Stories American Authors III THE SPIDEITS EYE. By FITZ JAMES O'BRIEN. A STORY OF THE LATIN QUARTER. By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. TWO PURSE-COMPANIONS. By GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. POOR OGLA-MOGA. By DAVID B. LLOYD. A MEMORABLE MURDER. By CELIA THAXTER. VENETIAN GLASS. By BRANDER MATTHEWS. ^ University of California Berkeley Gift of THE HEARST CORPORATION Hearst Memorial Library Case No. .^_. She!? Uo. ^ Drawer No inventory No. j%^7 4 7 "NOT tO BE REMOVED FROM LIBRARY WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORITY." PROPERTY OF HEARST CORP. Stories by American Authors, in. * # * The Stories in this vohime are pro tected by copyright, and are printed here by the authority of the authors or their represen ta tives. Stories by American Authors in. THE SPIDER'S EYE. By FITZ JAMES O'BRIEN. A STORY OF THE LATIN QUARTER. By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. TWO PURSE-COMPANIONS. By GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. POOR OGLA-MOGA. By DAVID D. LLOYD. A MEMORABLE MURDER. By CELIA THAXTER. VENETIAN GLASS. By BRANDER MATTHEWS. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1884 COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS THE SPIDER'S EYE. BY FITZ JAMES O'BRIEN. THERE are whispering galleries, where, if the ear is placed in a certain position, it takes in the sound of the lowest whisper from the opposite side of the room. But, to produce this effect, the architecture of the apartment must be of a peculiar nature, and, especially, the rules and laws of sound must be observed. I have often thought that, were one wise enough, there might be found, in every room, a centre to which all sound must converge. Nay, that per haps such a focus had already been discovered by some one who has wished to appear wiser than his neighbors, who has made use of some hitherto un known scientific fact, and has on any one occasion, or on many occasions, thus made himself the centre of information. These ideas occurred to my mind when I arrived the other night early at the theatre, and was for a * Putnam's Magazine^ July, 1856. 6 THE SPIDER'S EYE. time, literally, the only occupant of the house. I fell to marvelling at the skill of the architect who has been so successful in the acoustic arrangements of this theatre. Not a sound, so it is said, is lost from the stage upon any part of the house. The lowest sob of a dying heroine, in her very last agony, is heard as plainly by the occupant of the back seat of the amphitheatre, as are the thunder ing denunciations of the tragic actor in the wildest of gladiatorial scenes. I wondered if this were one of those rules that worked both ways ; if the stage performer, in a moment of silent by-play, could hear the senti mental whisper of the belle in the box opposite, as well as the noisy applause of the claqueur in the front seat. If so, the audience might become, to him, the peopled stage, filled with the varied and incongruous characters. Then if art can produce such effects upon what we call an ethereal substance if the waves of air can be compelled to carry their message only in the directions in which it is taught to go what in fluence would such power have on more spiritual media ? In other worlds, where it is not necessary for thoughts to express themselves in words, but where some more subtle power than that of air conveys ideas from one being to another, it is pos sible that an inquiring being, might place himself at some central point where he might gather in all the information that is afloat in such a spiritual existence. THE SPIDERS EYE. ^ Full of these thoughts, and my head, perhaps, a little bewildered by them, I passed unobserved into the orchestra, and ensconced myself in a little niche under the music-desk of the leader. I was surprised to find myself in a little cavity, from which there were loop-holes of observation into every part of the house, while there was a front view of the stage when the curtain should be raised. Seduced by the comfort of this little nook, and my speculations not being of the liveliest nat ure, it is not to be wondered at that I fell into a gentle sleep. I was aroused presently by the baton of the leader, struck with some force upon the desk over my head. I was aware, at the same time, of a whispering all around my ears, and an incessant noise, like that of aspen leaves in a summer breeze, which, in spite of its softness and delicacy, over powered the sound of the loud orchestra. When I was able to recover myself, I began to find that I had indeed placed myself in the centre of the house ; not in the centre of sound, but, if I may so express myself, of sensation. I was not listening to the conversations, but suddenly found myself the con fidant of the thoughts of all the occupants of this well-filled house. I was lost in the multiplicity of ideas that were poured in upon me, and endeav ored to concentrate myself upon one series of thoughts. I looked through my loop-holes, and presently selected one group towards which I might direct the opera-glass of my mental observation. 