blades alter 
 nately glancing in the sun. The man in the canoe 
 might have been thirty, or possibly not more than 
 twenty-five. 
 
 Robert Vaughn, or Bob, as his college chums, 
 whom he had left at camp two days before, would 
 have called him, would doubtless have been de 
 scribed by a newspaper reporter as a "litterateur" 
 He had taken his Ph.D. at an American Univer 
 sity, and had studied in Berlin. There had lately 
 been some talk among his friends that a tutorship 
 would be offered him. But this morning he 
 thought little of rank or degrees. The exhilara 
 tion of the morning's paddle, and the ever-shifting 
 aspect of the farms along the river side, as the tide
 
 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 bore on his little craft, had routed all these 
 thoughts from his mind, and left it clear as the 
 paper on which he planned to write a story of 
 camp life. He often planned these stories, but 
 usually his friends, Brown or Honson, wrote them. 
 They would be so much in Brown's or Honson's 
 style, he thought. 
 
 A light breeze began to draw down the river, 
 and he spread his sail. In the middle of the stream 
 a schooner was lying at anchor, her tall spars and 
 rigging reflected in the water. No life was visible 
 on board. Attracted by the stillness of the vessel, 
 Vaughn steered close under her bow and along 
 the side. Too late he sees a stern line stretching 
 out across the water. The frail mast snaps across 
 it and he is thrown into the tide. When he makes 
 his appearance again, sputtering and altogether 
 disgusted, he sees his canoe cheerfully drifting 
 down stream, keel upwards. He looks at the quiet 
 schooner, and then, with a muttered imprecation, 
 strikes out toward the store. The river is wide, 
 and it is no small task to swim the distance in 
 clinging clothes. As he gains the shallow water, 
 he notices a figure standing on the bank evidently 
 interested in his safety. He flounders ashore, fes 
 tooned with long streamers of eel-grass, to be ac 
 costed by a tall girl with rather a serious face, but 
 with eyes that almost tempt him to say something 
 pretty about Hero and Leander. 
 
 " I hope, sir, you are not hurt ; you must come 
 up to the house. Mother will be glad to find some 
 dry clothes for you."
 
 A MARSH FLOWER. 6 1 
 
 Vaughn could only mutter something about 
 "very kind must secure his canoe." But just 
 then he sees that some farm hands have taken the 
 runaway in hand, and, as he feels disagreeably wet 
 and faint, he is glad to follow the girl up the bank. 
 
 The house was some distance back on the high 
 bank. On the flat rock that served as a doorstep 
 stood a motherly-looking little woman, shading 
 her eyes with her hand, as she watched the ap 
 proach of her daughter with the stranger. 
 
 " What has happened, Mary ? " she asked. 
 
 "Only a slight ducking, I assure you, madam," 
 interrupted Vaughn, " and your daughter was so 
 kind as to offer me your hospitality." 
 
 II. 
 
 Vaughn's reception had been so cordial, his sur 
 roundings so pleasant at the old farmhouse, that 
 he had sought to prolong his stay. 
 
 Mrs. Saunders needed no extra inducements to 
 persuade her to harbor a man who she imagined 
 looked like her dead son. And good Farmer Saun 
 ders was not averse to so pleasant a companion as 
 Vaughn proved. 
 
 Of Mary Saunders he had seen much, yet she 
 she had seemed to hold him at a distance in all 
 their talks, and he had never felt that he quite un 
 derstood her. She was a woman of cultivation, 
 and of keen appreciation of the natural beauties 
 that surrounded her home. His first intimation of 
 her attainments had been the finding of a collec- 
 6
 
 6 2 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 tion of excellent novels in the " clock-room." " The 
 Marble Faun," "Off the Skelligs," "Pendennis," 
 and Miss Jewett's " Marsh Island " had been 
 among the well-worn volumes. Since then he had 
 had many pleasant talks with her on literary sub 
 jects. On the last two Sundays she had driven 
 him to the little rubble stone church in the market 
 town. These services, with Mary Saunders sitting 
 in the pew by his side, had been such as Vaughn 
 would not soon forget. Once he had rowed her, 
 in her own small boat, up one of the branches of 
 the river to call on a friend in the village there, 
 and twice she had been out with him in his canoe 
 at sunset. He became strangely attached to her 
 quiet ways, and had even wondered if there was 
 any probability of his falling in love. 
 
 This afternoon they were sitting together on 
 the seat that had been built by the old poplar on 
 the bank. She was sketching the brickyard, with a 
 kiln of red bricks, on the opposite shore. He held 
 a book in his hand, but had not been reading for 
 some time. The old poplar under which they sat, 
 standing alone on a prominent point of the bank, 
 had been called by the river men "the widow." 
 Vaughn looked up at its gnarled old trunk and 
 then down at the fair young woman busily paint 
 ing at his side. Her hair was golden brown, and 
 this afternoon Vaughn thought she had arranged 
 it in a particularly becoming manner. She wore 
 a white muslin dress, and had fastened a bunch of 
 red poppies at her belt. 
 
 "Couldn't you write a book about the river,
 
 A MARSH FLOWER. 63 
 
 Mr. Vaughn, that I could illustrate ? " she said, 
 looking up from her sketch. 
 
 " I did think something of it, I admit, but since 
 I have read your copy of ' Marsh Island,' I have 
 made up my mind that the laureateship of the re 
 gion isn't vacant." 
 
 " I don't like ' Marsh Island ' very well," she re 
 sponded quickly, and then checked herself, as if 
 she had said more than she intended. 
 
 " Why not ? " inquired Vaughn, looking hard at 
 the expressive eyes, half hid by the drooping 
 lashes, and at the blush that would come. 
 
 " I don't think Dorris Owen would have en 
 joyed life with the ship's blacksmith. Why 
 couldn't she have married the artist?" 
 
 And what was there to prevent him, Robert 
 Vaughn, from marrying her? The brickyard 
 across the river grew indistinct. Should he speak ? 
 Might this beautiful woman be his for the asking? 
 He hesitated, and the opportunity slipped away. 
 
 Mary Saunders gathered her brushes, and, say 
 ing that her mother expected her to get tea that 
 evening, left him to his thoughts. 
 
 A pleasure launch was passing at the time, and 
 he heard the passengers laugh merrily. 
 
 III. 
 
 Vaughn could not make up his mind to leave 
 the farm until long after the marsh hay had been 
 cut, and the marshes had taken on the yellow au 
 tumnal color, contrasting forcibly with the strips
 
 6 . TRINITY vSKETCHES. 
 
 of blue water at high tide. Finally a letter came, 
 offering him a tutorship, and he must go. He had 
 parted with the good farmer and his wife at the 
 door rock by which he had been so hospitably re 
 ceived, and had begged Mary to walk with him to 
 the shore. 
 
 An awkward silence had seemed likely to en 
 sue, and by way of averting it, he remarked : 
 
 " It is over a month since I was so unceremo 
 niously unhorsed at your door." 
 
 " I am sure you have proved a very dutiful 
 knight," she answered. 
 
 " And will my lady not give me some token be 
 fore I go again into the fight ? " he asked. 
 
 She quickly removed a spray of late golden rod 
 from her hair and gave it to him. 
 
 At the old poplar he held out his hand to bid 
 her good-bye ; their eyes met, and the old feeling 
 of uncertainty seized him. Wild thoughts chased 
 each other through his mind as she returned the 
 firm pressure of his hand. No ! He would go. 
 He turned rather abruptly and went toward his 
 canoe. As he prepared to start, she stood watch 
 ing him. She held her handkerchief in her hand ; 
 was it to wave a last farewell ? 
 
 The tide was high and the afternoon sun shone 
 down into the clear water, revealing the sandy bot 
 tom, and an occasional cunner darting out from 
 the seaweed. A "gundolo," with its triangular 
 sail, was moving slowly up the stream. Vaughn 
 paddled out through the eelgrass that bent before 
 the bow of the canoe, to the blue water beyond.
 
 A MARSH FLOWER. 65 
 
 But why should he go ? What is he going to ? 
 What is he leaving ? He will not go. He turns in 
 his seat, but Mary Saunders has turned toward 
 the high house, and the old tree hides her from his 
 sight. The bank covered with dry grass looks des 
 olate. Ah ! If she had waited but one moment 
 longer. He forces the paddle blades deep into the 
 water, and the canoe moves easily forward, in 
 creasing the distance between them. 
 
 When she looks back again, the little craft is 
 far down the river. She does not go at once into 
 the house. CHARLES ALBERT HORNE. 
 
 6*
 
 Briber*. 
 
 NIGHT had flown over the sea on the tremu 
 lous wings of a bat. 
 
 A murmur arose from the waters, a mur 
 mur as of wind through the forest or the sighing 
 of sorrowful souls ; and the heavy waves rose and 
 fell like the breast of one who weeps. 
 
 And now as the moon climbed higher and 
 marked its pallid path on the ocean, the Spiders of 
 the Sea began their journey of the night. 
 
 Out of the horrid hollows of the waves they 
 crept and, swarming into the moon's bright track, 
 darted hither and thither and scrambled over the 
 waters the Sea Spiders with bodies of silver and 
 opal. 
 
 From the spot where a tall ship had foundered 
 came floating the body of a maiden, adrift on the 
 careless, cruel waves, adrift in the night and the 
 sea. She is borne into the bright track of the 
 moon and the spiders swarm over her. Over the 
 fair, floating hair they crawl, and over the wan, 
 sunken eyes, over the shoulder, over the breasts 
 the Sea Spiders, with bodies of silver and opal. 
 
 But when the moon sits shuddering on the sea 
 in the west, the bloated bodies of the spiders burst 
 and the moon drinks their blood the blood of 
 the obscene Sea Spiders, the spiders whose bodies 
 are opal and silver. 
 
 ARTHUR LESLIE GREEN.
 
 (J)terre'0 (Return. 
 
 i. 
 
 FAR in the sunny south, by the sea there is 
 a vineyard, set like a green emerald in a 
 ring- of gold. 
 
 For all about are golden fields, where dull, 
 toiling oxen plod beneath curved yokes; and 
 gleaming scythes cut sweeping swathes through 
 yellow waves of wine-swayed grain. 
 
 Overhead, in the blue sky, slow, silver swallows 
 chase and follow the lazy white clouds through all 
 the languid summer's drowsy days. 
 
 Amid the gnarled and distorted vines of the old 
 vineyard, bare-headed, sun-bronzed peasant girls 
 are at work, plucking from under the green leaves 
 the great clusters of purple or amber that hide 
 there. 
 
 Among the stooping figures, one with hair 
 yellow like the grain yonder, and eyes as blue 
 as the sky above stands erect, and shading her 
 eyes with a hand kissed brown by an August sun, 
 gazes, longingly, far out at the silver streak that 
 divides the blue of the sky from the blue of the 
 sea. 
 
 "Only a little day, and he will return, my
 
 6 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Pierre, to bear me back to the far new land where 
 he has toiled so long to earn the home." 
 
 ''Only a day," she murmurs, and wearily 
 stoops again to her toil. 
 
 And far away a slow bell chimes, lazily, the 
 lagging hours. 
 
 II. 
 
 In the hush of the short, southern twilight, 
 from the gray, crumbling tower of a vine-swathed 
 church, encircled by brown fields in which the 
 yellow sheaves stand thick, a slow bell tolls 
 drearily. 
 
 Yonder, on a sea of quivering silver, floats a 
 slender ship, its white wings stained scarlet by the 
 sullen glow of the smouldering west. 
 
 Overhead, in the violet air, slow gray swallows 
 are hovering. 
 
 Through the peace and the silence of the quiet 
 country a long, slow train of sun-bronzed peasants 
 weepingly follow the dull, plodding oxen as they 
 drag slowly, slowly over bright flowers and be 
 neath a smiling sky, a grim, creaking chariot with 
 sable plumes nodding gruesomely. 
 
 Pierre has returned. 
 
 ARTHUR LESLIE GREEN.
 
 inner. 
 