8 THE SPIDER'S EYE. There sat the five Misses Seymour. We had always distinguished them as the tall one, the light-haired one, the one who painted in oils, the one who had been south, and the little one whom nobody knew anything about. This individuality had been our only guide after having engaged Miss Seymour for a dance, and this was sufficient. The one who painted in oils always refused to dance ; the one who had been south spoke with an accent, and said " chick* V and " fush^' if the conversation turned upon the bill of fare ; and the others were distinguished by their personal appearance. Now I felt anxious to discover more certainly which was which. I found, presently, that instead of contenting myself with the superficial layer of thought over my mind, created by the circum stances in which they were placed, I was penetrat ing into what they really were. A few minutes showed me what had been their occupations for the day, and what were their plans for the next. I saw, at once, all their regrets and ambitions. It had been the day of Mrs. Jay's famous mat- ine. I had not been at the reception, but Frank Leslie had told me all about it, and that all the Seymours were there ; and about Miss Seymour's fainting. I knew Frank was in love with one of the Miss Seymours, but I never had found out which, and I was not sure that Frank himself knew. How suddenly did these five characters, whom before I had found it difficult to distinguish, stand out now with differing features. I saw Aurelia THE SPIDER'S EYE. 9 that was the tall one enter the drawing-room very stately in her beauty. No wonder that every one had turned round to look at her ; to admire her first, and then criticise her, because she seemed so cold and statue-like. But to-night she was going over the whole scene in her thoughts. I heard the throbbing of her heart as in memory she was bringing back the morning's events. She had refused to dance, because she was sure she should not have the strength to go through a polka. She had preferred to sink into a seat by the conserva tory, and upheld by the excitement of the music to await the meeting. Oh ! in this everyday world, where its repeated succession of events is gone through with in com posure, how easy it is to control the wildest pas sions. A conventional smile and a stiff bow are the draperies that veil the intensest unspoken emo tions. It was under this disguise that Miss Sey mour was to greet Gerald Lawson. He went to Canton three years ago, and before he went she had promised to marry him. She promised one gay evening after "the German." She had been carried away by the moment. Ever since, all through the three years, she had been regretting it. It was a secret engagement. The untold feeling that had prompted it had never been aired, and died very soon for want of earth and light. To cold indifference for the man to whom she had promised herself, had succeeded an absolute aver sion. What was worse, she loved another person. io THE SPIDER'S EYE. Aurelia Seymour loved Frank ! This very morn ing the news had reached her that the Kumshan was in from Canton. The passengers had arrived last night ; she was to meet Gerald at Mrs. Jay's this morning. Frank Leslie seated himself by her. She was in the midst of a calm, cool conversation with him, when she saw a little commotion in the other cor ner of the room. Every one was greeting Mr. Lawson on his arriving home. He is making his way through the crowd ; he comes to her, he bows ; Aurelia smiles. But this was not all. He asked her if she would come into the conservatory. She had accompanied him there. Half hid by the branches of a camellia- tree all covered with white blossoms, she had said coldly, " Gerald, I cannot marry you." But Ger ald had not received the word so coolly. He had burst out into passion. First he had exclaimed in wonder, next he could not believe her. "Would she treat him so ungenerously? Was she a heartless flirt, a mere coquette ?" He told over his love that had been growing warmer all these three years ; of his ambition that was to be crowned by her approval ; of his lately gained wealth, valued only for her sake. Passion ate words they were, and full of intense feeling ; but hidden by the camellia, restrained and kept under from fear of observers. They were fre quently interrupted, too. " Thank you ninety-nine days ; very quick pas- THE SPIDER'S EYE. n sage. Yes, I go back next week; no, I stay at home," were, with other sentences, thrown in, as answers to the different questions of those who did not know what they were interrupting. But, at last, Aurelia broke away. Broke away ! No ; she accepted Middleton's proposal to go into the coffee-room, and left Gerald beneath the camellia. As I watched her from my loop-holes I could tell that Aurelia was going over all this scene in her mind. While her eyes were fixed upon the stage, she recalled every word and gesture of Gerald's. Yet, his reproaches, his just complaints, hardly weighed upon her now. She was looking on the vacant seat beside her, and wondering when Frank would come to take it. But " Lilly," the light-haired one, her thoughts were rushing back to the wild, gay polkas of the morning. Now by Aurelia's side, now away again ; she had danced continually till the last mo ment, and when they came to tell her the carriage was ready, and she must come away, she had fainted. It was as she was going up stairs into the draw ing-room, just before she and her sisters made their grand entree, that Lilly had heard that " Cousin Joe" had not come home in the vessel with Gerald Lawson. He had gone to Europe by the overland route, and wild, mad fellow that he was, had determined to join the Russian troops in the Crimea. 12 THE SPIDER'S EYE. " And be shot there for his pains," Frank Leslie added carelessly. Cousin Joe hadn't come home ! He didn't care to come home ! He was going to be shot ! She could think of nothing else. She could not keep still ; she could not talk placidly like the rest ; she must dance, and dance wildly and pas sionately. But a moment of reaction came. When the last strain of music had died away, all power of self- control had died away, too. No wonder that she had fainted ! More wonder that she could recover herself ; could resist her mother's entreaties, after all that dancing, to spare herself and stay from the opera. Here she was, outwardly lively and radiant, chat ting with Lieutenant Preston, inwardly chafed at all this constraint, and wondering how it was Cousin Joe could stay so long away. By her side sat Annette. It was the report that she had been sent south last winter to break up a desperate flirtation she was carrying on. However it was, I had always fancied Annette more than either of the other sisters. She had apparently less of our northern reserve, whether for good or evil, than the rest. She said just what she was think ing ; danced when she liked ; was insolent when she pleased. To-night she seemed to me fretful. She was angry with Lilly for talking with Lieutenant. Pres ton ; and, indeed, I must not, in honor, reveal all I THE SPIDER'S EYE. 13 read in Annette's mind. If I found there her opin ion of me ; if, on the whole, it lowered my opinion of myself, I must take refuge in the old proverb, " Eavesdroppers never hear any good of them selves." But there was Angelina ; she was the one who " painted in oils," and she attracted me more than any of the others. There was about her an at mosphere of pleasure, within her an expression of delight, that accounted for the really sunny gleam upon her face. Something had made all the day happy for her. In the morning she had passed nearly all the time in Mrs. Jay's front drawing-room. The fine masterpieces of art, brought from Europe, make this apartment a true picture-gallery. But Angelina's pleasure, artist though she was, was not taken from the figures upon the walls. She walked up and down the room ; she lingered awhile in one of the deep fauteuils ; she paused before the paintings with Frank Leslie by her side. As she turned, at the theatre, now and then to the vacant seat behind her, next Aurelia's, her anticipation was not em bittered by anxiety ; she knew he would come in time. Oh, Frank ! you did not tell me all that took place at Mrs. Jay's ! But, from all these observations, my thoughts were turned back to the stage by the influence of the little Sophie Seymour. She about whom we knew nothing she was the only one of the party entirely absorbed in the opera. Her eyes fixed 14 THE SPIDER'S EYE. upon the stage ; her heart wrapt up in the intense story that was being enacted ; her musical soul throbbing with the glorious chords that swelled out ; her whole being reflected the opera. So I turned me to the stage. My eyes fell first upon the substitute that the illness of Mademoiselle required for the night. Just now she was standing on one side, and as she drew her white glove closer, her thoughts were going back to the scenes of the day. Oh ! what a little room she lived in ! She was sitting in it when the message came from the manager to summon her to sing to-night ! Her brother Frank was copying some music by her side ; and now she is smiling at the recollection of the conversation that had followed upon her ac cepting the manager's unexpected proposal. She had hastened to get out her last concert dress. It was new once but oh ! would it answer now for the opera ? Those very white kid gloves ! They had cost her her dinner. " Must I have new ones, Franz ?" she had asked. " If there were only time to have an old pair cleaned if, indeed, I have any left worth clean ing !" "Never mind," answered Franz, "it is worth twenty dinners to have you hear the opera. I have longed so every night to have you there, and to have you on the stage ! my highest wishes are granted. Oh ! Marie, when you make a great THE SPIDER'S JZYE. 15 point, I shall have to take my flute from my mouth and cry bravo !" " Oh, don't speak of the singing. It takes away my breath to think of myself upon the stage ! How I waste my time over dress and gloves ! I must practice ; I must be ready for the rehear sal." " My poor Marie ! To-day, of all days, to go without dinner." " Don't think of it ! When the manager ' pays up,' oh, then, Franz ! we'll have dinners. Only