 LEM came up to the back porch to deliver 
 a note from " Marse Adams," my neighbor 
 on the River Road. Lem was a darkey 
 of the old school, a "gentleman's gentleman" 
 before the war, and he had that quiet air of polite 
 ness about him that is conspicuously absent in the 
 younger generation of his race a politeness 
 peculiarly pleasant and conveying a sort of dignity 
 with it which, in spite of rags and tatters, gains its 
 meed of respect and esteem from all, from none 
 more than the older class of whites, who taught 
 Lem and his fellows that very lesson. 
 
 The old man stood there, hat in hand, while 
 I read my note. It was the day after Thanksgiv 
 ing, bleak and raw ; and the wind whipped the 
 long tails of his aged coat former property of 
 the aforesaid Marse Adams about his legs, 
 played with his whitening hair and snatched at 
 the faded hat. I have spoken of him as old, yet in 
 reality he was only upon the border of that last, 
 great period of life, and had not yet attained to 
 the dignified title of "Uncle," which distinctly 
 marks a certain advanced stage of age and infirmi 
 ties. He tucked the note containing my reply 
 into one pocket, the small coin that accompanied
 
 - TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 it into another, and with an elaborate bow and 
 hearty "Thankee, sah," prepared to return. 
 
 " Hope you had a good dinner Thanksgiving 
 Day, Lem," I ventured as a parting remark. The 
 next moment I was sorry I had spoken, for a 
 peculiar melancholy crept over Lem's face ; he 
 shrugged his shoulders and then let them hang in 
 a dejected manner ; his head declined ; his whole 
 attitude showed that I had struck a tender sub 
 ject. "No, sah," he said in a peculiarly grave and 
 earnest tone. "It wuz a mighty po' dinnah, sah." 
 Then seeing the look of inquiry in my face, he 
 sidled slowly behind a projecting angle of the 
 house out of the wind, scratching his head 
 thoughtfully as he did so, a certain sign that 
 he had a story to tell and was anxious to tell it. 
 The day after Thanksgiving is always a dull one, 
 and I was ready for any diversion, so I signified 
 my curiosity to learn the details of the matter, and 
 he related them accordingly. 
 
 "Seems to me I nevah had sich luck befo' in 
 my life, Marse Harry, and the' wa'n't nobody to 
 blame but jis' myse'f. Ef I hadn't been sich an 
 ole fool 'twould a been all right. Dat's w'at 
 makes it seem wus 'en anything else. sah. Long's 
 I've hunted possums to hev dat possum fool me 
 dat a way ! It wuz a mighty big possum, too, 
 Marse Harry ; seems to me I nevah did see sich a 
 big possum befo'. I done cotch him in de big 
 fiel' down back o' ole Mis' Grange's co'n house. 
 One o' my dogs done put 'im up a big tree you 
 remembah dat yaller dog Jim o' mine, Marse
 
 A DECEPTIVE DINNER. 7 ! 
 
 Harry, de one wid mos' o' his left eah chawed 
 off and de mark on his nose 'cause he fight so 
 much. Dah de possum wuz a settin' up in a 
 croth tryin' to hide hisse'f, an' Jim a racin' an' 
 tearin' an' ba'kin' 'roun' at de bottom o' de tree 
 like he wuz crazy. My oldes' boy, Pete, wuz wid 
 me. He's a wu'fless, good-fo-nothin' sort o' boy 
 ge'nally, but he's mighty spry at climbin' trees, so 
 he 'low to me, ' Daddy, you jis' take you stick an' 
 hit the possum on de haid w'en I shake him down ' 
 I 'spect he wan' to show off befo' his po' ole 
 dad. So he clim' up de tree and bimeby down 
 came Mistah Possum haid ovah heels, an* I hit 'im 
 ovah de haid, hahd as I could, and dar he lay jis' 
 as quiet as a log, so I 'spose' he wuz daid. Pete 
 he had a bag of sweet potatoes a cyahyin' from ole 
 Mis' Grange's, but dey wuz enough room in de bag 
 for de possum, so we put 'im in and tote him home. 
 " My Ian', wasn' my ole 'oman 'sprise' to see dat 
 possum ! We done put him on de table an' her 
 an' de chil'n jis' clap dey han's an' shout. De 
 possum lay dah wid his legs stickin* up in de aih 
 jis' as quiet deh ain no use tellin' me dat possum 
 wa'n daid, Marse Harry, I jis' know he wuz ? 
 Pretty soon Pete an' me wen' out an' de ole 'oman 
 begin a mixin' up stuffin', bread crus' an' onions 
 an' some sage Marse Harry, you' wife 'low deh 
 ain' no bettah cook in dis county den Lucy. She 
 doan' wan' no fuss when she's wukin', so she jis' 
 made all de chil'n get out do's, an' when she done 
 mixed de stuffin' she put it in a pan on de table by 
 de possum. She had a hot fiah going' and hoisted
 
 72 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 de windah 'cause it waz so wa'm. Den she got de 
 butcher knife down off de shelf to clean de possum 
 wid. She woan nevah clean nothin' widout the 
 knife's sha'p as a razah, an" so she took it out to de 
 grin' stone, side o' de house, to sha'pen it. 
 
 " Me an' Pete was a cuttin* wood down by de 
 cowpen. Pete 'low to me, ' Daddy, deah ain' 
 nothin' so nice as possum, is deh ? ' ' No, chile, 
 deh ain',' 'low I. 'When its got lots o' gravy an' 
 stuffin',' "low Pete, ' an' sweet potatoes all roun' it 
 in de bottom o' de pan ! ' ' Yes, indeed, chile,' I 
 'low. Pete he chopped a little w'ile, den he said, 
 ' Daddy, 'deed dat's de fates' possum I evah seen 
 sence I was bohn. Woan' he smell nice w'en you 
 ca've him ? ' My mouf wuz waterin' so I could'n' 
 stan' it. I jis' 'low, 'You good-for-nuffin' niggah, 
 w'y doan you chop dat wood 'stid o' gassin' so 
 much. Doan you open yo' haid agin till you finish 
 dat pile o' wood.' Jis' den dey wuz de awfules' 
 yellin' up at de house. ' My Ian', Daddy, what's 
 dat?' Pete cry. De yellin' kep' a gittin' louder 'n 
 louder, an' den we bof took off an' ran hahd as we 
 could tear ; and when we got deh po' Lucy and de 
 chil'n wuz cryin' an' hollerin', hollerin' an' cryin': 
 ' De possum's gone ! De possum's gone ! ' Sho' 
 enuf it had. While Lucy was a sha'penin' de 
 knife de possum done come to life an' took hisse'f 
 outen de windah. But dat wuz a mighty cute 
 possum, Marse Harry, foh w'en we look in de pan 
 de stuffin' wuz gone too ! De possum done eat it 
 all up befo' he wen' he done stuff hisse'f ! " 
 
 ROBERT TONGUE.
 
 (p0ifo0o?$g of an 
 
 1AM a gray-haired physician sitting in my study 
 after a long night ride, smoking an old pipe 
 of mine. The room has the old bachelor 
 aspect, with deep set, red curtained windows, and 
 a professional looking desk in one corner. Strewn 
 everywhere is a motley library, arranged in a won 
 drous disorder that no hand but mine can unravel. 
 There is an open fire-place, some rare engravings, 
 and Father Time in the shape of an old clock 
 ticks softly from the mantel-piece. My pipe 
 turned up just now from a heap of old rubbish. It 
 is short, made of some dark wood, with the bowl 
 carved into a human face with a hooked nose. 
 What a rush of memories came over me as I looked 
 at the worn-out object. It has carried me back to 
 a reverie of thirty years ago, yes, to the very day 
 when it struck my fancy and I bought it. My 
 thoughts flew back even to the days of childhood, 
 its little disappointments, its doubts and fears and 
 hopes that seemed so large. It is idle to think of 
 them now ; rather I will recall from the past my 
 college days over a quarter of a century ago. 
 Then I was an enthusiast, more intense than most 
 of my class, eager for the fray with the world, and 
 looking forward in a vague sort of way to its end. 
 7
 
 74 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 I had plotted it all out in my busy college life, and 
 it read like a romance, with trial in the beginning, 
 but soon, very soon, the last chapter with its happy 
 end. I saw very little desert with a great deal of 
 mirage in my future, though then I did not know 
 it was mirage. 
 
 I had a burning ambition to be great. I remem 
 ber it well, as I smoke my pipe. It has gone 
 where this smoke is going, and where my youth 
 has gone. The pretty story of the historic heroes 
 I was to rival proved but a fable. I remember 
 well the day that the cruel fact was thrust upon 
 me that I was but one of the common crowd. It 
 seemed a stifling of my individuality to be let 
 down among them from an aerial platform of my 
 own making. There is nothing so bright as the 
 quick play of the young imagination. When one 
 is lowered to the miserable level of mediocrity, it 
 can never sparkle again. 
 
 But we forget, and the second act of our lives 
 is soon upon us. How quickly the fire glows and 
 then dies away in dull, gray ashes. Really, my 
 pipe is a work of art. The hand that fashioned it 
 must have had the true artist's inspiration. The 
 cynical face of that old man is the artist's concep 
 tion of the man of the world or what the world had 
 made of a man. He has been through it all, and 
 his dim eyes see where mine are blind. For every 
 thing, he has that wicked, knowing, sneering look. 
 He has seen scapegraces dodge the bailiff, and has 
 smiled at thern ; unmoved, he has seen young 
 prodigals casting their pearls before swine. He
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF AN OLD PIPE. 75 
 
 has seen fair maidens sell themselves for gold, and 
 has shut his eyes. I can imagine the poor sculptor, 
 after devoting his life to molding Madonnas, 
 angels, Minervas, and forms of all kinds of beauty 
 and being, unrequited by a selfish world, to have 
 carved this old man in despite as an image of 
 moral perversion and satiety. Before, I have 
 always repulsed this view of life. Perhaps it 
 would have been better if I had not. But some 
 thing impelled me. In after life, I have often 
 wondered what that was ; and it seemed to me 
 that it was better to fail than to believe the world 
 a mockery, as the old man does, and that there was 
 a certain love that covered up all disappointments 
 and sorrows. 
 
 I remember well, as I sit smoking here, the 
 time when I threw myself into work. I could not 
 be a world- wide hero, but there was still much for 
 me to gain. The prize could not be far off, and if 
 I were willing to work it would come soon. I 
 could see the glittering objects of my fancy not 
 far ahead, and I knew they would be easy to reach. 
 I pressed on feverishly for a while, but the glitter 
 of those prizes grew no brighter. I am fifty years 
 old, and the prizes are little nearer now. 
 
 But I would have cared nothing for material 
 things could I have had my one ideal desire. The 
 ethereal fancies of life are most powerful with us. 
 In the fairy tale, Prince Beaufort first slays the 
 dragon and then kneels at the feet of the Princess 
 Beauxyeux. I had not slain the mythical dragon, 
 but there was still the Princess Beauxyeux. The
 
 7 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 princess of my fancy seemed to me a true woman. 
 But let me not recall the long story of my love 
 and disappointment. It is too painful even now. 
 
 These memories and many more are drawn out 
 by the smoke of this historic pipe. The ghosts of 
 broken faiths, lost hopes, and buried loves come 
 crowding around me. To think that a pipe should 
 have such potency ! " Ah ! who of us is happy in 
 this world ? " Thackeray says. There is always 
 something left undone that might have been done. 
 We can never quite reach the shore of a paradise 
 on earth. 
 
 But the light of the hearth is dying, the dawn 
 is breaking, and my pipe has gone out. And after 
 all, when the smoke wreaths of our fancies here 
 have vanished, who knows what dawn will break ? 
 It is so unreal, so unsatisfying, this life of ours. 
 We long to see things as they are, to grasp the 
 eternal truths and see the eternal beauty. And 
 when discouraged by our failures, disheartened by 
 our weakness, is it wholly wrong to hope, however 
 unreasonably, that the future will be bright, and 
 to trust, however blindly, in honor and virtue and 
 right conquering in the end ? 
 
 UAMES BIRCKHEAD BIRCKHEAD.
 
 of 
 
 THE Sultan was plunged in profound gloom. 
 The empire was tranquil, for the Western 
 nations had not begun to lend it money nor 
 to trouble it with the absurd ideas of our Western 
 civilization. Religion was' perfectly orthodox. 
 Every morning and evening the Muezzin called 
 the faithful to prayers, and multitudes prostrated 
 themselves on the stone pavements with their 
 faces towards the Holy City. The palace was a 
 " stately pleasure-dome," gorgeous with brilliant 
 marble, and surrounded by shady courts. The 
 Sultan was young and the Sultana was beautiful. 
 He was all powerful. To wish was to command 
 and to command was to be obeyed. But yet the 
 Sultan was not happy. He moved about in the 
 courts alone, or sat by the fountains engaged in 
 thoughts that were not pleasant. He looked on the 
 most famous and graceful of the dancing girls with 
 lack-lustre eyes. The poet, who could relate tales 
 so interesting that his hearers almost forgot to 
 breathe, failed to hold his attention. He ceased 
 to take pleasure even in his favorite horse, who 
 could rival the swallow's flight in swiftness. 
 7*
 
 7 3 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 The Grand Vizier, Mahammed Baba, and the 
 master of the palace, Hassan Ben Adem, consulted 
 together. "Of a surety," said they, "some evil 
 djin has possession of the commander of the faith 
 ful, for he speaks strange things which no man 
 can answer, and his eyes are continually cast down 
 to the ground." And the news went over the 
 whole city that some evil spirit escaped from Eblis, 
 had entered into the heart of the Sultan. 
 
 Then the Vizier sought audience of the Sultan 
 and prostrated himself nine times and said, " Deign 
 to listen to the humblest of thy slaves, O Light of 
 the World." 
 
 And the Sultan said, " Speak." 
 
 Then the Vizier said, "Thy slaves would fain 
 know why thou to whom the world belongs art 
 sad, O Successor of the Prophet and lord of the 
 east." 
 
 Then the Sultan raised his eyes and said : 
 " Know then, that to me, for some time the world 
 seems evil and ruled by an evil God. My father 
 gained the throne by the murder of his brothers, 
 and always he who does wrong receives honor and 
 praise. I see the just man everywhere forsaken 
 and his children sold for slaves. Are not the mer 
 chants rich who give false weight, and is not the 
 righteous man a beggar by the wayside, spurned 
 out of the path by the hypocrite whom he bene 
 fited ? Is there anything stronger than the greed 
 of man, except his lust ? To seek for happiness is 
 ignoble, since it is fruitless, and all things turn to 
 ashes in the hand. Therefore, I am sad, for the
 
 AN APOLOGUE OF PESSIMISM. 
 
 79 
 
 world is evidently an evil world, and made for the 
 pleasure of an evil God." 
 
 The Vizier answered, " These things are as they 
 should be, O Lord of the Universe. There is a 
 pleasure in fine raiment, and a greater pleasure in 
 precious stones, and joy in a woman's beauty, and 
 in the strength of a man's arms, and the wise man 
 taketh all these things nor asketh whence they 
 come, since he cannot carry them out of the 
 world, for they belong to it. They are his who 
 hath strength to get and skill to hold, and in the 
 end Allah maketh all things well for the faithful." 
 
 Then the Sultan called to the chief Eunuch and 
 said, " Let this man be taken to the executioner." 
 
 Afterwards, there came to the palace an ancient 
 man, a stranger. His beard was white and reached 
 below his waist, but his eyes were deep and bright 
 like unfathomed wells. He remained standing 
 before the master of the palace, for he was one of 
 the sacred tribe who dwell apart on the interior 
 mountains of Arabia, and have had the pure faith 
 since long before the prophet gave it to the world. 
 They look down on the Egyptians as new comers, 
 and on the Jews as upstarts of yesterday. Com 
 pared with them, the Greeks have " neither knowl 
 edge of antiquity nor antiquity of knowledge," 
 and they bow the head to no man except to the 
 successor of the prophet. In his hand this one 
 held a brazen horn, graven on the outside and on 
 the inside with strange characters, and he de 
 manded to be taken to the Sultan. When he was 
 brought into the distant court where the Sultan
 
 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 stood alone, he bowed his head, not with the slav 
 ish submission of a subject, but with the grace and 
 courteous reverence of an equal saluting one of 
 equal rank, and said : 
 
 " Tidings have been brought us of thy malady, 
 O Successor of the Prophet, and we have known 
 that it is that pain of the heart which comes to 
 him who sees that the world is not good. So hath 
 the heart of the wise man been tortured since 
 the world began, for only the fool sayeth the world 
 is good. But Allah has so framed the world that 
 it is good to the man who knows the truth. There 
 fore, O Light of the East, this has been formed, and 
 he who listens through it shall learn the secret of 
 the world. For they who wrought it wrought with 
 prayer and fasting, and uttered over it the sacred 
 texts which have been handed down since the 
 morning of creation, and the words of power have 
 entered into its atoms while they were vibrating 
 under the hammer. And they have engraved on 
 it the two mighty names of Allah which are never 
 spoken, and the characters which no man can read 
 have power over the elements and compel the 
 truth from the air. Therefore it is, that he who 
 listens through this horn shall know all things 
 and shall hear the harmony of the world. For to 
 him who knows, the world is a harmony and not a 
 discord. 
 
 Then the Sultan took the horn and put it to his 
 ear, and he heard all the noises of the world and 
 the beating of its slow heart like confused mur 
 murs. But the beating of the world's heart was
 
 AN APOLOGUE OF PESSIMISM. gl 
 
 rhythmical in its swell and fall, and the multitudi 
 nous sound of its voices was sweet like the noises 
 one hears in a swoon. He heard the sounds of 
 joy and peace, and at intervals the wailing sound 
 of despair and pain and suffering, the sighs of the 
 wounded on distant plains, the tremulous breath of 
 the dying man and the recurring groan when a 
 new soul is born into the world. Blended with 
 these was a struggling chord, piercingly sweet and 
 sad, and that was the note of life ; but it continu 
 ally passed into the dominant chord which rose 
 above it, triumphant, and that was the note of 
 death. 
 
 Then the Sultan gave the horn back to the old 
 man and said : 
 
 " It is, indeed, a harmony, but even sadder than 
 the discord I thought it to be. The face of the 
 world is bad, but far better than the hideous secret 
 it hides in its heart. Increase of knowledge is but 
 increase of pain. I do not wish to know the truth." 
 
 The wise man took the horn in silence and 
 bent to the ground, for he felt that the Sultan 
 was wiser than he. 
 
 From that hour the Sultan's gloom increased 
 tenfold.
 
 d QBub (Bertnan. 
 
 HE had looked in at the club early in the even 
 ing, but the crowd had gone to Jersey City, 
 to see some prize fight, and, as there were 
 only a few loungers in the smoking room, he went 
 out and sauntered down town undecided where to 
 
 go- 
 He had reached Thirty-Second street when it 
 
 occurred to him that there was to be a bud german 
 at Mrs. Van Rensselaer's that evening, and a few 
 of the older set had been asked, himself included. 
 He had almost forgotten it, having gone out 
 rarely lately, from fear of meeting her. But 
 to-night . He turned and retraced his steps. 
 
 As he went up the steps of the Van Rensselaer 
 mansion, he had planned his actions and even what 
 he should say, for he had come in a forlorn hope 
 of seeing her, or that something would happen. 
 
 He looked around the hall after speaking 
 to Mrs. Van Rensselaer, but she was nowhere 
 in sight. He walked through the rooms, and 
 chatted with a few friends, and even danced 
 with some of the buds, but not a sight of her, and 
 he had no desire to ask questions. 
 
 He had had quite enough of it after half 
 an hour, and determined to leave. There was
 
 AT A BUD GERMAN. 83 
 
 no more hope. It was ended for good, and all. He 
 was a poor fool anyway. There was no need 
 of dreaming any longer. He would go his own 
 way as she had gone her's. 
 
 So he left the room, having done nothing 
 he had planned to do, having said nothing he 
 had thought to say. So like a man, foolish, 
 unreasonable, an actor, fit enough to be the toy of 
 a woman, who could have been so unjust. 
 
 There was a log fire in the open fireplace 
 of the anteroom and the flickering flames cast into 
 relief the figure of a girl seated on one of the 
 divans, her white dress contrasting well with 
 the green palms and ferns behind. 
 
 He was on his way down stairs, but when she 
 laid her hand upon the divan and smiled kindly 
 upon him, he went over and and sat beside her. 
 
 She surveyed him quietly and smiled know 
 ingly to herself, for she knew men well, and 
 divined he had something he was anxious to talk 
 about. 
 
 She believed she knew just what it was, being 
 also interested, and remained silent, knowing 
 he would broach the subject himself. 
 
 When he looked up she was leaning back 
 against the pillow of the divan watching Revels, 
 who was going down stairs. 
 
 " I want to ask you something," he began after 
 a few moments' conversation on commonplaces. 
 
 " Do you ? What can it be ? " She smiled at 
 him with mock curiosity. 
 
 " It's about her."
 
 8 4 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 "Oh," said she, "you mean" then paused as 
 if doubtful. " She's here to-night you know." 
 
 He nodded and waved his hand toward the 
 other room. " They told me." 
 
 She rested her chin in her hand and regarded 
 him thoughtfully. 
 
 " You must hate her," she said slowly, " you 
 could never trust her again after what she has 
 done." She waited a moment, watching him 
 closely, but he sat motionless without answering, 
 and she continued, " she would never be the same 
 to you again, for you would be quick to judge and 
 condemn her after this, and you could never feel 
 as kindly toward her as before." 
 
 He leaned back and regarded her with a 
 troubled look in his eyes, then shook his head. 
 "I don't know. Do you think it would be that 
 way ? " 
 
 "I think it would." 
 
 He moved uncomfortably, and thrust his hands 
 deep in his pockets, looking past and beyond her, 
 but he felt she was watching him and wondered 
 why. 
 
 " Do you think she is sorry, that she has ever 
 regretted what she has done, that if it were to be 
 done again she would " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders slightly. 
 
 " Perhaps not. If she were, would you forgive 
 her ? " 
 
 He did not know how to answer, being troubled 
 and perplexed. He arose and stood gazing 
 thoughtfully at the blazing logs, without seeing
 
 AT A BUD GERMAN. 85 
 
 them. She understood, and let him fight it out 
 with himself. She was too much a woman of the 
 world to doubt how it would end, and sat quietly, 
 waiting for him to speak. " If," said he, " a woman 
 has been unjust to a man and she must know it 
 now after all this time, is it not her place to tell 
 him so ? " She placed her hand to her head, and 
 smiled at him. It was as she had believed it would 
 be, his pride was making a last feeble stand before 
 it yielded. " Yes, perhaps she is sorry. It's quite 
 likely." 
 
 " But I don't know. Will you not tell me what 
 you think ? You must know something about it. 
 Don't you?" 
 
 She had arisen and stood before him, one hand 
 holding up the folds of her dress, the other straight 
 down at her side, carelessly toying with her fan. 
 
 " Yes," said she, nodding to him, " I do. But 
 I can tell you nothing. If a man loved me, I 
 should expect him to do much, very much to spare 
 me." She turned as if to leave, but paused. " She 
 was down in the corridor a short time ago ; Mr. 
 Lansing has just gone into the supper room." 
 She stepped aside and watched him go down 
 stairs. " Ungrateful man," she thought to herself, 
 " he didn't even thank me for the hint." Then 
 she went in search of Lansing. 
 
 He was still doubtful as he went down. She 
 had said little, and he had wished to hear so much. 
 He took out his cigarette case as he went along, 
 and determined to wait a little while in the smok 
 ing room before he went in search of her, though
 
 86 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 he realized his time was short. Perhaps he would 
 not seek her at all ; it was hard to say what he 
 would do. 
 
 He was half way down stairs before he noticed 
 there was someone sitting a few steps below him, 
 a tall, slender figure in white and lavender, a sin 
 gle white rose in the masses of her hair fastened 
 by a silver dagger. He paused and rolled his cig 
 arette mechanically between his fingers, then set 
 his teeth and went on. He had determined to 
 make no advances whatever, and stepped past her 
 without a word, as if, in fact, he had not seen her 
 sitting there. 
 