part of the money must go to a new concert dress. When my last was hew, I overheard, as I left the stage, a young girl saying, to her sister, I suppose, ' What an elegant dress ! ' I wanted to stop and ask her if she thought it were worth going without meat for a month." And as Marie recalled these words to-night to her mind, I saw her look up and smile as she glanced over the house, and contrasted the showy dress she wore with the poor home she had left behind. What a poor home it was, indeed ! What a con trast did the gay dress she arranged for the even ing make with her room's poor adorning. The dress she thrust quickly away, and had devoted herself to the study of the music for evening. With her brother's assistance, she had prepared herself for the rehearsal, and had gone there with him. The rehearsal was more alarming to her than the thought of the evening performance. There were 1 6 THE SPIDER'S EYE. the conductor's criticising eyes glaring at her ; the unsympathizing glances of some of her stage com panions though many of them had come to her with words of kindly encouragement ; there was the silent, untenanted expanse of the theatre before her none of the excitement of stage scenery, or the brilliancy of light and tinsel ; and she must force herself to think of her part, as a technical study of music, all the time she felt she was un dergoing a severe criticism from Mademoiselle 's friends, who were comparing the new comer's voice with that of their own ally. Rut her thoughts were not sad. There was in her a gayety and strength of spirit that bore her up. The brilliant scene gave her an excitement that helped her to bear the thought of her everyday trials. It had been hard to work all day, preparing for the evening hard for the mind and body and she had lately lived on poor fare, and wanted the exercise upon which her physical constitution should support itself. At once these troubles were forgotten. Now was to come the duet with the prima donna. No timidity restrained her now. She felt, at the moment, that her own voice was cf worth only as it harmonized with the leading one. She forgot herself when she thought of that wonderful voice, when once she found her own mingled in its won derful tones. Now she was supported by it through the whole piece ; her own was subdued by it, and at last she felt herself inspired by it ; it was THE SPIDER'S EYE. 17 no longer herself singing ; she was carried away by the power of another, and lifted above herself. All applauded the magnificent music and har mony ; the bravo of Franz was for Marie alone. At this time my interest was absorbed in my ob servation of the prima donna. I had perceived at first how indifferently she had entered upon the spirit of the music. Her companion had filled her mind with the meaning of its composer, and was striving to infuse into herself the interpretation that the prima donna would give to its glorious strains. But the soul of the prima donna was away. It was in a heavily-curtained room, where there were luxury and elegance. Here she had all day been watching by the bedside of her sick child. She had collected round it everything that money could bring to soothe its sufferings. There were flowers in the greatest profusion ; these were trophies of her last night's success ; and on the table by the bedside she had heaped up her brill iant, gorgeous jewels, for their varied and glow ing colors had served to amuse the child for a few minutes. She had sung to him music, that crowds would have collected to hear, had they been allow ed. Only to soothe him, all the golden tones of her voice had poured out now dropping in thrill ing, sad melody, now in glad, happy, childish strains. Nothing through the day could put to rest that one appeal, which now was echoing in her ears : " Will nothing cool my throat ! my head burns ! 1 8 THE SPIDER'S EYE. only a few drops of water !" Over all the tones of the orchestra these words sounded and thrilled so in her ears, that only mechanically could the prima donna repeat the tones that were thrilling all the hearts to which they came. At last the power of her own voice conquered her self, too. In the closing cadences in those chords, triumphant and faith-bringing for the moment her own sorrows melted away, and the thought of herself was lost in the inspiration of the grand, majestic intonations to which she was giving ut terance. She was no longer a suffering woman ; but her soul and her voice were sounding beneath the touch of a great master-spirit, and giving out a glowing music, compelled by its master-power. What an enthusiasm ! what an excitement ! As with the opera-singer on the 'stage, so with all the audience ; all separate joy and grief, all individual passions were swallowed up, and carried away by this all-absorbing inspiration, and lost in its mighty whirl. For me, now, there was but one character to fol low. How grandly the stage-heroine went through her part ! As if to crush all other emotion, she flung herself into the character she was portraying, and went through it wildly and passionately. She overshadowed her little rival for Marie was