 When he reached the door of the smoking 
 room, he looked back. A desire to see how she 
 looked, to see if she had noticed who it was that 
 had passed her, possessed him ; it was an impulse 
 that flashed upon him and gave him no time to 
 decide wisely or calmly. Had the affair turned 
 other than it did, he would have condemned him 
 self, but it was well. With so frail a rod does fate 
 turn us to happiness, or drive us to misery. At any 
 rate, he looked as if for someone coming down the 
 stairs behind her such actors are we in our poor, 
 selfish comedy as if it were a stranger sitting 
 on the stair. 
 
 She did not move, but sat calmly, without a 
 trace of feeling in her face. The light in the hall 
 was not over bright, but he could see her distinctly 
 and felt she was watching him. 
 
 She made a motion with her hand, a little mo 
 tion. She would have denied it. He denied that
 
 AT A BUD GERMAN. 87 
 
 he turned to look at her. It is immaterial. He 
 found himself beside her. She did not arise, and 
 her face seemed neither to welcome nor repel him. 
 Such a mask can a woman wear. 
 
 He waited, but she did not move, only her 
 great, dark eyes were on his face, making him lose 
 calm control of himself. Such was her power 
 over him. It was well she was a good woman ; a 
 bad would have done the devil's work that night. 
 
 " Have you nothing to say to me ? " he spoke 
 quietly, but his voice was full of trouble. 
 
 " What would you have me say ? " 
 
 He leaned back against the wall, one hand in 
 his pocket, the other stretched along the wainscot 
 ing. " Only what you can say truly and best." 
 
 She lowered her eyes. " Perhaps I ought," she 
 said slowly, "but it is hard, sometimes, to say 
 what one means without saying too much." 
 
 He waited a moment before replying, not 
 understanding clearly. He felt he was making 
 himself seem pitifully weak, and it piqued him. 
 " I thought," said he, and he beat a tattoo with his 
 fingers on the wainscoting, " you might be sorry 
 for what has happened ; that if it were to be gone 
 over again, you would not be so quick to condemn 
 me ; that if it were brought back to the starting 
 point, you would trust me a little more, and my 
 enemies a little less." He waited a moment and 
 then continued. "It has hurt me." 
 
 She made no motion of sympathy, and he 
 added "somewhat." "I did not think it of you," 
 he went on, " but," and he made a gesture with
 
 88 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 his hand that seemed to include everyone, " they 
 said that it made no difference to you ; you 
 weren't the one to care fora little thing like that." 
 
 "What did you say ? " she asked, and he might 
 have seen she was trembling, but he was looking 
 down and did not notice. 
 
 "Nothing," he replied, and paused. "Yes, I 
 believe I did say something ; I said, ' Why should 
 she ? ' " 
 
 She had turned from him, and was leaning 
 back against the banisters, with her hands folded 
 in her lap, looking away from him. 
 
 " You used to tell me," said she, and her voice 
 was husky, " that a man should learn to brave the 
 opinion of the world, and a woman to submit to 
 it." 
 
 " Yes, I did ; is it not true ? A cynic once told 
 me, that if a man did not smirch his reputation 
 himself, some woman's tongue would do it for him, 
 and his best friends would be the first to believe. 
 I laughed at him then. He was wiser than I. He 
 spoke truly." 
 
 Her lips trembled, and she held her hands 
 before her face, that he might not see the pain he 
 had caused her. 
 
 She was not acting now, and he saw his words 
 had cut to the quick, and he could not see her 
 suffer. " If you would forgive me," said he, as if 
 he had forgotten that he should have been the one 
 to forgive, " You will give me that rose from your 
 hair ; if not, we will say no more, for I will never 
 ask you again."
 
 AT A BUD GERMAN. gp 
 
 She had recovered herself, and determined to 
 take a little revenge for that speech that had stung 
 her so plainly. She turned and smiled at him, but 
 with her hands fixed the rose more firmly in her 
 hair. The hope that had begun to dawn, died 
 slowly out of his face and left it ashen. He 
 thought she was but playing with him after all. 
 
 " Suppose," said she, " that I had promised it 
 to Mr. Lansing, or, more probably, that I don't 
 care to give it to you, what then ?" and she looked 
 at him with anxious eyes. 
 
 '' What then ? " he repeated after her, " why " 
 
 She saw his face hardening, and the lines of 
 his mouth deepen, and she spoke quickly. 
 
 " Suppose," said she, " it was the girl who should 
 be forgiven, not the man ; that she was sorry, very 
 sorry for what had happened ; that if he could 
 trust her again she would never fail him, that if " 
 she paused and arose with her back to him. 
 
 He sprang toward her, but stopped short, for 
 Lansing was coming down the stairs in search of 
 her. 
 
 As he watched them go up together, he saw 
 her gloved hand drop something over the banis 
 ters, that fluttered and fell on the floor beside him. 
 It was a white rose with its stem broken, but he 
 picked it up and placed it in his button-hole. 
 
 There were rumors at the club next day, and 
 the report shared honors with the Jersey City inci 
 dent for a week, and was then forgotten. 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM ELLIS.
 
 top Curfain. 
 
 SCENE: One, anyone, say, for instance, the seventh of 
 the popular Unity Cotillons with the ttsual adjuncts : 
 Somnolent Chaperons, politely bored ; Pretty Girls, and 
 Girls Not Pretty ingeniously vivacious; Animate 
 Dress Suits in A t hie tic Poses. Likewise, the A rgus-Eyed 
 Drop-Curtain, the Orchestra, a Heterogeneous Collection 
 of Tawdry Child's Toys, Etc., Etc. 
 
 TIME : fust before the First Waltz. 
 
 MISS Swansdown, [who, being- in looks consid 
 erably above, and in intellect considerably 
 below the average college belle, is corre 
 spondingly popular with Unity men] (to her partner] 
 I only regret, Mr. Swift, that your irrevocable 
 decision that all is at an end between us, was not 
 attained before you decided to honor me with this 
 german, and that 
 
 Mr. Swift (smiling bitterly) My decision ! Par 
 don me, Miss Swansdown, I am simply bending to 
 your mandate as 
 
 Miss Swansdown Sir ! Your cutting remarks 
 in the carriage as well 
 
 Mr. Frankinsense Murre (running up, presents 
 Miss Swansdown with a papier mache 1 pig) Won't 
 you honor me ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown Oh, thank you, Frank. ( They
 
 THROUGH THE DROP CURTAIN. g l 
 
 waltz.} Weren't you glad, now, when Lent was 
 safely over ? 
 
 Mr. Murre [who has a futurity of clerical aspi 
 rations] Ah, no, Miss Swansdown, we surely 
 miss the voluntary chapel which, through the pro 
 visions of an all wise 
 
 Miss Swansdown (interrupting) Ah, yes, but 
 then, you have denied yourself so. No, no, don't 
 deny it. Your pallor and the black rings under 
 your eyes speak eloquently (as they waltz into the 
 obsolete May pole figure to the man on her right}. 
 There, now, I appeal to Mr. Batt. Did not he fast, 
 Mr. Batt ? 
 
 Mr, Allnite Batt (ivho loves to put his foot in it} 
 Fast, well, rawthaw. Stein record for three years, 
 you know. 
 
 | In his i nculpating protestations, Mr. Murre succeeds in 
 completely muddling the intricate figure, the subject of so 
 much nocturnal thought.] 
 
 Mr. Duke Swellington (who leads semi-audibly) 
 
 [They return to Mr. Swift, who is the richer by a Japa 
 nese doll and an apathetic looking cotton stork, which Miss 
 Swansdown observes, and her heart congeals.] 
 
 Mr. Murre Won't you give me the inter 
 mission ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown (Jialf glancing at her partner who 
 is talking glibly with Miss Elva Langdon on his left) 
 I'm sorry, but but I've given it to Mr. Swift. 
 
 Mr. Swift (ivhose smile freezes) I'm sure 
 
 Miss Swansdown (laughing nervously) See you 
 again, Mr. Murre.
 
 p 2 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Mr. Swift I'm sure I am quite. 
 
 [A large, athletic looking young man rushes up, trips, bal 
 ances himself, and hurls into Miss Swansdown's lap a rubber 
 lizard.] 
 
 Miss Swansdown Ah, how do, Mr. Goal, nice 
 time ? 
 
 Mr. G. Fielding Goal [the young gentleman who 
 says " yes, ma'am "] Yes, ma'am. 
 
 Miss Swansdown (as they lead out) Now, do you 
 athletic gods ever enjoy anything as ethereal as a 
 German ? 
 
 Mr. Goal Yes, ma'am. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Now really. (Sighing.) You 
 blase" men are so infatuating. 
 
 Mr. Goal (radiantly) No, ma'am. It's you 
 who are infatuating. How how fragrant your 
 violets are. "There's, violets they're for 
 thoughts," you know. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Oh, you are so very, very 
 clever. The intermission ? (as they return.) I'm 
 sorry I've promised it. 'Evening. 
 
 [In the next round, they do not lead out, but Miss Enid 
 Cardinall favors Mr. Swift with a red spotted jack in a blue 
 striped box, then Mr. P. Crashington Pose glides up to Miss 
 Swansdown. Oddly enough, he, too, has escaped being 
 favored.] 
 
 Mr. Pose (posing) Good evening, Miss Swans- 
 down ; our friend, Miss Cardinall, seems to be re 
 ceiving considerable attention from George. 
 
 Miss Swansdown (ivincing) I I hadn't noticed. 
 Who is this Miss Cardinall ?
 
 THROUGH THE DROP CURTAIN. 
 
 93 
 
 Mr. Pose What ! Not to know Miss Cardinall 
 argues yourself unknown. But you can meet her 
 at my olive tea to-morrow. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Ah, yes, such a nice idea. 
 Everybody will be there, I suppose. 
 
 Mr. Pose [who deals in idioms and phrases] 
 Yes, drastic recommendation that. However, I 
 never cut anyone. (As Mr. Swift returns.) Ah, 
 here is your delinquent gallant. I yield to a better. 
 
 [Mr. Swift and Miss Swansdown lead out separating at the 
 first signal (six are usually required). Mr. Swift offers Miss 
 Eva DuPois a red snake, and Miss Swansdown presents Mr. 
 Digge among the stags, with a charming smile and a German 
 beer mug.] 
 
 Miss Swansdown And so, Mr. Digge, books 
 aside, you revel in the dance ? 
 
 Mr. Grindely Digge (of the Golden Key, poor thing) 
 
 Yes, a brief respite, beloved metaphysics soon 
 calls. 
 
 [They waltz, and Mr. Digge, after indulging in some bar 
 baric evolutions, slips and falls upon the floor, which is as 
 slippery as truth. He retires in confusion, leaving Miss 
 Swansdown alone in the center of the hall.] 
 
 Mr. Swift (hurrying up) Do let me take you 
 to our seat. 
 
 Miss Swansdown (melting} Thank you, George. 
 Mr. Su'ift Phyllis, don't you think 
 
 [At this stage, young Mr. Blazay presents Miss Swans- 
 down with the devil, in the similitude of a small gray ape on 
 a painted green stick.] 
 
 Mr. Blazay [surfeited of the world at nineteen] 
 
 Shan't we valse, Miss Phyllis ?
 
 p. TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Miss Swansdown (with a backward glance at Mr. 
 Swift) Oh, thank you. Jolly cotillon. 
 
 Mr. Blazay (with a shrug} Jolly! Jolly ! ! Bored 
 to death, you know ! Heavens ! these abortive 
 concoctions of satan ! Gad, you know ! Can't 
 imagine why I came, m'sure. Girls stupid. Tired 
 of swim. Heavens, you know. Even frappee 
 salted ! 
 
 Miss Swansdown Why do you endure us ? 
 
 Mr. Blazay Oh, you amuse me, you know. 
 See right through you. Awful, though. 'Soir, 
 you really can valse. (Returns to his sttffering part 
 ner} 
 
 Mr. Swift Now, Phyllis, I want to 
 
 Mr. Swellington (who leaves} Lead out, George. 
 
 Mr. Swift (as they polka) Don't you think that 
 you that we I mean why is it ? 
 
 [Here the ebony signal of the leader, and Miss Swans- 
 down rushes away to give a brown paper heart to Tableton 
 Litt.] 
 