her rival, according to the plot of the opera now threatening, now protecting her, as she was led on by the spirit of the play. Marie shrunk before her, or was inspired by her ; and her delicate, en- THE SPIDER'S EYE. 19 treating figure helped the pathos of her voice. Marie, by this time, had utterly lost herself in her admiration of the great genius who was so impress ing her. She gave out her own voice as an offer ing to this great power. For its sake she would have found it impossible to make any mistake in her own singing, or do anything with her own voice, but just place it at the service of her com panion, as a foil to her grand and glorious one. When in the play the heroine gave up as she does in the play her own life for the sake of her rival, the act became more magnanimous and wondrous as being performed for this little delicate Marie, who shrank from so great a sacrifice. The prima donna gained all the applause. In deed, it was right for it was her power that had called out all that was great in her delicate rival. It was she who had inspired her, and made her forget herself and everything but the notes she must give out, true and pure. They were both called before the stage after the grand closing scene ; or rather the prima donna drew forward the retiring Marie. Shouts and peals of enthusiasm greeted the queen of song. But her moment of exaltation had passed away. Over and over again she was repeating to herself, " Will they never let me go home ? Perhaps he is dying now he wants me I am too late !" She was at the summit of her greatness ; but oh ! it was painful to see her there to see how she would have hushed all those wild, enthusiastic 20 THE SPIDER'S EY. shouts for the sake of one fresh childish tone ; how she would have exchanged all those bursts of pas sion to make sure of a healthy throb in that child's pulse. All this enthusiasm was not new to her. It was part of her existence. It was a restraint upon her now, but she could not have done with out it. It was the excitement which would serve to sustain her through another night of watching. Marie, too, was giving her meed of praise, as she followed her across the stage. She did not think of taking to herself one shout of the enthu siasm, any more than she would have thought of appropriating one flower from the bouquets which were showered before her. There was, indeed, one share of the plaudits which belonged to her entirely. This came from Franz for I recognized him by his unruly stamping, and unrestrained ap plause. His thoughts were only for Marie ; he was filled with pride at the manner in which she bore herself at her simple carriage, and modest demeanor. His praise was all for Marie. The famous opera-singer, whom he had heard night after night, was forgotten, in his pride for his little sister. I sank back into my niche. Varied figures float ed before me, and bewildered me. I have often looked at spiders with deep interest. It is said that their eyes are made up of many faces. What a bewildering world, then, is presented to their view ! It is no wonder that, as I have seen them, they have appeared so irresolute in their THE SPIDER'S EYE. 21 motions, darting here and there. A world of so many faces stand around the spider, towards which shall he turn his attention ? He lives, as it were, in the middle of a kaleidoscope, where many fig ures are repeated, and form one great figure, and each separate section is like its neighbor. Which of these varied yet too similar pictures shall he choose ? At least this is my idea of the sensations of a spider ; but I am not enough of a naturalist to say that it is correct. How is it ? When a fly enters that web, which is divided into a symmetry similar to that of the faces of a spider's eye, does mine host, the spider, see twenty-five thousand similar flies approaching, his organ of vision stand ing as the centre ? What a cosmorama there is before him ! What a luxurious repast might not his imagination offer him, if his memory did not recall the plain truth that dull reality has so often disclosed to him ! We cannot wonder that the spider should lead, apparently, so solitary a life, since his eyes have the power of producing a whole ball-room from the form of one lady visitor. Not one, but twenty-five thousand Robert Bruces inspired the Scottish spider to that homely instance of perseverance, which served for an example for a king. As he hangs his drapery from one cornice to another, the prismatic scenes that come before him serve to lengthen that life which might seem to be cut off before its time. It is not one, but twenty- five thousand brooms which advance to destroy his 22 7Y7.fi: SPIDERS EYE. airy home ; to invade his household gods, and bring to the ground that row of bluebottles which his magnifying power of vision has transformed from one to twenty-five thousand ! nay, more, per haps ! Out in the air, as he swings his delicate cordage from one tree to another, he does not need to wear a gorgeous plumage ; this old dusty coat and un comely figure, that make a child shrink and cry out, these may well be forgotten by him who looks into life through