 Mr. Tableton Litt (u>ho writes accepted articles) 
 Thanks so much. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Oh, your last Bulletin Board 
 was so good, Mr. Litt. Your sonnet " Maud's 
 Long Black Flowing Locks," was divine. 
 
 Mr. Litt You honor and flat 
 
 [Here Mr. Mamothe Blawnde steps upon Miss Swans- 
 down's diminutive toe, and Mr. Litt is obliged to assist her to 
 her seat. With a broad grin Mr. Blawnde follows.] 
 
 Mr. Blawnde [who is often forgetful of the fact 
 that the executive control of the planet Earth has
 
 THROUGH THE DROP CURTAIN. 
 
 95 
 
 been assumed by an all wise providence] Say, you 
 see ! I'm awfully sorry, really now, I am. I 
 didn't see you, and then you know I only learned 
 to dance last fall. 
 
 [Silence as Mr. Blawnde blushingly withdraws. 
 
 Then the orchestra, after a final shriek which dies into a 
 discontented gurgle, becomes silent. 
 
 The various couples, taking advantage of the intermission, 
 descend into the gymnasium below, where the men enter in 
 to detail concerning the apparatus and their own prowess, 
 explaining at the same time how ill they were at the last 
 exhibition. 
 
 The hall above is entirely deserted excepting by Mr. 
 Swift and Miss Swansdown. The latter is beginning to recover 
 from the effect of Mr. Blawnde 's two hundred and thirteen 
 pounds.] 
 
 Mr. Swift (tenderly) I am really so sorry. 
 
 Miss Swansdown (wickedly) Really ? 
 
 Mr. Swift Why, yes, of course I am. 
 
 Miss Swansdoivn Yes ? 
 
 Mr. Swift Yes. 
 
 [Pause.] 
 
 Mr. Swift 1 Are you ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown J Did I ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown Oh, pardon, Mr. Swift, what 
 were you saying ? 
 
 Mr. Swift Excuse me, you were about to 
 remark ? 
 
 Mr. Swift ") 
 
 Miss Swansdown } Oh ' noth " 
 
 Mr. Swift (to himself) I half believe I care as 
 much for her as ever. Jove, how sweet she looks
 
 p6 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 in that pink thing. Well, all her own fault. 
 
 Miss Swansdown (to herself) What a goose I 
 am, I'll be really falling in love with him if I don't 
 watch out. How handsome he is. Oh, I feel so 
 miserable. (Sighs.) 
 
 Mr. Swift (breaking pause) Mr. Pose seems 
 quite attentive. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Yes. To whom ? I hadn't 
 noticed. Miss Cardinall, perhaps ? 
 
 Mr. Swift I think you understand me. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Why, no. What do you 
 mean ? Can't you explain with all your liberal 
 education ? 
 
 Mr. Swift May I ask what you consider a 
 liberal education ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown (with the wisdom of the serpent) 
 Well, at Unity, a liberal education consists of eat 
 ing in French, smoking in Spanish, and drinking 
 in German. 
 
 Mr. Swift May I ask how that applies to me ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown Oh, no, no. I never said 
 that a liberal education applied to you, Mr. Swift. 
 
 [Pause.] 
 
 Mr. Swift Really, Miss Swansdown, I don't 
 see how you can have the face to flirt with a man 
 like Pose. 
 
 Miss Swansdown (laughing) Flirt with Mr. 
 Pose! That's killing. 
 
 Mr. Swift Oh, very well, laugh away. He 
 will make a worthy successor.
 
 THROUGH THE DROP CURTAIN. 97 
 
 Miss Swansdown (innocently) Successor, to 
 whom ? 
 
 Mr. Swift How easily and conveniently you 
 forget. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Forget ? Forget whom ? 
 
 Mr. Swift Forget ! Yes, I suppose you forget 
 our ride home from the last assembly. You forget 
 what you wrote when I had my arm broken. 
 {Bitterly) You forget what you said when we walked 
 home together in the snow storm. Oh, yes, you 
 forget easily. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Oh, stop, stop ! You said I 
 was to f-f-f orget 
 
 Mr. Swift Yes, driven to it by you. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Driven? Who said I was a 
 merciless coquette ! 
 
 Mr. Swift And who said I was a conceited 
 egotist ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown {frigidly) May I trouble 
 you to t-t-take me t-t-to (breaking) O George, I 
 didn't think you could be so cruel. I thought 
 Oh, I know you never cared for m-m-me but 
 I'll Oh, I'm so, so 
 
 Mr. Swift Phyllis, Phyllis, don't, dear. I 
 never meant, Oh, don't you see how I love you ? 
 There ! there ! and there ! 
 
 Miss Swansdown O, George. Don't. Well, 
 if Don't. There, I'm sure I saw that curtain 
 move. One more then. 
 
 Mr. Swift Do forgive me, darling. It was 
 all, all my fault. 
 
 Miss Swansdown Oh, no. It was all mine. I 
 9
 
 9 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 was so afraid I should lose you, and, and George, 
 you horrid Goth, you'll muss my hair. Wait until 
 we start home. Oh, there they come back again. 
 Now do look inane and as if nothing had happened. 
 
 Mr. Swift Then you forgive me ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown Forgive you? Great beast! 
 of course I do. 
 
 Mr. Swift And you love me again as much 
 more than ever ? 
 
 Miss Swansdown You silly boy. Of course I 
 do. 
 
 The Orchestra Boom Tra-la-la ; Boom Tra-la- 
 la ! Boom ! Boom ! ! Boom ! ! ! 
 (Curtain.) 
 
 HARRY SAFFORD CANDEE.
 
 Afternoon 
 
 MR. Bernadin Stokes stood for a moment on 
 the lower landing of the staircase. 
 
 He gazed through the portierres into 
 the crowded drawing-rooms, where countless men 
 and women swarmed, laughing and talking gayly. 
 The babel of tongues raged and swelled like the 
 surging sea. 
 
 " A fool ! a fool you are, Stokes, to come back 
 to this sort of thing again ! " he murmured to him 
 self, half laughing, as he proceeded to make his 
 way slowly through the crowd and find his hostess. 
 
 His entrance was at once noticed. Fat dow 
 agers fluttered, raised their glasses, smiled and 
 bowed fawningly as he approached. Men sur 
 veyed him with interest. He became suddenly 
 the center of interest, as unconsciously he moved 
 down the room among familiar and unfamiliar 
 faces. 
 
 Two young girls, talking animatedly with some 
 students, unobservant that they blocked his way, 
 were laughing heartily at an apparently good joke. 
 Bernadin Stokes listened involuntarily for a mo 
 ment, waiting for a chance to pass.
 
 I00 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 " Yes ! I'll bet you six pounds of Halliard's 
 candies I'm right ! " a tall, deep-voiced blonde was 
 declaring in tones of delicious assurance. 
 
 "But where did you find out?" asked one of 
 her companions, shyly. 
 
 "Ah! never mind; I've heard!" she whispered 
 mysteriously. " She was a poor, country school- 
 marm used to be called ' Lucindy ' Marks ; 
 made her own gowns, you know ; ate with her 
 knife, perhaps, and all that sort of thing. Ugh ! 
 
 Ah ! " with the most wonderful change of 
 
 tone in the world ; " It is you, Mr. Stokes ! Have 
 you fallen from the sky? You've been very 
 naughty lately, never going anywhere." 
 
 "I'm flattered, if anyone has missed me, I'm 
 sure." 
 
 " Missed you ? When the sun sets, you know, 
 the earth is very dark," murmured the blonde, 
 laughing heartily at her own wittiness. She was 
 about to add something more, but he, bowing 
 rather coldly, passed on throiigh the crowd. 
 
 " Isn't he magnificent ? " she whispered eagerly, 
 looking around to see if her little attention had 
 been noticed. "One of the Stokes', you know. 
 Family dates back to Methuselah ! Tall, haughty 
 and with that unmistakable air about him, and 
 frightfully clever. But about that odious little 
 Miss Marks. I " 
 
 "Why, I believe this is really Mr. Bernadin 
 Stokes," cried a slight, elderly woman, who, turn 
 ing suddenly in front of him, walked backward as 
 she talked.
 
 AFTERNOON "TEA." IOI 
 
 " Mrs. Kirkbright ? " 
 
 " Yes," smiling ; " Mrs. Kirkbright. It's very 
 nice to see you again, Mr. Stokes. Have you come 
 back to us for good ? Did you ever see such an 
 enormous crowd ? Have you been able to catch a 
 glimpse of Mrs. Sturtevant Brown yet ? Neither 
 have I. Aren't you almost crushed alive ? Isn't 
 it perfectly awful I mean the crowd ? Do you 
 know Miss Marks, for whom, they say, Mrs. 
 Brown gives this ? But of course you don't. Such 
 funny stories regarding her. I never have seen 
 her myself, but my daughter tells me there's 
 nothing particularly attractive about her. Fancy, 
 she pretends to be nineteen ! Ah, Mr. Stokes, soci 
 ety's changing dreadfully fast. I'm afraid you 
 won't know us at all, now you're back again. She 
 
 comes from the country, I believe There's 
 
 such a noise I can't say a single word ! " 
 
 " It is very unfortunate." 
 
 "Yes the noise isn't it? I've so much I'd 
 like to say, you know. Are you looking for any 
 body, Mr. Stokes ? " 
 
 "No that is yes I'm hoping to meet a 
 friend whom I expected to see before this." 
 
 "The crowd, you know," despairingly; "you 
 can't do a thing. I wish I might see this funny 
 Miss Marks. Ah, here we are at last ! How do 
 you do, my dear Mrs. Sturtevant Brown ? We 
 have to thank you for a most charming tea." 
 
 " Mrs. Kirkbright ! " murmured the hostess, 
 smiling absently as she shook hands, taking all the 
 little lady's remarks as a matter of course and not 
 9*
 
 I02 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 listening to anything. Soon, however, she espied 
 her companion and the absent smile turned to one 
 of present pleasure. 
 
 " Mr. Stokes," she exclaimed warmly, as Mrs. 
 Kirkbright passed on, " I am more than delighted 
 to see you ! You've been so very difficult to se 
 cure lately. You must be sure and come back to 
 me in a few moments. I shall have a little leisure 
 soon," the lady whispered, " and I want to have a 
 talk with you." 
 
 " I will surely come," he answered gravely, 
 and then moved on to make room for the people 
 behind, whose progress he impeded. 
 
 Going through some curtains he found himself 
 in a large, deliciously cool conservatory. Low 
 music was coming from somewhere behind a 
 hedge of palms and ferns. Pausing, relieved at 
 having for a moment found quiet, he turned to 
 examine a collection of orchids, and, as he did so, 
 confronted a tall young lady who was looking at 
 him with an air of amusement, through the glass 
 which she held to her eye. 
 
 " Miss Robertson ? " he said, a trifle surprised. 
 
 " Mr. Stokes ? " she murmured, laughing and 
 imitating his tone. Then she added, after a mo 
 ment, " How deliciously calmly serene you look. 
 Are you sorry that you have met me and all this 
 heavenly revery must be broken by such a paltry 
 thing as conversation? You need not talk, you 
 know, unless you wish to." 
 
 " Are you enjoying all this? " he asked, soberly.
 
 AFTERNOON "TEA." IO; j 
 
 " Hugely," she murmured, slyly drawing down 
 the corners of her mouth. 
 
 " You are the same as ever, I see," he ob 
 served, smiling hardly. 
 
 " Ah, no, Bernadin, I am not the same, I am a 
 different being," she said, pensively, her studied 
 cynicism disappearing. 
 
 "Three years make great changes. I have 
 
 been wretched, Bernadin, all that time." In 
 
 her up-turned eyes one could fancy there were 
 tears. 
 
 He did not answer for a moment ; he was pick 
 ing an orchid to pieces which he held in his hand. 
 
 " What is the name of this flower ? " he asked 
 at last. 
 
 " Bernadin, " she began softly. 
 
 " It is called the flower of inconstancy, I think," 
 he said. "See, it changes color if you touch it. 
 By the way," he continued, throwing it down, " Do 
 you happen to know the Miss Marks for whom 
 Mrs. Brown is said to give this thing ? " 
 
 An impatient look spread over his companion's 
 face, but in a moment it was gone. She laughed 
 heartily, perhaps a little excitedly. 
 
 "What, that fright ? Has anyone been telling 
 you about her ? Know her ? No ; I can hardly 
 say I do. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Only fancy your asking ? 
 Why, she's a complete barbarian a perfect guy, 
 I'm told. Red-haired, freckled little thing. No 
 body knows anything about her. I'm very anxious 
 to see her, but Mrs. Manners told me about two 
 minutes ago that she hasn't come yet."
 
 I04 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Again Bernadin Stokes did not answer. He 
 seemed absorbed in thought. Etta Robertson 
 was silent, too, a moment ; the same plaintive ex 
 pression stealing over her face. 
 
 "Bernadin," she said softly, after a moment, 
 " Bernadin, forgive me. I never can forgive my 
 self, if you " 
 
 " Why, it's Mr. Stokes, as sure as the world ! 
 How do you do, Mr. Stokes ? I must speak to 
 you," exclaimed a large lady who was passing by. 
 
 "I'm very glad to see you, Mrs. Trouville," 
 cried the young man with perceptible relief. 
 
 " Here is my daughter, Edith, too," murmured 
 the lady, blandly, contriving at the same time to 
 bestow a very distant bow in Miss Robertson's 
 direction. 
 
 " Edith ! come here, dear. You know Mr. 
 Stokes, do you not ? We've been away so long, 
 you know, Edith has forgotten everybody. We 
 were all last winter in Bermuda, Mr. Stokes. It's 
 the loveliest place in the world. I cried when I 
 came away. But all good times have to come to 
 an end and I had to get back to attend to Laura's 
 wedding." 
 
 " Is your elder daughter to be married ? " asked 
 the man smiling. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Didn't you know it ? To Captain 
 Bellingham the loveliest Englishman. There ! 
 I'm going to send you away, Mr. Stokes, to get me 
 some salad or something. I'm as hungry as a 
 bear. And come right back. We'll have a nice 
 little gossip all to ourselves."
 
 AFTERNOON "TEA." 
 
 105 
 
 Bernadin Stokes disappeared through the cur 
 tains. When he came back Miss Robertson had 
 gone. 
 
 " There is such a crowd around the tea table, I 
 thought my turn would never come," he declared, 
 amusedly. 
 
 " Have you ever seen Miss Marks ?" whispered 
 Mrs. Trouville, mysteriously, after they were all 
 comfortably settled. 
 
 " Is she here ? " Bernadin Stokes asked, sud 
 denly. 
 
 "Probably by this time. It's nearly six 
 
 and time to go ; common decency must make her 
 come soon. This pates is delicious, Mr. Stokes. 
 You are not eating anything. What's the matter ? 
 I always eat when I'm out. I think people are 
 glad to have you. They say the reason she stays 
 away so long is that she's afraid won't know 
 how to behave, you know." 
 
 " Have you ever seen the young lady ? " asked 
 Stokes, a little gravely. 
 
 " No ; but I've heard nothing else but ' Miss 
 Marks ' since I got back. I wonder if Hasse or 
 Babenstein is catering. It tastes like Babenstein, I 
 think, Edith. Society's changing very fast, I fear 
 Mr. Stokes. To think of such a young person as 
 Miss Marks, evidently an unmannerly, calculating 
 thing, coming in amongst us, when there are so 
 many really nice girls who " 
 
 Mrs. Trouville discreetly left the sentence un 
 finished, contenting herself with bestowing a fond
 
 I0 6 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 glance on her daughter and a beaming one on 
 Mr. Stokes. 
 
 For some fifteen minutes the little group sat 
 chatting. Then there was a general stir in the 
 conservatory. It was after six o'clock and every 
 one seemed suddenly to be leaving. 
 
 "We must say good-night, I suppose," declared 
 Mrs. Trouville, regretfully. " But you must be 
 sure and come and see us I have Mondays, you 
 know I believe we shall have to leave without 
 seeing her after all." 
 
 "Who do you mean by 'her,'" asked Stokes, 
 smiling radiantly as they came back to the draw 
 ing-room and noise again. 
 
 " Why, ' the Marks,' of course. How provoking 
 that we couldn't see her." 
 
 " If you look directly to the right of Mrs. 
 Sturtevant-Brown, you will see her," the man at 
 her side answered quietly. 
 
 " Mercy ! Do you know her ? " asked Mrs. 
 Trouville in amazement, suddenly putting up her 
 glass and gazing in the direction indicated, eager 
 for what she should see. 
 
 She saw a beautiful young girl, whose deli 
 cately refined face lit up with a happy smile as 
 she quietly talked with her hostess. She was 
 small and slight, with quantities of rich golden 
 brown hair, tucked up under a bewitchingly be 
 coming bonnet. She was dressed in soft grays 
 and carried a bouquet of pink tulips in her hand. 
 
 Bernadin Stokes had reached her side. His 
 handsome face glowed with eagerness as he bent
 
 AFTERNOON "TEA." Io j 
 
 over, and in a low voice murmured something in 
 her ear. The answer, too, was quite inaudible, 
 but the beautiful girl seemed very happy, raising 
 her dazzling gray eyes to his and absently toying 
 with her bouquet. 
 
 "Who is that ? demanded Mrs. Trouville of 
 Miss Robertson, who happened to be standing at 
 her side. 
 
 " Don't you know Miss Marks ? " asked Mrs. 
 Sturtevant-Brown, coming forward before the 
 other had a chance to speak. " Is she not lovely ? " 
 she continued admiringly, " She is engaged to be 
 married, you know, to Mr. Bernadin Stokes." 
 
 REUEL CROMPTON TUTTLE.
 
 <Bof 
 
 4 4 T SUPPOSE escapes are impossible, except in 
 novels ?" said I. 
 
 " Do any of them ever reform in here ?" 
 chimed in the theological student at the same 
 moment. " What do you think of converted con 
 victs, anyway ? " 
 
 We were sitting in the chief warden's cozy 
 office ; and feeling abominably sober, too, in spite 
 of his excellent cigars. When one is taken over a 
 great prison he must be prepared to come out a 
 little dejected it is the contagion of the air. 
 One must not expect to see a minstrel show, and 
 it is doubtful if he can detect the melodrama in it. 
 The triumph of the law had seemed very incom 
 plete and pitiful as we looked on that long line of 
 men shuffling down the corridor in the lock-step. 
 Many of the faces were villainous, all were gloomy. 
 An indescribable listlessness about their move 
 ments suggested the absence of the soul, and they 
 had eyes of agate. It was such thoughts as these 
 that were responsible for our almost painful 
 silence, as we sat there in the warden's office, 
 busily smoking his cigars. But the inquiries of 
 the theological student and myself, spoken sud 
 denly and in concert, had broken the somewhat 
 disagreeable charm. The theological student's
 
 THE MAN WHO GOT CONVERTED. IO9 
 
 voice was louder than mine, and his questions were 
 longer, so he may be said to have had the floor. 
 
 " What do you think of converted convicts, any 
 way ? " he asked. 
 
 The warden stopped short in his perambula 
 tions across the room. 
 
 " What do you think of death-bed repentances ? " 
 he said. 
 
 "Why, I I don't know!" the Theological 
 student spoke a trifle awkwardly. 
 
 " Well ! " The warden shrugged his shoulders 
 a little. "I don't know what I think about prison 
 conversions. They're both about the same thing, 
 I guess a sort of a high trump that men pull out 
 of their sleeves, to cheat either the devil or the 
 prison officials out of what belongs to 'em See ? 
 But once in a while the game's honest," he added 
 hastily. 
 
 The chief warden made a very striking figure 
 as he stood there. He had been a general in the 
 late war. When he said " Go ! " to a person, there 
 was a certain peculiar look in his eye that induced 
 the individual to depart without saying a word. 
 He was the man a woman might appeal to in a 
 crowd. 
 
 " I can tell you about a fellow who got con 
 verted here," resumed the warden. " He was 
 sent up for ten years ; he was the meanest brute 
 that ever put on stripes, and his eyes were like a 
 snake's. The subtle influence of that man poi 
 soned the whole prison. He broke out into the 
 corridor with a shoe knife one night, and the 
 10
 
 IIO TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 watchman shot at him before he dropped it. 
 Every two or three weeks he'd have a fit in his 
 cell, and curse till he was hoarse. Well ! When 
 that man got converted, we watched him pretty 
 close. We have to. He came it over the chaplain 
 in three months, but it was several years before he 
 fully convinced me of his sincerity. You never 
 saw such a change come over a person in your 
 life. He was just as respectful and obedient but 
 the great change was in his eye ; it lost the old 
 hang-dog look and was as clear as a bell ; and he 
 held his head up like a man, too. You remember 
 that great iron basin that was sunk into the wall 
 in each cell, don't you ? " 
 
 We both nodded. 
 
 " There is a little hole bored in the bottom of 
 it," he went on, " and the acoustics are so arranged 
 that the sounds in the cell go through. Well, 
 every night, when the watchman squinted in, he 
 found that man praying like a fiend every single 
 night, for two years." 
 
 " You didn't think he was shamming then, did 
 you ? " said the theological student. 
 
 " I knew it was a very old game," returned the 
 warden, " and thought he might possibly be on 
 the make. But I had to give way at last. The 
 secret influence of that man's life actually began 
 to convert his fellow convicts. One night one of 
 the sick prisoners was dying in the hospital, and, 
 instead of asking for the chaplain, he requested 
 that the converted convict might come in. You 
 could have knocked me down with a feather. I
 
 THE MAN WHO GOT CONVERTED. XII 
 
 said ' Yes,' and staid there in the room. Well, sirs! 
 The simple, unaffected, manly way with which 
 that convict spoke to the dying man made my 
 eyes wet. There was no cant about him, either. 
 He was the man for the hour." 
 
 " The world has more need for that man," said 
 I, "than the prison has." 
 
 " That's just what I said myself," exclaimed the 
 warden, " and I exerted all my influence in his 
 behalf, and managed to secure him a full pardon." 
 
 " Well done ! " I cried. 
 
 " That shows what honesty will do for a man," 
 said the theological student. 
 
 " That isn't quite all of the story, though," re 
 sumed the warden. " The day I got the pardon 
 for him he came into the office in a suit of citizen's 
 clothes. He seemed all broken up. ' General,' 
 said he, ' am I at liberty ? Are you sure ? ' ' Yes,' I 
 said, ' and you are my personal friend. If there is 
 anything you want, name it. If you want money 
 
 "'Gentlemen,' interrupted the convict, his 
 voice quavered, but he stood up very straight 
 ' there is only one thing I am going to ask. It is 
 just this. That old Bible, which I learned to use 
 in here, which has so many associations for me, 
 and which has changed the whole character of my 
 life I want that Bible.' " 
 
 The theological student drew in his breath. 
 The warden went on. 
 
 " I gave it to him. Very carefully he received 
 it into his hands you would have thought it was
 
 II2 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 a baby. Very reverently he raised it to his lips, 
 and talked to it his words seemed choking him : 
 'You have done for me more than I thought you 
 would, you have helped me more than I hoped 
 you could, you have made me what I am' He 
 looked up. The mask fell from his face. In a 
 flash he was changed back into his old self again. 
 His voice rose into a hoarse shriek ' Now go to 
 Hell /' And slamming the book across the room, 
 he burst it against the wall. He went out in one 
 of his old fits of cursing. I shall never forget that 
 face as he turned around at the door. It had 
 snake's eyes again, and its leer was Satan's own." 
 
 The warden sat down, and reaching over the 
 table picked a speckled cigar out of the box. 
 
 "By Jove, General," I cried, "how that man 
 must have gloated over that denouement ! how he 
 must have repeated it over to himself as he lay in 
 his cell at night and fairly fed on it in his thoughts ; 
 when one little overt act of his would have de 
 stroyed the hypocrisy of years ! " The warden 
 remained silent. 
 
 "Well !" I said, with an unnatural laugh, "he 
 took the trick ! and that's the great aim in life 
 after all. He knew how to lay his cards down ! 
 he played the knave." 
 
 " No," said the theological student, "he played 
 the fool." 
 
 The warden bit the end off his cigar. 
 