prismatic glasses. Every drop of rain wears for him its Iris drapery ; the dew on the flowers becomes a jewelled circlet ; and the daz zling pictures brought by the sunbeams outshine and transform for him his own dusky garment. I thought of my friend, the spider, as into my web of thought came such numerous images. They were not alike in form and so were more distracting. More than I can mention or number had visited me there ; had excited my interest for a moment, and been crowded out by another new image. Yes, it was like looking into a kaleido scope where there were infinite repetitions. In all were the same master-colors and forms. All were swayed by passions that made an under-current beneath a great outward calm. All were wearing an outward form that strove each to resemble the other ; not to appear strange or odd. So they flit ted before me, coming into shape, and departing from it as they came within and left my reach. I only roused myself to see the various charac- THE SPIDER'S EYE. 23 ters, that had presented themselves on the stage of my mind, return again into their everyday cos tumes. They passed out of the focus of my obser vation into their several forms in which they walk through common life. Putting on their opera- cloaks, their paletots, they put on, for me, that mark that hides the inner life, and the veil that conceals all hidden passions. It is said that there is, no longer, romance in real life. But the truth is that we live the ro mance that former ages told and sang. The magic carpet of the Arabian tales, the mirror that brought to view most distant objects, have come out of poetry, and present themselves in the prosaic form of steam locomotive and the electric telegraph. Nowadays, everybody has travelled to some dis tant land, has seen, with everybody's eyes, the charmed isles and lotos shores that used to be only in books. In this lively, changing age everybody is living his own romance. And this is why the romance of story grows pale and is thrown aside. A domestic sketch of everyday life, of outward calm and simplicity, soothes the unrest of active life, and charms more than, three volumes of wild incident that cannot equal the excitement that every reader is enacting in his own drama. There were as many romances in life around me, that night, as there were persons in the theatre. I had not merely learned that the cold Aurelia was passionately in love, that the gay Lilly was broken- 24 THE SPIDER'S EYE. hearted, that the frank Annette was silly, and Angelina and Frank engaged before it was out. Beside all this, I had learned the trials and joys of many others whom I know only in this way ; and I left the theatre the last, as I had come in the first. The next morning I returned to business affairs again. It was a particularly pressing morning. The steamer was in. I had not even time to think of my last night's experiences. Only at the corner of a street I met an acquaintance, whose smiling face amazed me. I knew that all last evening his mind had been preoccupied with the truly critical state of his affairs, and I was at a loss how to greet him. He hurried away from my embarrassment. I had more than one of these encounters ; but it was not till the labors of the day were over that I understood how my knowledge of mankind had been lately in creased. I went, in the evening, to a small party where I knew I should meet the Seymours. I fell in there with Aurelia first. She was as cold and as stately as ever. I entered into conversation with her, feeling that I could touch the key-note of her life. But no ; she was as chilling to me as ever ; nothing warmed her nothing elicited from her the slightest spark. Sometimes she looked at me a little wonderingly, as if I were talking in some style unusual to me ; as if my remarks were, in a manner, impertinent ; but, in the end, I left her to her icy coldness. As for Lilly, she appeared to the world, in gen eral, as gay as ever. I fancied I detected a slight THE SPIDER'S EYE. 25 listlessness as she accompanied her partner into the dancing-room for the sixth polka. It was no great help with me in talking to Annette, that I knew she was a fool. I won no thanks from Frank or Angelina when I manoeuvred that they should have a little flirtation in the library. For some reason they were determined that their engagement should not be apparent, and I was reproached afterwards by Frank for my clumsiness, and re ceived, in return, no confidences to make up for the reproach. On the whole I passed a disagreeable evening. I had a feeling all the time that I was in the pres ence of smothered volcanoes, and a consciousness that I had the advantage of the rest of the world in knowing all its secret history. This became, at last, almost insupportable. There was no opera this night. The next day it was announced that Mademoiselle would take her accustomed place in the performance. I went early to the theatre, and found, to my amazement, there had been some changes made in the orches tra ; the prompter's box had been enlarged, and my newly-discovered niche had been rendered in accessible and almost entirely filled