 " That sort of thing may take an occasional 
 trick," he said, "but it can't win a game. Six 
 months later he turned up in Sing Sing." 
 
 LUCIAN WATERMAN ROGERS.
 
 it IB 
 
 THE sun had sunk low, and the last glowing 
 athlete, striped like a wasp, had disappeared 
 through the gate. Mr. Briggs, who had 
 taken the contract to cut the " bloomin' " grass on 
 the foot-ball field and had probably worked less 
 than fifteen minutes the whole afternoon, was left 
 behind with a little boy. 
 
 " Gosh ! " ejaculated the ancient man, as he 
 carefully lifted his scythe across his shoulder and 
 followed the retreating footsteps, " Did you see 
 the big feller with the muzzle, who laid upon the 
 ground, all covered with blood and couldn't move ? 
 George ! He must have been calling them fear 
 ful names to make them all set into him like that ! 
 And did you see them chase the little stout man 
 all over the yard ? He knocked three of them 
 down and ran away, and there couldn't nobody 
 stop him. He didn't have a bad face either ! 
 But I guess if they ever catch him they'll lay him 
 up ! " 
 
 " I don't find no fault with young men playing 
 
 at kick the foot-ball," went on the sage, "and I 
 
 always like to see young folks happy. But when 
 
 young men who come here on purpose to play 
 
 10*
 
 II4 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 kick the foot-ball, get into a low, coarse fight and 
 knock one another down and don't play no foot 
 ball at all, they ain't gentlemen. They ain't gen 
 tlemen," said the old man violently, "I don't care 
 who they be ! And if I should go up there and 
 tell some of them professors how they all pitched 
 onto the big feller with the muzzle and smashed 
 his face in, they'd be a heap of trouble for some 
 body round here ! But I ain't no tale-bearer," 
 said the venerable man, as he passed out of the 
 ball field, " I just mind my own business and don't 
 say nothing to nobody." 
 
 LUCIAN WATERMAN ROGERS.
 
 of ttne. 
 
 ( 4 A ND your daughter," said Lady Smalltow- 
 /A ers, " She must be impressive." 
 
 " On the contrary. She is candor it 
 self. She is such an incitement. But ' Mrs. 
 Beeter hesitated and then went on briskly, " Un 
 fortunately, she is of average height." 
 
 " That doesn't matter much when it's not all in 
 one place," rejoined concisely Lady Smalltowers, 
 who had the remains of great height. 
 
 "Ah, but Agatha is so hopelessly juste milieu. 
 You are always on one side of her or behind her, 
 or in front of her, wherever you place yourself." 
 
 " I do not quite understand you," said Lady 
 Smalltowers, with more insistence than emphasis. 
 " I have known girls to marry people." 
 
 " It is Agatha's orientation, you know. It 
 brings her into strained relations and out again." 
 
 " Ah, I understand," said Lady Smalltowers, 
 unaccentedly. She had a way of leaving off her 
 accents which had the effect of the wrong side of a 
 damask table-cloth, and suggested indefinably that 
 she came from the Northeast. She did this with 
 infinite tact, so that you felt intellectually at ease. 
 
 " Then, will you please explain it all," said Mrs.
 
 n6 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 Beeter. " I give you notice that I shall cling to 
 you." 
 
 " My dear child, we understand one another. 
 You are infinitely alloying. I will marry her." 
 Lady Smalltowers, who was handsomer than ever 
 when she laughed, did not laugh. 
 
 Mrs. Beeter looked puzzled. She had not ex 
 pected Lady Smalltowers not to laugh. It seemed 
 too summary. 
 
 " The poor child will have something," she 
 murmured. 
 
 Lady Smalltowers' eyes approached one another 
 one three-millionth of an inch. She glanced 
 towards the window and said guardedly, " Do you 
 mean money ? " 
 
 " No, not exactly money." 
 
 " Ah, I see," said Lady Smalltowers, with a 
 tonic accent on "Ah." No one could be better 
 aware than she how much women knew who knew 
 nothing. 
 
 " It's stocks and bonds and incomes," said Mrs. 
 Beeter, breaking down. " She is fastidiously clever 
 and doesn't care." 
 
 " That complicates matters," said Lady Small- 
 towers, tumultuously. 
 
 " But worse than that, she doesn't care that she 
 doesn't care." 
 
 " That is much simpler." 
 
 " On the contrary, it seems to me more in 
 volved." 
 
 " My dear, do you not know that the more 
 involved such things are, the simpler they are,'
 
 THE FORE-WHEEL OF TIME. ny 
 
 said Lady Smalltowers with the air of meditating 
 in silence. 
 
 " Yes, to a woman of your position, perhaps," 
 said Mrs. Beeter, smiling- with her basking candor- 
 
 " We will have her married and in the smart 
 set." 
 
 Lady Smalltowers was superb in her utterance 
 of finalities. Her words had the solemnity of a 
 benediction, and Mrs. Beeter remained motionless, 
 her head slightly bent forward. For a moment it 
 seemed as if she would faint. But, though not 
 belonging to the very best set, she was far too 
 well-bred for that. After a pause she said resent 
 fully, and with an air of balancing three probabil 
 ities, " Will there be a wedding ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," said Lady Smalltowers with a 
 frigidity which had the effect of not lowering the 
 temperature. " And now we will dress for dinner." 
 
 Mrs. Beeter, too, arose. She was a trifle corpu 
 lent, and life took on a dismal introspection. She 
 was less inclined to despondency than her friend, 
 and Agatha's marriage seemed, in the light of that 
 inclination, not altogether unattainable. Dressing 
 for dinner caused her to forget the past and the 
 future in the absorbing insistence of the diurnal 
 As for Lady Smalltowers, dressing for dinner was 
 to her what it should be, a solemn purification. 
 When she was dressed she exhaled beatitude, and 
 those privileged to be near her underwent the 
 excitement of a mysterious exaltation. Not that 
 she scintillated or glowed only the unspeakable 
 middle-class people do that. You could hardly
 
 IX 8 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 have offended her more, had you suggested that 
 she perspired, something so unmistakably Ameri 
 can that it is never alluded to. When you ap 
 proached Lady Smalltowers when she was dressed 
 for dinner, you felt the serene elevation which the 
 neighborhood of perfection brings. Those not 
 privileged to do so remained thin and empirical 
 all their lives. Her taste was so unerring that she 
 never mentioneed things, she made you think of 
 them ; and if you discovered that they were the 
 wrong things, you experienced the mortification 
 of knowing that you had fallen in her estimation. 
 
 On entering the room, she found her son, Lord 
 Pythian, standing near the mantel. He was a 
 man with some feminine aggravations, though 
 conscientiously modern, and considered patriotism 
 a fifth-rate impertinence, proper enough for for 
 eigners, who invented many hideous things. 
 Agatha and her mother soon followed, for even 
 Agatha's independence had not reached the point 
 of making her late for an important function. 
 Lord Pythian took Mrs. Beeter out, and Agatha 
 followed with Lady Smalltowers. To go into din 
 ner with Lady Smalltowers was an event, and it 
 was Agatha's misfortune to be unaware that some 
 thing was taking place. In her youthful ineptitude 
 she regarded it as an occurrence, whereas it was a 
 culmination. She sat between Lord Pythian and 
 his mother with a very imperfect sense of propin 
 quity, and originated remarks on ordinary mat 
 ters. Lady Smalltowers trembled lest she should 
 say something with a definite meaning, but recov-
 
 THE FORE-WHEEL OF TIME. ng 
 
 ered when she remembered that nobody would 
 understand her. 
 
 The conversation turned on Lord Beaufort's 
 escapade. They agreed that he was ill-balanced. 
 He had departed to America before he visited the 
 south of France. 
 
 Lord Pythian said Beaufort always impressed 
 him as having no center. He spoke slowly, but 
 with a bland and unconscious rectification. You 
 gathered that Lord Beaufort's conduct was painful 
 to him. 
 
 " Why do you pronounce the name to rhyme 
 with duffer ? " asked Agatha, with an effusive 
 smile one that wouldn't do in England. 
 
 She was conscious of her misstep at once. A 
 negation of the intellectual frontier had occurred, 
 and Lady Smalltowers replied with a vague alarm. 
 
 " My dear, people do not give reasons for 
 things. Things simply are." 
 
 Lord Pythian had paled distinctly. Spelling 
 was not a subject people of his class talked about. 
 He felt as he might have, had he been accused of 
 acting from a motive. There was something de- 
 gradingly commercial about motives and reasons. 
 Mrs. Beeter was silent, but there are many ways 
 of being silent. Lord Pythian had an atmosphere 
 and diffused silence through it. Poor Mrs. Beeter 
 had no atmosphere. 
 
 After dinner, Lord Pythian told his mother 
 that he should sleep in the haunted chamber- 
 There was no story about this chamber, and noth 
 ing whatever had ever happened in it. Still, it
 
 I20 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 was distinctly haunted by something unknown and 
 nameless. It was exactly like other rooms which 
 are not haunted, and this was the mysterious thing 
 about it. Lord Pythian came of a long line of 
 soldiers, and his mother knew from the intensely 
 living expression of his eye that he had determined 
 to brave the terrors of the haunted room. But she 
 made no effort to dissuade him from the formida 
 ble ordeal. Perhaps a mother of the middle class 
 might have remonstrated in view of what might 
 not happen. But Lady Smalltowers was not of 
 the middle class. 
 
 That night there was the vague electric ten 
 sion in the air which precedes a catastrophe. 
 Lady Smalltowers and Mrs. Beeter sat solitary in 
 their rooms. If either slept no one but the sleeper 
 was aware of their dreams. The servants slept, 
 all but the housekeeper and butler, whose loyalty 
 to the family was like the feeling of dumb animals. 
 At nine next morning Lady Smalltowers and the 
 housekeeper walked past the door of the haunted 
 chamber. Lady Smalltowers looked tall in the 
 morning light. She wore, of course, no jewels, 
 but her morning dress was perfect in all its 
 appointments. In her hand she clutched a minia 
 ture of her son. She thought she might not recog 
 nize him. Her bearing was inexpressibly digni 
 fied, but touched with aristocratic tedium. She 
 passed the door of the haunted chamber and went 
 into her morning room. She was too thorough 
 bred to evince curiosity even if she felt it. Then 
 she said to the housekeeper, " Call Lord Pythian."
 
 THE FORE-WHEEL OF TIME. I2 i 
 
 Her agitation may be conjectured from the 
 appalling fact that she gave the order to the house 
 keeper and not to the footman. Probably the 
 housekeeper called him. At all events, Mrs. 
 Beeter and Agatha always appeared to think so. 
 CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON. 
 
 11
 
 Worfb. 
 
 TTERE is nothing in this world so common, so 
 readily given away and consequently so 
 cheap, as good advice. We have already 
 safely stowed away in the rubbish heap of our 
 minds enormous consignments of this commodity, 
 which would essay to teach us the most proper 
 way of running a college paper. If we could only, 
 conjurer-like, "borrow some gentleman's silk hat 
 from the crowd," put in a little of the above ad 
 vice, carefully covered over with a handkerchief, 
 and take out a bright, racy " article " on the times ; 
 or if the same superior mind which evolved all 
 this criticism and journalistic information would 
 only take up his inspired pen and write a sample 
 article for the paper instead of taking up stones 
 to cast at it the TABLET would doubtless be a 
 shining star in the firmament of college journal 
 ism. If, on the other hand, we could only sell, at 
 the merest nominal figure, the smallest part of 
 this wholesale commodity, we would be ordering 
 an eighty-thousand-dollar steam yacht to-day, and 
 keep a box of fifty-cent cigars in our office drawer, 
 wrapped up in gilt paper. 
 
 Now, of course, both as individuals and collect-
 
 THIS THANKLESS WORLD. 
 
 123 
 
 ively, we are painfully conscious that we don't 
 know anything- at all about running a college 
 paper ; that an ordinarily intelligent goat can run 
 it better than we do, and that any man in college 
 can write infinitely better articles than we can, 
 even the most despised freshman. But why don't 
 they ? The question dies unanswered in the cir 
 cumambient air. Truly, it is pitiful to see such 
 magnificent material go to waste. 
 