in ! In vain did I attempt to find some other position that might correspond to it. I only attracted the at tention of the early comers to the theatre. I was obliged to return to my old position of an outside observer of life, and see, quite unoccupied, that centre of all observation which I had enjoyed my- 26 THE SPIDER'S EYE. self so much two nights before ; over which the leader of the orchestra was unconsciously waving his baton. I made some inquiries for Marie. One day I went down the quiet, secluded street, where they told me she lived. I walked up and down before the house. It was very tantalizing to feel that I had no excuse for approaching her. Of all the figures that had assembled around me that night, hers had remained the most distinct upon my memory. For, through the whole, she had re tained an outward bearing which had correspond ed with what I could see of her inward self. Even when she threw herself most earnestly into her part, she had scarcely seemed to lose herself. She had always remained a simple, self-devoted girl. I longed to see more of her. I wanted to see her in that quiet home. While I was wandering up and down, I abused the forms of society which would make my beginning an acquaintance with her so difficult. I saw Franz, brother Franz, the flute- player, leave the house. Scarcely conscious of what I was doing, I went, as soon as he had left the street, to the door which was open to all comers ; to the house which contained more than one family. I made my way up stairs and knocked at a door to which Franz's card was attached. It was opened by Marie. She stood before me with a handkerchief tied over her head, and a broom in her hand, but she looked, to me, as beau tiful as she had done behind the glare of the foot- THE SPIDER'S EYE. 27 lights. Her simplicity was here even more fasci nating. She held the door partly open, while I, to re cover myself, asked for Franz. She told me he was gone out, but would return soon, if I would wait for him. I was never less anxious to see any person than then to see Franz, but I could not re sist entering the room, and this, in spite of the apologetic air of Marie. The room looked as neat as I had imagined it, seeing it from the mirror of Marie's mind. I should say it scarcely needed that broom which still remained expectantly in Marie's hand. A piano, spider-legged, in the number and thinness of these supports, stood at one side of the room, weighed down with classic- looking music. A bouquet, that had been given by the hand of the prima donna to Marie, stood upon the piano. Otherwise it was a common enough looking room. Some remark being necessary, I inquired of Franz's health, and hoped he was not wearing himself out with hard work ; I had seen him regu larly at the opera. Marie encouraged me with re gard to her brother's health, and still, the opera even did not serve to open a conversation with Marie. Then, indeed, did I wish that I was the hero of a novel. I might have told her I was writing an opera, and have asked her to study for its heroine. I might have retired, and sent her, directly and mysteriously, a grand piano of the very grandest 2o THE SPIDER'S EYE. scale. Or, I might have asked her to sit down to that old-fashioned instrument, and have asked her to let me hear her sing, for my nieces were in need of a new teacher. I might have engaged Franz, with promise of a high salary, to write me the music of songs, or a new sonata. But I had neither the salary nor the nieces. I had not even an excuse for standing there. It was very foolish of me, but I could not help feeling that it was ex ceedingly impertinent of me to be there. Instead of informing Marie that I was intimately acquainted with her, that I had shared every emo tion of her soul, on the exciting opera night, I stated that I could call again upon brother Franz. I regretted, at the same time, that I had not my card, and left the room with a courteous bow of dismissal from Marie. I have walked that way very often. Once or twice I have seen Marie at the window, when she has not seen me. But I have not attempted to visit her again. Of what use is it for me, then, to have such a knowledge of her, when she does not have a similar one sympathetic with me ? She has not sung in public of late, and I do not know the reason why she has not. My friends are fond of asking me why I, every night, sit in a different place at the theatre ; and why I have such a fancy for a seat in the midst of the trumpets of the orchestra, and directly under the leader. I am striving to make new acoustic discoveries. THE SPIDER'S EYE. 29 But I dare not state in what theatre it is that my point of observation can be found, nor ask of the management to make an alteration in the position of the orchestra, lest some night I should be ob- sgrved, and expose all the secrets of my breast to a less confidential observer. A STORY OF THE LATIN QUARTER. BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. " T T E is one of the Americans," his fellow /O CTS. %* For sale by all Booksellers, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 743 and 745 Broadway, New York. s