 A few days ago two men ascended the chapel 
 stairs. They represented two distinct and sep 
 arate orders of society the criticiser and the 
 criticised. The one was a Pharisee and the other 
 an editor. 
 
 The Pharisee was scrupulously dressed in the 
 height of fashion, in apparel glorious to behold. 
 The editor wore reseated trousers, with a long 
 frock coat to cover the missing integrity. But 
 who could penetrate the mystery which an extra 
 long coat-tail hides? These much-abused and 
 embarrassing garments also were in that romantic 
 condition which is known in the vulgar vernacular 
 as " High Tide," making such close connections 
 with the tops of his boots that they were just too 
 late to catch them. 
 
 The well-kept locks of the Pharisee, again, 
 were perfumed and curled ; and while each sep 
 arate ringlet was distinctly articulate, all, taken as 
 a whole, made an effect not unlike a sonnet read 
 aloud. The editor's hair, however, was all stern 
 and wild, hanging in long sheaves adown his neck,
 
 124 
 
 TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 partly because it gives a man a halo of literary 
 renown to have his hair all stern and wild, hang 
 ing in long sheaves adown his neck, and partly, 
 also, because the pecuniary emolument attached 
 to the position of editor was not sufficient to buy 
 him a twenty-five cent hair cut. 
 
 " Why don't you give your paper a little indi 
 viduality ? " demanded the Pharisee ; " a little 
 dash of the original, once in a while ? Why, it's 
 just like a whitewashed fence ! For Heaven's 
 sake, man, put something or other in it, if it's only 
 a circus poster or a ballet girl ! " 
 
 We did so. Sacrificing ambition and popular 
 applause for the greatest good of our fellow men, 
 we pictured in a style modeled from the Phar 
 isee's suggestion, with a dash of fantastical aban 
 don, a few glaring evils of social life, with com 
 ments on the public morals. The next day the 
 paper had acquired the reputation abroad of being 
 a 'scurrilous sheet.' 
 
 Oh, thankless world ! 
 
 " Why do you make everything so solemn and 
 lugubrious ? " said the Pharisee again. " Do you 
 publish your paper in the morgue ? Put a little 
 life into it occasionally, anything that will provoke 
 a smile ! Get a ' funny man,' if necessary, on the 
 board." 
 
 We did so. At enormous expense and inconve 
 nience, we procured the services of a professional 
 wit of recognized reputation. We straightaway 
 set before the expectant public a racy newspaper 
 article fairly overflowing with subtle humor, yet
 
 THIS THANKLESS WORLD. I2 ,j 
 
 harmless withal, and thoroughly fitting for a 
 Christian young man to read, eminently fitting 
 to beguile the leisure hours of a hard-working col 
 lege student, in mirthful innocence. 
 
 The next morning the Pharisees began to con 
 gregate. 
 
 " Have you noticed the pathetic struggles 
 which that paper is making in its efforts to be 
 funny ? " says one. 
 
 "Yes," says the second Pharisee, lighting a 
 cigar, " If I were in the habit of writing things 
 like that, I'd hire a professional assassin to call me 
 in!" 
 
 Thus it is all the year through. The chill 
 breath of criticism alone rewards our toil, and 
 gratitude is the weakest emotion of the human 
 mind. Oh thankless world ! Before what class of 
 animals do we cast our pearls ! 
 
 DUNRAVEN. 
 
 II*
 
 ^froff (pout fge Coffee. 
 
 YES, of course you feel anxious to get out into 
 the world and begin your life work. That's 
 perfectly natural. I think every senior 
 ought to feel that way ; but don't pretend that 
 you're not sorry to leave Trinity College, for you 
 know perfectly well that you don't mean it. You 
 stay here four years, you spend whole days in 
 storming against some innovation in the curricu 
 lum which you dimly imagine has been brought 
 about by a tyrannical faculty for your special in 
 convenience ; you tirade against some abandon 
 ment of custom, some violation of a long-cherished 
 tradition ; you are profoundly sure that Trinity 
 College is hurrying rapidly down hill every day, 
 that this isn't the place it used to be, and that you, 
 for one, will be glad to leave the sinking ship ; but 
 when the time comes to go, when you hear for the 
 last time, perhaps, your classmates on the campus 
 singing "'Neath the Elms," when you go up to 
 Chapel in lazy week and find that upstart Junior 
 established in that comfortable corner that you 
 have filled so long, it would be funny, if it wasn't 
 pathetic, to notice how petty your grievances be 
 come and what a desirable place Trinity College 
 has grown to be. And when you have finally dis-
 
 A STROLL ABOUT THE COLLEGE. I2 j 
 
 posed of your furniture and take your dress-suit 
 case to follow the hackman down the walk, you all 
 at once become conscious that you are going to 
 miss in future some of these familiar scenes which 
 you have never thought particularly charming 
 until now. You realize for the first time that 
 there are graven on your mind memories that the 
 lapse of many years cannot wholly efface. Oh, it 
 just breaks my heart to think of leaving this place. 
 Do you remember when you first came to col 
 lege how you wondered which was Jarvis and 
 which Northam, and if you ever would learn 
 which was the entrance to the President's office. 
 Those carved heads over the door don't seem to 
 frown to-day quite so grimly as they did that 
 Wednesday morning when your petition was re 
 fused and you left college for a visit among 
 friends. 
 
 "Oh, Robert, O-oh, Robert!" There, the mail 
 has come. See them crowd around the box. Per 
 haps you'll hear from that Teachers' Agency to 
 day. How many times you've rushed down stairs, 
 expecting a letter from her, only to be confronted 
 
 with a bill, a circular, or " Nothing, Mr. J ." 
 
 Remember how in Freshman year you dropped a 
 letter for her into the " official " box, and how a 
 week after the Secretary of the Faculty found it ? 
 Come to think of it, that was probably one reason 
 she never wrote to you again. That was about 
 the time you began to smoke, too, wasn't it ? 
 
 And there's the bulletin board. No need to 
 read the notices. You're an alumnus now. Re-
 
 I2 g TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 member how many times you've eagerly scanned 
 it to see if you could spy the welcome information 
 that "Prof. G - will not be able to meet his 
 classes to-day." It really don't seem to make so 
 much difference now, does it ? If you had spent 
 some of your leisure time in study, your name 
 would have been higher up on that Senior standing 
 
 list. " Mr. M , representing D. Toy, will be in 
 
 53 J. H. to-day to solicit orders." Did you ever 
 pay that bill ? No, that's a meeting of the new 
 Tablet Board, and doesn't concern you. The Phi 
 Beta Kappa meeting doesn't concern you much 
 either, does it ? 
 
 Let's stroll across the Campus and sit down 
 under the old Bishop's outstretched hand. Got a 
 cigarette ? Thanks. He looks rather grim up 
 there, doesn't he? the brazen figure against 
 the sky ; and yet he always seemed to me to un 
 bend a little, and a faint smile seems to lurk 
 around that resolute mouth when the waiter comes 
 out with the lemonade. If he could speak how 
 many secrets he could tell. Many lasting friend 
 ships have been formed here where we sit, beneath 
 the Bishop's benediction. Do you remember the 
 
 last talk we had here with poor B ? Why 
 
 should we call him " poor " ? He's better off than 
 he was here, I'm sure, dear old chap. 
 
 There, they're singing " We gather round the 
 Chapel steps," now. See them gather. How irk 
 some going to Chapel used to be ! See Robert 
 holding out his watch. "Time," and they go 
 jostling up the stairs. A few tardy Sophomores
 
 A STROLL ABOUT THE COLLEGE. 
 
 129 
 
 rush around the corner, and the door is closed. 
 How solemn the service seemed yesterday, didn't 
 it ? I never realized before how much the prayer 
 for the college means. 
 
 There's Mr. Adams over there leisurely beat 
 ing that old rug of yours. He leisurely cared for 
 your room and blacked your boots for a good 
 while. He did your father's, too. Quite an old 
 landmark is Mr. Adams. He knows the transient 
 nature of a college course. See, he stops ; he di 
 rects that young Freshman to Jarvis with just that 
 gesture with which he greeted us when we first 
 saw him. Were Adams acquainted with Tenny 
 son, don't you know, you might imagine him, as 
 he rhythmically beats away, murmuring, 
 
 "Men may come and men may go, 
 But I go on forever." 
 
 How quiet it is just now ! There's not a soul 
 upon the walk except Mr. Michael Doyle, and we 
 can hear him plainly. " Bunker-hills, gintlemin, 
 bunker-hills, popcorn. Buy me out, gintlemin, 
 buy me out," and he twirls his stick and shuffles 
 down the walk. Old " Apples " is a great boy ; 
 he'll vend his apples and popcorn till cold weather 
 comes and then he'll seek seclusion at the city's- 
 expense. There they come from chapel ; Apples 
 hears them and begins anew, " Hello, gintlemin, 
 hello ! Buy me out, popcorn, bunker-hills, buy 
 me out." "Sing, Apples, sing." 
 
 " O-oh, my name is Dan McCann, 
 I come from Paddy's land, 
 I am a true-born Irishman."
 
 I; , TRINITY SKETCHES. 
 
 " Gintlemin of Trinity College, I wish ye all a 
 happy New Year an' a happy Fourth o' July. 
 Popcorn, gintlemin, popcorn. A good vacation an' 
 may ye all come back to Trinity 'Colleges.' Buy 
 me out gintlemin, buy me out." I wish we were all 
 coming back to Trinity "Colleges ". 
 
 The western hills loom up against the gorgeous 
 splendor of the setting sun; and now we sit in 
 shadow while the fleecy cloud-piles of the east, 
 far above us, are bathed in light. Now the more 
 quiet tints of twilight steal on, and the roseate west 
 grows old and gray, soon to be wrapped in a 
 shroud of darkness. Will any sunsets ever seem 
 so bright as these ? Do you recollect that charm 
 ing Junior that took you out on the cliff by the 
 stone-crusher that first afternoon, and descanted 
 on the beauty of that western view ? Wasn't he 
 just the nicest fellow you ever saw ? He im 
 pressed me just the same. What excellent advice 
 he gave about your room ! How grateful you felt 
 for that little help with " De Senectute" ! 
 
 Did you ever stop upon the walk late at night 
 and look up at the towers and turrets that seem to 
 project straight up into the sky? When the moon 
 is flooding all things with dim, mysterious light, 
 all is still, and only here and there a light burns 
 dimly in some college window. The long windows 
 of the gymnasium unless it be the night of a 
 German reflect the ghostly moonbeams. Come 
 to think of it, you were a little fast in Junior year ; 
 perhaps you've seen several moons beaming down 
 upon you when returning late to college. Every
 
 A STROLL ABOUT THE COLLEGE. l -^ l 
 
 stone in that old building is dear to us. However 
 pleasant our surroundings in after life, we never 
 can enjoy them more than we have our comfort 
 able quarters up in Jarvis. 
 
 It is the privilege of old warriors to fight their 
 battles over in memory, and I am sure we both 
 feel aged to-day. And our college life has con 
 sisted largely of struggles hasn't it? and strug 
 gles of many kinds. In some we've triumphed, 
 and some, alas, have worsted us. Remember 
 those old cane-rushes they used to have when we 
 were underclassmen ? Oh, they were f ushes worthy 
 of the name ! What a shame we thought it when 
 the Faculty abolished them ! That first St. Pat 
 rick's Day ! I can feel now the quiver of excite 
 ment, the tightening of muscles ; I can hear the 
 labored breathing as we formed just outside that 
 first row of elms the cane in our midst, tightly 
 grasped by our sturdiest classmates. How many 
 nice fellows we have lost since then ! At last the 
 word "go," and we rush madly toward that coveted 
 goal, the door of middle Jarvis. The determined 
 Sophomores hurl themselves at our feet to stop 
 our on-rush, and as we are borne back I remember 
 noticing, even then, that the soft turf had been 
 literally plowed by the many feet. And then 
 we surge to and fro, jostled and crushed against 
 the buttresses, squeezed and pounded, now down 
 upon the gratings or the walk, trampled upon, 
 bruised, yet all unmindful, striving for glory and 
 that cane. Time and again we seem on the point 
 of victory ; the supreme moment comes at last ; a
 
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